, the Acting-Consul, ready packed
up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in
Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular
Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an
attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as
he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and
both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king
Consulate is probably the finest--certainly one of the finest--in China,
built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the
bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds,
has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being
the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped
to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be
arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.

People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.

Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible
anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to
maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you
have got the money to pay your way;[E] but walking is a very different
thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually
walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China
Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to
Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably
easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible,
but because the custom of the country--and a cursed custom too--is that
one has to keep what is called his "face." And to walk tends to make a
man lose "face."

A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the
question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially
a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner
_must_ have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath,
because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler
in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would
travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the
honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with
this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside
on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries