All sorts of local celebrities comi out to the bus-station to have a look at me and hear my opinion of Szechuen. They were very well up not doubtless be in order again.
Heavy Road Licence We left the north gate of Chengtu on a fine sunny morning, after having paid the usual heavy road licence. We were well laden with gasolene, as I had been warned that it would be impossible to get fresh supplies until we reached Hanchung.
370 miles awl For the first 50 miles the road still runs through the fertile Chengtu plain and was busy with traffic, while the crops looked very promising. After stopping at Hsintu, fifteen miles from Chengtu, to visit the famous temple of Paokuangssu which has many fine buildings and a large community of monks, we pushed on to Chintang. the centre of a tobacco-growing district, which is said to produce the best leaf in the province.
1 made a mistake here, as 1 ought to have stopped and bought some of the excellent, though powerful, Szechuen cigars, but I hesitated so long that we had passed through the place before I had made up my mind. My hesitation on this, as on other similar Occasions, was due to the language question. I found it so troublesome to make myself understood in.these parts that I avoided more negotiations than were absolutely necessary, while my companiors—my boy from Peiping and mechanic from Hunan—had just as much difficulty in making themselves understood as I had.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.