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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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| 0142 |
The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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quicker because the camels are not capable of doing it. They
are miserable creatures, old and broken down.
I saw this at Kwei-hwa-cheng, but the guide said he was
going to change them for better ones in Mongolia. This he
has not done, although I have been at him several times
about it. Truth is, it is not all his fault; those scoundrels at
Kwei-hwa-cheng are to blame. They made me give the whole
money in advance (I protested against it, but it was the only
thing to be done). With this they bought the camels—which
were scarce at the time, as a large caravan was just about to
start for Guchen—and sent the guide off with one hundred-
weight of brick tea and no money. The consequence is that
he cannot change the camels, and I had to advance him thirty-
eight taels to buy two new ones, to replace the one that had
run away and another gone sick. Of course he has got the
whip hand of me, but que voulez vous? If I had not advanced
the money, we should not have been even as far as we are now.
My only guarantee is in his honesty, which is doubtful, and in
the willingness of the Yamen at Hami to take up the matter,
which is also problematical.
I had a fling at Liu-san too; he had begun explaining to
me how bad the camel-men at Kwei-hwa-cheng were, and
how Mr. Clarke's man had squeezed a part of the money I
paid for the camels. Now, I happened to know that he had
also squeezed ten taels of that, but I had purposely avoided
telling him that I knew, in order not to complicate matters.
Now I did tell him, looking him full in the face to see the
effect. But a Chinaman is inscrutable. There was no sign
of guilt. His face changed instantly from the highly moral
expression which it had worn, to one of indignant defiance,
and, turning to the guide, he said (in Chinese), "Yang-laya"
(myself) "says that I squeeze money—I, a Tientsin man—in a
place like Kwei-hwa-cheng!" and a lot more in the same strain.
It was all I could do to keep from laughing at the way they
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