We visited a yourt after dinner by the invitation of our newly made fat friend.
It was not till nearly ten o’clock that she left us, after a tender parting with Sylvia (during which the caravan was left to its own devices), to gallop home alone in the moonlight to her yourt and lawful master.
When our driver returned, he found the caravan halted and his new purchase making tracks across the plain in, strange to say, the direction of the yourt we had bought him from.
This was the largest yourt we saw, and was composed of over twenty tents.
Many mysterious disappearances in this part of the desert are put down to them; for the sand-drifts obliterating the marks of the Mongol’s guiding rods, he is unable to retrace his steps to the yourt he started from.
We sighted, on the 28th of August, a huge encampment of some fifty tents, on the horizon, evidently the yourt of some chief or Lama of importance, en voyage.
Some low green hills now appeared on the horizon——the plains and rich pastures of Toogoorook, at which yourt the hardest part of our desert journey would be virtually over.
It was not till the morning of the fifth day out from Saram Bolousar that we sighted a yourt on the horizon and encamped within a mile of it at dinner-time.
Sylvia was despatched to a yourt some five miles distant to buy a camel in place of the one we had lost, and as he was not expected back till six o’clock, we enjoyed a good sleep all the afternoon, not before we wanted it.
We encamped the next day near a yourt of considerable size.
The only yourt I was sure of throughout the journey was Toogoorook, and that was on our maps.
I have frequently asked three or four of the inmates of a yourt its name, and been answered a different one by each.
It is only by these means that in this part of the desert the Mongol is able to find his way from yourt to yourt, for there are no landmarks to steer by.
The yourt is generally circular or oblong, and its size is proportioned to the family of the owner.
At a Russian village where we stopped there was a Managre hut or yourt of light poles covered with birch bark.
In the first yourt I entered I found an altar that was doubtless hollow and utilized as a place of storage.
A fire, sometimes of wood and sometimes of dried cow-dung, burns in the middle of the yourt during the day and is covered up at night.
Whatever the outside temperature, the yourt is suffocatingly hot within, and no fresh air can enter except through the top.
A winter yourt has a hole in the top, which serves for both chimney and door.
Some of them live in houses after the Russian manner, but the yourt is the favorite habitation.
The staple dish of a Mongol yourt is boiled mutton, but it is unaccompanied with capers or any other kind of sauce or seasoning.
The fire-place is commonly either in the middle of the yourt or against one of the sides.
In winter they break the ice that covers it, and carry home large pieces of it, which they place in a trough suspended in the yourt about five or six feet high.
I have counted in one yourt more than twenty persons, men, women, and children.
The toyon of Khaluli having given up his yourt to us, we slept in it, being unable to proceed till the next day.
Many of them, who suffered as much from cold as from hunger, laid themselves down by the opening made in the roof of the yourt to let out the smoke.
They were brought before the yourt in which we were, and in order to awe the rest of the inhabitants, M.
Two isbas, two balagans, and a yourt almost in ruins, were all the habitations I could perceive.
He came to meet us with a Russian detachment, and we were conducted to the yourt of Eitel, which had been cleaned and prepared a long time for the reception of M.
This was the first habitation I had seen since the yourt belonging to the watermen, and I spent there the rest of the day.
These pieces are edged with a kind of ribband equally made of this bark, and shaped into festoons, and the inside of the yourt is ornamented in the same manner.
I was desirous of remedying this inconvenience by some external contrivances; but I had no sooner placed my foot out of the yourt than I was almost blown down.
In one corner of theyourt a leathern trough is fixed, and mare’s milk every day put into it, and stirred with a stick, similar to what is made use of in churning butter.
The other part of the yourt is for the cattle, and is nothing more than a stable.
It was a yourt in the middle of a large wood of fir trees, and had been inhabited by him thirty years.
The yourt I entered was divided into apartments, the walls of which consisted merely of prepared fish skins, sewn together, and stained with different colours.
At noon we could distinguish the Stoudenaïa-reka, and in an hour after we had crossed it, or rather we were arrived at the yourt of the brother of Oumiavin, in whose hands Eviava had undertaken to place me.
The heat incommoded me as much as the flies, and I was so thirsty that I stopped at every yourtto drink koumouiss.
But we were happily getting out of the watery region, and before night we got into a yourt to make tea, and found delicious spring-water.
In the morning as soon as daylight came we got out of our cold quarters and on to our ponies, stopped at a yourt where we indulged in a cup of hot chocolate, and warmed ourselves at the hospitable fire.
In the whole journey I did not meet with a single instance of a Mongol living in a house, or in anything else than a yourt or girai.
The few bottles of water and milk we invariably carried with us in the carts were exhausted, and being much in want of something, we knew not what, we ordered the Mongols to stop at the first yourt they saw.
When the owner decides on moving to better pastures, his yourt is packed up in a few hours and laid on the back of a camel, or, failing that, two oxen answer the purpose.
There is a right and a wrong way of approaching a yourt also.
In this yourt we found a record of the party who had preceded us on the journey, dated 11th June.
One of these is that all whips must be left outside the door, for to enter a yourt with a whip in the hand would be very disrespectful to the residents.
They are useful to the shepherds and are good watch dogs, not so thoroughly domestic as their Chinese congeners, but will run after one a great distance from their yourt barking ferociously.
When the caravan was ready to start we induced the lama to ride ahead with us through Talabulyk, taking a sackful of mutton to be boiled at some yourt ready for Tellig and his friend when they came up.
When he descried a Mongol yourt in the distance he seldom missed a chance of riding up to it, to bestow his benediction on the inmates, and drink tea with them.
We halted about 4 o'clock, the lama having ridden to a distant yourt to buy a sheep.
There was a steep pass before us, a few miles distant, and at a yourt near the Khara four sturdy little yaks were engaged to get our carts over.
When bed-time came, and the fire was out, the hole in the roof was covered over, and the yourt was cleared of all but ourselves, the Kitat and the lady.
Not only was their yourt well stocked with voilocks and carpets, and richly ornamented weapons, and costly caparisonings, but they owned an amount of live stock which would astonish the most opulent English farmer.
On entering a Kirghiz yourt in summer, each guest is presented with one of these Chinese bowls full of koumis.
In another part of the yourt lies the large sack of koumis, or mare’s milk, completely covered up with voilock to keep it warm and promote the fermentation.
The reader will not be surprised to learn that the furniture and fittings of the yourt are remarkable for their simplicity; the Kirghiz having none of the ingenuity of a Robinson Crusoe or the inventiveness of an American backwoodsman.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "yourt" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
