Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/228

166 route crosses the river by a fair bridge. It would be difficult to find a better situation for a Customs barrier, for the valley up which the road lies is so narrow and the mountainsides so precipitous that it would be wellnigh impossible for laden coolies to travel by any other route. The distance from Sui Fu may be taken as not more than 76 miles,—an estimate which I arrived at by allowing an average of 3 miles to the hour as my speed while actually walking. Mr Little, who travelled over this road in 1904, makes the distance 80 miles; Consul Bourne, in his section of the report of the Blackburn Commercial Mission, 111 miles; and Messrs Neville and Bell, in their section of the same report, 137 miles. One does not look for mathematical accuracy in Western China, but there would seem to be a quite inexcusable difference of opinion here. The probability is that the members of the Mission translated the Chinese li into miles, a li in this part of China being generally considered to be the equivalent of a quarter of an English mile. But this method is productive of incorrect results, because, as