by him. His Chinese servant, Bartholomeus, who is to accompany him, is honest — which few Chinese servants appear to be — but very obstinate, which, on the contrary, seems to be very common in China.
Prince Henry, Father Dedeken, Bachmed, Bartholomeus, and myself form the nucleus of the expedition. We have, too, an interpreter named Abdullah, who speaks Chinese and Mongolian, and who accompanied the celebrated Prjevalsky. He seems to be an honest sort of fellow, but his vanity, his boastfulness, his talkativeness make us very uneasy.
His account of what he went through in the Tsaïdam alarms our followers, and he seems bent upon dissuading us from undertaking anything out of the beaten tracks. It must be added that the Russian Consul at Kuldja is not much more encouraging, and when Prince Henry tells him we are going to try to reach Batang, he smiles incredulously, and advises him not to be lured on by that idea. He points out to us that we have no escort, no felt tent, no Chinese passport. But experience has taught us that one can get on without either of these three things which he regards as indispensable. As regards the passport, I must say that the main cause of our success was our omission to give notice of our journey to the Tsong li Yamen at Pekin. By asking for a passport to travel in those parts of China which have been little visited, we should have excited the attention of Chinese diplomacy. The mandarins would have given us the warmest letters of recommendation, and then, as soon as our itinerary was known, would have sent orders for every sort of means to be used to stop us on the road, and compel us to turn back. Such has been the lot of all travellers in China, from the late Prjevalsky down to Richthofen, Count Bela-Szechny, and so many others who have been stopped in their journeys by various devices.
After having completed our caravan as best we could at Kuldja, all we wanted, in order to continue our journey, was the
