outhern
borders a few among the people have adopted the settled ways of the
Chinese; but elsewhere they live as their fathers lived before them,
their fields the land where the flocks are grazing, their home the spot
where the yurts are temporarily set up. Nomads they are, but within
definite limits, moving no long distance nor very often. Over them rule
their native princes or khans, subject, up to last year, nominally to
China; but Chinese interference has mostly been confined to the exaction
of a tribute--and a good part of that stuck to the fingers of the
princes through whose hands it passed--and to occasional demand for
police or military service. The head of the Chinese administration is or
was the Amban at Urga, and his duties seemed to consist in looking after
the Chinese traders there and keeping a watchful eye on the Living
Buddha, the spiritual and maybe now the political head of Mongolia. But
in spite of his many rulers, or perhaps because of them, the Mongol
seems to know little of the evils or benefits of government. It is far
away, it does little for him, but in turn its demands are small.

The Mongol's wealth consists in his herds; horses, cattle, sheep,
camels. In our sense he owns no land, but if he digs a well, which, I
believe, he rarely does, he has certain rights over it, and his claims
to the water and grass near his yurt should be respected. His friends
have to admit that the Mongol is lazy. His chief duty is to keep an eye
on his herds, but mostly they take care of themselves. Each drove of
horses is in the charge of a stallion which looks sharply after the
mares, fighting savagely with any other stallion which attempts to join
the herd. I am told that the owner only needs to count his stallions to
be sure that all the mares have come home. There is almost nothing of
Mongolian manufacture,--just rugs and felt and saddles; and most of the
work is done by the women. Nor does the Mongol till the soil; nothing is
found growing near his yurt. Unlike the rice-eating people just across
the Great Wall, his diet is almost wholly meat, and milk in some form or
other,--cheese, curds, koumiss. The tea which he drinks in enormous
quantities, so that even my "boy" opened his eyes, is brought by the
Chinese traders.

The Mongol has great endurance; days in the saddle are nothing to him,
and he sleeps as soundly on his camel as on the ground. Nor does he seem
to mind heat or cold. I have seen them wearing she