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Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch erected, maybe, to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district I untied my pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied air.
With a clear and sunny sky, the river flowing smoothly and reflecting deeply the lofty and rugged hills which fall steeply to the water's edge, a light boat, and a model crew, it was a pleasure to lie at ease wrapped in my Chinese pukai and watch the many junks lazily falling down the river, the largest of them "dwarfed by the colossal dimensions of the surrounding scenery to the size of sampans," and the fishing boats, noiseless but for the gentle creaking of the sheers and dip-net, silently working in the still waters under the bank.
The customs officer, an amiable Chinese Shan, invited me in to tea, and brought his pukai for me to lie down upon. Like thousands of his countrymen, he had played for fortune in the Manila lottery. Two old lottery tickets and the prize list in Chinese were on one wall of his room, on the other were a number of Chinese visiting cards, to which I graciously permitted him to add mine.
In the early morning, while I was still lying in my pukai on the floor, I saw many women, a large proportion of whom were goitrous, come to the hall, and make an offering of rice, and kneel down before the Buddha. As time went on, and more kept coming in, small heaps of rice had collected in front of the chief altar and before the cabinets.
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