SPORT AND SCIENCE ON THE 
many places right up to the battlements, forming 
an easy entrance for the belated traveller. We 
explored all the temples. inside the city, but found 
nothing of extraordinary interest. 
At length having made a sufficiently large 
collection, we decided to make a move, and on 
May 14 left the city by the East Gate, heading 
in a north-easterly direction. Gradually we 
approached the Wall, and did not lose sight of 
its grey towers till we were within a day’s journey 
of the Yellow River and Shansi. 
At intervals of about twelve miles we passed 
the dilapidated remains of small garrison towns 
now inhabited by a few poverty-stricken families. 
‘The country as we journeyed became more broken, 
and the mules had considerable difficulty in 
negotiating the steep slopes covered with drifts 
of sand. Towards the end of the first day we 
found ourselves on somewhat more elevated land, 
cut up in every direction by frightful chasms, 
which descended abruptly for hundreds of feet. 
Here our mules were momentarily threatened with 
destruction, as the path frequently led along the 
very edges of these precipices, and the loose soil 
continually broke away under their feet. 
These chasms have certainly formed since the 
building of the Wall, for they frequently cut 
right across its length. To circumvent an un- 
usually long one, we had to cross the Wall and 
make a long detour into the desert. 
30 
