ng. Killing beasts or birds the Mongols regard as
peculiarly sinful, and anyone who wished to teach them religious
truth would make the attempt under great disadvantage if he carried
and used a gun. This, however, is a prejudice that it is not so
difficult to refrain from offending.

'The diseases presented for treatment are legion, but the most
common cases are skin diseases and diseases of the eye and teeth.
Perhaps rheumatism is _the_ disease of Mongolia; but the manner of
life and customs of the Mongols are such that it is useless to
attempt to cure it. Cure it to-day, it is contracted again
to-morrow. Skin diseases present a fair field for a medical
missionary. They are so common, and the Mongolian treatment of them
is so far removed from common-sense, that anyone with a few
medicines and a little intelligence has ample opportunity of
benefiting many sufferers. The same may be said of the eye. The
glare of the sun on the Plain at all seasons, except when the grass
is fresh and green in summer, the blinding sheen from the snowy
expanse in winter, and the continual smoke that hangs like a cloud
two or three feet above the floor of the tent, all combine to
attack the eye. Eye diseases are therefore very common. The lama
medicines seem to be able to do nothing for such cases, and a few
remedies in a foreigner's hands work cures that seem wonderful to
the Mongols.

'In many cases, when a Mongol applies to his doctor, he simply
extends his hand, and expects that the doctor, by simply feeling
his pulse, will be able to tell, not only the disease, but what
will cure it. As soon as the doctor has felt the pulse of one
hand, the patient at once extends the other hand that the pulse may
be felt there also, and great surprise is manifested when a
foreigner begins his diagnosis of a case by declining the proffered
wrist and asking questions.

'The question of "How did you get this disease?" often elicits some
curiously superstitious replies. One man lays the blame on the
stars and constellations. Another confesses that when he was a lad
he was mischievous, and dug holes in the ground or cut shrubs on
the hill, and it is not difficult to see how he regards disease as
a punishment for digging, since by digging worms are killed; but
what cutting