also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's
patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in
admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate
excuse for a long delay.

At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves
for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.

The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been
said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow
pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai (6,700 feet), and on again
to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies
a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this
road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular
steps, not even as regularity goes in China.

"There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit
down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend
again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural
rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
impossible.... Mules are passing me--puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill."

This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
ascended. And I find again:--

"I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The
road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can
get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which
bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times,
and onc