Early next day we descended by a very precipitous but well-kept road, partly of stone steps, and partly of natural sandy soil, 603 metres, or nearly 2,000 feet, to the river, which I think they said was called Sz-t'ou Ho or Sz-tau Ho : we crossed by a plain wooden plank bridge, as far as I was concerned not without great relief, for this was the last but one of the mountain torrents which, swollen by recent heavy rains, might have indefinitely delayed our march back to civilization ; but there was almost as severe a climb on the opposite side for 453 metres ; after which we again descended 250 metres to Chiu-pu P'ing, near which place is the boundary-line between the Pa-tung and the Ch'ang-yang Districts.