PERVERTED CUSTOMS 21 



are cast down and set at nought. What is one to 

 think of a nation who bind their women's feet with 

 such tortures that they are incapable of walking 

 normally during their whole lives ? The Chinaman 

 holds that it is no worse than tight-lacing ; but 

 two wrongs do not make a right. A Chinaman 

 will commit suicide on the doorstep of any one 

 against whom he has a grudge, so that his spirit 

 may for ever haunt the place ; he will strew trails 

 of sham paper money to lure off evil spirits from 

 a dead friend ; he will hang heavy chains about a 

 sick man to delude the gods who rule such matters 

 into the belief that the invalid is a malefactor and 

 so unworthy their august attention. The women 

 pull hairs out of the centre of their scalps to make 

 themselv-es look beautiful. The pigs are treated 

 as personal friends, and for them the Chinese will 

 perform the same disgusting offices as they do for 

 each other. 



And yet those who lived among them for years 

 say there is no race on earth like them and for 

 every peculiarity which I have set down will 

 adduce some trait in the European character 

 equally obnoxious and striking. Heaven forbid 

 that I should judge any one of whom 1 know so 

 little as the Chinese ; but their characteristics strike 

 a foreigner. 



VV^e left Hankow via the Feking-Hankow rail- 

 way, reaching Honan-fti, whence our real start was 

 made, after a night at Tchou-ma-tien, the following 

 day. The train passes through some high loess cliffs 

 and ravines burrowed and terraced like a rabbit 

 warren, among which are numerous cave dwellings. 



At Honan, George collected some interesting 



