154 THE PULSE OF ASIA
a hundred soldiers in gaudy red and blue suits marshaled in two lines on either side of the road. Every one else dismounted, but I knew that I " must staying on horse." As I advanced between the lines, the soldiers stood at attention ; triangular red dragon-banners were waved ; six-foot trumpets brayed ; and my horse jumped at the sound of a salute of great cannon crackers. Across a little bridge over a muddy irrigation ditch three blue-topped, two-wheeled carts came to meet me, followed by forty or fifty Chinese officials and military officers, all in blue, and many with huge smoke-colored goggles. I met the first cart at the head of the line of soldiers. As it stopped, I dismounted from my horse, while the governor, with the button of a high mandarin in his hat and a beautiful silk dragon on his breast, got out of the cart. We feelingly shook hands with ourselves, bowed low again and again, and said many sweet things each in his own language. Then he took me gently by the hand and led me to a little red pavilion erected for the occasion by the roadside. There, with two mandarins from the other carts, we drank tea and tried to talk. I spoke in one dialect of Turki or in English to Rasul, he in another dialect of Turki to the official interpreter, and he in Chinese to the governor. The conversation was undeniably diluted, but as Rasul put it : " You plenty sweet matter telling to governor. I think he liking very much. You making talk to soldier-man very good. Yes, that was very best. All men very pleased." He himself had suggested that I thank the soldiers as well as the officials for coming out to meet us. As we rode to our quarters in a shady pavilion surrounded by a moat in the centre of a large garden, the attendants pointed out parts
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