The charm of travel in China is the unexpected. In Europe all is cut and dried. "Dresden; see the picture gallery.Admire the Madonna di San Sisto." " Munich ;\ gallery again ! Hotel des Quatre Saisons ; excellent ! " In all probability you have even heard beforehand of the quality of the rolls, and which is the desirable table for breakfast. As far as surprise goes you might almost as well be supplied by the accustomed baker, seated at your own fireside. Now in China it is all the other way. There is no guide-book. You never know when you may arrive, and so far is this carried that you rarely know where a head wind may delay your boat, necessitating tying up for the night in some noisy, carousing village ; or a favourable wind carry you before sunset to the quiet haven under a projecting cliff where you desired to be, in time to take a walk and discover a beautiful old temple, now crumbling to decay but commanding one of the world's beautiful views and with quaint carvings on its gateways and stone lions guarding them, their heads on one side, and irresistibly mirth-provoking. In land travel it is the same. You design to alight at some townlet, all the inhabitants turn out en masse and pelt you through it, as if you were a Derby dog with a tin kettle tied on behind ; or suddenly in passing you become aware of a whole hillside shaped into the head and shoulders of a colossal Buddha, and in turning aside to admire, find yourself obliged, lest you should be belated, to take up your night's quarters in a place of which you have never heard.

在中國旅行的魅力在於意料之外。在歐洲，一切都是安排妥當的。「德勒斯登；參觀美術館。欣賞聖西斯托聖母。」「慕尼黑；又是美術館！四季酒店；非常好！」很可能你甚至事先就聽說過麵包的品質，以及哪張早餐桌最理想。就驚喜而言，你幾乎可以像坐在自家爐邊，由熟悉的麵包師供應一樣。而在中國，情況完全相反。這裡沒有旅遊指南。你永遠不知道何時會到達，這種情況如此普遍，以至於你很少知道逆風何時會延誤你的船，迫使你在某個喧鬧、狂歡的村莊過夜；或者順風會在日落前將你帶到一個突出懸崖下的寧靜港灣，正是你想去的地方，有時間散步並發現一座美麗的古廟，現在正在崩塌，但俯瞰著世界上最美的景色之一，門口有奇特的雕刻，石獅子守護著，牠們的頭歪向一邊，令人忍俊不禁。陸路旅行也是如此。你打算在某個小鎮下車，所有居民都成群結隊地出來，用石頭砸你穿過小鎮，好像你是德比狗，後面綁著一個錫罐；或者突然間，你經過時意識到整個山坡被塑造成一尊巨大佛像的頭部和肩膀，當你轉身欣賞時，為了不至於耽誤行程，你不得不在一個你從未聽說過的地方過夜。

THE ROMANCE OF CHINESE TRAVEL iii

With a well-appointed team of carrying coolies and sedan chair well borne, if it is a land journey ; or with a well found Chinese house-boat and complaisant captain, there is a feeling of independence, such as can never be experienced by those dependent upon trains and steamers. Then you meet such strange things, a wedding-party, for instance, gaily caparisoned, going out to fetch the bride. As they wind down the mountain side with their flags flying you cannot but pause and watch. Then perhaps you see them meet another party : high words apparently arise, for next moment one of the gay cavaliers is being attacked by the other party, whilst all his comrades, huddled together on their ponies on a little hill by the road-side, are More Sinensi trying to look as if they did not belong to him. Another time we were badly pelted ourselves ; our cook with his clothes torn almost off his back was in high glee, because he declared he had given more than he got, and I had myself the pleasure of seizing the silk-clad town leader, who had been paying those of the baser sort to stone us, and taking him by the scruff of the neck, dipping him very satisfactorily into a paddy field, at that season simply a mass of liquid mud. Our major domo, who is as great a coward as he is a first-rate butler, explained afterwards to my wife : " My vely nearly fightee too. And then my thinkee how dieadful for you, Mississi, if my fightee too. So my come away."

若是陸路旅行，配備一支訓練有素的挑夫團隊和穩當的轎子；或者若是水路，則有設備齊全的中國船屋和和藹可親的船長，這種獨立自主的感覺是那些依賴火車和輪船的人永遠無法體驗到的。然後你會遇到一些奇特的事物，比如一個盛裝打扮的婚禮隊伍，正要去迎接新娘。當他們揮舞著旗幟沿著山坡蜿蜒而下時，你不禁駐足觀看。接著你可能會看到他們遇到另一隊人馬：顯然發生了激烈爭執，因為下一刻，其中一位歡樂的騎士就被另一方攻擊，而他的所有同伴則擠在路邊一個小山丘上的馬背上，以更中國人的方式試圖裝作與他無關。另一次我們自己被嚴重攻擊；我們的廚師衣服幾乎被撕破，卻興高采烈，因為他宣稱他給予的比得到的更多，而我自己則有幸抓住那個穿著絲綢的鎮上頭目，他一直在付錢給那些下等人向我們扔石頭，我抓住他的後頸，非常痛快地把他浸入一片稻田，那時節稻田就是一片液態泥漿。我們的大管家，他既是個十足的懦夫，又是個一流的管家，事後向我妻子解釋道：「我差點也打起來了。然後我想，如果我也打起來，對您來說該多可怕啊，太太。所以我就走開了。」

On another occasion it was our fighting cook who was in the wrong. And the whole party of us were hurried along to a wayside house where some village elders were sitting. It seemed that in the anger of a melee our cook had showered maledictions upon the mother of one of his foes, aspersing her character. And it appears that in China this is an offence that cannot be made good by blows as in Europe, nor can it be atoned for by money. There and then, in the presence of those who had heard the insult, our pugilistic cook had to kneel down and solemnly retract and apologise. And yet some of us speak of the Chinese as uncivilised !

在另一個場合，是我們好鬥的廚師做錯了事。我們全隊被匆匆帶到路邊一間房子，那裡坐著幾位村長。似乎在混戰的怒火中，我們的廚師對其中一個敵人的母親大肆咒罵，詆毀她的品格。而在中國，這種冒犯顯然不能像在歐洲那樣用拳頭來平息，也不能用金錢來贖罪。當場，在那些聽到侮辱的人面前，我們好鬥的廚師不得不跪下來，鄭重收回言論並道歉。然而我們中有些人還說中國人不文明！

112 GLEANINGS FROM CHINA |

Travel in China is divided into two distinct phases, the one positively luxurious, the other penible in the extreme : both are slow and dilatory and try your patience if pressed for time, but no one who is in a hurry should ever attempt to travel in the Flowery Land : — these two phases are, water and land travel. China, like all other large continents, excepting only that curiously abnormal land, Australia, is mainly mountainous. The level country is confined to the deltas of the great rivers and a few beds of ancient lakes, now dry : these cover a large extent of country, especially in the east and north where the land abuts on the famous Yellow Sea, daily extending the fiat country seawards by the enormous masses of silt annually brought down from the interior by the swift currents of the great rivers that traverse the Empire from west to east. This level country, of vast extent, is intersected by a network of canals so efficient that land roads are not needed, the whole traffic of the country being carried on by water as was formerly the case in Holland. Here you travel in your own or in a hired houseboat, not perhaps quite as ostentatiously luxurious as those upon our own familiar Thames, but furnished with every necessary and comfort, including the cheap and handy native " Boy " and cook. Game abounds, and beyond the fact that a morning's walk will surely enable a good shot to fill the larder with pheasants, wild fowl, snipe, or deer, there is little romance though great exhilaration in this mode of travel.

在中國旅行可分為兩種截然不同的階段，一種絕對奢華，另一種則極為艱辛：兩者都緩慢拖沓，如果時間緊迫會考驗你的耐心，但任何趕時間的人都不應嘗試在這花花世界旅行：這兩個階段是水路和陸路旅行。中國，如同其他大陸一樣（除了那片奇特異常的土地澳洲），主要是山地。平原地區僅限於大河三角洲和一些現已乾涸的古代湖泊：這些地區覆蓋了大片國土，尤其是在東部和北部，那裡與著名的黃海相鄰，每天由於帝國內陸穿越而過的大河急流年復一年帶來的大量泥沙，使平坦的陸地向海洋延伸。這片廣闊的平原地區縱橫交錯著一個高效的運河網絡，以至於不需要陸路，全國的交通都是通過水路進行，就像從前的荷蘭一樣。在這裡，你可以乘坐自己的或租來的船屋旅行，也許不像我們熟悉的泰晤士河上那些船屋那樣奢華炫目，但配備了一切必需品和舒適設施，包括便宜又方便的本地"男僕"和廚師。這裡獵物豐富，除了早晨散步時一個好射手肯定能用野雞、野鴨、鷸鳥或鹿填滿食品儲藏室外，這種旅行方式雖然令人興奮，但浪漫色彩並不濃厚。

But when you come to traverse the mountainous regions of the interior which cover four-fifths of the country, and exchange your floating hostelry for the inns, food, and footpaths of the country, the romance of travel really ' begins in the shape of every possible discomfort and annoyance short of actual starvation, seasoned by a spice of danger. As to the mode of progression, you have usually your choice, — I am speaking of South and Middle China and not of the North, where springless mule-carts are in vogue, — of sedan-chairs, pony, or your own legs, and to these last, if you are any sort of pedestrian, you will eventually resort as the safest and pleasantest mode of progression over steep mountain paths, up and down rocky ravines, along the boulder-strewn beds of dry rivers, across bridges formed of the trunk of a tree, by narrow cornices cut out of the side of a precipice and sometimes projecting out from it, supported on shaky joists driven into the rock.

但當你開始穿越覆蓋了國土五分之四的內陸山區，並將你的水上旅館換成當地的客棧、食物和小徑時，旅行的浪漫才真正開始，以各種可能的不適和煩惱的形式出現，雖然還不至於真正挨餓，但卻帶有一絲危險的刺激。至於出行方式，你通常有幾種選擇——我說的是中國南部和中部，而不是北方，那裡流行無彈簧的騾車——有轎子、小馬，或者你自己的雙腿，如果你是個步行愛好者的話，你最終會選擇後者，因為這是在陡峭的山路上、上下岩石峽谷、沿著佈滿巨石的乾河床、跨過由單根樹幹形成的橋樑、沿著從懸崖側面鑿出的狹窄壁架（有時還向外突出，由搖搖欲墜的橫樑支撐在岩石上）前進時最安全也最愉快的方式。

THE ROMANCE OF CHINESE TRAVEL 113

Journeys on these main thoroughfares are divided into stages averaging 20 to 25 miles daily, at the end of which you sup and rest in a so-called inn, really a cross between a stable and a pig-sty, the food often differing little from that furnished to these valuable animals, who are generally better cared for than is their human rival, the biped beast of burden, the hard-worked patient Chinese coolie.

在這些主要幹道上的旅程被分為每天平均20至25英里的階段，在每個階段結束時，你會在一個所謂的客棧裡用餐和休息，實際上這些客棧介於馬廄和豬圈之間，食物往往與提供給這些珍貴動物的食物相差無幾，而這些動物通常比他們的人類對手——那些辛勤工作、耐心的中國苦力——受到更好的照顧。

At the time that the Empire was in the throes of the great Taiping Rebellion, which had literally converted the garden of China, the broad Yangtse valley, into a howling wilderness, I was traversing the stretch of No-man's Land, some hundred miles across, that at that time separated the rebel lines from the headquarters of the Imperialist command, then slowly drawing tight the toils round the doomed capital of Taiping-dom, Nanking. Followed by two frightened coolies carrying my bed and food, I had marched three days through an utterly depopulated country, camping at night in deserted towns, where we slept in a ruined house, usually on a floor of broken bricks, the woodwork of the houses having been all torn away for fuel by the contending armies, — here and there an unburied corpse, not yet entirely devoured by beasts of prey, — and I imagined the countr/ to be as utterly depopulated as it appeared. The many years that the country had been deserted was shewn by the large flocks of wild fowl that covered every pond, while droves of pheasants, as tame as barn-door fowls, filled the no longer cultivated fields.

當太平天國之亂橫掃帝國，將中國的長江流域從繁茂的「花園」變為一片荒涼的廢墟時，我正穿越著一片「無人之地」。這片地區寬達百里，當時分隔著叛軍的防線與清朝總部，後者正在緩慢收緊包圍，準備攻陷即將滅亡的太平天國首都——南京。隨行的只有兩個驚恐的苦力，他們背著我的床鋪和食物。我們已經在這片完全被戰亂清空的土地上行走了三天，夜晚則在廢棄的城鎮過夜，睡在破損的房屋中，地面覆蓋著碎磚瓦，房子的木製部分早已被交戰的雙方用作燃料。偶爾能看到一些尚未被野獸完全吞食的屍體，這使我相信這片土地確實如所見一樣，早已無人居住。

這片土地荒蕪多年的證據，便是池塘上成群的野禽，以及如家禽般馴服的野雞，它們在無人耕種的田野間自由遊蕩。

114 GLEANINGS FROM CHINA