"What I am going to tell you about now happened in the
country. It was up in the north, and in a part where Europeans had very
rarely been seen."
"How came you to be there, Cousin Peregrine?"
"I was not on duty. I had got leave for a few days to go up and see
Pekin. Therefore I was not in uniform, remember, but in plain clothes.
"On this particular occasion I was on the river Peiho, in one of the
clumsy Chinese river-boats. If the wind were favourable, we sailed; if
we went with the stream--well and good. If neither stream nor wind were
in our favour, the boat was towed."
"Like a barge--with a horse--Cousin Peregrine?"
"Like a barge, Maggie, but not with a horse. One or two of the Chinamen
put the rope round them and pulled us along. It was not a quick way of
travelling, as you may believe, and when the Peiho was slow and winding,
I got out and walked by the paths among the fields."
"Paths and fields--like ours?"
"Yes. Very like some bits of the agricultural parts of England. But no
pretty meadows. Every scrap of land seemed to be cultivated for crops.
You know the population of China is enormous, and the Chinese are very
economical in using their land to produce food, and as they are not
great meat-eaters--as we are--their fields are mostly ploughed and sown,
so I walked along among rice-fields and cotton-fields, and with little
villages here and there, where the cottages are built of mud or stone
with tile roofs.
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