Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/312

284 we met again our own countrymen, and experienced once more European comforts. We enquired eagerly what was going on in the civilised world; we devoured the contents of the letters awaiting us; we gave vent to our joy like children; it was only after a few days that we came to ourselves and began to realise the luxury to which our wanderings had rendered us for so loner a time strangers. The contrast between the past and the present was so great that what we had gone through appeared like a horrible dream. After resting a week at Urga, we proceeded to Kiakhta, which we reached on the 1st October 1873.

Our journey was ended. Its success had surpassed all the hopes we entertained when we crossed for the first time the borders of Mongolia. Then an uncertain future lay before us; now, as we called to mind all the difficulties and dangers we had gone through, we could not help wondering at the good fortune which had invariably attended us everywhere. Yes! in the most adverse circumstances, Fortune had been ever constant, and ensured the success of our undertaking: many a time when it hung on a thread a happy destiny rescued us, and gave us the means of accomplishing, as far as our strength would permit, the exploration of the least known and most inaccessible countries of Inner Asia.