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, 
drawn 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 
very 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 vile 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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