Burglaries, squabbles and drunken orgies of the Chahars followed, so that Wang Tsoa-tsun exerted all his efforts to hurry the detachment westward to Kobdo and farther into Urianhai.

One cold morning the inhabitants of Uliassutai rose to witness a very stern picture.  Along the main street of the town the detachment was passing.  They were riding on small, shaggy ponies, three abreast; were dressed in warm blue coats with sheepskin overcoats outside and crowned with the regulation coonskin caps; armed from head to foot.  They rode with wild shouts and cheers, very greedily eyeing the Chinese shops and the houses of the Russian colonists.  At their head rode the one-eyed hunghutze chief with three horsemen behind him in white overcoats, who carried waving banners and blew what may have been meant for music through great conch shells.  One of the Chahars could not resist and so jumped out of his saddle and made for a Chinese shop along the street.  Immediately the anxious cries of the Chinese merchants came from the shop.  The hunghutze swung round, noticed the horse at the door of the shop and realized what was happening.  Immediately he reined his horse and made for the spot.  With his raucous voice he called the Chahar out.  As he came, he struck him full in the face with his whip and with all his strength.  Blood flowed from the slashed cheek.  But the Chahar was in the saddle in a second without a murmur and galloped to his place in the file.  During this exit of the Chahars all the people were hidden in their houses, anxiously peeping through cracks and corners of the windows.  But the Chahars passed peacefully out and only when they met a caravan carrying Chinese wine about six miles from town did their native tendency display itself again in pillaging and emptying several containers.  Somewhere in the vicinity of Hargana they were ambushed by Tushegoun Lama and so treated that never again will the plains of Chahar welcome the return of these warrior sons who were sent out to conquer the Soyot descendants of the ancient Tuba.

The day the column left Uliassutai a heavy snow fell, so that the road became impassable.  The horses first were up to their knees, tired out and stopped.  Some Mongol horsemen reached Uliassutai the following day after great hardship and exertion, having made only twenty-five miles in forty-eight hours.  Caravans were compelled to stop along the routes.  The Mongols would not consent even to attempt journeys with oxen and yaks which made but ten or twelve miles a day.  Only camels could be used but there were too few and their drivers did not feel that they could make the first railway station of Kuku-Hoto, which was about fourteen hundred miles away.  We were forced again to wait:  for which?  Death or salvation?  Only our own energy and force could save us.  Consequently my friend and I started out, supplied with a tent, stove and food, for a new reconnaissance along the shore of Lake Kosogol, whence the Mongol Sait expected the new invasion of Red troops.