A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round
hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild
orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer
and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of
what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more
distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut
perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with
hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures--all make up a
strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.
Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie
can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and
as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people,
their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is
already in print. It were useless to give more of it here--and, reader,
you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan--that thirst which is
unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of
the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara--one does not hear about.
Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst--so
very, very much.
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