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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books
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The heart of a continent : vol.1 |
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spirits, according to the Chinese, can only go straight ahead ;
they cannot turn a corner. So if a wall is built straight in
front of the gateway, the spirits run up against that and are
unable to enter the house. This is only one instance of the
superstition of Feng-shui. It has many similar prejudices with
which the construction of a railway through the country was
likely to interfere. For instance, it was objected by the
Chinese, that if the railway was raised the spirits might go
along the top of the carriages and look down into their houses.
"But then," said Mr. Kinder, "just look at the embankment
and think how many devils that will keep out, running for miles
and miles as it does, right in front of your doorways." Much of
this sort of diplomacy was needed to overcome prejudice after
prejudice, but Mr. Kinder was as good at diplomacy as he was
at engineering, and railways in China are now an accomplished
fact.
From Kaiping we proceeded to Tientsin, passing over a
dead level plain, and reaching that place on New Year's Day,
1887. The Peiho river had just been frozen over, and steamer
communication with the south was blocked till the spring.
At Tientsin I was very hospitably entertained by the consul,
Mr. Byron Brenan, and his wife, with whom Mr. James and I
had stopped on our previous visit. There is generally plenty
going on in the little foreign community at Tientsin, and
besides a mounted paper-chase, organized by the French, we
had ice-boat sailing and skating. The ice-boat was a great
attraction, and with full sails set we went skimming along at
a good thirty miles an hour over the flooded plains. This
ice-boat was built upon runners like magnified skates, it had
sails like a yacht, and of course a rudder. The pace was
tremendous, for there is little friction and no resistance such
as a ship has to encounter at sea. For the same reason it
could be turned in an instant in any direction, and the only
difficulty was to keep a firm enough hold as the boat whisked
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