Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.
The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man, who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li, and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was "two and a bit." This answer we got from four different people on the way, and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the two li so much—it is the "bit" which upsets one's calculations.
The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself—that is, I lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint, secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade, where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster. Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little, hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this was a country of erratic distances—it was now getting on for sunset—and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down his back and front.
"Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I think p'laps master wantchee makee run away." And then, after a time: "You no wantchee catch 'chow'?"
"Chow?"
No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost, and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?
Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to Fan-ïh-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse, and so it turned out to be.
At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was passing a paddy field one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud. In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun—except myself. Little boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view. But I had to change, and that was most important to me.
Later on, my ugly coolie—the ugliest man in or out of China, I should think, ugly beyond description—dropped my bedding as he was crossing the river, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on a wet bed at T'an-teo.
I must ask the reader's pardon for again referring to Chinese inns. I should not have made any remark upon this awful hovel had not the man laid a scheme to charge me three times as much as he should—a scheme, be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den, where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his tribute of vermin, was not fit for use, there were myriads of filthy insects, and I found myself obliged to stop and have some clothes boiled, and for comfort's sake rubbed my body with Chinese wine. Filth there was everywhere. It seemed inseparable from the people, and a total apathy as regards matter in the wrong place pervaded all classes, from the highest to the lowest. The spring is opening, and my hard-worked coolies doff their heavy padded winter clothing, parade their naked skin, and are quite unconscious of any disgrace attending the exhibition of the itch sores which disfigure them.