The barge that bore Tuen to Peking proceeded slowly on its way, for why
should one economize time or labor in a country where there are more
hands than work for them to do? The novelty of the trip kept her well
amused, and she cared not how long they drifted idly on, for the present
was very satisfactory to her. After they had passed through the
beautiful Lake Poyana, sleeping like an inland sea cradled by the
encircling mountains, they entered the vast Yang-tse-kiang, that ever
ebbed and flowed in calm strength, as it swept on to where it was lost
in the vaster waters of the ocean. No wonder Tuen was enchanted with the
sights that greeted her. Around her was ever the same endless throng,
in its struggle for existence, and if she tired of this epitome of human
life, she had but to raise her eyes to the hills beyond, dotted with the
innumerable graves of the dead, to see the end of it all, though, as she
was not a philosopher, she doubtless did not think about it in this way.
Graceful pagodas, with bells and glittering ornaments swinging from the
corners of the curving, many-storied roofs, stood out here and there
like solitary beacons, although they lit no way. Along the river banks
were fertile plains, converted into regularly laid out fields and
gardens, that for thousands of years had yielded a full harvest from
their inexhaustible richness, and numerous cottages, some with tiled
roofs shining in the sunlight, others with only a covering of straw,
diversified the landscape. Sometimes they threaded their way among
barren islands that rose like mammoths of the deep, and again passed
walled cities where the river lapped hungrily against its boundaries,
or they loitered beside little white towns embowered in green. Oft-times
Szu whiled away the hours by telling her the glorious history of this,
her native land, for he loved to dilate on the importance of the Flowery
Kingdom. In fact he believed it to be the garden spot of the world, and
as he had never been anywhere else, we must pardon his vanity. "We are
the greatest and wisest nation in the world," he would tell Tuen
pompously. "We are the most learned and prosperous of all people, and we
have the oldest and the highest civilization. We have borrowed no
foreign inventions or arts, we have not asked them to frame the laws to
govern us nor to solve our difficulties. All we have ever asked of any
of them is--let us alone. We are not like the barbarians--always
quarrelling and fighting, and running about the earth. History tells
that we have always been a civilized, peaceful race. Our language is
our own, our literature has not sought for themes or inspiration in
other climes, our institutions are the outcome of our own wisdom, and
our land provides everything that is necessary for her children. We are
the one independent nation. Confucius, the wisest of all men, left us
our code of morals, and the Son of Heaven rules over us. Our kingdom
contains one third of the population of the whole earth, and nearly
every one of the inventions that these barbarians think they discovered
they find have been in use by us long before they were a nation. Who was
it that discovered the compass? We did. Who first made porcelain? We
did. Who made paper first? We did. These barbarians who sail up to our
ports, with great guns on their vessels, would never have had any
gun-powder for their guns if it had not been for us. Of course since you
have been learning to read you have found out that we it was who
invented printing, and made it possible for every one to have books.
Nowhere can be found so many and such great cities as we have, and not
only the land but the waters are covered with our towns. I wish we could
shut ourselves off, as once we were, and never see another barbarian.
But alas, we cannot, for they cannot get along without us."
Thus Szu, puffed up with pride, instructed Tuen in the facts of Chinese
history, and she drank in every word he said eagerly. Truly it was
wonderful! And as he perceived her intense interest, Szu talked more and
more of these things, though he omitted to tell her that his nation was
the most egotistical one in all the world, but perhaps he did not know
this. Again he would tell of the ancient kings, and of the great Kublai
Khan, who reigned in the Golden Age of China.
"Those were happy times," he would say with a sigh. "We will never see
the like again. When the New Year came then all his subjects gave him
rich presents, not only of gold and silver and precious stones and fine
cloths, but also five thousand camels, one hundred thousand white
horses, and five thousand elephants, covered with cloths of silk and
gold, and each beast had on its back a box filled with vessels of gold
and silver. When they passed before the most holy Emperor, they formed
the most brilliant spectacle ever seen by the eyes of man."
Tuen gasped as she tried to picture in her imagination this most
gorgeous sight, and looking at Szu with eyes filled with amazement, she
asked, timidly:
"Is that all indeed the very truth?"
"The truth?" he cried, indignantly. "Do you dare to question the
accounts of our great historians--you, a foolish girl? It has all come
down to us just as I have related it to you, and no one, not even the
barbarians, have doubted it. If you think Szu but a romancer, he will
remain silent."
"Oh, no, no," she entreated, "indeed I did not mean that! It was so
marvellous that I would like to hear more about this same great one."
Somewhat pacified, and anxious to talk on such an interesting subject,
Szu said:
"Perhaps you would not believe it, either, were I to recount how, then,
no one in all the land was hungry, and yet it is a fact, for the Kublai
Khan gave of his great wealth to his people. Whenever the crops were
injured, he demanded no taxes, and when rice was scarce, he sold it for
one fourth the regular price out of his own storehouse. And if any
families had no food to eat, he caused provision to be given them, and
rice was not refused at court throughout the whole year to any that came
to beg for it. Think of no one ever starving to death then! It was the
strangest thing that ever men heard of. Not only did the Kublai Khan
feed his subjects, but he had countless public looms that were running
all the time, where garments were woven and given to the poor, so that
none could say that they were hungry or cold."
"I would have liked to be alive then," Tuen said, wistfully, and in this
they all agreed with her.
"There has never been such another ruler in any land," Szu told her.
"The whole world has heard of him, and marvelled at his greatness and
his goodness."
At this, Tuen sighed, for she had just been wishing that the august one
to whom she went had been rich and kind like the Khan. But she did not
think much about him, for no one could tell her anything, and so she
could only wait.