the European_. _A good send-off_. _My coolie Shanks, the songster_.
_Laughter for tears_. _Pony commits suicide_. _Houses in the forest
district_. _Little encampments among the hills, and the way the people
pass their time_. _Treacherous travel_. _To Hwan-lien-p'u_. _Rest by the
river, and a description of my companions_. _How my men treated the
telegraph_. _Universal lack of privacy_. _Complaints of the carrying
coolies._

From whichever standpoint you regard the cities and villages of Western
China, the views are full of interest. Each forms a new picture of rock,
river, wood and temple, crenellated wall, and uplifted roof, crowded
with bewildering detail.

I am not the first traveler who has remarked this. Several of Mr.
Archibald Little's books speak of it. He says: "In Europe, except where
the scenery is purely wild, and more especially in America, the delight
of gazing on many of the most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the
crude newness of man's work. This is true now of Japan, since the rage
for copying western architecture and dress has fallen upon the Islands
of the Rising Sun. But here in Western China little has intervened to
mar the accord between nature and man." In the country on which we are
now entering the natural grandeur is finer than anything I had seen
since I left the Gorges, and incidentally I do not mind confessing to
the indulgent reader that when I came again through Hsiakwan, again
westward bound, I was tired, my feet were blistered and broken, each day
and every day had brought me a hard journey, and here I was now facing
the most difficult journey yet met with--literally not a li of level
road.

My journey was by the following route:--

Length Height
of Stage Above Sea

1st day Ho-chiang-p'u 90 li 5,050 ft.
2nd day Yang-pi 60 li 5,150 ft.
3rd day T'ai-p'ing-p'u 70 li 7,400 ft.
5th day Hwan-lien-p'u 50 li 5,200 ft.
6th day Ch'u-tung 95 li 5,250 ft.
7th day Shayung 75 li 4,800 ft.

T'ai-p'ing-p'u (two days from Tali-fu), bleak and perched away up among
the clouds, could never be called a town; it is merely a ramshackle
place which gives one sleep and food in the difficult stage between
Hwan-lien-p'u and Yang-pi.

Like most of the small places which suffered from the ravishings of the
Mohammedan destructions of