ad
met, aggravated by heavy rains. With all the reforms to which the
province of Yuen-nan is endeavoring to direct its energies, it has not
yet learned that one of the first assets of any district or country is
good roads. But this is true of the whole of the Middle Kingdom. The
contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of
their work in the street, and, even in a city provided with but the
narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the
presence of peripatetic vendors of every kind of article of common sale
in China, and by itinerant craftsmen who have no other shop than the
street. In the capital city of the province, even, it is a matter of
some difficulty to the European to walk down the rough-paved street
after a shower of rain, so slippery do the slabs of stone become; and he
has to be alive always to the lumbering carts, whose wheels are more
solid than circular, pulled by bullocks as in the days long before the
dawn of the Christian Era. The wider the Chinese street the more abuses
can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is
quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are
never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at
all--that is, in dry weather.

This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is
certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however,
another kind of road--a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.

An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple
of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary
(especially in the Yuen-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another,
the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep
ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains.
In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at
times are constantly under water, and beyond Yuen-nan-fu, on my way to
Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a
rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time
the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is
liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a
canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads
removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it
is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men wit