Many of these strangers possessed an astonishing likeness to European friends of my own.

Contact with Europeans, causing the phenomena of "maternal impression," was probably in a few cases accountable for the moulding of their features, but the general prevalence of the European type has yet to be explained.

"My conscience! Who could ever have expected to meet _you_ here ?" I was often on the point of saying to some Chinese Shan or Burmese Shan in whom, to my confusion, I thought I recognised a college friend of my own.
Leaving the village, we followed the windings of the River Taiping, coasting along the edge of the high land on the left bank of the river.
[Illustration: THE SUBURB BEYOND THE SOUTH GATE OF TENGYUEH.

(Stalls under the Umbrellas.)] Rain poured incessantly; the creeks overflowed; the paths became watercourses and were scarcely fordable.

"Bones," my opium-eating coolie with the long neck, slipped into a hole which was too deep even for his long shanks, and all my bedding was wetted.