xplanation, that the town
of Urga took its name among outsiders. By the Mongols themselves it is
always referred to as Ta Kure, "The Great Monastery." The reason the
Buriats and Russians, who were the first to trade into this region,
called it Urga was because it was the principal destination of all the
trading expeditions which crossed the plains by this old method or right
of travel. A second explanation is that the town lies in a "loop" whose
sides are formed by three mountain ridges, along one of which the River
Tola runs like the pole or stick of the familiar urga of the plains.

Thanks to this unique ticket of urga I crossed quite untraveled
sections of Mongolia for about two hundred miles. It gave me the welcome
opportunity to observe the fauna of this part of the country. I saw many
huge herds of Mongolian antelopes running from five to six thousand,
many groups of bighorns, wapiti and kabarga antelopes. Sometimes small
herds of wild horses and wild asses flashed as a vision on the horizon.

In one place I observed a big colony of marmots. All over an area of
several square miles their mounds were scattered with the holes leading
down to their runways below, the dwellings of the marmot. In and out
among these mounds the greyish-yellow or brown animals ran in all sizes
up to half that of an average dog. They ran heavily and the skin on
their fat bodies moved as though it were too big for them. The marmots
are splendid prospectors, always digging deep ditches, throwing out on
the surface all the stones. In many places I saw mounds the marmots had
made from copper ore and farther north some from minerals containing
wolfram and vanadium. Whenever the marmot is at the entrance of his
hole, he sits up straight on his hind legs and looks like a bit of wood,
a small stump or a stone. As soon as he spies a rider in the distance,
he watches him with great curiosity and begins whistling sharply. This
curiosity of the marmots is taken advantage of by the hunters, who sneak
up to their holes flourishing streamers of cloth on the tips of long
poles. The whole attention of the small animals is concentrated on this
small flag and only the bullet that takes his life explains to him the
reason for this previously unknown object.

I saw a very exciting picture as I passed through a marmot colony near
the Orkhon River. There were thousands of holes here so that my Mongols
had to use all their skill to keep the horses from breaking