From Pekin to Calais by Land

by Harry De Windt

We rode into the yard and waited while Jee Boo went to interview the proprietor of this den, which for squalor and filth I have never seen equalled in the worst slums of London or Paris. We soon saw by the light of the lanterns that our fellow-lodgers were not Chinamen. Their quaint barbaric dress, to say nothing of swarthy flat faces and beady black eyes, at once proclaimed them Mongols. Twenty or thirty of them were round us, in less than five minutes after our arrival, squatting on their hams in the mud and passing their opinions on our appearance. Many of them, Jee Boo said, had never seen a European before. They annoyed us not a little, too, by continually feeling our clothes, boots, and even faces, with their hot grimy hands, a proceeding that, tired and hungry as we were, with no prospect of rest or food, did not tend to improve the temper. A pair of velvet cord breeches that Lancaster wore came in for the greater share of their attention, which I was (selfishly, I own) not sorry for.

Two half-naked men, who had been attending to a couple of large cauldrons in a kind of outhouse, now summoned our inquisitive friends, much to our relief. We saw them enter the shed, where each man having produced a wooden platter they set to and left us in peace, at any rate, for a time.

Jee Boo returned soon after.

“Big caravan from Mongolia. No can have room,” was his first remark. “Money no good,” he added, on my suggesting a few dollars as bribery; anything for a fairly clean place to lay our weary bones. What was to be done? We could not sleep in the courtyard, that was very certain, when a bright thought suddenly struck me——the litters.

Alas! they, too, were gone, and the muleteers with them, in quest of lodgings elsewhere. They had fortunately omitted to take our box of provisions with them. Jee Boo had meanwhile disappeared, but soon after returned with the information that on payment of $8 we could have the room of the chief of the caravan. “A very good place,” urged our interpreter, who, was evidently standing in with the Mongol. However, we should have been only too glad to pay double the price for a dog-kennel that night. Anything to lie down upon, and get away from the attentions of the Mongols, who had by this time finished their meal, and were again issuing from the kitchen, lighting their pipes, and preparing for another examination of the “White Devils.”

It was only after a good deal of demur that the good gentleman I have mentioned turned out of his lair——a place about nine feet square, with a raised wooden platform upon which he had been reclining, and upon which he was thoughtful enough to leave us several souvenirs which I need not mention. To say the place was dirty conveys but a very poor impression of the filth that lay thickly on the walls, and the nameless abominations that strewed the sleeping-place——half a dozen rough boards about a foot from the floor. There were luckily two large holes in the rafters which would give us, at any rate, some ventilation, for the glazed paper window was not made to open. Cooking was, of course, out of the question, but we managed to boil some water in the spirit-lamp, and get a basin of Liebig. Our Valentine meat-juice had, unluckily, gone on with the other stores. It would have been priceless that night, and never again will I embark on a journey of this kind without it.

We had reckoned without our host when we thought that bolting and barring the door would ensure us privacy. First a finger, then a thumb, then a whole hand was pushed through the paper window, notwithstanding all our protestations. We did not like to use threats, or show firearms, for an Englishman more or less would have been of little moment to the good people of Kwi-La-Shaï. So we had to sit and suffer in silence, until one of our tormentors, more pushing than the rest, who had climbed upon the roof to obtain a bird’s-eye view, came crashing through the rickety rafters on to our heads. We certainly did bundle him out with scant ceremony, and banging the door after him, blew out the light and composed, or tried to compose ourselves, to slumber.

But no sooner was the light out than we were attacked by vermin in myriads. A quarter of an hour of it nearly drove us mad, and we resolved to strike a light, rising only to find that we had no matches, and that all in the yard was now dark and silent as the grave. So, resigned to our fates, we lay still, and, like the shipwrecked mariner, prayed for dawn! Tired and worn out as we were, five minutes’ sleep was out of the question. We had good cause to remember Kwi-La-Shaï; indeed, it was a good three weeks before we were entirely free from the animal nocturnal visitors of that unsavoury city.

The caravan had already started on its way to Pekin when we set off at six the next morning. Our mule-driver and Jee Boo had evidently made a night of it on the proceeds of their bargain, for the former only arrived on the scene five minutes before the hour fixed for departure, and our interpreter turned up hopelessly fuddled just as we were getting the mules in and ponies saddled. We were amply avenged, though, for the day was the hottest we had yet experienced, and Jee Boo suffered the tortures of mal de mer in a litter the greater part of it!

The road now lay through deep sand, in which, however, the caravan track was distinctly discernible. A boisterous and hot wind made it very unpleasant travelling, and we were not sorry to reach the village of Tchuan-Ha-Ho at midday, where we insisted on a halt of five hours at least, for the purpose of indulging in a “square meal,” as Americans say, and a rest, of which we were much in need. Just before reaching the town, we passed a string of over two hundred camels laden with Siberian furs for Pekin. Also a drove of some three hundred or four hundred Mongolian ponies. Some of the latter, though small, were remarkably well-shaped and good-looking.