up on to the tender, and half an hour later had rejoined the
train.

The dawn had come on sufficiently for us to be able to see over a
considerable distance. Without saying anything to anybody, I went in
search of the body of my poor Kinko. And I could not find it among the
wreck.

As the engine could not reach the front of the train, owing to their
being only a single line, and no turning-table, it was decided to
couple it on in the rear and run backwards to the junction. In this way
the box, alas! without the Roumanian in it, was in the last carriage.

We started, and in half an hour we were on the main line again.

Fortunately it was not necessary for us to return to Tai-Youan, and we
thus saved a delay of an hour and a half. At the junction the engine
was detached and run for a few yards towards Pekin, then the vans and
cars, one by one, were pushed on to the main line, and then the engine
backed and the train proceeded, made up as before the accident. By five
o'clock we were on our way across Petchili as if nothing had happened.

I have nothing to say regarding this latter half of the journey, during
which the Chinese driver--to do him justice--in no way endeavored to
make up for lost time. But if a few hours more or less were of no
importance to us, it was otherwise with Baron Weissschnitzerdoerfer, who
wanted to catch the Yokohama boat at Tien Tsin.

When we arrived there at noon the steamer had been gone for
three-quarters of an hour; and when the German globe-trotter, the rival
of Bly and Bisland, rushed on to the platform, it was to learn that the
said steamer was then going out of the mouths of the Pei-Ho into the
open sea.

Unfortunate traveler! We were not astonished when, as Gaterna said, the
baron "let go both broadsides" of Teutonic maledictions. And really he
had cause to curse in his native tongue.

We remained but a quarter of an hour at Tien Tsin. My readers must
pardon me for not having visited this city of five hundred thousand
inhabitants, the Chinese town with its temples, the European quarter in
which the trade is concentrated, the Pei-Ho quays where hundreds of
junks load and unload. It was all Faruskiar's fault, and were it only
for having wrecked my reportorial endeavors he ought to be hanged by
the most fantastic executioner in China.

Nothing happened for the rest of our run. I was very sorry at the
thought that I was not bringing Kinko along with me, and that his box
was empty.