to be such an object of curiosity; to have to do all things in
unsecluded publicity; to have to push my way through streets thronged by
the curious to see the foreigner. My meals I ate in the presence of the
street before gaping crowds. When they came too close I told them
politely in English to keep back a little, and they did so if I
illustrated my words by gesture. When I scratched my head and they saw
the spurious pigtail, they smiled; when I flicked the dust off the table
with my pigtail, they laughed hilariously.

The wayside inns are usually at the side of an arcade of grass and
bamboo stretched above the main road. Two or three ponies are usually
waiting here for hire, and expectant coolies are eager to offer their
services. In engaging a pony you make an offer casually, as if you had
no desire in the world of its being accepted, and then walk on as if you
had no intention whatever of riding for the next month. The mafoo
demands more, but will come down; you stick to your offer, though
prepared to increase it; so demand and offer you exchange with the mafoo
till the width of the village is between you, and your voices are almost
out of hearing, when you come to terms.

Suppose I wanted a chair to give me a rest for a few miles--it was
usually slung under the rafters--Laokwang (my cook) unobserved by anyone
but me pointed to it with his thumb inquiringly. I nodded assent and
apparently nothing more happened and the conversation, of which I was
quite ignorant, continued. We left together on foot, my man still
maintaining a crescendo conversation with the inn people till well away.
When almost out of hearing he called out something and an answer came
faintly back from the distance. It was his ultimatum as regards price
and its acceptance--they had been bargaining all the time. My man
motioned to me to wait, said the one word "_chiaodza_" (sedan chair) and
in a few moments the chair of bamboo and wicker came rapidly down the
road carried by two bearers. They put down the chair before me and bowed
to me; I took my seat and was borne easily and pleasantly along at four
miles an hour at a charge of less than one penny a mile.

My men received nearly 400 cash a day each; but from time to time they
sweated their contract to unemployed coolies and had their loads carried
for so little as sixty cash (one penny halfpenny), for two-thirds of a
day's journey.

At nightfall we always reached some large village or town where