Poor fellow! There must have been a dozen nippers there, and I sighed at
the thought of what some men come to as the last of half a string of
cash slipped through my fingers.[AN]
Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch--erected, maybe,
to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district--I untied my
pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers
ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied
air. As we were thus engaged and discussing the prospects of the storm,
yelling from under a gigantic straw hat, a fellow said--
"Suan liao" ("not worth reckoning") "only five more li to
Sha-chiao-kai."
We had thirty li to do. Such is the idea of distance in Yuen-nan.[AO]
The storm did not come, however, and my men ever after reminded me to
keep out my wind-cap and my mackintosh, partly to lighten their loads,
of course, and partly on account of the good omen it seemed to them to
be.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote AH: "Gwan" is the Chinese for "official."]
[Footnote AI: I have seen a European, with an imperfect hold of an
eastern language, knock an Asiatic down because he thought the man was a
fool, whereas he himself was ignorant of what was going on.
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