Towns are repeatedly consumed by fire, districts
scourged by leprosy, and provinces swept by famine. The storms are
admittedly more fatal than elsewhere, the thunderbolts larger, more
numerous, and all unerringly directed, while the extremities of heat
and cold render life really uncongenial for the greater part of each
year. The poor, having no money to secure justice, are evilly used,
whereas the wealthy, having too much, are assailed legally by the
gross and powerful for the purpose of extorting their riches. Robbers
and assassins lurk in every cave; vast hoards of pirates blacken the
surface of every river; and mandarins of the nine degrees must make a
livelihood by some means or other. By day, therefore, it is
inadvisable to go forth and encounter human beings, while none but the
shallow-headed would risk a meeting with the countless demons and
vampires which move by night. To one who has spent many moons among
these foreign apparitions the absence of drains, roads, illustrated
message-parchments, maidens whose voices may be heard protesting upon
ringing a wire, loaves of conflicting dimensions, persons who strive
to put their faces upon every advertisement, pens which emit fountains
when carried in the pocket, a profusion of make-strong foods, and an
Encyclopaedia Mongolia, may undoubtedly be mentioned as constituting a
material deficiency. Affairs are not being altogether reputably
conducted during the crisis; it can never be quite definitely asserted
what the next action of the versatile and high-spirited Dowager
Empress will be; and here it is freely contended that the Pure and
Immortal Empire is incapable of remaining in one piece for much
longer.
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