Accordingly on Saturday" morning before the stars had quite faded. away, I left the house. As IT was stepping over the threshold, a former soldier who has often accompanied me when my journeyings have led me into disturbed regions, stopped me and bade me listen. The rip-rap of machine guns from the other side of the river was very plain. Happily the sounds were from down rivet and we were bound up_ river. Still, the end of the Yoluh range projects above the island and sleaves quite a bit of this bank of the-river exposed to firing from the hill. Of course, there was some delay; rice and vegetables had not been bought in sufficient quantity, and I was kept waiting for an hour or more before the actual start. We steamed into the exposed reach, but nothing happened for the first five miles. Suddenly the sharp crack of rifle fire at very close quarters was heard. I bolted out of the saloon, colliding with a goodly number of the boat crew bolting in. An immediate whistle and stopping of the engines saved us from any further threatening. Attached to the houseboat there is a clumsy little flat-bottomed punt that is useful for landing. How many times this came into requisition on the up and down journey I am_ not prepared to say—certainly several tens. An interview with the lieutenant-in-charge, and we were at once free to the next company. The interview was. characteristic of all the rest of the interviews I had up and down. The greater number of these were with noncommissioned officers; but others were with lieutenants and captains; two with colonels and one with the leading general on Tan's side. There was not once the slightest word or gesture of discourtesy, save that one major was so absorbed in a game of cards that he took no notice of my entering the room for a minute or so}. and he, on my return visit, at once furnished' me with a soldier guide to take me to see his colonel who was quartered away at a large farm house a couple of miles away. A day before I started T was told by some one who had heard the rumour from aChinese source that there was some antiforeign feeling amongst. the troops. At any rate I can bear my witness to the fact that both di received me with equal good-will—and also, both sides blazed away at me before they knew anything more about me than that I was travelling through the fighting zone. The second stop was less than five miles from the first and again I had to go as-here. The three next, it was sufficient to slow down and shout at each other from bank to launch or launch to bank.
A NEUTRAL RIVER BEND, Siangtan stands at the west end of a long westerly bend of the river which at once returns eastwards after passing the town. The railway runs across the eastern end of the bend in 10 miles; the r takes over thirty between the two stations. That bend on the way up was "neutral" for all but the last five miles. "It is held by Im Ti-ping the general of the 2nd_ Division who announced at the beginning of the strife that having served under both combatants, he was resolved he would fight neither. It was very pleasant to go ahead without the sound of rifle or the interruption of Inspection. But progress had been slow and it was well on in the afternoon when we reached the city. Just before we got there we passed a downward bound motor-boat belonging to one of the Oil Companies and she gave us the disturbing news (rumour, rather, as it turned out to be) that there was actual fighting above Chuchow. Night fell.on us before we could reach Chuchow at a town where once again the rifles cracked at us. On going. ashore, I found the lieutenant-was an old acquaintance who gave me a hearty greeting.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.