Western Carolina Democrat and French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1913-1915, 1915-09-02
ROADS IN CHINA.
They Remind One Very Much Of
the Snakes In Ireland.
BECAUSE THERE ARE NONE.
What Apologies There Are For Them
Are a Great Deal Like the Bed of a
Stone Quarry-The Torture That
Goes With a Trip IN Peking Cart.

Are a Great Deal Like the Bed of a
Stone Quarry-The Torture That
Goes With a Trip In Peking Cart.
Describing the roads, or, rather, the
lack Of roads, in China and the tor
ture that is undergone by the tourist
who, used to the luxurious modes Of
travel we may employ, trusts himself
to the uncertain joys Of a trip in a
Picking chair, writer in the Wide
World Magazine says:
''Now, Peking cart is very veneer
able mode of progression. When our
ancestors were lightly dressed in woad
and had no conception Of any wheeled
vehicle the Chinese lady was paying
her calls in the back of a Picking cart,
the seat of honor under the tilt, well
out Of sight Of the passers by, while
her servant sat in front, the place Of
comfort, if such word can be applied
to anything pertaining to a Peking
cart.
''In spite of its long and aristocratic
record if there is any mode Of progress
sion more wearying and uncomforta-
BILE I have not met it. It is simply
springless board set on a couple of
wheels with a wagon tilt of blue cotton
over it and place for heavy luggage
behind. The Chinaman sits on the
floor and does not seem to mind, but
the ordinary westerner, like myself.
packs his bedding and all the cushions
he can beg or borrow around him and
then resigns himself to his fate.
1.-THE Picking cart has one advantage,
people will tell you-it has nothing to
break in it. But there are moments
when it would be a mighty relief if
something did break, for if the wood
work holds together as it losses you
from side to side you yourself are one
sore, bruised mass. No; I cannot rec
ommend Peking cart, even on the
smoothest road.
"And the roads in China are not
smooth We ali know the description
of the snakes in ireland. There are
none and much the same might be
said about the roads in China. There
are so called roads, certainly, upon
which the people move about but l
have seldom met one that was any
better than the surrounding country,
and very, very often on this journey
met roads where it was ease and lux
ury to move off them on to the neigh
boring plowed field.
"The recipe for a road there in the
north seems to be: Take piece of the
country that is really too bad to ploW
or to use for any agricultural purpose
whatever, that mountain torrent, in
fact, has given up as too much for the
water, upset a stone wall over it-a
stone wall with good, large stones in
it-take care they never for a mo-
ment lie evenly, and you have your
road.
Leaving Peking for the eastern
tombs, you go for the first two or
three hours along paved way Of mag
niicent proportions planned and laid
out as highway-should be. The great
stones with which it is paved were
probably put there by slave labor, how
many hundred years ago I do not
know, but the blocks are uneven now,
some Of them are gone altogether,
though how a huge block of stone
could possibly disappear passes my IN
derstanding, and whenever the carter
could he took the cart down beside
the road, where at least the dust made
a cushion for the nail studded wheels,
and the Earring and the jolting were
not quite so terrible.
cit takes as long to get beyond the
environs of Picking in cart as it does
to get out of London in a motorcar.
First we passed through the Babylon
ish gate, and the great walls were be-
hind US; then, outside the city, all look
ing dusty, dirty and khaki colored in
the brilliant sunshine, were numerous
small houses, and the wayside was
lined with booths on which were
things for sale.
"Along the roadway came an endless
array of people, clad for the most part
in blue cotton-men walking, men with
loads slung from a bamboo across
their shoulders, donkeys laden with
baskets or sacks of grain, with fat Chi
nese on their backs. There were Picking
carts, there were mules, there were
ponies, and this busy throng is almost
the same as it was a couple of thou 1
sand years ago.
But it was a long, long while be-
fore I could feel I was. really in the
country. There was the khaki colored
land, there were the khaki colored
houses, built of mud apparently, with
graceful tiled roofs, and blue clad peo-
pie everywhere and everywhere at
work.
always the fields were most beau
tfully titled. There were no fences.
The Chinese are too civilized to need
fences, and when you see stone walls
it is only because, since they can't be
dropped off the planet into space, the
stones must be disposed of somehow"
Paris For PoIiteness.
Translated rather crudely and liter