"Prayers," he said. "I got them at a temple. If you carry them, you will get back safe." Well, that made Takeuchi immune for days. At Kaiping we are now and we go to Haicheng to-morrow. At least we think we do. We got here last night: Fuji being lame, I left him for Takeuchi to lead (he rode him, of course); went on afoot and later climbed aboard a freight-train drawn by 600 coolies. I told the Japanese in my smattering best of their language that my horse had gone lame, and they were very polite. The train went slowly along the dragon's length and I had a chance to observe minutely those vertebræ--heavy Chinese wagons, the wheels with two thick huge spokes cross-barred, the hoops of wood and studded with big, shining rivets, and the axles turning with the wheels; between the shafts, a horse, bullock, or a mule; in front, three leaders, usually donkeys, mules (the best I've seen out of America), or bullocks, in all possible combinations of donkey, mule, or bullock. Sometimes an ass colt trotted alongside. The drivers were Chinese coolies, each with a long whip--the butt of bamboo, the shaft spliced with four cane reeds, the lash of leather and the cracker as it is all over the rural world. The two or three leaders of the four- or five-in-hand, pulled by ropes attached to the cart at either side of the cart to one side of each shaft. The hames were two flat pieces of wood, lashed to a straw collar that was sometimes canvas-covered. The cries of the drivers, strange as they sounded to the foreigner near by, were at a distance strangely like the cries of drivers everywhere: "Atta! Atta! Atta-atta-atta!" "Usui! Usui!--u-u-u-su-u-i!" "Whoa-a-ah!"