d be better, if seized by a
murderous mob, to take the desperate chances of being, like Cameron,
rescued at the last minute from the horrors of incineration, or to take
my own life. Fourteen cartridges and a 38 Smith & Wesson is the sum total
of my armament. Emptying my revolver among the mob, and then being caught
while reloading, would mean a lingering death by the most diabolical
tortures, processes that the heathen Chinee has reduced to a refinement
of cruelty unsurpassed in the old Spanish inquisition chambers.

The saucer of peanuts eaten, I pursue my way along the cobblestone path
leading to the gate, without having come to any more definite conclusion
than to keep cool and govern my actions according to circumstances. Ten
minutes after taking this precaution I am trundling along a paved street,
somewhat wider than the average Chinese city street, in the thick of the
inevitable excited crowd.

The city probably contains two hundred thousand people, judging from the
length of this street and the wonderful quantity and richness of the
goods displayed in the shops. Along this street I see a more lavish
display of rich silks, furs, tiger-skins, and other evidences of opulence
than was shown me at Canton. The pressure of the crowds reduces me at
once to the necessity of drifting helplessly along, whithersoever the
seething human tide may lead. Sometimes I fancy the few officiously
interested persons about me, whom I endeavor to question in regard to the
hoped-for Jesuit mission, have interpreted my queries aright and are
piloting me thither; only to conclude by their actions, the next minute,
that they have not the remotest conception of my wants, beyond reaching
the other side of the city. Now and then some ruffian in the crowd, in a
spirit of wanton devilment, utters a wild, exultant whoop and raises the
cry of "Fankwae. Fankwae." The cry is taken up by others of his kind, and
the whoops and shouts of "Fankwae" swell into a tumultuous howl.

Anxious moments these; the spirit of wanton mischief fairly bristles
through the crowd, evidently needing but the merest friction to set it
ablaze and render my situation desperate. My coat-tail is jerked, the
bicycle stopped, my helmet knocked off, and other trifling indignities
offered; but to these acts I take no exceptions, merely placing my helmet
on again when it is knocked off, and maintaining a calm serenity of face
and demeanor.

A dozen times during this trying trun