Part 4

The winter sun is late in penetrating the mountain valleys, which is perhaps the reason the Yögurs also are late in the mornings. As soon as they rise, tea is made in a big kettle, and is taken with roasted flour, and then the day's work begins. The cows are milked, snow is melted in a big kettle, cups and kettles are scrubbed with ashes, flour is ground, wood is chopped and the women busy themselves among the sheep. You see them, humming a scrap of song, making their way carefully through the tightly packed flock of sheep, carrying one or two lambs under their arms, kissing and caressing the bleating animals. The cattle are driven to the mountain slopes by the men, but all the small household duties go on unceasingly till the evening, when the sheep come home again and require attention. It is only when all the day's work is done, that dinner is first thought of. The Yögurs are quick at their work, talkative and amusing. You never hear quarrelling nor do you see dissatisfied faces. Their movements are not quick but this must be ascribed to their clumsy boots and heavy fur-coats, for you often see a man or woman running quickly and lightly down a steep mountain side. After dinner or rather supper, prayers are said, as I described, for quite half an hour, when the cups are scrubbed with ashes again, and talk and laughter goes on round the fire till late at night. They sleep, quite naked, each on his own blanket spread on the floor of the tent. Their furs are used as coverlets, though sometimes coverlets are made of wool covered with some of their homewoven cloth.

The tents they inhabit are considerably less comfortable than the Mongolian and Khirgis "yurts". They measure three to four strides in width but are so low that you cannot stand upright in them. Made of a coarse home-woven canvas-like material, of a greyish white colour with dark brown stripes, it is raised with the help of six poles, of which the two in the middle are joined by a crossbar. It is furnished on the outside with ropes, which fasten it to a low fence. During winter the tents are furnished with a low foundation of slender timbers, lying lengthwise and caulked with manure. This is not moved in their summer migrations. Along the top of the tent there is a long rectangular opening to allow the smoke to escape. In the centre of the tent stands the kettle on its bits of clay, opposite the door a couple of Buddhas, and some brass vessels on a low table and along the walls, the small collection of household utensils, blankets, saddles etc.

The live stock I saw, was good of its kind. The cattle were chiefly yak cows, grey and black, both with horns and hornless. The size varied very much, and you could see an undergrown little cow by the side of one well-worth being exhibited, as an exeptionally fine specimen. The milk had a good taste and a high percentage of fat. The sheep seemed larger than those of the other nomadic tribes in Tienshan and were not of the fat-tailed breed. -- The horses were small, fairly well proportioned, and strong, but not handsome. Most of them were knock-kneed. -- The dogs were chiefly Tangutan, large, dark-brown, long-haired, very fine animals. -- The Yögurs complained of their many sufferings during the protracted Dungan revolt, especially of their loss of cattle, and that since that time they had never regained the same degree of prosperity.

We spent New Year's Day in rifle practice. The t'umu had never fired a shot and had not the very faintest idea of handling a gun. He screwed up both eyes in the funniest manner when I made him try to shoot from a rest with a Berdan gun which I had given him. There is no sport worth mentioning among the Yögurs. Their fire arms are brought from Sining and are of the usual type found in Central Asia, with a moveable fork-like rest and a fuse.

There did not seem to be much game either in the neigbourhood, nothing in the way to be seen but so called "kekliks" (mountain grouse) and big vultures -- the Yögur grave diggers. Hares and wolves were said to exist, and bears, in summer, but you never heard of the ibex, the wild goat and other animals which are usual in the Tienshan heights. The wild yak is found further south. I saw no traps or snares, except wolf traps. They were round, with two strong springs attached at opposite sides of the circle, which by the aid of two running rings caused the two segments of the circle to close with force. They were placed over a piece of cloth drawn over a wand, also bent into a circle of the same size. A peg fastened to the outer circumference was threaded through a loop in the centre of the circle, and kept the trap open till something, trampling on the cloth, caused the peg to fly out of the loop. -- You heard of no manly sports, and if games or races did take place, they were not of the same extent, nor were they considered of so much importance as among the Kalmucks and Khirgis.

Unfortunately I cannot add anything regarding the superstitious customs of these tribes to the very interesting statements which were published by Potanin in his book of travels. Either they would not initiate me into these things or they were really free from superstition. They pretended not to attach importance to dreams. They begged me not to bring indoors an enormous old vulture which I shot, and they carefully buried any scraps of meat found in the neighbourhood of the tent, but remembering that the vultures eat the bodies of their dead, this seems very natural.

During four months of the Chinese year, they gather together for the purpose of chanting prayers at the "praying places" -- the heaps of stones and tall poles, raised in the mountains, which I have described before. At one of the heaps, raised in honour of the cattle god, prayers are offered for the health and welfare of the cattle.

It was with real feelings of regret that, on the 2nd of January, I left my hospitable hosts, the Shera Yögurs, and their little home imbedded among the grassy hills, where we had spent such a pleasant New Year's Day. All the men assembled round the saddled horses, to wish us farewell. One held my horse's bridle, another the stirrup, a third gave me a helping push into the saddle, while a fourth stood on the other side ready to prevent me from overbalancing myself. As we rode past the flocks of sheep where the women were busy with their usual work, I reined iu my horse and shouted them a loud _tshuavá_ and _sujá_ (thanks -- and -- goodbye), which evidently pleased them, judging by the smile I received from the bright eyes of the _t'umu's_ adopted daughter -- bright dark eyes, into the depths of which both Lukanin, my Cossack, and I, were tempted to gaze too long.

The valley of the _Kluadjek-gol_ opened at a short distance from the _t'umu's_ home, into another, _Mör-gol_, where there were only traces left of the river's course. We followed this narrow valley with its steep grassy slopes in a NNW and N direction. A little higher the surface of the rock was often visible. For a short distance the hills were of a considerable height, but soon sank again, and after a ride of seven km our direction was NNE and our road followed a water course, with cakes of ice lying here and there. Four km further on the valley which now bears the name _Talipin-gol_ began to widen and the hills on both sides rose imposingly. Another half hour's ride brought us to the great _Lansor's_ or _Neiman-gol_ valley in which the river forming a wide bend, open to the north, pours its waters over a broad stony bed, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred and fifty fathoms wide, through one principal channel and several smaller ones. Along both shores rose steep picturesque heights, of which those on the left shore were of a warm terra-cotta red colour. We rode down the river in a north-easterly direction following a road made along its right shore by doukey caravans carrying coal. The bright-coloured cliffs hung closely over the river-bed. High and steep on both shores, they precipitate themselves headlong down to the water along the left shore. Encircling a wide cultivated plain the hills retreat, again to encroach upon the river some kilometres further to the NE. Amid groups of trees and small fields the towers and embattled walls of a Chinese town delineate themselves against the red background of hills on the left shore of the river. We had arrived at the little town _Li-yen_, a name which in Chinese means "the garden of peartrees" -- which name the place really deserves for its good fruit-trees -- pear, apricot and nut. Twenty years ago it was visited by _Potanin's_ expedition, when on his return to Russia he crossed the Yögur country, and nothing can have changed since then in the picturesque little place, where it lies encircled by tall willow trees, in the close embrace of the heights surrounding it. The yamen (the official building of the mandarin) destroyed in the Dungan revolt, still lies half in ruins, the small temples built high on the steep rocks are still there -- yes, all is the same, even the reception accorded me was like that discribed by _Potanin_. The friendly old mandarin was evidently, like his predecessor twenty years ago, glad to see the face of a stranger, there were no bounds to his courteous attentions. He sent me a delicious dinner, cooked, as I heard later, by himself, when, in consequence of feeling ill and tired, I was obliged to refuse his kind invitation to dine with him. The shark fins tasted splendidly and when, next morning, during a farewell call, his beautiful fur cape excited my admiration the deaf old gentlemen's politeness went so far as to promise me on my next visit (!) five sable skins -- one of those so characteristic civilities of the Chinese, "qui n'obligent à rien et qui font toujours plaisir". On the following day we rode to _Kanchenp'u_, and from there along the road we had followed earlier, to _Kanchow_.