ted the world's output, nor had it greatly enriched the laborers in
the field. When I got into civilization I found that coal of a
sulphurous nature was the booty of ancient days. There may be coal yet,
as is most probable, but the natives seemed far too apathetic and weary
of life to care whether it is there or not.

Passing Ta-shui-tsing, the descent narrows to a splendid view of dark
mountain and green and beautiful valley. We were now traveling away from
several ranges of lofty mountains, whose peaks appeared vividly above
the drooping rain-filled clouds, onwards to a range immediately
opposite, up whose slopes we toiled all day, passing _en route_ only one
uninhabited hamlet, to which the people flee in time of trouble. After a
weary tramp of another twenty-five li--the Yuen-nan li, mind you, the
most unreliable quantity in all matters geographical in the country--I
asked irritatedly, as all travelers must have asked before me, "Then, in
the name of Heaven, where is Kiang-ti?"[W] It should come into view
behind the terrible steep decline when one is within only about a
hundred yards. It is roughly four thousand feet below Ta-shui-tsing.

Kiang-ti is an important stopping place, with but one forlorn street,
with two or three forlorn inns, the best of which has its best room
immediately over the filthiest stables, emitting a stench which was
almost unbearable, that I have seen in China. It literally suffocates
one as it comes up in wafts through the wide gaps in the wood floor of
the room. There are no mosquitoes here, but of a certain winged insect
of various species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the
wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a
formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house
fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly,
the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with
flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's
throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one
within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes
of the 'kerchief.

The village seemed a death-trap.

Glancing comprehensively at one another as I entered the higher end of
the town, a party of reveling tea-drinkers hastily pulled some cash from
their satchels to settle accounts, and made a general rush into the
street, where they awaited noisily the approach of a s