When I sat down to sketch a lovely river scene outside a village gateway, though many came to look on they did not jostle. These entrance gates are often quite imposing and of infinite variety. Just inside was a fine litter of pigs, with a most important-looking sow, and it was amusing to watch their antics. On a doorstep, extended at full length lay a large hairy black pig. Its face wore a beatific expression, with half-closed eyes of rapt enjoyment, while a woman vigorously groomed it with her brush. The mountains of Kweichow give shelter to many wild animals, and even tigers, as well as leopards, are to be found, which cause great havoc in some of the villages. One story we heard throws an interesting light on the way the natives look at them. A tiger had been doing so much damage that the peasantry determined to have a battue, having tracked it to a certain hill, from which they thought it would be impossible for it to escape. They formed a cordon round the hill and gradually drove it to the top. The tiger, in search of refuge, looked into a shrine, and its pursuers saw this: they exclaimed, “It is certainly the God of the Hill”; so they turned tail and fled. Naturally, the tiger seeing this took the opportunity of attacking them in the rear, and several were badly mauled.[22] Some of the mountains are very barren, others wonderfully cultivated, on terraces right up to the very top, and in rocky hollows only about a foot in diameter, with a mere handful of soil in them. How the scanty population can do such a vast amount of cultivation was a mystery we could never solve. One day we started from an altitude of eighteen hundred feet and climbed over a pass of forty-eight hundred, whence there was a wonderful panoramic view; our road could be seen for many miles, winding along the mountainside above a narrow valley; then diving down into it and up the opposite side. Our men said the last part of that day’s march, ten li (three miles), would be on the level, which sounded pleasant news. In point of fact we dropped nine hundred feet. A fine entrance gate led into Lang Tai Fung. Just outside the wall were the ruins of an old temple with a handsome stone carved bridge in front of it, enclosed within a wall. The inn was a good one, and the weather having suddenly turned cold we were glad of a brazier. The town seemed much more prosperous than most. There were large cotton looms, where weaving was going on in the open air, as well as in a disused temple. Handsome carved window-frames delighted me so much that I determined to have some made for the women’s institute at Taiyuanfu. They were about a yard square in size with a good deal of carving, so the sum named (twenty dollars including carriage to Anshun, about fifty-five miles distant) did not seem excessive! It took us three days to get to Anshun, and the windows arrived within the fortnight stipulated. We picked them up later,