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Page 69.

they climb up the walls to the ceiling and drop down on you from above.

[[underlined]] Trade and Customs. [[/underlined]]

When a Mongol bargains he does not say one word, that's all done by hand.  The Mongol's sleeves are very long and useful, for in winter they do not have to wear any gloves, the long sleeves cover their hands when they ride and hold the reins.  When two Mongols want to bargain over the price of an article which the one wants to buy and the other wants to sell, they place their right hands up each other's sleeves and by pressure of the different fingers on the bare arm of the other, they name their figures.  It looks quite amusing to watch two Mongols bargaining.  In goes the hand into the sleeve, pressure of fingers, surprise and disgust expressed on their faces, counterpressure of the other one, taking the hands out again, long discussions, then they try again until they have come to terms or until the deal is definitely off.

Another strange custom is the following:  An Auction sale.  The house next door to mine belonged to a Mongol.  He wanted to sell the same and every afternoon from 4 to 5 he climbed on the roof of his house and by shouting at the top of his voice notified the world in general and the passers-by in particular, that this very fine house was for sale, so far he had been offered so and so much and asked whether anybody was willing to offer more.  If anybody offers even one Dollar more, than yesterday's offer, the auction sale goes on.  It took about 2 years before that Mongol came to the conclusion that he had reached to top price and that there was nobody in Urga who was willing to pay another dollar, and down came the hammer, the auction had come to an end.

When the Living Buddah had died, all his possessions were distributed amongst the [[underlined]] Llama Temples in Urga [[/underlined]] for sale by auction.  The best things, such as gold and silver and jewellry had of course disappeared long ago and never appeard for sale in the monast^[[e]]ries but there were still enough beautiful and interesting things left to make the sale [[strikethrough]] interesting [[/strikethrough]] worth while going to.