Indeed, compared to it our endless wanderings amid the Central Asia snows and deserts were but pleasure pilgrimages, and our stay at the monastery beyond the mountains a sojourn in Paradise.

To set out its record in full would be both tedious and useless, so I will only tell briefly of our principal adventures.
On the morrow of our arrival the Khania Atene sent us two beautiful white horses of pure and ancient blood, and at noon we mounted them and went out to ride with her accompanied by a guard of soldiers.

First she led us to the kennels where the death-hounds were kept, great flagged courts surrounded by iron bars, in which were narrow, locked gates.
Never had I seen brutes so large and fierce; the mastiffs of Thibet were but as lap-dogs compared to them.

They were red and black, smooth-coated and with a blood-hound head, and the moment they saw us they came ravening and leaping at the bars as an angry wave leaps against a rock.
These hounds were in the charge of men of certain families, who had tended them for generations.

They obeyed their keepers and the Khan readily enough, but no stranger might venture near them.