CHINESE INNS AND CUISINE. 43 



Our Ignorance of the language was another great 

 hindrance to us, especially at the stations where we 

 Avanted something to eat. Fortunately, I had writ- 

 ten down at Kalgan the names of some Chinese 

 dishes which served as our memL to Pekino-. I do 



О 



not know how others may like the taste of Chinese 

 cookery, with its flavour of sesamum oil and garlic ; 

 but, as for us, the messes in the Inns were simply 

 disgusting — the more so because we saw haunches of 

 asses' meat In the butchers' shops, and always had 

 well-grounded suspicions that we were fed on the 

 same. The Chinese themselves show no repug- 

 nance to any kind of nastiness, and will even eat 

 dogs' flesh. On our second visit to Kalgan we saw 

 some Chinese butchers buy a camel suffering from 

 the mange so badly that its whole body was one 

 mass of sores, and then and there cut it up and sell 

 the meat. Any animal that has died Is eaten, as a 

 matter of course, and the asses sold In the meat 

 shops have never come by their death in a violent 

 manner, for such is the meanness of this people that 

 they will never willingly kill a beast of burden for 

 the sake of its meat, If It has any work left in it. 

 The reader can now form an idea of the relish with 

 which Europeans, fully aware of the coarse gastro- 

 nomical tastes of their hosts, partake of the dishes 

 served In Chinese Inns. 



On leaving Kalgan, and turning his back on the 

 border range, a wide, thickly-populated, and highly 

 cultivated plain lies before the traveller. The 

 cleanly appearance of the villages affords a striking 

 contrast to the towns. The road is very animated ; 



