rested by the bridge and refreshed ourselves, for above us was an
ascent whose steepness my stuttering coolie indicated to me by fixing my
walking stick in the ground, almost perpendicularly, and running his
finger up the side. He did not exaggerate. A zigzag path set with stone
steps has been cut in the vertical ascent, and up this we toiled for
hours. At the base of the escalade my men sublet their loads to spare
coolies who were waiting there in numbers for the purpose, and climbed
up with me empty-handed. At every few turns there were rest-houses where
one could get tea and shelter from the hot sun. The village of
Tak-wan-leo is at the summit; it is a village of some little importance
and commands a noble view of mountain, valley, and river. Its largest
hong is the coffin-maker's, which is always filled with shells of the
thickest timber that money can buy.

Stress is laid in China upon the necessity of a secure resting-place
after death. The filial affection of a son can do no more thoughtful act
than present a coffin to his father, to prove to him how composedly he
will lie after he is dead. And nothing will a father in China show the
stranger with more pride than the coffin-boards presented to him by his
dutiful son.

Tak-wan-leo is the highest point on the road between Suifu and Chaotong.
For centuries it has been known to the Chinese as the highest point;
how, then, with their defective appliances did they arrive at so
accurate a determination? Twenty li beyond the village the stage ends at
the town of Tawantzu, where I had good quarters in the pavilion of an
old temple. The shrine was thick with the dust of years; the three gods
were dishevelled and mutilated; no sheaves of joss sticks were
smouldering on the altar. The steps led down into manure heaps and a
piggery, into a garden rank and waste, which yet commands an outlook
over mountain and river worthy of the greatest of temples.

[Illustration: THE OPIUM-SMOKER OF ROMANCE.]

On March 30th I reached Tak-wan-hsien, the day's stage having been
seventy li (twenty-three and one-third miles). I was carried all the way
by three chair-coolies in a heavy chair in steady rain that made the
unpaved track as slippery as ice--and this over the dizzy heights of a
mountain pathway of extraordinary irregularity. Never slipping, never
making a mistake, the three coolies bore the chair with my thirteen
stone, easily and without straining. From time to time they rested