tside leaving
my men to get their breakfast, which they generally had at about nine
o'clock, for the Szechuan order of day is not like that of Yunnan. We
were on the road often before six o'clock, and my cook always succeeded
in getting me some tea before starting, but the coolies fasted until
eight or after, when they stopped for a hearty breakfast. At noon there
was usually a second long halt, this time for me and the pony, but the
coolies took nothing more save the hourly cups of tea until we reached
our night's stopping-place about the middle of the afternoon. The start
at dawn was delightful; less so getting into the town with half an
afternoon before me, and I made it the rule to stop a mile or so outside
the town for a nap in peace and quiet, but the quiet was hard to find.
Generally there was a retired nook not too far from the trail, most
times a graveyard, but then came the difficulty of getting there
unobserved, for if seen we were sure to be tracked. Oh, the races I have
run, playing hide-and-seek with the crowd, stealing under a village wall
like a thief, hiding behind a little shrine, and the end was always the
same,--to be wakened from my first nap by Jack barking at a large blue
spot a little distance off, which slowly resolved itself into a stolid
line of villagers.

For a few miles we followed up the left bank of the Liu Sha, whose
waters were turbid with the red soil of Szechuan. The fertile bottom
lands were carefully cultivated with rice, and on the higher ground
maize and sugar-cane were growing. Dotted about the fields were clumps
of mulberry and orange trees, and the flanks of the enclosing mountains
were covered with a sparse growth of oak and pine.

After a time we climbed by a long, steep rock staircase to another
valley some fifteen hundred feet above the level of Fulin and into
cooler weather and clearer air. Just before entering Han Yuean Kai, where
we spent the night, we passed under a very beautiful "pailou," or
memorial arch, built of stone and elaborately carved with spirited
figures representing historic scenes. The workmanship and variety of
these arches are very remarkable. They abound all over Szechuan,
especially in the Chengtu plain, and usually commemorate the good deeds
of an official (his best act, perhaps, was setting up this memorial to
himself), or the virtues of some woman whose merit lay almost invariably
in many years, or many children, or above all in remaining a widow.