Wallace and the Dutch East 5 5 



mackan kodok ya?ig kechil sekali,''^ which indicated not 

 that he was disincUned to eat frogs but rather that he 

 scorned such Httle ones. 



The days passed Hke winking, the river traffic was so 

 extraordinarily interesting to watch. There were a few 

 steam launches towing barges of all sorts, but more often 

 the boats were propelled by paddle wheels operated by 

 men working treadmills, and how tired the poor devils 

 looked is vivid in my mind's eye to this day. The floating 

 duck ranches and even the occasional great easy-going 

 junks being towed upstream made this journey a vivid pic- 

 ture of Chinese life as it had been since time immemorial. 

 Our little white stern-wheeler Shui Hing was the only 

 foreign note. 



Finally we reached Wuchow. Walking about the city 

 was not pleasant. Strangers were too conspicuous and the 

 people did not mind showing their distaste of our presence. 

 However we saw some heart-rending but quite character- 

 istic sights. I remember a woman sitting beside a large 

 pottery jar which had to be set into a niche in the hillside, 

 no doubt the spot which the Fengshui man had told her 

 was auspicious as a burial place, for the jar contained her 

 husband's bones sent back from some far land, and if her 

 grief was not genuine I never saw any that was. China is 

 a land of poverty and sorrow yet the sturdy good qualities 

 of her people have kept her a great nation for a greater 

 length of time than any other nation on earth has been 

 able to survive. 



Poor criminals standing in tall tripods with the tips of 

 their toes resting on bricks — the penalty being that if they 

 kicked one over they would strangle — were a frequent 



