Finding that it was impossible for any European to accompany me, I decided to venture on the journey of 300 miles to Paoning Fu alone, and to buy my own experience. The land journey developed into one of about 1200 miles, and was accomplished with one serious mishap and one great disappointment. It was interesting throughout, and taught me much of the ways of the people, and the scenery alone would have repaid me for the hardships, which were many. My greatest difficulty consisted in having to disinter all information about the route and the industries and customs of the people, through the medium of two languages, out of the capacities of persons who neither observed nor thought accurately, nor were accustomed to impart what they knew: who were used to telling lies, and to whom I could furnish no reasons for telling the truth, while they might have several for deceiving me on some points. This digging into obtuseness and cunning is the hardest part of a traveller's day. So far as I could make out before or since my journey, no British traveller or missionary has published an account of the country between Wan Hsien, on the Yangtze, and Kuan Hsien, north of the Chengtu Plain, nor can I find among the very valuable consular reports, to which I cannot too often express my debt, one which has done for this region of Central Sze Chuan what Mr. Litton, of the consular service at Chungking, has lately done so admirably for Northern Sze Chuan.