ildren; for poor children are not buried, but are thrown outside the
wall, sometimes before they are dead, to be eaten perhaps by the very
dog that was their playmate since birth.

I called upon the French priest, Pere Maire, and he came with much
cordiality to the door of the mission to receive me. His is a pretty
mission, built in the Chinese style, with a modest little church and a
nice garden and summer-house. The father has been four years in
Tongchuan and ten in China. Like most of the French priests in China he
has succeeded in growing a prodigious beard whose imposing length adds
to his influence among the Chinese, who are apt to estimate age by the
length of the beard. Only three weeks ago he returned from the capital.
Signs of famine were everywhere apparent. The weather was very cold, and
the road in many places deeply covered with snow. Riding on his mule he
passed at different places on the wayside eight bodies, all recently
dead from hunger and cold. No school is attached to the mission, but
there is an _orphelinat_ of little girls, _ramassees dans les rues_, who
had been cast away by their parents; they are in charge of Chinese
Catholic nuns, and will be reared as nuns. As we sat in the pavilion in
the garden and drank wine sent to him by his brother in Bordeaux--true
French wine--the priest had many things to tell me of interest, of the
native rebellion on the frontier of Tonquin, of the mission of Monsieur
Haas to Chungking, and the Thibetan trade in tea. "The Chinese? ah! yes.
He loves the Chinese because he loves all God's creatures, but they are
liars and thieves. Many families are converted, but even the Christians
are never Christian till the third generation." These were his words.

CHAPTER XII.

TONGCHUAN TO YUNNAN CITY.

From Tongchuan to Yunnan city, the provincial seat of Government and
official residence of the Viceroy, whither I was now bound, is a
distance of two hundred miles. My two carriers from Chaotong had been
engaged to go with me only as far as Tongchuan, but they now re-engaged
to go with Laohwan, my third man, as far as the capital. The conditions
were that they were to receive _6s. 9d._ each (2.25 taels), one tael
(_3s._) to be paid in advance and the balance on arrival, and they were
to do the distance in seven days. The two taels they asked the
missionary to remit to their parents in Chaotong, and he promised to
receive the money from me and do so. There was no writt