234 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Photograph by 



Edmunds 



A DEVIL SCREEN TO KELP AWAY EVIL SPIRIT; 



Chinese "devils," or evil spirits, unlike the more clever foreign variety, can only travel 

 in straight lines. Hence the rich property-owner puts up a devil screen to keep them out 

 just as a photographer makes a box light-proof because the rays don't like to turn dark 

 corners. This blank wall lends itself to decoration of various kinds and soon the open space 

 in front fills up with rickshas or itinerant barbers. Pneumatic-tired rickshas have now almost 

 driven out the old iron-tired variety. While superstition is still rife in China, a rapid develop- 

 ment of educational facilities is in evidence in Shantung. 



This is the most densely populated re- 

 gion of the whole country. Villages are 

 very numerous and they are wonderfully 

 alike. Even the smaller hamlets have a 

 grocery shop or so, and most of the 

 larger villages have temples. Most of 

 the temples have ancient trees in their 

 courtyards, and tablets recording restora- 

 tions in the reigns of various emperors 

 from about 1500 A. D. down. 



PLOWS DRAWN BY OXEN, DONKEYS, AND 



WOMEN 



We found most frequent restorations 

 made by the famous monarch Chien 

 Lung, who reigned for sixty years in the 

 middle of the eighteenth century. 



The village street is usually a streak 

 of deep black mud. Outside the villages 

 the roads are stony or sandy, as the na- 

 ture of the land decrees. 



The level and gently sloping parts of 

 the country are closely cultivated. Farm- 

 ers plough in the held with three don- 

 keys abreast, or two donkeys and an ox, 



or a donkey, an ox, and a woman ! The 

 hills are generally very barren, owing to 

 the ruthless cutting of all timber and the 

 long-continued raking of the ground for 

 leaves and grubbing of the soil for roots, 

 the great population being sore pressed 

 for fuel. 



This process has robbed the soil of a 

 natural fertilizer and lessened its ability 

 to retain water, so that the hillsides are 

 the more rapidly made bare and the 

 stream beds raised, thus contributing to 

 a chronic condition of floods and famine. 



The chief products of the region are 

 peanuts, sweet potatoes, straw braid, and 

 peanut oil, many loads of which passed 

 us on their way to the rail end at Tsi- 

 nan, on huge barrows with very squeaky 

 wheels, always pushed by one man, some- 

 times pulled by a second, while in case of 

 an excessive load the man-power was 

 assisted by a small burro. 



After two days of heavy carting, about 

 noon of the third day, we sighted the 

 pagoda, which stands as a sentinel guard- 



