154 Through the Yang-tse Gorges 



niche, besides numberless flowers, the names of which are 

 unknown to me. 



Notwithstanding the hospitality of the Tung family, I 

 was glad to leave Mien-hoa pu (the village where they 

 resided), as life in a Chinese country house, and, indeed, 

 in a town house also, is insufferably dull. When the scrolls 

 on the wall are exhausted, the enclosed courtyard becomes 

 monotonous, and to enjoy the view one has to go outside 

 into the street ; and when I get up to go out, I am accom- 

 panied by such a retinue — my own two servants, as well 

 as those of my hosts, and the members of the family (male 

 only, Uen entendti), that I could well sympathize with the 

 boredom of royalty. To be followed and stared at, even 

 by a respectful mob, destroys half the pleasure derived from 

 beautiful scenery. The weather, too, was very hot and close, 

 and moving resulted in much perspiration, while baths are 

 as much unknown to the modern Chinese as they were to 

 our own forefathers. 



In the afternoon I called at the French Catholic estab- 

 lishment, situated in the Upper City (Shang pan cheng), 

 known as the Chen-yuen Tang, and was received by Pfere 

 Vingot, the same bishop who entertained Blakiston's party 

 in i860, and whose characteristic letters are printed in 

 " Five Months on the Upper Yang-tse." The missionaries 

 occupy spacious premises, which are now being rebuilt. 

 Szechuan is the most promising field these missions possess, 

 there being in Chung-king close on four thousand converts, 

 and in the whole province nearly fifty thousand, mostly, 

 however, the descendants of families who were converted 

 by the original Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth century. 

 This does not appear to be a great result of two centuries 

 of work, and of the efforts of some of the ablest men of the 

 Catholic priesthood, who are specially selected for China, 



