A Wayfarer in China: Impressions of a trip across West China and Mongolia

The index of this book lists general subject page numbers after sub-entry pages. Incorrect page numbers in the Illustrations list have been changed. A WAYFARER IN CHINA THE LITTLE "FU T'OU" (CARAVAN HEADMAN) A WAYFARER IN CHINA IMPRESSIONS OF A TRIP ACROSS WEST CHINA AND MONGOLIA By ELIZABETH KENDALL WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY ELIZABETH KENDALL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published February 1913 TO THE HAPPY MEMORY OF MY MOTHER THE ONE WHO ALWAYS UNDERSTOOD PREFACE A word of explanation may help to an understanding of this record of a brief journey in China, in 1911, in the last quiet months before the revolution. No one who has ever known the joy of hunting impressions of strange peoples and strange lands in the out-of-the-way corners of the world can ever feel quite free again, for he hears always a compelling voice that "calls him night and day" to go forth on the chase once more. Years ago, for a beginning, I pursued impressions and experiences in the Far West on the frontier,—there was a frontier then. And since that time, whenever chance has offered, that has been my holiday pastime, among the Kentucky mountains, in the Taurus, in Montenegro, in India. Everywhere there is interest, for everywhere there is human nature, but whoever has once come under the spell of the Orient knows that henceforth there is no choice; footloose, he must always turn eastwards. But really to see the East one must shun the half-Europeanized town and the treaty port, must leave behind the comforts of hotel and railway, and be ready to accept the rough and the smooth of unbeaten trails. But the compensations are many: changing scenes, long days out of doors, freedom from the bondage of conventional life, and above all, the fascination of living among peoples of primitive simplicity and yet of a civilization so ancient that it makes all that is oldest in the West seem raw and crude and unfinished. So when two years ago my feet sought again the "open road," it was towards the East that I naturally turned, and this time it was China that called me. I did not go in pursuit of any information in particular, but just to get for myself an impression of the country and the people. My idea of the Chinese had been derived, like that of most…