he palanquin, had opened the
curtains, as usual, to invite his excellency to enter the apartment that
had been prepared for him. But, in the palanquin, they only found a
corpse. In accordance with the Chinese usages, the son of the departed
could not leave the body of his father in a foreign land, but must take
it to his family, in order to deposit it in the sepulchre of his
ancestors. Now, we were still in the heart of Thibet, and the family of
the Mandarin Pei was in the province of Tche-Kiang, altogether at the
extremity of China. The route, as has been seen, was difficult and long;
but hesitation in the matter was out of the question: filial piety had to
surmount all obstacles. A coffin, ready made, was, by chance, in the
guardhouse. The son of the Mandarin bought it at a high price from the
soldiers; he deposited therein the remains of his father. They adapted
the shafts of the palanquin to the coffin, and the carriers, in
consideration of increased pay, agreed to carry to the frontiers of
China, a dead instead of a living man. The caravan had quitted Bagoung
the evening preceding our arrival.

The announcement of this death astonished and affected all of us.

Ly-Kouo-Ngan particularly, who was in no satisfactory state of mind, was
thunderstruck. The fear he felt prevented him from taking any supper;
but, in the evening, another matter occurred to divert his attention from
these sad thoughts of death. The chief of the Thibetian village came to
the guard-house, to announce to the travellers, that it had been resolved
in that country, that thereafter they would not supply the oulah
gratuitously; that for a horse, people must pay one ounce of silver, and
for a yak half an ounce. "The caravan which passed yesterday," added he,
"was obliged to agree to this." . . . To make it manifest that this
regulation would not admit of any discussion, he abruptly put his tongue
in his cheek at us, and withdrew.

A manifesto so plain and definite was a complete thunderbolt to the
Pacificator of Kingdoms. He entirely forgot the melancholy death of the
poor Liang-Tai, in the thought of this frightful catastrophe which
threatened his purse. We charitably participated in his affliction, and
tried, as well as we could, to conform our words to his sombre thoughts.
But, in reality, it was a matter of utter indifference to us. If they
refused to supply us with the means of continuing our journey, we should
merely have to st