A FORMIDABLE ESCORT. 598

and so accurate stating the cause, I paid willingly for the camel,
and sent for another. But you may observe, I sent for it; I did
not go and fetch it myself any more; I had enough of that.

The city of Naum is a frontier of the Chinese empire: they call
it fortified, and so it is, as fortifications go there; for this I will
venture to affirm, that all the Tartars in Karakathie, which, I be-
lieve, are some millions, could not batter down the walls with their
bows and arrows; but to call it strong, if it were attacked with
cannon, would be to make those who understand it laugh at you.

We wanted, as I have said, about two days’ journey of this city,
when messengers were sent express to every part of the road, to tell
all travellers and caravans to halt, till they had a guard sent for
them ; for that an unusual body of Tartars, making ten thousand
in all, had appeared in the way, about thirty miles beyond the city.

This was very bad news to travellers: however, it was carefully
done of the governor, and we were very glad to hear we should
have a guard. Accordingly, two days after, we had two hundred
soldiers sent us from a garrison of the Chinese on our left, and
three hundred more from the city of Naum, and with those we
advanced boldly; the three hundred soldiers from Naum marched
in our front, the two hundred in our rear, and our men on each
side of our camels with our baggage, and the whole caravan in the
centre. In this order, and well prepared for battle, we thought
ourselves a match for the whole ten thousand Mogul Tartars, if
they had appeared; but the next day, when they did appear, it
was quite another thing.

It was early in the morning, when, marching from a little well-
situated town, called Changu, we had a river to pass, where we
were obliged to ferry: and had the Tartars had any intelligence,
then had been the time to have attacked us, when, the caravan
being over, the rear-guard was behind: but they did not appear.

About three hours after, when we were entered upon a desert of
about fifteen or sixteen miles over, behold, by a cloud of dust they
raised, we saw an enemy was at hand; and they were at hand in-
deed, for they came on upon the spur.

The Chinese, our guard on the front, who had talked so big the
day before, began to stagger, and the soldiers frequently looked