Six ugly Tartar horsemen with very
uncomfortable-looking spears and appalling shouts, and mounted on
their swift Kirghiz ponies, were charging down upon him, while
neither the rushing Yellow River on the right hand, nor the steep
dirt-cliffs on the left, could offer him shelter or means of
escape. These dirt-cliffs, or "loess," to give them their
scientific name, are remarkable banks of brownish-yellow loam,
found largely in Northern and Western China, and rising sometimes
to a height of a thousand feet. Their peculiar yellow tinge makes
every thing look "hwang" or yellow,--and hence yellow is a
favorite color among the Chinese. So, for instance, the emperor
is "Hwang-ti"--the "Lord of the Yellow Land"; the imperial throne
is the "Hwang-wei" or "yellow throne" of China; the great river,
formerly spelled in your school geographies Hoang-ho, is
"Hwang-ho," the "yellow river," etc.
These "hwang" cliffs, or dirt-cliffs, are full of caves and
crevices, but the good priest could see no convenient cave, and
he had therefore no alternative but to boldly face his fate, and
like a brave man calmly meet what he could not avoid.
But, just as he had singled out, as his probable captor, one
peculiarly unattractive-looking horseman, whose crimson sheepskin
coat and long horsetail plume were streaming in the wind, and
just as he had braced himself to meet the onset against the great
"loess," or dirt-cliff, he felt a twitch at his black upper robe,
and a low voice--a girl's, he was confident--said quickly:
"Look not before nor behind thee, good O-lopun, but trust to my
word and give a backward leap.
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