At nine o’clock next morning, when he was collecting all the information necessary for the execution of this project, a messenger came from the sultan to fetch Père Leguilcher. He did not return until noon, and then his face was overclouded. The sultan refused to see them, and had issued orders that they were to quit the city on the following morning, and return by the route they came. “Make known to the strangers,” he had said, “that they may seize all the lands bordering upon the Lan-tsan-kiang, but they will be compelled to halt on the frontiers of my kingdom. They may subjugate the eighteen provinces of China; but that which I govern will cause them more trouble than all the rest of the empire. Dost thou not know,” he continued, “that it is but three days since I put to death three Malays? If I grant their lives to your companions, it is only because they are strangers, and on account of the letters of recommendation which they carry. But let them hasten their return. They may have sketched my mountains, and fathomed the depths of my rivers; but they will not succeed in conquering them. As for thee,” concluded the sultan, in a softer tone, “I know thy religion, and have read its books. Mohammedans and Christians are brothers. Return to thy place of residence, and I will make thee a mandarin, to the end that thou mayst govern thy people.” Throughout the interview, the father was kept standing, and not allowed to speak; overwhelmed with questions to which no reply was permitted, interpellated and hooted at by the crowd. To what circumstance, says M. Garnier, was so abrupt a change attributable? Undoubtedly to the influence of the military advisers of the king, who would be unable to believe in a purely scientific and disinterested mission. A despotism sprung from a revolution, abhorred by the masses whom it overwhelmed with imposts, existing only through terror and crime, is forced to be cruel and suspicious. The official relations between the French explorers and the Chinese authorities had placed the former, with regard to the sultan of Taly, in a delicate position which justified his mistrust. ~THE EXPEDITION FOILED.~