XXIII Life in a Khalkha Steppe Lamasery

In August, September, and October, 1913, I was engaged on one of a series of journeys in Mongolia, which I hope, if I am given the opportunity to complete them, will enable me to collect sufficient data for a work about this little-known country and its people, a subject upon which English literature is perhaps even poorer than that of the other Western European nations, and certainly far poorer than that of Kussia. The particular journey in question started at Hailar, in Barga, and was pursued via the valley of the Kerulen River and Urga to the Mongolyor Goldfields on the Upper Iro and thence to Kiakhta, where modern means of travel again became available for the return to Peking. During this journey I saw a great variety of lamaseries and temples; I had as my constant and only companions two lamas, and for a week I lived continuously in a lamasery in the room of a lama. I was thus able to observe a large number of facts, some of which may be of interest to students of Lamaism, even if only as having been noted in a remote corner of the vast domain of the Yellow Faith, where, unlike Tibet, Englishspeaking people have seldom travelled

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