He has spent large sums in bringing down machinery, to do on a great scale what the shallow veins of ore demanded should be done on a limited scale. An abandoned gold-dredge lies far up the Iro River, transported piecemeal at exorbitant expense over the hills. Traction-engines are here, which could not cope with the Mongol roads. They consumed forty days going one hundred and twenty miles to the largest mine. Now they lie rusting in their sheds. Thousands of ox-carts were engaged for hauling in the various purchases. River steamers and great oil-drills scattered over northern Mongolia are relics of his ambition. His brick house, finely furnished, and his brick smelter stand hard-by the consulate. The Russians tell of masons imported from Sweden to build them. The life-history is a bizarre record of great things attempted by a man whose overleaping ambition stopped nowhere, and whose expenditures more than once brought him down. But his interesting meteoric career continues, and twenty _pud_ of gold are said still to come down yearly from the mines to the most picturesque character in Russian Urga. We drive down with one of the officials, to be present at another of the events in Urga’s meagre happenings--the arrival of the mail. The Russian post, one delivery a week, crosses Mongolia. The horses bring in three mails from the Russian frontier. From Urga to Kalgan, the camel-post guarded by Cossacks, traverses the great desert of Gobi. Save the Imperial Chinese telegraph, it is the only regular method of intercourse with the outside world. The two thousand-odd roubles a year paid by Russia as a subsidy are a small expenditure for the opportunity of accustoming the people to her service, and for controlling the avenues of news and communication. The post-office is at the consulate, and a new postmaster has just been installed. Thereby hangs a tale which is poured into your ear before your stay in Urga has been much protracted.