On one of the animals the Mongol's whole family is sometimes carried in two immense panniers, and the round, yellow faces of tiny children peer down from their lofty nursery on a strange and passing world.
I have also seen a calf camel, evidently cast by the way, being carried in a litter strapped to the back of its dam.
It has been told me by reliable Chinese that in winter upwards of ten thousand camels daily pass in and out of the gates of Peking. They are beautiful animals, of great height, and appear to be very meek and docile.
On one occasion, when returning at daylight from duck shooting near Marco Polo's bridge, I was tightly wedged in by several hundreds which were waiting to enter the western gateway. They looked down at me with their patient eyes as I shouted and prodded them with my whip in order to clear a way for my pony, but attempted neither to bite nor kick.
In spring their wool peels off in large flakes, giving them a ragged appearance, and is collected and woven into the celebrated Tientsin rugs.
In summer, like the wildfowl, they disappear and go north to seek cool pastures in the Mongolian highlands.
Peking not being a seaport, and as yet but little influenced by foreign trade, the European community settled there is solely composed of the _corps diplomatique_ and the legation guards, of the inspectorate of maritime customs, of professors of the various colleges, of missionaries and a few storekeepers.
During winter, when communication with the outer world is a matter of considerable difficulty, Peking society, which is naturally of a highly cosmopolitan order, amuses itself by a constant round of dinners, balls and receptions carried out with lavish hospitality, and to which the novelty of Oriental surroundings supplies an additional attraction.
In company with a French friend, who lived in Dry Flour Alley, I made an expedition to the Great Wall, which is two days' journey from the capital.
Mounted on ponies, with provisions and bedding packed into a cart drawn by two mules, we started while it was yet dark on a cold winter's morning.
Slowly making our way along frozen roads outside the walls of the forbidden city, we arrived at one of the gateways by daylight and passed out of Peking, following a wide and dusty road, where we presently met streams of camels, mules, ponies, donkeys, carts and coolies, each bearing a load of some kind of produce wherewith to supply the markets of the great city.