The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1901-09-22

sure 10 get q ready SAFE . lheH bOouSs
either selling them for Chinese currency.
silver or golddust, or exchanging them
for Others by way of barter. generally the
latter. Those who sell their goods for
money attend the market daily, and when
they have completed their sale, buy at once
the goods or wares they want and return
home. Such is the way of the small trad
ers. who are. nine out Of ten. women. and
como principally from the western part
Of the Ursula. They carry their goods on
their heads in packages from sixty TO
eighty and a hundred pounds weight. The
goods these people principally bring are
salt, skins, furs and musk, taking in ex-
change cloth, boots and guns. A yard of
unwrought silk Of various cOlors. princi-
pally red, of about one ounce in weight, Is
sold here for a quarter of an ounce of gold
dust or its equivalent.
The caravans from Sung-p'an. Tokir.
Lan-Chou and Kung-Chang, which always
halt here a considerable time. bring duba
cloth Of various colors, unwrOught silk,
tea, beads for rosaries, swords. knives,
pigments for dyeing the faces and eyelids
OF the women, and a few matchlocks, al
though in the disposal of the latter con-
siderable care is taken into whose hands
these warlike instruments fall, since it
would hardly be an expedient policy to
trade them with Golok nomads to be
eventually turned against their disposers.
L was not able to gain corroborative Of
fetal evidence. but from some of the ma
tives 1 learned that a considerable slave
trade is carried on by the Chinese traders,
who purchase young girls as servants for
some of the weather. officials of the pre-
fectual cities to the east. The larger
traders, during their stay, stop in the
village in the houses of their friends and
acquaintance, and give them a small
present on their arrival and departure for
the use of the house. The itinerant pedlars
stop outside the walls in small tents or
wayside houses. which they erect them
selves, selling their goods and wares in
these houses or tents; the small wares they
send TO the market, intrusting them to ma
tive male and female brokers to sell.
THE TEA OF COMMERCE.
Tea forms one of the principal articles of
throughout Thibet and Mon
golia. The native is miserable without it.
and when it cannot be obtained is willing
TO cheat himself by various expedients,
such as boiling dried onion-heads, herbs,
or even an infusion of chips of wood in
water, in order that he may not be, at
least, without a suggestion of his favorite
beverage. The tea imported from China is
pressed into small oblong-shaped bricks,
made up into cases of nine bricks, securely
sewn in rawhide. and is not only used as a
beverage, but in fact forms a staple OF
currency as negotiable as Bank of England
notes or American paper currency.
The native method of preparing this deli
cacy is not of a kind that would commend
s4--re 4 ILL s-- NJ 80 - G-,&
ground to a fine powder by vigorously
pounding 1t in a mortar until no splints of
wood or other impurities are visible to the
eye; it is then put into the kettle, when the
water is hot, to boil for five or ten min
utes, by way of giving increased flavor,
salt or soda is added, and this part of the
operation being completed the all-impor-
tant business of drinking it commences.
The family being gathered round the fire of
Yak dung, in order that atmosphere, as
the painters would say, should not be lack
ing, each one draws from some hidden re-
cess in the folds of his voluminous gar
ment a little wooden bowl, and with a sat
isfaction which must be seen to be APP
preciated. fills his private dish with the
liquid. All this, however, is but by way of
preliminary. From a sheepskin full of but
NCis HldCCd Within yin ans CdSA
takes a small piece of the oleaginous COM
pound and lets it melt in his bow of steam
ing tea. Then, oh joy! oh rapture! with
furtive grasp he draws the nectar to his
lips and heaven is opened unto him." The
BOWL is again filled, into the steaming liquid
he throws a handful of tsamba, and draw
ing forth the sodden lump works it into a
ball of brown dough with a deft movement
Of HE 1aff hand nn1 crrnnnCCfxra1y hifne n
pieces of this delicacy and drinks his but
tered tea until the supply has vanished.
when, in order that his table etiquette may
not be im%pugned, he ticks his bow clean,
and puts it back in his gown, there to re-
main until gods and fate shall again be-
come propitious.
On the 9th we struck more easterly from
Kui-Takar, over rough and stony ground,
which was barren and scantily inhabited,
with numerous small dome-shaped hills,
covered with sickly and dwarfed bushes, a
thin forest of juniper and cedar spreading
out on either hand. leafess, decaying and
dead. Within two hours, however, we
reached the base of the Char-Tao plateau,
assembled a gradual slope to the summit,
about five hundred feet higher than the
valley of the Takar-Mak, and after travel
ing until 3 o'clock over a rolling surface
of snow-covered moor, thickly populated
with small Golok encampments, we arrived
at Areki-Tang. During our journey Of
twenty miles 1 counted no less than thirty
small streams, flowing generally northeast
into the larger stream of the Ou-Tao, none
of them over fifty feet wide and very shall
low. most Of which took their rise in three
small lakes a few miles to the south. These
were so small and insignificant that we
did not take the trouble TO visit them, the
largest approximately being about a mile
in circumference. This was an exception
ally trying days march, and, thoroughly
tired out in body and spirit, the sense Of
relief when the dingy mud wall of Areki-
Tang came into view was inexpressible.
A THRIFT1ER VILLAGE.
This village turned out a most agreeable
disappointment. We had imagined that we
should here find reflected the squalor and
Indebtedness of the miserable natives of
the surrounding district. and no improve
ment in the villages we had seen during
several preceding weeks. Instead, we
found it a good-sized village of over a
hundred houses, nearly half OF which were
of the Thibetan style OF architecture. and
two stories in height. On a small hill &c
the left OF the town. about a mile removed
from the stream OF the Ou-Tao, was a pre-