h
which I had put in my pocket for him. He thanked me by raising his
clasped hands, and said something, I knew not what, as I hurried on. A
little while afterwards I stopped to have my breakfast, when the boy
passed. As soon as he saw me he fell down upon his knees and "kotow'd"
to me, with every mark of the liveliest gratitude. I felt touched by the
poor fellow's gratitude--he could not have been more than fifteen--and
mean, to think that the benefaction, which in his eyes appeared so
generous, was little more than one penny. There can be no doubt that I
gained merit by this action, for this very afternoon as I was on the
track a large stone the size of a shell from a 50-ton gun fell from the
crag above me, struck the rock within two paces of me, and shot past
into the river. A few feet nearer and it would have blotted out the life
of one whom the profession could ill spare. We camped at Laowatan.

A chair with three bearers was waiting for me in the morning, so that I
left the town of Laowatan in a manner befitting my rank. The town had
risen to see me leave, and I went down the street amid serried ranks of
spectators. We crossed the river by a wonderful suspension bridge, 250
feet long and 12 feet broad, formed of linked bars of wrought iron. It
shows stability, strength, and delicacy of design, and is a remarkable
work to have been done by the untutored barbarians of this land of
night. We ascended the steep incline opposite, and passed the likin
barrier, but at a turn in the road, higher still in the mountain, a
woman emerged from her cottage and blocked our path. Nor could the chair
pass till my foremost bearer had reluctantly given her a string of cash.
"With money you can move the gods," say the Chinese; "without it you
can't move a man."

For miles we mounted upwards. We were now in Yunnan, "south of the
clouds"--in Szechuen we were always under the clouds--the sun was warm,
the air dry and crisp. Ponies passed us in long droves; often there were
eighty ponies in a single drove. All were heavily laden with copper and
lead, were nozzled to keep them off the grass, and picked their way down
the rocky path of steps with the agility and sureness of foot of
mountain goats. Time was beaten for them on musical gongs, and the
echoes rang among the mountains. Many were decorated with red flags and
tufts, and with plumes of the Amherst pheasant. These were official pack
animals, which were franked through the likin barr