FROM KULJA TO KUMUL 427 



moved a host of foot-passengers, — colonists, pedlars, and 

 beggars. 



The outlying provinces of the great Chinese Empire 

 are even now only connected by roads with the heart of 

 the Empire, and it will be long before the shriek of the 

 locomotive replaces the bells of the camel-caravan. It 

 requires months for a despatch from the capital to reach 

 the Governors of these regions, officials travel by cart 

 for four months from Pekin to take up their posts, while 

 emigrants think nothing of eight months on the road 

 before arriving at their destination. 



Hi, one of the richest as well as the most remote of 

 Chinese possessions, is linked up with Pekin by over 

 2,000 miles of roadway, the track owning the high- 

 sounding title of the " Chinese Imperial High-road.*^ 

 " Imperial " in name, but not in design ; for at its best it 

 is a mockery of a high -way. In its varying degrees of 

 excellence it corresponds to the different stages through 

 which the " Great Wall " passes on its course of 1,500 

 miles. This typical Chinese monument, which at the 

 Pekin end, under the eyes of the Emperor, is a magnificent 

 brick-built structure, dwindles eventually into a broken 

 mud wall, and, farther away, degenerates to occa- 

 sional, isolated watch-towers. In the same way the 

 Chinese Imperial High-road deludes the traveller at the 

 Pekin end, but becomes a sad reality farther west ta 

 those who are unlucky enough to travel over it. No 

 one would do so of choice, for in summer the traveller 

 is smothered in dust, choked by heat, or poisoned by 

 brackish water, whilst in winter he is lucky if he survives 

 the cold and the filthy caravanserais which render his 

 life intolerable. Nevertheless, in blissful ignorance of 

 such things we made our preparations, and arranged 



