The only two means of reaching the capital were by springless cart over the grey alkali plains, or by boat along the Grand Canal.  Both were slow; neither was enjoyable, but since the latter perhaps presented fewer discomforts, Robert Hart chose to spend a week in the monotonous scenery of mudbanks, and land at Tungchow, a little town some fifteen miles from his destination.  Thence he made his way over a roughly paved stone causeway—­one of those roads that the Chinese proverb says is “good for ten years and bad for ten thousand”—­between endless fields of high millet to the biggest gate of Peking itself.

To step through the gate was to step back into the Middle Ages—­into the times of Ghenghiz Khan.  The street leading from it was nobly planned—­broad, generous; but rough and uneven like the hastily made highway from one camp to another.  Rough, too, were the vehicles traversing it; the oddly assorted teams, mules, donkeys and Mongolian ponies, went unclipped and ungroomed; the drivers went unwashed.  Loathsome beggars sat in the gilded doorways of the fur-shops, the incongruity of their rags against the background of barbaric splendour evidently appealing to none of the passers-by who hurried about their business in a cloud of dust.

At sundown the noise and bustle ceased; the big city gates closed with a clang, and the municipal guard, for all the world like Dogberry and his watch, made their rounds beating wooden clappers, not in the hope of catching, but rather in the hope of frightening malefactors away.

[Illustration:  UNDER THE PEKING CITY WALL TOWARDS TUNGCHOW—­ALONG THE GRAND CANAL.]

Yet Robert Hart had already seen far queerer places—­and lonelier.  I am thinking now of Formosa, that strange land of adventure where the veriest good-for-nothings, stranded by chance, have “owned navies and mounted the steps of thrones,” and where he spent some time in 1864 inspecting the Custom Houses.

A most amusing story was told him on his travels there—­a story too good to leave unrepeated, though he personally had no part in it—­unless the laugh at the end can be called a part.  During one of those terrible storms which periodically sweep the shores of Formosa, an American vessel was wrecked and her crew eaten by the aborigines.  The nearest American Consul thereupon journeyed inland to the savage territory in order to make terms with the cannibals for future emergencies.  Unfortunately the chiefs refused to listen, and would have nothing to do with the agreement prepared for their signature.  The Consul was irritated by their obstinacy; he had a bad temper and a glass eye, and when he lost the first, the second annoyed him.  Under great stress of excitement he occasionally slipped the eye out for a moment, rubbed it violently on his coat-sleeve, then as rapidly replaced it—­and this he did there in the council hut, utterly forgetful of his audience, and before a soul could say the Formosan equivalent of “Jack Robinson.”