enses with human labour of a peculiarly dangerous and
strenuous kind. Twenty-eight boatmen are attached to my single person. A
big junk may have a crew of two hundred. When the wind is not fair they
must row or tow; and towing is not like towing along the Thames!
Suddenly you see the men leap out and swarm up a precipice. Presently
they appear high above, creeping with the line along a ledge of rock.
And your "boy" remarks nonchalantly, "Plenty coolie fall here. Too high
place." Or they are clambering over boulders, one or two told off to
disentangle the line wherever it catches. Or they are struggling along
a greasy slope, their bare feet gripping the mud, hardly able to advance
a step or even to hold their own. As a labour-saving machine one must
welcome the advent of the steamboat, as one is constrained to welcome
even that of the motor-omnibus. But from the traveller's point of view
it is different. Railways and steamboats enable more of us to travel,
and to travel farther, in space. But in experience he travels the
farthest who travels the slowest. A mediaeval student or apprentice
walking through Europe on foot really did see the world. A modern
tourist sees nothing but the inside of hotels. Unless, that is, he
chooses to walk, or ride, or even cycle. Then it is different. Then he
begins to see. As now I, from my houseboat, begin to see China. Not
profoundly, of course, but somehow intimately. For instance, while my
crew eat their midday rice, I stroll up to the neighbouring village.
Contrary to all I have been taught to expect, I find it charming,
picturesque, not so dirty after all, not so squalid, not so poor. The
people, too, who, one thought, would insult or mob the foreigner, either
take no notice, or, if you greet them, respond in the friendliest way.
They may, of course, be explaining to one another that you are a foreign
devil, but nothing in their countenance or manner suggests it. The
children are far better-mannered than in most European countries. They
may follow you, and chatter and laugh; but at least they have not learnt
to beg. Curiosity they have, and gaiety, but I detect no sign of
hostility. I walk down the long street, with its shops and roomy
houses--far roomier and more prosperous-looking than in most Indian
villages--and come to the temple. Smilingly I am invited to enter. There
are no mysteries in Chinese religion. I begin to wonder, indeed, whether
there is any religion left. For everywhere