carrots, cabbages, and beans,
which were brought every day to market, showed the wonderful
possibilities for development along these lines. North of the
Bogdo-ol there is a superabundance of rain and vegetables grow so
rapidly in the rich soil that they are deliciously sweet and tender,
besides being of enormous size. While we were on the plains our food
had consisted largely of meat and we reveled in the change of diet. We
wished often for fruit but that is nonexistent in Mongolia except a
few, hard, watery pears, which merchants import from China.

Mr. Larsen was in Kalgan for the summer but Mr. Olufsen turned over
his house and compound for our work. I am afraid we bothered him
unmercifully, yet his good nature was unfailing and he was never too
busy to assist us in the innumerable details of packing the
specimens we had obtained upon the plains and in preparing for our
trip into the forests north of Urga. It is men like him who make
possible scientific work in remote corners of the world.

CHAPTER XI

MONGOLS AT HOME

Until we left Urga the second time Mongolia, to us, had meant only
the Gobi Desert and the boundless, rolling plains. When we set our
faces northward we found it was also a land of mountains and rivers,
of somber forests and gorgeous flowers.

A new forest always thrills me mightily. Be it of stately northern
pines, or a jungle tangle in the tropics, it is so filled with
glamour and mystery that I enter it with a delightful feeling of
expectation. There is so much that is concealed from view, it is so
pregnant with the possibility of surprises, that I am as excited as
a child on Christmas morning.

The forests of Mongolia were by no means disappointing. We entered
them just north of Urga where the Siberian life zone touches the
plains of the central Asian region and the beginnings of a new fauna
are sharply delineated by the limit of the trees. We had learned
that the Terelche River would offer a fruitful collecting ground. It
was only forty miles from Urga and the first day's trip was a
delight. We traveled northward up a branch valley enclosed by
forested hills and carpeted with flowers. Never had we seen such
flowers! Acre after acre of bluebells, forget-me-nots, daisies,
buttercups, and cowslips converted the entire valley into a vast
"old-fashioned garden," radiantly beautiful. Our camp that night was
at the base of a mountain called the Da Wat which shut us off from
the Terelche Riv