tion." I mention this incident only because of its rarity. In no
other country in the world, civilised or "heathen," are children
generally treated with more kindness and affection than they are in
China. "Children, even amongst seemingly stolid Chinese, have the
faculty of calling forth the better feelings so often found latent.
Their prattle delights the fond father, whose pride beams through every
line of his countenance, and their quaint and winning ways and touches
of nature are visible even under the disadvantages of almond eyes and
shaven crowns" (Dyer Ball).

A mother in China is given, both by law and custom, extreme power over
her sons whatever their age or rank. The Sacred Edict says, "Parents are
like heaven. Heaven produces a blade of grass. Spring causes it to
germinate. Autumn kills it with frost. Both are by the will of heaven.
In like manner the power of life and death over the body which they have
begotten is with the parents."

And it is this law giving such power to a mother in China which tends,
it is believed, to nullify that other law whereby a husband in China is
given extreme power over his wife, even to the power in some cases of
life and death.

The Mohammedans are still numerous in Chaotong, and there are some 3000
families--the figures are Chinese--in the city and district. Their
numbers were much reduced during the suppression of the rebellion of
1857-1873, when they suffered the most awful cruelties. Again, thirteen
years ago, there was an uprising which was suppressed by the Government
with merciless severity. One street is exclusively occupied by Moslems,
who have in their hands the skin trade of the city. Their houses are
known by a conspicuous absence from door and window of the coloured
paper door-gods that are seen grotesquely glaring from the doors of the
unbelievers. Their mosque is well cared for and unusually clean. In the
centre, within the main doorway, as in every mosque in the empire, is a
gilt tablet of loyalty to the living Emperor. "May the Emperor reign ten
thousand years!" it says, a token of subjection which the mosques of
Yunnan have especially been compelled to display since the insurrection.
At the time of my visit an aged mollah was teaching Arabic and the Koran
to a ragged handful of boys. He spoke to me through an interpreter, and
gave me the impression of having some little knowledge of things outside
the four seas that surround China. I told him that I had liv