and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met
me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in
that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I
admired the grand scenery farther along. Especially did I notice one
peak, towering perpendicularly away up past woods of closely-planted
pine and fir trees, the crystal summit glistening with sunlit snow; as
soon as I started again on my journey, I was pulling up towards it. Soon
I was gazing down upon the tiny patches of light green and a few
solitary cottages, resembling a little beehive, and one could imagine
the metaphorical wax-laying and honey-making of the inhabitants. These
people were away from all mankind, living in life-long loneliness, and
all unconscious of the distinguished foreigner away up yonder, who
wondered at their patient toiling, but who, like them, had his
Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow. There they were, perched high up on the
bleak mountain sides, with their joys and sorrows, their pains and
penalties, struggling along in domestic squalor, and rearing young
rusticity and raw produce.

On these mountains in Yuen-nan one sees hundreds of such little
encampments of a few families, passing their existence far from the road
of the traveler, who often wished he could descend to them and quench
his thirst, and eat with them their rice and maize. Most of them here
were isolated families of tribespeople, who, out of contact with their
kind, have little left of racial resemblance, and yet are not fully
Chinese, so that it is difficult to tell what they really are. Most were
Lolo.

Walking here was treacherous. A foot pathway was the main road, winding
in and out high along the surface of the hills, in many places washed
away, and in others overgrown with grass and shrubbery. "Across China on
Foot" would have met an untimely end had I made a false step or slipped
on the loose stones in a momentary overbalance. I should have rolled
down seven hundred feet into the Shui-pi Ho. Once during the morning I
saw my coolies high up on a ledge opposite to me, and on practically
the same level, a three-li gully dividing us. They were very small men,
under very big hats, bustling along like busy Lilliputians, and my loads
looked like match-boxes. I probably looked to them not less grotesque.
But we had to watch our footsteps, and not each other.

We were rounding a corner, when I was surprised to see Hwan-l