Traveller.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, 17 September 1903, Page 7

Traveller.

AS AMERICANS SEE US.. lOSKO 'see ourselves as others see us' iB 'Jwm one of the advantages gained by ag&s reading ' More Fables in Slang,' by George Ade. The Americana have peculiar ideas with regard to what they are pleased to call English 'eccentricities,' as the following extraots from the above book will show. Two Americans were travelling 'on' a train, and they were talking about tho man who ' sat across the Aisle.' ' I think he is an Englishman,' said the first traveller.- 'Why do you think bo P* queried his companion. 'Well, in the titßt place, his clothes don't fib him,' replied the first traveller. * I observe, also, that he has piled all his luggage on another man's seat, that he has opened several windows without asking permission, that he has expected the porter to pay attention to him and nobody else, and that he has kicked grumbled) at something every thirty seconds since we left Buffalo.' ' You make out a strong case,' said the second traveller, nodding. ' I will admit that the suit it fierce. Still, I maintain that he is not an Englishman. I notice that he seems somewhat ashamei of bia clothes. Now, if he were an Englishman he would glory in the misfit,' . . . . ' A few moments ago he rawl a joke in a comic piper, and the light of appreciation kindled in his eyes before a full mi ante had elapsed.' ' Perhaps it was not a comic paper at all/ said the first traveller. *it may have been 'Punch.' . . . . ' L9t on to the shoes, too. Thoy are shaped like muffins. Then, if you are still in doubt, pay attention to the accent. Didn't you hear him just now, when he was complaining to the porter becavss the sun was on the wrong side of the car P' It turned cut after all that the gentleman was a native of Michigan, though this, of course, does not spoil the criticism of English 'eccentricities/' The Man with the Cowhide Bag. The following description of an Englishman occurs ia another Fable : 'The English traveller appeared to have received bad news from home, but he had not. That was the normal expression. His moustache was long and wilted. Also the weary look around the eyes. He travelled with a cowhide hag that must have used up at least one cow. The clothes he wore" had evidently been cut from a steamer rug by his mother or some other aged relative suffering from Astigmatism. Ho had been sleeping in them. 1 Any of our readers who have not made the acquaintance of American wit in the form of slang, will find plenty to go on with m the 'Fables.' There are some good descriptions of phases of American life, and the ' Fable of the honest money j maker,. and the partner of his joyß, such as they were,' contains a truer picture than most Americans would care to admit of the life of the average American farmer's wife, who, 'after ten years of raising children, steamiag over the washtub, milking the cows, cooking for the hands (labourers), aud other Nelsarte such as the respected farmer usually frames up for his wife, was as thin as a rail, ana humped over in the shoulders. She was thirty and looked sixty.' . . . . ' The wife of the respected farmer was the only work animal arouad the place that was not kept fat and sleek. TRAVELLING IN CHINA. The Chinese have a very confused conception of distances. Anyone who has travelled knows how the length of the li expands aad contracts. Through the section which we pissed, writes a traveller in the ' North China Herald,' a number of market towns are all called 15 li apart. Yet at one place tho actual distance ia about 3 English miles. It is safest to ask every man passed where this road leads to and how far away is it. Then take along a compass ana sufficient outfit to camp out over night if you lose the road, which is very likely. Private roads are as big as main roads, and in these low mountains one does £ot meet as many men on the road as he would like. Small Chinese roads are nothing but cow paths and as crooked, They remind one of that celebrated calf, which, slowly'z'gzagging through a wood, was secretly followed by a hungry wolf, which was followed by a dog, which was followed by a flock of sheep, which was attended by a man, followed by a waggon Tie result was a road which aubseqciently grew to b8 a village street, and then the thoroughfare of a erreat metropolis. And men after a hundred years are still following the crooked path of that wandering calf. This describes Chinese roads. Along the nai-row banks of squwe fields zigzags that road, like a giant etairs lain prostrate. We saw some interesting objects. Seventy-five li west.of Chuchou, up in the low mountains, is a mummy idol of 800 years' standing. Drying in an air-tight urn, paint and gilding, together with the dry mountain air, ha 3 kept the body. A foreigner passing through visited the mummy, and scratched it with hia knife to decide as to its reality. It took but a couple of days for all the surrounding region to hear that the foreigner hed extracted its heart and a valuable gem from the mummy's, back. Thus quickly can evil reports spread anung these suspicious people. Everybody visited the mummy to see if it were true; then the district magistrate raked the priest over the coala. The names of many market towns and cities are extremely fantastic, There are ' The Raven's Nest,' 'Viceroy,' 'Old Man's Storehouse.' 'Great Willows,' 'Red Heart/ 'Eternal Prospeiity,' 'Always on th« Mouatain - Top,' 'Tho Place of the PeacocV and the San,' and so on. Many are named after families, as Li, Shih, Kiob, „ Cheu, Liang, Ing. &c. In exceptional cases only families of the name own property in the place.