24 A NATURALIST IN WESTERN CHINA 



enforce those of the West generally ends in disaster. Many 

 accidents on the Yangtsze have been caused through the 

 foreigner, ignorant of local conditions, difficulties and dangers, 

 forcing the captain of the boat to proceed against his better 

 judgment. The traveller is advised when engaging a boat to 

 do so through a responsible Chinese business house, to have an 

 agreement drawn up setting forth the arrangements desired, 

 and then to leave the boat-master to carry out his engagement 

 in his own way. This is the only way to ensure safety, and on 

 paper no one would attempt to gainsay it, yet in practice this 

 is commonly done, but alwa37S to the jeopardy of the trans- 

 gressor. 



Since we shall have much to say on the subject of over- 

 land travel a word or two anent roads seems fitting and 

 desirable. To the uninitiated this subject may seem trivial, 

 but to the experienced it is otherwise. Chinese roads make a 

 lasting impression on all who travel over them, and the vocabu- 

 lary of the average traveller is not rich enough to thoroughly 

 relieve the mind in this matter. The roads are of two kinds, 

 paved and unpaved. I have yet to meet the traveller whose 

 mind is thoroughly made up as to which of these is worse and 

 the more difficult to negotiate. A clever writer once wTote : 

 " An Imperial highway in China is not one which is kept in 

 order by the Emperor, but rather one which may have to be 

 put in order for the Emperor." ^ When any important official 

 takes up duties in a distant part of the empire the local officials 

 put the roads over which he has to travel in some semblance of 

 repair. Such work is always hastily done by labour forced and 

 grudgingly given, and in mountainous districts the first severe 

 rainstorm destroys considerable portions of it. 



It is nobody's real business to look after the roads, and 

 nobody does. The land devoted to roadways is com- 

 mandeered, and in agricultural districts the farmer takes 

 good care to keep these roads down to a minimum width. It 

 usually happens that the roadways get narrower and narrower 

 every year, until the advent of some important official forces 

 the local authorities into having them repaired and restored 

 to their original width. Roads in China owe their origin to 



^ Arthur H. Smith, Village Life in China, p. 35. 



