s particular night, our forbearance
being quite exhausted, we ejected the intruders bodily. Mid mutterings and
threats we turned out the lights, and the crowd as well as ourselves
retired. The next morning the usual exorbitant bill was presented by the
innkeeper, and, as usual, one half or one third was offered and finally
accepted, with the customary protestations about being under-paid. The
innkeeper's grumblings incited the crowd which early assembled, and from
their whispers and glances we could see that trouble of some kind was
brewing. We now hastened to get the wheels into the road. Just then the
innkeeper, at the instigation of the crowd, rushed out and grabbed the
handle-bars, demanding at the same time a sum that was even in advance of
his original price. Extortion was now self-evident, and, remonstrance
being of no avail, we were obliged to protect ourselves with our fists.
The crowd began to close in upon us, until, with our backs against the
adjoining wall, we drew our weapons, at which the onward movement changed
suddenly to a retreat. Then we assumed the aggressive, and regained the
wheels which had been left in the middle of the road. The innkeeper and
his friend now caught hold of the rear wheels. Only by seizing their
queues could we drag them away at all, but even then before we could mount
they would renew their grasp. It was only after another direct attack upon
them that we were able to mount, and dash away.

[Illustration: MONUMENT NEAR CHANG-SHIN-DIEN.]

A week's journeying after this unpleasant episode brought us among the
peanuts, pigs, and pig-tails of the famous Pe-chili plains. Vast fields of
peanuts were now being plowed, ready to be passed through a huge coarse
sieve to separate the nuts from the sandy loam. Sweet potatoes, too, were
plentiful. These, as well as rice balls, boiled with a peculiar dry date
in a triangular corn-leaf wrapper, we purchased every morning at daybreak
from the pots of the early street-venders, and then proceeded to the local
bake-shops, where the rattling of the rolling-pins prophesied of stringy
fat cakes cooked in boiling linseed oil, and heavy dough biscuits cleaving
to the urn-like oven.

It was well that we were now approaching the end of our journey, for our
wheels and clothing were nearly in pieces. Our bare calves were pinched by
the frost, for on some of the coldest mornings we would find a quarter of
an inch of ice. Our rest at night was broken for t