It does not strike the average European, who has never been
to China, and who knows no more about the country than the telegrams
which filter through when massacres of our own compatriots occur, that
Europe and America are not the only territories on this little round
ball where the inhabitants have been left with a glorious heritage.
But I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
when they laughed at my impatience.
"Ih dien mien, ih dien mien," shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. "Mien," it
should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
still.
After that I hurried on, got off the "ta lu," and suffered a nasty
experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
told me that they had.
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