THIS machine, like a baker’s cart, is the kind of wheel carriage which
is most common in the country, and such as even the high officers of
state ride in, when performing land journies in bad weather, and the
driver invariably sits on the shaft in the aukward manner here
represented. They have no springs, nor any seat in the inside, the
persons using them always sitting cross-legged on a cushion at the
bottom. In these carts the gentlemen of Lord Macartney’s embassy who had
not horses, were _accommodated_, over a stone pavement full of rutts and
holes. When ladies use them, a bamboo screen is let down in front to
prevent their being stared at by passengers, and on each side, the light
is admitted through a square hole just large enough for a person’s head.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration:
CHINA—PLATE 34
]
Plate XXXIV.