“But I cannot go by Hsi An Fu because of White Wolf.” I did not say that also it would be going round two sides of a triangle because that would not appeal to the Chinese mind.
“They not knowing White Wolf,” said Mr Wang, shaking his head.
“Well, I know White Wolf,” I said, departing a little from the truth, “and I am going across the river to Sui Te Chou.”
“You say 'Go,'” said Mr Wang sorrowfully, “mus' go,” and he looked at the muleteers, and the muleteers looked at him sorrowfully and went off the verandah sorrowfully to prepare for the lonely road where there would be no people of whom to ask the way, only sand and no sun.
There was plenty of sun when we started. It was a glorious summer morning when my little caravan went out of the northern gate into the mountains that threatened the town. It was unknown China now, China as she was in the time of the Cæsars, further back still in the time of the Babylonish kings, in the days before the first dynasty in Egypt. Out through the northern gate we went, by the clay-walled northern suburb, past great ash-heaps like little mountain ranges, the refuse of centuries, their softly rounded sides now tinged with the green of springtime, and almost at once my caravan was at the foot of the hills—hills carved into terraces by the daily toil of thousands, but looking as if they had been so carved by some giant hand. As we entered them as hills they promptly disappeared, for the road was sunken, and high over our heads rose the steep clay walls, shutting out all view save the bright strip of blue sky above.
I here put it on record—I believe I have done it before, but it really cannot be repeated too often—that as a conveyance a mule litter leaves much to be desired. Sitting up there on my bedding among my cushions, with James Buchanan beside me, I was much more comfortable than I should have been in a Peking cart, but also I was much more helpless. A driver did take charge of the Peking cart, but the gentleman who sometimes led my mule litter more often felt that things were safer in the charge of the big white mule in front, and when the way was extremely steep or rough he abandoned it entirely to its discretion. The missionaries had told me whenever I came to a bad place to be sure and get out, because the Chinese mules are not surefooted enough to be always trusted. They are quite likely at a bad place to slip and go over. This was a cheering reflection when I found myself at the bad place abandoned to the tender mercies of those animals. The mule in the lead certainly was a capable beast, but again and again, as I told Mr Wang, I would have preferred that the muleteers should not put quite so much faith in him. I learned to say “B-r-rrr, b-r-r-rrr!” when I wanted him to stop, but I did not like to say it often, because I felt in a critical moment I might seriously hamper him to my own disadvantage. I told Mr Wang I was to be lifted out when we came to bad places, but that too was hardly practicable, for we came to many places that I certainly could not have negotiated on my own feet, and how the mules got a cumbersome litter down or up them passes my understanding. Thinking it over, the only advice I can give to anyone who wishes to follow in my footsteps is to shut his eyes as I did and trust to the mule. And we went down some places that were calculated to take the curl out of my hair.
James Buchanan was a great comfort to me under these circumstances. He nestled down beside me—he had recovered from his accident before we left Fen Chou Fu—and he always assured me that everything would be all right. One thing he utterly declined to do, and that was to walk with the servants. I used to think it would be good for his health, but the wisdom of the little Pekinese at the British American Tobacco Factory had sunk in deep and he declined to trust himself with them unless I walked too, when he was wild with delight. Put out by himself, he would raise a pitiful wail.
“Buchanan declines,” Mr Wang would say sententiously, and he would be lifted baek into the litter by my master of transport as if he were a prince of the blood at least. And if anyone thinks I make an absurd fuss about a little dog, I must remind him that I was entirely alone among an alien people, and the little dog's affection meant a tremendous deal to me. He took away all sense of loneliness. Looking back, I know now I could not have gone on, this book would never have been written, if it had not been for James Buchanan.
Roughly the way to the Yellow River is through a chain of mountains, across a stony plateau in the centre of which is situated Yung Ning Chou, quite a busy commercial city, and across another chain of mountains through which the river forces its way. When first I entered the ditch in the loess my objective was Yung Ning Chou. I looked no farther. I wanted to get to that town in which seven Scandinavian missionaries in twenty years had not effected a single convert. The cliffs frowned overhead, and the effect to me was of wandering along an extremely stony way with many pitfalls in it to the chiming of many mule bells and an unceasing shouting of “Ta, ta!”—that is, “Beat, beat!”—a threat by which the muleteer exhorts his animals to do their best. Generally speaking, I couldn't see the man who had charge of me because he was some way behind and the tilt shut him from my view. Except for knowing that he was attending to his job and looking after me, I don't know that I pined to look upon him. His appearance was calculated to make me feel I had not wakened from a nightmare. Sometimes he wore a dirty rag over his head, but just as often he went in his plain beauty unadorned—that is to say, with all the front part of his head shaven and the back a mass of wild coarse black hair standing out at all angles. They had cut off his queue during the reforming fever at T'ai Yuan Fu and I presume he was doing the best he could till it should grow again. Certainly it was an awe-inspiring headpiece.