After spending a few days at Ten-ten we continued our journey northwards, but were somewhat tried by the difficulty of getting any guide. One of the tribes-people took us a certain distance across the mountains, but the path was not only steep and rough, but the lanes were so narrow and thorny that we thought our chairs would be torn to pieces, and our clothes to ribbons: the thorns and brambles overhanging the path made it difficult to get the chairs along. We found it decidedly preferable to walk, and enjoyed the glorious scenery up hill and down dale, the air laden with the scent of roses and sweetbrier, and the hill-sides carpeted with mauve-coloured orchids and primulas. We soon lost our way, and there was no one to be seen in all the wide landscape to set us right. We wandered on for hours till we came to a tiny hamlet, where we found a pottery in full swing. With much persuasion and the promise of a good tip, we barely succeeded in coaxing a boy to show us the way to the village of I-mei, where we proposed spending the night. We set off again in more cheerful mood, but alas! for our hopes: after about two hours the lad admitted that he didn’t know the way. We wandered on down a tiny valley, watered by a charming stream, where countless wagtails and other little birds beguiled us by their chatter. As we emerged from the valley into some fields the lad suggested this must be I-mei, but when we asked some women at work in the fields they said “Oh no! it is far away.” They went on to tell us that if we succeeded in reaching it that night, we should probably find no accommodation. There was a comfortable-looking farm-house within sight, and they thought we might get put up there, so we sent to inquire. They were friendly folk, who were willing to vacate a room for us and to lodge the rest of the party somewhere; so we were quite pleased to have this new experience. I had never slept in a Chinese farm-house before, and in point of fact we did not get a great deal of sleep, as the partitions were thin and there was plenty of animal life, both large and small, to share the building, all living on the most intimate terms with the owners. A cat was very put out about it, and hurried to and fro in our room in the middle of the night. We tried to shoo her away, and then heard a reproachful voice from the other side of the partition calling gently “Mimi, Mimi!” upon which the pussy-cat quickly sidled away to her master.