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Three great races have met in Urga and each carries on, in this far corner of Mongolia, its own customs and way of life. The Mongol yurt has remained unchanged; the Chinese shop, with its wooden counter and blue-gowned inmates, is pure Chinese; and the ornate cottages proclaim themselves to be only Russian. But on the street my wife and I could never forget that we were in Mongolia.
Our guide seemed to find the road by a sort of instinct, for the drifting clouds of snow hid even our-leading dogs from sight, and all that we could see of the country was the ground on which we stood. About an hour before dark, tired and chilled to the bone, we drew up before a little log hut in the woods, which our guide said was the Viliga yurt.
Just as the Mongol felt-covered yurt and tent are all that can be desired, so do they know that fur and leather are the only clothing to keep them warm during the bitter winter months. In the carts we had an ample supply of flour, bacon, coffee, tea, sugar, and dried fruit. For meat, we depended upon our guns, of course, and always had as much as could be used.
There is almost nothing of Mongolian manufacture, just rugs and felt and saddles; and most of the work is done by the women. Nor does the Mongol till the soil; nothing is found growing near his yurt. Unlike the rice-eating people just across the Great Wall, his diet is almost wholly meat, and milk in some form or other, cheese, curds, koumiss.
We went up on the roof of the yurt and listened for several minutes, but hearing nothing but the wind, we concluded that Yagór had either been mistaken, or that a pack of wolves had howled in the valley east of the settlement.
All night the wind roared a deep, hoarse bass through the forest which sheltered the yurt, and at daylight on the following morning there was no abatement of the storm. We knew that it might blow without intermission in that ravine for two weeks, and we had only four days' dog-food and provisions left. Something must be done.
We were up on the following morning long before daylight; and, after a hasty breakfast of black-bread, dried fish, and tea, we harnessed our dogs, wet down our sledge-runners with water from the teakettle to cover them with a coating of ice, packed up our camp equipage, and, leaving the shelter of the tamarack forest around the yurt, drove out upon the great snowy Sahara which lies between the Malmofka River and Penzhinsk Gulf.
Legs, therefore, are the most expressive features of a Korak's countenance, when considered from an interior standpoint. When snow drifts up against the yurt, so as to give the dogs access to the chimney, they take a perfect delight in lying around the hole, peering down into the yurt, and snuffing the odours of boiling fish which rise from the huge kettle underneath.
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