Chap. IX. 



THE MISTAKE RECTIFIED. 



175 



a visit, and that if he treated me so rudely I would 

 go away again. Matters were in this state, when 

 a young man came running up to the old one, 

 smiling and making a low bow to me at the same 

 time. This new actor on the scene whisjoered a 

 word or two into the old man's ear, one of which 

 sounded very like Hong-mou-jin (foreigner) . In the 

 twinkling of an eye his countenance changed, the 

 storm had passed into sunshine, his bamboo was 

 thrown from him, and, clasping the palms of his 

 hands together, he made me a low bow and asked 

 me to forgive him, for he was blind. It was indeed 

 so, and hence the whole cause of the strange, and, 

 to me, unaccountable scene in which I had been 

 one of the actors. I was now surprised at my own 

 blindness in not detecting this before ; but the 

 whole thing occurred so suddenly that I had little 

 time for observation. 



The old man, now all smiles and good-humour, 

 led me round his garden — blind, stone-blind^ 

 though he was — and told me the names of his 

 various trees and shrubs, and the uses to which 

 each was applied when it happened that it had 

 any virtues in medicine, or if it " was good for 

 food." I was then led into his house, where I was 

 invited to partake of the usual beverage — tea. 

 Remaining for a few minutes to accept his hos- 

 pitality, I bade him adieu, and joined my com- 

 panions on the top of the hill. 



After inspecting the pagoda we proceeded on- 

 wards in our boats to a place called Too-poo-dow, 



