Wishing to secure a suitable souvenir of my visit I selected a well-preserved brick, which, by means of knotted handkerchiefs, I slung over my shoulder and so commenced the return journey. For three or four miles all went well, but after that the brick commenced to get rapidly heavier, until it became almost insupportable, while its constant tapping in the small of my back, caused by the jerky trot of the mule, was well-nigh intolerable. I tried to fasten it to the saddle, but, simple as it may seem, it would not hold, besides making the mule altogether unmanageable, so that after a desperate struggle for a few miles further I cast it from me with mingled feelings of disgust and thankfulness, and in all probability it remains in the same spot to this very day.
We reached Yang Fang before dark and much enjoyed a rest and some dinner, but as it was full moon and we were anxious to be back in Peking early next day, my friend proposed that we should press on for a couple of hours that evening.
With fresh ponies in place of the jaded mules, and feeling much happier on our doeskin saddles, we went along gaily for some distance, but the extreme cold and our own weariness soon began to tell, and we became so drowsy that we determined to off-saddle at the next inn. We had reckoned, however, without our host, for the inn was crammed full and we were obliged to take to the road once more, and that in no very amiable frame of mind. The next inn was if anything more crowded still, and the next, and the next. For five mortal hours we plodded on, more asleep than awake, and I retain but a misty recollection of the snow-covered ground, of my pony slipping while crossing a frozen ford, and of my continual efforts to keep in the saddle. At one in the morning we hammered at the doors of yet another inn, only to be again repelled with the frightful words, "All full."
My friend, who spoke the vernacular fluently, was now doing his best, and with such effect that the door was cautiously opened a few inches, when with one bound I was inside, and seeing a kang with only one man on it I tumbled him off and flung myself down, just conscious of acrid opium smoke, a great uproar and streams of the most insulting abuse.
Avenue of Stone Figures, Ming Tombs.
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On awaking I found my friend by my side still asleep and the morning well aired. The squalid inn was almost deserted, for the overnight lodgers had departed with their carts and pack-animals before dawn, so that I had not to face the individual whom I had so unceremoniously dispossessed of his bed, although I left a dollar for him with the innkeeper, knowing full well it would never reach him, but choosing thus to ease a somewhat guilty conscience.
We had not much further to go and were easily back in Peking before tiffin.