those people in their woollen clothes could endure the heat was a
mystery.

The lama, a well-appearing, elderly man, seemed completely fitted out
with wife and children and yurts and herds. He was plainly a person of
substance, and the head of quite a settlement. The yurt where I was
received was very spacious, and was furnished precisely as Huc described
sixty years ago. There was one novelty, a stove-pipe connected with a
sort of cement stove, but perhaps this was merely for ornament, as my
dinner was cooked in a pot placed upon a tripod over a fire of wood and
argols. I was given the seat of honour, a sort of divan, and milk was
placed on a small, low table before me. But I at once espied something
more interesting than food. Round the walls of the yurt were ranged one
or two tables and chests of drawers. On one were some books, detached
leaves in leather covers with clasps. These were the lama's sacred
books. Very stupidly, for I had been told that no secular hand may
touch them, I started to pick one up, but the man courteously but very
firmly waved me back; hardly would he allow me to look at them from a
distance. He assured me he could read them, but that is not true of most
lamas. A little altar set out with small images and pictures of Buddha,
and among them a cheap photograph of the Gigin of Urga, did not seem
half so sacred, for the lama displayed them freely, even allowing me to
inspect the dozen or so small metal pots containing oil and other
offerings which were ranged in front of the images.

When our food was ready, the lama carried off the Russians to eat in the
men's tent; that is the rule, but the neighbours, men and women, who had
flocked in, stayed to watch me. Various strange dishes were put before
me; best of all, some hard curds decorated with lumps of sugar. Sugar is
a great delicacy with the Mongols.

As we were nearing the land of hotels, I emptied my tiffin basket here,
making my hosts and their friends happy with tins of jam and marmalade
and sardines and beef extract, not to mention enamelled cups and plates
and stew-pans. Everything was eagerly taken, even empty jars and
bottles, and they seemed as pleased as children with a new toy.

The country changed abruptly after leaving the last Mongol settlement.
Houses of Russian colonists occurred frequently, and presently we
entered the remnants of a fine pine forest, and from this time on there
was no lack of trees. We were now almost at th