maginable. The grim walla of the city extend for nearly a mile
along the undulating bank of the Kan-kiang, with a narrow strip of
greensward between the solid gray battlements and the blue, wind-rippled
waters of the river. Along the whole distance, rising and falling with
the undulations of the bank, are ranged a continuous row of gayly
fluttering banners-red, purple, blue, green, yellow, and all these colors
combined in others that are striped as prettily as the prettiest of
barber-poles-probably not less than five hundred flags. These
multitudinous banners flutter from long, spear-headed bamboo-staves, and
of themselves present a wonderfully pretty effect in combination with the
blue waters, the verdant bank, and the gray walls. But in addition to
these are thousands of soldiers, equally gaudy as to raiment, reclining
irregularly along the same greensward, each warrior a bright bit of
coloring on the verdant groundwork of the bank.

Over variable paths and through numerous villages and hamlets my way now
leads, my next objective point being Ki-ngan-foo. At first a country of
curious red buttes, terraced rice-fields, and reservoirs of
mountain-drift water, serving the double purpose of fish-ponds and
irrigating reservoirs, it develops later into a more mountainous region,
where the bicycle quickly degenerates into a thing more ornamental than
useful.

On a narrow mountain-trail is met a gentleman astride of a chunky
twelve-hand pony. This diminutive steed is almost concealed beneath a
wealth of gay trappings, to which are attached hundreds of jingling bells
that fill the air with music as he walks or jogs along. In his fright at
the bicycle, or me, he charges wildly up the steep mountain-slope,
unseating his rider and making for the mountain-top like the
all-possessed. His rider takes the sensible course of immediately
pursuing the pony, instead of wasting time in unprofitable fault-finding
with me.

Few people of these obscure mountain-hamlets have ever seen a Fankwae;
many, doubtless, have never even heard of the existence of such queer
beings. They gather in a crowd about me when I stay to seek refreshments;
the general query of "What is he? what is he?" passed from one to
another, sometimes elicits the laconically expressed information of"
Fankwae" from some knowing villager or traveller passing through, but
often their question remains unanswered, because among the whole assembly
there is nobody who really kno