Sport and Science on the Sino-Mongolian Frontier

Sport and Science on the Sino-Mongolian Frontier

The work chronicles a series of naturalist expeditions and sporting journeys undertaken along the borderlands between China and Mongolia in the first decade of the twentieth century, combining firsthand accounts of zoological collecting with vivid descriptions of hunting, travel hardship, and encounters with local peoples. The narrative opens with an account of a collaborative expedition into the Ordos Desert, a vast sandy wilderness enclosed within a loop of the Yellow River and separated from the Chinese province of Shensi by the Great Wall. The author joins a colleague engaged in collecting mammals for a major natural history institution, and together they travel southwest from T'ai-yüan Fu in Shansi province, passing through loess hill country, collecting specimens of rodents and other small mammals at various stopping points. They document new species and subspecies, noting that animals inhabiting sandy and desert-margin environments display a characteristic paling of coloration relative to kindred forms from forested regions further south and east. After penetrating the Ordos itself, the expeditioners encounter Mongol encampments, observe the customs and superstitions of the desert-dwelling Tartars, and struggle with sand, thirst, and inhospitable terrain. They secure jerboas, hedgehogs, sand hamsters, gerbils, and ground squirrels, several of which prove new to science. After reprovisioning at the border town of Yü-lin Fu, they complete a circuit of over a thousand miles, returning with a substantial collection that yields a significant number of species previously unknown to zoology. A subsequent series of expeditions is undertaken with the author's wife as companion. These journeys concentrate on the upper reaches of the Fên River in Shansi, the mountains west of T'ai-yüan Fu, and the plains around Wu-tsai. Winter travel along frozen river valleys and icy mountain paths provides the setting for extensive pig-hunting, during which large wild boars are pursued through dense forest and shot after arduous climbs. Roe-deer, eared pheasants, and wolves are also encountered. The mountainous forests of western Shansi, composed chiefly of spruce, larch, and pine, are described in detail, as is the progressive deforestation driven by demand for building timber. The zoological work yields further new forms, including additional voles, pikas, and subspecies of hares. Following these journeys, the author and a young companion undertake reconnaissance toward the Sino-Mongolian frontier, visiting Kalgan and traveling into the rough granite mountains north of that border town in search of wild sheep. Extended stalking sequences culminate in the collection of specimens of the local argali, a thick-horned sheep confined to a few isolated mountain ranges in North Shansi. The account dwells on the difficulty of judging distances in the clear mountain air, the challenges of shooting at range, and the physical demands of hunting over precipitous terrain. Wapiti are subsequently hunted in a deeper mountain district further west, resulting in captures following lively struggles between the wounded deer and the hunting party. The final major journey crosses the Mongolian Plateau northward from Kalgan, following a route through rolling grasslands, lagoons, and Mongol encampments toward the temple town of Lama Miao and beyond to a missionary settlement called Tabool. Along the way the party encounters large herds of goitred antelope and pursues them on horseback using tactics requiring sustained galloping and careful use of ground to close the distance. The Mongol peoples encountered along this route are portrayed with sympathy and concern, their social degradation attributed to the parasitic influence of an oversized lama priesthood, systematic economic exploitation by Chinese traders, and the spread of disease. The author reflects at length on the precarious position of the Mongols caught between competing expansionist pressures from north and south. The closing sections of the work provide systematic scientific notes cataloguing all mammal species and subspecies collected across the various expeditions, with locality data, altitudinal records, and comparative remarks on related forms. A botanical appendix surveys the trees, edible fruits, flowering plants, and cryptogams of the frontier regions, drawing attention to the accelerating pace of deforestation and the poverty of forestry practice, and describing the seasonal succession of flora across habitats ranging from desert margins and loess hills to high granite peaks and old-growth coniferous forest.

By Arthur de Carle Sowerby · First published 1924 · Genre: Natural History, Travel Literature, Science Writing · 10 chapters

Contents

More by Arthur de Carle Sowerby