Between the two passes, Hsiakwan on the south, and Shang-kwan on the north, which are distant from each other a long day's walk, there are 360 villages, each in its own plantation of trees, with a pretty white temple in the centre with curved roof and upturned gables.

The sunny reaches of the lake are busy with fleets of fishing boats.

The poppy, grown in small pockets by the margin of the lake, is probably unequalled in the world; the flowers, as I walked through the fields, were on a level with my forehead.
Tali is not a large city; its wall is only three and a half miles in circumference.

Before the rebellion populous suburbs extended half-way to Hsiakwan, but they are now only heaps of rubble.

In the town itself there are market-gardens and large open spaces where formerly there were narrow streets of Chinese houses.