Part 11 (1/2)
CHAPTER XI
MONGOLS AT HOME
Until we left Urga the second time Mongolia, to us, had meant only the Gobi Desert and the boundless, rolling plains. When we set our faces northward we found it was also a land of mountains and rivers, of somber forests and gorgeous flowers.
A new forest always thrills me mightily. Be it of stately northern pines, or a jungle tangle in the tropics, it is so filled with glamour and mystery that I enter it with a delightful feeling of expectation. There is so much that is concealed from view, it is so pregnant with the possibility of surprises, that I am as excited as a child on Christmas morning.
The forests of Mongolia were by no means disappointing. We entered them just north of Urga where the Siberian life zone touches the plains of the central Asian region and the beginnings of a new fauna are sharply delineated by the limit of the trees. We had learned that the Terelche River would offer a fruitful collecting ground. It was only forty miles from Urga and the first day's trip was a delight. We traveled northward up a branch valley enclosed by forested hills and carpeted with flowers. Never had we seen such flowers! Acre after acre of bluebells, forget-me-nots, daisies, b.u.t.tercups, and cowslips converted the entire valley into a vast ”old-fas.h.i.+oned garden,” radiantly beautiful. Our camp that night was at the base of a mountain called the Da Wat which shut us off from the Terelche River.
On the second morning, instead of golden suns.h.i.+ne, we awoke to a cloud-hung sky and floods of rain. It was one of those days when everything goes wrong; when with all your heart you wish to swear but instead you must smile and smile and keep on smiling. No one wished to break camp in the icy deluge but there were three marshes between us and the Terelche River which were bad enough in dry weather. A few hours of rain would make them impa.s.sable, perhaps for weeks.
My wife and I look back upon that day and the next as one of our few, real hards.h.i.+ps. After eight hours of killing work, wet to the skin and almost frozen, we crossed the first dangerous swamp and reached the summit of the mountain. Then the cart, with our most valuable possessions, plunged off the road on a sharp descent and crashed into the forest below. Chen and I escaped death by a miracle and the other Chinese taxidermist, who was safe and sound, promptly had hysterics. It was discouraging, to say the least. We camped in the gathering darkness on a forty-five-degree slope in mud twelve inches deep. Next day we gathered up our scattered belongings, repaired the cart, and reached the river.
I had a letter from Duke Loobitsan Yangsen to a famous old hunter, Tserin Dorchy by name, who lives in the Terelche region. He had been gone for six days on a shooting trip when we came into the beautiful valley where his _yurts_ were pitched, but his wife welcomed us with true Mongolian hospitality and a great dish of cheese. Our own camp we made just within the forest, a mile away.
For a week we hunted and trapped in the vicinity, awaiting Tserin Dorchy's return. Our arrival created a deal of interest among the half dozen families in the neighborhood and, after each had paid a formal call, they apparently agreed that we were worthy of being accepted into their community. We were nomads for the time, just as they are for life. We had pitched our tents in the forest, as they had erected their _yurts_ in the meadow beside the river. When the biting winds of winter swept the valley a few months later they would move, with all their sheep and goats, to the shelter of the hills and we would seek new hunting grounds.
Before many days we learned all the valley gossip. Moreover, we furnished some ourselves for one of the Chinese taxidermists became enamored of a Mongol maiden. There were two of them, to be exact, and they both ”vamped” him persistently. The toilettes with which they sought to allure him were marvels of brilliance, and one of them actually scrubbed her little face and hands with a cake of my yellow, scented soap.
Our servant's affections finally centered upon the younger girl and I smiled paternally upon the wild-wood romance. Every night, with a sheepish grin, Chen would ask to borrow a pony. The responsibilities of chaperones sat lightly on our shoulders, but sometimes my wife and I would wander out to the edge of the forest and watch him to the bottom of the hill. Usually his love was waiting and they would ride off together in the moonlight--where, we never asked!
But we could not blame the boy--those Mongolian nights were made for lovers. The marvel of them we hold among our dearest memories.
Wherever we may be, the fragrance of pine trees or the sodden smell of a marsh carries us back in thought to the beautiful valley and fills our hearts again with the glory of its clear, white nights.
No matter what the day brought forth, we looked forward to the evening hunt as best of all. As we trotted our ponies homeward through the fresh, damp air we could watch the shadows deepen in the somber ma.s.ses of the forest, and on the hilltops see the ragged silhouettes of sentinel pines against the rose glow of the sky.
Ribbons of mist, weaving in and out above the stream, clothed the alders in ghostly silver and rested in billowy ma.s.ses upon the marshes. Ere the moon had risen, the stars blazed out like tiny lanterns in the sky. Over all the valley there was peace unutterable.
We were soon admitted to a delightful comrades.h.i.+p with the Mongols of our valley. We shared their joys and sorrows and nursed their minor ills. First to seek our aid was the wife of the absent hunter, Tserin Dorchy. She rode up one day with a two-year-old baby on her arm. The little fellow was badly infected with eczema, and for three weeks one of the lamas in the tiny temple near their _yurt_ had been mumbling prayers and incantations in his behalf, without avail.
Fortunately, I had a supply of zinc ointment and before the month was ended the baby was almost well. Then came the lama with his bill ”for services rendered,” and Tserin Dorchy contributed one hundred dollars to his priestly pocket. A young Mongol with a dislocated shoulder was my next patient, and when I had made him whole, the lama again claimed the credit and collected fifty dollars as the honorarium for his prayers. And so it continued throughout the summer; I made the cures, and the priest got the fees.
Although the Mongols all admitted the efficacy of my foreign medicines, nevertheless they could not bring themselves to dispense with the lama and his prayers. Superst.i.tion was too strong and fear that the priest would send an army of evil spirits flocking to their _yurts_ if they offended him brought the money, albeit reluctantly, from their pockets. Although the lama never proposed a partners.h.i.+p arrangement, as I thought he might have done, he spent much time about our camp and often brought us bowls of curded milk and cheese.
He was a wandering priest and not a permanent resident of the valley, but he evidently decided not to wander any farther until we, too, should leave, for he was with us until the very end.
A short time after we had made our camp near the Terelche River a messenger arrived from Urga with a huge package of mail. In it was a copy of _Harper's Magazine_ containing an account of a flying visit which I had made to Urga in September, 1918. [Footnote: _Harper's Magazine_, June, 1919, pp. 1-16.] There were half a dozen Mongols near our tent, among whom was Madame Tserin Dorchy. I explained the pictures to the hunter's wife in my best Chinese while Yvette ”stood by” with her camera and watched results. Although the woman had visited Urga several times she had never seen a photograph or a magazine and for ten minutes there was no reaction. Then she recognized a Mongol headdress similar to her own. With a gasp of astonishment she pointed it out to the others and burst into a perfect torrent of guttural expletives. A picture of the great temple at Urga, where she once had gone to wors.h.i.+p, brought forth another volume of Mongolian adjectives and her friends literally fought for places in the front row.
News travels quickly in Mongolia and during the next week men and women rode in from _yurts_ forty or fifty miles away to see that magazine. I will venture to say that no American publication ever received more appreciation or had a more picturesque audience than did that copy of _Harper's_.
The absent Tserin Dorchy returned one day when I was riding down the valley with his wife. We saw two strange figures on horseback emerging from the forest, each with a Russian rifle on his back.
Their saddles were strung about with half-dried skins--four roebuck, a musk deer, a moose, and a pair of elk antlers in the ”velvet.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Our Base Camp at the Edge of the Forest]
[Ill.u.s.tration: The Mongol Village of the Terelche Valley]
With a joyful shout Madame Tserin Dorchy rode toward her husband. He was an oldish man, of fifty-five years perhaps, with a face as dried and weather-beaten as the leather beneath his saddle. He may have been glad to see her but his only sign of greeting was a ”_sai_” and a nod to include us both. Her pleasure was undisguised, however, and as we rode down the valley she chattered volubly between the business of driving in half a dozen horses and a herd of sheep. The monosyllabic replies of the hunter were delivered in a voice which seemed to come from a long way off or from out of the earth beneath his pony's feet. I was interested to see what greeting there would be upon his arrival at the _yurt_. His two daughters and his infant son were waiting at the door but he had not even a word for them and only a pat upon the head for the baby.
All Mongols are independent but Tserin Dorchy was an extreme in every way. He ruled the half dozen families in the valley like an autocrat. What he commanded was done without a question. I was anxious to get away and announced that we would start the day after his arrival. ”No,” said he, ”we will go two days from now.” Argument was of no avail. So far as he was concerned, the matter was closed.
When it came to arranging wages he stated his terms, which were exorbitant. I could accept them or not as I pleased; he would not reduce his demands by a single copper.