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138 journey from Lhassa to Ssŭch'uan. His demand for the usual transport, supposed to be provided free for the Chinese Government, was met with fine contempt. The mandarin raved and threatened, but the people of Gaya preserved an attitude "deliciously haughty and contemptuous. One of them advanced a step, placed, with a sort of wild dignity, his right hand on the shoulder of Ly-Kouo-Ngan, and after piercing him with his great black eyes, shaded with thick eyebrows, 'Man of China,' said he, 'listen to me; dost thou think that with an inhabitant of the Valley of Gaya there is much difference between cutting off the head of a Chinese and that of a goat? The oulah [i.e., transport] will be ready presently; if you do not take it, and go to-day, to-morrow the price will be doubled."' The stirring description of the adventurous journey of Mr Cooper from Ch'êngtu to the Tibetan frontier in 1868, his imprisonment by the Chinese officials, and his final rescue by native chiefs, gives a vivid picture of the wild and ungoverned condition of the country. Now