distance always caused much agitation and yelling the invariably drawing off on the first margin they could find and greeting us with and good wishes as we passed them i envied them the and freedom to which they would return from the of china now and then the road is or steps are cut in the rock or it passes under an arch of rock or a bridge carries it across a chasm down which a crystal torrent after turning two three or four rude mills placed in dizzy positions one above another it is so severe that we only did thirteen miles in nine hours and i saw plainly what i had suspected from the first that one of the scratch team of was not up to his work the whole of the first fortnight s journey was along the deep wild of the greater or lesser it widely from ordinary chinese travelling and has a strong resemblance to the wild of the the mountains rise from the river to a height of over feet ghastly snow look over them their slopes always steep often break up into cliffs or feet high the river has often not a yard of margin and along crashing and a thing of power and fury which has never been tamed of mankind its sea green colouring a thing of beauty and its and stretches of foam white as the which give it birth these mountain sides as far as are completely covered with dwarf ashes oaks and big enough for use by the coarse yellow roses a very pretty yellow yellow and in abundance all dwarf with the to sin in blossom covered the stony broken three species of warm scented and brown of of were in the of the rocks and the rocks themselves were often tinged rose pink with the early leaves and delicate clasping fingers of s it was a clear escape from the crowds of china the traffic on the road was mostly there is little room for crops an occasional patch among the rocks near the river and small fields then growing and later starved great heights where the mountain slope is less steep than usual small as the population is it does not grow enough for its wants so many of the men hunt the deer and wild on the mountains and sell the in in the winter and others trap the fur bearing animals which appear to be an inferior and there are a few on the road which chiefly by supplying the needs of travellers but the was usually hidden away and made no display on the street rice is scarce and not always and wherever we halted instead of the of ready cooked which tempt rope bridges the appetite there was rarely even a fire and it was always an hour before anything was cooked the though much better than any i had been accustomed to and often built of new boards do not provide any fire in the mornings unless by special arrangement and till this was understood i started without tea their stock of food was soon exhausted even at the larger villages where we halted for the night and the descent upon them of twelve hungry persons was unwelcome some of the are built at great heights and are accessible by rugged paths and steps cut in the rock the people are hardy rough and fairly friendly the chinese are to my thinking men of plains and rivers and paths � a rice eating people with the water here they are abruptly into hardy hunters and fed even the women though still binding the feet are independent in their air and movements and perform in crossing rivers the country is a cross between china and however there are no temples and few or other signs of religion fully one third of the population is on the west side of the cut off from the high road with its business and by a furious torrent and in most cases too poor to bridges their strong nerves enable them to get over the difficulty i know of no sight in china which fascinated me so much as their rope bridges which we met with on the second day and which occur sometimes at frequent intervals as far as from which point i saw no more of them the stretch a cable at a great height across the it as well as they can and secure each end round a round stone or a convenient rock sometimes a shed is built over the and a shrine close by every himself with two semi of hard wood often about a foot long with perfect sang he places these on the cable and them together with a rope as if it were the most natural thing in the world he proceeds to himself from the by ropes passed under his knees his waist and the back of his neck some with the last b to sin he is then hanging under the rope and it fast by the he gives the d earth a and casts off no matter how tightly a long rope is strained it must still considerably in the middle and down the passenger rushes at tremendous speed head foremost down hill across the chasm with an which sends him a little way up the other slope then letting go the he puts his hands on the rope above his head and himself up hand over hand slowly and laboriously when he reaches land he the it and the rope bridge rope into his basket shoulders his burden � and both men and women continually carry small or bundles of wood across � bows at the shrine and goes his way i saw a woman cross carrying a load on each side it took her ten minutes to ascend from the middle of the rope which must have been ninety feet above the 