THE HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS OF KWEICHOW 



169 



an attractive and clean-looking place, with varnished walls 

 and little squares of glass among the paper windows. Such 

 unwonted visitors naturally received no little attention from 

 the inhabitants, but from time to time our man came like 

 a whirlwind and scattered the chaff. Our hostess brought 

 us camellias and peonies as an excuse for consulting the - 

 doctor about her cough. 



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R^ua**., Tf.if.Ze 



The next day we started early, and as we left the town 

 crossed a bridge and saw a typical bit of landscape, which 

 could be seen nowhere but in China. Immediately in front 

 of us were flat verdant fields, and at a distance of perhaps 

 a quarter of a mile rose abruptly out of the earth a crag, its 

 base adorned by various shrines, and high above a temple 

 in a cleft o>f the rock and a pagoda on its loftiest peak. The 

 Chinese never fail to use any picturesque and unusual 

 feature of the landscape for purposes of worship; but the 

 shrines seem somewhat neglected, except where there is 



