ing of horses; there's no use
pretending. But in spite of that blinding dust, every one else was
attempting to distinguish the various points, good and bad, of the
snorting, struggling little beasts, who were as unhappy about the
weather as we were. And between you and me, I think it was a fine
affectation to pretend to distinguish qualities in that storm. In the
paddock racing-camels and donkeys also were tied up, and let me say I
think it was all an honest person could do in the circumstances to tell
the difference between a camel and a horse. Our interest centered in the
camels, the great, disdainful camels, who looked down upon ministers
plenipotentiary and potentates and powers with such superb hauteur.
Really, these Peking camels are the aristocrats of the world; you feel
it every time they condescend to glance at you.

The wind, which was getting higher and colder every moment, soon drove
all but the most ardent enthusiasts indoors. We mounted to the upper
story of the club-house, and looked out over the course from the windows
of the big dining-room, which occupies the entire upper floor. Before us
stretched the same bleak, arid plains that we had crossed on our way
from the station: only the railing marking the outer boundaries of the
track divided it from the barren stretches of earth which extended
northward to the uttermost confines of China. Not a blade of grass was
anywhere in sight. And over all, the dust--not the ordinary dust of a
windy March day at home, but great, thick, solid clouds of dust,
reaching upward, and covering the entire sky. The noon sun gleamed down
in a circle of hazy red.

There were two races before lunch. One couldn't see the ponies till
they were within a hundred yards of the winning-post. S----, who has
great courage, and moreover felt his responsibility as host, would
remain outside on the upper veranda, straining his eyes in the biting
gale, and then signal to us when they came in sight. Whereupon we
would rush outdoors for a brief moment, clinging to our hats and
groping for the veranda rail, and stand there for an agonizing minute
till he told us it was over.

Now and then, in brief pauses in the wind, the horizon would clear for a
moment and we could see beyond the outer boundaries of the course. We
caught occasional glimpses of long caravans of camels, two or three
hundred of them, bound for the coal-mines up north. Once, in a short
interval, we saw a funeral procession st