of us
would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
the same privilege. Selfishness in the slightest degree should not enter
in. But such a man is difficult to find, so I wander on alone, happy in
my own solitude. Here I have liberty, perfect liberty.

I was stopped on my way to Lao-wa-t'an at a small town called Puerh-tu,
the first place of importance after having come into Yuen-nan. A few li
before reaching this town, one of my men cut the large toe of his left
foot on a sharp rock, lacerating the flesh to the bone. I attended to
him as best I could on the road, paid him four days' extra pay, and then
had a bit of a row with him because he would not go back. He avowed that
carrying for the foreigner was such a good thing that he feared leaving
it! Upon entering Puerh-tu, however, he fell in the roadway. A crowd
gathered, a loud cry went up from the multitude, and in the
consternation and confusion which ensued the people divided themselves
into various sections.

Some rushed to proffer assistance to the fallen man (this was done
because I was about; he would have been left had a foreigner not been
there), others gathered around me with outrageous adulation and seeming
words of welcome. Meanwhile, I thought the coolie was dying, and,
fearful and unnatural as it seems, it is nevertheless true that at all
ages the Chinese find a peculiar and awful satisfaction in watching the
agonies of the dying. By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.

On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
which he advanced slowly towards me.

I was on the point of telling