24 CONCERNING CHINESE ROADS 



gently down from either side. ... In some cases, 

 as on the Wei River in Shensi, there is a gradual 

 slope on one side of the river and a steep moun- 

 tain wall on the other. . . . The loess is always 

 completely unstratified. ... If it did not exist 

 Northern China would be a barren country." It is 

 extremely easy to cultivate, and yields crops with- 

 out manuring. Manuring increases the yield in 

 grain, but a satisfactory crop is obtained without 

 its application provided the ground receives a 

 sufficient quantity of rain. 



" The majority of the people inhabitating loess 

 regions live in caves. They select with great skill 

 those places where the ground is firm, and many 

 a cave has been inherited down through several 

 generations." Loess, it may be added, "deter- 

 mines the physical features of a region at least 

 250,000 square miles in extent." 



We would make our start walking in the cool 

 of the dawn ; when the sky was lilac and lavender 

 and the little grey-blue clouds in the west were 

 turning pink. These were the pleasantest hours, 

 as I remember them. Tired, dusty Mother Earth 

 seemed for a time to shed her years, and met 

 the eye with the same freshness as that which 

 greeted much-enduring Ulysses setting forth on 

 his journeyings, or even Adam in the green and 

 gold of Eden. Pheasants called in the fields and 

 sparred and fluttered as they met ; from beyond 

 the trees came the cheery cry of partridges ; hares 

 lolloped to a distance and sat with ears erect ; a 

 pagoda broke the sky-line, while against the red 

 soil of the green-terraced fields the blue- clad 

 peasants, labouring even at that early hour, struck 



