incomparable horseman had made the journey between Uliassutai and
Peking, that is 1,800 miles, in nine days, incredible as it may seem. He
prepared himself for the journey by binding all his abdomen and chest,
legs, arms and neck with strong cotton bandages to protect himself from
the wracks and strains of such a period in the saddle. In his cap he
bore three eagle feathers as a token that he had received orders to fly
like a bird. Armed with a special document called a tzara, which gave
him the right to receive at all post stations the best horses, one
to ride and one fully saddled to lead as a change, together with two
oulatchen or guards to accompany him and bring back the horses from the
next station or ourton, he made the distance of from fifteen to thirty
miles between stations at full gallop, stopping only long enough to have
the horses and guards changed before he was off again. Ahead of him rode
one oulatchen with the best horses to enable him to announce and prepare
in advance the complement of steeds at the next station. Each oulatchen
had three horses in all, so that he could swing from one that had given
out and release him to graze until his return to pick him up and lead or
ride him back home. At every third ourton, without leaving his saddle,
he received a cup of hot green tea with salt and continued his race
southward. After seventeen or eighteen hours of such riding he stopped
at the ourton for the night or what was left of it, devoured a leg of
boiled mutton and slept. Thus he ate once a day and five times a day had
tea; and so he traveled for nine days!

With this servant we moved out one cold winter morning in the direction
of Kobdo, just over three hundred miles, because from there we had
received the disquieting rumours that the Red troops had entered
Ulankom and that the Chinese authorities had handed over to them all the
Europeans in the town. We crossed the River Dzaphin on the ice. It is a
terrible stream. Its bed is full of quicksands, which in summer suck