Lawrence Dundas

“ One other matter called for attention before a start could be made—namely, the matter of cash. No amount of ingenuity could succeed in devising anything more calculated to dismay and exasperate the Westerner than the coinage of China. The Mexican dollar, which simplifies matters on the coast, is not recognised in the interior. The only coin that is generally accepted is the cash—a dirty, shapeless disc of brass with a square hole through the centre. ”

“ The Ssūch'uan dog is obviously an intelligent and observant creature, for in addition to barking at the sun he also habitually barks at all beggars, tramps, and foreigners.
Such foreign residents, however, as honour Ch'ung-k'ing with their presence are there for business, and not for pleasure. Through Ch'ung-k'ing passes the bulk of the trade of Western China, and those who advocated the opening of the port to trade can point confidently to the returns in justification of their policy. ”

“ To men whose ideas of money are constructed upon a cash basis, some 400 or 500 of which coins go to the shilling, a sum equivalent to about 15,000 cash is a very large one; but the Chinese never loses his head under any circumstances connected with money. ”

“ Thus was one anomaly wiped off the slate of Anglo-Chinese diplomacy—only to make room, however, for another almost equally absurd, for it was agreed that when once Chinese steamers carrying cargo ran to Ch'ung-k'ing, then, and not till then, should British steamers have access to the port. Chinese diplomacy had imposed a veto for a second time upon British aspirations. ”

“ Even the Chinese seem to have noticed that there is something abnormal about the murkiness of their climate, for they have a proverb which declares that the dogs of Ssŭch'uan bark when they see the sun. ”

“ The dreary skies and damp mists prevailing between November and March, the fierce heat of summer and practical absence of spring and autumn—meaning a quick change from hot to cold, and vice versa,—are most trying to all ”

“ No regulations, he said, had as yet been put into force for reducing the area of land under the poppy in accordance with the imperial opium edict which had been issued in September, "but," he added, "the people have been exhorted to give up the cultivation of the poppy." It usually requires something more than exhortation to persuade a man to give up the means of supplying himself with his daily bread. ”

“ The British merchant, however, has no time to waste in guessing at Chinese diplomatic conundrums which have no answers, and in 1899 Mr Little built an experimental steamer, the Kuling, with which he proposed ascending the Yang-tsze, and so claiming the opening of the port to trade. ”