hose dietetical elegancies had been forgotten, a man with
ravenous desires seeking sustenance, not relishes; the means of life,
not the means of pampering the carcass; I wanted food.

And here I had it. The hungry were to be fed.

It was a foul orgy, a gruesome spectacle, a horrible picture of the
gluttony of famished men. This meal conjured up visions of the "most
unlovely of the functions." We fed on _mien_, that long, greasy, grimy,
slippery, slimy string of boneless white--I see it now! And the
half-done tin of sardines set before me, too, the broken stools in the
thatch-worn shed, the dismantled hearth, the muddy earthen floor, the
haggard, hungry villains--I see them all again.[AS]

It should, however, be said that I went away from the main road over a
range of hills where nobody lives. Had I kept to the "ta lu" food would
have been quite easy to get.

To Hungay was given the honor of entertaining me over the Sunday, a
pleasant rest after a week of arduous and exhausting walking. I arrived
late at night, and the old town's rough streets were bathed in a silver
shower of moonbeams, the air was cold and frosty, little groups of the
curious came to the doors of their dwellings, laughing sarcastically,
despite their own poverty, at the distinguished traveler thus coming
upon them.

In marked contrast to this outside animation were the happenings at the
inn which gave me shelter. Business was bad. Three undistinguished
travelers--coolies with loads--and myself and men made up the meager
total of paying guests. This was the reason why it was chosen for me,
for peace and quiet. Quiet had been forced upon the household, so I was
told, by the death by fits of a haughty and resolute lady; and now that
the night had fallen and we had all had our rice, the deep hush--or its
equivalent in Cathay, at all events--seemed likely to be unbroken until
a new day should dawn. My room here had a verandah overlooking a back
court, and here I sat at midnight, unseen by anyone, looking up to the
changeless stars in an unpitying sky; and as I stood thus there blew
from the gates of night and across the mountains a wind that made me
shiver less with physical cold than with a sense of loneliness and
captivity. For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if
the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the
cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and
then again at the soldiers with