There are a hundred passengers on board the Astara—­a large number of them Caucasians trading with Turkestan, and who will be with us all the way to the eastern provinces of the Celestial Empire.

For some years now the Transcaspian has been running between Uzun Ada and the Chinese frontier.  Even between this part and Samarkand it has no less than sixty-three stations; and it is in this section of the line that most of the passengers will alight.  I need not worry about them, and I will lose no time in studying them.  Suppose one of them proves interesting, I may pump him and peg away at him, and just at the critical moment he will get out.

No!  All my attention I must devote to those who are going through with me.  I have already secured Ephrinell, and perhaps that charming Englishwoman, who seems to me to be going to Pekin.  I shall meet with other traveling companions at Uzun Ada.  With regard to the French couple, there is nothing more at present, but the passage of the Caspian will not be accomplished before I know something about them.  There are also these two Chinamen who are evidently going to China.  If I only knew a hundred words of the “Kouan-hoa,” which is the language spoken in the Celestial Empire, I might perhaps make something out of these curious guys.  What I really want is some personage with a story, some mysterious hero traveling incognito, a lord or a bandit.  I must not forget my trade as a reporter of occurrences and an interviewer of mankind—­at so much a line and well selected.  He who makes a good choice has a good chance.

I go down the stairs to the saloon aft.  There is not a place vacant.  The cabins are already occupied by the passengers who are afraid of the pitching and rolling.  They went to bed as soon as they came on board, and they will not get up until the boat is alongside the wharf at Uzun Ada.  The cabins being full, other travelers have installed themselves on the couches, amid a lot of little packages, and they will not move from there.

As I am going to pass the night on deck, I return up the cabin stairs.  The American is there, just finishing the repacking of his case.

“Would you believe it!” he exclaims, “that that drunken moujik actually asked me for something to drink?”

“I hope you have lost nothing, Monsieur Ephrinell?” I reply.

“No; fortunately.”

“May I ask how many teeth you are importing into China in those cases?”

“Eighteen hundred thousand, without counting the wisdom teeth!”

And Ephrinell began to laugh at this little joke, which he fired off on several other occasions during the voyage.  I left him and went onto the bridge between the paddle boxes.