his hand, and the horse tossed his head and ran. The
_mafu_ yelled, the coachman yelled, every one else yelled, and for a
few moments there was intense excitement. Later on, that same
afternoon, we went out to tea somewhere, this time going by rickshaw.
In comparison to the speed of a carriage, the pace of a
rickshaw-runner is prodigious. We were positively dizzy.

There is a great difference between the speed of the rickshaw-runners in
Tokyo and in Peking. In Japan they go rather slowly, and refuse to
overexert themselves, and quite right, too; but here they go at top
speed. There are such enormous numbers of them, and competition is so
keen, that the swift young runners make capital of their strength. It is
pathetic to see broken-down old coolies, panting and blowing, making
painful efforts to compete with the younger men. I am not yet used to
being taken about by man-power. It seems wrong somehow, demoralizing,
for one human being to place himself in that humiliating relation to
another, to become a draft animal, to be forced to lower himself to the
level of an ox or an ass. It must have an insidious, demoralizing
effect, too, upon the persons who ride in these little vehicles. I am
not yet used to seeing able-bodied young foreigners, especially men,
being pulled about by thin, tired, exhausted coolies. I feel ashamed
every time I enter a rickshaw and contrast my well-being with that of
the ragged boy between the shafts. I suppose I shall get over this
feeling, think no more about it than any one else does, but at present
it is new to me. Every time we leave the hotel, twenty boys dash
forward, all clamoring for us; and if we decide to walk, twenty
disappointed, half-starved boys wheel their little buggies back to the
curb again and wait. Well, what can one do? They are so desperately
poor! One way or the other, it seems all wrong.

[Illustration: Coolies]

[Illustration: Camel caravan, Peking]

We got caught in a block in the Chinese City the other day. At the
intersection of two cross streets, narrow little _hutungs_ about eight
feet wide, four streams of traffic collided, and got hopelessly
entangled in a yelling, unyielding snarl. From one direction came a
camel-train from Mongolia; from another, three or four blue-hooded,
long-axled, Peking carts. Along a third street came a group of
water-carriers and wheelbarrows, and from the fourth half a dozen
rickshaws. All met, and in a moment became thoroughly mixed