is destined to become a railroad centre; and several missionary
societies are erecting colleges there to teach the people truths
that Confucius never knew. More than half a century ago, when a
missionary distributed Christian books in that region, the people
brought them back saying, "We have the works of our Sage, and they
are sufficient for us." Will not the new arts and sciences of the
West convince them that their Sage was not omniscient?

In 1866 I earned the honours of a _hadji_ by visiting the tomb
of Confucius--a magnificent mausoleum surrounded by his descendants
of the seventieth generation,
[Page 31]
one of whom in quality of high priest to China's greatest teacher
enjoys the rank of a hereditary duke.

On that occasion, I had come up from a visit to the Jews in Honan.
Having profited by a winter vacation to make an expedition to
K'ai-fung-fu, I had the intention of pushing on athwart the province
to Hankow. The interior, however, as I learned to my intense
disappointment, was convulsed with rebellion. No cart driver was
willing to venture his neck, his steed, and his vehicle by going
in that direction. I accordingly steered for the Mecca of Shantung,
and, having paid my respects to the memory of China's greatest sage,
struck the Grand Canal and proceeded to Shanghai. From K'ai-fung-fu
I had come by land slowly, painfully, and not without danger. From
Tsi-ning I drifted down with luxurious ease in a well-appointed
house-boat, meditating poetic terms in which to describe the contrast.

The canal deserves the name of "grand" as the wall on the north
deserves the name of "great." Memorials of ancient times, they both