This was the first time
I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
their antiquated topboots--much better, however, than the Yuen-nan
topboot--gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
frost.
Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
much steeper than the roof of a house--as perpendicular as can be
imagined--but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy.
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