FROM TALI TO TSEKOU 



or fuller, thus : — " Three such great lords had never before come 



to us. It is very hard to find us. Now they are here, it is well. 



Before, the Loutses were always plundering us. Now that they 



have come, the Loutses are greatly afraid. For many years we 



were in sadness ; we had many ills. Now we are happy. The 



three great lords pass our dwelling : henceforth our fields will 



flourish, our harvests will be full." Poor, childish, ignorant folk, 



with no other joys than the pipe, the dance, the song, and love of 



species shared in common with all creation ! Before leaving in the 



morning I saw a sufficiently wretched sight. In one of the houses 



a man was chained to a post neck and heels, though his evil plight 



admitted of his smoking still. He was a Loutse, one of the 



redoubtable brigands who, lagging behind in a recent foray, had 



been caught. I could not see much to choose between him and 



his captors. 



The entertainment of the preceding night, or the better state of 



the road on the following day, put the men in good-humour. The 



makotou also, who had suffered from fever, was nearly well. He 



attributed his cure to the sacrifice of a little porker to the God of 



the Mountain as compensation for disturbance in path cutting. We 



passed the night in a clean house, belonging, strangely enough, to 



a Chinese. It was some time since we had seen any of his 



confraternity, and we had not missed them. But this one was a 



better specimen — a merchant of Yunnan, who had married a 



Lissou and had two daughters, the younger of whom we saw. The 



elder had gone to Ouisi to find a husband. The father took me 



into his confidence, and poured out his paternal woes. Suitors 



hereabouts were so poor that his two girls, when they wedded, 



would only bring him ten taels apiece ; at Toti he might have 



safely reckoned on two hundred. 



199 



