My fall into the ditch was not the pleasanter for the probability of disturbing centipedes a foot long, cobras, and scorpions.
[Illustration: RIDING ACROSS THE SALT DESERT OF PERSIA.]
What food we got was more highly flavoured than the chutney and curries of India, but we appreciated the lavish supply of bananas and pineapples. One day a native station-master asked us about Lenz, the little American cyclist who went this way and was afterwards murdered in Armenia. We described his sad end, and the jovial Burman was quite overcome. "Very kind smiling face," he said, with tears in his eyes.
When we crossed the frontier into China we left railways behind, though the newspapers have informed us since we came back that a concession has been granted for a railway in Yunnan. I can only say that if that railway is ever made, it will give points to any switchback that was ever invented, so mountainous is the entire country.
When we reached America we little imagined what was before us. We had fondly believed that the most progressive country in the world would at least provide ridable roads for cyclists. But the fact is that while in old countries the road comes before the rail, in newly developed countries the rail comes before the road--and sometimes the road never comes at all. Cyclists, however, are doing a great deal to help themselves in this matter, through the medium of the League of American Wheelmen, one of the most powerful organisations in the United States.
At the Olympic Club in San Francisco we had some hints of what was to befall us. The cycling editor of Hearst's great paper, _The Examiner_, interviewed us during our stay, and gave us the chart of the route followed by the great Trans-Continental Relay race, which had taken place not long before our arrival.
[Illustration: THE THREE WORLD CYCLISTS AND A CHINESE GIANT WHO DOES NOT CYCLE.]
We struck the railway track at Newcastle in California, and on the second day the most perilous part of our experiences in this sort of riding commenced, with our entrance to the "Snow Sheds" crossing the great Sierra Nevada range. These snow-sheds, with the exception of two bridges (of which more hereafter), extend uninterruptedly for forty-three miles, with innumerable twists and turns, and we were in semi-darkness for the entire distance. We were obliged to ride between the rails. The snow had begun to melt, and pools of water extended along either side of the lines, while between the sleepers, which were free of snow, the ice lay in great uneven hummocks. We moved on at the modest pace of some seven miles an hour through the darkness, while the noise of our three machines and the rattling of the baggage we carried prevented us from hearing anything of approaching trains till they were actually upon us. Then we had to leap from our cycles and crouch against the icy walls of the snow-shed while the train thundered past. We took our lives in our hands several times a day.