Volume 1

Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846 / translated by William Hazlitt; now edited with an introduction by Professor Paul Pelliot.

  • Évariste Régis Huc
Date:
[1928]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Travels in Tartary, Thibet and China, 1844-1846 / translated by William Hazlitt; now edited with an introduction by Professor Paul Pelliot. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    dangerously rugged that it sugge£led frequent recom¬ mendations of ourselves to the protection of the Divine Providence. Our course was amid enormous rocks, beside a deep, fierce current, the tumultuous waves of which roared beneath us. There was the gulf perpetually yawning to swallow us up, should we make but one false tep ; we trembled, above all, for our camels, awkward and lumbering as they were, whenever they had to pass over an uneven road. At length, thanks to the goodness of God, we arrived without accident at Si-Ning [Hsi-ning]. The town is of very large extent, but its population is limited and itself, in several parts, is falling into absolute decay. The history of the matter is, that its commerce has been in great measure intercepted by Tang- Keou-Eul [Dangar], a small town on the banks of the Keou-Ho [Kou-ho], on the frontier which separates Kan-Sou from Koukou-Noor. It is the cu£lom, we may say the rule, at Si-Ning- Fou, not to receive Grangers, such as the Tartars, Thibetians, and others, into the inns, but to relegate them to establishments called Houses of Repose (Sie-Kia [hsieh-chia]), into which no other travellers are admitted. We proceeded accordingly to one of these Houses of Repose, where we were exceedingly well entertained. The Sie-Kia differ from other inns in this important particular, that the gueSts are boarded, lodged, and served there gratuitously. Commerce being the leading objedl of travellers hither, the chiefs of the Sie-Kia indemnify them¬ selves for their outlay by a recognized percentage upon all the goods which their gueSts buy or sell. The persons who keep these Houses of Repose have fir£I to procure a license from the authorities of the town, for which they pay a certain sum, greater or less, according to the charadfer of; the commercial men who are expected to frequent the house. In outward