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you exchange shawls.  The only result is, that the shawls are getting dirtier all the time, for it is very rare, that a Mongol buys a new one and in his hands the shawls do not get any cleaner.  The color of the same is light blue, with small crosses woven into the silk.  Only high Llamas have shawls with the head of Buddah woven into the silk.  When you hand the shawl over you say: "Sain Bainah" which means "good" generally, or good morning, good day or anything that is good.

When the change of Government came the princes got unpopular; my prince of Tsetsenhan was very careful.  He presented the whole of his property to the Government.  They did not accept, but returned it to him, but still he was wise enough, not to accept,as it would have been taken away from him anyhow.  So the Government accepted his offer and presented him with $20,000.-. which he presented [[underlined]] to his Monast^[[e]]ry, [[/underlined]] where I have still seen him lately.

Another prince, whom I have met is the one of Metschgun.  This place is about 100 miles west of Urga.  We were invited by him to inspect and buy his ponies, so one fine summer day we set out.  That trip was full of accidents.  First of all it soon started to rain and we had to pass a very large, swampy valley, there was no help for it, we had to pass these plains.  We abandoned the road and we^[[nt]] along the edges of the surrounding hills, most of the time we had to stand on the running boards, as counterweights to keep the car from turning over.  In a way this part of the country is interesting, for it was swarming with marmots, when you come to the top of a hill, you see the valley below you full of these little animals, as soon as they see something strange, they let out a fierce whistle and shoot into their hole.  In one minute the whole plain seems to be on the move and the next one, there is not one ^[[animal]] in sight.  Towards evening we reached the monast^[[e]]ry and were told that the prince was expecting us and was with his herds on the plain, which meant another 20 miles driving across country.  Late in the evening we came up to 6 big tents, one was reserved for our party and as soon as