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The records contain nothing to show whether this bold course on the part of the Bakufu had its origin in ignorance of the Mongol's might or in a conviction of the bushi's fighting superiority.
He disdained my glasses and would not even put them to his eyes. "I don't have to I know they are sheep," he laughed. But I, too, was sure. "Well, we'll see," he said. When we looked again, there could be no mistake; the sheep were donkeys. It was a treat to watch the Mongol's face, and I made much capital of his mistake, for he had so often teased me when I was wrong.
But there was one point of contact which we had with this dream-life of the Middle Ages. Yvette and I both love horses, and the way to a Mongol's heart is through his pony. Once on horseback we began to identify ourselves with the fascinating life around us.
It is far away, it does little for him, but in turn its demands are small. The Mongol's wealth consists in his herds; horses, cattle, sheep, camels. In our sense he owns no land, but if he digs a well, which, I believe, he rarely does, he has certain rights over it, and his claims to the water and grass near his yurt should be respected. His friends have to admit that the Mongol is lazy.
They move along with graceful, easy stride, the only sound being the dull clanking of a heavy bell suspended from the leader's neck. On one of the animals the Mongol's whole family is sometimes carried in two immense panniers, and the round, yellow faces of tiny children peer down from their lofty nursery on a strange and passing world.
They stood aloof looking ruefully at their trampled meadow as we made ready to start, hardly brightening up at all when I tried to make good their loss. An Englishman or an American would scarcely have asked my boy to sit at table with us, but on the other hand he would have spared the Mongol's poor little hayfield.
When the Chinese Commissioner, Wang Tsao-tsun, threatened the Sait for disobedience to his authority, the old man simply fingered his rosary and said: "I believe the story of this Mongol in its every word and I apprehend that you and I shall soon have to reverse our relationship." I felt that Wang Tsao-tsun also accepted the correctness of the Mongol's story, because he did not insist further.
As it was, my hair came down, my hat rolled from side to side, and it was a miracle that anything stayed in the cart. And I did not long, for as soon as we were outside the walls and making our way along the dry bed of the Sha Shin Ho, I jumped out, and for most of that day I either walked or rode the Mongol's pony.
Moreover, from September until May the bitter winds which sweep down from the Siberian steppes furnish an unpleasant temperature in which to take a bath. The Mongol's food consists almost entirely of mutton, cheese, and tea. Like all northern people, he needs an abundance of fat, and sheep supply his wants.
But Wang was a good soul, anxious to save me bother, and ready to turn his hand to anything, putting up tents, saddling ponies, collecting fuel, willing always to follow the Mongol's lead save only in the matter of getting up in the morning.
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