A boy jockey
described by Gareth as having a yellow shirt and a red kerchief on his head.
Then came
the horse races with boy jockeys who were wearing yellow shirts on which were
bright red Buddhist prayer wheels and they had brilliant red kerchief on their
heads. After that there was archery for
some hours. Next came the
wrestling. Before a bout, mare’s milk
was served and the wrestler prays and also after the fight. He wears a leather coat studded with white
metal studs with a Buddhist wheel on the back. He leaps and dances and the winner comes to the Prince’s tent and is
given a block of tea, money, presents and cake. He dances up and down, prays on his knees and bows with his head
on the ground. He goes back into the
field and throws a piece of cake on to the roof of the tent. The wrestlers are very sporting.
There is no quarrelling as to the decision
and the loser just grins. The winning
person has a Swastika branded on him. What would Hitler say? The
wrestling of Mongols went on for many, many hours.
A
boy priest came and sat down by me while I ate my mutton at lunchtime and
stared at me, as do many of the Mongols. One young boy with a pleasant face came up to me and pulled the hair on
my hand, pulled the hair on my knee and drew the zip on my shirt to see the hair on my chest.
The Mongols love being photographed and they lacked self-consciousness as I took
photos of them. I was amused to see another old ruffian who had an
embossed sixpenny piece of ‘Queen Victoria’ attached to his pigtail.
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Gareth at the Lama service.
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