226 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. softened off towards the belly till it is almost white. Its head is large and ungraceful, so as to be quite out of keeping with its body, and when it moves it holds this head with its long ears very erect, and in galloping turns the head in the direction of the wind, and carries its tail aloft. Its neigh is very loud, clear, and sono- rous, and it is so agile that no Tartar or Thibetan horseman can ever overtake it. These animals are shot by hunters, who place themselves in ambush near the places where they go to drink. Their flesh is ex- cellent food, and their skin serves to make boots. The females are fruitful, and the species is perpetually re- produced without alteration, but no one has ever yet succeeded in turning them to any domestic purpose. Rubruk speaks thus of the animal called the yak : — " The Tartars have a powerful kind of oxen which are covered with long hair, and have tails like horses, but smaller legs than most of these species. They are very fierce, but they are made to drag the great rolling houses of the Mongols." The accuracy of this descrip- tion may be verified any day by a visit to the Thibetan yak in the Jardin des Plantes.* The monks on this journey saw several Buddhist monasteries, and Rubruk describes the ceremonies and costume of these idolatrous priests, their long yellow robes, their mitres, their shaven crowns, and the chaplet of beads that they are incessantly fingering. It is evident that even at that early period the Lama organi- sation established among the Oigours had began to be introduced into the military camps of the Mongols ; and among the various modes of worship that were
- There is a stuffed specimen in the Thibet department of the
Crystal Palace.
