XV.
ABOUT TIENTSIN.
On the 6th of June we left central China for Tientsin
and further north, sailing by coastwise steamer from
Shanghai, again plowing through the turbid waters which
give literal exactness to the name Yellow Sea. Our steamer
touched at Tsingtao, taking on board a body of German
troops, and again at Chefoo, and it was only between these
two points that the sea was not strongly turbid. Nor was
this all. From early morning of the 10th until we
anchored at Tientsin, 2:30 P. M., our course up the winding
Pei ho was against a strong dust-laden wind which left
those who had kept to the deck as grey as though they had
ridden by automobile through the Colorado desert; so the
soils of high interior Asia are still spreading eastward by
flood and by wind into the valleys and far over the coastal
plains. Over large areas between Tientsin and Peking
and at other points northward toward Mukden trees and
shrubs have been systematically planted in rectangular
hedgerow lines, to check the force of the winds and reduce
the drifting of soils, planted fields occupying the spaces
between.
It was on this trip that we met Dr. Evans of Shunking, Szechwan province. His wife is a physician practicing among the Chinese women, and in discussing the probable rate of increase of population among the Chinese, it was stated that she had learned through her practice that very many mothers had borne seven to eleven children and yet but one, two or at most three, were living. It was said
