High up the cliffs we climbed to a temple, from which a tocsin sounds in case of fire: it is certainly a splendid point of view, commanding the whole city, which winds along the banks of the serpentine river. It seems strange to see big junks with white-winged sails so far inland, and to reflect that you can go the whole distance to Shanghai without setting foot on shore, some fifteen hundred miles. It is a much quicker way of travelling when going down stream, but terribly slow in the other direction, not infrequently a three months’ journey. The temples at Chen Yüen contain some of the finest wood carvings I have seen in China, and are wonderfully situated up the face of a cliff, with magnificent creepers hanging down from its crags and forming a background to the zigzag stairways which lead from terrace to terrace. The situation of the temples is chosen with consummate skill, and from each balcony a new and lovely view is obtained, stretching farther and farther up the valleys. The whole of the province is composed of mountains, with the exception of three districts in the centre and north, where there are plains of a limited size. Considering that the province is sixty-seven thousand square miles in extent, this is a remarkable fact, and a large part is inhabited by the aboriginal tribes: it is extraordinary that the average population is a hundred and twenty-two to the square mile. Our altitude varied from 1,400 to 5,700 feet, and the highest pass we crossed was 7,200; our average was about 3,200, as we usually stopped at villages hidden in the depths of the valleys, and continually crossed over mountain passes. [Illustration: Light for the Spirits. _Page 113_] We were quite sorry to leave the province, and I should like to have visited the southern part, which we were told was even more beautiful than the north, though it is hard to believe it. We were so anxious, however, to visit Changteh, that we refused to be persuaded to change our route, and found no cause to regret our decision. We saw a curious detail in one village—a lamp at the top of a lofty stand—with long cords by which to lower and raise it for lighting purposes. Below it are ancestral tablets in a shrine and it stands in the centre of the street. The use of the lamp is to act as a beacon to wandering spirits who died away from home. It is only lighted on certain festivals, and there is one at each end of that village—query, was there great loss of life of the inhabitants during some absence from home? I have only seen this spirit beacon on one other occasion, and that was in the neighbouring province of Yünnan. [Illustration] _Chapter V_ _Some Aboriginal Tribes in Kweichow_ “I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sat reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind.