to-day, and two bigger
ragamuffins it has not been my lot to cast eyes on. They are the only
two men in the crowd I am afraid of. They are of absolutely no use, more
than to eat and to drink, and always come up smiling at the end of their
stage for their _kumshaw_. During the whole of this day I have not seen
one of them--they have been behind the caravan all the time; it would be
hard to believe that they had sense enough to find the way, and as for
escorting me, they have not accompanied me a single li of the way.[I]

Another nuisance, of which I have already spoken, is the necessity of
taking a chair to maintain respectability. These things make travel in
China not so cheap as one would be led to imagine. Traveling of itself
is cheap enough, as cheap as in any country in the world. For
accommodation for myself, for a room, rice and as much hot water as I
want, the charge is a couple of hundred cash--certainly not expensive.
In addition, there is generally a little "cha tsien" (tea money) for the
cook. But it is the "face" which makes away with money, much more than
it takes to keep you in the luxury that the country can offer--which is
not much!

After I had had a bit of a discussion with my boy as to the room they
wanted to house me in, a woman, brandishing a huge cabbage stump above
her head, and looking menacingly at me, yelled that the room was good
enough.

"What does she say, T'ong?"

"Oh, she b'long all same fool. She wantchee makee talkee talk. She have
got velly long tongue, makee bad woman. She say one piecee Japan man
makee stay here t'ree night. See? She say what makee good one piecee
Japan man makee good one piecee English man. See? No have got topside,
all same bottomside have got. Master, this no b'long my pidgin--this
b'long woman pidgin, and woman b'long all same fool." T'ong ended up
with an amusing allusion to the lady's mother, and looked cross because
I rebuked him.

Gathering, then, that the lady thought her room good enough for me, I
saw no other course open, and as the crowd was gathering, I got inside.
Before setting out to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at
the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an
unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of
Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but
Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the
amount of general knowledge derived one from the o