But in spite of this continual series of executions and small punitive expeditions the bandits keep up their depredations. To-day it is hamlet that is raided, and toll of goods and possibly lives exacted; to-morrow it is some decent-sized market or small township.
Some three months ago the thrive ing riverside town of Huangshaho on the Siang River, where the Hunan-Kuangsi road crosses the river, was raided. Twenty-one shops were rifled and all ready money to the tune of about $8,000 was carried off, as well as quantities of winter clothes. Some 200 men engaged in this raid, a few of whom were subsequently caught, and I presume paid the penalty. This is the only instance that I am aware of when been attacked. Huang-just over the border from Hunan, and the raiders were from that province.
Some time previously a fight took place between some Kuangsi troops and bandits on mountain road from Kuanyang, when it is reported that the troops got the worst of it, but one learns to be suspicious of all such reports, which always vary with the telling.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.