Seated beside the fire close by is the girl of nineteen who has just saved you from asphyxiation. The long fur-lined working-dress, common to all ages and sexes of Mongols, is buttoned on her left side with bright brass buttons, and is belted in with a sash. She has not the padded shoulder-humps, nor the spreading hair arrangement, which gave to her mother, who welcomed us, so weird an appearance. Her complexion is swarthy like an Indian’s, not the Chinese chalky yellow, and she has red cheeks and full red lips. Her eyes are large and black. The rest of the party have stayed a moment outside to ask about hay and water. You have made this solitary and awkward entrance. The girl has no more notion than a bird who the strange man of another nation may be, who has stumbled into her home. But it does not trouble her in the least. For a moment she looks you over calmly, with a smile of amused curiosity, rolling and wringing with her fingers a lambskin which she is softening. Then composedly she bids you the Mongol welcome, “_Sein oh!_” and holds out her hand. Her grip is as firm and frank as a Siberian’s. Now Alexsimevich comes tumbling through the door, and next André. Both are used to these huts, and artistically stoop below the smoke-line. All our impedimenta--blankets, furs, pots, kettles, bread-bag, rifles--are heaped in a mound within the space between the couch and the tethered lambs. The girl has not stirred from her work. “They are friends of yours then, Alexsimevich?” you ask. “No, no, I never saw them,” he answers. “Any one may take shelter in any _yurta_ in Mongolia.” A small head suddenly makes its appearance from the pile of rugs on the sofa opposite on the women’s side of the tent. There emerges, naked save for a bronze square-holed Chinese _cash_ fastened around her neck, a little slant-eyed three-year-old. The water in the small cups offered to the _dokchits_ has long been ice, and one has full need of one’s inner fur coat and cap in the hut, where the entrance, opening with every visitor, sends a draft of air, forty degrees below zero, through from the door to the open hole which serves as chimney. And still this tot can step out naked and not even seem to feel it. “The child’s name?” asks Alexsimevich. “Turunga,” replies the girl. “And your own?” “Sibilina,” she says, and smiles. Turunga carefully inspects you, and solemnly accepts a lump of sugar which she knows what to do with, even if it is a rare luxury offered to gods. She sits down, in an evidently accustomed spot on the warm felt before the brazier, to play with the scissors-like fire-tongs, carefully putting back the red coals that have fallen out on the earthen platform.