ONCE more the road takes a dive downwards towards a better class of houses, set off by a group of fine old weeping willows, wheels round them—again ascends, and behold, far before us, and rather to our right on the very top of a commanding hill, rising high above the surrounding level, stands nobly out from the sky the Pharos-like pagoda of Lanchow, very much resembling indeed, from our point of view, a majestic lighthouse perched on a bold headland, with its closely aggregated, projecting eaves stuck out from its sides as if it were the petrified body of a mammoth centipede. This edifice was an excellent landmark, as our course lay through the town of Lanchow, and nothing further was required but to take the first by-lane or path that led off in its direction. It proved a good two hours' ride, through, at first, segregated farm steadings, slowly improving the farther we bent into the plain—then neat cottages gathered between them, and at last orchard, garden, paddock, and village entirely supplanted the wide fields—becoming treeshaded lanes wound out and in, doubled back and twisted forward, until extrication from the pleasant maze looked all but feasible.

A greater turn than usual carried us within sight of a high parapeted brick wall, with two-storied towers at each angle, almost hid in the foliage of massive old willows growing within the enclosure.

WE were in the small but well-built village of Tchung-wahkow, on the banks of the Pehtang hô, as it is named by us, but to which the people here give the lengthy title of Chetau Yoon-leang hô. Ascending the narrow, steep street, which was lined by tastefully-finished houses on each side, we descend again to the little jetty, where the ferry-boat is waiting to convey us across the sluggish yellow river, flowing noiselessly and smoothly on, undisturbed by many junks, and between low clayey embankments here and there, but more often spreading over a large patch of land, on which grows in thick luxuriance the tall lazily-swaying reed (Phragmites communis), so useful in this part of the world for the manufacture of matting and in forming an under-thatch on the roofs of the better classes of houses. As usual, the alarm had been sounded, and a mob of old and young, males and females, hurried out to see us,—the most obstreperous of the masculine gender crushing and crowding around ere we had time to transfer our cart, ponies, and mules, from the ground to the barge.

BY midday of the 6th we were ready to leave Tien-tsin, and having collected all our travelling equipment at a merchant's house in the main street, and stowed it carefully away into the cart, with our ponies ready to be mounted, we only awaited the somewhat doubtful arrival of the Canton interpreter. But hour after hour passed away, and still he made no appearance, neither could his whereabouts be discovered, until it was sufficiently obvious that he had shirked the task, broken the contract, and hid himself; so, chagrined at having delayed so long on his account, we adopted the only course left open, which was to take M——'s servant, who, though he might be no scholar and could scarcely make himself understood, would prove better than no interpreter at all. Accordingly, the youth was sent for; a suspicious interval of time elapsed, and after spending another impatient period, an old comprador of the house, a Chinese of business habits, but slow speech, approached us in deliberate strides, and, with an expression of countenance worthy of faithful old Caleb Balderston when he communicated the woful destruction of the dinner to the Laird of Ravenswood announced that ‘that piecey boy have whilo,’ and he couldn't ‘savey’ where he had gone. Diligent search was made, but in vain, for the artful vagabond had removed his goods and chattels to some other establishment, given his master a Gallic good-bye, and sallied out to travel on his own account.

NO matter however early in the morning we contrived to get up, our fellow-travellers were sure to be away on their journey long before us, and with so little sound of preparation as scarcely to disturb our repose. This morning the yard was quite untenanted when four o'clock found us getting ready to depart, and rather ashamed at being the last to leave, we were more so when six o'clock saw us only moving through the gateway: this was partly owing to the sulkiness of the carman, who was in a shocking bad temper because he had prematurely insisted upon, but did not obtain, the second half of the contract-hire agreed to be paid to him on reaching our journey's end, and partly to the rebellious dispositions of the two mules, who behaved themselves so badly when being harnessed and put in the traces, that the cross-grained driver was nearly worried out of his senses.

Not many miles after leaving this village with the unpronounceably long name, we came to another one, that had been erected with taste and a view to durability, as well as with a strong leaning to the curious and fanciful — for every house and garden wall was strongly built of cream-coloured granite, in which the feldspar was nearly, if not altogether absent, and the larger pieces of which, disposed to face the outer courses, were covered with beautifully distinct arborescent markings of black oxide of manganese delineated exactly like a fossil plant.