cessation of diet and complete repose. The Chinaman appeared to me to be much satisfied, and asked me if I would like to hear a concert. I said very much. Then he bade me sit down on the khan—the natural divan of every Chinese house—and to look (“_smotrì, smotrì_” he said). Presently another Chinaman came into the room and, taking from the wall a large and twisted clarion (like the wreathed horn old Triton blew), he blew on it one deafening blast and hung it up on the wall again. There was a short pause, I waited in expectation, and the Chinaman turned to me and said: “The concert is now over.” I then went to have luncheon with the Cossacks under the trees. The luncheon consisted of hard rusks (hard as bricks), made of black bread, swimming in an earthen bowl of boiling water on the top of which tea was sprinkled. When we had finished luncheon, and just as we were about to resume our journey, the Chinaman in whose house I had been entertained rushed up to me and said: “In your country, when you go to a concert, do you not pay for it?” The concert was paid for and then we started once more to ride along the mountainous roads, a flat green country, with few trees, and great pools of water caused by recent rain, through which we had to wade and sometimes to swim. Towards the afternoon the aspect of the country changed; we reached grassy and flowery steppes. It was the beginning of the Mongolian country. We met Mongols sitting sideways on their ponies, and dressed in coats of many colours. I have never felt quite so tired in my life as while that interminable afternoon wore on. The distance from Godziadan to Jen-tzen-tung is eighty miles, and when the sun set, and the Cossacks announced that after arriving at Jen-tzen-tung we should have to ride yet two miles further to find the battery, I inwardly resolved that no force on earth should make me ride another inch that night. We arrived at Jen-tzen-tung at eight o’clock in the evening. There I found my old friend Kizlitzki, of the battery, who, as usual, was living by himself in Chinese quarters of immaculate cleanliness. His servant being the former cook of the battery who used every day to make “Boeuf Stroganoff,” Kizlitzki gave me an excellent dinner and a most comfortable bed. The next morning I rode to the village, two miles distant, where the battery was quartered, and here I found all my old friends: Glinka, the doctor, Hliebnikoff, and others. The house is a regular Chinese house, or series of one-storeyed houses forming a quadrangle, in which horses, donkeys, and hens disport themselves. We occupy one side of the house. Opposite us the owner lives. In the evening one hears music from the other side. I went to see what it was; a Chinaman lying on his back plays on a one-stringed lute, “und singt ein Lied dabei, das hat eine wundersame gewaltige Melodei.” Something like this:— [Illustration: [Music]]