CHAPTER IV 



CONCERNING CHINESE ROADS 



TRAVELLING in China is unlike travelling in any 

 other part of the globe. The country is so old, so 

 tired, and things are so far from being what they 

 appear, that at times one seems to have wandered 

 to a new world, immeasurably more ancient than 

 that which has been left. In any other country 

 tents would be a necessity. In China they are an 

 almost useless superfluity save in the mountains, 

 for there is nowhere to pitch them. It should be 

 one of the most thickly wooded countries in the 

 world. You may travel for days and never see 

 a tree, for they have all been cut down. Dirt at 

 times is undoubtedly an aid to the picturesque. 

 In China it seems but to accentuate the apotheosis 

 of the commonplace. The people, despite their 

 four thousand years of civilisation, are in many 

 respects lower than the African savage (certainly 

 the latter has a great sense of modesty, strange as 

 it may seem), yet they cannot be treated as such. 

 Everything goes by opposites. It is a land of 

 negatives. Even the varnish dries in wet weather, 

 a walking stick is invariably carried by the wrong 

 end, and when a Chinaman wants to beckon he 

 makes a gesture of dismissal ! All one's standards 



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