oad to
that city across the Kopet Dagh mountains from Askabad, the capital of
Russian Transcaspia; and that half that road the Persians were rather
forcibly invited to construct."

[Illustration: MR. LIANG, EDUCATED IN THE UNITED STATES, NOW IN THE
SHIPPING BUSINESS.]

"Do you think," again interrupted the viceroy, whose interest in the
Russians now began to take a more domestic turn, "that the Russians would
like to have the Chinese province of Ili?"

To this question we might very appropriately have said, "No"; for the
reason that we thought Russia had it already. She is only waiting to draw
it in, when she feels certain that her Siberian flank is better protected.
The completion of the Transsiberian railroad, by which troops can be
readily transported to that portion of her dominion, may change Russia's
attitude toward the province of Ili. We did not, however, say this to his
excellency. We merely replied that we believed Russia was seldom known to
hold aloof from anything of value, which she thought she could get with
impunity. As she was now sending cart-load after cart-load of goods over
the border, through Ili, into northern and western China, without paying a
cent of customs duty, while on the other hand not even a leaf of tea or
thread of cotton passed over the Russian line from China without the
payment of an exorbitant tariff; and as she had already established in
Kuldja a postal, telegraph, and Cossack station, it would seem that she
does not even now view the province of Ili as wholly foreign to the
Russian empire.

At this the viceroy cleared his throat, and dropped his eyes in thoughtful
mood, as much as to say: "Ah, I know the Russians; but there is no help
for it."

At this point we ventured to ask the viceroy if it were true, as we had
been informed, that Russia had arranged a treaty with China, by which she
was entitled to establish consuls in several of the interior provinces of
the Chinese empire, but he evaded the question with adroitness, and asked:

"Didn't you find the roads very bad in China?"

This question was creditable to the viceroy's knowledge of his own
country, but to this subject we brought the very best Chinese politeness
we could muster. We said that inasmuch as China had not yet adopted the
bicycle, her roads, of course, were not adapted to that mode of
locomotion.

The viceroy then asked us to describe the bicycle, and inquired if such a
vehicle did not create conside