made by 1000 people shuffling along in clogs is like the clatter of
a hail-storm.

After this there was a dismal tramp of five hours through rice-
fields. The moist climate and the fatigue of this manner of
travelling are deteriorating my health, and the pain in my spine,
which has been daily increasing, was so severe that I could neither
ride nor walk for more than twenty minutes at a time; and the pace
was so slow that it was six when we reached Bange, a commercial
town of 5000 people, literally in the rice swamp, mean, filthy,
damp, and decaying, and full of an overpowering stench from black,
slimy ditches. The mercury was 84 degrees, and hot rain fell fast
through the motionless air. We dismounted in a shed full of bales
of dried fish, which gave off an overpowering odour, and wet and
dirty people crowded in to stare at the foreigner till the air
seemed unbreathable.

But there were signs of progress. A three days' congress of
schoolmasters was being held; candidates for vacant situations were
being examined; there were lengthy educational discussions going
on, specially on the subject of the value of the Chinese classics
as a part of education; and every inn was crowded.

Bange was malarious: there was so much malarious fever that the
Government had sent additional medical assistance; the hills were
only a ri off, and it seemed essential to go on. But not a horse
could be got till 10 p.m.; the road was worse than the one I had
travelled; the pain became more acute, and I more exhausted, and I
was obliged to remain. Then followed a weary hour, in which the
Express Agent's five emissaries were searching for a room, and