Page:Ling-Nam; or, Interior views of southern China, including explorations in the hitherto untraversed island of Hainan (IA cu31924023225307).pdf/200

 196 Ling-Nane.

seen here when the market assembles. A little stream flows down through the beautiful plain, which is several miles in extent, with twelve or fifteen villages, some of them quite large, built against the hillsides, and overlook- ing the fruitful valley, which, when I saw it, was entirely covered with a rich crop of rice, just ready for the sickle,

On the northern side of this plain one hill especially attracts the eye. As we look at it from the river, it is a perfect cone, but loses its symmetry somewhat when viewed from other positions. It is covered with trees to the very top, the bage also being surrounded by a fine grove, a large proportion of the trees in which are oaks, the Quercus glaucus. It rises about 1,200 feet above the plain, and has several caves, which the people carefully guard, the largest one being near the top. The village at ite foot is the most extensive in the plain. A short .distance east of this grcen mount we find a little stream springing from a shallow cave at the base of a lower hill, and spreading into a transparent pond of wonderfully cool, sweet water. A few miles up this plain and the mountain walls approach, leaving but a narrow space, through which the path leads into the wild regions beyond, where the Iu people live.

A ten miles’ walk from the river at this point brings us into dense forests filled with game of various kinds—wild boars, tigers, bears, deer, etc., and not least in number, if small in size, monkeys, one colony of these animals, near the borders of the cultivated land, being said to contain at least one hundred individuals. These mis- chievous quadrumanes are a great pest to the peasants, stealing their corn and sweet potatoes, and cleverly elud-