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all you could not see where you were going and then the wind is so strong, that you can hardly make any headway against the same. 

Roughly speaking the country consists of 3 parts, the Southern part is the Gobi, made of sand, stones and broken bits of shells.  Nothing grows there with the exception of a very hard kind of camel grass.  The middle of Outer Mongolia consists of big steppes and in the North it is mountainous and wooded.  Until the last few years, when the Mongols made some roads leading from Troiskosawks and Wrohne-Udinsk, there were no roads at all in the country except paths made by the camels and oxdrawn caravans.  Wells have been dug along these paths, one to every 20 to 30 miles and strange to say, the wells are not very deep, whereever you dig about 10 yards into the ground you get water.  In summer the wellwater is cool and even in the severest winter, the water in the wells does not freeze.   It seems that the Llamas had a very brilliant idea, when they want to get the Mongols to clear the caravan roads of loose stones anyhow they made it a sort of religion to built up obos, that is big heaps of loose stones along the caravan roads.  Every Mongol who picks up a stone and adds it to the pile of stones, does therby a good deed in the eyes of the gods.  The result was, that all the bigger stones along the roads were picked up to be added to these piles.  What is really good in Mongolia are the hot springs with medicinal waters.  About 50 miles away from Urga, there is a spring, which water cures all kinds of stomack troubles.  The Russians from Urga go there during the summer months and put up their tents near to the spring and drink the water all during the summer.  I have seen some cases where the sick cam back completely cured.  Then there are some springs near to Sanbetse, which cure rheumatism and general diseases.  If you put a branch into that spring, it gets covered with some kind of a stone and if you leave the branch in long enough it turns completely to stone.

The people of Mongolia consist of 3 classes, the princes, the Llamas and the common people.  The princes are getting 

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