FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



birds that flew around the monument. A little farther, to our no 

 small astonishment, we found ourselves face to face with three 

 elephants, busy eating the foliage. We hardly expected to see 

 these beasts in China, but were told they had been sent from 

 Mong-le, Ava way, only a year before. 



Chunning-Fou next came in sight upon the lower face of the 

 hills above a torrent. Inside its grey and loopholed walls there 

 appeared but little life : its roomy houses, gardens, and wide 

 streets had the air of a quiet provincial town, and by contrast 

 with commercial Ssumao it suofgested in a minor degree the ratio 

 of Washington to New York. The people, too, were civil, and 

 we were positively able to joke with them ; so that it was a pleasure 

 to admit that all Chinese even are not cast in the same mould. 



Two days more brought us again back to the bed of the 

 Mekong, here steep and deep and wooded in patches. We 

 made our way on the 20th (May) down to a bridge composed 

 of fourteen chains among rocks, which bore surface inscriptions 

 in Chinese. The mules crossed in single file ; but notwith- 

 standing that the planks were in fair repair, the oscillation slight, 

 and that two chains served as a handrail, the passage needed a 

 cool head. The locality chosen for this bridge over the Mekong 

 was a constricted reach sixty-seven paces, say from 48 yards to 

 54 yards across. The river widened again a little lower, but 

 was far from what it had been at Sien-kiang. The difference of 

 altitude, too, was great for its breadth, cliffs of 975 feet falling 

 steeply to the water's edge, with only a streak of sand at their 

 base. The water must be deep under them. As we climbed 

 the farther (eastern) side, I threw a glance back upon the river, 

 which this time we should leave for a considerable space. The 



bridge emerging from and entering a little white-walled, grey- 



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