This Manchu Viceroy, and his _Tu-T’ung_, or lieutenant-governor, who represents Chinese authority in the city of Kalgan, are responsible for the collection of tribute, the administration of justice in the cities, and the maintenance of order. Over the Chinese inhabitants in the Maimachen the rule through the agency of the prefect of police appointed by the Viceroy is direct and absolute. Over the Mongols, Chinese rule is exercised in an irregular nebulous fashion, with some force in the centres and almost none in the outlying districts, where the old nomad organization of society, with princes, barons, or _tai-tsi_, clergy, and ordinary black men, still persists. A code of Chinese laws exists, but in general justice is dealt out by the local princes, or _guns_, who receive also the cattle-tax in some districts, and who go by turns for a year to Peking in symbol of homage. [Illustration: CHINESE MANDARIN] [Illustration: GIGIN, THE LIVING BUDDHA] These Mongol _guns_, ruling over each of the _hushouns_, or counties, which compose the _eimucks_, are under feudal obligations to the Chinese Emperor. Their visible subjection to China consists of ceremonial visits with tribute, for which the Emperor’s return gifts are of far greater value. A total of one hundred and twenty thousand _lens_ of silver ($90,000) goes yearly from the Emperor to the nomad nobility. A khan of the first rank receives two thousand _lens_ ($1500) and twenty-five pieces of silk; lesser gentry in proportion. This primitive aristocracy lives in barbaric state, with splendid carpets, silver-inlaid furniture, and jeweled accoutrements. The women are sometimes very good-looking. They are laden with ornaments, furs and silks, and have a spot of carmine on each cheek, which is the prerogative of a princess. But the normal imagination does not go beyond the gir as a dwelling. Finely fitted it may be, yet it remains a one-room hut, with the open brazier in its centre. Their wealth is in ancestral ornaments, and in the flocks and herds of their private domains. Their one relic and memorial of a past sway lies in the custom under which the Chinese rulers call by the old Mongol names the _eimucks_, which were the ancestors’ kingdoms. That of which Urga is capital still bears the name of Tu-she-tu. The Mongol lords are responsible for the feudal army, and a caste of bannermen exists, who are paid nominally two ounces of silver per month and a supply of grain, with the corresponding duty of keeping their bows and arrows in order. In the Tu-she-tu khanate of the eastern Khalka tribes, there are twenty banners, each under an hereditary _yassak_, or tributary prince. In 1900 some banners of the Barukhs turned out to fight Russians, but they made no showing whatever, and hurriedly returned after a skirmish with the Cossacks. Spears and arrows are the only weapons the Mongol army can show.