barely room for us to
crowd in and huddle together from the rain and cold prevailing outside.
The worst the elements can do, however, is far preferable to personal
contact with these vile creatures; and so I don my blanket and gossamer
rubbers, and sit out in the rain. The rain ceases and the chilly night
air covers everything with a coating of hoar-frost, but all this is
nothing compared with the horrible associations inside, the reeking fumes
of opium and tobacco adding yet another abomination to be remembered.

At early morn we land and pursue our way for a few miles across country
to Lin-kiang, which is situated on a big tributary stream a few miles
above its junction with the Kan-kiang. Our way loads through a rich strip
of low country, sheltered and protected from inundations by an extensive
system of dykes. Here we pass through orchards of orange-trees bristling
with the small blood-red mandarin oranges; we help ourselves freely from
the trees, for their great plenteousness makes them of very little value.
On the stalls they can be purchased six for one cent; like the people in
the great peanut producing country below Nam-hung, the cheapness and
abundance of oranges here seems an inducement for the people to almost
subsist thereon.

Everybody is either buying, stealing, selling, packing, gathering,
carrying, or eating oranges; coolies are staggering Lin-kiang-ward
beneath big baskets of newly plucked fruit, and others are conveying them
in wheelbarrows; boats are being loaded for conveyance along the river.
Every orange-tree is distinguished by white characters painted on its
trunk, big enough so that those who run may read the rightful owner's
name and take warning accordingly.

Three more wearisome but eventful days, battling against adverse winds,
and we come to anchor in a little slough, where a war-junk and several
fishing vessels are already moored for the night. While supper is
preparing I pass the time promenading back and forth along a little
foot-trail leading for a short distance round the shore. The crew of the
war-vessel are engaged in drying freshwater shrimps, tiny minnows, and
other drainings and rakings of the water to store away for future use.
One of the younger officers stalks back and forth along the same path as
myself, brusquely maintaining the road whenever we meet, evidently bent
on showing off his contempt for the boasted prowess of the Fankwaes, by
compelling me to step to one side. H