Across Mongolian Plains A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest'

Far up in northern Mongolia, where the forests stretch in an unbroken line to the Siberian frontier, lies Urga, the Sacred City of the Living Buddha. The world has other sacred...

Away up in northern China, just south of the Mongolian frontier, is a range of mountains inhabited by bands of wild sheep. They are wonderful animals, these sheep, with horns li...

The sunshine of an early spring day was flooding the flower-filled courtyards of Duke Tsai Tse's palace in Peking when Dr. G. D. Wilder, Everett Smith, and I alighted from our c...

Until we left Urga the second time Mongolia, to us, had meant only the Gobi Desert and the boundless, rolling plains. When we set our faces northward we found it was also a land...

On Monday, June 16, we left Urga to go south along the old caravan trail toward Kalgan. Only a few weeks earlier we had skimmed over the rolling surface in motor cars, crossing...

Shansi Province is famous for wild boar among the sportsmen of China. In the central part there are low mountains and deep ravines thickly forested with a scrub growth of pine a...

Our arrival in Urga was in the most approved manner of the twentieth century. We came in motor cars with much odor of gasoline and noise of horns. When we left the sacred city w...

Although we had seen nearly a dozen sheep where we killed our first three rams, the mountains were deserted when Harry returned the following morning. He hunted faithfully, but...

The next morning, ten miles from camp, we passed a party of Russians en route to Kalgan. They were sitting disconsolately beside two huge cars, patching tires and tightening bol...

Three days after the field meet we left with Tserin Dorchy and two other Mongols for a wapiti hunt. We rode along the Terelche River for three miles, sometimes splashing through...

It was eight o'clock before we finished breakfast in the morning, but we did not wish to begin the motion picture photography until the sun was high enough above the horizon to...

Careering madly in a motor car behind a herd of antelope fleeing like wind-blown ribbons across a desert which isn't a desert, past caravans of camels led by picturesque Mongol...

The winter of 1918-19 we spent in and out of one of the most interesting cities in the world. Peking, with its background of history made vividly real by its splendid walls, its...

This is a "hard luck" chapter. Stories of ill-fortune are not always interesting, but I am writing this one to show what can happen to an automobile in the Gobi. We had gone to...

After the first day we left the "American Legation" and moved camp to one of two villages at the upper end of the valley about a mile nearer the hunting grounds. There were only...

All the morning our carts had humped and rattled over the stones in a somber valley one hundred and fifty _li_[2] from where we had killed the sheep. With every mile the precipi...

would jerk his head erect and begin to pull gently at the reins; when I reached down to take my rifle from the holster, he would tremble with eagerness to be off.

Late on a July afternoon my wife and I stood disconsolately in the middle of the road on the outskirts of Urga. We had halted because the road had ended abruptly in a muddy rive...

I know of no other country about which there is so much _misinformation_ as about Mongolia. Because the Gobi Desert stretches through its center the popular conception appears t...

After ten days we left the "Antelope Camp" to visit the Turin plain where we had seen much game on the way to Urga. One by one our Mongol neighbors rode up to say "farewell," an...

A visit to Duke Tsai Tse--A "personality"--The _Tung Ling_--The road to the tombs--A country inn--The front view of the _Tung Ling_--The tombs of the Empress Dowager and Ch'ien...

A city of contrasts--The Chinese quarter like frontier America--A hamlet of modern Russia--An indescribable mixture of Mongolia, Russia and China in West Urga--Description of a...

The forests of Mongolia--A bad day's work--The Terelche River--Tserin Dorchy's family--A wild-wood romance--Evening in the valley--Doctoring the natives--A clever lama--A popula...

Brigands, Chinese soldiers and "battles"--The Mongolian sheep--Harry Caldwell--Difference between North and South China--The "dust age" in China--Inns--Brigand scouts--The Tai H...

Return trip--The "agony box"--The first accident--My Czech and Cossack passengers--The "agony box" breaks a wheel--A dry camp--More motor trouble--Meeting with Langdon Warner--O...

An ideal camp--The first wapiti--A roebuck--Currants and berries--Catching fish--Enormous trout--A rainy day in camp--A wapiti seen from camp--Mongolian weather--Flowers-- Beaut...

Wells in the desert--Panj-kiang--A lama monastery--A great herd of antelope--A wild chase--Long range shooting--Amazing speed--An exhibition of high-class running--Difficulties...

Arrival in Kalgan--The Hutukhtu's motor car--Start for the great plateau--Camel caravans--The pass--A motor car on the Mongolian plains--Start from Hei-ma-hou--Chinese cultivati...

An unexpected meeting with a river--Our new camp in Urga--"God's Brother's House"--Photographing in the Lama City--A critical moment--Help from Mr. Olufsen--The motion picture c...

Shansi Province famous for wild boar--Flesh delicious--When to hunt--Where to go--Inns and coal gas--Kao-chia-chuang--A long shot--Our camp at Tziloa--Native hunters--A young pi...

Mongol hospitality--Camping on the Turin Plains--An enormous herd of antelope--A wonderful ride--Three gazelle--A dry camp--My pony, Kublai Khan--Plains life about a well--Antel...

A long climb--Roebuck--An unsuspecting ram--My Mongol hunter--Donkeys instead of sheep--Two fine rams--The big one lost--A lecture on hunting--A night walk in the cañon--Command...

Trapping marmots--Skins valuable as furs--Native methods of hunting--A marmot dance--Habits--The first hunting-camp--Our Mongol neighbors--After antelope on horseback--The first...

Winter in Peking--We leave for Mongolia--Inner Mongolia in spring--Race with a camel--Geese and cranes--Gophers--An electric light in the desert--Chinese motor companies--An ant...

Beginning work--Carts--Ponies--Our interpreter--Mongol tent--Native clothes best for work--Supplies--How to keep "fit" in the field--Accidents--Sain Noin Khan--The first day--A...

Importance of Far East--Desert, plain, and water in Mongolia--The Gobi Desert--Agriculture--Pastoral products--Treatment of wool and camel hair--Marmots as a valuable asset--Urg...

Wu-Tai-Hai--The "American Legation"--Interior of a North Shansi house--North China villages--The people--"Horse-deer"--The names "wapiti" and "elk"--A great gorge--A rock temple...

Our camp in a new village--Game at our door--Concentration of animal life--Chinese roebuck--A splendid hunt--Goral--Difficult climbing--"Hide and seek" with a goral--The second...