50 
A TWO MONTHS 5 TRIP INTO MONGOLIA. 
of flat marshy country to Tientsin. It is apparently greatly patronized 
by the natives and one would have thought that this would have 
induced the Chinese to construct other lines. The Mandarin classes, 
however, as a rule, do not appear to appreciate the progress of the 
“ foreign devil; 55 the fact is that they have money and certain means 
of obtaining it; and rather than run the risk of changing their profit¬ 
able customs, they will travel in their springless, uncomfortable, and 
antiquated carts on miserable roads. 
We reached Tientsin on the last day of August and were entertained 
and treated with the invariable hospitality one meets with in these 
places. 
Having now reached the limits of steamer and railway, we set about 
finding carts and ponies. The Chinese cart is perhaps worth describing. 
It has two wheels, a cover of canvas with a small window, ordinary 
single draught shafts, and, like some place of torment that Harrison 
Ainsworth describes in one of his books, is so arranged that you can 
neither stand, sit, nor lie down in it. 
However, as our carts were quite full of provisions and stores, when 
tired we sat on the shafts. 
The carts are drawn by two mules tandem fashion, the driver 
walking, or sitting on the shafts, and talking to his beasts from the 
time they are harnessed till they roll on the ground in the evening 
after their day 5 s work. 
The mules are invariably watered immediately after they have been 
fed and frequently suffer, in consequence, from colic;, whereupon the 
drivers cut their eyelids, a mode of treatment which I suppose is 
intended as a counter-irritant! We engaged four carts with two 
mules apiece, three drivers, a cook, a “ boy 55 to attend on us and 
interpret, a “ riding boy 55 as groom, and an extra “ boy 55 to lead the 
horse. 
We then obtained four ponies, T--, two boys and I riding, leav¬ 
ing the cook to sit in a cart. 
We took a fair quantity of tinned provisions and what liquor and 
tobacco we required. None of the servants or cartmen had been more 
than a hundred miles north of Peking before, but as T-- already 
knew the road, we were not in need of a guide. The regular journey 
for a Chinese cart and two mules is about one hundred “ lee, 55 a little 
over 30 miles a day. They will travel this distance at the rate of 
something more than three miles an hour, and, provided they know 
where the next halting place is to be, they need little encouragement. 
We always contrived to halt for the night at large inns, where there 
was plenty of accommodation for ourselves and our beasts. These inns 
are all alike, consisting of a yard surrounded by single storey mud 
huts and stables, a large gate being closed at night and guarded by a 
watchman provided with a kind of rattle to let evil doers know that he 
is awake. 
The dwelling rooms are all fitted with c( khangs, 55 which consist of a 
raised floor under which a fire, fed with refuse, is kept smouldering, 
the smoke being carried away by a chimney. We always dispensed 
