heir legs, would reach over and pick up a
handkerchief, cap, or a soldier supposed to be wounded. All these
movements we photographed with our camera. Of the endurance of these
Cossacks and their Kirghiz horses we had a practical test. Overtaking a
Cossack courier in the early part of a day's journey, he became so
interested in the velocipede, as the Russians call the bicycle, that he
determined to see as much of it as possible. He stayed with us the whole
day, over a distance of fifty-five miles. His chief compensation was in
witnessing the surprise of the natives to whom he would shout across the
fields to come and see the _tomasha_, adding in explanation that we were
the American gentlemen who had ridden all the way from America. Our speed
was not slow, and frequently the poor fellow would have to resort to the
whip, or shout, "Slowly, gentlemen, my horse is tired; the town is not far
away, it is not necessary to hurry so." The fact is that in all our
experience we found no horse of even the famed Kirghiz or Turkoman breed
that could travel with the same ease and rapidity as ourselves even over
the most ordinary road.

At Vernoye we began to glean practical information about China, but all
except our genial host, M. Gourdet, counseled us against our proposed
journey. He alone, as a traveler of experience, advised a divergence from
the Siberian route at Altin Imell, in order to visit the Chinese city of
Kuldja, where, as he said, with the assistance of the resident Russian
consul we could test the validity of the Chinese passport received, as
before mentioned, from the Chinese minister at London.

A few days later we were rolling up the valley of the Ili, having crossed
that river by the well-constructed Russian bridge at Fort Iliysk, the head
of navigation for the boats from Lake Balkash. New faces here met our
curious gaze. As an ethnological transition between the inhabitants of
central Asia and the Chinese, we were now among two distinctly
agricultural races--the Dungans and Taranchis. As the invited guests of
these people on several occasions, we were struck with their extreme
cleanliness, economy, and industry; but their deep-set eyes seem to
express reckless cruelty.

[Illustration: STROLLING MUSICIANS.]

The Mohammedan mosques of this people are like the Chinese pagodas in
outward appearance, while they seem to be Chinese in half-Kirghiz
garments. Their women, too, do not veil themselves, although they ar