Mongolia

“ In the heart of Asia lies the enormous, mysterious and rich country of Mongolia. From somewhere on the snowy slopes of the Tian Shan and from the hot sands of Western Zungaria to the timbered ridges of the Sayan and to the Great Wall of China it stretches over a huge portion of Central Asia. The cradle of peoples, histories and legends; the native land of bloody conquerors, who have left here their capitals covered by the sand of the Gobi, their mysterious rings and their ancient nomad laws ”

“ 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 - 64 - 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. We never tired of wandering through the narrow alleys, with their tiny native shops, or of watching the ever-changing crowds. ”

“ But Mongolia! That was different. One could not go there in a roaring train. I had beside me the same old rifle and sleeping bag that had been carried across the mountains of far Yün-nan, along the Tibetan frontier, and through the fever-stricken jungles of Burma. Somehow, these companions of forest and mountain trails, and my reception at Kalgan by two khaki-clad young men, each with a belt of cartridges and a six-shooter strapped about his waist, did much to keep me in a blissful state of unpreparedness for the destruction of my dream-castles. ”

“ When the sun has dried the dew, there are swamps and streamlets in every valley and even far up the mountain slopes. It is the heavy rainfall, the rich soil, and the brilliant sunshine that make northern Mongolia a paradise of luxurious grass and flowers, even though the real summer lasts only from May till August. Then, the valleys are like an exquisite garden and the woods are ablaze with color. Bluebells, their stalks bending under the weight of blossoms, clothe every hillside in a glorious azure dress bespangled with yellow roses, daisies, and forget-me-nots. ”

“ When I passed through Urga last year I was told that the undaunted Bogdo had ordered a second car, fully equipped with chauffeur and all, from America, which was even then at Tientsin, so by now he may be getting stuck in the muddy lanes of the Sacred City,—unless he has put away such childish things to take up the farce of governing Mongolia under Russian guidance. For more than three hundred years Lamaism has held Mongolia in its grip, checking the development of the country, sapping the vitality and self-respect of the people. ”

“ In Mongolia the population is essentially nomadic, its wealth consisting in herds of horned cattle, sheep, horses and camels. The Turki tribes, occupying western Mongolia, are among the least civilized of human beings, and it is chiefly to their extreme barbarity and cruelty that our ignorance of central Asia is due. The climate is very severe, with great extremes of heat and cold. The drought is very great; rain falls rarely and in small quantities. The surface is for the most part a hard stony desert, areas of blown sand occurring but exceptionally. ”

“ Thirty or forty miles due west of the town cultivation practically ceases; and then nothing meets the eye but the rolling grasslands of Mongolia, with their sparse encampments of nomad horsemen and shepherds which stretch so monotonously into the infinities of High Asia.
The region is strategically important because the trade-routes converge there from the growing marts of the Taonanfu administration, which is the extreme westernly limit of Chinese authority in the Mongolian borderland. ”

“ IV. Autonomous Outer Mongolia comprises the regions hitherto under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Amban of Urga, the Tartar General of Uliasoutai and the Chinese Amban of Kobdo. In view of the fact that there are no detailed maps of Mongolia, and that the boundaries of the administrative divisions of this country are ill-defined, it is hereby agreed that the precise boundaries of Outer Mongolia, as well as the delimitation of the district of Kobdo and the district of Altai, shall be the subject of subsequent negotiations as provided for by Article V of the Declaration. ”

“ THE DESERT OF GOBI. The population of Mongolia, an elevated plateau lying about four thousand feet above sea-level, is roughly estimated at between three and four millions, but the difficulties of obtaining anything like an accurate census of the tribes inhabiting this vast tableland are obvious. Of this number, over thirty thousand inhabit Urga, the capital and residence of the “Kootookta,” or living God of the Mongol religion, “Buddhism.” The power of this human deity is purely nominal. ”

“ These cities, lying at the very southwestern extremity of the Great Wall of China, look out over the vast steppes of Mongolia, where there are nothing but Mongols belonging to many hordes, who live in the saddle and drive their flocks of sheep and their herds of ponies in front of them, forever moving. It is nearly two thousand miles in all; no European armies could ever follow, not in five years. They would slowly melt away on that long, interminable road. With such a line of retreat open the Court is absolutely safe, and knows it. It can act as it pleases. ”

“ The term Manchuria and Mongolia includes the provinces Fengtien, Kirin, Heilungkiang and Outer and Inner Mongolia. It extends an area of 74,000 square miles, having a population of 28,000,000 people. The territory is more than three times as large as our own empire not counting Korea and Formosa, but it is inhabited by only one-third as many people. The attractiveness of the lands does not arise from the scarcity of population alone; its wealth of forestry, minerals and agricultural products is also unrivalled elsewhere in the world. ”

“ Mongolia is the great breeding land for horses and cattle. At first sight when travelling through the country one is astonished at the enormous size of the troops of ponies; but when one considers that this territory supplies Siberia, China, and Manchuria with animals, it is easy to see that the supply is not greater than the demand. ”

“ It would probably have staggered his belief to begin with, for I am persuaded that more than half the Mongol population believe Mongolia to be in the centre of the world, with Russia at one end, and China at the other. The Russian courier or postal service through Mongolia is all done by lamas, whom an idle roaming life seems to suit better than it does the black men. They perform the distance from Chan-kia-kow to Kiachta, 780 miles, in eleven or twelve days easily, by means of their relays of horses. This seems very fast travelling, compared with our weary thirty days' journey ”

“ The land of Mongolia or Tartary is in the east part of the world, where the east and north are believed to unite [1] ; haying the country of Kathay, and the people called Solangi on the east; on the south the country of the Saracens; the land of the Huini on the south-east; on the west the province of Naimani, and the ocean on the north. In some parts it is full of mountains, in other parts quite plain; but everywhere interspersed with sandy barrens, not an hundredth part of the whole being fertile, as it cannot be cultivated except where it is watered with rivers, which are very rare. ”

“ They are consequently exceedingly difficult to reach by any other method than that of sharing their roving tent life. In the southeastern district of Mongolia there are large numbers of agricultural Mongols who speak both Chinese and Mongolian. The towns in this part are almost wholly inhabited by Chinese.
The winter in Mongolia is both long and severe; in the summer the heat is often very oppressive, and the great Plain is subject to severe storms of dust, rain and wind.
Buddhism is all-powerful, and the larger half of the male population are lamas or Buddhist priests. ”

“ Another mode of communication across Mongolia is by hiring a Mongol who undertakes to transport the traveller by camel caravan across the Gobi. This is the way in which all our merchants travel on their way to China for business purposes, or on their way back to Russia. The traveller usually disposes himself in a Chinese cart, which presents the appearance of a great square wooden box, set on two wheels, and closed on all sides. ”

“ Here and there the merchants in Mongolia, besides their commercial operations, make collections of contributions for one or another enterprise of a monastery or an incarnate. If we add to this those immense sums that are being collected by famous and infamous lamas, whether they be invited to Mongolia or are there of their own accord, we can safely say that Mongolia to a considerable degree enriches Tibet. ”

“ The fur and leather will also meet our needs. Once the opportunity comes, Outer and Inner Mongolia will be ours outright. While the sovereign rights are not clearly defined and while the Chinese and Soviet Governments are engaging their attention elsewhere, it is our opportunity to build our influence. Once we have purchased most of the land there, there will be no room for dispute as to whether Mongolia belongs to the Japanese or the Mongolians. Aided by our military prowess, we shall realize our positive policy. ”

“ The northern districts of China are not very different from Mongolia in point of climate. Both have a short but hot summer, and an extremely rigorous winter, differing only in degree. Both climates are dry. The northern Chinese assimilate more closely than any other of their countrymen to the Mongol habit of life. They eat animal food rather extensively, and drink strong liquor freely. Yet in physical development they are further removed from the Mongols in some features than even the southern Chinese who live on rice, fish, and vegetables. ”

“ One cannot travel in Mongolia, amongst a pastoral and nomad population, without one’s mind involuntarily going back to the time of the first patriarch, whose pastoral life had so close a relation with the manners and customs which we still find amongst the Mongol tribes. ”

“ Towards the Great Wall, Chinese industry glides like a serpent into the desert. Towns arise on all sides. The Land of Grass is crowned with harvests, and the Mongol shepherds find themselves driven back northwards, little by little, by the encroachments of agriculture.
Sandy plains occupy, perhaps, the greater part of Mongolia; you do not see a single tree there; some short, brittle grass, which seems to have much difficulty in issuing from this unfruitful soil, creeping briars, a few scanty tufts of heath, such is the sole vegetation and pasturage of Gobi. Water is very rarely seen ”

“ The land whose disappearing primitive people gaze upon the bones of their forefathers whitening in the sands and dust of their plains; where are dying out the people who formerly conquered China, Siam, Northern India and Russia and broke their chests against the iron lances of the Polish knights, defending then all the Christian world against the invasion of wild and wandering Asia: that is Mongolia. ”

“ Mongolia, inhabited by the East Mongols, is a part of the Chinese empire, lying south of Siberia and shut in by mountain ranges. The people lead a wandering life, dwelling in tents and having flocks of sheep and herds of horses, cattle, camels and goats. They are mostly Buddhists in religion, and fond of making long pilgrimages. There are about 2,600,000 of them under Chinese rule. ”

“ We must avoid all Mongolian cities with Chinese administration, cross Mongolia from north to south, traverse the desert in the southern part of the Principality of Jassaktu Khan, enter the Gobi in the western part of Inner Mongolia, strike as rapidly as possible through sixty miles of Chinese territory in the Province of Kansu and penetrate into Tibet. ”

“ He will do surprisingly well, in fact, if he succeeds in his new attempt to govern himself. The traveler cannot but be struck by the astonishing scarcity of children in Mongolia, especially if he has just come from Japan and China, until he learns that fully a third of the population of the country as a whole are lamas, and notes the prevalence of missing noses among both sexes and all classes in the streets of Urga. The most educated Mongol, in our Western sense, with whom I came in contact declared that within a century his race will completely have disappeared. ”

“ The black Tatars, who occupied the greater part of what we now call Mongolia, remained unaffected by their uninterrupted contact with more advanced races whose representatives entered their country only in the quality of merchants. The trade of barter and exchange with the nomads was in the hands of men of Turkestān, Uïghūrs, and Musulmans, who in such matters were far more enterprising than the Chinese. These Uïghūrs and Musulmans, moreover, kept in their own hands the commerce between Mongolia and China ”

“ West quarter, whilst Mongolia was Dzun-tala, the Left, i.e. East quarter. [2] It is not so easy to understand how Dzungaria (Dzun-gar = Left-hand) got its name, for that region is the most westerly part of Mongolia. ”

“ Mongolia is a country which, if wisely administered, has a future before it. The administration of the Chinese failed. The country of Mongolia is crying out for reform. It remains now with the Russians to carry out its development.
In Mongolia to-day there is about as much Russian influence as there was in the Caucasus at the time of the Crimean War. What amount of Russian influence will be felt in Mongolia sixty years hence? ”

“ The part of Mongolia I went to is situated 800 li, or say 270 English miles, north-east by east of Peking, and, at the usual rate of 90 li (or 30 miles) a day, is nine days distant. This is not the part of Mongolia near Kalgan. Kalgan is north-north-west of Peking, five days' journey. ”