o look upon
with favor. The Chinese have a superstitious dread of the electric
telegraph, and the government is unwilling to do anything not in
accordance with the will of the people.

A few years ago some Americans at Shanghae thought it a good
speculation to construct a telegraph line between that city and the
mouth of the river. The distance was about fifteen miles, and the line
when finished operated satisfactorily. The Chinese made no
interference, either officially or otherwise, with its construction.

[Illustration: RUSSIAN PETS.]

They did not understand its working, but supposed the foreigners
employed agile and invisible devils to run along the wires and convey
intelligence. All went well for a month or two. One night a Chinese
happened to die suddenly in a house that stood near a telegraph pole.
A knowing Celestial suggested that one of the foreign devils had
descended from the wire and killed the unfortunate native. A mob very
soon destroyed the dangerous innovation.

The other Englishman, Mr. Grant, was the projector and manager of a
Pony Express from Kiachta to Pekin. He forwarded telegrams between
London and Shanghae merchants, any others who chose to employ him. He
claimed that his Mongol couriers made the journey to Pekin in twelve
days, and that he could outstrip the Suez and Ceylon telegraph and
steamers. He seemed a permanent fixture of Kiachta, as he had married
a Russian lady, the daughter of a former governor. All these
foreigners placed me under obligations for various favors, and the two
Britons were certainly more kind to me than to each other.

[Illustration: PONY EXPRESS.]

I spent an evening at the club-rooms, where there was some heavy
card-playing. One man lost nine hundred roubles in half an hour, and
they told me that such an occurrence was not uncommon. In all card
playing I ever witnessed in Russia there was 'something to make it
interesting.' Money is invariably staked, and the Russians were
surprised when I said, in answer to questions, that people in America
generally indulged in cards for amusement alone. Ladies had no
hesitation in gambling, and many of them followed it passionately.
'_Chaque pays a sa habitude_,' remarked a lady one evening when I
answered her query about card playing in America. It was the Russian
fashion to gamble, and no one dreamed of making the slightest
concealment of it. Though I saw it repeatedly I could never rid myself
of a desire to turn away w