CHAPTER XXVI

Summary

THOUGH informed from a very good source that a rebellion was on foot but a little way beyond the city for which we were preparing to start, and though warned that there might be danger in trusting ourselves near it, we could not afford to lose an opportunity then within the reach of so very few travellers; and, danger or no danger, we braced our minds for the undertaking as resolutely as we could, resolved not to return without seeing the capital of an extensive region—the metropolis so much vaunted by the dilettante Emperor, whose ancestors had founded it, and whose principal literary merit rests on the eulogy he composed for the purpose of exhibiting his scholarship, and bringing this remote home of his fathers into notice.

According to preconcerted arrangement, when we were ready to begin our travel one sultry morning, a remarkably fine-looking young man, becomingly attired in a clean white cotton suit and an over-waistcoat of blue silk, with the official hat and red-silk plume, waited upon us to show us the road, and give notice of our presence to the mandarins when we neared the towns. Though well mounted, he kept an easy pace behind, and left us to push on as hard as we might, always certain of overtaking our party by near cuts, which his familiarity with the country enabled him to do.