Their savage, winter-blasted look, in the clear light of an almost vernal morning, made the land seem fabulous.

Yet here in reality, thought Rudolph, as he floated toward that hoary kingdom,--here at last, facing a lonely sea, reared the lifeless, inhospitable shore, the sullen margin of China.
The slow creaking of the spliced oar, swung in its lashing by a half-naked yellow man, his incomprehensible chatter with some fellow boatman hidden in the bows, were sounds lost in a drowsy silence, rhythms lost in a wide inertia.

Time itself seemed stationary.

Rudolph nodded, slept, and waking, found the afternoon sped, the hills gone, and his clumsy, time-worn craft stealing close under a muddy bank topped with brown weeds and grass.

They had left behind the silted roadstead, and now, gliding on a gentle flood, entered the river-mouth.