"
Halting at a convenient distance from one side of the rock which,
without being carved by any person's hand, naturally resembled the
symmetrical countenance of a recumbent dragon (which he therefore
conjectured to be the chief point of the entire mass), Yin built his
fire and began an unremitting course of sacrifice and respectful
ceremony. This manner of conduct he observed conscientiously for the
space of seven days. Towards the end of that period a feeling of
unendurable dejection began to possess him, for his stores of all
kinds were beginning to fail, and he could not entirely put behind him
the memory of the various well-intentioned warnings which he had
received, or the sight of the fleshless ones who had lined his path.
On the eighth day, being weak with hunger and, by reason of an
intolerable thirst, unable to restrain his body any longer in the spot
where he had hitherto continuously prostrated himself nine-and-ninety
times each hour without ceasing, he rose to his feet and retraced his
steps to the boat in order that he might fill his water-skins and
procure a further supply of food.
With a complicated emotion, in which was present every abandoned and
disagreeable thought to which a person becomes a prey in moments of
exceptional mental and bodily anguish, he perceived as soon as he
reached the edge of the water that the boat, upon which he was
confidently relying to carry him back when all else failed, had
disappeared as entirely as the smoke from an extinguished opium pipe.
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