wild roses made beautiful every turn. One village that we passed
was quite surrounded by a hedge of roses several feet high, and all in
full bloom. My second night from Ning-yuean-fu was not much better than
the first, for the inn at Lu-ku, a rather important little town, was
most uncomfortable; but a delightful hour's rest and quiet on the river
bank before entering the town freshened me up so much that the night
did not matter. One march to the north of Lu-ku, up the valley of the
Anning, lay the district town of Mien-ning, reached by a rough trail
that finally wandered off into the inextricable gorges of the Ta Tu Ho.
It was in these wild defiles that the last contests of the Taiping
rebellion were fought. I looked longingly up the valley, but my way
turned off to the right, following the pack-road to the ferry at Fulin.
At once on starting the next morning we passed out of the main valley
into a narrow gorge with precipitous sides opening from the east. The
trail wound upwards along the mountain-face, often hewn out of the rock
and scarcely more than five feet wide, and at one point it was barred
effectually by heavy gates. They opened to us, but not on that day half
a century ago when the Taiping leader, Shih Ta-k'ai, failing to force
his way through, turned back to meet defeat in the wilds above
Mien-ning-hsien.

All along the road we met signs of our nearness to the country of the
Lolos. There was much uncultivated land, and the population seemed
scanty, but officials and soldiers were numerous, while guard-houses
dominated the trail at short intervals. The village type was not always
pure Chinese, and occasionally we met people unmistakably of another
race. At Teng-hsiang-ying, or "Strong-walled Camp," where we stopped for
the night, both soldiers and Lolos were much in evidence. We were here
about two thousand one hundred feet below the summit of the great pass
through which the raiders in times not far past made their way into
fertile Chien-ch'ang. After getting settled in the inn, I went for a
walk, carefully guarded by two soldiers especially detailed for the
purpose by the Yamen. In one alley I noticed Lolo women spinning in the
doorways, and with the aid of the soldiers, who seemed to be on very
friendly terms with them, I succeeded in getting a picture of two. In
feature and colour they might have passed for Italians, and their dress
was more European than Chinese in cut. On their heads they wore the Tam