I shall meet with other traveling companions at Uzun Ada.

With regard to the French couple, there is nothing more at present, but the passage of the Caspian will not be accomplished before I know something about them.
There are also these two Chinamen who are evidently going to China.

If I only knew a hundred words of the "Kouan-hoa," which is the language spoken in the Celestial Empire, I might perhaps make something out of these curious guys.

What I really want is some personage with a story, some mysterious hero traveling _incognito_, a lord or a bandit.

I must not forget my trade as a reporter of occurrences and an interviewer of mankind--at so much a line and well selected.