FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



despite his protestations and howls. And among all his fellows 

 who for a whole month had travelled with him, eaten with him, 

 and toiled with him, there was not one who would lift a finger 

 against this injustice. They are a cowardly and cruel set, this 

 yellow race, always ready in their cold selfishness to combine 

 against the weak, and each satisfied if by finding a scapegoat he 

 can secure himself La Rochefoucauld ought to have written his 

 maxims for the Chinese ; he would never have been in error. 

 In the early morning Manhao came with lamentations to us, 

 showing his swollen arms. I have little doubt he was as bad as 

 the rest, and would have acted himself in a precisely similar 

 fashion had the occasion offered ; but for the moment he was the 

 plaintiff, and our investigations only established the fact that 

 there was absolutely no evidence against him. After having 

 angrily reprimanded the makotou, to his intense astonishment, we 

 required him to take care of the accused. The epilogue to this 

 little drama was to disclose itself a few days later. 



The two first stages after leaving Muong-le were particularly 

 uninteresting, at the foot of the hills rice, and on the flanks villages, 

 thatched and unclean. We slept among Pais who had nothing 

 original. The only incident of the march was a kick which one of 

 the mules obligingly lent me in the face. I escaped with a grazed 

 eyebrow, but it might have been different. It was not without 

 envy that we saw buffaloes driven into the villages at nightfall ; but 

 we could neither make acquaintance with their flesh nor with the 

 milk of the cows : ever the eternal rice and eggs, fowls, and 

 occasional pork. On the ist April, in the afternoon, we had made 

 our customary halt for a bite and a rest, when just as we were about 

 to resume, a tremendous storm, which had lowered for some time 



in the hills, burst over us. Lightning, thunder, wind, rain, hail, — 



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