hood of the gentry whose molestation they had been led to expect.

The alarm of the dwarf had, however, not been false, and some fifty as great rogues as had ever escaped the retribution of the laws for many a misdeed, were now gathered round the small entrenchment, where a half score of guards, but under the command of one of Tkanghia's veterans, defended the luggage entrusted to their care with an obstinacy that rendered their panic of the morning almost unaccountable, and caused their assailants to imagine the prey they coveted to be proportionately valuable to the difficulty they encountered in seizing it.

The robbers had already made two attacks, but their arms, offensive and defensive, as well as their valour, being far inferior to those of their opponents, their assaults had failed, and, safely ensconced among the bushes and behind the rocks, they amused themselves by endeavouring to terrify the garrison into surrender with an occasional yell, and valiantly clashing their weapons together.

Meanwhile, their chief went round exhorting his associates to another and more resolute attack. He was a well-made man, clad in the garments of one of the beleagured party, who, when flying from imaginary Tatars, had found

himself in the presence of an actual bandit, who, commiserating the impediments he sustained in his flight from his accoutrements, had kindly appropriated these last.

Obedient to the directions of their leader, the band made another assault simultaneously upon every side of the entrenchment; but their reception was far from being encouraging, and their disinclination for the hard blows with which they were welcomed was further increased by the sound of horses' feet that approached their rear. In another instant, Tkanghia was upon the scene of action, and few of the cowardly miscreants seemed inclined to provoke an application of the mace, weighing some thirty pounds, he wielded in his right hand. Alone, their chief advanced to the encounter of the intruder, but a single blow from the weapon of the last had shattered his uplifted sabre, and had done the same for his skull, but for the interposition of the steel cap that encased his head. As it was, he fell senseless to the ground, in which state his hands and feet were expeditiously secured, and himself bound to the back of one of his mounted capturers.

The mandarin, who arrived a few minutes after the termination of the skirmish, recognised, as he gazed upon the pale features of the

prisoner, his quondam guide of the morning, and addressing Tkanghia in a tone of considerable satisfaction, he said

"Son of a mandarin, your conduct has been worthy the representative of your father! but, the proverb says, the young of the eagle will ever become, like their parent, guests of the clouds. A well regulated son resembles his father, as a wing-feather of the phoenix does its fellow. You yielded not to your own impulses, but following my more matured councils, have taken a wolf in the toils. As striking off the head destroys the body, so securing a chief of robbers is equal in importance to making prisoners the whole of his gang, who surely must consist of three hundred men. The ancient laws constitute whoever is sufficiently fortunate to accomplish such a feat an inspector of the empire. the brightness of my star shall not render yours obscure. I shall make a just representation of the resolution and courage you have displayed, so that though I receive taels of silver, this shall not cause you to be rewarded with mere goose-eye coins.53

* Rec et peines, p. 171.

But

CHAPTER V.

THE bustling throng that at later hours usually crowded the streets of Hancheyu-fu, although the morning was past its earliest blush, had not yet made its appearance. Being winter, the wealthier burghers, in whom prosperity had engendered luxury and indolence, preferred pressing their silken cushions, stuffed with cotton, to adventuring forth, before the sun had tempered the keenness of the atmosphere, in pursuit of their various occupations; whilst of the poorer classes, consisting of porters, public carriagedrivers, perambulating artisans, &c., some few had begun to bestir themselves, but the greater number still reposed upon their coarse beds of matting, stretched upon stoves heated to an agreeable warmth," and which they were loath

to leave for the uncertain chance of employ

ment.

The streets were, however, far from being deserted, and especially the grand and principal one, down which, since the moment when at sunrise the city gates were opened, market-carts had been incessantly rolling, laden with meat and game of every description, with vegetables rare and common to the season; in fine, with the provisions for a metropolis containing upwards of two millions of souls. Such was the population of a town that not a century and a half before had been ravaged by a Tatar army,* and since that period had frequently suffered from the effects of fires, one of which alone had consumed two thirds of the whole city: yet still it boasted itself, as now, a terrestrial paradise.+ Its inhabitants pretended to enumerate the almost countless bridges that crossed its canals, as amounting to ten thousand. The residence of the court, the entrepot of nearly all the commerce of the empire; the wealth that circulated, or was hoarded within its walls, was incalculable; and the silks of its looms, its brocades woven with gold and silver thread, its satins and velvets, were exported to the farthest Ind, and

* Vide De Mailla, viii. 493. † Vide Davis, Sketches. Vide Bartoli, 107.