nor tools of any kind, nor were such to be had at any of the neigh Bouring bus-stations." AMI that the People at Huangshaho could do was to telephone to the next largest town, about 80 miles away, and order up another bus. All for'a simple burst tyre, As a result we did not continue the journey till the evening and {driving through the darkness only arrived at Hengyang after midnight, instead of at 6 pin. as we ought to have done. Tt was' then much too-fo call on. some missionaries j there to whom T had an introduction, and In consequence 1 was to go bad= ly astray, almost for the frst time.
Missed the Sacred Mountal was my intention to visit the Hengshan, one of the Five Sacred Mountains. Most people, 1 suppose, would assume, as T did, that the bus-station called Hengshan would be the correct stopping-place for the moun-fain of that name. 1 was further confirmed in this mistake by a list of the China Travel Service's hotels which only mentions the mountain by that name, On the following morning early, T-took without any misgivings the bus to Hengshan. From the. bus-station to the town was walk of over a mile and as 1 went along T noted. with surprise that there were only a few insignificant hills to be seen, quite different from the towering peaks that I had cxpected.
For over an hour we wandered up and down the streets of Hengshan Jooking for a non-existent Travel Bureau hotel, spurred on occasionally to renewed efforts by the usual false information. "After having been directed in turn to a mission chapel, sanitary inspection bureau, the municipal offices and a coalyard I gave up the search and went to an ordinary Chinese inn. Here I learnt that, as Thad begun to suspect, the mountain T'was' looking for " was nowhere near the place. It is called locally Nanyuch " (South Peak)—nobody knew what I was talking about when I called it Hengshan—and we had passed the bus station of that name about ten miles further back. There was no means of getting there that day, and as it was already very cold even here in the plain and everybody said that there was heavy snow on the mountain, 1 decided to abandon the idea. After spending a very cold and uninteresting 24 hours In the deadly dull little hole of Hengshan, I tramped the following morning two miles to the railway station and caught the train for Changsha.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.