k
with me only through the medium of Tchagan Hou, who spoke a little
Chinese, and Wang, who knew even less English.

My spirits were rather low as I said good-bye to my kind hosts one
bright morning in August. I was sorry to leave Urga with so much unseen,
sorry to see the last of Tchagan Hou, who had piloted me so skilfully
across the desert--blessings on his good face! I hope luck is with him
wherever he is--and I was sorry to part with my Chinese tent, my home
for weeks, and with my little camp-bed, on which I had slept so many
dreamless nights. A few days and nights in a tarantass were all that now
lay between me and the uninteresting comforts of Western hotels and
trains.

With great inward objection I climbed into the tarantass, like nothing
so much as a huge cradle on wheels, drawn by three horses, one, the
largest, trotting between the shafts, and the other two galloping on
either side. At the very outset I had a chance to realize the difference
between dealing with the Asiatic pure and simple, and the Asiatic
disguised as a European. We had been told that it would be necessary to
make an early start to cover the first day's stage before dark. I was on
hand, and so was Wang, but it was afternoon before we were finally off.
Luggage had to be packed and repacked, wheels greased, harness mended,
many things done that ought to have been attended to the day before. Now
of course that happens in China,--though nowhere else in my journeyings
did I encounter such dawdling and shiftlessness,--but there at least you
may relieve your feelings by storming a bit and stirring things up;
these people, however, looked like Western men, and one simply could not
do it.

So I kicked my heels for hours in the Russian merchant's lumberyard,
drinking innumerable cups of tea and refusing as many more, and getting
light on several things. I had been told that the Russians have little
of the Anglo-Saxon's race pride, but I did not suppose they ignored all
other distinctions. I was drinking a last glass of tea with the merchant
in his pleasant little sitting-room, attractive with many blossoming
plants, when Wang came in to collect my things. He was at once
boisterously urged to draw up to the table between us. He refused, but
the Russian insisted, trying to force him down into a chair. I watched
without saying anything as my boy quietly took a glass of tea and a
chair and withdrew to the other side of the room. He understood what was