CHAPTER III 



METHODS OF TRAVEL 



Roads and Accommodation 



THE advent of steam navigation on the upper-middle 

 Yangtsze has brought Chungking, the commercial 

 metropolis of Western China, three weeks nearer the 

 coast and occidental civilization. This is a very considerable 

 gain to the would-be traveller in these regions, yet it only post- 

 pones for a little time longer the inevitable. Sooner or later 

 the traveller must dispense with the comforts and luxuries of 

 modern occidental methods of travel and adapt himself to those 

 more primitive and decidedly less comfortable of the Oriental. 

 In the regions with which we deal there is nothing in the nature 

 of wheeled vehicular traffic save only the rude wheel-barrows 

 in use on the Chengtu Plain. There are no mule caravans, and 

 scarcely a riding pony is to be found. For overland travel 

 there is the native sedan-chair and one's own legs ; for river- 

 travel the native boat. Patience, tact, and abundance of time 

 are necessary, and the would-be traveller lacking any of these 

 essentials should seek lands where less primitive methods 

 obtain. Endowed with the virtues mentioned, and having 

 unlimited time at his disposal, he may travel anywhere and 

 everjAvhere in China in safety, with considerable pleasure and 

 abundant profit in knowledge. With her industrious toiling 

 millions, her old, old civilization, her enormous natural wealth 

 and wondrous scenery, China alternately charms and fascin- 

 ates, irritates and plunges into despair, all who sojourn long 

 within her borders. No country, outside Europe and North 

 America, is of such perennial interest to the world at large as 

 China. Ever-changing yet ever the same, she is the link 

 which connects the twentieth century with the dawn of 



