Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/284

 lived in these idols, but they have now flown to the skies.'

Beyond the temple of Karganti, ascending the southern shore of the Hoang-ho, we met no more inhabitants, and only passed two or three small Mongol stations whose occupants were engaged in obtaining liquorice-root. The reason this country is so deserted is, as we have said, owing to the Dungan insurrection, which laid waste Ordos two years before our visit. The settled Chinese population on the southern shore of the Hoang-ho, west of the meridian of Munni-ula, was insignificant, however, even before that time on account of the narrowness of this part of the valley, and also because of the poverty of the soil, which is saline and thickly covered with shrubs of willow or tamarisk. Here we saw wild cattle — a very remarkable thing; about which we had previously heard from the Mongols, who accounted for their existence in the following way:

Before the Dungan disturbances, the Mongols of Ordos kept large herds, and it sometimes happened that bulls or cows would stray, wander away in the steppe, and become so wild that it was exceedingly difficult to capture them. These cattle which had run wild were scattered over different parts of Ordos. When the Dungans broke into this country from the south-west and began destroying everything they met in their progress, many of the inhabitants, panic-stricken, left all their goods and chattels behind them and fled, only thinking of their own safety. The herds left unguarded