[Illustration: MARKET STREET OUTSIDE CITY.]
We went on, and thus came near a very large Chinese house and garden, with a queer tale of a dead magician, where we had been hospitably entertained two years before. The people knew he had been a magician, because he used to disappear every day at a certain hour; and some one peeped through a crack one day, and saw him actually in a cold-water bath like a fish. I thought it would be a pleasure to visit the garden once more; but again a man shouting and gesticulating, this time armed with one of those heavy hoes they use in digging, which he brandished across my face! It seemed his master, who had entertained us, was dead, and this rustic would have no photography. It was a long way back by the other side of the river, so that it was quite dark when we got back to the little town. This perhaps was just as well.
Next day by daybreak we set off for Chungking. After five pretty but surely very long miles, we came to a market town; and, alas! it was market day. The coolies were desired to carry me to the best inn, and take me in quickly. Of course, it was necessary for them to get some refreshment, or we should not have stopped. I walked to the farthest end of the huge room set out with tables; but the agitated innkeeper asked me to come into a bedroom beyond, there were so many people. He banged to the doors, and then there began a hurly-burly, everybody wanting to get a sight of me. He begged me to go into a bedroom beyond down a steep ladder, and again bolted the doors. This room was even nastier than the first,--four beds with straw, no chair, and a frowsy table. It was so good of him to tell me it was clean, for I should never have imagined it otherwise. A young gentleman occupying an adjacent bedroom began to look furious at the noise and the barring of the doors. With a haughty air he unbarred them. I did not wonder he did not like it. I did not either. Who wants to be barricaded in a chairless, windowless bedroom on a hot day?
It was a great relief when my husband quickly followed me, passing in through the files of people gazing at closed doors. But no one could serve us with tea, and the people got all round the room trying to peep in through the cracks, as also to pull down one partition. Meantime, there was what Germans call "scandal." At last our coolies had fed, the chairs were ready, and, handsomely escorted, we passed out through people in rows, to find the street outside and all the houses one living mass of human heads all staring. It was easy enough to get into the chair, but the coolies had to fight the crowd back to get the poles on their shoulders; and so, amongst a chorus of the usual soft Szechuan imprecations, we departed. I have composed a song with it for the chorus; it sounds pretty, but I am told it is untranslatable. One moves everywhere to the music of it.