ing to give goods instead; and thus it happened that I
sometimes made my way home at night with a miscellaneous collection
of cheese, sour-curd, butter and millet cake and sheep's fat,
representing the produce of part of the day's sales.'

A short time before he returned to England on his first furlough he drew
up a report, in which he places on record some of the results of his ten
years' experience of Mongol life and habits.

'On one occasion I was living some weeks in a Mongol's tent. It was
late in the year. Lights were put out soon after dark. The nights
were long in reality, and, in such unsatisfactory surroundings as
the discomforts of a poor tent and doubtful companions, the nights
seemed longer than they were. At sunrise I was only too glad to
escape from smoke and everything else to the retirement of the
crest of a low ridge of hills near the tent. This, perhaps the most
natural thing in the world for a foreigner, was utterly
inexplicable to the Mongols. The idea that any man should get out
of his bed at sunrise and climb a hill for nothing! He must be up
to mischief! He must be secretly taking away the luck of the land!
This went on for some time, the Mongols all alive with suspicion,
and the unsuspecting foreigner retiring regularly morning after
morning, till at length a drunken man blurted out the whole thing,
and openly stated the conviction that the inhabitants had arrived
at, namely, that this extraordinary morning walk of the foreigner
on the hill crest boded no good to the country. To remain among the
people I had to give up my morning retirement.

'The Mongols are very suspicious of seeing a foreigner writing.
What _can_ he be up to? they say among themselves. Is he taking
notes of the capabilities of the country? Is he marking out a road
map, so that he can return guiding an army? Is he, as a wizard,
carrying off the good luck of the country in his note-book? These,
and a great many others, are the questions that they ask among
themselves and put to the foreigner when they see him writing; and
if he desires to conciliate the good-will of the people, and to win
their confidence, the missionary must abstain from walking and
writing while he is among them.

'On another point, too, a missionary must be careful. He must not
go about shooti