and yet, ten men against two hundred Boxers are really all that are necessary. They are tenacious and terrible only behind walls, those fellows; but in a flat country—it is highly probable, moreover, that I shall not see the queue of one. I accept the reinforcement,—four brave soldiers, who will be delighted to accompany me; I accept so much the more readily, since my expedition will thus take on the proportions of a military reconnaissance, and this, it appears, will be a good thing just now.
At two o'clock we remount our horses, for we are to sleep in an old walled town twenty-five kilometres farther on, called Laï-Chow-Chien (Chinese cities seem to claim these names; we know of one called Cha-Ma-Miaou, and another, a very large, ancient capital, Chien-Chien).
We make a plunge and disappear at once in a cloud of dust which the wind chases over the plain,—the immense, suffocating plain. There is no illusion possible; it is the "yellow wind" which has arisen,—a wind which generally blows in periods of three days, adding to the dust of China all that of the Mongolian desert.
Chinese Village Carts, the only Vehicle used in the North of China
No roads but deep tracks, paths several feet below the surface, which could only have been hollowed there in the course of centuries. A frightful country, which has, since the beginning of time, endured torrid heat and almost hyperborean cold. In this dry, powdery soil how can the new wheat grow, which here and there makes squares of really fresh green in the midst of the infinite grays? There are also from time to time a few sparse clumps of young elms and willows, somewhat different from ours, but nevertheless recognizable, just showing their first tiny leaves. Monotony and sadness; one would call it a poor landscape of the extreme north, lighted by an African sun,—a sun that has mistaken the latitude.
At a turn of the crooked road a band of laborers who see us suddenly spring up, are frightened, and throw down their spades to run away. But one of them stops the others, crying, "Fanko pink" (French soldiers). "They are French, do not be afraid." Then they bend again over the burning earth, and peaceably continue their work, looking at us as we pass by from the corners of their eyes. Their confidence speaks volumes on the somewhat exceptional kind of "barbarians" our brave soldiers have known how to be, in the course of a European invasion.
The few clumps of willows scattered over the plains almost always shelter under their sparse foliage the villages of tillers of the soil,—little houses of clay and of gray brick, absurd little pagodas, which are crumbling in the sunshine. Warned by watchmen, men and children come out as we pass to look at us in silence with naïve curiosity; bare to the waist, very yellow, very thin, and very muscular; pantaloons of the ever similar dark blue cotton. Out of politeness each one uncoils and allows to hang down his back his long plaited hair, for to keep it on the crown of the head would be a disrespect to me. No women; they remain concealed. These people must have much the same impression of us that the peasants of Gaul had when Attila, chief of the army, passed with his escort, except that they are less frightened. Everything about us is astonishing,—costumes, arms, and faces. Even my horse, which is an Arabian stallion, must seem to them a huge, unusual, superb animal beside their own little horses, with their big rough heads.