--E.J.D.]
[Footnote AR: Likin, as everyone knows, is custom duty. All along the
main roads of China one meets likin stations, distinguished by the flag
at the entrance.--E.J.D.]
[Footnote AS: I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am
convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been
something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in
summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes
midway between Yuen-nan-i and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation,
interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant
contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine,
lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which
is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon
the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard
a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they
suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the
departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as
one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was
struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what
we in the West call civilization.
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