Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve inches square, grazed on the hill-sides.  In most places the foot of this ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight.  As we entered a man came out with his p’ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying.  The pony ceased shying.

To Ch’u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the fu-song had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a long road instead of by the “new” road (so called, although I do not doubt that it has been in use for many generations).  Some Szech’wan coolies and myself had rice together on a low form away from the smoke, and the while listened to some tales of old, told by some half-witted, goitrous monster who seemed sadly out at elbow.  The soldier meantime smelt round for a smoke.  As he and my men had decided a few moments ago that each party was of a very low order of humanity, their pipes for him were not available.  So he took pipe and dried leaf tobacco from this half-witted skunk, who, having wiped the stem in his eight-inch-long pants, handed it over in a manner befitting a monarch.  It measured some sixty or seventy inches from stem to bowl.

From Hwan-lien-p’u to Ch’u-tung is reckoned as eighty li; it is quite one hundred and ten, and the last part of the journey, over barren, wind-swept hills, most fatiguing.

In contrast to the beauty of the morning’s scenery, the country was black and bare, and a gale blew in our faces.  My spirits were raised, however, by a coolie who joined us and who had a remarkable knowledge of the whole of the West of China, from Chung-king to Singai, from Mengtsz to Tachien-lu.  Plied with questions, he willingly gave his answers, but he would persist in leading the way.  As soon as a man endeavored to pass him, he would trot off at a wonderful speed, making no ado of the 120 pounds of China pots on his back, yelling his explanations all the time to the man behind.  Yung-p’ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li from Ch’u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun, which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across the plain of peas and beans and winter crops.  Four eight-inch planks, placed at various dangerous angles on three wood trestles, form the bridge across the fifty-foot stream dividing Ch’u-tung from the world on the opposite side.  Across this I saw men wander with their loads, and then I led Rusty in.  Whilst the stream washed his legs, I sat dangling mine until called upon to make way for another party of travelers.  Remarkable is the agility of these men.  They swing along over eight inches of wood as if they were in the middle of a well-paved road.