ed though they seem
from a distance, they really teem with human life. Whole villages
are half dug, half built, into the hillsides, but are well-nigh
invisible, for every wall and roof is of the same brown earth.

Ten miles or so from Kalgan we began on foot the long climb up the
pass which gives entrance to the great plateau. I kept my eyes
steadily on the pony's heels until we reached a broad, flat terrace
halfway up the pass. Then I swung about that I might have, all at
once, the view which lay below us. It justified my greatest hopes,
for miles and miles of rolling hills stretched away to where the far
horizon met the Shansi Mountains.

It was a desolate country which I saw, for every wave in this vast
land-sea was cut and slashed by the knives of wind and frost and
rain, and lay in a chaotic mass of gaping wounds--canyons, ravines,
and gullies, painted in rainbow colors, crossing and cutting one
another at fantastic angles as far as the eye could see.

When, a few moments later, we reached the very summit of the pass, I
felt that no spot I had ever visited satisfied my preconceived
conceptions quite so thoroughly. Behind and below us lay that
stupendous relief map of ravines and gorges; in front was a
limitless stretch of undulating plain. I knew then that I really
stood upon the edge of the greatest plateau in all the world and
that it could be only Mongolia.

We had tiffin at a tiny Chinese inn beside the road, and trotted on
toward Hei-ma-hou between waving fields of wheat, buckwheat, millet,
and oats--oats as thick and "meaty" as any horse could wish to eat.

After tiffin Coltman and Lucander rode rapidly ahead while I trotted
my pony along more slowly in the rear. It was nearly seven o'clock,
and the trees about the mission station had been visible for half an
hour. I was enjoying a gorgeous sunset which splashed the western
sky with gold and red, and lazily watching the black silhouettes of
a camel caravan swinging along the summit of a ridge a mile away. On
the road beside me a train of laden mules and bullock-carts rested
for a moment--the drivers half asleep. Over all the plain there lay
the peace of a perfect autumn evening.

Suddenly, from behind a little rise, I heard the whir of a motor
engine and the raucous voice of a Klaxon horn. Before I realized
what it meant, I was in the midst of a mass of plunging, snorting
animals, shouting carters, and kicking mules. In a moment the
caravan scattered