CARAVANS GIVING WAY IN CHINA TO AUTO.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 December 1920, Page 3

CARAVANS GIVING WAY IN CHINA TO AUTO.

LONDON, Oct. 12. An old-world caravan route, north from Pekin, China, over mountains, past the ancient wall of China, across the 700-mile desert of 'Gobi and through the foothills of the eastern Altai mountains or down the Selenga river to Verkhne-Udinsk is the only comparatively free way into Siberia and Russia from the Far East. It is the route taken by the Associated Press correspondent in a recent trip across Russia. Although involving great difficulties in travel, the cross-country trip is to be preferred to the/ trans-Siherian railway zone through' north-eastern Manchuria, for there fractional strife between Russian forces—Cossacks, peasant revolutionists, freebooters and bandit chiefs—has kept the country in a state of constant unrest since the comparatively orderly state of-. affairs which ended with Admiral Koltchak's complete downfall during the ■< fall of 1919. From Pekin the traveller may go by train to Kalgan, 100 miles north-west of the Chinese capital. Kalgan is the great trade, mart of North China. , There the camel caravans from Urgaa cross the "great Gobi desert, discharge their loads of wool and furs from the north, and reload with tea for the nomadic desert tribes of Mongolia and " for Siberia. Before the decline of trad© with Russia camel caravans numbering thousands in each left Kalgan weekly for the month trip across the desert. Caravans numbering several hundreds of camels in each continue to make the trip. In crossing the desert the traveller passes several of these slowly moving caravans daily. But twentieth century commercial progress and American business methods have entered into competition with the camel carriers across the desert. In 1917 an American business man in. Kalgan drove a small American automobile up the steep Kalgan pass to the level of the Mongolian plateau, across the Oobi desert and into th« sacred Buddhist city of Urga. Shortly afterwards regular communication by automobile was established across the desert. To-day automobiles owned by business establishments and by the Chinese Government make the trip from Kalgan to the Mongolian capital in from three to five days, following the line of telegraph pole® across the desert. Three small inns and numerous gasoline stations have been established along the route, and the "Living God" of Urga, highest of the Buddhist priests of Mongolia, is himself the proud possessor of an American motor car. From Urga the route to Siberia is over the low ranges of the Kentei mountains. The usual method of travel is by the Russian conveyance known as "tarantass," a vehicle not Tinliise the old Afherican stage coach. The country between. Urga and Kiakhta is infested" by native bandits and with Chinese brigands, who have deserted from the Chinese and Cossack" armies and taken to the fiee life of the mils.