varying estimates of my age advanced by curious
bystanders. It has been estimated as low as twelve--"look at the
foreigner," they said, "there's a fine fat boy!"--and never higher than
twenty-two. But it is not only in China that a youthful appearance has
hampered me in my walk through life.

I remember that on one occasion, some years ago, I obliged a medical
friend by taking his practice while he went away for a few days to be
married. It was in a semi-barbarian village named Portree, in a
forgotten remnant of Scotland called the Isle of Skye. The time was
winter. The first case I was called to was that of a bashful matron, the
baker's wife, who had lately given birth to her tenth child. I entered
the room cheerfully. She looked me over critically, and then greatly
disconcerted me by remarking that: "She was gey thankfu' to the Lord
that it was a' by afore I cam', as she had nae wush to be meddled wi' by
a laddie of nineteen." Yet I was two years older than the doctor who had
attended her.

If in China you are so fortunate as to be graced with a beard, the
Chinaman will add many years to your true age. In the agreeable company
of one of the finest men in China, I once made a journey to the Nankow
Pass in the Great Wall, north of Peking. My friend had a beard like a
Welsh bard's, and, though a younger man than his years, forty-four,
there was not a native who saw him, who did not gaze upon him with awe,
as a possible Buddha, and not one who attributed to him an age less than
eighty.

Next day, the 28th of April, despite my misgivings, my men fulfilled
their promise, and led me into Tali on the ninth day out from Yunnan. We
had come 307 miles in nine days. They walked all the way, living
frugally on scanty rations. I walked only 210 miles; I was better fed
than they, and I had a pony at my hand ready to carry me whenever I was
tired.

My men thus earned a reward of eighteen pence each for doing thirteen
stages in nine days. Long before daylight we were on our way. For miles
and miles in the early morning we were climbing up the mountains, till
we reached a plateau where the wind blew piercingly keen, and my fingers
ached with the cold, and the rarefaction in the atmosphere made
breathing uneasy. The road was lonely and unfrequented. We were
accompanied by a muleteer who knew the way, by his sturdy son of twelve,
and his two pack horses. By midday we had left the bare plateau, had
passed the three pagoda peaks, and