We were glad, indeed, to see the sun again next morning, when at last it burst up like the exhaust from a puddling furnace over the low, level horizon. Already we had bumped our way back to the “highway,” as worthy of the name as the _caminos reales_, the “royal roads,” of South America are of theirs, and had sped some distance along it. The eyes suffered most in this glaring light and the incessant strong head wind from which nothing short of entirely wrapping up the head could protect them. The constant bumping and tossing made up for any lack of exercise. Among myriad rock-heaps, natural and prayerful, we crossed the frontier between Inner and Outer Mongolia, marked merely by two huger stone-heaps on either side of the there sunken trail, the summits connected by a wire from which hung tattered bits of cloth prayers and various mementos of the pious, culminating in a weather-beaten straw hat of Chinese make. That was all, except the immensity of the desert, for the frontier-station was still about fifty miles distant. Then the rock-heaps died out, and the earth as far as we could see it was thickly covered with millions of little mounds, like untended Chinese graves, with hints of scanty tuft-grass on top of them. At long intervals we passed a caravan, the dull-toned notes of the bell-camels reaching our ears momentarily as we dashed past. The first camel of one long train carried the American flag at his masthead, so to speak, to warn would-be marauders that the hides and wool behind him were under whatever protection our consuls and diplomats in the former Chinese Empire have to offer. Otherwise the world about us was mainly a confirmation of the fact that, while China proper estimates the density of her population at two hundred and twenty-five to the square mile, Mongolia’s is rated at two.
Were the world not so slow to accept geographical changes, even in these days of the constant remaking of maps, we should long since have ceased to distinguish between Mongolia and China “proper.” Though the Chinese Republic claims, and to a certain extent maintains, the loyalty of that strip of earth bordering her on the north and known as Inner Mongolia, the vast region we call Outer Mongolia cast off Chinese rule a decade ago. More exactly, it never was under Chinese rule, at least in modern times, for barely had their kindred Manchus been driven from the throne of China than the Mongols asserted their independence from the new-formed republic. That was why we Americans had looked forward with some misgiving to our arrival in Ude, which occurred early on this third day. Ude consists of half a dozen _yourts_ and a new mud-walled telegraph station, a desolate spot, owing its location to a near-by water-hole. But it is the place where the merits or demerits of persons entering Outer Mongolia from China are passed upon—passed upon by unpolished Mongols who have little knowledge of, and less interest in, the way such things are handled at other boundaries between the countries of the globe. The Russians had no misgivings; while men of their race would not willingly have traveled to Urga eighteen months before, they were now, as it were, among their own people. But, for reasons which will in due time be apparent, there is just now a certain lack of welcome in Mongolia toward Americans, in which the British and certain other important nationalities share. Less than a month before, two Englishmen in their own car had been halted at Ude and refused admission to the land beyond, eventually giving up lengthy and useless negotiations to have this decision reversed, and returning to China. We had no “papers” calling upon Mongolia to admit us. Our legation in Peking had only been able to tell us that, if our passports were sent to the Chinese foreign office, they would be returned—long afterward—with the information that, while Mongolia was still Chinese territory, it was in the hands of rebels—they might even have called them bandits—and since the Chinese Republic could not guarantee the safety of foreigners in that region, they could not consent to our traveling there, even to the extent of giving us a visé. The Mongols themselves have no accredited representative in China, naturally, and while certain other agents in Peking might have smoothed things over for us if they had wished, it is their policy to pretend that they and those they represent have no real power in Mongolia, apparently in the hope of keeping the world ignorant as long as possible of their doings in that region. It is customary, therefore, for those citizens of Western nations who wish to enter Outer Mongolia to pick up their traps and go, regardless of legal permissions.