The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.
The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.
We were now a party of nine--my own three men, an extra coolie I had
engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
and the paymaster of the crowd.
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