We started from the centre of the city with thirteen coolies but before we reached the outskirts, number one had disappeared. He had received in advance one dollar which we immediately put down as a dead loss. One hour waiting for the coolies to turn up and one hour waiting till they thad finished their breakfast made it well past nine o'clock before we sot under way. Leaving Kiating the frst coolies, after a hot bre smoke of opium, now were carrying along with a fine spring. 'The common mode of travel in Szechuen is by means of what Is known og 1 Shua-gang' which is simply two long: bamboo poles, with an arrangement. for a seat, also made of bamboo, and fon which the traveller places his rug. 'The hua-gang' is carried by two coolies and it is quite a simple matter Jumping out and in.
'When the roads are good this mode of travel 1s quite comfortable and convenient and should the traveller be sleepy a sound sleep is not far nway. So sleepy became one weary traveller that thornen had placed the "hua-gang' between two benches before he awoke. the Theautitut scenery along.
The Peanut That Sprawls Szechuen is indeed a luxuriant province. On each side of the great highway stretched fields of peanuts which the farmer's wife and children were gathering. 'The peanut plant imply' sprawls and crawls allover the ground and frequently there was 8 different crop growing over head. Nothing is lost in a Chinese fel may be peas and beans above and some useful vegetable underneath. The rich alluvial Chengtu Plain is not only amusingly fertile but absolutely prodigal in its production of opium, Flee, sugar cane, rape and vegetables.
'The Chinese have a saying that it would be nice to be born here, grow up there, exist here and die' there, and Szechuen is the place the people would like to live in, as there always ig an abundance of food. Shani is divan as the place to be buried as the mud there 1s apparently quite good and deep. Chienchang isthe place to dio as the coffin wood there is very food and thick.
'We spent our first night at Jachiang, busy litle city on the left bank of the Ya River. We were supposed to reach Muchenkai but we didn't, Our fu-teo' a heavy opium smoker, as-ured us that with him nothing was impossible.
He patted his chest and informed us that reaching the day's destination was a mere bagatelle. By five-thirty S'clock we woke still six miles from 'Muchangkai when our fu-teo' told us that Jachlang was quite a nice place spend the night. But for the heavy roads we would have pushed on and Jet our head coolies see we meant. pusiness—but what's the use? We found an inn in an extreme state of Jdilapidation and shortly after we got Jour camp-cots spread out about twenty men carried a tremendous Jcofin to the door and applied for trance, This was impossible so the fneavy coffin 1ay all night outside the fan.
Three Pennies for Dinner For the sum of three pennies we froth enjoyed a nice vermicelli dinner a mien' shop next door. We had three kinds of meat patties, delicious, and several bowls of hot, steaming vermicelli. We returned io the inn for a cup of tea and very soon we [became the natural object of wonder Jand amusement to a hard staring Jerowd of onlookers. We had to Janswer all kinds of questions, assume fall kinds of attitudes, and suppress all kinds of feelings. 'The crowd watch-Ing. our every movement must have Jseen Europeans before, but perhaps we were a little different, perhaps they could detect a slight' variation between a Scotsman and an Englishman, and so the mob continued to stare.
young Chinese gir! came in and sat beside my wife, The crowd were not slow to tell us she was a Christian and had only recently been baptized. The girl was only thirteen years old and was the only believer in her family. We were very interested in her story and quite surprised at her knowledge of the Christian religion. Before that large crowd she was not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ and prepared to take her stand no matter what it would cost.
Sleep was quite Impossible as one' {ellow persisted in telling stories until it was nearly time to get up. Day-ight was creeping on us when we arose and shouted for the coolies to rise, They id so but made for alf. ferent opium dens in the vicinity of the Inn. How to find them was now the ditieulty; one coolie rushed off to bring the others but falled to appear himself, Two hours later we were slowly" picking our way out of Jachlang, another man short. The tucteo' now had to carry a light load, {taking the place of the missing carrier." After breakfast we passed. a most interesting and dangerous part fof the river known as chien-fu-ngai" Jor the Thousand Buddha Clift. Hundreds of little Buddhas were neatly carved out of the solid rock, the idea being that Buddha with his many hands would stretch them out to protect the Boats and rafts approaching this treacherous overyhanging rock.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.