l, is the centre of
the carrying business between Yunnan and the north, and from this time
on, we found the village population everywhere chiefly occupied as
carrier coolies.

Our first day from Li-chou was a short stage, and we had a long,
leisurely tiffin at Sung-lin, where there was an exceptionally good inn.
The proprietor was away, but his wife, who was in charge, seemed very
competent and friendly, and took me into their private rooms, fairly
clean and airy, and quite spacious. In one was a large, grave-shaped
mound of cement-like substance. On inquiry I learned that it enclosed
the coffin and body of the mother of the proprietor. She had been dead a
year, but the body could not receive final burial until his return. The
Chinese custom of keeping unburied their dead awaiting a propitious
moment strikes one as most unpleasant and unwholesome, but the worst
consequences are usually avoided by hermetically sealing the ponderous
coffin. In Canton the House of the Dead is visited by all travellers. It
is a great stretch of small buildings set in flower gardens, each room
commanding a definite rent, and usually occupied by the waiting dead,
whose fancied wants are meantime carefully supplied. The dead hand rests
heavy on China. Not merely is much valuable land given over to graves,
and the hills denuded of forest to make the five-inch coffin boards, but
the daily order of life is often unduly sacrificed to the departed.

On my way from Calcutta to Hong Kong there joined us at Singapore the
Chinese Consul-General at that place. He was returning with his family
to Canton to attend the funeral of his mother. In talk with him I
learned that he had been one of that famous group of students who came
to America in the seventies, only to be suddenly recalled by the Chinese
Government. He had since acted as Secretary to the Chinese Legation in
Washington, and was quite at home in Western ways. In his dress he
combined very effectively both Chinese and occidental symbols of
mourning, his white coat-sleeve being adorned with a band of black
crape, while in the long black queue he wore braided the white mourning
thread of China. He expected to be at home for some months, and during
that time, so he told me, it would be unsuitable for him to engage in
any sort of worldly business.

We were now leaving behind the close cultivation of the Chien-ch'ang;
the valley grew narrower, hemmed in by higher and more barren mountains,
but the