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[[underline]] Chapter XIV. [[/underline]] 291.

the present.  I accordingly took the next train for Ta T'ung, leaving Peking that night.
On walking into our inn next morning, I found assembled there, and looking very downcast, Messrs. Tung, Ch'iu (who had returned from Peking in my absence), and Wang Pai-yen; while Mr. Wenley rode in from the Fang Shan in the course of the forenoon.  They told me that during the past few days certain members of the local gentry and been bu^[[s]]y exciting the superstitious fears of the peasantry within a radius of a few miles of the site; and that these had in consequence reversed their former friendly and acquiescent attitude, and were now declaring that they would prevent us at all costs from disturbing the [[underline]] fêng-shui [[/underline]] of the region by doing any digging.
We therefore held a council of war, as a result of which we determined to persist in our efforts unless stopped by actual physical force.  For while we wished to make due allowance for the prejudices and fears of the local peasantry, at the same time we felt that we were clearly within the law; since not only were we acting in close cooperation with an institution of the Chinese Government---the Peking Historical Museum; but we also had the approval and express permission of the governor of the province and the magistrate of the immediate district.  Hence though our local friends warned us that the hillmen with whom we should have to do had shown themselves, in past dealings with the authorities, to be a particularly truculent and stubborn lot, we hoped that tact and diplomacy, coupled with firmness, might induce them to withdraw their objections to our work.  In any case, I felt that we owed it to our backers in the United states not to give over our present attempt without farther trial.

[[underline]] Our Ride to the Fang Shan [[/underline]]
Mr. Wenley therefore left for Peking the same day, to attend to cer-