But
no! The lusty dame was still sprightly. She had been three times
divorced. The person at present connected with her in the bonds of
wedded life--also goitrous and morally repulsive--stood by and gazed
down upon her like a proud bridegroom. He resented the levity of Shanks
and his companion, but, owing to the detail of a sightless eye, he could
not see all that transpired. However, we were all happy enough. Charges
were not excessive. My men had a good feed of rice and cabbage, with the
usual cabbage stump, two raw rice biscuits (which they threw into the
ashes to cook, and when cooked picked the dirt off with their long
finger-nails), and as much tea as they could drink--all for less than a
penny.
There is something in traveling in Yuen-nan, where the people away from
the cities exhibit such painful apathy as to whether dissolution of this
life comes to them soon or late, which breeds drowsiness. After a tramp
over mountains for five or six hours on end, one naturally needed rest.
To-day, as I sat after lunch and wrote up my journal, I nearly fell
asleep. As I watched the reflections of all these ill-clad figures on
the stony roadway, and dozed meanwhile, one rude fellow asked my man
whether I was drunk!
I was not left long to my reverie.
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