[Illustration: NIU TSANG AND FAMILY. Page 2.]
Suddenly, against the purplish shadows of the distant mountains, a little group could be seen moving slowly along, the only living things in all this vast solitude. On they came over the parched levels, but the man who was leading the way walked with bowed head, as one that saw not, but only went forward because he must. He was small in stature, and thin and lithe, while his complexion showed through its dark, the pallor of the student. His face was of the Oriental type peculiar to the Chinese Empire, and his carefully braided cue also indicated his nationality. He had dark, sloping eyes that you might have thought sleepy if you had not seen them light up as he talked, his forehead was low and broad, his mouth large, and most amiable in its expression, and when the long sleeves of his tunic fell back, they disclosed soft, delicate hands, unused to toil. His costume consisted of an outer tunic of worn and faded silk, girded at the waist with a sash, from which hung a bag containing flint and steel for lighting his pipe, a soiled pouch that had once held tobacco, but was now empty, another bag for his pipe, and a satin case shaped like the sheath for a short sword, from which protruded nothing more formidable, however, than the handle of a fan. His loose pantaloons, dust-stained and frayed, were met below the knees by cloth stockings, once white, but now dyed with mud, and his shoes of embroidered felt, the toes of which curled up in a curious fashion, showed many gaping holes. Upon his head he wore a cone-shaped hat of bamboo, the peak at the top adorned with a blue button from which fell a blue silk fringe, and his tunic being cut low at the neck and buttoned diagonally across his breast, left exposed his slender bronzed neck.
He was followed by a woman whose dress was similar to his own, and also much the worse for wear, who led by the hand a little boy about four years old, while on her other side was a daughter, now almost as tall as her mother.
But as the father walked slowly, even majestically, at the head of his little family, bearing on a pole thrown across his shoulders, all his worldly goods, there was an independence in his carriage, a pride in his mien, that told of better days not yet forgotten, and made the evident poverty of his appearance seem of but little moment.