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LUNGMEN, HEI HSIH KWAN, AND KUNG HSIEN

So far as I could learn during my stay at Changtefu the country about Honanfu was still in confusion owing to the raids of the robbers. But I resolved to satisfy myself as to the truth of this report even at the expense of three days time and a short railway journey. Letting Mrs. Warner, who had been with me constantly up to this time, join some friends in Tientain, I left Changtefu for Cheng Chow, the junction of the Peking-Hankow line and the branch to Honanfu. At this town I met Mr. Sharpe, the British American Tobacco Company's agent from Honanfu, who reported business at a standstill except in the city itself and said that no shipments had been made over the road from Honanfu to Sianfu for more than a month. Not a cart was available for the journey though he had tried to get there on an inspection tour without merchandise. According to his account the soldiery were fully as lawless and as dangerous as the bandits themselves. While I was with Mr.Sharpe, another agent of the company arrived direct from Kwangchow in the southeast of Honan province, which he had quitted as the robbers entered. He was full of accounts of the atrocities committed by the robbers and the troops.

These agents encouraged me to believe that I could reach Lungmen without difficulty but said that archeological investigation would be out of the question. I therefore went at once to Honanfu and called on the Magistrate. In brief, he forbade me to go, but I considered myself justified in making arrangements for an early start from outside the city walls before the gates were opened, and with a cart secured through