The second thing that impressed the visitors was that though some of them had been in China several years they never saw water buffalo work as fast as the ones drawing up the brine buckets, It usually takes about 2 minutes to wind up the rope (as it averages from 2,500 to 3,000 feet in length) and the buffalo walk fast right from the start and usually trot the last part. One man said he had never seen so little time wasted in China in the performance of any piece of work as is done in the hitching and unhitching of the water buffaloes. The big drum is practically not stopped when they are winding it up again. Th> price of good water buffaloes has gone up so much of late years that it is having considerable to do with the question of installing steam. A good buffalo now costs from taels 60 up.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.