ther was therefore
limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong
and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation that his
presence was distasteful to me, and at the end of the episode I found it
imperative for my own safety, and perhaps his, to clear out.

* * * * *

The Canadians I found in their Chinese-built premises, comfortable
albeit. Five of them were resident at the time, and they were quite
pleased with the work they had done during the last year or so--most of
them were new to China. At the China Inland Mission later I found two
young Scotsmen getting some exercise by throwing a cricket ball at a
stone wall, in a compound about twenty feet square. They were glad to
see me, one of them kindly gave me a hair-cut, and at their invitation I
stayed the night with them.

What is it in the nature of the Chinese which makes them appear to be so
totally oblivious to the best they see in their own country?

It is surely not because they are not as sensitive as other races to the
magic of beauty in either nature or art. But I found traveling and
living with such apparently unsympathetic creatures exasperating to a
degree, and I did not wonder that the European whose lot had been cast
in the interior, sometimes, on emerging into Western civilization,
appears eccentric to his own countrymen. But this in passing.

I duly arrived at Lan-chi-hsien, and was told that Sui-fu, 120 li away,
would be reached the next day, although I had my doubts. A deputation
from the local "gwan" waited upon me to learn my wishes and to receive
my commands. I was assured that no European ever walked to Sui-fu from
Lan-chi-hsien, and that if I attempted to do such a thing I should have
to go alone, and that I should never reach there. I remonstrated, but my
boy was firm. He took me to him and fathered me. He almost cried over
me, to think that I, that I, his master, of all people in the world,
should doubt his allegiance to me. "I no 'fraid," he declared. "P'laps
master no savee. Sui-fu b'long velly big place, have got plenty
European. You wantchee makee go fast, catchee plenty good 'chow.' I
think you catchee one piecee boat, makee go up the river. P'laps I think
you have got velly tired--no wantchee makee more walkee--that no b'long
ploper. That b'long all same fool pidgin."

And at last I melted. There was nothing else to do.

That no one ever walked to Sui-fu from this p