in the centre, was a tiny stone altar on which the offerings reposed. Our path was along a pleasant shady road, on the margin of a stream that had been made use of for irrigation. On our left hand was a hedge adorned with numerous wild flowers — fuchsias, roses, guavas, wild mint and convolvulus — besides a profusion of wild raspberry-bushes that had lately been laden with fruit, as sweet as our own English raspberries, if we may judge from what little still remained. Again we had to cross a bamboo bridge, and thence to follow a foot-road by the edge of the ricefields, where the young blades rose in vivid green above the water, just high enough to break up the reflec- tion of the mountains on its glassy surface. We now entered the village of Pau-ah-liau, and made straight for the house of an aged blind Pepohoan, named Sin-chun. We were followed into his enclosure by troops of savage-looking women and chil- dren, the latter, some of them ten years old, without a rag to hide their youthful proportions. Here the men, women and children were all provided with bamboo tobacco-pipes, of which they made vigorous and unceasing use. I had not long to wait before a haggard old dame came up to where I stood and offered me her pipe for a smoke. When I accepted the cour- tesy, she went on to ask for my cigar, from which she took one or two hearty pulls, and then her face disappeared in a compound series of wrinkles, denoting delight at the unusual piquancy of the weed. After this the cigar was passed from mouth to mouth through the crowd, and carefully returned to me when they had all had a pull. The villagers were, most of them, tall and well-formed, with large brown eyes, kindling at times with a savage lustre that told of a free untamed spirit, born amid the wild grandeur and solitude of these mountain lands.
