for bargaining, cheapness of living and laborious thrift, are the qualities which characterize them as much on the Siberian-Mongolian frontier as they do in the heart of China itself. By these qualities they compete against the influence of the Siberian traders, and indeed the Chinaman more than holds his own, for while he will live upon a bowl of rice a day with a few native delicacies brought from Central China, the Russian must have his "chai peet," his samovar of tea, and his meal of meat and bread at least twice if not three times a day. The Chinaman's standard of civilization both social and economic was unlike anything I had ever seen before in my travels, and obviously betokened a highly developed and cultivated race with remarkable power and energy, against which the more primitive Siberian finds it very hard to compete. Here, on the neutral ground of the frontier steppes which border Southern Siberia and North-West Mongolia, these two civilizations meet.
Leaving the plateau steppes where Siberia and Mongolia meet in the Altai and plunging into the heart of the forest country, which surrounds these steppes and covers also a large area of the valleys along the Siberian-Mongolian frontier, we find another type of hardy, independent frontiersman. He too has left his fellow-peasants in the last outpost village, and has migrated along with his wife and family to some spot where he can carry on trade in furs with the native Finns of the forest; where he can hunt in the taiga (or virgin forest), or fish in its unknown rivers and lakes.
In the same summer as I visited the Siberian wool
