What is it that has
given these men this marvellous adaptability to all conditions, however
hard they may seem? They can live and work in any climate, they are
at home in the sandy wastes of our great deserts or in the swamps of
the southern countries. They bear the biting cold of northern lands as
readily as they labour under the burning sun of Singapore and Java.
The more I come out from the courtyard and see our people, the more
I admire them; I see the things that are so often lost sight of by those
of other lands who seek to study them. They are a philosophical race
and bear the most dreadful losses and calamities with wonderful
bravery. Nothing daunts them. Behold the family of Tuang-fang: they
saw their home ruined at time of flood and began again on the morrow
to build on the remaining foundations. They saw their fields burned up
by drouth, and took their winter clothing to the pawn-shop to get
money to buy seed for the coming spring. They did not complain so
long as they could get sufficient food to feed their bodies and the
coarse blue cloth with which to clothe them, and when these failed
they sent their three strong sons, the best of the family, to the rubber
plantations of the South.
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