Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/165

 French brandy, 36 lbs. of sugar, and two sacks of rice; we hoped to obtain as much meat as we required with our guns.

This meagre supply for our personal consumption was occasioned by the slenderness of our finances. The first year of our travels we received from the War Department, the Geographical Society, and the Botanical Gardens of St. Petersburg the aggregate sum of 350l., including my salary; in the second and third the amount was increased to 500l.; my travelling companion, M. Pyltseff, received the first year 40l. and the two following 80l. I state the case plainly as to our monetary resources simply because the want of means was the greatest possible hindrance to us. In proof of this, I may remark that as each Cossack was entitled to 28l. a year salary, which I paid regularly in silver, I could not afford more than two men. My companion and I were, therefore, obliged to load the camels ourselves, to pasture them, to collect argols for fuel, &c., in fact, do all the drudgery; whereas, under other circumstances, the time thus spent might have been devoted to scientific observations. Again, I could not afford a good interpreter of the Mongol language, thoroughly conversant with his duties, who would have been of the greatest service on several occasions. My Cossack-dragoman was by turns labourer, herdsman, cook, constantly employed in one or other of these capacities, and only able now and then to spare a short time for his legitimate business. Lastly, our poverty was the cause of our actually