Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/47

Rh mountains and affords pasturage for the numerous herds of cattle and sheep which the Kara-Khorch'in tribe of Mongols graze around their camps. Though long fingers of desert sands reach into this region, it is traversed by a few rivers which water it well enough to keep large areas of pasturage green. Perhaps the best feeding grounds of the whole border region between Manchuria and Mongolia lie between the Tolo and Shara Muren Rivers.

In Petuna the immense figures of the Kara-Khorch'ins, with their flat faces and their narrow slits of black eyes, attracted attention among the typical Chinese and Man- chus. They had round heads with short, stiff, bristling hair, and their feet appeared curved from the constant contact with the saddle.

In the course of my business, I made the acquaintance of the richest merchant of the town and heard from him some interesting law regarding these Kara-Khorch'ins. He told me that this tribe had often swept down toward the Great Wall, which protected China from the attacks of the northern barbarians. More than once the powerful Sons of Heaven feared that this warlike tribe would eventually threaten Peking itself, but the Khorch'ins drew away to the north and disappeared without trace in the prairies and wastes here between the Nonni and the Khingans.

But later, in the twelfth century, during the days of the Sung dynasty, they returned to visit the country with fire and sword. It was the time when the hordes of barbarous Khitans of the great Tungutze tribe began threatening Peking from the north. These wild, big-framed Khorch'ins, closely related to the Khitans, led the van and first carried murder and plunder beyond the Great Wall, scourging with their wild fury the settled