Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/130

 visitors explain and show him all your possessions, and, if they get the chance, make off with something by way of a keepsake.

One of their peculiarities cannot fail to arrest the attention of the stranger, and that is, their habit of moving from place to place without ever using the words right or left, as though the ideas they express were unknown to them. Even in the yurta a Mongol will never say to the right hand or to the left, but always such or such a thing is east or west of him. It may be worth mentioning here that the points of their compass are the reverse of ours; their north is our south, and therefore the east is on the left, not on the right, of their horizon. They calculate distances by the time occupied in travelling with camels or horses, and have no other accurate scale of measurement. If you ask how far it is to any given place, the answer is always so many days' journey with camels, or so many days' ride on horseback. But as the rate of travelling and length of marches vary according to circumstances and the disposition of the rider, they never fail to add 'if you ride well,' or 'if you travel slowly.' A day's journey in Khalkas is twenty-eight miles with camels, and from forty to forty-seven on horses. About Koko-nor they travel more slowly with the former, not over twenty miles a day. A good camel will average about three miles an hour with a load on its back, or four without one.

The unit in the Mongol's scale of distances is a