succeeding obstacle, till I had now reached the plains on the southern side. My whole long journey from Peking was at an end. My utmost hopes had been fulfilled, and I had reached that destination which, as I rode out of the gates of Peking, had seemed so remote and inaccessible.
On April 4 I left Peking, and on November 4 I drove up to the messhouse of my regiment at Rawal Pindi. Two days later I reached Simla, and saw Colonel Bell, from whom I had parted at Peking, and who, travelling more rapidly than me, had reached India a month before. To him, therefore, belongs the honour of being the first European to reach India from China by land. Poor Liu-san, the Chinese servant, arrived six weeks later with the ponies, which we had been obliged to send back from the Mustagh Pass round by the Karakoram and Leh. He was suffering badly from pleurisy, brought on by exposure ; but when he was sufficiently recovered he was sent back to China by sea, and he afterwards accompanied the persevering American traveller, Mr. Rockhill, to Tibet. He was a Chinaman, and therefore not a perfect animal, but he understood his business thoroughly, and he did it. So for a journey across the entire breadth of the Chinese Empire I could scarcely have found a better man. As long as he felt that he was " running " me, and that it was his business to convey me, like a bundle of goods, from one side of China to the other, he worked untiringly. And the success of the journey is in no small degree due to this single servant, who had not feared to accompany me throughout.
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