emanded one for himself. So his automobile was brought
safely through the rocky pass at Kalgan and across the seven hundred
miles of plain to Urga by way of the same old caravan trail over
which, centuries ago, Genghis Khan had sent his wild Mongol raiders
to conquer China.

We arose long before daylight on the morning of August 29. In the
courtyard lanterns flashed and disappeared like giant fireflies as
the _mafus_ (muleteers) packed the baggage and saddled the ponies.
The cars had been left on the plateau at a mission station called
Hei-ma-hou to avoid the rough going in the pass, and we were to ride
there on horseback while the food and bed-rolls went by cart. There
were five of us in the party--Mr. and Mrs. Coltman, Mr. and Mrs.
Lucander, and myself. I was on a reconnoissance and Mr. Coltman's
object was to visit his trading station in Urga, where the Lucanders
were to remain for the winter.

The sun was an hour high when we clattered over the slippery paving
stones to the north gate of the city. Kalgan is built hard against
the Great Wall of China--the first line of defense, the outermost
rampart in the colossal structure which for so many centuries
protected China from Tartar invasion. Beyond it there was nothing
between us and the great plateau.

After our passports had been examined we rode through the gloomy
chasm-like gate, turned sharply to the left, and found ourselves
standing on the edge of a half-dry river bed. Below us stretched
line after line of double-humped camels, some crowded in
yellow-brown masses which seemed all heads and curving necks, and
some kneeling quietly on the sand. From around a shoulder of rock
came other camels, hundreds of them, treading slowly and sedately,
nose to tail, toward the gate in the Great Wall. They had come from
the far country whither we were bound. To me there is something
fascinating about a camel. Perhaps it is because he seems to typify
the great waste spaces which I love, that I never tire of watching
him swing silently, and seemingly with resistless power, across the
desert.

Our way to Hei-ma-hou led up the dry river bed, with the Great Wall
on the left stretching its serpentine length across the hills, and
on the right picturesque cliffs two hundred feet in height. At their
bases nestle mud-roofed cottages and Chinese inns, but farther up
the river the low hills are all of _loess_--brown, wind-blown dust,
packed hard, which can be cut like cheese. Desert