Birdseye Views of Far Lands. James T. Nichols

years ago. A Chinaman was the first to distill and use intoxicating liquor and for this he was dismissed from the public service by the ruler who said, "This will cost someone a kingdom some day." They are industrious, resourceful and skillful and should they become warriors and introduce modern methods and instruments of warfare the world would be up against the most frightful peril of all ages. Napoleon Bonaparte said of China, "Yonder sleeps a mighty giant and when it awakens it will make the whole world tremble."

      The Chinese are one of the strongest races of people in existence. They have only been conquered twice but in both cases they absorbed their conquerors and made Chinese of them. Although old, out of date and slow, they have principles in their civilization that will last as long as time, and China will be a great nation long after some of the so-called great nations now in existence are forgotten.

      With the exception of Russia as it was before the world war, the Chinese Empire is perhaps the largest the world has ever known. Its population comprises one-fourth of the human race. If the single state of Texas were as densely populated as at least one of the provinces of China, there would be living in this one state more than two hundred million people or nearly twice as many people as are now living in the whole United States. The resources of this great country are almost boundless. There is said to be coal enough in China to furnish the whole world fuel for a thousand years. While in China I was told of one mountain that has five veins of coal that can be seen without throwing a shovelful of dirt. Some years ago the German government investigated the iron resources of China and published the fact that they are the finest in the world. This no doubt explains one reason why Germany was trying to get a foothold in China.

      But in agriculture the Chinese shine. As noted above they have tilled the same soil for four thousand years. Some of this soil too is very thin and poor but it produces as well today as it did a thousand years ago. While most of their methods are the oldest and crudest that can be found, yet in some other ways the whole world can learn lessons from them. They use fertilizer in the form of liquid and put it on the growing plant rather than on the soil as we do. The farmer will feed his plants with the same regularity and care that our farmers feed and care for their horses and cattle. Every drop of urine and every particle of night soil is preserved for fertilizer. This is saved in earthen jars and gathered, mostly by women, each morning. A Chinese contractor paid the city of Shanghai $31,000 in gold in a single year for the privilege of collecting the human waste and selling it to the farmers around near the city. Where a beast of burden is at work a boy or girl is near with a long handled dipper ready to catch the urine and droppings as they fall.

      In China the farmers have always been held in high esteem. While the scholar is highest, the farmer is second on the list in the social scale. It is interesting to know that the soldier is fifth or last on the list because his work is to destroy rather than to build up. The hoe is an emblem of honor in China. For hundreds of years the Emperor with his nobles went every spring to the Temple of Agriculture to offer sacrifice. After this ceremony they all went to a field near the temple and paid honor to the tillers of the soil. At a yellow painted plow, to which was hitched a cow or buffalo, with a yellow robed peasant leading, the Emperor dressed as a farmer put his hand to the plow and turned nine furrows across the field while bands of musicians chanted the praises of agriculture. Even the Empress set the example of honest agricultural toil by picking the leaves from the mulberry trees, early each spring, to be fed to silk worms.

      All China is a network of canals and the Chinese are a race of irrigators. Both men and women stand from daylight until dark walking on a sort of a windlass turning an endless chain with buckets on it, one end of which is in the canal and the other end up on the bank, pumping the water up to flood the rice fields or irrigate the growing crops. No people toil harder or more earnestly than do these simple people. While they grow an abundance of vegetables, yet rice and tea are the greatest products of China.

      The great rivers of the empire are so liable to disastrous floods that in many of the lower lands the people content themselves with fishing and raising geese and ducks. A duck farm is most interesting. A large shed by the river, or a raft, will serve as a shelter for the night. The farmer of course sleeps in this shed. Early in the morning he opens the door and out come the ducks. At night they return from every direction scrambling over each other to get in. The Chinaman sits near the door with a long bamboo pole herding them in. He even trains drakes to assist him and they care for the flock something like a good shepherd dog will care for sheep.

      The Chinese do nearly everything backward or opposite from the way we do it. The reading in their books begins at the end. Instead of across the page the lines are up and down with footnotes at the top. The Chinaman laughs at a funeral and cries at a wedding. He beckons you to come when he wants you to go away. Instead of shaking his friend's hand in greeting him he shakes his own hands. When he gets puzzled instead of scratching his head as we do he kicks off his shoe and scratches the bottom of his foot. When he gets mad at another he kills himself imagining that his dead spirit will haunt the enemy and make life miserable for him. Men often do crochet work while women dig ditches and drive piling. Men wear petticoats and women wear trousers.

      The Chinese launch ships sideways. Their compass points to the south. In building a house they make the roof first and the foundation is the last thing they put in. The key in the door turns backward to lock it. The kitchen is in the front while the best room is in the back of the house. When a Chinaman sprinkles clothes for ironing purposes he uses his mouth as the sprinkler. I never had a collar washed in China that was not ironed wrong side out. He pays the doctor when he is well and stops the pay the moment he gets sick. You can almost bank on a Chinaman doing anything the opposite from the way you do it and he laughs at your way as much as you do at his.

CHAPTER II

       Table of Contents

The Pearl of the Orient—Philippines

       Table of Contents

      Of all the islands in the eastern seas, none are more interesting than our own Philippines. Like the genuine pearl which is the result of a bruise and the outcome of suffering, these pearls of the far east are said by geologists to be the result of great volcanic forces that tore them away from the continent and set them out six hundred miles as "gems in the ocean." More than three thousand there are of these islands all together, and their combined area is nearly equal to that of Japan or California. I visited the Philippines a short time before the world war broke out and at that time there were seven million acres of arable land unoccupied and some of it could be entered and purchased for ten cents per acre.

      This is a land where the storms of winter never blow but where from month to month and age to age there is good old summer time. Children are born, grow to manhood, old age, and die without ever seeing fire to keep them warm for they never need it. A range of twenty degrees is about all that the spirits in the thermometer ever show, for the minimum is seventy-two and the maximum ninety-two degrees. While the nights are cool and the days warm, yet a case of sunstroke was never known and but once in a generation has a hundred in the shade been recorded.

      About the most unpleasant feature is the little tiny ants. They find their way into everything. Table legs must be placed in jars of water and yet they find their way to the top of the tables. Then there is dampness everywhere. Books soon become mildewed or unglued and the finest library will soon have the appearance of a secondhand bookshop.

      Almost all kinds of tropical fruits can be raised in the Philippines. I drove out from Manila to the home of Mr. Lyon, who is a regular Burbank. He located on some of the worst soil to be found and undertook to demonstrate that anything that will grow on any spot on the earth will grow there and he practically succeeded. He has sent to India, California, Egypt and nearly everywhere for the rarest orchids and most delicate plants. To eat of the fruits of every kind of tree and hear him tell the story of plants and shrubs and trees in his Garden of Eden is an experience one cannot forget.

      The story of how these islands