= 
A, 8. Bickmore—Journey through China. 11 
strictly guarded and attended that I found myself really a 
prisoner. I could not make detours to the right and left as I 
pleased when we were passing some object of special interest. 
our lives. 
2 p.m. we came to Lingsun a hien city, 60li by the way 
we came from Kweilin. I must confess that a sickening sen- 
sation closely akin to fear crept over me as I entered the gate 
of this city and thought of the danger I had passed through 
the day before at Kweilin. 
The Yamun was near the gate we entered, and the officials 
that quickly gathered round all seemed to regard me with pity 
rather than hate. I tried to show my appreciation of the kind 
feelings they manifested by naming the places I had_ passed 
and marking out a rude map’ on the wall, but m policemen 
were afraid another mob might gather and therefore led me 
away to a little dirty inn where every room was full but one, 
and on one of the two beds in that an old opium smoker ‘lay 
stretched out nearly stupefied with’ the intoxicating drug. Our 
room was more properly a dungeon than a guest chamber. A 
single segment of glass in the roof, which was little higher 
an our heads, admitted all the light we were permitted to 
enjoy. But my companion, at least, was blissfully indifferent 
to the inconveniences of our prison and no doubt was imagining 
himself floating on clouds in the high air or in some richly 
gilded barge quietly gliding down Lethe’s stream, whose waters 
he had certainly drank to satiety. : 
Small boys climbed up the partitions to peep over and steal 
a sight at me, but I was then quite accustomed to such slight 
annoyances, Meanwhile numbers of the curious of both sexes 
al d 
_ After three hours in these uncomfortable quarters, we con 
tinued on through the city and passed out the eastern gate. 
The whole city is merely one heap of ruins and there are 
way from Chauping I had come almost exactly in the track of 
these rebels, and their hordes were composed of just such rob- 
