Across China on Foot | Page 7

that to the Chinese we should at once be "foreign devils" and
"barbarians," that if not holding us actually in contempt, they would

feel some condescension in dealing and mixing with us; but I was
personally of the opinion that it was easier for us to walk through China
than it would be for two Chinese, dressed as Chinese, to walk through
Great Britain or America. What would the canny Highlander or the
rural English rustic think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his
countryside?
We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a
boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never
seen in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the
gunboat Kinsha (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port)
which English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way,
and all looked rosy enough.[B] But for the author, who with his
companion was a literal "babe in the wood," the day was most eventful
and trying to one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and
sundry respecting our proposed tramp and the way we should get to
work in making preparations. Each individual person seemed
vigorously to do his best to induce us to turn back and follow callings
of respectable members of society. From Shanghai upwards we might
have believed ourselves watched by a secret society, which had for its
motto, "Return, oh, wanderer, return!" Hardly a person knew aught of
the actual conditions of the interior of the country in which he lived and
labored, and everyone tried to dissuade us from our project.
Coming ashore in good spirits, we called at the Consulate, at the back
of the city graveyard, and were smoking his cigars and giving his boy
an examination in elementary English, when the Consul came down. It
was not possible, however, for us to get much more information than
we had read up, and the Consul suggested that the most likely person to
be of use to us would be the missionary at the China Inland Mission.
Thither we repaired, following a sturdy employé of Britain, but we
found that the C.I.M. representative was not to be found--despite our
repairing. So off we trotted to the chief business house of the town, at
the entrance to which we were met by a Chinese, who bowed gravely,
asked whether we had eaten our rice, and told us, quietly but pointedly,
that our passing up the rough stone steps would be of no use, as the
manager was out. A few minutes later I stood reading the inscription on

the gravestone near the church, whilst my brave companion, The Other
Man, endeavored fruitlessly to pacify a fierce dog in the doorway of the
Scottish Society's missionary premises--but that missionary, too, was
out!
What, then, was the little game? Were all the foreigners resident in this
town dodging us, afraid of us--or what?
"The latter, the blithering idiots!" yelled The Other Man. He was
infuriated. "Two Englishmen with English tongues in their heads, and
unable to direct their own movements. Preposterous!" And then,
making an observation which I will not print, he suggested mildly that
we might fix up all matters ourselves.
Within an hour an English-speaking "one piece cook" had secured the
berth, which carried a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, we were
well on the way with the engaging of our boat for the Gorges trip, and
one by one our troubles vanished.
Laying in stores, however, was not the lightest of sundry perplexities.
Curry and rice had been suggested as the staple diet for the river
journey; and we ordered, with no thought to the contrary, a picul of
best rice, various brands of curries, which were raked from behind the
shelves of a dingy little store in a back street, and presented to us at
alarming prices--enough to last a regiment of soldiers for pretty well
the number of days we two were to travel; and, for luxuries, we laid in
a few tinned meats. All was practically settled, when The Other Man,
settling his eyes dead upon me, yelled--
"Dingle, you've forgotten the milk!" And then, after a moment, "Oh,
well, we can surely do without milk; it's no use coming on a journey
like this unless one can rough it a bit." And he ended up with a rude
reference to the disgusting sticky condensed milk tins, and we
wandered on.
Suddenly he stopped, did The Other Man. He looked at a small stone
on the pavement for a long time, eventually cruelly blurting out,
directly at me, as if it were all my misdoing: "The sugar, the sugar! We

must have sugar, man." I said nothing, with the exception