The attendant Laohwan was a powerful Chinese, solid and determined, but courteous in manner, voluble of speech, but with an amusing stammer; he had a wide experience of travel in Western China.

He seemed to enjoy his journey--he never appeared lovesick; but, of course, I had no means of asking if he felt keenly the long separation from his bride.
At the inn there was no bedding for my men; they had to cover themselves, as best they could, with some pieces of felt brought them by the hunchback, and sleep all huddled together from the cold.

They had a few hardships to put up with, but their lot was a thousand times better than that of hundreds of their countrymen who were dying from hunger as well as from cold.
On the 9th, as I was riding on my mule up the mountain road, with the bleak, bare mountain tops on every side, I was watching an eagle circling overhead, when my men called out to me excitedly and pointed to a large wolf that leisurely crossed the path in front of us and slunk over the brow.

It had in its mouth a haunch of flesh torn from some poor wretch who had perished during the night.

This was the only wolf I saw on my journey, though they are numerous in the province.