They could be seen by all persons passing along the road, and, with due consideration for the feelings of the bereaved relatives, they were hung near enough for the features to be recognised by their friends.

Each head was in a cage of its own, and was suspended by the pigtail to the rim, so that it might not lie upside down but could by-and-by rattle in its box as dead men's bones should do.

To each cage a white ticket was attached giving the name of the criminal and his confession of the offence for which he was executed.
They were the heads of highway robbers who had murdered two travellers on the road near Chennan-chow, and it was this circumstance which accounted for the solicitude of the officials near Luho to prevent our being benighted in a district where such things were possible.
[Illustration: THE "EAGLE NEST BARRIER," ON THE ROAD BETWEEN YUNNAN AND TALIFU.] Midway between Shachiaokai and Pupeng there was steep climbing to be done till we reached Ying-wu-kwan, the "Eagle Nest Barrier," which is more than 8000 feet above the sea.

Then by very hilly and poor country we came to Pupeng, and, pursuing our way over a thickly-peopled plateau, we reached a break in the high land from which we descended into a wide and deep valley, skirted with villages and gleaming with sheets of water--the submerged rice-fields.

At the foot of the steep was a poor mud town, but, standing back from it in the fields, was a splendid Taoist temple fit for a capital.