Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/154

 150 Ling-Nam.

among the people is accomplished once in every five days. At the head of the pass another set of rapids detains the traveller, and allows him time to examine a temple in the midst of a grove of trees on the northern bank before he makes his entrance into the broad and fertile plain of Sai-ngau-tam, in the centre of which is a market town of the same name, at which the foot- path referred to above comes down to the river again.

We go back to where this path leaves the river on the other side of the hills, and follow it up the mountain. In a short time we are in an amphitheatre of hills, with per- pendicular peaks on all sides, rocky, jagged, full of rifts and crevices, and covered with verdure wherever a hand- ful of soil affords sufficient hold for the roots. We ascend several hundred feet before we reach the pass in the hills, beyond which the road begins to descend. From this picturesque pass, flanked on either side by piled-up masses of rock of all shapes and dimensions, we look out upon the plain of Sai-ngau, which is in shape like a round basin about six miles in diameter, encircled on all sides by hills. It is a charming picture, the whole plain being under cultivation, the fields of rice, sugar-cane, pea-nuts, etc., yielding a fair increase. Villages, with their leafy fringes of evergreen hiding the squalor and unsightli- ness as with a mantle of charity, dot the plain in all directions. The river makes an extensive sweep through it, Entering from the north, it flows first south, then east, and turning to the north again, departs through the pass just described. The plain is peopled hy an enter- prising colony of Hakkas. The stockade villages, forts, and barricades in the mountains bear witness to their