34 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



unawares, as he had sent no one in advance to say 

 that he was coming, and we naturally expected that 

 he would wait for us to call on him first ; the result 

 was somewhat embarrassing, as he walked straight 

 into my bedroom, which was not tidied up to 

 receive visitors, and so cut off my retreat. We 

 were at breakfast in the veranda, coatless and, 

 worse than all, hatless ; but there was no escape ; 

 however, he did not seem to mind much, and after 

 mutual apologies we commenced a long conversa- 

 tion, which was carried on through our respective 

 interpreters. We spoke Hindostani to our man, 

 who put it into Turki for the amban's man, he put 

 it into Chinese and thus delivered the mutilated 

 remains of our remarks to the amban himself. It 

 is difficult to conduct conversation on these lines, 

 and though we got on better than might have been 

 expected, the answers we received were at times 

 extremely irrelevant, to say the least of it. He was 

 very anxious for us to dine with him, but we had 

 both suffered Chinese dinners before, and so began 

 with one accord to make excuses, and succeeded 

 in escaping, though I fear somewhat ungracefully. 

 Later on in the day we returned his call, when 

 they fired off quite a number of guns in our 

 honour. 



Chinese etiquette with regard to calling is rather 

 peculiar, and though, of course, I do not profess 

 to know much about it, it is worth while for a 



