communicants and six
adherents. Their work is largely aided by an admirable hospital under
Cecil Davenport, F.R.C.S., a countryman of my own. "Broad Benevolence"
are the Chinese characters displayed over the entrance to the hospital,
and they truthfully describe the work done by the hospital. In the
chapel adjoining, a red screen is drawn down the centre of the church,
and separates the men from the women--one of the chief pretexts that an
Englishman has for going to church is thus denied the Chinaman, since he
cannot cast an ogling eye through a curtain.

CHAPTER V.

THE JOURNEY FROM CHUNGKING TO SUIFU--CHINESE INNS.

I left the boat at Chungking and started on my land journey, going west
230 miles to Suifu. I had with me two coolies to carry my things, the
one who received the higher pay having also to bring me my food, make my
bed, and pay away my copper cash. They could not speak a single word of
English. They were to be paid for the journey one _4s. 10d._ and the
other _5s. 7d._ They were to be entitled to no perquisites, were to find
themselves on the way, and take their chance of employment on the return
journey. They were to lead me into Suifu on the seventh day out from
Chungking. All that they undertook to do they did to my complete
satisfaction.

On the morning of March 14th I set out from Chungking to cross 1600
miles over Western China to Burma. Men did not speak hopefully of my
chance of getting through. There were the rains of June and July to be
feared apart from other obstacles.

Pere Lorain, the Procureur of the French Mission, who spoke from an
experience of twenty-five years of China, assured me that, speaking no
Chinese, unarmed, unaccompanied, except by two poor coolies of the
humblest class, and on foot, I would have _les plus grandes
difficultes_, and Monsieur Haas, the Consul _en commission_, was equally
pessimistic. The evening before starting, the Consul and my friend
Carruthers (one of the _Inverness Courier_ Carruthers) gave me a lesson
in Chinese. "French before breakfast" was nothing to this kind of
cramming. I learnt a dozen useful words and phrases, and rehearsed them
in the morning to a member of the Inland Mission, who cheered me by
saying that it would be a clever Chinaman indeed who could understand
Chinese like mine.

I left on foot by the West Gate, being accompanied so far by A. J.
Little, an experienced traveller and authority on China, manager in
Chungking of the