Every few hours we came upon a walled city. I never broke myself of the feeling that romance and the picturesqueness of the Middle Ages were sure to be found within them, a welcome relief from the sordid, filthy monotony outside. Yet invariably, when we had made our way through the long dusty suburb, crowded with outdoor eating-places and miserable shops full of everything to a coolie’s taste, with the din of the eager shouting of wares in our ears, and had passed through the big frowning gate towering above the massive old crenelated wall, we found the same filthy, uneven earth streets lined by the same miserable shops, in fact, shops often poorer and less energetic, conservative old establishments which had grown effete, while the comparative new-comers outside the walls still had the activity of youth. Black swine wandering at will, pariah dogs covered with great open sores, human beings in little better condition, were as common to the enclosed town as to the suburbs. Often the city itself seemed half deserted, with as many ruins and open spaces as occupied mud-dwellings, though its extramural outskirts might be densely crowded. Many towns were so poor and uninviting that our cartmen drove around them—always on the south side, we noticed, close beside the walls—and stopped at inns outside. There was at least one advantage in this, and perhaps one disadvantage. Though the city gates are in theory opened “when the chicken first sing,” as Chang put it, they might still be closed as late as six, and thus hold up our departure until we could rout out several sleepy soldiers with candle-lanterns, present visiting-cards to prove our rights to extra attention, and perhaps not be on our way again until the eastern horizon began to pale. On the other hand, there was, of course, whatever danger existed that bandits coming upon us in the night would have us at their mercy outside the walls. Yet I confess to having ridden through those outwardly mysterious old walled towns whenever it was reasonably possible, and to going for a stroll within them when we lodged outside, always in quest of that romantic something that seemed sure to be found there, yet never was.
In the Mohammedan section of Sian-fu there are men who, but for their Chinese garb and habits, might pass for Turks in Damascus or Constantinople
Our chief cartman eating dinner in his favorite posture, and holding in one hand the string of “cash,” one thousand strong and worth about an American quarter, which served him as money
A bit of cliff-dwelling town in the loess country, where any other color than a yellowish brown is extremely rare
A corner of a wayside village, topped by a temple
The smaller towns and hamlets that lay scattered along the way, and often thickly over the surrounding country, were also monotonously alike, always filthy and miserable, a few women in crippled feet hobbling about the doors of their caves or mud huts, numerous children with running noses and bare buttocks making the most of the dismal world about them, usually a group of the older men squatting in a circle in a sunny corner out of the wind and gambling for brass “cash” with small cards bearing no resemblance to our own. Throughout China it seems to be the convenient custom to dress small children in trousers cut out at the seat, so that they need no attention; and in this northwest country, at least, the people believe in hardening their offspring by exposure. In the depths of winter both boys and girls, between about five and ten, wear nothing but a ragged jacket of quilted cotton reaching barely to the waist, and wander disconsolately about with the lower half of the body naked, chapped, and begrimed, like the mittenless hands of the otherwise fully dressed adults. Undoubtedly this Spartan treatment makes those who survive less susceptible to cold, which is an important asset in the life of the Chinese masses.