20-24 septembrie 2009 - Biblioteca Metropolitana Bucuresti

488 Alicia Campidrew a study of six different styles of boots to explain the unique featuresdistinguishing boots of lay Khalkha Mongols, lay Tibetans, and lamas.On this second journey, ROCKHILL again failed to reach Lhasa. Hewas forced to halt 260 kilometers from the capital by Tibetan troops. Aftersupplying him with food and presents, including a saddle pony, the soldierspermitted him to return to China via the previously unexplored Chamdoregion. ROCKHILL’s story of his second trip to Inner Mongolia can befound in his Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891 and1892. 32 The latter account is an expansion of his 1893 article, “Explorationsin Mongolia and Tibet” 33 ,published by the Smithsonian.Urga Visit of 1913William ROCKHILL finally became U.S. Minister (Ambassador) toChina from 1905-1909. While he may have spent some time in Mongolianlands outside the Qing capital of Peking during those years, he did not leaveany specific memoirs from this period. However, ROCKHILL did have theopportunity to go to Outer Mongolia in December 1913, at the conclusionof his ambassadorship to Turkey. He and his second wife took the Trans-Siberian railway from Constantinople (Istanbul) via St. Petersburg andMoscow into Urga for a week’s visit. His monograph published in theJournal of the American Asiatic Association 34 and newspaper interviews 3532William W. ROCKHILL, Diary of a Journey Through Mongolia and Tibet in 1891and 1892 (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1894).33William W. ROCKHILL 1892, “Explorations in Mongolia and Tibet”, SmithsonianInstitution Annual Report, (Washington, DC: 1893), 659-79.34W.W. ROCKHILL (May, 1914), “The Question of Outer Mongolia”, Journal ofthe American Asiatic Association XIV (4) , 102-109.35In an undated interview by the Peking Daily News, which likely took place inlate January 1914 and was reprinted in the Journal of The American Asiatic Association,Ambassador ROCKHILL was questioned mainly about Chinese matters and the rumorhe was going to become a political advisor to President Yuan Shih-k’ai. He denied therumor, but this turned out to be true. However, ROCKHILL died in Hawaii later in 1914on his way back to China to assume the post. When queried about his trip to Mongolia,ROCKHILL “declined to make any comment, but he says that everything in Urga is quiet.About three thousand Chinese are trading in the city and carrying on their daily routinepeacefully. There is no excitement. Mr. ROCKHILL saw an agent of the Bank of China,who has been in Urga for quite a number of years, and who told him that trade prospered,order prevailed and the people were satisfied with their peaceful condition. He says thatthis was the first time that he visited Northern Mongolia, although in the prime of hismanhood, he traveled a great deal in Tibet, Southern, Eastern and Western Mongolia”.See Peking Daily News, “An Interview with Mr. ROCKHILL” Journal of the AmericanAsiatic Association XIV(4) (New York: May 1914), 111.