And yet we found something.  For there were some chests hidden away, and prizing these open, we discovered great books of yellow parchment, so old and so sodden that they fell to pieces as soon as one touched them.  They were in some Mongol or Manchu script.  They, too, were centuries old.  But there was something else—­a great discovery.  Beneath the books we found helmets, inlaid with silver and gold and embellished with black velvet trappings studded with little iron knobs.  There were also complete suits of chain armour.  It seemed to us in that early morning that we were suddenly discovering the Middle Ages, perhaps even the Dark Ages.  For these things were not even early Manchu; they were Mongol; Mogul—­the war-dress of conquerors whose bodies had been rotting in the dust for five, six, seven, eight, or even nine centuries.  These relics had lain there undisturbed for all this time because China has been merely tilling the fields and neglecting everything else.  In a curious mood we donned these suits and went down below clad as the conquerors of old.

There were some Indian troopers waiting, and when they saw these things they exclaimed and muttered excitedly to one another, casting half-startled looks.  These were the same trappings and war-dresses as in the days of the Great Moguls at Delhi.  The very same.  The conquerors who had swept across high Asia had worn such things, and every man from Northern India must have understood their meaning and message.  As they looked the Indian troopers chattered and talked to one another in a growing excitement.  It seemed as if we had suddenly dug up some links of the half-forgotten past which showed how the chain of armed men had been tightly bound by Genghis Khan and Batu Khan, and all the other great Khans, from the Great Wall of China all round Northern and Central Asia, until it had reached down over the Himalayas into India.  It was very curious.

When we had finished this reconnaissance, which carried us in every direction under the shadow of the Great Wall, we turned bridle and made back towards Peking by another route.  A day’s march away from the capital, word was brought us that there were still numbers of disbanded soldiery and suspected Boxers hiding in the Nan-Hai-tsu—­a great Imperial Hunting Park, which had fallen into decay during the present century.  We would have to sweep this park, which was dozens of miles broad and quite wild, and scatter any bands we might find.  So starting after midnight, we marched hard in the gloom for several hours with native guides leading us, and daylight found us under the encircling wall of the ancient hunting-ground.  We halted there a bit and refreshed ourselves quickly, and then galloped in through a breach.  There were miles upon miles of beautiful grass stretches, and we and our mounts were fairly pumped before we saw or heard anything.  But towards midday we came on some tiny hills and a few low buildings, which seemed suspicious, and no sooner had we approached