At Peking an enormous mat shed is erected to keep out the dust, while the ground inside is flooded daily so as to secure good ice. This rink is a favourite afternoon resort of the European community, but the space is too limited and the attendance too crowded to admit of any really enjoyable skating by the light of a few oil lamps. I have skated on the moat outside the city wall but it was not very good, the chief attraction being to watch Chinese performers. As a rule they wear only one skate, on which they propel themselves by striking the ice with the other foot until a certain speed has been attained, when they spread out their arms, bend forward until their noses almost touch the ice and raise the skateless foot high over their backs. This bird-like skim on one leg seems to be their ideal of graceful skating. At this season the stately, two-humped camels, with beautiful coats of brown wool a foot in length, come down from Mongolia, bearing loads of meat and furs, together with frozen game and fish from Manchuria and the Amoor river, and coal from the mines north of Peking. The Mongol teamster, clad in skins with the hair inside, trudges in front, leading the first camel by a string attached to its nose, while a cord tied to its tail links it with the nose of the second camel, and so on, till the whole team of eight or ten are securely connected. They move along with graceful, easy stride, the only sound being the dull clanking of a heavy bell suspended from the leader's neck. 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.