The storm cleared away during the night; and travelling the next day was, consequently, a little better, although the roads were still almost impassable. In some spots the carts could not get through with their loads; and the men had to “ferry” the goods across, the turnouts coming over empty. “I believe the Philippines want good roads more than anything else,” observed Gilbert. “In all the time I’ve been here I’ve hardly seen a decent highway outside of Manila.” “We are bound for a country where the roads are still worse,” returned Captain Banner. “I’ve been reading up on China lately, and I’ve learned that there is hardly a respectable highway in the whole Celestial Kingdom. Even the streets of Pekin, the great capital, are out of repair, and have been for centuries.” “And yet Chinese labor costs next to nothing. I can’t understand it.” “The common people don’t want to pay out a single cash for public improvements, that’s the reason. Besides that, there comes up the old Chinese saying that ‘what was good enough for my father and grandfather is good enough for me.’” “They must be a terribly backward nation.” “Backward doesn’t express it, lieutenant. They are so out of date that they are actually musty. And the worst of it is, because their history dates back so much further than ours,--several thousand years before Christ,--they imagine they know it all and are really a superior people.” “I am almost ashamed to confess it, but I am very backward on the geography of China,” went on Gilbert. “I know it’s a mighty big country and swarming with millions of people, and that is about all I do know.” “Yes, it is a big country; for its area is about five millions of square miles, although its original eighteen provinces are only about two millions of square miles in extent,--some geographers say a million and a half. The population of the provinces is reckoned at a hundred and seventy-five million. But this is mere guess-work, for China has never taken a census.” “With so many people, there ought to be many large cities.” “No, the large cities are but few in number. The largest, of course, is Pekin, the capital, on the Pei-Ho, which contains probably a million and a half to two million inhabitants; and the next is Shanghai, the great sea-port town. Pekin cannot be reached by large boats; and its sea-port, so to speak, is Tien-Tsin, which is also on the Pei-Ho, not many miles from the Gulf of Pechili.” “Then, if there are not many large cities, there must be a host of small ones.”