Through the Land of the Cross-bow 207 
I found it impossible to make myself understood by 
several buxom-looking lassies I met, who were highly 
amused in consequence. 
Crossing the low spur at the head of the thickly 
wooded valley we continued southwards, halting for lunch 
at the first collection of huts we encountered, four or five 
of them close together. Their doors stood invitingly open, 
the fires burnt brightly, but of inhabitants there was no 
sign—not even a dog barked. Either the place was 
deserted for the day, or we had stumbled across a village 
of the dead. However, the men, nothing daunted, at once 
began to forage round for supplies, though five minutes 
search resurrected nothing more nourishing than a bunch 
of turnips, which we fell valiantly upon and quickly 
destroyed, being very hungry. Later they found a solitary 
egg which was handed over to me, and meanwhile we had 
put the rice on to boil and had made some tea, while I 
turned my attention to the more immediate resources of the 
supply-box, in which however I discovered nothing but a 
few remaining slices of bacon. There was not even any 
bread for our meal, which was still further complicated by 
the fact that I had to cook it myself, Sung having foolishly 
got behind the guide and lost the way, as I had myself 
done earlier in the morning. He did not indeed reappear 
till the middle of the afternoon, when we suddenly perceived 
him toiling up the precipitous slope of the deep valley 
immediately below the path, halting every few yards to 
hold on to a pine tree. He was eating pea-nuts as though 
nothing had happened—it was five hours since we first 
missed him—and sent me into fits of laughter by relating 
with an injured air in his slow quiet way how he had been 
told to follow the road at the bottom of the valley. 
Meanwhile the men had made themselves quite at 
home in the hut, turning everything upside down several 
times over in their eagerness to find buried treasure, or 
something interesting to eat. I left some money in pay- 
ment for what we had taken however, being very careful to 
go out last and shut the door, as I knew well enough that 
if either of the soldiers saw what I had done they 
would not rest till they had got possession of that money. 
In fact the idea of paying for a thing when there was no 
