They stopped in front of a low one-story building made of
sun-dried bricks. This was the Tionglek hotel where they were to
spend the night. Like most Chinese houses it was composed of a
number of buildings arranged in the form of a square with a
courtyard in the center. Dr. Dickson asked for lodgings from the
slant-eyed proprietor. He looked askance at the foreigners, but
concluded that their money was as good as any one else's, and he
led them through the deep doorway into the courtyard.

In the center of this yard stood an earthen range, with a fire in
it. Several travelers stood about it cooking their rice. It was
evidently the hotel dining-room; a dining-room that was open to
all too, for chickens clucked and cackled and pigs grunted about
the range and made themselves quite at home. The men about the
gateway scowled and muttered "Foreign devil," as the three
strangers passed them.

They crossed the courtyard and entered their room, or rather
stumbled into it, in semi-darkness. Mackay peered about him
curiously. He discovered three beds, made of planks and set on
brick pillars for legs. Each was covered with a dirty mat woven
from grass and reeking with the odor of opium smoke.

A servant came in with something evidently intended for a lamp--a
burning pith wick set in a saucer of peanut oil. It gave out only
a faint glimmer of light, but enough to enable the young
missionary to see something else in the room,--some THINGS
rather, that ran and skipped and swarmed all over the damp
earthen floor and the dirty walls. There were thousands of these
brisk little creatures, all leaping about in pleasant