of the water-carriers, who all day long are toiling up from the
river.

The mountain slope does not permit a greater width of building space
than on each side of the one main street. And on market days this street
is almost impassable, being thronged with traffickers, and blocked with
stalls and wares. Coal is for sale, both pure and mixed with clay in
briquettes, and salt in blocks almost as black as coal, and three times
as heavy, and piles of drugs--a medley of bones, horns, roots, leaves,
and minerals--and raw cotton and cotton yarn from Wuchang and Bombay,
and finished goods from Manchester. At one of the villages there was a
chair for hire, and, knowing how difficult was the country, I was
willing to pay the amount asked--namely, _7d._ for nearly seven miles;
but my friend the convert, who arranged these things, considered that
between the _5d._ he offered and the _7d._ they asked the discrepancy
was too great, and after some acrimonious bargaining it was decided
that I should continue on foot, my man indicating to me by gestures, in
a most sarcastic way, that the "_chiaodza_" men had failed to overreach
him.

[Illustration: A TEMPLE IN SZECHUEN.]

[Illustration: LAOWATAN.]

At Sengki-ping it rained all through the night, and I had to sleep under
my umbrella because of a solution in the continuity of the roof
immediately above my pillow. And it rained all the day following; but my
men, eager to earn their reward of one shilling, pushed on through the
slush. It was hard work following the slippery path above the river. Few
rivers in the world flow between more majestic banks than these,
towering as they do a thousand feet above the water. Clad with thick
mountain scrub, that has firm foothold, the mountains offer but a poor
harvest to the peasant; yet even here high up on the precipitous sides
of the cliffs, ledges that seem inaccessible are sown with wheat or
peas, and, if the soil be deep enough, with the baneful poppy. As we
plodded on through the mud and rain, we overtook a poor lad painfully
limping along with the help of a stick. He was a bright lad, who unbound
his leg and showed me a large swelling above the knee. He spoke to me,
though I did not understand him, but with sturdy independence did not
ask for alms, and when I had seen his leg he bound it up again and
limped on. Meeting him a little later at an inn, where he was sitting at
a table with nothing before him to eat, I gave him a handful of cas