low at the outside! But this superb Mongol! Caroline, cannot you
imagine him as 'Morales' in the _Pirates of the Savannah_?"

"Not in that costume, at any rate," said I.

"Why not, Monsieur Claudius? One day at Perpignan I played 'Colonel de
Monteclin' in the _Closerie des Genets_ in the costume of a Japanese
officer--"

"And he was applauded!" added Madame Caterna.

During dinner the train had passed Kastakos station, situated in the
center of a mountainous region. The road curved a good deal, and ran
over viaducts and through tunnels--as we could tell by the noise.

A little time afterward Popof told us that we were in the territory of
Ferganah, the name of the ancient khanate of Kokhan, which was annexed by
Russia in 1876, with the seven districts that compose it. These
districts, in which Sarthes are in the majority, are administered by
prefects, sub-prefects, and mayors. Come, then, to Ferganah, to find
all the machinery of the constitution of the year VIII.

Beyond there is an immense steppe, extending before our train. Madame
de Ujfalvy-Bourdon has justly compared it to a billiard table, so
perfect in its horizontality. Only it is not an ivory ball which is
rolling over its surface, but an express of the Grand Transasiatic
running at sixty kilometres an hour.

Leaving the station of Tchontchai behind, we enter station at nine
o'clock in the evening. The stoppage is to last two hours. We get out
onto the platform.

As we are leaving the car I am near Major Noltitz, who asks young Pan
Chao:

"Have you ever heard of this mandarin Yen Lou, whose body is being
taken to Pekin?"

"Never, major."

"But he ought to be a personage of consideration, to be treated with
the honor he gets."

"That is possible," said Pan Chao; "but we have so many personages of
consideration in the Celestial Empire."

"And so, this mandarin, Yen Lou?"

"I never heard him mentioned."

Why did Major Noltitz ask the Chinaman this question? What was he
thinking about?

CHAPTER XV.

Kokhan, two hours to stop. It is night. The majority of the travelers
have already taken up their sleeping quarters in the car, and do not
care to alight.

Here am I on the platform, walking the deck as I smoke. This is rather
an important station, and from the engine house comes a more powerful
locomotive than those which have brought the train along since we left
Uzun Ada. These early engines were all very well as long as the line
lay