We had left the main road for some unknown reason, and were taking a short cut over the mountains to Tali.

But a short-cut in China often means the longest distance, and I was sure that this short-cut would bring us to Tali a day later than if we had gone by the main road--in ten days, that is, from Yunnan, instead of the nine which my men had promised me.

Laohwan, who, like most Chinaman I met, persisted in thinking that I was deaf, yelled to me in the presence of the village that the next stopping place was twenty miles distant, that "_mitte liao! mitte liao!_" ("there were no beans") on the way for the pony, and that assuredly we would reach Tali to-morrow, having given the pony the admirable rest that here offered.

As he stammered these sentences the people supported what he said.

Obviously their statements were _ex parte_, and were promoted solely by the desire to see the distinguished foreign mandarin sojourn for one night in their hungry midst.