umultuous rabble day and night!

The river contains long reaches leading in a totally contrary direction
to what I know my general course to be. My objective point is a little
east of north, but for miles this morning I am headed considerably south
of the rising sun. There is nothing for it, however, but to keep the
foot-trail that now follows along the river bank, conforming to all its
multifarious crooks and angles. Every mile or two the path is overhung by
a big bamboo hedge, behind which is hidden a village.

The character of these little riverside villages varies from peaceful
agricultural and fishing communities, to nests of river-pirates and hard
characters generally, who covertly prey on the commerce of the Pi-kiang,
and commit depredations in the surrounding country. A glimpse of me is
generally caught by someone behind the hedge as I ride or trundle past;
shouts of "the Fankwae, the Fankwae," and screams of laughter at the
prospect of seeing one of those queer creatures, immediately follow the
discovery. The gabble and laughter and hurrying from the houses to the
hedge, the hasty scrambling through the little wicket gates, all occurs
with a flutter and noisy squabble that suggest a flock of excited geese.

A few miles above Chin-yuen the river enters a rocky gorge, and the
marvellous beauty of the scenery rivets me to the spot in wondering
contemplation for an hour. It is the same picture of rocky mountains,
blue water, junks, bridges, temples, and people, one sometimes sees on
sets of chinaware. Never was water so intensely blue, or sand so
dazzlingly white, as the Pi-kiang at the entrance to this gorge this
sunny morning; on its sky-blue bosom float junks and sampans, their
curious sails appearing and disappearing around a bend in the canon. The
brown battlemented cliffs are relieved by scattering pines, and in the
interstices by dense thickets of bamboo; temples, pagodas, and a village
complete a scene that will be long remembered as one of the loveliest
bits of scenery the whole world round. The scene is pre-eminently
characteristic, and after seeing it, one no longer misunderstands the
Chinaman who persists in thinking his country the great middle kingdom of
landscape beauty and sunshine, compared to which all others
are--"regions of mist and snow."

Across the creeks which occasionally join issue with the river, are
erected frail and wabbly bamboo foot-rails; some of these are evidently
private enterp