, demolished, and sorted into usable and unusable
material, so that as the walls went up the empty spaces about the city
increased in number.

Before dawn each morning we were aroused by the beating of a loud gong
which called the men to work. This work they might not leave until the
last streak of daylight had faded, except for the brief space allowed
for breakfast and dinner, when huge cauldrons of a sticky mass of boiled
millet was ladled out in generous portions. Millet is the cheapest grain
food procurable, and the Shansi man cannot thrive upon it; to the Honan
man it is the staff of life, and in consequence their rate of wage is
lower.

A race of giants they were, handsome, magnificently built, and well
skilled in the use of their simple tools. In the use of the adze they
were particularly proficient, and able to plane a section of wood to
within a hairbreadth of thickness by the use of this alone. They liked
to use it for the most delicate work, so certain are they of their
accurate manipulation, and on one occasion when I supplied a bandage to
bind a wound on the finger of a workman who had met with a slight
accident, as I turned to take up my scissors, the head carpenter,
without a trace of humour on his face, stepped forward with a four-foot
long adze, and offered to sever the calico.

Heavy work requiring the combined strength of several men, such as the
beating in of foundations, or the lifting of a great beam, was
accompanied by the sound of the weirdest rhythmic chant, sustained for
hours if needs be.

A night watchman was employed, who in accordance with the custom of the
country constantly beat a loud gong, by means of which any intending
thief is made aware that all are not asleep. The English policeman's
rubber sole, and the Chinese watchman's noisy methods, strange to
relate, attain the same ends.

On one occasion, hearing blood-curdling yells at midday, we inquired and
were told that a workman had caught a tramp, red-handed, in the act of
stealing his tools. Our informant described him as aged, starved, and
infirm, "truly pitiable," and strung up by his thumbs to a beam. The
sound of those yells made us fear that something akin to the famous
death by slow degrees, so constantly referred to in Chinese
jurisprudence, was being carried into effect at our very door. Pastor
Wang, the merciful, was already interceding on the man's behalf, and we
sent a peremptory message that the thing must stop. Our