it. They may print as much as they like about the pastoral felicity
of the simplicity of Mongol life; it is all humbug. Last night, two
Mongols whom I know well, a petty chief named "Myriad Joy" and his
scribe named "Mahabul" (I can't translate this last), came into my
room, and we had a tea-spree there and then. The two have been for
fifteen days in Peking on Government duty, and last night their
business was finished, and they were to mount their camels and head
north this morning. The chief gets from Peking about 30_l._ a year,
the scribe about 4_l._; and when they come thus on duty their
allowances, though small, enable them to make a little over and
above their salaries. The chief can stand no small amount of
Chinese whisky. I suspect he is deep in debt, and am sure that he
could pay his debt two or three times over if he only had the money
it took to paint his nose. The scribe was one of my teachers in
Mongolia. I lived in his house some time, and know only too well
about his affairs. He is hopelessly in debt. He had a large family
once, but now they are all dead except one married daughter and one
lama son about seventeen years of age, and good for nothing. His
"old woman," as the Mongol idiom has it, is still alive, and fond
of whisky, like her husband. If they had only been teetotalers they
might have now been comfortable; such, at least, is my impression.
I shall say nothing about what I saw in his tent, and confine
myself to last night and this morning.

'Drinking my tea last night, Mahabul (the scribe) says to me: "My
chief here won't lend me nine shillings to buy a sheepskin coat for
my old woman, therefore she must be frozen to death in the winter;
my chief won't lend _me_ anything, other people he lends." The
chief said nothing for a while; but the scribe went on harping on
this string, till at last the chief launched out right and left on
his scribe, shouting loud enough for all the compound to hear. The
scribe took it coolly, and stopped him, saying: "Enough, enough; it
is past, it is past; my old woman can die, all die; no matter."
This did not soothe the irate chief at all, and a minute or two
later a furious quarrel broke out between them about something
else. The storm raged a long time, and in my room too, while they
were