4 THIRTY THOUSAND MILES IN CHINA 



In this magnetic survey of China and adjacent territories 

 some 65,300 miles have been travelled not counting trans- 

 oceanic voyages. Eliminating duplications, for some of the 

 routes have been traversed more than once, gives 43,240 miles 

 as the total of our lines, not counting 2,600 miles in India by 

 my colleagues D. C. Sowers and C. G. Fuson who journeyed 

 from Peking to Bombay by way of Kansu, Chinese Tur- 

 kestan, Kashgar and the Karakorum Pass. My assistant 

 Mr. Frederick Brown has traversed Mongolia in two direc- 

 tions and has done Kweichow besides filling gaps in other 

 provinces. The total number of stations where observations 

 have been made (not counting repeats) is 394 plus 63 

 occupied by Sowers and Fuson within Chinese Dominions. 

 The average interval between stations is about 60 miles, 

 varying from 15 to 150 miles according to* circumstances. 

 Average cost per station has been about U.S. $50, not count- 

 ing observer's salary. 



My own share of travel has been a total of 45,500 miles r 

 of which about 12,000 have been in repetition so that irres- 

 pective of duplication my single routes amount to about 

 33,500 of which 3,500 have been in Indo-China and 30,000 

 in China. In Siam I have gone only where railways could 

 carry me, but in French-Indo-China I have traversed every 

 province, while in China proper and Manchuria I have 

 traversed every province except Kansu (the S.E. corner of 

 which I have just entered) and Kweichow, and have skirted 

 the real physical boundary of Inner Mongolia and of the 

 Szechwan-Tibetan borderland. 



Naturally a great mass of data has been collected, 

 especially with reference to the physical features of China, 

 and I cherish the hope that some day the pressure of my 

 college work will lessen sufficiently to permit the preparation 

 of a comprehensive volume. For the present I must content 

 myself with only a brief outline of the field that has been 

 covered, with some indication of the most striking features. 



The Eule of Five. 



According to ancient custom most id.eas in China come 

 in fives. One might substitute "funf" for "drei" in the 

 German saying and apply it to Cathay. Life consists in the 

 five relationships : between sovereign and subject, husband 

 and wife, parent and child, brother and brother, friend and 

 friend. There are five classes of society, five orders of no- 

 bility, five rites, five degrees Of mourning, the five-clawed 

 dragon (which doesn't exist) and the so-called five-coloured 

 porcelain (which isn't five-coloured!). There are the five 



