NATIVE HOSTELRIES 29 



a cracked and disruptured pavement. Then, within 

 the walls, a dusty, dirty street, lined with dusty, 

 dirty booths, tenanted by dusty, dirty men. Black 

 swine, looking like slab-sided, frowsy retrievers, 

 roaming the gutters ; and in the shadows, pariah 

 dogs, mangy, with open sores and black with flies, 

 lurking furtively. Through such a scene, as the 

 dusk deepened, our little string would draw near 

 the walls of some odoriferous inn. Many still 

 bore in the blotches of red paint and tattered 

 strips of tawdry paper signs of the Imperial Party's 

 tenancy during their hurried flight to Sian in 

 1900. 



Our first halting-place was typical of the larger 

 class of Chinese hostelries. The courtyard was 

 oblong, entered by a narrow arch. A narrow 

 verandah, marked by wooden railings and large 

 posts which supported the roof, ran round three 

 sides of it. Off this opened the guest rooms ; 

 fifteen or so in number, the best at the far end of 

 the yard opposite the arch. In the centre rose 

 a couple of tomb-like excrescences holding flowers, 

 flanked, the one by a peach, in the leaves of which 

 twittered homely-looking sparrows, the other by a 

 pomegranate, bearing beautiful red blossoms. A 

 few native beds were littered here and there, and 

 in one corner a disconsolate and aged pony munched 

 his evening meal. A couple of vulturine-looking 

 fowls dodged in and out between his legs and 

 pecked acidly at each other. Two tables were set 

 with eight or ten pairs of chop-sticks, and beside 

 each pair a china spoon, such as one sees in a sick- 

 room for eating jelly. Blue-clad Chinese in every 

 stage of dress and undress paraded the court 



