232 A CENTRE OF TRADE 



to have held office. Peking wired back that the 

 Viceroy should speak " good words " to his sub- 

 ordinates, and that all should agree together ! 

 After prolonged consultation, we decided that only 

 one road home was open to .us. The Szechuan 

 route, via Chengtu, Chungking, and the Yangtse- 

 kiang, was unsafe owing to the operations of robbers 

 on the Kansu-Szechuan border. Always a hotbed 

 of bad characters, in times of disturbance and 

 disorder such a journey became really dangerous. 

 The Sian-fu road ran right through the middle of 

 the fighting lines. The northern road to Tayin-fu 

 via Ningsia and Yulin was again barred by organised 

 bands of banditti. They had recently made a rich 

 haul of 30,000 taels, the funds of war. Seven 

 Belgians, armed to the teeth with rifles and 

 revolvers galore, had left by this route just before 

 our arrival, and, we subsequently heard, failed to 

 get through, returning to Lanchow. There re- 

 mained only one way open by which we could 

 leave, that leading across the Gobi Desert, Chinese 

 and Russian Turkestan, to Siberia. 



The difficulty of finding carters who had not 

 been commandeered by officials and were willing 

 to take us now began. Had it not been for the 

 assistance of Mr. Andrews I doubt if we should 

 have secured any. He was staying with Mr. Ross 

 at the post-office, and kindly allowed us to put up 

 at the mission house, where we were most com- 

 fortable. After a long search he found some men 

 who agreed to come with us to Ti-hua-fu for the 

 sum of 156 taels (just under £20) per cart. Officials 

 had been trying for days to get conveyances, but 

 they were unpopular employers, exacting a maxi- 



