Fen Chou Fu, then, was one of my jumping-off places.
And at Fen Chou Fu my muleteers began to complain. Looked at from a Western point of view, they ought to have complained long before, but their complaint was not what I expected. They sent my interpreter to say we were going the wrong way. This road would lead us out into a great bare place of sand. When the wind blew it would raise the sand in great clouds that would overwhelm us, and if the clouds gathered in the sky we should not be able to see the sun, we would not know in which direction to go and we should perish miserably. And having supplied me with this valuable and sinister information they stood back to watch it sink in.
It didn't have the damping and depressing effect they doubtless expected. To begin with, I couldn't believe in a Chinese sky where you couldn't see the sun. The clouds might gather, but a few hours would suffice to disperse them, in my experience, and as for losing ourselves in the sand—well, I couldn't believe it possible. Always in China, where-ever I had been, there had been plenty of people of whom to ask the way, and though every man's radius was doubtless short, still at every yard there was somebody. It was like an endless chain.
“Don't they want to go?” I asked Mr Wang.
“Repeat, please,” said he, according to the approved formula.
“Won't they go?” I felt I had better have the matter clear.
“You say 'Go,' mus' go. You fear—you no go.”
If I feared and wouldn't go on, I grasped, the money I paid them would be forfeit.
“But I must go. I am not afraid.”
“They say you go by Hsi An Fu. That be ploper.” And the listening muleteers smiled at me blandly.