240 
THROUGH ASIA 
himself received me at the first door, and with an affable 
smile conducted me as far as the audience chamber, where 
we took our seats on opposite sides of a little square table, 
and drank tea together and smoked out of silver pipes. 
Soldiers, armed with long-shafted halberds, kept watch 
beside the door, and a group of respectable yellow-skinned 
functionaries, with well-preserved pigtails and buttons in 
their black silk caps, stood like a circle of lighted candles 
all round the room, keeping as silent and motionless as 
statues all the time the audience lasted. The Dao Tai 
himself wore the insignia of his lofty dignity. With the 
view of repaying honour with honour, I had put on my 
best “dress” suit of broadcloth, and went to his palace 
riding- a horse as white as fresh-fallen snow and escorted 
o 
by a troop of Cossacks. 
For two hours we conversed together, or rather 
competed which should excel the other in paying- com- 
pliments. The Dao I ai asked me how I liked his tea. 
I answered “ Chao ” (good), that being the only Chinese 
word I knew. Thereupon he clapped his hands and said, 
“ By the memory of my fathers, what a marvellously 
learned man my guest is ! ” A little later he told me, that 
the river Tarim, which flowed out of Lop-nor into the 
desert, reappeared again several thousand li (quarter of a 
mile) distant, and formed the great river Hwang-ho of 
China. At this I gave him as good as I got; “What a well- 
informed man your Excellency is! You know everything. 
But I also let him hear a little plain truth as well. I 
told him how I had been received at Bulun-kul, the first 
place I entered on the Chinese side of the frontier; 
expressing my astonishment that I should have been 
treated with such discourtesy in face of the pass and 
letters of introduction I carried, and declaring my in- 
tention of making representations on the subject in higher 
quarters. Upon hearing this, the Dao 'lai’s face clouded, 
and with some show of emotion he begged me not to lodge 
a complaint; he would himself teach Jan Darin a lesson. 
I promised, therefore, that for that once I would let the 
matter drop ; for of course I never had any intention of 
