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0526 Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2
Ruins of Desert Cathay : vol.2 / Page 526 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000213
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tribes from the Huns and 'Great Yüeh-chih,' or Indo-
Scythians, downwards.
I was busy in the afternoon with the closing of a long-
deferred mail, when my men announced with great anima-
tion the visit of a European. During the morning I had
heard rumours of the arrival of a Cossack officer. But to
my pleasant surprise my visitor now proved Mr. Cecil
Clementi, Assistant Colonial Secretary of Hongkong. He
had passed through Russia to Kashgar, and when he told
me of the pleasant days he had spent at Chini-bagh as
recently as August, all sense of distance seemed effaced.
Mr. Clementi had travelled extensively through different
parts of the Chinese Empire, and the various illuminat-
ing observations which he could relate brought home
to me most forcibly the advantages possessed by those
who can study things and men in this strange world of
Cathay with a full knowledge of language and traditional
ways. There was much to learn and tell, and the hours
sped quickly. Of course, it did not take us long to dis-
cover that we had common friends both in Oxford and
India.
After another long confabulation Mr. Clementi continued
his journey to Hongkong, and I let my exceptionally heavy
mail bag depart for Kashgar, little foreseeing the risks to
which it was exposed through the wiles of its Kashgari
carrier, an unworthy namesake of Turdi.
Two more days passed in a whirl of practical occupa-
tions. The winter equipment of all my people had to be
attended to ; and as the resources of half-Chinese Hami in
the matter of fur coats, moccasins, etc., such as honest
Muhammadans would need, were decidedly scanty, the
trouble of meeting all reasonable demands—and of resisting
others—was great. What a relief it was to be able to
effect payments without constant resort to that archaic
instrument of torture, scales for weighing out silver!
The adjustment of the longest pay rolls seemed positively
child's play compared with what I had gone through when
grappling with Chinese accounts and those ever-recalcitrant
pieces of hacked silver. This does not imply that every-
thing was plain sailing in matters of currency. 'Ak-tangas,'