ength to the Chinese, they are sometimes thrown by the latter,
generally more active, and especially more tricky.

In the great match of 1843, a wrestler of the kingdom of Efe had
overthrown all competitors, Tartars and Chinese. His body, of gigantic
proportions, was fixed upon legs which seemed immovable columns; his
hands, like great grappling irons, seized his antagonists, raised them,
and then hurled them to the ground, almost without effort. No person had
been at all able to stand before his prodigious strength, and they were
about to assign him the prize, when a Chinese stepped into the ring. He
was short, small, meagre, and appeared calculated for no other purpose
than to augment the number of the Efeian's victims. He advanced,
however, with an air of firm confidence; the Goliath of Efe stretched out
his brawny arms to grasp him, when the Chinese, who had his mouth full of
water, suddenly discharged the liquid in the giant's face. The Tartar
mechanically raised his hands to wipe his eyes, and at the instant, the
cunning Chinese rushed in, caught him round the waist, threw him off his
balance, and down he went, amid the convulsive laughter of the
spectators.

This anecdote was told to us by a Tartar horseman who travelled with us a
part of our way through the kingdom of Efe. From time to time he showed
us children engaged in wrestling. "This," said he, "is the favourite
exercise with all the inhabitants of our kingdom of Efe. We esteem in a
man but two things,--his being a good horseman and his being a good
wrestler." There was one group of youthful wrestlers whom, exercising as
they were on the side of our road, we were enabled to watch closely and
at leisure; their ardour redoubled when they saw we were looking at them.
The tallest of the party, who did not seem more than eight or nine years
old, took in his arms one of his companions, nearly his own height, and
very fat, and amused himself with tossing him above his head, and
catching him again, as you would a ball. He repeated this feat seven or
eight times, and at every repetition we trembled for the life of the boy;
but the rest of the children only gambolled about, applauding the success
of the performers.

On the 22nd day of the eighth moon, on quitting the petty kingdom of Efe,
we ascended a mountain, on the sides of which grew thickets of fir and
birch. The sight of these at first gave us great pleasure. The deserts
of Tartary are in genera