If you are returning downhill you need not be surprised to learn that the distance by the same road is only thirty li.
To-night before turning in I looked in to see how my mule was faring.

He was standing in a crib at the foot of some underground stairs, with a huge horse trough before him, the size and shape of a Chinese coffin.

He was peaceful and meditative.

When he saw me he looked reproachfully at the cut straw heaped untidily in the trough, and then at me, and asked as clearly as he could if that was a reasonable ration for a high-spirited mule, who had carried my honourable person up hill and down dale over steep rocks and by tortuous paths, a long spring day in a warm sun.

Alas, I had nothing else to offer him, unless I gave him the uncut straw that was stitched into our paillasses.