The Chinese merchants don't care a straw about who is king as long as they are left to their peaceful occupations; and the Russian government is too enlightened to throw any obstacles in the way of a trade which has done more than anything else to develop the resources of the Siberian deserts. [5] See Bell of Antermony. The name, _Urga_, or the camp, is not in common use. The Mongols call it _Kuren_ or _Ta Kuren_, which Huc translates the "great enclosure." The situation of the town, or camp, or whatever it may be called, is romantic in the extreme. It stands on a wide plateau about a mile from the Tolla. Behind the Kuren is a bold and rugged mountain range which shelters it from the northerly gales, while in front there is never wanting a pleasing prospect for the eye to rest upon in the roughly wooded mountains beyond the Tolla, that hem in the valley of that river. The river itself is hardly seen from the town, being concealed by the growth of brushwood on its banks and on the low islands that lie in the stream. The population is scattered over the plateau, without much reference to regularity of arrangement, and instead of streets the dwellings of the Mongols are separated by crooked passages. The only buildings in the place are temples, official residences, and the houses occupied by Chinese or Russians. The Mongols live in tents, as they do in the desert, with this difference, that each family surrounds itself with a wooden palisade as a protection from thieves, who are numerous among the pilgrims, who resort on pious missions to the Kuren. A man was found to shoe our ponies, which he did well and expeditiously, and at a very moderate charge, about half the sum demanded at Maimachin. The shoeing-smith was a Chinaman--of course--for it seems the Mongols never do, under any circumstances, shoe their horses. They have no hard roads, it is true, to contend with, but even the gravelly sand of many parts of the desert does sometimes wear down the soles of their horses' feet, and particularly the toes, until the animal becomes useless. They seldom allow them to get so bad as that, however, as the large herds they possess afford them the means of frequently changing their saddle-horses.