7d._ They were to be entitled to no perquisites, were to find themselves on the way, and take their chance of employment on the return journey.

They were to lead me into Suifu on the seventh day out from Chungking.

All that they undertook to do they did to my complete satisfaction.
On the morning of March 14th I set out from Chungking to cross 1600 miles over Western China to Burma.

Men did not speak hopefully of my chance of getting through.

There were the rains of June and July to be feared apart from other obstacles.
Pere Lorain, the Procureur of the French Mission, who spoke from an experience of twenty-five years of China, assured me that, speaking no Chinese, unarmed, unaccompanied, except by two poor coolies of the humblest class, and on foot, I would have _les plus grandes difficultes_, and Monsieur Haas, the Consul _en commission_, was equally pessimistic.