One hears much from travellers in Mongolia of the charm and comfort of life in a yurt. Having bumped my head no less than three times against the lintel of the doors which are less than half the height of an ordinary civilized door, IT consider the praise of the yurt somewhat overdone. All the more, when I heard that they are very diMeult to keep warm in winter, when a strong wind Is Blowing.
Having exhausted the sights of Pallingmiao easily within half a day we prepared for the return journey. 'A violent dust-storm was raging when we started, And it was pleasant to note, as illustrating the human fondness' for attributing the ills of life to some one else, that while we in Peiping talk learnedly of the dust-storms from Mongolia, or even from the Gobi, the people of Pailingmiao called it "Chinese dust."
'As we were leaving behind the large car that we had convoyed up and were returning alone. my companion was even surer than ever of his estimate of six hours. Despite' all experience I was almost persuaded and pictured to myself a comfort-bed that night at Suiyan. Alas for human ealculations—as agains the perversity of motorcars in this country—our ear which had taken us up without giving any signs of trouble, started to go wrong from the very beginning. Finally about 9 pin. in pitch darkness anda raging snowstorm—It was May 22—our lights gave out and the car came to a dead stop in a wild, stony valley, on the wrong side of the pass.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.