Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/121

 better for Mongol taste. No part of the slaughtered animal is wasted, but everything is eaten up with the utmost relish.

The gluttony of this people exceeds all description. A Mongol will eat more than ten pounds of meat at one sitting, but some have been known to devour an average-sized sheep in the course of twenty-four hours! On a journey, when provisions are economised, a leg of mutton is the ordinary daily ration for one man, and although he can live for days without food, yet, when once he gets it, he will eat enough for seven.

They always boil their mutton, only roasting the breast as a delicacy. On a winter's journey, when the frozen meat requires extra time for cooking, they eat it half raw, slicing off pieces from the surface, and returning it again to the pot. When travelling and pressed for time, they take a piece of mutton and place it on the back of the camel, underneath the saddle, to preserve it from the frost, whепсе it is brought out during the journey and eaten, covered with camel's hair and reeking with sweat; but this is no test of a Mongol's appetite. Of the liquor in which he has boiled his meat he makes soup by adding millet or dough, drinking it like tea. Before eating, the lamas and the more religious among the laity, after filling their cups, throw a little into the fire or on the ground, as an offering; before