15/16 The weather was very cold, and the road in many places deeply covered with snow. Riding on his mule he passed at different places on the wayside eight bodies, all recently dead from hunger and cold. No school is attached to the mission, but there is an _orphelinat_ of little girls, _ramassees dans les rues_, who had been cast away by their parents; they are in charge of Chinese Catholic nuns, and will be reared as nuns. As we sat in the pavilion in the garden and drank wine sent to him by his brother in Bordeaux--true French wine--the priest had many things to tell me of interest, of the native rebellion on the frontier of Tonquin, of the mission of Monsieur Haas to Chungking, and the Thibetan trade in tea. "The Chinese? |