The other passengers are only Celestials. Some are going to Pekin; some have taken their tickets for intermediate stations like Si-Ngan, Ho Nan. Lou-Ngan, Tai-Youan. There are a hundred passengers in the train. All my numbers are on board. There is not one missing. Thirteen, always thirteen!
We were still on the platform, just after the signal of departure had been given, when Caterna asked his wife what was the most curious thing she had seen at Lan-Tcheou.
“The most curious thing, Adolphe? Those big cages, hung on to the walls and trees, which held such curious birds——”
“Very curious, Madame Caterna,” said Pan-Chao. “Birds that talk——”
“What—parrots?”
“No; criminals’ heads.”
“Horrible!” said the actress, with a most expressive grimace.
“What would you have, Caroline?” said Caterna. “It is the custom of the country.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
On leaving Lan-Tcheou, the railway crosses a well-cultivated country, watered by numerous streams, and hilly enough to necessitate frequent curves. There is a good deal of engineering work; mostly bridges, viaducts on wooden trestles of somewhat doubtful solidity, and the traveler is not particularly comfortable when he finds them bending under the weight of the train. It is true we are in the Celestial Empire, and a few thousand victims of a railway accident is hardly anything among a population of four hundred millions.