like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for
my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength.
But I was getting weaker! I saw, as I passed, gardens of purple and gold
and white splendor; the sky was at its bluest, the clouds were full,
snowy, mountainous.

Then on again to varying scenes.

Inns were not frequent, and were poor and wretched. The country was all
red sandstone, and devoid of all timber, till, descending into a lovely
valley, the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and then led out into a
beautiful park all green and sweet. The country was full of color. It
put a good taste in one's mouth, it impressed one as a heaven-sent means
of keeping one cheerful in sad dilemma. The gardens, the fields, the
skies, the mountains, the sunset, the light itself--all were full of
color, and earth and heaven seemed of one opinion in the harmony of the
reds, the purples, the drabs, the blacks, the browns, the bright blues,
and the yellows. Birds were as tame as they were in the Great Beginning;
they came under the table as I ate, and picked up the crumbs without
fear. Peasant people sat under great cedars, planted to give shade to
the travelers, and bade one feel at home in his lonely pilgrimage. Then
one felt a peculiar feeling--this feeling will arise in any
traveler--when, surmounting some hill range in the desert road, one
descries, lying far below, embosomed in its natural bulwarks, the fair
village, the resting-place, the little dwelling-place of men, where one
is to sleep. But when towards nightfall, as the good red sun went down,
I was led, weary and done-up, into one of the worst inns it had been my
misfortune to encounter, a thousand other thoughts and feelings united
in common anathema to the unenterprising community.

Tea was bad, rice we could not get, and all night long the detestable
smells from the wood fires choked our throats and blinded our eyes;
glad, therefore, was I, despite the heavy rain, to take a hurried and
early departure the next morning, descending a thousand feet to a river,
rising quite as suddenly to a height of 8,500 feet.

Now the road went over a mountain broad and flat, where traveling in the
sun was extremely pleasant--or, rather, would have been had I been fit.
Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea,
Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Yuen-nan province, passed
us on the mountain-side, and sometimes nu