The country here seems so vast as to render Nature unconquerable by man:
man is insignificant, Nature is triumphant. Railways are defied; and
these mountains, running mostly at right angles, will probably
never--not in our time, at least--be made unsightly by the puffing and
the reeking of the modern railway engine. They present so many natural
obstacles to the opening-up of the country, according to the standard we
Westerners lay down, that one would hesitate to prophesy any mode of
traffic here other than that of the horse caravan and human beast of
burden. Nature seems to look down upon man and his earth-scouring
contrivances, and assert, "Man, begone! I will have none of thee." And
the mountains turn upwards to the sky in_ silent reverence to their
Maker, whose work must in the main remain unchanged until eternity.
It is now 12:30, and we have fifty li to cover before reaching
Ch'u-tung. We sit here to feed at a place called Siao-shui-tsing, a
sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, where in subsequent travel
I was hung up in bitter weather and had to pass the night. The people,
courteous and civil as always, show a simple trustfulness with which is
associated some little suspicion.
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