favourably as to its inn accommoda- | asked the way, did he dismount? tion and general pleasantness, should have made such an unfavourable impression on Col. Prejevalsky; and one is all the more astonished at it, when it is remembered that the Colonel, when he traversed the road, was about to enter upon a long and arduous journey, in which there would be abundance of real difficulties and hardships, such as ordinary travellers perhaps seldom meet. When the Colonel has to endure hardness, where many people find only pleasure and enjoyment, it is impossible not to think, that he might have got on more smoothly and pleasantly in later parts of his travels, if he had only known more of the language, and been able to adapt himself more to the manners and customs of the people of the country. What made the journey from Kalgan to Peking unpleasant may have been his admitted ignorance of the language, coupled with the fact, that while Chinese usually accomplish the distance in five days, Russians insist on doing it in four. Travelling extra stages brings the traveller in late, when sometimes he may find the good inns occupied; and if he does not know enough of the language to have it explained to him, it is possible to conceive how he might think himself badly used by the natives, when all the trouble may be caused by his starting so late and insisting on travelling so far. Just one word more in this connexion. Col. Prejevalsky mentions the fact that he and his companion had great difficulty in the course of his more distant travels, in inducing natives to point out the way. Now it may be asked when he, or his companion, or whoever it was, This etiquette of dismounting from horseback, or alighting from a cart when asking the road, is always, in north China strongly insisted on by the Chinese, and very frequently disregarded by foreigners. There are not wanting instances when a foreigner, thoughtlessly sitting on the shaft of his cart, has asked the way and been met with affronted silence, or been misdirected altogether. On the other hand, one foreigner can testify, that in the course of a long journey in an unknown country, he cannot remember a single instance in which ready and full directions about the road were not willingly given, when either he or his carter alighted, and having used a polite phrase as introduction, made any necessary enquiry. From the narrative it does not appear, whether or not Col. Prejevalsky was in the habit of dismounting when he asked the road. If he did not, it was not at all strange that he had difficulty in getting directions. It may be thought that this was not an important point. Quite so, but it is really wonderful how a knowledge of and attention to such seeming trifles, may obviate what might otherwise prove formidable obstacles; and it is also very probable, that foreigners sometimes get wrong impressions of the natives, supposing that they are hostile when they are only huffed at some lack of politeness of which the traveller is unwittingly guilty. And now about the more strictly Mongolian part of the book. Col. Prejevalsky brings up the tree question. Speaking of Gobi he says :-" Of trees and bushes there are absolutely none; indeed how could there be in such a region? Putting out of question the natural impediments to vegetation, the winds of winter and spring blow day after day with such violence, that you see even the humble shrubs of wormwood uprooted by them, wrapped into bundles, and rolled across the barren plain." Great part of Mongolia is a treeless land, and the question is often asked, why do not trees grow? Ask the Mongols and they say, that cattle would eat them down; so there can be no trees. Ask Col. Prejevalsky, and he seems to blame the wind. Both answers are unsatisfactory. Leaving Gobi aside, as being more hopeless than other parts of Mongolia, how about less rigorous parts of the country, which are equally treeless. It is hard to believe that cattle could keep an entire country bare of trees, if the trees found a congenial soil to grow in; and yet it is notorious, that at temples for example, when trees are planted and protected, they grow and seem to thrive; though beyond the protected spot, there is not a tree within the range of the horizon. The truth seems to be, that the soil and climate are not very tempting to timber, and this combined with the rough blasts and the hungry cattle in winter, render tree life difficult. The trees that here and there do grow under special protection, and very occasionally even unprotected, seem to prove that a little industry and care would make Mongolia pretty respectable as regards woods; but the Mongols have such slight attachments to places, and are so destitute of enterprise, that they are content to let things remain as they find them. Not long ago a Mongol, when asked why he did not plant an orchard, replied, "If I did, would I eat the fruit ?" The idea of planting trees for other people's benefit seemed ridiculous. So much for trees. There is another question which Col. Prejevalsky raises and summarily dismisses. It is the woman question. He says:-"The women are far less numerous than the men, a fact which is accounted for by the celibacy of the lamas." Unfortunately the question cannot be thus easily settled. To put it more fully, the problem is this. About half the male population of Mongolia are lamas, who do not marry; how then do the women get husbands? There are, roughly speaking-husbands for about one half of the number; how about the other half. Very few women become old maids, and there is no room for suspecting the Mongols of infanticide. Polygamy is allowed and respectable, but not very common. Why then is there not a host of old maids? Col. Prejevalsky says, that the celibacy of the lamas makes the women few. How can it? It might— perhaps does-reduce the population; but how can it affect the proportion of male births? It does not affect the proportion of boys and girls that are born. In Mongolia, as elsewhere, the boys and girls born are about equal in number, but there comes the mystery. Only-say half -of the males marry; and among the women there are few that do not marry. In some parts of Mongolia, a traveller may see almost as many old maids as may be seen in England for example; but there are extensive tracts of country where a full grown unmarried woman is quite a rarity ments which, although they contain some truth,--would be more valuable and more correct if he were a little more cautious and less sweeping. For example, the nature and extent of Chinese impositions on the simple and superstitious Mongols are overdrawn. The Mongol is simple and he is cheated, but not quite to the extent Col. Prejevalsky's representation of the matter would lead one to suppose. Again speaking of tea in Mongolia, he says:-"The mode of preparation is disgusting; the vessel in which the tea is boiled is never cleansed, and is occasionally scrubbed with argols, i. e. dried horse or cow dung. Salt water is generally used, but if unobtainable, salt is added.. The reader may How does it happen? The reason Col. Prejevalsky makes some stateseems to be, that though comparatively few men are polygamists, yet most men marry two or more wives in their life-time. The drudgery, the poor clothing, the poor house accommodation, the poor medical help at critical periods, that fall to the lot of Mongol women, seem to kill them off, and give them a short life. A foreigner travelling in Mongolia with his wife, was once asked how old he was, then how old his wife was. Finding a difference of ten years in the age of husband and wife, the Mongol at once asked, "How about your first wife?" and only with difficulty allowed himself to be persuaded that the wife then in question was the first and only one. This was the key to the solution of the mystery; and it is quite astonishing to find, among a large acquaintance, how many middle-aged Mongols there are who have outlived their first wife, and promise fair to outlive their second or third even. In a pretty extensive circle of acquaintances, three can be quoted who did not marry a second time. Of these, two never got the chance, as their wives survived them; and the third though left a widower, was so poor that he could not afford to marry again. Then again a few lamas do marry, and a few richer men do have more than one wife at the same time; but both these classes are comparatively few, and the real reason that a hundred women can marry fifty men seems-to put it broadly-to be, that a woman's life in Mongolia is only about half as long as a man's. Many exceptions can be quoted to this rule; but it is to be feared that generally speaking, this statement of the case is only too correct. Mon now imagine what a revolting com- use dirty water because they can get no other, but a Mongol would be as much astonished to hear it said that they use salt water for tea, as we are when so informed. It is not impossible that Col. Prejevalsky fell in with some Mongols who used salt water for tea, but it is quite a mistake to make such an assertion about Mongols generally. As to putting salt into the tea, that is quite correct when said of the Chakhars, but it is not true of the Khalkas; and even among the Chakhars, the salt is not added (usually at least) when the tea is boiled, but when it is reheated for drinking. A Chakhar woman, knowing their own tribal partiality for salt, usually asks a visitor whether he takes salt to his tea or not before adding it; just as a foreign lady asks her guests at the tea table if they take their tea with sugar. Mongol tea is not up to much at the best, but to call it "a revolting compound of nastiness" is certainly putting it rather strongly. he can live days without food, yet when once he gets it, he will eat enough for seven." Col. Prejevalsky must surely have fallen in with remarkable specimens of the natives. The above paragraph was translated to a Mongol of good intelligence, and the astonishment it gave rise to in him, was almost as great as any foreigner may be supposed to feel on reading such a description of Mongol capacity. As another example of incautious statement, take the following:-"He [the Mongol] loves and cherishes his animals. Nothing will induce him to saddle a camel or horse under a certain age; no money will buy his lambs or calves, which he considers it wrong to kill before they are full grown." As to the lambs and calves, he will not sell them, because a Mongol cow without her calf gives no milk. The case of the lamb is possibly the same, because sheep in Mongolia are carefully milked. To sell a lamb or calf would be to cause the loss of a seaAs to the eating of the Mongols, son's milk of a sheep or cow; so he Col. Prejevalsky says that they will not sell the one or the other. have no regular meals, but eat when If however he has plenty of sheep they can. Now on a journey it and cows to keep him and his housemay be true that they eat when cir- hold in milk, a Mongol will readily cumstances permit, but in many sell a cow and her calf, or a sheep tents at least, there is a distinctly and her lamb to any who is ready recognized and well-known time for to buy. Thus, though a Mongol meals. As to the quantity, Col. will not sell a lamb or calf alone, it Prejevalsky says:-"The gluttony is not because he loves and pities of this people exceeds all descrip- them, but because it would entail tion. A Mongol will eat more a pecuniary loss. So that as far as than ten pounds of meat at one sit- lambs and calves are concerned, his ting, but some have been known to tenderness proceeds, not from pity devour an average-sized sheep in and love, but from self-interest. twenty-four hours. On a journey, "Nothing will induce him to saddle when provisions are economized, a camel or horse under a certain a leg of mutton is the ordinary daily age," says Col. Prejevalsky. Yes, ration for one man, and, although but under what age? The Mongols say that colts are saddled when charges are repeated. Now it is twelve months old; sometimes even quite true that the Chakhars and sooner, and camels are ridden-not Khalkas differ in many respects— loaded when about eighteen months in some widely-but after reading old. Leaving the camel out of the such a paragraph as that given above, question, observation seems to verify a traveller would expect as soon as the painfully early age at which he set foot in the country of the colts are ridden; and many a time Mongol Chakhars, to see some will a foreigner in Mongolia be instances of these frequent interdistressed to see a poor little feeble- marriages, and to see some of these looking young colt, under a great Erlidzi running about; but the heavy Mongol, urging it on and fact is, that a man may travel and lashing it mercilessly. A few sights live for months in the Chakhar like this, 'which are not uncommon, country and never once see a Mongol would make an observant man speak who has married a Chinese wife, or with less enthusiasm of the love meet with one single child the offwith which the Mongol cherishes his spring of such a union. It is said animals. Let these suffice as sam- that there are patches of country on ples of unguarded statements, which the Chinese frontiers, where there should be received with caution. are such Mongols and such mongrel children; but speaking generally, as Col. Prejevalsky here does, of the Chakhars as a whole, it is altogether a mistake to say that such · marriages are frequent; and it is altogether an error to designate the Chakhars as mongrels. One foreigner, who has travelled much at various times in the Chakhar country, cannot remember meeting with a single case of a Mongol-Chinese marriage, or with a single child the offspring of such a marriage. It is admitted that there are said to be places where such marriages are known, but to state that such marriages are frequent in the Chakhar country generally, is quite a mistake; and to call the Chakhars degenerate mongrels is simply misrepresentation. The Chakhars do differ from the Khalkas in many points. How this difference is to be accounted for, there is not room here to discuss; but any one at all acquainted with the Chakhars will be slow to receive as an explanation, the state Col. Prejevalsky seems to have been unfavourably impressed with the Chakhars. He says, "Owing to their constant intercourse with the Chinese, the Chakhars of the present day have lost, not only the character, but also the type of pure Mongols. Preserving the native idleness of their past existence, they have adopted from the Chinese only the worst features of their character, and are degenerate mongrels, without either the honesty of the Mongol or the industry of the Chinaman. The dress of the Chakhars is the same as that worn by the Chinese, whom they resemble in features, having generally a drawn or angular, rather than a flat or round face. This change of type is produced by frequent intermarriages between the Chakhar men and Chinese women. The offspring of these unions is called Erlidzi. Other Mongols, particularly the Khalkas, detest them as much as they do the Chinese." In another part of the book the same |