kage, and sugar for three cash the
square inch. Almost every coolie had tucked in about his load a large
flat cake of coarse corn-meal or maize mixed with water, which he
munched as he went along. In Tachienlu, my supply of biscuits having
given out, I had my cook buy some of these; split open and toasted, they
were not at all bad. Tea, of course, was to be had everywhere; a pinch
of tea-leaves in a covered cup and unstinted boiling water cost from
five to twenty cash a cup, and most refreshing I found it. On the whole,
the food looked attractive, and the fact that whether liquid or solid it
was almost invariably boiled must have much to do with saving the people
from the legitimate consequences of their sins against sanitary laws.
The Chinese have no principles against eating between meals if they can
find anything to eat, and there was temptation all along the road.
Beside a wayside well, under a spreading tree, would be placed a small
table tended perhaps only by a tiny maiden, and set out with pieces of
sugar-cane or twigs of loquats or carefully counted clusters of peanuts
or seeds, five pieces for a cash.

Our second night from the ferry was spent at Ni T'ou, a rather important
frontier village, and attractive with picturesque red temples and
pailous. A good sleep in an unusually comfortable inn prepared us for
the stiff climb to come. The morning broke grey and the clouds rested
low on the mountains, but at least we were spared a start in the rain.
The road was so steep and rough that I preferred to walk, and soon
getting ahead of my men I did not see them again until midday, and I had
a good morning all to myself among the hills. Occasionally I passed
through a little hamlet, people and dogs all turning out to greet my dog
and me. Once a whole village emptied itself into the fields to show me
the way up the hillside. My cold lunch I ate at the head of a wild gorge
by a solitary shrine half buried in clumps of bushes, and beautiful with
masses of iris. The last part of the climb to Fei Yueeh Ling, or "Fly
Beyond Pass," led through an uninhabited glen down which rushed a fine
stream turning the horizontally placed wheels of a ruined mill. Hurrying
up the rocky zigzag I stood alone at the top of the pass, nine thousand
feet above the sea. Before me I knew towered range upon range, peak
above peak, one of the finest views the earth affords, but alas,
everything was blotted out by thick white clouds, and I could scarc