On the road we met " small squad of well-dressed youths, accompanied by two pipers. They were going to fetch and escort the bride, In many cases (perhaps not in this one) they would be con. fronted by s closed and barred door, which would only be opened by the payment of a mock bribe. This is interesting, as being the other half of the tally to our old custom of throwing the shoo after the couple Both seem to be survival of the ancient days when brides were snatched by force (a custom still surviving among some tribes in North India, though now more of @ mere ceremony than an actual abduction). The bribing of the gate-keeper in China, and the throwing of the only missile to hand (one's shoe) in the West, are in reality of one and the same import.
One of the young men carried a gong, and to him I addressed myself saying: "I exhort you to duty and diligence. Mind you bang that gong with all your glass might."
He laughingly promised he would. And he kept his word when the time came! Then to: ny companion I observed: "The President in Peking has done some bold things, and the country is still at peace. But imagine him putting forth a mandate forbidding the hanging of gongs! Would not the country-folk rise to a man? Would not China be reduced to anarchy, and the slicing of the melon' become inevitable? Truly, there are limits to the national power of endurance, and a wire statesman will heed them." He thought that very funny, but said with a emile: "Ah, there is some doctrine in that!"
The anticipated gong-banging was not heard for more than an hour. The girl must be allowed a few {or vaany) minutes' grace wherein to weep and lament at parting from her mother. This lamentation is customary, and often very sincere, for the girl is going forth to an on-tirely unknown chapter of life. Moreover, her wailing (by a pun on the words) is considered to be lucky.
Meanwhile, I was treated nowise asa stranger or foreigner, although this precise hamlet seem never to have had a Western visi for before. A not over-large chamber, with earthen floor and walls of_unburnt brick, which had never
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.