A small enough mistake surely, but sufficient to mar the success of an expedition which the Chinese have always regarded as "one of the most splendid testimonials of respect that a tributary nation ever paid their Court." On the morning of May 7th, as we were leaving the village where we had slept the night before, we were witnesses of a domestic quarrel which might well have become a tragedy.

On the green outside their cabin a husband with goitre, enraged against his goitrous wife, was kept from killing her by two elderly goitrous women.

All were speaking with horrible goitrous voices as if they had cleft palates, and the husband was hoarse with fury.

Jealousy could not have been the cause of the quarrel, for his wife was one of the most hideous creatures I have seen in China.

Throwing aside the bamboo with which he was threatening her, the husband ran into the house, and was out again in a moment brandishing a long native sword with which he menaced speedy death to the joy of his existence.