at an inn after our travellers
had secured all the accommodation.

'Peace and happiness unto you, Sirs Lamas; do you need the whole of
your room, or can you accommodate me?'

'Why not? We are all brothers, and should serve each other.'

'Words of excellence! You are Tartars, I am Chinese; yet comprehending
the claims of hospitality, you act upon the truth that all men are
brothers.'

'Whither are you bound? Are you going to buy up salt or catsup for
some Chinese company?'

'No; I represent a great commercial house at Peking, and I am
collecting some debts from the Tartars.... You, like myself, are
Tartar-eaters--you eat them by prayers, I by commerce. And why not?
The Mongols are poor simpletons, and we may as well get their money as
anybody else.... Oh, we devour them; we pick them clean! Whatever they
see, when they come into our towns, they want; and when we know who
they are, and where we can find them, we let them have goods upon
credit of course at a considerable advance upon the price, and upon
interest at 30 and 40 per cent., which is quite right and necessary.
In China, the emperor's laws do not allow this; it is only done with
the Tartars. Well, they don't pay the money, and the interest goes on
until there is a good sum owing, worth the coming for. When we come
for it, we take all the cattle and sheep and horses we can get hold of
for the interest, and leave the capital debt and future interest to be
paid next time, and so it goes on from one generation to another. Oh,
a Tartar debt is a gold-mine!'

The yearly settlement of accounts amongst the Chinese furnishes
another curious chapter in their commercial life. Bills are made up to
the last few days of the year, 'and every Chinese being at once debtor
and creditor, every Chinese is hunting his debtors and hunted by his
creditors. He who returns from his neighbour's house, which he has
been throwing into utter confusion by his clamorous demands for what
the neighbour owes him, finds his own house turned inside out by an
uproarious creditor; and so the thing goes round. The whole town is a
scene of vociferation, disputation, and fighting. On the last day of
the year, disorder attains its height; people rush in all directions
with anything they can scratch together to raise money upon at the
broker's or pawnbroker's--the shops of which tradesmen are absolutely
besieged throughout the day with profferers of clothes, bedding,
furniture, cooking utensils,