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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Licence has been taken somewhat to alter the route actually travelled in the Maritime Provinces, so as to fit it in better as a continuation of my previous book, "Forty Thousand Miles over Land and Water."
[2] The figures are expressed in yen as being more accurate than the taking of an arbitrary rate of exchange, when it is constantly varying to the great inconvenience of commerce. A Japanese yen or dollar fluctuates in value between 3s. 2d. to 3s. 4d. An average of 6 dollars 20 cents. is usually obtained for the sovereign.
[3] A Chinese literate, who had been to Paris for study, expressed his opinions of Europe in the following terms. He freely acknowledged the superiority of our intellectual enterprise, without being at all persuaded that it was a thing for which we were to be envied:—"The eyes of your intelligence," he used to say, "are more piercing than ours, but you look so far that you do not see about you. You have a bold spirit which must make you successful in many things; but you have not enough respect for what deserves to be respected. This perpetual agitation in which you live, this constant want of diversion, clearly indicates that you are not happy. With you, a man is always as if he were on a journey, whereas we like to be at rest. As to your governments, I am willing to believe they have some good in them; but if they suited you as well as ours suits us, you would not change them so often as you do. I am quite sure to find, when I go back to my country, the same institutions as when I left it; and I see that not one of you would guarantee me, for even a couple of years, the solidarity of your government as it is to-day."
[4] Owing to the multitudes of men who find employment in China by tracking or towing junks and boats up and down the rivers, canals, and other waterways, once in a splendid condition, but now much neglected, as also in carrying tea, salt, and other produce on their backs, over paths inaccessible to horse or cart, there is as much, or more, popular prejudice against railways as prevailed in England 60 years ago. One writer says:—"Whenever the effects of our scientific machinery in abridging labour are explained to a Chinaman, the first idea that strikes him is the disastrous effect that such a system would work upon his over-peopled country, if suddenly introduced into it, and he never fails to deprecate such an innovation as the most calamitous of visitations."
[5] It is very common to find that Chinese, meeting on board ship, or elsewhere, with distant countrymen, are obliged to resort to "Pidgeon" or English business jargon as their only means of linguistic communication.