78 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



had been at work. The number of unburied urns, 

 with remains of the dead, proved that the people 

 were suffering from poverty ; and there were few of 

 the granite headstones usually raised over the graves 

 of rich persons. Some of the trees about the ruined 

 fortifications were of great size and magnificence. It 

 was remarkable to notice here, as elsewhere among 

 the Hakkas, the total absence of the large public 

 temples and ancestral halls which so abound in all 

 other parts of China. Here the icai was the only 

 large building, showing the turbulent fighting char- 

 acter of the population. P'eung - shan was in a 

 cultivated valley lying between the Heavenly Head 

 and low hills plentifully covered with small firs. 

 Wong Asu, the Lau-Yeh, a very venerable gentle- 

 man of ninety, excused himself from asking us to 

 sleep in his icai, as it was filled with relatives, who 

 had collected in order to pass the New Year; and 

 we saw that great preparations were going on for that 

 occasion in the way of making lamps and dresses. 

 He gave us quarters in an upper room outside, and 

 provided an inferior dinner of rice, fresh and salt 

 pork, boiled fowl, and dried duck. These dried and 

 smoked ducks look and taste very much like kippered 

 herring, but are considerably tougher. I fancied they 

 were peculiar to China, along with salted eggs, dried 

 oysters, and other palatable edibles of a like kind, 

 but hear that they are to be got in Pom crania and 

 other northern parts of Europe. We were a good 



