As Kalgan is the frontier town between China and Mongolia, many Mongols go there for all purposes, from trading down to loafing.  They bring their camels to engage in transporting goods across the desert, and indulge in a great deal of traffic on their own account.  They drive cattle, sheep, and horses from their pastures farther north, and sell them for local use, or for the market at Pekin.  Mutton is the staple article of food, and nearly always cheap and abundant.  The hillsides are covered with flocks, which often graze where nothing else can live.  In the autumn, immense numbers of sheep are driven to Pekin, and sometimes the road is fairly blocked with them.

Every morning there is a horse-fair on an open space just beyond the Great Wall, and on its northern side.  The modes of buying and selling horses are very curious, and many of the tricks would be no discredit to American jockeys.  The horses are tied or held wherever their owners can keep them, and in the centre of the fair grounds there is a space where the beasts are shown off.  They trot or gallop up and down the course, their riders yelling as if possessed of devils, and holding their whips high in air.  These riders are generally Mongols; their garments flutter like the decorations of a scarecrow in a morning breeze, and their pig-tails, if not carefully triced up, stand out at right angles like ships’ pennants in a northeast gale.  Notwithstanding all the confusion, it rarely happens that anybody is run over, though there are many narrow escapes.

[Illustration:  RACING AT THE KALGAN FAIR.]

The fair is attended by two classes of people—­those who want to trade in horses, and those who don’t; between them they manage to assemble a large crowd.  There are always plenty of curbstone brokers, or intermediaries, who hang around the fair to negotiate purchases and sales.  They have a way of conducting trades by drawing their long sleeves over their hands, and making or receiving bids by means of the concealed fingers.  This mode of telegraphing is quite convenient when secrecy is desired, and prevails in many parts of Asia.  Taverneir and other travelers say the diamond merchants conduct their transactions in this manner, even when no one is present to observe them.

[Illustration:  STREET IN KALGAN.]

Unless arrangements have been made beforehand, it will be necessary to spend three or four days at Kalgan in preparing for the journey over the desert.  Camels must be hired, carts purchased, baggage packed in convenient parcels, and numerous odds and ends provided against contingencies.  Of course, there is generally something forgotten, even after careful attention to present and prospective wants.