liarizing ourselves as much
as possible with the language and characteristics of the Chinese, for, as
we were without guides, interpreters, or servants, and in some places
lacked even official assistance, no travelers, perhaps, were ever more
dependent upon the people than ourselves. The Chinese language, the most
primitive in the world, is, for this very reason perhaps, the hardest to
learn. Its poverty of words reduces its grammar almost to a question of
syntax and intonation. Many a time our expressions, by a wrong inflection,
would convey a meaning different from the one intended. Even when told the
difference, our ears could not detect it.

Our work of preparation was principally a process of elimination. We now
had to prepare for a forced march in case of necessity. Handle-bars and
seat-posts were shortened to save weight, and even the leather
baggage-carriers, fitting in the frames of the machines, which we
ourselves had patented before leaving England, were replaced by a couple
of sleeping-bags made for us out of woolen shawls and Chinese
oiled-canvas. The cutting off of buttons and extra parts of our clothing,
as well as the shaving of our heads and faces, was also included by our
friends in the list of curtailments. For the same reason one of our
cameras, which we always carried on our backs, and refilled at night under
the bedclothes, we sold to a Chinese photographer at Suidun, to make room
for an extra provision-bag. The surplus film, with our extra baggage, was
shipped by post, via Siberia and Kiakhta, to meet us on our arrival in
Peking.

[Illustration: VIEW OF A STREET IN KULDJA FROM THE WESTERN GATE.]

And now the money problem was the most perplexing of all. "This alone,"
said the Russian consul, "if nothing else, will defeat your plans." Those
Western bankers who advertise to furnish "letters of credit to any part of
the world" are, to say the least, rather sweeping in their assertions. At
any rate, our own London letter was of no use beyond the Bosporus, except
with the Persian imperial banks run by an English syndicate. At the
American Bible House at Constantinople we were allowed, as a personal
favor, to buy drafts on the various missionaries along the route through
Asiatic Turkey. But in central Asia we found that the Russian bankers and
merchants would not handle English paper, and we were therefore compelled
to send our letter of credit by mail to Moscow. Thither we had recently
sent it on l