Thank Heaven, I had superabundant energy and vitality, and despite
contorted and distorted things dancing haphazard through my fevered
brain, I determined not to go under, not to give in. My mind was a
terrible tangle of combinations nevertheless--intricate, incongruous,
inconsequent, monstrous; but still I plodded on. For the next four days,
with my arm lying limp and lifeless at my side, and with recurring
attacks of malaria, I walked on against the greatest odds, and it was
not till I had reached Tong-ch'uan-fu that I learnt that the limb was
fractured. Men may have seen more in four days and done more and risked
more, but I think few travelers have been called upon to suffer more
agony than befell the lot of the man who was crossing China on foot.

From T'ao-ueen there is a stiff ascent, followed by a climb up steep
stone steps and muddy mountain banks through black and barren country.
The morning had been cold and frosty, but rain came on later, a thick,
heavy deluge, which swished and swashed everything from its path as one
toiled painfully up those slippery paths, made almost unnegotiable. But
my imagination and my hope helped me to make my own sunshine. There is
something, I think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good
honest summer rain at home with a Burberry well buttoned and an umbrella
over one's head; here in Yuen-nan a coat made it too uncomfortable to
walk, and the terrific wind would have blown an umbrella from one's
grasp in a twinkling. If we are in the home humor, in the summer, we do
not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in
getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the "very touching
stockings" and the "very gentle and sensitive legs" of other weaker ones
in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland
one can find in this part of Yuen-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make
as I trudged "two steps forward, one step back" in my bare feet, covered
only with rough straw sandals, with trousers upturned above the knee,
with teeth chattering in malarial shivers, endeavoring between-times to
think of the pouring deluge as a benignant enemy fertilizing fields,
purifying the streets of the horrid little villages in which we spent
our nights, refreshing the air!

Shall I ever forget the day?

Just before sundown, drenched to the skin and suffering horribly from
the blues, we reached one single hut, which I could justly look upon as
a sort of