TRAVELLING BY CART 243 



We started at all hours of the day or night, as the 

 carters wished. Our great amusement was the 

 variations we adopted in the construction of our 

 beds. George's cart, as being the leader's, had a 

 large bell slung to the axle. This was sensitive to his 

 every movement, and by its note I could tell pretty 

 well at what stage in the manipulation of his couch 

 he had arrived. First would come a clang as he 

 jumped up on the shafts ; subdued jangle as he 

 crept inside. Then a slight tinkling as the blankets 

 were arranged. Terrific bang as he extended him- 

 self in a recumbent position, followed by a slight 

 jingle as he settled down for the night. We had 

 often during the latter stages of our journey 

 finished our day's march quite early in the morning. 

 In December we usually travelled all day and 

 rested all night, starting in the dark at 5 or 6 a.m. 

 About three hours' walking a day kept us fit, and 

 as we had been provided with a large selection of 

 books by Mr. Ross, we spent a good deal of our 

 time reading. Judging by the contents, the pass- 

 ing travellers who had enriched his library at 

 Lanchow had been of a somewhat neurotic and 

 pessimistic turn of mind. In the first book which 

 I devoured the hero broke his neck and his wife's 

 heart ; in the second, the heroine married a brute 

 to save the man she loved and lived unhappy ever 

 after ; in the third the heroine drowned herself on 

 the last page and the hero, one of those " strong, 

 silent men " with hair slightly silvered at the 

 temples and a horrible habit of chewing nothing, 

 " went out into the empty night " ; and in the 

 fourth the heroine again committed suicide by 

 means of an overdose of morphia. This latter was 



