At Hoa-chung we turned eastwards, and took the main road to the coast, attaining an altitude (uncorrected) of 3,117 feet by continued ascents over rounded hills, which, when not absolutely bare except for coarse, unlovely grasses, only produced stunted hazel bush. After this an easy ascent among absolutely denuded hills leads up to a spirit shrine of more than usual importance, crowded with the customary worthless _ex votos_, rags and old straw shoes. At that point the road makes an altogether unexpected and surprising plunge over the bare shoulders of a bare hill into Paradise! This pass of the “Ninety-nine Turns,” Tchyu-Chi-chang, deserves its name, the number of sharp zigzags not being exaggerated, as in the case of the “Twelve Thousand Peaks.” It is so absolutely rocky, and so difficult in consequence, that it is more passable in snow than in summer. Its abrupt turns lead down a forest-clothed mountain ridge into a magnificent gorge, densely wooded with oak, Spanish chestnut, weeping lime, _Abies excelsa_, and magnolia, looped together with the white _mille-fleur_ rose. On the northern side rises Hoang-chyöng San, a noble mountain and conspicuous landmark, much broken up into needles and precipices, and clothed nearly to its summit with forests, of which the _Pinus sylvestris_ is the monarch. The descent of the pass takes one hour and a half, the road coming down upon a torrent 50 feet wide, only visible in glints of foam here and there, amid its smothering overgrowth of blossoming magnolia, syringa, and roses. The filthy, miserable hamlet of Chyung-Tai, composed of five hovels, all inns, was rather a comfortless close to a fatiguing day. These houses are roofed, as in some other villages, with thick slabs of wood heaped on each other, kept on, so far as they are kept on, by big stones. The forest above on the mountains is a Royal reservation, made so by the first king of this dynasty, who built stone walls round the larger trees.