s, the birds
were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming
rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was
the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.

"That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He
b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know."

As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl,
two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy
boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to
my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou
would'st travel in China, peep not into thy _hoh shih lan tsi_ if thou
would'st feed well.

T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the
disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he
could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out
into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to
Chao-t'ong-fu.

From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no
hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the
reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Yuen-nan were
rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the
regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no
less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the
delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been
established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which
the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the
hitherto unheard-of time of two days--a traveler considers himself
fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast
daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in
two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three
days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter
posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.

It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little
procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached
before sundown. My coolies--probably owing to having derived more
pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from
Chung-king--decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the
fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundr