Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/131

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years ago, a French missionary was following across the Steppes of Tartary a Mongol caravan, which was conducting a long string of camels, laden with Chinese merchandise, to Kiakta, on the frontiers of Siberia. One day, the caravan stopped in a vast plain, not far from the source of the Onan, one of the great tributaries of the river Amour. The place of encampment chosen by these nomadic herdsmen was an immense prairie, which, as the wind swept over the high grass that covered it, resembled a wide sea. The horizon was bounded in all directions by a girdle of mountains of a yellowish tint, whose summits were covered by eternal snows, then glittering in the rays of the sun.