y. In the evening I am afraid
that I was hardly in the frame of mind requisite for conducting an
evangelical meeting.

Anpien is a considerable town. It is on the Yangtse River just below
where it bifurcates into two rivers, one of which goes north-west, the
other south-west. Streets of temporary houses are built down by the
river; they form the winter suburb, and disappear in the summer when the
river rises in consequence of the melting of the snows in its mountain
sources. At an excellent inn, with a noisy restaurant on the first
floor, good accommodation was given me. No sooner was I seated than a
chairen came from the yamen to ask for my Chinese visiting card; but he
did not ask for my passport, though I had brought with me twenty-five
copies besides the original.

At daybreak a chair was ready, and I was carried to the River, where a
ferry boat was in waiting to take us across below the junction. Then we
started on our journey towards the south, along the right bank of the
Laowatan branch of the Yangtse. The road was a tracking path cut into
the face of the cliff; it was narrow, steep, winding, and slippery.
There was only just room for the chair to pass, and at the sudden turns
it had often to be canted to one side to permit of its passage. We were
high above the river in the mountain gorges. The comfort of the
traveller in a chair along this road depends entirely upon the sureness
of foot of his two bearers--a false step, and chair and traveller would
tumble down the cliff into the foaming river below. Deep and narrow was
the mountain river, and it roared like a cataract, yet down the passage
a long narrow junk, swarming with passengers, was racing, its oars and
bow-sweep worked by a score of sailors singing in chorus. The boat
appeared, passed down the reach, and was out of sight in a moment; a
single error, the slightest confusion, and it would have been smashed in
fragments on the rocks and the river strewn with corpses.

We did a good stage before breakfast. Every few li where the steepness
of the valley side permits it, there are straw-thatched, bamboo and
plaster inns. Here rice is kept in wooden bins all ready steaming hot
for the use of travellers; good tea is brewed in a few minutes; the
tables and chopsticks are sufficiently clean.

Leaving the river, we crossed over the mountains by a short cut to the
river again, and at a wayside inn, much frequented by Chinese, the chair
stage finished. I wished