Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in
abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn
ascent of which is hardly passable.
Yes, Yuen-nan is imperatively a country first of mountains, then of
lakes. The scenery, embodying truly Alpine magnificence with the minute
sylvan beauty of Killarney or of Devonshire, is nowhere excelled in the
length and breadth of the Empire.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote U: The incredulous of my readers may question, and rightly so,
"Then where did he get his saddle?" So I must explain that I met just
out of Sui-fu a Danish gentleman (also a traveler) who wished to sell a
pony and its trappings. As I had the arrangement with my boy that I
would provide him with a conveyance, and did not like the idea of seeing
him continually in a chair and his wealthy master trotting along on
foot, I bought it for my boy's use. He used the saddle until we reached
Chao-t'ong.]
[Footnote V: A new inn has been built since.--E.J.D.]
[Footnote W: Pronounced Djang-di. Famous throughout Western China for
its terrible hill, one of the most difficult pieces of country in the
whole of the west.]
[Footnote X: This river, the Niu Lan, comes from near Yang-lin, one
day's march from Yuen-nan-fu.
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