forced to reproduce itself, generation
after generation, among the unnatural conditions of slums and
industrialism? . . . Can you nourish men upon poisons century by
century, and expect them to retain the semblance of men?

They had bothered Han Kwang-wuti; who could do little more than
hold his own against them, and leave them to his successor to
deal with as Karma might decree. Karma, having as you might
say one watchful eye on Rome and Europe, and what need of
chastisement should arise after awhile at that western end of the
world, provided Han Mingti with this Pan Chow; who, being a
soldier of promise, was sent upon the Hun war-path forthwith.
Then the miracles began to happen. Pan Chow strolled through
Central Asia as if upon his morning's constitutional: no fuss;
no hurry; little fighting,--but what there was, remarkably
effective, one gathers. Presently he found himself on the
Caspian shore; and if he had left any Huns behind him, they were
hardly enough to do more than pick an occasional pocket. He
started out when the Roman provinces were rising to make an end
of Nero; in the last year of Domitian, from his Caspian
headquarters he determined to discover Rome; and to that end
sent an emissary down through Parthia to take ship at the port of
Babylon for the unknown West. The Parthians (who were all
against the two great empires becoming acquainted, because they
are making a good thing of it as middle-men in the Roman-Chinese
caravan trade), knew better, probably, than to oppose Pan Chow's
designs openly; but their agents haunted the quays at Babylon,
tampered with west-going skippers, and persuaded the Chinese
envoy to go no farther. But I wonder whether some impulse
achieved flowing across the world from east to west at that
time, even though its physical link or channel was thus left
incomplete? It was in that very year that Nerva re-established
constitutionalism and good government in Rome.

Pan Chow worked as if by magic: seemed to make no effort, yet
accomplished all things. For nearly forty years he kept that
vast territory in order, despite the huge frontier northward, and
the breeding-place of nomad nations beyond. All north of Tibet
is a region of marvels. Where you were careful to leave only the
village blacksmith under his spreading chestnut-tree, or the
innkeeper and his wife, for the sake of future travelers, let a
century or two pass, and their descendants would be as the
sea-sand