Be W, Lawson I had now been nearly a fortnight in Szechuen and, although I found Chengtu a very pleasant and interestly. and was sorry to leave it, it time to be thinking of getting back to Peiping. In order. to do s0 Thad first to get to Sian, the capital Shensi, about 600 miles to the north. Although the-road there has been open for aver a year and buses have been running on it for some time, the information I was able to father about even in Chengts It who had corm from Sian by bus, but People knew of some msslonaries
That was many months ago: " Chinese silent wort I'met had been along bul only os far as the not to have had any serious accident. My car was climbing slowly on the right side of the bend, on the outside Inear the precipice, "when the bus jeame sweeping round on that side; had sounded my-both, the bus hae not, they never do, To avold'a colli sion (and whatever might have happened to my car, the top-heavy bus with Its. Toad of passengers would quite. certainly have toppled over the preelplee) it swerved inwards and ran Into a shallow ditch ate the side. I stopped for a minute, but seeing that was not serious: it' only meart that the passengers would have to alight and help to push the bus out,-T proceeded on my way without any feel-travellers who bad preceded me by about six weeks seemed to hint that there was no motor road on the last section in' Shensi. There seemed, however, to be no doubt that one could get through, and anyhow I was not thinking of turning back, after Thad got so far.
A Brlages Down, "At the same time, I must admit that I had luck as regards the weather. For on the Szechuen portion of the yond, all the bridges are down; not only' the long. stone. bridges, over rivers, which would not matter so much, os there would probably be some'kind of ferry, but every single bridge over the smaller gullies, This made driving very trying, as one had pull up dead every table oF less and then eral slowly and painfully down into the gully and up out of again, hat was a minor evil, but if there had been any rain, the road, T Imagine, would' have been quite passable, At the time I passed, they Were repairing all these bridges, so that ina few months the road will doubtless be In order again,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.