Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 2 (1876).djvu/36

16 cloaks or sheepskin coverings, generally undressing to sleep more comfortably. While asleep we were warm enough, because our whole bodies, head and all, were under the coverings, and we sometimes added felts over all. My companion slept with Faust, and was very glad of such a bedfellow. Hardly a night passed quietly. Prowling wolves often frightened our camels and horses, and the Mongol or Chinese dogs would occasionally enter the tent to steal meat, generally paying the penalty of their lives for such unceremonious behaviour. After such an episode, how long it was before he whose turn it had been to quiet the startled camels, or to shoot the wolf or thieving dog, could get his blood a little warm again!

In the morning we all rose together, and shivering with cold, made haste to boil some brick tea; then we folded the tent, loaded the camels, and at sunrise continued our journey in the sharp frosty air.

One would have expected that in returning by the same road we had come we should have avoided many accidents, and might have reckoned before-hand the length of our marches, but in this we were deceived; one more misadventure had yet to be encountered. This occurred in the following way: Late in the evening of the 12th December, we halted for the night at the temple of Shireti-tsu, 53 miles to the north of Kuku-khoto, on the high road from that town to Uliassutai. The following morning all our camels, seven in number exclusive of a sick one, were allowed to graze near the tent not far