Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1917 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV LOOSE LEAVES IN MY NOTE-BOOK THAT TELL OF THINGS I SAW AND THOUGHT WHEN I WAS MUCH ALONE IN THE LONG WINTER. Two autumns have passed with their drifting clouds, their unquenchable sunshine, their plenty on the open stretches. The bitter northern winter has for a second time descended on the land. It is wonderful and majestic, but at all times relentless, shutting in this little treaty port to its own life. The river is closed for the winter; the junks, covered with snow, lie upturned on the shore; and no steamers can enter the harbor for months to come. To reach the Chinese railway we must cross the river on sledges. The Japanese railway is our only near access to the outer world. And very small looks this bit of Western life in the face of this winter frontier and the East that everywhere encroaches upon the town's domains. From my upstairs windows I look out above my own compound wall across an expanse of white in the foreground to the gray walls and gray dwellings of the foreign community. There is one gray spire breaking the sky line; it is the spire of the Church of England. Flat, earthcolored Chinese roofs huddle so close that they touch elbow everywhere with the few foreign houses. It is neither the time for the business man to be abroad or the afternoon tea hour-- the beloved migrating moment of the women--so not a member of the little foreign community is abroad. English and French and Americans are alike closely housed against the intense cold--the frontier is left to winter and the Oriental. Across that white space in the foreground there continually pass long lines of carts with their Oriental drivers, in fur hoods and straw-stuffed moccasins, plodding at the side. Lean wolflike dogs--the scavengers of China--slink...