It is being followed down by two American
engineers as the probable route for a new railway, which it is proposed
should come out to the Yangtze some days north of Kiang-ti.]
CHAPTER XII.
_Yuen-nan's chequered career_. _Switzerland of China_. _At
Hong-sh[=i]h-ai_. _China's Golden Age in the past_. _The conservative
instinct of the Chinese_. _How to quiet coolies_. _Roads_. _Dangers of
ordinary travel in wet season_. _K'ung-shan and its mines_.
_Tong-ch'uan-fu, an important mining centre_. _English and German
machinery_. _Methods of smelting_. _Protestants and Romanists in
Yuen-nan_. _Arrival at Tong-ch'uan-fu_. _Missionaries set author's broken
arm_. _Trio of Europeans_. _Author starts for the provincial capital_.
_Abandoning purpose of crossing China on foot_. _Arm in splints_. _Curious
incident_. _At Lai-t'eo-po_. _Malaria returns_. _Serious illness of
author_. _Delirium_. _Devotion of the missionaries_. _Death expected.
Innkeeper's curious attitude_. _Recovery_. _After-effects of malaria.
Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months_. _Then completes his
walking tour_.
Yuen-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway--or at least so tradition
says.
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