Indeed, from a few _li_ beyond Chyök-syöng, a magistracy of the fourth class, where the houses are roofed with thick slabs of slate supported by heavy beams, where the streets are clean, and where road and river alike make a _détour_, the views by the wayside became increasingly impressive. For mile upon mile we saw no wayfarers. The villages were widely distant; fertile valleys gave place to green-black gorges, without cultivation, peaceful, grandly beautiful, and uninhabitable. The perfect stillness and the wonderful magnificence of the panorama held one spell-bound. There was no change in the character of the scenery until, riding slowly forward, the road dropped from the comfortable shade of a mountain temple into the blazing sunshine of the plain. Pushing forward, the rice and cornfields receded, giving place to the ranges, whose lofty peaks, dressed with their mantling clouds, had been already dimly discerned. Throughout the journey of the next two days the road rose and fell, winding in a steady gradient across the mountain sides. The march to Tong-ko-kai was laborious, and one day, when within easy distance of the concession in a tiny hamlet, the colour of the slate and granite boulders, nestling among waving bushes, almost unconscious of the outer world and hardly alive to its own existence, an ideal spot in which to pitch the evening camp was found. It was early in the afternoon, but the road ahead looked rough and stony. Our horses were fatigued, the ford had been troublesome and we were wet, cold and hungry. Within the bush the shadows were deepening. No one knew the site of the next village nor the precise direction in which we were moving, so we halted. That night we snuggled down with our faces to the cliffs. Our horses were tethered in a patch of corn, and the kit, the servants, interpreters and grooms lay in one confused and hungry tangle round us. Within sound of the deep roar of the river we slept peacefully. Indeed, I am not certain that this one hour when, invigorated by a swim in some mountain pool, refreshed by a slight repast, we rocked in our camp beds, smoking and chatting, looking into the cool black depths of the canopy above us, was not the best that the day held. There was something intensely restful in those long, silent watches. The mighty stillness of the surrounding heights of itself gave a repose, to which the night winds, the murmurs of the running water and our own physical fatigue, insensibly added. It was pleasant to hear the ponies eating; to watch the stars come out, the moon rise; to listen to the bull-frog in the water weeds and the echoes of the song of a peasant, rising and falling among the peaks of the high mountains, until, at length, all sounds had passed away and the great world around us, above us, and below, lay at peace. [Illustration: A PITCHED BATTLE] CHAPTER XVIII The German mines—Mineralogy and methods of mining—A bear hunt—With gun and rifle