than that of hundreds of their countrymen who were dying from hunger as
well as from cold.

On the 9th, as I was riding on my mule up the mountain road, with the
bleak, bare mountain tops on every side, I was watching an eagle
circling overhead, when my men called out to me excitedly and pointed to
a large wolf that leisurely crossed the path in front of us and slunk
over the brow. It had in its mouth a haunch of flesh torn from some poor
wretch who had perished during the night. This was the only wolf I saw
on my journey, though they are numerous in the province. Last year, not
twenty li from Chaotong, a little girl of four, the only child of the
mission cook, was killed by a wolf in broad daylight before its mother's
eyes, while playing at the cabin door.

Again, to-day, I passed a humpbacked dwarf on the hills, making his
solitary way towards Tongchuan, and I afterwards saw others, an
indication of the prosperity that had left the district, for in time of
famine no child who was badly deformed at birth would be suffered to
live.

We stopped the night at Leitoupo, and next day from the bleak tableland
high among the mountains, where the wind whistled in our faces, we
gradually descended into a country of trees and cultivation and
fertility. We left the bare red hills behind us, and came down into a
beautiful glade, with pretty streams running in pebbly beds past
terraced banks. At a village among the trees, where the houses made some
pretension to comfort, and where poppies with brilliantly coloured
flowers, encroached upon the street itself, we rested under a sunshade
in front of a teahouse. A pretty rill of mountain water ran at our feet.
Good tea was brought us in new clean cups, and a sweetmeat of peanuts,
set in sugar-like almond toffee. The teahouse was filled. In the midst
of the tea drinkers a man was lying curled on a mat, a bent elbow his
pillow, and fast asleep, with the opium pipe still beside him, and the
lamp still lit. A pretty little girl from the adjoining cottage came
shyly out to see me. I called her to me and gave her some sweetmeat. I
wished to put it in her mouth but she would not let me, and ran off
indoors. I looked into the room after her and saw her father take the
lolly from her and give it to her fat little baby brother, who seemed
the best fed urchin in the town. But I stood by and saw justice done,
and saw the little maid of four enjoy the first luxury of her life-time.
Girls in China