in the absence of the principal authorities.

On receiving this information, we resolved not to retrace our steps, for
we were too far advanced, but to diverge a little from our route. The
night was far advanced ere we thought of taking rest; we had scarcely
slept a few minutes, in fact, when the day broke. The Tartars saddled
their steeds, and after having wished us peace and happiness, dashed off
at full gallop, to overtake the great caravan which preceded them.

As for us, before setting out, we unrolled the excellent map of the
Chinese empire, published by M. Andriveau-Goujon, and sought upon it to
what point we ought to direct our steps, so as to avoid the wretched
district of the Alechan, without, however, deviating too much from our
route. After looking at the map, we saw no other way than to recross the
Yellow River, to pass the Great Wall of China, and to travel across the
Chinese province of Kan-Sou, until we arrived among the Tartars of the
Koukou-Noor. Formerly this determination would have made us tremble.
Accustomed as we had been to live privately in our Chinese christendom,
it would have seemed to us impossible to enter the Chinese empire alone,
and without the care of a catechist. At that time it would have seemed
to us clear as the day, that our strangulation, and the persecution of
all the Chinese missions, would have been the certain result of our rash
undertaking. Such would have been our fears formerly, but the time of
our fear was gone. Indurated by our two months journey, we had come to
the persuasion that we might travel in China with as much safety as in
Tartary. The stay that we had already made in several large commercial
towns, compelled as we had been to manage our own affairs, had rendered
the Chinese manners and customs more familiar to us. The language
presented to us no difficulties; besides being able to speak the Tartar
idiom, we were familiar with the colloquial phrases of the Chinese, a
very difficult attainment to those who reside in the missions, because
the Christians there seek to flatter them by only employing, in the
presence of the Missionaries, the short vocabulary of words that they
have studied in books. Besides these purely moral and intellectual
advantages, our long journey had been useful in a physical point of view;
the rain, the wind, and the sun, which had during two months raged
against our European tint, had in the end embrowned and tanned it so,
that we