te, and say that we thought China was the best; and,
perhaps, the viceroy himself had a similar expectation. But between
telling a positive lie, and not telling the truth, there is perhaps
sufficient difference to shield us from the charge of gross inconsistency.
We answered, therefore, that in many respects, we considered America the
greatest country we had seen. We ought of course to have said that no
reasonable person in the world would ever think of putting any other
country above the Celestial Empire; our bluntness elicited some surprise,
for the viceroy said:

"If then you thought that America was the best why did you come to see
other countries?"

"Because until we had seen other countries," we replied, "we did not know
that America was the best." But this answer the viceroy evidently
considered a mere subterfuge. He was by no means satisfied.

"What was your real object in undertaking such a peculiar journey?" he
asked rather impatiently.

"To see and study the world and its peoples," we answered; "to get a
practical training as a finish to a theoretical education. The bicycle was
adopted only because we considered it the most convenient means of
accomplishing that purpose."

The viceroy, however, could not understand how a man should wish to use
his own strength when he could travel on the physical force of some one
else; nor why it was that we should adopt a course through central Asia
and northwestern China when the southern route through India would have
been far easier and less dangerous. He evidently gave it up as a
conundrum, and started out on another line.

"Do you consider the Shah of Persia a powerful monarch?" was his next
question.

"Powerful, perhaps, in the Oriental sense," we replied, "but very weak in
comparison with the Western nations. Then, too, he seems to be losing the
power that he does have--he is compelled to play more and more into the
hands of the Russians."

"Do you think that Russia will eventually try to take possession of
Persia?" the viceroy interrupted.

"That, of course, is problematical," we answered, with the embarrassment
men of our age might feel at being instigated to talk politics with a
prime minister. "What we do know, for certain, is that Russia is now, with
her Transcaspian railroad, within about forty miles of Meshed, the capital
of Persia's richest province of Khorasan; that she now has a
well-engineered and, for a great portion of the way, a macadamized r