The result was that all the stone that was used in this region had to be carried up the river from some place fifty or sixty miles distant, where the geomancers had declared that no spirits were to be found. Such is the force of superstition that all the rocks and boulders and stones of this region are absolutely safe from the chisel of the mason, and the people prefer to go to the expense of importing the material for their homes and bridges, rather than incur the anger of the spirits, who would use all the terrible power they possess to avenge themselves upon them. Superstition has been a most potent force during the whole course of Chinese history in preventing the development of the nation. The mineral resources of the country are exceedingly abundant, and if they had been rightly exploited, would have been the means of enriching great masses of people who are now in extreme poverty. To understand this let us come in imagination to one district in the county of "The Peaceful Streams." As we stand gazing upon the scene before us, we are struck with the grandeur and magnificence of its scenery. In the far-off distance the mountains are piled up, one range higher than another, till the last with its lofty peaks seems to be resting against the sky. In the foreground are countless hills along whose sides the tea plants flourish, and there are undulating plains, and miniature valleys, and gently flowing streams that have come from the distant mountains, and which have lost a good deal of their passion as they have travelled away from them. The soil is poor, and the farmers have to expend the severest toil upon it to be able to extract out of it enough to keep their families from starvation. The struggle for existence is so severe that large numbers every year have to leave their homes and their farms and emigrate to other countries, where they hope to make sufficient money to be able in the course of a few years to return to the old homesteads and start a new life of independence and comfort. Now, but for a wretched superstition, this region ought to be one of the richest in China, and its people should be living in affluence; and instead of having to desert the land and being scattered in Singapore, and Penang and the Malay Peninsula, toiling to save their ancestral homes from perishing through poverty, every man would be called back in hot haste to share in the wealth that would be enough to enrich ten times the number of people that now exist on the land struggling to make ends meet.