With our luggage André staggers in. No one stirs. Some of the group around the stove turn their heads to look, but that is all. André heaps the food-bag and blankets in a vacant spot on the _kang_. We make room on the stove for our pots to boil the water for tea. On this self-elbowed place amid the rest we sit cross-legged, propped against the clay wall. The smoke from the oven, led under the _kang_, warms it so that the outer coat can come off. A little tabouret some six inches high stands in a corner, and serves as a table for the repast. The shelter is far better, as comforts go, than any of the Mongol tents. The icy wind that sweeps the latter is barred off. There is a stove to replace the nomad’s brazier; a warm _kang_ instead of the floor to rest upon. But how different is the spirit of the hosts! There are no frank hand-clasps here, no interested gossip and inquiries of the adventures by the way. No generous bringing out of fat sheep’s-tails and snuff-bottles for the guests’ delectation. You cannot but have the feeling that these people are as indifferent to your existence as they are to the pariah dog that howls outside the walls. They are exclusive, non-welcoming,--these Chinese. They are strangers to the land, self-sufficing in their toilsomely cultivated rye- and wheat-fields, an isolated, womanless, working settlement. Despite the better quarters and comfort which these inns afford, one prefers to go to a Mongol tent and be among men more human, if less civilized. When the bread is thawed and the tea is boiled, we eat, pay the Chinaman who gave the wood, and with a sense of relief go out again to the tarantass and the road. For versts now the way is along the alluvial plain, seamed with irrigation-ditches and dominated by several of these walled Chinese factories. As the sun goes down, however, there appears a solitary building, and André gives a glad shout, seeing that it is built of wood and has windows and big centre chimney. “_Russky dom!_” he cries. A low mud wall surrounds the enclosure. Inside some quilts are hung in the air, that the cold may kill the vermin. A big black dog comes up, but unlike the scavenger beasts of the Mongol encampments, it signals welcome with friendly tail-waggings and good-natured barks, approaching at once as if accustomed to kindly treatment. The quilted door of the house opens. A booted figure appears with the familiar red blouse, and the Russian greeting hails you, “_Zdravstvouitie!_” “An Orthodox Buriat,” says Alexsimevich. We mount his wooden steps, shake his hand, and enter the big warm room.