ore or less excellent going. In this
particular district the women are observed to be all golden lilies,
whereas the proportion of deformed feet in other rural districts has been
rather small. Seeing that deformed feet add fifty or a hundred per cent,
to the social and matrimonial value of a Chinese female, one cannot help
applauding the enterprise of the people in this district as compared to
the apathy existing on the same subject in some others. The comparative
poverty of their clayey undulations has doubtless awakened them to the
opportunities of increasing values in other directions. Hence they
convert all their female infants into golden lilies, for whom some
prospective husband will be willing to pay a hundred dollars more than if
they were possessed of vulgar extremities as provided by nature.

The people hereabout seem unusually timid and alarmed at my strange
appearance; it is both laughable and painful to see the women hobble off
across the fields, frightened almost out of their wits. At times I can
look about me and, within a radius of five hundred yards, see twenty or
thirty females, all with deformed feet, scuttling off toward the villages
with painful efforts at speed. One might well imagine them to be a colony
of crippled rabbits, alarmed at the approach of a dog, endeavoring to
hobble away from his destructive presence.

In the villages they seem equally apprehensive of danger, making it
somewhat difficult to obtain anything to eat. At one village where I halt
for refreshments the people scurry hastily into their houses at seeing me
coming, and peep timidly out again after I have passed. Leaning the
bicycle against a wall, I proceed in search of something to eat. A basket
of oranges first attracts my attention; they are setting just inside the
door of a little shop. The two women in charge look scared nearly out of
their wits as I appear at the door and point to the basket; both of them
retreat pell-mell into a rear apartment, and, holding the door ajar, peep
curiously through to see what I am going to do. While my attention is
directed for a moment to something down the street, one daring soul darts
out and bears the basket of oranges triumphantly into the back room. For
this heroic deed I beg to recommend this brave woman for the Victoria
Cross; among the golden lilies of the Celestial Empire are no doubt many
such brave souls, coequal with Grace Darling or the Maid of Saragossa.

Baffled and out-gen