Part 10 (1/2)
The winter coat is shed during May, and the animals lose their short summer hair in late August and early September.
Both species have a greatly enlarged larynx from which the goitered gazelle derives its name. What purpose this extraordinary character serves the animal, I am at a loss to know. Certainly it is not to give them an exceptional ”voice”; for, when wounded, I have heard them make only a deep-toned roar which was by no means loud.
Specimens of the larynx which we preserved in formalin are now being prepared for anatomical study.
Although the two species inhabit the same locality, they keep well by themselves and only once, on the Panj-kiang plain, did we see them running together in the same herd; then it was probably because they were frightened by the car. I doubt if they ever interbreed except in rare instances.
The fact that these animals can develop such an extraordinary speed was a great surprise to me, as undoubtedly it will be to most naturalists. Had we not been able to determine it accurately by means of the speedometers on our cars, I should never have dared state that they could reach fifty-five or sixty miles an hour. It must be remembered that the animals can continue at such a high speed only for a short distance--perhaps half a mile--and will never exert themselves to the utmost unless they are thoroughly frightened. They would run just fast enough to keep well away from the cars or our horses, and it was only when we began to shoot that they showed what they were capable of doing. When the bullets began to scatter about them they would seem to flatten several inches and run at such a terrific speed that their legs appeared only as a blur.
Of course, they have developed their fleetness as a protection from enemies. Their greatest menace is the wolves, but since we demonstrated that these animals cannot travel faster than about thirty miles an hour, the antelope are perfectly safe unless they happen to be caught off their guard. To prevent just this, the gazelles usually keep well out on the open plains and avoid rocks or abrupt hills which would furnish cover for a wolf. Of course, they often go into the rolling ground, but it is usually where the slopes are gradual and where they have sufficient s.p.a.ce in which to protect themselves.
The gazelles have a perfectly smooth, even run when going at full speed. I have often seen them bound along when not particularly frightened, but never when they are really trying to get away in the shortest possible time. The front limbs, as in the case of a deer, act largely as supports and the real motive power comes from the hind legs. If an antelope has only a front leg broken no living horse can catch it, but with a shattered hind limb my pony could run it down. I have already related (see [the end of chapter IV]) how, in a car, we pursued an antelope with both front legs broken below the knee; even then, it reached a speed of fifteen miles an hour.
The Mongolian plains are firm and hard with no bushes or other obstructions and, consequently, are especially favorable for rapid travel.
The cheetah, or hunting leopard of Africa, has the reputation of being able to reach a greater speed, for a short dash, than any other animal in that country, and I have often wondered how it would fare in a race with a Mongolian gazelle. Unfortunately, conditions in Africa are not favorable for the use of automobiles in hunting, and no actual facts as to the speed of the cheetah are available.
At this camp, and during the journey back to Urga, we had many glorious hunts. Each one held its own individual fascination, for no two were just alike; and every day we learned something new about the life history of the Mongolian antelope. We needed specimens for a group in the new Hall of Asiatic Life in the American Museum of Natural History, as well as a series representing all ages of both males and females for scientific study. When we returned to Urga we had them all.
The hunting of large game was only one aspect of our work. We usually returned to camp about two o'clock in the afternoon. As soon as tiffin had been eaten my wife worked at her photography, while I busied myself over the almost innumerable details of the preparation and cataloguing of our specimens. About six o'clock, accompanied by the two Chinese taxidermists carrying bags of traps, we would leave the tents. Sometimes we would walk several miles, meanwhile carefully scrutinizing the ground for holes or traces of mammal workings, and set eighty or one hundred traps. We might find a colony of meadow voles (_Microtus_) where dozens of ”runways”
betrayed their presence, or discover the burrows of the desert hamster (_Cricetulus_). These little fellows, not larger than a house mouse, have their tiny feet enveloped in soft fur, like the slippers of an Eskimo baby.
As we walked back to camp in the late afternoon, we often saw a kangaroo rat (_Alactaga mongolica_?) jumping across the plain, and when we had driven it into a hole, we could be sure to catch it in a trap the following morning. They are gentle little creatures, with huge, round eyes, long, delicate ears, and tails tufted at the end like the feathers on an arrow's shaft. The name expresses exactly what they are like--diminutive kangaroos--but, of course, they are rodents and not marsupials. During the glacial period of the early Pleistocene, about one hundred thousand years ago, we know from fossil remains that there were great invasions into Europe of most of these types of tiny mammals, which we were catching during this delightful summer on the Mongolian plains.
After two months we regretfully turned back toward Urga. Our summer was to be divided between the plains on the south and the forests to the north of the sacred city, and the first half of the work had been completed. The results had been very satisfactory, and our boxes contained five hundred specimens; but our hearts were sad. The wide sweep of the limitless, gra.s.sy sea, the glorious morning rides, and the magic of the starlit nights had filled our blood. Even the lure of the unknown forests could not make us glad to go, for the plains had claimed us as their own.
CHAPTER X
AN ADVENTURE IN THE LAMA CITY
Late on a July afternoon my wife and I stood disconsolately in the middle of the road on the outskirts of Urga. We had halted because the road had ended abruptly in a muddy river. Moreover, the river was where it had no right to be, for we had traveled that road before and had found only a tiny trickle across its dusty surface.
We were disconsolate because we wished to camp that night in Urga, and there were abundant signs that it could not be done.
At least the Mongols thought so, and we had learned that what a Mongol does not do had best ”give us pause.” They had accepted the river with Oriental philosophy and had made their camps accordingly.
Already a score of tents dotted the hillside, and _argul_ fires were smoking in the doorways. Hundreds of carts were drawn up in an orderly array while a regiment of oxen wandered about the hillside or sleepily chewed their cuds beside the loads. In a few hours or days or weeks the river would disappear, and then they would go on to Urga. Meanwhile, why worry?
Two adventurous spirits, with a hundred camels, tried to cross. We watched the huge beasts step majestically into the water, only to huddle together in a yellow-brown ma.s.s when they reached midstream.
All their dignity fled, and they became merely frightened mountains of flesh amid a chaos of writhing necks and wildly switching tails.
But stranger still was a motor car standing on a partly submerged island between two branches of the torrent. We learned later that its owners had successfully navigated the first stream and entered the second. A flooded carburetor had resulted, and ere the car was again in running order, the water had risen sufficiently to maroon them on the island.
My wife and I both lack the philosophical nature of the Oriental, and it was a sore trial to camp within rifle shot of Urga. But we did not dare leave our carts, loaded with precious specimens, to the care of servants and the curiosity of an ever increasing horde of Mongols.
For a well-nigh rainless month we had been hunting upon the plains, while only one hundred and fifty miles away Urga had had an almost daily deluge. In midsummer heavy rain-clouds roll southward to burst against ”G.o.d's Mountain,” which rears its green-clad summits five thousand feet above the valley. Then it is only a matter of hours before every streamlet becomes a swollen torrent. But they subside as quickly as they rise, and the particular river which barred our road had lost its menace before the sun had risen in a cloudless morning sky. All the valley seemed in motion. We joined the motley throng of camels, carts, and hors.e.m.e.n; and even the motor car coughed and wheezed its way to Urga under the stimulus of two bearded Russians.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Tibetan Yaks]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Caravan Crossing the Terelche River]
We made our camp on a beautiful bit of lawn within a few hundred yards of one of the most interesting of all the Urga temples. It is known to the foreigners in the city as ”G.o.d's Brother's House,” for it was the residence of the Hutukhtu's late brother. The temple presents a bewildering collection of carved gables and gayly painted pavilions flaunting almost every color of the rainbow. Yvette and I were consumed with curiosity to see what was contained within the high palisades which surround the buildings. We knew it would be impossible to obtain permission for her to go inside, and one evening as we were walking along the walls we glanced through the open gate. No one was in sight and from somewhere in the far interior we heard the moaning chant of many voices. Evidently the lamas were at their evening prayers.
We stepped inside the door intending only to take a rapid look. The entire court was deserted, so we slipped through the second gate and stood just at the entrance of the main temple, the ”holy of holies.”