Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1912-12-05

us with wondering eyes. Having got
ten together our little audience. we
proceeded to question them as to
what they had had to eat during the
day, how old they were and whether
they went to school or not. They had
all eaten millet porridge, melons and
various kinds of vegetables. Meat
was evidently a luxury and eaten only
once in a great while.
They all said they had gone to
school, upon which Mr. Peck exam
ined them like a schoolmaster and
made them repeat the san Zu ching or
trimetrical classic, which is the first
book studied by Chinese children. OF
twelve boys between the ages of five
and twelve only one was unable to re,
peat the san zu ching, and he was
deaf mute. We were astonished to
find that so many of these children of
the mountains had been to school. A
similar examination in a mountain
district in America would not have
given better results. These noun
taineers were so poor that their chill
dren had to run naked in the summer,
but they we're, nevertheless, able to
send them to school. When the ex.
animation was over we awarded the
boys few pennies each and urged
them to continue to go to school.
Before nightfall the report had
spread throughout the whole town
that some foreigners had come who
made wonderful music and who were
SO learned that they could conduct ex-
aminations in Chinese, Many people
came to us asking for foreign medi-
cine. Mothers brought little sick
babies and crippled children to US ask
ing US to cure them. They seemed to
have the idea that all foreigners we're
skilled in the art of healing. When
we told them that we could not cure
their diseases they did not believe us.
1t was only when we told them that
we had not brought any medicines
| sad to think of all the misery that
must be endured unalleviated in China.
1t brought home to us the fact that
literature alone cannot make a people
enlightened and that without science
they must endure all the inconveni-
ence and misery of barbarism.
One sees many strange things in
China. At Wangchaiying, where we
stopped for the night on the 18th,
saw a piece of brick tied to donkey's
tail to keep it from braying. The
muleteer told me that it was a physi-
cal impossibility for a donkey to bray
with weight tied to its tail l lay
awake a long time that night wait
ing for the donkey to bray, but the
brickbat seemed to do the work, The
donkey never brayed once.
The next day was the sixth out
from Picking. We travelled through
many beautiful mountain passes and
were constantly climbing over rocky
ridges or descending into narrow val
leys. At several places we saw Chi
nese placer miners washing the sands
Of the mountain streams for gold.
They we're using a wooden cradle
very much like that used by the gold
seekers of our western states. At
Launpinghsien, where we stopped for
tiffin, we saw large monument erect
ed by imperial order to the memory of
q French Catholic missionary who had
been killed by the boxers in 1900.
About four in the afternoon we
came to Kuanjen pass, which is cut
in the solid rock, and overlooks Je-
hol We stopped there for while to
enjoy the beautiful panorama which
lay stretched before US. In the valley,
only few miles away lay the city of
Jehol, and beyond it the palaces of the
Manchu emperors. After a short
rest we pressed on and entered the
city. We found a large inn called
Poo Yuan Tien, where we found COM
Portable quarters.