day. I did my best to appease him by explaining by letter that we had only intended to do him a civility ; that it was our custom to call in the afternoon ; and that at Peking I had myself called upon his own official superior, the Russian minister, in the afternoon, and been called on in return by him. But M. Petrovsky replied that he was only concerned with Kashgar, and that at Kashgar the custom was to call in the middle of the day.
I regretted this misunderstanding with M. Petrovsky all the more because I felt myself indebted to him for many civilities during my stay in Kashgar. He had been most obliging in forwarding our letters through his couriers to Russian Turkestan ; he had lent us numbers of books to read ; and in many other ways had done us kindnesses for which I should have wished to show my gratitude. I had, however, the satisfaction of parting on very friendly terms with M. Lutsch, the secretary, and receiving from him a handsome present as a token of his regard.
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