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The extraordinary part of a Chinese boycott or strike is the absolute fidelity by which it is observed. If the boatmen or chair-coolies at any place strike, they all strike; there are no blacklegs. If the butchers refuse to sell, they all refuse, entirely confident in each other's loyalty.
They were the regulation Chinese "mountain schooner," at which we had so often laughed, but they proved to be infinitely more desirable than riding in the rain. With the forty-one cases of specimens we left Teng-yueh on June 1, behind a caravan of thirty mules for the eight-day journey to Bhamo on the outskirts of civilization. Our chair-coolies were miserable specimens of humanity.
The steps led down into manure heaps and a piggery, into a garden rank and waste, which yet commands an outlook over mountain and river worthy of the greatest of temples. I was carried all the way by three chair-coolies in a heavy chair in steady rain that made the unpaved track as slippery as ice and this over the dizzy heights of a mountain pathway of extraordinary irregularity.
He had made the agreement "out of consideration for me," and his own pocket; he had made an agreement which gave him wider scope for a little private arrangement of his own with the chair-coolies. For two days I was paying fifteen cash a li for a chair and walking alongside of it charmed by the good humour of the coolies, and unaware that they were laughing in their sleeves at my folly.
She longed to turn her chair-coolies down the hill and begin at once the exploration of the attractive-looking native bazaar until she reached the English shops with the newest fashions of female wear from London and Paris, set out behind their plate-glass windows.
Riding was of course out of the question, and I had long since left my chair-coolies behind; but one of the Tachienlu men, a strong, active fellow with bits of coral adorning his black queue, was very alert in looking out for me, always waiting at a difficult place with a helping hand.
The three members of the Chinese Boundary Commission, which had recently arranged with the British Commission the preliminaries to the delimitation of the boundary between Burma and China, were here, disputing with clerks, yamen-runners, and chair-coolies for a sight of my photographs and curiosities. Colonel Liu proved to be the most enlightened member of the party.
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