Pirates are still a scourage, especially on the run from Nanning to Poseh, a thriving mart on the borders of Yunnan. These scoundrels have given up, temporarily, their schemes of disguising themselves as passengers, and now fire on the motor boats from the river banks, until the unfortunate boat riddled with bullets runs aground, Numbers of passengers have met their death in this way.
The province as a whole, however, has enjoyed the blessings of peace for several years. In former times it was a by-word for disorder; and some reckoned that at one period there had been 100,000 executions in Kunngsi. The officials brought peace by the sword; and travelling became perfectly safe. Military governor Luk was not considered by the robbers to be a safe man to trifle with; and it is probably due to his recent bad health that there has been a recrudescence of trouble.
The Old Observance, Idolatry was abolished by law, after the Revolution, much to the grief of the Nanning women who cling with a pathetic insistance to the old forms and superstitions. Though temples were swept of their idols, the Government natur ally had nothing better to offer the worshippers, and so the old order has gradually been creeping back, and new images are replacing the old.
Missions have not apparently made much impression on Nanning nor have the inhabitants in any number lost faith in their old and barbarous treatment of disease; but all the time the former things are being stenchly undermined, and while our old-fashioned folk may cling desperately to venerable institions, they know in their heart of hearts that the foundations of these have gone, never to be rebuilt.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.