On the corner posts of his cage white strips of paper were posted, giving his name and the particulars of the crime which he was so soon to expiate.

He was a burglar who had escaped from prison by killing his guard, and had been recaptured.

Unlike other criminals I have seen in China, who laugh at the stranger and appear unaffected by their lot, this young fellow seemed to feel keenly the cruel but well-deserved fate that was in store for him.

Three days hence he would be put to death by strangulation outside the wall of Yungchang.
[Illustration: THE RIVER SALWEEN, THE FORMER BOUNDARY BETWEEN CHINA AND BURMA.] Another of those remarkable works which declare the engineering skill of the Chinese, is the suspension bridge which spans the Salween by a double loop--the larger loop over the river, the smaller one across the overflow.

A natural piece of rock strengthened by masonry, rising from the river bed, holds the central ends of both loops.