The soldiers along the road were not numerous but in several places! were most obnoxious. They offered insulting remarks and interfered with the loads. At Yuinch'van they wanted to examine all our lands and at place one of our travelling! companions was particularly helpful. He was ahead of us and scentin possible trouble he made explanations at the first gate so that our: Toads were allowed to go by stood by all had passed. thoughtfulness undoubtedly saved us some delay and annoyance. A party. coming along two days inter had much trouble here. They were ahead of their loads and they interviewed the officer in chane, eft} their cards and thought they had it all arranged so that their loads:
}would come along and they proceeded on their way. The lo: later were held up for had much trouble aid not reach Chungking until the! day after their owners. When we passed one young cub soldier, po: sibly 14 years of age, levelled hi flo at one of our chairs, but th Vioutenant in charge at the gate let out a roar at him which prompt: ly brought his rifle to ground.
However,.in spite of their bad reputation, we did not find the Kuei chow soldiers so ill mannered as some of the Szechuan troops. Our) impression is that the Szechuanese are naturally a better mannered folk than the Kueichow people, so that to say that the Szechuan sold-_ fors were more ill-behaved means that their insults were more studied.
Generally speaking, the—country people were nothing more than curious, but in passing throwzh that county such expressions foreign doz" or "this foreign should be killed" were to be heard by quick cars as one passed. Yuin Ch'ang one small boy followed! our chairs for a space baa-ing like' a sheep and once chairmen were! upbraided for carrying foreigners.
To my mind the real seriousness of this attitude is that seeds 2f y|hatrod-are being sown in the minds of the children which in the future' the road. My. wife and children were, with some loads, leading the procession. while I wasa little distance behind, to see that the chairs, at least, were all getting along.
The party was met by a well dressed man on a fine horse accompanied by a mafoo, who, after they had passed, turned about and came back and ordered the party to halt. He commanded the chairs and loads to be put down and forbade anyone to move. For the moment everyone thought they had encountered the head of a band of robbers. He then began to threaten and abuse my wife and family. He wanted to know where they were going and when told they were going home he replied "you had better go quick ly or you will all be killed' at the same time time threaten. ing that if anyone moved he would kill the whole lot with his pipe, article two feet long by halt" an inch thick. He said no one was to get into a chair except the smallest child. As for the others they should carry the Chinese rather than have the Chinese carry them.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.