for rifles placed in such a way that a considerable dead area is formed round the earthworks. Openings for guns are provided in the NE and SW turrets. The parapets of these and of the SE turret are of baked brick in contrast to the NW turret and the rest of the wall and parapet. Wide and comparatively slightly inclined roads built in the middle of each side of the fortress lead up to the walls, along the top of which runs a road. As you approach the town you pass, outside the wall, some public buildings bearing Chinese inscriptions. One of them describes a pond, protected by a mud wall, as a reservoir with irreproachable refreshing water. The inscription is optimistic, not to say actually untruthful, for the water is a dirty pool full of weeds and, no doubt, swarming with microbes. Well within the protection of the threatening fortress you find a regularly planned town. At first you pass some public buildings easily recognisable by the large walls erected on the street in front of their portals to protect them from evil spirits that the wind might carry. After riding through a gateway inscribed with a motto, you enter a covered-in bazaar street, usually empty and lifeless, as the bazaar is held only once a week here. The town, built in the form of a rectangle, is intersected by two such streets running from N to S and from E to W with the precision characteristic of the Chinese in matters concerning the points of the compass. In the squares formed between the walls of the fortress and these two principal streets that cross each other at right angles, are the houses of the few Chinese inhabitants, a couple of temples, the barracks of a battalion of infantry and the house and garden of the District Commander with a couple of graceful summer-houses built on an artificial mound.
It was easy enough to track down our pack-horses, for, whenever we hesitated for a moment, there was always a kind soul at hand to indicate the direction by a gesture. Nothing passes unnoticed in these bazaar streets, whither most of the people are enticed by their love of gossip. Our way, led through the southern gate past the barracks of the squadron of cavalry, also surrounded by a crenellated fortress wall that runs right to the
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