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Mongol farm of the same name half a mile on the other side. The inhabitants of these farms are chiefly women, for most of the males are herded in the lamaseries.
May 14-After three hours we passed a large farm called Kia ker chi ho, a well-to- do place; here a Mongol with the rank of Colonel, and with the decoration of the Red Button, lives; it is his duty to recruit Mongols for the Chinese Army; he is said to have little or no success.
The country now took an entirely new aspect; instead of being covered with sand-drifts, the ground is smooth turf with occasional shrubs, never more than a few inches high. During the afternoon we passed some Mongol farms known as Tabo tuluhe, where there was a good well close to the track, and round which a group of nine Chinese-~ blacksmiths and carpenters, en route from Yulinfu to the West to find work-were resting. The plain, and especially a huge tract of land forming a lakebed and white with salt, was covered with tufts of the spikey grass which the camels eat so greedily. Towards nightfall we begin to look for a house to lodge in, but, finding none, retreated to the hills to the left, where we came across a lad who showed us where water was obtainable. Here we pitched our tents.
May 15-Keeping along the sandy high road to Ninghsia we came to a Mongol farm late in the morning. Here we learnt that Borobalgasson lay considerably to the south. We therefore took on an extra guide, who said he would take us there by nightfall for the sum of 1 tael (3s.) We therefore left the Ninghsia road and turned due south across country, passing numerous well-to-do Mongol farms en route. The country had the appearance of a vast plain, but was in reality a succession of low hillocks and sand-drifts. Heavy rain and thunder coming on we halted for the night at the large farm of Bong huang ga dun.
May 16.-Four hours' marching brought us to Borobalgasson, where we found a lodging with the kindly Roman Catholic priest.
Its
Borobalgasson-the "Grey Town" of Hue-was first a Chinese and later a Mongol town of some importance. This latter was destroyed in the thirteenth century. ruins lie about a mile away from the mission; they consist of only the fortifications, but as the Mongols did not surround their encampments with walls, these show that the town was probably an carly Chinese one. pattern, and now of course entirely grass-grown.
They are after the usual Chinese There were entrances on the four sides, and on the west side outside the wall lay a broad ditch. A thinner outer fortification wall can be traced between the ditch and the main wall on this side; possibly there was another water protection between these two walls. There are no ruins inside the fortifications except of the Catholic mission station which was destroyed by Boxer violence in 1900.
Borobalgasson is now merely the name of a district in the Province of Ottok. The mission may be said to form the centre of this district. Round it are scattered numerous Mongol farms, many hidden away among the sand hills. the inhabitants of these farms are Christians. There are several other chapels under
A great number of the charge of European priests in the neigbourhood, and they appear to have no rivals in the shape of Lama temples.
The central mission station at Borobalgasson is protected against animals by mud walls some 300 yards by 150; they are in no sense fortifications, nor are any arms stored there. In the event of future trouble the missionaries would retreat, as in 1900, on Hsiao Chioo pan, 23 miles to the south.
The various priests have more work to do in winter than in summer, as in the former season the inhabitants are able to attend schools while in the latter these are busy cultivating their land or watching their herds. The priests speak excellent and fluent Mongol; they consider Kweihuacheng ten days' distance from Balgasson, and send their mail matter that way by means of their own courier once a month. They receive regular news of the outer world in the same way.
Borobalgasson is of importance still as being on the high road to Ninghsiafa and also to the residence of the Prince of Ottok-both places being five days' distance away,
Flour and sugar can be purchased at a kind of shop here.
May 17.-Attendance at mass being obligatory, hundreds of Mongols flocked toward the mission to-day on ponies or on camels. They prayed noisily but fervently.
Leaving in an east-south-easterly direction along the grass-clad plain, dotted with many Mongol farms, chiefly Christian, as was to be seen by the absence of prayer flags and shrines outside the buildings, we turned south-east two hours later across high sandhills of the most disagreeable type. We were five hours crossing this belt of sand, on which no vegetation grows whatever. The terrible heat of the noonday sun nearly proved fatal to some of the caravan.
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Suddenly the sand-bills ceased, and we emerged on to good land with a few willow and poplar trees dotted about, and a number of farms.
Though we were still in the Ordos territory all signs of Mongols ceased, for the Chinese have pushed these north of the belt of sand and have taken possession of the rich land between this and the Great Wall, the southern boundary of the Ordos.
The
The dangers to which travellers in the sandhills are exposed are very real. sandstorm of the previous day had obliterated all footsteps; we had therefore to make a fresh track for ourselves. The priest at Balgasson had lent us as guide a man who had come with the mail only the day before. In spite of this we drifted a long way out of the right course, considerably to the anxiety of the guide.
Soon after leaving the sand-hills we reached a deep gully some 200 yards wide and 100 feet deep. This break in the ground occurs quite suddenly and unexpectedly. At the bottom flows a small stream 20 feet wide and a foot deep in a north-east direction to join the Wutingho. This stream is said to be exceedingly difficult to cross after heavy rains.
Ascending from the gully we passed a number of cave dwellings, and reaching the plain again continued over level well-cultivated ground and arrived at the small but strongly fortified Catholic mission station of Hsiao Chiao Pan.
The Belgian Roman Catholic Mission in Mongolia.
This mission is divided into the two portions, cach being under the charge of a Bishop, of Eastern and Western Mongolia. Its efforts to spread Christianity embrace Mongols and Chinese alike, and have been successful to the tune of several tens of thousands in all. The two sees meet at Kweihuacheng, that of Western Mongolia being of later date than that of Eastern Mongolia. Ney Elias visiting the latter in 1872 wrote "the territory allotted by Rome to the Belgian Mission extends from Kantung near Jehol in the east to the neighbourhood of Kweihuacheng in the west, and consists chiefly of the narrow belt of Mongolia lying immediately outside the Great Wall, where the population is nade up almost entirely of Chinese emigrants from the neighbouring provinces of Chih-li and Shansi.” The chief station of this diocese is, I believe, Si ying sze, about 70 miles in a west-north-westerly direction from Kalgan.
The diocese of Western Mongolia comprises Kansu and the Ordos tribes, and extends as far as Chinese Turkestan, where there are stations at Manas and Kuldja. There are in especial three groups of converted villages (1) to the west of Kweibua- cheng to where the Yellow River bends south; (2) in the kingdom of Alashan, a district on the Yellow River where this stream begins a 200 mile flow eastwards. This district is known as Santauho; (3) in the Ordos country; this district, whose chief centres are Borobalgasson and Hsiao chino is in the kingdom of Ottok, and lies just north of the Great Wall of China. There are two other stations in the Ordos, some- what isolated from the others. These are Hsiao Noor and Ta Noor in the north-east corner and close to the Yellow River. These lie in the Kingdom of Talat.
It is only some thirty years since a beginning was made in the diocese by the establishment of a station at Hsiaochiao, "Small bridge, hence Kleinbrügge;
" from here the Mission spread northward to Borobalgasson and Santanho; already they claim some 16,000 converts.
The present Bishop, Mgr. Bermuyn, is the third in office, the last, Bishop Hamer, being martyred in 1900. The Bishop's official residence is in the district near Kweihuacheng but he is a wandering prelate and rarely spends more than a couple of weeks at any place in his diocese. His Grandeur is on the verge of completing a Franco-Mongol and Mongol-French dictionary, which should be of the greatest value. There are about fifty European priests in the diocese--all Belgian and Flemish. Their number is reinforced annually by four approximately. New arrivals in the field spend the first two years in a kind of seminary in the district west of Kweihuacheng. Here they learn Mongol and Chinese, but chiefly the latter, for the former can easily be picked up later, six months perpetual intercourse with the Mongols sufficing for this. They are also taught Chinese manners and customs for everything is done to avoid breaches of these,
The mission is entirely apart from other Roman Catholic missions; it subsists on the donations of the faithful at home and complains of being poor, but apart from the fact that all the priests I met lived comfortably, in one district alone two new stations were being created, and churches (with cottages hard by for the future converts) were being erected at a cost of 5,000 taels (750) a piece; there does not seem, therefore, to be much reason to grumble.
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