effects of malaria.
Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months_. _Then completes his
walking tour_.

Yuen-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway--or at least so tradition
says. She is sometimes right.

My journey continuing across more undulating country brought me at
length to Hong-shih-ai (Red Stone Cliff), a tiny hamlet hidden away
completely in a deep recess in the mountain-side, settled in a narrow
gorge, the first house of which cannot be seen until within a few yards
of entry. Inn accommodation, as was usual, was by no means good. It is
characteristic of these small places that the greater the traffic the
worse, invariably, is the accommodation offered. Travelers are
continually staying here, but not one Chinese in the population is
enterprising enough to open a decent inn. They have no money to start it,
I suppose.

But it is true of the Chinese, to a greater degree than of any other
nation, that their Golden Age is in the past. Sages of antiquity spoke
with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and
revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says
that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The
conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to
precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-shih-ai, knowing that the
village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by
conservatism, and make no effort whatever to improve matters.

Fire in the inn was kindled in the hollow of the ground. There was no
ventilation; the wood they burned was, as usual, green; smoke was
suffocating. My men talked well on into the night, and kept me from
sleeping, even if pain would have allowed me to. I spoke strongly, and
they, thinking I was swearing at them, desisted for fear that I should
heap upon their ancestors a few of the reviling thoughts I entertained
for them.

I should like to say a word here about the roads in this province, or
perhaps the absence of roads. They had been execrable, the worst I h