es seems to
give it almost the monopoly of this industry. The trade is an immense
one. In the neighbourhood of King-teh-chin, in Kiangsi, at the outbreak
of the Taiping rebellion, more than one million workmen were employed in
the porcelain manufactories. Cups and saucers by the time they reach so
far distant a part of China as this, carried as they are so many
hundreds of miles on the backs of coolies, are sold for three or four
times their original cost. Great care is taken of them, and no piece can
be so badly broken as not to be mended. Crockery-repairing is a
recognised trade, and the workmen are unusually skilful even for
Chinese. They rivet the pieces together with minute copper clamps. To
have a specimen of their handiwork I purposely in Yunnan broke a cup and
saucer into fragments, only to find when I had done so that there was
not a mender in the district. Rice bowls and teacups are neatly made,
tough, and well finished; even the humblest are not inelegantly
coloured, while the high-class china, especially where the imperial
yellow is used, often shows the richest beauty of ornamentation.

Inns on this road were few and at wide distances; they were scarcely
sufficient for the numbers who used them. The country was red sandstone,
open, and devoid of all timber, till, descending again into a valley,
the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and led us with pleasant surprise
into a beautiful park. It was all green and refreshing. A pretty stream
was humming past the willows, its banks covered with the poppy in full
flower, a blaze of colour, magenta, white, scarlet, pink and blue picked
out with hedges of roses. The birds were as tame as in the Garden of
Eden; magpies came almost to our feet; the sparrows took no notice of
us; the falcons knew we would not molest them; the pigeons seemed to
think we could not. All was peaceful, and the peasants who sat with us
under the cedars on the borders of the park were friendly and
unobtrusive. Long after sundown we reached, far from the regular stage,
a lonely pair of houses, at one of which we found uncomfortable
accommodation. Fire had to be kindled in the room in a hollow in the
ground; there was no ventilation, the wood was green, the smoke almost
suffocating. My men talked on far into the night until I lost patience
and yelled at them in English. They thought that I was swearing, and
desisted for fear that I should injure their ancestors. There was a
shrine in this room