as delivered to him, and he must pay for it."

I confess the thing was so clear, that I had not a word to say; but
admiring to see such just reasoning upon the consequence, and so
accurate stating the case, I paid willingly for the camel, and sent for
another; but you may observe, _I sent_ for it; I did not go to fetch it
myself any more; I had had enough of that.

The city of Naum is a frontier of the Chinese empire: they call it
fortified, and so it is, as fortifications go there; for this I will
venture to affirm, that all the Tartars in Karakathy, which, I believe,
are some millions, could not batter down the walls with their bows and
arrows; but to call it strong, if it were attacked with cannon, would be
to make those who understand it laugh at you.

We wanted, as I have said, about two days journey of this city, when
messengers were sent express to every part of the road, to tell all
travellers and caravans to halt, till they had a guard sent to them; for
that an unusual body of Tartars, making ten thousand in all, had
appeared in the way, about thirty miles beyond the city.

This was very bad news to travellers; however, it was carefully done of
the governor, and we were very glad to hear we should have a guard.
Accordingly, two days after, we had two hundred soldiers sent us from a
garrison of the Chinese on our left, and three hundred more from the
city of Naum, and with those we advanced boldly: the three hundred
soldiers from Naum marched in our front, the two hundred in our rear,
and our men on each side of our camels with our baggage, and the whole
caravan in the centre. In this order, and well prepared for battle, we
thought ourselves a match for the whole ten thousand Mogul Tartars, if
they had appeared; but the next day, when they did appear, it was quite
another thing.

It was early in the morning, when marching from a little well-situated
town, called Changu, we had a river to pass, where we were obliged to
ferry; and had the Tartars had any intelligence, then had been the time
to have attacked us, when, the caravan being over, the rear-guard was
behind: but they did not appear there.

About three hours after, when we were entered upon, a desert of about
fifteen or sixteen miles over, behold, by a cloud of dust they raised,
we saw an enemy was at hand; and they were at hand indeed, for they came
on upon the spur.

The Chinese, our guard on the front, who had talked so big the day
before, began