Viewing page 22 of 155

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

Page 7)

The icecold water after the heat on top was too much for the bottles. There was nothing for us to do but walk back to the station and drink hot tea made from alkali water instead of nice cold beer. 

There is even a telegraph station at Panghsian but the service is rather uncertain. Any big rainstorm or any cow that wants to scratch its back, will bring down a few telegraph poles and it sometimes days ^[[or]] weeks before the damage is repaired. 

From Panghsian you get to Erhlien, the center of the Gobi. That part of the road is the most miserable, hot, dusty, [[underlined]] a very bad road [[/underlined]]. You are glad to get to that small station, that last one on Chinese territory. There too is a telegraph station with a nice old Chinese station master, all during the 10 years, during which I have been to and from Mongolia I have always met the same old chap. It must be very monotonous for him, the only pastime he has is collecting, catching and skinning all sorts of animals, which live around his station. But they are very few anyhow, just a few ravens, crows, antelopes, rats and field mice. The station master even has a few chickens, how he feeds them is a mystery to me, for nothing grows near his house. 

When through traffic was going on between Inner and Outer Mongolia the cars went straight to the frontier station in Outer Mongolia, by the name of Udde, but the last time I went the [[strikethrough]] [[?]] [[/strikethrough]] chauffeur refused to go as far as Udde but would only take me to a small monast^[[e]]ry named Baitsemiau, still on Inner Mongolian Territory. There is quite a big Mongolian Temple there, as the name expresses White Temple and some Chinese merchants are living near to it. I put up there for the night and in the morning managed to hire two oxcarts for my luggage and for the luggage of my 3 Chinese. The cartdrivers however would not go on Outer Mongolian Territory but I got them to go as far as the first Mongolian Soldier camp afterwards anyhow. It took us 2 hours to walk to the actual frontier, there I left my carts and walked over with my Chinese interprete^[[e]]r. When we got near to the few  soldier tents, the Mongols