The sixty li from Li-fan Ting to Tsa-ku-lao (spelled by Mr. von Rosthorn of the Imperial Customs in a letter to me Tsaku-nao) have much the same characteristics as those of the day before. The scenery is magnificent, and even more fantastic. Nitrate of soda, sulphur, and iron-one abound. Sand-stone has disappeared, giving place to limestone, conglomerate, schistaceous rock, grey and pink granite, basalt, and mica. The Siao Ho, still a full-watered and vigorous stream, occasionally narrowed to forty feet, plunges over pink granite ledges in a series of cataracts as the canyon opens out, and there are smooth, green lawns, with much wealth of dwarf, crimson roses, and much gloom, in many graves and dismal remains of Man-tze houses partially destroyed. Some of the pot-holes in the river are remarkable for their size, and still contain the smoothly-rounded stones by the action of which they have been formed. Pine woods appeared on hill crests and on the northern slopes of mountains.

Many Man-tze villages, now deserted, are ready for occupation, and others in romantic situations, now occupied by Chinese, are very striking architecturally, each with a Man-tze feudal castle piled on a rock above it. These villages were always built at the mouths of gorges where lateral torrents joining the Siao Ho formed alluvial fans with arable soil enough to support small populations.