f white silk. The second was Chun Wa. It was when the sentry went
on guard that we first made the acquaintance of Chun Wa. His cheeks were
round and fat, and his face seemed to bulge out towards the base. His
little eyes were soft and brown and twinkled like onyxes. His tiny
little hands were most beautifully shaped, and this child moved about
the farmyard with the dignity of an Emperor and the serenity of a
great Pontiff. Gravely and without a smile he watched the Cossacks
unharnessing their horses, lighting a fire and arranging the officers'
kit.

He walked up to the sentry who was standing near the treasure chest,
a big, grey-eyed Cossack with a great tuft of fair hair, and the
expression of a faithful retriever, and in a tone of indescribable
contempt, Chun Wa said "Ping!" "Ping" in Chinese means soldier-man, and
if you wish to express your contempt for a man there is no word in
the whole of the Chinese language which expresses it so fully and so
emphatically as the word "Ping."

The Cossack smiled on Chun Wa and called him by a long list of endearing
diminutives, but Chun Wa took no notice, and retired into the inner part
of the house as if he had determined to pay no more attention to the
barbarous intruders. The next day, however, curiosity got the better
of him, and he could not resist inspecting the yard, and observing the
doings of the foreign devils. And one of the Cossacks--his name was
Lieskov and he looked after my mule--made friends with Chun Wa. He made
friends with him by playing with the dog. The dog, like most Chinese
dogs, was dirty, distrustful, and not used to being played with; he
slunk away if you called him, and if you took any notice of him he
evidently expected to be beaten, kicked, or to have stones thrown at
him. He was too thin to be eaten. But Lieskov tamed the dog and taught
him how to play, and the big Cossack used to roll on the ground while
the dog pretended to bite him, until Chun Wa forgot his dignity, his
contempt, and his superior culture, and smiled. I remember coming home
that very afternoon from a short stroll with one of the officers, and we
found Lieskov lying fast asleep in the farmyard right across the steps
of the door through which we wanted to go, and Chun Wa and the dog were
sitting beside him. We woke him up and the officer asked him why he had
gone to sleep.

"I was playing with the dog, your honour," he said, "and I played so
hard that I was exhausted and fell asle