"What's the matter with walking around an end of it?" asked Rob, staring at this triumph of defensive architecture.
"Nothing at all, that I can see," replied the engineer. "Only, I suppose, no Chinese ever would think of doing so."
Again the road led over a high, arched bridge that once had crossed a stream; but the stream had altered its course and gone elsewhere, perhaps hundreds of years ago, since no trace even of its bed now remained. But because the road went over the bridge the cargo coolies, grunting beneath their burdens, continued to toil up the steep ascent and down the other side, without ever a thought of making a new path around it.
"I won't climb over it, at any rate," declared Rob. So he and the engineer walked around; their own coolies followed them like a flock of sheep, and those on the bridge stared in amazement at the barbarians who thus dared depart from established custom.
Although other American engineers had preceded our travellers through this country, the foreigner was still such a novelty that they were viewed by thousands of people who never before had seen one, and who crowded about them in embarrassing throngs. At the same time they never were ill-treated nor even molested; for the Chinese, unless roused to a blind fury by wrongs, real or fancied, are the most peaceable and courteous of people. To be sure, our friends nearly always were spoken of and addressed as "fan kwei" (foreign devils); but this was because the natives never had heard foreigners called anything else.
To Mr. Bishop's surprise he discovered, or rather Rob discovered for him, that many of the Hu-nan people, instead of being opposed to the construction of a railway through their country, were desirous for its coming. Not on account of the facilities it would offer for travel and the transportation of their products, but because it was rumored far and wide that it would pay liberally for such graves as must be removed from its right-of-way. Formerly, and even now in certain districts, the grave problem was, and is, one of the most serious encountered by the projectors of Chinese railways. Finally it was made a commercial proposition, and the railway companies agreed to pay for such graves as came within their lines at a rate of eight taels (about eleven dollars) apiece. Now, such of the Chinese as understand this arrangement are more than willing thus to turn their ancestors to profitable account.
As the dead are not collected in regularly established burying-grounds, but are scattered about in fields, gardens, or wherever it is most convenient to place them, and as the entire country is thickly sown with these precious relics, no line can be so run as to avoid them. Consequently they must be bought up and removed. For some time Rob could not account for the great anxiety shown by the natives to learn the exact location of the line. Finally, however, he discovered that those persons having graves known to be on the line could raise money on them in advance, while such as had none proposed to borrow or purchase a few ancestors at places so remote as to be beyond a possibility of disturbance and rebury them in more profitable locations.
In the cities of Siang-tan and Chang-sha, both on waters navigable by large Yang-tse junks, our travellers found shops equipped with foreign goods, and notably with American flour, prints, and canned foods, though they did not meet an American nor a European in either place. This discovery was of particular interest to Mr. Bishop, as the appearance in those remote localities, and under existing conditions, of these goods promised a vast extension of similar trade upon completion of the railway he was about to build.
Thus the entire trip had proved intensely interesting, and its results were so highly satisfactory that, as it drew to a close with their near approach to Hankow, our explorers already were preparing for another journey from that point to Pekin.
Much as they had enjoyed the one just ending, they were not sorry to see European buildings in the mission compounds and along the bund at Hankow, and it was good to hear their own speech once more. It also was good to sit down to an American table, eat home-cooked food, and, above all, to sleep between sheets in American beds. But with all these things to be enjoyed came two disappointments. Rob's lay in the entire absence of the letters that he had hoped to find awaiting him at this point. From Canton he had written both to his uncle and his parents at Hatton, requesting answers to be sent to Hankow, but the eagerly expected letters had not appeared. A number awaited Mr. Bishop, and in them lay his disappointment, for certain of them contained news that rendered it necessary for him to return at once to Canton. Thus he must give up the proposed overland journey to Pekin.