is the vacant throne in the Hwang-Shi, or '* Central Hall," whereon this human deity sat in state with his face to the East. In another apartment we see the bed on which his Holiness expired ; poisoned, as is said, by a jealous Emperor towards the end of the eighteenth century, the monarch treating his victim with the most stately courtesy to the last, and even worshipping and glori- fying him in public, while his sacrifice was being secretly prepared. The late Mr. Wylie, of the London Bible Society, who was journeying into the Northern Provinces, accompanied me to the Great Wall; and Mr. Welmer, a Russian gentleman, also joined our party. Outside the Anting plain we halted at an inn called " The Gem of Prosperity," and, praise be to the Board of Works ! we there found men repairing the roads. At Ma-teen there was a sheep- market, and Mongols disposing of their flocks. It is strange to note the strong nomadic tendencies of this race. In the Mongol quarter at Peking I have seen them actually place their beasts of burden inside the apartments of the house they hired, and pitch their own tent in the court outside. The condition of the sheep testified to the richness of the Mongolian pastures ; while the shepherds, clad in sheep-skin coats, were a hardy, raw-boned-looking race. At Sha-ho village, in the inn of "Pa- triotic Perfection," we made a second halt. Here in our chamber we found the maxim, written up on a board, '*A11 who seek wealth by the only pure principles will find it." Judging by this doc- trine our host must have been a sad ruffian, for the poverty of his surroundings bore witness that he, for his part, must have sought after riches in some very questionable channel. We spent the night at Suy-Shan Inn, Nankow. It was truly a wretched place : the "grand chamber" measured about eight feet across, and was supplied with the usual brick bed, having an oven underneath it. In a room of this sort the fire is usually lit at night, and
