iers without
examination.

The path, rising to the height of the watershed, where at a great
elevation we gain a distant view of water, descends by the counterslope
once more to the river Laowatan. A wonderful ravine, a mountain riven
perpendicularly in twain, here gives passage to the river, and in full
view of this we rested at the little town of Taoshakwan, with the roar
of the river hundreds of feet below us. Midway up the face of the
precipice opposite there is a sight worth seeing; a mass of coffin
boards, caught in a fault in the precipice, have been lying there for
untold generations, having been originally carried there by the "ancient
flying-men who are now extinct."

A poor little town is Taoshakwan, with a poor little yamen with
pretentious tigers painted on its outflanking wall, with a poor little
temple, and gods in sad disrepair; but with an admirable inn, with a
charming verandah facing a scene of alpine magnificence.

We were entering a district of great poverty. At Tchih-li-pu, where we
arrived at midday the next day, the houses are poor, the people
poverty-stricken and ill-clad, the hotel dirty, and my room the worst I
had yet slept in. The road is a well-worn path flagged in places,
uneven, and irregular, following at varying heights the upward course of
the tortuous river. The country is bald; it is grand but lonely;
vegetation is scanty and houses are few; we have left the prosperity of
Szechuen, and are in the midst of the poverty of Yunnan. Farmhouses
there are at rare intervals, amid occasional patches of cultivation;
there are square white-washed watch towers in groves of sacred trees;
there are a few tombstones, and an occasional rudely carved god to guard
the way. There are poor mud and bamboo inns with grass roofs, and dirty
tables set out with half a dozen bowls of tea, and with ovens for the
use of travellers. Food we had now to bring with us, and only at the
larger towns where the stages terminate could we expect to find food for
sale. The tea is inferior, and we had to be content with maize meal,
bean curds, rice roasted in sugar, and sweet gelatinous cakes made from
the waste of maize meal. Rice can only be bought in the large towns. It
is not kept in roadside inns ready steaming hot for use, as it is in
Szechuen. Rarely there are sweet potatoes; there are eggs, however, in
abundance, one hundred for a shilling (500 cash), but the coolies cannot
eat them because of their dearness. A