THE DESCENDANTS OF CONFUCIUS 



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Photograph by Lieut. Richard M. Vanderburgh 



SHANTUNG COOLIES FOR FRANCE 



"Man-power!" shouted Europe; and Shantung answered with 150,000 coolies who knew 

 no fatigue and who did intelligently and industriously the simple but essential tasks that they 

 were given to do. Now there is talk of a quarter million more Shantung coolies to help 

 restore France. 



The rivers of China have built strange 

 elements into the character of the sons 

 of Han. In the gorges of the Yangtze 

 there is the humble tracker, the human 

 tug, who conquers rapids by the power 

 of naked thigh. Through his heart- 

 breaking toil at the woven bamboo cable, 

 huge Szechuan junks are made to breast 

 the flood and a million horse-power of 

 Himalaya's snows are triumphed over 

 again and again by puny man. 



THE TANTRUMS OE THE HWANG-HO 



But the Yangtze below the gorges is a 

 tame and steady stream. Its mood may 

 vary, but it never runs amuck. The 

 Hwang-ho, or Yellow River, on the other 

 hand, is the champion bucking broncho 

 river of the world. It hurdles its banks, 

 spreads death and desolation in its track, 

 and commandeers Red Cross workers 

 with a suddenness of passion that can- 

 not be foreseen. 



While the Crusaders were fighting in 

 Palestine, the Hwang-ho emptied into 

 the Gulf of Pechili, near Tientsin. Then 

 it swung its mouth southward 400 miles 

 in a single week, and until 1852 emptied 



its yellow flood into the Yellow Sea. 

 Then it had another tantrum — hurdled 

 the whole promontory of Shantung and 

 found its present outlet, facing Port 

 Arthur. 



Today it is the constant menace to mil- 

 lions of people who live in what may be 

 its next river-bed. It is confined to its 

 present course by huge dikes that tower 

 above a million homes. The Shantung 

 coolie has for centuries set the example 

 for the little Dutch lad of the story-book, 

 who stuck his finger in the fissure in the 

 dike and thus saved his country. 



The old Hwang-ho goes mad every 

 few years and lashes a million innocents 

 with his swishing tail, but the Shantung 

 coolie, like a modern St. George, enters 

 the lists against the foamy-mouthed 

 dragon and once more confines it within 

 earthen embankments. Yellow River and 

 yellow man — and the man ultimately 

 wins. 



Then he goes 'back to growing three 

 crops every two years in an impoverished 

 soil that has been cultivated for centuries 

 and forces Nature to support as many 

 Shantung farmers to the square mile as 



