60 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



travelling in chairs in China bears away the palm. It 

 is not a rapid kind of locomotion ; but what idea do 

 you get of a country by rattling over it in a railwaj- 

 train 1 It is not so cheap as going afoot ; but then 

 it is cheaper than horseback, and does not cost more 

 than two shillings a-day. The traveller can dismount 

 from his chair whenever it pleases him, and expand 

 his lungs upon some hillside, while his coolies have 

 the gratification of trotting on with a very light bur- 

 den. Every two or three miles he comes to a tea- 

 house, where he can rest under some wide-spreading 

 umbrageous tree, and refresh himself with excellent 

 sweetcakes, made from rice-flour and sugar, and with 

 small cups of milkless and sugarless tea, which in- 

 fallibly remove any reasonable amount of depression 

 or fatigue. As we were both invalids, and in bad 

 travelling condition, we sustained ourselves, I con- 

 fess, not so much with tea as with champagne ; but 

 the former beverage was my usual support when tra- 

 velling in China, and very satisfactory it proved to be. 

 Then the tea-house has always its gossip and passing 

 travellers. The poor peasants who may be resting 

 there are easily propitiated by a few cakes, costing 

 an infinitesimally small sum, and the wealthier par- 

 ties are won over by the present of a cheroot, or by 

 an explanation and illustration of the nature and 

 uses of a revolver. I have also found that, with 

 turbulent persons, the effect of a revolver upon a 

 bottle or on a tile conveys a useful moral lesson. 



