all directions.  On attaining the summit of the rugged hill we saw in the hollow beneath the Christian inn of Yan-Pa-Eul.  We proceeded towards it, our road constantly crossed by fresh and limpid streams, which, issuing from the sides of the mountain, reunite at its foot and form a rivulet which encircles the inn.  We were received by the landlord, or, as the Chinese call him, the Comptroller of the Chest.

Inns of this description occur at intervals in the deserts of Tartary, along the confines of China.  They consist almost universally of a large square enclosure, formed by high poles interlaced with brushwood.  In the centre of this enclosure is a mud house, never more than ten feet high.  With the exception of a few wretched rooms at each extremity, the entire structure consists of one large apartment, serving at once for cooking, eating, and sleeping; thoroughly dirty, and full of smoke and intolerable stench.  Into this pleasant place all travellers, without distinction, are ushered, the portion of space applied to their accommodation being a long, wide Kang, as it is called, a sort of furnace, occupying more than three-fourths of the apartment, about four feet high, and the flat, smooth surface of which is covered with a reed mat, which the richer guests cover again with a travelling carpet of felt, or with furs.  In front of it, three immense coppers, set in glazed earth, serve for the preparation of the traveller’s milk-broth.  The apertures by which these monster boilers are heated communicate with the interior of the Kang, so that its temperature is constantly maintained at a high elevation, even in the terrible cold of winter.

Upon the arrival of guests, the Comptroller of the Chest invites them to ascend the Kang, where they seat themselves, their legs crossed tailor-fashion, round a large table, not more than six inches high.  The lower part of the room is reserved for the people of the inn, who there busy themselves in keeping up the fire under the cauldrons, boiling tea, and pounding oats and buckwheat into flour for the repast of the travellers.  The Kang of these Tartar-Chinese inns is, till evening, a stage full of animation, where the guests eat, drink, smoke, gamble, dispute, and fight: with night-fall, the refectory, tavern, and gambling-house of the day is suddenly converted into a dormitory.  The travellers who have any bed-clothes unroll and arrange them; those who have none, settle themselves as best they may in their personal attire, and lie down, side by side, round the table.  When the guests are very numerous they arrange themselves in two circles, feet to feet.  Thus reclined, those so disposed, sleep; others, awaiting sleep, smoke, drink tea, and gossip.  The effect of the scene, dimly exhibited by an imperfect wick floating amid thick, dirty, stinking oil, whose receptacle is ordinarily a broken tea-cup, is fantastic, and to the stranger, fearful.

The Comptroller of the Chest had prepared his own room for our accommodation.  We washed, but would not sleep there; being now Tartar travellers, and in possession of a good tent, we determined to try our apprentice hand at setting it up.  This resolution offended no one, it was quite understood we adopted this course, not out of contempt towards the inn, but out of love for a patriarchal life.  When we had set up our tent, and unrolled on the ground our goat-skin beds, we lighted a pile of brushwood, for the nights were already growing cold.  Just as we were closing our eyes, the Inspector of Darkness startled us with beating the official night alarum, upon his brazen tam-tam, the sonorous sound of which, reverberating through the adjacent valleys struck with terror the tigers and wolves frequenting them, and drove them off.

We were on foot before daylight.  Previous to our departure we had to perform an operation of considerable importance—no other than an entire change of costume, a complete metamorphosis.  The missionaries who reside in China, all, without exception, wear the secular dress of the people, and are in no way distinguishable from them; they bear no outward sign of their religious character.  It is a great pity that they should be thus obliged to wear the secular costume, for it is an obstacle in the way of their preaching the gospel.  Among the Tartars, a black man—so they discriminate the laity, as wearing their hair, from the clergy, who have their heads close shaved—who should talk about religion would be laughed at, as impertinently meddling with things, the special province of the Lamas, and in no way concerning him.  The reasons which appear to have introduced and maintained the custom of wearing the secular habit on the part of the missionaries in China, no longer applying to us, we resolved at length to appear in an ecclesiastical exterior becoming our sacred mission.  The views of our vicar apostolic on the subject, as explained in his written instructions, being conformable with our wish, we did not hesitate.  We resolved to adopt the secular dress of the Thibetian Lamas; that is to say, the dress which they wear when not actually performing their idolatrous ministry in the Pagodas.  The costume of the Thibetian Lamas suggested itself to our preference as being in unison with that worn by our young neophyte, Samdadchiemba.

We announced to the Christians of the inn that we were resolved no longer to look like Chinese merchants; that we were about to cut off our long tails, and to shave our heads.  This intimation created great agitation: some of our disciples even wept; all sought by their eloquence to divert us from a resolution which seemed to them fraught with danger; but their pathetic remonstrances were of no avail; one touch of a razor, in the hands of Samdadchiemba

sufficed to sever the long tail of hair, which, to accommodate Chinese fashions, we had so carefully cultivated ever since our departure from France.  We put on a long yellow robe, fastened at the right side with five gilt buttons, and round the waist by a long red sash; over this was a red jacket, with a collar of purple velvet; a yellow cap, surmounted by a red tuft, completed our new costume.  Breakfast followed this decisive operation, but it was silent and sad.  When the Comptroller of the Chest brought in some glasses and an urn, wherein smoked the hot wine drunk by the Chinese, we told him that having changed our habit of dress, we should change also our habit of living.  “Take away,” said we, “that wine and that chafing dish; henceforth we renounce drinking and smoking.  You know,” added we, laughing, “that good Lamas abstain from wine and tobacco.”  The Chinese Christians who surrounded us did not join in the laugh; they looked at us without speaking and with deep commiseration, fully persuaded that we should inevitably perish of privation and misery in the deserts of Tartary.  Breakfast finished, while the people of the inn were packing up our tent, saddling the camels, and preparing for our departure, we took a couple of rolls, baked in the steam of the furnace, and walked out to complete our meal with some wild currants growing on the bank of the adjacent rivulet.  It was soon announced to us that everything was ready—so, mounting our respective animals, we proceeded on the road to Tolon-Noor, accompanied by Samdadchiemba.