The author is of the opinion that

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Passage 1
Although the camel caravan is recognized as the best means of transport for valuable goods over great distances, yet, for local journeys or when, owing to the perishable nature of the cargo, time is of great importance, the Turki with his drove of little donkeys is the man. He is met on every road of Turkestan, always hustling his beasts through a cloud of dust and lashing them right and left to keep them up to speed. He is a great burly fellow, dressed in loose clothes which increase his bulk, and his baggy trousers are stuffed in to high leather boots. His chapan(coat) is tied in with a thick belt, and he wears a round hat with a sheepskin border which mixes with his loose hair to form a shaggy frame to the weather-beaten face. One man, or at the most two, will drive twenty donkeys, riding behind them, shouting incessantly, and never letting them slacken to normal walking-pace.

He  mainly  conveys  melons,  early  vegetable and  fruits  —  apricots  peaches,  grapes  and pears according  to  season  —  but  makes  up  his  load  with  rolls  of  loosely  woven,  undyed  cotton.  He knows no organization of travel life, but pushes on from stage to stage with restless energy. When the donkeys must be fed he drives them in to an inn-court, tosses the panniers from their backs, carelessly throws fodder in to the manger, pulls some hard cakes of bread from his own food-bag and sits down to a meal of bread soaked in tea. He carries with himself what he will need to eat on the road. He takes a short sleep while the animals finish their grain, then he flings himself on to his beast’s back and urges the drove on for as far as he dare before feeding them again.

The donkeys are small and cheap, so he is careless of life and sacrifices them in large numbers to his  passion  for  speed  and  his reckless output of strength. He will use dangerous short-cuts over which no other class of transport-man will use venture, and in bad weather many beasts die by the roadside.  This  does  not trouble  him,  and  he  just lifts  the  load  from  the exhausted  creature and divides its weight among the others, then pushes on again, regardless of suffering, to deliver the cargo  at  market,  for  he  has  a  master  as  impatient  as  himself  waiting  at the  other  end.  He  will normally do five stages in three days and nothing may stand in his way, but when the goods are handed over and he can lodge in an inn, he enjoys twenty-four hours of sheer luxury. There is hot, greasy pilau  to  eat, women to  wait on him, and  long carefree hours of sleep to enjoy before he stars again on the hectic return journey.

The  Chinese  method of  transport is  quite  different.  Great  carts  which  cross  the  Gobi link  the commercial life  of  China  proper  with  the  raw  material  markets  of  Turkestan,  and  a carter  who leaves  Kashgar  in  February  will  swing  through  the  gates  of  his  Honan home  town  in  August without having shifted his splendidly packed cargo. In the course of this phenomenal journey he will only need to change the axle a few times in order to adjust the cart to the wider desert gauge or  the narrowing Kansu or  Honan ruts. The widest axle is required between Suchow and Hami, and the narrowest in Honan.

The  Chinese  transport  agent  makes  constant  use of the words  ta-suan, which mean to  compute, calculate, think out, arrange ahead, organize and consider carefully. It represents a characteristic so much admired by the Chinese as to be regarded by them almost as a virtue, and is an integral part  of  their  economy  of  life.  The  man  who  can  ta-suan  gets  full  value  from  time,  strength, capacity and  money, and  anyone who  has not the intelligence to  ta-suan is, in Chinese eyes, an uncivilized barbarian.  The classic example of  ta-suan  is  the  incident  of a Chinese general who, centuries ago, was sent out with an expeditionary force to conquer the land beyond the deserts. He sat down to ta-suan, and doing so he realized that it might be all too easy to conquer the land yet lose the campaign through inability to  feed  his own troops He therefore selected bodies of men versed  in  agriculture,  and  sent them  ahead  with  supporting  forces  to  select  suitable  sites  where

they  must  plough  and  sow,  then  reap  the  harvest.  If  the  grain  were carefully  stored  against the arrival of his troops, it would support them through the following year. Thanks to such good ta- suan, he carried the campaign to a successful issue.

The Chinese transport system across the Gobi has been built up on the principle of ta-suan, and in entire contrast  with  the  native  genius  of  the  reckless  Turki  driver.  The  distances  which  make a possible  stage  for  man  and beast  have  been  meticulously  calculated,  as  well  as  the equipment necessary to ensure reasonable ease on the journey. The Chinese understand the art of elimination and  how  not to  encumber  themselves  with  superfluous  impedimenta.  Before  leaving home  the Chinese carter has thought out where he can exchange his money to best advantage, what goods can be bought and sold most profitably in each place, and where money invested in an extra horse or  mule  will  bring  in  most  profit.  He  leaves  Central  China with large sleek mules for  which he himself has paid a good price, but which he sells to rich Tungans at Suchow at tremendous profit, and himself buys rough but desert-hardened beasts. For the return journey he will invest some of his depreciated paper taels in good Turkestan horses, which are very cheap in Dzungaria but fetch a big price in Central China.

By this means his round trip has brought in many advantages apart from the straightforward profit of  his  hire.  In  manipulating  each  exchange,  this seemingly  simple creature  shows  himself  to be actually a financier of no means order, and handles the complicated money market of Central Asia like on his hands, for he has always exchanged it in time for carefully selected goods, and if he has an  employer  he  will  stipulate  that  his  wages  be  paid  at the  place and  in  the coin  most to  his advantage.