Their bodies could be seen as the dirt road crossed a wide plain flanked by bare stone cliffs. Some had been skinned by herdsmen, looking for something to sell for cash. The carcasses were being pecked clean by white hawks. The Land Cruiser's headlights caught brief glimpses of death - a young cow flailing on folded back legs, a pony perfectly upright by the road's edge, still kneeling where it had collapsed in exhaustion. Nearby, other ponies grazed hopelessly, pawing at the ice with their front hooves.
Mongolian ponies are stocky, incredibly strong for their small size.
They are prehistoric-looking animals, with long manes over thick brown or black fur and large, ugly heads, like the horses in cave paintings. But these ponies were starving, their ribs showing through skins mottled white with frost. Snow fell very early last autumn, so that it later melted, only to freeze again as a hard sheet of ice, preventing animals from finding the grass beneath. There was little grass in the first place, thanks to the drought last summer. Seven decades of communism could not stamp out the culture of Mongolia's horsemen, could not erase their pride as the natural aristocrats of the steppes, men who once struck fear across half the world.