Notwithstanding Aheung’s terrors, we got quite undisturbed over the Tai Mon, and reached before dusk a solitary Buddhist monastery, situated in a wood at the head of and overlooking the Pak-heung, or “Eight Village” Valley. As we came down on this place, I heard the firing of a clan-fight at one of the villages below; and often as I have been in the Pak-heung, never have I been there without finding a fight going on, either between two or more of its own villages, or between one or all of its villages and those of the Shap-heung, or “Ten Village” Valley, immediately contiguous. They seemed to have as much stomach for fighting as Aheung had for worship, and the blame was laid chiefly on a large village called Kum-tin, or “Fertile Land,” which suffered from a plethora of wealth, and had disputed claims to land in various directions. Of all places I knew in that neighbourhood, this monastery was my favourite haunt, from the view it commanded, its cleanliness, its secluded position, and its internal quiet. The two or three monks occupying it were always glad to see me, as I gave them presents, and afforded relief to the tedium of their life. On this occasion they gave me, as usual, a hearty welcome; but I was rather startled, on being awakened about midnight by loud shouts, knocking at the outer door, and the flashing of torches beneath my window. This turned out to be some men from one of the fighting villages, who had taken it into their heads to come up to the monastery at that unseasonable hour for mingled purposes of thanksgiving and jollification, and who remained there till morning. They were, however, perfectly civil, and showed no disposition to interfere with me in any way, except in questioning Aheung as to where he came from, and what clan he belonged to. Had he been one of that with which they were fighting, the probability is they would have made him a prisoner. It was delightful in the morning to sit in the cool air on the terrace in front of this cold or Icy-Cloud Monastery, as it is called, and watch the light mist rolling off the Pak-heung Valley, and brightening over the waters of Deep Bay. Soon from every village the smoke of household fires rose into the calm clear air, while, every ten minutes or so, the boom of a gingall came from the combatants beneath, and reverberated on the grand cliff behind us. The young green rice of the fields below was like a vast lake lying round the villages and wooded knolls, except where in the upper slopes it flowed down from field to field like a river, bearing good promise for the stomachs of industrious hungry men. The little wooded islets rose from the rice sea with their temples and ancestral halls as out of the world’s everyday work and life. On either side of the wide Pak-heung were great, bare, sublime blocks of mountains, with white fleecy clouds occasionally floating across God’s bright blue sky, while fish were leaping in the pond below, and doves were cooing in the trees around.