Our host was a sulky “wild man” in the prime of life, his mate a buxom matron who had not yet lost the comeliness inherent in any healthy, well-developed female of the human species. The pair, evidently, had been long married, for they had but seven children.

A section of the bamboo floor of the tiny hut was raised a few feet above the level of the rest, forming a sort of divan. On this we squatted with 杭州洗浴全套经历 the family, chatting over our after-supper saybullies. The wife, for all her race, was a true sister of Pandora. What especially awakened her curiosity was the color of our skins; though they were not, at that moment, particularly white. She was seated 429next to James, suckling two lusty infants, and gazing with monkeylike fascination at the hand of the Australian that rested on the divan beside her. Hugging the babes to her breast with one arm, she edged nearer and ran her fingers across the back of the Australian’s sunburned paw. To her astonishment the color would not rub off. She pushed up a sleeve of his jacket and began to examine the forearm; when my companion, till then absorbed in conversation, snatched his hand away with an exclamation of annoyance. No sooner had he let it fall again, than she resumed the 杭州洗浴一条龙 examination.

“Quit it!” cried James, turning upon her, “Or I’ll pay you back in your own coin.” The husband snarled fiercely, sprang to his feet, and, crowding in between his wife and the Australian, glared savagely at him as long as the evening lasted.

We turned in soon afterward, eleven of us, on the divan. Though the front wall of the shack was lacking, we needed no covering; even when the rain poured we sweated as in the glare of sunlight. The sucklings took turns in maintaining a continual wailing through the night; the other brats amused themselves in walking and tumbling over our prostrate forms; a lizard chorus sang their monotonous selections with unusual vim and vigor. If we slept at all it was in brief, semi-conscious snatches.

With daylight, came the Burman to repeat his attempt to purchase my companion’s helmet. James 杭州丝袜上门保健 spurned the offer as before.

“Then yours, sahib,” pleaded the fellow, in Hindustanee. “One rupee!”

“One?” I cried. “My dear fellow, do you know that the Swedish consul of Ceylon once wore that topee?”

“One rupee,” repeated the Burman, not having understood.

“Tell him to chase himself,” said James.

“Still,” I mused, “if he’d give two dibs it’d almost double our stake.”

“Are you crazy?” shouted the Australian. “The sun would knock you out in an hour.”

“But two more chips might just carry us through,” I retorted, “and starving’s worse than the sun. I’ll risk it.”

“Will you sell?” demanded the Burman.

“Two rupees.”

“One!” shrieked the Oriental, “Two for the sahib’s which is new, One for yours.”

There ensued a half-hour of bargaining, but the Burman gave in 430at last, and, dropping two tecals in my hand, marched proudly 杭州丝袜足浴 away with that illustrious old topee, that I had won in fair barter with the Norseman, set down on his ears.

I handed one of the tecals to our scowling host and we hit the trail again. Out of sight of the hamlet we halted to don the extra suits in our bundles. The Australian gazed sorrowfully at his buskins while I slipped on my second pair of shoes. From the rags and tatters I was discarding I made a band to wind around my brow, after the fashion of Burma. Even with the top of my head exposed to sun and rain, as it was for days, I suffered no evil effects.

The territory beyond Banpáwa was more savage than any we had yet encountered; everywhere a rank vegetation so thick that our feet rarely reached the ground. Now and again we plunged into a thicket only to be caught as in a net, and, powerless to advance, retreated with 杭州洗浴大酒店 rent garments and bleeding hands and faces to fight our way around the impenetrable spot. We were now in the very heart of the mountains. Range after range of unbroken jungle succeeded each other. From every summit there spread out a boundless forest of teak and bamboo, turgid with riotous undergrowth. Mountains that were just blue wreaths in the morning climbed higher and higher into the sky—rolling ranges without a yard of clearing to break the monotony of waving tree tops—and beyond them more mountains, identical in formation. Level spaces were there none. Descents so steep that the force of gravity sent us plunging headlong through thorn-bristling thickets, ended in the uncanny depths of V-shaped valleys at the very base of steeper ascents which we mounted hand over hand as a sailor climbs a rope. In our ears sounded the 杭州洗浴中心全套 incessant humming of insects; now and then a snake squirmed off through the bushes; more than once there came faintly to us the roar of some distant brute. Of animate nature, most numerous were the apes that swarmed in the dense network of branches overhead, and scampered screaming away, at our intrusion, into the oppressive depths of the forest.

Though the rains continued unabated, there were fewer streams in these higher altitudes, and those were mere rivulets of silt fighting their way down the slopes. At every mudhole we halted to drink; for within us burned a thirst such as no man knows who has not suffered it in the jungle-girdled waist line of Mother Earth. Chocolate-colored water we drank, water alive with squirming animal life, in pools 431out of which wriggled brilliant green snakes. Often I rose to my feet to find a 杭州油压哪家好 leech clinging to my nether lip.

As the day grew, a raging hunger fell upon us. In a sharp valley we came upon a tree on the trunk of which hung a dozen or more jack-fruits within easy reach. We grasped one and attempted to pull it down. The short, fibrous stem was as stout as a

manila rope, and knife had we none. We wrapped our arms around the fruit and tugged with the strength of despair; as well have tried to pull up a ship’s anchor by hand. We chopped at the stem with sharp stones; we hunted up great rocks and attempted to split the fruit open on the tree, screaming with rage and bruising our fingers. Streams of perspiration coursed down our sun-scorched skins, hunger and thirst redoubled, and still our efforts availed us nothing. When we gave up and plunged on, our assault on the fruit had barely scratched the adamantine 杭州足浴中心 rind.

Weary and famished, matted with mud from crown to toe, and bleeding from innumerable superficial lacerations, we were still grappling with the throttling vegetation well on in the afternoon when James, a bit in advance, uttered a triumphant shriek.

“A path! A path!” he cried, “and a telegraph wire!”

Certain that hunger and the sun had turned his brain, I tore my way through the thicket that separated us. His cry had been awakened by no mirage of delirium. A path there was, narrow and steep, but showing evidences of recent travel, and, overhead, a sagging telegraph wire running from tree to tree. The compass had brought us again to that elusive route followed by the native porters.

A half-hour along it and we came to a little plain, intersected by a swift stream, in the backwater of which swam a covey of snow-white 杭州水疗spa ducks. On the western bank stood a weather-beaten bungalow, over the door of which was a faded shield bearing the white elephant of Siam. Above it disappeared the telegraph wire. Our thirst quenched, we mounted the narrow steps and shouted to attract attention. 杭州的spa是什么 There was no response. We pushed open the door and entered. The room was some eight feet square and entirely unfurnished, but in one corner hung an unpainted telephone instrument of crude and ancient construction. A spider had spun his web across the mouth of the receiver and there were no signs that the hut had been occupied within modern times.