In the late autumn of every year the tribute ponies are brought down to Peking. I have seen them in large droves coming across country at full gallop, enveloped in clouds of dust, with mounted Mongol and Chinese drovers, carrying long bamboo poles, riding on the outskirts of each mob and directing its course. Villagers, on seeing the clouds of dust and hearing the thunder of hoofs, hurry out to try and divert the equine torrent from their crops, but in vain. The whirlwind rushes by, leaving a broad, well-beaten track, whereon few signs of banks, gardens or vegetation can be discerned. It is the Emperor's tribute and there is no redress. After tributary obligations have been fulfilled in kind or in value, large numbers of these ponies are thrown on the market, and on an average can be secured for twenty or thirty dollars each--that is, for two or three pounds. The best market is provided by Europeans, and dealers forward the finest-looking animals to Tientsin, Shanghai, Hongkong, Hankow and other places where racing is carried on, to meet this demand. When such mobs of raw ponies reach a treaty-port they are known as "griffins," which term applies to all that have not previously run at any race-meeting; and with their tails sweeping the ground, their hogged manes and their long coats clotted with mud, they present a very dismal appearance, and one not at all in keeping with the accepted idea of race-horses. These griffins mostly pass through the hands of racing men, who, with a view to securing a good animal, either arrange with the dealers for private gallops, when the various performances are carefully timed by stop-watch, or buy their fancies at public auction without speed tests having previously been made. Owing to expenses of transport, be it by steamer or by road, the further south the greater the average value of griffins, and as only picked animals are supplied to the foreign market, the price is everywhere far higher than at Peking, and may be said to range from fifty to five hundred dollars. Those ponies which do not prove to have sufficient speed to warrant their being trained as racers are resold as hacks, or filter away at lower prices to the Chinese. I may here say that although at several of the treaty-ports there are a few good roads made by the European residents, and along which imported carriages are occasionally seen to pass, it is only at Shanghai that vehicular traffic has attained to any considerable degree of importance. Here the foreign settlements are traversed in all directions by excellent highways, which extend through the suburbs for several miles into the adjoining country, and which the Chinese avail themselves of to a large extent, driving out in thousands every afternoon to tea-houses and pleasure-gardens.