Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/344

268 in because, she declared, she wanted no foreign devils in her place, though this piece of news was sedulously kept from me at the time. I found myself in consequence in a small and filthy hostelry, the only room available being a passage room through which the half-dozen inmates of the inner chamber perpetually passed. On the following day I marched twenty miles to Kangai. We were now in the valley of the Ta-ping river, a fine broad expanse hemmed in on either side by high mountain-ranges. The nature of the country, too, began to change as we fell to a level of under 3000 feet, large clumps of big bamboos growing on the lower slopes, and huge shady banyan-trees becoming common. The country is inhabited by Shans, a pleasant and peaceful people. Their women are conspicuous by reason of their enormous headdress, consisting of a turban of dark-blue material widening towards the top, and standing as much as a foot high. Two Shan soldiers were sent with me as a guard of honour, but as neither of them could speak or understand Chinese, and no one of my