supposed they were old friends of ours. But, unfortunately for them, we were a little au fait to Chinese tactics; and we had not in us all the bonhommie and simple credulity of the Tartars. We were convinced, therefore, that we had to do with two sharpers, who were preparing to clutch the money with which they believed us laden. By dint of looking on all sides, we at last perceived a sign, on which was written, in large Chinese characters, "Hotel of the Three Perfections, lodges Temporary Guests with Horse or Camel, and undertakes all sorts of Business, without ever failing." We immediately directed our steps towards the great gate; in vain our two guides protested that that was not the place we were going to —we entered; and, after passing through a long avenue, found ourselves in the great courtyard of the inn; and, by the little blue cap worn by the people who were moving about the court, we discovered we were in a Turkish hostelry.

"We are glad you know our country, then you doubtless know our language also?" "Your language-I cannot say I know it perfectly, but out of ten words I understand always three or four, but there is some difficulty in speaking with that." "Never mind, you know Chinese and Tartar?" "Oh! the people of your country are endowed with a great capacity; I have always been very intimate with your countrymen ; I am accustomed to manage all their business. When they come to the Blue Town it is always I who am commissioned to make their purchases.”

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The object our two friends had in view was not at all doubtful. Their great wish to manage our affairs was, for us, a strong reason to decline their offers. As soon as we had finished our tea, they made a profound bow, and invited us to go and dine with them. My lords," they said, the rice is prepared, the chief of our house of business awaits you." Listen," we replied gravely, "let us speak a few words of reason. You have given yourselves the trouble to conduct us to an inn-that is well; your good hearts have induced you to act thus. You have rendered us many services; your master has sent us pastry;-evidently you are endowed with hearts whose goodness is inexhaustible. If it were not so, why should you have done all this for us who are entire strangers to you? Now you invite us to go and dine with you; that is well on your part, but it is also well on ours not to accept the invitation. To go thus to dine with people with whom one is not connected, is not conformable to the customs of the Chinese nation, and it is equally opposed to those of the west.”

This movement of ours did not at all suit the two Chinese; but they followed us; and, without appearing too much disconcerted, continued to play their part. Where are the people of the inn?" they cried, in an affected manner; "let them open a large room-a clean room-a handsome room. Their Excellencies are arrived-they must have a suitable apartment." A principal waiter of the inn presented himself, holding a key in his teeth, with a broom in one hand and a watering-pot in the other. Our two protectors seized upon the whole apparatus. "Let us do that!" they exclaimed; "it is we who must serve our illustrious friends; you people of the inn only do things by halves-you only work for money." And immediately they set to work, watering, sweeping, dusting, in the room that had been opened. These words, pronounced with gravity, completely When all was ready, we went and seated ourselves on destroyed the illusion of our two adventurers." If the kang, whilst the two Chinese chose, out of re- for the present," we added, "we decline coming to spect, to remain crouched on the ground. Just as your shop, be good enough to excuse us to your masthe tea was about to be served, a young man, well- ter; thank him for the attentions he has shown us. dressed and of elegant appearance, entered the room; Before leaving the town we shall probably have some he held in his hand the four corners of a silk hand-purchases to make, and we will then take an opporkerchief, of which we could not see the contents. "My Lord Lamas," said the old rogue," this young man is the son of the head of our house of business; our master saw you arrive, and has hastened to send his son to ask if you have made your journey in peace." The young man then placed on a little table before us his silk handkerchief. 66 Here," said he, "are some cakes to eat with the tea; my father The Chinese, it appears, have discovered the art at home has given orders to prepare some rice for of turning the simplicity of their Mongol neighbors you. When you have drunk your tea, will you be to very profitable account. No sooner does one of pleased to come and partake of a small and bad them make his appearance in a trading town, than repast, in our old and poor habitation?" "What he is surrounded by kind friends, who almost drag is the use of taking so much trouble about us?" "Oh, look at our faces!" they all cried at once; "your words cover them with blushes ;" but the innkeeper, bringing in the tea, cut short all the wearisome formalities of Chinese politeness.

"Poor Tartars!" said one of us to the other, "how triumphantly you must be fleeced when you fall into such hands!" These words, which were pronounced in French, excited great surprise in the three sharpers. "What is the illustrious kingdom of Tartary which your excellencies inhabit?" inquired one of them.

"Our poor family is not in Tartary-we are not

Tartars."

"Ah! you are not Tartars. We knew it well. The Tartars have not so majestic an air; their persons do not display that grandeur. Might we venture to enquire concerning your noble country?"

"We are from the west-our country is very far from here."

"Ah! that's it," cried the old fellow, " your are from the west. I knew you were. These young people understand few things, they do not study the physiognomy. You are from the west; I know much of your country, I have made more than one journey in it."

tunity of paying you a visit.

Now we will go and take our dinner at the Turkish restaurant, which is near here."

"It is well," said they, in a tone of vexation; "that is an excellent restaurant," and with these words we all rose and went out together.

him into their houses, unsaddle his horse, make him tea, and keep him eating, drinking, and smoking, while their clerks and assistants undertake to dispose of what he has brought with him, and to buy what he wants, taking care never to lose sight of him for a moment. The poor Tartar takes in good faith all the professions of friendship made to him, and, knowing his own ignorance of business, congratulates himself on having found such disinterested people. "If they wished to rob me," he argues," they would never give me such good dinners for nothing."

It is, however, according to M. Huc, "exactly at these friendly dinners that the Chinese bring into play all the knavery of which they are capable, and entangle the unsuspecting son of the desert in their meshes, as a spider might a fly." A Chinese gentleman whom the travellers encountered on the second day after their departure from the " Blue Town," explained with charming frankness hig mode of carrying on business.

We had just finished unloading our camels, and tying them to a manger, when we saw entering the great court a prodigiously fat man, who was draw

but speak a little more clearly-how much do you require?" "Oh, a mere nothing-we are all brothers-you are travellers, we are aware of that. We ought to take you gratis-it would be only our duty; but look at us-at our clothes; we are poor, of rowing-three men, a horse, a mule, the baggage; our boat is our all-we must live by it. Five lis well, as you are religious men, we will only ask two thousand sapecks.' The price was most exorbitant, and we did not answer a single word, but turned round and feigned to be going back. But we had scarcely gone twenty paces when the master of the boat came running after us.

turn southward, and reëntering China, to traverse | A few sapecks for so much work-it is going through the province of Kan-Sou, and, if possible, join a great deal for nothing." "You are right, you will some caravan that should be journeying in the have much labor, of course; no one says otherwise; required direction. They no longer felt any fear of plunging alone, and without the protection even of one of their catechists, into the prohibited Chinese Empire, for they had several times resided, for a considerable period, in commercial towns; they had managed their affairs for themselves, and become familiar with Chinese customs, and, though they spoke with a Tartar idiom, the language no longer presented any difficulty. Besides this, the wind, the rain, and the sun had, by this time, produced a tint on their skins that made it difficult to recognize them as Europeans. They reached the borders of the Ho-Hang-Ho, or Yellow river, which they had to cross at the period of one of its great inundations; but, as they had not money enough to wait in the town, where they were, till the subsidence of the flood, they determined to attempt the passage immediately.

After a little expenditure of eloquence on both sides, five hundred sapecks were offered and into the boat, the worthy Charon made one more accepted; but just as the party were about to step attempt to carry his point :

Ultimately the affair was arranged by the intervention of the "mediators," indispensable in all Chinese bargains, at eight hundred sapecks, and the missionaries reached the dyke in safety, and passed the night on the steps of a little lonely temple on the banks of the majestic Ho-Hoang-Ho.

It was not without feelings of lively satisfaction, that after three months' wandering in the bleak and hungry desert, MM. Huc and Gabet found themselves comfortably lodged at the " Hotel of Justice and Mercy," in the town of Che-Tsai-Dze, in the Chinese province of Kau-Sou, where provisions are abundant, varied, and of astonishing cheapness. At all hours of the day and night, we are told, ambulatory restaurateurs traverse the streets with soups, ragouts of mutton and beef, vegetables, pastry, rice, vermicelli, &c. The Great Wall at this part is little more than a heap of ruins; but the works for the irrigation of the fields are on a magnificent scale. There are few villages, but farms large or small, separated by fields, and surrounded by trees, and on the irrigation days, the country people move about in boats. To the traveller, of course, the irrigations are very unwelcome, as they overflow the roads and encumber them with mud; but the inhabitants rejoice in them. The commencement of the new year is in China, as in last days of the old have also their peculiar celebra most other countries, a subject of festivity; the tion. They are days of universal quarrelling.

"Look here," he called out to one of his comWe set out on our march with our hearts full of panions, "we 're going to row five lis,* and at last courage and confidence in the protection of God. The we 're only to have fifteen hundred sapecks to divide old Tartar who lodged us so hospitably wished to con-between us eight." "What do you mean by fifteen duct us to the outside of the town. There he pointed hundred?" we cried; "this is mere mockery ;" and out in the distance a long wreath of thick vapor which once more we turned round and began to move off. seemed to float from west to east; it marked the course of the Yellow River. "At the place where you see that mist," said the Tartar, "there is a great dyke, which serves to restrain the river within its bed when the increase of water is not very great. When you have reached it, you will proceed along the shore as far as the little pagoda, that you see down there on your right; there you will find a boat that will take you to the other side of the Yellow River. Do not lose sight of this pagoda, and you will not lose your way. After having thanked the good old man for his attentions we pursued our journey. We soon found ourselves in fields filled with yellowish and stagnant water. Before us, as far as the eye could reach, extended immense marshes, only intersected here and there by small dykes which the water had lately abandoned. The laborers of these countries had been forced to become boatmen, and we saw them moving from place to place in little skiffs which they managed to guide across these fields. We advanced, however, through these drowned lands, but with inexpressible difficulty and slowness. Our poor camels were quite beside themselves. The soft slippery ground that they found everywhere beneath their feet, only allowed them to move in a series of slides; and when you saw their heads turning incessantly from side to side with the most anxious expressions, their limbs shivering, while the perspiration dripped from every part of their body, you would have thought every moment they were going to faint. It was almost noon when we arrived at a little village, and though we had only gone half a league, we had made so many circuits, and we had described such a zigzag in our painful march, that we were exhausted It is at this time that every one sets his accounts in with fatigue. We had hardly reached the village order, and goes to worry his debtors; all the Chinese when we were surrounded by a crowd of miserable are both debtors and creditors, and it results from creatures covered with rags, who escorted us as far as this that everybody is both pursuing and pursued. a large piece of water, at which we were compelled to That man who has just been raising such a disturb.stop, since we had no means of going on; we saw be-ance in the house of his neighbor, comes home and fore us an immense lake, extending as far as the dyke on the banks of the Yellow river. Some boatmen presented themselves, and undertook to convey us so far as we could easily, they said, get along the dyke to the little pagoda, where we should find a boat. We asked the master of the boat how much he 'would take to carry us as far as the dyke? 'trifle," he said, "a mere nothing. We can take the men and their baggage-the horse and the mule in our boat; and a man can conduct the camels across the lake. Our boats are too small to receive them.

"Oh, a

finds that his house has been turned topsy-turvy by some one who has claims upon him. On every side vociferations, abuse, wrangling and fighting are going on. On the last day of the year, the disorder is at its height; every one hastens to realize-to sell whatever they can lay hands on. The avenues to the pawnbrokers are blocked up. Clothes, bedding, cooking utensils, furniture of every kind, are being carried along them, and those who have emptied their *The Chinese li is less than half a mile English.

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Louses, look elsewhere for some resource. They run | vociferated; it was a frightful tumult; and then, to their relations and friends, and borrow things when the first arm of the river had been thus passed, which they say they are going to return immediately, the whole work was to be done again with the second, but which find their way instantly to the Tang-Pou. third, and every succeeding branch. When day broke This anarchy lasts till midnight, and then all is sud- the "sacred embassy" was still splashing in the denly quiet. No one is allowed to claim his debts any water. more, or even to make the least allusion to them. Everybody fraternizes with everybody, and no words are heard but those of peace and benevolence. Those who a few minutes before seemed on the point of cutting each other's throats, are now only contending in mutual politeness and cordiality.

The Mongols declared the passage had been an admirable one, as there were only two oxen drowned, and one man who had his legs broken. The Frenchmen thought it bad enough, but worse re

mained behind.

A period of eighteen months elapsed before the When the caravan resumed its march it presented a French travellers were able to meet with an oppor- loaded with icicles; the poor horses were dreadfully most ludicrous appearance. Men and beasts were tunity of going to Lha-Ssa. The route is almost unknown, but we have only space to indicate briefly solid piece, as if they had been made of lead instead embarrassed with their tails, which stuck out in a some of its most remarkable features. One of these of hair. The camels had the long hair on their legs is the Kouk-ou-Noor, or Blue Lake, which is de- laden with magnificent icicles, which rattled against scribed as of vastly greater dimensions than is com- each other with a harmonious sound; but, pretty ornamonly supposed-so great, indeed, that it rather ments as they were, the camels did not seem at all merits the name of sea, being not less than three pleased with them, and did all they could to shake hundred miles in circumference. The waters are them off by striking their feet hard against the ground. salt and bitter, and, according to M. Huc, exhibit The long-haired oxen were real caricatures; they the phenomenon of tides like the ocean. The vast walked with their legs wide apart, bearing painfully plains which lie around its shores, are watered by the enormous load of stalactites which hung down numerous brooks, and, though destitute of trees, quite to the ground. The poor beasts were so shapeproduce such fine grass, that they are much re-less, and so covered with icicles, that they looked as sorted to by the Mongols, notwithstanding the numer-if they had been preserved in sugar-candy. ous and audacious robbers by whom they are infested. So formidable have these attacks become, that the embassy formerly sent from Pekin to LhaSsa every year, now only goes every three years, as it is then accompanied by a stronger body of

travellers. It was in an immense caravan of this kind that the author and his companion, after waiting long for the opportunity, at length found means to undertake the formidable passage across the most elevated region of Central Asia. The party consisted of the Ambassador with his escort of three hundred Chinese soldiers and two hundred Tartars, and of two thousand travellers, Thibetan and Tartar, mounted, some on horses, some on camels, and others on the long-haired oxen of the country; and carrying with them fifteen thousand oxen and twelve hundred horses. This vast and noisy multitude halted from time to time on a wide plain, or on a mountain side, to allow the animals to recover from their fatigue, and, pitching their tents of every form and color, raised on a sudden an extensive city, that was destined to vanish again as quietly as it had arisen. The weather during the first part of the journey was magnificent, and the travellers began to fancy that they had been entertaining a very magnified idea of its hardships. But this pleasing illusion did not last long.

Six days after our departure we had to cross the Poutrain-Gol, a river which falls into the Blue Lake. The waters are not very deep, but being divided into twelve branches approaching very near each other, they occupy a space of more than three miles. We had the misfortune to arrive at the first branch long before daylight, and when the water was frozen, but not strongly enough to serve as a bridge. The horses had arrived first and were terrified, and would not advance. They stopped on the banks, and gave the long-haired oxen time to come up with them. Soon the whole caravan became assembled on this spot, and it would be impossible to describe the confusion and disorder that reigned in this immense throng enveloped in the darkness of the night. At length several horsemen urged on their horses, and broke the ice in many places, and then the whole caravan rushed pêle mêle into the river. The animals drove against each other and dashed up the water, the ice gave way, the men

After quitting the plains of the Kouk-ou-Noor, the country suddenly changes its aspect, and becomes savage and gloomy in the highest degree. The soil is dry and stony, and scarcely capable of supporting a few dried brambles impregnated with saltpetre.

The ascent of the mountain Bourhan-Botu, in itself steep and difficult, was rendered additionally painful by the presence, near the ground, of a certain deleterious gas-apparently carbonic acidwhich escapes from some fissure, and spreads itself along its side. The limbs of men and horses sunk under them; every face turned pale; no fire could be kindled; the breath was drawn with difficulty; and a sensation resembling sea-sickness almost deprived the caravan of the power of motion. When they reached a certain height, the air again became wholesome and the distressing symptoms at once disappeared. The name of the mountain-Bourhan-Botu, signifies, it seems, the kitchen of Buddha. Some days afterwards, another mountain put the strength and courage of the travellers to the proof.

The

The march was to be a long and trying one. usual signal for the departure of the caravan, the firing of a cannon, was heard an hour after midnight. We made some tea with melted snow, took a good meal of tsamba, seasoned with a little finely-chopped garlic, and set forth on our way. When the immense caravan first got into motion, the sky was clear, and a resplendent moon shone on the carpet of snow with which the ground was entirely covered. But soon the sky became overcast, the wind blew with violence continually increasing, and the snow proved to be so deep that it reached the horses' bellies; and some of them fell into hollows from which it was impossible to extricate them. * The ground was continually rising as we advanced, and the cold had increased to frightful intensity. Soon death began to make his harvest in our caravan; the want of water and the scarcity of food exhausted the animals. Every day we had to abandon beasts of burden that could no longer drag along their loads. The turn of the men came next and the very sight of the road we were traversing excited the most mournful forebodings. We had for some days been journeying through what seemed the excavations of a vast cemetery. Human

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bones and the skeletons of animals that we met with at every step, seemed to warn us that in this murderous region the caravans that had preceded us had not had a better fate than ourselves.

The sufferings of the wayfarers from this time were excessive. The cold was so severe that two or three balls of dough steeped in boiling tea, enveloped in cloths, and placed on their breasts, under a covering of three sheep skins and a blanket, were invariably found frozen. On one occasion, when they were approaching a frozen river, they perceived what looked like a line of little dark islets across it. On a nearer approach, they proved to be wild oxen, frozen firmly into the ice, which was so transparent, that though only the heads were above the surface, the whole animal was distinctly visible. They had been long dead, and the crows and eagles had already picked out their eyes. Before the caravan arrived at the goal of its long and painful march, more than forty men had to be left

in the desert.

They were kept on their horses or camels as long as there was the least hope, but when they could neither eat nor speak, nor hold themselves up, they were left exposed on the road. The caravan could not stop for them in an uninhabited desert, exposed to wild beasts, to robbers, and the want of provisions. As a last token of interest in their fate, a wooden bowl and a little bag of barley flour were placed beside them, and then the caravan sadly pursued its way.

The long-dreaded robbers came at last too, but for this and other incidents of the route, we must refer to the volumes themselves. The whole passage across these formidable deserts of Thibet occupied a period of more than three months; and on the 29th of January, 1846, about sunset, the exhausted travellers at length caught sight of LhaSsa, the metropolis of the Buddhist world, surrounded by a girdle of trees, many centuries old; its large white houses, the numerous temples with their girdled roofs, and high above all the majestic palace of the Talé-Lama, with its dome entirely covered with plates of gold, and surrounded by a peristyle, of which the columns are also gilt. At the entrance of the town they were met by some Mongols with whom they had become acquainted on the road, and who, having hastened on and preceded them by some days, now came to beg them to alight at their lodgings.

ing which formed part of an immense house containing about fifty inhabitants.

Our poor apartment was on an upper story, which was reached by twenty-six steps of wood, without any banisters, and so steep and narrow that, to avoid the hands and knees. breaking your neck, it was prudent to ascend them on Our lodging was composed of a large square room, and a little corridor, which we called our cabinet. The room was lighted by a nar row window on the north-east side, garnished with three great wooden bars, and by an aperture in the roof. This latter served for many different purposes; firstly, it admitted daylight, wind, rain, and snow; and secondly, it served as a chimney.

To mitigate the cold of winter, the Thibetians place in the middle of their rooms a vessel of baked earth, in which they burn argols (dried dung.) As this fuel has the failing of emitting more smoke than heat, when you wish to warm yourself, you understand all invaluable hole makes it possible to light a fire withthe advantage of having a hole above your head. This out being suffocated; it certainly has the disadvantage of sometimes drenching you; but when one has been leading a nomadic life, one does not mind a trifle. The furniture of our apartment consisted of two goatskins, stretched to the right and left of our fire-place, two saddles, our travelling tent, some old pairs of boots, two broken trunks, three torn garments hung upon nails, our blankets rolled up into a bundle, and in the corner a store of the argols for fuel. It will be seen, therefore, that we were quite on the level of

Thibetian civilization.

In Lha-Ssa, as elsewhere, the Frenchmen were received with civility by the Buddhist priests. On one occasion apartments were assigned to them inside a convent of Lamas; they were listened to with attention and respect, and called the Lamas of Jehovah.

Whether this portended, as they sup posed, the great success that was to crown their missionary labors, is a point that cannot now be decided, as their residence at Lha-Ssa was brought to a premature conclusion by the interference of the Chinese ambassador, who insisted on their being sent out of the country.

The Chinese influence is at all times great in Thibet, and at the time of M. Huc's arrival, recent events had increased its strength. The government of Thibet is, as is known, theocratic. The Talé-Lama (usually written Dalai-Lama) is the political and religious sovereign of all the countries of Thibet. In his hands resides all power-legislative, executive, and administrative; and he is not controlled in its exercise by any inconvenient charter or constitution, being regarded as the living Buddha, or actual embodiment of the divinity on earth. But as, nevertheless, it will sometimes happen that he dies, or, in the language of the Buddhists, that he is pleased to transmigrate, it is necessary for the great assembly of Lamas to point out from time to time the child in whose form any Talé-Lama has thought proper to revive, as well as to elect a Nomekhan, or lay sovereign, who is to attend to affairs beneath the living Buddha's dignity to interfere in. In the year 1844, it happened that the Talé-Lamas had taken to transmigrating with such extraordinary rapidity, that the inhabitants of Lha-Ssa were seized with consternation. Three Talé-Lamas had disappeared in rapid succession, and whispers went abroad that they had been The Thibetian habitations are, in fact, nothing more assisted to effect their transmigration by poison, than great whited sepulchres-a true image of Buddh- strangling, and other mere mortal methods. The ism, and all false religions, which take care to clothe Superior Lama of one of the great Lama Convents, with dogmatic truths, and all moral principles, the who was known to have been much devoted to the falsehood and corruption which they contain. After last, died also at the same time. Public opinion long investigations, we chose at length a small lodg-pointed to the Nomekhan, and to his jealousy of

The day after our arrival at Lha-Ssa, we took a Thibetian guide, and traversed the different quarters of the town, in search of lodgings to hire. The houses of Lha-Ssa are generally large, of many stories, and terminated with a terrace, slightly inclined, to facilitate the draining off of rain-water. They are covered with whitewash, with the exception of some borders, and the frameworks of the doors and windows, which are painted red or yellow. The reformed Buddhists are particularly fond of these two colors; they are, so to speak, sacred in their eyes, and they call them Lama colors. The inhabitants of Lha-Ssa, having the custom of painting their houses every year, they are usually very clean, and always look as if newly built, but the insides are far from being in harmony with the fair appearance of the outside. The apartments are dirty, smoky, strong-smelling, and encumbered with furniture and utensils, thrown here and there in disgusting disorder.