The Savannah morning news., 1900-08-19

! the morning ana tIdNel I'LL ABOUT ) OF ~
without breakfast and then get your
bl akfast in a Chinese inn which, if you
see il cooking, would turn the stomach"
of an American pig. Your bed at night in
this Chinese inn is brick and when you
arise in the morning, after having had
mosquitoes buzZing about your ears all
night. you are liable to wrap in your bed
ding three kinds of insects which, for the
sake of my readers tastes, I will not take
the liberty of naming further than to say
that one is an acrobat, the other goes with
the bed and the third with the beggar.
For three days you must bump over
these roads breathing in the clouds of
alkalie dust which is kicked up by your
two mules or perhaps by the mules of
cart or two just ahead of you, so that
when you come into the inn you are COW
cred from head to feet with dust in a
way that would make a coal digger as
compared with yourself u respectable
looking guest.
Still another method of travelling by dirt
road is by mule-litter The mule-littc-
is q sort of a sedan chair swung betwee.-
two mules, one before and the other be-
hind. If you are not in a hurry and not
affected by sea sickness ii may seem to
you that this method is better than the
cart, especially if you have good mules,
j your mules. however, are frisky either
ment to jump out from under his bur
den and disappear across Il grain field
wagging his tail at the passenger ne has
just left, and you are compelled to wait
until your driver is able 10 rccapture and
reharness your snorting steed. 1t will be
we'll for you if you do not come down in
anything worse than dust. You are just
as liable to come down in the mud, or
in one of the shallow streams over which
f1~1T1 n
forling small streams is one of the pc
culiar antipathes of the Chinese pack
and litter mule
1t should be remembered that one or
the other of two conditions exist on Chi
nese road. Either il is an inch or two
deep with dust or foot or more deep
with mud. The former is the condition
of the road between Tien Tsin and Pek.n
a good part of nine months, and the lat
ter the larger part of the other three.
These other three months are July, Au-
gust and September AS | have inh-
Gated in our boat trip you may look out
over the country as far as the eye can
reach and you see nothing but water,
unless it be here and there a village of
mud huts built upon some natural or
artificial knoll, to and from which the
inhabitants are compelled to go in boats
until the waters subside, and it is con-
dition of this kind in Shantung to which
the present uprising is more or less due.
There are two other methods of maxi
ing the trip from Tien Tsin to Pekin by
dirt road. The one is by horse, mule or
donkey back, and the other is afoot.
However, | have known members of our
university in Pekin who, when going
from the city to the western hills on
horseback, had to dismount, strip and tie
their clothing to their horses head aud
swim with their horse across the roads
which had turned into rivers. In such
a condition of affairs il is easy to under
stand what would be the difficulties OF
making a trip to Pekin in the heat of
August, by soldiers who are unaccus
toned to the climate, where a drenchine
rain comes up in half an hour, and ones
shoes are covered with a green mould
over night, when they are compelled 10
carry with them their bedding and drag
after them all the announcements of an
army and be prepared to resist the at
tacks of a hostile army strongly intrench-
ell and accustomed to all the surrounding
conditions. Those who criticise the al
lied troops for saying it is impossible TO
go to Pekin before September. do not
know the existing conditions in North
China.
To Pekin by Railroad.
The third method of going to Pekin from
Tien Tsin is by railroad. BY rail we are
able to make the trip in from three to four
hour with all the comforts attached to
railroad travelling. Second-class the fale
is seventy-five cents, first-class twice that
amount and in the postal car, which cor
responds to our parlor or sleeping cars
the fare is two dollars and 'seventy-five
cents And yet this is the method the
conservative Chinese are fighting as com
pared with the other two I have just nam
ed. Their practice, however, is better
than their theory, for when they wish 10
go from one place to the other they go by
train and not by boat or cart, and the
railroad as consequence, in spite of all
the cheating done, has been paying some
20 to 80 per cent. on the investm nj,
OF course under the present conditions it
is unnecessary to speak of this as one of
the present methods for the railroad is
more or less comparatively destroyed and
probably not be used until peace is restor-
ed and the railroad repaired. 1t is folly
to talk about the Chinese having burned
the large bridge at Yank Tsun, because it
is made of iron and could not be burned
A few of the cross-ties might be burned,
but otherwise it is fireproof The smaller
bridges over small streams, and places
where streams are allowed to pass under
the railroad during the rainy season,
might easily be burned if they could get
other fuel to pile up round them. But this
is not an easy matter in country where
one may walk miles without finding a
piece of wood large enough for a walking
stick However, it is certain that both
the railroad and some of the bridges are
destroyed and that when the allies wish TO
go to Pekin they will have to go by dirt
road, which is the worst of bad methods
of travel in China.