Page:Through China with a camera.pdf/364

 had struggled clear of their streets. The shop-fronts were of richly carved wood, quite different from what one sees in the south, but seemingly stained with the accumulated dust of ages.

Even outside Tung-chow the roads were knee-deep in mud, in consequence of the heavy rain which had fallen during the previous night, so that I had no further choice, and perforce took refuge in the cart. My driver smelt of sam-shu and garlic, and placed such implicit trust in his mule that, once fairly on the road, he fell asleep on the shaft, and had to be reminded frequently by a shove off his perch, that he might as well do something to extricate his jaded beast and its burden from the pitfalls and mud-pools of the way. At length we made a halt at an inn. These inns supply food for man and beast, and occur at frequent intervals along that road, reminding one in some respects of those similar old-fashioned wayside resting-places which are now dying out rapidly in our own land.

Outside this inn ran a long low wall, whitewashed and inscribed in huge black characters with the sign or motto, '* Perpetual felicity achieved." Along the entire front of the establishment a narrow dwarf-table had been set up, and groups of travellers seated round it discussed reeking bowls of soup or tea, and the latest news from the capital. Their cattle they had already made over to the care of hangers-on at the inn.

Tao and my Hainan men had gone on ahead, but 1 stopped here and partook of a diner a la Chinoisey which was served up to me in a bedroom. This apartment contained nothing save a table and a chair, and a bed or kang made of bricks. As for the table, it was covered with a surface formation of dirt, into which I could cut like cheese. But I must say that the dinner here supplied me was the best I ever tasted at a Chinese inn. The viands were stewed mutton cut up into small pieces,