AN ADVENTURE IN THE LAMA CITY 141 



compound. He spoke excellent Chinese and was un- 

 usually well educated for a Mongol. 



Although he was in charge of the customs station 

 at Mai-ma-cheng< and owned considerable property, 

 which he rented to the Chinese for vegetable gardens, 

 his chief wealth was in horses. In Mongolia a man's 

 worldly goods are always measured in horses, not in 

 dollars. When he needs cash he sells a pony or two 

 and buys more if he has any surplus silver. His bank 

 is the open plain; his herdsmen are the guardians of 

 his riches. 



Loobitsan's wife, the duchess, was a nice-looking 

 woman who seemed rather bored with life. She re- 

 joiced in two gorgeous strings of pearls, which on state 

 occasions hung from the silver-encrusted horns of hair 

 to the shoulders of her brocade jacket. Ordinarily she 

 appeared in a loose red gown and hardly looked regal. 



Loobitsan had never seen Peking and was anxious 

 to go. When General Hsu Shu-tseng made his coup 

 d'etat in November, 1919, Mr. Larsen and Loobitsan 

 came to the capital as representatives of the Hutukhtu, 

 and one day, as my wife was stepping into a millinery 

 shop on Rue Marco Polo, she met him dressed in all 

 his Mongol splendor. But he was so closely chap- 

 eroned by Chinese officials that he could not enjoy him- 

 self. I saw Larsen not long afterward, and he told me 

 that Loobitsan was already pining for the open plains 

 of his beloved Mongolia. 



In mid-July, when we returned to Urga, the vege- 

 table season was at its height. The Chinese, of course, 



