ying.

It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or
village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign
visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again
with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in
hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking
excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes,
and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or
not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business
brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class
could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered
foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven
pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see
through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in
their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion
then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of
indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room
for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls
and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible
questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from
the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest
Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away
and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy
would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move
the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my
journey in peace.

* * * * *

Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote E: This refers to the main roads There are many places in
isolated and unsurveyed districts where it is extremely difficult and
often impossible to get along at all--E.J.D.]

[Footnote F: This rate of four hundred cash per day per man was
maintained right up to Tong-ch'uan-fu, although after Chao-t'ong the
usual rate paid is a little higher, and the bad cash in that district
made it difficult for my men to arrange four hundred "big" cash current
in Szech'wan in the Yuen-nan equivalent. After Tong-ch'uan-fu, right on
to Burma, the rate of coolie pay varies considerably. Three tsien two
fen (thirty-two tael cents) was the highest I p