ROCKY PASS. 
199 
world would be little sensible of the value of money, and still 
less capable of unfair means of obtaining it. They showed them- 
selves, however, equally prone to impose with any of their country- 
men, when they found us inclined to purchase some fragments of 
rock which decorated a small table or altar placed beneath one of 
their idols. At first they freely gave us any specimen that we wished 
to possess, but having received a three shilling piece in return from 
one of the gentlemen, they no longer made gratuitous offerings, 
but enhanced the price to each succeeding person that visited the 
temple. 
Having satisfied ourselves with its examination, we again con- 
tinued on our route through a mountainous country, and halted the 
next day near a narrow pass formed by rugged rocks projecting from 
both banks of the river. 
The hills in the neighbourhood of our anchorage were composed of 
grayish yellow argillaceous sandstone of a fine grain, intersected in 
every direction by veins of quartz. They were more productive in 
native plants than most that I had before visited, but were entirely 
uncultivated. The Myrtus tomentosus grew to a greater size and in 
higher beauty than I had elsewhere seen it, and was in great abun- 
dance. In scarcely less quantity was the Smilax China , famed for its 
sudorific properties, and a species which I could not distinguish from 
Smilax lanceolata. The gardener brought me a specimen of a Begonia 
resembling Begonia grandis, which he had found growing against 
the exposed surface of a rock to the height of twenty feet. Here 
also we collected specimens of a Camellia growing wild that we had 
not before met with, but which was probably a variety of the Camellia 
oleifera , yet differed from it in the narrowness of its leaves and 
smallness of its blossoms. The rocky banks of some small streams 
were covered with a species of Marchantia in full fruit, and one or 
two species of Jungermania. Two Rhexias of doubtful species grew 
in the rocks, and several plants of questionable genera. 
Plantations of sugar-cane had been frequent in this part of our 
route as well as in the southern part of the province of Kiang-si. 
