during the middle ages,
have long since been abandoned to the ravages of time; while over the
whole country the late Dungan rebellion has left its countless ruins.

[Illustration: ENTERING TONG-QUAN BY THE WEST GATE.]

[Illustration: MONUMENTS NEAR ONE-SHE-CHIEN.]

The people of Shan-si province are noted for their special thrift, but
this quality we observed was sometimes exhibited at the expense of the
higher virtue of honesty. One of the most serious of the many cases of
attempted extortion occurred at a remote country town, where we arrived
late one evening, after learning to our dismay that one of our remarkably
few mistakes in the road had brought us just fifty miles out of the way.
Unusually wearied as we were by the cross-country cuts, we desired to
retire early. In fact, on this account, we were not so observant of
Chinese formality as we might have been. We did not heed the hinted
requests of the visiting officials for a moon-light exhibition, nor go to
the inn-door to bow them respectfully out. We were glad to take them at
their word when they said, with the usual hypocritical smirk, "Now, don't
come out any farther." This indiscretion on our part caused them, as well
as ourselves, to suffer in the respect of the assembled rabble. With
official connivance, the latter were now free, they thought, to take
unusual liberties. So far, in our dealings with the Chinese, we had never
objected to anything that was reasonable even from the native point of
view. We had long since learned the force of the Chinese proverb that, "in
order to avoid suspicion you must not live behind closed doors"; and in
consequence had always recognized the common prerogative to ransack our
private quarters and our luggage, so long as nothing was seriously
disturbed. We never objected, either, to their wetting our paper windows
with their tongues, so that they might noiselessly slit a hole in them
with their exceptionally long finger nails, although we did wake up some
mornings to find the panes entirely gone. It was only at the request of
the innkeeper that we sometimes undertook the job of cleaning out the
inn-yard; but this, with the prevalent superstition about the "withering
touch of the foreigner," was very easily accomplished. Nor had we ever
shown the slightest resentment at being called "foreign devils"; for this,
we learned, was, with the younger generation at least, the only title by
which foreigners were known. But on thi