The land is more level and better cultivated; villages are
thicker and more populous, and the people are no longer conspicuously
ill-favored. All evidence goes to prove that meagre diet and hard lines
generally, continued from generation to generation, result in the
production of an ill-conditioned and inferior race of people.
A three-storied pagoda on a prominent hill to the right marks the
approach to Nam-hung, and another of nine stories marks the entrance.
Swarms of people follow us through the streets, rushing with eager
curiosity to obtain a glimpse of my face. Sometimes the surging masses of
people, struggling and pushing and dodging, separate me from the coolies,
and the din of the shouting and laughing is so great that my shouts to
them to stop are unheard. A shout, or a wave of the hand results only in
a quickening of the people's curiosity and an increase in the volume of
their own noisiness. Thus hemmed in among a compact mass of apparently
well-meaning, but highly inflammable Chinese, hooting, calling, laughing,
and gesticulating, I follow the lead of Ching-We and Wong-Yup through a
mile of streets to the hittim.
Rich native wares are displayed in great abundance, silks, satins, and
fur-lined clothing so costly and luxurious, and in such numbers, that one
wonders where they find purchasers for them all.
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