y were in some Mongol or Manchu script. They, too, were
centuries old. But there was something else--a great discovery.
Beneath the books we found helmets, inlaid with silver and gold and
embellished with black velvet trappings studded with little iron
knobs. There were also complete suits of chain armour. It seemed to us
in that early morning that we were suddenly discovering the Middle
Ages, perhaps even the Dark Ages. For these things were not even early
Manchu; they were Mongol; Mogul--the war-dress of conquerors whose
bodies had been rotting in the dust for five, six, seven, eight, or
even nine centuries. These relics had lain there undisturbed for all
this time because China has been merely tilling the fields and
neglecting everything else. In a curious mood we donned these suits
and went down below clad as the conquerors of old.

There were some Indian troopers waiting, and when they saw these
things they exclaimed and muttered excitedly to one another, casting
half-startled looks. These were the same trappings and war-dresses as
in the days of the Great Moguls at Delhi. The very same. The
conquerors who had swept across high Asia had worn such things, and
every man from Northern India must have understood their meaning and
message. As they looked the Indian troopers chattered and talked to
one another in a growing excitement. It seemed as if we had suddenly
dug up some links of the half-forgotten past which showed how the
chain of armed men had been tightly bound by Genghis Khan and Batu
Khan, and all the other great Khans, from the Great Wall of China all
round Northern and Central Asia, until it had reached down over the
Himalayas into India. It was very curious.

When we had finished this reconnaissance, which carried us in every
direction under the shadow of the Great Wall, we turned bridle and
made back towards Peking by another route. A day's march away from the
capital, word was brought us that there were still numbers of
disbanded soldiery and suspected Boxers hiding in the Nan-Hai-tsu--a
great Imperial Hunting Park, which had fallen into decay during the
present century. We would have to sweep this park, which was dozens of
miles broad and quite wild, and scatter any bands we might find. So
starting after midnight, we marched hard in the gloom for several
hours with native guides leading us, and daylight found us under the
encircling wall of the ancient hunting-ground. We halted there a bit
and refres