But some of us will live to see this
changed. I saw in a newspaper an official notice permitting the
first telegraph line to be built. True, it is to be only a few
miles in length, extending from the sea to the port of Peking
(Tien-Tsin), but this is of course only a beginning. The question
of railroads is more serious, and what think you is the one
obstacle to their introduction? Graves--the "tombs of our
ancestors." China is one vast cemetery. Go where you will, in any
direction, the mounds of the dead intrude themselves upon you at
every step. There are no cemeteries or places set apart for burial
purposes; on the contrary, the Chinaman seems to prefer having his
dead buried on his own land, and as near to him as practicable. In
this neighborhood their mode of sepulture is revolting. The
coffins are not put into a grave at all, but are laid directly on
the surface of the ground and covered with but a few inches of
earth; and it is not at all uncommon for them to be wholly
exposed, simply laid out in the fields, and so close to the
roadside--I mean to the main roads built by Europeans near their
settlements--that you can almost touch them with the end of your
walking-stick as you pass. The stench from such coffins became so
offensive last year at the rifle range that the European
authorities had to enter complaint to the Chinese Mandarin.
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