A Shansi Merchant's Autobiography 23 



On the banks of the night mooring-stations the whole 

 extent of water frontage is occupied by ornamental cabinets 

 d'aisance placed by the truly scientific agriculturists of this 

 country, to allure all possible contributions from the 

 travelling public, and prevent the pollution of the streams — 

 a defect characteristic of Europe from which China is 

 happily free. 



I passed much time on this dull journey in conversation 

 with my Shansi friend, who told me his history. He had 

 been ten years employed by a large Shansi firm in different 

 parts of the empire and latterly in Western Szechuan, on the 

 Thibetan border, buying musk which is his speciality ; until 

 two years ago he left for home, the possessor of. 500 taels, 

 to bury his family, nine persons including his wife, the whole 

 of whom had perished in the famine of 1877-8. He then 

 married another wife, whom he left at home, and to whom 

 he allows ten taels a year {£2 10s.) for food. She can 

 exist a year on a picul of wheat (133 lbs.), which here costs 

 one tael (s^.), while during the famine the price in Shansi 

 was 30 taels {^'j los.); and yet nothing but forcible per- 

 suasion will induce the governors of this misguided country 

 to allow railways to be built for them. Wheat and millet, 

 eaten mostly in the form of dimiplings, but without any fat 

 in their composition, form the staple diet in the north and 

 west, rice being there the luxury of the rich. These our 

 Shansi cook is, of course, an adept in ; but I find them rather 

 heavy and sour to the taste, the flour being coarse and of 

 a dirty colour. 



At last, on the eleventh day out from Hankow, the second 

 stage of my journey came to an end as the town of Shasze 

 loomed up on the high embankment between us and the Great 

 River. We passed a handsome and extensive building, the 

 Shansi guild-house, and the town with its commanding pagoda, 



