FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



Half the next day was spent in the search for some of our 

 best mules, stolen during the night. We blamed the makotou, 

 and the makotou blamed us ; but we only recovered one whose 

 legs were hobbled, with the slender satisfaction of sending back 

 the soldiers to report the theft to the mandarin at Ssumao. 



In the evening of the 13th (April) we sighted a high range 

 of terraced limestone cliffs with long crests broken into isolated 

 peaks, cones, and spurs, amid a sea of pines ; a wild chaos of 

 piled rock like that which strikes the eye of the traveller in 

 the Kai-Kinh, between Phu-lang-tuon and Langson. We doubled 

 the chain, and halted in a Pai village. The scenery we were 

 in was strange. Imagine a devil's punch -bowl, wide and deep, 

 the green centre embossed with grey stones and shadowy pines, 

 while its sides were lined with tasselled lianas and clinging plants. 

 The vegetation, which was thick and soft below, changed as 

 it reached the ridge, and took the ruder character of its sur- 

 roundings. Gaunt rocks thrust forth white and naked heads, 

 detached yuccas lifted their broomstick tufts against the sky- 

 line ; aloes and hundred-handed cacti roughened the rim. The 

 impenetrable bush harboured many wild animals — stags, roe- 

 buck, bears, and they picked up and showed us the horn of 

 a goat. 



The inhabitants told of a grotto hard by, which is the 



object of pilgrimages from Ssumao and Pou-eul-Fou. We found 



it a deep excavation in the limestone hill. A small chamber at its 



mouth served as a residence for two guardians, whence descended 



a stair into a spacious hall in which were two very ordinary 



pagodas with yellow hangings, scented joss-sticks, and some 



sufficiently vile and many-coloured statuettes of Buddha. With 



a torch we were led into an inner cave, which contained a number 



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