l but it was not very
good, the chief attraction being to watch Chinese performers. As a
rule they wear only one skate, on which they propel themselves by
striking the ice with the other foot until a certain speed has been
attained, when they spread out their arms, bend forward until their
noses almost touch the ice and raise the skateless foot high over
their backs. This bird-like skim on one leg seems to be their ideal of
graceful skating.

At this season the stately, two-humped camels, with beautiful coats of
brown wool a foot in length, come down from Mongolia, bearing loads of
meat and furs, together with frozen game and fish from Manchuria and
the Amoor river, and coal from the mines north of Peking.

The Mongol teamster, clad in skins with the hair inside, trudges in
front, leading the first camel by a string attached to its nose, while
a cord tied to its tail links it with the nose of the second camel,
and so on, till the whole team of eight or ten are securely connected.
They move along with graceful, easy stride, the only sound being the
dull clanking of a heavy bell suspended from the leader's neck.

On one of the animals the Mongol's whole family is sometimes carried
in two immense panniers, and the round, yellow faces of tiny children
peer down from their lofty nursery on a strange and passing world.

I have also seen a calf camel, evidently cast by the way, being
carried in a litter strapped to the back of its dam.

It has been told me by reliable Chinese that in winter upwards of ten
thousand camels daily pass in and out of the gates of Peking. They are
beautiful animals, of great height, and appear to be very meek and
docile.

On one occasion, when returning at daylight from duck shooting near
Marco Polo's bridge, I was tightly wedged in by several hundreds which
were waiting to enter the western gateway. They looked down at me with
their patient eyes as I shouted and prodded them with my whip in order
to clear a way for my pony, but attempted neither to bite nor kick.

In spring their wool peels off in large flakes, giving them a ragged
appearance, and is collected and woven into the celebrated Tientsin
rugs.

In summer, like the wildfowl, they disappear and go north to seek cool
pastures in the Mongolian highlands.

Peking not being a seaport, and as yet but little influenced by
foreign trade, the European community settled there is solely composed
of the _corps diplomatique_ and the legatio