d time they would have when the
barbarians went to bed. There was no window, and only the one door that
opened into the courtyard. An old pig, evidently more friendly to the
foreigners than her masters, came waddling toward them followed by her
squealing little brood, and flopping down into the mud in the doorway
lay there uttering grunts of content.

The evil smells of the room, the stench from the pigs, and the still
more dreadful odors wafted from the queer food cooking on the range,
made the young traveler's unaccustomed senses revolt. He had a half
notion that the two older men were putting up a joke on him.

"I suppose you thought it wise to give me a strong dose of all this at
the start?" he inquired humorously, holding his nose and glancing from
the pigs at the door to the crawlers on the wall.

"A strong dose!" laughed Mr. Ritchie. "Not a bit of it, young man. Wait
till you've had some experience of the luxuries of Formosan inns. You'll
be calling this the Queen's Hotel, before you've been here long!"

And so indeed it proved later, for George Mackay had yet much to learn
of the true character of Chinese inns. Needless to say he spent a
wakeful night, on his hard plank bed, and was up early in the morning.
The travelers ate their breakfast in a room where the ducks and hens
clattered about under the table and between their legs. Fortunately the
food was taken from their own stores, and in spite of the surroundings
was quite appetizing.

They started off early, drawing in great breaths of the pure morning
air, relieved to be away from the odors of the "Queen's Hotel." Three
hundred feet above them, high against the deep blue of the morning sky,
stood Table Hill, and they started on a brisk climb up its side. The
sun had not risen, but already the farmers were out in their little
water-fields, or working in their tea plantations. The mountain with its
groves of bamboo lay reflected in the little mirrors of the rice-fields.
A steady climb brought them to the summit, and after a long descent on
the other side and a tramp through tea plantations they arrived in
the evening at a large city with a high wall around it, the city of
Tek-chham. That night in the city inn was so much worse than the one at
Tionglek that the Canadian was convinced his friends must have reserved
the "strong dose" for the second night. There were the same smells, the
same sorts of pigs and ducks and hens, the same breeds of lively nightly