CHINESE ROADS 25 



a pleasing and insistent note of colour. Far away 

 rose purple hills, our goal ; and once as I looked 

 I gave a gasp of unbelief, for there before me lay 

 "The Warrior." He was stretched full length, 

 staring up into the blue immensity, as he lies 

 about Braulen. There rose the long slope running 

 down to Struy and Ben Vichart, there the Valley 

 of the Glass, and behind a knoll to the west the 

 enchanted garden of my dreams. In a strange 

 land and amid a strange people I felt a stirring of 

 the heart-strings at this shadowy counterfeit, as 

 the far-off, well-remembered names came crowding 

 on my memory. 



The Chinese, bound to the soil, get their living 

 from the land. Their wealth is in their fields ; 

 they are a nation of small farmers. Nearly every 

 man has his little plot of land, and in the country 

 districts nearly every man is poor. He pays light 

 taxes on his plot ; on the road as well should it 

 run through his domain. Often it is a narrow 

 baked ridge, dropping to cultivation on either 

 hand and worn into regular undulating ridges by 

 the countless hoofs of patient mules. Again, it is 

 a deep thoroughfare running down into the friable 

 red loess, and at the same spot there may be as 

 many as five roads within a few yards of each 

 other. When the weather is bad and in wet no 

 association of superlatives could do justice to the 

 condition of the main highways the muleteer 

 placidly drives his team across some unfortunate's 

 crop. Others follow, and the old road sinks into 

 oblivion. It is compensatory justice, they say ; for 

 the owner of the land should see to its preserva- 

 tion. An infinity of patience is needed to travel 



