From a warrior I was forced to change myself into a diplomat. As we approached the yurta of the Prince, we were met by two officials, wearing the peaked Mongol caps with peacock feathers rampants behind. With low obeisances they begged the foreign “Noyon” to enter the yurta. My friend the Tartar and I entered. In the rich yurta draped with expensive silk we discovered a feeble, wizen-faced little old man with shaven face and cropped hair, wearing also a high pointed beaver cap with red silk apex topped off with a dark red button with the long peacock feathers streaming out behind. On his nose were big Chinese spectacles. He was sitting on a low divan, nervously clicking the beads of his rosary. This was Ta Lama, Prince of Soldjak and High Priest of the Buddhist Temple. He welcomed us very cordially and invited us to sit down before the fire burning in the copper brazier. His surprisingly beautiful Princess served us with tea and Chinese confections and cakes. We smoked our pipes, though the Prince as a Lama did not indulge, fulfilling, however, his duty as a host by raising to his lips the pipes we offered him and handing us in return the green nephrite bottle of snuff. Thus with the etiquette accomplished we awaited the words of the Prince. He inquired whether our travels had been felicitous and what were our further plans. I talked with him quite frankly and requested his hospitality for the rest of our company and for the horses. He agreed immediately and ordered four yurtas set up for us. “I hear that the foreign Noyon,” the Prince said, “is a good doctor.” “Yes, I know some diseases and have with me some medicines,” I answered, “but I am not a doctor. I am a scientist in other branches.” But the Prince did not understand this. In his simple directness a man who knows how to treat disease is a doctor. “My wife has had constant trouble for two months with her eyes,” he announced. “Help her.” I asked the Princess to show me her eyes and I found the typical conjunctivitis from the continual smoke of the yurta and the general uncleanliness. The Tartar brought me my medicine case. I washed her eyes with boric acid and dropped a little cocaine and a feeble solution of sulphurate of zinc into them. “I beg you to cure me,” pleaded the Princess. “Do not go away until you have cured me. We shall give you sheep, milk and flour for all your company. I weep now very often because I had very nice eyes and my husband used to tell me they shone like the stars and now they are red. I cannot bear it, I cannot!” She very capriciously stamped her foot and, coquettishly smiling at me, asked: “Do you want to cure me? Yes?” The character and manners of lovely woman are the same everywhere: on bright Broadway, along the stately Thames, on the vivacious boulevards of gay Paris and in the silk-draped yurta of the Soyot Princess behind the larch covered Tannu Ola. “I shall certainly try,” assuringly answered the new oculist.