door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.

The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
and make them better; but never a word of thanks--not even the mere
pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote BD: The Chinese name for the Shan.]

[Footnote BE: Vide _Yuen-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,_ by
Major H.R. Davies.--Cambridge University Press.]

CHAPTER XXVI.

_Two days from Burma_. _Tropical wildness induces ennui_. _The River
Taping_. _At Hsiao Singai_. _Possibility of West China as a holiday
resort from Burma_. _Fascination of the country_. _Manyueen reached with
difficulty_. _The Kachins_. _Good work of the American Baptist Mission_.
_Mr. Roberts_. _Arrival at borderland of Burma_. _Last dealings with
Chinese officials_. _British territory_. _Thoughts on the trend of
progress in China_. _Beautiful Burma_. _End of long journey._

I was now two days' march from the British Burma border. The landscape
in this district was solemn and imposing as I trudged on again, very
tired indeed, after a day's rest at Chiu-ch'eng. In the morning heavy
tropical vapors of milky whiteness stretched over the sky and the earth.
Nature seemed sleeping, as if wrapped in a light veil. It attracted me
and absorbed me, dreaming, in spite of myself; ennui invaded me at
first, and under the all-powerful constraint of influences so fatal to
human personality thought died away by degrees like a flame in a vacuum;
for I was again in the East, the real, luxurious, indolent East, the
true land of Pantheism, and one must go there to realize the indefinable
sensations which almost make the Nirvana of the Buddhist comprehensible.

The river Taping farther down, so different from its aspect a couple of
days ago, where it rushed at a tremendous speed over its rocky bed, was
now broad and calm and placid, and extremely picturesque. The banks were
covered with trees beyond Manyueen. Near the water the undergrowth was of
a fine green, but on a higher level the yellow and red leaves, hardly
holding on to the withered