Such tragic incidents as the pony jumping over the precipice provoked
him to extreme laughter.[AX]
And when I caught him sewing up an open wound in the sole of his foot
with common colored Chinese thread and a rusty needle, and told him that
he might thereby get blood poisoning, and lose his life or leg, he cared
not a little. As a matter of fact, he laughed in my face. Not at me, not
at all, but because he thought his laughter might probably delude the
devil who was president over the ills of that particular portion of
human anatomy. He came to me just outside Pu-peng, where we saw a coffin
containing a corpse resting in the roadway whilst the bearers refreshed
near by and, pointing thereto, told me that the man was "muh tsai" (not
here)--the Chinese never on any account mention the word death--and his
sides shook with laughter, so much so that he dropped his loads
alongside the corpse, and startled the cock on top of the coffin
guarding the spirit of the dead into a vigorous fit of crowing for fear
of disaster.
We enjoyed fairly level road, although rough, for ten li after leaving
T'ai-p'ing-p'u. It rose gradually from 7,400 feet to 8,500 feet, and
then dipped suddenly, and continued at a fearful down gradient.
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