miles from
Kan-tchou-foo to Ki-ngan-foo indicated on my map, it has proved to be
considerably over a hundred.

The sole occupant of the building, however, is found to be a fat,
monkish-looking Chinaman, who knows never a word of either French or
pidgeon English. He says he knows Latin, but for all the benefit this
worthy accomplishment is to me he might as well know nothing but his own
language. He informs me, by an expressive motion of the hand, that the
missionaries have departed; whether gone to their everlasting reward,
however, or only on a temporary flight, his pantomimic language fails to
record. Subsequently I learn that they were compelled to flee the
country, owing to the hostility aroused by the operations of the French
in Tonquin.

Instead of extending that cordial greeting and consideration one would
naturally expect from a converted Chinaman whose Fankwae accomplishments
soar to the classic altitude of Latin, the Celestial convert seems rather
anxious to get rid of me; he is evidently on pins and needles for fear my
presence should attract a mob to the place and trouble result therefrom.

As we proceed down the street my appearance seems to stir the population
up to a pitch of wild excitement. Merchants dart in and out of their
shops, people in rags, people in tags, and people in gorgeous apparel,
buzz all about me and flit hither and thither like a nest of stirred-up
wasps. If curiosity has seemed to be rampant in other cities it passes
all the limits of Occidental imagination in Ki-ngau-foo. Upon seeing me
everybody gives utterance to a peculiar spontaneous squeak of surprise,
reminding me very much of the monkeys' notes of alarm in the tree-tops
along the Grand Trunk road, India.

One might easily imagine the very lives of these people dependent upon
their success in obtaining a glimpse of my face. Well-dressed citizens
rush hastily ahead, stoop down, and peer up into my face as I trundle
past, with a determination to satisfy their curiosity that our language
is totally inadequate to describe, and which our temperament renders
equally difficult for us to understand.

By the time we are half-way along the street the whole city seems in wild
tumult. Men rush ahead, peer into my face, deliver themselves of the
above-mentioned peculiar squeak, and run hastily down some convergent
alley-way. Stall-keepers quickly gather up their wares, and shop-keepers
frantically snatch their goods inside as they hear