For our race there is always felt, behind the soul-mask of Chinese eyes, a contempt. The kindness of our host to-day is unfailing. Yet we are not at ease or sure of the ground. Errors, condoned to keep face, are often inwardly resented. If you put your hat on the Mongol’s altar, everybody in the hut will yell out for you to take it off. When you remove it, they will nod understandingly as the interpreter explains that the ignorant foreigner transgressed inadvertently. Forthwith all is forgotten in an enthusiastic discussion of the last case of botts among the horses. But with these Chinese one can never tell if, by taking a chop-stick between the wrong fingers, one has not intimated that the host’s grandfather was a cross-eyed coolie soldier. No one will challenge or set a man right, but the breach will be silently resented, though the tea continues to be smilingly offered. The old-time Chinese dealers at Urga grew enormously wealthy in the tea-trade to Kiahta. These have mostly gone back to China. But there are still a number of the better-class merchants whose wares are sold to the traders and by them to the Mongols. The house of Liu-Shang-Yuan claims two hundred years of establishment. The Urga people are still prosperous, for great sums in religious tribute come from all Mongolia to this Lourdes of Lamaism. There are also many Chinamen who make large profits from wool. Of a total trade in Urga estimated at twenty-five million roubles per year, nine tenths is in the hands of Celestials. The remainder is Russian, for the Mongols are entirely without a merchant class. Of the exports, wool is the main item. Some two hundred thousand _puds_ are sent from Urga annually, four fifths of which go to the United States. While cotton cloth, cutlery, kitchen-utensils, and other European goods come down from Russia, the bulk of the imports are brought from China by caravan, through Kalgan. Silks come from Shanghai, and tea from Hankow, passing via Peking. There is trade, too, with Ulasati in western Mongolia. It is the centre of a fur and hide country which is isolated from outlets toward Russia by the high mountains, and must send caravans to Kiahta. Its communication with China is either by Urga and Kalgan, or by the caravan-route further south. When the holiday-time is over we see more of the Chinese traders. Sitting in the shops, with one of these, and glancing out over the little counter of the sales-room, we converse as the customers come and go.