he summer. Although the wealthiest
natives seem to feel that for the reception of guests their
"position" demands a foreign house, they seldom live in it. Duke
Loobitsan Yangsen had completed his mansion the previous winter. It
was built in Russian style and furnished with an assortment of
hideous rugs and foreign furniture which made one shiver. But in the
yard behind the house his _yurt_ was pitched, and there he lived in
comfort.

Loobitsan was a splendid fellow--one of the best types of Mongol
aristocrats. From the crown of his finely molded head to the toes of
his pointed boots, he was every inch a duke. I saw him in his house
one day reclining on a _kang_ while he received half a dozen minor
officials, and his manner of quiet dignity and conscious power
recalled accounts of the Mongol princes as Marco Polo saw them.
Loobitsan liked foreigners and one could always find a cordial
reception in his compound. He spoke excellent Chinese and was
unusually well educated for a Mongol.

Although he was in charge of the customs station at Mai-ma-cheng and
owned considerable property, which he rented to the Chinese for
vegetable gardens, his chief wealth was in horses. In Mongolia a
man's worldly goods are always measured in horses, not in dollars.
When he needs cash he sells a pony or two and buys more if he has
any surplus silver. His bank is the open plain; his herdsmen are the
guardians of his riches.

Loobitsan's wife, the duchess, was a nice-looking woman who seemed
rather bored with life. She rejoiced in two gorgeous strings of
pearls, which on state occasions hung from the silver-encrusted
horns of hair to the shoulders of her brocade jacket. Ordinarily she
appeared in a loose red gown and hardly looked regal.

Loobitsan had never seen Peking and was anxious to go. When General
Hsu Shu-tseng made his _coup d'etat_ in November, 1919, Mr. Larsen
and Loobitsan came to the capital as representatives of the
Hutukhtu, and one day, as my wife was stepping into a millinery shop
on Rue Marco Polo, she met him dressed in all his Mongol splendor.
But he was so closely chaperoned by Chinese officials that he could
not enjoy himself. I saw Larsen not long afterward, and he told me
that Loobitsan was already pining for the open plains of his beloved
Mongolia.

In mid-July, when we returned to Urga, the vegetable season was at
its height. The Chinese, of course, do all the gardening; and the
splendid radishes, beets, onions,