an accident happened to the incoming mails even
after they reached Peking. Of course they were taken direct to the
Inspectorate for sorting, and while headquarters were still in the
_Kau Lan Hu Tung_ the messenger was more than once thrown on his
way down to the Legations--perhaps he met one of those gong-beating
processions which would be enough to frighten a hobby-horse--and his
mails recklessly distributed by the terrified animal. And sometimes a
courier would stumble into a ditch in the rainy season when the road
was all river, and narrowly escape being drowned, but these little
incidents were only the fortunes of war.

It is not to be wondered at, considering the international work he was
doing, that his own country decorated Robert Hart as early as 1879.
It is only strange--to me--that they gave him no more than a humble
C.M.G. But this was soon changed into a K.C.M.G., and, as it happened,
at a most opportune moment---just when an American University
conferred an LL.D. upon him. There he was within an ace of being
called "Doctor" for the rest of his life, when the knighthood
providentially came to save the situation. The K.C.M.G. was followed
by a G.C.M.G., and the G.C.M.G. by a baronetcy, both the Liberals and
Conservatives giving him honours alternately. The last, the baronetcy,
came from Gladstone's Ministry, and with it he received a friendly
letter from the Grand Old Man, who always admired him immensely, and
said so when a brother of the I.G.'s--at the time in Europe acting
as interpreter to Li Hung Chang--was presented at a big dinner to the
Premier.

[Illustration: PEKING: A MESSENGER CARRYING MAILS IN THE RAINY
SEASON.]

"So you are a Mr. Hart from China," he remarked. "You should feel very
proud of a man who has made his name illustrious for all time."

France was not long behindhand in adding to his ever-growing list of
honours. He had the "Grand Officier" of the coveted "Legion" in 1885
after bringing safely to a conclusion the French Treaty of that year.
Undoubtedly this was one of the most picturesque and interesting
incidents with which he was ever connected, and perhaps it will not
come amiss to give some details of how it came about.

The trouble began over a disputed boundary--the Tonkin frontier, to
be exact. One side, the Chinese, wanted the Red River for the
dividing-line, would hear of nothing else, declared loudly that this
was the natural division; the other, France, was equally obst