rd of one shilling each to do the journey in
eleven days. Their pay was to be seven shillings and threepence each,
apart from the bonus, and of course they had to find themselves. They
brought me from the coolie-hong, where they were engaged, an agreement
signed by the hong-master, which was to be returned to them in Chaotong,
and remitted to their master as a receipt for my safe delivery.

Every condition detailed in the agreement they faithfully carried out,
and they took me to Chaotong in ten days and a half, though the ordinary
time is fourteen days.

One of the three was a convert, one of the six surviving converts made
by the aggregate Inland Mission of Suifu in six years. He was an
excellent good fellow, rather dull of wits, but a credit to the Mission.
To him was intrusted the paying away of my money--he carried no load.
When he wanted money he was to show me his empty hands, and say "_Muta
tsien! muta tsien!_" (I have no money! I have no money!).

I knew that perfect confidence could be placed in the convert, apart
from the reason of his conversion, because he had a father living in
Suifu. Were he to rob me or do me a wrong and run away, we could arrest
his father and have him detained in the yamen prison till his son
returned. Nothing in China gives one greater protection against fraud
and injury than the law which holds a father responsible for the
wrongdoing of his son, or, where there is no father, an elder son
culpable for the misdeed of the younger.

On the morning of March 22nd we started for Chaotong in Yunnan province.
The Inland Missionary and a Brother from the American Baptist Mission
kindly came with me for the first thirteen miles. My route lay west on
the north bank of the Yangtse, but later, after crossing the Yangtse,
would be nearly south to Chaotong.

Shortly before leaving, the _chairen_ or yamen-runner--the policeman,
that is to say--sent by the Magistrate to shadow me to Tak-wan-hsien,
called at the Mission to request that the interpreter would kindly
remind the traveller, who did not speak Chinese, that it was customary
to give wine-money to the chairen at the end of the journey. The request
was reasonable. All the way from Chungking I had been accompanied by
yamen-runners without knowing it. The chairen is sent partly for the
protection of the traveller, but mainly for the protection of the
Magistrate; for, should a traveller provided with a passport receive any
injury, the Magistra