SPORT AND SCIENCE ON THE 



an excellent and comparatively smokeless fuel, 

 if treated in the right way. We found it burned 

 well in our stove, giving out much heat. 



The temple at Marlagaisun is typical of those 

 prevalent in Mongolia. We were told that it 

 harboured about seven hundred lamas, but this 

 statement is hard to believe, though in any case 

 the number was very large. On our journey 

 in this region we passed no less than seven such 

 temples, not including the two big ones at Lama 

 Miao, and as each temple had hundreds of lamas, 

 dra"svn from the surrounding encampments, it 

 can be imagined why the Mongols are dying out. 

 These lamas are entirely supported by contribu- 

 tions from the lay Mongols, and being a lazy, 

 good-for-nothing lot, act as parasites, sucking the 

 ver}^ life-blood out of the nation. The rule of 

 the leading lamas is absolute over the people. It 

 is kept up by skilful play upon the intense super- 

 stition and religious fanaticism of the Mongol 

 nature, and it is probable that in no country in 

 the world are the people so bound by priestcraft 

 as in Mongolia. In addition to their despotic and 

 parasitical rule, they have, by their ^dle and filthy 

 lives, introduced amongst their people the scourge 

 of terrible diseases, against which they have no 

 remedy. 



Can anything be more pitiful than the picture 

 of this wretched people, by nature open-hearted, 

 frank and intensely religious, degraded by a 



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