h, or
grinding it in mills operated by a single donkey.

In this part of China the mound-like graves of the millions--possibly
billions--of the Chinese dead are even more in evidence than in the
northern provinces. Let China last a few more thousand years with its
present customs and the country will be one vast cemetery, and the
people will have to move away to find land to cultivate. As not one
grave in a thousand is marked by a stone of any kind, it would seem as
if they would not be kept up, but the explanation is that each
Chinaman lives and dies hard by the bones of his ancestors. The care
of their graves is one of life's most serious duties. Even when John
goes to America, half his fortune, if need be, will be used to bring
his body back to the ancestral burying ground.

In a land so given over to superstition I have no doubt that the most
horrible disasters would also be expected as the penalty for
interfering with any grave. It seems odd that a people who had a
literature centuries before our Anglo-Saxon ancestors emerged from
barbarism should now be the victims of superstitions almost as gross
as those prevailing in Africa; but such are the facts. Chang
Chih-tung, who died a few months ago, was one of the most progressive
and enlightened Chinese statesmen of the last hundred years, but not
even a man of his type could free himself from the great body of
superstition handed down from generation to generation.

In Wuchang I crossed an amazingly steep, high hill known as "Dragon
Hill," because of the Chinese belief that a dragon inhabits it. This
long hill divides the city into two parts; every day hundreds and
sometimes possibly thousands of people must climb up one side and down
the other in getting from one part of the town to another. Therefore,
when Chang {129} Chih-tung was Viceroy in Hankow he decided that he
would make a cut in this hill and save the people all this trouble.
And he did. Very shortly thereafter, however, he sickened of a painful
abscess in his ear, and the Chinese doctors whom he consulted were
quick in pointing out the trouble. By making the cut in the hill, they
told him, he had offended the earth dragon which inhabits it, and
unless the cut were filled up Chang might die and disaster might come
upon the city. Of course, there was nothing for him to do but to
restore the ancient obstruction to travel, and so it remains to this
day.

In sight from Dragon Hill is another hill known as