Day after day went by, and our caravan we passed on the road, had not yet made its appearance on the horizon. A young Russian had just arrived in a carriage from Kiachta, and had seen nothing of it on the way; I began therefore to get a little uneasy, for I had confided to Pablo not only my baggage, but also my fortune. It will easily be understood that a large sum in _tea bricks_, the only money current in Mongolia, and also in silver pieces, with which I was obliged to provide myself for my future journey in China, constituted altogether cumbersome luggage. I should, certainly, not have acted in this way with everybody, but Pablo was quite an exceptional servant on the score of scrupulous honesty. I had not a moment’s uneasiness from a fear that he had fled with the cash: I depended, moreover, on his continual and salutary apprehensions; still, I feared that some evil had visited the caravan, or that Pablo had died, two events, after all, to me not improbable. Fortunately nothing of the sort happened; for, on the fifth day after my arrival at Urga, he presented himself in my room. He at once took my hand and, in the manner of the Turks, pressed it on his forehead, and laid down the key of my carriage like a soldier laying down his sword. Our Mongol guide asked for a day’s delay, that he might have time to sell the oxen and buy camels, required for drawing the carriages. I then had time before leaving to become acquainted with my new companions.
M. Schévélof, the leader of the caravan, was about thirty-eight or forty. He was making the journey from Kiachta to Hankow for the seventh time. His complexion was quite yellow from fevers and liver disease contracted in South China. He spoke Chinese and Mongolian most fluently, and was at once our mentor and our interpreter; consequently, if we had lost him on the way, I do not know what would have become of us.
There was also M. Kousnietzof, a young man of twenty, a native of Verchni-Oudinsk, not related to the millionaire I have mentioned, but a young man of the same name leaving his native city for the first time. Like a true Siberian of pure race, he had thick blonde hair that hung down to the middle of his back, and not a filament of down on his chin. Being accustomed to the great boots and full blouse of the Russian national costume, he was not only uncomfortable in the trousers and short coat he had put on for the occasion of his journey into China, but he imagined he was dressed in a manner quite indecent: therefore, to avoid a blush on his cheek, on presenting himself in the drawing-room of the Consul’s wife, he had improvised for himself, as he thought in the most becoming manner, a kind of _jupon_ with his new shirt, by employing that part the most scrupulously concealed, to cover the indelicate nakedness of a simple pair of trousers.