n every
house. Sometimes whole streets were given over to the dyers, naked men
at work above huge vats filled with the inevitable blue of China. After
crossing the half-dry bed of a small river we found ourselves under the
great wall of Hui-li proper. Turning in at the South Gate we rapidly
traversed the town to our night's lodging-place near the North Gate, the
crowds becoming ever denser, people swarming out from the restaurants
and side streets, as the news spread of the arrival of a "yang-potsz"
(foreign woman). The interest was not surprising, as I was only the
third or fourth European woman to come this way, but it was my first
experience alone in a large town, and the pressing, staring crowd was
rather dismaying; however, I found comfortable companionship in the
smiling face of a little lad running beside my chair, his swift feet
keeping pace with the carriers. I smiled back, and when the heavy doors
of our night's lodging-house closed behind us, I found the small gamin
was inside, too,--self-installed errand boy. He proved quick and alert
beyond the common run of boys, East or West, and made himself very
useful, but save when out on errands he was always at my side, watching
me with dog-like interest, and kowtowing to the ground when I gave him a
small reward. The next morning he was on duty at dawn, and trotted
beside my chair until we were well on our way, when I sent him back. I
should have been glad to have borrowed or bought or stolen him.

Hui-li-chou, with a population of some forty thousand, is in the middle
of an important mining region, both zinc and copper ore being found in
the neighbouring hills in good quantity; but the bad roads and
government restrictions combine to keep down industry. In spite of its
being a trading centre the inns are notoriously bad, and we were
fortunate in finding rooms in a small mission chapel maintained by a
handful of native Christians. In the course of the evening some of them
paid me a call. They seemed intelligent and alert, and although in the
past the town has had an unpleasant reputation for hostility to
missions, conditions at the present time were declared to be
satisfactory.

CHAPTER IV

THE CHIEN-CH'ANG

The second day after leaving Hui-li-chou we entered the valley of the
Anning Ho, a grey, fast-flowing stream whose course runs parallel with
the meridian like all the others of that interesting group of rivers
between Assam and eastern Szechuan, th