Suchow. From there we should have to enter the Dominion of Kuku Nor and
then work on southward to the head waters of the Yangtze River. Beyond
this I had but a hazy notion, which however I was able to verify from a
map of Asia in the possession of one of the officers, to the effect that
the mountain chains to the west of the sources of the Yangtze separated
that river system from the basin of the Brahmaputra in Tibet Proper,
where I expected to be able to find English assistance.


CHAPTER XV

THE MARCH OF GHOSTS


In no other way can I describe the journey from the River Ero to the
border of Tibet. About eleven hundred miles through the snowy steppes,
over mountains and across deserts we traveled in forty-eight days.
We hid from the people as we journeyed, made short stops in the most
desolate places, fed for whole weeks on nothing but raw, frozen meat in
order to avoid attracting attention by the smoke of fires. Whenever we
needed to purchase a sheep or a steer for our supply department, we sent
out only two unarmed men who represented to the natives that they were
the workmen of some Russian colonists. We even feared to shoot, although
we met a great herd of antelopes numbering as many as five thousand
head. Behind Balir in the lands of the Lama Jassaktu Khan, who had
inherited his throne as a result of the poisoning of his brother at Urga
by order of the Living Buddha, we met wandering Russian Tartars who had
driven their herds all the way from Altai and Abakan. They welcomed us
very cordially, gave us oxen and thirty-six bricks of tea. Also they
saved us from inevitable destruction, for they told us that at this