Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored harborless immensities.

Passengers hang over the bull rail on the bottom deck and the second-level boiler deck rail as These steamers meet on the Green River.

The foxfire,—as the country people call it,—glowed hideously from the cold and matted bosom of the marsh; and, far from us, in the depths of darkness, the screech-owl sat upon his perch, brooding over the slimy pool, and whooping out a dismal curfew, that fell upon the ear like the cries of a tortured ghost.

After landing at Chiuchuan, we set out immediately up a macadamised highway to the oil municipality of Yumen situated up on the slopes of the Chilien Mountains in what was once known as Yumen County.]