ally advises me to go to sleep again. In the morning Ching-We
returns the two-foot square document with the Viceregal seal, and winks
mysteriously to signify that everything is lovely, and that the goose of
permission to go ahead to Nam-ngan hangs auspiciously high.

The morning opens up cool and cloudy, the pebble pathway is wider and
better than yesterday, for it is now the thoroughfare along which
thousands of coolies stagger daily with heavy loads of merchandise to the
commencement of river navigation at Nam-hung. The district is populous
and productive; bales of paper, bags of rice and peanuts, bales of
tobacco, bamboo ware, and all sorts of things are conveyed by muscular
coolies to Nam-hung to be sent down the river.

Gradually have we been ascending since leaving Nam-hung, and now is
presented the astonishing spectacle of a broad flight of stone steps,
certainly not less than a mile in length, leading up, up, up, to the
summit of the Mae-ling Pass. Up and down this wonderful stairway hundreds
of coolies are toiling with their burdens, scores of travellers in
holiday attire and several palanquins bearing persons of wealth or
official station. The stairway winds and zigzags up the narrow defile,
averaging in width about twenty feet. Refreshment houses are perched here
and there along the side, sometimes forming a bridge over the steps.

The stairway terminates at the summit in a broad stone archway of ancient
build, over which are several rooms; this is evidently an office for the
collection of revenue from the merchandise carried over the pass.
Standing beneath this arch one obtains a comprehensive view of the
country below to the north; a pretty picture is presented of gabled
villages and temples, green hills, and pale-gold ripening rice-fields.
The little silvery contributaries of the Kan-kiang ramify the picture
like veins in the human palm, and the brown, cobbled pathways are seen
leading from village to village, disappearing from view at short
intervals beneath a cluster of tiled houses.

Steeper but somewhat shorter steps lead down from the pass, and the
pathway follows along the bank of a tiny stream, leading through an
almost continuous string of villages to the walls of Nam-ngan.

CHAPTER XVIII.

DOWN THE KAN-KIANG VALLEY.

The country is still nothing but river and mountains, and a sampan is
engaged to float me down the Kan-kiang as far as Kan-tchou-foo, from
whence I hope to be able to res