At midnight the Chinese make fast our boat, at a spot they say is safe, so that they too may rest. We all fall into a profound slumber in the icy night.
IV
Tuesday, October 16.
We are up at daylight and off again. In the cold, magnificent dawn, upon a clear pink sky, the sun rises and shines without heat on the green plain, and on the deserted place where we have slept.
All at once I leap to the ground with an instinctive longing for activity, anxious to move, to walk. Horrors! At a turn in the path as I am running fast without looking where I am going, I almost step on something in the form of a cross,—a naked corpse lying face downward with extended arms, half buried in the mud and of a corresponding color; the dogs or the crows, or some Chinese who wanted the queue, have taken the scalp, leaving the cranium white and minus hair or skin.
It grows colder each day as we get farther away from the sea, and the plain begins gradually to slope upward.
Junks pass as they did yesterday, going down the river in files with military stores, and are under the care of soldiers of all the nations of Europe. Then come long intervals of solitude, during which no living thing appears in this region of millet and reeds. The wind that blows more and more bitterly is healthful; it dilates the chest, and for the moment redoubles life. So we march along between the sorghos and the river, on the everlasting frosty path that leads to Pekin, without fatigue, without any desire to hurry, but always ahead of the solemn Chinamen, who, tugging at their ropes, continue to draw our floating house, keeping up their pace with the regularity of machines.
There are a few trees now on the banks, willows with very green leaves of a variety unknown to us; they seem untouched by the autumn, and their beautiful color is in striking contrast to the rusty tones of the grass and the dying sorghos. There are gardens too,—abandoned gardens that belonged to hamlets that have been burned; our Chinamen sometimes send one of their number on a marauding expedition, and he brings back armfuls of vegetables for our meals.
Osman and Renaud, as we pass by ruined houses, sometimes pick up articles which they think necessary for the embellishment of our dwelling,—small mirrors, carved seats, lanterns, even bunches of artificial flowers made of rice paper, which may have adorned the headdresses of massacred or fleeing Chinese ladies, and which they naïvely use to decorate the walls of the room. The interior of our sarcophagus soon takes on an air of distinction quite droll and barbaric.
It is astonishing how soon we accustom ourselves to the perfectly simple life on the junk, an existence of healthy fatigue, devouring appetites, and heavy sleep.