Yellow jasmine climbed the walls, honeysuckle tumbled down the steps of the entrance, white anemones with lamp-black centres surged from terracotta pots, deep drowned-purple pansies vied for space with drifts of golden fabaria. Beyond a tangle of aged roses the broad, glittering curve of the Yang-tze River could be glimpsed, surging on and down to the distant sugarloaf gorges of Ichang. Gianetta Hollis sighed and pushed a glossy black tendril of hair away from her face. The garden she sat in was supremely beautiful. The light had the pearl-like translucence peculiar to China, the air was heavy with scent and the only sound to be heard was the gentle tinkling of pagoda bells. And she was bored. Unspeakably, unimaginably bored. She had been in China for nearly a year and apart from the week’s voyage by steamer up the Yang-tze from Shanghai to Ichang and the thrilling, perilous five-week journey by junk through the gorges and ravines that separated Ichang from Chung King, she had seen nothing of the country.
