Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/215

 articles of furniture to be seen within, were two billets of wood which served the purpose of pillows. By way of a lamp we had a small cup of oil, in which floated a few shreds of burning pith, and by this flickering light I could see that the clay walls were blackened and the rafters glazed with sooty smoke. In a corner above my head were a bundle of green tobacco, one or two spears, a bow, a heap of arrows, a primitive match- lock, and lastly, — an object which I had not hitherto noticed — a huge bin of unhusked rice at the side of the bed. I fain hoped that there the rats might find occupation during the night more profitable than worrying our slumbers.

Ahong informed me, in strict confidence, that the dexterity of the savages hereabouts in the use of the bow and poisoned arrows was no less wonderful than the cool way in which they boiled and ate their tender-hearted but tough-limbed Chinese foes. He besought me not to venture much further into the mountains, as the hill-men never show themselves when they attack, but discharge their arrows high into the air, with such unerring precision that, as they fall, they pierce the skulls of their victims and cause instant death.

We did not sleep much, as we found that rats were by no means the only vermin we had to entertain, and once or twice I woke up to find the rats making short tracks across my body for the rice-bin. Next morning we started for Lalung, about eleven miles distant, through some of the grandest scenery I have ever beheld. Old Atuan furnished us with an armed guide — a good-looking young fellow named **Teng-Tsai." The path was an unsafe one, leading as it did through the lower hunting-grounds belonging to tribes of savages higher up in the hills. Teng-Tsai called a friend who joined our party with his matchlock, and both carried small priming-flasks of