CHAPTER VI

HOW WE JOURNEYED TO THE OBSCURE TOWN OF KIAI

When Poyning came in to breakfast, much renovated, we sat down to one of the jolliest meals I ever remember. Philipson steered clear of the subject of our forthcoming journey yet, but kept up a brisk fire of yarns of his former experiences in the East; and I for one had to admit that if I flattered myself I knew something about the great yellow lands from Ladakh on the roof of the world to Kamchatka of the frozen north, my knowledge was mere schoolboy geography to Saunders Philipson's. Then we pushed away our plates and lit up, and Philipson plunged into the business ahead of us, laying the whole story before Poyning exactly as I had heard it myself. The junior partner listened with the sort of negligent alertness he had shown when taking his orders for the Shanghai commission, but I could see, underneath this, that the story excited him a good deal more than it had me.

'Well, there you are, Poyning,' concluded our leader, 'You know all the ascertained facts now. It will be a dangerous, death-or-glory business--but at least a profitable one, if my suspicions are well founded.'

The boy shrugged his shoulders. 'Diamonds would be an agreeable incidental, certainly,' he said, 'but I should be perfectly ready to risk my life going to that valley if there were no mention of gems in the legend at all.'

Poyning said this in such a serious and decided tone that you might almost have fancied he meant more than he said.

'Then you're with us?' queried Philipson.

'I am,' said Stephen Poyning firmly.

We shook hands on the bargain and swore, all three of us, to tear the mystery out of that shadowy land behind the mountains or add our names to the long list of explorers who have died of curiosity.

The day was spent in a lively bustle of preparation. If Philipson was upset over the destruction of thousands of pounds' worth of his property in Shanghai, he gave precious small sign of his chagrin; on the contrary, he seemed to look on that business as a useful warning not to underestimate the vigour and vindictiveness of our enemies. As for the bi-lingual Lo Eng, he proved himself a pearl of price. All that day he was in and out of the city buying stores, thus enabling the rest of us to lie doggo--no small boon to folk in our case. Backed by Philipson's deep purse he procured food, petrol, and ammunition with despatch and discretion--so much so that I don't think even the hawk-eyed customs officers, always watchful for the gun-runner and opium-smuggler and similar law-breakers, ever knew of our stay in the port. But to make sure of secrecy, when the time came to leave we stole out of our creek propelled by the pair of small oars the launch carried; and I've no doubt that in the fickle light before moonrise we passed easily enough for one of the innumerable native boats thronging the mouth of the inlet and the margins of Yangtze River itself.

We rowed well out into the stream, turned our nose westward, and proceeded on a throttled engine until we had left Nanking a mile or two over our quarter. Then began our long tussle with the down-rolling might of Yangtze Kiang. Philipson made for the north bank, where, thanks to our shallow draught, we could hug the shore even closer than the interminable string of native junks, which, like ourselves, were there to avoid the full strength of the current. These craft we overhauled by the hundred, and now and then passed the lights of a river steamer out in midstream going three miles to her two. Philipson kept the tiller, Poyning and I sat down in the well, while Ah Sing tended the engine and Lo Eng, in the cabin, got ready the beds against such time as we should turn in. My last recollections before dropping off in my bunk were the lady-like snores of Poyning as he lay tucked up opposite me, and the chuckle of the wine which Philipson--tiller in one hand and drinking outfit close by the other--poured out for himself. He hadn't forgotten this among the preparations for departure--I think, indeed, that before squaring up with mine hostess of Nanking, Saunders Philipson bought the remainder of her cellar in a lot.

Poyning being a casualty, he was to stand no watch that night, and the rest of us arranged the spells so that of Philipson and Ah Sing, our best navigators, always one was at the helm. I completed my first trick with the latter at four o'clock. It wasn't yet dawn, but there had already sprung out of the east a wide fawn-coloured wash which battled with the light of the setting moon. On our starboard bow stretched untold miles of flat rice-land, broken here and there by trees that seemed to rise straight from the silver bosom of the flood. Great sailing junks, with their steep poops and huge chocolate lugsails and three masts raking like the ribs of a fan, loomed vague and dark against the neutral tints of the river. Then, in a wink, the moon whitened, there was a glory of brightness over the mighty expanse of water in our wake; and where one instant before all had been veiled in a gossamer grey mist, now everything took on sudden startling tinges of orange, opal, and pink. The greenery of the river bank became a golden green, the vast flood flared up into bright mustard, and hull and mast and sail of the native shipping sharpened into clean-cut blotches of Vandyke brown. Wisps of smoke rose from the poop braziers of these craft as the blue-cottoned junkmen cooked their breakfast, and now and again a shrill chanty came to us across the water as they put out the long bow-sweep and pulled upon it three and four abreast.

Philipson was in rare spirits when he came aft to relieve me. I stayed with him a few minutes while he picked up his landmarks and reckoned the amount of westing we had made in the night.

'Seventy miles if it is an inch,' said Saunders Philipson. 'The best she has ever done.'

'Where d'you expect to fetch to-day?'

'Kiukiang, bar hitches. By about dusk. And Hankow the same time to-morrow. It could not fall out better. All serene, Mirlees. Get your sleep, for we shall want that cabin to feed in before long.'

The day passed without event, and so close to our leader's schedule that we might have been a passenger service. Hour after hour we forged ahead, the engine running smoothly and tirelessly as the wings of the great gulls over our heads, and a little before nightfall we had drawn within view of the hills that reach away south of Kiukiang. Here we tied up in an inlet at one end of the bund, and slept on board, creeping out again before the break of day, and pushing on up stream till dusk.

At last, two ranks of light like the lamps of a long street began to blink out of the grey shadows ahead, and we came into a great expanse of water swarming with craft of every conceivable build, from liner and ocean-going tramp down to the lorchas and wupans and crazy houseboats of the amphibious population of these parts. To the right of us lay Hankow, with its long bund and its hulks running out into the river and its opulent business houses behind; on the southern bank, the battlemented, sombre city of Wuchang.

We drew opposite a small native wharf on the south side, then turned and ran straight in.

'Luckily,' said Philipson to me, 'I have good and discreet friends hereabouts. Otherwise it would be awkward. The boat will have to go up on the slips.'

I gave him a look of surprise.

'Put your hand down here,' said Philipson quietly.

He had stooped into the well and lifted out a small bit of bottom-boarding. I felt below it, and drew up my hand wet to the wrist. There were four or five inches of water inboard of us.

'It is obviously small,' he muttered, 'but we must overhaul the boat before we go on. It will never do to try the rapids higher up with a gap in our strakes.'

The yard we had come to was capitally suited to our ends, being shut in on all sides except for a narrow water frontage; and even that was still further secluded by two timber partitions running out like the walls of a fives-court. The place, moreover, afforded easy and secret access to a native inn outside the city wall, where Philipson told us we were to spend the night. The proprietor of the yard had clearly had truck with Philipson before, since he greeted him with marked respect and more than a shade of fear.

'The good Charon seems to know you, Philipson,' said Poyning, as we stood together on the jetty, while three coolies hauled the launch out of the water with a small capstan of native pattern.

'He does,' replied our leader. 'I had the good fortune to save him from the headsman some years ago, under circumstances that will not bear repeating. He has shown his gratitude by helping me several times since. Now, to business. You two can be of no use to me here. You had better get along with Lo Eng to our quarters for the night. He will give you a meal, but do not wait for me. I shall possibly be late.'

Philipson was. We had finished our meal and smoked many pipes before he arrived, a little after midnight.

'Rather worse than I thought,' he said, setting ravenously about a cold chicken and a bottle of hock.

'What's wrong with her?'

'A leak just under the forefoot. We must have started a plank when we struck the other boat in Whangpu River, and gradually opened it out while we drove up stream. There is a good deal of sunken driftwood in the river at most times--I expect you heard her bump against it?'

'Time and again, but never very hard.'

'Exactly. It would not hurt a sound boat, but with the strake already loose it is only a matter of keeping on long enough to develop a nasty hole. Luckily we spotted it in time.'

'All right now?'

'I fancy so; but it is impossible to say, working with their wretched lamps. I must go over her thoroughly by daylight. Better turn in now, Mirlees, as I shall want you at dawn. It becomes necessary for me to cross to the Hankow side, on business which I shall certainly get through more safely in native garb. Also I should be glad of a reliable companion in case of accidents, and as a European and a Chinese moving about together are likely to attract a degree of notice we can very well do without, I shall be glad if you will don that Chinese costume which suits you so well. Poyning will meanwhile keep to this side and watch out of window for any suspicious boat on the river.'

He rose from the table, threw off his clothes, wrapped himself in a long cotton gown, and was at once asleep on the couch in his corner of the room. Poyning and I--we were all three sleeping in the one chamber--had soon followed suit. There was a deal of noise in and about the inn, but I don't think we heard much of it: certainly I did not. It seemed to me I had only just lain down when I was shaken by the shoulder, and saw Philipson standing by my bed, fully dressed in the rig in which I had first seen him. I hastily made up to match from a bundle Lo Eng had brought from the launch, and after swallowing biscuits and a cup of wine we went down into the yard together. Here I got something of a shock. Our launch was gone, and another had taken her place.

Philipson squeezed my arm. 'We had to paint the new plank we put in last night,' he whispered, 'and I thought it would be advisable to do the rest of the hull while we were at it--in another colour. Those dummy wash-streaks forward, too, they transform her considerably, do they not? If there is a description of us about, it may be as well not to answer to it. Hullo, here is our boat. Not another word of English now till we are alone again!'

We entered the sampan he had engaged, and were sculled out across the two miles of stream through a wonderful morning, fine and clear, with a fresh easterly breeze. Even as early as this there was a loud hum of activity abroad; the daily round of the great river port had already begun, and the bustle was still further increased by the arrival of a river steamer which had drawn up to her hulk just as we pushed in to the north bank. We saw the gangplanks swing down and a throng of native passengers surge across them. Philipson had been scanning the crowd, but he suddenly dropped his eyes to the bottom of the boat and muttered an order to the boatman. We turned up stream, taking advantage of any and every craft that lay there or passed, to keep ourselves hidden from the shore, and at last reached a jetty about a quarter of a mile from the point where we had originally purposed landing. Here my companion ordered the sampan to wait, and we sprang ashore and straight into two native "chairs"--capital conveyances for a furtive mission, since they were completely closed in--and were borne into the dense warrens of the native city of Hankow by a twisting route that soon robbed me of all sense of direction. I felt my chair set down, and stepping out found we were in a squalid courtyard walled in on three sides by native houses. Philipson took my arm and led me through a low doorway in one of the walls, thence along a narrow winding alley, from the end of which we ascended a flight of rickety wooden stairs. There was a door at the head of these, upon which Philipson knocked softly, and I noticed that the signal he gave was his own peculiar five taps. A house boy came, to whom my companion muttered something in the vernacular which I couldn't catch; then the servant took us through a bare ante room, and withdrew deeper into this queer, secret dive.

Philipson put his mouth to my ear. 'Treat this man with the profoundest respect,' he whispered. 'He possesses ideas that would do credit to any European revolutionary. The Manchu Dynasty have had a price upon his head for years.'

The door opened, and a small wizened Chinaman appeared in the aperture. Taking cue from Philipson I bowed low to him, and we exchanged compliments in the official dialect of Peking, which he spoke with a musical perfection. He drew my companion through into the inner room, closing the door behind them; and there I heard the pair in an agitated mutter of conversation for the best part of twenty minutes. Whatever it was Philipson wanted, he had apparently prevailed upon the rat-like little fellow to give him, for when he came out he was carrying under his arm something wrapped in cloth, angular, the size of a largish attaché case, and apparently heavy. We took an elaborate ceremonial leave, got downstairs and regained our chairs, and within half an hour were harking back across the river, again taking advantage of every floating thing that could screen us from the bank. Ah Sing was standing watch at the yard when we arrived, peeping through the holes in a curtain of old tarpaulins he had rigged up. Philipson ordered me to join Poyning in the inn and get breakfast while he overhauled the launch, promising to follow as soon as he had finished.

We were still at the meal when Philipson came in.

'All's well,' he cried cheerfully. 'She is tight now--tighter, in fact, than she was before!'

Poyning didn't appear to share the exultation of our chief. He was rolling his eye round the bare room of the inn with an expression of boredom. 'A simple, homely interior,' he said 'but already I find its charm beginning to pall. When do we tempt the deep again, Philipson?'

'Dusk to-night,' replied the leader briskly. 'I had not intended to leave this place by daylight in any case, less still now that I know our enemies have reached Hankow.'

'You've seen them?'

'I have; and they may have seen me, though Mirlees will tell you that I did my best to avoid this by sheering off on another tack. It is possible, Poyning, that you do not yet fully realise the determination of that company. They are not to be put off by temporary setbacks. After your brush with two of their number on the permanent way in Shanghai it was only a matter of time for them to track us to Nanking, and from Nanking here. Moreover, it now becomes more than a question of stealing my papers and my secret. Every victory we have gained will only aggravate their hostility. The agents detailed to destroy us will fail to do so at peril of their own lives from the organisation behind them, and they will leave no chance neglected. They will ransack this neighbourhood for us; their sentry may be watching our yard with a glass at this moment--in which case he will not see much. But if we move out in daylight, our boat is bound to be observed, and will certainly be followed. If, on the other hand, we succeed in getting away from here unobserved, we are now coming to parts of the river where it will be more and more difficult for them to follow, or to get warnings on ahead of us by telegraph. I am convinced that the delay will be worth while in the long run.'

We accordingly sat down to wait, not even venturing outside our room, while Ah Sing kept to his spying post in the yard. Never have I known a day drag so; it would be hard to say which of us was most relieved when night fell, and we could throw down the canvas screen from the launch and heave her down into the water.

We slunk darkly away up stream. If there were watchers, we seemed to have eluded them. By nine o'clock the long lights of Hankow were fading in our wake, and by half-past we had come to a reach strangely deserted and silent after the bustle of the great hub of Chinese riverine traffic. We drove ahead at full speed, Philipson steering.

Suddenly he pricked up his ears. 'What's that?' he cried.

We all sat listening. I heard nothing, but about a minute later there came, carried far across the still water, a distinct gunshot, and another after about the same interval.

'Odd!' muttered Philipson. 'If we were at sea you might say somebody was trying to make distress signals.'

Poyning had stood up, and was peering over the edge of the wash-streaks forward. 'There's a curious light in the river straight ahead,' he cried. 'Great Scott, it's a boat on fire!'

We all looked now, and there, sure enough, was a big sailing junk drifting down upon us, broadside on and plainly out of control. Dense smoke bellied from her midships, and by the tongues of flame that licked up through it we caught momentary flashlight glimpses of her crew crowding into stem and stern in a panic to get away from the heat. They kept up the minute guns till we were within hail, then raised a chorus of piteous yells.

It was a dilemma. Our own safety rested upon secrecy and speed, and we were in no sort of position to stop for crews of shipwrecked natives. At the same time, to leave them unhelped would be to give them the alternative of a horrible death by fire or the very slim chance of swimming ashore across a mile of strong current either way. We could see no sign of a smaller boat--apparently the junk hadn't one.

Philipson stood staring at the lurid picture. 'Nothing for it,' he said suddenly. 'Yellow or white, it is all human life. I will take them off, and put ashore at the first opportunity.'

Poyning had run forward and was kneeling behind the dummy wash-streaks, boathook in hand. The next instant he had dropped flat to the deck.

'Down, everybody!' he yelled. 'That fire's a fake!'

Three or four shots crashed out, and Lo Eng slid into the well with a short gasping cough. We had all ducked at Poyning's cry, and Philipson put the tiller hard down, but too late. The way on the launch took us right alongside before she could be turned, and two figures leapt up rifle in hand from behind the junk's house and dashed for us, firing as they ran. Poyning sprang to meet the first, grappled, and thudded with him down on to the deck; the other came on, took these two in his stride like a hurdler, and rushed aft for our engine. For an instant I saw the fellow outlined against the fire on the junk. Then came a deafening report, something scorched my cheek, and I felt a sting like an exaggerated pinprick in my shoulder. I fell forward, but in the very act of falling I instinctively clutched at his knees as he stood on the cabin roof, and heaved with the last ounce of strength left in me. I think the fellow must have gone overboard, but I don't rightly know. Everything round me became a spongy grey mist. The flashes and reports mingled in a sort of wild, hell-begotten dream. I must have fainted then, for when I next remember, there was a marked change in the aspect of the fight. I myself lay sprawling across the cabin roof--apparently just as I had collapsed. When I lifted my head I realised that we were backing away from the junk and that somebody in our bows was crouching behind a thing that spat fire with a stuttering roar. I saw the great mainmast of the junk totter and fall, dashing the remains of the fire into the water with a smoky hiss, and heard, or thought I heard, a shrill scream of agony and terror from many throats. I rested on my elbows, staring stupidly, while the flame from our bows played over the junk like a hose; then I must have lost my senses for a second time....

When I came to, I was lying on a locker in the cabin, while Philipson leaned over me and dabbed something cool on my bare shoulder, which was aching and stinging abominably.

'A nasty jag, Mirlees,' he said as he dressed the wound. 'That bullet was in two minds whether to expand or not. Luckily it has left the bones alone.'

'Who else is hurt?' I queried. 'I saw Lo Eng go down.'

'He has a hole through the apex of his right lung. Nothing desperate, but he will require careful nursing.'

'And you? What's that on your wrist?'

'A mere graze. But the same shot punched a piece out of the tiller, which I must fish without loss of time, or we shall be having a snap in a crisis.'

Philipson continued at work all the time he was talking, swiftly and skilfully. Where he picked up his knowledge of surgery I don't know, but I fancy it would have been equal to the emergencies of a battlefield. He was just completing a sling for my arm when Poyning's face, the natural freckles supplemented by a liberal sprinkling of powder-flecks, appeared through the cabin door.

'Come and watch the casualties, Poyning,' said our leader. 'I will relieve you as soon as I have patched the steering-gear.'

Poyning took his place beside me, and squatted in silence, mopping his face with a handkerchief. On the opposite locker Lo Eng was asleep, breathing peacefully.

'Philipson tackled him while you were aswoon,' said Poyning at length, nodding to the boy, 'and gave him a cooling mixture which put him off at once. The managing director's bedside manner is distinctly attractive to watch, Mirlees, I assure you.'

'You're not hurt?'

'I'm tattooed blue with powder-spirts like any Polynesian, but Philipson hopes it will wash out in after years. Beyond that I am suffering from slight muscular strain and grave loss of self-respect. I fought to-night as no gentleman fights. I--er, bit my antagonist. His gun fell overboard in the course of our struggles, and shortly afterward he fell overboard after it.'

'Tell me what happened,' I said. 'It seems I went green right in the middle of it.'

'My own recollection is none too clear,' replied Poyning. 'One of the boarding party got past me, and I heard him fire. That, apparently, is when you were hit. It was just at this point that I rolled my opponent into the water. I heard another splash after that. Then Philipson yelled to me to come and take the tiller. He had reversed the engine, and we were drawing away. Philipson ran forward and began, as it seemed to me, to pull the launch to pieces. Something came up with a clank, and before you could say knife or any other abrupt monosyllable he had entered upon a new campaign with--ye gods!--a maxim gun. It was one of the pleasantest surprises of my life to learn that we had such an armament on board.'

I heard Philipson chuckle in the doorway.

'I was unaware of it myself till yesterday,' he said, stooping to enter. 'I could never understand why this boat was a little down by the head, but when we took out that damaged plank, I saw quickly enough. There is a false bulkhead forward of the cabin, and behind that a machine gun mounted on a vertical slide built into the hull. When you take away the deck planking above it the thing can be raised to fire over the bows. I give you my word, the whole contrivance is highly ingenious. When I discovered that we had such a treasure I at once set about getting it in working order. That is what kept me so late in the yard last night. The bearing parts were somewhat rusty, but they worked again with persuasion and grease. All that then remained was to find ammunition--a problem which at first seemed formidable enough. But there again my incomparable luck was with me. I have had a good deal to do with revolutionary activities in this country at one time and another, for the subject is one which interests me. I happened to know that one of my former acquaintances, to whom I had been of service, was now skulking in Hankow, awaiting the next chance to gratify his life-long ambition of overthrowing the Manchu Dynasty. That man's vocation as a rebel conspirator obliges him to deal in such things as maxims and ammunition for the same, and if there were any contraband stocks in Hankow, he would know where they were. At any rate, now that I had found the gun, the opportunity to secure some was too good to be missed, and was worth even taking a certain risk for. Things turned out better than I had hoped. He had ammunition in his own den, and on my paying a liberal contribution to the "cause" he brought himself to part with two belts--though in point of fact I imagine he anticipated his quarters were to be raided in the near future and was rather glad to get rid of the damning evidence. I knew well enough without taking measurements that the ammunition would fit our gun.'

'How did you know that?'

'I had a strong suspicion that both came into this country in the same gun-running. The venerable desperado we visited in Hankow, Mirlees, was the man from whom I purchased this boat. That was in Canton two years ago. He had in hand at the time as pretty a little armed rising as you could wish to see. Unfortunately the plot was discovered at the last moment, and my friend was obliged to leave in such haste that he could not even get to his own private launch. So he did the next best thing--sold her to me. He was much surprised to see me this morning, but even more so when I told him I had discovered the hidden gun. At first he wished to buy the launch back. I said that I could not spare it. He pressed his point. I hinted with all possible delicacy that if he were so importunate the imperial authorities might get to hear of his whereabouts. At last he made the best of it, sold me two belts of ammunition at an exorbitant price, and I took it across the stream and installed it in our bows. I think you will admit that measure of precaution was well justified by the event.'

'And may be again,' said Poyning. 'Is there any ammunition left?'

'One belt, but I do not anticipate needing it. Something seems to tell me that we have seen the last of our enemies for a season. There will at least be no survivors from this affair to report where we are. Those junks are very heavy, and they sink quickly when they are wounded below the waterline. I cut a plank out of that one. I can forgive most things, but not treachery.'

'It was a pretty cute idea,' I said, 'the junk in distress.'

'Brilliant,' he agreed, heartily. 'They must have guessed we should be upstream from Hankow before long. No doubt they had been hanging about here at anchor, and started their dummy fire as soon as they heard our engine. Without a fast boat of their own--their launch, I fancy, is still far down the river--it was about the best ruse they could have chosen for coming to grips with us on the water. With ordinary luck they must have succeeded.'

My wound healed quickly, and on the third day after the fight I was able to move about in fair comfort. We had now come to the stiffest spell of our river journey--the ascent of the beautiful but perilous Yangtze Gorges. These famous localities are too well known from books of travel to need expatiating on here. Suffice it to say that we had passed in a few hours from reedy flats and swamps into a region of tremendous limestone cliffs, sometimes rising naked into the sky like a rock wall built by the Titans, sometimes cleft most picturesquely with gullies of pine and bamboo and orange-trees or bearded with clematis and fern. Not that we had much opportunity to admire the scenery. Our whole attention was usually concentrated upon getting that launch safely past dangerous whirlpools and snag-bottomed shallows into the comparatively peaceful water beyond. Philipson had well chosen his time for the attempt. The annual rise of the river, while it had already deepened the worst shoals, had not yet come to the tremendous pitch it reaches in autumn, when the mere force and volume of the water crushed into these jaws a few hundred yards wide blocks all progress for a span of months. As it was, our ascent was a wild, touch-and-go affair throughout, and I hardly knew whether to marvel more at the capabilities of our boat or the consummate nerve and skill of Saunders Philipson in handling her. There was the usual assembly of junks at the foot of each gorge, waiting their turn to be "tracked"--which is to say, hauled up through the racing water by big gangs of coolies harnessed to bamboo ropes ashore; and as we came along and set about ascending on our own motor power, tremendous yells went up from the trackers and the crews of the waiting junks and the sailors of the red-hulled lifeboats. These outcries may have been a warning to us, but I think rather that to the eyes of these primitive, superstitious folk we appeared a devil-boat, a phantom living through water that would have destroyed any craft of this world.

One after another we took the dreaded gullies between the mountains--Niukan, Mitan, Wushan, the Wind-Box Gorge and the "Old Horse"; and when finally we reached Chungking, nine days after leaving the plains, I imagine we had accomplished a feat never before known in the history of Yangtze Kiang. Here Philipson had the launch thoroughly overhauled and put into store. Often during the next few weeks as we crawled up the rapid-fretted Kia Ling River, a tributary of Yangtze, in a native boat, we pined for that queenly little craft we had left behind. It was impracticable to take her farther, however, for here at Chungking, our last halting place with any pretensions to civilisation, we were obliged to lay in most of the stores for our cross-continental march--tents, blankets, water-proofs, cooking gear and what all; and this left precious little room to spare even in the big junk we now chartered.

You shall lose sight of us during this tedious and uneventful last lap up stream. It is enough to say that we appeared to have shaken off finally the gang which had pursued us with such dogged hatred--it may be they continued their search up the main stream of Yangtze River--and that by the middle of June we had come to the small obscure town of Kiai, where we engaged ponies and grooms and now, a party ten strong, struck out westward across "unknown" Asia.