y,
were wide, and the buildings on either side, with their roofs of glazed
yellow tiles and fronts all carved and gilded, looked showy enough in
the sunshine.

It was like a panorama, being thus carried through these strange
streets, with the people stopping to look at us, but not behaving at all
rudely, although our army must have been known to be marching on the
capital; and Ned and I absolutely enjoyed it, noting as we sailed past
the temples and curio shops and pagodas and all, the constant stream of
umbrella-bearing passers-by and the fact that nearly all the old men
held birds in their hands tied on to sticks, looking just like those
wooden monkeys which pedlars hawk about at home for the delectation of
rustic juveniles.

"Yellow hat" told us subsequently, with reference to this curious
picture of their domestic life, that it was the custom of the country so
to take out their pet canaries and other little songsters for an airing,
instead of lapdogs.

These they reserve for their pies and other choice dishes.

Ned and I seemed to pass through miles of real nightmares as we went
along, the people and their surroundings having an air of unreality.

The only things about Pekin we thought genuine were the smells, which
were something awful; as we learnt from bitter experience during our
four weeks' captivity here, locked up in a cell with all the common
criminals, and, I believe, all the vermin of the city.

Somehow or other, the old man had mysteriously disappeared after leaving
us at a quiet inn in the Tartar quarter, where, as well as we could
understand him, we were to remain until he had a chance of communicating
with the approaching English force to have us ransomed.

"Chin, chin!" he said to Ned as he left us. "Mi go one piecee and yo
waittee; Fanqui comee one piecee by by."

The next day, instead of his coming back again, a file of rough Tartars
belonging to Prince Sankoliu-sin's army rushed into the room where we
were, and throwing us roughly on the floor, proceeded to strip us of
everything we had about us, leaving us only our shirts, which were
rather ragged by this time and not in a condition to do our laundress
credit!

We were, after this, cruelly tied with ropes that cut our wrists and
ankles, and then dragged to prison, where we remained until one day we
heard the booming of guns in the distance.

"Good heavens, Jack!" cried poor Ned, who was by this time the wreck of
his former self, and