During our short stay we met among other Englishmen Sir Robert Hart, who has been for forty-two years in the service of the Chinese Government, with only eighteen months' leave home, and Colonel Brown, who had just come out from home by the Trans-Siberian Railway—a very pleasant but cold journey—to take up the duties of military attaché.
All too soon the day of our departure arrived, and the 1st December saw us again packed in Chinese carts, on the way to Tientsin, where we arrived on the night of the 2nd, our last day's travelling in China having been nearly our longest, as we covered no less than 150 li between 1 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. Greatly did we miss Rijnhart, the cheery companion of our forty days through China. His original intention had been to travel with us by sea to Shanghai, but, at the last moment, he decided to accompany a German traveller, Mr. Eugène Wolf, overland to Hankow, so with real regret we parted from him at Pekin.
We were now without an interpreter, and at Tientsin were unable to find our way to the hotel, so lost considerable time wandering about the streets, asking futile questions from passers-by, and abusing our carters. At last things came to a climax, when one of them drove into a water cart, upsetting it with all its water into the street. Before we really knew what had happened, two of our carters were seized and marched off to the nearest police station.
We were thus left in a fine predicament. There we were in a strange place, unable to speak the language, two of our carters in prison, and the other one refusing to budge till his companions had been released. Such was our first experience of European administration in a Chinese town. There was only one course left to us. We turned carters ourselves, and as we made our way we knew not whither, we fortunately fell in with an intelligent native, who sprang up from somewhere or other, and volunteered to show us the way to an hotel. Driving ourselves, and following our friend in need, we soon arrived at the "Globe Hotel," but here again we were looked upon with the gravest suspicion, and only with the greatest difficulty did we manage to secure one small room between us. A little later, when our landlord found out who we were, he was profuse in his apologies, and anxious to put us into better quarters, explaining that he had at first taken us for robbers. This was rather hard, after having had baths regularly for the last four days, having shaved our beards, and having borrowed clothes from Mr. Hugh Grosvenor at Pekin, but it made us realize what a shock we must have given Lady Macdonald on our first appearance in her drawing-room.
PEKIN.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
BACK TO INDIA—DISILLUSIONMENT OF OUR FOLLOWERS WITH REGARD TO SOME OF THE BLESSINGS OF CIVILIZATION—MILITARY HOSPITALITY—RETURN TO CALCUTTA.