gan-Kouren.

After a long, laborious, and dangerous passage, we reached the other side
of the waters. Samdadchiemba had arrived long before us, and was
awaiting us on the margin of the stream. He was still naked, as to
clothes, but then he was covered well nigh up to the shoulders with a
thick layer of mud, which gave him a negro aspect. In consequence of the
extreme shallowness of the water, the boat could not get within thirty
feet of the shore. The boatmen who preceded us had been obliged to carry
the Mandarins and their attendants on their shoulders to the boats. We
did not choose to adopt the same process, but rather to make use of the
animals for our disembarkation. Samdadchiemba accordingly brought them
close to the boat; M. Gabet got on the horse, M. Huc on the mule, and so
we reached the shore, without having occasion to employ any person's
shoulders.

The sun was just about to set. We would willingly have encamped at once,
for we were exhausted with hunger and fatigue, but we could not possibly
do so, for we had, they told us, fully two lis to journey before we
should get out of the mud. We loaded our camels, therefore, and
proceeded onward, completing the miserable day in pain and suffering.
Night had closed in before we came to a place where we could set up our
tent; we had no strength left for preparing the usual meal, so drinking
some cold water, and eating a few handfuls of millet, we lay down, after
a brief prayer, and fell into a deep slumber.

[Picture: Chapter Tailpiece]

[Picture: Election of a Living Buddha]

CHAPTER VIII.

Glance at the Country of the Ortous--Cultivated Lands--Sterile, sandy
steppes of the Ortous--Form of the Tartar-Mongol
Government--Nobility--Slavery--A small Lamasery--Election and
Enthronization of a Living Buddha--Discipline of the Lamaseries--Lama
Studies--Violent Storm--Shelter in some Artificial Grottoes--Tartar
concealed in a Cavern--Tartaro-Chinese Anecdote--Ceremonies of Tartar
Marriages--Polygamy--Divorce--Character and Costume of the Mongol Women.

The sun was already very high when we rose. On leaving the tent we
looked round us, in order to get acquainted with this new country, which
the darkness of the preceding evening had not allowed us to examine. It
appeared to us dismal and arid; but we were happy, on any terms, to lose
sight of bogs and swamps. We had left behind us the Yellow River, with
its o