Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/78

14 To add to all this, crowds of starving beggars assemble on the market-place; some of them (mostly poor old women) make it their final resting place. It would be difficult to picture to oneself anything more revolting. The decrepid or crippled hag lies on the ground in the centre of the bazaar with a covering of old pieces of felt thrown to her by way of charity. Here she will remain, too weak to move, covered with vermin and filth, imploring alms from the passer-by. In winter the cold winds cover her den with the snowdrift, beneath which she drags out her miserable existence. Her very death is of an awful nature; eye-witnesses have told us how, when her last moments are approaching, a pack of dogs gather round and wait patiently for their victim to breathe her last, when they devour her corpse, and the vacant den soon finds another such occupant. In the cold winter nights the stronger beggars drag the feeble old women out into the snow, where they are frozen to death, crawling themselves into their holes to avoid that fate.

But these sights are not the only ones of the sacred city. More sickening scenes await the traveller if he resort to the cemetery, which is situated close to Urga. Here the dead bodies, instead of being interred, are flung to the dogs and birds of prey. An awful impression is produced on the mind by such a place as this, littered with heaps of bones, through which packs of dogs prowl, like ghosts, to seek their daily repast of human flesh.

No sooner is a fresh corpse thrown in than the