FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



steps found ourselves confronted by a stupendous wall of black 

 and grey seamed rock, which stretched above us and below. 

 The rivulet, leaping in cascades from stone to stone, bored 

 through a fissure in the scarp, and disclosed a recess in shape 

 like the prison of Dionysius' Ear. Peering into the entrance, 

 we discovered a vaulted cavern, under which the water ran over 

 a bed of white pebbles. Scared by our intrusion, birds of blue 

 plumage Hew out into the retreats of the mountain. The spot 

 had an air of wild crrandeur, which sugorested some subterranean 

 home of primitive man ; but here was no trace of humanity. In 

 China such a cave would have been decorated with statues of 

 Buddha. Instead, the adornment was by Nature's hand: grey 

 rocks strewn upon verdant mounds, thickets of shapely rhodo- 

 dendrons, larches with their horizontal boughs dark below and 

 vivid green aloft. A veritable faery ring, and spot of witchery ; the 

 scene it might have been of some Walpurgis revel, with its environ- 

 ment of high mountains, deep woods, and quaint rocks, with the 

 chasm dimlv descried in the mist, and over all a sense of awe. 



From here the route was a descent ; at intervals posts, with 

 cross pieces marked with notches, indicated the whereabouts in 

 the undergrowth of the sharpened stakes, but these in the dark 

 would have been invisible. As there is no writing among the 

 Lissous, they adopt the; following method of conveying their 

 messages or transacting business : — For a contract between two- 

 parties, they take two bits of wood about 12 inches long by i^ 

 inch wide, care being had that they should be identical in 

 all points, and cut on each face a similar number of notches, 

 generally a little larger on one side than the other. 

 The '^ nioukc^" as the Chinese call this tally, is thus a 



reminder. Each notch signifies a word or phrase. In cases of 



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