ays of peace; and
how he was everywhere his soldiers were fighting.

I told them, in turn, of my escape from Siberia and with chatting thus
the day slipped by very quickly. Our camels trotted all the time, so
that instead of the ordinary eighteen to twenty miles per day we made
nearly fifty. My mount was the fastest of them all. He was a huge white
animal with a splendid thick mane and had been presented to Baron Ungern
by some Prince of Inner Mongolia with two black sables tied on the
bridle. He was a calm, strong, bold giant of the desert, on whose back
I felt myself as though perched on the tower of a building. Beyond the
Orkhon River we came across the first dead body of a Chinese soldier,
which lay face up and arms outstretched right in the middle of the road.
When we had crossed the Burgut Mountains, we entered the Tola River
valley, farther up which Urga is located. The road was strewn with the
overcoats, shirts, boots, caps and kettles which the Chinese had thrown
away in their flight; and marked by many of their dead. Further on the
road crossed a morass, where on either side lay great mounds of the dead
bodies of men, horses and camels with broken carts and military debris
of every sort. Here the Tibetans of Baron Ungern had cut up the escaping
Chinese baggage transport; and it was a strange and gloomy contrast to
see the piles of dead besides the effervescing awakening life of spring.
In every pool wild ducks of different kinds floated about; in the high
grass the cranes performed their weird dance of courtship; on the lakes
great flocks of swans and geese were swimming; through the swampy places
like spots of light moved the brilliantly colored pairs of the Mongolian
sacred bird, the turpan or "Lama goose"; on the higher dry places flocks
of wild turkey gamboled and fought as they fed; flocks of the salga
partridge whistled by; while on the mountain side not far away the
wolves lay basking and turning in the lazy warmth of the sun, whining
and occasionally barking like playful dogs.

Nature knows only life. Death is for her but an episode whose traces
she rubs out with sand and snow or ornaments with luxuriant greenery
and brightly colored bushes and flowers. What matters it to Nature if a
mother at Chefoo or on the banks of the Yangtse offers her bowl of rice
with burning incense at some shrine and prays for the return of her son
that has fallen unknown for all time on the plains along the Tola, where
his