SO sound were our slumbers, as we lay exposed to the heavenly night wind on the rigid structure that served us for a bed-place in that airy attic, that—despite the watchman's punctilious chronological registrations on the noisy gong, the melodious cantillations of the early vendors of materials for the preparation of the early morning meal, or the rapid accession to the number of those hapless beings who, we could not forbear thinking, must have kept watch over us during the night in order to notify to the outsiders if anything particularly strange presided over or influenced us during the dark hours devoted to rest and peace by themselves, as they crouched down on their hunkers lost in attention — we did not awake until a late hour, when the sun had fairly got above the tops of the houses, throwing his rays in gold and silver gleams, over furrowed tiles and horned gables,—through the verdant foliage of the wide-spreading willows that grew in an adjoining garden, and, in long dazzling white pencils, darted in fitful starts through our windows and played about our bodies like the impaling knives hurled from the steady hand of a Chinese juggler.

We had o'erslept ourselves, and were all the better for it — if entire riddance from weariness and thirst, hunger and scorching, and the substitution of good spirits and contentment in lieu thereof, were to be accepted as guarantees.

PARTLY to while away the tedium and monotony of a long sea voyage from China to England, and partly to redeem a promise made before leaving that country, the following narrative of a somewhat novel ride through one of the most distant regions of the great Chinese empire was written for publication.

Much as its southern portion has been explored and described, little in reality is known regarding the far north, more especially of those hitherto inaccessible districts which border on, or lie beyond, that marvellous monument of human industry—the Great Wall, in its course along the eastern margin of Old China.

It is therefore hoped that an attempt to describe the general features of the country, and the special characteristics of the northern Chinese—differing as they do very widely from their brethren of the south—together with the incidents inseparable from the wanderings of two adventurous Britons travelling in their proper costume, for nearly seven hundred miles, among a people to whom the existence of such a place as Great Britain was unknown—may prove in some degree interesting. It may be a long time before Europeans will again venture so far as from the vicinity of Peking to the birthplace of the Mantchu dynasty, and journey unscathed through the fair provinces that exist between the two capitals, inhabited by thousands of an industrious race, to whom rebellion and its attendant horrors are unknown.

THE morning of the 13th July was a Sunday morning, and was ushered in by as lovely a sunrise as could be desired in any part of the world. We were early afoot, and soon receiving the full benefit of a good start from our place of temporary sojourn, where we had slept well, despite the stenches and noise.

Our rides had been long and without intermission since we began the journey; our ponies looked none the worse, certainly, for their exertions, though each day had seen us eight and ten hours in the saddle; but we were apprehensive of overtaxing their strength and remarkable endurance, as well as fatiguing ourselves unnecessarily by these forced journeys of forty or forty-five miles a day. So prudence dictated—and perhaps the remaining sensations of our divertissement at the Great Wall recommended — a Sunday's rest, on which occasion we made up our minds to be satisfied with half a day's travelling, should suitable accommodation offer.

It took us a little time to get clear of the town, for its environs assumed comparatively large proportions, besides carrying a very creditable appearance of business, notwithstanding the early hour; and then we had to cross a fordable river, undisturbed by any kind of craft, but which might at other times greatly aid the commercial transactions of the mercantile community of Chung-hue-soh.

THE dry beds of many rivers and streams unknown to song were crossed, a few of them during some portion of the year washing over a wide space of pebbly ground; and we forded others whose volume had very much contracted during the summer drought. For some distance here and there the soil was poor, and afforded only a thin dry herbage for the sustenance of flocks of diminutive black goats, and scraggy ponies and asses, which were tended by wild unkempt urchins, who roved listlessly around their herds, or lay in the full face of the cauterising sun, crooning snatches of unearthly-sounding ditties. These were the first glimpses I had as yet obtained of a pastoral life in a region where we certainly expected to find Tartar nomads, sauntering behind browsing swarms of cattle and sheep, or dwelling in black felt tents—for the purchase of which, as curios, we had so many commissions imposed upon us before leaving Tien-tsin —and drinking mares' milk, fermented or unfermented, as may have suited their palates or desires. But everywhere else beyond these uncultivated pasturages, congregations of erratic tribes would have been as much out of place, and as much bewildered, as butterflies in Fleet Street; for all was a great grain-field and a great forest of strong stems, more thickly planted and nearly more difficult of penetration than a backwoods forest.

THE list of my school-day books, besides the other varied accounts of travel by land and sea, penned by writers and travellers of near and remote ages, all quoted the then, to me, wondrously curious narrative of the unfortunate Venetian, Marco Polo; and though many years have passed away since I admiringly lingered over the perusal of his seemingly fabulous recital of the extent and peculiarities of the strange land in which he had so long been a dweller, yet, by oftrepeated, readings and a natural taste for remarkable tales, every page left its due impression on a mind fully awakened in after-years to the truth of what the honest Polo had vouched for, when on a visit to the land of Sinim; and more especially to the city of Cambalu, the abode of the Grand Khan.

The long strings of tawny funereal-paced camels, begrimed with the carbonaceous loads they bore with such melancholy-looking fortitude, conducted by sooty Sinensians through the wide dusty streets of Peking; the sonorous tinkling of the heavy brass bells suspended to the lower part of their acutely bent-up necks, and the frequent shrill discordant scream of anger or fatigue emitted by these slow but patient creatures, told of the neighbourhood of coal, and the statement made by the protégé of Kublai Khan, was immediately recalled to my memory.

‘TA-MÍ, ta-mí! Shumah ta-mí?’ M.'s firm decided tone of voice roused me from as profound a sleep as mortal man could possibly desire in such an inhospitable hostelry, and to the consciousness of a stormy debate that was going on between him and the soi-disant master of the house, regarding the various items in a bill about three feet in length, at the same time that I became thoroughly aware of the filthiness of my al fresco bed-chamber. Though the daylight, in a leaden-grey complexion, was struggling hard to obtain an ascendency over the stubborn gloom of the dawn, and surrounding objects were all but imperceptible, everybody was astir and busy. M. had been up for a long time, had seen the ponies fed, and was now beginning to practise the Mandarin tongue with a force and intentness of purpose that would have startled a dormouse. The particular matter in dispute at that moment seemed to be a novelty to him, as he kept repeating and inquiring about it, until I rejoiced to learn that it was only barley—the barley that had been given to our four-footed bed-fellows.

Rubbing my eyes, hot and painful as they felt from the yellow glare and smoky flame of the lamp, and scrambling down from the hard board, booted and spurred, with legs cramped and head aching, I did not find the prospect of such an early getting-up at all cheering; but there was no help for it, and I longed to get a mouthful of good air.

EMERGING from the gate we had entered by, we passed eastward through another portion of the suburb, where we found the cart and our driver working up the minds of the groundlings to a pitch of rabid curiosity rather annoying than otherwise. But the Yung-ro—Sinensian for sheep's flesh—was safely deposited in the coolest and roomiest corner of the vehicle, the vegetables were hung from the frame of the cover, and guarding our treasures with an unusual degree of attention, we scrambled out of the uncomfortable locality, which possessed some large buildings we took, or mistook, for potteries.

All the womenkind were out to scrutinise us, and we had ample opportunity afforded to enable us to surmise that the morality of the place was not of the highest order, nor the feminine beauty or modesty other than of a very low type.

Meretricious looking Messalinas jeered and smiled wantonly towards us from beneath their indecorous masks of paint, as they uneasily tried to maintain themselves erect on their fashion-nipped feet, or leant against the walls or the shoulders of some debauched Lothario. It was, perhaps, as well that we did not understand much, if anything, of their language. Everybody was piggishly dirty, and carried about an alluvial deposit of such a thickness, that one could scarcely forbear wondering they did not become fossilised within the muddy encasement daily and hourly accumulating about their persons.