followers of Tung Fu-shang, who " made their fortunes in the East." The 

 undisciplined hordes looted far more from the natives of Chihli than they did 

 from Europeans. During the troublous times when all communication 

 between the Capital and the outer world was cut off, unspeakable scenes of 

 horror were enacted in the interior, besides the siege of the Legations in 

 Peking and the massacres of missionaries in Shansi. The brutal soldiery, 

 called in from the wilds, indulged themselves in every form of pillage and 

 rapine at the expense of their countrymen ; the proceeds of which they carried 

 back to their homes in Kansu. 



From Ku-yiian Chou to Chen-yiian Hsien, the next walled town, the 

 country seemed comparatively prosperous. For Kansu, the crops were good, 

 and the people seemed less poverty-stricken ; in some places the farmers were 

 already harvesting. The road lay along broad valleys running through more 

 or less hilly country. At Chen-yiian Hsien the party were hospitably enter- 

 tained by Miss Petersen, a Swedish missionary, who, with another lady, lived 

 alone in this out-of-the-way place. Miss Petersen had a school of some twenty 

 or thirty girls, who, much to their delight, were photographed by Mr. Grant. 

 Pages of eulogy would not do justice to the heroism and devotion of such 

 women as Miss Petersen and her colleague, whose lives are spent in patient, 

 unremitting toil, far from all their loved ones, and surrounded by a dirty 

 thankless people, to whom they have consecrated their lives. 



On leaving Chen-yiian, the party ascended a long slope and came out upon 

 a broad loess plateau, exactly similar to the one met with two days' journey south 

 of Yen-an Fu, which has been described in chapter v. The road continued over 

 this sort of country for two and a half days. From time to time steep and 

 difficult descents were made into broad valleys, only to be followed by equally 

 bad ascents. At last, at mid-day on August 8th, the plateaux were left behind, 

 and, winding for the rest of the day along valleys and gullies, the expedition 

 reached Ch'ing-yang Fu late in the afternoon. In this district were many 

 Ssiich'uanese settlers, and their well-tended fields of flourishing crops formed 

 a significant contrast to the bare and neglected land owned by the lazy, opium- 

 smoking men of Kansu. These immigrants were in all respects similar to those 

 met by Clark and Sowerb}- in January, travelling through the bitterest cold 

 and snow, badly clad and with bare feet, in search of land whereon to settle. 

 Here they had settled, and the same thrift and perseverance which had carried 

 them through the privations of that terrible winter journey, were now earning 

 the reward of plentiful harvests in a land whose natives were starving for 

 lack of rain ! 



73 



