The day’s march led us through a more arid and Indian-looking country than that of yesterday. At this time of year, almost the only grain cultivated is wheat. After two crops of rice have been taken off the ground, they are followed by an edition of wheat, so sparse and sickly as to give a somewhat sterile aspect to the country. Towards midday we halted at a pretty little village, in a fir wood, for luncheon. Here the whole population turned out, as usual, to inspect us: women, on small feet, hobbled impetuously across the rough fields, to the peril of the infants swung at their backs or carried in their arms; but female curiosity is as strong in Quang-tung as elsewhere, and doubtless was succeeded by those sentiments of admiration which a red coat always excites in the feminine breast. The chief magistrate of Fayune met us here, and endeavoured to propitiate us with sweetmeats. The Fayune Commissioners, he said, had vanished, and were nowhere to be heard of. His own heart was filled with pleasure at the prospect of a visit from so charming a company in his secluded house. Any arrangements necessary for the comfort of the troops should be promptly attended to. In fact, if this old gentleman had been the Pope, and we had been an army of Austrians, he could not have appeared more delighted to receive us. Gaiety and merrymaking being the order of the day, the band was ordered to play, and while the elders were crowding around it, we effected a diversion in their favour by giving scrambles for cash to the juvenile portion of the community. Altogether, we had every reason to believe that, after spending two hours in this little village with a long and unpronounceable name, we left it universally beloved and regretted. We halted for the night at a village called Ping-shan, situated upon a dry paddy-field expanse, out of which isolated wooded hills rose like islands. Here we found a magnificent ancestral hall, highly decorated, dedicated to the memory of sundry eminent men who had sprung from the surrounding villages, and whose fame and virtues were recorded upon elaborate tablets. These buildings are common throughout China, being used by the descendants of the persons in whose honour they have been erected, as a sort of club. As they are generally of great extent, containing numerous suites of apartments, and affording shelter for a large party of men and beasts, they are most convenient for officers’ quarters; and it was with no little satisfaction that we took possession of the rooms usually occupied by the Fayune Commissioners, and established ourselves luxuriously for the night. It is worthy of note that in respect of accommodation of this description, the numerous temples, yamuns, and ancestral and Confucian halls, &c., with which all districts of the empire abound, offer great advantages to an invading army.