Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/172

118 of course, a very well-known one. Baber, who talked Chinese fluently, tells how he once stopped to inquire of two men who were hoeing a field, what was the purpose of a mound hard by. "After listening with evident interest to my question, and without making any reply, one of them remarked to the other, "How much the language, of these foreigners resembles ours!"

Excellent-looking coal was being brought in by coolies in baskets from a mine at Ta-sung-sü, said to be distant about ten miles.

We halted at Lung Chang Hsien on the night of December 1st, and on the following day left the main road to Ch'êngtu, keeping west for Tzu-liu-ching. The soil here appeared to be rather poorer than that through which we had hitherto travelled, and pines grew in scanty earth on the hill-tops. For the rest, our road wound unevenly among low rounded hills, covered for the most part with innumerable brakes of sugar-cane. The inevitable bean protruded on such space as was not occupied by other vegetables, and there was, as usual, a good deal of rice land and some poppy.