and placed an arc
lamp on the summit of a pole. It was an extraordinary experience to
see the canvas walls about us, to hear the mournful wail of a lone
wolf outside, and yet be able to turn the switch of an electric
light as though we were in the city. No arc lamp on Fifth Avenue
blazed more brightly than did this one on the edge of the Gobi
Desert where none of its kind had ever shone before. With the motor
cars which had stolen the sanctity of the plains it was only another
evidence of the passing of Mongolian mystery.

Usually when we camped we could see, almost immediately, the
silhouettes of approaching Mongols black against the evening sky.
Where they came from we could never guess. For miles there might not
have been the trace of a human being, but suddenly they would appear
as though from out the earth itself. Perhaps they had been riding
along some distant ridge far beyond the range of white men's eyes,
or the roar of a motor had carried to their ears across the miles of
plain; or perhaps it was that unknown sense, which seems to have
been developed in these children of the desert, which directs them
unerringly to water, to a lost horse, or to others of their kind. Be
it what it may, almost every night the Mongols came loping into camp
on their hardy, little ponies.

But this evening, when we had prepared an especial celebration, the
audience did not arrive. It was a bitter disappointment, for we were
consumed with curiosity to know what effect the blazing arc would
have upon the Mongolian stoics. We could not believe that natives
had not seen the light but probably they thought it was some spirit
manifestation which was to be avoided. An hour after we were
snuggled in our fur sleeping bags, two Mongols rode into camp, but
we were too sleepy to give an exhibition of the fireworks.

We reached Panj-kiang about noon of the second day and found that a
large mud house and a spacious compound had been erected beside the
telegraph station by the Chinese company which was endeavoring to
maintain a passenger service between Kalgan and Urga. The Chinese
government also had invaded the field and was sending automobiles
regularly to the Mongolian capital as a branch service of the
Peking-Suiyuan railroad. In the previous September we had passed
half a dozen of their motors in charge of a foreign representative
of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson and Co. of Shanghai from whom the cars
were purchased. He discovered immediate