href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@26162@[email protected]#Page_164" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">A Bowl of Porridge

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PART I

PEKING DUST

I

POOR OLD CHINA

When I came away last August, you said you wanted me to tell you about our travels, particularly about China. Like most Americans, you have a lurking sentimental feeling about China, a latent sympathy and interest based on colossal ignorance. Very well, I will write you as fully as I can. Two months ago my ignorance was fully as overwhelming as yours, but it is being rapidly dispelled. So I'll try to do the same for you, as you said I might. Rash of you, I call it.

I'll take it that you have just about heard that China is on the map, and occupies a big portion of it. You know that she has a ruler of some kind in place of the old empress dowager who died a few years ago. Come to think of it, the ruler is a president, and China is a republic. Vaguely you may remember that she became a republic about five years ago, after a revolution. Also, in the same vague way, you may have heard that the country is old and rich and peaceful, with about four hundred million inhabitants; and beyond that you do not go. Sufficient. I'll go no further, either.

After six weeks in Japan, we set out for Peking, going by way of Korea. On the boat from Kobe to Shimonoseki, passing