GREAT RAM OF THE SHANSI MOUNTAINS 189 



hundreds upon hundreds of miles, spreading it in ever 

 thickening layers over the hills and plains. Therefore, 

 the "Ice Age" for Europe and America was a "Dust 

 Age" for northeastern Asia. 



The inns were a constant source of interest to us both. 

 Their spacious courtyards contrasted strangely with the 

 filthy "hotels" of southern China. In the north all the 

 traffic is by cart, and there must be accommodation for 

 hundreds of vehicles ; in the south where goods are car- 

 ried by boats, coolies, or on donkey back, extensive com- 

 pounds are unnecessary. Each night, wherever we ar- 

 rived, we found the courtyard teeming with life and 

 motion. Line after line of laden carts wound in through 

 the wide swinging gates and lined up in orderly array; 

 there was the steady "crunch, crunch, crunch" of feeding 

 animals, shouts for the j&rtggweda (landlord), and 

 good-natured chaffing among the carters. In the great 

 kitchen, which is also the sleeping room, over blazing 

 fires fanned by bellows, pots of soup and macaroni were 

 steaming. On the two great kangs (bed platforms), 

 heated from below by long flues radiating outward from 

 the cooking fires, dozens of mafus were noisily sucking 

 in their food or already snoring contentedly, rolled in 

 their dusty coats. 



Many kinds of folk were there; rich merchants en- 

 veloped in splendid sable coats and traveling in padded 

 carts; peddlers with packs of trinkets for the women; 

 wandering doctors selling remedies of herbs, tonics made 

 from deerhorns or tigers' teeth, and wonderful potions 

 of "dragons' bones." Perhaps there was a Buddhist 



