72 
DA^«ES ISLAND. 
rude wooden plough turning up the soil behind 
her. These unlovely, mud-incrusted ruminants 
seem to think with the Turk that ‘‘ of aU devils 
the very worst of devils is a Frank in a round hat,” 
for no sooner does the unwieldly creature scent the 
“ Fanqui,” than she stops abruptly, snorts, trembles, 
and — is off ! Nose in air, and horns flat back, she 
splashes through the watery glebe, the plough at 
her tail. The vexed Chinaman gazes helplessly 
after his unruly charge, but, soon, to the great 
relief of the unfortmiate husbandman, up comes 
a little boy who whispers soft nonsense in the 
vagrant’s ear, and leads her back, a willing captive, 
by the rope made fast to the cartilage of her nose. 
Danes Island, like all the other islands in the 
river, rises from the bed of the Chu-Kiang as a 
primary granite-mass. Its green rounded hills arc 
covered with a scanty vegetation, and pitted with 
the scooped-out graves of many generations of 
Chinese. A layer, more or less deej), of red and 
white sandstone, rests uj)on the granite, and be- 
tween the hills are valleys with a rich alluvial 
