in.

It was a short half mile down hill to the boat but the difficulty and
discomfort of getting there were considerable. When at length the boy
proceeded to take my stockings off it was found that they were
practically sewn to my skin by the spear-grass, the tiny barbed points
of which had passed in hundreds through the wool and worked like
fish-hooks into my calves. Without penetrating deep enough to more
than slightly draw blood, they had one and all to be forcibly dragged
out as the stockings were peeled off. For days I was lame and sore,
while my dog lived in misery for weeks. I did not even see a Reeves
pheasant.

At Nantou I gathered delicious oranges from the tree for one cash
each, or, eight oranges for a farthing.

A twelve-bore is the best gun for use in China, from the fact that
cartridges are everywhere procurable, whereas for other sizes they
have frequently to be imported from home, although I must admit that
a twenty-bore is preferable for snipe-shooting in warm weather, owing
to the lightness of both gun and cartridges.

It seems to be the general opinion, with which I agree, that pointers
and spaniels are the most suitable dogs to keep, for they appear to
work the cover and to stand the climate better than other breeds.

As European dogs seldom live in China more than three or four years,
and often less, it is necessary to always have puppies coming on if
you do not want your shooting to be spoiled, for it is useless to try
and get pheasants out of the thick cover without them. Dysentery is a
very prevalent canine disease, but their most deadly enemy, and one
existing in no other country that I know of, is worms in the heart.
How the germs get into the blood no doctor has yet been able to say,
but thin, white worms resembling vermicelli cluster round the heart,
living on the blood, until they become so numerous as to eventually
choke an artery, when death is instantaneous. In the case of a
favourite dog, on which a doctor kindly performed a _post-mortem_
examination, these worms were in such numbers that I positively could
not see the heart at all.

Native dogs are useless for sport, as they seem to be devoid of that
friendly intelligence so noticeable in our own breeds, while their
powers of scent are much inferior. I have heard that in the island of
Hainan a certain breed exists which is very good for hunting leopards
and wild boar, but this I cannot guarantee.

In the winter of 1889 I was i