a dining-room filled the cross-bar of the letter: one of the
perpendicular strokes was the west, or guest wing; the other contained
his own private offices, a special reception-room, furnished in
Chinese style--stiff chairs and rigid tables--for Chinese guests, and
his living-rooms. It was characteristic of the man that these were the
most unpretentious rooms in the whole house.

Undoubtedly one of the chief reasons which allowed Peking to preserve
its mediæval aspect intact for so many years was the difficulty of
communicating with the rest of the world for several months of the
year. Its port, Tientsin, was ice-bound from November to March, and
the foreign community was therefore completely cut off during the long
winter. Neither letters nor papers enlivened _la morte saison_
until the I.G. conceived the idea of arranging a service of overland
couriers from Chinkiang, a port on the Yangtsze, to Peking. The seven
hundred miles intervening was covered by mounted men, who took
from ten to twelve days for the journey, and they as well as their
mounts--the latter of course in relays--were provided on contract by
a clever old mafoo (groom) who had the reputation of getting the best
ponies for the Tientsin amateur race meetings, and who was in league
with all the picturesque Mongol horse-dealers.

[Illustration: OUTSIDE SIR ROBERT HART'S HOUSE BEFORE 1900.]

On the whole the system worked admirably, though of course there were
occasional hitches. Sometimes a messenger was attacked by bandits on
the way and had his bags stolen. I know once the I.G. chuckled over
such a disaster. It so happened that in the missing bags there was one
letter which he had written giving an appointment in the Customs to a
certain man. No sooner was it gone than he regretted what he had