journeyings we had, indeed, on several
occasions observed eagles hovering over our heads at meal-times, but no
accident of this kind had occurred; probably the royal birds had scorned
our mere oatmeal repasts.

You see the eagle almost everywhere throughout the deserts of Tartary;
sometimes hovering and making large circles in the air, sometimes perched
upon a rising ground, motionless as the hillock itself. No one in these
countries hunts the eagle or molests it in any way; it may make its nest
where it pleases, and there bring up its eaglets, and itself grow old,
without being in the smallest degree interfered with by man. You often
see before you an eagle resting on the plain, and looking there larger
than a sheep; as you approach, before rising, it leisurely moves along
the ground, beating its wings, and then, by degrees ascending, it attains
the altitude where it can fly in all its grandeur and power.

After several days journey we quitted the country of the Eight Banners
and entered Western Toumet. At the time of the conquest of China by the
Mantchous, the king of Toumet, having distinguished himself in the
expedition as an auxiliary of the invaders, the conqueror, in order to
evince his gratitude for the services which the prince had rendered him,
gave him the fine districts situated north of Peking, beyond the Great
Wall. From that period they have borne the name of Eastern Toumet, and
Old Toumet took that of Western Toumet; the two Toumets are separated
from each other by the Tchakar River.

The Mongol Tartars of Western Toumet do not lead the pastoral and nomadic
life; they cultivate their lands and apply themselves to the arts of
civilized nations. We had been for nearly a month traversing the desert,
setting-up our tent for the night in the first convenient place we found,
and accustomed to see nothing but, above us the sky, and below and around
us interminable prairies. We had long, as it were, broken with the
world, for all we had seen of mankind had been a few Tartar horsemen
dashing across the Land of Grass, like so many birds of passage. Without
suspecting it, our tastes had insensibly become modified, and the desert
of Mongolia had created in us a temperament friendly to the tranquillity
of solitude. When, therefore, we found ourselves amid the cultivation,
the movement, the bustle, the confusion of civilized existence, we felt,
as it were, oppressed, suffocated; we seemed gasping for breath,