Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/216

 staghorn, suspended round their necks with strings of glass beads. They had also cord fusees coiled on bamboo rollers or bracelets, round their left arms. These cords will keep alight for twenty-four hours, and when kindled the burning end is attached to forceps, which bring the light down into the powder- pan, when the trigger is pulled. All the savages hereabouts use EngHsh powder for priming, when they can get it supplied them by the Chinese. As soon as our guides lost sight of the village, they lighted their fusees and enjoined us to keep to- gether and make our way in silence. For the first half of our journey we were marching along the bed of a stream, but at length we ascended a narrow defile where mighty rocks towered high above our heads, arched over in places by great forest- trees, or giant ferns. A clear rill leapt from ledge to ledge, where with its glassy surface it mirrored the bright reflection of the ferns as they flung their fronds from the rock to form a frame around the pool. Here we halted awhile to admire the loveliness of the mountain gorges, and to obtain a photo- graph of the scene. An armed party of six friendly Pepohoans came upon us as we were enjoying a bath and a swim in the clear pool. They were out on a fishing excursion ; and one old fellow was cleverly shooting his fish with an arrow, while the others were hunting for crabs among the rocks, twisting off their legs and devouring them shell and all, alive. The younger members of the party caught fish by beating the water with a bamboo rod and thus stupifying their prey. A tedious climb over a mountain path that wound its way through the forest, brought us at last to a change of scene.

Here the trees, many of them, were of gigantic proportions, their great lateral branches striking out at a considerable altitude like the yards of a ship, from which hung a multitude of the