ls is entirely conducted by proxy: the seller and the
buyer never settle the matter between themselves. They select
indifferent persons to sell their goods, who propose, discuss, and fix
the price; the one looking to the interests of the seller, the other to
those of the purchaser. These "sale-speakers" exercise no other trade;
they go from market to market to promote business, as they say. They
have generally a great knowledge of cattle, have much fluency of tongue,
and are, above all, endowed with a knavery beyond all shame. They
dispute, by turns, furiously and argumentatively, as to the merits and
defects of the animal; but as soon as it comes to a question of price,
the tongue is laid aside as a medium, and the conversation proceeds
altogether in signs. They seize each other by the wrist, and beneath the
long wide sleeve of their jackets, indicate with their fingers the
progress of the bargain. After the affair is concluded they partake of
the dinner, which is always given by the purchaser, and then receive a
certain number of sapeks, according to the custom of different places.

[Picture: The Camel Market]

In the Blue Town there exist five great Lamaseries, each inhabited by
more than 2,000 Lamas; besides these, they reckon fifteen less
considerable establishments--branches, as it were, of the former. The
number of regular Lamas resident in this city may fairly be stated at
20,000. As to those who inhabit the different quarters of the town,
engaged in commerce and horse-dealing, they are innumerable. The
Lamasery of the Five Towers is the finest and the most famous: here it is
that the Hobilgan lives--that is, a Grand Lama--who, after having been
identified with the substance of Buddha, has already undergone several
times the process of transmigration. He sits here upon the altar once
occupied by the Guison-Tamba, having ascended it after a tragical event,
which very nearly brought about a revolution in the empire.

The Emperor Khang-Hi, during the great military expedition which he made
in the West against the Oelets, one day, in traversing the Blue Town,
expressed a wish to pay a visit to the Guison-Tamba, at that time the
Grand Lama of the Five Towers. The latter received the Emperor without
rising from the throne, or manifesting any kind of respect. Just as
Khang-Hi drew near to speak to him, a Kian-Kan, or high military
Mandarin, indignant at this unceremonious treatment o