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ECLECTIC SCHOOL READINGS 
 
 TWO GIRLS IN CHINA 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY H. KROUT 
 
 AUTHOR OF '' HAWAII AND A REVOLUTION/' '' ALICE'S 
 
 VISIT TO THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS/' '' A 
 
 LOOKER-ON IN LONDON/' ETC. 
 
 > 5 J > - 
 
 i 3 3 J ^ J J 
 
 
 NEW YORK •:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
THE LIBRARY ©F 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 MAR 18 1903 
 
 Copyright Entry 
 CLASS Ou XXC. No. 
 
 ^ f 2> -x- 
 
 COPY 8. 
 
 Copyright. 1903, by 
 MARY H. KROUT. 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London 
 
 TWO GIRLS IN CHINA. 
 W. P. I 
 
 I c c « t 
 
 \ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The material for this book was obtained by the writer 
 during some months of travel in China in 1899-1900, pre- 
 ceding the Boxer rebellion and the disorganization of the 
 Imperial Government. Peking and the adjacent provinces 
 were visited, and the utm.ost pains taken to observe and 
 record such facts as might prove interesting to young read- 
 ers, such as the geographical features of the country, its 
 products, the occupations and customs of the people, etc. 
 
 Almost three months were spent in the capital ; and from 
 this point journeys were made to the Ming Tombs, the 
 Nan K'ou Pass, and across Pechili almost to the Alongolian 
 frontier. In the latter expedition the writer was accom- 
 panied by a missionary, an American lady who spoke Chinese 
 fluently, and through whose assistance, as interpreter, an 
 insight into national characteristics was obtained which 
 would not have been otherwise practicable. 
 
 In addition to this, the story of the Great Bell is con- 
 densed from the version given by Lafcadio Hearn in '' Some 
 Chinese Ghosts,'' a delightful book, now, unfortunately, out 
 of print. Other books of reference which were consulted 
 
 5 
 
are '' Through the Yang-tze Gorges '' and " Mt. Omi and 
 Beyond/' by Archibald Little; ''Intimate China/' by Mrs. 
 Archibald Little /' '' Chinese Characteristics '' and '' Village 
 Life in China/' by the Rev. Arthur Smith; ''China: the 
 Long-lived Empire/' by Eliza R. Scidmore ; "A Cycle of 
 Cathay/' by the Rev. W. A. P. Martin, etc., etc. 
 
 M. H. K. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. The Voyage 9 
 
 11. In Japan . 25 
 
 III. Southward Bound 35 
 
 IV. In and Around Shanghai 45 
 
 V. A House Boat Journey 52 
 
 VI. MoDo .61 
 
 VII. SucHAu 70 
 
 VIII- North to Taku J7 
 
 IX. A Chinese Railroad ..» ....... 85 
 
 X. Peking 94 
 
 XI. In and Around Peking 103 
 
 XII. Chinese Girls 112 
 
 XIII. On the Walls of Peking 122 
 
 7 
 
8 
 
 XIV. The Ming Tombs 133 
 
 XV. The Nan K'ou Pass 145 
 
 XVI. The School 154 
 
 XVII. A Feast 163 
 
 XVIII. Hongkong 174 
 
 XIX. Canton 182 
 
 XX. The Yangtze and the Tea Country .... 194 
 
 XXL Conclusion 203 
 
TWO GIRLS IN CHINA 
 
 I. THE VOYAGE 
 
 ELLEN and Mary Spencer had lived all their lives in. 
 New York. In the summer they went to the moun- 
 tains or to the seashore, and they had once visited Niagara 
 Falls. But they had never made a long journey, nor 
 crossed the ocean. They had a pleasant home and kind 
 parents, who took a deep interest in all their work and 
 pleasure. They were sent to school, and studied well, 
 and both were fond of reading. In this way, while they 
 had seen but little of the great world, its interesting coun- 
 tries and strange cities, they knew more than many young 
 people. Ellen was ten years old, and Mary was thirteen. 
 
 Their father was a civil engineer, that is, a man who 
 plans and lays out roads, canals or railway lines. Mr. 
 Spencer came home one day and said that he had been asked 
 to go out to China for a company that was building a 
 railroad in the northern provinces. A province in China 
 corresponds somewhat to a state in this country. 
 
 Mr. Spencer did not know what to do; he did not want 
 to give up his comfortable home, where they had lived so 
 long. They could not take with them their books, and 
 pictures and the pretty furniture that had been chosen with 
 
 9 
 
lO 
 
 such care. Mrs. Spencer, also, did not wish to take the Httle 
 girls out of the school where they were making such good 
 progress. It was a hard matter to decide ; there was a great 
 deal to be said on both sides. It was even thought that 
 Ellen and Mary might be left with friends who would take 
 good care of them. But to this plan both children were 
 much opposed. They would be very unhappy if they were 
 separated from their mother, who had seldom left them. 
 Then they wished to travel; to make the long journey by 
 rail across the states and territories, and the voyage by 
 ship across the Pacific Ocean. Mr. Spencer finally said 
 that he thought they could learn as much by such a journey, 
 if they observed carefully what they saw, as they could 
 by remaining at school. They would be sent to school again, 
 of course, when they were settled in their new home in 
 Shanghai. 
 
 They felt sad when they saw their pretty house all dis- 
 mantled, and said good-by to their friends. At the same 
 time, they were interested and excited in the prospect before 
 them. " We shall have real adventures," said Ellen, who 
 was very brave and fearless, and who had been a leader 
 in all the games, although the younger of the two. Mary 
 was more timid, and cared less for what Ellen called ''adven- 
 tures.'' She wondered, however, if she could ever like the 
 Chinese, and she asked her mother a great many qustions 
 as to how they lived, what they ate, and what they wore. 
 '*' You have read about them," said Mrs. Spencer, '' and now 
 you must wait and see them for yourself. Were I to tell you 
 too much, you might be disappointed." 
 
 Mary was satisfied with this answer, but she said that she 
 knew she would never be able to use the chopsticks with 
 
II 
 
 which the Chinese ate their food ; and she was very doubtful 
 if she could eat the food at all. She did not like tea, and 
 she was always sorry when they had rice at home, which 
 she was too polite to refuse; and these, she knew, were the 
 food and drink of millions of the strange, yellow people 
 amongst whom she was to live. But there were far worse 
 things than these; in one book she had seen a picture of a 
 Chinese coolie, or workingman, carrying upon his shoulders 
 a long bamboo pole, upon which were strung rats, large and 
 small, which people bought, cooked and ate. As she looked 
 at this picture, she thought that she would not like to live in 
 a land where rats w^ere used as food. She supposed that 
 they were eaten by everybody ; but she was to learn, in time, 
 that this is not true. 
 
 They left New York in tlie evening from the Grand 
 Central Station. As they watched the lighted streets that 
 seemed to race past the window, they realized the long 
 journey before them — the miles of land and leagues of. 
 ocean which they must cross before they could sight the 
 shores of China. The afternoon of the second day they 
 reached Chicago, a big, noisy, smoky city, where people 
 hurried to and fro, and where the tall buildings, which 
 seemed to touch the sky, made the streets very dark. 
 
 They rested in the hotel, and in the evening continued 
 the journey to St. Paul, where they spent the following 
 day. Then again in the evening the train moved slowly 
 out of the railway station, crossing the great bridge that 
 spans the Mississippi, and halting for a moment at the 
 station in Minneapolis, then moving on again into the night, 
 westward across Dakota and Montana, over plains, moun- 
 tains and rivers, skirting the shores of lovely little lakes 
 
12 
 
 which were ahve with wild ducks and geese. There were 
 many pretty villages and towns, and in Dakota they saw 
 miles of wheat fields and grassy pasture lands, in which 
 thousands of fat cattle and horses were grazing. 
 
 At one station in Montana, among the mountains, hun- 
 dreds of Indians were waiting. Their faces were painted, 
 and in their hair they wore bright feathers, and strands of 
 
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 Wheat Fields of Dakota 
 
 beads around their necks ; many of them were riding shaggy 
 little ponies. Mr. Spencer said that there was an Indian 
 reservation at this place, that is, land which had been set 
 apart for the Indians, which could not be sold and where 
 they could live in peace. These Indians were all Catholics, 
 and they were waiting at the station to meet two priests 
 who had come to visit them. As the priests stepped upon 
 
^3 
 
 the platform the girls saw the Indians gather about and 
 welcome them, as if they were very glad indeed to see 
 them. 
 
 At one place in the mountains, which were high and 
 rugged, the train ran along the face of the cliffs, and not 
 far away was the great Yellowstone Park, a public pleasure 
 ground belonging to our government. 
 
 They enjoyed the railway journey very much, for the cars 
 were roomy and comfortable, the food was good, and they 
 were always glad when it was time to go into the bright, 
 
 Rocky Mountain Scenery 
 
 pleasant dining car. At night they slept as soundly in their 
 soft, white berths as they ever had in their little beds at 
 home. The road was called the Northern Pacific, and they 
 knew that there were other railroads farther to the north, 
 and still others to the south, that crossed the Western plains, 
 deserts and mountains to the Pacific Ocean. In Washing- 
 ton and Oregon they saw many hop fields, which they 
 thought must be like the hop fields of Kent, in England. 
 At Portland, Oregon, they left the train in which they 
 had spent four days and nights, and took another road south 
 to San Francisco. They were glad w^hen at last they reached 
 the ferry at Oakland, and were steaming across the bay to 
 the city, where they were to wait until the ship was ready 
 
14 
 
 to sail to China. The time passed very quickly ; they went 
 out often to ride in the street cars which ran up and down 
 the steep hills. They were taken to the Cliff House to see 
 the seals basking and barking in the spray upon the rocks 
 out in the sea, where no one is allowed to molest them. 
 The day for sailing came, and they drove down to the 
 dock and went on board. There was a great deal of hurry 
 and bustle, and the decks were crowded with people — those 
 
 Seal Rocks, San Francisco 
 
 v/ho were about to set out upon the long voyage, and the 
 friends who had come to bid them good-by. The big steam- 
 ship was painted pure white, and her decks had been scoured 
 and all the brass work rubbed until she was as clean as a 
 ship could be. She had a very strange name, the Hong 
 Kong Maru, and they learned that she was a new Japanese 
 ship, and that Maru was a Japanese word meaning a 
 
15 
 
 vessel that moves through the water. The chief officers 
 were EngUsh or Americans, but the petty officers were all 
 Japanese — handsome young men in white uniforms and 
 caps trimmed with gold lace. 
 
 The servants were Chinese, the first Chinese that Mary 
 and Ellen had seen, except the few that they had noticed 
 walking about the streets in New York or San Francisco. On 
 board the ship the Chinese wore long gowns of blue linen 
 reaching to their feet. Their silky, black hair was smoothly 
 brushed and braided in a long queue which hung down 
 the back. The queue had been lengthened by means of 
 black silk cords ending in little tassels ; the front of the 
 head was shaved smooth. The children learned afterward 
 that it is very ill-bred for a Chinese to wear the queue wound 
 about the head, and no Chinese will do so unless he wishes 
 to be rude to his employer. Those that w^ork out-of-doors 
 can tie up the queue and cover the head with a cloth or 
 towel to protect the hair from the dust. 
 
 Their cabins were large and comfortable. They came on 
 board in good time and arranged everything that it might 
 be ready when ,they were finally out at sea. The toilette 
 things were put in the racks; the shoe bags hung up, the 
 rugs and cushions taken out, and the steamer trunks, with the 
 clothing they would need on the voyage, were slipped under 
 the berths ; for the other trunks were lowered deep down 
 into the hold, and they would not see them again until they 
 left the ship at the Wusung bar, just before they 'reached 
 Shanghai. They also put their books where they could 
 get them easily, and were then ready to go on deck. There 
 were plenty of comfortable wicker chairs which no one 
 had to pay for, as one must pay for them on the ships that 
 
i6 
 
 cross the Atlantic Mr Spencer, however, had bought 
 c::c es;_ecialiy for their i::::. -r — a long, low bamboo chair 
 with a high back and arms that were like little baskets 
 in which she could put her book, or her sewing. It was 
 like a comfortable lounge, and they saw a great many 
 of these lounge chairs when they reached China, where 
 they are made by the native- The saloon was beautifully 
 fumished, and there were panels of fine embroider}' set 
 all around it, which had been made in Japan. 
 
 At last the gcrg s: ' a Chinese steward walking up 
 
 and down the decks beating it with all his might. This 
 was to warn those who had come on board to bid their friends 
 good-by that the gang plank was about to be raised, and 
 that all \'isitors must go ashore. 
 
 For a little while the confusion was greater than ever: 
 there were many last words to be spoken, and people shed 
 tears as the\' parted. All realized that the voyage would 
 be long, and that those who were about to separate might 
 never meet again. 
 
 When the last visitor passed down and stepped upon 
 the dock the hea^-A- plank was drawn up, fastened securely 
 to the ship's side, not to be lowered again until they reached 
 Honolulu. Then there was a long, hoarse whistle, and one 
 sharp, sudden clang of the bell. High on the bridge stood 
 the captain, with the pilot directing the ship's course, sig- 
 naling to the engineer in the engine room far below. The 
 great ship moved slowly from the dock, the space widening 
 and widening, until they could no longer see the features of 
 the people on the pier, only an indistinct mass of faces 
 and waving handkerchiefs that soon became the tiniest white 
 specks. 
 
17 
 
 -Both Mary and Ellen had often seen pictures of the Bay 
 of San Francisco, and the narrow opening into the ocean 
 which is called the Golden Gate. But it was far more beau- 
 tiful than any picture, with its green, rocky islands and 
 the tall peak of ]\It. Tamalpais, which seemed almost to 
 touch the clouds. 
 
 A little boy stood looking through the railing around the 
 decks, as the ship moved slowly through the water. 
 
 The Golden Gate 
 
 ''What do you see?'' Ellen asked him. 
 
 " I am waiting to see the Golden Gate,'' he replied. 
 
 " That is the Golden Gate," she explained, pointing out the 
 two headlands. 
 
 His face clouded over, and he said with much disappoint- 
 ment: ''That? I thought they were gates of real gold." 
 He was very little, and had never been taught, and he was 
 not in the least pleased to know that the headlands were 
 so named from the bright, yellow poppies, which, in the 
 spring, cover the two cliffs from the top to the water's edge. 
 
 KROUT's CHINA — 2 
 
i8 
 
 The ocean proved to be very smooth, although the Pacific 
 does not always deserve its name. There are often terrible 
 storms, and in the long swell that lasts for several days 
 after a storm the ship rolls and pitches, so that it is not 
 safe to walk about, and all this time the sky is blue and 
 the sun shining. 
 
 In a little while they began to enjoy the life on shipboard, 
 for neither Mary nor Ellen was in the least seasick. They 
 were ready for the cold, salt-water baths when they woke 
 in the morning, and they had keen appetites for the toast 
 and the hot cofifee and oranges that were brought to them 
 
 afterward. There was 
 time for a good walk 
 or a game of bull-board 
 on deck before breakfast 
 at half-past eight. They 
 ^^^^^?r^^.^ ^^S2^^^?^^^^^F"had never seen anything 
 ^^^^^^-_y^^^^^^^^=^:^~^ so blue as the water, 
 
 Flying Fish which was very diflfer- 
 
 ent from the gray Atlantic, and there was much more 
 life. Flocks of brown sea birds followed them, circling 
 round and round the ship, fighting for the remnants of food 
 which the cook threw overboard, or resting on the waves 
 which rocked them like a cradle. As the ship sailed south- 
 east toward the Hawaiian Islands, it grew much warmer; 
 they saw shoals of flying fish, like flocks of snow-white birds. 
 They leaped from the water, and moved rapidly, often for 
 a long distance, then dropped back again. They had a sad 
 life, between the hungry fish that pursued them under the 
 waves and the gulls that pounced down upon them when they 
 rose into the air. One morning when the girls came on deck, 
 
19 
 
 as usual, the sea was like glass ; there was not a ripple, and 
 it was studded, as far as the eye could see, with strange, 
 delicate things that they knew must be Portuguese men-of- 
 war, living creatures that float on the water with a mimic 
 sail. There were thousands of them, and they were about 
 the ship all day. As they approached the tropics there were 
 sudden showers and splendid rainbows, and the air grew 
 softer and the sunshine brighter. The nights, too, changed ; 
 
 Diamond Head 
 
 they had never seen the stars so large and brilliant or so 
 close above their heads. 
 
 The first of the Hawaiian Islands that they saw was 
 Molokai, a low, gray coast like a cloud along the edge of 
 the horizon; then the bare, brown peaks of Oahu, Koko 
 Head and Diamond Head. They were surprised to see 
 the harbor of Honolulu crowded with ships. The first 
 pilot had left them after he had taken them through the 
 
20 
 
 Golden Gate, and now a rope ladder was let down over 
 the ship's side, that a new pilot might come on board. His 
 boat was rowed by dark-skinned Hawaiians, who wore 
 wreathes of flowers around their straw hats and laughed 
 and chattered in their soft, musical language. 
 
 The pilot was a big, good-natured man, and shook hands 
 with the captain and asked what sort of a voyage he had 
 had. Other men also came on board before the passengers 
 were allowed to land. These w^ere the customhouse officers, 
 and the health officers. The customhouse officers were sent 
 to see that no one smuggled ashore articles for which they 
 were required to pay a tax, called " duty/' and which had 
 to be examined and the duty paid on the deck. It was the 
 business of the health officers to see that there was no 
 contagious disease, like smallpox 'or plague, among the 
 passengers. Had there been, the ship would not have been 
 allowed to come into the harbor, and the people obliged 
 to go ashore would have been sent first to an island, called 
 the Quarantine Station, until it was certain that they would 
 not be ill, or until they were well, if they had the disease. 
 This is done, ^Ir. Spencer said, in civilized countries all 
 over the world to keep disease from spreading. 
 
 All on board were well, so they were not detained. Those 
 who were to leave the ship to remain in the Islands for 
 awhile, and go on from there to Samoa, Xew Zealand or 
 Australia in another ship, had their baggage taken off to 
 the dock, where it was opened and examined by other 
 customhouse officers, called inspectors. 
 
 Ellen thought that it was very disagreeable to have one's 
 trunks and bags opened, bvit she noticed that nothing was 
 disturbed, and that the trunks were quickly closed and 
 
21 
 
 marked with chalk to show that they had been inspected 
 and could now be taken away. The dock was covered with 
 a low roof, but open at either end, and heavy gates shut 
 it off from the street ; no luggage that had not been marked 
 by the men who examined it could be taken through this 
 gate. The dock was crowded with people watching the 
 passengers land; many were expecting friends whom they 
 were very glad to see. The Hawaiians talked and laughed 
 a great deal. Both men and women were dark-eyed and 
 
 Hawaiian Girls 
 
 dark-skinned, and, like the men that they had seen rowing 
 the pilot's boat, all wore wreaths of fragrant flowers around 
 their hats and throats. The women wore loose, flowing 
 gowns, called holokiis, white, blue or pink, which suited 
 them well. 
 
 Ellen and Mary were delighted with everything, for it 
 was their first sight of a foreign country. The air was 
 fragrant with flowers ; the palms waved softly in the pleasant 
 
22 
 
 wind, and there were countless trees and shrubs, brilliant 
 pink, purple and yellow blossoming vines, which they had 
 never seen before. 
 
 Air. Spencer had decided not to stay on board the ship 
 that night, as they would be taking on coal; and, although 
 all the doors and small, round windows, called portholes, 
 would be tightly closed, yet the dust would sift in, and 
 the noise of the men at work would keep one from sleeping. 
 So they went to the hotel. As they drove through the 
 narrow, crooked streets they were surprised to see so many 
 handsome shops, quite like those at home, where one could 
 buy almost anything one needed. The houses were com- 
 fortable and attractive, with their wide verandas and shady 
 grounds filled with ferns and palms. 
 
 That evening there was a concert on the lawn at the 
 hotel, to which a great many people came. The musicians 
 were Hawaiian boys, dressed in suits of white duck, all 
 wearing wreaths or leis; they played and sang Hawaiian 
 airs, which were very sweet and sad. 
 
 After breakfast the next morning the Spencers went for 
 a long drive to Waikiki, a beautiful beach, where the 
 sea came rolling in, tossing its white surf high in air. 
 
 The Hawaiians were bathings and rowing about in narrow 
 canoes with a curved framework at one side which kept the 
 boat from upsetting. Others were riding upon long surf- 
 boards, painted at one end, which they take far out beyond 
 the breakers and there wait until they can catch a rushing 
 wave that carries them swiftly to the shore. The Hawaiians, 
 their father told the girls, spend a great part of their lives 
 in the water, and even children dive and swim like fish. 
 
 They came back through Kapiolani Park, which was 
 
23 
 
 named for the wife of the last Hawaiian king. There was 
 still time to drive up to the Pali, a steep cleft in the moun- 
 tain, which is reached by a good road. From the Pali, 
 around which thick white clouds were floating, they saw the 
 city, which lay like a tropical garden far below, the ships 
 in the harbor, and a fringe of white surf beating against 
 
 Swimming with Boards 
 
 the reef, with the blue sea stretching on and on, to where 
 it seemed to meet the sky. 
 
 They would have liked to stay longer in Honolulu, but 
 the Hong Kong Maru was to sail at noon; they had paid 
 for their passage, and Mr. Spencer was anxious to reach 
 Shanghai. 
 
 They saw Diamond Head fade in the distance, and in a 
 little while sighted Kauai, another of the Islands, which is 
 
24 
 
 so green and fertile that the Hawaiians call it the " Garden 
 Island/' Then they saw no more land until they sighted the 
 shores of Japan, which are rugged and steep like those 
 of Hawaii. 
 
 The time passed very quickly, although it was two weeks 
 before they reached Yokohama, which was the next port at 
 which they touched. 
 
 At Honolulu many Japanese came on board who had been 
 working on the large sugar plantations in the Islands. They 
 stayed on the lower deck and slept in a part of the ship 
 which Mr. Spencer called '' the native steerage," which 
 no white people were expected to share. 
 
 Mary and Ellen were very much interested in the Jap- 
 anese. When the sun shone they came out upon their own 
 deck, the men wrapped in scarlet blankets and smoking tiny 
 pipes. The women also smoked ; a few of them sewed, and 
 both men and women took care of the children, who, with 
 their shaved heads, bright eyes and gay dresses were like 
 pretty little dolls. The children seldom cried or quar- 
 reled, but played with their parents, or with each other, like 
 kittens. The Japanese ate a great deal of rice, and drank 
 hot tea at all hours of the day. One man had been ill when 
 he came on board at Honolulu. He was going home so 
 that he might die in his own country, and among his family. 
 But he grew worse and worse, and one morning when the 
 ship's doctor came to breakfast he told Mr. Spencer that 
 the poor fellow had died during the night. 
 
 When people die on shipboard the body is either taken to 
 the nearest port and sent back home, or buried at sea. The 
 Japanese was to be buried at sea, and the body was sewed 
 up in a shroud of clean, new sailcloth by two sailors. 
 
25 
 
 It was a dark, stormy day, with a roaring wind and a 
 rough sea. At four o'clock the engines stopped, which made 
 the ship seem very still after the steady throbbing that had 
 never ceased a moment since they left Honolulu. The ship's 
 bell tolled sadly, and all the passengers came out on the 
 upper deck, from which they could look down upon the lower 
 deck, where a plank had been placed along the ship's side. 
 The body of the Japanese was laid upon the plank, and 
 covered with an American flag. All the officers, in full 
 uniform, stood near, and the captain, with his gray head 
 bared, read the burial service. At the last word the flag 
 was lifted, and plank was tilted, and the body slipped over 
 the ship's side into the sea. Then the ship sailed on her 
 way. Mary and Ellen were both sad, and for a long 
 time they could not forget the poor Japanese whose family 
 was waiting for him in his own country and who would 
 never see him again. 
 
 11. IN JAPAN 
 
 HT X rE shall reach Yokohama to-morrow evening," said 
 V V Mr. Spencer one Monday evening two weeks after 
 they had left Honolulu. 
 
 Mary and Ellen could not realize that they had reached 
 Japan. In spite of all that they had read about the country, 
 it had been little more to them than a few scattered islands 
 lying close to the shores of Asia. But now they were to 
 see for themselves that it was a country with fields and 
 woods, rivers and mountains, villages, towns and cities. 
 
26 
 
 When they went on deck in the morning it was rather 
 uncomfortable. The wicker chairs had been collected and 
 piled in heaps, or pushed aside to make room, and everybody 
 was too much interested in watching their entrance into the 
 harbor to take much notice of the little girls, as they usually 
 did. It was colder than it had been in mid-ocean, and a 
 dull mist covered the sky, through which the sun shone like 
 
 Native Boats 
 
 a red ball. Mrs. Spencer was wrapped in a thick cloak, and 
 both Ellen and Mary had put on their warm serge gowns 
 and cloth jackets. 
 
 Presently the mist cleared away, but even then the sky 
 seemed much dimmer and less blue than at home. Low 
 pine trees, gnarled and bent, grew upon the rocky coast, 
 
V 
 
 and the broad bay was dotted in every direction with queer 
 Httle boats, with square sails of matting ; they were the sam- 
 pans or native boats of the fishermen. The Japanese eat 
 a great deal of fish with their rice, and they also dry it in 
 large quantities and send it to the Hawaiian Islands and 
 other countries where Japanese working people are em- 
 ployed. 
 
 While Yokohama is a large city, with thousands of in- 
 habitants, not much of the city can be seen from the bay. 
 Most of the houses are of but one story, except the hotels 
 and public buildings and those in which foreigners live, by 
 which the Japanese mean people from Europe and the United 
 States. There is no dock, as at San Francisco and Hono- 
 lulu, and great numbers of sampans and several steam 
 launches came out to the ship to take the passengers ashore. 
 The ship was to remain until the next day to discharge 
 her cargo for Yokohama and take on more which was 
 to be sent to other merchants in Shanghai and Hongkong, 
 or left at the Japanese ports of Kobe and Nagasaki. 
 
 As in Honolulu, they had again taken on board a pilot 
 who was to guide the ship to her anchorage, which the 
 captain is rarely ever allowed to do. A little later the health 
 officers also came on, and no one could land, and no one 
 could come up the gangway from the launches until the pas- 
 sengers had been inspected. The health officers were small, 
 dark men in white uiforms trimmed with gold lace, and 
 they wore small swords. Upon their caps were gold coro- 
 nets and letters, showing that they were officers of His 
 Imperial Majesty, the Emperor of Japan. The American 
 inspectors in San Francisco had worn dark-blue suits with 
 brass buttons, and the three letters '' U. S. /V." on their caps. 
 
28 
 
 Mr. Spencer told Mary and Ellen that the first foreign 
 ships that were freely allowed to enter Japanese ports were 
 American ships. They had been sent out to Japan under 
 the brave officer Commodore Perry, about fifty years ago, 
 to induce the Emperor to promise that sailors shipwrecked 
 on the Japanese coast should be kindly treated and allowed 
 to go back to their own country when ships came to take 
 them away. The Emperor finally granted Perry's request, 
 and the sailors of all other countries were benefited by this 
 decision. '' I am glad to say," their father added, '' that the 
 United States has never done anything to make the Jap- 
 anese regret that they finally accepted us as friends. At 
 first it was agreed that no Japanese subjects should ever 
 be allowed to go to the United States in the wonderful 
 foreign ships ; now there are hundreds in our country. 
 Young men have come here to work, and there are many 
 studying in our schools and colleges. Others have shops 
 in our cities, and there are even a few Japanese girls, who 
 are also studying in our schools. The Japanese to-day have 
 ships of their own ; steamers like this, and great warships 
 for defense against their enemies, much larger and better 
 than those that they thought so wonderful when Commodore 
 Perry visited them. They have become strong and pros- 
 perous, and have railroads, as well as steamships, and all 
 this has been done within fifty years. There are many 
 people, however,'' he said, '' who knew the Japanese twenty- 
 five years ago, and liked them better then than now. They 
 have learned a good many things from the foreigners, as 
 they call Europeans and Americans, that it would have been 
 much better for them not to know." 
 
 When the health officers learned that a man had died 
 
29 
 
 on board they were very anxious, and examined all the pas- 
 sengers carefully. This took several hours, and the captaiij 
 was much vexed at the delay. 
 
 When it was over, and they had had their breakfast, Mr. 
 and Mrs. Spencer and the two girls went in one of the 
 launches and were taken to the quay. A great many ships 
 lay outside the breakwater where the Hong Kong Maru was 
 anchored. The breakwater was a structure of stones and 
 timbers, built from the bed of the bay to the surface of the 
 water, to break the force of the waves that roll landward 
 during storms, and there are narrow openings in it by 
 which vessels can pass in and out. Among the ships were 
 two, white like their own, with the American flag floating 
 from the peak. These were transports — ships that were 
 carrying soldiers to San Francisco from Manila, in the 
 Philippines. 
 
 When the little, puffing, launch steamed alongside the 
 stone steps of the quay, they walked across the gang plank, 
 glad to be once more on dry land. Up and down the street 
 were the funniest little vehicles that they had ever seen. 
 They had slender shafts, two wheels and a hood, like a 
 baby's perambulator; they were drawn by men, instead 
 of ponies, and were called '' jinrikishas." Mary and Ellen 
 grew accustomed to them before they had been long in the 
 East, for they are used everywhere in Japan, and in all 
 the Chinese cities where there are many Europeans. A 
 jinrikisha carries usually but one passenger, although two 
 Japanese ladies frequently hire one together. 
 
 The stout little '' rikisha " men were quaintly dressed in 
 short blue cotton trousers, a blue cotton blouse with a design 
 embroidered on the back in white, and they wore straw hats 
 
30 
 
 with broad, drooping brims. They were barefooted, and the 
 muscles of the calves of their legs were greatly enlarged 
 from constant running between the shafts of the little car- 
 riages. They move at a quick trot, a pace which they keep 
 for miles and all day long, stopping only to eat and drink. 
 They are cheerful and contented and very polite, though 
 
 A Jinrikisha 
 
 they are paid small wages. Mary and Ellen thought it 
 funny to see their father and mother riding in jinrikishas, 
 and they made quite a procession — the four that Mr. 
 Spencer had hired for the family, and the two which came 
 last, loaded with their luggage, following one behind the 
 other. 
 
31 
 
 They kept the middle of the street, which was wide and 
 clean. On one side were low houses, with galleries enclosed 
 in glass, looking out across the bay. The gardens were not 
 so fine as those in Honolulu, but they saw a good many 
 plants and shrubs that were new to them. All the hotels 
 were on this street, facing the bay. It is called the Bund, 
 which is the name given in all the seaboard cities of Asia 
 to the water front. They found a pleasant, quiet hotel, with 
 polite and attentive Japanese servants who seemed anxious 
 to please them. 
 
 As on shipboard, luncheon was called tifHn, and this 
 word was also used everywhere in China. In the afternoon 
 they went by railway to Tokyo, the capital, which was a 
 journey of but twenty minutes. The engine and carriages 
 were like a toy train. The carriages for the poorer Japanese 
 were plainer than those for foreigners and Japanese of 
 rank and wealth. 
 
 Mary and Ellen were amused at the people in the station. 
 Newsboys went up and down selling papers which were 
 printed in odd, black characters; other vendors were selling 
 tea in cups and luncheons done up in neat, white, wooden 
 boxes. '' May I buy one?" Mary asked her mother. '' Yes, 
 if you think you can eat the food,'' her mother said. 
 
 But this Mary would not promise to do ; she did not know 
 whether she would like the things that the Japanese ate 
 with such relish. 
 
 " But if I do not,'' she said, '' I can give it to someone; I 
 do not think it would be refused." So the box was bought. 
 They opened it carefully and found in one end of it a 
 quantity of fresh, steamed rice; some strange-looking 
 pickles, fungi and mushrooms. There was no bread, for 
 
32 
 
 the Japanese, like the Chinese, eat rice instead of bread, 
 which is a luxury. A pair of new, wooden chopsticks went 
 with the box. Mary and Ellen laughed, and shook their 
 heads ; they did not want the rice, and did not care to taste 
 the mushrooms. Ellen held out the box to a little girl 
 dressed in a pretty gown of blue cotton, called a kimona. 
 
 Her hair was arranged 
 over a cushion and held 
 in place with gilt pins, 
 like those which her 
 mother also wore. The 
 child was very shy, and 
 held to her mother's 
 skirts. The woman said 
 something in Japanese, 
 and then the little one 
 stretched out her hand, 
 took the box, and both 
 the mother and child 
 bowed very low several 
 times. 
 
 A few of the Japanese 
 wore the European 
 dress, or a mixture of 
 foreign and native cos- 
 tume, but these, Mary 
 
 Japanese Ladies 
 
 and Ellen agreed, were not half so interesting as the Japan- 
 ese who still preferred their own dress. Many of the pretty 
 little ladies wore delicate gray, blue, or brown silks and 
 crepes, and all, rich and poor alike, had socks of white 
 cloth and shoes called geta^ which are little more than soles 
 
33 
 
 with a strap passing between the great toe and the second 
 toe, to hold them in place. Each pair of geta is furnished 
 with small bits of wood, instead of heels, upon which the 
 wearer balances herself awkwardly, and which make a 
 clattering sound as the crowds move to and fro. 
 
 The country was very green, with fields and gardens 
 cultivated with great care. Upon the hillsides among the 
 shrubs they saw huge Japanese letters, and they were much 
 surprised when their father told them that these were 
 advertisements, precisely like the ugly signs that are painted 
 upon roofs and fences and rocks at home. It is one of 
 the things that the Japanese have learned from the for- 
 eigners that it would be better for them not to know. 
 
 Japanese Shoes 
 
 At Tokyo the station is much like that at Yokohama, 
 but the city itself is far more Japanese. The streets are 
 muddy in wet weather and lined on either side with low 
 wooden shops, in which there are many beautiful things 
 for sale. They hired jinrikishas again, and were drawn 
 rapidly through the city, which spreads over much ground. 
 On the main street they found a very dilapidated street 
 car line, the cars drawn by poor, feeble horses. The people 
 enjoyed riding in the cars, especially on the ' platform. 
 Both men and women smoked little brass pipes, or cigarettes 
 which they preferred. They saw the Emperor's palace, 
 beyond the moat, or canal, which has been dug outside the 
 krout's china — 3 
 
34 
 
 high stone wall. Soldiers wearing foreign uniforms stood 
 at the gates or paced to and fro. 
 
 They visited the beautiful temples and some ancient tombs, 
 and then wxnt to a fine bazaar, where ]\Irs. Spencer bought 
 some pretty china and pieces of embroidered silk and crepe. 
 Ellen and ]\Iary were allowed to choose something, and both 
 
 Main Street, Tokyo 
 
 selected purses embroidered in chrysanthemums, with clasp:^ 
 of carved silver. 
 
 They had dinner at a large European hotel, and then went 
 back to Yokohama in the afternoon. The next morning, as 
 they were to sail at noon, they visited the Bluff, where the 
 finest houses and gardens are to be seen, and spent some time 
 in the shops, looking at many beautiful things. 
 
35 
 
 III. SOUTHWARD BOUND 
 
 THE ship did not sail straight south, as Mary thought 
 it would, but steamed within sight of the coast, 
 against which the waves beat violently, the spray dashing 
 far up the face of the cliffs. In the afternoon they saw 
 a lofty peak rising out of the mist that hid the lower 
 slopes. It was a perfect cone, the sides sloping gently 
 and widening toward the base. It was covered with snow, 
 which reflected the light of the setting sun in countless lovely 
 tints — pale rose color, violet and gray. The sky was clear 
 and the snowy peak was outlined against a background of 
 pale blue, so that every line was distinct. Mr. Spencer told 
 them that this was Fujiyama, the mountain which the Jap- 
 anese have always worshiped and held sacred for its beauty. 
 It appears in nearly all Japanese pictures, upon fans, and 
 screens, banners and porcelain. The girls both remembered 
 to have seen many pictures of it, and easily recognized it. 
 When it began to grow dark thousands of lights twinkled 
 upon the sea and along the shore — the lights in the sampans 
 of the fishermen, and in the villages. The next morning 
 when they av/oke they were steaming through the Inland 
 Sea, which is really a channel among the islands, its waters 
 studded with myriads of smaller islands. The land was 
 green, from the narrow beach to the top of the hills, with 
 the terrace-gardens of the village people. Here and there 
 were small temples, and in front of each, at some distance, 
 was an arch, with the ends slightly turned upward. They 
 were the entire day steaming through the Inland Sea, which 
 Mr. Spencer said was one of the most beautiful of voyages, 
 which they could well believe. They never tired of looking 
 
36 
 
 at the tiny rocky islands, the clustered villages, the green 
 gardens and the feathery pine trees, which could be seen 
 distinctly from the deck of their ship. A great many small 
 
 Fujiyama 
 
 steamers sailed up and down, more than they had seen since 
 they left the Bay of San Francisco; and with these were 
 hundreds of sampans, and now and then a huge, ugly Chinese 
 junk. They were very much excited when they saw the 
 
37 
 
 first junk, with its broad sails of matting, the square bows 
 sharpened on either side Hke tusks, and the huge painted eyes 
 which the Chinese think every junk must have, and without 
 which they believe it would not be able to make its way 
 through the storm and darkness. 
 
 The Hong Kong Maru touched at two ports in the 
 south, Kobe and Nagasaki. Both were pretty Japanese 
 towns, with clean streets and shops, surrounded by high 
 hills covered with pine and camphor trees. The camphor 
 tree grows very tall, and has glossy, dark foliage, and it is 
 often to be found in the courts about the temples. 
 
 At Nagasaki the '' rikisha '' man cut a piece of the cam- 
 phor wood, which was white and fine - grained, and gave 
 it to Mary. The odor was exactly like the gum, but 
 in a little while after the wood had been exposed to the air 
 this odor was gone. At Kobe the ship took on more coal, 
 for the great furnaces under the boilers of the Hong Kong 
 Mam burned hundreds of tons every day. No ship could 
 carry enough coal to last through the voyage across the 
 Pacific Ocean; all the ships going out to China take on a 
 fresh supply both at Honolulu and at Kobe. Japanese 
 women and children, as well as men, helped to coal. They 
 came out to the ship in great barges, in which the coal 
 also was brought, and these barges were anchored close 
 to the ship. Then two lines were formed; one set of men 
 and women filled their baskets, which were not large, and 
 passed them from hand to hand until they reached the 
 ship, and the line of children passed the empty baskets 
 back again. There were several hundred people, and they 
 worked all day ; but they seemed happy and cheerful, laugh- 
 ing and talking as they tossed their baskets to and fro. 
 
38 
 
 On Sunday the rocky shores of Japan sank out of sight 
 and they saw them no more. Late in the afternoon the color 
 of the water changed; where the sea had been clear and 
 blue, it became yellow and muddy. No land was yet in sight, 
 but the yellow water was the current of the great Yang- 
 tze Kiang, the largest river in China, and one of the great 
 
 On the Yangtze River 
 
 rivers of the globe. It rises in the table-lands of Tibet, 
 which the Chinese call '' the roof of the world,'' and flows 
 through lofty mountain gorges in the west across the level 
 plains to the sea, a distance of three thousand miles. It is 
 thirty-eight miles wide at its mouth, and the mud which 
 it carries out to sea is really the fertile land of countless 
 farms which the current of the river has eaten away. 
 
39 
 
 After a while a low, grayish-green shore appeared in sight 
 with a few ash and willow trees. China has few trees, 
 and no forests except upon its western and northern bound- 
 aries. 
 
 Shanghai, they found, had not been built directly upon the 
 sea, but upon the north shore of the Wusung River, which 
 
 View of Shanghai 
 
 is broad and sluggish, with low banks, like a canal. At 
 its mouth is a dangerous bar, which the Chinese call '' the 
 Heaven-Sent Barrier,'' because large warships can not enter 
 the river, as they might if the bar were not in the way. 
 The name '' Shanghai,'' Mr. Spencer explained, is a Chinese 
 word meaning " Approaching the Sea.'' 
 
40 
 
 The voyage was at end ; but, instead of being glad, Mary 
 and Ellen were almost sad. The ship had become a home, 
 the days had passed quickly, and the ocean had never lost 
 its charm. The girls went to their cabin to help their mother 
 pack, and in a little while all their things were stowed away 
 in the trunks and bags ready to be sent off in the launch. 
 The big ship could not cross the bar, but anchored outside. 
 
 The morning was dull and dismal. The sea was rough, 
 and the rain fell in torrents. It was not easy to climb down 
 the ladder to the launch, which tossed and rocked like a 
 cork; but one of the officers helped them carefully, and 
 they were not afraid. Until they reached the river the little 
 launch was tossed about roughly, but once within the banks 
 of the Wusung there was no more motion, and but for the 
 level fields slipping past they would scarcely have known 
 that they were moving. The fields were quite flat, but 
 bare and brown, for it was now the early autumn and the 
 crops had been gathered. 
 
 " What are those curious mounds ? '' Ellen asked, pointing 
 out several heaps of earth upon which a few tufts of 
 coarse grass had sprung up. '' Those are graves," her 
 mother replied. '' In China the dead are not buried in 
 cemeteries, but quite often by the roadside, or in the fields 
 as you see them here. Rich people often have private 
 burial places, and keep them in order. The dead are not 
 buried in the fields through any lack of respect, as you 
 might suppose, because the place finally chosen is given 
 a great deal of thought. A man called a ' geomancer ' is 
 hired who pretends that, by charms and signs, he can find 
 a ' lucky ' place. He searches, often for a long time, or 
 makes his patrons think that he has done so, and he is paid 
 
41 
 
 while the search goes on. The place of burial is whatever 
 spot he may select, and no one thinks of disputing the 
 choice that he makes." 
 
 As they steamed up the river they caught sight of great 
 mills, with rows of windows and tall chimneys, out of which 
 the smoke rolled in thick clouds. They might have been 
 approaching an American city, and they were rather dis- 
 appointed. 
 
 '•' Those ^re English and American silk and cotton mills/' 
 said Mr. Spencer, '' but all the people who work in them 
 are Chinese — men, women and children. • They live in 
 villages in the mill ' compound ' — the grounds upon which 
 the buildings stand — and they are happy, because they have 
 work and good wages all the year round. Not many work- 
 ing people in China are so fortunate. These villages are like 
 other native villages — low, gray brick houses with tiled 
 roofs and brick floors, and in the shops they buy all the 
 strange-looking things which they use and prefer for food. 
 But the foreigners who own the mills pay for the schools 
 where the children are taught, and for the hospital where the 
 sick are sent, or those who may be hurt in the mills, who 
 are nursed and taken care of until they get well.'' 
 
 The Wusung was very crooked, winding and curving be- 
 tween its low banks, upon w^hich nothing grew except the 
 thin, faded grass and a few stunted willows that were begin- 
 ning to turn yellow. At the jetty where they went ashore 
 there were many foreign steamers, none of them very large 
 because they could not have crossed the bar ; a little Ameri- 
 can warship, the Monocacy : scores of junks, and hundreds 
 of tiny boats which the Chinese call '' shoe boats," because 
 they are much the shape of a Chinese shoe. These shoe 
 
42 
 
 boats had come down to the mouth of the river to bring 
 back many Chinese passengers out of the steerage of the 
 foreign ships. 
 
 It was still raining hard, but, notwithstanding this, their 
 first sight of Shanghai pleased the girls. The wide 
 streets were shaded with tall trees ; there were buildings 
 upon one side only — that opposite the river bank. The 
 sidewalks were of stone, and the buildings, banks, and 
 offices were tall and handsome. '' I could easily believe 
 we were in an English city," said ]Mrs. Spencer. 
 
 The Chinese hate the rain, and when the weather is bad 
 they stay within doors ; or, if they are too poor to own 
 houses, find shelter wherever they can. Mary and Ellen 
 had never seen such strange-looking policemen; they were 
 dark, with black eyes, straight noses, and very fine fea- 
 tures ; they wore tall turbans of red or other gay colors, 
 with dark-blue uniforms bright with brass buttons. 
 
 "' I have never seen men with such huge feet," whispered 
 Ellen; but she need not have feared hurting their feelings, 
 for they could neither speak nor understand English; and, 
 for this reason they could not answer any questions that a 
 stranger might ask them. This was sometimes an incon- 
 venience. " They are Sikhs," said Mr. Spencer, who also 
 thought they were handsome men and that their gay turbans 
 and neat uniforms were extremely becoming. '' They come 
 from India, but are soldiers in the British army : for, as 
 you already know, India is a part of the British Empire, 
 and the ruler is the King of England. One of the king's 
 titles is ' Emperor of India,' and these Sikhs, who are 
 brave, fearless men, are his soldiers." 
 
 They went to the hotel in jinrikishas, of which there were 
 
43 
 
 great numbers waiting under the trees along the curbstone. 
 They were rather damp, but the '' rikisha '' men had tilted 
 them forward so that it might not rain into them, and when 
 the men were called they came running up eagerly. When 
 their passengers had stepped in and were seated, an oilcloth 
 curtain was hooked across the front which shut out not only 
 the rain, but all sight of the streets through which they 
 were taken. Presently they heard the wheels rumble across 
 a bridge, which they knew must span the Wusung, and they 
 swept around in a wide circle through a gateway and halted 
 at the hotel steps. It was such a pleasant place, so cheerful 
 and comfortable, even on that rainy day. People sat chatting 
 in wicker chairs on the verandas, and near the door were 
 half a dozen Chinese — real Chinese — with all sorts of 
 beautiful things to sell. Ellen and Mary both stopped to look 
 at them. They admired the little carved wooden figures — 
 mandarins, Chinese ladies, servants and children, and even 
 toy jinrikishas. They were told that these were " Ningpo '' 
 carvings; that is, they were made in Ningpo, a Chinese 
 city famous for its wood carving. One odd toy was a 
 pair of fighting cocks made of brown pumpkin seeds, 
 fastened together loosely with fine brass wire, so that they 
 could move easily; the feet and legs were of wire, the 
 combs of red cloth, the bills of white paper, and the tail 
 and wings were made each of a single soft, brown, hen's 
 feather. They were strung upon a '' T '' shaped bamboo 
 stick with silk thread, which was fastened to their backs 
 and heads in such a way that when the thread was pulled 
 the tiny cocks drew up their legs, struck with feet and bills, 
 and ruffled their necks as if they were very angry. Ellen and 
 Mary were so much interested that their mother had to tell 
 
44 
 
 them finally that they must come with her as the '' Boy/' 
 as they had already learned to call the Chinese servants 
 on board the ship, was waiting to show them to their rooms. 
 The hotel was very clean, with long corridors looking 
 down upon open courts where the grass was still quite green, 
 and in which late flowers, such as dahlias, and marigolds 
 and nasturtiums, were still blooming. Many of the floors 
 were bare and brightly polished ; this was for coolness dur- 
 ing the summer, for it is then very hot in Shanghai. When 
 they went down to tiflin they found the long dining room 
 like that in any American hotel, but the people seated at the 
 tables were talking in many languages, and nearly everyone 
 ate rice and curry, as many of the passengers had done on 
 board the ship. The rice is steamed and then dressed with 
 a yellow powder, which has a strong, unpleasant odor; but 
 it is considered very wholesome, and people everywhere in 
 Asia eat a great deal of it. The rice was handed round first, 
 and then the servant, a Chinese in a blue frock, of course, 
 brought a small circular tray in which there were various 
 kinds of cold meats and fish, which were also to be eaten 
 with curried rice. Mr. Spencer said that the foreign people 
 who live in China and India have a funny name for new- 
 comers who have not learned to eat rice and curry ; they 
 call them '' griffins." There was one kind of fruit which 
 Mary and Ellen both thought delicious. They had eaten it 
 m New York, but there it was rather sour and bitter. This 
 was the grape fruit, which the Chinese call pumelo. The 
 Chinese fruit is large, of a pale yellow, with a thin skin, 
 like fine leather; within, it is rich and juicy, with a flavor 
 like ripe cherries. When the '' Boy " at their table learned 
 how much the girls liked the pumelo he never failed to put 
 
45 
 
 one on their table, morning, noon and night, smiling, as if 
 he were very glad to please them, as indeed he was. 
 
 IV. IN AND AROUND SHANGHAI 
 
 MARY and Ellen felt the same surprise in Shanghai 
 as they had experienced in Honolulu at seeing so 
 many fine shops. 
 
 The book stores are as good as those in New York, but 
 they noticed that nearly all the books had been printed in 
 London or Paris, and very few in America. What we call 
 dry goods stores, the people speak of as '' drapers' shops," 
 the word that is always used in England. But even in the 
 English quarter of Shanghai are splendid Chinese shops. 
 The shrewd Chinese merchants are glad to carry on their 
 business in this part of the city where there are good 
 streets and sidewalks, and where they can depend upon 
 the foreigners visiting them and buying, as they always do. 
 Many of these Chinese merchants have thus become quite 
 rich, and, if they do not like the foreigners, they are very 
 careful to conceal it, and are most polite. 
 
 The day after they landed, while Mr. Spencer went to 
 one of the great banks to meet the gentlemen for whom he 
 was to do business, Mrs. Spencer and the two girls decided 
 to go out for a drive. The rain had ceased and the sun 
 shone bright and warm ; everything was fresh and delight- 
 ful, and they were eager to be off. 
 
 A carriage was ordered, a low victoria with a fat, white 
 
46 
 
 Chinese pony. The Chinese driver who sat on the box wore 
 a dark green gown with several capes bordered with red; 
 his hat had a drooping brim and a queer, peaked crown 
 covered with threads of crimson, Hke coarse fringe. A boy 
 sat beside him, dressed in the same way. The driver and 
 
 On the Bund 
 
 the boy are called in Chinese the '' Maf u " and the '' little 
 Mafu.'' 
 
 '' Mafu " drove the fat pony that trotted along soberly 
 enough, and '' little Mafu '' leaped on and off the box as nim- 
 bly as a squirrel, to open doors, or to carry parcels. Some- 
 times he ran ahead to the corner to see if other carriages were 
 coming, against which he feared they might collide, for the 
 Chinese are not careful drivers. After buying some gloves 
 
47 
 
 and ribbons, Mrs. Spencer told the '' Mafu " to drive to 
 one of the large Chinese shops. He could understand 
 English pretty well, but he talked a queer mixture 
 which in China is called " pidgin," or '' business '' English, 
 '' pidgin '' being as near to '' business " as the Chinese 
 tongue can get. Ellen and Mary had noticed that the 
 Chinese can not pronounce '' r,'' and a few other letters of 
 our alphabet; that they use the letter ''1" a great deal, 
 and end many words with '' ee.'' They speak, too, in 
 strange, singing tones, the voice rising and falling, and 
 Mrs. Spencer said that this was because Chinese is what is 
 called a " tone language.'' 
 
 In addition to all the words that they use, each word 
 may be pronounced in several tones, each tone changing 
 the meaning of the word. This has made it very hard for 
 foreigners to learn the language, and, by pronouncing a 
 word in the wrong tone they make some funny mistakes 
 at which not even the polite Chinese can help laughing. 
 In the Chinese shop they saw many fine things in silver, 
 — buckles, flasks, bracelets and vases, — all richly chased 
 and carved, the work of Chinese silversmiths, who do all 
 work by hand. There were also wonderful fans, brushes 
 and caskets carved in ivory. There were curious ivory 
 balls, one within the other, the large outer ball often con- 
 taining a dozen or more smaller ones, all delicately carved 
 in lace-like designs. There were also collections of sandal- 
 wood boxes, and fans, and feather fans made of the plum- 
 age of the golden pheasant with peacock feather borders, 
 or of white goose feathers painted in flowers of blue, pink 
 and bright green, the colors that the Chinese admire so 
 much. One bracelet was made of carved peach stones, — 
 
48 
 
 flat, polished disks on which flowers, vines, birds and 
 dragons had been carefully carved, each disk set in a gold 
 lace-work called filigree. 
 
 Mrs. Spencer bought some pieces of fine grass-cloth, — 
 thin, silvery linen which is woven in the southern provinces 
 and in Canton from a kind of hemp, or the fiber of a 
 nettle. Each piece was tied up in a neat parcel with threads 
 of glossy pink and green silk, with the name of the mer- 
 chant on it in Chinese letters. 
 
 From this shop they drove into the New Chiang Road 
 where all the shops are Chinese; they have neither doors 
 nor windows, but heavy wooden shutters that are closed 
 and fastened at night. Piles of silk and cloth were arranged 
 on shelves, as in the foreign shops, and coats of blue, 
 brown, black and plain colored satin, many of them lined 
 with costly fur, were hung in lines overhead or in front. 
 Ellen thought the gay little hats and caps for Chinese 
 babies the prettiest things of all; they were of blue, red 
 and green silk, with festoons of bits of metal, like coins, 
 and white, pink, blue and green silk tassels, the cap thickly 
 embroidered with gold thread; each little hat had a silken 
 tuft on top, and many of the caps had coverings for the 
 ears edged with gray fur. Mrs. Spencer said that the baby 
 is named when it is one month old, and the Chinese ladies 
 often take to the feast that is given at that time, quantities 
 of these little metal coins which, when no longer needed, 
 are given to some other baby. The girls thought this very 
 economical, and after they had lived in China awhile they 
 learned that the Chinese never waste anything, but every- 
 thing they have does service as long as it can be made to 
 last. They do not think it wrong to give to someone else. 
 
49 
 
 things that have been given to them but which they can 
 no longer use. Ellen said that this was much better than 
 storing them away in some box or drawer to get dingy 
 and yellow, and she decided that she herself would follow 
 this sensible Chinese fashion. 
 
 When they had finished their shopping they drove out on 
 the Bubbling Well Road. It is a fine, smooth road, like 
 an avenue in an American city, but the large villas on either 
 side are like English houses except that each has deep, 
 shady verandas which are seldom seen in England. The 
 grounds' were surrounded by high brick walls, but the gates 
 stood open and they could see the neat graveled walks, the 
 smooth lawns, and flower beds. The road was given its 
 name from a spring, or well, in which the water bubbles 
 and boils where it flows out of the ground. There were 
 many carriages like their own, with " Mafu " and '' little 
 Mafu '' on the box in dark gowns, the capes bordered with 
 all the colors of the rainbow. Two gaily dressed Chinese 
 ladies, who could not have walked upon their tiny feet, 
 rolled along in a great coach, the back, sides and front of 
 which were all of glass. The Chinese admire these coaches 
 very much. A Chinese gentleman was carried by in his 
 sedan chair, which is a curtained box with poles on either 
 side, extending in front and at the rear. These poles rest 
 on the shoulders of coolies who trot quickly along chanting 
 a melancholy tune by which they time their steps. The 
 gentleman was dressed in silk and wore huge spetcacles 
 with rims of tortoise shell. Mary thought that he stared at 
 them scornfully, as no doubt he did, for Chinese gentlemen 
 think it wrong for girls and women to go about alone. 
 Their own waves and daughters rarely leave their homes. 
 krout's china — 4 
 
50 
 
 They saw the pretty wihow-pattern tea house, which 
 every one visits who goes to Shanghai. It is on an island 
 in the midst of a crooked pond which winds between its 
 banks almost like a river, and which is spanned by a number 
 of graceful Chinese bridges. ]^Iary said that the bridges 
 and the tea house were like a picture on a willow-pattern 
 plate, which she had seen at her grandmother's. Her 
 mother replied that this was true, and that the plate had 
 really been painted by a Chinese artist, and that her uncle, 
 a sea captain, had brought it from China a great many years 
 before. After leaving the tea house they drove in another 
 direction, through the '* native city.'' The Chinese them- 
 selves had built it, and they live there as they do in other 
 parts of China, in low, dark houses with gray-tiled roofs, 
 turned upward at the eaves. [Many of the streets are so 
 narrow that the carriage could not be driven through 
 them : they are paved, but are so dirty that Ellen and 
 Mary hardly dared to look about them. The streets are not 
 only dirty and narrow, but they are very dark. The upper 
 stories of the houses project so that they almost shtit out 
 the sun, and from the balconies perpendicular signs are 
 swung — heavy boards painted in colors and covered with 
 the queer Chinese characters in gold. The streets were 
 crowded with people who were buying and selling; many 
 were eating at the open-air restaurant. Rice, fish, pork and 
 many kinds of greasy cakes were being sold which the 
 cooks were frying in large kettles of boiling oil. 
 
 They went for a short distance into the country amongst 
 the rice fields which were still green. Here :^Iary and Ellen 
 saw a number of large boxes standing about,, which they 
 knew at once, from their shape, to be coffins. One, stained 
 
5^ 
 
 with mud, had been buried and dug up again. The deep 
 hole out of which it had been taken had not been refilled, 
 and it was full of water. Some of the boxes had been pro- 
 tected with low roofs; others were partially inclosed in 
 brick and around others rolls of matting had been securely 
 tied. A few had been left quite unprotected. Mary and 
 Ellen did not need to be told that these were the coffins of 
 people whose families were too poor to buy graves. It was 
 very sad and dismal, and they were glad when the '' Mafu '' 
 turned and drove back to Shanghai. The Park along the 
 Bund was filled with well-dressed men and women, and 
 there were many little English children with their amahs, or 
 Chinese nurses, who are the only natives allowed to sit on 
 benches or stroll about the paths. The tide was out, and 
 where the Wusang had spread under the bridge to the low 
 banks was now a stretch of mud. Scores of native boats, 
 sampans and junks loaded with cotton and crockery from 
 the west, were stuck fast, waiting for the tide to rise and 
 float them off. 
 
 When they reached their room their good " Boy," Tuck 
 Kee, had lighted the fire and the tea table was drawn up in 
 front of the cheerful blaze. The tea and toast had been kept 
 hot, and it was very inviting after the long drive. 
 
 They began to think that they should like living in China 
 very much if they could only forget the coffins. 
 
52 
 
 V. A HOUSE BOAT JOURNEY 
 
 THE week after they reached Shanghai, a friend of Mr. 
 Spencer invited the family to go with him on a 
 journey to Suchau and Modo in his house boat. ^lary 
 and Ellen had read about Chinese house boats but they 
 had never seen one. They knew that people who could do 
 so preferred to travel in this way, as the roads everywhere 
 in China are very bad. They are cut into deep ruts by the 
 heavy wheels of Chinese carts and wagons and are never 
 graded or repaired in any way. When it rains in the spring 
 and autumn they are so muddy that it is hard work to get 
 about at all. When it has been raining for a long time 
 the roads are like deep ditches — so full of water that men 
 are sometimes drowned in them. The people have made 
 canals everywhere, the largest of which is the Grand Canal. 
 These waterways are much better than the roads for they 
 never have to be mended. The Chinese do not like to mend 
 anything but their clothes, their shoes, their fences and their 
 broken dishes, all of which they do very neatly. They 
 wear one suit of clothes the year round, wadding it with 
 cotton in the winter. We do not think this very nice or 
 cleanly, but it is the best that they can do, and they seem 
 really cleaner than many of the poor in our own great 
 cities. As the roads are so bad, thousands and thousands 
 of Chinese travel through the country on the canals and 
 the great rivers, and a large part of what they have to 
 sell, — grain, cotton, oil, vegetables and wool, — they take 
 to the markets in boats, as the people do in Holland. Ellen 
 and ]Mary learned, too, that millions of the very poorest 
 people are born in boats, live all their lives there, and die 
 
53 
 
 in them at last. They saw thousands of boat people in 
 Wusung creek, the boats lying side by side. A small piece 
 of matting was curved above the middle of the boat, form- 
 ing a low roof under which a man could hardly stand 
 erect. The father, mother and children were crowded 
 together in this narrow space. It is very cold in the winter, 
 
 Life in the Boats 
 
 although around Shanghai there is little frost or snow, 
 and as they have no fire but the handful of charcoal which 
 they burn in a brazier over which they boil their tea and 
 rice when they are so fortunate as to have any, they suffer 
 very much. Sometimes they own a duck or a chicken and 
 the poor fowl is tied fast by the leg to the boat so that it 
 
54 
 
 can not run away. Mary saw a cat tied in this way, its 
 fur matted and dirty, huddled up as if it were very wretched. 
 It probably was, for Chinese cats in the boats and hovels 
 of the poor cannot keep clean, and they get very little 
 to eat and no milk, which the Chinese do not use. 
 
 The two girls were much interested in the house boat. 
 They had seen several lying near the bridge, not far from 
 the hotel. Most of them belonged to foreigners, although 
 the wealthy Chinese also have such boats comfortably fitted 
 up with plate glass windows curtained with silk. Mary and 
 Ellen saw that the house boat was not unlike an American 
 canal boat except that it was made of dark, polished wood. 
 There were decks, fore and aft. The owner and his friends 
 sat forward, this deck being spread with rugs and furnished 
 with wicker chairs. The Chinese crew stayed aft, sleeping 
 under the low deck and squatting about the rice kettle and 
 teapot which they brought out above deck. The saloon 
 was' supplied with divans covered with crimson which were 
 curtained at night and served for beds; racks along the 
 sides held papers and books, and there were lockers for the 
 clothes and the rugs. It was well lighted with many small 
 wdndows which were shaded with blinds that could be drawn 
 at night or when the sun streamed in too brightly. They 
 ate at an ordinary table which was spread with linen 
 and china and silver, just as it would have been at home. 
 On such a boat it is necessary for travelers to take with 
 them everything that they may require, for very little can 
 be bought in the cities that they may visit. It is a great 
 deal of trouble to get ready for a house boat journey, and 
 several days before one starts lists are made out of food, 
 bedding, dishes, cooking utensils, linen and supplies of all 
 
55 
 
 sorts. These are carefully gone over to see that nothing has 
 been forgotten. Chinese servants do not like the house 
 boat very much; they prefer to stay quietly at home and 
 so avoid the trouble of packing and unpacking. All the 
 cooking is done on board, and the cook and the boy who 
 waits at table must go with the boat. The house boat is 
 propelled by large sails, and, when the wind is in the wrong 
 direction, by trackers, as the men are called who drag the 
 boat along by means of a heavy rope. They walk on the 
 
 The House Boat 
 
 bank in a narrow, beaten path, like a towpath, pulling and 
 shouting with all their might. The captain, or the man 
 in charge, is called the '' Laota,'' which in Chinese means 
 ''old great.'' He usually makes a great deal of noise, 
 screaming and using very bad language, fortunately in 
 Chinese, so the foreigners on board are none the wiser. He 
 calls the poor, patient trackers " pigs '' and other ugly 
 names, to which they make no reply, tugging uncomplain- 
 ingly at the heavy rope. When the wind favors, the trackers 
 
56 
 
 raise the great sail and do other work as the. " Laota '' 
 directs. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Spencer and the two girls were the guests 
 of Mr. Scott, who lived in Shanghai and who owned the 
 boat. People in Shanghai, who are very kind and hospitable, 
 often entertain their foreign visitors in this way. 
 
 They were to be gone four or five days and Ellen and 
 Mary put on their thick gowns and boots, for it is cool on 
 the water. 
 
 '' I shall go ashore and walk in the fields with papa," 
 Mary said, '' for the walks are half the fun on a house boat 
 journey." 
 
 They also took their books, for there would be plenty of 
 time for reading. They did not go on board the boat at the 
 bridge where she lay, because it would take so long to steer 
 through the crowded junks and sampans; but they drove 
 out into the country and waited on the river bank. Mrs. 
 Spencer sat down on a bench by the roadside in a sheltered 
 place out of the wind which was rather keen. Ellen and 
 Mary went into a garden across the road in which people 
 were allowed to walk and climbed to the steps of a wooden 
 tower. They could see the low gray roofs and the walls 
 which shut in the native city, and the green rice fields which 
 stretched away in every direction. The river wound across 
 the level plain like a yellow ribbon, and there were hundreds 
 of boats — the little dispatch boats which moved rapidly, 
 rowed with the feet instead of the hands, — junks and house 
 boats. Leather gloves were fastened to some of the oars, 
 and the hands of the boatmen were thrust into them. 
 
 Mary and Ellen laughed at this queer custom but Ellen 
 said: 
 
57 
 
 '' I think after all it is a very sensible fashion. I am sure 
 that these boatmen never lose their gloves and always know 
 just where to find them. The only trouble is that they can 
 use them only when they are rowing. It would be a great 
 deal of trouble to unfasten them from the oars every time 
 they wanted to wear them.'' 
 
 The large sails of the junks came slowly in sight, the 
 heavy vessels propelled both by the wind, which was blowing 
 in the right direction, and by the tide which was rising fast 
 and would carry them on their way for thirty miles. Some 
 of the sails were of matting, like those they had seen in the 
 Inland Sea ; others were of cloth, — brown, gray, blue and 
 even dark red in color. They were so graceful, towering aloft 
 in the clear air with their soft, pleasing colors that they 
 reminded Mary, she said, of flocks of great birds with wide- 
 spread wings. At last they heard their mother call them 
 and they ran down the steps and across the road. Their 
 boat was in sight, the tall gray sails filling in the fresh, 
 cool wind, and, what pleased them most of all, their own 
 American flag fluttering at the bow. The '' Laota '' was 
 on the forward deck, shouting and gesticulating to attract as 
 much attention from the other boats as possible, so that 
 other crews might see and envy the wonderful foreign 
 house boat with its shining windows and the gay red 
 and white flag, for the Chinese have a great admiration 
 for flags. 
 
 Presently the boat was brought about close to the shore; 
 the plank was thrown out, one end resting on the deck and 
 the other on the low bank, and they walked across this and 
 were soon all on board. As they did not wish to lose the 
 tide, the plank was raised at once and they moved slowly 
 
58 
 
 up stream. They were delighted with everything, — the low, 
 soft divans heaped with cushions, the pretty cabin with its 
 warm hangings, and flounces on the shelves and table. In 
 one comer was a small stove, firmly fastened in its place, 
 in which a bright fire was burning. 
 
 " I like the deck best," said ]Mary, '' although the cabin 
 is so snug and pretty. I think that I shall sit out there. I 
 want to see the boats, the river, the fields, and the queer 
 people." 
 
 She wxnt accordingly, without loss of time, and when she 
 had seated herself in a low chair, Ah Lum, Mr. Scott's 
 '' Number One Boy," came and wrapped her up snugly in 
 warm wolf-skin rugs. She was happy and comfortable and 
 presently Mrs. Spencer and Ellen came on deck, too, and 
 were deeply interested in the strange sights all about them. 
 " This is really China," said Ellen. The boats, both going 
 up and down stream, grew thicker and thicker. On many 
 women and even children were tugging at the oars, while 
 the men squatted on their heels, smoking and gossiping and 
 eating rice, or drinkng tea. 
 
 " I think the poor women in China must lead very sad 
 lives," said ^lary. '' They do all the hard work, they are not 
 allowed to rest or enjoy themselves, and the children are 
 not so merry and happy as the children in Japan ; and yet 
 people are poor in that country, too, and have to work hard 
 and have but little to eat." 
 
 Mrs. Spencer could not explain this, but she said that the 
 Japanese seem to be a more hopeful and a happier race than 
 the Chinese. They are extremely fond of children, the 
 parents playing with them and amusing them as if they 
 themselves were children. 
 
59 
 
 They saw a man plowing a field with a rude, heavy plow 
 drawn by a strange animal ; it was big, awkward and 
 covered with thick, dark brown hair, the long horns bent 
 backward toward the ears. 
 
 " What is it? " asked Mary. 
 
 '' It is the water buffalo," she was told, '' which is used 
 everywhere throughout the East, in China, the Philippines 
 and India for plowing and drawing carts, as we use horses. 
 
 Plowing with the Buffalo 
 
 It is really an animal that lives much of the time in water 
 and loves to wallow in the soft mud, in which, when it 
 can, it buries itself up to the eyes. Once every day at 
 least the buffalo must have its bath ; otherwise it almost 
 goes mad, running in a frenzy and attacking whatever is in 
 the w^ay. The Chinese could hardly live without their water 
 buffalo ; nothing else could take its place in the marshy 
 rice fields, although we get on without it in our Southern 
 
6o 
 
 States. However, we do not raise rice in quite the same 
 way/' 
 
 Just then an ugly dog that was following the man turned, 
 glared at the house boat and barked fiercely, and the buffalo 
 began to rear and plunge in fright. They were near the 
 shore and could see the animal distinctly. '' They have 
 caught scent of us," said Mr. Scott. '' All Chinese animals 
 hate the scent of a foreigner. The Chinese themselves do 
 not like it ; they say we smell like sheep.'' 
 
 Ellen and Mary laughed, and wondered why they were 
 not conscious of it, but upon the whole they thought it a 
 more pleasant odor than that of the Chinese who do not 
 bathe very often and who, rich and poor alike, eat a great 
 deal of garlic. The plowman finally quieted the buffalo, 
 which moved across the field, but the shaggy dog ran toward 
 them, still growling and barking. Fortunately he could not 
 get at them and he was soon left behind. 
 
 Then Ah Lum, Mr. Scott's '' Boy," sounded the gong and 
 tiffin was served. 
 
 In the afternoon the house boat was dragged near the bank 
 by the trackers, the plank was lowered and they all went 
 ashore for a walk. They enjoyed the brisk exercise in the 
 cold, invigorating air, and Mary and Ellen came back with 
 their hair tossed by the wind and their cheeks glowing like 
 roses. 
 
 Dinner was quite like dinner at home, with soup and fish 
 and a joint, and fruit and cakes for dessert. It had all been 
 prepared in a tiny closet, which served as a kitchen, behind 
 the saloon. Here Ah Chung, the cook, and Ah Lum also 
 spread down their mats and slept at night. Mrs. Spencer 
 said that many a foreign cook, with a great, roomy kitchen, 
 
6i 
 
 could not have prepared so good a dinner as that which 
 Ah Chung got for them in his dark Httle galley. 
 
 After dinner they talked and read ; then the divans were 
 covered with sheets and blankets and the thick crimson 
 curtains were hung around them. Mary and Ellen soon 
 went to sleep, the water rippling drowsily under their 
 window. 
 
 VI. MODO 
 
 THE next morning it was quite cloudy and when they 
 awoke and looked out of the window the creek was 
 still covered with boats. The '' Laota '* had come in and 
 built the fire, and they could hear Ah Lum in the little 
 kitchen chatting to Ah Chung among his pots and pans. 
 Breakfast would soon be ready, so they dressed quickly, 
 put on their hats and coats and went out on the deck, where 
 they found their father and mother enjoying the fresh 
 air. Ah Lum came into the saloon, took down the curtains 
 and put them away, stored the bedding in the lockers, 
 opened the doors and windows and put everything in order 
 for the day. The table was set and they were called to 
 breakfast, for which they were quite ready. 
 
 They had now left Wusung creek and entered the Grand 
 Canal. This is one of the great waterways of China. It 
 has been used for more than a thousand years, and is seven 
 hundred miles long. It is like a broad river with low banks, 
 except that there is almost no current. Hundreds of small 
 
62 
 
 canals empty into it which are Hke private roads, with Httle 
 water gates that can be opened and closed. Up and down 
 these canals boats were passing to the farms beyond. The 
 Grand Canal near the villages is spanned by sharply arched 
 bridges under which the junks can move, some of them 
 
 The Grand Canal 
 
 without even lowering their sails. Men and boys leaned 
 over the bridges and looked down at them, chattering and 
 laughing, and talking about them very frankly. They knew 
 the flag, and pointed it out to each other. Mr. Scott under- 
 stood the language and he said that they were not disrespect- 
 ful, for the Chinese have always been friendly to Americans ; 
 
63 
 
 but they made jokes as they always do about everything. 
 At one village, where a small creek emptied into the canal, 
 they saw a crowd gathered about a sampan upon the sides 
 of which some large white birds were sitting ; they had 
 bills like geese, but their necks were long and slender. 
 ''What are they?" asked Mary, watching the crowd of 
 Chinese who appeared to be admiring the birds extremely. 
 Their owner was so interested in talking about them, — tell- 
 ing no doubt of their wonderful exploits, — that he did not 
 at first notice the approach of the house boat. 
 
 " Those are cor- 
 morants,'' said Mr. 
 Scott. " The Chi- 
 nese find them very^ 
 useful for fishing. 
 The birds are taken 
 out on the water, 
 the hungrier they 
 are the better. For 
 that matter, they 
 seem to be always 
 hungry. A tight 
 collar is fastened around the neck, not tight enough to choke 
 them, or to hurt them, but fitting so closely that they cannot 
 swallow. When their owner reaches the fishing grounds 
 the cormorants are let loose, and dive after the fish which 
 they can see at a great depth. They seize a fish in their 
 bills, but cannot swallow it because of the snug collar. 
 They are brought back into the boat and the fish taken from 
 them, but every time they are rewarded with a morsel 
 which can slip down their throats. They are supposed 
 
 Fishing Cormorants 
 
64 
 
 to be very greedy, although perhaps they do not eat much 
 more than ducks and geese, who are hunting food most 
 of the time. But they have the name of being greedy and 
 now we use' the word * cormorant ' sometimes when we 
 speak of a very greedy man.'' 
 
 The birds were not disturbed by the crowd, but they 
 appeared dull and stupid, as if they had had more to eat 
 than vv'as good for them, which happens sometimes to human 
 beings as well as to cormorants. 
 
 All the larger cities of China are enclosed in high brick 
 walls with openings at regular intervals along the top 
 through which soldiers can shoot arrows or fire their guns, 
 for the Chinese nowadays have learned to use firearms. 
 They have warships on the sea and on their rivers, and 
 armies on the land : but their soldiers are not so brave nor 
 so well trained as the Japanese. The city walls are about 
 thirty feet high, — double walls of masonry filled in with 
 earth and paved with stone on top. This pavement is about 
 twenty-five feet wide. There are gates to the north, south, 
 east and west, which are really heavy doors, around which 
 are built two other walls at right angles, forming a hollow 
 square ; in this inner wall is another gate opening into the 
 streets of the city. The gates are closed at night and should 
 a traveler arrive too late he must wait outside until morning 
 when the gates are opened again. 
 
 The double gates are for better defense, for, if the outer 
 gate is broken down, there is still another to be forced, 
 which the people may be able to defend and thus save 
 themselves and their homes. The strong brick walls are so 
 high that it is hard work to scale them ; and, besides this, 
 diere is either a canal, as at Suchau, or a wide, deep ditch 
 
65 
 
 filled with water, called a moat, dug all around them; the 
 walls cannot then be reached except by boats, which are in 
 danger of being sunk. The double walls, the outer and 
 inner, are filled with earth and paved on top. Grass, 
 shrubs, and even small trees spring up in the cracks of the 
 pavement. In the autumn people are allowed to gather the 
 weeds, grass and dead leaves, which they use for fuel. 
 
 The house boat reached Suchau the second day and 
 passed under the wall, but they decided to go on to Modo, 
 and then return. 
 
 Modo is little more than a village, dark and dirty, and 
 crowded with people. It lies huddled at the foot of a steep, 
 high hill — the only hill in that region — which can be seen 
 for a long distance. 
 
 They did not wait to see the shops, which were rather 
 poor, but hurried through the crowds that had begun to 
 gather to stare at the foreigners, to the outskirts of the town, 
 a wide, grassy space like an open meadow. 
 
 A young Chinese prince had once lived in the pleasure 
 garden which he laid out on top of the hill, but now nothing 
 is left but a temple — a Chinese pagoda with many stories, 
 or terraces, rising one above the other, and narrowing at 
 the top. A zig-zag brick pavement has been laid from the 
 foot to the very top of the hill, and at regular distances 
 are broad paved spaces provided with seats where people 
 can rest. There are many graves upon the hillside; some 
 are the graves of nobles and soldiers, with moss-grown 
 inscriptions in Chinese letters on the headstones. They 
 had long been forgotten, and the withered grass around 
 them rustled softly, as if whispering their story. 
 
 It was a long, hard climb and Mrs. Spencer and the girls 
 krout's china — 5 
 
66 
 
 rested from time to time upon the stone benches. Then 
 they started on again and were soon at the top of the hill. 
 Mr. Scott was there before them, with their father. The 
 pagoda from the foot of the hill appeared airy and graceful, 
 but near at hand it was gray and grimy and falling into 
 
 decay. At each corner, 
 from the lowest terrace 
 to the top, was hung a 
 small bronze bell; the 
 clapper was a thin piece 
 of metal shaped like the 
 leaf of a lotus, a kind 
 of water lily which both 
 the Japanese and Chi- 
 nese consider a sacred 
 flower. As the wind 
 blew the bells to and 
 fro, they gave out a 
 faint musical chime that 
 was sweet but very 
 mournful. Within the 
 temple were many al- 
 tars, upon which were 
 figures of Buddha, 
 whom many of the 
 A Pagoda Chinese worship, and 
 
 about the figures were arranged vases and candlesticks of 
 burnished brass. There were also fierce and scowling gods 
 whom the people worship, for the Chinese think that they 
 must keep the wicked gods in a good humor by offering 
 them gifts, for fear they will do them harm. 
 
67 
 
 The priests that live in these temples, though poor and 
 ignorant, are often quite gentle and polite. The heads of 
 the Buddhist priests are shaved smooth, and they wear 
 dirty clothes of rags which they have patched together. 
 Travelers can often lodge in the temples, and can almost 
 always buy food of the priests. The young man who came 
 to meet them at the entrance of the pagoda closed his hands 
 and placed one upon the other, raised them to his forehead, 
 and then bowed almost to the ground. This is the way 
 in which almost all Chinese men greet each other; women 
 simply close the hands, place them one upon the other in 
 the same way, move them up and down and nod their heads. 
 Ellen thought this very queer. 
 
 *'They shake their own hands in this funny, topsy-turvy 
 country,'' she said, '^ instead of shaking ours ! " 
 
 The priest spoke to Mr. Scott in Chinese and then invited 
 them to be seated upon the narrow benches near a table, 
 and there he left them. He came back in a little while 
 with, cups and hot water. A pinch of tea or dried willow 
 leaves was placed in each cup and the hot water poured 
 over them, the cup, which had a lid, resting in a holder 
 like a saucer with a hole in the middle of it. The holder 
 was to keep the hot cup from burning the fingers, and the lid 
 was to prevent one from swallowing the tea leaves, it being 
 lifted just a little as one drinks. Mary's cup was bluish- 
 white porcelain, covered witTi lovely flowers and vines, and 
 Mr. Scott bought it for her from the priest as a keepsake. 
 Ellen was also allowed to keep hers. After the tea was poured 
 the priest brought them some Chinese delicacies, roasted 
 pumpkin seeds, sugared peanuts and thin strips of rice flour 
 paste that seemed to have been dried instead of baked. Had 
 
68 
 
 they been really hungry, this fare would not have been very 
 satisfying. The priests had a little garden, and a few geese 
 in a pond, but Mr. Scott said that they do not like to work ; 
 they are about the only lazy people in China. 
 
 Nothing was left of the pleasure garden but the lotus 
 pond which was dry and in which nothing grew. It was a 
 square basin walled with stone and had once been full of 
 water. It must have been very pretty then with the pink 
 
 " W ' ffl '^ L A mmmmm 
 
 
 A Chinese Garden 
 
 and white blossoms of the lotus and the dark glossy leaves 
 floating on its surface. 
 
 A path led to the crest of the hill overlooking a broad 
 valley, green with rice fields, the canals that separated them 
 glittering in the sunshine like silver. To the west they could 
 see a chain of lakes, and far off the dark walls of Suchau. 
 
 The young Prince of Modo had chosen a beautiful site for 
 his pleasure garden. Mr. Scott told them his story. He 
 had been at war with his neighbor, the powerful Prince of 
 
69 
 
 Hangchau, who at last, when he saw that he could not 
 conquer his enemy, pretended to make friends with him 
 and gave him his lovely young daughter for his wife. The 
 Prince of Modo loved his young wife very dearly. She 
 must have been both wise and good, for he was so anxious 
 to please her and to make her happy. He got for her every- 
 thing she wished, and made the lotus pond and the garden 
 and built the palace that she might not regret that she had 
 left her own family and her home. They were so contented 
 that they quite forgot the world. The Prince did not care 
 to fight any longer and he spent all his time with his beau- 
 tiful Princess in the palace, or walking about the garden, or 
 feeding the gold fish in the lotus pond. One day the cruel 
 and treacherous Prince of Hangchau marched quietly into 
 Modo with his army, put the young Prince to death, destroy- 
 ed the palace, and carried his daughter back to Hangchau. 
 
 Ellen thought that this was a very sad story, and she 
 stopped a moment by the empty lotus pond and tried to 
 picture the young Princess with her bright black eyes and 
 glossy black hair, and knew how she must have mourned for 
 her husband. 
 
 The sun was setting when they started down the hill again, 
 and it was quite dark when they went on board, the " Laota " 
 ordering the men to hoist the sail. In the morning they 
 were at Suchau, and ready to go ashore again for more 
 sight-seeing, after they had had their breakfast. 
 
70 
 
 VIL SUCHAU 
 
 NEITHER carts nor jinrikishas could be hired in Su- 
 chau, so they prepared for a long walk. Mary and 
 Ellen were young and strong, and they did not object to 
 this, and they were so interested in what they saw that they 
 did not realize that they were tired until they had come back 
 to the house boat. 
 
 Ah Chung stayed on board to have tiffin ready for them, 
 while the '' Laota '' and the Chinese crew hurried away 
 to the Chinese inns to gossip with their friends, to smoke, 
 and to drink tea. 
 
 The streets of Suchau are like those of the native city 
 of Shanghai, — paved with stone, narrow, dark and dirty. 
 But some of the shops were quite splendid. At the jeweler's 
 they saw fine gems and collections of pearls which the 
 Chinese prize much more than diamonds. At a florist's they 
 were shown queer dwarfed trees in pots of blue porcelain. 
 The roots had never been allowed room to grow, and the 
 stunted boughs, clipped and pruned, were gnarled and twist- 
 ed like the boughs of very old trees. The Chinese consider 
 these dwarf trees very ornamental. They buy them for their 
 gardens or courtyards and protect them from the cold in 
 the winter. There were also small spruce trees cut into 
 the form of storks, lions and other animals ; bits of glass 
 were used for the eyes and in the mouths were tongues 
 made of red cloth. The florist was so pleased with their 
 notice that he invited them into the shop and led the w^ay to 
 the court in the rear, which must have been very pretty in 
 the spring and summer, when the plum, apricot and quince 
 trees were in bloom and the pond covered with lotus bios- 
 
71 
 
 soms. The chrysanthemums were budding, but it was as 
 yet too early for the blossoms. Mr. Scott showed them how 
 cunningly the gardener had grafted the slips of chrysanthe- 
 mum on a strong, coarse weed, the artemisia, because the 
 large stem of the latter could nourish the flowers much 
 better than the slender stalks of the chrysanthemum itself. 
 There was no grass in this Chinese garden, and none in 
 any garden that they saw afterwards. Grass does not grow 
 well anywhere in China. None of the plants were set in 
 beds as we grow them, but they were all planted in porcelain 
 pots which we would have thought much too fine for flower 
 pots, and these were placed in rows along the walks. One 
 large ash tree grew in the center of the court. The gardener 
 was very proud of it, as there are so few trees in China. 
 The girls noticed several of the dwarf trees which were set 
 where they could not fail to be seen ; there was a rockery 
 like a miniature mountain, with toy bridges spanning little 
 chasms, and rivulets trickling down the miniature cliffs. 
 
 The florist offered them tea, and was much pleased when 
 Mrs. Spencer bought some flowers which he arranged very 
 prettily. 
 
 After they had left the florist's shop they passed the fish 
 market, where they saw a clever plan which the Chinese 
 have for keeping fish alive until they are ready to be eaten. 
 A number of boxes filled with water are arranged one above 
 the other in such a way that a running stream falls continu- 
 ally from the upper box into those beneath. In the lowest 
 box, which is placed upon the ground, the fish swim about, 
 able to breathe in the water that has thus been mixed with 
 air. They saw another sight, however, which made them 
 shiver, — men scaling fish before they had been killed. These 
 
72 
 
 men did not seem to notice or care how the poor creatures 
 writhed and struggled. 
 
 '' It is dreadful/' said Mrs. Spencer. 
 
 '' You will see a great deal of such cruelty," Mr. Scott 
 told her. '' The people in China do not treat dumb creatures 
 kindly, and they can not understand why we are so consid- 
 erate of them. It may be,'' he added, '' that they have been 
 so cruelly treated themselves in the past that they have now 
 ceased to feel sympathy for anything." 
 
 As they passed a house they heard a child sobbing and 
 crying. It was being beaten by its mother, and the blows 
 of the stick could be distinctly heard. Mrs. Spencer wished 
 to go into the house and stop the angry mother, who shouted 
 and scolded. 
 
 " No," said Mr. Scott, '' you must never meddle with 
 Chinese children. Foreigners are suspected of bewitching 
 them, stealing them, and then putting them to death. Al- 
 though the Chinese themselves leave their baby daughters in 
 the streets to die, they can be stirred up to burn and kill if 
 they can be made to believe that foreigners harm the little 
 ones in any way." 
 
 They went on very quickly but Mrs. Spencer could not 
 forget the crying of the poor baby that she would have liked 
 to rescue if she could have done so. They intended to visit 
 a large temple in the very heart of the city, and found it 
 rather hard to get through the crowds that blocked the 
 way, — scores of boys and men following them. They were 
 not unfriendly, fortunately, but the foreigners hurried on, 
 looking neither to the right nor to the left. 
 
 When they reached the temple the curious Chinese dropped 
 behind and did not trouble them any more. A great fair 
 
73 
 
 was g'oing on in the temple court where books, crockery and 
 birds in cages were oftered for sale. Grown men were 
 amusing themselves spinning tops, for in China even gray- 
 haired grandfathers spin tops and fly kites when the season 
 rolls around, for they have their seasons for such things, just 
 as boys in our country have. 
 
 Chinese top-spinning was unlike anything that Mary and 
 Ellen had ever seen ; the tops are quite large and make a 
 loud, humming noise, which the Chinese like to hear. The 
 top is thrown on the ground with a quick toss from a cord 
 that had two wooden handles like a skipping rope. While 
 it is whirling so fast that it can hardly be seen, the cord 
 is drawn very tight and on this the top is caught again 
 and tossed high in the air still spinning and humming. 
 Then it is caught on the cord once more, tossed and caught, 
 and never once allowed to fall. The crowd that stood 
 looking on shouted and exclaimed when some pleasing mark 
 of skill was shown, and the spinners themselves were very 
 proud of what they had done. While they were busy with 
 the sport, two of the lookers-on began to dispute, becoming 
 quite excited and angry. The two girls were a little anxious, 
 for they did not know what might happen. 
 
 '' Do not be frightened," said Mr. Scott, '' a Chinese 
 quarrel is all threats and noise. The men do not often 
 come to blows." And, true enough, as the angry men slowly 
 approached each other, screaming and waving their arms, 
 two other men ran after them, seized the fighters by the 
 waist and held on, as if this were necessary to keep them 
 from tearing each other to pieces. The men who were thus 
 held shouted and struggled for a few minutes, and then each 
 allowed himself to be led away by his friend. There had 
 
74 
 
 been a great deal of screaming and threatening, but they 
 had not come to blows and did not really mean to hurt 
 each other. ''There!" said Mr. Scott, "that is the way 
 the Chinese fight ! " 
 
 '' And a very good way, I think," said Mrs. Spencer, '' if 
 they must lose their tempers. They have had some hard 
 words, but no one is much the worse for it." 
 
 The platters and bowls, teapots and cups offered for sale 
 were so pretty and cheap that Mary and Ellen could not keep 
 from buying a few. They could not bar- 
 gain for themselves, but they chose what 
 they wanted and Ah Lum, who had come 
 with them, offered what the articles were 
 worth and paid for them. The 
 money in use is called '' cash," 
 ten of which make but a cent. 
 The cash are round pieces of 
 copper, with a square 
 hole in the center, and 
 they are strung on heavy 
 cords. It is a hard mat- 
 ter, sometimes, to carry 
 enough cash for a long 
 journey, a thousand of the pieces of copper being worth 
 only one dollar in our money. It is a common thing to 
 take the strings of cash in a cart by themselves, or with 
 the other supplies. We think this a very strange custom, 
 but the copper cash are worth so little that ten cents in 
 Chinese money would fill a large pocketbook, and it is too 
 heavy to carry in a purse. 
 
 Thev looked over the collection of porcelain, which was 
 
 Cash" 
 
75 
 
 spread out on the ground, and Mary chose a large platter 
 on which had been painted a big, dull-blue fish caught 
 in a yellow net; on the edge of the platter were some 
 round blue figures meant to represent waves. She also 
 bought a bowl with a very fierce green dragon on it, one 
 paw raised and his mouth open, showing his wicked forked 
 tongue. Ellen selected for herself a cup covered with red 
 lobsters, and a pretty teapot with vines and flowers in pink 
 and blue. 
 
 In the temple they found a great many artists painting 
 paper scrolls, such as the girls had seen in the Japanese 
 shops. The artists worked at wide wooden tables and 
 painted with fine, pointed, camel's hair brushes, making 
 every stroke very clear and clean, without blotting or 
 having to rub it out. Mary thought that many of the 
 pictures were, as she said, '' very mixed up.'' The figures 
 were not well proportioned and they seemed to be walking 
 in the air as well as on the ground, and those that should 
 have been painted quite small, because they were meant 
 to be far off, were as large as those that were in the fore- 
 ground, for Chinese artists do not understand the principles 
 of perspective. The favorite colors were deep blue, pink, 
 green, black and vermilion, and there was no shading. 
 
 The girls did not wish to buy any of the scrolls, but 
 Mr. Scott who was a good judge of Chinese pictures gave 
 Mrs. Spencer one which he said was a very fine piece of 
 Chinese painting. It represented a Chinese lady of high 
 rank in a gay dress with wide, flowing sleeves ; her hair 
 beautifully dressed with flowers and jew^els, her eyes very 
 narrow^ and slanting, with brows shaped like willow leaves, 
 which the Chinese consider a mark of great beauty. The 
 
76 
 
 finger nails were very long, to show that the lady had 
 never worked. In one hand she held an arrow at which 
 she was looking closely, and on her feet she wore small 
 boots such as Chinese soldiers wore many years ago. " I 
 think it is meant to be a portrait of ]\Ialan, a young girl 
 who lived more than a thousand years ago/'' said Mr. 
 Scott, ^' but w^hose story is known everywhere in China 
 and has been made into a poem. Her father was a great 
 general and was wounded in battle so that he could not 
 march at the head of his troops. He had no sons to take 
 
 his place, and when 
 the brave daughter 
 learned what had 
 happened, she put on 
 a suit of mail, mount- 
 ed a horse and led the 
 army to battle, and 
 drove the enemy, who 
 had come to burn the 
 cities and kill the peo- 
 ple, back to their own 
 country. Her father had been taken to his home when 
 he could no longer fight, and no one knew who the young 
 general was that had taken his place. 
 
 ''' The Prince sent for Malan to come to the palace that he 
 might reward her. He did not dream that the brave 
 soldier was only a young girl. \\'hen she went into his 
 presence and knelt before the throne, he wished to reward 
 her with gifts and honors. She refused them all, and 
 said that she prayed only to return to her aged father, 
 who knew not where she had gone. 
 
 Hand Showing the Long Finger Nails 
 
77 
 
 ''As the Prince desired to please her, he let her go. Those 
 who went with her still thought that she was some brave 
 young soldier that the gods had sent to help them, but at her 
 father's door she uncovered her face, and they saw at once 
 that it was Malan.'' 
 
 The Spencers were quite tired with the morning's sight- 
 seeing, and spent the afternoon quietly on the house boat, 
 resting and reading. 
 
 In the evening they took their place in a line of six 
 other boats, and a steam launch towed them down the 
 Canal into the Wusung, and so back to Shanghai. Mary 
 and Ellen had never made so interesting a journey, and 
 for a long time they talked of the odd sights they had seen. 
 
 VIII. NORTH TO TAKU 
 
 AFTER their return from Suchau, the weather had 
 been very fine, for Shanghai is at its best in the 
 autumn and the early winter months. Mr. Spencer found 
 that he would have to go to Hangchau to be absent for 
 som.e time, and he thought that while he was away it would 
 be a good plan for Mrs. Spencer and the two girls to 
 visit Peking. 
 
 " Everything is so uncertain," he said, " and you should 
 go while you can." Neither realized that it would be their 
 last opportunity to see the Chinese capital as it then was. 
 The Chinese in the North were beginning to hate the 
 foreigners ; they believed that they wished to take their 
 
78 
 
 country from them and divide it amongst themselves. 
 They had ahxady given up large tracts along the seacoast, 
 to the foreign powers, and also leased great ports to them 
 at which their ships could lie at anchor. A society called 
 Boxers had been formed to exterminate the foreigners. 
 Even while Airs. Spencer and her daughters were in Peking, 
 more and more Chinese were joining the Boxers who, some 
 months later, were to march to Peking, killing and destroy- 
 ing everything in their path. These Boxers were ignorant 
 and cruel, and they did not know that many of the foreigners 
 were friendly to their country, and wished to do all that 
 they could to help the Chinese. But no one then knew 
 what was to happen, and ]\Iary and Ellen were anxious 
 to see Peking which had been an ancient city, long, long 
 before Columbus discovered America. They got out their 
 map to see where it was. On the map it seemed to be not 
 far from Shanghai, but they learned, a little later, that 
 it was four days' journey by sea to Taku. There they 
 were to leave the ship for the launch which would carry 
 them to Tongu should the tide be too low for the steamer 
 to enter the Pei-ho River. At Tongu they were to go 
 ashore and take the railway to Tientsin, where they changed 
 for the last time to the main line to Peking. Much as the 
 Chinese hate changes of any sort, they had been forced to 
 allow the raihvay to be built and they had to endure having 
 the graves of their ancestors removed, — a thing that they 
 dread. 
 
 The first part of the journey was to be made in a small 
 steamer, the Shengking, 
 
 It was rather crowded and not at all clean, although 
 there were a great many Chinese servants on board. 
 
79 
 
 They were to sail from the jetty, not far from the 
 hotel, at noon. It had begun to rain in the night, and 
 it was wet and dismal when they went on board. Mr. 
 Spencer stayed with them until he was told to go ashore, 
 as the gang plank was about to be raised. They had taken 
 on a cargo of rice and crockery, for rice does not grow 
 well in the north where it is too dry and cold. The coolies 
 who were carrying the crates and sacks on board, where 
 they were lowered into the hold or piled on the deck 
 wherever they could be stowed, shouted and quarreled and 
 were very noisy. They were so long at their work that it 
 was almost four o'clock before they heard the sharp clang 
 of the bell that warned the engineer to put on steam, 
 and a moment later they were m.oving slowly down the 
 Wusung among the shoe boats, sampans and junks. 
 
 '' It is too bad that it is raining," said Mary. '' I should 
 like to see the country when the sun is shining. It would 
 not be so dismal ; but in the rain, the level fields and 
 the graves are not cheerful." When they reached the 
 bar they heard a voice chanting what seemed to be a very 
 strange song. 
 
 '' They are sounding," Mrs. Spencer told Ellen, and she 
 explained how^ the line and lead are thrown over the side 
 where the water is shallow, to find the depth, in order 
 that the boat may not run aground. They had lost the 
 tide, and had to wait until the turn, because not even the 
 little Shengking could cross the Wusung bar at low tide. 
 When the boat again started slowly, the sounding recom- 
 menced which Mary and Ellen heard all through the night 
 whenever they awoke. 
 
 In the morning the wind was blowing hard and the 
 
8o 
 
 sea was rough ; it was not at all comfortable on the deck, 
 but they thought it better to sit in the open air than to 
 remain inside. The Captain, who was very kind, had the 
 sailors make a sort of tent out of pieces of sailcloth, which 
 sheltered them from the gale, but the steamer rolled and 
 pitched so that they could not walk about. The Captain 
 had a little shaggy dog that followed him wherever he went, 
 and the dog was miserable and tmhappy in the rough 
 weather. 
 
 '' He is not a good sailor/" said the Captain when ^lary 
 tried to pet the dog, '' but he has gone to sea with me 
 ever since he was a puppy. He is not friendly with stran- 
 gers, although I do not think he would bite any one." His 
 name was "' Peter," and ]\.Iary called him and offered him 
 a part of her cake, but he only snift'ed at it, and would 
 not touch it. The Captain took it from her and oft'ered 
 it to him, and he snapped it up in a minute. " He is not 
 polite, you see," said the Captain, " and he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself.'' But Peter only wagged his stumpy 
 tail and trotted after his master who was going up on the 
 bridge where the little gray dog always kept watch, too. 
 
 They had sailed on Tuesday, and on Thursday morning 
 they anchored at Chefu, oft* a steep, rocky coast, which 
 was high, and rugged, and where not so much as a bush 
 could be seen. A few houses stood upon the hillside above 
 the sea. One was a very large building which they learned 
 was a school for foreign boys, where they are taught by 
 missionaries, just as they would be here in our own schools 
 at home. 
 
 Mary and Ellen were much surprised to see the American 
 flag flying over one of the houses, and they presently 
 
8i 
 
 noticed that the EngHsh, German and other flags had been 
 raised over other houses. 
 
 '' Those are consulates/' said Mrs. Spencer. " Our 
 country, and others, send out agents called consuls, who 
 are allowed to live in certain places where they are received 
 and protected by the country to which they are sent. It 
 is their business to protect any of their own countrypeople 
 who may come to the country, and to see that native 
 merchants who buy and sell to merchants in the consul's 
 own country deal honestly, and are in turn, fairly treated. 
 The United States consuls are chosen by Congress. The 
 consuls lead rather lonely lives, sometimes, when there is 
 not much for them to do, but they are usually kind and 
 helpful to any of their countrypeople who may come in 
 their way." 
 
 They were now at the entrance of the Gulf of Pechili 
 into which two large rivers empty, the Hoang or Yellow 
 river and the Pei-ho. They did not go ashore, for they were 
 not to stop long in the port. A party of foreigners came 
 on board at Chefu, and among them a lady with four 
 children. The mother was French and the father a Chinese 
 gentleman. The two elder children were quite pretty, and 
 the fat, black-eyed baby was very good tempered ; the third, 
 a little girl, who said she was five years old, was very 
 naughty indeed. She pinched and kicked and would not 
 obey either the amah, the Chinese nurse, or her mother, 
 who spoke to her in French, and begged her to be good. 
 The Captain brought them a small jar of candies which the 
 naughty girl kept for herself. She took it from her brother 
 and carried it about with her, and the brother and the elder 
 sister were too gentle and polite to complain. 
 krout's china — 6 
 
82 
 
 . *' I think she will be an Empress some day/' said Mary. 
 
 The storm was over and the sun was warm and bright. 
 The Gulf was full of rocky islands upon which was neither 
 grass nor shrub, yet on some of them were small villages, 
 where, their mother told them, fishermen and their families 
 lived. The Captain said that they would reach Taku early 
 on Saturday mornmg, and would have breakfast at five 
 o'clock. 
 
 They made everything ready the evening before, and 
 went to bed early. It was well that they did so, for at 
 two o'clock an open barge came alongside into which the 
 crew and the coolies, that came out with the barge, began 
 to unload the cargo that was to be sent up to Tientsin 
 by the Pei-ho. 
 
 As they could not sleep on account of the noise, they 
 got up and saw the sun rise. The sky was a strange dull 
 blue, and the bay was as smooth as glass. Other small 
 steamers, like the Shengking, lay at anchor, for here, as 
 at the mouth of the Wusung, there is a bar which boats 
 can not cross when the tide is out. 
 
 They hurried through breakfast, and then went down the 
 ladder into the steam barge which was to take them ashore. 
 All their luggage was put into the barge with them. Had 
 the weather been bad they would have been well drenched. 
 Fortunately, the morning was clear and warm. The shore 
 could not be sighted from the deck of the Shengking, 
 but, in a fittle while, they saw a line of dull green close to 
 the water, which became more and more distinct as they 
 advanced. At the mouth of the Pei-ho, which was yellow 
 and sluggish, like the Wusung, were the low mud walls 
 of the two Chinese forts, which, before many months, were 
 
83 
 
 to be battered down by the guns of the foreign warships. 
 The houses inside the forts were of gray brick and were 
 very comfortable. There the foreign HeaUh Officers and 
 other officials live who are employed by the Chinese gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The land along the sea was thickly grown with tall 
 reeds, and the banks of the river were also shut in with 
 reeds like a wall, so that nothing could be seen of the bare 
 
 ■^. 
 
 View of the Taku Forts 
 
 level land beyond. Two little Chinese warships were lying 
 in the river. They were like the foreign ships that the 
 girls had seen at Shanghai, painted snow white, with all 
 their brass work shining brightly in the sun. The Chinese 
 did not build the ships, which were called torpedo boats, 
 but had bought them in foreign countries. They could see 
 the Chinese sailors on the deck quite plainly as their lum- 
 bering barge steamed past. They wore uniforms of white 
 
84 
 
 duck, and caps such as sailors wear, and their queues were 
 wound round their heads so as to be out of the way. 
 
 The passengers from the Shengking were to land at 
 Tongu, which is up the river some distance from Taku. Alary 
 and Ellen thought that they had never seen such a dreary 
 place. The houses were all of mud, with windows in 
 which sheets of paper were used instead of glass. At the 
 ends of the streets were curtains of matting which were 
 let down at night, so that robbers might not get in. 
 
 '' I should think almost any sort of a robber could break 
 through that curtain,'' said Mary, " though it may be 
 stronger than it appears to be.'' Men with bird cages in 
 their hands walked along the bank with a quick, mincing 
 step, turning out their toes. Women in blue and green 
 dresses gossiped at the doors. On one roof a tall pole had 
 been raised and to this had been fastened a bunch of dried 
 grass. This was to show that the people who lived in 
 the house had something to sell, — fowls, grain, eggs or 
 vegetables. 
 
 The girls learned that no one must ask to buy except 
 from dealers. If a man offers, of his own accord, to buy 
 a horse or a mule from a Chinese farmer, the poor farmer 
 will accept the price named, no matter how little, for he 
 believes that if he does not sell the animal it will surely 
 die within the year. Dishonest foreigners often take advan- 
 tage of this ignorance, and get a farmer's horses away from 
 him, although he does not wish in the least to sell them. 
 
 There was no landing stage at Tongu, and they climbed 
 out of the barge upon some loose boards laid across two 
 old sampans, which had been dragged near the shore and 
 made fast. 
 
85 
 
 They had been very anxious for fear they should miss the 
 train, as there was but one daily to Peking. There was 
 no place where they could have stayed in Tongu, and they 
 were very glad, indeed, when they saw the smoke of the 
 engine at the station, which was not far away. 
 
 The moment they stepped ashore a crowd of coolies seized 
 their bags and parcels and would have trotted off with 
 them, had they not been driven away by a gentleman whom 
 they had met in the boat and who could talk to the Chinese 
 in their own language. He engaged half a dozen men, 
 who tied up the trunks with stout rope, swung them on 
 heavy bamboo poles and trotted toward the station. Mrs. 
 Spencer, their friend, and the two girls followed. 
 
 In the village street they saw a man roasting chestnuts 
 in a great kettle filled with burning hot sand. The chestnuts 
 were stirred constantly and the hot sand roasted them a 
 deep, even brown. 
 
 IX. A CHINESE RAILROAD 
 
 THE railway station at Tongu is of gray brick, very much 
 like an ordinary country station in A«merica. But 
 Mary and Ellen had never seen so odd a train nor so curious 
 a lot of passengers. Many of the cars were like those that 
 are used in our own country for hauling gravel, and in these 
 were crowded not only men, women and children, but pigs, 
 donkeys and large, stout mules which the Chinese value much 
 m.ore than horses. A great many of the people, both men 
 and women, who were dressed in clothes of blue cotton, were 
 
86 
 
 eating rice and drinking tea. Nearly all were bareheaded, 
 and, when they liked, shaded their eyes with paper fans. 
 When the fans were not being used they were thrust into 
 the neck of the gown, one end showing above the collar. 
 
 There were also rough box cars, provided with seats 
 where Chinese of the better class sat by themselves. The 
 seats were of wood like those in American street cars, and 
 here, too, the people were eating and drinking at a great 
 rate. 
 
 Their friend put Mrs. Spencer and her daughters in 
 the '' First Class Carriage,'' which was plainly marked, 
 
 Chinese Railway Train 
 
 both in English and Chinese. It was not at all comfortable. 
 The seats had no cushions and the trunks and bags were 
 brought in, also, and crowded into the spaces between the 
 seats. There were no cushions, because the Chinese can 
 not be taught neatness, and scatter their food over every- 
 thing, although, in this carriage, only the rich merchants 
 and officials traveled. The windows were so high that 
 nothing could be seen when one sat down, so Mary and 
 
87 
 
 Eilen stood and looked out at the crowds on the broad 
 platform. Men were selling hot chestnuts, slices of red 
 and bright orange-colored watermelon, which the Chinese 
 can buy for a '' cash '' each, but which cost the foreigners 
 much more. Several kinds of toys were also offered for 
 sale, the oddest of which were hideous spotted pigs of 
 clay, with long noses and flapping ears. Two pretty Chinese 
 ladies dressed in blue satin, with large earrings set with 
 pearls, and flowers and gilt pins in their hair, quarreled 
 loudly with the chestnut vender over the price he had made 
 them pay. One of them shook her umbrella out of the 
 window at him, and shouted after him as he walked away. 
 
 '' I am glad that you can not understand what they say," 
 said their friend, '' for, while Chinese ladies appear modest 
 and gentle, they often use very bad language, and quarrel 
 a great deal amongst themselves.'' 
 
 When the vender was out of hearing the two ladies sat 
 down again, and began to giggle and crunch chestnuts like 
 a pair of hungry squirrels. They threw the shells all about 
 them, and did not seem to see or care what a litter they 
 made. 
 
 As in Yokohama, newsboys ran up and down the plat- 
 form selling newspapers printed in Chinese, some of which 
 had very queer pictures. A great many of the Chinese do 
 not like the newspapers and do not want the people to read 
 them, and there are not so many in China as there once were. 
 
 Two years before, the young Emperor had been driven 
 from the throne and had been shut up in one of the palaces 
 because he wished to change the laws, found schools like 
 our own and make other improvements. Scores of the 
 newspapers which were being printed with his consent, were 
 
88 
 
 then discontinued. None was allowed to appear that did 
 not speak well of the Empress Dowager who had imprisoned 
 the Emperor, and approve what she had done. 
 
 The engineer, the fireman, and the conductor or guard 
 on the train, were all Chinese, and knew their business very 
 well. The engineer was proud of his engine, and smiled 
 at the foreigners from his cab window, as though he wished 
 them to see what a clever man he was — as well-trained and 
 able to manage an engine as any foreigner could be. He 
 put his hand upon the throttle, the engine gave a shrill 
 whistle that could be heard far down the river, and the 
 long train pulled slowly out of the station, leaving the 
 idlers on the platform gaping after it, as long as it was in 
 sight. 
 
 All around Tongu are burial places, just as they are 
 to be found around nearly all towns and villages in Northern 
 China. 
 
 Long after they had gone back to Shanghai the girls re- 
 membered the railroad, the cars, the bridges and the long 
 line of telegraph poles beside the track, for the next summer 
 it was all torn up and ruined by the Boxers. The Boxers had 
 told the ignorant, common people that the men who built the 
 railroad had killed little children and placed their bodies 
 under the ties. It would have been easy for them to 
 dig up the earth and find for themselves that this was 
 not true; but they did not think it worth while, or were 
 perhaps afraid. On all the telegraph poles were notices in 
 Chmese warning the people not to tamper with them, for 
 the common people hate the telegraph even worse than 
 the railway. They can and do use the trains, however, 
 which they have found far better in every way than their 
 
89 
 
 slow-moving carts and litters. But they can not understand 
 the telegraph at all; they believe that evil spirits carry the 
 messages and that they will never have any luck so long 
 as the poles remain. 
 
 At one station Mary and Ellen saw for the first time a 
 camel, which a small boy was leading. The girls did not 
 know before that camels are used a great deal by the people 
 
 Burial Places 
 in Northern China ; and that they graze by thousands on 
 the plains, where the]^ are turned loose to fatten and to 
 get their new coats of thick hair for the winter, after 
 shedding their old coats in the early summer. The hair is 
 sold and sent to Germany, where fine, silky material for 
 ladies' dresses is made of it. 
 
 The camel which they saw was terribly frightened by the 
 train, and tried to get away ; but the boy held it fast by the 
 
90 
 
 halter. It did not like the noisy, puffing engine and the 
 rattling cars, so crowded with people, and Mary said that 
 she did not wonder at this. 
 
 At last the boy, who was not large, stood on his tiptoes 
 and placed his hands over the earners eyes. After that it 
 was more quiet, but camels have a very keen sense of 
 smell, and, like the dog that they had seen on the house 
 boat journey, can detect the approach of men, or of animals, 
 long before they can see them. 
 
 Pack Camels 
 At another station they saw a very shocking sight, which 
 they tried to forget, but which they could not put out of 
 their minds for a long time. A maa lay dead in a ditch by 
 the side of the railway line; his face was covered, but 
 the body was stretched out quite cold and rigid. He had 
 been run over and killed, and no one could take the body 
 away until the magistrate came and looked at it, and 
 decided how the man had lost his life! Everyone knew 
 already, but the magistrate thought, no doubt, that he had 
 
91 
 
 more important matters to attend to first, and would not 
 come until he felt like it. They learned that the body had 
 lain where they saw it for four days, but that is not an 
 uncommon thing in China. With thousands of graves on 
 every hand, the people are used to death, which they do 
 not much fear, although they have a dread of ghosts. 
 Nothing matters very much since, for millions of these 
 wretched people, it is hard to get bread enough to keep 
 them alive. Whatever happens, they say '' Maskee," which 
 means '' it does not matter,'' and they do not try to better 
 their lot. 
 
 The train moved slowly over the yellow plain, and the 
 sky was even a duller blue than at Tongu ; this was because 
 of the dust storms which are common in this part of the 
 country. The winds blow nearly all the year round, and 
 in the long droughts volumes of dust are carried high in 
 the air. The sky grows more and more yellow, and some- 
 times the dust is so thick that the sun is hidden, or is so 
 obscured that it is like a dull, brazen ball. Then, although 
 doors and windows are kept tightly closed, the dust blows 
 in at every crack and cranny, even getting into closets and 
 bureau drawers in the foreign houses. It stings and parches 
 the skin, and the hair becomes dry and harsh and snaps and 
 flies when it is brushed. 
 
 They decided not to stop in Tientsin on the way to 
 Peking, but to make the visit when they came back, so they 
 left the train when they arrived at the Tientsin station 
 and took the Peking express which they found waiting 
 on another line near by. It was a better train in every way 
 than the one which they had quitted. They took a '' mail 
 carriage '' which was like a small stateroom, opening into 
 
92 
 
 a passage at one side which connected with the other 
 carriage in front and with a large saloon which was free 
 to all. 
 
 They had some nice tea with the sandwiches which had 
 been put up for them on the steamer, and some hot, hard- 
 boiled eggs which they found could generally be bought on 
 this Chinese train. The engineer and stoker on the engine 
 of the Peking express were also Chinese, and so was the 
 conductor who took their tickets, and the man who brought 
 their tea. He also brought them some small, juicy pears 
 which he said were Peking pears, for he spoke English quite 
 well. 
 
 '' No one says Pek/n/' said Mary. 
 
 ''Because here the name is pronounced as it should be," 
 her motlier replied. 
 
 "It is often spelled without the g in books and news- 
 papers/' she explained, "but it is not correct. 'King' is 
 a Chinese word meaning ' capital ' ; ' Peking ' means 
 ' Northern Capital ' ; ' Chungking ' is ' Western Capital ' 
 and Nanking means ' Southern Capital.' Nanking was the 
 capital of the empire until the ]\Ianchus. to which the family 
 of the young Emperor Kuang Hsu belongs, conquered the 
 Chinese. They then moved the capital to Peking. It is a 
 very, very old city, and stood where it is to-day when there 
 was not a white man in our country — long, indeed, before 
 our country was dreamed of by the people of Europe. 
 It is very different from other Chinese cities,'' ^Irs. Spencer 
 went on, " for the streets are almost all wide and straight, 
 and are laid out at right angles ; but they are not paved 
 and are very dirty, — ankle-deep with dust in the summer^ 
 and almost impassable with mud when it rains. 
 
93 
 
 " The houses in Peking are low, enclosed with walls 
 around an inner court, so that nothing can be seen of the 
 interior. The Chinese are forced to live in the southern 
 part of Peking, and here they have fine shops and carry 
 on business as industriously as they do everywhere. Be- 
 yond the Chinese city is the Tartar city in which the Tartars 
 live. They are very much like the Chinese, but have more 
 authority and are favored by the Empress Dowager. 
 
 The Forbidden City 
 
 '' A straight wall built across the Chinese city from one 
 side to the other, joining the outer w^all, which entirely 
 surrounds Peking, separates the Chinese from the Tartar 
 city. Within the Tartar city is the Imperial City. Here 
 the noble Manchus live, their houses roofed with bright 
 green tiles ; and in the very center is the so-called ' For- 
 bidden City/ in w^hich are the fine gardens and palaces 
 of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager. Their palaces 
 
94 
 
 are roofed with deep yellow tiles, which shine like gold 
 among the trees that grow in the courts. Each city has 
 its own wall pierced with gates. The Emperor and the 
 Empress Dowager rarely leave their palaces in the Forbidden 
 City. Before the Emperor was imprisoned, which was 
 in the month of September, 1898, he Avent to the temples 
 at certain seasons to offer thanksgivings to the gods,, 
 or to pray for rain. \Mien he did so. the people were 
 commanded to stay within their houses that they might 
 not see him, for his person is considered sacred. A company 
 of the very highest princes in the land went with him. 
 The streets through which he had to pass were strewn 
 with fresh yellow earth upon which no foot had trodden, 
 and all the cross streets were carefully shut out by curtains 
 of line yellow m.atting. Should any one have been detected 
 trying to catch sight of the Emperor he would have been 
 put to death instantly." 
 
 X. PEKING 
 
 IT was almost two o'clock in the afternoon and ]\Iary and 
 Ellen were very tired. They had been up at daylight 
 and had had no rest since they left their berths on the 
 steamer. The excitement of new scenes and adventures had 
 occupied them, and they did not realize how quickly the 
 time had passed. 
 
 The country between Tientsin and Peking is like that 
 around Shanghai, except that in the south they had seen 
 
95 
 
 green rice fields. Here were the same level plains, covered 
 with scattered graves. The crops had all been gathered, 
 and the fields where the tall millet grows in summer and 
 ripens in the early autumn had been stripped bare. The 
 stalks had been cut to within a foot of the ground and these 
 women were digging with short, sharp hoes, shaking the 
 earth from the dry roots and tying them in bundles. The 
 millet roots, Mrs. Spencer said, were to be used for fuel. 
 
 They saw but one pretty house, and that stood near the 
 roadside in a garden where chrysanthemums and marigolds 
 were blooming in long rows. Pumpkin seeds, of which the 
 Chinese are very fond, were spread out on the flat roof 
 to dry, and festoons of pumpkin were hung above the door, 
 also drying, to be used in the winter when vegetables are 
 scarce. 
 
 After a while, they saw a long, indistinct line, which 
 stretched far away, fading in the distance ; it semed to rise 
 from the ground like a grayish-brown cloud. ^' It is the 
 outer wall of Peking,'' said Mrs. Spencer, and Mary and 
 Ellen rose, stood on tiptoe and gazed through the window 
 for a long time, trying to realize that they were really in 
 sight of the Chinese capital. 
 
 To west and north a rugged mountain chain appeared 
 with sharp peaks, the slopes taking on a hundred lovely 
 tints of pearl and pink and gray in the afternoon light. 
 They were the Western Hills, where the foreigners go 
 in summer to escape the great heat and the dust and 
 stench of Peking. It was still more strange, when the train 
 finally halted at the long platform, to see the name of the 
 station, ''Peking/' in English; and the station itself was 
 much more American than Chinese. All the passengers 
 
96 
 
 hurried from the train, the Chinese laughing and talking 
 in their high, shrill voices, and the foreigners, for there 
 were many foreigners besides themselves, anxious to reach 
 their homes, or the hotel where they Vv'ere to stay. 
 
 Air. Spencer had telegraphed for rooms, just as he would 
 have done at home, and a fat, jolly Chinese from the hotel 
 was Vv'aiting for them. Their luggage was sorted out and 
 
 Railroad Station at Peking 
 
 piled into carts, then the compradore, or steward, led the 
 way to the spick and span new electric tram car. which 
 whirled them to the city gates in a few minutes. On 
 the opposite side of the road they saw more queer sights, — 
 strings of camels loaded with bales and sacks, the 
 leader wearing around his neck a bell from which hung 
 a long tassel of crimson silk. " Cling-clang," " Cling- 
 clang " the bell chimed, keeping time to the camel's soft 
 tread. The animals like the sound, and followed lazilv, 
 
97 
 
 with half-closed eyes, their jaws moving from side to 
 side in a very strange fashion as they munched their cuds. 
 
 There were processions of carts, big, unwieldly wagons 
 drawn by mules, horses and even cows, all harnessed 
 together in a perfect net-work of ropes. In the midst of 
 this motley procession a young Chinese rode swiftly on 
 a bicycle, bare-headed in the blazing sun, his queue stream- 
 ing out behind him almost in a straight line. 
 
 The motorman and the conductor on the electric car 
 were both Chinese, and, like the engineer on the train, 
 were proud of their skill in managing the wonderful foreign 
 tram. When the line was first opened they made some 
 funny mistakes. All the cars were collected at one end of 
 the line and were then sent back to the station, the cars 
 following one behind the other. People who wanted to 
 ride had to wait for them to return, sometimes an hour 
 or more. 
 
 At the city gate the compr adore hired jinrikishas which 
 had just been brought to Peking, but where they could be 
 used only on a few streets, all the others being too rough 
 and full of ruts. 
 
 The rikisha men ran as fast as they could along the 
 road through the Chinese city. It had once been well paved 
 with great blocks of stone, many of which, however, had 
 been displaced or broken, and others carried away, leaving 
 yawning holes into which the wheels sank and bounced 
 out again. It was hard work to keep one's seat, and they 
 held fast to the little carriage. On either side of the road 
 were wide spaces, bare and brown, like the fields, where 
 there were herds of cattle and flocks of sheep and goats that 
 were to be sold. People walked to and fro in narrow paths 
 krout's china — 7 
 
98 
 
 close to the wall. Near the gate of the Chinese city, opening 
 into the Tartar city, were hnndreds of shops with people 
 buying and selling, and the restaurants surrounded with 
 patrons, as they had seen them in Shanghai and Suchau. 
 
 Here in the north, the men were tall' and strong, their 
 skin was darker and their eyes were not so slanting as those 
 that they had seen farther south. But they were not quite 
 so good-natured, and two or three scowled at them angrily. 
 
 At one place a bridge crossed a stagnant canal. Mary and 
 
 Ellen noticed that it was crowded with people who wore 
 
 filthy, tattered clothes, and who seemed never to have had 
 
 a bath in all their lives ; their hands and faces were grimy, 
 
 and their hair tangled and matted with dust. This was 
 
 unusual, for a Chinese, who will never go without shoes 
 
 if he can help it, is also careful to keep his queue neatly 
 
 braided. But this was the Beggar's Bridge, where people 
 
 }vho are allowed to beg, as a means of getting their living, 
 
 are always to be seen, when they are not following their 
 
 trade. Each begger has a license to beg, for which he pays, 
 
 just as men pay for a license to sell various things in our 
 
 own country. The beggar goes from shop to shop and 
 
 the merchants are forced to give him a few '' cash " to get 
 
 rid of him. If they refuse, the beggar goes away and 
 
 comes back with a crowd of his beggar friends and they 
 
 crowd about the merchant's shop until they are all paid. 
 
 The merchants have found by experience that it is better to 
 
 give one beggar what he asks rather than to pay so many. 
 
 No one seems able to drive them away, and they hang about, 
 
 rude and noisy, keeping customers out of the shop, until 
 
 they get what they demand. 
 
 The streets m the Tartar city are rough causeways, with 
 
99 
 
 deep ditches on either side in which filthy water collects 
 after the rains. The shops open upon the streets, and in 
 front is a space like a broad sidewalk for people who go 
 on foot; on the farther side of this space are small booths 
 roughly patched together, some of them roofed only with 
 canvas. These booths stand next to the street, or along 
 the edge of the deep ditch which Tiad been left from digging 
 
 Street in Peking 
 
 out the earth to repair the narrow track where two carts 
 can scarcely pass, and which is continually worn away 
 by the heavy wheels. The shop fronts are of richly carved 
 wood which had been thickly gilded, but the sun and 
 rain have ruined the gilding, and it has never been re- 
 newed. The Chinese are satisfied if what they have is fresh 
 and bright for a little while. It never occurs to them 
 
 that anything which falls into decay can ever be repaired 
 
 LofC. 
 
lOO 
 
 and made as good as new. This is true, not only of 
 the gilded shop fronts, but of the roads and temples and 
 the fine marble bridges which one of the Emperors had 
 built across the northern rivers. Over the door of some of 
 the shops are dragon's heads on tall poles, with long spiral 
 springs of gilt wire, each tipped with an acorn, sprouting 
 
 American Legation 
 
 from the nostrils, which tilt and bend continually in the 
 wind. 
 
 They entered the beautiful Ha-ta-men. The name which 
 was translated for them means " The Gate of Sublime 
 Learning." They turned into what is known as Legation 
 Street, on which all the foreign ^Ministers live, that is, 
 officers of a higher class than consuls who are sent to 
 Peking to look after the interests of their governments. 
 
lOI 
 
 Each legation stands in its own compound, inclosed in a 
 solid wall, entered through a gate where a gate keeper 
 is always on duty. Over each house, on Sunday, the flag 
 of the country which the legation represents, is raised, and 
 Mary and Ellen soon learned to know the different flags 
 quite well. They admired the snow-white standard of Japan 
 with its big round Sun in the center — to represent the 
 '' Land of the Rising Sun," as Japan calls herself. 
 
 Chinese Sawyers 
 
 The streets of the Tartar city are as busy and crowded 
 as those of the Chinese city, but along Legation Street 
 there are no shops. They saw men sawing great beams of 
 wood by the wayside, the beam being tilted on end and 
 sawed into strips, or boards. Two men were required to 
 saw the beam. Boards have been sawed by hand in this 
 way for ages in China, and will be for ages to come, if the 
 
I02 
 
 people have their way. It is slow and tedious, as is most 
 work done in China, but more people are thus employed, 
 and there are work and wages for them, which would 
 not be the case if mills were put up everywhere. Wood 
 is very costly, for it must be brought from a long dis- 
 tance, and it is sold by weight. No one would think of 
 using wood for fuel in China, where hardly enough is sup- 
 plied for doors and window frames, furniture and coffins. 
 The houses, as Mary and Ellen already knew, are roofed 
 with tiles, and the floors are paved with brick or stone, 
 even in the palaces. Only foreign houses, of which there 
 are very few, have wooden floors and staircases. 
 
 They were rather surprised when the rikisha man suddenly 
 turned in at a narrow, arched gateway over which they 
 read : " Hotel de Peking.'' There was no sign of a hotel 
 from outside, and they were taken along a paved passage- 
 way, covered with a trellis over which vines had been 
 trained, which made a thick, pleasant shade. It was cool 
 and quiet after the noisy, dusty streets, and Mrs. Spencer 
 gave a sigh of relief when she stepped out of the jinrikisha 
 and knew that they were at their journey's end. 
 
 Their room was at the rear of the building, and opened 
 into the court where there were more shady arbors, and 
 flowers growing in porcelain pots ; but not a blade of grass 
 to be seen anywhere. 
 
 The room was clean and prettily furnished, and in a 
 little while tea was brought which they were very glad 
 to have. During the night, when Mary. awoke, she could 
 not at all realize where she was. She heard a strange sound 
 — "rat, tat, tat /a//' '^ rat-/aMat-fa^" that grew louder as 
 it approached, was repeated after a little pause, and then 
 
I03 
 
 died away in the distance. She learned that this was 
 a poHceman going his rounds ; the noise was made by 
 beating upon, a piece of hollow wood, for Chinese police- 
 men are not expected to capture thieves and evil doers, but 
 only to scare them away, and the loud noise warns them 
 when the policeman is coming. Mary thought this was 
 certainly a safe way for both the policeman and the thief, 
 who, if they never meet, can not hurt each other. She 
 learned, too, that the police are able to pay men not to break 
 into houses, which they do not molest as long as the pay 
 continues. The Chinese think .this a very good and wise 
 plan as it saves a great deal of trouble. 
 
 XL IN AND AROUND PEKING 
 
 THERE are few places where one can walk in Peking. 
 The streets are dirty and dusty and the crowds that 
 usually follow foreigners, or gather around them, are not 
 always polite. '' They are no worse,'' said Mrs. Spencer, 
 '' than ignorant people in other countries, who would be 
 just as curious about Chinese women as these people are 
 about foreigners. I think that they are better than one 
 might expect to find them, when we remember how badly 
 they have been treated. Even here, in their own land, 
 foreigners are rude and cruel to them, and take advantage 
 of them in many ways. We expect them to be kind and 
 civil to us, while we treat them unjustly and have no regard 
 for their feelings. The Chinese are taught from childhood," 
 
104 
 
 she said, '' to treat their elders and their superiors with great 
 reverence. The Emperor's teacher can sit in his presence, 
 which not even the highest nobles can do, because the 
 teacher ranks next to the parent. Their feelings are easily 
 wounded and they never forget a slight. I once saw a 
 Chinese who had been engaged by an American family 
 to wait at table; he was very much frightened and did 
 not know the use of the various kinds of spoons, knives 
 and forks. He made mistakes at which they laughed and 
 he was so much ashamed that he left the house and never 
 went back again, — not even for the wages that the people 
 owed him. He had 'lost face,' as the Chinese say; that 
 is, he had been mortified and shamed in public and never 
 wanted to see the family again.'' 
 
 In front of the hotel were carts, donkeys and jinrikishas 
 which could be hired, but they learned that it was not the 
 custom to ride the donkeys inside the walls, although they 
 could do so outside the gates. They must go about the 
 city either in a cart, a jinrikisha, or a litter. 
 
 On Sunday they went to a Mission Church where nearly 
 all the congregation w^ere Chinese. The men sat on one 
 side of the church and the women and girls on the other. 
 They were much cleaner than most Chinese, and their faces 
 were brighter and more intelligent. This was especially 
 true of the women, who, in Chinese families, except a few 
 of the highest class, are taught very little. The hymns 
 and the lessons were all in Chinese, and a sermon in the 
 same language was preached by a young Chinese priest. 
 The congregation was very quiet and listened closely. They 
 sang very sweetly, the air only, for it is hard to teach 
 them the different parts. Mary was much surprised that 
 
I05 
 
 they could sing at all, for Chinese music is so strange and 
 discordant she did not suppose that they could learn even 
 simple foreign airs. When the service was over, the mis- 
 sionaries who were there with their pupils came up and 
 shook hands with the foreign strangers. They invited 
 
 Woman of the Wealthy Class 
 
 them to the Mission residence and asked them to visit the 
 schools, which Mrs. Spencer said they would do. 
 
 Mary and Ellen had been taught to consider Sunday as 
 a day of rest and they could not get used to the Chinese 
 
io6 
 
 Sunday which was Hke any other day in the week, — the 
 shops all open, people buying and selling, the sawyers sawing 
 the great beams of wood, and the caravans of camels filing 
 in and out of the Ha-ta-men. Mrs. Spencer told them 
 that there were certain feast days when people do not 
 work, and, no matter how poor they are, almost everyone 
 takes a holiday at the Chinese New Year. It does not 
 come at the time we celebrate our New Year, but more 
 than a month later, for the Chinese year is not divided 
 like our own. 
 
 '' It is a time of great rejoicing," said Mrs. Spencer. 
 " Every man tries then to pay his debts, and it is a great 
 disgrace not to do so. The shops are closed except those 
 where food is sold, and but few of these are open. Everyone 
 wears new clothes; the rich have coats and gowns of silk 
 and satin lined with costly sable, and the poor, garments of 
 blue cotton, thickly wadded. If a man is too poor to 
 buy clothes, he hires them for the fortnight during which 
 the New Year is celebrated, and, at the end of the fortnight, 
 takes them back to the shop where he got them. Gifts are 
 exchanged as we exchange them at Christmas, and in nearly 
 every house much better food is eaten than at ordinary times. 
 The people of rank and wealth give feasts that cost large 
 sums of money, at which all sorts of Chinese dainties, 
 which we would not think fit to eat at all, are served, — 
 sea slugs, bird's nest soup, silkworms fried in oil, and other 
 things. The poor treat themselves to a bit of meat 
 which they rarely taste at any other time, — a fowl, a duck 
 or a few eggs ; this, with plenty of vegetables, soup and 
 tea is for them a feast indeed. 
 
 " There are manv odd customs connected with the New 
 
I07 
 
 Year ; great quantities of firecrackers are set off, the courts 
 and houses are brightly Hghted with Chinese lanterns, and 
 fresh gate gods are pasted on the gates at the front of the 
 court. The pictures of these gods can be bought only at 
 the New Year. One picture is of the god who, they think, 
 sends them good luck; the other is of the wicked god, 
 who scowls, and stamps his foot and brandishes a terrible 
 sword. They do not like this god, but they are afraid not 
 to paste his picture on the door, for fear he may feel slighted 
 and do them harm; just as they put the mischievous gods 
 on the altars in the temple, as you saw them at Modo and 
 Suchau. 
 
 '' One of the strangest of their customs is the burning 
 of the little kitchen god on New Year's eve. Every Chinese 
 cook, who has not been taught better, has hanging up in 
 his kitchen a picture of this little kitchen god who is thought 
 to befriend him and help him with his cooking, sending 
 him ' good luck ' with his pies and puddings. On the 
 eve of the New Year the little kitchen god's mouth is 
 smeared with treacle, of which he is supposed to be very 
 fond, and he is then solemnly burned. When he is burned 
 they believe he goes straight to Heaven, and, because- his 
 mouth has been sweetened with the treacle, he will tell no 
 tales of the naughty things the cook may have done, — how 
 he may have helped himself to his master's white bread 
 or coffee, or ham, which all Chinese cooks like very much. 
 It is hard to keep them from pilfering. They seem to 
 think that they have a right to small things of this sort, 
 when they would not touch a piece of jewelry or money. 
 
 " When the kitchen god has been in heaven for one 
 week they suppose he returns, — although they have only 
 
io8 
 
 pasted on the wall a fresh picture which they themselves 
 have boug"ht. While the kitchen god is in heaven the 
 -bad cook thinks that he may do as he likes. There is 
 no one to watch and tell tales, and the mistress is sometimes 
 glad when a new picture is pasted up. Chinese children 
 who are sent to foreign schools learn to laugh at these 
 stories, which makes the priests very angry.'' 
 
 While the}^ were coming away from the church they 
 heard soft, strange music which came from far above their 
 heads. It rose and swelled and died away, like the notes of 
 an organ. They could see nothing but great flocks of 
 white and blue pigeons, wheeling and soaring in the sun- 
 shine. The compradore told them, when they spoke to 
 him about it, that what they had heard were pigeon whistles. 
 The Chinese dearly love singing birds, and boys and men 
 — even very old men — go about the streets of Peking 
 carrying a pet bird tethered with a thread to a forked 
 stick, or in cages, as they had seen them first at Tongu. 
 There are not many singing birds in the fields near Peking, 
 probably because of the crows, of which there are thousands, 
 and which destroy the eggs and young of other birds ; 
 so the Chinese make whistles of bamboo, which they fasten 
 among the feathers of the pigeons' tails and then turn 
 them loose. As they fly swiftly, wheeling and soaring, the 
 rushing wind blows through the little pipes fastened in 
 their feathers, sending out the lovely sounds the girls had 
 heard. The Chinese have given them the name of " Houris 
 of the Sky." Houris are thought by the Chinese to be 
 beautiful beings that dwell in the Chinese Paradise, as 
 we think of angels dwelling in Heaven. 
 
 The pigeons themselves appear to be much pleased with 
 
log 
 
 the music, and fly swiftly, many in a flock, around and 
 around, to and fro, now brushing the low roofs with 
 their wings, now soaring away again until they are almost 
 lost among the clouds. The music rises and swells, and 
 the little children in the courts of the city look up at them 
 and listen with delight. 
 
 The week after they arrived in Peking they drove about 
 a great deal, although the heavy carts, 'with their big 
 w^heels, the bed resting upon the axle, with no springs to 
 soften the jolting when they sank into ruts and holes, were 
 certainly not comfortable. Had there been sidewalks Mary 
 and Ellen would much have preferred to walk, but there 
 were none. 
 
 They found that in Peking whole streets have been set 
 apart for shops in which but one kind of goods can be 
 bought, such as books, shoes or crockery. Near the Ha- 
 ta-men they saw a booth covered with a horrid patchwork 
 — whole garments, frocks and trousers — stitched upon 
 canvas. Inside the booth two men were standing behind 
 a table heaped with piles of blue cotton garments, and 
 they sang, in a monotonous nasal tone, a song that went 
 on and on and on ; one man sang a line, and the other 
 replied, and there was scarcely time to breathe between 
 the lines. A lady, Mrs. CHfiford, who was with them 
 and understood Chinese, said that they were singing of 
 the second-hand clothes that they were trying to sell. They 
 could hear the song a long distance down the street. 
 
 They noticed, in other places, that the streets were lined 
 with little temporary stalls where men were selling every 
 imaginable kind of article from a fried fish to a piece of 
 jewelry. 
 
no 
 
 5^ ^ 
 
 Chinese Writing 
 
 Innumerable peddlers were 
 making their way here and there 
 through the crowd, balancing 
 large trays on which wxre dis- 
 played various articles for sale. 
 Each man had his own peculiar 
 cry to draw attention to his 
 wares. 
 
 Many foot passengers were 
 walking up and down, stopping 
 at the different booths, — -bar- 
 gaining, selling, chattering, — or 
 eating at tables set out in the 
 open street. It was a very lively 
 scene, and. Mary and Ellen 
 gazed about them with great 
 curiosity. 
 
 A young man, bare - headed 
 and dressed in a very elegant 
 blue silk frock, passed them 
 rolling rapidly about in his long 
 slender fingers a heavy metal 
 ball. '' That is a public writer,'' 
 said Mrs. Clift'ord. '' Chinese 
 characters are very difficult 
 to write. There are so many 
 strokes, fine and heavy, with 
 little dots and dashes, that 
 it requires a very steady, flex- 
 ible hand to make them properly. 
 Every line that is left out, or 
 
Ill 
 
 stroke added, changes the meaning of the character — a 
 single one of which may be a whole sentence. So, to keep 
 the lingers supple, the public writers carry those heavy balls 
 about with them, rolling them constantly that their hand 
 may not become stiff, just as a piano player must practice 
 
 his exercises every day. 
 Not far from the Ha- 
 ta-men they saw an old 
 man in a booth, with an 
 audience of men and 
 boys on benches in front 
 of him. He was talking 
 to them, ]\Iary supposed, 
 making very graceful 
 gestures, and they were 
 listening very closely, so 
 as not to lose a word. 
 The man was a story- 
 teller, and amused the 
 crowds who gathered to 
 hear him, with old tales 
 and legends of China — 
 the adventures of heroes, 
 princes and princesses, 
 that had been handed 
 down for generations, 
 and were know^n as our fairy stories are known to chil- 
 dren everywhere. Each person in the audience paid a 
 small sum for the privilege of listening. The Chinese never 
 get tired of hearing these legends, although they know 
 them by heart. It is a countrv where thev are not continu- 
 
 A Public Speaker 
 
112 
 
 ally asking for something new, but are still pleased and 
 content with that which pleased their fathers and grand- 
 fathers before them. 
 
 No ladies were seen on foot; all rode in carts with the 
 driver sitting on one shaft, where Chinese drivers are 
 expected to sit, and a woman servant, without which no 
 Chinese lady ever goes from home, perched upon the other. 
 The ladies were beautifully dressed in embroidered silk, 
 
 their faces powdered to 
 ^^^^^^LQ ^^^"^^ K snowy whiteness, the lips 
 
 and cheeks painted with 
 vermilion. The hair was 
 arranged on a narrow 
 board at the back of the 
 Peking Cart head, projecting several 
 
 inches on either side, and decorated with many bright 
 artificial flowers and butterflies. They were Manchu ladies 
 — the race to which the Empress Dowager belongs — and 
 their feet had never been bound. 
 
 Mary and Ellen did not know what this meant, and ques- 
 tioned their mother about it. '' I will tell you about it 
 later on," said their mother. 
 
 XII. CHINESE GIRLS 
 
 WHEN they had washed the dust from their hands and 
 faces, and had rested a little while, Mary reminded 
 her mother that she had promised to tell them about Chinese 
 girls whose feet had been '' bound," or dwarfed and crippled 
 so that it was hard for them to walk. 
 
113 
 
 " What is called foot-binding is not practiced by all people 
 who live in China," said Mrs. Spencer, "' although in our 
 country many think that there are none whose feet are 
 of the natural shape or size; while others suppose that 
 only the feet of women of good families are bound; both 
 opinions are wrong. There are several provinces where 
 the feet of little girls remain as nature made them, and 
 Manchu w^omen, high and low, have large feet. The Em- 
 press Dowager and the ladies of her household have not 
 
 Chinese Little Feet, Showing Method of Binding 
 
 suffered from this foolish and cruel custom. The practice 
 is so old that no one can tell when or how it began. The 
 Chinese of all classes, even those that work at hard labor 
 in the fields, such as boatmen and coolies, have small, slim 
 hands and feet. They wear no stockings — only a sock 
 made of cotton cloth, or bands of cloth in which the feet are 
 snugly wrapped. It is thought by some that foot binding 
 may have begun by gradually tightening the cotton band- 
 ages, until the small feet of the women became still more 
 tiny. The Chinese admire these dwarfed feet very much 
 
114 
 
 indeed, and compare them to golden lilies, and the tottering 
 gait with which * bound-foot ' women move about, to the 
 swaying of lilies upon their stems. 
 
 '' Chinese parents desire sons ; they do not wish daughters 
 who can earn little, for whom it is hard for the poor to 
 provide, and who, when the parents die, can not worship 
 at their graves, or make offerings to their spirits — a neglect 
 that they believe makes the spirits very angry and unhappy. 
 
 ** Should there be a family of boys, then one daughter is 
 welcome, and is petted and indulged; but this does not 
 happen very often. In the families of the more intelligent 
 and well-to-do, little girls are taught in the schools or by 
 tutors at home, until they are ten years old, and, after that, 
 they must study separately. There have been a few clever 
 women writers among the Chinese — poets and writers of 
 history. If the family is poor, only one of the daughters 
 will have her feet bound, for, though she can and does 
 work, she cannot work so well as her sisters who are not 
 crippled. The binding begins at the age of four or five — 
 sometimes not until the little girl is eight years old. The 
 child sulicrs terribly and often cries day and night, and 
 must be shut up in some place in the court where the family 
 can not hear her. Her parents may pity her, but they will 
 not unloose the strong bandages that cause all the pain. 
 Perhaps you have worn boots that did not fit well, that were 
 too narrow or too short, or that you may have out-grown, 
 and you know how they hurt and how glad you were to take 
 them ofT. You can realize, then, the torture that poor little 
 girls in China suffer while the bandaging goes on which 
 causes the foot to wither and shrivel until it scarcely looks 
 like the foot of a human being. The toes are bent under 
 
115 
 
 the arch of the instep, protruding at the side, the great toe 
 only remaining in the proper place ; the heel is bent forward 
 and the child must walk all her life on the back of the heel 
 and the great toe. It requires months and even years of 
 binding to dwarf the foot so that it can never grow any 
 more, and during all that time the girl never for a moment, 
 day or night, ceases to suffer.. When the foot is sufficiently 
 small, little shoes, four or five inches long, made of silk, 
 and covered with fine embroidery, are worn, and Chinese 
 ' bound-foot ' women, who are never strong and are rather 
 silly, are quite proud of their small shoes. I heard of a 
 great mandarin who had a little daughter, who was a bright 
 intelligent child whom he really loved very much. He 
 watched her playing about the court and said : ^ Poor 
 little one ; she has but two years more to run ! ' 
 
 '' He meant that, at the end of two years, she would never 
 again be able to use her feet freely, which would be bound 
 and deformed." 
 
 '' But why do Chinese mothers allow their little girl's 
 feet to be bound?" asked Mary. 
 
 '' Just as mothers in other countries allow their daughters 
 to do hurtful, foolish things — because it is the custom. 
 Then in China young men and women m.ust marry, and 
 men are not willing to have wives with large feet; they 
 say that where the feet have been crippled women cannot 
 go about, unless they ride, which they can not always do, 
 and so they have to stay at home. It is a cruel, selfish 
 reason, but it is that, really, which has made it so hard to 
 do avvay with the practice. Even the silly women themselves 
 wish to have their feet bound, and blame their parents 
 if they are allowed to grow up with feet the proper shape 
 
ii6 
 
 and size. Foreign teachers who have opened schools all 
 over China for girls who are anxious to be taught, are 
 doing a great deal to abolish foot-binding. They will not 
 receive ' bound-foot ' girls ; or, if their feet have been bound, 
 the bandages must be taken off when they enter school. 
 This can be done, and the foreign doctor can help the 
 cripples, by straightening the foot and softening the stiffened 
 
 muscles, although their 
 feet will never be what 
 they were before they 
 were bound." 
 
 '' I am very glad that 
 I am not a Chinese girl/' 
 said Ellen. 
 
 '*' You have many rea- 
 sons to be," her mother 
 replied, '*' for Chinese 
 girls have very little 
 freedom and happiness 
 and affection, compared 
 to those in our own 
 country. When many 
 Chinese Children gi^-jg ^^^ ^qj-^ in a Chi- 
 
 nese family, the parents believe it is because the gods 
 aie angry with them, and the poor little creatures 
 are often treated with much cruelty — starved, beaten, 
 tortured and even put out into the street to die. The 
 foreign teachers have saved hundreds of these waifs, 
 taking them into their own homes, or hiring native 
 women to take care of them, which they are glad to do, if 
 they are paid for it. :\Iany that have been saved in this way 
 
117 
 
 have been educated and have grown up to have homes and 
 families of their own, and you may be very sure that their 
 daughter's feet are never bound, nor are they starved and 
 beaten. You already know what respect the Chinese have 
 for schools, and teachers and education, and when the girl 
 is taught and becomes intelligent, she is respected by the 
 family as she never could have been if she had remained 
 ignorant. She is not only taught from books, but to sew 
 and make lace, to speak English in order that she may 
 make herself useful in foreign families who are glad to 
 hire her and pay her good wages ; and this makes her family 
 respect her still more. One little Chinese girl that I saw in 
 Shanghai earned more by making lace than her father and 
 all her brothers were able to earn. She gave all her money 
 to her parents, of course, and you can guess how clever 
 the family thought she was, and how much better she was 
 treated than if she had been able to do nothing, and still 
 had to have her portion of the tea and rice, of which there 
 is never quite enough to go around.'' 
 
 '' If the Chinese do not respect women very much, how 
 does it happen that they have an Empress who has more 
 power than the Emperor, who is a mian ? " 
 
 '' A great many people have asked that question," Mrs. 
 Spencer replied. '' It is because the Emperor is the adopted 
 son of the Empress Dowager. Her own son, the Emperor 
 Tung-Chih, died after he had reigned a few years. He 
 had no son to succeed him, and the Empress Dowager 
 chose her husband's little nephew to be Emperor, as she 
 had a right to do, under the laws of China. He was only 
 four years old, — too young to be a real Emperor, so his 
 foster mother governed the empire for a long time until 
 
ii8 
 
 he was old enough to sit on the throne. She was looked 
 upon as the mother of the Emperor, and this gave her an 
 authority over him which will last as long as he lives. A 
 son must obey his mother always, and never, even when he 
 is a grown man, does he pass from under her control. When 
 the son marries, he does not make a separate home for 
 himself, but brings his wife to his mother, where they live 
 in the same court ; no matter if there are six sons or more, 
 
 all bring their wives to 
 their m o t h e r's house, 
 where they wait upon 
 her and are treated with 
 very little regard until 
 they have sons of their 
 ov/n. Should they have 
 only daughters they are 
 treated like servants, al- 
 ways. The daughter-in- 
 law who has no son does 
 not often sit at table, or 
 even sit down in the 
 
 presence of her mother- 
 
 The Empress Dowager • i i i • i 
 
 ^ ^ m-law, unless she is ask- 
 
 ed to do so. She must sew, and cook and clean and do all 
 the rough, hard work, if the family is too poor to hire serv- 
 ants to do it. The son can not marry without his mother's 
 consent, and he would not consider it lucky to engage in any 
 business which she did not approve. The best of everything 
 is provided for the mother, — the best rooms in the court, the 
 best clothing and the best food, — and a son who neglects 
 his mother, disobeys her, or treats her with disrespect, is 
 
119 
 
 looked tipon as a very v/icked man. Sons often almost 
 starve themselves to death in order that their mother may 
 have food, if there is not enough for all; so you can see 
 why sons are so m.uch desired. The Chinese have a legend 
 of a young man who devoted his whole life to caring for 
 his mother; he worked early and late, and was only sorry 
 that he could not do more. When she finally died he 
 mourned bitterly, bought her a fine coffin and had her 
 buried in a lucky place. He went to her grave every day, 
 During her life she had always been afraid of thunder- 
 storms. After she died, during storms he slept upon her 
 grave so that her spirit might not be troubled. He was 
 thought such a good son that the Chinese worship him to 
 this day, and you may see figures of him in many of their 
 temples. 
 
 " Every office in China depends upon scholarship, and is 
 obtained by means of examinations. Men study for these 
 examinations books that have been written by great Chinese 
 teachers — Confucius, the greatest of all, and Mencius who 
 lived many years later. They know nothing of arithmetic 
 as we teach it, or geography, or the real history of the 
 world, or what are called the natural sciences. The old 
 Chinese do not wish to know, for they consider the world 
 outside of China of no importance, and they call the people 
 who live there ' foreign devils' or 'outside barbarians.' 
 
 '' The writings of the great Confucius and Mencius are 
 really excellent instruction in good morals and good man- 
 ners. They teach a child how to conduct himself in the 
 presence of his teachers and parents, the duty of parents 
 to their teachers and of men to their rulers and of rulers to 
 their people. These teachings are committed to memory, 
 
120 
 
 and, on a certain day, all men who are candidates for any 
 office meet in the capital of the province where the examina- 
 tion is held. Men of all ages come up to the examinations, 
 — the young, the middle-aged and the very old, the ' grand- 
 fathers,' as the Chinese call them. If they fail, they may 
 try again and again, and there are some who keep trying 
 all their lives and never succeed. Boys of all classes can 
 
 Examination Hall 
 prepare for the examinations, except the sons of yamen 
 runners (as the errand boys at the official residences are 
 called), the sons of actors, and the sons of the women 
 who sing on the flower-boats and in public halls. When 
 a young man passes his examination in the capital of his 
 province, he can go up to Peking and pass the highest 
 examinations of all, which are held every three years. 
 
121 
 
 From among these successful students are chosen the can- 
 didates for the various offices. 
 
 '' When the examination is to take place, each student 
 is shut up by himself in a little brick cell, like an old- 
 fashioned oven, in which there are two boards, one upon 
 which he sits, and one upon which his writing materials 
 are placed, — the paper and ink-stone, which is a piece 
 of India ink, for they do not use fluid ink like ours. The 
 camel's hair brush with which they write is sharpened 
 to a fine point, and with this the characters are really 
 painted upon the sheets of soft rice paper which they 
 use, — not from left to right — but from right to left. 
 The examination requires about three days,, and none 
 of the men who hope to pass can leave their cells, 
 except to take a little exercise; their food is cooked where 
 the examinations are held and brought to them in their 
 cells. When a student is successful, there is the greatest 
 rejoicing in his native town or city ; firecrackers are set 
 off, there are illuminations and processions, and everybody 
 takes pride in the honor which their candidate has won, 
 which is an honor not only for himself, but for his family, 
 his city, and his province. No one else is so proud, then, as 
 the mother, whose friends visit her with gifts and con- 
 gratulations ; no one is so happy as she, and other mothers 
 envy her good fortune." 
 
 The girls were very much interested in all this, but 
 Mary said : '' I am more glad than ever that I am not 
 a Chinese girl ; I would not like to live in a country where 
 I could not study and be taught, and where there was no 
 place for me, no matter how hard I might work, or how 
 clever I might be.'' 
 
M 
 
 122 
 
 XIII. ON THE WALLS OF PEKING 
 
 RS. CLIFFORD had promised to take IMary and Ellen 
 upon the city wall, and a few days after they had 
 met her she called at the hotel for them. Mrs. Spencer 
 went with them. They walked, for it was not very far from 
 the hotel. The walls of Peking are almost like those of 
 Suchau, except that over each gate is a lofty tower of 
 many stories, each story tilted upward at the corners, like 
 the terraces of a pagoda. There were times when the 
 Chinese refused to let foreigners walk upon the wall, and 
 Chinese women are never permitted to do so. Foreign 
 women are .not refused permission to walk there now, but 
 because they go about as they like they are considered 
 bold and immodest. Yet, while the Chinese think them 
 much too self-reliant, they can not help admiring them 
 because they are not afraid, and, still more, because they 
 are educated. 
 
 Mrs. Spencer wrote a great many letters, and notes of 
 what she had seen, and because she sat so much at her desk 
 the servants considered her very wise, and gave her a 
 Chinese name by which they always called her : '' Mali 
 Gow," which means in English '' the Exhalted One." 
 
 Mrs. Clifford had brought with her a manservant who 
 walked behind them. When they reached the passage to the 
 top of the wall they found, not steps, but a long, sloping 
 ascent paved with narrow bricks up which they climbed 
 with very little difficulty. The walls are almost forty 
 feet high, paved on top, and strengthened at regular dis- 
 tances with additional masonry called buttresses. The 
 foundation is of stone, — two walls of the brickwork resting 
 
123 
 
 on the stone and filled in with earth. Grass and bushes 
 grow all along the wall, springing up in the crevices of 
 the pavement. The outside wall, which incloses the three- 
 fold city, is nearly fifteen miles in extent. It is pierced by 
 seven gates which have very high-sounding names, like 
 "The Western Gate of Expediency," "The Right Gate 
 of Peace," etc. 
 
 There are almost no trees in the country, but, from the 
 walls, Peking looks like a city embowered in foliage. The 
 trees have not been planted along the streets, but within 
 
 Walls of Peking, Showing Astronomical Instruments 
 
 the courts and gardens from which they can not be seen 
 very plainly by passers-by in the streets. Mrs. Clifford 
 pointed out the Observatory where at that time there still 
 remained the fine astronomical instruments of bronze which 
 the Catholic priests, more than two hundred years before, 
 had taught the Chinese how to make. Among them was 
 a great globe of bronze, with the stars placed upon it as 
 
124 
 
 they are placed in the heavens. The metal had been so 
 burnished by the rain and wind that it had a gloss like 
 brown, polished marble. 
 
 Looking east from the Observatory they saw the remains 
 of another wall; this was the ancient wall of the old city, 
 which had been visited centuries ago by a great traveler 
 named Marco Polo, who wrote a book about the Chinese. 
 He told m.any strange stories that nobody then believed, but 
 which afterwards were found to be true. Near the ancient 
 wall they saw the Emperor's rice granaries, a row of low 
 buildings in which is stored the rice which belongs to the 
 government and which had been brought by ships from the 
 south. 
 
 They could also see the yellow-tiled roofs of the Forbid- 
 den City, where the Empress Dowager lives. It is not 
 really a city but a collection of temples and palaces in beau- 
 tiful gardens filled with trees, flowers and lotus ponds, 
 and canals spanned by bridges of beautifully carved marble. 
 The green-roofed palaces of the Imperial City, where the 
 nobles, and the relatives of the Emperor live, are also 
 shaded by tall ash trees. The relatives of the Emperor are 
 allowed to live in the green-roofed palaces, so long as he 
 does not want them for some other purpose — for other 
 relatives, or officials, or, as sometimes happened, simply to 
 tear them down. 
 
 Mrs. Clifford told them that she knew a family of 
 charming Manchu ladies who were cousins of the Em- 
 peror and had lived in a palace in the Imperial City. A 
 Chinese palace, after all, is rather a poor sort of house. 
 It - is scantily furnished compared to our houses, and is 
 cold and uncomfortable and never very clean. There is no 
 
125 
 
 glass in the windows, the frames being set with squares 
 of white paper which, wet with the rain, soon become 
 ragged and broken. The floors are paved with stone or 
 brick and are not covered with rugs or matting; everything 
 that is not wanted is thrown upon the floor, for, as Mary 
 and Ellen knew, the Chinese are not neat. 
 
 The Emperor's cousins were very happy in their palace, 
 which was better than most of such buildings. The garden 
 was pretty and spacious, with its lotus ponds and pools 
 for the queer, goggle-eyed, spotted Chinese goldfish. 
 
 They had their own theater even, where plays were given 
 that it required weeks to present, with large companies of 
 actors and musicians who made what we would think very 
 horrible noises with their squeaking bagpipes, trumpets, 
 hautboys and clanging gongs that sound like so many tones 
 in Chinese speech — '' z-i-n-u-n-g ; — p-i-n-u-n-g ; '' — all to- 
 gether making a deafening discord. The princesses stayed 
 in their palace in cold weather and sat on the brick platform 
 in their rooms, — the k'ang^ or Chinese bed — which is 
 heated from a little furnace in the floor. They ate and slept, 
 read and gossiped, or worked at their fine embroidery, or 
 made funny animals, cats, goats and*donkeys, out of cotton 
 wool which they colored very prettily and fastened upon 
 sheets of blue or green paper and hung upon the wall. In 
 summer they strolled about the garden, for being Manchu 
 ladies their feet had not been bound ; or they sat upon a 
 bench in the shade, while one of the ladies read aloud from 
 the classics, or a Chinese poem or story. The garden which 
 they loved was beautiful and peaceful ; they thought that 
 in all Peking there was not one to be compared with it. 
 Alas ! one day a haughty servant from the Forbidden City 
 
126 
 
 came and told them that the great Son of Heaven, which 
 is one of the Emperor's titles, wished them to move to 
 another palace in quite a distant part of Peking ; he wanted 
 the ground upon which their green-roofed palace stood for 
 a pleasure garden, and all the buildings were to be pulled 
 down. '' You can imagine," said Airs. Clifford, " hovv^ 
 grieved they were, and how hard it must have been for 
 them to give up the home of which they had grown so 
 fond. But the word of the Emperor is law, it is, in fact, 
 the real law of China. So they collected their cabinets of 
 carved wood, their porcelain and cloisonne — which is metal 
 work inlaid with enamel, — and their stools and tables, 
 which were piled into carts and taken to the new palace, 
 which was not half so pretty as the old, and where I 
 do not think the princesses will ever be quite contented, 
 although they must submit and not complain. I passed 
 their old home the other day," ]\Irs. Clifford went on, " all 
 the buildings were gone, and the brick and rubbish that 
 remained was being taken away in carts. It may have 
 been that some one who did not like the princesses put it 
 into the head of the Emperor to take their palace from them, 
 for such things happen in China ; and he has so many 
 gardens already, that he could have done very well without 
 another. Nothing is left but that tall tree," she said, point- 
 ing a long distance away, and they saw it distinctly, its 
 spreading boughs stirring softly in the wind. 
 
 '' The Emperor must be very cruel and selfish," said Ellen. 
 
 "On the contrary," said ]\Irs. CHftord, ''he is very mild 
 and gentle, and not more selfish than any other one man 
 would be who has great power ; who has been taught 
 all his life that everv wish must be ^-ranted, and who has 
 
127 
 
 been courted and flattered and even worshiped. The Chinese 
 think that the Emperor is really the Son of Heaven, — 
 not a common man likes the rest of us, although he may 
 be sad and discouraged, ill and unhappy and disappointed, 
 and must die at last, like other men, only perhaps earlier 
 than men who have led less anxious and self-indulgent lives. 
 
 '' Those who have 
 — -] seen Kuang Hsu de- 
 scribe him as tall, slen- 
 der and very pale, with 
 large dark eyes and 
 arched brows, an oval 
 face and good features; 
 but they say that his 
 face is very sad, for he 
 is anxious to save his 
 country, and to make 
 his people happy, which 
 you may not quite be- 
 lieve, because he took 
 his cousins' palace from 
 them." 
 
 They walked for sev- 
 eral miles along the 
 wall, Mary and Ellen 
 
 The Emperor Kuang Hsu 
 
 stopping to gather Tientsin dates, — a pleasant, tart berry 
 that grows everywhere on the low bushes, but the hungry 
 fuel gatherers who are allowed to take away the weeds 
 and leaves on the wall, had not left many of them. 
 
 To the north they saw a tall, mound-shaped hill, with trees 
 growing along the sides, and a small pagoda, or summer- 
 
128 
 
 house, on the top. This is the Ching-shan or '' Coal Hill." 
 It is said to be a great mound of coal collected ages ago 
 and covered with earth — stored there to be used in case 
 the city should ever be surrounded by enemies, and the 
 coal mines be cut ofif. One of the Emperors, the last of 
 the Ming dynasty, or family, whose name was Tsung- 
 Cheng^ hanged himself in this summerhouse when the Man- 
 
 Temple of Confucius 
 
 chus captured Peking and drove the Chinese out. Though 
 he was an Emperor, with great riches and armies of sol- 
 diers, palaces and thousands of slaves, he could not endure 
 life when all these were taken from him, and he died by 
 his own hand, rather than submit to being put to death by 
 his enemies. 
 
129 
 
 At the south gate are two parks filled with tall trees, 
 and here Mrs. Clifford pointed out the roofs of the Temple 
 of Agriculture at the left, and the Temple of Heaven at 
 the right. These, with the Temple of Confucius which they 
 visited before leaving Peking, are the most sacred temples 
 in all China. The temple of Heaven is so old that no one 
 knows by whom or when it was first built. It had been 
 rebuilt by the Ming Emperors, the great roadmakers and 
 builders of China. 
 
 The grounds around the Temple of Heaven contain many 
 acres, and are larger than those of the Temple of Agricul- 
 ture. Both are surrounded by high walls and entered 
 through lofty gates, which at that' time were closed to 
 foreigners. 
 
 At certain seasons of the year the Emperor goes up to the 
 Temple of Heaven to offer prayers, not to the gods, but to 
 the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, in whom the Chinese 
 believe. 
 
 Petitions are offered for rain in time of drought; for 
 good harvests ; for protection from floods ; for relief in 
 time of famine; and for continued peace, for the Chinese 
 hate war, as they have reason to do. It is customary for 
 the Emperor to leave the palace the evening before the 
 day upon which prayers and sacrifices are to be offered. 
 The solemn day is the twenty-first day of December, the 
 winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. He is carried 
 in a gorgeous sedan chair covered with jewels and embroid- 
 ery, on the shoulders of thirty-two bearers, a band of 
 musicians preceding him, and he is followed by a long 
 procession of princes, nobles and magistrates on horseback. 
 
 Within the gates the Emperor leaves the sedan chair and 
 krout's china — Q 
 
130 
 
 proceeds in a carriage drawn by elephants to the Temple 
 of Abstinence. Here he remains all night, not daring to 
 sleep for a moment, or to taste flesh or wine. When the 
 hour for sacrifice arrives he puts on the robes which he 
 has to wear at that time and walks to the altar and kneels 
 while the fire is lighted which consumes the bullock laid 
 upon an iron grating. He bows three times, then prostrates 
 himself before the altar, making costly gifts of silk and 
 gold and jade, all to the sound of strange, unearthly Chinese 
 music. At the last, after other ceremonies, he kneels and 
 receives from a priest wine and meat, '' the cup of happi- 
 ness '' and " the flesh of happiness." 
 
 A ceremony of the same sort takes place at the spring 
 solstice, the 2 1 St of March, when prayers are offered for an 
 abundant harvest. This festival is not so important as 
 that which occurs in the winter when blessings upon the 
 whole empire are asked. 
 
 In the Temple of Agriculture there are four altars ; one 
 each set apart for the spirits of heaven, the spirits of earth, 
 the spirits of the year, and for the spirit of the man who is 
 known throughout China as the first farmer, or Shen-nung, 
 who taught his children how to till the lands, sow the grain, 
 cultivate the vegetables, and gather the harvest. While 
 many trades are carried on, farming is the chief industry 
 and is looked upon by the Chinese as very honorable. Every 
 spring the Emperor goes also to the Temple of Agriculture 
 and plows a piece of ground, to show his reverence for agri- 
 culture and to set an example of industry to his people. 
 A high magistrate is also required to plow a piece of ground 
 set apart for the purpose. 
 
 Ellen and Mary would have liked very much to see these 
 
131 
 
 temples, but even if they had not been closed to foreigners 
 the Chinese would not have been willing to admit girls. 
 They were not so strict in the Temple of Confucius. 
 
 As they came back along the wall they peeped into the 
 door of one of the towers, which had been left ajar, and 
 saw a lot of dusty rubbish and rusting cannon. The sol- 
 diers that stood by the tower did not object, but let them 
 look as long as they liked. 
 
 When they reached the street they heard approaching a 
 great noise of gongs which were being struck with slow, 
 loud, crashing blows that almost drowned the trumpets 
 and bagpipes. ''That is a funeral,'' said Mrs. Clifford; 
 we must wait and see it. It must be the funeral of an 
 official, there are so many musicians." 
 
 It soon came in sight, the musicians sounding the trumpets 
 and beating the gongs. In the procession were men and 
 boys dressed in long, dingy, scarlet frocks,, with pointed red 
 hats in which were broken, draggled feathers, the whole 
 dress being very shabby and dirty. Each carried a wand or 
 banner of some sort. These men and boys had been picked 
 up anywhere in the streets, and were paid a few " cash " to 
 walk to the grave and swell the procession. 
 
 Behind them came other men, dressed in white from head 
 to foot. They moaned and wailed, and some appeared so 
 faint with grief that they had to be supported on either 
 side, as if they were not able to walk by themselves. The 
 family, the wives and children of the dead man — for rich 
 men in China have several wives — rode in carts, and they, 
 too, were dressed in white; even their shoes and earrings 
 were covered with white cloth, but they did not appear to 
 feel very sad. 
 
132 
 
 Some of the men in the procession carried strings of 
 queer-shaped silver and gold paper which had been bought 
 in certain shops where it is always sold. This is called 
 '' spirit money/' which is burned at the grave, and which 
 the Chinese believe can then be used by the spirit of the 
 dead man in the spirit world, to which his friends believe 
 he has gone. But they carried not only paper money, but 
 representations of> carts, horses, mAiles, servants, sedan 
 chairs, wives, all of the natural size, and all cut out of paper, 
 painted to make them as lifelike as possible. These, like 
 the money, were to be burned, and thus changed into spirit 
 mules, carts, wives and servants. Such a funeral is very 
 costly. The coffin, which is always of fine cedar with 
 black or silver letters on the end, was carried on a bier 
 and was hidden by a pall of splendid scarlet silk, richly 
 embroidered in flowers, birds and butterflies. The bier 
 was carried by means of heavy scarlet poles and cords, and 
 required seventy men to lift it. 
 
 The Chinese are very proud of their funerals, and it is a 
 common thing for them to buy their coffins and keep them 
 in their houses for years before they are needed. They do 
 not dislike to have the coffin in the house, as we would, but 
 show it to their friends, who admire it as we would admire 
 a fine piece of furniture. There are many coffin shops in 
 all Chinese towns and cities, and the fragrance of the cedar 
 out of which the coffins are made is very pleasant. 
 
 '' As they are going to bury the man, I suppose the geo- 
 mancer must have been paid well to find a lucky place for 
 the grave," said Mary, who remembered that this was nec- 
 essary, and that bodies sometimes remained unburied for 
 months and even years, if the geomancer did not exert 
 
^33 
 
 himself, or was being too well paid, and so prolonged his 
 search as much as he could. 
 
 XIV. THE MING TOMBS 
 
 THE time had passed so quickly they did not realize that 
 the middle of October had come. Mr. and Mrs. Clif- 
 ford, whose home was in Peking, had made up a party to 
 go to the Ming Tombs and the Nan K'ou Pass, which every- 
 one who can do so visits while in that part of China. Mrs. 
 Spencer, Mary and Ellen were invited to join the party, an 
 invitation which they were glad to accept. 
 
 The Ming Tombs are the burial places of the great rulers 
 of China who did so much for the Empire and the people 
 before they were conquered by the Manchus, a people 
 living in their own country to the west of China. At that 
 time the Manchus excelled only in making war; they had 
 very few arts, very little learning, and lived as the people 
 still live in Manchuria, chiefly by raising flocks and herds. 
 
 The tombs of the Mings are about thirty miles north- 
 west of Peking, and the Nan K'ou Pass is at about the 
 same distance but a little more to the south. 
 
 The pass is the opening in the Hsi Shan, or Western Hills, 
 along the summits of which rise the towers and solid mason- 
 ry of the Great Wall. The Pass is a long defile, with tower- 
 ing clififs on either side, following the bed of a stream which 
 is dry through the summer and winter. At the northwest 
 termination of the Pass is a lofty archway in the Great Wall, 
 
134 
 
 through which go long caravans of camels, mules, horses, 
 donkeys, carts, litters and wagons. It is the road over which 
 traffic is carried on between China, Central Asia and Russia. 
 As Mary and Ellen had often been told, it is hard work 
 to travel in China, away from the seacoast cities where for- 
 eigners are allowed to live, or remote from the rivers and ca- 
 
 Mule Litter 
 
 nals upon which one can travel in a house boat. There are no 
 roads that can be called roads ; no comforts, no conveniences 
 of any sort. Mrs. Spencer was to travel in a mule litter, 
 and the girls were to go in a cart to the City Gate ; then 
 they begged to be allowed to ride upon the little gray 
 donkeys which seemed so gentle and surefooted. They 
 
135 
 
 could dismount and walk when they liked, and take turns 
 riding with their mother in the litter. 
 
 Everything that they might require had to be carefully 
 thought of and lists made out beforehand, as on the house 
 boat journey, for they could buy very little in the towns and 
 villages through which they were to pass. One cart was 
 loaded with supplies of food — bread ; beef, partially cooked 
 so that it would not spoil ; tinned fruits ; condensed milk 
 and cream; coffee, tea, and even vegetables. 
 
 The bedding went in another cart, with the heavy strings 
 of '' cash " which would be needed to buy charcoal, fowls, 
 eggs, and forage for the animals. 
 
 When they set out from the hotel they formed quite a 
 caravan, with the carts, mules, servants, and Mrs. Spencer's 
 litter, with the mounted litterman riding beside it. It was 
 a lovely autumn morning; the sky more deeply blue than 
 they had yet seen it in China, The hills, which were really 
 mountains, took on a hundred lovely tints ; but, though they 
 seemed near at hand, they were really far off, and the Chi- 
 nese have a proverb, ''Who goes to the hills, rides a dead 
 horse,^' because one may travel all day and not reach them. 
 Over their slopes hung a veil of pale blue haze. '' It is 
 quite like an October morning at home/' said Mrs. Spencer, 
 '' except that here there are no trees or vines turning yellow 
 and scarlet in the frost.^' 
 
 They made their way along Legation street very leisurely, 
 passing the British Legation, which is not far from that of 
 the United States. The walls are high and strong, and the 
 buildings are solid and roomy, and can be seen from the 
 street. No one knew what was to happen within that 
 compound before many months had passed, and the big 
 
136 
 
 gates stood hospitably open that bright October morning. 
 Behind those walls men and women, surrounded by cruel 
 Boxers, were to be imprisoned for weeks, with little hope 
 of rescue — saved at last, however, by the brave soldiers 
 sent to their relief. It was well that ^Nlrs. Spencer could 
 not look into the future, for she would never have ventured 
 to visit Peking, much less go into the countrv with her 
 
 .%-r^iTr 
 
 (Copyright, 1901, by J. C. Hemment) 
 
 Legation Street, Peking 
 
 two daughters, when, even at that time, although they 
 were outwardly friendly, the people were ready to make 
 war on the foreigners, and had determined to kill them 
 all — men, women and children. 
 
 The streets at that early hour, for it was only a little 
 past seven, were already crowded with busy people buying 
 and selling, none idle but the beggars, and the boys and 
 
"^n 
 
 men who were gathered under the story-teller's tent, lis- 
 tening as he read or talked. 
 
 At the gate they met scores of men carrying baskets bal- 
 anced on poles and heaped with glossy, orange-colored per- 
 simmons, which were very tempting, but which Mrs. Clifford 
 said were not fit to eat yet, because there had not been frost 
 enough. The rutty tracks outside the walls were thronged 
 with people on their way to Peking. Mary and Ellen had 
 never seen such multitudes ; those on foot were dressed alike 
 in blue frocks, black shoes and white socks ; some bareheaded, 
 and others with the hair covered with a cloth or a black 
 satin cap with a scarlet tuft on top. 
 
 The girls left the cart, glad to escape the terrific jolting 
 which they could not have endured very long. They mounted 
 the little gray donkeys that, saddled and bridled, were wait- 
 ing for them outside the walls. They were as gentle as 
 kittens, but rather lazy; and now and then one would doze 
 as he walked, stumble and fall with his rider. Fortunately, 
 the donkey is such a tiny beast that no one is hurt by such 
 a mishap. 
 
 The girls were glad when they struck off across the fields 
 by a path just wide enough for the donkeys, but in which the 
 carts, which went around by the road, could not travel. 
 They were to have their noon dinner at an inn in a village 
 about ten miles from Peking, and Su Neah, Mrs. Clifford's 
 '' Boy," went on ahead to prepare it. 
 
 They were to stop at the Ta-Chung-sze, or the Temple 
 of the Great Bell. It stands, like all the other temples they 
 had seen, in its own grounds, behind high walls and great, 
 closed gates. They paid the gate keeper to let them in, which 
 he was not quite willing to do. The court was not very 
 
138 
 
 clean, but the oak, pine and ash trees made a pleasant shade, 
 and it was very peaceful and quiet. The great bell hung in a 
 small pavilion of its own, in a framework of stout timbers, 
 and, like ail the great bells of China and Japan, was sounded 
 by being struck on the outer surface by a heavy beam that 
 can be moved to and fro. The Chinese think that when- 
 
 An Inn Courtyard 
 
 ever it is struck the gods will at once send rain ; though, if 
 this were really true, they need never suffer from the long 
 droughts that so often parch the fields and ruin the poor 
 farmers' crops in all this part of China. 
 
 The bell is of bronze, and was cast in the reign of the 
 Emperor Yung-lo, who is called by the Chinese the '' Per- 
 
139 
 
 feet Ancestor." This was over four hundred years ago. 
 There is but one other bell in the world that is so large, — the 
 great bell which hangs in the Kremlin in Moscow, but which 
 was cracked in casting. The bell of the Ta-Chung-sze is 
 sound and whole, and has a deep, rich tone that can be heard 
 for a long distance. It is said that fourteen men can stand 
 under the great bronze bell, every inch of the surface of 
 which is covered with texts from the writings of Buddha, 
 
 who is worshiped by millions 
 of people in China and India. 
 The texts are in Chinese char- 
 acters. 
 
 In China the children are told 
 a legend of the great bell, and 
 there are few of them who do 
 not know it. When the Em- 
 peror gave orders to have it 
 cast, all the master-molders of 
 the Empire were summoned to 
 Peking by the mandarin, 
 Kouan-yu. The metal was col- 
 1 e c t e d — vast quantities of 
 brass, gold and silver — and 
 the furnace fires were lighted. 
 But the melted metals refused to blend, and three times the 
 bell was cast without success. At last the Emperor warned 
 Kouan-yu that, if he failed again, he would be put to death. 
 The mandarin was sad and troubled. He had a beautiful 
 daughter, Ko-N'gai, whom he loved fondly. She noticed 
 her father's anxiety, and, learning that his life was in danger, 
 she consulted the geomancer to see if the peril could be 
 
 The Great Bell 
 
140 
 
 averted. The geomancer told her that the metals would not 
 unite unless they were mixed with human blood. On the 
 dreaded day, when the bell was to be cast for the fourth 
 time, Ko-N'gai begged that she might go with her nurse to 
 see the molten metal poured into the mold. They stood upon 
 the platform looking down upon the seething mass of brass, 
 gold and silver, boiling and bubbling, and when the final 
 moment came Ko-N'gai cried : '' For thy sake, O, my 
 father!'' and leaped down into the burning metal. Not a 
 trace of her body was found, but she left, as she sprang 
 from the platform, one tiny shoe in the hand of the nurse, 
 who tried to catch and hold her back. When the bell is 
 sounded the Chinese say that, as the tones die away, they 
 can hear the voice of Ko-N'gai calling '' Hi-ai,'' and the 
 Chinese mothers say to their little ones : 
 
 ''Listen! that is Ko-N'gai; that is Ko-N'gai crying for 
 her shoe." 
 
 They saw for the first time, after they left the temple, 
 Chinese farms and farmhouses. The fields were being 
 plowed for the next year's crops, and they were very smooth 
 and clean. There were neither fences nor hedges, but in 
 some places low embankments had been thrown up. There 
 were no dividing lines that could be seen between most of 
 the fields, but the farmers themselves knew where they 
 were, and they never quarreled about them or encroached 
 upon their neighbor's land. 
 
 The inn where they had dinner was very bare — low 
 houses arranged around a court in which the carts were left, 
 the animals being fed at stone troughs in sheltered stalls 
 opposite the rooms which they hired. There was a reception 
 room and a bedchamber ; the floors were paved with brick, 
 
141 
 
 which Su Neah had swept; there were panes of glass in 
 the window, and a crooked mirror for the use of foreigners, 
 who were received at this inn without objection. Many 
 Chinese innkeepers will not receive foreign guests. In the 
 reception room were some benches, two straight-backed, 
 long-legged Chinese chairs and a greasy table. In the 
 
 Chinese Farm — Drying Rice 
 
 chamber the ka'ng, or Chinese bed, on which Su Neah had 
 spread a clean straw mat, took up half the space. In the 
 floor, close to the ka'ng, was a square hole, with pipes 
 running under the bed. In winter, balls of coal dust mixed 
 with earth are placed in the square hole and a fire is then 
 lighted; until the coal balls become red-hot the family 
 can not come into the room, for they would be in danger 
 
142 
 
 of being suffocated with the fumes from the burning coal 
 balls. The ka'ng, instead of the room, is heated, and 
 the guests sit there in the daytime and sleep upon it at 
 night, wearing thick, wadded coats. Only the houses of the 
 very rich have stoves heated with charcoal, and many of 
 these are without pipes, so that when the first fire is lighted 
 doors and windows must be kept open for some time. Many 
 persons die in China every year from the fumes of charcoal 
 fires. 
 
 They rested for an hour, and then set out again, hoping 
 to spend the night at the little mission of Ch'ang-p'ing-chow, 
 which they were able to do. It was in charge of a mild, 
 gentle Chinese and his young wife, both Christians. Al- 
 though it was only a native Chinese house, with its bare 
 court, with very little furniture, the place w^as so sweet and 
 clean, compared to the dirty streets of Ch'ang-p'ing-chow, 
 that Mary and Ellen felt it was almost like being in their 
 own country again. 
 
 Su Neah cooked the supper over a brazier in the court; 
 broiled the beef, made toast and cocoa, and did it all quickly 
 and neatly. Mary and Ellen brought chairs out of the house 
 and sat by the glowing fire and watched him. He smiled 
 at them and showed his pretty dimples, and both girls 
 thought him sweet-tempered and good-looking. The stars 
 came out high overhead in the sky, which, in China, seems 
 so far off and so sharply arched. The mattresses were spread 
 upon the ka'ng, and they went to bed very early, and were 
 on their way the next morning before the sun had risen. 
 They had crossed several marble bridges, which must have 
 been very splendid before they had fallen into ruin ; the bal- 
 ustrades were finely carved, and the roadway across them 
 
143 
 
 was paved with great blocks of stone clamped together with 
 bolts of iron. But the paving was worn and broken, and 
 the piers had fallen down, and many of the marble slabs 
 had been carried away, or used for stepping-stones in the 
 shallow streams. 
 
 The Ming Tombs are in a wide valley inclosed on three 
 side with hills ; there are thirteen, each at the foot of a low 
 spur which reaches out into the level plain from the higher 
 range of hills behind it. The central tomb is that of the 
 
 Avenue of Animals— Ming Tombs 
 
 great Yung-lo. The entrance to the valley of the tombs is 
 through a pai-low, or gateway of white marble columns, and 
 beyond the gateway is a pavilion containing an enormous 
 stone tortoise, upon the back of which is a stone tablet. A 
 poem by another of the Ming Emperors has been cut upon 
 the stone. From this pavilion they entered the Avenue of 
 Animals, a long avenue bordered on either side by figures 
 of elephants, lions, camels, horses and unicorns, some stand- 
 
144 
 
 ing and some kneeling, with other figures of magistrates 
 and soldiers. At the head of the avenue there had once 
 been another fine marble bridge, but it was gone. The 
 tomb of the Emperor Yung-lo is like the others, in the 
 midst of a large inclosure shut in with high walls. 
 
 As they had been riding for many hours, they decided to 
 have luncheon before trying to parley with the gate keeper. 
 The day was warm and bright. Not far off was a persim- 
 mon orchard, the first trees that they had seen. The orange- 
 colored fruit hanging in the crimson foliage reminded Mary 
 and Ellen of the trees loaded with jewels of which they 
 had read in fairy stories. They tried to imagine how it 
 must have seemed when the body of the great Emperor had 
 been carried to his tomb, over the marble bridges, under 
 the pai-low, and up the long avenue with the stone animals 
 standing and kneeling on either hand. 
 
 They had seen no Chinese anywhere, but when they sat 
 down to the picnic luncheon, men and boys, who appeared 
 to have sprung up out of the ground, came and watched 
 them hungrily. 
 
 Mr. Clifford spoke Chinese, and he had to persuade the 
 gate keeper a long time before he would open the gates ; he 
 wanted a great deal of money, but when he found that he 
 could not get the sum he named he took less, but was not in 
 a good humor about it. 
 
 The court, like that at the Bell Temple, is planted with fine 
 oaks and pines, and pretty gray squirrels were running 
 about gathering their winter stores of acorns. The Chinese 
 have great regard for what they call ''the written char- 
 acter," and burn all waste paper upon which anything 
 has been written or printed. An oven stood just within 
 
M5 
 
 the gate, in which all paper of this sort was burned. 
 The Ancestral Hall is approached by a terrace with bal- 
 ustrades of carved marble, and the steps are also of marble ; 
 it is here, upon the altar set with vases and candlesticks, 
 that sacrifices of food and drink are offered to the spirit 
 of the dead Emperor. The roof is very lofty, paneled 
 in green, and supported by columns, which are made of 
 the trunks of giant teak trees which were brought from 
 Burma. Behind the Ancestral Hall is the last pavilion, 
 where the coffin passage, through which the body was 
 carried to the grave, has been walled up so that it can never 
 be used again. Other passages have been left, to the left 
 and right, and through these one can reach the last court 
 of all. Here the Emperor was buried under a mound of 
 earth half a mile high and one hundred and fifty feet in 
 circumference. Forest trees have sprung up in the centuries 
 that have passed, and the '' Perfect Ancestor '' and '' Literary 
 Emperor '' has not been disturbed where he has lain so long 
 at rest. 
 
 XV. THE NAN K^OU PASS 
 
 AFTER leaving the wonderful tombs, they went south 
 to the Nan K'ou Pass. They did not reach the 
 walled town of Chu-yung-chuan at the entrance of the Pass, 
 where they were to spend the night, until it was almost 
 dark. The walls of Chu-yung-chuan are irregular and 
 broken, but two strong towers still remain behind the 
 
 KROUT's china — 10 
 
146 
 
 town from which the sentinels can give warning when 
 an enemy approaches. In the very center of one of the 
 towers a tall telegraph pole had been planted, which Mary 
 and Ellen pointed out, and which, in that strange country, 
 seemed familiar and friendly. The telegraph line runs 
 from Peking to Kalgan, a flourishing Russian settlement 
 in Manchuria, where a large trade is carried on. 
 
 Great Wall — Nan K'ou Pass 
 
 It was already dusk in the valley, and they turned in at 
 the gate of the inn where they were to spend the night, 
 tired and dusty. As they went into the house there was a 
 rushing sound over the ragged paper which formed the 
 ceiling. '' Those are rats," said Mr. Clifford, laughing, 
 " they do not like the smell of foreigners, and they are 
 
147 
 
 running away; they will not come back, no matter how- 
 hungry they are/' 
 
 Mary and Ellen were a good deal relieved, for the thought 
 of rats running over them in the night was certainly not 
 pleasant. For once, however, Mr. Clifford was mistaken; 
 one bold fellow — quite a hero he must have been among 
 the other rats — did venture back in the night, climbed 
 upon the table and made a good meal off the sperm candle, 
 which Su Neah had left there. Mary and Ellen slept so 
 soundly that they did not hear him. They woke long before 
 daybreak and listened to the stir of multitudes of feet and 
 the measured clang-clang of camel bells. The caravans 
 were coming and going through the Pass, for camels must 
 give the road in China to everything. This delays them 
 so much that the camel driver prefers to travel by night 
 and rest by day. The animals are tethered in strings of 
 six or eight, walking, one behind the other, the leader 
 wearing a tasseled bell, as they had seen the camels in 
 Peking. When it is broad daylight they are allowed to 
 rest, relieved of their loads, either in the court of a camel 
 inn, or on the open plain by the roadside. 
 
 Mary and Ellen rose quietly, dressed, and went to the 
 gate to look at the camels. They came steadily on, with 
 a soft, undulating tread, their huge, cushioned feet making 
 a pattering sound on the dusty road. The driver walked 
 beside them, but he rarely spoke to them; they quietly 
 and obediently followed the sound of the leader's bell. 
 They bore upon their humped backs bales and bags and 
 square boxes, which contained silks and tea for Russia, 
 charcoal, soda and skins from Siberia, and wool and goat's 
 hair from Mongolia and Manchuria. 
 
148 
 
 "These are real camels," said Mary, ''they have two 
 humps ; the dromedary has but one. I wonder how long it 
 takes the silk and tea to reach Russia? It is a very, very 
 long distance, and see how slowly the camels walk/' 
 
 " Mr. Clifford told me that they would not reach Russia 
 for a whole year," Ellen replied. " When the great railway 
 across Siberia is finished it will not take more than two 
 weeks." 
 
 " But if all the bales and parcels are sent by train what 
 will become of the camel drivers ? " Mary asked. But this 
 was a question vdiich Ellen could not answer. 
 
 Presently the sun touched the highest ridges of the 
 mountains, and there before them, high up on the very 
 crest, they saw the outlines of the Great Wall. The brick 
 work might have been a part of the mountain itself, fol- 
 lowing the ridge up and down, now easily traced, now 
 lost sight of, the upper edge crenelated, or cut out in embra- 
 sures, like all walls built for defense. It reminded the girls 
 of a huge serpent that had dragged its dun-colored length 
 along the mountain top, and remained there to bask 
 in the sun. As the light grew stronger, the narrow road 
 that wound up a gradual ascent could be seen for some 
 distance, but it was finally lost sight of behind a jagged 
 cliff. 
 
 Fewer and fewer camels passed and then came scores of 
 mules and donkeys, — the poor little donkeys so loaded with 
 the bundles of millet stalks that they carried that nothing 
 could be seen of them but their mouse-colored legs and 
 faces. They seemed to be living bales and nothing more. 
 At a little distance they saw three men stop suddenly and 
 stoop down in the road ; they were picking up, one by one, 
 
149 
 
 some grams of millet that had been spilled from a broken 
 sack. Confucius, the great teacher, taught the Chinese 
 that if a man finds a grain of rice which he can not use 
 himself he should place it where a sparrow can get it. 
 Millet is the cheapest food in China, yet the people are so 
 thrifty that not even a grain of it is wasted. One never sees 
 any scraps of paper or shreds of cloth, no weeds or dead 
 leaves lying about; all are made use of in some way. 
 
 If the people were not so thrifty, many m.ore would die 
 than now perish every year from hunger in spite of their 
 saving habits and ceaseless work. 
 
 Su Neah called them in to breakfast which was very 
 nice; he had made delicious .cofifee, porridge and even hot 
 cakes over the charcoal brazier, and after they had eaten 
 all they wanted they were refreshed and ready to set out 
 again. 
 
 The road through the Pass was very rough, cut into 
 ruts that are never filled, and strewn with bowlders over 
 which the wheels of the carts jolted and ground. 
 
 As they mounted higher and higher, the black cliffs on 
 either hand seemed to reach almost to the clouds. The 
 river, which during the rains overflows its banks, was now 
 quite dry. 
 
 They had seen few birds since they came to China, except 
 the pet birds which were carried about on forked sticks and 
 in cages, and the flocks of crows, and magpies. Once 
 they had seen a crow and a magpie fighting a hawk, 
 the crow cawing in triumph as his enemy flew away, glad 
 to escape with his life. 
 
 The mountain gorges of the Pass were alive with wild 
 pigeons and beautiful pheasants. Mr. Clifford, with Su 
 
150 
 
 Neah, left them to go on to the head of the Pass where 
 he said he would soon join them, after he and Su Neah 
 had had a Httle shooting. Presently they heard the noise 
 of his gun, the echoes repeated many times in the wild 
 gorges. When he finally rejoined them he had half a dozen 
 pheasants and twice as many pigeons. Mary and Ellen 
 felt sad when they looked at the dead birds which, only a 
 little while before, were enjoying their free, happy life 
 and now lay on the ground at their feet, their beautiful 
 feathers torn and stained with blood. 
 
 ''Another bird is found in the Pass," said Mr. Clifford, 
 called the bustard. It is quite large and excellent to eat. 
 Chinese turkeys are poor and tough, and the Americans 
 who live in Peking always try to get a bustard for their 
 Thanksgiving dinner." Then he told them that foreigners 
 in China grow very tired of game and much prefer beef. 
 A fat pheasant can be bought for ten cents. 
 
 They saw here and there along the road the most squalid 
 inns for the camel drivers and their animals. There were 
 no walls around the court, nothing but a low embankment 
 of earth, but the camels had been fed and watered, and they 
 lay on the ground contentedly resting. 
 
 It was about ten o'clock when they reached the head of 
 the Pass. The wall here was like that which they had first 
 seen at Nan K'ou, and the stony road which passed beneath 
 the arch crossed the plain beyond, and thence to Manchuria, 
 Siberia and Russia. There were lofty watchtowers upon 
 the wall at regular distances, and the top of the wall was 
 reached, not by a paved incline, but by a rough stairway. 
 
 From the top .of the wall, which they reached without 
 difficulty, they saw a flock of sheep approaching, some of 
 
151 
 
 them with jet black faces and large fat tails, which the 
 people of Mongolia consider a greart delicacy. 
 
 The men in charge of them carried small triangular yellow 
 flags which fluttered from long staves. On the flags were 
 Chinese letters. '' The sheep are tribute from Mongolia," 
 said Mr. Clifford, '' and are being driven up to the capital." 
 By this he meant that the Mongolians, who are subjects 
 of the Emperor of China, do not pay their taxes in money, 
 for which, in their country, they have very little use. They 
 have flocks and herds, however, and, regularly every year, 
 a certain number of animals are sent to Peking to the 
 Emperor instead of money. They are sold there, and the 
 money received for them is paid into the imperial treasury. 
 
 They also saw droves of fat swine that were being taken 
 to Peking by the herders, and the oddest thing about them 
 was that their hoofs had been covered with shoes of heavy 
 white canvas. This was to protect their feet which other- 
 wise would be cut by the sharp stones. This would lame 
 them so that they could not travel and they would have 
 to be left behind. The only difficulty with the cloth shoes 
 is, that they must wear out very fast and have to be re- 
 placed very often, which must take a great deal of time 
 and work. The Chinese are patient and painstaking, how- 
 ever, and do not often complain, whatever they have to 
 do ; so, perhaps they do not mind shoeing their pigs every 
 day, as they draw near to Peking. The girls were surprised 
 to see the animals — the sheep, mules, horses, camels and 
 pigs — so fat and healthy. The backs of the litter mules 
 were galled, but, aside from this, the Chinese do not 
 appear to treat animals cruelly. The girls did not see any 
 animals beaten, and they had watched the carter feeding 
 
152 
 
 the mules and donkeys in the morning and evening. Each 
 was given a generous meal of millet fodder chopped fine, 
 and mixed with beans or grain ; at all the wayside wells 
 they are watered, and are never hurried. The man who 
 drew the water was paid one '' cash " for each pailful. 
 
 They sat upon the wall for more than an hour watching 
 the flocks and herds, the carts and wagons and litters that 
 passed in and out under the arch, lost in the curve of the 
 road behind the clififs in one direction, or disappearing in 
 the clouds of dust which hung like a haze over the valley, 
 in the other. The wall was paved on top with large gray 
 bricks that had not been dried in the sun, but baked in kilns 
 until they were almost like glass. They walked for a long 
 distance and climbed to the top of another watchtower, 
 Then they retraced their steps to the carts and donkeys and 
 set their faces toward Peking. 
 
 They were glad that they had seen even this part of the 
 Great Wall, although it was not so old as other portions, 
 northeast of Peking, which are little more than heaps of 
 ruins, and which extend in a crooked line to the sea. As 
 they retraced their steps through the busy streets of Nan 
 K'ou, and entered Chu-yung-chuan, they saw upon the 
 inner walls of the archway inscriptions in six languages 
 which had been cut there centuries before. A still stranger 
 sight was several pairs of shoes hung in plain view above 
 the gates. Mr. Clifford explained that when any great 
 man, a scholar, magistrate or general, visited the city, he 
 was begged to leave a pair of his shoes to hang up over 
 the gate that the people might be reminded of his virtues 
 and imitate them. 
 
 Mary and Ellen were also told that if a son killed his 
 
153 
 
 parents, or soldiers mutinied in a walled city, they were exe- 
 cuted and as many embrasures in the wall filled up as there 
 had been executions. This was to publish the disgrace of 
 the city to the world. When such crimes occur every one is 
 held responsible, — the relatives and neighbors that they 
 have not set a better example ; the magistrate that he has 
 not governed better; the teachers that they have not given 
 proper instruction; and all are very much ashamed to see 
 the walled-up embrasures which will always remind them 
 that they have not done their duty. 
 
 At a stream some distance from Chu-yung-chuan they 
 saw a company of strange men. They had dismounted from 
 their shaggy ponies and were smoking their pipes. Their 
 faces were very swarthy, and they wore queer, tall hats of 
 black lamb's wool, long, dark gowns, or caftans, belted 
 at the waist, and boots of wrinkled leather. 
 
 " They are Mongols," said Mr. Clifford, '' rough, bois- 
 terous men, not cruel, and very kind to their animals — 
 much better than many Christians. In the winter they take 
 great quantities of frozen game and meat to Peking where 
 they stay sometimes for several weeks, living in tents 
 wherever they can find space." 
 
 They spent the last night at the little mission, to which 
 they returned and which seemed even more comfortable 
 than before, and the next day pushed on, stopping only 
 for a little rest and luncheon at noon. About two o'clock 
 the wind began to blow very hard, and the sky grew dark 
 as if a storm were approaching; the sun was hidden and 
 they had to cover their eyes and mouths to keep from being 
 blinded and suffocated with the dust. When they finally 
 reached the hotel in Peking, although the doors and windows 
 
154 
 
 had been tightly closed, everything was coated with fine 
 brown dust that had been forced in through every crack. It 
 was of no use to clear it away until the storm was over. No 
 rain fell, but the wind roared and howled all night. 
 
 XVL THE SCHOOL 
 
 MARY and Ellen knew that in China girls are not 
 always sent to school. In the families of the rich 
 they share the lessons of their brothers until they are ten 
 years old ; then boys and girls are taught separately ; or, 
 perhaps, the girls' lessons cease altogether, for the Chinese 
 do not really think that it is a good thing for women to 
 read and write. They are afraid it may cause them to 
 neglect their homes and their children. ]\Ien and women 
 from our own country have gone out to China and have 
 founded good schools for both girls and boys in many 
 places. At first none but the children of the very poor came 
 to the schools, and most of these came simply because they 
 were given food and clothes which they could not get at 
 home. Other children are picked up out of the streets — 
 tiny babies who can hardly walk or talk. The Chinese, 
 themselves, let such children die, and they can not under- 
 stand why people of a different race, who never get any 
 money for their work, should care for them and want to 
 teach them. The Chinese usually expect some return for 
 what they do, in presents and money, for which one can 
 not blame them, when it is remembered how many millions 
 
155 
 
 there are in China, how poor so many of them are, and 
 how hard it is for them to get even millet enough to 
 eat. The Chinese who wished children to learn only the 
 teachings of the classics, that is, the writings of Confu- 
 cius and Mencius, told terrible falsehoods about the foreign 
 teachers. They said that they tortured and murdered 
 children for their eyes and their blood, out of which 
 they made medicine. The Chinese who might have 
 been friendly were frightened, but, after a while, the pupils 
 and their friends and parents learned for themselves that 
 such stories were false and silly. Then more and more 
 children were sent to the schools, many more than could 
 be received, for there were neither rooms nor teachers 
 enough. 
 
 Thousands of young men have entered the colleges that 
 have been founded by the foreigners, and are being taught 
 as they are taught in civilized countries, — young men who 
 will one day govern China. A change has come about, too, 
 in regard to the girls. When their parents saw how much 
 better and how much more intelligent they became through 
 the help of the foreign teachers, they were eager to send 
 them to the schools. Then the Chinese themselves began 
 to found schools of the same sort; not for boys only, but, 
 more wonderful still, for girls as well. In the girls' schools 
 they employ foreign ladies for teachers, and Chinese ladies 
 who have been taught in foreign schools. 
 
 Mrs. Spencer was asked to visit a Mission school for 
 girls before she left Peking, and Mary and Ellen went w4th 
 her. At the Mission gate they found a tall, dark-skinned 
 Chinese who let them in, bowing very low\ They had not 
 seen such a pretty place since they left Shanghai. The 
 
156 
 
 compound contained several acres, and inside the high walls 
 were the residences of the teachers, the hospital and dis- 
 pensary, the school building and the little Chinese houses 
 in which the schoolgirls lived. 
 
 They were first invited into the house which, although 
 plainly furnished, was neat and cheerful, with shelves full 
 of books, pictures and a piano. After they had tea they 
 
 Chinese Mission Schoolroom 
 
 went with the principal of the school to see her pupils at 
 work. The schoolrooms were large and light ; the floors 
 were very clean, and the girls sat at desks like those in 
 American schoolrooms. They were nearly all dressed alike 
 in blue coats, which reached to the knee, with wide sleeves 
 edged with a pretty border, and in trousers which fitted 
 closely, and which v;ere fastened at the ankle with a neat 
 
157 
 
 silken garter. Their hair -was smoothly brushed and braided 
 in one thick braid, fastened close to the head with cords 
 of black or red, and hanging down the back. All wore 
 white cloth socks and Chinese shoes. A few wore white 
 clothing, being dressed in mourning. ''They are Chinese 
 girls," the teacher said, " and we change their customs 
 as little as we can ; they are not foreigners, and must 
 spend their lives here. We want to m.ake them better 
 and more intelligent, teach them to be clean and truthful 
 and good, without unfitting them to live amongst their own 
 people.'' 
 
 Mrs. Spencer thought this was very wise ; indeed, she was 
 pleased with all that she saw, — the gentleness and patience 
 of the teachers with their pupils, and the love and reverence 
 of the pupils for their teachers. 
 
 They were studying and reciting from Chinese books. 
 They read, and two or three were working problems of 
 arithmetic upon the blackboard, just as Mary and Ellen 
 themselves might have done. There were no idle pupils ; all 
 were so anxiovis to learn that they wasted no time. 
 
 '' They are very easy to control," said the teacher. '' They 
 wish to do right, and we do not have to make them work ; 
 they study because they love to study." She then told Mrs. 
 Spencer that some of the pupils had really remarkable 
 minds; and she pointed out one tall, beautiful girl who, 
 she said was the best pupil in arithmetic that she had 
 ever known. 
 
 They sang very sweetly for the visitors, which did not 
 surprise them as they had heard the Christian Chinese sing 
 at their church. These girls, however, had been taught to 
 sing the parts, contralto and soprano, which seemed as 
 
1^8 
 
 natural to them as to any other girls. Mrs. Spencer and 
 the girls, after leaving the schoolrooms, went into the 
 sewing school where the pupils were taught every Friday 
 afternoon. Some were cutting out, and others were making 
 and mending garments, and still others were running the 
 sewing machines. They are also taught to make lace, 
 
 Chinese Mission Schoolgirls 
 which they sell, and which helps to clothe them and to 
 pay their expenses. 
 
 Last of all, Mrs. Spencer and the two girls were taken 
 across the court to the little houses in which the resident 
 pupils have their rooms, and, in this respect the school is 
 unlike a foreign boarding school. All the cooking is done 
 by the girls themselves, who take turns in the kitchen. The 
 food is such as the Chinese prefer, — plain, but enough 
 of it, and everything of the best. 
 
159 
 
 A Chinese range is of brick, the fire-box Hned with metal- 
 It does not look in the least like a stove, and a foreign 
 cook could scarcely use it. The oven is on top, and might 
 have been mistaken for an iron kettle turned upside down. 
 Yet, with this clumsy contrivance, a clever Chinese cook 
 can bake the most delicious bread and pastry and puddings. 
 Things of this sort, however, the schoolgirls rarely have 
 
 Dining Room — Chinese Mission 
 
 except on Sundays and feast days. They eat a great deal 
 of millet porridge, large, cone-shaped cakes of maize meal 
 steamed until they are light and thoroughly done, rice 
 and vegetables; and, twice a week they are given meat, 
 which is much oftener than most Chinese, unless they 
 are very rich, can afford to have it. 
 
 When the visitors went into the kitchen they found one 
 stout girl steaming maize cakes at the queer stove, and 
 
i6o 
 
 another preparing the vegetables ; still another was scouring 
 a table. They were chatting merrily and were healthy 
 and happy. In the dining-room were two long tables 
 at which the pupils ate, waited upon by those who take 
 turns at this work, also. To a foreign girl, their bed- 
 rooms would have seemed bare and cold, but they were 
 such as even well - to - do people in China are accustomed 
 to. The floors were of brick, neatly swept. In each room 
 was a table with wash basin, combs, brushes, and soap. 
 Each girl has her own room, and is expected to take 
 good care of it. The ka'ng took up a great deal of space. 
 It was heated with the little stove in the floor, and upon it 
 the girls sat and studied, chatted and sewed. At certain 
 hours they w^ere allowed to visit each other. Monday was 
 washing day, and all washed their clothes in small tubs, 
 making a kind of merry game of it. It is not hard work 
 as the clothes are very plain, simply the white socks, the 
 blue blouses and the underclothing, which ordinary Chinese, 
 however, do not wear. 
 
 The clothes were pressed, not ironed, in a way which 
 Mary and Ellen thought very funny indeed, being taken 
 from the line before they were quite dry, and smoothed and 
 pulled until all the wrinkles had been smoothed out; then 
 they were tidily folded and the girls either placed the blouse, 
 socks and under garments under a heavy stool or sat upon 
 them ! It answ^ered every purpose, and the blue blouses 
 looked rather better, after this sort of pressing, than if they 
 had been ironed. 
 
 Mary noticed that all the rooms were supplied with 
 candles, for after supper the girls studied from seven until 
 nine o'clock in the large well-lighted, well-heated school- 
 
i6i 
 
 room, after which they returned to their own rooms and 
 went to bed. Several of the girls had small clocks of which 
 they felt quite proud, for the Chinese love clocks, not as 
 a means of telling the time of day, for they rarely ever wind 
 them regularly, but because they love their ticking. The 
 girls in the Mission school were always careful to wind 
 their clocks every morning. They were also very fond of 
 pictures. A good many had photographs of relatives and 
 friends hung upon the walls, just as foreign girls would 
 have ; and others had gay collections of picture cards which 
 the Chinese prize very highly, and these they had arranged 
 quite tastefully. Every morning a teacher went the rounds, 
 looking carefully over each room, and the girls occupying 
 it were marked, either for neatness or untidiness, as they 
 deserved. 
 
 Mrs. Spencer could not help thinking how much pains 
 the teachers had taken to teach the young girls everything 
 that might help them to become good, intelligent, useful 
 women, far, far better, in every way, than the poor, ignorant 
 creatures they would have been had they had no such ad- 
 vantages as these. 
 
 The girls had a debating society where they spoke on 
 many interesting subjects, read essays and recited in Eng- 
 lish, which they spoke very well. On Sunday they went 
 once to the Mission church, and to Sunday school, where 
 the older girls taught classes of 3^ounger children. 
 
 They kept their court clean and made a little game of 
 this, too, getting out with their brooms and sweeping with 
 all their might, until not a leaf or scrap of litter was to 
 be seen. It w^as their playground, and their good teachers 
 had given them a swing, see-saws, and skipping ropes, 
 
 KROUT's china — II 
 
1 62 
 
 and they played many games of their own, running and 
 shouting and laughing, as active, healthy girls do every- 
 where, if they are given any freedom. 
 
 Just then the girls were quite sad ; they had lost a four- 
 footed friend that they loved dearly, Don, a beautiful dog 
 that had belonged to the Principal. The girls had great 
 affection for Don, and Don loved them. Whenever play- 
 time came he begged to go into the court to romp with 
 them. Next to the Mission lived a cruel, wicked '' Yellow- 
 Girdle '' man, that is, a Chinese who held a small office and 
 who wore, as a badge of authority, a yellow girdle. 
 
 He hated the school and the foreign teachers, and thought 
 that Chinese girls should be taught only what they could 
 learn from their mothers. When tney were building the 
 teachers' house, he shrieked and screamed and beat his 
 head against the wall until the police came and threatened 
 to take him to prison. He hated Don, and the girls were 
 always afraid that he would kill him. Don was not allowed 
 to leave the court and they watched him whenever he came 
 out to play with them. 
 
 One day they went to their teacher and said : " Please 
 tell Don not to eat anything that he may find lying about. 
 We have told him, but he does not understand Chinese, 
 so you must tell him again, in English." 
 
 His mistress did so, but he did not understand English 
 any better than Chinese; and one day they found him stiff 
 and cold, lying near the wall that separated the school from 
 the '' Yellow-Girdle " man's court. He had been poisoned. 
 The girls could not have been more sad if it had been one 
 of their number who had died. They cried bitterly and 
 buried him under the big ash tree near the hospital. 
 
1 63 
 
 After they had seen the school Mrs. Spencer and the 
 two girls were shown through the dispensary, where the 
 little woman doctor of the Ivlission receives those that are 
 sick, treating their sores and hurts, giving them medicine 
 and doing all she can for them. Any one may come, and 
 no one is asked to pay who is too poor to do so. The 
 doctor's assistant was a tall young Manchu, who had 
 learned all about the different kinds of medicine, and was 
 very skillful. Often as many as fifty women came in one 
 afternoon for medicine for themselves or their children. 
 
 When Mrs. Spencer bade the missionaries good-by, the 
 gate keeper bowed low and said : '' They go, but they will 
 come again." 
 
 Alas! that was not to be.. Months afterwards Mary 
 and Ellen remembered the school as they had seen it; the 
 bright-faced industrious girls busy with their tasks, the 
 court bright with sunshine and as peaceful as if the danger, 
 and ruin and death even then hanging over it were things 
 unknown. 
 
 XVII. A FEAST 
 
 THEY left Peking for Tientsin one bright morning in 
 November. They would have liked to stay a few 
 weeks longer, for there was still much to see. But they 
 knew that they must make haste, for, in a little while, it 
 would grow cold, the Pei-ho would freeze over, and the 
 steamers would stop running until spring. The mouth of the 
 
i64 
 
 Pei - ho is the only harbor, and when it is frozen the 
 ships can not land their freight or passengers. They rode 
 through the rough streets of Peking in the jolting carts 
 for the last time. ^Nlr. Clifford came to the station with 
 them and bought their tickets and put them safely on the 
 train. 
 
 They did not take the mail carriage as they had done 
 when they came, but sat in an ordinary first-class carriage. 
 The seats were of wood,, and their trunk (they had brought 
 
 
 Landing at Tientsin 
 
 but one, being wise) was placed on the platform outside the 
 door. In the carriage with them was a foreign gentleman 
 who told them that he had lived in China for forty years. 
 His wife was a Chinese lady, and she gave the girls some 
 pears and chestnuts, and they, wishing to return her kind- 
 ness, gave her some small, sweet cakes which pleased her 
 very much. She smiled and bowed to them, and her husband 
 said that she liked foreigners. 
 
 Tientsin is a large city on the Pei-ho which they remem- 
 
i65 
 
 bered flows down to the sea at Taku. When the water is 
 high steamers can come up as far as Tientsin, but it had 
 been so low for months that people made the journey by the 
 short railway line, by which Mrs. Spencer and the girls had 
 come and would return. 
 
 The foreign city is well built, with good sidewalks and 
 streets that are well-lighted and there are fine hotels and 
 handsome houses. Best of all, there are dozens of jinrikishas 
 which can be used on the smooth, well-kept streets of 
 Tientsin. The girls noticed that the Chinese used jinrikishas 
 quite as often as the foreigners, and although they would 
 not* keep their own quarter clean, they preferred to have 
 their shops in the Englsh concession, just as they did in 
 Shanghai. 
 
 Mrs. Spencer and the girls spent several days in the hotel, 
 resting and going out for short walks and rides. A friend 
 of Mrs. Clifford's called upon them, and to their great joy 
 said that she had an invitation for them from a Chinese lady 
 who wished to give a feast in their honor. 
 
 Foreigners are rarely asked to a Chinese house, especially 
 foreign ladies. The women physicians who go out to China 
 are almost the only persons who see the Chinese families 
 in their homes, for they not only treat the poor in the 
 dispensaries, but they are called in when the wives and 
 daughters of mandarins and viceroys are ill. They go to 
 visit them professionally, and are then asked to come as 
 friends. The lady who brought them the invitation was 
 a physician and her Chinese friend was a lady of high rank. 
 
 " It will be most interesting to see such a family at home," 
 said Mrs. Spencer, '' and I am sure that we never expected 
 such good fortune." 
 
i66 
 
 Mary and Ellen were delighted, and were so curious and 
 impatient that they could hardly wait for the day of the feast 
 to come. 
 
 Carts were to be sent for them, and they arrived promptly 
 the next day at noon, each accompanied by a woman servant 
 who sat upon the shaft. 
 
 Their hostess' house was in the native part of Tientsin, 
 quite a long distance from the hotel. When they reached 
 the gate they found their hostess, whose name was Mrs. 
 Wang, with two or three of her daughters-in-law waiting 
 within the court. The carts stopped at the gate and the 
 women servants set small stools on the ground upon which 
 the visitors stepped in getting out of the carts. 
 
 The ladies greeted them kindly, smiling and nodding 
 and shaking their own hands Chinese fashion. In the court 
 were large white and pink chrysanthemums growing in 
 porcelain jars. The strangest thing of all was a small, 
 leafless tree which appeared to be quite dead, but which 
 was planted in a blue porcelain jar. The tree was covered 
 with little live birds, each tethered with a cord by one 
 foot, the tips of their wings drawn up across their backs 
 and tied with bits of thread to keep them from flying. 
 They did not mind it, evidently, as they .hopped from twig 
 to twig, twittering cheerfully, and were not frightened 
 when one stopped to look at them. 
 
 The court was large, with the usual low houses around 
 three sides, and still others crossing it at right angles. 
 Several beautiful trees shaded it, — ash trees that had not 
 yet shed their leaves. There were a great many chrysan- 
 themums, and boxes of portulaca, but the great stone-walled 
 lotus ponds were filled with withering stalks and leaves. 
 
167 
 
 At the door of the house in which the mother-in-law 
 Hved, which was the best of all and fronted the south so 
 that it had the winter sunshine, Mrs. Wang stopped, waved 
 her hand and begged them to enter. The lady who had 
 come with them interpreted for the party, that is, she 
 explained to them what Mrs. Wang said, and told her, 
 in turn, what the foreign visitors replied. 
 
 It would not have been at all polite, according to Chinese 
 ideas, if they had gone into the house at once, so Mrs. 
 Spencer, who had been told what she must do, shook her 
 head and begged Mrs. Wang to go first. She refused, and 
 this was repeated several times, when Mrs. Spencer and 
 the girls, with their friend, entered first, as it was intended 
 that they should. They were asked to be seated, and this 
 invitation was again urged and declined several times before 
 they took the chairs that were ofifered them. 
 
 Mrs. Wang was short and stout, with very white teeth 
 and sparkling black eyes. She wore shining gold pins in 
 her coal-black hair, with flowers and butterflies ; her dress 
 was of black satin, with a border of flowered satin ribbon, 
 buttoned with small gold buttons, two in front, and three 
 lower down, at the side. Her large gold earrings were set 
 with beautiful pearls, and, as she was a Manchu lady, her 
 feet had never been bound. The floor of the reception 
 room was paved with brick; on the ka'ng stood a cabinet 
 filled with costly china and bronze, and at one side was a 
 small, square table with very long legs, a short-backed, long- 
 legged chair on either side of it, w4th other chairs facing 
 them. When they were seated, a servant brought in tiny 
 brass pipes, but, as none of the foreign visitors smoked, 
 a habit which is quite common among Chinese ladies, the 
 
1 68 
 
 pipes were taken away again. Then tea was brought in thin, 
 delicate cups, on lacquered trays. The hostess took hers 
 and begged the guests to drink, which, of course, they 
 refused at first to do, as is considered the proper etiquette 
 in China. When they did taste the tea they found it 
 delicious, very hot, and clear, for the Chinese think that 
 sugar spoils tea. It had been flavored with the dried petals 
 of flowers which made it seem, as Mary said, '' almost 
 like drinking some pleasant perfume." After they had told 
 Mrs. Wang how old they were, which is a question which 
 the Chinese always ask, her eldest son came into the reception 
 room to see them, and brought with him his little boy, a 
 pretty child, dressed just like his father in a blue satin frock, 
 black cloth shoes, a black silk cap, with his queue braided 
 smoothly and hanging down his back. He shook his own 
 chubby hands, and bowed just as his father did, and wished 
 them to see all his toys. One was a collection of small 
 balloons which whirled round and round when it was wound 
 up, and the father took it from the child and showed it to 
 them himself, for grown-up Chinese like toys as much as 
 children do. 
 
 Then the little boy said in Chinese, which their friend 
 repeated in English : '' Show the Great Sisters the foreign 
 toy." It was brought by one of the servants — a white, 
 quacking duck, of which the child was very proud. When 
 the father and his little son had gone away, a servant 
 came in and told Mrs. Wang that the feast was ready. 
 
 She led the way across the court to another room. The 
 table was not large, and there was no cloth. There were 
 tiny plates for the hostess and her guests and the other 
 dishes were like small, blue porcelain fruit-stands, and were 
 
169 
 
 set out in four rows each. The dessert was eaten first, for 
 in China many things seem to be the reverse of our custom. 
 Hence, at dinner, the dessert comes first and the soup last, 
 and the most important guest is given the ''honorable 
 place," which is at the left instead of at the right of the 
 hostess, as with us. The plates were very small indeed, and 
 they could not be changed, no matter what was put upon 
 them, because if this is done the Chinese think that the 
 
 hostess is certain to die within 
 the year. 
 
 They did not want Mrs. 
 Wang to die, but they did not 
 believe the foolish omen, and 
 would have been glad to have 
 a clean plate when they found 
 that they could not eat all 
 that was set before them. For 
 dessert there were pears and 
 apricots, and sugared peanuts. 
 Chopsticks walnuts that had been first 
 
 fried in fat and then dipped into syrup, squares of 
 stiff, red fruit marmalade, and quantities of roasted pumpkin 
 seeds. '' We must have borrowed our idea of salted almonds 
 from the Chinese,'' said Mrs. Spencer, for the pumpkin 
 seeds were eaten all through the feast between the courses. 
 " It is to pass the time,'' said Mrs. Wang. '' You do 
 not eat them propertly ; let me show you." And she placed 
 a flat seed between her white front teeth, gave it a quick 
 crunch and the kernel came out whole. She smiled as if 
 she were quite proud of her skill. 
 
 Chopsticks, the long pointed sticks with which the Chinese 
 
IJO 
 
 eat, had been placed at each plate, but the foreign visitors 
 could not use them. One must be held very firmly, as we 
 hold a pen, and the other so that the point can move freely. 
 There is a knack in it that foreigners can acquire only with 
 much practice. But they tried, and this amused Mrs. 
 Wang and the daughters-in-law, who were allowed to look 
 on, but were not asked to sit at table. Afterwards the girls 
 could not remember all that had been offered them, — sea- 
 slugs that looked like pork rind, water chestnuts which were 
 svv^eet and good, bamboo sprouts, many kinds of little dump- 
 lings filled with sweetmeats or chopped pork and vegetables, 
 well cooked and seasoned, each dumpling gathered into a 
 floury ruffle on the top, and dotted with vermilion spots; 
 there were flat cakes of steamed Chinese bread, pork cooked 
 in a great many ways, chicken, a duck and a fish, each 
 brought on in a tureen, swimming in broth. These Mrs. 
 Wang dipped into with the chopsticks with which she had 
 been eating, helping first her guests and then herself. Last 
 of all, they had two kinds of rice ; one sort like that which 
 they had eaten at home, and another which was very much 
 like tapioca. 
 
 They were at table a long time; one course was cleared 
 away and another brought on, until it seemed as if the end 
 would never be reached. One great delicacy was buried 
 eggs, a dish which even rich Chinese have only on great 
 occasions. The girls would not have known what they 
 were eating, if they had not been told. The eggs, usually 
 duck eggs, are rolled in a mixture of clay, lime and chaff 
 of oats and buried in the ground for several years. They 
 decay, and are really what the Chinese call them, — rotten 
 eggs, but the earth absorbs all the bad smell and bad 
 
171 
 
 flavor so that they have only a faint salty taste. The eggs 
 were of a dark green, cut in thin slices. It was well that 
 Mary and Ellen did not know what they were, or they 
 certainly would have declined them; but wanting to know 
 just what Chinese food was like they accepted a small 
 morsel of everything that was offered them. 
 
 It was '' a feast in fours," that is, four dishes formed 
 each course, and one could not be had without ordering 
 the other three. Rich food for feasts is never cooked at 
 home. It is sent from a restaurant, ready for the table, 
 in air-tight boxes, and with vessels of boiling water with 
 the hot dishes. They sat at table several hours, the hostess 
 making a great noise with her lips which polite Chinese 
 always do when they wish to show that they think the 
 food is good. At last their friend said, as was proper, 
 '' Ch'-ih pao la," which, in English means '' Eaten full." 
 
 They were then excused and allowed to rise from the 
 table. The hostess asked them to call upon one of the 
 daughters-in-law whom they found in her own room, lying 
 upon the hard ka'ng with her little baby by her side. 
 
 She was greatly pleased to see the foreign ladies, and 
 asked a great many questions, which is not considered bad 
 manners in China. She wished to know how old they were, 
 and if a foreign tailor had made Mrs. Spencer's gown 
 and bonnet, which she looked at carefully. She also ad- 
 mired her fan, which Mrs. Spencer begged her to keep; 
 she would not do so, however, but Mrs. Spencer w^as told 
 to leave the fan upon the chair when she went avv^ay. 
 The Chinese lady could then accept it without '' losing face." 
 
 Upon the wall was a cat and kittens, made of cotton wool 
 and fastened on a sheet of green paper, with butterflies 
 
172 
 
 in each corner. Mary and Ellen both admired the cats, 
 and when they rose to look at» them more closely, Mrs. 
 Wang ordered the servant to take down the cat family 
 and present it to them. 
 
 They wanted to keep it and found it hard to refuse; 
 perhaps they would not have done so, even at the risk of 
 being thought rude, had not their friend told them that the 
 cat and kittens would certainly be sent to them the next 
 day, as is the Chinese custom. Sure enough ! Next morn- 
 ing a servant came, not with one, but with three of the 
 charming families. 
 
 Last of all, they were taken to the schoolroom to see 
 the children at their studies. When the pupils heard the 
 visitors' feet on the pavement, all the young voices struck 
 up a kind of piping chant that must have astonished any 
 but a Chinese teacher. But Chinese school children study 
 all together, at the top of their voices, and when they 
 are quiet the teacher suspects that they are idle or in 
 mischief. They were learning words, that is, how to pro- 
 nounce them, for they had no idea of what the words 
 meant ; this they would not learn until some time afterwards. 
 A little boy went up to recite, for Chinese children say their 
 lessons standing, and, instead of facing the teacher, he 
 turned his back, which would have been thought very rude 
 in a foreign school. 
 
 Mary and Ellen pitied the poor little pupils when they 
 learned that the Chinese school children have few holidays. 
 There are four great feast days, and the two weeks at the 
 beginning of the Chinese New Year, but no Saturdays, no 
 Sundays and no Christmas. They go to the schoolroom 
 early in the morning, have a short rest at noon, and study 
 
173 
 
 again all the afternoon until four or five o'clock. Chinese 
 boys do not play games that furnish them exercise, for 
 such games are not considered proper. The teacher was 
 pale and feeble, and it was not surprising. 
 
 A Chinese School 
 
 They walked from the schoolroom to the stable yard, 
 where the carts were waiting, and thanked Mrs. Wang 
 for the lovely feast she had given them, wishing only that 
 they might, in some way, return her kindness and hospitality. 
 
174 
 
 XVIII. HONGKONG 
 
 WHEN Mrs. Spencer returned to Shanghai she found 
 that her husband was about to leave for Hong- 
 kong, where he had been sent on business. She was very 
 tired after the three months of sight-seeing in the north, 
 and wished to remain in Shanghai. Ellen and Mary, how- 
 ever, were ready for anything that was suggested, and, 
 as there were no especial preparations to make, told their 
 father that they could go with him that very day, if he 
 liked. The ship did not sail for the south until the next 
 afternoon, and they were given a little breathing spell, 
 which, after all, they were glad enough to have. After a 
 night's rest, they were fresh and full of eagerness to be off 
 again. Lighter clothing would be required, for it is much 
 warmer in Hongkong than in Shanghai. They had hoped 
 that they would stop at Amoy and pass close to the island of 
 Form.osa, which China had been forced to give up to Japan 
 after the war with that country some years before. In both 
 desires they were disappointed. After leaving the mouth 
 of the Wusung, down which they sailed again for the 
 second time, they saw no land until they sighted the rocky 
 islands that lie along the southern, as well as the northern 
 coast. North and south these islands are alike — bare, 
 yellow crags projecting above the water and very dangerous 
 for ships. Nothing grows upon them, not even the coarsest 
 grass. Still, fishermen live upon them who earn a livelihood 
 by catching fish in the sea. 
 
 The harbor of Hongkong is nearly surrounded by lofty 
 hills, as barren and rugged as the adjacent islands. It is 
 
175 
 
 one of the most important harbors in the world, and it was 
 crowded with vessels, large and small, great Pacific mail 
 steamers, men-of-war, smaller ships that traded along the 
 coast and in the Chinese rivers, and sampans and junks. 
 The flags of England, France, Germany, Russia, Japan and 
 our own country, floated at the mastheads of the various 
 ships. 
 
 At Hongkong people who go out to the east from 
 
 Harbor of Hongkong 
 
 Canaaa or San Francisco transship, that is, take another 
 line for Manila, Australia, New Zealand, Siam or India. 
 This makes Hongkong a busy and important place. It is 
 an island, a mere rock like others that they had seen, and 
 it belongs to Great Britain. The name of the city is really 
 Victoria, but it is rarely ever called anything but Hong- 
 kong, and there are many who do not know that it has 
 any other name. 
 
176 
 
 The streets have been cut along the face of a cliff that 
 rises hundreds of feet Hke a solid wall behind the topmost 
 terrace. The streets that run from the water front, which 
 is broad enough for but a single street, are so steep that 
 horses and carriages, and even jinrikishas, can not be used; 
 people must either walk, which is very fatiguing, or must 
 be carried in sedan chairs, which are like litters, except 
 that they are borne upon the shoulders of men. The 
 girls and their father went ashore in a launch, as there 
 is no dock where passengers can be landed. 
 
 Hongkong is unlike Shanghai in every way ; not only are 
 the steep streets different from the level roads of the 
 north, but everything is fresh and green and fragrant. '' I 
 think it is a good deal like Honolulu," said Mary as she 
 looked from the window of the comfortable house where 
 they had found lodgings. " Here are the same flowers, 
 though not nearly so many of them ; the same sweet smells, 
 and I hear the doves cooing, just as they did in the palm trees 
 there." 
 
 They could not stay in the house a moment after they 
 had had their tea, and begged their father to go with them 
 for a walk. 
 
 As they were carried through the lower streets in their 
 sedan chairs from the landing stage, they had noticed the 
 fine hotels, public buildings and shops ; the streets crowded 
 with people of all colors and nationalities — Europeans, 
 natives of India, Americans, Japanese, Siamese and tiny 
 dark-skinned men, who Mr. Spencer said were Filipinos, 
 for Manila is only three days' journey from Hongkong. 
 Far above the roofs and spires and the uppermost terrace 
 rose Victoria Peak, which had been named for the Queen 
 
177 
 
 of England, as the city itself had been. Great, ragged clouds 
 swept about it often hiding it from view. 
 
 The Peak was reached by an incline railway so steep that 
 Mary and Ellen were certain that they would never dare 
 to make the ascent. They thought better of this after they 
 had been in Hongkong for a few days, and were glad that 
 they had been able to overcome their fears. It would have 
 
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 Peak Railway, Hongkong 
 
 been too bad to miss seeing Hongkong, its encircling hills 
 and fine harbor, from the brow of the Peak. 
 
 For their walk they went up the road to the park, stopping 
 now and then to rest. The path from the street to the park 
 had been thickly planted on either hand with feathery bam- 
 boos, tropical shrubs and vines, amongst which birds were 
 singing sweetly. The camellia plants were the most beau- 
 tiful of all, the long branches bending to the ground with 
 the waxen flowers — white, pink, and deep crimson. 
 
 KROUT^S CHINA — 12 
 
178 
 
 ''They are exactly like roses/' said Ellen, ''but they 
 have no fragrance/' The Chinese admire camellias and 
 are most successful in raising them. The natives are 
 allowed to walk in the park in Hongkong, which they 
 are not permitted to do in Shanghai. The girls watched 
 them strolling quietly along the paths, careful not to walk 
 
 Public Park, Hongkong 
 
 Upon the grass, stopping to look at the flowers, but never 
 handling them. " They are quite as well-behaved as people 
 at home," said Mary. It was delightful to see grass once 
 more, after the naked fields of the north, though that in 
 the park in Hongkong had been made to grow only with 
 much pains. 
 
179 
 
 '' The same may be said of everything here," said Mr. 
 Spencer. "It is hard to beUeve that this was once a naked 
 rock, and that the bamboos, the fine trees, the camelUas and 
 roses have been brought here by foreigners, just as the trees 
 and shrubs were taken to Hawaii." 
 
 From the park they saw the roofs of the city far below 
 them in the midst of dense green foHage. The ships in 
 the bay were Hke toy ships, and people moved to and fro 
 like ants about an ant-hill. 
 
 In the evening they went for a ride in jinrikishas, which 
 they took at the foot of the street where they lodged. They 
 followed the sharp curves of the bay for several miles, 
 the smooth water on one hand and the naked cliffs on the 
 other, with just space for the road between them. They 
 saw the Happy Valley, where sports are held, — the annual 
 games which every one goes to see,^ — and they stopped at 
 a little tea house before going back to the city, so that the 
 jinrikisha men might rest. The air was mild and soft, 
 like that of a warm, spring evening, and as it grew dark 
 they heard, far away, the chimes of the English cathedral. 
 
 When their father had finished his business and was ready 
 to take them up the incline railway to the top of the Peak, 
 they had ceased to be afraid, and, as the car climbed higher 
 and higher up the steep track, the city unrolled below them 
 like a panarama. 
 
 On the top of the Peak they found several large houses, 
 together with a hospital, and a hotel where people come in 
 summer, when it is hot and damp in the city below, for 
 in summer it rains in Hongkong almost every day. The 
 hospital was built for the English soldiers who may be 
 taken ill in the barracks, down in the citv, where there 
 
i8o 
 
 are always a great many English troops. They are sent 
 out to Hongkong from India or England, and then ordered 
 to other posts in the East, wherever they may be needed. 
 Around one of the houses on the Peak which belonged 
 to a rich merchant, was a large garden in which, how- 
 ever, only a few hardy flowers and shrubs would grow, 
 as the wind blew so constantly that it bent and broke all 
 but the toughest stalks. In the garden were many kinds 
 of animals in cages, and a great variety of caged birds, 
 the splendid golden pheasant of China amongst them. 
 
 Visitors are allowed to walk in the gardens and look at 
 the birds and animals, and no one teased or fed them. 
 
 From the highest point Mary and Ellen could see the ocean 
 which encircles Hongkong on every side, and the main- 
 land which is not far away. On the mainland is the 
 peninsula of Kowlun which means the '' Nine Dragons." 
 The peninsula also belongs to England. They could see 
 the two suburbs, Stanley and Kowlun. A busy town has 
 sprung up at Kowlun where there are large docks at which 
 ships can put in for repairs and fit out for long voyages. 
 At the time of the war wath Spain some of our ships, which 
 were white as our warships are in time of peace, were re- 
 painted at the Kowlun docks a dull, gray hue, so that they 
 might not be seen by the Spaniards until they could come 
 within close range. 
 
 There is one quarter of Kowlun where people from 
 India have settled, and where Mary and Ellen were taken 
 by their father before they went back to Shanghai. It 
 was like a bit of real India, with bazaars, silversmiths 
 and coppersmiths working at the door of the shops at little 
 forges, and slim, delicate women wrapped in white veils 
 
i8i 
 
 and mantles, their arms loaded with silver bracelets, ears and 
 nostrils pierced and weighted with hoops of yellow gold. 
 
 From the Peak, Kowlun did not appear half so large as 
 it really is. Mr. Spencer told them that the climate is 
 better than in Hongkong, and that many people prefer to 
 live there, rather than in the large settlement. 
 
 They dined at the hotel on the Peak, in which, at that 
 season, there were not so many guests as there would be 
 during the hot season from March to October. The day 
 had been quite clear, but sometimes whole weeks pass 
 when the rain and clouds obscure the Peak, quite hiding 
 the landscape and the harbor. They were fortunate 
 to have had so good a day, for, at sunset, which they had 
 hoped would be fine, the sky was suddenly overcast. A 
 thick mist soaked everything like fine rain, and at night 
 the clothing of the guests was taken to the '' drying room." 
 in the hotel where it remained until morning. 
 
 In answer to a question of Mary's, her father told her 
 that Honkkong is governed by a body of men, eight in 
 number, advised and aided by a council of fourteen, who 
 make w^hat laws are required. '' The Governor of the 
 island," he said, '' is sent out from England, as in all other 
 English colonies. Some day, no doubt, the people will 
 select their own governor; and, even now, if they should 
 be dissatisfied, he would probably be recalled. Such a thing 
 as this rarely happens, nowadays. Good men, generally, are 
 sent, and they are much respected by the people." 
 
 The girls learned, too, that there were good schools in 
 Hongkong, the foreign schools being much better than 
 those of Shanghai, although Shanghai is called the 
 '' Metropolis of the Far East." There are more than three 
 
l82 
 
 hundred thousand people in Hongkong, two thirds of them 
 being Chinese who Hve peaceably in their own quarter. The 
 great objection to them is that their houses are so dirty that 
 terrible diseases, like plague and cholera, break out among 
 them, and it is hard to make them keep their persons and 
 houses clean. The disease spreads but little among white 
 people, who have proper food, bathe often, and who are 
 not afraid. Hundreds of the Chinese die of fear at such 
 times, who would escape were they more courageous. 
 
 XIX. CANTON 
 
 LIKE Shanghai, Canton upon the map appears to be 
 situated upon the seacoast. It stands upon the banks 
 of the Pearl River, and is really a hundred miles from 
 Hongkong. The water of the Pearl River is salt and 
 it is afifected by the tides a good many miles from its 
 mouth. More than one million people, most of them Chinese, 
 live in Canton, where there are also a large number of for- 
 eigners. But, as in other treaty ports, that is, ports at which 
 the Chinese government has consented to allow foreign ves- 
 sels to trade, the foreigners live by themselves, outside the 
 walls of the native city. 
 
 Canton was the first port opened to ships from Europe, 
 and the Portuguese were the first foreigners to trade wnth 
 China. This was in the year 1516. The Portuguese did 
 more than trade, however. Many of them settled in China, 
 and their descendants are still living in Macao, which is 
 
1 83 
 
 considered one of the most beautiful cities in all China, 
 and which Mr. Spencer and the two girls visited on their 
 return from Hongkong. 
 
 They sailed in the evening on a small river steamer, the 
 Fatshan. One part of the vessel was set apart for foreign 
 passengers, and other cabins in another part of the steamer 
 were for the Chinese. Many of the Chinese also spread 
 their mats on the deck where they drank tea, ate rice, or 
 smoked and gambled. Piles of coin were heaped upon a 
 piece of cloth around which the gamblers squatted, playing 
 with tiny cards not more than an inch in length, or with 
 boards somewhat like backgammon boards. Almost all 
 Chinese are gamblers, and nothing can cure them of this 
 dreadful vice. On voyages across the ocean, as on smaller 
 steamers like the Fatshan, they gamble day and night, many 
 men leaving the ship beggared, having lost all the money 
 they had saved after years of hard work, and even their 
 bedding and clothing. The deck where the gamblers sat 
 was lighted with flaring oil lamps, and their dark faces 
 and glittering eyes could be seen anxiously watching every 
 card that was tossed on the cloth. 
 
 It was light enough to see the harbor as the Fatshan 
 made its way among the sampans, junks and foreign ships, 
 passing nearly around the island and entering the broad 
 mouth of the river. When it grew too dark to see the 
 shores Mary and Ellen went to bed and did not wake again 
 until broad daylight. The steamer was not moving and 
 they heard shrill shouting and screaming. Mary was 
 startled to see a dark face pressed close against the porthole, 
 looking at her as she lay in her berth. They had reached 
 Canton, and the watermen had come on board, bargaining 
 
1 84 
 
 to take the passengers ashore in their sampans. It was not 
 pleasant to be stared at, so ^lary slipped out of the berth 
 and drew the curtain over the porthole, called Ellen and 
 they were soon both dressed. It was much colder than 
 at Hongkong, the sky was a dull gray, and a damp, keen 
 wind was blowing, which made the girls shiver, warmly 
 as they were dressed. They pitied the poor Chinese, espe- 
 cially the women who rowed many of the boats, thinly 
 clad in blouses and loose drawers of blue cotton. Strans^elv 
 enough, there were numbers who wore no shoes, those 
 who ya-lo-ed, or rowed with their feet, which were purple 
 and swollen w4th the cold. Still, they were smiling and 
 uncomplaining. 
 
 Mr. Spencer selected a sampan rowed by two women, 
 with a fat, black-eyed baby sitting on a mat in the stern. 
 When they reached the landing stage ^Ir. Spencer gave 
 the baby a piece of money, at which its mother smiled and 
 nodded, and the other woman carried their bags and guided 
 them to the hotel. They intended to leave .Canton in the 
 evening, and there was no time to be lost, but first they had 
 a good breakfast before setting out on the day's sight-seeing. 
 
 In half an hour the guide was ready, for it is not 
 considered quite safe for foreigners to go through the 
 native city alone. He brought with him three sedan chairs 
 and a company of bearers, and they set out, ^Ir. Spencer 
 taking the lead. 
 
 Canton is quite like other Chinese cities, with narrow 
 streets, gay shops, crowds of people and dreadful odors. 
 They saw some strange buildings with towering roofs, 
 and ]\Ir. Spencer asked Ah Cum John, the guide, what they 
 were. Ah Cum John spoke excellent English for a Chinese 
 
i85 
 
 who had never been out of China. He told Mr. Spencer 
 that they were pawn shops, and that they belonged to the 
 great Li Hung Chang, who had once visited the United 
 States. 
 
 Even well-to-do Chinese think nothing of pawning their 
 bronze and porcelain, their silk clothes and ornaments, 
 when they require money which they can not get in any 
 
 other way. There are 
 many pawn shops in all 
 the Chinese cities. 
 Those that belonged to 
 Li Hung Chang were 
 almost like fortresses, 
 and on the roof were 
 huge cauldrons from 
 which men stationed 
 there could pour boiling 
 oil or water on the 
 crowds below, should 
 the building ever be at- 
 tacked in the riots that 
 often occur in China. 
 The streets are quite 
 dark, because the houses 
 are so close together and there are so many swinging 
 signs hanging from the balconies. The streets are well 
 paved but they are damp and slippery. They saw pro- 
 cessions of blind beggars, walking one behind the other, 
 each with his hand on the shoulder of the man in front 
 of him. Another queer procession passed them, — half a 
 dozen coolies carrying in baskets on their shoulders roasted 
 
 Street in Canton 
 
1 86 
 
 pigs that were done to a turn, and as glossy as if they 
 had been varnished. The roast pigs were ordered for a 
 wedding feast, but not more than three or four would be 
 used. The others had only been hired for show, so that 
 the man who gave the feast might seem richer than he 
 really was. 
 
 In the shops they saw hundreds of cedar coffins. Men 
 were carving sandal wood and ivory; and they heard the 
 tap-tap-tap of the wooden mallets with which the gold 
 beaters were beating the metal into thin sheets of gold leaf. 
 
 Tons of gold leaf are used in lettering the heavy swinging 
 signs, in decorating the altars and images which one sees 
 in every shop, as well as in the temples, and in ornamenting 
 boxes of lacquer, fans, and scrolls. A great deal of the 
 gold comes from the rich mines of Manchuria. 
 
 Mary saw a little white porcelain figure of Buddha which 
 she wanted to buy. The vender, who had spread out his 
 wares on the ground, asked two dollars for it. It was not 
 worth so much, and Ah Cum John shook his head. 
 
 '' I will get it for you bime-by,'' he said ; and while 
 they were loking at some carvings in a shop, he ran away 
 and presently returned with the Buddha. 
 
 '' I buy him for fifteen cents," he said. 
 
 In one shop they saw men inlaying silver brooches and 
 bracelets with the blue-green feathers of the Chinese king- 
 fisher. The design is etched upon the silver, and in this 
 bits of the bright plumage are fastened with cement. It 
 looked like the burnished cloisonne which they had seen 
 in Peking, or like colored metal with a sheen of gold and 
 green. Mary bought a pretty brooch, and Ellen a box 
 covered with dragons, for their mother. 
 
i87 
 
 They visited the Examination Halls, which, with their 
 brick cells, are like the examination halls in Peking. They 
 passed the execution ground which was filled with jars, 
 large and small, a potter having his shop in the rear of 
 the place. Four pirates had been beheaded here a few days 
 before. In spite of all that has been done, the coast and 
 rivers of China are still infested with pirates, who are bold 
 and fearless, and who are constantly committing the most 
 terrible crimes. On the Fatshan, as on the steamer that 
 
 Temple of the Five Hundred Genii 
 
 plied between Shanghai and Tientsin, they had seen racks 
 filled with rifles in the saloon, or gangway, where they had 
 been placed loaded so as to be ready at a moment's notice. 
 These were for defense against pirates. 
 
 One of the interesting places which travelers ahvays 
 visit is the Temple of the Five Hundred Genii. The temple 
 is dirty, however, and the five hundred genii, ranged on their 
 altars, are shabby and ugly. 
 
i88 
 
 They were to have their tiffin at the Seven-Story Pagoda, 
 and, on the way stopped to go through that strangest city 
 of all cities in the world — the City of the Dead. It is 
 walled, with gates that are guarded by watchful gate 
 keepers. Within there are streets, with Chinese houses fac- 
 ing each other, and at the doors the most lovely chrysanthe- 
 mums blooming in porcelain jars. It is a real city, but a 
 city where no sounds are heard; where no one comes or 
 goes but the priests and the white-robed mourners ; where 
 there are neither carts nor horses to be seen ; where no 
 one is buying or selling, for the houses are the houses of 
 the dead, and the whole city is filled, not with the living, 
 busy and happy in their homes, but with the dead lying 
 in their coffins. Contradictory as so many things seem in 
 this queer land, the cities of the living are dirty and dismal, 
 while this city of the dead is bright, clean and almost 
 cheerful. At one door they saw^ a small fir tree, the boughs 
 hung full of dreadful porcelain eyes that glared at them 
 fiercely. '' I suppose the eyes are to keep off the evil 
 spirits," said Ellen. 
 
 Am Cum John laughed and said, '' Yes ; " but even 
 well-educated Chinese who pretend to laugh at evil spirits 
 are really afraid of them. 
 
 In each of the small, gray houses along the wide streets 
 are two rooms. The inner one is fitted up with an altar, 
 where the family come and offer sacrifices of wine, rice 
 and chicken; the ceiling is hung with paper money and 
 the banners which were carried in the procession when the 
 coffin was brought to the City of the Dead, and which will 
 be used again when it is carried to the grave. In the outer 
 room stand the coffins, for in some houses there are three 
 
i89 
 
 or four. Each is of cedar, lacquered and polished and cov- 
 ered with a pall of thick, quilted, scarlet cloth, and rests 
 upon trestles. Only those whose families are rich can be 
 brought to the City of the Dead, where the rooms are hired, 
 and rent must be paid as long as the house is occupied ; for 
 the coffins are kept there while the geomancer is hunting a 
 lucky place for the grave. If the family of the dead man or 
 woman is very rich, the geomancer often does not find the 
 ''lucky place" for months or years; he does not wish to 
 find it, as he is being paid a good salary, which w^ould cease 
 when the place for the grave is finally decided upon. 
 
 In one of the houses they saw a large and splendid coffin, 
 with a smaller one beside it. Mary and Ellen did not shrink 
 when Ah Cum John turned back the thick, wadded covering, 
 for people Who travel in China grow used to death, because 
 there are graves and coffins almost everywhere. 
 
 Ah Cum John told them that the two lacquered coffins 
 were those of the wife of a mandarin and her son. The 
 coffin of the wife had been there for fifteen years, and 
 that of the son for ten years, and no one could tell when 
 they would be buried as the geomancer was being so well 
 paid. 
 
 They climbed the steep staircase of the Seven-Story 
 Pagoda and found a restaurant on the uppermost floor, 
 where fifty or more Chinese were drinking tea. There was 
 an altar in the room upon which sat two huge, ferocious 
 gods, with two more upon the floor at the right and two 
 at the left. A table was spread for Mr. Spencer and the 
 girls within the railing before the altar of the gods. '' They 
 are not cheerful company," said Mary, '' but I suppose we 
 can endure them for a little while." The Chinese neglect 
 
190 
 
 their gods and treat them with a good deal of disrespect. 
 The garments of these were ragged and faded, and their 
 long black beards were gray with dust. 
 
 From a little balcony they looked out upon the broad 
 river winding through the level plain, green with rice fields, 
 until it was lost among the distant hills. It was covered 
 with thousands of boats, some moving up and down, and 
 other thousands anchored side by side along the low banks, 
 
 Boats at Canton 
 
 for Canton has the largest boat population of any city in 
 China. 
 
 '' Why do they live on the water where it is so cold 
 and damp?" Mary asked her father, ''Why do they not 
 find some place upon the land — in the country, as people 
 do at home? " 
 
 '' There is no place for them," her father answered, '' there 
 is scarcely land enough now; a Chinese farm is only a few 
 acres. Not an inch of ground can be spared. The farmers 
 themselves do not always live on their land, but more often 
 
191 
 
 in small villages, walking every morning to their fields, 
 which are sometimes eight or nine miles distant." 
 
 They did not return to the hotel, but went back to the 
 steamer, for they had arranged to make the return trip by 
 daylight, so that they might see the river. 
 
 They started very early, and the girls were particularly 
 interested in the great flocks of ducks that were being 
 driven by boatmen, as herdsmen drive sheep, and in the 
 heavy barges which were also crowded with the quacking 
 creatures. They reached Macao at noon and were still 
 forty miles from Hongkong. The Portuguese settlement 
 is on a peninsula on the southeastern coast of Hiang- 
 shan, a large island not far from the mainland. When 
 the Portuguese first came to China this island had been 
 given to them for helping the Chinese overcome a fierce 
 robber who had his hiding place there. After the robber 
 had been captured and the Portuguese settlement founded, 
 the Chinese showed their real feeling for them by building 
 a strong wall across the island, v/hich would keep the 
 foreigners within the boundaries of their own concession. 
 
 Macao is charming, situated as it is upon a rolling plain, 
 shut in by lofty hills. The two forts, which still remain, 
 are picturesque, but nowadays would not be very useful 
 as a means of defense. The . flat-roof ed houses painted 
 green, pink and blue are set in the midst of trees and 
 shrubbery, — the beautiful gardens which the Portuguese 
 cultivate with great skill. This they do wherever they 
 live, for they are an industrious, peaceable people, happy 
 if they have a thatched roof over their heads and a bit of 
 ground upon which they manage to raise enough for their 
 large families. 
 
192 
 
 Mr. Spencer, Mary and Ellen went ashore, and hiring 
 jinrikishas went out to the Public Gardens where almost 
 every plant that grows in China, the East Indies and Aus- 
 tralia can be seen. Part of the gardens have been left in a 
 natural state, and here they found a little grotto in which 
 it was said that Camoens, a great Portuguese writer who 
 had been banished from his native country over four hun- 
 dred years ago, had written one of his great works, the 
 Lusiad. They saw the churches, the Cathedral and hospital 
 and the Praya Grande^ or Great Promenade, where the 
 people of Macao come in the evening to enjoy the fresh 
 air, to see and to be seen. It was almost deserted now, 
 and there were very few people about the Governor's palace 
 and the official buildings which are not far away. The 
 main street is given over to pretty shops, and here, too, 
 are the various consulates, close to each other. 
 
 Macao was once the most important port in China, from 
 which the greater part of all the tea raised in the country 
 was shipped to Europe. But Hongkong has drawn away 
 its trade, and Macao has become a dull, sleepy place, but 
 still pretty, with its gayly painted houses and blossoming 
 gardens. 
 
 They reached Hongkong in the evening before dark. 
 As they went ashore, Mary and Ellen stopped a moment 
 to watch the coolies emptying hundreds of live fish through 
 a long net, shaped like a great bag, into boats moored along- 
 side the steamer. Some of the fish were bought by small 
 dealers who rowed ashore as fast as they could and ran 
 all the way to the market so that they might get the highest 
 prices, before the rest of the catch arrived. 
 
 The next day they sailed for Shanghai. Mr. and Mrs. 
 
193 
 
 Spencer decided not to take a house until spring and 
 afterwards were very glad that they had made this decision ; 
 they had good reason then once more to change their 
 plans. ' Mary and Ellen were sent to an English school, 
 
 Street Peddlers in Hongkong 
 
 where they studied all the more willingly after their long 
 vacation. There was plenty of amusement after school 
 hours and on Saturdays, and they made many agreeable 
 friends among their schoolmates. 
 
 KROUT S CHINA — I3 
 
194 
 
 XX. THE YANGTZE AND THE TEA COUNTRY 
 
 IN April Mr. Spencer found that it would be necessary 
 for him to go to Hankau, an important city on the 
 Yangtze River, six hundred miles from Shanghai. 
 
 Fine steamers run all the way, and if one wishes to go 
 still further, there are smaller boats from Hankau to 
 Ichang, another important town on the upper waters of 
 the great river, among the mountains. 
 
 Unlike the crowded little ship which had carried them 
 to Taku, the river steamer was furnished with every comfort 
 and convenience. 
 
 As it was vacation, Mary and Ellen went with their 
 mother and father. The girls had studied hard all winter 
 and they looked forward to the trip up the Yangtze with 
 great pleasure. 
 
 They went on board the steamer in the evening at the 
 jetty on the Bund, but had to wait for the rise of the tide to 
 float them across the shoals and quicksands at the mouth 
 of the river. When morning came, they could hardly 
 believe that they were on a river, except that the steamer 
 moved rapidly ahead, with no pitching or rolling, whereas, 
 if they had been on the open sea, they would have been 
 roughly tossed about by the waves. No land was in sight, 
 for just above the quicksands not far from the mouth the 
 Yangtze is seventeen miles wide. 
 
 After a time they saw, far away, the gray-green foliage 
 of ash and willow, for the trees were just coming into leaf; 
 then a pagoda, which stood like a lighthouse on a rocky 
 island, and, finally, other pagodas and forts which had 
 been built by the Chinese during the war with Japan. There 
 
195 
 
 were hundreds of Chinese on the lower deck where they 
 chattered and gambled, ate rice and drank tea, making the 
 place very dirty. 
 
 There were no landing wharfs, and the Chinese passen- 
 gers were taken ashore at towns and villages in flat barges 
 which came out for them, bringing other passengers who 
 were going on to towns farther up the river. 
 
 The country was now very different from what it had 
 been in the autumn when they arrived in China. The few 
 trees, — the willows, ash trees and bamboos, were putting 
 out their new leaves ; flowers were beginning to bloom, and 
 there were patches of plum and peach blossoms like white 
 and rose-colored mist. The fields were as green as emerald, 
 and birds were singing and soaring overhead. The people 
 w^ere happier and lighter-hearted, — glad in China, as every- 
 where else in the world, for the return of spring after 
 the long winter with its freezing mists and frost. 
 
 Near Chinkiang they passed two famous islands called 
 Tsiao Shan, " Silver Island," and Kin Shan, '' Golden Isl- 
 and, "" which are held sacred by the Chinese Buddhists. They 
 were once covered with temples, terraces and memorial 
 arches, and had been visited by the great Ming Emperors 
 and by the Manchus who succeeded them. They are now 
 deserted, and their temples are in ruins, having been torn 
 down in the wars that have swept over the country. 
 
 Chinkiang is at the mouth of the Grand Canal, where it 
 joins the Yangtze, and it was once a thrifty and pros- 
 perous place, but it has suffered from the rebellions and 
 riots that have ruined its trade, and driven many of the 
 inhabitants away. 
 
 One may go from Chinkiang south to Suchau, which 
 
196 
 
 Ellen and Mary had visited when they made the journey 
 in the house boat, and from Suchau on to Hangchau, where 
 a great part of the silk raised in China is manufactured. 
 To the north one may go to Peking by the Grand Canal, 
 a great waterway, that is like a smooth road, which is 
 never rough, never muddy, over which pass millions of 
 boats in the course of a vear. Thev saw at a distance 
 
 Nanking 
 
 Nanking, which had been the capital of China before the 
 Alanchu rulers moved the capital to Peking. 
 
 Mr. Spencer said that he supposed Nanking had been built 
 at a safe distance from the river in order to be safe from 
 the floods. It had once been one of the most splendid 
 cities in the empire, the residence of the court and the 
 Emperor, drawing around it all the noted writers, artists 
 and statesmen in China. The Tae-Ping Rebellion, or war 
 between the government and a great faction pretending 
 
197 
 
 to be Christian, was especially destructive to Nanking, 
 where the rebel Hung Siu-tshuen, who called himself the 
 '' King of Heaven," held his court after he had driven 
 the real rulers away. The rebels burned and looted all the 
 cities in that and the neighboring provinces, and tore down 
 the pagoda which was built of white porcelain, and which 
 will never be restored, because they do not build any more 
 pagodas in China. 
 
 At school during the winter Mary and Ellen had studied 
 about the Tae-Ping Rebellion, and they knew that it had 
 lasted thirteen years, that half the provinces in the empire 
 had been laid waste, and that fifty millions of lives had been 
 destroyed. 
 
 The rebellion was not checked until the Emperor's troops 
 were organized and drilled by an American named Ward 
 who was killed in one of the battles. The Chinese troops 
 were then led by a great English soldier who afterwards 
 became known by the name of '' Chinese Gordon." 
 
 The Americans have established a hospital, schools and 
 a university at Nanking, where hundreds of Chinese boys 
 and girls are being educated. At this point the face of 
 the country changes. There are green hills and the river 
 banks are bordered by giant reeds, like those that they 
 had seen along the Pei-ho. There were more trees, verdant 
 fields, comfortable farmhouses, fat cattle, and fewer graves. 
 
 Two rocky islands which they saw beyond Nanking are 
 called '' Little Orphan " and '' Big Orphan " and the Chi- 
 nese have many stories about them. Each island has a 
 gray pagoda on its summit. The sheet of silvery water 
 which could be seen shimmering and shining under the blue 
 sky, Mr. Spencer said was Lake Foyang, one of the most 
 
198 
 
 beautiful and famous lakes in all China. On its eastern 
 shore is Jao-chau, where the fine porcelains made at the 
 great potteries of King-te-chen, built by the Mings, are 
 sent for shipment to Peking for the Emperor's palaces. 
 Even to this day, foreigners are hardly allowed to visit 
 the potteries which, however, will never again be what they 
 once were. The porcelain made there ages ago was far 
 more beautiful, both in color and design, than Sevres 
 or Dresden. 
 
 The French priests, whom the Chinese received kindl/, 
 and who taught them to make the great bronze globes 
 and astronomical instruments which the girls had seen upon 
 the walls of Peking, had also taught the potters how to 
 make a richer glaze and new and more brilliant colors. 
 
 The heart of the tea-growing regions of China is around 
 the shores of Lake Poyang, and the great central market 
 of the district is Hankau. Ships formerly came up the 
 river to load for the western market, but even the tea trade 
 has fallen off, and the tea is sent to Shanghai and from 
 there shipped to Europe and America. 
 
 They reached Hankau in less than a week after leaving 
 Shanghai and found, to their great joy, a spacious English 
 quarter, the English concession, which Mrs. Spencer said 
 made her feel quite at home. It was clean and cheerful with 
 wide, v/ell-kept roads, shade trees, flower beds and a broad 
 parapet, with a stone embankment forty feet high to protect 
 the water front. In spite of this, at high water, when the 
 floods come down, the river rises and spreads over the 
 Bund, up and down which people can row in boats. A 
 long flight of stone steps leads from the river bank to the 
 Bund above. 
 
199 
 
 There was a good hotel where they found comfortable 
 rooms, although the busy season had just commenced. 
 The tea tasters were arriving for the first and best picking, 
 and would be kept in Hankau at their work until mid- 
 summer and longer. The tea tasters are nearly all Eng- 
 lishmen and they decide the quality of the tea, which 
 must be tested before it is packed for shipping. The 
 leaves are put in a cup, boiling water poured over them, 
 and the liquid is then taken into the mouth but is never 
 swallowed. Although the tasters are careful not to swallow 
 the tea, before the work is done for the season they feel 
 the effects of it very much, and after ten or fifteen years 
 are often broken down in health. They receive large sala- 
 ries and work but a few hours each day. During the 
 busy season, which lasts about six weeks, they can drink 
 no spirits nor take any sort of food that might blunt their 
 sense of taste, which becomes, with training, very acute. 
 
 After his business was attended to, Mr. Spencer took 
 them some distance down the river again in order that they 
 might see the fields in which the tea is raised. 
 
 '' A good deal of moisture is required to raise tea,'' he 
 said, " and for this reason, as well as on account of the 
 colder winters, tea cannot be raised in the north.'' 
 
 The farmer, to whom one of the tea tasters introduced 
 them, was quite polite and willingly showed them through 
 his fields. 
 
 '' Tea is a variety of the camellia which you saw in Hong- 
 kong," said Mr. Spencer. '' It would grow into a small 
 tree, if it were not cut and pruned every year. The plants 
 are raised from seed, transplanted in the second year, and 
 are never allowed to grow more than three feet high, — more 
 
200 
 
 often but a foot and a half. They are straggling, stunted 
 shrubs that look as if they were dying, so thickly are they 
 grown with moss and lichens. The plants do not require any- 
 thing like the care that must be given to rice, sweet potatoes, 
 and other vegetables. They must be planted on land where 
 there is good drainage, usually hillsides, and must be hoed 
 frequently. The little shrubs are planted in rows about 
 three feet apart. The flower is white, and soon falls, and, 
 unlike the blossom of the coffee, has no fragrance. The 
 
 Picking Tea in China 
 
 best tea is the first picking, the downy, tender leaves which 
 the Chinese call Pekoe, which means ' White Hairs.' 
 
 " The leaf of the tea is not like that of the camellia, but is 
 small and thin. [Most of the Pekoe is sent to Russia and 
 EnglarKl. Half-opened leaves, gathered before the heavy 
 spring rains begin, are called Young Hyson, which means 
 ' Rains before.' The bushes are stripped of their leaves 
 from the middle of [May until June, when the plants are 
 most thicklv covered. Great care is taken not to destroy 
 
20I 
 
 the tender buds at the ends of the twigs, which would stop 
 the growth of the plant. The first picking, the fine Pekoe, 
 is very carefully gathered, but for the second picking women 
 and children are hired by the farmers who sell their crops 
 to middlemen ; they, in turn, dispose of it to buyers at 
 Hankau and other markets. 
 
 " Tea shrinks so much in the curing process that for every 
 
 Tea Bales for Russia 
 
 fifteen pounds of green leaves only five pounds of the cured 
 leaves remain. The leaves from which green tea is prepared 
 are spread out to dry for a short time after picking. Then 
 they are gently shaken in a metal pan over a charcoal fire ; 
 they are then spread upon a bamboo table, squeezed into 
 balls, passed on from hand to hand, broken apart, pressed 
 
202 
 
 into shape and again separated. They are then once more 
 dried over the fire. When the tea is ready for packing, 
 having been sifted last of all to free it from dust, it is 
 placed in air-tight metal boxes, soldered securely, and these 
 in turn are placed in wooden boxes encased in matting 
 marked with Chinese letters. In this shape it is received 
 by tea merchants in Europe and the United States. 
 
 '' Black tea is allowed to wilt over night before it is dried 
 in the metal pans. It does not contain so much oil as the 
 green tea. The coarser leaves and even small twigs are 
 cured and pressed into ' bricks,' and this goes to southern 
 Russia and Mongolia where it is boiled with milk and 
 butter like a sort of soup. 
 
 '' China," Mr. Spencer continued, '' is losing her tea 
 trade, which has fallen off since tea has been grown in 
 India and Ceylon where machinery is used, and where it 
 can be raised more cheaply. The Chinese do all the work 
 by hand, from planting the seeds to transplanting the young 
 shrubs, and picking and curing the crop.'' 
 
 Mr. Spencer would have liked to go on to Ichang, among 
 the mountains to the west, but he learned while at Hankau 
 that the Boxers, of whom they had heard a good deal while 
 they were in Peking, had grown very bold, and were threat- 
 ening to drive out the foreigners wherever they could find 
 them. At that time there were very few Boxers in or 
 near Hankau, but it was plain to be seen that the Chinese 
 in general sympathized with them, and would help them 
 if they could. 
 
 The English people and the American consul advised 
 Mr. Spencer not to go any farther up the river, as he might 
 not find it an easy matter to get back. Had he been alone 
 
203 
 
 he would have gone, but he was not willing to risk the safety 
 of his wife and daughters. So they went back to Shanghai, 
 and it was v/ell that they did so, for all the foreigners 
 who could do so soon left the river towns, and many of 
 those v/ho remained lost their lives. 
 
 XXL CONCLUSION 
 
 WHEN the trouble in Peking grew worse and Shanghai 
 itself was threatened by the murderous Boxers, 
 Mr. Spencer felt that it was no longer safe to remain there. 
 His business was at a standstill, for all work in the interior 
 had ceased. Even the Chinese who were really friendly 
 to foreigners did not dare to help them in any way. They 
 would not sell them food or have any dealings with them 
 whatsoever. It was known that hundreds of Chinese were 
 leaving the city daily to join the Boxers. 
 
 Large ships that might have defended the city could 
 not cross the Wusung bar. To the north, south, and west, 
 were provinces where there were millions of people who 
 were becoming more and more unfriendly to the foreigners 
 and who were anxious to drive them out of the country. 
 
 With many other Americans living in Shanghai, Mr. 
 Spencer sailed with his family for Nagasaki in Japan, where 
 they remained through the summer. Early in the autumn 
 Mrs. Clifford joined them and she had a sad story to 
 relate. Her husband was still in Peking. She had left, 
 with other refugees, escorted by a company of soldiers 
 
204 
 
 to Tungchau, twelve miles east of the city gate. Thence 
 they were taken in boats to Tientsin, which was also 
 occupied by soldiers, much of it being in ruins. 
 
 '' Early in the spring/' she said, '' we noticed that Peking 
 was full of rough, insolent men who grew bolder and more 
 and more unruly. There were reports of murders and 
 lawlessness in the country, and the Chinese troops who 
 were sent out by the Empress Dowager did no good. By 
 this time the Boxers, who were pledged to kill the foreigners, 
 had raised an army, and in May they marched to Peking. 
 While pretending to be friendly to the foreigners, it is now 
 known that the Empress Dowager and the court secretly 
 aided the Boxers. The country in every direction was 
 filled with savage Boxers, and early in June the Japanese 
 minister was murdered, for the Boxers hated the Japanese 
 even more than Americans or Europeans. Three days after 
 this, all the foreign houses were attacked, and all the 
 missions, except the Methodist mission, were destroyed. 
 
 '' This mission, as you remember," said Mrs. Clifford, 
 '' was well built, the strong brick houses being defended by 
 heavy gates and high walls. There were a few soldiers, 
 marines from the ships at Taku, who had been sent north 
 when the trouble became serious, and they helped to defend 
 the mission. They were posted on the walls ready to shoot 
 any Chinese that approached too near. In this way they 
 held out for some time, but at last the missionaries and 
 their families had to go, with all the other foreigners, to 
 the British Legation, where they were comparatively safe. 
 Our own Legation was a common Chinese house, with 
 other buildings like it in the compound ; but the walls 
 were not strong enough to keep out the Boxers, had any 
 
205 
 
 foreigners been foolish enough to have remained there. 
 Every foreign building in Peking, except the hotel, was 
 burned, — the banks, churches, missions, the Customhouse 
 and the Post Office. The pleasant house that you visited 
 at the ]Methodist Mission, the schools and hospital, are all 
 a heap of ruins and it would be hard to tell even where the 
 buildings once stood. The railway and telegraph lines 
 between Tientsin and Peking wxre destroyed, so that no 
 
 (Copyright, 1899, by J. C. Hemment.) 
 
 Students' Quarters, British Legation 
 
 one could get away, nor could messages be sent. On June 
 20, the German minister. Baron von Ketteler, was killed. 
 He had started to see the Chinese authorities and to ask 
 their protection for the foreigners who were detained in 
 Peking, and he was shot in the street by a Manchu officer 
 of high rank. The Empress Dowager asked the foreigners 
 to leave the capital, promising to send with them an escort 
 of soldiers to Tientsin. But the foreigners, who had lived 
 
2o6 
 
 in China a long time, knew that they could not trust the 
 Empress. She was really helping the Boxers, it was 
 thought, and, once outside the city walls, the foreigners 
 would have been murdered, and the Empress would have 
 said, no doubt, that she had been unable to prevent it. 
 
 '' They refused to go, and the people from all the legations, 
 men, women and children, with a small force of marines, 
 and a great number of native Christians shut themselves 
 up in the British Legation. They had brought with them food 
 and clothing, and mules and horses which they were after- 
 wards obliged to eat. The Boxers surrounded them and for 
 weeks they lived shut in, with bullets whistling about their 
 ears, shells bursting over their heads, and the walls pierced 
 and broken with cannon balls. Every one was very brave, 
 even the children. The women made bags out of cloth, silk, 
 velvet, and anything that they could find, which were filled 
 with sand and piled about the doors and windows. In these 
 sand bags bullets buried themselves and did no harm. When 
 the Boxers could not break down the walls or batter in the 
 gates, they tried to set fire to the Legation by burning build- 
 ings just outside the compound; but the wind blew the 
 flames away, and once more the foreigners were saved. 
 
 " You have already heard how the soldiers of the Allies, 
 — Great Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia, and 
 Japan, — finally landed from the ships at Taku, ordered 
 by their governments to march to Peking and rescue the 
 Legations. It was not an easy thing to do. The weather 
 was burning hot, there was no shade, and food and water 
 were scarce. But they reached Tientsin and saved the 
 people there, who were also in great danger. Then they 
 pushed on to the north, fighting all the way. 
 
207 
 
 '' The people in Peking had almost given up hope of 
 rescue. They had concluded that the outside world did not 
 know of their peril, although they had sent faithful Chinese 
 messengers through the Boxer lines, begging for relief. 
 They did not know until afterwards that the whole world 
 was in the greatest anxiety lest they should all be murdered 
 before the army could reach them. 
 
 " The stock of provisions had run very low ; there was 
 not much food left. The mules, horses and even dogs had 
 been killed and eaten. The Chinese had several cannon, and 
 with these they had injured the Legation walls so much that 
 the Boxers could not have been kept out much longer. They 
 had taken possession of a tower overlooking the compound, 
 from which they were able to pick ofif men in the Legation 
 grounds. The brave American, Captain Myers, told the 
 marines that the tower must be taken ; he asked all who 
 were willing to volunteer for the assault, and every man 
 was ready, although they knew that all might lose their 
 lives. The tower was captured, however, and danger from 
 that quarter ended. 
 
 " During the last days, when the Boxers pressed closer 
 and closer, they uttered a loud cry — a wild chant which 
 never ceased, terrible to hear: /Kill all the foreigners; 
 kill all the foreigners.' 
 
 '' At last the guns of the army coming to save them 
 were heard, far off, outside the walls, and not a moment 
 too soon, for the besieged could not have held out twenty- 
 four hours longer, and not one of them would have been 
 found alive. 
 
 '' The walls of Peking were scaled, the gates blown up, 
 the allied army marched into the city, the Boxers standing 
 
208 
 
 their ground for a little while, then flying before them. 
 The foreigners were saved, and with them the two thousand 
 Chinese that they had cared for and protected in the midst 
 of their own great peril. All the girls of the school that 
 you visited were saved, except those who went back to 
 their homes w^here they thought they would be safe. One 
 of these girls was taken and burned to death, because she 
 would not deny that she was a Christian. 
 
 '' You would not be able to find your way about Peking 
 now, it is all so changed. The heaps of bricks and mortar 
 and the fallen trees that choked the streets have been cleared 
 away, but thousands of houses have been burned, — the 
 whole Chinese city, in fact, and some of the beautiful 
 towers over the gates are in ruins. The Empress Dowager 
 fled with the court before the foreign army marched into the 
 city, and the Emperor went with her. He would have 
 prevented all the bloodshed and destruction if he could 
 have done so ; but the Empress Dowager had taken the 
 government into her own hands, and he was powerless. 
 
 " It will be many a long day before the ruin in Peking is 
 effaced or forgotten. Perhaps, in time, there will be a new 
 Peking better than the old, in which all that was worth 
 saving will remain, and the Chinese themselves will have 
 become wiser and better for the lessons they have learned." 
 
NiAh 18 1903 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 III 
 
 027 572 778 7