s in other Asiatic countries,
one's companions soon accustom themselves to one's little peculiarities
of character, and what was miraculous to the crowd had by simple
repetition ceased to be miraculous to them.

As I put away my notebook after writing the last sentence, I saw a mule
slip, fall, roll for one hundred and fifty yards, losing its load on the
down journey, and then walk up to the stream for a drink.[AZ]

We started for Shayung on February 2nd, 1910, going over a road
literally uncared for, full of loose-jointed stones and sinking sand,
down which ponies scrambled, while the Tibetans in charge covered
themselves close in the uncured skins they wore. This was the first time
I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
their antiquated topboots--much better, however, than the Yuen-nan
topboot--gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
frost.

Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
much steeper than the roof of a house--as perpendicular as can be
imagined--but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy. In Christian
England within the last century men where hanged for petty theft; but in
Yuen-nan--I do not know whether it is still current in other
provinces--men have been known to be burnt to death for stealing maize.
A case was reported from Ch'u-tsing-fu quite recently, but it is a
custom which used to be quite common. A document is signed by the man's
relatives, a stick is brought by every villager, the man lashed to a
stake, and his own people are compelled to light the fire. It seems
incredible, but this horrible practice has not been entirely extirpated
by the authorities