large bowl of rice costs four
cash, an egg five cash, and the Chinaman strikes a balance in his mind
and sees more nourishment in one bowl of rice than in three eggs. Of
meat there is pork--pork in plenty, and pork only. Pigs and dogs are the
scavengers of China. None of the carnivora are more omnivorous than the
Chinese. "A Chinaman has the most unscrupulous stomach in the world,"
says Meadows; "he will eat anything from the root to the leaf, and from
the hide to the entrails." He will not even despise the flesh of dog
that has died a natural death. During the awful famine in Shansi of
1876-1879 starving men fought to the death for the bodies of dogs that
had fattened on the corpses of their dead countrymen. Mutton is
sometimes for sale in Mohammedan shops, and beef also, but it must not
be imagined that either sheep or ox is killed for its flesh, unless on
the point of death from starvation or disease. And the beef is not from
the ox but from the water buffalo. Sugar can be bought only in the
larger towns; salt can be purchased everywhere.

Beggars there are in numbers, skulking about almost naked, with unkempt
hair and no queue, with a small basket for gathering garbage and a staff
to keep away dogs. Only beggars carry sticks in China, and it is only
the beggars that need beware of dogs. To carry a stick in China for
protection against dogs is like carrying a red flag to scare away bulls.
Dogs in China are lowly organised; they are not discriminating animals;
and, despite the luxurious splendour of my Chinese dress--it cost more
than seven shillings--dogs frequently mistook my calling. In Szechuen,
as we passed through the towns, there was competition among the inns to
obtain our custom. Hotel runners were there to shout to all the world
the superior merits of their establishments. But here in Yunnan it is
different. There is barely inn accommodation for the road traffic, and
the innkeepers are either too apathetic or too shamefaced to call the
attention of the traveller to their poor, dirty accommodation houses.

In Szechuen, one of the most flourishing of trades is that of the
monumental mason and carver in stone. Huge monoliths are there cut from
the boulders which have been dislodged from the mountains, dressed and
finished _in situ_, and then removed to the spot where they are to be
erected. The Chinese thus pursue a practice different from that of the
Westerns, who bring the undressed stone from the quarry and