Mongol tea was prepared over the fire-cage and served us in brass bowls; but as the resident of Mongolia puts his salt in his tea rather than on his food, and has other un-Western notions of how it should be concocted, I did not insist on having my bowl refilled. I found my mind frequently harking back to such nights as this on the high Andean plateaus of South America, though there the travel itself had been quite different. Here was the same bare, vegetationless earth round about, the same complete ignorance of, or interest in, cleanliness, similar crowded, comfortless huts, and much the same attitude toward life as among the Indians of the Andes. But these plateau-dwellers were far more hospitable, cheery of manner, and with a live human curiosity which, though it caused them to finger monkey-like any of our possessions they could reach, had a more agreeable effect on the spirits than the sullen dullness of their American prototypes. Now and again, when they became over-troublesome, the lama ordered them outside with a commanding voice and manner which usually was effective at the third or fourth repetition. Yet he, too, was not lacking in fingering curiosity, of a slightly more controllable nature. While we ate we passed out samples of our strange foreign food to the gaping, over-clad semicircle about us. One of my canned cherries, dropped into a gnarled Mongol palm, created a considerable commotion. What was it; and was it safe in a Mongol stomach, even though this other kind of man ate it without misgiving? It passed from hand to hand around the circle, each evidently expressing his opinion of the risk involved, and the consensus seemed to be that it was up to the original recipient to make the venture. He licked cautiously at the fruit for some time after it had been returned to the furrowed hollow of his hand. At length, reassured by the two Russians and urged on by the lama, he bit gingerly into it—and half sprang to his feet with the shock it seemed to give his tongue. More reassurance finally induced him to eat it, and all went well until the stone betrayed its existence, whereupon there was an instant demand to know whether the presence of that foreign substance was normal, or whether his evil spirit was playing new and perhaps destructive tricks upon him. Considering the quantity of foreign substance the average Mongol absorbs with his meals, there seemed to be something absurdly incongruous about this lengthy performance. But then, we of the uninstructed West know little of the myriad methods the teeming evil spirits of the Orient devise to trap their victims.