148 CHINESE TURKESTAN 



miles away between this and the river Hi is the 

 Chang Jung's own private town. He is a sort of 

 viceroy of the country, and I believe a blood 

 relation of the Emperor ; but as we did not want to 

 see him, and did not suppose that he wanted to see 

 us, we made no attempt to get an audience. 

 Though inaccessible to the missionaries, he would 

 probably have received us. Morse went to see him 

 in the summer, and was given a feast of a length 

 proportionate to the great man's dignity, from the 

 quantity and quality of which it took him days to 

 recover. 



Lutsakou is a small and dirty place. Among the 

 luxuries of the serai, or rest-house, was the body of 

 a long-defunct camel in the courtyard, but luckily 

 the weather was not yet warm enough for it to be 

 actively offensive. 



There is a branch of the Kuldja mission in a 

 small town near, so on our way we went to see Mr. 

 Hoyos, the missionary in charge ; he told us that 

 the local official was much exercised over our 

 coming, and he had had some difficulty in per- 

 suading him that as far as we were concerned the 

 place was safe. 



We had some camels with us, and very bad ones 

 they were too, while the muddy state of the road did 

 not assist them to travel fast ; so we could not make 

 Atai, which is the proper stage from Lutsakou, and 

 stopped about half-way, just at the entrance to the 



