behind, and ourselves seated at the base of the shafts alongside the drivers, with our legs dangling over the side. In the summer months, when the roads are soft and muddy, the pace is not rapid, and the traveller can jump off, walk alongside, and jump on again as he likes. But in the winter, when the roads are frozen and worn down by the heavy traffic almost as smooth as an asphalte roadway, these carts trundle along at a good five or six miles an hour, and with a thousand or twelve hundred pounds of goods will do their thirty miles a day without any difficulty.
Everywhere along the road are found inns where accommodation for man and beast can be obtained. The first plunge from European civilization—which in our case was represented by the house of Mr. Allen, the British Consul at Newchwang—into a Chinese inn is not agreeable ; but when once one has settled down to the inevitable roughness of travel, one finds many advantages in it. As a rule a private room can be obtained, all the necessaries of life are procurable, and fodder for the animals is always ready. These inns are generally well-built houses, and are a real boon to the native travellers and merchants. There is usually one long room, with a low platform on either side and a passage down the middle. On these platforms, or kangs, which can be warmed underneath, the guests recline or squat at the low tables which are placed on them, eating their meals and chatting volubly. At night the travellers sleep in long rows cheek by jowl along the platforms. The great drawback to these inns is their dirt, inside and around, and we often longed for the cleanliness of those Japanese inns which Fulford used to describe to us.
At 120 miles from Newchwang we reached Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, and at one time the seat of government for the present reigning dynasty of China. Our reception there was not a pleasant one, and as we rode through the streets in search of an inn, we were followed even into
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