on taking
possession of this; the yard, though dirty, was dry, and at least I was
sure of plenty of air. Fresh straw was spread in the shrine and my bed
set up on it; the pigs were given my pony's stable, as I preferred his
company to theirs; and I had an unusually pleasant evening, spite of the
fact that the roofs of the adjoining buildings were crowded with
onlookers, mostly children, until it grew too dark for them to see
anything.

We crossed the Yangtse the next day on a large flat-bottomed boat into
which we all crowded higgledy-piggledy, the men and their loads, pony
and chairs. The current was so swift that we were carried some distance
downstream before making a landing. At this point, and indeed from Tibet
to Suifu, the Yangtse is, I believe, generally known as the Kinsha
Kiang, or "River of Golden Sand." The Chinese have no idea of the
continuing identity of a river, and most of theirs have different names
at different parts of their course, but in this case there is some
reason for the failure to regard the upper and the lower Yangtse as one
and the same stream, for at Suifu, where the Min joins the Yangtse, it
is much the larger body of water throughout most of the year, and is
generally held by the natives to be the true source of the Great River.
Moreover, above the junction the Yangtse is not navigable, owing to the
swift current and obstructing rocks, while the Min serves as one of
China's great waterways, bearing the products of the famous Chengtu
plain to the eastern markets.

After leaving the ferry we followed for some miles the dry bed of a
river whose name I could not learn. The scene was desolate and barren in
the extreme, nothing but rock and sand; and had it not been cloudy the
heat would have been very trying. But we were now among the Cloud
Mountains, where the bright days are so few that it is said the Szechuan
dogs bark when the sun comes out. After a short stop at a lonely inn
near a trickle of a brook we turned abruptly up the mountain-side, by a
zigzag trail so steep that even the interpreter was forced to walk. As
I toiled wearily upward, I looked back to find my dog riding comfortably
in my chair. Tired and hot, he had barked to be taken up. The coolies
thought it a fine joke, and when I whistled him down they at once put
him back again, explaining that it was hard work for short legs. At one
of the worst bits of the trail we met some finely dressed men on
horseback, who stared in a