te of the district would be liable to degradation.
It was arranged, therefore, with the convert that, on our arrival in
Tak-wan-hsien, I was to give the chairen, if satisfied with his
services, 200 cash (five pence); but, if he said "_gowshun! gowshun!_"
(a little more! a little more!) with sufficient persistence, I was to
increase the reward gradually to sevenpence halfpenny. This was to be
the limit; and the chairen, I was assured, would consider this a
generous return for accompanying me 227 miles over one of the most
mountainous roads in China.

It was a pleasant walk along the river-bank in the fertile alluvial,
where the poppy in white flower and tobacco were growing, and where
fields of yellow rape-seed alternated with beds of rushes--the rape-seed
yielding the oil, and the rushes the rushlights of Chinese lamps. Flocks
of wild geese were within easy shot on the sandbanks--the "peaceful
geese," whose virtues are extolled by every Chinaman. They live in
pairs, and, if one dies, its mate will be for ever faithful to its
memory. Such virtue is worthy of being recorded on the arch which here
spans the roadway, whose Chinese characters, _Shen_ (holy), _Chi_
(will), show that it was erected by the holy decree of the Emperor to
perpetuate the memory of some widow who never remarried.

As we walked along the missionary gave instructions to my men. "In my
grace I had given them very light loads; hurry and they would be richly
rewarded"--one shilling extra for doing fourteen stages in eleven days.

At an inn, under the branches of a banyan tree, we sat down and had a
cup of tea. While we waited, a hawker came and sat near us. He was
peddling live cats. In one of his two baskets was a cat that bore a
curious resemblance to a tortoise-shell tabby, that till a week ago had
been a pet in the Inland Mission. It had disappeared mysteriously; it
had died, the Chinese servant said; and here it was reincarnated.

At the market town the missionaries left me to go on alone with my three
men. I had seventeen miles still to go before night.

It was midday, and the sun was hot, so a chair was arranged for to take
me the seventeen miles to Anpien. It was to cost 320 cash (eightpence),
but, just before leaving, the grasping coolies refused to carry me for
less than 340 cash. "Walk on," said the missionary, "and teach them a
Christian lesson," so I walked seventeen miles in the sun to rebuke them
for their avarice and save one halfpenn