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 paid until I got to Tengyueh, where rupee money came into circulation, and where expense of living was considerably higher.—­E.J.D.]

CHAPTER VI.

Szech-wan people a mercenary lot. Adaptability to trading. None but nature lovers should come to Western China. The life of the Nomad. The opening of China, and some impressions. China’s position in the eyes of her own people. Industrialism, railways, and the attitude of the populace. Introduction of foreign machinery. Different opinions formed in different provinces. Climate, and what it is responsible for. Recent Governor of Szech-wan’s tribute to Christianity. New China and the new student. Revolutionary element in Yuen-nan. Need of a new life, and how China is to get it. Luchow, and a little