Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/170

116 will not bear comparison with Canton grass-cloth, which is the finest and most expensive in China." The most conspicuous feature in the textile line, however, here, as in all the towns and villages that I subsequently visited, was provided by bundles of coarse, loosely-woven, narrow-width, native-made cotton cloth, dyed red and green with German aniline dye, which is fast taking a hold upon the market, as well as plain grey shirting and the more ordinary blue. A few shops stocked Manchester goods, grey shirting and cotton Italians, for which there appears to be a growing demand.

The man of China is not an easy individual to extract information from. He will talk volubly, but always vaguely and generally irrelevantly. "How much of this do you sell in a year?" I asked of a cloth merchant, pointing to a roll of black Italians. "Oh, several tens of pieces," he replied after a few minutes of profound thought. "But how many tens?" I persisted. "A few tens," was the laconic reply. I had been reading Dr Smith on Chinese disregard of accuracy, and I felt that I could