Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable
town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those
who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates,
such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at
the end of the town.
In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in
my life a man carrying a _cangue,_ and a horrible, sickening feeling
seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the
poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were
prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious
to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless
fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the
pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.
Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt
that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in
merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might
fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude
seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.
Yung-ch'ang (5,500 feet) is as well known as any city in Far Western
China.
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