In the late afternoon we arrived at Chang-hu-fan where Mr. Caldwell stood on the shore waving his hat to us amidst scores of dirty little children and the explosion of countless firecrackers.  Wherever we went crackers preceded and followed us—­for when a Chinese wishes to register extreme emotion, either of joy or sorrow, its expression always takes the form of firecrackers.

There had been a good deal of persecution of the native Christians in the district, and only recently a band of soldiers had strung up the native pastor by the thumbs and beaten him senseless.  He was our host that night and seemed to be a bright, vivacious, little man but quite deaf as a result of his cruel treatment.  He never recovered and died a few weeks later.  Mr. Caldwell had come to investigate the affair, for the missionaries are invested by the people themselves with a good deal of authority.

We spent that night in the parish house just behind the little church, a bare schoolroom being turned over to us for our use, and it seemed very luxurious after we had set up our cots, tables, chairs, and bath tub; but the house was in the center of the town and the high walls shut out every breath of pure air.  The barred windows opened on a street hardly six feet wide, and while we were preparing for bed there was a buzz of subdued whispers outside.  We switched on a powerful electric flashlight and there stood at least forty men, women and children gazing at us with rapt attention, but they melted away before the blinding glare like snow in a June sun.

That night was not a pleasant one.  The heat was intense, the mosquitoes worse, and every dog and cat in the village seemed to choose our court yard as a dueling ground in which to settle old scores.  The climax was reached at four o’clock in the morning, when directly under our windows there came a series of ear-splitting squeals followed by a horrible gurgle.  The neighbors had chosen that particular spot and hour to kill the family pig, and the entire process which followed of sousing it in hot water and scraping off the hair was accompanied by unceasing chatter.  Boiling with rage we dressed and went for a walk, vowing not to spend another night in the place but to sleep in the sampans.

On the whole our river men were nice fellows but they had the love of companionship characteristic of all Chinese and the inherent desire to huddle together as closely as possible wherever they were.  On the way up the river to Yuchi every evening they insisted on stopping at some foul-smelling village, and it was difficult to induce them to spend the night away from a town.  Moreover, at our stops for luncheon they would invariably ignore a shady spot and choose a sand bank where the sun beat down like a blast furnace.

The Chinese never appear to be affected by the sun and go bareheaded at all seasons of the year, shading their eyes with one hand or a partly opened fan.  A fan is the prime requisite, and it is not uncommon to see coolies almost devoid of clothing, dragging a heavy load and with the perspiration streaming from their naked bodies, energetically fanning themselves meanwhile.