seems to be _thinking_," was glad to be out of all this as much
as possible and on the road, even if it had to be with the ludicrous
caravan of state. Sometimes even all the attempted comfort and
superfluous luxury of the caravan did not prevent the expedition from
having serious hardships and running into real danger. An expedition
across the great Gobi desert that lasted for thirty-nine days was
successfully accomplished only after hard battling with heat, hunger and
thirst, and even with hostile natives.

Some of the results expected from this imported miner were rather
startling. For instance, age-long rumor had it that the Emperor's
hunting park at Jehol overlay immensely valuable gold deposits. The
Minister intimated to the Director that he would like to know the real
facts about this as soon as possible. As the park lay in a
little-explored region of southern Manchuria and was a place of much
historical as well as geological interest, the Director decided to make
a personal examination of it. After the expedition had been out several
days, he was told that on the next they would come in sight of the Great
Royal Park. Accordingly on the next day the guide of the caravan took
him, with one or two of the Caucasian members of his staff and an
interpreter, off from the road the grand retinue was following, and by
winding paths up to a hill top which commanded a superb prospect.

"There," said the interpreter, with a wave of his hand toward the
stretching prospect of beautiful valleys, low broad hills and mountain
side, "there is the Hunting Park of Jehol." Then, turning complacently
to the Director of Mines, he asked, simply: "Is there gold beneath it?"
And interpreter and guide, and later, even more important officials,
were stupefied to learn that the wonderful imported man who knew all
about gold could not say offhand, from his vantage point, miles away,
whether there was gold under the Park or not. And, more disturbing
still, that he probably could not say anything about it at all without
actually tramping over the sacred soil and perhaps sacrilegiously
digging into it.

Such occasionally necessary confessions of incompetence made a little
trouble, but only a little. However much the under men lacked knowledge
about minerals and mines and how to find out about them, the head of the
Department, Chang, knew enough to know that if his young Director
confessed inability to meet certain demands it was because there