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the Chinese, we had never objected to anything that was reasonable even from the native point of view. We had long since learned the force of the Chinese proverb that, “in order to avoid suspicion you must not live behind closed doors”; and in consequence had always recognized the common prerogative to ransack our private quarters and our luggage, so long as nothing was seriously disturbed. We never objected, either, to their wetting our paper windows with their tongues, so that they might noiselessly slit a hole in them with their exceptionally long finger [pg 214]nails, although we did wake up some mornings to find the panes entirely gone. It was only at the request of the innkeeper that we sometimes undertook the job of cleaning out the inn-yard; but this, with the prevalent superstition about the “withering touch of the foreigner,” was very easily accomplished. Nor had we ever shown the slightest resentment at being called “foreign devils”; for this, we learned, was, with the younger generation at least, the only title by which foreigners were known. But on this particular night, our forbearance being quite exhausted, we ejected the intruders bodily. Mid mutterings and threats we turned out the lights, and the crowd as well as ourselves retired. The next morning the usual exorbitant bill was presented by the innkeeper, and, as usual, one half or one third was offered and finally accepted, with the customary protestations about being under-paid. The innkeeper’s grumblings incited the crowd which early assembled, and from their whispers and glances we could see that trouble of some kind was brewing. We now hastened to get the wheels into the road. Just then the innkeeper, at the instigation of the crowd, rushed out and grabbed the handle-bars, demanding at the same time a sum that was even in advance of his original price. Extortion was now self-evident, and, remonstrance being of no avail, we were obliged to protect ourselves with our fists. The crowd began to close in upon us, until, with our backs against the adjoining wall, we drew our weapons, at which the onward movement changed suddenly to a retreat. Then we assumed the aggressive, and regained the wheels which had been left in the middle of the road. The innkeeper and his friend now caught hold of the rear wheels. Only by seizing their queues could we drag them away at all, but even then before we could mount they would renew their grasp. [pg 215]It was only after another direct attack upon them that we were able to mount, and dash away.

MONUMENT NEAR CHANG-SHIN-DIEN.
MONUMENT NEAR CHANG-SHIN-DIEN.

A week’s journeying after this unpleasant episode brought us among the peanuts, pigs, and pig-tails of the famous Pe-chili plains. Vast fields of peanuts were now being plowed, ready to be passed through a huge coarse sieve to separate the nuts from the sandy loam. Sweet potatoes, too, were plentiful. These, as well as rice balls, boiled with a peculiar dry date in a triangular corn-leaf wrapper, we purchased every morning at daybreak from the pots of the early street-venders, and then proceeded to the local bake-shops, where the rattling of the rolling-pins prophesied of stringy fat cakes cooked in boiling linseed oil, and heavy dough biscuits cleaving to the urn-like oven.

It was well that we were now approaching the end of [pg 216]our journey, for our wheels and clothing were nearly in pieces. Our bare calves were pinched by the frost, for on some of the coldest mornings we would find a quarter of an inch of ice. Our rest at night was broken for the want of sufficient covering. The straw-heated kangs would soon cool off, and leave us half the night with only our thin sleeping-bags to ward off rheumatism.

But over the beaten paths made by countless wheelbarrows we were now fast nearing the end. It was on the evening of November 3, that the giant walls of the great “Residence,” as the people call their imperial capital, broke suddenly into view through a vista in the surrounding foliage. The goal of our three-thousand-one-hundred-and-sixteen-mile journey was now before us, and the work of the seventy-first riding day almost ended. With the dusk of evening we entered the western gate of the “Manchu City,” and began to thread its crowded thoroughfares. By the time we reached Legation street or, as the natives egotistically call it, “The Street of the Foreign Dependencies,” night had veiled our haggard features and ragged garments. In a dimly lighted courtyard we came face to face with the English proprietor of the Hotel de Peking. At our request for lodging, he said, “Pardon me, but may I first ask who you are and where you come from?” Our unprepossessing appearance was no doubt a sufficient excuse for this precaution. But just then his features changed, and he greeted us effusively. Explanations were now superfluous. The “North China Herald” correspondent at Pao-ting-foo had already published our story to the coast.

That evening the son of the United States minister visited us, and offered a selection from his own wardrobe until a Chinese tailor could renew our clothing. With borrowed plumes we were able to accept invitations from [pg 217]foreign and Chinese officials. Polite cross-examinations were not infrequent, and we fear that entire faith in our alleged journey was not general until, by riding through the dust and mud of Legation street, we proved that Chinese roads were not altogether impracticable for bicycle traveling.

ON THE PEI-HO.
ON THE PEI-HO.

The autumn rains had so flooded the low-lying country between the capital and its seaport, Tientsin, that we were obliged to abandon the idea of continuing to the coast on the wheels, which by this time were in no condition to stand unusual strain. On the other hand the house-boat journey of thirty-six hours down the Pei-ho river was a rather pleasant diversion.

Our first evening on the river was made memorable by an unusual event. Suddenly the rattling of tin pans, the [pg 218]tooting of horns, and the shouting of men, women, and children, aroused us to the realization that something extraordinary was occurring. Then we noticed that the full moon in a cloudless sky had already passed the half-way mark in a total eclipse. Our boatmen now joined in the general uproar, which reached its height when the moon was entirely obscured. In explanation we were told that the “Great Dragon” was endeavoring to swallow up the moon, and that the loudest possible noise must be made to frighten him away. Shouts hailed the reappearance of the moon. Although our boatmen had a smattering of pidjin, or business, English, we were unable to get a very clear idea of Chinese astronomy. In journeying across the empire we found sufficient analogy in the various provincial dialects to enable us to acquire a smattering of one from another as we proceeded, but we were [pg 219]now unable to see any similarity whatever between “You makee walkee look see,” and “You go and see,” or between “That belong number one pidjin,” and “That is a first-class business.” This jargon has become a distinct dialect on the Chinese coast.

A CHINAMAN SCULLING ON THE PEI-HO.
A CHINAMAN SCULLING ON THE PEI-HO.

On our arrival in Tientsin we called upon the United States Consul, Colonel Bowman, to whom we had brought several letters from friends in Peking. During a supper at his hospitable home, he suggested that the viceroy might be pleased to receive us, and that if we had no objection, he would send a communication to the yamen, or official residence. Colonel Bowman’s secretary, Mr. Tenney, who had been some time the instructor of the viceroy’s sons, and who was on rather intimate terms with the viceroy himself, kindly offered to act as interpreter. A favorable answer was received the next morning, and the time for our visit fixed for the afternoon of the day following. But two hours before the appointed time a message was received from the viceroy, stating that he was about to receive an unexpected official visit from the phantai, or treasurer, of the Pe-chili province (over which Li-Hung-Chang himself is viceroy), and asking for a postponement of our visit to the following morning at 11 o’clock. Even before we had finished reading this unexpected message, the booming of cannon along the Pei-ho river announced the arrival of the phantai’s boats before the city. The postponement of our engagement at this late hour threatened to prove rather awkward, inasmuch as we had already purchased our steamship tickets for Shanghai, to sail on the Fei-ching at five o’clock the next morning. But through the kindness of the steamship company it was arranged that we should take a tug-boat at Tong-ku, on the line of the Kai-ping railroad, and overtake the steamer outside the Taku bar. This we could [pg 220]do by taking the train at Tientsin, even as late as seven hours after the departure of the steamer. Steam navigation in the Pei-ho river, over the forty or fifty miles’ stretch from Tientsin to the gulf, is rendered very slow by the sharp turns in the narrow stream—the adjoining banks being frequently struck and plowed away by the bow or stern of the large ocean steamers.

When we entered the consulate the next morning, we found three palanquins and a dozen coolies in waiting to convey our party to the viceroy’s residence. Under other circumstances we would have patronized our “steeds of steel,” but a visit to the “biggest” man in China had to be conducted in state. We were even in some doubt as to the propriety of appearing before his excellency in bicycle costume; but we determined to plead our inability to carry luggage as an excuse for this breach of etiquette.

SALT HEAPS AT THE GOVERNMENT WORKS AT TONG-KU.
SALT HEAPS AT THE GOVERNMENT WORKS AT TONG-KU.

The first peculiarity the Chinese notice in a foreigner is his dress. It is a requisite with them that the clothes [pg 221]must be loose, and so draped as to conceal the contour of the body. The short sack-coat and tight trousers of the foreigner are looked upon as certainly inelegant, if not actually indecent.

WINDMILLS AT TONG-KU FOR RAISING SALT WATER.
WINDMILLS AT TONG-KU FOR RAISING SALT WATER.

It was not long before we were out of the foreign settlement, and wending our way through the narrow, winding streets, or lanes, of the densely populated Chinese city. The palanquins we met were always occupied by some high dignitary or official, who went sweeping by with his usual vanguard of servants, and his usual frown of excessive dignity. The fact that we, plain “foreign devils,” were using this mode of locomotion, made us the objects of considerable curiosity from the loiterers and passers-by, and in fact had this not been the case, we should have felt rather uncomfortable. The unsympathetic observation of mobs, and the hideous Chinese noises, had become features of our daily life.

[pg 222]

The yamen courtyard, as we entered, was filled with empty palanquins and coolie servants waiting for the different mandarins who had come on official visits. The yamen itself consisted of low one-story structures, built in the usual Chinese style, of wood and adobe brick, in a quadrangular form around an inner courtyard. The common Chinese paper which serves for window-glass had long since vanished from the ravages of time, and the finger-punches of vandals. Even here, at the yamen of the prime minister of China, dirt and dilapidation were evident on every hand. The anteroom into which we were ushered was in keeping with its exterior. The paper that covered

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