Anshun is a very pretty town, with its shady trees, its winding waterways and handsome stone balustrades along them. On a picturesque bridge were shrines, which made a subject to delight an artist’s eye: indeed it was a continual trial to me to have so little time for drawing when there was such a wealth of material. Facing the house where we stayed was a temple transformed into a government school, and it had an ornamental wall such as I had not seen elsewhere. There were panels at intervals, about three and a half feet from the ground, of various sizes, with open stucco work, looking like designs from Æsop’s fables. They lent a great charm to the garden, in which the wall seemed to be only of decorative value. Throughout China the human figure and animals are used in all sorts of architectural ways which would never occur to us. Anshun is situated in a small plain, and a fine road leads to it with pailous (memorial arches) at intervals. We walked across the fields one day and climbed a neighbouring hill, surmounted by the usual temple; from it there was a magnificent view of all the country round. A lurid thunderstorm heightened the effect. There were oleanders in full bloom in the courtyard, and the priests were polite and friendly, bringing tea to us, while we waited for the storm to clear away. [Illustration: “Lonely I stand On the loneliest hill top.” _Page 98_] There is a hospital at Anshun built by the Arthington Fund, but as there is only one doctor attached to it, and he was away on furlough, the place was closed. As it is the only hospital for hundreds of miles, indeed there is only one other hospital in the province, for 11,300,000 people, this seemed a dreadful pity. The coming of my doctor was quite an event, especially for a lady who badly needed her advice. In the whole province there are only these two European hospitals, as far as I heard, and no Chinese ones. We made Anshunfu our starting-point for a trip into the unfrequented mountains, where aboriginal tribes are to be found in great numbers. No census can be taken of them, and it is only by years of unremitting toil, in the face of continual danger, that missionaries have succeeded in making friends with them. Mr. Slichter, of the C.I.M., was our guide, and as soon as we left the city we struck up a pathway into the hills to the north of it. After several hours’ travelling we came to a river, which until recent years was the boundary, beyond which no foreigner was allowed to go because of the acute hostility felt by the tribes-people against all strangers. It was a rapid, swirling river, lying in a deep narrow gorge, and we were ferried across.