household was in one large room, where all the
cooking, eating, sleeping, talking, and scolding
went on—to say nothing of smoking and
gambling. In the midst of the apartment,
there is always a large raised counter, on
which everybody sits and lies down to sleep.
In one end of this counter boilers are inserted
for the cooking; and the heat from the
furnace passes into the interior of the " kang,"
as the counter is called, affording a warm bed
to everybody. A reed matting, or a floor of
planks, is spread under the sleeper; but if he
do not accurately understand how to place
the reeds, or the planks, he is likely to be
"done brown" on one side, while the other
may chance to be stiff with cold. If this is
cleverly managed, there is still much which is
not exactly conducive to sleep; for instance,
swarms of vermin, clouds of tobacco, and
the fumes of burning dung, of garlic, and
rancid oil, such as the cotton-wick is floating
in. Then there is the gossip of one party,
who may like to lie awake very late, chatting
over their tea; or of another, who may prefer
having their tea in the middle of the night;
or of a third, who may want it before they go
out at daybreak. On the whole, we feel that
whenever we travel there, we shall prefer the
tent, if we can but keep up any vital warmth
in us at all. In a tent, one can at least have
a choice of posture; whereas, in a Tartar
inn, the sleepers on a kang, if numerous, must
lie in a circle, with their feet all together in
the middle. It must be a curious sight to the
spiders just over their heads. On the first
night the priests slept in their tent—a peculiar
piece of business being to be done in the
morning, to which they did not wish to draw
attention from heathens. They found they
were not yet out of reach of Chinese customs,
for they were roused from their first doze by
a horrible noise, such as scarcely anything but
a Chinese gong could produce. It was the
Inspector of Darkness, who made such a din
with his tam-tam, that the tigers and wolves
all made off at the top of their speed. One
would put up with any noise for such a
result.

The business which the priests had to do in
the morning was to change their appearance.
The Christians at the inn knew it, and were
very unhappy about it: but the missionaries
were determined to assume a priestly dress.
In China, they had been compelled to dress
like the laity. Now, they chose to dress like
the priests of Buddha, to secure respect to
their vocation. So S. flourished his razor, and
cut off the long tails that hung down behind,
and shaved their crowns. Then they dressed
themselves all in yellow and red, sent away
the hot wine and the chafing-dish, declaring
that good Lamas renounced drinking and
smoking; took each a roll, steamed in the
furnace, and ate it beside a rivulet, indulging
in the luxury of the wild currants that grew
on the banks.

They were now to leave all Christians
behind, and enter on the wilds. Off they set,
in their yellow gowns, up a tremendous
mountain, infested with wild beasts, and
robbers, and frosts, and pitfalls. Of all these
horrors, the thieves appear to be the worst—
they are such abominable hypocrites, with all
their cruelty! They speak very sweetly to
the traveller, telling him that they are tired,
and find it rather cold, and have need of his
horse, his cloak, and so on, till he is absolutely
stripped of everything. If he comply at
once, he is humbly thanked, and left to die in
the frost. If he refuse, he is at once
murdered, which seems the milder fate of the
two. The priests saw nothing of them,
happily, and arrived at the very singular
place which may be found at the top of that mountain;
a platform, which is a whole day's
journey in length and breadth, and from
which the traveller can see, far in the deserts
of Tartary, the tents of wandering tribes—
beehives in form, black in colour, and ranged
in crescents on the slopes of rising grounds.
Here must the party encamp for the night;
the first really wild encampment. They
were desperately afraid of the robbers, so
they chose a retired nook where tall trees
grew, and there pitched their tent, and set
their great dog Arsalan to watch. Somebody
had given them a stock of paste—like
vermicelli—which, boiled with parings of
bacon, was to make a savoury supper. When
the pot bubbled, each drew forth his wooden
cup from his girdle, and helped himself: but
the food was absolutely uneatable; so, as in
the morning, the priests carried each a roll,
and went for a walk; and this time, they
found some wild cherries, and a scarlet apple
of a pleasant acid. As we go on, we find that
their commonest food was tea, thickened with
oatmeal. The tea is a strong coarse kind, left
over when the finer leaves are prepared for
European sale. The leaves are pressed into
masses, called bricks, and thus carried all
over Central Asia, and into Russia. The
Tartars knead oatmeal into their bowl of tea,
with the knuckle of the forefinger; and on
this mess they seem able to live for any
length of time. When they can butter their
tea—present a bowl to a guest with half an
inch of butter floating on the surface—that
is very fine hospitality indeed. The fuel used
is "argols "—dried dung, which always
abounds, of course, in a pastoral country.
The argols of goats and sheep burn with so
intense a heat as to bring a bar of iron to a
white heat, and leave, instead of ashes, a
sort of pumice-stone. Next come the argols
of camels, and then those of oxen. Those of
horses and other non-ruminating animals, are
the worst fuel. Our travellers were at times
half-suffocated with the volumes of smoke
they sent out, while there was little heat; so
they kept this kind for tinder.

On the plateau where they now were, stands
an Obo; a pile of stones, where the Tartars
come to worship the spirit of the mountain.