Next day we were up betimes, and our host said his white-haired brother would act as our guide. These two old gentlemen still wore attenuated queues, almost the only ones we saw on the journey. We found the whole family kind and interested in their visitors. I feel sure no other Europeans had ever visited the little valley. We gave the lady a piece of soap, evidently quite a novelty to her: it seems strange to have to explain the use of such a thing. But this province has curious natural resources in the way of soap. One tree, the Sapindus mukorossi, has round fruit, which have only to be shaken in water to make it quite soapy, and the pods of the Gleditschia sinensis are to be found for sale in most of the markets: they are used in washing clothes. European firms have started the soap industry in China, and there is certainly a good opening for the trade. We had a long climb up a lovely mountain pass, well named in Chinese “Climbing to the Heavens,” and came across magnolia and other delicious shrubs. After a stage of about fourteen miles we reached the town of Pingüan, and stayed there till next day, as it was such a pleasant, clean-looking place. Our room had varnished walls—quite a novelty—and small panes of glass among the paper ones. We had a larger crowd of interested spectators than usual, but at intervals Yao came out like a whirlwind and scattered the chaff. Our hostess brought us a bunch of camellias and peonies as an excuse for consulting the doctor about her cough! We left Pingüan early next morning, and facing the gateway by which we went out was a typical bit of landscape—in the foreground a bridge leading to a little poppy-covered plain, out of the centre of which rose a steep rock crowned with a pagoda and a temple. At the foot of the rock were several shrines. It seemed impossible for the Chinese to miss making use of any such natural feature of the landscape for a religious purpose in past days; though now the shrines are so neglected, except under the stress of plague, famine or rapine, which incites the worshippers to devotion. The crops in this district were entirely opium poppy. At our next halting-place, Ch’a-tien, we had to put up with miserable quarters: our tiny room looked on to the street, so that we had a large and interested audience all the time; they lined up on the window-sill across the road, a good point of vantage, while the small fry discovered quite a unique point of observation. There was a hiatus at the bottom of the woodwork of the wall about a yard long and six inches deep, so by lying with their faces flat on the ground and close to the opening they could get a fair view of our doings. The row of bright eyes and gleaming teeth was quite uncanny. Our thermometer registered 66°, so we felt it rather stuffy with every breath of air excluded.