SSUMAO TO TALI 



the burdens. Our own boys proved good body servants : Nam 

 managed with only four hours' regular sleep ; but then in his 

 ordinary avocations he took three hours over what anyone else 

 would do in one ; his cooking was certainly that of a somnam- 

 bulist. Briffaud and I generally kept together ; and between 

 inventing imaginary feasts, singing trooper ditties, and chatting, 

 in addition to our collections, photographs, and notes, we quickly 

 passed the miles away. 



By the 29th (April) we were passing through beautiful 

 scenery, the country of the Pou Mas, near akin to the Pais. 

 Wayfarers were frequent ; often we came upon those squares of 

 cut paper that being burnt on roadside altars invoked propitious 

 journeys. Before I came to know them well I used to think the 

 Chinese an indifferent and sceptical race ; now they seemed to me 

 particularly superstitious. At four in the afternoon, on my over- 

 taking the caravan, I found it halted. The old guide Panella 

 refused to proceed, and, with many protestations, tried to make 

 us take back the mandarin's village letter of introduction. 



o 



Finding us obdurate, he laid it down and seated himself sadly on 

 the grass, whence it took three mafous to set him going again. 

 The very next place we entered, the crafty old fox seized on the 

 first young man he met, thrust the letter into his unsuspecting 

 hand, and, without explanation or adieu, stole away. His im- 

 promptu successor led us to a small Lochai hamlet on. a brow 

 with a splendid prospect. But the Hotel Bellevue, as we chris- 

 tened our hovel, afforded little else but a feast for the eyes, and 

 we went hungry to bed. To bed, but not to sleep ; for the in- 

 habitants, to complete their inhospitality, kept on the prowl the 

 livelong night, peering and vanishing and always crouching as 



they crept about with their resinous torches, till we thought we 



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