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Page 71.

such as saddle ornaments, saddles, cloth, silk, tea and tobacco.  This lat^[[t]]er is a peculiar stuff, it looks like a greyish powder and certainly is not made of tobacco.  It seems to the rind of some tree ground into very fine powder.  It's smell is very penetrating and it is smoked through a long pipe, the end of which is formed like a small thimble and holds sufficient to take 3-4 draws of smoke.  Then the Mongol knocks out the ashes on the turned up toe of his boot and starts filling his pipe again.  On his belt he wears a small tobacco pouch, his flint and a hook to scrape out the ashes from the pipe when it gets choked up.  His knife and chopsticks and his pipe are  shoved into the shafts of his boots to be always handy.  These import articles are exchanged for sheep and camelwool, furs, sheep, oxen, ponies and what else the Mongol has to sell.  What he uses during the year is written down by the Chinese trader and what he delivers in goods is also written down.  Once during the Chinese New Year the account is balanced and the a^[[st]]ute Chinese dealer sees to it that he is not the loser on the transaction.  This barter has been going on for centuries and everybody was satisfied.  The managers of the big trading firms go on a holiday once every 2 years but the young employees have to stay 5 years, before they are allowed to go home on leave.  Should a Chinaman die while he is in Mongolia, his corpse is brought back to China and you often see a whole train of oxcarts between Urga and Kalgan carrying a number of coffins back to their homes.

A few years ago, when the Soviet influence was getting more pronounced, any trading firm in Mongolia had to have a licence. and one article after the other was declared a Government Monopoly, with the result that all the big Chinese firms as well as the foreign firms had to close up and return to their homes.  The only exceptions are the small workshops. [[strikethrough]] for [[/strikethrough]]  They were allowed to stay for the Mongol cannot and will not do any work whatsoever, except looking after his herds.  Therefore shoemakers, blacksmiths, builders