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There were mud villages, poor and falling into ruins; there were everywhere signs of poverty and famine. Children ran about naked, or in rags. We passed the likin-barrier, known by its white flag, and I was not even asked for my visiting card, nor were my boxes looked into they were as beggarly as the district but poor carriers were detained, and a few cash unjustly wrung from them.
At its far end the parapets are guarded by two sculptured monkeys, hewn with rough tools out of granite, and the more remarkable for their fidelity of form, seeing that the artist must have carved them from memory. The inevitable likin-barrier is at the bridge to squeeze a few more cash out of the poor carriers.
A wonderful pathway zigzags down the face of the mountain to the river, in an almost vertical incline of 2000ft. At the riverside an embankment of dressed stone, built up from the rock, leads for some hundreds of feet along the bank, where there would otherwise have been no foothold, to the clearing by the bridge. The likin-barrier is here, and a teahouse or two, and the guardian temple.
We clawed with our hooked bamboos round the sterns of a hundred Szechuen junks, and were again arrested at a likin boat, and more cash passed from my laoban to the officials in charge. We went on again, when a third time we came face on to a likin-barrier, and a third time my laoban was squeezed. After this we were permitted to continue our journey. My little boat was the smallest on the river.
An early start in the morning and we descended quickly to the River Shweli. The Salween River is at an elevation of 2600 feet. Forty-five li further the road reaches at Fengshui-ling a height of 8730, from which point, in thirty-five li, it dips again to the River Shweli, 4400 feet above sea level. There was the usual suspension bridge at the river, and the inevitable likin-barrier.
Trouble, serious trouble, will begin in China in the near future, for the time must be fast approaching when the effete and alien dynasty now reigning in China the Manchu dynasty shall be overthrown, and a Chinese Emperor shall rule on the throne of China. At a native village called Schehleh there is a likin-barrier. The yellow flag was drooping over the roadway in the hot sun.
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