fore, the "Ice Age" for Europe and America was a "Dust Age" for
northeastern Asia.

The inns were a constant source of interest to us both. Their
spacious courtyards contrasted strangely with the filthy "hotels" of
southern China. In the north all the traffic is by cart, and there
must be accommodation for hundreds of vehicles; in the south where
goods are carried by boats, coolies, or on donkey back, extensive
compounds are unnecessary. Each night, wherever we arrived, we found
the courtyard teeming with life and motion. Line after line of laden
carts wound in through the wide swinging gates and lined up in
orderly array; there was the steady "crunch, crunch, crunch" of
feeding animals, shouts for the _jonggweda_ (landlord), and
good-natured chaffing among the carters. In the great kitchen, which
is also the sleeping room, over blazing fires fanned by bellows, pots
of soup and macaroni were steaming. On the two great _kangs_ (bed
platforms), heated from below by long flues radiating outward from
the cooking fires, dozens of _mafus_ were noisily sucking in their
food or already snoring contentedly, rolled in their dusty coats.

Many kinds of folk were there; rich merchants enveloped in splendid
sable coats and traveling in padded carts; peddlers with packs of
trinkets for the women; wandering doctors selling remedies of herbs,
tonics made from deerhorns or tigers' teeth, and wonderful potions
of "dragons' bones." Perhaps there was a Buddhist priest or two, a
barber, or a tailor. Often a professional entertainer sat
cross-legged on the _kang_ telling endless stories or singing for
hours at a time in a high-pitched, nasal voice, accompanying himself
upon a tiny snakeskin violin. It was like a stage drama of
concentrated Chinese country life.

Among this polyglot assembly perhaps there may be a single man who
has arrived with a pack upon his back. He is indistinguishable from
the other travelers and mingles among the _mafus_, helping now and
then to feed a horse or adjust a load. But his ears and eyes are
open. He is a brigand scout who is there to learn what is passing on
the road. He hears all the gossip from neighboring towns as well as
of those many miles away, for the inns are the newspapers of rural
China, and it is every one's business to tell all he knows. The
scout marks a caravan, then slips away into the mountains to report
to the leader of his band. The attack may not take place for many
days. While the uns