Page:Mongolia, the Tangut country, and the solitudes of northern Tibet vol 1 (1876).djvu/134

 into Mongol historical, educational, and religious works. The numerals are also peculiar to the people, and are used in business transactions equally with the Manchu. There are schools at Peking and Kalgan for teaching the language, and an almanac and some books are from time to time printed in it. The lettered classes are the princes, nobles, and lamas, the latter also learning Tibetan, the princes and nobles Mongol and Manchu. The common people are in general illiterate. All Mongols are fond of talking. Their greatest pleasure is to sit and chat over a cup of tea. On meeting them, their first question is, 'What's the news?' and they will ride twenty or thirty miles to communicate some bit of gossip to a friend. In this way rumours fly through the country with astounding celerity, almost equal to the telegraph. During our journey, the inhabitants, hundreds of miles ahead of us, knew all about us, down to the smallest details — of course with all sorts of exaggerations.

The first thing which strikes a stranger in talking to them is the frequent use of the words tse and se, both signifying 'very good,' and occurring in nearly every phrase. They are also used as affirmatives, 'yes,' 'it is so.' In receiving an order or listening to an anecdote from an official, the Mongol utters his invariable tse or se. If he wish to express a good or bad quality in anything, approval or censure, besides repeating these two syllables, and sometimes without, he holds up the thumb or forefinger of the right hand, as the case may be, the