133 MILITARY DELINQUENCIES. 



their herds ;^ and caravans take circuitous routes in 

 order to avoid meeting the soldiers. 



Garrison troops also commit the same depreda- 

 tions. After first pillaging the country in the imme- 

 diate vicinity of the town in which they are quartered, 

 they proceed in small detachments on more distant 

 forays which sometimes last for several days. The 

 commander receives his share of the booty, and every- 

 thing is arranged satisfactorily. Officers of all ranks, 

 from the highest to the lowest, rob the government 

 as much as they can. The chief source of their 

 illicit earnings is derived from the pay of soldiers 

 who have died or deserted, which they continue to 

 receive long after it has ceased to be due. Desertion 

 is so common that many of the battalions are reduced 

 from i,ooo to lOO men, and it has been confidently 

 asserted that the 70,000 troops on the Hoang-ho 

 actually do not number more than 30,000. All these 

 facts are of course concealed from the government 

 at Peking. 



The severest penalties will not check these of- 

 fences, or restore the morale of the army. The 

 ordinary punishment for light offences is the basti- 

 nado, applied on the soles of the feet with bamboo 

 sticks, but desertion, insubordination, and in some 



' So says Marco Polo, of the people near the western parts of the 

 Gobi : ' When an army passes through the land, the people escape, with 

 their wives, children, and cattle, a distance of two or three days' jour- 

 ney into the sandy waste ; and knowing the spots where water is to be 

 had they are able to live there, and to keep their cattle alive, whilst it 

 is impossible to discover them ; for the wind immediately blows the 

 sand over their track.' — Book I. ch. 38. — Y. 



