Page:A wandering student in the Far East vol.1 - Zetland.djvu/83

Rh Canton. Railway travelling in China is, generally speaking, still a novelty where it exists, which is the exception, and an as yet scarcely felt desideratum where it does not, which is the rule; yet I have quite recently traversed the 800 miles between Peking and Hankow in little more than thirty-six hours, crossing the huge expanse of the formidable Yellow river by a bridge little short of two miles in length, in a train which might have been the Orient express hurrying from Paris to Constantinople, but for the presence of pig-tailed attendants speaking a dozen words of pidgin English and half as many of unintelligible French. The concession being nominally Belgian, and in reality largely French, some attempt has been made to bring that language into use upon the line. But the Chinese have ideas of their own as to the relative value of foreign tongues, and it is a curious fact, noticeable throughout the empire, that whereas a Chinese will pay to learn English, he will seldom take lessons in other languages free. Finally, Hankow is the largest city