Among the Celestials : vol.1 / Page 302 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0302	Among the Celestials : vol.1

254 AMONG THE CELESTIALS. [CHAP. IX.

plains on the southern side. My whole long

journey from Peking was at an end. My

utmost hopes had been fulfilled, and in precisely

the time I had laid out for the enterprise I had

reached that destination which, as I rode forth

from 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 mess-house

of my regiment at Rawal Pindi, and received

the congratulations of Colonel Thompson and

my brother officers.

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 Em-

pire I could scarcely have found a better man.

As long as he felt that he was " running " me,.

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