On the Railway and in the Houseboat Travelling from Shanghai into the northern Interior on the Chinese railways is a very precarious business, as I have reason to know writes Shanghailander in the Newcastle Chronicle." 1 had been in a carriage travelling for about half a day, when the train suddenly came to a standstill, and after waiting a long time, thinking every minute would see us moving off, I looked out of a small window. 1 sooner had I shown my face, than a number of soldiers, armed with rifles, came into the car and demanded all my belongings.
Of course, resistance was useless, so I had to watch alli my personal and household effects being handed out to several more soldiers on the platform. They then came and took me out, and pointing away some distance, I was made to understand that was going there.
I was forced to walk many miles away from this place, called Suchowfu, and kept in a most miserable mud hovel, given Chinese "chow" to eat with two soldiers, or bandits wearing soldiers' clothes, watching me all the tu There was no privacy, no washing accommodation, and they were all the time laughing and jeering, and telling each other that soon the Foreign Devil" become very sick.
I was released after three days, and taken to a point, where they left me, and after walking as best I could for a very long time, I came to the railway lines again, but could not discern which way I should go. I had lost all count of places and roads.
After following the rails for a time I came to a station, but I could not make myself understood, so had to go on, after receiving some native rice, from the dirty station master. I reached Pukou eventually, without as.much as would pay my ferry passage to Nanking (10 cents), and from there telegraphed my deplorable condition to my daughters in Shanghai.
So far, China appears to me a nation that cannot possibly become more alert than it is at present, for of the five different countries I have seen, and whose people I have had time to study, I must confess, I never came across one whose inhabitants are more wide-awake.
For a foreigner, I consider that I am possessed of a fair amount of intelligence, and I own that never in the whole course of my life have I been "done" so frequently and with so much ease, as in China.
(Moreover, so far as I can at present judge, China did not develop at all; she was apparently born fully grown, hair and teeth included. Chinese are reputed to be ignorant, and behind the times, yet, behind the scenes, pulling the strings, supplying the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.