nto the ragout, and licking it to see how the mess was
going on, add salt or ginger, or other condiment, to the infinite
annoyance of M. Huc, who was officially charged with the cooking
department. At other times he would loudly protest that we knew nothing
about making up a fire, that the coals ought to be laid so, and the wood
so, and that a draught of air ought to be kept up in this or that
direction; and thereupon he would take up the tongs and overturn our
fire, to the immense discomfiture of M. Gabet, who presided over that
department. At night he appeared to consider himself especially
indispensable, and would skip in every quarter of an hour to see that the
lamp was burning properly, and that the wick was long enough, or short
enough, and what not. At times he had really the air of asking us how it
was possible that we had contrived to live without him, the one of us up
to thirty-two years of age, the other up to thirty-seven. However, among
the exuberance of attentions with which he bored us, there was one which
we readily accepted; it was in the matter of warming our beds, the
process of which was so singular, so peculiar, that we had never had the
opportunity elsewhere of observing it.

The kang, a species of furnace on which you lie, is not in Kan-Sou
constructed altogether of brickwork, as is the case in Northern China,
but the upper flooring consists of moveable planks, placed closely beside
one another. When they want to heat the kang for sleeping purposes, they
remove the planks, and strew the interior of the kang with horse-dung,
quite dry and pulverised. Over this combustible they throw some lighted
cinders, and then replace the planks; the fire immediately communicates
itself to the dung, which, once lighted, continues to smoulder; the heat
and the smoke, having no exit, soon warm the planks, and this produces a
tepid temperature which, in consequence of the slow combustion of the
material, prevails throughout the night. The talent of the kang-heater
consists in putting neither too much nor too little dung, in strewing it
properly, and in so arranging the cinders that combustion shall commence
at different points in the same moment of time, in order that all the
planks may equally benefit by the warmth. Ashamed to have our bed warmed
for us like children, we one night essayed to perform this service for
ourselves, but the result was by no means happy, for while one of us was
nearly broiled to d