6 A, 8. Bickmore—Journey through China. 
As an illustration of the complete state of anarchy that ob- _ 
tains throughout all this region, I may mention that on our — 
third day from Wuchau we passed a large Mandarin boat that 
had been robbed of everything the very first night after leavmg ~ 
Kweilin, the officials even not being able to protect themselves — 
from these desperate thieves. ‘gs 
1 along our route the Mandarins were very kind to us, but — 
kept asking how we could dare to come there, where only one 
foreigner had ever been before, and who, though he had. escaped — 
the pore of Kwangsi, was murdered by the people of Hu- 
nan, They referred to an eccentric genius, who did succeed in 
reaching Hankow, but was completely stripped of all his cloth- 
ing. His difficulty with this people was certainly one cause of 
their hostility tous. —- 
and when her silver disk rose over the jagged edge of the high 
peaks above us and threw long pointed shadows down the 
y- 
As we approached Pingloh, a high range of needle-shaped 
peaks stretched across the river from east to west. They were. 
composed of the same dark blue, highly crystalline limestone 
ec Age ae 
places were large quantities of a beautiful blue Convolvulus in 
fu bloom, of the same species as specimens Mr. Graves had 
king 
? 
