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CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
matter how often you travel it or how carefully the tally is kept![1]
Akin to this is another intellectual phenomenon, to wit, that in China it is not true that the "whole is equal to the sum of all its parts." This is especially the case in river travel. On inquiry you ascertain that it is "forty li" to a point ahead. Upon more careful analysis, this "forty" turns out to be composed of two "eighteens," and you are struck dumb with the statement that "four nines are forty, are they not?" In the
- ↑ Since this was written, we have met in Mr. Baber's "Travels in Western China" with a confirmation of the view here taken. "We heard, for instance, with incredulous ears, that the distance between two places depended upon which end one started from ; and all the informants, separately questioned, would give the same differential estimate. Thus from A to B would be unanimously called one mile, while from B to A would, with equal unanimity, be set down as three. An explanation of this offered by an intelligent native was this: Carriage is paid on a basis of so many cash per mile, it is evident that a coolie ought to be paid at a higher rate if the road is uphill. Now it would be very troublesome to adjust a scale of wages rising with the gradients of the road. It is much more convenient for all parties to assume that the road in difficult or precipitous places is longer. This is what has been done, and these conventional distances are now all that the traveller will succeed in ascertaining. 'But,' I protested, 'on the same principle, wet weather must elongate the road, and it must be farther by night than by day.' 'Very true, but a little extra payment adjusts that.' This system may be convenient for the natives, but the traveller finds it a continual annoyance. The scale of distances is something like this: On level ground, one statute mile is called two li; on ordinary hill roads, not very steep, one mile is called five li; on very steep roads, one mile is called fifteen li. The natives of Yunnan, being good mountaineers, have a tendency to underrate the distance on level ground, but there is so little of it in their country, that the future traveller need scarcely trouble himself with the consideration. It will be sufficient to assume five local li, except in very steep places, as being one mile." In Mr. Little's "Through the Yang-tse Gorges," he mentions a stage which down the river was called ninety li, while up-stream it was 120 li. He estimates 3.62 li to a statute mile, or 250 to a degree of latitude.
