The strip of land, of crude and wholly unconsidered gradients, which was apportioned for the purposes of communication in this particular district, had the appearance of having been powdered with shapeless boulders from some gigantic sugar-sifter. Large portions of it were under water, and the whole of it under slippery mud—this, too, at the driest season of the year. A glance at the accompanying photograph will perhaps assist the reader to an understanding of the real significance of the expression "Chinese road." I had heard "young China" declaring from the housetops its ability and its determination to cover the country with a network of railways, and now I was travelling over young China's conception of a main road, and I was amused—but not surprised. I had a short time before come into contact with a college of the modern type, where the mathematical course began with algebra, regardless of the fact that, as far as the pupils were concerned, simple arithmetic was a thing unknown. Why should a Chinese who aspired to solve abstruse mathematical
