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Kalgan seems already an outpost of Russia, with its groups of Russian merchants, its Russian church, bank, post-office, and consulate, one as much as the other representative of the White Tsar. Toward the end of the first day from Kalgan we passed under the towers which are all that is left here of the Great Wall, save the pile of stones which marks the line where it stood.
Hence it is preferred by the Chinese caravan men as well as by the great, or those in a hurry, who use relays. The other, known as the "Camel Road," turns northward from Kalgan and after a hundred miles takes a northwestward course to Urga.
My journey back through the desert also was marked by mercies. Truly I may stand and say, "When all Thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view, I'm lost In wonder, love, and praise." After his wanderings even Kalgan was a haven of rest, and he had secured there a base of operations.
Many a gentleman of Pekin has been stowed in a coffin whose wood grew in the middle of Mongolia; and possibly when our relations with the empire become more intimate, we shall supply the Chinese coffin market from the fine forests of our Pacific coast. North of Kalgan the native habitations are scattered irregularly over the country wherever good water and grass abound.
Toward the end of the third day from Kalgan we were following a blind trail among low, grass-covered hills, all about us beautiful pastureland dotted over with herds of horses and cattle.
The Mongol who attended me on the first stages from Kalgan was a lama with wife, children, and home, faithful and hard-working, at least for a Mongol, and a useful member of society. The question one naturally asks is, Why do these men become lamas; do they do it willingly or under compulsion?
However, once the decision was made, we tried to forget the past days and determined to make up for lost time in the future. On Monday, June 16, we left Urga to go south along the old caravan trail toward Kalgan. Only a few weeks earlier we had skimmed over the rolling surface in motor cars, crossing in one day then as many miles of plains as our own carts could do in ten.
In an elaborate report, designed rather to elicit the views of the home authorities than to express his own, dated August 18, 1877, Mr. Gilmour depicts rapidly and clearly his relations, on the one hand, to the workers in the station of the American Board at Kalgan, and, on the other, to his colleagues of the North China Committee of the London Society.
In the account he gives of his first visit to the region as its missionary he had been twice before on visits of inspection he dwells upon this necessity. 'I left Peking December 14, 1885, and re-entered Peking February 16, 1886, so that my absence from here was just two months. This is not the part of Mongolia near Kalgan. Kalgan is north-north-west of Peking, five days' journey.
Two Chinese mandarins one with the red button; the other, his inferior in rank, with the white gravely awaited the moment of departure to escort the travellers as far as Kalgan, and to take care that, upon requisition being made, they were provided with everything necessary to their comfort.
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