At an excellent inn, with a noisy restaurant on the first floor, good accommodation was given me.

No sooner was I seated than a chairen came from the yamen to ask for my Chinese visiting card; but he did not ask for my passport, though I had brought with me twenty-five copies besides the original.
At daybreak a chair was ready, and I was carried to the River, where a ferry boat was in waiting to take us across below the junction.

Then we started on our journey towards the south, along the right bank of the Laowatan branch of the Yangtse.

The road was a tracking path cut into the face of the cliff; it was narrow, steep, winding, and slippery.
There was only just room for the chair to pass, and at the sudden turns it had often to be canted to one side to permit of its passage.

We were high above the river in the mountain gorges.