Then we went on again from hill to hill, in a ten-inch
footway, broken and washed away, so that in places it was necessary to
hang on to the evergrowing grass to keep one's footing in the slopes.
One needs to have no nerves in China.
Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their
rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid
condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve
inches square, grazed on the hill-sides. In most places the foot of this
ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty
green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so
thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight. As we entered a man
came out with his p'ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the
animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows
with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying. The pony ceased shying.
To Ch'u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded
hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the
_fu-song_ had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a
long road instead of by the "new" road (so called, although I do not
doubt that it has been in use for many generations).
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