began to gnaw us. No sooner was the repast ready, than each of us,
drawing forth from his girdle his wooden cup, filled it with Kouamien,
and raised it to his lips. The preparation was detestable--uneatable.
The manufacturers of Kouamien always salt it for its longer preservation;
but this paste of ours had been salted beyond all endurance. Even
Arsalan would not eat the composition. Soaking it for a while in cold
water, we once more boiled it up, but in vain; the dish remained nearly
as salt as ever: so, abandoning it to Arsalan and to Samdadchiemba, whose
stomach by long use was capable of anything, we were fain to content
ourselves with the _dry-cold_, as the Chinese say; and, taking with us a
couple of small loaves, walked into the Imperial Forest, in order at
least to season our repast with an agreeable walk. Our first nomade
supper, however, turned out better than we had expected, Providence
placing in our path numerous _Ngao-la-Eul_ and _Chan-ly-Houng_ trees, the
former, a shrub about five inches high, which bears a pleasant wild
cherry; the other, also a low but very bushy shrub, producing a small
scarlet apple, of a sharp agreeable flavour, of which a very succulent
jelly is made.

The Imperial Forest extends more than a hundred leagues from north to
south, and nearly eighty from east to west. The Emperor Khang-Hi, in one
of his expeditions into Mongolia, adopted it as a hunting ground. He
repaired thither every year, and his successors regularly followed his
example, down to _Kia-King_, who, upon a hunting excursion, was killed by
lightning at _Ge-ho-Eul_. There has been no imperial hunting there since
that time--now twenty-seven years ago. _Tao-Kouang_, son and successor
of _Kia-King_, being persuaded that a fatality impends over the exercise
of the chase, since his accession to the throne has never set foot in
_Ge-ho-Eul_, which may be regarded as the Versailles of the Chinese
potentates. The forest, however, and the animals which inhabit it, have
been no gainers by the circumstance. Despite the penalty of perpetual
exile decreed against all who shall be found, with arms in their hands,
in the forest, it is always half full of poachers and woodcutters.
Gamekeepers, indeed, are stationed at intervals throughout the forest;
but they seem there merely for the purpose of enjoying a monopoly of the
sale of game and wood. They let any one steal either, provided they
themselves get the larger share of th