At length the river-voyage comes to an end at Wu-chang, on the Poyang Hoo, when I am permitted to proceed overland with an escort to Kui-kiang.

Spending the last night at a village inn, we pursue our way over awful bowlder paths next morning, for several miles; over a low mountain-pass and down the northern slope to a level plain.  A towering white pagoda is observable in the distance ahead; thia the yameni-runner says is Kui-kiang.  At a little way-side tea-house, I find Christmas numbers of the London Graphic pasted on the walls; yet with all this, so utterly unreliable has my information heretofore been, and so often have my hopes and expectations turned out disappointing, that I am almost afraid to believe the evidence of my own senses.  The Graphic pictures are of the Christmas pantomimes; the good woman of the tea-house points out to me the tremendous noses, the ear-to-ear mouths, and the abnormal growths of chin therein depicted, with much amusement; “Fankwae,” she says, “te-he, te-he,” apparently fancying them genuine representations of certain types of that queer, queer people.

The paths improve, and soon I see the smoke of a steamer on the Yang-tsi than which, it is needless to say, no more welcome sight has greeted my vision the whole world round.  Only the smoke is seen, rising above the city; it cannot be a steamer, it is too good to be possible! this isn’t Kui-kiang; this is another wretched disappointment, the smoke is some Chinese house on fire!  Not until I get near enough to distinguish flags on the consulates, and the crosses on the mission churches, do I permit myself fully to believe that I am at last actually looking at Kui-kiang, the city that I have begun to think a delusion and a snare, an ignis fatuus that was dancing away faster than I was approaching.

The sight of all these unmistakable proofs that I am at last bidding farewell to the hardships, the horrible filth, the soul-harrowing crowds, the abominable paths, and the ever-present danger and want of consideration; that in a little while all these will be a dream of the past, gives wings to my wheel wherever it can be mounted, and ridden.  The yameni-runner is left far behind, and I have already engaged a row-boat to cross the little lake in the rear of the city, and the boatman is already pulling me to the “Ying-yun,” when the poor yameni-runner comes hurrying up and shouts frantically for me to come back and fetch him.

Knowing that the man has to take back his receipt I yield to his request, follow him first to the Kui-kiang yamen, and from thence proceed to the English consulate.  Captain McQuinn, of the China Steam Navigation Company’s steamer Peking, and the consulate doctor see me riding down the smooth gravelled bund, followed by a crowd of delighted Celestials.  “Hello! are you from Canton” they sing out in chorus.  “Well, well, well! nobody expected to ever see anything of you again; and so you got through all safe, eh?”