done till we reached Ying-wu-kwan, the "Eagle Nest Barrier," which is
more than 8000 feet above the sea. Then by very hilly and poor country
we came to Pupeng, and, pursuing our way over a thickly-peopled plateau,
we reached a break in the high land from which we descended into a wide
and deep valley, skirted with villages and gleaming with sheets of
water--the submerged rice-fields. At the foot of the steep was a poor
mud town, but, standing back from it in the fields, was a splendid
Taoist temple fit for a capital. In this village we were delayed for
nearly an hour while my three men bargained against half the village for
the possession of a hen that was all unconscious of the comments,
flattering and deprecatory, that were being passed on its fatness. It
was secured eventually for 260 cash, the vendors having declared that
the hen was a family pet, hatched on a lucky day, that it had been
carefully and tenderly reared, and that nothing in the world could
induce them to part with it for a cash less than 350. My men with equal
confidence, based upon long experience in the purchase of poultry,
asserted that the real value of the hen was 200 cash, and that not a
single cash more of the foreign gentleman's money could they
conscientiously invest in such a travesty of a hen as _that_. But little
by little each party gave way till they were able to _tomber d'accord_.

A pleasant walk across the busy plain brought us to Yunnan Yeh, where we
passed the night.

On the 27th we had an unsatisfactory day's journey. We travelled only
seventy li over an even road, yet with four good hours of daylight
before us my men elected to stop when we came to the village of
Yenwanshan. We had left the main road for some unknown reason, and were
taking a short cut over the mountains to Tali. But a short-cut in China
often means the longest distance, and I was sure that this short-cut
would bring us to Tali a day later than if we had gone by the main
road--in ten days, that is, from Yunnan, instead of the nine which my
men had promised me. Laohwan, who, like most Chinaman I met, persisted
in thinking that I was deaf, yelled to me in the presence of the village
that the next stopping place was twenty miles distant, that "_mitte
liao! mitte liao!_" ("there were no beans") on the way for the pony, and
that assuredly we would reach Tali to-morrow, having given the pony the
admirable rest that here offered. As he stammered these sentences the
peop