On the morning of 12h November, 1874 a "large" clumsy cart with straw mat= awning, drawn by two hoi came to my door. Tu this 1 jo Poking and back. The axle of thi or goods cart, is firmly wedged into the wheels and revolves with them, The cart is mentioned in the "Lwun Vu," along with the '"emall" or travelling cart used all over the North and in the streets of the capital. Confucius may have often sat in one on the opposite side of the ferry. Clad in a fur suit and with abundance of wrappers, 10° below zero could be louked caluily in the face. In this large cart one can recline at full length or sit up at pleasure, Jolting in ruts on the plains, bumping against rocks in the mountains are some of the minor evils inseparably connected with all cart travelling, for the Jusury of springs is unknown, and I fear impossible before the construction of something worthy the name of roads.
As it was full mid-day before the team was got in motion, we got no further than 60 Ni the first day." By the time we arrived at the bank of the deep, wide, swift-flowing Liao, the sun had gone down, and al} aétempés to summon the boatmen from Tien-wang-tai were futile, We knocked at the gate of the largest compound in the small hamlet on the Bast of the river and, after some parley, were admitted. The landlord turned out, throwing over his shoulders an outer garment which had known better days. Never did I see a Chinaman with s more listless, spiritless expression than this man wore on his face, pale and thin from want of food. "No," he said, "there is no business. Those robbers have driven it all away." On my return homewards it was reported that the robbers had crossed the river, plundered the desolate inn of its few pos sessions and taken the poor man's life.
Next morning by sunrise we were al the i k expecting the ferry boat. At seven o'clock she still had not come. At eight I became impatient and sent the carter across in a sampan," Atnie Ieould stand therenolonger, and inno very peaceful mood summoned a small boat to take me eross to the ferry-house, A very obliging, respectable Chinaman accosted me by name;—had supplied me with beef, ete, in Newchwang, and readily conducted me to the ferry-house. He was most frank and friendly, and by the time we approached the ferry-house my wrath was evaporated and ho was quite ready to acknowledge that the ferry was his! It was about mid-before the cart was got fairly across Tinention this man, who was an intelligent Mahommedan, because in the course of a long conversation' as to the origin and proges of his religion in China, J happened to say that a gentleman had informed me of a belief common among Chinese, tat the present dynasty was about to expire, and that the next would be a Maliom: medan. No," said my friend with a most thoughtful, serious countenance looking to the ground, "No, we do not wish that, we do not desire to see a Mahommedan, lord of China, Our sacred boo declare that immediately upon the acco sion of a Mahowmedan dynasty there will break out a period of two hundred years anarchy, universal confusion and war, An this period over, comes the Inst day, when the earth shall' be destroyed. No, we dont want that." At Tienjwangtai com-merices the robber-producing" country" army man called it. This robber tract took us five days to pass through, on account of the bad mads. It is about a hundred miles from K. to W., with a number of goodly sized villages, though not 0 poptilous as tire region to the W. of it, nor as that to the KO. of the Liao.
Early one morning, as we were about to pass before a village inn, a carter coming from the west whispered, They are taking money in there." My carter hurriedly drove his team to the left, in order to pa: through the village by another road. meaning of the words turned out to be, that there were three armed robbers in the inn, levying bluck-mail of ten taels on each empty'cart, in default seizing horses or mules, and taking what they would find useful from other carts. There were twelve carts, representing at least fifteen men, detained then. The theee men went up on the house-top and looked after our cart as long as it was in sight, seemingly undecided whether or not to attack it. In the evening it was reported there were seven "white wolves," but they feared foreign arms. When some miles away we observed a large white cloud behind us, and ascertained it was stock of winter fuel fired by those robbers, because the owner would not or could not pay the sum of money demanded.
The robbers of Manchuria have not a particle of the generosity ascribed to the Robin Hood class. The poor four-traveller is stripped of his cotton-wadded garment as readily as the wealthy of his fur-robe. The innkeeper has to furnish the best in his store in abundance, and of course "without money," while the wives and daughters of the poorest are ravished, jand-any woman remarkable for beauty is forcibly dragged to their mountain de The knight errant has yet to be created. The great majority of these robbers are Mahomedans, proudly claiming descent from the Arab bandits of the far West Mahommedans are however plundered with the same impartiality as Buddhists, There is no sign of connivance or secret understanding of innkeepers and carters with the banditti, for these classes suffer most.
Tu those districts which are their haunts, one robber is as powerful as twenty. The carters at the above inn, though a hundred strong, would not dare defend their property for fear of vengeance; in less than twenty-four hours au.iun or village would be burned to the ground, where any of the gang has been attacked.
One afternoon we put up a large and good inn under the supervi jon of a jolly friar of the Buddhist order, He lias a small temple with (we disciples, but his heart is in the inn, where he employs from seventy to eighty men, fle looks the rotund land-lord rather than the ideal abbot. His left eye is a large round one, looking a great: deal too much to the left, and is always weeping, not fear from religious emotion, His right is a very small, scarcely perceptible eyo, britis large enough to look after' the main chance Tt. was commonly reported that robbers dared not attack this inn, nor come within 20 li of it; not from religious motives but because of the 80 men, Unfortunately for him this belief waa belied, for just before my return a party of fully' one hundred robbers attacked and pillaged his pro-missi About 100 miles West of ienjwangtai village of Shiisanjantsit, vid Tienjwangtai converges with road from Moukden to Jinchow and Peking, Once here, it was said there was no further danger from robbers, as the road was so much frequented, bands of soldiers passing over it almost daily. On the way back the heroic conduct of a band of 50 soldiers from Jinchow was much praised, Thisband were sent Enstwards to punish or cheek the robbers who had pillaged.
Abbot's" inn, They came upon a party of 50 robbers, while the latter were enjoy-
Shiisanjanted, killing 4 of them and dri ing their opium pipes in the largest inn of ing the rear Wastwards as far as the hills to the South of Monkde ivi the above village, I found this siderably modified. Fifty soldiers' were on their march into the robber district, but found it pleasant to in the inn above mentioned, before beginning their campaign, During night a party of 60 robbers, who had heard of the movement of the soldiers, rushed upon the inn, fired it, killed 3 men and got one killed, putting the soldiers to flight, I saw the inn with searcely half the wall standing. So wich for Chinese veracity, Chinese soldiers eunot root out this pest, for they dure nul attack the mountain retreats, Nearing Jinchow on our way home, we saw a number of heavily loaded carts turning back, many. others standing undecided. The reason of this was, that the Jinchow authorities had given orders to hire a certain number of carts to transport soldiers to the sent of war in the Hast. Very few carts were needed, but the "yagi" pounced upon all the empty country carts in the city. The hire given by the Jinchow authorities is pocketed by the yagi, the innkeepers being compelled to feed soldiers, drivers and teams, But there were no soldiers to act the paymaster for the corta returning, hence the great reluctance of drivers to enter the city But why seize so many carts? Beeaus all who had some spare tiaos gladly paid a ransom to be freed from the ' press-gang.' And the process of "pressing" carts is continued long after all the soldiers are gone. It is one of the many ways in which
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.