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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13420 ***
+
+ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT
+
+_By_
+
+EDWIN JOHN DINGLE
+
+1911
+
+
+IN GRATEFUL ESTEEM
+
+DURING MY TRAVELS IN INTERIOR CHINA I ONCE
+LAY AT THE POINT OF DEATH. FOR THEIR UNREMITTING
+KINDNESS DURING A LONG ILLNESS, I
+NOW AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME TO
+MY FRIENDS, MR. AND MRS. A. EVANS, OF TONG-CH'UAN-FU,
+YÜN-NAN, SOUTH-WEST CHINA, TO
+WHOSE DEVOTED NURSING AND UNTIRING CARE
+I OWE MY LIFE.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I.
+
+FROM THE STRAITS TO SHANGHAI--INTRODUCTORY
+
+FIRST JOURNEY.
+
+    CHAPTER I.   FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG
+
+SECOND JOURNEY--ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES.
+
+    CHAPTER II.   THE ICHANG GORGE
+    CHAPTER III.  THE YANGTZE RAPIDS
+    CHAPTER IV.   THE YEH T'AN RAPID. ARRIVAL AT KWEIEU
+
+THIRD JOURNEY--CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW).
+
+    CHAPTER  V.   BEGINNING OF THE OVERLAND JOURNEY
+    CHAPTER  VI.  THE PEOPLE OF SZECH'WAN
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY--SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).
+
+    CHAPTER  VII.  DESCRIPTION OF JOURNEY FROM SUI-FU
+    CHAPTER  VIII. SZECH'WAN AND YÜN-NAN
+
+THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910.
+
+    CHAPTER  IX.
+
+THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST YÜN-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM.
+
+    CHAPTER  X.
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY--CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.
+
+    CHAPTER  XI.   AUTHOR MEETS WITH ACCIDENT
+    CHAPTER  XII.  YÜN-NAN'S CHECKERED CAREER. ILLNESS OF AUTHOR
+
+BOOK II.
+
+FIRST JOURNEY--TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL.
+
+    CHAPTER  XIII. DEPARTURE FOR BURMA.  DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL
+    CHAPTER  XIV.  YÜN-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL
+
+SECOND JOURNEY--YÜN-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU).
+
+    CHAPTER  XV.  DOES CHINA WANT THE FOREIGNER?
+    CHAPTER  XVI. LU-FENG-HSIEN. MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. CHINESE
+                    UNTRUTHFULNESS
+    CHAPTER  XVII. KWANG-TUNG-HSIEN TO SHACHIAO-KA
+    CHAPTER  XVIII. STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS. AT HUNGAY
+    CHAPTER  XIX. THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN YÜN-NAN. ARRIVAL AT
+                    TALI-FU
+
+THIRD JOURNEY--TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY.
+
+    CHAPTER  XX. HARDEST PART OF THE JOURNEY.HWAN-LIEN-P'U
+    CHAPTER  XXI. THE MOUNTAINS OF YÜN-NAN. SHAYUNG. OPIUM
+                    SMOKING
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY--THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH.
+
+    CHAPTER  XXII. THE RIVER MEKONG
+    CHAPTER  XXIII. THROUGH THE SALWEN VALLEY TO TENGYUEH
+    CHAPTER  XXIV. THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY--TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA.
+
+    CHAPTER  XXV. SHANS AND KACHINS
+    CHAPTER  XXVI. END OF LONG JOURNEY. ARRIVAL IN BURMA
+
+
+
+_To travel in China is easy. To walk across China, over roads
+acknowledgedly worse than are met with in any civilized country in the
+two hemispheres, and having accommodation unequalled for crudeness and
+insanitation, is not easy. In deciding to travel in China, I determined
+to cross overland from the head of the Yangtze Gorges to British Burma
+on foot; and, although the strain nearly cost me my life, no conveyance
+was used in any part of my journey other than at two points described in
+the course of the narrative. For several days during my travels I lay at
+the point of death. The arduousness of constant mountaineering_--_for
+such is ordinary travel in most parts of Western China_--_laid the
+foundation of a long illness, rendering it impossible for me to continue
+my walking, and as a consequence I resided in the interior of China
+during a period of convalescence of several months duration, at the end
+of which I continued my cross-country tramp. Subsequently I returned
+into Yün-nan from Burma, lived again in Tong-ch'uan-fu and
+Chao-t'ong-fu, and traveled in the wilds of the surrounding country.
+Whilst traveling I lived on Chinese food, and in the Miao country, where
+rice could not be got, subsisted for many days on maize only.
+
+My sole object in going to China was a personal desire to see China from
+the inside. My trip was undertaken for no other purpose. I carried no
+instruments (with the exception of an aneroid), and did not even make a
+single survey of the untrodden country through which I occasionally
+passed. So far as I know, I am the only traveler, apart from members of
+the missionary community, who has ever resided far away in the interior
+of the Celestial Empire for so long a time.
+
+Most of the manuscript for this book was written as I went along>--a
+good deal of it actually by the roadside in rural China. When my journey
+was completed, the following news paragraph in the North China Daily
+News (of Shanghai) was brought to my notice:--
+
+     "All the Legations (at Peking) have received anonymous letters from
+     alleged revolutionaries in Shanghai, containing the warning that an
+     extensive anti-dynastic uprising is imminent. If they do not assist
+     the Manchus, foreigners will not be harmed; otherwise, they will be
+     destroyed in a general massacre.
+
+     "The missives were delivered mysteriously, bearing obliterated
+     postmarks.
+
+     "In view of the recent similar warnings received by the Consuls,
+     uneasiness has been created."
+
+The above appeared in the journal quoted on June 3rd, 1910. The reader,
+in perusing my previously written remarks on the spirit of reform and
+how far it has penetrated into the innermost corners of the empire,
+should bear this paragraph in mind, for there is more Boxerism and
+unrest in China than we know of. My account of the Hankow riots of
+January, 1911, through which I myself went, will, with my experience of
+rebellions in Yün-nan, justify my assertion.
+
+I should like to thank all those missionaries who entertained me as I
+proceeded through China, especially Mr. John Graham and Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, of the China Inland Mission, who transacted a good deal of
+business for me and took all trouble uncomplainingly. I am also indebted
+to Dr. Clark, of Tali-fu, and to the Revs. H. Parsons and S. Pollard,
+for several photographs illustrating that section of this book dealing
+with the tribes of Yün-nan.
+
+I wish to express my acknowledgments to several well-known writers on
+far Eastern topics, notably to Dr. G.E. Morrison, of Peking, the Rev.
+Sidney L. Hulick, M.A., D.D., and Mr. H.B. Morse, whose works are
+quoted. Much information was also gleaned from other sources.
+
+My thanks are due also to Mr. W. Brayton Slater and to my brother, Mr.
+W.R. Dingle, for their kindness in having negotiated with my publishers
+in my absence in Inland China; and to the latter, for unfailing courtesy
+and patience, I am under considerable obligation. "Across China on Foot"
+would have appeared in the autumn of 1910 had the printers' proofs,
+which were several times sent to me to different addresses in China, but
+which dodged me repeatedly, come sooner to hand_.
+
+[Signature: Edwin Dingle]
+
+HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.
+
+
+
+
+Across China on Foot
+
+_From the Straits to Shanghai_
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+_The scheme_. _Why I am walking across Interior China_. _Leaving
+Singapore_. _Ignorance of life and travel in China_. _The "China for the
+Chinese" cry_. _The New China and the determination of the Government_.
+_The voice of the people_. _The province of Yün-nan and the forward
+movement_. _A prophecy_. _Impressions of Saigon_. _Comparison of French
+and English methods_. _At Hong-Kong_. _Cold sail up the Whang-poo_.
+_Disembarkation_. _Foreign population of Shanghai_. _Congestion in the
+city_. _Wonderful Shanghai._
+
+
+Through China from end to end. From Shanghai, 1,500 miles by river and
+1,600 miles walking overland, from the greatest port of the Chinese
+Empire to the frontier of British Burma.
+
+That is my scheme.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am a journalist, one of the army of the hard-worked who go down early
+to the Valley. I state this because I would that the truth be told; for
+whilst engaged in the project with which this book has mainly to deal I
+was subjected to peculiar designations, such as "explorer" and other
+newspaper extravagances, and it were well, perhaps, for my reader to
+know once for all that the writer is merely a newspaper man, at the time
+on holiday.
+
+The rather extreme idea of walking across this Flowery Land came to me
+early in the year 1909, although for many years I had cherished the hope
+of seeing Interior China ere modernity had robbed her and her wonderful
+people of their isolation and antediluvianism, and ever since childhood
+my interest in China has always been considerable. A little prior to the
+Chinese New Year, a friend of mine dined with me at my rooms in
+Singapore, in the Straits Settlements, and the conversation about China
+resulted in our decision then and there to travel through the Empire on
+holiday. He, because at the time he had little else to do; the author,
+because he thought that a few months' travel in mid-China would, from a
+journalistic standpoint, be passed profitably, the intention being to
+arrive home in dear old England late in the summer of the same year.
+
+We agreed to cross China on foot, and accordingly on February 22, 1909,
+just as the sun was sinking over the beautiful harbor of Singapore--that
+most valuable strategic Gate of the Far East, where Crown Colonial
+administration, however, is allowed by a lethargic British Government to
+become more and more bungled every year--we settled down on board the
+French mail steamer _Nera_, bound for Shanghai. My friends, good
+fellows, in reluctantly speeding me on my way, prophesied that this
+would prove to be my last long voyage to a last long rest, that the
+Chinese would never allow me to come out of China alive. Such is the
+ignorance of the average man concerning the conditions of life and
+travel in the interior of this Land of Night.
+
+Here, then, was I on my way to that land towards which all the world was
+straining its eyes, whose nation, above all nations of the earth, was
+altering for better things, and coming out of its historic shell.
+"Reform, reform, reform," was the echo, and I myself was on the way to
+hear it.
+
+At the time I started for China the cry of "China for the Chinese" was
+heard in all countries, among all peoples. Statesmen were startled by
+it, editors wrote the phrase to death, magazines were filled with
+copy--good, bad and indifferent--mostly written, be it said, by men
+whose knowledge of the question was by no means complete: editorial
+opinion, and contradiction of that opinion, were printed side by side in
+journals having a good name. To one who endeavored actually to
+understand what was being done, and whither these broad tendencies and
+strange cravings of the Chinese were leading a people who formerly were
+so indifferent to progress, it seemed essential that he should go to the
+country, and there on the spot make a study of the problem.
+
+Was the reform, if genuine at all, universal in China? Did it reach to
+the ends of the Empire?
+
+That a New China had come into being, and was working astounding results
+in the enlightened provinces above the Yangtze and those connected with
+the capital by railway, was common knowledge; but one found it hard to
+believe that the west and the south-west of the empire were moved by the
+same spirit of Europeanism, and it will be seen that China in the west
+moves, if at all, but at a snail's pace: the second part of this volume
+deals with that portion of the subject.
+
+And it may be that the New China, as we know it in the more forward
+spheres of activity, will only take her proper place in the family of
+nations after fresh upheavals. Rivers of blood may yet have to flow as a
+sickening libation to the gods who have guided the nation for forty
+centuries before she will be able to attain her ambition of standing
+line to line with the other powers of the eastern and western worlds.
+But it seems that no matter what the cost, no matter what she may have
+to suffer financially and nationally, no matter how great the obstinacy
+of the people towards the reform movement, the change is coming, has
+already come with alarming rapidity, and has come to stay. China is
+changing--let so much be granted; and although the movement may be
+hampered by a thousand general difficulties, presented by the ancient
+civilization of a people whose customs and manners and ideas have stood
+the test of time since the days contemporary with those of Solomon, and
+at one time bade fair to test eternity, the Government cry of "China for
+the Chinese" is going to win. Chinese civilization has for ages been
+allowed to get into a very bad state of repair, and official corruption
+and deceit have prevented the Government from making an effectual move
+towards present-day aims; but that she is now making an honest endeavor
+to rectify her faults in the face of tremendous odds must, so it appears
+to the writer, be apparent to all beholders. That is the Government
+view-point. It is important to note this.
+
+In China, however, the Government is not the people. It never has been.
+It is not to be expected that great political and social reforms can be
+introduced into such an enormous country as China, and among her four
+hundred and thirty millions of people, merely by the issue of a few
+imperial edicts. The masses have to be convinced that any given thing is
+for the public good before they accept, despite the proclamations, and
+in thus convincing her own people China has yet to go through the fire
+of a terrible ordeal. Especially will this be seen in the second part of
+this volume, where in Yün-nan there are huge areas absolutely untouched
+by the forward movement, and where the people are living the same life
+of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral
+degradation as they lived when the Westerner remained still in the
+primeval forest stage. But despite the scepticism and the cynicism of
+certain writers, whose pessimism is due to a lack of foresight, and
+despite the fact that she is being constantly accused of having in the
+past ignominiously failed at the crucial moment in endeavors towards
+minor reforms, I am one of those who believe that in China we shall see
+arising a Government whose power will be paramount in the East, and upon
+the integrity of whose people will depend the peace of Europe. It is
+much to say. We shall not see it, but our children will. The Government
+is going to conquer the people. She has done so already in certain
+provinces, and in a few years the reform--deep and real, not the
+make-believe we see in many parts of the Empire to-day--will be
+universal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between Singapore and Shanghai the opportunity occurred of calling at
+Saigon and Hong-Kong, two cities offering instructive contrasts of
+French and British administration in the Far East.
+
+Saigon is not troubled much by the Britisher. The nationally-exacting
+Frenchman has brought it to represent fairly his loved Paris in the
+East. The approach to the city, through the dirty brown mud of the
+treacherous Mekong, which is swept down vigorously to the China sea
+between stretches of monotonous mangrove, with no habitation of man
+anywhere visible, is distinctly unpicturesque; but Saigon itself, apart
+from the exorbitance of the charges (especially so to the spendthrift
+Englishman), is worth the dreary journey of numberless twists and quick
+turns up-river, annoying to the most patient pilot.
+
+In the daytime, Saigon is as hot as that last bourne whither all
+evil-doers wander--Englishmen and dogs alone are seen abroad between
+nine and one. But in the soothing cool of the soft tropical evening,
+gay-lit boulevards, a magnificent State-subsidized opera-house, alfresco
+cafés where dawdle the domino-playing absinthe drinkers, the
+fierce-moustached gendarmes, and innumerable features typically and
+picturesquely French, induced me easily to believe myself back in the
+bewildering whirl of the Boulevard des Capucines or des Italiennes.
+Whether the narrow streets of the native city are clean or dirty,
+whether garbage heaps lie festering in the broiling sun, sending their
+disgusting effluvia out to annoy the sense of smell at every turn, the
+municipality cares not a little bit. Indifference to the well-being of
+the native pervades it; there is present no progressive prosperity.
+Every second person I met was, or seemed to be, a Government official.
+He was dressed in immaculate white clothes of the typical ugly French
+cut, trimmed elaborately with an _ad libitum_ decoration of gold braid
+and brass buttons. All was so different from Singapore and Hong-Kong,
+and one did not feel, in surroundings which made strongly for the
+_laissez-faire_ of the Frenchman in the East, ashamed of the fact that
+he was an Englishman.
+
+Three days north lies Hong-Kong, an all-important link in the armed
+chain of Britain's empire east of Suez, bone of the bone and flesh of
+the flesh of Great Britain beyond the seas. The history of this island,
+ceded to us in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, is known to everyone in
+Europe, or should be.
+
+Four and a half days more, and we anchored at Woo-sung; and a few hours
+later, after a terribly cold run up the river in the teeth of a terrific
+wind, we arrived at Shanghai.
+
+The average man in Europe and America does not know that this great
+metropolis of the Far East is far removed from salt water, and that it
+is the first point on entering the Yangtze-kiang at which a port could
+be established. It is twelve miles up the Whang-poo. Junks whirled past
+with curious tattered brown sails, resembling dilapidated verandah
+blinds, merchantmen were there flying the flags of the nations of the
+world, all churning up the yellow stream as they hurried to catch the
+flood-tide at the bar. Then came the din of disembarkation. Enthusiastic
+hotel-runners, hard-worked coolies, rickshaw men, professional Chinese
+beggars, and the inevitable hangers-on of a large eastern city crowded
+around me to turn an honest or dishonest penny. Some rude, rough-hewn
+lout, covered with grease and coal-dust, pushed bang against me and
+hurled me without ceremony from his path. My baggage, meantime, was
+thrown onto a two-wheeled van, drawn by four of those poor human beasts
+of burden--how horrible to have been born a Chinese coolie!--and I was
+whirled away to my hotel for tucker. The French mail had given us coffee
+and rolls at six, but the excitement of landing at a foreign port does
+not usually produce the net amount of satisfaction to or make for the
+sustenance of the inner man of the phlegmatic Englishman, as with the
+wilder-natured Frenchman. Therefore were our spirits ruffled.
+
+However, my companion and I fed later.
+
+Subsequently to this we agreed not to be drawn to the clubs or mix in
+the social life of Shanghai, but to consider ourselves as two beings
+entirely apart from the sixteen thousand and twenty-three Britishers,
+Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Danes, Portuguese, and other
+sundry internationals at that moment at Shanghai. They lived there: we
+were soon to leave.
+
+The city was suffering from the abnormal congestion common to the
+Orient, with a big dash of the West. Trams, motors, rickshaws, the
+peculiar Chinese wheelbarrow, horrid public shaky landaus in miniature,
+conveyances of all kinds, and the swarming masses of coolie humanity
+carrying or hauling merchandise amid incessant jabbering, yelling, and
+vociferating, made intense bewilderment before breakfast.
+
+Wonderful Shanghai!
+
+
+
+
+FIRST JOURNEY
+
+FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_To Ichang, an everyday trip_. _Start from Shanghai, and the city's
+appearance_. _At Hankow_. _Meaning of the name_. _Trio of strategic and
+military points of the empire_. _Han-yang and Wu-ch'ang_. _Commercial and
+industrial future of Hankow_. _Getting our passports_. _Britishers in the
+city_. _The commercial Chinaman_. _The native city: some impressions_.
+_Clothing of the people_. _Cotton and wool_. _Indifference to comfort_.
+_Surprise at our daring project_. _At Ichang_. _British gunboat and early
+morning routine_. _Our vain quest for aid_. _Laying in stores and
+commissioning our boat_. _Ceremonies at starting gorges trip_. _Raising
+anchor, and our departure_.
+
+
+Let no one who has been so far as Ichang, a thousand miles from the sea,
+imagine that he has been into the interior of China.
+
+It is quite an everyday trip. Modern steamers, with every modern
+convenience and luxury, probably as comfortable as any river steamers in
+the world, ply regularly in their two services between Shanghai and this
+port, at the foot of the Gorges.
+
+The Whang-poo looked like the Thames, and the Shanghai Bund like the
+Embankment, when I embarked on board a Jap boat _en route_ for Hankow,
+and thence to Ichang by a smaller steamer, on a dark, bitterly cold
+Saturday night, March 6th, 1909. I was to travel fifteen hundred miles
+up that greatest artery of China. The Yangtze surpasses in importance to
+the Celestial Empire what the Mississippi is to America, and yet even
+in China there are thousands of resident foreigners who know no more
+about this great river than the average Smithfield butcher. Ask ten men
+in Fleet Street or in Wall Street where Ichang is, and nine will be
+unable to tell you. Yet it is a port of great importance, when one
+considers that the handling of China's vast river-borne trade has been
+opened to foreign trade and residence since the Chefoo Convention was
+signed in 1876, that Ichang is a city of forty thousand souls, and has a
+gross total of imports of nearly forty millions of taels.
+
+Of Hankow, however, more is known. Here we landed after a four days'
+run, and, owing to the low water, had to wait five days before the
+shallower-bottomed steamer for the higher journey had come in. The city
+is made up of foreign concessions, as in other treaty ports, but away in
+the native quarter there is the real China, with her selfish rush, her
+squalidness and filth among the teeming thousands. There dwell together,
+literally side by side, but yet eternally apart, all the conflicting
+elements of the East and West which go to make up a city in the Far
+East, and particularly the China coast.
+
+Hankow means literally Han Mouth, being situated at the juncture of the
+Han River and the Yangtze. Across the way, as I write, I can see
+Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where
+the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. (This is but a
+fraction of the total work done.) It is, I believe, the only
+steel-rolling mill in China. Long before the foreigner set foot so far
+up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance--the Chinese used
+to call it the centre of the world. Ten years ago I should have been
+thirty days' hard travel from Peking; at the present moment I might
+pack my bag and be in Peking within thirty-six hours. Hankow, with
+Tientsin and Nanking, makes up the trio of principal strategic points of
+the Empire, the trio of centers also of greatest military activity. On
+the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial
+capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and
+important provinces of the whole eighteen.
+
+Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two
+million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the
+whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.
+
+Here we registered as British subjects, and secured our Chinese
+passports, resembling naval ensigns more than anything else, for the
+four provinces of Hu-peh, Kwei-chow, Szech'wan, and Yün-nan. The
+Consul-General and his assistants helped us in many ways, disillusioning
+us of the many distorted reports which have got into print regarding the
+indifference shown to British travelers by their own consuls at these
+ports. We found the brethren at the Hankow Club a happy band, with every
+luxury around them for which hand and heart could wish; so that it were
+perhaps ludicrous to look upon them as exiles, men out in the outposts
+of Britain beyond the seas, building up the trade of the Empire. Yet
+such they undoubtedly were, most of them having a much better time than
+they would at home. There is not the roughing required in Hankow which
+is necessary in other parts of the empire, as in British East Africa and
+in the jungles of the Federated Malay States, for instance. Building the
+Empire where there is an abundance of the straw wherewith to make the
+bricks, is a matter of no difficulty.
+
+And then the Chinese is a good man to manage in trade, and in business
+dealings his word is his bond, generally speaking, although we do not
+forget that not long ago a branch in North China of the Hong-kong and
+Shanghai Bank was swindled seriously by a shroff who had done honest
+duty for a great number of years. It cannot, however, be said that such
+behavior is a common thing among the commercial class. My personal
+experience has been that John does what he says he will do, and for
+years he will go on doing that one thing; but it should not surprise you
+if one fine morning, with the infinite sagacity of his race, he ceases
+to do this when you are least expecting it--and he "does" you. Keep an
+eye on him, and the Chinese to be found in Hankow having dealings with
+Europeans in business is as good as the best of men.
+
+We wended our way one morning into the native city, and agreed that few
+inconveniences of the Celestial Empire make upon the western mind a more
+speedy impression than the entire absence of sanitation. In Hankow we
+were in mental suspense as to which was the filthier native city--Hankow
+or Shanghai. But we are probably like other travelers, who find each
+city visited worse than the last. Should there arise in their midst a
+man anxious to confer an everlasting blessing upon his fellow Chinese,
+no better work could he do than to institute a system approaching what
+to our Western mind is sanitation. We arrived, of course, in the winter,
+and, having seen it at a time when the sun could do but little in
+increasing the stenches, we leave to the imagination what it would be in
+the summer, in a city which for heat is not excelled by Aden.[A] During
+the summer of 1908 no less than twenty-eight foreigners succumbed to
+cholera, and the native deaths were numberless.
+
+The people were suffering very much from the cold, and it struck me as
+one of the unaccountable phenomena of their civilization that in their
+ingenuity in using the gifts of Nature they have never learned to weave
+wool, and to employ it in clothing--that is, in a general sense. There
+are a few exceptions in the empire. The nation is almost entirely
+dependent upon cotton for clothing, which in winter is padded with a
+cheap wadding to an abnormal thickness. The common people wear no
+underclothing whatever. When they sleep they strip to the skin, and wrap
+themselves in a single wadded blanket, sleeping the sleep of the tired
+people their excessive labor makes them. And, although their clothes
+might be the height of discomfort, they show their famous indifference
+to comfort by never complaining. These burdensome clothes hang around
+them like so many bags, with the wide gaps here and there where the wind
+whistles to the flesh. It is a national characteristic that they are
+immune to personal inconveniences, a philosophy which I found to be
+universal, from the highest to the lowest.
+
+Everybody we met, from the British Consul-General downward, was
+surprised to know that my companion and I had no knowledge of the
+Chinese language, and seemed to look lightly upon our chances of ever
+getting through.
+
+It was true. Neither my companion nor myself knew three words of the
+language, but went forward simply believing in the good faith of the
+Chinese people, with our passports alone to protect us. That we should
+encounter difficulties innumerable, that we should be called upon to put
+up with the greatest hardships of life, when viewed from the standard to
+which one had been accustomed, and that we should be put to great
+physical endurance, we could not doubt. But we believed in the Chinese,
+and believed that should any evil befall us it would be the outcome of
+our own lack of forbearance, or of our own direct seeking. We knew that
+to the Chinese we should at once be "foreign devils" and "barbarians,"
+that if not holding us actually in contempt, they would feel some
+condescension in dealing and mixing with us; but I was personally of the
+opinion that it was easier for us to walk through China than it would be
+for two Chinese, dressed as Chinese, to walk through Great Britain or
+America. What would the canny Highlander or the rural English rustic
+think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his countryside?
+
+We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a
+boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen
+in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat
+_Kinsha_ (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which
+English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way, and all
+looked rosy enough.[B] But for the author, who with his companion was a
+literal "babe in the wood," the day was most eventful and trying to
+one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and sundry
+respecting our proposed tramp and the way we should get to work in
+making preparations. Each individual person seemed vigorously to do his
+best to induce us to turn back and follow callings of respectable
+members of society. From Shanghai upwards we might have believed
+ourselves watched by a secret society, which had for its motto, "Return,
+oh, wanderer, return!" Hardly a person knew aught of the actual
+conditions of the interior of the country in which he lived and labored,
+and everyone tried to dissuade us from our project.
+
+Coming ashore in good spirits, we called at the Consulate, at the back
+of the city graveyard, and were smoking his cigars and giving his boy an
+examination in elementary English, when the Consul came down. It was not
+possible, however, for us to get much more information than we had read
+up, and the Consul suggested that the most likely person to be of use to
+us would be the missionary at the China Inland Mission. Thither we
+repaired, following a sturdy employé of Britain, but we found that the
+C.I.M. representative was not to be found--despite our repairing. So off
+we trotted to the chief business house of the town, at the entrance to
+which we were met by a Chinese, who bowed gravely, asked whether we had
+eaten our rice, and told us, quietly but pointedly, that our passing up
+the rough stone steps would be of no use, as the manager was out. A few
+minutes later I stood reading the inscription on the gravestone near the
+church, whilst my brave companion, The Other Man, endeavored fruitlessly
+to pacify a fierce dog in the doorway of the Scottish Society's
+missionary premises--but that missionary, too, was out!
+
+What, then, was the little game? Were all the foreigners resident in
+this town dodging us, afraid of us--or what?
+
+"The latter, the blithering idiots!" yelled The Other Man. He was
+infuriated. "Two Englishmen with English tongues in their heads, and
+unable to direct their own movements. Preposterous!" And then, making an
+observation which I will not print, he suggested mildly that we might
+fix up all matters ourselves.
+
+Within an hour an English-speaking "one piece cook" had secured the
+berth, which carried a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, we were
+well on the way with the engaging of our boat for the Gorges trip, and
+one by one our troubles vanished.
+
+Laying in stores, however, was not the lightest of sundry perplexities.
+Curry and rice had been suggested as the staple diet for the river
+journey; and we ordered, with no thought to the contrary, a picul of
+best rice, various brands of curries, which were raked from behind the
+shelves of a dingy little store in a back street, and presented to us
+at alarming prices--enough to last a regiment of soldiers for pretty
+well the number of days we two were to travel; and, for luxuries, we
+laid in a few tinned meats. All was practically settled, when The Other
+Man, settling his eyes dead upon me, yelled--
+
+"Dingle, you've forgotten the milk!" And then, after a moment, "Oh,
+well, we can surely do without milk; it's no use coming on a journey
+like this unless one can rough it a bit." And he ended up with a rude
+reference to the disgusting sticky condensed milk tins, and we wandered
+on.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, did The Other Man. He looked at a small stone on
+the pavement for a long time, eventually cruelly blurting out, directly
+at me, as if it were all my misdoing: "The sugar, the sugar! We _must_
+have sugar, man." I said nothing, with the exception of a slight remark
+that we might do without sugar, as we were to do without milk. There was
+a pause. Then, raising his stick in the air, The Other Man perorated:
+"Now, I have no wish to quarrel" (and he put his nose nearer to mine),
+"you know that, of course. But to _think_ we can do without sugar is
+quite unreasonable, and I had no idea you were such a cantankerous man.
+We have sugar, or--I go back."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had sugar. It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets
+of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with
+commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly
+dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar
+were ordered, and sugar--that dirty, brown sticky stuff--got into
+everything on board--my fingers are sticky even as I write--and no less
+than exactly one-half went down to the bottom of the Yangtze. Travelers
+by houseboat on the Upper Yangtze should have some knowledge of
+commissariat.
+
+Getting away was a tedious business.
+
+Later, the fellows pressed us to spend a good deal of time in the small,
+dingy, ill-lighted apartment they are pleased to call their club; and
+the skipper had to recommission his boat, get in provisions for the
+voyage, engage his crew, pay off debts, and attend to a thousand and one
+minute details--all to be done after the contract to carry the madcap
+passengers had been signed and sealed, added to the more practical
+triviality of three-fourths of the charge being paid down. And then our
+captain, to add to the dilemma, vociferously yelled to us, in some
+unknown jargon which got on our nerves terribly, that he was waiting for
+a "lucky" day to raise anchor.
+
+However, we did, as the reader will be able to imagine, eventually get
+away, amid the firing of countless deafening crackers, after having
+watched the sacrifice of a cock to the God of the River, with the
+invocation that we might be kept in safety. Poling and rowing through a
+maze of junks, our little floating caravan, with the two magnates on
+board, and their picul of rice, their curry and their sugar, and
+slenderest outfits, bowled along under plain sail, the fore-deck packed
+with a motley team of somewhat dirty and ill-fed trackers, who whistled
+and halloed the peculiar hallo of the Upper Yangtze for more wind.
+
+The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered
+speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world
+untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I
+revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with
+the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my
+impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more
+native life, and--more native dirt!--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote B: The _Kinsha_ was the first British gunboat on the Upper
+Yangtze.]
+
+
+
+
+SECOND JOURNEY
+
+ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING, THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Gloom in Ichang Gorge_. _Lightning's effect_. _Travellers' fear_.
+_Impressive introduction to the Gorges_. _Boat gets into Yangtze
+fashion_. _Storm and its weird effects_. _Wu-pan: what it is_. _Heavenly
+electricity and its vagaries_. _Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy
+rain_. _Bedding soaked_. _Sleep in a Burberry_. _Gorges and Niagara
+Falls compared_. _Bad descriptions of Yangtze_. _World of eternity_.
+_Man's significant insignificance_. _Life on board briefly described_.
+_Philosophy of travel_. _Houseboat life not luxurious_. _Lose our only
+wash-basin_. _Remarks on the "boy." A change in the kitchen:
+questionable soup_. _Fairly low temperature_. _Troubles in the larder_.
+_General arrangements on board_. _Crew's sleeping-place_. _Sacking makes
+a curtain_. _Journalistic labors not easy_. _Rats preponderate_. _Gorges
+described statistically_.
+
+
+Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
+slowly and impenetrably over all things.
+
+A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
+amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
+distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
+the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as
+black as ink.
+
+Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
+assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
+to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north
+against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
+seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting
+but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the
+sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then, suddenly,
+with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking the earth
+under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell--impenetrable,
+sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight.
+Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the
+reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men,
+aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with
+a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the
+darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge--a magnificent sixteen-mile
+stretch, opening up the famous gorges on the fourth of the great rivers
+of the world, which had cleaved its course through a chain of hills,
+whose perpendicular cliffs form wonderful rock-bound banks, dispelling
+all thought of the monotony of the Lower Yangtze.
+
+Upstream we had glided merrily upon a fresh breeze, which bore the
+warning of a storm. All on board was settling down into Yangtze fashion,
+and the barbaric human clamor of our trackers, which now mutteringly
+died away, was suddenly taken up, as above recorded, and all
+unexpectedly answered by a grander uproar--a deep threatening boom of
+far-off thunder. In circling tones and semitones of wrath it volleyed
+gradually through the dark ravines, and, startled by the sound, the two
+travelers, roused for the first time from their natural engrossment in
+the common doings of the _wu-pan_,[C] saw the reflection of the sun on
+the waters, now turned to a livid murkiness, deepening with a
+threatening ink-like aspect as the river rushed voluminously past our
+tiny floating haven. Strangely silenced were we by this weird terror,
+and watched and listened, chained to the deck by a thousand mingled
+fears and fascinations, which breathed upon our nerves like a chill
+wind. As we became accustomed then to the yellow darkness, we beheld
+about the landscape a spectral look, and the sepulchral sound of the
+moving thunder seemed the half-muffled clang of some great iron-tongued
+funeral bell. Then came the rain, introduced swiftly by the deafening
+clatter of another thunder crash that made one stagger like a ship in a
+wild sea, and we strained our eyes to gaze into a visionary chasm
+cleaved in twain by the furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the
+unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this
+singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it
+flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination
+quite indescribable.
+
+For hours we sat upon a beam athwart the afterdeck, in silence drinking
+in the strange phenomenon. We watched, after a small feed of curry and
+rice, long into the dark hours, when the thunder had passed us by, and
+in the distant booming one could now imagine the lower notes streaming
+forth from some great solemn organ symphony. The fierce lightning
+twitched, as it danced in and out the crevices--inwards, outwards,
+upwards, then finally lost in one downward swoop towards the river,
+tearing open the liquid blackness with its crystal blade of fire. The
+rain ceased not. But soon the moon, peeping out from the tops of a
+jagged wall above us, looking like a soiled, half-melted snowball, shone
+full down the far-stretching gorge, and now its broad lustre shed
+itself, like powdered silver, over the whole scene, so that one could
+have imagined oneself in the living splendor of some eternal sphere of
+ethereal sweetness. And so it might have been had the rain abated--a
+curious accompaniment to a moonlight night. Down it came, straight and
+determined and businesslike, in the windless silence, dancing like a
+shower of diamonds of purest brilliance on the background of the placid
+waters.
+
+Very beautiful, reader, for a time. But would that the rain had been all
+moonshine!
+
+Glorious was it to revel in for a time. But, during the weary night
+watches, in a bed long since soaked through, and one's safest
+nightclothes now the stolid Burberry, with face protected by a
+twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with
+the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and
+uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the
+worn-out bamboo matting--ah, it was then, _then_ that one would have
+foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic life of the _wu-pan_.
+
+Our introduction, therefore, to the great Gorges of the Upper
+Yangtze--to China what the Niagara Falls are to America--was not
+remarkable for its placidity, albeit taken with as much complacency as
+the occasion allowed.
+
+I do not, however, intend to weary or to entertain the reader, as may
+be, by a long description of the Yangtze gorges. Time and time again
+have they fallen to the imaginative pens of travelers--mostly bad or
+indifferent descriptions, few good; none better, perhaps, than Mrs.
+Bishop's. But at best they are imaginative--they lack reality. It has
+been said that the world of imagination is the world of eternity, and as
+of eternity, so of the Gorges--they cannot be adequately described. As I
+write now in the Ichang Gorge, I seem veritably to have reached
+eternity. I seem to have arrived at the bosom of an after-life, where
+one's body has ceased to vegetate, and where, in an infinite and eternal
+world of imagination, one's soul expands with fullest freedom. There
+seems to exist in this eternal world of unending rock and invulnerable
+precipice permanent realities which stand from eternity to eternity. As
+the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies,
+so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go
+on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his
+imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as
+a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the
+gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's
+significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous
+grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world--a spot in which
+blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility
+and patience are the first requisites in traveling on the Upper Yangtze.
+
+Reader, for your sake I refrain from a description. But may I, for
+perhaps your sake too, if you would wander hither ere the charm of
+things as they were in the beginning is still unrobbed and unmolested,
+give you some few impressions of a little of the life--grave, gay, but
+never unhappy--which I spent with my excellent co-voyager, The Other
+Man.
+
+It is a part of wisdom, when starting any journey, not to look forward
+to the end with too much eagerness: hear my gentle whisper that you may
+never get there, and if you do, congratulate yourself; interest yourself
+in the progress of the journey, for the present only is yours. Each day
+has its tasks, its rapids, its perils, its glories, its fascinations,
+its surprises, and--if you will live as we did, its _curry and rice_.
+Then, if you are traveling with a companion, remember that it is better
+to yield a little than to quarrel a great deal. Most disagreeable and
+undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what
+people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than
+on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life
+is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking
+it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace,
+if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to
+incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning to
+the end of the trip, make the best of everything in every way, and I can
+assure you, if you are not ill-tempered and suffer not from your liver,
+Nature will open her bosom and lead you by these strange by-ways into
+her hidden charms and unadorned recesses of sublime beauty, uneclipsed
+for their kind anywhere in the world.
+
+Think not that the life will be luxurious--houseboat life on the Upper
+Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of
+the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact,
+the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our _wu-pan_ was to get through the Gorges in as short a time as was
+possible, and for that reason we traveled in the discomfort of the
+smallest boat used to face the rapids.
+
+People entertaining the smallest idea of doing things travel in nothing
+short of a _kwadze_, the orthodox houseboat, with several rooms and
+ordinary conveniences. Ours was a _wu-pan_--literally five boards. We
+had no conveniences whatever, and the second morning out we were left
+without even a wash-basin. As I was standing in the stern, I saw it
+swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the
+perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us
+how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the
+crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped
+by the river--and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead.
+The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated
+something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh
+and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a
+combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the
+morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the
+typewriter.
+
+Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty
+well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He
+dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no
+ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other
+Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally
+concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and
+at once christened it as "consommé à la maotsi"--and we can recommend
+it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we
+asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a
+rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His
+face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking
+curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning--the temperature
+below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!
+
+"God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name
+of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you
+come for?"
+
+"Alas!" he shouted, for we were at a rapid, "my savee makee good chow.
+No have got nothing!"
+
+"No have got nothing! No have got nothing!" Mysterious words, what could
+they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our
+sugar?
+
+"The fellow's a swindler!" cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But
+that's all very well. "No have got nothing!" Ah, there lay the secret.
+Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again
+with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were
+powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were
+victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice
+towards him personally--but ... _could he do it?_ Either a great wrath
+or a great sorrow overcame the boy; he skulked past, asked us to lie
+down on our shelves, where we had our beds, to give him room, and then
+set to work.
+
+In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal (all out of the same
+pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In
+parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with
+them about seven-eighths of the picul--and were not at all regretful.
+
+I should not like to assert--because I am telling the truth here--that
+our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was
+some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew
+eight inches of water. Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our
+dressing-rooms, our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional
+medicine-room, our cooking-room--and all else. If we stood bolt upright
+in the saloon amidships we bumped our heads on the bamboo matting which
+formed an arched roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men--you may
+question it, reader, but they did; in the stern, on either side of a
+great rudder, slept our boy and a friend of his; and between them and
+us, laid out flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship's cook for
+the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables, and the
+breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm all around one) were the
+captain and commodore--a fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature,
+strenuous at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain--a piece of
+sacking, but one would not wish this to be known--dividing them from us,
+we could see him preparing his globules to smoke before turning in for
+the night, and despite our frequent raving objections, our words ringing
+with vibrating abuse, it continued all the way to Chung-king: he
+certainly gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get him to say
+anything bearing upon the matter. Temperature during the day stood at
+about 50 degrees, and at night went down to about 30 degrees above
+freezing point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic labors, seated upon
+the upturned saucepan aforesaid, without a cushion, went hard. At night
+the Chinese candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center of an
+empty "Three Castles" tin, which the boy had used for some days as a
+pudding dish, gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats, and as
+many others as we happened to have. Rats crawled over our uncurtained
+bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears
+or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to
+us--they were made on board.
+
+The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be
+passed through before one reaches Kweifu:--
+
+    NAME OF GORGE          LENGTH             REMARKS
+
+    Ichang Gorge           16 miles      First and probably one
+                                         of the finest of the
+                                         Gorges.
+
+    Niu Kan Ma Fee         4 miles       An hour's journey after
+      (or Ox Liver                       coming out of the
+      Gorge)                             Ichang Gorge, if the
+                                         breeze be favorable;
+                                         an arduous day's
+                                         journey during high
+                                         river, with no wind.
+
+    Mi Tsang (or Rice      2 miles       Finest view is obtained
+      Granary Gorge)                     from western extremity;
+                                         exceedingly
+                                         precipitous.
+
+    Niu Kou (or Buffalo      ---         Very quiet in low-water
+      Mouth Reach)                       season; wild stretch
+                                         during high river.
+                                         At the head of this
+                                         reach H.M.S.
+                                         _Woodlark_ came to
+                                         grief on her maiden
+                                         trip.
+
+    Urishan Hsia (or         ---         Over thirty miles in
+    Gloomy Mountain                      length. Grandest
+    Gorge)                               and highest gorge
+                                         _en route to_ Chung-king.
+                                         Half-way
+                                         through is the
+                                         boundary between
+                                         Hu-peh and Szech'wan.
+
+    Fang Hsian Hsia          ---         Last of the gorges;
+    (or Windbox Gorge)                   just beyond is the
+                                         city of Kweifu.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote C: A _wu-pan_ (literally _wu_ of five and _pan_ of boards) is
+a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They
+are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the
+river on which they ply.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE YANGTZE RAPIDS
+
+
+The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated
+on the river upward from Ichang. One of the chief discomforts the
+traveler first experiences is due to a total ignorance of the vicinity
+of the main rapids, and often, therefore, when he is least expecting it
+perhaps, he is called upon by the _laoban_ to go ashore. He has then to
+pack up the things he values, is dragged ashore himself, his gear
+follows, and one who has no knowledge of the language and does not know
+the ropes is, therefore, never quite happy for fear of some rapid
+turning up. By comparing the rapids with the Gorges the traveler would,
+however, from the lists given, be able easily to trace the whereabouts
+of the more dangerous rushes; which are distributed with alarming
+frequency on the river between Ichang and Kweifu.
+
+
+TA TONG T'AN (OTTER CAVE RAPID)
+
+Low water rapid. Swirling volume of coffee and milk color; round about a
+maze of rapids and races, in the Yao-cha Ho reach.
+
+
+TONG LING RAPID
+
+At the foot of the Ox Liver Gorge. An enormous black rock lies amid
+stream some forty feet below, or perhaps as much above the surface, but
+unless experienced at low water will not appeal to the traveler as a
+rapid; passage dangerous, dreaded during low-water season. On Dec. 28th,
+1900, the German steamer, _Sui-Hsiang_ was lost here. She foundered in
+twenty-five fathoms of water, with an immense hole ripped in her bottom
+by the black rock; all on board saved by the red boats, with the
+exception of the captain.
+
+
+HSIN T'AN RAPIDS (OR CHIN T'AN RAPIDS)
+
+During winter quite formidable; the head, second and third rapids
+situated in close proximity, the head rapid being far the worst to
+negotiate. On a bright winter's day one of the finest spectacles on the
+Upper Yangtze. Wrecks frequent. Just at head of Ox Liver Gorge.
+
+
+YEH T'AN (OR WILD RAPID)
+
+River reduced suddenly to half its width by an enormous detritus of
+boulders, taking the form of a huge jagged tongue, with curling on
+edges; commonly said to be high when the Hsin T'an is low. At its worst
+during early summer and autumn. Wrecks frequent, after Mi Tsang Gorge is
+passed, eight miles from Kwei-chow.
+
+
+NIU K'EO T'AN (BUFFALO MOUTH RAPID)
+
+Situated at the head of Buffalo Mouth Reach, said to be more difficult
+to approach than even the Yeh T'an, because of the great swirls in the
+bay below. H.M.S. _Woodlark_ came to grief here on her maiden trip up
+river.
+
+
+HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)
+
+Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge,
+particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906,
+the French gunboat _Olry_ came within an ace of destruction by losing
+her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong
+for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working
+astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the
+way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back
+undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to
+and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management
+she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually
+brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden
+jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her
+destination.
+
+
+HEH SHÏH T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)
+
+Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.
+
+
+HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)
+
+Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon
+Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low
+river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as
+1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its
+breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced
+this roaring rapid.
+
+This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky
+bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped,
+tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift
+back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at
+its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly
+with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely
+disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and
+March, when it certainly merits the appellation of "Glorious Dragon
+Rapid," presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome
+one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A
+hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children,
+are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din
+of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat
+is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Chinese myths, the
+landslip which produced the rapid was caused by the following
+circumstance. The ova of a dragon being deposited in the bowels of the
+earth at this particular spot, in due course became hatched out in some
+mysterious manner. The baby dragon grew and grew, but remained in a
+dormant state until quite full grown, when, as is the habit of the
+dragon, it became active, and at the first awakening shook down the
+hill-side by a mighty effort, freed himself from the bowels of the
+earth, and made his way down river to the sea; hence the landslip, the
+rapid, and its name.
+
+
+FUH T'AN RAPID (OR TIGER RAPID)
+
+Eight miles beyond Wan Hsien. Very savage during summer months, but does
+not exist during low-water season. Beyond this point river widens
+considerably. Twenty-five miles further on travelers should look out for
+Shïh Pao Chai, or Precious Stone Castle, a remarkable cliff some 250 or
+300 feet high. A curious eleven-storied pavilion, built up the face of
+the cliff, contains the stairway to the summit, on which stands a
+Buddhist temple. There is a legend attached to this remarkable rock that
+savors very much of the goose with the golden eggs.
+
+Once upon a time, from a small natural aperture near the summit, a
+supply of rice sufficient for the needs of the priests flowed daily into
+a basin-shaped hole, just large enough to hold the day's supply.
+
+The priests, however, thinking to get a larger daily supply, chiselled
+out the basin-shaped hole to twice its original size, since when the
+flow of rice ceased.
+
+
+KWAN ÏN T'AN (OR GODDESS OF MERCY RAPID)
+
+Two miles beyond the town of Feng T'ou. Like the Fuh T'an, is an
+obstacle to navigation only during the summer months, when junks are
+often obliged to wait for several days for a favorable opportunity to
+cross the rapid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Scene at the Rapid_. _Dangers of the Yeh T'an_. _Gear taken ashore_.
+_Intense cold_. _Further preparation_. _Engaging the trackers_. _Fever
+of excitement_. _Her nose is put to it_. _Struggles for mastery_.
+_Author saves boatman_. _Fifteen-knot current_. _Terrific labor on
+shore_. _Man nearly falls overboard_. _Straining hawsers carry us over
+safely_. _The merriment among the men_. _The thundering cataract_.
+_Trackers' chanting_. _Their life_. _"Pioneer" at the Yeh T'an_. _The
+Buffalo Mouth Reach_. _Story of the "Woodlark."_ _How she was saved_.
+_Arrival at Kweifu_. _Difficulty in landing_. _Laying in provisions_.
+_Author laid up with malaria_. _Survey of trade in Shanghai and
+Hong-Kong_. _Where and why the Britisher fails_. _Comparison with
+Germans_. _Three western provinces and pack-horse traffic_. _Advantages
+of new railway_. _Yangtze likely to be abandoned_. _East India Company.
+French and British interests_. _Hint to Hong-Kong Chamber of Commerce._
+
+
+Wild shrieking, frantic yelling, exhausted groaning, confusion and
+clamor,--one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of
+reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and
+distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the
+scrunching, the straining, and then--a final snap! Back we go, sheering
+helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters,
+and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us
+anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the
+rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of
+gratitude to the deity of the river.
+
+We were at the Yeh T'an, or the Wild Rapid, some distance on from the
+Ichang Gorge, were almost over the growling monster, when the tow-line,
+straining to its utmost limit, snapped suddenly with little warning, and
+we drifted in a moment or two away down to last night's anchorage, far
+below, where we were obliged to bring up the last of the long tier of
+boats of which we were this morning the first.
+
+And now we are ready again to take our turn.
+
+Our gear is all taken ashore. Seated on a stone on shore, watching
+operations, is The Other Man. The sun vainly tries to get through, and
+the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time.
+The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out,
+their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to
+the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the
+'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to
+feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way,
+is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring
+towards the boat, in a fever of excitement that rises higher every
+moment, the natural elements of hunger and constant struggle against the
+great river swell their fury; they bellow like wild beasts, _they are
+like beasts_, for they have known nothing but struggle all their lives;
+they have always, since they were tiny children, been fighting this
+roaring water monster--they know none else. And now, as I say, they
+bellow like beasts, each man ravenously eager to be among the number
+chosen to earn a few cash.[D] The arrangement at last is made, and the
+discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening.
+It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then
+harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with
+which they connect themselves to the straining tow-lines.
+
+And now her nose is put into the teeth of this trough of treachery--a
+veritable boiling cauldron, stirring up all past mysteries. Waves rush
+furiously towards us, with the growl of a thousand demons, whose anger
+is only swelled by the thousands of miles of her course from far-away
+Tibet. It seems as if they must instantly devour her, and that we must
+now go under to swell the number of their victims. But they only beat
+her back, for she rides gracefully, faltering timidly with frightened
+creaks and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with
+their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very
+death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic
+bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty
+is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his
+single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky
+little laugh and asks if he has hurt me--yelling through his hands in my
+ears, for the noise is terrible. To look out over the side makes me
+giddy, for the fifteen-knot current, blustering and bubbling and foaming
+and leaping, gives one the feeling that he is in an express train
+tearing through the sea. On shore, far ahead, I can see the
+trackers--struggling forms of men and women, touching each other,
+grasping each other, wrestling furiously and mightily, straining on all
+fours, now gripping a boulder to aid them forward, now to the right, now
+to the left, always fighting for one more inch, and engaged in a task
+which to one seeing it for the first time looks as if it were quite
+beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers,
+whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the
+average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb
+frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on
+the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch
+by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead
+against the leaping current in the gapway in the reef.
+
+None come to offer assistance to our crowd, who are now turned facing
+us, and strain almost flat on their backs, giving the strength of every
+drop of blood and fibre of their being; and the scene, now lit up by a
+momentary glimmer of feeble sunlight, assumes a wonderful and terrible
+picturesqueness. I am chained to the spot by a horrible fascination, and
+I find myself unconsciously saying, "I fear she will not go. I fear--"
+But a man has fallen exhausted, he almost fell overboard, and now leans
+against the mast in utter weariness and fatigue, brought on by the
+morning's exertions. He is instantly relieved by a bull-dog fellow of
+enormous strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying
+moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for
+the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and
+self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak,
+crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There
+is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and
+you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous
+quiver of the timbers, and you turn to see the angry water, which sounds
+as if a hundred hounds are beating under us for entry at the barred
+door. There is another deafening yell, the men tear away like frightened
+horses. Another mighty pull, and another, and another, and we slide over
+into smooth water.
+
+Then I breathe freely, and yell myself.
+
+The little boat seems to gasp for breath as a drowning man, saved in the
+nick of time, shudders in every limb with pain and fear.
+
+As we tied up in smooth water, all the men, from the _laoban_ to the
+meanest tracker, laughed and yelled and told each other how it was done.
+We baled the water out of the boat, and one was glad to pull away from
+the deafening hum of the thundering cataract. A faulty tow-line, a
+slippery hitch, one false step, one false maneuver, and the shore might
+have been by that time strewn with our corpses. As it was, we were safe
+and happy.
+
+But the trackers are strange creatures. At times they are a quarter of a
+mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines
+of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky
+promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their
+bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river.
+Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his
+body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last
+journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet
+these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their
+lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and
+receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.
+
+Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by
+mentioning the exploits of the steamer _Pioneer_, which on three
+consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and,
+though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged
+to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of
+her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard
+and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the
+hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the
+dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought
+by the great variation in the level of the river, that this formidable
+mid-level rapid completely disappears at high level.
+
+After we had left this rapid--and right glad were we to get away--we
+came, after a couple of hours' run, to the Niu K'eo, or Buffalo Mouth
+Reach, quiet enough during the low-water season, but a wild stretch
+during high river, where many a junk is caught by the violently gyrating
+swirls, rendered unmanageable, and dashed to atoms on some rocky
+promontory or boulder pile in as short a space of time as it takes to
+write it. It was here that the _Woodlark_, one of the magnificent
+gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union
+Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One
+of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders
+useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the
+foaming rapid. The engines were immediately reversed to full speed
+astern; but the swift current, combined with the momentum of the ship,
+carried her willy-nilly to the rock-bound shore, on which she crumpled
+her bows as if they were made of tin. Fortunately she was built in
+water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section,
+straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted
+the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at
+Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges. This town,
+formerly a considerable coaling center, overlooks most beautiful
+hillocks, with cottage gardens cultivated in every accessible corner,
+and a wide sweep of the river.
+
+We landed with difficulty. "Chor, chor!" yelled the trackers, who marked
+time to their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step;
+but they almost gave up the ghost. However, we did land, and so did our
+boy, who bought excellent provisions and meat, which, alas! too soon
+disappeared. The mutton and beef gradually grew less and daily
+blackened, wrapped up in opposite corners of the cabin, under the
+protection from the wet of a couple of sheets of the "Pink 'Un."
+
+From Kweifu to Wan Hsien there was the same kind of scenery--the clear
+river winding among sand-flats and gravel-banks, with occasional stiff
+rapids. But after having been in a _wu-pan_ for several days, suffering
+that which has been detailed, and much besides, the journey got a bit
+dreary. These, however, are ordinary circumstances; but when one has
+been laid up on a bench of a bed for three days with a high temperature,
+a legacy of several years in the humid tropics, the physical discomfort
+baffles description. Malaria, as all sufferers know, has a tendency to
+cause trouble as soon as one gets into cold weather, and in my case, as
+will be seen in subsequent parts of this book, it held faithfully to its
+best traditions. Fever on the Yangtze in a _wu-pan_ would require a
+chapter to itself, not to mention the kindly eccentricities of a
+companion whose knowledge of malaria was most elementary and whose
+knowledge of nursing absolutely _nil_. But I refrain. As also do I of
+further talk about the Yangtze gorges and the rapids.
+
+From Kweifu to Wan Hsien is a tedious journey. The country opens out,
+and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and
+difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in
+comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward
+happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have
+happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be
+accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all
+precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance
+elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from
+Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat
+having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no
+less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry,
+while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hopeless cry is continually ascending in Hong-Kong and Shanghai that
+trade is bad, that the palmy days are gone, and that one might as well
+leave business to take care of itself.
+
+And it is not to be denied that increased trade in the Far East does not
+of necessity mean increased profits. Competition has rendered buying and
+selling, if they are to show increased dividends, a much harder task
+than some of the older merchants had when they built up their businesses
+twenty or thirty years ago. There is no comparison. But Hong-Kong, by
+virtue of her remarkably favorable position geographically, should
+always be able to hold her own; and now that the railway has pierced the
+great province of Yün-nan, and brought the provinces beyond the
+navigable Yangtze nearer to the outside world, she should be able to
+reap a big harvest in Western China, if merchants will move at the right
+time. More often than not the Britisher loses his trade, not on account
+of the alleged reason that business is not to be done, but because,
+content with his club life, and with playing games when he should be
+doing business, he allows the German to rush past him, and this man, an
+alien in the colony, by persistent plodding and other more or less
+commendable traits of business which I should like to detail, but for
+which I have no space, takes away the trade while the Britisher looks
+on.
+
+The whole of the trade of the three western provinces--Yün-nan,
+Kwei-chow and Szech'wan--has for all time been handled by Shanghai,
+going into the interior by the extremely hazardous route of these
+Yangtze rapids, and then over the mountains by coolie or pack-horse.
+This has gone on for centuries. But now the time has come for the
+Hong-Kong trader to step in and carry away the lion share of the greatly
+increasing foreign trade for those three provinces by means of the
+advantage the new Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway has given him.
+
+The railway runs from Haiphong in Indo-China to Yün-nan-fu, the capital
+of Yün-nan province. And it appears certain to the writer that, with
+such an important town three or four days from the coast, shippers will
+not be content to continue to ship via the Yangtze, with all its risk.
+British and American merchants, who carry the greater part of the
+imports to Western China, will send their goods direct to Hong-Kong,
+where transhipment will be made to Haiphong, and thence shipped by rail
+to Yün-nan-fu, the distributing center for inland trade. To my mind,
+Hong-Kong merchants might control the whole of the British trade of
+Western China if they will only push, for although the tariff of Tonkin
+may be heavy, it would be compensated by the fact that transit would be
+so much quicker and safer. But it needs push.
+
+The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East
+India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle
+to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who
+have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their
+officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from
+the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself,
+as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must
+admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore,
+if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper,
+he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself
+of the opportunity. Shanghai has held the trump card formerly. This
+cannot be denied. But I think the railway is destined to turn the trade
+route to the other side of the empire. It is merely a question as to who
+is to get the trade--the French or the British. The French are on the
+alert. They cannot get territory; now they are after the trade.
+
+It is my opinion that it would be to the advantage of the colony of
+Hong-Kong were the Chamber of Commerce there to investigate the matter
+thoroughly. Now is the time.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote D: _Cash_, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle.
+Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.]
+
+
+
+
+THIRD JOURNEY
+
+CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Beginning of the overland journey_. _The official halo around the
+caravan_. _The people's goodbyes_. _Stages to Sui-fu_. _A persistent
+coolie_. _My boy's indignation, and the sequel_. _Kindness of the people
+of Chung-king_. _The Chung-king Consulate_. _Need of keeping fit in
+travelling in China_. _Walking tabooed_. _The question of "face" and
+what it means_. _Author runs the gauntlet_. _Carrying coolie's rate of
+pay_. _The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks
+thereon_. _The garden of China_. _Magnificence of the scenery of Western
+China_. _The tea-shops_. _The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author
+drank_. _Population of Szech-wan_. _Minerals found_. _Salt and other
+things_. _The Chinese inn: how it holds the palm for unmitigated filth_.
+_Description of the rooms_. _Szech-wan and Yün-nan caravanserais_. _Need
+of a camp bed_. _Toileting in unsecluded publicity_. _How the author was
+met at market towns_. _How the days do not get dull_.
+
+
+In a manner admirably befitting my rank as an English traveler, apart
+from the fact that I was the man who was endeavoring to cross China on
+foot, I was led out of Chung-king _en route_ for Bhamo alone, my
+companion having had to leave me here.
+
+It was Easter Sunday, a crisp spring morning.
+
+First came a public sedan-chair, bravely borne by three of the finest
+fellows in all China, at the head of which on either side were two
+uniformed persons called soldiers--incomprehensible to one who has no
+knowledge of the interior, for they bore no marks whatever of the
+military--whilst uniformed men also solemnly guarded the back. Then
+came the grinning coolies, carrying that meager portion of my worldly
+goods which I had anticipated would have been engulfed in the Yangtze.
+And at the head of all, leading them on as captains do the Salvation
+Army, was I myself, walking along triumphantly, undoubtedly looking a
+person of weight, but somehow peculiarly unable to get out of my head
+that little adage apropos the fact that when the blind shall lead the
+blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my
+falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the
+way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions
+presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through
+which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out
+to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through the town.
+
+All the people were in the middle of the streets--those slippery streets
+of interminable steps--to give me at parting their blessings or their
+curses, and only with difficulty and considerable shouting and pushing
+could I sufficiently take their attention from the array of official and
+civil servants who made up my caravan as to effect an exit.
+
+The following were to be stages:--
+
+    1st day--Ts'eo-ma-k'ang            80 li.
+    2nd day--Üin-ch'uan hsien         120  "
+    3rd day--Li-shïh-ch'ang           105  "
+    4th day--Luchow                    75  "
+    5th day--Lan-ching-ch'ang          80  "
+    6th day--Lan-chï-hsien             75  "
+    7th day--Sui-fu                   120  "
+
+In my plainest English and with many cruel gestures, four miles from the
+town, I told a man that he narrowly escaped being knocked down, owing to
+his extremely rude persistence in accosting me and obstructing my way.
+He acquiesced, opened his large mouth to the widest proportions, seemed
+thoroughly to understand, but continued more noisily to prevent me from
+going onwards, yelling something at the top of his husky voice--a voice
+more like a fog-horn than a human voice--which made me fear that I had
+done something very wrong, but which later I interpreted ignorantly as
+impudent humor.
+
+I owed nothing; so far as I knew, I had done nothing wrong.
+
+"Hi, fellow! come out of the way! Reverse your carcass a bit, old chap!
+Get----! What the---- who the----?"
+
+"Oh, master, he wantchee makee much bobbery. He no b'long my pidgin,
+d---- rogue! He wantchee catch one more hundred cash! He b'long one
+piecee chairman!"
+
+This to me from my boy in apologetic explanation.
+
+Then, turning wildly upon the man, after the manner of his kind raising
+his little fat body to the tips of his toes and effectively assuming the
+attitude of the stage actor, he cursed loudly to the uttermost of
+eternity the impudent fellow's ten thousand relatives and ancestry;
+which, although it called forth more mutual confidences of a like
+nature, and made T'ong (my boy) foam at the mouth with rage at such an
+inopportune proceeding happening so early in his career, rendering it
+necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed
+him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been
+dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud
+dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again,
+did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off--for it was assuredly
+one of the trio--leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy
+ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag.
+We did not come to terms. I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my
+path and walked on.
+
+Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their
+kindness the terrible three days spent still in our _wu-pan_ on the
+crowded beach would have been more terrible still.
+
+At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed
+up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in
+Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular
+Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an
+attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as
+he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and
+both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king
+Consulate is probably the finest--certainly one of the finest--in China,
+built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the
+bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds,
+has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being
+the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped
+to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be
+arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.
+
+People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.
+
+Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible
+anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to
+maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you
+have got the money to pay your way;[E] but walking is a very different
+thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually
+walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China
+Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to
+Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably
+easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible,
+but because the custom of the country--and a cursed custom too--is that
+one has to keep what is called his "face." And to walk tends to make a
+man lose "face."
+
+A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the
+question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially
+a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner
+_must_ have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath,
+because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler
+in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would
+travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the
+honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with
+this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside
+on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries, to be relegated to the
+worst inn's worst room, and to be generally treated with indignity? This
+idea of mine of crossing China on foot was preposterous!
+
+Even Mr. Hudson Broomhall, of the China Inland Mission, who with Mrs.
+Broomhall was extremely kind, and did all he could to fit me up for the
+journey (it is such remembrances that make the trip one which I would
+not mind doing again), was surprised to know that I was walking, and
+tried to persuade me to take a chair. But I flew in the face of it all.
+These good people certainly impressed me, but I decided to run the
+gauntlet and take the risk.
+
+The question of "face" is always merely one of theory, never of fact,
+and the principles that govern "face" and its attainment were wholly
+beyond my apprehension. "I shall probably be more concerned in saving my
+life than in saving my face," I thought.
+
+Therefore it was that when I reached a place called Fu-to-gwan I
+discarded all superfluities of dress, and strode forward, just at that
+time in the early morning when the sun was gilding the dewdrops on the
+hedgerows with a grandeur which breathed encouragement to the traveler,
+in a flannel shirt and flannel pants--a terrible breach of foreign
+etiquette, no doubt, but very comfortable to one who was facing the
+first eighty li he had ever walked on China's soil. My three
+coolies--the typical Chinese coolie of Szech'wan, but very good fellows
+with all their faults--were to land me at Sui-fu, 230 miles distant
+(some 650 li), in seven days' time. They were to receive four hundred
+cash per man per day, were to find themselves, and if I reached Sui-fu
+within the specified time I agreed to _kumshaw_ them to the extent of an
+extra thousand.[F] They carried, according to the arrangement, ninety
+catties apiece, and their rate of pay I did not consider excessive until
+I found that each man sublet his contract for a fourth of his pay, and
+trotted along light-heartedly and merry at my side; then I regretted
+that I had not thought twice before closing with them.
+
+It is probable that the solidity of the great paved highways of China
+have been exaggerated. I have not been on the North China highways, but
+have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and
+Yün-nan particularly, and have very little praise to lavish upon them.
+Certain it is that the road to Sui-fu does not deserve the nice things
+said about it by various travelers. The whole route from Chung-king to
+Sui-fu, paved with flagstones varying in width from three to six or
+seven feet--the only main road, of course--is creditably regular in some
+places, whilst other portions, especially over the mountains, are
+extremely bad and uneven. In some places, I could hardly get along at
+all, and my boy would call out as he came along in his chair behind me--
+
+"Master, I thinkee you makee catch two piecee men makee carry. This
+b'long no proper road. P'raps you makee bad feet come."
+
+And truly my feet were shamefully blistered.
+
+One had to step from stone to stone with considerable agility. In places
+bridges had fallen in, nobody had attempted to put them into a decent
+state of repair--though this is never done in China--and one of the
+features of every day was the wonderful fashion in which the mountain
+ponies picked their way over the broken route; they are as sure-footed
+as goats.
+
+As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and
+golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the
+inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of
+the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden
+of China. Greater or denser cultivation I had never seen. The
+amphitheater-like hills smiled joyously in the first gentle touches of
+spring and enriching green, each terrace being irrigated from the one
+below by a small stream of water regulated in the most primitive manner
+(the windlass driven by man power), and not a square inch lost. Even the
+mud banks dividing these fertile areas are made to yield on the sides
+cabbages and lettuces and on the tops wheat and poppy. There are no
+fences. You see before you a forest of mountains, made a dark leaden
+color by thick mists, from out of which gradually come the never-ending
+pictures of green and purple and brown and yellow and gold, which roll
+hither and thither under a cloudy sky in indescribable confusion. The
+chain may commence in the south or the north in two or three soft,
+slow-rising undulations, which trend away from you and form a vapory
+background to the landscape. From these (I see such a picture even as I
+write, seated on the stone steps in the middle of a mountain path), at
+once united and peculiarly distinct, rise five masses with rugged
+crests, rough, and cut into shady hollows on the sides, a faint pale
+aureola from the sun on the mists rising over the summits and sharp
+outlines. Looking to the north, an immense curved line shows itself,
+growing ever greater, opening like the arch of a gigantic bridge, and
+binding this first group to a second, more complicated, each peak of
+which has a form of its own, and does in some sort as it pleases without
+troubling itself about its neighbor. The most remarkable point about
+these mountains is the life they seem to possess. It is an incredible
+confusion. Angles are thrown fantastically by some mad geometer, it
+would seem. Splendid banyan trees shelter one after toiling up the
+unending steps, and dotted over the landscape, indiscriminately in
+magnificent picturesqueness, are pretty farmhouses nestling almost out
+of sight in groves of sacred trees. Oftentimes perpendicular mountains
+stand sheer up for three thousand feet or more, their sides to the very
+summits ablaze with color coming from the smiling face of sunny Nature,
+in spots at times where only a twelve-inch cultivation is possible.
+
+A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round
+hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild
+orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer
+and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of
+what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more
+distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut
+perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with
+hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures--all make up a
+strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.
+
+Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie
+can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and
+as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people,
+their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is
+already in print. It were useless to give more of it here--and, reader,
+you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan--that thirst which is
+unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of
+the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara--one does not hear about.
+
+Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst--so
+very, very much.
+
+I wonder whether you, reader, were ever thirsty? Probably not. You get a
+thirst which is not insatiable. Yours is born of nothing extraordinary;
+yours can be satisfied by a gulp or two of water, or perhaps by a
+drink--or perhaps two, or perhaps three--of something stronger. The
+Chinese coolie's thirst arises from the grilling sun, from a dancing
+glare, from hard hauling, struggling with 120 pounds slung over his
+shoulders, dangling at the end of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst
+of the Chinese coolie--I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and
+sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body;
+I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have
+seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance,
+my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of
+perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop
+and wet myself again. I really _must_ wet myself and swell to life
+again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People come and stare at me, and
+wonder what it is. They, too, are thirsty, for they are all coolies and
+have the coolie thirst.
+
+I wet myself. I pour in cup after cup, and my body, my self sucks it in,
+draws it in as if it were the water of life. Instantly it gushes out
+again at every pore. I swill in more, and out it rushes again, madly
+rushes out as quickly as it can. I swill in more and more, and out it
+comes defiantly. I can keep none inside me. Useless--I _cannot_ quench
+my thirst. At last the thirst thinks its conquest assured, taking the
+hot tea for a signal of surrender; but I pour in more, and gradually
+feel the tea settling within me. I am a degree less torrid, a shade more
+substantial.
+
+And then here comes my boy.
+
+"Master, you wantchee makee one drink brandy-and-soda. No can catchee
+soda this side--have got water. Can do?"
+
+Ah! shall I? Shall I? No! I throw it away from me, fling a bottle of
+cheap brandy which he had bought for me at Chung-king away from me, and
+the boy looks forlorn.
+
+Tea is the best of all drinks in China; for the traveler unquestionably
+the best. Good in the morning, good at midday, good in the evening, good
+at night, even after the day's toil has been forgotten. To-morrow I
+shall have more walking, more thirsting, more tea. China tea, thou art a
+godsend to the wayfarer in that great land!
+
+I endeavored to get the details of the population of the province of
+Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent
+illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in
+China--estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty millions.
+
+The surface of this province is made up of masses of rugged mountains,
+through which the Yangtze has cut its deep and narrow channel. The area
+is everywhere intersected by steep-sided valleys and ravines. The
+world-famed plain of Chen-tu, the capital, is the only plain of any
+size in the province, the system of irrigation employed on it being one
+of the wonders of the world. Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an
+inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the
+stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the
+exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in
+this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its
+climate is even superior--a land delightfully _accidentée_. Among the
+minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and
+petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk.
+Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings,
+some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for
+centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass
+and water buffalo.
+
+The best conditions of Chinese inns are far and away worse than anything
+the traveler would be called upon to encounter anywhere in the British
+Isles, even in the most isolated places in rural Ireland. There can be
+no comparison. And my reader will understand that there is much which
+the European misses in the way of general physical comfort and
+cleanliness. Sanitation is absent _in toto_. Ordinary decency forbids
+one putting into print what the uninitiated traveler most desires to
+know--if he would be saved a severe shock at the outset; but everyone
+has to go through it, because one cannot write what one sees. All
+travelers who have had to put up at the caravanseries in Central and
+Western China will bear me out in my assertion that all of them reek
+with filth and are overrun by vermin of every description. The traveler
+whom misfortune has led to travel off the main roads of Russia may
+probably hesitate in expressing an opinion as to which country carries
+off the palm for unmitigated filth; but, with this exception, travelers
+in the Eastern Archipelago, in Central Asia, in Africa among the wildest
+tribes, are pretty well unanimous that compared with all these for dirt,
+disease, discomfort, an utter lack of decency and annoyance, the Chinese
+inn holds its own. And in no part of China more than in Szech'wan and
+Yün-nan is greater discomfort experienced.
+
+The usual wooden bedstead stands in the corner of the room with the
+straw bedding (this, by the way, should on no account be removed if one
+wishes to sleep in peace), sometimes there is a table, sometimes a
+couple of chairs. If these are steady it is lucky, if unbroken it is the
+exception; there are never more. Over the bedstead (more often than not,
+by the way, it is composed of four planks of varying lengths and
+thickness, placed across two trestles) I used first to place my oilskin,
+then my _p'u-k'ai_, and that little creeper which rhymes with hug did
+not disturb me much. Rats ran round and over me in profusion, and, of
+course, the best room being invariably nearest to the pigsties, there
+were the usual stenches. The floor was Mother Earth, which in wet
+weather became mud, and quite a common thing it was for my joys to be
+enhanced during a heavy shower of rain by my having to sleep, almost
+suffocated, mackintosh over my head, owing to a slight break in the
+continuity of the roof--my umbrella being unavailable, as one of my men
+dropped it over a precipice two days out. For many reasons a camp-bed is
+to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most modest traveling
+equipment. I was many times sorry that I had none with me.
+
+The inns of Szech'wan, however, are by many degrees better than those of
+Yün-nan, which are sometimes indescribable. Earthen floors are saturated
+with damp filth and smelling decay; there are rarely the paper windows,
+but merely a sort of opening of woodwork, through which the offensive
+smells of decaying garbage and human filth waft in almost to choke one;
+tables collapse under the weight of one's dinner; walls are always in
+decay and hang inwards threateningly; wicked insects, which crawl and
+jump and bite, creep over the side of one's rice bowl--and much else.
+Who can describe it? It makes one ill to think of it.
+
+Throughout my journeyings it was necessary for my toileting, in fact,
+everything, to be performed in absolute unalloyed publicity. Three days
+out my boy fixed up a cold bath for me, and barricaded a room which had
+a certain amount of privacy about it, owing to its secluded position;
+but even grown men and women, anxious to see what _it_ was like when it
+had no clothes on, came forward, poked their fingers through the paper
+in the windows (of course, glass is hardly known in the interior), and
+greedily peeped in. This and the profound curiosity the people evince in
+one's every action and movement I found most trying.
+
+It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or
+village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign
+visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again
+with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in
+hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking
+excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes,
+and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or
+not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business
+brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class
+could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered
+foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven
+pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see
+through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in
+their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion
+then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of
+indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room
+for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls
+and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible
+questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from
+the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest
+Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away
+and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy
+would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move
+the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my
+journey in peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote E: This refers to the main roads There are many places in
+isolated and unsurveyed districts where it is extremely difficult and
+often impossible to get along at all--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote F: This rate of four hundred cash per day per man was
+maintained right up to Tong-ch'uan-fu, although after Chao-t'ong the
+usual rate paid is a little higher, and the bad cash in that district
+made it difficult for my men to arrange four hundred "big" cash current
+in Szech'wan in the Yün-nan equivalent. After Tong-ch'uan-fu, right on
+to Burma, the rate of coolie pay varies considerably. Three tsien two
+fen (thirty-two tael cents) was the highest I paid until I got to
+Tengyueh, where rupee money came into circulation, and where expense of
+living was considerably higher.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Szech-wan people a mercenary lot_. _Adaptability to trading_. _None but
+nature lovers should come to Western China_. _The life of the Nomad_.
+_The opening of China, and some impressions_. _China's position in the
+eyes of her own people_. _Industrialism, railways, and the attitude of
+the populace_. _Introduction of foreign machinery_. _Different opinions
+formed in different provinces_. _Climate, and what it is responsible
+for_. _Recent Governor of Szech-wan's tribute to Christianity_. _New
+China and the new student_. _Revolutionary element in Yün-nan_. _Need of
+a new life, and how China is to get it_. _Luchow, and a little about
+it_. _Fusong from the military_. _Necessity of the sedan-chair_. _Cost
+of lodging_. _An impudent woman_. _Choice pidgin-English_. _Some of the
+annoyances of travel_. _Canadian and China Inland missionaries_.
+_Exchange of yarns_. _Exasperating Chinese life, and its effects on
+Europeans_. _Men refuse to walk to Sui-fu. Experiences in arranging
+up-river trip_. _Unmeaning etiquette of Chinese officials toward
+foreigners_. _Rude awakening in the morning_. _A trying early-morning
+ordeal_. _Reckonings do not tally_. _An eventful day_. _At the China
+Inland Mission_. _Impressions of Sui-fu. Fictitious partnerships_.
+
+
+The people of Szech'wan, compared with other Yangtze provinces, must be
+called a mercenary, if a go-ahead, one.
+
+Balancing myself on a three-inch form in a tea-shop at a small town
+midway between Li-shïh-ch'ang and Luchow, I am endeavoring to take in
+the scene around me. The people are so numerous in this province that
+they must struggle in order to live. Vain is it for the most energetic
+among them to escape from the shadow of necessity and hunger; all are
+similarly begirt, so they settle down to devote all their energies to
+trade. And trade they do, in very earnest.
+
+Everything is labeled, from the earth to the inhabitants; these
+primitives, these blissfully "heathen" people, have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. I walk up to buy something of the value of only
+a few cash, and on all sides are nets and traps, like spider-webs, and
+the fly that these gentry would catch, as they see me stalk around
+inspecting their wares, is myself. They seem to lie in wait for one, and
+for an article for which a coolie would pay a few cash as many dollars
+are demanded of the foreigner. My boy stands by, however, magnificently
+proud of his lucrative and important post, yelling precautions to the
+curious populace to stand away. He hints, he does not declare outright,
+but by ungentle innuendo allows them to understand that, whatever their
+private characters may be, to him they are all liars and rogues and
+thieves. It is all so funny, that one's fatigue is minimized to the last
+degree by the humor one gets and the novel changes one meets everywhere.
+
+Onward again, my men singing, perhaps quarreling, always swearing. Their
+language is low and coarse and vulgar, but happily ignorant am I.
+
+The country, too, is fascinating in the extreme. A man must not come to
+China for pleasure unless he love his mistress Nature when she is most
+rudely clad. Some of her lovers are fascinated most in by-places, in the
+cool of forests, on the summit of lofty mountains, high up from the
+mundane, in the cleft of cañons, everywhere that the careless lover is
+not admitted to her contemplation. It is for such that China holds out
+an inviting hand, but she offers little else to the Westerner--the
+student of Nature and of man can alone be happy in the interior.
+Forgetting time and the life of my own world, I sometimes come to
+inviolate stillnesses, where Nature opens her arms and bewitchingly
+promises embraces in soft, unending, undulating vastnesses, where even
+the watching of a bird building its nest or brooding over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play, seems to hold one charmed
+beyond description. It is, some may say, a nomadic life. Yes, it is a
+nomadic life. But how beautiful to those of us, and there are many, who
+love less the man-made comforts of our own small life than the
+entrancing wonders of the God-made world in spots where nothing has
+changed. Gladly did I quit the dust and din of Western life, the
+artificialities of dress, and the unnumbered futile affectations of our
+own maybe not misnamed civilization, to go and breathe freely and
+peacefully in those far-off nooks of the silent mountain-tops where
+solitude was broken only by the lulling or the roaring of the winds of
+heaven. Thank God there are these uninvaded corners. The realm of
+silence is, after all, vaster than the realm of noise, and the fact
+brought a consolation, as one watched Nature effecting a sort of
+coquetry in masking her operations.
+
+And as I look upon it all I wonder--wonder whether with the "Opening of
+China" this must all change?
+
+The Chinese--I refer to the Chinese of interior provinces such as
+Szech-wan--are realizing that they hold an obscure position. I have
+heard educated Chinese remark that they look upon themselves as lost,
+like shipwrecked sailors, whom a night of tempest has cast on some
+lonely rock; and now they are having recourse to cries, volleys, all the
+signals imaginable, to let it be known that they are still there. They
+have been on this lonely isolated rock as far as history can trace. Now
+they are launching out towards progress, towards the making of things,
+towards the buying and selling of things--launching out in trade and in
+commerce, in politics, in literature, in science, in all that has spelt
+advance in the West. The modern spirit is spreading speedily into the
+domains of life everywhere--in places swiftly, in places slowly, but
+spreading inevitably, _si sit prudentia_.
+
+Nothing will tend, in this particular part of the country, to turn it
+upside down and inside out more than the cult of industrialism. In a
+number of centers in Eastern China, such as Han-yang and Shanghai,
+foreign mills, iron works, and so on, furnish new employments, but in
+the interior the machine of the West to the uneducated Celestial seems
+to be the foe of his own tools; and when railways and steam craft
+appear--steam has appeared, of course, on the Upper Yangtze, although it
+has not yet taken much of the junk trade, and Szech'wan has her railways
+now under construction (the sod was cut at Ichang in 1909)[G]--and a
+single train and steamer does the work of hundreds of thousands of
+carters, coolies, and boatmen, it is wholly natural that their imperfect
+and short-sighted views should lead them to rise against a seeming new
+peril.
+
+Whilst in the end the Empire will profit greatly by the inventions of
+the Occident, the period of transition in Szech'wan, especially if
+machines are introduced too rapidly and unwisely, is one that will
+disturb the peace. It will be interesting to watch the attitude of the
+people towards the railway, for Szech'wan is essentially the province of
+the farmer. Szech'wan was one of the provinces where concessions were
+demanded, and railways had been planned by European syndicates, and
+where the gentry and students held mass meetings, feverishly declaring
+that none shall build Chinese lines but the people themselves. I have no
+space in a work of this nature to go fully into the question of
+industrialism, railways, and other matters immediately vital to the
+interests of China, but if the peace of China is to be maintained, it
+is incumbent upon every foreigner to "go slowly." Machines of foreign
+make have before now been scrapped, railways have been pulled up and
+thrown into the sea, telegraph lines have been torn down and sold, and
+on every hand among this wonderful people there has always been apparent
+a distinct hatred to things and ideas foreign. But industrially
+particularly the benefits of the West are being recognized in Eastern
+China, and gradually, if foreigners who have to do the pioneering are
+tactful, trust in the foreign-manufactured machine will spread to
+Western China, and enlarged industrialism will bring all-round
+advantages to Western trade.
+
+Thus far there has been little shifting of the population from hamlets
+and villages to centers of new industries--even in the more forward
+areas quoted--but when this process begins new elements will enter into
+the Chinese industrial problem.
+
+As we hear of the New China, so is there a "new people," a people
+emboldened by the examples of officials in certain areas to show a
+friendliness towards progress and innovation. They were not friendly a
+decade ago. It may, perhaps, be said that this "new people" were born
+after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.
+
+Cotton mills, silk filatures, flour and rice mills employing western
+machinery, modern mining plants and other evidences of how China is
+coming out of her shell, cause one to rejoice in improved conditions.
+The animosity occasioned by these inventions that are being so gradually
+and so surely introduced into every nook and cranny of East and North
+China is very marked; but on close inspection, and after one has made a
+study of the subject, one is inclined to feel that it is more or less
+theoretical. So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far
+Western China.
+
+Readers may wonder at the differences of opinions expressed in the
+course of these pages--a hundred pages on one may get a totally
+different impression. But the absolute differences of conditions
+existing are quite as remarkable. From Chung-king to Sui-fu one breathed
+an air of progress--after one had made allowance for the antagonistic
+circumstances under which China lives--a manifest desire on every hand
+for things foreign, and a most lively and intelligent interest in what
+the foreigner could bring. In many parts of Yün-nan, again, conditions
+were completely reversed; and one finding himself in Yün-nan, after
+having lived for some time at a port in the east of the Empire, would
+assuredly find himself surrounded by everything antagonistic to that to
+which he has become accustomed, and the people would seem of a different
+race. This may be due to the differences of climate--climate, indeed, is
+ultimately the first and the last word in the East; it is the arbiter,
+the builder, the disintegrator of everything. A leading writer on
+Eastern affairs says that the "climate is the explanation of all this
+history of Asia, and the peoples of the East can only be understood and
+accounted for by the measuring of the heat of the sun's rays. In China,
+with climate and weather charts in your hands, you may travel from the
+Red River on the Yün-nan frontier to the great Sungari in lusty
+Manchuria, and be able to understand and account for everything."
+
+However that may be, traveling in China, through a wonderful province
+like Szech'wan, whose chief entrepôt is fifteen hundred miles from the
+coast, convinces one that she has come to the parting of the ways. You
+can, in any city or village in Szech'wan--or in Yün-nan, for that
+matter, in a lesser degree--always find the new nationalism in the form
+of the "New China" student. Despite the opposition he gets from the old
+school, and although the old order of things, by being so strong as
+almost to overwhelm him, allows him to make less progress than he
+would, this new student, the hope of the Empire, is there. I do not wish
+to enter into a controversy on this subject, but I should like to quote
+the following from a speech delivered by Tseh Ch'un Hsüan, when he was
+leaving his post as Governor of Szech'wan:--
+
+"The officials of China are gradually acquiring a knowledge of the great
+principles of the religions of Europe and America. And the churches are
+also laboring night and day to readjust their methods, and to make known
+their aims in their propagation of religion. Consequently, Chinese and
+foreigners are coming more and more into cordial relations. This fills
+me with joy and hopefulness.... My hope is that the teachers of both
+countries [Great Britain and America] will spread the Gospel more wisely
+than ever, that hatred may be banished, and disputes dispelled, and that
+the influence of the Gospel may create boundless happiness for my people
+of China. And I shall not be the only one to thank you for coming to the
+front in this good work.... May the Gospel prosper!"
+
+There are various grades of people in China, among which the scholar has
+always come first, because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the
+intellect that distinguishes man above the lower order of beings, and
+enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for
+others. At the time when Europe was thrilled and cut to the quick with
+news of the massacres of her compatriots in the Boxer revolts, the
+scholar was a dull, stupid fellow--day in day out, week in week out,
+month in month out, and year after year he ground at his classics. His
+classics were the _Alpha_ and _Omega_; he worshipped them. This era has
+now passed away.
+
+At the present moment there are upwards of twenty thousand Chinese
+students in Tokyo[H]--whither they went because Japan is the most
+convenient country wherein to acquire Western knowledge. The new
+learning, the new learning--they _must_ have the new learning! No high
+office is ever again likely to be given but to him who has more of
+Western knowledge than Chinese knowledge. And mere striplings, nursed in
+the lap of the mission schools, and there given a good grounding in
+Western education, these are the men far more likely to pass the new
+examinations. In Yün-nan, where little chance exists for the scholars to
+advance, the new learning has brought with it a revolutionary element,
+which would soon become dangerous were it by any means common. I have
+seen an English-speaking fellow, anxious to get on and under the
+impression that the laws of his country were responsible for keeping him
+back, write in the back of his exercise book a phrase against the
+imperial ruler that would have cost him his head had it come to the
+notice of the high authorities.
+
+One will learn much if he travels across the Empire--facts and figures
+quite irreconcilable will arise, but even the man of dullest perception
+will be convinced that much of the reforming spirit in the people is
+only skin-deep, going no farther than the externals of life. It is at
+present, perhaps, merely a mad fermentation in the western provinces,
+wherefrom the fiercer it is the clearer the product will one day evolve
+itself. Such transitions are full of bewilderment to the
+European--bewildering to any writer who endeavors to tackle the Empire
+as a whole. Each province or couple of provinces should be dealt with
+separately, so diverse are the conditions.
+
+But if China, from the highest to the lowest, will only embrace truth
+and love her for her own sake, so that she will not abate one jot of
+allegiance to her; if China will let truth run down through the
+arteries of everyday commercial, social, and political life as do the
+waterways through her marvelous country; if China will kill her
+retardative conservatism, and in its place erect honesty and conscience;
+if China will let her moral life be quickened--then her transition
+period, from end to end of the Empire, will soon end. Mineral,
+agricultural, industrial wealth are hers to a degree which is not true
+of any other land. Her people have an enduring and expansive power that
+has stood the test of more than four thousand years of honorable
+history, and their activity and efficiency outside China make them more
+to be dreaded, as competitors, than any race or any dozen races of
+to-day.
+
+But New China must have this new life.
+
+Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization she will have in
+ever-increasing measure just in so much as she draws nearer to western
+peoples. But the new life can come from whence? From within or from
+without?
+
+Luchow, into which I was led just before noon on the fourth day out of
+Chung-king, is the most populous and richest city on the Upper Yangtze.
+
+Exceedingly clean for a Chinese city, possessing well-kept streets lined
+with well-stocked emporiums, bearing every evidence of commercial
+prosperity, it however lacks one thing. It has no hotel runners! I
+arrived at midday, crossing the river in a leaky ferry boat, under a
+blazing sun, my intention being to stop in the town at a tea-house to
+take a refresher, and then complete a long day's march, farther than the
+ordinary stage. But owing to some misunderstanding between the
+_fu-song_, sent to shadow the foreigner on part of his journey, and my
+boy, I was led through the busy city out into the open country before I
+had had a drink. And when I remonstrated they led me back again to the
+best inn, where I was told I should have to spend the night--there being
+nothing else, then, to be said.
+
+May I give a word of advice here to any reader contemplating a visit to
+China under similar conditions? It is the custom of the mandarins to
+send what is called a _fu-song_ (escort) for you; the escort comes from
+the military, although their peculiar appearance may lead you to doubt
+it. I have two of these soldier people with me to-day, and two bigger
+ragamuffins it has not been my lot to cast eyes on. They are the only
+two men in the crowd I am afraid of. They are of absolutely no use, more
+than to eat and to drink, and always come up smiling at the end of their
+stage for their _kumshaw_. During the whole of this day I have not seen
+one of them--they have been behind the caravan all the time; it would be
+hard to believe that they had sense enough to find the way, and as for
+escorting me, they have not accompanied me a single li of the way.[I]
+
+Another nuisance, of which I have already spoken, is the necessity of
+taking a chair to maintain respectability. These things make travel in
+China not so cheap as one would be led to imagine. Traveling of itself
+is cheap enough, as cheap as in any country in the world. For
+accommodation for myself, for a room, rice and as much hot water as I
+want, the charge is a couple of hundred cash--certainly not expensive.
+In addition, there is generally a little "cha tsien" (tea money) for the
+cook. But it is the "face" which makes away with money, much more than
+it takes to keep you in the luxury that the country can offer--which is
+not much!
+
+After I had had a bit of a discussion with my boy as to the room they
+wanted to house me in, a woman, brandishing a huge cabbage stump above
+her head, and looking menacingly at me, yelled that the room was good
+enough.
+
+"What does she say, T'ong?"
+
+"Oh, she b'long all same fool. She wantchee makee talkee talk. She have
+got velly long tongue, makee bad woman. She say one piecee Japan man
+makee stay here t'ree night. See? She say what makee good one piecee
+Japan man makee good one piecee English man. See? No have got topside,
+all same bottomside have got. Master, this no b'long my pidgin--this
+b'long woman pidgin, and woman b'long all same fool." T'ong ended up
+with an amusing allusion to the lady's mother, and looked cross because
+I rebuked him.
+
+Gathering, then, that the lady thought her room good enough for me, I
+saw no other course open, and as the crowd was gathering, I got inside.
+Before setting out to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at
+the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an
+unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of
+Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but
+Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the
+amount of general knowledge derived one from the other was therefore
+limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong
+and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation that his
+presence was distasteful to me, and at the end of the episode I found it
+imperative for my own safety, and perhaps his, to clear out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Canadians I found in their Chinese-built premises, comfortable
+albeit. Five of them were resident at the time, and they were quite
+pleased with the work they had done during the last year or so--most of
+them were new to China. At the China Inland Mission later I found two
+young Scotsmen getting some exercise by throwing a cricket ball at a
+stone wall, in a compound about twenty feet square. They were glad to
+see me, one of them kindly gave me a hair-cut, and at their invitation I
+stayed the night with them.
+
+What is it in the nature of the Chinese which makes them appear to be so
+totally oblivious to the best they see in their own country?
+
+It is surely not because they are not as sensitive as other races to the
+magic of beauty in either nature or art. But I found traveling and
+living with such apparently unsympathetic creatures exasperating to a
+degree, and I did not wonder that the European whose lot had been cast
+in the interior, sometimes, on emerging into Western civilization,
+appears eccentric to his own countrymen. But this in passing.
+
+I duly arrived at Lan-chï-hsien, and was told that Sui-fu, 120 li away,
+would be reached the next day, although I had my doubts. A deputation
+from the local "gwan" waited upon me to learn my wishes and to receive
+my commands. I was assured that no European ever walked to Sui-fu from
+Lan-chï-hsien, and that if I attempted to do such a thing I should have
+to go alone, and that I should never reach there. I remonstrated, but my
+boy was firm. He took me to him and fathered me. He almost cried over
+me, to think that I, that I, his master, of all people in the world,
+should doubt his allegiance to me. "I no 'fraid," he declared. "P'laps
+master no savee. Sui-fu b'long velly big place, have got plenty
+European. You wantchee makee go fast, catchee plenty good 'chow.' I
+think you catchee one piecee boat, makee go up the river. P'laps I think
+you have got velly tired--no wantchee makee more walkee--that no b'long
+ploper. That b'long all same fool pidgin."
+
+And at last I melted. There was nothing else to do.
+
+That no one ever walked to Sui-fu from this place the district potentate
+assured me in a private chit, which I could not read, when he laid his
+gunboat at my disposal.
+
+This, he said, would take me up very quickly. In his second note,
+wherein he apologized that indisposition kept him from calling
+personally upon me--this, of course, was a lie--he said he would feel it
+an honor if I would be pleased to accept the use of his contemptible
+boat. But T'ong whispered that the law uses these terms in China, and
+that nobody would be more disappointed than the Chinese magistrate if I
+_did_ take advantage of his unmeaning offer. So I took a _wu-pan_, and
+the following night, when pulling into the shadows of the Sui-fu pagoda,
+cold and hungry, I cursed my luck that I had not broken down the useless
+etiquette which these Chinese officials extend towards foreigners, and
+taken the fellow's gunboat.
+
+The _wu-pan_, they swore to me, would be ready to leave at 3:30 a.m. the
+day following. My boy did not venture to sleep at all. He stayed up
+outside my bedroom door--I say bedroom, but actually it was an apartment
+which in Europe I would not put a horse into, and the door was merely a
+wide, worm-eaten board placed on end. In the middle of the night I heard
+a noise--yea, a rattle. The said board fell down, inwards, almost upon
+me. A light was flashed swiftly into my eyes, and desultory remarks
+which suddenly escaped me were rudely interrupted by shrill screams. My
+boy was singing.
+
+"Master," he cried, pulling hard-heartedly at my left big toe to wake
+me, "come on, come on; you wantchee makee get up. Have got two o'clock.
+Get up; p'laps me no wakee you, no makee sleep--no b'long ploper. One
+man makee go bottomside--have catchee boat. This morning no have got
+tea--no can catch hot water makee boil."
+
+And soon we were ready to start. Punctually to the appointed hour we
+were at the bottom of the steep, dark incline leading down to the river
+bank.
+
+But my reckonings were bad.
+
+The _laoban_ and the other two youthful members of the half-witted crew
+had not yet taken their "chow," and this, added to many little
+discrepancies in their reckoning and in mine, kept me in a boiling rage
+until half-past six, when at last they pushed off, and nearly capsized
+the boat at the outset. The details of that early morning, and the
+happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never
+forget--from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the
+rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow
+escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a
+captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage
+ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We
+reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a wind. Hour
+after hour they toiled, making little headway with their misdirected
+labor, wasting their energies in doing the right things at the wrong
+time, and wrong things always, and long after sundown Sui-fu's pagoda
+loomed in the distance. At 11:00 p.m., stiff and hungry, and mad with
+rage, I was groping my way on all fours up the slippery steps through
+unspeakable slime and filth at the quayhead, only to be led to a
+disgusting inn as dirty as anything I had yet encountered. It was hard
+lines, for I could get no food.
+
+An invitation, however, was given me by the Rev. R. McIntyre, who with
+his charming wife conducts the China Inland Mission in this city, to
+come and stay with them. The next morning, after a sleepless night of
+twisting and turning on a bug-infested bed, I was glad to take advantage
+of the missionary's kindness. I could not have been given a kindlier
+welcome.
+
+Sui-fu has a population of roughly 150,000, and the overcrowding
+question is not the least important. It is situated to advantage on the
+right bank of the Yangtze, and does an immense trade in medicines,
+opium, silk, furs, silverwork, and white wax, which are the chief
+exports. Gunboats regularly come to Sui-fu during the heavy rains.
+
+Just outside the city, a large area is taken up with grave
+mounds--common with nearly every Chinese city. Mr. McIntyre and Mr.
+Herbert, who was passing through Sui-fu _en route_ for Ta-chien-lu,
+where he is now working, showed me around the city one afternoon, and
+one could see everything typical of the social life of two thousand
+years ago. The same narrow lanes succeed each other, and the conviction
+is gradually impressed upon the mind that such is the general trend of
+the character of the city and its people. There were the same busy
+mechanics, barbers, traders, wayside cooks, traveling fortune-tellers,
+and lusty coolies; the wag doctor, the bane of the gullible, was there
+to drive his iniquitous living; now and then the scene's monotony was
+disturbed by the presence of the chair and the retinue of a city
+mandarin. Yet with all the hurry and din, the hurrying and the scurrying
+in doing and driving for making money, seldom was there an accident or
+interruption of good nature. There was the same romance in the streets
+that one reads of at school--so much alike and yet so different from
+what one meets in the Chinese places at the coast or in Hong-Kong or
+Singapore. In Sui-fu, more than in any other town in Western China which
+I visited, had the native artist seemed to have lavished his ingenuity
+on the street signboards. Their caligraphy gave the most humorous
+intimation of the superiority of the wares on sale; many of them
+contained some fictitious emblem, adopted as the name of the shop,
+similar to the practice adopted in London two centuries ago, and so
+common now in the Straits Settlements, where bankrupts are allowed
+considerable more freedom than would be possible if fictitious
+registration were not allowed. I refer to the Registration of
+Partnerships.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote G: I inspected the railway at Ichang in December, 1910, and
+found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress.
+Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and
+excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the
+buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme
+seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting
+was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the
+gentry then decided that as nothing was being done at that end the
+company should be requested to stop work at Ichang, and start laying the
+line from Chen-tu, at the other end. "All the money will be spent," they
+cried, "and we shall get nothing up this end!" If the money ran out and
+left the central portion of the line incomplete, it did not matter so
+long as each city had something for its money!--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote H: This is not true to-day. There has been a great falling off
+in numbers.--E.J.D., February, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote I: This should not be taken to apply to the _fu-song_
+everywhere. I have found them to be the most useful on other occasions,
+but the above was written at Luchow as my experience of that particular
+day.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY.
+
+SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Chinese and simplicity of speech_. _Author and his caravan stopped_.
+_Advice to travelers_. _Farewell to Sui-fu_. _The postal service and
+tribute to I.P.O._ _Rushing the stages_. _Details of journey_.
+_Description of road to Chao-t'ong-fu_. _Coolie's pay_. _My boy steals
+vegetables_. _Remarks on roads and railways_. _The real Opening of
+China_. _How the foreigner will win the confidence of the Chinese_.
+_Distances and their variability_. _Calculations uprooted_. _Author in a
+dilemma_. _The scenery_. _Hard going_. _A wayside toilet, and some
+embarrassment_. _Filth inseparable from Chinese humanity_. _About
+Chinese inns_. _Typewriter causes some fun_. _Soldiers guard my
+doorway_. _Man's own "inner room."_ _One hundred and forty li in a day_.
+_Grandeur and solitude_. _Wisdom of traveling alone_. _Coolie nearly
+cuts his toe off_. _Street scene at Puérh-tu_. _The "dying" coolie_. _A
+manacled prisoner_. _Entertained by mandarins_. _How plans do not work
+out_.
+
+
+He who would make most abundant excuses for the Chinese could not say
+that he is simple in his speech.
+
+That speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form
+that it takes, is undoubtedly true: as the thought, so the speech.
+All social relations with us have their roots in mutual trust, and this
+trust is maintained by each man's sincerity of thought and speech.
+Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy,
+so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you
+no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The
+Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue,
+who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to
+account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of
+circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself,
+even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest
+difficulty in getting at the truth about their own affairs.
+
+As I was going out of Sui-fu my caravan and myself were delayed by some
+fellow, who held the attention of my men for a full quarter of an hour.
+I listened, understanding nothing. After another five minutes, by which
+time the conversation had assumed what I considered dangerous
+proportions, having the safety of my boy at heart, I asked--
+
+"T'ong, what is it?"
+
+"Half a sec.," he replied (having learnt this phrase from the gunboat
+men down the river). He did not, however, take his eyes from the man
+with whom he was holding the conversation. He then dived into my
+food-basket, wrenched off the top of a tin, and pulled therefrom two
+beautifully-marked live pigeons, which flapped their wings helplessly to
+get away, and resumed the conversation. Talk waxed furious, the birds
+were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming
+rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was
+the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.
+
+"That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He
+b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know."
+
+As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl,
+two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy
+boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to
+my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou
+would'st travel in China, peep not into thy _hoh shïh lan tsï_ if thou
+would'st feed well.
+
+T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the
+disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he
+could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out
+into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to
+Chao-t'ong-fu.
+
+From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no
+hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the
+reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Yün-nan were
+rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the
+regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no
+less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the
+delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been
+established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which
+the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the
+hitherto unheard-of time of two days--a traveler considers himself
+fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast
+daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in
+two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three
+days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter
+posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.
+
+It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little
+procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached
+before sundown. My coolies--probably owing to having derived more
+pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from
+Chung-king--decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the
+fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundred and ninety miles
+distant, if weather permitted, in eleven days. We were to travel by the
+following stages:--
+
+                          Length of        Height above
+                            stage              sea
+
+    1st day--Anpien          90 li            ----
+    2nd day--Huan-chiang     55 li            ----
+    3rd day--Fan-ïh-ts'uen   70 li            ----
+    4th day--T'an-t'eo       70 li            ----
+    5th day--Lao-wa-t'an    140 li           1,140 ft.
+    6th day--Teo-sha-kwan    60 li           4,000 ft.
+    7th day--Ch'i-li-p'u     60 li           1,900 ft.
+    8th day--Ta-wan-tsï      70 li            ----
+    9th day--Ta-kwan-ting    70 li           3,700 ft.
+    10th day--Wuchai         60 li           7,000 ft.
+    11th day--Chao-t'ong-fu 100 li           6,400 ft.
+
+I knew that I was in for a very hard journey. The nature of the country
+as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is
+reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough
+and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably
+bad. At certain places it is cut out of the rock, at others it runs in
+the bed of the river, which is dotted everywhere with roaring rapids (as
+we are ascending very quickly), and when the water is high these roads
+are submerged and often impassable. In some places it was a six-inch
+path along the mountain slope, with a gradient of from sixty to seventy
+degrees, and landslips and rains are ever changing the path.
+
+Lao-wa-t'an is the most important point on the route. One of the largest
+Customs stations in the province of Yün-nan is here situated at the east
+end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in
+length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the
+roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a
+fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li.
+The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the
+march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the
+physical exertion required to scale the treacherous roads. Over a broad,
+zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight
+curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for
+the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern
+bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock
+rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges
+of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due
+course.
+
+To Ch'i-li-p'u, high up on the mountain banks, the first twenty-five li
+is by the river. At the half-way place a fearful ascent is experienced,
+the most notable precipice on the route between Sui-fu and Yün-nan-fu,
+up a broad zigzag path, and as I sat at dinner I could see neither top
+nor bottom owing to the overhanging masses of rock: this is after having
+negotiated an ascent quite as steep, but smaller. To Ta-kwan-hsien a few
+natural obstacles occur, although the road is always high up on the
+hill-sides. I crossed a miserable suspension bridge of two spans. The
+southern span is about thirty feet, the northern span eighty feet; the
+center is supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone,
+resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably
+worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very
+slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the
+general shaky appearance was particularly uninviting.
+
+From Ta-kwan-hsien to Wuchai is steady pulling. Once in an opening in
+the hill we passed along and then ascended an exceedingly steep spur on
+one side of a narrow and very deep natural amphitheatre, formed by
+surrounding mountains. We then came to a lagoon, and eventually the brow
+of the hill was reached. Thus the Wuchai Valley is arrived at, where,
+owing to a collection of water, the road is often impassable to man and
+beast. Often during the rainy season there is a lagoon of mud or water
+formed by the drainage from the mountains, which finds no escape but by
+percolating through the earth and rock to a valley on the east of, and
+below, the mountains forming the eastern boundary of the Wuchai Valley.
+To Chao-t'ong is fairly level going.
+
+Considering the road, it was not unnatural that my men gibbed a little
+at the eleven-day accomplishment. I had a long parley with them,
+however, and agreed to reward them to the extent of one thousand cash
+among the three if they did it. Their pay for the journey, over
+admittedly some of the worst roads in the Empire, was to be four hundred
+cash per man as before, with three hundred and thirty-three cash extra
+if the rain did not prevent them from getting in in eleven days. They
+were in good spirits, and so was I, as we walked along the river-bank,
+where the poppy was to be seen in full flower, and the unending beds of
+rape alternated with peas and beans and tobacco. T'ong would persist in
+stealing the peas and beans to feed me on, and for the life of me I
+could not get him to see that he should not do this sort of thing. But
+how continually one was impressed with the great need of roads in
+Western China! It is natural that, walking the whole distance, I should
+notice this more than other travelers have done, and, to my mind, roads
+in this part of the country rank in importance before the railways.
+
+To the foreign mind it is more to the interests of China that railways
+should be well and serviceably built than that the money should be
+squandered to no purpose. If the railway has rails, then in China it can
+be called a railway, and China is satisfied. So with the roads. If there
+is any passage at all, then the Chinese call it a road, and China is
+satisfied.
+
+As one meanders through the country, watching a people who are equalled
+nowhere in the world for their industry, plodding away over the worst
+roads any civilized country possesses, he cannot but think, even looking
+at the question from the Chinese standpoint so far as he is able, that,
+were free scope once given for the infusion of Western energy and
+methods into an active, trade-loving people like the Chinese, China
+would rival the United States in wealth and natural resources. The
+Chinese knows that his country, the natural resources of the country and
+the people, will allow him to do things on a scale which will by and by
+completely overbalance the doings of countries less favored by Nature
+than his own. He knows that when properly developed his country will be
+one of the richest in the world, yet even when he is filled with such
+ideas he is just as cunctative as he has ever been. He has the idea that
+he should not commence to exhaust the wealth of his country before it is
+absolutely necessary.
+
+Above all, he has now made up his mind that he himself, unaided by the
+foreigner, is going to develop it just as he likes and just when he
+likes.
+
+The day of the foreign concession is gone. The Chinese now is paddling
+his own canoe, and it is only by cultivating his friendship, by proving
+to him by acts, and not by words, that the intrusion of privileged
+enterprises--such as great mining concessions and railway concessions,
+in which the foreigner demands that he be the only principal--is no
+longer contemplated, that the day will be won. But it is equally true
+that only by combining European and Chinese interests on the modern
+company system, the real Opening of China can be effected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.
+
+The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last
+thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over
+the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man,
+who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my
+destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I
+reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the
+end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li,
+and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was "two
+and a bit." This answer we got from four different people on the way,
+and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the
+two li so much--it is the "bit" which upsets one's calculations.
+
+The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself--that is, I
+lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint,
+secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade,
+where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the
+subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss
+and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of
+ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster.
+Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of
+finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence
+anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to
+me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little,
+hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this
+was a country of erratic distances--it was now getting on for
+sunset--and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the
+difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard
+someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down
+his back and front.
+
+"Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I
+think p'laps master wantchee makee run away." And then, after a time:
+"You no wantchee catch 'chow'?"
+
+"Chow?"
+
+No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost,
+and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was
+fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?
+
+Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a
+narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top
+of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to
+Fan-ïh-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse,
+and so it turned out to be.
+
+At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make
+the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which
+covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals
+of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my
+boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was passing a paddy field
+one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud.
+In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments
+from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up
+in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun--except myself. Little
+boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried
+to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view.
+But I had to change, and that was most important to me.
+
+Later on, my ugly coolie--the ugliest man in or out of China, I should
+think, ugly beyond description--dropped my bedding as he was crossing
+the river, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on a wet bed at T'an-teo.
+
+I must ask the reader's pardon for again referring to Chinese inns. I
+should not have made any remark upon this awful hovel had not the man
+laid a scheme to charge me three times as much as he should--a scheme,
+be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den,
+where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The
+dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the
+slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think
+there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and
+productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The
+mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his
+tribute of vermin, was not fit for use, there were myriads of filthy
+insects, and I found myself obliged to stop and have some clothes
+boiled, and for comfort's sake rubbed my body with Chinese wine. Filth
+there was everywhere. It seemed inseparable from the people, and a total
+apathy as regards matter in the wrong place pervaded all classes, from
+the highest to the lowest. The spring is opening, and my hard-worked
+coolies doff their heavy padded winter clothing, parade their naked
+skin, and are quite unconscious of any disgrace attending the exhibition
+of the itch sores which disfigure them.
+
+I remember, however, that I am in China, and must not be disgusted.
+
+And should any reader be disgusted at the disjointed character of this
+particular portion of my common chronicle, I would only say in apology
+that I am writing under the gaze of a mystified crowd, each of whom has
+a word to say about my typewriter--the first, undoubtedly, that he has
+ever seen. This machine has caused the greatest surprise all along the
+route, and it is on occasions when the Chinese sees for the first time
+things of this intimate mechanical nature that he gives one the
+impression that he is a little boy. The people crowd into my room; they
+cannot be kept out, although at the present moment I have stationed my
+two soldiers in the doorway where I am writing, so as to get a little
+light, to keep them from crowding actually upon me.
+
+It has been said that all of us have an innermost room, wherein we
+conceal our own secret affairs. In China everything is so open, and so
+much must be done in public, that it would surprise one to know that the
+Chinese have an inner room. The European traveler in this region must
+have no inner room, either, for the people seem to see down deep into
+one's very soul. But it is when one wanders on alone, as I have done
+to-day, doing two days in one, no less than one hundred and forty li of
+terrible road through the most isolated country, that one can enjoy the
+comfort of one's own loneliness and own inner room. The scenery was
+picturesque, much like Scotland, but the solitude was the best of all. I
+had left office and books and manuscripts, and was on a lonely walk,
+enjoying a solitude from which I could not escape, a reverie which was
+passed not nearly so much in thinking as in feeling, a feeling to
+nature-lovers which can never be completely expressed in words. It was
+indeed a refuge from the storms of life, and a veritable chamber of
+peace. And this, to my mind, is the way to spend a holiday. Robert Louis
+Stevenson tells us in one of his early books what a complete world two
+congenial friends make for themselves in the midst of a foreign
+population; all the hum and the stir goes on, and these two strangers
+exchange glances, and are filled with an infinite content Some of us
+would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
+in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
+thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
+thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
+the same privilege. Selfishness in the slightest degree should not enter
+in. But such a man is difficult to find, so I wander on alone, happy in
+my own solitude. Here I have liberty, perfect liberty.
+
+I was stopped on my way to Lao-wa-t'an at a small town called Puêrh-tu,
+the first place of importance after having come into Yün-nan. A few li
+before reaching this town, one of my men cut the large toe of his left
+foot on a sharp rock, lacerating the flesh to the bone. I attended to
+him as best I could on the road, paid him four days' extra pay, and then
+had a bit of a row with him because he would not go back. He avowed that
+carrying for the foreigner was such a good thing that he feared leaving
+it! Upon entering Puêrh-tu, however, he fell in the roadway. A crowd
+gathered, a loud cry went up from the multitude, and in the
+consternation and confusion which ensued the people divided themselves
+into various sections.
+
+Some rushed to proffer assistance to the fallen man (this was done
+because I was about; he would have been left had a foreigner not been
+there), others gathered around me with outrageous adulation and seeming
+words of welcome. Meanwhile, I thought the coolie was dying, and,
+fearful and unnatural as it seems, it is nevertheless true that at all
+ages the Chinese find a peculiar and awful satisfaction in watching the
+agonies of the dying. By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
+dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
+slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
+poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
+stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.
+
+On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
+apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
+ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
+upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
+thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
+suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
+which he advanced slowly towards me.
+
+I was on the point of telling him in English that I had done nothing
+against the law, so far as I knew.
+
+He bowed solemnly, during which time I, attempting the same, had much
+trouble from bursting out laughing in his face. He beckoned to me, and
+then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found
+another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The
+mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a
+theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit,
+that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would
+like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one of them
+would like to sell me a thoroughbred, hard-working,
+magnificently-shaped, without-a-single-vice black pony, which they would
+part with for my benefit for the consideration of one hundred taels down
+(four times its value), which awaited my inspection without. I stood up
+and fronted them, and replied, through T'ong, that I could not stay the
+night, that I would be pleased to tolerate the howling of the theatre
+for one half of an hour, that it would have given me the greatest
+pleasure to take their photographs, but, alas! my films were not many. I
+handed them a cigarette tin, but quite forgot that they asked for
+cigarettes as well (I had none), and I explained that horse-riding was
+not one of my accomplishments, so that their quadruped would be of no
+use to me.
+
+They looked glum, I smiled serenely. This is Chinesey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Szech-wan and Yün-nan_. _Coolies and their loads_. _Exports and
+imports_. _Hints to English exporters_. _Food at famine rates_. _A
+wretched inn at Wuchai_. _Author prevents murder_. _Sleeping in the
+rain_. _The foreign cigarette trade_. _Poverty of Chao-t'ong_.
+_Simplicity of life_. _Possible advantages of Chinese in struggle of
+yellow and white races_. _Foreign goods in Yün-nan and Szech'wan_.
+_Thousands of beggars die_. _Supposed lime poisoning_. _Content of the
+people_. _Opium not grown_. _Prices of prepared drug in Tong-ch'uan-fu
+compared_. _Smuggling from Kwei-chow_. _Opium and tin of Yün-nan_.
+_Remarkable bonfire at Yün-nan-fu_. _Infanticide at Chao-t'ong_.
+_Selling of female children into slavery_. _Author's horse steps on
+human skull_.
+
+
+Were one uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the
+borderline of Szech'wan and Yün-nan. The latter is supposed to be one of
+the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous,
+void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills
+conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of
+their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.
+
+The greater part of the roads to be traversed now were constructed on
+projecting slopes above rivers and torrents, affluents of the Yangtze,
+and cross a region upon which the troubled appearance of the mountains
+that bristle over it stamps the impress of a severe kind of beauty. Such
+roads would not be tolerated in any country but China--I doubt if any
+but the ancient Chinese could have had the patience to build them. One
+could not walk with comfort; it was an impossible task. Far away over
+the earth, winding into all the natural trends of the mountain base, ran
+the highway, merrily tripping over huge boulders, into hollows and out
+of them, almost underground, but always, with its long white extended
+finger, beckoning me on by the narrow ribbon in the distance. True,
+although I was absolutely destitute of company, I had always the road
+with me, yet ever far from me. I could not catch it up, and sometimes,
+dreaming triumphantly that I had now come even with it where it seemed
+to end in some disordered stony mass, it would trip mischievously out
+again into view, bounding away into some tricky bend far down to the
+edge of the river, and rounding out of sight once more until the point
+of vantage was attained. Its twisting and turning, up and down, inwards,
+outwards, made humor for the full long day. With it I could not quarrel,
+for it did its best to help me with my weary men onwards over the now
+darkened landscape, and ever took the lead to urge us forward. If it
+came to a great upstanding mountain, with marked politeness it ran round
+by a circuitous route, more easily if of greater length; at other times
+it scaled clear up, nimbly and straight, turning not once to us in its
+self-appointed task, and at the top, standing like some fairy on a
+steeple-point, beckoned us on encouragingly. At times it became
+exhausted and stretched itself wearisomely out, measuring in width to
+only a few small inches, and overlooked the river at great height,
+telling us to ponder well our footsteps ere we go forward. To part
+company with the road would mean to die, for elsewhere was no foothold
+possible. So in this narrow faithful ledge, torn up by the heavy tread
+of countless horses' feet beyond Lao-wa-t'an (where horse traffic
+starts), we carefully ordered every step. Looking down, sheer down as
+from some lofty palace window, I saw the green snake waiting, waiting
+for me. Slipping, there would be no hope--death and the river alone lay
+down that treacherous mountain-side. And then, at times, pursuing that
+white-faced wriggling demon which stretched out far over the mist-swept
+landscape in incessant writhing and annoying contortions, we quite gave
+up the chase. It seemed leading me on to some unknown destiny. I knew
+not whither; only this I knew--that I must follow.
+
+And so each hour and every hour was fraught with peril which seemed
+imminent. But He who guards the fatherless and helpless, feeds the poor
+and friendless, guarded the traveler in those days. Mishaps I had none,
+and when at night I reached those tiny mountain seats, perched
+majestically high for the most part and swept by all the winds of
+heaven, I seemed to be the lonely spectator and companionless watcher
+over mighty mountain-tops, which appeared every moment to be hesitating
+to take a gigantic dive into the roaring river several hundred feet
+below our lofty resting-place.
+
+Some of the larger villages had the arrogant look of old feudal
+fortresses, and up the paths leading to them, cut out in a defile in the
+vertical cliffs, we passed with difficulty coolies carrying on their
+backs the enormous loads, which are the wonder of all who have seen
+them, their backs straining under the boomerang-shaped frames to which
+the merchandise was lashed. Hundreds passed us on their toilsome journey
+with tea, lamp-oil, skins, hides, copper, lead, coal and white wax from
+Yün-nan, and with salt, English cotton, Chinese porcelain, fans and so
+on from Szech'wan. One false step, one slight slip, and they would have
+been hurled down the ravine, where far below, in the roaring cataract,
+dwarfed to the size of a toy boat, was a junk being cleverly taken
+down-stream. And down there also, one false move and the huge junk would
+have been dashed against the rocks, and banks strewn with the corpses of
+the crew. As it was, they were mere specks of blue in a background of
+white foam, their vociferating and yelling being drowned by the roar of
+the waters. On the road, passing and re-passing, I saw coolies on the
+way to Yün-nan-fu with German cartridges and Japanese guns, the packing,
+so different generally to British goods which come into China, being
+particularly good. This is one of the cries of the importer in China
+against the British manufacturer; and if the latter knew more of Chinese
+transport and the manner in which the goods are handled in changing from
+place to place, one would meet fewer broken packages on the road in this
+land of long distances.
+
+A friend of mine, needing a typewriter, wrote home explicit instructions
+as to the packing. "Pack it ready to ship," he wrote, "then take it to
+the top of your office stairs, throw it down the stairs, take machine
+out and inspect, and if it is undamaged re-pack and send to me. If
+damaged, pack another machine, subject to the same treatment until you
+are convinced that it can stand being thus handled and escape injury."
+This is how goods coming to Western China should be sent away.
+
+Gradually the days brought harder toil. The mountains grew higher, some
+covered with forests of pine trees, which natural ornament completely
+changed the aspect of the country. Torrents foamed noisily down the
+gorges, veiled by the curtain of great trees; sometimes, on a ridge, a
+field of buckwheat, shining in the sun, looked like the beginning of the
+eternal snows.
+
+Food was at famine rates. Eggs there were in abundance, pork also; but
+it was not to be wondered at that the traveler, having seen the
+conditions under which the pigs are reared, refrained from the luxury of
+Yün-nan roast pig. My men fed on maize. The faces of the people were
+pinched and wan, unpleasant to look upon, bearing unmistakable signs of
+poverty and misery, and they seemed too concerned in keeping the wolf
+from the door to attend to me. At Ta-kwan they treated themselves to a
+_sheng_ of rice apiece--here the _sheng_ is 1.8 catties, as against 11
+catties in the capital of the province.
+
+At Wuchai, the last stage before reaching Chao-t'ong-fu, the room of the
+inn had three walls only, and two of these were composed of kerosene
+tins, laced together with bamboo stripping. (Probably the oil tins had
+been stolen from the mission premises at Chao-t'ong.) Through the whole
+night it rained as it had never rained before, but, instead of feeling
+miserable, I tried to see the humor of the situation. One can get humor
+from the most embarrassing circumstances, and my chief amusement arose
+from a small business deal between one of my coolies, who had sublet his
+contract to a poor fellow returning in the rain, who had arranged to
+carry the ninety catties ninety li for a fourth of the original price
+arranged between my coolie and myself. For one full hour they argued at
+a terrible speed as to the rate of exchange in the Szech'wan large and
+the Yün-nan small cash, and this was only interrupted when a poor man,
+deaf and dumb, and of hideous appearance, seeing the foreigner in his
+contemptible town, rushed in with a carrying pole and felled his
+grumbling townsman at my feet.
+
+My intervention probably averted murder--at any rate, it seemed as
+though murder would have taken place very soon but for my interference.
+The whole populace gathered, of course, and the fight waged fiercely
+until well on into the night. But wrapping myself in my mackintosh, and
+putting my paper umbrella at the right angle, I went to sleep with the
+rain dripping on me as they were indulging in final pleasantries
+regarding each other's ancestry.
+
+The first thing I saw at Chao-t'ong the next day was the foreign
+cigarette, sold at a wayside stall by a vendor of monkey nuts and marrow
+seeds. No trade has prospered in Yün-nan during the past two years more
+than the foreign cigarette trade, and the growing evil among the
+children of the common people, both male and female, is viewed with
+alarm. From Tachien-lu to Mengtsz, from Chung-king to Bhamo, one is
+rarely out of sight of the well-known flaring posters in the Chinese
+characters advertising the British cigarette. Some months ago a couple
+of Europeans were sent out to advertise, and they stuck their poster
+decorations on the walls of temples, on private houses and official
+residences, with the result that the people were piqued so much as to
+tear down the bills immediately. In Yün-nan, especially since the exit
+of opium, this common cigarette is smoked by high and low, rich and
+poor. I have been offered them at small feasts, and when calling upon
+high officials at the capital have been offered a packet of cigarettes
+instead of a whiff of opium, as would have been done formerly. One is
+not, of course, prepared to say whether such a trade is desirable or
+not, but it merely needs to be made known that towards the middle of the
+present year (1910) a proclamation was issued from the Viceroy's _yamen_
+at Yün-nan-fu speaking in strongest terms against the increasing habit
+of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on
+the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the
+imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of
+the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the
+citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of
+cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for our people to buy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Chao-t'ong I stayed with the Rev. Dr. Savin, and spent a very
+pleasant two days' rest here in his hospitable hands. It was in this
+district I first came across goitre, the first time I had seen it in my
+life. It is a terrible disfigurement.
+
+Poor indeed is the whole of this neighborhood. Poverty, thin and wanting
+food to eat, stalks abroad dressed in a rag or two, armed with a staff
+to keep away the snarling dogs, and a broken bowl to gather garbage.
+
+Even the better class, who manage to afford their maize and bean curds,
+are to be praised for the extreme simplicity which everywhere vividly
+marks their monotonous lives. Indeed, this is true of the whole area
+through which I have traveled. No furniture brings confusion to their
+rooms, no machinery distresses the ear with its groaning or the eye with
+its unsightliness, no factories belch out smoke and blacken the beauty
+of the sky, no trains screech to disturb sleepers and frighten babies.
+The simplest of simple beds--in most cases merely a few boards with a
+straw mattress placed thereon--the straw sandal on the foot, wooden
+chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and
+of cooking utensils, the simple homespun cotton clothing--much of this
+finds favor in the eye of the English traveler. The Chinese, of all
+Orientals, teach us how to live without furniture, without impedimenta,
+with the least possible amount of clothing in the case of the poorer
+classes, and I could not fail to be impressed by the advantage thus held
+by this great nation in the struggle of life. It may serve them in good
+stead in the struggle of the Yellow Man against the White Man, to which
+I refer at a later period in this book; also does it incidentally show
+up the real character of some of the weaknesses of our own civilization,
+and when one is in China, living near the people, one is forced to
+reflect upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have
+our daily stock of bread and butter and meats, glass windows and fires,
+hats, white shirts and woolen underwear, boots and shoes, trunks, bags
+and boxes, bedsteads, mattresses, sheets and blankets--most of which a
+Chinese can do without, and indeed is actually better off without.[J]
+
+This is not true in every class, however; for whilst there is no denying
+the charm of the simpler civilization, many of the Chinese of Szech'wan
+and Yün-nan glory in goods of foreign manufacture, no matter if to them
+is not disclosed the proper purpose of any particular article adopted.
+
+Rice will not grow here in great quantities, owing to the scarcity of
+water; therefore the people feed on maize, and are thankful to get it.
+
+Chao-t'ong is the centre of a large district devastated by recurring
+seasons of plague, rebellion and famine, when thousands die annually
+from starvation in the town and on the level uplands surrounding it. The
+beggars on one occasion, becoming so numerous, were driven from the
+streets, confined within the walls of the temple and grounds beyond the
+South Gate, and there fed by common charity. Huddled together in disease
+and rags and unspeakable misery, they died in thousands, and the Chinese
+say that of five thousand who crossed the temple threshold two thousand
+never came out alive.
+
+This happened some twenty years ago. The unfortunate victims had for
+their food a rice porridge, mixed with which was a subtance alleged to
+have been lime, the common belief being that the majority of those who
+perished died from the effect of poisoning. Outside the city boundary
+hundreds of the dead were flung into huge pits, and even now the
+inhabitants refer to the time when children were exchanged _ad libitum_
+for a handful of rice or even less.
+
+During my stay in this city, I heard on all hands some of the most
+blood-curdling stories of the dire distress which, like a dark cloud,
+still menaces the people, some of which are too dreadful for public
+print.
+
+But I suppose these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a
+virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects
+which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's
+stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the
+desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope
+of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was
+plentiful. But now no opium is grown, and the misery-stricken people
+have lost all hope of better times, and seem to have sunk in many
+instances to the lowest pangs of distressful poverty.[K]
+
+Reader, alarm not yourself! I am not here to lead you into a long
+harangue on opium--it presents too thorny a subject for me to handle. I
+am not a partisan in the opium traffic; my mission is not essentially to
+denounce it; I am not impelled by an irresistible desire to investigate
+facts and put them before you. There is practically no opium in Yün-nan
+to talk about.
+
+This is absolute fact--not a Chinese fact, but good old British truth
+(although British truth when it touches upon opium has been very, very
+perverted since we first commenced to transact opium trade with this
+great country). With the exception of one small patch, some ten miles
+away from the main road between Yün-nan-fu and Tali-fu, I saw no poppy
+whatever in the province. This does not mean, however, that no opium is
+to be had.
+
+During the past three weeks[L] no less than five cases of attempted
+suicide by opium poisoning have come under my personal notice in the
+town in which I am residing, and there have doubtless been fifty more
+which have not. If there is no opium, where do the people so easily
+secure it in endeavors to take their lives upon the slightest
+provocation? Last year the price of opium here on the streets, although
+its sale was "illegal," was over three tsien (about nine-pence) the
+Chinese ounce of prepared opium. At the present time, in the same city,
+many men would be willing to do a deal for any quantity you like for
+less than two tsien. Cases of smuggling are frequent. One gets
+accustomed to hear of large quantities being smuggled through in most
+cunning ways, and it all goes to show that the _people_ of Yün-nan are
+not, as some of China's enlightened statesmen and some of the ranting
+faddists of England and America would have us believe, falling over one
+another in their zeal to free the province from the drug.
+
+The other day some men passed through several towns, on the way to the
+capital, carrying three coffins. In the first was a corpse, the other
+two were packed with opium. Being suspected at Yün-nan-fu, the first
+coffin was opened, and the carriers, making as much row as they could
+because their coffin had been burst open, secured a fair "squeeze" to
+hold their tongues, and the second and third coffins were passed
+unexamined. Quite common is it for men to travel in armed bands from the
+province of Kwei-chow, traveling by night over the mountains by
+lantern-light, and hiding by day from any possible official searchers.
+
+Opium, which is and always has been so heavily taxed, does not in
+general follow the ordinary trade routes on which _likin_ stations are
+numerous, but is carried by these armed bands over roads where the
+native Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped as to yield
+readily to superior force, where the men are compelled to accept a
+composition much below the official rate.
+
+Opium smoking is still common in Western China among people who can
+afford it. At the time of the crusade against it, wealthy people laid
+in stocks enough to last them for years; and, so long as there is
+smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it, into those which do
+not, there will be no danger of the absolute extermination being carried
+successfully into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
+provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for having practically
+abolished the poppy; but at the present moment (December, 1909) she is
+at a loss to know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason why
+people of Yün-nan are making bargains in opium smuggled over the border.
+Much has yet to be done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has been
+in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for
+nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for
+six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the
+average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole
+business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China
+for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked
+since the middle of the seventeenth century.[M]
+
+A few years ago Yün-nan had only two articles of importance with which
+to pay for extra provincial products consumed, namely, opium and tin.
+The latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz, and the value of
+the output now runs to approximately three million taels. Opium came
+from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion
+sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three
+thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very
+much greater. Yün-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
+In 1879, the production was variously estimated at from twelve thousand
+to twenty-two thousand piculs; in 1887 it had risen to approximately
+twenty-seven thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the reform
+no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.
+
+One afternoon, in November of 1909, the execution ground of Yün-nan-fu
+was the scene of a remarkably daring proceeding by the officials in the
+campaign for the total suppression of opium in the province. No less
+than 20,040 ounces of prepared opium were publicly destroyed by fire in
+the presence of an enormous crowd of people. The officials of the city
+were present in person, and everywhere the event was looked upon as the
+greatest public demonstration that the people had ever seen.
+
+The missionary of whom I inquired denied that the infanticide at
+Chao-t'ong was very great--things must be improving!
+
+Previous to my arrival at the city I had instructed my English-speaking
+boy to make inquiries in the city, and to let me know afterwards,
+whether girls were still sold publicly.
+
+"Have got plenty," he exclaimed, in describing this wholesale selling of
+female children into slavery. "I know, I know; you wantchee makee buy.
+Can do! You wantchee catch one piecee small baby, can catchee two, three
+tael. Wantchee one piecee very much tall, big piecee, can catch fifty
+dollar."
+
+Continuing, he told me that prices were fairly high, a girl who could
+boast good looks and who had reached an age when her charms were
+naturally the strongest fetching the alarming amount of three hundred
+taels. This was the highest figure reached, whilst small children could
+be had for anything up to twenty. This wholesale disposal of young
+girls, although the traffic was in some quarters emphatically denied to
+exist--a denial, however, which was all moonshine--is one of the chief
+sorrows of the district. And well it might be; for thousands of children
+are disposed of in the course of a year for a few taels by heartless
+parents, who watch them being carried away, like so much merchandise, to
+be converted into silver, in many cases in this poverty-stricken
+district merely to satisfy the craving for opium of some sodden wretch
+of a man who calls himself a father. Time and time again, long after I
+myself passed through Chao-t'ong, did I see little girls from three to
+ten years of age being conveyed by pack-horse to the capital, balanced
+in baskets on either side of the animal. This and the terrible
+infanticide which exists in all poor districts of China menaces the
+lives of all well-wishers of the entire province of Yün-nan.
+
+In the particular district of which I speak it is not an uncommon sight
+to see little children being torn to pieces by dogs, the scavengers of
+the Empire, perhaps by the very dogs that had been their playmates from
+birth. I have been riding many times and found that my horse had stepped
+on a human skull, and near by were the bones the dogs had left as the
+remains of the corpse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE.--I should mention that, since the above was written, I have lived
+and travelled a good deal around Chao-t'ong-fu, being the only European
+traveller who has ever penetrated the country to the east of the main
+road, by which I had now come down.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote J: Anyone who contemplates a tramp across China must not get
+the idea that he can still continue the uses of civilization. For the
+most part he will have to live pretty well as a Chinese the whole time,
+and he will find, as I found, that it is easy to give up a thing when
+you know the impossibility of getting it.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote K: This was written later. I have altered my views since I
+have traveled from end to end of Yün-nan. The disappearance of opium, on
+the contrary, apart from the moral advantage to the people, has done
+much to place them in a better position financially. In Tali-fu I found
+not a single shop on the main street "to let," and the trade of the
+place had gone ahead considerably, and this was a city which people
+generally supposed would suffer most on account of the non-growth of
+opium.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote L: May, 1910. As a matter of fact the date makes no
+difference, because unfortunately the number of suicides from opium does
+not seem to have decreased materially in Western China since the opium
+crusade was started. Upon the slightest provocation a Chinese woman in
+Yün-nan will take her life, and it is probable that for the five cases
+which came to my notice through the mission house there were treble that
+number which did not--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote M: This was written at the end of 1909 Now, in July, 1910,
+things are changed wonderfully. The rapidity with which China is driving
+out the poppy from province after province is truly remarkable. In
+Szech'wan, in April, 1909, I passed through miles and miles of poppy
+along the main road--to-day there is none to be seen It is to be hoped
+that Great Britain will do her part as faithfully as China is doing
+hers.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910
+
+_Digression from travel_. _How rebellions start in China_. _Famous Boxer
+motto_. _Way of escape shut off_. _Riots expected before West can be won
+into the confidence of China_. _Boxerism and students of the Government
+Reform Movement_. _Author's impressions formed within the danger zone_.
+_More Boxerism in China than we know of_. _Causes of the Chao-t'ong
+Rebellion_. _Halley's Comet brings things to a climax_. _Start of the
+rioting_. _Arrival of the military_. _Number of the rebels_. _They hold
+three impregnable positions, and block the main roads_. _European ladies
+travel to the city in the dead of night_. _A new ch'en-tai takes the
+matter in hand_. _Rumors and suspense_. _Stations of the rebels_. _A
+night attack_. _Sixteen rebels decapitated_. _Officials alter their
+tactics_. _Fighting on main road_. _Superstition regarding soldiers_.
+_One of the leaders captured by a headman_. _Chapel burnt down and
+caretaker rescued by military_. _Li the Invincible under arms_. _Huang
+taken prisoner_. _Two leaders killed_. _Rising among the Miao_. _Mission
+work at a standstill_. _Child-stealing, and the Yün-nan Railway rumor_.
+_Barbaric punishment_. _Tribute to Chinese officials_. _British
+Consul-General_. _Résumé of the position_. _An unfortunate incident_.
+
+
+Despite the fact that this chapter was the last written, it has been
+thought wise to place it here. It deals with the Chao-t'ong Rebellion,
+of which the outside world, even when it was at its height, knew little,
+but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of
+writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in
+North-East Yün-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression from
+travel.
+
+In spite of all that has been written in previous and subsequent
+chapters, and in face of the universal cry of the progress China is
+speedily realizing, of the stoutest optimism characteristic of the
+statesman and of the student of Chinese affairs, a feeling of deep gloom
+at intervals overcomes one in the interior--a fear of some impending
+trouble. There is a rumor, but one smiles at it--there are always
+rumors! Then there are more rumors, and a feeling of uneasiness pervades
+the atmosphere; a local bubble is formed, it bursts, the whole of one's
+trust in the sincerity of the reform of China and her people is brushed
+away to absolute unbelief in a few days, and it means either a sudden
+onrush and brutal massacre of the foreigners, or the thing blows over
+after a short or long time of great strain, and ultimately things assume
+a normality in which the detection of the slightest ruffle in the
+surface of social life is hardly traceable.
+
+Such was the Chao-t'ong Rebellion, luckily unattended by loss of life
+among the foreigners. It is not yet over,[N] but it is believed that the
+worst is past.
+
+At the end of 1909 probably no part of the Empire seemed more peaceful.
+Two months afterwards the heads of the Europeans were demanded;
+missionaries were guarded by armed soldiers in their homes inside the
+city walls, and forbidden to go outside; native Christians were brutally
+maltreated and threatened with death if they refused to turn traitor to
+their beliefs; thousands of generally law-abiding men, formed into armed
+bands, were defiantly setting at naught the law of the land, and the
+whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to
+Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by
+infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,--their motto the famous
+ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: "Exalt the dynasty; destroy the
+foreigner."
+
+"Kill, kill, kill!" ran the cry for miles around the countryside, and a
+fearful repetition of the bloody history of ten years ago was daily
+feared. Providential, however, was it that no foreigner was traveling at
+the time in these districts, and that those who, ignorant of the
+troubles, desired to do so were stopped at Yün-nan-fu by the Consuls and
+at Sui-fu by the missionaries. It is a matter for gratitude also that
+throughout the riots, specially safeguarded by the great Providence of
+God, no lives of Europeans were lost; and owing to the praiseworthy and
+obvious attitude of the missionaries in this area in endeavoring to keep
+the thing as quiet as possible, and the notoriously conservative manner
+in which consular reports upon such matters are preserved in
+Governmental lockers, practically nothing has been heard of the
+uprising.
+
+At times during the four slow-moving months, however, the situation
+became, as I shall endeavor to show, complicated in every way. The
+escape of the foreigners was made absolutely impossible by the fact that
+the whole of the roads, even those over the rough mountains leading
+south, were blocked successfully by the rebelling forces, and, when the
+deep gloom settled finally over the city, the fate of the Westerners
+seemed sealed and their future hopeless. All round the foreigners'
+houses the people, infected with that strange, unaccountable, national
+hysteria, so terrible in the Chinese temperament, rose up to burn and
+kill. Mayhap it means little to the man who reads. Massacres have always
+been common enough in China, he will say; and there are thousands of
+people in Europe to-day who know no more about China than what the
+telegrams of massacres of European missionaries have told them. Years
+ago one almost expected this sort of thing; but at the present day, when
+China is popularly supposed to be working honestly to gain for herself
+an honorable place among the nations, it is surely not to be expected in
+the ordinary run of things in days of peace.
+
+But we know that such visions are common to every European in Inland
+China, and even at the coast men talk continually of and believe that
+riots are going to happen in the near future. Merchant, missionary,
+traveler and official all agree that there is yet more trouble ahead
+before the West will be won into the confidence of China and _vice
+versa_. The people who are studying the Reform Movement of the Young
+China, however, and who stolidly refuse to study with it the general
+attitude of the common people, laugh and dismiss with contempt the
+subject of the possibility of further outbreaks of Boxerism in the
+outlying parts of the Empire. But they should not laugh. The European
+cannot afford to laugh, and, if he be a sensible fellow, knows that he
+cannot afford to treat with contempt the opinions of the people who
+know. The more we understand the vast interior of China and the
+conservatism and peculiarities of character of the people of that
+interior, the less disposed shall we be to jest, the less disposed to
+ridicule, what I would characterize as the strongest and most deadly of
+the hidden menaces of the Celestial Empire.
+
+One does not wish to be pessimistic, but it is foolish to close one's
+eyes to bare fact.
+
+At the moment I am writing, in the middle of China, I know that I am
+safe enough here, but I do not disguise from myself that the wildest
+reports are still current within a quarter of a mile from me about me
+and my own kind in this peaceful city of Tong-ch'uan-fu. And it takes
+very little to light the fuse and to cause a terrible explosion here, in
+common with other places in this province. A man might be quite safe one
+day and lose his head the next if he did not, at times when the
+rebellious element is apparent, conform strictly to the general wishes
+and accepted customs of the people among whom he is living.
+
+No, we cannot afford to laugh. We must seek the opinion of those people
+who were confined within the walls of Chao-t'ong city--the silence of
+their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of
+yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very
+death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging
+their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom--before we show
+contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is
+more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know
+of.
+
+Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no
+rumor of any uprising. About this time, however, to supply a serious
+deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since
+that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which
+the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they
+be allowed again to grow the poppy. Among the population of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city,
+especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have
+been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the
+Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which
+gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest. It
+required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its
+wonderful tail--none other than Halley's Comet--to bring the whole to a
+climax. This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and
+he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by
+the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the
+Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the
+Chinese to strike.
+
+That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news
+the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the
+tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured
+and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T'o-ch-i (on the
+River of Golden Sand[O]) and Sa'i-ho, in a westerly direction from the
+town. A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the
+Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and
+looted--so ran the rumor. By this date, for two days' march in all
+directions from Chao-t'ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd
+they were--Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.
+Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the
+_ch'uandan_) containing two pieces of coal and a feather--a simile
+meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.
+Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Yün-nan-fu, the
+capital (twelve days away), and from Ch'u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days
+away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to the city,
+and it was thought that the brigadier-general would be able to cope with
+the trouble now that he had so many armed troops. Soldiers patrolled the
+city walls (which, by the way, had to be built up so that the soldiers
+might be able to get decent patrol), more were stationed on the premises
+of the Europeans, and every defensive precaution was taken. The
+officials were in daily communication by telegraph with the Viceroy, and
+at first the riot was kept well in hand by Government authorities.
+
+But the rebels had by this time got together no less than three thousand
+men, and were holding three impregnable positions on the adjacent hills,
+and had effectually cut off communication by the main road. Despite
+their numbers, they were afraid to strike, however, and lucky it was for
+the city that the leaders were not sufficiently trusted by their
+followers, many of them pressed men--men who had joined the rebelling
+ranks merely to save their own necks and their houses. At this time the
+_pen-fu_ (a sort of mayor of the city) demanded that the missionaries
+working among the Hua Miao, and two lady workers paying a visit to that
+place, should return from Shïh-men-K'an (70 li away), as he could not
+protect them in the country. A special messenger was dispatched,
+demanding instant departure, and in the dead of night--a bitter wintry
+night, icy, dark, slippery, and cold--these ladies came under cover to
+the city.
+
+They reached the mission premises without molestation.
+
+By this time a new _ch'en-tai_ (brigadier-general) had arrived from the
+capital, having been sent as a man who could handle the situation
+successfully. He was a Liu Ta Ren, who had previously held office in the
+city, and whose cunning a Scotland Yard detective might envy.[P]
+
+Rumors grew more and more serious; the mandarins went all round the
+countryside endeavoring to pacify the people, and the foreigners could
+do nothing but "sit tight" through these most trying days. The suspense
+of being shut up in one's house during a time of trouble of this nature,
+hearing every rumor which lying tongues create, and unable to get at the
+facts, is far worse than being in the thick of things, although this
+would have at once been fatal. But one needs to have lived in China
+during such a time to understand the awful tension which riots
+occasion.
+
+The rioters were stationed as follows:--
+
+     1. Weining, in Kwei-chow, to the southeast 1,000 men
+
+     2. Kiang-ti Hill, in Yün-nan, to the south 1,000 men
+
+     3. Several places around the city, to the west as far as the River
+     of Golden Sand 1,000 men
+
+On March 13th a night attack was expected. Breathless, the foreigners
+waited in their suspense, but it passed off without serious damage being
+done. On the Sunday, the missionaries, almost at their wits' end with
+mingled fear and excitement, occasioned by the strain which weeks of
+anxiety must bring to the strongest, feared whether their services would
+be got through in peace.
+
+Meetings were being held all around the city, and gradually the
+mandarins gained small successes. Prisoners--miserable specimens of men
+fighting for they hardly knew what--were captured and brought to the
+city, and, on March 16th, sixteen human heads, thrown in one gruesome
+mass into a common basket, with upturned eyes gaping into the great
+unknown, hideous-looking and bearing still the brutish stare of
+hysterical craving and morbid rage, were carried by an armed squad of
+military to the _yamen_.
+
+They made a ghastly picture when hung over the gate of the city to put
+the fear of death into the hearts of their brutal compatriots. The
+officials, hard-worked and themselves feeling the strain of the whole
+business, and incidentally fearful for the safety of their own heads,
+were perturbed all this time by rumors coming from Weining, the
+mutineers of which were alleged to be the fiercest of the three bands.
+Up to now the officials had been playing a conciliating game. They had
+been trying vainly to pacify, but now they found that they had to prove
+their energies and their benevolence by acting the part of tyrants
+rather than of administrators of mercy, by warring rather than by
+peace-making, by fighting and forcing rather than by conciliating and
+persuading.
+
+On Easter Tuesday, fighting took place on the main road to the north,
+when the _pen-fu_ and his men achieved a creditable success. The rebels
+almost to a man were taken, and among the prisoners was a girl who had
+been distributing the beans, a lovely damsel of eighteen, said to have
+been the fiancée of the leader of that band. Both her legs were shot
+through and she was considerably mutilated; but although the _pen-fu_
+thought this sufficient punishment, instructions came from the capital
+that she must die. She was accordingly taken outside the city and
+beheaded. This caused some consternation among the rebels, as the death
+of the girl was looked upon as an omen of direct misfortune.
+
+For a very long time she had been going around the country dropping
+beans into the ground outside any houses she came across, the
+superstition being that wherever a bean was dropped there in the very
+spot, perhaps at the very moment, for aught that we know, an invincible
+warrior would spring up. She had dropped some millions of beans, but the
+ranks were not swelled as a consequence.
+
+The _ch'en-tai_ had also been out all night, and as men were captured so
+they were beheaded on the spot without mercy and their heads
+subsequently hung outside the city gates. The headman of a small
+village--some forty li from the city--succeeded in capturing one of the
+leaders, and great credit was due to him; but soon the leader was
+rescued again by his followers, who then brutally killed and mutilated
+the body of the headman, causing him to undergo the ignominy of having
+his tongue and his heart cut out. Fighting was going on everywhere, and
+by the end of March things were at their height. The fact that rain was
+badly needed tended only to aggravate the situation, and that lustrous
+comet made things worse. Day by day miserable processions brought the
+wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden
+fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised
+the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through
+the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was
+prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United
+Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the
+houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua
+Miao convert, was taken, stripped of his clothing, and threatened with
+an awful death if he did not betray the foreigners. He refused manfully
+to divulge any information whatsoever, and was on the point of being
+sacrificed, when the _ch'en-tai_ came unexpectedly upon the scene with
+his military. He released the Miao, captured thirty-six rebels, killed
+sixteen more where they stood, and carried away many of their horses and
+the dreaded Boxer flag around which the men rallied.
+
+And now comes the smartest thing I heard of throughout the rebellion.
+
+A man named Li was the most dreaded of the trio of rebel chiefs, a man
+of marvelous strength, and who seemed to be able to fascinate his men
+and get them to do anything he wished--and Liu, the _ch'en-tai_, set
+himself the task of capturing him. Disguising himself in the garb of a
+pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the
+look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the
+_ch'en-tai_ was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell
+them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose
+his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up
+quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on,
+they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their
+captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which
+was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and
+where Li himself was hiding.
+
+And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the
+master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with
+many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the
+military.
+
+Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was
+captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow
+process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers
+might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief
+_yamen_, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the
+head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls
+since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago.
+After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had
+served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from
+his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a
+frame on the city gate.
+
+And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in
+this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of
+magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a
+better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to
+die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood
+must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more
+hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time
+in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting
+of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.
+
+After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart,
+fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away;
+but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive,
+and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his
+followers. He has probably been given up.[Q] In the month of May the
+Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come
+to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and
+British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond
+Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910),
+permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.
+
+Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to
+the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and
+were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to _ch'i_
+the railway to Yün-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the
+public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and
+offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest
+prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution,
+and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission
+schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as
+they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more
+grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at
+Chao-t'ong, were taken to the _yamen_, hung in cages for a time as a
+warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting,
+"Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have." If
+they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.
+
+A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a
+child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in
+England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able
+successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused.
+Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and
+mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run
+away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get
+them.
+
+This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and
+breadth of Yün-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to
+Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into
+close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people
+taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the
+very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.
+
+In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my
+manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been
+greatly reduced.
+
+In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which
+it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only
+fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of
+the Viceroy of Yün-nan in dealing with the situation. Although he is
+not, I believe, generally liked by the people as their ruler, Li Chin
+Hsi did all he could to quell the riots speedily, and saw to it that all
+the officials in whose districts the rebellion was raging, and who made
+blunders during its progress, were degraded in rank. It is difficult for
+Europeans thoroughly to grasp the situation. From Chao-t'ong to
+Yün-nan-fu, the viceregal seat, is twelve days' hard going, and all
+communication was done by telegraph--seemingly easy enough; but one must
+not discount the slow Chinese methods of doing things. Most of the
+troops were twelve days away, and in China--in backward Yün-nan
+especially--to mobilize a thousand men and march them over mountains a
+fortnight from your base is not a thing to be done at a moment's
+notice. By the time they would arrive, it might have been possible for
+all the foreigners to have been massacred and their premises demolished,
+especially as the exits were blocked on all sides. But no time was lost
+and no pains were saved; and although the Chao-t'ong foreign residents,
+who suffered in suspense more than most missionaries are called upon to
+suffer, may differ with me in this opinion, I believe that not one of
+the officials who took part in endeavors to keep the riots from assuming
+more actually dangerous proportions could have done more than was done.
+If a man neglected his duty he lost his button, and he deserved nothing
+else.
+
+In Mr. P. O'Brien Butler, the able British Consul-General, the British
+subjects had the greatest confidence. He might have erred in having
+declined from harassing the Chinese Foreign Office to grant permission
+and protection to Britishers who wished to travel after the leaders of
+the rebellion had been captured, but he undoubtedly erred on the right
+side.
+
+An unfortunate incident for the United Methodist missionaries was the
+fact that the Rev. Charles Stedeford, who was sent out by the Connexion
+to visit the whole of the mission fields, was able to come only so far
+as Tong-ch'uan-fu, and was forced to return to Europe without having
+seen any of the magnificent work among the Hua Miao.
+
+After my manuscript went forward to my publishers, permission to travel
+and protection were granted to British subjects again on the main road
+leading up to the Yangtze Valley. The author was the first Britisher to
+go from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Chao-t'ong-fu, and as I write, as late as the
+middle of July, 1910, I am of the opinion that it is unwise to travel
+over this road for a long time to come, unless it is absolutely
+imperative to do so. At Kiang-ti I had considerable trouble in getting
+a place to sleep, and I was glad when I had passed Tao-üen.
+
+At the invitation of missionaries working among them, I then spent some
+months in residence and travel in Miaoland, and only regret that an
+extended account of my experiences is not possible.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote N: July, 1910.]
+
+[Footnote O: The local name for the Yangtze.]
+
+[Footnote P: This Liu was a remarkable man, quite unlike the average
+mandarin. He got the name of Liu Ma Pang, a disrespectful term, meaning
+that he was fond of using the stick. On a journey towards Chao-t'ong,
+some years ago, he went on ahead of his retinue of men and horses, and
+arriving at an inn at Tong-ch'uan-fu, asked the _ta si fu_--the general
+factotum--for the best room, and proceeded to walk into it. "No you
+don't," yelled the _ta si fu_, "that's reserved for Liu Ma Pang, and
+you're not to go in there." After some time Liu's men arrived, and
+calling one or two, he said, "Take this man" (pointing to the surprised
+_ta si fu_) "and give him a sound thrashing." He stood by and saw the
+whacking administered, after which he said, "That's for speaking
+disrespectfully of a mandarin." Then, "Give him a thousand cash,"
+adding, "That's for knowing your business."
+
+Some years ago Liu was the means of saving the life of the late Mr.
+Litton (mentioned later in this book), at the time he was British Consul
+at Tengyueh, when there was fighting down in the south of Yün-nan with
+the Wa's.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote Q: He was captured some months afterwards, I believe, at
+Mengtsz.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST YÜN-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM
+
+
+Men who came through Yün-nan twenty years ago wrote of its doctors and
+its medicines, its poverty and its infanticide. There seemed little else
+to speak of.
+
+Although the tribes were here then--and in a rawer state even then than
+they are at the present time--little was known about them, and men had
+not yet developed the cult of putting their opinions upon this most
+absorbing topic into print. To-day, however, scores of men in Europe are
+eagerly devouring every line of copy they can get hold of bearing upon
+this fascinating ethnological study. Missionaries are plagued by
+inquiries for information respecting the tribes of Western China, and it
+is a curious feature of the situation that, with each article or book
+coming before the public contradiction follows contradiction, and very
+few people--not even those resident in the areas and working among the
+tribes--can agree absolutely upon any given points in their data. The
+numerous non-Chinese tribes I met in China formed one of the most
+interesting, and at the same time most bewildering, features of my
+travel; and I can quite agree with Major H.R. Davies,[R] who tackles the
+tribe question with considerable ability in his book on Yün-nan, when he
+says that it is safe to assert that in hardly any part of the world is
+there such a large variety of languages and dialects as are to be found
+in the country which lies between Assam and the eastern border of
+Yün-nan, and in the Indo-Chinese countries to the north of that region.
+The reason for it is generally ascribed to the physical characteristics
+of the country, the high mountain ranges and deep, swift-flowing rivers,
+which have brought about the differences in customs and language and the
+innumerable tribal distinctions so perplexing to him who would put
+himself in the position of an inquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology. I
+know more than one gentleman in Yün-nan at the present moment having
+under preparation manuscript upon this subject intended for subsequent
+publication, and I feel sure that their efforts will add valuable
+information to the all too limited supply now obtainable. In the
+meantime, I print my own impressions.
+
+I should like it to be known here, however, that I do not in any way
+whatsoever put myself forward as an authority on the question. I had
+not, at the time this was written, laid myself out to make any study of
+the subject. But the fact that I have lived in North-East Yün-nan for a
+year and a half, and have traveled from one end of the province to the
+other, in addition to having come across tribes of people in Szech'wan,
+may justify me in the eyes of the reader for placing on record my own
+impressions as a general contribution to this most exciting discussion.
+I also lived at Shïh-men-K'an (mentioned in the last chapter), among the
+Hua Miao for several months, traveled fairly considerably in the
+unsurveyed hill country where they live, and am the only man, apart from
+two missionaries, who has ever been over that wonderful country lying to
+the extreme north-east of Yün-nan. One trip I made, extending over three
+weeks, will ever remain with me as a memorable time, but I regret that I
+have no space in this volume for even the merest reference to my
+journey.
+
+Some of my friends in China might say sarcastically that mankind is
+destined to arrive at years of discretion, and that I should have known
+better than to include in my book anything, however well founded, of a
+nature tending to continue the wordy strife touching this vexed question
+of Mission Work, and that no matter how strikingly set forth, this is an
+old and obsolete story, fit only to be finally done with. It is for such
+to bear with me in what I shall say. There are thousands of men in the
+West who are entirely ignorant of men in China other than the ordinary
+_Han Ren_, and if I enlighten them ever so little, then this chapter
+will have served an admirable end.
+
+In North-East Yün-nan the tribes I came most in contact with were:--
+
+(i) The Miao or Miao-tze, as the Chinese call them; or the Mhong or
+Hmao, as they call themselves.
+
+(ii) The I-pien (or E-pien), as the Chinese call them; or the Nou Su (or
+Ngo Su), as they call themselves.
+
+Probably the Nou Su tribes are what Major Davies calls the Lolo Group in
+his third division of the great Tibeto-Burman Family; but I merely
+suggest it, as it strikes me that the other branches of that group,
+including the Li-su, the La-hu, and the Wo-ni, seem to be descendants of
+a larger group, of which the Nou Su predominate in numbers, language,
+and customs. However, this by the way.
+
+It may not be common knowledge that in most parts of the Chinese Empire,
+even to-day, there are tribes of people, essentially non-Chinese, who
+still rigidly maintain their independence, governed by their own native
+rulers as they were probably forty centuries ago, long before their
+kingdoms were annexed to China Proper. There are white bones and black
+bones, noses long and flattened, eyes straight and oblique, swarthy
+faces, faces yellow and white, coal-black and brown hair, and many
+other physical peculiarities differentiating one tribe from another.
+
+In many instances, these tribes, conquered slowly by the encroaching
+Chinese during the long and tedious term of centuries marking the growth
+of the Chinese Empire to its present immensity, are allowed to maintain
+their social independence under their own chiefs, who are subject to the
+control of the Government of China--which means that excessive taxation
+is paid to the _yamen_ functionary, who extorts money from anybody and
+everybody he can get into his clutches, and then gives a free hand.
+Others, in a further state of civilization, have been gradually absorbed
+by the Chinese and are now barely distinguishable from the _Han Ren_
+(the Chinese). And others, again, adopting Chinese dress, customs and
+language, would give the traveler a rough time of it were he to suggest
+that they are any but pure Chinese. To the ethnological student, it is
+obvious that so soon as the Chinese have tyrannized sufficiently and in
+their own inimitable way preyed upon these feudal landlords enough to
+warrant their lands being confiscated, reducing a tribe to a condition
+in which, far removed from districts where co-tribesmen live, they have
+no _status_, the aboriginals throw in their lot gradually with the
+Chinese, and to all intents and purposes become Chinese in language,
+customs, trade and life. This absorption by the Chinese of many tribes,
+stretching from the Burmese border to the eastern parts of Szech'wan,
+whilst an interesting study, shows that the onward march of civilization
+in China will sweep all racial relicts from the face of this great
+awakening Empire.
+
+But at the same time there are many branches of a tribal family, some
+found as far west as British Burma and all more or less scattered and
+disorganized as the result of this silent oppression going on through
+the years, who still are ambitious of preserving their independent
+isolation, particularly in sparsely-populated spheres far removed from
+political activity. So remote are the districts in which these
+principalities are found, that the Chinese themselves are entirely
+ignorant of the characteristics of these tribes. They say of one tribe
+which is scattered all over China Far West that they all have tails; and
+of another tribe that the men and women have two faces! And into the
+official records published by the Imperial Government the grossest
+inaccuracies creep concerning the origin of these peoples.
+
+Yün-nan and Szech'wan--and a great part of Kwei-chow in the main still
+untouched by the increased taxation necessary to provide revenue to
+uphold the reforms brought about by the forward movement in various
+parts of the Empire--are where the aboriginal population is most
+evident. This part of the Empire might be called the ethnological garden
+of tribes and various races in various stages of uncivilization. These
+secluded mountain areas, their unaltered conditions still telling forth
+the story of the world's youth, have been the cradle and the death-bed
+of nations, of vigorous and ambitious tribes bent on conquest and a
+career of glory.
+
+
+THE MIAO
+
+Of the Miao, with its various sections, we know a good deal. Their real
+home has been pretty finally decided to be in Kwei-chow province, and
+they probably in former times extended far into Hu-nan, the Chinese of
+these provinces at the present time having undoubtedly a good deal of
+Miao blood in their veins. They are comparatively recent arrivals in
+Yün-nan, but are gradually extending farther and farther to the west,
+maintaining their language and their dress and customs. I personally
+found them as far west as thirty miles beyond Tali-fu, a little off the
+main road, but Major Davies found them far up on the Tibetan border. He
+says: "The most westerly point that I have come across them is the
+neighborhood of Tawnio (lat. 23° 40', long. 98° 45'). Through Central
+and Northern Yün-nan they do not seem to exist, but they reappear again
+to the north of this in Western Szech'wan, where there are a few
+villages in the basin of the Yalung River (lat. 28° 15', long. 101°
+40')."
+
+The Major was evidently ignorant of this Miao district of Chao-t'ong, to
+the north-east of the province. Stretching three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu right away on to Chao-t'ong, in a north line, Miao
+villages are met with fairly well the whole way; then, three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, in a north-westerly direction, we come to the Miao
+village of Loh-Ïn-shan; and then, striking south-west, through country
+absolutely unsurveyed part of the way, Sa-pu-shan is met. This last
+place is the headquarters of the China Inland Mission, where, at the
+present rate of progress, one might modestly estimate that in twenty
+years there will be no less than a million people receiving Christian
+teaching. These are not all Miao, however; there are besides La-ka,
+Li-su, and many other tribes with which we have no concern at the
+present moment.
+
+So that it may be seen that from Yün-nan-fu, the capital, in areas on
+either side of the main road leading up to the bifurcation of the
+Yangtze below Sui-fu, in a long, narrow neck running between the River
+of Golden Sand and the Kwei-chow border, Miao are met with constantly.
+And then, of course, over the river, in Szech'wan, they are met with
+again, and in Kwei-chow, farther west, we have their real home.
+
+It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
+contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
+ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
+the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
+have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
+Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
+have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
+from the pens of men who have not.
+
+In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:--
+
+(i) The Hua Miao--The Flowery (or White) Miao.
+
+(ii) The Heh Miao--The Black Miao.
+
+(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)
+
+The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
+different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
+and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
+interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
+enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
+differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's _Kwei-chow and
+Yün-nan Provinces_, Prince Henri d'Orleans' _Du Tonkin aux Indes_, and
+Mr. Baber's works. Major Davies also gives some new information
+concerning this hill people, and is generally correct in what he says;
+but in his, as in all the books which touch upon the subject, the
+language tests vary considerably. In Chao-t'ong and the surrounding
+districts, for instance, the traveler would be unable to make any
+progress with the vocabulary which the Major has compiled. I was unable
+to make it tally with the spoken language of the people, and append a
+table showing the differences in the phonetic--and I do it with all
+respect to Major Davies. I ought to add that this is the language of the
+north-east corner of Yün-nan; that of Major Davies is taken from page
+339 of his book. He says that the words given by him will not be found
+to correspond in every case with those in the Miao vocabulary in the
+pocket of the cover of his book, and some have been taken from other
+Miao dialects!. However, the comparison will be interesting:--
+
+                                               N-E. Yün-nan
+    English Word          Major Davies's Miao      Miao
+
+    Man (human being)     Tan-neng, Tam-ming   Teh-neh.
+
+    Son                   To, T'am-t'ong       Tu.
+
+    Eye                   K'a-mwa, Mai         A-ma.
+
+    Hand                  Api                  Tee.
+
+    Cow                   Nyaw, Nga            Niu.
+
+    Pig                   Teng                 Npa.
+
+    Dog                   Klie, Ko             Klee.
+
+    Chicken               Ka, Kei              Ki.
+
+    Silver                Nya                  Nieh.
+
+    River                 Tiang                Glee.
+
+    Paddy                 Mblei                Nglee.
+
+    Cooked Rice           Mao                  Va.
+
+    Tree                  Ndong                Ntao.
+
+    Fire                  To                   Teh.
+
+    Wind                  Chwa, Chiang         Chta.
+
+    Earth                 Ta                   Ti.
+
+    Sun                   Hno, Nai             Hnu.
+
+    Moon                  Hla                  Hlee.
+
+    Big                   Hlo                  Hlo.
+
+    Come                  Ta                   Ta.
+
+    Go                    Mong                 Mao.
+
+    Drink                 Ho                   Hao.
+
+    One                   A, Yi                Ih.
+
+    Two                   Ao                   Ah.
+
+    Three                 Pie, Po              Tsz.
+
+    Four                  Pei, Plou            Glao.
+
+    Five                  Pa                   Peh.
+
+    Six                   Chou                 Glao.
+
+    Seven                 Shiang, I            Shiang.
+
+    Eight                 Yi, Yik              Yih.
+
+    Nine                  Chio                 Chia.
+
+    Ten                   Ch'it                Kao.
+
+The Miao language was until a year or two ago only spoken; it was never
+written, and no one ever dreamed that it could be written. At the time
+of the great Miao revival, when thousands of Miao made a raid on the
+mission premises at Chao-t'ong, and implored the missionaries to come
+and teach them, it was found absolutely necessary that the language
+should be reduced to writing, and the whole of this extremely creditable
+work fell to the Rev. Samuel Pollard, who may be characterized as the
+pioneer of this Christianizing movement in North-East Yün-nan.
+
+In reducing the language to writing, however, considerable difficulty
+was complicated by the presence of "tones," so well known to all
+students of Chinese, itself said to be an invention of the Devil. Tones
+introduce another element or dimension into speech. The number of
+sounds, not being sufficient for the reproduction of all the spoken
+ideas, has been multiplied by giving these various sounds in different
+tones. It is as if the element of music were introduced according to
+rule into speech, and as if one had not only to remember the words in
+everything he wished to say, but the tune also.
+
+The Miao people being so low down in the intellectual scale, and having
+never been accustomed to study, it was felt by the promoters of the
+written language that they should be as simple as possible, and hence
+they looked about for some system which could be readily grasped by
+these ignorant people. It was necessary that the system be absolutely
+phonetic and understood easily. By adapting the system used in
+shorthand, of putting the vowel marks in different positions by the side
+of the consonant signs, Mr. Pollard and his assistant found that they
+could solve their problem. The signs for the consonants are larger than
+the vowel signs, and the position of the latter by the side of the
+former gives the tone or musical note required.
+
+At the present time there are thousands of Miao now able to read and
+write, and the work of this enterprising missionary has conferred an
+inestimable boon upon this people. When I went among the Miao I was
+able, after ten minutes' instruction, to stand up and sing their hymns
+and read their gospels with them. Miao women, who heretofore had never
+hoped to read, are now put in possession of the Word of God, and the
+simplicity of the written language enables them almost at once to read
+the Story of the Cross. Surely this is one of the outstanding features
+of mission work in the whole of China. I hope at some future date to
+publish a work devoted exclusively to my travels among the Hua Miao, for
+I feel that their story, no matter how simply written, is one of the
+great untold romances of the world. As a people, they are extremely
+fascinating in life and customs, emotional, large-hearted, and
+absolutely distinct from, with hardly a manner of daily life in common
+with, the Chinese.
+
+
+MISSION WORK AMONG THE MIAO
+
+Whilst referring to mission work, it is a great privilege for the writer
+to add a word of most deserved eulogy of the United Methodist Mission at
+Chao-t'ong and Tongi-ch'uan-fu, and to the kindness shown by the
+missionaries towards me when I came, an absolute stranger, among them in
+May, 1909. It is to two members of this Mission that I owe a life-long
+debt of gratitude, for it was Mr. and Mrs. Evans, of Tong-ch'uan-fu, who
+saved my life, a week or two after I left Chao-t'ong, as is recorded in
+a subsequent chapter.
+
+It was in the old days of the Bible Christian Mission--than which the
+individual members of no mission in the whole of China worked with more
+zeal and lower stipends--that a most interesting development in the
+mission took place.
+
+The mass of the Miao are the serfs of the descendants of their ancient
+kings, who are large landowners, and the Miao are tenants. In 1905 the
+Miao heard of the Gospel, and came to listen to the preaching, and
+thousands came in batches at one time and another to the mission house.
+Their movements thus aroused suspicion among the Chinese, there was a
+good deal of persecution and personal violence, and at one time it
+looked as if there might be serious trouble. But the danger quieted
+down. The chieftain gave land, the Miao contributed one hundred pounds
+sterling, and themselves put up a chapel large enough to accommodate six
+hundred people. A year later, a thousand at a time crowded their simple
+sanctuary, and in 1907 nearly six thousand were members or probationers,
+and the work has steadily progressed ever since.
+
+I am indebted to the Rev. H. Parsons, who had charge of the work at the
+time I passed through this district, and whose guest I was for several
+months, for the following interesting details regarding the methods
+adopted in the running of this enormous mission field. Mr. Parsons is
+assisted in his work by his genial wife, who is a most ardent worker,
+and a capable Miao linguist. Mrs. Parsons regularly addresses
+congregations of several hundreds of Miao, and has traveled on journeys
+often with her husband; and such work as hers, with several others in
+this mission, is a testimony to the wisdom of a system advocating the
+increase of the number of lady workers on the mission field in China.
+
+
+THE NOU-SU (OR I-PIEN)
+
+There is a class of people around Chao-t'ong who are called Nou-su, a
+people who, although occupying the Chao-t'ong Plain at the time the
+Chinese arrived, are believed not to be the aboriginals of the district.
+What I actually know about this people is not much. I have heard a good
+deal, but it must not be understood that I publish this as absolutely
+the final word. People who have lived in the district for many years do
+not agree, so that for a mere traveler the task of getting infallible
+data would be quite formidable.
+
+No tribe is more widely known than the Nou-su, with their innumerable
+tribal distinctions and hereditary peculiarities so perplexing to the
+inquirer into Far Western China ethnology.
+
+The Nou-su are a very fine, tall race, with comparatively fair
+complexions, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian with some other
+straight-featured people. Of their origin, however, little can be
+vouched for, and with it we will have nothing to do here. But at the
+present time the Nou-su provide a good deal of interest from the fact
+that their power as tyrannic landlords and feudal chiefs is fast dying,
+and it may be that in a couple of decades, or a still shorter time, a
+people who, by obstinate self-reliance and great dislike to the Chinese,
+have remained unaffected by the absorbing spirit of the arbitrary
+Chinese, will have passed beyond the vale of personality. Even now,
+however, they own and rule enormous tracts of country (notably that part
+lying on the right bank of the River of Golden Sand) in north-east
+Yün-nan. Some are very wealthy. One man may own vast tracts bigger than
+Yorkshire. In this tract there may be one hundred villages, all paying
+tribute to him and subject to the vagaries of his vilest despotism. From
+his tyranny his struggling tenantry have no redress. So long as the
+I-pien (the local name of the Nou-su) greases the palm of the squeezing
+Chinese mandarin in whose nominal control the district extends, he may
+run riot as he pleases. Social law and order are unknown, justice is a
+complete contradiction in terms, and whilst one is in the midst of it,
+it is difficult to realize that in China to-day--the China which all the
+world believes to be awakening--there exists a condition of things which
+will allow a man to torture, to plunder, to murder, and to indulge to
+the utmost degree the whims of a Neronic and devilish temperament.
+
+Slave trading is common. If a tenant cannot pay his tribute, he sells
+himself for a few taels and becomes the slave of his former landlord,
+and if he would save his head treads carefully.
+
+In the early days, when different clans were driven farther into the
+hills, they each clinched as much land as they could. In course of time,
+by petty quarrels, civil wars, and common feuds, the Nou-su were
+gradually thinned out. The Miao-tsi--the men of the hills and the serfs
+of the landlords, who four thousand years ago were a powerful race in
+their own kingdom--became the tenants of the Nou-su, whose rule is still
+marked by the grossest infamy possible to be practiced on the human
+race. All the methods of torture which in the old days were associated
+with the Chinese are still in vogue, in many cases in an aggravated
+form. I have personally seen the tortures, and have listened to the
+stories of the victims, but it would not bear description in print.
+
+It must not, however, be understood that to be a Nou-su is to be a
+landlord. By no means. For in the gradual process of the survival of the
+fittest, when the weaker landlords were murdered by their stronger
+compatriots and their lands seized, only a small percentage of the tribe
+in this area have been able to hold sway. However, wherever there are
+landlords in this part of the country, they are always Nou-su or
+Chinese. The Miao--or, at least, the Hua Miao, own no lands, and are
+body and soul in the tyrannic clutch of the tyrannic I-pien. Then,
+again, in the Nou-su tribe there are various hereditary distinctions
+enabling a man to claim caste advantage. There are the Black Bones, as
+they style themselves, the aristocrats of the race, and the White Bones,
+the lower breeds, who obey to the letter their wealthier brethren--or
+anybody who has authority over them.
+
+The Nou-su, who are a totally different race and a much better class
+than the Miao, are believed to have been driven from the Chao-t'ong
+Plain, preferring migration to fighting, and many trekked across the
+Yangtze (locally called the Kin-sha) river into country now marked on
+good maps as the Man-tze country. It appears that the following are the
+two important branches:--
+
+     (i) The Black (Na-su)--Farmers and landowners.
+
+     (ii) The White (Tu-su) Generally slaves.
+
+Other minor classes are:--
+
+     (i) The Lakes (or Red Nou-su)--Mostly blacksmiths.
+
+     (ii) The A-u-tsï Mostly felt-makers, who rightly or wrongly claim
+     relationship with the Chinese.
+
+     (iii) Another class, who are mostly basket-makers.
+
+The two great divisions, however, are the White and the Black. The
+latter class, themselves the owners of land, claim that all the White
+were originally slaves, and that those who are now free have escaped at
+some previous period from servitude. Men, as usual among such tribes,
+are scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary _Han Ren_. It is the
+women, with their peculiar head-dress and picturesque skirts, who
+maintain the distinguishing features of the race. For the most part, the
+Nou-su are not idolaters; no idols are in their houses. That portion of
+the tribe which migrated across the Yangtze, secure among the mountains,
+has never ceased to harass the Chinese, who now dwell on land which the
+Nou-su themselves once tilled, or at least inhabited; but they have been
+driven into remoter districts, and are only found away from the highways
+of Chinese travel. The race, too, is dying out--in this area at all
+events--and the Nou-su themselves reckon that their numbers have
+decreased by one-half during the last thirty years. This is one of the
+saddest facts. The insanitation of their dwellings, their rough diet,
+and frequent riotings in wine, opium and other evils, are quickly
+playing havoc in their ranks, giving the strong the opportunity of
+enriching themselves at the expense of the weak, with frequent fighting
+about the division of land.
+
+Europeans who can speak the language of the Nou-su are numbered on the
+fingers of one hand.
+
+To one who has traveled in this neighborhood for any length of time, it
+must be apparent that the unique method generally adopted by the Nou-su,
+that is, the landlord class, to get rich quickly is to kill off their
+next-door neighbor. The lives these men live with nothing but scandal
+and licentiousness to pass their time, are grossly and horribly wicked
+when viewed by the broadest-minded Westerner. They all live in fear of
+their lives, and are each afraid of the others, all entertaining a
+secret hatred, and all ever on the alert to devise some safe scheme to
+murder the owner of some land they are anxious of annexing to their
+own--and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they
+succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man,
+quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his
+brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When
+tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had
+not killed his brother his brother would have killed him
+
+Yet there is no sense of crime as we of the West understand it, and
+nothing is feared from the Chinese law. A man kills a slave, tortures
+him to death, and when the Chinese mandarin is appealed to, if he is at
+all, he looks wise and says, "I quite see your point, but I can do
+nothing. The murdered man was the landlord's slave," and, with a gentle
+wave of his three-inch finger-nail, he explains how a man may kill his
+slave, his wife, or his son--and the law can do nothing. That is, if he
+compensates the mandarin.
+
+A Nou-su looked upon a girl one day, when he was out collecting tribute.
+She was handsome, and he instructed his men to take her. She refused. A
+sum of one hundred ounces of silver was offered to anyone who would
+kidnap her and carry her off to his harem. Eventually he got the girl,
+and had her father tortured and then put to death because he would not
+deliver his daughter over to him. Yet there is no redress.
+
+Nou-su women, their feet unbound, with high foreheads and well-cut
+features, with fiery eyes set in not unkindly faces, tall and healthy,
+would be considered handsome women in any country in Europe. They rarely
+intermarry with other tribes. A good deal of affection certainly exists
+sometimes between husband and wife and between parents and children, but
+the looseness of the marriage relation leads to unending strife.
+
+Many Europeans, travelers and missionaries, have been murdered in the
+country inhabited by the independent Lolo people. Although I have not
+personally been through any of that country, I have been on the very
+outskirts and have lived for a long time among the people there. I found
+them a pleasant hospitable race, fairly easy to get on with. And it must
+not be averred that, because they consider their natural enemy, the
+Chinese, the man to be robbed and murdered, and because they kill off
+their fellow-landlords in order the more quickly to get rich, that they
+treat all strangers alike. Among the Europeans who have suffered death
+at their hands, it is probable that in some way the cause was traceable
+to their own bearing towards the people--either a total lack of
+knowledge of their language or an attitude which caused suspicion.
+
+Among the Nou-su, strong as this feudal life still is, the Chinese are
+fast gaining permanent influence. Their dissolute and drunken and
+inhuman daily practices are tending to work out among this people their
+own destruction, and in years to come in this neighborhood the traveler
+will be perplexed at finding here and there a fine specimen of an
+upstanding Chinese, with clean-cut face, straight of feature and
+straight of limb, with a peculiar Mongol look about him. He will be one
+of the surviving specimens of a race of people, the Nou-su, whose
+forgotten historical records would do much to clear up the doubt
+attaching to Indo-China and Tibet-Burma ethnology.
+
+The first Nou-su chieftain to come to Chao-t'ong, a man who was renowned
+as a tryannical brute, was one Ien Tsang-fu, who frequently gouged out
+the eyes of those who disobeyed his commands; and his descendants are
+said to have inherited a good many of this tyrant's vices. The landlords
+prey upon their weaker brethren, and at last, with infinite sagacity,
+the Chinese Government steps in to stop the quarrels, confiscates the
+whole of the property, and thus reduces the Nou-su land to immediate
+control of Chinese authorities.
+
+"The Nou-su are, of course, entirely dependent upon the land for their
+living. They till the soil and rear cattle, and the greatest calamity
+that can come upon any family is that their land shall be taken from
+them. To be landless involves degradation as well as poverty, and very
+severe hardship is the lot of men who have been deprived of this means
+of subsistence. For those who own no land, but who are merely tenants of
+the Tu-muh,[S] there seems to be no security of tenure; but still, if
+the wishes and demands of the landlords are complied with, one family
+may till the same farm for many successive generations. The terms on
+which land is held are peculiar. The rental agreed upon is nominal.
+Large tracts of country are rented for a pig or a sheep or a fowl, with
+a little corn per year. Beside this nominal rent, the landlord has the
+right to make levies on his tenants on all special occasions, such as
+funerals, weddings, or for any other extraordinary expenses. He can also
+require his tenants with their cattle to render services. This system
+necessarily leads to much oppression and injustice. It is also said that
+if a family is hard pressed by a Tu-muh and reduced to extreme poverty,
+they will make themselves over to him on condition that a portion of his
+land be given them to cultivate. Such people are called caught slaves,
+as distinguished from hereditary, and the eldest children become the
+absolute property of the landlord and are generally given as attendants
+upon his wife and daughters.
+
+"Every farmer owns a large number of slaves, who live in the same
+compound as himself. These people do all the work of the farm, while the
+master employs himself as his fancy leads him. Over these unfortunate
+people the owner has absolute control. All their affairs are managed by
+him. His girl slaves he marries off to other men's slave boys, and
+similarly obtains wives for his male slaves. The lot of these
+unfortunate people is hard beyond description. Being considered but
+little more valuable than the cattle they tend, the food given to them
+is often inferior to the corn upon which the master's horse is fed. The
+cruel beatings and torturings they have been subject to have completely
+broken their spirit, and now they seem unable to exist apart from their
+masters. Very seldom do any of them try to escape, for no one will give
+them shelter, and the punishment awarded a recaptured slave is so severe
+as to intimidate the most daring. These poor folk are born in slavery,
+married in slavery, and they die in slavery. It is not uncommon to meet
+with Chinese slaves, both boys and girls, in Nou-su families. These have
+either been kidnapped and sold, or their parents, unable to nourish
+them, have bartered them in exchange for food. Their purchasers marry
+them to Tu-su, and their lot is thrown in with the slave class. One's
+heart is wrung with anguish sometimes as he thinks of what cruelty and
+wretchedness exist among the hills of this benighted district. Even
+here, however, light is beginning to shine, for some adherents of the
+Christian religion have changed their slaves into tenants, thus showing
+the way to the ultimate solution of this difficult problem.
+
+"The life in a Nou-su household is not very complex. The cattle are
+driven out early in the morning, as soon as the sun has risen. They
+remain out until the breakfast hour, and then return to the stables and
+rest during the heat of the day, going out again in the cool hours. The
+food of the household is prepared by the slaves, under the direction of
+the lady of the house. There is no refined cooking, for the Nou-su
+despises well-cooked food, and complains that it never satisfies him. He
+has a couplet which runs: 'If you eat raw food, you become a warrior; if
+you eat it cooked, you suffer hunger.' No chairs or tables are found in
+a genuine Nou-su house. The food is served up in a large bowl placed on
+the floor. The family sit around, and each one helps himself with a
+large wooden spoon. At the present time the refinements of Chinese
+civilization have been adopted by a large number of Nou-su, and the
+homes of the wealthier people are as well furnished as those of the
+middle-class Chinese of the district. The women of the households also
+spend much time making their own and their children's clothes. The men
+have adopted Chinese dress, but the women, in most cases, retain their
+tribal costume with its large turban-like head-dress, its plaited skirt
+and intricately embroidered coat. All this is made by hand, and the
+choicest years of maidenhood are occupied in preparing the clothes for
+the wedding-day.
+
+"The Nou-su, it would seem, used not to beg a wife, but rather obtained
+her by main force. At the present day, while the milder method generally
+prevails, there are still survivals of the ancient custom. The betrothal
+truly takes place very early, even in infancy, and at the ceremony a
+fowl is killed, and each contracting party takes a rib; but as the young
+folk grow to marriageable age, the final negotiations have to be made.
+These are purposely prolonged until the bridegroom, growing angry,
+gathers his friends and makes an attack on the maiden's home. Arming
+themselves with cudgels, they approach secretly, and protecting their
+heads and shoulders with their felt cloaks, they rush towards the house.
+Strenuous efforts are made by the occupants to prevent their entering,
+and severe blows are exchanged. When the attacking party has succeeded
+in gaining an entrance, peace is proclaimed, and wine and huge chunks of
+flesh are provided for their entertainment.
+
+"Occasionally during these fights the maiden's home is quite dismantled.
+The negotiations being ended, preparations are made to escort the bride
+to her future home. Heavily veiled, she is supported on horseback by her
+brothers, while her near relatives, all fully armed, attend her. On
+arriving at the house, a scuffle ensues. The veil is snatched from the
+bride's face by her relatives, who do their utmost to throw it on to the
+roof, thus signifying that she will rule over the occupants when she
+enters. The bridegroom's people on the contrary try to trample it upon
+the doorstep, as an indication of the rigor with which the newcomer will
+be subjected to the ruling of the head of the house. Much blood is shed,
+and people are often seriously injured in these skirmishes. The new
+bride remains for three days in a temporary shelter before she is
+admitted to the home. A girl having once left her parent's home to
+become a wife, waits many years before she pays a return visit.
+Anciently the minimum time was three years, but some allow ten or more
+years to elapse before the first visit home is paid. Two or three years
+are then often spent with the parents. Many friends and relatives attend
+any visitor, for with the Nou-su a large following is considered a sign
+of dignity and importance. When a child is born a tree is planted, with
+the hope that as the tree grows so also will the child develop.
+
+"The fear of disease lies heavily upon the Nou-su people, and their
+disregard of the most elementary sanitary laws makes them very liable to
+attacks of sickness. They understand almost nothing about medicine, and
+consequently resort to superstitious practices in order to ward off the
+evil influences. When it is known that disease has visited a neighbor's
+house, a pole, seven feet long, is erected in a conspicuous place in a
+thicket some distance from the house to be guarded. On the pole an old
+ploughshare is fixed, and it is supposed that when the spirit who
+controls the disease sees the ploughshare he will retire to a distance
+of three homesteads.
+
+"A fever called No-ma-dzï works great havoc among the Nou-su every year,
+and the people are very much afraid of it. No person will stay by the
+sick-bed to nurse the unfortunate victim. Instead, food and water are
+placed by his bedside and, covered with his quilt, he is left at the
+mercy of the disease. Since as the fever progresses the patient will
+perspire, heavy stones are placed on the quilt, that it may not be
+thrown off, and the sick person take cold. Many an unfortunate sufferer
+has through this strange practice died from suffocation. After a time
+the relatives will return to see what course the disease has taken. This
+fever seems to yield to quinine, for Mr. John Li has seen several
+persons recover to whom he had administered this drug. When a man dies,
+his relatives, as soon as they receive the news, hold in their several
+homes a feast of mourning called by them the Za. A pig or sheep is
+sacrificed at the doorway, and it is supposed that intercourse is thus
+maintained between the living persons and the late departed spirit. The
+near kindred, on hearing of the death of a relative, take a fowl and
+strangle it; the shedding of its blood is not permissible. This fowl is
+cleaned and skewered, and the mourner then proceeds to the house where
+the deceased person is lying, and sticks this fowl at the head of the
+corpse as an offering. The more distant relatives do not perform this
+rite, but each leads a sheep to the house of mourning, and the son of
+the deceased man strikes each animal three times with a white wand,
+while the Peh-mo (priest or magician) stands by, and announcing the
+sacrifice by calling 'so and so,' giving of course the name, presents
+the soft woolly offering.
+
+"Formerly the Nou-su burned their dead. Said a Nou-su youth to me years
+ago, 'The thought of our friends' bodies either turning to corruption or
+being eaten by wild beasts is distasteful to us, and therefore we burn
+our dead.' The corpse is burnt with wood, and during the cremation the
+mourners arrange themselves around the fire and chant and dance. The
+ashes are buried, and the ground leveled. This custom is still adhered
+to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly
+Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the
+neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong have adopted burial as the means
+of disposing of their dead, adding some customs peculiar to themselves.
+
+"On the day of the funeral the horse which the deceased man was in the
+habit of riding is brought to the door and saddled by the Pehmo. The
+command is then given to lead the horse to the grave. All the mourners
+follow, and marching or dancing in intertwining circles, cross and
+recross the path of the led horse until the poor creature, grown frantic
+with fear, rushes and kicks in wild endeavor to escape from the
+confusion. The whole company then raise a great shout and call, 'The
+soul has come to ride the horse, the soul has come to ride the horse.' A
+contest then follows among the women of the deceased man's household for
+the possession of this horse, which is henceforth regarded as of extreme
+value. It is difficult to discover much about the religion of the
+Nou-su, because so many of their ancient customs have fallen into disuse
+during the intercourse of the people with the Chinese. At the
+ingathering of the buckwheat, when the crop is stacked on the threshing
+floor, and the work of threshing is about to begin, the simple formula,
+'Thank you, Ilsomo,' is used. Ilsomo seems to be a spirit who has
+control over the crops; whether good or evil, it is not easy to
+determine. Ilsomo is not God, for at present, when the Nou-su wish to
+speak of God, they use the word Soe, which means Master.
+
+"In the independent territory of the Nou-su, to the west of Szech'wan,
+the term used for God is Eh-nia, and a Nou-su who has much intercourse
+with the independent people contends that there are three names
+indicative of God, each representing different functions if not persons
+of the Godhead. These names are: Eh-nia, Keh-neh, Um-p'a-ma. The Nou-su
+believe in ancestor worship, and perhaps the most interesting feature of
+their religion is the peculiar form this worship takes. Instead of an
+ancestral tablet such as the Chinese use, the Nou-su worship a small
+basket (lolo) about as large as a duck's egg and made of split bamboo.
+This 'lolo' contains small bamboo tubes an inch or two long, and as
+thick as an ordinary Chinese pen handle. In these tubes are fastened a
+piece of grass and a piece of sheep's wool. A man and his wife would be
+represented by two tubes, and if he had two wives, an extra tube would
+be placed in the 'lolo.' At the ceremony of consecration the Pehmo
+attends, and a slave is set apart for the purpose of attending to all
+the rites connected with the worship of the deceased person. The 'lolo'
+is sometimes placed in the house, but more often on a tree in the
+neighborhood or it may be hidden in a rock. For persons who are
+short-lived, the ancestral 'lolo' is placed in a crevice in the wall of
+some forsaken and ruined building. Every three years the 'lolo' is
+changed, and the old one burnt. The term 'lolo,' by which the Nou-su are
+generally known, is a contemptuous nickname given them by the Chinese in
+reference to this peculiar method of venerating their ancestors.
+
+"Hill worship is another important feature of Nou-su religious life.
+Most important houses are built at the foot of a hill and sacrifice is
+regularly offered on the hill-side in the fourth month of each year. The
+Pehmo determines which is the most propitious day, and the Tumuh and his
+people proceed to the appointed spot. A limestone rock with an old tree
+trunk near is chosen as an altar, and a sheep and pig are brought
+forward by the Tumuh. The Pehmo, having adjusted his clothes, sits
+cross-legged before the altar, and begins intoning his incantations in a
+low muttering voice. The sacrifice is then slain, and the blood poured
+beneath the altar, and a handful of rice and a lump of salt are placed
+beneath the stone. Some person then gathers a bundle of green grass, and
+the Pehmo, having finished intoning, the altar is covered, and all
+return to the house. The Pehmo then twists the grass into a length of
+rope, which he hangs over the doorway of the house. Out of a piece of
+willow a small arrow is made, and a bow similar in size is cut out of a
+peach tree. These are placed on the doorposts. On a piece of soft white
+wood a figure of a man is roughly carved, and this, with two sticks of
+any soft wood placed cross-wise, is fastened to the rope hanging over
+the doorway, on each side of which two small sticks are placed. The
+Pehmo then proceeds with his incantation, muttering: 'From now,
+henceforth and for ever will the evil spirits keep away from this
+house.'
+
+"Most Nou-su at the present time observe the New Year festival on the
+same date and with the same customs as the Chinese. Formerly this was
+not so, and even now in the remoter districts New Year's day is observed
+on the first day of the tenth month of the Chinese year. A pig and sheep
+are killed and cleaned, and hung in the house for three days. They are
+then taken down, cut up and cooked. The family sit on buckwheat straw in
+the middle of the chief room of the house. The head of the house invites
+the others to drink wine, and the feasting begins. Presently one will
+start singing, and all join in this song: 'How firm is this house of
+mine. Throughout the year its hearth fire has not ceased to burn, My
+food corn is abundant, I have silver and also cash, My cattle have
+increased to herds, My horses and mules have all white foreheads K'o K'o
+Ha Ha Ha Ha K'o K'o, My sons are filial, My wife is virtuous, In the
+midst of flesh and wine we sleep, Our happiness reaches unto heaven,
+Truly glorious is this glad New Year.' A scene of wild indulgence then
+frequently follows.
+
+"The Nou-su possess a written language. Their books were originally made
+of sheepskin, but paper is now used. The art of printing was unknown,
+and many books are said to have been lost. The books are illustrated,
+but the drawings are extremely crude."[T]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote R: _Yün-nan, The Link between India, and the Yangtze_, by
+Major H.R. Davies, Cambridge University Press.]
+
+[Footnote S: Literally "Eyes of the Earth"--the landlords.]
+
+[Footnote T: A good deal of information in this chapter was obtained
+from an article by the Rev. C E Hicks, published in the _Chinese
+Recorder_ for March, 1910. The portion quoted is taken bodily from this
+excellent article.]
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY.
+
+CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Revolting sights compensated for by scenery_. _Most eventful day in the
+trip_. _Buying a pony, and the reason for its purchase_. _Author's pony
+kicks him and breaks his arm_. _Chastising the animal, and narrow escape
+from death_. _Rider and pony a sorry sight_. _An uneasy night_.
+_Reappearance of malaria_. _Author nearly forced to give in_. _Heavy
+rain on a difficult road_. _At Ta-shui-tsing_. _Chasing frightened pony
+in the dead of night_. _Bad accommodation_. _Lepers and leprosy_.
+_Mining_. _At Kiang-ti_. _Two mandarins, and an amusing episode_.
+_Laying foundation of a long illness_. _The Kiang-ti Suspension Bridge_.
+_Hard climbing_. _Tiffin in the mountains_. _Sudden ascents and
+descents_. _Description of the country_. _Tame birds and what they do_.
+_A non-enterprising community_. _Pleasant travelling without perils_.
+_Majesty of the mountains of Yün-nan_.
+
+
+Whilst in this district, as will have been seen, one has to steel
+himself to face some of the most revolting sights it is possible to
+imagine, he is rewarded by the grandeur of the scenic pictures which
+mark the downward journey to Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+
+The stages to Tong-ch'uan-fu were as follows:--
+
+                            Length of   Height above
+                              stage      sea level
+
+    1st day   T'ao-üen         70 li.      ---- ft.
+    2nd day   Ta-shui-tsing    30 "       9,300 ft.
+    3rd day   Kiang-ti         40 "       4,400 "
+    4th day   Yi-che-shïn      70 "       6,300 "
+    5th day   Hong-shïh-ai     90 "       6,800 "
+    6th day   Tong-ch'uan-fu   60 "       7,250 "
+
+The Chao-t'ong plateau, magnificently level, runs out past the
+picturesquely-situated tower of Wang-hai-leo, from which one overlooks a
+stretch of water. A memorial arch, erected by the Li family of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, graces the main road farther on, and is probably one of
+the best of its kind in Yün-nan, comparing favorably with the best to be
+found in Szech'wan, where monumental architecture abounds. Perhaps the
+only building of interest in Chao-t'ong is the ancestral hall of the
+wealthy family mentioned above, the carving of which is magnificent.
+
+At the end of the first day we camped at the Mohammedan village of
+T'ao-üen, literally "Peach Garden," but the peach trees might once have
+been, though now certainly they are not.
+
+It was cold when we left, 38° F., hard frost. All the world seemed
+buttoned up and great-coated; the trees seemed wiry and cheerless; the
+legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued
+visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to
+blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could
+not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who
+could, thought it no fault of mine. I was a reasoning being, a rational
+creature, and thought it a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial
+half-hour. But I had to get up, and then came the benumbed fingers, a
+quivering body, a frozen towel, and a floor upon which the mud was
+frozen stiff. Little did he know that he was pulling me out to the most
+eventful and unfortunate day of my trip.
+
+At Chao-t'ong I had bought a pony in case of emergency--one of those
+sturdy little brutes that never grow tired, cost little to keep, and are
+unexcelled for the amount of work they can get through every day in the
+week. Its color was black, a smooth, glossy black--the proverbial dark
+horse--and when dressed in its English saddle and bridle looked even
+smart enough for the use of the distinguished traveler, who smiled the
+smile of pleasant ownership as it was led on in front all day long,
+seeming to return a satanic grin for my foolishness at not riding it.[U]
+
+The first I saw of it was when it was standing full on its hind legs
+pinning a man between the railings and a wall in a corner of the mission
+premises. It looked well. Truly, it was a blood beast!
+
+On the second day out, whilst walking merrily along in the early
+morning, the little brute lifted its heels, lodged them most precisely
+on to my right forearm with considerable force--more forceful than
+affectionate--sending the stick which I carried thirty feet from me up
+the cliffs. The limb ached, and I felt sick. My boy--he had been a
+doctor's boy on one of the gunboats at Chung-king--thought it was
+bruised. I acquiesced, and sank fainting to a stone. On the strength of
+my boy's diagnosis we rubbed it, and found that it hurt still more. Then
+diving into a cottage, I brought out a piece of wood, three inches wide
+and twenty inches long, placed my arm on it, bade my boy take off one of
+my puttees from one of my legs, used it as a bandage, and trudged on
+again.
+
+Not realizing that my arm was broken, in the evening I determined to
+chastise the animal in a manner becoming to my disgust. Mounting at the
+foot of a long hill, I laid on the stick as hard as I could, and found
+that my pony had a remarkable turn of speed. At the brow of the hill was
+a twenty-yard dip, at the base of which was a pond.
+
+Down, down, down we went, and, despite my full strength (with the left
+arm) at its mouth, the pony plunged in with a dull splash, only to find
+that his feet gave way under him in a clay bottom. He could not free
+himself to swim. Farther and farther we sank together, every second
+deeper into the mire, when just at the moment I felt the mud clinging
+about my waist, and I had visions of a horrible death away from all who
+knew me, I plunged madly to reach the side.
+
+With one arm useless, it is still to me the one great wonder of my life
+how I escaped. Nothing short of miraculous; one of the times when one
+feels a special protection of Providence surrounding him.
+
+Pulling the beast's head, after I had given myself a momentary shake, I
+succeeded in making him give a mighty lurch--then another--then another,
+and in a few seconds, after terrible struggling, he reached the bank. We
+made a sorry spectacle as we walked shamefacedly back to the inn, under
+the gaze of half a dozen grinning rustics, where my man was preparing
+the evening meal.
+
+In the evening, on the advice of my general confidential companion, I
+submitted to a poultice being applied to my arm. It was bruised, so we
+put on the old-fashioned, hard-to-be-beaten poultice of bread. Whilst it
+was hot it was comfortable; when it was cold, I unrolled the bandage,
+threw the poultice to the floor, and in two minutes saw glistening in
+the moonlight the eyes of the rats which ate it.
+
+Then I bade sweet Morpheus take me; but, although the pain prevented me
+from sleeping, I remember fainting. How long I lay I know not.
+Shuddering in every limb with pain and chilly fear, I at length awoke
+from a long swoon. Something had happened, but what? There was still the
+paper window, the same greasy saucer of thick oil and light being given
+by the same rush, the same rickety table, the same chair on which we had
+made the poultice--but what had happened? I rubbed my aching eyes and
+lifted myself in a half-sitting posture--a dream had dazzled me and
+scared my senses. And then I knew that it was malaria coming on again,
+and that I was once more her luckless victim.
+
+Malignant malaria, mistress of men who court thee under tropic skies,
+and who, like me, are turned from thee bodily shattered and whimpering
+like a child, how much, how very much hast thou laid up for thyself in
+Hades!
+
+Thank Heaven, I had superabundant energy and vitality, and despite
+contorted and distorted things dancing haphazard through my fevered
+brain, I determined not to go under, not to give in. My mind was a
+terrible tangle of combinations nevertheless--intricate, incongruous,
+inconsequent, monstrous; but still I plodded on. For the next four days,
+with my arm lying limp and lifeless at my side, and with recurring
+attacks of malaria, I walked on against the greatest odds, and it was
+not till I had reached Tong-ch'uan-fu that I learnt that the limb was
+fractured. Men may have seen more in four days and done more and risked
+more, but I think few travelers have been called upon to suffer more
+agony than befell the lot of the man who was crossing China on foot.
+
+From T'ao-üen there is a stiff ascent, followed by a climb up steep
+stone steps and muddy mountain banks through black and barren country.
+The morning had been cold and frosty, but rain came on later, a thick,
+heavy deluge, which swished and swashed everything from its path as one
+toiled painfully up those slippery paths, made almost unnegotiable. But
+my imagination and my hope helped me to make my own sunshine. There is
+something, I think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good
+honest summer rain at home with a Burberry well buttoned and an umbrella
+over one's head; here in Yün-nan a coat made it too uncomfortable to
+walk, and the terrific wind would have blown an umbrella from one's
+grasp in a twinkling. If we are in the home humor, in the summer, we do
+not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in
+getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the "very touching
+stockings" and the "very gentle and sensitive legs" of other weaker ones
+in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland
+one can find in this part of Yün-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make
+as I trudged "two steps forward, one step back" in my bare feet, covered
+only with rough straw sandals, with trousers upturned above the knee,
+with teeth chattering in malarial shivers, endeavoring between-times to
+think of the pouring deluge as a benignant enemy fertilizing fields,
+purifying the streets of the horrid little villages in which we spent
+our nights, refreshing the air!
+
+Shall I ever forget the day?
+
+Just before sundown, drenched to the skin and suffering horribly from
+the blues, we reached one single hut, which I could justly look upon as
+a sort of evening companion; for here was a fire--albeit, a green wood
+fire--which looked gladly in my face, talked to me, and put life and
+comfort and warmth into me for the ten li yet remaining of the day's
+hard journey.
+
+And at night, about 8:30 p.m., we at last reached the top of the hill,
+actually the summit of a mountain pass, at the dirty little village of
+Ta-shui-tsing. Not for long, however, could I rest; for I heard yells
+and screams and laughs. That pony again! Every one of my men were afraid
+of it, for at the slightest invitation it pawed with its front feet and
+landed man after man into the gutter, and if that failed it stood
+upright and cuddled them around the neck. Now I found it had
+run--saddle, bridle and all--and none volunteered to chase. So at 9:30,
+weary and bearing the burden of a terrible day, which laid the
+foundation of a long illness to be recorded later, I found it my
+unpleasant duty to patrol the hill from top to bottom, lighting my
+slippery way with a Chinese lantern, chasing the pony silhouetted on
+the sky-line. Ta-shui-tsing is a dreary spot with no inn accommodation
+at all,[V] a place depopulated and laid waste, gloomy and melancholy. I
+managed, however, after promising a big fee, to get into a small
+mud-house, where the people were not unkindly disposed. I ate my food,
+slept as much as I could in the few hours before the appearing of the
+earliest dawn on the bench allotted to me, feeling thankful that to me
+had been allowed even this scanty lodging. But I could not
+conscientiously recommend the place to future travelers--a dirty little
+village with its dirty people and its dirty atmosphere. At the top of
+the pass the wind nearly removed my ears as I took a final glance at the
+mountain refuge. Mountains here run south-west and north-east, and are
+grand to look upon.
+
+The poorest people were lepers, the beggars were all dead long ago. In
+Yün-nan province leprosy afflicts thousands, a disease which the
+Chinese, not without reason, dread terribly, for no known remedy exists.
+Burning the patient alive, which used often to be resorted to, is even
+now looked upon as the only true remedy. Cases have been known where the
+patient, having been stupefied with opium, has been locked in a house,
+which has then been set on fire, and its inmate cremated on the spot.
+
+Mining used to be carried on here, so they told me; but I was not long
+in concluding that, whatever was the product, it has not materially
+affected the world's output, nor had it greatly enriched the laborers in
+the field. When I got into civilization I found that coal of a
+sulphurous nature was the booty of ancient days. There may be coal yet,
+as is most probable, but the natives seemed far too apathetic and weary
+of life to care whether it is there or not.
+
+Passing Ta-shui-tsing, the descent narrows to a splendid view of dark
+mountain and green and beautiful valley. We were now traveling away from
+several ranges of lofty mountains, whose peaks appeared vividly above
+the drooping rain-filled clouds, onwards to a range immediately
+opposite, up whose slopes we toiled all day, passing _en route_ only one
+uninhabited hamlet, to which the people flee in time of trouble. After a
+weary tramp of another twenty-five li--the Yün-nan li, mind you, the
+most unreliable quantity in all matters geographical in the country--I
+asked irritatedly, as all travelers must have asked before me, "Then, in
+the name of Heaven, where is Kiang-ti?"[W] It should come into view
+behind the terrible steep decline when one is within only about a
+hundred yards. It is roughly four thousand feet below Ta-shui-tsing.
+
+Kiang-ti is an important stopping place, with but one forlorn street,
+with two or three forlorn inns, the best of which has its best room
+immediately over the filthiest stables, emitting a stench which was
+almost unbearable, that I have seen in China. It literally suffocates
+one as it comes up in wafts through the wide gaps in the wood floor of
+the room. There are no mosquitoes here, but of a certain winged insect
+of various species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the
+wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a
+formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house
+fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly,
+the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with
+flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's
+throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one
+within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes
+of the 'kerchief.
+
+The village seemed a death-trap.
+
+Glancing comprehensively at one another as I entered the higher end of
+the town, a party of reveling tea-drinkers hastily pulled some cash from
+their satchels to settle accounts, and made a general rush into the
+street, where they awaited noisily the approach of a strangely wondrous
+and imposing spectacle, one that had not been seen in those parts for
+many days. The tramper, tired as he could be, at length approached, but
+the crowd had increased so enormously that the road was completely
+blocked. Tradesmen with their portable workshops, pedlars with their
+cumbersome gear and pack-horses could not pass, but had to wait for
+their turn; there were not even any tortuous by-streets in this place
+whereby they might reach their destination. Children lost themselves in
+the crush, and went about crying for their mothers. A party of
+travelers, newly arrived from the south by caravan route, got wedged
+with their worn-out horses and mules in the thick of the mob, and could
+not move an inch. As far as the eye could reach the blue-clad throng
+heaved restlessly to and fro under the blaze of the brilliant sun which
+harassed everyone in the valley, and, moving slowly and majestically in
+the midst of them all, came the foreigner. As they caught sight of me,
+my sandalled feet, and the retinue following on wearily in the wake, the
+populace set up an ecstatic yell of ferocious applause and turned their
+faces towards the inn, in the doorway of which one of my soldier-men was
+holding forth on points of more or less delicacy respecting my good or
+bad nature and my British connection. At that moment, the huge human
+mass began to move in one predetermined direction, and then a couple of
+mandarins in their chairs joined the swarming rabble. I had to sit down
+on the step for five minutes whilst my boy, with commendable energy,
+cleared these two mandarins, who had come from Chen-tu and were on their
+way to the capital, out of the best room, because his master wanted it.
+
+As he finished speaking, there came a loud crashing noise and a
+shout--my pony had landed out just once again, and banged in one side of
+a chair belonging to these traveling officials. They met me with noisy
+and derisive greetings, which were returned with a straight and
+penetrating look.
+
+No less than fifty degrees was the thermometrical difference in
+Ta-shui-tsing and Kiang-ti. Here it was stifling. Cattle stood in
+stagnant water, ducks were envied, my room with the sun on it became
+intolerable, and I sought refuge by the river; my butter was too liquid
+to spread; coolies were tired as they rested outside the tea-houses,
+having not a cash to spend; my pony stood wincing, giving sharp shivers
+to his skin, and moving his tail to clear off the flies and his hind
+legs to clear off men. As for myself, I could have done with an iced
+soda or a claret cup.
+
+Very early in the morning, despite malaria shivers, I made my way over
+the beautiful suspension bridge which here graces the Niu Lan,[X] a
+tributary of the Yangtze, up to the high hills beyond.
+
+This bridge at Kiang-ti is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve,
+protected at one end by a couple of monkeys carved in stone, whilst the
+opposite end is guarded by what are supposed to be, I believe, a couple
+of lions--and not a bad representation of them either, seeing that the
+workmen had no original near at hand to go by.
+
+From here the ascent over a second range of mountains is made by
+tortuous paths that wind along the sides of the hills high above the
+stream below, and at other times along the river-bed. The river is
+followed in a steep ascent, a sort of climbing terrace, from which the
+water leaps in delightful cascades and waterfalls. A four-hour climb
+brings one, after terrific labor, to the mouth of the picturesque pass
+of Ya-ko-t'ang at 7,500 feet. In the quiet of the mountains I took my
+midday meal; there was about the place an awe-inspiring stillness. It
+was grand but lonely, weird rather than peaceful, so that one was glad
+to descend again suddenly to the river, tracing it through long
+stretches of plain and barren valley, after which narrow paths lead up
+again to the small village of Yi-che-shïn, considerably below
+Ya-ko-t'ang. It is the sudden descents and ascents which astonish one in
+traveling in this region, and whether climbing or dropping, one always
+reaches a plain or upland which would delude one into believing that he
+is almost at sea-level, were it not for the towering mountains that all
+around keep one hemmed in in a silent stillness, and the rarefied air.
+Yi-che-shïn, for instance, standing at this altitude of considerably
+over 6,000 feet, is in the center of a tableland, on which are numerous
+villages, around which the fragrance of the broad bean in flower and the
+splendid fertility now and again met with makes it extremely pleasant to
+walk--it is almost a series of English cottage gardens. Here the weather
+was like July in England--or what one likes to imagine July should be in
+England--dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious weather, in which one
+should do as he pleases, and be pleased with what he does. As I toiled
+along, my useless limb causing me each day more trouble, I felt I should
+like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for
+my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength.
+But I was getting weaker! I saw, as I passed, gardens of purple and gold
+and white splendor; the sky was at its bluest, the clouds were full,
+snowy, mountainous.
+
+Then on again to varying scenes.
+
+Inns were not frequent, and were poor and wretched. The country was all
+red sandstone, and devoid of all timber, till, descending into a lovely
+valley, the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and then led out into a
+beautiful park all green and sweet. The country was full of color. It
+put a good taste in one's mouth, it impressed one as a heaven-sent means
+of keeping one cheerful in sad dilemma. The gardens, the fields, the
+skies, the mountains, the sunset, the light itself--all were full of
+color, and earth and heaven seemed of one opinion in the harmony of the
+reds, the purples, the drabs, the blacks, the browns, the bright blues,
+and the yellows. Birds were as tame as they were in the Great Beginning;
+they came under the table as I ate, and picked up the crumbs without
+fear. Peasant people sat under great cedars, planted to give shade to
+the travelers, and bade one feel at home in his lonely pilgrimage. Then
+one felt a peculiar feeling--this feeling will arise in any
+traveler--when, surmounting some hill range in the desert road, one
+descries, lying far below, embosomed in its natural bulwarks, the fair
+village, the resting-place, the little dwelling-place of men, where one
+is to sleep. But when towards nightfall, as the good red sun went down,
+I was led, weary and done-up, into one of the worst inns it had been my
+misfortune to encounter, a thousand other thoughts and feelings united
+in common anathema to the unenterprising community.
+
+Tea was bad, rice we could not get, and all night long the detestable
+smells from the wood fires choked our throats and blinded our eyes;
+glad, therefore, was I, despite the heavy rain, to take a hurried and
+early departure the next morning, descending a thousand feet to a river,
+rising quite as suddenly to a height of 8,500 feet.
+
+Now the road went over a mountain broad and flat, where traveling in the
+sun was extremely pleasant--or, rather, would have been had I been fit.
+Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea,
+Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Yün-nan province, passed
+us on the mountain-side, and sometimes numbers of these willing but
+ill-treated animals were seen grazing in the hollows, by the wayside,
+their backs in almost every instance cruelly lacerated by the continuous
+rubbing of the wooden frames on which their loads were strapped. For
+cruelty to animals China stands an easy first; love of animals does not
+enter into their sympathies at all. I found this not to be the case
+among the Miao and the I-pien, however; and the tribes across the
+Yangtze below Chao-t'ong, locally called the Pa-pu, are, as a matter of
+fact, fond of horses, and some of them capable horsemen.
+
+The journey across these mountains has no perils. One may step aside a
+few feet with no fear of falling a few thousand, a danger so common in
+most of the country from Sui-fu downwards. The scenery is
+magnificent--range after range of mountains in whatever direction you
+look, nothing but mountains of varying altitudes. And the patches of
+wooded slopes, alternating with the red earth and more fertile green
+plots through which streams flow, with rolling waterfalls, picturesque
+nooks and winding pathways, make pictures to which only the gifted
+artist's brush could do justice. Often, gazing over the sunlit
+landscape, in this land "South of the Clouds," one is held spellbound by
+the intense beauty of this little-known province, and one wonders what
+all this grand scenery, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man, would
+become were it in the center of a continent covered by the ubiquitous
+globe-trotter.
+
+No country in the world more than West China possesses mountains of
+combined majesty and grace. Rocks, everywhere arranged in masses of a
+rude and gigantic character, have a ruggedness tempered by a singular
+airiness of form and softness of environment, in a climate favorable in
+some parts to the densest vegetation, and in others wild and barren. One
+is always in sight of mountains rising to fourteen thousand feet or
+more, and constantly scaling difficult pathways seven or eight or nine
+thousand feet above the sea. And in the loneliness of a country where
+nothing has altered very much the handiwork of God, an awe-inspiring
+silence pervades everything. Bold, grey cliffs shoot up here through a
+mass of verdure and of foliage, and there white cottages, perched in
+seemingly inaccessible positions, glisten in the sun on the colored
+mountain-sides. You saunter through stony hollows, along straight
+passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rocks, now
+winding through broken, shaggy chasms and huge, wandering fragments, now
+suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where Peace, long
+established, seems to repose sweetly in the bosom of Strength.
+Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in
+abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn
+ascent of which is hardly passable.
+
+Yes, Yün-nan is imperatively a country first of mountains, then of
+lakes. The scenery, embodying truly Alpine magnificence with the minute
+sylvan beauty of Killarney or of Devonshire, is nowhere excelled in the
+length and breadth of the Empire.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote U: The incredulous of my readers may question, and rightly so,
+"Then where did he get his saddle?" So I must explain that I met just
+out of Sui-fu a Danish gentleman (also a traveler) who wished to sell a
+pony and its trappings. As I had the arrangement with my boy that I
+would provide him with a conveyance, and did not like the idea of seeing
+him continually in a chair and his wealthy master trotting along on
+foot, I bought it for my boy's use. He used the saddle until we reached
+Chao-t'ong.]
+
+[Footnote V: A new inn has been built since.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote W: Pronounced Djang-di. Famous throughout Western China for
+its terrible hill, one of the most difficult pieces of country in the
+whole of the west.]
+
+[Footnote X: This river, the Niu Lan, comes from near Yang-lin, one
+day's march from Yün-nan-fu. It is being followed down by two American
+engineers as the probable route for a new railway, which it is proposed
+should come out to the Yangtze some days north of Kiang-ti.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Yün-nan's chequered career_. _Switzerland of China_. _At
+Hong-sh[=i]h-ai_. _China's Golden Age in the past_. _The conservative
+instinct of the Chinese_. _How to quiet coolies_. _Roads_. _Dangers of
+ordinary travel in wet season_. _K'ung-shan and its mines_.
+_Tong-ch'uan-fu, an important mining centre_. _English and German
+machinery_. _Methods of smelting_. _Protestants and Romanists in
+Yün-nan_. _Arrival at Tong-ch'uan-fu_. _Missionaries set author's broken
+arm_. _Trio of Europeans_. _Author starts for the provincial capital_.
+_Abandoning purpose of crossing China on foot_. _Arm in splints_. _Curious
+incident_. _At Lai-t'eo-po_. _Malaria returns_. _Serious illness of
+author_. _Delirium_. _Devotion of the missionaries_. _Death expected.
+Innkeeper's curious attitude_. _Recovery_. _After-effects of malaria.
+Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months_. _Then completes his
+walking tour_.
+
+
+Yün-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
+empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
+annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
+been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
+gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
+the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
+Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway--or at least so tradition
+says. She is sometimes right.
+
+My journey continuing across more undulating country brought me at
+length to Hong-shïh-ai (Red Stone Cliff), a tiny hamlet hidden away
+completely in a deep recess in the mountain-side, settled in a narrow
+gorge, the first house of which cannot be seen until within a few yards
+of entry. Inn accommodation, as was usual, was by no means good. It is
+characteristic of these small places that the greater the traffic the
+worse, invariably, is the accommodation offered. Travelers are
+continually staying here, but not one Chinese in the population is
+enterprising enough to open a decent inn. They have no money to start it,
+I suppose.
+
+But it is true of the Chinese, to a greater degree than of any other
+nation, that their Golden Age is in the past. Sages of antiquity spoke
+with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and
+revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says
+that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The
+conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to
+precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-shïh-ai, knowing that the
+village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by
+conservatism, and make no effort whatever to improve matters.
+
+Fire in the inn was kindled in the hollow of the ground. There was no
+ventilation; the wood they burned was, as usual, green; smoke was
+suffocating. My men talked well on into the night, and kept me from
+sleeping, even if pain would have allowed me to. I spoke strongly, and
+they, thinking I was swearing at them, desisted for fear that I should
+heap upon their ancestors a few of the reviling thoughts I entertained
+for them.
+
+I should like to say a word here about the roads in this province, or
+perhaps the absence of roads. They had been execrable, the worst I had
+met, aggravated by heavy rains. With all the reforms to which the
+province of Yün-nan is endeavoring to direct its energies, it has not
+yet learned that one of the first assets of any district or country is
+good roads. But this is true of the whole of the Middle Kingdom. The
+contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of
+their work in the street, and, even in a city provided with but the
+narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the
+presence of peripatetic vendors of every kind of article of common sale
+in China, and by itinerant craftsmen who have no other shop than the
+street. In the capital city of the province, even, it is a matter of
+some difficulty to the European to walk down the rough-paved street
+after a shower of rain, so slippery do the slabs of stone become; and he
+has to be alive always to the lumbering carts, whose wheels are more
+solid than circular, pulled by bullocks as in the days long before the
+dawn of the Christian Era. The wider the Chinese street the more abuses
+can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is
+quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are
+never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at
+all--that is, in dry weather.
+
+This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is
+certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however,
+another kind of road--a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.
+
+An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple
+of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary
+(especially in the Yün-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another,
+the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep
+ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains.
+In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at
+times are constantly under water, and beyond Yün-nan-fu, on my way to
+Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a
+rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time
+the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is
+liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a
+canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads
+removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it
+is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men with their loads
+being washed away by rivers where in the dry season there had been the
+roads.
+
+The great lines of Chinese travel, so often impassable, might be made
+permanently passable if the governor of a province chose to compel the
+several district magistrates along the line to see that these important
+arteries are kept free from standing water, with ditches in good order
+at all seasons. But for the village roads--during my travels over which
+I have come across very few that could from a Western standpoint be
+called roads--there is absolutely no hope until such time as the Chinese
+village may come dimly to the apprehension that what is for the
+advantage of the one is for the advantage of all, and that wise
+expenditure is the truest economy--an idea of which it has at the
+present moment as little conception as of the average thought of the
+Englishman.
+
+A hundred li to the east of Hong-shiïh-ai, over two impassable mountain
+ranges, are some considerable mines, with antiquated brass and copper
+smelting works, and this place, K'ung-shan by name, with Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+forms an important center. As is well known, all copper of Yün-nan goes
+to Peking as the Government monopoly, excepting the enormous amount
+stolen and smuggled into every town in the province.[Y]
+
+The smelting is of the roughest, though they are at the present moment
+laying in English machinery, and the Chinese in charge is under the
+impression that he can speak English; he, however, makes a hopeless
+jargon of it. This mining locality is sunk in the deepest degradation.
+Men and women live more as wild beasts than as human beings, and should
+any be unfortunate enough to die, their corpses are allowed to lie in
+the mines. Who is there that could give his time and energy to the
+removal of a dead man? Tong-ch'uan-fu should become an important town if
+the rich mineral country of which it is the pivot were properly opened
+up. Several times I have visited the works in this city, which, under
+the charge of a small mandarin from Szech'wan, can boast only the most
+primitive and inadequate machinery, of German make. A huge engine was
+running as a kind of pump for the accumulation of air, which was passed
+through a long thin pipe to the three furnaces in the outer courtyard.
+The furnaces were mud-built, and were fed with charcoal (the most
+expensive fuel in the district), the maximum of pure metal being only
+1,300 catties per day. The ore, which has been roughly smelted once, is
+brought from K'ung-shan, is finely smelted here, then conveyed most of
+the way to Peking by pack-mule, the expense in thus handling, from the
+time it leaves the mine to its destination at Peking, being several
+times its market value. Nothing but copper is sought from the ore, and a
+good deal of the gold and silver known to be contained is lost.
+
+I passed an old French priest as I was going to Tong-ch'uan-fu the next
+day. He was very pleased to see me, and at a small place we had a few
+minutes' chat whilst we sipped our tea. In Yün-nan, I found that the
+Protestants and the Romanists, although seeing very little of each
+other, went their own way, maintaining an attitude of more or less
+friendly indifference one towards the other.
+
+The last day's march to Tong-ch'uan-fu is perhaps the most interesting
+of this stage of my journey. Climbing over boulders and stony steps, I
+reached an altitude of 8,500 feet, whence thirty li of pleasant going
+awaited us all the way to Lang-wang-miao (Temple of the Dragon King).
+Here I sat down and strained my eyes to catch the glimpse of the compact
+little walled city, where I hoped my broken arm would be set by the
+European missionaries. The traveler invariably hastens his pace here,
+expecting to run down the hill and across the plain in a very short
+space; but as the time passed, and I slowly wended my way along the
+difficult paths through the rice fields, I began to realize that I had
+been duped, and that it was farther than it seemed. Two blushing
+damsels, maids goodly to look upon, gave me the sweetest of smiles as I
+strode across the bodies of some fat pigs which roamed at large in the
+outskirts of the city, the only remembrance I have to mar the
+cleanliness of the place.
+
+At Tong-ch'uan-fu the Rev. A. Evans and his extremely hospitable wife
+set my arm and did everything they could--as much as a brother and
+sister could have done--to help me, and to make my short stay with them
+a most happy remembrance. It was, however, destined that I should be
+their guest for many months, as shall hereinafter be explained.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A trio of Europeans might have been seen on the morning of Monday, May
+10, 1909, leaving Tong-ch'uan-fu on the road to Yün-nan-fu, whither the
+author was bound. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who, as chance would have it, were
+going to Ch'u-tsing-fu, were to accompany me for two days before turning
+off in a southerly direction when leaving the prefecture.
+
+It was a fine spring morning, balmy and bonny. It was decided that I
+should ride a pony, and this I did, abandoning my purpose of crossing
+China on foot with some regret. I was not yet fit, had my broken arm in
+splints, but rejoiced that at Yün-nan-fu I should be able to consult a
+European medical man. Comparatively an unproductive task--and perhaps a
+false and impossible one--would it be for me to detail the happenings of
+the few days next ensuing. I should be able not to look at things
+themselves, but merely at the shadow of things--and it would serve no
+profitable end.
+
+Suffice it to say that two days out, about midday, a special messenger
+from the capital stopped Mr. Evans and handed him a letter. It was to
+tell him that his going to Ch'u-tsing-fu would be of no use, as the
+gentleman he was on his way to meet would not arrive, owing to altered
+plans. After consulting his wife, he hesitated whether they should go
+back to Tong-ch'uan-fu, or come on to the capital with me. The latter
+course was decided upon, as I was so far from well--I learned this some
+time afterwards. And now the story need not be lengthened.
+
+At Lai-t'eo-po (see first section of the second book of this volume),
+malaria came back, and an abnormal temperature made me delirious. The
+following day I could not move, and it was not until I had been there
+six days that I was again able to be moved. During this time, Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans nursed me day and night, relieving each other for rest, in a
+terrible Chinese inn--not a single moment did they leave me. The third
+day they feared I was dying, and a message to that effect was sent to
+the capital, informing the consul. Meanwhile malaria played fast and
+loose, and promised a pitiable early dissolution. My kind, devoted
+friends were fearful lest the innkeeper would have turned me out into
+the roadway to die--the foreigner's spirit would haunt the place for
+ever and a day were I allowed to die inside.
+
+But I recovered.
+
+It was a graver, older, less exuberant walker across China that
+presently arose from his flea-ridden bed of sickness, and began to make
+a languid personal introspection. I had developed a new sensitiveness,
+the sensitiveness of an alien in an alien land, in the hands of
+new-made, faithful friends. Without them I should have been a waif of
+all the world, helpless in the midst of unconquerable surroundings,
+leading to an inevitable destiny of death. I seemed declimatized,
+denationalized, a luckless victim of fate and morbid fancy.
+
+It was malaria and her workings, from which there was no escape.
+
+Malaria is supposed by the natives of the tropic belt to be sent to
+Europeans by Providence as a chastening for the otherwise insupportable
+energy of the white man. Malignant malaria is one of Nature's
+watch-dogs, set to guard her shrine of peace and ease and to punish
+woeful intruders. And she had brought me to China to punish me. As is
+her wont, Nature milked the manhood out of me, racked me with aches and
+pains, shattered me with chills, scorched me with fever fires, pursued
+me with despairing visions, and hag-rode me without mercy. Accursed
+newspapers, with their accursed routine, came back to me; all the
+stories and legends that I had ever heard, all the facts that I had ever
+learnt, came to me in a fashion wonderfully contorted and distorted;
+sensations welded together in ghastly, brain-stretching conglomerates,
+instinct with individuality and personality, human but torturingly
+inhuman, crowded in upon me. The barriers dividing the world of ideas,
+sensations, and realities seemed to have been thrown down, and all
+rushed into my brain like a set of hungry foxhounds. The horror of
+effort and the futility of endeavor permeated my very soul. My weary,
+helpless brain was filled with hordes of unruly imaginings; I was
+masterless, panic-driven, maddened, and had to abide for weeks--yea,
+months--with a fever-haunted soul occupying a fever-rent and weakened
+body.
+
+At Yün-nan-fu, whither I arrived in due course after considerable
+struggling, dysentery laid me up again, and threatened to pull me nearer
+to the last great brink. For weeks, as the guest of my friend, Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, I stayed here recuperating, and subsequently, on the advice
+of my medical attendant, Dr. A. Feray, I went back to Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+among the mountains, and spent several happy months with Mr. and Mrs.
+Evans.
+
+Had it not been for their brotherly and sisterly zeal in nursing me,
+which never flagged throughout my illness, future travelers might have
+been able to point to a little grave-mound on the hill-tops, and have
+given a chance thought to an adventurer whom the fates had handled
+roughly. But there was more in this than I could see; my destiny was
+then slowly shaping.
+
+Throughout the rains, and well on into the winter, I stayed with Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans, and then continued my walking tour, as is hereafter
+recorded.
+
+During this period of convalescence I studied the Chinese language and
+traveled considerably in the surrounding country. Tong-ch'uan-fu is a
+city of many scholars, and it was not at all difficult for me to find a
+satisfactory teacher. He was an old man, with a straggly beard, about 70
+years of age, and from him I learned much about life in general, in
+addition to his tutoring in Chinese. I had the advantage also of close
+contact with the missionaries with whom I was living, and on many
+occasions was traveling companion of Samuel Pollard, one of the finest
+Chinese linguists in China at that time. So that with a greatly
+increased knowledge of Chinese, I was henceforth able to hold my own
+anywhere. During this period, too, many days were profitably passed at
+the Confucian Temple, a picture of which is given in this volume.
+
+END OF BOOK I.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote Y: In the capital there is a street called "Copper Kettle
+Lane," where one is able to buy almost anything one wants in copper and
+brass. Hundreds of men are engaged in the trade, and yet it is
+"prohibited." These "Copper Kettle Lanes" are found in many large
+cities.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+The second part of my trip was from almost the extreme east to the
+extreme west of Yün-nan--from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Bhamo, in British Burma.
+The following was the route chosen, over the main road in some
+instances, and over untrodden roads in others, just as circumstances
+happened:
+
+    Tong-ch'uan-fu to Yün-nan-fu (the capital city)   520 li.
+    Yün-nan-fu to Tali-fu                             905 li.
+    Tali-fu to Tengyueh (Momien)                      855 li.
+    Tengyueh to Bhamo (Singai)                        280 English
+                                                      miles approx.
+
+I also made a rather extended tour among the Miao tribes, in country
+untrodden by Europeans, except by missionaries working among the people.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST JOURNEY
+
+TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_Stages to the capital_. _Universality of reform in China_. _Political,
+moral, social and spiritual contrast of Yün-nan with other parts of the
+Empire_. _Inconsistencies of celestial life_. _Author's start for
+Burma_. _The caravan_. _To Che-chi_. _Dogs fighting over human bones_.
+_Lai-t'eo-p'o: highest point traversed on overland journey_. _Snow and
+hail storms at ten thousand feet_. _Desolation and poverty_. _Brutal
+husband_. _Horse saves author from destruction_. _The one hundred li to
+Kongshan_. _Wild, rugged moorland and mournful mountains_. _Wretchedness
+of the people_. _Night travel in Western China_. _Author knocks a man
+down_. _Late arrival and its vexations_. _Horrible inn accommodation_.
+_End of the Yün-nan Plateau_. _Appreciable rise in temperature_.
+_Entertaining a band of inelegant infidels_. _European contention for
+superiority, and the Chinese point of view_. _Insoluble conundrums of
+"John's" national character_. _The Yün-nan railway_. _Current ideas in
+Yün-nan regarding foreigners_. _Discourteous fu-song and his escapades_.
+_Fright of ill-clad urchin_. _Scene at Yang-lin_. _Arrival at the
+capital_.
+
+
+No exaggeration is it to say that the eyes of the world are upon China.
+It is equally safe to say that, whilst all is open and may be seen, but
+little is understood.
+
+In the Far Eastern and European press so much is heard of the awakening
+of China that one is apt really to believe that the whole Empire, from
+its Dan to Beersheba, is boiling for reform. But it may be that the husk
+is taken from the kernel. The husk comprises the treaty ports and some
+of the capital cities of the provinces; the kernel is that vast sleepy
+interior of China. Few people, even in Shanghai, know what it means; so
+that to the stay-at-home European pardon for ignorance of existing
+conditions so much out of his focus should readily be granted.
+
+From Shanghai, up past Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to
+Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the
+most skeptical foreigner. But after he has lived for a couple of years
+in an interior city as I have done, with its antiquated legislation, its
+superstition and idolatry, its infanticide, its girl suicides, its
+public corruption and moral degradation, rubbing shoulders continually
+at close quarters with the inhabitants, and himself living in the main a
+Chinese life, our optimist may alter his opinions, and stand in wonder
+at the extraordinary differences in the most ordinary details of life at
+the ports on the China coast and the Interior, and of the gross
+inconsistencies in the Chinese mind and character. If in addition he has
+stayed a few days away from a city in which the foreigners were shut up
+inside the city walls because the roaring mob of rebels outside were
+asking for their heads, and he has had to abandon part of his overland
+trip because of the fear that his own head might have been chopped off
+_en route_, he may increase his wonder to doubt. The aspect here in
+Yün-nan--politically, morally, socially, spiritually--is that of another
+kingdom, another world. Conditions seem, for the most part, the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in his new environment, which may
+be a replica of twenty centuries ago, the dream he dreamed is now
+dispelled. "China," he says, "is _not_ awaking; she barely moves, she is
+still under the torpor of the ages." And yet again, in the capital and a
+few of the larger cities, under your very eyes there goes on a reform
+which seems to be the most sweeping reform Asia has yet known.
+
+Such are the inconsistencies, seemingly unchangeable, irreconcilable in
+conception or in fact; a truthful portrayal of them tends to render the
+writer a most inconsistent being in the eyes of his reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No one was ever sped on his way through China with more goodwill than
+was the writer when he left Tong-ch'uan-fu; but the above thoughts were
+then in his mind.
+
+Long before January 3rd, 1910, the whole town knew that I was going to
+Mien Dien (Burma). Confessedly with a sad heart--for I carried with me
+memories of kindnesses such as I had never known before--I led my
+nervous pony, Rusty, out through the Dung Men (the East Gate), with
+twenty enthusiastic scholars and a few grown-ups forming a turbulent
+rear. As I strode onwards the little group of excited younkers watched
+me disappear out of sight on my way to the capital by the following
+route--the second time of trying:--
+
+                            Length of    Height
+                              stage     above sea
+    1st day--Che-chi          90 li.    7,800 ft.
+    2nd day--Lai-t'eo-p'o     90 li.    8,500 ft.
+    3rd day--Kongshan        100 li.    6,700 ft.
+    4th day--Yang-kai         85 li.    7,200 ft.
+    5th day--Ch'anff-o'o      95 li     6,000 ft.
+    6th day--The Capital      70 li     6,400 ft.
+
+My caravan consisted of two coolies: one carried my bedding and a small
+basket of luxuries in case of emergency, the other a couple of boxes
+with absolute necessities (including the journal of the trip). In
+addition, there accompanied me a man who carried my camera, and whose
+primary business it was to guard my interests and my money--my general
+factotum and confidential agent--and by an inverse operation enrich
+himself as he could, and thereby maintain relations of warm mutual
+esteem. They received thirty-two tael cents per man per diem, and for
+the stopping days on the road one hundred cash. None of them, of course,
+could speak a word of English.
+
+The ninety li to Che-chi was mostly along narrow paths by the sides of
+river-beds, the intermediate plains having upturned acres waiting for
+the spring. At Ta-chiao (7,500 feet), where I stayed for my first
+alfresco meal at midday, the man--a tall, gaunt, ugly fellow, pockmarked
+and vile of face--told us he was a traveler, and that he had been to
+Shanghai. This I knew to be a barefaced lie. He voluntarily explained to
+the visitors, gathered to see the barbarian feed, what condensed milk
+was for, but he went wide of the mark when he announced that my pony,[Z]
+hog-maned and dock-tailed (but Chinese still), was an American, as he
+said I was. A young mother near by, suffering from acute eye
+inflammation, was lying in a smellful gutter on a felt mat, two pigs on
+one side and a naked boy of eight or so on the other, whilst she heaped
+upon the head of the innocent babe she was suckling curses most horribly
+blood-curdling. Dogs--the universal scavengers of the awakening
+interior, to which merest allusion is barred by one's Western sense of
+decency--just outside Che-chi, where I stayed the night, had recently
+devoured the corpse of a little child. Its clothing was strewn in my
+path, together with the piece of fibre matting in which it had been
+wrapped, and the dogs were then fighting over the bones.
+
+To Lai-t'eo-p'o was a day that men might call a "killer."
+
+It is a dirty little place with a dirty little street, lying at the foot
+of a mountain known throughout Western China as one of the wildest of
+Nature's corners, nearly ten thousand feet high, a terrific climb under
+best conditions. A clear half-moon, and stars of a silvery twinkle,
+looked pityingly upon me as I started at 3 a.m., ignorant of the
+dangerously narrow defile leading along cliffs high up from the Yili Ho.
+In the dark, cautiously I groped along. Not without a painful emotion of
+impending danger, as I watched the stellular reflections dancing in the
+rushing river, did I wander on in the wake of a group of pack-ponies,
+and took my turn in being assisted over the broken chasms by the
+muleteers. Two fellows got down below and practically lifted the tiny
+animals over the passes where they could not keep their footing.
+Gradually I saw the nightlike shadows flee away, and with the dawn came
+signs of heavy weather.
+
+Snow came cold and sudden. As we slowly and toilsomely ascended, the
+velocity of the wind fiercely increased; down the mountain-side, at a
+hundred miles an hour, came clouds of blinding, flinty dust, making the
+blood run from one's lips and cheeks as he plodded on against great
+odds. With the biting wind, howling and hissing in the winding ravines
+and snow-swept hollows, headway was difficult. Often was I raised from
+my feet: helplessly I clung to the earth for safety, and pulled at
+withered grass to keep my footing. The ponies, patient little brutes,
+with one hundred and fifty pounds strapped to their backs, came near to
+giving up the ghost, being swayed hopelessly to and fro in the fury. For
+hours we thus toiled up pathways seemingly fitter for goats than men,
+where leafless trees were bending destitute of life and helpless towards
+the valley, as the keen wind went sighing, moaning, wailing through
+their bare boughs and budless twigs.
+
+Such a gale, wilder than the devil's passion, I have not known even on
+the North Atlantic in February.
+
+At times during the day progression in the deepening snow seemed quite
+impossible, and my two men, worn and weary, bearing the burden of an
+excessively fatiguing day, well-nigh threw up the sponge, vowing that
+they wished they had not taken on the job.
+
+But the scenery later in the day, though monotonously so, was grand. The
+earth was literally the color of deep-red blood, the crimson paths
+intertwining the darker landscape bore to one's imagination a vision of
+some bloody battle--veritable rivers of human blood. To cheer the
+traveler in his desolation, the sun struggled vainly to pierce with its
+genial rays through the heavy, angry clouds rolling lazily upwards from
+the black valleys, and enveloping the earth in a deep infinity of
+severest gloom. The cold was damp. In the small hemmed-in hollows,
+whereto our pathway led, the icy dew clung to one's hair and beard. From
+little brown cottages, with poor thatched roofs letting in the light,
+and with walls and woodwork long since uniformly rotten, men and women
+emerged, rubbing their eyes and buttoning up their garments, looking
+wistfully for the hidden sun.
+
+At Shao-p'ai (8,100 feet) a brute of a fellow was administering
+cruellest chastisement to his disobedient yoke-fellow, who took her
+scourging in good part. I passed along as fast as I could to the ascent
+over which a road led in and around the mountain with alarming
+steepness, a road which at home would never be negotiated on foot or on
+horseback, but which here forms part of the main trade route. From the
+extreme summit one dropped abruptly into a protecting gorge, where
+falling cascades, sparkling like crystal showers in the feeble sunlight
+occasionally breaking through, danced playfully over the smooth-worn,
+slippery rocks; a stream foamed noisily over the loose stones, and leapt
+in rushing rapids where the earth had given way; there was no grass, no
+scenery, no life, and in the sudden turnings the hurricane roared with
+heavenly anger through the long deep chasms, over the
+twelve-inch river-beds at the foot.
+
+At Lai-t'eo-p'o accommodation at night was fairly good. Men laughed
+hilariously at me when I raved at some carpenters to desist their clumsy
+hammering three feet above my head. Hundreds of dogs yelped unceasingly
+at the moon, and with the usual rows of the men in mutual invitation to
+"Come and wash your feet," or "Ching fan, ching fan," the draughts, the
+creaks and cracks, the unintermitting din, and so much else, one was not
+sorry to rise again with the lark and push onwards in the cold.
+
+Down below this horrid town there is a plain; in this plain there is a
+hole fifty feet deep, and had my pony, which I was leading, not pulled
+me away from falling thereinto, my story would not now be telling.
+
+To Kongshan (6,700 feet), past Yei-chu-t'ang (8,100 feet) and
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang (7,275 feet), one hundred li away, was a journey
+through country considerably more interesting, especially towards the
+end of the day, a peculiar combination of wooded slope and rough,
+rock-worn pathways.
+
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang, twenty-five li from the end of the stage, overlooks a
+wide expanse of barren, uninviting moorland. Deep, jagged gullies break
+the uneven rolling of the mountains; dark, weird caverns of terrible
+immensity yawn hungrily from the surface of weariest desolation, ever
+widening with each turn. Mist hid the ugliest spots high up among the
+peaks, whose white summits, peeping sullenly from out this blue sea of
+damp haze, told a wondrous story of winter's withering all life to
+death, a spot than which in summer few places on earth would be more
+entrancing. But these mountains are breathing out a solitude which is
+eternal. Man here has never been. Far away beyond lies the country of
+the aborigines; but even the Lolo, wild and rugged as the country,
+fearless of man and beast, have never dared to ascend these heights.
+They are mournful, cheerless, devoid of a single smile from the common
+mother of us all, lacking every feature by which the earth draws man
+into a spirit of unity with his God. Horrid, frowning waste and aimless
+discontinuity of land, harbinger of loneliness and of evil! People, poor
+struggling beings of our kind, here seemed mocked of destiny, and a hot
+raging of misery waged within them, for all that the heart might desire
+and wish for had to them been denied. If, indeed, the earth be the home
+of hope, and man's greatest possession be hope, then would it seem that
+these poor creatures were entirely cut off, shut out from life,
+wandering wearisomely through the world in one long battle with Nature
+whereby to gain the wherewithal to live in that grim desert. There were
+no exceptions, it was the common lot. Each day and every day did these
+men and women, with a stolidity of long-continued destitution, and
+temporal and spiritual tribulation, gaze upon that bare, unyielding
+country, pregnant only with aggravation to their own dire wretchedness.
+
+In such spots, unhappily in Yün-nan not few, does the mystery of life
+grow ever more mysterious to one whom distress has never harassed. A
+great pity seized my heart, but these poor people would probably have
+laughed had they known my thoughts.
+
+As I passed they came uninterestedly to look upon me. They watched in
+expressive silence; they were silent because of poverty. And I, too,
+kept a seal upon my lips as I ate the good things here provided under
+the eyes of those to whom hunger had given none but a jealous outlook.
+Pitiful enough were it, thought I, merely to watch without allowing
+speech to escape further to taunt them. So I ate, and they looked at me.
+I came and went, but never a word was uttered by these men and women, or
+even by the children, whose most painful feeling seemed that of their
+own feebleness. They were indeed feeble units standing in a threatening
+infinitude of life, and their thoughts probably dwelt upon my luxury
+and wealth as mine could not help dwelling upon their hungry town of
+hungry men and famished children. Words cannot paint their poverty--men
+void of hope, of life, of purpose, of idea. Happy for them that they had
+known no other.
+
+We ascended over a road of unspeakable torture to one's feet. Gazing
+down, far away into a seemingly bottomless abyss, we could faintly hear
+in the lulling of the wind the rush of a torrent, fed by a hundred
+mountain streams, which washed our path and in horrible disfigurement
+tore open the surface of the hill-sides.
+
+The long day was drawing wearily to a close. As the sun was sinking
+beyond the uneven hills over which I was to climb before the descent to
+the town begins, the effect of the green and gold and red and brown
+produced a striking picture of sweet poetic beauty. I stood in
+contemplative admiration meditating, as I waited for my coolies, who sat
+moodily under a dilapidated roadside awning, nonchalantly picking out
+mouldy monkey-nuts from some coarse sweetmeat sold by a frowsy female.
+Then upwards we toiled in the dark, the weird groans of my exhausted men
+and the falling of the gravel beneath their sandalled feet alone
+breaking the hollow's gloom. Uncanny is night travel in China.
+
+"Who knows but that ghosts, those fierce-faced denizens of the hills,
+may run against thee and bewitch thee," murmured one man to the others.
+They stopped, and I stopped with them. And in the darkness, pegging on
+alone at the mercy of these coolies, my own thoughts were not
+unsynchronistic.
+
+At last, with no slight misgiving, we came down into the city's smoke.
+Dogs barked at me, and ran away like the curs they are. Midway down the
+stone footway my yamen runner too cautiously crept up to me in the dark,
+muttering something, and I floored him with my fist. Afterwards I
+learnt that he came to relieve me of the pony I was leading.
+
+Every room in every wretched inn was occupied; opium fumes already
+issued from the doorways, and it was now pitch dark, so that I could
+scarce see the sallow faces of the hungry, uncouth crowd, to whom with
+no little irritation I tried to speak as I peered carefully into the
+caravanserai. Evident it certainly was that the duty lying nearest to me
+at that particular moment, to myself and all concerned therein, was to
+accept what I was offered, and not wear out my temper in grumbling. My
+boy, Lao Chang (an I-pien), the brick, expressed to me his regrets, and
+something like real sympathy shone out from his eyes in the dimness.
+
+"Puh p'a teh, puh p'a teh" ("Have no fear, have no fear"), said he; and
+as I stood the while piling up cruellest torture upon my uncourtly host,
+he made off to prepare a downstair room (to lapse into modern
+boarding-house phraseology).
+
+First through an outer apartment, dark as darkest night; on past the
+caterwauling cook and a few disreputable culinary hangers-on; asked to
+look out for a pony, which I could not see, but which I was told might
+kick me; then onward to my boy, who stood on a stool and dropped the
+grease of a huge red Chinese candle among his plaited hair, as he
+wobbled it above his head to light the way. He gripped me tenderly, took
+me to his bosom as it were, gave me one push, and I was there. He
+tarried not. What right had he to listen to what I in secret would say
+of the horrid keeper and his twice horrid shakedown inn? He passed out
+swiftly into outer darkness, uttering a groan I rudely interpreted as,
+"That or nothing, that or nothing."
+
+It _was_ a room, that is in so far as four sides, a floor and a ceiling
+comprise one. Of that I had no doubt. A sort of uncomely offshoot from
+the main inn building, built on piles in the earth after the fashion of
+the seashore houses of the Malay--but much dirtier and incomparably more
+shaky. For many a long year, longer than mine horrid host would care to
+recollect, this now unoccupied space had served admirably as the common
+cooking-room--the ruined fireplace was still there; later, it had been
+the stable--the ruined horse trough was still there. At one extreme
+corner only could I stand upright; long sooty cobwebs graced the black
+wood beams overhead, hanging as thick as icicles in a mountain valley;
+each step I took in fear and trembling (the slightest move threatened to
+collapse the whole dilapidation). Four planks, four inches wide at the
+widest part and of varying lengths and thicknesses, placed on a pile of
+loose firewood at the head and foot, comprised the bedstead on which I
+tremulously sat down. Upon this improvised apology for a bed, under my
+mosquito curtains (no traveler should be without them in Western China),
+I washed my blistered feet on an ancient _Daily Telegraph_, whilst my
+cook saw to my evening meal. His bringing in the rice tallied with my
+laying the tablecloth in the same place where I had washed my feet--the
+one available spot.
+
+As I ate, rats came brazenly and picked up the grains of rice I dropped
+in my inefficient handling of chopsticks, and in scaring off these
+hardened, hungry vermin I accidentally upset tea over my bed, whilst at
+the same moment a clod-hopping coolie came in with an elephant tread,
+with the result that my European reading-lamp lost its balance from the
+top of a tin of native sugar and started a conflagration, threatening to
+make short work of me and my belongings--not to mention that horrid
+fellow and his inn.
+
+During the night the moments throbbed away as I lay on my flea-ridden
+couch--moments which seemed long as hours, and no gleaming rift broke
+the settled and deepening blackness of my hateful environs. Every thing
+and every place was full of the wearisome, depressing, beauty-blasting
+commonplace of Interior China. Stenches rose up on the damp, dank air,
+and throughout the night, through the opening of a window, I seemed to
+gaze out to a disconsolate eternity--gaping, empty, unsightly. Waking
+from my dozing at the hour when judgment sits upon the hearts of men, I
+sat in ponderous judgment upon all to whom the bungling of the previous
+day was due. There were the rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks
+and cracks--no quiet about the place from night to morning. Then came
+the barking of dogs, the noises of the cocks and kine, of horses and
+foals, of pigs and geese--the general wail of the zoological
+kingdom--cows bellowing, duck diplomacy, and much else. So that it were
+not surprising to learn that this distinguished traveler in these
+contemptible regions was sitting on a broken-down bridge, looking
+wearily on to the broken-down tower on the summit of a pretty little
+knoll outside Kungshan, thinking that it were well a score of such were
+added did their design embrace a warning to evade the place.
+
+Having done some twenty li by moonlight, I managed with little
+difficulty to reach Yang-kai (6,350 feet) by 3.0 p.m. This road, which
+is not the main road to the capital, was purposely chosen; most
+travelers go through Yang-lin. The journey is comprised of pleasant
+ascents and descents over the latter portion of the great Yün-nan
+Plateau, and a very appreciable difference in the temperature was here
+noticed. While the people at the north-east of the province, from which
+I had come, were shivering in their rags and complaining about the price
+of charcoal, the population here basked under Italian skies in a warm
+sun. From Lui-shu-ho (7,200 feet) the country was beautifully wooded
+with groves of firs and chestnuts.
+
+At the inn to which I was led the phlegmatic proprietor, after wishing
+me peace, assumed unostentatiously the becoming attitude of a Customs
+official, and scrutinized with vigor the whole of my gear, from an empty
+Calvert's tooth-powder tin to my Kodak camera, showering particularly
+condescending felicitations upon my English Barnsby saddle and
+field-glasses thereto attached.
+
+His excitement rose at once.
+
+He called loudly for his confederates--a band of inelegant infidels--and
+bidding them stand one by one at given distances, he gaped at them
+through the glasses with the hilarity of a schoolboy and the stupidity
+of an owl. He jumped, he shouted, he waved his arms about me, and
+handing them back to me with both hands, shouted deafeningly in my ear
+that they were quite beyond his ken; and then he sucked his teeth
+disgustingly and spat at my feet. His associates were speechless, asses
+that they were, and could only stare, in horror or impudence I know not.
+
+Meantime Lao Chang brought tea, and sallied forth immediately to
+fraternize among old friends. As I drank my tea, after having invited
+them one by one to join me, slowly and with a fitting dignity, the empty
+stare, destitute of sense or sincerity, of these six upstanding Chinese
+gentry, sucking at tobacco-pipes as long as their own overfed bodies,
+forced upon me a sense of my unfitness for the unknown conditions of the
+life of the place, a sense of loneliness and social unshelteredness in
+the sterile waste of their fashionable life. They spoke to me
+subsequently, and I bravely threw at them a Chinese phrase or two; but
+when the conversation got above my head, I told them, quietly but
+determinedly, that I could not understand, my English speech seemed
+vaguely to indicate a sudden collapse of the acquaintance, the opening
+of a gulf between us, destined to widen to the whole length and breadth
+of Yang-kai, swallowing up their erstwhile confidences. One of them
+facetiously remarked that the gentleman wished to eat his rice; and as
+they cleared out, falling over each other and the high step at the
+entrance to the room, I thought that no matter how old they are, Chinese
+are but little children. But had I treated them as little children I
+should have found that they were old men.
+
+There was in me withal a sense of better rank in the eyes of this
+super-excellent few who worshipped, in "heathen" China, the Satan of
+Fashion. As a matter of fact, their rank had emerged from such long
+centuries ago that it seemed to me to be so identified with them that
+they were hardly capable of analysis of people such as myself. As I
+looked pityingly upon them and the involved simplicity of their
+immutable natures, I realized an unconquerable feeling of inborn rank
+and natural elevation in respect to nationality. This is, however,
+against my personal general conception of Eastern peoples, but I must
+admit I felt it this afternoon. And so perhaps it is with the majority
+of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the
+language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always
+aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys
+and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or
+understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest
+lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the
+language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a
+heathen--it is easier.
+
+Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province
+better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives
+the most enviable spot in the province--the center of his universe.
+Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or
+sympathetically, and he is at once up against you. It may develop
+narrowness of mind and smallness of soul. We Westerners think we know
+that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be
+bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but
+a desirable citizen and a full-sized man. But no matter. The Chinese, on
+the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never
+tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial--part
+of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.
+But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in
+the world for the very same reason!
+
+Rationally speaking, John is the "old brother" of the world, oldest of
+any nation by very many centuries. In common with all other travelers
+and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
+serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
+which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
+and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
+into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
+directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
+young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
+manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
+political economy--but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
+theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
+teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of eclipses. He
+is frightened by ghosts, burns mock money to maintain his ancestors in
+the future state, worships a bit of rusty old iron as an infallible
+remedy for droughts; I have seen him shoot at clouds from the city walls
+to frighten away the rain--and I despise him for it all. As I revise
+this copy, a rumor is current in the town in which I am resting to the
+effect that foreigners are buying children and using their heads to oil
+the wheels of the new Yün-nan railway, and I despise him for believing
+it. The Chinese will not fight, and I sneer at him; he abhors me
+because I do. I ridicule his manner of dress; he thinks mine grossly
+indecent. I consider his flat nose and the plaited hair and shaven skull
+as heathenish; but the Chinese, eating away with his to me ridiculous
+chopsticks, looks out from his quick, almond-shaped eyes and considers
+me still a foreign devil, although he is too cunning to tell me. His
+opinions of me are founded upon the narrow grounds of vanity and
+egotism; mine, although I do not admit it even to myself, from something
+very much akin thereto.[AA]
+
+I have been looked upon in far-away outposts of the Chinese Empire where
+foreigners are still unknown, as an example of those human monstrosities
+which come from the West, a creature of a very low order of the human
+species, with a form and face uncouth, with language a hopeless jargon,
+and with manners unbearably rude and obnoxious. Not that _I_ personally
+answer accurately to this description, reader, any more than you would,
+but because I happen to be among a people who, as far back as Chinese
+opinion of foreigners can be traced, have considered themselves of a
+morality and intellectuality superior to yours and mine.
+
+I write the foregoing because it sums up what may be termed the current
+ideas regarding Europeans, ideas the reverse of complimentary, which are
+the more unfortunate on account of the fact that they are held by the
+vast majority of a people forming a quarter of the whole human race.
+This is true, despite all the reform.
+
+These ideas may be, and I trust they are, erroneous, but I know that I
+must keep in mind the extremely important desideratum in dealing with
+the Chinese that they look at me--my person, my manners, my customs, my
+theories, my things--through Chinese eyes, and although mistaken,
+misled, reach their own conclusions from their own point of view. This
+is what they have been doing for centuries, but we know that it all now
+is being subjected to slow change. The original stock, however, takes on
+no change whatever, and several generations must pass before this
+transfer of mental vision can be effected, when the Chinese will view
+all things and all peoples in their true light.
+
+Next morning my three men were heavy. The lean fellow--I have christened
+him Shanks, a long, shambling human bag of bones--moved about painfully
+in a listless sort of way, betokening severe rheumatics; his joints
+needed oil. Four or five huge basins of steaming rice and the customary
+amount of reboiled cabbage, however, bucked him up a bit, and holding up
+a crooked, bony finger, he indicated intelligently that we had one
+hundred li to cover. Whilst engaged in conversation thus, sounds of
+early morning revelry reached me from below. My boy, his accustomed
+serenity now quite disturbed, held threateningly above the head of the
+yamen runner (who had given me a profound kotow the evening previous
+prior to taking on his duties) a length of three-inch sugar cane; he
+evidently meant to flatten him out. This I learned was because this
+shadower of the august presence wished to take Yang-lin (about 60 li
+away) instead of going to Ch'ang-p'o (100 li) as I intended. I got him
+in, looked him as squarely in the face as it is possible when a Chinese
+wants to evade your scrutiny, told him I wished to go to Ch'ang-p'o, and
+that I hoped I should have the pleasure of his company thus far. He
+replied with a grinning smile, which one could easily have taken for a
+smiling grin--
+
+"Oh, yes, foreign mandarin, Ch'ang-p'o--100 li--foreign mandarin,
+foreign mandarin."
+
+And I thought the incident closed. Such is the appalling gullibility of
+the Englishman in China.
+
+We stopped for tea at a small hamlet ten li out. The place was deserted
+save for a small starving boy, whose chief attention was given to
+laborious endeavors to make his clothing meet in certain necessary
+areas. He evidently had never seen a foreigner. As he directed his
+optics towards me he winced visibly. He walked round me several times,
+fell over a grimy pail of soap-suds, stopped, gazed in enraptured
+enchantment with parted lips and outstretched arms as if he had begun to
+suspect what it was before him. To the eye of the beholder, however, he
+gazed as yet only on vacancy, but just as I was about to attempt
+self-explanation he was gone, tearing away down the hill as fast as his
+legs could carry him, the ragged remains of his father's trousers
+flapping gently in the breeze. As I rose to leave crackers frightened my
+pony, followed, in a few moments by a howling, hooting, unreasonable
+rabble from a temple near by. I found it was the result of a village
+squabble. I could scarce keep the order of my march as I left the
+tea-shop, so roughly was I handled by the irritated and impatient crowd,
+and had much ado to refrain from responding wrathfully to the repeated
+jeers of impudent, half-grown beggars of both sexes who helped to swell
+the riotous cortege. But through it all none of the insults were meant
+for me, so Lao Chang told me, and they did not mean to treat me with
+discourtesy.
+
+Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for
+irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the
+ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous
+wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the
+moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black
+and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image
+of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery,
+exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep
+discouragement. I came across some women mock-weeping for the dead: at
+their elbow two girls were washing clothes, and when little children,
+catching sight of me, ran to their mothers, the women stopped their
+hulla-baloo, had a good stare at me, exchanged a few words of mutual
+inquiry, and then resumed their bellowing.
+
+Soon it became quite warm, and walking was pleasant. I was startled by
+the _fu-song_,[AB] who invited me to go to a neighboring town for tea. My
+men were far behind. I was at his mercy, so I went. Soon I found myself
+passing through the city gates of Yang-lin, the very town I was trying
+to keep away from. The yamen fellow turned back at me and chuckled
+rudely to himself. I insisted that I did not wish to take tea; he
+insisted that I should--I must. He led me to an inn in the main street,
+arrangements were made to house me, old men and young lads gathered to
+welcome me as a lost brother, and the _fu-song_ told me graciously that
+he was going to the magistrate. In cruel English, with many wildly
+threatening gestures, did I protest, and the people laughed
+acquiescingly.
+
+"Puh tong, puh tong, you gaping idiots!" I repeated, and it caused more
+glee.
+
+Swinging myself past them all, I dragged my stubborn pony through the
+mob to the gate by which I had entered. My men were not to be found. I
+did not know the road nor much of the language. I sat down on a granite
+pillar to undergo an embarrassing half-hour. Presently my men hailed me,
+and approaching, swore with imposing loftiness at the discomfited guide.
+My bull-dog coolie dropped his loads, the _fu-song_ somehow lost his
+footing, I yelled "Ts'eo" ("Go"), and with a cheer the caravan
+proceeded.
+
+The following day we were at the capital.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote Z: I took a pony because I had made up my mind to return into
+China after I had reached Burma. In Tong-ch'uan-fu a good pony can be
+bought for, say, _£3_--in Burma, the same pony would sell for £10.
+
+--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AA: For further excellent descriptions of the Chinese nature I
+refer the reader to Chester Holcombe's _China: Past and
+Present_.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AB: _i.e._ Yamen escort.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+YÜN-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL.
+
+_Access to Yün-nan-fu_. _Concentrated reform_. _Tribute to Hsi Liang_.
+_Conservatism and progress_. _The Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway_. _The Yün-nan
+army_. _Author's views in 1909 and 1910 contrasted_. _Phenomenal forward
+march, and what it means_. _Danger of too much drill_. _International
+aspect on the frontier_. _The police_. _Street improvements_. _Visit to
+the gaol, and a description_. _The Young Pretender to the Chinese
+throne_. _How the prison is conducted_. _The schools_. _Visit to the
+university, and a description_. _Riot among the students_. _Visit to the
+Agricultural School, and a description_. _Silk industry of Yün-nan._
+
+
+Yün-nan-fu to-day is as accessible as Peking. After many weary years the
+Tonkin-Yün-nan railway is now an accomplished fact, and links this
+capital city with Haiphong in three days.
+
+Reform concentrates at the capital. The man who visited Yün-nan-fu
+twenty, or even ten years ago, would be astounded, were he to go there
+now, at the improvements visible, on every hand. A building on foreign
+lines was then a thing unknown, and the conservative Viceroy, Tseng Kong
+Pao, the decapitator in his time of thousands upon thousands of human
+beings, would turn in his grave if he could behold the utter
+annihilation of his pet "feng shui," which has followed in the wake of
+the good works done by the late loved Viceroy, Hsi Liang.
+
+The name of Hsi Liang is revered in the province of Yün-nan as the most
+able man who has ever ruled the two provinces of Yün-nan and Kwei-chow,
+a man of keen intellectuality and courtly manner, and notorious as being
+the only Mongolian in the service of China's Government. I lived in
+Yün-nan-fu for several weeks at a stretch, and since then have made
+frequent visits, and knowing the enormous strides being made towards
+acquiring Occidental methods, I now find it difficult to write with
+absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be
+the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of
+any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the
+same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no
+subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound
+generalization, one has to forego much temptation to "color" if he would
+be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues
+agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and
+character as a whole, so glaring are the inconsistencies of the Chinese
+nature. And as one sees for himself in this great city, particularly in
+official life, the businesslike practicability on the one hand and the
+utter absurdity of administration on the other, in all modes and
+methods, one is almost inclined to drop his pen in disgust at being
+unable to come to any concrete conclusions.
+
+Of no province in China more than of Yün-nan is this true.
+
+Reform and immovable conservatism go hand in hand. Men of the most
+dissimilar ambitions compose the _corps diplomatique_, and are willing
+to join hands to propagate their main beliefs; and when one writes of
+progress--in railways, in the army, in gaols, in schools, in public
+works, in no matter what--one is ever confronted by that dogged
+immutability which characterizes the older school.
+
+So that in writing of things Yün-nanese in this great city it is
+imperative for me to state bare facts as they stand now, and make little
+comment.
+
+
+THE RAILWAY
+
+
+The Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway, linking the interior with the coast, is one
+of the world's most interesting engineering romances. This artery of
+steel is probably the most expensive railway of its kind, from the
+constructional standpoint. In some districts seven thousand pounds per
+mile was the cost, and it is probable that six thousand pounds sterling
+per mile would not be a bad estimate of the total amount appropriated
+for the construction of the line from a loan of 200,000,000 francs asked
+for in 1898 by the Colonial Council in connection with the program for a
+network of railways in and about French Indo-China.
+
+To Lao-kay there are no less than one hundred and seventy-five bridges.
+
+The completion of this line realizes in part the ambition of a
+celebrated Frenchman, who--once a printer, 'tis said, in Paris--dropped
+into the political flower-bed, and blossomed forth in due course as
+Governor-General of Indo-China. When Paul Doumer, for it was he, went
+east in 1897, he felt it his mission to put France, politically and
+commercially, on as good a footing as any of her rivals, notably Great
+Britain. It did not take him long to see that the best missionaries in
+his cause would be the railways. At the time of writing (June, 1910) I
+cannot but think that profit on this railway will be a long time coming,
+and there are some in the capital who doubt whether the commercial
+possibilities of Yün-nan justified this huge expenditure on railway
+construction. Whilst authorities differ, I personally believe that the
+ultimate financial success of the venture is assured. There are markets
+crying out to be quickly fed with foreign goods, and it is my opinion
+that the French will be the suppliers of those goods. British enterprise
+is so weak that we cannot capture the greater portion of the growing
+foreign trade, and must feel thankful if we can but retain what trade we
+have, and supply those exports with which the French have no possibility
+of competing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MILITARY
+
+The foreigner in Yün-nan-fu can never rest unless he is used to the
+sounds of the bugle and the hustling spirit of the men of war.
+
+In standard works on Chinese armaments no mention is ever made of the
+Yün-nan army, and statistics are hard to get. But it is evident that the
+cult of the military stands paramount, and it has to be conceded, even
+by the most pessimistic critics of this backward province, that the new
+troops are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-organized to
+crush any rebellion. This must be counted a very fair result, since it
+has been attained in about two years. A couple of years ago Yün-nan had
+practically no army--none more than the military ragtags of the old
+school, whose chief weapon of war was the opium pipe. But now there are
+ten thousand troops--not units on paper, but men in
+uniform--well-drilled for the most part and of excellent physique, who
+could take the field at once. The question of the Yün-nan army is one of
+international interest: the French are on the south, Great Britain on
+the west.
+
+On June 2nd, 1909, I rode out to the magnificent training ground, then
+being completed, and on that date wrote the following in my diary:--
+
+"I watched for an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their
+daily drill--typical tin soldiery and a military sham.
+
+"Only with the merest notion of matters military were most of the men
+conversant, and alike in ordinary marching--when it was most difficult
+for them even to maintain regularity of step--or in more complicated
+drilling, there was a lack of the right spirit, no go, no gusto--scores
+and scores of them running round doing something, going through a
+routine, with the knowledge that when it was finished they would get
+their rice and be happy. Everyone who possesses but a rudimentary
+knowledge of the Chinese knows that he troubles most about the two
+meals every day should bring him, and this seems to be the pervading
+line of thought of seven-eighths of the men I saw on the padang at
+drill. Officers strutting about in peacock fashion, with a sword
+dangling at their side, showed no inclination to enforce order, and the
+rank and file knew their methods, so that the disorder and haphazardness
+of the whole thing was absolutely mutual.
+
+"Whilst I was on the field gazing in anything but admiration on the
+scene, I was ordered out by one of the khaki-clad officers in a most
+unceremonious manner. Seeing me, he shouted at the top of his thick
+voice, 'Ch'u-k'ü, ch'u-k'ü' (an expression meaning 'Go out!'--commonly
+used to drive away dogs), and simultaneously waved his sword in the air
+as if to say, 'Another step, and I'll have your head.' And, of course,
+there being nothing else to do, I 'ch'u-k'üd,' but in a fashion
+befitting the dignity of an English traveler.
+
+"The reorganization of the army, with the acceleration of warlike
+preparedness, has the advantage that it appeals to the embryonic feeling
+of national patriotism, and affords a tangible expression of the desire
+to be on terms of equality with the foreigner. That officer never had a
+prouder moment in his life than when he ordered a distinguished
+foreigner from the drilling ground, of which he was for the time the
+lordly comptroller. And it may be added that the foreigner can remember
+no occasion when he felt 'smaller,' or more completely shrivelled.
+
+"Whilst it is safe to infer that the motives that underlie the
+significant access of activity in military matters in Yün-nan differ in
+no way from those which have led to the feverish increase in armaments
+in other parts of the world, such ideas that have yet been formed on
+actual preparations for possible war are most crude. On paper the
+appointments in the army and the accuracy of the figures of the
+complement of rank and file admit of no question, but the practical
+utility of their labors is quite another matter, and a matter which does
+not appear to produce among the army officials any great mental
+disturbance in their delusion that they are progressing. Yün-nan is in
+need of military reform, reform which will embrace a start from the very
+beginning, and one of the first steps that should be taken is that those
+who are to be in the position of administering training should find out
+something about western military affairs, and so be in a position of
+knowing what they are doing."
+
+The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year.
+Now--in June of 1910--I have to write of enormous improvements and
+revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the
+general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Yün-nan is
+still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many
+elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or
+less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial
+question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining
+question, are still "in the air"--the unknown _x_ in the equation, as it
+were--but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be
+followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will,
+her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the
+destiny of Yün-nan herself, and she is working hard--the West has no
+conception how hard--so as to be able to be in a position of
+safeguarding--vigorously, if necessary--her own borders.
+
+One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion,
+would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Yün-nan. Skirmishings
+on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers
+are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common
+people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take
+place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the
+soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously
+remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
+would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
+for drilling him so hard and long.
+
+What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
+be true also of Tali-fu.
+
+A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
+nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
+enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
+dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
+drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
+necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
+of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
+rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
+dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
+have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
+taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks--a sign in
+itself of the altered conditions of the times--and I visited some
+extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
+thousand gold dollars.
+
+Military progress in this "backward province" is as great as it has been
+anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.
+
+
+THE POLICE
+
+Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the
+necessary evil of a standing army, so did Yün-nan-fu slumber on in the
+Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking
+into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material,
+the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be
+found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old
+London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and
+well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of
+the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is
+substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should
+ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be "run in"
+in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone
+will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest
+intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn
+kind--that is, if the Yün-nan police shall ever have made strides
+towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their
+place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
+less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover--when will
+the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?--is certainly being put
+down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
+they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
+dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
+throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
+been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
+the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.
+
+
+THE GAOL
+
+A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
+prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
+entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
+which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
+reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This
+reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
+prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
+curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
+scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
+wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
+Yün-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
+extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
+prison--one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.
+
+After we had drunk each other's health--I sincerely trust that the cute,
+courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
+of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
+me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
+mundane things--I was led away to the prison proper.
+
+This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
+building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
+covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
+and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
+with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
+stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
+building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
+accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
+present confined within its walls.
+
+After an hour's inspection, I came to the conclusion that the lot of the
+prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
+the time--three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
+much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
+came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
+outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
+their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
+emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
+grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
+waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.
+
+The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
+Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
+important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
+machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
+per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
+does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
+English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
+but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
+rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
+rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
+pewter workers, some of their products--turned out with most primitive
+tools--being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
+chair, made of iron--a sort of miniature garden seat--and from this
+pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
+selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
+mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
+were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
+shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
+same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
+however, exceedingly interesting to watch.
+
+As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
+sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
+and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
+claimed, abolished in Yün-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
+day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
+exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
+could not break his men of the habit. But we remember that the
+physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.
+
+Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
+heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
+frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
+bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
+Yün-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
+history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
+The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
+At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
+aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
+Yün-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
+and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
+pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
+The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
+the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
+congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
+immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
+existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
+miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Yün-nan
+dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.
+
+Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
+trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
+The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
+throne--father, mother, brothers, sisters--were all put to death, most
+of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
+victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
+everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
+soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
+breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
+meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
+arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
+training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
+can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
+his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
+tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
+shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
+is doubtful whether the authorities--or even the emperor himself--will
+mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
+nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
+teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
+Heaven--he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
+enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy--no playmates, no
+toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows--in
+surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.
+
+This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
+rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
+that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
+express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
+visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
+me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
+the prison--containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
+doctor.
+
+I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
+farewell, left him in a happy mood.
+
+
+THE SCHOOLS
+
+One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Yün-nan. Yet
+such is the case.
+
+In former days--and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day--the
+prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
+an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
+Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
+country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
+educated man was then a potential school master--this was certainly true
+of Yün-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
+the phrase "China for the Chinese" gains forceful meaning among the
+people.
+
+The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
+for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
+China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
+architect--a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
+mathematics--and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
+long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
+from a purely architectural standpoint.
+
+Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
+thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and possesses conveniences
+and improvements quite comparable to the ordinary college of the West.
+For instance, as I passed through the many admirably-equipped
+schoolrooms, well ventilated and airy, I saw an Italian who was laying
+in the electric light,[AC] the power for which was generated by an
+immense dynamo at the basement, upon which alone twenty thousand taels
+were spent. Thirty professors have the control of thirty-two classrooms,
+teaching among other subjects mathematics, music, languages (chiefly
+English and Japanese), geography, chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany,
+and so on. The museum, situated in the center of the building, does not
+contain as many specimens as one would imagine quite easily obtainable,
+but there are certainly some capital selections of things natural to
+this part of the Empire.
+
+The authorities probably thought I was rather a queer foreigner, wanting
+to see everything there was to see inside the official barriers in the
+city. Day after day I was making visits to places where foreigners
+seldom have entered, and I do not doubt that the officials, whilst
+treating me with the utmost deference and extreme punctiliousness,
+thought I was a sort of British spy.
+
+When I went to the Agricultural School, probably the most interesting
+visit I made, I was met by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a keen
+fellow, who spoke English well, and who, having been trained at
+Shanghai, and therefore understanding the idiosyncrasies of the
+foreigner's character, was invited to entertain. And this he did, but he
+was careful that he did not give away much information regarding the
+progress that the Yün-nanese, essentially sons of the soil, are making
+in agriculture. For this School of Agriculture is an important adjunct.
+
+Scholars are taken on an agreement for three years, during which time
+they are fed and housed at the expense of the school; if they leave
+during the specified period they are fined heavily. No less than 180
+boys, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three, are being trained here, with
+about 120 paid apprentices. Three Japanese professors are employed--one
+at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and two others at three
+hundred, the latter having charge of the fruit and forest trees and the
+former of vegetables.
+
+In years to come the silk industry of Yün-nan will rank among the chief,
+and the productions will rank among the best of all the eighteen
+provinces. There are no less than ten thousand mulberry trees in the
+school grounds for feeding the worms; four thousand catties of leaves
+are used every day for their food; five hundred immense trays of
+silkworms are constantly at work here. The worms are in the charge of
+scholars, whose names appear on the various racks under their charge,
+and the fact that feeding takes place every two hours, day and night, is
+sufficient testimony that the boys go into their work with commendable
+energy. As I was being escorted around the building, through shed after
+shed filled with these trays of silkworms, several of the scholars made
+up a sort of procession, and waited for the eulogy that I freely
+bestowed. In another building small boys were spinning the silk, and
+farther down the weavers were busy with their primitive machinery, with
+which, however, they were turning out silk that could be sold in London
+at a very big price. The colorings were specially beautiful, and the
+figuring quite good, although the head-master of the school told me that
+he hoped for improvements in that direction. And I, looking wise,
+although knowing little about silk and its manufacture, heartily agreed
+with the little fat man.
+
+There is a department for women also, and contrary to custom, I had a
+look around here, too. The girls were particularly smart at spinning.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AC: Soon afterwards a disturbance occurred among the students,
+and had it not been for the promptitude of the inspector, some of them
+might have lost their heads.
+
+The electric light had just been laid in, and was working so well that
+the authorities found it imperative to charge each of the 400 resident
+students one dollar per month for the upkeep. This simple edict was the
+cause of the riot In a body the boys rolled up their pukais, and marched
+down to the main entrance, declaring that they were determined to resign
+if the order was not rescinded. The inspector, however, had had all the
+doors locked. The frenzied students broke these open, and incidentally
+thrashed some of the caretakers for interfering in matters which were
+not considered to be strictly their business.
+
+Subsequently the Chancellor of Education visited the college in person,
+but no heed was paid to his exhortations, and it was only when the
+dollar charge for lighting was reduced that peace was restored.
+
+The Chancellor, as a last word, told them that if they vacated their
+schoolrooms a fine of about a hundred taels would be imposed upon each
+man.
+
+The occasion was marked by all the foolish ardor one finds among college
+boys at home, and it seems that, despite the enormous amount of money
+the college is costing to run, the students are somewhat out of
+hand.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+SECOND JOURNEY
+
+YÜN-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+_Stages to Tali-fu_. _Worst roads yet experienced_. _Stampede among
+ponies_. _Hybrid crowd at Anning-cheo_. _Simplicity of life of common
+people_. _Does China want the foreigner? Straits Settlements and China
+Proper compared_. _China's aspect of her own position_. _Renaissance of
+Chinese military power_. _Europeans_ NOT _wanted in the Empire_.
+_Emptiness of the lives of the common people_. _Author erects a printing
+machine in Inland China_. _National conceit_. _Differences in make-up of
+the Hua Miao and the Han Ren_. _The Hua Miao and what they are doing_.
+_Emancipation of their women_. _Tribute to Protestant missionaries_.
+_Betrothal and marriage in China_. _Miao women lead a life of shame and
+misery_. _Crude ideas among Chinese regarding age of foreigners_. _Musty
+man and dusty traveller at Lao-ya-kwan_. _Intense cold_. _Salt trade_.
+_Parklike scenery, pleasant travel, solitude._
+
+
+From the figures of heights appearing below, one would imagine that
+between the capital and Tali-fu hard climbing is absent. But during each
+stage, with the exception of the journey from Sei-tze to Sha-chiao-kai,
+there is considerable fatiguing uphill and downhill work, each evening
+bringing one to approximately the same level as that from which he
+started his morning tramp. I went by the following route:--
+
+                                   Length of         Height
+                                     stage          above sea
+    1st day--Anning-cheo             70 li          6,300 ft.
+    2nd day--Lao-ya-kwan             70 li          6,800 ft.
+    3rd day--Lu-fêng-hsien           75 li          5,500 ft.
+    4th day--Sei-tze                 80 li          6,100 ft.
+    5th day--Kwang-tung-hsien        60 li          6,300 ft.
+    6th day--Rest day.
+    7th day--Ch'u-hsiong-fu          70 li          6,150 ft.
+    8th day--Luho-kai                60 li          6,000 ft.
+    9th day--Sha-chiao-kai           65 li          6,400 ft.
+    10th day--Pu-pêng                90 li          7,200 ft.
+    11th day--Yün-nan-ï              65 li          6,800 ft.
+    12th day--Hungay                 80 li          6,000 ft.
+    14th day--Chao-chow              60 li          6,750 ft.
+    15th day--Tali-fu                60 li          6,700 ft.
+
+A long, winding and physically-exhausting road took me from
+Sha-chiao-kai to Yin-wa-kwan, the most elevated pass between Yün-nan-fu
+and Tali-fu, and continued over barren mountains, bereft of shelter, and
+void of vegetation and people, to Pupêng. A rough climb of an hour and a
+half then took me to the top of the next mountain, where roads and ruts
+followed a high plateau for about thirty li, and with a precipitous
+descent I entered the plain of Yün-nan-ï. Then over and between barren
+hills, passing a small lake and plain with the considerable town of
+Yün-nan-hsien ten li to the right, I continued in a narrow valley and
+over mountains in the same uncultivated condition to Hungay, situated in
+a swampy valley. Having crossed this valley, another rough climb brings
+the traveler to the top of the next pass, Ting-chi-ling, whence the road
+descends, and leads by a well-cultivated valley to Chao-chow. After an
+easy thirty li we reached Hsiakwan,[AD] one of the largest commercial
+cities in the province, lying at the foot of the most magnificent
+mountain range in Yün-nan, and by the side of the most famous lake. A
+paved road takes one in to his destination at Tali-fu, where I was
+welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Clark, of the China Inland Mission, and
+hospitably entertained for a couple of days.
+
+The roads in general from Yün-nan-fu to Tali-fu were worse than any I
+have met from Chung-king onwards, partly owing to the mountainous
+condition of the country, and partly to neglect of maintenance.
+
+Where the road is paved, it is in most places worse than if it had not
+been paved at all, as neither skill nor common sense seems to have been
+exercised in the work. It is probably safe to say that there are no
+ancient roads in Yün-nan, in the sense of the constructed highways which
+have lasted through the centuries, for the civilization of the early
+Yün-nanese was not equal to such works. As a matter of fact, the
+condition of the roads is all but intolerable. Many were never made, and
+are seldom mended--one may say that with very few exceptions they are
+never repaired, except when utterly impassable, and then in the most
+make-shift manner.
+
+My highly-strung Rusty received a shock to his nervous system as I led
+him leisurely from the incline leading into Anning-cheo (6,300 feet),
+through the arched gateway in a pagoda-like entrance, which when new
+would have been a credit to any city. The stones of the main street were
+so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of
+their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground
+behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed
+themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter
+towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men
+caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and
+trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was
+being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped
+unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town--the
+market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of
+blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar,
+as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed
+long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front,
+pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the
+other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me
+more knocks.
+
+It was an awful crowd--Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of
+hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be
+called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people,
+their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own
+Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their
+homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted
+with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high
+civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired
+people living a simple, unsophisticated life. All the strength of the
+world and all its beauties, all true joy, everything that consoles, that
+feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything
+that enables us to discern across our poor lives a splendid goal and a
+boundless future, comes to us from true simplicity. I do not say that we
+get all this from the Chinese, but in many ways they can teach us how to
+live in the _spirit of simplicity_. They were living from hand to mouth,
+with seemingly no anxieties at all--and yet, too, they were living
+without God, and with very little hope.
+
+And here the foreigner re-appeared to disturb them. Even in Anning-cheo,
+only a day from the capital, I was regarded as a being of another
+species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.
+
+No international question has become more hackneyed than "Does China
+want the foreigner?" Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time
+been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men
+supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting
+with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his
+advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general
+assent come to be understood that China _does_ want the foreigner. But
+those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their
+inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still
+ask, "Does she?"
+
+To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having
+trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff--without whom few
+businesses in the Far East can make progress--my argument may seem to
+have no _raison d'etre_. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the
+absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First,
+they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great
+nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone
+doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for
+closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more
+than mere superficial dealings with them?
+
+Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large
+commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or
+out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance
+and remarkable business acumen and integrity.
+
+As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of
+people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the
+Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born
+Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese
+and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in
+their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an
+infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior
+entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where
+Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred
+towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one
+not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the
+brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner in civilized parts
+of China--and impossible for the great preponderance of the European
+peoples at home--to grasp the fact that in huge tracts of Interior China
+the populace have never seen a foreigner, save for the ubiquitous
+missionary, who takes on more often than not the dress of the native.
+
+Although the Chinese Government recognizes the dangerous situation of
+the nation _vis-à-vis_ with nations of Europe, and has ratified one
+treaty after another with us, the nation itself does not, so far as the
+traveler can see, appreciate the fact that she cannot possibly resist
+the white man, and hold herself in seclusion as formerly from the
+Western world. China is discovering--has discovered officially, although
+that does not necessarily mean nationally--as Japan did so admirably
+when her progress was most marked, that steam and machinery have made
+the world too small for any part thereof to separate itself entirely
+from the broadening current of the world's life.
+
+Whilst not for a moment failing to admire the aggressive character of
+Occidentals, and the resultant necessity of thwarting them--we see[1]
+this especially in official circles in Yün-nan--Chinese leaders of
+thought and activity are recognizing that in international relations the
+final appeal can be only to a superior power, and that power, to be
+superior, must be thorough, and thorough throughout. So different to
+what has held good in China for countless ages. That is why China is
+making sure of her army, and why she will have ready in 1912--ten years
+before the period originally intended--no less than thirty-six
+divisions, each division formed of ten thousand units.[A] China is now
+endeavoring to walk the ground which led Japan to greatness among the
+nations--she takes Japan as her pattern, and thinks that what Japan has
+done she can do--and, officially abandoning her long course of
+self-sufficient isolation, is plunging into the flood of international
+progress, determined to acquire all the knowledge she can, and thus win
+for herself a place among the Powers.
+
+But I am in Yün-nan, and things move slowly here.
+
+All this does not mean that my presence is desired, or that fear of me,
+the foreigner, has ceased. On the contrary, it signifies that I am more
+greatly to be feared. The European is _not_ wanted in China, no matter
+how absurd it may seem to the student of international politics, who
+sits and devours all the newspaper copy--good, bad and
+indifferent--which filters through regarding China becoming the El
+Dorado of the Westerner. He is wanted for no other reason than that of
+teaching the Chinese to foreignize as much as he can, teaching the
+leaders of the people to strive to modify national life, and to raise
+public conduct and administration to the best standards of the West.
+
+When China is capable of looking after herself, and able to maintain the
+position she is securing by the aid of the foreigner in her provinces,
+following her present mode of thought and action, the foreigner may go
+back again. But it is to be hoped that the evolution of the country will
+be different.
+
+Another feature impressed upon me was the emptiness of the lives of the
+people. Education was rare, and any education they had was confined to
+the Chinese classics.
+
+Neither of the three men I had with me could read or write. The thoughts
+of these people are circumscribed by the narrow world in which they
+live, and only a chance traveler such as myself allows them a glimpse of
+other places. Each man, with rare exception, lives and labors and dies
+where he is born--that is his ambition; and in the midst of a people
+whose whole outlook of life is so contracted, I find difficulty in
+believing that progress such as Japan made in her memorable fifty-year
+forward movement will be made by the Chinese of Yün-nan in two hundred
+years. Everything one can see around him here, at this town of
+Anning-cheo, seems to make against it. In my dealings with Chinese in
+their own country--I speak broadly--I have found that they "know
+everything." I erected a printing-press in Tong-ch'uan-fu some months
+ago--a type of the old flat handpress not unlike that first used by
+Caxton. It was a part of the equipment of the Ai Kueh Hsieh Tang (Love
+of Country School), and I was invited by the gentry to erect it. Now the
+thing had not been up an hour before all the old fossils in the place
+knew all about it. Printing to them was easy--a child could do it. It is
+always, "O ren teh, o ren teh" ("I know, I know"). These men, dressed in
+their best, stood with arms behind them, and smiled stupidly as I
+labored with my coat off fixing their primitive machinery. Yet they did
+_not_ know, and now, within a few months, not a sheet has been printed,
+and the whole plant is going to rack and ruin.
+
+This is the difference between the Chinese and the tribespeople of
+Yün-nan. Here we see the god of the missionary again, quite apart from
+any religious basis. The tribesman comes and lays himself at the feet of
+the missionary, and says at once, "I do not know. Tell me, and I will
+follow you. I want to learn." That is why it is that the Chinese stand
+open-eyed and open-mouthed when they see the Miao making strides
+altogether impossible to themselves, in proportion to their standard of
+civilization, and this position of things will not be altered, unless
+they cease to deceive themselves. I have seen a Miao boy of nine who
+never in his life had seen a Chinese character, who did not know that
+school existed and, whose only tutoring depended on the week's visit of
+the missionary twice a year. I have seen this youngster read off a sheet
+of Chinese characters no Chinese boy of his age in the whole city would
+succeed in. I have not been brought into contact with any other tribe as
+I have with the Hua Miao.[1]
+
+But if the progress this once-despised people are making is maintained,
+the Yün-nanese will very soon be left behind in the matter of practical
+scholarship. These Miao live the simplest of simple lives, but they wish
+to become better--to live purer lives, to become civilized, to be
+uplifted; and therefore they are most humble, most approachable, and are
+slowly evolving into a happy position of proud independence. Education
+among the Hua Miao is not lost: among the Chinese much of the labor put
+forward in endeavors to educate them is lost, or seems to bear no
+immediate fruit. The Miao are living by confidence and hope that turns
+towards the future; the Yün-nanese are content with their confidence in
+the past. The Miao, however, were not like this always--but a few years
+ago they were not heard of outside China.
+
+The coming emancipation of their women, demands some attention. The few
+Europeans who have lived among the multitudes in Central China would not
+associate beds of roses with the lives of the women anywhere.
+
+The daughter is seldom happy, and unless the wife present her husband
+with sons, who will perpetuate the father's name and burn incense at his
+tablet after his death, her life is more often than not made absolutely
+unbearable--a fact more than any other one thing responsible for the
+numerous suicides. She is the drudge, the slave of the man. And the
+popular belief is that all the women of the Middle Kingdom are
+essentially Chinese; but little is heard of the tribespeople--more
+numerous probably than in any other given area in all the world--whose
+womankind are as far removed from the Chinese in language, habits and
+customs as English ladies of to-day are removed from Grecians. A decade
+or so ago no one heard of the Miao women: they were the lowest of the
+low, having no _status_. They were far worse off than their Chinese
+sisters, who, no matter what they had to endure after marriage, were
+certainly safeguarded by law and etiquette allowing them to enter the
+married state with respectability; but no social laws, no social ties
+protect the Miao women.
+
+Until a few years ago their "club" was a common brothel, too horrible to
+describe in the English language. As soon as a girl gave birth to her
+first child she came down on the father to keep her. In many cases, it
+is only fair to say, they lived together faithfully as man and wife,
+although such cases were not by any means in the majority. The poor
+creatures herded together in their unspeakable vice and infamy, with no
+shame or common modesty, fighting for the wherewithal to live, and only
+by chance living regularly with one man, and then only just so long as
+he wished. Little girls of ten and over regularly attended these awful
+hovels, and children grew out of their childhood with no other vision
+than that of entering into the disgraceful life as early as Nature would
+allow them. It meant little less than that practically the whole of the
+population was illegitimate, viewed from a Western standpoint. No such
+thing as marriage existed. Men and women cohabited in this horrible orgy
+of existence, with the result that murder, disease and pestilence were
+rife among them. It was only a battle of the survival of the fittest to
+pursue so terrible a life. Nearly all the people were diseased by the
+transgression of Nature's laws.
+
+After a time, however, through the instrumentality of Protestant
+missionaries, these wretched people began to see the light of
+civilization. Gradually, and of their own free will, the girls gave up
+their accursed dens of misery and shame, and the men lived more in
+accord with social law and order.
+
+The Miao, too, had hitherto been dependent for their literature upon the
+Chinese character, which only a few could understand. Soon they had
+literature in their own language,[AE] and a great social reform set in.
+They showed a desire for Western learning such as has seldom been seen
+among any people in China--these were people lowest down in the social
+scale; and now the latest phase is the establishment of bethrothal and
+marriage laws, calculated to revolutionize the community and to
+introduce what in China is the equivalent for home life.
+
+Betrothal among the Chinese is a matter with which the parties most
+deeply concerned have little to do. Their parents engage a go-between or
+match-maker, and another point is that there is no age limit. Not so now
+with the Christian Miao. No paid go-between is engaged, and brides are
+to be at a minimum age of eighteen years, and bridegrooms twenty. The
+establishment of these laws will, it is hoped, make for the emancipation
+from a life of the most dreadful misery of thousands of women in one of
+the darkest countries of the earth.[AF]
+
+But now the Miao is pressing forward under his burdens, to guide himself
+in the struggle, to retrieve his falls and his failures; and in the
+future lies his hope--the indomitable hope upon which the interest of
+humanity is based--and he has in addition the grand expectation of
+escaping despair even in death. It is all the praiseworthy work of our
+fellow-countrymen, living isolated lives among the people, building up a
+worthy Christian structure upon Miao simplicity and humble fidelity to
+the foreigner.
+
+But I digress from my travel.
+
+Little out of the ordinary marked my travels to Lao-ya-kwan (6,800
+feet), an easy stage. My meager tiffin at an insignificant mountain
+village was, as usual, an educational lesson to the natives. Each tin
+that came from my food basket--one's servant delighted to lay out the
+whole business--underwent the severest criticism tempered with unmeaning
+eulogy, picked up and put down by perhaps a score of people, who did not
+mean to be rude. When I used their chopsticks--dirty little pieces of
+bamboo--in a manner very far removed from their natural method, they
+were proud of me. Outrageously panegyric references were made when an
+old man, scratching at his disagreeable itch-sores under my nose,
+clipped a youngster's ear for hazarding my age to be less than that of
+any of the bystanders, the length of my moustache and a three-day growth
+on my chin giving them the opinion that I was certainly over sixty.[AG]
+
+I entered Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was
+to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and
+filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the "hsi-lien"
+(wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking
+musty and mean and dusty, with my topee botched and battered, I
+presented a most unhappy contrast as I led my pony down the street under
+the sarcastic stare of bystanding scrutineers. The nights were cold, and
+in the private house where I stayed, mercifully overlooked by a trio of
+protesting effigies with visages grotesque and gruesome, rats ran
+fearlessly over the room's mud floor, and at night I buried my head in
+my rugs to prevent total disappearance of my ears by nibbling. Not so my
+men. They slept a few feet from me, three on one bench, two on another.
+Bedding was not to be had, and so among the dirty straw they huddled
+together as closely as possible to preserve what bodily heat they had.
+Snow fell heavily. In the early morning sunlight on January 13th the
+undulating valley, with its grand untrodden carpet of white, looked
+magnificently beautiful as I picked out the road shown me by a poor
+fellow whose ears had got frost-nipped.
+
+No easy work was it climbing tediously up the narrow footway in a sharp
+spur rising some 1,000 feet in a ribbed ascent, overlooking a fearful
+drop. Over to the left I saw an unhappy little urchin, hardly a rag
+covering his shivering, bleeding body, grovelling piteously in the
+snow, while his blind and goitrous mother did her best at gathering
+firewood with a hatchet. The pass leading over this range, through which
+the white crystalline flakes were driven wildly in one's face, was a
+half-moon of smooth rock actually worn away by the endless tramping of
+myriads of pack-ponies, who then were plodding through ruts of steps
+almost as high as their haunches.
+
+A man with a diseased hip joined me thirty li farther on, dismounting
+from his pile of earthly belongings which these men fix on the backs of
+their ponies. It is a creditable trapeze act to effect a mount after
+the pony is ready for the journey. He had, he said, met me before. He
+knew that I was a missionary, and had heard me preach. He remembered my
+wife and myself and children passing the night in the same inn in which
+he stayed on one of his pilgrimages from his native town somewhere to
+the east of the province. I had never seen him before! I had no wife; I
+have never preached a sermon in my life. I should be pained ever again
+to have to suffer his unmannerly presence anywhere.
+
+Ponies were being loaded near my table. The rapscallion in question
+explained that the black blocks were salt, taking a pinch from my
+salt-cellar with his grimy fingers to add point to his remarks. I kicked
+at a couple of mongrels under the rude form on which I sat--they fought
+for the skins of those potato-like pears which grow here so
+prolifically. The person announced that they were dogs, and that an
+idiosyncrasy of Chinese dogs was to fight. Several wags joined in, and
+all appeared, through the traveling nincompoop, to know all about my
+past and present, lapsing into a desultory harangue upon all men and
+things foreign. The street reminded me of Clovelly--rugged and
+ragged--and the people were wrinkled and wretched; and, indeed, being a
+Devonian myself by birth, I should be excused of wantonly intending to
+hurt the delicate feelings of the lusty sons of Devon were I to declare
+that I thought the life not of a very terrible dissimilarity from that
+port of antiquity in the West.
+
+Salt was everywhere, much more like coal than salt, certainly as black.
+The blocks were stacked up by the sides of inns ready for transport,
+carried on the backs of a multitude of poor wretches who work like oxen
+from dawn to dusk for the merest pittance, on the backs of droves and
+droves of ponies, scrambling and spluttering along over the slippery
+once-paved streets.
+
+All day long, with the exception of two or three easy ascents, we were
+travelling in pleasantly undulating country of park-like magnificence.
+My men dallied. I tramped on alone; and sitting down to rest on the
+rocks, I realized that I was in one of the strangest, loneliest, wildest
+corners of the world. Great mountain-peaks towered around me, white and
+sparkling diadems of wondrous beauty, and at my feet, black and
+stirless, lay a silent pool, reflecting the weird shadows of my coolies
+flitting like specters among the jagged rocks of these most solitary
+hills.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AD: Hsiakwan would be supplied by a branch line of the main
+railway in the Kunlong scheme advocated by Major H.R. Davies, leaving at
+Mi-tu, to the south of Hungay.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AE: The written language was framed and instituted by the Rev.
+Sam. Pollard, of the Bible Christian Mission (now merged into the United
+Methodist Mission).--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AF: The marriage laws were instituted by the China Inland
+Mission at Sa-pu-shan, where a great work is being done among the Hua
+Miao. A good many more stipulations are embodied in the excellent rules,
+but I have no room here to detail.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AG: The Chinese have the crudest ideas of the age of
+foreigners. Among themselves the general custom is for a man to shave
+his upper lip so long as his father is alive, so that in the ordinary
+course a man wearing a moustache is looked upon as an old man. In
+Tong-ch'uan-fu the rumor got abroad that three "uei kueh ren" ("foreign
+men") went riding horses--(two young ones and one old one. The "old one"
+was myself, because I had hair on my top lip, despite the fact that I
+was considerably the junior. And the fact that one was a lady was not
+deemed worthy of the slightest consideration.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+_Lu-fêng-hsien and its bridge_. _Magnificence of mountains towards the
+capital_. _Opportunity for Dublin Fusiliers_. _Characteristic climbing.
+Crockery crash and its sequel_. _Mountain forest_. _Changeableness of
+climate_. _Wayside scene and some reflections_. _Is your master drunk?
+Babies of the poor_. _Loess roads_. _Travelers, and how they should
+travel_. _Wrangling about payment at the tea-shop_. _The lying art among
+the Chinese_. _Difference of the West and East_. _Strange Chinese
+characteristic_. _Eastern and Western civilization, and how it is
+working_. _Remarks on the written character and Romanisation_. _Will
+China lose her national characteristics? "Ih dien mien, ih dien mien."_
+_A nasty experience of the impotently dumb_. _Rescued in the nick of
+time._
+
+
+When the day shall come for its history to be told, the historian will
+have little to say of Lu-fêng-hsien, that is--if he is a decent sort of
+fellow.
+
+He may refer to its wonderful bridge, to its beggars and its ruins. The
+stone bridge, one of the best of its kind in the whole empire, and I
+should think better than any other in Yün-nan, stands to-day
+conspicuously emblematic of ill-departed prosperity. So far as I
+remember, it was the only public ornament in a condition of passable
+repair in any way creditable to the ratepayers of the hsien. The wall is
+decayed, the people are decayed, and in every nook and cranny are
+painful evidences of preventable decay, marked by a conservatism among
+the inhabitants and unpardonable indolence.
+
+The bridge, however, has stood the test of time, and bids fair to last
+through eternity. Other travelers have passed over it since the days of
+Marco Polo, but I should like to say a word about it. Twelve yards or so
+wide, and no less than 150 yards long, it is built entirely of grey
+stone; with its massive piers, its excellent masonry, its good
+(although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking
+animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of
+memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful
+simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a
+credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in
+addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the
+roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with
+which successive emperors have covered China, the bridges are not the
+least remarkable; and in them one is able to realize the perseverance of
+the Chinese in the enormous difficulties of construction they have had
+to overcome.
+
+Passing over the stream--the Hsiang-shui Ho, I believe--I stepped out
+across the plain with one foot soaked, a pony having pulled me into the
+water as he drank. Peas and beans covered with snow adjoined a
+heart-breaking road which led up to a long, winding ascent through a
+glade overhung by frost-covered hedgerows, where the sun came gently
+through and breathed the sweet coming of the spring. From midway up the
+mountain the view of the plain below and the fine range of hills
+separating me from the capital was one of exceeding loveliness, the
+undisturbed white of the snow and frost sparkling in the sunshine
+contrasting most strikingly with the darkened waves of billowy green
+opposite, with a background of sharp-edged mountains, whose summits were
+only now and again discernible in the waning morning mist. Snow lay deep
+in the crevices. My frozen path was treacherous for walking, but the
+dry, crisp air gave me a gusto and energy known only in high latitudes.
+In a pass cleared out from the rock we halted and gained breath for the
+second ascent, surmounted by a dismantled watch-tower. It has long since
+fallen into disuse, the sound tiles from the roof having been
+appropriated for covering other habitable dwellings near by, where one
+may rest for tea. The road, paved in some places, worn from the side of
+the mountain in others, was suspended above narrow gorges, an entrance
+to a part of the country which had the aspect of northern regions. The
+sun, tearing open the curtain of blue mist, inundated with brightness
+one of the most beautiful landscapes it is possible to conceive. A
+handful of Dublin Fusiliers with quick-firing rifles concealed in the
+hollows of the heights might have stopped a whole army struggling up the
+hill-sides. But no one appeared to stop me, so I went on.
+
+Climbing was characteristic of the day. Lu-fêng-hsien is about 5,500
+feet; Sei-tze (where we were to sleep) 6,100 feet. Not much of a
+difference in height; but during the whole distance one is either
+dropping much lower than Lu-feng or much higher than Sei-tze. For thirty
+li up to Ta-tsü-sï (6,900 feet) there is little to revel in, but after
+that, right on to the terrific drop to our destination for the night, we
+were going through mountain forests than which there are none better in
+the whole of the province, unless it be on the extreme edge of the
+Tibetan border, where accompanying scenery is altogether different.
+
+From a height of 7,850 feet we dropped abruptly, through clouds of thick
+red dust which blinded my eyes and filled my throat, down to the city of
+Sei-tze. I went down behind some ponies. Upwards came a fellow
+struggling with two loads of crockery, and in the narrow pathway he
+stood in an elevated position to let the animals pass. Irony of fate!
+One of the horses--it seemed most intentional--gave his load a tilt: man
+and crockery all went together in one heap to a crevice thirty yards
+down the incline, and as I proceeded I heard the choice rhetoric of the
+victim and the muleteer arguing as to who should pay.
+
+Just before that, I dipped into the very bosom of the earth, with
+rugged hills rising to bewildering heights all around, base to summit
+clad luxuriously in thick greenery of mountain firs, a few cedars, and
+the Chinese ash. Black patches of rock to the right were the death-bed
+of many a swaying giant, and in contrast, running away sunwards, a
+silver shimmer on the unmoving ocean of delicious green was caused by
+the slantwise sun reflections, while in the ravines on the other side a
+dark blue haze gave no invitation. Smoothly-curving fringes stood out
+softly against the eternal blue of the heavens. Farther on, eloquent of
+their own strength and imperturbability, were deep rocks, black and
+defiant; but even here firs grew on the projecting ledges which now and
+again hung menacingly above the red path, shading away the sunlight and
+giving to the dark crevices an atmosphere of damp and cold, where men's
+voices echoed and re-echoed like weird greetings from the grave. Onwards
+again, and from the cool ravines, adorned with overhang branches,
+forming cosy retreats from the now blazing sun, one emerged to a road
+leading up once more to undiscovered vastnesses. Yonder narrowed a
+gorge, fine and delicately covered, pleasing to one's aesthetic sense.
+The center was a dome, all full of life and waving leafage, ethereal and
+sweet; and running down, like children to their mother, were numerous
+little hills densely clothed in a green lighter and more dainty than
+that of the parent hill, throwing graceful curtsies to the murmuring
+river at the foot. As I write here, bathed in the beauty of spring
+sunlight, it is difficult to believe that a few hours since the
+thermometer was at zero. Little spots of habitation, with foodstuffs
+growing alongside, looking most lonely in their patches of green in the
+forest, added a human and sentimental picturesqueness to a scene so
+strongly impressive.
+
+A thatched, barn-like place gave us rest, the woman producing for me a
+huge chunk of palatable rice sponge-cake sprinkled with brown sugar.
+Little naked children, offspring of parents themselves covered with
+merest hanging rags, groped round me and treated me with courteous
+curiosity; goats smelt round the coolie-loads of men who rested on low
+forms and smoked their rank tobacco; smoke from the green wood fires
+issued from the mud grates, where receptacles were filled with boiling
+water ready for the traveler, constantly re-filled by a woman whose
+child, hung over her back, moaned piteously for the milk its mother was
+too busy to give to it. Near by a young girl gave suck to a deformed
+infant, lucky to have survived its birth; her neck was as big as her
+breasts--merely a case of goitre. Coolies passed, panting and puffing,
+all casting a curious glance at him to whose beneficence all were
+willing to pander.
+
+At tiffin I counted thirty-three wretched people, who turned out to see
+the barbarian. They desired, and desired importunately, to touch me and
+the clothes which covered me. And I submitted.
+
+This half-way place was interesting owing to the fact that the lady in
+charge of the buffet could speak two words of French--she had, I
+believe, acted as washerwoman to a man who at one time had been in the
+Customs at Mengtsz. Great excitement ensued among the perspiring
+laborers of the road and the dumb-struck yokels of the district. The
+lady was so goitrous that it would have been extremely risky to hazard a
+guess as to the exact spot where her face began or ended; and here, in a
+place where with all her neighbors she had lived through a period noted
+for famine, for rebellion, for wholesale death and murder of an entire
+village, she endured such terrible poverty that one would have thought
+her spirit would have waned and the light of her youth burned out. But
+no! The lusty dame was still sprightly. She had been three times
+divorced. The person at present connected with her in the bonds of
+wedded life--also goitrous and morally repulsive--stood by and gazed
+down upon her like a proud bridegroom. He resented the levity of Shanks
+and his companion, but, owing to the detail of a sightless eye, he could
+not see all that transpired. However, we were all happy enough. Charges
+were not excessive. My men had a good feed of rice and cabbage, with the
+usual cabbage stump, two raw rice biscuits (which they threw into the
+ashes to cook, and when cooked picked the dirt off with their long
+finger-nails), and as much tea as they could drink--all for less than a
+penny.
+
+There is something in traveling in Yün-nan, where the people away from
+the cities exhibit such painful apathy as to whether dissolution of this
+life comes to them soon or late, which breeds drowsiness. After a tramp
+over mountains for five or six hours on end, one naturally needed rest.
+To-day, as I sat after lunch and wrote up my journal, I nearly fell
+asleep. As I watched the reflections of all these ill-clad figures on
+the stony roadway, and dozed meanwhile, one rude fellow asked my man
+whether I was drunk!
+
+I was not left long to my reverie.
+
+Entering into a conversation intended for the whole village to hear, my
+bulky coolie sublet his contract for two tsien for the eighty li--we had
+already done fifty. The man hired was a weak, thin, half-baked fellow,
+whose body and soul seemed hardly to hang together. He was the first to
+arrive. As soon as he got in; this same man took a needle from the
+inside of his great straw hat and commenced ridding his pants of
+somewhat outrageous perforations. Such is the Chinese coolie, although
+in Yün-nan he would be an exception. Late at night he offered to put a
+shoe on my pony. I consented. He did the job, providing a new shoe and
+tools and nails, for 110 cash--just about twopence.
+
+I could not help, thinking of the children I had seen to-day, "Sad for
+the dirt-begrimed babies that they were born." These children were all a
+family of eternal Topsies--they merely grew, and few knew how. They are
+rather dragged up than brought up, to live or die, as time might
+appoint. Babies in Yün-nan, for the great majority, are not coaxed, not
+tossed up and down and petted, not soothed, not humored. There are none
+to kiss away their tears, they never have toys, and dream no young
+dreams, but are brought straight into the iron realities of life. They
+are reared in smoke and physical and moral filth, and become men and
+women when they should be children: they haggle and envy, and swear and
+murmur. When in Yün-nan--or even in the whole of China--will there be
+the innocence and beauty of childhood as we of the West are blessed
+with?
+
+Roads here were in many cases of a light loess, and some of red
+limestone rock, with a few li of paved roads. Many of the main roads
+over the loess are altered by the rains. Two days of heavy rain will
+produce in some places seas of mud, often knee-deep, and this will again
+dry up quite as rapidly with the next sunshine. They become undermined,
+and crumble away from the action of even a trickling stream, so as to
+become always unsafe and sometimes quite impassable.
+
+Delays are very dear to the heart of every Chinese. The traveler, if he
+is desirous of getting his caravan to move on speedily, has little
+chance of success unless he assumes an attitude of profoundest
+indifference to all men and things around him--never _appear_ to be in a
+hurry.
+
+We are accompanied to-day to Kwang-tung-hsien by the coolie who carried
+the load yesterday. He sits by staring enviously at his compatriots in
+the employ of the foreign magnate, who rests on a stone behind and
+listens to the conversation. They invite him to carry again; he refuses.
+Now the argument--natural and right and proper--is ensuing with warmth.
+Lao Chang, with the air of a hsien "gwan," sits in judgment upon them,
+bringing to bear his long experience of coolies and the amount of
+"heart-money" they receive, and has decided that the fellow should
+receive a tenth of a dollar and twenty cash in addition for carrying the
+heavier of the loads the remaining thirty li, as against ten cents
+offered by the men. He is now extending philosophic advice to them all,
+based on a knowledge of the coolie's life; the little meeting breaks up,
+good feeling prevails, and the loads carried on merrily. I still linger,
+sipping my tea. Lao Chang has grumbled because he has had to shell out
+seven cash, and I have already drunk ten cups (he generally uses the tea
+leaves afterwards for his personal use).
+
+But wrangling about payment prevails always where Chinese congregate. In
+China, by high and low, lies are told without the slightest apparent
+compunction. One of the men in the above-mentioned dispute had an
+irrepressible volubility of assertion. He at once flew into a temper,
+adopting the style of the stage actor, proclaiming his virtue so that it
+might have been heard at Yün-nan-fu. He was preserving his "face." For
+in this country temper is often, what it is not in the West, a test of
+truth. Among Westerners nothing is more insulting sometimes than a
+philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself,
+protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally
+requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In
+respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor
+copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the
+people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me
+that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese--I speak
+of the common people, for in my travels I have not mixed much with the
+rich--the greatest romancer on earth. I question whether the great
+preponderance of the Chinese people speak six consecutive sentences
+without misrepresentation or exaggeration, tantamount to prevarication.
+Regretting that I have to write it, I give it as my opinion that the
+Chinese is a liar by nature. And when he is confronted with the charge
+of lying, the culprit seems seldom to feel any sense of guilt.
+
+And yet in business--above the petty bargaining business--we have as the
+antithesis that the spoken word is his bond. I would rather trust the
+Chinese merely on his word than the Jap with a signed contract.
+
+The Chinese knows that the Englishman is not a liar, and he respects him
+for it; and it is to be hoped that in Yün-nan there will soon be seen
+the two streams of civilization which now flow in comparative harmony in
+other more enlightened provinces flowing here also in a single channel.
+These two streams--of the East and the West--represent ideas in social
+structure, in Government, in standards of morality, in religion and in
+almost every human conception as diverse as the peoples are racially
+apart. They cannot, it is evident, live together. The one is bound to
+drive out the other, or there must be such a modification of both as
+will allow them to live together, and be linked in sympathies which go
+farther than exploiting the country for initial greed. The Chinese will
+never lose all the traces of their inherited customs of daily life, of
+habits of thought and language, products which have been borne down the
+ages since a time contemporary with that of Solomon. No fair-minded man
+would wish it. And it is at once impossible.
+
+The language, for instance. Who is there, who knows anything about it,
+who would wish to see the Chinese character drop out of the national
+life? Yet it is bound to come to some extent, and in future ages the
+written language will develop into pretty well the same as Latin among
+ourselves. Romanization, although as yet far from being accomplished,
+must sooner or later come into vogue, as is patent at the first glance
+at business. If commerce in the Interior is to grow to any great extent
+in succeeding generations, warranting direct correspondence with the
+ports at the coast and with the outside world, the Chinese hieroglyph
+will not continue to suffice as a satisfactory means of communication.
+No correspondence in Chinese will ever be written on a machine such as I
+am now using to type this manuscript, and this valuable adjunct of the
+office must surely force its way into Chinese commercial life. But only
+when Romanization becomes more or less universal.
+
+This, however, by the way.
+
+My point is, that no matter how Occidentalized he may become, the
+Chinese will never lose his national characteristics--not so much
+probably as the Japanese has done. What the youth has been at home, in
+his habits of thought, in his purpose and spirit, in his manifestation
+of action, will largely determine his after life. Chinese mental and
+moral history has so stamped certain ineffaceable marks on the language,
+and the thought and character of her people, that China will never--even
+were she so inclined--obliterate her Oriental features, and must always
+and inevitably remain Chinese. The conflict, however, is not racial, it
+is a question of civilization. Were it racial only, to my way of
+thinking we should be beaten hopelessly.
+
+And as I write this in a Chinese inn, in the heart of Yün-nan--the
+"backward province"--surrounded by the common people in their common,
+dirty, daily doings, a far stretch of vivid imagining is needed to see
+these people in any way approaching the Westernization already current
+in eastern provinces of this dark Empire.
+
+This is what I wrote sitting on the top of a mountain during my tour
+across China. But it will be seen in other parts of this book that
+Western ideas and methods of progress in accord more with European
+standards are being adopted--and in some places with considerable
+energy--even in the "backward province." In travel anywhere in the
+world, one becomes absorbed more or less with one's own immediate
+surroundings, and there is a tendency to form opinions on the
+limitations of those surroundings. In many countries this would not lead
+one far astray, but in China it is different. Most of my opinion of the
+real Chinese is formed in Yün-nan, and it is not to be denied that in
+all the other seventeen provinces, although a good many of them may be
+more forward in the trend of national evolution and progress, the same
+squalidness among the people, and every condition antagonistic to the
+Westerner's education so often referred to, are to be found. But China
+has four hundred and thirty millions of people, so that what one writes
+of one particular province--in the main right, perhaps--may not
+necessarily hold good in another province, separated by thousands of
+miles, where climatic conditions have been responsible for differences
+in general life. With its great area and its great population, it does
+not need the mind of a Spencer to see that it will take generations
+before every acre and every man will be gathered into the stream of
+national progress.
+
+The European traveler in China cannot perhaps deny himself the pleasure
+of dwelling upon the absurdities and oddities of the life as they strike
+him, but there is also another side to the question. Our own
+civilization, presenting so many features so extremely removed from his
+own ancient ideas and preconceived notion of things in general, probably
+looks quite as ridiculous from the standpoint of the Chinese. The East
+and the West each have lessons to offer the other. The West is offering
+them to the East, and they are being absorbed. And perhaps were we to
+learn the lessons to which we now close our eyes and ears, but which are
+being put before us in the characteristics of Oriental civilization, we
+may in years to come, sooner than we expect, rejoice to think that we
+have something in return for what we have given; it may save us a rude
+awakening. It does not strike the average European, who has never been
+to China, and who knows no more about the country than the telegrams
+which filter through when massacres of our own compatriots occur, that
+Europe and America are not the only territories on this little round
+ball where the inhabitants have been left with a glorious heritage.
+
+But I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
+when they laughed at my impatience.
+
+"Ih dien mien, ih dien mien," shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
+bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. "Mien," it
+should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
+is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
+city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
+Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
+efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
+comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
+still.
+
+After that I hurried on, got off the "ta lu," and suffered a nasty
+experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
+my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
+told me that they had. I strode on again, encountering the crowds who
+blocked the roadway as market progressed, who stared in a suspicious
+manner at the generally disreputable, tired, and dirty foreigner. Each
+moment I expected the escort to arrive. I could not sit down and drink
+tea, for I had not a single cash on my person. I could speak none of the
+language, and could merely push on, with ragtags at my heels, becoming
+more and more embarrassed by the pointing and staring public. I turned,
+but could see none of my men. I managed to get to the outer gate, and
+there sat down on the grass, with five score of gaping idiots in front
+of me. Seeing this vulgar-looking intruder among them, who would not
+answer their simplest queries, or give any reason for being there,
+suspicion grew worse; they naturally wanted to know what it was, and
+what it wanted. Some thought I might be deaf, and raved questions in my
+ear at the top of their voices. Even then I remained impotently dumb.
+Two policemen came and said something. At their invitation I followed
+them, and found myself later in a small police box, the street lined
+with people, facing an officer.
+
+The man hailed me in speech uncivil. He was huge as the hyperborean
+bear, and cruel looking, and with a sort of apologetic petitionary growl
+I sidled off; but it was anything but comfortable, and I should not have
+been surprised had I found myself being led off to the yamen. After a
+nerve-trying half-hour, I was thankful to see the form of my men
+appearing at the moment when I was vehemently expressing indignation at
+not being understood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+_A bumptious official_. _Ignominious contrasts of two travelers.
+Diminishing respect for foreigners in the Far East_. _Where the European
+fails_. _His maltreatment of Orientals_. _Convicts on the way to death_.
+_At Ch'u-hsiony-fu_. _Buffaloes and children_. _Exasperating repetition
+met in Chinese home life_. _Unæsthetic womanhood_. _Quarrymen and
+careless tactics_. _Scope for the physiologist_. _Interesting unit of
+the city's humanity_. _Signs of decay in the countryside_. _Carrying the
+dead to eternal rest_. _At Chennan-chou_. _Public kotowing ceremony and
+its aftermath_. _Chinese ignorance of distance._
+
+
+All-round idyllic peace did not reign at Kwang-tung-hsien, where I
+rested over Sunday. Contacts in social conditions gave rise inevitably
+to causes for conflicts.
+
+Arriving early, my men were able to secure the best room and soon after,
+with much imposing pomp and show, a "gwan"[AH] arrived, disgusted that he
+had to take a lower room. I bowed politely to him as he came in. He did
+not return it, however, but stood with a contemptuous grin upon his face
+as he took in the situation. I do not know who the person was, neither
+have a wish to trace his ancestry, but his bumptiousness and general
+misbehavior, utterly in antagonism to national etiquette, made me hate
+the sight of the fellow. Pride has been said to make a man a hedgehog. I
+do not say that this man was a hedgehog altogether, but he certainly
+seemed to wound everyone he touched. He had with him a great retinue, an
+extravagant equipage, fine clothes, and presumably a great fortune; but
+none of this offended me--it was his contempt which hurt. He seemed to
+splash me with mud as he passed, and was altogether badly disposed. In
+his every act he heaped humiliation upon me, and insulted me silently
+and gratuitously with unbearable disdain. Luckily, be it said to the
+credit of the Chinese Government, one does not often meet officials of
+this kind; such an atmosphere would nurture the worst feeling. It is, of
+course, possible that had I been traveling with many men and in a style
+necessary for representatives of foreign Governments, this hog might
+have been more polite; but the fact that I had little with me, and made
+a poor sort of a show, allowed him to come out in his true colors and
+display his unveneered feeling towards the foreigner. That he had no
+knowledge of the man crossing China on foot was evident. He was great
+and rich--that was the sentiment he breathed out to everyone--and the
+foreigner was humble. There is no wrong in enjoying a large superfluity,
+but it was not indispensable to have displayed it, to have wounded the
+eyes of him who lacked it, to have flaunted his magnificence at the door
+of my commonplace.
+
+Had I been able to speak, I should have pointed out to this fellow that
+to know how to be rich is an art difficult to master, and that he had
+not mastered it; that as an official his first duty in exercising power
+was to learn that of humility; and that it is the irritating authority
+of such very lofty and imperious beings as himself, who say, "I am the
+law," that provokes insurrection. However, I was dumb, and could only
+return his contemptuous glance now and again.
+
+To him I could have said, as I would here say also to every foreigner in
+the employ of the Chinese Government, "The only true distinction is
+superior worth." If foreigners in China are to have social and official
+rank respected, they must begin to be worthy of their rank, otherwise
+they help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is a pity some native
+officials have to learn the same lesson.
+
+In several years of residence in the Far East I have noticed respect
+for the foreigner unhappily diminishing. The root of the evil is in the
+mistaken idea that high station exempts him who holds it from observing
+the common obligations of life. It comes about--so often have I seen it
+in the Straits Settlements and in various parts of India--that those who
+demand the most homage make the least effort to merit that homage they
+demand. That is chiefly why respect for the foreigner in the Orient is
+diminishing, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that the average
+European in the East and Far East does not treat the Oriental with
+respect. He considers that the Chinese, the Malay, the Burman, the
+Indian is there to do the donkey work only. The newcomer generally
+discovers in himself an astounding personal omnipotence, and even before
+he can talk the language is so obsessed with it that as he grows older,
+his sense of it broadens and deepens. And in China--of the Chinese this
+is true to-day as in other spheres of the Far East--the native is there
+to do the donkey work, and does it contentedly and for the most part
+cheerfully. But he will not always be so content and so cheerful. He
+will not always suffer a leathering from a man whom he knows he dare not
+now hit back.[AI] Some day he may hit back. We have seen it before, how
+at some moment, by some interior force making a way to the light, an
+explosion takes place: there is an upheaval, all sorts of grave
+disorders, and because some Europeans are killed the Celestial
+Government is called upon to pay, and to pay heavily. Indemnities are
+given, but the Chinese pride still feels the smart.
+
+[1
+Pulling away up the sides of barren, sandy hills in my lonely
+pilgrimage, I could see wide, fertile plains sheltered in the undulating
+hollows of mountains, over which in arduous toil I vanished and
+re-appeared, how or where I could hardly calculate. Suddenly, rounding
+an awkward corner, a magnificent panorama broke upon the view in a
+rolling valley watered by many streams below, all green with growing
+wheat. A high spur about midway up the rolling mountain forms a capital
+spot for wayfarers to stop and exchange travelers' notes. A couple of
+convicts were here, their feet manacled and their white cotton clothing
+branded with the seal of death; by the side were the crude wooden cages
+in which they were carried by four men, with whom they mixed freely and
+manufactured coarse jokes. In six days bang would fall the knife, and
+their heads would roll at the feet of the executioners at Yün-nan-fu.
+
+Coming into Ch'u-hsiong-fu[AJ]--the stage is what the men call 90 li, but
+it is not more than 70--I was brought to an insignificant wayside place
+where the innkeeper upbraided my boy for endeavoring to allow me to pass
+without wetting a cup at his bonny hostelry. Had I done so, I should
+have avouched myself utterly indifferent to reputation as a traveler.
+
+But I did not stay the night here. I passed on through the town to a new
+building, an inn, into which I peered inquiringly. A well-dressed lad
+came courteously forward, in his bowing and scraping seeming to say,
+"Good sir, we most willingly embrace the opportunity of being honored
+with your noble self and your retinue under our poor roof. Long since
+have we known your excellent qualities; long have we wished to have you
+with us. We can have no reserve towards a person of your open and noble
+nature. The frankness of your humor delights us. Disburden yourself, O
+great brother, here and at once of your paraphernalia."
+
+I stayed, and was charged more for lodging than at any other place in
+all my wanderings in China. My experience was different from that of
+Major Davies when he visited this city in 1899. He writes:--
+
+
+"The people of this town are particularly conservative and exclusive.
+They have such an objection to strangers that no inn is allowed within
+the city walls, and no one from any other town is allowed to establish a
+shop.... When the telegraph line was first taken through here there was
+much commotion, and so determined was the opposition of the townspeople
+to this new-fangled means of communication that the telegraph office had
+to be put inside the colonel's yamen, the only place where it would be
+safe from destruction."
+
+
+The proprietor of the inn in which I stayed was a man of about fifty, of
+goodly person and somewhat corpulent, comely presence, good humor, and
+privileged freedom. He had a pretty daughter. He was an exception to the
+ordinary father in China, in the fact that he was proud of her, as he
+was of his house and his faring. But in all conscience he should have
+been abundantly ashamed of his charges, for my boy said I was charged
+three times too much, and I have no cause for doubting his word either,
+for he was fairly honest. I once had a boy in Singapore who acted for
+three weeks as a "ganti"[AK] whilst my own boy underwent a surgical
+operation, and between misreckonings, miscarriages, misdealings,
+mistakes and misdemeanors, had he remained with me another month I
+should have had to pack up lock, stock and barrel and clear.
+
+I stayed here a day in the hope of getting my mail, but had the
+pleasure of seeing only the bag containing it. It was sealed, and the
+postmaster had no authority to break that seal.
+
+There were no telegraph poles in the district through which I was
+passing; the connections were affixed to the trunks of trees. The
+telegraph runs right across the Ch'u-hsiong-fu plain, on entering which
+one crosses a rustic bridge just below a rather fine pagoda, from which
+an excellent view is obtained of the old city. The wall up towards the
+north gate, where there is another pagoda, is built over a high knoll.
+Inside the wall half the town is uncultivated ground. Four youngsters
+here were having a great time on the back of a lazy buffalo, who,
+turning his head swiftly to get rid of some irritating bee, dislodged
+the quartet to the ground, where they fought and cursed each other over
+the business.
+
+Everything that one sees around here is particularly "Chinesey." It may
+be supposed that I am not the first person who has gone through town
+after town and found in all that he looks at, particularly the houses,
+certain forms identical, inevitable, exasperating by common repetition.
+It has been said that poetry is not in things, it is in us; but in China
+very little poetry comes into the homes and lives of the common
+millions: they are all dead dwelling-houses, even the best, bare homes
+without life or brightness. Among the working-classes of the West there
+is to be found a kind of ministering beauty which makes its way
+everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is
+cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift
+finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her
+house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and
+winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible.
+But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the
+last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of
+personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of witchery in
+the tying of a ribbon. Everywhere you find the same class of furniture
+and garniture, the same shape of table, of stool, of form, of bed, of
+cooking utensils, of picture, of everything; and all the details of her
+housekeeping are so apathetically uninteresting. The Chinese woman has
+no charming art, rather is it a common, horrid, daily grind. She is not,
+as the woman should be, the interpreter in her home of her own grace,
+and she differs from her Western sister in that it is impossible for her
+to express in her dress also the little personalities of character--all
+is eternally the same. But I know so very little of ladies' clothing,
+and therefore cease.
+
+Quarrying was going on high up among the hills as I left the city. Men
+were out of sight, but their hammering was heard distinctly. As each
+boulder was freed these wielders of the hammer yelled to passers-by to
+look out for their heads, gave the stone a push to start it rolling, and
+if it rolled upon you it was your own fault and not theirs--you should
+have seen to it that you were somewhere else at the time. If it blocked
+the pathway, another had to be made by those who made the traffic.
+Directly under the quarry I was accosted by a beggar. "Old foreign man!
+Old foreign man!" he yelled. Stones were falling fast; it is possible
+that he does not sit there now.
+
+Physiognomists do not swarm in China. There is grand scope for someone.
+There would be ample material for research for the student in the
+soldiers alone who would be sent to guard him from place to place. He
+would not need to go farther afield; for he would be given fat men and
+lean men, brave men and cowards, some blessed with brains and some not
+one whit brainy, civil and surly, stubby and lanky, but rogues and liars
+all. Travelers are always interested in their chairmen; oftentimes my
+interest in them was greater than theirs in me, until the time came for
+us to part. Then the "Ch'a ts'ien,"[AL] always in view from the outset of
+their duty, brought us in a manner nearer to each other.
+
+As I came out of the inn at Ch'u-hsiong-fu somewhat hurriedly, for my
+men lingered long over the rice, I stumbled over the yamen fellow who
+crouched by the doorside. He laughed heartily. Had I fallen on him his
+tune might have been changed; but no matter. This unit of the city
+humanity was not bewilderingly beautiful. He was profoundly
+ill-proportioned, very goitrous, and ravages of small-pox had bequeathed
+to him a wonderful facial ugliness. He had, however, be it written to
+his honor, learnt that life was no theory. One could see that at a
+glance as he walked along at the head of the procession, with a stride
+like an ox, manfully shouldering his absurd weapon of office, which in
+the place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg
+of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was
+embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare
+from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder
+worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had
+learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition
+embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish to achieve great things,
+unless it were that in his fidelity to small things he laid the base of
+great achievements. He waited upon me hand and foot; he burned with
+ardor for my personal comfort and well-being; he did not complicate life
+by being engrossed in anything which to him was of no concern--his only
+concern was the foreigner, and towards me he carried out his duty
+faithfully and to the letter. I would wager that that man, ugly of face
+and form, but most kindly disposed to one who could communicate little
+but dumb approval, was an excellent citizen, an excellent father, an
+excellent son.
+
+So very different was another traveler who unceremoniously forced
+himself upon me with the inevitable "Ching fan, ching fan," although he
+had no food to offer. He commenced with a far-fetched eulogium of my
+ambling palfrey Rusty, who limped along leisurely behind me. So far as
+he could remember, poor ignorant ass, he had never seen a pony like it
+in his extensive travels--probably from Yün-nan-fu to Tali-fu, if so
+far; but as a matter of fact, Rusty had wrenched his right fore fetlock
+between a gully in the rocks the day before and was now going lame.
+Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion
+was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border
+almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly
+awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp,
+was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, it was
+something incomparably worse. Not for a moment throughout the day did he
+leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we
+drank--tea, of course--he vainly begged to be allowed to pay. In that he
+was the shadow of some of my friends of younger days.
+
+But of men enough.
+
+From Ch'u-hsiong-fu on to Tali-fu the whole country bears lamentable
+signs of gradual ruin and decay, a falling off from better times. The
+former city is probably the most important point on the route, and is
+mentioned as a likely point for the proposed Yün-nan Railway.
+
+The country has never recovered from the terrible effects of the great
+Mohammendan Rebellion of 1857. Foundations of once imposing buildings
+still stand out in fearful significance, and ruins everywhere over the
+barren country tell plain tales all too sad of the good days gone.
+Temples, originally fit for the largest city in the Empire, with
+elaborate wood and stone carving and costly, weird images sculptured in
+stone, with particularly fine specimens of those blood-curdling
+Buddhistic hells and their presiding monsters, with miniature ornamental
+pagodas and intricate archways, are all now unused; and when the people
+need material for any new building (seldom erected now in this
+district), the temple grounds are robbed still more. In the days of its
+prosperity Yün-nan must have been a fair land indeed, bright, smiling,
+seductive; now it is the exact antithesis, and the people live sad,
+flat, colorless existences.
+
+For three days my caravan was preceded by twelve men, headed by a sort
+of gaffer with a gong, carrying a corpse in a massive black coffin,
+elaborate in red and blue silk drapings and with the inevitable white
+cock presiding, one leg tied with a couple of strands of straw to the
+cover, on which it crowed lustily. Their mission was an honorable one,
+carrying the honored dead to its last bed of rest eternal; for this dead
+man had secured the fulfillment of the highest in human destiny--to have
+his bones buried near the scene of his youth, near his home. This is a
+simple custom the Chinese cherish and reverence, of highest honor to the
+dead and of no mean value to the living. To the dead, because buried
+near the home of his fathers he would not be subject to those delusive
+temptations in the future state of that confused and complex life; to
+the living, because it gave work to a dozen men for several days, and
+enabled them to have a good time at the expense of the departed. A
+perpetual and excruciatingly unmusical chant, in keeping with the
+occasion's sadness, rent the mountain air, interrupted only when the
+bearers lowered the coffin and left the remains of the great dead on a
+pair of trestles in the roadway, whilst they drank to his happiness
+above and smoked tobacco which the relatives had given them. Once this
+heaper-up of Chinese merit[AM] was dumped unceremoniously on the turf
+while the headman entered into a blackguarding contest with one of the
+fellows who was alleged to be constantly out of step with his brethren,
+because he was a much smaller man. The gaffer gave him a bit of a
+drubbing for his insolence.
+
+Rain came on at Chennan-chou, a small town of about three hundred
+houses, where I sought shelter in the last house of the street. The
+householder, a shrivelled, goitrous humpback, received me kindly,
+removed his pot of cabbage from the fire to brew tea for his uninvited
+guest, and showed great gratitude (to such an extent that he nearly fell
+into the fire as he moved to push the children forward towards me) when
+I gave a few cash to three kiddies, who gaped open-mouthed at the
+apparition thus found unexpectedly before their parent's hearth. More
+came in, my beneficent attention being modestly directed towards them;
+others followed, and still more, and more, whilst the man, removing from
+his mouth his four-foot pipe, and wiping the mouthpiece with his soiled
+coat-sleeve before offering it to me to smoke, smiled as I distributed
+more cash.
+
+"They are all mine," he said cutely.
+
+Poor fellow! There must have been a dozen nippers there, and I sighed at
+the thought of what some men come to as the last of half a string of
+cash slipped through my fingers.[AN]
+
+Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch--erected, maybe,
+to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district--I untied my
+pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers
+ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied
+air. As we were thus engaged and discussing the prospects of the storm,
+yelling from under a gigantic straw hat, a fellow said--
+
+"Suan liao" ("not worth reckoning") "only five more li to
+Sha-chiao-kai."
+
+We had thirty li to do. Such is the idea of distance in Yün-nan.[AO]
+
+The storm did not come, however, and my men ever after reminded me to
+keep out my wind-cap and my mackintosh, partly to lighten their loads,
+of course, and partly on account of the good omen it seemed to them to
+be.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AH: "Gwan" is the Chinese for "official."]
+
+[Footnote AI: I have seen a European, with an imperfect hold of an
+eastern language, knock an Asiatic down because he thought the man was a
+fool, whereas he himself was ignorant of what was going on. The message
+the coolie was bringing was misunderstood by the conceited assistant,
+and as a result of having just this smattering of the vernacular, he ran
+his firm in for a loss of fifty thousand dollars.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AJ: Ts'u-hsiong-fu, as it is pronounced locally, with a strong
+"ts" initial sound.]
+
+[Footnote AK: Meaning a relief hand (Malay).]
+
+[Footnote AL: Literally, "tea money."]
+
+[Footnote AM: "Heaping up merit" is one of the elementary practices of
+Chinese religious life.]
+
+[Footnote AN: Chennan-chou, which stands at a height of 6,500 feet, has
+been visited again since by myself. My caravan consisted on this
+occasion of two ponies (one I was riding), two coolies, a servant, and
+myself. As we got to the archway in the middle of the street leading to
+the busy part of the town, my animal nearly landed me into the gutter,
+and the other horse ran into a neighboring house, both frightened by
+crackers which were being fired around a man who was bumping his head on
+the ground in front of an ancestral tablet, brought into the street for
+the purpose. A horrid din made the air turbulent. I sought refuge in the
+nearest house, tying my ponies up to the windows, and was most
+hospitably received as a returned prodigal by a well-disposed old man
+and his courtly helpmate. The genuineness of the hospitality of the
+Chinese is as strong as their unfriendliness can be when they are
+disposed to show a hostile spirit to foreigners. Just as I had laid up
+for dinner the din stopped, we breathed gunpowder smoke instead of air,
+everyone from the head-bumping ceremony came around me, and there
+lingered in silent admiration. My boy came and whispered, quite aloud
+enough for all to hear, that in that part of the town cooked rice could
+not be bought, and that I was going to be left to look after the horses
+and the loads whilst the men went away to feed. He advised the assembled
+crowd that if they valued sound physique they had better keep their
+hands off my gear and depart. My friendly host shut the doors and
+windows, with the exception of that through which I watched our
+impedimenta, and at once commenced good-natured inquiry into my past,
+and concerning vicissitudes of life in general. Luckily, I was able to
+give the old man good reason for congratulating me upon my ancestral
+line, my own great age, the number of my wives and offshoots--mostly
+"little puppies"--and as each curious caller dropped in to sip tea, so
+did one after another of the patriarchal dignitaries who were
+responsible for the human product then entertaining the crowd come
+vividly before the imagination of the company, and they were graced with
+every token of age and honor. (Chinese speak of sons as "little
+puppies.")]
+
+[Footnote AO: In crossing a river here I slipped, and from ray pocket
+there rolled a box of photographic films, and in reaching over to
+re-capture it, I let my loaded camera fall into the water. I was
+disappointed, as most of my best pictures were thus (as I imagined)
+spoilt. But when I developed at Bhamo, I found not a single film damaged
+by water, and every picture was a success from both the roll in the tin
+and the roll in the camera. It is a tribute to the Eastman-Kodak Company
+Ltd. that their non-curling films will stand being dipped into rivers
+and remain unaffected. The films in question should have been developed
+six months prior to the date of my exposure.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+_Stampede of frightened women_. _To the Eagle Nest_. _An acrobatic
+performance, and some retaliation at the author's expense_. _Over the
+mountains to Pu-pêng A magnificent storm, and a description_. _In a
+"rock of ages." Hardiness of my comrades_. _Early morning routine and
+some impressions_. _Unspeakable filth of the Chinese_. _Lolo people of
+the district_. _Physique of the women_. _Aspirations towards Chinese
+customs_. _Skilless building_. _Mythological, anthropological,
+craniological and antediluvian disquisitions_. _At Yün-nan-ï_. _Flat
+country_. _Thriftless humanity_. _To Hungay_. _A day of days_. _Traveler
+in bitter cold unable to procure food_. _Fright in middle night_. _A
+timely rescue_. _Murder of a bullock on my doorstep_. _Callous
+disposition of fellow-travelers_. _Leaving the capital of an old-time
+kingdom_. _Bad roads and good men_. _National virtue of unfailing
+patience_. _Human consumption of diseased animals. Minchia at Hungay_.
+_Major Davies and the Minchia_. _Author's differences of opinion.
+Increasing popularity of the small foot._
+
+
+But the storm came the next day, as we were on our way to Pu-pêng,
+during the ninety li when we passed the highest point on this journey.
+By name The Eagle Nest Barrier (Ting-wu-kwan), this elevated pass, 8,600
+feet above the level, reached after a gradual ascent between two
+mountain ranges, was surmounted after a couple of hours' steep climbing,
+where rain and snow had made the paths irritatingly slippery and the
+task most laborious. Although the condition of the road was enough to
+take all the wind out of one's sails, the sublimity of the scenery of
+the dense woods which clothed the mountains, exquisitely pretty ravines,
+tumbling waterfalls, running rivulets and sparkling brooks, with little
+patches of snow hidden away in the maze of greens of every hue, all
+rendered it a climb less tiring than the narrow pathways over which we
+were then to travel. Half-way up we met a string of ponies, and I
+underwent a few nervous moments until they had passed in the twenty-inch
+road--a slight tilt, a slip, a splutter, probably a yell, and I should
+have dropped 500 feet without a bump.
+
+As we went along together, just before reaching this hill, we saw women
+carrying bags of rice. They saw us, too. One passed me safely, but with
+fear. The others carelessly dropping their burdens, scampered off,
+afraid of their lives; and when one of my soldiers (whose sense of humor
+was on a par with my own when as a boy I used to stick butterscotch
+drops on the bald head of my Sunday School teacher, and bend pins for
+small boys to sit on and rise from) shouted to them, they dived straight
+as a die over the hedge into a submerged rice-field, and made a sorry
+spectacle with their "lily" feet and pale blue trousers, covered with
+the thin mud. In struggling to get away, one of them, the silly
+creature, went sprawling on all fours in the slime, and with only the
+imperfect footing possible to her with her little stumps, she would have
+been submerged, had not the man who had frightened her, at my bidding,
+gone to drag her out. As it was, they looked anything but beautiful with
+their wet and muddy garments clinging tightly to their bodies, and
+betraying every curve of their not unbeautiful figures. One of the
+women, a comely damsel of some twenty summers, did not jump into the
+field, but lay flat on the ground behind some bushes, thereby hoping to
+get out of sight, and now came forward with amorous glances. We,
+however, sent them on their way, and I will lay my life that they will
+not "scoot" at the sight of the next foreigner.
+
+And now we are at the "Nest." Many travelers have made remarks upon this
+place, where I was waited upon by a shrivelled, shambling specimen of
+manhood, whose wife--in contrast to her kind in China--seemed to rule
+house and home, bed and board. Whilst we were there, a Chinese, bound
+on the downward journey, endeavored to mount his mule at the very moment
+the animal was reaching out for a blade of straw. As he swung his leg
+across the mule took another step forward, and the rider fell bodily
+with an enormous bump into the lap of one of my coolies, upsetting him
+and his bowl of tea over his trousers and my own. I could not suppress
+hearty approval of this acrobatic incident.
+
+But the end was not yet.
+
+I sat on one end of one of those narrow forms, and this same coolie sat
+on the other. He rose up suddenly, reached over for the common salt-pot,
+and I came off--with the multitude of alfresco diners laughing at this
+smart retaliation until their chock-full mouths emitted the grains of
+rice they chewed.
+
+After that I cleared off. Descending through a fertile valley, from the
+bottom there loomed upwards higher mountains, looking black and dismal,
+with clouds black and dismal keeping them company. We had now to cross
+the undulating ground still separating us from Pu-pêng. The early
+portion of the ground was something like Clifton Downs, something like
+Dartmoor. The country was poor, and the people barely put themselves out
+to boil water for chance travelers.
+
+The storm broke suddenly. From the shelter of a hollowed rock I watched
+it all.
+
+Over the submerged plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of
+night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and
+the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed
+struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of
+fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly
+from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their
+waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision in the cruel clouds
+the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over
+yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the
+lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the
+Artist of the skies. Then came a rainbow of sweetest multi-color, of a
+splendor glorious and exquisite, delicate as the breath from paradise,
+stretching its majestic archbow athwart the waning gloom from range to
+range. As one drank in the glimpses of that dark corner in this peculiar
+fairyland, a mighty peal of magnificent, stentorian clashing broke
+finally upon me, and heaven's electricity again flitted fearfully over
+the earth, aslant, upwards, downwards again, upwards again, disappearing
+over the unmoved hills like a thousand tortured souls fleeing from
+Dante's Hades. And here I sit on, in that veritable "rock of ages" cleft
+for me, glad that no human touch save that of my own mean clay, that no
+human voice came between me and the voice of that Infinite beyond. I
+seemed to have been standing on the verge of another world, another
+great unknown. The heavens raged and the thunders thereof roared, and
+the wild wind hissed and moaned and wailed the hopeless wail of a
+lonely, tormented soul. The cold was intense, and through it all I sat
+drenched to the skin.
+
+On the bleak mountain thus I was the pitifulest atom of loneliest
+humanity, yet felt no loneliness. The face of the earth frowned in angry
+fury, the awfulness of the raging elements dwarfed all else to utter
+annihilation. But even at such a time, coming all too seldom in the
+lives of most of us, when standing in some remote spot which still tells
+forth the story of the world's youth, one's inmost nature thrills with a
+sense of unison with it all beyond human expression. All was so grand,
+inspiring one with an awe beyond one's comprehension, a peculiar, dread
+of one's own earthly insignificance. These pictures, graven in one's
+memory with the strong pencil of our common mother, are indelible, yet
+quite beyond expression. As in our own souls we cannot frame in words
+our deepest life emotions, so as we penetrate into the depths of that
+kindly common mother of us all we find human words the same utterly
+futile channel of expression. To have our souls tuned to this silent
+eloquence of Nature, to catch the sweetness of those wind-swept,
+heaven-directed mountains, to understand the unspoken messages of those
+rushing rivers and those gigantic gorges, to feel the heart-beat of
+Nature and her beauty in perfect harmony with all that is best within
+us, we must be silent, undisturbed, preferably alone. This is not
+flowery sentiment--it is what every true lover of old and lovely Nature
+would feel in Western China, yet still unspoiled by the taint of man's
+absorbing stream of civilization. And in the stress of modern life, and
+the progress of man's monopolization of the earth on which he lives, it
+is beautiful to some of us, of whom it may be said the highest state of
+inward happiness comes from solitary meditation in unperturbed
+loneliness under the broad expanse of heaven, to know that there are
+still some spots of isolation where human foot has never turned the
+clay, and where, out of sight and sound of fellow mortals, we may even
+for a time shake off the violating, unnatural fetters of a harassing
+Western life.
+
+Soon it seemed as if a silken cord had suddenly been severed, and I had
+been dragged from a world of sweet infinitude down to a sphere mundane
+and everyday, to something I had known before.... "....Or what is
+Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the 'Living Garment
+of God'? O Heaven, is it in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks
+through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in
+me?"[AP]
+
+I heard the crack of the bamboo and the patter of feet in the sodden,
+slippery pathway, and I knew my men were come. Crawling out from my
+rock, I descended again to common things, having to listen to the
+disgusting talk of my Chinese followers, though a very slender
+vocabulary saved me from losing entirely the memory of that great
+picture then passing away. The sun shone through the clouds, which had
+given place again to blue, the pervading blackness of a few moments
+before had disappeared, and with the sinking sun we descended
+thoughtfully to the town. The hill is solid sandstone, and the uneven
+ruts made by the daily procession of ponies were transformed into a
+network of tiny streams.
+
+That my comrades were drenched to the skin gave them no thought; they
+turned to immediately, while I dived hurriedly to the bottom of my box
+and gulped down quinine. They sat around and drank hot water, holding
+forth with eloquence beyond their wont on the general advantages,
+naturally and supernaturally, of their native city of Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+And well they might, for I know no prettier spot in the whole of Western
+China.
+
+Fifty men--coolies who were carrying general merchandise in all
+directions, and who had taken shelter in the large inn I stayed at--rose
+with me the next morning. As I ate my morning meal, spluttering the rice
+over the floor as I tried vainly to control my chopsticks with
+frost-nipped fingers, they went through the filthy round of early
+morning routine. Squatting about with their dirty face-rags, and a
+half-pint of greasy water in their brass receptacle shaped like the
+soup-plate of civilization, and leaving upon their necks the traces of
+their swills, they wiped the dirt into their hair, and considered they
+had washed themselves. Men would emerge from their rooms, fully dressed,
+with the dishclout in one hand and the hand-basin in the other--on the
+way to their morning tub. Oh, the filth, the unspeakable filth of these
+people! Would that the Chinese would emulate the cleanliness of the
+Japs, though even that I would question. In several years in the Orient
+I have not yet come across the cleanliness in any race of people to be
+compared with that cleanliness which in England is next to godliness.
+
+The people of Pu-pêng were pleased to see me. They hurried about
+obligingly to get food for man and beast, and the womankind, poor but
+light-hearted, cracked suggestive jokes with my men with the utmost
+freedom.
+
+In this town there are many Lolo--it might be said that the entire
+population is of Lolo origin, although had I suggested to any particular
+inhabitant that this was a fact he would probably have taken keen
+offense, and things might have gone badly with me. With the men it is
+most difficult to tell--there is little difference between the _Han ren_
+and the tribesman. But the difference is often most marked in respect to
+the women. The Chinese woman has a considerably fairer skin than the
+female of Lolo descent, and her customs and manners, apart from the
+distinct colloquial accent, are quite evident as pretty sure proof of
+distinction of race. After the Lolo have mingled with the Chinese for a
+few years, however, it is quite difficult to differentiate between them,
+as most of the Lolo women now speak Chinese (in this town I did not hear
+any language foreign to the Chinese language), and a good many of the
+men are sufficiently educated to read the Chinese character even if they
+do not write it. The forward racial condition of the Lolo people in this
+district is far greater than that of the people of the same tribe to the
+west of Tali-fu, and in latitudes where their language and customs of
+life and dress are more or less maintained. The women are generally of
+better physique than the Chinese, principally on account of the fact
+that their work is almost exclusively outdoor; but as they begin to copy
+the Chinese, and live a more sedentary life, this fine physique will
+probably gradually disappear. A good many already bind their feet.
+
+When I came out in the early morning the thermometer was twenty degrees
+below zero, and my nose was red and without feeling. _Feng-mao_[AQ] and
+great coat were required, but I was totally oblivious of the hour's
+stiff climbing awaiting me immediately outside the town, to reach the
+highest point in which bathed me in perspiration as if I had played
+three sets of tennis in the tropics.
+
+Mountains were wild and barren, with nothing in them to enable one to
+forget in natural beauty the fatigues of a toilsome ascent. Villages
+came now and again in sight, stretched out at the extremity of the plain
+before my eyes, with their white gables, red walls, and black tiled
+roofs, but during the day we passed through two only. The first was a
+little place where decay would have been absolute had it not been for
+the likin[AR] flag, which enables "squeezes" to be extorted ruthlessly
+from the muleteer and conveyed to the pockets of the prospering customs
+agent. It boasted only ten or twelve tumbling lean-to tenements, where
+my sympathy went out to the half-dozen physical wrecks of men who came
+slowly and stared long, and wondered at the commonest article of my
+meager impedimenta. They seemed poorer and lower down the human scale
+than any I had yet seen. On one of the ragged garments worn by a man of
+about twenty-five I counted no less than thirty-four patches of
+different shapes, sizes and materials, hieroglyphically and skillessly
+thrown together to hide his sore-strewn back; but still his brown
+unwashed flesh was visible in many places.
+
+Looking upon them, one did not like to think that these beings were men,
+men with passions like to one's own, for all the interests, real and
+imaginary, all the topics which should expand the mind of man, and
+connect him in sympathy with general existence, were crushed in the
+absorbing considerations of how rice was to be procured for their
+families of diseaseful brats. They had no brains, these men; or if
+Heaven had thus o'erblessed them, they did not exercise them in their
+industry--their coarse, rough hands alone gained food for the day's
+feeding. And these mud-roofed, mud-sided dwellings--these were their
+homes, to me worse homes than none at all. In their architecture not
+even a single idea could be traced--the Chinese here had proceeded as if
+by merest accident. All I could think as I returned their wondering
+glances was that their world must be very, very old. But I have no time
+or space to talk of them here. To throw more than a cursory glance at
+them Would lead me into interminable disquisitions of a mythological,
+anthropological, craniological, and antediluvian nature for which one
+would not find universal approval among his readers. To those who would
+study such questions I say, "Fall to!" There is enough scope for a
+lifetime to bring into light the primeval element so strangely woven
+into the lives of these people.
+
+At Yün-nan-ï bunting and weird street decoration made the place hideous
+in my eyes. The crowded town was making considerable ado about some
+expected official. I saw none, more than a courteous youth--to whom, of
+course, I was quite unknown and deaf and dumb--who graciously shifted
+goods and chattels from the inn's best room to hand it over to me for my
+occupation. With due tact and some excitability, I protested vigorously
+against his coming out. He insisted. Smiling upon him with grave
+benignity, I said that I would take a smaller room, and gave orders to
+that effect to my man, adding that my whole sense of right and justice
+towards fellow-travelers revolted against such self-sacrifice on his
+part. He still insisted. Smiling again, this time the timid smile of the
+commoner looking up into the face of the great, I allowed myself
+reluctantly to be pushed bodily into the best apartment.
+
+This was my intention from the first. Although not too familiar with
+it, I allowed the Chinese to imagine that I was well grounded in the
+absurdities of his national etiquette; whilst he, observing, too, the
+outrageous routine of common politeness, probably went away swearing
+that he had been turned out. He had cut off his nose to spite his face.
+
+I cannot truthfully deny, however, that the fellow was very kind, but he
+would persist in the belief that it was an impossibility for me to tell
+the truth. Later, pointing at me and eyeing me up and down as I shaved
+in the twilight, he sneered, "Engleeshman! Engleeshman!" and scooting
+with an armful of clothing, small pots of eatables, official documents
+and other sundries, told me point-blank that he did not believe that
+such a noble person could not speak such a contemptible language as
+Chinese.
+
+Seeing no official, then, I presumed I was their man. Whilst I fed
+slowly on my rice and cabbage in a small earth-floor room, with my nose
+as near as convenient to my oil lamp to get a little warmth, the
+discomfort of Chinese life was forced upon me, and I imagined I was
+having a good time. I was the best off in the inn by far; the others
+must have been colder, certainly had worse food to eat, and yet to me it
+was all the height of utmost cheerlessness.
+
+From a hamlet opposite the town, where I sat down by the fire
+exhausted in an old woman's shaky dwelling, and fed on aged
+sardines and hot rice (atrocious mixture), there is a plain extending
+for twenty li to Yün-nan-ï--flat as country in the Fen district. The
+road was good (in wet weather, however, it must be terrible), and I
+would drive a motor-car across, were it not for the 15-in. ruts which
+disfigure the surface. And I know a man who would do this even, despite
+the ruts: he takes a delight in running over dogs and small boys,
+damaging rickshaws, bumping into bullock-carts, and so on--he would
+have done it with liveliest freedom.
+
+But what poverty there was! What women! What Children! With barely an
+exception, the women had faces ground by want and bare necessity, in
+which every cheerful and sympathetic lineament had been effaced by
+life-long slavery and misery. In the bitter cold they, women and
+children, crouched round a scanty fir-wood firing, not enough even to
+keep alive their natural heat. One long pitiful sight of thriftless
+poverty.
+
+To Hungay was a fearful day. Little to eat could I procure, and the cold
+gave me a lusty ox's appetite. To me a bellyful came as a windfall.
+
+At last we sat down by the roadside at one small table, hearing the test
+of age, rickety and worm-eaten. We gathered like hogs at their troughs,
+with the household hog scratching at our feet. I grew impatient and
+querulous over constant culinary disappointment. I longed not for the
+heaped-up board of the pampered and luxurious, I wanted food. Indigent
+man was I, whose dietetical elegancies had been forgotten, a man with
+ravenous desires seeking sustenance, not relishes; the means of life,
+not the means of pampering the carcass; I wanted food.
+
+And here I had it. The hungry were to be fed.
+
+It was a foul orgy, a gruesome spectacle, a horrible picture of the
+gluttony of famished men. This meal conjured up visions of the "most
+unlovely of the functions." We fed on _mien_, that long, greasy, grimy,
+slippery, slimy string of boneless white--I see it now! And the
+half-done tin of sardines set before me, too, the broken stools in the
+thatch-worn shed, the dismantled hearth, the muddy earthen floor, the
+haggard, hungry villains--I see them all again.[AS]
+
+It should, however, be said that I went away from the main road over a
+range of hills where nobody lives. Had I kept to the "ta lu" food would
+have been quite easy to get.
+
+To Hungay was given the honor of entertaining me over the Sunday, a
+pleasant rest after a week of arduous and exhausting walking. I arrived
+late at night, and the old town's rough streets were bathed in a silver
+shower of moonbeams, the air was cold and frosty, little groups of the
+curious came to the doors of their dwellings, laughing sarcastically,
+despite their own poverty, at the distinguished traveler thus coming
+upon them.
+
+In marked contrast to this outside animation were the happenings at the
+inn which gave me shelter. Business was bad. Three undistinguished
+travelers--coolies with loads--and myself and men made up the meager
+total of paying guests. This was the reason why it was chosen for me,
+for peace and quiet. Quiet had been forced upon the household, so I was
+told, by the death by fits of a haughty and resolute lady; and now that
+the night had fallen and we had all had our rice, the deep hush--or its
+equivalent in Cathay, at all events--seemed likely to be unbroken until
+a new day should dawn. My room here had a verandah overlooking a back
+court, and here I sat at midnight, unseen by anyone, looking up to the
+changeless stars in an unpitying sky; and as I stood thus there blew
+from the gates of night and across the mountains a wind that made me
+shiver less with physical cold than with a sense of loneliness and
+captivity. For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if
+the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the
+cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and
+then again at the soldiers with their guns, I turned giddy, shuddering
+at the darkness and the loneliness, and with a nameless fear lying at
+the center of life like a lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen foe.
+
+They addressed me, but I cared not what they said. I pretended I could
+not speak Chinese, watched the quartet form a circle, and talk slowly
+and low, and it did not need the mind of a prophet to see that they were
+discussing how best they could capture me. Were they going to kill me?
+My boy and the other friends I had in the place were sleeping
+blissfully, ignorant that their master was in such trying straits. I was
+asked my name, and the inquirers, not over civil, were told. They again
+asked me for something, I knew not what, probably for my passport. I
+had none, and cursed my luck that I had forgotten to pack it when I had
+left Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+
+To me it was quite evident that they were deciding my destiny, or so it
+seemed in the stillness of the night. Looking upwards, I wondered
+whether I was soon to learn the secret of the stars and sky, and those
+men seemed to watch the secret workings of my soul. Outside the wind
+made moan continuously.
+
+Suddenly my door opened noisily, a light was flashed upon us, and I saw
+the bulky form of the landlord. Then all was well. Soon one of my men
+appeared, and explained that the soldiers were on their way to meet an
+official who was coming from Tali-fu, that their instructions were that
+they would meet him at Hungay. They took me for the "gwan."
+
+So my end was not yet. But now, months afterwards, when I stand and
+listen to the wind at midnight, there seems borne to me in every sob and
+wail a memory of that hateful night and the four soldiers with their
+guns.
+
+It seemed not long afterwards that I was awakened by noises on the
+doorstep. Looking out, I found a bullock, its four feet tied together
+with a straw rope, writhing in its last agonies; the butcher, in his
+hand a cruel 24-inch bladed knife still red with blood, smiling the
+smile of ironic torture as he looked down upon his struggling victim. He
+straightway skinned the animal and cut up the carcass immediately in
+front of my door, where Lao Chang waited to get the best cut for my
+dinner. My three fellow-lodgers squatted alongside, going through their
+apologetic ablutions as if naught were happening. Their dirty face-rags
+were wrung and rewrung; they got to work with that universal tooth-brush
+(the forefinger!), and that the dead body of a bullock was being
+dissected two feet from the table at which they ate their steaming rice
+was a detail of not the slightest consequence in the world.
+
+Hungay is an old-time capital of one of the original kingdoms,
+destroyed in the year A.D. 749. The road leading out towards Chao-chow
+was built some considerable time before that year, and has never been
+subject to any repairs whatever (for this fact I have drawn upon my
+imagination, but should be very much surprised to know that I am far out
+in my reckoning). Villagers have appropriated the public slabs and small
+boulders which comprised the wretched thoroughfare; reminiscent puddles
+tell you the tale, and the badness of the road renders it necessary for
+the traveler to be out of bed a little earlier than usual to face the
+ordeal. The road to-day has been practically as bad as walking along the
+sides of the Yangtze. But as I studied the patience and physical
+vitality of my three men, laughing and joking with the light-heartedness
+of children, with nearly seventy catties dangling from their
+shoulder-pole, without a word of murmuring, I felt a little ashamed of
+myself that I, whose duty it was merely to _walk_, should have made such
+a fuss. These men were prepared to work a very long time for very little
+reward, as no matter how small the rewards for the terribly exhausting
+labor, it were better than none at all,--so they philosophized.
+
+That quiet persistence and unfailing patience form a national virtue
+among the Chinese--the capacity to wait without complaint and to bear
+all with silent endurance. This virtue is seen more clearly in great
+national disasters which occasionally befall the country. The terrible
+famine of 1877-8 was the cause of the death of millions of people, and
+left scores of millions without house, food or clothing; they were
+driven forth as wanderers on the face of the earth without home, without
+hope. The Government does nothing whatever in these cases. The people
+who wish to live must find the means to live, and what impressed me all
+through my wanderings was the absolute science to which poverty is
+reduced. In such calamities the Chinese, of all men on the earth's
+surface, will battle along if there is any chance at all. If he is
+blessed, he once more becomes a farmer; but if not, he accepts the
+position as inevitable and irremediable. The Chinese race has the finest
+power in the world to withstand with fortitude the ills of life and the
+miseries which follow inability to procure the wherewithal to live.
+Their nerves are somehow different from our Western nerves.
+
+In China nothing is wasted, not only in food, but in everything
+affecting the common life.
+
+That a beast dies of disease is of no concern. It is eaten all the same
+from head to hoof, from skin to entrail, and the remarkable fact is that
+they do not seem to suffer from it, either. At Kiang-ti (mentioned in a
+previous chapter) I saw a horse being pushed down the hillside to the
+river. It was not yet dead, but was dying, so far as I could see, of
+inflammation of the bowels. Its body was cut up, and there were several
+people waiting to buy it at forty cash the catty.
+
+From Hungay onwards I met a class of people I had not seen before. They
+were the Minchia (Pe-tso).
+
+Major H.R. Davies, whose treatise on the tribes of Yün-nan at the end of
+his excellent work on travel in the province, is probably the best yet
+written, writes that he met Minchia people only on the plains of Tali-fu
+and Chao-chow, and never east of the latter place. This was in travel
+some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many
+Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as
+a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. There is
+little doubt that the Minchia originally came from country lying between
+the border of the province and round Li-chiang-fu and the Tali-fu plain
+and lake. Most of them wear Chinese dress; many of the women bind their
+feet (and the practice is growing in popularity), although those who
+have not small feet are still in the majority. In a small city lying
+some few li from the city of Tali all the inhabitants are Minchia, and I
+found no difficulty in spotting a Chinese man or woman--there is a
+distinct facial difference. Minchia have bigger noses, generally the
+eyes are set farther apart, and the skin is darker. Pink trousers are in
+fashion among the ladies--trace of base feminine weakness!--but are not
+by any means the distinguishing features of race.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AP: Carlyle, _Sartor Resartus_.]
+
+[Footnote AQ: Wind-cap, a long Chinese wadded hat which reaches over
+one's head and down over the shoulders, tied under the chin with
+ribbons.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AR: Likin, as everyone knows, is custom duty. All along the
+main roads of China one meets likin stations, distinguished by the flag
+at the entrance.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AS: I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am
+convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been
+something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in
+summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes
+midway between Yün-nan-ï and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation,
+interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant
+contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine,
+lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which
+is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon
+the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard
+a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they
+suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the
+departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as
+one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was
+struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what
+we in the West call civilization. Yet nothing bore traces of gross
+uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite
+content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could,
+soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and
+their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with
+babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played
+roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields;
+coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring
+villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned
+and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with
+old-time pomp--not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in
+the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair
+carried by men. There was plenty of everything--enough for all--but all
+had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants
+were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have
+noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire
+to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as
+little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and
+mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will
+contradict it? They do not see with the eyes of the West; we do not, we
+cannot, see with their eyes. But surely the living of this simple life,
+the same as it was in the beginning, has a good deal in it; it is not
+uncivilization, not barbarism, and the fair-minded traveler in China can
+come to but one opinion, even in the midst of all the conflicting
+emotions which result from his own upbringing, that we could, if we
+would, learn many a good lesson from the old-time life of the Celestial
+in his own country.
+
+Yet these are the very people who may jostle us harshly later on in the
+racial struggle.
+
+I am not suggesting that when the Chinese adopts the cult of the West,
+and comes into general contact with it--and I believe that I am right in
+saying that this is the desire, generally speaking, of the whole of the
+enlightened classes--he continues with his few wants. As a matter of
+fact, he does not. He is as extravagant, and perhaps more so, than the
+most of us. I have seen Straits Chinese waste at the gaming tables in
+their gorgeous clubs as much in one night as some European residents
+handle in one year, and he is quick to get his motor-car, his horses and
+carriages, and endless other ornaments of wealth. So that if progress in
+the course of the evolution of nations means that the Chinese too will
+demand all that the European now demands, and will cease to find
+satisfaction in the existing conditions of his life in the new goal
+towards which he is moving, and if he, in course of time, should
+increase the cost of living per head to equal that of the Westerner,
+then he will lose a good deal of the advantage he now undoubtedly has in
+the struggle for racial supremacy. But if, gradually taking advantage of
+all in religion, in science, in literature, in art, in modern naval and
+military equipment and skill, and all that has made nations great and
+made for real progress in the West, he were also to continue his present
+hardy frugality in living--which is not a tenth as costly in proportion
+to that of the Occident--then his advantage in entering upon the
+conflict among the nations for ultimate supremacy would be undoubted,
+immeasurable.
+
+The question is, will he?
+
+If he will, then the Occident has much to fear. China, going ahead
+throughout the Empire as she is at the present moment in certain parts,
+will in course of time (as is only fair and natural to expect) have an
+army greater in numbers than is possible to any European power, and her
+food-bill will be two-thirds lower per head per fighting man.
+Subsequently, granting that China fulfils our fears, and becomes as
+great a fighting power as military experts declare she will, even in our
+generation, by virtue of her numbers alone, apart from phenomenal powers
+of endurance, which as every writer on China and her people is agreed,
+is excelled by no other race on earth, she would be able to dictate
+terms to the West. But, again, will she? Will the people continue to
+live as they are living?
+
+I personally believe that the Chinese will not. I believe that as the
+nation progresses, more in accordance with lines of progress laid down
+by the West, so will her wants increase, and consequent expenses of life
+become greater. The Yün-nanese even are beginning to acknowledge that
+they have no ordinary comforts. In other parts of the empire the people
+are already beginning to learn what comfort, sanitation, lighting, and
+general organization means--in the home, in the city, in the country, in
+the nation.
+
+And they are learning too that it all costs money, and means, perhaps, a
+higher state of social life. For this they do not mind the money. They
+are not going half-way--they are going to be whole-hoggers. And when in
+the future, near or far, we shall find them, as is almost inevitable,
+able to compete in everything with other nations, we shall find that
+they have not been successful in learning the source of strength without
+having absorbed also some of the weaknesses; they will not escape the
+vices, even if they learn some of the virtues of the West.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+_Peculiar forebodings of early morning_. _A would-be speaker of
+English_. _The young men of Yün-nan and the Reform Movement_. _Teachers
+of English_. _Remarks on methods adopted_. _Disregard of the customs of
+centuries_. _A rushing Szech-wanese_. _Missionaries and the Educational
+Movement_. _Christianity and the position of the foreigner_. _Is the
+Chinese racially inferior to the European? Interesting opinion_. _Peace
+of Europe and integrity of China_. _Chao-chow cook gets a bad time_.
+_The author's levée. Natural "culture" of the people_. _Story of the
+birth of boys_. _Notes on Hsiakwan_. _Experiences of the
+non-Chinese-speaking author at the inn_. _How he got the better of an
+official_. _A magnificent temple_. _Kwan-ïn and the priests._
+
+
+This morning, from the foot of a high spur, I saw a couple of gawky
+fellows shambling along in an imitation European dress, and I pricked up
+my ears--it seemed as if Europeans were about. One of the fellows had on
+a pair of long-legged khaki trousers ludicrously patched with Chinese
+blue, a tweed coat of London cut also patched with Chinese blue, and a
+battered Elswood topee. I saw this through my field-glasses. Soon after,
+coming out from a cup in the winding pathway, emerged a four-man chair,
+and I had no doubt then that it was a European on the road, and I began
+to get as curious as anyone naturally would in a country where in
+interior travel his own foreign kind are met with but seldom. Hurrying
+on, I managed to pass the chair in a place where overhanging foliage
+shut out the light, so that I could not see through the windows, and as
+the front curtain was down I concluded that it must be a lady, probably
+a missionary lady. I pushed on to the nearest tavern--a tea tavern, of
+course--buttoned up my coat so that she should not see my dirty shirt,
+and waited for the presence to approach. From an inner apartment,
+through a window, I could see all that went on outside, but could not be
+seen. What is it that makes a man's heart go pit-a-pat when he is about
+to meet a European lady in mid-China?
+
+Presently the chair approached. From it came a person covered in a huge
+fur-lined, fur-collared coat many sizes too large for his small body--it
+was a Chinese. Several men were pushed out of his way as he strode
+towards me, extending his hand in a cordial "shake, old fellow" style,
+and yelling in purest accent, "Good morning, sir; _good_ morning, sir!"
+
+"Oh, good morning. You speak English well. I congratulate you. Have you
+had a good journey? How far are you going? Very warm?" I waited. "It is
+so interesting when one meets a gentleman who can speak English; it is a
+pleasant change." I waited again. "Will you--"
+
+"Good morning, morning, morn--he, he, he."
+
+"But pardon me, will--"
+
+"Morning, morning--he, h-e-e."
+
+"Yes, you silly ass, I know it is morning, but--"
+
+"Yes, yes; morning, morning--he-e-e-e-e."
+
+He then made for the door, not the least abashed. Later he came back,
+and invited me to speak Chinese, probably thinking that I was wondering
+why he had made such an absolute fool of himself. I learned that this
+august gentleman possessed a name in happy correspondence with a fowl
+("Chi"). He pointed contemptuously to a member of that feather tribe as
+he told me. Whether he could speak Chinese when he was or was not at
+Chen-tu, or whether he had a son whose knowledge of my language was
+vast, and who was at that moment at Chen-tu, I could not quite fathom,
+and he could not explain. He had a look at my caravan generally, and
+then turned his scrutiny upon my common tweeds, informing me that the
+quality bore no comparison with his own. He could travel in a four-man
+chair; I had to _walk_. It was all very "pub hao."
+
+After some time he cleared out with much empty swagger, and I followed
+leisurely on behind, feeling--yes, why not publish it?--pleased that this
+bolt from the blue had not been a lady.
+
+This young fellow--a mere slip of a boy--wore every indication of
+perfect self-confidence, borne out in a multitude of ways common to his
+class. He, I presumed, was one of the fledglings who undertake
+responsibilities far beyond them, or I should not be surprised if he had
+been one of the army of young men who, having the merest smattering of
+English, wholly unable to converse, set up as teachers of English. I
+have found this quite common among the rising classes in Yün-nan. The
+cool assumption of unblushing superiority evinced in discussing
+intellectual and philosophic problems is remarkable. The Chinese, in the
+area I speak of, are little people with little brain: this was a
+specimen. Yet, to be fair, in China to-day the work of reform is mainly
+the work of young men, who although but only partly equipped for their
+work, approach it with perfect confidence and considerable energy, not
+knowing sufficient to realize the difficulties they are undertaking. In
+Japan the same thing was done. The young men there undertook to dispute
+and doubt everything which came in the way of national reorganization,
+setting aside--as China must do if she is to take her place alongside
+the ideal she has set up for herself, Japan--parental teaching,
+ancestral authority, the customs of centuries. A large proportion of the
+population of China has a passion for reform and progress. This young
+fellow was a typical example. In the west of China, however, to conform
+with the spirit of reform and real progress--not the make-believe, which
+is satisfying them at the present moment--they must needs change their
+ways.
+
+Seventeen memorial plates were passed at the entrance to Chao-chow, a
+particularly modern-looking place, as one approaches it from the hill.
+
+A remarkably ungainly individual, with a hole in the top of his skull
+and his body one mass of sores, came to me here, addressed me as "Sien
+seng," and then commenced an oration to the effect that he was a
+Szech'wanese, that he had known the missionaries down by the Yangtze,
+and that he knew he would be welcome to accompany me to Hsiakwan.[AT] He
+switched himself on the main line of my caravan. Here was a man who had
+been brought in contact with the missionary away down in another
+province, and he knew he was welcome. I liked that. In all my
+journeyings in Yün-nan I was increasingly impressed with the value of
+the missionary, that man who of all men in the Far East is the most
+subject to malicious criticism, and generally, be it said, from those
+persons who know little or nothing about his work. You cannot measure
+the missionary's work by conversions, by mere statistics. I venture to
+assert that it is through the missionary that the West applied pressure
+and supplied China with political ideas, and put within her reach the
+material and instruments which would enable her to carry such ideas into
+practice--this apart from religious teaching. More particularly is this
+the case in respect to popular education, perhaps, by means of which the
+transformation of Old China into New China will be a less long and
+difficult process. The people may not want the missionary--I do not for
+a moment say that they do--but they need to know the secret of his power
+and the power of his kind, and they must study his language, his
+science, his machinery, his steamboats, his army, his _Dreadnaughts_.
+They realize that the foreigner is useful not for what he can do, but
+for what he can teach--therefore they tolerate the missionary. This is
+virtually the national policy of China towards foreigners, a policy
+gaining the acceptance of the people with remarkable quickness.
+
+After having set aside all considerations of national prejudice and
+patriotism, it is interesting to ask whether it is actually a fact that
+the Chinese, as a race, are inferior to the peoples of the West? Much
+has been said on the subject. I give my opinion flatly that the Chinese
+is _not_ inferior, and the longer I live with him the more numerous
+become the lessons which he teaches me.
+
+"The question, when we examine it closely, has really very little to do
+with political strength or military efficiency, or (_pace_ Mr. Benjamin
+Kidd) relative standards of living, or even the usual material
+accompaniments of what we call an advanced civilization; it is a
+question for the trained anthropologist and the craniologist rather than
+for the casual observer of men and manners. The Japanese people are now
+much more highly civilized--according to western notions--than they were
+half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that
+they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than
+they were then. Evolution does not work quite so rapidly as that even in
+these days of 'hustle.' The Japanese have advanced, not because their
+brains have suddenly become larger, or their moral and intellectual
+capabilities have all at once made a leap forward, but because their
+intercourse with Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion,
+showed them that certain characteristic features of European
+civilization would be of great use in strengthening and enriching their
+own country, developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist
+aggression. If the Japanese were as members of the _homo sapiens_
+inferior to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are
+our equals to-day--and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him
+who wishes to show that they are not--our knowledge of the origin and
+history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
+to assure us that the Chinese are our equals, too. There is no valid
+reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior to
+the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer than
+the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently necessary
+for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to appreciate
+the value of Western science and certain features of Western
+civilization, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
+country than a small one, and because China was rich within her own
+borders of all the necessaries of life."[AU]
+
+And the West, too, must learn that the peace of Europe depends upon the
+integrity of China. For the time is coming--not in the lives of any who
+read these lines, but coming inevitably--when China will, by her might,
+by her immense numbers of trained men, by her developed naval and
+military strength, be able to say to the nations of the earth, "There
+must be no more war." And she will be strong enough to be able to
+enforce it.
+
+As with individuals, so with nations, and a people who are marked by
+such rare physical vitality, such remarkable powers of endurance against
+great odds, are surely designed for some nobler purpose than merely to
+bear with fortitude the ills of life and the misery of starvation. It is
+the easiest thing in the world to criticise--the West criticises the
+Chinese because he is a heathen, because they do not understand him.
+Hundreds of millions of the Chinese race hate and fear the man of the
+West for exactly the same reason as would cause us to hate the Chinese
+were the situation reversed.
+
+I do not need to go into history from the days when the Chinese first
+began to show their suspicion, contempt, and fear of foreigners, and
+their interpretation of the motives and purposes which took them to the
+Celestial Empire; it would take too much space. But if we of the West
+did our part to-day, as we rub up against the Chinese everywhere, in
+charitably taking him at his best, things would alter much more speedily
+that they are doing. Because the Chinese bristles with contradictions
+and seemingly unanswerable conundrums, we immediately dub him a
+barbarian, do not endeavor to understand him, do not understand enough
+of his language to listen to him and learn his point of view. However,
+it is all slowly passing--so very slowly, too. But still China is
+progressing, and now this oldest man in the world is becoming again the
+youngest, but has all the accumulations and advantages of age in all
+countries to lean upon and learn from.
+
+Chao-chow gave me a very decent inn, the top room in front of which was
+provided with a well-paved courtyard, with every convenience for the
+traveler--that is, for China.
+
+The inn cook and water-carrier was out playing on the street when we put
+in an early appearance. My men lost their temper, ground their teeth,
+foamed at the mouth, and got desperate. The only man on the premises was
+a poor old fellow, who foolishly bumped his uncovered head on the ground
+on which I stood, as an act of great servility and a secret sign that I
+should throw him a few cash, and then resumed his occupation in the sun
+of wiping his already inflamed eyes with the one unwashed garment which
+covered him. I pitied him; he knew it, and traded upon my pity until I
+invoked a few choice words from Lao Chang to fall upon him. When the
+cook did put in an appearance, he and everybody dead and living placed
+anywhere near his genealogical tree underwent a rough quarter of an
+hour from the anathematical tongues of my companions. The Old Man--by
+virtue of the growth on my chin, this epithet of respect was commonly
+used towards me--wanted to wash his face and drink his tea. He was tired
+with walking. He was a foreign mandarin. Did the blank, blank, blank
+cook, the worm and no man, not know that a foreigner was among them? And
+then they fell to piling up the ignominy again and placing to the cook's
+dishonor various degrees of lowliest origin common among the Chinese
+proletariat, which, thank Heaven, I did not quite understand.
+
+That evening all Chao-chow came to honor me in my room, and to admire
+and ask to be given all I had in my boxes. That it was all a huge
+revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I
+might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in
+expensive silks and satins--probably borrowed--came with pomp and
+pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he
+learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him. He mentioned
+that he was one of the cultured of the city. But the Chinese are all
+more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character,
+are really "cultured"--they are the most polite men I have ever
+traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than
+real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in
+moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the
+wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter
+of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking
+in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along
+with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for
+my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored
+man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent
+invitations to use a chair--how is it all Orientals can do this, and not
+one European out of fifty?
+
+Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented
+him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth
+of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese
+household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be
+lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just
+before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and
+secure peace. This is the "Exorcism of Great Peace." Simultaneously
+comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and
+difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever
+similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is
+often felt that the first visit to the house after the birth of the
+child should be made by a "lucky" person, for the child's whole future
+career may be blighted by meeting with an "ill-starred" person. No
+outsider will enter the room where the birth took place for forty days.
+On the anniversary of a boy's birth the relatives and friends bring
+presents of clothes, hats, ornaments, playthings, and red eggs. The baby
+is placed on the floor--the earth, which is the first place he touches;
+he is born into a hole in the ground--and around him are placed various
+articles, such as a book, pencil, chopsticks, money, and so on. He will
+follow the profession which has to do with the articles he first
+touches.[AV]
+
+This was the fortieth day, and so my visitant honored me by thrusting
+his contemptible presence upon me, and he would not go until late at
+night, when a man with a diseased hip and one eye--and a ghastly thing
+at that--called to see whether I could treat him with medicine.
+
+Hsiakwan in days to come will probably have a big industry in brick and
+tile making. Fifteen li from the town, on the Chao-chow side, many
+people now get their living at the business, and one could easily dream
+of a "Hsiakwan Brick and Tile Company Limited," with the children's
+children of the present pioneers running for the morning papers to have
+a look at the share market reports, with light railways connected up
+with the main line, which has not yet been built, and so on, and so on.
+
+Hsiakwan is perhaps the busiest town on the main trade route from
+Yün-nan-fu to Burma. Tali-fu, although growing, is only the official
+town, of which Hsiakwan is the commercial entrepôt. It was here that I
+stayed one Sunday some time after this, at one of the biggest inns I
+have ever been into in China. It had no less than four buildings, each
+with a paved rectangular courtyard which all the rooms overlooked. A
+military official, who was on his way to Chao-t'ong to deal with the
+rebellion, of which the reader has already learnt a good deal, was
+expected soon after I arrived. My room was already arranged, however,
+when the landlord came to me and said--
+
+"Yang gwan, you must please go out!"
+
+Now the yang gwan, as was expected, stayed where he was, smiled in
+magnanimous acquiescence, invited the proprietor--a stout, jolly person
+with one eye--to be seated, and remained quiet. Again and again was I
+told that I should be required to clear out, and give up the best room
+to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did
+not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the
+foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a
+stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The
+Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated
+foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in
+a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions
+been reversed, stared vacantly and woodenly into a seemingly bewildering
+infinite, and timidly remarked, "O t'ing puh lai." Knowing then that my
+"hearing had not come," he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by
+this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao
+Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their
+meaning. The best room, therefore, continued to be mine.
+
+Soon after the official came, and my dog began by mauling his canine
+guardian, tearing away half his ear; and in the middle of the night one
+of my horses got loose and had a stand-up fight with a mule attached to
+the official party, laming him seriously; and as the foreigner emerged
+in his night attire to prevent further damage, he encountered the
+mandarin himself, and pinned him dead against the wall in the dark,
+after having stepped on his corn. My pony had pulled several morsels of
+flesh from the mule's carcase. The yang gwan certainly came off best,
+and the following morning, as the Chinese gwan with his retinue of six
+chairs and about one hundred and fifty men departed, the yang gwan
+smiled a happy farewell which was not effusively reciprocated.
+
+As I came out of the inn I met a Buddhist priest, worn with general
+dilapidation and old age, with a huge festering wound in the calf of his
+leg, so that he could hardly hobble along with a stick--he was probably
+on his way to the medical missionary at Tali-fu for treatment. This
+spiritual guide was certainly on his last legs, and has probably by this
+time handed over the priestly robes and official perquisites to more
+vigorous young blood.
+
+Hsiakwan's High Street reminded me of the main street of Totnes, with
+its arch over the roadway, and the scenery might have deluded one into
+the belief that he was in Switzerland in spring, as he gazed upon the
+glorious spectacle of snow-covered mountains with the world-famed lake
+at the foot. Tali-fu deserves its name of the Geneva of West China.
+
+In the chapter devoted to Yün-nan-fu I have referred to the military of
+Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of
+men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here.
+Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the
+Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.
+
+In the famous temple ten li from Tali-fu is an effigy to the Yang Daren
+who figured conspicuously during the Mohammedan Rebellion. My men
+somehow got the false information that he was a native of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, so they all went down on their knees and bumped their
+heads on the ground before the image. This Yang, however, was such a
+brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a
+soldier he was indomitable. The temple in which he is deified is called
+the Kwan-ïn-tang,[AW] and there is no place in all China where Kwan-ïn
+is worshipped with such relentless vigor. Some years ago, so the wags
+say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-ïn saved the city by
+transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her
+back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path. The
+amazement of the rebels at the sight of a woman performing such a feat
+made them wonder what the men could be like, so they turned tail and
+fled. The story is believed implicitly by the residents of the city, and
+the priests, with an open eye to the main chance, work upon the public
+imagination with capital tact. I saw the stone in the center of a lotus
+pond, over which is the structure in which the Kwan-ïn sits, not as a
+weight-lifting woman, but as a tender mother, with a tiny babe in her
+arms, and none in the whole of the Empire enjoys such favor for being
+able to direct the birth of male children into those families which give
+most money to the priests. Women desiring sons come and implore her by
+throwing cash, one by one, at the effigy, the one who hits being
+successful, going away with the belief that a son will be born to her.
+When the deluded females are cleared out, the priest, divesting himself
+of his shoes, and rolling up his trousers, goes into the water, scoops
+up the money and uses it for his personal convenience--sometimes as much
+as thirty thousand cash.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AT: The commercial center of Tali-fu, the official city is 30
+li further on--E.J.D]
+
+[Footnote AU: _From Peking to Mandalay_, by R.F. Johnston, London, John
+Murray. I am indebted to this racily-written work for other ideas in
+this chapter.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AV: From inquiries I find this custom is not general in some
+parts of Western China--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AW: Temple to the Goddess of Mercy.
+
+     "Kwan-ïn was the third daughter of a king, beautiful and talented,
+     and when young loved to meditate as a priest. Her father, mother
+     and sisters beseech her not to pass the 'green spring,' but to
+     marry, and the king offers the man of her choice the throne. But
+     no, she must take the veil. She enters the 'White Sparrow Nunnery,'
+     and the nuns put her to the most menial offices; the dragons open a
+     well for the young maidservant, and the wild beasts bring her wood.
+     The king sends his troops to burn the nunnery, Kwan-ïn prays, rain
+     falls, and extinguishes the conflagration. She is brought to the
+     palace in chains, and the alternative of marriage or death is
+     placed before her. In the room above where the court of the
+     inquisition is held there is music, dancing, and feasting, sounds
+     and sights to allure a young girl; the queen also urges her to
+     leave the convent, and accede to the royal father's wish. Kwan-ïn
+     declares that she would rather die than marry, so the fairy
+     princess is strangled, and a tiger takes her body into the forest.
+     She descends into hell, and hell becomes a paradise, with gardens
+     of lilies. King Yama is terrified when he sees the prison of the
+     lost becoming an enchanted garden, and begs her to leave, in order
+     that the good and the evil may have their distinctive rewards. One
+     of the genii gives her the 'peach of immortality.' On her return to
+     the terrestrial regions she hears that her father is sick, and
+     sends him word that if he will dispatch a messenger to the
+     'Fragrant Mountain,' an eye and a hand will be given him for
+     medicine; this hand and eye are Kwan-ïn's own, and produce instant
+     recovery.
+
+     "She is the patron goddess of mothers, and when we remember the
+     value of sons, we can understand the heartiness of worship."--_The
+     Three Religions of China,_ by H.G. Du Bose.
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+THIRD JOURNEY
+
+TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+_Stages to the Mekong Valley_. _Hardest part of the walking tour_.
+_Author as a medical man_. _Sunday soliloquy_. _How adversity is met_.
+_Chinese life compared with early European ages_. _Womens enthusiasm
+over the European_. _A good send-off_. _My coolie Shanks, the songster_.
+_Laughter for tears_. _Pony commits suicide_. _Houses in the forest
+district_. _Little encampments among the hills, and the way the people
+pass their time_. _Treacherous travel_. _To Hwan-lien-p'u_. _Rest by the
+river, and a description of my companions_. _How my men treated the
+telegraph_. _Universal lack of privacy_. _Complaints of the carrying
+coolies._
+
+
+From whichever standpoint you regard the cities and villages of Western
+China, the views are full of interest. Each forms a new picture of rock,
+river, wood and temple, crenellated wall, and uplifted roof, crowded
+with bewildering detail.
+
+I am not the first traveler who has remarked this. Several of Mr.
+Archibald Little's books speak of it. He says: "In Europe, except where
+the scenery is purely wild, and more especially in America, the delight
+of gazing on many of the most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the
+crude newness of man's work. This is true now of Japan, since the rage
+for copying western architecture and dress has fallen upon the Islands
+of the Rising Sun. But here in Western China little has intervened to
+mar the accord between nature and man." In the country on which we are
+now entering the natural grandeur is finer than anything I had seen
+since I left the Gorges, and incidentally I do not mind confessing to
+the indulgent reader that when I came again through Hsiakwan, again
+westward bound, I was tired, my feet were blistered and broken, each day
+and every day had brought me a hard journey, and here I was now facing
+the most difficult journey yet met with--literally not a li of level
+road.
+
+My journey was by the following route:--
+
+                                Length     Height
+                               of Stage   Above Sea
+
+    1st day   Ho-chiang-p'u      90 li    5,050 ft.
+    2nd day   Yang-pi            60 li    5,150 ft.
+    3rd day   T'ai-p'ing-p'u     70 li    7,400 ft.
+    5th day   Hwan-lien-p'u      50 li    5,200 ft.
+    6th day   Ch'u-tung          95 li    5,250 ft.
+    7th day   Shayung            75 li    4,800 ft.
+
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u (two days from Tali-fu), bleak and perched away up among
+the clouds, could never be called a town; it is merely a ramshackle
+place which gives one sleep and food in the difficult stage between
+Hwan-lien-p'u and Yang-pi.
+
+Like most of the small places which suffered from the ravishings of the
+Mohammedan destructions of the fifties, it has seen better days.
+Cottages hang clumsily together on ledges in the mountains, 7,400 feet
+above the sea, standing in their own vast uncultivated grounds. People
+are of the Lolo origin, but all speak Chinese; their ways of life,
+however, are aboriginal, and still far from the ideal to which they
+aspire. They are poor, poor as church mice, dirty and diseased and
+decrepit, and their existence as a consequence is dreary and dull and
+void of all enlightenment. The women--sad, lowly females--bind their
+feet after a fashion, but as they work in the fields, climb hills, and
+battle in negotiations against Nature where she is overcome only with
+extreme effort, the real "lily" is a thing possible with them only in
+their dreams. By binding, however, be it never so bad an imitation, they
+give themselves the greater chance of getting a Chinese husband.
+
+I stayed here the Sunday, and as I went through my evening ablutions,
+among my admirers in the doorway was an old woman, who in gentlest
+confidences with my boy, explained awkwardly that her little daughter
+lay sick of a fever, and could he prevail upon his foreign master, in
+whom she placed implicit faith, to come with her and minister? Lao Chang
+advised that I should go, and I went. My shins got mutilated as I fell
+down the slippery stone steps in the dark into a pail of hog's wash at
+the bottom. Having wiped the worst of the grease and slime onto the mud
+wall, by the aid of a flickering rushlight I saw the "child," who lay on
+a mattress on the floor in the darkest corner of the room. I reckoned
+her age to be thirty-five, her black hair hung in tangled masses, the
+very bed on which she lay stank with vermin, two feet away was the fire
+where all the cooking was gone through, and everywhere around was filth.
+When she saw me the "child" raised her solitary garment, whispered that
+pains in her stomach were well-nigh unendurable, that her head ached,
+that her joints were stiff, that she was generally wrong, and--"Did I
+think she would recover?" I thought she might not.
+
+Rushing back to my medicine chest, I brought along and administered a
+maximum dose of the oil called castor, and later dosed her with quinine.
+In the morning she was out and about her work, while the old mother was
+great in her praises for the passing European who had cured her child.
+After that came the deluge! They wanted more medicine--fever elixir,
+toothache cure, and so on, and so on--but I stood firm.
+
+The tedium of the Sunday in that draughty inn gave me an insight into
+their common lives which I had not before, causing me to meditate upon
+their simple lives and their simple needs. They did not raise the
+forests in order to get gold; they did not squander their patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years. They held to simple
+needs; they had a simplicity of taste, which was also a peculiar source
+of independence and safety. The more simple they lived the more secure
+their future, because they were less at the mercy of surprises and
+reverses. In adversity these people would not act like nurslings
+deprived of their bottles and their rattles, but would, by virtue of
+their common simplicity, probably be better armed for any struggles. I
+do not desire the life for myself, but the ethics of their simple living
+cannot but be recommended. Multitudes possess in China what multitudes
+in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European
+life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden
+times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but
+we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers
+unless we return to the spirit which animated them. They possessed the
+spirit of real simplicity. And this same spirit the Chinese possess
+to-day; but they are minus the incomparable features of healthful
+civilization, inward and outward, of which our forebears were masters.
+Our ways to-day are not their ways, and their ways not our ways; but one
+cannot but realize as he moves among them that with a happy infusion of
+the spirit of their simplicity into the restlessness of our modern life
+our wearied minds would dream less and realize more of the true
+simplicity of simple living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a man the village of T'ai-p'ing-p'u turned out early on the Monday
+morning to express regrets that my departure was at hand. When, in
+parting with this people who had done all in their power to make my
+comfort complete, I threw a handful of cash to some little children
+standing wonderingly near by, general approval was expressed, and
+elaborate felicities anent my beneficence exchanged by the ear-ringed
+Lolo women. A short apron hung down over their blue trousers, and as I
+passed out of their sight, they admired me and gossiped about me, with
+their hands under their aprons, in much the same manner as their more
+enlightened sisters of the wash-tub gossip sometimes in the West.
+
+It was a beautiful spring morning; the sweet song of the birds pierced
+through the noise of the rolling river below, the air was fragrant and
+bracing, and as I left and commenced the rocky ascent leading again to
+the mountains, the barks of some fierce-disposed canines, who alone
+objected to my presence among the hill-folk, died away with the rustle
+of the leafage in a keen north wind.
+
+One of my men was poorly, the solitary element to disturb the equanimity
+of our camp.
+
+It was Shanks. He had been suffering from toothache, and unfortunately I
+had no gum-balm with me; without my knowledge Lao Chang had rubbed in
+some strong embrocation to the fellow's cheek, so that now, in addition
+to toothache, he had also a badly blistered face, swollen up like a
+pudding. Upon learning that I had no means of curing him or of
+alleviating the pain, Shanks bellowed into my ear, loud enough to bring
+the dead out of the grave-mounds on the surrounding hill-sides, "Puh p'a
+teh, pub p'a teh"; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle
+on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing
+Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly
+disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song,
+and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who
+shared his bed, and whose choral propensities were less in proportion,
+he would laugh wildly at them all. Poor Shanks; he was a peculiar
+mortal. He would laugh at men in pain, and think it sympathy. If we
+could get no food or drink on the march, after having wearily toiled
+away for hours, he would not be disposed to grumble--he would laugh.
+Such tragic incidents as the pony jumping over the precipice provoked
+him to extreme laughter.[AX]
+
+And when I caught him sewing up an open wound in the sole of his foot
+with common colored Chinese thread and a rusty needle, and told him that
+he might thereby get blood poisoning, and lose his life or leg, he cared
+not a little. As a matter of fact, he laughed in my face. Not at me, not
+at all, but because he thought his laughter might probably delude the
+devil who was president over the ills of that particular portion of
+human anatomy. He came to me just outside Pu-pêng, where we saw a coffin
+containing a corpse resting in the roadway whilst the bearers refreshed
+near by and, pointing thereto, told me that the man was "muh tsai" (not
+here)--the Chinese never on any account mention the word death--and his
+sides shook with laughter, so much so that he dropped his loads
+alongside the corpse, and startled the cock on top of the coffin
+guarding the spirit of the dead into a vigorous fit of crowing for fear
+of disaster.
+
+We enjoyed fairly level road, although rough, for ten li after leaving
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u. It rose gradually from 7,400 feet to 8,500 feet, and
+then dipped suddenly, and continued at a fearful down gradient. I might
+describe it as a member of a British infantry regiment once described to
+me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few
+fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India,
+when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion
+had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, "'Twasn't
+a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor." The
+Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something
+in common.
+
+Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu
+Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see.
+
+Midway down the steep hill we happened on some lonely log cottages,
+twenty-five li from T'ai-p'ing-p'u (it is reckoned as thirty-five li
+traveling in the opposite direction). In the forest district I found the
+houses all built of timber--wood piles placed horizontally and
+dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched. You have merely to
+step aside from the road, and you are in dense mountain forest; it is
+manifestly easier and less costly than the mud-built habitation,
+although for their part the people are worse off because of the lack of
+available ground for growing their crops. Here the people were still
+essentially Lolo, and the big-footed women who boiled water under a shed
+had difficulty in getting to understand what my men were talking about.
+
+The second descent is begun after a pleasant walk along level ground
+resembling a well-laid-out estate, and a treacherously rough mile
+brought us down to an iron chain bridge swung over the Shui-pi Ho, at
+the far end of which, hidden behind bamboo matting, are a few idols in
+an old hut; they act in the dual capacity of gods of the river and the
+mountain. Tea and some palatable baked persimmon--very like figs when
+baked--were brought me by an awful-looking biped who was still in
+mourning, his unshaven skull sadly betokening the fact. As I sipped my
+tea and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met
+me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in
+that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I
+admired the grand scenery farther along. Especially did I notice one
+peak, towering perpendicularly away up past woods of closely-planted
+pine and fir trees, the crystal summit glistening with sunlit snow; as
+soon as I started again on my journey, I was pulling up towards it. Soon
+I was gazing down upon the tiny patches of light green and a few
+solitary cottages, resembling a little beehive, and one could imagine
+the metaphorical wax-laying and honey-making of the inhabitants. These
+people were away from all mankind, living in life-long loneliness, and
+all unconscious of the distinguished foreigner away up yonder, who
+wondered at their patient toiling, but who, like them, had his
+Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow. There they were, perched high up on the
+bleak mountain sides, with their joys and sorrows, their pains and
+penalties, struggling along in domestic squalor, and rearing young
+rusticity and raw produce.
+
+On these mountains in Yün-nan one sees hundreds of such little
+encampments of a few families, passing their existence far from the road
+of the traveler, who often wished he could descend to them and quench
+his thirst, and eat with them their rice and maize. Most of them here
+were isolated families of tribespeople, who, out of contact with their
+kind, have little left of racial resemblance, and yet are not fully
+Chinese, so that it is difficult to tell what they really are. Most were
+Lolo.
+
+Walking here was treacherous. A foot pathway was the main road, winding
+in and out high along the surface of the hills, in many places washed
+away, and in others overgrown with grass and shrubbery. "Across China on
+Foot" would have met an untimely end had I made a false step or slipped
+on the loose stones in a momentary overbalance. I should have rolled
+down seven hundred feet into the Shui-pi Ho. Once during the morning I
+saw my coolies high up on a ledge opposite to me, and on practically
+the same level, a three-li gully dividing us. They were very small men,
+under very big hats, bustling along like busy Lilliputians, and my loads
+looked like match-boxes. I probably looked to them not less grotesque.
+But we had to watch our footsteps, and not each other.
+
+We were rounding a corner, when I was surprised to see Hwan-lien-p'u a
+couple of li away. The _fu-song_ were making considerable hue and cry
+because Rusty had rolled thirty feet down the incline, and as I looked I
+saw the animal get up and commence neighing because he had lost sight of
+us. He was in the habit of wandering on, nibbling a little here and a
+little there, and rarely gave trouble unless in chasing an occasional
+horse caravan, when he gave my men some fun in getting him again into
+line.
+
+It was not yet midday, and we had four hours' good going. So I
+calculated. Not so my men. They could not be prevailed upon to budge,
+and knowing the Chinese just a little, I reluctantly kept quiet. It was
+entirely unreasonable to expect them to go on to Ch'u-tung, ninety li
+away--it was impossible. And I learnt that the reason they would not go
+on was that no house this side of that place was good enough to put a
+horse into, even a Chinese horse, and they would not dream of taking me
+on under those conditions. There was not even a hut available for the
+traveler, so they said. I had come over difficult country, plodding
+upwards on tiptoe and then downwards with a lazy swing from stone to
+stone for miles. Throughout the day we had been going through fine
+mountain forest, everywhere peaceful and beautiful, but it had been hard
+going. In the morning a heavy frost lay thick and white about us, and by
+10:30 a.m. the sun was playing down upon us with a merciless heat as we
+tramped over that little red line through the green of the hill-sides.
+Often in this march was I tempted to stay and sit down on the sward,
+but I had proved this to be fatal to walking. In traveling in Yün-nan
+one's practice should be: start early, have as few stops as possible,
+when a stop _is_ made let it be long enough for a real rest. In
+Szech'wan, where the tea houses are much more frequent, men will pull up
+every ten li, and generally make ten minutes of it. In Yün-nan these
+welcome refreshment houses are not met with so often, and little
+inducement is held out for the coolies to stop, but upon the slightest
+provocation they will stop for a smoke. On this walking trip I made it a
+rule to be off by seven o'clock, stop twice for a quarter of an hour up
+to tiffin (my men stopped oftener), when our rest was often for an hour,
+so that we were all refreshed and ready to push on for the fag-end of
+the stage. We generally were done by four or five o'clock. And I should
+be the last in the world to deny that by this time I had had enough for
+one day.
+
+Upon arrival I immediately washed my feet, an excellent practice of the
+Chinese, changed my footgear, drank many cups of tea, and often went
+straight to my p'ukai. The roads of China take it out of the strongest
+man. There are no Marathon runners here; progress is a tedious toil,
+often on all fours.
+
+My room at Hwan-lien-p'u was near a telegraph pole; there was a
+telegraph station there, where my men showed their admiration for the
+Governmental organization by at once hammering nails into the pole. It
+was close to their laundry, and served admirably for the clothes-line, a
+bamboo tied at one end with a string to a nail in the pole and the other
+end stuck through the paper in the window of the telegraph operator's
+apartment. But this is nothing. Years ago, when the telegraph was first
+laid down, the people took turns to displace the wires and sell them for
+their trouble, and to chop the poles up for firewood. It continued for a
+considerable period, until an offender--or one whom it was surmised had
+done this or would have done it if he could--had his ears cut off, and
+was led over the main road to the capital, to be admired by any
+compatriot contemplating a deal in wiring or timber used for telegraphic
+communication purposes.
+
+Just below the town the river ran peacefully down a gradual incline. I
+decided that a comfortable seat under a tree, spending an hour in
+preparing this copy, would be more pleasant than moping about a noisome
+and stench-ridden inn, providing precious little in the way of
+entertainment for the foreigner. Next door a wedding party was making
+the afternoon hideous with their gongs and drums and crackers, and
+everywhere the usual hue and cry went abroad because a European was
+spending the day there.
+
+I imparted to my man my intentions for the afternoon. Immediately
+preparations were set on foot to get me down by the river, and it was
+publicly announced to the townspeople. The news ran throughout the town,
+that is Hwan-lien-p'u's one little narrow street, a sad mixture of a
+military trench and a West of England cobbled court. And instead of
+going alone to my shady nook by that silvery stream, 1 was accompanied
+by nine adult members of the unemployed band, three boys, and sundry
+stark-naked urchins who seemed to be without home or habitation. One of
+these specimens of fleeting friendship was one-eyed, and a diseased hip
+rendered it difficult for him to keep pace with us; one was club-footed,
+one hair-lipped fellow had only half a nose, and they were nearly all
+goitrous. As I write now these people, curious but not uncouth, are
+crouched around me on their haunches, after the fashion of the ape,
+their more Darwinian-evolved companion and his shorthand notes being
+admired by an open-mouthed crowd. Down below my horse is entertaining
+the more hilarious of the party in his tantrums with the man who is
+trying to wash him--
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AX: The day before, whilst we were passing along the edge of a
+cliff, we saw a deliberate suicide on the part of a pony. Getting away
+from its companions, it first jumped against a tree, then turned its
+head sharply on the side of a cliff, finally taking a leap into mid-air
+over the precipice. It touched ground at about two hundred and fifty
+feet below this point, and then rolled out of sight. My men exhibited no
+concern, and laughed me down because I did. It was, as they said, merely
+diseased, and the muleteers went on their way, leaving horse and loads
+to Providence. This sort of thing is not uncommon.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+_The mountains of Yün-nan_. _Wonderful scenery_. _Among the
+Mohammedans_. _Sorry scene at Ch'u-tung_. _A hero of a horrid past_.
+_Infinite depth of Chinese character_. _Mule falls one hundred and fifty
+yards, and escapes unhurt_. _Advice to future travelers_. _To Shayung_.
+_We meet Tibetans on the mountains_. _Chinese cruelty_. _Opium smoker as
+a companion_. _Opium refugees_. _One opinion only on the subject_.
+_Mission work among smokers and eaters._
+
+
+Mere words are a feeble means to employ to describe the mountains of
+Yün-nan.
+
+As I start from Hwan-lien-p'u this morning, to the left high hills are
+picturesquely darkened in the soft and unruffled solemnity of their own
+still unbroken shade. Opposite, rising in pretty wavy undulation, with
+occasional abruptions of jagged rock and sunken hollow, the steep
+hill-sides are brought out in the brightest coloring of delicate light
+and shade by the golden orb of early morn; towering majestically
+sunwards, sheer up in front of me, high above all else, still more
+sombre heights stand out powerfully in solemn contrast against the pale
+blue of the spring sky, the effect in the distance being antithetical
+and weird, with the magnificent Ts'ang Shan[AY] standing up as a
+beautiful background of perpendicular white, from whence range upon
+range of dark lines loom out in the hazy atmosphere. From the extreme
+summit of one snow-laden peak, whose white steeple seems truly a
+heavenward-directed finger, I gaze abstractedly all around upon nothing
+but dark masses of gently-waving hills, steep, weary ascents and
+descents, green and gold, and yellow and brown, and one's eyes rest upon
+a maze of thin white lines intertwining them all. These are the main
+roads. I am alone. My men are far behind. I am awed with an unnatural
+sense of bewildered wonderment in the midst of all this glory of the
+earth.
+
+Everything is so vast, so grand, so overpowering. Murmurings of the
+birds alone break the sense of sadness and loneliness. Away yonder
+full-grown pine trees, if discernible at all, are dwarfed so as to
+appear like long coarse grass. For some thirty li the road runs through
+beautiful woods, high above the valleys and the noise of the river; and
+now we are running down swiftly to a point where two ranges meet, only
+to toil on again, slowly and wearily, up an awful gradient for two hours
+or more. But the labor and all its fatiguing arduousness are nothing
+when one gets to the top, for one beholds here one of the most
+magnificent mountain panoramas in all West China. Far away, just peeping
+prettily from the silvered edges of the bursting clouds, are the giant
+peaks which separate Tali-fu from Yang-pi--white giants with rugged,
+cruel edges pointing upwards, piercing the clouds asunder as a ship's
+bow pierces the billows of the deep; and then, gradually coming from out
+the mist, are no less than eight distinct ranges of mountains from
+14,000 feet to 16,000 feet high, besides innumerable minor heights,
+which we have traversed with much labor during the past four days, all
+rich with coloring and natural grandeur seen but seldom in all the
+world. Switzerland could offer nothing finer, nothing more sweeping,
+nothing more beautiful, nothing more awe-inspiring. With the glorious
+grandeur of these wondrous hills, rising and falling playfully around
+the main ranges, the marvellous tree growth, the delicate contrasts of
+the formidable peaks and the dainty, cultivated valleys, and the face of
+Nature everywhere absolutely unmarred, Switzerland could in no way
+compare.
+
+Is it then surprising that I look upon these stupendous masses with
+wonder, which seem to breathe only eternity and immensity?
+
+The air is pure as the breath of heaven, all is still and peaceful, and
+the fact that in the very nature of things one cannot rush through this
+pervading beauty of the earth, but has to plod onwards step by step
+along a toilsome roadway, enables the scenery to be so impressed upon
+one's mind as to be focussed for life in one's memory. One is held
+spellbound; these are the pictures never forgotten. Here I sit in a
+corner of the earth as old as the world itself. These mountains are as
+they were in the great beginning, when the Creator and Sustainer of all
+things pure and beautiful looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was
+good.
+
+The country here seems so vast as to render Nature unconquerable by man:
+man is insignificant, Nature is triumphant. Railways are defied; and
+these mountains, running mostly at right angles, will probably
+never--not in our time, at least--be made unsightly by the puffing and
+the reeking of the modern railway engine. They present so many natural
+obstacles to the opening-up of the country, according to the standard we
+Westerners lay down, that one would hesitate to prophesy any mode of
+traffic here other than that of the horse caravan and human beast of
+burden. Nature seems to look down upon man and his earth-scouring
+contrivances, and assert, "Man, begone! I will have none of thee." And
+the mountains turn upwards to the sky in_ silent reverence to their
+Maker, whose work must in the main remain unchanged until eternity.
+
+It is now 12:30, and we have fifty li to cover before reaching
+Ch'u-tung. We sit here to feed at a place called Siao-shui-tsing, a
+sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, where in subsequent travel
+I was hung up in bitter weather and had to pass the night. The people,
+courteous and civil as always, show a simple trustfulness with which is
+associated some little suspicion. I gave a cake to a little child, but
+its mother would not allow it to be eaten until she was again and again
+assured and reassured that it was quite fit to eat. This home life of
+the very poor Chinese, if indeed it may be called home life, has a
+listlessness about it in marked contrast to that of the West. There is
+little housework, no furniture more than a table and chair or two, and
+the simplicity of the cooking arrangements does not tend to increase the
+work of the housewife.
+
+People here to-day are going about their work with a restful
+deliberation very trying to one in a hurry. The women, with infants tied
+to their backs, do not work hard but very long. A mud-house is being
+built near by, and between the cooking and attending to passing
+travelers, two women are digging the earth and filling up the baskets,
+while the men are mixing the mud, filling in the oblong wooden trough,
+and thus building the wall. At my elbow a man--old and grizzled and
+dirty--is turning back roll upon roll of his wadded garments, and
+ridding it of as many as he can find of the insects with which it is
+infested. A slobbering, boss-eyed cretin chops wood at my side, and when
+I rise to try a snap on the women and the children they hide behind the
+walls. Thus my time passes away, as I wait for the coolies who sit on a
+log in the open road feeding on common basins of dry rice.
+
+After that we had to cross the face of a steep hill. We could, however,
+find no road, no pathway even, but could merely see the scratchings of
+coolies and ponies already crossed. It was an achievement not unrisky,
+but we managed to reach the other side without mishap. My horse, owing
+to the stupidity of the man who hung on to his mouth to steady himself,
+put his foot in a hole and dragged the fool of a fellow some twenty
+yards downwards in the mud. My coolies, themselves in a spot most
+dangerous to their own necks, stuck the outside leg deep in the mud to
+rest themselves, and set to assiduously in blackguarding the man in
+their richest vein, then, extricating themselves, again continued their
+journey, satisfied that they had shown the proper front, and saved the
+face of the foreigner who could not save it for himself. Then we all
+went down through a narrow ravine into a lovely shady glade, all green
+and refreshing, with a brook gurgling sweetly at the foot and birds
+singing in the foliage. There was something very quaint in this cosy
+corner, with the hideous echoes and weird re-echoes of my men's
+squealing. Then we went on again from hill to hill, in a ten-inch
+footway, broken and washed away, so that in places it was necessary to
+hang on to the evergrowing grass to keep one's footing in the slopes.
+One needs to have no nerves in China.
+
+Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their
+rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid
+condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve
+inches square, grazed on the hill-sides. In most places the foot of this
+ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty
+green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so
+thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight. As we entered a man
+came out with his p'ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the
+animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows
+with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying. The pony ceased shying.
+
+To Ch'u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded
+hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the
+_fu-song_ had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a
+long road instead of by the "new" road (so called, although I do not
+doubt that it has been in use for many generations). Some Szech'wan
+coolies and myself had rice together on a low form away from the smoke,
+and the while listened to some tales of old, told by some half-witted,
+goitrous monster who seemed sadly out at elbow. The soldier meantime
+smelt round for a smoke. As he and my men had decided a few moments ago
+that each party was of a very low order of humanity, their pipes for him
+were not available. So he took pipe and dried leaf tobacco from this
+half-witted skunk, who, having wiped the stem in his eight-inch-long
+pants, handed it over in a manner befitting a monarch. It measured some
+sixty or seventy inches from stem to bowl.
+
+From Hwan-lien-p'u to Ch'u-tung is reckoned as eighty li; it is quite
+one hundred and ten, and the last part of the journey, over barren,
+wind-swept hills, most fatiguing.
+
+In contrast to the beauty of the morning's scenery, the country was
+black and bare, and a gale blew in our faces. My spirits were raised,
+however, by a coolie who joined us and who had a remarkable knowledge of
+the whole of the West of China, from Chung-king to Singai, from Mengtsz
+to Tachien-lu. Plied with questions, he willingly gave his answers, but
+he would persist in leading the way. As soon as a man endeavored to pass
+him, he would trot off at a wonderful speed, making no ado of the 120
+pounds of China pots on his back, yelling his explanations all the time
+to the man behind. Yung-p'ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li
+from Ch'u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped
+hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun,
+which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across
+the plain of peas and beans and winter crops. Four eight-inch planks,
+placed at various dangerous angles on three wood trestles, form the
+bridge across the fifty-foot stream dividing Ch'u-tung from the world on
+the opposite side. Across this I saw men wander with their loads, and
+then I led Rusty in. Whilst the stream washed his legs, I sat dangling
+mine until called upon to make way for another party of travelers.
+Remarkable is the agility of these men. They swing along over eight
+inches of wood as if they were in the middle of a well-paved road.
+
+Ch'u-tung is a Mohammedan town. There are a few Chinese only--Buddhists,
+Taoists and other ragtags; although when the follower of the Prophet has
+his pigtail attached to the inside of his hat, as it not unusual when he
+goes out fully dressed, there is little difference between him and the
+Chinese.
+
+Pigs here are conspicuously absent. People feed on poultry and beef. I
+rested in this city some month or so after my first overland trip whilst
+my man went to convert silver into cash, a trying ordeal always. Whilst
+I sipped my tea and ate a couple of rice cakes, I was impressed, as I
+seldom have been in my wanderings, with the remarkable number of people,
+from the six hundred odd houses the town possesses, who during that
+half-hour found nothing whatever to do to benefit themselves or the
+community, as members of which they passed monotonous lives, but to
+stare aimlessly at the resting foreigner. The report spread like
+wildfire, and they ran to the scene with haste, pulling on their coats,
+wiping food from their mouths, scratching their heads _en route_, one
+trouser-leg up and the other down, all anxious to get a seat near the
+stage. A river flows down the center of the street, and into this a
+sleepy fellow got tipped bodily in the crush, sat down in the water,
+seemingly in no hurry to move until he had finished his vigorous
+bullying of the man who pushed him in. Those who could not get standing
+room near my table went out into the street and shaded the sun from
+their eyes, in order that they might catch even a glimpse of the
+traveler who sat on in uncompromising indifference.
+
+Several old wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion--at the
+moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed
+imminent--and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past,
+being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the
+crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose
+from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the
+people of something terrible about to happen could not have been more
+intense.
+
+But I had by this time got used to their crowding, so that I could
+write, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry, and go through personal and
+private routine with no embarrassment. If I turned for the purpose, I
+could easily stare out of face a member of the crowd whose inquisitive
+propensities had become annoying, but as soon as he left another filled
+the gap. Quite pitiful was it to see how trivial articles of foreign
+manufacture--such, for instance, as the cover of an ordinary tin or the
+fabric of one's clothing--brought a regular deluge of childish interest
+and inane questioning; and if I happened to make a few shorthand notes
+upon anything making a particular impression, a look half surprised,
+half amused, went from one to another like an electric current. Had I
+been scheming out celestial hieroglyphics their mouths could not have
+opened wider. As I write now I am asked by a respectable person how many
+ounces of silver a Johann Faber's B.B. costs. I have told him, and he
+has retired smiling, evidently thinking that I am romancing.
+
+That I impress the crowd everywhere is evident. But with all their
+questioning, they are rarely rude; their stare is simply the stare of
+little children seeing a thing for the first time in their lives. It is
+all so hard to understand. My silver and my gold they solicit not; they
+merely desire to see me and to feel me. A certain faction of the crowd,
+however, do solicit my silver.
+
+Lao Chang has been buying vegetables, and has brought all the vegetable
+gardeners and greengrocers around me. The poultry rearers are here too,
+and the forage dealers and the grass cutters and the basket makers, and
+other thrifty members of the commercial order of Ch'u-tung humankind.
+When I came away the people dropped into line and strained their necks
+to get a parting smile. I was sped on my way with a public curiosity as
+if I were a penal servitor released from prison, a general home from a
+war, or something of that kind. And so this wonderful wonder of wonders
+was glad when he emerged from the labyrinthic, brain-confusing
+bewilderment of Chinese interior life of this town into somewhat clearer
+regions. I could not understand. And to the wisest man, wide as may be
+his vision, the Chinese mind and character remain of a depth as infinite
+as is its possibility of expansion. The volume of Chinese nature is one
+of which as yet but the alphabet is known to us.
+
+My own men had got quite used to me, and their minds were directed more
+to working than to wondering. In China, as in other Asiatic countries,
+one's companions soon accustom themselves to one's little peculiarities
+of character, and what was miraculous to the crowd had by simple
+repetition ceased to be miraculous to them.
+
+As I put away my notebook after writing the last sentence, I saw a mule
+slip, fall, roll for one hundred and fifty yards, losing its load on the
+down journey, and then walk up to the stream for a drink.[AZ]
+
+We started for Shayung on February 2nd, 1910, going over a road
+literally uncared for, full of loose-jointed stones and sinking sand,
+down which ponies scrambled, while the Tibetans in charge covered
+themselves close in the uncured skins they wore. This was the first time
+I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
+their antiquated topboots--much better, however, than the Yün-nan
+topboot--gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
+frost.
+
+Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
+eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
+back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
+tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
+which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
+brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
+much steeper than the roof of a house--as perpendicular as can be
+imagined--but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
+continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
+But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
+certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
+customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
+excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
+among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy. In Christian
+England within the last century men where hanged for petty theft; but in
+Yün-nan--I do not know whether it is still current in other
+provinces--men have been known to be burnt to death for stealing maize.
+A case was reported from Ch'u-tsing-fu quite recently, but it is a
+custom which used to be quite common. A document is signed by the man's
+relatives, a stick is brought by every villager, the man lashed to a
+stake, and his own people are compelled to light the fire. It seems
+incredible, but this horrible practice has not been entirely extirpated
+by the authorities, although since the Yün-nan Rebellion it has not been
+by any means so frequent. I have no space nor inclination to deal with
+the ghastly tortures inflicted upon prisoners in the name of that great
+equivalent to justice, but the more one knows of them the more can he
+appreciate the common adage urging _dead men to keep out of hell and the
+living out of the yamens_!
+
+Hua-chow is thirty li from here at the head of an abominable hill, and
+here women, overlooking one of the worst paved roads in the Empire, were
+beating out corn. Then we climbed for another twenty-five li, rising
+from 5,900 feet to 8,200 feet, till we came to a little place called
+Tien-chieng-p'u. It took us three hours. Looking backwards,towards
+Tali-fu, I saw my 14,000 feet friends, and as we went down the other
+side over a splendid stone road we could see, far down below, a valley
+which seemed a veritable oasis, smiling and sweet. A temple here
+contained a battered image of the Goddess of Mercy, who controls the
+births of children. A poor woman was depositing a few cash in front of
+the besmeared idol, imploring that she might be delivered of a son. How
+pitiable it is to see these poor creatures doing this sort of thing all
+over the West of China!
+
+For two days we had been accompanied by a man who was an opium smoker
+and eater. Now I am not going to draw a horrible description of a
+shrivelled, wasted bogey in man's form, with creaking bones and
+shivering limbs and all the rest of it; but I must say that this man,
+towards the time when his craving came upon him, was a wreck in every
+worst sense--he crept away to the wayside and smoked, and arrived always
+late at night at the end of the stage. This was the effect of the drug
+which has been described "as harmless as milk." I do not exaggerate. In
+the course of Eastern journalistic experience I have written much in
+defence of opium, have paralleled it to the alcohol of my own country.
+This was in the Straits Settlements, where the deadly effects of opium
+are less prominent. But no language of mine can exaggerate the evil, and
+if I would be honest, I cannot describe it as anything but China's most
+awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more
+speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by
+arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold
+agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men
+who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about
+the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through
+this once fair land of Yün-nan and see everywhere--not in isolated
+districts, but everywhere--the ravaging effects in the poverty and
+dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance
+of the opium trade. I have seen men transformed to beasts through its
+use; I have seen more suicides from the effect of opium since I have
+been in China than from any other cause in the course of my life. As I
+write I have around me painfullest evidence of the crudest ravishings of
+opium among a people who have fallen victims to the craving. There is
+only one opinion to be formed if to himself one would be true. I give
+the following quotation from a work from the pen of one of the most
+fair-minded diplomatists who have ever held office in China:--
+
+"The writer has seen an able-bodied and apparently rugged laboring
+Chinese tumble all in a heap upon the ground, utterly nerveless and
+unable to stand, because the time for his dose of opium had come, and
+until the craving was supplied he was no longer a man, but the merest
+heap of bones and flesh. In the majority of cases death is the sure
+result of any determined reform. The poison has rotted the whole system,
+and no power to resist the simplest disease remains. In many years'
+residence in China the writer knew of but four men who finally abandoned
+the habit. (Where opium refuges have been conducted by missionaries,
+reports more favorable have been given concerning those who have become
+Christians.) Three of them lived but a few months thereafter; the fourth
+survived his reformation, but was a life-long invalid."[BA]
+
+Much good work is now being done by the missionaries, and the number of
+those who have given up the habit has probably increased since Mr.
+Holcombe wrote the above. In point of fact, helping opium victims is one
+of the most important branches of mission work.
+_China's Past and Future_ (p. 165) by Chester Holcombe.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AY: The range of mountains which I had skirted since leaving
+Tali-fu.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AZ: On my return journey into Yün-nan, I again called at
+Ch'u-tung, traveling not by the main road, but by a steep path
+intertwisting through almost impossible places, and requiring four times
+the amount of physical exertion. I was led over what was called a new
+road. It was quite impossible to horses carrying loads, and only by
+tremendous effort could I climb up. How my coolies managed it remains a
+mystery. And then, as is almost inevitable with these "new" roads and
+the "short" cuts, they invariably lose their way. Mine did. Hopeless was
+our obscurity, unspeakable our confusion. Men kept vanishing and
+re-appearing among the rocks, and it was very difficult to fix our
+position geographically. Up and up we went, in and out, twisting and
+turning in an endless climb. A gale blew, but at times we pulled
+ourselves up by the dried grass in semi-tropical heat. After several
+hours, standing on the very summit of this bleak and lofty mountain, I
+could just discern Ch'u-tung and Yung-p'ing-hsien far away down in the
+mists. There lay the "ta lu" also, like a piece of white ribbon
+stretched across black velvet--the white road on the burnt hill-sides.
+We were opposite the highest peaks in the mountains beyond the plain,
+far towards Tengyueh--they are 12,000 feet, we were at least 10,500
+feet, and as Ch'u-tung is only 5,500 feet, our hours of toil may be
+imagined. When we reached the top we found nothing to eat, nothing to
+drink (not even a mountain stream at which we could moisten our parched
+lips), simply two memorial stones on the graves of two dead men, who had
+merited such an outrageous resting-place. I donned a sweater and lay
+flat on the ground, exhausted. It must have been a stiff job to bring up
+both stones and men.
+
+I strongly advise future travelers to keep to the main road in this
+district.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote BA:]
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY
+
+THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+_The Valley of the Shadow of Death_. _Stages to Tengyueh_. _The River
+Mekong, Bridge described_. _An awful ascent_. _On-the-spot conclusions_.
+_Roads needed more than railways_. _At Shui-chai_. _A noisy domestic
+scene at the place where I fed_. _Disregard of the value of female
+life_. _Remarkable hospitality of the gentry of the city_. _Hard going_.
+_Lodging at a private house on the mountains_. _Waif of the world
+entertains the stranger_. _From Ban-chiao to Yung-ch'ang_. _Buffaloes
+and journalistic ignorance_. _Excited scene at Pu-piao_. _Chinese
+barbers_. _A refractory coolie_. _Military interest._
+
+
+The journey which I was about to undertake was the most memorable of my
+travels in China, with the exception of those in the unexplored Miao
+Lands; for I was to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
+dreaded Salwen Valley. I had made up my mind that I would stay here for
+a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn
+intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the
+low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I
+know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my
+journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I
+had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might
+not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came
+in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new
+life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the
+present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:--
+
+                                           Length    Height
+                                          of Stage  Above Sea
+
+    1st day--Tali-shao                     65 li.   7,200 ft.
+    2nd day--Yung-ch'ang-fu                75 li.   5,500 ft.
+    5th day--Fang-ma-ch'ang                90 li.   7,300 ft.
+    6th day--Ta-hao-ti                    120 li.   8,200 ft.
+    7th day--Tengyueh (Momien)             85 li.   5,370 ft.
+
+On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the
+Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day,
+February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from
+where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension
+bridge.
+
+A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path,
+has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000
+feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the
+middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between
+cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again
+immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging
+on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid
+masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of
+the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops
+and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving
+is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel
+branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting
+in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the
+side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a
+sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's
+patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in
+admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate
+excuse for a long delay.
+
+At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves
+for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.
+
+The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been
+said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow
+pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai (6,700 feet), and on again
+to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies
+a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this
+road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular
+steps, not even as regularity goes in China.
+
+"There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit
+down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend
+again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural
+rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
+smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
+spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
+made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
+were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
+twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
+impossible.... Mules are passing me--puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
+brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
+there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
+exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
+their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill."
+
+This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
+ascended. And I find again:--
+
+"I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
+incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
+and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
+Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
+way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The
+road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can
+get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which
+bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times,
+and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over
+the ravine.... Rocks overhang me as I pass. If one should drop!... But
+one does not mind the toil when he looks upon his men. In the midst of
+their intense labor my men's squeals of songs echo through the mountains
+as the perspiration runs down their uncovered backs; they chaff each
+other and utmost good feeling prevails. Poor Shanks is nearly done, but
+still laughs loudly.... A natural pathway more difficult of progress I
+cannot conceive anywhere in the world; and yet this is a so-called paved
+road, the road over which all the trade of the western part of this
+great province, all the imports from Burma, are regularly carried.
+Should the road ever be discarded, that is if the railway ever comes
+over this route, only a long tunnel through the mountain would serve its
+purpose.... We have just sat down and fraternized with the man carrying
+the mails to Tali-fu, and now we are working steadily for the top,
+around corners where the breeze comes with delicious freshness. Here we
+are on a road now leading through a widening gorge to Shui-chai, and as
+I cross the narrow pass I see the river down below looking like a snake
+waiting for its prey."
+
+Roads are needed far more than railways.
+
+Being hungry, we sat down at Shui-chai to feed on rice at a place where
+a man minded the baby while the woman attended to the food. Over my head
+hung sausages--my men swore that they were sausages, although for my
+life I could see no resemblance to that article of food--things of 1 1/2
+inches in circumference and from 12 to 60 inches long, doubled up and
+hung up for sale over a bamboo to dry and harden in the sun. Hams there
+were, and dried bacon, and dirty brown biscuits, and uninviting pickled
+cabbage. By the side of the table where I sat was a wooden pun of
+unwashed rice bowls, against which lay the filthy domestic dog.
+
+Outside, the narrow street was lined to the farthest point of vantage by
+kindly people, curious to see their own feeding implements in the
+incapable hands of the barbarian from the Western lands, and the
+conversation waxed loud and excited in general hazards regarding my
+presence in their city.
+
+Stenches were rife; they nearly choked one.
+
+A little boy yelled out to his mother in complaint of the food he had
+been given by a feminine twelve-year-old, his sister. The mother
+immediately became furious beyond all control. She snatched a bamboo to
+belabor the girl, and in chasing her knocked over the pun of pots
+aforesaid. The place became a Bedlam. Men rose from their seats, and
+with their mouths full of rice expostulated in vainest mediation, waving
+their chopsticks in the air, and whilst the mother turned upon them in
+grossest abuse the daughter cleared out at the back of the premises. I
+left the irate parent brandishing the bamboo; her voice was heard beyond
+the town.
+
+But I was not allowed to leave the town. All the intellect of the place
+had assembled in one of the shops, into which I was gently drawn by the
+coat sleeve by a good-natured, well-dressed humpback, and all of the men
+assembled began an examination as to who the dignitary was, his
+honorable age, the number of the wives, sons and daughters he possessed,
+with inevitable questioning into the concerns of his patriarchal
+forbears. Accordingly I once again searched the archives of my elastic
+memory, and there found all information readily accessible, so that in
+a few moments, by the aid of Bailer's _Primer_, I had explained that I
+was a stranger within their gates, wafted thither by circumstances
+extraordinarily auspicious, and had satisfied them concerning my
+parentage, birthplace, prospects and pursuits, with introspective
+anecdotal references to various deceased members of my family tree. I
+did not tell them the truth--that I was a pilgrim from a far country,
+footsore and travel-soiled, that I had been well-nigh poisoned by their
+bad cooking and blistered with their bug-bites!
+
+I rose to go. Like automotons, everyone in the company rose with me. The
+humpback again caught me, this time by both hands, and warmly pressed me
+to stay and "uan" ("play") a little. "Great Brother," he ejaculated,
+"why journeyest thou wearisomely towards Yung-ch'ang? Tarry here." And
+he had pushed me back again into my chair, he had re-filled my teacup,
+and invited me to tell more tales of antiquarian relationship. And
+finally I was allowed to go. Greater hospitality could not have been
+shown me anywhere in the world.
+
+The day had been hard going. We pursued our way unheedingly, as men
+knowing not whither we went; and at 4:00 p.m., fearing that we should
+not be able to make Ban-chiao, where we intended stopping, I decided to
+go no farther than Tali-shao. The evening was one of the happiest I
+spent in my journeys, although personal comfort was entirely lacking.
+The place is made up of just a few hovels; people were hostile, and
+turned a deaf ear to my men's entreaties for shelter. For very
+helplessness I laughed aloud. I screamed with laughter, and the folk
+gathered to see me almost in hysterics. They soon began to smile, then
+to laugh, and seeing the effect, I laughed still louder, and soon had
+the whole village with tears of laughter making furrows down their
+unwashed faces, laughing as a pack of hyenas. At last a kind old woman
+gave way to my boy's persuasions, beckoning us to follow her into a
+house. Here we found a young girl of about nine summers in charge. It
+was all rare fun. There was nothing to eat, and so the men went one here
+and another there buying supplies for the night. Another cleared out
+the room, and made it a little habitable. The bull-dog coolie cooked the
+rice, Shanks boiled eggs and cut up the pork into small slices, another
+fed the pony, and then we fed ourselves.
+
+In the evening a wood fire was kindled in the corner near my bed, and we
+all sat round on the mud floor--stools there were none--to tell yarns.
+My confederates were out for a spree. We smoked and drank tea and
+yarned. Suddenly a stick would be thrust over my shoulder to the fire:
+it was merely a man's pipe going to the fire for a light. Chinese never
+use matches; it is a waste when there are so many fires about. If on the
+road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it
+from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion.
+Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside
+food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted,
+poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as
+naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have
+a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull
+away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.
+
+No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge.
+She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard
+man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little
+one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as
+she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act
+to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the
+money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed,
+explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that
+she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but
+the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.
+
+Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable
+town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those
+who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates,
+such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at
+the end of the town.
+
+In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in
+my life a man carrying a _cangue,_ and a horrible, sickening feeling
+seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the
+poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were
+prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious
+to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless
+fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the
+pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.
+
+Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt
+that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in
+merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might
+fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude
+seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.
+
+Yung-ch'ang (5,500 feet) is as well known as any city in Far Western
+China. I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element
+being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her
+son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time
+taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a
+miserable existence.
+
+On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me,
+ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and
+two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I
+have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always
+treated me well.
+
+Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up
+again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with
+nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and
+other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the
+foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I
+got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade
+effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude
+hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks
+along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side
+to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding. To the
+Chinese the buffalo is the safest of all quadrupeds, if we perhaps
+except the mule, which, if three legs give way, will save himself on the
+remaining one. But it is certainly the slowest. I am here reminded that
+when I was starting on this trip a journalistic friend of mine, who had
+spent some years in one of the coast ports, tried to dissuade me from
+coming, and cited the buffalo as the most treacherous animal to be met
+on the main road in China. He put it in this way:
+
+"Well, old man, you have evidently made up your mind, but I would not
+take it on at any price. The buffaloes are terrors. They smell you even
+if they do not see you; they smell you miles off. It may end up by your
+being chased, and you will probably be gored to death."
+
+The buffalo is the most peaceful animal I know in China. Miniature
+belfries were attached to the wooden frames on the backs of carrying
+oxen, and were it not for the huge tenor bell and its gong-like sound
+keeping the animal in motion, the slow pace would be slower still.
+
+Turning suddenly and abruptly to the left, we commenced a cold journey
+over the mountains, although the sun was shining brightly. A goitrous
+man came to me and waxed eloquent about some uncontrollable pig which
+was dragging him all over the roadway as he vainly tried to get it to
+market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their
+shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at
+me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for
+three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I
+found that we had covered only twenty li--so we were told by an old
+fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in
+what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his
+condemnation of foreigners.
+
+Leng-shui-ch'ang we passed at thirty-five li out, and just beyond the
+aneroid registered 7,000 feet; Yung-ch'ang Plain is 5,500 feet; Pu-piao
+Plain-is 4,500 feet. The range of hills dividing the two plains was
+bare, the clouds hung low, and the keen wind whistled in our faces and
+nipped our ears. Ten li from Pu-piao, on a barren upland overlooking the
+valley, a mere boy had established himself as tea provider for the
+traveler. A foreign kerosene tin placed on three stones was the general
+cistern for boiling water, which was dipped out and handed round in a
+slip of bamboo shaped like a mug with a stick to hold it by. Farther on,
+sugar-cane grew in a field to the left, and near by a man sat on his
+haunches on the ground feeding a sugar-grinding machine propelled by a
+buffalo, who patiently tramped round that small circle all day and every
+day.
+
+Turning from this, I beheld one of the worst sights I have ever seen in
+China. Seven dogs were dragging a corpse from a coffin, barely covered
+with earth, which formed one of the grave mounds which skirt the road.
+No one was disturbed by the scene; it was not uncommon. But the
+foreigner suffered an agonizing sickness, for which his companions would
+have been at a loss to find any possible reason, and was relieved to
+reach Pu-piao.
+
+Market was at its height. It was warm down here in the valley. The
+streets were packed with people, many of whom were pushed bodily into
+the piles of common foreign and native merchandise on sale on either
+side of the road. A clodhopper of a fellow, jostled by my escort, fell
+into a stall and broke the huge umbrella which formed a shelter for the
+vendor and his goods, and my boy was called upon to pay. Fifty cash
+fixed the matter. I walked into a crowded inn and made majestically for
+the extreme left-hand corner. Everybody wondered, and softly asked his
+neighbor what in the sacred name of Confucius had come upon them.
+
+"See his boots! Look at his old hat! What a face! It _is_ a monstrosity,
+and--"
+
+But as I sat down the general of the establishment cruelly forced back
+the people, and screamingly yelled at the top of his voice that those
+who wanted to drink tea in the room must pay double rates. His unusual
+announcement was received with a low grunt of dissatisfaction, but no
+one left. Every table in the square apartment was soon filled with six
+or eight men, and the noise was terrific. Curiosity increased. The fun
+was, as the comic papers say, fast and furious; and despite the
+ill-favored pleasantries passed by my own men and the inquisitive
+tea-shop keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy
+members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two
+soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain
+the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the
+weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to
+get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally shook dust into my food.
+
+Everyone pushed to where there was standing room. Outside a rolling sea
+of yellow faces surmounted a mass of lively blue cotton, all eager for a
+look. The din was terrible. All very visibly annoyed were my men at the
+rudeness of their low-bred fellow countrymen, and especially surprised
+at the equanimity of Ding Daren in tolerating quietly their pointed and
+personal remarks. I became more and more the hero of the hour.
+
+Turning to the crowd as I came out, I smiled serenely, and with a quiet
+wave of the hand pointed out in faultless English that the gulf between
+my own country and theirs was already wide enough, and that Great
+Britain might--did not say that she _would_, but might--widen it still
+more if they persisted in treating her subjects in China as monstrous
+specimens of the human race. This was rigorously corroborated by my two
+soldier-men, to whom I appealed, and a parting word on the ordinary
+politeness of Western nations to a greasy fellow (he was a worker in
+brass), who felt my clothes with his dirty fingers, ended an interesting
+break in the day's monotony. In the street the crowd again was at my
+heels, and evinced more than comfortable curiosity in my straw sandals.
+They cost me thirty cash, equal to about a halfpenny in our coinage.
+
+Since then I have paid other visits to Pu-piao. On one occasion in
+subsequent travel I had a public shave there. My arrival at the inn in
+the nick of time enabled me to buttonhole the barber who was picking up
+his traps to clear, and I had one of the best shaves I have ever had in
+my life, in one of the most uncomfortable positions I ever remember. My
+seat was a low, narrow form with no back or anything for my neck to rest
+upon, and afterwards I went through the primitive and painful massage
+process of being bumped all over the back. Between every four or five
+whacks the barber snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and right
+glad was I when he had finished. The yard was full, even to the stable
+and cook-house alongside each other, the anger of a grizzly old dame,
+who smoked a reeking pipe and who had charge of the rice-and-cabbage
+depot, being eclipsed only by my infuriated barber as he gave cruel vent
+to his anger upon my aching back.
+
+This reminds me of an uncomfortable shave I had some ten years ago in
+Trinidad, where a black man sat me on the trunk of a tree whilst he got
+behind and rested my head on one knee and got to work with an implement
+which might have made a decent putty knife, but was never meant to cut
+whiskers. However, in the case of the Chinese his knife was in fair
+condition, but he grunted a good deal over my four-days' growth.
+
+This little story should not convey the impression that I am an advocate
+of the public shave in China, or anywhere else; but there are times when
+one is glad of it. I have been shaved by Chinese in many places; and
+whilst resident at Yün-nan-fu with a broken arm a man came regularly to
+me, his shave sometimes being delightful, and--sometimes not.
+
+I had another rather amusing experience at Pu-piao about a month after
+this. A supplementary coolie had been engaged for me at Tengyueh at a
+somewhat bigger wage than my other men were getting, and this, known, of
+course, to them, added to the fact that he was not carrying the heaviest
+load, did not tend to produce unmarred brotherhood among them. The man
+had been told that he would go on to Tali-fu with me on my return trip,
+so that when I took the part of my men (who had come many hundreds of
+miles with me, and who had engaged another man on the route to fill the
+gap), in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his
+side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that
+place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there
+to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready
+to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his
+disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother,
+in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As
+soon as I learnt this--I was standing near the fellow--he somehow fell
+over, sprawling to the floor over my walnut folding chair, which snapped
+at the arm. It was my doing. The man said no more, picked up his loads,
+and was the first to arrive at Yung-ch'ang, so that a little force was
+not ineffective.
+
+Indiscriminate use of force I do not advocate, however; I believe in the
+reverse, as a matter of fact. I rarely hit a man; but there have been
+occasions when, a man having refused to do what he has engaged to do, or
+in cases of downright insolence, a little push or a slight cut with my
+stick has brought about a capital feeling and gained for me immediate
+respect.
+
+Fang-ma-ch'ang, off the main road, was our sleeping-place. Travelers
+rarely take this road. Gill took it, I believe, but Baber, Davies and
+other took the main road. This short road was more fatiguing than the
+main road would have been.
+
+We again turned a dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first
+wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway,
+took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people
+calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the door, and
+to catch a glimpse of me as I lay resting, the inhabitants, in much the
+same manner as people at home visit and revisit the cage of jungle-bred
+tigers at a menagerie, assembled and reassembled with considerable
+confusion. But I was beneath my curtains. So they came again, and when I
+ate my food by candlelight many human and tangible products of the past
+glared in at the doorway. After dark we all foregathered in the middle
+of the room and round the camp fire, the conversation taking a pleasant
+turn from ordinary things, such as the varying distances from place to
+place, how many basins of rice each man could eat, and other Chinese
+commonplaces, to things military. Everybody warmed to the subject. My
+military bodyguard were the chief speakers, and cleverly brought round
+the smoky fire, for the benefit of the thick-headed rustics who made up
+the fascinated audience, a modern battlefield, and made their
+description horrible enough.
+
+One carefully brought out his gun, waving it overhead to add to the
+tragedy, as he weaved a powerful story of shell splinters, blood-filled
+trenches, common shot, men and horses out of which all life and virtue
+had been blown by gunpowder. The picture was drawn around the Chinese
+village, and in the dim glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his
+own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all
+blown to atoms--left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great
+and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by
+the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and
+the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had
+heard, afraid to go to their straw to sleep.
+
+As I lay in my draughty corner, my own mind turned to what the next day
+would bring, for I was to go down to the Valley of the Shadow of
+Death--the dreaded Salwen. I had read of it as a veritable death-trap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+_To Lu-chiang-pa_. _Drop from 8,000 feet to 2,000 feet_. _Shans meet for
+the first time_. _Dangers of the Salwen Valley exaggerated_. _How
+reports get into print_. _Start of the climb from 2,000 feet to over
+8,000 feet_. _Scenery in the valley_. _Queer quintet of soldiers_.
+_Semi-tropical temperature_. _My men fall to the ground exhausted_. _A
+fatiguing day_. _Benighted in the forest_. _Spend the night in a hut_.
+_Strong drink as it affects the Chinese_. _Embarrassing attentions of a
+kindly couple_. _New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai_. _The Shweli
+River and watershed_. _Magnificent range of mountains_. _Arrival at
+Tengyueh._
+
+
+No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
+soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
+consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
+why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.
+
+And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
+about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
+information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
+for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
+but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
+the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
+very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
+found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
+low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.
+
+A good deal of the country to the north of the Yün-nan province, towards
+the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Yün-nanese
+Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
+so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
+from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
+Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
+inhabitant--that is, Chinese--strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
+10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
+March and November if he can.
+
+To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
+highest point at nearly 9,000 feet--140 li distant from
+Fang-ma-ch'ang--was our ambition for the day.
+
+Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
+leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
+the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
+to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
+country was bare, desolate, lonely--four people only were met over the
+entire distance. But in the dreaded Valley several trees were ablaze
+with blossom, and oranges shone like small balls of gold in the rising
+sun. Children playing in between the trees ran away and hid as they saw
+me, although I was fifty yards from them--they did not know what it was,
+and they had never seen one!
+
+Farther down I caught up my men, Lao Chang and Shanks, and pleasant
+speculations were entered into as to what Singai (Bhamo) was like. They
+were particularly interested in Singapore because I had lived there, and
+after I had given them a general description of the place, and explained
+how the Chinese had gone ahead there, I pointed out as well as I could
+with my limited vocabulary that if the people of Yün-nan only had a
+conscience, and would only get out of the rut of the ages, they, too,
+might go ahead, explaining incidentally to them that as lights of the
+church at Tong-ch'uan-fu, it was their sacred duty to raise the standard
+of moral living among their countrymen wherever they might wander. Their
+general acquiescence was astounding, and in the next town,
+Lu-chiang-pa, these two men put their theory into practice and almost
+caused a riot by offering 250 cash for a fowl for which the vendor
+blandly asked 1,000. But they got the chicken--and at their own price,
+too.
+
+As I was thus gently in soliloquy, I first heard and then caught sight
+of the river below--the unnavigable Salwen, 2,000 feet lower than either
+the Mekong or the Shweli (which we were to cross two days later). It is
+a pity the Salwen was not preserved as the boundary between Burma and
+China.
+
+Gradually, as we approached the steep stone steps leading down thereto,
+I saw one of the cleverest pieces of native engineering in Asia--the
+double suspension bridge which here spans the Salwen, the only one I had
+seen in my trip across the Empire. The first span, some 240 feet by 36
+feet, reaches from the natural rock, down which a vertical path zigzags
+to the foot, and the second span then runs over to the busy little town
+of Lu-chiang-pa.
+
+Here, then, were we in the most dreaded spot in Western China! If you
+stay a night in this Valley, rumor says, you go to bed for the last
+time; Chinese are afraid of it, Europeans dare not linger in it. Malaria
+stalks abroad for her victims, and snatches everyone who dallies in his
+journey to the topside mountain village of Feng-shui-ling. The river is
+2,000 feet above the sea; Feng-shui-ling is nearly 9,000 feet.
+
+It was ten o'clock as I pulled over my stool and took tea in the crowded
+shop at Lu-chiang-pa. I saw Shans here for the first time.
+
+The village now, however, is anything but a Shan village. Of the people
+in the immediate vicinity I counted only ten typical Shans, and of the
+company around me in this popular tea-house twenty-one out of
+twenty-eight were Chinese, including ten Mohammedans. It was, however,
+easy to see that several of these were of Shan extraction, who,
+although they had features distinctly un-Chinese, had adopted the
+Chinese language and custom. A party of Tibetans were here in the charge
+of a Lama, in an inner court, and scampered off as I rose to snap their
+photographs. This was a very low altitude for Tibetans to reach.
+
+Whilst I sipped my tea the local horse dealer wanted so very much to
+sell me a pony cheap. He offered it for forty taels, I offered him five.
+It was gone in the back, was blind in the left eye, and was at least
+seventeen years old. The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
+that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.
+
+The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
+to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
+their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
+Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
+provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
+one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
+with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
+me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
+passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
+great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
+streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
+facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
+All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
+of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.
+
+We were now a party of nine--my own three men, an extra coolie I had
+engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
+and the paymaster of the crowd. We still had ninety li to cover, so that
+when we left the shade of two immense trees which sheltered me and my
+perspiring men, one of the soldiers agreed that everyone had to clear
+from our path. We brooked no interception until we reached the entrance
+to the climb, where I met two Europeans, of the Customs staff at
+Tengyueh, who had come down here to camp out for the Chinese New Year
+Holiday. I knew that these men were not Englishmen. I was so thirsty,
+and the best they could do was to keep a man talking in the sun outside
+their well-equipped tent. How I _could_ have done with a drink!
+
+A tributary of the Salwen flows down the ravine. Too terrible a climb to
+the top was it for me to take notes. I got too tired. Everything was
+magnificently green, and Nature's reproduction seemed to be going on
+whilst one gazed upon her. But the natural glories of this beautiful
+gorge, with a dainty touch of the tropical mingling with the mighty
+aspect of jungle forest, with glistening cascades and rippling streams,
+where all was bountiful and exquisitely beautiful, failed to hold one
+spellbound. For since I had left Tali-fu I had rarely been out of sight
+of some of the best scenery on earth. Yet vegetation was very different
+to that which we had been passing. There were now banyans, palms,
+plantains, and many ferns, trees and shrubs and other products of warmer
+climates, which one found in Burma. What impressed me farther up was the
+marvelous growth of bamboos, some rising 120 feet and 130 feet at the
+bend, in their various tints of green looking like delicate feathers
+against the haze of the sky-line, upon which houses built of bamboo from
+floor to roof seemed temporarily perched whilst others seemed to be
+tumbling down into the valley. This spot was the nearest approach to
+real jungle I had seen in China; but Whilst we were climbing laboriously
+through this densely-covered country, over opposite--it seemed no more
+than a stone's throw--the hills were almost bare, save for the isolated
+cultivation of the peasantry at the base. But then came a division,
+appearing suddenly to view farther along around a bend, and I saw a
+continuation of the range, rising even higher, and with a tree growth
+even more magnificent, denser and darker still.
+
+Here I came upon a party of soldiers with foreign military peak caps on
+their heads, which they wore outside over their Chinese caps. In fact,
+the only two other garments besides these Chinese caps were the
+distinguishing marks of the military. Coats they had, but they had been
+discarded at the foot of the climb, rolled into one bundle, and tied
+together with a piece of ribbon generally worn by the carrier to keep
+his trousers tight. We were now in summer heat, and this military
+quintet made a peculiar sight in dusty trousers, peak caps and straw
+sandals, with the perspiration streaming freely down their naked backs
+as they plodded upwards under a pitiless sun. Thus were they clad when I
+met them; but catching sight of my distinguished person, mistaking me
+for a "gwan," they immediately made a rush for the man carrying the
+tunics, to clothe themselves for my presence with seemly respectability.
+But a word from my boy put their minds at rest (my own military were far
+in the rear). A couple of them then came forward to me sniggeringly,
+satisfied that they were not to be reported to Peking or wherever their
+commander-in-chief may have his residence--they probably had no more
+idea than I had.
+
+By the side of a roaring waterfall, in a spot which looked a very
+fairyland in surroundings of reproductive green, we all sat down to
+rest. The air was cool and the path was damp, and water tumbling
+everywhere down from the rocks formed pretty cascades and rivulets. We
+heard the clang of the hatchets, and soon came upon men felling timber
+and sawing up trees into coffin boards. We were in the Valley of the
+Shadow, and it was the finest coffin center of the district. I took my
+boots off to wade through water which overran the pathway, and just
+beyond my men, exhausted with their awful toil, lay flat on their backs
+to rest; they were dead beat. One pointed up to the perpendicular cliff,
+momentarily closed his eyes and looked at me in disgust. I gently
+remonstrated. It was not my country, I told him; it was the "Emperor's."
+And after a time we reached the top.
+
+Shadows were lengthening. In the distance we saw the mountains upon
+which we had spent the previous night, whose tops were gilded by the
+setting sun. Down below all was already dark. A cold wind blew the trees
+bending wearily towards the Valley.
+
+And still we plodded on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had come to Siao-p'ing-ho, 115 li instead of the 140 I had been led
+to believe my men would cover. Every room in the hut was full, we were
+told, but the next place (with some unpronounceable name), fifteen li
+farther down, would give us good housing for the night. Lao Chang and I
+resolved to go on, tired though we were. Before I resolved on this plan
+I stopped to take a careful survey of the exact situation of the
+sheltering hollow in which we meant to pass the night. The sun was fast
+sinking; the dust of the road lay grey and thick about my feet; above me
+the heavens were reddening in sunset glory; the landscape had no touch
+of human life about it save our own two solitary figures; and the place,
+fifteen li away, lay before me as a dream of a good night rather than a
+reality.
+
+Then on again we plodded, and yelled our intentions to the men behind.
+
+From the brow of the hill we descended with extreme rapidity--down, down
+into a valley which sent up a damp, oppressive atmosphere. Through the
+trees I could see one lovely ball of deep, rich red, painting the earth
+as it sank in a beauty exquisite beyond all else. Four men met us,
+stared suspiciously, thought we were deaf, and yelled that the place was
+twenty li away, and that we had better return to the brow of the hill.
+But we left them, and went still farther down. In the hush that
+prevailed I was unaccountably startled to see the form of a woman
+gliding towards me in the twilight. She came out of the valley carrying
+firewood. She spoke kindly to my man, and invited me to spend the night
+in her house near by.
+
+I was for the moment vaguely awed by her very quiescence, and gazed
+wondering, doubting, bewildered. What was the little trick? Could I not
+from such things get free, even in Inland China? The red light of the
+sunken sun playing round her comely figure dazzled me, it is admitted,
+and I followed her with a sigh of mingled dread and desire for rest.
+Shall I say the shadow of the smile upon her lips deepened and softened
+with an infinite compassion?
+
+Dogs rounded upon me as I entered the bamboo hut stuck on the side of
+the hill--they knew I had no right there. Inside a man was nursing a
+squalling baby; our escort was its mother, the man her husband. So I was
+safe. The place was swept up, unnecessary gear was taken away, fire was
+kindled, tea was brewed, rice was prepared; and whilst in shaving (for
+we were to reach Tengyueh on the morrow) I dodged here and there to
+escape the smoke and get the most light, giving my hospitable host a
+good deal of fun in so doing; every possible preparation was made for my
+comfort and convenience by the untiring woman at whose invitation I was
+there. Their attentions embarrassed me; every movement, every look,
+every gesture, every wish was anticipated, so that I had no more
+discomfort than a roaring wind and a low temperature about the region
+which no one could help. It was bitterly cold. In front of the fire I
+sat in an overcoat among the crowd drinking tea, whilst the soldiers
+drank wine--they bought five cash worth. Had my lamp oil run out, I
+should have bought liquor and tried to burn it instead. Soon the spirit
+began to talk, and these braves of the Chinese army got on terms of
+freest familiarity, telling me what an all-round excellent fellow I was,
+and how pleased they were that I had to suffer as well as they. But they
+never forgot themselves, and I allowed them to wander on uncontradicted
+and unrestrained. After a weary night of tossing in my p'ukai, with a
+roaring gale blowing through the latticed bamboo, behind which I lay so
+poorly sheltered, we started in good spirits.
+
+Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800 feet), February
+9th, 1910, New Year's morning. Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the
+people said, "Puh mai, puh mai," and although we had traveled the
+twenty-five li over a terrible road, with a fearful gradient at the end,
+we could not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly against the
+Chinese custom to sell anything at New Year time, of course. We had to
+boil our own water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than usual
+gathered around me because of the general holiday; and as I write now I
+am seated in my folding-chair with all the reprobates near to me--men
+gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses combing their
+hair and nursing their babies, the beggars with their poles and bowls,
+numberless urchins, all open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
+crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before had come on
+ahead to book rooms in the place. I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another
+occasion. Then I found a good room, but later learned that it was a
+horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by fifty-nine pack animals
+with their loads. Pegs were as usual driven into the ground in parallel
+rows, a pair of ponies being tied to each--not by the head, but by the
+feet, a nine-inch length of rope being attached to the off foreleg of
+one and the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each other in
+rows, and eating from a common supply in the center. Everyone in the
+small town was busy doing and driving, very anxious that I should be
+made comfortable, which might have been the case but for some untiring
+musician who was traveling with the caravan, and seemed to be one of
+that species of humankind who never sleeps. His notes, however, were
+fairly in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one knows that
+he has to be again on the move by five, even first-rate Chinese music is
+apt to be somewhat disturbing.
+
+From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view of the mountains I
+had crossed yesterday. Some ten miles or so to the north was the highest
+peak in the range--Kao-li-kung I think it is called--conical-shaped and
+clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high, so far as I could
+judge.
+
+An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed here a day only, Mr.
+Embery, of the China Inland Mission, a countryman of my own, kindly
+putting me up. But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in the
+province, is well known. It is only a small town, however, and one was
+surprised to find it as conservative a town as could be found anywhere
+in the province, despite the fact that foreigners have been here for
+many years, and at the present time there are no less than seven
+Europeans here.
+
+I was glad of a rest here. From Tali-fu had been most fatiguing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
+
+_Travel up the Salwen Valley_. _My motive for travelling and how I
+travel_. _Valley not a death-trap_. _Meet the Li-su_. _Buddhistic
+beliefs_. _Late Mr. G. Litton as a traveler_. _Resemblance in religion
+to Kachins_. _Ghost of ancestral spirits_. _Li-su graves_. _Description
+of the people_. _Racial differences_. _John the Baptist's hardship_.
+_The cross-bow and author's previous experience_. _Plans for subsequent
+travel fall through_. _Mission work among the Li-su_.
+
+
+On my return journey into Yün-nan, I stopped at Lu-chiang-pa,[BB] and
+left my men at the inn there while I traveled for two days along the
+Salwen Valley. My journey was taken with no other motive than that of
+seeing the country, and also to test the accuracy of the reports
+respecting the general unhealthy nature of this valley of the Shadow of
+Death. The people here were friendly, despite the fact that my route was
+always far away from the main road; and although my entire kit was a
+single traveling-rug for the nights, I was able to get all I wanted. Lao
+Chang accompanied me, and together we had an excellent time.
+
+I might as well say first of all that the idea of this part of the
+Salwen Valley being what people say it is in the matter of a death-trap
+is absolutely false. With the exception of the early morning mist common
+in every low-lying region in hot countries, there was, so far as I could
+see, nothing to fear.
+
+During the second day, through beautiful country in beautiful weather, I
+came across some people who I presumed were Li-su, and I regretted that
+my films had all been exposed. The Li-su tribe is undoubtedly an
+offshoot from the people who inhabit south-eastern Tibet, although none
+of them anywhere in Yün-nan--and they are found in many places in
+central and eastern Yün-nan--bear any traces of Buddhistic belief, which
+is universal, of course, in Tibet. The late Mr. G. Litton, who at the
+time he was acting as British Consul at Tengyueh traveled somewhat
+extensively among them, says that their religious practices closely
+resemble those of the Kachins, who believe in numerous "nats" or spirits
+which cause various calamities, such as failure of crops and physical
+ailments, unless propitiated in a suitable manner. According to him, the
+most important spirit is the ancestral ghost. Li-su graves are generally
+in the fields near the villages, and over them is put the cross-bow,
+rice-bags and other articles used by the deceased. "It is probably from
+foundations such as these," writes Mr. George Forrest, who accompanied
+Mr. Litton on an excursion to the Upper Salwen, and who wrote up the
+journey after the death of his companion, "that the fabric of Chinese
+ancestor worship was constructed," a view which I doubt very much
+indeed.
+
+I am of the opinion that the Li-su may be closely allied to the Lolo or
+the Nou Su, of whom I have spoken in the chapters in Book I dealing with
+the tribes around Chao-t'ong. And even the Miao bear a distinct racial
+resemblance. They are of bony physique, high cheek bones, and their skin
+is nearly of the same almost sepia color. The Li-su form practically the
+whole of the population of the Upper Salwen Valley from about lat. 25°
+30' to 27° 30', and they have spread in considerable numbers along the
+mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and are found also in the
+Shan States. Those on the Upper Salwen in the extreme north are utter
+savages, but where they have become more or less civilized have shown
+themselves to be an enterprising race in the way of emigration. Of the
+savages, the villages are almost always at war with one another, and
+many have never been farther from their huts than a day's march will
+take them, the chief object of their lives being apparently to keep
+their neighbors at a distance. They are exceedingly lazy. They spend
+their lives doing as little in the way of work as they must, eating,
+drinking, squatting about round the hearth telling stories of their
+valor with the cross-bow, and their excitement is provided by an
+occasional expedition to get wood for their cross-bows and poison for
+their arrows, or a stock of salt and wild honey.
+
+Mr. Forrest, in his paper which was read before the Royal Geographical
+Society in June, 1908, speaks of this wild honey as an agreeable
+sweetmeat as a change, but that after a few days' constant partaking of
+it the European palate rejects it as nauseous and almost disgusting, and
+adds that it has escaped the Biblical commentators that one of the
+principal hardships which John the Baptist must have undergone was his
+diet of wild honey. In another part of his paper the writer says,
+speaking of the cross-bow to which I have referred: "Every Li-su with
+any pretensions to _chic_ possesses at least one of these weapons--one
+for everyday use in hunting, the other for war. The children play with
+miniature cross-bows. The men never leave their huts for any purpose
+without their cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung
+over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The
+largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of
+thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild
+mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet
+long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of
+plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
+inches, is of split bamboo, about four times the thickness of an
+ordinary knitting needle, hardened and pointed. The actual point is bare
+for a quarter to one-third of an inch, then for fully an inch the arrow
+is stripped to half its thickness, and on this portion the poison is
+placed. The poison used is invariably a decoction expressed from the
+tubers of a species of _aconitum_, which grows on those ranges at an
+altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet ... The reduction in thickness of the
+arrow where the poison is placed causes the point to break off in the
+body of anyone whom it strikes, and as each carries enough poison to
+kill a cart horse a wound is invariably fatal. Free and immediate
+incision is the usual remedy when wounded on a limb or fleshy part of
+the body."[BC]
+
+Some time after I was traveling in these regions I made arrangements to
+visit the mission station of the China Inland Mission, some days from
+Yün-nan-fu, where a special work has recently been formed among the
+Li-su tribe. Owing to a later arrival at the capital than I had
+expected, however, I could not keep my appointment, and as there were
+reports of trouble in that area the British Consul-General did not wish
+me to travel off the main road. It is highly encouraging to learn that a
+magnificent missionary work is being done among the Li-su, all the more
+gratifying because of the enormous difficulties which have already been
+overcome by the pioneering workers. At least one European, if not more,
+has mastered the language, and the China Inland Mission are expecting
+great things to eventuate. It is only by long and continued residence
+among these peoples, throwing in one's lot with them and living their
+life, that any absolutely reliable data regarding them will be
+forthcoming. And this so few, of course, are able to do.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BB: The town by the double suspension bridge over the Salwen.]
+
+[Footnote BC: The poisoned arrows and the cross-bow are used also by the
+Miao, and the author has seen very much the same thing among the Sakai
+of the Malay Peninsula.]
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY
+
+TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+_Last stages of long journey_. _Characteristics of the country_. _Sham
+and Kachins_. _Author's dream of civilization_. _British pride_. _End of
+paved roads_. _Mountains cease_. _A confession of foiled plans_.
+_Nantien as a questionable fort_. _About the Shans_. _Village squabble,
+and how it ended_. _Absence of disagreement in Shan language_. _Charming
+people, but lazy_. _Experience with Shan servant_. _At Chiu-Ch'eng_.
+_New Year festivities_. _After-dinner diversions_. _Author as a medico_.
+_Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances_.
+
+
+The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which
+makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens
+the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing
+characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.
+
+By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long
+walking journey:--
+
+                                Length      Height
+                               of Stage    Above Sea
+
+    1st day--Nantien             90 li.     5,300 ft.
+    2nd day--Chiu-Ch'eng
+         (Kang-gnai)             80 li.       ---
+    4th day--Hsiao Singai        60 li.       ---
+    5th day--Manyüen             60 li.     2,750 ft.
+    6th day--Pa-chiao-chai     |  Approx.   1,200 ft.
+    7th day--Mao-tsao-ti       |  55 English  650 ft.
+    8th day--Bhamo (Singai)    |  miles.      350 ft.
+
+Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn
+to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is
+therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march
+from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers
+to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any
+other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman,
+daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going
+for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the
+dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving
+Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible
+patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the
+Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The
+benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and
+have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and
+accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to
+be able fully to realize what the luxurious dâk-bungalows, with their
+excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.
+
+Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
+Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and
+constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no
+hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps
+of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical
+jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the
+knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well
+had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I
+should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
+For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China
+Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the
+opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode
+a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with
+such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the
+language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you
+would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and
+rode to Chiu-Ch'eng--two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest
+under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry
+indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.
+
+But it was not to be for long.
+
+Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward
+military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is
+populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now
+live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some
+tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the
+man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them,
+especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow
+complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less
+distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton
+turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables
+one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built
+and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy,
+healthy set of people.
+
+Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble
+outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to
+prove the rule.
+
+It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize
+that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men,
+and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who
+looked on had a few words to say to these "Pai Yi"[BD] on the futility of
+these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a
+foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the
+whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my
+infallible "Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong" (I don't understand, I
+don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the
+Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with
+every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could
+not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the
+dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with
+me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower
+of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a
+boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the
+infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I
+gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped,
+expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could
+I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness
+of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and
+laughed, too. I yelled "Ts'eo," and we proceeded, leaving the Shans
+again at peace with all the world.
+
+Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the
+borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in
+all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Yün-nan tribesman in
+that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the
+Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to
+Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the
+whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the
+same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a
+Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry
+on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of,
+hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred
+years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have
+had no real political or commercial relation with each other.[BE]
+
+I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating
+strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they
+are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found
+varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an
+exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
+In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese--notably in the
+preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for
+the general benefit of future travelers. _Never expect a Shan to work
+hard!_ He _can_ work hard, and he will--when he likes, but I do not
+believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther
+south, is lazier.
+
+As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose
+Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a
+man to come. "Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored." And the
+European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should
+want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be
+to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on
+the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a
+large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to
+work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters
+still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he
+objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could
+not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at
+1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He
+left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery,
+and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he
+would require as salary, he replied, "Oh, give me a rupee every market
+day, and that'll do me." The person was not in service when market day
+rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of
+this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.
+
+Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as
+I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.
+
+I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to
+career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous
+indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the
+village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility
+led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several
+women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the
+village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed
+through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway,
+primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo
+baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy,
+old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers
+of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of
+wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three
+old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and
+last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up,
+an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New
+Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of
+gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his
+very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with
+mine host and his six sons.
+
+Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air--the
+tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the
+hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace--Shan almost
+to a man--were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the
+gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were
+several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed
+away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to
+harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.
+
+My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.
+
+There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed
+by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught
+sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that
+even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a
+long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke,
+then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way
+to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to
+close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man.
+Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the
+family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own
+tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole
+gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all.
+There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged
+couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed,
+on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies,
+seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly.
+The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off
+gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot
+motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one
+another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily
+intensified. The husband of one of the women--a miserable, emaciated
+specimen for a Shan--came forward, asking whether I could cure his
+disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body
+was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese
+paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of
+black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing
+it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings,
+whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the
+door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.
+
+The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
+towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
+doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
+cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
+attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
+known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
+and make them better; but never a word of thanks--not even the mere
+pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BD: The Chinese name for the Shan.]
+
+[Footnote BE: Vide _Yün-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,_ by
+Major H.R. Davies.--Cambridge University Press.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+_Two days from Burma_. _Tropical wildness induces ennui_. _The River
+Taping_. _At Hsiao Singai_. _Possibility of West China as a holiday
+resort from Burma_. _Fascination of the country_. _Manyüen reached with
+difficulty_. _The Kachins_. _Good work of the American Baptist Mission_.
+_Mr. Roberts_. _Arrival at borderland of Burma_. _Last dealings with
+Chinese officials_. _British territory_. _Thoughts on the trend of
+progress in China_. _Beautiful Burma_. _End of long journey._
+
+
+I was now two days' march from the British Burma border. The landscape
+in this district was solemn and imposing as I trudged on again, very
+tired indeed, after a day's rest at Chiu-ch'eng. In the morning heavy
+tropical vapors of milky whiteness stretched over the sky and the earth.
+Nature seemed sleeping, as if wrapped in a light veil. It attracted me
+and absorbed me, dreaming, in spite of myself; ennui invaded me at
+first, and under the all-powerful constraint of influences so fatal to
+human personality thought died away by degrees like a flame in a vacuum;
+for I was again in the East, the real, luxurious, indolent East, the
+true land of Pantheism, and one must go there to realize the indefinable
+sensations which almost make the Nirvana of the Buddhist comprehensible.
+
+The river Taping farther down, so different from its aspect a couple of
+days ago, where it rushed at a tremendous speed over its rocky bed, was
+now broad and calm and placid, and extremely picturesque. The banks were
+covered with trees beyond Manyüen. Near the water the undergrowth was of
+a fine green, but on a higher level the yellow and red leaves, hardly
+holding on to the withered trees, were carried away with the slightest
+breath of wind.
+
+At Hsiao Singai, on February 15th, I again had difficulty in getting a
+room; so I waited, and whilst my men searched about for a place where I
+could sleep, an extremely tall fellow came up to me, and having felt
+with his finger and thumb the texture of my tweeds and expressed
+satisfaction thereof, said--
+
+"Come, elder brother, I have my dwelling in this hostelry, and my upper
+chamber is at your disposal." And then he added with a twinkle in his
+eye, "Ko nien, ko nien,"[BF] whereat I became wary.
+
+Lao Chang, however, was more cute. Whilst I was assuring this
+well-dressed holiday-maker that he must not think the stranger churlish
+in not accepting at once the proffered services, but that I would go to
+look at the room, he sprang past us and went on ahead. In a few moments
+I was slowly going hence with the multitude. Lao Chang nodded carelessly
+to the strange company there assembled, and passing through the room
+with a soft, cat-like tread, began to ascend a dark flight of narrow
+stairs leading to the second floor of the inn. And I, down below
+startled and bewildered by mysterious words from everyone, watched his
+blue garments vanishing upwards, and like a man driven by irresistible
+necessity, muttered incoherent excuses to my amazed companions, and in a
+blind, unreasoning, unconquerable impulse rushed after him. But I wish I
+had not. There were several ladies, who, all more or less _en
+déshabille_, scampered around with their bundles of gear--sewing,
+babies' clothes, tin pots, hair ornaments, boxes of powder and scented
+soap of that finest quality imported from Burma, selling for less than
+you can buy the genuine article for in London!--and then we took
+possession.
+
+If once there is a railway to Tengyueh from Burma, a visit to West
+China, even on to Tali-fu, for those who are prepared to rough it a
+little, will become quite a common trip. A few days up the Irawadi to
+Bhamo, through scenery of a peculiar kind of beauty eclipsed on none
+other of the world's great rivers, would be succeeded by a day or two
+over some of the best country which Upper Burma anywhere affords, and
+then, when once past Tengyueh, the grandeur of the mountains is amply
+compensating to those who love Nature in her beautiful isolation and
+peace. From a recuperating standpoint, perhaps, it would not quite
+answer--the rains would be a drawback to road travel, and it would at
+best mean roughing it; but for the many in Burma who wish to take a
+holiday and have not the time to go to Europe, I see no reason why
+Tengyueh should not develop into what Darjeeling is to Calcutta and what
+Japan is to the British ports farther East. Expense would not be heavy.
+To Bhamo would be easy. As things now stand, with no railway, one would
+need to take a few provisions and cooking utensils, and a camp bed and
+tent, unless one would be prepared to do as the author did, and
+patronize Chinese inns, such as they are. The rest would be easy to get
+on the road. For three days from Bhamo dâk bungalows are available, and
+to a man knowing the country it would be an easy matter to arrange his
+comforts. To one who knows the conditions, there is in the trip a good
+deal to fascinate; for in the lives and customs of the people, in the
+nature of the country, in the free-and-easy life the traveler would
+himself develop--having a peep at things as they were back in the
+ancient days of the Bible--to the brain-fagged professional or
+commercial there is nothing better in the whole of the East.
+
+He would get some excellent shooting, especially in the Salwen Valley,
+not exactly a health resort, however; and had he inclinations towards
+botanical, ethnological, craniological, or philological studies, he
+would be at a loss to find anywhere in the world a more interesting
+area.
+
+But a man should never leave the "ta lu" (the main road) in China if he
+would experience the minimum of discomfort and annoyance, which under
+best conditions is considerable to an irritable man. As I sit down now,
+on the very spot where Margary, of the British Consulate Service was
+murdered in 1875, I regret that I have sacrificed a great deal to secure
+most of the photographs which decorate this section of my book. No one,
+not even my military escort, knows the way, and is being sworn at by my
+men therefor. How I am to reach Man Hsien, across the river at Taping, I
+do not quite know. Manyüen, so interesting in history, is a native
+Shan-Kachino-Chinese town untouched by the years--slovenly, dirty,
+undisciplined, immoral, where law and order and civilization have gained
+at best but a precarious foothold, the most characteristic feature of
+the people being the gambler's instinct. But I remember that I am coming
+into Burma, into the real East, where the tangle and the topsy-turvydom,
+the crooked vision and the distorted travesty of the truth, which result
+from judging the Oriental from the standpoint of the Europeans and
+looking at the East through the eyes of the West, impress themselves
+upon one's mind in bewildering fashion as a hopeless problem. Everything
+is all at cross purposes.
+
+However, although I lost my way from Manyüen to Man Hsien, I got my
+photographs of Kachins, those people whose appearance is that they have
+no one to care for them body or soul. Their thick, uncombed locks, so
+long and lank as to resemble deck swabs, overlapped roofwise the ugliest
+aboriginal faces I ever saw in Asia or America, and their eyes under
+shaggy brows looked out with diabolical fire.
+
+So much information is to be obtained from the <i<Upper Burma Gazetteer_
+about the Kachins that it is needless for me to write much here,
+especially as I can add nothing. But I feel I should like to say just a
+word of praise of the remarkable work of the American Baptist Mission,
+which has its headquarters at Bhamo, among this tribe in Burma. At the
+time I arrived in the city the annual festival was being conducted at
+the Baptist Church, and hundreds of Kachins were assembled in the
+splendid premises of this mission. They had come from many miles around;
+and to one who at previous times in his residence in the Far East had
+written disparagingly about missionaries and their work, there came some
+little personal shame as he looked upon the extremely creditable work of
+the American missionaries in this district. Kachins are a somewhat
+uncivilized and quarrelsome race, unspeakably immoral, and steeped in
+every vice against which the Christian missionary has to set his face--a
+most difficult people to work among. But there I saw scores and scores
+of baptized Christians living a life clean and ennobling, endeavoring
+honestly to break away from their degrading customs of centuries, some
+of them exceedingly intelligent people.
+
+I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and
+malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print
+respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it
+is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should
+know what their American brethren are doing here. I cannot praise too
+highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my
+pleasure to meet. In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the
+American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only
+an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a
+gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A
+writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for
+many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of
+the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses. My experience
+is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable
+pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr.
+Roberts may be spared many years still to control the work on the
+successful mission field in which he has spent so much of his labor of
+love for the Kachins.
+
+Kachins form the bulk of the population in the extreme north of Burma.
+To the west they extend to Assam, and to the south into the Shan States,
+as far even as latitude 20° 30'. By far the largest proportion of them
+live in Burmese territory, but they also extend into Western Yün-nan,
+though nowhere are they found farther east than longitude 99°.
+
+Man Hsien is the last yamen place before reaching the British border. I
+crossed the river Taping from Manyüen, being shown the road by a Burmese
+member of the Buddhistic yellow cloth, who was most pressing that I
+should stay with him for a few days. Again did I get a fright that my
+manuscript would never get into print, for my pony, Rusty, probably
+cognizant of the fact that he, too, was finishing his long tramp, nearly
+stamped the bottom of the boat out, and threatened to send us down by
+river past Bhamo quicker than our arrival was scheduled.
+
+The large official paper given to one's military escort from point to
+point was here produced for the last time, and great ado was made about
+me. Reading this document aloud from the top of the steps, when he came
+to my name the mandarin bowed very low, called me Ding Daren[BG] (a sign
+of highest respect), asked if I would exchange cards, and then lapsed
+unconsciously into profuse congratulation to myself that I should have
+been born an Englishman. So far as he knew, I could be assured that the
+existing relations between the administrative bodies of his contemptible
+country and my own royal land were of a nature so felicitously mutual
+and peaceful--in fact, both Governments saw eye to eye in regard to
+international affairs in Far Western China--that he felt sure that I
+should arrive at the bridge leading into Burma without personal harm. He
+then, with a colossal bow to myself and a gentle wave of his three-inch
+finger-nail, handed me over with pungent emphasis of speech to the
+keeping of a Chinese and a Shan, who with a keen sense of favors to come
+were to form my escort to Burma's border.
+
+A low grunt of unrestrained approval came from the multitude. The
+underlings--Chino-Kachino-Burmo-Shan people--who ran about in a little
+of each of the clothing characteristic of the four said races, were all
+busy in their endeavors to extricate from me a few cash apiece by doing
+all and more than was necessary.
+
+Then the great man rose. He condescended to depart. He passed from the
+threshold, turned, paused, bowed, turned again, went down the steps,
+bowed again--a long curving bow, which nearly sent him to the
+ground--and then continued with a light heart towards that loveliest
+land of the East. My men exhibited no emotion. That they were coming
+into British territory was of no concern to them; they had come from far
+away in the interior, and were the greenest of the green, the rawest of
+the raw.
+
+But soon I passed over a small bridge, a spot where two great empires
+meet. I was in Burma.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So I have crossed from one end of China to the other. I entered China on
+March 4th, 1909; I came out on February 14th, 1910.
+
+I had come to see how far the modern spirit had penetrated into the
+hidden recesses of the Chinese Empire. One may be little given to
+philosophizing, and possess but scanty skill in putting into words the
+conclusions which form themselves in one's mind, but it is impossible
+to cross China entirely unobservant. One must begin, no matter how
+dimly, to perceive something of the causes which are at work. By the
+incoming of the European to inland China a transformation is being
+wrought, not the natural growth of a gradual evolution, itself the
+result of propulsion from within, but produced, on the contrary, by
+artificial means, in bitter conflict with inherent instincts, inherited
+traditions, innate tendencies, characteristics, and genius, racial and
+individual. In the eyes of the Chinese of the old school these changes
+in the habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing and ruining
+much--all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man. The tawdry shell, the
+valueless husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains untouched
+in many places, as will have been seen in previous chapters; but the
+soul within is steadily and surely, if slowly, undergoing a process of
+final atrophy. But yet the proper opening-up of the country by internal
+reform and not by external pressure has as yet hardly commenced in
+immense areas of the Empire far removed from the imperial city of
+Peking. And the mere fact that the Chinese propose such an absurd
+program as that which plans the building of all their railways without
+the aid of foreign capital is sufficient to react in an unwholesome
+manner economically.[BH][BI]
+
+I cannot but admit that, whilst in most parts of my journey there are
+distinct traces of reform--I speak, of course, of the outlying parts of
+China--and some very striking traces, too, and a real longing on the
+part of far-seeing officials to escape from a humiliating international
+position, it is distinctly apparent that in everything which concerns
+Europe and the Western world the people and the officials as a whole are
+of one mind in the methods of procrastination which are so dear to the
+heart of the Celestial, and that peculiar opposition to Europeanism
+which has marked the real East since the beginning of modern history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now lovely, lovely Burma!
+
+I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very box containing the
+clothes into which I must change before I could enter into the social
+life of Bhamo swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
+rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered after great trouble.
+
+Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds in the dense blue sky
+hung lazily over the green hills, the heavy air was pregnant with that
+delicious ease known only in the tropics--all was still and sweet. The
+river flowed grandly from the interior through magnificent forest
+country, receiving on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
+streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle--tangles of giant
+trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine and festooning
+parasite--rising sheer from the water's brink. Now long clusters of
+villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees; now wide expanses
+of grass-grown meadow, where the grazing grounds dip to the river, and
+where the only echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans--the
+banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage of the kine trooping
+down to drink. Occasional wooded islands broke the monotony of the
+river, and were just discernible from the magnificent English roads
+which skirted the hills high up from the river, and yellow sandspits and
+big wedges of granite and rock ran far out into its uneven course. By
+day the joyous Burma sun smiled upon all, and at midday poured its
+merciless heat down upon all mankind, unheeding the weary wanderer whose
+tramp was now near done. At night the tropical moon turned all this
+riverine world to the likeness of a very fairyland. Lying in a long
+chair in the dâk bungalows one drank in the scenes which succeeded one
+another in bewildering succession, and felt himself thrilled by an
+almost fierce appreciation of eastern beauty. It was good to meet again
+an Englishman, a sturdy, firm-featured Englishman, whose love of the
+East, like mine own, was a veritable obsession. The sun glare of the
+tropics had parched the color out of our white skin, and despite the
+fact that malaria came back again here to taunt me, yet I was again in
+the East that I loved, that had scarred and marked me ere my time
+mayhap. And yet I, with many such of my own countrymen, despite her
+rough handling, worship her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In three days I was in Bhamo.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BF: _i.e._ New Year, New Year.]
+
+[Footnote BG: _i.e._Great Man. "Ding" is my Chinese name.]
+
+[Footnote BH: I believe personally that the main object of the Yün-nan
+provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the
+present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yün-nan-fu to
+the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a
+monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese
+dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow
+foreigners to come in still farther.]
+
+[Footnote BI: This was of course written long before the Four Nations
+Loan was signed, and Tuan Fang appointed Director General of the
+Railways in May, 1911. We should now see a speedy reformation of Railway
+matters in China if Tuan is given an absolutely free hand.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+END OF BOOK II.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.]
+
+
+[Illustration: RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AT HANKOW—THE CHICAGO OF CHINA
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A LONELY TRAVELER
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EARNING HIS LIVING
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.]
+
+
+[Illustration: WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA
+
+If there is an "artist" on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH'UAN
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground—each of them earning about 25 cents a day.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, "Once a
+musician, always a musician"—so it usually runs in the family.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king—the Author's four-man chair engaged
+to "save his face," and his servant's two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MEKONG BRIDGE
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains—very hard going—to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN YÜN-NAN
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu'aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of "Across China On Foot."
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women—though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech'uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF "MAIN ROAD" IN N.E. YÜN-NAN
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China's
+"great paved highways"; author is in saddle.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH'UANFU
+
+Where the Author's life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.]
+
+
+[Illustration: WATCH YOUR STEP
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author's traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.]
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable—and invariably happy.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN YÜN-NAN
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Yün-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WOMEN WEAVING HEMP GARMENTS
+
+These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
+
+Basket on woman's back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch'uanfu, the "City of
+the Eastern Streams"—and a very happy little band they are.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNG-CH'ANG-FU
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China—China's
+"Switzerland"—on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: COPPER KETTLE LANE IN YÜN-NAN-FU
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY'S END
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese "to be possessed of a
+demon!"— because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Top left--Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Yün-nan. Top right--Ch'in
+Miao, men, of Kweichow. Bottom left--Three Heh Miao—all women. Bottom
+right--Hua Miao—two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture—otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Sui-fu, Szech'uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH'UANFU IN YÜN-NAN
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch'uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains "for eighty
+centuries," they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN YÜN-NAN
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IGNORANCE AND POVERTY
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Yün-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author's ponies
+"committed suicide," Chinese said.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.]
+
+
+[Illustration: REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary's
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch'uanfu.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED YÜN-NAN
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13420 ***
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+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13420 ***</div>
+
+<h1>ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT</h1>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'><i>By</i></p>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>EDWIN JOHN DINGLE</p>
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china00.jpg' width='380' height='600' alt='Edwin John Dingle' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>1911</p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>IN GRATEFUL ESTEEM</p>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>DURING MY TRAVELS IN INTERIOR CHINA I ONCE
+LAY AT THE POINT OF DEATH. FOR THEIR UNREMITTING
+KINDNESS DURING A LONG ILLNESS, I
+NOW AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME TO
+MY FRIENDS, MR. AND MRS. A. EVANS, OF TONG-CH'UAN-FU,
+Y&Uuml;N-NAN, SOUTH-WEST CHINA, TO
+WHOSE DEVOTED NURSING AND UNTIRING CARE
+I OWE MY LIFE.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<a href='#Across_China_on_Foot'><b>BOOK I.</b></a>
+
+<a href='#INTRODUCTORY'><b>FROM THE STRAITS TO SHANGHAI&mdash;INTRODUCTORY</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIRST_JOURNEY'><b>FIRST JOURNEY.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_I'><b>CHAPTER I.&nbsp;  FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#SECOND_JOURNEY'><b>SECOND JOURNEY&mdash;ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_II'><b>CHAPTER II.&nbsp;  THE ICHANG GORGE</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_III'><b>CHAPTER III.&nbsp; THE YANGTZE RAPIDS</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'><b>CHAPTER IV.&nbsp;  THE YEH T'AN RAPID. ARRIVAL AT KWEIEU</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THIRD_JOURNEY'><b>THIRD JOURNEY&mdash;CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW).</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_V'><b>CHAPTER V.&nbsp; &nbsp; BEGINNING OF THE OVERLAND JOURNEY</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'><b>CHAPTER VI.&nbsp;  THE PEOPLE OF SZECH'WAN</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FOURTH_JOURNEY'><b>FOURTH JOURNEY&mdash;SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; VII.&nbsp; DESCRIPTION OF JOURNEY FROM SUI-FU</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; VIII. SZECH'WAN AND Y&Uuml;N-NAN</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THE_CHAO_TONG_REBELLION_OF_1910'><b>THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; IX.</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THE_TRIBES_OF_NORTH_EAST_YUumlN_NAN_AND_MISSION_WORK_AMONG_THEM'><b>THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST Y&Uuml;N-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_X'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; X.</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIFTH_JOURNEY'><b>FIFTH JOURNEY&mdash;CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XI.&nbsp;  AUTHOR MEETS WITH ACCIDENT</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XII.&nbsp; Y&Uuml;N-NAN'S CHECKERED CAREER. ILLNESS OF AUTHOR</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#BOOK_II'><b>BOOK II.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIRST_JOURNEY2'><b>FIRST JOURNEY&mdash;TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'><b>CHAPTER XIII. DEPARTURE FOR BURMA.&nbsp; DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL.</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'><b>CHAPTER XIV.&nbsp; Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#SECOND_JOURNEY2'><b>SECOND JOURNEY&mdash;Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU).</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XV.&nbsp; DOES CHINA WANT THE FOREIGNER?</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XVI. LU-FENG-HSIEN. MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. CHINESE UNTRUTHFULNESS.</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XVII. KWANG-TUNG-HSIEN TO SHACHIAO-KA</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XVIII. STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS. AT HUNGAY</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XIX. THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN. ARRIVAL AT TALI-FU</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THIRD_JOURNEY2'><b>THIRD JOURNEY&mdash;TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XX. HARDEST PART OF THE JOURNEY.HWAN-LIEN-P'U</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXI. THE MOUNTAINS OF Y&Uuml;N-NAN. SHAYUNG. OPIUM SMOKING.</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FOURTH_JOURNEY2'><b>FOURTH JOURNEY&mdash;THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXII. THE RIVER MEKONG</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXIII. THROUGH THE SALWEN VALLEY TO TENGYUEH</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXIV. THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIFTH_JOURNEY2'><b>FIFTH JOURNEY&mdash;TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'><b>CHAPTER XXV. SHANS AND KACHINS</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'><b>CHAPTER XXVI. END OF LONG JOURNEY. ARRIVAL IN BURMA</b></a></span><br />
+
+
+<br />
+
+<p><i>To travel in China is easy. To walk across China, over roads
+acknowledgedly worse than are met with in any civilized country in the
+two hemispheres, and having accommodation unequalled for crudeness and
+insanitation, is not easy. In deciding to travel in China, I determined
+to cross overland from the head of the Yangtze Gorges to British Burma
+on foot; and, although the strain nearly cost me my life, no conveyance
+was used in any part of my journey other than at two points described in
+the course of the narrative. For several days during my travels I lay at
+the point of death. The arduousness of constant mountaineering</i>&mdash;<i>for
+such is ordinary travel in most parts of Western China</i>&mdash;<i>laid the
+foundation of a long illness, rendering it impossible for me to continue
+my walking, and as a consequence I resided in the interior of China
+during a period of convalescence of several months duration, at the end
+of which I continued my cross-country tramp. Subsequently I returned
+into Y&uuml;n-nan from Burma, lived again in Tong-ch'uan-fu and
+Chao-t'ong-fu, and traveled in the wilds of the surrounding country.
+Whilst traveling I lived on Chinese food, and in the Miao country, where
+rice could not be got, subsisted for many days on maize only.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>My sole object in going to China was a personal desire to see China from
+the inside. My trip was undertaken for no other purpose. I carried no
+instruments (with the exception of an aneroid), and did not even make a
+single survey of the untrodden country through which I occasionally
+passed. So far as I know, I am the only traveler, apart from members of
+the missionary community, who has ever resided far away in the interior
+of the Celestial Empire for so long a time.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Most of the manuscript for this book was written as I went along>&mdash;a
+good deal of it actually by the roadside in rural China. When my journey
+was completed, the following news paragraph in the North China Daily
+News (of Shanghai) was brought to my notice:&mdash;</i></p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p><i>&quot;All the Legations (at Peking) have received anonymous letters from
+     alleged revolutionaries in Shanghai, containing the warning that an
+     extensive anti-dynastic uprising is imminent. If they do not assist
+     the Manchus, foreigners will not be harmed; otherwise, they will be
+     destroyed in a general massacre.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>     &quot;The missives were delivered mysteriously, bearing obliterated
+     postmarks.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>     &quot;In view of the recent similar warnings received by the Consuls,
+     uneasiness has been created.&quot;</i></p></div>
+
+<p><i>The above appeared in the journal quoted on June 3rd, 1910. The reader,
+in perusing my previously written remarks on the spirit of reform and
+how far it has penetrated into the innermost corners of the empire,
+should bear this paragraph in mind, for there is more Boxerism and
+unrest in China than we know of. My account of the Hankow riots of
+January, 1911, through which I myself went, will, with my experience of
+rebellions in Y&uuml;n-nan, justify my assertion.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I should like to thank all those missionaries who entertained me as I
+proceeded through China, especially Mr. John Graham and Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, of the China Inland Mission, who transacted a good deal of
+business for me and took all trouble uncomplainingly. I am also indebted
+to Dr. Clark, of Tali-fu, and to the Revs. H. Parsons and S. Pollard,
+for several photographs illustrating that section of this book dealing
+with the tribes of Y&uuml;n-nan.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I wish to express my acknowledgments to several well-known writers on
+far Eastern topics, notably to Dr. G.E. Morrison, of Peking, the Rev.
+Sidney L. Hulick, M.A., D.D., and Mr. H.B. Morse, whose works are
+quoted. Much information was also gleaned from other sources.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>My thanks are due also to Mr. W. Brayton Slater and to my brother, Mr.
+W.R. Dingle, for their kindness in having negotiated with my publishers
+in my absence in Inland China; and to the latter, for unfailing courtesy
+and patience, I am under considerable obligation. &quot;Across China on Foot&quot;
+would have appeared in the autumn of 1910 had the printers' proofs,
+which were several times sent to me to different addresses in China, but
+which dodged me repeatedly, come sooner to hand.</i></p>
+
+<p>[Signature: Edwin Dingle]</p>
+
+<p>HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='Across_China_on_Foot'></a><h1>Across China on Foot</h1>
+
+<h4><i>From the Straits to Shanghai</i></h4>
+
+<a name='INTRODUCTORY'></a><h2>INTRODUCTORY</h2>
+
+<p><i>The scheme</i>. <i>Why I am walking across Interior China</i>. <i>Leaving
+Singapore</i>. <i>Ignorance of life and travel in China</i>. <i>The &quot;China for the
+Chinese&quot; cry</i>. <i>The New China and the determination of the Government</i>.
+<i>The voice of the people</i>. <i>The province of Y&uuml;n-nan and the forward
+movement</i>. <i>A prophecy</i>. <i>Impressions of Saigon</i>. <i>Comparison of French
+and English methods</i>. <i>At Hong-Kong</i>. <i>Cold sail up the Whang-poo</i>.
+<i>Disembarkation</i>. <i>Foreign population of Shanghai</i>. <i>Congestion in the
+city</i>. <i>Wonderful Shanghai.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Through China from end to end. From Shanghai, 1,500 miles by river and
+1,600 miles walking overland, from the greatest port of the Chinese
+Empire to the frontier of British Burma.</p>
+
+<p>That is my scheme.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I am a journalist, one of the army of the hard-worked who go down early
+to the Valley. I state this because I would that the truth be told; for
+whilst engaged in the project with which this book has mainly to deal I
+was subjected to peculiar designations, such as &quot;explorer&quot; and other
+newspaper extravagances, and it were well, perhaps, for my reader to
+know once for all that the writer is merely a newspaper man, at the time
+on holiday.</p>
+
+<p>The rather extreme idea of walking across this Flowery Land came to me
+early in the year 1909, although for many years I had cherished the hope
+of seeing Interior China ere modernity had robbed her and her wonderful
+people of their isolation and antediluvianism, and ever since childhood
+my interest in China has always been considerable. A little prior to the
+Chinese New Year, a friend of mine dined with me at my rooms in
+Singapore, in the Straits Settlements, and the conversation about China
+resulted in our decision then and there to travel through the Empire on
+holiday. He, because at the time he had little else to do; the author,
+because he thought that a few months' travel in mid-China would, from a
+journalistic standpoint, be passed profitably, the intention being to
+arrive home in dear old England late in the summer of the same year.</p>
+
+<p>We agreed to cross China on foot, and accordingly on February 22, 1909,
+just as the sun was sinking over the beautiful harbor of Singapore&mdash;that
+most valuable strategic Gate of the Far East, where Crown Colonial
+administration, however, is allowed by a lethargic British Government to
+become more and more bungled every year&mdash;we settled down on board the
+French mail steamer <i>Nera</i>, bound for Shanghai. My friends, good
+fellows, in reluctantly speeding me on my way, prophesied that this
+would prove to be my last long voyage to a last long rest, that the
+Chinese would never allow me to come out of China alive. Such is the
+ignorance of the average man concerning the conditions of life and
+travel in the interior of this Land of Night.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, was I on my way to that land towards which all the world was
+straining its eyes, whose nation, above all nations of the earth, was
+altering for better things, and coming out of its historic shell.
+&quot;Reform, reform, reform,&quot; was the echo, and I myself was on the way to
+hear it.</p>
+
+<p>At the time I started for China the cry of &quot;China for the Chinese&quot; was
+heard in all countries, among all peoples. Statesmen were startled by
+it, editors wrote the phrase to death, magazines were filled with
+copy&mdash;good, bad and indifferent&mdash;mostly written, be it said, by men
+whose knowledge of the question was by no means complete: editorial
+opinion, and contradiction of that opinion, were printed side by side in
+journals having a good name. To one who endeavored actually to
+understand what was being done, and whither these broad tendencies and
+strange cravings of the Chinese were leading a people who formerly were
+so indifferent to progress, it seemed essential that he should go to the
+country, and there on the spot make a study of the problem.</p>
+
+<p>Was the reform, if genuine at all, universal in China? Did it reach to
+the ends of the Empire?</p>
+
+<p>That a New China had come into being, and was working astounding results
+in the enlightened provinces above the Yangtze and those connected with
+the capital by railway, was common knowledge; but one found it hard to
+believe that the west and the south-west of the empire were moved by the
+same spirit of Europeanism, and it will be seen that China in the west
+moves, if at all, but at a snail's pace: the second part of this volume
+deals with that portion of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>And it may be that the New China, as we know it in the more forward
+spheres of activity, will only take her proper place in the family of
+nations after fresh upheavals. Rivers of blood may yet have to flow as a
+sickening libation to the gods who have guided the nation for forty
+centuries before she will be able to attain her ambition of standing
+line to line with the other powers of the eastern and western worlds.
+But it seems that no matter what the cost, no matter what she may have
+to suffer financially and nationally, no matter how great the obstinacy
+of the people towards the reform movement, the change is coming, has
+already come with alarming rapidity, and has come to stay. China is
+changing&mdash;let so much be granted; and although the movement may be
+hampered by a thousand general difficulties, presented by the ancient
+civilization of a people whose customs and manners and ideas have stood
+the test of time since the days contemporary with those of Solomon, and
+at one time bade fair to test eternity, the Government cry of &quot;China for
+the Chinese&quot; is going to win. Chinese civilization has for ages been
+allowed to get into a very bad state of repair, and official corruption
+and deceit have prevented the Government from making an effectual move
+towards present-day aims; but that she is now making an honest endeavor
+to rectify her faults in the face of tremendous odds must, so it appears
+to the writer, be apparent to all beholders. That is the Government
+view-point. It is important to note this.</p>
+
+<p>In China, however, the Government is not the people. It never has been.
+It is not to be expected that great political and social reforms can be
+introduced into such an enormous country as China, and among her four
+hundred and thirty millions of people, merely by the issue of a few
+imperial edicts. The masses have to be convinced that any given thing is
+for the public good before they accept, despite the proclamations, and
+in thus convincing her own people China has yet to go through the fire
+of a terrible ordeal. Especially will this be seen in the second part of
+this volume, where in Y&uuml;n-nan there are huge areas absolutely untouched
+by the forward movement, and where the people are living the same life
+of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral
+degradation as they lived when the Westerner remained still in the
+primeval forest stage. But despite the scepticism and the cynicism of
+certain writers, whose pessimism is due to a lack of foresight, and
+despite the fact that she is being constantly accused of having in the
+past ignominiously failed at the crucial moment in endeavors towards
+minor reforms, I am one of those who believe that in China we shall see
+arising a Government whose power will be paramount in the East, and upon
+the integrity of whose people will depend the peace of Europe. It is
+much to say. We shall not see it, but our children will. The Government
+is going to conquer the people. She has done so already in certain
+provinces, and in a few years the reform&mdash;deep and real, not the
+make-believe we see in many parts of the Empire to-day&mdash;will be
+universal.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Between Singapore and Shanghai the opportunity occurred of calling at
+Saigon and Hong-Kong, two cities offering instructive contrasts of
+French and British administration in the Far East.</p>
+
+<p>Saigon is not troubled much by the Britisher. The nationally-exacting
+Frenchman has brought it to represent fairly his loved Paris in the
+East. The approach to the city, through the dirty brown mud of the
+treacherous Mekong, which is swept down vigorously to the China sea
+between stretches of monotonous mangrove, with no habitation of man
+anywhere visible, is distinctly unpicturesque; but Saigon itself, apart
+from the exorbitance of the charges (especially so to the spendthrift
+Englishman), is worth the dreary journey of numberless twists and quick
+turns up-river, annoying to the most patient pilot.</p>
+
+<p>In the daytime, Saigon is as hot as that last bourne whither all
+evil-doers wander&mdash;Englishmen and dogs alone are seen abroad between
+nine and one. But in the soothing cool of the soft tropical evening,
+gay-lit boulevards, a magnificent State-subsidized opera-house, alfresco
+caf&eacute;s where dawdle the domino-playing absinthe drinkers, the
+fierce-moustached gendarmes, and innumerable features typically and
+picturesquely French, induced me easily to believe myself back in the
+bewildering whirl of the Boulevard des Capucines or des Italiennes.
+Whether the narrow streets of the native city are clean or dirty,
+whether garbage heaps lie festering in the broiling sun, sending their
+disgusting effluvia out to annoy the sense of smell at every turn, the
+municipality cares not a little bit. Indifference to the well-being of
+the native pervades it; there is present no progressive prosperity.
+Every second person I met was, or seemed to be, a Government official.
+He was dressed in immaculate white clothes of the typical ugly French
+cut, trimmed elaborately with an <i>ad libitum</i> decoration of gold braid
+and brass buttons. All was so different from Singapore and Hong-Kong,
+and one did not feel, in surroundings which made strongly for the
+<i>laissez-faire</i> of the Frenchman in the East, ashamed of the fact that
+he was an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>Three days north lies Hong-Kong, an all-important link in the armed
+chain of Britain's empire east of Suez, bone of the bone and flesh of
+the flesh of Great Britain beyond the seas. The history of this island,
+ceded to us in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, is known to everyone in
+Europe, or should be.</p>
+
+<p>Four and a half days more, and we anchored at Woo-sung; and a few hours
+later, after a terribly cold run up the river in the teeth of a terrific
+wind, we arrived at Shanghai.</p>
+
+<p>The average man in Europe and America does not know that this great
+metropolis of the Far East is far removed from salt water, and that it
+is the first point on entering the Yangtze-kiang at which a port could
+be established. It is twelve miles up the Whang-poo. Junks whirled past
+with curious tattered brown sails, resembling dilapidated verandah
+blinds, merchantmen were there flying the flags of the nations of the
+world, all churning up the yellow stream as they hurried to catch the
+flood-tide at the bar. Then came the din of disembarkation. Enthusiastic
+hotel-runners, hard-worked coolies, rickshaw men, professional Chinese
+beggars, and the inevitable hangers-on of a large eastern city crowded
+around me to turn an honest or dishonest penny. Some rude, rough-hewn
+lout, covered with grease and coal-dust, pushed bang against me and
+hurled me without ceremony from his path. My baggage, meantime, was
+thrown onto a two-wheeled van, drawn by four of those poor human beasts
+of burden&mdash;how horrible to have been born a Chinese coolie!&mdash;and I was
+whirled away to my hotel for tucker. The French mail had given us coffee
+and rolls at six, but the excitement of landing at a foreign port does
+not usually produce the net amount of satisfaction to or make for the
+sustenance of the inner man of the phlegmatic Englishman, as with the
+wilder-natured Frenchman. Therefore were our spirits ruffled.</p>
+
+<p>However, my companion and I fed later.</p>
+
+<p>Subsequently to this we agreed not to be drawn to the clubs or mix in
+the social life of Shanghai, but to consider ourselves as two beings
+entirely apart from the sixteen thousand and twenty-three Britishers,
+Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Danes, Portuguese, and other
+sundry internationals at that moment at Shanghai. They lived there: we
+were soon to leave.</p>
+
+<p>The city was suffering from the abnormal congestion common to the
+Orient, with a big dash of the West. Trams, motors, rickshaws, the
+peculiar Chinese wheelbarrow, horrid public shaky landaus in miniature,
+conveyances of all kinds, and the swarming masses of coolie humanity
+carrying or hauling merchandise amid incessant jabbering, yelling, and
+vociferating, made intense bewilderment before breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful Shanghai!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIRST_JOURNEY'></a><h2>FIRST JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_I'></a><h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p><i>To Ichang, an everyday trip</i>. <i>Start from Shanghai, and the city's
+appearance</i>. <i>At Hankow</i>. <i>Meaning of the name</i>. <i>Trio of strategic and
+military points of the empire</i>. <i>Han-yang and Wu-ch'ang</i>. <i>Commercial and
+industrial future of Hankow</i>. <i>Getting our passports</i>. <i>Britishers in the
+city</i>. <i>The commercial Chinaman</i>. <i>The native city: some impressions</i>.
+<i>Clothing of the people</i>. <i>Cotton and wool</i>. <i>Indifference to comfort</i>.
+<i>Surprise at our daring project</i>. <i>At Ichang</i>. <i>British gunboat and early
+morning routine</i>. <i>Our vain quest for aid</i>. <i>Laying in stores and
+commissioning our boat</i>. <i>Ceremonies at starting gorges trip</i>. <i>Raising
+anchor, and our departure</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Let no one who has been so far as Ichang, a thousand miles from the sea,
+imagine that he has been into the interior of China.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite an everyday trip. Modern steamers, with every modern
+convenience and luxury, probably as comfortable as any river steamers in
+the world, ply regularly in their two services between Shanghai and this
+port, at the foot of the Gorges.</p>
+
+<p>The Whang-poo looked like the Thames, and the Shanghai Bund like the
+Embankment, when I embarked on board a Jap boat <i>en route</i> for Hankow,
+and thence to Ichang by a smaller steamer, on a dark, bitterly cold
+Saturday night, March 6th, 1909. I was to travel fifteen hundred miles
+up that greatest artery of China. The Yangtze surpasses in importance to
+the Celestial Empire what the Mississippi is to America, and yet even
+in China there are thousands of resident foreigners who know no more
+about this great river than the average Smithfield butcher. Ask ten men
+in Fleet Street or in Wall Street where Ichang is, and nine will be
+unable to tell you. Yet it is a port of great importance, when one
+considers that the handling of China's vast river-borne trade has been
+opened to foreign trade and residence since the Chefoo Convention was
+signed in 1876, that Ichang is a city of forty thousand souls, and has a
+gross total of imports of nearly forty millions of taels.</p>
+
+<p>Of Hankow, however, more is known. Here we landed after a four days'
+run, and, owing to the low water, had to wait five days before the
+shallower-bottomed steamer for the higher journey had come in. The city
+is made up of foreign concessions, as in other treaty ports, but away in
+the native quarter there is the real China, with her selfish rush, her
+squalidness and filth among the teeming thousands. There dwell together,
+literally side by side, but yet eternally apart, all the conflicting
+elements of the East and West which go to make up a city in the Far
+East, and particularly the China coast.</p>
+
+<p>Hankow means literally Han Mouth, being situated at the juncture of the
+Han River and the Yangtze. Across the way, as I write, I can see
+Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where
+the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. (This is but a
+fraction of the total work done.) It is, I believe, the only
+steel-rolling mill in China. Long before the foreigner set foot so far
+up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance&mdash;the Chinese used
+to call it the centre of the world. Ten years ago I should have been
+thirty days' hard travel from Peking; at the present moment I might
+pack my bag and be in Peking within thirty-six hours. Hankow, with
+Tientsin and Nanking, makes up the trio of principal strategic points of
+the Empire, the trio of centers also of greatest military activity. On
+the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial
+capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and
+important provinces of the whole eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two
+million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the
+whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.</p>
+
+<p>Here we registered as British subjects, and secured our Chinese
+passports, resembling naval ensigns more than anything else, for the
+four provinces of Hu-peh, Kwei-chow, Szech'wan, and Y&uuml;n-nan. The
+Consul-General and his assistants helped us in many ways, disillusioning
+us of the many distorted reports which have got into print regarding the
+indifference shown to British travelers by their own consuls at these
+ports. We found the brethren at the Hankow Club a happy band, with every
+luxury around them for which hand and heart could wish; so that it were
+perhaps ludicrous to look upon them as exiles, men out in the outposts
+of Britain beyond the seas, building up the trade of the Empire. Yet
+such they undoubtedly were, most of them having a much better time than
+they would at home. There is not the roughing required in Hankow which
+is necessary in other parts of the empire, as in British East Africa and
+in the jungles of the Federated Malay States, for instance. Building the
+Empire where there is an abundance of the straw wherewith to make the
+bricks, is a matter of no difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>And then the Chinese is a good man to manage in trade, and in business
+dealings his word is his bond, generally speaking, although we do not
+forget that not long ago a branch in North China of the Hong-kong and
+Shanghai Bank was swindled seriously by a shroff who had done honest
+duty for a great number of years. It cannot, however, be said that such
+behavior is a common thing among the commercial class. My personal
+experience has been that John does what he says he will do, and for
+years he will go on doing that one thing; but it should not surprise you
+if one fine morning, with the infinite sagacity of his race, he ceases
+to do this when you are least expecting it&mdash;and he &quot;does&quot; you. Keep an
+eye on him, and the Chinese to be found in Hankow having dealings with
+Europeans in business is as good as the best of men.</p>
+
+<p>We wended our way one morning into the native city, and agreed that few
+inconveniences of the Celestial Empire make upon the western mind a more
+speedy impression than the entire absence of sanitation. In Hankow we
+were in mental suspense as to which was the filthier native city&mdash;Hankow
+or Shanghai. But we are probably like other travelers, who find each
+city visited worse than the last. Should there arise in their midst a
+man anxious to confer an everlasting blessing upon his fellow Chinese,
+no better work could he do than to institute a system approaching what
+to our Western mind is sanitation. We arrived, of course, in the winter,
+and, having seen it at a time when the sun could do but little in
+increasing the stenches, we leave to the imagination what it would be in
+the summer, in a city which for heat is not excelled by Aden.<a name='FNanchor_A_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_A_1'><sup>[A]</sup></a> During
+the summer of 1908 no less than twenty-eight foreigners succumbed to
+cholera, and the native deaths were numberless.</p>
+
+<p>The people were suffering very much from the cold, and it struck me as
+one of the unaccountable phenomena of their civilization that in their
+ingenuity in using the gifts of Nature they have never learned to weave
+wool, and to employ it in clothing&mdash;that is, in a general sense. There
+are a few exceptions in the empire. The nation is almost entirely
+dependent upon cotton for clothing, which in winter is padded with a
+cheap wadding to an abnormal thickness. The common people wear no
+underclothing whatever. When they sleep they strip to the skin, and wrap
+themselves in a single wadded blanket, sleeping the sleep of the tired
+people their excessive labor makes them. And, although their clothes
+might be the height of discomfort, they show their famous indifference
+to comfort by never complaining. These burdensome clothes hang around
+them like so many bags, with the wide gaps here and there where the wind
+whistles to the flesh. It is a national characteristic that they are
+immune to personal inconveniences, a philosophy which I found to be
+universal, from the highest to the lowest.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody we met, from the British Consul-General downward, was
+surprised to know that my companion and I had no knowledge of the
+Chinese language, and seemed to look lightly upon our chances of ever
+getting through.</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Neither my companion nor myself knew three words of the
+language, but went forward simply believing in the good faith of the
+Chinese people, with our passports alone to protect us. That we should
+encounter difficulties innumerable, that we should be called upon to put
+up with the greatest hardships of life, when viewed from the standard to
+which one had been accustomed, and that we should be put to great
+physical endurance, we could not doubt. But we believed in the Chinese,
+and believed that should any evil befall us it would be the outcome of
+our own lack of forbearance, or of our own direct seeking. We knew that
+to the Chinese we should at once be &quot;foreign devils&quot; and &quot;barbarians,&quot;
+that if not holding us actually in contempt, they would feel some
+condescension in dealing and mixing with us; but I was personally of the
+opinion that it was easier for us to walk through China than it would be
+for two Chinese, dressed as Chinese, to walk through Great Britain or
+America. What would the canny Highlander or the rural English rustic
+think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his countryside?</p>
+
+<p>We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a
+boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen
+in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat
+<i>Kinsha</i> (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which
+English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way, and all
+looked rosy enough.<a name='FNanchor_B_2'></a><a href='#Footnote_B_2'><sup>[B]</sup></a> But for the author, who with his companion was a
+literal &quot;babe in the wood,&quot; the day was most eventful and trying to
+one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and sundry
+respecting our proposed tramp and the way we should get to work in
+making preparations. Each individual person seemed vigorously to do his
+best to induce us to turn back and follow callings of respectable
+members of society. From Shanghai upwards we might have believed
+ourselves watched by a secret society, which had for its motto, &quot;Return,
+oh, wanderer, return!&quot; Hardly a person knew aught of the actual
+conditions of the interior of the country in which he lived and labored,
+and everyone tried to dissuade us from our project.</p>
+
+<p>Coming ashore in good spirits, we called at the Consulate, at the back
+of the city graveyard, and were smoking his cigars and giving his boy an
+examination in elementary English, when the Consul came down. It was not
+possible, however, for us to get much more information than we had read
+up, and the Consul suggested that the most likely person to be of use to
+us would be the missionary at the China Inland Mission. Thither we
+repaired, following a sturdy employ&eacute; of Britain, but we found that the
+C.I.M. representative was not to be found&mdash;despite our repairing. So off
+we trotted to the chief business house of the town, at the entrance to
+which we were met by a Chinese, who bowed gravely, asked whether we had
+eaten our rice, and told us, quietly but pointedly, that our passing up
+the rough stone steps would be of no use, as the manager was out. A few
+minutes later I stood reading the inscription on the gravestone near the
+church, whilst my brave companion, The Other Man, endeavored fruitlessly
+to pacify a fierce dog in the doorway of the Scottish Society's
+missionary premises&mdash;but that missionary, too, was out!</p>
+
+<p>What, then, was the little game? Were all the foreigners resident in
+this town dodging us, afraid of us&mdash;or what?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The latter, the blithering idiots!&quot; yelled The Other Man. He was
+infuriated. &quot;Two Englishmen with English tongues in their heads, and
+unable to direct their own movements. Preposterous!&quot; And then, making an
+observation which I will not print, he suggested mildly that we might
+fix up all matters ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Within an hour an English-speaking &quot;one piece cook&quot; had secured the
+berth, which carried a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, we were
+well on the way with the engaging of our boat for the Gorges trip, and
+one by one our troubles vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Laying in stores, however, was not the lightest of sundry perplexities.
+Curry and rice had been suggested as the staple diet for the river
+journey; and we ordered, with no thought to the contrary, a picul of
+best rice, various brands of curries, which were raked from behind the
+shelves of a dingy little store in a back street, and presented to us
+at alarming prices&mdash;enough to last a regiment of soldiers for pretty
+well the number of days we two were to travel; and, for luxuries, we
+laid in a few tinned meats. All was practically settled, when The Other
+Man, settling his eyes dead upon me, yelled&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dingle, you've forgotten the milk!&quot; And then, after a moment, &quot;Oh,
+well, we can surely do without milk; it's no use coming on a journey
+like this unless one can rough it a bit.&quot; And he ended up with a rude
+reference to the disgusting sticky condensed milk tins, and we wandered
+on.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stopped, did The Other Man. He looked at a small stone on
+the pavement for a long time, eventually cruelly blurting out, directly
+at me, as if it were all my misdoing: &quot;The sugar, the sugar! We <i>must</i>
+have sugar, man.&quot; I said nothing, with the exception of a slight remark
+that we might do without sugar, as we were to do without milk. There was
+a pause. Then, raising his stick in the air, The Other Man perorated:
+&quot;Now, I have no wish to quarrel&quot; (and he put his nose nearer to mine),
+&quot;you know that, of course. But to <i>think</i> we can do without sugar is
+quite unreasonable, and I had no idea you were such a cantankerous man.
+We have sugar, or&mdash;I go back.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We had sugar. It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets
+of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with
+commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly
+dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar
+were ordered, and sugar&mdash;that dirty, brown sticky stuff&mdash;got into
+everything on board&mdash;my fingers are sticky even as I write&mdash;and no less
+than exactly one-half went down to the bottom of the Yangtze. Travelers
+by houseboat on the Upper Yangtze should have some knowledge of
+commissariat.</p>
+
+<p>Getting away was a tedious business.</p>
+
+<p>Later, the fellows pressed us to spend a good deal of time in the small,
+dingy, ill-lighted apartment they are pleased to call their club; and
+the skipper had to recommission his boat, get in provisions for the
+voyage, engage his crew, pay off debts, and attend to a thousand and one
+minute details&mdash;all to be done after the contract to carry the madcap
+passengers had been signed and sealed, added to the more practical
+triviality of three-fourths of the charge being paid down. And then our
+captain, to add to the dilemma, vociferously yelled to us, in some
+unknown jargon which got on our nerves terribly, that he was waiting for
+a &quot;lucky&quot; day to raise anchor.</p>
+
+<p>However, we did, as the reader will be able to imagine, eventually get
+away, amid the firing of countless deafening crackers, after having
+watched the sacrifice of a cock to the God of the River, with the
+invocation that we might be kept in safety. Poling and rowing through a
+maze of junks, our little floating caravan, with the two magnates on
+board, and their picul of rice, their curry and their sugar, and
+slenderest outfits, bowled along under plain sail, the fore-deck packed
+with a motley team of somewhat dirty and ill-fed trackers, who whistled
+and halloed the peculiar hallo of the Upper Yangtze for more wind.</p>
+
+<p>The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered
+speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world
+untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_A_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_A_1'>[A]</a><div class='note'><p> This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I
+revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with
+the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my
+impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more
+native life, and&mdash;more native dirt!&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_B_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_B_2'>[B]</a><div class='note'><p> The <i>Kinsha</i> was the first British gunboat on the Upper
+Yangtze.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='SECOND_JOURNEY'></a><h2>SECOND JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING, THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_II'></a><h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Gloom in Ichang Gorge</i>. <i>Lightning's effect</i>. <i>Travellers' fear</i>.
+<i>Impressive introduction to the Gorges</i>. <i>Boat gets into Yangtze
+fashion</i>. <i>Storm and its weird effects</i>. <i>Wu-pan: what it is</i>. <i>Heavenly
+electricity and its vagaries</i>. <i>Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy
+rain</i>. <i>Bedding soaked</i>. <i>Sleep in a Burberry</i>. <i>Gorges and Niagara
+Falls compared</i>. <i>Bad descriptions of Yangtze</i>. <i>World of eternity</i>.
+<i>Man's significant insignificance</i>. <i>Life on board briefly described</i>.
+<i>Philosophy of travel</i>. <i>Houseboat life not luxurious</i>. <i>Lose our only
+wash-basin</i>. <i>Remarks on the &quot;boy.&quot; A change in the kitchen:
+questionable soup</i>. <i>Fairly low temperature</i>. <i>Troubles in the larder</i>.
+<i>General arrangements on board</i>. <i>Crew's sleeping-place</i>. <i>Sacking makes
+a curtain</i>. <i>Journalistic labors not easy</i>. <i>Rats preponderate</i>. <i>Gorges
+described statistically</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
+slowly and impenetrably over all things.</p>
+
+<p>A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
+amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
+distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
+the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as
+black as ink.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
+assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
+to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north
+against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
+seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting
+but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the
+sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then, suddenly,
+with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking the earth
+under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell&mdash;impenetrable,
+sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight.
+Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the
+reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men,
+aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with
+a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the
+darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge&mdash;a magnificent sixteen-mile
+stretch, opening up the famous gorges on the fourth of the great rivers
+of the world, which had cleaved its course through a chain of hills,
+whose perpendicular cliffs form wonderful rock-bound banks, dispelling
+all thought of the monotony of the Lower Yangtze.</p>
+
+<p>Upstream we had glided merrily upon a fresh breeze, which bore the
+warning of a storm. All on board was settling down into Yangtze fashion,
+and the barbaric human clamor of our trackers, which now mutteringly
+died away, was suddenly taken up, as above recorded, and all
+unexpectedly answered by a grander uproar&mdash;a deep threatening boom of
+far-off thunder. In circling tones and semitones of wrath it volleyed
+gradually through the dark ravines, and, startled by the sound, the two
+travelers, roused for the first time from their natural engrossment in
+the common doings of the <i>wu-pan</i>,<a name='FNanchor_C_3'></a><a href='#Footnote_C_3'><sup>[C]</sup></a> saw the reflection of the sun on
+the waters, now turned to a livid murkiness, deepening with a
+threatening ink-like aspect as the river rushed voluminously past our
+tiny floating haven. Strangely silenced were we by this weird terror,
+and watched and listened, chained to the deck by a thousand mingled
+fears and fascinations, which breathed upon our nerves like a chill
+wind. As we became accustomed then to the yellow darkness, we beheld
+about the landscape a spectral look, and the sepulchral sound of the
+moving thunder seemed the half-muffled clang of some great iron-tongued
+funeral bell. Then came the rain, introduced swiftly by the deafening
+clatter of another thunder crash that made one stagger like a ship in a
+wild sea, and we strained our eyes to gaze into a visionary chasm
+cleaved in twain by the furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the
+unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this
+singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it
+flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination
+quite indescribable.</p>
+
+<p>For hours we sat upon a beam athwart the afterdeck, in silence drinking
+in the strange phenomenon. We watched, after a small feed of curry and
+rice, long into the dark hours, when the thunder had passed us by, and
+in the distant booming one could now imagine the lower notes streaming
+forth from some great solemn organ symphony. The fierce lightning
+twitched, as it danced in and out the crevices&mdash;inwards, outwards,
+upwards, then finally lost in one downward swoop towards the river,
+tearing open the liquid blackness with its crystal blade of fire. The
+rain ceased not. But soon the moon, peeping out from the tops of a
+jagged wall above us, looking like a soiled, half-melted snowball, shone
+full down the far-stretching gorge, and now its broad lustre shed
+itself, like powdered silver, over the whole scene, so that one could
+have imagined oneself in the living splendor of some eternal sphere of
+ethereal sweetness. And so it might have been had the rain abated&mdash;a
+curious accompaniment to a moonlight night. Down it came, straight and
+determined and businesslike, in the windless silence, dancing like a
+shower of diamonds of purest brilliance on the background of the placid
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>Very beautiful, reader, for a time. But would that the rain had been all
+moonshine!</p>
+
+<p>Glorious was it to revel in for a time. But, during the weary night
+watches, in a bed long since soaked through, and one's safest
+nightclothes now the stolid Burberry, with face protected by a
+twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with
+the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and
+uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the
+worn-out bamboo matting&mdash;ah, it was then, <i>then</i> that one would have
+foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic life of the <i>wu-pan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Our introduction, therefore, to the great Gorges of the Upper
+Yangtze&mdash;to China what the Niagara Falls are to America&mdash;was not
+remarkable for its placidity, albeit taken with as much complacency as
+the occasion allowed.</p>
+
+<p>I do not, however, intend to weary or to entertain the reader, as may
+be, by a long description of the Yangtze gorges. Time and time again
+have they fallen to the imaginative pens of travelers&mdash;mostly bad or
+indifferent descriptions, few good; none better, perhaps, than Mrs.
+Bishop's. But at best they are imaginative&mdash;they lack reality. It has
+been said that the world of imagination is the world of eternity, and as
+of eternity, so of the Gorges&mdash;they cannot be adequately described. As I
+write now in the Ichang Gorge, I seem veritably to have reached
+eternity. I seem to have arrived at the bosom of an after-life, where
+one's body has ceased to vegetate, and where, in an infinite and eternal
+world of imagination, one's soul expands with fullest freedom. There
+seems to exist in this eternal world of unending rock and invulnerable
+precipice permanent realities which stand from eternity to eternity. As
+the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies,
+so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go
+on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his
+imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as
+a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the
+gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's
+significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous
+grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world&mdash;a spot in which
+blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility
+and patience are the first requisites in traveling on the Upper Yangtze.</p>
+
+<p>Reader, for your sake I refrain from a description. But may I, for
+perhaps your sake too, if you would wander hither ere the charm of
+things as they were in the beginning is still unrobbed and unmolested,
+give you some few impressions of a little of the life&mdash;grave, gay, but
+never unhappy&mdash;which I spent with my excellent co-voyager, The Other
+Man.</p>
+
+<p>It is a part of wisdom, when starting any journey, not to look forward
+to the end with too much eagerness: hear my gentle whisper that you may
+never get there, and if you do, congratulate yourself; interest yourself
+in the progress of the journey, for the present only is yours. Each day
+has its tasks, its rapids, its perils, its glories, its fascinations,
+its surprises, and&mdash;if you will live as we did, its <i>curry and rice</i>.
+Then, if you are traveling with a companion, remember that it is better
+to yield a little than to quarrel a great deal. Most disagreeable and
+undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what
+people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than
+on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life
+is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking
+it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace,
+if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to
+incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning to
+the end of the trip, make the best of everything in every way, and I can
+assure you, if you are not ill-tempered and suffer not from your liver,
+Nature will open her bosom and lead you by these strange by-ways into
+her hidden charms and unadorned recesses of sublime beauty, uneclipsed
+for their kind anywhere in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Think not that the life will be luxurious&mdash;houseboat life on the Upper
+Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of
+the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact,
+the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Our <i>wu-pan</i> was to get through the Gorges in as short a time as was
+possible, and for that reason we traveled in the discomfort of the
+smallest boat used to face the rapids.</p>
+
+<p>People entertaining the smallest idea of doing things travel in nothing
+short of a <i>kwadze</i>, the orthodox houseboat, with several rooms and
+ordinary conveniences. Ours was a <i>wu-pan</i>&mdash;literally five boards. We
+had no conveniences whatever, and the second morning out we were left
+without even a wash-basin. As I was standing in the stern, I saw it
+swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the
+perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us
+how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the
+crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped
+by the river&mdash;and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead.
+The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated
+something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh
+and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a
+combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the
+morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the
+typewriter.</p>
+
+<p>Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty
+well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He
+dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no
+ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other
+Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally
+concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and
+at once christened it as &quot;consomm&eacute; &agrave; la maotsi&quot;&mdash;and we can recommend
+it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we
+asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a
+rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His
+face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking
+curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning&mdash;the temperature
+below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name
+of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you
+come for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas!&quot; he shouted, for we were at a rapid, &quot;my savee makee good chow.
+No have got nothing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No have got nothing! No have got nothing!&quot; Mysterious words, what could
+they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our
+sugar?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fellow's a swindler!&quot; cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But
+that's all very well. &quot;No have got nothing!&quot; Ah, there lay the secret.
+Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again
+with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were
+powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were
+victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice
+towards him personally&mdash;but ... <i>could he do it?</i> Either a great wrath
+or a great sorrow overcame the boy; he skulked past, asked us to lie
+down on our shelves, where we had our beds, to give him room, and then
+set to work.</p>
+
+<p>In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal (all out of the same
+pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In
+parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with
+them about seven-eighths of the picul&mdash;and were not at all regretful.</p>
+
+<p>I should not like to assert&mdash;because I am telling the truth here&mdash;that
+our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was
+some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew
+eight inches of water. Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our
+dressing-rooms, our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional
+medicine-room, our cooking-room&mdash;and all else. If we stood bolt upright
+in the saloon amidships we bumped our heads on the bamboo matting which
+formed an arched roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men&mdash;you may
+question it, reader, but they did; in the stern, on either side of a
+great rudder, slept our boy and a friend of his; and between them and
+us, laid out flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship's cook for
+the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables, and the
+breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm all around one) were the
+captain and commodore&mdash;a fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature,
+strenuous at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain&mdash;a piece of
+sacking, but one would not wish this to be known&mdash;dividing them from us,
+we could see him preparing his globules to smoke before turning in for
+the night, and despite our frequent raving objections, our words ringing
+with vibrating abuse, it continued all the way to Chung-king: he
+certainly gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get him to say
+anything bearing upon the matter. Temperature during the day stood at
+about 50 degrees, and at night went down to about 30 degrees above
+freezing point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic labors, seated upon
+the upturned saucepan aforesaid, without a cushion, went hard. At night
+the Chinese candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center of an
+empty &quot;Three Castles&quot; tin, which the boy had used for some days as a
+pudding dish, gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats, and as
+many others as we happened to have. Rats crawled over our uncurtained
+bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears
+or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to
+us&mdash;they were made on board.</p>
+
+<p>The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be
+passed through before one reaches Kweifu:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td align='left'>NAME OF GORGE</td><td align='left'>LENGTH</td><td align='left'>REMARKS</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Ichang Gorge</td><td align='left'>16 miles</td><td align='left'>First and probably one  of the finest of the Gorges.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Niu Kan Ma Fee (or Ox Liver Gorge)</td><td align='center'>4 miles</td><td align='left'>An hour's journey after coming out of the Ichang Gorge, if the breeze be favorable; an arduous day's journey during high river, with no wind. </td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Mi Tsang (or Rice Granary Gorge)</td><td align='center'>2 miles</td><td align='left'>Finest view is obtained from western extremity; exceedingly precipitous.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Niu Kou (or Buffalo Mouth Reach)</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td><td align='left'>Very quiet in low-water season; wild stretch during high river. At the head of this reach H.M.S. <i>Woodlark</i> came to grief on her maiden trip.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Urishan Hsia (or Gloomy Mountain Gorge)</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td><td align='left'>Over thirty miles in length. Grandest and highest gorge <i>en route to</i> Chung-king. Half-way through is the boundary between Hu-peh and Szech'wan.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Fang Hsian Hsia (or Windbox Gorge)</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td><td align='left'>Last of the gorges; just beyond is the city of Kweifu.</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_C_3'></a><a href='#FNanchor_C_3'>[C]</a><div class='note'><p> A <i>wu-pan</i> (literally <i>wu</i> of five and <i>pan</i> of boards) is
+a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They
+are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the
+river on which they ply.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_III'></a><h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h4>THE YANGTZE RAPIDS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated
+on the river upward from Ichang. One of the chief discomforts the
+traveler first experiences is due to a total ignorance of the vicinity
+of the main rapids, and often, therefore, when he is least expecting it
+perhaps, he is called upon by the <i>laoban</i> to go ashore. He has then to
+pack up the things he values, is dragged ashore himself, his gear
+follows, and one who has no knowledge of the language and does not know
+the ropes is, therefore, never quite happy for fear of some rapid
+turning up. By comparing the rapids with the Gorges the traveler would,
+however, from the lists given, be able easily to trace the whereabouts
+of the more dangerous rushes; which are distributed with alarming
+frequency on the river between Ichang and Kweifu.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>TA TONG T'AN (OTTER CAVE RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Low water rapid. Swirling volume of coffee and milk color; round about a
+maze of rapids and races, in the Yao-cha Ho reach.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>TONG LING RAPID</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the Ox Liver Gorge. An enormous black rock lies amid
+stream some forty feet below, or perhaps as much above the surface, but
+unless experienced at low water will not appeal to the traveler as a
+rapid; passage dangerous, dreaded during low-water season. On Dec. 28th,
+1900, the German steamer, <i>Sui-Hsiang</i> was lost here. She foundered in
+twenty-five fathoms of water, with an immense hole ripped in her bottom
+by the black rock; all on board saved by the red boats, with the
+exception of the captain.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HSIN T'AN RAPIDS (OR CHIN T'AN RAPIDS)</p>
+
+<p>During winter quite formidable; the head, second and third rapids
+situated in close proximity, the head rapid being far the worst to
+negotiate. On a bright winter's day one of the finest spectacles on the
+Upper Yangtze. Wrecks frequent. Just at head of Ox Liver Gorge.</p>
+<br />
+<p>YEH T'AN (OR WILD RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>River reduced suddenly to half its width by an enormous detritus of
+boulders, taking the form of a huge jagged tongue, with curling on
+edges; commonly said to be high when the Hsin T'an is low. At its worst
+during early summer and autumn. Wrecks frequent, after Mi Tsang Gorge is
+passed, eight miles from Kwei-chow.</p>
+<br />
+<p>NIU K'EO T'AN (BUFFALO MOUTH RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Situated at the head of Buffalo Mouth Reach, said to be more difficult
+to approach than even the Yeh T'an, because of the great swirls in the
+bay below. H.M.S. <i>Woodlark</i> came to grief here on her maiden trip up
+river.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge,
+particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906,
+the French gunboat <i>Olry</i> came within an ace of destruction by losing
+her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong
+for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working
+astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the
+way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back
+undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to
+and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management
+she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually
+brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden
+jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her
+destination.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HEH SH&Iuml;H T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon
+Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low
+river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as
+1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its
+breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced
+this roaring rapid.</p>
+
+<p>This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky
+bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped,
+tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift
+back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at
+its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly
+with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely
+disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and
+March, when it certainly merits the appellation of &quot;Glorious Dragon
+Rapid,&quot; presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome
+one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A
+hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children,
+are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din
+of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat
+is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Chinese myths, the
+landslip which produced the rapid was caused by the following
+circumstance. The ova of a dragon being deposited in the bowels of the
+earth at this particular spot, in due course became hatched out in some
+mysterious manner. The baby dragon grew and grew, but remained in a
+dormant state until quite full grown, when, as is the habit of the
+dragon, it became active, and at the first awakening shook down the
+hill-side by a mighty effort, freed himself from the bowels of the
+earth, and made his way down river to the sea; hence the landslip, the
+rapid, and its name.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>FUH T'AN RAPID (OR TIGER RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Eight miles beyond Wan Hsien. Very savage during summer months, but does
+not exist during low-water season. Beyond this point river widens
+considerably. Twenty-five miles further on travelers should look out for
+Sh&iuml;h Pao Chai, or Precious Stone Castle, a remarkable cliff some 250 or
+300 feet high. A curious eleven-storied pavilion, built up the face of
+the cliff, contains the stairway to the summit, on which stands a
+Buddhist temple. There is a legend attached to this remarkable rock that
+savors very much of the goose with the golden eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, from a small natural aperture near the summit, a
+supply of rice sufficient for the needs of the priests flowed daily into
+a basin-shaped hole, just large enough to hold the day's supply.</p>
+
+<p>The priests, however, thinking to get a larger daily supply, chiselled
+out the basin-shaped hole to twice its original size, since when the
+flow of rice ceased.</p>
+<br />
+<p>KWAN &Iuml;N T'AN (OR GODDESS OF MERCY RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Two miles beyond the town of Feng T'ou. Like the Fuh T'an, is an
+obstacle to navigation only during the summer months, when junks are
+often obliged to wait for several days for a favorable opportunity to
+cross the rapid.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a><h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Scene at the Rapid</i>. <i>Dangers of the Yeh T'an</i>. <i>Gear taken ashore</i>.
+<i>Intense cold</i>. <i>Further preparation</i>. <i>Engaging the trackers</i>. <i>Fever
+of excitement</i>. <i>Her nose is put to it</i>. <i>Struggles for mastery</i>.
+<i>Author saves boatman</i>. <i>Fifteen-knot current</i>. <i>Terrific labor on
+shore</i>. <i>Man nearly falls overboard</i>. <i>Straining hawsers carry us over
+safely</i>. <i>The merriment among the men</i>. <i>The thundering cataract</i>.
+<i>Trackers' chanting</i>. <i>Their life</i>. <i>&quot;Pioneer&quot; at the Yeh T'an</i>. <i>The
+Buffalo Mouth Reach</i>. <i>Story of the &quot;Woodlark.&quot;</i> <i>How she was saved</i>.
+<i>Arrival at Kweifu</i>. <i>Difficulty in landing</i>. <i>Laying in provisions</i>.
+<i>Author laid up with malaria</i>. <i>Survey of trade in Shanghai and
+Hong-Kong</i>. <i>Where and why the Britisher fails</i>. <i>Comparison with
+Germans</i>. <i>Three western provinces and pack-horse traffic</i>. <i>Advantages
+of new railway</i>. <i>Yangtze likely to be abandoned</i>. <i>East India Company.
+French and British interests</i>. <i>Hint to Hong-Kong Chamber of Commerce.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Wild shrieking, frantic yelling, exhausted groaning, confusion and
+clamor,&mdash;one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of
+reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and
+distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the
+scrunching, the straining, and then&mdash;a final snap! Back we go, sheering
+helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters,
+and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us
+anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the
+rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of
+gratitude to the deity of the river.</p>
+
+<p>We were at the Yeh T'an, or the Wild Rapid, some distance on from the
+Ichang Gorge, were almost over the growling monster, when the tow-line,
+straining to its utmost limit, snapped suddenly with little warning, and
+we drifted in a moment or two away down to last night's anchorage, far
+below, where we were obliged to bring up the last of the long tier of
+boats of which we were this morning the first.</p>
+
+<p>And now we are ready again to take our turn.</p>
+
+<p>Our gear is all taken ashore. Seated on a stone on shore, watching
+operations, is The Other Man. The sun vainly tries to get through, and
+the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time.
+The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out,
+their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to
+the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the
+'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to
+feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way,
+is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring
+towards the boat, in a fever of excitement that rises higher every
+moment, the natural elements of hunger and constant struggle against the
+great river swell their fury; they bellow like wild beasts, <i>they are
+like beasts</i>, for they have known nothing but struggle all their lives;
+they have always, since they were tiny children, been fighting this
+roaring water monster&mdash;they know none else. And now, as I say, they
+bellow like beasts, each man ravenously eager to be among the number
+chosen to earn a few cash.<a name='FNanchor_D_4'></a><a href='#Footnote_D_4'><sup>[D]</sup></a> The arrangement at last is made, and the
+discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening.
+It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then
+harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with
+which they connect themselves to the straining tow-lines.</p>
+
+<p>And now her nose is put into the teeth of this trough of treachery&mdash;a
+veritable boiling cauldron, stirring up all past mysteries. Waves rush
+furiously towards us, with the growl of a thousand demons, whose anger
+is only swelled by the thousands of miles of her course from far-away
+Tibet. It seems as if they must instantly devour her, and that we must
+now go under to swell the number of their victims. But they only beat
+her back, for she rides gracefully, faltering timidly with frightened
+creaks and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with
+their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very
+death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic
+bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty
+is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his
+single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky
+little laugh and asks if he has hurt me&mdash;yelling through his hands in my
+ears, for the noise is terrible. To look out over the side makes me
+giddy, for the fifteen-knot current, blustering and bubbling and foaming
+and leaping, gives one the feeling that he is in an express train
+tearing through the sea. On shore, far ahead, I can see the
+trackers&mdash;struggling forms of men and women, touching each other,
+grasping each other, wrestling furiously and mightily, straining on all
+fours, now gripping a boulder to aid them forward, now to the right, now
+to the left, always fighting for one more inch, and engaged in a task
+which to one seeing it for the first time looks as if it were quite
+beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers,
+whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the
+average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb
+frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on
+the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch
+by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead
+against the leaping current in the gapway in the reef.</p>
+
+<p>None come to offer assistance to our crowd, who are now turned facing
+us, and strain almost flat on their backs, giving the strength of every
+drop of blood and fibre of their being; and the scene, now lit up by a
+momentary glimmer of feeble sunlight, assumes a wonderful and terrible
+picturesqueness. I am chained to the spot by a horrible fascination, and
+I find myself unconsciously saying, &quot;I fear she will not go. I fear&mdash;&quot;
+But a man has fallen exhausted, he almost fell overboard, and now leans
+against the mast in utter weariness and fatigue, brought on by the
+morning's exertions. He is instantly relieved by a bull-dog fellow of
+enormous strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying
+moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for
+the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and
+self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak,
+crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There
+is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and
+you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous
+quiver of the timbers, and you turn to see the angry water, which sounds
+as if a hundred hounds are beating under us for entry at the barred
+door. There is another deafening yell, the men tear away like frightened
+horses. Another mighty pull, and another, and another, and we slide over
+into smooth water.</p>
+
+<p>Then I breathe freely, and yell myself.</p>
+
+<p>The little boat seems to gasp for breath as a drowning man, saved in the
+nick of time, shudders in every limb with pain and fear.</p>
+
+<p>As we tied up in smooth water, all the men, from the <i>laoban</i> to the
+meanest tracker, laughed and yelled and told each other how it was done.
+We baled the water out of the boat, and one was glad to pull away from
+the deafening hum of the thundering cataract. A faulty tow-line, a
+slippery hitch, one false step, one false maneuver, and the shore might
+have been by that time strewn with our corpses. As it was, we were safe
+and happy.</p>
+
+<p>But the trackers are strange creatures. At times they are a quarter of a
+mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines
+of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky
+promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their
+bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river.
+Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his
+body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last
+journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet
+these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their
+lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and
+receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.</p>
+
+<p>Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by
+mentioning the exploits of the steamer <i>Pioneer</i>, which on three
+consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and,
+though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged
+to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of
+her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard
+and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the
+hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the
+dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought
+by the great variation in the level of the river, that this formidable
+mid-level rapid completely disappears at high level.</p>
+
+<p>After we had left this rapid&mdash;and right glad were we to get away&mdash;we
+came, after a couple of hours' run, to the Niu K'eo, or Buffalo Mouth
+Reach, quiet enough during the low-water season, but a wild stretch
+during high river, where many a junk is caught by the violently gyrating
+swirls, rendered unmanageable, and dashed to atoms on some rocky
+promontory or boulder pile in as short a space of time as it takes to
+write it. It was here that the <i>Woodlark</i>, one of the magnificent
+gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union
+Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One
+of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders
+useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the
+foaming rapid. The engines were immediately reversed to full speed
+astern; but the swift current, combined with the momentum of the ship,
+carried her willy-nilly to the rock-bound shore, on which she crumpled
+her bows as if they were made of tin. Fortunately she was built in
+water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section,
+straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted
+the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at
+Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges. This town,
+formerly a considerable coaling center, overlooks most beautiful
+hillocks, with cottage gardens cultivated in every accessible corner,
+and a wide sweep of the river.</p>
+
+<p>We landed with difficulty. &quot;Chor, chor!&quot; yelled the trackers, who marked
+time to their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step;
+but they almost gave up the ghost. However, we did land, and so did our
+boy, who bought excellent provisions and meat, which, alas! too soon
+disappeared. The mutton and beef gradually grew less and daily
+blackened, wrapped up in opposite corners of the cabin, under the
+protection from the wet of a couple of sheets of the &quot;Pink 'Un.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From Kweifu to Wan Hsien there was the same kind of scenery&mdash;the clear
+river winding among sand-flats and gravel-banks, with occasional stiff
+rapids. But after having been in a <i>wu-pan</i> for several days, suffering
+that which has been detailed, and much besides, the journey got a bit
+dreary. These, however, are ordinary circumstances; but when one has
+been laid up on a bench of a bed for three days with a high temperature,
+a legacy of several years in the humid tropics, the physical discomfort
+baffles description. Malaria, as all sufferers know, has a tendency to
+cause trouble as soon as one gets into cold weather, and in my case, as
+will be seen in subsequent parts of this book, it held faithfully to its
+best traditions. Fever on the Yangtze in a <i>wu-pan</i> would require a
+chapter to itself, not to mention the kindly eccentricities of a
+companion whose knowledge of malaria was most elementary and whose
+knowledge of nursing absolutely <i>nil</i>. But I refrain. As also do I of
+further talk about the Yangtze gorges and the rapids.</p>
+
+<p>From Kweifu to Wan Hsien is a tedious journey. The country opens out,
+and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and
+difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in
+comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward
+happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have
+happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be
+accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all
+precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance
+elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from
+Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat
+having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no
+less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry,
+while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A hopeless cry is continually ascending in Hong-Kong and Shanghai that
+trade is bad, that the palmy days are gone, and that one might as well
+leave business to take care of itself.</p>
+
+<p>And it is not to be denied that increased trade in the Far East does not
+of necessity mean increased profits. Competition has rendered buying and
+selling, if they are to show increased dividends, a much harder task
+than some of the older merchants had when they built up their businesses
+twenty or thirty years ago. There is no comparison. But Hong-Kong, by
+virtue of her remarkably favorable position geographically, should
+always be able to hold her own; and now that the railway has pierced the
+great province of Y&uuml;n-nan, and brought the provinces beyond the
+navigable Yangtze nearer to the outside world, she should be able to
+reap a big harvest in Western China, if merchants will move at the right
+time. More often than not the Britisher loses his trade, not on account
+of the alleged reason that business is not to be done, but because,
+content with his club life, and with playing games when he should be
+doing business, he allows the German to rush past him, and this man, an
+alien in the colony, by persistent plodding and other more or less
+commendable traits of business which I should like to detail, but for
+which I have no space, takes away the trade while the Britisher looks
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the trade of the three western provinces&mdash;Y&uuml;n-nan,
+Kwei-chow and Szech'wan&mdash;has for all time been handled by Shanghai,
+going into the interior by the extremely hazardous route of these
+Yangtze rapids, and then over the mountains by coolie or pack-horse.
+This has gone on for centuries. But now the time has come for the
+Hong-Kong trader to step in and carry away the lion share of the greatly
+increasing foreign trade for those three provinces by means of the
+advantage the new Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway has given him.</p>
+
+<p>The railway runs from Haiphong in Indo-China to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the capital
+of Y&uuml;n-nan province. And it appears certain to the writer that, with
+such an important town three or four days from the coast, shippers will
+not be content to continue to ship via the Yangtze, with all its risk.
+British and American merchants, who carry the greater part of the
+imports to Western China, will send their goods direct to Hong-Kong,
+where transhipment will be made to Haiphong, and thence shipped by rail
+to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the distributing center for inland trade. To my mind,
+Hong-Kong merchants might control the whole of the British trade of
+Western China if they will only push, for although the tariff of Tonkin
+may be heavy, it would be compensated by the fact that transit would be
+so much quicker and safer. But it needs push.</p>
+
+<p>The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East
+India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle
+to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who
+have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their
+officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from
+the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself,
+as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must
+admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore,
+if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper,
+he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself
+of the opportunity. Shanghai has held the trump card formerly. This
+cannot be denied. But I think the railway is destined to turn the trade
+route to the other side of the empire. It is merely a question as to who
+is to get the trade&mdash;the French or the British. The French are on the
+alert. They cannot get territory; now they are after the trade.</p>
+
+<p>It is my opinion that it would be to the advantage of the colony of
+Hong-Kong were the Chamber of Commerce there to investigate the matter
+thoroughly. Now is the time.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_D_4'></a><a href='#FNanchor_D_4'>[D]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>Cash</i>, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle.
+Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THIRD_JOURNEY'></a><h2>THIRD JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW)</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_V'></a><h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Beginning of the overland journey</i>. <i>The official halo around the
+caravan</i>. <i>The people's goodbyes</i>. <i>Stages to Sui-fu</i>. <i>A persistent
+coolie</i>. <i>My boy's indignation, and the sequel</i>. <i>Kindness of the people
+of Chung-king</i>. <i>The Chung-king Consulate</i>. <i>Need of keeping fit in
+travelling in China</i>. <i>Walking tabooed</i>. <i>The question of &quot;face&quot; and
+what it means</i>. <i>Author runs the gauntlet</i>. <i>Carrying coolie's rate of
+pay</i>. <i>The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks
+thereon</i>. <i>The garden of China</i>. <i>Magnificence of the scenery of Western
+China</i>. <i>The tea-shops</i>. <i>The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author
+drank</i>. <i>Population of Szech-wan</i>. <i>Minerals found</i>. <i>Salt and other
+things</i>. <i>The Chinese inn: how it holds the palm for unmitigated filth</i>.
+<i>Description of the rooms</i>. <i>Szech-wan and Y&uuml;n-nan caravanserais</i>. <i>Need
+of a camp bed</i>. <i>Toileting in unsecluded publicity</i>. <i>How the author was
+met at market towns</i>. <i>How the days do not get dull</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>In a manner admirably befitting my rank as an English traveler, apart
+from the fact that I was the man who was endeavoring to cross China on
+foot, I was led out of Chung-king <i>en route</i> for Bhamo alone, my
+companion having had to leave me here.</p>
+
+<p>It was Easter Sunday, a crisp spring morning.</p>
+
+<p>First came a public sedan-chair, bravely borne by three of the finest
+fellows in all China, at the head of which on either side were two
+uniformed persons called soldiers&mdash;incomprehensible to one who has no
+knowledge of the interior, for they bore no marks whatever of the
+military&mdash;whilst uniformed men also solemnly guarded the back. Then
+came the grinning coolies, carrying that meager portion of my worldly
+goods which I had anticipated would have been engulfed in the Yangtze.
+And at the head of all, leading them on as captains do the Salvation
+Army, was I myself, walking along triumphantly, undoubtedly looking a
+person of weight, but somehow peculiarly unable to get out of my head
+that little adage apropos the fact that when the blind shall lead the
+blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my
+falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the
+way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions
+presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through
+which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out
+to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through the town.</p>
+
+<p>All the people were in the middle of the streets&mdash;those slippery streets
+of interminable steps&mdash;to give me at parting their blessings or their
+curses, and only with difficulty and considerable shouting and pushing
+could I sufficiently take their attention from the array of official and
+civil servants who made up my caravan as to effect an exit.</p>
+
+<p>The following were to be stages:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Ts'eo-ma-k'ang</td><td align='left'>80 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;&Uuml;in-ch'uan hsien</td><td align='left'>120 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Li-sh&iuml;h-ch'ang</td><td align='left'>105 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Luchow</td><td align='left'>75 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Lan-ching-ch'ang</td><td align='left'>80 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Lan-ch&iuml;-hsien</td><td align='left'>75 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Sui-fu</td><td align='left'>120 li.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>In my plainest English and with many cruel gestures, four miles from the
+town, I told a man that he narrowly escaped being knocked down, owing to
+his extremely rude persistence in accosting me and obstructing my way.
+He acquiesced, opened his large mouth to the widest proportions, seemed
+thoroughly to understand, but continued more noisily to prevent me from
+going onwards, yelling something at the top of his husky voice&mdash;a voice
+more like a fog-horn than a human voice&mdash;which made me fear that I had
+done something very wrong, but which later I interpreted ignorantly as
+impudent humor.</p>
+
+<p>I owed nothing; so far as I knew, I had done nothing wrong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hi, fellow! come out of the way! Reverse your carcass a bit, old chap!
+Get&mdash;&mdash;! What the&mdash;&mdash; who the&mdash;&mdash;?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, master, he wantchee makee much bobbery. He no b'long my pidgin,
+d&mdash;&mdash; rogue! He wantchee catch one more hundred cash! He b'long one
+piecee chairman!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This to me from my boy in apologetic explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Then, turning wildly upon the man, after the manner of his kind raising
+his little fat body to the tips of his toes and effectively assuming the
+attitude of the stage actor, he cursed loudly to the uttermost of
+eternity the impudent fellow's ten thousand relatives and ancestry;
+which, although it called forth more mutual confidences of a like
+nature, and made T'ong (my boy) foam at the mouth with rage at such an
+inopportune proceeding happening so early in his career, rendering it
+necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed
+him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been
+dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud
+dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again,
+did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off&mdash;for it was assuredly
+one of the trio&mdash;leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy
+ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag.
+We did not come to terms. I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my
+path and walked on.</p>
+
+<p>Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their
+kindness the terrible three days spent still in our <i>wu-pan</i> on the
+crowded beach would have been more terrible still.</p>
+
+<p>At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed
+up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in
+Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular
+Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an
+attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as
+he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and
+both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king
+Consulate is probably the finest&mdash;certainly one of the finest&mdash;in China,
+built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the
+bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds,
+has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being
+the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped
+to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be
+arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.</p>
+
+<p>People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.</p>
+
+<p>Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible
+anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to
+maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you
+have got the money to pay your way;<a name='FNanchor_E_5'></a><a href='#Footnote_E_5'><sup>[E]</sup></a> but walking is a very different
+thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually
+walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China
+Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to
+Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably
+easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible,
+but because the custom of the country&mdash;and a cursed custom too&mdash;is that
+one has to keep what is called his &quot;face.&quot; And to walk tends to make a
+man lose &quot;face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the
+question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially
+a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner
+<i>must</i> have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath,
+because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler
+in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would
+travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the
+honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with
+this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside
+on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries, to be relegated to the
+worst inn's worst room, and to be generally treated with indignity? This
+idea of mine of crossing China on foot was preposterous!</p>
+
+<p>Even Mr. Hudson Broomhall, of the China Inland Mission, who with Mrs.
+Broomhall was extremely kind, and did all he could to fit me up for the
+journey (it is such remembrances that make the trip one which I would
+not mind doing again), was surprised to know that I was walking, and
+tried to persuade me to take a chair. But I flew in the face of it all.
+These good people certainly impressed me, but I decided to run the
+gauntlet and take the risk.</p>
+
+<p>The question of &quot;face&quot; is always merely one of theory, never of fact,
+and the principles that govern &quot;face&quot; and its attainment were wholly
+beyond my apprehension. &quot;I shall probably be more concerned in saving my
+life than in saving my face,&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore it was that when I reached a place called Fu-to-gwan I
+discarded all superfluities of dress, and strode forward, just at that
+time in the early morning when the sun was gilding the dewdrops on the
+hedgerows with a grandeur which breathed encouragement to the traveler,
+in a flannel shirt and flannel pants&mdash;a terrible breach of foreign
+etiquette, no doubt, but very comfortable to one who was facing the
+first eighty li he had ever walked on China's soil. My three
+coolies&mdash;the typical Chinese coolie of Szech'wan, but very good fellows
+with all their faults&mdash;were to land me at Sui-fu, 230 miles distant
+(some 650 li), in seven days' time. They were to receive four hundred
+cash per man per day, were to find themselves, and if I reached Sui-fu
+within the specified time I agreed to <i>kumshaw</i> them to the extent of an
+extra thousand.<a name='FNanchor_F_6'></a><a href='#Footnote_F_6'><sup>[F]</sup></a> They carried, according to the arrangement, ninety
+catties apiece, and their rate of pay I did not consider excessive until
+I found that each man sublet his contract for a fourth of his pay, and
+trotted along light-heartedly and merry at my side; then I regretted
+that I had not thought twice before closing with them.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the solidity of the great paved highways of China
+have been exaggerated. I have not been on the North China highways, but
+have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and
+Y&uuml;n-nan particularly, and have very little praise to lavish upon them.
+Certain it is that the road to Sui-fu does not deserve the nice things
+said about it by various travelers. The whole route from Chung-king to
+Sui-fu, paved with flagstones varying in width from three to six or
+seven feet&mdash;the only main road, of course&mdash;is creditably regular in some
+places, whilst other portions, especially over the mountains, are
+extremely bad and uneven. In some places, I could hardly get along at
+all, and my boy would call out as he came along in his chair behind me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master, I thinkee you makee catch two piecee men makee carry. This
+b'long no proper road. P'raps you makee bad feet come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And truly my feet were shamefully blistered.</p>
+
+<p>One had to step from stone to stone with considerable agility. In places
+bridges had fallen in, nobody had attempted to put them into a decent
+state of repair&mdash;though this is never done in China&mdash;and one of the
+features of every day was the wonderful fashion in which the mountain
+ponies picked their way over the broken route; they are as sure-footed
+as goats.</p>
+
+<p>As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and
+golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the
+inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of
+the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden
+of China. Greater or denser cultivation I had never seen. The
+amphitheater-like hills smiled joyously in the first gentle touches of
+spring and enriching green, each terrace being irrigated from the one
+below by a small stream of water regulated in the most primitive manner
+(the windlass driven by man power), and not a square inch lost. Even the
+mud banks dividing these fertile areas are made to yield on the sides
+cabbages and lettuces and on the tops wheat and poppy. There are no
+fences. You see before you a forest of mountains, made a dark leaden
+color by thick mists, from out of which gradually come the never-ending
+pictures of green and purple and brown and yellow and gold, which roll
+hither and thither under a cloudy sky in indescribable confusion. The
+chain may commence in the south or the north in two or three soft,
+slow-rising undulations, which trend away from you and form a vapory
+background to the landscape. From these (I see such a picture even as I
+write, seated on the stone steps in the middle of a mountain path), at
+once united and peculiarly distinct, rise five masses with rugged
+crests, rough, and cut into shady hollows on the sides, a faint pale
+aureola from the sun on the mists rising over the summits and sharp
+outlines. Looking to the north, an immense curved line shows itself,
+growing ever greater, opening like the arch of a gigantic bridge, and
+binding this first group to a second, more complicated, each peak of
+which has a form of its own, and does in some sort as it pleases without
+troubling itself about its neighbor. The most remarkable point about
+these mountains is the life they seem to possess. It is an incredible
+confusion. Angles are thrown fantastically by some mad geometer, it
+would seem. Splendid banyan trees shelter one after toiling up the
+unending steps, and dotted over the landscape, indiscriminately in
+magnificent picturesqueness, are pretty farmhouses nestling almost out
+of sight in groves of sacred trees. Oftentimes perpendicular mountains
+stand sheer up for three thousand feet or more, their sides to the very
+summits ablaze with color coming from the smiling face of sunny Nature,
+in spots at times where only a twelve-inch cultivation is possible.</p>
+
+<p>A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round
+hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild
+orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer
+and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of
+what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more
+distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut
+perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with
+hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures&mdash;all make up a
+strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie
+can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and
+as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people,
+their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is
+already in print. It were useless to give more of it here&mdash;and, reader,
+you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan&mdash;that thirst which is
+unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of
+the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara&mdash;one does not hear about.</p>
+
+<p>Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst&mdash;so
+very, very much.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder whether you, reader, were ever thirsty? Probably not. You get a
+thirst which is not insatiable. Yours is born of nothing extraordinary;
+yours can be satisfied by a gulp or two of water, or perhaps by a
+drink&mdash;or perhaps two, or perhaps three&mdash;of something stronger. The
+Chinese coolie's thirst arises from the grilling sun, from a dancing
+glare, from hard hauling, struggling with 120 pounds slung over his
+shoulders, dangling at the end of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst
+of the Chinese coolie&mdash;I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and
+sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body;
+I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have
+seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance,
+my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of
+perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop
+and wet myself again. I really <i>must</i> wet myself and swell to life
+again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People come and stare at me, and
+wonder what it is. They, too, are thirsty, for they are all coolies and
+have the coolie thirst.</p>
+
+<p>I wet myself. I pour in cup after cup, and my body, my self sucks it in,
+draws it in as if it were the water of life. Instantly it gushes out
+again at every pore. I swill in more, and out it rushes again, madly
+rushes out as quickly as it can. I swill in more and more, and out it
+comes defiantly. I can keep none inside me. Useless&mdash;I <i>cannot</i> quench
+my thirst. At last the thirst thinks its conquest assured, taking the
+hot tea for a signal of surrender; but I pour in more, and gradually
+feel the tea settling within me. I am a degree less torrid, a shade more
+substantial.</p>
+
+<p>And then here comes my boy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master, you wantchee makee one drink brandy-and-soda. No can catchee
+soda this side&mdash;have got water. Can do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ah! shall I? Shall I? No! I throw it away from me, fling a bottle of
+cheap brandy which he had bought for me at Chung-king away from me, and
+the boy looks forlorn.</p>
+
+<p>Tea is the best of all drinks in China; for the traveler unquestionably
+the best. Good in the morning, good at midday, good in the evening, good
+at night, even after the day's toil has been forgotten. To-morrow I
+shall have more walking, more thirsting, more tea. China tea, thou art a
+godsend to the wayfarer in that great land!</p>
+
+<p>I endeavored to get the details of the population of the province of
+Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent
+illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in
+China&mdash;estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty millions.</p>
+
+<p>The surface of this province is made up of masses of rugged mountains,
+through which the Yangtze has cut its deep and narrow channel. The area
+is everywhere intersected by steep-sided valleys and ravines. The
+world-famed plain of Chen-tu, the capital, is the only plain of any
+size in the province, the system of irrigation employed on it being one
+of the wonders of the world. Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an
+inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the
+stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the
+exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in
+this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its
+climate is even superior&mdash;a land delightfully <i>accident&eacute;e</i>. Among the
+minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and
+petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk.
+Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings,
+some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for
+centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass
+and water buffalo.</p>
+
+<p>The best conditions of Chinese inns are far and away worse than anything
+the traveler would be called upon to encounter anywhere in the British
+Isles, even in the most isolated places in rural Ireland. There can be
+no comparison. And my reader will understand that there is much which
+the European misses in the way of general physical comfort and
+cleanliness. Sanitation is absent <i>in toto</i>. Ordinary decency forbids
+one putting into print what the uninitiated traveler most desires to
+know&mdash;if he would be saved a severe shock at the outset; but everyone
+has to go through it, because one cannot write what one sees. All
+travelers who have had to put up at the caravanseries in Central and
+Western China will bear me out in my assertion that all of them reek
+with filth and are overrun by vermin of every description. The traveler
+whom misfortune has led to travel off the main roads of Russia may
+probably hesitate in expressing an opinion as to which country carries
+off the palm for unmitigated filth; but, with this exception, travelers
+in the Eastern Archipelago, in Central Asia, in Africa among the wildest
+tribes, are pretty well unanimous that compared with all these for dirt,
+disease, discomfort, an utter lack of decency and annoyance, the Chinese
+inn holds its own. And in no part of China more than in Szech'wan and
+Y&uuml;n-nan is greater discomfort experienced.</p>
+
+<p>The usual wooden bedstead stands in the corner of the room with the
+straw bedding (this, by the way, should on no account be removed if one
+wishes to sleep in peace), sometimes there is a table, sometimes a
+couple of chairs. If these are steady it is lucky, if unbroken it is the
+exception; there are never more. Over the bedstead (more often than not,
+by the way, it is composed of four planks of varying lengths and
+thickness, placed across two trestles) I used first to place my oilskin,
+then my <i>p'u-k'ai</i>, and that little creeper which rhymes with hug did
+not disturb me much. Rats ran round and over me in profusion, and, of
+course, the best room being invariably nearest to the pigsties, there
+were the usual stenches. The floor was Mother Earth, which in wet
+weather became mud, and quite a common thing it was for my joys to be
+enhanced during a heavy shower of rain by my having to sleep, almost
+suffocated, mackintosh over my head, owing to a slight break in the
+continuity of the roof&mdash;my umbrella being unavailable, as one of my men
+dropped it over a precipice two days out. For many reasons a camp-bed is
+to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most modest traveling
+equipment. I was many times sorry that I had none with me.</p>
+
+<p>The inns of Szech'wan, however, are by many degrees better than those of
+Y&uuml;n-nan, which are sometimes indescribable. Earthen floors are saturated
+with damp filth and smelling decay; there are rarely the paper windows,
+but merely a sort of opening of woodwork, through which the offensive
+smells of decaying garbage and human filth waft in almost to choke one;
+tables collapse under the weight of one's dinner; walls are always in
+decay and hang inwards threateningly; wicked insects, which crawl and
+jump and bite, creep over the side of one's rice bowl&mdash;and much else.
+Who can describe it? It makes one ill to think of it.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout my journeyings it was necessary for my toileting, in fact,
+everything, to be performed in absolute unalloyed publicity. Three days
+out my boy fixed up a cold bath for me, and barricaded a room which had
+a certain amount of privacy about it, owing to its secluded position;
+but even grown men and women, anxious to see what <i>it</i> was like when it
+had no clothes on, came forward, poked their fingers through the paper
+in the windows (of course, glass is hardly known in the interior), and
+greedily peeped in. This and the profound curiosity the people evince in
+one's every action and movement I found most trying.</p>
+
+<p>It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or
+village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign
+visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again
+with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in
+hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking
+excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes,
+and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or
+not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business
+brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class
+could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered
+foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven
+pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see
+through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in
+their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion
+then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of
+indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room
+for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls
+and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible
+questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from
+the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest
+Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away
+and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy
+would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move
+the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my
+journey in peace.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_E_5'></a><a href='#FNanchor_E_5'>[E]</a><div class='note'><p> This refers to the main roads There are many places in
+isolated and unsurveyed districts where it is extremely difficult and
+often impossible to get along at all&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_F_6'></a><a href='#FNanchor_F_6'>[F]</a><div class='note'><p> This rate of four hundred cash per day per man was
+maintained right up to Tong-ch'uan-fu, although after Chao-t'ong the
+usual rate paid is a little higher, and the bad cash in that district
+made it difficult for my men to arrange four hundred &quot;big&quot; cash current
+in Szech'wan in the Y&uuml;n-nan equivalent. After Tong-ch'uan-fu, right on
+to Burma, the rate of coolie pay varies considerably. Three tsien two
+fen (thirty-two tael cents) was the highest I paid until I got to
+Tengyueh, where rupee money came into circulation, and where expense of
+living was considerably higher.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a><h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Szech-wan people a mercenary lot</i>. <i>Adaptability to trading</i>. <i>None but
+nature lovers should come to Western China</i>. <i>The life of the Nomad</i>.
+<i>The opening of China, and some impressions</i>. <i>China's position in the
+eyes of her own people</i>. <i>Industrialism, railways, and the attitude of
+the populace</i>. <i>Introduction of foreign machinery</i>. <i>Different opinions
+formed in different provinces</i>. <i>Climate, and what it is responsible
+for</i>. <i>Recent Governor of Szech-wan's tribute to Christianity</i>. <i>New
+China and the new student</i>. <i>Revolutionary element in Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Need of
+a new life, and how China is to get it</i>. <i>Luchow, and a little about
+it</i>. <i>Fusong from the military</i>. <i>Necessity of the sedan-chair</i>. <i>Cost
+of lodging</i>. <i>An impudent woman</i>. <i>Choice pidgin-English</i>. <i>Some of the
+annoyances of travel</i>. <i>Canadian and China Inland missionaries</i>.
+<i>Exchange of yarns</i>. <i>Exasperating Chinese life, and its effects on
+Europeans</i>. <i>Men refuse to walk to Sui-fu. Experiences in arranging
+up-river trip</i>. <i>Unmeaning etiquette of Chinese officials toward
+foreigners</i>. <i>Rude awakening in the morning</i>. <i>A trying early-morning
+ordeal</i>. <i>Reckonings do not tally</i>. <i>An eventful day</i>. <i>At the China
+Inland Mission</i>. <i>Impressions of Sui-fu. Fictitious partnerships</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The people of Szech'wan, compared with other Yangtze provinces, must be
+called a mercenary, if a go-ahead, one.</p>
+
+<p>Balancing myself on a three-inch form in a tea-shop at a small town
+midway between Li-sh&iuml;h-ch'ang and Luchow, I am endeavoring to take in
+the scene around me. The people are so numerous in this province that
+they must struggle in order to live. Vain is it for the most energetic
+among them to escape from the shadow of necessity and hunger; all are
+similarly begirt, so they settle down to devote all their energies to
+trade. And trade they do, in very earnest.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is labeled, from the earth to the inhabitants; these
+primitives, these blissfully &quot;heathen&quot; people, have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. I walk up to buy something of the value of only
+a few cash, and on all sides are nets and traps, like spider-webs, and
+the fly that these gentry would catch, as they see me stalk around
+inspecting their wares, is myself. They seem to lie in wait for one, and
+for an article for which a coolie would pay a few cash as many dollars
+are demanded of the foreigner. My boy stands by, however, magnificently
+proud of his lucrative and important post, yelling precautions to the
+curious populace to stand away. He hints, he does not declare outright,
+but by ungentle innuendo allows them to understand that, whatever their
+private characters may be, to him they are all liars and rogues and
+thieves. It is all so funny, that one's fatigue is minimized to the last
+degree by the humor one gets and the novel changes one meets everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Onward again, my men singing, perhaps quarreling, always swearing. Their
+language is low and coarse and vulgar, but happily ignorant am I.</p>
+
+<p>The country, too, is fascinating in the extreme. A man must not come to
+China for pleasure unless he love his mistress Nature when she is most
+rudely clad. Some of her lovers are fascinated most in by-places, in the
+cool of forests, on the summit of lofty mountains, high up from the
+mundane, in the cleft of ca&ntilde;ons, everywhere that the careless lover is
+not admitted to her contemplation. It is for such that China holds out
+an inviting hand, but she offers little else to the Westerner&mdash;the
+student of Nature and of man can alone be happy in the interior.
+Forgetting time and the life of my own world, I sometimes come to
+inviolate stillnesses, where Nature opens her arms and bewitchingly
+promises embraces in soft, unending, undulating vastnesses, where even
+the watching of a bird building its nest or brooding over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play, seems to hold one charmed
+beyond description. It is, some may say, a nomadic life. Yes, it is a
+nomadic life. But how beautiful to those of us, and there are many, who
+love less the man-made comforts of our own small life than the
+entrancing wonders of the God-made world in spots where nothing has
+changed. Gladly did I quit the dust and din of Western life, the
+artificialities of dress, and the unnumbered futile affectations of our
+own maybe not misnamed civilization, to go and breathe freely and
+peacefully in those far-off nooks of the silent mountain-tops where
+solitude was broken only by the lulling or the roaring of the winds of
+heaven. Thank God there are these uninvaded corners. The realm of
+silence is, after all, vaster than the realm of noise, and the fact
+brought a consolation, as one watched Nature effecting a sort of
+coquetry in masking her operations.</p>
+
+<p>And as I look upon it all I wonder&mdash;wonder whether with the &quot;Opening of
+China&quot; this must all change?</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese&mdash;I refer to the Chinese of interior provinces such as
+Szech-wan&mdash;are realizing that they hold an obscure position. I have
+heard educated Chinese remark that they look upon themselves as lost,
+like shipwrecked sailors, whom a night of tempest has cast on some
+lonely rock; and now they are having recourse to cries, volleys, all the
+signals imaginable, to let it be known that they are still there. They
+have been on this lonely isolated rock as far as history can trace. Now
+they are launching out towards progress, towards the making of things,
+towards the buying and selling of things&mdash;launching out in trade and in
+commerce, in politics, in literature, in science, in all that has spelt
+advance in the West. The modern spirit is spreading speedily into the
+domains of life everywhere&mdash;in places swiftly, in places slowly, but
+spreading inevitably, <i>si sit prudentia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing will tend, in this particular part of the country, to turn it
+upside down and inside out more than the cult of industrialism. In a
+number of centers in Eastern China, such as Han-yang and Shanghai,
+foreign mills, iron works, and so on, furnish new employments, but in
+the interior the machine of the West to the uneducated Celestial seems
+to be the foe of his own tools; and when railways and steam craft
+appear&mdash;steam has appeared, of course, on the Upper Yangtze, although it
+has not yet taken much of the junk trade, and Szech'wan has her railways
+now under construction (the sod was cut at Ichang in 1909)<a name='FNanchor_G_7'></a><a href='#Footnote_G_7'><sup>[G]</sup></a>&mdash;and a
+single train and steamer does the work of hundreds of thousands of
+carters, coolies, and boatmen, it is wholly natural that their imperfect
+and short-sighted views should lead them to rise against a seeming new
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst in the end the Empire will profit greatly by the inventions of
+the Occident, the period of transition in Szech'wan, especially if
+machines are introduced too rapidly and unwisely, is one that will
+disturb the peace. It will be interesting to watch the attitude of the
+people towards the railway, for Szech'wan is essentially the province of
+the farmer. Szech'wan was one of the provinces where concessions were
+demanded, and railways had been planned by European syndicates, and
+where the gentry and students held mass meetings, feverishly declaring
+that none shall build Chinese lines but the people themselves. I have no
+space in a work of this nature to go fully into the question of
+industrialism, railways, and other matters immediately vital to the
+interests of China, but if the peace of China is to be maintained, it
+is incumbent upon every foreigner to &quot;go slowly.&quot; Machines of foreign
+make have before now been scrapped, railways have been pulled up and
+thrown into the sea, telegraph lines have been torn down and sold, and
+on every hand among this wonderful people there has always been apparent
+a distinct hatred to things and ideas foreign. But industrially
+particularly the benefits of the West are being recognized in Eastern
+China, and gradually, if foreigners who have to do the pioneering are
+tactful, trust in the foreign-manufactured machine will spread to
+Western China, and enlarged industrialism will bring all-round
+advantages to Western trade.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far there has been little shifting of the population from hamlets
+and villages to centers of new industries&mdash;even in the more forward
+areas quoted&mdash;but when this process begins new elements will enter into
+the Chinese industrial problem.</p>
+
+<p>As we hear of the New China, so is there a &quot;new people,&quot; a people
+emboldened by the examples of officials in certain areas to show a
+friendliness towards progress and innovation. They were not friendly a
+decade ago. It may, perhaps, be said that this &quot;new people&quot; were born
+after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.</p>
+
+<p>Cotton mills, silk filatures, flour and rice mills employing western
+machinery, modern mining plants and other evidences of how China is
+coming out of her shell, cause one to rejoice in improved conditions.
+The animosity occasioned by these inventions that are being so gradually
+and so surely introduced into every nook and cranny of East and North
+China is very marked; but on close inspection, and after one has made a
+study of the subject, one is inclined to feel that it is more or less
+theoretical. So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far
+Western China.</p>
+
+<p>Readers may wonder at the differences of opinions expressed in the
+course of these pages&mdash;a hundred pages on one may get a totally
+different impression. But the absolute differences of conditions
+existing are quite as remarkable. From Chung-king to Sui-fu one breathed
+an air of progress&mdash;after one had made allowance for the antagonistic
+circumstances under which China lives&mdash;a manifest desire on every hand
+for things foreign, and a most lively and intelligent interest in what
+the foreigner could bring. In many parts of Y&uuml;n-nan, again, conditions
+were completely reversed; and one finding himself in Y&uuml;n-nan, after
+having lived for some time at a port in the east of the Empire, would
+assuredly find himself surrounded by everything antagonistic to that to
+which he has become accustomed, and the people would seem of a different
+race. This may be due to the differences of climate&mdash;climate, indeed, is
+ultimately the first and the last word in the East; it is the arbiter,
+the builder, the disintegrator of everything. A leading writer on
+Eastern affairs says that the &quot;climate is the explanation of all this
+history of Asia, and the peoples of the East can only be understood and
+accounted for by the measuring of the heat of the sun's rays. In China,
+with climate and weather charts in your hands, you may travel from the
+Red River on the Y&uuml;n-nan frontier to the great Sungari in lusty
+Manchuria, and be able to understand and account for everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>However that may be, traveling in China, through a wonderful province
+like Szech'wan, whose chief entrep&ocirc;t is fifteen hundred miles from the
+coast, convinces one that she has come to the parting of the ways. You
+can, in any city or village in Szech'wan&mdash;or in Y&uuml;n-nan, for that
+matter, in a lesser degree&mdash;always find the new nationalism in the form
+of the &quot;New China&quot; student. Despite the opposition he gets from the old
+school, and although the old order of things, by being so strong as
+almost to overwhelm him, allows him to make less progress than he
+would, this new student, the hope of the Empire, is there. I do not wish
+to enter into a controversy on this subject, but I should like to quote
+the following from a speech delivered by Tseh Ch'un Hs&uuml;an, when he was
+leaving his post as Governor of Szech'wan:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The officials of China are gradually acquiring a knowledge of the great
+principles of the religions of Europe and America. And the churches are
+also laboring night and day to readjust their methods, and to make known
+their aims in their propagation of religion. Consequently, Chinese and
+foreigners are coming more and more into cordial relations. This fills
+me with joy and hopefulness.... My hope is that the teachers of both
+countries [Great Britain and America] will spread the Gospel more wisely
+than ever, that hatred may be banished, and disputes dispelled, and that
+the influence of the Gospel may create boundless happiness for my people
+of China. And I shall not be the only one to thank you for coming to the
+front in this good work.... May the Gospel prosper!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There are various grades of people in China, among which the scholar has
+always come first, because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the
+intellect that distinguishes man above the lower order of beings, and
+enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for
+others. At the time when Europe was thrilled and cut to the quick with
+news of the massacres of her compatriots in the Boxer revolts, the
+scholar was a dull, stupid fellow&mdash;day in day out, week in week out,
+month in month out, and year after year he ground at his classics. His
+classics were the <i>Alpha</i> and <i>Omega</i>; he worshipped them. This era has
+now passed away.</p>
+
+<p>At the present moment there are upwards of twenty thousand Chinese
+students in Tokyo<a name='FNanchor_H_8'></a><a href='#Footnote_H_8'><sup>[H]</sup></a>&mdash;whither they went because Japan is the most
+convenient country wherein to acquire Western knowledge. The new
+learning, the new learning&mdash;they <i>must</i> have the new learning! No high
+office is ever again likely to be given but to him who has more of
+Western knowledge than Chinese knowledge. And mere striplings, nursed in
+the lap of the mission schools, and there given a good grounding in
+Western education, these are the men far more likely to pass the new
+examinations. In Y&uuml;n-nan, where little chance exists for the scholars to
+advance, the new learning has brought with it a revolutionary element,
+which would soon become dangerous were it by any means common. I have
+seen an English-speaking fellow, anxious to get on and under the
+impression that the laws of his country were responsible for keeping him
+back, write in the back of his exercise book a phrase against the
+imperial ruler that would have cost him his head had it come to the
+notice of the high authorities.</p>
+
+<p>One will learn much if he travels across the Empire&mdash;facts and figures
+quite irreconcilable will arise, but even the man of dullest perception
+will be convinced that much of the reforming spirit in the people is
+only skin-deep, going no farther than the externals of life. It is at
+present, perhaps, merely a mad fermentation in the western provinces,
+wherefrom the fiercer it is the clearer the product will one day evolve
+itself. Such transitions are full of bewilderment to the
+European&mdash;bewildering to any writer who endeavors to tackle the Empire
+as a whole. Each province or couple of provinces should be dealt with
+separately, so diverse are the conditions.</p>
+
+<p>But if China, from the highest to the lowest, will only embrace truth
+and love her for her own sake, so that she will not abate one jot of
+allegiance to her; if China will let truth run down through the
+arteries of everyday commercial, social, and political life as do the
+waterways through her marvelous country; if China will kill her
+retardative conservatism, and in its place erect honesty and conscience;
+if China will let her moral life be quickened&mdash;then her transition
+period, from end to end of the Empire, will soon end. Mineral,
+agricultural, industrial wealth are hers to a degree which is not true
+of any other land. Her people have an enduring and expansive power that
+has stood the test of more than four thousand years of honorable
+history, and their activity and efficiency outside China make them more
+to be dreaded, as competitors, than any race or any dozen races of
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>But New China must have this new life.</p>
+
+<p>Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization she will have in
+ever-increasing measure just in so much as she draws nearer to western
+peoples. But the new life can come from whence? From within or from
+without?</p>
+
+<p>Luchow, into which I was led just before noon on the fourth day out of
+Chung-king, is the most populous and richest city on the Upper Yangtze.</p>
+
+<p>Exceedingly clean for a Chinese city, possessing well-kept streets lined
+with well-stocked emporiums, bearing every evidence of commercial
+prosperity, it however lacks one thing. It has no hotel runners! I
+arrived at midday, crossing the river in a leaky ferry boat, under a
+blazing sun, my intention being to stop in the town at a tea-house to
+take a refresher, and then complete a long day's march, farther than the
+ordinary stage. But owing to some misunderstanding between the
+<i>fu-song</i>, sent to shadow the foreigner on part of his journey, and my
+boy, I was led through the busy city out into the open country before I
+had had a drink. And when I remonstrated they led me back again to the
+best inn, where I was told I should have to spend the night&mdash;there being
+nothing else, then, to be said.</p>
+
+<p>May I give a word of advice here to any reader contemplating a visit to
+China under similar conditions? It is the custom of the mandarins to
+send what is called a <i>fu-song</i> (escort) for you; the escort comes from
+the military, although their peculiar appearance may lead you to doubt
+it. I have two of these soldier people with me to-day, and two bigger
+ragamuffins it has not been my lot to cast eyes on. They are the only
+two men in the crowd I am afraid of. They are of absolutely no use, more
+than to eat and to drink, and always come up smiling at the end of their
+stage for their <i>kumshaw</i>. During the whole of this day I have not seen
+one of them&mdash;they have been behind the caravan all the time; it would be
+hard to believe that they had sense enough to find the way, and as for
+escorting me, they have not accompanied me a single li of the way.<a name='FNanchor_I_9'></a><a href='#Footnote_I_9'><sup>[I]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Another nuisance, of which I have already spoken, is the necessity of
+taking a chair to maintain respectability. These things make travel in
+China not so cheap as one would be led to imagine. Traveling of itself
+is cheap enough, as cheap as in any country in the world. For
+accommodation for myself, for a room, rice and as much hot water as I
+want, the charge is a couple of hundred cash&mdash;certainly not expensive.
+In addition, there is generally a little &quot;cha tsien&quot; (tea money) for the
+cook. But it is the &quot;face&quot; which makes away with money, much more than
+it takes to keep you in the luxury that the country can offer&mdash;which is
+not much!</p>
+
+<p>After I had had a bit of a discussion with my boy as to the room they
+wanted to house me in, a woman, brandishing a huge cabbage stump above
+her head, and looking menacingly at me, yelled that the room was good
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What does she say, T'ong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, she b'long all same fool. She wantchee makee talkee talk. She have
+got velly long tongue, makee bad woman. She say one piecee Japan man
+makee stay here t'ree night. See? She say what makee good one piecee
+Japan man makee good one piecee English man. See? No have got topside,
+all same bottomside have got. Master, this no b'long my pidgin&mdash;this
+b'long woman pidgin, and woman b'long all same fool.&quot; T'ong ended up
+with an amusing allusion to the lady's mother, and looked cross because
+I rebuked him.</p>
+
+<p>Gathering, then, that the lady thought her room good enough for me, I
+saw no other course open, and as the crowd was gathering, I got inside.
+Before setting out to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at
+the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an
+unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of
+Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but
+Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the
+amount of general knowledge derived one from the other was therefore
+limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong
+and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation that his
+presence was distasteful to me, and at the end of the episode I found it
+imperative for my own safety, and perhaps his, to clear out.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Canadians I found in their Chinese-built premises, comfortable
+albeit. Five of them were resident at the time, and they were quite
+pleased with the work they had done during the last year or so&mdash;most of
+them were new to China. At the China Inland Mission later I found two
+young Scotsmen getting some exercise by throwing a cricket ball at a
+stone wall, in a compound about twenty feet square. They were glad to
+see me, one of them kindly gave me a hair-cut, and at their invitation I
+stayed the night with them.</p>
+
+<p>What is it in the nature of the Chinese which makes them appear to be so
+totally oblivious to the best they see in their own country?</p>
+
+<p>It is surely not because they are not as sensitive as other races to the
+magic of beauty in either nature or art. But I found traveling and
+living with such apparently unsympathetic creatures exasperating to a
+degree, and I did not wonder that the European whose lot had been cast
+in the interior, sometimes, on emerging into Western civilization,
+appears eccentric to his own countrymen. But this in passing.</p>
+
+<p>I duly arrived at Lan-ch&iuml;-hsien, and was told that Sui-fu, 120 li away,
+would be reached the next day, although I had my doubts. A deputation
+from the local &quot;gwan&quot; waited upon me to learn my wishes and to receive
+my commands. I was assured that no European ever walked to Sui-fu from
+Lan-ch&iuml;-hsien, and that if I attempted to do such a thing I should have
+to go alone, and that I should never reach there. I remonstrated, but my
+boy was firm. He took me to him and fathered me. He almost cried over
+me, to think that I, that I, his master, of all people in the world,
+should doubt his allegiance to me. &quot;I no 'fraid,&quot; he declared. &quot;P'laps
+master no savee. Sui-fu b'long velly big place, have got plenty
+European. You wantchee makee go fast, catchee plenty good 'chow.' I
+think you catchee one piecee boat, makee go up the river. P'laps I think
+you have got velly tired&mdash;no wantchee makee more walkee&mdash;that no b'long
+ploper. That b'long all same fool pidgin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And at last I melted. There was nothing else to do.</p>
+
+<p>That no one ever walked to Sui-fu from this place the district potentate
+assured me in a private chit, which I could not read, when he laid his
+gunboat at my disposal.</p>
+
+<p>This, he said, would take me up very quickly. In his second note,
+wherein he apologized that indisposition kept him from calling
+personally upon me&mdash;this, of course, was a lie&mdash;he said he would feel it
+an honor if I would be pleased to accept the use of his contemptible
+boat. But T'ong whispered that the law uses these terms in China, and
+that nobody would be more disappointed than the Chinese magistrate if I
+<i>did</i> take advantage of his unmeaning offer. So I took a <i>wu-pan</i>, and
+the following night, when pulling into the shadows of the Sui-fu pagoda,
+cold and hungry, I cursed my luck that I had not broken down the useless
+etiquette which these Chinese officials extend towards foreigners, and
+taken the fellow's gunboat.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>wu-pan</i>, they swore to me, would be ready to leave at 3:30 a.m. the
+day following. My boy did not venture to sleep at all. He stayed up
+outside my bedroom door&mdash;I say bedroom, but actually it was an apartment
+which in Europe I would not put a horse into, and the door was merely a
+wide, worm-eaten board placed on end. In the middle of the night I heard
+a noise&mdash;yea, a rattle. The said board fell down, inwards, almost upon
+me. A light was flashed swiftly into my eyes, and desultory remarks
+which suddenly escaped me were rudely interrupted by shrill screams. My
+boy was singing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master,&quot; he cried, pulling hard-heartedly at my left big toe to wake
+me, &quot;come on, come on; you wantchee makee get up. Have got two o'clock.
+Get up; p'laps me no wakee you, no makee sleep&mdash;no b'long ploper. One
+man makee go bottomside&mdash;have catchee boat. This morning no have got
+tea&mdash;no can catch hot water makee boil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And soon we were ready to start. Punctually to the appointed hour we
+were at the bottom of the steep, dark incline leading down to the river
+bank.</p>
+
+<p>But my reckonings were bad.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>laoban</i> and the other two youthful members of the half-witted crew
+had not yet taken their &quot;chow,&quot; and this, added to many little
+discrepancies in their reckoning and in mine, kept me in a boiling rage
+until half-past six, when at last they pushed off, and nearly capsized
+the boat at the outset. The details of that early morning, and the
+happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never
+forget&mdash;from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the
+rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow
+escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a
+captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage
+ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We
+reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a wind. Hour
+after hour they toiled, making little headway with their misdirected
+labor, wasting their energies in doing the right things at the wrong
+time, and wrong things always, and long after sundown Sui-fu's pagoda
+loomed in the distance. At 11:00 p.m., stiff and hungry, and mad with
+rage, I was groping my way on all fours up the slippery steps through
+unspeakable slime and filth at the quayhead, only to be led to a
+disgusting inn as dirty as anything I had yet encountered. It was hard
+lines, for I could get no food.</p>
+
+<p>An invitation, however, was given me by the Rev. R. McIntyre, who with
+his charming wife conducts the China Inland Mission in this city, to
+come and stay with them. The next morning, after a sleepless night of
+twisting and turning on a bug-infested bed, I was glad to take advantage
+of the missionary's kindness. I could not have been given a kindlier
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Sui-fu has a population of roughly 150,000, and the overcrowding
+question is not the least important. It is situated to advantage on the
+right bank of the Yangtze, and does an immense trade in medicines,
+opium, silk, furs, silverwork, and white wax, which are the chief
+exports. Gunboats regularly come to Sui-fu during the heavy rains.</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the city, a large area is taken up with grave
+mounds&mdash;common with nearly every Chinese city. Mr. McIntyre and Mr.
+Herbert, who was passing through Sui-fu <i>en route</i> for Ta-chien-lu,
+where he is now working, showed me around the city one afternoon, and
+one could see everything typical of the social life of two thousand
+years ago. The same narrow lanes succeed each other, and the conviction
+is gradually impressed upon the mind that such is the general trend of
+the character of the city and its people. There were the same busy
+mechanics, barbers, traders, wayside cooks, traveling fortune-tellers,
+and lusty coolies; the wag doctor, the bane of the gullible, was there
+to drive his iniquitous living; now and then the scene's monotony was
+disturbed by the presence of the chair and the retinue of a city
+mandarin. Yet with all the hurry and din, the hurrying and the scurrying
+in doing and driving for making money, seldom was there an accident or
+interruption of good nature. There was the same romance in the streets
+that one reads of at school&mdash;so much alike and yet so different from
+what one meets in the Chinese places at the coast or in Hong-Kong or
+Singapore. In Sui-fu, more than in any other town in Western China which
+I visited, had the native artist seemed to have lavished his ingenuity
+on the street signboards. Their caligraphy gave the most humorous
+intimation of the superiority of the wares on sale; many of them
+contained some fictitious emblem, adopted as the name of the shop,
+similar to the practice adopted in London two centuries ago, and so
+common now in the Straits Settlements, where bankrupts are allowed
+considerable more freedom than would be possible if fictitious
+registration were not allowed. I refer to the Registration of
+Partnerships.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_G_7'></a><a href='#FNanchor_G_7'>[G]</a><div class='note'><p> I inspected the railway at Ichang in December, 1910, and
+found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress.
+Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and
+excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the
+buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme
+seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting
+was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the
+gentry then decided that as nothing was being done at that end the
+company should be requested to stop work at Ichang, and start laying the
+line from Chen-tu, at the other end. &quot;All the money will be spent,&quot; they
+cried, &quot;and we shall get nothing up this end!&quot; If the money ran out and
+left the central portion of the line incomplete, it did not matter so
+long as each city had something for its money!&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_H_8'></a><a href='#FNanchor_H_8'>[H]</a><div class='note'><p> This is not true to-day. There has been a great falling off
+in numbers.&mdash;E.J.D., February, 1911.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_I_9'></a><a href='#FNanchor_I_9'>[I]</a><div class='note'><p> This should not be taken to apply to the <i>fu-song</i>
+everywhere. I have found them to be the most useful on other occasions,
+but the above was written at Luchow as my experience of that particular
+day.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FOURTH_JOURNEY'></a><h2>FOURTH JOURNEY.</h2>
+
+<h4>SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Chinese and simplicity of speech</i>. <i>Author and his caravan stopped</i>.
+<i>Advice to travelers</i>. <i>Farewell to Sui-fu</i>. <i>The postal service and
+tribute to I.P.O.</i> <i>Rushing the stages</i>. <i>Details of journey</i>.
+<i>Description of road to Chao-t'ong-fu</i>. <i>Coolie's pay</i>. <i>My boy steals
+vegetables</i>. <i>Remarks on roads and railways</i>. <i>The real Opening of
+China</i>. <i>How the foreigner will win the confidence of the Chinese</i>.
+<i>Distances and their variability</i>. <i>Calculations uprooted</i>. <i>Author in a
+dilemma</i>. <i>The scenery</i>. <i>Hard going</i>. <i>A wayside toilet, and some
+embarrassment</i>. <i>Filth inseparable from Chinese humanity</i>. <i>About
+Chinese inns</i>. <i>Typewriter causes some fun</i>. <i>Soldiers guard my
+doorway</i>. <i>Man's own &quot;inner room.&quot;</i> <i>One hundred and forty li in a day</i>.
+<i>Grandeur and solitude</i>. <i>Wisdom of traveling alone</i>. <i>Coolie nearly
+cuts his toe off</i>. <i>Street scene at Pu&eacute;rh-tu</i>. <i>The &quot;dying&quot; coolie</i>. <i>A
+manacled prisoner</i>. <i>Entertained by mandarins</i>. <i>How plans do not work
+out</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>He who would make most abundant excuses for the Chinese could not say
+that he is simple in his speech.</p>
+
+<p>That speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form
+that it takes, is undoubtedly true: as the thought, so the speech.
+All social relations with us have their roots in mutual trust, and this
+trust is maintained by each man's sincerity of thought and speech.
+Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy,
+so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you
+no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The
+Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue,
+who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to
+account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of
+circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself,
+even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest
+difficulty in getting at the truth about their own affairs.</p>
+
+<p>As I was going out of Sui-fu my caravan and myself were delayed by some
+fellow, who held the attention of my men for a full quarter of an hour.
+I listened, understanding nothing. After another five minutes, by which
+time the conversation had assumed what I considered dangerous
+proportions, having the safety of my boy at heart, I asked&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;T'ong, what is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Half a sec.,&quot; he replied (having learnt this phrase from the gunboat
+men down the river). He did not, however, take his eyes from the man
+with whom he was holding the conversation. He then dived into my
+food-basket, wrenched off the top of a tin, and pulled therefrom two
+beautifully-marked live pigeons, which flapped their wings helplessly to
+get away, and resumed the conversation. Talk waxed furious, the birds
+were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming
+rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was
+the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He
+b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl,
+two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy
+boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to
+my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou
+would'st travel in China, peep not into thy <i>hoh sh&iuml;h lan ts&iuml;</i> if thou
+would'st feed well.</p>
+
+<p>T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the
+disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he
+could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out
+into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to
+Chao-t'ong-fu.</p>
+
+<p>From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no
+hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the
+reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Y&uuml;n-nan were
+rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the
+regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no
+less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the
+delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been
+established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which
+the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the
+hitherto unheard-of time of two days&mdash;a traveler considers himself
+fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast
+daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in
+two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three
+days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter
+posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little
+procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached
+before sundown. My coolies&mdash;probably owing to having derived more
+pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from
+Chung-king&mdash;decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the
+fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundred and ninety miles
+distant, if weather permitted, in eleven days. We were to travel by the
+following stages:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='2' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td align='left'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Anpien</td><td align='center'>90 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Huan-chiang</td><td align='center'>55 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Fan-&iuml;h-ts'uen</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;T'an-t'eo</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Lao-wa-t'an</td><td align='center'>140 li</td><td align='center'>1,140 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Teo-sha-kwan</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>4,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Ch'i-li-p'u</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>1,900 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8th day&mdash;Ta-wan-ts&iuml;</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9th day&mdash;Ta-kwan-ting</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>3,700 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10th day&mdash;Wuchai</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>7,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>11th day&mdash;Chao-t'ong-fu</td><td align='center'>100 li</td><td align='center'>6,400 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>I knew that I was in for a very hard journey. The nature of the country
+as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is
+reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough
+and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably
+bad. At certain places it is cut out of the rock, at others it runs in
+the bed of the river, which is dotted everywhere with roaring rapids (as
+we are ascending very quickly), and when the water is high these roads
+are submerged and often impassable. In some places it was a six-inch
+path along the mountain slope, with a gradient of from sixty to seventy
+degrees, and landslips and rains are ever changing the path.</p>
+
+<p>Lao-wa-t'an is the most important point on the route. One of the largest
+Customs stations in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan is here situated at the east
+end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in
+length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the
+roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a
+fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li.
+The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the
+march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the
+physical exertion required to scale the treacherous roads. Over a broad,
+zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight
+curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for
+the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern
+bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock
+rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges
+of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due
+course.</p>
+
+<p>To Ch'i-li-p'u, high up on the mountain banks, the first twenty-five li
+is by the river. At the half-way place a fearful ascent is experienced,
+the most notable precipice on the route between Sui-fu and Y&uuml;n-nan-fu,
+up a broad zigzag path, and as I sat at dinner I could see neither top
+nor bottom owing to the overhanging masses of rock: this is after having
+negotiated an ascent quite as steep, but smaller. To Ta-kwan-hsien a few
+natural obstacles occur, although the road is always high up on the
+hill-sides. I crossed a miserable suspension bridge of two spans. The
+southern span is about thirty feet, the northern span eighty feet; the
+center is supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone,
+resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably
+worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very
+slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the
+general shaky appearance was particularly uninviting.</p>
+
+<p>From Ta-kwan-hsien to Wuchai is steady pulling. Once in an opening in
+the hill we passed along and then ascended an exceedingly steep spur on
+one side of a narrow and very deep natural amphitheatre, formed by
+surrounding mountains. We then came to a lagoon, and eventually the brow
+of the hill was reached. Thus the Wuchai Valley is arrived at, where,
+owing to a collection of water, the road is often impassable to man and
+beast. Often during the rainy season there is a lagoon of mud or water
+formed by the drainage from the mountains, which finds no escape but by
+percolating through the earth and rock to a valley on the east of, and
+below, the mountains forming the eastern boundary of the Wuchai Valley.
+To Chao-t'ong is fairly level going.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the road, it was not unnatural that my men gibbed a little
+at the eleven-day accomplishment. I had a long parley with them,
+however, and agreed to reward them to the extent of one thousand cash
+among the three if they did it. Their pay for the journey, over
+admittedly some of the worst roads in the Empire, was to be four hundred
+cash per man as before, with three hundred and thirty-three cash extra
+if the rain did not prevent them from getting in in eleven days. They
+were in good spirits, and so was I, as we walked along the river-bank,
+where the poppy was to be seen in full flower, and the unending beds of
+rape alternated with peas and beans and tobacco. T'ong would persist in
+stealing the peas and beans to feed me on, and for the life of me I
+could not get him to see that he should not do this sort of thing. But
+how continually one was impressed with the great need of roads in
+Western China! It is natural that, walking the whole distance, I should
+notice this more than other travelers have done, and, to my mind, roads
+in this part of the country rank in importance before the railways.</p>
+
+<p>To the foreign mind it is more to the interests of China that railways
+should be well and serviceably built than that the money should be
+squandered to no purpose. If the railway has rails, then in China it can
+be called a railway, and China is satisfied. So with the roads. If there
+is any passage at all, then the Chinese call it a road, and China is
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>As one meanders through the country, watching a people who are equalled
+nowhere in the world for their industry, plodding away over the worst
+roads any civilized country possesses, he cannot but think, even looking
+at the question from the Chinese standpoint so far as he is able, that,
+were free scope once given for the infusion of Western energy and
+methods into an active, trade-loving people like the Chinese, China
+would rival the United States in wealth and natural resources. The
+Chinese knows that his country, the natural resources of the country and
+the people, will allow him to do things on a scale which will by and by
+completely overbalance the doings of countries less favored by Nature
+than his own. He knows that when properly developed his country will be
+one of the richest in the world, yet even when he is filled with such
+ideas he is just as cunctative as he has ever been. He has the idea that
+he should not commence to exhaust the wealth of his country before it is
+absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, he has now made up his mind that he himself, unaided by the
+foreigner, is going to develop it just as he likes and just when he
+likes.</p>
+
+<p>The day of the foreign concession is gone. The Chinese now is paddling
+his own canoe, and it is only by cultivating his friendship, by proving
+to him by acts, and not by words, that the intrusion of privileged
+enterprises&mdash;such as great mining concessions and railway concessions,
+in which the foreigner demands that he be the only principal&mdash;is no
+longer contemplated, that the day will be won. But it is equally true
+that only by combining European and Chinese interests on the modern
+company system, the real Opening of China can be effected.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last
+thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over
+the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man,
+who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my
+destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I
+reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the
+end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li,
+and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was &quot;two
+and a bit.&quot; This answer we got from four different people on the way,
+and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the
+two li so much&mdash;it is the &quot;bit&quot; which upsets one's calculations.</p>
+
+<p>The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself&mdash;that is, I
+lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint,
+secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade,
+where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the
+subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss
+and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of
+ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster.
+Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of
+finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence
+anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to
+me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little,
+hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this
+was a country of erratic distances&mdash;it was now getting on for
+sunset&mdash;and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the
+difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard
+someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down
+his back and front.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I
+think p'laps master wantchee makee run away.&quot; And then, after a time:
+&quot;You no wantchee catch 'chow'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost,
+and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was
+fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?</p>
+
+<p>Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a
+narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top
+of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to
+Fan-&iuml;h-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse,
+and so it turned out to be.</p>
+
+<p>At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make
+the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which
+covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals
+of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my
+boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was passing a paddy field
+one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud.
+In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments
+from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up
+in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun&mdash;except myself. Little
+boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried
+to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view.
+But I had to change, and that was most important to me.</p>
+
+<p>Later on, my ugly coolie&mdash;the ugliest man in or out of China, I should
+think, ugly beyond description&mdash;dropped my bedding as he was crossing
+the river, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on a wet bed at T'an-teo.</p>
+
+<p>I must ask the reader's pardon for again referring to Chinese inns. I
+should not have made any remark upon this awful hovel had not the man
+laid a scheme to charge me three times as much as he should&mdash;a scheme,
+be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den,
+where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The
+dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the
+slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think
+there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and
+productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The
+mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his
+tribute of vermin, was not fit for use, there were myriads of filthy
+insects, and I found myself obliged to stop and have some clothes
+boiled, and for comfort's sake rubbed my body with Chinese wine. Filth
+there was everywhere. It seemed inseparable from the people, and a total
+apathy as regards matter in the wrong place pervaded all classes, from
+the highest to the lowest. The spring is opening, and my hard-worked
+coolies doff their heavy padded winter clothing, parade their naked
+skin, and are quite unconscious of any disgrace attending the exhibition
+of the itch sores which disfigure them.</p>
+
+<p>I remember, however, that I am in China, and must not be disgusted.</p>
+
+<p>And should any reader be disgusted at the disjointed character of this
+particular portion of my common chronicle, I would only say in apology
+that I am writing under the gaze of a mystified crowd, each of whom has
+a word to say about my typewriter&mdash;the first, undoubtedly, that he has
+ever seen. This machine has caused the greatest surprise all along the
+route, and it is on occasions when the Chinese sees for the first time
+things of this intimate mechanical nature that he gives one the
+impression that he is a little boy. The people crowd into my room; they
+cannot be kept out, although at the present moment I have stationed my
+two soldiers in the doorway where I am writing, so as to get a little
+light, to keep them from crowding actually upon me.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that all of us have an innermost room, wherein we
+conceal our own secret affairs. In China everything is so open, and so
+much must be done in public, that it would surprise one to know that the
+Chinese have an inner room. The European traveler in this region must
+have no inner room, either, for the people seem to see down deep into
+one's very soul. But it is when one wanders on alone, as I have done
+to-day, doing two days in one, no less than one hundred and forty li of
+terrible road through the most isolated country, that one can enjoy the
+comfort of one's own loneliness and own inner room. The scenery was
+picturesque, much like Scotland, but the solitude was the best of all. I
+had left office and books and manuscripts, and was on a lonely walk,
+enjoying a solitude from which I could not escape, a reverie which was
+passed not nearly so much in thinking as in feeling, a feeling to
+nature-lovers which can never be completely expressed in words. It was
+indeed a refuge from the storms of life, and a veritable chamber of
+peace. And this, to my mind, is the way to spend a holiday. Robert Louis
+Stevenson tells us in one of his early books what a complete world two
+congenial friends make for themselves in the midst of a foreign
+population; all the hum and the stir goes on, and these two strangers
+exchange glances, and are filled with an infinite content Some of us
+would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
+in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
+thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
+thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
+the same privilege. Selfishness in the slightest degree should not enter
+in. But such a man is difficult to find, so I wander on alone, happy in
+my own solitude. Here I have liberty, perfect liberty.</p>
+
+<p>I was stopped on my way to Lao-wa-t'an at a small town called Pu&ecirc;rh-tu,
+the first place of importance after having come into Y&uuml;n-nan. A few li
+before reaching this town, one of my men cut the large toe of his left
+foot on a sharp rock, lacerating the flesh to the bone. I attended to
+him as best I could on the road, paid him four days' extra pay, and then
+had a bit of a row with him because he would not go back. He avowed that
+carrying for the foreigner was such a good thing that he feared leaving
+it! Upon entering Pu&ecirc;rh-tu, however, he fell in the roadway. A crowd
+gathered, a loud cry went up from the multitude, and in the
+consternation and confusion which ensued the people divided themselves
+into various sections.</p>
+
+<p>Some rushed to proffer assistance to the fallen man (this was done
+because I was about; he would have been left had a foreigner not been
+there), others gathered around me with outrageous adulation and seeming
+words of welcome. Meanwhile, I thought the coolie was dying, and,
+fearful and unnatural as it seems, it is nevertheless true that at all
+ages the Chinese find a peculiar and awful satisfaction in watching the
+agonies of the dying. By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
+dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
+slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
+poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
+stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
+apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
+ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
+upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
+thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
+suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
+which he advanced slowly towards me.</p>
+
+<p>I was on the point of telling him in English that I had done nothing
+against the law, so far as I knew.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed solemnly, during which time I, attempting the same, had much
+trouble from bursting out laughing in his face. He beckoned to me, and
+then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found
+another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The
+mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a
+theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit,
+that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would
+like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one of them
+would like to sell me a thoroughbred, hard-working,
+magnificently-shaped, without-a-single-vice black pony, which they would
+part with for my benefit for the consideration of one hundred taels down
+(four times its value), which awaited my inspection without. I stood up
+and fronted them, and replied, through T'ong, that I could not stay the
+night, that I would be pleased to tolerate the howling of the theatre
+for one half of an hour, that it would have given me the greatest
+pleasure to take their photographs, but, alas! my films were not many. I
+handed them a cigarette tin, but quite forgot that they asked for
+cigarettes as well (I had none), and I explained that horse-riding was
+not one of my accomplishments, so that their quadruped would be of no
+use to me.</p>
+
+<p>They looked glum, I smiled serenely. This is Chinesey.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p><i>Szech-wan and Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Coolies and their loads</i>. <i>Exports and
+imports</i>. <i>Hints to English exporters</i>. <i>Food at famine rates</i>. <i>A
+wretched inn at Wuchai</i>. <i>Author prevents murder</i>. <i>Sleeping in the
+rain</i>. <i>The foreign cigarette trade</i>. <i>Poverty of Chao-t'ong</i>.
+<i>Simplicity of life</i>. <i>Possible advantages of Chinese in struggle of
+yellow and white races</i>. <i>Foreign goods in Y&uuml;n-nan and Szech'wan</i>.
+<i>Thousands of beggars die</i>. <i>Supposed lime poisoning</i>. <i>Content of the
+people</i>. <i>Opium not grown</i>. <i>Prices of prepared drug in Tong-ch'uan-fu
+compared</i>. <i>Smuggling from Kwei-chow</i>. <i>Opium and tin of Y&uuml;n-nan</i>.
+<i>Remarkable bonfire at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu</i>. <i>Infanticide at Chao-t'ong</i>.
+<i>Selling of female children into slavery</i>. <i>Author's horse steps on
+human skull</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Were one uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the
+borderline of Szech'wan and Y&uuml;n-nan. The latter is supposed to be one of
+the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous,
+void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills
+conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of
+their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.</p>
+
+<p>The greater part of the roads to be traversed now were constructed on
+projecting slopes above rivers and torrents, affluents of the Yangtze,
+and cross a region upon which the troubled appearance of the mountains
+that bristle over it stamps the impress of a severe kind of beauty. Such
+roads would not be tolerated in any country but China&mdash;I doubt if any
+but the ancient Chinese could have had the patience to build them. One
+could not walk with comfort; it was an impossible task. Far away over
+the earth, winding into all the natural trends of the mountain base, ran
+the highway, merrily tripping over huge boulders, into hollows and out
+of them, almost underground, but always, with its long white extended
+finger, beckoning me on by the narrow ribbon in the distance. True,
+although I was absolutely destitute of company, I had always the road
+with me, yet ever far from me. I could not catch it up, and sometimes,
+dreaming triumphantly that I had now come even with it where it seemed
+to end in some disordered stony mass, it would trip mischievously out
+again into view, bounding away into some tricky bend far down to the
+edge of the river, and rounding out of sight once more until the point
+of vantage was attained. Its twisting and turning, up and down, inwards,
+outwards, made humor for the full long day. With it I could not quarrel,
+for it did its best to help me with my weary men onwards over the now
+darkened landscape, and ever took the lead to urge us forward. If it
+came to a great upstanding mountain, with marked politeness it ran round
+by a circuitous route, more easily if of greater length; at other times
+it scaled clear up, nimbly and straight, turning not once to us in its
+self-appointed task, and at the top, standing like some fairy on a
+steeple-point, beckoned us on encouragingly. At times it became
+exhausted and stretched itself wearisomely out, measuring in width to
+only a few small inches, and overlooked the river at great height,
+telling us to ponder well our footsteps ere we go forward. To part
+company with the road would mean to die, for elsewhere was no foothold
+possible. So in this narrow faithful ledge, torn up by the heavy tread
+of countless horses' feet beyond Lao-wa-t'an (where horse traffic
+starts), we carefully ordered every step. Looking down, sheer down as
+from some lofty palace window, I saw the green snake waiting, waiting
+for me. Slipping, there would be no hope&mdash;death and the river alone lay
+down that treacherous mountain-side. And then, at times, pursuing that
+white-faced wriggling demon which stretched out far over the mist-swept
+landscape in incessant writhing and annoying contortions, we quite gave
+up the chase. It seemed leading me on to some unknown destiny. I knew
+not whither; only this I knew&mdash;that I must follow.</p>
+
+<p>And so each hour and every hour was fraught with peril which seemed
+imminent. But He who guards the fatherless and helpless, feeds the poor
+and friendless, guarded the traveler in those days. Mishaps I had none,
+and when at night I reached those tiny mountain seats, perched
+majestically high for the most part and swept by all the winds of
+heaven, I seemed to be the lonely spectator and companionless watcher
+over mighty mountain-tops, which appeared every moment to be hesitating
+to take a gigantic dive into the roaring river several hundred feet
+below our lofty resting-place.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the larger villages had the arrogant look of old feudal
+fortresses, and up the paths leading to them, cut out in a defile in the
+vertical cliffs, we passed with difficulty coolies carrying on their
+backs the enormous loads, which are the wonder of all who have seen
+them, their backs straining under the boomerang-shaped frames to which
+the merchandise was lashed. Hundreds passed us on their toilsome journey
+with tea, lamp-oil, skins, hides, copper, lead, coal and white wax from
+Y&uuml;n-nan, and with salt, English cotton, Chinese porcelain, fans and so
+on from Szech'wan. One false step, one slight slip, and they would have
+been hurled down the ravine, where far below, in the roaring cataract,
+dwarfed to the size of a toy boat, was a junk being cleverly taken
+down-stream. And down there also, one false move and the huge junk would
+have been dashed against the rocks, and banks strewn with the corpses of
+the crew. As it was, they were mere specks of blue in a background of
+white foam, their vociferating and yelling being drowned by the roar of
+the waters. On the road, passing and re-passing, I saw coolies on the
+way to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu with German cartridges and Japanese guns, the packing,
+so different generally to British goods which come into China, being
+particularly good. This is one of the cries of the importer in China
+against the British manufacturer; and if the latter knew more of Chinese
+transport and the manner in which the goods are handled in changing from
+place to place, one would meet fewer broken packages on the road in this
+land of long distances.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of mine, needing a typewriter, wrote home explicit instructions
+as to the packing. &quot;Pack it ready to ship,&quot; he wrote, &quot;then take it to
+the top of your office stairs, throw it down the stairs, take machine
+out and inspect, and if it is undamaged re-pack and send to me. If
+damaged, pack another machine, subject to the same treatment until you
+are convinced that it can stand being thus handled and escape injury.&quot;
+This is how goods coming to Western China should be sent away.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the days brought harder toil. The mountains grew higher, some
+covered with forests of pine trees, which natural ornament completely
+changed the aspect of the country. Torrents foamed noisily down the
+gorges, veiled by the curtain of great trees; sometimes, on a ridge, a
+field of buckwheat, shining in the sun, looked like the beginning of the
+eternal snows.</p>
+
+<p>Food was at famine rates. Eggs there were in abundance, pork also; but
+it was not to be wondered at that the traveler, having seen the
+conditions under which the pigs are reared, refrained from the luxury of
+Y&uuml;n-nan roast pig. My men fed on maize. The faces of the people were
+pinched and wan, unpleasant to look upon, bearing unmistakable signs of
+poverty and misery, and they seemed too concerned in keeping the wolf
+from the door to attend to me. At Ta-kwan they treated themselves to a
+<i>sheng</i> of rice apiece&mdash;here the <i>sheng</i> is 1.8 catties, as against 11
+catties in the capital of the province.</p>
+
+<p>At Wuchai, the last stage before reaching Chao-t'ong-fu, the room of the
+inn had three walls only, and two of these were composed of kerosene
+tins, laced together with bamboo stripping. (Probably the oil tins had
+been stolen from the mission premises at Chao-t'ong.) Through the whole
+night it rained as it had never rained before, but, instead of feeling
+miserable, I tried to see the humor of the situation. One can get humor
+from the most embarrassing circumstances, and my chief amusement arose
+from a small business deal between one of my coolies, who had sublet his
+contract to a poor fellow returning in the rain, who had arranged to
+carry the ninety catties ninety li for a fourth of the original price
+arranged between my coolie and myself. For one full hour they argued at
+a terrible speed as to the rate of exchange in the Szech'wan large and
+the Y&uuml;n-nan small cash, and this was only interrupted when a poor man,
+deaf and dumb, and of hideous appearance, seeing the foreigner in his
+contemptible town, rushed in with a carrying pole and felled his
+grumbling townsman at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>My intervention probably averted murder&mdash;at any rate, it seemed as
+though murder would have taken place very soon but for my interference.
+The whole populace gathered, of course, and the fight waged fiercely
+until well on into the night. But wrapping myself in my mackintosh, and
+putting my paper umbrella at the right angle, I went to sleep with the
+rain dripping on me as they were indulging in final pleasantries
+regarding each other's ancestry.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I saw at Chao-t'ong the next day was the foreign
+cigarette, sold at a wayside stall by a vendor of monkey nuts and marrow
+seeds. No trade has prospered in Y&uuml;n-nan during the past two years more
+than the foreign cigarette trade, and the growing evil among the
+children of the common people, both male and female, is viewed with
+alarm. From Tachien-lu to Mengtsz, from Chung-king to Bhamo, one is
+rarely out of sight of the well-known flaring posters in the Chinese
+characters advertising the British cigarette. Some months ago a couple
+of Europeans were sent out to advertise, and they stuck their poster
+decorations on the walls of temples, on private houses and official
+residences, with the result that the people were piqued so much as to
+tear down the bills immediately. In Y&uuml;n-nan, especially since the exit
+of opium, this common cigarette is smoked by high and low, rich and
+poor. I have been offered them at small feasts, and when calling upon
+high officials at the capital have been offered a packet of cigarettes
+instead of a whiff of opium, as would have been done formerly. One is
+not, of course, prepared to say whether such a trade is desirable or
+not, but it merely needs to be made known that towards the middle of the
+present year (1910) a proclamation was issued from the Viceroy's <i>yamen</i>
+at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu speaking in strongest terms against the increasing habit
+of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on
+the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the
+imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of
+the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the
+citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of
+cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for our people to buy.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>At Chao-t'ong I stayed with the Rev. Dr. Savin, and spent a very
+pleasant two days' rest here in his hospitable hands. It was in this
+district I first came across goitre, the first time I had seen it in my
+life. It is a terrible disfigurement.</p>
+
+<p>Poor indeed is the whole of this neighborhood. Poverty, thin and wanting
+food to eat, stalks abroad dressed in a rag or two, armed with a staff
+to keep away the snarling dogs, and a broken bowl to gather garbage.</p>
+
+<p>Even the better class, who manage to afford their maize and bean curds,
+are to be praised for the extreme simplicity which everywhere vividly
+marks their monotonous lives. Indeed, this is true of the whole area
+through which I have traveled. No furniture brings confusion to their
+rooms, no machinery distresses the ear with its groaning or the eye with
+its unsightliness, no factories belch out smoke and blacken the beauty
+of the sky, no trains screech to disturb sleepers and frighten babies.
+The simplest of simple beds&mdash;in most cases merely a few boards with a
+straw mattress placed thereon&mdash;the straw sandal on the foot, wooden
+chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and
+of cooking utensils, the simple homespun cotton clothing&mdash;much of this
+finds favor in the eye of the English traveler. The Chinese, of all
+Orientals, teach us how to live without furniture, without impedimenta,
+with the least possible amount of clothing in the case of the poorer
+classes, and I could not fail to be impressed by the advantage thus held
+by this great nation in the struggle of life. It may serve them in good
+stead in the struggle of the Yellow Man against the White Man, to which
+I refer at a later period in this book; also does it incidentally show
+up the real character of some of the weaknesses of our own civilization,
+and when one is in China, living near the people, one is forced to
+reflect upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have
+our daily stock of bread and butter and meats, glass windows and fires,
+hats, white shirts and woolen underwear, boots and shoes, trunks, bags
+and boxes, bedsteads, mattresses, sheets and blankets&mdash;most of which a
+Chinese can do without, and indeed is actually better off without.<a name='FNanchor_J_10'></a><a href='#Footnote_J_10'><sup>[J]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This is not true in every class, however; for whilst there is no denying
+the charm of the simpler civilization, many of the Chinese of Szech'wan
+and Y&uuml;n-nan glory in goods of foreign manufacture, no matter if to them
+is not disclosed the proper purpose of any particular article adopted.</p>
+
+<p>Rice will not grow here in great quantities, owing to the scarcity of
+water; therefore the people feed on maize, and are thankful to get it.</p>
+
+<p>Chao-t'ong is the centre of a large district devastated by recurring
+seasons of plague, rebellion and famine, when thousands die annually
+from starvation in the town and on the level uplands surrounding it. The
+beggars on one occasion, becoming so numerous, were driven from the
+streets, confined within the walls of the temple and grounds beyond the
+South Gate, and there fed by common charity. Huddled together in disease
+and rags and unspeakable misery, they died in thousands, and the Chinese
+say that of five thousand who crossed the temple threshold two thousand
+never came out alive.</p>
+
+<p>This happened some twenty years ago. The unfortunate victims had for
+their food a rice porridge, mixed with which was a subtance alleged to
+have been lime, the common belief being that the majority of those who
+perished died from the effect of poisoning. Outside the city boundary
+hundreds of the dead were flung into huge pits, and even now the
+inhabitants refer to the time when children were exchanged <i>ad libitum</i>
+for a handful of rice or even less.</p>
+
+<p>During my stay in this city, I heard on all hands some of the most
+blood-curdling stories of the dire distress which, like a dark cloud,
+still menaces the people, some of which are too dreadful for public
+print.</p>
+
+<p>But I suppose these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a
+virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects
+which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's
+stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the
+desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope
+of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was
+plentiful. But now no opium is grown, and the misery-stricken people
+have lost all hope of better times, and seem to have sunk in many
+instances to the lowest pangs of distressful poverty.<a name='FNanchor_K_11'></a><a href='#Footnote_K_11'><sup>[K]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Reader, alarm not yourself! I am not here to lead you into a long
+harangue on opium&mdash;it presents too thorny a subject for me to handle. I
+am not a partisan in the opium traffic; my mission is not essentially to
+denounce it; I am not impelled by an irresistible desire to investigate
+facts and put them before you. There is practically no opium in Y&uuml;n-nan
+to talk about.</p>
+
+<p>This is absolute fact&mdash;not a Chinese fact, but good old British truth
+(although British truth when it touches upon opium has been very, very
+perverted since we first commenced to transact opium trade with this
+great country). With the exception of one small patch, some ten miles
+away from the main road between Y&uuml;n-nan-fu and Tali-fu, I saw no poppy
+whatever in the province. This does not mean, however, that no opium is
+to be had.</p>
+
+<p>During the past three weeks<a name='FNanchor_L_12'></a><a href='#Footnote_L_12'><sup>[L]</sup></a> no less than five cases of attempted
+suicide by opium poisoning have come under my personal notice in the
+town in which I am residing, and there have doubtless been fifty more
+which have not. If there is no opium, where do the people so easily
+secure it in endeavors to take their lives upon the slightest
+provocation? Last year the price of opium here on the streets, although
+its sale was &quot;illegal,&quot; was over three tsien (about nine-pence) the
+Chinese ounce of prepared opium. At the present time, in the same city,
+many men would be willing to do a deal for any quantity you like for
+less than two tsien. Cases of smuggling are frequent. One gets
+accustomed to hear of large quantities being smuggled through in most
+cunning ways, and it all goes to show that the <i>people</i> of Y&uuml;n-nan are
+not, as some of China's enlightened statesmen and some of the ranting
+faddists of England and America would have us believe, falling over one
+another in their zeal to free the province from the drug.</p>
+
+<p>The other day some men passed through several towns, on the way to the
+capital, carrying three coffins. In the first was a corpse, the other
+two were packed with opium. Being suspected at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the first
+coffin was opened, and the carriers, making as much row as they could
+because their coffin had been burst open, secured a fair &quot;squeeze&quot; to
+hold their tongues, and the second and third coffins were passed
+unexamined. Quite common is it for men to travel in armed bands from the
+province of Kwei-chow, traveling by night over the mountains by
+lantern-light, and hiding by day from any possible official searchers.</p>
+
+<p>Opium, which is and always has been so heavily taxed, does not in
+general follow the ordinary trade routes on which <i>likin</i> stations are
+numerous, but is carried by these armed bands over roads where the
+native Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped as to yield
+readily to superior force, where the men are compelled to accept a
+composition much below the official rate.</p>
+
+<p>Opium smoking is still common in Western China among people who can
+afford it. At the time of the crusade against it, wealthy people laid
+in stocks enough to last them for years; and, so long as there is
+smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it, into those which do
+not, there will be no danger of the absolute extermination being carried
+successfully into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
+provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for having practically
+abolished the poppy; but at the present moment (December, 1909) she is
+at a loss to know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason why
+people of Y&uuml;n-nan are making bargains in opium smuggled over the border.
+Much has yet to be done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has been
+in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for
+nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for
+six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the
+average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole
+business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China
+for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked
+since the middle of the seventeenth century.<a name='FNanchor_M_13'></a><a href='#Footnote_M_13'><sup>[M]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>A few years ago Y&uuml;n-nan had only two articles of importance with which
+to pay for extra provincial products consumed, namely, opium and tin.
+The latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz, and the value of
+the output now runs to approximately three million taels. Opium came
+from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion
+sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three
+thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very
+much greater. Y&uuml;n-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
+In 1879, the production was variously estimated at from twelve thousand
+to twenty-two thousand piculs; in 1887 it had risen to approximately
+twenty-seven thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the reform
+no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, in November of 1909, the execution ground of Y&uuml;n-nan-fu
+was the scene of a remarkably daring proceeding by the officials in the
+campaign for the total suppression of opium in the province. No less
+than 20,040 ounces of prepared opium were publicly destroyed by fire in
+the presence of an enormous crowd of people. The officials of the city
+were present in person, and everywhere the event was looked upon as the
+greatest public demonstration that the people had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>The missionary of whom I inquired denied that the infanticide at
+Chao-t'ong was very great&mdash;things must be improving!</p>
+
+<p>Previous to my arrival at the city I had instructed my English-speaking
+boy to make inquiries in the city, and to let me know afterwards,
+whether girls were still sold publicly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have got plenty,&quot; he exclaimed, in describing this wholesale selling of
+female children into slavery. &quot;I know, I know; you wantchee makee buy.
+Can do! You wantchee catch one piecee small baby, can catchee two, three
+tael. Wantchee one piecee very much tall, big piecee, can catch fifty
+dollar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Continuing, he told me that prices were fairly high, a girl who could
+boast good looks and who had reached an age when her charms were
+naturally the strongest fetching the alarming amount of three hundred
+taels. This was the highest figure reached, whilst small children could
+be had for anything up to twenty. This wholesale disposal of young
+girls, although the traffic was in some quarters emphatically denied to
+exist&mdash;a denial, however, which was all moonshine&mdash;is one of the chief
+sorrows of the district. And well it might be; for thousands of children
+are disposed of in the course of a year for a few taels by heartless
+parents, who watch them being carried away, like so much merchandise, to
+be converted into silver, in many cases in this poverty-stricken
+district merely to satisfy the craving for opium of some sodden wretch
+of a man who calls himself a father. Time and time again, long after I
+myself passed through Chao-t'ong, did I see little girls from three to
+ten years of age being conveyed by pack-horse to the capital, balanced
+in baskets on either side of the animal. This and the terrible
+infanticide which exists in all poor districts of China menaces the
+lives of all well-wishers of the entire province of Y&uuml;n-nan.</p>
+
+<p>In the particular district of which I speak it is not an uncommon sight
+to see little children being torn to pieces by dogs, the scavengers of
+the Empire, perhaps by the very dogs that had been their playmates from
+birth. I have been riding many times and found that my horse had stepped
+on a human skull, and near by were the bones the dogs had left as the
+remains of the corpse.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>NOTE.&mdash;I should mention that, since the above was written, I have lived
+and travelled a good deal around Chao-t'ong-fu, being the only European
+traveller who has ever penetrated the country to the east of the main
+road, by which I had now come down.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_J_10'></a><a href='#FNanchor_J_10'>[J]</a><div class='note'><p> Anyone who contemplates a tramp across China must not get
+the idea that he can still continue the uses of civilization. For the
+most part he will have to live pretty well as a Chinese the whole time,
+and he will find, as I found, that it is easy to give up a thing when
+you know the impossibility of getting it.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_K_11'></a><a href='#FNanchor_K_11'>[K]</a><div class='note'><p> This was written later. I have altered my views since I
+have traveled from end to end of Y&uuml;n-nan. The disappearance of opium, on
+the contrary, apart from the moral advantage to the people, has done
+much to place them in a better position financially. In Tali-fu I found
+not a single shop on the main street &quot;to let,&quot; and the trade of the
+place had gone ahead considerably, and this was a city which people
+generally supposed would suffer most on account of the non-growth of
+opium.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_L_12'></a><a href='#FNanchor_L_12'>[L]</a><div class='note'><p> May, 1910. As a matter of fact the date makes no
+difference, because unfortunately the number of suicides from opium does
+not seem to have decreased materially in Western China since the opium
+crusade was started. Upon the slightest provocation a Chinese woman in
+Y&uuml;n-nan will take her life, and it is probable that for the five cases
+which came to my notice through the mission house there were treble that
+number which did not&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_M_13'></a><a href='#FNanchor_M_13'>[M]</a><div class='note'><p> This was written at the end of 1909 Now, in July, 1910,
+things are changed wonderfully. The rapidity with which China is driving
+out the poppy from province after province is truly remarkable. In
+Szech'wan, in April, 1909, I passed through miles and miles of poppy
+along the main road&mdash;to-day there is none to be seen It is to be hoped
+that Great Britain will do her part as faithfully as China is doing
+hers.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THE_CHAO_TONG_REBELLION_OF_1910'></a><h2>THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910</h2>
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a><h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Digression from travel</i>. <i>How rebellions start in China</i>. <i>Famous Boxer
+motto</i>. <i>Way of escape shut off</i>. <i>Riots expected before West can be won
+into the confidence of China</i>. <i>Boxerism and students of the Government
+Reform Movement</i>. <i>Author's impressions formed within the danger zone</i>.
+<i>More Boxerism in China than we know of</i>. <i>Causes of the Chao-t'ong
+Rebellion</i>. <i>Halley's Comet brings things to a climax</i>. <i>Start of the
+rioting</i>. <i>Arrival of the military</i>. <i>Number of the rebels</i>. <i>They hold
+three impregnable positions, and block the main roads</i>. <i>European ladies
+travel to the city in the dead of night</i>. <i>A new ch'en-tai takes the
+matter in hand</i>. <i>Rumors and suspense</i>. <i>Stations of the rebels</i>. <i>A
+night attack</i>. <i>Sixteen rebels decapitated</i>. <i>Officials alter their
+tactics</i>. <i>Fighting on main road</i>. <i>Superstition regarding soldiers</i>.
+<i>One of the leaders captured by a headman</i>. <i>Chapel burnt down and
+caretaker rescued by military</i>. <i>Li the Invincible under arms</i>. <i>Huang
+taken prisoner</i>. <i>Two leaders killed</i>. <i>Rising among the Miao</i>. <i>Mission
+work at a standstill</i>. <i>Child-stealing, and the Y&uuml;n-nan Railway rumor</i>.
+<i>Barbaric punishment</i>. <i>Tribute to Chinese officials</i>. <i>British
+Consul-General</i>. <i>R&eacute;sum&eacute; of the position</i>. <i>An unfortunate incident</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Despite the fact that this chapter was the last written, it has been
+thought wise to place it here. It deals with the Chao-t'ong Rebellion,
+of which the outside world, even when it was at its height, knew little,
+but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of
+writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in
+North-East Y&uuml;n-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression from
+travel.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all that has been written in previous and subsequent
+chapters, and in face of the universal cry of the progress China is
+speedily realizing, of the stoutest optimism characteristic of the
+statesman and of the student of Chinese affairs, a feeling of deep gloom
+at intervals overcomes one in the interior&mdash;a fear of some impending
+trouble. There is a rumor, but one smiles at it&mdash;there are always
+rumors! Then there are more rumors, and a feeling of uneasiness pervades
+the atmosphere; a local bubble is formed, it bursts, the whole of one's
+trust in the sincerity of the reform of China and her people is brushed
+away to absolute unbelief in a few days, and it means either a sudden
+onrush and brutal massacre of the foreigners, or the thing blows over
+after a short or long time of great strain, and ultimately things assume
+a normality in which the detection of the slightest ruffle in the
+surface of social life is hardly traceable.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the Chao-t'ong Rebellion, luckily unattended by loss of life
+among the foreigners. It is not yet over,<a name='FNanchor_N_14'></a><a href='#Footnote_N_14'><sup>[N]</sup></a> but it is believed that the
+worst is past.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1909 probably no part of the Empire seemed more peaceful.
+Two months afterwards the heads of the Europeans were demanded;
+missionaries were guarded by armed soldiers in their homes inside the
+city walls, and forbidden to go outside; native Christians were brutally
+maltreated and threatened with death if they refused to turn traitor to
+their beliefs; thousands of generally law-abiding men, formed into armed
+bands, were defiantly setting at naught the law of the land, and the
+whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to
+Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by
+infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,&mdash;their motto the famous
+ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: &quot;Exalt the dynasty; destroy the
+foreigner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kill, kill, kill!&quot; ran the cry for miles around the countryside, and a
+fearful repetition of the bloody history of ten years ago was daily
+feared. Providential, however, was it that no foreigner was traveling at
+the time in these districts, and that those who, ignorant of the
+troubles, desired to do so were stopped at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu by the Consuls and
+at Sui-fu by the missionaries. It is a matter for gratitude also that
+throughout the riots, specially safeguarded by the great Providence of
+God, no lives of Europeans were lost; and owing to the praiseworthy and
+obvious attitude of the missionaries in this area in endeavoring to keep
+the thing as quiet as possible, and the notoriously conservative manner
+in which consular reports upon such matters are preserved in
+Governmental lockers, practically nothing has been heard of the
+uprising.</p>
+
+<p>At times during the four slow-moving months, however, the situation
+became, as I shall endeavor to show, complicated in every way. The
+escape of the foreigners was made absolutely impossible by the fact that
+the whole of the roads, even those over the rough mountains leading
+south, were blocked successfully by the rebelling forces, and, when the
+deep gloom settled finally over the city, the fate of the Westerners
+seemed sealed and their future hopeless. All round the foreigners'
+houses the people, infected with that strange, unaccountable, national
+hysteria, so terrible in the Chinese temperament, rose up to burn and
+kill. Mayhap it means little to the man who reads. Massacres have always
+been common enough in China, he will say; and there are thousands of
+people in Europe to-day who know no more about China than what the
+telegrams of massacres of European missionaries have told them. Years
+ago one almost expected this sort of thing; but at the present day, when
+China is popularly supposed to be working honestly to gain for herself
+an honorable place among the nations, it is surely not to be expected in
+the ordinary run of things in days of peace.</p>
+
+<p>But we know that such visions are common to every European in Inland
+China, and even at the coast men talk continually of and believe that
+riots are going to happen in the near future. Merchant, missionary,
+traveler and official all agree that there is yet more trouble ahead
+before the West will be won into the confidence of China and <i>vice
+versa</i>. The people who are studying the Reform Movement of the Young
+China, however, and who stolidly refuse to study with it the general
+attitude of the common people, laugh and dismiss with contempt the
+subject of the possibility of further outbreaks of Boxerism in the
+outlying parts of the Empire. But they should not laugh. The European
+cannot afford to laugh, and, if he be a sensible fellow, knows that he
+cannot afford to treat with contempt the opinions of the people who
+know. The more we understand the vast interior of China and the
+conservatism and peculiarities of character of the people of that
+interior, the less disposed shall we be to jest, the less disposed to
+ridicule, what I would characterize as the strongest and most deadly of
+the hidden menaces of the Celestial Empire.</p>
+
+<p>One does not wish to be pessimistic, but it is foolish to close one's
+eyes to bare fact.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment I am writing, in the middle of China, I know that I am
+safe enough here, but I do not disguise from myself that the wildest
+reports are still current within a quarter of a mile from me about me
+and my own kind in this peaceful city of Tong-ch'uan-fu. And it takes
+very little to light the fuse and to cause a terrible explosion here, in
+common with other places in this province. A man might be quite safe one
+day and lose his head the next if he did not, at times when the
+rebellious element is apparent, conform strictly to the general wishes
+and accepted customs of the people among whom he is living.</p>
+
+<p>No, we cannot afford to laugh. We must seek the opinion of those people
+who were confined within the walls of Chao-t'ong city&mdash;the silence of
+their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of
+yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very
+death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging
+their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom&mdash;before we show
+contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is
+more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know
+of.</p>
+
+<p>Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no
+rumor of any uprising. About this time, however, to supply a serious
+deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since
+that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which
+the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they
+be allowed again to grow the poppy. Among the population of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city,
+especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have
+been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the
+Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which
+gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest. It
+required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its
+wonderful tail&mdash;none other than Halley's Comet&mdash;to bring the whole to a
+climax. This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and
+he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by
+the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the
+Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the
+Chinese to strike.</p>
+
+<p>That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news
+the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the
+tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured
+and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T'o-ch-i (on the
+River of Golden Sand<a name='FNanchor_O_15'></a><a href='#Footnote_O_15'><sup>[O]</sup></a>) and Sa'i-ho, in a westerly direction from the
+town. A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the
+Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and
+looted&mdash;so ran the rumor. By this date, for two days' march in all
+directions from Chao-t'ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd
+they were&mdash;Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.
+Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the
+<i>ch'uandan</i>) containing two pieces of coal and a feather&mdash;a simile
+meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.
+Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the
+capital (twelve days away), and from Ch'u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days
+away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to the city,
+and it was thought that the brigadier-general would be able to cope with
+the trouble now that he had so many armed troops. Soldiers patrolled the
+city walls (which, by the way, had to be built up so that the soldiers
+might be able to get decent patrol), more were stationed on the premises
+of the Europeans, and every defensive precaution was taken. The
+officials were in daily communication by telegraph with the Viceroy, and
+at first the riot was kept well in hand by Government authorities.</p>
+
+<p>But the rebels had by this time got together no less than three thousand
+men, and were holding three impregnable positions on the adjacent hills,
+and had effectually cut off communication by the main road. Despite
+their numbers, they were afraid to strike, however, and lucky it was for
+the city that the leaders were not sufficiently trusted by their
+followers, many of them pressed men&mdash;men who had joined the rebelling
+ranks merely to save their own necks and their houses. At this time the
+<i>pen-fu</i> (a sort of mayor of the city) demanded that the missionaries
+working among the Hua Miao, and two lady workers paying a visit to that
+place, should return from Sh&iuml;h-men-K'an (70 li away), as he could not
+protect them in the country. A special messenger was dispatched,
+demanding instant departure, and in the dead of night&mdash;a bitter wintry
+night, icy, dark, slippery, and cold&mdash;these ladies came under cover to
+the city.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the mission premises without molestation.</p>
+
+<p>By this time a new <i>ch'en-tai</i> (brigadier-general) had arrived from the
+capital, having been sent as a man who could handle the situation
+successfully. He was a Liu Ta Ren, who had previously held office in the
+city, and whose cunning a Scotland Yard detective might envy.<a name='FNanchor_P_16'></a><a href='#Footnote_P_16'><sup>[P]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Rumors grew more and more serious; the mandarins went all round the
+countryside endeavoring to pacify the people, and the foreigners could
+do nothing but &quot;sit tight&quot; through these most trying days. The suspense
+of being shut up in one's house during a time of trouble of this nature,
+hearing every rumor which lying tongues create, and unable to get at the
+facts, is far worse than being in the thick of things, although this
+would have at once been fatal. But one needs to have lived in China
+during such a time to understand the awful tension which riots
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The rioters were stationed as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>1. Weining, in Kwei-chow, to the southeast 1,000 men
+
+<p>     2. Kiang-ti Hill, in Y&uuml;n-nan, to the south 1,000 men</p>
+
+<p>     3. Several places around the city, to the west as far as the River
+     of Golden Sand 1,000 men</p></div>
+
+<p>On March 13th a night attack was expected. Breathless, the foreigners
+waited in their suspense, but it passed off without serious damage being
+done. On the Sunday, the missionaries, almost at their wits' end with
+mingled fear and excitement, occasioned by the strain which weeks of
+anxiety must bring to the strongest, feared whether their services would
+be got through in peace.</p>
+
+<p>Meetings were being held all around the city, and gradually the
+mandarins gained small successes. Prisoners&mdash;miserable specimens of men
+fighting for they hardly knew what&mdash;were captured and brought to the
+city, and, on March 16th, sixteen human heads, thrown in one gruesome
+mass into a common basket, with upturned eyes gaping into the great
+unknown, hideous-looking and bearing still the brutish stare of
+hysterical craving and morbid rage, were carried by an armed squad of
+military to the <i>yamen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>They made a ghastly picture when hung over the gate of the city to put
+the fear of death into the hearts of their brutal compatriots. The
+officials, hard-worked and themselves feeling the strain of the whole
+business, and incidentally fearful for the safety of their own heads,
+were perturbed all this time by rumors coming from Weining, the
+mutineers of which were alleged to be the fiercest of the three bands.
+Up to now the officials had been playing a conciliating game. They had
+been trying vainly to pacify, but now they found that they had to prove
+their energies and their benevolence by acting the part of tyrants
+rather than of administrators of mercy, by warring rather than by
+peace-making, by fighting and forcing rather than by conciliating and
+persuading.</p>
+
+<p>On Easter Tuesday, fighting took place on the main road to the north,
+when the <i>pen-fu</i> and his men achieved a creditable success. The rebels
+almost to a man were taken, and among the prisoners was a girl who had
+been distributing the beans, a lovely damsel of eighteen, said to have
+been the fianc&eacute;e of the leader of that band. Both her legs were shot
+through and she was considerably mutilated; but although the <i>pen-fu</i>
+thought this sufficient punishment, instructions came from the capital
+that she must die. She was accordingly taken outside the city and
+beheaded. This caused some consternation among the rebels, as the death
+of the girl was looked upon as an omen of direct misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>For a very long time she had been going around the country dropping
+beans into the ground outside any houses she came across, the
+superstition being that wherever a bean was dropped there in the very
+spot, perhaps at the very moment, for aught that we know, an invincible
+warrior would spring up. She had dropped some millions of beans, but the
+ranks were not swelled as a consequence.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>ch'en-tai</i> had also been out all night, and as men were captured so
+they were beheaded on the spot without mercy and their heads
+subsequently hung outside the city gates. The headman of a small
+village&mdash;some forty li from the city&mdash;succeeded in capturing one of the
+leaders, and great credit was due to him; but soon the leader was
+rescued again by his followers, who then brutally killed and mutilated
+the body of the headman, causing him to undergo the ignominy of having
+his tongue and his heart cut out. Fighting was going on everywhere, and
+by the end of March things were at their height. The fact that rain was
+badly needed tended only to aggravate the situation, and that lustrous
+comet made things worse. Day by day miserable processions brought the
+wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden
+fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised
+the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through
+the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was
+prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United
+Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the
+houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua
+Miao convert, was taken, stripped of his clothing, and threatened with
+an awful death if he did not betray the foreigners. He refused manfully
+to divulge any information whatsoever, and was on the point of being
+sacrificed, when the <i>ch'en-tai</i> came unexpectedly upon the scene with
+his military. He released the Miao, captured thirty-six rebels, killed
+sixteen more where they stood, and carried away many of their horses and
+the dreaded Boxer flag around which the men rallied.</p>
+
+<p>And now comes the smartest thing I heard of throughout the rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>A man named Li was the most dreaded of the trio of rebel chiefs, a man
+of marvelous strength, and who seemed to be able to fascinate his men
+and get them to do anything he wished&mdash;and Liu, the <i>ch'en-tai</i>, set
+himself the task of capturing him. Disguising himself in the garb of a
+pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the
+look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the
+<i>ch'en-tai</i> was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell
+them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose
+his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up
+quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on,
+they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their
+captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which
+was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and
+where Li himself was hiding.</p>
+
+<p>And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the
+master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with
+many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the
+military.</p>
+
+<p>Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was
+captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow
+process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers
+might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief
+<i>yamen</i>, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the
+head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls
+since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago.
+After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had
+served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from
+his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a
+frame on the city gate.</p>
+
+<p>And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in
+this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of
+magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a
+better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to
+die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood
+must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more
+hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time
+in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting
+of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart,
+fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away;
+but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive,
+and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his
+followers. He has probably been given up.<a name='FNanchor_Q_17'></a><a href='#Footnote_Q_17'><sup>[Q]</sup></a> In the month of May the
+Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come
+to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and
+British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond
+Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910),
+permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.</p>
+
+<p>Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to
+the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and
+were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to <i>ch'i</i>
+the railway to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the
+public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and
+offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest
+prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution,
+and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission
+schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as
+they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more
+grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at
+Chao-t'ong, were taken to the <i>yamen</i>, hung in cages for a time as a
+warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting,
+&quot;Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have.&quot; If
+they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.</p>
+
+<p>A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a
+child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in
+England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able
+successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused.
+Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and
+mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run
+away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get
+them.</p>
+
+<p>This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and
+breadth of Y&uuml;n-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to
+Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into
+close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people
+taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the
+very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.</p>
+
+<p>In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my
+manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been
+greatly reduced.</p>
+
+<p>In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which
+it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only
+fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of
+the Viceroy of Y&uuml;n-nan in dealing with the situation. Although he is
+not, I believe, generally liked by the people as their ruler, Li Chin
+Hsi did all he could to quell the riots speedily, and saw to it that all
+the officials in whose districts the rebellion was raging, and who made
+blunders during its progress, were degraded in rank. It is difficult for
+Europeans thoroughly to grasp the situation. From Chao-t'ong to
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the viceregal seat, is twelve days' hard going, and all
+communication was done by telegraph&mdash;seemingly easy enough; but one must
+not discount the slow Chinese methods of doing things. Most of the
+troops were twelve days away, and in China&mdash;in backward Y&uuml;n-nan
+especially&mdash;to mobilize a thousand men and march them over mountains a
+fortnight from your base is not a thing to be done at a moment's
+notice. By the time they would arrive, it might have been possible for
+all the foreigners to have been massacred and their premises demolished,
+especially as the exits were blocked on all sides. But no time was lost
+and no pains were saved; and although the Chao-t'ong foreign residents,
+who suffered in suspense more than most missionaries are called upon to
+suffer, may differ with me in this opinion, I believe that not one of
+the officials who took part in endeavors to keep the riots from assuming
+more actually dangerous proportions could have done more than was done.
+If a man neglected his duty he lost his button, and he deserved nothing
+else.</p>
+
+<p>In Mr. P. O'Brien Butler, the able British Consul-General, the British
+subjects had the greatest confidence. He might have erred in having
+declined from harassing the Chinese Foreign Office to grant permission
+and protection to Britishers who wished to travel after the leaders of
+the rebellion had been captured, but he undoubtedly erred on the right
+side.</p>
+
+<p>An unfortunate incident for the United Methodist missionaries was the
+fact that the Rev. Charles Stedeford, who was sent out by the Connexion
+to visit the whole of the mission fields, was able to come only so far
+as Tong-ch'uan-fu, and was forced to return to Europe without having
+seen any of the magnificent work among the Hua Miao.</p>
+
+<p>After my manuscript went forward to my publishers, permission to travel
+and protection were granted to British subjects again on the main road
+leading up to the Yangtze Valley. The author was the first Britisher to
+go from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Chao-t'ong-fu, and as I write, as late as the
+middle of July, 1910, I am of the opinion that it is unwise to travel
+over this road for a long time to come, unless it is absolutely
+imperative to do so. At Kiang-ti I had considerable trouble in getting
+a place to sleep, and I was glad when I had passed Tao-&uuml;en.</p>
+
+<p>At the invitation of missionaries working among them, I then spent some
+months in residence and travel in Miaoland, and only regret that an
+extended account of my experiences is not possible.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_N_14'></a><a href='#FNanchor_N_14'>[N]</a><div class='note'><p> July, 1910.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_O_15'></a><a href='#FNanchor_O_15'>[O]</a><div class='note'><p> The local name for the Yangtze.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_P_16'></a><a href='#FNanchor_P_16'>[P]</a><div class='note'><p> This Liu was a remarkable man, quite unlike the average
+mandarin. He got the name of Liu Ma Pang, a disrespectful term, meaning
+that he was fond of using the stick. On a journey towards Chao-t'ong,
+some years ago, he went on ahead of his retinue of men and horses, and
+arriving at an inn at Tong-ch'uan-fu, asked the <i>ta si fu</i>&mdash;the general
+factotum&mdash;for the best room, and proceeded to walk into it. &quot;No you
+don't,&quot; yelled the <i>ta si fu</i>, &quot;that's reserved for Liu Ma Pang, and
+you're not to go in there.&quot; After some time Liu's men arrived, and
+calling one or two, he said, &quot;Take this man&quot; (pointing to the surprised
+<i>ta si fu</i>) &quot;and give him a sound thrashing.&quot; He stood by and saw the
+whacking administered, after which he said, &quot;That's for speaking
+disrespectfully of a mandarin.&quot; Then, &quot;Give him a thousand cash,&quot;
+adding, &quot;That's for knowing your business.&quot;
+</p><p>
+Some years ago Liu was the means of saving the life of the late Mr.
+Litton (mentioned later in this book), at the time he was British Consul
+at Tengyueh, when there was fighting down in the south of Y&uuml;n-nan with
+the Wa's.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_Q_17'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Q_17'>[Q]</a><div class='note'><p> He was captured some months afterwards, I believe, at
+Mengtsz.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<a name='THE_TRIBES_OF_NORTH_EAST_YUumlN_NAN_AND_MISSION_WORK_AMONG_THEM'></a><h2>THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST Y&Uuml;N-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM</h2>
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_X'></a><h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Men who came through Y&uuml;n-nan twenty years ago wrote of its doctors and
+its medicines, its poverty and its infanticide. There seemed little else
+to speak of.</p>
+
+<p>Although the tribes were here then&mdash;and in a rawer state even then than
+they are at the present time&mdash;little was known about them, and men had
+not yet developed the cult of putting their opinions upon this most
+absorbing topic into print. To-day, however, scores of men in Europe are
+eagerly devouring every line of copy they can get hold of bearing upon
+this fascinating ethnological study. Missionaries are plagued by
+inquiries for information respecting the tribes of Western China, and it
+is a curious feature of the situation that, with each article or book
+coming before the public contradiction follows contradiction, and very
+few people&mdash;not even those resident in the areas and working among the
+tribes&mdash;can agree absolutely upon any given points in their data. The
+numerous non-Chinese tribes I met in China formed one of the most
+interesting, and at the same time most bewildering, features of my
+travel; and I can quite agree with Major H.R. Davies,<a name='FNanchor_R_18'></a><a href='#Footnote_R_18'><sup>[R]</sup></a> who tackles the
+tribe question with considerable ability in his book on Y&uuml;n-nan, when he
+says that it is safe to assert that in hardly any part of the world is
+there such a large variety of languages and dialects as are to be found
+in the country which lies between Assam and the eastern border of
+Y&uuml;n-nan, and in the Indo-Chinese countries to the north of that region.
+The reason for it is generally ascribed to the physical characteristics
+of the country, the high mountain ranges and deep, swift-flowing rivers,
+which have brought about the differences in customs and language and the
+innumerable tribal distinctions so perplexing to him who would put
+himself in the position of an inquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology. I
+know more than one gentleman in Y&uuml;n-nan at the present moment having
+under preparation manuscript upon this subject intended for subsequent
+publication, and I feel sure that their efforts will add valuable
+information to the all too limited supply now obtainable. In the
+meantime, I print my own impressions.</p>
+
+<p>I should like it to be known here, however, that I do not in any way
+whatsoever put myself forward as an authority on the question. I had
+not, at the time this was written, laid myself out to make any study of
+the subject. But the fact that I have lived in North-East Y&uuml;n-nan for a
+year and a half, and have traveled from one end of the province to the
+other, in addition to having come across tribes of people in Szech'wan,
+may justify me in the eyes of the reader for placing on record my own
+impressions as a general contribution to this most exciting discussion.
+I also lived at Sh&iuml;h-men-K'an (mentioned in the last chapter), among the
+Hua Miao for several months, traveled fairly considerably in the
+unsurveyed hill country where they live, and am the only man, apart from
+two missionaries, who has ever been over that wonderful country lying to
+the extreme north-east of Y&uuml;n-nan. One trip I made, extending over three
+weeks, will ever remain with me as a memorable time, but I regret that I
+have no space in this volume for even the merest reference to my
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>Some of my friends in China might say sarcastically that mankind is
+destined to arrive at years of discretion, and that I should have known
+better than to include in my book anything, however well founded, of a
+nature tending to continue the wordy strife touching this vexed question
+of Mission Work, and that no matter how strikingly set forth, this is an
+old and obsolete story, fit only to be finally done with. It is for such
+to bear with me in what I shall say. There are thousands of men in the
+West who are entirely ignorant of men in China other than the ordinary
+<i>Han Ren</i>, and if I enlighten them ever so little, then this chapter
+will have served an admirable end.</p>
+
+<p>In North-East Y&uuml;n-nan the tribes I came most in contact with were:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(i) The Miao or Miao-tze, as the Chinese call them; or the Mhong or
+Hmao, as they call themselves.</p>
+
+<p>(ii) The I-pien (or E-pien), as the Chinese call them; or the Nou Su (or
+Ngo Su), as they call themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the Nou Su tribes are what Major Davies calls the Lolo Group in
+his third division of the great Tibeto-Burman Family; but I merely
+suggest it, as it strikes me that the other branches of that group,
+including the Li-su, the La-hu, and the Wo-ni, seem to be descendants of
+a larger group, of which the Nou Su predominate in numbers, language,
+and customs. However, this by the way.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be common knowledge that in most parts of the Chinese Empire,
+even to-day, there are tribes of people, essentially non-Chinese, who
+still rigidly maintain their independence, governed by their own native
+rulers as they were probably forty centuries ago, long before their
+kingdoms were annexed to China Proper. There are white bones and black
+bones, noses long and flattened, eyes straight and oblique, swarthy
+faces, faces yellow and white, coal-black and brown hair, and many
+other physical peculiarities differentiating one tribe from another.</p>
+
+<p>In many instances, these tribes, conquered slowly by the encroaching
+Chinese during the long and tedious term of centuries marking the growth
+of the Chinese Empire to its present immensity, are allowed to maintain
+their social independence under their own chiefs, who are subject to the
+control of the Government of China&mdash;which means that excessive taxation
+is paid to the <i>yamen</i> functionary, who extorts money from anybody and
+everybody he can get into his clutches, and then gives a free hand.
+Others, in a further state of civilization, have been gradually absorbed
+by the Chinese and are now barely distinguishable from the <i>Han Ren</i>
+(the Chinese). And others, again, adopting Chinese dress, customs and
+language, would give the traveler a rough time of it were he to suggest
+that they are any but pure Chinese. To the ethnological student, it is
+obvious that so soon as the Chinese have tyrannized sufficiently and in
+their own inimitable way preyed upon these feudal landlords enough to
+warrant their lands being confiscated, reducing a tribe to a condition
+in which, far removed from districts where co-tribesmen live, they have
+no <i>status</i>, the aboriginals throw in their lot gradually with the
+Chinese, and to all intents and purposes become Chinese in language,
+customs, trade and life. This absorption by the Chinese of many tribes,
+stretching from the Burmese border to the eastern parts of Szech'wan,
+whilst an interesting study, shows that the onward march of civilization
+in China will sweep all racial relicts from the face of this great
+awakening Empire.</p>
+
+<p>But at the same time there are many branches of a tribal family, some
+found as far west as British Burma and all more or less scattered and
+disorganized as the result of this silent oppression going on through
+the years, who still are ambitious of preserving their independent
+isolation, particularly in sparsely-populated spheres far removed from
+political activity. So remote are the districts in which these
+principalities are found, that the Chinese themselves are entirely
+ignorant of the characteristics of these tribes. They say of one tribe
+which is scattered all over China Far West that they all have tails; and
+of another tribe that the men and women have two faces! And into the
+official records published by the Imperial Government the grossest
+inaccuracies creep concerning the origin of these peoples.</p>
+
+<p>Y&uuml;n-nan and Szech'wan&mdash;and a great part of Kwei-chow in the main still
+untouched by the increased taxation necessary to provide revenue to
+uphold the reforms brought about by the forward movement in various
+parts of the Empire&mdash;are where the aboriginal population is most
+evident. This part of the Empire might be called the ethnological garden
+of tribes and various races in various stages of uncivilization. These
+secluded mountain areas, their unaltered conditions still telling forth
+the story of the world's youth, have been the cradle and the death-bed
+of nations, of vigorous and ambitious tribes bent on conquest and a
+career of glory.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>THE MIAO</p>
+
+<p>Of the Miao, with its various sections, we know a good deal. Their real
+home has been pretty finally decided to be in Kwei-chow province, and
+they probably in former times extended far into Hu-nan, the Chinese of
+these provinces at the present time having undoubtedly a good deal of
+Miao blood in their veins. They are comparatively recent arrivals in
+Y&uuml;n-nan, but are gradually extending farther and farther to the west,
+maintaining their language and their dress and customs. I personally
+found them as far west as thirty miles beyond Tali-fu, a little off the
+main road, but Major Davies found them far up on the Tibetan border. He
+says: &quot;The most westerly point that I have come across them is the
+neighborhood of Tawnio (lat. 23&deg; 40', long. 98&deg; 45'). Through Central
+and Northern Y&uuml;n-nan they do not seem to exist, but they reappear again
+to the north of this in Western Szech'wan, where there are a few
+villages in the basin of the Yalung River (lat. 28&deg; 15', long. 101&deg;
+40').&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Major was evidently ignorant of this Miao district of Chao-t'ong, to
+the north-east of the province. Stretching three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu right away on to Chao-t'ong, in a north line, Miao
+villages are met with fairly well the whole way; then, three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, in a north-westerly direction, we come to the Miao
+village of Loh-&Iuml;n-shan; and then, striking south-west, through country
+absolutely unsurveyed part of the way, Sa-pu-shan is met. This last
+place is the headquarters of the China Inland Mission, where, at the
+present rate of progress, one might modestly estimate that in twenty
+years there will be no less than a million people receiving Christian
+teaching. These are not all Miao, however; there are besides La-ka,
+Li-su, and many other tribes with which we have no concern at the
+present moment.</p>
+
+<p>So that it may be seen that from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the capital, in areas on
+either side of the main road leading up to the bifurcation of the
+Yangtze below Sui-fu, in a long, narrow neck running between the River
+of Golden Sand and the Kwei-chow border, Miao are met with constantly.
+And then, of course, over the river, in Szech'wan, they are met with
+again, and in Kwei-chow, farther west, we have their real home.</p>
+
+<p>It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
+contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
+ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
+the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
+have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
+Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
+have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
+from the pens of men who have not.</p>
+
+<p>In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(i) The Hua Miao&mdash;The Flowery (or White) Miao.</p>
+
+<p>(ii) The Heh Miao&mdash;The Black Miao.</p>
+
+<p>(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)</p>
+
+<p>The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
+different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
+and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
+interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
+enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
+differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's <i>Kwei-chow and
+Y&uuml;n-nan Provinces</i>, Prince Henri d'Orleans' <i>Du Tonkin aux Indes</i>, and
+Mr. Baber's works. Major Davies also gives some new information
+concerning this hill people, and is generally correct in what he says;
+but in his, as in all the books which touch upon the subject, the
+language tests vary considerably. In Chao-t'ong and the surrounding
+districts, for instance, the traveler would be unable to make any
+progress with the vocabulary which the Major has compiled. I was unable
+to make it tally with the spoken language of the people, and append a
+table showing the differences in the phonetic&mdash;and I do it with all
+respect to Major Davies. I ought to add that this is the language of the
+north-east corner of Y&uuml;n-nan; that of Major Davies is taken from page
+339 of his book. He says that the words given by him will not be found
+to correspond in every case with those in the Miao vocabulary in the
+pocket of the cover of his book, and some have been taken from other
+Miao dialects!. However, the comparison will be interesting:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>English Word</td><td align='left'>Major Davies's Miao</td><td align='left'>N-E. Y&uuml;n-nan Miao</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Man (human being)</td><td align='left'>Tan-neng, Tam-ming</td><td align='left'>Teh-neh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Son</td><td align='left'>To, T'am-t'ong</td><td align='left'>Tu.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Eye</td><td align='left'>K'a-mwa, Mai</td><td align='left'>A-ma.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Hand</td><td align='left'>Api</td><td align='left'>Tee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Cow</td><td align='left'>Nyaw, Nga</td><td align='left'>Niu.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Pig</td><td align='left'>Teng</td><td align='left'>Npa.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Dog</td><td align='left'>Klie, Ko</td><td align='left'>Klee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='left'>Ka, Kei</td><td align='left'>Ki.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Silver</td><td align='left'>Nya</td><td align='left'>Nieh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>River</td><td align='left'>Tiang</td><td align='left'>Glee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Paddy</td><td align='left'>Mblei</td><td align='left'>Nglee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Cooked Rice</td><td align='left'>Mao</td><td align='left'>Va.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Tree</td><td align='left'>Ndong</td><td align='left'>Ntao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire</td><td align='left'>To</td><td align='left'>Teh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Wind</td><td align='left'>Chwa, Chiang</td><td align='left'>Chta.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Earth</td><td align='left'>Ta</td><td align='left'>Ti.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Sun</td><td align='left'>Hno, Nai</td><td align='left'>Hnu.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Moon</td><td align='left'>Hla</td><td align='left'>Hlee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Big</td><td align='left'>Hlo</td><td align='left'>Hlo.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Come</td><td align='left'>Ta</td><td align='left'>Ta.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Go</td><td align='left'>Mong</td><td align='left'>Mao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Drink</td><td align='left'>Ho</td><td align='left'>Hao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>One</td><td align='left'>A, Yi</td><td align='left'>Ih.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Two</td><td align='left'>Ao</td><td align='left'>Ah.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Three</td><td align='left'>Pie, Po</td><td align='left'>Tsz.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Four</td><td align='left'>Pei, Plou</td><td align='left'>Glao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Five</td><td align='left'>Pa</td><td align='left'>Peh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Six</td><td align='left'>Chou</td><td align='left'>Glao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Seven</td><td align='left'>Shiang, I</td><td align='left'>Shiang.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Eight</td><td align='left'>Yi, Yik</td><td align='left'>Yih.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Nine</td><td align='left'>Chio</td><td align='left'>Chia.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Ten</td><td align='left'>Ch'it</td><td align='left'>Kao.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>The Miao language was until a year or two ago only spoken; it was never
+written, and no one ever dreamed that it could be written. At the time
+of the great Miao revival, when thousands of Miao made a raid on the
+mission premises at Chao-t'ong, and implored the missionaries to come
+and teach them, it was found absolutely necessary that the language
+should be reduced to writing, and the whole of this extremely creditable
+work fell to the Rev. Samuel Pollard, who may be characterized as the
+pioneer of this Christianizing movement in North-East Y&uuml;n-nan.</p>
+
+<p>In reducing the language to writing, however, considerable difficulty
+was complicated by the presence of &quot;tones,&quot; so well known to all
+students of Chinese, itself said to be an invention of the Devil. Tones
+introduce another element or dimension into speech. The number of
+sounds, not being sufficient for the reproduction of all the spoken
+ideas, has been multiplied by giving these various sounds in different
+tones. It is as if the element of music were introduced according to
+rule into speech, and as if one had not only to remember the words in
+everything he wished to say, but the tune also.</p>
+
+<p>The Miao people being so low down in the intellectual scale, and having
+never been accustomed to study, it was felt by the promoters of the
+written language that they should be as simple as possible, and hence
+they looked about for some system which could be readily grasped by
+these ignorant people. It was necessary that the system be absolutely
+phonetic and understood easily. By adapting the system used in
+shorthand, of putting the vowel marks in different positions by the side
+of the consonant signs, Mr. Pollard and his assistant found that they
+could solve their problem. The signs for the consonants are larger than
+the vowel signs, and the position of the latter by the side of the
+former gives the tone or musical note required.</p>
+
+<p>At the present time there are thousands of Miao now able to read and
+write, and the work of this enterprising missionary has conferred an
+inestimable boon upon this people. When I went among the Miao I was
+able, after ten minutes' instruction, to stand up and sing their hymns
+and read their gospels with them. Miao women, who heretofore had never
+hoped to read, are now put in possession of the Word of God, and the
+simplicity of the written language enables them almost at once to read
+the Story of the Cross. Surely this is one of the outstanding features
+of mission work in the whole of China. I hope at some future date to
+publish a work devoted exclusively to my travels among the Hua Miao, for
+I feel that their story, no matter how simply written, is one of the
+great untold romances of the world. As a people, they are extremely
+fascinating in life and customs, emotional, large-hearted, and
+absolutely distinct from, with hardly a manner of daily life in common
+with, the Chinese.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>MISSION WORK AMONG THE MIAO</p>
+
+<p>Whilst referring to mission work, it is a great privilege for the writer
+to add a word of most deserved eulogy of the United Methodist Mission at
+Chao-t'ong and Tongi-ch'uan-fu, and to the kindness shown by the
+missionaries towards me when I came, an absolute stranger, among them in
+May, 1909. It is to two members of this Mission that I owe a life-long
+debt of gratitude, for it was Mr. and Mrs. Evans, of Tong-ch'uan-fu, who
+saved my life, a week or two after I left Chao-t'ong, as is recorded in
+a subsequent chapter.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the old days of the Bible Christian Mission&mdash;than which the
+individual members of no mission in the whole of China worked with more
+zeal and lower stipends&mdash;that a most interesting development in the
+mission took place.</p>
+
+<p>The mass of the Miao are the serfs of the descendants of their ancient
+kings, who are large landowners, and the Miao are tenants. In 1905 the
+Miao heard of the Gospel, and came to listen to the preaching, and
+thousands came in batches at one time and another to the mission house.
+Their movements thus aroused suspicion among the Chinese, there was a
+good deal of persecution and personal violence, and at one time it
+looked as if there might be serious trouble. But the danger quieted
+down. The chieftain gave land, the Miao contributed one hundred pounds
+sterling, and themselves put up a chapel large enough to accommodate six
+hundred people. A year later, a thousand at a time crowded their simple
+sanctuary, and in 1907 nearly six thousand were members or probationers,
+and the work has steadily progressed ever since.</p>
+
+<p>I am indebted to the Rev. H. Parsons, who had charge of the work at the
+time I passed through this district, and whose guest I was for several
+months, for the following interesting details regarding the methods
+adopted in the running of this enormous mission field. Mr. Parsons is
+assisted in his work by his genial wife, who is a most ardent worker,
+and a capable Miao linguist. Mrs. Parsons regularly addresses
+congregations of several hundreds of Miao, and has traveled on journeys
+often with her husband; and such work as hers, with several others in
+this mission, is a testimony to the wisdom of a system advocating the
+increase of the number of lady workers on the mission field in China.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>THE NOU-SU (OR I-PIEN)</p>
+
+<p>There is a class of people around Chao-t'ong who are called Nou-su, a
+people who, although occupying the Chao-t'ong Plain at the time the
+Chinese arrived, are believed not to be the aboriginals of the district.
+What I actually know about this people is not much. I have heard a good
+deal, but it must not be understood that I publish this as absolutely
+the final word. People who have lived in the district for many years do
+not agree, so that for a mere traveler the task of getting infallible
+data would be quite formidable.</p>
+
+<p>No tribe is more widely known than the Nou-su, with their innumerable
+tribal distinctions and hereditary peculiarities so perplexing to the
+inquirer into Far Western China ethnology.</p>
+
+<p>The Nou-su are a very fine, tall race, with comparatively fair
+complexions, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian with some other
+straight-featured people. Of their origin, however, little can be
+vouched for, and with it we will have nothing to do here. But at the
+present time the Nou-su provide a good deal of interest from the fact
+that their power as tyrannic landlords and feudal chiefs is fast dying,
+and it may be that in a couple of decades, or a still shorter time, a
+people who, by obstinate self-reliance and great dislike to the Chinese,
+have remained unaffected by the absorbing spirit of the arbitrary
+Chinese, will have passed beyond the vale of personality. Even now,
+however, they own and rule enormous tracts of country (notably that part
+lying on the right bank of the River of Golden Sand) in north-east
+Y&uuml;n-nan. Some are very wealthy. One man may own vast tracts bigger than
+Yorkshire. In this tract there may be one hundred villages, all paying
+tribute to him and subject to the vagaries of his vilest despotism. From
+his tyranny his struggling tenantry have no redress. So long as the
+I-pien (the local name of the Nou-su) greases the palm of the squeezing
+Chinese mandarin in whose nominal control the district extends, he may
+run riot as he pleases. Social law and order are unknown, justice is a
+complete contradiction in terms, and whilst one is in the midst of it,
+it is difficult to realize that in China to-day&mdash;the China which all the
+world believes to be awakening&mdash;there exists a condition of things which
+will allow a man to torture, to plunder, to murder, and to indulge to
+the utmost degree the whims of a Neronic and devilish temperament.</p>
+
+<p>Slave trading is common. If a tenant cannot pay his tribute, he sells
+himself for a few taels and becomes the slave of his former landlord,
+and if he would save his head treads carefully.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days, when different clans were driven farther into the
+hills, they each clinched as much land as they could. In course of time,
+by petty quarrels, civil wars, and common feuds, the Nou-su were
+gradually thinned out. The Miao-tsi&mdash;the men of the hills and the serfs
+of the landlords, who four thousand years ago were a powerful race in
+their own kingdom&mdash;became the tenants of the Nou-su, whose rule is still
+marked by the grossest infamy possible to be practiced on the human
+race. All the methods of torture which in the old days were associated
+with the Chinese are still in vogue, in many cases in an aggravated
+form. I have personally seen the tortures, and have listened to the
+stories of the victims, but it would not bear description in print.</p>
+
+<p>It must not, however, be understood that to be a Nou-su is to be a
+landlord. By no means. For in the gradual process of the survival of the
+fittest, when the weaker landlords were murdered by their stronger
+compatriots and their lands seized, only a small percentage of the tribe
+in this area have been able to hold sway. However, wherever there are
+landlords in this part of the country, they are always Nou-su or
+Chinese. The Miao&mdash;or, at least, the Hua Miao, own no lands, and are
+body and soul in the tyrannic clutch of the tyrannic I-pien. Then,
+again, in the Nou-su tribe there are various hereditary distinctions
+enabling a man to claim caste advantage. There are the Black Bones, as
+they style themselves, the aristocrats of the race, and the White Bones,
+the lower breeds, who obey to the letter their wealthier brethren&mdash;or
+anybody who has authority over them.</p>
+
+<p>The Nou-su, who are a totally different race and a much better class
+than the Miao, are believed to have been driven from the Chao-t'ong
+Plain, preferring migration to fighting, and many trekked across the
+Yangtze (locally called the Kin-sha) river into country now marked on
+good maps as the Man-tze country. It appears that the following are the
+two important branches:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>(i) The Black (Na-su)&mdash;Farmers and landowners.
+
+<p>     (ii) The White (Tu-su) Generally slaves.</p></div>
+
+<p>Other minor classes are:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>(i) The Lakes (or Red Nou-su)&mdash;Mostly blacksmiths.
+
+<p>     (ii) The A-u-ts&iuml; Mostly felt-makers, who rightly or wrongly claim
+     relationship with the Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>     (iii) Another class, who are mostly basket-makers.</p></div>
+
+<p>The two great divisions, however, are the White and the Black. The
+latter class, themselves the owners of land, claim that all the White
+were originally slaves, and that those who are now free have escaped at
+some previous period from servitude. Men, as usual among such tribes,
+are scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary <i>Han Ren</i>. It is the
+women, with their peculiar head-dress and picturesque skirts, who
+maintain the distinguishing features of the race. For the most part, the
+Nou-su are not idolaters; no idols are in their houses. That portion of
+the tribe which migrated across the Yangtze, secure among the mountains,
+has never ceased to harass the Chinese, who now dwell on land which the
+Nou-su themselves once tilled, or at least inhabited; but they have been
+driven into remoter districts, and are only found away from the highways
+of Chinese travel. The race, too, is dying out&mdash;in this area at all
+events&mdash;and the Nou-su themselves reckon that their numbers have
+decreased by one-half during the last thirty years. This is one of the
+saddest facts. The insanitation of their dwellings, their rough diet,
+and frequent riotings in wine, opium and other evils, are quickly
+playing havoc in their ranks, giving the strong the opportunity of
+enriching themselves at the expense of the weak, with frequent fighting
+about the division of land.</p>
+
+<p>Europeans who can speak the language of the Nou-su are numbered on the
+fingers of one hand.</p>
+
+<p>To one who has traveled in this neighborhood for any length of time, it
+must be apparent that the unique method generally adopted by the Nou-su,
+that is, the landlord class, to get rich quickly is to kill off their
+next-door neighbor. The lives these men live with nothing but scandal
+and licentiousness to pass their time, are grossly and horribly wicked
+when viewed by the broadest-minded Westerner. They all live in fear of
+their lives, and are each afraid of the others, all entertaining a
+secret hatred, and all ever on the alert to devise some safe scheme to
+murder the owner of some land they are anxious of annexing to their
+own&mdash;and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they
+succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man,
+quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his
+brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When
+tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had
+not killed his brother his brother would have killed him</p>
+
+<p>Yet there is no sense of crime as we of the West understand it, and
+nothing is feared from the Chinese law. A man kills a slave, tortures
+him to death, and when the Chinese mandarin is appealed to, if he is at
+all, he looks wise and says, &quot;I quite see your point, but I can do
+nothing. The murdered man was the landlord's slave,&quot; and, with a gentle
+wave of his three-inch finger-nail, he explains how a man may kill his
+slave, his wife, or his son&mdash;and the law can do nothing. That is, if he
+compensates the mandarin.</p>
+
+<p>A Nou-su looked upon a girl one day, when he was out collecting tribute.
+She was handsome, and he instructed his men to take her. She refused. A
+sum of one hundred ounces of silver was offered to anyone who would
+kidnap her and carry her off to his harem. Eventually he got the girl,
+and had her father tortured and then put to death because he would not
+deliver his daughter over to him. Yet there is no redress.</p>
+
+<p>Nou-su women, their feet unbound, with high foreheads and well-cut
+features, with fiery eyes set in not unkindly faces, tall and healthy,
+would be considered handsome women in any country in Europe. They rarely
+intermarry with other tribes. A good deal of affection certainly exists
+sometimes between husband and wife and between parents and children, but
+the looseness of the marriage relation leads to unending strife.</p>
+
+<p>Many Europeans, travelers and missionaries, have been murdered in the
+country inhabited by the independent Lolo people. Although I have not
+personally been through any of that country, I have been on the very
+outskirts and have lived for a long time among the people there. I found
+them a pleasant hospitable race, fairly easy to get on with. And it must
+not be averred that, because they consider their natural enemy, the
+Chinese, the man to be robbed and murdered, and because they kill off
+their fellow-landlords in order the more quickly to get rich, that they
+treat all strangers alike. Among the Europeans who have suffered death
+at their hands, it is probable that in some way the cause was traceable
+to their own bearing towards the people&mdash;either a total lack of
+knowledge of their language or an attitude which caused suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Nou-su, strong as this feudal life still is, the Chinese are
+fast gaining permanent influence. Their dissolute and drunken and
+inhuman daily practices are tending to work out among this people their
+own destruction, and in years to come in this neighborhood the traveler
+will be perplexed at finding here and there a fine specimen of an
+upstanding Chinese, with clean-cut face, straight of feature and
+straight of limb, with a peculiar Mongol look about him. He will be one
+of the surviving specimens of a race of people, the Nou-su, whose
+forgotten historical records would do much to clear up the doubt
+attaching to Indo-China and Tibet-Burma ethnology.</p>
+
+<p>The first Nou-su chieftain to come to Chao-t'ong, a man who was renowned
+as a tryannical brute, was one Ien Tsang-fu, who frequently gouged out
+the eyes of those who disobeyed his commands; and his descendants are
+said to have inherited a good many of this tyrant's vices. The landlords
+prey upon their weaker brethren, and at last, with infinite sagacity,
+the Chinese Government steps in to stop the quarrels, confiscates the
+whole of the property, and thus reduces the Nou-su land to immediate
+control of Chinese authorities.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Nou-su are, of course, entirely dependent upon the land for their
+living. They till the soil and rear cattle, and the greatest calamity
+that can come upon any family is that their land shall be taken from
+them. To be landless involves degradation as well as poverty, and very
+severe hardship is the lot of men who have been deprived of this means
+of subsistence. For those who own no land, but who are merely tenants of
+the Tu-muh,<a name='FNanchor_S_19'></a><a href='#Footnote_S_19'><sup>[S]</sup></a> there seems to be no security of tenure; but still, if
+the wishes and demands of the landlords are complied with, one family
+may till the same farm for many successive generations. The terms on
+which land is held are peculiar. The rental agreed upon is nominal.
+Large tracts of country are rented for a pig or a sheep or a fowl, with
+a little corn per year. Beside this nominal rent, the landlord has the
+right to make levies on his tenants on all special occasions, such as
+funerals, weddings, or for any other extraordinary expenses. He can also
+require his tenants with their cattle to render services. This system
+necessarily leads to much oppression and injustice. It is also said that
+if a family is hard pressed by a Tu-muh and reduced to extreme poverty,
+they will make themselves over to him on condition that a portion of his
+land be given them to cultivate. Such people are called caught slaves,
+as distinguished from hereditary, and the eldest children become the
+absolute property of the landlord and are generally given as attendants
+upon his wife and daughters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every farmer owns a large number of slaves, who live in the same
+compound as himself. These people do all the work of the farm, while the
+master employs himself as his fancy leads him. Over these unfortunate
+people the owner has absolute control. All their affairs are managed by
+him. His girl slaves he marries off to other men's slave boys, and
+similarly obtains wives for his male slaves. The lot of these
+unfortunate people is hard beyond description. Being considered but
+little more valuable than the cattle they tend, the food given to them
+is often inferior to the corn upon which the master's horse is fed. The
+cruel beatings and torturings they have been subject to have completely
+broken their spirit, and now they seem unable to exist apart from their
+masters. Very seldom do any of them try to escape, for no one will give
+them shelter, and the punishment awarded a recaptured slave is so severe
+as to intimidate the most daring. These poor folk are born in slavery,
+married in slavery, and they die in slavery. It is not uncommon to meet
+with Chinese slaves, both boys and girls, in Nou-su families. These have
+either been kidnapped and sold, or their parents, unable to nourish
+them, have bartered them in exchange for food. Their purchasers marry
+them to Tu-su, and their lot is thrown in with the slave class. One's
+heart is wrung with anguish sometimes as he thinks of what cruelty and
+wretchedness exist among the hills of this benighted district. Even
+here, however, light is beginning to shine, for some adherents of the
+Christian religion have changed their slaves into tenants, thus showing
+the way to the ultimate solution of this difficult problem.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The life in a Nou-su household is not very complex. The cattle are
+driven out early in the morning, as soon as the sun has risen. They
+remain out until the breakfast hour, and then return to the stables and
+rest during the heat of the day, going out again in the cool hours. The
+food of the household is prepared by the slaves, under the direction of
+the lady of the house. There is no refined cooking, for the Nou-su
+despises well-cooked food, and complains that it never satisfies him. He
+has a couplet which runs: 'If you eat raw food, you become a warrior; if
+you eat it cooked, you suffer hunger.' No chairs or tables are found in
+a genuine Nou-su house. The food is served up in a large bowl placed on
+the floor. The family sit around, and each one helps himself with a
+large wooden spoon. At the present time the refinements of Chinese
+civilization have been adopted by a large number of Nou-su, and the
+homes of the wealthier people are as well furnished as those of the
+middle-class Chinese of the district. The women of the households also
+spend much time making their own and their children's clothes. The men
+have adopted Chinese dress, but the women, in most cases, retain their
+tribal costume with its large turban-like head-dress, its plaited skirt
+and intricately embroidered coat. All this is made by hand, and the
+choicest years of maidenhood are occupied in preparing the clothes for
+the wedding-day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Nou-su, it would seem, used not to beg a wife, but rather obtained
+her by main force. At the present day, while the milder method generally
+prevails, there are still survivals of the ancient custom. The betrothal
+truly takes place very early, even in infancy, and at the ceremony a
+fowl is killed, and each contracting party takes a rib; but as the young
+folk grow to marriageable age, the final negotiations have to be made.
+These are purposely prolonged until the bridegroom, growing angry,
+gathers his friends and makes an attack on the maiden's home. Arming
+themselves with cudgels, they approach secretly, and protecting their
+heads and shoulders with their felt cloaks, they rush towards the house.
+Strenuous efforts are made by the occupants to prevent their entering,
+and severe blows are exchanged. When the attacking party has succeeded
+in gaining an entrance, peace is proclaimed, and wine and huge chunks of
+flesh are provided for their entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Occasionally during these fights the maiden's home is quite dismantled.
+The negotiations being ended, preparations are made to escort the bride
+to her future home. Heavily veiled, she is supported on horseback by her
+brothers, while her near relatives, all fully armed, attend her. On
+arriving at the house, a scuffle ensues. The veil is snatched from the
+bride's face by her relatives, who do their utmost to throw it on to the
+roof, thus signifying that she will rule over the occupants when she
+enters. The bridegroom's people on the contrary try to trample it upon
+the doorstep, as an indication of the rigor with which the newcomer will
+be subjected to the ruling of the head of the house. Much blood is shed,
+and people are often seriously injured in these skirmishes. The new
+bride remains for three days in a temporary shelter before she is
+admitted to the home. A girl having once left her parent's home to
+become a wife, waits many years before she pays a return visit.
+Anciently the minimum time was three years, but some allow ten or more
+years to elapse before the first visit home is paid. Two or three years
+are then often spent with the parents. Many friends and relatives attend
+any visitor, for with the Nou-su a large following is considered a sign
+of dignity and importance. When a child is born a tree is planted, with
+the hope that as the tree grows so also will the child develop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fear of disease lies heavily upon the Nou-su people, and their
+disregard of the most elementary sanitary laws makes them very liable to
+attacks of sickness. They understand almost nothing about medicine, and
+consequently resort to superstitious practices in order to ward off the
+evil influences. When it is known that disease has visited a neighbor's
+house, a pole, seven feet long, is erected in a conspicuous place in a
+thicket some distance from the house to be guarded. On the pole an old
+ploughshare is fixed, and it is supposed that when the spirit who
+controls the disease sees the ploughshare he will retire to a distance
+of three homesteads.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A fever called No-ma-dz&iuml; works great havoc among the Nou-su every year,
+and the people are very much afraid of it. No person will stay by the
+sick-bed to nurse the unfortunate victim. Instead, food and water are
+placed by his bedside and, covered with his quilt, he is left at the
+mercy of the disease. Since as the fever progresses the patient will
+perspire, heavy stones are placed on the quilt, that it may not be
+thrown off, and the sick person take cold. Many an unfortunate sufferer
+has through this strange practice died from suffocation. After a time
+the relatives will return to see what course the disease has taken. This
+fever seems to yield to quinine, for Mr. John Li has seen several
+persons recover to whom he had administered this drug. When a man dies,
+his relatives, as soon as they receive the news, hold in their several
+homes a feast of mourning called by them the Za. A pig or sheep is
+sacrificed at the doorway, and it is supposed that intercourse is thus
+maintained between the living persons and the late departed spirit. The
+near kindred, on hearing of the death of a relative, take a fowl and
+strangle it; the shedding of its blood is not permissible. This fowl is
+cleaned and skewered, and the mourner then proceeds to the house where
+the deceased person is lying, and sticks this fowl at the head of the
+corpse as an offering. The more distant relatives do not perform this
+rite, but each leads a sheep to the house of mourning, and the son of
+the deceased man strikes each animal three times with a white wand,
+while the Peh-mo (priest or magician) stands by, and announcing the
+sacrifice by calling 'so and so,' giving of course the name, presents
+the soft woolly offering.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Formerly the Nou-su burned their dead. Said a Nou-su youth to me years
+ago, 'The thought of our friends' bodies either turning to corruption or
+being eaten by wild beasts is distasteful to us, and therefore we burn
+our dead.' The corpse is burnt with wood, and during the cremation the
+mourners arrange themselves around the fire and chant and dance. The
+ashes are buried, and the ground leveled. This custom is still adhered
+to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly
+Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the
+neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong have adopted burial as the means
+of disposing of their dead, adding some customs peculiar to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the day of the funeral the horse which the deceased man was in the
+habit of riding is brought to the door and saddled by the Pehmo. The
+command is then given to lead the horse to the grave. All the mourners
+follow, and marching or dancing in intertwining circles, cross and
+recross the path of the led horse until the poor creature, grown frantic
+with fear, rushes and kicks in wild endeavor to escape from the
+confusion. The whole company then raise a great shout and call, 'The
+soul has come to ride the horse, the soul has come to ride the horse.' A
+contest then follows among the women of the deceased man's household for
+the possession of this horse, which is henceforth regarded as of extreme
+value. It is difficult to discover much about the religion of the
+Nou-su, because so many of their ancient customs have fallen into disuse
+during the intercourse of the people with the Chinese. At the
+ingathering of the buckwheat, when the crop is stacked on the threshing
+floor, and the work of threshing is about to begin, the simple formula,
+'Thank you, Ilsomo,' is used. Ilsomo seems to be a spirit who has
+control over the crops; whether good or evil, it is not easy to
+determine. Ilsomo is not God, for at present, when the Nou-su wish to
+speak of God, they use the word Soe, which means Master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the independent territory of the Nou-su, to the west of Szech'wan,
+the term used for God is Eh-nia, and a Nou-su who has much intercourse
+with the independent people contends that there are three names
+indicative of God, each representing different functions if not persons
+of the Godhead. These names are: Eh-nia, Keh-neh, Um-p'a-ma. The Nou-su
+believe in ancestor worship, and perhaps the most interesting feature of
+their religion is the peculiar form this worship takes. Instead of an
+ancestral tablet such as the Chinese use, the Nou-su worship a small
+basket (lolo) about as large as a duck's egg and made of split bamboo.
+This 'lolo' contains small bamboo tubes an inch or two long, and as
+thick as an ordinary Chinese pen handle. In these tubes are fastened a
+piece of grass and a piece of sheep's wool. A man and his wife would be
+represented by two tubes, and if he had two wives, an extra tube would
+be placed in the 'lolo.' At the ceremony of consecration the Pehmo
+attends, and a slave is set apart for the purpose of attending to all
+the rites connected with the worship of the deceased person. The 'lolo'
+is sometimes placed in the house, but more often on a tree in the
+neighborhood or it may be hidden in a rock. For persons who are
+short-lived, the ancestral 'lolo' is placed in a crevice in the wall of
+some forsaken and ruined building. Every three years the 'lolo' is
+changed, and the old one burnt. The term 'lolo,' by which the Nou-su are
+generally known, is a contemptuous nickname given them by the Chinese in
+reference to this peculiar method of venerating their ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hill worship is another important feature of Nou-su religious life.
+Most important houses are built at the foot of a hill and sacrifice is
+regularly offered on the hill-side in the fourth month of each year. The
+Pehmo determines which is the most propitious day, and the Tumuh and his
+people proceed to the appointed spot. A limestone rock with an old tree
+trunk near is chosen as an altar, and a sheep and pig are brought
+forward by the Tumuh. The Pehmo, having adjusted his clothes, sits
+cross-legged before the altar, and begins intoning his incantations in a
+low muttering voice. The sacrifice is then slain, and the blood poured
+beneath the altar, and a handful of rice and a lump of salt are placed
+beneath the stone. Some person then gathers a bundle of green grass, and
+the Pehmo, having finished intoning, the altar is covered, and all
+return to the house. The Pehmo then twists the grass into a length of
+rope, which he hangs over the doorway of the house. Out of a piece of
+willow a small arrow is made, and a bow similar in size is cut out of a
+peach tree. These are placed on the doorposts. On a piece of soft white
+wood a figure of a man is roughly carved, and this, with two sticks of
+any soft wood placed cross-wise, is fastened to the rope hanging over
+the doorway, on each side of which two small sticks are placed. The
+Pehmo then proceeds with his incantation, muttering: 'From now,
+henceforth and for ever will the evil spirits keep away from this
+house.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most Nou-su at the present time observe the New Year festival on the
+same date and with the same customs as the Chinese. Formerly this was
+not so, and even now in the remoter districts New Year's day is observed
+on the first day of the tenth month of the Chinese year. A pig and sheep
+are killed and cleaned, and hung in the house for three days. They are
+then taken down, cut up and cooked. The family sit on buckwheat straw in
+the middle of the chief room of the house. The head of the house invites
+the others to drink wine, and the feasting begins. Presently one will
+start singing, and all join in this song: 'How firm is this house of
+mine. Throughout the year its hearth fire has not ceased to burn, My
+food corn is abundant, I have silver and also cash, My cattle have
+increased to herds, My horses and mules have all white foreheads K'o K'o
+Ha Ha Ha Ha K'o K'o, My sons are filial, My wife is virtuous, In the
+midst of flesh and wine we sleep, Our happiness reaches unto heaven,
+Truly glorious is this glad New Year.' A scene of wild indulgence then
+frequently follows.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Nou-su possess a written language. Their books were originally made
+of sheepskin, but paper is now used. The art of printing was unknown,
+and many books are said to have been lost. The books are illustrated,
+but the drawings are extremely crude.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_T_20'></a><a href='#Footnote_T_20'><sup>[T]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_R_18'></a><a href='#FNanchor_R_18'>[R]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>Y&uuml;n-nan, The Link between India, and the Yangtze</i>, by
+Major H.R. Davies, Cambridge University Press.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_S_19'></a><a href='#FNanchor_S_19'>[S]</a><div class='note'><p> Literally &quot;Eyes of the Earth&quot;&mdash;the landlords.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_T_20'></a><a href='#FNanchor_T_20'>[T]</a><div class='note'><p> A good deal of information in this chapter was obtained
+from an article by the Rev. C E Hicks, published in the <i>Chinese
+Recorder</i> for March, 1910. The portion quoted is taken bodily from this
+excellent article.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIFTH_JOURNEY'></a><h2>FIFTH JOURNEY.</h2>
+
+<h4>CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_XI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Revolting sights compensated for by scenery</i>. <i>Most eventful day in the
+trip</i>. <i>Buying a pony, and the reason for its purchase</i>. <i>Author's pony
+kicks him and breaks his arm</i>. <i>Chastising the animal, and narrow escape
+from death</i>. <i>Rider and pony a sorry sight</i>. <i>An uneasy night</i>.
+<i>Reappearance of malaria</i>. <i>Author nearly forced to give in</i>. <i>Heavy
+rain on a difficult road</i>. <i>At Ta-shui-tsing</i>. <i>Chasing frightened pony
+in the dead of night</i>. <i>Bad accommodation</i>. <i>Lepers and leprosy</i>.
+<i>Mining</i>. <i>At Kiang-ti</i>. <i>Two mandarins, and an amusing episode</i>.
+<i>Laying foundation of a long illness</i>. <i>The Kiang-ti Suspension Bridge</i>.
+<i>Hard climbing</i>. <i>Tiffin in the mountains</i>. <i>Sudden ascents and
+descents</i>. <i>Description of the country</i>. <i>Tame birds and what they do</i>.
+<i>A non-enterprising community</i>. <i>Pleasant travelling without perils</i>.
+<i>Majesty of the mountains of Y&uuml;n-nan</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Whilst in this district, as will have been seen, one has to steel
+himself to face some of the most revolting sights it is possible to
+imagine, he is rewarded by the grandeur of the scenic pictures which
+mark the downward journey to Tong-ch'uan-fu.</p>
+
+<p>The stages to Tong-ch'uan-fu were as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td align='center'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea level</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day</td><td align='left'>T'ao-&uuml;en</td><td align='center'>70 li.</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash; ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day</td><td align='left'>Ta-shui-tsing</td><td align='center'>30 li.</td><td align='center'>9,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day</td><td align='left'>Kiang-ti</td><td align='center'>40 li.</td><td align='center'>4,400 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day</td><td align='left'>Yi-che-sh&iuml;n</td><td align='center'>70 li.</td><td align='center'>6,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day</td><td align='left'>Hong-sh&iuml;h-ai</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>6,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day</td><td align='left'>Tong-ch'uan-fu</td><td align='center'>60 li.</td><td align='center'>7,250 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>The Chao-t'ong plateau, magnificently level, runs out past the
+picturesquely-situated tower of Wang-hai-leo, from which one overlooks a
+stretch of water. A memorial arch, erected by the Li family of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, graces the main road farther on, and is probably one of
+the best of its kind in Y&uuml;n-nan, comparing favorably with the best to be
+found in Szech'wan, where monumental architecture abounds. Perhaps the
+only building of interest in Chao-t'ong is the ancestral hall of the
+wealthy family mentioned above, the carving of which is magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first day we camped at the Mohammedan village of
+T'ao-&uuml;en, literally &quot;Peach Garden,&quot; but the peach trees might once have
+been, though now certainly they are not.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold when we left, 38&deg; F., hard frost. All the world seemed
+buttoned up and great-coated; the trees seemed wiry and cheerless; the
+legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued
+visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to
+blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could
+not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who
+could, thought it no fault of mine. I was a reasoning being, a rational
+creature, and thought it a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial
+half-hour. But I had to get up, and then came the benumbed fingers, a
+quivering body, a frozen towel, and a floor upon which the mud was
+frozen stiff. Little did he know that he was pulling me out to the most
+eventful and unfortunate day of my trip.</p>
+
+<p>At Chao-t'ong I had bought a pony in case of emergency&mdash;one of those
+sturdy little brutes that never grow tired, cost little to keep, and are
+unexcelled for the amount of work they can get through every day in the
+week. Its color was black, a smooth, glossy black&mdash;the proverbial dark
+horse&mdash;and when dressed in its English saddle and bridle looked even
+smart enough for the use of the distinguished traveler, who smiled the
+smile of pleasant ownership as it was led on in front all day long,
+seeming to return a satanic grin for my foolishness at not riding it.<a name='FNanchor_U_21'></a><a href='#Footnote_U_21'><sup>[U]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The first I saw of it was when it was standing full on its hind legs
+pinning a man between the railings and a wall in a corner of the mission
+premises. It looked well. Truly, it was a blood beast!</p>
+
+<p>On the second day out, whilst walking merrily along in the early
+morning, the little brute lifted its heels, lodged them most precisely
+on to my right forearm with considerable force&mdash;more forceful than
+affectionate&mdash;sending the stick which I carried thirty feet from me up
+the cliffs. The limb ached, and I felt sick. My boy&mdash;he had been a
+doctor's boy on one of the gunboats at Chung-king&mdash;thought it was
+bruised. I acquiesced, and sank fainting to a stone. On the strength of
+my boy's diagnosis we rubbed it, and found that it hurt still more. Then
+diving into a cottage, I brought out a piece of wood, three inches wide
+and twenty inches long, placed my arm on it, bade my boy take off one of
+my puttees from one of my legs, used it as a bandage, and trudged on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Not realizing that my arm was broken, in the evening I determined to
+chastise the animal in a manner becoming to my disgust. Mounting at the
+foot of a long hill, I laid on the stick as hard as I could, and found
+that my pony had a remarkable turn of speed. At the brow of the hill was
+a twenty-yard dip, at the base of which was a pond.</p>
+
+<p>Down, down, down we went, and, despite my full strength (with the left
+arm) at its mouth, the pony plunged in with a dull splash, only to find
+that his feet gave way under him in a clay bottom. He could not free
+himself to swim. Farther and farther we sank together, every second
+deeper into the mire, when just at the moment I felt the mud clinging
+about my waist, and I had visions of a horrible death away from all who
+knew me, I plunged madly to reach the side.</p>
+
+<p>With one arm useless, it is still to me the one great wonder of my life
+how I escaped. Nothing short of miraculous; one of the times when one
+feels a special protection of Providence surrounding him.</p>
+
+<p>Pulling the beast's head, after I had given myself a momentary shake, I
+succeeded in making him give a mighty lurch&mdash;then another&mdash;then another,
+and in a few seconds, after terrible struggling, he reached the bank. We
+made a sorry spectacle as we walked shamefacedly back to the inn, under
+the gaze of half a dozen grinning rustics, where my man was preparing
+the evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, on the advice of my general confidential companion, I
+submitted to a poultice being applied to my arm. It was bruised, so we
+put on the old-fashioned, hard-to-be-beaten poultice of bread. Whilst it
+was hot it was comfortable; when it was cold, I unrolled the bandage,
+threw the poultice to the floor, and in two minutes saw glistening in
+the moonlight the eyes of the rats which ate it.</p>
+
+<p>Then I bade sweet Morpheus take me; but, although the pain prevented me
+from sleeping, I remember fainting. How long I lay I know not.
+Shuddering in every limb with pain and chilly fear, I at length awoke
+from a long swoon. Something had happened, but what? There was still the
+paper window, the same greasy saucer of thick oil and light being given
+by the same rush, the same rickety table, the same chair on which we had
+made the poultice&mdash;but what had happened? I rubbed my aching eyes and
+lifted myself in a half-sitting posture&mdash;a dream had dazzled me and
+scared my senses. And then I knew that it was malaria coming on again,
+and that I was once more her luckless victim.</p>
+
+<p>Malignant malaria, mistress of men who court thee under tropic skies,
+and who, like me, are turned from thee bodily shattered and whimpering
+like a child, how much, how very much hast thou laid up for thyself in
+Hades!</p>
+
+<p>Thank Heaven, I had superabundant energy and vitality, and despite
+contorted and distorted things dancing haphazard through my fevered
+brain, I determined not to go under, not to give in. My mind was a
+terrible tangle of combinations nevertheless&mdash;intricate, incongruous,
+inconsequent, monstrous; but still I plodded on. For the next four days,
+with my arm lying limp and lifeless at my side, and with recurring
+attacks of malaria, I walked on against the greatest odds, and it was
+not till I had reached Tong-ch'uan-fu that I learnt that the limb was
+fractured. Men may have seen more in four days and done more and risked
+more, but I think few travelers have been called upon to suffer more
+agony than befell the lot of the man who was crossing China on foot.</p>
+
+<p>From T'ao-&uuml;en there is a stiff ascent, followed by a climb up steep
+stone steps and muddy mountain banks through black and barren country.
+The morning had been cold and frosty, but rain came on later, a thick,
+heavy deluge, which swished and swashed everything from its path as one
+toiled painfully up those slippery paths, made almost unnegotiable. But
+my imagination and my hope helped me to make my own sunshine. There is
+something, I think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good
+honest summer rain at home with a Burberry well buttoned and an umbrella
+over one's head; here in Y&uuml;n-nan a coat made it too uncomfortable to
+walk, and the terrific wind would have blown an umbrella from one's
+grasp in a twinkling. If we are in the home humor, in the summer, we do
+not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in
+getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the &quot;very touching
+stockings&quot; and the &quot;very gentle and sensitive legs&quot; of other weaker ones
+in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland
+one can find in this part of Y&uuml;n-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make
+as I trudged &quot;two steps forward, one step back&quot; in my bare feet, covered
+only with rough straw sandals, with trousers upturned above the knee,
+with teeth chattering in malarial shivers, endeavoring between-times to
+think of the pouring deluge as a benignant enemy fertilizing fields,
+purifying the streets of the horrid little villages in which we spent
+our nights, refreshing the air!</p>
+
+<p>Shall I ever forget the day?</p>
+
+<p>Just before sundown, drenched to the skin and suffering horribly from
+the blues, we reached one single hut, which I could justly look upon as
+a sort of evening companion; for here was a fire&mdash;albeit, a green wood
+fire&mdash;which looked gladly in my face, talked to me, and put life and
+comfort and warmth into me for the ten li yet remaining of the day's
+hard journey.</p>
+
+<p>And at night, about 8:30 p.m., we at last reached the top of the hill,
+actually the summit of a mountain pass, at the dirty little village of
+Ta-shui-tsing. Not for long, however, could I rest; for I heard yells
+and screams and laughs. That pony again! Every one of my men were afraid
+of it, for at the slightest invitation it pawed with its front feet and
+landed man after man into the gutter, and if that failed it stood
+upright and cuddled them around the neck. Now I found it had
+run&mdash;saddle, bridle and all&mdash;and none volunteered to chase. So at 9:30,
+weary and bearing the burden of a terrible day, which laid the
+foundation of a long illness to be recorded later, I found it my
+unpleasant duty to patrol the hill from top to bottom, lighting my
+slippery way with a Chinese lantern, chasing the pony silhouetted on
+the sky-line. Ta-shui-tsing is a dreary spot with no inn accommodation
+at all,<a name='FNanchor_V_22'></a><a href='#Footnote_V_22'><sup>[V]</sup></a> a place depopulated and laid waste, gloomy and melancholy. I
+managed, however, after promising a big fee, to get into a small
+mud-house, where the people were not unkindly disposed. I ate my food,
+slept as much as I could in the few hours before the appearing of the
+earliest dawn on the bench allotted to me, feeling thankful that to me
+had been allowed even this scanty lodging. But I could not
+conscientiously recommend the place to future travelers&mdash;a dirty little
+village with its dirty people and its dirty atmosphere. At the top of
+the pass the wind nearly removed my ears as I took a final glance at the
+mountain refuge. Mountains here run south-west and north-east, and are
+grand to look upon.</p>
+
+<p>The poorest people were lepers, the beggars were all dead long ago. In
+Y&uuml;n-nan province leprosy afflicts thousands, a disease which the
+Chinese, not without reason, dread terribly, for no known remedy exists.
+Burning the patient alive, which used often to be resorted to, is even
+now looked upon as the only true remedy. Cases have been known where the
+patient, having been stupefied with opium, has been locked in a house,
+which has then been set on fire, and its inmate cremated on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>Mining used to be carried on here, so they told me; but I was not long
+in concluding that, whatever was the product, it has not materially
+affected the world's output, nor had it greatly enriched the laborers in
+the field. When I got into civilization I found that coal of a
+sulphurous nature was the booty of ancient days. There may be coal yet,
+as is most probable, but the natives seemed far too apathetic and weary
+of life to care whether it is there or not.</p>
+
+<p>Passing Ta-shui-tsing, the descent narrows to a splendid view of dark
+mountain and green and beautiful valley. We were now traveling away from
+several ranges of lofty mountains, whose peaks appeared vividly above
+the drooping rain-filled clouds, onwards to a range immediately
+opposite, up whose slopes we toiled all day, passing <i>en route</i> only one
+uninhabited hamlet, to which the people flee in time of trouble. After a
+weary tramp of another twenty-five li&mdash;the Y&uuml;n-nan li, mind you, the
+most unreliable quantity in all matters geographical in the country&mdash;I
+asked irritatedly, as all travelers must have asked before me, &quot;Then, in
+the name of Heaven, where is Kiang-ti?&quot;<a name='FNanchor_W_23'></a><a href='#Footnote_W_23'><sup>[W]</sup></a> It should come into view
+behind the terrible steep decline when one is within only about a
+hundred yards. It is roughly four thousand feet below Ta-shui-tsing.</p>
+
+<p>Kiang-ti is an important stopping place, with but one forlorn street,
+with two or three forlorn inns, the best of which has its best room
+immediately over the filthiest stables, emitting a stench which was
+almost unbearable, that I have seen in China. It literally suffocates
+one as it comes up in wafts through the wide gaps in the wood floor of
+the room. There are no mosquitoes here, but of a certain winged insect
+of various species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the
+wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a
+formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house
+fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly,
+the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with
+flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's
+throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one
+within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes
+of the 'kerchief.</p>
+
+<p>The village seemed a death-trap.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing comprehensively at one another as I entered the higher end of
+the town, a party of reveling tea-drinkers hastily pulled some cash from
+their satchels to settle accounts, and made a general rush into the
+street, where they awaited noisily the approach of a strangely wondrous
+and imposing spectacle, one that had not been seen in those parts for
+many days. The tramper, tired as he could be, at length approached, but
+the crowd had increased so enormously that the road was completely
+blocked. Tradesmen with their portable workshops, pedlars with their
+cumbersome gear and pack-horses could not pass, but had to wait for
+their turn; there were not even any tortuous by-streets in this place
+whereby they might reach their destination. Children lost themselves in
+the crush, and went about crying for their mothers. A party of
+travelers, newly arrived from the south by caravan route, got wedged
+with their worn-out horses and mules in the thick of the mob, and could
+not move an inch. As far as the eye could reach the blue-clad throng
+heaved restlessly to and fro under the blaze of the brilliant sun which
+harassed everyone in the valley, and, moving slowly and majestically in
+the midst of them all, came the foreigner. As they caught sight of me,
+my sandalled feet, and the retinue following on wearily in the wake, the
+populace set up an ecstatic yell of ferocious applause and turned their
+faces towards the inn, in the doorway of which one of my soldier-men was
+holding forth on points of more or less delicacy respecting my good or
+bad nature and my British connection. At that moment, the huge human
+mass began to move in one predetermined direction, and then a couple of
+mandarins in their chairs joined the swarming rabble. I had to sit down
+on the step for five minutes whilst my boy, with commendable energy,
+cleared these two mandarins, who had come from Chen-tu and were on their
+way to the capital, out of the best room, because his master wanted it.</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, there came a loud crashing noise and a
+shout&mdash;my pony had landed out just once again, and banged in one side of
+a chair belonging to these traveling officials. They met me with noisy
+and derisive greetings, which were returned with a straight and
+penetrating look.</p>
+
+<p>No less than fifty degrees was the thermometrical difference in
+Ta-shui-tsing and Kiang-ti. Here it was stifling. Cattle stood in
+stagnant water, ducks were envied, my room with the sun on it became
+intolerable, and I sought refuge by the river; my butter was too liquid
+to spread; coolies were tired as they rested outside the tea-houses,
+having not a cash to spend; my pony stood wincing, giving sharp shivers
+to his skin, and moving his tail to clear off the flies and his hind
+legs to clear off men. As for myself, I could have done with an iced
+soda or a claret cup.</p>
+
+<p>Very early in the morning, despite malaria shivers, I made my way over
+the beautiful suspension bridge which here graces the Niu Lan,<a name='FNanchor_X_24'></a><a href='#Footnote_X_24'><sup>[X]</sup></a> a
+tributary of the Yangtze, up to the high hills beyond.</p>
+
+<p>This bridge at Kiang-ti is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve,
+protected at one end by a couple of monkeys carved in stone, whilst the
+opposite end is guarded by what are supposed to be, I believe, a couple
+of lions&mdash;and not a bad representation of them either, seeing that the
+workmen had no original near at hand to go by.</p>
+
+<p>From here the ascent over a second range of mountains is made by
+tortuous paths that wind along the sides of the hills high above the
+stream below, and at other times along the river-bed. The river is
+followed in a steep ascent, a sort of climbing terrace, from which the
+water leaps in delightful cascades and waterfalls. A four-hour climb
+brings one, after terrific labor, to the mouth of the picturesque pass
+of Ya-ko-t'ang at 7,500 feet. In the quiet of the mountains I took my
+midday meal; there was about the place an awe-inspiring stillness. It
+was grand but lonely, weird rather than peaceful, so that one was glad
+to descend again suddenly to the river, tracing it through long
+stretches of plain and barren valley, after which narrow paths lead up
+again to the small village of Yi-che-sh&iuml;n, considerably below
+Ya-ko-t'ang. It is the sudden descents and ascents which astonish one in
+traveling in this region, and whether climbing or dropping, one always
+reaches a plain or upland which would delude one into believing that he
+is almost at sea-level, were it not for the towering mountains that all
+around keep one hemmed in in a silent stillness, and the rarefied air.
+Yi-che-sh&iuml;n, for instance, standing at this altitude of considerably
+over 6,000 feet, is in the center of a tableland, on which are numerous
+villages, around which the fragrance of the broad bean in flower and the
+splendid fertility now and again met with makes it extremely pleasant to
+walk&mdash;it is almost a series of English cottage gardens. Here the weather
+was like July in England&mdash;or what one likes to imagine July should be in
+England&mdash;dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious weather, in which one
+should do as he pleases, and be pleased with what he does. As I toiled
+along, my useless limb causing me each day more trouble, I felt I should
+like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for
+my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength.
+But I was getting weaker! I saw, as I passed, gardens of purple and gold
+and white splendor; the sky was at its bluest, the clouds were full,
+snowy, mountainous.</p>
+
+<p>Then on again to varying scenes.</p>
+
+<p>Inns were not frequent, and were poor and wretched. The country was all
+red sandstone, and devoid of all timber, till, descending into a lovely
+valley, the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and then led out into a
+beautiful park all green and sweet. The country was full of color. It
+put a good taste in one's mouth, it impressed one as a heaven-sent means
+of keeping one cheerful in sad dilemma. The gardens, the fields, the
+skies, the mountains, the sunset, the light itself&mdash;all were full of
+color, and earth and heaven seemed of one opinion in the harmony of the
+reds, the purples, the drabs, the blacks, the browns, the bright blues,
+and the yellows. Birds were as tame as they were in the Great Beginning;
+they came under the table as I ate, and picked up the crumbs without
+fear. Peasant people sat under great cedars, planted to give shade to
+the travelers, and bade one feel at home in his lonely pilgrimage. Then
+one felt a peculiar feeling&mdash;this feeling will arise in any
+traveler&mdash;when, surmounting some hill range in the desert road, one
+descries, lying far below, embosomed in its natural bulwarks, the fair
+village, the resting-place, the little dwelling-place of men, where one
+is to sleep. But when towards nightfall, as the good red sun went down,
+I was led, weary and done-up, into one of the worst inns it had been my
+misfortune to encounter, a thousand other thoughts and feelings united
+in common anathema to the unenterprising community.</p>
+
+<p>Tea was bad, rice we could not get, and all night long the detestable
+smells from the wood fires choked our throats and blinded our eyes;
+glad, therefore, was I, despite the heavy rain, to take a hurried and
+early departure the next morning, descending a thousand feet to a river,
+rising quite as suddenly to a height of 8,500 feet.</p>
+
+<p>Now the road went over a mountain broad and flat, where traveling in the
+sun was extremely pleasant&mdash;or, rather, would have been had I been fit.
+Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea,
+Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Y&uuml;n-nan province, passed
+us on the mountain-side, and sometimes numbers of these willing but
+ill-treated animals were seen grazing in the hollows, by the wayside,
+their backs in almost every instance cruelly lacerated by the continuous
+rubbing of the wooden frames on which their loads were strapped. For
+cruelty to animals China stands an easy first; love of animals does not
+enter into their sympathies at all. I found this not to be the case
+among the Miao and the I-pien, however; and the tribes across the
+Yangtze below Chao-t'ong, locally called the Pa-pu, are, as a matter of
+fact, fond of horses, and some of them capable horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>The journey across these mountains has no perils. One may step aside a
+few feet with no fear of falling a few thousand, a danger so common in
+most of the country from Sui-fu downwards. The scenery is
+magnificent&mdash;range after range of mountains in whatever direction you
+look, nothing but mountains of varying altitudes. And the patches of
+wooded slopes, alternating with the red earth and more fertile green
+plots through which streams flow, with rolling waterfalls, picturesque
+nooks and winding pathways, make pictures to which only the gifted
+artist's brush could do justice. Often, gazing over the sunlit
+landscape, in this land &quot;South of the Clouds,&quot; one is held spellbound by
+the intense beauty of this little-known province, and one wonders what
+all this grand scenery, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man, would
+become were it in the center of a continent covered by the ubiquitous
+globe-trotter.</p>
+
+<p>No country in the world more than West China possesses mountains of
+combined majesty and grace. Rocks, everywhere arranged in masses of a
+rude and gigantic character, have a ruggedness tempered by a singular
+airiness of form and softness of environment, in a climate favorable in
+some parts to the densest vegetation, and in others wild and barren. One
+is always in sight of mountains rising to fourteen thousand feet or
+more, and constantly scaling difficult pathways seven or eight or nine
+thousand feet above the sea. And in the loneliness of a country where
+nothing has altered very much the handiwork of God, an awe-inspiring
+silence pervades everything. Bold, grey cliffs shoot up here through a
+mass of verdure and of foliage, and there white cottages, perched in
+seemingly inaccessible positions, glisten in the sun on the colored
+mountain-sides. You saunter through stony hollows, along straight
+passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rocks, now
+winding through broken, shaggy chasms and huge, wandering fragments, now
+suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where Peace, long
+established, seems to repose sweetly in the bosom of Strength.
+Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in
+abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn
+ascent of which is hardly passable.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Y&uuml;n-nan is imperatively a country first of mountains, then of
+lakes. The scenery, embodying truly Alpine magnificence with the minute
+sylvan beauty of Killarney or of Devonshire, is nowhere excelled in the
+length and breadth of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_U_21'></a><a href='#FNanchor_U_21'>[U]</a><div class='note'><p> The incredulous of my readers may question, and rightly so,
+&quot;Then where did he get his saddle?&quot; So I must explain that I met just
+out of Sui-fu a Danish gentleman (also a traveler) who wished to sell a
+pony and its trappings. As I had the arrangement with my boy that I
+would provide him with a conveyance, and did not like the idea of seeing
+him continually in a chair and his wealthy master trotting along on
+foot, I bought it for my boy's use. He used the saddle until we reached
+Chao-t'ong.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_V_22'></a><a href='#FNanchor_V_22'>[V]</a><div class='note'><p> A new inn has been built since.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_W_23'></a><a href='#FNanchor_W_23'>[W]</a><div class='note'><p> Pronounced Djang-di. Famous throughout Western China for
+its terrible hill, one of the most difficult pieces of country in the
+whole of the west.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_X_24'></a><a href='#FNanchor_X_24'>[X]</a><div class='note'><p> This river, the Niu Lan, comes from near Yang-lin, one
+day's march from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu. It is being followed down by two American
+engineers as the probable route for a new railway, which it is proposed
+should come out to the Yangtze some days north of Kiang-ti.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Y&uuml;n-nan's chequered career</i>. <i>Switzerland of China</i>. <i>At
+Hong-sh[=i]h-ai</i>. <i>China's Golden Age in the past</i>. <i>The conservative
+instinct of the Chinese</i>. <i>How to quiet coolies</i>. <i>Roads</i>. <i>Dangers of
+ordinary travel in wet season</i>. <i>K'ung-shan and its mines</i>.
+<i>Tong-ch'uan-fu, an important mining centre</i>. <i>English and German
+machinery</i>. <i>Methods of smelting</i>. <i>Protestants and Romanists in
+Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Arrival at Tong-ch'uan-fu</i>. <i>Missionaries set author's broken
+arm</i>. <i>Trio of Europeans</i>. <i>Author starts for the provincial capital</i>.
+<i>Abandoning purpose of crossing China on foot</i>. <i>Arm in splints</i>. <i>Curious
+incident</i>. <i>At Lai-t'eo-po</i>. <i>Malaria returns</i>. <i>Serious illness of
+author</i>. <i>Delirium</i>. <i>Devotion of the missionaries</i>. <i>Death expected.
+Innkeeper's curious attitude</i>. <i>Recovery</i>. <i>After-effects of malaria.
+Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months</i>. <i>Then completes his
+walking tour</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Y&uuml;n-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
+empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
+annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
+been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
+gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
+the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
+Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway&mdash;or at least so tradition
+says. She is sometimes right.</p>
+
+<p>My journey continuing across more undulating country brought me at
+length to Hong-sh&iuml;h-ai (Red Stone Cliff), a tiny hamlet hidden away
+completely in a deep recess in the mountain-side, settled in a narrow
+gorge, the first house of which cannot be seen until within a few yards
+of entry. Inn accommodation, as was usual, was by no means good. It is
+characteristic of these small places that the greater the traffic the
+worse, invariably, is the accommodation offered. Travelers are
+continually staying here, but not one Chinese in the population is
+enterprising enough to open a decent inn. They have no money to start it,
+I suppose.</p>
+
+<p>But it is true of the Chinese, to a greater degree than of any other
+nation, that their Golden Age is in the past. Sages of antiquity spoke
+with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and
+revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says
+that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The
+conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to
+precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-sh&iuml;h-ai, knowing that the
+village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by
+conservatism, and make no effort whatever to improve matters.</p>
+
+<p>Fire in the inn was kindled in the hollow of the ground. There was no
+ventilation; the wood they burned was, as usual, green; smoke was
+suffocating. My men talked well on into the night, and kept me from
+sleeping, even if pain would have allowed me to. I spoke strongly, and
+they, thinking I was swearing at them, desisted for fear that I should
+heap upon their ancestors a few of the reviling thoughts I entertained
+for them.</p>
+
+<p>I should like to say a word here about the roads in this province, or
+perhaps the absence of roads. They had been execrable, the worst I had
+met, aggravated by heavy rains. With all the reforms to which the
+province of Y&uuml;n-nan is endeavoring to direct its energies, it has not
+yet learned that one of the first assets of any district or country is
+good roads. But this is true of the whole of the Middle Kingdom. The
+contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of
+their work in the street, and, even in a city provided with but the
+narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the
+presence of peripatetic vendors of every kind of article of common sale
+in China, and by itinerant craftsmen who have no other shop than the
+street. In the capital city of the province, even, it is a matter of
+some difficulty to the European to walk down the rough-paved street
+after a shower of rain, so slippery do the slabs of stone become; and he
+has to be alive always to the lumbering carts, whose wheels are more
+solid than circular, pulled by bullocks as in the days long before the
+dawn of the Christian Era. The wider the Chinese street the more abuses
+can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is
+quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are
+never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at
+all&mdash;that is, in dry weather.</p>
+
+<p>This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is
+certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however,
+another kind of road&mdash;a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.</p>
+
+<p>An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple
+of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary
+(especially in the Y&uuml;n-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another,
+the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep
+ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains.
+In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at
+times are constantly under water, and beyond Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, on my way to
+Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a
+rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time
+the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is
+liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a
+canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads
+removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it
+is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men with their loads
+being washed away by rivers where in the dry season there had been the
+roads.</p>
+
+<p>The great lines of Chinese travel, so often impassable, might be made
+permanently passable if the governor of a province chose to compel the
+several district magistrates along the line to see that these important
+arteries are kept free from standing water, with ditches in good order
+at all seasons. But for the village roads&mdash;during my travels over which
+I have come across very few that could from a Western standpoint be
+called roads&mdash;there is absolutely no hope until such time as the Chinese
+village may come dimly to the apprehension that what is for the
+advantage of the one is for the advantage of all, and that wise
+expenditure is the truest economy&mdash;an idea of which it has at the
+present moment as little conception as of the average thought of the
+Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred li to the east of Hong-shi&iuml;h-ai, over two impassable mountain
+ranges, are some considerable mines, with antiquated brass and copper
+smelting works, and this place, K'ung-shan by name, with Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+forms an important center. As is well known, all copper of Y&uuml;n-nan goes
+to Peking as the Government monopoly, excepting the enormous amount
+stolen and smuggled into every town in the province.<a name='FNanchor_Y_25'></a><a href='#Footnote_Y_25'><sup>[Y]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The smelting is of the roughest, though they are at the present moment
+laying in English machinery, and the Chinese in charge is under the
+impression that he can speak English; he, however, makes a hopeless
+jargon of it. This mining locality is sunk in the deepest degradation.
+Men and women live more as wild beasts than as human beings, and should
+any be unfortunate enough to die, their corpses are allowed to lie in
+the mines. Who is there that could give his time and energy to the
+removal of a dead man? Tong-ch'uan-fu should become an important town if
+the rich mineral country of which it is the pivot were properly opened
+up. Several times I have visited the works in this city, which, under
+the charge of a small mandarin from Szech'wan, can boast only the most
+primitive and inadequate machinery, of German make. A huge engine was
+running as a kind of pump for the accumulation of air, which was passed
+through a long thin pipe to the three furnaces in the outer courtyard.
+The furnaces were mud-built, and were fed with charcoal (the most
+expensive fuel in the district), the maximum of pure metal being only
+1,300 catties per day. The ore, which has been roughly smelted once, is
+brought from K'ung-shan, is finely smelted here, then conveyed most of
+the way to Peking by pack-mule, the expense in thus handling, from the
+time it leaves the mine to its destination at Peking, being several
+times its market value. Nothing but copper is sought from the ore, and a
+good deal of the gold and silver known to be contained is lost.</p>
+
+<p>I passed an old French priest as I was going to Tong-ch'uan-fu the next
+day. He was very pleased to see me, and at a small place we had a few
+minutes' chat whilst we sipped our tea. In Y&uuml;n-nan, I found that the
+Protestants and the Romanists, although seeing very little of each
+other, went their own way, maintaining an attitude of more or less
+friendly indifference one towards the other.</p>
+
+<p>The last day's march to Tong-ch'uan-fu is perhaps the most interesting
+of this stage of my journey. Climbing over boulders and stony steps, I
+reached an altitude of 8,500 feet, whence thirty li of pleasant going
+awaited us all the way to Lang-wang-miao (Temple of the Dragon King).
+Here I sat down and strained my eyes to catch the glimpse of the compact
+little walled city, where I hoped my broken arm would be set by the
+European missionaries. The traveler invariably hastens his pace here,
+expecting to run down the hill and across the plain in a very short
+space; but as the time passed, and I slowly wended my way along the
+difficult paths through the rice fields, I began to realize that I had
+been duped, and that it was farther than it seemed. Two blushing
+damsels, maids goodly to look upon, gave me the sweetest of smiles as I
+strode across the bodies of some fat pigs which roamed at large in the
+outskirts of the city, the only remembrance I have to mar the
+cleanliness of the place.</p>
+
+<p>At Tong-ch'uan-fu the Rev. A. Evans and his extremely hospitable wife
+set my arm and did everything they could&mdash;as much as a brother and
+sister could have done&mdash;to help me, and to make my short stay with them
+a most happy remembrance. It was, however, destined that I should be
+their guest for many months, as shall hereinafter be explained.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A trio of Europeans might have been seen on the morning of Monday, May
+10, 1909, leaving Tong-ch'uan-fu on the road to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, whither the
+author was bound. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who, as chance would have it, were
+going to Ch'u-tsing-fu, were to accompany me for two days before turning
+off in a southerly direction when leaving the prefecture.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine spring morning, balmy and bonny. It was decided that I
+should ride a pony, and this I did, abandoning my purpose of crossing
+China on foot with some regret. I was not yet fit, had my broken arm in
+splints, but rejoiced that at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu I should be able to consult a
+European medical man. Comparatively an unproductive task&mdash;and perhaps a
+false and impossible one&mdash;would it be for me to detail the happenings of
+the few days next ensuing. I should be able not to look at things
+themselves, but merely at the shadow of things&mdash;and it would serve no
+profitable end.</p>
+
+<p>Suffice it to say that two days out, about midday, a special messenger
+from the capital stopped Mr. Evans and handed him a letter. It was to
+tell him that his going to Ch'u-tsing-fu would be of no use, as the
+gentleman he was on his way to meet would not arrive, owing to altered
+plans. After consulting his wife, he hesitated whether they should go
+back to Tong-ch'uan-fu, or come on to the capital with me. The latter
+course was decided upon, as I was so far from well&mdash;I learned this some
+time afterwards. And now the story need not be lengthened.</p>
+
+<p>At Lai-t'eo-po (see first section of the second book of this volume),
+malaria came back, and an abnormal temperature made me delirious. The
+following day I could not move, and it was not until I had been there
+six days that I was again able to be moved. During this time, Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans nursed me day and night, relieving each other for rest, in a
+terrible Chinese inn&mdash;not a single moment did they leave me. The third
+day they feared I was dying, and a message to that effect was sent to
+the capital, informing the consul. Meanwhile malaria played fast and
+loose, and promised a pitiable early dissolution. My kind, devoted
+friends were fearful lest the innkeeper would have turned me out into
+the roadway to die&mdash;the foreigner's spirit would haunt the place for
+ever and a day were I allowed to die inside.</p>
+
+<p>But I recovered.</p>
+
+<p>It was a graver, older, less exuberant walker across China that
+presently arose from his flea-ridden bed of sickness, and began to make
+a languid personal introspection. I had developed a new sensitiveness,
+the sensitiveness of an alien in an alien land, in the hands of
+new-made, faithful friends. Without them I should have been a waif of
+all the world, helpless in the midst of unconquerable surroundings,
+leading to an inevitable destiny of death. I seemed declimatized,
+denationalized, a luckless victim of fate and morbid fancy.</p>
+
+<p>It was malaria and her workings, from which there was no escape.</p>
+
+<p>Malaria is supposed by the natives of the tropic belt to be sent to
+Europeans by Providence as a chastening for the otherwise insupportable
+energy of the white man. Malignant malaria is one of Nature's
+watch-dogs, set to guard her shrine of peace and ease and to punish
+woeful intruders. And she had brought me to China to punish me. As is
+her wont, Nature milked the manhood out of me, racked me with aches and
+pains, shattered me with chills, scorched me with fever fires, pursued
+me with despairing visions, and hag-rode me without mercy. Accursed
+newspapers, with their accursed routine, came back to me; all the
+stories and legends that I had ever heard, all the facts that I had ever
+learnt, came to me in a fashion wonderfully contorted and distorted;
+sensations welded together in ghastly, brain-stretching conglomerates,
+instinct with individuality and personality, human but torturingly
+inhuman, crowded in upon me. The barriers dividing the world of ideas,
+sensations, and realities seemed to have been thrown down, and all
+rushed into my brain like a set of hungry foxhounds. The horror of
+effort and the futility of endeavor permeated my very soul. My weary,
+helpless brain was filled with hordes of unruly imaginings; I was
+masterless, panic-driven, maddened, and had to abide for weeks&mdash;yea,
+months&mdash;with a fever-haunted soul occupying a fever-rent and weakened
+body.</p>
+
+<p>At Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, whither I arrived in due course after considerable
+struggling, dysentery laid me up again, and threatened to pull me nearer
+to the last great brink. For weeks, as the guest of my friend, Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, I stayed here recuperating, and subsequently, on the advice
+of my medical attendant, Dr. A. Feray, I went back to Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+among the mountains, and spent several happy months with Mr. and Mrs.
+Evans.</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for their brotherly and sisterly zeal in nursing me,
+which never flagged throughout my illness, future travelers might have
+been able to point to a little grave-mound on the hill-tops, and have
+given a chance thought to an adventurer whom the fates had handled
+roughly. But there was more in this than I could see; my destiny was
+then slowly shaping.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the rains, and well on into the winter, I stayed with Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans, and then continued my walking tour, as is hereafter
+recorded.</p>
+
+<p>During this period of convalescence I studied the Chinese language and
+traveled considerably in the surrounding country. Tong-ch'uan-fu is a
+city of many scholars, and it was not at all difficult for me to find a
+satisfactory teacher. He was an old man, with a straggly beard, about 70
+years of age, and from him I learned much about life in general, in
+addition to his tutoring in Chinese. I had the advantage also of close
+contact with the missionaries with whom I was living, and on many
+occasions was traveling companion of Samuel Pollard, one of the finest
+Chinese linguists in China at that time. So that with a greatly
+increased knowledge of Chinese, I was henceforth able to hold my own
+anywhere. During this period, too, many days were profitably passed at
+the Confucian Temple, a picture of which is given in this volume.</p>
+
+<p>END OF BOOK I.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_Y_25'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Y_25'>[Y]</a><div class='note'><p> In the capital there is a street called &quot;Copper Kettle
+Lane,&quot; where one is able to buy almost anything one wants in copper and
+brass. Hundreds of men are engaged in the trade, and yet it is
+&quot;prohibited.&quot; These &quot;Copper Kettle Lanes&quot; are found in many large
+cities.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='BOOK_II'></a><h2>BOOK II.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The second part of my trip was from almost the extreme east to the
+extreme west of Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Bhamo, in British Burma.
+The following was the route chosen, over the main road in some
+instances, and over untrodden roads in others, just as circumstances
+happened:</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tong-ch'uan-fu to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu (the capital city)</td><td align='left'>520 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Tali-fu</td><td align='left'>905 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tali-fu to Tengyueh (Momien)</td><td align='left'>855 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tengyueh to Bhamo (Singai)</td><td align='left'>280 English miles approx.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>I also made a rather extended tour among the Miao tribes, in country
+untrodden by Europeans, except by missionaries working among the people.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIRST_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>FIRST JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_XIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stages to the capital</i>. <i>Universality of reform in China</i>. <i>Political,
+moral, social and spiritual contrast of Y&uuml;n-nan with other parts of the
+Empire</i>. <i>Inconsistencies of celestial life</i>. <i>Author's start for
+Burma</i>. <i>The caravan</i>. <i>To Che-chi</i>. <i>Dogs fighting over human bones</i>.
+<i>Lai-t'eo-p'o: highest point traversed on overland journey</i>. <i>Snow and
+hail storms at ten thousand feet</i>. <i>Desolation and poverty</i>. <i>Brutal
+husband</i>. <i>Horse saves author from destruction</i>. <i>The one hundred li to
+Kongshan</i>. <i>Wild, rugged moorland and mournful mountains</i>. <i>Wretchedness
+of the people</i>. <i>Night travel in Western China</i>. <i>Author knocks a man
+down</i>. <i>Late arrival and its vexations</i>. <i>Horrible inn accommodation</i>.
+<i>End of the Y&uuml;n-nan Plateau</i>. <i>Appreciable rise in temperature</i>.
+<i>Entertaining a band of inelegant infidels</i>. <i>European contention for
+superiority, and the Chinese point of view</i>. <i>Insoluble conundrums of
+&quot;John's&quot; national character</i>. <i>The Y&uuml;n-nan railway</i>. <i>Current ideas in
+Y&uuml;n-nan regarding foreigners</i>. <i>Discourteous fu-song and his escapades</i>.
+<i>Fright of ill-clad urchin</i>. <i>Scene at Yang-lin</i>. <i>Arrival at the
+capital</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>No exaggeration is it to say that the eyes of the world are upon China.
+It is equally safe to say that, whilst all is open and may be seen, but
+little is understood.</p>
+
+<p>In the Far Eastern and European press so much is heard of the awakening
+of China that one is apt really to believe that the whole Empire, from
+its Dan to Beersheba, is boiling for reform. But it may be that the husk
+is taken from the kernel. The husk comprises the treaty ports and some
+of the capital cities of the provinces; the kernel is that vast sleepy
+interior of China. Few people, even in Shanghai, know what it means; so
+that to the stay-at-home European pardon for ignorance of existing
+conditions so much out of his focus should readily be granted.</p>
+
+<p>From Shanghai, up past Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to
+Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the
+most skeptical foreigner. But after he has lived for a couple of years
+in an interior city as I have done, with its antiquated legislation, its
+superstition and idolatry, its infanticide, its girl suicides, its
+public corruption and moral degradation, rubbing shoulders continually
+at close quarters with the inhabitants, and himself living in the main a
+Chinese life, our optimist may alter his opinions, and stand in wonder
+at the extraordinary differences in the most ordinary details of life at
+the ports on the China coast and the Interior, and of the gross
+inconsistencies in the Chinese mind and character. If in addition he has
+stayed a few days away from a city in which the foreigners were shut up
+inside the city walls because the roaring mob of rebels outside were
+asking for their heads, and he has had to abandon part of his overland
+trip because of the fear that his own head might have been chopped off
+<i>en route</i>, he may increase his wonder to doubt. The aspect here in
+Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;politically, morally, socially, spiritually&mdash;is that of another
+kingdom, another world. Conditions seem, for the most part, the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in his new environment, which may
+be a replica of twenty centuries ago, the dream he dreamed is now
+dispelled. &quot;China,&quot; he says, &quot;is <i>not</i> awaking; she barely moves, she is
+still under the torpor of the ages.&quot; And yet again, in the capital and a
+few of the larger cities, under your very eyes there goes on a reform
+which seems to be the most sweeping reform Asia has yet known.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the inconsistencies, seemingly unchangeable, irreconcilable in
+conception or in fact; a truthful portrayal of them tends to render the
+writer a most inconsistent being in the eyes of his reader.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>No one was ever sped on his way through China with more goodwill than
+was the writer when he left Tong-ch'uan-fu; but the above thoughts were
+then in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Long before January 3rd, 1910, the whole town knew that I was going to
+Mien Dien (Burma). Confessedly with a sad heart&mdash;for I carried with me
+memories of kindnesses such as I had never known before&mdash;I led my
+nervous pony, Rusty, out through the Dung Men (the East Gate), with
+twenty enthusiastic scholars and a few grown-ups forming a turbulent
+rear. As I strode onwards the little group of excited younkers watched
+me disappear out of sight on my way to the capital by the following
+route&mdash;the second time of trying:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Che-chi</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>7,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Lai-t'eo-p'o</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>8,500 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Kongshan</td><td align='center'>100 li.</td><td align='center'>6,700 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Yang-kai</td><td align='center'>85 li.</td><td align='center'>7,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Ch'anff-o'o</td><td align='center'>95 li</td><td align='center'>6,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;The Capital</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,400 ft.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>My caravan consisted of two coolies: one carried my bedding and a small
+basket of luxuries in case of emergency, the other a couple of boxes
+with absolute necessities (including the journal of the trip). In
+addition, there accompanied me a man who carried my camera, and whose
+primary business it was to guard my interests and my money&mdash;my general
+factotum and confidential agent&mdash;and by an inverse operation enrich
+himself as he could, and thereby maintain relations of warm mutual
+esteem. They received thirty-two tael cents per man per diem, and for
+the stopping days on the road one hundred cash. None of them, of course,
+could speak a word of English.</p>
+
+<p>The ninety li to Che-chi was mostly along narrow paths by the sides of
+river-beds, the intermediate plains having upturned acres waiting for
+the spring. At Ta-chiao (7,500 feet), where I stayed for my first
+alfresco meal at midday, the man&mdash;a tall, gaunt, ugly fellow, pockmarked
+and vile of face&mdash;told us he was a traveler, and that he had been to
+Shanghai. This I knew to be a barefaced lie. He voluntarily explained to
+the visitors, gathered to see the barbarian feed, what condensed milk
+was for, but he went wide of the mark when he announced that my pony,<a name='FNanchor_Z_26'></a><a href='#Footnote_Z_26'><sup>[Z]</sup></a>
+hog-maned and dock-tailed (but Chinese still), was an American, as he
+said I was. A young mother near by, suffering from acute eye
+inflammation, was lying in a smellful gutter on a felt mat, two pigs on
+one side and a naked boy of eight or so on the other, whilst she heaped
+upon the head of the innocent babe she was suckling curses most horribly
+blood-curdling. Dogs&mdash;the universal scavengers of the awakening
+interior, to which merest allusion is barred by one's Western sense of
+decency&mdash;just outside Che-chi, where I stayed the night, had recently
+devoured the corpse of a little child. Its clothing was strewn in my
+path, together with the piece of fibre matting in which it had been
+wrapped, and the dogs were then fighting over the bones.</p>
+
+<p>To Lai-t'eo-p'o was a day that men might call a &quot;killer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is a dirty little place with a dirty little street, lying at the foot
+of a mountain known throughout Western China as one of the wildest of
+Nature's corners, nearly ten thousand feet high, a terrific climb under
+best conditions. A clear half-moon, and stars of a silvery twinkle,
+looked pityingly upon me as I started at 3 a.m., ignorant of the
+dangerously narrow defile leading along cliffs high up from the Yili Ho.
+In the dark, cautiously I groped along. Not without a painful emotion of
+impending danger, as I watched the stellular reflections dancing in the
+rushing river, did I wander on in the wake of a group of pack-ponies,
+and took my turn in being assisted over the broken chasms by the
+muleteers. Two fellows got down below and practically lifted the tiny
+animals over the passes where they could not keep their footing.
+Gradually I saw the nightlike shadows flee away, and with the dawn came
+signs of heavy weather.</p>
+
+<p>Snow came cold and sudden. As we slowly and toilsomely ascended, the
+velocity of the wind fiercely increased; down the mountain-side, at a
+hundred miles an hour, came clouds of blinding, flinty dust, making the
+blood run from one's lips and cheeks as he plodded on against great
+odds. With the biting wind, howling and hissing in the winding ravines
+and snow-swept hollows, headway was difficult. Often was I raised from
+my feet: helplessly I clung to the earth for safety, and pulled at
+withered grass to keep my footing. The ponies, patient little brutes,
+with one hundred and fifty pounds strapped to their backs, came near to
+giving up the ghost, being swayed hopelessly to and fro in the fury. For
+hours we thus toiled up pathways seemingly fitter for goats than men,
+where leafless trees were bending destitute of life and helpless towards
+the valley, as the keen wind went sighing, moaning, wailing through
+their bare boughs and budless twigs.</p>
+
+<p>Such a gale, wilder than the devil's passion, I have not known even on
+the North Atlantic in February.</p>
+
+<p>At times during the day progression in the deepening snow seemed quite
+impossible, and my two men, worn and weary, bearing the burden of an
+excessively fatiguing day, well-nigh threw up the sponge, vowing that
+they wished they had not taken on the job.</p>
+
+<p>But the scenery later in the day, though monotonously so, was grand. The
+earth was literally the color of deep-red blood, the crimson paths
+intertwining the darker landscape bore to one's imagination a vision of
+some bloody battle&mdash;veritable rivers of human blood. To cheer the
+traveler in his desolation, the sun struggled vainly to pierce with its
+genial rays through the heavy, angry clouds rolling lazily upwards from
+the black valleys, and enveloping the earth in a deep infinity of
+severest gloom. The cold was damp. In the small hemmed-in hollows,
+whereto our pathway led, the icy dew clung to one's hair and beard. From
+little brown cottages, with poor thatched roofs letting in the light,
+and with walls and woodwork long since uniformly rotten, men and women
+emerged, rubbing their eyes and buttoning up their garments, looking
+wistfully for the hidden sun.</p>
+
+<p>At Shao-p'ai (8,100 feet) a brute of a fellow was administering
+cruellest chastisement to his disobedient yoke-fellow, who took her
+scourging in good part. I passed along as fast as I could to the ascent
+over which a road led in and around the mountain with alarming
+steepness, a road which at home would never be negotiated on foot or on
+horseback, but which here forms part of the main trade route. From the
+extreme summit one dropped abruptly into a protecting gorge, where
+falling cascades, sparkling like crystal showers in the feeble sunlight
+occasionally breaking through, danced playfully over the smooth-worn,
+slippery rocks; a stream foamed noisily over the loose stones, and leapt
+in rushing rapids where the earth had given way; there was no grass, no
+scenery, no life, and in the sudden turnings the hurricane roared with
+heavenly anger through the long deep chasms, over the
+twelve-inch river-beds at the foot.</p>
+
+<p>At Lai-t'eo-p'o accommodation at night was fairly good. Men laughed
+hilariously at me when I raved at some carpenters to desist their clumsy
+hammering three feet above my head. Hundreds of dogs yelped unceasingly
+at the moon, and with the usual rows of the men in mutual invitation to
+&quot;Come and wash your feet,&quot; or &quot;Ching fan, ching fan,&quot; the draughts, the
+creaks and cracks, the unintermitting din, and so much else, one was not
+sorry to rise again with the lark and push onwards in the cold.</p>
+
+<p>Down below this horrid town there is a plain; in this plain there is a
+hole fifty feet deep, and had my pony, which I was leading, not pulled
+me away from falling thereinto, my story would not now be telling.</p>
+
+<p>To Kongshan (6,700 feet), past Yei-chu-t'ang (8,100 feet) and
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang (7,275 feet), one hundred li away, was a journey
+through country considerably more interesting, especially towards the
+end of the day, a peculiar combination of wooded slope and rough,
+rock-worn pathways.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiao-lang-t'ang, twenty-five li from the end of the stage, overlooks a
+wide expanse of barren, uninviting moorland. Deep, jagged gullies break
+the uneven rolling of the mountains; dark, weird caverns of terrible
+immensity yawn hungrily from the surface of weariest desolation, ever
+widening with each turn. Mist hid the ugliest spots high up among the
+peaks, whose white summits, peeping sullenly from out this blue sea of
+damp haze, told a wondrous story of winter's withering all life to
+death, a spot than which in summer few places on earth would be more
+entrancing. But these mountains are breathing out a solitude which is
+eternal. Man here has never been. Far away beyond lies the country of
+the aborigines; but even the Lolo, wild and rugged as the country,
+fearless of man and beast, have never dared to ascend these heights.
+They are mournful, cheerless, devoid of a single smile from the common
+mother of us all, lacking every feature by which the earth draws man
+into a spirit of unity with his God. Horrid, frowning waste and aimless
+discontinuity of land, harbinger of loneliness and of evil! People, poor
+struggling beings of our kind, here seemed mocked of destiny, and a hot
+raging of misery waged within them, for all that the heart might desire
+and wish for had to them been denied. If, indeed, the earth be the home
+of hope, and man's greatest possession be hope, then would it seem that
+these poor creatures were entirely cut off, shut out from life,
+wandering wearisomely through the world in one long battle with Nature
+whereby to gain the wherewithal to live in that grim desert. There were
+no exceptions, it was the common lot. Each day and every day did these
+men and women, with a stolidity of long-continued destitution, and
+temporal and spiritual tribulation, gaze upon that bare, unyielding
+country, pregnant only with aggravation to their own dire wretchedness.</p>
+
+<p>In such spots, unhappily in Y&uuml;n-nan not few, does the mystery of life
+grow ever more mysterious to one whom distress has never harassed. A
+great pity seized my heart, but these poor people would probably have
+laughed had they known my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed they came uninterestedly to look upon me. They watched in
+expressive silence; they were silent because of poverty. And I, too,
+kept a seal upon my lips as I ate the good things here provided under
+the eyes of those to whom hunger had given none but a jealous outlook.
+Pitiful enough were it, thought I, merely to watch without allowing
+speech to escape further to taunt them. So I ate, and they looked at me.
+I came and went, but never a word was uttered by these men and women, or
+even by the children, whose most painful feeling seemed that of their
+own feebleness. They were indeed feeble units standing in a threatening
+infinitude of life, and their thoughts probably dwelt upon my luxury
+and wealth as mine could not help dwelling upon their hungry town of
+hungry men and famished children. Words cannot paint their poverty&mdash;men
+void of hope, of life, of purpose, of idea. Happy for them that they had
+known no other.</p>
+
+<p>We ascended over a road of unspeakable torture to one's feet. Gazing
+down, far away into a seemingly bottomless abyss, we could faintly hear
+in the lulling of the wind the rush of a torrent, fed by a hundred
+mountain streams, which washed our path and in horrible disfigurement
+tore open the surface of the hill-sides.</p>
+
+<p>The long day was drawing wearily to a close. As the sun was sinking
+beyond the uneven hills over which I was to climb before the descent to
+the town begins, the effect of the green and gold and red and brown
+produced a striking picture of sweet poetic beauty. I stood in
+contemplative admiration meditating, as I waited for my coolies, who sat
+moodily under a dilapidated roadside awning, nonchalantly picking out
+mouldy monkey-nuts from some coarse sweetmeat sold by a frowsy female.
+Then upwards we toiled in the dark, the weird groans of my exhausted men
+and the falling of the gravel beneath their sandalled feet alone
+breaking the hollow's gloom. Uncanny is night travel in China.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who knows but that ghosts, those fierce-faced denizens of the hills,
+may run against thee and bewitch thee,&quot; murmured one man to the others.
+They stopped, and I stopped with them. And in the darkness, pegging on
+alone at the mercy of these coolies, my own thoughts were not
+unsynchronistic.</p>
+
+<p>At last, with no slight misgiving, we came down into the city's smoke.
+Dogs barked at me, and ran away like the curs they are. Midway down the
+stone footway my yamen runner too cautiously crept up to me in the dark,
+muttering something, and I floored him with my fist. Afterwards I
+learnt that he came to relieve me of the pony I was leading.</p>
+
+<p>Every room in every wretched inn was occupied; opium fumes already
+issued from the doorways, and it was now pitch dark, so that I could
+scarce see the sallow faces of the hungry, uncouth crowd, to whom with
+no little irritation I tried to speak as I peered carefully into the
+caravanserai. Evident it certainly was that the duty lying nearest to me
+at that particular moment, to myself and all concerned therein, was to
+accept what I was offered, and not wear out my temper in grumbling. My
+boy, Lao Chang (an I-pien), the brick, expressed to me his regrets, and
+something like real sympathy shone out from his eyes in the dimness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Puh p'a teh, puh p'a teh&quot; (&quot;Have no fear, have no fear&quot;), said he; and
+as I stood the while piling up cruellest torture upon my uncourtly host,
+he made off to prepare a downstair room (to lapse into modern
+boarding-house phraseology).</p>
+
+<p>First through an outer apartment, dark as darkest night; on past the
+caterwauling cook and a few disreputable culinary hangers-on; asked to
+look out for a pony, which I could not see, but which I was told might
+kick me; then onward to my boy, who stood on a stool and dropped the
+grease of a huge red Chinese candle among his plaited hair, as he
+wobbled it above his head to light the way. He gripped me tenderly, took
+me to his bosom as it were, gave me one push, and I was there. He
+tarried not. What right had he to listen to what I in secret would say
+of the horrid keeper and his twice horrid shakedown inn? He passed out
+swiftly into outer darkness, uttering a groan I rudely interpreted as,
+&quot;That or nothing, that or nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It <i>was</i> a room, that is in so far as four sides, a floor and a ceiling
+comprise one. Of that I had no doubt. A sort of uncomely offshoot from
+the main inn building, built on piles in the earth after the fashion of
+the seashore houses of the Malay&mdash;but much dirtier and incomparably more
+shaky. For many a long year, longer than mine horrid host would care to
+recollect, this now unoccupied space had served admirably as the common
+cooking-room&mdash;the ruined fireplace was still there; later, it had been
+the stable&mdash;the ruined horse trough was still there. At one extreme
+corner only could I stand upright; long sooty cobwebs graced the black
+wood beams overhead, hanging as thick as icicles in a mountain valley;
+each step I took in fear and trembling (the slightest move threatened to
+collapse the whole dilapidation). Four planks, four inches wide at the
+widest part and of varying lengths and thicknesses, placed on a pile of
+loose firewood at the head and foot, comprised the bedstead on which I
+tremulously sat down. Upon this improvised apology for a bed, under my
+mosquito curtains (no traveler should be without them in Western China),
+I washed my blistered feet on an ancient <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, whilst my
+cook saw to my evening meal. His bringing in the rice tallied with my
+laying the tablecloth in the same place where I had washed my feet&mdash;the
+one available spot.</p>
+
+<p>As I ate, rats came brazenly and picked up the grains of rice I dropped
+in my inefficient handling of chopsticks, and in scaring off these
+hardened, hungry vermin I accidentally upset tea over my bed, whilst at
+the same moment a clod-hopping coolie came in with an elephant tread,
+with the result that my European reading-lamp lost its balance from the
+top of a tin of native sugar and started a conflagration, threatening to
+make short work of me and my belongings&mdash;not to mention that horrid
+fellow and his inn.</p>
+
+<p>During the night the moments throbbed away as I lay on my flea-ridden
+couch&mdash;moments which seemed long as hours, and no gleaming rift broke
+the settled and deepening blackness of my hateful environs. Every thing
+and every place was full of the wearisome, depressing, beauty-blasting
+commonplace of Interior China. Stenches rose up on the damp, dank air,
+and throughout the night, through the opening of a window, I seemed to
+gaze out to a disconsolate eternity&mdash;gaping, empty, unsightly. Waking
+from my dozing at the hour when judgment sits upon the hearts of men, I
+sat in ponderous judgment upon all to whom the bungling of the previous
+day was due. There were the rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks
+and cracks&mdash;no quiet about the place from night to morning. Then came
+the barking of dogs, the noises of the cocks and kine, of horses and
+foals, of pigs and geese&mdash;the general wail of the zoological
+kingdom&mdash;cows bellowing, duck diplomacy, and much else. So that it were
+not surprising to learn that this distinguished traveler in these
+contemptible regions was sitting on a broken-down bridge, looking
+wearily on to the broken-down tower on the summit of a pretty little
+knoll outside Kungshan, thinking that it were well a score of such were
+added did their design embrace a warning to evade the place.</p>
+
+<p>Having done some twenty li by moonlight, I managed with little
+difficulty to reach Yang-kai (6,350 feet) by 3.0 p.m. This road, which
+is not the main road to the capital, was purposely chosen; most
+travelers go through Yang-lin. The journey is comprised of pleasant
+ascents and descents over the latter portion of the great Y&uuml;n-nan
+Plateau, and a very appreciable difference in the temperature was here
+noticed. While the people at the north-east of the province, from which
+I had come, were shivering in their rags and complaining about the price
+of charcoal, the population here basked under Italian skies in a warm
+sun. From Lui-shu-ho (7,200 feet) the country was beautifully wooded
+with groves of firs and chestnuts.</p>
+
+<p>At the inn to which I was led the phlegmatic proprietor, after wishing
+me peace, assumed unostentatiously the becoming attitude of a Customs
+official, and scrutinized with vigor the whole of my gear, from an empty
+Calvert's tooth-powder tin to my Kodak camera, showering particularly
+condescending felicitations upon my English Barnsby saddle and
+field-glasses thereto attached.</p>
+
+<p>His excitement rose at once.</p>
+
+<p>He called loudly for his confederates&mdash;a band of inelegant infidels&mdash;and
+bidding them stand one by one at given distances, he gaped at them
+through the glasses with the hilarity of a schoolboy and the stupidity
+of an owl. He jumped, he shouted, he waved his arms about me, and
+handing them back to me with both hands, shouted deafeningly in my ear
+that they were quite beyond his ken; and then he sucked his teeth
+disgustingly and spat at my feet. His associates were speechless, asses
+that they were, and could only stare, in horror or impudence I know not.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Lao Chang brought tea, and sallied forth immediately to
+fraternize among old friends. As I drank my tea, after having invited
+them one by one to join me, slowly and with a fitting dignity, the empty
+stare, destitute of sense or sincerity, of these six upstanding Chinese
+gentry, sucking at tobacco-pipes as long as their own overfed bodies,
+forced upon me a sense of my unfitness for the unknown conditions of the
+life of the place, a sense of loneliness and social unshelteredness in
+the sterile waste of their fashionable life. They spoke to me
+subsequently, and I bravely threw at them a Chinese phrase or two; but
+when the conversation got above my head, I told them, quietly but
+determinedly, that I could not understand, my English speech seemed
+vaguely to indicate a sudden collapse of the acquaintance, the opening
+of a gulf between us, destined to widen to the whole length and breadth
+of Yang-kai, swallowing up their erstwhile confidences. One of them
+facetiously remarked that the gentleman wished to eat his rice; and as
+they cleared out, falling over each other and the high step at the
+entrance to the room, I thought that no matter how old they are, Chinese
+are but little children. But had I treated them as little children I
+should have found that they were old men.</p>
+
+<p>There was in me withal a sense of better rank in the eyes of this
+super-excellent few who worshipped, in &quot;heathen&quot; China, the Satan of
+Fashion. As a matter of fact, their rank had emerged from such long
+centuries ago that it seemed to me to be so identified with them that
+they were hardly capable of analysis of people such as myself. As I
+looked pityingly upon them and the involved simplicity of their
+immutable natures, I realized an unconquerable feeling of inborn rank
+and natural elevation in respect to nationality. This is, however,
+against my personal general conception of Eastern peoples, but I must
+admit I felt it this afternoon. And so perhaps it is with the majority
+of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the
+language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always
+aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys
+and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or
+understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest
+lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the
+language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a
+heathen&mdash;it is easier.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province
+better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives
+the most enviable spot in the province&mdash;the center of his universe.
+Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or
+sympathetically, and he is at once up against you. It may develop
+narrowness of mind and smallness of soul. We Westerners think we know
+that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be
+bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but
+a desirable citizen and a full-sized man. But no matter. The Chinese, on
+the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never
+tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial&mdash;part
+of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.
+But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in
+the world for the very same reason!</p>
+
+<p>Rationally speaking, John is the &quot;old brother&quot; of the world, oldest of
+any nation by very many centuries. In common with all other travelers
+and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
+serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
+which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
+and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
+into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
+directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
+young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
+manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
+political economy&mdash;but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
+theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
+teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of eclipses. He
+is frightened by ghosts, burns mock money to maintain his ancestors in
+the future state, worships a bit of rusty old iron as an infallible
+remedy for droughts; I have seen him shoot at clouds from the city walls
+to frighten away the rain&mdash;and I despise him for it all. As I revise
+this copy, a rumor is current in the town in which I am resting to the
+effect that foreigners are buying children and using their heads to oil
+the wheels of the new Y&uuml;n-nan railway, and I despise him for believing
+it. The Chinese will not fight, and I sneer at him; he abhors me
+because I do. I ridicule his manner of dress; he thinks mine grossly
+indecent. I consider his flat nose and the plaited hair and shaven skull
+as heathenish; but the Chinese, eating away with his to me ridiculous
+chopsticks, looks out from his quick, almond-shaped eyes and considers
+me still a foreign devil, although he is too cunning to tell me. His
+opinions of me are founded upon the narrow grounds of vanity and
+egotism; mine, although I do not admit it even to myself, from something
+very much akin thereto.<a name='FNanchor_AA_27'></a><a href='#Footnote_AA_27'><sup>[AA]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I have been looked upon in far-away outposts of the Chinese Empire where
+foreigners are still unknown, as an example of those human monstrosities
+which come from the West, a creature of a very low order of the human
+species, with a form and face uncouth, with language a hopeless jargon,
+and with manners unbearably rude and obnoxious. Not that <i>I</i> personally
+answer accurately to this description, reader, any more than you would,
+but because I happen to be among a people who, as far back as Chinese
+opinion of foreigners can be traced, have considered themselves of a
+morality and intellectuality superior to yours and mine.</p>
+
+<p>I write the foregoing because it sums up what may be termed the current
+ideas regarding Europeans, ideas the reverse of complimentary, which are
+the more unfortunate on account of the fact that they are held by the
+vast majority of a people forming a quarter of the whole human race.
+This is true, despite all the reform.</p>
+
+<p>These ideas may be, and I trust they are, erroneous, but I know that I
+must keep in mind the extremely important desideratum in dealing with
+the Chinese that they look at me&mdash;my person, my manners, my customs, my
+theories, my things&mdash;through Chinese eyes, and although mistaken,
+misled, reach their own conclusions from their own point of view. This
+is what they have been doing for centuries, but we know that it all now
+is being subjected to slow change. The original stock, however, takes on
+no change whatever, and several generations must pass before this
+transfer of mental vision can be effected, when the Chinese will view
+all things and all peoples in their true light.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning my three men were heavy. The lean fellow&mdash;I have christened
+him Shanks, a long, shambling human bag of bones&mdash;moved about painfully
+in a listless sort of way, betokening severe rheumatics; his joints
+needed oil. Four or five huge basins of steaming rice and the customary
+amount of reboiled cabbage, however, bucked him up a bit, and holding up
+a crooked, bony finger, he indicated intelligently that we had one
+hundred li to cover. Whilst engaged in conversation thus, sounds of
+early morning revelry reached me from below. My boy, his accustomed
+serenity now quite disturbed, held threateningly above the head of the
+yamen runner (who had given me a profound kotow the evening previous
+prior to taking on his duties) a length of three-inch sugar cane; he
+evidently meant to flatten him out. This I learned was because this
+shadower of the august presence wished to take Yang-lin (about 60 li
+away) instead of going to Ch'ang-p'o (100 li) as I intended. I got him
+in, looked him as squarely in the face as it is possible when a Chinese
+wants to evade your scrutiny, told him I wished to go to Ch'ang-p'o, and
+that I hoped I should have the pleasure of his company thus far. He
+replied with a grinning smile, which one could easily have taken for a
+smiling grin&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, foreign mandarin, Ch'ang-p'o&mdash;100 li&mdash;foreign mandarin,
+foreign mandarin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I thought the incident closed. Such is the appalling gullibility of
+the Englishman in China.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped for tea at a small hamlet ten li out. The place was deserted
+save for a small starving boy, whose chief attention was given to
+laborious endeavors to make his clothing meet in certain necessary
+areas. He evidently had never seen a foreigner. As he directed his
+optics towards me he winced visibly. He walked round me several times,
+fell over a grimy pail of soap-suds, stopped, gazed in enraptured
+enchantment with parted lips and outstretched arms as if he had begun to
+suspect what it was before him. To the eye of the beholder, however, he
+gazed as yet only on vacancy, but just as I was about to attempt
+self-explanation he was gone, tearing away down the hill as fast as his
+legs could carry him, the ragged remains of his father's trousers
+flapping gently in the breeze. As I rose to leave crackers frightened my
+pony, followed, in a few moments by a howling, hooting, unreasonable
+rabble from a temple near by. I found it was the result of a village
+squabble. I could scarce keep the order of my march as I left the
+tea-shop, so roughly was I handled by the irritated and impatient crowd,
+and had much ado to refrain from responding wrathfully to the repeated
+jeers of impudent, half-grown beggars of both sexes who helped to swell
+the riotous cortege. But through it all none of the insults were meant
+for me, so Lao Chang told me, and they did not mean to treat me with
+discourtesy.</p>
+
+<p>Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for
+irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the
+ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous
+wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the
+moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black
+and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image
+of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery,
+exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep
+discouragement. I came across some women mock-weeping for the dead: at
+their elbow two girls were washing clothes, and when little children,
+catching sight of me, ran to their mothers, the women stopped their
+hulla-baloo, had a good stare at me, exchanged a few words of mutual
+inquiry, and then resumed their bellowing.</p>
+
+<p>Soon it became quite warm, and walking was pleasant. I was startled by
+the <i>fu-song</i>,<a name='FNanchor_AB_28'></a><a href='#Footnote_AB_28'><sup>[AB]</sup></a> who invited me to go to a neighboring town for tea. My
+men were far behind. I was at his mercy, so I went. Soon I found myself
+passing through the city gates of Yang-lin, the very town I was trying
+to keep away from. The yamen fellow turned back at me and chuckled
+rudely to himself. I insisted that I did not wish to take tea; he
+insisted that I should&mdash;I must. He led me to an inn in the main street,
+arrangements were made to house me, old men and young lads gathered to
+welcome me as a lost brother, and the <i>fu-song</i> told me graciously that
+he was going to the magistrate. In cruel English, with many wildly
+threatening gestures, did I protest, and the people laughed
+acquiescingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Puh tong, puh tong, you gaping idiots!&quot; I repeated, and it caused more
+glee.</p>
+
+<p>Swinging myself past them all, I dragged my stubborn pony through the
+mob to the gate by which I had entered. My men were not to be found. I
+did not know the road nor much of the language. I sat down on a granite
+pillar to undergo an embarrassing half-hour. Presently my men hailed me,
+and approaching, swore with imposing loftiness at the discomfited guide.
+My bull-dog coolie dropped his loads, the <i>fu-song</i> somehow lost his
+footing, I yelled &quot;Ts'eo&quot; (&quot;Go&quot;), and with a cheer the caravan
+proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>The following day we were at the capital.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_Z_26'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Z_26'>[Z]</a><div class='note'><p> I took a pony because I had made up my mind to return into
+China after I had reached Burma. In Tong-ch'uan-fu a good pony can be
+bought for, say, <i>&pound;3</i>&mdash;in Burma, the same pony would sell for &pound;10.
+</p><p>
+&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AA_27'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AA_27'>[AA]</a><div class='note'><p> For further excellent descriptions of the Chinese nature I
+refer the reader to Chester Holcombe's <i>China: Past and
+Present</i>.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AB_28'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AB_28'>[AB]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>i.e.</i> Yamen escort.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p>Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL.</p>
+
+<p><i>Access to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu</i>. <i>Concentrated reform</i>. <i>Tribute to Hsi Liang<i>.
+</i>Conservatism and progress</i>. <i>The Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway</i>. <i>The Y&uuml;n-nan
+army</i>. <i>Author's views in 1909 and 1910 contrasted</i>. <i>Phenomenal forward
+march, and what it means</i>. <i>Danger of too much drill</i>. <i>International
+aspect on the frontier</i>. <i>The police</i>. <i>Street improvements</i>. <i>Visit to
+the gaol, and a description</i>. <i>The Young Pretender to the Chinese
+throne</i>. <i>How the prison is conducted</i>. <i>The schools</i>. <i>Visit to the
+university, and a description</i>. <i>Riot among the students</i>. <i>Visit to the
+Agricultural School, and a description</i>. <i>Silk industry of Y&uuml;n-nan.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to-day is as accessible as Peking. After many weary years the
+Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan railway is now an accomplished fact, and links this
+capital city with Haiphong in three days.</p>
+
+<p>Reform concentrates at the capital. The man who visited Y&uuml;n-nan-fu
+twenty, or even ten years ago, would be astounded, were he to go there
+now, at the improvements visible, on every hand. A building on foreign
+lines was then a thing unknown, and the conservative Viceroy, Tseng Kong
+Pao, the decapitator in his time of thousands upon thousands of human
+beings, would turn in his grave if he could behold the utter
+annihilation of his pet &quot;feng shui,&quot; which has followed in the wake of
+the good works done by the late loved Viceroy, Hsi Liang.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Hsi Liang is revered in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan as the most
+able man who has ever ruled the two provinces of Y&uuml;n-nan and Kwei-chow,
+a man of keen intellectuality and courtly manner, and notorious as being
+the only Mongolian in the service of China's Government. I lived in
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu for several weeks at a stretch, and since then have made
+frequent visits, and knowing the enormous strides being made towards
+acquiring Occidental methods, I now find it difficult to write with
+absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be
+the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of
+any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the
+same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no
+subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound
+generalization, one has to forego much temptation to &quot;color&quot; if he would
+be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues
+agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and
+character as a whole, so glaring are the inconsistencies of the Chinese
+nature. And as one sees for himself in this great city, particularly in
+official life, the businesslike practicability on the one hand and the
+utter absurdity of administration on the other, in all modes and
+methods, one is almost inclined to drop his pen in disgust at being
+unable to come to any concrete conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>Of no province in China more than of Y&uuml;n-nan is this true.</p>
+
+<p>Reform and immovable conservatism go hand in hand. Men of the most
+dissimilar ambitions compose the <i>corps diplomatique</i>, and are willing
+to join hands to propagate their main beliefs; and when one writes of
+progress&mdash;in railways, in the army, in gaols, in schools, in public
+works, in no matter what&mdash;one is ever confronted by that dogged
+immutability which characterizes the older school.</p>
+
+<p>So that in writing of things Y&uuml;n-nanese in this great city it is
+imperative for me to state bare facts as they stand now, and make little
+comment.</p>
+
+<p>THE RAILWAY</p>
+
+<p>The Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway, linking the interior with the coast, is one
+of the world's most interesting engineering romances. This artery of
+steel is probably the most expensive railway of its kind, from the
+constructional standpoint. In some districts seven thousand pounds per
+mile was the cost, and it is probable that six thousand pounds sterling
+per mile would not be a bad estimate of the total amount appropriated
+for the construction of the line from a loan of 200,000,000 francs asked
+for in 1898 by the Colonial Council in connection with the program for a
+network of railways in and about French Indo-China.</p>
+
+<p>To Lao-kay there are no less than one hundred and seventy-five bridges.</p>
+
+<p>The completion of this line realizes in part the ambition of a
+celebrated Frenchman, who&mdash;once a printer, 'tis said, in Paris&mdash;dropped
+into the political flower-bed, and blossomed forth in due course as
+Governor-General of Indo-China. When Paul Doumer, for it was he, went
+east in 1897, he felt it his mission to put France, politically and
+commercially, on as good a footing as any of her rivals, notably Great
+Britain. It did not take him long to see that the best missionaries in
+his cause would be the railways. At the time of writing (June, 1910) I
+cannot but think that profit on this railway will be a long time coming,
+and there are some in the capital who doubt whether the commercial
+possibilities of Y&uuml;n-nan justified this huge expenditure on railway
+construction. Whilst authorities differ, I personally believe that the
+ultimate financial success of the venture is assured. There are markets
+crying out to be quickly fed with foreign goods, and it is my opinion
+that the French will be the suppliers of those goods. British enterprise
+is so weak that we cannot capture the greater portion of the growing
+foreign trade, and must feel thankful if we can but retain what trade we
+have, and supply those exports with which the French have no possibility
+of competing.</p>
+
+<p>THE MILITARY</p>
+
+<p>The foreigner in Y&uuml;n-nan-fu can never rest unless he is used to the
+sounds of the bugle and the hustling spirit of the men of war.</p>
+
+<p>In standard works on Chinese armaments no mention is ever made of the
+Y&uuml;n-nan army, and statistics are hard to get. But it is evident that the
+cult of the military stands paramount, and it has to be conceded, even
+by the most pessimistic critics of this backward province, that the new
+troops are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-organized to
+crush any rebellion. This must be counted a very fair result, since it
+has been attained in about two years. A couple of years ago Y&uuml;n-nan had
+practically no army&mdash;none more than the military ragtags of the old
+school, whose chief weapon of war was the opium pipe. But now there are
+ten thousand troops&mdash;not units on paper, but men in
+uniform&mdash;well-drilled for the most part and of excellent physique, who
+could take the field at once. The question of the Y&uuml;n-nan army is one of
+international interest: the French are on the south, Great Britain on
+the west.</p>
+
+<p>On June 2nd, 1909, I rode out to the magnificent training ground, then
+being completed, and on that date wrote the following in my diary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I watched for an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their
+daily drill&mdash;typical tin soldiery and a military sham.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only with the merest notion of matters military were most of the men
+conversant, and alike in ordinary marching&mdash;when it was most difficult
+for them even to maintain regularity of step&mdash;or in more complicated
+drilling, there was a lack of the right spirit, no go, no gusto&mdash;scores
+and scores of them running round doing something, going through a
+routine, with the knowledge that when it was finished they would get
+their rice and be happy. Everyone who possesses but a rudimentary
+knowledge of the Chinese knows that he troubles most about the two
+meals every day should bring him, and this seems to be the pervading
+line of thought of seven-eighths of the men I saw on the padang at
+drill. Officers strutting about in peacock fashion, with a sword
+dangling at their side, showed no inclination to enforce order, and the
+rank and file knew their methods, so that the disorder and haphazardness
+of the whole thing was absolutely mutual.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whilst I was on the field gazing in anything but admiration on the
+scene, I was ordered out by one of the khaki-clad officers in a most
+unceremonious manner. Seeing me, he shouted at the top of his thick
+voice, 'Ch'u-k'&uuml;, ch'u-k'&uuml;' (an expression meaning 'Go out!'&mdash;commonly
+used to drive away dogs), and simultaneously waved his sword in the air
+as if to say, 'Another step, and I'll have your head.' And, of course,
+there being nothing else to do, I 'ch'u-k'&uuml;d,' but in a fashion
+befitting the dignity of an English traveler.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The reorganization of the army, with the acceleration of warlike
+preparedness, has the advantage that it appeals to the embryonic feeling
+of national patriotism, and affords a tangible expression of the desire
+to be on terms of equality with the foreigner. That officer never had a
+prouder moment in his life than when he ordered a distinguished
+foreigner from the drilling ground, of which he was for the time the
+lordly comptroller. And it may be added that the foreigner can remember
+no occasion when he felt 'smaller,' or more completely shrivelled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whilst it is safe to infer that the motives that underlie the
+significant access of activity in military matters in Y&uuml;n-nan differ in
+no way from those which have led to the feverish increase in armaments
+in other parts of the world, such ideas that have yet been formed on
+actual preparations for possible war are most crude. On paper the
+appointments in the army and the accuracy of the figures of the
+complement of rank and file admit of no question, but the practical
+utility of their labors is quite another matter, and a matter which does
+not appear to produce among the army officials any great mental
+disturbance in their delusion that they are progressing. Y&uuml;n-nan is in
+need of military reform, reform which will embrace a start from the very
+beginning, and one of the first steps that should be taken is that those
+who are to be in the position of administering training should find out
+something about western military affairs, and so be in a position of
+knowing what they are doing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year.
+Now&mdash;in June of 1910&mdash;I have to write of enormous improvements and
+revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the
+general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Y&uuml;n-nan is
+still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many
+elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or
+less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial
+question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining
+question, are still &quot;in the air&quot;&mdash;the unknown <i>x</i> in the equation, as it
+were&mdash;but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be
+followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will,
+her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the
+destiny of Y&uuml;n-nan herself, and she is working hard&mdash;the West has no
+conception how hard&mdash;so as to be able to be in a position of
+safeguarding&mdash;vigorously, if necessary&mdash;her own borders.</p>
+
+<p>One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion,
+would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Y&uuml;n-nan. Skirmishings
+on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers
+are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common
+people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take
+place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the
+soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously
+remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
+would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
+for drilling him so hard and long.</p>
+
+<p>What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
+be true also of Tali-fu.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
+nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
+enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
+dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
+drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
+necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
+of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
+rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
+dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
+have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
+taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks&mdash;a sign in
+itself of the altered conditions of the times&mdash;and I visited some
+extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
+thousand gold dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Military progress in this &quot;backward province&quot; is as great as it has been
+anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.</p>
+
+<p>THE POLICE</p>
+
+<p>Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the
+necessary evil of a standing army, so did Y&uuml;n-nan-fu slumber on in the
+Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking
+into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material,
+the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be
+found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old
+London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and
+well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of
+the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is
+substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should
+ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be &quot;run in&quot;
+in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone
+will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest
+intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn
+kind&mdash;that is, if the Y&uuml;n-nan police shall ever have made strides
+towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their
+place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
+less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover&mdash;when will
+the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?&mdash;is certainly being put
+down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
+they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
+dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
+throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
+been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
+the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>THE GAOL</p>
+
+<p>A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
+prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
+entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
+which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
+reception-room. There was nothing &quot;quadlike&quot; about the place. This
+reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
+prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
+curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
+scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
+wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
+extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
+prison&mdash;one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.</p>
+
+<p>After we had drunk each other's health&mdash;I sincerely trust that the cute,
+courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
+of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
+me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
+mundane things&mdash;I was led away to the prison proper.</p>
+
+<p>This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
+building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
+covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
+and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
+with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
+stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
+building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
+accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
+present confined within its walls.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour's inspection, I came to the conclusion that the lot of the
+prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
+the time&mdash;three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
+much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
+came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
+outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
+their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
+emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
+grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
+waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
+Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
+important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
+machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
+per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
+does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
+English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
+but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
+rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
+rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
+pewter workers, some of their products&mdash;turned out with most primitive
+tools&mdash;being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
+chair, made of iron&mdash;a sort of miniature garden seat&mdash;and from this
+pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
+selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
+mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
+were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
+shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
+same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
+however, exceedingly interesting to watch.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
+sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
+and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
+claimed, abolished in Y&uuml;n-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
+day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
+exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
+could not break his men of the habit. But we remember that the
+physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
+heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
+frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
+bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
+Y&uuml;n-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
+history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
+The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
+At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
+aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
+Y&uuml;n-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
+and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
+pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
+The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
+the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
+congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
+immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
+existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
+miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Y&uuml;n-nan
+dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
+trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
+The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
+throne&mdash;father, mother, brothers, sisters&mdash;were all put to death, most
+of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
+victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
+everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
+soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
+breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
+meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
+arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
+training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
+can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
+his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
+tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
+shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
+is doubtful whether the authorities&mdash;or even the emperor himself&mdash;will
+mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
+nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
+teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
+Heaven&mdash;he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
+enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy&mdash;no playmates, no
+toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows&mdash;in
+surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
+rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
+that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
+express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
+visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
+me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
+the prison&mdash;containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
+farewell, left him in a happy mood.</p>
+
+<p>THE SCHOOLS</p>
+
+<p>One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Y&uuml;n-nan. Yet
+such is the case.</p>
+
+<p>In former days&mdash;and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day&mdash;the
+prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
+an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
+Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
+country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
+educated man was then a potential school master&mdash;this was certainly true
+of Y&uuml;n-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
+the phrase &quot;China for the Chinese&quot; gains forceful meaning among the
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
+for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
+China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
+architect&mdash;a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
+mathematics&mdash;and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
+long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
+from a purely architectural standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
+thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and possesses conveniences
+and improvements quite comparable to the ordinary college of the West.
+For instance, as I passed through the many admirably-equipped
+schoolrooms, well ventilated and airy, I saw an Italian who was laying
+in the electric light,<a name='FNanchor_AC_29'></a><a href='#Footnote_AC_29'><sup>[AC]</sup></a> the power for which was generated by an
+immense dynamo at the basement, upon which alone twenty thousand taels
+were spent. Thirty professors have the control of thirty-two classrooms,
+teaching among other subjects mathematics, music, languages (chiefly
+English and Japanese), geography, chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany,
+and so on. The museum, situated in the center of the building, does not
+contain as many specimens as one would imagine quite easily obtainable,
+but there are certainly some capital selections of things natural to
+this part of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The authorities probably thought I was rather a queer foreigner, wanting
+to see everything there was to see inside the official barriers in the
+city. Day after day I was making visits to places where foreigners
+seldom have entered, and I do not doubt that the officials, whilst
+treating me with the utmost deference and extreme punctiliousness,
+thought I was a sort of British spy.</p>
+
+<p>When I went to the Agricultural School, probably the most interesting
+visit I made, I was met by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a keen
+fellow, who spoke English well, and who, having been trained at
+Shanghai, and therefore understanding the idiosyncrasies of the
+foreigner's character, was invited to entertain. And this he did, but he
+was careful that he did not give away much information regarding the
+progress that the Y&uuml;n-nanese, essentially sons of the soil, are making
+in agriculture. For this School of Agriculture is an important adjunct.</p>
+
+<p>Scholars are taken on an agreement for three years, during which time
+they are fed and housed at the expense of the school; if they leave
+during the specified period they are fined heavily. No less than 180
+boys, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three, are being trained here, with
+about 120 paid apprentices. Three Japanese professors are employed&mdash;one
+at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and two others at three
+hundred, the latter having charge of the fruit and forest trees and the
+former of vegetables.</p>
+
+<p>In years to come the silk industry of Y&uuml;n-nan will rank among the chief,
+and the productions will rank among the best of all the eighteen
+provinces. There are no less than ten thousand mulberry trees in the
+school grounds for feeding the worms; four thousand catties of leaves
+are used every day for their food; five hundred immense trays of
+silkworms are constantly at work here. The worms are in the charge of
+scholars, whose names appear on the various racks under their charge,
+and the fact that feeding takes place every two hours, day and night, is
+sufficient testimony that the boys go into their work with commendable
+energy. As I was being escorted around the building, through shed after
+shed filled with these trays of silkworms, several of the scholars made
+up a sort of procession, and waited for the eulogy that I freely
+bestowed. In another building small boys were spinning the silk, and
+farther down the weavers were busy with their primitive machinery, with
+which, however, they were turning out silk that could be sold in London
+at a very big price. The colorings were specially beautiful, and the
+figuring quite good, although the head-master of the school told me that
+he hoped for improvements in that direction. And I, looking wise,
+although knowing little about silk and its manufacture, heartily agreed
+with the little fat man.</p>
+
+<p>There is a department for women also, and contrary to custom, I had a
+look around here, too. The girls were particularly smart at spinning.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AC_29'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AC_29'>[AC]</a><div class='note'><p> Soon afterwards a disturbance occurred among the students,
+and had it not been for the promptitude of the inspector, some of them
+might have lost their heads.
+</p><p>
+The electric light had just been laid in, and was working so well that
+the authorities found it imperative to charge each of the 400 resident
+students one dollar per month for the upkeep. This simple edict was the
+cause of the riot In a body the boys rolled up their pukais, and marched
+down to the main entrance, declaring that they were determined to resign
+if the order was not rescinded. The inspector, however, had had all the
+doors locked. The frenzied students broke these open, and incidentally
+thrashed some of the caretakers for interfering in matters which were
+not considered to be strictly their business.
+</p><p>
+Subsequently the Chancellor of Education visited the college in person,
+but no heed was paid to his exhortations, and it was only when the
+dollar charge for lighting was reduced that peace was restored.
+</p><p>
+The Chancellor, as a last word, told them that if they vacated their
+schoolrooms a fine of about a hundred taels would be imposed upon each
+man.
+</p><p>
+The occasion was marked by all the foolish ardor one finds among college
+boys at home, and it seems that, despite the enormous amount of money
+the college is costing to run, the students are somewhat out of
+hand.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='SECOND_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>SECOND JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU)</h4>
+
+<br />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stages to Tali-fu</i>. <i>Worst roads yet experienced</i>. <i>Stampede among
+ponies</i>. <i>Hybrid crowd at Anning-cheo</i>. <i>Simplicity of life of common
+people</i>. <i>Does China want the foreigner? Straits Settlements and China
+Proper compared</i>. <i>China's aspect of her own position</i>. <i>Renaissance of
+Chinese military power</i>. <i>Europeans</i> NOT <i>wanted in the Empire</i>.
+<i>Emptiness of the lives of the common people</i>. <i>Author erects a printing
+machine in Inland China</i>. <i>National conceit</i>. <i>Differences in make-up of
+the Hua Miao and the Han Ren</i>. <i>The Hua Miao and what they are doing</i>.
+<i>Emancipation of their women</i>. <i>Tribute to Protestant missionaries</i>.
+<i>Betrothal and marriage in China</i>. <i>Miao women lead a life of shame and
+misery</i>. <i>Crude ideas among Chinese regarding age of foreigners</i>. <i>Musty
+man and dusty traveller at Lao-ya-kwan</i>. <i>Intense cold</i>. <i>Salt trade</i>.
+<i>Parklike scenery, pleasant travel, solitude.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>From the figures of heights appearing below, one would imagine that
+between the capital and Tali-fu hard climbing is absent. But during each
+stage, with the exception of the journey from Sei-tze to Sha-chiao-kai,
+there is considerable fatiguing uphill and downhill work, each evening
+bringing one to approximately the same level as that from which he
+started his morning tramp. I went by the following route:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Anning-cheo</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Lao-ya-kwan</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien</td><td align='center'>75 li</td><td align='center'>5,500 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Sei-tze</td><td align='center'>80 li</td><td align='center'>6,100 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Kwang-tung-hsien</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Rest day.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Ch'u-hsiong-fu</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,150 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8th day&mdash;Luho-kai</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9th day&mdash;Sha-chiao-kai</td><td align='center'>65 li</td><td align='center'>6,400 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10th day&mdash;Pu-p&ecirc;ng</td><td align='center'>90 li</td><td align='center'>7,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>11th day&mdash;Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;</td><td align='center'>65 li</td><td align='center'>6,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>12th day&mdash;Hungay</td><td align='center'>80 li</td><td align='center'>6,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>14th day&mdash;Chao-chow</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,750 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>15th day&mdash;Tali-fu</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,700 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>A long, winding and physically-exhausting road took me from
+Sha-chiao-kai to Yin-wa-kwan, the most elevated pass between Y&uuml;n-nan-fu
+and Tali-fu, and continued over barren mountains, bereft of shelter, and
+void of vegetation and people, to Pup&ecirc;ng. A rough climb of an hour and a
+half then took me to the top of the next mountain, where roads and ruts
+followed a high plateau for about thirty li, and with a precipitous
+descent I entered the plain of Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;. Then over and between barren
+hills, passing a small lake and plain with the considerable town of
+Y&uuml;n-nan-hsien ten li to the right, I continued in a narrow valley and
+over mountains in the same uncultivated condition to Hungay, situated in
+a swampy valley. Having crossed this valley, another rough climb brings
+the traveler to the top of the next pass, Ting-chi-ling, whence the road
+descends, and leads by a well-cultivated valley to Chao-chow. After an
+easy thirty li we reached Hsiakwan,<a name='FNanchor_AD_30'></a><a href='#Footnote_AD_30'><sup>[AD]</sup></a> one of the largest commercial
+cities in the province, lying at the foot of the most magnificent
+mountain range in Y&uuml;n-nan, and by the side of the most famous lake. A
+paved road takes one in to his destination at Tali-fu, where I was
+welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Clark, of the China Inland Mission, and
+hospitably entertained for a couple of days.</p>
+
+<p>The roads in general from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Tali-fu were worse than any I
+have met from Chung-king onwards, partly owing to the mountainous
+condition of the country, and partly to neglect of maintenance.</p>
+
+<p>Where the road is paved, it is in most places worse than if it had not
+been paved at all, as neither skill nor common sense seems to have been
+exercised in the work. It is probably safe to say that there are no
+ancient roads in Y&uuml;n-nan, in the sense of the constructed highways which
+have lasted through the centuries, for the civilization of the early
+Y&uuml;n-nanese was not equal to such works. As a matter of fact, the
+condition of the roads is all but intolerable. Many were never made, and
+are seldom mended&mdash;one may say that with very few exceptions they are
+never repaired, except when utterly impassable, and then in the most
+make-shift manner.</p>
+
+<p>My highly-strung Rusty received a shock to his nervous system as I led
+him leisurely from the incline leading into Anning-cheo (6,300 feet),
+through the arched gateway in a pagoda-like entrance, which when new
+would have been a credit to any city. The stones of the main street were
+so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of
+their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground
+behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed
+themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter
+towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men
+caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and
+trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was
+being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped
+unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town&mdash;the
+market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of
+blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar,
+as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed
+long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front,
+pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the
+other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me
+more knocks.</p>
+
+<p>It was an awful crowd&mdash;Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of
+hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be
+called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people,
+their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own
+Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their
+homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted
+with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high
+civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired
+people living a simple, unsophisticated life. All the strength of the
+world and all its beauties, all true joy, everything that consoles, that
+feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything
+that enables us to discern across our poor lives a splendid goal and a
+boundless future, comes to us from true simplicity. I do not say that we
+get all this from the Chinese, but in many ways they can teach us how to
+live in the <i>spirit of simplicity</i>. They were living from hand to mouth,
+with seemingly no anxieties at all&mdash;and yet, too, they were living
+without God, and with very little hope.</p>
+
+<p>And here the foreigner re-appeared to disturb them. Even in Anning-cheo,
+only a day from the capital, I was regarded as a being of another
+species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.</p>
+
+<p>No international question has become more hackneyed than &quot;Does China
+want the foreigner?&quot; Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time
+been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men
+supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting
+with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his
+advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general
+assent come to be understood that China <i>does</i> want the foreigner. But
+those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their
+inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still
+ask, &quot;Does she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having
+trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff&mdash;without whom few
+businesses in the Far East can make progress&mdash;my argument may seem to
+have no <i>raison d'etre</i>. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the
+absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First,
+they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great
+nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone
+doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for
+closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more
+than mere superficial dealings with them?</p>
+
+<p>Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large
+commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or
+out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance
+and remarkable business acumen and integrity.</p>
+
+<p>As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of
+people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the
+Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born
+Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese
+and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in
+their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an
+infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior
+entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where
+Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred
+towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one
+not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the
+brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner in civilized parts
+of China&mdash;and impossible for the great preponderance of the European
+peoples at home&mdash;to grasp the fact that in huge tracts of Interior China
+the populace have never seen a foreigner, save for the ubiquitous
+missionary, who takes on more often than not the dress of the native.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Chinese Government recognizes the dangerous situation of
+the nation <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i> with nations of Europe, and has ratified one
+treaty after another with us, the nation itself does not, so far as the
+traveler can see, appreciate the fact that she cannot possibly resist
+the white man, and hold herself in seclusion as formerly from the
+Western world. China is discovering&mdash;has discovered officially, although
+that does not necessarily mean nationally&mdash;as Japan did so admirably
+when her progress was most marked, that steam and machinery have made
+the world too small for any part thereof to separate itself entirely
+from the broadening current of the world's life.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst not for a moment failing to admire the aggressive character of
+Occidentals, and the resultant necessity of thwarting them&mdash;we see[1]
+this especially in official circles in Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;Chinese leaders of
+thought and activity are recognizing that in international relations the
+final appeal can be only to a superior power, and that power, to be
+superior, must be thorough, and thorough throughout. So different to
+what has held good in China for countless ages. That is why China is
+making sure of her army, and why she will have ready in 1912&mdash;ten years
+before the period originally intended&mdash;no less than thirty-six
+divisions, each division formed of ten thousand units.[A] China is now
+endeavoring to walk the ground which led Japan to greatness among the
+nations&mdash;she takes Japan as her pattern, and thinks that what Japan has
+done she can do&mdash;and, officially abandoning her long course of
+self-sufficient isolation, is plunging into the flood of international
+progress, determined to acquire all the knowledge she can, and thus win
+for herself a place among the Powers.</p>
+
+<p>But I am in Y&uuml;n-nan, and things move slowly here.</p>
+
+<p>All this does not mean that my presence is desired, or that fear of me,
+the foreigner, has ceased. On the contrary, it signifies that I am more
+greatly to be feared. The European is <i>not</i> wanted in China, no matter
+how absurd it may seem to the student of international politics, who
+sits and devours all the newspaper copy&mdash;good, bad and
+indifferent&mdash;which filters through regarding China becoming the El
+Dorado of the Westerner. He is wanted for no other reason than that of
+teaching the Chinese to foreignize as much as he can, teaching the
+leaders of the people to strive to modify national life, and to raise
+public conduct and administration to the best standards of the West.</p>
+
+<p>When China is capable of looking after herself, and able to maintain the
+position she is securing by the aid of the foreigner in her provinces,
+following her present mode of thought and action, the foreigner may go
+back again. But it is to be hoped that the evolution of the country will
+be different.</p>
+
+<p>Another feature impressed upon me was the emptiness of the lives of the
+people. Education was rare, and any education they had was confined to
+the Chinese classics.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of the three men I had with me could read or write. The thoughts
+of these people are circumscribed by the narrow world in which they
+live, and only a chance traveler such as myself allows them a glimpse of
+other places. Each man, with rare exception, lives and labors and dies
+where he is born&mdash;that is his ambition; and in the midst of a people
+whose whole outlook of life is so contracted, I find difficulty in
+believing that progress such as Japan made in her memorable fifty-year
+forward movement will be made by the Chinese of Y&uuml;n-nan in two hundred
+years. Everything one can see around him here, at this town of
+Anning-cheo, seems to make against it. In my dealings with Chinese in
+their own country&mdash;I speak broadly&mdash;I have found that they &quot;know
+everything.&quot; I erected a printing-press in Tong-ch'uan-fu some months
+ago&mdash;a type of the old flat handpress not unlike that first used by
+Caxton. It was a part of the equipment of the Ai Kueh Hsieh Tang (Love
+of Country School), and I was invited by the gentry to erect it. Now the
+thing had not been up an hour before all the old fossils in the place
+knew all about it. Printing to them was easy&mdash;a child could do it. It is
+always, &quot;O ren teh, o ren teh&quot; (&quot;I know, I know&quot;). These men, dressed in
+their best, stood with arms behind them, and smiled stupidly as I
+labored with my coat off fixing their primitive machinery. Yet they did
+<i>not</i> know, and now, within a few months, not a sheet has been printed,
+and the whole plant is going to rack and ruin.</p>
+
+<p>This is the difference between the Chinese and the tribespeople of
+Y&uuml;n-nan. Here we see the god of the missionary again, quite apart from
+any religious basis. The tribesman comes and lays himself at the feet of
+the missionary, and says at once, &quot;I do not know. Tell me, and I will
+follow you. I want to learn.&quot; That is why it is that the Chinese stand
+open-eyed and open-mouthed when they see the Miao making strides
+altogether impossible to themselves, in proportion to their standard of
+civilization, and this position of things will not be altered, unless
+they cease to deceive themselves. I have seen a Miao boy of nine who
+never in his life had seen a Chinese character, who did not know that
+school existed and, whose only tutoring depended on the week's visit of
+the missionary twice a year. I have seen this youngster read off a sheet
+of Chinese characters no Chinese boy of his age in the whole city would
+succeed in. I have not been brought into contact with any other tribe as
+I have with the Hua Miao.[1]</p>
+
+<p>But if the progress this once-despised people are making is maintained,
+the Y&uuml;n-nanese will very soon be left behind in the matter of practical
+scholarship. These Miao live the simplest of simple lives, but they wish
+to become better&mdash;to live purer lives, to become civilized, to be
+uplifted; and therefore they are most humble, most approachable, and are
+slowly evolving into a happy position of proud independence. Education
+among the Hua Miao is not lost: among the Chinese much of the labor put
+forward in endeavors to educate them is lost, or seems to bear no
+immediate fruit. The Miao are living by confidence and hope that turns
+towards the future; the Y&uuml;n-nanese are content with their confidence in
+the past. The Miao, however, were not like this always&mdash;but a few years
+ago they were not heard of outside China.</p>
+
+<p>The coming emancipation of their women, demands some attention. The few
+Europeans who have lived among the multitudes in Central China would not
+associate beds of roses with the lives of the women anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The daughter is seldom happy, and unless the wife present her husband
+with sons, who will perpetuate the father's name and burn incense at his
+tablet after his death, her life is more often than not made absolutely
+unbearable&mdash;a fact more than any other one thing responsible for the
+numerous suicides. She is the drudge, the slave of the man. And the
+popular belief is that all the women of the Middle Kingdom are
+essentially Chinese; but little is heard of the tribespeople&mdash;more
+numerous probably than in any other given area in all the world&mdash;whose
+womankind are as far removed from the Chinese in language, habits and
+customs as English ladies of to-day are removed from Grecians. A decade
+or so ago no one heard of the Miao women: they were the lowest of the
+low, having no <i>status</i>. They were far worse off than their Chinese
+sisters, who, no matter what they had to endure after marriage, were
+certainly safeguarded by law and etiquette allowing them to enter the
+married state with respectability; but no social laws, no social ties
+protect the Miao women.</p>
+
+<p>Until a few years ago their &quot;club&quot; was a common brothel, too horrible to
+describe in the English language. As soon as a girl gave birth to her
+first child she came down on the father to keep her. In many cases, it
+is only fair to say, they lived together faithfully as man and wife,
+although such cases were not by any means in the majority. The poor
+creatures herded together in their unspeakable vice and infamy, with no
+shame or common modesty, fighting for the wherewithal to live, and only
+by chance living regularly with one man, and then only just so long as
+he wished. Little girls of ten and over regularly attended these awful
+hovels, and children grew out of their childhood with no other vision
+than that of entering into the disgraceful life as early as Nature would
+allow them. It meant little less than that practically the whole of the
+population was illegitimate, viewed from a Western standpoint. No such
+thing as marriage existed. Men and women cohabited in this horrible orgy
+of existence, with the result that murder, disease and pestilence were
+rife among them. It was only a battle of the survival of the fittest to
+pursue so terrible a life. Nearly all the people were diseased by the
+transgression of Nature's laws.</p>
+
+<p>After a time, however, through the instrumentality of Protestant
+missionaries, these wretched people began to see the light of
+civilization. Gradually, and of their own free will, the girls gave up
+their accursed dens of misery and shame, and the men lived more in
+accord with social law and order.</p>
+
+<p>The Miao, too, had hitherto been dependent for their literature upon the
+Chinese character, which only a few could understand. Soon they had
+literature in their own language,<a name='FNanchor_AE_31'></a><a href='#Footnote_AE_31'><sup>[AE]</sup></a> and a great social reform set in.
+They showed a desire for Western learning such as has seldom been seen
+among any people in China&mdash;these were people lowest down in the social
+scale; and now the latest phase is the establishment of bethrothal and
+marriage laws, calculated to revolutionize the community and to
+introduce what in China is the equivalent for home life.</p>
+
+<p>Betrothal among the Chinese is a matter with which the parties most
+deeply concerned have little to do. Their parents engage a go-between or
+match-maker, and another point is that there is no age limit. Not so now
+with the Christian Miao. No paid go-between is engaged, and brides are
+to be at a minimum age of eighteen years, and bridegrooms twenty. The
+establishment of these laws will, it is hoped, make for the emancipation
+from a life of the most dreadful misery of thousands of women in one of
+the darkest countries of the earth.<a name='FNanchor_AF_32'></a><a href='#Footnote_AF_32'><sup>[AF]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>But now the Miao is pressing forward under his burdens, to guide himself
+in the struggle, to retrieve his falls and his failures; and in the
+future lies his hope&mdash;the indomitable hope upon which the interest of
+humanity is based&mdash;and he has in addition the grand expectation of
+escaping despair even in death. It is all the praiseworthy work of our
+fellow-countrymen, living isolated lives among the people, building up a
+worthy Christian structure upon Miao simplicity and humble fidelity to
+the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>But I digress from my travel.</p>
+
+<p>Little out of the ordinary marked my travels to Lao-ya-kwan (6,800
+feet), an easy stage. My meager tiffin at an insignificant mountain
+village was, as usual, an educational lesson to the natives. Each tin
+that came from my food basket&mdash;one's servant delighted to lay out the
+whole business&mdash;underwent the severest criticism tempered with unmeaning
+eulogy, picked up and put down by perhaps a score of people, who did not
+mean to be rude. When I used their chopsticks&mdash;dirty little pieces of
+bamboo&mdash;in a manner very far removed from their natural method, they
+were proud of me. Outrageously panegyric references were made when an
+old man, scratching at his disagreeable itch-sores under my nose,
+clipped a youngster's ear for hazarding my age to be less than that of
+any of the bystanders, the length of my moustache and a three-day growth
+on my chin giving them the opinion that I was certainly over sixty.<a name='FNanchor_AG_33'></a><a href='#Footnote_AG_33'><sup>[AG]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I entered Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was
+to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and
+filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the &quot;hsi-lien&quot;
+(wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking
+musty and mean and dusty, with my topee botched and battered, I
+presented a most unhappy contrast as I led my pony down the street under
+the sarcastic stare of bystanding scrutineers. The nights were cold, and
+in the private house where I stayed, mercifully overlooked by a trio of
+protesting effigies with visages grotesque and gruesome, rats ran
+fearlessly over the room's mud floor, and at night I buried my head in
+my rugs to prevent total disappearance of my ears by nibbling. Not so my
+men. They slept a few feet from me, three on one bench, two on another.
+Bedding was not to be had, and so among the dirty straw they huddled
+together as closely as possible to preserve what bodily heat they had.
+Snow fell heavily. In the early morning sunlight on January 13th the
+undulating valley, with its grand untrodden carpet of white, looked
+magnificently beautiful as I picked out the road shown me by a poor
+fellow whose ears had got frost-nipped.</p>
+
+<p>No easy work was it climbing tediously up the narrow footway in a sharp
+spur rising some 1,000 feet in a ribbed ascent, overlooking a fearful
+drop. Over to the left I saw an unhappy little urchin, hardly a rag
+covering his shivering, bleeding body, grovelling piteously in the
+snow, while his blind and goitrous mother did her best at gathering
+firewood with a hatchet. The pass leading over this range, through which
+the white crystalline flakes were driven wildly in one's face, was a
+half-moon of smooth rock actually worn away by the endless tramping of
+myriads of pack-ponies, who then were plodding through ruts of steps
+almost as high as their haunches.</p>
+
+<p>A man with a diseased hip joined me thirty li farther on, dismounting
+from his pile of earthly belongings which these men fix on the backs of
+their ponies. It is a creditable trapeze act to effect a mount after
+the pony is ready for the journey. He had, he said, met me before. He
+knew that I was a missionary, and had heard me preach. He remembered my
+wife and myself and children passing the night in the same inn in which
+he stayed on one of his pilgrimages from his native town somewhere to
+the east of the province. I had never seen him before! I had no wife; I
+have never preached a sermon in my life. I should be pained ever again
+to have to suffer his unmannerly presence anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Ponies were being loaded near my table. The rapscallion in question
+explained that the black blocks were salt, taking a pinch from my
+salt-cellar with his grimy fingers to add point to his remarks. I kicked
+at a couple of mongrels under the rude form on which I sat&mdash;they fought
+for the skins of those potato-like pears which grow here so
+prolifically. The person announced that they were dogs, and that an
+idiosyncrasy of Chinese dogs was to fight. Several wags joined in, and
+all appeared, through the traveling nincompoop, to know all about my
+past and present, lapsing into a desultory harangue upon all men and
+things foreign. The street reminded me of Clovelly&mdash;rugged and
+ragged&mdash;and the people were wrinkled and wretched; and, indeed, being a
+Devonian myself by birth, I should be excused of wantonly intending to
+hurt the delicate feelings of the lusty sons of Devon were I to declare
+that I thought the life not of a very terrible dissimilarity from that
+port of antiquity in the West.</p>
+
+<p>Salt was everywhere, much more like coal than salt, certainly as black.
+The blocks were stacked up by the sides of inns ready for transport,
+carried on the backs of a multitude of poor wretches who work like oxen
+from dawn to dusk for the merest pittance, on the backs of droves and
+droves of ponies, scrambling and spluttering along over the slippery
+once-paved streets.</p>
+
+<p>All day long, with the exception of two or three easy ascents, we were
+travelling in pleasantly undulating country of park-like magnificence.
+My men dallied. I tramped on alone; and sitting down to rest on the
+rocks, I realized that I was in one of the strangest, loneliest, wildest
+corners of the world. Great mountain-peaks towered around me, white and
+sparkling diadems of wondrous beauty, and at my feet, black and
+stirless, lay a silent pool, reflecting the weird shadows of my coolies
+flitting like specters among the jagged rocks of these most solitary
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AD_30'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AD_30'>[AD]</a><div class='note'><p> Hsiakwan would be supplied by a branch line of the main
+railway in the Kunlong scheme advocated by Major H.R. Davies, leaving at
+Mi-tu, to the south of Hungay.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AE_31'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AE_31'>[AE]</a><div class='note'><p> The written language was framed and instituted by the Rev.
+Sam. Pollard, of the Bible Christian Mission (now merged into the United
+Methodist Mission).&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AF_32'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AF_32'>[AF]</a><div class='note'><p> The marriage laws were instituted by the China Inland
+Mission at Sa-pu-shan, where a great work is being done among the Hua
+Miao. A good many more stipulations are embodied in the excellent rules,
+but I have no room here to detail.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AG_33'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AG_33'>[AG]</a><div class='note'><p> The Chinese have the crudest ideas of the age of
+foreigners. Among themselves the general custom is for a man to shave
+his upper lip so long as his father is alive, so that in the ordinary
+course a man wearing a moustache is looked upon as an old man. In
+Tong-ch'uan-fu the rumor got abroad that three &quot;uei kueh ren&quot; (&quot;foreign
+men&quot;) went riding horses&mdash;(two young ones and one old one. The &quot;old one&quot;
+was myself, because I had hair on my top lip, despite the fact that I
+was considerably the junior. And the fact that one was a lady was not
+deemed worthy of the slightest consideration.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien and its bridge</i>. <i>Magnificence of mountains towards the
+capital</i>. <i>Opportunity for Dublin Fusiliers</i>. <i>Characteristic climbing.
+Crockery crash and its sequel</i>. <i>Mountain forest</i>. <i>Changeableness of
+climate</i>. <i>Wayside scene and some reflections</i>. <i>Is your master drunk?
+Babies of the poor</i>. <i>Loess roads</i>. <i>Travelers, and how they should
+travel</i>. <i>Wrangling about payment at the tea-shop</i>. <i>The lying art among
+the Chinese</i>. <i>Difference of the West and East</i>. <i>Strange Chinese
+characteristic</i>. <i>Eastern and Western civilization, and how it is
+working</i>. <i>Remarks on the written character and Romanisation</i>. <i>Will
+China lose her national characteristics? &quot;Ih dien mien, ih dien mien.&quot;</i>
+<i>A nasty experience of the impotently dumb</i>. <i>Rescued in the nick of
+time.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>When the day shall come for its history to be told, the historian will
+have little to say of Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien, that is&mdash;if he is a decent sort of
+fellow.</p>
+
+<p>He may refer to its wonderful bridge, to its beggars and its ruins. The
+stone bridge, one of the best of its kind in the whole empire, and I
+should think better than any other in Y&uuml;n-nan, stands to-day
+conspicuously emblematic of ill-departed prosperity. So far as I
+remember, it was the only public ornament in a condition of passable
+repair in any way creditable to the ratepayers of the hsien. The wall is
+decayed, the people are decayed, and in every nook and cranny are
+painful evidences of preventable decay, marked by a conservatism among
+the inhabitants and unpardonable indolence.</p>
+
+<p>The bridge, however, has stood the test of time, and bids fair to last
+through eternity. Other travelers have passed over it since the days of
+Marco Polo, but I should like to say a word about it. Twelve yards or so
+wide, and no less than 150 yards long, it is built entirely of grey
+stone; with its massive piers, its excellent masonry, its good
+(although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking
+animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of
+memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful
+simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a
+credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in
+addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the
+roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with
+which successive emperors have covered China, the bridges are not the
+least remarkable; and in them one is able to realize the perseverance of
+the Chinese in the enormous difficulties of construction they have had
+to overcome.</p>
+
+<p>Passing over the stream&mdash;the Hsiang-shui Ho, I believe&mdash;I stepped out
+across the plain with one foot soaked, a pony having pulled me into the
+water as he drank. Peas and beans covered with snow adjoined a
+heart-breaking road which led up to a long, winding ascent through a
+glade overhung by frost-covered hedgerows, where the sun came gently
+through and breathed the sweet coming of the spring. From midway up the
+mountain the view of the plain below and the fine range of hills
+separating me from the capital was one of exceeding loveliness, the
+undisturbed white of the snow and frost sparkling in the sunshine
+contrasting most strikingly with the darkened waves of billowy green
+opposite, with a background of sharp-edged mountains, whose summits were
+only now and again discernible in the waning morning mist. Snow lay deep
+in the crevices. My frozen path was treacherous for walking, but the
+dry, crisp air gave me a gusto and energy known only in high latitudes.
+In a pass cleared out from the rock we halted and gained breath for the
+second ascent, surmounted by a dismantled watch-tower. It has long since
+fallen into disuse, the sound tiles from the roof having been
+appropriated for covering other habitable dwellings near by, where one
+may rest for tea. The road, paved in some places, worn from the side of
+the mountain in others, was suspended above narrow gorges, an entrance
+to a part of the country which had the aspect of northern regions. The
+sun, tearing open the curtain of blue mist, inundated with brightness
+one of the most beautiful landscapes it is possible to conceive. A
+handful of Dublin Fusiliers with quick-firing rifles concealed in the
+hollows of the heights might have stopped a whole army struggling up the
+hill-sides. But no one appeared to stop me, so I went on.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing was characteristic of the day. Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien is about 5,500
+feet; Sei-tze (where we were to sleep) 6,100 feet. Not much of a
+difference in height; but during the whole distance one is either
+dropping much lower than Lu-feng or much higher than Sei-tze. For thirty
+li up to Ta-ts&uuml;-s&iuml; (6,900 feet) there is little to revel in, but after
+that, right on to the terrific drop to our destination for the night, we
+were going through mountain forests than which there are none better in
+the whole of the province, unless it be on the extreme edge of the
+Tibetan border, where accompanying scenery is altogether different.</p>
+
+<p>From a height of 7,850 feet we dropped abruptly, through clouds of thick
+red dust which blinded my eyes and filled my throat, down to the city of
+Sei-tze. I went down behind some ponies. Upwards came a fellow
+struggling with two loads of crockery, and in the narrow pathway he
+stood in an elevated position to let the animals pass. Irony of fate!
+One of the horses&mdash;it seemed most intentional&mdash;gave his load a tilt: man
+and crockery all went together in one heap to a crevice thirty yards
+down the incline, and as I proceeded I heard the choice rhetoric of the
+victim and the muleteer arguing as to who should pay.</p>
+
+<p>Just before that, I dipped into the very bosom of the earth, with
+rugged hills rising to bewildering heights all around, base to summit
+clad luxuriously in thick greenery of mountain firs, a few cedars, and
+the Chinese ash. Black patches of rock to the right were the death-bed
+of many a swaying giant, and in contrast, running away sunwards, a
+silver shimmer on the unmoving ocean of delicious green was caused by
+the slantwise sun reflections, while in the ravines on the other side a
+dark blue haze gave no invitation. Smoothly-curving fringes stood out
+softly against the eternal blue of the heavens. Farther on, eloquent of
+their own strength and imperturbability, were deep rocks, black and
+defiant; but even here firs grew on the projecting ledges which now and
+again hung menacingly above the red path, shading away the sunlight and
+giving to the dark crevices an atmosphere of damp and cold, where men's
+voices echoed and re-echoed like weird greetings from the grave. Onwards
+again, and from the cool ravines, adorned with overhang branches,
+forming cosy retreats from the now blazing sun, one emerged to a road
+leading up once more to undiscovered vastnesses. Yonder narrowed a
+gorge, fine and delicately covered, pleasing to one's aesthetic sense.
+The center was a dome, all full of life and waving leafage, ethereal and
+sweet; and running down, like children to their mother, were numerous
+little hills densely clothed in a green lighter and more dainty than
+that of the parent hill, throwing graceful curtsies to the murmuring
+river at the foot. As I write here, bathed in the beauty of spring
+sunlight, it is difficult to believe that a few hours since the
+thermometer was at zero. Little spots of habitation, with foodstuffs
+growing alongside, looking most lonely in their patches of green in the
+forest, added a human and sentimental picturesqueness to a scene so
+strongly impressive.</p>
+
+<p>A thatched, barn-like place gave us rest, the woman producing for me a
+huge chunk of palatable rice sponge-cake sprinkled with brown sugar.
+Little naked children, offspring of parents themselves covered with
+merest hanging rags, groped round me and treated me with courteous
+curiosity; goats smelt round the coolie-loads of men who rested on low
+forms and smoked their rank tobacco; smoke from the green wood fires
+issued from the mud grates, where receptacles were filled with boiling
+water ready for the traveler, constantly re-filled by a woman whose
+child, hung over her back, moaned piteously for the milk its mother was
+too busy to give to it. Near by a young girl gave suck to a deformed
+infant, lucky to have survived its birth; her neck was as big as her
+breasts&mdash;merely a case of goitre. Coolies passed, panting and puffing,
+all casting a curious glance at him to whose beneficence all were
+willing to pander.</p>
+
+<p>At tiffin I counted thirty-three wretched people, who turned out to see
+the barbarian. They desired, and desired importunately, to touch me and
+the clothes which covered me. And I submitted.</p>
+
+<p>This half-way place was interesting owing to the fact that the lady in
+charge of the buffet could speak two words of French&mdash;she had, I
+believe, acted as washerwoman to a man who at one time had been in the
+Customs at Mengtsz. Great excitement ensued among the perspiring
+laborers of the road and the dumb-struck yokels of the district. The
+lady was so goitrous that it would have been extremely risky to hazard a
+guess as to the exact spot where her face began or ended; and here, in a
+place where with all her neighbors she had lived through a period noted
+for famine, for rebellion, for wholesale death and murder of an entire
+village, she endured such terrible poverty that one would have thought
+her spirit would have waned and the light of her youth burned out. But
+no! The lusty dame was still sprightly. She had been three times
+divorced. The person at present connected with her in the bonds of
+wedded life&mdash;also goitrous and morally repulsive&mdash;stood by and gazed
+down upon her like a proud bridegroom. He resented the levity of Shanks
+and his companion, but, owing to the detail of a sightless eye, he could
+not see all that transpired. However, we were all happy enough. Charges
+were not excessive. My men had a good feed of rice and cabbage, with the
+usual cabbage stump, two raw rice biscuits (which they threw into the
+ashes to cook, and when cooked picked the dirt off with their long
+finger-nails), and as much tea as they could drink&mdash;all for less than a
+penny.</p>
+
+<p>There is something in traveling in Y&uuml;n-nan, where the people away from
+the cities exhibit such painful apathy as to whether dissolution of this
+life comes to them soon or late, which breeds drowsiness. After a tramp
+over mountains for five or six hours on end, one naturally needed rest.
+To-day, as I sat after lunch and wrote up my journal, I nearly fell
+asleep. As I watched the reflections of all these ill-clad figures on
+the stony roadway, and dozed meanwhile, one rude fellow asked my man
+whether I was drunk!</p>
+
+<p>I was not left long to my reverie.</p>
+
+<p>Entering into a conversation intended for the whole village to hear, my
+bulky coolie sublet his contract for two tsien for the eighty li&mdash;we had
+already done fifty. The man hired was a weak, thin, half-baked fellow,
+whose body and soul seemed hardly to hang together. He was the first to
+arrive. As soon as he got in; this same man took a needle from the
+inside of his great straw hat and commenced ridding his pants of
+somewhat outrageous perforations. Such is the Chinese coolie, although
+in Y&uuml;n-nan he would be an exception. Late at night he offered to put a
+shoe on my pony. I consented. He did the job, providing a new shoe and
+tools and nails, for 110 cash&mdash;just about twopence.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help, thinking of the children I had seen to-day, &quot;Sad for
+the dirt-begrimed babies that they were born.&quot; These children were all a
+family of eternal Topsies&mdash;they merely grew, and few knew how. They are
+rather dragged up than brought up, to live or die, as time might
+appoint. Babies in Y&uuml;n-nan, for the great majority, are not coaxed, not
+tossed up and down and petted, not soothed, not humored. There are none
+to kiss away their tears, they never have toys, and dream no young
+dreams, but are brought straight into the iron realities of life. They
+are reared in smoke and physical and moral filth, and become men and
+women when they should be children: they haggle and envy, and swear and
+murmur. When in Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;or even in the whole of China&mdash;will there be
+the innocence and beauty of childhood as we of the West are blessed
+with?</p>
+
+<p>Roads here were in many cases of a light loess, and some of red
+limestone rock, with a few li of paved roads. Many of the main roads
+over the loess are altered by the rains. Two days of heavy rain will
+produce in some places seas of mud, often knee-deep, and this will again
+dry up quite as rapidly with the next sunshine. They become undermined,
+and crumble away from the action of even a trickling stream, so as to
+become always unsafe and sometimes quite impassable.</p>
+
+<p>Delays are very dear to the heart of every Chinese. The traveler, if he
+is desirous of getting his caravan to move on speedily, has little
+chance of success unless he assumes an attitude of profoundest
+indifference to all men and things around him&mdash;never <i>appear</i> to be in a
+hurry.</p>
+
+<p>We are accompanied to-day to Kwang-tung-hsien by the coolie who carried
+the load yesterday. He sits by staring enviously at his compatriots in
+the employ of the foreign magnate, who rests on a stone behind and
+listens to the conversation. They invite him to carry again; he refuses.
+Now the argument&mdash;natural and right and proper&mdash;is ensuing with warmth.
+Lao Chang, with the air of a hsien &quot;gwan,&quot; sits in judgment upon them,
+bringing to bear his long experience of coolies and the amount of
+&quot;heart-money&quot; they receive, and has decided that the fellow should
+receive a tenth of a dollar and twenty cash in addition for carrying the
+heavier of the loads the remaining thirty li, as against ten cents
+offered by the men. He is now extending philosophic advice to them all,
+based on a knowledge of the coolie's life; the little meeting breaks up,
+good feeling prevails, and the loads carried on merrily. I still linger,
+sipping my tea. Lao Chang has grumbled because he has had to shell out
+seven cash, and I have already drunk ten cups (he generally uses the tea
+leaves afterwards for his personal use).</p>
+
+<p>But wrangling about payment prevails always where Chinese congregate. In
+China, by high and low, lies are told without the slightest apparent
+compunction. One of the men in the above-mentioned dispute had an
+irrepressible volubility of assertion. He at once flew into a temper,
+adopting the style of the stage actor, proclaiming his virtue so that it
+might have been heard at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu. He was preserving his &quot;face.&quot; For
+in this country temper is often, what it is not in the West, a test of
+truth. Among Westerners nothing is more insulting sometimes than a
+philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself,
+protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally
+requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In
+respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor
+copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the
+people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me
+that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese&mdash;I speak
+of the common people, for in my travels I have not mixed much with the
+rich&mdash;the greatest romancer on earth. I question whether the great
+preponderance of the Chinese people speak six consecutive sentences
+without misrepresentation or exaggeration, tantamount to prevarication.
+Regretting that I have to write it, I give it as my opinion that the
+Chinese is a liar by nature. And when he is confronted with the charge
+of lying, the culprit seems seldom to feel any sense of guilt.</p>
+
+<p>And yet in business&mdash;above the petty bargaining business&mdash;we have as the
+antithesis that the spoken word is his bond. I would rather trust the
+Chinese merely on his word than the Jap with a signed contract.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese knows that the Englishman is not a liar, and he respects him
+for it; and it is to be hoped that in Y&uuml;n-nan there will soon be seen
+the two streams of civilization which now flow in comparative harmony in
+other more enlightened provinces flowing here also in a single channel.
+These two streams&mdash;of the East and the West&mdash;represent ideas in social
+structure, in Government, in standards of morality, in religion and in
+almost every human conception as diverse as the peoples are racially
+apart. They cannot, it is evident, live together. The one is bound to
+drive out the other, or there must be such a modification of both as
+will allow them to live together, and be linked in sympathies which go
+farther than exploiting the country for initial greed. The Chinese will
+never lose all the traces of their inherited customs of daily life, of
+habits of thought and language, products which have been borne down the
+ages since a time contemporary with that of Solomon. No fair-minded man
+would wish it. And it is at once impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The language, for instance. Who is there, who knows anything about it,
+who would wish to see the Chinese character drop out of the national
+life? Yet it is bound to come to some extent, and in future ages the
+written language will develop into pretty well the same as Latin among
+ourselves. Romanization, although as yet far from being accomplished,
+must sooner or later come into vogue, as is patent at the first glance
+at business. If commerce in the Interior is to grow to any great extent
+in succeeding generations, warranting direct correspondence with the
+ports at the coast and with the outside world, the Chinese hieroglyph
+will not continue to suffice as a satisfactory means of communication.
+No correspondence in Chinese will ever be written on a machine such as I
+am now using to type this manuscript, and this valuable adjunct of the
+office must surely force its way into Chinese commercial life. But only
+when Romanization becomes more or less universal.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, by the way.</p>
+
+<p>My point is, that no matter how Occidentalized he may become, the
+Chinese will never lose his national characteristics&mdash;not so much
+probably as the Japanese has done. What the youth has been at home, in
+his habits of thought, in his purpose and spirit, in his manifestation
+of action, will largely determine his after life. Chinese mental and
+moral history has so stamped certain ineffaceable marks on the language,
+and the thought and character of her people, that China will never&mdash;even
+were she so inclined&mdash;obliterate her Oriental features, and must always
+and inevitably remain Chinese. The conflict, however, is not racial, it
+is a question of civilization. Were it racial only, to my way of
+thinking we should be beaten hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>And as I write this in a Chinese inn, in the heart of Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;the
+&quot;backward province&quot;&mdash;surrounded by the common people in their common,
+dirty, daily doings, a far stretch of vivid imagining is needed to see
+these people in any way approaching the Westernization already current
+in eastern provinces of this dark Empire.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I wrote sitting on the top of a mountain during my tour
+across China. But it will be seen in other parts of this book that
+Western ideas and methods of progress in accord more with European
+standards are being adopted&mdash;and in some places with considerable
+energy&mdash;even in the &quot;backward province.&quot; In travel anywhere in the
+world, one becomes absorbed more or less with one's own immediate
+surroundings, and there is a tendency to form opinions on the
+limitations of those surroundings. In many countries this would not lead
+one far astray, but in China it is different. Most of my opinion of the
+real Chinese is formed in Y&uuml;n-nan, and it is not to be denied that in
+all the other seventeen provinces, although a good many of them may be
+more forward in the trend of national evolution and progress, the same
+squalidness among the people, and every condition antagonistic to the
+Westerner's education so often referred to, are to be found. But China
+has four hundred and thirty millions of people, so that what one writes
+of one particular province&mdash;in the main right, perhaps&mdash;may not
+necessarily hold good in another province, separated by thousands of
+miles, where climatic conditions have been responsible for differences
+in general life. With its great area and its great population, it does
+not need the mind of a Spencer to see that it will take generations
+before every acre and every man will be gathered into the stream of
+national progress.</p>
+
+<p>The European traveler in China cannot perhaps deny himself the pleasure
+of dwelling upon the absurdities and oddities of the life as they strike
+him, but there is also another side to the question. Our own
+civilization, presenting so many features so extremely removed from his
+own ancient ideas and preconceived notion of things in general, probably
+looks quite as ridiculous from the standpoint of the Chinese. The East
+and the West each have lessons to offer the other. The West is offering
+them to the East, and they are being absorbed. And perhaps were we to
+learn the lessons to which we now close our eyes and ears, but which are
+being put before us in the characteristics of Oriental civilization, we
+may in years to come, sooner than we expect, rejoice to think that we
+have something in return for what we have given; it may save us a rude
+awakening. It does not strike the average European, who has never been
+to China, and who knows no more about the country than the telegrams
+which filter through when massacres of our own compatriots occur, that
+Europe and America are not the only territories on this little round
+ball where the inhabitants have been left with a glorious heritage.</p>
+
+<p>But I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
+when they laughed at my impatience.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ih dien mien, ih dien mien,&quot; shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
+bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. &quot;Mien,&quot; it
+should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
+is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
+city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
+Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
+efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
+comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
+still.</p>
+
+<p>After that I hurried on, got off the &quot;ta lu,&quot; and suffered a nasty
+experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
+my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
+told me that they had. I strode on again, encountering the crowds who
+blocked the roadway as market progressed, who stared in a suspicious
+manner at the generally disreputable, tired, and dirty foreigner. Each
+moment I expected the escort to arrive. I could not sit down and drink
+tea, for I had not a single cash on my person. I could speak none of the
+language, and could merely push on, with ragtags at my heels, becoming
+more and more embarrassed by the pointing and staring public. I turned,
+but could see none of my men. I managed to get to the outer gate, and
+there sat down on the grass, with five score of gaping idiots in front
+of me. Seeing this vulgar-looking intruder among them, who would not
+answer their simplest queries, or give any reason for being there,
+suspicion grew worse; they naturally wanted to know what it was, and
+what it wanted. Some thought I might be deaf, and raved questions in my
+ear at the top of their voices. Even then I remained impotently dumb.
+Two policemen came and said something. At their invitation I followed
+them, and found myself later in a small police box, the street lined
+with people, facing an officer.</p>
+
+<p>The man hailed me in speech uncivil. He was huge as the hyperborean
+bear, and cruel looking, and with a sort of apologetic petitionary growl
+I sidled off; but it was anything but comfortable, and I should not have
+been surprised had I found myself being led off to the yamen. After a
+nerve-trying half-hour, I was thankful to see the form of my men
+appearing at the moment when I was vehemently expressing indignation at
+not being understood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XVII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>A bumptious official</i>. <i>Ignominious contrasts of two travelers.
+Diminishing respect for foreigners in the Far East</i>. <i>Where the European
+fails</i>. <i>His maltreatment of Orientals</i>. <i>Convicts on the way to death</i>.
+<i>At Ch'u-hsiony-fu</i>. <i>Buffaloes and children</i>. <i>Exasperating repetition
+met in Chinese home life</i>. <i>Un&aelig;sthetic womanhood</i>. <i>Quarrymen and
+careless tactics</i>. <i>Scope for the physiologist</i>. <i>Interesting unit of
+the city's humanity</i>. <i>Signs of decay in the countryside</i>. <i>Carrying the
+dead to eternal rest</i>. <i>At Chennan-chou</i>. <i>Public kotowing ceremony and
+its aftermath</i>. <i>Chinese ignorance of distance.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>All-round idyllic peace did not reign at Kwang-tung-hsien, where I
+rested over Sunday. Contacts in social conditions gave rise inevitably
+to causes for conflicts.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving early, my men were able to secure the best room and soon after,
+with much imposing pomp and show, a &quot;gwan&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AH_34'></a><a href='#Footnote_AH_34'><sup>[AH]</sup></a> arrived, disgusted that he
+had to take a lower room. I bowed politely to him as he came in. He did
+not return it, however, but stood with a contemptuous grin upon his face
+as he took in the situation. I do not know who the person was, neither
+have a wish to trace his ancestry, but his bumptiousness and general
+misbehavior, utterly in antagonism to national etiquette, made me hate
+the sight of the fellow. Pride has been said to make a man a hedgehog. I
+do not say that this man was a hedgehog altogether, but he certainly
+seemed to wound everyone he touched. He had with him a great retinue, an
+extravagant equipage, fine clothes, and presumably a great fortune; but
+none of this offended me&mdash;it was his contempt which hurt. He seemed to
+splash me with mud as he passed, and was altogether badly disposed. In
+his every act he heaped humiliation upon me, and insulted me silently
+and gratuitously with unbearable disdain. Luckily, be it said to the
+credit of the Chinese Government, one does not often meet officials of
+this kind; such an atmosphere would nurture the worst feeling. It is, of
+course, possible that had I been traveling with many men and in a style
+necessary for representatives of foreign Governments, this hog might
+have been more polite; but the fact that I had little with me, and made
+a poor sort of a show, allowed him to come out in his true colors and
+display his unveneered feeling towards the foreigner. That he had no
+knowledge of the man crossing China on foot was evident. He was great
+and rich&mdash;that was the sentiment he breathed out to everyone&mdash;and the
+foreigner was humble. There is no wrong in enjoying a large superfluity,
+but it was not indispensable to have displayed it, to have wounded the
+eyes of him who lacked it, to have flaunted his magnificence at the door
+of my commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>Had I been able to speak, I should have pointed out to this fellow that
+to know how to be rich is an art difficult to master, and that he had
+not mastered it; that as an official his first duty in exercising power
+was to learn that of humility; and that it is the irritating authority
+of such very lofty and imperious beings as himself, who say, &quot;I am the
+law,&quot; that provokes insurrection. However, I was dumb, and could only
+return his contemptuous glance now and again.</p>
+
+<p>To him I could have said, as I would here say also to every foreigner in
+the employ of the Chinese Government, &quot;The only true distinction is
+superior worth.&quot; If foreigners in China are to have social and official
+rank respected, they must begin to be worthy of their rank, otherwise
+they help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is a pity some native
+officials have to learn the same lesson.</p>
+
+<p>In several years of residence in the Far East I have noticed respect
+for the foreigner unhappily diminishing. The root of the evil is in the
+mistaken idea that high station exempts him who holds it from observing
+the common obligations of life. It comes about&mdash;so often have I seen it
+in the Straits Settlements and in various parts of India&mdash;that those who
+demand the most homage make the least effort to merit that homage they
+demand. That is chiefly why respect for the foreigner in the Orient is
+diminishing, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that the average
+European in the East and Far East does not treat the Oriental with
+respect. He considers that the Chinese, the Malay, the Burman, the
+Indian is there to do the donkey work only. The newcomer generally
+discovers in himself an astounding personal omnipotence, and even before
+he can talk the language is so obsessed with it that as he grows older,
+his sense of it broadens and deepens. And in China&mdash;of the Chinese this
+is true to-day as in other spheres of the Far East&mdash;the native is there
+to do the donkey work, and does it contentedly and for the most part
+cheerfully. But he will not always be so content and so cheerful. He
+will not always suffer a leathering from a man whom he knows he dare not
+now hit back.<a name='FNanchor_AI_35'></a><a href='#Footnote_AI_35'><sup>[AI]</sup></a> Some day he may hit back. We have seen it before, how
+at some moment, by some interior force making a way to the light, an
+explosion takes place: there is an upheaval, all sorts of grave
+disorders, and because some Europeans are killed the Celestial
+Government is called upon to pay, and to pay heavily. Indemnities are
+given, but the Chinese pride still feels the smart.</p>
+
+<p>[1
+Pulling away up the sides of barren, sandy hills in my lonely
+pilgrimage, I could see wide, fertile plains sheltered in the undulating
+hollows of mountains, over which in arduous toil I vanished and
+re-appeared, how or where I could hardly calculate. Suddenly, rounding
+an awkward corner, a magnificent panorama broke upon the view in a
+rolling valley watered by many streams below, all green with growing
+wheat. A high spur about midway up the rolling mountain forms a capital
+spot for wayfarers to stop and exchange travelers' notes. A couple of
+convicts were here, their feet manacled and their white cotton clothing
+branded with the seal of death; by the side were the crude wooden cages
+in which they were carried by four men, with whom they mixed freely and
+manufactured coarse jokes. In six days bang would fall the knife, and
+their heads would roll at the feet of the executioners at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu.</p>
+
+<p>Coming into Ch'u-hsiong-fu<a name='FNanchor_AJ_36'></a><a href='#Footnote_AJ_36'><sup>[AJ]</sup></a>&mdash;the stage is what the men call 90 li, but
+it is not more than 70&mdash;I was brought to an insignificant wayside place
+where the innkeeper upbraided my boy for endeavoring to allow me to pass
+without wetting a cup at his bonny hostelry. Had I done so, I should
+have avouched myself utterly indifferent to reputation as a traveler.</p>
+
+<p>But I did not stay the night here. I passed on through the town to a new
+building, an inn, into which I peered inquiringly. A well-dressed lad
+came courteously forward, in his bowing and scraping seeming to say,
+&quot;Good sir, we most willingly embrace the opportunity of being honored
+with your noble self and your retinue under our poor roof. Long since
+have we known your excellent qualities; long have we wished to have you
+with us. We can have no reserve towards a person of your open and noble
+nature. The frankness of your humor delights us. Disburden yourself, O
+great brother, here and at once of your paraphernalia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stayed, and was charged more for lodging than at any other place in
+all my wanderings in China. My experience was different from that of
+Major Davies when he visited this city in 1899. He writes:&mdash;</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>&quot;The people of this town are particularly conservative and exclusive.
+They have such an objection to strangers that no inn is allowed within
+the city walls, and no one from any other town is allowed to establish a
+shop.... When the telegraph line was first taken through here there was
+much commotion, and so determined was the opposition of the townspeople
+to this new-fangled means of communication that the telegraph office had
+to be put inside the colonel's yamen, the only place where it would be
+safe from destruction.&quot;</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The proprietor of the inn in which I stayed was a man of about fifty, of
+goodly person and somewhat corpulent, comely presence, good humor, and
+privileged freedom. He had a pretty daughter. He was an exception to the
+ordinary father in China, in the fact that he was proud of her, as he
+was of his house and his faring. But in all conscience he should have
+been abundantly ashamed of his charges, for my boy said I was charged
+three times too much, and I have no cause for doubting his word either,
+for he was fairly honest. I once had a boy in Singapore who acted for
+three weeks as a &quot;ganti&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AK_37'></a><a href='#Footnote_AK_37'><sup>[AK]</sup></a> whilst my own boy underwent a surgical
+operation, and between misreckonings, miscarriages, misdealings,
+mistakes and misdemeanors, had he remained with me another month I
+should have had to pack up lock, stock and barrel and clear.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed here a day in the hope of getting my mail, but had the
+pleasure of seeing only the bag containing it. It was sealed, and the
+postmaster had no authority to break that seal.</p>
+
+<p>There were no telegraph poles in the district through which I was
+passing; the connections were affixed to the trunks of trees. The
+telegraph runs right across the Ch'u-hsiong-fu plain, on entering which
+one crosses a rustic bridge just below a rather fine pagoda, from which
+an excellent view is obtained of the old city. The wall up towards the
+north gate, where there is another pagoda, is built over a high knoll.
+Inside the wall half the town is uncultivated ground. Four youngsters
+here were having a great time on the back of a lazy buffalo, who,
+turning his head swiftly to get rid of some irritating bee, dislodged
+the quartet to the ground, where they fought and cursed each other over
+the business.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that one sees around here is particularly &quot;Chinesey.&quot; It may
+be supposed that I am not the first person who has gone through town
+after town and found in all that he looks at, particularly the houses,
+certain forms identical, inevitable, exasperating by common repetition.
+It has been said that poetry is not in things, it is in us; but in China
+very little poetry comes into the homes and lives of the common
+millions: they are all dead dwelling-houses, even the best, bare homes
+without life or brightness. Among the working-classes of the West there
+is to be found a kind of ministering beauty which makes its way
+everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is
+cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift
+finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her
+house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and
+winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible.
+But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the
+last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of
+personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of witchery in
+the tying of a ribbon. Everywhere you find the same class of furniture
+and garniture, the same shape of table, of stool, of form, of bed, of
+cooking utensils, of picture, of everything; and all the details of her
+housekeeping are so apathetically uninteresting. The Chinese woman has
+no charming art, rather is it a common, horrid, daily grind. She is not,
+as the woman should be, the interpreter in her home of her own grace,
+and she differs from her Western sister in that it is impossible for her
+to express in her dress also the little personalities of character&mdash;all
+is eternally the same. But I know so very little of ladies' clothing,
+and therefore cease.</p>
+
+<p>Quarrying was going on high up among the hills as I left the city. Men
+were out of sight, but their hammering was heard distinctly. As each
+boulder was freed these wielders of the hammer yelled to passers-by to
+look out for their heads, gave the stone a push to start it rolling, and
+if it rolled upon you it was your own fault and not theirs&mdash;you should
+have seen to it that you were somewhere else at the time. If it blocked
+the pathway, another had to be made by those who made the traffic.
+Directly under the quarry I was accosted by a beggar. &quot;Old foreign man!
+Old foreign man!&quot; he yelled. Stones were falling fast; it is possible
+that he does not sit there now.</p>
+
+<p>Physiognomists do not swarm in China. There is grand scope for someone.
+There would be ample material for research for the student in the
+soldiers alone who would be sent to guard him from place to place. He
+would not need to go farther afield; for he would be given fat men and
+lean men, brave men and cowards, some blessed with brains and some not
+one whit brainy, civil and surly, stubby and lanky, but rogues and liars
+all. Travelers are always interested in their chairmen; oftentimes my
+interest in them was greater than theirs in me, until the time came for
+us to part. Then the &quot;Ch'a ts'ien,&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AL_38'></a><a href='#Footnote_AL_38'><sup>[AL]</sup></a> always in view from the outset of
+their duty, brought us in a manner nearer to each other.</p>
+
+<p>As I came out of the inn at Ch'u-hsiong-fu somewhat hurriedly, for my
+men lingered long over the rice, I stumbled over the yamen fellow who
+crouched by the doorside. He laughed heartily. Had I fallen on him his
+tune might have been changed; but no matter. This unit of the city
+humanity was not bewilderingly beautiful. He was profoundly
+ill-proportioned, very goitrous, and ravages of small-pox had bequeathed
+to him a wonderful facial ugliness. He had, however, be it written to
+his honor, learnt that life was no theory. One could see that at a
+glance as he walked along at the head of the procession, with a stride
+like an ox, manfully shouldering his absurd weapon of office, which in
+the place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg
+of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was
+embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare
+from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder
+worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had
+learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition
+embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish to achieve great things,
+unless it were that in his fidelity to small things he laid the base of
+great achievements. He waited upon me hand and foot; he burned with
+ardor for my personal comfort and well-being; he did not complicate life
+by being engrossed in anything which to him was of no concern&mdash;his only
+concern was the foreigner, and towards me he carried out his duty
+faithfully and to the letter. I would wager that that man, ugly of face
+and form, but most kindly disposed to one who could communicate little
+but dumb approval, was an excellent citizen, an excellent father, an
+excellent son.</p>
+
+<p>So very different was another traveler who unceremoniously forced
+himself upon me with the inevitable &quot;Ching fan, ching fan,&quot; although he
+had no food to offer. He commenced with a far-fetched eulogium of my
+ambling palfrey Rusty, who limped along leisurely behind me. So far as
+he could remember, poor ignorant ass, he had never seen a pony like it
+in his extensive travels&mdash;probably from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Tali-fu, if so
+far; but as a matter of fact, Rusty had wrenched his right fore fetlock
+between a gully in the rocks the day before and was now going lame.
+Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion
+was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border
+almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly
+awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp,
+was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, it was
+something incomparably worse. Not for a moment throughout the day did he
+leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we
+drank&mdash;tea, of course&mdash;he vainly begged to be allowed to pay. In that he
+was the shadow of some of my friends of younger days.</p>
+
+<p>But of men enough.</p>
+
+<p>From Ch'u-hsiong-fu on to Tali-fu the whole country bears lamentable
+signs of gradual ruin and decay, a falling off from better times. The
+former city is probably the most important point on the route, and is
+mentioned as a likely point for the proposed Y&uuml;n-nan Railway.</p>
+
+<p>The country has never recovered from the terrible effects of the great
+Mohammendan Rebellion of 1857. Foundations of once imposing buildings
+still stand out in fearful significance, and ruins everywhere over the
+barren country tell plain tales all too sad of the good days gone.
+Temples, originally fit for the largest city in the Empire, with
+elaborate wood and stone carving and costly, weird images sculptured in
+stone, with particularly fine specimens of those blood-curdling
+Buddhistic hells and their presiding monsters, with miniature ornamental
+pagodas and intricate archways, are all now unused; and when the people
+need material for any new building (seldom erected now in this
+district), the temple grounds are robbed still more. In the days of its
+prosperity Y&uuml;n-nan must have been a fair land indeed, bright, smiling,
+seductive; now it is the exact antithesis, and the people live sad,
+flat, colorless existences.</p>
+
+<p>For three days my caravan was preceded by twelve men, headed by a sort
+of gaffer with a gong, carrying a corpse in a massive black coffin,
+elaborate in red and blue silk drapings and with the inevitable white
+cock presiding, one leg tied with a couple of strands of straw to the
+cover, on which it crowed lustily. Their mission was an honorable one,
+carrying the honored dead to its last bed of rest eternal; for this dead
+man had secured the fulfillment of the highest in human destiny&mdash;to have
+his bones buried near the scene of his youth, near his home. This is a
+simple custom the Chinese cherish and reverence, of highest honor to the
+dead and of no mean value to the living. To the dead, because buried
+near the home of his fathers he would not be subject to those delusive
+temptations in the future state of that confused and complex life; to
+the living, because it gave work to a dozen men for several days, and
+enabled them to have a good time at the expense of the departed. A
+perpetual and excruciatingly unmusical chant, in keeping with the
+occasion's sadness, rent the mountain air, interrupted only when the
+bearers lowered the coffin and left the remains of the great dead on a
+pair of trestles in the roadway, whilst they drank to his happiness
+above and smoked tobacco which the relatives had given them. Once this
+heaper-up of Chinese merit<a name='FNanchor_AM_39'></a><a href='#Footnote_AM_39'><sup>[AM]</sup></a> was dumped unceremoniously on the turf
+while the headman entered into a blackguarding contest with one of the
+fellows who was alleged to be constantly out of step with his brethren,
+because he was a much smaller man. The gaffer gave him a bit of a
+drubbing for his insolence.</p>
+
+<p>Rain came on at Chennan-chou, a small town of about three hundred
+houses, where I sought shelter in the last house of the street. The
+householder, a shrivelled, goitrous humpback, received me kindly,
+removed his pot of cabbage from the fire to brew tea for his uninvited
+guest, and showed great gratitude (to such an extent that he nearly fell
+into the fire as he moved to push the children forward towards me) when
+I gave a few cash to three kiddies, who gaped open-mouthed at the
+apparition thus found unexpectedly before their parent's hearth. More
+came in, my beneficent attention being modestly directed towards them;
+others followed, and still more, and more, whilst the man, removing from
+his mouth his four-foot pipe, and wiping the mouthpiece with his soiled
+coat-sleeve before offering it to me to smoke, smiled as I distributed
+more cash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are all mine,&quot; he said cutely.</p>
+
+<p>Poor fellow! There must have been a dozen nippers there, and I sighed at
+the thought of what some men come to as the last of half a string of
+cash slipped through my fingers.<a name='FNanchor_AN_40'></a><a href='#Footnote_AN_40'><sup>[AN]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch&mdash;erected, maybe,
+to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district&mdash;I untied my
+pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers
+ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied
+air. As we were thus engaged and discussing the prospects of the storm,
+yelling from under a gigantic straw hat, a fellow said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suan liao&quot; (&quot;not worth reckoning&quot;) &quot;only five more li to
+Sha-chiao-kai.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We had thirty li to do. Such is the idea of distance in Y&uuml;n-nan.<a name='FNanchor_AO_41'></a><a href='#Footnote_AO_41'><sup>[AO]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The storm did not come, however, and my men ever after reminded me to
+keep out my wind-cap and my mackintosh, partly to lighten their loads,
+of course, and partly on account of the good omen it seemed to them to
+be.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AH_34'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AH_34'>[AH]</a><div class='note'><p> &quot;Gwan&quot; is the Chinese for &quot;official.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AI_35'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AI_35'>[AI]</a><div class='note'><p> I have seen a European, with an imperfect hold of an
+eastern language, knock an Asiatic down because he thought the man was a
+fool, whereas he himself was ignorant of what was going on. The message
+the coolie was bringing was misunderstood by the conceited assistant,
+and as a result of having just this smattering of the vernacular, he ran
+his firm in for a loss of fifty thousand dollars.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AJ_36'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AJ_36'>[AJ]</a><div class='note'><p> Ts'u-hsiong-fu, as it is pronounced locally, with a strong
+&quot;ts&quot; initial sound.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AK_37'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AK_37'>[AK]</a><div class='note'><p> Meaning a relief hand (Malay).</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AL_38'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AL_38'>[AL]</a><div class='note'><p> Literally, &quot;tea money.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AM_39'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AM_39'>[AM]</a><div class='note'><p> &quot;Heaping up merit&quot; is one of the elementary practices of
+Chinese religious life.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AN_40'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AN_40'>[AN]</a><div class='note'><p> Chennan-chou, which stands at a height of 6,500 feet, has
+been visited again since by myself. My caravan consisted on this
+occasion of two ponies (one I was riding), two coolies, a servant, and
+myself. As we got to the archway in the middle of the street leading to
+the busy part of the town, my animal nearly landed me into the gutter,
+and the other horse ran into a neighboring house, both frightened by
+crackers which were being fired around a man who was bumping his head on
+the ground in front of an ancestral tablet, brought into the street for
+the purpose. A horrid din made the air turbulent. I sought refuge in the
+nearest house, tying my ponies up to the windows, and was most
+hospitably received as a returned prodigal by a well-disposed old man
+and his courtly helpmate. The genuineness of the hospitality of the
+Chinese is as strong as their unfriendliness can be when they are
+disposed to show a hostile spirit to foreigners. Just as I had laid up
+for dinner the din stopped, we breathed gunpowder smoke instead of air,
+everyone from the head-bumping ceremony came around me, and there
+lingered in silent admiration. My boy came and whispered, quite aloud
+enough for all to hear, that in that part of the town cooked rice could
+not be bought, and that I was going to be left to look after the horses
+and the loads whilst the men went away to feed. He advised the assembled
+crowd that if they valued sound physique they had better keep their
+hands off my gear and depart. My friendly host shut the doors and
+windows, with the exception of that through which I watched our
+impedimenta, and at once commenced good-natured inquiry into my past,
+and concerning vicissitudes of life in general. Luckily, I was able to
+give the old man good reason for congratulating me upon my ancestral
+line, my own great age, the number of my wives and offshoots&mdash;mostly
+&quot;little puppies&quot;&mdash;and as each curious caller dropped in to sip tea, so
+did one after another of the patriarchal dignitaries who were
+responsible for the human product then entertaining the crowd come
+vividly before the imagination of the company, and they were graced with
+every token of age and honor. (Chinese speak of sons as &quot;little
+puppies.&quot;)</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AO_41'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AO_41'>[AO]</a><div class='note'><p> In crossing a river here I slipped, and from ray pocket
+there rolled a box of photographic films, and in reaching over to
+re-capture it, I let my loaded camera fall into the water. I was
+disappointed, as most of my best pictures were thus (as I imagined)
+spoilt. But when I developed at Bhamo, I found not a single film damaged
+by water, and every picture was a success from both the roll in the tin
+and the roll in the camera. It is a tribute to the Eastman-Kodak Company
+Ltd. that their non-curling films will stand being dipped into rivers
+and remain unaffected. The films in question should have been developed
+six months prior to the date of my exposure.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stampede of frightened women</i>. <i>To the Eagle Nest</i>. <i>An acrobatic
+performance, and some retaliation at the author's expense</i>. <i>Over the
+mountains to Pu-p&ecirc;ng A magnificent storm, and a description</i>. <i>In a
+&quot;rock of ages.&quot; Hardiness of my comrades</i>. <i>Early morning routine and
+some impressions</i>. <i>Unspeakable filth of the Chinese</i>. <i>Lolo people of
+the district</i>. <i>Physique of the women</i>. <i>Aspirations towards Chinese
+customs</i>. <i>Skilless building</i>. <i>Mythological, anthropological,
+craniological and antediluvian disquisitions</i>. <i>At Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;</i>. <i>Flat
+country</i>. <i>Thriftless humanity</i>. <i>To Hungay</i>. <i>A day of days</i>. <i>Traveler
+in bitter cold unable to procure food</i>. <i>Fright in middle night</i>. <i>A
+timely rescue</i>. <i>Murder of a bullock on my doorstep</i>. <i>Callous
+disposition of fellow-travelers</i>. <i>Leaving the capital of an old-time
+kingdom</i>. <i>Bad roads and good men</i>. <i>National virtue of unfailing
+patience</i>. <i>Human consumption of diseased animals. Minchia at Hungay</i>.
+<i>Major Davies and the Minchia</i>. <i>Author's differences of opinion.
+Increasing popularity of the small foot.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>But the storm came the next day, as we were on our way to Pu-p&ecirc;ng,
+during the ninety li when we passed the highest point on this journey.
+By name The Eagle Nest Barrier (Ting-wu-kwan), this elevated pass, 8,600
+feet above the level, reached after a gradual ascent between two
+mountain ranges, was surmounted after a couple of hours' steep climbing,
+where rain and snow had made the paths irritatingly slippery and the
+task most laborious. Although the condition of the road was enough to
+take all the wind out of one's sails, the sublimity of the scenery of
+the dense woods which clothed the mountains, exquisitely pretty ravines,
+tumbling waterfalls, running rivulets and sparkling brooks, with little
+patches of snow hidden away in the maze of greens of every hue, all
+rendered it a climb less tiring than the narrow pathways over which we
+were then to travel. Half-way up we met a string of ponies, and I
+underwent a few nervous moments until they had passed in the twenty-inch
+road&mdash;a slight tilt, a slip, a splutter, probably a yell, and I should
+have dropped 500 feet without a bump.</p>
+
+<p>As we went along together, just before reaching this hill, we saw women
+carrying bags of rice. They saw us, too. One passed me safely, but with
+fear. The others carelessly dropping their burdens, scampered off,
+afraid of their lives; and when one of my soldiers (whose sense of humor
+was on a par with my own when as a boy I used to stick butterscotch
+drops on the bald head of my Sunday School teacher, and bend pins for
+small boys to sit on and rise from) shouted to them, they dived straight
+as a die over the hedge into a submerged rice-field, and made a sorry
+spectacle with their &quot;lily&quot; feet and pale blue trousers, covered with
+the thin mud. In struggling to get away, one of them, the silly
+creature, went sprawling on all fours in the slime, and with only the
+imperfect footing possible to her with her little stumps, she would have
+been submerged, had not the man who had frightened her, at my bidding,
+gone to drag her out. As it was, they looked anything but beautiful with
+their wet and muddy garments clinging tightly to their bodies, and
+betraying every curve of their not unbeautiful figures. One of the
+women, a comely damsel of some twenty summers, did not jump into the
+field, but lay flat on the ground behind some bushes, thereby hoping to
+get out of sight, and now came forward with amorous glances. We,
+however, sent them on their way, and I will lay my life that they will
+not &quot;scoot&quot; at the sight of the next foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>And now we are at the &quot;Nest.&quot; Many travelers have made remarks upon this
+place, where I was waited upon by a shrivelled, shambling specimen of
+manhood, whose wife&mdash;in contrast to her kind in China&mdash;seemed to rule
+house and home, bed and board. Whilst we were there, a Chinese, bound
+on the downward journey, endeavored to mount his mule at the very moment
+the animal was reaching out for a blade of straw. As he swung his leg
+across the mule took another step forward, and the rider fell bodily
+with an enormous bump into the lap of one of my coolies, upsetting him
+and his bowl of tea over his trousers and my own. I could not suppress
+hearty approval of this acrobatic incident.</p>
+
+<p>But the end was not yet.</p>
+
+<p>I sat on one end of one of those narrow forms, and this same coolie sat
+on the other. He rose up suddenly, reached over for the common salt-pot,
+and I came off&mdash;with the multitude of alfresco diners laughing at this
+smart retaliation until their chock-full mouths emitted the grains of
+rice they chewed.</p>
+
+<p>After that I cleared off. Descending through a fertile valley, from the
+bottom there loomed upwards higher mountains, looking black and dismal,
+with clouds black and dismal keeping them company. We had now to cross
+the undulating ground still separating us from Pu-p&ecirc;ng. The early
+portion of the ground was something like Clifton Downs, something like
+Dartmoor. The country was poor, and the people barely put themselves out
+to boil water for chance travelers.</p>
+
+<p>The storm broke suddenly. From the shelter of a hollowed rock I watched
+it all.</p>
+
+<p>Over the submerged plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of
+night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and
+the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed
+struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of
+fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly
+from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their
+waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision in the cruel clouds
+the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over
+yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the
+lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the
+Artist of the skies. Then came a rainbow of sweetest multi-color, of a
+splendor glorious and exquisite, delicate as the breath from paradise,
+stretching its majestic archbow athwart the waning gloom from range to
+range. As one drank in the glimpses of that dark corner in this peculiar
+fairyland, a mighty peal of magnificent, stentorian clashing broke
+finally upon me, and heaven's electricity again flitted fearfully over
+the earth, aslant, upwards, downwards again, upwards again, disappearing
+over the unmoved hills like a thousand tortured souls fleeing from
+Dante's Hades. And here I sit on, in that veritable &quot;rock of ages&quot; cleft
+for me, glad that no human touch save that of my own mean clay, that no
+human voice came between me and the voice of that Infinite beyond. I
+seemed to have been standing on the verge of another world, another
+great unknown. The heavens raged and the thunders thereof roared, and
+the wild wind hissed and moaned and wailed the hopeless wail of a
+lonely, tormented soul. The cold was intense, and through it all I sat
+drenched to the skin.</p>
+
+<p>On the bleak mountain thus I was the pitifulest atom of loneliest
+humanity, yet felt no loneliness. The face of the earth frowned in angry
+fury, the awfulness of the raging elements dwarfed all else to utter
+annihilation. But even at such a time, coming all too seldom in the
+lives of most of us, when standing in some remote spot which still tells
+forth the story of the world's youth, one's inmost nature thrills with a
+sense of unison with it all beyond human expression. All was so grand,
+inspiring one with an awe beyond one's comprehension, a peculiar, dread
+of one's own earthly insignificance. These pictures, graven in one's
+memory with the strong pencil of our common mother, are indelible, yet
+quite beyond expression. As in our own souls we cannot frame in words
+our deepest life emotions, so as we penetrate into the depths of that
+kindly common mother of us all we find human words the same utterly
+futile channel of expression. To have our souls tuned to this silent
+eloquence of Nature, to catch the sweetness of those wind-swept,
+heaven-directed mountains, to understand the unspoken messages of those
+rushing rivers and those gigantic gorges, to feel the heart-beat of
+Nature and her beauty in perfect harmony with all that is best within
+us, we must be silent, undisturbed, preferably alone. This is not
+flowery sentiment&mdash;it is what every true lover of old and lovely Nature
+would feel in Western China, yet still unspoiled by the taint of man's
+absorbing stream of civilization. And in the stress of modern life, and
+the progress of man's monopolization of the earth on which he lives, it
+is beautiful to some of us, of whom it may be said the highest state of
+inward happiness comes from solitary meditation in unperturbed
+loneliness under the broad expanse of heaven, to know that there are
+still some spots of isolation where human foot has never turned the
+clay, and where, out of sight and sound of fellow mortals, we may even
+for a time shake off the violating, unnatural fetters of a harassing
+Western life.</p>
+
+<p>Soon it seemed as if a silken cord had suddenly been severed, and I had
+been dragged from a world of sweet infinitude down to a sphere mundane
+and everyday, to something I had known before.... &quot;....Or what is
+Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the 'Living Garment
+of God'? O Heaven, is it in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks
+through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in
+me?&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AP_42'></a><a href='#Footnote_AP_42'><sup>[AP]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I heard the crack of the bamboo and the patter of feet in the sodden,
+slippery pathway, and I knew my men were come. Crawling out from my
+rock, I descended again to common things, having to listen to the
+disgusting talk of my Chinese followers, though a very slender
+vocabulary saved me from losing entirely the memory of that great
+picture then passing away. The sun shone through the clouds, which had
+given place again to blue, the pervading blackness of a few moments
+before had disappeared, and with the sinking sun we descended
+thoughtfully to the town. The hill is solid sandstone, and the uneven
+ruts made by the daily procession of ponies were transformed into a
+network of tiny streams.</p>
+
+<p>That my comrades were drenched to the skin gave them no thought; they
+turned to immediately, while I dived hurriedly to the bottom of my box
+and gulped down quinine. They sat around and drank hot water, holding
+forth with eloquence beyond their wont on the general advantages,
+naturally and supernaturally, of their native city of Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+And well they might, for I know no prettier spot in the whole of Western
+China.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty men&mdash;coolies who were carrying general merchandise in all
+directions, and who had taken shelter in the large inn I stayed at&mdash;rose
+with me the next morning. As I ate my morning meal, spluttering the rice
+over the floor as I tried vainly to control my chopsticks with
+frost-nipped fingers, they went through the filthy round of early
+morning routine. Squatting about with their dirty face-rags, and a
+half-pint of greasy water in their brass receptacle shaped like the
+soup-plate of civilization, and leaving upon their necks the traces of
+their swills, they wiped the dirt into their hair, and considered they
+had washed themselves. Men would emerge from their rooms, fully dressed,
+with the dishclout in one hand and the hand-basin in the other&mdash;on the
+way to their morning tub. Oh, the filth, the unspeakable filth of these
+people! Would that the Chinese would emulate the cleanliness of the
+Japs, though even that I would question. In several years in the Orient
+I have not yet come across the cleanliness in any race of people to be
+compared with that cleanliness which in England is next to godliness.</p>
+
+<p>The people of Pu-p&ecirc;ng were pleased to see me. They hurried about
+obligingly to get food for man and beast, and the womankind, poor but
+light-hearted, cracked suggestive jokes with my men with the utmost
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>In this town there are many Lolo&mdash;it might be said that the entire
+population is of Lolo origin, although had I suggested to any particular
+inhabitant that this was a fact he would probably have taken keen
+offense, and things might have gone badly with me. With the men it is
+most difficult to tell&mdash;there is little difference between the <i>Han ren</i>
+and the tribesman. But the difference is often most marked in respect to
+the women. The Chinese woman has a considerably fairer skin than the
+female of Lolo descent, and her customs and manners, apart from the
+distinct colloquial accent, are quite evident as pretty sure proof of
+distinction of race. After the Lolo have mingled with the Chinese for a
+few years, however, it is quite difficult to differentiate between them,
+as most of the Lolo women now speak Chinese (in this town I did not hear
+any language foreign to the Chinese language), and a good many of the
+men are sufficiently educated to read the Chinese character even if they
+do not write it. The forward racial condition of the Lolo people in this
+district is far greater than that of the people of the same tribe to the
+west of Tali-fu, and in latitudes where their language and customs of
+life and dress are more or less maintained. The women are generally of
+better physique than the Chinese, principally on account of the fact
+that their work is almost exclusively outdoor; but as they begin to copy
+the Chinese, and live a more sedentary life, this fine physique will
+probably gradually disappear. A good many already bind their feet.</p>
+
+<p>When I came out in the early morning the thermometer was twenty degrees
+below zero, and my nose was red and without feeling. <i>Feng-mao</i><a name='FNanchor_AQ_43'></a><a href='#Footnote_AQ_43'><sup>[AQ]</sup></a> and
+great coat were required, but I was totally oblivious of the hour's
+stiff climbing awaiting me immediately outside the town, to reach the
+highest point in which bathed me in perspiration as if I had played
+three sets of tennis in the tropics.</p>
+
+<p>Mountains were wild and barren, with nothing in them to enable one to
+forget in natural beauty the fatigues of a toilsome ascent. Villages
+came now and again in sight, stretched out at the extremity of the plain
+before my eyes, with their white gables, red walls, and black tiled
+roofs, but during the day we passed through two only. The first was a
+little place where decay would have been absolute had it not been for
+the likin<a name='FNanchor_AR_44'></a><a href='#Footnote_AR_44'><sup>[AR]</sup></a> flag, which enables &quot;squeezes&quot; to be extorted ruthlessly
+from the muleteer and conveyed to the pockets of the prospering customs
+agent. It boasted only ten or twelve tumbling lean-to tenements, where
+my sympathy went out to the half-dozen physical wrecks of men who came
+slowly and stared long, and wondered at the commonest article of my
+meager impedimenta. They seemed poorer and lower down the human scale
+than any I had yet seen. On one of the ragged garments worn by a man of
+about twenty-five I counted no less than thirty-four patches of
+different shapes, sizes and materials, hieroglyphically and skillessly
+thrown together to hide his sore-strewn back; but still his brown
+unwashed flesh was visible in many places.</p>
+
+<p>Looking upon them, one did not like to think that these beings were men,
+men with passions like to one's own, for all the interests, real and
+imaginary, all the topics which should expand the mind of man, and
+connect him in sympathy with general existence, were crushed in the
+absorbing considerations of how rice was to be procured for their
+families of diseaseful brats. They had no brains, these men; or if
+Heaven had thus o'erblessed them, they did not exercise them in their
+industry&mdash;their coarse, rough hands alone gained food for the day's
+feeding. And these mud-roofed, mud-sided dwellings&mdash;these were their
+homes, to me worse homes than none at all. In their architecture not
+even a single idea could be traced&mdash;the Chinese here had proceeded as if
+by merest accident. All I could think as I returned their wondering
+glances was that their world must be very, very old. But I have no time
+or space to talk of them here. To throw more than a cursory glance at
+them Would lead me into interminable disquisitions of a mythological,
+anthropological, craniological, and antediluvian nature for which one
+would not find universal approval among his readers. To those who would
+study such questions I say, &quot;Fall to!&quot; There is enough scope for a
+lifetime to bring into light the primeval element so strangely woven
+into the lives of these people.</p>
+
+<p>At Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml; bunting and weird street decoration made the place hideous
+in my eyes. The crowded town was making considerable ado about some
+expected official. I saw none, more than a courteous youth&mdash;to whom, of
+course, I was quite unknown and deaf and dumb&mdash;who graciously shifted
+goods and chattels from the inn's best room to hand it over to me for my
+occupation. With due tact and some excitability, I protested vigorously
+against his coming out. He insisted. Smiling upon him with grave
+benignity, I said that I would take a smaller room, and gave orders to
+that effect to my man, adding that my whole sense of right and justice
+towards fellow-travelers revolted against such self-sacrifice on his
+part. He still insisted. Smiling again, this time the timid smile of the
+commoner looking up into the face of the great, I allowed myself
+reluctantly to be pushed bodily into the best apartment.</p>
+
+<p>This was my intention from the first. Although not too familiar with
+it, I allowed the Chinese to imagine that I was well grounded in the
+absurdities of his national etiquette; whilst he, observing, too, the
+outrageous routine of common politeness, probably went away swearing
+that he had been turned out. He had cut off his nose to spite his face.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot truthfully deny, however, that the fellow was very kind, but he
+would persist in the belief that it was an impossibility for me to tell
+the truth. Later, pointing at me and eyeing me up and down as I shaved
+in the twilight, he sneered, &quot;Engleeshman! Engleeshman!&quot; and scooting
+with an armful of clothing, small pots of eatables, official documents
+and other sundries, told me point-blank that he did not believe that
+such a noble person could not speak such a contemptible language as
+Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing no official, then, I presumed I was their man. Whilst I fed
+slowly on my rice and cabbage in a small earth-floor room, with my nose
+as near as convenient to my oil lamp to get a little warmth, the
+discomfort of Chinese life was forced upon me, and I imagined I was
+having a good time. I was the best off in the inn by far; the others
+must have been colder, certainly had worse food to eat, and yet to me it
+was all the height of utmost cheerlessness.</p>
+
+<p>From a hamlet opposite the town, where I sat down by the fire
+exhausted in an old woman's shaky dwelling, and fed on aged
+sardines and hot rice (atrocious mixture), there is a plain extending
+for twenty li to Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;&mdash;flat as country in the Fen district. The
+road was good (in wet weather, however, it must be terrible), and I
+would drive a motor-car across, were it not for the 15-in. ruts which
+disfigure the surface. And I know a man who would do this even, despite
+the ruts: he takes a delight in running over dogs and small boys,
+damaging rickshaws, bumping into bullock-carts, and so on&mdash;he would
+have done it with liveliest freedom.</p>
+
+<p>But what poverty there was! What women! What Children! With barely an
+exception, the women had faces ground by want and bare necessity, in
+which every cheerful and sympathetic lineament had been effaced by
+life-long slavery and misery. In the bitter cold they, women and
+children, crouched round a scanty fir-wood firing, not enough even to
+keep alive their natural heat. One long pitiful sight of thriftless
+poverty.</p>
+
+<p>To Hungay was a fearful day. Little to eat could I procure, and the cold
+gave me a lusty ox's appetite. To me a bellyful came as a windfall.</p>
+
+<p>At last we sat down by the roadside at one small table, hearing the test
+of age, rickety and worm-eaten. We gathered like hogs at their troughs,
+with the household hog scratching at our feet. I grew impatient and
+querulous over constant culinary disappointment. I longed not for the
+heaped-up board of the pampered and luxurious, I wanted food. Indigent
+man was I, whose dietetical elegancies had been forgotten, a man with
+ravenous desires seeking sustenance, not relishes; the means of life,
+not the means of pampering the carcass; I wanted food.</p>
+
+<p>And here I had it. The hungry were to be fed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a foul orgy, a gruesome spectacle, a horrible picture of the
+gluttony of famished men. This meal conjured up visions of the &quot;most
+unlovely of the functions.&quot; We fed on <i>mien</i>, that long, greasy, grimy,
+slippery, slimy string of boneless white&mdash;I see it now! And the
+half-done tin of sardines set before me, too, the broken stools in the
+thatch-worn shed, the dismantled hearth, the muddy earthen floor, the
+haggard, hungry villains&mdash;I see them all again.<a name='FNanchor_AS_45'></a><a href='#Footnote_AS_45'><sup>[AS]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It should, however, be said that I went away from the main road over a
+range of hills where nobody lives. Had I kept to the &quot;ta lu&quot; food would
+have been quite easy to get.</p>
+
+<p>To Hungay was given the honor of entertaining me over the Sunday, a
+pleasant rest after a week of arduous and exhausting walking. I arrived
+late at night, and the old town's rough streets were bathed in a silver
+shower of moonbeams, the air was cold and frosty, little groups of the
+curious came to the doors of their dwellings, laughing sarcastically,
+despite their own poverty, at the distinguished traveler thus coming
+upon them.</p>
+
+<p>In marked contrast to this outside animation were the happenings at the
+inn which gave me shelter. Business was bad. Three undistinguished
+travelers&mdash;coolies with loads&mdash;and myself and men made up the meager
+total of paying guests. This was the reason why it was chosen for me,
+for peace and quiet. Quiet had been forced upon the household, so I was
+told, by the death by fits of a haughty and resolute lady; and now that
+the night had fallen and we had all had our rice, the deep hush&mdash;or its
+equivalent in Cathay, at all events&mdash;seemed likely to be unbroken until
+a new day should dawn. My room here had a verandah overlooking a back
+court, and here I sat at midnight, unseen by anyone, looking up to the
+changeless stars in an unpitying sky; and as I stood thus there blew
+from the gates of night and across the mountains a wind that made me
+shiver less with physical cold than with a sense of loneliness and
+captivity. For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if
+the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the
+cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and
+then again at the soldiers with their guns, I turned giddy, shuddering
+at the darkness and the loneliness, and with a nameless fear lying at
+the center of life like a lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen foe.</p>
+
+<p>They addressed me, but I cared not what they said. I pretended I could
+not speak Chinese, watched the quartet form a circle, and talk slowly
+and low, and it did not need the mind of a prophet to see that they were
+discussing how best they could capture me. Were they going to kill me?
+My boy and the other friends I had in the place were sleeping
+blissfully, ignorant that their master was in such trying straits. I was
+asked my name, and the inquirers, not over civil, were told. They again
+asked me for something, I knew not what, probably for my passport. I
+had none, and cursed my luck that I had forgotten to pack it when I had
+left Tong-ch'uan-fu.</p>
+
+<p>To me it was quite evident that they were deciding my destiny, or so it
+seemed in the stillness of the night. Looking upwards, I wondered
+whether I was soon to learn the secret of the stars and sky, and those
+men seemed to watch the secret workings of my soul. Outside the wind
+made moan continuously.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly my door opened noisily, a light was flashed upon us, and I saw
+the bulky form of the landlord. Then all was well. Soon one of my men
+appeared, and explained that the soldiers were on their way to meet an
+official who was coming from Tali-fu, that their instructions were that
+they would meet him at Hungay. They took me for the &quot;gwan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So my end was not yet. But now, months afterwards, when I stand and
+listen to the wind at midnight, there seems borne to me in every sob and
+wail a memory of that hateful night and the four soldiers with their
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed not long afterwards that I was awakened by noises on the
+doorstep. Looking out, I found a bullock, its four feet tied together
+with a straw rope, writhing in its last agonies; the butcher, in his
+hand a cruel 24-inch bladed knife still red with blood, smiling the
+smile of ironic torture as he looked down upon his struggling victim. He
+straightway skinned the animal and cut up the carcass immediately in
+front of my door, where Lao Chang waited to get the best cut for my
+dinner. My three fellow-lodgers squatted alongside, going through their
+apologetic ablutions as if naught were happening. Their dirty face-rags
+were wrung and rewrung; they got to work with that universal tooth-brush
+(the forefinger!), and that the dead body of a bullock was being
+dissected two feet from the table at which they ate their steaming rice
+was a detail of not the slightest consequence in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Hungay is an old-time capital of one of the original kingdoms,
+destroyed in the year A.D. 749. The road leading out towards Chao-chow
+was built some considerable time before that year, and has never been
+subject to any repairs whatever (for this fact I have drawn upon my
+imagination, but should be very much surprised to know that I am far out
+in my reckoning). Villagers have appropriated the public slabs and small
+boulders which comprised the wretched thoroughfare; reminiscent puddles
+tell you the tale, and the badness of the road renders it necessary for
+the traveler to be out of bed a little earlier than usual to face the
+ordeal. The road to-day has been practically as bad as walking along the
+sides of the Yangtze. But as I studied the patience and physical
+vitality of my three men, laughing and joking with the light-heartedness
+of children, with nearly seventy catties dangling from their
+shoulder-pole, without a word of murmuring, I felt a little ashamed of
+myself that I, whose duty it was merely to <i>walk</i>, should have made such
+a fuss. These men were prepared to work a very long time for very little
+reward, as no matter how small the rewards for the terribly exhausting
+labor, it were better than none at all,&mdash;so they philosophized.</p>
+
+<p>That quiet persistence and unfailing patience form a national virtue
+among the Chinese&mdash;the capacity to wait without complaint and to bear
+all with silent endurance. This virtue is seen more clearly in great
+national disasters which occasionally befall the country. The terrible
+famine of 1877-8 was the cause of the death of millions of people, and
+left scores of millions without house, food or clothing; they were
+driven forth as wanderers on the face of the earth without home, without
+hope. The Government does nothing whatever in these cases. The people
+who wish to live must find the means to live, and what impressed me all
+through my wanderings was the absolute science to which poverty is
+reduced. In such calamities the Chinese, of all men on the earth's
+surface, will battle along if there is any chance at all. If he is
+blessed, he once more becomes a farmer; but if not, he accepts the
+position as inevitable and irremediable. The Chinese race has the finest
+power in the world to withstand with fortitude the ills of life and the
+miseries which follow inability to procure the wherewithal to live.
+Their nerves are somehow different from our Western nerves.</p>
+
+<p>In China nothing is wasted, not only in food, but in everything
+affecting the common life.</p>
+
+<p>That a beast dies of disease is of no concern. It is eaten all the same
+from head to hoof, from skin to entrail, and the remarkable fact is that
+they do not seem to suffer from it, either. At Kiang-ti (mentioned in a
+previous chapter) I saw a horse being pushed down the hillside to the
+river. It was not yet dead, but was dying, so far as I could see, of
+inflammation of the bowels. Its body was cut up, and there were several
+people waiting to buy it at forty cash the catty.</p>
+
+<p>From Hungay onwards I met a class of people I had not seen before. They
+were the Minchia (Pe-tso).</p>
+
+<p>Major H.R. Davies, whose treatise on the tribes of Y&uuml;n-nan at the end of
+his excellent work on travel in the province, is probably the best yet
+written, writes that he met Minchia people only on the plains of Tali-fu
+and Chao-chow, and never east of the latter place. This was in travel
+some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many
+Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as
+a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. There is
+little doubt that the Minchia originally came from country lying between
+the border of the province and round Li-chiang-fu and the Tali-fu plain
+and lake. Most of them wear Chinese dress; many of the women bind their
+feet (and the practice is growing in popularity), although those who
+have not small feet are still in the majority. In a small city lying
+some few li from the city of Tali all the inhabitants are Minchia, and I
+found no difficulty in spotting a Chinese man or woman&mdash;there is a
+distinct facial difference. Minchia have bigger noses, generally the
+eyes are set farther apart, and the skin is darker. Pink trousers are in
+fashion among the ladies&mdash;trace of base feminine weakness!&mdash;but are not
+by any means the distinguishing features of race.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AP_42'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AP_42'>[AP]</a><div class='note'><p> Carlyle, <i>Sartor Resartus</i>.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AQ_43'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AQ_43'>[AQ]</a><div class='note'><p> Wind-cap, a long Chinese wadded hat which reaches over
+one's head and down over the shoulders, tied under the chin with
+ribbons.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AR_44'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AR_44'>[AR]</a><div class='note'><p> Likin, as everyone knows, is custom duty. All along the
+main roads of China one meets likin stations, distinguished by the flag
+at the entrance.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AS_45'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AS_45'>[AS]</a><div class='note'><p> I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am
+convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been
+something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in
+summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes
+midway between Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml; and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation,
+interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant
+contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine,
+lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which
+is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon
+the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard
+a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they
+suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the
+departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as
+one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was
+struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what
+we in the West call civilization. Yet nothing bore traces of gross
+uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite
+content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could,
+soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and
+their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with
+babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played
+roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields;
+coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring
+villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned
+and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with
+old-time pomp&mdash;not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in
+the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair
+carried by men. There was plenty of everything&mdash;enough for all&mdash;but all
+had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants
+were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have
+noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire
+to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as
+little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and
+mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will
+contradict it? They do not see with the eyes of the West; we do not, we
+cannot, see with their eyes. But surely the living of this simple life,
+the same as it was in the beginning, has a good deal in it; it is not
+uncivilization, not barbarism, and the fair-minded traveler in China can
+come to but one opinion, even in the midst of all the conflicting
+emotions which result from his own upbringing, that we could, if we
+would, learn many a good lesson from the old-time life of the Celestial
+in his own country.
+</p><p>
+Yet these are the very people who may jostle us harshly later on in the
+racial struggle.
+</p><p>
+I am not suggesting that when the Chinese adopts the cult of the West,
+and comes into general contact with it&mdash;and I believe that I am right in
+saying that this is the desire, generally speaking, of the whole of the
+enlightened classes&mdash;he continues with his few wants. As a matter of
+fact, he does not. He is as extravagant, and perhaps more so, than the
+most of us. I have seen Straits Chinese waste at the gaming tables in
+their gorgeous clubs as much in one night as some European residents
+handle in one year, and he is quick to get his motor-car, his horses and
+carriages, and endless other ornaments of wealth. So that if progress in
+the course of the evolution of nations means that the Chinese too will
+demand all that the European now demands, and will cease to find
+satisfaction in the existing conditions of his life in the new goal
+towards which he is moving, and if he, in course of time, should
+increase the cost of living per head to equal that of the Westerner,
+then he will lose a good deal of the advantage he now undoubtedly has in
+the struggle for racial supremacy. But if, gradually taking advantage of
+all in religion, in science, in literature, in art, in modern naval and
+military equipment and skill, and all that has made nations great and
+made for real progress in the West, he were also to continue his present
+hardy frugality in living&mdash;which is not a tenth as costly in proportion
+to that of the Occident&mdash;then his advantage in entering upon the
+conflict among the nations for ultimate supremacy would be undoubted,
+immeasurable.
+</p><p>
+The question is, will he?
+</p><p>
+If he will, then the Occident has much to fear. China, going ahead
+throughout the Empire as she is at the present moment in certain parts,
+will in course of time (as is only fair and natural to expect) have an
+army greater in numbers than is possible to any European power, and her
+food-bill will be two-thirds lower per head per fighting man.
+Subsequently, granting that China fulfils our fears, and becomes as
+great a fighting power as military experts declare she will, even in our
+generation, by virtue of her numbers alone, apart from phenomenal powers
+of endurance, which as every writer on China and her people is agreed,
+is excelled by no other race on earth, she would be able to dictate
+terms to the West. But, again, will she? Will the people continue to
+live as they are living?
+</p><p>
+I personally believe that the Chinese will not. I believe that as the
+nation progresses, more in accordance with lines of progress laid down
+by the West, so will her wants increase, and consequent expenses of life
+become greater. The Y&uuml;n-nanese even are beginning to acknowledge that
+they have no ordinary comforts. In other parts of the empire the people
+are already beginning to learn what comfort, sanitation, lighting, and
+general organization means&mdash;in the home, in the city, in the country, in
+the nation.
+</p><p>
+And they are learning too that it all costs money, and means, perhaps, a
+higher state of social life. For this they do not mind the money. They
+are not going half-way&mdash;they are going to be whole-hoggers. And when in
+the future, near or far, we shall find them, as is almost inevitable,
+able to compete in everything with other nations, we shall find that
+they have not been successful in learning the source of strength without
+having absorbed also some of the weaknesses; they will not escape the
+vices, even if they learn some of the virtues of the West.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XIX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Peculiar forebodings of early morning</i>. <i>A would-be speaker of
+English</i>. <i>The young men of Y&uuml;n-nan and the Reform Movement</i>. <i>Teachers
+of English</i>. <i>Remarks on methods adopted</i>. <i>Disregard of the customs of
+centuries</i>. <i>A rushing Szech-wanese</i>. <i>Missionaries and the Educational
+Movement</i>. <i>Christianity and the position of the foreigner</i>. <i>Is the
+Chinese racially inferior to the European? Interesting opinion</i>. <i>Peace
+of Europe and integrity of China</i>. <i>Chao-chow cook gets a bad time</i>.
+<i>The author's lev&eacute;e. Natural &quot;culture&quot; of the people</i>. <i>Story of the
+birth of boys</i>. <i>Notes on Hsiakwan</i>. <i>Experiences of the
+non-Chinese-speaking author at the inn</i>. <i>How he got the better of an
+official</i>. <i>A magnificent temple</i>. <i>Kwan-&iuml;n and the priests.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>This morning, from the foot of a high spur, I saw a couple of gawky
+fellows shambling along in an imitation European dress, and I pricked up
+my ears&mdash;it seemed as if Europeans were about. One of the fellows had on
+a pair of long-legged khaki trousers ludicrously patched with Chinese
+blue, a tweed coat of London cut also patched with Chinese blue, and a
+battered Elswood topee. I saw this through my field-glasses. Soon after,
+coming out from a cup in the winding pathway, emerged a four-man chair,
+and I had no doubt then that it was a European on the road, and I began
+to get as curious as anyone naturally would in a country where in
+interior travel his own foreign kind are met with but seldom. Hurrying
+on, I managed to pass the chair in a place where overhanging foliage
+shut out the light, so that I could not see through the windows, and as
+the front curtain was down I concluded that it must be a lady, probably
+a missionary lady. I pushed on to the nearest tavern&mdash;a tea tavern, of
+course&mdash;buttoned up my coat so that she should not see my dirty shirt,
+and waited for the presence to approach. From an inner apartment,
+through a window, I could see all that went on outside, but could not be
+seen. What is it that makes a man's heart go pit-a-pat when he is about
+to meet a European lady in mid-China?</p>
+
+<p>Presently the chair approached. From it came a person covered in a huge
+fur-lined, fur-collared coat many sizes too large for his small body&mdash;it
+was a Chinese. Several men were pushed out of his way as he strode
+towards me, extending his hand in a cordial &quot;shake, old fellow&quot; style,
+and yelling in purest accent, &quot;Good morning, sir; <i>good</i> morning, sir!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, good morning. You speak English well. I congratulate you. Have you
+had a good journey? How far are you going? Very warm?&quot; I waited. &quot;It is
+so interesting when one meets a gentleman who can speak English; it is a
+pleasant change.&quot; I waited again. &quot;Will you&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good morning, morning, morn&mdash;he, he, he.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But pardon me, will&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morning, morning&mdash;he, h-e-e.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you silly ass, I know it is morning, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes; morning, morning&mdash;he-e-e-e-e.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He then made for the door, not the least abashed. Later he came back,
+and invited me to speak Chinese, probably thinking that I was wondering
+why he had made such an absolute fool of himself. I learned that this
+august gentleman possessed a name in happy correspondence with a fowl
+(&quot;Chi&quot;). He pointed contemptuously to a member of that feather tribe as
+he told me. Whether he could speak Chinese when he was or was not at
+Chen-tu, or whether he had a son whose knowledge of my language was
+vast, and who was at that moment at Chen-tu, I could not quite fathom,
+and he could not explain. He had a look at my caravan generally, and
+then turned his scrutiny upon my common tweeds, informing me that the
+quality bore no comparison with his own. He could travel in a four-man
+chair; I had to <i>walk</i>. It was all very &quot;pub hao.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After some time he cleared out with much empty swagger, and I followed
+leisurely on behind, feeling&mdash;yes, why not publish it?&mdash;pleased that this
+bolt from the blue had not been a lady.</p>
+
+<p>This young fellow&mdash;a mere slip of a boy&mdash;wore every indication of
+perfect self-confidence, borne out in a multitude of ways common to his
+class. He, I presumed, was one of the fledglings who undertake
+responsibilities far beyond them, or I should not be surprised if he had
+been one of the army of young men who, having the merest smattering of
+English, wholly unable to converse, set up as teachers of English. I
+have found this quite common among the rising classes in Y&uuml;n-nan. The
+cool assumption of unblushing superiority evinced in discussing
+intellectual and philosophic problems is remarkable. The Chinese, in the
+area I speak of, are little people with little brain: this was a
+specimen. Yet, to be fair, in China to-day the work of reform is mainly
+the work of young men, who although but only partly equipped for their
+work, approach it with perfect confidence and considerable energy, not
+knowing sufficient to realize the difficulties they are undertaking. In
+Japan the same thing was done. The young men there undertook to dispute
+and doubt everything which came in the way of national reorganization,
+setting aside&mdash;as China must do if she is to take her place alongside
+the ideal she has set up for herself, Japan&mdash;parental teaching,
+ancestral authority, the customs of centuries. A large proportion of the
+population of China has a passion for reform and progress. This young
+fellow was a typical example. In the west of China, however, to conform
+with the spirit of reform and real progress&mdash;not the make-believe, which
+is satisfying them at the present moment&mdash;they must needs change their
+ways.</p>
+
+<p>Seventeen memorial plates were passed at the entrance to Chao-chow, a
+particularly modern-looking place, as one approaches it from the hill.</p>
+
+<p>A remarkably ungainly individual, with a hole in the top of his skull
+and his body one mass of sores, came to me here, addressed me as &quot;Sien
+seng,&quot; and then commenced an oration to the effect that he was a
+Szech'wanese, that he had known the missionaries down by the Yangtze,
+and that he knew he would be welcome to accompany me to Hsiakwan.<a name='FNanchor_AT_46'></a><a href='#Footnote_AT_46'><sup>[AT]</sup></a> He
+switched himself on the main line of my caravan. Here was a man who had
+been brought in contact with the missionary away down in another
+province, and he knew he was welcome. I liked that. In all my
+journeyings in Y&uuml;n-nan I was increasingly impressed with the value of
+the missionary, that man who of all men in the Far East is the most
+subject to malicious criticism, and generally, be it said, from those
+persons who know little or nothing about his work. You cannot measure
+the missionary's work by conversions, by mere statistics. I venture to
+assert that it is through the missionary that the West applied pressure
+and supplied China with political ideas, and put within her reach the
+material and instruments which would enable her to carry such ideas into
+practice&mdash;this apart from religious teaching. More particularly is this
+the case in respect to popular education, perhaps, by means of which the
+transformation of Old China into New China will be a less long and
+difficult process. The people may not want the missionary&mdash;I do not for
+a moment say that they do&mdash;but they need to know the secret of his power
+and the power of his kind, and they must study his language, his
+science, his machinery, his steamboats, his army, his <i>Dreadnaughts</i>.
+They realize that the foreigner is useful not for what he can do, but
+for what he can teach&mdash;therefore they tolerate the missionary. This is
+virtually the national policy of China towards foreigners, a policy
+gaining the acceptance of the people with remarkable quickness.</p>
+
+<p>After having set aside all considerations of national prejudice and
+patriotism, it is interesting to ask whether it is actually a fact that
+the Chinese, as a race, are inferior to the peoples of the West? Much
+has been said on the subject. I give my opinion flatly that the Chinese
+is <i>not</i> inferior, and the longer I live with him the more numerous
+become the lessons which he teaches me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The question, when we examine it closely, has really very little to do
+with political strength or military efficiency, or (<i>pace</i> Mr. Benjamin
+Kidd) relative standards of living, or even the usual material
+accompaniments of what we call an advanced civilization; it is a
+question for the trained anthropologist and the craniologist rather than
+for the casual observer of men and manners. The Japanese people are now
+much more highly civilized&mdash;according to western notions&mdash;than they were
+half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that
+they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than
+they were then. Evolution does not work quite so rapidly as that even in
+these days of 'hustle.' The Japanese have advanced, not because their
+brains have suddenly become larger, or their moral and intellectual
+capabilities have all at once made a leap forward, but because their
+intercourse with Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion,
+showed them that certain characteristic features of European
+civilization would be of great use in strengthening and enriching their
+own country, developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist
+aggression. If the Japanese were as members of the <i>homo sapiens</i>
+inferior to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are
+our equals to-day&mdash;and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him
+who wishes to show that they are not&mdash;our knowledge of the origin and
+history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
+to assure us that the Chinese are our equals, too. There is no valid
+reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior to
+the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer than
+the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently necessary
+for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to appreciate
+the value of Western science and certain features of Western
+civilization, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
+country than a small one, and because China was rich within her own
+borders of all the necessaries of life.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AU_47'></a><a href='#Footnote_AU_47'><sup>[AU]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>And the West, too, must learn that the peace of Europe depends upon the
+integrity of China. For the time is coming&mdash;not in the lives of any who
+read these lines, but coming inevitably&mdash;when China will, by her might,
+by her immense numbers of trained men, by her developed naval and
+military strength, be able to say to the nations of the earth, &quot;There
+must be no more war.&quot; And she will be strong enough to be able to
+enforce it.</p>
+
+<p>As with individuals, so with nations, and a people who are marked by
+such rare physical vitality, such remarkable powers of endurance against
+great odds, are surely designed for some nobler purpose than merely to
+bear with fortitude the ills of life and the misery of starvation. It is
+the easiest thing in the world to criticise&mdash;the West criticises the
+Chinese because he is a heathen, because they do not understand him.
+Hundreds of millions of the Chinese race hate and fear the man of the
+West for exactly the same reason as would cause us to hate the Chinese
+were the situation reversed.</p>
+
+<p>I do not need to go into history from the days when the Chinese first
+began to show their suspicion, contempt, and fear of foreigners, and
+their interpretation of the motives and purposes which took them to the
+Celestial Empire; it would take too much space. But if we of the West
+did our part to-day, as we rub up against the Chinese everywhere, in
+charitably taking him at his best, things would alter much more speedily
+that they are doing. Because the Chinese bristles with contradictions
+and seemingly unanswerable conundrums, we immediately dub him a
+barbarian, do not endeavor to understand him, do not understand enough
+of his language to listen to him and learn his point of view. However,
+it is all slowly passing&mdash;so very slowly, too. But still China is
+progressing, and now this oldest man in the world is becoming again the
+youngest, but has all the accumulations and advantages of age in all
+countries to lean upon and learn from.</p>
+
+<p>Chao-chow gave me a very decent inn, the top room in front of which was
+provided with a well-paved courtyard, with every convenience for the
+traveler&mdash;that is, for China.</p>
+
+<p>The inn cook and water-carrier was out playing on the street when we put
+in an early appearance. My men lost their temper, ground their teeth,
+foamed at the mouth, and got desperate. The only man on the premises was
+a poor old fellow, who foolishly bumped his uncovered head on the ground
+on which I stood, as an act of great servility and a secret sign that I
+should throw him a few cash, and then resumed his occupation in the sun
+of wiping his already inflamed eyes with the one unwashed garment which
+covered him. I pitied him; he knew it, and traded upon my pity until I
+invoked a few choice words from Lao Chang to fall upon him. When the
+cook did put in an appearance, he and everybody dead and living placed
+anywhere near his genealogical tree underwent a rough quarter of an
+hour from the anathematical tongues of my companions. The Old Man&mdash;by
+virtue of the growth on my chin, this epithet of respect was commonly
+used towards me&mdash;wanted to wash his face and drink his tea. He was tired
+with walking. He was a foreign mandarin. Did the blank, blank, blank
+cook, the worm and no man, not know that a foreigner was among them? And
+then they fell to piling up the ignominy again and placing to the cook's
+dishonor various degrees of lowliest origin common among the Chinese
+proletariat, which, thank Heaven, I did not quite understand.</p>
+
+<p>That evening all Chao-chow came to honor me in my room, and to admire
+and ask to be given all I had in my boxes. That it was all a huge
+revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I
+might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in
+expensive silks and satins&mdash;probably borrowed&mdash;came with pomp and
+pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he
+learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him. He mentioned
+that he was one of the cultured of the city. But the Chinese are all
+more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character,
+are really &quot;cultured&quot;&mdash;they are the most polite men I have ever
+traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than
+real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in
+moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the
+wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter
+of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking
+in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along
+with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for
+my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored
+man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent
+invitations to use a chair&mdash;how is it all Orientals can do this, and not
+one European out of fifty?</p>
+
+<p>Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented
+him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth
+of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese
+household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be
+lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just
+before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and
+secure peace. This is the &quot;Exorcism of Great Peace.&quot; Simultaneously
+comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and
+difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever
+similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is
+often felt that the first visit to the house after the birth of the
+child should be made by a &quot;lucky&quot; person, for the child's whole future
+career may be blighted by meeting with an &quot;ill-starred&quot; person. No
+outsider will enter the room where the birth took place for forty days.
+On the anniversary of a boy's birth the relatives and friends bring
+presents of clothes, hats, ornaments, playthings, and red eggs. The baby
+is placed on the floor&mdash;the earth, which is the first place he touches;
+he is born into a hole in the ground&mdash;and around him are placed various
+articles, such as a book, pencil, chopsticks, money, and so on. He will
+follow the profession which has to do with the articles he first
+touches.<a name='FNanchor_AV_48'></a><a href='#Footnote_AV_48'><sup>[AV]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This was the fortieth day, and so my visitant honored me by thrusting
+his contemptible presence upon me, and he would not go until late at
+night, when a man with a diseased hip and one eye&mdash;and a ghastly thing
+at that&mdash;called to see whether I could treat him with medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiakwan in days to come will probably have a big industry in brick and
+tile making. Fifteen li from the town, on the Chao-chow side, many
+people now get their living at the business, and one could easily dream
+of a &quot;Hsiakwan Brick and Tile Company Limited,&quot; with the children's
+children of the present pioneers running for the morning papers to have
+a look at the share market reports, with light railways connected up
+with the main line, which has not yet been built, and so on, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiakwan is perhaps the busiest town on the main trade route from
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Burma. Tali-fu, although growing, is only the official
+town, of which Hsiakwan is the commercial entrep&ocirc;t. It was here that I
+stayed one Sunday some time after this, at one of the biggest inns I
+have ever been into in China. It had no less than four buildings, each
+with a paved rectangular courtyard which all the rooms overlooked. A
+military official, who was on his way to Chao-t'ong to deal with the
+rebellion, of which the reader has already learnt a good deal, was
+expected soon after I arrived. My room was already arranged, however,
+when the landlord came to me and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yang gwan, you must please go out!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now the yang gwan, as was expected, stayed where he was, smiled in
+magnanimous acquiescence, invited the proprietor&mdash;a stout, jolly person
+with one eye&mdash;to be seated, and remained quiet. Again and again was I
+told that I should be required to clear out, and give up the best room
+to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did
+not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the
+foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a
+stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The
+Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated
+foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in
+a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions
+been reversed, stared vacantly and woodenly into a seemingly bewildering
+infinite, and timidly remarked, &quot;O t'ing puh lai.&quot; Knowing then that my
+&quot;hearing had not come,&quot; he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by
+this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao
+Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their
+meaning. The best room, therefore, continued to be mine.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the official came, and my dog began by mauling his canine
+guardian, tearing away half his ear; and in the middle of the night one
+of my horses got loose and had a stand-up fight with a mule attached to
+the official party, laming him seriously; and as the foreigner emerged
+in his night attire to prevent further damage, he encountered the
+mandarin himself, and pinned him dead against the wall in the dark,
+after having stepped on his corn. My pony had pulled several morsels of
+flesh from the mule's carcase. The yang gwan certainly came off best,
+and the following morning, as the Chinese gwan with his retinue of six
+chairs and about one hundred and fifty men departed, the yang gwan
+smiled a happy farewell which was not effusively reciprocated.</p>
+
+<p>As I came out of the inn I met a Buddhist priest, worn with general
+dilapidation and old age, with a huge festering wound in the calf of his
+leg, so that he could hardly hobble along with a stick&mdash;he was probably
+on his way to the medical missionary at Tali-fu for treatment. This
+spiritual guide was certainly on his last legs, and has probably by this
+time handed over the priestly robes and official perquisites to more
+vigorous young blood.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiakwan's High Street reminded me of the main street of Totnes, with
+its arch over the roadway, and the scenery might have deluded one into
+the belief that he was in Switzerland in spring, as he gazed upon the
+glorious spectacle of snow-covered mountains with the world-famed lake
+at the foot. Tali-fu deserves its name of the Geneva of West China.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapter devoted to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu I have referred to the military of
+Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of
+men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here.
+Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the
+Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.</p>
+
+<p>In the famous temple ten li from Tali-fu is an effigy to the Yang Daren
+who figured conspicuously during the Mohammedan Rebellion. My men
+somehow got the false information that he was a native of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, so they all went down on their knees and bumped their
+heads on the ground before the image. This Yang, however, was such a
+brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a
+soldier he was indomitable. The temple in which he is deified is called
+the Kwan-&iuml;n-tang,<a name='FNanchor_AW_49'></a><a href='#Footnote_AW_49'><sup>[AW]</sup></a> and there is no place in all China where Kwan-&iuml;n
+is worshipped with such relentless vigor. Some years ago, so the wags
+say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-&iuml;n saved the city by
+transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her
+back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path. The
+amazement of the rebels at the sight of a woman performing such a feat
+made them wonder what the men could be like, so they turned tail and
+fled. The story is believed implicitly by the residents of the city, and
+the priests, with an open eye to the main chance, work upon the public
+imagination with capital tact. I saw the stone in the center of a lotus
+pond, over which is the structure in which the Kwan-&iuml;n sits, not as a
+weight-lifting woman, but as a tender mother, with a tiny babe in her
+arms, and none in the whole of the Empire enjoys such favor for being
+able to direct the birth of male children into those families which give
+most money to the priests. Women desiring sons come and implore her by
+throwing cash, one by one, at the effigy, the one who hits being
+successful, going away with the belief that a son will be born to her.
+When the deluded females are cleared out, the priest, divesting himself
+of his shoes, and rolling up his trousers, goes into the water, scoops
+up the money and uses it for his personal convenience&mdash;sometimes as much
+as thirty thousand cash.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AT_46'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AT_46'>[AT]</a><div class='note'><p> The commercial center of Tali-fu, the official city is 30
+li further on&mdash;E.J.D</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AU_47'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AU_47'>[AU]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>From Peking to Mandalay</i>, by R.F. Johnston, London, John
+Murray. I am indebted to this racily-written work for other ideas in
+this chapter.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AV_48'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AV_48'>[AV]</a><div class='note'><p> From inquiries I find this custom is not general in some
+parts of Western China&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AW_49'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AW_49'>[AW]</a><div class='note'><p> Temple to the Goddess of Mercy.
+</p><p>
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;Kwan-&iuml;n was the third daughter of a king, beautiful and talented,
+     and when young loved to meditate as a priest. Her father, mother
+     and sisters beseech her not to pass the 'green spring,' but to
+     marry, and the king offers the man of her choice the throne. But
+     no, she must take the veil. She enters the 'White Sparrow Nunnery,'
+     and the nuns put her to the most menial offices; the dragons open a
+     well for the young maidservant, and the wild beasts bring her wood.
+     The king sends his troops to burn the nunnery, Kwan-&iuml;n prays, rain
+     falls, and extinguishes the conflagration. She is brought to the
+     palace in chains, and the alternative of marriage or death is
+     placed before her. In the room above where the court of the
+     inquisition is held there is music, dancing, and feasting, sounds
+     and sights to allure a young girl; the queen also urges her to
+     leave the convent, and accede to the royal father's wish. Kwan-&iuml;n
+     declares that she would rather die than marry, so the fairy
+     princess is strangled, and a tiger takes her body into the forest.
+     She descends into hell, and hell becomes a paradise, with gardens
+     of lilies. King Yama is terrified when he sees the prison of the
+     lost becoming an enchanted garden, and begs her to leave, in order
+     that the good and the evil may have their distinctive rewards. One
+     of the genii gives her the 'peach of immortality.' On her return to
+     the terrestrial regions she hears that her father is sick, and
+     sends him word that if he will dispatch a messenger to the
+     'Fragrant Mountain,' an eye and a hand will be given him for
+     medicine; this hand and eye are Kwan-&iuml;n's own, and produce instant
+     recovery.
+</p><p>
+     &quot;She is the patron goddess of mothers, and when we remember the
+     value of sons, we can understand the heartiness of worship.&quot;&mdash;<i>The
+     Three Religions of China,</i> by H.G. Du Bose.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THIRD_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>THIRD JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_XX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stages to the Mekong Valley</i>. <i>Hardest part of the walking tour</i>.
+<i>Author as a medical man</i>. <i>Sunday soliloquy</i>. <i>How adversity is met</i>.
+<i>Chinese life compared with early European ages</i>. <i>Womens enthusiasm
+over the European</i>. <i>A good send-off</i>. <i>My coolie Shanks, the songster</i>.
+<i>Laughter for tears</i>. <i>Pony commits suicide</i>. <i>Houses in the forest
+district</i>. <i>Little encampments among the hills, and the way the people
+pass their time</i>. <i>Treacherous travel</i>. <i>To Hwan-lien-p'u</i>. <i>Rest by the
+river, and a description of my companions</i>. <i>How my men treated the
+telegraph</i>. <i>Universal lack of privacy</i>. <i>Complaints of the carrying
+coolies.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>From whichever standpoint you regard the cities and villages of Western
+China, the views are full of interest. Each forms a new picture of rock,
+river, wood and temple, crenellated wall, and uplifted roof, crowded
+with bewildering detail.</p>
+
+<p>I am not the first traveler who has remarked this. Several of Mr.
+Archibald Little's books speak of it. He says: &quot;In Europe, except where
+the scenery is purely wild, and more especially in America, the delight
+of gazing on many of the most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the
+crude newness of man's work. This is true now of Japan, since the rage
+for copying western architecture and dress has fallen upon the Islands
+of the Rising Sun. But here in Western China little has intervened to
+mar the accord between nature and man.&quot; In the country on which we are
+now entering the natural grandeur is finer than anything I had seen
+since I left the Gorges, and incidentally I do not mind confessing to
+the indulgent reader that when I came again through Hsiakwan, again
+westward bound, I was tired, my feet were blistered and broken, each day
+and every day had brought me a hard journey, and here I was now facing
+the most difficult journey yet met with&mdash;literally not a li of level
+road.</p>
+
+<p>My journey was by the following route:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td align='center'>Length of Stage</td><td align='center'>Height Above Sea</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day</td><td align='left'>Ho-chiang-p'u</td><td align='center'>90 li</td><td align='center'>5,050 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day</td><td align='left'>Yang-pi</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>5,150 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day</td><td align='left'>T'ai-p'ing-p'u</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>7,400 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day</td><td align='left'>Hwan-lien-p'u</td><td align='center'>50 li</td><td align='center'>5,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day</td><td align='left'>Ch'u-tung</td><td align='center'>95 li</td><td align='center'>5,250 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day</td><td align='left'>Shayung</td><td align='center'>75 li</td><td align='center'>4,800 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>T'ai-p'ing-p'u (two days from Tali-fu), bleak and perched away up among
+the clouds, could never be called a town; it is merely a ramshackle
+place which gives one sleep and food in the difficult stage between
+Hwan-lien-p'u and Yang-pi.</p>
+
+<p>Like most of the small places which suffered from the ravishings of the
+Mohammedan destructions of the fifties, it has seen better days.
+Cottages hang clumsily together on ledges in the mountains, 7,400 feet
+above the sea, standing in their own vast uncultivated grounds. People
+are of the Lolo origin, but all speak Chinese; their ways of life,
+however, are aboriginal, and still far from the ideal to which they
+aspire. They are poor, poor as church mice, dirty and diseased and
+decrepit, and their existence as a consequence is dreary and dull and
+void of all enlightenment. The women&mdash;sad, lowly females&mdash;bind their
+feet after a fashion, but as they work in the fields, climb hills, and
+battle in negotiations against Nature where she is overcome only with
+extreme effort, the real &quot;lily&quot; is a thing possible with them only in
+their dreams. By binding, however, be it never so bad an imitation, they
+give themselves the greater chance of getting a Chinese husband.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed here the Sunday, and as I went through my evening ablutions,
+among my admirers in the doorway was an old woman, who in gentlest
+confidences with my boy, explained awkwardly that her little daughter
+lay sick of a fever, and could he prevail upon his foreign master, in
+whom she placed implicit faith, to come with her and minister? Lao Chang
+advised that I should go, and I went. My shins got mutilated as I fell
+down the slippery stone steps in the dark into a pail of hog's wash at
+the bottom. Having wiped the worst of the grease and slime onto the mud
+wall, by the aid of a flickering rushlight I saw the &quot;child,&quot; who lay on
+a mattress on the floor in the darkest corner of the room. I reckoned
+her age to be thirty-five, her black hair hung in tangled masses, the
+very bed on which she lay stank with vermin, two feet away was the fire
+where all the cooking was gone through, and everywhere around was filth.
+When she saw me the &quot;child&quot; raised her solitary garment, whispered that
+pains in her stomach were well-nigh unendurable, that her head ached,
+that her joints were stiff, that she was generally wrong, and&mdash;&quot;Did I
+think she would recover?&quot; I thought she might not.</p>
+
+<p>Rushing back to my medicine chest, I brought along and administered a
+maximum dose of the oil called castor, and later dosed her with quinine.
+In the morning she was out and about her work, while the old mother was
+great in her praises for the passing European who had cured her child.
+After that came the deluge! They wanted more medicine&mdash;fever elixir,
+toothache cure, and so on, and so on&mdash;but I stood firm.</p>
+
+<p>The tedium of the Sunday in that draughty inn gave me an insight into
+their common lives which I had not before, causing me to meditate upon
+their simple lives and their simple needs. They did not raise the
+forests in order to get gold; they did not squander their patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years. They held to simple
+needs; they had a simplicity of taste, which was also a peculiar source
+of independence and safety. The more simple they lived the more secure
+their future, because they were less at the mercy of surprises and
+reverses. In adversity these people would not act like nurslings
+deprived of their bottles and their rattles, but would, by virtue of
+their common simplicity, probably be better armed for any struggles. I
+do not desire the life for myself, but the ethics of their simple living
+cannot but be recommended. Multitudes possess in China what multitudes
+in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European
+life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden
+times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but
+we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers
+unless we return to the spirit which animated them. They possessed the
+spirit of real simplicity. And this same spirit the Chinese possess
+to-day; but they are minus the incomparable features of healthful
+civilization, inward and outward, of which our forebears were masters.
+Our ways to-day are not their ways, and their ways not our ways; but one
+cannot but realize as he moves among them that with a happy infusion of
+the spirit of their simplicity into the restlessness of our modern life
+our wearied minds would dream less and realize more of the true
+simplicity of simple living.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To a man the village of T'ai-p'ing-p'u turned out early on the Monday
+morning to express regrets that my departure was at hand. When, in
+parting with this people who had done all in their power to make my
+comfort complete, I threw a handful of cash to some little children
+standing wonderingly near by, general approval was expressed, and
+elaborate felicities anent my beneficence exchanged by the ear-ringed
+Lolo women. A short apron hung down over their blue trousers, and as I
+passed out of their sight, they admired me and gossiped about me, with
+their hands under their aprons, in much the same manner as their more
+enlightened sisters of the wash-tub gossip sometimes in the West.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful spring morning; the sweet song of the birds pierced
+through the noise of the rolling river below, the air was fragrant and
+bracing, and as I left and commenced the rocky ascent leading again to
+the mountains, the barks of some fierce-disposed canines, who alone
+objected to my presence among the hill-folk, died away with the rustle
+of the leafage in a keen north wind.</p>
+
+<p>One of my men was poorly, the solitary element to disturb the equanimity
+of our camp.</p>
+
+<p>It was Shanks. He had been suffering from toothache, and unfortunately I
+had no gum-balm with me; without my knowledge Lao Chang had rubbed in
+some strong embrocation to the fellow's cheek, so that now, in addition
+to toothache, he had also a badly blistered face, swollen up like a
+pudding. Upon learning that I had no means of curing him or of
+alleviating the pain, Shanks bellowed into my ear, loud enough to bring
+the dead out of the grave-mounds on the surrounding hill-sides, &quot;Puh p'a
+teh, pub p'a teh&quot;; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle
+on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing
+Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly
+disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song,
+and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who
+shared his bed, and whose choral propensities were less in proportion,
+he would laugh wildly at them all. Poor Shanks; he was a peculiar
+mortal. He would laugh at men in pain, and think it sympathy. If we
+could get no food or drink on the march, after having wearily toiled
+away for hours, he would not be disposed to grumble&mdash;he would laugh.
+Such tragic incidents as the pony jumping over the precipice provoked
+him to extreme laughter.<a name='FNanchor_AX_50'></a><a href='#Footnote_AX_50'><sup>[AX]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>And when I caught him sewing up an open wound in the sole of his foot
+with common colored Chinese thread and a rusty needle, and told him that
+he might thereby get blood poisoning, and lose his life or leg, he cared
+not a little. As a matter of fact, he laughed in my face. Not at me, not
+at all, but because he thought his laughter might probably delude the
+devil who was president over the ills of that particular portion of
+human anatomy. He came to me just outside Pu-p&ecirc;ng, where we saw a coffin
+containing a corpse resting in the roadway whilst the bearers refreshed
+near by and, pointing thereto, told me that the man was &quot;muh tsai&quot; (not
+here)&mdash;the Chinese never on any account mention the word death&mdash;and his
+sides shook with laughter, so much so that he dropped his loads
+alongside the corpse, and startled the cock on top of the coffin
+guarding the spirit of the dead into a vigorous fit of crowing for fear
+of disaster.</p>
+
+<p>We enjoyed fairly level road, although rough, for ten li after leaving
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u. It rose gradually from 7,400 feet to 8,500 feet, and
+then dipped suddenly, and continued at a fearful down gradient. I might
+describe it as a member of a British infantry regiment once described to
+me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few
+fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India,
+when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion
+had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, &quot;'Twasn't
+a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor.&quot; The
+Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something
+in common.</p>
+
+<p>Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu
+Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see.</p>
+
+<p>Midway down the steep hill we happened on some lonely log cottages,
+twenty-five li from T'ai-p'ing-p'u (it is reckoned as thirty-five li
+traveling in the opposite direction). In the forest district I found the
+houses all built of timber&mdash;wood piles placed horizontally and
+dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched. You have merely to
+step aside from the road, and you are in dense mountain forest; it is
+manifestly easier and less costly than the mud-built habitation,
+although for their part the people are worse off because of the lack of
+available ground for growing their crops. Here the people were still
+essentially Lolo, and the big-footed women who boiled water under a shed
+had difficulty in getting to understand what my men were talking about.</p>
+
+<p>The second descent is begun after a pleasant walk along level ground
+resembling a well-laid-out estate, and a treacherously rough mile
+brought us down to an iron chain bridge swung over the Shui-pi Ho, at
+the far end of which, hidden behind bamboo matting, are a few idols in
+an old hut; they act in the dual capacity of gods of the river and the
+mountain. Tea and some palatable baked persimmon&mdash;very like figs when
+baked&mdash;were brought me by an awful-looking biped who was still in
+mourning, his unshaven skull sadly betokening the fact. As I sipped my
+tea and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met
+me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in
+that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I
+admired the grand scenery farther along. Especially did I notice one
+peak, towering perpendicularly away up past woods of closely-planted
+pine and fir trees, the crystal summit glistening with sunlit snow; as
+soon as I started again on my journey, I was pulling up towards it. Soon
+I was gazing down upon the tiny patches of light green and a few
+solitary cottages, resembling a little beehive, and one could imagine
+the metaphorical wax-laying and honey-making of the inhabitants. These
+people were away from all mankind, living in life-long loneliness, and
+all unconscious of the distinguished foreigner away up yonder, who
+wondered at their patient toiling, but who, like them, had his
+Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow. There they were, perched high up on the
+bleak mountain sides, with their joys and sorrows, their pains and
+penalties, struggling along in domestic squalor, and rearing young
+rusticity and raw produce.</p>
+
+<p>On these mountains in Y&uuml;n-nan one sees hundreds of such little
+encampments of a few families, passing their existence far from the road
+of the traveler, who often wished he could descend to them and quench
+his thirst, and eat with them their rice and maize. Most of them here
+were isolated families of tribespeople, who, out of contact with their
+kind, have little left of racial resemblance, and yet are not fully
+Chinese, so that it is difficult to tell what they really are. Most were
+Lolo.</p>
+
+<p>Walking here was treacherous. A foot pathway was the main road, winding
+in and out high along the surface of the hills, in many places washed
+away, and in others overgrown with grass and shrubbery. &quot;Across China on
+Foot&quot; would have met an untimely end had I made a false step or slipped
+on the loose stones in a momentary overbalance. I should have rolled
+down seven hundred feet into the Shui-pi Ho. Once during the morning I
+saw my coolies high up on a ledge opposite to me, and on practically
+the same level, a three-li gully dividing us. They were very small men,
+under very big hats, bustling along like busy Lilliputians, and my loads
+looked like match-boxes. I probably looked to them not less grotesque.
+But we had to watch our footsteps, and not each other.</p>
+
+<p>We were rounding a corner, when I was surprised to see Hwan-lien-p'u a
+couple of li away. The <i>fu-song</i> were making considerable hue and cry
+because Rusty had rolled thirty feet down the incline, and as I looked I
+saw the animal get up and commence neighing because he had lost sight of
+us. He was in the habit of wandering on, nibbling a little here and a
+little there, and rarely gave trouble unless in chasing an occasional
+horse caravan, when he gave my men some fun in getting him again into
+line.</p>
+
+<p>It was not yet midday, and we had four hours' good going. So I
+calculated. Not so my men. They could not be prevailed upon to budge,
+and knowing the Chinese just a little, I reluctantly kept quiet. It was
+entirely unreasonable to expect them to go on to Ch'u-tung, ninety li
+away&mdash;it was impossible. And I learnt that the reason they would not go
+on was that no house this side of that place was good enough to put a
+horse into, even a Chinese horse, and they would not dream of taking me
+on under those conditions. There was not even a hut available for the
+traveler, so they said. I had come over difficult country, plodding
+upwards on tiptoe and then downwards with a lazy swing from stone to
+stone for miles. Throughout the day we had been going through fine
+mountain forest, everywhere peaceful and beautiful, but it had been hard
+going. In the morning a heavy frost lay thick and white about us, and by
+10:30 a.m. the sun was playing down upon us with a merciless heat as we
+tramped over that little red line through the green of the hill-sides.
+Often in this march was I tempted to stay and sit down on the sward,
+but I had proved this to be fatal to walking. In traveling in Y&uuml;n-nan
+one's practice should be: start early, have as few stops as possible,
+when a stop <i>is</i> made let it be long enough for a real rest. In
+Szech'wan, where the tea houses are much more frequent, men will pull up
+every ten li, and generally make ten minutes of it. In Y&uuml;n-nan these
+welcome refreshment houses are not met with so often, and little
+inducement is held out for the coolies to stop, but upon the slightest
+provocation they will stop for a smoke. On this walking trip I made it a
+rule to be off by seven o'clock, stop twice for a quarter of an hour up
+to tiffin (my men stopped oftener), when our rest was often for an hour,
+so that we were all refreshed and ready to push on for the fag-end of
+the stage. We generally were done by four or five o'clock. And I should
+be the last in the world to deny that by this time I had had enough for
+one day.</p>
+
+<p>Upon arrival I immediately washed my feet, an excellent practice of the
+Chinese, changed my footgear, drank many cups of tea, and often went
+straight to my p'ukai. The roads of China take it out of the strongest
+man. There are no Marathon runners here; progress is a tedious toil,
+often on all fours.</p>
+
+<p>My room at Hwan-lien-p'u was near a telegraph pole; there was a
+telegraph station there, where my men showed their admiration for the
+Governmental organization by at once hammering nails into the pole. It
+was close to their laundry, and served admirably for the clothes-line, a
+bamboo tied at one end with a string to a nail in the pole and the other
+end stuck through the paper in the window of the telegraph operator's
+apartment. But this is nothing. Years ago, when the telegraph was first
+laid down, the people took turns to displace the wires and sell them for
+their trouble, and to chop the poles up for firewood. It continued for a
+considerable period, until an offender&mdash;or one whom it was surmised had
+done this or would have done it if he could&mdash;had his ears cut off, and
+was led over the main road to the capital, to be admired by any
+compatriot contemplating a deal in wiring or timber used for telegraphic
+communication purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Just below the town the river ran peacefully down a gradual incline. I
+decided that a comfortable seat under a tree, spending an hour in
+preparing this copy, would be more pleasant than moping about a noisome
+and stench-ridden inn, providing precious little in the way of
+entertainment for the foreigner. Next door a wedding party was making
+the afternoon hideous with their gongs and drums and crackers, and
+everywhere the usual hue and cry went abroad because a European was
+spending the day there.</p>
+
+<p>I imparted to my man my intentions for the afternoon. Immediately
+preparations were set on foot to get me down by the river, and it was
+publicly announced to the townspeople. The news ran throughout the town,
+that is Hwan-lien-p'u's one little narrow street, a sad mixture of a
+military trench and a West of England cobbled court. And instead of
+going alone to my shady nook by that silvery stream, 1 was accompanied
+by nine adult members of the unemployed band, three boys, and sundry
+stark-naked urchins who seemed to be without home or habitation. One of
+these specimens of fleeting friendship was one-eyed, and a diseased hip
+rendered it difficult for him to keep pace with us; one was club-footed,
+one hair-lipped fellow had only half a nose, and they were nearly all
+goitrous. As I write now these people, curious but not uncouth, are
+crouched around me on their haunches, after the fashion of the ape,
+their more Darwinian-evolved companion and his shorthand notes being
+admired by an open-mouthed crowd. Down below my horse is entertaining
+the more hilarious of the party in his tantrums with the man who is
+trying to wash him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AX_50'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AX_50'>[AX]</a><div class='note'><p> The day before, whilst we were passing along the edge of a
+cliff, we saw a deliberate suicide on the part of a pony. Getting away
+from its companions, it first jumped against a tree, then turned its
+head sharply on the side of a cliff, finally taking a leap into mid-air
+over the precipice. It touched ground at about two hundred and fifty
+feet below this point, and then rolled out of sight. My men exhibited no
+concern, and laughed me down because I did. It was, as they said, merely
+diseased, and the muleteers went on their way, leaving horse and loads
+to Providence. This sort of thing is not uncommon.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>The mountains of Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Wonderful scenery</i>. <i>Among the
+Mohammedans</i>. <i>Sorry scene at Ch'u-tung</i>. <i>A hero of a horrid past</i>.
+<i>Infinite depth of Chinese character</i>. <i>Mule falls one hundred and fifty
+yards, and escapes unhurt</i>. <i>Advice to future travelers</i>. <i>To Shayung</i>.
+<i>We meet Tibetans on the mountains</i>. <i>Chinese cruelty</i>. <i>Opium smoker as
+a companion</i>. <i>Opium refugees</i>. <i>One opinion only on the subject</i>.
+<i>Mission work among smokers and eaters.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Mere words are a feeble means to employ to describe the mountains of
+Y&uuml;n-nan.</p>
+
+<p>As I start from Hwan-lien-p'u this morning, to the left high hills are
+picturesquely darkened in the soft and unruffled solemnity of their own
+still unbroken shade. Opposite, rising in pretty wavy undulation, with
+occasional abruptions of jagged rock and sunken hollow, the steep
+hill-sides are brought out in the brightest coloring of delicate light
+and shade by the golden orb of early morn; towering majestically
+sunwards, sheer up in front of me, high above all else, still more
+sombre heights stand out powerfully in solemn contrast against the pale
+blue of the spring sky, the effect in the distance being antithetical
+and weird, with the magnificent Ts'ang Shan<a name='FNanchor_AY_51'></a><a href='#Footnote_AY_51'><sup>[AY]</sup></a> standing up as a
+beautiful background of perpendicular white, from whence range upon
+range of dark lines loom out in the hazy atmosphere. From the extreme
+summit of one snow-laden peak, whose white steeple seems truly a
+heavenward-directed finger, I gaze abstractedly all around upon nothing
+but dark masses of gently-waving hills, steep, weary ascents and
+descents, green and gold, and yellow and brown, and one's eyes rest upon
+a maze of thin white lines intertwining them all. These are the main
+roads. I am alone. My men are far behind. I am awed with an unnatural
+sense of bewildered wonderment in the midst of all this glory of the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is so vast, so grand, so overpowering. Murmurings of the
+birds alone break the sense of sadness and loneliness. Away yonder
+full-grown pine trees, if discernible at all, are dwarfed so as to
+appear like long coarse grass. For some thirty li the road runs through
+beautiful woods, high above the valleys and the noise of the river; and
+now we are running down swiftly to a point where two ranges meet, only
+to toil on again, slowly and wearily, up an awful gradient for two hours
+or more. But the labor and all its fatiguing arduousness are nothing
+when one gets to the top, for one beholds here one of the most
+magnificent mountain panoramas in all West China. Far away, just peeping
+prettily from the silvered edges of the bursting clouds, are the giant
+peaks which separate Tali-fu from Yang-pi&mdash;white giants with rugged,
+cruel edges pointing upwards, piercing the clouds asunder as a ship's
+bow pierces the billows of the deep; and then, gradually coming from out
+the mist, are no less than eight distinct ranges of mountains from
+14,000 feet to 16,000 feet high, besides innumerable minor heights,
+which we have traversed with much labor during the past four days, all
+rich with coloring and natural grandeur seen but seldom in all the
+world. Switzerland could offer nothing finer, nothing more sweeping,
+nothing more beautiful, nothing more awe-inspiring. With the glorious
+grandeur of these wondrous hills, rising and falling playfully around
+the main ranges, the marvellous tree growth, the delicate contrasts of
+the formidable peaks and the dainty, cultivated valleys, and the face of
+Nature everywhere absolutely unmarred, Switzerland could in no way
+compare.</p>
+
+<p>Is it then surprising that I look upon these stupendous masses with
+wonder, which seem to breathe only eternity and immensity?</p>
+
+<p>The air is pure as the breath of heaven, all is still and peaceful, and
+the fact that in the very nature of things one cannot rush through this
+pervading beauty of the earth, but has to plod onwards step by step
+along a toilsome roadway, enables the scenery to be so impressed upon
+one's mind as to be focussed for life in one's memory. One is held
+spellbound; these are the pictures never forgotten. Here I sit in a
+corner of the earth as old as the world itself. These mountains are as
+they were in the great beginning, when the Creator and Sustainer of all
+things pure and beautiful looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was
+good.</p>
+
+<p>The country here seems so vast as to render Nature unconquerable by man:
+man is insignificant, Nature is triumphant. Railways are defied; and
+these mountains, running mostly at right angles, will probably
+never&mdash;not in our time, at least&mdash;be made unsightly by the puffing and
+the reeking of the modern railway engine. They present so many natural
+obstacles to the opening-up of the country, according to the standard we
+Westerners lay down, that one would hesitate to prophesy any mode of
+traffic here other than that of the horse caravan and human beast of
+burden. Nature seems to look down upon man and his earth-scouring
+contrivances, and assert, &quot;Man, begone! I will have none of thee.&quot; And
+the mountains turn upwards to the sky in_ silent reverence to their
+Maker, whose work must in the main remain unchanged until eternity.</p>
+
+<p>It is now 12:30, and we have fifty li to cover before reaching
+Ch'u-tung. We sit here to feed at a place called Siao-shui-tsing, a
+sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, where in subsequent travel
+I was hung up in bitter weather and had to pass the night. The people,
+courteous and civil as always, show a simple trustfulness with which is
+associated some little suspicion. I gave a cake to a little child, but
+its mother would not allow it to be eaten until she was again and again
+assured and reassured that it was quite fit to eat. This home life of
+the very poor Chinese, if indeed it may be called home life, has a
+listlessness about it in marked contrast to that of the West. There is
+little housework, no furniture more than a table and chair or two, and
+the simplicity of the cooking arrangements does not tend to increase the
+work of the housewife.</p>
+
+<p>People here to-day are going about their work with a restful
+deliberation very trying to one in a hurry. The women, with infants tied
+to their backs, do not work hard but very long. A mud-house is being
+built near by, and between the cooking and attending to passing
+travelers, two women are digging the earth and filling up the baskets,
+while the men are mixing the mud, filling in the oblong wooden trough,
+and thus building the wall. At my elbow a man&mdash;old and grizzled and
+dirty&mdash;is turning back roll upon roll of his wadded garments, and
+ridding it of as many as he can find of the insects with which it is
+infested. A slobbering, boss-eyed cretin chops wood at my side, and when
+I rise to try a snap on the women and the children they hide behind the
+walls. Thus my time passes away, as I wait for the coolies who sit on a
+log in the open road feeding on common basins of dry rice.</p>
+
+<p>After that we had to cross the face of a steep hill. We could, however,
+find no road, no pathway even, but could merely see the scratchings of
+coolies and ponies already crossed. It was an achievement not unrisky,
+but we managed to reach the other side without mishap. My horse, owing
+to the stupidity of the man who hung on to his mouth to steady himself,
+put his foot in a hole and dragged the fool of a fellow some twenty
+yards downwards in the mud. My coolies, themselves in a spot most
+dangerous to their own necks, stuck the outside leg deep in the mud to
+rest themselves, and set to assiduously in blackguarding the man in
+their richest vein, then, extricating themselves, again continued their
+journey, satisfied that they had shown the proper front, and saved the
+face of the foreigner who could not save it for himself. Then we all
+went down through a narrow ravine into a lovely shady glade, all green
+and refreshing, with a brook gurgling sweetly at the foot and birds
+singing in the foliage. There was something very quaint in this cosy
+corner, with the hideous echoes and weird re-echoes of my men's
+squealing. Then we went on again from hill to hill, in a ten-inch
+footway, broken and washed away, so that in places it was necessary to
+hang on to the evergrowing grass to keep one's footing in the slopes.
+One needs to have no nerves in China.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their
+rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid
+condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve
+inches square, grazed on the hill-sides. In most places the foot of this
+ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty
+green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so
+thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight. As we entered a man
+came out with his p'ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the
+animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows
+with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying. The pony ceased shying.</p>
+
+<p>To Ch'u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded
+hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the
+<i>fu-song</i> had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a
+long road instead of by the &quot;new&quot; road (so called, although I do not
+doubt that it has been in use for many generations). Some Szech'wan
+coolies and myself had rice together on a low form away from the smoke,
+and the while listened to some tales of old, told by some half-witted,
+goitrous monster who seemed sadly out at elbow. The soldier meantime
+smelt round for a smoke. As he and my men had decided a few moments ago
+that each party was of a very low order of humanity, their pipes for him
+were not available. So he took pipe and dried leaf tobacco from this
+half-witted skunk, who, having wiped the stem in his eight-inch-long
+pants, handed it over in a manner befitting a monarch. It measured some
+sixty or seventy inches from stem to bowl.</p>
+
+<p>From Hwan-lien-p'u to Ch'u-tung is reckoned as eighty li; it is quite
+one hundred and ten, and the last part of the journey, over barren,
+wind-swept hills, most fatiguing.</p>
+
+<p>In contrast to the beauty of the morning's scenery, the country was
+black and bare, and a gale blew in our faces. My spirits were raised,
+however, by a coolie who joined us and who had a remarkable knowledge of
+the whole of the West of China, from Chung-king to Singai, from Mengtsz
+to Tachien-lu. Plied with questions, he willingly gave his answers, but
+he would persist in leading the way. As soon as a man endeavored to pass
+him, he would trot off at a wonderful speed, making no ado of the 120
+pounds of China pots on his back, yelling his explanations all the time
+to the man behind. Yung-p'ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li
+from Ch'u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped
+hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun,
+which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across
+the plain of peas and beans and winter crops. Four eight-inch planks,
+placed at various dangerous angles on three wood trestles, form the
+bridge across the fifty-foot stream dividing Ch'u-tung from the world on
+the opposite side. Across this I saw men wander with their loads, and
+then I led Rusty in. Whilst the stream washed his legs, I sat dangling
+mine until called upon to make way for another party of travelers.
+Remarkable is the agility of these men. They swing along over eight
+inches of wood as if they were in the middle of a well-paved road.</p>
+
+<p>Ch'u-tung is a Mohammedan town. There are a few Chinese only&mdash;Buddhists,
+Taoists and other ragtags; although when the follower of the Prophet has
+his pigtail attached to the inside of his hat, as it not unusual when he
+goes out fully dressed, there is little difference between him and the
+Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>Pigs here are conspicuously absent. People feed on poultry and beef. I
+rested in this city some month or so after my first overland trip whilst
+my man went to convert silver into cash, a trying ordeal always. Whilst
+I sipped my tea and ate a couple of rice cakes, I was impressed, as I
+seldom have been in my wanderings, with the remarkable number of people,
+from the six hundred odd houses the town possesses, who during that
+half-hour found nothing whatever to do to benefit themselves or the
+community, as members of which they passed monotonous lives, but to
+stare aimlessly at the resting foreigner. The report spread like
+wildfire, and they ran to the scene with haste, pulling on their coats,
+wiping food from their mouths, scratching their heads <i>en route</i>, one
+trouser-leg up and the other down, all anxious to get a seat near the
+stage. A river flows down the center of the street, and into this a
+sleepy fellow got tipped bodily in the crush, sat down in the water,
+seemingly in no hurry to move until he had finished his vigorous
+bullying of the man who pushed him in. Those who could not get standing
+room near my table went out into the street and shaded the sun from
+their eyes, in order that they might catch even a glimpse of the
+traveler who sat on in uncompromising indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Several old wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion&mdash;at the
+moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed
+imminent&mdash;and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past,
+being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the
+crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose
+from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the
+people of something terrible about to happen could not have been more
+intense.</p>
+
+<p>But I had by this time got used to their crowding, so that I could
+write, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry, and go through personal and
+private routine with no embarrassment. If I turned for the purpose, I
+could easily stare out of face a member of the crowd whose inquisitive
+propensities had become annoying, but as soon as he left another filled
+the gap. Quite pitiful was it to see how trivial articles of foreign
+manufacture&mdash;such, for instance, as the cover of an ordinary tin or the
+fabric of one's clothing&mdash;brought a regular deluge of childish interest
+and inane questioning; and if I happened to make a few shorthand notes
+upon anything making a particular impression, a look half surprised,
+half amused, went from one to another like an electric current. Had I
+been scheming out celestial hieroglyphics their mouths could not have
+opened wider. As I write now I am asked by a respectable person how many
+ounces of silver a Johann Faber's B.B. costs. I have told him, and he
+has retired smiling, evidently thinking that I am romancing.</p>
+
+<p>That I impress the crowd everywhere is evident. But with all their
+questioning, they are rarely rude; their stare is simply the stare of
+little children seeing a thing for the first time in their lives. It is
+all so hard to understand. My silver and my gold they solicit not; they
+merely desire to see me and to feel me. A certain faction of the crowd,
+however, do solicit my silver.</p>
+
+<p>Lao Chang has been buying vegetables, and has brought all the vegetable
+gardeners and greengrocers around me. The poultry rearers are here too,
+and the forage dealers and the grass cutters and the basket makers, and
+other thrifty members of the commercial order of Ch'u-tung humankind.
+When I came away the people dropped into line and strained their necks
+to get a parting smile. I was sped on my way with a public curiosity as
+if I were a penal servitor released from prison, a general home from a
+war, or something of that kind. And so this wonderful wonder of wonders
+was glad when he emerged from the labyrinthic, brain-confusing
+bewilderment of Chinese interior life of this town into somewhat clearer
+regions. I could not understand. And to the wisest man, wide as may be
+his vision, the Chinese mind and character remain of a depth as infinite
+as is its possibility of expansion. The volume of Chinese nature is one
+of which as yet but the alphabet is known to us.</p>
+
+<p>My own men had got quite used to me, and their minds were directed more
+to working than to wondering. In China, as in other Asiatic countries,
+one's companions soon accustom themselves to one's little peculiarities
+of character, and what was miraculous to the crowd had by simple
+repetition ceased to be miraculous to them.</p>
+
+<p>As I put away my notebook after writing the last sentence, I saw a mule
+slip, fall, roll for one hundred and fifty yards, losing its load on the
+down journey, and then walk up to the stream for a drink.<a name='FNanchor_AZ_52'></a><a href='#Footnote_AZ_52'><sup>[AZ]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>We started for Shayung on February 2nd, 1910, going over a road
+literally uncared for, full of loose-jointed stones and sinking sand,
+down which ponies scrambled, while the Tibetans in charge covered
+themselves close in the uncured skins they wore. This was the first time
+I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
+their antiquated topboots&mdash;much better, however, than the Y&uuml;n-nan
+topboot&mdash;gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
+frost.</p>
+
+<p>Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
+eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
+back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
+tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
+which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
+brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
+much steeper than the roof of a house&mdash;as perpendicular as can be
+imagined&mdash;but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
+continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
+But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
+certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
+customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
+excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
+among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy. In Christian
+England within the last century men where hanged for petty theft; but in
+Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;I do not know whether it is still current in other
+provinces&mdash;men have been known to be burnt to death for stealing maize.
+A case was reported from Ch'u-tsing-fu quite recently, but it is a
+custom which used to be quite common. A document is signed by the man's
+relatives, a stick is brought by every villager, the man lashed to a
+stake, and his own people are compelled to light the fire. It seems
+incredible, but this horrible practice has not been entirely extirpated
+by the authorities, although since the Y&uuml;n-nan Rebellion it has not been
+by any means so frequent. I have no space nor inclination to deal with
+the ghastly tortures inflicted upon prisoners in the name of that great
+equivalent to justice, but the more one knows of them the more can he
+appreciate the common adage urging <i>dead men to keep out of hell and the
+living out of the yamens</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Hua-chow is thirty li from here at the head of an abominable hill, and
+here women, overlooking one of the worst paved roads in the Empire, were
+beating out corn. Then we climbed for another twenty-five li, rising
+from 5,900 feet to 8,200 feet, till we came to a little place called
+Tien-chieng-p'u. It took us three hours. Looking backwards,towards
+Tali-fu, I saw my 14,000 feet friends, and as we went down the other
+side over a splendid stone road we could see, far down below, a valley
+which seemed a veritable oasis, smiling and sweet. A temple here
+contained a battered image of the Goddess of Mercy, who controls the
+births of children. A poor woman was depositing a few cash in front of
+the besmeared idol, imploring that she might be delivered of a son. How
+pitiable it is to see these poor creatures doing this sort of thing all
+over the West of China!</p>
+
+<p>For two days we had been accompanied by a man who was an opium smoker
+and eater. Now I am not going to draw a horrible description of a
+shrivelled, wasted bogey in man's form, with creaking bones and
+shivering limbs and all the rest of it; but I must say that this man,
+towards the time when his craving came upon him, was a wreck in every
+worst sense&mdash;he crept away to the wayside and smoked, and arrived always
+late at night at the end of the stage. This was the effect of the drug
+which has been described &quot;as harmless as milk.&quot; I do not exaggerate. In
+the course of Eastern journalistic experience I have written much in
+defence of opium, have paralleled it to the alcohol of my own country.
+This was in the Straits Settlements, where the deadly effects of opium
+are less prominent. But no language of mine can exaggerate the evil, and
+if I would be honest, I cannot describe it as anything but China's most
+awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more
+speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by
+arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold
+agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men
+who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about
+the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through
+this once fair land of Y&uuml;n-nan and see everywhere&mdash;not in isolated
+districts, but everywhere&mdash;the ravaging effects in the poverty and
+dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance
+of the opium trade. I have seen men transformed to beasts through its
+use; I have seen more suicides from the effect of opium since I have
+been in China than from any other cause in the course of my life. As I
+write I have around me painfullest evidence of the crudest ravishings of
+opium among a people who have fallen victims to the craving. There is
+only one opinion to be formed if to himself one would be true. I give
+the following quotation from a work from the pen of one of the most
+fair-minded diplomatists who have ever held office in China:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The writer has seen an able-bodied and apparently rugged laboring
+Chinese tumble all in a heap upon the ground, utterly nerveless and
+unable to stand, because the time for his dose of opium had come, and
+until the craving was supplied he was no longer a man, but the merest
+heap of bones and flesh. In the majority of cases death is the sure
+result of any determined reform. The poison has rotted the whole system,
+and no power to resist the simplest disease remains. In many years'
+residence in China the writer knew of but four men who finally abandoned
+the habit. (Where opium refuges have been conducted by missionaries,
+reports more favorable have been given concerning those who have become
+Christians.) Three of them lived but a few months thereafter; the fourth
+survived his reformation, but was a life-long invalid.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BA_53'></a><a href='#Footnote_BA_53'><sup>[BA]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Much good work is now being done by the missionaries, and the number of
+those who have given up the habit has probably increased since Mr.
+Holcombe wrote the above. In point of fact, helping opium victims is one
+of the most important branches of mission work.
+<i>China's Past and Future</i> (p. 165) by Chester Holcombe.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AY_51'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AY_51'>[AY]</a><div class='note'><p> The range of mountains which I had skirted since leaving
+Tali-fu.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AZ_52'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AZ_52'>[AZ]</a><div class='note'><p> On my return journey into Y&uuml;n-nan, I again called at
+Ch'u-tung, traveling not by the main road, but by a steep path
+intertwisting through almost impossible places, and requiring four times
+the amount of physical exertion. I was led over what was called a new
+road. It was quite impossible to horses carrying loads, and only by
+tremendous effort could I climb up. How my coolies managed it remains a
+mystery. And then, as is almost inevitable with these &quot;new&quot; roads and
+the &quot;short&quot; cuts, they invariably lose their way. Mine did. Hopeless was
+our obscurity, unspeakable our confusion. Men kept vanishing and
+re-appearing among the rocks, and it was very difficult to fix our
+position geographically. Up and up we went, in and out, twisting and
+turning in an endless climb. A gale blew, but at times we pulled
+ourselves up by the dried grass in semi-tropical heat. After several
+hours, standing on the very summit of this bleak and lofty mountain, I
+could just discern Ch'u-tung and Yung-p'ing-hsien far away down in the
+mists. There lay the &quot;ta lu&quot; also, like a piece of white ribbon
+stretched across black velvet&mdash;the white road on the burnt hill-sides.
+We were opposite the highest peaks in the mountains beyond the plain,
+far towards Tengyueh&mdash;they are 12,000 feet, we were at least 10,500
+feet, and as Ch'u-tung is only 5,500 feet, our hours of toil may be
+imagined. When we reached the top we found nothing to eat, nothing to
+drink (not even a mountain stream at which we could moisten our parched
+lips), simply two memorial stones on the graves of two dead men, who had
+merited such an outrageous resting-place. I donned a sweater and lay
+flat on the ground, exhausted. It must have been a stiff job to bring up
+both stones and men.
+</p><p>
+I strongly advise future travelers to keep to the main road in this
+district.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BA_53'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BA_53'>[BA]</a><div class='note'><p></p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FOURTH_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>FOURTH JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>The Valley of the Shadow of Death</i>. <i>Stages to Tengyueh</i>. <i>The River
+Mekong, Bridge described</i>. <i>An awful ascent</i>. <i>On-the-spot conclusions</i>.
+<i>Roads needed more than railways</i>. <i>At Shui-chai</i>. <i>A noisy domestic
+scene at the place where I fed</i>. <i>Disregard of the value of female
+life</i>. <i>Remarkable hospitality of the gentry of the city</i>. <i>Hard going</i>.
+<i>Lodging at a private house on the mountains</i>. <i>Waif of the world
+entertains the stranger</i>. <i>From Ban-chiao to Yung-ch'ang</i>. <i>Buffaloes
+and journalistic ignorance</i>. <i>Excited scene at Pu-piao</i>. <i>Chinese
+barbers</i>. <i>A refractory coolie</i>. <i>Military interest.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The journey which I was about to undertake was the most memorable of my
+travels in China, with the exception of those in the unexplored Miao
+Lands; for I was to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
+dreaded Salwen Valley. I had made up my mind that I would stay here for
+a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn
+intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the
+low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I
+know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my
+journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I
+had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might
+not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came
+in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new
+life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the
+present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of Stage</td><td align='center'>Height Above Sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Tali-shao</td><td align='center'>65 li.</td><td align='center'>7,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Yung-ch'ang-fu</td><td align='center'>75 li.</td><td align='center'>5,500 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Fang-ma-ch'ang</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>7,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Ta-hao-ti</td><td align='center'>120 li.</td><td align='center'>8,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Tengyueh (Momien)</td><td align='center'>85 li.</td><td align='center'>5,370 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the
+Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day,
+February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from
+where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path,
+has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000
+feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the
+middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between
+cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again
+immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging
+on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid
+masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of
+the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops
+and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving
+is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel
+branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting
+in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the
+side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a
+sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's
+patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in
+admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate
+excuse for a long delay.</p>
+
+<p>At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves
+for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.</p>
+
+<p>The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been
+said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow
+pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai (6,700 feet), and on again
+to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies
+a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this
+road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular
+steps, not even as regularity goes in China.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit
+down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend
+again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural
+rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
+smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
+spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
+made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
+were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
+twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
+impossible.... Mules are passing me&mdash;puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
+brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
+there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
+exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
+their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
+ascended. And I find again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
+incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
+and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
+Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
+way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The
+road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can
+get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which
+bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times,
+and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over
+the ravine.... Rocks overhang me as I pass. If one should drop!... But
+one does not mind the toil when he looks upon his men. In the midst of
+their intense labor my men's squeals of songs echo through the mountains
+as the perspiration runs down their uncovered backs; they chaff each
+other and utmost good feeling prevails. Poor Shanks is nearly done, but
+still laughs loudly.... A natural pathway more difficult of progress I
+cannot conceive anywhere in the world; and yet this is a so-called paved
+road, the road over which all the trade of the western part of this
+great province, all the imports from Burma, are regularly carried.
+Should the road ever be discarded, that is if the railway ever comes
+over this route, only a long tunnel through the mountain would serve its
+purpose.... We have just sat down and fraternized with the man carrying
+the mails to Tali-fu, and now we are working steadily for the top,
+around corners where the breeze comes with delicious freshness. Here we
+are on a road now leading through a widening gorge to Shui-chai, and as
+I cross the narrow pass I see the river down below looking like a snake
+waiting for its prey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Roads are needed far more than railways.</p>
+
+<p>Being hungry, we sat down at Shui-chai to feed on rice at a place where
+a man minded the baby while the woman attended to the food. Over my head
+hung sausages&mdash;my men swore that they were sausages, although for my
+life I could see no resemblance to that article of food&mdash;things of 1 1/2
+inches in circumference and from 12 to 60 inches long, doubled up and
+hung up for sale over a bamboo to dry and harden in the sun. Hams there
+were, and dried bacon, and dirty brown biscuits, and uninviting pickled
+cabbage. By the side of the table where I sat was a wooden pun of
+unwashed rice bowls, against which lay the filthy domestic dog.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the narrow street was lined to the farthest point of vantage by
+kindly people, curious to see their own feeding implements in the
+incapable hands of the barbarian from the Western lands, and the
+conversation waxed loud and excited in general hazards regarding my
+presence in their city.</p>
+
+<p>Stenches were rife; they nearly choked one.</p>
+
+<p>A little boy yelled out to his mother in complaint of the food he had
+been given by a feminine twelve-year-old, his sister. The mother
+immediately became furious beyond all control. She snatched a bamboo to
+belabor the girl, and in chasing her knocked over the pun of pots
+aforesaid. The place became a Bedlam. Men rose from their seats, and
+with their mouths full of rice expostulated in vainest mediation, waving
+their chopsticks in the air, and whilst the mother turned upon them in
+grossest abuse the daughter cleared out at the back of the premises. I
+left the irate parent brandishing the bamboo; her voice was heard beyond
+the town.</p>
+
+<p>But I was not allowed to leave the town. All the intellect of the place
+had assembled in one of the shops, into which I was gently drawn by the
+coat sleeve by a good-natured, well-dressed humpback, and all of the men
+assembled began an examination as to who the dignitary was, his
+honorable age, the number of the wives, sons and daughters he possessed,
+with inevitable questioning into the concerns of his patriarchal
+forbears. Accordingly I once again searched the archives of my elastic
+memory, and there found all information readily accessible, so that in
+a few moments, by the aid of Bailer's <i>Primer</i>, I had explained that I
+was a stranger within their gates, wafted thither by circumstances
+extraordinarily auspicious, and had satisfied them concerning my
+parentage, birthplace, prospects and pursuits, with introspective
+anecdotal references to various deceased members of my family tree. I
+did not tell them the truth&mdash;that I was a pilgrim from a far country,
+footsore and travel-soiled, that I had been well-nigh poisoned by their
+bad cooking and blistered with their bug-bites!</p>
+
+<p>I rose to go. Like automotons, everyone in the company rose with me. The
+humpback again caught me, this time by both hands, and warmly pressed me
+to stay and &quot;uan&quot; (&quot;play&quot;) a little. &quot;Great Brother,&quot; he ejaculated,
+&quot;why journeyest thou wearisomely towards Yung-ch'ang? Tarry here.&quot; And
+he had pushed me back again into my chair, he had re-filled my teacup,
+and invited me to tell more tales of antiquarian relationship. And
+finally I was allowed to go. Greater hospitality could not have been
+shown me anywhere in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The day had been hard going. We pursued our way unheedingly, as men
+knowing not whither we went; and at 4:00 p.m., fearing that we should
+not be able to make Ban-chiao, where we intended stopping, I decided to
+go no farther than Tali-shao. The evening was one of the happiest I
+spent in my journeys, although personal comfort was entirely lacking.
+The place is made up of just a few hovels; people were hostile, and
+turned a deaf ear to my men's entreaties for shelter. For very
+helplessness I laughed aloud. I screamed with laughter, and the folk
+gathered to see me almost in hysterics. They soon began to smile, then
+to laugh, and seeing the effect, I laughed still louder, and soon had
+the whole village with tears of laughter making furrows down their
+unwashed faces, laughing as a pack of hyenas. At last a kind old woman
+gave way to my boy's persuasions, beckoning us to follow her into a
+house. Here we found a young girl of about nine summers in charge. It
+was all rare fun. There was nothing to eat, and so the men went one here
+and another there buying supplies for the night. Another cleared out
+the room, and made it a little habitable. The bull-dog coolie cooked the
+rice, Shanks boiled eggs and cut up the pork into small slices, another
+fed the pony, and then we fed ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening a wood fire was kindled in the corner near my bed, and we
+all sat round on the mud floor&mdash;stools there were none&mdash;to tell yarns.
+My confederates were out for a spree. We smoked and drank tea and
+yarned. Suddenly a stick would be thrust over my shoulder to the fire:
+it was merely a man's pipe going to the fire for a light. Chinese never
+use matches; it is a waste when there are so many fires about. If on the
+road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it
+from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion.
+Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside
+food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted,
+poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as
+naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have
+a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull
+away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge.
+She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard
+man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little
+one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as
+she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act
+to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the
+money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed,
+explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that
+she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but
+the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable
+town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those
+who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates,
+such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at
+the end of the town.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in
+my life a man carrying a <i>cangue,</i> and a horrible, sickening feeling
+seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the
+poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were
+prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious
+to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless
+fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the
+pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.</p>
+
+<p>Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt
+that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in
+merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might
+fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude
+seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.</p>
+
+<p>Yung-ch'ang (5,500 feet) is as well known as any city in Far Western
+China. I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element
+being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her
+son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time
+taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a
+miserable existence.</p>
+
+<p>On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me,
+ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and
+two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I
+have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always
+treated me well.</p>
+
+<p>Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up
+again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with
+nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and
+other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the
+foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I
+got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade
+effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude
+hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks
+along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side
+to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding. To the
+Chinese the buffalo is the safest of all quadrupeds, if we perhaps
+except the mule, which, if three legs give way, will save himself on the
+remaining one. But it is certainly the slowest. I am here reminded that
+when I was starting on this trip a journalistic friend of mine, who had
+spent some years in one of the coast ports, tried to dissuade me from
+coming, and cited the buffalo as the most treacherous animal to be met
+on the main road in China. He put it in this way:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, old man, you have evidently made up your mind, but I would not
+take it on at any price. The buffaloes are terrors. They smell you even
+if they do not see you; they smell you miles off. It may end up by your
+being chased, and you will probably be gored to death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The buffalo is the most peaceful animal I know in China. Miniature
+belfries were attached to the wooden frames on the backs of carrying
+oxen, and were it not for the huge tenor bell and its gong-like sound
+keeping the animal in motion, the slow pace would be slower still.</p>
+
+<p>Turning suddenly and abruptly to the left, we commenced a cold journey
+over the mountains, although the sun was shining brightly. A goitrous
+man came to me and waxed eloquent about some uncontrollable pig which
+was dragging him all over the roadway as he vainly tried to get it to
+market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their
+shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at
+me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for
+three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I
+found that we had covered only twenty li&mdash;so we were told by an old
+fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in
+what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his
+condemnation of foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>Leng-shui-ch'ang we passed at thirty-five li out, and just beyond the
+aneroid registered 7,000 feet; Yung-ch'ang Plain is 5,500 feet; Pu-piao
+Plain-is 4,500 feet. The range of hills dividing the two plains was
+bare, the clouds hung low, and the keen wind whistled in our faces and
+nipped our ears. Ten li from Pu-piao, on a barren upland overlooking the
+valley, a mere boy had established himself as tea provider for the
+traveler. A foreign kerosene tin placed on three stones was the general
+cistern for boiling water, which was dipped out and handed round in a
+slip of bamboo shaped like a mug with a stick to hold it by. Farther on,
+sugar-cane grew in a field to the left, and near by a man sat on his
+haunches on the ground feeding a sugar-grinding machine propelled by a
+buffalo, who patiently tramped round that small circle all day and every
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Turning from this, I beheld one of the worst sights I have ever seen in
+China. Seven dogs were dragging a corpse from a coffin, barely covered
+with earth, which formed one of the grave mounds which skirt the road.
+No one was disturbed by the scene; it was not uncommon. But the
+foreigner suffered an agonizing sickness, for which his companions would
+have been at a loss to find any possible reason, and was relieved to
+reach Pu-piao.</p>
+
+<p>Market was at its height. It was warm down here in the valley. The
+streets were packed with people, many of whom were pushed bodily into
+the piles of common foreign and native merchandise on sale on either
+side of the road. A clodhopper of a fellow, jostled by my escort, fell
+into a stall and broke the huge umbrella which formed a shelter for the
+vendor and his goods, and my boy was called upon to pay. Fifty cash
+fixed the matter. I walked into a crowded inn and made majestically for
+the extreme left-hand corner. Everybody wondered, and softly asked his
+neighbor what in the sacred name of Confucius had come upon them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See his boots! Look at his old hat! What a face! It <i>is</i> a monstrosity,
+and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But as I sat down the general of the establishment cruelly forced back
+the people, and screamingly yelled at the top of his voice that those
+who wanted to drink tea in the room must pay double rates. His unusual
+announcement was received with a low grunt of dissatisfaction, but no
+one left. Every table in the square apartment was soon filled with six
+or eight men, and the noise was terrific. Curiosity increased. The fun
+was, as the comic papers say, fast and furious; and despite the
+ill-favored pleasantries passed by my own men and the inquisitive
+tea-shop keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy
+members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two
+soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain
+the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the
+weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to
+get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally shook dust into my food.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone pushed to where there was standing room. Outside a rolling sea
+of yellow faces surmounted a mass of lively blue cotton, all eager for a
+look. The din was terrible. All very visibly annoyed were my men at the
+rudeness of their low-bred fellow countrymen, and especially surprised
+at the equanimity of Ding Daren in tolerating quietly their pointed and
+personal remarks. I became more and more the hero of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the crowd as I came out, I smiled serenely, and with a quiet
+wave of the hand pointed out in faultless English that the gulf between
+my own country and theirs was already wide enough, and that Great
+Britain might&mdash;did not say that she <i>would</i>, but might&mdash;widen it still
+more if they persisted in treating her subjects in China as monstrous
+specimens of the human race. This was rigorously corroborated by my two
+soldier-men, to whom I appealed, and a parting word on the ordinary
+politeness of Western nations to a greasy fellow (he was a worker in
+brass), who felt my clothes with his dirty fingers, ended an interesting
+break in the day's monotony. In the street the crowd again was at my
+heels, and evinced more than comfortable curiosity in my straw sandals.
+They cost me thirty cash, equal to about a halfpenny in our coinage.</p>
+
+<p>Since then I have paid other visits to Pu-piao. On one occasion in
+subsequent travel I had a public shave there. My arrival at the inn in
+the nick of time enabled me to buttonhole the barber who was picking up
+his traps to clear, and I had one of the best shaves I have ever had in
+my life, in one of the most uncomfortable positions I ever remember. My
+seat was a low, narrow form with no back or anything for my neck to rest
+upon, and afterwards I went through the primitive and painful massage
+process of being bumped all over the back. Between every four or five
+whacks the barber snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and right
+glad was I when he had finished. The yard was full, even to the stable
+and cook-house alongside each other, the anger of a grizzly old dame,
+who smoked a reeking pipe and who had charge of the rice-and-cabbage
+depot, being eclipsed only by my infuriated barber as he gave cruel vent
+to his anger upon my aching back.</p>
+
+<p>This reminds me of an uncomfortable shave I had some ten years ago in
+Trinidad, where a black man sat me on the trunk of a tree whilst he got
+behind and rested my head on one knee and got to work with an implement
+which might have made a decent putty knife, but was never meant to cut
+whiskers. However, in the case of the Chinese his knife was in fair
+condition, but he grunted a good deal over my four-days' growth.</p>
+
+<p>This little story should not convey the impression that I am an advocate
+of the public shave in China, or anywhere else; but there are times when
+one is glad of it. I have been shaved by Chinese in many places; and
+whilst resident at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu with a broken arm a man came regularly to
+me, his shave sometimes being delightful, and&mdash;sometimes not.</p>
+
+<p>I had another rather amusing experience at Pu-piao about a month after
+this. A supplementary coolie had been engaged for me at Tengyueh at a
+somewhat bigger wage than my other men were getting, and this, known, of
+course, to them, added to the fact that he was not carrying the heaviest
+load, did not tend to produce unmarred brotherhood among them. The man
+had been told that he would go on to Tali-fu with me on my return trip,
+so that when I took the part of my men (who had come many hundreds of
+miles with me, and who had engaged another man on the route to fill the
+gap), in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his
+side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that
+place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there
+to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready
+to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his
+disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother,
+in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As
+soon as I learnt this&mdash;I was standing near the fellow&mdash;he somehow fell
+over, sprawling to the floor over my walnut folding chair, which snapped
+at the arm. It was my doing. The man said no more, picked up his loads,
+and was the first to arrive at Yung-ch'ang, so that a little force was
+not ineffective.</p>
+
+<p>Indiscriminate use of force I do not advocate, however; I believe in the
+reverse, as a matter of fact. I rarely hit a man; but there have been
+occasions when, a man having refused to do what he has engaged to do, or
+in cases of downright insolence, a little push or a slight cut with my
+stick has brought about a capital feeling and gained for me immediate
+respect.</p>
+
+<p>Fang-ma-ch'ang, off the main road, was our sleeping-place. Travelers
+rarely take this road. Gill took it, I believe, but Baber, Davies and
+other took the main road. This short road was more fatiguing than the
+main road would have been.</p>
+
+<p>We again turned a dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first
+wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway,
+took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people
+calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the door, and
+to catch a glimpse of me as I lay resting, the inhabitants, in much the
+same manner as people at home visit and revisit the cage of jungle-bred
+tigers at a menagerie, assembled and reassembled with considerable
+confusion. But I was beneath my curtains. So they came again, and when I
+ate my food by candlelight many human and tangible products of the past
+glared in at the doorway. After dark we all foregathered in the middle
+of the room and round the camp fire, the conversation taking a pleasant
+turn from ordinary things, such as the varying distances from place to
+place, how many basins of rice each man could eat, and other Chinese
+commonplaces, to things military. Everybody warmed to the subject. My
+military bodyguard were the chief speakers, and cleverly brought round
+the smoky fire, for the benefit of the thick-headed rustics who made up
+the fascinated audience, a modern battlefield, and made their
+description horrible enough.</p>
+
+<p>One carefully brought out his gun, waving it overhead to add to the
+tragedy, as he weaved a powerful story of shell splinters, blood-filled
+trenches, common shot, men and horses out of which all life and virtue
+had been blown by gunpowder. The picture was drawn around the Chinese
+village, and in the dim glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his
+own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all
+blown to atoms&mdash;left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great
+and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by
+the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and
+the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had
+heard, afraid to go to their straw to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>As I lay in my draughty corner, my own mind turned to what the next day
+would bring, for I was to go down to the Valley of the Shadow of
+Death&mdash;the dreaded Salwen. I had read of it as a veritable death-trap.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>To Lu-chiang-pa</i>. <i>Drop from 8,000 feet to 2,000 feet</i>. <i>Shans meet for
+the first time</i>. <i>Dangers of the Salwen Valley exaggerated</i>. <i>How
+reports get into print</i>. <i>Start of the climb from 2,000 feet to over
+8,000 feet</i>. <i>Scenery in the valley</i>. <i>Queer quintet of soldiers</i>.
+<i>Semi-tropical temperature</i>. <i>My men fall to the ground exhausted</i>. <i>A
+fatiguing day</i>. <i>Benighted in the forest</i>. <i>Spend the night in a hut</i>.
+<i>Strong drink as it affects the Chinese</i>. <i>Embarrassing attentions of a
+kindly couple</i>. <i>New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai</i>. <i>The Shweli
+River and watershed</i>. <i>Magnificent range of mountains</i>. <i>Arrival at
+Tengyueh.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
+soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
+consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
+why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.</p>
+
+<p>And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
+about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
+information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
+for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
+but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
+the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
+very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
+found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
+low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.</p>
+
+<p>A good deal of the country to the north of the Y&uuml;n-nan province, towards
+the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Y&uuml;n-nanese
+Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
+so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
+from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
+Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
+inhabitant&mdash;that is, Chinese&mdash;strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
+10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
+March and November if he can.</p>
+
+<p>To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
+highest point at nearly 9,000 feet&mdash;140 li distant from
+Fang-ma-ch'ang&mdash;was our ambition for the day.</p>
+
+<p>Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
+leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
+the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
+to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
+country was bare, desolate, lonely&mdash;four people only were met over the
+entire distance. But in the dreaded Valley several trees were ablaze
+with blossom, and oranges shone like small balls of gold in the rising
+sun. Children playing in between the trees ran away and hid as they saw
+me, although I was fifty yards from them&mdash;they did not know what it was,
+and they had never seen one!</p>
+
+<p>Farther down I caught up my men, Lao Chang and Shanks, and pleasant
+speculations were entered into as to what Singai (Bhamo) was like. They
+were particularly interested in Singapore because I had lived there, and
+after I had given them a general description of the place, and explained
+how the Chinese had gone ahead there, I pointed out as well as I could
+with my limited vocabulary that if the people of Y&uuml;n-nan only had a
+conscience, and would only get out of the rut of the ages, they, too,
+might go ahead, explaining incidentally to them that as lights of the
+church at Tong-ch'uan-fu, it was their sacred duty to raise the standard
+of moral living among their countrymen wherever they might wander. Their
+general acquiescence was astounding, and in the next town,
+Lu-chiang-pa, these two men put their theory into practice and almost
+caused a riot by offering 250 cash for a fowl for which the vendor
+blandly asked 1,000. But they got the chicken&mdash;and at their own price,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>As I was thus gently in soliloquy, I first heard and then caught sight
+of the river below&mdash;the unnavigable Salwen, 2,000 feet lower than either
+the Mekong or the Shweli (which we were to cross two days later). It is
+a pity the Salwen was not preserved as the boundary between Burma and
+China.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, as we approached the steep stone steps leading down thereto,
+I saw one of the cleverest pieces of native engineering in Asia&mdash;the
+double suspension bridge which here spans the Salwen, the only one I had
+seen in my trip across the Empire. The first span, some 240 feet by 36
+feet, reaches from the natural rock, down which a vertical path zigzags
+to the foot, and the second span then runs over to the busy little town
+of Lu-chiang-pa.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, were we in the most dreaded spot in Western China! If you
+stay a night in this Valley, rumor says, you go to bed for the last
+time; Chinese are afraid of it, Europeans dare not linger in it. Malaria
+stalks abroad for her victims, and snatches everyone who dallies in his
+journey to the topside mountain village of Feng-shui-ling. The river is
+2,000 feet above the sea; Feng-shui-ling is nearly 9,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock as I pulled over my stool and took tea in the crowded
+shop at Lu-chiang-pa. I saw Shans here for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>The village now, however, is anything but a Shan village. Of the people
+in the immediate vicinity I counted only ten typical Shans, and of the
+company around me in this popular tea-house twenty-one out of
+twenty-eight were Chinese, including ten Mohammedans. It was, however,
+easy to see that several of these were of Shan extraction, who,
+although they had features distinctly un-Chinese, had adopted the
+Chinese language and custom. A party of Tibetans were here in the charge
+of a Lama, in an inner court, and scampered off as I rose to snap their
+photographs. This was a very low altitude for Tibetans to reach.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst I sipped my tea the local horse dealer wanted so very much to
+sell me a pony cheap. He offered it for forty taels, I offered him five.
+It was gone in the back, was blind in the left eye, and was at least
+seventeen years old. The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
+that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
+to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
+their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
+Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
+provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
+one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
+with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
+me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
+passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
+great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
+streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
+facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
+All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
+of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.</p>
+
+<p>We were now a party of nine&mdash;my own three men, an extra coolie I had
+engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
+and the paymaster of the crowd. We still had ninety li to cover, so that
+when we left the shade of two immense trees which sheltered me and my
+perspiring men, one of the soldiers agreed that everyone had to clear
+from our path. We brooked no interception until we reached the entrance
+to the climb, where I met two Europeans, of the Customs staff at
+Tengyueh, who had come down here to camp out for the Chinese New Year
+Holiday. I knew that these men were not Englishmen. I was so thirsty,
+and the best they could do was to keep a man talking in the sun outside
+their well-equipped tent. How I <i>could</i> have done with a drink!</p>
+
+<p>A tributary of the Salwen flows down the ravine. Too terrible a climb to
+the top was it for me to take notes. I got too tired. Everything was
+magnificently green, and Nature's reproduction seemed to be going on
+whilst one gazed upon her. But the natural glories of this beautiful
+gorge, with a dainty touch of the tropical mingling with the mighty
+aspect of jungle forest, with glistening cascades and rippling streams,
+where all was bountiful and exquisitely beautiful, failed to hold one
+spellbound. For since I had left Tali-fu I had rarely been out of sight
+of some of the best scenery on earth. Yet vegetation was very different
+to that which we had been passing. There were now banyans, palms,
+plantains, and many ferns, trees and shrubs and other products of warmer
+climates, which one found in Burma. What impressed me farther up was the
+marvelous growth of bamboos, some rising 120 feet and 130 feet at the
+bend, in their various tints of green looking like delicate feathers
+against the haze of the sky-line, upon which houses built of bamboo from
+floor to roof seemed temporarily perched whilst others seemed to be
+tumbling down into the valley. This spot was the nearest approach to
+real jungle I had seen in China; but Whilst we were climbing laboriously
+through this densely-covered country, over opposite&mdash;it seemed no more
+than a stone's throw&mdash;the hills were almost bare, save for the isolated
+cultivation of the peasantry at the base. But then came a division,
+appearing suddenly to view farther along around a bend, and I saw a
+continuation of the range, rising even higher, and with a tree growth
+even more magnificent, denser and darker still.</p>
+
+<p>Here I came upon a party of soldiers with foreign military peak caps on
+their heads, which they wore outside over their Chinese caps. In fact,
+the only two other garments besides these Chinese caps were the
+distinguishing marks of the military. Coats they had, but they had been
+discarded at the foot of the climb, rolled into one bundle, and tied
+together with a piece of ribbon generally worn by the carrier to keep
+his trousers tight. We were now in summer heat, and this military
+quintet made a peculiar sight in dusty trousers, peak caps and straw
+sandals, with the perspiration streaming freely down their naked backs
+as they plodded upwards under a pitiless sun. Thus were they clad when I
+met them; but catching sight of my distinguished person, mistaking me
+for a &quot;gwan,&quot; they immediately made a rush for the man carrying the
+tunics, to clothe themselves for my presence with seemly respectability.
+But a word from my boy put their minds at rest (my own military were far
+in the rear). A couple of them then came forward to me sniggeringly,
+satisfied that they were not to be reported to Peking or wherever their
+commander-in-chief may have his residence&mdash;they probably had no more
+idea than I had.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of a roaring waterfall, in a spot which looked a very
+fairyland in surroundings of reproductive green, we all sat down to
+rest. The air was cool and the path was damp, and water tumbling
+everywhere down from the rocks formed pretty cascades and rivulets. We
+heard the clang of the hatchets, and soon came upon men felling timber
+and sawing up trees into coffin boards. We were in the Valley of the
+Shadow, and it was the finest coffin center of the district. I took my
+boots off to wade through water which overran the pathway, and just
+beyond my men, exhausted with their awful toil, lay flat on their backs
+to rest; they were dead beat. One pointed up to the perpendicular cliff,
+momentarily closed his eyes and looked at me in disgust. I gently
+remonstrated. It was not my country, I told him; it was the &quot;Emperor's.&quot;
+And after a time we reached the top.</p>
+
+<p>Shadows were lengthening. In the distance we saw the mountains upon
+which we had spent the previous night, whose tops were gilded by the
+setting sun. Down below all was already dark. A cold wind blew the trees
+bending wearily towards the Valley.</p>
+
+<p>And still we plodded on.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We had come to Siao-p'ing-ho, 115 li instead of the 140 I had been led
+to believe my men would cover. Every room in the hut was full, we were
+told, but the next place (with some unpronounceable name), fifteen li
+farther down, would give us good housing for the night. Lao Chang and I
+resolved to go on, tired though we were. Before I resolved on this plan
+I stopped to take a careful survey of the exact situation of the
+sheltering hollow in which we meant to pass the night. The sun was fast
+sinking; the dust of the road lay grey and thick about my feet; above me
+the heavens were reddening in sunset glory; the landscape had no touch
+of human life about it save our own two solitary figures; and the place,
+fifteen li away, lay before me as a dream of a good night rather than a
+reality.</p>
+
+<p>Then on again we plodded, and yelled our intentions to the men behind.</p>
+
+<p>From the brow of the hill we descended with extreme rapidity&mdash;down, down
+into a valley which sent up a damp, oppressive atmosphere. Through the
+trees I could see one lovely ball of deep, rich red, painting the earth
+as it sank in a beauty exquisite beyond all else. Four men met us,
+stared suspiciously, thought we were deaf, and yelled that the place was
+twenty li away, and that we had better return to the brow of the hill.
+But we left them, and went still farther down. In the hush that
+prevailed I was unaccountably startled to see the form of a woman
+gliding towards me in the twilight. She came out of the valley carrying
+firewood. She spoke kindly to my man, and invited me to spend the night
+in her house near by.</p>
+
+<p>I was for the moment vaguely awed by her very quiescence, and gazed
+wondering, doubting, bewildered. What was the little trick? Could I not
+from such things get free, even in Inland China? The red light of the
+sunken sun playing round her comely figure dazzled me, it is admitted,
+and I followed her with a sigh of mingled dread and desire for rest.
+Shall I say the shadow of the smile upon her lips deepened and softened
+with an infinite compassion?</p>
+
+<p>Dogs rounded upon me as I entered the bamboo hut stuck on the side of
+the hill&mdash;they knew I had no right there. Inside a man was nursing a
+squalling baby; our escort was its mother, the man her husband. So I was
+safe. The place was swept up, unnecessary gear was taken away, fire was
+kindled, tea was brewed, rice was prepared; and whilst in shaving (for
+we were to reach Tengyueh on the morrow) I dodged here and there to
+escape the smoke and get the most light, giving my hospitable host a
+good deal of fun in so doing; every possible preparation was made for my
+comfort and convenience by the untiring woman at whose invitation I was
+there. Their attentions embarrassed me; every movement, every look,
+every gesture, every wish was anticipated, so that I had no more
+discomfort than a roaring wind and a low temperature about the region
+which no one could help. It was bitterly cold. In front of the fire I
+sat in an overcoat among the crowd drinking tea, whilst the soldiers
+drank wine&mdash;they bought five cash worth. Had my lamp oil run out, I
+should have bought liquor and tried to burn it instead. Soon the spirit
+began to talk, and these braves of the Chinese army got on terms of
+freest familiarity, telling me what an all-round excellent fellow I was,
+and how pleased they were that I had to suffer as well as they. But they
+never forgot themselves, and I allowed them to wander on uncontradicted
+and unrestrained. After a weary night of tossing in my p'ukai, with a
+roaring gale blowing through the latticed bamboo, behind which I lay so
+poorly sheltered, we started in good spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800 feet), February
+9th, 1910, New Year's morning. Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the
+people said, &quot;Puh mai, puh mai,&quot; and although we had traveled the
+twenty-five li over a terrible road, with a fearful gradient at the end,
+we could not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly against the
+Chinese custom to sell anything at New Year time, of course. We had to
+boil our own water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than usual
+gathered around me because of the general holiday; and as I write now I
+am seated in my folding-chair with all the reprobates near to me&mdash;men
+gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses combing their
+hair and nursing their babies, the beggars with their poles and bowls,
+numberless urchins, all open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
+crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before had come on
+ahead to book rooms in the place. I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another
+occasion. Then I found a good room, but later learned that it was a
+horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by fifty-nine pack animals
+with their loads. Pegs were as usual driven into the ground in parallel
+rows, a pair of ponies being tied to each&mdash;not by the head, but by the
+feet, a nine-inch length of rope being attached to the off foreleg of
+one and the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each other in
+rows, and eating from a common supply in the center. Everyone in the
+small town was busy doing and driving, very anxious that I should be
+made comfortable, which might have been the case but for some untiring
+musician who was traveling with the caravan, and seemed to be one of
+that species of humankind who never sleeps. His notes, however, were
+fairly in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one knows that
+he has to be again on the move by five, even first-rate Chinese music is
+apt to be somewhat disturbing.</p>
+
+<p>From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view of the mountains I
+had crossed yesterday. Some ten miles or so to the north was the highest
+peak in the range&mdash;Kao-li-kung I think it is called&mdash;conical-shaped and
+clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high, so far as I could
+judge.</p>
+
+<p>An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed here a day only, Mr.
+Embery, of the China Inland Mission, a countryman of my own, kindly
+putting me up. But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in the
+province, is well known. It is only a small town, however, and one was
+surprised to find it as conservative a town as could be found anywhere
+in the province, despite the fact that foreigners have been here for
+many years, and at the present time there are no less than seven
+Europeans here.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad of a rest here. From Tali-fu had been most fatiguing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h4>THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY</h4>
+
+<p><i>Travel up the Salwen Valley</i>. <i>My motive for travelling and how I
+travel</i>. <i>Valley not a death-trap</i>. <i>Meet the Li-su</i>. <i>Buddhistic
+beliefs</i>. <i>Late Mr. G. Litton as a traveler</i>. <i>Resemblance in religion
+to Kachins</i>. <i>Ghost of ancestral spirits</i>. <i>Li-su graves</i>. <i>Description
+of the people</i>. <i>Racial differences</i>. <i>John the Baptist's hardship</i>.
+<i>The cross-bow and author's previous experience</i>. <i>Plans for subsequent
+travel fall through</i>. <i>Mission work among the Li-su</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>On my return journey into Y&uuml;n-nan, I stopped at Lu-chiang-pa,<a name='FNanchor_BB_54'></a><a href='#Footnote_BB_54'><sup>[BB]</sup></a> and
+left my men at the inn there while I traveled for two days along the
+Salwen Valley. My journey was taken with no other motive than that of
+seeing the country, and also to test the accuracy of the reports
+respecting the general unhealthy nature of this valley of the Shadow of
+Death. The people here were friendly, despite the fact that my route was
+always far away from the main road; and although my entire kit was a
+single traveling-rug for the nights, I was able to get all I wanted. Lao
+Chang accompanied me, and together we had an excellent time.</p>
+
+<p>I might as well say first of all that the idea of this part of the
+Salwen Valley being what people say it is in the matter of a death-trap
+is absolutely false. With the exception of the early morning mist common
+in every low-lying region in hot countries, there was, so far as I could
+see, nothing to fear.</p>
+
+<p>During the second day, through beautiful country in beautiful weather, I
+came across some people who I presumed were Li-su, and I regretted that
+my films had all been exposed. The Li-su tribe is undoubtedly an
+offshoot from the people who inhabit south-eastern Tibet, although none
+of them anywhere in Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;and they are found in many places in
+central and eastern Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;bear any traces of Buddhistic belief, which
+is universal, of course, in Tibet. The late Mr. G. Litton, who at the
+time he was acting as British Consul at Tengyueh traveled somewhat
+extensively among them, says that their religious practices closely
+resemble those of the Kachins, who believe in numerous &quot;nats&quot; or spirits
+which cause various calamities, such as failure of crops and physical
+ailments, unless propitiated in a suitable manner. According to him, the
+most important spirit is the ancestral ghost. Li-su graves are generally
+in the fields near the villages, and over them is put the cross-bow,
+rice-bags and other articles used by the deceased. &quot;It is probably from
+foundations such as these,&quot; writes Mr. George Forrest, who accompanied
+Mr. Litton on an excursion to the Upper Salwen, and who wrote up the
+journey after the death of his companion, &quot;that the fabric of Chinese
+ancestor worship was constructed,&quot; a view which I doubt very much
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I am of the opinion that the Li-su may be closely allied to the Lolo or
+the Nou Su, of whom I have spoken in the chapters in Book I dealing with
+the tribes around Chao-t'ong. And even the Miao bear a distinct racial
+resemblance. They are of bony physique, high cheek bones, and their skin
+is nearly of the same almost sepia color. The Li-su form practically the
+whole of the population of the Upper Salwen Valley from about lat. 25&deg;
+30' to 27&deg; 30', and they have spread in considerable numbers along the
+mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and are found also in the
+Shan States. Those on the Upper Salwen in the extreme north are utter
+savages, but where they have become more or less civilized have shown
+themselves to be an enterprising race in the way of emigration. Of the
+savages, the villages are almost always at war with one another, and
+many have never been farther from their huts than a day's march will
+take them, the chief object of their lives being apparently to keep
+their neighbors at a distance. They are exceedingly lazy. They spend
+their lives doing as little in the way of work as they must, eating,
+drinking, squatting about round the hearth telling stories of their
+valor with the cross-bow, and their excitement is provided by an
+occasional expedition to get wood for their cross-bows and poison for
+their arrows, or a stock of salt and wild honey.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Forrest, in his paper which was read before the Royal Geographical
+Society in June, 1908, speaks of this wild honey as an agreeable
+sweetmeat as a change, but that after a few days' constant partaking of
+it the European palate rejects it as nauseous and almost disgusting, and
+adds that it has escaped the Biblical commentators that one of the
+principal hardships which John the Baptist must have undergone was his
+diet of wild honey. In another part of his paper the writer says,
+speaking of the cross-bow to which I have referred: &quot;Every Li-su with
+any pretensions to <i>chic</i> possesses at least one of these weapons&mdash;one
+for everyday use in hunting, the other for war. The children play with
+miniature cross-bows. The men never leave their huts for any purpose
+without their cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung
+over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The
+largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of
+thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild
+mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet
+long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of
+plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
+inches, is of split bamboo, about four times the thickness of an
+ordinary knitting needle, hardened and pointed. The actual point is bare
+for a quarter to one-third of an inch, then for fully an inch the arrow
+is stripped to half its thickness, and on this portion the poison is
+placed. The poison used is invariably a decoction expressed from the
+tubers of a species of <i>aconitum</i>, which grows on those ranges at an
+altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet ... The reduction in thickness of the
+arrow where the poison is placed causes the point to break off in the
+body of anyone whom it strikes, and as each carries enough poison to
+kill a cart horse a wound is invariably fatal. Free and immediate
+incision is the usual remedy when wounded on a limb or fleshy part of
+the body.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BC_55'></a><a href='#Footnote_BC_55'><sup>[BC]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Some time after I was traveling in these regions I made arrangements to
+visit the mission station of the China Inland Mission, some days from
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, where a special work has recently been formed among the
+Li-su tribe. Owing to a later arrival at the capital than I had
+expected, however, I could not keep my appointment, and as there were
+reports of trouble in that area the British Consul-General did not wish
+me to travel off the main road. It is highly encouraging to learn that a
+magnificent missionary work is being done among the Li-su, all the more
+gratifying because of the enormous difficulties which have already been
+overcome by the pioneering workers. At least one European, if not more,
+has mastered the language, and the China Inland Mission are expecting
+great things to eventuate. It is only by long and continued residence
+among these peoples, throwing in one's lot with them and living their
+life, that any absolutely reliable data regarding them will be
+forthcoming. And this so few, of course, are able to do.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BB_54'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BB_54'>[BB]</a><div class='note'><p> The town by the double suspension bridge over the Salwen.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BC_55'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BC_55'>[BC]</a><div class='note'><p> The poisoned arrows and the cross-bow are used also by the
+Miao, and the author has seen very much the same thing among the Sakai
+of the Malay Peninsula.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIFTH_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>FIFTH JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Last stages of long journey</i>. <i>Characteristics of the country</i>. <i>Sham
+and Kachins</i>. <i>Author's dream of civilization</i>. <i>British pride</i>. <i>End of
+paved roads</i>. <i>Mountains cease</i>. <i>A confession of foiled plans</i>.
+<i>Nantien as a questionable fort</i>. <i>About the Shans</i>. <i>Village squabble,
+and how it ended</i>. <i>Absence of disagreement in Shan language</i>. <i>Charming
+people, but lazy</i>. <i>Experience with Shan servant</i>. <i>At Chiu-Ch'eng</i>.
+<i>New Year festivities</i>. <i>After-dinner diversions</i>. <i>Author as a medico</i>.
+<i>Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which
+makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens
+the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing
+characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.</p>
+
+<p>By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long
+walking journey:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of Stage</td><td align='center'>Height Above Sea</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Nantien</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>5,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Chiu-Ch'eng(Kang-gnai)</td><td align='center'>80 li.</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Hsiao Singai</td><td align='center'>60 li.</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Many&uuml;en</td><td align='center'>60 li.</td><td align='center'>2,750 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Pa-chiao-chai</td><td align='center' rowspan=3>Approx. 55<br />English<br />miles.</td><td align='center'>1,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Mao-tsao-ti</td><td align='center'>650 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8th day&mdash;Bhamo (Singai)</td><td align='center'>350 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn
+to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is
+therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march
+from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers
+to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any
+other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman,
+daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going
+for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the
+dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving
+Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible
+patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the
+Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The
+benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and
+have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and
+accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to
+be able fully to realize what the luxurious d&acirc;k-bungalows, with their
+excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.</p>
+
+<p>Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
+Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and
+constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no
+hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps
+of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical
+jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the
+knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well
+had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I
+should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
+For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China
+Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the
+opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode
+a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with
+such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the
+language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you
+would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and
+rode to Chiu-Ch'eng&mdash;two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest
+under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry
+indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not to be for long.</p>
+
+<p>Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward
+military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is
+populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now
+live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some
+tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the
+man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them,
+especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow
+complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less
+distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton
+turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables
+one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built
+and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy,
+healthy set of people.</p>
+
+<p>Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble
+outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to
+prove the rule.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize
+that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men,
+and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who
+looked on had a few words to say to these &quot;Pai Yi&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BD_56'></a><a href='#Footnote_BD_56'><sup>[BD]</sup></a> on the futility of
+these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a
+foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the
+whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my
+infallible &quot;Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong&quot; (I don't understand, I
+don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the
+Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with
+every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could
+not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the
+dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with
+me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower
+of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a
+boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the
+infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I
+gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped,
+expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could
+I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness
+of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and
+laughed, too. I yelled &quot;Ts'eo,&quot; and we proceeded, leaving the Shans
+again at peace with all the world.</p>
+
+<p>Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the
+borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in
+all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Y&uuml;n-nan tribesman in
+that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the
+Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to
+Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the
+whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the
+same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a
+Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry
+on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of,
+hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred
+years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have
+had no real political or commercial relation with each other.<a name='FNanchor_BE_57'></a><a href='#Footnote_BE_57'><sup>[BE]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating
+strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they
+are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found
+varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an
+exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
+In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese&mdash;notably in the
+preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for
+the general benefit of future travelers. <i>Never expect a Shan to work
+hard!</i> He <i>can</i> work hard, and he will&mdash;when he likes, but I do not
+believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther
+south, is lazier.</p>
+
+<p>As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose
+Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a
+man to come. &quot;Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored.&quot; And the
+European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should
+want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be
+to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on
+the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a
+large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to
+work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters
+still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he
+objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could
+not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at
+1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He
+left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery,
+and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he
+would require as salary, he replied, &quot;Oh, give me a rupee every market
+day, and that'll do me.&quot; The person was not in service when market day
+rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of
+this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as
+I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.</p>
+
+<p>I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to
+career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous
+indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the
+village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility
+led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several
+women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the
+village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed
+through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway,
+primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo
+baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy,
+old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers
+of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of
+wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three
+old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and
+last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up,
+an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New
+Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of
+gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his
+very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with
+mine host and his six sons.</p>
+
+<p>Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air&mdash;the
+tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the
+hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace&mdash;Shan almost
+to a man&mdash;were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the
+gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were
+several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed
+away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to
+harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.</p>
+
+<p>My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.</p>
+
+<p>There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed
+by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught
+sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that
+even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a
+long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke,
+then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way
+to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to
+close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man.
+Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the
+family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own
+tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole
+gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all.
+There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged
+couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed,
+on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies,
+seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly.
+The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off
+gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot
+motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one
+another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily
+intensified. The husband of one of the women&mdash;a miserable, emaciated
+specimen for a Shan&mdash;came forward, asking whether I could cure his
+disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body
+was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese
+paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of
+black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing
+it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings,
+whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the
+door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
+towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
+doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
+cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
+attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
+known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
+and make them better; but never a word of thanks&mdash;not even the mere
+pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BD_56'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BD_56'>[BD]</a><div class='note'><p> The Chinese name for the Shan.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BE_57'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BE_57'>[BE]</a><div class='note'><p> Vide <i>Y&uuml;n-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,</i> by
+Major H.R. Davies.&mdash;Cambridge University Press.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Two days from Burma</i>. <i>Tropical wildness induces ennui</i>. <i>The River
+Taping</i>. <i>At Hsiao Singai</i>. <i>Possibility of West China as a holiday
+resort from Burma</i>. <i>Fascination of the country</i>. <i>Many&uuml;en reached with
+difficulty</i>. <i>The Kachins</i>. <i>Good work of the American Baptist Mission</i>.
+<i>Mr. Roberts</i>. <i>Arrival at borderland of Burma</i>. <i>Last dealings with
+Chinese officials</i>. <i>British territory</i>. <i>Thoughts on the trend of
+progress in China</i>. <i>Beautiful Burma</i>. <i>End of long journey.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>I was now two days' march from the British Burma border. The landscape
+in this district was solemn and imposing as I trudged on again, very
+tired indeed, after a day's rest at Chiu-ch'eng. In the morning heavy
+tropical vapors of milky whiteness stretched over the sky and the earth.
+Nature seemed sleeping, as if wrapped in a light veil. It attracted me
+and absorbed me, dreaming, in spite of myself; ennui invaded me at
+first, and under the all-powerful constraint of influences so fatal to
+human personality thought died away by degrees like a flame in a vacuum;
+for I was again in the East, the real, luxurious, indolent East, the
+true land of Pantheism, and one must go there to realize the indefinable
+sensations which almost make the Nirvana of the Buddhist comprehensible.</p>
+
+<p>The river Taping farther down, so different from its aspect a couple of
+days ago, where it rushed at a tremendous speed over its rocky bed, was
+now broad and calm and placid, and extremely picturesque. The banks were
+covered with trees beyond Many&uuml;en. Near the water the undergrowth was of
+a fine green, but on a higher level the yellow and red leaves, hardly
+holding on to the withered trees, were carried away with the slightest
+breath of wind.</p>
+
+<p>At Hsiao Singai, on February 15th, I again had difficulty in getting a
+room; so I waited, and whilst my men searched about for a place where I
+could sleep, an extremely tall fellow came up to me, and having felt
+with his finger and thumb the texture of my tweeds and expressed
+satisfaction thereof, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, elder brother, I have my dwelling in this hostelry, and my upper
+chamber is at your disposal.&quot; And then he added with a twinkle in his
+eye, &quot;Ko nien, ko nien,&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BF_58'></a><a href='#Footnote_BF_58'><sup>[BF]</sup></a> whereat I became wary.</p>
+
+<p>Lao Chang, however, was more cute. Whilst I was assuring this
+well-dressed holiday-maker that he must not think the stranger churlish
+in not accepting at once the proffered services, but that I would go to
+look at the room, he sprang past us and went on ahead. In a few moments
+I was slowly going hence with the multitude. Lao Chang nodded carelessly
+to the strange company there assembled, and passing through the room
+with a soft, cat-like tread, began to ascend a dark flight of narrow
+stairs leading to the second floor of the inn. And I, down below
+startled and bewildered by mysterious words from everyone, watched his
+blue garments vanishing upwards, and like a man driven by irresistible
+necessity, muttered incoherent excuses to my amazed companions, and in a
+blind, unreasoning, unconquerable impulse rushed after him. But I wish I
+had not. There were several ladies, who, all more or less <i>en
+d&eacute;shabille</i>, scampered around with their bundles of gear&mdash;sewing,
+babies' clothes, tin pots, hair ornaments, boxes of powder and scented
+soap of that finest quality imported from Burma, selling for less than
+you can buy the genuine article for in London!&mdash;and then we took
+possession.</p>
+
+<p>If once there is a railway to Tengyueh from Burma, a visit to West
+China, even on to Tali-fu, for those who are prepared to rough it a
+little, will become quite a common trip. A few days up the Irawadi to
+Bhamo, through scenery of a peculiar kind of beauty eclipsed on none
+other of the world's great rivers, would be succeeded by a day or two
+over some of the best country which Upper Burma anywhere affords, and
+then, when once past Tengyueh, the grandeur of the mountains is amply
+compensating to those who love Nature in her beautiful isolation and
+peace. From a recuperating standpoint, perhaps, it would not quite
+answer&mdash;the rains would be a drawback to road travel, and it would at
+best mean roughing it; but for the many in Burma who wish to take a
+holiday and have not the time to go to Europe, I see no reason why
+Tengyueh should not develop into what Darjeeling is to Calcutta and what
+Japan is to the British ports farther East. Expense would not be heavy.
+To Bhamo would be easy. As things now stand, with no railway, one would
+need to take a few provisions and cooking utensils, and a camp bed and
+tent, unless one would be prepared to do as the author did, and
+patronize Chinese inns, such as they are. The rest would be easy to get
+on the road. For three days from Bhamo d&acirc;k bungalows are available, and
+to a man knowing the country it would be an easy matter to arrange his
+comforts. To one who knows the conditions, there is in the trip a good
+deal to fascinate; for in the lives and customs of the people, in the
+nature of the country, in the free-and-easy life the traveler would
+himself develop&mdash;having a peep at things as they were back in the
+ancient days of the Bible&mdash;to the brain-fagged professional or
+commercial there is nothing better in the whole of the East.</p>
+
+<p>He would get some excellent shooting, especially in the Salwen Valley,
+not exactly a health resort, however; and had he inclinations towards
+botanical, ethnological, craniological, or philological studies, he
+would be at a loss to find anywhere in the world a more interesting
+area.</p>
+
+<p>But a man should never leave the &quot;ta lu&quot; (the main road) in China if he
+would experience the minimum of discomfort and annoyance, which under
+best conditions is considerable to an irritable man. As I sit down now,
+on the very spot where Margary, of the British Consulate Service was
+murdered in 1875, I regret that I have sacrificed a great deal to secure
+most of the photographs which decorate this section of my book. No one,
+not even my military escort, knows the way, and is being sworn at by my
+men therefor. How I am to reach Man Hsien, across the river at Taping, I
+do not quite know. Many&uuml;en, so interesting in history, is a native
+Shan-Kachino-Chinese town untouched by the years&mdash;slovenly, dirty,
+undisciplined, immoral, where law and order and civilization have gained
+at best but a precarious foothold, the most characteristic feature of
+the people being the gambler's instinct. But I remember that I am coming
+into Burma, into the real East, where the tangle and the topsy-turvydom,
+the crooked vision and the distorted travesty of the truth, which result
+from judging the Oriental from the standpoint of the Europeans and
+looking at the East through the eyes of the West, impress themselves
+upon one's mind in bewildering fashion as a hopeless problem. Everything
+is all at cross purposes.</p>
+
+<p>However, although I lost my way from Many&uuml;en to Man Hsien, I got my
+photographs of Kachins, those people whose appearance is that they have
+no one to care for them body or soul. Their thick, uncombed locks, so
+long and lank as to resemble deck swabs, overlapped roofwise the ugliest
+aboriginal faces I ever saw in Asia or America, and their eyes under
+shaggy brows looked out with diabolical fire.</p>
+
+<p>So much information is to be obtained from the <i>Upper Burma Gazetteer</i>
+about the Kachins that it is needless for me to write much here,
+especially as I can add nothing. But I feel I should like to say just a
+word of praise of the remarkable work of the American Baptist Mission,
+which has its headquarters at Bhamo, among this tribe in Burma. At the
+time I arrived in the city the annual festival was being conducted at
+the Baptist Church, and hundreds of Kachins were assembled in the
+splendid premises of this mission. They had come from many miles around;
+and to one who at previous times in his residence in the Far East had
+written disparagingly about missionaries and their work, there came some
+little personal shame as he looked upon the extremely creditable work of
+the American missionaries in this district. Kachins are a somewhat
+uncivilized and quarrelsome race, unspeakably immoral, and steeped in
+every vice against which the Christian missionary has to set his face&mdash;a
+most difficult people to work among. But there I saw scores and scores
+of baptized Christians living a life clean and ennobling, endeavoring
+honestly to break away from their degrading customs of centuries, some
+of them exceedingly intelligent people.</p>
+
+<p>I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and
+malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print
+respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it
+is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should
+know what their American brethren are doing here. I cannot praise too
+highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my
+pleasure to meet. In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the
+American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only
+an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a
+gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A
+writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for
+many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of
+the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses. My experience
+is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable
+pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr.
+Roberts may be spared many years still to control the work on the
+successful mission field in which he has spent so much of his labor of
+love for the Kachins.</p>
+
+<p>Kachins form the bulk of the population in the extreme north of Burma.
+To the west they extend to Assam, and to the south into the Shan States,
+as far even as latitude 20&deg; 30'. By far the largest proportion of them
+live in Burmese territory, but they also extend into Western Y&uuml;n-nan,
+though nowhere are they found farther east than longitude 99&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Man Hsien is the last yamen place before reaching the British border. I
+crossed the river Taping from Many&uuml;en, being shown the road by a Burmese
+member of the Buddhistic yellow cloth, who was most pressing that I
+should stay with him for a few days. Again did I get a fright that my
+manuscript would never get into print, for my pony, Rusty, probably
+cognizant of the fact that he, too, was finishing his long tramp, nearly
+stamped the bottom of the boat out, and threatened to send us down by
+river past Bhamo quicker than our arrival was scheduled.</p>
+
+<p>The large official paper given to one's military escort from point to
+point was here produced for the last time, and great ado was made about
+me. Reading this document aloud from the top of the steps, when he came
+to my name the mandarin bowed very low, called me Ding Daren<a name='FNanchor_BG_59'></a><a href='#Footnote_BG_59'><sup>[BG]</sup></a> (a sign
+of highest respect), asked if I would exchange cards, and then lapsed
+unconsciously into profuse congratulation to myself that I should have
+been born an Englishman. So far as he knew, I could be assured that the
+existing relations between the administrative bodies of his contemptible
+country and my own royal land were of a nature so felicitously mutual
+and peaceful&mdash;in fact, both Governments saw eye to eye in regard to
+international affairs in Far Western China&mdash;that he felt sure that I
+should arrive at the bridge leading into Burma without personal harm. He
+then, with a colossal bow to myself and a gentle wave of his three-inch
+finger-nail, handed me over with pungent emphasis of speech to the
+keeping of a Chinese and a Shan, who with a keen sense of favors to come
+were to form my escort to Burma's border.</p>
+
+<p>A low grunt of unrestrained approval came from the multitude. The
+underlings&mdash;Chino-Kachino-Burmo-Shan people&mdash;who ran about in a little
+of each of the clothing characteristic of the four said races, were all
+busy in their endeavors to extricate from me a few cash apiece by doing
+all and more than was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Then the great man rose. He condescended to depart. He passed from the
+threshold, turned, paused, bowed, turned again, went down the steps,
+bowed again&mdash;a long curving bow, which nearly sent him to the
+ground&mdash;and then continued with a light heart towards that loveliest
+land of the East. My men exhibited no emotion. That they were coming
+into British territory was of no concern to them; they had come from far
+away in the interior, and were the greenest of the green, the rawest of
+the raw.</p>
+
+<p>But soon I passed over a small bridge, a spot where two great empires
+meet. I was in Burma.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>So I have crossed from one end of China to the other. I entered China on
+March 4th, 1909; I came out on February 14th, 1910.</p>
+
+<p>I had come to see how far the modern spirit had penetrated into the
+hidden recesses of the Chinese Empire. One may be little given to
+philosophizing, and possess but scanty skill in putting into words the
+conclusions which form themselves in one's mind, but it is impossible
+to cross China entirely unobservant. One must begin, no matter how
+dimly, to perceive something of the causes which are at work. By the
+incoming of the European to inland China a transformation is being
+wrought, not the natural growth of a gradual evolution, itself the
+result of propulsion from within, but produced, on the contrary, by
+artificial means, in bitter conflict with inherent instincts, inherited
+traditions, innate tendencies, characteristics, and genius, racial and
+individual. In the eyes of the Chinese of the old school these changes
+in the habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing and ruining
+much&mdash;all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man. The tawdry shell, the
+valueless husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains untouched
+in many places, as will have been seen in previous chapters; but the
+soul within is steadily and surely, if slowly, undergoing a process of
+final atrophy. But yet the proper opening-up of the country by internal
+reform and not by external pressure has as yet hardly commenced in
+immense areas of the Empire far removed from the imperial city of
+Peking. And the mere fact that the Chinese propose such an absurd
+program as that which plans the building of all their railways without
+the aid of foreign capital is sufficient to react in an unwholesome
+manner economically.<a name='FNanchor_BH_60'></a><a href='#Footnote_BH_60'><sup>[BH]</sup></a><a name='FNanchor_BI_61'></a><a href='#Footnote_BI_61'><sup>[BI]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I cannot but admit that, whilst in most parts of my journey there are
+distinct traces of reform&mdash;I speak, of course, of the outlying parts of
+China&mdash;and some very striking traces, too, and a real longing on the
+part of far-seeing officials to escape from a humiliating international
+position, it is distinctly apparent that in everything which concerns
+Europe and the Western world the people and the officials as a whole are
+of one mind in the methods of procrastination which are so dear to the
+heart of the Celestial, and that peculiar opposition to Europeanism
+which has marked the real East since the beginning of modern history.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>And now lovely, lovely Burma!</p>
+
+<p>I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very box containing the
+clothes into which I must change before I could enter into the social
+life of Bhamo swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
+rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered after great trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds in the dense blue sky
+hung lazily over the green hills, the heavy air was pregnant with that
+delicious ease known only in the tropics&mdash;all was still and sweet. The
+river flowed grandly from the interior through magnificent forest
+country, receiving on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
+streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle&mdash;tangles of giant
+trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine and festooning
+parasite&mdash;rising sheer from the water's brink. Now long clusters of
+villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees; now wide expanses
+of grass-grown meadow, where the grazing grounds dip to the river, and
+where the only echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans&mdash;the
+banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage of the kine trooping
+down to drink. Occasional wooded islands broke the monotony of the
+river, and were just discernible from the magnificent English roads
+which skirted the hills high up from the river, and yellow sandspits and
+big wedges of granite and rock ran far out into its uneven course. By
+day the joyous Burma sun smiled upon all, and at midday poured its
+merciless heat down upon all mankind, unheeding the weary wanderer whose
+tramp was now near done. At night the tropical moon turned all this
+riverine world to the likeness of a very fairyland. Lying in a long
+chair in the d&acirc;k bungalows one drank in the scenes which succeeded one
+another in bewildering succession, and felt himself thrilled by an
+almost fierce appreciation of eastern beauty. It was good to meet again
+an Englishman, a sturdy, firm-featured Englishman, whose love of the
+East, like mine own, was a veritable obsession. The sun glare of the
+tropics had parched the color out of our white skin, and despite the
+fact that malaria came back again here to taunt me, yet I was again in
+the East that I loved, that had scarred and marked me ere my time
+mayhap. And yet I, with many such of my own countrymen, despite her
+rough handling, worship her.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In three days I was in Bhamo.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BF_58'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BF_58'>[BF]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>i.e.</i> New Year, New Year.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BG_59'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BG_59'>[BG]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>i.e.</i>Great Man. &quot;Ding&quot; is my Chinese name.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BH_60'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BH_60'>[BH]</a><div class='note'><p> I believe personally that the main object of the Y&uuml;n-nan
+provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the
+present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to
+the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a
+monthly stipend if the official &quot;face&quot; can be preserved and the Chinese
+dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow
+foreigners to come in still farther.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BI_61'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BI_61'>[BI]</a><div class='note'><p> This was of course written long before the Four Nations
+Loan was signed, and Tuan Fang appointed Director General of the
+Railways in May, 1911. We should now see a speedy reformation of Railway
+matters in China if Tuan is given an absolutely free hand.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<h2>END OF BOOK II.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china01.jpg' width='600' height='416' alt='THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA<br />
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china02.jpg' width='600' height='401' alt='RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION<br />
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china03.jpg' width='600' height='423' alt='TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES<br />
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china04.jpg' width='600' height='402' alt='TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS<br />
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china05.jpg' width='800' height='446' alt='AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL<br />
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china06.jpg' width='600' height='429' alt='AT HANKOW&#8212;THE CHICAGO OF CHINA
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AT HANKOW&#8212;THE CHICAGO OF CHINA<br />
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china07.jpg' width='600' height='398' alt='A LONELY TRAVELER
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>A LONELY TRAVELER<br />
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china08.jpg' width='600' height='423' alt='EARNING HIS LIVING
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>EARNING HIS LIVING<br />
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china09.jpg' width='600' height='404' alt='TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<h4>TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS<br />
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.</h4>
+<br />
+<center>
+<img src='images/china10.jpg' width='600' height='433' alt='WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI<br />
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china11.jpg' width='600' height='394' alt='THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA
+
+If there is an &quot;artist&quot; on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA<br />
+
+If there is an &quot;artist&quot; on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china12.jpg' width='800' height='515' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)<br />
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china13.jpg' width='600' height='420' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH&#39;UAN
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground&#8212;each of them earning about 25 cents a day.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH'UAN<br />
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground&#8212;each of them earning about 25 cents a day.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china14.jpg' width='600' height='400' alt='QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, &quot;Once a
+musician, always a musician&quot;&#8212;so it usually runs in the family.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN<br />
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, &quot;Once a
+musician, always a musician&quot;&#8212;so it usually runs in the family.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china15.jpg' width='600' height='427' alt='SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE<br />
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china16.jpg' width='600' height='391' alt='MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK<br />
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china17.jpg' width='600' height='424' alt='RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES<br />
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china18.jpg' width='600' height='381' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king&#8212;the Author&#39;s four-man chair engaged
+to &quot;save his face,&quot; and his servant&#39;s two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH<br />
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king&#8212;the Author&#39;s four-man chair engaged
+to &quot;save his face,&quot; and his servant&#39;s two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china19.jpg' width='600' height='559' alt='THE MEKONG BRIDGE
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains&#8212;very hard going&#8212;to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE MEKONG BRIDGE<br />
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains&#8212;very hard going&#8212;to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china20.jpg' width='465' height='600' alt='THE AUTHOR IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu&#39;aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of &quot;Across China On Foot.&quot;' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE AUTHOR IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu&#39;aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of &quot;Across China On Foot.&quot;</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china21.jpg' width='600' height='433' alt='THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women&#8212;though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER<br />
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women&#8212;though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit.</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china22.jpg' width='600' height='392' alt='THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech&#39;uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE<br />
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech&#39;uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china23.jpg' width='800' height='516' alt='SPECIMEN OF &quot;MAIN ROAD&quot; IN N.E. Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China&#39;s
+&quot;great paved highways&quot;; author is in saddle.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>SPECIMEN OF &quot;MAIN ROAD&quot; IN N.E. Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China&#39;s
+&quot;great paved highways&quot;; author is in saddle.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china24.jpg' width='600' height='414' alt='THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER<br />
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china25.jpg' width='600' height='387' alt='FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER<br />
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china26.jpg' width='600' height='415' alt='CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH&#39;UANFU
+
+Where the Author&#39;s life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH&#39;UANFU<br />
+
+Where the Author&#39;s life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china27.jpg' width='600' height='402' alt='ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS<br />
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china28.jpg' width='600' height='421' alt='WATCH YOUR STEP
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WATCH YOUR STEP<br />
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china29.jpg' width='600' height='403' alt='FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author&#39;s traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG<br />
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author&#39;s traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china30.jpg' width='600' height='418' alt='HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable&#8212;and invariably happy.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS<br />
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable&#8212;and invariably happy.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china31.jpg' width='600' height='404' alt='PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Y&uuml;n-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Y&uuml;n-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china32.jpg' width='600' height='406' alt='WOMEN WEAVING HEMP GARMENTS
+
+These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<h4>These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)<br />
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.</h4>
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china33.jpg' width='600' height='398' alt='' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china34.jpg' width='600' height='398' alt='HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
+
+Basket on woman&#39;s back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN<br />
+
+Basket on woman&#39;s back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china35.jpg' width='800' height='514' alt='WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch&#39;uanfu, the &quot;City of
+the Eastern Streams&quot;&#8212;and a very happy little band they are.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN<br />
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch&#39;uanfu, the &quot;City of
+the Eastern Streams&quot;&#8212;and a very happy little band they are.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china36.jpg' width='600' height='420' alt='TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNGCHANGFU
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China&#8212;China&#39;s
+&quot;Switzerland&quot;&#8212;on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNGCHANGFU<br />
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China&#8212;China&#39;s
+&quot;Switzerland&quot;&#8212;on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china37.jpg' width='508' height='800' alt='THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER<br />
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china38.jpg' width='600' height='421' alt='COPPER KETTLE LANE IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>COPPER KETTLE LANE IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU<br />
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china39.jpg' width='600' height='393' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY&#39;S END
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese &quot;to be possessed of a
+demon!&quot;&#8212; because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY'S END<br />
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese &quot;to be possessed of a
+demon!&quot;&#8212; because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<a name='Illustration_TYPICAL_SINGLE_SPAN_BRIDGE_OF_INLAND_CHINA'></a><center>
+<img src='images/china40.jpg' width='600' height='274' alt='TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.<br />
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china41.jpg' width='600' height='533' alt='Top left&mdash;Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Y&uuml;n-nan. Top right&mdash;Ch&#39;in
+Miao, men, of Kwei-chow. Bottom left&mdash;Three Heh Miao&#8212;all women. Bottom
+right&mdash;Hua Miao&#8212;two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>Top left&mdash;Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Y&uuml;n-nan. Top right&mdash;Ch&#39;in<br />
+Miao, men, of Kwei-chow. Bottom left&mdash; Three Heh Miao&#8212;all women. Bottom
+right&mdash;Hua Miao&#8212;two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china42.jpg' width='600' height='429' alt='A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture&#8212;otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST<br />
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture&#8212;otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china43.jpg' width='600' height='391' alt='WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Suifu, Szech&#39;uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WHERE EAST MEETS WEST<br />
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Suifu, Szech&#39;uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china44.jpg' width='600' height='426' alt='BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH&#39;UANFU IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch&#39;uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH'UANFU IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch&#39;uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china45.jpg' width='600' height='403' alt='TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains &quot;for eighty
+centuries,&quot; they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN<br />
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains &quot;for eighty
+centuries,&quot; they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china46.jpg' width='558' height='800' alt='IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china47.jpg' width='400' height='366' alt='IGNORANCE AND POVERTY
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>IGNORANCE AND POVERTY<br />
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china48.jpg' width='455' height='600' alt='THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author&#39;s ponies
+&quot;committed suicide,&quot; Chinese said.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL<br />
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author&#39;s ponies
+&quot;committed suicide,&quot; Chinese said.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china49.jpg' width='800' height='512' alt='FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND<br />
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china50.jpg' width='600' height='420' alt='REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary&#39;s
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch&#39;uanfu.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY<br />
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary&#39;s
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch&#39;uanfu.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china51.jpg' width='600' height='394' alt='FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.</h4>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13420 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #13420 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13420)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Across China on Foot
+
+Author: Edwin Dingle
+
+Release Date: September 10, 2004 [EBook #13420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Schulze and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT
+
+_By_
+
+EDWIN JOHN DINGLE
+
+1911
+
+
+IN GRATEFUL ESTEEM
+
+DURING MY TRAVELS IN INTERIOR CHINA I ONCE
+LAY AT THE POINT OF DEATH. FOR THEIR UNREMITTING
+KINDNESS DURING A LONG ILLNESS, I
+NOW AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME TO
+MY FRIENDS, MR. AND MRS. A. EVANS, OF TONG-CH'UAN-FU,
+Y�N-NAN, SOUTH-WEST CHINA, TO
+WHOSE DEVOTED NURSING AND UNTIRING CARE
+I OWE MY LIFE.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I.
+
+FROM THE STRAITS TO SHANGHAI--INTRODUCTORY
+
+FIRST JOURNEY.
+
+    CHAPTER I.   FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG
+
+SECOND JOURNEY--ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES.
+
+    CHAPTER II.   THE ICHANG GORGE
+    CHAPTER III.  THE YANGTZE RAPIDS
+    CHAPTER IV.   THE YEH T'AN RAPID. ARRIVAL AT KWEIEU
+
+THIRD JOURNEY--CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW).
+
+    CHAPTER  V.   BEGINNING OF THE OVERLAND JOURNEY
+    CHAPTER  VI.  THE PEOPLE OF SZECH'WAN
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY--SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).
+
+    CHAPTER  VII.  DESCRIPTION OF JOURNEY FROM SUI-FU
+    CHAPTER  VIII. SZECH'WAN AND Y�N-NAN
+
+THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910.
+
+    CHAPTER  IX.
+
+THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST Y�N-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM.
+
+    CHAPTER  X.
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY--CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.
+
+    CHAPTER  XI.   AUTHOR MEETS WITH ACCIDENT
+    CHAPTER  XII.  Y�N-NAN'S CHECKERED CAREER. ILLNESS OF AUTHOR
+
+BOOK II.
+
+FIRST JOURNEY--TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL.
+
+    CHAPTER  XIII. DEPARTURE FOR BURMA.  DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL
+    CHAPTER  XIV.  Y�N-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL
+
+SECOND JOURNEY--Y�N-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU).
+
+    CHAPTER  XV.  DOES CHINA WANT THE FOREIGNER?
+    CHAPTER  XVI. LU-FENG-HSIEN. MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. CHINESE
+                    UNTRUTHFULNESS
+    CHAPTER  XVII. KWANG-TUNG-HSIEN TO SHACHIAO-KA
+    CHAPTER  XVIII. STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS. AT HUNGAY
+    CHAPTER  XIX. THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN Y�N-NAN. ARRIVAL AT
+                    TALI-FU
+
+THIRD JOURNEY--TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY.
+
+    CHAPTER  XX. HARDEST PART OF THE JOURNEY.HWAN-LIEN-P'U
+    CHAPTER  XXI. THE MOUNTAINS OF Y�N-NAN. SHAYUNG. OPIUM
+                    SMOKING
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY--THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH.
+
+    CHAPTER  XXII. THE RIVER MEKONG
+    CHAPTER  XXIII. THROUGH THE SALWEN VALLEY TO TENGYUEH
+    CHAPTER  XXIV. THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY--TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA.
+
+    CHAPTER  XXV. SHANS AND KACHINS
+    CHAPTER  XXVI. END OF LONG JOURNEY. ARRIVAL IN BURMA
+
+
+
+_To travel in China is easy. To walk across China, over roads
+acknowledgedly worse than are met with in any civilized country in the
+two hemispheres, and having accommodation unequalled for crudeness and
+insanitation, is not easy. In deciding to travel in China, I determined
+to cross overland from the head of the Yangtze Gorges to British Burma
+on foot; and, although the strain nearly cost me my life, no conveyance
+was used in any part of my journey other than at two points described in
+the course of the narrative. For several days during my travels I lay at
+the point of death. The arduousness of constant mountaineering_--_for
+such is ordinary travel in most parts of Western China_--_laid the
+foundation of a long illness, rendering it impossible for me to continue
+my walking, and as a consequence I resided in the interior of China
+during a period of convalescence of several months duration, at the end
+of which I continued my cross-country tramp. Subsequently I returned
+into Y�n-nan from Burma, lived again in Tong-ch'uan-fu and
+Chao-t'ong-fu, and traveled in the wilds of the surrounding country.
+Whilst traveling I lived on Chinese food, and in the Miao country, where
+rice could not be got, subsisted for many days on maize only.
+
+My sole object in going to China was a personal desire to see China from
+the inside. My trip was undertaken for no other purpose. I carried no
+instruments (with the exception of an aneroid), and did not even make a
+single survey of the untrodden country through which I occasionally
+passed. So far as I know, I am the only traveler, apart from members of
+the missionary community, who has ever resided far away in the interior
+of the Celestial Empire for so long a time.
+
+Most of the manuscript for this book was written as I went along>--a
+good deal of it actually by the roadside in rural China. When my journey
+was completed, the following news paragraph in the North China Daily
+News (of Shanghai) was brought to my notice:--
+
+     "All the Legations (at Peking) have received anonymous letters from
+     alleged revolutionaries in Shanghai, containing the warning that an
+     extensive anti-dynastic uprising is imminent. If they do not assist
+     the Manchus, foreigners will not be harmed; otherwise, they will be
+     destroyed in a general massacre.
+
+     "The missives were delivered mysteriously, bearing obliterated
+     postmarks.
+
+     "In view of the recent similar warnings received by the Consuls,
+     uneasiness has been created."
+
+The above appeared in the journal quoted on June 3rd, 1910. The reader,
+in perusing my previously written remarks on the spirit of reform and
+how far it has penetrated into the innermost corners of the empire,
+should bear this paragraph in mind, for there is more Boxerism and
+unrest in China than we know of. My account of the Hankow riots of
+January, 1911, through which I myself went, will, with my experience of
+rebellions in Y�n-nan, justify my assertion.
+
+I should like to thank all those missionaries who entertained me as I
+proceeded through China, especially Mr. John Graham and Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, of the China Inland Mission, who transacted a good deal of
+business for me and took all trouble uncomplainingly. I am also indebted
+to Dr. Clark, of Tali-fu, and to the Revs. H. Parsons and S. Pollard,
+for several photographs illustrating that section of this book dealing
+with the tribes of Y�n-nan.
+
+I wish to express my acknowledgments to several well-known writers on
+far Eastern topics, notably to Dr. G.E. Morrison, of Peking, the Rev.
+Sidney L. Hulick, M.A., D.D., and Mr. H.B. Morse, whose works are
+quoted. Much information was also gleaned from other sources.
+
+My thanks are due also to Mr. W. Brayton Slater and to my brother, Mr.
+W.R. Dingle, for their kindness in having negotiated with my publishers
+in my absence in Inland China; and to the latter, for unfailing courtesy
+and patience, I am under considerable obligation. "Across China on Foot"
+would have appeared in the autumn of 1910 had the printers' proofs,
+which were several times sent to me to different addresses in China, but
+which dodged me repeatedly, come sooner to hand_.
+
+[Signature: Edwin Dingle]
+
+HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.
+
+
+
+
+Across China on Foot
+
+_From the Straits to Shanghai_
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+_The scheme_. _Why I am walking across Interior China_. _Leaving
+Singapore_. _Ignorance of life and travel in China_. _The "China for the
+Chinese" cry_. _The New China and the determination of the Government_.
+_The voice of the people_. _The province of Y�n-nan and the forward
+movement_. _A prophecy_. _Impressions of Saigon_. _Comparison of French
+and English methods_. _At Hong-Kong_. _Cold sail up the Whang-poo_.
+_Disembarkation_. _Foreign population of Shanghai_. _Congestion in the
+city_. _Wonderful Shanghai._
+
+
+Through China from end to end. From Shanghai, 1,500 miles by river and
+1,600 miles walking overland, from the greatest port of the Chinese
+Empire to the frontier of British Burma.
+
+That is my scheme.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am a journalist, one of the army of the hard-worked who go down early
+to the Valley. I state this because I would that the truth be told; for
+whilst engaged in the project with which this book has mainly to deal I
+was subjected to peculiar designations, such as "explorer" and other
+newspaper extravagances, and it were well, perhaps, for my reader to
+know once for all that the writer is merely a newspaper man, at the time
+on holiday.
+
+The rather extreme idea of walking across this Flowery Land came to me
+early in the year 1909, although for many years I had cherished the hope
+of seeing Interior China ere modernity had robbed her and her wonderful
+people of their isolation and antediluvianism, and ever since childhood
+my interest in China has always been considerable. A little prior to the
+Chinese New Year, a friend of mine dined with me at my rooms in
+Singapore, in the Straits Settlements, and the conversation about China
+resulted in our decision then and there to travel through the Empire on
+holiday. He, because at the time he had little else to do; the author,
+because he thought that a few months' travel in mid-China would, from a
+journalistic standpoint, be passed profitably, the intention being to
+arrive home in dear old England late in the summer of the same year.
+
+We agreed to cross China on foot, and accordingly on February 22, 1909,
+just as the sun was sinking over the beautiful harbor of Singapore--that
+most valuable strategic Gate of the Far East, where Crown Colonial
+administration, however, is allowed by a lethargic British Government to
+become more and more bungled every year--we settled down on board the
+French mail steamer _Nera_, bound for Shanghai. My friends, good
+fellows, in reluctantly speeding me on my way, prophesied that this
+would prove to be my last long voyage to a last long rest, that the
+Chinese would never allow me to come out of China alive. Such is the
+ignorance of the average man concerning the conditions of life and
+travel in the interior of this Land of Night.
+
+Here, then, was I on my way to that land towards which all the world was
+straining its eyes, whose nation, above all nations of the earth, was
+altering for better things, and coming out of its historic shell.
+"Reform, reform, reform," was the echo, and I myself was on the way to
+hear it.
+
+At the time I started for China the cry of "China for the Chinese" was
+heard in all countries, among all peoples. Statesmen were startled by
+it, editors wrote the phrase to death, magazines were filled with
+copy--good, bad and indifferent--mostly written, be it said, by men
+whose knowledge of the question was by no means complete: editorial
+opinion, and contradiction of that opinion, were printed side by side in
+journals having a good name. To one who endeavored actually to
+understand what was being done, and whither these broad tendencies and
+strange cravings of the Chinese were leading a people who formerly were
+so indifferent to progress, it seemed essential that he should go to the
+country, and there on the spot make a study of the problem.
+
+Was the reform, if genuine at all, universal in China? Did it reach to
+the ends of the Empire?
+
+That a New China had come into being, and was working astounding results
+in the enlightened provinces above the Yangtze and those connected with
+the capital by railway, was common knowledge; but one found it hard to
+believe that the west and the south-west of the empire were moved by the
+same spirit of Europeanism, and it will be seen that China in the west
+moves, if at all, but at a snail's pace: the second part of this volume
+deals with that portion of the subject.
+
+And it may be that the New China, as we know it in the more forward
+spheres of activity, will only take her proper place in the family of
+nations after fresh upheavals. Rivers of blood may yet have to flow as a
+sickening libation to the gods who have guided the nation for forty
+centuries before she will be able to attain her ambition of standing
+line to line with the other powers of the eastern and western worlds.
+But it seems that no matter what the cost, no matter what she may have
+to suffer financially and nationally, no matter how great the obstinacy
+of the people towards the reform movement, the change is coming, has
+already come with alarming rapidity, and has come to stay. China is
+changing--let so much be granted; and although the movement may be
+hampered by a thousand general difficulties, presented by the ancient
+civilization of a people whose customs and manners and ideas have stood
+the test of time since the days contemporary with those of Solomon, and
+at one time bade fair to test eternity, the Government cry of "China for
+the Chinese" is going to win. Chinese civilization has for ages been
+allowed to get into a very bad state of repair, and official corruption
+and deceit have prevented the Government from making an effectual move
+towards present-day aims; but that she is now making an honest endeavor
+to rectify her faults in the face of tremendous odds must, so it appears
+to the writer, be apparent to all beholders. That is the Government
+view-point. It is important to note this.
+
+In China, however, the Government is not the people. It never has been.
+It is not to be expected that great political and social reforms can be
+introduced into such an enormous country as China, and among her four
+hundred and thirty millions of people, merely by the issue of a few
+imperial edicts. The masses have to be convinced that any given thing is
+for the public good before they accept, despite the proclamations, and
+in thus convincing her own people China has yet to go through the fire
+of a terrible ordeal. Especially will this be seen in the second part of
+this volume, where in Y�n-nan there are huge areas absolutely untouched
+by the forward movement, and where the people are living the same life
+of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral
+degradation as they lived when the Westerner remained still in the
+primeval forest stage. But despite the scepticism and the cynicism of
+certain writers, whose pessimism is due to a lack of foresight, and
+despite the fact that she is being constantly accused of having in the
+past ignominiously failed at the crucial moment in endeavors towards
+minor reforms, I am one of those who believe that in China we shall see
+arising a Government whose power will be paramount in the East, and upon
+the integrity of whose people will depend the peace of Europe. It is
+much to say. We shall not see it, but our children will. The Government
+is going to conquer the people. She has done so already in certain
+provinces, and in a few years the reform--deep and real, not the
+make-believe we see in many parts of the Empire to-day--will be
+universal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between Singapore and Shanghai the opportunity occurred of calling at
+Saigon and Hong-Kong, two cities offering instructive contrasts of
+French and British administration in the Far East.
+
+Saigon is not troubled much by the Britisher. The nationally-exacting
+Frenchman has brought it to represent fairly his loved Paris in the
+East. The approach to the city, through the dirty brown mud of the
+treacherous Mekong, which is swept down vigorously to the China sea
+between stretches of monotonous mangrove, with no habitation of man
+anywhere visible, is distinctly unpicturesque; but Saigon itself, apart
+from the exorbitance of the charges (especially so to the spendthrift
+Englishman), is worth the dreary journey of numberless twists and quick
+turns up-river, annoying to the most patient pilot.
+
+In the daytime, Saigon is as hot as that last bourne whither all
+evil-doers wander--Englishmen and dogs alone are seen abroad between
+nine and one. But in the soothing cool of the soft tropical evening,
+gay-lit boulevards, a magnificent State-subsidized opera-house, alfresco
+caf�s where dawdle the domino-playing absinthe drinkers, the
+fierce-moustached gendarmes, and innumerable features typically and
+picturesquely French, induced me easily to believe myself back in the
+bewildering whirl of the Boulevard des Capucines or des Italiennes.
+Whether the narrow streets of the native city are clean or dirty,
+whether garbage heaps lie festering in the broiling sun, sending their
+disgusting effluvia out to annoy the sense of smell at every turn, the
+municipality cares not a little bit. Indifference to the well-being of
+the native pervades it; there is present no progressive prosperity.
+Every second person I met was, or seemed to be, a Government official.
+He was dressed in immaculate white clothes of the typical ugly French
+cut, trimmed elaborately with an _ad libitum_ decoration of gold braid
+and brass buttons. All was so different from Singapore and Hong-Kong,
+and one did not feel, in surroundings which made strongly for the
+_laissez-faire_ of the Frenchman in the East, ashamed of the fact that
+he was an Englishman.
+
+Three days north lies Hong-Kong, an all-important link in the armed
+chain of Britain's empire east of Suez, bone of the bone and flesh of
+the flesh of Great Britain beyond the seas. The history of this island,
+ceded to us in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, is known to everyone in
+Europe, or should be.
+
+Four and a half days more, and we anchored at Woo-sung; and a few hours
+later, after a terribly cold run up the river in the teeth of a terrific
+wind, we arrived at Shanghai.
+
+The average man in Europe and America does not know that this great
+metropolis of the Far East is far removed from salt water, and that it
+is the first point on entering the Yangtze-kiang at which a port could
+be established. It is twelve miles up the Whang-poo. Junks whirled past
+with curious tattered brown sails, resembling dilapidated verandah
+blinds, merchantmen were there flying the flags of the nations of the
+world, all churning up the yellow stream as they hurried to catch the
+flood-tide at the bar. Then came the din of disembarkation. Enthusiastic
+hotel-runners, hard-worked coolies, rickshaw men, professional Chinese
+beggars, and the inevitable hangers-on of a large eastern city crowded
+around me to turn an honest or dishonest penny. Some rude, rough-hewn
+lout, covered with grease and coal-dust, pushed bang against me and
+hurled me without ceremony from his path. My baggage, meantime, was
+thrown onto a two-wheeled van, drawn by four of those poor human beasts
+of burden--how horrible to have been born a Chinese coolie!--and I was
+whirled away to my hotel for tucker. The French mail had given us coffee
+and rolls at six, but the excitement of landing at a foreign port does
+not usually produce the net amount of satisfaction to or make for the
+sustenance of the inner man of the phlegmatic Englishman, as with the
+wilder-natured Frenchman. Therefore were our spirits ruffled.
+
+However, my companion and I fed later.
+
+Subsequently to this we agreed not to be drawn to the clubs or mix in
+the social life of Shanghai, but to consider ourselves as two beings
+entirely apart from the sixteen thousand and twenty-three Britishers,
+Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Danes, Portuguese, and other
+sundry internationals at that moment at Shanghai. They lived there: we
+were soon to leave.
+
+The city was suffering from the abnormal congestion common to the
+Orient, with a big dash of the West. Trams, motors, rickshaws, the
+peculiar Chinese wheelbarrow, horrid public shaky landaus in miniature,
+conveyances of all kinds, and the swarming masses of coolie humanity
+carrying or hauling merchandise amid incessant jabbering, yelling, and
+vociferating, made intense bewilderment before breakfast.
+
+Wonderful Shanghai!
+
+
+
+
+FIRST JOURNEY
+
+FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_To Ichang, an everyday trip_. _Start from Shanghai, and the city's
+appearance_. _At Hankow_. _Meaning of the name_. _Trio of strategic and
+military points of the empire_. _Han-yang and Wu-ch'ang_. _Commercial and
+industrial future of Hankow_. _Getting our passports_. _Britishers in the
+city_. _The commercial Chinaman_. _The native city: some impressions_.
+_Clothing of the people_. _Cotton and wool_. _Indifference to comfort_.
+_Surprise at our daring project_. _At Ichang_. _British gunboat and early
+morning routine_. _Our vain quest for aid_. _Laying in stores and
+commissioning our boat_. _Ceremonies at starting gorges trip_. _Raising
+anchor, and our departure_.
+
+
+Let no one who has been so far as Ichang, a thousand miles from the sea,
+imagine that he has been into the interior of China.
+
+It is quite an everyday trip. Modern steamers, with every modern
+convenience and luxury, probably as comfortable as any river steamers in
+the world, ply regularly in their two services between Shanghai and this
+port, at the foot of the Gorges.
+
+The Whang-poo looked like the Thames, and the Shanghai Bund like the
+Embankment, when I embarked on board a Jap boat _en route_ for Hankow,
+and thence to Ichang by a smaller steamer, on a dark, bitterly cold
+Saturday night, March 6th, 1909. I was to travel fifteen hundred miles
+up that greatest artery of China. The Yangtze surpasses in importance to
+the Celestial Empire what the Mississippi is to America, and yet even
+in China there are thousands of resident foreigners who know no more
+about this great river than the average Smithfield butcher. Ask ten men
+in Fleet Street or in Wall Street where Ichang is, and nine will be
+unable to tell you. Yet it is a port of great importance, when one
+considers that the handling of China's vast river-borne trade has been
+opened to foreign trade and residence since the Chefoo Convention was
+signed in 1876, that Ichang is a city of forty thousand souls, and has a
+gross total of imports of nearly forty millions of taels.
+
+Of Hankow, however, more is known. Here we landed after a four days'
+run, and, owing to the low water, had to wait five days before the
+shallower-bottomed steamer for the higher journey had come in. The city
+is made up of foreign concessions, as in other treaty ports, but away in
+the native quarter there is the real China, with her selfish rush, her
+squalidness and filth among the teeming thousands. There dwell together,
+literally side by side, but yet eternally apart, all the conflicting
+elements of the East and West which go to make up a city in the Far
+East, and particularly the China coast.
+
+Hankow means literally Han Mouth, being situated at the juncture of the
+Han River and the Yangtze. Across the way, as I write, I can see
+Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where
+the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. (This is but a
+fraction of the total work done.) It is, I believe, the only
+steel-rolling mill in China. Long before the foreigner set foot so far
+up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance--the Chinese used
+to call it the centre of the world. Ten years ago I should have been
+thirty days' hard travel from Peking; at the present moment I might
+pack my bag and be in Peking within thirty-six hours. Hankow, with
+Tientsin and Nanking, makes up the trio of principal strategic points of
+the Empire, the trio of centers also of greatest military activity. On
+the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial
+capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and
+important provinces of the whole eighteen.
+
+Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two
+million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the
+whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.
+
+Here we registered as British subjects, and secured our Chinese
+passports, resembling naval ensigns more than anything else, for the
+four provinces of Hu-peh, Kwei-chow, Szech'wan, and Y�n-nan. The
+Consul-General and his assistants helped us in many ways, disillusioning
+us of the many distorted reports which have got into print regarding the
+indifference shown to British travelers by their own consuls at these
+ports. We found the brethren at the Hankow Club a happy band, with every
+luxury around them for which hand and heart could wish; so that it were
+perhaps ludicrous to look upon them as exiles, men out in the outposts
+of Britain beyond the seas, building up the trade of the Empire. Yet
+such they undoubtedly were, most of them having a much better time than
+they would at home. There is not the roughing required in Hankow which
+is necessary in other parts of the empire, as in British East Africa and
+in the jungles of the Federated Malay States, for instance. Building the
+Empire where there is an abundance of the straw wherewith to make the
+bricks, is a matter of no difficulty.
+
+And then the Chinese is a good man to manage in trade, and in business
+dealings his word is his bond, generally speaking, although we do not
+forget that not long ago a branch in North China of the Hong-kong and
+Shanghai Bank was swindled seriously by a shroff who had done honest
+duty for a great number of years. It cannot, however, be said that such
+behavior is a common thing among the commercial class. My personal
+experience has been that John does what he says he will do, and for
+years he will go on doing that one thing; but it should not surprise you
+if one fine morning, with the infinite sagacity of his race, he ceases
+to do this when you are least expecting it--and he "does" you. Keep an
+eye on him, and the Chinese to be found in Hankow having dealings with
+Europeans in business is as good as the best of men.
+
+We wended our way one morning into the native city, and agreed that few
+inconveniences of the Celestial Empire make upon the western mind a more
+speedy impression than the entire absence of sanitation. In Hankow we
+were in mental suspense as to which was the filthier native city--Hankow
+or Shanghai. But we are probably like other travelers, who find each
+city visited worse than the last. Should there arise in their midst a
+man anxious to confer an everlasting blessing upon his fellow Chinese,
+no better work could he do than to institute a system approaching what
+to our Western mind is sanitation. We arrived, of course, in the winter,
+and, having seen it at a time when the sun could do but little in
+increasing the stenches, we leave to the imagination what it would be in
+the summer, in a city which for heat is not excelled by Aden.[A] During
+the summer of 1908 no less than twenty-eight foreigners succumbed to
+cholera, and the native deaths were numberless.
+
+The people were suffering very much from the cold, and it struck me as
+one of the unaccountable phenomena of their civilization that in their
+ingenuity in using the gifts of Nature they have never learned to weave
+wool, and to employ it in clothing--that is, in a general sense. There
+are a few exceptions in the empire. The nation is almost entirely
+dependent upon cotton for clothing, which in winter is padded with a
+cheap wadding to an abnormal thickness. The common people wear no
+underclothing whatever. When they sleep they strip to the skin, and wrap
+themselves in a single wadded blanket, sleeping the sleep of the tired
+people their excessive labor makes them. And, although their clothes
+might be the height of discomfort, they show their famous indifference
+to comfort by never complaining. These burdensome clothes hang around
+them like so many bags, with the wide gaps here and there where the wind
+whistles to the flesh. It is a national characteristic that they are
+immune to personal inconveniences, a philosophy which I found to be
+universal, from the highest to the lowest.
+
+Everybody we met, from the British Consul-General downward, was
+surprised to know that my companion and I had no knowledge of the
+Chinese language, and seemed to look lightly upon our chances of ever
+getting through.
+
+It was true. Neither my companion nor myself knew three words of the
+language, but went forward simply believing in the good faith of the
+Chinese people, with our passports alone to protect us. That we should
+encounter difficulties innumerable, that we should be called upon to put
+up with the greatest hardships of life, when viewed from the standard to
+which one had been accustomed, and that we should be put to great
+physical endurance, we could not doubt. But we believed in the Chinese,
+and believed that should any evil befall us it would be the outcome of
+our own lack of forbearance, or of our own direct seeking. We knew that
+to the Chinese we should at once be "foreign devils" and "barbarians,"
+that if not holding us actually in contempt, they would feel some
+condescension in dealing and mixing with us; but I was personally of the
+opinion that it was easier for us to walk through China than it would be
+for two Chinese, dressed as Chinese, to walk through Great Britain or
+America. What would the canny Highlander or the rural English rustic
+think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his countryside?
+
+We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a
+boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen
+in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat
+_Kinsha_ (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which
+English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way, and all
+looked rosy enough.[B] But for the author, who with his companion was a
+literal "babe in the wood," the day was most eventful and trying to
+one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and sundry
+respecting our proposed tramp and the way we should get to work in
+making preparations. Each individual person seemed vigorously to do his
+best to induce us to turn back and follow callings of respectable
+members of society. From Shanghai upwards we might have believed
+ourselves watched by a secret society, which had for its motto, "Return,
+oh, wanderer, return!" Hardly a person knew aught of the actual
+conditions of the interior of the country in which he lived and labored,
+and everyone tried to dissuade us from our project.
+
+Coming ashore in good spirits, we called at the Consulate, at the back
+of the city graveyard, and were smoking his cigars and giving his boy an
+examination in elementary English, when the Consul came down. It was not
+possible, however, for us to get much more information than we had read
+up, and the Consul suggested that the most likely person to be of use to
+us would be the missionary at the China Inland Mission. Thither we
+repaired, following a sturdy employ� of Britain, but we found that the
+C.I.M. representative was not to be found--despite our repairing. So off
+we trotted to the chief business house of the town, at the entrance to
+which we were met by a Chinese, who bowed gravely, asked whether we had
+eaten our rice, and told us, quietly but pointedly, that our passing up
+the rough stone steps would be of no use, as the manager was out. A few
+minutes later I stood reading the inscription on the gravestone near the
+church, whilst my brave companion, The Other Man, endeavored fruitlessly
+to pacify a fierce dog in the doorway of the Scottish Society's
+missionary premises--but that missionary, too, was out!
+
+What, then, was the little game? Were all the foreigners resident in
+this town dodging us, afraid of us--or what?
+
+"The latter, the blithering idiots!" yelled The Other Man. He was
+infuriated. "Two Englishmen with English tongues in their heads, and
+unable to direct their own movements. Preposterous!" And then, making an
+observation which I will not print, he suggested mildly that we might
+fix up all matters ourselves.
+
+Within an hour an English-speaking "one piece cook" had secured the
+berth, which carried a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, we were
+well on the way with the engaging of our boat for the Gorges trip, and
+one by one our troubles vanished.
+
+Laying in stores, however, was not the lightest of sundry perplexities.
+Curry and rice had been suggested as the staple diet for the river
+journey; and we ordered, with no thought to the contrary, a picul of
+best rice, various brands of curries, which were raked from behind the
+shelves of a dingy little store in a back street, and presented to us
+at alarming prices--enough to last a regiment of soldiers for pretty
+well the number of days we two were to travel; and, for luxuries, we
+laid in a few tinned meats. All was practically settled, when The Other
+Man, settling his eyes dead upon me, yelled--
+
+"Dingle, you've forgotten the milk!" And then, after a moment, "Oh,
+well, we can surely do without milk; it's no use coming on a journey
+like this unless one can rough it a bit." And he ended up with a rude
+reference to the disgusting sticky condensed milk tins, and we wandered
+on.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, did The Other Man. He looked at a small stone on
+the pavement for a long time, eventually cruelly blurting out, directly
+at me, as if it were all my misdoing: "The sugar, the sugar! We _must_
+have sugar, man." I said nothing, with the exception of a slight remark
+that we might do without sugar, as we were to do without milk. There was
+a pause. Then, raising his stick in the air, The Other Man perorated:
+"Now, I have no wish to quarrel" (and he put his nose nearer to mine),
+"you know that, of course. But to _think_ we can do without sugar is
+quite unreasonable, and I had no idea you were such a cantankerous man.
+We have sugar, or--I go back."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had sugar. It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets
+of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with
+commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly
+dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar
+were ordered, and sugar--that dirty, brown sticky stuff--got into
+everything on board--my fingers are sticky even as I write--and no less
+than exactly one-half went down to the bottom of the Yangtze. Travelers
+by houseboat on the Upper Yangtze should have some knowledge of
+commissariat.
+
+Getting away was a tedious business.
+
+Later, the fellows pressed us to spend a good deal of time in the small,
+dingy, ill-lighted apartment they are pleased to call their club; and
+the skipper had to recommission his boat, get in provisions for the
+voyage, engage his crew, pay off debts, and attend to a thousand and one
+minute details--all to be done after the contract to carry the madcap
+passengers had been signed and sealed, added to the more practical
+triviality of three-fourths of the charge being paid down. And then our
+captain, to add to the dilemma, vociferously yelled to us, in some
+unknown jargon which got on our nerves terribly, that he was waiting for
+a "lucky" day to raise anchor.
+
+However, we did, as the reader will be able to imagine, eventually get
+away, amid the firing of countless deafening crackers, after having
+watched the sacrifice of a cock to the God of the River, with the
+invocation that we might be kept in safety. Poling and rowing through a
+maze of junks, our little floating caravan, with the two magnates on
+board, and their picul of rice, their curry and their sugar, and
+slenderest outfits, bowled along under plain sail, the fore-deck packed
+with a motley team of somewhat dirty and ill-fed trackers, who whistled
+and halloed the peculiar hallo of the Upper Yangtze for more wind.
+
+The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered
+speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world
+untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I
+revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with
+the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my
+impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more
+native life, and--more native dirt!--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote B: The _Kinsha_ was the first British gunboat on the Upper
+Yangtze.]
+
+
+
+
+SECOND JOURNEY
+
+ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING, THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Gloom in Ichang Gorge_. _Lightning's effect_. _Travellers' fear_.
+_Impressive introduction to the Gorges_. _Boat gets into Yangtze
+fashion_. _Storm and its weird effects_. _Wu-pan: what it is_. _Heavenly
+electricity and its vagaries_. _Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy
+rain_. _Bedding soaked_. _Sleep in a Burberry_. _Gorges and Niagara
+Falls compared_. _Bad descriptions of Yangtze_. _World of eternity_.
+_Man's significant insignificance_. _Life on board briefly described_.
+_Philosophy of travel_. _Houseboat life not luxurious_. _Lose our only
+wash-basin_. _Remarks on the "boy." A change in the kitchen:
+questionable soup_. _Fairly low temperature_. _Troubles in the larder_.
+_General arrangements on board_. _Crew's sleeping-place_. _Sacking makes
+a curtain_. _Journalistic labors not easy_. _Rats preponderate_. _Gorges
+described statistically_.
+
+
+Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
+slowly and impenetrably over all things.
+
+A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
+amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
+distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
+the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as
+black as ink.
+
+Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
+assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
+to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north
+against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
+seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting
+but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the
+sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then, suddenly,
+with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking the earth
+under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell--impenetrable,
+sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight.
+Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the
+reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men,
+aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with
+a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the
+darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge--a magnificent sixteen-mile
+stretch, opening up the famous gorges on the fourth of the great rivers
+of the world, which had cleaved its course through a chain of hills,
+whose perpendicular cliffs form wonderful rock-bound banks, dispelling
+all thought of the monotony of the Lower Yangtze.
+
+Upstream we had glided merrily upon a fresh breeze, which bore the
+warning of a storm. All on board was settling down into Yangtze fashion,
+and the barbaric human clamor of our trackers, which now mutteringly
+died away, was suddenly taken up, as above recorded, and all
+unexpectedly answered by a grander uproar--a deep threatening boom of
+far-off thunder. In circling tones and semitones of wrath it volleyed
+gradually through the dark ravines, and, startled by the sound, the two
+travelers, roused for the first time from their natural engrossment in
+the common doings of the _wu-pan_,[C] saw the reflection of the sun on
+the waters, now turned to a livid murkiness, deepening with a
+threatening ink-like aspect as the river rushed voluminously past our
+tiny floating haven. Strangely silenced were we by this weird terror,
+and watched and listened, chained to the deck by a thousand mingled
+fears and fascinations, which breathed upon our nerves like a chill
+wind. As we became accustomed then to the yellow darkness, we beheld
+about the landscape a spectral look, and the sepulchral sound of the
+moving thunder seemed the half-muffled clang of some great iron-tongued
+funeral bell. Then came the rain, introduced swiftly by the deafening
+clatter of another thunder crash that made one stagger like a ship in a
+wild sea, and we strained our eyes to gaze into a visionary chasm
+cleaved in twain by the furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the
+unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this
+singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it
+flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination
+quite indescribable.
+
+For hours we sat upon a beam athwart the afterdeck, in silence drinking
+in the strange phenomenon. We watched, after a small feed of curry and
+rice, long into the dark hours, when the thunder had passed us by, and
+in the distant booming one could now imagine the lower notes streaming
+forth from some great solemn organ symphony. The fierce lightning
+twitched, as it danced in and out the crevices--inwards, outwards,
+upwards, then finally lost in one downward swoop towards the river,
+tearing open the liquid blackness with its crystal blade of fire. The
+rain ceased not. But soon the moon, peeping out from the tops of a
+jagged wall above us, looking like a soiled, half-melted snowball, shone
+full down the far-stretching gorge, and now its broad lustre shed
+itself, like powdered silver, over the whole scene, so that one could
+have imagined oneself in the living splendor of some eternal sphere of
+ethereal sweetness. And so it might have been had the rain abated--a
+curious accompaniment to a moonlight night. Down it came, straight and
+determined and businesslike, in the windless silence, dancing like a
+shower of diamonds of purest brilliance on the background of the placid
+waters.
+
+Very beautiful, reader, for a time. But would that the rain had been all
+moonshine!
+
+Glorious was it to revel in for a time. But, during the weary night
+watches, in a bed long since soaked through, and one's safest
+nightclothes now the stolid Burberry, with face protected by a
+twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with
+the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and
+uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the
+worn-out bamboo matting--ah, it was then, _then_ that one would have
+foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic life of the _wu-pan_.
+
+Our introduction, therefore, to the great Gorges of the Upper
+Yangtze--to China what the Niagara Falls are to America--was not
+remarkable for its placidity, albeit taken with as much complacency as
+the occasion allowed.
+
+I do not, however, intend to weary or to entertain the reader, as may
+be, by a long description of the Yangtze gorges. Time and time again
+have they fallen to the imaginative pens of travelers--mostly bad or
+indifferent descriptions, few good; none better, perhaps, than Mrs.
+Bishop's. But at best they are imaginative--they lack reality. It has
+been said that the world of imagination is the world of eternity, and as
+of eternity, so of the Gorges--they cannot be adequately described. As I
+write now in the Ichang Gorge, I seem veritably to have reached
+eternity. I seem to have arrived at the bosom of an after-life, where
+one's body has ceased to vegetate, and where, in an infinite and eternal
+world of imagination, one's soul expands with fullest freedom. There
+seems to exist in this eternal world of unending rock and invulnerable
+precipice permanent realities which stand from eternity to eternity. As
+the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies,
+so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go
+on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his
+imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as
+a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the
+gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's
+significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous
+grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world--a spot in which
+blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility
+and patience are the first requisites in traveling on the Upper Yangtze.
+
+Reader, for your sake I refrain from a description. But may I, for
+perhaps your sake too, if you would wander hither ere the charm of
+things as they were in the beginning is still unrobbed and unmolested,
+give you some few impressions of a little of the life--grave, gay, but
+never unhappy--which I spent with my excellent co-voyager, The Other
+Man.
+
+It is a part of wisdom, when starting any journey, not to look forward
+to the end with too much eagerness: hear my gentle whisper that you may
+never get there, and if you do, congratulate yourself; interest yourself
+in the progress of the journey, for the present only is yours. Each day
+has its tasks, its rapids, its perils, its glories, its fascinations,
+its surprises, and--if you will live as we did, its _curry and rice_.
+Then, if you are traveling with a companion, remember that it is better
+to yield a little than to quarrel a great deal. Most disagreeable and
+undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what
+people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than
+on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life
+is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking
+it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace,
+if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to
+incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning to
+the end of the trip, make the best of everything in every way, and I can
+assure you, if you are not ill-tempered and suffer not from your liver,
+Nature will open her bosom and lead you by these strange by-ways into
+her hidden charms and unadorned recesses of sublime beauty, uneclipsed
+for their kind anywhere in the world.
+
+Think not that the life will be luxurious--houseboat life on the Upper
+Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of
+the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact,
+the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our _wu-pan_ was to get through the Gorges in as short a time as was
+possible, and for that reason we traveled in the discomfort of the
+smallest boat used to face the rapids.
+
+People entertaining the smallest idea of doing things travel in nothing
+short of a _kwadze_, the orthodox houseboat, with several rooms and
+ordinary conveniences. Ours was a _wu-pan_--literally five boards. We
+had no conveniences whatever, and the second morning out we were left
+without even a wash-basin. As I was standing in the stern, I saw it
+swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the
+perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us
+how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the
+crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped
+by the river--and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead.
+The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated
+something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh
+and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a
+combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the
+morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the
+typewriter.
+
+Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty
+well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He
+dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no
+ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other
+Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally
+concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and
+at once christened it as "consomm� � la maotsi"--and we can recommend
+it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we
+asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a
+rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His
+face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking
+curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning--the temperature
+below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!
+
+"God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name
+of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you
+come for?"
+
+"Alas!" he shouted, for we were at a rapid, "my savee makee good chow.
+No have got nothing!"
+
+"No have got nothing! No have got nothing!" Mysterious words, what could
+they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our
+sugar?
+
+"The fellow's a swindler!" cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But
+that's all very well. "No have got nothing!" Ah, there lay the secret.
+Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again
+with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were
+powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were
+victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice
+towards him personally--but ... _could he do it?_ Either a great wrath
+or a great sorrow overcame the boy; he skulked past, asked us to lie
+down on our shelves, where we had our beds, to give him room, and then
+set to work.
+
+In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal (all out of the same
+pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In
+parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with
+them about seven-eighths of the picul--and were not at all regretful.
+
+I should not like to assert--because I am telling the truth here--that
+our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was
+some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew
+eight inches of water. Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our
+dressing-rooms, our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional
+medicine-room, our cooking-room--and all else. If we stood bolt upright
+in the saloon amidships we bumped our heads on the bamboo matting which
+formed an arched roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men--you may
+question it, reader, but they did; in the stern, on either side of a
+great rudder, slept our boy and a friend of his; and between them and
+us, laid out flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship's cook for
+the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables, and the
+breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm all around one) were the
+captain and commodore--a fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature,
+strenuous at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain--a piece of
+sacking, but one would not wish this to be known--dividing them from us,
+we could see him preparing his globules to smoke before turning in for
+the night, and despite our frequent raving objections, our words ringing
+with vibrating abuse, it continued all the way to Chung-king: he
+certainly gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get him to say
+anything bearing upon the matter. Temperature during the day stood at
+about 50 degrees, and at night went down to about 30 degrees above
+freezing point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic labors, seated upon
+the upturned saucepan aforesaid, without a cushion, went hard. At night
+the Chinese candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center of an
+empty "Three Castles" tin, which the boy had used for some days as a
+pudding dish, gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats, and as
+many others as we happened to have. Rats crawled over our uncurtained
+bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears
+or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to
+us--they were made on board.
+
+The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be
+passed through before one reaches Kweifu:--
+
+    NAME OF GORGE          LENGTH             REMARKS
+
+    Ichang Gorge           16 miles      First and probably one
+                                         of the finest of the
+                                         Gorges.
+
+    Niu Kan Ma Fee         4 miles       An hour's journey after
+      (or Ox Liver                       coming out of the
+      Gorge)                             Ichang Gorge, if the
+                                         breeze be favorable;
+                                         an arduous day's
+                                         journey during high
+                                         river, with no wind.
+
+    Mi Tsang (or Rice      2 miles       Finest view is obtained
+      Granary Gorge)                     from western extremity;
+                                         exceedingly
+                                         precipitous.
+
+    Niu Kou (or Buffalo      ---         Very quiet in low-water
+      Mouth Reach)                       season; wild stretch
+                                         during high river.
+                                         At the head of this
+                                         reach H.M.S.
+                                         _Woodlark_ came to
+                                         grief on her maiden
+                                         trip.
+
+    Urishan Hsia (or         ---         Over thirty miles in
+    Gloomy Mountain                      length. Grandest
+    Gorge)                               and highest gorge
+                                         _en route to_ Chung-king.
+                                         Half-way
+                                         through is the
+                                         boundary between
+                                         Hu-peh and Szech'wan.
+
+    Fang Hsian Hsia          ---         Last of the gorges;
+    (or Windbox Gorge)                   just beyond is the
+                                         city of Kweifu.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote C: A _wu-pan_ (literally _wu_ of five and _pan_ of boards) is
+a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They
+are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the
+river on which they ply.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE YANGTZE RAPIDS
+
+
+The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated
+on the river upward from Ichang. One of the chief discomforts the
+traveler first experiences is due to a total ignorance of the vicinity
+of the main rapids, and often, therefore, when he is least expecting it
+perhaps, he is called upon by the _laoban_ to go ashore. He has then to
+pack up the things he values, is dragged ashore himself, his gear
+follows, and one who has no knowledge of the language and does not know
+the ropes is, therefore, never quite happy for fear of some rapid
+turning up. By comparing the rapids with the Gorges the traveler would,
+however, from the lists given, be able easily to trace the whereabouts
+of the more dangerous rushes; which are distributed with alarming
+frequency on the river between Ichang and Kweifu.
+
+
+TA TONG T'AN (OTTER CAVE RAPID)
+
+Low water rapid. Swirling volume of coffee and milk color; round about a
+maze of rapids and races, in the Yao-cha Ho reach.
+
+
+TONG LING RAPID
+
+At the foot of the Ox Liver Gorge. An enormous black rock lies amid
+stream some forty feet below, or perhaps as much above the surface, but
+unless experienced at low water will not appeal to the traveler as a
+rapid; passage dangerous, dreaded during low-water season. On Dec. 28th,
+1900, the German steamer, _Sui-Hsiang_ was lost here. She foundered in
+twenty-five fathoms of water, with an immense hole ripped in her bottom
+by the black rock; all on board saved by the red boats, with the
+exception of the captain.
+
+
+HSIN T'AN RAPIDS (OR CHIN T'AN RAPIDS)
+
+During winter quite formidable; the head, second and third rapids
+situated in close proximity, the head rapid being far the worst to
+negotiate. On a bright winter's day one of the finest spectacles on the
+Upper Yangtze. Wrecks frequent. Just at head of Ox Liver Gorge.
+
+
+YEH T'AN (OR WILD RAPID)
+
+River reduced suddenly to half its width by an enormous detritus of
+boulders, taking the form of a huge jagged tongue, with curling on
+edges; commonly said to be high when the Hsin T'an is low. At its worst
+during early summer and autumn. Wrecks frequent, after Mi Tsang Gorge is
+passed, eight miles from Kwei-chow.
+
+
+NIU K'EO T'AN (BUFFALO MOUTH RAPID)
+
+Situated at the head of Buffalo Mouth Reach, said to be more difficult
+to approach than even the Yeh T'an, because of the great swirls in the
+bay below. H.M.S. _Woodlark_ came to grief here on her maiden trip up
+river.
+
+
+HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)
+
+Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge,
+particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906,
+the French gunboat _Olry_ came within an ace of destruction by losing
+her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong
+for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working
+astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the
+way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back
+undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to
+and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management
+she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually
+brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden
+jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her
+destination.
+
+
+HEH SH�H T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)
+
+Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.
+
+
+HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)
+
+Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon
+Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low
+river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as
+1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its
+breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced
+this roaring rapid.
+
+This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky
+bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped,
+tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift
+back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at
+its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly
+with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely
+disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and
+March, when it certainly merits the appellation of "Glorious Dragon
+Rapid," presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome
+one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A
+hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children,
+are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din
+of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat
+is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Chinese myths, the
+landslip which produced the rapid was caused by the following
+circumstance. The ova of a dragon being deposited in the bowels of the
+earth at this particular spot, in due course became hatched out in some
+mysterious manner. The baby dragon grew and grew, but remained in a
+dormant state until quite full grown, when, as is the habit of the
+dragon, it became active, and at the first awakening shook down the
+hill-side by a mighty effort, freed himself from the bowels of the
+earth, and made his way down river to the sea; hence the landslip, the
+rapid, and its name.
+
+
+FUH T'AN RAPID (OR TIGER RAPID)
+
+Eight miles beyond Wan Hsien. Very savage during summer months, but does
+not exist during low-water season. Beyond this point river widens
+considerably. Twenty-five miles further on travelers should look out for
+Sh�h Pao Chai, or Precious Stone Castle, a remarkable cliff some 250 or
+300 feet high. A curious eleven-storied pavilion, built up the face of
+the cliff, contains the stairway to the summit, on which stands a
+Buddhist temple. There is a legend attached to this remarkable rock that
+savors very much of the goose with the golden eggs.
+
+Once upon a time, from a small natural aperture near the summit, a
+supply of rice sufficient for the needs of the priests flowed daily into
+a basin-shaped hole, just large enough to hold the day's supply.
+
+The priests, however, thinking to get a larger daily supply, chiselled
+out the basin-shaped hole to twice its original size, since when the
+flow of rice ceased.
+
+
+KWAN �N T'AN (OR GODDESS OF MERCY RAPID)
+
+Two miles beyond the town of Feng T'ou. Like the Fuh T'an, is an
+obstacle to navigation only during the summer months, when junks are
+often obliged to wait for several days for a favorable opportunity to
+cross the rapid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Scene at the Rapid_. _Dangers of the Yeh T'an_. _Gear taken ashore_.
+_Intense cold_. _Further preparation_. _Engaging the trackers_. _Fever
+of excitement_. _Her nose is put to it_. _Struggles for mastery_.
+_Author saves boatman_. _Fifteen-knot current_. _Terrific labor on
+shore_. _Man nearly falls overboard_. _Straining hawsers carry us over
+safely_. _The merriment among the men_. _The thundering cataract_.
+_Trackers' chanting_. _Their life_. _"Pioneer" at the Yeh T'an_. _The
+Buffalo Mouth Reach_. _Story of the "Woodlark."_ _How she was saved_.
+_Arrival at Kweifu_. _Difficulty in landing_. _Laying in provisions_.
+_Author laid up with malaria_. _Survey of trade in Shanghai and
+Hong-Kong_. _Where and why the Britisher fails_. _Comparison with
+Germans_. _Three western provinces and pack-horse traffic_. _Advantages
+of new railway_. _Yangtze likely to be abandoned_. _East India Company.
+French and British interests_. _Hint to Hong-Kong Chamber of Commerce._
+
+
+Wild shrieking, frantic yelling, exhausted groaning, confusion and
+clamor,--one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of
+reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and
+distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the
+scrunching, the straining, and then--a final snap! Back we go, sheering
+helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters,
+and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us
+anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the
+rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of
+gratitude to the deity of the river.
+
+We were at the Yeh T'an, or the Wild Rapid, some distance on from the
+Ichang Gorge, were almost over the growling monster, when the tow-line,
+straining to its utmost limit, snapped suddenly with little warning, and
+we drifted in a moment or two away down to last night's anchorage, far
+below, where we were obliged to bring up the last of the long tier of
+boats of which we were this morning the first.
+
+And now we are ready again to take our turn.
+
+Our gear is all taken ashore. Seated on a stone on shore, watching
+operations, is The Other Man. The sun vainly tries to get through, and
+the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time.
+The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out,
+their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to
+the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the
+'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to
+feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way,
+is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring
+towards the boat, in a fever of excitement that rises higher every
+moment, the natural elements of hunger and constant struggle against the
+great river swell their fury; they bellow like wild beasts, _they are
+like beasts_, for they have known nothing but struggle all their lives;
+they have always, since they were tiny children, been fighting this
+roaring water monster--they know none else. And now, as I say, they
+bellow like beasts, each man ravenously eager to be among the number
+chosen to earn a few cash.[D] The arrangement at last is made, and the
+discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening.
+It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then
+harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with
+which they connect themselves to the straining tow-lines.
+
+And now her nose is put into the teeth of this trough of treachery--a
+veritable boiling cauldron, stirring up all past mysteries. Waves rush
+furiously towards us, with the growl of a thousand demons, whose anger
+is only swelled by the thousands of miles of her course from far-away
+Tibet. It seems as if they must instantly devour her, and that we must
+now go under to swell the number of their victims. But they only beat
+her back, for she rides gracefully, faltering timidly with frightened
+creaks and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with
+their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very
+death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic
+bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty
+is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his
+single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky
+little laugh and asks if he has hurt me--yelling through his hands in my
+ears, for the noise is terrible. To look out over the side makes me
+giddy, for the fifteen-knot current, blustering and bubbling and foaming
+and leaping, gives one the feeling that he is in an express train
+tearing through the sea. On shore, far ahead, I can see the
+trackers--struggling forms of men and women, touching each other,
+grasping each other, wrestling furiously and mightily, straining on all
+fours, now gripping a boulder to aid them forward, now to the right, now
+to the left, always fighting for one more inch, and engaged in a task
+which to one seeing it for the first time looks as if it were quite
+beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers,
+whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the
+average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb
+frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on
+the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch
+by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead
+against the leaping current in the gapway in the reef.
+
+None come to offer assistance to our crowd, who are now turned facing
+us, and strain almost flat on their backs, giving the strength of every
+drop of blood and fibre of their being; and the scene, now lit up by a
+momentary glimmer of feeble sunlight, assumes a wonderful and terrible
+picturesqueness. I am chained to the spot by a horrible fascination, and
+I find myself unconsciously saying, "I fear she will not go. I fear--"
+But a man has fallen exhausted, he almost fell overboard, and now leans
+against the mast in utter weariness and fatigue, brought on by the
+morning's exertions. He is instantly relieved by a bull-dog fellow of
+enormous strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying
+moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for
+the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and
+self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak,
+crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There
+is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and
+you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous
+quiver of the timbers, and you turn to see the angry water, which sounds
+as if a hundred hounds are beating under us for entry at the barred
+door. There is another deafening yell, the men tear away like frightened
+horses. Another mighty pull, and another, and another, and we slide over
+into smooth water.
+
+Then I breathe freely, and yell myself.
+
+The little boat seems to gasp for breath as a drowning man, saved in the
+nick of time, shudders in every limb with pain and fear.
+
+As we tied up in smooth water, all the men, from the _laoban_ to the
+meanest tracker, laughed and yelled and told each other how it was done.
+We baled the water out of the boat, and one was glad to pull away from
+the deafening hum of the thundering cataract. A faulty tow-line, a
+slippery hitch, one false step, one false maneuver, and the shore might
+have been by that time strewn with our corpses. As it was, we were safe
+and happy.
+
+But the trackers are strange creatures. At times they are a quarter of a
+mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines
+of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky
+promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their
+bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river.
+Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his
+body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last
+journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet
+these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their
+lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and
+receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.
+
+Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by
+mentioning the exploits of the steamer _Pioneer_, which on three
+consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and,
+though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged
+to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of
+her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard
+and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the
+hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the
+dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought
+by the great variation in the level of the river, that this formidable
+mid-level rapid completely disappears at high level.
+
+After we had left this rapid--and right glad were we to get away--we
+came, after a couple of hours' run, to the Niu K'eo, or Buffalo Mouth
+Reach, quiet enough during the low-water season, but a wild stretch
+during high river, where many a junk is caught by the violently gyrating
+swirls, rendered unmanageable, and dashed to atoms on some rocky
+promontory or boulder pile in as short a space of time as it takes to
+write it. It was here that the _Woodlark_, one of the magnificent
+gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union
+Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One
+of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders
+useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the
+foaming rapid. The engines were immediately reversed to full speed
+astern; but the swift current, combined with the momentum of the ship,
+carried her willy-nilly to the rock-bound shore, on which she crumpled
+her bows as if they were made of tin. Fortunately she was built in
+water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section,
+straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted
+the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at
+Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges. This town,
+formerly a considerable coaling center, overlooks most beautiful
+hillocks, with cottage gardens cultivated in every accessible corner,
+and a wide sweep of the river.
+
+We landed with difficulty. "Chor, chor!" yelled the trackers, who marked
+time to their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step;
+but they almost gave up the ghost. However, we did land, and so did our
+boy, who bought excellent provisions and meat, which, alas! too soon
+disappeared. The mutton and beef gradually grew less and daily
+blackened, wrapped up in opposite corners of the cabin, under the
+protection from the wet of a couple of sheets of the "Pink 'Un."
+
+From Kweifu to Wan Hsien there was the same kind of scenery--the clear
+river winding among sand-flats and gravel-banks, with occasional stiff
+rapids. But after having been in a _wu-pan_ for several days, suffering
+that which has been detailed, and much besides, the journey got a bit
+dreary. These, however, are ordinary circumstances; but when one has
+been laid up on a bench of a bed for three days with a high temperature,
+a legacy of several years in the humid tropics, the physical discomfort
+baffles description. Malaria, as all sufferers know, has a tendency to
+cause trouble as soon as one gets into cold weather, and in my case, as
+will be seen in subsequent parts of this book, it held faithfully to its
+best traditions. Fever on the Yangtze in a _wu-pan_ would require a
+chapter to itself, not to mention the kindly eccentricities of a
+companion whose knowledge of malaria was most elementary and whose
+knowledge of nursing absolutely _nil_. But I refrain. As also do I of
+further talk about the Yangtze gorges and the rapids.
+
+From Kweifu to Wan Hsien is a tedious journey. The country opens out,
+and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and
+difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in
+comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward
+happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have
+happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be
+accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all
+precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance
+elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from
+Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat
+having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no
+less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry,
+while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hopeless cry is continually ascending in Hong-Kong and Shanghai that
+trade is bad, that the palmy days are gone, and that one might as well
+leave business to take care of itself.
+
+And it is not to be denied that increased trade in the Far East does not
+of necessity mean increased profits. Competition has rendered buying and
+selling, if they are to show increased dividends, a much harder task
+than some of the older merchants had when they built up their businesses
+twenty or thirty years ago. There is no comparison. But Hong-Kong, by
+virtue of her remarkably favorable position geographically, should
+always be able to hold her own; and now that the railway has pierced the
+great province of Y�n-nan, and brought the provinces beyond the
+navigable Yangtze nearer to the outside world, she should be able to
+reap a big harvest in Western China, if merchants will move at the right
+time. More often than not the Britisher loses his trade, not on account
+of the alleged reason that business is not to be done, but because,
+content with his club life, and with playing games when he should be
+doing business, he allows the German to rush past him, and this man, an
+alien in the colony, by persistent plodding and other more or less
+commendable traits of business which I should like to detail, but for
+which I have no space, takes away the trade while the Britisher looks
+on.
+
+The whole of the trade of the three western provinces--Y�n-nan,
+Kwei-chow and Szech'wan--has for all time been handled by Shanghai,
+going into the interior by the extremely hazardous route of these
+Yangtze rapids, and then over the mountains by coolie or pack-horse.
+This has gone on for centuries. But now the time has come for the
+Hong-Kong trader to step in and carry away the lion share of the greatly
+increasing foreign trade for those three provinces by means of the
+advantage the new Tonkin-Y�n-nan Railway has given him.
+
+The railway runs from Haiphong in Indo-China to Y�n-nan-fu, the capital
+of Y�n-nan province. And it appears certain to the writer that, with
+such an important town three or four days from the coast, shippers will
+not be content to continue to ship via the Yangtze, with all its risk.
+British and American merchants, who carry the greater part of the
+imports to Western China, will send their goods direct to Hong-Kong,
+where transhipment will be made to Haiphong, and thence shipped by rail
+to Y�n-nan-fu, the distributing center for inland trade. To my mind,
+Hong-Kong merchants might control the whole of the British trade of
+Western China if they will only push, for although the tariff of Tonkin
+may be heavy, it would be compensated by the fact that transit would be
+so much quicker and safer. But it needs push.
+
+The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East
+India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle
+to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who
+have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their
+officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from
+the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself,
+as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must
+admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore,
+if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper,
+he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself
+of the opportunity. Shanghai has held the trump card formerly. This
+cannot be denied. But I think the railway is destined to turn the trade
+route to the other side of the empire. It is merely a question as to who
+is to get the trade--the French or the British. The French are on the
+alert. They cannot get territory; now they are after the trade.
+
+It is my opinion that it would be to the advantage of the colony of
+Hong-Kong were the Chamber of Commerce there to investigate the matter
+thoroughly. Now is the time.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote D: _Cash_, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle.
+Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.]
+
+
+
+
+THIRD JOURNEY
+
+CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Beginning of the overland journey_. _The official halo around the
+caravan_. _The people's goodbyes_. _Stages to Sui-fu_. _A persistent
+coolie_. _My boy's indignation, and the sequel_. _Kindness of the people
+of Chung-king_. _The Chung-king Consulate_. _Need of keeping fit in
+travelling in China_. _Walking tabooed_. _The question of "face" and
+what it means_. _Author runs the gauntlet_. _Carrying coolie's rate of
+pay_. _The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks
+thereon_. _The garden of China_. _Magnificence of the scenery of Western
+China_. _The tea-shops_. _The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author
+drank_. _Population of Szech-wan_. _Minerals found_. _Salt and other
+things_. _The Chinese inn: how it holds the palm for unmitigated filth_.
+_Description of the rooms_. _Szech-wan and Y�n-nan caravanserais_. _Need
+of a camp bed_. _Toileting in unsecluded publicity_. _How the author was
+met at market towns_. _How the days do not get dull_.
+
+
+In a manner admirably befitting my rank as an English traveler, apart
+from the fact that I was the man who was endeavoring to cross China on
+foot, I was led out of Chung-king _en route_ for Bhamo alone, my
+companion having had to leave me here.
+
+It was Easter Sunday, a crisp spring morning.
+
+First came a public sedan-chair, bravely borne by three of the finest
+fellows in all China, at the head of which on either side were two
+uniformed persons called soldiers--incomprehensible to one who has no
+knowledge of the interior, for they bore no marks whatever of the
+military--whilst uniformed men also solemnly guarded the back. Then
+came the grinning coolies, carrying that meager portion of my worldly
+goods which I had anticipated would have been engulfed in the Yangtze.
+And at the head of all, leading them on as captains do the Salvation
+Army, was I myself, walking along triumphantly, undoubtedly looking a
+person of weight, but somehow peculiarly unable to get out of my head
+that little adage apropos the fact that when the blind shall lead the
+blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my
+falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the
+way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions
+presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through
+which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out
+to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through the town.
+
+All the people were in the middle of the streets--those slippery streets
+of interminable steps--to give me at parting their blessings or their
+curses, and only with difficulty and considerable shouting and pushing
+could I sufficiently take their attention from the array of official and
+civil servants who made up my caravan as to effect an exit.
+
+The following were to be stages:--
+
+    1st day--Ts'eo-ma-k'ang            80 li.
+    2nd day--�in-ch'uan hsien         120  "
+    3rd day--Li-sh�h-ch'ang           105  "
+    4th day--Luchow                    75  "
+    5th day--Lan-ching-ch'ang          80  "
+    6th day--Lan-ch�-hsien             75  "
+    7th day--Sui-fu                   120  "
+
+In my plainest English and with many cruel gestures, four miles from the
+town, I told a man that he narrowly escaped being knocked down, owing to
+his extremely rude persistence in accosting me and obstructing my way.
+He acquiesced, opened his large mouth to the widest proportions, seemed
+thoroughly to understand, but continued more noisily to prevent me from
+going onwards, yelling something at the top of his husky voice--a voice
+more like a fog-horn than a human voice--which made me fear that I had
+done something very wrong, but which later I interpreted ignorantly as
+impudent humor.
+
+I owed nothing; so far as I knew, I had done nothing wrong.
+
+"Hi, fellow! come out of the way! Reverse your carcass a bit, old chap!
+Get----! What the---- who the----?"
+
+"Oh, master, he wantchee makee much bobbery. He no b'long my pidgin,
+d---- rogue! He wantchee catch one more hundred cash! He b'long one
+piecee chairman!"
+
+This to me from my boy in apologetic explanation.
+
+Then, turning wildly upon the man, after the manner of his kind raising
+his little fat body to the tips of his toes and effectively assuming the
+attitude of the stage actor, he cursed loudly to the uttermost of
+eternity the impudent fellow's ten thousand relatives and ancestry;
+which, although it called forth more mutual confidences of a like
+nature, and made T'ong (my boy) foam at the mouth with rage at such an
+inopportune proceeding happening so early in his career, rendering it
+necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed
+him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been
+dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud
+dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again,
+did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off--for it was assuredly
+one of the trio--leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy
+ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag.
+We did not come to terms. I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my
+path and walked on.
+
+Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their
+kindness the terrible three days spent still in our _wu-pan_ on the
+crowded beach would have been more terrible still.
+
+At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed
+up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in
+Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular
+Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an
+attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as
+he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and
+both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king
+Consulate is probably the finest--certainly one of the finest--in China,
+built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the
+bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds,
+has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being
+the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped
+to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be
+arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.
+
+People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.
+
+Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible
+anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to
+maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you
+have got the money to pay your way;[E] but walking is a very different
+thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually
+walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China
+Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to
+Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably
+easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible,
+but because the custom of the country--and a cursed custom too--is that
+one has to keep what is called his "face." And to walk tends to make a
+man lose "face."
+
+A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the
+question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially
+a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner
+_must_ have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath,
+because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler
+in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would
+travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the
+honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with
+this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside
+on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries, to be relegated to the
+worst inn's worst room, and to be generally treated with indignity? This
+idea of mine of crossing China on foot was preposterous!
+
+Even Mr. Hudson Broomhall, of the China Inland Mission, who with Mrs.
+Broomhall was extremely kind, and did all he could to fit me up for the
+journey (it is such remembrances that make the trip one which I would
+not mind doing again), was surprised to know that I was walking, and
+tried to persuade me to take a chair. But I flew in the face of it all.
+These good people certainly impressed me, but I decided to run the
+gauntlet and take the risk.
+
+The question of "face" is always merely one of theory, never of fact,
+and the principles that govern "face" and its attainment were wholly
+beyond my apprehension. "I shall probably be more concerned in saving my
+life than in saving my face," I thought.
+
+Therefore it was that when I reached a place called Fu-to-gwan I
+discarded all superfluities of dress, and strode forward, just at that
+time in the early morning when the sun was gilding the dewdrops on the
+hedgerows with a grandeur which breathed encouragement to the traveler,
+in a flannel shirt and flannel pants--a terrible breach of foreign
+etiquette, no doubt, but very comfortable to one who was facing the
+first eighty li he had ever walked on China's soil. My three
+coolies--the typical Chinese coolie of Szech'wan, but very good fellows
+with all their faults--were to land me at Sui-fu, 230 miles distant
+(some 650 li), in seven days' time. They were to receive four hundred
+cash per man per day, were to find themselves, and if I reached Sui-fu
+within the specified time I agreed to _kumshaw_ them to the extent of an
+extra thousand.[F] They carried, according to the arrangement, ninety
+catties apiece, and their rate of pay I did not consider excessive until
+I found that each man sublet his contract for a fourth of his pay, and
+trotted along light-heartedly and merry at my side; then I regretted
+that I had not thought twice before closing with them.
+
+It is probable that the solidity of the great paved highways of China
+have been exaggerated. I have not been on the North China highways, but
+have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and
+Y�n-nan particularly, and have very little praise to lavish upon them.
+Certain it is that the road to Sui-fu does not deserve the nice things
+said about it by various travelers. The whole route from Chung-king to
+Sui-fu, paved with flagstones varying in width from three to six or
+seven feet--the only main road, of course--is creditably regular in some
+places, whilst other portions, especially over the mountains, are
+extremely bad and uneven. In some places, I could hardly get along at
+all, and my boy would call out as he came along in his chair behind me--
+
+"Master, I thinkee you makee catch two piecee men makee carry. This
+b'long no proper road. P'raps you makee bad feet come."
+
+And truly my feet were shamefully blistered.
+
+One had to step from stone to stone with considerable agility. In places
+bridges had fallen in, nobody had attempted to put them into a decent
+state of repair--though this is never done in China--and one of the
+features of every day was the wonderful fashion in which the mountain
+ponies picked their way over the broken route; they are as sure-footed
+as goats.
+
+As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and
+golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the
+inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of
+the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden
+of China. Greater or denser cultivation I had never seen. The
+amphitheater-like hills smiled joyously in the first gentle touches of
+spring and enriching green, each terrace being irrigated from the one
+below by a small stream of water regulated in the most primitive manner
+(the windlass driven by man power), and not a square inch lost. Even the
+mud banks dividing these fertile areas are made to yield on the sides
+cabbages and lettuces and on the tops wheat and poppy. There are no
+fences. You see before you a forest of mountains, made a dark leaden
+color by thick mists, from out of which gradually come the never-ending
+pictures of green and purple and brown and yellow and gold, which roll
+hither and thither under a cloudy sky in indescribable confusion. The
+chain may commence in the south or the north in two or three soft,
+slow-rising undulations, which trend away from you and form a vapory
+background to the landscape. From these (I see such a picture even as I
+write, seated on the stone steps in the middle of a mountain path), at
+once united and peculiarly distinct, rise five masses with rugged
+crests, rough, and cut into shady hollows on the sides, a faint pale
+aureola from the sun on the mists rising over the summits and sharp
+outlines. Looking to the north, an immense curved line shows itself,
+growing ever greater, opening like the arch of a gigantic bridge, and
+binding this first group to a second, more complicated, each peak of
+which has a form of its own, and does in some sort as it pleases without
+troubling itself about its neighbor. The most remarkable point about
+these mountains is the life they seem to possess. It is an incredible
+confusion. Angles are thrown fantastically by some mad geometer, it
+would seem. Splendid banyan trees shelter one after toiling up the
+unending steps, and dotted over the landscape, indiscriminately in
+magnificent picturesqueness, are pretty farmhouses nestling almost out
+of sight in groves of sacred trees. Oftentimes perpendicular mountains
+stand sheer up for three thousand feet or more, their sides to the very
+summits ablaze with color coming from the smiling face of sunny Nature,
+in spots at times where only a twelve-inch cultivation is possible.
+
+A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round
+hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild
+orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer
+and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of
+what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more
+distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut
+perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with
+hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures--all make up a
+strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.
+
+Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie
+can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and
+as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people,
+their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is
+already in print. It were useless to give more of it here--and, reader,
+you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan--that thirst which is
+unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of
+the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara--one does not hear about.
+
+Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst--so
+very, very much.
+
+I wonder whether you, reader, were ever thirsty? Probably not. You get a
+thirst which is not insatiable. Yours is born of nothing extraordinary;
+yours can be satisfied by a gulp or two of water, or perhaps by a
+drink--or perhaps two, or perhaps three--of something stronger. The
+Chinese coolie's thirst arises from the grilling sun, from a dancing
+glare, from hard hauling, struggling with 120 pounds slung over his
+shoulders, dangling at the end of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst
+of the Chinese coolie--I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and
+sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body;
+I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have
+seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance,
+my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of
+perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop
+and wet myself again. I really _must_ wet myself and swell to life
+again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People come and stare at me, and
+wonder what it is. They, too, are thirsty, for they are all coolies and
+have the coolie thirst.
+
+I wet myself. I pour in cup after cup, and my body, my self sucks it in,
+draws it in as if it were the water of life. Instantly it gushes out
+again at every pore. I swill in more, and out it rushes again, madly
+rushes out as quickly as it can. I swill in more and more, and out it
+comes defiantly. I can keep none inside me. Useless--I _cannot_ quench
+my thirst. At last the thirst thinks its conquest assured, taking the
+hot tea for a signal of surrender; but I pour in more, and gradually
+feel the tea settling within me. I am a degree less torrid, a shade more
+substantial.
+
+And then here comes my boy.
+
+"Master, you wantchee makee one drink brandy-and-soda. No can catchee
+soda this side--have got water. Can do?"
+
+Ah! shall I? Shall I? No! I throw it away from me, fling a bottle of
+cheap brandy which he had bought for me at Chung-king away from me, and
+the boy looks forlorn.
+
+Tea is the best of all drinks in China; for the traveler unquestionably
+the best. Good in the morning, good at midday, good in the evening, good
+at night, even after the day's toil has been forgotten. To-morrow I
+shall have more walking, more thirsting, more tea. China tea, thou art a
+godsend to the wayfarer in that great land!
+
+I endeavored to get the details of the population of the province of
+Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent
+illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in
+China--estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty millions.
+
+The surface of this province is made up of masses of rugged mountains,
+through which the Yangtze has cut its deep and narrow channel. The area
+is everywhere intersected by steep-sided valleys and ravines. The
+world-famed plain of Chen-tu, the capital, is the only plain of any
+size in the province, the system of irrigation employed on it being one
+of the wonders of the world. Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an
+inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the
+stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the
+exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in
+this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its
+climate is even superior--a land delightfully _accident�e_. Among the
+minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and
+petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk.
+Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings,
+some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for
+centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass
+and water buffalo.
+
+The best conditions of Chinese inns are far and away worse than anything
+the traveler would be called upon to encounter anywhere in the British
+Isles, even in the most isolated places in rural Ireland. There can be
+no comparison. And my reader will understand that there is much which
+the European misses in the way of general physical comfort and
+cleanliness. Sanitation is absent _in toto_. Ordinary decency forbids
+one putting into print what the uninitiated traveler most desires to
+know--if he would be saved a severe shock at the outset; but everyone
+has to go through it, because one cannot write what one sees. All
+travelers who have had to put up at the caravanseries in Central and
+Western China will bear me out in my assertion that all of them reek
+with filth and are overrun by vermin of every description. The traveler
+whom misfortune has led to travel off the main roads of Russia may
+probably hesitate in expressing an opinion as to which country carries
+off the palm for unmitigated filth; but, with this exception, travelers
+in the Eastern Archipelago, in Central Asia, in Africa among the wildest
+tribes, are pretty well unanimous that compared with all these for dirt,
+disease, discomfort, an utter lack of decency and annoyance, the Chinese
+inn holds its own. And in no part of China more than in Szech'wan and
+Y�n-nan is greater discomfort experienced.
+
+The usual wooden bedstead stands in the corner of the room with the
+straw bedding (this, by the way, should on no account be removed if one
+wishes to sleep in peace), sometimes there is a table, sometimes a
+couple of chairs. If these are steady it is lucky, if unbroken it is the
+exception; there are never more. Over the bedstead (more often than not,
+by the way, it is composed of four planks of varying lengths and
+thickness, placed across two trestles) I used first to place my oilskin,
+then my _p'u-k'ai_, and that little creeper which rhymes with hug did
+not disturb me much. Rats ran round and over me in profusion, and, of
+course, the best room being invariably nearest to the pigsties, there
+were the usual stenches. The floor was Mother Earth, which in wet
+weather became mud, and quite a common thing it was for my joys to be
+enhanced during a heavy shower of rain by my having to sleep, almost
+suffocated, mackintosh over my head, owing to a slight break in the
+continuity of the roof--my umbrella being unavailable, as one of my men
+dropped it over a precipice two days out. For many reasons a camp-bed is
+to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most modest traveling
+equipment. I was many times sorry that I had none with me.
+
+The inns of Szech'wan, however, are by many degrees better than those of
+Y�n-nan, which are sometimes indescribable. Earthen floors are saturated
+with damp filth and smelling decay; there are rarely the paper windows,
+but merely a sort of opening of woodwork, through which the offensive
+smells of decaying garbage and human filth waft in almost to choke one;
+tables collapse under the weight of one's dinner; walls are always in
+decay and hang inwards threateningly; wicked insects, which crawl and
+jump and bite, creep over the side of one's rice bowl--and much else.
+Who can describe it? It makes one ill to think of it.
+
+Throughout my journeyings it was necessary for my toileting, in fact,
+everything, to be performed in absolute unalloyed publicity. Three days
+out my boy fixed up a cold bath for me, and barricaded a room which had
+a certain amount of privacy about it, owing to its secluded position;
+but even grown men and women, anxious to see what _it_ was like when it
+had no clothes on, came forward, poked their fingers through the paper
+in the windows (of course, glass is hardly known in the interior), and
+greedily peeped in. This and the profound curiosity the people evince in
+one's every action and movement I found most trying.
+
+It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or
+village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign
+visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again
+with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in
+hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking
+excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes,
+and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or
+not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business
+brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class
+could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered
+foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven
+pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see
+through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in
+their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion
+then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of
+indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room
+for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls
+and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible
+questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from
+the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest
+Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away
+and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy
+would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move
+the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my
+journey in peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote E: This refers to the main roads There are many places in
+isolated and unsurveyed districts where it is extremely difficult and
+often impossible to get along at all--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote F: This rate of four hundred cash per day per man was
+maintained right up to Tong-ch'uan-fu, although after Chao-t'ong the
+usual rate paid is a little higher, and the bad cash in that district
+made it difficult for my men to arrange four hundred "big" cash current
+in Szech'wan in the Y�n-nan equivalent. After Tong-ch'uan-fu, right on
+to Burma, the rate of coolie pay varies considerably. Three tsien two
+fen (thirty-two tael cents) was the highest I paid until I got to
+Tengyueh, where rupee money came into circulation, and where expense of
+living was considerably higher.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Szech-wan people a mercenary lot_. _Adaptability to trading_. _None but
+nature lovers should come to Western China_. _The life of the Nomad_.
+_The opening of China, and some impressions_. _China's position in the
+eyes of her own people_. _Industrialism, railways, and the attitude of
+the populace_. _Introduction of foreign machinery_. _Different opinions
+formed in different provinces_. _Climate, and what it is responsible
+for_. _Recent Governor of Szech-wan's tribute to Christianity_. _New
+China and the new student_. _Revolutionary element in Y�n-nan_. _Need of
+a new life, and how China is to get it_. _Luchow, and a little about
+it_. _Fusong from the military_. _Necessity of the sedan-chair_. _Cost
+of lodging_. _An impudent woman_. _Choice pidgin-English_. _Some of the
+annoyances of travel_. _Canadian and China Inland missionaries_.
+_Exchange of yarns_. _Exasperating Chinese life, and its effects on
+Europeans_. _Men refuse to walk to Sui-fu. Experiences in arranging
+up-river trip_. _Unmeaning etiquette of Chinese officials toward
+foreigners_. _Rude awakening in the morning_. _A trying early-morning
+ordeal_. _Reckonings do not tally_. _An eventful day_. _At the China
+Inland Mission_. _Impressions of Sui-fu. Fictitious partnerships_.
+
+
+The people of Szech'wan, compared with other Yangtze provinces, must be
+called a mercenary, if a go-ahead, one.
+
+Balancing myself on a three-inch form in a tea-shop at a small town
+midway between Li-sh�h-ch'ang and Luchow, I am endeavoring to take in
+the scene around me. The people are so numerous in this province that
+they must struggle in order to live. Vain is it for the most energetic
+among them to escape from the shadow of necessity and hunger; all are
+similarly begirt, so they settle down to devote all their energies to
+trade. And trade they do, in very earnest.
+
+Everything is labeled, from the earth to the inhabitants; these
+primitives, these blissfully "heathen" people, have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. I walk up to buy something of the value of only
+a few cash, and on all sides are nets and traps, like spider-webs, and
+the fly that these gentry would catch, as they see me stalk around
+inspecting their wares, is myself. They seem to lie in wait for one, and
+for an article for which a coolie would pay a few cash as many dollars
+are demanded of the foreigner. My boy stands by, however, magnificently
+proud of his lucrative and important post, yelling precautions to the
+curious populace to stand away. He hints, he does not declare outright,
+but by ungentle innuendo allows them to understand that, whatever their
+private characters may be, to him they are all liars and rogues and
+thieves. It is all so funny, that one's fatigue is minimized to the last
+degree by the humor one gets and the novel changes one meets everywhere.
+
+Onward again, my men singing, perhaps quarreling, always swearing. Their
+language is low and coarse and vulgar, but happily ignorant am I.
+
+The country, too, is fascinating in the extreme. A man must not come to
+China for pleasure unless he love his mistress Nature when she is most
+rudely clad. Some of her lovers are fascinated most in by-places, in the
+cool of forests, on the summit of lofty mountains, high up from the
+mundane, in the cleft of ca�ons, everywhere that the careless lover is
+not admitted to her contemplation. It is for such that China holds out
+an inviting hand, but she offers little else to the Westerner--the
+student of Nature and of man can alone be happy in the interior.
+Forgetting time and the life of my own world, I sometimes come to
+inviolate stillnesses, where Nature opens her arms and bewitchingly
+promises embraces in soft, unending, undulating vastnesses, where even
+the watching of a bird building its nest or brooding over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play, seems to hold one charmed
+beyond description. It is, some may say, a nomadic life. Yes, it is a
+nomadic life. But how beautiful to those of us, and there are many, who
+love less the man-made comforts of our own small life than the
+entrancing wonders of the God-made world in spots where nothing has
+changed. Gladly did I quit the dust and din of Western life, the
+artificialities of dress, and the unnumbered futile affectations of our
+own maybe not misnamed civilization, to go and breathe freely and
+peacefully in those far-off nooks of the silent mountain-tops where
+solitude was broken only by the lulling or the roaring of the winds of
+heaven. Thank God there are these uninvaded corners. The realm of
+silence is, after all, vaster than the realm of noise, and the fact
+brought a consolation, as one watched Nature effecting a sort of
+coquetry in masking her operations.
+
+And as I look upon it all I wonder--wonder whether with the "Opening of
+China" this must all change?
+
+The Chinese--I refer to the Chinese of interior provinces such as
+Szech-wan--are realizing that they hold an obscure position. I have
+heard educated Chinese remark that they look upon themselves as lost,
+like shipwrecked sailors, whom a night of tempest has cast on some
+lonely rock; and now they are having recourse to cries, volleys, all the
+signals imaginable, to let it be known that they are still there. They
+have been on this lonely isolated rock as far as history can trace. Now
+they are launching out towards progress, towards the making of things,
+towards the buying and selling of things--launching out in trade and in
+commerce, in politics, in literature, in science, in all that has spelt
+advance in the West. The modern spirit is spreading speedily into the
+domains of life everywhere--in places swiftly, in places slowly, but
+spreading inevitably, _si sit prudentia_.
+
+Nothing will tend, in this particular part of the country, to turn it
+upside down and inside out more than the cult of industrialism. In a
+number of centers in Eastern China, such as Han-yang and Shanghai,
+foreign mills, iron works, and so on, furnish new employments, but in
+the interior the machine of the West to the uneducated Celestial seems
+to be the foe of his own tools; and when railways and steam craft
+appear--steam has appeared, of course, on the Upper Yangtze, although it
+has not yet taken much of the junk trade, and Szech'wan has her railways
+now under construction (the sod was cut at Ichang in 1909)[G]--and a
+single train and steamer does the work of hundreds of thousands of
+carters, coolies, and boatmen, it is wholly natural that their imperfect
+and short-sighted views should lead them to rise against a seeming new
+peril.
+
+Whilst in the end the Empire will profit greatly by the inventions of
+the Occident, the period of transition in Szech'wan, especially if
+machines are introduced too rapidly and unwisely, is one that will
+disturb the peace. It will be interesting to watch the attitude of the
+people towards the railway, for Szech'wan is essentially the province of
+the farmer. Szech'wan was one of the provinces where concessions were
+demanded, and railways had been planned by European syndicates, and
+where the gentry and students held mass meetings, feverishly declaring
+that none shall build Chinese lines but the people themselves. I have no
+space in a work of this nature to go fully into the question of
+industrialism, railways, and other matters immediately vital to the
+interests of China, but if the peace of China is to be maintained, it
+is incumbent upon every foreigner to "go slowly." Machines of foreign
+make have before now been scrapped, railways have been pulled up and
+thrown into the sea, telegraph lines have been torn down and sold, and
+on every hand among this wonderful people there has always been apparent
+a distinct hatred to things and ideas foreign. But industrially
+particularly the benefits of the West are being recognized in Eastern
+China, and gradually, if foreigners who have to do the pioneering are
+tactful, trust in the foreign-manufactured machine will spread to
+Western China, and enlarged industrialism will bring all-round
+advantages to Western trade.
+
+Thus far there has been little shifting of the population from hamlets
+and villages to centers of new industries--even in the more forward
+areas quoted--but when this process begins new elements will enter into
+the Chinese industrial problem.
+
+As we hear of the New China, so is there a "new people," a people
+emboldened by the examples of officials in certain areas to show a
+friendliness towards progress and innovation. They were not friendly a
+decade ago. It may, perhaps, be said that this "new people" were born
+after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.
+
+Cotton mills, silk filatures, flour and rice mills employing western
+machinery, modern mining plants and other evidences of how China is
+coming out of her shell, cause one to rejoice in improved conditions.
+The animosity occasioned by these inventions that are being so gradually
+and so surely introduced into every nook and cranny of East and North
+China is very marked; but on close inspection, and after one has made a
+study of the subject, one is inclined to feel that it is more or less
+theoretical. So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far
+Western China.
+
+Readers may wonder at the differences of opinions expressed in the
+course of these pages--a hundred pages on one may get a totally
+different impression. But the absolute differences of conditions
+existing are quite as remarkable. From Chung-king to Sui-fu one breathed
+an air of progress--after one had made allowance for the antagonistic
+circumstances under which China lives--a manifest desire on every hand
+for things foreign, and a most lively and intelligent interest in what
+the foreigner could bring. In many parts of Y�n-nan, again, conditions
+were completely reversed; and one finding himself in Y�n-nan, after
+having lived for some time at a port in the east of the Empire, would
+assuredly find himself surrounded by everything antagonistic to that to
+which he has become accustomed, and the people would seem of a different
+race. This may be due to the differences of climate--climate, indeed, is
+ultimately the first and the last word in the East; it is the arbiter,
+the builder, the disintegrator of everything. A leading writer on
+Eastern affairs says that the "climate is the explanation of all this
+history of Asia, and the peoples of the East can only be understood and
+accounted for by the measuring of the heat of the sun's rays. In China,
+with climate and weather charts in your hands, you may travel from the
+Red River on the Y�n-nan frontier to the great Sungari in lusty
+Manchuria, and be able to understand and account for everything."
+
+However that may be, traveling in China, through a wonderful province
+like Szech'wan, whose chief entrep�t is fifteen hundred miles from the
+coast, convinces one that she has come to the parting of the ways. You
+can, in any city or village in Szech'wan--or in Y�n-nan, for that
+matter, in a lesser degree--always find the new nationalism in the form
+of the "New China" student. Despite the opposition he gets from the old
+school, and although the old order of things, by being so strong as
+almost to overwhelm him, allows him to make less progress than he
+would, this new student, the hope of the Empire, is there. I do not wish
+to enter into a controversy on this subject, but I should like to quote
+the following from a speech delivered by Tseh Ch'un Hs�an, when he was
+leaving his post as Governor of Szech'wan:--
+
+"The officials of China are gradually acquiring a knowledge of the great
+principles of the religions of Europe and America. And the churches are
+also laboring night and day to readjust their methods, and to make known
+their aims in their propagation of religion. Consequently, Chinese and
+foreigners are coming more and more into cordial relations. This fills
+me with joy and hopefulness.... My hope is that the teachers of both
+countries [Great Britain and America] will spread the Gospel more wisely
+than ever, that hatred may be banished, and disputes dispelled, and that
+the influence of the Gospel may create boundless happiness for my people
+of China. And I shall not be the only one to thank you for coming to the
+front in this good work.... May the Gospel prosper!"
+
+There are various grades of people in China, among which the scholar has
+always come first, because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the
+intellect that distinguishes man above the lower order of beings, and
+enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for
+others. At the time when Europe was thrilled and cut to the quick with
+news of the massacres of her compatriots in the Boxer revolts, the
+scholar was a dull, stupid fellow--day in day out, week in week out,
+month in month out, and year after year he ground at his classics. His
+classics were the _Alpha_ and _Omega_; he worshipped them. This era has
+now passed away.
+
+At the present moment there are upwards of twenty thousand Chinese
+students in Tokyo[H]--whither they went because Japan is the most
+convenient country wherein to acquire Western knowledge. The new
+learning, the new learning--they _must_ have the new learning! No high
+office is ever again likely to be given but to him who has more of
+Western knowledge than Chinese knowledge. And mere striplings, nursed in
+the lap of the mission schools, and there given a good grounding in
+Western education, these are the men far more likely to pass the new
+examinations. In Y�n-nan, where little chance exists for the scholars to
+advance, the new learning has brought with it a revolutionary element,
+which would soon become dangerous were it by any means common. I have
+seen an English-speaking fellow, anxious to get on and under the
+impression that the laws of his country were responsible for keeping him
+back, write in the back of his exercise book a phrase against the
+imperial ruler that would have cost him his head had it come to the
+notice of the high authorities.
+
+One will learn much if he travels across the Empire--facts and figures
+quite irreconcilable will arise, but even the man of dullest perception
+will be convinced that much of the reforming spirit in the people is
+only skin-deep, going no farther than the externals of life. It is at
+present, perhaps, merely a mad fermentation in the western provinces,
+wherefrom the fiercer it is the clearer the product will one day evolve
+itself. Such transitions are full of bewilderment to the
+European--bewildering to any writer who endeavors to tackle the Empire
+as a whole. Each province or couple of provinces should be dealt with
+separately, so diverse are the conditions.
+
+But if China, from the highest to the lowest, will only embrace truth
+and love her for her own sake, so that she will not abate one jot of
+allegiance to her; if China will let truth run down through the
+arteries of everyday commercial, social, and political life as do the
+waterways through her marvelous country; if China will kill her
+retardative conservatism, and in its place erect honesty and conscience;
+if China will let her moral life be quickened--then her transition
+period, from end to end of the Empire, will soon end. Mineral,
+agricultural, industrial wealth are hers to a degree which is not true
+of any other land. Her people have an enduring and expansive power that
+has stood the test of more than four thousand years of honorable
+history, and their activity and efficiency outside China make them more
+to be dreaded, as competitors, than any race or any dozen races of
+to-day.
+
+But New China must have this new life.
+
+Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization she will have in
+ever-increasing measure just in so much as she draws nearer to western
+peoples. But the new life can come from whence? From within or from
+without?
+
+Luchow, into which I was led just before noon on the fourth day out of
+Chung-king, is the most populous and richest city on the Upper Yangtze.
+
+Exceedingly clean for a Chinese city, possessing well-kept streets lined
+with well-stocked emporiums, bearing every evidence of commercial
+prosperity, it however lacks one thing. It has no hotel runners! I
+arrived at midday, crossing the river in a leaky ferry boat, under a
+blazing sun, my intention being to stop in the town at a tea-house to
+take a refresher, and then complete a long day's march, farther than the
+ordinary stage. But owing to some misunderstanding between the
+_fu-song_, sent to shadow the foreigner on part of his journey, and my
+boy, I was led through the busy city out into the open country before I
+had had a drink. And when I remonstrated they led me back again to the
+best inn, where I was told I should have to spend the night--there being
+nothing else, then, to be said.
+
+May I give a word of advice here to any reader contemplating a visit to
+China under similar conditions? It is the custom of the mandarins to
+send what is called a _fu-song_ (escort) for you; the escort comes from
+the military, although their peculiar appearance may lead you to doubt
+it. I have two of these soldier people with me to-day, and two bigger
+ragamuffins it has not been my lot to cast eyes on. They are the only
+two men in the crowd I am afraid of. They are of absolutely no use, more
+than to eat and to drink, and always come up smiling at the end of their
+stage for their _kumshaw_. During the whole of this day I have not seen
+one of them--they have been behind the caravan all the time; it would be
+hard to believe that they had sense enough to find the way, and as for
+escorting me, they have not accompanied me a single li of the way.[I]
+
+Another nuisance, of which I have already spoken, is the necessity of
+taking a chair to maintain respectability. These things make travel in
+China not so cheap as one would be led to imagine. Traveling of itself
+is cheap enough, as cheap as in any country in the world. For
+accommodation for myself, for a room, rice and as much hot water as I
+want, the charge is a couple of hundred cash--certainly not expensive.
+In addition, there is generally a little "cha tsien" (tea money) for the
+cook. But it is the "face" which makes away with money, much more than
+it takes to keep you in the luxury that the country can offer--which is
+not much!
+
+After I had had a bit of a discussion with my boy as to the room they
+wanted to house me in, a woman, brandishing a huge cabbage stump above
+her head, and looking menacingly at me, yelled that the room was good
+enough.
+
+"What does she say, T'ong?"
+
+"Oh, she b'long all same fool. She wantchee makee talkee talk. She have
+got velly long tongue, makee bad woman. She say one piecee Japan man
+makee stay here t'ree night. See? She say what makee good one piecee
+Japan man makee good one piecee English man. See? No have got topside,
+all same bottomside have got. Master, this no b'long my pidgin--this
+b'long woman pidgin, and woman b'long all same fool." T'ong ended up
+with an amusing allusion to the lady's mother, and looked cross because
+I rebuked him.
+
+Gathering, then, that the lady thought her room good enough for me, I
+saw no other course open, and as the crowd was gathering, I got inside.
+Before setting out to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at
+the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an
+unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of
+Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but
+Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the
+amount of general knowledge derived one from the other was therefore
+limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong
+and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation that his
+presence was distasteful to me, and at the end of the episode I found it
+imperative for my own safety, and perhaps his, to clear out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Canadians I found in their Chinese-built premises, comfortable
+albeit. Five of them were resident at the time, and they were quite
+pleased with the work they had done during the last year or so--most of
+them were new to China. At the China Inland Mission later I found two
+young Scotsmen getting some exercise by throwing a cricket ball at a
+stone wall, in a compound about twenty feet square. They were glad to
+see me, one of them kindly gave me a hair-cut, and at their invitation I
+stayed the night with them.
+
+What is it in the nature of the Chinese which makes them appear to be so
+totally oblivious to the best they see in their own country?
+
+It is surely not because they are not as sensitive as other races to the
+magic of beauty in either nature or art. But I found traveling and
+living with such apparently unsympathetic creatures exasperating to a
+degree, and I did not wonder that the European whose lot had been cast
+in the interior, sometimes, on emerging into Western civilization,
+appears eccentric to his own countrymen. But this in passing.
+
+I duly arrived at Lan-ch�-hsien, and was told that Sui-fu, 120 li away,
+would be reached the next day, although I had my doubts. A deputation
+from the local "gwan" waited upon me to learn my wishes and to receive
+my commands. I was assured that no European ever walked to Sui-fu from
+Lan-ch�-hsien, and that if I attempted to do such a thing I should have
+to go alone, and that I should never reach there. I remonstrated, but my
+boy was firm. He took me to him and fathered me. He almost cried over
+me, to think that I, that I, his master, of all people in the world,
+should doubt his allegiance to me. "I no 'fraid," he declared. "P'laps
+master no savee. Sui-fu b'long velly big place, have got plenty
+European. You wantchee makee go fast, catchee plenty good 'chow.' I
+think you catchee one piecee boat, makee go up the river. P'laps I think
+you have got velly tired--no wantchee makee more walkee--that no b'long
+ploper. That b'long all same fool pidgin."
+
+And at last I melted. There was nothing else to do.
+
+That no one ever walked to Sui-fu from this place the district potentate
+assured me in a private chit, which I could not read, when he laid his
+gunboat at my disposal.
+
+This, he said, would take me up very quickly. In his second note,
+wherein he apologized that indisposition kept him from calling
+personally upon me--this, of course, was a lie--he said he would feel it
+an honor if I would be pleased to accept the use of his contemptible
+boat. But T'ong whispered that the law uses these terms in China, and
+that nobody would be more disappointed than the Chinese magistrate if I
+_did_ take advantage of his unmeaning offer. So I took a _wu-pan_, and
+the following night, when pulling into the shadows of the Sui-fu pagoda,
+cold and hungry, I cursed my luck that I had not broken down the useless
+etiquette which these Chinese officials extend towards foreigners, and
+taken the fellow's gunboat.
+
+The _wu-pan_, they swore to me, would be ready to leave at 3:30 a.m. the
+day following. My boy did not venture to sleep at all. He stayed up
+outside my bedroom door--I say bedroom, but actually it was an apartment
+which in Europe I would not put a horse into, and the door was merely a
+wide, worm-eaten board placed on end. In the middle of the night I heard
+a noise--yea, a rattle. The said board fell down, inwards, almost upon
+me. A light was flashed swiftly into my eyes, and desultory remarks
+which suddenly escaped me were rudely interrupted by shrill screams. My
+boy was singing.
+
+"Master," he cried, pulling hard-heartedly at my left big toe to wake
+me, "come on, come on; you wantchee makee get up. Have got two o'clock.
+Get up; p'laps me no wakee you, no makee sleep--no b'long ploper. One
+man makee go bottomside--have catchee boat. This morning no have got
+tea--no can catch hot water makee boil."
+
+And soon we were ready to start. Punctually to the appointed hour we
+were at the bottom of the steep, dark incline leading down to the river
+bank.
+
+But my reckonings were bad.
+
+The _laoban_ and the other two youthful members of the half-witted crew
+had not yet taken their "chow," and this, added to many little
+discrepancies in their reckoning and in mine, kept me in a boiling rage
+until half-past six, when at last they pushed off, and nearly capsized
+the boat at the outset. The details of that early morning, and the
+happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never
+forget--from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the
+rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow
+escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a
+captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage
+ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We
+reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a wind. Hour
+after hour they toiled, making little headway with their misdirected
+labor, wasting their energies in doing the right things at the wrong
+time, and wrong things always, and long after sundown Sui-fu's pagoda
+loomed in the distance. At 11:00 p.m., stiff and hungry, and mad with
+rage, I was groping my way on all fours up the slippery steps through
+unspeakable slime and filth at the quayhead, only to be led to a
+disgusting inn as dirty as anything I had yet encountered. It was hard
+lines, for I could get no food.
+
+An invitation, however, was given me by the Rev. R. McIntyre, who with
+his charming wife conducts the China Inland Mission in this city, to
+come and stay with them. The next morning, after a sleepless night of
+twisting and turning on a bug-infested bed, I was glad to take advantage
+of the missionary's kindness. I could not have been given a kindlier
+welcome.
+
+Sui-fu has a population of roughly 150,000, and the overcrowding
+question is not the least important. It is situated to advantage on the
+right bank of the Yangtze, and does an immense trade in medicines,
+opium, silk, furs, silverwork, and white wax, which are the chief
+exports. Gunboats regularly come to Sui-fu during the heavy rains.
+
+Just outside the city, a large area is taken up with grave
+mounds--common with nearly every Chinese city. Mr. McIntyre and Mr.
+Herbert, who was passing through Sui-fu _en route_ for Ta-chien-lu,
+where he is now working, showed me around the city one afternoon, and
+one could see everything typical of the social life of two thousand
+years ago. The same narrow lanes succeed each other, and the conviction
+is gradually impressed upon the mind that such is the general trend of
+the character of the city and its people. There were the same busy
+mechanics, barbers, traders, wayside cooks, traveling fortune-tellers,
+and lusty coolies; the wag doctor, the bane of the gullible, was there
+to drive his iniquitous living; now and then the scene's monotony was
+disturbed by the presence of the chair and the retinue of a city
+mandarin. Yet with all the hurry and din, the hurrying and the scurrying
+in doing and driving for making money, seldom was there an accident or
+interruption of good nature. There was the same romance in the streets
+that one reads of at school--so much alike and yet so different from
+what one meets in the Chinese places at the coast or in Hong-Kong or
+Singapore. In Sui-fu, more than in any other town in Western China which
+I visited, had the native artist seemed to have lavished his ingenuity
+on the street signboards. Their caligraphy gave the most humorous
+intimation of the superiority of the wares on sale; many of them
+contained some fictitious emblem, adopted as the name of the shop,
+similar to the practice adopted in London two centuries ago, and so
+common now in the Straits Settlements, where bankrupts are allowed
+considerable more freedom than would be possible if fictitious
+registration were not allowed. I refer to the Registration of
+Partnerships.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote G: I inspected the railway at Ichang in December, 1910, and
+found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress.
+Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and
+excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the
+buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme
+seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting
+was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the
+gentry then decided that as nothing was being done at that end the
+company should be requested to stop work at Ichang, and start laying the
+line from Chen-tu, at the other end. "All the money will be spent," they
+cried, "and we shall get nothing up this end!" If the money ran out and
+left the central portion of the line incomplete, it did not matter so
+long as each city had something for its money!--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote H: This is not true to-day. There has been a great falling off
+in numbers.--E.J.D., February, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote I: This should not be taken to apply to the _fu-song_
+everywhere. I have found them to be the most useful on other occasions,
+but the above was written at Luchow as my experience of that particular
+day.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY.
+
+SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Chinese and simplicity of speech_. _Author and his caravan stopped_.
+_Advice to travelers_. _Farewell to Sui-fu_. _The postal service and
+tribute to I.P.O._ _Rushing the stages_. _Details of journey_.
+_Description of road to Chao-t'ong-fu_. _Coolie's pay_. _My boy steals
+vegetables_. _Remarks on roads and railways_. _The real Opening of
+China_. _How the foreigner will win the confidence of the Chinese_.
+_Distances and their variability_. _Calculations uprooted_. _Author in a
+dilemma_. _The scenery_. _Hard going_. _A wayside toilet, and some
+embarrassment_. _Filth inseparable from Chinese humanity_. _About
+Chinese inns_. _Typewriter causes some fun_. _Soldiers guard my
+doorway_. _Man's own "inner room."_ _One hundred and forty li in a day_.
+_Grandeur and solitude_. _Wisdom of traveling alone_. _Coolie nearly
+cuts his toe off_. _Street scene at Pu�rh-tu_. _The "dying" coolie_. _A
+manacled prisoner_. _Entertained by mandarins_. _How plans do not work
+out_.
+
+
+He who would make most abundant excuses for the Chinese could not say
+that he is simple in his speech.
+
+That speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form
+that it takes, is undoubtedly true: as the thought, so the speech.
+All social relations with us have their roots in mutual trust, and this
+trust is maintained by each man's sincerity of thought and speech.
+Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy,
+so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you
+no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The
+Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue,
+who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to
+account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of
+circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself,
+even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest
+difficulty in getting at the truth about their own affairs.
+
+As I was going out of Sui-fu my caravan and myself were delayed by some
+fellow, who held the attention of my men for a full quarter of an hour.
+I listened, understanding nothing. After another five minutes, by which
+time the conversation had assumed what I considered dangerous
+proportions, having the safety of my boy at heart, I asked--
+
+"T'ong, what is it?"
+
+"Half a sec.," he replied (having learnt this phrase from the gunboat
+men down the river). He did not, however, take his eyes from the man
+with whom he was holding the conversation. He then dived into my
+food-basket, wrenched off the top of a tin, and pulled therefrom two
+beautifully-marked live pigeons, which flapped their wings helplessly to
+get away, and resumed the conversation. Talk waxed furious, the birds
+were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming
+rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was
+the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.
+
+"That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He
+b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know."
+
+As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl,
+two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy
+boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to
+my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou
+would'st travel in China, peep not into thy _hoh sh�h lan ts�_ if thou
+would'st feed well.
+
+T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the
+disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he
+could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out
+into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to
+Chao-t'ong-fu.
+
+From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no
+hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the
+reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Y�n-nan were
+rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the
+regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no
+less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the
+delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been
+established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which
+the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the
+hitherto unheard-of time of two days--a traveler considers himself
+fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast
+daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in
+two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three
+days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter
+posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.
+
+It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little
+procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached
+before sundown. My coolies--probably owing to having derived more
+pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from
+Chung-king--decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the
+fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundred and ninety miles
+distant, if weather permitted, in eleven days. We were to travel by the
+following stages:--
+
+                          Length of        Height above
+                            stage              sea
+
+    1st day--Anpien          90 li            ----
+    2nd day--Huan-chiang     55 li            ----
+    3rd day--Fan-�h-ts'uen   70 li            ----
+    4th day--T'an-t'eo       70 li            ----
+    5th day--Lao-wa-t'an    140 li           1,140 ft.
+    6th day--Teo-sha-kwan    60 li           4,000 ft.
+    7th day--Ch'i-li-p'u     60 li           1,900 ft.
+    8th day--Ta-wan-ts�      70 li            ----
+    9th day--Ta-kwan-ting    70 li           3,700 ft.
+    10th day--Wuchai         60 li           7,000 ft.
+    11th day--Chao-t'ong-fu 100 li           6,400 ft.
+
+I knew that I was in for a very hard journey. The nature of the country
+as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is
+reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough
+and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably
+bad. At certain places it is cut out of the rock, at others it runs in
+the bed of the river, which is dotted everywhere with roaring rapids (as
+we are ascending very quickly), and when the water is high these roads
+are submerged and often impassable. In some places it was a six-inch
+path along the mountain slope, with a gradient of from sixty to seventy
+degrees, and landslips and rains are ever changing the path.
+
+Lao-wa-t'an is the most important point on the route. One of the largest
+Customs stations in the province of Y�n-nan is here situated at the east
+end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in
+length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the
+roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a
+fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li.
+The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the
+march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the
+physical exertion required to scale the treacherous roads. Over a broad,
+zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight
+curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for
+the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern
+bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock
+rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges
+of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due
+course.
+
+To Ch'i-li-p'u, high up on the mountain banks, the first twenty-five li
+is by the river. At the half-way place a fearful ascent is experienced,
+the most notable precipice on the route between Sui-fu and Y�n-nan-fu,
+up a broad zigzag path, and as I sat at dinner I could see neither top
+nor bottom owing to the overhanging masses of rock: this is after having
+negotiated an ascent quite as steep, but smaller. To Ta-kwan-hsien a few
+natural obstacles occur, although the road is always high up on the
+hill-sides. I crossed a miserable suspension bridge of two spans. The
+southern span is about thirty feet, the northern span eighty feet; the
+center is supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone,
+resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably
+worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very
+slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the
+general shaky appearance was particularly uninviting.
+
+From Ta-kwan-hsien to Wuchai is steady pulling. Once in an opening in
+the hill we passed along and then ascended an exceedingly steep spur on
+one side of a narrow and very deep natural amphitheatre, formed by
+surrounding mountains. We then came to a lagoon, and eventually the brow
+of the hill was reached. Thus the Wuchai Valley is arrived at, where,
+owing to a collection of water, the road is often impassable to man and
+beast. Often during the rainy season there is a lagoon of mud or water
+formed by the drainage from the mountains, which finds no escape but by
+percolating through the earth and rock to a valley on the east of, and
+below, the mountains forming the eastern boundary of the Wuchai Valley.
+To Chao-t'ong is fairly level going.
+
+Considering the road, it was not unnatural that my men gibbed a little
+at the eleven-day accomplishment. I had a long parley with them,
+however, and agreed to reward them to the extent of one thousand cash
+among the three if they did it. Their pay for the journey, over
+admittedly some of the worst roads in the Empire, was to be four hundred
+cash per man as before, with three hundred and thirty-three cash extra
+if the rain did not prevent them from getting in in eleven days. They
+were in good spirits, and so was I, as we walked along the river-bank,
+where the poppy was to be seen in full flower, and the unending beds of
+rape alternated with peas and beans and tobacco. T'ong would persist in
+stealing the peas and beans to feed me on, and for the life of me I
+could not get him to see that he should not do this sort of thing. But
+how continually one was impressed with the great need of roads in
+Western China! It is natural that, walking the whole distance, I should
+notice this more than other travelers have done, and, to my mind, roads
+in this part of the country rank in importance before the railways.
+
+To the foreign mind it is more to the interests of China that railways
+should be well and serviceably built than that the money should be
+squandered to no purpose. If the railway has rails, then in China it can
+be called a railway, and China is satisfied. So with the roads. If there
+is any passage at all, then the Chinese call it a road, and China is
+satisfied.
+
+As one meanders through the country, watching a people who are equalled
+nowhere in the world for their industry, plodding away over the worst
+roads any civilized country possesses, he cannot but think, even looking
+at the question from the Chinese standpoint so far as he is able, that,
+were free scope once given for the infusion of Western energy and
+methods into an active, trade-loving people like the Chinese, China
+would rival the United States in wealth and natural resources. The
+Chinese knows that his country, the natural resources of the country and
+the people, will allow him to do things on a scale which will by and by
+completely overbalance the doings of countries less favored by Nature
+than his own. He knows that when properly developed his country will be
+one of the richest in the world, yet even when he is filled with such
+ideas he is just as cunctative as he has ever been. He has the idea that
+he should not commence to exhaust the wealth of his country before it is
+absolutely necessary.
+
+Above all, he has now made up his mind that he himself, unaided by the
+foreigner, is going to develop it just as he likes and just when he
+likes.
+
+The day of the foreign concession is gone. The Chinese now is paddling
+his own canoe, and it is only by cultivating his friendship, by proving
+to him by acts, and not by words, that the intrusion of privileged
+enterprises--such as great mining concessions and railway concessions,
+in which the foreigner demands that he be the only principal--is no
+longer contemplated, that the day will be won. But it is equally true
+that only by combining European and Chinese interests on the modern
+company system, the real Opening of China can be effected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.
+
+The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last
+thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over
+the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man,
+who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my
+destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I
+reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the
+end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li,
+and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was "two
+and a bit." This answer we got from four different people on the way,
+and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the
+two li so much--it is the "bit" which upsets one's calculations.
+
+The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself--that is, I
+lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint,
+secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade,
+where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the
+subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss
+and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of
+ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster.
+Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of
+finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence
+anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to
+me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little,
+hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this
+was a country of erratic distances--it was now getting on for
+sunset--and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the
+difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard
+someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down
+his back and front.
+
+"Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I
+think p'laps master wantchee makee run away." And then, after a time:
+"You no wantchee catch 'chow'?"
+
+"Chow?"
+
+No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost,
+and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was
+fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?
+
+Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a
+narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top
+of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to
+Fan-�h-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse,
+and so it turned out to be.
+
+At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make
+the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which
+covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals
+of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my
+boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was passing a paddy field
+one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud.
+In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments
+from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up
+in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun--except myself. Little
+boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried
+to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view.
+But I had to change, and that was most important to me.
+
+Later on, my ugly coolie--the ugliest man in or out of China, I should
+think, ugly beyond description--dropped my bedding as he was crossing
+the river, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on a wet bed at T'an-teo.
+
+I must ask the reader's pardon for again referring to Chinese inns. I
+should not have made any remark upon this awful hovel had not the man
+laid a scheme to charge me three times as much as he should--a scheme,
+be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den,
+where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The
+dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the
+slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think
+there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and
+productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The
+mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his
+tribute of vermin, was not fit for use, there were myriads of filthy
+insects, and I found myself obliged to stop and have some clothes
+boiled, and for comfort's sake rubbed my body with Chinese wine. Filth
+there was everywhere. It seemed inseparable from the people, and a total
+apathy as regards matter in the wrong place pervaded all classes, from
+the highest to the lowest. The spring is opening, and my hard-worked
+coolies doff their heavy padded winter clothing, parade their naked
+skin, and are quite unconscious of any disgrace attending the exhibition
+of the itch sores which disfigure them.
+
+I remember, however, that I am in China, and must not be disgusted.
+
+And should any reader be disgusted at the disjointed character of this
+particular portion of my common chronicle, I would only say in apology
+that I am writing under the gaze of a mystified crowd, each of whom has
+a word to say about my typewriter--the first, undoubtedly, that he has
+ever seen. This machine has caused the greatest surprise all along the
+route, and it is on occasions when the Chinese sees for the first time
+things of this intimate mechanical nature that he gives one the
+impression that he is a little boy. The people crowd into my room; they
+cannot be kept out, although at the present moment I have stationed my
+two soldiers in the doorway where I am writing, so as to get a little
+light, to keep them from crowding actually upon me.
+
+It has been said that all of us have an innermost room, wherein we
+conceal our own secret affairs. In China everything is so open, and so
+much must be done in public, that it would surprise one to know that the
+Chinese have an inner room. The European traveler in this region must
+have no inner room, either, for the people seem to see down deep into
+one's very soul. But it is when one wanders on alone, as I have done
+to-day, doing two days in one, no less than one hundred and forty li of
+terrible road through the most isolated country, that one can enjoy the
+comfort of one's own loneliness and own inner room. The scenery was
+picturesque, much like Scotland, but the solitude was the best of all. I
+had left office and books and manuscripts, and was on a lonely walk,
+enjoying a solitude from which I could not escape, a reverie which was
+passed not nearly so much in thinking as in feeling, a feeling to
+nature-lovers which can never be completely expressed in words. It was
+indeed a refuge from the storms of life, and a veritable chamber of
+peace. And this, to my mind, is the way to spend a holiday. Robert Louis
+Stevenson tells us in one of his early books what a complete world two
+congenial friends make for themselves in the midst of a foreign
+population; all the hum and the stir goes on, and these two strangers
+exchange glances, and are filled with an infinite content Some of us
+would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
+in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
+thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
+thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
+the same privilege. Selfishness in the slightest degree should not enter
+in. But such a man is difficult to find, so I wander on alone, happy in
+my own solitude. Here I have liberty, perfect liberty.
+
+I was stopped on my way to Lao-wa-t'an at a small town called Pu�rh-tu,
+the first place of importance after having come into Y�n-nan. A few li
+before reaching this town, one of my men cut the large toe of his left
+foot on a sharp rock, lacerating the flesh to the bone. I attended to
+him as best I could on the road, paid him four days' extra pay, and then
+had a bit of a row with him because he would not go back. He avowed that
+carrying for the foreigner was such a good thing that he feared leaving
+it! Upon entering Pu�rh-tu, however, he fell in the roadway. A crowd
+gathered, a loud cry went up from the multitude, and in the
+consternation and confusion which ensued the people divided themselves
+into various sections.
+
+Some rushed to proffer assistance to the fallen man (this was done
+because I was about; he would have been left had a foreigner not been
+there), others gathered around me with outrageous adulation and seeming
+words of welcome. Meanwhile, I thought the coolie was dying, and,
+fearful and unnatural as it seems, it is nevertheless true that at all
+ages the Chinese find a peculiar and awful satisfaction in watching the
+agonies of the dying. By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
+dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
+slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
+poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
+stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.
+
+On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
+apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
+ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
+upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
+thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
+suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
+which he advanced slowly towards me.
+
+I was on the point of telling him in English that I had done nothing
+against the law, so far as I knew.
+
+He bowed solemnly, during which time I, attempting the same, had much
+trouble from bursting out laughing in his face. He beckoned to me, and
+then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found
+another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The
+mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a
+theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit,
+that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would
+like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one of them
+would like to sell me a thoroughbred, hard-working,
+magnificently-shaped, without-a-single-vice black pony, which they would
+part with for my benefit for the consideration of one hundred taels down
+(four times its value), which awaited my inspection without. I stood up
+and fronted them, and replied, through T'ong, that I could not stay the
+night, that I would be pleased to tolerate the howling of the theatre
+for one half of an hour, that it would have given me the greatest
+pleasure to take their photographs, but, alas! my films were not many. I
+handed them a cigarette tin, but quite forgot that they asked for
+cigarettes as well (I had none), and I explained that horse-riding was
+not one of my accomplishments, so that their quadruped would be of no
+use to me.
+
+They looked glum, I smiled serenely. This is Chinesey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Szech-wan and Y�n-nan_. _Coolies and their loads_. _Exports and
+imports_. _Hints to English exporters_. _Food at famine rates_. _A
+wretched inn at Wuchai_. _Author prevents murder_. _Sleeping in the
+rain_. _The foreign cigarette trade_. _Poverty of Chao-t'ong_.
+_Simplicity of life_. _Possible advantages of Chinese in struggle of
+yellow and white races_. _Foreign goods in Y�n-nan and Szech'wan_.
+_Thousands of beggars die_. _Supposed lime poisoning_. _Content of the
+people_. _Opium not grown_. _Prices of prepared drug in Tong-ch'uan-fu
+compared_. _Smuggling from Kwei-chow_. _Opium and tin of Y�n-nan_.
+_Remarkable bonfire at Y�n-nan-fu_. _Infanticide at Chao-t'ong_.
+_Selling of female children into slavery_. _Author's horse steps on
+human skull_.
+
+
+Were one uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the
+borderline of Szech'wan and Y�n-nan. The latter is supposed to be one of
+the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous,
+void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills
+conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of
+their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.
+
+The greater part of the roads to be traversed now were constructed on
+projecting slopes above rivers and torrents, affluents of the Yangtze,
+and cross a region upon which the troubled appearance of the mountains
+that bristle over it stamps the impress of a severe kind of beauty. Such
+roads would not be tolerated in any country but China--I doubt if any
+but the ancient Chinese could have had the patience to build them. One
+could not walk with comfort; it was an impossible task. Far away over
+the earth, winding into all the natural trends of the mountain base, ran
+the highway, merrily tripping over huge boulders, into hollows and out
+of them, almost underground, but always, with its long white extended
+finger, beckoning me on by the narrow ribbon in the distance. True,
+although I was absolutely destitute of company, I had always the road
+with me, yet ever far from me. I could not catch it up, and sometimes,
+dreaming triumphantly that I had now come even with it where it seemed
+to end in some disordered stony mass, it would trip mischievously out
+again into view, bounding away into some tricky bend far down to the
+edge of the river, and rounding out of sight once more until the point
+of vantage was attained. Its twisting and turning, up and down, inwards,
+outwards, made humor for the full long day. With it I could not quarrel,
+for it did its best to help me with my weary men onwards over the now
+darkened landscape, and ever took the lead to urge us forward. If it
+came to a great upstanding mountain, with marked politeness it ran round
+by a circuitous route, more easily if of greater length; at other times
+it scaled clear up, nimbly and straight, turning not once to us in its
+self-appointed task, and at the top, standing like some fairy on a
+steeple-point, beckoned us on encouragingly. At times it became
+exhausted and stretched itself wearisomely out, measuring in width to
+only a few small inches, and overlooked the river at great height,
+telling us to ponder well our footsteps ere we go forward. To part
+company with the road would mean to die, for elsewhere was no foothold
+possible. So in this narrow faithful ledge, torn up by the heavy tread
+of countless horses' feet beyond Lao-wa-t'an (where horse traffic
+starts), we carefully ordered every step. Looking down, sheer down as
+from some lofty palace window, I saw the green snake waiting, waiting
+for me. Slipping, there would be no hope--death and the river alone lay
+down that treacherous mountain-side. And then, at times, pursuing that
+white-faced wriggling demon which stretched out far over the mist-swept
+landscape in incessant writhing and annoying contortions, we quite gave
+up the chase. It seemed leading me on to some unknown destiny. I knew
+not whither; only this I knew--that I must follow.
+
+And so each hour and every hour was fraught with peril which seemed
+imminent. But He who guards the fatherless and helpless, feeds the poor
+and friendless, guarded the traveler in those days. Mishaps I had none,
+and when at night I reached those tiny mountain seats, perched
+majestically high for the most part and swept by all the winds of
+heaven, I seemed to be the lonely spectator and companionless watcher
+over mighty mountain-tops, which appeared every moment to be hesitating
+to take a gigantic dive into the roaring river several hundred feet
+below our lofty resting-place.
+
+Some of the larger villages had the arrogant look of old feudal
+fortresses, and up the paths leading to them, cut out in a defile in the
+vertical cliffs, we passed with difficulty coolies carrying on their
+backs the enormous loads, which are the wonder of all who have seen
+them, their backs straining under the boomerang-shaped frames to which
+the merchandise was lashed. Hundreds passed us on their toilsome journey
+with tea, lamp-oil, skins, hides, copper, lead, coal and white wax from
+Y�n-nan, and with salt, English cotton, Chinese porcelain, fans and so
+on from Szech'wan. One false step, one slight slip, and they would have
+been hurled down the ravine, where far below, in the roaring cataract,
+dwarfed to the size of a toy boat, was a junk being cleverly taken
+down-stream. And down there also, one false move and the huge junk would
+have been dashed against the rocks, and banks strewn with the corpses of
+the crew. As it was, they were mere specks of blue in a background of
+white foam, their vociferating and yelling being drowned by the roar of
+the waters. On the road, passing and re-passing, I saw coolies on the
+way to Y�n-nan-fu with German cartridges and Japanese guns, the packing,
+so different generally to British goods which come into China, being
+particularly good. This is one of the cries of the importer in China
+against the British manufacturer; and if the latter knew more of Chinese
+transport and the manner in which the goods are handled in changing from
+place to place, one would meet fewer broken packages on the road in this
+land of long distances.
+
+A friend of mine, needing a typewriter, wrote home explicit instructions
+as to the packing. "Pack it ready to ship," he wrote, "then take it to
+the top of your office stairs, throw it down the stairs, take machine
+out and inspect, and if it is undamaged re-pack and send to me. If
+damaged, pack another machine, subject to the same treatment until you
+are convinced that it can stand being thus handled and escape injury."
+This is how goods coming to Western China should be sent away.
+
+Gradually the days brought harder toil. The mountains grew higher, some
+covered with forests of pine trees, which natural ornament completely
+changed the aspect of the country. Torrents foamed noisily down the
+gorges, veiled by the curtain of great trees; sometimes, on a ridge, a
+field of buckwheat, shining in the sun, looked like the beginning of the
+eternal snows.
+
+Food was at famine rates. Eggs there were in abundance, pork also; but
+it was not to be wondered at that the traveler, having seen the
+conditions under which the pigs are reared, refrained from the luxury of
+Y�n-nan roast pig. My men fed on maize. The faces of the people were
+pinched and wan, unpleasant to look upon, bearing unmistakable signs of
+poverty and misery, and they seemed too concerned in keeping the wolf
+from the door to attend to me. At Ta-kwan they treated themselves to a
+_sheng_ of rice apiece--here the _sheng_ is 1.8 catties, as against 11
+catties in the capital of the province.
+
+At Wuchai, the last stage before reaching Chao-t'ong-fu, the room of the
+inn had three walls only, and two of these were composed of kerosene
+tins, laced together with bamboo stripping. (Probably the oil tins had
+been stolen from the mission premises at Chao-t'ong.) Through the whole
+night it rained as it had never rained before, but, instead of feeling
+miserable, I tried to see the humor of the situation. One can get humor
+from the most embarrassing circumstances, and my chief amusement arose
+from a small business deal between one of my coolies, who had sublet his
+contract to a poor fellow returning in the rain, who had arranged to
+carry the ninety catties ninety li for a fourth of the original price
+arranged between my coolie and myself. For one full hour they argued at
+a terrible speed as to the rate of exchange in the Szech'wan large and
+the Y�n-nan small cash, and this was only interrupted when a poor man,
+deaf and dumb, and of hideous appearance, seeing the foreigner in his
+contemptible town, rushed in with a carrying pole and felled his
+grumbling townsman at my feet.
+
+My intervention probably averted murder--at any rate, it seemed as
+though murder would have taken place very soon but for my interference.
+The whole populace gathered, of course, and the fight waged fiercely
+until well on into the night. But wrapping myself in my mackintosh, and
+putting my paper umbrella at the right angle, I went to sleep with the
+rain dripping on me as they were indulging in final pleasantries
+regarding each other's ancestry.
+
+The first thing I saw at Chao-t'ong the next day was the foreign
+cigarette, sold at a wayside stall by a vendor of monkey nuts and marrow
+seeds. No trade has prospered in Y�n-nan during the past two years more
+than the foreign cigarette trade, and the growing evil among the
+children of the common people, both male and female, is viewed with
+alarm. From Tachien-lu to Mengtsz, from Chung-king to Bhamo, one is
+rarely out of sight of the well-known flaring posters in the Chinese
+characters advertising the British cigarette. Some months ago a couple
+of Europeans were sent out to advertise, and they stuck their poster
+decorations on the walls of temples, on private houses and official
+residences, with the result that the people were piqued so much as to
+tear down the bills immediately. In Y�n-nan, especially since the exit
+of opium, this common cigarette is smoked by high and low, rich and
+poor. I have been offered them at small feasts, and when calling upon
+high officials at the capital have been offered a packet of cigarettes
+instead of a whiff of opium, as would have been done formerly. One is
+not, of course, prepared to say whether such a trade is desirable or
+not, but it merely needs to be made known that towards the middle of the
+present year (1910) a proclamation was issued from the Viceroy's _yamen_
+at Y�n-nan-fu speaking in strongest terms against the increasing habit
+of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on
+the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the
+imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of
+the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the
+citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of
+cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for our people to buy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Chao-t'ong I stayed with the Rev. Dr. Savin, and spent a very
+pleasant two days' rest here in his hospitable hands. It was in this
+district I first came across goitre, the first time I had seen it in my
+life. It is a terrible disfigurement.
+
+Poor indeed is the whole of this neighborhood. Poverty, thin and wanting
+food to eat, stalks abroad dressed in a rag or two, armed with a staff
+to keep away the snarling dogs, and a broken bowl to gather garbage.
+
+Even the better class, who manage to afford their maize and bean curds,
+are to be praised for the extreme simplicity which everywhere vividly
+marks their monotonous lives. Indeed, this is true of the whole area
+through which I have traveled. No furniture brings confusion to their
+rooms, no machinery distresses the ear with its groaning or the eye with
+its unsightliness, no factories belch out smoke and blacken the beauty
+of the sky, no trains screech to disturb sleepers and frighten babies.
+The simplest of simple beds--in most cases merely a few boards with a
+straw mattress placed thereon--the straw sandal on the foot, wooden
+chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and
+of cooking utensils, the simple homespun cotton clothing--much of this
+finds favor in the eye of the English traveler. The Chinese, of all
+Orientals, teach us how to live without furniture, without impedimenta,
+with the least possible amount of clothing in the case of the poorer
+classes, and I could not fail to be impressed by the advantage thus held
+by this great nation in the struggle of life. It may serve them in good
+stead in the struggle of the Yellow Man against the White Man, to which
+I refer at a later period in this book; also does it incidentally show
+up the real character of some of the weaknesses of our own civilization,
+and when one is in China, living near the people, one is forced to
+reflect upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have
+our daily stock of bread and butter and meats, glass windows and fires,
+hats, white shirts and woolen underwear, boots and shoes, trunks, bags
+and boxes, bedsteads, mattresses, sheets and blankets--most of which a
+Chinese can do without, and indeed is actually better off without.[J]
+
+This is not true in every class, however; for whilst there is no denying
+the charm of the simpler civilization, many of the Chinese of Szech'wan
+and Y�n-nan glory in goods of foreign manufacture, no matter if to them
+is not disclosed the proper purpose of any particular article adopted.
+
+Rice will not grow here in great quantities, owing to the scarcity of
+water; therefore the people feed on maize, and are thankful to get it.
+
+Chao-t'ong is the centre of a large district devastated by recurring
+seasons of plague, rebellion and famine, when thousands die annually
+from starvation in the town and on the level uplands surrounding it. The
+beggars on one occasion, becoming so numerous, were driven from the
+streets, confined within the walls of the temple and grounds beyond the
+South Gate, and there fed by common charity. Huddled together in disease
+and rags and unspeakable misery, they died in thousands, and the Chinese
+say that of five thousand who crossed the temple threshold two thousand
+never came out alive.
+
+This happened some twenty years ago. The unfortunate victims had for
+their food a rice porridge, mixed with which was a subtance alleged to
+have been lime, the common belief being that the majority of those who
+perished died from the effect of poisoning. Outside the city boundary
+hundreds of the dead were flung into huge pits, and even now the
+inhabitants refer to the time when children were exchanged _ad libitum_
+for a handful of rice or even less.
+
+During my stay in this city, I heard on all hands some of the most
+blood-curdling stories of the dire distress which, like a dark cloud,
+still menaces the people, some of which are too dreadful for public
+print.
+
+But I suppose these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a
+virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects
+which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's
+stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the
+desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope
+of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was
+plentiful. But now no opium is grown, and the misery-stricken people
+have lost all hope of better times, and seem to have sunk in many
+instances to the lowest pangs of distressful poverty.[K]
+
+Reader, alarm not yourself! I am not here to lead you into a long
+harangue on opium--it presents too thorny a subject for me to handle. I
+am not a partisan in the opium traffic; my mission is not essentially to
+denounce it; I am not impelled by an irresistible desire to investigate
+facts and put them before you. There is practically no opium in Y�n-nan
+to talk about.
+
+This is absolute fact--not a Chinese fact, but good old British truth
+(although British truth when it touches upon opium has been very, very
+perverted since we first commenced to transact opium trade with this
+great country). With the exception of one small patch, some ten miles
+away from the main road between Y�n-nan-fu and Tali-fu, I saw no poppy
+whatever in the province. This does not mean, however, that no opium is
+to be had.
+
+During the past three weeks[L] no less than five cases of attempted
+suicide by opium poisoning have come under my personal notice in the
+town in which I am residing, and there have doubtless been fifty more
+which have not. If there is no opium, where do the people so easily
+secure it in endeavors to take their lives upon the slightest
+provocation? Last year the price of opium here on the streets, although
+its sale was "illegal," was over three tsien (about nine-pence) the
+Chinese ounce of prepared opium. At the present time, in the same city,
+many men would be willing to do a deal for any quantity you like for
+less than two tsien. Cases of smuggling are frequent. One gets
+accustomed to hear of large quantities being smuggled through in most
+cunning ways, and it all goes to show that the _people_ of Y�n-nan are
+not, as some of China's enlightened statesmen and some of the ranting
+faddists of England and America would have us believe, falling over one
+another in their zeal to free the province from the drug.
+
+The other day some men passed through several towns, on the way to the
+capital, carrying three coffins. In the first was a corpse, the other
+two were packed with opium. Being suspected at Y�n-nan-fu, the first
+coffin was opened, and the carriers, making as much row as they could
+because their coffin had been burst open, secured a fair "squeeze" to
+hold their tongues, and the second and third coffins were passed
+unexamined. Quite common is it for men to travel in armed bands from the
+province of Kwei-chow, traveling by night over the mountains by
+lantern-light, and hiding by day from any possible official searchers.
+
+Opium, which is and always has been so heavily taxed, does not in
+general follow the ordinary trade routes on which _likin_ stations are
+numerous, but is carried by these armed bands over roads where the
+native Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped as to yield
+readily to superior force, where the men are compelled to accept a
+composition much below the official rate.
+
+Opium smoking is still common in Western China among people who can
+afford it. At the time of the crusade against it, wealthy people laid
+in stocks enough to last them for years; and, so long as there is
+smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it, into those which do
+not, there will be no danger of the absolute extermination being carried
+successfully into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
+provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for having practically
+abolished the poppy; but at the present moment (December, 1909) she is
+at a loss to know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason why
+people of Y�n-nan are making bargains in opium smuggled over the border.
+Much has yet to be done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has been
+in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for
+nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for
+six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the
+average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole
+business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China
+for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked
+since the middle of the seventeenth century.[M]
+
+A few years ago Y�n-nan had only two articles of importance with which
+to pay for extra provincial products consumed, namely, opium and tin.
+The latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz, and the value of
+the output now runs to approximately three million taels. Opium came
+from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion
+sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three
+thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very
+much greater. Y�n-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
+In 1879, the production was variously estimated at from twelve thousand
+to twenty-two thousand piculs; in 1887 it had risen to approximately
+twenty-seven thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the reform
+no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.
+
+One afternoon, in November of 1909, the execution ground of Y�n-nan-fu
+was the scene of a remarkably daring proceeding by the officials in the
+campaign for the total suppression of opium in the province. No less
+than 20,040 ounces of prepared opium were publicly destroyed by fire in
+the presence of an enormous crowd of people. The officials of the city
+were present in person, and everywhere the event was looked upon as the
+greatest public demonstration that the people had ever seen.
+
+The missionary of whom I inquired denied that the infanticide at
+Chao-t'ong was very great--things must be improving!
+
+Previous to my arrival at the city I had instructed my English-speaking
+boy to make inquiries in the city, and to let me know afterwards,
+whether girls were still sold publicly.
+
+"Have got plenty," he exclaimed, in describing this wholesale selling of
+female children into slavery. "I know, I know; you wantchee makee buy.
+Can do! You wantchee catch one piecee small baby, can catchee two, three
+tael. Wantchee one piecee very much tall, big piecee, can catch fifty
+dollar."
+
+Continuing, he told me that prices were fairly high, a girl who could
+boast good looks and who had reached an age when her charms were
+naturally the strongest fetching the alarming amount of three hundred
+taels. This was the highest figure reached, whilst small children could
+be had for anything up to twenty. This wholesale disposal of young
+girls, although the traffic was in some quarters emphatically denied to
+exist--a denial, however, which was all moonshine--is one of the chief
+sorrows of the district. And well it might be; for thousands of children
+are disposed of in the course of a year for a few taels by heartless
+parents, who watch them being carried away, like so much merchandise, to
+be converted into silver, in many cases in this poverty-stricken
+district merely to satisfy the craving for opium of some sodden wretch
+of a man who calls himself a father. Time and time again, long after I
+myself passed through Chao-t'ong, did I see little girls from three to
+ten years of age being conveyed by pack-horse to the capital, balanced
+in baskets on either side of the animal. This and the terrible
+infanticide which exists in all poor districts of China menaces the
+lives of all well-wishers of the entire province of Y�n-nan.
+
+In the particular district of which I speak it is not an uncommon sight
+to see little children being torn to pieces by dogs, the scavengers of
+the Empire, perhaps by the very dogs that had been their playmates from
+birth. I have been riding many times and found that my horse had stepped
+on a human skull, and near by were the bones the dogs had left as the
+remains of the corpse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE.--I should mention that, since the above was written, I have lived
+and travelled a good deal around Chao-t'ong-fu, being the only European
+traveller who has ever penetrated the country to the east of the main
+road, by which I had now come down.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote J: Anyone who contemplates a tramp across China must not get
+the idea that he can still continue the uses of civilization. For the
+most part he will have to live pretty well as a Chinese the whole time,
+and he will find, as I found, that it is easy to give up a thing when
+you know the impossibility of getting it.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote K: This was written later. I have altered my views since I
+have traveled from end to end of Y�n-nan. The disappearance of opium, on
+the contrary, apart from the moral advantage to the people, has done
+much to place them in a better position financially. In Tali-fu I found
+not a single shop on the main street "to let," and the trade of the
+place had gone ahead considerably, and this was a city which people
+generally supposed would suffer most on account of the non-growth of
+opium.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote L: May, 1910. As a matter of fact the date makes no
+difference, because unfortunately the number of suicides from opium does
+not seem to have decreased materially in Western China since the opium
+crusade was started. Upon the slightest provocation a Chinese woman in
+Y�n-nan will take her life, and it is probable that for the five cases
+which came to my notice through the mission house there were treble that
+number which did not--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote M: This was written at the end of 1909 Now, in July, 1910,
+things are changed wonderfully. The rapidity with which China is driving
+out the poppy from province after province is truly remarkable. In
+Szech'wan, in April, 1909, I passed through miles and miles of poppy
+along the main road--to-day there is none to be seen It is to be hoped
+that Great Britain will do her part as faithfully as China is doing
+hers.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910
+
+_Digression from travel_. _How rebellions start in China_. _Famous Boxer
+motto_. _Way of escape shut off_. _Riots expected before West can be won
+into the confidence of China_. _Boxerism and students of the Government
+Reform Movement_. _Author's impressions formed within the danger zone_.
+_More Boxerism in China than we know of_. _Causes of the Chao-t'ong
+Rebellion_. _Halley's Comet brings things to a climax_. _Start of the
+rioting_. _Arrival of the military_. _Number of the rebels_. _They hold
+three impregnable positions, and block the main roads_. _European ladies
+travel to the city in the dead of night_. _A new ch'en-tai takes the
+matter in hand_. _Rumors and suspense_. _Stations of the rebels_. _A
+night attack_. _Sixteen rebels decapitated_. _Officials alter their
+tactics_. _Fighting on main road_. _Superstition regarding soldiers_.
+_One of the leaders captured by a headman_. _Chapel burnt down and
+caretaker rescued by military_. _Li the Invincible under arms_. _Huang
+taken prisoner_. _Two leaders killed_. _Rising among the Miao_. _Mission
+work at a standstill_. _Child-stealing, and the Y�n-nan Railway rumor_.
+_Barbaric punishment_. _Tribute to Chinese officials_. _British
+Consul-General_. _R�sum� of the position_. _An unfortunate incident_.
+
+
+Despite the fact that this chapter was the last written, it has been
+thought wise to place it here. It deals with the Chao-t'ong Rebellion,
+of which the outside world, even when it was at its height, knew little,
+but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of
+writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in
+North-East Y�n-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression from
+travel.
+
+In spite of all that has been written in previous and subsequent
+chapters, and in face of the universal cry of the progress China is
+speedily realizing, of the stoutest optimism characteristic of the
+statesman and of the student of Chinese affairs, a feeling of deep gloom
+at intervals overcomes one in the interior--a fear of some impending
+trouble. There is a rumor, but one smiles at it--there are always
+rumors! Then there are more rumors, and a feeling of uneasiness pervades
+the atmosphere; a local bubble is formed, it bursts, the whole of one's
+trust in the sincerity of the reform of China and her people is brushed
+away to absolute unbelief in a few days, and it means either a sudden
+onrush and brutal massacre of the foreigners, or the thing blows over
+after a short or long time of great strain, and ultimately things assume
+a normality in which the detection of the slightest ruffle in the
+surface of social life is hardly traceable.
+
+Such was the Chao-t'ong Rebellion, luckily unattended by loss of life
+among the foreigners. It is not yet over,[N] but it is believed that the
+worst is past.
+
+At the end of 1909 probably no part of the Empire seemed more peaceful.
+Two months afterwards the heads of the Europeans were demanded;
+missionaries were guarded by armed soldiers in their homes inside the
+city walls, and forbidden to go outside; native Christians were brutally
+maltreated and threatened with death if they refused to turn traitor to
+their beliefs; thousands of generally law-abiding men, formed into armed
+bands, were defiantly setting at naught the law of the land, and the
+whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to
+Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by
+infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,--their motto the famous
+ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: "Exalt the dynasty; destroy the
+foreigner."
+
+"Kill, kill, kill!" ran the cry for miles around the countryside, and a
+fearful repetition of the bloody history of ten years ago was daily
+feared. Providential, however, was it that no foreigner was traveling at
+the time in these districts, and that those who, ignorant of the
+troubles, desired to do so were stopped at Y�n-nan-fu by the Consuls and
+at Sui-fu by the missionaries. It is a matter for gratitude also that
+throughout the riots, specially safeguarded by the great Providence of
+God, no lives of Europeans were lost; and owing to the praiseworthy and
+obvious attitude of the missionaries in this area in endeavoring to keep
+the thing as quiet as possible, and the notoriously conservative manner
+in which consular reports upon such matters are preserved in
+Governmental lockers, practically nothing has been heard of the
+uprising.
+
+At times during the four slow-moving months, however, the situation
+became, as I shall endeavor to show, complicated in every way. The
+escape of the foreigners was made absolutely impossible by the fact that
+the whole of the roads, even those over the rough mountains leading
+south, were blocked successfully by the rebelling forces, and, when the
+deep gloom settled finally over the city, the fate of the Westerners
+seemed sealed and their future hopeless. All round the foreigners'
+houses the people, infected with that strange, unaccountable, national
+hysteria, so terrible in the Chinese temperament, rose up to burn and
+kill. Mayhap it means little to the man who reads. Massacres have always
+been common enough in China, he will say; and there are thousands of
+people in Europe to-day who know no more about China than what the
+telegrams of massacres of European missionaries have told them. Years
+ago one almost expected this sort of thing; but at the present day, when
+China is popularly supposed to be working honestly to gain for herself
+an honorable place among the nations, it is surely not to be expected in
+the ordinary run of things in days of peace.
+
+But we know that such visions are common to every European in Inland
+China, and even at the coast men talk continually of and believe that
+riots are going to happen in the near future. Merchant, missionary,
+traveler and official all agree that there is yet more trouble ahead
+before the West will be won into the confidence of China and _vice
+versa_. The people who are studying the Reform Movement of the Young
+China, however, and who stolidly refuse to study with it the general
+attitude of the common people, laugh and dismiss with contempt the
+subject of the possibility of further outbreaks of Boxerism in the
+outlying parts of the Empire. But they should not laugh. The European
+cannot afford to laugh, and, if he be a sensible fellow, knows that he
+cannot afford to treat with contempt the opinions of the people who
+know. The more we understand the vast interior of China and the
+conservatism and peculiarities of character of the people of that
+interior, the less disposed shall we be to jest, the less disposed to
+ridicule, what I would characterize as the strongest and most deadly of
+the hidden menaces of the Celestial Empire.
+
+One does not wish to be pessimistic, but it is foolish to close one's
+eyes to bare fact.
+
+At the moment I am writing, in the middle of China, I know that I am
+safe enough here, but I do not disguise from myself that the wildest
+reports are still current within a quarter of a mile from me about me
+and my own kind in this peaceful city of Tong-ch'uan-fu. And it takes
+very little to light the fuse and to cause a terrible explosion here, in
+common with other places in this province. A man might be quite safe one
+day and lose his head the next if he did not, at times when the
+rebellious element is apparent, conform strictly to the general wishes
+and accepted customs of the people among whom he is living.
+
+No, we cannot afford to laugh. We must seek the opinion of those people
+who were confined within the walls of Chao-t'ong city--the silence of
+their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of
+yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very
+death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging
+their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom--before we show
+contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is
+more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know
+of.
+
+Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no
+rumor of any uprising. About this time, however, to supply a serious
+deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since
+that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which
+the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they
+be allowed again to grow the poppy. Among the population of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city,
+especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have
+been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the
+Tonkin-Y�n-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which
+gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest. It
+required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its
+wonderful tail--none other than Halley's Comet--to bring the whole to a
+climax. This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and
+he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by
+the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the
+Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the
+Chinese to strike.
+
+That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news
+the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the
+tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured
+and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T'o-ch-i (on the
+River of Golden Sand[O]) and Sa'i-ho, in a westerly direction from the
+town. A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the
+Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and
+looted--so ran the rumor. By this date, for two days' march in all
+directions from Chao-t'ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd
+they were--Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.
+Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the
+_ch'uandan_) containing two pieces of coal and a feather--a simile
+meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.
+Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Y�n-nan-fu, the
+capital (twelve days away), and from Ch'u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days
+away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to the city,
+and it was thought that the brigadier-general would be able to cope with
+the trouble now that he had so many armed troops. Soldiers patrolled the
+city walls (which, by the way, had to be built up so that the soldiers
+might be able to get decent patrol), more were stationed on the premises
+of the Europeans, and every defensive precaution was taken. The
+officials were in daily communication by telegraph with the Viceroy, and
+at first the riot was kept well in hand by Government authorities.
+
+But the rebels had by this time got together no less than three thousand
+men, and were holding three impregnable positions on the adjacent hills,
+and had effectually cut off communication by the main road. Despite
+their numbers, they were afraid to strike, however, and lucky it was for
+the city that the leaders were not sufficiently trusted by their
+followers, many of them pressed men--men who had joined the rebelling
+ranks merely to save their own necks and their houses. At this time the
+_pen-fu_ (a sort of mayor of the city) demanded that the missionaries
+working among the Hua Miao, and two lady workers paying a visit to that
+place, should return from Sh�h-men-K'an (70 li away), as he could not
+protect them in the country. A special messenger was dispatched,
+demanding instant departure, and in the dead of night--a bitter wintry
+night, icy, dark, slippery, and cold--these ladies came under cover to
+the city.
+
+They reached the mission premises without molestation.
+
+By this time a new _ch'en-tai_ (brigadier-general) had arrived from the
+capital, having been sent as a man who could handle the situation
+successfully. He was a Liu Ta Ren, who had previously held office in the
+city, and whose cunning a Scotland Yard detective might envy.[P]
+
+Rumors grew more and more serious; the mandarins went all round the
+countryside endeavoring to pacify the people, and the foreigners could
+do nothing but "sit tight" through these most trying days. The suspense
+of being shut up in one's house during a time of trouble of this nature,
+hearing every rumor which lying tongues create, and unable to get at the
+facts, is far worse than being in the thick of things, although this
+would have at once been fatal. But one needs to have lived in China
+during such a time to understand the awful tension which riots
+occasion.
+
+The rioters were stationed as follows:--
+
+     1. Weining, in Kwei-chow, to the southeast 1,000 men
+
+     2. Kiang-ti Hill, in Y�n-nan, to the south 1,000 men
+
+     3. Several places around the city, to the west as far as the River
+     of Golden Sand 1,000 men
+
+On March 13th a night attack was expected. Breathless, the foreigners
+waited in their suspense, but it passed off without serious damage being
+done. On the Sunday, the missionaries, almost at their wits' end with
+mingled fear and excitement, occasioned by the strain which weeks of
+anxiety must bring to the strongest, feared whether their services would
+be got through in peace.
+
+Meetings were being held all around the city, and gradually the
+mandarins gained small successes. Prisoners--miserable specimens of men
+fighting for they hardly knew what--were captured and brought to the
+city, and, on March 16th, sixteen human heads, thrown in one gruesome
+mass into a common basket, with upturned eyes gaping into the great
+unknown, hideous-looking and bearing still the brutish stare of
+hysterical craving and morbid rage, were carried by an armed squad of
+military to the _yamen_.
+
+They made a ghastly picture when hung over the gate of the city to put
+the fear of death into the hearts of their brutal compatriots. The
+officials, hard-worked and themselves feeling the strain of the whole
+business, and incidentally fearful for the safety of their own heads,
+were perturbed all this time by rumors coming from Weining, the
+mutineers of which were alleged to be the fiercest of the three bands.
+Up to now the officials had been playing a conciliating game. They had
+been trying vainly to pacify, but now they found that they had to prove
+their energies and their benevolence by acting the part of tyrants
+rather than of administrators of mercy, by warring rather than by
+peace-making, by fighting and forcing rather than by conciliating and
+persuading.
+
+On Easter Tuesday, fighting took place on the main road to the north,
+when the _pen-fu_ and his men achieved a creditable success. The rebels
+almost to a man were taken, and among the prisoners was a girl who had
+been distributing the beans, a lovely damsel of eighteen, said to have
+been the fianc�e of the leader of that band. Both her legs were shot
+through and she was considerably mutilated; but although the _pen-fu_
+thought this sufficient punishment, instructions came from the capital
+that she must die. She was accordingly taken outside the city and
+beheaded. This caused some consternation among the rebels, as the death
+of the girl was looked upon as an omen of direct misfortune.
+
+For a very long time she had been going around the country dropping
+beans into the ground outside any houses she came across, the
+superstition being that wherever a bean was dropped there in the very
+spot, perhaps at the very moment, for aught that we know, an invincible
+warrior would spring up. She had dropped some millions of beans, but the
+ranks were not swelled as a consequence.
+
+The _ch'en-tai_ had also been out all night, and as men were captured so
+they were beheaded on the spot without mercy and their heads
+subsequently hung outside the city gates. The headman of a small
+village--some forty li from the city--succeeded in capturing one of the
+leaders, and great credit was due to him; but soon the leader was
+rescued again by his followers, who then brutally killed and mutilated
+the body of the headman, causing him to undergo the ignominy of having
+his tongue and his heart cut out. Fighting was going on everywhere, and
+by the end of March things were at their height. The fact that rain was
+badly needed tended only to aggravate the situation, and that lustrous
+comet made things worse. Day by day miserable processions brought the
+wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden
+fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised
+the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through
+the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was
+prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United
+Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the
+houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua
+Miao convert, was taken, stripped of his clothing, and threatened with
+an awful death if he did not betray the foreigners. He refused manfully
+to divulge any information whatsoever, and was on the point of being
+sacrificed, when the _ch'en-tai_ came unexpectedly upon the scene with
+his military. He released the Miao, captured thirty-six rebels, killed
+sixteen more where they stood, and carried away many of their horses and
+the dreaded Boxer flag around which the men rallied.
+
+And now comes the smartest thing I heard of throughout the rebellion.
+
+A man named Li was the most dreaded of the trio of rebel chiefs, a man
+of marvelous strength, and who seemed to be able to fascinate his men
+and get them to do anything he wished--and Liu, the _ch'en-tai_, set
+himself the task of capturing him. Disguising himself in the garb of a
+pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the
+look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the
+_ch'en-tai_ was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell
+them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose
+his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up
+quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on,
+they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their
+captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which
+was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and
+where Li himself was hiding.
+
+And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the
+master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with
+many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the
+military.
+
+Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was
+captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow
+process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers
+might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief
+_yamen_, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the
+head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls
+since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago.
+After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had
+served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from
+his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a
+frame on the city gate.
+
+And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in
+this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of
+magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a
+better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to
+die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood
+must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more
+hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time
+in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting
+of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.
+
+After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart,
+fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away;
+but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive,
+and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his
+followers. He has probably been given up.[Q] In the month of May the
+Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come
+to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and
+British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond
+Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910),
+permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.
+
+Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to
+the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and
+were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to _ch'i_
+the railway to Y�n-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the
+public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and
+offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest
+prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution,
+and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission
+schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as
+they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more
+grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at
+Chao-t'ong, were taken to the _yamen_, hung in cages for a time as a
+warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting,
+"Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have." If
+they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.
+
+A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a
+child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in
+England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able
+successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused.
+Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and
+mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run
+away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get
+them.
+
+This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and
+breadth of Y�n-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to
+Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into
+close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people
+taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the
+very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.
+
+In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my
+manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been
+greatly reduced.
+
+In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which
+it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only
+fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of
+the Viceroy of Y�n-nan in dealing with the situation. Although he is
+not, I believe, generally liked by the people as their ruler, Li Chin
+Hsi did all he could to quell the riots speedily, and saw to it that all
+the officials in whose districts the rebellion was raging, and who made
+blunders during its progress, were degraded in rank. It is difficult for
+Europeans thoroughly to grasp the situation. From Chao-t'ong to
+Y�n-nan-fu, the viceregal seat, is twelve days' hard going, and all
+communication was done by telegraph--seemingly easy enough; but one must
+not discount the slow Chinese methods of doing things. Most of the
+troops were twelve days away, and in China--in backward Y�n-nan
+especially--to mobilize a thousand men and march them over mountains a
+fortnight from your base is not a thing to be done at a moment's
+notice. By the time they would arrive, it might have been possible for
+all the foreigners to have been massacred and their premises demolished,
+especially as the exits were blocked on all sides. But no time was lost
+and no pains were saved; and although the Chao-t'ong foreign residents,
+who suffered in suspense more than most missionaries are called upon to
+suffer, may differ with me in this opinion, I believe that not one of
+the officials who took part in endeavors to keep the riots from assuming
+more actually dangerous proportions could have done more than was done.
+If a man neglected his duty he lost his button, and he deserved nothing
+else.
+
+In Mr. P. O'Brien Butler, the able British Consul-General, the British
+subjects had the greatest confidence. He might have erred in having
+declined from harassing the Chinese Foreign Office to grant permission
+and protection to Britishers who wished to travel after the leaders of
+the rebellion had been captured, but he undoubtedly erred on the right
+side.
+
+An unfortunate incident for the United Methodist missionaries was the
+fact that the Rev. Charles Stedeford, who was sent out by the Connexion
+to visit the whole of the mission fields, was able to come only so far
+as Tong-ch'uan-fu, and was forced to return to Europe without having
+seen any of the magnificent work among the Hua Miao.
+
+After my manuscript went forward to my publishers, permission to travel
+and protection were granted to British subjects again on the main road
+leading up to the Yangtze Valley. The author was the first Britisher to
+go from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Chao-t'ong-fu, and as I write, as late as the
+middle of July, 1910, I am of the opinion that it is unwise to travel
+over this road for a long time to come, unless it is absolutely
+imperative to do so. At Kiang-ti I had considerable trouble in getting
+a place to sleep, and I was glad when I had passed Tao-�en.
+
+At the invitation of missionaries working among them, I then spent some
+months in residence and travel in Miaoland, and only regret that an
+extended account of my experiences is not possible.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote N: July, 1910.]
+
+[Footnote O: The local name for the Yangtze.]
+
+[Footnote P: This Liu was a remarkable man, quite unlike the average
+mandarin. He got the name of Liu Ma Pang, a disrespectful term, meaning
+that he was fond of using the stick. On a journey towards Chao-t'ong,
+some years ago, he went on ahead of his retinue of men and horses, and
+arriving at an inn at Tong-ch'uan-fu, asked the _ta si fu_--the general
+factotum--for the best room, and proceeded to walk into it. "No you
+don't," yelled the _ta si fu_, "that's reserved for Liu Ma Pang, and
+you're not to go in there." After some time Liu's men arrived, and
+calling one or two, he said, "Take this man" (pointing to the surprised
+_ta si fu_) "and give him a sound thrashing." He stood by and saw the
+whacking administered, after which he said, "That's for speaking
+disrespectfully of a mandarin." Then, "Give him a thousand cash,"
+adding, "That's for knowing your business."
+
+Some years ago Liu was the means of saving the life of the late Mr.
+Litton (mentioned later in this book), at the time he was British Consul
+at Tengyueh, when there was fighting down in the south of Y�n-nan with
+the Wa's.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote Q: He was captured some months afterwards, I believe, at
+Mengtsz.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST Y�N-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM
+
+
+Men who came through Y�n-nan twenty years ago wrote of its doctors and
+its medicines, its poverty and its infanticide. There seemed little else
+to speak of.
+
+Although the tribes were here then--and in a rawer state even then than
+they are at the present time--little was known about them, and men had
+not yet developed the cult of putting their opinions upon this most
+absorbing topic into print. To-day, however, scores of men in Europe are
+eagerly devouring every line of copy they can get hold of bearing upon
+this fascinating ethnological study. Missionaries are plagued by
+inquiries for information respecting the tribes of Western China, and it
+is a curious feature of the situation that, with each article or book
+coming before the public contradiction follows contradiction, and very
+few people--not even those resident in the areas and working among the
+tribes--can agree absolutely upon any given points in their data. The
+numerous non-Chinese tribes I met in China formed one of the most
+interesting, and at the same time most bewildering, features of my
+travel; and I can quite agree with Major H.R. Davies,[R] who tackles the
+tribe question with considerable ability in his book on Y�n-nan, when he
+says that it is safe to assert that in hardly any part of the world is
+there such a large variety of languages and dialects as are to be found
+in the country which lies between Assam and the eastern border of
+Y�n-nan, and in the Indo-Chinese countries to the north of that region.
+The reason for it is generally ascribed to the physical characteristics
+of the country, the high mountain ranges and deep, swift-flowing rivers,
+which have brought about the differences in customs and language and the
+innumerable tribal distinctions so perplexing to him who would put
+himself in the position of an inquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology. I
+know more than one gentleman in Y�n-nan at the present moment having
+under preparation manuscript upon this subject intended for subsequent
+publication, and I feel sure that their efforts will add valuable
+information to the all too limited supply now obtainable. In the
+meantime, I print my own impressions.
+
+I should like it to be known here, however, that I do not in any way
+whatsoever put myself forward as an authority on the question. I had
+not, at the time this was written, laid myself out to make any study of
+the subject. But the fact that I have lived in North-East Y�n-nan for a
+year and a half, and have traveled from one end of the province to the
+other, in addition to having come across tribes of people in Szech'wan,
+may justify me in the eyes of the reader for placing on record my own
+impressions as a general contribution to this most exciting discussion.
+I also lived at Sh�h-men-K'an (mentioned in the last chapter), among the
+Hua Miao for several months, traveled fairly considerably in the
+unsurveyed hill country where they live, and am the only man, apart from
+two missionaries, who has ever been over that wonderful country lying to
+the extreme north-east of Y�n-nan. One trip I made, extending over three
+weeks, will ever remain with me as a memorable time, but I regret that I
+have no space in this volume for even the merest reference to my
+journey.
+
+Some of my friends in China might say sarcastically that mankind is
+destined to arrive at years of discretion, and that I should have known
+better than to include in my book anything, however well founded, of a
+nature tending to continue the wordy strife touching this vexed question
+of Mission Work, and that no matter how strikingly set forth, this is an
+old and obsolete story, fit only to be finally done with. It is for such
+to bear with me in what I shall say. There are thousands of men in the
+West who are entirely ignorant of men in China other than the ordinary
+_Han Ren_, and if I enlighten them ever so little, then this chapter
+will have served an admirable end.
+
+In North-East Y�n-nan the tribes I came most in contact with were:--
+
+(i) The Miao or Miao-tze, as the Chinese call them; or the Mhong or
+Hmao, as they call themselves.
+
+(ii) The I-pien (or E-pien), as the Chinese call them; or the Nou Su (or
+Ngo Su), as they call themselves.
+
+Probably the Nou Su tribes are what Major Davies calls the Lolo Group in
+his third division of the great Tibeto-Burman Family; but I merely
+suggest it, as it strikes me that the other branches of that group,
+including the Li-su, the La-hu, and the Wo-ni, seem to be descendants of
+a larger group, of which the Nou Su predominate in numbers, language,
+and customs. However, this by the way.
+
+It may not be common knowledge that in most parts of the Chinese Empire,
+even to-day, there are tribes of people, essentially non-Chinese, who
+still rigidly maintain their independence, governed by their own native
+rulers as they were probably forty centuries ago, long before their
+kingdoms were annexed to China Proper. There are white bones and black
+bones, noses long and flattened, eyes straight and oblique, swarthy
+faces, faces yellow and white, coal-black and brown hair, and many
+other physical peculiarities differentiating one tribe from another.
+
+In many instances, these tribes, conquered slowly by the encroaching
+Chinese during the long and tedious term of centuries marking the growth
+of the Chinese Empire to its present immensity, are allowed to maintain
+their social independence under their own chiefs, who are subject to the
+control of the Government of China--which means that excessive taxation
+is paid to the _yamen_ functionary, who extorts money from anybody and
+everybody he can get into his clutches, and then gives a free hand.
+Others, in a further state of civilization, have been gradually absorbed
+by the Chinese and are now barely distinguishable from the _Han Ren_
+(the Chinese). And others, again, adopting Chinese dress, customs and
+language, would give the traveler a rough time of it were he to suggest
+that they are any but pure Chinese. To the ethnological student, it is
+obvious that so soon as the Chinese have tyrannized sufficiently and in
+their own inimitable way preyed upon these feudal landlords enough to
+warrant their lands being confiscated, reducing a tribe to a condition
+in which, far removed from districts where co-tribesmen live, they have
+no _status_, the aboriginals throw in their lot gradually with the
+Chinese, and to all intents and purposes become Chinese in language,
+customs, trade and life. This absorption by the Chinese of many tribes,
+stretching from the Burmese border to the eastern parts of Szech'wan,
+whilst an interesting study, shows that the onward march of civilization
+in China will sweep all racial relicts from the face of this great
+awakening Empire.
+
+But at the same time there are many branches of a tribal family, some
+found as far west as British Burma and all more or less scattered and
+disorganized as the result of this silent oppression going on through
+the years, who still are ambitious of preserving their independent
+isolation, particularly in sparsely-populated spheres far removed from
+political activity. So remote are the districts in which these
+principalities are found, that the Chinese themselves are entirely
+ignorant of the characteristics of these tribes. They say of one tribe
+which is scattered all over China Far West that they all have tails; and
+of another tribe that the men and women have two faces! And into the
+official records published by the Imperial Government the grossest
+inaccuracies creep concerning the origin of these peoples.
+
+Y�n-nan and Szech'wan--and a great part of Kwei-chow in the main still
+untouched by the increased taxation necessary to provide revenue to
+uphold the reforms brought about by the forward movement in various
+parts of the Empire--are where the aboriginal population is most
+evident. This part of the Empire might be called the ethnological garden
+of tribes and various races in various stages of uncivilization. These
+secluded mountain areas, their unaltered conditions still telling forth
+the story of the world's youth, have been the cradle and the death-bed
+of nations, of vigorous and ambitious tribes bent on conquest and a
+career of glory.
+
+
+THE MIAO
+
+Of the Miao, with its various sections, we know a good deal. Their real
+home has been pretty finally decided to be in Kwei-chow province, and
+they probably in former times extended far into Hu-nan, the Chinese of
+these provinces at the present time having undoubtedly a good deal of
+Miao blood in their veins. They are comparatively recent arrivals in
+Y�n-nan, but are gradually extending farther and farther to the west,
+maintaining their language and their dress and customs. I personally
+found them as far west as thirty miles beyond Tali-fu, a little off the
+main road, but Major Davies found them far up on the Tibetan border. He
+says: "The most westerly point that I have come across them is the
+neighborhood of Tawnio (lat. 23� 40', long. 98� 45'). Through Central
+and Northern Y�n-nan they do not seem to exist, but they reappear again
+to the north of this in Western Szech'wan, where there are a few
+villages in the basin of the Yalung River (lat. 28� 15', long. 101�
+40')."
+
+The Major was evidently ignorant of this Miao district of Chao-t'ong, to
+the north-east of the province. Stretching three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu right away on to Chao-t'ong, in a north line, Miao
+villages are met with fairly well the whole way; then, three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, in a north-westerly direction, we come to the Miao
+village of Loh-�n-shan; and then, striking south-west, through country
+absolutely unsurveyed part of the way, Sa-pu-shan is met. This last
+place is the headquarters of the China Inland Mission, where, at the
+present rate of progress, one might modestly estimate that in twenty
+years there will be no less than a million people receiving Christian
+teaching. These are not all Miao, however; there are besides La-ka,
+Li-su, and many other tribes with which we have no concern at the
+present moment.
+
+So that it may be seen that from Y�n-nan-fu, the capital, in areas on
+either side of the main road leading up to the bifurcation of the
+Yangtze below Sui-fu, in a long, narrow neck running between the River
+of Golden Sand and the Kwei-chow border, Miao are met with constantly.
+And then, of course, over the river, in Szech'wan, they are met with
+again, and in Kwei-chow, farther west, we have their real home.
+
+It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
+contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
+ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
+the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
+have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
+Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
+have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
+from the pens of men who have not.
+
+In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:--
+
+(i) The Hua Miao--The Flowery (or White) Miao.
+
+(ii) The Heh Miao--The Black Miao.
+
+(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)
+
+The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
+different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
+and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
+interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
+enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
+differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's _Kwei-chow and
+Y�n-nan Provinces_, Prince Henri d'Orleans' _Du Tonkin aux Indes_, and
+Mr. Baber's works. Major Davies also gives some new information
+concerning this hill people, and is generally correct in what he says;
+but in his, as in all the books which touch upon the subject, the
+language tests vary considerably. In Chao-t'ong and the surrounding
+districts, for instance, the traveler would be unable to make any
+progress with the vocabulary which the Major has compiled. I was unable
+to make it tally with the spoken language of the people, and append a
+table showing the differences in the phonetic--and I do it with all
+respect to Major Davies. I ought to add that this is the language of the
+north-east corner of Y�n-nan; that of Major Davies is taken from page
+339 of his book. He says that the words given by him will not be found
+to correspond in every case with those in the Miao vocabulary in the
+pocket of the cover of his book, and some have been taken from other
+Miao dialects!. However, the comparison will be interesting:--
+
+                                               N-E. Y�n-nan
+    English Word          Major Davies's Miao      Miao
+
+    Man (human being)     Tan-neng, Tam-ming   Teh-neh.
+
+    Son                   To, T'am-t'ong       Tu.
+
+    Eye                   K'a-mwa, Mai         A-ma.
+
+    Hand                  Api                  Tee.
+
+    Cow                   Nyaw, Nga            Niu.
+
+    Pig                   Teng                 Npa.
+
+    Dog                   Klie, Ko             Klee.
+
+    Chicken               Ka, Kei              Ki.
+
+    Silver                Nya                  Nieh.
+
+    River                 Tiang                Glee.
+
+    Paddy                 Mblei                Nglee.
+
+    Cooked Rice           Mao                  Va.
+
+    Tree                  Ndong                Ntao.
+
+    Fire                  To                   Teh.
+
+    Wind                  Chwa, Chiang         Chta.
+
+    Earth                 Ta                   Ti.
+
+    Sun                   Hno, Nai             Hnu.
+
+    Moon                  Hla                  Hlee.
+
+    Big                   Hlo                  Hlo.
+
+    Come                  Ta                   Ta.
+
+    Go                    Mong                 Mao.
+
+    Drink                 Ho                   Hao.
+
+    One                   A, Yi                Ih.
+
+    Two                   Ao                   Ah.
+
+    Three                 Pie, Po              Tsz.
+
+    Four                  Pei, Plou            Glao.
+
+    Five                  Pa                   Peh.
+
+    Six                   Chou                 Glao.
+
+    Seven                 Shiang, I            Shiang.
+
+    Eight                 Yi, Yik              Yih.
+
+    Nine                  Chio                 Chia.
+
+    Ten                   Ch'it                Kao.
+
+The Miao language was until a year or two ago only spoken; it was never
+written, and no one ever dreamed that it could be written. At the time
+of the great Miao revival, when thousands of Miao made a raid on the
+mission premises at Chao-t'ong, and implored the missionaries to come
+and teach them, it was found absolutely necessary that the language
+should be reduced to writing, and the whole of this extremely creditable
+work fell to the Rev. Samuel Pollard, who may be characterized as the
+pioneer of this Christianizing movement in North-East Y�n-nan.
+
+In reducing the language to writing, however, considerable difficulty
+was complicated by the presence of "tones," so well known to all
+students of Chinese, itself said to be an invention of the Devil. Tones
+introduce another element or dimension into speech. The number of
+sounds, not being sufficient for the reproduction of all the spoken
+ideas, has been multiplied by giving these various sounds in different
+tones. It is as if the element of music were introduced according to
+rule into speech, and as if one had not only to remember the words in
+everything he wished to say, but the tune also.
+
+The Miao people being so low down in the intellectual scale, and having
+never been accustomed to study, it was felt by the promoters of the
+written language that they should be as simple as possible, and hence
+they looked about for some system which could be readily grasped by
+these ignorant people. It was necessary that the system be absolutely
+phonetic and understood easily. By adapting the system used in
+shorthand, of putting the vowel marks in different positions by the side
+of the consonant signs, Mr. Pollard and his assistant found that they
+could solve their problem. The signs for the consonants are larger than
+the vowel signs, and the position of the latter by the side of the
+former gives the tone or musical note required.
+
+At the present time there are thousands of Miao now able to read and
+write, and the work of this enterprising missionary has conferred an
+inestimable boon upon this people. When I went among the Miao I was
+able, after ten minutes' instruction, to stand up and sing their hymns
+and read their gospels with them. Miao women, who heretofore had never
+hoped to read, are now put in possession of the Word of God, and the
+simplicity of the written language enables them almost at once to read
+the Story of the Cross. Surely this is one of the outstanding features
+of mission work in the whole of China. I hope at some future date to
+publish a work devoted exclusively to my travels among the Hua Miao, for
+I feel that their story, no matter how simply written, is one of the
+great untold romances of the world. As a people, they are extremely
+fascinating in life and customs, emotional, large-hearted, and
+absolutely distinct from, with hardly a manner of daily life in common
+with, the Chinese.
+
+
+MISSION WORK AMONG THE MIAO
+
+Whilst referring to mission work, it is a great privilege for the writer
+to add a word of most deserved eulogy of the United Methodist Mission at
+Chao-t'ong and Tongi-ch'uan-fu, and to the kindness shown by the
+missionaries towards me when I came, an absolute stranger, among them in
+May, 1909. It is to two members of this Mission that I owe a life-long
+debt of gratitude, for it was Mr. and Mrs. Evans, of Tong-ch'uan-fu, who
+saved my life, a week or two after I left Chao-t'ong, as is recorded in
+a subsequent chapter.
+
+It was in the old days of the Bible Christian Mission--than which the
+individual members of no mission in the whole of China worked with more
+zeal and lower stipends--that a most interesting development in the
+mission took place.
+
+The mass of the Miao are the serfs of the descendants of their ancient
+kings, who are large landowners, and the Miao are tenants. In 1905 the
+Miao heard of the Gospel, and came to listen to the preaching, and
+thousands came in batches at one time and another to the mission house.
+Their movements thus aroused suspicion among the Chinese, there was a
+good deal of persecution and personal violence, and at one time it
+looked as if there might be serious trouble. But the danger quieted
+down. The chieftain gave land, the Miao contributed one hundred pounds
+sterling, and themselves put up a chapel large enough to accommodate six
+hundred people. A year later, a thousand at a time crowded their simple
+sanctuary, and in 1907 nearly six thousand were members or probationers,
+and the work has steadily progressed ever since.
+
+I am indebted to the Rev. H. Parsons, who had charge of the work at the
+time I passed through this district, and whose guest I was for several
+months, for the following interesting details regarding the methods
+adopted in the running of this enormous mission field. Mr. Parsons is
+assisted in his work by his genial wife, who is a most ardent worker,
+and a capable Miao linguist. Mrs. Parsons regularly addresses
+congregations of several hundreds of Miao, and has traveled on journeys
+often with her husband; and such work as hers, with several others in
+this mission, is a testimony to the wisdom of a system advocating the
+increase of the number of lady workers on the mission field in China.
+
+
+THE NOU-SU (OR I-PIEN)
+
+There is a class of people around Chao-t'ong who are called Nou-su, a
+people who, although occupying the Chao-t'ong Plain at the time the
+Chinese arrived, are believed not to be the aboriginals of the district.
+What I actually know about this people is not much. I have heard a good
+deal, but it must not be understood that I publish this as absolutely
+the final word. People who have lived in the district for many years do
+not agree, so that for a mere traveler the task of getting infallible
+data would be quite formidable.
+
+No tribe is more widely known than the Nou-su, with their innumerable
+tribal distinctions and hereditary peculiarities so perplexing to the
+inquirer into Far Western China ethnology.
+
+The Nou-su are a very fine, tall race, with comparatively fair
+complexions, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian with some other
+straight-featured people. Of their origin, however, little can be
+vouched for, and with it we will have nothing to do here. But at the
+present time the Nou-su provide a good deal of interest from the fact
+that their power as tyrannic landlords and feudal chiefs is fast dying,
+and it may be that in a couple of decades, or a still shorter time, a
+people who, by obstinate self-reliance and great dislike to the Chinese,
+have remained unaffected by the absorbing spirit of the arbitrary
+Chinese, will have passed beyond the vale of personality. Even now,
+however, they own and rule enormous tracts of country (notably that part
+lying on the right bank of the River of Golden Sand) in north-east
+Y�n-nan. Some are very wealthy. One man may own vast tracts bigger than
+Yorkshire. In this tract there may be one hundred villages, all paying
+tribute to him and subject to the vagaries of his vilest despotism. From
+his tyranny his struggling tenantry have no redress. So long as the
+I-pien (the local name of the Nou-su) greases the palm of the squeezing
+Chinese mandarin in whose nominal control the district extends, he may
+run riot as he pleases. Social law and order are unknown, justice is a
+complete contradiction in terms, and whilst one is in the midst of it,
+it is difficult to realize that in China to-day--the China which all the
+world believes to be awakening--there exists a condition of things which
+will allow a man to torture, to plunder, to murder, and to indulge to
+the utmost degree the whims of a Neronic and devilish temperament.
+
+Slave trading is common. If a tenant cannot pay his tribute, he sells
+himself for a few taels and becomes the slave of his former landlord,
+and if he would save his head treads carefully.
+
+In the early days, when different clans were driven farther into the
+hills, they each clinched as much land as they could. In course of time,
+by petty quarrels, civil wars, and common feuds, the Nou-su were
+gradually thinned out. The Miao-tsi--the men of the hills and the serfs
+of the landlords, who four thousand years ago were a powerful race in
+their own kingdom--became the tenants of the Nou-su, whose rule is still
+marked by the grossest infamy possible to be practiced on the human
+race. All the methods of torture which in the old days were associated
+with the Chinese are still in vogue, in many cases in an aggravated
+form. I have personally seen the tortures, and have listened to the
+stories of the victims, but it would not bear description in print.
+
+It must not, however, be understood that to be a Nou-su is to be a
+landlord. By no means. For in the gradual process of the survival of the
+fittest, when the weaker landlords were murdered by their stronger
+compatriots and their lands seized, only a small percentage of the tribe
+in this area have been able to hold sway. However, wherever there are
+landlords in this part of the country, they are always Nou-su or
+Chinese. The Miao--or, at least, the Hua Miao, own no lands, and are
+body and soul in the tyrannic clutch of the tyrannic I-pien. Then,
+again, in the Nou-su tribe there are various hereditary distinctions
+enabling a man to claim caste advantage. There are the Black Bones, as
+they style themselves, the aristocrats of the race, and the White Bones,
+the lower breeds, who obey to the letter their wealthier brethren--or
+anybody who has authority over them.
+
+The Nou-su, who are a totally different race and a much better class
+than the Miao, are believed to have been driven from the Chao-t'ong
+Plain, preferring migration to fighting, and many trekked across the
+Yangtze (locally called the Kin-sha) river into country now marked on
+good maps as the Man-tze country. It appears that the following are the
+two important branches:--
+
+     (i) The Black (Na-su)--Farmers and landowners.
+
+     (ii) The White (Tu-su) Generally slaves.
+
+Other minor classes are:--
+
+     (i) The Lakes (or Red Nou-su)--Mostly blacksmiths.
+
+     (ii) The A-u-ts� Mostly felt-makers, who rightly or wrongly claim
+     relationship with the Chinese.
+
+     (iii) Another class, who are mostly basket-makers.
+
+The two great divisions, however, are the White and the Black. The
+latter class, themselves the owners of land, claim that all the White
+were originally slaves, and that those who are now free have escaped at
+some previous period from servitude. Men, as usual among such tribes,
+are scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary _Han Ren_. It is the
+women, with their peculiar head-dress and picturesque skirts, who
+maintain the distinguishing features of the race. For the most part, the
+Nou-su are not idolaters; no idols are in their houses. That portion of
+the tribe which migrated across the Yangtze, secure among the mountains,
+has never ceased to harass the Chinese, who now dwell on land which the
+Nou-su themselves once tilled, or at least inhabited; but they have been
+driven into remoter districts, and are only found away from the highways
+of Chinese travel. The race, too, is dying out--in this area at all
+events--and the Nou-su themselves reckon that their numbers have
+decreased by one-half during the last thirty years. This is one of the
+saddest facts. The insanitation of their dwellings, their rough diet,
+and frequent riotings in wine, opium and other evils, are quickly
+playing havoc in their ranks, giving the strong the opportunity of
+enriching themselves at the expense of the weak, with frequent fighting
+about the division of land.
+
+Europeans who can speak the language of the Nou-su are numbered on the
+fingers of one hand.
+
+To one who has traveled in this neighborhood for any length of time, it
+must be apparent that the unique method generally adopted by the Nou-su,
+that is, the landlord class, to get rich quickly is to kill off their
+next-door neighbor. The lives these men live with nothing but scandal
+and licentiousness to pass their time, are grossly and horribly wicked
+when viewed by the broadest-minded Westerner. They all live in fear of
+their lives, and are each afraid of the others, all entertaining a
+secret hatred, and all ever on the alert to devise some safe scheme to
+murder the owner of some land they are anxious of annexing to their
+own--and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they
+succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man,
+quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his
+brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When
+tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had
+not killed his brother his brother would have killed him
+
+Yet there is no sense of crime as we of the West understand it, and
+nothing is feared from the Chinese law. A man kills a slave, tortures
+him to death, and when the Chinese mandarin is appealed to, if he is at
+all, he looks wise and says, "I quite see your point, but I can do
+nothing. The murdered man was the landlord's slave," and, with a gentle
+wave of his three-inch finger-nail, he explains how a man may kill his
+slave, his wife, or his son--and the law can do nothing. That is, if he
+compensates the mandarin.
+
+A Nou-su looked upon a girl one day, when he was out collecting tribute.
+She was handsome, and he instructed his men to take her. She refused. A
+sum of one hundred ounces of silver was offered to anyone who would
+kidnap her and carry her off to his harem. Eventually he got the girl,
+and had her father tortured and then put to death because he would not
+deliver his daughter over to him. Yet there is no redress.
+
+Nou-su women, their feet unbound, with high foreheads and well-cut
+features, with fiery eyes set in not unkindly faces, tall and healthy,
+would be considered handsome women in any country in Europe. They rarely
+intermarry with other tribes. A good deal of affection certainly exists
+sometimes between husband and wife and between parents and children, but
+the looseness of the marriage relation leads to unending strife.
+
+Many Europeans, travelers and missionaries, have been murdered in the
+country inhabited by the independent Lolo people. Although I have not
+personally been through any of that country, I have been on the very
+outskirts and have lived for a long time among the people there. I found
+them a pleasant hospitable race, fairly easy to get on with. And it must
+not be averred that, because they consider their natural enemy, the
+Chinese, the man to be robbed and murdered, and because they kill off
+their fellow-landlords in order the more quickly to get rich, that they
+treat all strangers alike. Among the Europeans who have suffered death
+at their hands, it is probable that in some way the cause was traceable
+to their own bearing towards the people--either a total lack of
+knowledge of their language or an attitude which caused suspicion.
+
+Among the Nou-su, strong as this feudal life still is, the Chinese are
+fast gaining permanent influence. Their dissolute and drunken and
+inhuman daily practices are tending to work out among this people their
+own destruction, and in years to come in this neighborhood the traveler
+will be perplexed at finding here and there a fine specimen of an
+upstanding Chinese, with clean-cut face, straight of feature and
+straight of limb, with a peculiar Mongol look about him. He will be one
+of the surviving specimens of a race of people, the Nou-su, whose
+forgotten historical records would do much to clear up the doubt
+attaching to Indo-China and Tibet-Burma ethnology.
+
+The first Nou-su chieftain to come to Chao-t'ong, a man who was renowned
+as a tryannical brute, was one Ien Tsang-fu, who frequently gouged out
+the eyes of those who disobeyed his commands; and his descendants are
+said to have inherited a good many of this tyrant's vices. The landlords
+prey upon their weaker brethren, and at last, with infinite sagacity,
+the Chinese Government steps in to stop the quarrels, confiscates the
+whole of the property, and thus reduces the Nou-su land to immediate
+control of Chinese authorities.
+
+"The Nou-su are, of course, entirely dependent upon the land for their
+living. They till the soil and rear cattle, and the greatest calamity
+that can come upon any family is that their land shall be taken from
+them. To be landless involves degradation as well as poverty, and very
+severe hardship is the lot of men who have been deprived of this means
+of subsistence. For those who own no land, but who are merely tenants of
+the Tu-muh,[S] there seems to be no security of tenure; but still, if
+the wishes and demands of the landlords are complied with, one family
+may till the same farm for many successive generations. The terms on
+which land is held are peculiar. The rental agreed upon is nominal.
+Large tracts of country are rented for a pig or a sheep or a fowl, with
+a little corn per year. Beside this nominal rent, the landlord has the
+right to make levies on his tenants on all special occasions, such as
+funerals, weddings, or for any other extraordinary expenses. He can also
+require his tenants with their cattle to render services. This system
+necessarily leads to much oppression and injustice. It is also said that
+if a family is hard pressed by a Tu-muh and reduced to extreme poverty,
+they will make themselves over to him on condition that a portion of his
+land be given them to cultivate. Such people are called caught slaves,
+as distinguished from hereditary, and the eldest children become the
+absolute property of the landlord and are generally given as attendants
+upon his wife and daughters.
+
+"Every farmer owns a large number of slaves, who live in the same
+compound as himself. These people do all the work of the farm, while the
+master employs himself as his fancy leads him. Over these unfortunate
+people the owner has absolute control. All their affairs are managed by
+him. His girl slaves he marries off to other men's slave boys, and
+similarly obtains wives for his male slaves. The lot of these
+unfortunate people is hard beyond description. Being considered but
+little more valuable than the cattle they tend, the food given to them
+is often inferior to the corn upon which the master's horse is fed. The
+cruel beatings and torturings they have been subject to have completely
+broken their spirit, and now they seem unable to exist apart from their
+masters. Very seldom do any of them try to escape, for no one will give
+them shelter, and the punishment awarded a recaptured slave is so severe
+as to intimidate the most daring. These poor folk are born in slavery,
+married in slavery, and they die in slavery. It is not uncommon to meet
+with Chinese slaves, both boys and girls, in Nou-su families. These have
+either been kidnapped and sold, or their parents, unable to nourish
+them, have bartered them in exchange for food. Their purchasers marry
+them to Tu-su, and their lot is thrown in with the slave class. One's
+heart is wrung with anguish sometimes as he thinks of what cruelty and
+wretchedness exist among the hills of this benighted district. Even
+here, however, light is beginning to shine, for some adherents of the
+Christian religion have changed their slaves into tenants, thus showing
+the way to the ultimate solution of this difficult problem.
+
+"The life in a Nou-su household is not very complex. The cattle are
+driven out early in the morning, as soon as the sun has risen. They
+remain out until the breakfast hour, and then return to the stables and
+rest during the heat of the day, going out again in the cool hours. The
+food of the household is prepared by the slaves, under the direction of
+the lady of the house. There is no refined cooking, for the Nou-su
+despises well-cooked food, and complains that it never satisfies him. He
+has a couplet which runs: 'If you eat raw food, you become a warrior; if
+you eat it cooked, you suffer hunger.' No chairs or tables are found in
+a genuine Nou-su house. The food is served up in a large bowl placed on
+the floor. The family sit around, and each one helps himself with a
+large wooden spoon. At the present time the refinements of Chinese
+civilization have been adopted by a large number of Nou-su, and the
+homes of the wealthier people are as well furnished as those of the
+middle-class Chinese of the district. The women of the households also
+spend much time making their own and their children's clothes. The men
+have adopted Chinese dress, but the women, in most cases, retain their
+tribal costume with its large turban-like head-dress, its plaited skirt
+and intricately embroidered coat. All this is made by hand, and the
+choicest years of maidenhood are occupied in preparing the clothes for
+the wedding-day.
+
+"The Nou-su, it would seem, used not to beg a wife, but rather obtained
+her by main force. At the present day, while the milder method generally
+prevails, there are still survivals of the ancient custom. The betrothal
+truly takes place very early, even in infancy, and at the ceremony a
+fowl is killed, and each contracting party takes a rib; but as the young
+folk grow to marriageable age, the final negotiations have to be made.
+These are purposely prolonged until the bridegroom, growing angry,
+gathers his friends and makes an attack on the maiden's home. Arming
+themselves with cudgels, they approach secretly, and protecting their
+heads and shoulders with their felt cloaks, they rush towards the house.
+Strenuous efforts are made by the occupants to prevent their entering,
+and severe blows are exchanged. When the attacking party has succeeded
+in gaining an entrance, peace is proclaimed, and wine and huge chunks of
+flesh are provided for their entertainment.
+
+"Occasionally during these fights the maiden's home is quite dismantled.
+The negotiations being ended, preparations are made to escort the bride
+to her future home. Heavily veiled, she is supported on horseback by her
+brothers, while her near relatives, all fully armed, attend her. On
+arriving at the house, a scuffle ensues. The veil is snatched from the
+bride's face by her relatives, who do their utmost to throw it on to the
+roof, thus signifying that she will rule over the occupants when she
+enters. The bridegroom's people on the contrary try to trample it upon
+the doorstep, as an indication of the rigor with which the newcomer will
+be subjected to the ruling of the head of the house. Much blood is shed,
+and people are often seriously injured in these skirmishes. The new
+bride remains for three days in a temporary shelter before she is
+admitted to the home. A girl having once left her parent's home to
+become a wife, waits many years before she pays a return visit.
+Anciently the minimum time was three years, but some allow ten or more
+years to elapse before the first visit home is paid. Two or three years
+are then often spent with the parents. Many friends and relatives attend
+any visitor, for with the Nou-su a large following is considered a sign
+of dignity and importance. When a child is born a tree is planted, with
+the hope that as the tree grows so also will the child develop.
+
+"The fear of disease lies heavily upon the Nou-su people, and their
+disregard of the most elementary sanitary laws makes them very liable to
+attacks of sickness. They understand almost nothing about medicine, and
+consequently resort to superstitious practices in order to ward off the
+evil influences. When it is known that disease has visited a neighbor's
+house, a pole, seven feet long, is erected in a conspicuous place in a
+thicket some distance from the house to be guarded. On the pole an old
+ploughshare is fixed, and it is supposed that when the spirit who
+controls the disease sees the ploughshare he will retire to a distance
+of three homesteads.
+
+"A fever called No-ma-dz� works great havoc among the Nou-su every year,
+and the people are very much afraid of it. No person will stay by the
+sick-bed to nurse the unfortunate victim. Instead, food and water are
+placed by his bedside and, covered with his quilt, he is left at the
+mercy of the disease. Since as the fever progresses the patient will
+perspire, heavy stones are placed on the quilt, that it may not be
+thrown off, and the sick person take cold. Many an unfortunate sufferer
+has through this strange practice died from suffocation. After a time
+the relatives will return to see what course the disease has taken. This
+fever seems to yield to quinine, for Mr. John Li has seen several
+persons recover to whom he had administered this drug. When a man dies,
+his relatives, as soon as they receive the news, hold in their several
+homes a feast of mourning called by them the Za. A pig or sheep is
+sacrificed at the doorway, and it is supposed that intercourse is thus
+maintained between the living persons and the late departed spirit. The
+near kindred, on hearing of the death of a relative, take a fowl and
+strangle it; the shedding of its blood is not permissible. This fowl is
+cleaned and skewered, and the mourner then proceeds to the house where
+the deceased person is lying, and sticks this fowl at the head of the
+corpse as an offering. The more distant relatives do not perform this
+rite, but each leads a sheep to the house of mourning, and the son of
+the deceased man strikes each animal three times with a white wand,
+while the Peh-mo (priest or magician) stands by, and announcing the
+sacrifice by calling 'so and so,' giving of course the name, presents
+the soft woolly offering.
+
+"Formerly the Nou-su burned their dead. Said a Nou-su youth to me years
+ago, 'The thought of our friends' bodies either turning to corruption or
+being eaten by wild beasts is distasteful to us, and therefore we burn
+our dead.' The corpse is burnt with wood, and during the cremation the
+mourners arrange themselves around the fire and chant and dance. The
+ashes are buried, and the ground leveled. This custom is still adhered
+to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly
+Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the
+neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong have adopted burial as the means
+of disposing of their dead, adding some customs peculiar to themselves.
+
+"On the day of the funeral the horse which the deceased man was in the
+habit of riding is brought to the door and saddled by the Pehmo. The
+command is then given to lead the horse to the grave. All the mourners
+follow, and marching or dancing in intertwining circles, cross and
+recross the path of the led horse until the poor creature, grown frantic
+with fear, rushes and kicks in wild endeavor to escape from the
+confusion. The whole company then raise a great shout and call, 'The
+soul has come to ride the horse, the soul has come to ride the horse.' A
+contest then follows among the women of the deceased man's household for
+the possession of this horse, which is henceforth regarded as of extreme
+value. It is difficult to discover much about the religion of the
+Nou-su, because so many of their ancient customs have fallen into disuse
+during the intercourse of the people with the Chinese. At the
+ingathering of the buckwheat, when the crop is stacked on the threshing
+floor, and the work of threshing is about to begin, the simple formula,
+'Thank you, Ilsomo,' is used. Ilsomo seems to be a spirit who has
+control over the crops; whether good or evil, it is not easy to
+determine. Ilsomo is not God, for at present, when the Nou-su wish to
+speak of God, they use the word Soe, which means Master.
+
+"In the independent territory of the Nou-su, to the west of Szech'wan,
+the term used for God is Eh-nia, and a Nou-su who has much intercourse
+with the independent people contends that there are three names
+indicative of God, each representing different functions if not persons
+of the Godhead. These names are: Eh-nia, Keh-neh, Um-p'a-ma. The Nou-su
+believe in ancestor worship, and perhaps the most interesting feature of
+their religion is the peculiar form this worship takes. Instead of an
+ancestral tablet such as the Chinese use, the Nou-su worship a small
+basket (lolo) about as large as a duck's egg and made of split bamboo.
+This 'lolo' contains small bamboo tubes an inch or two long, and as
+thick as an ordinary Chinese pen handle. In these tubes are fastened a
+piece of grass and a piece of sheep's wool. A man and his wife would be
+represented by two tubes, and if he had two wives, an extra tube would
+be placed in the 'lolo.' At the ceremony of consecration the Pehmo
+attends, and a slave is set apart for the purpose of attending to all
+the rites connected with the worship of the deceased person. The 'lolo'
+is sometimes placed in the house, but more often on a tree in the
+neighborhood or it may be hidden in a rock. For persons who are
+short-lived, the ancestral 'lolo' is placed in a crevice in the wall of
+some forsaken and ruined building. Every three years the 'lolo' is
+changed, and the old one burnt. The term 'lolo,' by which the Nou-su are
+generally known, is a contemptuous nickname given them by the Chinese in
+reference to this peculiar method of venerating their ancestors.
+
+"Hill worship is another important feature of Nou-su religious life.
+Most important houses are built at the foot of a hill and sacrifice is
+regularly offered on the hill-side in the fourth month of each year. The
+Pehmo determines which is the most propitious day, and the Tumuh and his
+people proceed to the appointed spot. A limestone rock with an old tree
+trunk near is chosen as an altar, and a sheep and pig are brought
+forward by the Tumuh. The Pehmo, having adjusted his clothes, sits
+cross-legged before the altar, and begins intoning his incantations in a
+low muttering voice. The sacrifice is then slain, and the blood poured
+beneath the altar, and a handful of rice and a lump of salt are placed
+beneath the stone. Some person then gathers a bundle of green grass, and
+the Pehmo, having finished intoning, the altar is covered, and all
+return to the house. The Pehmo then twists the grass into a length of
+rope, which he hangs over the doorway of the house. Out of a piece of
+willow a small arrow is made, and a bow similar in size is cut out of a
+peach tree. These are placed on the doorposts. On a piece of soft white
+wood a figure of a man is roughly carved, and this, with two sticks of
+any soft wood placed cross-wise, is fastened to the rope hanging over
+the doorway, on each side of which two small sticks are placed. The
+Pehmo then proceeds with his incantation, muttering: 'From now,
+henceforth and for ever will the evil spirits keep away from this
+house.'
+
+"Most Nou-su at the present time observe the New Year festival on the
+same date and with the same customs as the Chinese. Formerly this was
+not so, and even now in the remoter districts New Year's day is observed
+on the first day of the tenth month of the Chinese year. A pig and sheep
+are killed and cleaned, and hung in the house for three days. They are
+then taken down, cut up and cooked. The family sit on buckwheat straw in
+the middle of the chief room of the house. The head of the house invites
+the others to drink wine, and the feasting begins. Presently one will
+start singing, and all join in this song: 'How firm is this house of
+mine. Throughout the year its hearth fire has not ceased to burn, My
+food corn is abundant, I have silver and also cash, My cattle have
+increased to herds, My horses and mules have all white foreheads K'o K'o
+Ha Ha Ha Ha K'o K'o, My sons are filial, My wife is virtuous, In the
+midst of flesh and wine we sleep, Our happiness reaches unto heaven,
+Truly glorious is this glad New Year.' A scene of wild indulgence then
+frequently follows.
+
+"The Nou-su possess a written language. Their books were originally made
+of sheepskin, but paper is now used. The art of printing was unknown,
+and many books are said to have been lost. The books are illustrated,
+but the drawings are extremely crude."[T]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote R: _Y�n-nan, The Link between India, and the Yangtze_, by
+Major H.R. Davies, Cambridge University Press.]
+
+[Footnote S: Literally "Eyes of the Earth"--the landlords.]
+
+[Footnote T: A good deal of information in this chapter was obtained
+from an article by the Rev. C E Hicks, published in the _Chinese
+Recorder_ for March, 1910. The portion quoted is taken bodily from this
+excellent article.]
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY.
+
+CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Revolting sights compensated for by scenery_. _Most eventful day in the
+trip_. _Buying a pony, and the reason for its purchase_. _Author's pony
+kicks him and breaks his arm_. _Chastising the animal, and narrow escape
+from death_. _Rider and pony a sorry sight_. _An uneasy night_.
+_Reappearance of malaria_. _Author nearly forced to give in_. _Heavy
+rain on a difficult road_. _At Ta-shui-tsing_. _Chasing frightened pony
+in the dead of night_. _Bad accommodation_. _Lepers and leprosy_.
+_Mining_. _At Kiang-ti_. _Two mandarins, and an amusing episode_.
+_Laying foundation of a long illness_. _The Kiang-ti Suspension Bridge_.
+_Hard climbing_. _Tiffin in the mountains_. _Sudden ascents and
+descents_. _Description of the country_. _Tame birds and what they do_.
+_A non-enterprising community_. _Pleasant travelling without perils_.
+_Majesty of the mountains of Y�n-nan_.
+
+
+Whilst in this district, as will have been seen, one has to steel
+himself to face some of the most revolting sights it is possible to
+imagine, he is rewarded by the grandeur of the scenic pictures which
+mark the downward journey to Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+
+The stages to Tong-ch'uan-fu were as follows:--
+
+                            Length of   Height above
+                              stage      sea level
+
+    1st day   T'ao-�en         70 li.      ---- ft.
+    2nd day   Ta-shui-tsing    30 "       9,300 ft.
+    3rd day   Kiang-ti         40 "       4,400 "
+    4th day   Yi-che-sh�n      70 "       6,300 "
+    5th day   Hong-sh�h-ai     90 "       6,800 "
+    6th day   Tong-ch'uan-fu   60 "       7,250 "
+
+The Chao-t'ong plateau, magnificently level, runs out past the
+picturesquely-situated tower of Wang-hai-leo, from which one overlooks a
+stretch of water. A memorial arch, erected by the Li family of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, graces the main road farther on, and is probably one of
+the best of its kind in Y�n-nan, comparing favorably with the best to be
+found in Szech'wan, where monumental architecture abounds. Perhaps the
+only building of interest in Chao-t'ong is the ancestral hall of the
+wealthy family mentioned above, the carving of which is magnificent.
+
+At the end of the first day we camped at the Mohammedan village of
+T'ao-�en, literally "Peach Garden," but the peach trees might once have
+been, though now certainly they are not.
+
+It was cold when we left, 38� F., hard frost. All the world seemed
+buttoned up and great-coated; the trees seemed wiry and cheerless; the
+legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued
+visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to
+blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could
+not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who
+could, thought it no fault of mine. I was a reasoning being, a rational
+creature, and thought it a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial
+half-hour. But I had to get up, and then came the benumbed fingers, a
+quivering body, a frozen towel, and a floor upon which the mud was
+frozen stiff. Little did he know that he was pulling me out to the most
+eventful and unfortunate day of my trip.
+
+At Chao-t'ong I had bought a pony in case of emergency--one of those
+sturdy little brutes that never grow tired, cost little to keep, and are
+unexcelled for the amount of work they can get through every day in the
+week. Its color was black, a smooth, glossy black--the proverbial dark
+horse--and when dressed in its English saddle and bridle looked even
+smart enough for the use of the distinguished traveler, who smiled the
+smile of pleasant ownership as it was led on in front all day long,
+seeming to return a satanic grin for my foolishness at not riding it.[U]
+
+The first I saw of it was when it was standing full on its hind legs
+pinning a man between the railings and a wall in a corner of the mission
+premises. It looked well. Truly, it was a blood beast!
+
+On the second day out, whilst walking merrily along in the early
+morning, the little brute lifted its heels, lodged them most precisely
+on to my right forearm with considerable force--more forceful than
+affectionate--sending the stick which I carried thirty feet from me up
+the cliffs. The limb ached, and I felt sick. My boy--he had been a
+doctor's boy on one of the gunboats at Chung-king--thought it was
+bruised. I acquiesced, and sank fainting to a stone. On the strength of
+my boy's diagnosis we rubbed it, and found that it hurt still more. Then
+diving into a cottage, I brought out a piece of wood, three inches wide
+and twenty inches long, placed my arm on it, bade my boy take off one of
+my puttees from one of my legs, used it as a bandage, and trudged on
+again.
+
+Not realizing that my arm was broken, in the evening I determined to
+chastise the animal in a manner becoming to my disgust. Mounting at the
+foot of a long hill, I laid on the stick as hard as I could, and found
+that my pony had a remarkable turn of speed. At the brow of the hill was
+a twenty-yard dip, at the base of which was a pond.
+
+Down, down, down we went, and, despite my full strength (with the left
+arm) at its mouth, the pony plunged in with a dull splash, only to find
+that his feet gave way under him in a clay bottom. He could not free
+himself to swim. Farther and farther we sank together, every second
+deeper into the mire, when just at the moment I felt the mud clinging
+about my waist, and I had visions of a horrible death away from all who
+knew me, I plunged madly to reach the side.
+
+With one arm useless, it is still to me the one great wonder of my life
+how I escaped. Nothing short of miraculous; one of the times when one
+feels a special protection of Providence surrounding him.
+
+Pulling the beast's head, after I had given myself a momentary shake, I
+succeeded in making him give a mighty lurch--then another--then another,
+and in a few seconds, after terrible struggling, he reached the bank. We
+made a sorry spectacle as we walked shamefacedly back to the inn, under
+the gaze of half a dozen grinning rustics, where my man was preparing
+the evening meal.
+
+In the evening, on the advice of my general confidential companion, I
+submitted to a poultice being applied to my arm. It was bruised, so we
+put on the old-fashioned, hard-to-be-beaten poultice of bread. Whilst it
+was hot it was comfortable; when it was cold, I unrolled the bandage,
+threw the poultice to the floor, and in two minutes saw glistening in
+the moonlight the eyes of the rats which ate it.
+
+Then I bade sweet Morpheus take me; but, although the pain prevented me
+from sleeping, I remember fainting. How long I lay I know not.
+Shuddering in every limb with pain and chilly fear, I at length awoke
+from a long swoon. Something had happened, but what? There was still the
+paper window, the same greasy saucer of thick oil and light being given
+by the same rush, the same rickety table, the same chair on which we had
+made the poultice--but what had happened? I rubbed my aching eyes and
+lifted myself in a half-sitting posture--a dream had dazzled me and
+scared my senses. And then I knew that it was malaria coming on again,
+and that I was once more her luckless victim.
+
+Malignant malaria, mistress of men who court thee under tropic skies,
+and who, like me, are turned from thee bodily shattered and whimpering
+like a child, how much, how very much hast thou laid up for thyself in
+Hades!
+
+Thank Heaven, I had superabundant energy and vitality, and despite
+contorted and distorted things dancing haphazard through my fevered
+brain, I determined not to go under, not to give in. My mind was a
+terrible tangle of combinations nevertheless--intricate, incongruous,
+inconsequent, monstrous; but still I plodded on. For the next four days,
+with my arm lying limp and lifeless at my side, and with recurring
+attacks of malaria, I walked on against the greatest odds, and it was
+not till I had reached Tong-ch'uan-fu that I learnt that the limb was
+fractured. Men may have seen more in four days and done more and risked
+more, but I think few travelers have been called upon to suffer more
+agony than befell the lot of the man who was crossing China on foot.
+
+From T'ao-�en there is a stiff ascent, followed by a climb up steep
+stone steps and muddy mountain banks through black and barren country.
+The morning had been cold and frosty, but rain came on later, a thick,
+heavy deluge, which swished and swashed everything from its path as one
+toiled painfully up those slippery paths, made almost unnegotiable. But
+my imagination and my hope helped me to make my own sunshine. There is
+something, I think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good
+honest summer rain at home with a Burberry well buttoned and an umbrella
+over one's head; here in Y�n-nan a coat made it too uncomfortable to
+walk, and the terrific wind would have blown an umbrella from one's
+grasp in a twinkling. If we are in the home humor, in the summer, we do
+not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in
+getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the "very touching
+stockings" and the "very gentle and sensitive legs" of other weaker ones
+in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland
+one can find in this part of Y�n-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make
+as I trudged "two steps forward, one step back" in my bare feet, covered
+only with rough straw sandals, with trousers upturned above the knee,
+with teeth chattering in malarial shivers, endeavoring between-times to
+think of the pouring deluge as a benignant enemy fertilizing fields,
+purifying the streets of the horrid little villages in which we spent
+our nights, refreshing the air!
+
+Shall I ever forget the day?
+
+Just before sundown, drenched to the skin and suffering horribly from
+the blues, we reached one single hut, which I could justly look upon as
+a sort of evening companion; for here was a fire--albeit, a green wood
+fire--which looked gladly in my face, talked to me, and put life and
+comfort and warmth into me for the ten li yet remaining of the day's
+hard journey.
+
+And at night, about 8:30 p.m., we at last reached the top of the hill,
+actually the summit of a mountain pass, at the dirty little village of
+Ta-shui-tsing. Not for long, however, could I rest; for I heard yells
+and screams and laughs. That pony again! Every one of my men were afraid
+of it, for at the slightest invitation it pawed with its front feet and
+landed man after man into the gutter, and if that failed it stood
+upright and cuddled them around the neck. Now I found it had
+run--saddle, bridle and all--and none volunteered to chase. So at 9:30,
+weary and bearing the burden of a terrible day, which laid the
+foundation of a long illness to be recorded later, I found it my
+unpleasant duty to patrol the hill from top to bottom, lighting my
+slippery way with a Chinese lantern, chasing the pony silhouetted on
+the sky-line. Ta-shui-tsing is a dreary spot with no inn accommodation
+at all,[V] a place depopulated and laid waste, gloomy and melancholy. I
+managed, however, after promising a big fee, to get into a small
+mud-house, where the people were not unkindly disposed. I ate my food,
+slept as much as I could in the few hours before the appearing of the
+earliest dawn on the bench allotted to me, feeling thankful that to me
+had been allowed even this scanty lodging. But I could not
+conscientiously recommend the place to future travelers--a dirty little
+village with its dirty people and its dirty atmosphere. At the top of
+the pass the wind nearly removed my ears as I took a final glance at the
+mountain refuge. Mountains here run south-west and north-east, and are
+grand to look upon.
+
+The poorest people were lepers, the beggars were all dead long ago. In
+Y�n-nan province leprosy afflicts thousands, a disease which the
+Chinese, not without reason, dread terribly, for no known remedy exists.
+Burning the patient alive, which used often to be resorted to, is even
+now looked upon as the only true remedy. Cases have been known where the
+patient, having been stupefied with opium, has been locked in a house,
+which has then been set on fire, and its inmate cremated on the spot.
+
+Mining used to be carried on here, so they told me; but I was not long
+in concluding that, whatever was the product, it has not materially
+affected the world's output, nor had it greatly enriched the laborers in
+the field. When I got into civilization I found that coal of a
+sulphurous nature was the booty of ancient days. There may be coal yet,
+as is most probable, but the natives seemed far too apathetic and weary
+of life to care whether it is there or not.
+
+Passing Ta-shui-tsing, the descent narrows to a splendid view of dark
+mountain and green and beautiful valley. We were now traveling away from
+several ranges of lofty mountains, whose peaks appeared vividly above
+the drooping rain-filled clouds, onwards to a range immediately
+opposite, up whose slopes we toiled all day, passing _en route_ only one
+uninhabited hamlet, to which the people flee in time of trouble. After a
+weary tramp of another twenty-five li--the Y�n-nan li, mind you, the
+most unreliable quantity in all matters geographical in the country--I
+asked irritatedly, as all travelers must have asked before me, "Then, in
+the name of Heaven, where is Kiang-ti?"[W] It should come into view
+behind the terrible steep decline when one is within only about a
+hundred yards. It is roughly four thousand feet below Ta-shui-tsing.
+
+Kiang-ti is an important stopping place, with but one forlorn street,
+with two or three forlorn inns, the best of which has its best room
+immediately over the filthiest stables, emitting a stench which was
+almost unbearable, that I have seen in China. It literally suffocates
+one as it comes up in wafts through the wide gaps in the wood floor of
+the room. There are no mosquitoes here, but of a certain winged insect
+of various species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the
+wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a
+formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house
+fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly,
+the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with
+flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's
+throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one
+within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes
+of the 'kerchief.
+
+The village seemed a death-trap.
+
+Glancing comprehensively at one another as I entered the higher end of
+the town, a party of reveling tea-drinkers hastily pulled some cash from
+their satchels to settle accounts, and made a general rush into the
+street, where they awaited noisily the approach of a strangely wondrous
+and imposing spectacle, one that had not been seen in those parts for
+many days. The tramper, tired as he could be, at length approached, but
+the crowd had increased so enormously that the road was completely
+blocked. Tradesmen with their portable workshops, pedlars with their
+cumbersome gear and pack-horses could not pass, but had to wait for
+their turn; there were not even any tortuous by-streets in this place
+whereby they might reach their destination. Children lost themselves in
+the crush, and went about crying for their mothers. A party of
+travelers, newly arrived from the south by caravan route, got wedged
+with their worn-out horses and mules in the thick of the mob, and could
+not move an inch. As far as the eye could reach the blue-clad throng
+heaved restlessly to and fro under the blaze of the brilliant sun which
+harassed everyone in the valley, and, moving slowly and majestically in
+the midst of them all, came the foreigner. As they caught sight of me,
+my sandalled feet, and the retinue following on wearily in the wake, the
+populace set up an ecstatic yell of ferocious applause and turned their
+faces towards the inn, in the doorway of which one of my soldier-men was
+holding forth on points of more or less delicacy respecting my good or
+bad nature and my British connection. At that moment, the huge human
+mass began to move in one predetermined direction, and then a couple of
+mandarins in their chairs joined the swarming rabble. I had to sit down
+on the step for five minutes whilst my boy, with commendable energy,
+cleared these two mandarins, who had come from Chen-tu and were on their
+way to the capital, out of the best room, because his master wanted it.
+
+As he finished speaking, there came a loud crashing noise and a
+shout--my pony had landed out just once again, and banged in one side of
+a chair belonging to these traveling officials. They met me with noisy
+and derisive greetings, which were returned with a straight and
+penetrating look.
+
+No less than fifty degrees was the thermometrical difference in
+Ta-shui-tsing and Kiang-ti. Here it was stifling. Cattle stood in
+stagnant water, ducks were envied, my room with the sun on it became
+intolerable, and I sought refuge by the river; my butter was too liquid
+to spread; coolies were tired as they rested outside the tea-houses,
+having not a cash to spend; my pony stood wincing, giving sharp shivers
+to his skin, and moving his tail to clear off the flies and his hind
+legs to clear off men. As for myself, I could have done with an iced
+soda or a claret cup.
+
+Very early in the morning, despite malaria shivers, I made my way over
+the beautiful suspension bridge which here graces the Niu Lan,[X] a
+tributary of the Yangtze, up to the high hills beyond.
+
+This bridge at Kiang-ti is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve,
+protected at one end by a couple of monkeys carved in stone, whilst the
+opposite end is guarded by what are supposed to be, I believe, a couple
+of lions--and not a bad representation of them either, seeing that the
+workmen had no original near at hand to go by.
+
+From here the ascent over a second range of mountains is made by
+tortuous paths that wind along the sides of the hills high above the
+stream below, and at other times along the river-bed. The river is
+followed in a steep ascent, a sort of climbing terrace, from which the
+water leaps in delightful cascades and waterfalls. A four-hour climb
+brings one, after terrific labor, to the mouth of the picturesque pass
+of Ya-ko-t'ang at 7,500 feet. In the quiet of the mountains I took my
+midday meal; there was about the place an awe-inspiring stillness. It
+was grand but lonely, weird rather than peaceful, so that one was glad
+to descend again suddenly to the river, tracing it through long
+stretches of plain and barren valley, after which narrow paths lead up
+again to the small village of Yi-che-sh�n, considerably below
+Ya-ko-t'ang. It is the sudden descents and ascents which astonish one in
+traveling in this region, and whether climbing or dropping, one always
+reaches a plain or upland which would delude one into believing that he
+is almost at sea-level, were it not for the towering mountains that all
+around keep one hemmed in in a silent stillness, and the rarefied air.
+Yi-che-sh�n, for instance, standing at this altitude of considerably
+over 6,000 feet, is in the center of a tableland, on which are numerous
+villages, around which the fragrance of the broad bean in flower and the
+splendid fertility now and again met with makes it extremely pleasant to
+walk--it is almost a series of English cottage gardens. Here the weather
+was like July in England--or what one likes to imagine July should be in
+England--dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious weather, in which one
+should do as he pleases, and be pleased with what he does. As I toiled
+along, my useless limb causing me each day more trouble, I felt I should
+like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for
+my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength.
+But I was getting weaker! I saw, as I passed, gardens of purple and gold
+and white splendor; the sky was at its bluest, the clouds were full,
+snowy, mountainous.
+
+Then on again to varying scenes.
+
+Inns were not frequent, and were poor and wretched. The country was all
+red sandstone, and devoid of all timber, till, descending into a lovely
+valley, the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and then led out into a
+beautiful park all green and sweet. The country was full of color. It
+put a good taste in one's mouth, it impressed one as a heaven-sent means
+of keeping one cheerful in sad dilemma. The gardens, the fields, the
+skies, the mountains, the sunset, the light itself--all were full of
+color, and earth and heaven seemed of one opinion in the harmony of the
+reds, the purples, the drabs, the blacks, the browns, the bright blues,
+and the yellows. Birds were as tame as they were in the Great Beginning;
+they came under the table as I ate, and picked up the crumbs without
+fear. Peasant people sat under great cedars, planted to give shade to
+the travelers, and bade one feel at home in his lonely pilgrimage. Then
+one felt a peculiar feeling--this feeling will arise in any
+traveler--when, surmounting some hill range in the desert road, one
+descries, lying far below, embosomed in its natural bulwarks, the fair
+village, the resting-place, the little dwelling-place of men, where one
+is to sleep. But when towards nightfall, as the good red sun went down,
+I was led, weary and done-up, into one of the worst inns it had been my
+misfortune to encounter, a thousand other thoughts and feelings united
+in common anathema to the unenterprising community.
+
+Tea was bad, rice we could not get, and all night long the detestable
+smells from the wood fires choked our throats and blinded our eyes;
+glad, therefore, was I, despite the heavy rain, to take a hurried and
+early departure the next morning, descending a thousand feet to a river,
+rising quite as suddenly to a height of 8,500 feet.
+
+Now the road went over a mountain broad and flat, where traveling in the
+sun was extremely pleasant--or, rather, would have been had I been fit.
+Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea,
+Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Y�n-nan province, passed
+us on the mountain-side, and sometimes numbers of these willing but
+ill-treated animals were seen grazing in the hollows, by the wayside,
+their backs in almost every instance cruelly lacerated by the continuous
+rubbing of the wooden frames on which their loads were strapped. For
+cruelty to animals China stands an easy first; love of animals does not
+enter into their sympathies at all. I found this not to be the case
+among the Miao and the I-pien, however; and the tribes across the
+Yangtze below Chao-t'ong, locally called the Pa-pu, are, as a matter of
+fact, fond of horses, and some of them capable horsemen.
+
+The journey across these mountains has no perils. One may step aside a
+few feet with no fear of falling a few thousand, a danger so common in
+most of the country from Sui-fu downwards. The scenery is
+magnificent--range after range of mountains in whatever direction you
+look, nothing but mountains of varying altitudes. And the patches of
+wooded slopes, alternating with the red earth and more fertile green
+plots through which streams flow, with rolling waterfalls, picturesque
+nooks and winding pathways, make pictures to which only the gifted
+artist's brush could do justice. Often, gazing over the sunlit
+landscape, in this land "South of the Clouds," one is held spellbound by
+the intense beauty of this little-known province, and one wonders what
+all this grand scenery, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man, would
+become were it in the center of a continent covered by the ubiquitous
+globe-trotter.
+
+No country in the world more than West China possesses mountains of
+combined majesty and grace. Rocks, everywhere arranged in masses of a
+rude and gigantic character, have a ruggedness tempered by a singular
+airiness of form and softness of environment, in a climate favorable in
+some parts to the densest vegetation, and in others wild and barren. One
+is always in sight of mountains rising to fourteen thousand feet or
+more, and constantly scaling difficult pathways seven or eight or nine
+thousand feet above the sea. And in the loneliness of a country where
+nothing has altered very much the handiwork of God, an awe-inspiring
+silence pervades everything. Bold, grey cliffs shoot up here through a
+mass of verdure and of foliage, and there white cottages, perched in
+seemingly inaccessible positions, glisten in the sun on the colored
+mountain-sides. You saunter through stony hollows, along straight
+passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rocks, now
+winding through broken, shaggy chasms and huge, wandering fragments, now
+suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where Peace, long
+established, seems to repose sweetly in the bosom of Strength.
+Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in
+abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn
+ascent of which is hardly passable.
+
+Yes, Y�n-nan is imperatively a country first of mountains, then of
+lakes. The scenery, embodying truly Alpine magnificence with the minute
+sylvan beauty of Killarney or of Devonshire, is nowhere excelled in the
+length and breadth of the Empire.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote U: The incredulous of my readers may question, and rightly so,
+"Then where did he get his saddle?" So I must explain that I met just
+out of Sui-fu a Danish gentleman (also a traveler) who wished to sell a
+pony and its trappings. As I had the arrangement with my boy that I
+would provide him with a conveyance, and did not like the idea of seeing
+him continually in a chair and his wealthy master trotting along on
+foot, I bought it for my boy's use. He used the saddle until we reached
+Chao-t'ong.]
+
+[Footnote V: A new inn has been built since.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote W: Pronounced Djang-di. Famous throughout Western China for
+its terrible hill, one of the most difficult pieces of country in the
+whole of the west.]
+
+[Footnote X: This river, the Niu Lan, comes from near Yang-lin, one
+day's march from Y�n-nan-fu. It is being followed down by two American
+engineers as the probable route for a new railway, which it is proposed
+should come out to the Yangtze some days north of Kiang-ti.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Y�n-nan's chequered career_. _Switzerland of China_. _At
+Hong-sh[=i]h-ai_. _China's Golden Age in the past_. _The conservative
+instinct of the Chinese_. _How to quiet coolies_. _Roads_. _Dangers of
+ordinary travel in wet season_. _K'ung-shan and its mines_.
+_Tong-ch'uan-fu, an important mining centre_. _English and German
+machinery_. _Methods of smelting_. _Protestants and Romanists in
+Y�n-nan_. _Arrival at Tong-ch'uan-fu_. _Missionaries set author's broken
+arm_. _Trio of Europeans_. _Author starts for the provincial capital_.
+_Abandoning purpose of crossing China on foot_. _Arm in splints_. _Curious
+incident_. _At Lai-t'eo-po_. _Malaria returns_. _Serious illness of
+author_. _Delirium_. _Devotion of the missionaries_. _Death expected.
+Innkeeper's curious attitude_. _Recovery_. _After-effects of malaria.
+Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months_. _Then completes his
+walking tour_.
+
+
+Y�n-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
+empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
+annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
+been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
+gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
+the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
+Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway--or at least so tradition
+says. She is sometimes right.
+
+My journey continuing across more undulating country brought me at
+length to Hong-sh�h-ai (Red Stone Cliff), a tiny hamlet hidden away
+completely in a deep recess in the mountain-side, settled in a narrow
+gorge, the first house of which cannot be seen until within a few yards
+of entry. Inn accommodation, as was usual, was by no means good. It is
+characteristic of these small places that the greater the traffic the
+worse, invariably, is the accommodation offered. Travelers are
+continually staying here, but not one Chinese in the population is
+enterprising enough to open a decent inn. They have no money to start it,
+I suppose.
+
+But it is true of the Chinese, to a greater degree than of any other
+nation, that their Golden Age is in the past. Sages of antiquity spoke
+with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and
+revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says
+that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The
+conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to
+precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-sh�h-ai, knowing that the
+village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by
+conservatism, and make no effort whatever to improve matters.
+
+Fire in the inn was kindled in the hollow of the ground. There was no
+ventilation; the wood they burned was, as usual, green; smoke was
+suffocating. My men talked well on into the night, and kept me from
+sleeping, even if pain would have allowed me to. I spoke strongly, and
+they, thinking I was swearing at them, desisted for fear that I should
+heap upon their ancestors a few of the reviling thoughts I entertained
+for them.
+
+I should like to say a word here about the roads in this province, or
+perhaps the absence of roads. They had been execrable, the worst I had
+met, aggravated by heavy rains. With all the reforms to which the
+province of Y�n-nan is endeavoring to direct its energies, it has not
+yet learned that one of the first assets of any district or country is
+good roads. But this is true of the whole of the Middle Kingdom. The
+contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of
+their work in the street, and, even in a city provided with but the
+narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the
+presence of peripatetic vendors of every kind of article of common sale
+in China, and by itinerant craftsmen who have no other shop than the
+street. In the capital city of the province, even, it is a matter of
+some difficulty to the European to walk down the rough-paved street
+after a shower of rain, so slippery do the slabs of stone become; and he
+has to be alive always to the lumbering carts, whose wheels are more
+solid than circular, pulled by bullocks as in the days long before the
+dawn of the Christian Era. The wider the Chinese street the more abuses
+can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is
+quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are
+never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at
+all--that is, in dry weather.
+
+This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is
+certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however,
+another kind of road--a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.
+
+An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple
+of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary
+(especially in the Y�n-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another,
+the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep
+ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains.
+In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at
+times are constantly under water, and beyond Y�n-nan-fu, on my way to
+Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a
+rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time
+the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is
+liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a
+canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads
+removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it
+is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men with their loads
+being washed away by rivers where in the dry season there had been the
+roads.
+
+The great lines of Chinese travel, so often impassable, might be made
+permanently passable if the governor of a province chose to compel the
+several district magistrates along the line to see that these important
+arteries are kept free from standing water, with ditches in good order
+at all seasons. But for the village roads--during my travels over which
+I have come across very few that could from a Western standpoint be
+called roads--there is absolutely no hope until such time as the Chinese
+village may come dimly to the apprehension that what is for the
+advantage of the one is for the advantage of all, and that wise
+expenditure is the truest economy--an idea of which it has at the
+present moment as little conception as of the average thought of the
+Englishman.
+
+A hundred li to the east of Hong-shi�h-ai, over two impassable mountain
+ranges, are some considerable mines, with antiquated brass and copper
+smelting works, and this place, K'ung-shan by name, with Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+forms an important center. As is well known, all copper of Y�n-nan goes
+to Peking as the Government monopoly, excepting the enormous amount
+stolen and smuggled into every town in the province.[Y]
+
+The smelting is of the roughest, though they are at the present moment
+laying in English machinery, and the Chinese in charge is under the
+impression that he can speak English; he, however, makes a hopeless
+jargon of it. This mining locality is sunk in the deepest degradation.
+Men and women live more as wild beasts than as human beings, and should
+any be unfortunate enough to die, their corpses are allowed to lie in
+the mines. Who is there that could give his time and energy to the
+removal of a dead man? Tong-ch'uan-fu should become an important town if
+the rich mineral country of which it is the pivot were properly opened
+up. Several times I have visited the works in this city, which, under
+the charge of a small mandarin from Szech'wan, can boast only the most
+primitive and inadequate machinery, of German make. A huge engine was
+running as a kind of pump for the accumulation of air, which was passed
+through a long thin pipe to the three furnaces in the outer courtyard.
+The furnaces were mud-built, and were fed with charcoal (the most
+expensive fuel in the district), the maximum of pure metal being only
+1,300 catties per day. The ore, which has been roughly smelted once, is
+brought from K'ung-shan, is finely smelted here, then conveyed most of
+the way to Peking by pack-mule, the expense in thus handling, from the
+time it leaves the mine to its destination at Peking, being several
+times its market value. Nothing but copper is sought from the ore, and a
+good deal of the gold and silver known to be contained is lost.
+
+I passed an old French priest as I was going to Tong-ch'uan-fu the next
+day. He was very pleased to see me, and at a small place we had a few
+minutes' chat whilst we sipped our tea. In Y�n-nan, I found that the
+Protestants and the Romanists, although seeing very little of each
+other, went their own way, maintaining an attitude of more or less
+friendly indifference one towards the other.
+
+The last day's march to Tong-ch'uan-fu is perhaps the most interesting
+of this stage of my journey. Climbing over boulders and stony steps, I
+reached an altitude of 8,500 feet, whence thirty li of pleasant going
+awaited us all the way to Lang-wang-miao (Temple of the Dragon King).
+Here I sat down and strained my eyes to catch the glimpse of the compact
+little walled city, where I hoped my broken arm would be set by the
+European missionaries. The traveler invariably hastens his pace here,
+expecting to run down the hill and across the plain in a very short
+space; but as the time passed, and I slowly wended my way along the
+difficult paths through the rice fields, I began to realize that I had
+been duped, and that it was farther than it seemed. Two blushing
+damsels, maids goodly to look upon, gave me the sweetest of smiles as I
+strode across the bodies of some fat pigs which roamed at large in the
+outskirts of the city, the only remembrance I have to mar the
+cleanliness of the place.
+
+At Tong-ch'uan-fu the Rev. A. Evans and his extremely hospitable wife
+set my arm and did everything they could--as much as a brother and
+sister could have done--to help me, and to make my short stay with them
+a most happy remembrance. It was, however, destined that I should be
+their guest for many months, as shall hereinafter be explained.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A trio of Europeans might have been seen on the morning of Monday, May
+10, 1909, leaving Tong-ch'uan-fu on the road to Y�n-nan-fu, whither the
+author was bound. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who, as chance would have it, were
+going to Ch'u-tsing-fu, were to accompany me for two days before turning
+off in a southerly direction when leaving the prefecture.
+
+It was a fine spring morning, balmy and bonny. It was decided that I
+should ride a pony, and this I did, abandoning my purpose of crossing
+China on foot with some regret. I was not yet fit, had my broken arm in
+splints, but rejoiced that at Y�n-nan-fu I should be able to consult a
+European medical man. Comparatively an unproductive task--and perhaps a
+false and impossible one--would it be for me to detail the happenings of
+the few days next ensuing. I should be able not to look at things
+themselves, but merely at the shadow of things--and it would serve no
+profitable end.
+
+Suffice it to say that two days out, about midday, a special messenger
+from the capital stopped Mr. Evans and handed him a letter. It was to
+tell him that his going to Ch'u-tsing-fu would be of no use, as the
+gentleman he was on his way to meet would not arrive, owing to altered
+plans. After consulting his wife, he hesitated whether they should go
+back to Tong-ch'uan-fu, or come on to the capital with me. The latter
+course was decided upon, as I was so far from well--I learned this some
+time afterwards. And now the story need not be lengthened.
+
+At Lai-t'eo-po (see first section of the second book of this volume),
+malaria came back, and an abnormal temperature made me delirious. The
+following day I could not move, and it was not until I had been there
+six days that I was again able to be moved. During this time, Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans nursed me day and night, relieving each other for rest, in a
+terrible Chinese inn--not a single moment did they leave me. The third
+day they feared I was dying, and a message to that effect was sent to
+the capital, informing the consul. Meanwhile malaria played fast and
+loose, and promised a pitiable early dissolution. My kind, devoted
+friends were fearful lest the innkeeper would have turned me out into
+the roadway to die--the foreigner's spirit would haunt the place for
+ever and a day were I allowed to die inside.
+
+But I recovered.
+
+It was a graver, older, less exuberant walker across China that
+presently arose from his flea-ridden bed of sickness, and began to make
+a languid personal introspection. I had developed a new sensitiveness,
+the sensitiveness of an alien in an alien land, in the hands of
+new-made, faithful friends. Without them I should have been a waif of
+all the world, helpless in the midst of unconquerable surroundings,
+leading to an inevitable destiny of death. I seemed declimatized,
+denationalized, a luckless victim of fate and morbid fancy.
+
+It was malaria and her workings, from which there was no escape.
+
+Malaria is supposed by the natives of the tropic belt to be sent to
+Europeans by Providence as a chastening for the otherwise insupportable
+energy of the white man. Malignant malaria is one of Nature's
+watch-dogs, set to guard her shrine of peace and ease and to punish
+woeful intruders. And she had brought me to China to punish me. As is
+her wont, Nature milked the manhood out of me, racked me with aches and
+pains, shattered me with chills, scorched me with fever fires, pursued
+me with despairing visions, and hag-rode me without mercy. Accursed
+newspapers, with their accursed routine, came back to me; all the
+stories and legends that I had ever heard, all the facts that I had ever
+learnt, came to me in a fashion wonderfully contorted and distorted;
+sensations welded together in ghastly, brain-stretching conglomerates,
+instinct with individuality and personality, human but torturingly
+inhuman, crowded in upon me. The barriers dividing the world of ideas,
+sensations, and realities seemed to have been thrown down, and all
+rushed into my brain like a set of hungry foxhounds. The horror of
+effort and the futility of endeavor permeated my very soul. My weary,
+helpless brain was filled with hordes of unruly imaginings; I was
+masterless, panic-driven, maddened, and had to abide for weeks--yea,
+months--with a fever-haunted soul occupying a fever-rent and weakened
+body.
+
+At Y�n-nan-fu, whither I arrived in due course after considerable
+struggling, dysentery laid me up again, and threatened to pull me nearer
+to the last great brink. For weeks, as the guest of my friend, Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, I stayed here recuperating, and subsequently, on the advice
+of my medical attendant, Dr. A. Feray, I went back to Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+among the mountains, and spent several happy months with Mr. and Mrs.
+Evans.
+
+Had it not been for their brotherly and sisterly zeal in nursing me,
+which never flagged throughout my illness, future travelers might have
+been able to point to a little grave-mound on the hill-tops, and have
+given a chance thought to an adventurer whom the fates had handled
+roughly. But there was more in this than I could see; my destiny was
+then slowly shaping.
+
+Throughout the rains, and well on into the winter, I stayed with Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans, and then continued my walking tour, as is hereafter
+recorded.
+
+During this period of convalescence I studied the Chinese language and
+traveled considerably in the surrounding country. Tong-ch'uan-fu is a
+city of many scholars, and it was not at all difficult for me to find a
+satisfactory teacher. He was an old man, with a straggly beard, about 70
+years of age, and from him I learned much about life in general, in
+addition to his tutoring in Chinese. I had the advantage also of close
+contact with the missionaries with whom I was living, and on many
+occasions was traveling companion of Samuel Pollard, one of the finest
+Chinese linguists in China at that time. So that with a greatly
+increased knowledge of Chinese, I was henceforth able to hold my own
+anywhere. During this period, too, many days were profitably passed at
+the Confucian Temple, a picture of which is given in this volume.
+
+END OF BOOK I.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote Y: In the capital there is a street called "Copper Kettle
+Lane," where one is able to buy almost anything one wants in copper and
+brass. Hundreds of men are engaged in the trade, and yet it is
+"prohibited." These "Copper Kettle Lanes" are found in many large
+cities.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+The second part of my trip was from almost the extreme east to the
+extreme west of Y�n-nan--from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Bhamo, in British Burma.
+The following was the route chosen, over the main road in some
+instances, and over untrodden roads in others, just as circumstances
+happened:
+
+    Tong-ch'uan-fu to Y�n-nan-fu (the capital city)   520 li.
+    Y�n-nan-fu to Tali-fu                             905 li.
+    Tali-fu to Tengyueh (Momien)                      855 li.
+    Tengyueh to Bhamo (Singai)                        280 English
+                                                      miles approx.
+
+I also made a rather extended tour among the Miao tribes, in country
+untrodden by Europeans, except by missionaries working among the people.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST JOURNEY
+
+TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_Stages to the capital_. _Universality of reform in China_. _Political,
+moral, social and spiritual contrast of Y�n-nan with other parts of the
+Empire_. _Inconsistencies of celestial life_. _Author's start for
+Burma_. _The caravan_. _To Che-chi_. _Dogs fighting over human bones_.
+_Lai-t'eo-p'o: highest point traversed on overland journey_. _Snow and
+hail storms at ten thousand feet_. _Desolation and poverty_. _Brutal
+husband_. _Horse saves author from destruction_. _The one hundred li to
+Kongshan_. _Wild, rugged moorland and mournful mountains_. _Wretchedness
+of the people_. _Night travel in Western China_. _Author knocks a man
+down_. _Late arrival and its vexations_. _Horrible inn accommodation_.
+_End of the Y�n-nan Plateau_. _Appreciable rise in temperature_.
+_Entertaining a band of inelegant infidels_. _European contention for
+superiority, and the Chinese point of view_. _Insoluble conundrums of
+"John's" national character_. _The Y�n-nan railway_. _Current ideas in
+Y�n-nan regarding foreigners_. _Discourteous fu-song and his escapades_.
+_Fright of ill-clad urchin_. _Scene at Yang-lin_. _Arrival at the
+capital_.
+
+
+No exaggeration is it to say that the eyes of the world are upon China.
+It is equally safe to say that, whilst all is open and may be seen, but
+little is understood.
+
+In the Far Eastern and European press so much is heard of the awakening
+of China that one is apt really to believe that the whole Empire, from
+its Dan to Beersheba, is boiling for reform. But it may be that the husk
+is taken from the kernel. The husk comprises the treaty ports and some
+of the capital cities of the provinces; the kernel is that vast sleepy
+interior of China. Few people, even in Shanghai, know what it means; so
+that to the stay-at-home European pardon for ignorance of existing
+conditions so much out of his focus should readily be granted.
+
+From Shanghai, up past Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to
+Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the
+most skeptical foreigner. But after he has lived for a couple of years
+in an interior city as I have done, with its antiquated legislation, its
+superstition and idolatry, its infanticide, its girl suicides, its
+public corruption and moral degradation, rubbing shoulders continually
+at close quarters with the inhabitants, and himself living in the main a
+Chinese life, our optimist may alter his opinions, and stand in wonder
+at the extraordinary differences in the most ordinary details of life at
+the ports on the China coast and the Interior, and of the gross
+inconsistencies in the Chinese mind and character. If in addition he has
+stayed a few days away from a city in which the foreigners were shut up
+inside the city walls because the roaring mob of rebels outside were
+asking for their heads, and he has had to abandon part of his overland
+trip because of the fear that his own head might have been chopped off
+_en route_, he may increase his wonder to doubt. The aspect here in
+Y�n-nan--politically, morally, socially, spiritually--is that of another
+kingdom, another world. Conditions seem, for the most part, the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in his new environment, which may
+be a replica of twenty centuries ago, the dream he dreamed is now
+dispelled. "China," he says, "is _not_ awaking; she barely moves, she is
+still under the torpor of the ages." And yet again, in the capital and a
+few of the larger cities, under your very eyes there goes on a reform
+which seems to be the most sweeping reform Asia has yet known.
+
+Such are the inconsistencies, seemingly unchangeable, irreconcilable in
+conception or in fact; a truthful portrayal of them tends to render the
+writer a most inconsistent being in the eyes of his reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No one was ever sped on his way through China with more goodwill than
+was the writer when he left Tong-ch'uan-fu; but the above thoughts were
+then in his mind.
+
+Long before January 3rd, 1910, the whole town knew that I was going to
+Mien Dien (Burma). Confessedly with a sad heart--for I carried with me
+memories of kindnesses such as I had never known before--I led my
+nervous pony, Rusty, out through the Dung Men (the East Gate), with
+twenty enthusiastic scholars and a few grown-ups forming a turbulent
+rear. As I strode onwards the little group of excited younkers watched
+me disappear out of sight on my way to the capital by the following
+route--the second time of trying:--
+
+                            Length of    Height
+                              stage     above sea
+    1st day--Che-chi          90 li.    7,800 ft.
+    2nd day--Lai-t'eo-p'o     90 li.    8,500 ft.
+    3rd day--Kongshan        100 li.    6,700 ft.
+    4th day--Yang-kai         85 li.    7,200 ft.
+    5th day--Ch'anff-o'o      95 li     6,000 ft.
+    6th day--The Capital      70 li     6,400 ft.
+
+My caravan consisted of two coolies: one carried my bedding and a small
+basket of luxuries in case of emergency, the other a couple of boxes
+with absolute necessities (including the journal of the trip). In
+addition, there accompanied me a man who carried my camera, and whose
+primary business it was to guard my interests and my money--my general
+factotum and confidential agent--and by an inverse operation enrich
+himself as he could, and thereby maintain relations of warm mutual
+esteem. They received thirty-two tael cents per man per diem, and for
+the stopping days on the road one hundred cash. None of them, of course,
+could speak a word of English.
+
+The ninety li to Che-chi was mostly along narrow paths by the sides of
+river-beds, the intermediate plains having upturned acres waiting for
+the spring. At Ta-chiao (7,500 feet), where I stayed for my first
+alfresco meal at midday, the man--a tall, gaunt, ugly fellow, pockmarked
+and vile of face--told us he was a traveler, and that he had been to
+Shanghai. This I knew to be a barefaced lie. He voluntarily explained to
+the visitors, gathered to see the barbarian feed, what condensed milk
+was for, but he went wide of the mark when he announced that my pony,[Z]
+hog-maned and dock-tailed (but Chinese still), was an American, as he
+said I was. A young mother near by, suffering from acute eye
+inflammation, was lying in a smellful gutter on a felt mat, two pigs on
+one side and a naked boy of eight or so on the other, whilst she heaped
+upon the head of the innocent babe she was suckling curses most horribly
+blood-curdling. Dogs--the universal scavengers of the awakening
+interior, to which merest allusion is barred by one's Western sense of
+decency--just outside Che-chi, where I stayed the night, had recently
+devoured the corpse of a little child. Its clothing was strewn in my
+path, together with the piece of fibre matting in which it had been
+wrapped, and the dogs were then fighting over the bones.
+
+To Lai-t'eo-p'o was a day that men might call a "killer."
+
+It is a dirty little place with a dirty little street, lying at the foot
+of a mountain known throughout Western China as one of the wildest of
+Nature's corners, nearly ten thousand feet high, a terrific climb under
+best conditions. A clear half-moon, and stars of a silvery twinkle,
+looked pityingly upon me as I started at 3 a.m., ignorant of the
+dangerously narrow defile leading along cliffs high up from the Yili Ho.
+In the dark, cautiously I groped along. Not without a painful emotion of
+impending danger, as I watched the stellular reflections dancing in the
+rushing river, did I wander on in the wake of a group of pack-ponies,
+and took my turn in being assisted over the broken chasms by the
+muleteers. Two fellows got down below and practically lifted the tiny
+animals over the passes where they could not keep their footing.
+Gradually I saw the nightlike shadows flee away, and with the dawn came
+signs of heavy weather.
+
+Snow came cold and sudden. As we slowly and toilsomely ascended, the
+velocity of the wind fiercely increased; down the mountain-side, at a
+hundred miles an hour, came clouds of blinding, flinty dust, making the
+blood run from one's lips and cheeks as he plodded on against great
+odds. With the biting wind, howling and hissing in the winding ravines
+and snow-swept hollows, headway was difficult. Often was I raised from
+my feet: helplessly I clung to the earth for safety, and pulled at
+withered grass to keep my footing. The ponies, patient little brutes,
+with one hundred and fifty pounds strapped to their backs, came near to
+giving up the ghost, being swayed hopelessly to and fro in the fury. For
+hours we thus toiled up pathways seemingly fitter for goats than men,
+where leafless trees were bending destitute of life and helpless towards
+the valley, as the keen wind went sighing, moaning, wailing through
+their bare boughs and budless twigs.
+
+Such a gale, wilder than the devil's passion, I have not known even on
+the North Atlantic in February.
+
+At times during the day progression in the deepening snow seemed quite
+impossible, and my two men, worn and weary, bearing the burden of an
+excessively fatiguing day, well-nigh threw up the sponge, vowing that
+they wished they had not taken on the job.
+
+But the scenery later in the day, though monotonously so, was grand. The
+earth was literally the color of deep-red blood, the crimson paths
+intertwining the darker landscape bore to one's imagination a vision of
+some bloody battle--veritable rivers of human blood. To cheer the
+traveler in his desolation, the sun struggled vainly to pierce with its
+genial rays through the heavy, angry clouds rolling lazily upwards from
+the black valleys, and enveloping the earth in a deep infinity of
+severest gloom. The cold was damp. In the small hemmed-in hollows,
+whereto our pathway led, the icy dew clung to one's hair and beard. From
+little brown cottages, with poor thatched roofs letting in the light,
+and with walls and woodwork long since uniformly rotten, men and women
+emerged, rubbing their eyes and buttoning up their garments, looking
+wistfully for the hidden sun.
+
+At Shao-p'ai (8,100 feet) a brute of a fellow was administering
+cruellest chastisement to his disobedient yoke-fellow, who took her
+scourging in good part. I passed along as fast as I could to the ascent
+over which a road led in and around the mountain with alarming
+steepness, a road which at home would never be negotiated on foot or on
+horseback, but which here forms part of the main trade route. From the
+extreme summit one dropped abruptly into a protecting gorge, where
+falling cascades, sparkling like crystal showers in the feeble sunlight
+occasionally breaking through, danced playfully over the smooth-worn,
+slippery rocks; a stream foamed noisily over the loose stones, and leapt
+in rushing rapids where the earth had given way; there was no grass, no
+scenery, no life, and in the sudden turnings the hurricane roared with
+heavenly anger through the long deep chasms, over the
+twelve-inch river-beds at the foot.
+
+At Lai-t'eo-p'o accommodation at night was fairly good. Men laughed
+hilariously at me when I raved at some carpenters to desist their clumsy
+hammering three feet above my head. Hundreds of dogs yelped unceasingly
+at the moon, and with the usual rows of the men in mutual invitation to
+"Come and wash your feet," or "Ching fan, ching fan," the draughts, the
+creaks and cracks, the unintermitting din, and so much else, one was not
+sorry to rise again with the lark and push onwards in the cold.
+
+Down below this horrid town there is a plain; in this plain there is a
+hole fifty feet deep, and had my pony, which I was leading, not pulled
+me away from falling thereinto, my story would not now be telling.
+
+To Kongshan (6,700 feet), past Yei-chu-t'ang (8,100 feet) and
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang (7,275 feet), one hundred li away, was a journey
+through country considerably more interesting, especially towards the
+end of the day, a peculiar combination of wooded slope and rough,
+rock-worn pathways.
+
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang, twenty-five li from the end of the stage, overlooks a
+wide expanse of barren, uninviting moorland. Deep, jagged gullies break
+the uneven rolling of the mountains; dark, weird caverns of terrible
+immensity yawn hungrily from the surface of weariest desolation, ever
+widening with each turn. Mist hid the ugliest spots high up among the
+peaks, whose white summits, peeping sullenly from out this blue sea of
+damp haze, told a wondrous story of winter's withering all life to
+death, a spot than which in summer few places on earth would be more
+entrancing. But these mountains are breathing out a solitude which is
+eternal. Man here has never been. Far away beyond lies the country of
+the aborigines; but even the Lolo, wild and rugged as the country,
+fearless of man and beast, have never dared to ascend these heights.
+They are mournful, cheerless, devoid of a single smile from the common
+mother of us all, lacking every feature by which the earth draws man
+into a spirit of unity with his God. Horrid, frowning waste and aimless
+discontinuity of land, harbinger of loneliness and of evil! People, poor
+struggling beings of our kind, here seemed mocked of destiny, and a hot
+raging of misery waged within them, for all that the heart might desire
+and wish for had to them been denied. If, indeed, the earth be the home
+of hope, and man's greatest possession be hope, then would it seem that
+these poor creatures were entirely cut off, shut out from life,
+wandering wearisomely through the world in one long battle with Nature
+whereby to gain the wherewithal to live in that grim desert. There were
+no exceptions, it was the common lot. Each day and every day did these
+men and women, with a stolidity of long-continued destitution, and
+temporal and spiritual tribulation, gaze upon that bare, unyielding
+country, pregnant only with aggravation to their own dire wretchedness.
+
+In such spots, unhappily in Y�n-nan not few, does the mystery of life
+grow ever more mysterious to one whom distress has never harassed. A
+great pity seized my heart, but these poor people would probably have
+laughed had they known my thoughts.
+
+As I passed they came uninterestedly to look upon me. They watched in
+expressive silence; they were silent because of poverty. And I, too,
+kept a seal upon my lips as I ate the good things here provided under
+the eyes of those to whom hunger had given none but a jealous outlook.
+Pitiful enough were it, thought I, merely to watch without allowing
+speech to escape further to taunt them. So I ate, and they looked at me.
+I came and went, but never a word was uttered by these men and women, or
+even by the children, whose most painful feeling seemed that of their
+own feebleness. They were indeed feeble units standing in a threatening
+infinitude of life, and their thoughts probably dwelt upon my luxury
+and wealth as mine could not help dwelling upon their hungry town of
+hungry men and famished children. Words cannot paint their poverty--men
+void of hope, of life, of purpose, of idea. Happy for them that they had
+known no other.
+
+We ascended over a road of unspeakable torture to one's feet. Gazing
+down, far away into a seemingly bottomless abyss, we could faintly hear
+in the lulling of the wind the rush of a torrent, fed by a hundred
+mountain streams, which washed our path and in horrible disfigurement
+tore open the surface of the hill-sides.
+
+The long day was drawing wearily to a close. As the sun was sinking
+beyond the uneven hills over which I was to climb before the descent to
+the town begins, the effect of the green and gold and red and brown
+produced a striking picture of sweet poetic beauty. I stood in
+contemplative admiration meditating, as I waited for my coolies, who sat
+moodily under a dilapidated roadside awning, nonchalantly picking out
+mouldy monkey-nuts from some coarse sweetmeat sold by a frowsy female.
+Then upwards we toiled in the dark, the weird groans of my exhausted men
+and the falling of the gravel beneath their sandalled feet alone
+breaking the hollow's gloom. Uncanny is night travel in China.
+
+"Who knows but that ghosts, those fierce-faced denizens of the hills,
+may run against thee and bewitch thee," murmured one man to the others.
+They stopped, and I stopped with them. And in the darkness, pegging on
+alone at the mercy of these coolies, my own thoughts were not
+unsynchronistic.
+
+At last, with no slight misgiving, we came down into the city's smoke.
+Dogs barked at me, and ran away like the curs they are. Midway down the
+stone footway my yamen runner too cautiously crept up to me in the dark,
+muttering something, and I floored him with my fist. Afterwards I
+learnt that he came to relieve me of the pony I was leading.
+
+Every room in every wretched inn was occupied; opium fumes already
+issued from the doorways, and it was now pitch dark, so that I could
+scarce see the sallow faces of the hungry, uncouth crowd, to whom with
+no little irritation I tried to speak as I peered carefully into the
+caravanserai. Evident it certainly was that the duty lying nearest to me
+at that particular moment, to myself and all concerned therein, was to
+accept what I was offered, and not wear out my temper in grumbling. My
+boy, Lao Chang (an I-pien), the brick, expressed to me his regrets, and
+something like real sympathy shone out from his eyes in the dimness.
+
+"Puh p'a teh, puh p'a teh" ("Have no fear, have no fear"), said he; and
+as I stood the while piling up cruellest torture upon my uncourtly host,
+he made off to prepare a downstair room (to lapse into modern
+boarding-house phraseology).
+
+First through an outer apartment, dark as darkest night; on past the
+caterwauling cook and a few disreputable culinary hangers-on; asked to
+look out for a pony, which I could not see, but which I was told might
+kick me; then onward to my boy, who stood on a stool and dropped the
+grease of a huge red Chinese candle among his plaited hair, as he
+wobbled it above his head to light the way. He gripped me tenderly, took
+me to his bosom as it were, gave me one push, and I was there. He
+tarried not. What right had he to listen to what I in secret would say
+of the horrid keeper and his twice horrid shakedown inn? He passed out
+swiftly into outer darkness, uttering a groan I rudely interpreted as,
+"That or nothing, that or nothing."
+
+It _was_ a room, that is in so far as four sides, a floor and a ceiling
+comprise one. Of that I had no doubt. A sort of uncomely offshoot from
+the main inn building, built on piles in the earth after the fashion of
+the seashore houses of the Malay--but much dirtier and incomparably more
+shaky. For many a long year, longer than mine horrid host would care to
+recollect, this now unoccupied space had served admirably as the common
+cooking-room--the ruined fireplace was still there; later, it had been
+the stable--the ruined horse trough was still there. At one extreme
+corner only could I stand upright; long sooty cobwebs graced the black
+wood beams overhead, hanging as thick as icicles in a mountain valley;
+each step I took in fear and trembling (the slightest move threatened to
+collapse the whole dilapidation). Four planks, four inches wide at the
+widest part and of varying lengths and thicknesses, placed on a pile of
+loose firewood at the head and foot, comprised the bedstead on which I
+tremulously sat down. Upon this improvised apology for a bed, under my
+mosquito curtains (no traveler should be without them in Western China),
+I washed my blistered feet on an ancient _Daily Telegraph_, whilst my
+cook saw to my evening meal. His bringing in the rice tallied with my
+laying the tablecloth in the same place where I had washed my feet--the
+one available spot.
+
+As I ate, rats came brazenly and picked up the grains of rice I dropped
+in my inefficient handling of chopsticks, and in scaring off these
+hardened, hungry vermin I accidentally upset tea over my bed, whilst at
+the same moment a clod-hopping coolie came in with an elephant tread,
+with the result that my European reading-lamp lost its balance from the
+top of a tin of native sugar and started a conflagration, threatening to
+make short work of me and my belongings--not to mention that horrid
+fellow and his inn.
+
+During the night the moments throbbed away as I lay on my flea-ridden
+couch--moments which seemed long as hours, and no gleaming rift broke
+the settled and deepening blackness of my hateful environs. Every thing
+and every place was full of the wearisome, depressing, beauty-blasting
+commonplace of Interior China. Stenches rose up on the damp, dank air,
+and throughout the night, through the opening of a window, I seemed to
+gaze out to a disconsolate eternity--gaping, empty, unsightly. Waking
+from my dozing at the hour when judgment sits upon the hearts of men, I
+sat in ponderous judgment upon all to whom the bungling of the previous
+day was due. There were the rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks
+and cracks--no quiet about the place from night to morning. Then came
+the barking of dogs, the noises of the cocks and kine, of horses and
+foals, of pigs and geese--the general wail of the zoological
+kingdom--cows bellowing, duck diplomacy, and much else. So that it were
+not surprising to learn that this distinguished traveler in these
+contemptible regions was sitting on a broken-down bridge, looking
+wearily on to the broken-down tower on the summit of a pretty little
+knoll outside Kungshan, thinking that it were well a score of such were
+added did their design embrace a warning to evade the place.
+
+Having done some twenty li by moonlight, I managed with little
+difficulty to reach Yang-kai (6,350 feet) by 3.0 p.m. This road, which
+is not the main road to the capital, was purposely chosen; most
+travelers go through Yang-lin. The journey is comprised of pleasant
+ascents and descents over the latter portion of the great Y�n-nan
+Plateau, and a very appreciable difference in the temperature was here
+noticed. While the people at the north-east of the province, from which
+I had come, were shivering in their rags and complaining about the price
+of charcoal, the population here basked under Italian skies in a warm
+sun. From Lui-shu-ho (7,200 feet) the country was beautifully wooded
+with groves of firs and chestnuts.
+
+At the inn to which I was led the phlegmatic proprietor, after wishing
+me peace, assumed unostentatiously the becoming attitude of a Customs
+official, and scrutinized with vigor the whole of my gear, from an empty
+Calvert's tooth-powder tin to my Kodak camera, showering particularly
+condescending felicitations upon my English Barnsby saddle and
+field-glasses thereto attached.
+
+His excitement rose at once.
+
+He called loudly for his confederates--a band of inelegant infidels--and
+bidding them stand one by one at given distances, he gaped at them
+through the glasses with the hilarity of a schoolboy and the stupidity
+of an owl. He jumped, he shouted, he waved his arms about me, and
+handing them back to me with both hands, shouted deafeningly in my ear
+that they were quite beyond his ken; and then he sucked his teeth
+disgustingly and spat at my feet. His associates were speechless, asses
+that they were, and could only stare, in horror or impudence I know not.
+
+Meantime Lao Chang brought tea, and sallied forth immediately to
+fraternize among old friends. As I drank my tea, after having invited
+them one by one to join me, slowly and with a fitting dignity, the empty
+stare, destitute of sense or sincerity, of these six upstanding Chinese
+gentry, sucking at tobacco-pipes as long as their own overfed bodies,
+forced upon me a sense of my unfitness for the unknown conditions of the
+life of the place, a sense of loneliness and social unshelteredness in
+the sterile waste of their fashionable life. They spoke to me
+subsequently, and I bravely threw at them a Chinese phrase or two; but
+when the conversation got above my head, I told them, quietly but
+determinedly, that I could not understand, my English speech seemed
+vaguely to indicate a sudden collapse of the acquaintance, the opening
+of a gulf between us, destined to widen to the whole length and breadth
+of Yang-kai, swallowing up their erstwhile confidences. One of them
+facetiously remarked that the gentleman wished to eat his rice; and as
+they cleared out, falling over each other and the high step at the
+entrance to the room, I thought that no matter how old they are, Chinese
+are but little children. But had I treated them as little children I
+should have found that they were old men.
+
+There was in me withal a sense of better rank in the eyes of this
+super-excellent few who worshipped, in "heathen" China, the Satan of
+Fashion. As a matter of fact, their rank had emerged from such long
+centuries ago that it seemed to me to be so identified with them that
+they were hardly capable of analysis of people such as myself. As I
+looked pityingly upon them and the involved simplicity of their
+immutable natures, I realized an unconquerable feeling of inborn rank
+and natural elevation in respect to nationality. This is, however,
+against my personal general conception of Eastern peoples, but I must
+admit I felt it this afternoon. And so perhaps it is with the majority
+of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the
+language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always
+aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys
+and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or
+understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest
+lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the
+language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a
+heathen--it is easier.
+
+Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province
+better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives
+the most enviable spot in the province--the center of his universe.
+Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or
+sympathetically, and he is at once up against you. It may develop
+narrowness of mind and smallness of soul. We Westerners think we know
+that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be
+bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but
+a desirable citizen and a full-sized man. But no matter. The Chinese, on
+the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never
+tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial--part
+of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.
+But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in
+the world for the very same reason!
+
+Rationally speaking, John is the "old brother" of the world, oldest of
+any nation by very many centuries. In common with all other travelers
+and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
+serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
+which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
+and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
+into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
+directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
+young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
+manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
+political economy--but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
+theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
+teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of eclipses. He
+is frightened by ghosts, burns mock money to maintain his ancestors in
+the future state, worships a bit of rusty old iron as an infallible
+remedy for droughts; I have seen him shoot at clouds from the city walls
+to frighten away the rain--and I despise him for it all. As I revise
+this copy, a rumor is current in the town in which I am resting to the
+effect that foreigners are buying children and using their heads to oil
+the wheels of the new Y�n-nan railway, and I despise him for believing
+it. The Chinese will not fight, and I sneer at him; he abhors me
+because I do. I ridicule his manner of dress; he thinks mine grossly
+indecent. I consider his flat nose and the plaited hair and shaven skull
+as heathenish; but the Chinese, eating away with his to me ridiculous
+chopsticks, looks out from his quick, almond-shaped eyes and considers
+me still a foreign devil, although he is too cunning to tell me. His
+opinions of me are founded upon the narrow grounds of vanity and
+egotism; mine, although I do not admit it even to myself, from something
+very much akin thereto.[AA]
+
+I have been looked upon in far-away outposts of the Chinese Empire where
+foreigners are still unknown, as an example of those human monstrosities
+which come from the West, a creature of a very low order of the human
+species, with a form and face uncouth, with language a hopeless jargon,
+and with manners unbearably rude and obnoxious. Not that _I_ personally
+answer accurately to this description, reader, any more than you would,
+but because I happen to be among a people who, as far back as Chinese
+opinion of foreigners can be traced, have considered themselves of a
+morality and intellectuality superior to yours and mine.
+
+I write the foregoing because it sums up what may be termed the current
+ideas regarding Europeans, ideas the reverse of complimentary, which are
+the more unfortunate on account of the fact that they are held by the
+vast majority of a people forming a quarter of the whole human race.
+This is true, despite all the reform.
+
+These ideas may be, and I trust they are, erroneous, but I know that I
+must keep in mind the extremely important desideratum in dealing with
+the Chinese that they look at me--my person, my manners, my customs, my
+theories, my things--through Chinese eyes, and although mistaken,
+misled, reach their own conclusions from their own point of view. This
+is what they have been doing for centuries, but we know that it all now
+is being subjected to slow change. The original stock, however, takes on
+no change whatever, and several generations must pass before this
+transfer of mental vision can be effected, when the Chinese will view
+all things and all peoples in their true light.
+
+Next morning my three men were heavy. The lean fellow--I have christened
+him Shanks, a long, shambling human bag of bones--moved about painfully
+in a listless sort of way, betokening severe rheumatics; his joints
+needed oil. Four or five huge basins of steaming rice and the customary
+amount of reboiled cabbage, however, bucked him up a bit, and holding up
+a crooked, bony finger, he indicated intelligently that we had one
+hundred li to cover. Whilst engaged in conversation thus, sounds of
+early morning revelry reached me from below. My boy, his accustomed
+serenity now quite disturbed, held threateningly above the head of the
+yamen runner (who had given me a profound kotow the evening previous
+prior to taking on his duties) a length of three-inch sugar cane; he
+evidently meant to flatten him out. This I learned was because this
+shadower of the august presence wished to take Yang-lin (about 60 li
+away) instead of going to Ch'ang-p'o (100 li) as I intended. I got him
+in, looked him as squarely in the face as it is possible when a Chinese
+wants to evade your scrutiny, told him I wished to go to Ch'ang-p'o, and
+that I hoped I should have the pleasure of his company thus far. He
+replied with a grinning smile, which one could easily have taken for a
+smiling grin--
+
+"Oh, yes, foreign mandarin, Ch'ang-p'o--100 li--foreign mandarin,
+foreign mandarin."
+
+And I thought the incident closed. Such is the appalling gullibility of
+the Englishman in China.
+
+We stopped for tea at a small hamlet ten li out. The place was deserted
+save for a small starving boy, whose chief attention was given to
+laborious endeavors to make his clothing meet in certain necessary
+areas. He evidently had never seen a foreigner. As he directed his
+optics towards me he winced visibly. He walked round me several times,
+fell over a grimy pail of soap-suds, stopped, gazed in enraptured
+enchantment with parted lips and outstretched arms as if he had begun to
+suspect what it was before him. To the eye of the beholder, however, he
+gazed as yet only on vacancy, but just as I was about to attempt
+self-explanation he was gone, tearing away down the hill as fast as his
+legs could carry him, the ragged remains of his father's trousers
+flapping gently in the breeze. As I rose to leave crackers frightened my
+pony, followed, in a few moments by a howling, hooting, unreasonable
+rabble from a temple near by. I found it was the result of a village
+squabble. I could scarce keep the order of my march as I left the
+tea-shop, so roughly was I handled by the irritated and impatient crowd,
+and had much ado to refrain from responding wrathfully to the repeated
+jeers of impudent, half-grown beggars of both sexes who helped to swell
+the riotous cortege. But through it all none of the insults were meant
+for me, so Lao Chang told me, and they did not mean to treat me with
+discourtesy.
+
+Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for
+irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the
+ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous
+wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the
+moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black
+and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image
+of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery,
+exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep
+discouragement. I came across some women mock-weeping for the dead: at
+their elbow two girls were washing clothes, and when little children,
+catching sight of me, ran to their mothers, the women stopped their
+hulla-baloo, had a good stare at me, exchanged a few words of mutual
+inquiry, and then resumed their bellowing.
+
+Soon it became quite warm, and walking was pleasant. I was startled by
+the _fu-song_,[AB] who invited me to go to a neighboring town for tea. My
+men were far behind. I was at his mercy, so I went. Soon I found myself
+passing through the city gates of Yang-lin, the very town I was trying
+to keep away from. The yamen fellow turned back at me and chuckled
+rudely to himself. I insisted that I did not wish to take tea; he
+insisted that I should--I must. He led me to an inn in the main street,
+arrangements were made to house me, old men and young lads gathered to
+welcome me as a lost brother, and the _fu-song_ told me graciously that
+he was going to the magistrate. In cruel English, with many wildly
+threatening gestures, did I protest, and the people laughed
+acquiescingly.
+
+"Puh tong, puh tong, you gaping idiots!" I repeated, and it caused more
+glee.
+
+Swinging myself past them all, I dragged my stubborn pony through the
+mob to the gate by which I had entered. My men were not to be found. I
+did not know the road nor much of the language. I sat down on a granite
+pillar to undergo an embarrassing half-hour. Presently my men hailed me,
+and approaching, swore with imposing loftiness at the discomfited guide.
+My bull-dog coolie dropped his loads, the _fu-song_ somehow lost his
+footing, I yelled "Ts'eo" ("Go"), and with a cheer the caravan
+proceeded.
+
+The following day we were at the capital.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote Z: I took a pony because I had made up my mind to return into
+China after I had reached Burma. In Tong-ch'uan-fu a good pony can be
+bought for, say, _�3_--in Burma, the same pony would sell for �10.
+
+--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AA: For further excellent descriptions of the Chinese nature I
+refer the reader to Chester Holcombe's _China: Past and
+Present_.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AB: _i.e._ Yamen escort.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Y�N-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL.
+
+_Access to Y�n-nan-fu_. _Concentrated reform_. _Tribute to Hsi Liang_.
+_Conservatism and progress_. _The Tonkin-Y�n-nan Railway_. _The Y�n-nan
+army_. _Author's views in 1909 and 1910 contrasted_. _Phenomenal forward
+march, and what it means_. _Danger of too much drill_. _International
+aspect on the frontier_. _The police_. _Street improvements_. _Visit to
+the gaol, and a description_. _The Young Pretender to the Chinese
+throne_. _How the prison is conducted_. _The schools_. _Visit to the
+university, and a description_. _Riot among the students_. _Visit to the
+Agricultural School, and a description_. _Silk industry of Y�n-nan._
+
+
+Y�n-nan-fu to-day is as accessible as Peking. After many weary years the
+Tonkin-Y�n-nan railway is now an accomplished fact, and links this
+capital city with Haiphong in three days.
+
+Reform concentrates at the capital. The man who visited Y�n-nan-fu
+twenty, or even ten years ago, would be astounded, were he to go there
+now, at the improvements visible, on every hand. A building on foreign
+lines was then a thing unknown, and the conservative Viceroy, Tseng Kong
+Pao, the decapitator in his time of thousands upon thousands of human
+beings, would turn in his grave if he could behold the utter
+annihilation of his pet "feng shui," which has followed in the wake of
+the good works done by the late loved Viceroy, Hsi Liang.
+
+The name of Hsi Liang is revered in the province of Y�n-nan as the most
+able man who has ever ruled the two provinces of Y�n-nan and Kwei-chow,
+a man of keen intellectuality and courtly manner, and notorious as being
+the only Mongolian in the service of China's Government. I lived in
+Y�n-nan-fu for several weeks at a stretch, and since then have made
+frequent visits, and knowing the enormous strides being made towards
+acquiring Occidental methods, I now find it difficult to write with
+absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be
+the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of
+any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the
+same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no
+subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound
+generalization, one has to forego much temptation to "color" if he would
+be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues
+agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and
+character as a whole, so glaring are the inconsistencies of the Chinese
+nature. And as one sees for himself in this great city, particularly in
+official life, the businesslike practicability on the one hand and the
+utter absurdity of administration on the other, in all modes and
+methods, one is almost inclined to drop his pen in disgust at being
+unable to come to any concrete conclusions.
+
+Of no province in China more than of Y�n-nan is this true.
+
+Reform and immovable conservatism go hand in hand. Men of the most
+dissimilar ambitions compose the _corps diplomatique_, and are willing
+to join hands to propagate their main beliefs; and when one writes of
+progress--in railways, in the army, in gaols, in schools, in public
+works, in no matter what--one is ever confronted by that dogged
+immutability which characterizes the older school.
+
+So that in writing of things Y�n-nanese in this great city it is
+imperative for me to state bare facts as they stand now, and make little
+comment.
+
+
+THE RAILWAY
+
+
+The Tonkin-Y�n-nan Railway, linking the interior with the coast, is one
+of the world's most interesting engineering romances. This artery of
+steel is probably the most expensive railway of its kind, from the
+constructional standpoint. In some districts seven thousand pounds per
+mile was the cost, and it is probable that six thousand pounds sterling
+per mile would not be a bad estimate of the total amount appropriated
+for the construction of the line from a loan of 200,000,000 francs asked
+for in 1898 by the Colonial Council in connection with the program for a
+network of railways in and about French Indo-China.
+
+To Lao-kay there are no less than one hundred and seventy-five bridges.
+
+The completion of this line realizes in part the ambition of a
+celebrated Frenchman, who--once a printer, 'tis said, in Paris--dropped
+into the political flower-bed, and blossomed forth in due course as
+Governor-General of Indo-China. When Paul Doumer, for it was he, went
+east in 1897, he felt it his mission to put France, politically and
+commercially, on as good a footing as any of her rivals, notably Great
+Britain. It did not take him long to see that the best missionaries in
+his cause would be the railways. At the time of writing (June, 1910) I
+cannot but think that profit on this railway will be a long time coming,
+and there are some in the capital who doubt whether the commercial
+possibilities of Y�n-nan justified this huge expenditure on railway
+construction. Whilst authorities differ, I personally believe that the
+ultimate financial success of the venture is assured. There are markets
+crying out to be quickly fed with foreign goods, and it is my opinion
+that the French will be the suppliers of those goods. British enterprise
+is so weak that we cannot capture the greater portion of the growing
+foreign trade, and must feel thankful if we can but retain what trade we
+have, and supply those exports with which the French have no possibility
+of competing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MILITARY
+
+The foreigner in Y�n-nan-fu can never rest unless he is used to the
+sounds of the bugle and the hustling spirit of the men of war.
+
+In standard works on Chinese armaments no mention is ever made of the
+Y�n-nan army, and statistics are hard to get. But it is evident that the
+cult of the military stands paramount, and it has to be conceded, even
+by the most pessimistic critics of this backward province, that the new
+troops are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-organized to
+crush any rebellion. This must be counted a very fair result, since it
+has been attained in about two years. A couple of years ago Y�n-nan had
+practically no army--none more than the military ragtags of the old
+school, whose chief weapon of war was the opium pipe. But now there are
+ten thousand troops--not units on paper, but men in
+uniform--well-drilled for the most part and of excellent physique, who
+could take the field at once. The question of the Y�n-nan army is one of
+international interest: the French are on the south, Great Britain on
+the west.
+
+On June 2nd, 1909, I rode out to the magnificent training ground, then
+being completed, and on that date wrote the following in my diary:--
+
+"I watched for an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their
+daily drill--typical tin soldiery and a military sham.
+
+"Only with the merest notion of matters military were most of the men
+conversant, and alike in ordinary marching--when it was most difficult
+for them even to maintain regularity of step--or in more complicated
+drilling, there was a lack of the right spirit, no go, no gusto--scores
+and scores of them running round doing something, going through a
+routine, with the knowledge that when it was finished they would get
+their rice and be happy. Everyone who possesses but a rudimentary
+knowledge of the Chinese knows that he troubles most about the two
+meals every day should bring him, and this seems to be the pervading
+line of thought of seven-eighths of the men I saw on the padang at
+drill. Officers strutting about in peacock fashion, with a sword
+dangling at their side, showed no inclination to enforce order, and the
+rank and file knew their methods, so that the disorder and haphazardness
+of the whole thing was absolutely mutual.
+
+"Whilst I was on the field gazing in anything but admiration on the
+scene, I was ordered out by one of the khaki-clad officers in a most
+unceremonious manner. Seeing me, he shouted at the top of his thick
+voice, 'Ch'u-k'�, ch'u-k'�' (an expression meaning 'Go out!'--commonly
+used to drive away dogs), and simultaneously waved his sword in the air
+as if to say, 'Another step, and I'll have your head.' And, of course,
+there being nothing else to do, I 'ch'u-k'�d,' but in a fashion
+befitting the dignity of an English traveler.
+
+"The reorganization of the army, with the acceleration of warlike
+preparedness, has the advantage that it appeals to the embryonic feeling
+of national patriotism, and affords a tangible expression of the desire
+to be on terms of equality with the foreigner. That officer never had a
+prouder moment in his life than when he ordered a distinguished
+foreigner from the drilling ground, of which he was for the time the
+lordly comptroller. And it may be added that the foreigner can remember
+no occasion when he felt 'smaller,' or more completely shrivelled.
+
+"Whilst it is safe to infer that the motives that underlie the
+significant access of activity in military matters in Y�n-nan differ in
+no way from those which have led to the feverish increase in armaments
+in other parts of the world, such ideas that have yet been formed on
+actual preparations for possible war are most crude. On paper the
+appointments in the army and the accuracy of the figures of the
+complement of rank and file admit of no question, but the practical
+utility of their labors is quite another matter, and a matter which does
+not appear to produce among the army officials any great mental
+disturbance in their delusion that they are progressing. Y�n-nan is in
+need of military reform, reform which will embrace a start from the very
+beginning, and one of the first steps that should be taken is that those
+who are to be in the position of administering training should find out
+something about western military affairs, and so be in a position of
+knowing what they are doing."
+
+The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year.
+Now--in June of 1910--I have to write of enormous improvements and
+revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the
+general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Y�n-nan is
+still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many
+elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or
+less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial
+question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining
+question, are still "in the air"--the unknown _x_ in the equation, as it
+were--but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be
+followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will,
+her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the
+destiny of Y�n-nan herself, and she is working hard--the West has no
+conception how hard--so as to be able to be in a position of
+safeguarding--vigorously, if necessary--her own borders.
+
+One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion,
+would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Y�n-nan. Skirmishings
+on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers
+are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common
+people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take
+place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the
+soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously
+remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
+would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
+for drilling him so hard and long.
+
+What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
+be true also of Tali-fu.
+
+A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
+nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
+enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
+dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
+drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
+necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
+of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
+rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
+dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
+have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
+taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks--a sign in
+itself of the altered conditions of the times--and I visited some
+extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
+thousand gold dollars.
+
+Military progress in this "backward province" is as great as it has been
+anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.
+
+
+THE POLICE
+
+Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the
+necessary evil of a standing army, so did Y�n-nan-fu slumber on in the
+Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking
+into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material,
+the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be
+found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old
+London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and
+well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of
+the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is
+substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should
+ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be "run in"
+in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone
+will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest
+intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn
+kind--that is, if the Y�n-nan police shall ever have made strides
+towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their
+place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
+less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover--when will
+the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?--is certainly being put
+down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
+they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
+dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
+throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
+been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
+the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.
+
+
+THE GAOL
+
+A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
+prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
+entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
+which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
+reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This
+reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
+prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
+curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
+scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
+wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
+Y�n-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
+extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
+prison--one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.
+
+After we had drunk each other's health--I sincerely trust that the cute,
+courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
+of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
+me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
+mundane things--I was led away to the prison proper.
+
+This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
+building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
+covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
+and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
+with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
+stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
+building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
+accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
+present confined within its walls.
+
+After an hour's inspection, I came to the conclusion that the lot of the
+prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
+the time--three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
+much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
+came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
+outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
+their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
+emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
+grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
+waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.
+
+The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
+Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
+important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
+machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
+per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
+does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
+English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
+but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
+rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
+rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
+pewter workers, some of their products--turned out with most primitive
+tools--being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
+chair, made of iron--a sort of miniature garden seat--and from this
+pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
+selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
+mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
+were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
+shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
+same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
+however, exceedingly interesting to watch.
+
+As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
+sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
+and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
+claimed, abolished in Y�n-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
+day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
+exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
+could not break his men of the habit. But we remember that the
+physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.
+
+Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
+heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
+frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
+bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
+Y�n-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
+history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
+The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
+At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
+aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
+Y�n-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
+and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
+pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
+The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
+the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
+congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
+immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
+existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
+miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Y�n-nan
+dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.
+
+Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
+trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
+The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
+throne--father, mother, brothers, sisters--were all put to death, most
+of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
+victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
+everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
+soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
+breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
+meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
+arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
+training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
+can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
+his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
+tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
+shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
+is doubtful whether the authorities--or even the emperor himself--will
+mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
+nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
+teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
+Heaven--he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
+enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy--no playmates, no
+toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows--in
+surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.
+
+This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
+rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
+that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
+express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
+visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
+me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
+the prison--containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
+doctor.
+
+I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
+farewell, left him in a happy mood.
+
+
+THE SCHOOLS
+
+One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Y�n-nan. Yet
+such is the case.
+
+In former days--and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day--the
+prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
+an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
+Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
+country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
+educated man was then a potential school master--this was certainly true
+of Y�n-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
+the phrase "China for the Chinese" gains forceful meaning among the
+people.
+
+The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
+for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
+China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
+architect--a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
+mathematics--and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
+long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
+from a purely architectural standpoint.
+
+Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
+thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and possesses conveniences
+and improvements quite comparable to the ordinary college of the West.
+For instance, as I passed through the many admirably-equipped
+schoolrooms, well ventilated and airy, I saw an Italian who was laying
+in the electric light,[AC] the power for which was generated by an
+immense dynamo at the basement, upon which alone twenty thousand taels
+were spent. Thirty professors have the control of thirty-two classrooms,
+teaching among other subjects mathematics, music, languages (chiefly
+English and Japanese), geography, chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany,
+and so on. The museum, situated in the center of the building, does not
+contain as many specimens as one would imagine quite easily obtainable,
+but there are certainly some capital selections of things natural to
+this part of the Empire.
+
+The authorities probably thought I was rather a queer foreigner, wanting
+to see everything there was to see inside the official barriers in the
+city. Day after day I was making visits to places where foreigners
+seldom have entered, and I do not doubt that the officials, whilst
+treating me with the utmost deference and extreme punctiliousness,
+thought I was a sort of British spy.
+
+When I went to the Agricultural School, probably the most interesting
+visit I made, I was met by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a keen
+fellow, who spoke English well, and who, having been trained at
+Shanghai, and therefore understanding the idiosyncrasies of the
+foreigner's character, was invited to entertain. And this he did, but he
+was careful that he did not give away much information regarding the
+progress that the Y�n-nanese, essentially sons of the soil, are making
+in agriculture. For this School of Agriculture is an important adjunct.
+
+Scholars are taken on an agreement for three years, during which time
+they are fed and housed at the expense of the school; if they leave
+during the specified period they are fined heavily. No less than 180
+boys, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three, are being trained here, with
+about 120 paid apprentices. Three Japanese professors are employed--one
+at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and two others at three
+hundred, the latter having charge of the fruit and forest trees and the
+former of vegetables.
+
+In years to come the silk industry of Y�n-nan will rank among the chief,
+and the productions will rank among the best of all the eighteen
+provinces. There are no less than ten thousand mulberry trees in the
+school grounds for feeding the worms; four thousand catties of leaves
+are used every day for their food; five hundred immense trays of
+silkworms are constantly at work here. The worms are in the charge of
+scholars, whose names appear on the various racks under their charge,
+and the fact that feeding takes place every two hours, day and night, is
+sufficient testimony that the boys go into their work with commendable
+energy. As I was being escorted around the building, through shed after
+shed filled with these trays of silkworms, several of the scholars made
+up a sort of procession, and waited for the eulogy that I freely
+bestowed. In another building small boys were spinning the silk, and
+farther down the weavers were busy with their primitive machinery, with
+which, however, they were turning out silk that could be sold in London
+at a very big price. The colorings were specially beautiful, and the
+figuring quite good, although the head-master of the school told me that
+he hoped for improvements in that direction. And I, looking wise,
+although knowing little about silk and its manufacture, heartily agreed
+with the little fat man.
+
+There is a department for women also, and contrary to custom, I had a
+look around here, too. The girls were particularly smart at spinning.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AC: Soon afterwards a disturbance occurred among the students,
+and had it not been for the promptitude of the inspector, some of them
+might have lost their heads.
+
+The electric light had just been laid in, and was working so well that
+the authorities found it imperative to charge each of the 400 resident
+students one dollar per month for the upkeep. This simple edict was the
+cause of the riot In a body the boys rolled up their pukais, and marched
+down to the main entrance, declaring that they were determined to resign
+if the order was not rescinded. The inspector, however, had had all the
+doors locked. The frenzied students broke these open, and incidentally
+thrashed some of the caretakers for interfering in matters which were
+not considered to be strictly their business.
+
+Subsequently the Chancellor of Education visited the college in person,
+but no heed was paid to his exhortations, and it was only when the
+dollar charge for lighting was reduced that peace was restored.
+
+The Chancellor, as a last word, told them that if they vacated their
+schoolrooms a fine of about a hundred taels would be imposed upon each
+man.
+
+The occasion was marked by all the foolish ardor one finds among college
+boys at home, and it seems that, despite the enormous amount of money
+the college is costing to run, the students are somewhat out of
+hand.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+SECOND JOURNEY
+
+Y�N-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+_Stages to Tali-fu_. _Worst roads yet experienced_. _Stampede among
+ponies_. _Hybrid crowd at Anning-cheo_. _Simplicity of life of common
+people_. _Does China want the foreigner? Straits Settlements and China
+Proper compared_. _China's aspect of her own position_. _Renaissance of
+Chinese military power_. _Europeans_ NOT _wanted in the Empire_.
+_Emptiness of the lives of the common people_. _Author erects a printing
+machine in Inland China_. _National conceit_. _Differences in make-up of
+the Hua Miao and the Han Ren_. _The Hua Miao and what they are doing_.
+_Emancipation of their women_. _Tribute to Protestant missionaries_.
+_Betrothal and marriage in China_. _Miao women lead a life of shame and
+misery_. _Crude ideas among Chinese regarding age of foreigners_. _Musty
+man and dusty traveller at Lao-ya-kwan_. _Intense cold_. _Salt trade_.
+_Parklike scenery, pleasant travel, solitude._
+
+
+From the figures of heights appearing below, one would imagine that
+between the capital and Tali-fu hard climbing is absent. But during each
+stage, with the exception of the journey from Sei-tze to Sha-chiao-kai,
+there is considerable fatiguing uphill and downhill work, each evening
+bringing one to approximately the same level as that from which he
+started his morning tramp. I went by the following route:--
+
+                                   Length of         Height
+                                     stage          above sea
+    1st day--Anning-cheo             70 li          6,300 ft.
+    2nd day--Lao-ya-kwan             70 li          6,800 ft.
+    3rd day--Lu-f�ng-hsien           75 li          5,500 ft.
+    4th day--Sei-tze                 80 li          6,100 ft.
+    5th day--Kwang-tung-hsien        60 li          6,300 ft.
+    6th day--Rest day.
+    7th day--Ch'u-hsiong-fu          70 li          6,150 ft.
+    8th day--Luho-kai                60 li          6,000 ft.
+    9th day--Sha-chiao-kai           65 li          6,400 ft.
+    10th day--Pu-p�ng                90 li          7,200 ft.
+    11th day--Y�n-nan-�              65 li          6,800 ft.
+    12th day--Hungay                 80 li          6,000 ft.
+    14th day--Chao-chow              60 li          6,750 ft.
+    15th day--Tali-fu                60 li          6,700 ft.
+
+A long, winding and physically-exhausting road took me from
+Sha-chiao-kai to Yin-wa-kwan, the most elevated pass between Y�n-nan-fu
+and Tali-fu, and continued over barren mountains, bereft of shelter, and
+void of vegetation and people, to Pup�ng. A rough climb of an hour and a
+half then took me to the top of the next mountain, where roads and ruts
+followed a high plateau for about thirty li, and with a precipitous
+descent I entered the plain of Y�n-nan-�. Then over and between barren
+hills, passing a small lake and plain with the considerable town of
+Y�n-nan-hsien ten li to the right, I continued in a narrow valley and
+over mountains in the same uncultivated condition to Hungay, situated in
+a swampy valley. Having crossed this valley, another rough climb brings
+the traveler to the top of the next pass, Ting-chi-ling, whence the road
+descends, and leads by a well-cultivated valley to Chao-chow. After an
+easy thirty li we reached Hsiakwan,[AD] one of the largest commercial
+cities in the province, lying at the foot of the most magnificent
+mountain range in Y�n-nan, and by the side of the most famous lake. A
+paved road takes one in to his destination at Tali-fu, where I was
+welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Clark, of the China Inland Mission, and
+hospitably entertained for a couple of days.
+
+The roads in general from Y�n-nan-fu to Tali-fu were worse than any I
+have met from Chung-king onwards, partly owing to the mountainous
+condition of the country, and partly to neglect of maintenance.
+
+Where the road is paved, it is in most places worse than if it had not
+been paved at all, as neither skill nor common sense seems to have been
+exercised in the work. It is probably safe to say that there are no
+ancient roads in Y�n-nan, in the sense of the constructed highways which
+have lasted through the centuries, for the civilization of the early
+Y�n-nanese was not equal to such works. As a matter of fact, the
+condition of the roads is all but intolerable. Many were never made, and
+are seldom mended--one may say that with very few exceptions they are
+never repaired, except when utterly impassable, and then in the most
+make-shift manner.
+
+My highly-strung Rusty received a shock to his nervous system as I led
+him leisurely from the incline leading into Anning-cheo (6,300 feet),
+through the arched gateway in a pagoda-like entrance, which when new
+would have been a credit to any city. The stones of the main street were
+so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of
+their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground
+behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed
+themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter
+towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men
+caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and
+trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was
+being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped
+unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town--the
+market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of
+blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar,
+as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed
+long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front,
+pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the
+other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me
+more knocks.
+
+It was an awful crowd--Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of
+hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be
+called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people,
+their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own
+Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their
+homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted
+with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high
+civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired
+people living a simple, unsophisticated life. All the strength of the
+world and all its beauties, all true joy, everything that consoles, that
+feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything
+that enables us to discern across our poor lives a splendid goal and a
+boundless future, comes to us from true simplicity. I do not say that we
+get all this from the Chinese, but in many ways they can teach us how to
+live in the _spirit of simplicity_. They were living from hand to mouth,
+with seemingly no anxieties at all--and yet, too, they were living
+without God, and with very little hope.
+
+And here the foreigner re-appeared to disturb them. Even in Anning-cheo,
+only a day from the capital, I was regarded as a being of another
+species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.
+
+No international question has become more hackneyed than "Does China
+want the foreigner?" Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time
+been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men
+supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting
+with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his
+advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general
+assent come to be understood that China _does_ want the foreigner. But
+those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their
+inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still
+ask, "Does she?"
+
+To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having
+trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff--without whom few
+businesses in the Far East can make progress--my argument may seem to
+have no _raison d'etre_. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the
+absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First,
+they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great
+nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone
+doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for
+closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more
+than mere superficial dealings with them?
+
+Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large
+commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or
+out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance
+and remarkable business acumen and integrity.
+
+As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of
+people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the
+Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born
+Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese
+and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in
+their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an
+infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior
+entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where
+Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred
+towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one
+not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the
+brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner in civilized parts
+of China--and impossible for the great preponderance of the European
+peoples at home--to grasp the fact that in huge tracts of Interior China
+the populace have never seen a foreigner, save for the ubiquitous
+missionary, who takes on more often than not the dress of the native.
+
+Although the Chinese Government recognizes the dangerous situation of
+the nation _vis-�-vis_ with nations of Europe, and has ratified one
+treaty after another with us, the nation itself does not, so far as the
+traveler can see, appreciate the fact that she cannot possibly resist
+the white man, and hold herself in seclusion as formerly from the
+Western world. China is discovering--has discovered officially, although
+that does not necessarily mean nationally--as Japan did so admirably
+when her progress was most marked, that steam and machinery have made
+the world too small for any part thereof to separate itself entirely
+from the broadening current of the world's life.
+
+Whilst not for a moment failing to admire the aggressive character of
+Occidentals, and the resultant necessity of thwarting them--we see[1]
+this especially in official circles in Y�n-nan--Chinese leaders of
+thought and activity are recognizing that in international relations the
+final appeal can be only to a superior power, and that power, to be
+superior, must be thorough, and thorough throughout. So different to
+what has held good in China for countless ages. That is why China is
+making sure of her army, and why she will have ready in 1912--ten years
+before the period originally intended--no less than thirty-six
+divisions, each division formed of ten thousand units.[A] China is now
+endeavoring to walk the ground which led Japan to greatness among the
+nations--she takes Japan as her pattern, and thinks that what Japan has
+done she can do--and, officially abandoning her long course of
+self-sufficient isolation, is plunging into the flood of international
+progress, determined to acquire all the knowledge she can, and thus win
+for herself a place among the Powers.
+
+But I am in Y�n-nan, and things move slowly here.
+
+All this does not mean that my presence is desired, or that fear of me,
+the foreigner, has ceased. On the contrary, it signifies that I am more
+greatly to be feared. The European is _not_ wanted in China, no matter
+how absurd it may seem to the student of international politics, who
+sits and devours all the newspaper copy--good, bad and
+indifferent--which filters through regarding China becoming the El
+Dorado of the Westerner. He is wanted for no other reason than that of
+teaching the Chinese to foreignize as much as he can, teaching the
+leaders of the people to strive to modify national life, and to raise
+public conduct and administration to the best standards of the West.
+
+When China is capable of looking after herself, and able to maintain the
+position she is securing by the aid of the foreigner in her provinces,
+following her present mode of thought and action, the foreigner may go
+back again. But it is to be hoped that the evolution of the country will
+be different.
+
+Another feature impressed upon me was the emptiness of the lives of the
+people. Education was rare, and any education they had was confined to
+the Chinese classics.
+
+Neither of the three men I had with me could read or write. The thoughts
+of these people are circumscribed by the narrow world in which they
+live, and only a chance traveler such as myself allows them a glimpse of
+other places. Each man, with rare exception, lives and labors and dies
+where he is born--that is his ambition; and in the midst of a people
+whose whole outlook of life is so contracted, I find difficulty in
+believing that progress such as Japan made in her memorable fifty-year
+forward movement will be made by the Chinese of Y�n-nan in two hundred
+years. Everything one can see around him here, at this town of
+Anning-cheo, seems to make against it. In my dealings with Chinese in
+their own country--I speak broadly--I have found that they "know
+everything." I erected a printing-press in Tong-ch'uan-fu some months
+ago--a type of the old flat handpress not unlike that first used by
+Caxton. It was a part of the equipment of the Ai Kueh Hsieh Tang (Love
+of Country School), and I was invited by the gentry to erect it. Now the
+thing had not been up an hour before all the old fossils in the place
+knew all about it. Printing to them was easy--a child could do it. It is
+always, "O ren teh, o ren teh" ("I know, I know"). These men, dressed in
+their best, stood with arms behind them, and smiled stupidly as I
+labored with my coat off fixing their primitive machinery. Yet they did
+_not_ know, and now, within a few months, not a sheet has been printed,
+and the whole plant is going to rack and ruin.
+
+This is the difference between the Chinese and the tribespeople of
+Y�n-nan. Here we see the god of the missionary again, quite apart from
+any religious basis. The tribesman comes and lays himself at the feet of
+the missionary, and says at once, "I do not know. Tell me, and I will
+follow you. I want to learn." That is why it is that the Chinese stand
+open-eyed and open-mouthed when they see the Miao making strides
+altogether impossible to themselves, in proportion to their standard of
+civilization, and this position of things will not be altered, unless
+they cease to deceive themselves. I have seen a Miao boy of nine who
+never in his life had seen a Chinese character, who did not know that
+school existed and, whose only tutoring depended on the week's visit of
+the missionary twice a year. I have seen this youngster read off a sheet
+of Chinese characters no Chinese boy of his age in the whole city would
+succeed in. I have not been brought into contact with any other tribe as
+I have with the Hua Miao.[1]
+
+But if the progress this once-despised people are making is maintained,
+the Y�n-nanese will very soon be left behind in the matter of practical
+scholarship. These Miao live the simplest of simple lives, but they wish
+to become better--to live purer lives, to become civilized, to be
+uplifted; and therefore they are most humble, most approachable, and are
+slowly evolving into a happy position of proud independence. Education
+among the Hua Miao is not lost: among the Chinese much of the labor put
+forward in endeavors to educate them is lost, or seems to bear no
+immediate fruit. The Miao are living by confidence and hope that turns
+towards the future; the Y�n-nanese are content with their confidence in
+the past. The Miao, however, were not like this always--but a few years
+ago they were not heard of outside China.
+
+The coming emancipation of their women, demands some attention. The few
+Europeans who have lived among the multitudes in Central China would not
+associate beds of roses with the lives of the women anywhere.
+
+The daughter is seldom happy, and unless the wife present her husband
+with sons, who will perpetuate the father's name and burn incense at his
+tablet after his death, her life is more often than not made absolutely
+unbearable--a fact more than any other one thing responsible for the
+numerous suicides. She is the drudge, the slave of the man. And the
+popular belief is that all the women of the Middle Kingdom are
+essentially Chinese; but little is heard of the tribespeople--more
+numerous probably than in any other given area in all the world--whose
+womankind are as far removed from the Chinese in language, habits and
+customs as English ladies of to-day are removed from Grecians. A decade
+or so ago no one heard of the Miao women: they were the lowest of the
+low, having no _status_. They were far worse off than their Chinese
+sisters, who, no matter what they had to endure after marriage, were
+certainly safeguarded by law and etiquette allowing them to enter the
+married state with respectability; but no social laws, no social ties
+protect the Miao women.
+
+Until a few years ago their "club" was a common brothel, too horrible to
+describe in the English language. As soon as a girl gave birth to her
+first child she came down on the father to keep her. In many cases, it
+is only fair to say, they lived together faithfully as man and wife,
+although such cases were not by any means in the majority. The poor
+creatures herded together in their unspeakable vice and infamy, with no
+shame or common modesty, fighting for the wherewithal to live, and only
+by chance living regularly with one man, and then only just so long as
+he wished. Little girls of ten and over regularly attended these awful
+hovels, and children grew out of their childhood with no other vision
+than that of entering into the disgraceful life as early as Nature would
+allow them. It meant little less than that practically the whole of the
+population was illegitimate, viewed from a Western standpoint. No such
+thing as marriage existed. Men and women cohabited in this horrible orgy
+of existence, with the result that murder, disease and pestilence were
+rife among them. It was only a battle of the survival of the fittest to
+pursue so terrible a life. Nearly all the people were diseased by the
+transgression of Nature's laws.
+
+After a time, however, through the instrumentality of Protestant
+missionaries, these wretched people began to see the light of
+civilization. Gradually, and of their own free will, the girls gave up
+their accursed dens of misery and shame, and the men lived more in
+accord with social law and order.
+
+The Miao, too, had hitherto been dependent for their literature upon the
+Chinese character, which only a few could understand. Soon they had
+literature in their own language,[AE] and a great social reform set in.
+They showed a desire for Western learning such as has seldom been seen
+among any people in China--these were people lowest down in the social
+scale; and now the latest phase is the establishment of bethrothal and
+marriage laws, calculated to revolutionize the community and to
+introduce what in China is the equivalent for home life.
+
+Betrothal among the Chinese is a matter with which the parties most
+deeply concerned have little to do. Their parents engage a go-between or
+match-maker, and another point is that there is no age limit. Not so now
+with the Christian Miao. No paid go-between is engaged, and brides are
+to be at a minimum age of eighteen years, and bridegrooms twenty. The
+establishment of these laws will, it is hoped, make for the emancipation
+from a life of the most dreadful misery of thousands of women in one of
+the darkest countries of the earth.[AF]
+
+But now the Miao is pressing forward under his burdens, to guide himself
+in the struggle, to retrieve his falls and his failures; and in the
+future lies his hope--the indomitable hope upon which the interest of
+humanity is based--and he has in addition the grand expectation of
+escaping despair even in death. It is all the praiseworthy work of our
+fellow-countrymen, living isolated lives among the people, building up a
+worthy Christian structure upon Miao simplicity and humble fidelity to
+the foreigner.
+
+But I digress from my travel.
+
+Little out of the ordinary marked my travels to Lao-ya-kwan (6,800
+feet), an easy stage. My meager tiffin at an insignificant mountain
+village was, as usual, an educational lesson to the natives. Each tin
+that came from my food basket--one's servant delighted to lay out the
+whole business--underwent the severest criticism tempered with unmeaning
+eulogy, picked up and put down by perhaps a score of people, who did not
+mean to be rude. When I used their chopsticks--dirty little pieces of
+bamboo--in a manner very far removed from their natural method, they
+were proud of me. Outrageously panegyric references were made when an
+old man, scratching at his disagreeable itch-sores under my nose,
+clipped a youngster's ear for hazarding my age to be less than that of
+any of the bystanders, the length of my moustache and a three-day growth
+on my chin giving them the opinion that I was certainly over sixty.[AG]
+
+I entered Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was
+to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and
+filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the "hsi-lien"
+(wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking
+musty and mean and dusty, with my topee botched and battered, I
+presented a most unhappy contrast as I led my pony down the street under
+the sarcastic stare of bystanding scrutineers. The nights were cold, and
+in the private house where I stayed, mercifully overlooked by a trio of
+protesting effigies with visages grotesque and gruesome, rats ran
+fearlessly over the room's mud floor, and at night I buried my head in
+my rugs to prevent total disappearance of my ears by nibbling. Not so my
+men. They slept a few feet from me, three on one bench, two on another.
+Bedding was not to be had, and so among the dirty straw they huddled
+together as closely as possible to preserve what bodily heat they had.
+Snow fell heavily. In the early morning sunlight on January 13th the
+undulating valley, with its grand untrodden carpet of white, looked
+magnificently beautiful as I picked out the road shown me by a poor
+fellow whose ears had got frost-nipped.
+
+No easy work was it climbing tediously up the narrow footway in a sharp
+spur rising some 1,000 feet in a ribbed ascent, overlooking a fearful
+drop. Over to the left I saw an unhappy little urchin, hardly a rag
+covering his shivering, bleeding body, grovelling piteously in the
+snow, while his blind and goitrous mother did her best at gathering
+firewood with a hatchet. The pass leading over this range, through which
+the white crystalline flakes were driven wildly in one's face, was a
+half-moon of smooth rock actually worn away by the endless tramping of
+myriads of pack-ponies, who then were plodding through ruts of steps
+almost as high as their haunches.
+
+A man with a diseased hip joined me thirty li farther on, dismounting
+from his pile of earthly belongings which these men fix on the backs of
+their ponies. It is a creditable trapeze act to effect a mount after
+the pony is ready for the journey. He had, he said, met me before. He
+knew that I was a missionary, and had heard me preach. He remembered my
+wife and myself and children passing the night in the same inn in which
+he stayed on one of his pilgrimages from his native town somewhere to
+the east of the province. I had never seen him before! I had no wife; I
+have never preached a sermon in my life. I should be pained ever again
+to have to suffer his unmannerly presence anywhere.
+
+Ponies were being loaded near my table. The rapscallion in question
+explained that the black blocks were salt, taking a pinch from my
+salt-cellar with his grimy fingers to add point to his remarks. I kicked
+at a couple of mongrels under the rude form on which I sat--they fought
+for the skins of those potato-like pears which grow here so
+prolifically. The person announced that they were dogs, and that an
+idiosyncrasy of Chinese dogs was to fight. Several wags joined in, and
+all appeared, through the traveling nincompoop, to know all about my
+past and present, lapsing into a desultory harangue upon all men and
+things foreign. The street reminded me of Clovelly--rugged and
+ragged--and the people were wrinkled and wretched; and, indeed, being a
+Devonian myself by birth, I should be excused of wantonly intending to
+hurt the delicate feelings of the lusty sons of Devon were I to declare
+that I thought the life not of a very terrible dissimilarity from that
+port of antiquity in the West.
+
+Salt was everywhere, much more like coal than salt, certainly as black.
+The blocks were stacked up by the sides of inns ready for transport,
+carried on the backs of a multitude of poor wretches who work like oxen
+from dawn to dusk for the merest pittance, on the backs of droves and
+droves of ponies, scrambling and spluttering along over the slippery
+once-paved streets.
+
+All day long, with the exception of two or three easy ascents, we were
+travelling in pleasantly undulating country of park-like magnificence.
+My men dallied. I tramped on alone; and sitting down to rest on the
+rocks, I realized that I was in one of the strangest, loneliest, wildest
+corners of the world. Great mountain-peaks towered around me, white and
+sparkling diadems of wondrous beauty, and at my feet, black and
+stirless, lay a silent pool, reflecting the weird shadows of my coolies
+flitting like specters among the jagged rocks of these most solitary
+hills.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AD: Hsiakwan would be supplied by a branch line of the main
+railway in the Kunlong scheme advocated by Major H.R. Davies, leaving at
+Mi-tu, to the south of Hungay.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AE: The written language was framed and instituted by the Rev.
+Sam. Pollard, of the Bible Christian Mission (now merged into the United
+Methodist Mission).--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AF: The marriage laws were instituted by the China Inland
+Mission at Sa-pu-shan, where a great work is being done among the Hua
+Miao. A good many more stipulations are embodied in the excellent rules,
+but I have no room here to detail.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AG: The Chinese have the crudest ideas of the age of
+foreigners. Among themselves the general custom is for a man to shave
+his upper lip so long as his father is alive, so that in the ordinary
+course a man wearing a moustache is looked upon as an old man. In
+Tong-ch'uan-fu the rumor got abroad that three "uei kueh ren" ("foreign
+men") went riding horses--(two young ones and one old one. The "old one"
+was myself, because I had hair on my top lip, despite the fact that I
+was considerably the junior. And the fact that one was a lady was not
+deemed worthy of the slightest consideration.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+_Lu-f�ng-hsien and its bridge_. _Magnificence of mountains towards the
+capital_. _Opportunity for Dublin Fusiliers_. _Characteristic climbing.
+Crockery crash and its sequel_. _Mountain forest_. _Changeableness of
+climate_. _Wayside scene and some reflections_. _Is your master drunk?
+Babies of the poor_. _Loess roads_. _Travelers, and how they should
+travel_. _Wrangling about payment at the tea-shop_. _The lying art among
+the Chinese_. _Difference of the West and East_. _Strange Chinese
+characteristic_. _Eastern and Western civilization, and how it is
+working_. _Remarks on the written character and Romanisation_. _Will
+China lose her national characteristics? "Ih dien mien, ih dien mien."_
+_A nasty experience of the impotently dumb_. _Rescued in the nick of
+time._
+
+
+When the day shall come for its history to be told, the historian will
+have little to say of Lu-f�ng-hsien, that is--if he is a decent sort of
+fellow.
+
+He may refer to its wonderful bridge, to its beggars and its ruins. The
+stone bridge, one of the best of its kind in the whole empire, and I
+should think better than any other in Y�n-nan, stands to-day
+conspicuously emblematic of ill-departed prosperity. So far as I
+remember, it was the only public ornament in a condition of passable
+repair in any way creditable to the ratepayers of the hsien. The wall is
+decayed, the people are decayed, and in every nook and cranny are
+painful evidences of preventable decay, marked by a conservatism among
+the inhabitants and unpardonable indolence.
+
+The bridge, however, has stood the test of time, and bids fair to last
+through eternity. Other travelers have passed over it since the days of
+Marco Polo, but I should like to say a word about it. Twelve yards or so
+wide, and no less than 150 yards long, it is built entirely of grey
+stone; with its massive piers, its excellent masonry, its good
+(although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking
+animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of
+memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful
+simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a
+credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in
+addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the
+roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with
+which successive emperors have covered China, the bridges are not the
+least remarkable; and in them one is able to realize the perseverance of
+the Chinese in the enormous difficulties of construction they have had
+to overcome.
+
+Passing over the stream--the Hsiang-shui Ho, I believe--I stepped out
+across the plain with one foot soaked, a pony having pulled me into the
+water as he drank. Peas and beans covered with snow adjoined a
+heart-breaking road which led up to a long, winding ascent through a
+glade overhung by frost-covered hedgerows, where the sun came gently
+through and breathed the sweet coming of the spring. From midway up the
+mountain the view of the plain below and the fine range of hills
+separating me from the capital was one of exceeding loveliness, the
+undisturbed white of the snow and frost sparkling in the sunshine
+contrasting most strikingly with the darkened waves of billowy green
+opposite, with a background of sharp-edged mountains, whose summits were
+only now and again discernible in the waning morning mist. Snow lay deep
+in the crevices. My frozen path was treacherous for walking, but the
+dry, crisp air gave me a gusto and energy known only in high latitudes.
+In a pass cleared out from the rock we halted and gained breath for the
+second ascent, surmounted by a dismantled watch-tower. It has long since
+fallen into disuse, the sound tiles from the roof having been
+appropriated for covering other habitable dwellings near by, where one
+may rest for tea. The road, paved in some places, worn from the side of
+the mountain in others, was suspended above narrow gorges, an entrance
+to a part of the country which had the aspect of northern regions. The
+sun, tearing open the curtain of blue mist, inundated with brightness
+one of the most beautiful landscapes it is possible to conceive. A
+handful of Dublin Fusiliers with quick-firing rifles concealed in the
+hollows of the heights might have stopped a whole army struggling up the
+hill-sides. But no one appeared to stop me, so I went on.
+
+Climbing was characteristic of the day. Lu-f�ng-hsien is about 5,500
+feet; Sei-tze (where we were to sleep) 6,100 feet. Not much of a
+difference in height; but during the whole distance one is either
+dropping much lower than Lu-feng or much higher than Sei-tze. For thirty
+li up to Ta-ts�-s� (6,900 feet) there is little to revel in, but after
+that, right on to the terrific drop to our destination for the night, we
+were going through mountain forests than which there are none better in
+the whole of the province, unless it be on the extreme edge of the
+Tibetan border, where accompanying scenery is altogether different.
+
+From a height of 7,850 feet we dropped abruptly, through clouds of thick
+red dust which blinded my eyes and filled my throat, down to the city of
+Sei-tze. I went down behind some ponies. Upwards came a fellow
+struggling with two loads of crockery, and in the narrow pathway he
+stood in an elevated position to let the animals pass. Irony of fate!
+One of the horses--it seemed most intentional--gave his load a tilt: man
+and crockery all went together in one heap to a crevice thirty yards
+down the incline, and as I proceeded I heard the choice rhetoric of the
+victim and the muleteer arguing as to who should pay.
+
+Just before that, I dipped into the very bosom of the earth, with
+rugged hills rising to bewildering heights all around, base to summit
+clad luxuriously in thick greenery of mountain firs, a few cedars, and
+the Chinese ash. Black patches of rock to the right were the death-bed
+of many a swaying giant, and in contrast, running away sunwards, a
+silver shimmer on the unmoving ocean of delicious green was caused by
+the slantwise sun reflections, while in the ravines on the other side a
+dark blue haze gave no invitation. Smoothly-curving fringes stood out
+softly against the eternal blue of the heavens. Farther on, eloquent of
+their own strength and imperturbability, were deep rocks, black and
+defiant; but even here firs grew on the projecting ledges which now and
+again hung menacingly above the red path, shading away the sunlight and
+giving to the dark crevices an atmosphere of damp and cold, where men's
+voices echoed and re-echoed like weird greetings from the grave. Onwards
+again, and from the cool ravines, adorned with overhang branches,
+forming cosy retreats from the now blazing sun, one emerged to a road
+leading up once more to undiscovered vastnesses. Yonder narrowed a
+gorge, fine and delicately covered, pleasing to one's aesthetic sense.
+The center was a dome, all full of life and waving leafage, ethereal and
+sweet; and running down, like children to their mother, were numerous
+little hills densely clothed in a green lighter and more dainty than
+that of the parent hill, throwing graceful curtsies to the murmuring
+river at the foot. As I write here, bathed in the beauty of spring
+sunlight, it is difficult to believe that a few hours since the
+thermometer was at zero. Little spots of habitation, with foodstuffs
+growing alongside, looking most lonely in their patches of green in the
+forest, added a human and sentimental picturesqueness to a scene so
+strongly impressive.
+
+A thatched, barn-like place gave us rest, the woman producing for me a
+huge chunk of palatable rice sponge-cake sprinkled with brown sugar.
+Little naked children, offspring of parents themselves covered with
+merest hanging rags, groped round me and treated me with courteous
+curiosity; goats smelt round the coolie-loads of men who rested on low
+forms and smoked their rank tobacco; smoke from the green wood fires
+issued from the mud grates, where receptacles were filled with boiling
+water ready for the traveler, constantly re-filled by a woman whose
+child, hung over her back, moaned piteously for the milk its mother was
+too busy to give to it. Near by a young girl gave suck to a deformed
+infant, lucky to have survived its birth; her neck was as big as her
+breasts--merely a case of goitre. Coolies passed, panting and puffing,
+all casting a curious glance at him to whose beneficence all were
+willing to pander.
+
+At tiffin I counted thirty-three wretched people, who turned out to see
+the barbarian. They desired, and desired importunately, to touch me and
+the clothes which covered me. And I submitted.
+
+This half-way place was interesting owing to the fact that the lady in
+charge of the buffet could speak two words of French--she had, I
+believe, acted as washerwoman to a man who at one time had been in the
+Customs at Mengtsz. Great excitement ensued among the perspiring
+laborers of the road and the dumb-struck yokels of the district. The
+lady was so goitrous that it would have been extremely risky to hazard a
+guess as to the exact spot where her face began or ended; and here, in a
+place where with all her neighbors she had lived through a period noted
+for famine, for rebellion, for wholesale death and murder of an entire
+village, she endured such terrible poverty that one would have thought
+her spirit would have waned and the light of her youth burned out. But
+no! The lusty dame was still sprightly. She had been three times
+divorced. The person at present connected with her in the bonds of
+wedded life--also goitrous and morally repulsive--stood by and gazed
+down upon her like a proud bridegroom. He resented the levity of Shanks
+and his companion, but, owing to the detail of a sightless eye, he could
+not see all that transpired. However, we were all happy enough. Charges
+were not excessive. My men had a good feed of rice and cabbage, with the
+usual cabbage stump, two raw rice biscuits (which they threw into the
+ashes to cook, and when cooked picked the dirt off with their long
+finger-nails), and as much tea as they could drink--all for less than a
+penny.
+
+There is something in traveling in Y�n-nan, where the people away from
+the cities exhibit such painful apathy as to whether dissolution of this
+life comes to them soon or late, which breeds drowsiness. After a tramp
+over mountains for five or six hours on end, one naturally needed rest.
+To-day, as I sat after lunch and wrote up my journal, I nearly fell
+asleep. As I watched the reflections of all these ill-clad figures on
+the stony roadway, and dozed meanwhile, one rude fellow asked my man
+whether I was drunk!
+
+I was not left long to my reverie.
+
+Entering into a conversation intended for the whole village to hear, my
+bulky coolie sublet his contract for two tsien for the eighty li--we had
+already done fifty. The man hired was a weak, thin, half-baked fellow,
+whose body and soul seemed hardly to hang together. He was the first to
+arrive. As soon as he got in; this same man took a needle from the
+inside of his great straw hat and commenced ridding his pants of
+somewhat outrageous perforations. Such is the Chinese coolie, although
+in Y�n-nan he would be an exception. Late at night he offered to put a
+shoe on my pony. I consented. He did the job, providing a new shoe and
+tools and nails, for 110 cash--just about twopence.
+
+I could not help, thinking of the children I had seen to-day, "Sad for
+the dirt-begrimed babies that they were born." These children were all a
+family of eternal Topsies--they merely grew, and few knew how. They are
+rather dragged up than brought up, to live or die, as time might
+appoint. Babies in Y�n-nan, for the great majority, are not coaxed, not
+tossed up and down and petted, not soothed, not humored. There are none
+to kiss away their tears, they never have toys, and dream no young
+dreams, but are brought straight into the iron realities of life. They
+are reared in smoke and physical and moral filth, and become men and
+women when they should be children: they haggle and envy, and swear and
+murmur. When in Y�n-nan--or even in the whole of China--will there be
+the innocence and beauty of childhood as we of the West are blessed
+with?
+
+Roads here were in many cases of a light loess, and some of red
+limestone rock, with a few li of paved roads. Many of the main roads
+over the loess are altered by the rains. Two days of heavy rain will
+produce in some places seas of mud, often knee-deep, and this will again
+dry up quite as rapidly with the next sunshine. They become undermined,
+and crumble away from the action of even a trickling stream, so as to
+become always unsafe and sometimes quite impassable.
+
+Delays are very dear to the heart of every Chinese. The traveler, if he
+is desirous of getting his caravan to move on speedily, has little
+chance of success unless he assumes an attitude of profoundest
+indifference to all men and things around him--never _appear_ to be in a
+hurry.
+
+We are accompanied to-day to Kwang-tung-hsien by the coolie who carried
+the load yesterday. He sits by staring enviously at his compatriots in
+the employ of the foreign magnate, who rests on a stone behind and
+listens to the conversation. They invite him to carry again; he refuses.
+Now the argument--natural and right and proper--is ensuing with warmth.
+Lao Chang, with the air of a hsien "gwan," sits in judgment upon them,
+bringing to bear his long experience of coolies and the amount of
+"heart-money" they receive, and has decided that the fellow should
+receive a tenth of a dollar and twenty cash in addition for carrying the
+heavier of the loads the remaining thirty li, as against ten cents
+offered by the men. He is now extending philosophic advice to them all,
+based on a knowledge of the coolie's life; the little meeting breaks up,
+good feeling prevails, and the loads carried on merrily. I still linger,
+sipping my tea. Lao Chang has grumbled because he has had to shell out
+seven cash, and I have already drunk ten cups (he generally uses the tea
+leaves afterwards for his personal use).
+
+But wrangling about payment prevails always where Chinese congregate. In
+China, by high and low, lies are told without the slightest apparent
+compunction. One of the men in the above-mentioned dispute had an
+irrepressible volubility of assertion. He at once flew into a temper,
+adopting the style of the stage actor, proclaiming his virtue so that it
+might have been heard at Y�n-nan-fu. He was preserving his "face." For
+in this country temper is often, what it is not in the West, a test of
+truth. Among Westerners nothing is more insulting sometimes than a
+philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself,
+protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally
+requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In
+respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor
+copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the
+people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me
+that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese--I speak
+of the common people, for in my travels I have not mixed much with the
+rich--the greatest romancer on earth. I question whether the great
+preponderance of the Chinese people speak six consecutive sentences
+without misrepresentation or exaggeration, tantamount to prevarication.
+Regretting that I have to write it, I give it as my opinion that the
+Chinese is a liar by nature. And when he is confronted with the charge
+of lying, the culprit seems seldom to feel any sense of guilt.
+
+And yet in business--above the petty bargaining business--we have as the
+antithesis that the spoken word is his bond. I would rather trust the
+Chinese merely on his word than the Jap with a signed contract.
+
+The Chinese knows that the Englishman is not a liar, and he respects him
+for it; and it is to be hoped that in Y�n-nan there will soon be seen
+the two streams of civilization which now flow in comparative harmony in
+other more enlightened provinces flowing here also in a single channel.
+These two streams--of the East and the West--represent ideas in social
+structure, in Government, in standards of morality, in religion and in
+almost every human conception as diverse as the peoples are racially
+apart. They cannot, it is evident, live together. The one is bound to
+drive out the other, or there must be such a modification of both as
+will allow them to live together, and be linked in sympathies which go
+farther than exploiting the country for initial greed. The Chinese will
+never lose all the traces of their inherited customs of daily life, of
+habits of thought and language, products which have been borne down the
+ages since a time contemporary with that of Solomon. No fair-minded man
+would wish it. And it is at once impossible.
+
+The language, for instance. Who is there, who knows anything about it,
+who would wish to see the Chinese character drop out of the national
+life? Yet it is bound to come to some extent, and in future ages the
+written language will develop into pretty well the same as Latin among
+ourselves. Romanization, although as yet far from being accomplished,
+must sooner or later come into vogue, as is patent at the first glance
+at business. If commerce in the Interior is to grow to any great extent
+in succeeding generations, warranting direct correspondence with the
+ports at the coast and with the outside world, the Chinese hieroglyph
+will not continue to suffice as a satisfactory means of communication.
+No correspondence in Chinese will ever be written on a machine such as I
+am now using to type this manuscript, and this valuable adjunct of the
+office must surely force its way into Chinese commercial life. But only
+when Romanization becomes more or less universal.
+
+This, however, by the way.
+
+My point is, that no matter how Occidentalized he may become, the
+Chinese will never lose his national characteristics--not so much
+probably as the Japanese has done. What the youth has been at home, in
+his habits of thought, in his purpose and spirit, in his manifestation
+of action, will largely determine his after life. Chinese mental and
+moral history has so stamped certain ineffaceable marks on the language,
+and the thought and character of her people, that China will never--even
+were she so inclined--obliterate her Oriental features, and must always
+and inevitably remain Chinese. The conflict, however, is not racial, it
+is a question of civilization. Were it racial only, to my way of
+thinking we should be beaten hopelessly.
+
+And as I write this in a Chinese inn, in the heart of Y�n-nan--the
+"backward province"--surrounded by the common people in their common,
+dirty, daily doings, a far stretch of vivid imagining is needed to see
+these people in any way approaching the Westernization already current
+in eastern provinces of this dark Empire.
+
+This is what I wrote sitting on the top of a mountain during my tour
+across China. But it will be seen in other parts of this book that
+Western ideas and methods of progress in accord more with European
+standards are being adopted--and in some places with considerable
+energy--even in the "backward province." In travel anywhere in the
+world, one becomes absorbed more or less with one's own immediate
+surroundings, and there is a tendency to form opinions on the
+limitations of those surroundings. In many countries this would not lead
+one far astray, but in China it is different. Most of my opinion of the
+real Chinese is formed in Y�n-nan, and it is not to be denied that in
+all the other seventeen provinces, although a good many of them may be
+more forward in the trend of national evolution and progress, the same
+squalidness among the people, and every condition antagonistic to the
+Westerner's education so often referred to, are to be found. But China
+has four hundred and thirty millions of people, so that what one writes
+of one particular province--in the main right, perhaps--may not
+necessarily hold good in another province, separated by thousands of
+miles, where climatic conditions have been responsible for differences
+in general life. With its great area and its great population, it does
+not need the mind of a Spencer to see that it will take generations
+before every acre and every man will be gathered into the stream of
+national progress.
+
+The European traveler in China cannot perhaps deny himself the pleasure
+of dwelling upon the absurdities and oddities of the life as they strike
+him, but there is also another side to the question. Our own
+civilization, presenting so many features so extremely removed from his
+own ancient ideas and preconceived notion of things in general, probably
+looks quite as ridiculous from the standpoint of the Chinese. The East
+and the West each have lessons to offer the other. The West is offering
+them to the East, and they are being absorbed. And perhaps were we to
+learn the lessons to which we now close our eyes and ears, but which are
+being put before us in the characteristics of Oriental civilization, we
+may in years to come, sooner than we expect, rejoice to think that we
+have something in return for what we have given; it may save us a rude
+awakening. It does not strike the average European, who has never been
+to China, and who knows no more about the country than the telegrams
+which filter through when massacres of our own compatriots occur, that
+Europe and America are not the only territories on this little round
+ball where the inhabitants have been left with a glorious heritage.
+
+But I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
+when they laughed at my impatience.
+
+"Ih dien mien, ih dien mien," shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
+bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. "Mien," it
+should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
+is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
+city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
+Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
+efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
+comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
+still.
+
+After that I hurried on, got off the "ta lu," and suffered a nasty
+experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
+my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
+told me that they had. I strode on again, encountering the crowds who
+blocked the roadway as market progressed, who stared in a suspicious
+manner at the generally disreputable, tired, and dirty foreigner. Each
+moment I expected the escort to arrive. I could not sit down and drink
+tea, for I had not a single cash on my person. I could speak none of the
+language, and could merely push on, with ragtags at my heels, becoming
+more and more embarrassed by the pointing and staring public. I turned,
+but could see none of my men. I managed to get to the outer gate, and
+there sat down on the grass, with five score of gaping idiots in front
+of me. Seeing this vulgar-looking intruder among them, who would not
+answer their simplest queries, or give any reason for being there,
+suspicion grew worse; they naturally wanted to know what it was, and
+what it wanted. Some thought I might be deaf, and raved questions in my
+ear at the top of their voices. Even then I remained impotently dumb.
+Two policemen came and said something. At their invitation I followed
+them, and found myself later in a small police box, the street lined
+with people, facing an officer.
+
+The man hailed me in speech uncivil. He was huge as the hyperborean
+bear, and cruel looking, and with a sort of apologetic petitionary growl
+I sidled off; but it was anything but comfortable, and I should not have
+been surprised had I found myself being led off to the yamen. After a
+nerve-trying half-hour, I was thankful to see the form of my men
+appearing at the moment when I was vehemently expressing indignation at
+not being understood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+_A bumptious official_. _Ignominious contrasts of two travelers.
+Diminishing respect for foreigners in the Far East_. _Where the European
+fails_. _His maltreatment of Orientals_. _Convicts on the way to death_.
+_At Ch'u-hsiony-fu_. _Buffaloes and children_. _Exasperating repetition
+met in Chinese home life_. _Un�sthetic womanhood_. _Quarrymen and
+careless tactics_. _Scope for the physiologist_. _Interesting unit of
+the city's humanity_. _Signs of decay in the countryside_. _Carrying the
+dead to eternal rest_. _At Chennan-chou_. _Public kotowing ceremony and
+its aftermath_. _Chinese ignorance of distance._
+
+
+All-round idyllic peace did not reign at Kwang-tung-hsien, where I
+rested over Sunday. Contacts in social conditions gave rise inevitably
+to causes for conflicts.
+
+Arriving early, my men were able to secure the best room and soon after,
+with much imposing pomp and show, a "gwan"[AH] arrived, disgusted that he
+had to take a lower room. I bowed politely to him as he came in. He did
+not return it, however, but stood with a contemptuous grin upon his face
+as he took in the situation. I do not know who the person was, neither
+have a wish to trace his ancestry, but his bumptiousness and general
+misbehavior, utterly in antagonism to national etiquette, made me hate
+the sight of the fellow. Pride has been said to make a man a hedgehog. I
+do not say that this man was a hedgehog altogether, but he certainly
+seemed to wound everyone he touched. He had with him a great retinue, an
+extravagant equipage, fine clothes, and presumably a great fortune; but
+none of this offended me--it was his contempt which hurt. He seemed to
+splash me with mud as he passed, and was altogether badly disposed. In
+his every act he heaped humiliation upon me, and insulted me silently
+and gratuitously with unbearable disdain. Luckily, be it said to the
+credit of the Chinese Government, one does not often meet officials of
+this kind; such an atmosphere would nurture the worst feeling. It is, of
+course, possible that had I been traveling with many men and in a style
+necessary for representatives of foreign Governments, this hog might
+have been more polite; but the fact that I had little with me, and made
+a poor sort of a show, allowed him to come out in his true colors and
+display his unveneered feeling towards the foreigner. That he had no
+knowledge of the man crossing China on foot was evident. He was great
+and rich--that was the sentiment he breathed out to everyone--and the
+foreigner was humble. There is no wrong in enjoying a large superfluity,
+but it was not indispensable to have displayed it, to have wounded the
+eyes of him who lacked it, to have flaunted his magnificence at the door
+of my commonplace.
+
+Had I been able to speak, I should have pointed out to this fellow that
+to know how to be rich is an art difficult to master, and that he had
+not mastered it; that as an official his first duty in exercising power
+was to learn that of humility; and that it is the irritating authority
+of such very lofty and imperious beings as himself, who say, "I am the
+law," that provokes insurrection. However, I was dumb, and could only
+return his contemptuous glance now and again.
+
+To him I could have said, as I would here say also to every foreigner in
+the employ of the Chinese Government, "The only true distinction is
+superior worth." If foreigners in China are to have social and official
+rank respected, they must begin to be worthy of their rank, otherwise
+they help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is a pity some native
+officials have to learn the same lesson.
+
+In several years of residence in the Far East I have noticed respect
+for the foreigner unhappily diminishing. The root of the evil is in the
+mistaken idea that high station exempts him who holds it from observing
+the common obligations of life. It comes about--so often have I seen it
+in the Straits Settlements and in various parts of India--that those who
+demand the most homage make the least effort to merit that homage they
+demand. That is chiefly why respect for the foreigner in the Orient is
+diminishing, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that the average
+European in the East and Far East does not treat the Oriental with
+respect. He considers that the Chinese, the Malay, the Burman, the
+Indian is there to do the donkey work only. The newcomer generally
+discovers in himself an astounding personal omnipotence, and even before
+he can talk the language is so obsessed with it that as he grows older,
+his sense of it broadens and deepens. And in China--of the Chinese this
+is true to-day as in other spheres of the Far East--the native is there
+to do the donkey work, and does it contentedly and for the most part
+cheerfully. But he will not always be so content and so cheerful. He
+will not always suffer a leathering from a man whom he knows he dare not
+now hit back.[AI] Some day he may hit back. We have seen it before, how
+at some moment, by some interior force making a way to the light, an
+explosion takes place: there is an upheaval, all sorts of grave
+disorders, and because some Europeans are killed the Celestial
+Government is called upon to pay, and to pay heavily. Indemnities are
+given, but the Chinese pride still feels the smart.
+
+[1
+Pulling away up the sides of barren, sandy hills in my lonely
+pilgrimage, I could see wide, fertile plains sheltered in the undulating
+hollows of mountains, over which in arduous toil I vanished and
+re-appeared, how or where I could hardly calculate. Suddenly, rounding
+an awkward corner, a magnificent panorama broke upon the view in a
+rolling valley watered by many streams below, all green with growing
+wheat. A high spur about midway up the rolling mountain forms a capital
+spot for wayfarers to stop and exchange travelers' notes. A couple of
+convicts were here, their feet manacled and their white cotton clothing
+branded with the seal of death; by the side were the crude wooden cages
+in which they were carried by four men, with whom they mixed freely and
+manufactured coarse jokes. In six days bang would fall the knife, and
+their heads would roll at the feet of the executioners at Y�n-nan-fu.
+
+Coming into Ch'u-hsiong-fu[AJ]--the stage is what the men call 90 li, but
+it is not more than 70--I was brought to an insignificant wayside place
+where the innkeeper upbraided my boy for endeavoring to allow me to pass
+without wetting a cup at his bonny hostelry. Had I done so, I should
+have avouched myself utterly indifferent to reputation as a traveler.
+
+But I did not stay the night here. I passed on through the town to a new
+building, an inn, into which I peered inquiringly. A well-dressed lad
+came courteously forward, in his bowing and scraping seeming to say,
+"Good sir, we most willingly embrace the opportunity of being honored
+with your noble self and your retinue under our poor roof. Long since
+have we known your excellent qualities; long have we wished to have you
+with us. We can have no reserve towards a person of your open and noble
+nature. The frankness of your humor delights us. Disburden yourself, O
+great brother, here and at once of your paraphernalia."
+
+I stayed, and was charged more for lodging than at any other place in
+all my wanderings in China. My experience was different from that of
+Major Davies when he visited this city in 1899. He writes:--
+
+
+"The people of this town are particularly conservative and exclusive.
+They have such an objection to strangers that no inn is allowed within
+the city walls, and no one from any other town is allowed to establish a
+shop.... When the telegraph line was first taken through here there was
+much commotion, and so determined was the opposition of the townspeople
+to this new-fangled means of communication that the telegraph office had
+to be put inside the colonel's yamen, the only place where it would be
+safe from destruction."
+
+
+The proprietor of the inn in which I stayed was a man of about fifty, of
+goodly person and somewhat corpulent, comely presence, good humor, and
+privileged freedom. He had a pretty daughter. He was an exception to the
+ordinary father in China, in the fact that he was proud of her, as he
+was of his house and his faring. But in all conscience he should have
+been abundantly ashamed of his charges, for my boy said I was charged
+three times too much, and I have no cause for doubting his word either,
+for he was fairly honest. I once had a boy in Singapore who acted for
+three weeks as a "ganti"[AK] whilst my own boy underwent a surgical
+operation, and between misreckonings, miscarriages, misdealings,
+mistakes and misdemeanors, had he remained with me another month I
+should have had to pack up lock, stock and barrel and clear.
+
+I stayed here a day in the hope of getting my mail, but had the
+pleasure of seeing only the bag containing it. It was sealed, and the
+postmaster had no authority to break that seal.
+
+There were no telegraph poles in the district through which I was
+passing; the connections were affixed to the trunks of trees. The
+telegraph runs right across the Ch'u-hsiong-fu plain, on entering which
+one crosses a rustic bridge just below a rather fine pagoda, from which
+an excellent view is obtained of the old city. The wall up towards the
+north gate, where there is another pagoda, is built over a high knoll.
+Inside the wall half the town is uncultivated ground. Four youngsters
+here were having a great time on the back of a lazy buffalo, who,
+turning his head swiftly to get rid of some irritating bee, dislodged
+the quartet to the ground, where they fought and cursed each other over
+the business.
+
+Everything that one sees around here is particularly "Chinesey." It may
+be supposed that I am not the first person who has gone through town
+after town and found in all that he looks at, particularly the houses,
+certain forms identical, inevitable, exasperating by common repetition.
+It has been said that poetry is not in things, it is in us; but in China
+very little poetry comes into the homes and lives of the common
+millions: they are all dead dwelling-houses, even the best, bare homes
+without life or brightness. Among the working-classes of the West there
+is to be found a kind of ministering beauty which makes its way
+everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is
+cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift
+finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her
+house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and
+winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible.
+But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the
+last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of
+personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of witchery in
+the tying of a ribbon. Everywhere you find the same class of furniture
+and garniture, the same shape of table, of stool, of form, of bed, of
+cooking utensils, of picture, of everything; and all the details of her
+housekeeping are so apathetically uninteresting. The Chinese woman has
+no charming art, rather is it a common, horrid, daily grind. She is not,
+as the woman should be, the interpreter in her home of her own grace,
+and she differs from her Western sister in that it is impossible for her
+to express in her dress also the little personalities of character--all
+is eternally the same. But I know so very little of ladies' clothing,
+and therefore cease.
+
+Quarrying was going on high up among the hills as I left the city. Men
+were out of sight, but their hammering was heard distinctly. As each
+boulder was freed these wielders of the hammer yelled to passers-by to
+look out for their heads, gave the stone a push to start it rolling, and
+if it rolled upon you it was your own fault and not theirs--you should
+have seen to it that you were somewhere else at the time. If it blocked
+the pathway, another had to be made by those who made the traffic.
+Directly under the quarry I was accosted by a beggar. "Old foreign man!
+Old foreign man!" he yelled. Stones were falling fast; it is possible
+that he does not sit there now.
+
+Physiognomists do not swarm in China. There is grand scope for someone.
+There would be ample material for research for the student in the
+soldiers alone who would be sent to guard him from place to place. He
+would not need to go farther afield; for he would be given fat men and
+lean men, brave men and cowards, some blessed with brains and some not
+one whit brainy, civil and surly, stubby and lanky, but rogues and liars
+all. Travelers are always interested in their chairmen; oftentimes my
+interest in them was greater than theirs in me, until the time came for
+us to part. Then the "Ch'a ts'ien,"[AL] always in view from the outset of
+their duty, brought us in a manner nearer to each other.
+
+As I came out of the inn at Ch'u-hsiong-fu somewhat hurriedly, for my
+men lingered long over the rice, I stumbled over the yamen fellow who
+crouched by the doorside. He laughed heartily. Had I fallen on him his
+tune might have been changed; but no matter. This unit of the city
+humanity was not bewilderingly beautiful. He was profoundly
+ill-proportioned, very goitrous, and ravages of small-pox had bequeathed
+to him a wonderful facial ugliness. He had, however, be it written to
+his honor, learnt that life was no theory. One could see that at a
+glance as he walked along at the head of the procession, with a stride
+like an ox, manfully shouldering his absurd weapon of office, which in
+the place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg
+of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was
+embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare
+from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder
+worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had
+learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition
+embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish to achieve great things,
+unless it were that in his fidelity to small things he laid the base of
+great achievements. He waited upon me hand and foot; he burned with
+ardor for my personal comfort and well-being; he did not complicate life
+by being engrossed in anything which to him was of no concern--his only
+concern was the foreigner, and towards me he carried out his duty
+faithfully and to the letter. I would wager that that man, ugly of face
+and form, but most kindly disposed to one who could communicate little
+but dumb approval, was an excellent citizen, an excellent father, an
+excellent son.
+
+So very different was another traveler who unceremoniously forced
+himself upon me with the inevitable "Ching fan, ching fan," although he
+had no food to offer. He commenced with a far-fetched eulogium of my
+ambling palfrey Rusty, who limped along leisurely behind me. So far as
+he could remember, poor ignorant ass, he had never seen a pony like it
+in his extensive travels--probably from Y�n-nan-fu to Tali-fu, if so
+far; but as a matter of fact, Rusty had wrenched his right fore fetlock
+between a gully in the rocks the day before and was now going lame.
+Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion
+was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border
+almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly
+awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp,
+was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, it was
+something incomparably worse. Not for a moment throughout the day did he
+leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we
+drank--tea, of course--he vainly begged to be allowed to pay. In that he
+was the shadow of some of my friends of younger days.
+
+But of men enough.
+
+From Ch'u-hsiong-fu on to Tali-fu the whole country bears lamentable
+signs of gradual ruin and decay, a falling off from better times. The
+former city is probably the most important point on the route, and is
+mentioned as a likely point for the proposed Y�n-nan Railway.
+
+The country has never recovered from the terrible effects of the great
+Mohammendan Rebellion of 1857. Foundations of once imposing buildings
+still stand out in fearful significance, and ruins everywhere over the
+barren country tell plain tales all too sad of the good days gone.
+Temples, originally fit for the largest city in the Empire, with
+elaborate wood and stone carving and costly, weird images sculptured in
+stone, with particularly fine specimens of those blood-curdling
+Buddhistic hells and their presiding monsters, with miniature ornamental
+pagodas and intricate archways, are all now unused; and when the people
+need material for any new building (seldom erected now in this
+district), the temple grounds are robbed still more. In the days of its
+prosperity Y�n-nan must have been a fair land indeed, bright, smiling,
+seductive; now it is the exact antithesis, and the people live sad,
+flat, colorless existences.
+
+For three days my caravan was preceded by twelve men, headed by a sort
+of gaffer with a gong, carrying a corpse in a massive black coffin,
+elaborate in red and blue silk drapings and with the inevitable white
+cock presiding, one leg tied with a couple of strands of straw to the
+cover, on which it crowed lustily. Their mission was an honorable one,
+carrying the honored dead to its last bed of rest eternal; for this dead
+man had secured the fulfillment of the highest in human destiny--to have
+his bones buried near the scene of his youth, near his home. This is a
+simple custom the Chinese cherish and reverence, of highest honor to the
+dead and of no mean value to the living. To the dead, because buried
+near the home of his fathers he would not be subject to those delusive
+temptations in the future state of that confused and complex life; to
+the living, because it gave work to a dozen men for several days, and
+enabled them to have a good time at the expense of the departed. A
+perpetual and excruciatingly unmusical chant, in keeping with the
+occasion's sadness, rent the mountain air, interrupted only when the
+bearers lowered the coffin and left the remains of the great dead on a
+pair of trestles in the roadway, whilst they drank to his happiness
+above and smoked tobacco which the relatives had given them. Once this
+heaper-up of Chinese merit[AM] was dumped unceremoniously on the turf
+while the headman entered into a blackguarding contest with one of the
+fellows who was alleged to be constantly out of step with his brethren,
+because he was a much smaller man. The gaffer gave him a bit of a
+drubbing for his insolence.
+
+Rain came on at Chennan-chou, a small town of about three hundred
+houses, where I sought shelter in the last house of the street. The
+householder, a shrivelled, goitrous humpback, received me kindly,
+removed his pot of cabbage from the fire to brew tea for his uninvited
+guest, and showed great gratitude (to such an extent that he nearly fell
+into the fire as he moved to push the children forward towards me) when
+I gave a few cash to three kiddies, who gaped open-mouthed at the
+apparition thus found unexpectedly before their parent's hearth. More
+came in, my beneficent attention being modestly directed towards them;
+others followed, and still more, and more, whilst the man, removing from
+his mouth his four-foot pipe, and wiping the mouthpiece with his soiled
+coat-sleeve before offering it to me to smoke, smiled as I distributed
+more cash.
+
+"They are all mine," he said cutely.
+
+Poor fellow! There must have been a dozen nippers there, and I sighed at
+the thought of what some men come to as the last of half a string of
+cash slipped through my fingers.[AN]
+
+Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch--erected, maybe,
+to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district--I untied my
+pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers
+ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied
+air. As we were thus engaged and discussing the prospects of the storm,
+yelling from under a gigantic straw hat, a fellow said--
+
+"Suan liao" ("not worth reckoning") "only five more li to
+Sha-chiao-kai."
+
+We had thirty li to do. Such is the idea of distance in Y�n-nan.[AO]
+
+The storm did not come, however, and my men ever after reminded me to
+keep out my wind-cap and my mackintosh, partly to lighten their loads,
+of course, and partly on account of the good omen it seemed to them to
+be.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AH: "Gwan" is the Chinese for "official."]
+
+[Footnote AI: I have seen a European, with an imperfect hold of an
+eastern language, knock an Asiatic down because he thought the man was a
+fool, whereas he himself was ignorant of what was going on. The message
+the coolie was bringing was misunderstood by the conceited assistant,
+and as a result of having just this smattering of the vernacular, he ran
+his firm in for a loss of fifty thousand dollars.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AJ: Ts'u-hsiong-fu, as it is pronounced locally, with a strong
+"ts" initial sound.]
+
+[Footnote AK: Meaning a relief hand (Malay).]
+
+[Footnote AL: Literally, "tea money."]
+
+[Footnote AM: "Heaping up merit" is one of the elementary practices of
+Chinese religious life.]
+
+[Footnote AN: Chennan-chou, which stands at a height of 6,500 feet, has
+been visited again since by myself. My caravan consisted on this
+occasion of two ponies (one I was riding), two coolies, a servant, and
+myself. As we got to the archway in the middle of the street leading to
+the busy part of the town, my animal nearly landed me into the gutter,
+and the other horse ran into a neighboring house, both frightened by
+crackers which were being fired around a man who was bumping his head on
+the ground in front of an ancestral tablet, brought into the street for
+the purpose. A horrid din made the air turbulent. I sought refuge in the
+nearest house, tying my ponies up to the windows, and was most
+hospitably received as a returned prodigal by a well-disposed old man
+and his courtly helpmate. The genuineness of the hospitality of the
+Chinese is as strong as their unfriendliness can be when they are
+disposed to show a hostile spirit to foreigners. Just as I had laid up
+for dinner the din stopped, we breathed gunpowder smoke instead of air,
+everyone from the head-bumping ceremony came around me, and there
+lingered in silent admiration. My boy came and whispered, quite aloud
+enough for all to hear, that in that part of the town cooked rice could
+not be bought, and that I was going to be left to look after the horses
+and the loads whilst the men went away to feed. He advised the assembled
+crowd that if they valued sound physique they had better keep their
+hands off my gear and depart. My friendly host shut the doors and
+windows, with the exception of that through which I watched our
+impedimenta, and at once commenced good-natured inquiry into my past,
+and concerning vicissitudes of life in general. Luckily, I was able to
+give the old man good reason for congratulating me upon my ancestral
+line, my own great age, the number of my wives and offshoots--mostly
+"little puppies"--and as each curious caller dropped in to sip tea, so
+did one after another of the patriarchal dignitaries who were
+responsible for the human product then entertaining the crowd come
+vividly before the imagination of the company, and they were graced with
+every token of age and honor. (Chinese speak of sons as "little
+puppies.")]
+
+[Footnote AO: In crossing a river here I slipped, and from ray pocket
+there rolled a box of photographic films, and in reaching over to
+re-capture it, I let my loaded camera fall into the water. I was
+disappointed, as most of my best pictures were thus (as I imagined)
+spoilt. But when I developed at Bhamo, I found not a single film damaged
+by water, and every picture was a success from both the roll in the tin
+and the roll in the camera. It is a tribute to the Eastman-Kodak Company
+Ltd. that their non-curling films will stand being dipped into rivers
+and remain unaffected. The films in question should have been developed
+six months prior to the date of my exposure.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+_Stampede of frightened women_. _To the Eagle Nest_. _An acrobatic
+performance, and some retaliation at the author's expense_. _Over the
+mountains to Pu-p�ng A magnificent storm, and a description_. _In a
+"rock of ages." Hardiness of my comrades_. _Early morning routine and
+some impressions_. _Unspeakable filth of the Chinese_. _Lolo people of
+the district_. _Physique of the women_. _Aspirations towards Chinese
+customs_. _Skilless building_. _Mythological, anthropological,
+craniological and antediluvian disquisitions_. _At Y�n-nan-�_. _Flat
+country_. _Thriftless humanity_. _To Hungay_. _A day of days_. _Traveler
+in bitter cold unable to procure food_. _Fright in middle night_. _A
+timely rescue_. _Murder of a bullock on my doorstep_. _Callous
+disposition of fellow-travelers_. _Leaving the capital of an old-time
+kingdom_. _Bad roads and good men_. _National virtue of unfailing
+patience_. _Human consumption of diseased animals. Minchia at Hungay_.
+_Major Davies and the Minchia_. _Author's differences of opinion.
+Increasing popularity of the small foot._
+
+
+But the storm came the next day, as we were on our way to Pu-p�ng,
+during the ninety li when we passed the highest point on this journey.
+By name The Eagle Nest Barrier (Ting-wu-kwan), this elevated pass, 8,600
+feet above the level, reached after a gradual ascent between two
+mountain ranges, was surmounted after a couple of hours' steep climbing,
+where rain and snow had made the paths irritatingly slippery and the
+task most laborious. Although the condition of the road was enough to
+take all the wind out of one's sails, the sublimity of the scenery of
+the dense woods which clothed the mountains, exquisitely pretty ravines,
+tumbling waterfalls, running rivulets and sparkling brooks, with little
+patches of snow hidden away in the maze of greens of every hue, all
+rendered it a climb less tiring than the narrow pathways over which we
+were then to travel. Half-way up we met a string of ponies, and I
+underwent a few nervous moments until they had passed in the twenty-inch
+road--a slight tilt, a slip, a splutter, probably a yell, and I should
+have dropped 500 feet without a bump.
+
+As we went along together, just before reaching this hill, we saw women
+carrying bags of rice. They saw us, too. One passed me safely, but with
+fear. The others carelessly dropping their burdens, scampered off,
+afraid of their lives; and when one of my soldiers (whose sense of humor
+was on a par with my own when as a boy I used to stick butterscotch
+drops on the bald head of my Sunday School teacher, and bend pins for
+small boys to sit on and rise from) shouted to them, they dived straight
+as a die over the hedge into a submerged rice-field, and made a sorry
+spectacle with their "lily" feet and pale blue trousers, covered with
+the thin mud. In struggling to get away, one of them, the silly
+creature, went sprawling on all fours in the slime, and with only the
+imperfect footing possible to her with her little stumps, she would have
+been submerged, had not the man who had frightened her, at my bidding,
+gone to drag her out. As it was, they looked anything but beautiful with
+their wet and muddy garments clinging tightly to their bodies, and
+betraying every curve of their not unbeautiful figures. One of the
+women, a comely damsel of some twenty summers, did not jump into the
+field, but lay flat on the ground behind some bushes, thereby hoping to
+get out of sight, and now came forward with amorous glances. We,
+however, sent them on their way, and I will lay my life that they will
+not "scoot" at the sight of the next foreigner.
+
+And now we are at the "Nest." Many travelers have made remarks upon this
+place, where I was waited upon by a shrivelled, shambling specimen of
+manhood, whose wife--in contrast to her kind in China--seemed to rule
+house and home, bed and board. Whilst we were there, a Chinese, bound
+on the downward journey, endeavored to mount his mule at the very moment
+the animal was reaching out for a blade of straw. As he swung his leg
+across the mule took another step forward, and the rider fell bodily
+with an enormous bump into the lap of one of my coolies, upsetting him
+and his bowl of tea over his trousers and my own. I could not suppress
+hearty approval of this acrobatic incident.
+
+But the end was not yet.
+
+I sat on one end of one of those narrow forms, and this same coolie sat
+on the other. He rose up suddenly, reached over for the common salt-pot,
+and I came off--with the multitude of alfresco diners laughing at this
+smart retaliation until their chock-full mouths emitted the grains of
+rice they chewed.
+
+After that I cleared off. Descending through a fertile valley, from the
+bottom there loomed upwards higher mountains, looking black and dismal,
+with clouds black and dismal keeping them company. We had now to cross
+the undulating ground still separating us from Pu-p�ng. The early
+portion of the ground was something like Clifton Downs, something like
+Dartmoor. The country was poor, and the people barely put themselves out
+to boil water for chance travelers.
+
+The storm broke suddenly. From the shelter of a hollowed rock I watched
+it all.
+
+Over the submerged plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of
+night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and
+the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed
+struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of
+fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly
+from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their
+waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision in the cruel clouds
+the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over
+yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the
+lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the
+Artist of the skies. Then came a rainbow of sweetest multi-color, of a
+splendor glorious and exquisite, delicate as the breath from paradise,
+stretching its majestic archbow athwart the waning gloom from range to
+range. As one drank in the glimpses of that dark corner in this peculiar
+fairyland, a mighty peal of magnificent, stentorian clashing broke
+finally upon me, and heaven's electricity again flitted fearfully over
+the earth, aslant, upwards, downwards again, upwards again, disappearing
+over the unmoved hills like a thousand tortured souls fleeing from
+Dante's Hades. And here I sit on, in that veritable "rock of ages" cleft
+for me, glad that no human touch save that of my own mean clay, that no
+human voice came between me and the voice of that Infinite beyond. I
+seemed to have been standing on the verge of another world, another
+great unknown. The heavens raged and the thunders thereof roared, and
+the wild wind hissed and moaned and wailed the hopeless wail of a
+lonely, tormented soul. The cold was intense, and through it all I sat
+drenched to the skin.
+
+On the bleak mountain thus I was the pitifulest atom of loneliest
+humanity, yet felt no loneliness. The face of the earth frowned in angry
+fury, the awfulness of the raging elements dwarfed all else to utter
+annihilation. But even at such a time, coming all too seldom in the
+lives of most of us, when standing in some remote spot which still tells
+forth the story of the world's youth, one's inmost nature thrills with a
+sense of unison with it all beyond human expression. All was so grand,
+inspiring one with an awe beyond one's comprehension, a peculiar, dread
+of one's own earthly insignificance. These pictures, graven in one's
+memory with the strong pencil of our common mother, are indelible, yet
+quite beyond expression. As in our own souls we cannot frame in words
+our deepest life emotions, so as we penetrate into the depths of that
+kindly common mother of us all we find human words the same utterly
+futile channel of expression. To have our souls tuned to this silent
+eloquence of Nature, to catch the sweetness of those wind-swept,
+heaven-directed mountains, to understand the unspoken messages of those
+rushing rivers and those gigantic gorges, to feel the heart-beat of
+Nature and her beauty in perfect harmony with all that is best within
+us, we must be silent, undisturbed, preferably alone. This is not
+flowery sentiment--it is what every true lover of old and lovely Nature
+would feel in Western China, yet still unspoiled by the taint of man's
+absorbing stream of civilization. And in the stress of modern life, and
+the progress of man's monopolization of the earth on which he lives, it
+is beautiful to some of us, of whom it may be said the highest state of
+inward happiness comes from solitary meditation in unperturbed
+loneliness under the broad expanse of heaven, to know that there are
+still some spots of isolation where human foot has never turned the
+clay, and where, out of sight and sound of fellow mortals, we may even
+for a time shake off the violating, unnatural fetters of a harassing
+Western life.
+
+Soon it seemed as if a silken cord had suddenly been severed, and I had
+been dragged from a world of sweet infinitude down to a sphere mundane
+and everyday, to something I had known before.... "....Or what is
+Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the 'Living Garment
+of God'? O Heaven, is it in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks
+through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in
+me?"[AP]
+
+I heard the crack of the bamboo and the patter of feet in the sodden,
+slippery pathway, and I knew my men were come. Crawling out from my
+rock, I descended again to common things, having to listen to the
+disgusting talk of my Chinese followers, though a very slender
+vocabulary saved me from losing entirely the memory of that great
+picture then passing away. The sun shone through the clouds, which had
+given place again to blue, the pervading blackness of a few moments
+before had disappeared, and with the sinking sun we descended
+thoughtfully to the town. The hill is solid sandstone, and the uneven
+ruts made by the daily procession of ponies were transformed into a
+network of tiny streams.
+
+That my comrades were drenched to the skin gave them no thought; they
+turned to immediately, while I dived hurriedly to the bottom of my box
+and gulped down quinine. They sat around and drank hot water, holding
+forth with eloquence beyond their wont on the general advantages,
+naturally and supernaturally, of their native city of Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+And well they might, for I know no prettier spot in the whole of Western
+China.
+
+Fifty men--coolies who were carrying general merchandise in all
+directions, and who had taken shelter in the large inn I stayed at--rose
+with me the next morning. As I ate my morning meal, spluttering the rice
+over the floor as I tried vainly to control my chopsticks with
+frost-nipped fingers, they went through the filthy round of early
+morning routine. Squatting about with their dirty face-rags, and a
+half-pint of greasy water in their brass receptacle shaped like the
+soup-plate of civilization, and leaving upon their necks the traces of
+their swills, they wiped the dirt into their hair, and considered they
+had washed themselves. Men would emerge from their rooms, fully dressed,
+with the dishclout in one hand and the hand-basin in the other--on the
+way to their morning tub. Oh, the filth, the unspeakable filth of these
+people! Would that the Chinese would emulate the cleanliness of the
+Japs, though even that I would question. In several years in the Orient
+I have not yet come across the cleanliness in any race of people to be
+compared with that cleanliness which in England is next to godliness.
+
+The people of Pu-p�ng were pleased to see me. They hurried about
+obligingly to get food for man and beast, and the womankind, poor but
+light-hearted, cracked suggestive jokes with my men with the utmost
+freedom.
+
+In this town there are many Lolo--it might be said that the entire
+population is of Lolo origin, although had I suggested to any particular
+inhabitant that this was a fact he would probably have taken keen
+offense, and things might have gone badly with me. With the men it is
+most difficult to tell--there is little difference between the _Han ren_
+and the tribesman. But the difference is often most marked in respect to
+the women. The Chinese woman has a considerably fairer skin than the
+female of Lolo descent, and her customs and manners, apart from the
+distinct colloquial accent, are quite evident as pretty sure proof of
+distinction of race. After the Lolo have mingled with the Chinese for a
+few years, however, it is quite difficult to differentiate between them,
+as most of the Lolo women now speak Chinese (in this town I did not hear
+any language foreign to the Chinese language), and a good many of the
+men are sufficiently educated to read the Chinese character even if they
+do not write it. The forward racial condition of the Lolo people in this
+district is far greater than that of the people of the same tribe to the
+west of Tali-fu, and in latitudes where their language and customs of
+life and dress are more or less maintained. The women are generally of
+better physique than the Chinese, principally on account of the fact
+that their work is almost exclusively outdoor; but as they begin to copy
+the Chinese, and live a more sedentary life, this fine physique will
+probably gradually disappear. A good many already bind their feet.
+
+When I came out in the early morning the thermometer was twenty degrees
+below zero, and my nose was red and without feeling. _Feng-mao_[AQ] and
+great coat were required, but I was totally oblivious of the hour's
+stiff climbing awaiting me immediately outside the town, to reach the
+highest point in which bathed me in perspiration as if I had played
+three sets of tennis in the tropics.
+
+Mountains were wild and barren, with nothing in them to enable one to
+forget in natural beauty the fatigues of a toilsome ascent. Villages
+came now and again in sight, stretched out at the extremity of the plain
+before my eyes, with their white gables, red walls, and black tiled
+roofs, but during the day we passed through two only. The first was a
+little place where decay would have been absolute had it not been for
+the likin[AR] flag, which enables "squeezes" to be extorted ruthlessly
+from the muleteer and conveyed to the pockets of the prospering customs
+agent. It boasted only ten or twelve tumbling lean-to tenements, where
+my sympathy went out to the half-dozen physical wrecks of men who came
+slowly and stared long, and wondered at the commonest article of my
+meager impedimenta. They seemed poorer and lower down the human scale
+than any I had yet seen. On one of the ragged garments worn by a man of
+about twenty-five I counted no less than thirty-four patches of
+different shapes, sizes and materials, hieroglyphically and skillessly
+thrown together to hide his sore-strewn back; but still his brown
+unwashed flesh was visible in many places.
+
+Looking upon them, one did not like to think that these beings were men,
+men with passions like to one's own, for all the interests, real and
+imaginary, all the topics which should expand the mind of man, and
+connect him in sympathy with general existence, were crushed in the
+absorbing considerations of how rice was to be procured for their
+families of diseaseful brats. They had no brains, these men; or if
+Heaven had thus o'erblessed them, they did not exercise them in their
+industry--their coarse, rough hands alone gained food for the day's
+feeding. And these mud-roofed, mud-sided dwellings--these were their
+homes, to me worse homes than none at all. In their architecture not
+even a single idea could be traced--the Chinese here had proceeded as if
+by merest accident. All I could think as I returned their wondering
+glances was that their world must be very, very old. But I have no time
+or space to talk of them here. To throw more than a cursory glance at
+them Would lead me into interminable disquisitions of a mythological,
+anthropological, craniological, and antediluvian nature for which one
+would not find universal approval among his readers. To those who would
+study such questions I say, "Fall to!" There is enough scope for a
+lifetime to bring into light the primeval element so strangely woven
+into the lives of these people.
+
+At Y�n-nan-� bunting and weird street decoration made the place hideous
+in my eyes. The crowded town was making considerable ado about some
+expected official. I saw none, more than a courteous youth--to whom, of
+course, I was quite unknown and deaf and dumb--who graciously shifted
+goods and chattels from the inn's best room to hand it over to me for my
+occupation. With due tact and some excitability, I protested vigorously
+against his coming out. He insisted. Smiling upon him with grave
+benignity, I said that I would take a smaller room, and gave orders to
+that effect to my man, adding that my whole sense of right and justice
+towards fellow-travelers revolted against such self-sacrifice on his
+part. He still insisted. Smiling again, this time the timid smile of the
+commoner looking up into the face of the great, I allowed myself
+reluctantly to be pushed bodily into the best apartment.
+
+This was my intention from the first. Although not too familiar with
+it, I allowed the Chinese to imagine that I was well grounded in the
+absurdities of his national etiquette; whilst he, observing, too, the
+outrageous routine of common politeness, probably went away swearing
+that he had been turned out. He had cut off his nose to spite his face.
+
+I cannot truthfully deny, however, that the fellow was very kind, but he
+would persist in the belief that it was an impossibility for me to tell
+the truth. Later, pointing at me and eyeing me up and down as I shaved
+in the twilight, he sneered, "Engleeshman! Engleeshman!" and scooting
+with an armful of clothing, small pots of eatables, official documents
+and other sundries, told me point-blank that he did not believe that
+such a noble person could not speak such a contemptible language as
+Chinese.
+
+Seeing no official, then, I presumed I was their man. Whilst I fed
+slowly on my rice and cabbage in a small earth-floor room, with my nose
+as near as convenient to my oil lamp to get a little warmth, the
+discomfort of Chinese life was forced upon me, and I imagined I was
+having a good time. I was the best off in the inn by far; the others
+must have been colder, certainly had worse food to eat, and yet to me it
+was all the height of utmost cheerlessness.
+
+From a hamlet opposite the town, where I sat down by the fire
+exhausted in an old woman's shaky dwelling, and fed on aged
+sardines and hot rice (atrocious mixture), there is a plain extending
+for twenty li to Y�n-nan-�--flat as country in the Fen district. The
+road was good (in wet weather, however, it must be terrible), and I
+would drive a motor-car across, were it not for the 15-in. ruts which
+disfigure the surface. And I know a man who would do this even, despite
+the ruts: he takes a delight in running over dogs and small boys,
+damaging rickshaws, bumping into bullock-carts, and so on--he would
+have done it with liveliest freedom.
+
+But what poverty there was! What women! What Children! With barely an
+exception, the women had faces ground by want and bare necessity, in
+which every cheerful and sympathetic lineament had been effaced by
+life-long slavery and misery. In the bitter cold they, women and
+children, crouched round a scanty fir-wood firing, not enough even to
+keep alive their natural heat. One long pitiful sight of thriftless
+poverty.
+
+To Hungay was a fearful day. Little to eat could I procure, and the cold
+gave me a lusty ox's appetite. To me a bellyful came as a windfall.
+
+At last we sat down by the roadside at one small table, hearing the test
+of age, rickety and worm-eaten. We gathered like hogs at their troughs,
+with the household hog scratching at our feet. I grew impatient and
+querulous over constant culinary disappointment. I longed not for the
+heaped-up board of the pampered and luxurious, I wanted food. Indigent
+man was I, whose dietetical elegancies had been forgotten, a man with
+ravenous desires seeking sustenance, not relishes; the means of life,
+not the means of pampering the carcass; I wanted food.
+
+And here I had it. The hungry were to be fed.
+
+It was a foul orgy, a gruesome spectacle, a horrible picture of the
+gluttony of famished men. This meal conjured up visions of the "most
+unlovely of the functions." We fed on _mien_, that long, greasy, grimy,
+slippery, slimy string of boneless white--I see it now! And the
+half-done tin of sardines set before me, too, the broken stools in the
+thatch-worn shed, the dismantled hearth, the muddy earthen floor, the
+haggard, hungry villains--I see them all again.[AS]
+
+It should, however, be said that I went away from the main road over a
+range of hills where nobody lives. Had I kept to the "ta lu" food would
+have been quite easy to get.
+
+To Hungay was given the honor of entertaining me over the Sunday, a
+pleasant rest after a week of arduous and exhausting walking. I arrived
+late at night, and the old town's rough streets were bathed in a silver
+shower of moonbeams, the air was cold and frosty, little groups of the
+curious came to the doors of their dwellings, laughing sarcastically,
+despite their own poverty, at the distinguished traveler thus coming
+upon them.
+
+In marked contrast to this outside animation were the happenings at the
+inn which gave me shelter. Business was bad. Three undistinguished
+travelers--coolies with loads--and myself and men made up the meager
+total of paying guests. This was the reason why it was chosen for me,
+for peace and quiet. Quiet had been forced upon the household, so I was
+told, by the death by fits of a haughty and resolute lady; and now that
+the night had fallen and we had all had our rice, the deep hush--or its
+equivalent in Cathay, at all events--seemed likely to be unbroken until
+a new day should dawn. My room here had a verandah overlooking a back
+court, and here I sat at midnight, unseen by anyone, looking up to the
+changeless stars in an unpitying sky; and as I stood thus there blew
+from the gates of night and across the mountains a wind that made me
+shiver less with physical cold than with a sense of loneliness and
+captivity. For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if
+the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the
+cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and
+then again at the soldiers with their guns, I turned giddy, shuddering
+at the darkness and the loneliness, and with a nameless fear lying at
+the center of life like a lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen foe.
+
+They addressed me, but I cared not what they said. I pretended I could
+not speak Chinese, watched the quartet form a circle, and talk slowly
+and low, and it did not need the mind of a prophet to see that they were
+discussing how best they could capture me. Were they going to kill me?
+My boy and the other friends I had in the place were sleeping
+blissfully, ignorant that their master was in such trying straits. I was
+asked my name, and the inquirers, not over civil, were told. They again
+asked me for something, I knew not what, probably for my passport. I
+had none, and cursed my luck that I had forgotten to pack it when I had
+left Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+
+To me it was quite evident that they were deciding my destiny, or so it
+seemed in the stillness of the night. Looking upwards, I wondered
+whether I was soon to learn the secret of the stars and sky, and those
+men seemed to watch the secret workings of my soul. Outside the wind
+made moan continuously.
+
+Suddenly my door opened noisily, a light was flashed upon us, and I saw
+the bulky form of the landlord. Then all was well. Soon one of my men
+appeared, and explained that the soldiers were on their way to meet an
+official who was coming from Tali-fu, that their instructions were that
+they would meet him at Hungay. They took me for the "gwan."
+
+So my end was not yet. But now, months afterwards, when I stand and
+listen to the wind at midnight, there seems borne to me in every sob and
+wail a memory of that hateful night and the four soldiers with their
+guns.
+
+It seemed not long afterwards that I was awakened by noises on the
+doorstep. Looking out, I found a bullock, its four feet tied together
+with a straw rope, writhing in its last agonies; the butcher, in his
+hand a cruel 24-inch bladed knife still red with blood, smiling the
+smile of ironic torture as he looked down upon his struggling victim. He
+straightway skinned the animal and cut up the carcass immediately in
+front of my door, where Lao Chang waited to get the best cut for my
+dinner. My three fellow-lodgers squatted alongside, going through their
+apologetic ablutions as if naught were happening. Their dirty face-rags
+were wrung and rewrung; they got to work with that universal tooth-brush
+(the forefinger!), and that the dead body of a bullock was being
+dissected two feet from the table at which they ate their steaming rice
+was a detail of not the slightest consequence in the world.
+
+Hungay is an old-time capital of one of the original kingdoms,
+destroyed in the year A.D. 749. The road leading out towards Chao-chow
+was built some considerable time before that year, and has never been
+subject to any repairs whatever (for this fact I have drawn upon my
+imagination, but should be very much surprised to know that I am far out
+in my reckoning). Villagers have appropriated the public slabs and small
+boulders which comprised the wretched thoroughfare; reminiscent puddles
+tell you the tale, and the badness of the road renders it necessary for
+the traveler to be out of bed a little earlier than usual to face the
+ordeal. The road to-day has been practically as bad as walking along the
+sides of the Yangtze. But as I studied the patience and physical
+vitality of my three men, laughing and joking with the light-heartedness
+of children, with nearly seventy catties dangling from their
+shoulder-pole, without a word of murmuring, I felt a little ashamed of
+myself that I, whose duty it was merely to _walk_, should have made such
+a fuss. These men were prepared to work a very long time for very little
+reward, as no matter how small the rewards for the terribly exhausting
+labor, it were better than none at all,--so they philosophized.
+
+That quiet persistence and unfailing patience form a national virtue
+among the Chinese--the capacity to wait without complaint and to bear
+all with silent endurance. This virtue is seen more clearly in great
+national disasters which occasionally befall the country. The terrible
+famine of 1877-8 was the cause of the death of millions of people, and
+left scores of millions without house, food or clothing; they were
+driven forth as wanderers on the face of the earth without home, without
+hope. The Government does nothing whatever in these cases. The people
+who wish to live must find the means to live, and what impressed me all
+through my wanderings was the absolute science to which poverty is
+reduced. In such calamities the Chinese, of all men on the earth's
+surface, will battle along if there is any chance at all. If he is
+blessed, he once more becomes a farmer; but if not, he accepts the
+position as inevitable and irremediable. The Chinese race has the finest
+power in the world to withstand with fortitude the ills of life and the
+miseries which follow inability to procure the wherewithal to live.
+Their nerves are somehow different from our Western nerves.
+
+In China nothing is wasted, not only in food, but in everything
+affecting the common life.
+
+That a beast dies of disease is of no concern. It is eaten all the same
+from head to hoof, from skin to entrail, and the remarkable fact is that
+they do not seem to suffer from it, either. At Kiang-ti (mentioned in a
+previous chapter) I saw a horse being pushed down the hillside to the
+river. It was not yet dead, but was dying, so far as I could see, of
+inflammation of the bowels. Its body was cut up, and there were several
+people waiting to buy it at forty cash the catty.
+
+From Hungay onwards I met a class of people I had not seen before. They
+were the Minchia (Pe-tso).
+
+Major H.R. Davies, whose treatise on the tribes of Y�n-nan at the end of
+his excellent work on travel in the province, is probably the best yet
+written, writes that he met Minchia people only on the plains of Tali-fu
+and Chao-chow, and never east of the latter place. This was in travel
+some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many
+Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as
+a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. There is
+little doubt that the Minchia originally came from country lying between
+the border of the province and round Li-chiang-fu and the Tali-fu plain
+and lake. Most of them wear Chinese dress; many of the women bind their
+feet (and the practice is growing in popularity), although those who
+have not small feet are still in the majority. In a small city lying
+some few li from the city of Tali all the inhabitants are Minchia, and I
+found no difficulty in spotting a Chinese man or woman--there is a
+distinct facial difference. Minchia have bigger noses, generally the
+eyes are set farther apart, and the skin is darker. Pink trousers are in
+fashion among the ladies--trace of base feminine weakness!--but are not
+by any means the distinguishing features of race.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AP: Carlyle, _Sartor Resartus_.]
+
+[Footnote AQ: Wind-cap, a long Chinese wadded hat which reaches over
+one's head and down over the shoulders, tied under the chin with
+ribbons.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AR: Likin, as everyone knows, is custom duty. All along the
+main roads of China one meets likin stations, distinguished by the flag
+at the entrance.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AS: I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am
+convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been
+something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in
+summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes
+midway between Y�n-nan-� and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation,
+interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant
+contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine,
+lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which
+is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon
+the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard
+a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they
+suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the
+departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as
+one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was
+struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what
+we in the West call civilization. Yet nothing bore traces of gross
+uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite
+content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could,
+soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and
+their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with
+babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played
+roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields;
+coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring
+villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned
+and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with
+old-time pomp--not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in
+the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair
+carried by men. There was plenty of everything--enough for all--but all
+had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants
+were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have
+noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire
+to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as
+little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and
+mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will
+contradict it? They do not see with the eyes of the West; we do not, we
+cannot, see with their eyes. But surely the living of this simple life,
+the same as it was in the beginning, has a good deal in it; it is not
+uncivilization, not barbarism, and the fair-minded traveler in China can
+come to but one opinion, even in the midst of all the conflicting
+emotions which result from his own upbringing, that we could, if we
+would, learn many a good lesson from the old-time life of the Celestial
+in his own country.
+
+Yet these are the very people who may jostle us harshly later on in the
+racial struggle.
+
+I am not suggesting that when the Chinese adopts the cult of the West,
+and comes into general contact with it--and I believe that I am right in
+saying that this is the desire, generally speaking, of the whole of the
+enlightened classes--he continues with his few wants. As a matter of
+fact, he does not. He is as extravagant, and perhaps more so, than the
+most of us. I have seen Straits Chinese waste at the gaming tables in
+their gorgeous clubs as much in one night as some European residents
+handle in one year, and he is quick to get his motor-car, his horses and
+carriages, and endless other ornaments of wealth. So that if progress in
+the course of the evolution of nations means that the Chinese too will
+demand all that the European now demands, and will cease to find
+satisfaction in the existing conditions of his life in the new goal
+towards which he is moving, and if he, in course of time, should
+increase the cost of living per head to equal that of the Westerner,
+then he will lose a good deal of the advantage he now undoubtedly has in
+the struggle for racial supremacy. But if, gradually taking advantage of
+all in religion, in science, in literature, in art, in modern naval and
+military equipment and skill, and all that has made nations great and
+made for real progress in the West, he were also to continue his present
+hardy frugality in living--which is not a tenth as costly in proportion
+to that of the Occident--then his advantage in entering upon the
+conflict among the nations for ultimate supremacy would be undoubted,
+immeasurable.
+
+The question is, will he?
+
+If he will, then the Occident has much to fear. China, going ahead
+throughout the Empire as she is at the present moment in certain parts,
+will in course of time (as is only fair and natural to expect) have an
+army greater in numbers than is possible to any European power, and her
+food-bill will be two-thirds lower per head per fighting man.
+Subsequently, granting that China fulfils our fears, and becomes as
+great a fighting power as military experts declare she will, even in our
+generation, by virtue of her numbers alone, apart from phenomenal powers
+of endurance, which as every writer on China and her people is agreed,
+is excelled by no other race on earth, she would be able to dictate
+terms to the West. But, again, will she? Will the people continue to
+live as they are living?
+
+I personally believe that the Chinese will not. I believe that as the
+nation progresses, more in accordance with lines of progress laid down
+by the West, so will her wants increase, and consequent expenses of life
+become greater. The Y�n-nanese even are beginning to acknowledge that
+they have no ordinary comforts. In other parts of the empire the people
+are already beginning to learn what comfort, sanitation, lighting, and
+general organization means--in the home, in the city, in the country, in
+the nation.
+
+And they are learning too that it all costs money, and means, perhaps, a
+higher state of social life. For this they do not mind the money. They
+are not going half-way--they are going to be whole-hoggers. And when in
+the future, near or far, we shall find them, as is almost inevitable,
+able to compete in everything with other nations, we shall find that
+they have not been successful in learning the source of strength without
+having absorbed also some of the weaknesses; they will not escape the
+vices, even if they learn some of the virtues of the West.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+_Peculiar forebodings of early morning_. _A would-be speaker of
+English_. _The young men of Y�n-nan and the Reform Movement_. _Teachers
+of English_. _Remarks on methods adopted_. _Disregard of the customs of
+centuries_. _A rushing Szech-wanese_. _Missionaries and the Educational
+Movement_. _Christianity and the position of the foreigner_. _Is the
+Chinese racially inferior to the European? Interesting opinion_. _Peace
+of Europe and integrity of China_. _Chao-chow cook gets a bad time_.
+_The author's lev�e. Natural "culture" of the people_. _Story of the
+birth of boys_. _Notes on Hsiakwan_. _Experiences of the
+non-Chinese-speaking author at the inn_. _How he got the better of an
+official_. _A magnificent temple_. _Kwan-�n and the priests._
+
+
+This morning, from the foot of a high spur, I saw a couple of gawky
+fellows shambling along in an imitation European dress, and I pricked up
+my ears--it seemed as if Europeans were about. One of the fellows had on
+a pair of long-legged khaki trousers ludicrously patched with Chinese
+blue, a tweed coat of London cut also patched with Chinese blue, and a
+battered Elswood topee. I saw this through my field-glasses. Soon after,
+coming out from a cup in the winding pathway, emerged a four-man chair,
+and I had no doubt then that it was a European on the road, and I began
+to get as curious as anyone naturally would in a country where in
+interior travel his own foreign kind are met with but seldom. Hurrying
+on, I managed to pass the chair in a place where overhanging foliage
+shut out the light, so that I could not see through the windows, and as
+the front curtain was down I concluded that it must be a lady, probably
+a missionary lady. I pushed on to the nearest tavern--a tea tavern, of
+course--buttoned up my coat so that she should not see my dirty shirt,
+and waited for the presence to approach. From an inner apartment,
+through a window, I could see all that went on outside, but could not be
+seen. What is it that makes a man's heart go pit-a-pat when he is about
+to meet a European lady in mid-China?
+
+Presently the chair approached. From it came a person covered in a huge
+fur-lined, fur-collared coat many sizes too large for his small body--it
+was a Chinese. Several men were pushed out of his way as he strode
+towards me, extending his hand in a cordial "shake, old fellow" style,
+and yelling in purest accent, "Good morning, sir; _good_ morning, sir!"
+
+"Oh, good morning. You speak English well. I congratulate you. Have you
+had a good journey? How far are you going? Very warm?" I waited. "It is
+so interesting when one meets a gentleman who can speak English; it is a
+pleasant change." I waited again. "Will you--"
+
+"Good morning, morning, morn--he, he, he."
+
+"But pardon me, will--"
+
+"Morning, morning--he, h-e-e."
+
+"Yes, you silly ass, I know it is morning, but--"
+
+"Yes, yes; morning, morning--he-e-e-e-e."
+
+He then made for the door, not the least abashed. Later he came back,
+and invited me to speak Chinese, probably thinking that I was wondering
+why he had made such an absolute fool of himself. I learned that this
+august gentleman possessed a name in happy correspondence with a fowl
+("Chi"). He pointed contemptuously to a member of that feather tribe as
+he told me. Whether he could speak Chinese when he was or was not at
+Chen-tu, or whether he had a son whose knowledge of my language was
+vast, and who was at that moment at Chen-tu, I could not quite fathom,
+and he could not explain. He had a look at my caravan generally, and
+then turned his scrutiny upon my common tweeds, informing me that the
+quality bore no comparison with his own. He could travel in a four-man
+chair; I had to _walk_. It was all very "pub hao."
+
+After some time he cleared out with much empty swagger, and I followed
+leisurely on behind, feeling--yes, why not publish it?--pleased that this
+bolt from the blue had not been a lady.
+
+This young fellow--a mere slip of a boy--wore every indication of
+perfect self-confidence, borne out in a multitude of ways common to his
+class. He, I presumed, was one of the fledglings who undertake
+responsibilities far beyond them, or I should not be surprised if he had
+been one of the army of young men who, having the merest smattering of
+English, wholly unable to converse, set up as teachers of English. I
+have found this quite common among the rising classes in Y�n-nan. The
+cool assumption of unblushing superiority evinced in discussing
+intellectual and philosophic problems is remarkable. The Chinese, in the
+area I speak of, are little people with little brain: this was a
+specimen. Yet, to be fair, in China to-day the work of reform is mainly
+the work of young men, who although but only partly equipped for their
+work, approach it with perfect confidence and considerable energy, not
+knowing sufficient to realize the difficulties they are undertaking. In
+Japan the same thing was done. The young men there undertook to dispute
+and doubt everything which came in the way of national reorganization,
+setting aside--as China must do if she is to take her place alongside
+the ideal she has set up for herself, Japan--parental teaching,
+ancestral authority, the customs of centuries. A large proportion of the
+population of China has a passion for reform and progress. This young
+fellow was a typical example. In the west of China, however, to conform
+with the spirit of reform and real progress--not the make-believe, which
+is satisfying them at the present moment--they must needs change their
+ways.
+
+Seventeen memorial plates were passed at the entrance to Chao-chow, a
+particularly modern-looking place, as one approaches it from the hill.
+
+A remarkably ungainly individual, with a hole in the top of his skull
+and his body one mass of sores, came to me here, addressed me as "Sien
+seng," and then commenced an oration to the effect that he was a
+Szech'wanese, that he had known the missionaries down by the Yangtze,
+and that he knew he would be welcome to accompany me to Hsiakwan.[AT] He
+switched himself on the main line of my caravan. Here was a man who had
+been brought in contact with the missionary away down in another
+province, and he knew he was welcome. I liked that. In all my
+journeyings in Y�n-nan I was increasingly impressed with the value of
+the missionary, that man who of all men in the Far East is the most
+subject to malicious criticism, and generally, be it said, from those
+persons who know little or nothing about his work. You cannot measure
+the missionary's work by conversions, by mere statistics. I venture to
+assert that it is through the missionary that the West applied pressure
+and supplied China with political ideas, and put within her reach the
+material and instruments which would enable her to carry such ideas into
+practice--this apart from religious teaching. More particularly is this
+the case in respect to popular education, perhaps, by means of which the
+transformation of Old China into New China will be a less long and
+difficult process. The people may not want the missionary--I do not for
+a moment say that they do--but they need to know the secret of his power
+and the power of his kind, and they must study his language, his
+science, his machinery, his steamboats, his army, his _Dreadnaughts_.
+They realize that the foreigner is useful not for what he can do, but
+for what he can teach--therefore they tolerate the missionary. This is
+virtually the national policy of China towards foreigners, a policy
+gaining the acceptance of the people with remarkable quickness.
+
+After having set aside all considerations of national prejudice and
+patriotism, it is interesting to ask whether it is actually a fact that
+the Chinese, as a race, are inferior to the peoples of the West? Much
+has been said on the subject. I give my opinion flatly that the Chinese
+is _not_ inferior, and the longer I live with him the more numerous
+become the lessons which he teaches me.
+
+"The question, when we examine it closely, has really very little to do
+with political strength or military efficiency, or (_pace_ Mr. Benjamin
+Kidd) relative standards of living, or even the usual material
+accompaniments of what we call an advanced civilization; it is a
+question for the trained anthropologist and the craniologist rather than
+for the casual observer of men and manners. The Japanese people are now
+much more highly civilized--according to western notions--than they were
+half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that
+they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than
+they were then. Evolution does not work quite so rapidly as that even in
+these days of 'hustle.' The Japanese have advanced, not because their
+brains have suddenly become larger, or their moral and intellectual
+capabilities have all at once made a leap forward, but because their
+intercourse with Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion,
+showed them that certain characteristic features of European
+civilization would be of great use in strengthening and enriching their
+own country, developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist
+aggression. If the Japanese were as members of the _homo sapiens_
+inferior to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are
+our equals to-day--and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him
+who wishes to show that they are not--our knowledge of the origin and
+history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
+to assure us that the Chinese are our equals, too. There is no valid
+reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior to
+the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer than
+the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently necessary
+for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to appreciate
+the value of Western science and certain features of Western
+civilization, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
+country than a small one, and because China was rich within her own
+borders of all the necessaries of life."[AU]
+
+And the West, too, must learn that the peace of Europe depends upon the
+integrity of China. For the time is coming--not in the lives of any who
+read these lines, but coming inevitably--when China will, by her might,
+by her immense numbers of trained men, by her developed naval and
+military strength, be able to say to the nations of the earth, "There
+must be no more war." And she will be strong enough to be able to
+enforce it.
+
+As with individuals, so with nations, and a people who are marked by
+such rare physical vitality, such remarkable powers of endurance against
+great odds, are surely designed for some nobler purpose than merely to
+bear with fortitude the ills of life and the misery of starvation. It is
+the easiest thing in the world to criticise--the West criticises the
+Chinese because he is a heathen, because they do not understand him.
+Hundreds of millions of the Chinese race hate and fear the man of the
+West for exactly the same reason as would cause us to hate the Chinese
+were the situation reversed.
+
+I do not need to go into history from the days when the Chinese first
+began to show their suspicion, contempt, and fear of foreigners, and
+their interpretation of the motives and purposes which took them to the
+Celestial Empire; it would take too much space. But if we of the West
+did our part to-day, as we rub up against the Chinese everywhere, in
+charitably taking him at his best, things would alter much more speedily
+that they are doing. Because the Chinese bristles with contradictions
+and seemingly unanswerable conundrums, we immediately dub him a
+barbarian, do not endeavor to understand him, do not understand enough
+of his language to listen to him and learn his point of view. However,
+it is all slowly passing--so very slowly, too. But still China is
+progressing, and now this oldest man in the world is becoming again the
+youngest, but has all the accumulations and advantages of age in all
+countries to lean upon and learn from.
+
+Chao-chow gave me a very decent inn, the top room in front of which was
+provided with a well-paved courtyard, with every convenience for the
+traveler--that is, for China.
+
+The inn cook and water-carrier was out playing on the street when we put
+in an early appearance. My men lost their temper, ground their teeth,
+foamed at the mouth, and got desperate. The only man on the premises was
+a poor old fellow, who foolishly bumped his uncovered head on the ground
+on which I stood, as an act of great servility and a secret sign that I
+should throw him a few cash, and then resumed his occupation in the sun
+of wiping his already inflamed eyes with the one unwashed garment which
+covered him. I pitied him; he knew it, and traded upon my pity until I
+invoked a few choice words from Lao Chang to fall upon him. When the
+cook did put in an appearance, he and everybody dead and living placed
+anywhere near his genealogical tree underwent a rough quarter of an
+hour from the anathematical tongues of my companions. The Old Man--by
+virtue of the growth on my chin, this epithet of respect was commonly
+used towards me--wanted to wash his face and drink his tea. He was tired
+with walking. He was a foreign mandarin. Did the blank, blank, blank
+cook, the worm and no man, not know that a foreigner was among them? And
+then they fell to piling up the ignominy again and placing to the cook's
+dishonor various degrees of lowliest origin common among the Chinese
+proletariat, which, thank Heaven, I did not quite understand.
+
+That evening all Chao-chow came to honor me in my room, and to admire
+and ask to be given all I had in my boxes. That it was all a huge
+revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I
+might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in
+expensive silks and satins--probably borrowed--came with pomp and
+pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he
+learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him. He mentioned
+that he was one of the cultured of the city. But the Chinese are all
+more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character,
+are really "cultured"--they are the most polite men I have ever
+traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than
+real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in
+moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the
+wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter
+of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking
+in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along
+with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for
+my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored
+man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent
+invitations to use a chair--how is it all Orientals can do this, and not
+one European out of fifty?
+
+Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented
+him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth
+of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese
+household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be
+lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just
+before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and
+secure peace. This is the "Exorcism of Great Peace." Simultaneously
+comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and
+difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever
+similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is
+often felt that the first visit to the house after the birth of the
+child should be made by a "lucky" person, for the child's whole future
+career may be blighted by meeting with an "ill-starred" person. No
+outsider will enter the room where the birth took place for forty days.
+On the anniversary of a boy's birth the relatives and friends bring
+presents of clothes, hats, ornaments, playthings, and red eggs. The baby
+is placed on the floor--the earth, which is the first place he touches;
+he is born into a hole in the ground--and around him are placed various
+articles, such as a book, pencil, chopsticks, money, and so on. He will
+follow the profession which has to do with the articles he first
+touches.[AV]
+
+This was the fortieth day, and so my visitant honored me by thrusting
+his contemptible presence upon me, and he would not go until late at
+night, when a man with a diseased hip and one eye--and a ghastly thing
+at that--called to see whether I could treat him with medicine.
+
+Hsiakwan in days to come will probably have a big industry in brick and
+tile making. Fifteen li from the town, on the Chao-chow side, many
+people now get their living at the business, and one could easily dream
+of a "Hsiakwan Brick and Tile Company Limited," with the children's
+children of the present pioneers running for the morning papers to have
+a look at the share market reports, with light railways connected up
+with the main line, which has not yet been built, and so on, and so on.
+
+Hsiakwan is perhaps the busiest town on the main trade route from
+Y�n-nan-fu to Burma. Tali-fu, although growing, is only the official
+town, of which Hsiakwan is the commercial entrep�t. It was here that I
+stayed one Sunday some time after this, at one of the biggest inns I
+have ever been into in China. It had no less than four buildings, each
+with a paved rectangular courtyard which all the rooms overlooked. A
+military official, who was on his way to Chao-t'ong to deal with the
+rebellion, of which the reader has already learnt a good deal, was
+expected soon after I arrived. My room was already arranged, however,
+when the landlord came to me and said--
+
+"Yang gwan, you must please go out!"
+
+Now the yang gwan, as was expected, stayed where he was, smiled in
+magnanimous acquiescence, invited the proprietor--a stout, jolly person
+with one eye--to be seated, and remained quiet. Again and again was I
+told that I should be required to clear out, and give up the best room
+to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did
+not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the
+foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a
+stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The
+Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated
+foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in
+a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions
+been reversed, stared vacantly and woodenly into a seemingly bewildering
+infinite, and timidly remarked, "O t'ing puh lai." Knowing then that my
+"hearing had not come," he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by
+this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao
+Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their
+meaning. The best room, therefore, continued to be mine.
+
+Soon after the official came, and my dog began by mauling his canine
+guardian, tearing away half his ear; and in the middle of the night one
+of my horses got loose and had a stand-up fight with a mule attached to
+the official party, laming him seriously; and as the foreigner emerged
+in his night attire to prevent further damage, he encountered the
+mandarin himself, and pinned him dead against the wall in the dark,
+after having stepped on his corn. My pony had pulled several morsels of
+flesh from the mule's carcase. The yang gwan certainly came off best,
+and the following morning, as the Chinese gwan with his retinue of six
+chairs and about one hundred and fifty men departed, the yang gwan
+smiled a happy farewell which was not effusively reciprocated.
+
+As I came out of the inn I met a Buddhist priest, worn with general
+dilapidation and old age, with a huge festering wound in the calf of his
+leg, so that he could hardly hobble along with a stick--he was probably
+on his way to the medical missionary at Tali-fu for treatment. This
+spiritual guide was certainly on his last legs, and has probably by this
+time handed over the priestly robes and official perquisites to more
+vigorous young blood.
+
+Hsiakwan's High Street reminded me of the main street of Totnes, with
+its arch over the roadway, and the scenery might have deluded one into
+the belief that he was in Switzerland in spring, as he gazed upon the
+glorious spectacle of snow-covered mountains with the world-famed lake
+at the foot. Tali-fu deserves its name of the Geneva of West China.
+
+In the chapter devoted to Y�n-nan-fu I have referred to the military of
+Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of
+men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here.
+Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the
+Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.
+
+In the famous temple ten li from Tali-fu is an effigy to the Yang Daren
+who figured conspicuously during the Mohammedan Rebellion. My men
+somehow got the false information that he was a native of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, so they all went down on their knees and bumped their
+heads on the ground before the image. This Yang, however, was such a
+brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a
+soldier he was indomitable. The temple in which he is deified is called
+the Kwan-�n-tang,[AW] and there is no place in all China where Kwan-�n
+is worshipped with such relentless vigor. Some years ago, so the wags
+say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-�n saved the city by
+transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her
+back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path. The
+amazement of the rebels at the sight of a woman performing such a feat
+made them wonder what the men could be like, so they turned tail and
+fled. The story is believed implicitly by the residents of the city, and
+the priests, with an open eye to the main chance, work upon the public
+imagination with capital tact. I saw the stone in the center of a lotus
+pond, over which is the structure in which the Kwan-�n sits, not as a
+weight-lifting woman, but as a tender mother, with a tiny babe in her
+arms, and none in the whole of the Empire enjoys such favor for being
+able to direct the birth of male children into those families which give
+most money to the priests. Women desiring sons come and implore her by
+throwing cash, one by one, at the effigy, the one who hits being
+successful, going away with the belief that a son will be born to her.
+When the deluded females are cleared out, the priest, divesting himself
+of his shoes, and rolling up his trousers, goes into the water, scoops
+up the money and uses it for his personal convenience--sometimes as much
+as thirty thousand cash.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AT: The commercial center of Tali-fu, the official city is 30
+li further on--E.J.D]
+
+[Footnote AU: _From Peking to Mandalay_, by R.F. Johnston, London, John
+Murray. I am indebted to this racily-written work for other ideas in
+this chapter.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AV: From inquiries I find this custom is not general in some
+parts of Western China--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AW: Temple to the Goddess of Mercy.
+
+     "Kwan-�n was the third daughter of a king, beautiful and talented,
+     and when young loved to meditate as a priest. Her father, mother
+     and sisters beseech her not to pass the 'green spring,' but to
+     marry, and the king offers the man of her choice the throne. But
+     no, she must take the veil. She enters the 'White Sparrow Nunnery,'
+     and the nuns put her to the most menial offices; the dragons open a
+     well for the young maidservant, and the wild beasts bring her wood.
+     The king sends his troops to burn the nunnery, Kwan-�n prays, rain
+     falls, and extinguishes the conflagration. She is brought to the
+     palace in chains, and the alternative of marriage or death is
+     placed before her. In the room above where the court of the
+     inquisition is held there is music, dancing, and feasting, sounds
+     and sights to allure a young girl; the queen also urges her to
+     leave the convent, and accede to the royal father's wish. Kwan-�n
+     declares that she would rather die than marry, so the fairy
+     princess is strangled, and a tiger takes her body into the forest.
+     She descends into hell, and hell becomes a paradise, with gardens
+     of lilies. King Yama is terrified when he sees the prison of the
+     lost becoming an enchanted garden, and begs her to leave, in order
+     that the good and the evil may have their distinctive rewards. One
+     of the genii gives her the 'peach of immortality.' On her return to
+     the terrestrial regions she hears that her father is sick, and
+     sends him word that if he will dispatch a messenger to the
+     'Fragrant Mountain,' an eye and a hand will be given him for
+     medicine; this hand and eye are Kwan-�n's own, and produce instant
+     recovery.
+
+     "She is the patron goddess of mothers, and when we remember the
+     value of sons, we can understand the heartiness of worship."--_The
+     Three Religions of China,_ by H.G. Du Bose.
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+THIRD JOURNEY
+
+TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+_Stages to the Mekong Valley_. _Hardest part of the walking tour_.
+_Author as a medical man_. _Sunday soliloquy_. _How adversity is met_.
+_Chinese life compared with early European ages_. _Womens enthusiasm
+over the European_. _A good send-off_. _My coolie Shanks, the songster_.
+_Laughter for tears_. _Pony commits suicide_. _Houses in the forest
+district_. _Little encampments among the hills, and the way the people
+pass their time_. _Treacherous travel_. _To Hwan-lien-p'u_. _Rest by the
+river, and a description of my companions_. _How my men treated the
+telegraph_. _Universal lack of privacy_. _Complaints of the carrying
+coolies._
+
+
+From whichever standpoint you regard the cities and villages of Western
+China, the views are full of interest. Each forms a new picture of rock,
+river, wood and temple, crenellated wall, and uplifted roof, crowded
+with bewildering detail.
+
+I am not the first traveler who has remarked this. Several of Mr.
+Archibald Little's books speak of it. He says: "In Europe, except where
+the scenery is purely wild, and more especially in America, the delight
+of gazing on many of the most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the
+crude newness of man's work. This is true now of Japan, since the rage
+for copying western architecture and dress has fallen upon the Islands
+of the Rising Sun. But here in Western China little has intervened to
+mar the accord between nature and man." In the country on which we are
+now entering the natural grandeur is finer than anything I had seen
+since I left the Gorges, and incidentally I do not mind confessing to
+the indulgent reader that when I came again through Hsiakwan, again
+westward bound, I was tired, my feet were blistered and broken, each day
+and every day had brought me a hard journey, and here I was now facing
+the most difficult journey yet met with--literally not a li of level
+road.
+
+My journey was by the following route:--
+
+                                Length     Height
+                               of Stage   Above Sea
+
+    1st day   Ho-chiang-p'u      90 li    5,050 ft.
+    2nd day   Yang-pi            60 li    5,150 ft.
+    3rd day   T'ai-p'ing-p'u     70 li    7,400 ft.
+    5th day   Hwan-lien-p'u      50 li    5,200 ft.
+    6th day   Ch'u-tung          95 li    5,250 ft.
+    7th day   Shayung            75 li    4,800 ft.
+
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u (two days from Tali-fu), bleak and perched away up among
+the clouds, could never be called a town; it is merely a ramshackle
+place which gives one sleep and food in the difficult stage between
+Hwan-lien-p'u and Yang-pi.
+
+Like most of the small places which suffered from the ravishings of the
+Mohammedan destructions of the fifties, it has seen better days.
+Cottages hang clumsily together on ledges in the mountains, 7,400 feet
+above the sea, standing in their own vast uncultivated grounds. People
+are of the Lolo origin, but all speak Chinese; their ways of life,
+however, are aboriginal, and still far from the ideal to which they
+aspire. They are poor, poor as church mice, dirty and diseased and
+decrepit, and their existence as a consequence is dreary and dull and
+void of all enlightenment. The women--sad, lowly females--bind their
+feet after a fashion, but as they work in the fields, climb hills, and
+battle in negotiations against Nature where she is overcome only with
+extreme effort, the real "lily" is a thing possible with them only in
+their dreams. By binding, however, be it never so bad an imitation, they
+give themselves the greater chance of getting a Chinese husband.
+
+I stayed here the Sunday, and as I went through my evening ablutions,
+among my admirers in the doorway was an old woman, who in gentlest
+confidences with my boy, explained awkwardly that her little daughter
+lay sick of a fever, and could he prevail upon his foreign master, in
+whom she placed implicit faith, to come with her and minister? Lao Chang
+advised that I should go, and I went. My shins got mutilated as I fell
+down the slippery stone steps in the dark into a pail of hog's wash at
+the bottom. Having wiped the worst of the grease and slime onto the mud
+wall, by the aid of a flickering rushlight I saw the "child," who lay on
+a mattress on the floor in the darkest corner of the room. I reckoned
+her age to be thirty-five, her black hair hung in tangled masses, the
+very bed on which she lay stank with vermin, two feet away was the fire
+where all the cooking was gone through, and everywhere around was filth.
+When she saw me the "child" raised her solitary garment, whispered that
+pains in her stomach were well-nigh unendurable, that her head ached,
+that her joints were stiff, that she was generally wrong, and--"Did I
+think she would recover?" I thought she might not.
+
+Rushing back to my medicine chest, I brought along and administered a
+maximum dose of the oil called castor, and later dosed her with quinine.
+In the morning she was out and about her work, while the old mother was
+great in her praises for the passing European who had cured her child.
+After that came the deluge! They wanted more medicine--fever elixir,
+toothache cure, and so on, and so on--but I stood firm.
+
+The tedium of the Sunday in that draughty inn gave me an insight into
+their common lives which I had not before, causing me to meditate upon
+their simple lives and their simple needs. They did not raise the
+forests in order to get gold; they did not squander their patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years. They held to simple
+needs; they had a simplicity of taste, which was also a peculiar source
+of independence and safety. The more simple they lived the more secure
+their future, because they were less at the mercy of surprises and
+reverses. In adversity these people would not act like nurslings
+deprived of their bottles and their rattles, but would, by virtue of
+their common simplicity, probably be better armed for any struggles. I
+do not desire the life for myself, but the ethics of their simple living
+cannot but be recommended. Multitudes possess in China what multitudes
+in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European
+life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden
+times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but
+we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers
+unless we return to the spirit which animated them. They possessed the
+spirit of real simplicity. And this same spirit the Chinese possess
+to-day; but they are minus the incomparable features of healthful
+civilization, inward and outward, of which our forebears were masters.
+Our ways to-day are not their ways, and their ways not our ways; but one
+cannot but realize as he moves among them that with a happy infusion of
+the spirit of their simplicity into the restlessness of our modern life
+our wearied minds would dream less and realize more of the true
+simplicity of simple living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a man the village of T'ai-p'ing-p'u turned out early on the Monday
+morning to express regrets that my departure was at hand. When, in
+parting with this people who had done all in their power to make my
+comfort complete, I threw a handful of cash to some little children
+standing wonderingly near by, general approval was expressed, and
+elaborate felicities anent my beneficence exchanged by the ear-ringed
+Lolo women. A short apron hung down over their blue trousers, and as I
+passed out of their sight, they admired me and gossiped about me, with
+their hands under their aprons, in much the same manner as their more
+enlightened sisters of the wash-tub gossip sometimes in the West.
+
+It was a beautiful spring morning; the sweet song of the birds pierced
+through the noise of the rolling river below, the air was fragrant and
+bracing, and as I left and commenced the rocky ascent leading again to
+the mountains, the barks of some fierce-disposed canines, who alone
+objected to my presence among the hill-folk, died away with the rustle
+of the leafage in a keen north wind.
+
+One of my men was poorly, the solitary element to disturb the equanimity
+of our camp.
+
+It was Shanks. He had been suffering from toothache, and unfortunately I
+had no gum-balm with me; without my knowledge Lao Chang had rubbed in
+some strong embrocation to the fellow's cheek, so that now, in addition
+to toothache, he had also a badly blistered face, swollen up like a
+pudding. Upon learning that I had no means of curing him or of
+alleviating the pain, Shanks bellowed into my ear, loud enough to bring
+the dead out of the grave-mounds on the surrounding hill-sides, "Puh p'a
+teh, pub p'a teh"; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle
+on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing
+Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly
+disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song,
+and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who
+shared his bed, and whose choral propensities were less in proportion,
+he would laugh wildly at them all. Poor Shanks; he was a peculiar
+mortal. He would laugh at men in pain, and think it sympathy. If we
+could get no food or drink on the march, after having wearily toiled
+away for hours, he would not be disposed to grumble--he would laugh.
+Such tragic incidents as the pony jumping over the precipice provoked
+him to extreme laughter.[AX]
+
+And when I caught him sewing up an open wound in the sole of his foot
+with common colored Chinese thread and a rusty needle, and told him that
+he might thereby get blood poisoning, and lose his life or leg, he cared
+not a little. As a matter of fact, he laughed in my face. Not at me, not
+at all, but because he thought his laughter might probably delude the
+devil who was president over the ills of that particular portion of
+human anatomy. He came to me just outside Pu-p�ng, where we saw a coffin
+containing a corpse resting in the roadway whilst the bearers refreshed
+near by and, pointing thereto, told me that the man was "muh tsai" (not
+here)--the Chinese never on any account mention the word death--and his
+sides shook with laughter, so much so that he dropped his loads
+alongside the corpse, and startled the cock on top of the coffin
+guarding the spirit of the dead into a vigorous fit of crowing for fear
+of disaster.
+
+We enjoyed fairly level road, although rough, for ten li after leaving
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u. It rose gradually from 7,400 feet to 8,500 feet, and
+then dipped suddenly, and continued at a fearful down gradient. I might
+describe it as a member of a British infantry regiment once described to
+me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few
+fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India,
+when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion
+had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, "'Twasn't
+a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor." The
+Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something
+in common.
+
+Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu
+Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see.
+
+Midway down the steep hill we happened on some lonely log cottages,
+twenty-five li from T'ai-p'ing-p'u (it is reckoned as thirty-five li
+traveling in the opposite direction). In the forest district I found the
+houses all built of timber--wood piles placed horizontally and
+dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched. You have merely to
+step aside from the road, and you are in dense mountain forest; it is
+manifestly easier and less costly than the mud-built habitation,
+although for their part the people are worse off because of the lack of
+available ground for growing their crops. Here the people were still
+essentially Lolo, and the big-footed women who boiled water under a shed
+had difficulty in getting to understand what my men were talking about.
+
+The second descent is begun after a pleasant walk along level ground
+resembling a well-laid-out estate, and a treacherously rough mile
+brought us down to an iron chain bridge swung over the Shui-pi Ho, at
+the far end of which, hidden behind bamboo matting, are a few idols in
+an old hut; they act in the dual capacity of gods of the river and the
+mountain. Tea and some palatable baked persimmon--very like figs when
+baked--were brought me by an awful-looking biped who was still in
+mourning, his unshaven skull sadly betokening the fact. As I sipped my
+tea and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met
+me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in
+that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I
+admired the grand scenery farther along. Especially did I notice one
+peak, towering perpendicularly away up past woods of closely-planted
+pine and fir trees, the crystal summit glistening with sunlit snow; as
+soon as I started again on my journey, I was pulling up towards it. Soon
+I was gazing down upon the tiny patches of light green and a few
+solitary cottages, resembling a little beehive, and one could imagine
+the metaphorical wax-laying and honey-making of the inhabitants. These
+people were away from all mankind, living in life-long loneliness, and
+all unconscious of the distinguished foreigner away up yonder, who
+wondered at their patient toiling, but who, like them, had his
+Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow. There they were, perched high up on the
+bleak mountain sides, with their joys and sorrows, their pains and
+penalties, struggling along in domestic squalor, and rearing young
+rusticity and raw produce.
+
+On these mountains in Y�n-nan one sees hundreds of such little
+encampments of a few families, passing their existence far from the road
+of the traveler, who often wished he could descend to them and quench
+his thirst, and eat with them their rice and maize. Most of them here
+were isolated families of tribespeople, who, out of contact with their
+kind, have little left of racial resemblance, and yet are not fully
+Chinese, so that it is difficult to tell what they really are. Most were
+Lolo.
+
+Walking here was treacherous. A foot pathway was the main road, winding
+in and out high along the surface of the hills, in many places washed
+away, and in others overgrown with grass and shrubbery. "Across China on
+Foot" would have met an untimely end had I made a false step or slipped
+on the loose stones in a momentary overbalance. I should have rolled
+down seven hundred feet into the Shui-pi Ho. Once during the morning I
+saw my coolies high up on a ledge opposite to me, and on practically
+the same level, a three-li gully dividing us. They were very small men,
+under very big hats, bustling along like busy Lilliputians, and my loads
+looked like match-boxes. I probably looked to them not less grotesque.
+But we had to watch our footsteps, and not each other.
+
+We were rounding a corner, when I was surprised to see Hwan-lien-p'u a
+couple of li away. The _fu-song_ were making considerable hue and cry
+because Rusty had rolled thirty feet down the incline, and as I looked I
+saw the animal get up and commence neighing because he had lost sight of
+us. He was in the habit of wandering on, nibbling a little here and a
+little there, and rarely gave trouble unless in chasing an occasional
+horse caravan, when he gave my men some fun in getting him again into
+line.
+
+It was not yet midday, and we had four hours' good going. So I
+calculated. Not so my men. They could not be prevailed upon to budge,
+and knowing the Chinese just a little, I reluctantly kept quiet. It was
+entirely unreasonable to expect them to go on to Ch'u-tung, ninety li
+away--it was impossible. And I learnt that the reason they would not go
+on was that no house this side of that place was good enough to put a
+horse into, even a Chinese horse, and they would not dream of taking me
+on under those conditions. There was not even a hut available for the
+traveler, so they said. I had come over difficult country, plodding
+upwards on tiptoe and then downwards with a lazy swing from stone to
+stone for miles. Throughout the day we had been going through fine
+mountain forest, everywhere peaceful and beautiful, but it had been hard
+going. In the morning a heavy frost lay thick and white about us, and by
+10:30 a.m. the sun was playing down upon us with a merciless heat as we
+tramped over that little red line through the green of the hill-sides.
+Often in this march was I tempted to stay and sit down on the sward,
+but I had proved this to be fatal to walking. In traveling in Y�n-nan
+one's practice should be: start early, have as few stops as possible,
+when a stop _is_ made let it be long enough for a real rest. In
+Szech'wan, where the tea houses are much more frequent, men will pull up
+every ten li, and generally make ten minutes of it. In Y�n-nan these
+welcome refreshment houses are not met with so often, and little
+inducement is held out for the coolies to stop, but upon the slightest
+provocation they will stop for a smoke. On this walking trip I made it a
+rule to be off by seven o'clock, stop twice for a quarter of an hour up
+to tiffin (my men stopped oftener), when our rest was often for an hour,
+so that we were all refreshed and ready to push on for the fag-end of
+the stage. We generally were done by four or five o'clock. And I should
+be the last in the world to deny that by this time I had had enough for
+one day.
+
+Upon arrival I immediately washed my feet, an excellent practice of the
+Chinese, changed my footgear, drank many cups of tea, and often went
+straight to my p'ukai. The roads of China take it out of the strongest
+man. There are no Marathon runners here; progress is a tedious toil,
+often on all fours.
+
+My room at Hwan-lien-p'u was near a telegraph pole; there was a
+telegraph station there, where my men showed their admiration for the
+Governmental organization by at once hammering nails into the pole. It
+was close to their laundry, and served admirably for the clothes-line, a
+bamboo tied at one end with a string to a nail in the pole and the other
+end stuck through the paper in the window of the telegraph operator's
+apartment. But this is nothing. Years ago, when the telegraph was first
+laid down, the people took turns to displace the wires and sell them for
+their trouble, and to chop the poles up for firewood. It continued for a
+considerable period, until an offender--or one whom it was surmised had
+done this or would have done it if he could--had his ears cut off, and
+was led over the main road to the capital, to be admired by any
+compatriot contemplating a deal in wiring or timber used for telegraphic
+communication purposes.
+
+Just below the town the river ran peacefully down a gradual incline. I
+decided that a comfortable seat under a tree, spending an hour in
+preparing this copy, would be more pleasant than moping about a noisome
+and stench-ridden inn, providing precious little in the way of
+entertainment for the foreigner. Next door a wedding party was making
+the afternoon hideous with their gongs and drums and crackers, and
+everywhere the usual hue and cry went abroad because a European was
+spending the day there.
+
+I imparted to my man my intentions for the afternoon. Immediately
+preparations were set on foot to get me down by the river, and it was
+publicly announced to the townspeople. The news ran throughout the town,
+that is Hwan-lien-p'u's one little narrow street, a sad mixture of a
+military trench and a West of England cobbled court. And instead of
+going alone to my shady nook by that silvery stream, 1 was accompanied
+by nine adult members of the unemployed band, three boys, and sundry
+stark-naked urchins who seemed to be without home or habitation. One of
+these specimens of fleeting friendship was one-eyed, and a diseased hip
+rendered it difficult for him to keep pace with us; one was club-footed,
+one hair-lipped fellow had only half a nose, and they were nearly all
+goitrous. As I write now these people, curious but not uncouth, are
+crouched around me on their haunches, after the fashion of the ape,
+their more Darwinian-evolved companion and his shorthand notes being
+admired by an open-mouthed crowd. Down below my horse is entertaining
+the more hilarious of the party in his tantrums with the man who is
+trying to wash him--
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AX: The day before, whilst we were passing along the edge of a
+cliff, we saw a deliberate suicide on the part of a pony. Getting away
+from its companions, it first jumped against a tree, then turned its
+head sharply on the side of a cliff, finally taking a leap into mid-air
+over the precipice. It touched ground at about two hundred and fifty
+feet below this point, and then rolled out of sight. My men exhibited no
+concern, and laughed me down because I did. It was, as they said, merely
+diseased, and the muleteers went on their way, leaving horse and loads
+to Providence. This sort of thing is not uncommon.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+_The mountains of Y�n-nan_. _Wonderful scenery_. _Among the
+Mohammedans_. _Sorry scene at Ch'u-tung_. _A hero of a horrid past_.
+_Infinite depth of Chinese character_. _Mule falls one hundred and fifty
+yards, and escapes unhurt_. _Advice to future travelers_. _To Shayung_.
+_We meet Tibetans on the mountains_. _Chinese cruelty_. _Opium smoker as
+a companion_. _Opium refugees_. _One opinion only on the subject_.
+_Mission work among smokers and eaters._
+
+
+Mere words are a feeble means to employ to describe the mountains of
+Y�n-nan.
+
+As I start from Hwan-lien-p'u this morning, to the left high hills are
+picturesquely darkened in the soft and unruffled solemnity of their own
+still unbroken shade. Opposite, rising in pretty wavy undulation, with
+occasional abruptions of jagged rock and sunken hollow, the steep
+hill-sides are brought out in the brightest coloring of delicate light
+and shade by the golden orb of early morn; towering majestically
+sunwards, sheer up in front of me, high above all else, still more
+sombre heights stand out powerfully in solemn contrast against the pale
+blue of the spring sky, the effect in the distance being antithetical
+and weird, with the magnificent Ts'ang Shan[AY] standing up as a
+beautiful background of perpendicular white, from whence range upon
+range of dark lines loom out in the hazy atmosphere. From the extreme
+summit of one snow-laden peak, whose white steeple seems truly a
+heavenward-directed finger, I gaze abstractedly all around upon nothing
+but dark masses of gently-waving hills, steep, weary ascents and
+descents, green and gold, and yellow and brown, and one's eyes rest upon
+a maze of thin white lines intertwining them all. These are the main
+roads. I am alone. My men are far behind. I am awed with an unnatural
+sense of bewildered wonderment in the midst of all this glory of the
+earth.
+
+Everything is so vast, so grand, so overpowering. Murmurings of the
+birds alone break the sense of sadness and loneliness. Away yonder
+full-grown pine trees, if discernible at all, are dwarfed so as to
+appear like long coarse grass. For some thirty li the road runs through
+beautiful woods, high above the valleys and the noise of the river; and
+now we are running down swiftly to a point where two ranges meet, only
+to toil on again, slowly and wearily, up an awful gradient for two hours
+or more. But the labor and all its fatiguing arduousness are nothing
+when one gets to the top, for one beholds here one of the most
+magnificent mountain panoramas in all West China. Far away, just peeping
+prettily from the silvered edges of the bursting clouds, are the giant
+peaks which separate Tali-fu from Yang-pi--white giants with rugged,
+cruel edges pointing upwards, piercing the clouds asunder as a ship's
+bow pierces the billows of the deep; and then, gradually coming from out
+the mist, are no less than eight distinct ranges of mountains from
+14,000 feet to 16,000 feet high, besides innumerable minor heights,
+which we have traversed with much labor during the past four days, all
+rich with coloring and natural grandeur seen but seldom in all the
+world. Switzerland could offer nothing finer, nothing more sweeping,
+nothing more beautiful, nothing more awe-inspiring. With the glorious
+grandeur of these wondrous hills, rising and falling playfully around
+the main ranges, the marvellous tree growth, the delicate contrasts of
+the formidable peaks and the dainty, cultivated valleys, and the face of
+Nature everywhere absolutely unmarred, Switzerland could in no way
+compare.
+
+Is it then surprising that I look upon these stupendous masses with
+wonder, which seem to breathe only eternity and immensity?
+
+The air is pure as the breath of heaven, all is still and peaceful, and
+the fact that in the very nature of things one cannot rush through this
+pervading beauty of the earth, but has to plod onwards step by step
+along a toilsome roadway, enables the scenery to be so impressed upon
+one's mind as to be focussed for life in one's memory. One is held
+spellbound; these are the pictures never forgotten. Here I sit in a
+corner of the earth as old as the world itself. These mountains are as
+they were in the great beginning, when the Creator and Sustainer of all
+things pure and beautiful looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was
+good.
+
+The country here seems so vast as to render Nature unconquerable by man:
+man is insignificant, Nature is triumphant. Railways are defied; and
+these mountains, running mostly at right angles, will probably
+never--not in our time, at least--be made unsightly by the puffing and
+the reeking of the modern railway engine. They present so many natural
+obstacles to the opening-up of the country, according to the standard we
+Westerners lay down, that one would hesitate to prophesy any mode of
+traffic here other than that of the horse caravan and human beast of
+burden. Nature seems to look down upon man and his earth-scouring
+contrivances, and assert, "Man, begone! I will have none of thee." And
+the mountains turn upwards to the sky in_ silent reverence to their
+Maker, whose work must in the main remain unchanged until eternity.
+
+It is now 12:30, and we have fifty li to cover before reaching
+Ch'u-tung. We sit here to feed at a place called Siao-shui-tsing, a
+sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, where in subsequent travel
+I was hung up in bitter weather and had to pass the night. The people,
+courteous and civil as always, show a simple trustfulness with which is
+associated some little suspicion. I gave a cake to a little child, but
+its mother would not allow it to be eaten until she was again and again
+assured and reassured that it was quite fit to eat. This home life of
+the very poor Chinese, if indeed it may be called home life, has a
+listlessness about it in marked contrast to that of the West. There is
+little housework, no furniture more than a table and chair or two, and
+the simplicity of the cooking arrangements does not tend to increase the
+work of the housewife.
+
+People here to-day are going about their work with a restful
+deliberation very trying to one in a hurry. The women, with infants tied
+to their backs, do not work hard but very long. A mud-house is being
+built near by, and between the cooking and attending to passing
+travelers, two women are digging the earth and filling up the baskets,
+while the men are mixing the mud, filling in the oblong wooden trough,
+and thus building the wall. At my elbow a man--old and grizzled and
+dirty--is turning back roll upon roll of his wadded garments, and
+ridding it of as many as he can find of the insects with which it is
+infested. A slobbering, boss-eyed cretin chops wood at my side, and when
+I rise to try a snap on the women and the children they hide behind the
+walls. Thus my time passes away, as I wait for the coolies who sit on a
+log in the open road feeding on common basins of dry rice.
+
+After that we had to cross the face of a steep hill. We could, however,
+find no road, no pathway even, but could merely see the scratchings of
+coolies and ponies already crossed. It was an achievement not unrisky,
+but we managed to reach the other side without mishap. My horse, owing
+to the stupidity of the man who hung on to his mouth to steady himself,
+put his foot in a hole and dragged the fool of a fellow some twenty
+yards downwards in the mud. My coolies, themselves in a spot most
+dangerous to their own necks, stuck the outside leg deep in the mud to
+rest themselves, and set to assiduously in blackguarding the man in
+their richest vein, then, extricating themselves, again continued their
+journey, satisfied that they had shown the proper front, and saved the
+face of the foreigner who could not save it for himself. Then we all
+went down through a narrow ravine into a lovely shady glade, all green
+and refreshing, with a brook gurgling sweetly at the foot and birds
+singing in the foliage. There was something very quaint in this cosy
+corner, with the hideous echoes and weird re-echoes of my men's
+squealing. Then we went on again from hill to hill, in a ten-inch
+footway, broken and washed away, so that in places it was necessary to
+hang on to the evergrowing grass to keep one's footing in the slopes.
+One needs to have no nerves in China.
+
+Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their
+rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid
+condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve
+inches square, grazed on the hill-sides. In most places the foot of this
+ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty
+green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so
+thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight. As we entered a man
+came out with his p'ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the
+animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows
+with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying. The pony ceased shying.
+
+To Ch'u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded
+hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the
+_fu-song_ had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a
+long road instead of by the "new" road (so called, although I do not
+doubt that it has been in use for many generations). Some Szech'wan
+coolies and myself had rice together on a low form away from the smoke,
+and the while listened to some tales of old, told by some half-witted,
+goitrous monster who seemed sadly out at elbow. The soldier meantime
+smelt round for a smoke. As he and my men had decided a few moments ago
+that each party was of a very low order of humanity, their pipes for him
+were not available. So he took pipe and dried leaf tobacco from this
+half-witted skunk, who, having wiped the stem in his eight-inch-long
+pants, handed it over in a manner befitting a monarch. It measured some
+sixty or seventy inches from stem to bowl.
+
+From Hwan-lien-p'u to Ch'u-tung is reckoned as eighty li; it is quite
+one hundred and ten, and the last part of the journey, over barren,
+wind-swept hills, most fatiguing.
+
+In contrast to the beauty of the morning's scenery, the country was
+black and bare, and a gale blew in our faces. My spirits were raised,
+however, by a coolie who joined us and who had a remarkable knowledge of
+the whole of the West of China, from Chung-king to Singai, from Mengtsz
+to Tachien-lu. Plied with questions, he willingly gave his answers, but
+he would persist in leading the way. As soon as a man endeavored to pass
+him, he would trot off at a wonderful speed, making no ado of the 120
+pounds of China pots on his back, yelling his explanations all the time
+to the man behind. Yung-p'ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li
+from Ch'u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped
+hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun,
+which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across
+the plain of peas and beans and winter crops. Four eight-inch planks,
+placed at various dangerous angles on three wood trestles, form the
+bridge across the fifty-foot stream dividing Ch'u-tung from the world on
+the opposite side. Across this I saw men wander with their loads, and
+then I led Rusty in. Whilst the stream washed his legs, I sat dangling
+mine until called upon to make way for another party of travelers.
+Remarkable is the agility of these men. They swing along over eight
+inches of wood as if they were in the middle of a well-paved road.
+
+Ch'u-tung is a Mohammedan town. There are a few Chinese only--Buddhists,
+Taoists and other ragtags; although when the follower of the Prophet has
+his pigtail attached to the inside of his hat, as it not unusual when he
+goes out fully dressed, there is little difference between him and the
+Chinese.
+
+Pigs here are conspicuously absent. People feed on poultry and beef. I
+rested in this city some month or so after my first overland trip whilst
+my man went to convert silver into cash, a trying ordeal always. Whilst
+I sipped my tea and ate a couple of rice cakes, I was impressed, as I
+seldom have been in my wanderings, with the remarkable number of people,
+from the six hundred odd houses the town possesses, who during that
+half-hour found nothing whatever to do to benefit themselves or the
+community, as members of which they passed monotonous lives, but to
+stare aimlessly at the resting foreigner. The report spread like
+wildfire, and they ran to the scene with haste, pulling on their coats,
+wiping food from their mouths, scratching their heads _en route_, one
+trouser-leg up and the other down, all anxious to get a seat near the
+stage. A river flows down the center of the street, and into this a
+sleepy fellow got tipped bodily in the crush, sat down in the water,
+seemingly in no hurry to move until he had finished his vigorous
+bullying of the man who pushed him in. Those who could not get standing
+room near my table went out into the street and shaded the sun from
+their eyes, in order that they might catch even a glimpse of the
+traveler who sat on in uncompromising indifference.
+
+Several old wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion--at the
+moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed
+imminent--and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past,
+being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the
+crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose
+from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the
+people of something terrible about to happen could not have been more
+intense.
+
+But I had by this time got used to their crowding, so that I could
+write, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry, and go through personal and
+private routine with no embarrassment. If I turned for the purpose, I
+could easily stare out of face a member of the crowd whose inquisitive
+propensities had become annoying, but as soon as he left another filled
+the gap. Quite pitiful was it to see how trivial articles of foreign
+manufacture--such, for instance, as the cover of an ordinary tin or the
+fabric of one's clothing--brought a regular deluge of childish interest
+and inane questioning; and if I happened to make a few shorthand notes
+upon anything making a particular impression, a look half surprised,
+half amused, went from one to another like an electric current. Had I
+been scheming out celestial hieroglyphics their mouths could not have
+opened wider. As I write now I am asked by a respectable person how many
+ounces of silver a Johann Faber's B.B. costs. I have told him, and he
+has retired smiling, evidently thinking that I am romancing.
+
+That I impress the crowd everywhere is evident. But with all their
+questioning, they are rarely rude; their stare is simply the stare of
+little children seeing a thing for the first time in their lives. It is
+all so hard to understand. My silver and my gold they solicit not; they
+merely desire to see me and to feel me. A certain faction of the crowd,
+however, do solicit my silver.
+
+Lao Chang has been buying vegetables, and has brought all the vegetable
+gardeners and greengrocers around me. The poultry rearers are here too,
+and the forage dealers and the grass cutters and the basket makers, and
+other thrifty members of the commercial order of Ch'u-tung humankind.
+When I came away the people dropped into line and strained their necks
+to get a parting smile. I was sped on my way with a public curiosity as
+if I were a penal servitor released from prison, a general home from a
+war, or something of that kind. And so this wonderful wonder of wonders
+was glad when he emerged from the labyrinthic, brain-confusing
+bewilderment of Chinese interior life of this town into somewhat clearer
+regions. I could not understand. And to the wisest man, wide as may be
+his vision, the Chinese mind and character remain of a depth as infinite
+as is its possibility of expansion. The volume of Chinese nature is one
+of which as yet but the alphabet is known to us.
+
+My own men had got quite used to me, and their minds were directed more
+to working than to wondering. In China, as in other Asiatic countries,
+one's companions soon accustom themselves to one's little peculiarities
+of character, and what was miraculous to the crowd had by simple
+repetition ceased to be miraculous to them.
+
+As I put away my notebook after writing the last sentence, I saw a mule
+slip, fall, roll for one hundred and fifty yards, losing its load on the
+down journey, and then walk up to the stream for a drink.[AZ]
+
+We started for Shayung on February 2nd, 1910, going over a road
+literally uncared for, full of loose-jointed stones and sinking sand,
+down which ponies scrambled, while the Tibetans in charge covered
+themselves close in the uncured skins they wore. This was the first time
+I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
+their antiquated topboots--much better, however, than the Y�n-nan
+topboot--gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
+frost.
+
+Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
+eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
+back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
+tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
+which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
+brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
+much steeper than the roof of a house--as perpendicular as can be
+imagined--but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
+continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
+But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
+certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
+customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
+excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
+among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy. In Christian
+England within the last century men where hanged for petty theft; but in
+Y�n-nan--I do not know whether it is still current in other
+provinces--men have been known to be burnt to death for stealing maize.
+A case was reported from Ch'u-tsing-fu quite recently, but it is a
+custom which used to be quite common. A document is signed by the man's
+relatives, a stick is brought by every villager, the man lashed to a
+stake, and his own people are compelled to light the fire. It seems
+incredible, but this horrible practice has not been entirely extirpated
+by the authorities, although since the Y�n-nan Rebellion it has not been
+by any means so frequent. I have no space nor inclination to deal with
+the ghastly tortures inflicted upon prisoners in the name of that great
+equivalent to justice, but the more one knows of them the more can he
+appreciate the common adage urging _dead men to keep out of hell and the
+living out of the yamens_!
+
+Hua-chow is thirty li from here at the head of an abominable hill, and
+here women, overlooking one of the worst paved roads in the Empire, were
+beating out corn. Then we climbed for another twenty-five li, rising
+from 5,900 feet to 8,200 feet, till we came to a little place called
+Tien-chieng-p'u. It took us three hours. Looking backwards,towards
+Tali-fu, I saw my 14,000 feet friends, and as we went down the other
+side over a splendid stone road we could see, far down below, a valley
+which seemed a veritable oasis, smiling and sweet. A temple here
+contained a battered image of the Goddess of Mercy, who controls the
+births of children. A poor woman was depositing a few cash in front of
+the besmeared idol, imploring that she might be delivered of a son. How
+pitiable it is to see these poor creatures doing this sort of thing all
+over the West of China!
+
+For two days we had been accompanied by a man who was an opium smoker
+and eater. Now I am not going to draw a horrible description of a
+shrivelled, wasted bogey in man's form, with creaking bones and
+shivering limbs and all the rest of it; but I must say that this man,
+towards the time when his craving came upon him, was a wreck in every
+worst sense--he crept away to the wayside and smoked, and arrived always
+late at night at the end of the stage. This was the effect of the drug
+which has been described "as harmless as milk." I do not exaggerate. In
+the course of Eastern journalistic experience I have written much in
+defence of opium, have paralleled it to the alcohol of my own country.
+This was in the Straits Settlements, where the deadly effects of opium
+are less prominent. But no language of mine can exaggerate the evil, and
+if I would be honest, I cannot describe it as anything but China's most
+awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more
+speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by
+arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold
+agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men
+who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about
+the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through
+this once fair land of Y�n-nan and see everywhere--not in isolated
+districts, but everywhere--the ravaging effects in the poverty and
+dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance
+of the opium trade. I have seen men transformed to beasts through its
+use; I have seen more suicides from the effect of opium since I have
+been in China than from any other cause in the course of my life. As I
+write I have around me painfullest evidence of the crudest ravishings of
+opium among a people who have fallen victims to the craving. There is
+only one opinion to be formed if to himself one would be true. I give
+the following quotation from a work from the pen of one of the most
+fair-minded diplomatists who have ever held office in China:--
+
+"The writer has seen an able-bodied and apparently rugged laboring
+Chinese tumble all in a heap upon the ground, utterly nerveless and
+unable to stand, because the time for his dose of opium had come, and
+until the craving was supplied he was no longer a man, but the merest
+heap of bones and flesh. In the majority of cases death is the sure
+result of any determined reform. The poison has rotted the whole system,
+and no power to resist the simplest disease remains. In many years'
+residence in China the writer knew of but four men who finally abandoned
+the habit. (Where opium refuges have been conducted by missionaries,
+reports more favorable have been given concerning those who have become
+Christians.) Three of them lived but a few months thereafter; the fourth
+survived his reformation, but was a life-long invalid."[BA]
+
+Much good work is now being done by the missionaries, and the number of
+those who have given up the habit has probably increased since Mr.
+Holcombe wrote the above. In point of fact, helping opium victims is one
+of the most important branches of mission work.
+_China's Past and Future_ (p. 165) by Chester Holcombe.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AY: The range of mountains which I had skirted since leaving
+Tali-fu.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AZ: On my return journey into Y�n-nan, I again called at
+Ch'u-tung, traveling not by the main road, but by a steep path
+intertwisting through almost impossible places, and requiring four times
+the amount of physical exertion. I was led over what was called a new
+road. It was quite impossible to horses carrying loads, and only by
+tremendous effort could I climb up. How my coolies managed it remains a
+mystery. And then, as is almost inevitable with these "new" roads and
+the "short" cuts, they invariably lose their way. Mine did. Hopeless was
+our obscurity, unspeakable our confusion. Men kept vanishing and
+re-appearing among the rocks, and it was very difficult to fix our
+position geographically. Up and up we went, in and out, twisting and
+turning in an endless climb. A gale blew, but at times we pulled
+ourselves up by the dried grass in semi-tropical heat. After several
+hours, standing on the very summit of this bleak and lofty mountain, I
+could just discern Ch'u-tung and Yung-p'ing-hsien far away down in the
+mists. There lay the "ta lu" also, like a piece of white ribbon
+stretched across black velvet--the white road on the burnt hill-sides.
+We were opposite the highest peaks in the mountains beyond the plain,
+far towards Tengyueh--they are 12,000 feet, we were at least 10,500
+feet, and as Ch'u-tung is only 5,500 feet, our hours of toil may be
+imagined. When we reached the top we found nothing to eat, nothing to
+drink (not even a mountain stream at which we could moisten our parched
+lips), simply two memorial stones on the graves of two dead men, who had
+merited such an outrageous resting-place. I donned a sweater and lay
+flat on the ground, exhausted. It must have been a stiff job to bring up
+both stones and men.
+
+I strongly advise future travelers to keep to the main road in this
+district.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote BA:]
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY
+
+THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+_The Valley of the Shadow of Death_. _Stages to Tengyueh_. _The River
+Mekong, Bridge described_. _An awful ascent_. _On-the-spot conclusions_.
+_Roads needed more than railways_. _At Shui-chai_. _A noisy domestic
+scene at the place where I fed_. _Disregard of the value of female
+life_. _Remarkable hospitality of the gentry of the city_. _Hard going_.
+_Lodging at a private house on the mountains_. _Waif of the world
+entertains the stranger_. _From Ban-chiao to Yung-ch'ang_. _Buffaloes
+and journalistic ignorance_. _Excited scene at Pu-piao_. _Chinese
+barbers_. _A refractory coolie_. _Military interest._
+
+
+The journey which I was about to undertake was the most memorable of my
+travels in China, with the exception of those in the unexplored Miao
+Lands; for I was to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
+dreaded Salwen Valley. I had made up my mind that I would stay here for
+a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn
+intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the
+low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I
+know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my
+journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I
+had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might
+not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came
+in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new
+life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the
+present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:--
+
+                                           Length    Height
+                                          of Stage  Above Sea
+
+    1st day--Tali-shao                     65 li.   7,200 ft.
+    2nd day--Yung-ch'ang-fu                75 li.   5,500 ft.
+    5th day--Fang-ma-ch'ang                90 li.   7,300 ft.
+    6th day--Ta-hao-ti                    120 li.   8,200 ft.
+    7th day--Tengyueh (Momien)             85 li.   5,370 ft.
+
+On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the
+Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day,
+February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from
+where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension
+bridge.
+
+A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path,
+has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000
+feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the
+middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between
+cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again
+immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging
+on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid
+masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of
+the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops
+and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving
+is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel
+branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting
+in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the
+side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a
+sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's
+patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in
+admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate
+excuse for a long delay.
+
+At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves
+for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.
+
+The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been
+said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow
+pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai (6,700 feet), and on again
+to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies
+a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this
+road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular
+steps, not even as regularity goes in China.
+
+"There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit
+down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend
+again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural
+rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
+smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
+spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
+made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
+were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
+twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
+impossible.... Mules are passing me--puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
+brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
+there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
+exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
+their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill."
+
+This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
+ascended. And I find again:--
+
+"I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
+incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
+and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
+Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
+way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The
+road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can
+get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which
+bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times,
+and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over
+the ravine.... Rocks overhang me as I pass. If one should drop!... But
+one does not mind the toil when he looks upon his men. In the midst of
+their intense labor my men's squeals of songs echo through the mountains
+as the perspiration runs down their uncovered backs; they chaff each
+other and utmost good feeling prevails. Poor Shanks is nearly done, but
+still laughs loudly.... A natural pathway more difficult of progress I
+cannot conceive anywhere in the world; and yet this is a so-called paved
+road, the road over which all the trade of the western part of this
+great province, all the imports from Burma, are regularly carried.
+Should the road ever be discarded, that is if the railway ever comes
+over this route, only a long tunnel through the mountain would serve its
+purpose.... We have just sat down and fraternized with the man carrying
+the mails to Tali-fu, and now we are working steadily for the top,
+around corners where the breeze comes with delicious freshness. Here we
+are on a road now leading through a widening gorge to Shui-chai, and as
+I cross the narrow pass I see the river down below looking like a snake
+waiting for its prey."
+
+Roads are needed far more than railways.
+
+Being hungry, we sat down at Shui-chai to feed on rice at a place where
+a man minded the baby while the woman attended to the food. Over my head
+hung sausages--my men swore that they were sausages, although for my
+life I could see no resemblance to that article of food--things of 1 1/2
+inches in circumference and from 12 to 60 inches long, doubled up and
+hung up for sale over a bamboo to dry and harden in the sun. Hams there
+were, and dried bacon, and dirty brown biscuits, and uninviting pickled
+cabbage. By the side of the table where I sat was a wooden pun of
+unwashed rice bowls, against which lay the filthy domestic dog.
+
+Outside, the narrow street was lined to the farthest point of vantage by
+kindly people, curious to see their own feeding implements in the
+incapable hands of the barbarian from the Western lands, and the
+conversation waxed loud and excited in general hazards regarding my
+presence in their city.
+
+Stenches were rife; they nearly choked one.
+
+A little boy yelled out to his mother in complaint of the food he had
+been given by a feminine twelve-year-old, his sister. The mother
+immediately became furious beyond all control. She snatched a bamboo to
+belabor the girl, and in chasing her knocked over the pun of pots
+aforesaid. The place became a Bedlam. Men rose from their seats, and
+with their mouths full of rice expostulated in vainest mediation, waving
+their chopsticks in the air, and whilst the mother turned upon them in
+grossest abuse the daughter cleared out at the back of the premises. I
+left the irate parent brandishing the bamboo; her voice was heard beyond
+the town.
+
+But I was not allowed to leave the town. All the intellect of the place
+had assembled in one of the shops, into which I was gently drawn by the
+coat sleeve by a good-natured, well-dressed humpback, and all of the men
+assembled began an examination as to who the dignitary was, his
+honorable age, the number of the wives, sons and daughters he possessed,
+with inevitable questioning into the concerns of his patriarchal
+forbears. Accordingly I once again searched the archives of my elastic
+memory, and there found all information readily accessible, so that in
+a few moments, by the aid of Bailer's _Primer_, I had explained that I
+was a stranger within their gates, wafted thither by circumstances
+extraordinarily auspicious, and had satisfied them concerning my
+parentage, birthplace, prospects and pursuits, with introspective
+anecdotal references to various deceased members of my family tree. I
+did not tell them the truth--that I was a pilgrim from a far country,
+footsore and travel-soiled, that I had been well-nigh poisoned by their
+bad cooking and blistered with their bug-bites!
+
+I rose to go. Like automotons, everyone in the company rose with me. The
+humpback again caught me, this time by both hands, and warmly pressed me
+to stay and "uan" ("play") a little. "Great Brother," he ejaculated,
+"why journeyest thou wearisomely towards Yung-ch'ang? Tarry here." And
+he had pushed me back again into my chair, he had re-filled my teacup,
+and invited me to tell more tales of antiquarian relationship. And
+finally I was allowed to go. Greater hospitality could not have been
+shown me anywhere in the world.
+
+The day had been hard going. We pursued our way unheedingly, as men
+knowing not whither we went; and at 4:00 p.m., fearing that we should
+not be able to make Ban-chiao, where we intended stopping, I decided to
+go no farther than Tali-shao. The evening was one of the happiest I
+spent in my journeys, although personal comfort was entirely lacking.
+The place is made up of just a few hovels; people were hostile, and
+turned a deaf ear to my men's entreaties for shelter. For very
+helplessness I laughed aloud. I screamed with laughter, and the folk
+gathered to see me almost in hysterics. They soon began to smile, then
+to laugh, and seeing the effect, I laughed still louder, and soon had
+the whole village with tears of laughter making furrows down their
+unwashed faces, laughing as a pack of hyenas. At last a kind old woman
+gave way to my boy's persuasions, beckoning us to follow her into a
+house. Here we found a young girl of about nine summers in charge. It
+was all rare fun. There was nothing to eat, and so the men went one here
+and another there buying supplies for the night. Another cleared out
+the room, and made it a little habitable. The bull-dog coolie cooked the
+rice, Shanks boiled eggs and cut up the pork into small slices, another
+fed the pony, and then we fed ourselves.
+
+In the evening a wood fire was kindled in the corner near my bed, and we
+all sat round on the mud floor--stools there were none--to tell yarns.
+My confederates were out for a spree. We smoked and drank tea and
+yarned. Suddenly a stick would be thrust over my shoulder to the fire:
+it was merely a man's pipe going to the fire for a light. Chinese never
+use matches; it is a waste when there are so many fires about. If on the
+road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it
+from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion.
+Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside
+food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted,
+poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as
+naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have
+a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull
+away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.
+
+No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge.
+She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard
+man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little
+one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as
+she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act
+to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the
+money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed,
+explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that
+she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but
+the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.
+
+Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable
+town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those
+who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates,
+such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at
+the end of the town.
+
+In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in
+my life a man carrying a _cangue,_ and a horrible, sickening feeling
+seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the
+poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were
+prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious
+to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless
+fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the
+pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.
+
+Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt
+that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in
+merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might
+fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude
+seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.
+
+Yung-ch'ang (5,500 feet) is as well known as any city in Far Western
+China. I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element
+being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her
+son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time
+taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a
+miserable existence.
+
+On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me,
+ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and
+two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I
+have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always
+treated me well.
+
+Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up
+again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with
+nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and
+other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the
+foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I
+got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade
+effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude
+hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks
+along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side
+to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding. To the
+Chinese the buffalo is the safest of all quadrupeds, if we perhaps
+except the mule, which, if three legs give way, will save himself on the
+remaining one. But it is certainly the slowest. I am here reminded that
+when I was starting on this trip a journalistic friend of mine, who had
+spent some years in one of the coast ports, tried to dissuade me from
+coming, and cited the buffalo as the most treacherous animal to be met
+on the main road in China. He put it in this way:
+
+"Well, old man, you have evidently made up your mind, but I would not
+take it on at any price. The buffaloes are terrors. They smell you even
+if they do not see you; they smell you miles off. It may end up by your
+being chased, and you will probably be gored to death."
+
+The buffalo is the most peaceful animal I know in China. Miniature
+belfries were attached to the wooden frames on the backs of carrying
+oxen, and were it not for the huge tenor bell and its gong-like sound
+keeping the animal in motion, the slow pace would be slower still.
+
+Turning suddenly and abruptly to the left, we commenced a cold journey
+over the mountains, although the sun was shining brightly. A goitrous
+man came to me and waxed eloquent about some uncontrollable pig which
+was dragging him all over the roadway as he vainly tried to get it to
+market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their
+shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at
+me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for
+three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I
+found that we had covered only twenty li--so we were told by an old
+fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in
+what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his
+condemnation of foreigners.
+
+Leng-shui-ch'ang we passed at thirty-five li out, and just beyond the
+aneroid registered 7,000 feet; Yung-ch'ang Plain is 5,500 feet; Pu-piao
+Plain-is 4,500 feet. The range of hills dividing the two plains was
+bare, the clouds hung low, and the keen wind whistled in our faces and
+nipped our ears. Ten li from Pu-piao, on a barren upland overlooking the
+valley, a mere boy had established himself as tea provider for the
+traveler. A foreign kerosene tin placed on three stones was the general
+cistern for boiling water, which was dipped out and handed round in a
+slip of bamboo shaped like a mug with a stick to hold it by. Farther on,
+sugar-cane grew in a field to the left, and near by a man sat on his
+haunches on the ground feeding a sugar-grinding machine propelled by a
+buffalo, who patiently tramped round that small circle all day and every
+day.
+
+Turning from this, I beheld one of the worst sights I have ever seen in
+China. Seven dogs were dragging a corpse from a coffin, barely covered
+with earth, which formed one of the grave mounds which skirt the road.
+No one was disturbed by the scene; it was not uncommon. But the
+foreigner suffered an agonizing sickness, for which his companions would
+have been at a loss to find any possible reason, and was relieved to
+reach Pu-piao.
+
+Market was at its height. It was warm down here in the valley. The
+streets were packed with people, many of whom were pushed bodily into
+the piles of common foreign and native merchandise on sale on either
+side of the road. A clodhopper of a fellow, jostled by my escort, fell
+into a stall and broke the huge umbrella which formed a shelter for the
+vendor and his goods, and my boy was called upon to pay. Fifty cash
+fixed the matter. I walked into a crowded inn and made majestically for
+the extreme left-hand corner. Everybody wondered, and softly asked his
+neighbor what in the sacred name of Confucius had come upon them.
+
+"See his boots! Look at his old hat! What a face! It _is_ a monstrosity,
+and--"
+
+But as I sat down the general of the establishment cruelly forced back
+the people, and screamingly yelled at the top of his voice that those
+who wanted to drink tea in the room must pay double rates. His unusual
+announcement was received with a low grunt of dissatisfaction, but no
+one left. Every table in the square apartment was soon filled with six
+or eight men, and the noise was terrific. Curiosity increased. The fun
+was, as the comic papers say, fast and furious; and despite the
+ill-favored pleasantries passed by my own men and the inquisitive
+tea-shop keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy
+members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two
+soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain
+the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the
+weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to
+get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally shook dust into my food.
+
+Everyone pushed to where there was standing room. Outside a rolling sea
+of yellow faces surmounted a mass of lively blue cotton, all eager for a
+look. The din was terrible. All very visibly annoyed were my men at the
+rudeness of their low-bred fellow countrymen, and especially surprised
+at the equanimity of Ding Daren in tolerating quietly their pointed and
+personal remarks. I became more and more the hero of the hour.
+
+Turning to the crowd as I came out, I smiled serenely, and with a quiet
+wave of the hand pointed out in faultless English that the gulf between
+my own country and theirs was already wide enough, and that Great
+Britain might--did not say that she _would_, but might--widen it still
+more if they persisted in treating her subjects in China as monstrous
+specimens of the human race. This was rigorously corroborated by my two
+soldier-men, to whom I appealed, and a parting word on the ordinary
+politeness of Western nations to a greasy fellow (he was a worker in
+brass), who felt my clothes with his dirty fingers, ended an interesting
+break in the day's monotony. In the street the crowd again was at my
+heels, and evinced more than comfortable curiosity in my straw sandals.
+They cost me thirty cash, equal to about a halfpenny in our coinage.
+
+Since then I have paid other visits to Pu-piao. On one occasion in
+subsequent travel I had a public shave there. My arrival at the inn in
+the nick of time enabled me to buttonhole the barber who was picking up
+his traps to clear, and I had one of the best shaves I have ever had in
+my life, in one of the most uncomfortable positions I ever remember. My
+seat was a low, narrow form with no back or anything for my neck to rest
+upon, and afterwards I went through the primitive and painful massage
+process of being bumped all over the back. Between every four or five
+whacks the barber snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and right
+glad was I when he had finished. The yard was full, even to the stable
+and cook-house alongside each other, the anger of a grizzly old dame,
+who smoked a reeking pipe and who had charge of the rice-and-cabbage
+depot, being eclipsed only by my infuriated barber as he gave cruel vent
+to his anger upon my aching back.
+
+This reminds me of an uncomfortable shave I had some ten years ago in
+Trinidad, where a black man sat me on the trunk of a tree whilst he got
+behind and rested my head on one knee and got to work with an implement
+which might have made a decent putty knife, but was never meant to cut
+whiskers. However, in the case of the Chinese his knife was in fair
+condition, but he grunted a good deal over my four-days' growth.
+
+This little story should not convey the impression that I am an advocate
+of the public shave in China, or anywhere else; but there are times when
+one is glad of it. I have been shaved by Chinese in many places; and
+whilst resident at Y�n-nan-fu with a broken arm a man came regularly to
+me, his shave sometimes being delightful, and--sometimes not.
+
+I had another rather amusing experience at Pu-piao about a month after
+this. A supplementary coolie had been engaged for me at Tengyueh at a
+somewhat bigger wage than my other men were getting, and this, known, of
+course, to them, added to the fact that he was not carrying the heaviest
+load, did not tend to produce unmarred brotherhood among them. The man
+had been told that he would go on to Tali-fu with me on my return trip,
+so that when I took the part of my men (who had come many hundreds of
+miles with me, and who had engaged another man on the route to fill the
+gap), in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his
+side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that
+place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there
+to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready
+to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his
+disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother,
+in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As
+soon as I learnt this--I was standing near the fellow--he somehow fell
+over, sprawling to the floor over my walnut folding chair, which snapped
+at the arm. It was my doing. The man said no more, picked up his loads,
+and was the first to arrive at Yung-ch'ang, so that a little force was
+not ineffective.
+
+Indiscriminate use of force I do not advocate, however; I believe in the
+reverse, as a matter of fact. I rarely hit a man; but there have been
+occasions when, a man having refused to do what he has engaged to do, or
+in cases of downright insolence, a little push or a slight cut with my
+stick has brought about a capital feeling and gained for me immediate
+respect.
+
+Fang-ma-ch'ang, off the main road, was our sleeping-place. Travelers
+rarely take this road. Gill took it, I believe, but Baber, Davies and
+other took the main road. This short road was more fatiguing than the
+main road would have been.
+
+We again turned a dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first
+wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway,
+took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people
+calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the door, and
+to catch a glimpse of me as I lay resting, the inhabitants, in much the
+same manner as people at home visit and revisit the cage of jungle-bred
+tigers at a menagerie, assembled and reassembled with considerable
+confusion. But I was beneath my curtains. So they came again, and when I
+ate my food by candlelight many human and tangible products of the past
+glared in at the doorway. After dark we all foregathered in the middle
+of the room and round the camp fire, the conversation taking a pleasant
+turn from ordinary things, such as the varying distances from place to
+place, how many basins of rice each man could eat, and other Chinese
+commonplaces, to things military. Everybody warmed to the subject. My
+military bodyguard were the chief speakers, and cleverly brought round
+the smoky fire, for the benefit of the thick-headed rustics who made up
+the fascinated audience, a modern battlefield, and made their
+description horrible enough.
+
+One carefully brought out his gun, waving it overhead to add to the
+tragedy, as he weaved a powerful story of shell splinters, blood-filled
+trenches, common shot, men and horses out of which all life and virtue
+had been blown by gunpowder. The picture was drawn around the Chinese
+village, and in the dim glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his
+own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all
+blown to atoms--left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great
+and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by
+the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and
+the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had
+heard, afraid to go to their straw to sleep.
+
+As I lay in my draughty corner, my own mind turned to what the next day
+would bring, for I was to go down to the Valley of the Shadow of
+Death--the dreaded Salwen. I had read of it as a veritable death-trap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+_To Lu-chiang-pa_. _Drop from 8,000 feet to 2,000 feet_. _Shans meet for
+the first time_. _Dangers of the Salwen Valley exaggerated_. _How
+reports get into print_. _Start of the climb from 2,000 feet to over
+8,000 feet_. _Scenery in the valley_. _Queer quintet of soldiers_.
+_Semi-tropical temperature_. _My men fall to the ground exhausted_. _A
+fatiguing day_. _Benighted in the forest_. _Spend the night in a hut_.
+_Strong drink as it affects the Chinese_. _Embarrassing attentions of a
+kindly couple_. _New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai_. _The Shweli
+River and watershed_. _Magnificent range of mountains_. _Arrival at
+Tengyueh._
+
+
+No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
+soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
+consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
+why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.
+
+And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
+about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
+information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
+for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
+but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
+the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
+very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
+found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
+low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.
+
+A good deal of the country to the north of the Y�n-nan province, towards
+the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Y�n-nanese
+Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
+so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
+from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
+Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
+inhabitant--that is, Chinese--strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
+10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
+March and November if he can.
+
+To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
+highest point at nearly 9,000 feet--140 li distant from
+Fang-ma-ch'ang--was our ambition for the day.
+
+Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
+leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
+the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
+to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
+country was bare, desolate, lonely--four people only were met over the
+entire distance. But in the dreaded Valley several trees were ablaze
+with blossom, and oranges shone like small balls of gold in the rising
+sun. Children playing in between the trees ran away and hid as they saw
+me, although I was fifty yards from them--they did not know what it was,
+and they had never seen one!
+
+Farther down I caught up my men, Lao Chang and Shanks, and pleasant
+speculations were entered into as to what Singai (Bhamo) was like. They
+were particularly interested in Singapore because I had lived there, and
+after I had given them a general description of the place, and explained
+how the Chinese had gone ahead there, I pointed out as well as I could
+with my limited vocabulary that if the people of Y�n-nan only had a
+conscience, and would only get out of the rut of the ages, they, too,
+might go ahead, explaining incidentally to them that as lights of the
+church at Tong-ch'uan-fu, it was their sacred duty to raise the standard
+of moral living among their countrymen wherever they might wander. Their
+general acquiescence was astounding, and in the next town,
+Lu-chiang-pa, these two men put their theory into practice and almost
+caused a riot by offering 250 cash for a fowl for which the vendor
+blandly asked 1,000. But they got the chicken--and at their own price,
+too.
+
+As I was thus gently in soliloquy, I first heard and then caught sight
+of the river below--the unnavigable Salwen, 2,000 feet lower than either
+the Mekong or the Shweli (which we were to cross two days later). It is
+a pity the Salwen was not preserved as the boundary between Burma and
+China.
+
+Gradually, as we approached the steep stone steps leading down thereto,
+I saw one of the cleverest pieces of native engineering in Asia--the
+double suspension bridge which here spans the Salwen, the only one I had
+seen in my trip across the Empire. The first span, some 240 feet by 36
+feet, reaches from the natural rock, down which a vertical path zigzags
+to the foot, and the second span then runs over to the busy little town
+of Lu-chiang-pa.
+
+Here, then, were we in the most dreaded spot in Western China! If you
+stay a night in this Valley, rumor says, you go to bed for the last
+time; Chinese are afraid of it, Europeans dare not linger in it. Malaria
+stalks abroad for her victims, and snatches everyone who dallies in his
+journey to the topside mountain village of Feng-shui-ling. The river is
+2,000 feet above the sea; Feng-shui-ling is nearly 9,000 feet.
+
+It was ten o'clock as I pulled over my stool and took tea in the crowded
+shop at Lu-chiang-pa. I saw Shans here for the first time.
+
+The village now, however, is anything but a Shan village. Of the people
+in the immediate vicinity I counted only ten typical Shans, and of the
+company around me in this popular tea-house twenty-one out of
+twenty-eight were Chinese, including ten Mohammedans. It was, however,
+easy to see that several of these were of Shan extraction, who,
+although they had features distinctly un-Chinese, had adopted the
+Chinese language and custom. A party of Tibetans were here in the charge
+of a Lama, in an inner court, and scampered off as I rose to snap their
+photographs. This was a very low altitude for Tibetans to reach.
+
+Whilst I sipped my tea the local horse dealer wanted so very much to
+sell me a pony cheap. He offered it for forty taels, I offered him five.
+It was gone in the back, was blind in the left eye, and was at least
+seventeen years old. The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
+that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.
+
+The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
+to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
+their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
+Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
+provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
+one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
+with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
+me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
+passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
+great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
+streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
+facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
+All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
+of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.
+
+We were now a party of nine--my own three men, an extra coolie I had
+engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
+and the paymaster of the crowd. We still had ninety li to cover, so that
+when we left the shade of two immense trees which sheltered me and my
+perspiring men, one of the soldiers agreed that everyone had to clear
+from our path. We brooked no interception until we reached the entrance
+to the climb, where I met two Europeans, of the Customs staff at
+Tengyueh, who had come down here to camp out for the Chinese New Year
+Holiday. I knew that these men were not Englishmen. I was so thirsty,
+and the best they could do was to keep a man talking in the sun outside
+their well-equipped tent. How I _could_ have done with a drink!
+
+A tributary of the Salwen flows down the ravine. Too terrible a climb to
+the top was it for me to take notes. I got too tired. Everything was
+magnificently green, and Nature's reproduction seemed to be going on
+whilst one gazed upon her. But the natural glories of this beautiful
+gorge, with a dainty touch of the tropical mingling with the mighty
+aspect of jungle forest, with glistening cascades and rippling streams,
+where all was bountiful and exquisitely beautiful, failed to hold one
+spellbound. For since I had left Tali-fu I had rarely been out of sight
+of some of the best scenery on earth. Yet vegetation was very different
+to that which we had been passing. There were now banyans, palms,
+plantains, and many ferns, trees and shrubs and other products of warmer
+climates, which one found in Burma. What impressed me farther up was the
+marvelous growth of bamboos, some rising 120 feet and 130 feet at the
+bend, in their various tints of green looking like delicate feathers
+against the haze of the sky-line, upon which houses built of bamboo from
+floor to roof seemed temporarily perched whilst others seemed to be
+tumbling down into the valley. This spot was the nearest approach to
+real jungle I had seen in China; but Whilst we were climbing laboriously
+through this densely-covered country, over opposite--it seemed no more
+than a stone's throw--the hills were almost bare, save for the isolated
+cultivation of the peasantry at the base. But then came a division,
+appearing suddenly to view farther along around a bend, and I saw a
+continuation of the range, rising even higher, and with a tree growth
+even more magnificent, denser and darker still.
+
+Here I came upon a party of soldiers with foreign military peak caps on
+their heads, which they wore outside over their Chinese caps. In fact,
+the only two other garments besides these Chinese caps were the
+distinguishing marks of the military. Coats they had, but they had been
+discarded at the foot of the climb, rolled into one bundle, and tied
+together with a piece of ribbon generally worn by the carrier to keep
+his trousers tight. We were now in summer heat, and this military
+quintet made a peculiar sight in dusty trousers, peak caps and straw
+sandals, with the perspiration streaming freely down their naked backs
+as they plodded upwards under a pitiless sun. Thus were they clad when I
+met them; but catching sight of my distinguished person, mistaking me
+for a "gwan," they immediately made a rush for the man carrying the
+tunics, to clothe themselves for my presence with seemly respectability.
+But a word from my boy put their minds at rest (my own military were far
+in the rear). A couple of them then came forward to me sniggeringly,
+satisfied that they were not to be reported to Peking or wherever their
+commander-in-chief may have his residence--they probably had no more
+idea than I had.
+
+By the side of a roaring waterfall, in a spot which looked a very
+fairyland in surroundings of reproductive green, we all sat down to
+rest. The air was cool and the path was damp, and water tumbling
+everywhere down from the rocks formed pretty cascades and rivulets. We
+heard the clang of the hatchets, and soon came upon men felling timber
+and sawing up trees into coffin boards. We were in the Valley of the
+Shadow, and it was the finest coffin center of the district. I took my
+boots off to wade through water which overran the pathway, and just
+beyond my men, exhausted with their awful toil, lay flat on their backs
+to rest; they were dead beat. One pointed up to the perpendicular cliff,
+momentarily closed his eyes and looked at me in disgust. I gently
+remonstrated. It was not my country, I told him; it was the "Emperor's."
+And after a time we reached the top.
+
+Shadows were lengthening. In the distance we saw the mountains upon
+which we had spent the previous night, whose tops were gilded by the
+setting sun. Down below all was already dark. A cold wind blew the trees
+bending wearily towards the Valley.
+
+And still we plodded on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had come to Siao-p'ing-ho, 115 li instead of the 140 I had been led
+to believe my men would cover. Every room in the hut was full, we were
+told, but the next place (with some unpronounceable name), fifteen li
+farther down, would give us good housing for the night. Lao Chang and I
+resolved to go on, tired though we were. Before I resolved on this plan
+I stopped to take a careful survey of the exact situation of the
+sheltering hollow in which we meant to pass the night. The sun was fast
+sinking; the dust of the road lay grey and thick about my feet; above me
+the heavens were reddening in sunset glory; the landscape had no touch
+of human life about it save our own two solitary figures; and the place,
+fifteen li away, lay before me as a dream of a good night rather than a
+reality.
+
+Then on again we plodded, and yelled our intentions to the men behind.
+
+From the brow of the hill we descended with extreme rapidity--down, down
+into a valley which sent up a damp, oppressive atmosphere. Through the
+trees I could see one lovely ball of deep, rich red, painting the earth
+as it sank in a beauty exquisite beyond all else. Four men met us,
+stared suspiciously, thought we were deaf, and yelled that the place was
+twenty li away, and that we had better return to the brow of the hill.
+But we left them, and went still farther down. In the hush that
+prevailed I was unaccountably startled to see the form of a woman
+gliding towards me in the twilight. She came out of the valley carrying
+firewood. She spoke kindly to my man, and invited me to spend the night
+in her house near by.
+
+I was for the moment vaguely awed by her very quiescence, and gazed
+wondering, doubting, bewildered. What was the little trick? Could I not
+from such things get free, even in Inland China? The red light of the
+sunken sun playing round her comely figure dazzled me, it is admitted,
+and I followed her with a sigh of mingled dread and desire for rest.
+Shall I say the shadow of the smile upon her lips deepened and softened
+with an infinite compassion?
+
+Dogs rounded upon me as I entered the bamboo hut stuck on the side of
+the hill--they knew I had no right there. Inside a man was nursing a
+squalling baby; our escort was its mother, the man her husband. So I was
+safe. The place was swept up, unnecessary gear was taken away, fire was
+kindled, tea was brewed, rice was prepared; and whilst in shaving (for
+we were to reach Tengyueh on the morrow) I dodged here and there to
+escape the smoke and get the most light, giving my hospitable host a
+good deal of fun in so doing; every possible preparation was made for my
+comfort and convenience by the untiring woman at whose invitation I was
+there. Their attentions embarrassed me; every movement, every look,
+every gesture, every wish was anticipated, so that I had no more
+discomfort than a roaring wind and a low temperature about the region
+which no one could help. It was bitterly cold. In front of the fire I
+sat in an overcoat among the crowd drinking tea, whilst the soldiers
+drank wine--they bought five cash worth. Had my lamp oil run out, I
+should have bought liquor and tried to burn it instead. Soon the spirit
+began to talk, and these braves of the Chinese army got on terms of
+freest familiarity, telling me what an all-round excellent fellow I was,
+and how pleased they were that I had to suffer as well as they. But they
+never forgot themselves, and I allowed them to wander on uncontradicted
+and unrestrained. After a weary night of tossing in my p'ukai, with a
+roaring gale blowing through the latticed bamboo, behind which I lay so
+poorly sheltered, we started in good spirits.
+
+Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800 feet), February
+9th, 1910, New Year's morning. Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the
+people said, "Puh mai, puh mai," and although we had traveled the
+twenty-five li over a terrible road, with a fearful gradient at the end,
+we could not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly against the
+Chinese custom to sell anything at New Year time, of course. We had to
+boil our own water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than usual
+gathered around me because of the general holiday; and as I write now I
+am seated in my folding-chair with all the reprobates near to me--men
+gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses combing their
+hair and nursing their babies, the beggars with their poles and bowls,
+numberless urchins, all open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
+crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before had come on
+ahead to book rooms in the place. I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another
+occasion. Then I found a good room, but later learned that it was a
+horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by fifty-nine pack animals
+with their loads. Pegs were as usual driven into the ground in parallel
+rows, a pair of ponies being tied to each--not by the head, but by the
+feet, a nine-inch length of rope being attached to the off foreleg of
+one and the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each other in
+rows, and eating from a common supply in the center. Everyone in the
+small town was busy doing and driving, very anxious that I should be
+made comfortable, which might have been the case but for some untiring
+musician who was traveling with the caravan, and seemed to be one of
+that species of humankind who never sleeps. His notes, however, were
+fairly in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one knows that
+he has to be again on the move by five, even first-rate Chinese music is
+apt to be somewhat disturbing.
+
+From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view of the mountains I
+had crossed yesterday. Some ten miles or so to the north was the highest
+peak in the range--Kao-li-kung I think it is called--conical-shaped and
+clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high, so far as I could
+judge.
+
+An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed here a day only, Mr.
+Embery, of the China Inland Mission, a countryman of my own, kindly
+putting me up. But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in the
+province, is well known. It is only a small town, however, and one was
+surprised to find it as conservative a town as could be found anywhere
+in the province, despite the fact that foreigners have been here for
+many years, and at the present time there are no less than seven
+Europeans here.
+
+I was glad of a rest here. From Tali-fu had been most fatiguing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
+
+_Travel up the Salwen Valley_. _My motive for travelling and how I
+travel_. _Valley not a death-trap_. _Meet the Li-su_. _Buddhistic
+beliefs_. _Late Mr. G. Litton as a traveler_. _Resemblance in religion
+to Kachins_. _Ghost of ancestral spirits_. _Li-su graves_. _Description
+of the people_. _Racial differences_. _John the Baptist's hardship_.
+_The cross-bow and author's previous experience_. _Plans for subsequent
+travel fall through_. _Mission work among the Li-su_.
+
+
+On my return journey into Y�n-nan, I stopped at Lu-chiang-pa,[BB] and
+left my men at the inn there while I traveled for two days along the
+Salwen Valley. My journey was taken with no other motive than that of
+seeing the country, and also to test the accuracy of the reports
+respecting the general unhealthy nature of this valley of the Shadow of
+Death. The people here were friendly, despite the fact that my route was
+always far away from the main road; and although my entire kit was a
+single traveling-rug for the nights, I was able to get all I wanted. Lao
+Chang accompanied me, and together we had an excellent time.
+
+I might as well say first of all that the idea of this part of the
+Salwen Valley being what people say it is in the matter of a death-trap
+is absolutely false. With the exception of the early morning mist common
+in every low-lying region in hot countries, there was, so far as I could
+see, nothing to fear.
+
+During the second day, through beautiful country in beautiful weather, I
+came across some people who I presumed were Li-su, and I regretted that
+my films had all been exposed. The Li-su tribe is undoubtedly an
+offshoot from the people who inhabit south-eastern Tibet, although none
+of them anywhere in Y�n-nan--and they are found in many places in
+central and eastern Y�n-nan--bear any traces of Buddhistic belief, which
+is universal, of course, in Tibet. The late Mr. G. Litton, who at the
+time he was acting as British Consul at Tengyueh traveled somewhat
+extensively among them, says that their religious practices closely
+resemble those of the Kachins, who believe in numerous "nats" or spirits
+which cause various calamities, such as failure of crops and physical
+ailments, unless propitiated in a suitable manner. According to him, the
+most important spirit is the ancestral ghost. Li-su graves are generally
+in the fields near the villages, and over them is put the cross-bow,
+rice-bags and other articles used by the deceased. "It is probably from
+foundations such as these," writes Mr. George Forrest, who accompanied
+Mr. Litton on an excursion to the Upper Salwen, and who wrote up the
+journey after the death of his companion, "that the fabric of Chinese
+ancestor worship was constructed," a view which I doubt very much
+indeed.
+
+I am of the opinion that the Li-su may be closely allied to the Lolo or
+the Nou Su, of whom I have spoken in the chapters in Book I dealing with
+the tribes around Chao-t'ong. And even the Miao bear a distinct racial
+resemblance. They are of bony physique, high cheek bones, and their skin
+is nearly of the same almost sepia color. The Li-su form practically the
+whole of the population of the Upper Salwen Valley from about lat. 25�
+30' to 27� 30', and they have spread in considerable numbers along the
+mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and are found also in the
+Shan States. Those on the Upper Salwen in the extreme north are utter
+savages, but where they have become more or less civilized have shown
+themselves to be an enterprising race in the way of emigration. Of the
+savages, the villages are almost always at war with one another, and
+many have never been farther from their huts than a day's march will
+take them, the chief object of their lives being apparently to keep
+their neighbors at a distance. They are exceedingly lazy. They spend
+their lives doing as little in the way of work as they must, eating,
+drinking, squatting about round the hearth telling stories of their
+valor with the cross-bow, and their excitement is provided by an
+occasional expedition to get wood for their cross-bows and poison for
+their arrows, or a stock of salt and wild honey.
+
+Mr. Forrest, in his paper which was read before the Royal Geographical
+Society in June, 1908, speaks of this wild honey as an agreeable
+sweetmeat as a change, but that after a few days' constant partaking of
+it the European palate rejects it as nauseous and almost disgusting, and
+adds that it has escaped the Biblical commentators that one of the
+principal hardships which John the Baptist must have undergone was his
+diet of wild honey. In another part of his paper the writer says,
+speaking of the cross-bow to which I have referred: "Every Li-su with
+any pretensions to _chic_ possesses at least one of these weapons--one
+for everyday use in hunting, the other for war. The children play with
+miniature cross-bows. The men never leave their huts for any purpose
+without their cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung
+over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The
+largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of
+thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild
+mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet
+long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of
+plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
+inches, is of split bamboo, about four times the thickness of an
+ordinary knitting needle, hardened and pointed. The actual point is bare
+for a quarter to one-third of an inch, then for fully an inch the arrow
+is stripped to half its thickness, and on this portion the poison is
+placed. The poison used is invariably a decoction expressed from the
+tubers of a species of _aconitum_, which grows on those ranges at an
+altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet ... The reduction in thickness of the
+arrow where the poison is placed causes the point to break off in the
+body of anyone whom it strikes, and as each carries enough poison to
+kill a cart horse a wound is invariably fatal. Free and immediate
+incision is the usual remedy when wounded on a limb or fleshy part of
+the body."[BC]
+
+Some time after I was traveling in these regions I made arrangements to
+visit the mission station of the China Inland Mission, some days from
+Y�n-nan-fu, where a special work has recently been formed among the
+Li-su tribe. Owing to a later arrival at the capital than I had
+expected, however, I could not keep my appointment, and as there were
+reports of trouble in that area the British Consul-General did not wish
+me to travel off the main road. It is highly encouraging to learn that a
+magnificent missionary work is being done among the Li-su, all the more
+gratifying because of the enormous difficulties which have already been
+overcome by the pioneering workers. At least one European, if not more,
+has mastered the language, and the China Inland Mission are expecting
+great things to eventuate. It is only by long and continued residence
+among these peoples, throwing in one's lot with them and living their
+life, that any absolutely reliable data regarding them will be
+forthcoming. And this so few, of course, are able to do.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BB: The town by the double suspension bridge over the Salwen.]
+
+[Footnote BC: The poisoned arrows and the cross-bow are used also by the
+Miao, and the author has seen very much the same thing among the Sakai
+of the Malay Peninsula.]
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY
+
+TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+_Last stages of long journey_. _Characteristics of the country_. _Sham
+and Kachins_. _Author's dream of civilization_. _British pride_. _End of
+paved roads_. _Mountains cease_. _A confession of foiled plans_.
+_Nantien as a questionable fort_. _About the Shans_. _Village squabble,
+and how it ended_. _Absence of disagreement in Shan language_. _Charming
+people, but lazy_. _Experience with Shan servant_. _At Chiu-Ch'eng_.
+_New Year festivities_. _After-dinner diversions_. _Author as a medico_.
+_Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances_.
+
+
+The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which
+makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens
+the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing
+characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.
+
+By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long
+walking journey:--
+
+                                Length      Height
+                               of Stage    Above Sea
+
+    1st day--Nantien             90 li.     5,300 ft.
+    2nd day--Chiu-Ch'eng
+         (Kang-gnai)             80 li.       ---
+    4th day--Hsiao Singai        60 li.       ---
+    5th day--Many�en             60 li.     2,750 ft.
+    6th day--Pa-chiao-chai     |  Approx.   1,200 ft.
+    7th day--Mao-tsao-ti       |  55 English  650 ft.
+    8th day--Bhamo (Singai)    |  miles.      350 ft.
+
+Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn
+to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is
+therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march
+from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers
+to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any
+other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman,
+daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going
+for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the
+dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving
+Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible
+patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the
+Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The
+benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and
+have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and
+accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to
+be able fully to realize what the luxurious d�k-bungalows, with their
+excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.
+
+Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
+Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and
+constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no
+hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps
+of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical
+jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the
+knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well
+had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I
+should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
+For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China
+Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the
+opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode
+a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with
+such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the
+language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you
+would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and
+rode to Chiu-Ch'eng--two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest
+under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry
+indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.
+
+But it was not to be for long.
+
+Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward
+military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is
+populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now
+live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some
+tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the
+man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them,
+especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow
+complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less
+distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton
+turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables
+one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built
+and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy,
+healthy set of people.
+
+Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble
+outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to
+prove the rule.
+
+It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize
+that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men,
+and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who
+looked on had a few words to say to these "Pai Yi"[BD] on the futility of
+these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a
+foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the
+whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my
+infallible "Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong" (I don't understand, I
+don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the
+Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with
+every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could
+not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the
+dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with
+me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower
+of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a
+boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the
+infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I
+gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped,
+expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could
+I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness
+of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and
+laughed, too. I yelled "Ts'eo," and we proceeded, leaving the Shans
+again at peace with all the world.
+
+Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the
+borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in
+all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Y�n-nan tribesman in
+that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the
+Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to
+Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the
+whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the
+same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a
+Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry
+on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of,
+hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred
+years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have
+had no real political or commercial relation with each other.[BE]
+
+I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating
+strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they
+are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found
+varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an
+exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
+In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese--notably in the
+preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for
+the general benefit of future travelers. _Never expect a Shan to work
+hard!_ He _can_ work hard, and he will--when he likes, but I do not
+believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther
+south, is lazier.
+
+As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose
+Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a
+man to come. "Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored." And the
+European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should
+want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be
+to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on
+the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a
+large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to
+work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters
+still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he
+objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could
+not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at
+1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He
+left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery,
+and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he
+would require as salary, he replied, "Oh, give me a rupee every market
+day, and that'll do me." The person was not in service when market day
+rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of
+this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.
+
+Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as
+I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.
+
+I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to
+career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous
+indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the
+village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility
+led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several
+women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the
+village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed
+through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway,
+primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo
+baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy,
+old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers
+of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of
+wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three
+old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and
+last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up,
+an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New
+Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of
+gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his
+very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with
+mine host and his six sons.
+
+Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air--the
+tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the
+hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace--Shan almost
+to a man--were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the
+gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were
+several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed
+away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to
+harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.
+
+My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.
+
+There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed
+by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught
+sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that
+even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a
+long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke,
+then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way
+to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to
+close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man.
+Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the
+family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own
+tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole
+gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all.
+There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged
+couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed,
+on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies,
+seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly.
+The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off
+gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot
+motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one
+another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily
+intensified. The husband of one of the women--a miserable, emaciated
+specimen for a Shan--came forward, asking whether I could cure his
+disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body
+was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese
+paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of
+black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing
+it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings,
+whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the
+door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.
+
+The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
+towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
+doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
+cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
+attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
+known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
+and make them better; but never a word of thanks--not even the mere
+pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BD: The Chinese name for the Shan.]
+
+[Footnote BE: Vide _Y�n-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,_ by
+Major H.R. Davies.--Cambridge University Press.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+_Two days from Burma_. _Tropical wildness induces ennui_. _The River
+Taping_. _At Hsiao Singai_. _Possibility of West China as a holiday
+resort from Burma_. _Fascination of the country_. _Many�en reached with
+difficulty_. _The Kachins_. _Good work of the American Baptist Mission_.
+_Mr. Roberts_. _Arrival at borderland of Burma_. _Last dealings with
+Chinese officials_. _British territory_. _Thoughts on the trend of
+progress in China_. _Beautiful Burma_. _End of long journey._
+
+
+I was now two days' march from the British Burma border. The landscape
+in this district was solemn and imposing as I trudged on again, very
+tired indeed, after a day's rest at Chiu-ch'eng. In the morning heavy
+tropical vapors of milky whiteness stretched over the sky and the earth.
+Nature seemed sleeping, as if wrapped in a light veil. It attracted me
+and absorbed me, dreaming, in spite of myself; ennui invaded me at
+first, and under the all-powerful constraint of influences so fatal to
+human personality thought died away by degrees like a flame in a vacuum;
+for I was again in the East, the real, luxurious, indolent East, the
+true land of Pantheism, and one must go there to realize the indefinable
+sensations which almost make the Nirvana of the Buddhist comprehensible.
+
+The river Taping farther down, so different from its aspect a couple of
+days ago, where it rushed at a tremendous speed over its rocky bed, was
+now broad and calm and placid, and extremely picturesque. The banks were
+covered with trees beyond Many�en. Near the water the undergrowth was of
+a fine green, but on a higher level the yellow and red leaves, hardly
+holding on to the withered trees, were carried away with the slightest
+breath of wind.
+
+At Hsiao Singai, on February 15th, I again had difficulty in getting a
+room; so I waited, and whilst my men searched about for a place where I
+could sleep, an extremely tall fellow came up to me, and having felt
+with his finger and thumb the texture of my tweeds and expressed
+satisfaction thereof, said--
+
+"Come, elder brother, I have my dwelling in this hostelry, and my upper
+chamber is at your disposal." And then he added with a twinkle in his
+eye, "Ko nien, ko nien,"[BF] whereat I became wary.
+
+Lao Chang, however, was more cute. Whilst I was assuring this
+well-dressed holiday-maker that he must not think the stranger churlish
+in not accepting at once the proffered services, but that I would go to
+look at the room, he sprang past us and went on ahead. In a few moments
+I was slowly going hence with the multitude. Lao Chang nodded carelessly
+to the strange company there assembled, and passing through the room
+with a soft, cat-like tread, began to ascend a dark flight of narrow
+stairs leading to the second floor of the inn. And I, down below
+startled and bewildered by mysterious words from everyone, watched his
+blue garments vanishing upwards, and like a man driven by irresistible
+necessity, muttered incoherent excuses to my amazed companions, and in a
+blind, unreasoning, unconquerable impulse rushed after him. But I wish I
+had not. There were several ladies, who, all more or less _en
+d�shabille_, scampered around with their bundles of gear--sewing,
+babies' clothes, tin pots, hair ornaments, boxes of powder and scented
+soap of that finest quality imported from Burma, selling for less than
+you can buy the genuine article for in London!--and then we took
+possession.
+
+If once there is a railway to Tengyueh from Burma, a visit to West
+China, even on to Tali-fu, for those who are prepared to rough it a
+little, will become quite a common trip. A few days up the Irawadi to
+Bhamo, through scenery of a peculiar kind of beauty eclipsed on none
+other of the world's great rivers, would be succeeded by a day or two
+over some of the best country which Upper Burma anywhere affords, and
+then, when once past Tengyueh, the grandeur of the mountains is amply
+compensating to those who love Nature in her beautiful isolation and
+peace. From a recuperating standpoint, perhaps, it would not quite
+answer--the rains would be a drawback to road travel, and it would at
+best mean roughing it; but for the many in Burma who wish to take a
+holiday and have not the time to go to Europe, I see no reason why
+Tengyueh should not develop into what Darjeeling is to Calcutta and what
+Japan is to the British ports farther East. Expense would not be heavy.
+To Bhamo would be easy. As things now stand, with no railway, one would
+need to take a few provisions and cooking utensils, and a camp bed and
+tent, unless one would be prepared to do as the author did, and
+patronize Chinese inns, such as they are. The rest would be easy to get
+on the road. For three days from Bhamo d�k bungalows are available, and
+to a man knowing the country it would be an easy matter to arrange his
+comforts. To one who knows the conditions, there is in the trip a good
+deal to fascinate; for in the lives and customs of the people, in the
+nature of the country, in the free-and-easy life the traveler would
+himself develop--having a peep at things as they were back in the
+ancient days of the Bible--to the brain-fagged professional or
+commercial there is nothing better in the whole of the East.
+
+He would get some excellent shooting, especially in the Salwen Valley,
+not exactly a health resort, however; and had he inclinations towards
+botanical, ethnological, craniological, or philological studies, he
+would be at a loss to find anywhere in the world a more interesting
+area.
+
+But a man should never leave the "ta lu" (the main road) in China if he
+would experience the minimum of discomfort and annoyance, which under
+best conditions is considerable to an irritable man. As I sit down now,
+on the very spot where Margary, of the British Consulate Service was
+murdered in 1875, I regret that I have sacrificed a great deal to secure
+most of the photographs which decorate this section of my book. No one,
+not even my military escort, knows the way, and is being sworn at by my
+men therefor. How I am to reach Man Hsien, across the river at Taping, I
+do not quite know. Many�en, so interesting in history, is a native
+Shan-Kachino-Chinese town untouched by the years--slovenly, dirty,
+undisciplined, immoral, where law and order and civilization have gained
+at best but a precarious foothold, the most characteristic feature of
+the people being the gambler's instinct. But I remember that I am coming
+into Burma, into the real East, where the tangle and the topsy-turvydom,
+the crooked vision and the distorted travesty of the truth, which result
+from judging the Oriental from the standpoint of the Europeans and
+looking at the East through the eyes of the West, impress themselves
+upon one's mind in bewildering fashion as a hopeless problem. Everything
+is all at cross purposes.
+
+However, although I lost my way from Many�en to Man Hsien, I got my
+photographs of Kachins, those people whose appearance is that they have
+no one to care for them body or soul. Their thick, uncombed locks, so
+long and lank as to resemble deck swabs, overlapped roofwise the ugliest
+aboriginal faces I ever saw in Asia or America, and their eyes under
+shaggy brows looked out with diabolical fire.
+
+So much information is to be obtained from the <i<Upper Burma Gazetteer_
+about the Kachins that it is needless for me to write much here,
+especially as I can add nothing. But I feel I should like to say just a
+word of praise of the remarkable work of the American Baptist Mission,
+which has its headquarters at Bhamo, among this tribe in Burma. At the
+time I arrived in the city the annual festival was being conducted at
+the Baptist Church, and hundreds of Kachins were assembled in the
+splendid premises of this mission. They had come from many miles around;
+and to one who at previous times in his residence in the Far East had
+written disparagingly about missionaries and their work, there came some
+little personal shame as he looked upon the extremely creditable work of
+the American missionaries in this district. Kachins are a somewhat
+uncivilized and quarrelsome race, unspeakably immoral, and steeped in
+every vice against which the Christian missionary has to set his face--a
+most difficult people to work among. But there I saw scores and scores
+of baptized Christians living a life clean and ennobling, endeavoring
+honestly to break away from their degrading customs of centuries, some
+of them exceedingly intelligent people.
+
+I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and
+malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print
+respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it
+is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should
+know what their American brethren are doing here. I cannot praise too
+highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my
+pleasure to meet. In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the
+American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only
+an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a
+gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A
+writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for
+many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of
+the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses. My experience
+is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable
+pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr.
+Roberts may be spared many years still to control the work on the
+successful mission field in which he has spent so much of his labor of
+love for the Kachins.
+
+Kachins form the bulk of the population in the extreme north of Burma.
+To the west they extend to Assam, and to the south into the Shan States,
+as far even as latitude 20� 30'. By far the largest proportion of them
+live in Burmese territory, but they also extend into Western Y�n-nan,
+though nowhere are they found farther east than longitude 99�.
+
+Man Hsien is the last yamen place before reaching the British border. I
+crossed the river Taping from Many�en, being shown the road by a Burmese
+member of the Buddhistic yellow cloth, who was most pressing that I
+should stay with him for a few days. Again did I get a fright that my
+manuscript would never get into print, for my pony, Rusty, probably
+cognizant of the fact that he, too, was finishing his long tramp, nearly
+stamped the bottom of the boat out, and threatened to send us down by
+river past Bhamo quicker than our arrival was scheduled.
+
+The large official paper given to one's military escort from point to
+point was here produced for the last time, and great ado was made about
+me. Reading this document aloud from the top of the steps, when he came
+to my name the mandarin bowed very low, called me Ding Daren[BG] (a sign
+of highest respect), asked if I would exchange cards, and then lapsed
+unconsciously into profuse congratulation to myself that I should have
+been born an Englishman. So far as he knew, I could be assured that the
+existing relations between the administrative bodies of his contemptible
+country and my own royal land were of a nature so felicitously mutual
+and peaceful--in fact, both Governments saw eye to eye in regard to
+international affairs in Far Western China--that he felt sure that I
+should arrive at the bridge leading into Burma without personal harm. He
+then, with a colossal bow to myself and a gentle wave of his three-inch
+finger-nail, handed me over with pungent emphasis of speech to the
+keeping of a Chinese and a Shan, who with a keen sense of favors to come
+were to form my escort to Burma's border.
+
+A low grunt of unrestrained approval came from the multitude. The
+underlings--Chino-Kachino-Burmo-Shan people--who ran about in a little
+of each of the clothing characteristic of the four said races, were all
+busy in their endeavors to extricate from me a few cash apiece by doing
+all and more than was necessary.
+
+Then the great man rose. He condescended to depart. He passed from the
+threshold, turned, paused, bowed, turned again, went down the steps,
+bowed again--a long curving bow, which nearly sent him to the
+ground--and then continued with a light heart towards that loveliest
+land of the East. My men exhibited no emotion. That they were coming
+into British territory was of no concern to them; they had come from far
+away in the interior, and were the greenest of the green, the rawest of
+the raw.
+
+But soon I passed over a small bridge, a spot where two great empires
+meet. I was in Burma.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So I have crossed from one end of China to the other. I entered China on
+March 4th, 1909; I came out on February 14th, 1910.
+
+I had come to see how far the modern spirit had penetrated into the
+hidden recesses of the Chinese Empire. One may be little given to
+philosophizing, and possess but scanty skill in putting into words the
+conclusions which form themselves in one's mind, but it is impossible
+to cross China entirely unobservant. One must begin, no matter how
+dimly, to perceive something of the causes which are at work. By the
+incoming of the European to inland China a transformation is being
+wrought, not the natural growth of a gradual evolution, itself the
+result of propulsion from within, but produced, on the contrary, by
+artificial means, in bitter conflict with inherent instincts, inherited
+traditions, innate tendencies, characteristics, and genius, racial and
+individual. In the eyes of the Chinese of the old school these changes
+in the habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing and ruining
+much--all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man. The tawdry shell, the
+valueless husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains untouched
+in many places, as will have been seen in previous chapters; but the
+soul within is steadily and surely, if slowly, undergoing a process of
+final atrophy. But yet the proper opening-up of the country by internal
+reform and not by external pressure has as yet hardly commenced in
+immense areas of the Empire far removed from the imperial city of
+Peking. And the mere fact that the Chinese propose such an absurd
+program as that which plans the building of all their railways without
+the aid of foreign capital is sufficient to react in an unwholesome
+manner economically.[BH][BI]
+
+I cannot but admit that, whilst in most parts of my journey there are
+distinct traces of reform--I speak, of course, of the outlying parts of
+China--and some very striking traces, too, and a real longing on the
+part of far-seeing officials to escape from a humiliating international
+position, it is distinctly apparent that in everything which concerns
+Europe and the Western world the people and the officials as a whole are
+of one mind in the methods of procrastination which are so dear to the
+heart of the Celestial, and that peculiar opposition to Europeanism
+which has marked the real East since the beginning of modern history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now lovely, lovely Burma!
+
+I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very box containing the
+clothes into which I must change before I could enter into the social
+life of Bhamo swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
+rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered after great trouble.
+
+Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds in the dense blue sky
+hung lazily over the green hills, the heavy air was pregnant with that
+delicious ease known only in the tropics--all was still and sweet. The
+river flowed grandly from the interior through magnificent forest
+country, receiving on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
+streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle--tangles of giant
+trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine and festooning
+parasite--rising sheer from the water's brink. Now long clusters of
+villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees; now wide expanses
+of grass-grown meadow, where the grazing grounds dip to the river, and
+where the only echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans--the
+banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage of the kine trooping
+down to drink. Occasional wooded islands broke the monotony of the
+river, and were just discernible from the magnificent English roads
+which skirted the hills high up from the river, and yellow sandspits and
+big wedges of granite and rock ran far out into its uneven course. By
+day the joyous Burma sun smiled upon all, and at midday poured its
+merciless heat down upon all mankind, unheeding the weary wanderer whose
+tramp was now near done. At night the tropical moon turned all this
+riverine world to the likeness of a very fairyland. Lying in a long
+chair in the d�k bungalows one drank in the scenes which succeeded one
+another in bewildering succession, and felt himself thrilled by an
+almost fierce appreciation of eastern beauty. It was good to meet again
+an Englishman, a sturdy, firm-featured Englishman, whose love of the
+East, like mine own, was a veritable obsession. The sun glare of the
+tropics had parched the color out of our white skin, and despite the
+fact that malaria came back again here to taunt me, yet I was again in
+the East that I loved, that had scarred and marked me ere my time
+mayhap. And yet I, with many such of my own countrymen, despite her
+rough handling, worship her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In three days I was in Bhamo.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BF: _i.e._ New Year, New Year.]
+
+[Footnote BG: _i.e._Great Man. "Ding" is my Chinese name.]
+
+[Footnote BH: I believe personally that the main object of the Y�n-nan
+provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the
+present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Y�n-nan-fu to
+the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a
+monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese
+dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow
+foreigners to come in still farther.]
+
+[Footnote BI: This was of course written long before the Four Nations
+Loan was signed, and Tuan Fang appointed Director General of the
+Railways in May, 1911. We should now see a speedy reformation of Railway
+matters in China if Tuan is given an absolutely free hand.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+END OF BOOK II.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.]
+
+
+[Illustration: RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AT HANKOW�THE CHICAGO OF CHINA
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A LONELY TRAVELER
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EARNING HIS LIVING
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.]
+
+
+[Illustration: WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA
+
+If there is an "artist" on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH'UAN
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground�each of them earning about 25 cents a day.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, "Once a
+musician, always a musician"�so it usually runs in the family.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king�the Author's four-man chair engaged
+to "save his face," and his servant's two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MEKONG BRIDGE
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains�very hard going�to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN Y�N-NAN
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu'aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of "Across China On Foot."
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women�though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech'uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF "MAIN ROAD" IN N.E. Y�N-NAN
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China's
+"great paved highways"; author is in saddle.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH'UANFU
+
+Where the Author's life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.]
+
+
+[Illustration: WATCH YOUR STEP
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author's traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.]
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable�and invariably happy.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN Y�N-NAN
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Y�n-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WOMEN WEAVING HEMP GARMENTS
+
+These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
+
+Basket on woman's back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch'uanfu, the "City of
+the Eastern Streams"�and a very happy little band they are.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNG-CH'ANG-FU
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China�China's
+"Switzerland"�on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: COPPER KETTLE LANE IN Y�N-NAN-FU
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY'S END
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese "to be possessed of a
+demon!"� because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Top left--Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Y�n-nan. Top right--Ch'in
+Miao, men, of Kweichow. Bottom left--Three Heh Miao�all women. Bottom
+right--Hua Miao�two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture�otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Sui-fu, Szech'uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH'UANFU IN Y�N-NAN
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch'uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains "for eighty
+centuries," they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN Y�N-NAN
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IGNORANCE AND POVERTY
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Y�n-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author's ponies
+"committed suicide," Chinese said.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.]
+
+
+[Illustration: REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary's
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch'uanfu.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED Y�N-NAN
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
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+<html>
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content=
+    "text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Across China On Foot, by EDWIN JOHN DINGLE.
+    </title>
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+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Across China on Foot
+
+Author: Edwin Dingle
+
+Release Date: September 10, 2004 [EBook #13420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Schulze and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<h1>ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT</h1>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'><i>By</i></p>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>EDWIN JOHN DINGLE</p>
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china00.jpg' width='380' height='600' alt='Edwin John Dingle' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>1911</p>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>IN GRATEFUL ESTEEM</p>
+
+<p style='text-align: center;'>DURING MY TRAVELS IN INTERIOR CHINA I ONCE
+LAY AT THE POINT OF DEATH. FOR THEIR UNREMITTING
+KINDNESS DURING A LONG ILLNESS, I
+NOW AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME TO
+MY FRIENDS, MR. AND MRS. A. EVANS, OF TONG-CH'UAN-FU,
+Y&Uuml;N-NAN, SOUTH-WEST CHINA, TO
+WHOSE DEVOTED NURSING AND UNTIRING CARE
+I OWE MY LIFE.</p>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<a href='#Across_China_on_Foot'><b>BOOK I.</b></a>
+
+<a href='#INTRODUCTORY'><b>FROM THE STRAITS TO SHANGHAI&mdash;INTRODUCTORY</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIRST_JOURNEY'><b>FIRST JOURNEY.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_I'><b>CHAPTER I.&nbsp;  FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#SECOND_JOURNEY'><b>SECOND JOURNEY&mdash;ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_II'><b>CHAPTER II.&nbsp;  THE ICHANG GORGE</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_III'><b>CHAPTER III.&nbsp; THE YANGTZE RAPIDS</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_IV'><b>CHAPTER IV.&nbsp;  THE YEH T'AN RAPID. ARRIVAL AT KWEIEU</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THIRD_JOURNEY'><b>THIRD JOURNEY&mdash;CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW).</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_V'><b>CHAPTER V.&nbsp; &nbsp; BEGINNING OF THE OVERLAND JOURNEY</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_VI'><b>CHAPTER VI.&nbsp;  THE PEOPLE OF SZECH'WAN</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FOURTH_JOURNEY'><b>FOURTH JOURNEY&mdash;SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_VII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; VII.&nbsp; DESCRIPTION OF JOURNEY FROM SUI-FU</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_VIII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; VIII. SZECH'WAN AND Y&Uuml;N-NAN</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THE_CHAO_TONG_REBELLION_OF_1910'><b>THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_IX'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; IX.</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THE_TRIBES_OF_NORTH_EAST_YUumlN_NAN_AND_MISSION_WORK_AMONG_THEM'><b>THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST Y&Uuml;N-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_X'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; X.</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIFTH_JOURNEY'><b>FIFTH JOURNEY&mdash;CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XI'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XI.&nbsp;  AUTHOR MEETS WITH ACCIDENT</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XII.&nbsp; Y&Uuml;N-NAN'S CHECKERED CAREER. ILLNESS OF AUTHOR</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#BOOK_II'><b>BOOK II.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIRST_JOURNEY2'><b>FIRST JOURNEY&mdash;TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIII'><b>CHAPTER XIII. DEPARTURE FOR BURMA.&nbsp; DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL.</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIV'><b>CHAPTER XIV.&nbsp; Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#SECOND_JOURNEY2'><b>SECOND JOURNEY&mdash;Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU).</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XV'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XV.&nbsp; DOES CHINA WANT THE FOREIGNER?</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVI'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XVI. LU-FENG-HSIEN. MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. CHINESE UNTRUTHFULNESS.</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XVII. KWANG-TUNG-HSIEN TO SHACHIAO-KA</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XVIII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XVIII. STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS. AT HUNGAY</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XIX'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XIX. THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN. ARRIVAL AT TALI-FU</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#THIRD_JOURNEY2'><b>THIRD JOURNEY&mdash;TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XX'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XX. HARDEST PART OF THE JOURNEY.HWAN-LIEN-P'U</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXI'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXI. THE MOUNTAINS OF Y&Uuml;N-NAN. SHAYUNG. OPIUM SMOKING.</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FOURTH_JOURNEY2'><b>FOURTH JOURNEY&mdash;THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXII. THE RIVER MEKONG</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIII'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXIII. THROUGH THE SALWEN VALLEY TO TENGYUEH</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXIV'><b>CHAPTER&nbsp; XXIV. THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY</b></a></span><br />
+<br />
+<a href='#FIFTH_JOURNEY2'><b>FIFTH JOURNEY&mdash;TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA.</b></a><br />
+<br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXV'><b>CHAPTER XXV. SHANS AND KACHINS</b></a></span><br />
+<span style='margin-left: 2em;'><a href='#CHAPTER_XXVI'><b>CHAPTER XXVI. END OF LONG JOURNEY. ARRIVAL IN BURMA</b></a></span><br />
+
+
+<br />
+
+<p><i>To travel in China is easy. To walk across China, over roads
+acknowledgedly worse than are met with in any civilized country in the
+two hemispheres, and having accommodation unequalled for crudeness and
+insanitation, is not easy. In deciding to travel in China, I determined
+to cross overland from the head of the Yangtze Gorges to British Burma
+on foot; and, although the strain nearly cost me my life, no conveyance
+was used in any part of my journey other than at two points described in
+the course of the narrative. For several days during my travels I lay at
+the point of death. The arduousness of constant mountaineering</i>&mdash;<i>for
+such is ordinary travel in most parts of Western China</i>&mdash;<i>laid the
+foundation of a long illness, rendering it impossible for me to continue
+my walking, and as a consequence I resided in the interior of China
+during a period of convalescence of several months duration, at the end
+of which I continued my cross-country tramp. Subsequently I returned
+into Y&uuml;n-nan from Burma, lived again in Tong-ch'uan-fu and
+Chao-t'ong-fu, and traveled in the wilds of the surrounding country.
+Whilst traveling I lived on Chinese food, and in the Miao country, where
+rice could not be got, subsisted for many days on maize only.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>My sole object in going to China was a personal desire to see China from
+the inside. My trip was undertaken for no other purpose. I carried no
+instruments (with the exception of an aneroid), and did not even make a
+single survey of the untrodden country through which I occasionally
+passed. So far as I know, I am the only traveler, apart from members of
+the missionary community, who has ever resided far away in the interior
+of the Celestial Empire for so long a time.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>Most of the manuscript for this book was written as I went along>&mdash;a
+good deal of it actually by the roadside in rural China. When my journey
+was completed, the following news paragraph in the North China Daily
+News (of Shanghai) was brought to my notice:&mdash;</i></p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p><i>&quot;All the Legations (at Peking) have received anonymous letters from
+     alleged revolutionaries in Shanghai, containing the warning that an
+     extensive anti-dynastic uprising is imminent. If they do not assist
+     the Manchus, foreigners will not be harmed; otherwise, they will be
+     destroyed in a general massacre.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>     &quot;The missives were delivered mysteriously, bearing obliterated
+     postmarks.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>     &quot;In view of the recent similar warnings received by the Consuls,
+     uneasiness has been created.&quot;</i></p></div>
+
+<p><i>The above appeared in the journal quoted on June 3rd, 1910. The reader,
+in perusing my previously written remarks on the spirit of reform and
+how far it has penetrated into the innermost corners of the empire,
+should bear this paragraph in mind, for there is more Boxerism and
+unrest in China than we know of. My account of the Hankow riots of
+January, 1911, through which I myself went, will, with my experience of
+rebellions in Y&uuml;n-nan, justify my assertion.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I should like to thank all those missionaries who entertained me as I
+proceeded through China, especially Mr. John Graham and Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, of the China Inland Mission, who transacted a good deal of
+business for me and took all trouble uncomplainingly. I am also indebted
+to Dr. Clark, of Tali-fu, and to the Revs. H. Parsons and S. Pollard,
+for several photographs illustrating that section of this book dealing
+with the tribes of Y&uuml;n-nan.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>I wish to express my acknowledgments to several well-known writers on
+far Eastern topics, notably to Dr. G.E. Morrison, of Peking, the Rev.
+Sidney L. Hulick, M.A., D.D., and Mr. H.B. Morse, whose works are
+quoted. Much information was also gleaned from other sources.</i></p>
+
+<p><i>My thanks are due also to Mr. W. Brayton Slater and to my brother, Mr.
+W.R. Dingle, for their kindness in having negotiated with my publishers
+in my absence in Inland China; and to the latter, for unfailing courtesy
+and patience, I am under considerable obligation. &quot;Across China on Foot&quot;
+would have appeared in the autumn of 1910 had the printers' proofs,
+which were several times sent to me to different addresses in China, but
+which dodged me repeatedly, come sooner to hand.</i></p>
+
+<p>[Signature: Edwin Dingle]</p>
+
+<p>HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='Across_China_on_Foot'></a><h1>Across China on Foot</h1>
+
+<h4><i>From the Straits to Shanghai</i></h4>
+
+<a name='INTRODUCTORY'></a><h2>INTRODUCTORY</h2>
+
+<p><i>The scheme</i>. <i>Why I am walking across Interior China</i>. <i>Leaving
+Singapore</i>. <i>Ignorance of life and travel in China</i>. <i>The &quot;China for the
+Chinese&quot; cry</i>. <i>The New China and the determination of the Government</i>.
+<i>The voice of the people</i>. <i>The province of Y&uuml;n-nan and the forward
+movement</i>. <i>A prophecy</i>. <i>Impressions of Saigon</i>. <i>Comparison of French
+and English methods</i>. <i>At Hong-Kong</i>. <i>Cold sail up the Whang-poo</i>.
+<i>Disembarkation</i>. <i>Foreign population of Shanghai</i>. <i>Congestion in the
+city</i>. <i>Wonderful Shanghai.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Through China from end to end. From Shanghai, 1,500 miles by river and
+1,600 miles walking overland, from the greatest port of the Chinese
+Empire to the frontier of British Burma.</p>
+
+<p>That is my scheme.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I am a journalist, one of the army of the hard-worked who go down early
+to the Valley. I state this because I would that the truth be told; for
+whilst engaged in the project with which this book has mainly to deal I
+was subjected to peculiar designations, such as &quot;explorer&quot; and other
+newspaper extravagances, and it were well, perhaps, for my reader to
+know once for all that the writer is merely a newspaper man, at the time
+on holiday.</p>
+
+<p>The rather extreme idea of walking across this Flowery Land came to me
+early in the year 1909, although for many years I had cherished the hope
+of seeing Interior China ere modernity had robbed her and her wonderful
+people of their isolation and antediluvianism, and ever since childhood
+my interest in China has always been considerable. A little prior to the
+Chinese New Year, a friend of mine dined with me at my rooms in
+Singapore, in the Straits Settlements, and the conversation about China
+resulted in our decision then and there to travel through the Empire on
+holiday. He, because at the time he had little else to do; the author,
+because he thought that a few months' travel in mid-China would, from a
+journalistic standpoint, be passed profitably, the intention being to
+arrive home in dear old England late in the summer of the same year.</p>
+
+<p>We agreed to cross China on foot, and accordingly on February 22, 1909,
+just as the sun was sinking over the beautiful harbor of Singapore&mdash;that
+most valuable strategic Gate of the Far East, where Crown Colonial
+administration, however, is allowed by a lethargic British Government to
+become more and more bungled every year&mdash;we settled down on board the
+French mail steamer <i>Nera</i>, bound for Shanghai. My friends, good
+fellows, in reluctantly speeding me on my way, prophesied that this
+would prove to be my last long voyage to a last long rest, that the
+Chinese would never allow me to come out of China alive. Such is the
+ignorance of the average man concerning the conditions of life and
+travel in the interior of this Land of Night.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, was I on my way to that land towards which all the world was
+straining its eyes, whose nation, above all nations of the earth, was
+altering for better things, and coming out of its historic shell.
+&quot;Reform, reform, reform,&quot; was the echo, and I myself was on the way to
+hear it.</p>
+
+<p>At the time I started for China the cry of &quot;China for the Chinese&quot; was
+heard in all countries, among all peoples. Statesmen were startled by
+it, editors wrote the phrase to death, magazines were filled with
+copy&mdash;good, bad and indifferent&mdash;mostly written, be it said, by men
+whose knowledge of the question was by no means complete: editorial
+opinion, and contradiction of that opinion, were printed side by side in
+journals having a good name. To one who endeavored actually to
+understand what was being done, and whither these broad tendencies and
+strange cravings of the Chinese were leading a people who formerly were
+so indifferent to progress, it seemed essential that he should go to the
+country, and there on the spot make a study of the problem.</p>
+
+<p>Was the reform, if genuine at all, universal in China? Did it reach to
+the ends of the Empire?</p>
+
+<p>That a New China had come into being, and was working astounding results
+in the enlightened provinces above the Yangtze and those connected with
+the capital by railway, was common knowledge; but one found it hard to
+believe that the west and the south-west of the empire were moved by the
+same spirit of Europeanism, and it will be seen that China in the west
+moves, if at all, but at a snail's pace: the second part of this volume
+deals with that portion of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>And it may be that the New China, as we know it in the more forward
+spheres of activity, will only take her proper place in the family of
+nations after fresh upheavals. Rivers of blood may yet have to flow as a
+sickening libation to the gods who have guided the nation for forty
+centuries before she will be able to attain her ambition of standing
+line to line with the other powers of the eastern and western worlds.
+But it seems that no matter what the cost, no matter what she may have
+to suffer financially and nationally, no matter how great the obstinacy
+of the people towards the reform movement, the change is coming, has
+already come with alarming rapidity, and has come to stay. China is
+changing&mdash;let so much be granted; and although the movement may be
+hampered by a thousand general difficulties, presented by the ancient
+civilization of a people whose customs and manners and ideas have stood
+the test of time since the days contemporary with those of Solomon, and
+at one time bade fair to test eternity, the Government cry of &quot;China for
+the Chinese&quot; is going to win. Chinese civilization has for ages been
+allowed to get into a very bad state of repair, and official corruption
+and deceit have prevented the Government from making an effectual move
+towards present-day aims; but that she is now making an honest endeavor
+to rectify her faults in the face of tremendous odds must, so it appears
+to the writer, be apparent to all beholders. That is the Government
+view-point. It is important to note this.</p>
+
+<p>In China, however, the Government is not the people. It never has been.
+It is not to be expected that great political and social reforms can be
+introduced into such an enormous country as China, and among her four
+hundred and thirty millions of people, merely by the issue of a few
+imperial edicts. The masses have to be convinced that any given thing is
+for the public good before they accept, despite the proclamations, and
+in thus convincing her own people China has yet to go through the fire
+of a terrible ordeal. Especially will this be seen in the second part of
+this volume, where in Y&uuml;n-nan there are huge areas absolutely untouched
+by the forward movement, and where the people are living the same life
+of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral
+degradation as they lived when the Westerner remained still in the
+primeval forest stage. But despite the scepticism and the cynicism of
+certain writers, whose pessimism is due to a lack of foresight, and
+despite the fact that she is being constantly accused of having in the
+past ignominiously failed at the crucial moment in endeavors towards
+minor reforms, I am one of those who believe that in China we shall see
+arising a Government whose power will be paramount in the East, and upon
+the integrity of whose people will depend the peace of Europe. It is
+much to say. We shall not see it, but our children will. The Government
+is going to conquer the people. She has done so already in certain
+provinces, and in a few years the reform&mdash;deep and real, not the
+make-believe we see in many parts of the Empire to-day&mdash;will be
+universal.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Between Singapore and Shanghai the opportunity occurred of calling at
+Saigon and Hong-Kong, two cities offering instructive contrasts of
+French and British administration in the Far East.</p>
+
+<p>Saigon is not troubled much by the Britisher. The nationally-exacting
+Frenchman has brought it to represent fairly his loved Paris in the
+East. The approach to the city, through the dirty brown mud of the
+treacherous Mekong, which is swept down vigorously to the China sea
+between stretches of monotonous mangrove, with no habitation of man
+anywhere visible, is distinctly unpicturesque; but Saigon itself, apart
+from the exorbitance of the charges (especially so to the spendthrift
+Englishman), is worth the dreary journey of numberless twists and quick
+turns up-river, annoying to the most patient pilot.</p>
+
+<p>In the daytime, Saigon is as hot as that last bourne whither all
+evil-doers wander&mdash;Englishmen and dogs alone are seen abroad between
+nine and one. But in the soothing cool of the soft tropical evening,
+gay-lit boulevards, a magnificent State-subsidized opera-house, alfresco
+caf&eacute;s where dawdle the domino-playing absinthe drinkers, the
+fierce-moustached gendarmes, and innumerable features typically and
+picturesquely French, induced me easily to believe myself back in the
+bewildering whirl of the Boulevard des Capucines or des Italiennes.
+Whether the narrow streets of the native city are clean or dirty,
+whether garbage heaps lie festering in the broiling sun, sending their
+disgusting effluvia out to annoy the sense of smell at every turn, the
+municipality cares not a little bit. Indifference to the well-being of
+the native pervades it; there is present no progressive prosperity.
+Every second person I met was, or seemed to be, a Government official.
+He was dressed in immaculate white clothes of the typical ugly French
+cut, trimmed elaborately with an <i>ad libitum</i> decoration of gold braid
+and brass buttons. All was so different from Singapore and Hong-Kong,
+and one did not feel, in surroundings which made strongly for the
+<i>laissez-faire</i> of the Frenchman in the East, ashamed of the fact that
+he was an Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>Three days north lies Hong-Kong, an all-important link in the armed
+chain of Britain's empire east of Suez, bone of the bone and flesh of
+the flesh of Great Britain beyond the seas. The history of this island,
+ceded to us in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, is known to everyone in
+Europe, or should be.</p>
+
+<p>Four and a half days more, and we anchored at Woo-sung; and a few hours
+later, after a terribly cold run up the river in the teeth of a terrific
+wind, we arrived at Shanghai.</p>
+
+<p>The average man in Europe and America does not know that this great
+metropolis of the Far East is far removed from salt water, and that it
+is the first point on entering the Yangtze-kiang at which a port could
+be established. It is twelve miles up the Whang-poo. Junks whirled past
+with curious tattered brown sails, resembling dilapidated verandah
+blinds, merchantmen were there flying the flags of the nations of the
+world, all churning up the yellow stream as they hurried to catch the
+flood-tide at the bar. Then came the din of disembarkation. Enthusiastic
+hotel-runners, hard-worked coolies, rickshaw men, professional Chinese
+beggars, and the inevitable hangers-on of a large eastern city crowded
+around me to turn an honest or dishonest penny. Some rude, rough-hewn
+lout, covered with grease and coal-dust, pushed bang against me and
+hurled me without ceremony from his path. My baggage, meantime, was
+thrown onto a two-wheeled van, drawn by four of those poor human beasts
+of burden&mdash;how horrible to have been born a Chinese coolie!&mdash;and I was
+whirled away to my hotel for tucker. The French mail had given us coffee
+and rolls at six, but the excitement of landing at a foreign port does
+not usually produce the net amount of satisfaction to or make for the
+sustenance of the inner man of the phlegmatic Englishman, as with the
+wilder-natured Frenchman. Therefore were our spirits ruffled.</p>
+
+<p>However, my companion and I fed later.</p>
+
+<p>Subsequently to this we agreed not to be drawn to the clubs or mix in
+the social life of Shanghai, but to consider ourselves as two beings
+entirely apart from the sixteen thousand and twenty-three Britishers,
+Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Danes, Portuguese, and other
+sundry internationals at that moment at Shanghai. They lived there: we
+were soon to leave.</p>
+
+<p>The city was suffering from the abnormal congestion common to the
+Orient, with a big dash of the West. Trams, motors, rickshaws, the
+peculiar Chinese wheelbarrow, horrid public shaky landaus in miniature,
+conveyances of all kinds, and the swarming masses of coolie humanity
+carrying or hauling merchandise amid incessant jabbering, yelling, and
+vociferating, made intense bewilderment before breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful Shanghai!</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIRST_JOURNEY'></a><h2>FIRST JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_I'></a><h2>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p><i>To Ichang, an everyday trip</i>. <i>Start from Shanghai, and the city's
+appearance</i>. <i>At Hankow</i>. <i>Meaning of the name</i>. <i>Trio of strategic and
+military points of the empire</i>. <i>Han-yang and Wu-ch'ang</i>. <i>Commercial and
+industrial future of Hankow</i>. <i>Getting our passports</i>. <i>Britishers in the
+city</i>. <i>The commercial Chinaman</i>. <i>The native city: some impressions</i>.
+<i>Clothing of the people</i>. <i>Cotton and wool</i>. <i>Indifference to comfort</i>.
+<i>Surprise at our daring project</i>. <i>At Ichang</i>. <i>British gunboat and early
+morning routine</i>. <i>Our vain quest for aid</i>. <i>Laying in stores and
+commissioning our boat</i>. <i>Ceremonies at starting gorges trip</i>. <i>Raising
+anchor, and our departure</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Let no one who has been so far as Ichang, a thousand miles from the sea,
+imagine that he has been into the interior of China.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite an everyday trip. Modern steamers, with every modern
+convenience and luxury, probably as comfortable as any river steamers in
+the world, ply regularly in their two services between Shanghai and this
+port, at the foot of the Gorges.</p>
+
+<p>The Whang-poo looked like the Thames, and the Shanghai Bund like the
+Embankment, when I embarked on board a Jap boat <i>en route</i> for Hankow,
+and thence to Ichang by a smaller steamer, on a dark, bitterly cold
+Saturday night, March 6th, 1909. I was to travel fifteen hundred miles
+up that greatest artery of China. The Yangtze surpasses in importance to
+the Celestial Empire what the Mississippi is to America, and yet even
+in China there are thousands of resident foreigners who know no more
+about this great river than the average Smithfield butcher. Ask ten men
+in Fleet Street or in Wall Street where Ichang is, and nine will be
+unable to tell you. Yet it is a port of great importance, when one
+considers that the handling of China's vast river-borne trade has been
+opened to foreign trade and residence since the Chefoo Convention was
+signed in 1876, that Ichang is a city of forty thousand souls, and has a
+gross total of imports of nearly forty millions of taels.</p>
+
+<p>Of Hankow, however, more is known. Here we landed after a four days'
+run, and, owing to the low water, had to wait five days before the
+shallower-bottomed steamer for the higher journey had come in. The city
+is made up of foreign concessions, as in other treaty ports, but away in
+the native quarter there is the real China, with her selfish rush, her
+squalidness and filth among the teeming thousands. There dwell together,
+literally side by side, but yet eternally apart, all the conflicting
+elements of the East and West which go to make up a city in the Far
+East, and particularly the China coast.</p>
+
+<p>Hankow means literally Han Mouth, being situated at the juncture of the
+Han River and the Yangtze. Across the way, as I write, I can see
+Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where
+the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. (This is but a
+fraction of the total work done.) It is, I believe, the only
+steel-rolling mill in China. Long before the foreigner set foot so far
+up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance&mdash;the Chinese used
+to call it the centre of the world. Ten years ago I should have been
+thirty days' hard travel from Peking; at the present moment I might
+pack my bag and be in Peking within thirty-six hours. Hankow, with
+Tientsin and Nanking, makes up the trio of principal strategic points of
+the Empire, the trio of centers also of greatest military activity. On
+the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial
+capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and
+important provinces of the whole eighteen.</p>
+
+<p>Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two
+million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the
+whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.</p>
+
+<p>Here we registered as British subjects, and secured our Chinese
+passports, resembling naval ensigns more than anything else, for the
+four provinces of Hu-peh, Kwei-chow, Szech'wan, and Y&uuml;n-nan. The
+Consul-General and his assistants helped us in many ways, disillusioning
+us of the many distorted reports which have got into print regarding the
+indifference shown to British travelers by their own consuls at these
+ports. We found the brethren at the Hankow Club a happy band, with every
+luxury around them for which hand and heart could wish; so that it were
+perhaps ludicrous to look upon them as exiles, men out in the outposts
+of Britain beyond the seas, building up the trade of the Empire. Yet
+such they undoubtedly were, most of them having a much better time than
+they would at home. There is not the roughing required in Hankow which
+is necessary in other parts of the empire, as in British East Africa and
+in the jungles of the Federated Malay States, for instance. Building the
+Empire where there is an abundance of the straw wherewith to make the
+bricks, is a matter of no difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>And then the Chinese is a good man to manage in trade, and in business
+dealings his word is his bond, generally speaking, although we do not
+forget that not long ago a branch in North China of the Hong-kong and
+Shanghai Bank was swindled seriously by a shroff who had done honest
+duty for a great number of years. It cannot, however, be said that such
+behavior is a common thing among the commercial class. My personal
+experience has been that John does what he says he will do, and for
+years he will go on doing that one thing; but it should not surprise you
+if one fine morning, with the infinite sagacity of his race, he ceases
+to do this when you are least expecting it&mdash;and he &quot;does&quot; you. Keep an
+eye on him, and the Chinese to be found in Hankow having dealings with
+Europeans in business is as good as the best of men.</p>
+
+<p>We wended our way one morning into the native city, and agreed that few
+inconveniences of the Celestial Empire make upon the western mind a more
+speedy impression than the entire absence of sanitation. In Hankow we
+were in mental suspense as to which was the filthier native city&mdash;Hankow
+or Shanghai. But we are probably like other travelers, who find each
+city visited worse than the last. Should there arise in their midst a
+man anxious to confer an everlasting blessing upon his fellow Chinese,
+no better work could he do than to institute a system approaching what
+to our Western mind is sanitation. We arrived, of course, in the winter,
+and, having seen it at a time when the sun could do but little in
+increasing the stenches, we leave to the imagination what it would be in
+the summer, in a city which for heat is not excelled by Aden.<a name='FNanchor_A_1'></a><a href='#Footnote_A_1'><sup>[A]</sup></a> During
+the summer of 1908 no less than twenty-eight foreigners succumbed to
+cholera, and the native deaths were numberless.</p>
+
+<p>The people were suffering very much from the cold, and it struck me as
+one of the unaccountable phenomena of their civilization that in their
+ingenuity in using the gifts of Nature they have never learned to weave
+wool, and to employ it in clothing&mdash;that is, in a general sense. There
+are a few exceptions in the empire. The nation is almost entirely
+dependent upon cotton for clothing, which in winter is padded with a
+cheap wadding to an abnormal thickness. The common people wear no
+underclothing whatever. When they sleep they strip to the skin, and wrap
+themselves in a single wadded blanket, sleeping the sleep of the tired
+people their excessive labor makes them. And, although their clothes
+might be the height of discomfort, they show their famous indifference
+to comfort by never complaining. These burdensome clothes hang around
+them like so many bags, with the wide gaps here and there where the wind
+whistles to the flesh. It is a national characteristic that they are
+immune to personal inconveniences, a philosophy which I found to be
+universal, from the highest to the lowest.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody we met, from the British Consul-General downward, was
+surprised to know that my companion and I had no knowledge of the
+Chinese language, and seemed to look lightly upon our chances of ever
+getting through.</p>
+
+<p>It was true. Neither my companion nor myself knew three words of the
+language, but went forward simply believing in the good faith of the
+Chinese people, with our passports alone to protect us. That we should
+encounter difficulties innumerable, that we should be called upon to put
+up with the greatest hardships of life, when viewed from the standard to
+which one had been accustomed, and that we should be put to great
+physical endurance, we could not doubt. But we believed in the Chinese,
+and believed that should any evil befall us it would be the outcome of
+our own lack of forbearance, or of our own direct seeking. We knew that
+to the Chinese we should at once be &quot;foreign devils&quot; and &quot;barbarians,&quot;
+that if not holding us actually in contempt, they would feel some
+condescension in dealing and mixing with us; but I was personally of the
+opinion that it was easier for us to walk through China than it would be
+for two Chinese, dressed as Chinese, to walk through Great Britain or
+America. What would the canny Highlander or the rural English rustic
+think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his countryside?</p>
+
+<p>We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a
+boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen
+in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat
+<i>Kinsha</i> (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which
+English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way, and all
+looked rosy enough.<a name='FNanchor_B_2'></a><a href='#Footnote_B_2'><sup>[B]</sup></a> But for the author, who with his companion was a
+literal &quot;babe in the wood,&quot; the day was most eventful and trying to
+one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and sundry
+respecting our proposed tramp and the way we should get to work in
+making preparations. Each individual person seemed vigorously to do his
+best to induce us to turn back and follow callings of respectable
+members of society. From Shanghai upwards we might have believed
+ourselves watched by a secret society, which had for its motto, &quot;Return,
+oh, wanderer, return!&quot; Hardly a person knew aught of the actual
+conditions of the interior of the country in which he lived and labored,
+and everyone tried to dissuade us from our project.</p>
+
+<p>Coming ashore in good spirits, we called at the Consulate, at the back
+of the city graveyard, and were smoking his cigars and giving his boy an
+examination in elementary English, when the Consul came down. It was not
+possible, however, for us to get much more information than we had read
+up, and the Consul suggested that the most likely person to be of use to
+us would be the missionary at the China Inland Mission. Thither we
+repaired, following a sturdy employ&eacute; of Britain, but we found that the
+C.I.M. representative was not to be found&mdash;despite our repairing. So off
+we trotted to the chief business house of the town, at the entrance to
+which we were met by a Chinese, who bowed gravely, asked whether we had
+eaten our rice, and told us, quietly but pointedly, that our passing up
+the rough stone steps would be of no use, as the manager was out. A few
+minutes later I stood reading the inscription on the gravestone near the
+church, whilst my brave companion, The Other Man, endeavored fruitlessly
+to pacify a fierce dog in the doorway of the Scottish Society's
+missionary premises&mdash;but that missionary, too, was out!</p>
+
+<p>What, then, was the little game? Were all the foreigners resident in
+this town dodging us, afraid of us&mdash;or what?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The latter, the blithering idiots!&quot; yelled The Other Man. He was
+infuriated. &quot;Two Englishmen with English tongues in their heads, and
+unable to direct their own movements. Preposterous!&quot; And then, making an
+observation which I will not print, he suggested mildly that we might
+fix up all matters ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Within an hour an English-speaking &quot;one piece cook&quot; had secured the
+berth, which carried a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, we were
+well on the way with the engaging of our boat for the Gorges trip, and
+one by one our troubles vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Laying in stores, however, was not the lightest of sundry perplexities.
+Curry and rice had been suggested as the staple diet for the river
+journey; and we ordered, with no thought to the contrary, a picul of
+best rice, various brands of curries, which were raked from behind the
+shelves of a dingy little store in a back street, and presented to us
+at alarming prices&mdash;enough to last a regiment of soldiers for pretty
+well the number of days we two were to travel; and, for luxuries, we
+laid in a few tinned meats. All was practically settled, when The Other
+Man, settling his eyes dead upon me, yelled&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Dingle, you've forgotten the milk!&quot; And then, after a moment, &quot;Oh,
+well, we can surely do without milk; it's no use coming on a journey
+like this unless one can rough it a bit.&quot; And he ended up with a rude
+reference to the disgusting sticky condensed milk tins, and we wandered
+on.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he stopped, did The Other Man. He looked at a small stone on
+the pavement for a long time, eventually cruelly blurting out, directly
+at me, as if it were all my misdoing: &quot;The sugar, the sugar! We <i>must</i>
+have sugar, man.&quot; I said nothing, with the exception of a slight remark
+that we might do without sugar, as we were to do without milk. There was
+a pause. Then, raising his stick in the air, The Other Man perorated:
+&quot;Now, I have no wish to quarrel&quot; (and he put his nose nearer to mine),
+&quot;you know that, of course. But to <i>think</i> we can do without sugar is
+quite unreasonable, and I had no idea you were such a cantankerous man.
+We have sugar, or&mdash;I go back.&quot;</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We had sugar. It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets
+of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with
+commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly
+dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar
+were ordered, and sugar&mdash;that dirty, brown sticky stuff&mdash;got into
+everything on board&mdash;my fingers are sticky even as I write&mdash;and no less
+than exactly one-half went down to the bottom of the Yangtze. Travelers
+by houseboat on the Upper Yangtze should have some knowledge of
+commissariat.</p>
+
+<p>Getting away was a tedious business.</p>
+
+<p>Later, the fellows pressed us to spend a good deal of time in the small,
+dingy, ill-lighted apartment they are pleased to call their club; and
+the skipper had to recommission his boat, get in provisions for the
+voyage, engage his crew, pay off debts, and attend to a thousand and one
+minute details&mdash;all to be done after the contract to carry the madcap
+passengers had been signed and sealed, added to the more practical
+triviality of three-fourths of the charge being paid down. And then our
+captain, to add to the dilemma, vociferously yelled to us, in some
+unknown jargon which got on our nerves terribly, that he was waiting for
+a &quot;lucky&quot; day to raise anchor.</p>
+
+<p>However, we did, as the reader will be able to imagine, eventually get
+away, amid the firing of countless deafening crackers, after having
+watched the sacrifice of a cock to the God of the River, with the
+invocation that we might be kept in safety. Poling and rowing through a
+maze of junks, our little floating caravan, with the two magnates on
+board, and their picul of rice, their curry and their sugar, and
+slenderest outfits, bowled along under plain sail, the fore-deck packed
+with a motley team of somewhat dirty and ill-fed trackers, who whistled
+and halloed the peculiar hallo of the Upper Yangtze for more wind.</p>
+
+<p>The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered
+speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world
+untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_A_1'></a><a href='#FNanchor_A_1'>[A]</a><div class='note'><p> This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I
+revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with
+the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my
+impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more
+native life, and&mdash;more native dirt!&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_B_2'></a><a href='#FNanchor_B_2'>[B]</a><div class='note'><p> The <i>Kinsha</i> was the first British gunboat on the Upper
+Yangtze.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='SECOND_JOURNEY'></a><h2>SECOND JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING, THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_II'></a><h2>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Gloom in Ichang Gorge</i>. <i>Lightning's effect</i>. <i>Travellers' fear</i>.
+<i>Impressive introduction to the Gorges</i>. <i>Boat gets into Yangtze
+fashion</i>. <i>Storm and its weird effects</i>. <i>Wu-pan: what it is</i>. <i>Heavenly
+electricity and its vagaries</i>. <i>Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy
+rain</i>. <i>Bedding soaked</i>. <i>Sleep in a Burberry</i>. <i>Gorges and Niagara
+Falls compared</i>. <i>Bad descriptions of Yangtze</i>. <i>World of eternity</i>.
+<i>Man's significant insignificance</i>. <i>Life on board briefly described</i>.
+<i>Philosophy of travel</i>. <i>Houseboat life not luxurious</i>. <i>Lose our only
+wash-basin</i>. <i>Remarks on the &quot;boy.&quot; A change in the kitchen:
+questionable soup</i>. <i>Fairly low temperature</i>. <i>Troubles in the larder</i>.
+<i>General arrangements on board</i>. <i>Crew's sleeping-place</i>. <i>Sacking makes
+a curtain</i>. <i>Journalistic labors not easy</i>. <i>Rats preponderate</i>. <i>Gorges
+described statistically</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
+slowly and impenetrably over all things.</p>
+
+<p>A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
+amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
+distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
+the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as
+black as ink.</p>
+
+<p>Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
+assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
+to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north
+against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
+seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting
+but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the
+sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then, suddenly,
+with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking the earth
+under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell&mdash;impenetrable,
+sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight.
+Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the
+reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men,
+aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with
+a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the
+darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge&mdash;a magnificent sixteen-mile
+stretch, opening up the famous gorges on the fourth of the great rivers
+of the world, which had cleaved its course through a chain of hills,
+whose perpendicular cliffs form wonderful rock-bound banks, dispelling
+all thought of the monotony of the Lower Yangtze.</p>
+
+<p>Upstream we had glided merrily upon a fresh breeze, which bore the
+warning of a storm. All on board was settling down into Yangtze fashion,
+and the barbaric human clamor of our trackers, which now mutteringly
+died away, was suddenly taken up, as above recorded, and all
+unexpectedly answered by a grander uproar&mdash;a deep threatening boom of
+far-off thunder. In circling tones and semitones of wrath it volleyed
+gradually through the dark ravines, and, startled by the sound, the two
+travelers, roused for the first time from their natural engrossment in
+the common doings of the <i>wu-pan</i>,<a name='FNanchor_C_3'></a><a href='#Footnote_C_3'><sup>[C]</sup></a> saw the reflection of the sun on
+the waters, now turned to a livid murkiness, deepening with a
+threatening ink-like aspect as the river rushed voluminously past our
+tiny floating haven. Strangely silenced were we by this weird terror,
+and watched and listened, chained to the deck by a thousand mingled
+fears and fascinations, which breathed upon our nerves like a chill
+wind. As we became accustomed then to the yellow darkness, we beheld
+about the landscape a spectral look, and the sepulchral sound of the
+moving thunder seemed the half-muffled clang of some great iron-tongued
+funeral bell. Then came the rain, introduced swiftly by the deafening
+clatter of another thunder crash that made one stagger like a ship in a
+wild sea, and we strained our eyes to gaze into a visionary chasm
+cleaved in twain by the furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the
+unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this
+singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it
+flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination
+quite indescribable.</p>
+
+<p>For hours we sat upon a beam athwart the afterdeck, in silence drinking
+in the strange phenomenon. We watched, after a small feed of curry and
+rice, long into the dark hours, when the thunder had passed us by, and
+in the distant booming one could now imagine the lower notes streaming
+forth from some great solemn organ symphony. The fierce lightning
+twitched, as it danced in and out the crevices&mdash;inwards, outwards,
+upwards, then finally lost in one downward swoop towards the river,
+tearing open the liquid blackness with its crystal blade of fire. The
+rain ceased not. But soon the moon, peeping out from the tops of a
+jagged wall above us, looking like a soiled, half-melted snowball, shone
+full down the far-stretching gorge, and now its broad lustre shed
+itself, like powdered silver, over the whole scene, so that one could
+have imagined oneself in the living splendor of some eternal sphere of
+ethereal sweetness. And so it might have been had the rain abated&mdash;a
+curious accompaniment to a moonlight night. Down it came, straight and
+determined and businesslike, in the windless silence, dancing like a
+shower of diamonds of purest brilliance on the background of the placid
+waters.</p>
+
+<p>Very beautiful, reader, for a time. But would that the rain had been all
+moonshine!</p>
+
+<p>Glorious was it to revel in for a time. But, during the weary night
+watches, in a bed long since soaked through, and one's safest
+nightclothes now the stolid Burberry, with face protected by a
+twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with
+the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and
+uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the
+worn-out bamboo matting&mdash;ah, it was then, <i>then</i> that one would have
+foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic life of the <i>wu-pan</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Our introduction, therefore, to the great Gorges of the Upper
+Yangtze&mdash;to China what the Niagara Falls are to America&mdash;was not
+remarkable for its placidity, albeit taken with as much complacency as
+the occasion allowed.</p>
+
+<p>I do not, however, intend to weary or to entertain the reader, as may
+be, by a long description of the Yangtze gorges. Time and time again
+have they fallen to the imaginative pens of travelers&mdash;mostly bad or
+indifferent descriptions, few good; none better, perhaps, than Mrs.
+Bishop's. But at best they are imaginative&mdash;they lack reality. It has
+been said that the world of imagination is the world of eternity, and as
+of eternity, so of the Gorges&mdash;they cannot be adequately described. As I
+write now in the Ichang Gorge, I seem veritably to have reached
+eternity. I seem to have arrived at the bosom of an after-life, where
+one's body has ceased to vegetate, and where, in an infinite and eternal
+world of imagination, one's soul expands with fullest freedom. There
+seems to exist in this eternal world of unending rock and invulnerable
+precipice permanent realities which stand from eternity to eternity. As
+the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies,
+so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go
+on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his
+imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as
+a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the
+gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's
+significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous
+grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world&mdash;a spot in which
+blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility
+and patience are the first requisites in traveling on the Upper Yangtze.</p>
+
+<p>Reader, for your sake I refrain from a description. But may I, for
+perhaps your sake too, if you would wander hither ere the charm of
+things as they were in the beginning is still unrobbed and unmolested,
+give you some few impressions of a little of the life&mdash;grave, gay, but
+never unhappy&mdash;which I spent with my excellent co-voyager, The Other
+Man.</p>
+
+<p>It is a part of wisdom, when starting any journey, not to look forward
+to the end with too much eagerness: hear my gentle whisper that you may
+never get there, and if you do, congratulate yourself; interest yourself
+in the progress of the journey, for the present only is yours. Each day
+has its tasks, its rapids, its perils, its glories, its fascinations,
+its surprises, and&mdash;if you will live as we did, its <i>curry and rice</i>.
+Then, if you are traveling with a companion, remember that it is better
+to yield a little than to quarrel a great deal. Most disagreeable and
+undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what
+people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than
+on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life
+is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking
+it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace,
+if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to
+incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning to
+the end of the trip, make the best of everything in every way, and I can
+assure you, if you are not ill-tempered and suffer not from your liver,
+Nature will open her bosom and lead you by these strange by-ways into
+her hidden charms and unadorned recesses of sublime beauty, uneclipsed
+for their kind anywhere in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Think not that the life will be luxurious&mdash;houseboat life on the Upper
+Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of
+the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact,
+the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Our <i>wu-pan</i> was to get through the Gorges in as short a time as was
+possible, and for that reason we traveled in the discomfort of the
+smallest boat used to face the rapids.</p>
+
+<p>People entertaining the smallest idea of doing things travel in nothing
+short of a <i>kwadze</i>, the orthodox houseboat, with several rooms and
+ordinary conveniences. Ours was a <i>wu-pan</i>&mdash;literally five boards. We
+had no conveniences whatever, and the second morning out we were left
+without even a wash-basin. As I was standing in the stern, I saw it
+swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the
+perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us
+how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the
+crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped
+by the river&mdash;and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead.
+The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated
+something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh
+and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a
+combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the
+morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the
+typewriter.</p>
+
+<p>Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty
+well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He
+dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no
+ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other
+Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally
+concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and
+at once christened it as &quot;consomm&eacute; &agrave; la maotsi&quot;&mdash;and we can recommend
+it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we
+asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a
+rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His
+face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking
+curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning&mdash;the temperature
+below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!</p>
+
+<p>&quot;God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name
+of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you
+come for?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Alas!&quot; he shouted, for we were at a rapid, &quot;my savee makee good chow.
+No have got nothing!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No have got nothing! No have got nothing!&quot; Mysterious words, what could
+they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our
+sugar?</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fellow's a swindler!&quot; cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But
+that's all very well. &quot;No have got nothing!&quot; Ah, there lay the secret.
+Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again
+with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were
+powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were
+victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice
+towards him personally&mdash;but ... <i>could he do it?</i> Either a great wrath
+or a great sorrow overcame the boy; he skulked past, asked us to lie
+down on our shelves, where we had our beds, to give him room, and then
+set to work.</p>
+
+<p>In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal (all out of the same
+pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In
+parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with
+them about seven-eighths of the picul&mdash;and were not at all regretful.</p>
+
+<p>I should not like to assert&mdash;because I am telling the truth here&mdash;that
+our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was
+some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew
+eight inches of water. Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our
+dressing-rooms, our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional
+medicine-room, our cooking-room&mdash;and all else. If we stood bolt upright
+in the saloon amidships we bumped our heads on the bamboo matting which
+formed an arched roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men&mdash;you may
+question it, reader, but they did; in the stern, on either side of a
+great rudder, slept our boy and a friend of his; and between them and
+us, laid out flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship's cook for
+the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables, and the
+breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm all around one) were the
+captain and commodore&mdash;a fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature,
+strenuous at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain&mdash;a piece of
+sacking, but one would not wish this to be known&mdash;dividing them from us,
+we could see him preparing his globules to smoke before turning in for
+the night, and despite our frequent raving objections, our words ringing
+with vibrating abuse, it continued all the way to Chung-king: he
+certainly gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get him to say
+anything bearing upon the matter. Temperature during the day stood at
+about 50 degrees, and at night went down to about 30 degrees above
+freezing point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic labors, seated upon
+the upturned saucepan aforesaid, without a cushion, went hard. At night
+the Chinese candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center of an
+empty &quot;Three Castles&quot; tin, which the boy had used for some days as a
+pudding dish, gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats, and as
+many others as we happened to have. Rats crawled over our uncurtained
+bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears
+or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to
+us&mdash;they were made on board.</p>
+
+<p>The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be
+passed through before one reaches Kweifu:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td align='left'>NAME OF GORGE</td><td align='left'>LENGTH</td><td align='left'>REMARKS</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Ichang Gorge</td><td align='left'>16 miles</td><td align='left'>First and probably one  of the finest of the Gorges.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Niu Kan Ma Fee (or Ox Liver Gorge)</td><td align='center'>4 miles</td><td align='left'>An hour's journey after coming out of the Ichang Gorge, if the breeze be favorable; an arduous day's journey during high river, with no wind. </td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Mi Tsang (or Rice Granary Gorge)</td><td align='center'>2 miles</td><td align='left'>Finest view is obtained from western extremity; exceedingly precipitous.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Niu Kou (or Buffalo Mouth Reach)</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td><td align='left'>Very quiet in low-water season; wild stretch during high river. At the head of this reach H.M.S. <i>Woodlark</i> came to grief on her maiden trip.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Urishan Hsia (or Gloomy Mountain Gorge)</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td><td align='left'>Over thirty miles in length. Grandest and highest gorge <i>en route to</i> Chung-king. Half-way through is the boundary between Hu-peh and Szech'wan.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Fang Hsian Hsia (or Windbox Gorge)</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td><td align='left'>Last of the gorges; just beyond is the city of Kweifu.</td></tr></table>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_C_3'></a><a href='#FNanchor_C_3'>[C]</a><div class='note'><p> A <i>wu-pan</i> (literally <i>wu</i> of five and <i>pan</i> of boards) is
+a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They
+are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the
+river on which they ply.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_III'></a><h2>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<h4>THE YANGTZE RAPIDS</h4>
+<br />
+
+<p>The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated
+on the river upward from Ichang. One of the chief discomforts the
+traveler first experiences is due to a total ignorance of the vicinity
+of the main rapids, and often, therefore, when he is least expecting it
+perhaps, he is called upon by the <i>laoban</i> to go ashore. He has then to
+pack up the things he values, is dragged ashore himself, his gear
+follows, and one who has no knowledge of the language and does not know
+the ropes is, therefore, never quite happy for fear of some rapid
+turning up. By comparing the rapids with the Gorges the traveler would,
+however, from the lists given, be able easily to trace the whereabouts
+of the more dangerous rushes; which are distributed with alarming
+frequency on the river between Ichang and Kweifu.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>TA TONG T'AN (OTTER CAVE RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Low water rapid. Swirling volume of coffee and milk color; round about a
+maze of rapids and races, in the Yao-cha Ho reach.</p>
+
+<br />
+<p>TONG LING RAPID</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the Ox Liver Gorge. An enormous black rock lies amid
+stream some forty feet below, or perhaps as much above the surface, but
+unless experienced at low water will not appeal to the traveler as a
+rapid; passage dangerous, dreaded during low-water season. On Dec. 28th,
+1900, the German steamer, <i>Sui-Hsiang</i> was lost here. She foundered in
+twenty-five fathoms of water, with an immense hole ripped in her bottom
+by the black rock; all on board saved by the red boats, with the
+exception of the captain.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HSIN T'AN RAPIDS (OR CHIN T'AN RAPIDS)</p>
+
+<p>During winter quite formidable; the head, second and third rapids
+situated in close proximity, the head rapid being far the worst to
+negotiate. On a bright winter's day one of the finest spectacles on the
+Upper Yangtze. Wrecks frequent. Just at head of Ox Liver Gorge.</p>
+<br />
+<p>YEH T'AN (OR WILD RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>River reduced suddenly to half its width by an enormous detritus of
+boulders, taking the form of a huge jagged tongue, with curling on
+edges; commonly said to be high when the Hsin T'an is low. At its worst
+during early summer and autumn. Wrecks frequent, after Mi Tsang Gorge is
+passed, eight miles from Kwei-chow.</p>
+<br />
+<p>NIU K'EO T'AN (BUFFALO MOUTH RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Situated at the head of Buffalo Mouth Reach, said to be more difficult
+to approach than even the Yeh T'an, because of the great swirls in the
+bay below. H.M.S. <i>Woodlark</i> came to grief here on her maiden trip up
+river.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge,
+particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906,
+the French gunboat <i>Olry</i> came within an ace of destruction by losing
+her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong
+for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working
+astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the
+way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back
+undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to
+and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management
+she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually
+brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden
+jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her
+destination.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HEH SH&Iuml;H T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.</p>
+<br />
+<p>HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon
+Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low
+river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as
+1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its
+breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced
+this roaring rapid.</p>
+
+<p>This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky
+bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped,
+tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift
+back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at
+its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly
+with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely
+disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and
+March, when it certainly merits the appellation of &quot;Glorious Dragon
+Rapid,&quot; presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome
+one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A
+hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children,
+are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din
+of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat
+is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Chinese myths, the
+landslip which produced the rapid was caused by the following
+circumstance. The ova of a dragon being deposited in the bowels of the
+earth at this particular spot, in due course became hatched out in some
+mysterious manner. The baby dragon grew and grew, but remained in a
+dormant state until quite full grown, when, as is the habit of the
+dragon, it became active, and at the first awakening shook down the
+hill-side by a mighty effort, freed himself from the bowels of the
+earth, and made his way down river to the sea; hence the landslip, the
+rapid, and its name.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>FUH T'AN RAPID (OR TIGER RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Eight miles beyond Wan Hsien. Very savage during summer months, but does
+not exist during low-water season. Beyond this point river widens
+considerably. Twenty-five miles further on travelers should look out for
+Sh&iuml;h Pao Chai, or Precious Stone Castle, a remarkable cliff some 250 or
+300 feet high. A curious eleven-storied pavilion, built up the face of
+the cliff, contains the stairway to the summit, on which stands a
+Buddhist temple. There is a legend attached to this remarkable rock that
+savors very much of the goose with the golden eggs.</p>
+
+<p>Once upon a time, from a small natural aperture near the summit, a
+supply of rice sufficient for the needs of the priests flowed daily into
+a basin-shaped hole, just large enough to hold the day's supply.</p>
+
+<p>The priests, however, thinking to get a larger daily supply, chiselled
+out the basin-shaped hole to twice its original size, since when the
+flow of rice ceased.</p>
+<br />
+<p>KWAN &Iuml;N T'AN (OR GODDESS OF MERCY RAPID)</p>
+
+<p>Two miles beyond the town of Feng T'ou. Like the Fuh T'an, is an
+obstacle to navigation only during the summer months, when junks are
+often obliged to wait for several days for a favorable opportunity to
+cross the rapid.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_IV'></a><h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Scene at the Rapid</i>. <i>Dangers of the Yeh T'an</i>. <i>Gear taken ashore</i>.
+<i>Intense cold</i>. <i>Further preparation</i>. <i>Engaging the trackers</i>. <i>Fever
+of excitement</i>. <i>Her nose is put to it</i>. <i>Struggles for mastery</i>.
+<i>Author saves boatman</i>. <i>Fifteen-knot current</i>. <i>Terrific labor on
+shore</i>. <i>Man nearly falls overboard</i>. <i>Straining hawsers carry us over
+safely</i>. <i>The merriment among the men</i>. <i>The thundering cataract</i>.
+<i>Trackers' chanting</i>. <i>Their life</i>. <i>&quot;Pioneer&quot; at the Yeh T'an</i>. <i>The
+Buffalo Mouth Reach</i>. <i>Story of the &quot;Woodlark.&quot;</i> <i>How she was saved</i>.
+<i>Arrival at Kweifu</i>. <i>Difficulty in landing</i>. <i>Laying in provisions</i>.
+<i>Author laid up with malaria</i>. <i>Survey of trade in Shanghai and
+Hong-Kong</i>. <i>Where and why the Britisher fails</i>. <i>Comparison with
+Germans</i>. <i>Three western provinces and pack-horse traffic</i>. <i>Advantages
+of new railway</i>. <i>Yangtze likely to be abandoned</i>. <i>East India Company.
+French and British interests</i>. <i>Hint to Hong-Kong Chamber of Commerce.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Wild shrieking, frantic yelling, exhausted groaning, confusion and
+clamor,&mdash;one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of
+reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and
+distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the
+scrunching, the straining, and then&mdash;a final snap! Back we go, sheering
+helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters,
+and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us
+anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the
+rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of
+gratitude to the deity of the river.</p>
+
+<p>We were at the Yeh T'an, or the Wild Rapid, some distance on from the
+Ichang Gorge, were almost over the growling monster, when the tow-line,
+straining to its utmost limit, snapped suddenly with little warning, and
+we drifted in a moment or two away down to last night's anchorage, far
+below, where we were obliged to bring up the last of the long tier of
+boats of which we were this morning the first.</p>
+
+<p>And now we are ready again to take our turn.</p>
+
+<p>Our gear is all taken ashore. Seated on a stone on shore, watching
+operations, is The Other Man. The sun vainly tries to get through, and
+the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time.
+The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out,
+their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to
+the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the
+'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to
+feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way,
+is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring
+towards the boat, in a fever of excitement that rises higher every
+moment, the natural elements of hunger and constant struggle against the
+great river swell their fury; they bellow like wild beasts, <i>they are
+like beasts</i>, for they have known nothing but struggle all their lives;
+they have always, since they were tiny children, been fighting this
+roaring water monster&mdash;they know none else. And now, as I say, they
+bellow like beasts, each man ravenously eager to be among the number
+chosen to earn a few cash.<a name='FNanchor_D_4'></a><a href='#Footnote_D_4'><sup>[D]</sup></a> The arrangement at last is made, and the
+discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening.
+It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then
+harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with
+which they connect themselves to the straining tow-lines.</p>
+
+<p>And now her nose is put into the teeth of this trough of treachery&mdash;a
+veritable boiling cauldron, stirring up all past mysteries. Waves rush
+furiously towards us, with the growl of a thousand demons, whose anger
+is only swelled by the thousands of miles of her course from far-away
+Tibet. It seems as if they must instantly devour her, and that we must
+now go under to swell the number of their victims. But they only beat
+her back, for she rides gracefully, faltering timidly with frightened
+creaks and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with
+their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very
+death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic
+bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty
+is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his
+single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky
+little laugh and asks if he has hurt me&mdash;yelling through his hands in my
+ears, for the noise is terrible. To look out over the side makes me
+giddy, for the fifteen-knot current, blustering and bubbling and foaming
+and leaping, gives one the feeling that he is in an express train
+tearing through the sea. On shore, far ahead, I can see the
+trackers&mdash;struggling forms of men and women, touching each other,
+grasping each other, wrestling furiously and mightily, straining on all
+fours, now gripping a boulder to aid them forward, now to the right, now
+to the left, always fighting for one more inch, and engaged in a task
+which to one seeing it for the first time looks as if it were quite
+beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers,
+whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the
+average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb
+frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on
+the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch
+by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead
+against the leaping current in the gapway in the reef.</p>
+
+<p>None come to offer assistance to our crowd, who are now turned facing
+us, and strain almost flat on their backs, giving the strength of every
+drop of blood and fibre of their being; and the scene, now lit up by a
+momentary glimmer of feeble sunlight, assumes a wonderful and terrible
+picturesqueness. I am chained to the spot by a horrible fascination, and
+I find myself unconsciously saying, &quot;I fear she will not go. I fear&mdash;&quot;
+But a man has fallen exhausted, he almost fell overboard, and now leans
+against the mast in utter weariness and fatigue, brought on by the
+morning's exertions. He is instantly relieved by a bull-dog fellow of
+enormous strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying
+moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for
+the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and
+self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak,
+crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There
+is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and
+you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous
+quiver of the timbers, and you turn to see the angry water, which sounds
+as if a hundred hounds are beating under us for entry at the barred
+door. There is another deafening yell, the men tear away like frightened
+horses. Another mighty pull, and another, and another, and we slide over
+into smooth water.</p>
+
+<p>Then I breathe freely, and yell myself.</p>
+
+<p>The little boat seems to gasp for breath as a drowning man, saved in the
+nick of time, shudders in every limb with pain and fear.</p>
+
+<p>As we tied up in smooth water, all the men, from the <i>laoban</i> to the
+meanest tracker, laughed and yelled and told each other how it was done.
+We baled the water out of the boat, and one was glad to pull away from
+the deafening hum of the thundering cataract. A faulty tow-line, a
+slippery hitch, one false step, one false maneuver, and the shore might
+have been by that time strewn with our corpses. As it was, we were safe
+and happy.</p>
+
+<p>But the trackers are strange creatures. At times they are a quarter of a
+mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines
+of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky
+promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their
+bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river.
+Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his
+body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last
+journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet
+these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their
+lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and
+receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.</p>
+
+<p>Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by
+mentioning the exploits of the steamer <i>Pioneer</i>, which on three
+consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and,
+though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged
+to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of
+her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard
+and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the
+hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the
+dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought
+by the great variation in the level of the river, that this formidable
+mid-level rapid completely disappears at high level.</p>
+
+<p>After we had left this rapid&mdash;and right glad were we to get away&mdash;we
+came, after a couple of hours' run, to the Niu K'eo, or Buffalo Mouth
+Reach, quiet enough during the low-water season, but a wild stretch
+during high river, where many a junk is caught by the violently gyrating
+swirls, rendered unmanageable, and dashed to atoms on some rocky
+promontory or boulder pile in as short a space of time as it takes to
+write it. It was here that the <i>Woodlark</i>, one of the magnificent
+gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union
+Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One
+of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders
+useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the
+foaming rapid. The engines were immediately reversed to full speed
+astern; but the swift current, combined with the momentum of the ship,
+carried her willy-nilly to the rock-bound shore, on which she crumpled
+her bows as if they were made of tin. Fortunately she was built in
+water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section,
+straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted
+the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at
+Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges. This town,
+formerly a considerable coaling center, overlooks most beautiful
+hillocks, with cottage gardens cultivated in every accessible corner,
+and a wide sweep of the river.</p>
+
+<p>We landed with difficulty. &quot;Chor, chor!&quot; yelled the trackers, who marked
+time to their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step;
+but they almost gave up the ghost. However, we did land, and so did our
+boy, who bought excellent provisions and meat, which, alas! too soon
+disappeared. The mutton and beef gradually grew less and daily
+blackened, wrapped up in opposite corners of the cabin, under the
+protection from the wet of a couple of sheets of the &quot;Pink 'Un.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>From Kweifu to Wan Hsien there was the same kind of scenery&mdash;the clear
+river winding among sand-flats and gravel-banks, with occasional stiff
+rapids. But after having been in a <i>wu-pan</i> for several days, suffering
+that which has been detailed, and much besides, the journey got a bit
+dreary. These, however, are ordinary circumstances; but when one has
+been laid up on a bench of a bed for three days with a high temperature,
+a legacy of several years in the humid tropics, the physical discomfort
+baffles description. Malaria, as all sufferers know, has a tendency to
+cause trouble as soon as one gets into cold weather, and in my case, as
+will be seen in subsequent parts of this book, it held faithfully to its
+best traditions. Fever on the Yangtze in a <i>wu-pan</i> would require a
+chapter to itself, not to mention the kindly eccentricities of a
+companion whose knowledge of malaria was most elementary and whose
+knowledge of nursing absolutely <i>nil</i>. But I refrain. As also do I of
+further talk about the Yangtze gorges and the rapids.</p>
+
+<p>From Kweifu to Wan Hsien is a tedious journey. The country opens out,
+and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and
+difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in
+comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward
+happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have
+happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be
+accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all
+precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance
+elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from
+Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat
+having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no
+less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry,
+while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A hopeless cry is continually ascending in Hong-Kong and Shanghai that
+trade is bad, that the palmy days are gone, and that one might as well
+leave business to take care of itself.</p>
+
+<p>And it is not to be denied that increased trade in the Far East does not
+of necessity mean increased profits. Competition has rendered buying and
+selling, if they are to show increased dividends, a much harder task
+than some of the older merchants had when they built up their businesses
+twenty or thirty years ago. There is no comparison. But Hong-Kong, by
+virtue of her remarkably favorable position geographically, should
+always be able to hold her own; and now that the railway has pierced the
+great province of Y&uuml;n-nan, and brought the provinces beyond the
+navigable Yangtze nearer to the outside world, she should be able to
+reap a big harvest in Western China, if merchants will move at the right
+time. More often than not the Britisher loses his trade, not on account
+of the alleged reason that business is not to be done, but because,
+content with his club life, and with playing games when he should be
+doing business, he allows the German to rush past him, and this man, an
+alien in the colony, by persistent plodding and other more or less
+commendable traits of business which I should like to detail, but for
+which I have no space, takes away the trade while the Britisher looks
+on.</p>
+
+<p>The whole of the trade of the three western provinces&mdash;Y&uuml;n-nan,
+Kwei-chow and Szech'wan&mdash;has for all time been handled by Shanghai,
+going into the interior by the extremely hazardous route of these
+Yangtze rapids, and then over the mountains by coolie or pack-horse.
+This has gone on for centuries. But now the time has come for the
+Hong-Kong trader to step in and carry away the lion share of the greatly
+increasing foreign trade for those three provinces by means of the
+advantage the new Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway has given him.</p>
+
+<p>The railway runs from Haiphong in Indo-China to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the capital
+of Y&uuml;n-nan province. And it appears certain to the writer that, with
+such an important town three or four days from the coast, shippers will
+not be content to continue to ship via the Yangtze, with all its risk.
+British and American merchants, who carry the greater part of the
+imports to Western China, will send their goods direct to Hong-Kong,
+where transhipment will be made to Haiphong, and thence shipped by rail
+to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the distributing center for inland trade. To my mind,
+Hong-Kong merchants might control the whole of the British trade of
+Western China if they will only push, for although the tariff of Tonkin
+may be heavy, it would be compensated by the fact that transit would be
+so much quicker and safer. But it needs push.</p>
+
+<p>The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East
+India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle
+to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who
+have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their
+officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from
+the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself,
+as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must
+admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore,
+if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper,
+he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself
+of the opportunity. Shanghai has held the trump card formerly. This
+cannot be denied. But I think the railway is destined to turn the trade
+route to the other side of the empire. It is merely a question as to who
+is to get the trade&mdash;the French or the British. The French are on the
+alert. They cannot get territory; now they are after the trade.</p>
+
+<p>It is my opinion that it would be to the advantage of the colony of
+Hong-Kong were the Chamber of Commerce there to investigate the matter
+thoroughly. Now is the time.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_D_4'></a><a href='#FNanchor_D_4'>[D]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>Cash</i>, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle.
+Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THIRD_JOURNEY'></a><h2>THIRD JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW)</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_V'></a><h2>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Beginning of the overland journey</i>. <i>The official halo around the
+caravan</i>. <i>The people's goodbyes</i>. <i>Stages to Sui-fu</i>. <i>A persistent
+coolie</i>. <i>My boy's indignation, and the sequel</i>. <i>Kindness of the people
+of Chung-king</i>. <i>The Chung-king Consulate</i>. <i>Need of keeping fit in
+travelling in China</i>. <i>Walking tabooed</i>. <i>The question of &quot;face&quot; and
+what it means</i>. <i>Author runs the gauntlet</i>. <i>Carrying coolie's rate of
+pay</i>. <i>The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks
+thereon</i>. <i>The garden of China</i>. <i>Magnificence of the scenery of Western
+China</i>. <i>The tea-shops</i>. <i>The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author
+drank</i>. <i>Population of Szech-wan</i>. <i>Minerals found</i>. <i>Salt and other
+things</i>. <i>The Chinese inn: how it holds the palm for unmitigated filth</i>.
+<i>Description of the rooms</i>. <i>Szech-wan and Y&uuml;n-nan caravanserais</i>. <i>Need
+of a camp bed</i>. <i>Toileting in unsecluded publicity</i>. <i>How the author was
+met at market towns</i>. <i>How the days do not get dull</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>In a manner admirably befitting my rank as an English traveler, apart
+from the fact that I was the man who was endeavoring to cross China on
+foot, I was led out of Chung-king <i>en route</i> for Bhamo alone, my
+companion having had to leave me here.</p>
+
+<p>It was Easter Sunday, a crisp spring morning.</p>
+
+<p>First came a public sedan-chair, bravely borne by three of the finest
+fellows in all China, at the head of which on either side were two
+uniformed persons called soldiers&mdash;incomprehensible to one who has no
+knowledge of the interior, for they bore no marks whatever of the
+military&mdash;whilst uniformed men also solemnly guarded the back. Then
+came the grinning coolies, carrying that meager portion of my worldly
+goods which I had anticipated would have been engulfed in the Yangtze.
+And at the head of all, leading them on as captains do the Salvation
+Army, was I myself, walking along triumphantly, undoubtedly looking a
+person of weight, but somehow peculiarly unable to get out of my head
+that little adage apropos the fact that when the blind shall lead the
+blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my
+falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the
+way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions
+presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through
+which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out
+to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through the town.</p>
+
+<p>All the people were in the middle of the streets&mdash;those slippery streets
+of interminable steps&mdash;to give me at parting their blessings or their
+curses, and only with difficulty and considerable shouting and pushing
+could I sufficiently take their attention from the array of official and
+civil servants who made up my caravan as to effect an exit.</p>
+
+<p>The following were to be stages:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Ts'eo-ma-k'ang</td><td align='left'>80 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;&Uuml;in-ch'uan hsien</td><td align='left'>120 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Li-sh&iuml;h-ch'ang</td><td align='left'>105 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Luchow</td><td align='left'>75 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Lan-ching-ch'ang</td><td align='left'>80 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Lan-ch&iuml;-hsien</td><td align='left'>75 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Sui-fu</td><td align='left'>120 li.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>In my plainest English and with many cruel gestures, four miles from the
+town, I told a man that he narrowly escaped being knocked down, owing to
+his extremely rude persistence in accosting me and obstructing my way.
+He acquiesced, opened his large mouth to the widest proportions, seemed
+thoroughly to understand, but continued more noisily to prevent me from
+going onwards, yelling something at the top of his husky voice&mdash;a voice
+more like a fog-horn than a human voice&mdash;which made me fear that I had
+done something very wrong, but which later I interpreted ignorantly as
+impudent humor.</p>
+
+<p>I owed nothing; so far as I knew, I had done nothing wrong.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hi, fellow! come out of the way! Reverse your carcass a bit, old chap!
+Get&mdash;&mdash;! What the&mdash;&mdash; who the&mdash;&mdash;?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, master, he wantchee makee much bobbery. He no b'long my pidgin,
+d&mdash;&mdash; rogue! He wantchee catch one more hundred cash! He b'long one
+piecee chairman!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This to me from my boy in apologetic explanation.</p>
+
+<p>Then, turning wildly upon the man, after the manner of his kind raising
+his little fat body to the tips of his toes and effectively assuming the
+attitude of the stage actor, he cursed loudly to the uttermost of
+eternity the impudent fellow's ten thousand relatives and ancestry;
+which, although it called forth more mutual confidences of a like
+nature, and made T'ong (my boy) foam at the mouth with rage at such an
+inopportune proceeding happening so early in his career, rendering it
+necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed
+him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been
+dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud
+dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again,
+did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off&mdash;for it was assuredly
+one of the trio&mdash;leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy
+ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag.
+We did not come to terms. I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my
+path and walked on.</p>
+
+<p>Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their
+kindness the terrible three days spent still in our <i>wu-pan</i> on the
+crowded beach would have been more terrible still.</p>
+
+<p>At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed
+up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in
+Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular
+Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an
+attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as
+he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and
+both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king
+Consulate is probably the finest&mdash;certainly one of the finest&mdash;in China,
+built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the
+bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds,
+has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being
+the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped
+to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be
+arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.</p>
+
+<p>People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.</p>
+
+<p>Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible
+anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to
+maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you
+have got the money to pay your way;<a name='FNanchor_E_5'></a><a href='#Footnote_E_5'><sup>[E]</sup></a> but walking is a very different
+thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually
+walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China
+Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to
+Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably
+easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible,
+but because the custom of the country&mdash;and a cursed custom too&mdash;is that
+one has to keep what is called his &quot;face.&quot; And to walk tends to make a
+man lose &quot;face.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the
+question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially
+a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner
+<i>must</i> have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath,
+because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler
+in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would
+travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the
+honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with
+this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside
+on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries, to be relegated to the
+worst inn's worst room, and to be generally treated with indignity? This
+idea of mine of crossing China on foot was preposterous!</p>
+
+<p>Even Mr. Hudson Broomhall, of the China Inland Mission, who with Mrs.
+Broomhall was extremely kind, and did all he could to fit me up for the
+journey (it is such remembrances that make the trip one which I would
+not mind doing again), was surprised to know that I was walking, and
+tried to persuade me to take a chair. But I flew in the face of it all.
+These good people certainly impressed me, but I decided to run the
+gauntlet and take the risk.</p>
+
+<p>The question of &quot;face&quot; is always merely one of theory, never of fact,
+and the principles that govern &quot;face&quot; and its attainment were wholly
+beyond my apprehension. &quot;I shall probably be more concerned in saving my
+life than in saving my face,&quot; I thought.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore it was that when I reached a place called Fu-to-gwan I
+discarded all superfluities of dress, and strode forward, just at that
+time in the early morning when the sun was gilding the dewdrops on the
+hedgerows with a grandeur which breathed encouragement to the traveler,
+in a flannel shirt and flannel pants&mdash;a terrible breach of foreign
+etiquette, no doubt, but very comfortable to one who was facing the
+first eighty li he had ever walked on China's soil. My three
+coolies&mdash;the typical Chinese coolie of Szech'wan, but very good fellows
+with all their faults&mdash;were to land me at Sui-fu, 230 miles distant
+(some 650 li), in seven days' time. They were to receive four hundred
+cash per man per day, were to find themselves, and if I reached Sui-fu
+within the specified time I agreed to <i>kumshaw</i> them to the extent of an
+extra thousand.<a name='FNanchor_F_6'></a><a href='#Footnote_F_6'><sup>[F]</sup></a> They carried, according to the arrangement, ninety
+catties apiece, and their rate of pay I did not consider excessive until
+I found that each man sublet his contract for a fourth of his pay, and
+trotted along light-heartedly and merry at my side; then I regretted
+that I had not thought twice before closing with them.</p>
+
+<p>It is probable that the solidity of the great paved highways of China
+have been exaggerated. I have not been on the North China highways, but
+have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and
+Y&uuml;n-nan particularly, and have very little praise to lavish upon them.
+Certain it is that the road to Sui-fu does not deserve the nice things
+said about it by various travelers. The whole route from Chung-king to
+Sui-fu, paved with flagstones varying in width from three to six or
+seven feet&mdash;the only main road, of course&mdash;is creditably regular in some
+places, whilst other portions, especially over the mountains, are
+extremely bad and uneven. In some places, I could hardly get along at
+all, and my boy would call out as he came along in his chair behind me&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master, I thinkee you makee catch two piecee men makee carry. This
+b'long no proper road. P'raps you makee bad feet come.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And truly my feet were shamefully blistered.</p>
+
+<p>One had to step from stone to stone with considerable agility. In places
+bridges had fallen in, nobody had attempted to put them into a decent
+state of repair&mdash;though this is never done in China&mdash;and one of the
+features of every day was the wonderful fashion in which the mountain
+ponies picked their way over the broken route; they are as sure-footed
+as goats.</p>
+
+<p>As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and
+golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the
+inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of
+the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden
+of China. Greater or denser cultivation I had never seen. The
+amphitheater-like hills smiled joyously in the first gentle touches of
+spring and enriching green, each terrace being irrigated from the one
+below by a small stream of water regulated in the most primitive manner
+(the windlass driven by man power), and not a square inch lost. Even the
+mud banks dividing these fertile areas are made to yield on the sides
+cabbages and lettuces and on the tops wheat and poppy. There are no
+fences. You see before you a forest of mountains, made a dark leaden
+color by thick mists, from out of which gradually come the never-ending
+pictures of green and purple and brown and yellow and gold, which roll
+hither and thither under a cloudy sky in indescribable confusion. The
+chain may commence in the south or the north in two or three soft,
+slow-rising undulations, which trend away from you and form a vapory
+background to the landscape. From these (I see such a picture even as I
+write, seated on the stone steps in the middle of a mountain path), at
+once united and peculiarly distinct, rise five masses with rugged
+crests, rough, and cut into shady hollows on the sides, a faint pale
+aureola from the sun on the mists rising over the summits and sharp
+outlines. Looking to the north, an immense curved line shows itself,
+growing ever greater, opening like the arch of a gigantic bridge, and
+binding this first group to a second, more complicated, each peak of
+which has a form of its own, and does in some sort as it pleases without
+troubling itself about its neighbor. The most remarkable point about
+these mountains is the life they seem to possess. It is an incredible
+confusion. Angles are thrown fantastically by some mad geometer, it
+would seem. Splendid banyan trees shelter one after toiling up the
+unending steps, and dotted over the landscape, indiscriminately in
+magnificent picturesqueness, are pretty farmhouses nestling almost out
+of sight in groves of sacred trees. Oftentimes perpendicular mountains
+stand sheer up for three thousand feet or more, their sides to the very
+summits ablaze with color coming from the smiling face of sunny Nature,
+in spots at times where only a twelve-inch cultivation is possible.</p>
+
+<p>A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round
+hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild
+orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer
+and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of
+what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more
+distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut
+perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with
+hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures&mdash;all make up a
+strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.</p>
+
+<p>Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie
+can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and
+as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people,
+their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is
+already in print. It were useless to give more of it here&mdash;and, reader,
+you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan&mdash;that thirst which is
+unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of
+the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara&mdash;one does not hear about.</p>
+
+<p>Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst&mdash;so
+very, very much.</p>
+
+<p>I wonder whether you, reader, were ever thirsty? Probably not. You get a
+thirst which is not insatiable. Yours is born of nothing extraordinary;
+yours can be satisfied by a gulp or two of water, or perhaps by a
+drink&mdash;or perhaps two, or perhaps three&mdash;of something stronger. The
+Chinese coolie's thirst arises from the grilling sun, from a dancing
+glare, from hard hauling, struggling with 120 pounds slung over his
+shoulders, dangling at the end of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst
+of the Chinese coolie&mdash;I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and
+sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body;
+I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have
+seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance,
+my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of
+perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop
+and wet myself again. I really <i>must</i> wet myself and swell to life
+again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People come and stare at me, and
+wonder what it is. They, too, are thirsty, for they are all coolies and
+have the coolie thirst.</p>
+
+<p>I wet myself. I pour in cup after cup, and my body, my self sucks it in,
+draws it in as if it were the water of life. Instantly it gushes out
+again at every pore. I swill in more, and out it rushes again, madly
+rushes out as quickly as it can. I swill in more and more, and out it
+comes defiantly. I can keep none inside me. Useless&mdash;I <i>cannot</i> quench
+my thirst. At last the thirst thinks its conquest assured, taking the
+hot tea for a signal of surrender; but I pour in more, and gradually
+feel the tea settling within me. I am a degree less torrid, a shade more
+substantial.</p>
+
+<p>And then here comes my boy.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master, you wantchee makee one drink brandy-and-soda. No can catchee
+soda this side&mdash;have got water. Can do?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Ah! shall I? Shall I? No! I throw it away from me, fling a bottle of
+cheap brandy which he had bought for me at Chung-king away from me, and
+the boy looks forlorn.</p>
+
+<p>Tea is the best of all drinks in China; for the traveler unquestionably
+the best. Good in the morning, good at midday, good in the evening, good
+at night, even after the day's toil has been forgotten. To-morrow I
+shall have more walking, more thirsting, more tea. China tea, thou art a
+godsend to the wayfarer in that great land!</p>
+
+<p>I endeavored to get the details of the population of the province of
+Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent
+illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in
+China&mdash;estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty millions.</p>
+
+<p>The surface of this province is made up of masses of rugged mountains,
+through which the Yangtze has cut its deep and narrow channel. The area
+is everywhere intersected by steep-sided valleys and ravines. The
+world-famed plain of Chen-tu, the capital, is the only plain of any
+size in the province, the system of irrigation employed on it being one
+of the wonders of the world. Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an
+inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the
+stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the
+exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in
+this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its
+climate is even superior&mdash;a land delightfully <i>accident&eacute;e</i>. Among the
+minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and
+petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk.
+Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings,
+some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for
+centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass
+and water buffalo.</p>
+
+<p>The best conditions of Chinese inns are far and away worse than anything
+the traveler would be called upon to encounter anywhere in the British
+Isles, even in the most isolated places in rural Ireland. There can be
+no comparison. And my reader will understand that there is much which
+the European misses in the way of general physical comfort and
+cleanliness. Sanitation is absent <i>in toto</i>. Ordinary decency forbids
+one putting into print what the uninitiated traveler most desires to
+know&mdash;if he would be saved a severe shock at the outset; but everyone
+has to go through it, because one cannot write what one sees. All
+travelers who have had to put up at the caravanseries in Central and
+Western China will bear me out in my assertion that all of them reek
+with filth and are overrun by vermin of every description. The traveler
+whom misfortune has led to travel off the main roads of Russia may
+probably hesitate in expressing an opinion as to which country carries
+off the palm for unmitigated filth; but, with this exception, travelers
+in the Eastern Archipelago, in Central Asia, in Africa among the wildest
+tribes, are pretty well unanimous that compared with all these for dirt,
+disease, discomfort, an utter lack of decency and annoyance, the Chinese
+inn holds its own. And in no part of China more than in Szech'wan and
+Y&uuml;n-nan is greater discomfort experienced.</p>
+
+<p>The usual wooden bedstead stands in the corner of the room with the
+straw bedding (this, by the way, should on no account be removed if one
+wishes to sleep in peace), sometimes there is a table, sometimes a
+couple of chairs. If these are steady it is lucky, if unbroken it is the
+exception; there are never more. Over the bedstead (more often than not,
+by the way, it is composed of four planks of varying lengths and
+thickness, placed across two trestles) I used first to place my oilskin,
+then my <i>p'u-k'ai</i>, and that little creeper which rhymes with hug did
+not disturb me much. Rats ran round and over me in profusion, and, of
+course, the best room being invariably nearest to the pigsties, there
+were the usual stenches. The floor was Mother Earth, which in wet
+weather became mud, and quite a common thing it was for my joys to be
+enhanced during a heavy shower of rain by my having to sleep, almost
+suffocated, mackintosh over my head, owing to a slight break in the
+continuity of the roof&mdash;my umbrella being unavailable, as one of my men
+dropped it over a precipice two days out. For many reasons a camp-bed is
+to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most modest traveling
+equipment. I was many times sorry that I had none with me.</p>
+
+<p>The inns of Szech'wan, however, are by many degrees better than those of
+Y&uuml;n-nan, which are sometimes indescribable. Earthen floors are saturated
+with damp filth and smelling decay; there are rarely the paper windows,
+but merely a sort of opening of woodwork, through which the offensive
+smells of decaying garbage and human filth waft in almost to choke one;
+tables collapse under the weight of one's dinner; walls are always in
+decay and hang inwards threateningly; wicked insects, which crawl and
+jump and bite, creep over the side of one's rice bowl&mdash;and much else.
+Who can describe it? It makes one ill to think of it.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout my journeyings it was necessary for my toileting, in fact,
+everything, to be performed in absolute unalloyed publicity. Three days
+out my boy fixed up a cold bath for me, and barricaded a room which had
+a certain amount of privacy about it, owing to its secluded position;
+but even grown men and women, anxious to see what <i>it</i> was like when it
+had no clothes on, came forward, poked their fingers through the paper
+in the windows (of course, glass is hardly known in the interior), and
+greedily peeped in. This and the profound curiosity the people evince in
+one's every action and movement I found most trying.</p>
+
+<p>It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or
+village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign
+visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again
+with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in
+hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking
+excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes,
+and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or
+not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business
+brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class
+could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered
+foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven
+pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see
+through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in
+their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion
+then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of
+indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room
+for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls
+and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible
+questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from
+the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest
+Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away
+and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy
+would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move
+the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my
+journey in peace.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_E_5'></a><a href='#FNanchor_E_5'>[E]</a><div class='note'><p> This refers to the main roads There are many places in
+isolated and unsurveyed districts where it is extremely difficult and
+often impossible to get along at all&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_F_6'></a><a href='#FNanchor_F_6'>[F]</a><div class='note'><p> This rate of four hundred cash per day per man was
+maintained right up to Tong-ch'uan-fu, although after Chao-t'ong the
+usual rate paid is a little higher, and the bad cash in that district
+made it difficult for my men to arrange four hundred &quot;big&quot; cash current
+in Szech'wan in the Y&uuml;n-nan equivalent. After Tong-ch'uan-fu, right on
+to Burma, the rate of coolie pay varies considerably. Three tsien two
+fen (thirty-two tael cents) was the highest I paid until I got to
+Tengyueh, where rupee money came into circulation, and where expense of
+living was considerably higher.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_VI'></a><h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Szech-wan people a mercenary lot</i>. <i>Adaptability to trading</i>. <i>None but
+nature lovers should come to Western China</i>. <i>The life of the Nomad</i>.
+<i>The opening of China, and some impressions</i>. <i>China's position in the
+eyes of her own people</i>. <i>Industrialism, railways, and the attitude of
+the populace</i>. <i>Introduction of foreign machinery</i>. <i>Different opinions
+formed in different provinces</i>. <i>Climate, and what it is responsible
+for</i>. <i>Recent Governor of Szech-wan's tribute to Christianity</i>. <i>New
+China and the new student</i>. <i>Revolutionary element in Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Need of
+a new life, and how China is to get it</i>. <i>Luchow, and a little about
+it</i>. <i>Fusong from the military</i>. <i>Necessity of the sedan-chair</i>. <i>Cost
+of lodging</i>. <i>An impudent woman</i>. <i>Choice pidgin-English</i>. <i>Some of the
+annoyances of travel</i>. <i>Canadian and China Inland missionaries</i>.
+<i>Exchange of yarns</i>. <i>Exasperating Chinese life, and its effects on
+Europeans</i>. <i>Men refuse to walk to Sui-fu. Experiences in arranging
+up-river trip</i>. <i>Unmeaning etiquette of Chinese officials toward
+foreigners</i>. <i>Rude awakening in the morning</i>. <i>A trying early-morning
+ordeal</i>. <i>Reckonings do not tally</i>. <i>An eventful day</i>. <i>At the China
+Inland Mission</i>. <i>Impressions of Sui-fu. Fictitious partnerships</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The people of Szech'wan, compared with other Yangtze provinces, must be
+called a mercenary, if a go-ahead, one.</p>
+
+<p>Balancing myself on a three-inch form in a tea-shop at a small town
+midway between Li-sh&iuml;h-ch'ang and Luchow, I am endeavoring to take in
+the scene around me. The people are so numerous in this province that
+they must struggle in order to live. Vain is it for the most energetic
+among them to escape from the shadow of necessity and hunger; all are
+similarly begirt, so they settle down to devote all their energies to
+trade. And trade they do, in very earnest.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is labeled, from the earth to the inhabitants; these
+primitives, these blissfully &quot;heathen&quot; people, have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. I walk up to buy something of the value of only
+a few cash, and on all sides are nets and traps, like spider-webs, and
+the fly that these gentry would catch, as they see me stalk around
+inspecting their wares, is myself. They seem to lie in wait for one, and
+for an article for which a coolie would pay a few cash as many dollars
+are demanded of the foreigner. My boy stands by, however, magnificently
+proud of his lucrative and important post, yelling precautions to the
+curious populace to stand away. He hints, he does not declare outright,
+but by ungentle innuendo allows them to understand that, whatever their
+private characters may be, to him they are all liars and rogues and
+thieves. It is all so funny, that one's fatigue is minimized to the last
+degree by the humor one gets and the novel changes one meets everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Onward again, my men singing, perhaps quarreling, always swearing. Their
+language is low and coarse and vulgar, but happily ignorant am I.</p>
+
+<p>The country, too, is fascinating in the extreme. A man must not come to
+China for pleasure unless he love his mistress Nature when she is most
+rudely clad. Some of her lovers are fascinated most in by-places, in the
+cool of forests, on the summit of lofty mountains, high up from the
+mundane, in the cleft of ca&ntilde;ons, everywhere that the careless lover is
+not admitted to her contemplation. It is for such that China holds out
+an inviting hand, but she offers little else to the Westerner&mdash;the
+student of Nature and of man can alone be happy in the interior.
+Forgetting time and the life of my own world, I sometimes come to
+inviolate stillnesses, where Nature opens her arms and bewitchingly
+promises embraces in soft, unending, undulating vastnesses, where even
+the watching of a bird building its nest or brooding over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play, seems to hold one charmed
+beyond description. It is, some may say, a nomadic life. Yes, it is a
+nomadic life. But how beautiful to those of us, and there are many, who
+love less the man-made comforts of our own small life than the
+entrancing wonders of the God-made world in spots where nothing has
+changed. Gladly did I quit the dust and din of Western life, the
+artificialities of dress, and the unnumbered futile affectations of our
+own maybe not misnamed civilization, to go and breathe freely and
+peacefully in those far-off nooks of the silent mountain-tops where
+solitude was broken only by the lulling or the roaring of the winds of
+heaven. Thank God there are these uninvaded corners. The realm of
+silence is, after all, vaster than the realm of noise, and the fact
+brought a consolation, as one watched Nature effecting a sort of
+coquetry in masking her operations.</p>
+
+<p>And as I look upon it all I wonder&mdash;wonder whether with the &quot;Opening of
+China&quot; this must all change?</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese&mdash;I refer to the Chinese of interior provinces such as
+Szech-wan&mdash;are realizing that they hold an obscure position. I have
+heard educated Chinese remark that they look upon themselves as lost,
+like shipwrecked sailors, whom a night of tempest has cast on some
+lonely rock; and now they are having recourse to cries, volleys, all the
+signals imaginable, to let it be known that they are still there. They
+have been on this lonely isolated rock as far as history can trace. Now
+they are launching out towards progress, towards the making of things,
+towards the buying and selling of things&mdash;launching out in trade and in
+commerce, in politics, in literature, in science, in all that has spelt
+advance in the West. The modern spirit is spreading speedily into the
+domains of life everywhere&mdash;in places swiftly, in places slowly, but
+spreading inevitably, <i>si sit prudentia</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing will tend, in this particular part of the country, to turn it
+upside down and inside out more than the cult of industrialism. In a
+number of centers in Eastern China, such as Han-yang and Shanghai,
+foreign mills, iron works, and so on, furnish new employments, but in
+the interior the machine of the West to the uneducated Celestial seems
+to be the foe of his own tools; and when railways and steam craft
+appear&mdash;steam has appeared, of course, on the Upper Yangtze, although it
+has not yet taken much of the junk trade, and Szech'wan has her railways
+now under construction (the sod was cut at Ichang in 1909)<a name='FNanchor_G_7'></a><a href='#Footnote_G_7'><sup>[G]</sup></a>&mdash;and a
+single train and steamer does the work of hundreds of thousands of
+carters, coolies, and boatmen, it is wholly natural that their imperfect
+and short-sighted views should lead them to rise against a seeming new
+peril.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst in the end the Empire will profit greatly by the inventions of
+the Occident, the period of transition in Szech'wan, especially if
+machines are introduced too rapidly and unwisely, is one that will
+disturb the peace. It will be interesting to watch the attitude of the
+people towards the railway, for Szech'wan is essentially the province of
+the farmer. Szech'wan was one of the provinces where concessions were
+demanded, and railways had been planned by European syndicates, and
+where the gentry and students held mass meetings, feverishly declaring
+that none shall build Chinese lines but the people themselves. I have no
+space in a work of this nature to go fully into the question of
+industrialism, railways, and other matters immediately vital to the
+interests of China, but if the peace of China is to be maintained, it
+is incumbent upon every foreigner to &quot;go slowly.&quot; Machines of foreign
+make have before now been scrapped, railways have been pulled up and
+thrown into the sea, telegraph lines have been torn down and sold, and
+on every hand among this wonderful people there has always been apparent
+a distinct hatred to things and ideas foreign. But industrially
+particularly the benefits of the West are being recognized in Eastern
+China, and gradually, if foreigners who have to do the pioneering are
+tactful, trust in the foreign-manufactured machine will spread to
+Western China, and enlarged industrialism will bring all-round
+advantages to Western trade.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far there has been little shifting of the population from hamlets
+and villages to centers of new industries&mdash;even in the more forward
+areas quoted&mdash;but when this process begins new elements will enter into
+the Chinese industrial problem.</p>
+
+<p>As we hear of the New China, so is there a &quot;new people,&quot; a people
+emboldened by the examples of officials in certain areas to show a
+friendliness towards progress and innovation. They were not friendly a
+decade ago. It may, perhaps, be said that this &quot;new people&quot; were born
+after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.</p>
+
+<p>Cotton mills, silk filatures, flour and rice mills employing western
+machinery, modern mining plants and other evidences of how China is
+coming out of her shell, cause one to rejoice in improved conditions.
+The animosity occasioned by these inventions that are being so gradually
+and so surely introduced into every nook and cranny of East and North
+China is very marked; but on close inspection, and after one has made a
+study of the subject, one is inclined to feel that it is more or less
+theoretical. So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far
+Western China.</p>
+
+<p>Readers may wonder at the differences of opinions expressed in the
+course of these pages&mdash;a hundred pages on one may get a totally
+different impression. But the absolute differences of conditions
+existing are quite as remarkable. From Chung-king to Sui-fu one breathed
+an air of progress&mdash;after one had made allowance for the antagonistic
+circumstances under which China lives&mdash;a manifest desire on every hand
+for things foreign, and a most lively and intelligent interest in what
+the foreigner could bring. In many parts of Y&uuml;n-nan, again, conditions
+were completely reversed; and one finding himself in Y&uuml;n-nan, after
+having lived for some time at a port in the east of the Empire, would
+assuredly find himself surrounded by everything antagonistic to that to
+which he has become accustomed, and the people would seem of a different
+race. This may be due to the differences of climate&mdash;climate, indeed, is
+ultimately the first and the last word in the East; it is the arbiter,
+the builder, the disintegrator of everything. A leading writer on
+Eastern affairs says that the &quot;climate is the explanation of all this
+history of Asia, and the peoples of the East can only be understood and
+accounted for by the measuring of the heat of the sun's rays. In China,
+with climate and weather charts in your hands, you may travel from the
+Red River on the Y&uuml;n-nan frontier to the great Sungari in lusty
+Manchuria, and be able to understand and account for everything.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>However that may be, traveling in China, through a wonderful province
+like Szech'wan, whose chief entrep&ocirc;t is fifteen hundred miles from the
+coast, convinces one that she has come to the parting of the ways. You
+can, in any city or village in Szech'wan&mdash;or in Y&uuml;n-nan, for that
+matter, in a lesser degree&mdash;always find the new nationalism in the form
+of the &quot;New China&quot; student. Despite the opposition he gets from the old
+school, and although the old order of things, by being so strong as
+almost to overwhelm him, allows him to make less progress than he
+would, this new student, the hope of the Empire, is there. I do not wish
+to enter into a controversy on this subject, but I should like to quote
+the following from a speech delivered by Tseh Ch'un Hs&uuml;an, when he was
+leaving his post as Governor of Szech'wan:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The officials of China are gradually acquiring a knowledge of the great
+principles of the religions of Europe and America. And the churches are
+also laboring night and day to readjust their methods, and to make known
+their aims in their propagation of religion. Consequently, Chinese and
+foreigners are coming more and more into cordial relations. This fills
+me with joy and hopefulness.... My hope is that the teachers of both
+countries [Great Britain and America] will spread the Gospel more wisely
+than ever, that hatred may be banished, and disputes dispelled, and that
+the influence of the Gospel may create boundless happiness for my people
+of China. And I shall not be the only one to thank you for coming to the
+front in this good work.... May the Gospel prosper!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There are various grades of people in China, among which the scholar has
+always come first, because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the
+intellect that distinguishes man above the lower order of beings, and
+enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for
+others. At the time when Europe was thrilled and cut to the quick with
+news of the massacres of her compatriots in the Boxer revolts, the
+scholar was a dull, stupid fellow&mdash;day in day out, week in week out,
+month in month out, and year after year he ground at his classics. His
+classics were the <i>Alpha</i> and <i>Omega</i>; he worshipped them. This era has
+now passed away.</p>
+
+<p>At the present moment there are upwards of twenty thousand Chinese
+students in Tokyo<a name='FNanchor_H_8'></a><a href='#Footnote_H_8'><sup>[H]</sup></a>&mdash;whither they went because Japan is the most
+convenient country wherein to acquire Western knowledge. The new
+learning, the new learning&mdash;they <i>must</i> have the new learning! No high
+office is ever again likely to be given but to him who has more of
+Western knowledge than Chinese knowledge. And mere striplings, nursed in
+the lap of the mission schools, and there given a good grounding in
+Western education, these are the men far more likely to pass the new
+examinations. In Y&uuml;n-nan, where little chance exists for the scholars to
+advance, the new learning has brought with it a revolutionary element,
+which would soon become dangerous were it by any means common. I have
+seen an English-speaking fellow, anxious to get on and under the
+impression that the laws of his country were responsible for keeping him
+back, write in the back of his exercise book a phrase against the
+imperial ruler that would have cost him his head had it come to the
+notice of the high authorities.</p>
+
+<p>One will learn much if he travels across the Empire&mdash;facts and figures
+quite irreconcilable will arise, but even the man of dullest perception
+will be convinced that much of the reforming spirit in the people is
+only skin-deep, going no farther than the externals of life. It is at
+present, perhaps, merely a mad fermentation in the western provinces,
+wherefrom the fiercer it is the clearer the product will one day evolve
+itself. Such transitions are full of bewilderment to the
+European&mdash;bewildering to any writer who endeavors to tackle the Empire
+as a whole. Each province or couple of provinces should be dealt with
+separately, so diverse are the conditions.</p>
+
+<p>But if China, from the highest to the lowest, will only embrace truth
+and love her for her own sake, so that she will not abate one jot of
+allegiance to her; if China will let truth run down through the
+arteries of everyday commercial, social, and political life as do the
+waterways through her marvelous country; if China will kill her
+retardative conservatism, and in its place erect honesty and conscience;
+if China will let her moral life be quickened&mdash;then her transition
+period, from end to end of the Empire, will soon end. Mineral,
+agricultural, industrial wealth are hers to a degree which is not true
+of any other land. Her people have an enduring and expansive power that
+has stood the test of more than four thousand years of honorable
+history, and their activity and efficiency outside China make them more
+to be dreaded, as competitors, than any race or any dozen races of
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>But New China must have this new life.</p>
+
+<p>Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization she will have in
+ever-increasing measure just in so much as she draws nearer to western
+peoples. But the new life can come from whence? From within or from
+without?</p>
+
+<p>Luchow, into which I was led just before noon on the fourth day out of
+Chung-king, is the most populous and richest city on the Upper Yangtze.</p>
+
+<p>Exceedingly clean for a Chinese city, possessing well-kept streets lined
+with well-stocked emporiums, bearing every evidence of commercial
+prosperity, it however lacks one thing. It has no hotel runners! I
+arrived at midday, crossing the river in a leaky ferry boat, under a
+blazing sun, my intention being to stop in the town at a tea-house to
+take a refresher, and then complete a long day's march, farther than the
+ordinary stage. But owing to some misunderstanding between the
+<i>fu-song</i>, sent to shadow the foreigner on part of his journey, and my
+boy, I was led through the busy city out into the open country before I
+had had a drink. And when I remonstrated they led me back again to the
+best inn, where I was told I should have to spend the night&mdash;there being
+nothing else, then, to be said.</p>
+
+<p>May I give a word of advice here to any reader contemplating a visit to
+China under similar conditions? It is the custom of the mandarins to
+send what is called a <i>fu-song</i> (escort) for you; the escort comes from
+the military, although their peculiar appearance may lead you to doubt
+it. I have two of these soldier people with me to-day, and two bigger
+ragamuffins it has not been my lot to cast eyes on. They are the only
+two men in the crowd I am afraid of. They are of absolutely no use, more
+than to eat and to drink, and always come up smiling at the end of their
+stage for their <i>kumshaw</i>. During the whole of this day I have not seen
+one of them&mdash;they have been behind the caravan all the time; it would be
+hard to believe that they had sense enough to find the way, and as for
+escorting me, they have not accompanied me a single li of the way.<a name='FNanchor_I_9'></a><a href='#Footnote_I_9'><sup>[I]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Another nuisance, of which I have already spoken, is the necessity of
+taking a chair to maintain respectability. These things make travel in
+China not so cheap as one would be led to imagine. Traveling of itself
+is cheap enough, as cheap as in any country in the world. For
+accommodation for myself, for a room, rice and as much hot water as I
+want, the charge is a couple of hundred cash&mdash;certainly not expensive.
+In addition, there is generally a little &quot;cha tsien&quot; (tea money) for the
+cook. But it is the &quot;face&quot; which makes away with money, much more than
+it takes to keep you in the luxury that the country can offer&mdash;which is
+not much!</p>
+
+<p>After I had had a bit of a discussion with my boy as to the room they
+wanted to house me in, a woman, brandishing a huge cabbage stump above
+her head, and looking menacingly at me, yelled that the room was good
+enough.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;What does she say, T'ong?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, she b'long all same fool. She wantchee makee talkee talk. She have
+got velly long tongue, makee bad woman. She say one piecee Japan man
+makee stay here t'ree night. See? She say what makee good one piecee
+Japan man makee good one piecee English man. See? No have got topside,
+all same bottomside have got. Master, this no b'long my pidgin&mdash;this
+b'long woman pidgin, and woman b'long all same fool.&quot; T'ong ended up
+with an amusing allusion to the lady's mother, and looked cross because
+I rebuked him.</p>
+
+<p>Gathering, then, that the lady thought her room good enough for me, I
+saw no other course open, and as the crowd was gathering, I got inside.
+Before setting out to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at
+the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an
+unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of
+Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but
+Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the
+amount of general knowledge derived one from the other was therefore
+limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong
+and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation that his
+presence was distasteful to me, and at the end of the episode I found it
+imperative for my own safety, and perhaps his, to clear out.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>The Canadians I found in their Chinese-built premises, comfortable
+albeit. Five of them were resident at the time, and they were quite
+pleased with the work they had done during the last year or so&mdash;most of
+them were new to China. At the China Inland Mission later I found two
+young Scotsmen getting some exercise by throwing a cricket ball at a
+stone wall, in a compound about twenty feet square. They were glad to
+see me, one of them kindly gave me a hair-cut, and at their invitation I
+stayed the night with them.</p>
+
+<p>What is it in the nature of the Chinese which makes them appear to be so
+totally oblivious to the best they see in their own country?</p>
+
+<p>It is surely not because they are not as sensitive as other races to the
+magic of beauty in either nature or art. But I found traveling and
+living with such apparently unsympathetic creatures exasperating to a
+degree, and I did not wonder that the European whose lot had been cast
+in the interior, sometimes, on emerging into Western civilization,
+appears eccentric to his own countrymen. But this in passing.</p>
+
+<p>I duly arrived at Lan-ch&iuml;-hsien, and was told that Sui-fu, 120 li away,
+would be reached the next day, although I had my doubts. A deputation
+from the local &quot;gwan&quot; waited upon me to learn my wishes and to receive
+my commands. I was assured that no European ever walked to Sui-fu from
+Lan-ch&iuml;-hsien, and that if I attempted to do such a thing I should have
+to go alone, and that I should never reach there. I remonstrated, but my
+boy was firm. He took me to him and fathered me. He almost cried over
+me, to think that I, that I, his master, of all people in the world,
+should doubt his allegiance to me. &quot;I no 'fraid,&quot; he declared. &quot;P'laps
+master no savee. Sui-fu b'long velly big place, have got plenty
+European. You wantchee makee go fast, catchee plenty good 'chow.' I
+think you catchee one piecee boat, makee go up the river. P'laps I think
+you have got velly tired&mdash;no wantchee makee more walkee&mdash;that no b'long
+ploper. That b'long all same fool pidgin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And at last I melted. There was nothing else to do.</p>
+
+<p>That no one ever walked to Sui-fu from this place the district potentate
+assured me in a private chit, which I could not read, when he laid his
+gunboat at my disposal.</p>
+
+<p>This, he said, would take me up very quickly. In his second note,
+wherein he apologized that indisposition kept him from calling
+personally upon me&mdash;this, of course, was a lie&mdash;he said he would feel it
+an honor if I would be pleased to accept the use of his contemptible
+boat. But T'ong whispered that the law uses these terms in China, and
+that nobody would be more disappointed than the Chinese magistrate if I
+<i>did</i> take advantage of his unmeaning offer. So I took a <i>wu-pan</i>, and
+the following night, when pulling into the shadows of the Sui-fu pagoda,
+cold and hungry, I cursed my luck that I had not broken down the useless
+etiquette which these Chinese officials extend towards foreigners, and
+taken the fellow's gunboat.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>wu-pan</i>, they swore to me, would be ready to leave at 3:30 a.m. the
+day following. My boy did not venture to sleep at all. He stayed up
+outside my bedroom door&mdash;I say bedroom, but actually it was an apartment
+which in Europe I would not put a horse into, and the door was merely a
+wide, worm-eaten board placed on end. In the middle of the night I heard
+a noise&mdash;yea, a rattle. The said board fell down, inwards, almost upon
+me. A light was flashed swiftly into my eyes, and desultory remarks
+which suddenly escaped me were rudely interrupted by shrill screams. My
+boy was singing.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Master,&quot; he cried, pulling hard-heartedly at my left big toe to wake
+me, &quot;come on, come on; you wantchee makee get up. Have got two o'clock.
+Get up; p'laps me no wakee you, no makee sleep&mdash;no b'long ploper. One
+man makee go bottomside&mdash;have catchee boat. This morning no have got
+tea&mdash;no can catch hot water makee boil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And soon we were ready to start. Punctually to the appointed hour we
+were at the bottom of the steep, dark incline leading down to the river
+bank.</p>
+
+<p>But my reckonings were bad.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>laoban</i> and the other two youthful members of the half-witted crew
+had not yet taken their &quot;chow,&quot; and this, added to many little
+discrepancies in their reckoning and in mine, kept me in a boiling rage
+until half-past six, when at last they pushed off, and nearly capsized
+the boat at the outset. The details of that early morning, and the
+happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never
+forget&mdash;from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the
+rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow
+escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a
+captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage
+ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We
+reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a wind. Hour
+after hour they toiled, making little headway with their misdirected
+labor, wasting their energies in doing the right things at the wrong
+time, and wrong things always, and long after sundown Sui-fu's pagoda
+loomed in the distance. At 11:00 p.m., stiff and hungry, and mad with
+rage, I was groping my way on all fours up the slippery steps through
+unspeakable slime and filth at the quayhead, only to be led to a
+disgusting inn as dirty as anything I had yet encountered. It was hard
+lines, for I could get no food.</p>
+
+<p>An invitation, however, was given me by the Rev. R. McIntyre, who with
+his charming wife conducts the China Inland Mission in this city, to
+come and stay with them. The next morning, after a sleepless night of
+twisting and turning on a bug-infested bed, I was glad to take advantage
+of the missionary's kindness. I could not have been given a kindlier
+welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Sui-fu has a population of roughly 150,000, and the overcrowding
+question is not the least important. It is situated to advantage on the
+right bank of the Yangtze, and does an immense trade in medicines,
+opium, silk, furs, silverwork, and white wax, which are the chief
+exports. Gunboats regularly come to Sui-fu during the heavy rains.</p>
+
+<p>Just outside the city, a large area is taken up with grave
+mounds&mdash;common with nearly every Chinese city. Mr. McIntyre and Mr.
+Herbert, who was passing through Sui-fu <i>en route</i> for Ta-chien-lu,
+where he is now working, showed me around the city one afternoon, and
+one could see everything typical of the social life of two thousand
+years ago. The same narrow lanes succeed each other, and the conviction
+is gradually impressed upon the mind that such is the general trend of
+the character of the city and its people. There were the same busy
+mechanics, barbers, traders, wayside cooks, traveling fortune-tellers,
+and lusty coolies; the wag doctor, the bane of the gullible, was there
+to drive his iniquitous living; now and then the scene's monotony was
+disturbed by the presence of the chair and the retinue of a city
+mandarin. Yet with all the hurry and din, the hurrying and the scurrying
+in doing and driving for making money, seldom was there an accident or
+interruption of good nature. There was the same romance in the streets
+that one reads of at school&mdash;so much alike and yet so different from
+what one meets in the Chinese places at the coast or in Hong-Kong or
+Singapore. In Sui-fu, more than in any other town in Western China which
+I visited, had the native artist seemed to have lavished his ingenuity
+on the street signboards. Their caligraphy gave the most humorous
+intimation of the superiority of the wares on sale; many of them
+contained some fictitious emblem, adopted as the name of the shop,
+similar to the practice adopted in London two centuries ago, and so
+common now in the Straits Settlements, where bankrupts are allowed
+considerable more freedom than would be possible if fictitious
+registration were not allowed. I refer to the Registration of
+Partnerships.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_G_7'></a><a href='#FNanchor_G_7'>[G]</a><div class='note'><p> I inspected the railway at Ichang in December, 1910, and
+found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress.
+Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and
+excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the
+buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme
+seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting
+was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the
+gentry then decided that as nothing was being done at that end the
+company should be requested to stop work at Ichang, and start laying the
+line from Chen-tu, at the other end. &quot;All the money will be spent,&quot; they
+cried, &quot;and we shall get nothing up this end!&quot; If the money ran out and
+left the central portion of the line incomplete, it did not matter so
+long as each city had something for its money!&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_H_8'></a><a href='#FNanchor_H_8'>[H]</a><div class='note'><p> This is not true to-day. There has been a great falling off
+in numbers.&mdash;E.J.D., February, 1911.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_I_9'></a><a href='#FNanchor_I_9'>[I]</a><div class='note'><p> This should not be taken to apply to the <i>fu-song</i>
+everywhere. I have found them to be the most useful on other occasions,
+but the above was written at Luchow as my experience of that particular
+day.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FOURTH_JOURNEY'></a><h2>FOURTH JOURNEY.</h2>
+
+<h4>SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_VII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Chinese and simplicity of speech</i>. <i>Author and his caravan stopped</i>.
+<i>Advice to travelers</i>. <i>Farewell to Sui-fu</i>. <i>The postal service and
+tribute to I.P.O.</i> <i>Rushing the stages</i>. <i>Details of journey</i>.
+<i>Description of road to Chao-t'ong-fu</i>. <i>Coolie's pay</i>. <i>My boy steals
+vegetables</i>. <i>Remarks on roads and railways</i>. <i>The real Opening of
+China</i>. <i>How the foreigner will win the confidence of the Chinese</i>.
+<i>Distances and their variability</i>. <i>Calculations uprooted</i>. <i>Author in a
+dilemma</i>. <i>The scenery</i>. <i>Hard going</i>. <i>A wayside toilet, and some
+embarrassment</i>. <i>Filth inseparable from Chinese humanity</i>. <i>About
+Chinese inns</i>. <i>Typewriter causes some fun</i>. <i>Soldiers guard my
+doorway</i>. <i>Man's own &quot;inner room.&quot;</i> <i>One hundred and forty li in a day</i>.
+<i>Grandeur and solitude</i>. <i>Wisdom of traveling alone</i>. <i>Coolie nearly
+cuts his toe off</i>. <i>Street scene at Pu&eacute;rh-tu</i>. <i>The &quot;dying&quot; coolie</i>. <i>A
+manacled prisoner</i>. <i>Entertained by mandarins</i>. <i>How plans do not work
+out</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>He who would make most abundant excuses for the Chinese could not say
+that he is simple in his speech.</p>
+
+<p>That speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form
+that it takes, is undoubtedly true: as the thought, so the speech.
+All social relations with us have their roots in mutual trust, and this
+trust is maintained by each man's sincerity of thought and speech.
+Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy,
+so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you
+no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The
+Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue,
+who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to
+account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of
+circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself,
+even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest
+difficulty in getting at the truth about their own affairs.</p>
+
+<p>As I was going out of Sui-fu my caravan and myself were delayed by some
+fellow, who held the attention of my men for a full quarter of an hour.
+I listened, understanding nothing. After another five minutes, by which
+time the conversation had assumed what I considered dangerous
+proportions, having the safety of my boy at heart, I asked&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;T'ong, what is it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Half a sec.,&quot; he replied (having learnt this phrase from the gunboat
+men down the river). He did not, however, take his eyes from the man
+with whom he was holding the conversation. He then dived into my
+food-basket, wrenched off the top of a tin, and pulled therefrom two
+beautifully-marked live pigeons, which flapped their wings helplessly to
+get away, and resumed the conversation. Talk waxed furious, the birds
+were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming
+rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was
+the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He
+b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl,
+two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy
+boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to
+my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou
+would'st travel in China, peep not into thy <i>hoh sh&iuml;h lan ts&iuml;</i> if thou
+would'st feed well.</p>
+
+<p>T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the
+disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he
+could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out
+into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to
+Chao-t'ong-fu.</p>
+
+<p>From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no
+hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the
+reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Y&uuml;n-nan were
+rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the
+regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no
+less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the
+delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been
+established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which
+the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the
+hitherto unheard-of time of two days&mdash;a traveler considers himself
+fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast
+daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in
+two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three
+days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter
+posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.</p>
+
+<p>It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little
+procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached
+before sundown. My coolies&mdash;probably owing to having derived more
+pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from
+Chung-king&mdash;decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the
+fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundred and ninety miles
+distant, if weather permitted, in eleven days. We were to travel by the
+following stages:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='2' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td align='left'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Anpien</td><td align='center'>90 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Huan-chiang</td><td align='center'>55 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Fan-&iuml;h-ts'uen</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;T'an-t'eo</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Lao-wa-t'an</td><td align='center'>140 li</td><td align='center'>1,140 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Teo-sha-kwan</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>4,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Ch'i-li-p'u</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>1,900 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8th day&mdash;Ta-wan-ts&iuml;</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9th day&mdash;Ta-kwan-ting</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>3,700 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10th day&mdash;Wuchai</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>7,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>11th day&mdash;Chao-t'ong-fu</td><td align='center'>100 li</td><td align='center'>6,400 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>I knew that I was in for a very hard journey. The nature of the country
+as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is
+reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough
+and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably
+bad. At certain places it is cut out of the rock, at others it runs in
+the bed of the river, which is dotted everywhere with roaring rapids (as
+we are ascending very quickly), and when the water is high these roads
+are submerged and often impassable. In some places it was a six-inch
+path along the mountain slope, with a gradient of from sixty to seventy
+degrees, and landslips and rains are ever changing the path.</p>
+
+<p>Lao-wa-t'an is the most important point on the route. One of the largest
+Customs stations in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan is here situated at the east
+end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in
+length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the
+roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a
+fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li.
+The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the
+march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the
+physical exertion required to scale the treacherous roads. Over a broad,
+zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight
+curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for
+the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern
+bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock
+rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges
+of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due
+course.</p>
+
+<p>To Ch'i-li-p'u, high up on the mountain banks, the first twenty-five li
+is by the river. At the half-way place a fearful ascent is experienced,
+the most notable precipice on the route between Sui-fu and Y&uuml;n-nan-fu,
+up a broad zigzag path, and as I sat at dinner I could see neither top
+nor bottom owing to the overhanging masses of rock: this is after having
+negotiated an ascent quite as steep, but smaller. To Ta-kwan-hsien a few
+natural obstacles occur, although the road is always high up on the
+hill-sides. I crossed a miserable suspension bridge of two spans. The
+southern span is about thirty feet, the northern span eighty feet; the
+center is supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone,
+resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably
+worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very
+slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the
+general shaky appearance was particularly uninviting.</p>
+
+<p>From Ta-kwan-hsien to Wuchai is steady pulling. Once in an opening in
+the hill we passed along and then ascended an exceedingly steep spur on
+one side of a narrow and very deep natural amphitheatre, formed by
+surrounding mountains. We then came to a lagoon, and eventually the brow
+of the hill was reached. Thus the Wuchai Valley is arrived at, where,
+owing to a collection of water, the road is often impassable to man and
+beast. Often during the rainy season there is a lagoon of mud or water
+formed by the drainage from the mountains, which finds no escape but by
+percolating through the earth and rock to a valley on the east of, and
+below, the mountains forming the eastern boundary of the Wuchai Valley.
+To Chao-t'ong is fairly level going.</p>
+
+<p>Considering the road, it was not unnatural that my men gibbed a little
+at the eleven-day accomplishment. I had a long parley with them,
+however, and agreed to reward them to the extent of one thousand cash
+among the three if they did it. Their pay for the journey, over
+admittedly some of the worst roads in the Empire, was to be four hundred
+cash per man as before, with three hundred and thirty-three cash extra
+if the rain did not prevent them from getting in in eleven days. They
+were in good spirits, and so was I, as we walked along the river-bank,
+where the poppy was to be seen in full flower, and the unending beds of
+rape alternated with peas and beans and tobacco. T'ong would persist in
+stealing the peas and beans to feed me on, and for the life of me I
+could not get him to see that he should not do this sort of thing. But
+how continually one was impressed with the great need of roads in
+Western China! It is natural that, walking the whole distance, I should
+notice this more than other travelers have done, and, to my mind, roads
+in this part of the country rank in importance before the railways.</p>
+
+<p>To the foreign mind it is more to the interests of China that railways
+should be well and serviceably built than that the money should be
+squandered to no purpose. If the railway has rails, then in China it can
+be called a railway, and China is satisfied. So with the roads. If there
+is any passage at all, then the Chinese call it a road, and China is
+satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>As one meanders through the country, watching a people who are equalled
+nowhere in the world for their industry, plodding away over the worst
+roads any civilized country possesses, he cannot but think, even looking
+at the question from the Chinese standpoint so far as he is able, that,
+were free scope once given for the infusion of Western energy and
+methods into an active, trade-loving people like the Chinese, China
+would rival the United States in wealth and natural resources. The
+Chinese knows that his country, the natural resources of the country and
+the people, will allow him to do things on a scale which will by and by
+completely overbalance the doings of countries less favored by Nature
+than his own. He knows that when properly developed his country will be
+one of the richest in the world, yet even when he is filled with such
+ideas he is just as cunctative as he has ever been. He has the idea that
+he should not commence to exhaust the wealth of his country before it is
+absolutely necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Above all, he has now made up his mind that he himself, unaided by the
+foreigner, is going to develop it just as he likes and just when he
+likes.</p>
+
+<p>The day of the foreign concession is gone. The Chinese now is paddling
+his own canoe, and it is only by cultivating his friendship, by proving
+to him by acts, and not by words, that the intrusion of privileged
+enterprises&mdash;such as great mining concessions and railway concessions,
+in which the foreigner demands that he be the only principal&mdash;is no
+longer contemplated, that the day will be won. But it is equally true
+that only by combining European and Chinese interests on the modern
+company system, the real Opening of China can be effected.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.</p>
+
+<p>The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last
+thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over
+the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man,
+who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my
+destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I
+reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the
+end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li,
+and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was &quot;two
+and a bit.&quot; This answer we got from four different people on the way,
+and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the
+two li so much&mdash;it is the &quot;bit&quot; which upsets one's calculations.</p>
+
+<p>The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself&mdash;that is, I
+lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint,
+secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade,
+where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the
+subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss
+and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of
+ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster.
+Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of
+finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence
+anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to
+me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little,
+hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this
+was a country of erratic distances&mdash;it was now getting on for
+sunset&mdash;and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the
+difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard
+someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down
+his back and front.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I
+think p'laps master wantchee makee run away.&quot; And then, after a time:
+&quot;You no wantchee catch 'chow'?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Chow?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost,
+and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was
+fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?</p>
+
+<p>Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a
+narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top
+of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to
+Fan-&iuml;h-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse,
+and so it turned out to be.</p>
+
+<p>At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make
+the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which
+covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals
+of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my
+boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was passing a paddy field
+one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud.
+In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments
+from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up
+in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun&mdash;except myself. Little
+boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried
+to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view.
+But I had to change, and that was most important to me.</p>
+
+<p>Later on, my ugly coolie&mdash;the ugliest man in or out of China, I should
+think, ugly beyond description&mdash;dropped my bedding as he was crossing
+the river, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on a wet bed at T'an-teo.</p>
+
+<p>I must ask the reader's pardon for again referring to Chinese inns. I
+should not have made any remark upon this awful hovel had not the man
+laid a scheme to charge me three times as much as he should&mdash;a scheme,
+be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den,
+where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The
+dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the
+slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think
+there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and
+productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The
+mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his
+tribute of vermin, was not fit for use, there were myriads of filthy
+insects, and I found myself obliged to stop and have some clothes
+boiled, and for comfort's sake rubbed my body with Chinese wine. Filth
+there was everywhere. It seemed inseparable from the people, and a total
+apathy as regards matter in the wrong place pervaded all classes, from
+the highest to the lowest. The spring is opening, and my hard-worked
+coolies doff their heavy padded winter clothing, parade their naked
+skin, and are quite unconscious of any disgrace attending the exhibition
+of the itch sores which disfigure them.</p>
+
+<p>I remember, however, that I am in China, and must not be disgusted.</p>
+
+<p>And should any reader be disgusted at the disjointed character of this
+particular portion of my common chronicle, I would only say in apology
+that I am writing under the gaze of a mystified crowd, each of whom has
+a word to say about my typewriter&mdash;the first, undoubtedly, that he has
+ever seen. This machine has caused the greatest surprise all along the
+route, and it is on occasions when the Chinese sees for the first time
+things of this intimate mechanical nature that he gives one the
+impression that he is a little boy. The people crowd into my room; they
+cannot be kept out, although at the present moment I have stationed my
+two soldiers in the doorway where I am writing, so as to get a little
+light, to keep them from crowding actually upon me.</p>
+
+<p>It has been said that all of us have an innermost room, wherein we
+conceal our own secret affairs. In China everything is so open, and so
+much must be done in public, that it would surprise one to know that the
+Chinese have an inner room. The European traveler in this region must
+have no inner room, either, for the people seem to see down deep into
+one's very soul. But it is when one wanders on alone, as I have done
+to-day, doing two days in one, no less than one hundred and forty li of
+terrible road through the most isolated country, that one can enjoy the
+comfort of one's own loneliness and own inner room. The scenery was
+picturesque, much like Scotland, but the solitude was the best of all. I
+had left office and books and manuscripts, and was on a lonely walk,
+enjoying a solitude from which I could not escape, a reverie which was
+passed not nearly so much in thinking as in feeling, a feeling to
+nature-lovers which can never be completely expressed in words. It was
+indeed a refuge from the storms of life, and a veritable chamber of
+peace. And this, to my mind, is the way to spend a holiday. Robert Louis
+Stevenson tells us in one of his early books what a complete world two
+congenial friends make for themselves in the midst of a foreign
+population; all the hum and the stir goes on, and these two strangers
+exchange glances, and are filled with an infinite content Some of us
+would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
+in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
+thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
+thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
+the same privilege. Selfishness in the slightest degree should not enter
+in. But such a man is difficult to find, so I wander on alone, happy in
+my own solitude. Here I have liberty, perfect liberty.</p>
+
+<p>I was stopped on my way to Lao-wa-t'an at a small town called Pu&ecirc;rh-tu,
+the first place of importance after having come into Y&uuml;n-nan. A few li
+before reaching this town, one of my men cut the large toe of his left
+foot on a sharp rock, lacerating the flesh to the bone. I attended to
+him as best I could on the road, paid him four days' extra pay, and then
+had a bit of a row with him because he would not go back. He avowed that
+carrying for the foreigner was such a good thing that he feared leaving
+it! Upon entering Pu&ecirc;rh-tu, however, he fell in the roadway. A crowd
+gathered, a loud cry went up from the multitude, and in the
+consternation and confusion which ensued the people divided themselves
+into various sections.</p>
+
+<p>Some rushed to proffer assistance to the fallen man (this was done
+because I was about; he would have been left had a foreigner not been
+there), others gathered around me with outrageous adulation and seeming
+words of welcome. Meanwhile, I thought the coolie was dying, and,
+fearful and unnatural as it seems, it is nevertheless true that at all
+ages the Chinese find a peculiar and awful satisfaction in watching the
+agonies of the dying. By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
+dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
+slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
+poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
+stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.</p>
+
+<p>On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
+apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
+ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
+upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
+thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
+suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
+which he advanced slowly towards me.</p>
+
+<p>I was on the point of telling him in English that I had done nothing
+against the law, so far as I knew.</p>
+
+<p>He bowed solemnly, during which time I, attempting the same, had much
+trouble from bursting out laughing in his face. He beckoned to me, and
+then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found
+another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The
+mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a
+theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit,
+that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would
+like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one of them
+would like to sell me a thoroughbred, hard-working,
+magnificently-shaped, without-a-single-vice black pony, which they would
+part with for my benefit for the consideration of one hundred taels down
+(four times its value), which awaited my inspection without. I stood up
+and fronted them, and replied, through T'ong, that I could not stay the
+night, that I would be pleased to tolerate the howling of the theatre
+for one half of an hour, that it would have given me the greatest
+pleasure to take their photographs, but, alas! my films were not many. I
+handed them a cigarette tin, but quite forgot that they asked for
+cigarettes as well (I had none), and I explained that horse-riding was
+not one of my accomplishments, so that their quadruped would be of no
+use to me.</p>
+
+<p>They looked glum, I smiled serenely. This is Chinesey.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_VIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p><i>Szech-wan and Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Coolies and their loads</i>. <i>Exports and
+imports</i>. <i>Hints to English exporters</i>. <i>Food at famine rates</i>. <i>A
+wretched inn at Wuchai</i>. <i>Author prevents murder</i>. <i>Sleeping in the
+rain</i>. <i>The foreign cigarette trade</i>. <i>Poverty of Chao-t'ong</i>.
+<i>Simplicity of life</i>. <i>Possible advantages of Chinese in struggle of
+yellow and white races</i>. <i>Foreign goods in Y&uuml;n-nan and Szech'wan</i>.
+<i>Thousands of beggars die</i>. <i>Supposed lime poisoning</i>. <i>Content of the
+people</i>. <i>Opium not grown</i>. <i>Prices of prepared drug in Tong-ch'uan-fu
+compared</i>. <i>Smuggling from Kwei-chow</i>. <i>Opium and tin of Y&uuml;n-nan</i>.
+<i>Remarkable bonfire at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu</i>. <i>Infanticide at Chao-t'ong</i>.
+<i>Selling of female children into slavery</i>. <i>Author's horse steps on
+human skull</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Were one uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the
+borderline of Szech'wan and Y&uuml;n-nan. The latter is supposed to be one of
+the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous,
+void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills
+conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of
+their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.</p>
+
+<p>The greater part of the roads to be traversed now were constructed on
+projecting slopes above rivers and torrents, affluents of the Yangtze,
+and cross a region upon which the troubled appearance of the mountains
+that bristle over it stamps the impress of a severe kind of beauty. Such
+roads would not be tolerated in any country but China&mdash;I doubt if any
+but the ancient Chinese could have had the patience to build them. One
+could not walk with comfort; it was an impossible task. Far away over
+the earth, winding into all the natural trends of the mountain base, ran
+the highway, merrily tripping over huge boulders, into hollows and out
+of them, almost underground, but always, with its long white extended
+finger, beckoning me on by the narrow ribbon in the distance. True,
+although I was absolutely destitute of company, I had always the road
+with me, yet ever far from me. I could not catch it up, and sometimes,
+dreaming triumphantly that I had now come even with it where it seemed
+to end in some disordered stony mass, it would trip mischievously out
+again into view, bounding away into some tricky bend far down to the
+edge of the river, and rounding out of sight once more until the point
+of vantage was attained. Its twisting and turning, up and down, inwards,
+outwards, made humor for the full long day. With it I could not quarrel,
+for it did its best to help me with my weary men onwards over the now
+darkened landscape, and ever took the lead to urge us forward. If it
+came to a great upstanding mountain, with marked politeness it ran round
+by a circuitous route, more easily if of greater length; at other times
+it scaled clear up, nimbly and straight, turning not once to us in its
+self-appointed task, and at the top, standing like some fairy on a
+steeple-point, beckoned us on encouragingly. At times it became
+exhausted and stretched itself wearisomely out, measuring in width to
+only a few small inches, and overlooked the river at great height,
+telling us to ponder well our footsteps ere we go forward. To part
+company with the road would mean to die, for elsewhere was no foothold
+possible. So in this narrow faithful ledge, torn up by the heavy tread
+of countless horses' feet beyond Lao-wa-t'an (where horse traffic
+starts), we carefully ordered every step. Looking down, sheer down as
+from some lofty palace window, I saw the green snake waiting, waiting
+for me. Slipping, there would be no hope&mdash;death and the river alone lay
+down that treacherous mountain-side. And then, at times, pursuing that
+white-faced wriggling demon which stretched out far over the mist-swept
+landscape in incessant writhing and annoying contortions, we quite gave
+up the chase. It seemed leading me on to some unknown destiny. I knew
+not whither; only this I knew&mdash;that I must follow.</p>
+
+<p>And so each hour and every hour was fraught with peril which seemed
+imminent. But He who guards the fatherless and helpless, feeds the poor
+and friendless, guarded the traveler in those days. Mishaps I had none,
+and when at night I reached those tiny mountain seats, perched
+majestically high for the most part and swept by all the winds of
+heaven, I seemed to be the lonely spectator and companionless watcher
+over mighty mountain-tops, which appeared every moment to be hesitating
+to take a gigantic dive into the roaring river several hundred feet
+below our lofty resting-place.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the larger villages had the arrogant look of old feudal
+fortresses, and up the paths leading to them, cut out in a defile in the
+vertical cliffs, we passed with difficulty coolies carrying on their
+backs the enormous loads, which are the wonder of all who have seen
+them, their backs straining under the boomerang-shaped frames to which
+the merchandise was lashed. Hundreds passed us on their toilsome journey
+with tea, lamp-oil, skins, hides, copper, lead, coal and white wax from
+Y&uuml;n-nan, and with salt, English cotton, Chinese porcelain, fans and so
+on from Szech'wan. One false step, one slight slip, and they would have
+been hurled down the ravine, where far below, in the roaring cataract,
+dwarfed to the size of a toy boat, was a junk being cleverly taken
+down-stream. And down there also, one false move and the huge junk would
+have been dashed against the rocks, and banks strewn with the corpses of
+the crew. As it was, they were mere specks of blue in a background of
+white foam, their vociferating and yelling being drowned by the roar of
+the waters. On the road, passing and re-passing, I saw coolies on the
+way to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu with German cartridges and Japanese guns, the packing,
+so different generally to British goods which come into China, being
+particularly good. This is one of the cries of the importer in China
+against the British manufacturer; and if the latter knew more of Chinese
+transport and the manner in which the goods are handled in changing from
+place to place, one would meet fewer broken packages on the road in this
+land of long distances.</p>
+
+<p>A friend of mine, needing a typewriter, wrote home explicit instructions
+as to the packing. &quot;Pack it ready to ship,&quot; he wrote, &quot;then take it to
+the top of your office stairs, throw it down the stairs, take machine
+out and inspect, and if it is undamaged re-pack and send to me. If
+damaged, pack another machine, subject to the same treatment until you
+are convinced that it can stand being thus handled and escape injury.&quot;
+This is how goods coming to Western China should be sent away.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the days brought harder toil. The mountains grew higher, some
+covered with forests of pine trees, which natural ornament completely
+changed the aspect of the country. Torrents foamed noisily down the
+gorges, veiled by the curtain of great trees; sometimes, on a ridge, a
+field of buckwheat, shining in the sun, looked like the beginning of the
+eternal snows.</p>
+
+<p>Food was at famine rates. Eggs there were in abundance, pork also; but
+it was not to be wondered at that the traveler, having seen the
+conditions under which the pigs are reared, refrained from the luxury of
+Y&uuml;n-nan roast pig. My men fed on maize. The faces of the people were
+pinched and wan, unpleasant to look upon, bearing unmistakable signs of
+poverty and misery, and they seemed too concerned in keeping the wolf
+from the door to attend to me. At Ta-kwan they treated themselves to a
+<i>sheng</i> of rice apiece&mdash;here the <i>sheng</i> is 1.8 catties, as against 11
+catties in the capital of the province.</p>
+
+<p>At Wuchai, the last stage before reaching Chao-t'ong-fu, the room of the
+inn had three walls only, and two of these were composed of kerosene
+tins, laced together with bamboo stripping. (Probably the oil tins had
+been stolen from the mission premises at Chao-t'ong.) Through the whole
+night it rained as it had never rained before, but, instead of feeling
+miserable, I tried to see the humor of the situation. One can get humor
+from the most embarrassing circumstances, and my chief amusement arose
+from a small business deal between one of my coolies, who had sublet his
+contract to a poor fellow returning in the rain, who had arranged to
+carry the ninety catties ninety li for a fourth of the original price
+arranged between my coolie and myself. For one full hour they argued at
+a terrible speed as to the rate of exchange in the Szech'wan large and
+the Y&uuml;n-nan small cash, and this was only interrupted when a poor man,
+deaf and dumb, and of hideous appearance, seeing the foreigner in his
+contemptible town, rushed in with a carrying pole and felled his
+grumbling townsman at my feet.</p>
+
+<p>My intervention probably averted murder&mdash;at any rate, it seemed as
+though murder would have taken place very soon but for my interference.
+The whole populace gathered, of course, and the fight waged fiercely
+until well on into the night. But wrapping myself in my mackintosh, and
+putting my paper umbrella at the right angle, I went to sleep with the
+rain dripping on me as they were indulging in final pleasantries
+regarding each other's ancestry.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing I saw at Chao-t'ong the next day was the foreign
+cigarette, sold at a wayside stall by a vendor of monkey nuts and marrow
+seeds. No trade has prospered in Y&uuml;n-nan during the past two years more
+than the foreign cigarette trade, and the growing evil among the
+children of the common people, both male and female, is viewed with
+alarm. From Tachien-lu to Mengtsz, from Chung-king to Bhamo, one is
+rarely out of sight of the well-known flaring posters in the Chinese
+characters advertising the British cigarette. Some months ago a couple
+of Europeans were sent out to advertise, and they stuck their poster
+decorations on the walls of temples, on private houses and official
+residences, with the result that the people were piqued so much as to
+tear down the bills immediately. In Y&uuml;n-nan, especially since the exit
+of opium, this common cigarette is smoked by high and low, rich and
+poor. I have been offered them at small feasts, and when calling upon
+high officials at the capital have been offered a packet of cigarettes
+instead of a whiff of opium, as would have been done formerly. One is
+not, of course, prepared to say whether such a trade is desirable or
+not, but it merely needs to be made known that towards the middle of the
+present year (1910) a proclamation was issued from the Viceroy's <i>yamen</i>
+at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu speaking in strongest terms against the increasing habit
+of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on
+the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the
+imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of
+the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the
+citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of
+cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for our people to buy.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>At Chao-t'ong I stayed with the Rev. Dr. Savin, and spent a very
+pleasant two days' rest here in his hospitable hands. It was in this
+district I first came across goitre, the first time I had seen it in my
+life. It is a terrible disfigurement.</p>
+
+<p>Poor indeed is the whole of this neighborhood. Poverty, thin and wanting
+food to eat, stalks abroad dressed in a rag or two, armed with a staff
+to keep away the snarling dogs, and a broken bowl to gather garbage.</p>
+
+<p>Even the better class, who manage to afford their maize and bean curds,
+are to be praised for the extreme simplicity which everywhere vividly
+marks their monotonous lives. Indeed, this is true of the whole area
+through which I have traveled. No furniture brings confusion to their
+rooms, no machinery distresses the ear with its groaning or the eye with
+its unsightliness, no factories belch out smoke and blacken the beauty
+of the sky, no trains screech to disturb sleepers and frighten babies.
+The simplest of simple beds&mdash;in most cases merely a few boards with a
+straw mattress placed thereon&mdash;the straw sandal on the foot, wooden
+chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and
+of cooking utensils, the simple homespun cotton clothing&mdash;much of this
+finds favor in the eye of the English traveler. The Chinese, of all
+Orientals, teach us how to live without furniture, without impedimenta,
+with the least possible amount of clothing in the case of the poorer
+classes, and I could not fail to be impressed by the advantage thus held
+by this great nation in the struggle of life. It may serve them in good
+stead in the struggle of the Yellow Man against the White Man, to which
+I refer at a later period in this book; also does it incidentally show
+up the real character of some of the weaknesses of our own civilization,
+and when one is in China, living near the people, one is forced to
+reflect upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have
+our daily stock of bread and butter and meats, glass windows and fires,
+hats, white shirts and woolen underwear, boots and shoes, trunks, bags
+and boxes, bedsteads, mattresses, sheets and blankets&mdash;most of which a
+Chinese can do without, and indeed is actually better off without.<a name='FNanchor_J_10'></a><a href='#Footnote_J_10'><sup>[J]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This is not true in every class, however; for whilst there is no denying
+the charm of the simpler civilization, many of the Chinese of Szech'wan
+and Y&uuml;n-nan glory in goods of foreign manufacture, no matter if to them
+is not disclosed the proper purpose of any particular article adopted.</p>
+
+<p>Rice will not grow here in great quantities, owing to the scarcity of
+water; therefore the people feed on maize, and are thankful to get it.</p>
+
+<p>Chao-t'ong is the centre of a large district devastated by recurring
+seasons of plague, rebellion and famine, when thousands die annually
+from starvation in the town and on the level uplands surrounding it. The
+beggars on one occasion, becoming so numerous, were driven from the
+streets, confined within the walls of the temple and grounds beyond the
+South Gate, and there fed by common charity. Huddled together in disease
+and rags and unspeakable misery, they died in thousands, and the Chinese
+say that of five thousand who crossed the temple threshold two thousand
+never came out alive.</p>
+
+<p>This happened some twenty years ago. The unfortunate victims had for
+their food a rice porridge, mixed with which was a subtance alleged to
+have been lime, the common belief being that the majority of those who
+perished died from the effect of poisoning. Outside the city boundary
+hundreds of the dead were flung into huge pits, and even now the
+inhabitants refer to the time when children were exchanged <i>ad libitum</i>
+for a handful of rice or even less.</p>
+
+<p>During my stay in this city, I heard on all hands some of the most
+blood-curdling stories of the dire distress which, like a dark cloud,
+still menaces the people, some of which are too dreadful for public
+print.</p>
+
+<p>But I suppose these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a
+virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects
+which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's
+stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the
+desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope
+of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was
+plentiful. But now no opium is grown, and the misery-stricken people
+have lost all hope of better times, and seem to have sunk in many
+instances to the lowest pangs of distressful poverty.<a name='FNanchor_K_11'></a><a href='#Footnote_K_11'><sup>[K]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Reader, alarm not yourself! I am not here to lead you into a long
+harangue on opium&mdash;it presents too thorny a subject for me to handle. I
+am not a partisan in the opium traffic; my mission is not essentially to
+denounce it; I am not impelled by an irresistible desire to investigate
+facts and put them before you. There is practically no opium in Y&uuml;n-nan
+to talk about.</p>
+
+<p>This is absolute fact&mdash;not a Chinese fact, but good old British truth
+(although British truth when it touches upon opium has been very, very
+perverted since we first commenced to transact opium trade with this
+great country). With the exception of one small patch, some ten miles
+away from the main road between Y&uuml;n-nan-fu and Tali-fu, I saw no poppy
+whatever in the province. This does not mean, however, that no opium is
+to be had.</p>
+
+<p>During the past three weeks<a name='FNanchor_L_12'></a><a href='#Footnote_L_12'><sup>[L]</sup></a> no less than five cases of attempted
+suicide by opium poisoning have come under my personal notice in the
+town in which I am residing, and there have doubtless been fifty more
+which have not. If there is no opium, where do the people so easily
+secure it in endeavors to take their lives upon the slightest
+provocation? Last year the price of opium here on the streets, although
+its sale was &quot;illegal,&quot; was over three tsien (about nine-pence) the
+Chinese ounce of prepared opium. At the present time, in the same city,
+many men would be willing to do a deal for any quantity you like for
+less than two tsien. Cases of smuggling are frequent. One gets
+accustomed to hear of large quantities being smuggled through in most
+cunning ways, and it all goes to show that the <i>people</i> of Y&uuml;n-nan are
+not, as some of China's enlightened statesmen and some of the ranting
+faddists of England and America would have us believe, falling over one
+another in their zeal to free the province from the drug.</p>
+
+<p>The other day some men passed through several towns, on the way to the
+capital, carrying three coffins. In the first was a corpse, the other
+two were packed with opium. Being suspected at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the first
+coffin was opened, and the carriers, making as much row as they could
+because their coffin had been burst open, secured a fair &quot;squeeze&quot; to
+hold their tongues, and the second and third coffins were passed
+unexamined. Quite common is it for men to travel in armed bands from the
+province of Kwei-chow, traveling by night over the mountains by
+lantern-light, and hiding by day from any possible official searchers.</p>
+
+<p>Opium, which is and always has been so heavily taxed, does not in
+general follow the ordinary trade routes on which <i>likin</i> stations are
+numerous, but is carried by these armed bands over roads where the
+native Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped as to yield
+readily to superior force, where the men are compelled to accept a
+composition much below the official rate.</p>
+
+<p>Opium smoking is still common in Western China among people who can
+afford it. At the time of the crusade against it, wealthy people laid
+in stocks enough to last them for years; and, so long as there is
+smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it, into those which do
+not, there will be no danger of the absolute extermination being carried
+successfully into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
+provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for having practically
+abolished the poppy; but at the present moment (December, 1909) she is
+at a loss to know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason why
+people of Y&uuml;n-nan are making bargains in opium smuggled over the border.
+Much has yet to be done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has been
+in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for
+nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for
+six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the
+average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole
+business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China
+for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked
+since the middle of the seventeenth century.<a name='FNanchor_M_13'></a><a href='#Footnote_M_13'><sup>[M]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>A few years ago Y&uuml;n-nan had only two articles of importance with which
+to pay for extra provincial products consumed, namely, opium and tin.
+The latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz, and the value of
+the output now runs to approximately three million taels. Opium came
+from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion
+sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three
+thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very
+much greater. Y&uuml;n-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
+In 1879, the production was variously estimated at from twelve thousand
+to twenty-two thousand piculs; in 1887 it had risen to approximately
+twenty-seven thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the reform
+no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.</p>
+
+<p>One afternoon, in November of 1909, the execution ground of Y&uuml;n-nan-fu
+was the scene of a remarkably daring proceeding by the officials in the
+campaign for the total suppression of opium in the province. No less
+than 20,040 ounces of prepared opium were publicly destroyed by fire in
+the presence of an enormous crowd of people. The officials of the city
+were present in person, and everywhere the event was looked upon as the
+greatest public demonstration that the people had ever seen.</p>
+
+<p>The missionary of whom I inquired denied that the infanticide at
+Chao-t'ong was very great&mdash;things must be improving!</p>
+
+<p>Previous to my arrival at the city I had instructed my English-speaking
+boy to make inquiries in the city, and to let me know afterwards,
+whether girls were still sold publicly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Have got plenty,&quot; he exclaimed, in describing this wholesale selling of
+female children into slavery. &quot;I know, I know; you wantchee makee buy.
+Can do! You wantchee catch one piecee small baby, can catchee two, three
+tael. Wantchee one piecee very much tall, big piecee, can catch fifty
+dollar.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Continuing, he told me that prices were fairly high, a girl who could
+boast good looks and who had reached an age when her charms were
+naturally the strongest fetching the alarming amount of three hundred
+taels. This was the highest figure reached, whilst small children could
+be had for anything up to twenty. This wholesale disposal of young
+girls, although the traffic was in some quarters emphatically denied to
+exist&mdash;a denial, however, which was all moonshine&mdash;is one of the chief
+sorrows of the district. And well it might be; for thousands of children
+are disposed of in the course of a year for a few taels by heartless
+parents, who watch them being carried away, like so much merchandise, to
+be converted into silver, in many cases in this poverty-stricken
+district merely to satisfy the craving for opium of some sodden wretch
+of a man who calls himself a father. Time and time again, long after I
+myself passed through Chao-t'ong, did I see little girls from three to
+ten years of age being conveyed by pack-horse to the capital, balanced
+in baskets on either side of the animal. This and the terrible
+infanticide which exists in all poor districts of China menaces the
+lives of all well-wishers of the entire province of Y&uuml;n-nan.</p>
+
+<p>In the particular district of which I speak it is not an uncommon sight
+to see little children being torn to pieces by dogs, the scavengers of
+the Empire, perhaps by the very dogs that had been their playmates from
+birth. I have been riding many times and found that my horse had stepped
+on a human skull, and near by were the bones the dogs had left as the
+remains of the corpse.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>NOTE.&mdash;I should mention that, since the above was written, I have lived
+and travelled a good deal around Chao-t'ong-fu, being the only European
+traveller who has ever penetrated the country to the east of the main
+road, by which I had now come down.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_J_10'></a><a href='#FNanchor_J_10'>[J]</a><div class='note'><p> Anyone who contemplates a tramp across China must not get
+the idea that he can still continue the uses of civilization. For the
+most part he will have to live pretty well as a Chinese the whole time,
+and he will find, as I found, that it is easy to give up a thing when
+you know the impossibility of getting it.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_K_11'></a><a href='#FNanchor_K_11'>[K]</a><div class='note'><p> This was written later. I have altered my views since I
+have traveled from end to end of Y&uuml;n-nan. The disappearance of opium, on
+the contrary, apart from the moral advantage to the people, has done
+much to place them in a better position financially. In Tali-fu I found
+not a single shop on the main street &quot;to let,&quot; and the trade of the
+place had gone ahead considerably, and this was a city which people
+generally supposed would suffer most on account of the non-growth of
+opium.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_L_12'></a><a href='#FNanchor_L_12'>[L]</a><div class='note'><p> May, 1910. As a matter of fact the date makes no
+difference, because unfortunately the number of suicides from opium does
+not seem to have decreased materially in Western China since the opium
+crusade was started. Upon the slightest provocation a Chinese woman in
+Y&uuml;n-nan will take her life, and it is probable that for the five cases
+which came to my notice through the mission house there were treble that
+number which did not&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_M_13'></a><a href='#FNanchor_M_13'>[M]</a><div class='note'><p> This was written at the end of 1909 Now, in July, 1910,
+things are changed wonderfully. The rapidity with which China is driving
+out the poppy from province after province is truly remarkable. In
+Szech'wan, in April, 1909, I passed through miles and miles of poppy
+along the main road&mdash;to-day there is none to be seen It is to be hoped
+that Great Britain will do her part as faithfully as China is doing
+hers.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THE_CHAO_TONG_REBELLION_OF_1910'></a><h2>THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910</h2>
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_IX'></a><h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Digression from travel</i>. <i>How rebellions start in China</i>. <i>Famous Boxer
+motto</i>. <i>Way of escape shut off</i>. <i>Riots expected before West can be won
+into the confidence of China</i>. <i>Boxerism and students of the Government
+Reform Movement</i>. <i>Author's impressions formed within the danger zone</i>.
+<i>More Boxerism in China than we know of</i>. <i>Causes of the Chao-t'ong
+Rebellion</i>. <i>Halley's Comet brings things to a climax</i>. <i>Start of the
+rioting</i>. <i>Arrival of the military</i>. <i>Number of the rebels</i>. <i>They hold
+three impregnable positions, and block the main roads</i>. <i>European ladies
+travel to the city in the dead of night</i>. <i>A new ch'en-tai takes the
+matter in hand</i>. <i>Rumors and suspense</i>. <i>Stations of the rebels</i>. <i>A
+night attack</i>. <i>Sixteen rebels decapitated</i>. <i>Officials alter their
+tactics</i>. <i>Fighting on main road</i>. <i>Superstition regarding soldiers</i>.
+<i>One of the leaders captured by a headman</i>. <i>Chapel burnt down and
+caretaker rescued by military</i>. <i>Li the Invincible under arms</i>. <i>Huang
+taken prisoner</i>. <i>Two leaders killed</i>. <i>Rising among the Miao</i>. <i>Mission
+work at a standstill</i>. <i>Child-stealing, and the Y&uuml;n-nan Railway rumor</i>.
+<i>Barbaric punishment</i>. <i>Tribute to Chinese officials</i>. <i>British
+Consul-General</i>. <i>R&eacute;sum&eacute; of the position</i>. <i>An unfortunate incident</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Despite the fact that this chapter was the last written, it has been
+thought wise to place it here. It deals with the Chao-t'ong Rebellion,
+of which the outside world, even when it was at its height, knew little,
+but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of
+writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in
+North-East Y&uuml;n-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression from
+travel.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all that has been written in previous and subsequent
+chapters, and in face of the universal cry of the progress China is
+speedily realizing, of the stoutest optimism characteristic of the
+statesman and of the student of Chinese affairs, a feeling of deep gloom
+at intervals overcomes one in the interior&mdash;a fear of some impending
+trouble. There is a rumor, but one smiles at it&mdash;there are always
+rumors! Then there are more rumors, and a feeling of uneasiness pervades
+the atmosphere; a local bubble is formed, it bursts, the whole of one's
+trust in the sincerity of the reform of China and her people is brushed
+away to absolute unbelief in a few days, and it means either a sudden
+onrush and brutal massacre of the foreigners, or the thing blows over
+after a short or long time of great strain, and ultimately things assume
+a normality in which the detection of the slightest ruffle in the
+surface of social life is hardly traceable.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the Chao-t'ong Rebellion, luckily unattended by loss of life
+among the foreigners. It is not yet over,<a name='FNanchor_N_14'></a><a href='#Footnote_N_14'><sup>[N]</sup></a> but it is believed that the
+worst is past.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of 1909 probably no part of the Empire seemed more peaceful.
+Two months afterwards the heads of the Europeans were demanded;
+missionaries were guarded by armed soldiers in their homes inside the
+city walls, and forbidden to go outside; native Christians were brutally
+maltreated and threatened with death if they refused to turn traitor to
+their beliefs; thousands of generally law-abiding men, formed into armed
+bands, were defiantly setting at naught the law of the land, and the
+whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to
+Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by
+infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,&mdash;their motto the famous
+ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: &quot;Exalt the dynasty; destroy the
+foreigner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Kill, kill, kill!&quot; ran the cry for miles around the countryside, and a
+fearful repetition of the bloody history of ten years ago was daily
+feared. Providential, however, was it that no foreigner was traveling at
+the time in these districts, and that those who, ignorant of the
+troubles, desired to do so were stopped at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu by the Consuls and
+at Sui-fu by the missionaries. It is a matter for gratitude also that
+throughout the riots, specially safeguarded by the great Providence of
+God, no lives of Europeans were lost; and owing to the praiseworthy and
+obvious attitude of the missionaries in this area in endeavoring to keep
+the thing as quiet as possible, and the notoriously conservative manner
+in which consular reports upon such matters are preserved in
+Governmental lockers, practically nothing has been heard of the
+uprising.</p>
+
+<p>At times during the four slow-moving months, however, the situation
+became, as I shall endeavor to show, complicated in every way. The
+escape of the foreigners was made absolutely impossible by the fact that
+the whole of the roads, even those over the rough mountains leading
+south, were blocked successfully by the rebelling forces, and, when the
+deep gloom settled finally over the city, the fate of the Westerners
+seemed sealed and their future hopeless. All round the foreigners'
+houses the people, infected with that strange, unaccountable, national
+hysteria, so terrible in the Chinese temperament, rose up to burn and
+kill. Mayhap it means little to the man who reads. Massacres have always
+been common enough in China, he will say; and there are thousands of
+people in Europe to-day who know no more about China than what the
+telegrams of massacres of European missionaries have told them. Years
+ago one almost expected this sort of thing; but at the present day, when
+China is popularly supposed to be working honestly to gain for herself
+an honorable place among the nations, it is surely not to be expected in
+the ordinary run of things in days of peace.</p>
+
+<p>But we know that such visions are common to every European in Inland
+China, and even at the coast men talk continually of and believe that
+riots are going to happen in the near future. Merchant, missionary,
+traveler and official all agree that there is yet more trouble ahead
+before the West will be won into the confidence of China and <i>vice
+versa</i>. The people who are studying the Reform Movement of the Young
+China, however, and who stolidly refuse to study with it the general
+attitude of the common people, laugh and dismiss with contempt the
+subject of the possibility of further outbreaks of Boxerism in the
+outlying parts of the Empire. But they should not laugh. The European
+cannot afford to laugh, and, if he be a sensible fellow, knows that he
+cannot afford to treat with contempt the opinions of the people who
+know. The more we understand the vast interior of China and the
+conservatism and peculiarities of character of the people of that
+interior, the less disposed shall we be to jest, the less disposed to
+ridicule, what I would characterize as the strongest and most deadly of
+the hidden menaces of the Celestial Empire.</p>
+
+<p>One does not wish to be pessimistic, but it is foolish to close one's
+eyes to bare fact.</p>
+
+<p>At the moment I am writing, in the middle of China, I know that I am
+safe enough here, but I do not disguise from myself that the wildest
+reports are still current within a quarter of a mile from me about me
+and my own kind in this peaceful city of Tong-ch'uan-fu. And it takes
+very little to light the fuse and to cause a terrible explosion here, in
+common with other places in this province. A man might be quite safe one
+day and lose his head the next if he did not, at times when the
+rebellious element is apparent, conform strictly to the general wishes
+and accepted customs of the people among whom he is living.</p>
+
+<p>No, we cannot afford to laugh. We must seek the opinion of those people
+who were confined within the walls of Chao-t'ong city&mdash;the silence of
+their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of
+yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very
+death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging
+their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom&mdash;before we show
+contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is
+more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know
+of.</p>
+
+<p>Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no
+rumor of any uprising. About this time, however, to supply a serious
+deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since
+that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which
+the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they
+be allowed again to grow the poppy. Among the population of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city,
+especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have
+been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the
+Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which
+gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest. It
+required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its
+wonderful tail&mdash;none other than Halley's Comet&mdash;to bring the whole to a
+climax. This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and
+he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by
+the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the
+Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the
+Chinese to strike.</p>
+
+<p>That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news
+the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the
+tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured
+and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T'o-ch-i (on the
+River of Golden Sand<a name='FNanchor_O_15'></a><a href='#Footnote_O_15'><sup>[O]</sup></a>) and Sa'i-ho, in a westerly direction from the
+town. A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the
+Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and
+looted&mdash;so ran the rumor. By this date, for two days' march in all
+directions from Chao-t'ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd
+they were&mdash;Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.
+Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the
+<i>ch'uandan</i>) containing two pieces of coal and a feather&mdash;a simile
+meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.
+Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the
+capital (twelve days away), and from Ch'u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days
+away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to the city,
+and it was thought that the brigadier-general would be able to cope with
+the trouble now that he had so many armed troops. Soldiers patrolled the
+city walls (which, by the way, had to be built up so that the soldiers
+might be able to get decent patrol), more were stationed on the premises
+of the Europeans, and every defensive precaution was taken. The
+officials were in daily communication by telegraph with the Viceroy, and
+at first the riot was kept well in hand by Government authorities.</p>
+
+<p>But the rebels had by this time got together no less than three thousand
+men, and were holding three impregnable positions on the adjacent hills,
+and had effectually cut off communication by the main road. Despite
+their numbers, they were afraid to strike, however, and lucky it was for
+the city that the leaders were not sufficiently trusted by their
+followers, many of them pressed men&mdash;men who had joined the rebelling
+ranks merely to save their own necks and their houses. At this time the
+<i>pen-fu</i> (a sort of mayor of the city) demanded that the missionaries
+working among the Hua Miao, and two lady workers paying a visit to that
+place, should return from Sh&iuml;h-men-K'an (70 li away), as he could not
+protect them in the country. A special messenger was dispatched,
+demanding instant departure, and in the dead of night&mdash;a bitter wintry
+night, icy, dark, slippery, and cold&mdash;these ladies came under cover to
+the city.</p>
+
+<p>They reached the mission premises without molestation.</p>
+
+<p>By this time a new <i>ch'en-tai</i> (brigadier-general) had arrived from the
+capital, having been sent as a man who could handle the situation
+successfully. He was a Liu Ta Ren, who had previously held office in the
+city, and whose cunning a Scotland Yard detective might envy.<a name='FNanchor_P_16'></a><a href='#Footnote_P_16'><sup>[P]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Rumors grew more and more serious; the mandarins went all round the
+countryside endeavoring to pacify the people, and the foreigners could
+do nothing but &quot;sit tight&quot; through these most trying days. The suspense
+of being shut up in one's house during a time of trouble of this nature,
+hearing every rumor which lying tongues create, and unable to get at the
+facts, is far worse than being in the thick of things, although this
+would have at once been fatal. But one needs to have lived in China
+during such a time to understand the awful tension which riots
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>The rioters were stationed as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>1. Weining, in Kwei-chow, to the southeast 1,000 men
+
+<p>     2. Kiang-ti Hill, in Y&uuml;n-nan, to the south 1,000 men</p>
+
+<p>     3. Several places around the city, to the west as far as the River
+     of Golden Sand 1,000 men</p></div>
+
+<p>On March 13th a night attack was expected. Breathless, the foreigners
+waited in their suspense, but it passed off without serious damage being
+done. On the Sunday, the missionaries, almost at their wits' end with
+mingled fear and excitement, occasioned by the strain which weeks of
+anxiety must bring to the strongest, feared whether their services would
+be got through in peace.</p>
+
+<p>Meetings were being held all around the city, and gradually the
+mandarins gained small successes. Prisoners&mdash;miserable specimens of men
+fighting for they hardly knew what&mdash;were captured and brought to the
+city, and, on March 16th, sixteen human heads, thrown in one gruesome
+mass into a common basket, with upturned eyes gaping into the great
+unknown, hideous-looking and bearing still the brutish stare of
+hysterical craving and morbid rage, were carried by an armed squad of
+military to the <i>yamen</i>.</p>
+
+<p>They made a ghastly picture when hung over the gate of the city to put
+the fear of death into the hearts of their brutal compatriots. The
+officials, hard-worked and themselves feeling the strain of the whole
+business, and incidentally fearful for the safety of their own heads,
+were perturbed all this time by rumors coming from Weining, the
+mutineers of which were alleged to be the fiercest of the three bands.
+Up to now the officials had been playing a conciliating game. They had
+been trying vainly to pacify, but now they found that they had to prove
+their energies and their benevolence by acting the part of tyrants
+rather than of administrators of mercy, by warring rather than by
+peace-making, by fighting and forcing rather than by conciliating and
+persuading.</p>
+
+<p>On Easter Tuesday, fighting took place on the main road to the north,
+when the <i>pen-fu</i> and his men achieved a creditable success. The rebels
+almost to a man were taken, and among the prisoners was a girl who had
+been distributing the beans, a lovely damsel of eighteen, said to have
+been the fianc&eacute;e of the leader of that band. Both her legs were shot
+through and she was considerably mutilated; but although the <i>pen-fu</i>
+thought this sufficient punishment, instructions came from the capital
+that she must die. She was accordingly taken outside the city and
+beheaded. This caused some consternation among the rebels, as the death
+of the girl was looked upon as an omen of direct misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>For a very long time she had been going around the country dropping
+beans into the ground outside any houses she came across, the
+superstition being that wherever a bean was dropped there in the very
+spot, perhaps at the very moment, for aught that we know, an invincible
+warrior would spring up. She had dropped some millions of beans, but the
+ranks were not swelled as a consequence.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>ch'en-tai</i> had also been out all night, and as men were captured so
+they were beheaded on the spot without mercy and their heads
+subsequently hung outside the city gates. The headman of a small
+village&mdash;some forty li from the city&mdash;succeeded in capturing one of the
+leaders, and great credit was due to him; but soon the leader was
+rescued again by his followers, who then brutally killed and mutilated
+the body of the headman, causing him to undergo the ignominy of having
+his tongue and his heart cut out. Fighting was going on everywhere, and
+by the end of March things were at their height. The fact that rain was
+badly needed tended only to aggravate the situation, and that lustrous
+comet made things worse. Day by day miserable processions brought the
+wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden
+fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised
+the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through
+the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was
+prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United
+Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the
+houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua
+Miao convert, was taken, stripped of his clothing, and threatened with
+an awful death if he did not betray the foreigners. He refused manfully
+to divulge any information whatsoever, and was on the point of being
+sacrificed, when the <i>ch'en-tai</i> came unexpectedly upon the scene with
+his military. He released the Miao, captured thirty-six rebels, killed
+sixteen more where they stood, and carried away many of their horses and
+the dreaded Boxer flag around which the men rallied.</p>
+
+<p>And now comes the smartest thing I heard of throughout the rebellion.</p>
+
+<p>A man named Li was the most dreaded of the trio of rebel chiefs, a man
+of marvelous strength, and who seemed to be able to fascinate his men
+and get them to do anything he wished&mdash;and Liu, the <i>ch'en-tai</i>, set
+himself the task of capturing him. Disguising himself in the garb of a
+pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the
+look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the
+<i>ch'en-tai</i> was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell
+them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose
+his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up
+quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on,
+they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their
+captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which
+was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and
+where Li himself was hiding.</p>
+
+<p>And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the
+master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with
+many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the
+military.</p>
+
+<p>Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was
+captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow
+process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers
+might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief
+<i>yamen</i>, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the
+head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls
+since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago.
+After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had
+served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from
+his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a
+frame on the city gate.</p>
+
+<p>And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in
+this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of
+magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a
+better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to
+die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood
+must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more
+hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time
+in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting
+of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart,
+fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away;
+but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive,
+and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his
+followers. He has probably been given up.<a name='FNanchor_Q_17'></a><a href='#Footnote_Q_17'><sup>[Q]</sup></a> In the month of May the
+Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come
+to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and
+British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond
+Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910),
+permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.</p>
+
+<p>Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to
+the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and
+were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to <i>ch'i</i>
+the railway to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the
+public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and
+offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest
+prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution,
+and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission
+schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as
+they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more
+grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at
+Chao-t'ong, were taken to the <i>yamen</i>, hung in cages for a time as a
+warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting,
+&quot;Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have.&quot; If
+they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.</p>
+
+<p>A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a
+child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in
+England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able
+successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused.
+Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and
+mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run
+away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get
+them.</p>
+
+<p>This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and
+breadth of Y&uuml;n-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to
+Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into
+close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people
+taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the
+very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.</p>
+
+<p>In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my
+manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been
+greatly reduced.</p>
+
+<p>In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which
+it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only
+fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of
+the Viceroy of Y&uuml;n-nan in dealing with the situation. Although he is
+not, I believe, generally liked by the people as their ruler, Li Chin
+Hsi did all he could to quell the riots speedily, and saw to it that all
+the officials in whose districts the rebellion was raging, and who made
+blunders during its progress, were degraded in rank. It is difficult for
+Europeans thoroughly to grasp the situation. From Chao-t'ong to
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the viceregal seat, is twelve days' hard going, and all
+communication was done by telegraph&mdash;seemingly easy enough; but one must
+not discount the slow Chinese methods of doing things. Most of the
+troops were twelve days away, and in China&mdash;in backward Y&uuml;n-nan
+especially&mdash;to mobilize a thousand men and march them over mountains a
+fortnight from your base is not a thing to be done at a moment's
+notice. By the time they would arrive, it might have been possible for
+all the foreigners to have been massacred and their premises demolished,
+especially as the exits were blocked on all sides. But no time was lost
+and no pains were saved; and although the Chao-t'ong foreign residents,
+who suffered in suspense more than most missionaries are called upon to
+suffer, may differ with me in this opinion, I believe that not one of
+the officials who took part in endeavors to keep the riots from assuming
+more actually dangerous proportions could have done more than was done.
+If a man neglected his duty he lost his button, and he deserved nothing
+else.</p>
+
+<p>In Mr. P. O'Brien Butler, the able British Consul-General, the British
+subjects had the greatest confidence. He might have erred in having
+declined from harassing the Chinese Foreign Office to grant permission
+and protection to Britishers who wished to travel after the leaders of
+the rebellion had been captured, but he undoubtedly erred on the right
+side.</p>
+
+<p>An unfortunate incident for the United Methodist missionaries was the
+fact that the Rev. Charles Stedeford, who was sent out by the Connexion
+to visit the whole of the mission fields, was able to come only so far
+as Tong-ch'uan-fu, and was forced to return to Europe without having
+seen any of the magnificent work among the Hua Miao.</p>
+
+<p>After my manuscript went forward to my publishers, permission to travel
+and protection were granted to British subjects again on the main road
+leading up to the Yangtze Valley. The author was the first Britisher to
+go from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Chao-t'ong-fu, and as I write, as late as the
+middle of July, 1910, I am of the opinion that it is unwise to travel
+over this road for a long time to come, unless it is absolutely
+imperative to do so. At Kiang-ti I had considerable trouble in getting
+a place to sleep, and I was glad when I had passed Tao-&uuml;en.</p>
+
+<p>At the invitation of missionaries working among them, I then spent some
+months in residence and travel in Miaoland, and only regret that an
+extended account of my experiences is not possible.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_N_14'></a><a href='#FNanchor_N_14'>[N]</a><div class='note'><p> July, 1910.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_O_15'></a><a href='#FNanchor_O_15'>[O]</a><div class='note'><p> The local name for the Yangtze.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_P_16'></a><a href='#FNanchor_P_16'>[P]</a><div class='note'><p> This Liu was a remarkable man, quite unlike the average
+mandarin. He got the name of Liu Ma Pang, a disrespectful term, meaning
+that he was fond of using the stick. On a journey towards Chao-t'ong,
+some years ago, he went on ahead of his retinue of men and horses, and
+arriving at an inn at Tong-ch'uan-fu, asked the <i>ta si fu</i>&mdash;the general
+factotum&mdash;for the best room, and proceeded to walk into it. &quot;No you
+don't,&quot; yelled the <i>ta si fu</i>, &quot;that's reserved for Liu Ma Pang, and
+you're not to go in there.&quot; After some time Liu's men arrived, and
+calling one or two, he said, &quot;Take this man&quot; (pointing to the surprised
+<i>ta si fu</i>) &quot;and give him a sound thrashing.&quot; He stood by and saw the
+whacking administered, after which he said, &quot;That's for speaking
+disrespectfully of a mandarin.&quot; Then, &quot;Give him a thousand cash,&quot;
+adding, &quot;That's for knowing your business.&quot;
+</p><p>
+Some years ago Liu was the means of saving the life of the late Mr.
+Litton (mentioned later in this book), at the time he was British Consul
+at Tengyueh, when there was fighting down in the south of Y&uuml;n-nan with
+the Wa's.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_Q_17'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Q_17'>[Q]</a><div class='note'><p> He was captured some months afterwards, I believe, at
+Mengtsz.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+
+<a name='THE_TRIBES_OF_NORTH_EAST_YUumlN_NAN_AND_MISSION_WORK_AMONG_THEM'></a><h2>THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST Y&Uuml;N-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM</h2>
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_X'></a><h2>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+
+<p>Men who came through Y&uuml;n-nan twenty years ago wrote of its doctors and
+its medicines, its poverty and its infanticide. There seemed little else
+to speak of.</p>
+
+<p>Although the tribes were here then&mdash;and in a rawer state even then than
+they are at the present time&mdash;little was known about them, and men had
+not yet developed the cult of putting their opinions upon this most
+absorbing topic into print. To-day, however, scores of men in Europe are
+eagerly devouring every line of copy they can get hold of bearing upon
+this fascinating ethnological study. Missionaries are plagued by
+inquiries for information respecting the tribes of Western China, and it
+is a curious feature of the situation that, with each article or book
+coming before the public contradiction follows contradiction, and very
+few people&mdash;not even those resident in the areas and working among the
+tribes&mdash;can agree absolutely upon any given points in their data. The
+numerous non-Chinese tribes I met in China formed one of the most
+interesting, and at the same time most bewildering, features of my
+travel; and I can quite agree with Major H.R. Davies,<a name='FNanchor_R_18'></a><a href='#Footnote_R_18'><sup>[R]</sup></a> who tackles the
+tribe question with considerable ability in his book on Y&uuml;n-nan, when he
+says that it is safe to assert that in hardly any part of the world is
+there such a large variety of languages and dialects as are to be found
+in the country which lies between Assam and the eastern border of
+Y&uuml;n-nan, and in the Indo-Chinese countries to the north of that region.
+The reason for it is generally ascribed to the physical characteristics
+of the country, the high mountain ranges and deep, swift-flowing rivers,
+which have brought about the differences in customs and language and the
+innumerable tribal distinctions so perplexing to him who would put
+himself in the position of an inquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology. I
+know more than one gentleman in Y&uuml;n-nan at the present moment having
+under preparation manuscript upon this subject intended for subsequent
+publication, and I feel sure that their efforts will add valuable
+information to the all too limited supply now obtainable. In the
+meantime, I print my own impressions.</p>
+
+<p>I should like it to be known here, however, that I do not in any way
+whatsoever put myself forward as an authority on the question. I had
+not, at the time this was written, laid myself out to make any study of
+the subject. But the fact that I have lived in North-East Y&uuml;n-nan for a
+year and a half, and have traveled from one end of the province to the
+other, in addition to having come across tribes of people in Szech'wan,
+may justify me in the eyes of the reader for placing on record my own
+impressions as a general contribution to this most exciting discussion.
+I also lived at Sh&iuml;h-men-K'an (mentioned in the last chapter), among the
+Hua Miao for several months, traveled fairly considerably in the
+unsurveyed hill country where they live, and am the only man, apart from
+two missionaries, who has ever been over that wonderful country lying to
+the extreme north-east of Y&uuml;n-nan. One trip I made, extending over three
+weeks, will ever remain with me as a memorable time, but I regret that I
+have no space in this volume for even the merest reference to my
+journey.</p>
+
+<p>Some of my friends in China might say sarcastically that mankind is
+destined to arrive at years of discretion, and that I should have known
+better than to include in my book anything, however well founded, of a
+nature tending to continue the wordy strife touching this vexed question
+of Mission Work, and that no matter how strikingly set forth, this is an
+old and obsolete story, fit only to be finally done with. It is for such
+to bear with me in what I shall say. There are thousands of men in the
+West who are entirely ignorant of men in China other than the ordinary
+<i>Han Ren</i>, and if I enlighten them ever so little, then this chapter
+will have served an admirable end.</p>
+
+<p>In North-East Y&uuml;n-nan the tribes I came most in contact with were:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(i) The Miao or Miao-tze, as the Chinese call them; or the Mhong or
+Hmao, as they call themselves.</p>
+
+<p>(ii) The I-pien (or E-pien), as the Chinese call them; or the Nou Su (or
+Ngo Su), as they call themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Probably the Nou Su tribes are what Major Davies calls the Lolo Group in
+his third division of the great Tibeto-Burman Family; but I merely
+suggest it, as it strikes me that the other branches of that group,
+including the Li-su, the La-hu, and the Wo-ni, seem to be descendants of
+a larger group, of which the Nou Su predominate in numbers, language,
+and customs. However, this by the way.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be common knowledge that in most parts of the Chinese Empire,
+even to-day, there are tribes of people, essentially non-Chinese, who
+still rigidly maintain their independence, governed by their own native
+rulers as they were probably forty centuries ago, long before their
+kingdoms were annexed to China Proper. There are white bones and black
+bones, noses long and flattened, eyes straight and oblique, swarthy
+faces, faces yellow and white, coal-black and brown hair, and many
+other physical peculiarities differentiating one tribe from another.</p>
+
+<p>In many instances, these tribes, conquered slowly by the encroaching
+Chinese during the long and tedious term of centuries marking the growth
+of the Chinese Empire to its present immensity, are allowed to maintain
+their social independence under their own chiefs, who are subject to the
+control of the Government of China&mdash;which means that excessive taxation
+is paid to the <i>yamen</i> functionary, who extorts money from anybody and
+everybody he can get into his clutches, and then gives a free hand.
+Others, in a further state of civilization, have been gradually absorbed
+by the Chinese and are now barely distinguishable from the <i>Han Ren</i>
+(the Chinese). And others, again, adopting Chinese dress, customs and
+language, would give the traveler a rough time of it were he to suggest
+that they are any but pure Chinese. To the ethnological student, it is
+obvious that so soon as the Chinese have tyrannized sufficiently and in
+their own inimitable way preyed upon these feudal landlords enough to
+warrant their lands being confiscated, reducing a tribe to a condition
+in which, far removed from districts where co-tribesmen live, they have
+no <i>status</i>, the aboriginals throw in their lot gradually with the
+Chinese, and to all intents and purposes become Chinese in language,
+customs, trade and life. This absorption by the Chinese of many tribes,
+stretching from the Burmese border to the eastern parts of Szech'wan,
+whilst an interesting study, shows that the onward march of civilization
+in China will sweep all racial relicts from the face of this great
+awakening Empire.</p>
+
+<p>But at the same time there are many branches of a tribal family, some
+found as far west as British Burma and all more or less scattered and
+disorganized as the result of this silent oppression going on through
+the years, who still are ambitious of preserving their independent
+isolation, particularly in sparsely-populated spheres far removed from
+political activity. So remote are the districts in which these
+principalities are found, that the Chinese themselves are entirely
+ignorant of the characteristics of these tribes. They say of one tribe
+which is scattered all over China Far West that they all have tails; and
+of another tribe that the men and women have two faces! And into the
+official records published by the Imperial Government the grossest
+inaccuracies creep concerning the origin of these peoples.</p>
+
+<p>Y&uuml;n-nan and Szech'wan&mdash;and a great part of Kwei-chow in the main still
+untouched by the increased taxation necessary to provide revenue to
+uphold the reforms brought about by the forward movement in various
+parts of the Empire&mdash;are where the aboriginal population is most
+evident. This part of the Empire might be called the ethnological garden
+of tribes and various races in various stages of uncivilization. These
+secluded mountain areas, their unaltered conditions still telling forth
+the story of the world's youth, have been the cradle and the death-bed
+of nations, of vigorous and ambitious tribes bent on conquest and a
+career of glory.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>THE MIAO</p>
+
+<p>Of the Miao, with its various sections, we know a good deal. Their real
+home has been pretty finally decided to be in Kwei-chow province, and
+they probably in former times extended far into Hu-nan, the Chinese of
+these provinces at the present time having undoubtedly a good deal of
+Miao blood in their veins. They are comparatively recent arrivals in
+Y&uuml;n-nan, but are gradually extending farther and farther to the west,
+maintaining their language and their dress and customs. I personally
+found them as far west as thirty miles beyond Tali-fu, a little off the
+main road, but Major Davies found them far up on the Tibetan border. He
+says: &quot;The most westerly point that I have come across them is the
+neighborhood of Tawnio (lat. 23&deg; 40', long. 98&deg; 45'). Through Central
+and Northern Y&uuml;n-nan they do not seem to exist, but they reappear again
+to the north of this in Western Szech'wan, where there are a few
+villages in the basin of the Yalung River (lat. 28&deg; 15', long. 101&deg;
+40').&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The Major was evidently ignorant of this Miao district of Chao-t'ong, to
+the north-east of the province. Stretching three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu right away on to Chao-t'ong, in a north line, Miao
+villages are met with fairly well the whole way; then, three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, in a north-westerly direction, we come to the Miao
+village of Loh-&Iuml;n-shan; and then, striking south-west, through country
+absolutely unsurveyed part of the way, Sa-pu-shan is met. This last
+place is the headquarters of the China Inland Mission, where, at the
+present rate of progress, one might modestly estimate that in twenty
+years there will be no less than a million people receiving Christian
+teaching. These are not all Miao, however; there are besides La-ka,
+Li-su, and many other tribes with which we have no concern at the
+present moment.</p>
+
+<p>So that it may be seen that from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, the capital, in areas on
+either side of the main road leading up to the bifurcation of the
+Yangtze below Sui-fu, in a long, narrow neck running between the River
+of Golden Sand and the Kwei-chow border, Miao are met with constantly.
+And then, of course, over the river, in Szech'wan, they are met with
+again, and in Kwei-chow, farther west, we have their real home.</p>
+
+<p>It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
+contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
+ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
+the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
+have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
+Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
+have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
+from the pens of men who have not.</p>
+
+<p>In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>(i) The Hua Miao&mdash;The Flowery (or White) Miao.</p>
+
+<p>(ii) The Heh Miao&mdash;The Black Miao.</p>
+
+<p>(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)</p>
+
+<p>The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
+different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
+and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
+interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
+enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
+differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's <i>Kwei-chow and
+Y&uuml;n-nan Provinces</i>, Prince Henri d'Orleans' <i>Du Tonkin aux Indes</i>, and
+Mr. Baber's works. Major Davies also gives some new information
+concerning this hill people, and is generally correct in what he says;
+but in his, as in all the books which touch upon the subject, the
+language tests vary considerably. In Chao-t'ong and the surrounding
+districts, for instance, the traveler would be unable to make any
+progress with the vocabulary which the Major has compiled. I was unable
+to make it tally with the spoken language of the people, and append a
+table showing the differences in the phonetic&mdash;and I do it with all
+respect to Major Davies. I ought to add that this is the language of the
+north-east corner of Y&uuml;n-nan; that of Major Davies is taken from page
+339 of his book. He says that the words given by him will not be found
+to correspond in every case with those in the Miao vocabulary in the
+pocket of the cover of his book, and some have been taken from other
+Miao dialects!. However, the comparison will be interesting:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>English Word</td><td align='left'>Major Davies's Miao</td><td align='left'>N-E. Y&uuml;n-nan Miao</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Man (human being)</td><td align='left'>Tan-neng, Tam-ming</td><td align='left'>Teh-neh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Son</td><td align='left'>To, T'am-t'ong</td><td align='left'>Tu.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Eye</td><td align='left'>K'a-mwa, Mai</td><td align='left'>A-ma.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Hand</td><td align='left'>Api</td><td align='left'>Tee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Cow</td><td align='left'>Nyaw, Nga</td><td align='left'>Niu.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Pig</td><td align='left'>Teng</td><td align='left'>Npa.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Dog</td><td align='left'>Klie, Ko</td><td align='left'>Klee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Chicken</td><td align='left'>Ka, Kei</td><td align='left'>Ki.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Silver</td><td align='left'>Nya</td><td align='left'>Nieh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>River</td><td align='left'>Tiang</td><td align='left'>Glee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Paddy</td><td align='left'>Mblei</td><td align='left'>Nglee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Cooked Rice</td><td align='left'>Mao</td><td align='left'>Va.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Tree</td><td align='left'>Ndong</td><td align='left'>Ntao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Fire</td><td align='left'>To</td><td align='left'>Teh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Wind</td><td align='left'>Chwa, Chiang</td><td align='left'>Chta.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Earth</td><td align='left'>Ta</td><td align='left'>Ti.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Sun</td><td align='left'>Hno, Nai</td><td align='left'>Hnu.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Moon</td><td align='left'>Hla</td><td align='left'>Hlee.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Big</td><td align='left'>Hlo</td><td align='left'>Hlo.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Come</td><td align='left'>Ta</td><td align='left'>Ta.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Go</td><td align='left'>Mong</td><td align='left'>Mao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Drink</td><td align='left'>Ho</td><td align='left'>Hao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>One</td><td align='left'>A, Yi</td><td align='left'>Ih.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Two</td><td align='left'>Ao</td><td align='left'>Ah.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Three</td><td align='left'>Pie, Po</td><td align='left'>Tsz.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Four</td><td align='left'>Pei, Plou</td><td align='left'>Glao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Five</td><td align='left'>Pa</td><td align='left'>Peh.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Six</td><td align='left'>Chou</td><td align='left'>Glao.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Seven</td><td align='left'>Shiang, I</td><td align='left'>Shiang.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Eight</td><td align='left'>Yi, Yik</td><td align='left'>Yih.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Nine</td><td align='left'>Chio</td><td align='left'>Chia.</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Ten</td><td align='left'>Ch'it</td><td align='left'>Kao.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>The Miao language was until a year or two ago only spoken; it was never
+written, and no one ever dreamed that it could be written. At the time
+of the great Miao revival, when thousands of Miao made a raid on the
+mission premises at Chao-t'ong, and implored the missionaries to come
+and teach them, it was found absolutely necessary that the language
+should be reduced to writing, and the whole of this extremely creditable
+work fell to the Rev. Samuel Pollard, who may be characterized as the
+pioneer of this Christianizing movement in North-East Y&uuml;n-nan.</p>
+
+<p>In reducing the language to writing, however, considerable difficulty
+was complicated by the presence of &quot;tones,&quot; so well known to all
+students of Chinese, itself said to be an invention of the Devil. Tones
+introduce another element or dimension into speech. The number of
+sounds, not being sufficient for the reproduction of all the spoken
+ideas, has been multiplied by giving these various sounds in different
+tones. It is as if the element of music were introduced according to
+rule into speech, and as if one had not only to remember the words in
+everything he wished to say, but the tune also.</p>
+
+<p>The Miao people being so low down in the intellectual scale, and having
+never been accustomed to study, it was felt by the promoters of the
+written language that they should be as simple as possible, and hence
+they looked about for some system which could be readily grasped by
+these ignorant people. It was necessary that the system be absolutely
+phonetic and understood easily. By adapting the system used in
+shorthand, of putting the vowel marks in different positions by the side
+of the consonant signs, Mr. Pollard and his assistant found that they
+could solve their problem. The signs for the consonants are larger than
+the vowel signs, and the position of the latter by the side of the
+former gives the tone or musical note required.</p>
+
+<p>At the present time there are thousands of Miao now able to read and
+write, and the work of this enterprising missionary has conferred an
+inestimable boon upon this people. When I went among the Miao I was
+able, after ten minutes' instruction, to stand up and sing their hymns
+and read their gospels with them. Miao women, who heretofore had never
+hoped to read, are now put in possession of the Word of God, and the
+simplicity of the written language enables them almost at once to read
+the Story of the Cross. Surely this is one of the outstanding features
+of mission work in the whole of China. I hope at some future date to
+publish a work devoted exclusively to my travels among the Hua Miao, for
+I feel that their story, no matter how simply written, is one of the
+great untold romances of the world. As a people, they are extremely
+fascinating in life and customs, emotional, large-hearted, and
+absolutely distinct from, with hardly a manner of daily life in common
+with, the Chinese.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>MISSION WORK AMONG THE MIAO</p>
+
+<p>Whilst referring to mission work, it is a great privilege for the writer
+to add a word of most deserved eulogy of the United Methodist Mission at
+Chao-t'ong and Tongi-ch'uan-fu, and to the kindness shown by the
+missionaries towards me when I came, an absolute stranger, among them in
+May, 1909. It is to two members of this Mission that I owe a life-long
+debt of gratitude, for it was Mr. and Mrs. Evans, of Tong-ch'uan-fu, who
+saved my life, a week or two after I left Chao-t'ong, as is recorded in
+a subsequent chapter.</p>
+
+<p>It was in the old days of the Bible Christian Mission&mdash;than which the
+individual members of no mission in the whole of China worked with more
+zeal and lower stipends&mdash;that a most interesting development in the
+mission took place.</p>
+
+<p>The mass of the Miao are the serfs of the descendants of their ancient
+kings, who are large landowners, and the Miao are tenants. In 1905 the
+Miao heard of the Gospel, and came to listen to the preaching, and
+thousands came in batches at one time and another to the mission house.
+Their movements thus aroused suspicion among the Chinese, there was a
+good deal of persecution and personal violence, and at one time it
+looked as if there might be serious trouble. But the danger quieted
+down. The chieftain gave land, the Miao contributed one hundred pounds
+sterling, and themselves put up a chapel large enough to accommodate six
+hundred people. A year later, a thousand at a time crowded their simple
+sanctuary, and in 1907 nearly six thousand were members or probationers,
+and the work has steadily progressed ever since.</p>
+
+<p>I am indebted to the Rev. H. Parsons, who had charge of the work at the
+time I passed through this district, and whose guest I was for several
+months, for the following interesting details regarding the methods
+adopted in the running of this enormous mission field. Mr. Parsons is
+assisted in his work by his genial wife, who is a most ardent worker,
+and a capable Miao linguist. Mrs. Parsons regularly addresses
+congregations of several hundreds of Miao, and has traveled on journeys
+often with her husband; and such work as hers, with several others in
+this mission, is a testimony to the wisdom of a system advocating the
+increase of the number of lady workers on the mission field in China.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>THE NOU-SU (OR I-PIEN)</p>
+
+<p>There is a class of people around Chao-t'ong who are called Nou-su, a
+people who, although occupying the Chao-t'ong Plain at the time the
+Chinese arrived, are believed not to be the aboriginals of the district.
+What I actually know about this people is not much. I have heard a good
+deal, but it must not be understood that I publish this as absolutely
+the final word. People who have lived in the district for many years do
+not agree, so that for a mere traveler the task of getting infallible
+data would be quite formidable.</p>
+
+<p>No tribe is more widely known than the Nou-su, with their innumerable
+tribal distinctions and hereditary peculiarities so perplexing to the
+inquirer into Far Western China ethnology.</p>
+
+<p>The Nou-su are a very fine, tall race, with comparatively fair
+complexions, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian with some other
+straight-featured people. Of their origin, however, little can be
+vouched for, and with it we will have nothing to do here. But at the
+present time the Nou-su provide a good deal of interest from the fact
+that their power as tyrannic landlords and feudal chiefs is fast dying,
+and it may be that in a couple of decades, or a still shorter time, a
+people who, by obstinate self-reliance and great dislike to the Chinese,
+have remained unaffected by the absorbing spirit of the arbitrary
+Chinese, will have passed beyond the vale of personality. Even now,
+however, they own and rule enormous tracts of country (notably that part
+lying on the right bank of the River of Golden Sand) in north-east
+Y&uuml;n-nan. Some are very wealthy. One man may own vast tracts bigger than
+Yorkshire. In this tract there may be one hundred villages, all paying
+tribute to him and subject to the vagaries of his vilest despotism. From
+his tyranny his struggling tenantry have no redress. So long as the
+I-pien (the local name of the Nou-su) greases the palm of the squeezing
+Chinese mandarin in whose nominal control the district extends, he may
+run riot as he pleases. Social law and order are unknown, justice is a
+complete contradiction in terms, and whilst one is in the midst of it,
+it is difficult to realize that in China to-day&mdash;the China which all the
+world believes to be awakening&mdash;there exists a condition of things which
+will allow a man to torture, to plunder, to murder, and to indulge to
+the utmost degree the whims of a Neronic and devilish temperament.</p>
+
+<p>Slave trading is common. If a tenant cannot pay his tribute, he sells
+himself for a few taels and becomes the slave of his former landlord,
+and if he would save his head treads carefully.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days, when different clans were driven farther into the
+hills, they each clinched as much land as they could. In course of time,
+by petty quarrels, civil wars, and common feuds, the Nou-su were
+gradually thinned out. The Miao-tsi&mdash;the men of the hills and the serfs
+of the landlords, who four thousand years ago were a powerful race in
+their own kingdom&mdash;became the tenants of the Nou-su, whose rule is still
+marked by the grossest infamy possible to be practiced on the human
+race. All the methods of torture which in the old days were associated
+with the Chinese are still in vogue, in many cases in an aggravated
+form. I have personally seen the tortures, and have listened to the
+stories of the victims, but it would not bear description in print.</p>
+
+<p>It must not, however, be understood that to be a Nou-su is to be a
+landlord. By no means. For in the gradual process of the survival of the
+fittest, when the weaker landlords were murdered by their stronger
+compatriots and their lands seized, only a small percentage of the tribe
+in this area have been able to hold sway. However, wherever there are
+landlords in this part of the country, they are always Nou-su or
+Chinese. The Miao&mdash;or, at least, the Hua Miao, own no lands, and are
+body and soul in the tyrannic clutch of the tyrannic I-pien. Then,
+again, in the Nou-su tribe there are various hereditary distinctions
+enabling a man to claim caste advantage. There are the Black Bones, as
+they style themselves, the aristocrats of the race, and the White Bones,
+the lower breeds, who obey to the letter their wealthier brethren&mdash;or
+anybody who has authority over them.</p>
+
+<p>The Nou-su, who are a totally different race and a much better class
+than the Miao, are believed to have been driven from the Chao-t'ong
+Plain, preferring migration to fighting, and many trekked across the
+Yangtze (locally called the Kin-sha) river into country now marked on
+good maps as the Man-tze country. It appears that the following are the
+two important branches:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>(i) The Black (Na-su)&mdash;Farmers and landowners.
+
+<p>     (ii) The White (Tu-su) Generally slaves.</p></div>
+
+<p>Other minor classes are:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='blkquot'><p>(i) The Lakes (or Red Nou-su)&mdash;Mostly blacksmiths.
+
+<p>     (ii) The A-u-ts&iuml; Mostly felt-makers, who rightly or wrongly claim
+     relationship with the Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>     (iii) Another class, who are mostly basket-makers.</p></div>
+
+<p>The two great divisions, however, are the White and the Black. The
+latter class, themselves the owners of land, claim that all the White
+were originally slaves, and that those who are now free have escaped at
+some previous period from servitude. Men, as usual among such tribes,
+are scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary <i>Han Ren</i>. It is the
+women, with their peculiar head-dress and picturesque skirts, who
+maintain the distinguishing features of the race. For the most part, the
+Nou-su are not idolaters; no idols are in their houses. That portion of
+the tribe which migrated across the Yangtze, secure among the mountains,
+has never ceased to harass the Chinese, who now dwell on land which the
+Nou-su themselves once tilled, or at least inhabited; but they have been
+driven into remoter districts, and are only found away from the highways
+of Chinese travel. The race, too, is dying out&mdash;in this area at all
+events&mdash;and the Nou-su themselves reckon that their numbers have
+decreased by one-half during the last thirty years. This is one of the
+saddest facts. The insanitation of their dwellings, their rough diet,
+and frequent riotings in wine, opium and other evils, are quickly
+playing havoc in their ranks, giving the strong the opportunity of
+enriching themselves at the expense of the weak, with frequent fighting
+about the division of land.</p>
+
+<p>Europeans who can speak the language of the Nou-su are numbered on the
+fingers of one hand.</p>
+
+<p>To one who has traveled in this neighborhood for any length of time, it
+must be apparent that the unique method generally adopted by the Nou-su,
+that is, the landlord class, to get rich quickly is to kill off their
+next-door neighbor. The lives these men live with nothing but scandal
+and licentiousness to pass their time, are grossly and horribly wicked
+when viewed by the broadest-minded Westerner. They all live in fear of
+their lives, and are each afraid of the others, all entertaining a
+secret hatred, and all ever on the alert to devise some safe scheme to
+murder the owner of some land they are anxious of annexing to their
+own&mdash;and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they
+succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man,
+quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his
+brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When
+tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had
+not killed his brother his brother would have killed him</p>
+
+<p>Yet there is no sense of crime as we of the West understand it, and
+nothing is feared from the Chinese law. A man kills a slave, tortures
+him to death, and when the Chinese mandarin is appealed to, if he is at
+all, he looks wise and says, &quot;I quite see your point, but I can do
+nothing. The murdered man was the landlord's slave,&quot; and, with a gentle
+wave of his three-inch finger-nail, he explains how a man may kill his
+slave, his wife, or his son&mdash;and the law can do nothing. That is, if he
+compensates the mandarin.</p>
+
+<p>A Nou-su looked upon a girl one day, when he was out collecting tribute.
+She was handsome, and he instructed his men to take her. She refused. A
+sum of one hundred ounces of silver was offered to anyone who would
+kidnap her and carry her off to his harem. Eventually he got the girl,
+and had her father tortured and then put to death because he would not
+deliver his daughter over to him. Yet there is no redress.</p>
+
+<p>Nou-su women, their feet unbound, with high foreheads and well-cut
+features, with fiery eyes set in not unkindly faces, tall and healthy,
+would be considered handsome women in any country in Europe. They rarely
+intermarry with other tribes. A good deal of affection certainly exists
+sometimes between husband and wife and between parents and children, but
+the looseness of the marriage relation leads to unending strife.</p>
+
+<p>Many Europeans, travelers and missionaries, have been murdered in the
+country inhabited by the independent Lolo people. Although I have not
+personally been through any of that country, I have been on the very
+outskirts and have lived for a long time among the people there. I found
+them a pleasant hospitable race, fairly easy to get on with. And it must
+not be averred that, because they consider their natural enemy, the
+Chinese, the man to be robbed and murdered, and because they kill off
+their fellow-landlords in order the more quickly to get rich, that they
+treat all strangers alike. Among the Europeans who have suffered death
+at their hands, it is probable that in some way the cause was traceable
+to their own bearing towards the people&mdash;either a total lack of
+knowledge of their language or an attitude which caused suspicion.</p>
+
+<p>Among the Nou-su, strong as this feudal life still is, the Chinese are
+fast gaining permanent influence. Their dissolute and drunken and
+inhuman daily practices are tending to work out among this people their
+own destruction, and in years to come in this neighborhood the traveler
+will be perplexed at finding here and there a fine specimen of an
+upstanding Chinese, with clean-cut face, straight of feature and
+straight of limb, with a peculiar Mongol look about him. He will be one
+of the surviving specimens of a race of people, the Nou-su, whose
+forgotten historical records would do much to clear up the doubt
+attaching to Indo-China and Tibet-Burma ethnology.</p>
+
+<p>The first Nou-su chieftain to come to Chao-t'ong, a man who was renowned
+as a tryannical brute, was one Ien Tsang-fu, who frequently gouged out
+the eyes of those who disobeyed his commands; and his descendants are
+said to have inherited a good many of this tyrant's vices. The landlords
+prey upon their weaker brethren, and at last, with infinite sagacity,
+the Chinese Government steps in to stop the quarrels, confiscates the
+whole of the property, and thus reduces the Nou-su land to immediate
+control of Chinese authorities.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Nou-su are, of course, entirely dependent upon the land for their
+living. They till the soil and rear cattle, and the greatest calamity
+that can come upon any family is that their land shall be taken from
+them. To be landless involves degradation as well as poverty, and very
+severe hardship is the lot of men who have been deprived of this means
+of subsistence. For those who own no land, but who are merely tenants of
+the Tu-muh,<a name='FNanchor_S_19'></a><a href='#Footnote_S_19'><sup>[S]</sup></a> there seems to be no security of tenure; but still, if
+the wishes and demands of the landlords are complied with, one family
+may till the same farm for many successive generations. The terms on
+which land is held are peculiar. The rental agreed upon is nominal.
+Large tracts of country are rented for a pig or a sheep or a fowl, with
+a little corn per year. Beside this nominal rent, the landlord has the
+right to make levies on his tenants on all special occasions, such as
+funerals, weddings, or for any other extraordinary expenses. He can also
+require his tenants with their cattle to render services. This system
+necessarily leads to much oppression and injustice. It is also said that
+if a family is hard pressed by a Tu-muh and reduced to extreme poverty,
+they will make themselves over to him on condition that a portion of his
+land be given them to cultivate. Such people are called caught slaves,
+as distinguished from hereditary, and the eldest children become the
+absolute property of the landlord and are generally given as attendants
+upon his wife and daughters.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Every farmer owns a large number of slaves, who live in the same
+compound as himself. These people do all the work of the farm, while the
+master employs himself as his fancy leads him. Over these unfortunate
+people the owner has absolute control. All their affairs are managed by
+him. His girl slaves he marries off to other men's slave boys, and
+similarly obtains wives for his male slaves. The lot of these
+unfortunate people is hard beyond description. Being considered but
+little more valuable than the cattle they tend, the food given to them
+is often inferior to the corn upon which the master's horse is fed. The
+cruel beatings and torturings they have been subject to have completely
+broken their spirit, and now they seem unable to exist apart from their
+masters. Very seldom do any of them try to escape, for no one will give
+them shelter, and the punishment awarded a recaptured slave is so severe
+as to intimidate the most daring. These poor folk are born in slavery,
+married in slavery, and they die in slavery. It is not uncommon to meet
+with Chinese slaves, both boys and girls, in Nou-su families. These have
+either been kidnapped and sold, or their parents, unable to nourish
+them, have bartered them in exchange for food. Their purchasers marry
+them to Tu-su, and their lot is thrown in with the slave class. One's
+heart is wrung with anguish sometimes as he thinks of what cruelty and
+wretchedness exist among the hills of this benighted district. Even
+here, however, light is beginning to shine, for some adherents of the
+Christian religion have changed their slaves into tenants, thus showing
+the way to the ultimate solution of this difficult problem.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The life in a Nou-su household is not very complex. The cattle are
+driven out early in the morning, as soon as the sun has risen. They
+remain out until the breakfast hour, and then return to the stables and
+rest during the heat of the day, going out again in the cool hours. The
+food of the household is prepared by the slaves, under the direction of
+the lady of the house. There is no refined cooking, for the Nou-su
+despises well-cooked food, and complains that it never satisfies him. He
+has a couplet which runs: 'If you eat raw food, you become a warrior; if
+you eat it cooked, you suffer hunger.' No chairs or tables are found in
+a genuine Nou-su house. The food is served up in a large bowl placed on
+the floor. The family sit around, and each one helps himself with a
+large wooden spoon. At the present time the refinements of Chinese
+civilization have been adopted by a large number of Nou-su, and the
+homes of the wealthier people are as well furnished as those of the
+middle-class Chinese of the district. The women of the households also
+spend much time making their own and their children's clothes. The men
+have adopted Chinese dress, but the women, in most cases, retain their
+tribal costume with its large turban-like head-dress, its plaited skirt
+and intricately embroidered coat. All this is made by hand, and the
+choicest years of maidenhood are occupied in preparing the clothes for
+the wedding-day.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Nou-su, it would seem, used not to beg a wife, but rather obtained
+her by main force. At the present day, while the milder method generally
+prevails, there are still survivals of the ancient custom. The betrothal
+truly takes place very early, even in infancy, and at the ceremony a
+fowl is killed, and each contracting party takes a rib; but as the young
+folk grow to marriageable age, the final negotiations have to be made.
+These are purposely prolonged until the bridegroom, growing angry,
+gathers his friends and makes an attack on the maiden's home. Arming
+themselves with cudgels, they approach secretly, and protecting their
+heads and shoulders with their felt cloaks, they rush towards the house.
+Strenuous efforts are made by the occupants to prevent their entering,
+and severe blows are exchanged. When the attacking party has succeeded
+in gaining an entrance, peace is proclaimed, and wine and huge chunks of
+flesh are provided for their entertainment.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Occasionally during these fights the maiden's home is quite dismantled.
+The negotiations being ended, preparations are made to escort the bride
+to her future home. Heavily veiled, she is supported on horseback by her
+brothers, while her near relatives, all fully armed, attend her. On
+arriving at the house, a scuffle ensues. The veil is snatched from the
+bride's face by her relatives, who do their utmost to throw it on to the
+roof, thus signifying that she will rule over the occupants when she
+enters. The bridegroom's people on the contrary try to trample it upon
+the doorstep, as an indication of the rigor with which the newcomer will
+be subjected to the ruling of the head of the house. Much blood is shed,
+and people are often seriously injured in these skirmishes. The new
+bride remains for three days in a temporary shelter before she is
+admitted to the home. A girl having once left her parent's home to
+become a wife, waits many years before she pays a return visit.
+Anciently the minimum time was three years, but some allow ten or more
+years to elapse before the first visit home is paid. Two or three years
+are then often spent with the parents. Many friends and relatives attend
+any visitor, for with the Nou-su a large following is considered a sign
+of dignity and importance. When a child is born a tree is planted, with
+the hope that as the tree grows so also will the child develop.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The fear of disease lies heavily upon the Nou-su people, and their
+disregard of the most elementary sanitary laws makes them very liable to
+attacks of sickness. They understand almost nothing about medicine, and
+consequently resort to superstitious practices in order to ward off the
+evil influences. When it is known that disease has visited a neighbor's
+house, a pole, seven feet long, is erected in a conspicuous place in a
+thicket some distance from the house to be guarded. On the pole an old
+ploughshare is fixed, and it is supposed that when the spirit who
+controls the disease sees the ploughshare he will retire to a distance
+of three homesteads.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;A fever called No-ma-dz&iuml; works great havoc among the Nou-su every year,
+and the people are very much afraid of it. No person will stay by the
+sick-bed to nurse the unfortunate victim. Instead, food and water are
+placed by his bedside and, covered with his quilt, he is left at the
+mercy of the disease. Since as the fever progresses the patient will
+perspire, heavy stones are placed on the quilt, that it may not be
+thrown off, and the sick person take cold. Many an unfortunate sufferer
+has through this strange practice died from suffocation. After a time
+the relatives will return to see what course the disease has taken. This
+fever seems to yield to quinine, for Mr. John Li has seen several
+persons recover to whom he had administered this drug. When a man dies,
+his relatives, as soon as they receive the news, hold in their several
+homes a feast of mourning called by them the Za. A pig or sheep is
+sacrificed at the doorway, and it is supposed that intercourse is thus
+maintained between the living persons and the late departed spirit. The
+near kindred, on hearing of the death of a relative, take a fowl and
+strangle it; the shedding of its blood is not permissible. This fowl is
+cleaned and skewered, and the mourner then proceeds to the house where
+the deceased person is lying, and sticks this fowl at the head of the
+corpse as an offering. The more distant relatives do not perform this
+rite, but each leads a sheep to the house of mourning, and the son of
+the deceased man strikes each animal three times with a white wand,
+while the Peh-mo (priest or magician) stands by, and announcing the
+sacrifice by calling 'so and so,' giving of course the name, presents
+the soft woolly offering.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Formerly the Nou-su burned their dead. Said a Nou-su youth to me years
+ago, 'The thought of our friends' bodies either turning to corruption or
+being eaten by wild beasts is distasteful to us, and therefore we burn
+our dead.' The corpse is burnt with wood, and during the cremation the
+mourners arrange themselves around the fire and chant and dance. The
+ashes are buried, and the ground leveled. This custom is still adhered
+to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly
+Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the
+neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong have adopted burial as the means
+of disposing of their dead, adding some customs peculiar to themselves.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;On the day of the funeral the horse which the deceased man was in the
+habit of riding is brought to the door and saddled by the Pehmo. The
+command is then given to lead the horse to the grave. All the mourners
+follow, and marching or dancing in intertwining circles, cross and
+recross the path of the led horse until the poor creature, grown frantic
+with fear, rushes and kicks in wild endeavor to escape from the
+confusion. The whole company then raise a great shout and call, 'The
+soul has come to ride the horse, the soul has come to ride the horse.' A
+contest then follows among the women of the deceased man's household for
+the possession of this horse, which is henceforth regarded as of extreme
+value. It is difficult to discover much about the religion of the
+Nou-su, because so many of their ancient customs have fallen into disuse
+during the intercourse of the people with the Chinese. At the
+ingathering of the buckwheat, when the crop is stacked on the threshing
+floor, and the work of threshing is about to begin, the simple formula,
+'Thank you, Ilsomo,' is used. Ilsomo seems to be a spirit who has
+control over the crops; whether good or evil, it is not easy to
+determine. Ilsomo is not God, for at present, when the Nou-su wish to
+speak of God, they use the word Soe, which means Master.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;In the independent territory of the Nou-su, to the west of Szech'wan,
+the term used for God is Eh-nia, and a Nou-su who has much intercourse
+with the independent people contends that there are three names
+indicative of God, each representing different functions if not persons
+of the Godhead. These names are: Eh-nia, Keh-neh, Um-p'a-ma. The Nou-su
+believe in ancestor worship, and perhaps the most interesting feature of
+their religion is the peculiar form this worship takes. Instead of an
+ancestral tablet such as the Chinese use, the Nou-su worship a small
+basket (lolo) about as large as a duck's egg and made of split bamboo.
+This 'lolo' contains small bamboo tubes an inch or two long, and as
+thick as an ordinary Chinese pen handle. In these tubes are fastened a
+piece of grass and a piece of sheep's wool. A man and his wife would be
+represented by two tubes, and if he had two wives, an extra tube would
+be placed in the 'lolo.' At the ceremony of consecration the Pehmo
+attends, and a slave is set apart for the purpose of attending to all
+the rites connected with the worship of the deceased person. The 'lolo'
+is sometimes placed in the house, but more often on a tree in the
+neighborhood or it may be hidden in a rock. For persons who are
+short-lived, the ancestral 'lolo' is placed in a crevice in the wall of
+some forsaken and ruined building. Every three years the 'lolo' is
+changed, and the old one burnt. The term 'lolo,' by which the Nou-su are
+generally known, is a contemptuous nickname given them by the Chinese in
+reference to this peculiar method of venerating their ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Hill worship is another important feature of Nou-su religious life.
+Most important houses are built at the foot of a hill and sacrifice is
+regularly offered on the hill-side in the fourth month of each year. The
+Pehmo determines which is the most propitious day, and the Tumuh and his
+people proceed to the appointed spot. A limestone rock with an old tree
+trunk near is chosen as an altar, and a sheep and pig are brought
+forward by the Tumuh. The Pehmo, having adjusted his clothes, sits
+cross-legged before the altar, and begins intoning his incantations in a
+low muttering voice. The sacrifice is then slain, and the blood poured
+beneath the altar, and a handful of rice and a lump of salt are placed
+beneath the stone. Some person then gathers a bundle of green grass, and
+the Pehmo, having finished intoning, the altar is covered, and all
+return to the house. The Pehmo then twists the grass into a length of
+rope, which he hangs over the doorway of the house. Out of a piece of
+willow a small arrow is made, and a bow similar in size is cut out of a
+peach tree. These are placed on the doorposts. On a piece of soft white
+wood a figure of a man is roughly carved, and this, with two sticks of
+any soft wood placed cross-wise, is fastened to the rope hanging over
+the doorway, on each side of which two small sticks are placed. The
+Pehmo then proceeds with his incantation, muttering: 'From now,
+henceforth and for ever will the evil spirits keep away from this
+house.'</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Most Nou-su at the present time observe the New Year festival on the
+same date and with the same customs as the Chinese. Formerly this was
+not so, and even now in the remoter districts New Year's day is observed
+on the first day of the tenth month of the Chinese year. A pig and sheep
+are killed and cleaned, and hung in the house for three days. They are
+then taken down, cut up and cooked. The family sit on buckwheat straw in
+the middle of the chief room of the house. The head of the house invites
+the others to drink wine, and the feasting begins. Presently one will
+start singing, and all join in this song: 'How firm is this house of
+mine. Throughout the year its hearth fire has not ceased to burn, My
+food corn is abundant, I have silver and also cash, My cattle have
+increased to herds, My horses and mules have all white foreheads K'o K'o
+Ha Ha Ha Ha K'o K'o, My sons are filial, My wife is virtuous, In the
+midst of flesh and wine we sleep, Our happiness reaches unto heaven,
+Truly glorious is this glad New Year.' A scene of wild indulgence then
+frequently follows.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The Nou-su possess a written language. Their books were originally made
+of sheepskin, but paper is now used. The art of printing was unknown,
+and many books are said to have been lost. The books are illustrated,
+but the drawings are extremely crude.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_T_20'></a><a href='#Footnote_T_20'><sup>[T]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_R_18'></a><a href='#FNanchor_R_18'>[R]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>Y&uuml;n-nan, The Link between India, and the Yangtze</i>, by
+Major H.R. Davies, Cambridge University Press.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_S_19'></a><a href='#FNanchor_S_19'>[S]</a><div class='note'><p> Literally &quot;Eyes of the Earth&quot;&mdash;the landlords.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_T_20'></a><a href='#FNanchor_T_20'>[T]</a><div class='note'><p> A good deal of information in this chapter was obtained
+from an article by the Rev. C E Hicks, published in the <i>Chinese
+Recorder</i> for March, 1910. The portion quoted is taken bodily from this
+excellent article.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIFTH_JOURNEY'></a><h2>FIFTH JOURNEY.</h2>
+
+<h4>CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_XI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Revolting sights compensated for by scenery</i>. <i>Most eventful day in the
+trip</i>. <i>Buying a pony, and the reason for its purchase</i>. <i>Author's pony
+kicks him and breaks his arm</i>. <i>Chastising the animal, and narrow escape
+from death</i>. <i>Rider and pony a sorry sight</i>. <i>An uneasy night</i>.
+<i>Reappearance of malaria</i>. <i>Author nearly forced to give in</i>. <i>Heavy
+rain on a difficult road</i>. <i>At Ta-shui-tsing</i>. <i>Chasing frightened pony
+in the dead of night</i>. <i>Bad accommodation</i>. <i>Lepers and leprosy</i>.
+<i>Mining</i>. <i>At Kiang-ti</i>. <i>Two mandarins, and an amusing episode</i>.
+<i>Laying foundation of a long illness</i>. <i>The Kiang-ti Suspension Bridge</i>.
+<i>Hard climbing</i>. <i>Tiffin in the mountains</i>. <i>Sudden ascents and
+descents</i>. <i>Description of the country</i>. <i>Tame birds and what they do</i>.
+<i>A non-enterprising community</i>. <i>Pleasant travelling without perils</i>.
+<i>Majesty of the mountains of Y&uuml;n-nan</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Whilst in this district, as will have been seen, one has to steel
+himself to face some of the most revolting sights it is possible to
+imagine, he is rewarded by the grandeur of the scenic pictures which
+mark the downward journey to Tong-ch'uan-fu.</p>
+
+<p>The stages to Tong-ch'uan-fu were as follows:&mdash;</p>
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td align='center'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea level</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day</td><td align='left'>T'ao-&uuml;en</td><td align='center'>70 li.</td><td align='center'>&mdash;&mdash; ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day</td><td align='left'>Ta-shui-tsing</td><td align='center'>30 li.</td><td align='center'>9,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day</td><td align='left'>Kiang-ti</td><td align='center'>40 li.</td><td align='center'>4,400 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day</td><td align='left'>Yi-che-sh&iuml;n</td><td align='center'>70 li.</td><td align='center'>6,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day</td><td align='left'>Hong-sh&iuml;h-ai</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>6,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day</td><td align='left'>Tong-ch'uan-fu</td><td align='center'>60 li.</td><td align='center'>7,250 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>The Chao-t'ong plateau, magnificently level, runs out past the
+picturesquely-situated tower of Wang-hai-leo, from which one overlooks a
+stretch of water. A memorial arch, erected by the Li family of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, graces the main road farther on, and is probably one of
+the best of its kind in Y&uuml;n-nan, comparing favorably with the best to be
+found in Szech'wan, where monumental architecture abounds. Perhaps the
+only building of interest in Chao-t'ong is the ancestral hall of the
+wealthy family mentioned above, the carving of which is magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first day we camped at the Mohammedan village of
+T'ao-&uuml;en, literally &quot;Peach Garden,&quot; but the peach trees might once have
+been, though now certainly they are not.</p>
+
+<p>It was cold when we left, 38&deg; F., hard frost. All the world seemed
+buttoned up and great-coated; the trees seemed wiry and cheerless; the
+legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued
+visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to
+blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could
+not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who
+could, thought it no fault of mine. I was a reasoning being, a rational
+creature, and thought it a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial
+half-hour. But I had to get up, and then came the benumbed fingers, a
+quivering body, a frozen towel, and a floor upon which the mud was
+frozen stiff. Little did he know that he was pulling me out to the most
+eventful and unfortunate day of my trip.</p>
+
+<p>At Chao-t'ong I had bought a pony in case of emergency&mdash;one of those
+sturdy little brutes that never grow tired, cost little to keep, and are
+unexcelled for the amount of work they can get through every day in the
+week. Its color was black, a smooth, glossy black&mdash;the proverbial dark
+horse&mdash;and when dressed in its English saddle and bridle looked even
+smart enough for the use of the distinguished traveler, who smiled the
+smile of pleasant ownership as it was led on in front all day long,
+seeming to return a satanic grin for my foolishness at not riding it.<a name='FNanchor_U_21'></a><a href='#Footnote_U_21'><sup>[U]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The first I saw of it was when it was standing full on its hind legs
+pinning a man between the railings and a wall in a corner of the mission
+premises. It looked well. Truly, it was a blood beast!</p>
+
+<p>On the second day out, whilst walking merrily along in the early
+morning, the little brute lifted its heels, lodged them most precisely
+on to my right forearm with considerable force&mdash;more forceful than
+affectionate&mdash;sending the stick which I carried thirty feet from me up
+the cliffs. The limb ached, and I felt sick. My boy&mdash;he had been a
+doctor's boy on one of the gunboats at Chung-king&mdash;thought it was
+bruised. I acquiesced, and sank fainting to a stone. On the strength of
+my boy's diagnosis we rubbed it, and found that it hurt still more. Then
+diving into a cottage, I brought out a piece of wood, three inches wide
+and twenty inches long, placed my arm on it, bade my boy take off one of
+my puttees from one of my legs, used it as a bandage, and trudged on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>Not realizing that my arm was broken, in the evening I determined to
+chastise the animal in a manner becoming to my disgust. Mounting at the
+foot of a long hill, I laid on the stick as hard as I could, and found
+that my pony had a remarkable turn of speed. At the brow of the hill was
+a twenty-yard dip, at the base of which was a pond.</p>
+
+<p>Down, down, down we went, and, despite my full strength (with the left
+arm) at its mouth, the pony plunged in with a dull splash, only to find
+that his feet gave way under him in a clay bottom. He could not free
+himself to swim. Farther and farther we sank together, every second
+deeper into the mire, when just at the moment I felt the mud clinging
+about my waist, and I had visions of a horrible death away from all who
+knew me, I plunged madly to reach the side.</p>
+
+<p>With one arm useless, it is still to me the one great wonder of my life
+how I escaped. Nothing short of miraculous; one of the times when one
+feels a special protection of Providence surrounding him.</p>
+
+<p>Pulling the beast's head, after I had given myself a momentary shake, I
+succeeded in making him give a mighty lurch&mdash;then another&mdash;then another,
+and in a few seconds, after terrible struggling, he reached the bank. We
+made a sorry spectacle as we walked shamefacedly back to the inn, under
+the gaze of half a dozen grinning rustics, where my man was preparing
+the evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening, on the advice of my general confidential companion, I
+submitted to a poultice being applied to my arm. It was bruised, so we
+put on the old-fashioned, hard-to-be-beaten poultice of bread. Whilst it
+was hot it was comfortable; when it was cold, I unrolled the bandage,
+threw the poultice to the floor, and in two minutes saw glistening in
+the moonlight the eyes of the rats which ate it.</p>
+
+<p>Then I bade sweet Morpheus take me; but, although the pain prevented me
+from sleeping, I remember fainting. How long I lay I know not.
+Shuddering in every limb with pain and chilly fear, I at length awoke
+from a long swoon. Something had happened, but what? There was still the
+paper window, the same greasy saucer of thick oil and light being given
+by the same rush, the same rickety table, the same chair on which we had
+made the poultice&mdash;but what had happened? I rubbed my aching eyes and
+lifted myself in a half-sitting posture&mdash;a dream had dazzled me and
+scared my senses. And then I knew that it was malaria coming on again,
+and that I was once more her luckless victim.</p>
+
+<p>Malignant malaria, mistress of men who court thee under tropic skies,
+and who, like me, are turned from thee bodily shattered and whimpering
+like a child, how much, how very much hast thou laid up for thyself in
+Hades!</p>
+
+<p>Thank Heaven, I had superabundant energy and vitality, and despite
+contorted and distorted things dancing haphazard through my fevered
+brain, I determined not to go under, not to give in. My mind was a
+terrible tangle of combinations nevertheless&mdash;intricate, incongruous,
+inconsequent, monstrous; but still I plodded on. For the next four days,
+with my arm lying limp and lifeless at my side, and with recurring
+attacks of malaria, I walked on against the greatest odds, and it was
+not till I had reached Tong-ch'uan-fu that I learnt that the limb was
+fractured. Men may have seen more in four days and done more and risked
+more, but I think few travelers have been called upon to suffer more
+agony than befell the lot of the man who was crossing China on foot.</p>
+
+<p>From T'ao-&uuml;en there is a stiff ascent, followed by a climb up steep
+stone steps and muddy mountain banks through black and barren country.
+The morning had been cold and frosty, but rain came on later, a thick,
+heavy deluge, which swished and swashed everything from its path as one
+toiled painfully up those slippery paths, made almost unnegotiable. But
+my imagination and my hope helped me to make my own sunshine. There is
+something, I think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good
+honest summer rain at home with a Burberry well buttoned and an umbrella
+over one's head; here in Y&uuml;n-nan a coat made it too uncomfortable to
+walk, and the terrific wind would have blown an umbrella from one's
+grasp in a twinkling. If we are in the home humor, in the summer, we do
+not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in
+getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the &quot;very touching
+stockings&quot; and the &quot;very gentle and sensitive legs&quot; of other weaker ones
+in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland
+one can find in this part of Y&uuml;n-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make
+as I trudged &quot;two steps forward, one step back&quot; in my bare feet, covered
+only with rough straw sandals, with trousers upturned above the knee,
+with teeth chattering in malarial shivers, endeavoring between-times to
+think of the pouring deluge as a benignant enemy fertilizing fields,
+purifying the streets of the horrid little villages in which we spent
+our nights, refreshing the air!</p>
+
+<p>Shall I ever forget the day?</p>
+
+<p>Just before sundown, drenched to the skin and suffering horribly from
+the blues, we reached one single hut, which I could justly look upon as
+a sort of evening companion; for here was a fire&mdash;albeit, a green wood
+fire&mdash;which looked gladly in my face, talked to me, and put life and
+comfort and warmth into me for the ten li yet remaining of the day's
+hard journey.</p>
+
+<p>And at night, about 8:30 p.m., we at last reached the top of the hill,
+actually the summit of a mountain pass, at the dirty little village of
+Ta-shui-tsing. Not for long, however, could I rest; for I heard yells
+and screams and laughs. That pony again! Every one of my men were afraid
+of it, for at the slightest invitation it pawed with its front feet and
+landed man after man into the gutter, and if that failed it stood
+upright and cuddled them around the neck. Now I found it had
+run&mdash;saddle, bridle and all&mdash;and none volunteered to chase. So at 9:30,
+weary and bearing the burden of a terrible day, which laid the
+foundation of a long illness to be recorded later, I found it my
+unpleasant duty to patrol the hill from top to bottom, lighting my
+slippery way with a Chinese lantern, chasing the pony silhouetted on
+the sky-line. Ta-shui-tsing is a dreary spot with no inn accommodation
+at all,<a name='FNanchor_V_22'></a><a href='#Footnote_V_22'><sup>[V]</sup></a> a place depopulated and laid waste, gloomy and melancholy. I
+managed, however, after promising a big fee, to get into a small
+mud-house, where the people were not unkindly disposed. I ate my food,
+slept as much as I could in the few hours before the appearing of the
+earliest dawn on the bench allotted to me, feeling thankful that to me
+had been allowed even this scanty lodging. But I could not
+conscientiously recommend the place to future travelers&mdash;a dirty little
+village with its dirty people and its dirty atmosphere. At the top of
+the pass the wind nearly removed my ears as I took a final glance at the
+mountain refuge. Mountains here run south-west and north-east, and are
+grand to look upon.</p>
+
+<p>The poorest people were lepers, the beggars were all dead long ago. In
+Y&uuml;n-nan province leprosy afflicts thousands, a disease which the
+Chinese, not without reason, dread terribly, for no known remedy exists.
+Burning the patient alive, which used often to be resorted to, is even
+now looked upon as the only true remedy. Cases have been known where the
+patient, having been stupefied with opium, has been locked in a house,
+which has then been set on fire, and its inmate cremated on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>Mining used to be carried on here, so they told me; but I was not long
+in concluding that, whatever was the product, it has not materially
+affected the world's output, nor had it greatly enriched the laborers in
+the field. When I got into civilization I found that coal of a
+sulphurous nature was the booty of ancient days. There may be coal yet,
+as is most probable, but the natives seemed far too apathetic and weary
+of life to care whether it is there or not.</p>
+
+<p>Passing Ta-shui-tsing, the descent narrows to a splendid view of dark
+mountain and green and beautiful valley. We were now traveling away from
+several ranges of lofty mountains, whose peaks appeared vividly above
+the drooping rain-filled clouds, onwards to a range immediately
+opposite, up whose slopes we toiled all day, passing <i>en route</i> only one
+uninhabited hamlet, to which the people flee in time of trouble. After a
+weary tramp of another twenty-five li&mdash;the Y&uuml;n-nan li, mind you, the
+most unreliable quantity in all matters geographical in the country&mdash;I
+asked irritatedly, as all travelers must have asked before me, &quot;Then, in
+the name of Heaven, where is Kiang-ti?&quot;<a name='FNanchor_W_23'></a><a href='#Footnote_W_23'><sup>[W]</sup></a> It should come into view
+behind the terrible steep decline when one is within only about a
+hundred yards. It is roughly four thousand feet below Ta-shui-tsing.</p>
+
+<p>Kiang-ti is an important stopping place, with but one forlorn street,
+with two or three forlorn inns, the best of which has its best room
+immediately over the filthiest stables, emitting a stench which was
+almost unbearable, that I have seen in China. It literally suffocates
+one as it comes up in wafts through the wide gaps in the wood floor of
+the room. There are no mosquitoes here, but of a certain winged insect
+of various species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the
+wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a
+formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house
+fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly,
+the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with
+flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's
+throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one
+within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes
+of the 'kerchief.</p>
+
+<p>The village seemed a death-trap.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing comprehensively at one another as I entered the higher end of
+the town, a party of reveling tea-drinkers hastily pulled some cash from
+their satchels to settle accounts, and made a general rush into the
+street, where they awaited noisily the approach of a strangely wondrous
+and imposing spectacle, one that had not been seen in those parts for
+many days. The tramper, tired as he could be, at length approached, but
+the crowd had increased so enormously that the road was completely
+blocked. Tradesmen with their portable workshops, pedlars with their
+cumbersome gear and pack-horses could not pass, but had to wait for
+their turn; there were not even any tortuous by-streets in this place
+whereby they might reach their destination. Children lost themselves in
+the crush, and went about crying for their mothers. A party of
+travelers, newly arrived from the south by caravan route, got wedged
+with their worn-out horses and mules in the thick of the mob, and could
+not move an inch. As far as the eye could reach the blue-clad throng
+heaved restlessly to and fro under the blaze of the brilliant sun which
+harassed everyone in the valley, and, moving slowly and majestically in
+the midst of them all, came the foreigner. As they caught sight of me,
+my sandalled feet, and the retinue following on wearily in the wake, the
+populace set up an ecstatic yell of ferocious applause and turned their
+faces towards the inn, in the doorway of which one of my soldier-men was
+holding forth on points of more or less delicacy respecting my good or
+bad nature and my British connection. At that moment, the huge human
+mass began to move in one predetermined direction, and then a couple of
+mandarins in their chairs joined the swarming rabble. I had to sit down
+on the step for five minutes whilst my boy, with commendable energy,
+cleared these two mandarins, who had come from Chen-tu and were on their
+way to the capital, out of the best room, because his master wanted it.</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, there came a loud crashing noise and a
+shout&mdash;my pony had landed out just once again, and banged in one side of
+a chair belonging to these traveling officials. They met me with noisy
+and derisive greetings, which were returned with a straight and
+penetrating look.</p>
+
+<p>No less than fifty degrees was the thermometrical difference in
+Ta-shui-tsing and Kiang-ti. Here it was stifling. Cattle stood in
+stagnant water, ducks were envied, my room with the sun on it became
+intolerable, and I sought refuge by the river; my butter was too liquid
+to spread; coolies were tired as they rested outside the tea-houses,
+having not a cash to spend; my pony stood wincing, giving sharp shivers
+to his skin, and moving his tail to clear off the flies and his hind
+legs to clear off men. As for myself, I could have done with an iced
+soda or a claret cup.</p>
+
+<p>Very early in the morning, despite malaria shivers, I made my way over
+the beautiful suspension bridge which here graces the Niu Lan,<a name='FNanchor_X_24'></a><a href='#Footnote_X_24'><sup>[X]</sup></a> a
+tributary of the Yangtze, up to the high hills beyond.</p>
+
+<p>This bridge at Kiang-ti is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve,
+protected at one end by a couple of monkeys carved in stone, whilst the
+opposite end is guarded by what are supposed to be, I believe, a couple
+of lions&mdash;and not a bad representation of them either, seeing that the
+workmen had no original near at hand to go by.</p>
+
+<p>From here the ascent over a second range of mountains is made by
+tortuous paths that wind along the sides of the hills high above the
+stream below, and at other times along the river-bed. The river is
+followed in a steep ascent, a sort of climbing terrace, from which the
+water leaps in delightful cascades and waterfalls. A four-hour climb
+brings one, after terrific labor, to the mouth of the picturesque pass
+of Ya-ko-t'ang at 7,500 feet. In the quiet of the mountains I took my
+midday meal; there was about the place an awe-inspiring stillness. It
+was grand but lonely, weird rather than peaceful, so that one was glad
+to descend again suddenly to the river, tracing it through long
+stretches of plain and barren valley, after which narrow paths lead up
+again to the small village of Yi-che-sh&iuml;n, considerably below
+Ya-ko-t'ang. It is the sudden descents and ascents which astonish one in
+traveling in this region, and whether climbing or dropping, one always
+reaches a plain or upland which would delude one into believing that he
+is almost at sea-level, were it not for the towering mountains that all
+around keep one hemmed in in a silent stillness, and the rarefied air.
+Yi-che-sh&iuml;n, for instance, standing at this altitude of considerably
+over 6,000 feet, is in the center of a tableland, on which are numerous
+villages, around which the fragrance of the broad bean in flower and the
+splendid fertility now and again met with makes it extremely pleasant to
+walk&mdash;it is almost a series of English cottage gardens. Here the weather
+was like July in England&mdash;or what one likes to imagine July should be in
+England&mdash;dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious weather, in which one
+should do as he pleases, and be pleased with what he does. As I toiled
+along, my useless limb causing me each day more trouble, I felt I should
+like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for
+my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength.
+But I was getting weaker! I saw, as I passed, gardens of purple and gold
+and white splendor; the sky was at its bluest, the clouds were full,
+snowy, mountainous.</p>
+
+<p>Then on again to varying scenes.</p>
+
+<p>Inns were not frequent, and were poor and wretched. The country was all
+red sandstone, and devoid of all timber, till, descending into a lovely
+valley, the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and then led out into a
+beautiful park all green and sweet. The country was full of color. It
+put a good taste in one's mouth, it impressed one as a heaven-sent means
+of keeping one cheerful in sad dilemma. The gardens, the fields, the
+skies, the mountains, the sunset, the light itself&mdash;all were full of
+color, and earth and heaven seemed of one opinion in the harmony of the
+reds, the purples, the drabs, the blacks, the browns, the bright blues,
+and the yellows. Birds were as tame as they were in the Great Beginning;
+they came under the table as I ate, and picked up the crumbs without
+fear. Peasant people sat under great cedars, planted to give shade to
+the travelers, and bade one feel at home in his lonely pilgrimage. Then
+one felt a peculiar feeling&mdash;this feeling will arise in any
+traveler&mdash;when, surmounting some hill range in the desert road, one
+descries, lying far below, embosomed in its natural bulwarks, the fair
+village, the resting-place, the little dwelling-place of men, where one
+is to sleep. But when towards nightfall, as the good red sun went down,
+I was led, weary and done-up, into one of the worst inns it had been my
+misfortune to encounter, a thousand other thoughts and feelings united
+in common anathema to the unenterprising community.</p>
+
+<p>Tea was bad, rice we could not get, and all night long the detestable
+smells from the wood fires choked our throats and blinded our eyes;
+glad, therefore, was I, despite the heavy rain, to take a hurried and
+early departure the next morning, descending a thousand feet to a river,
+rising quite as suddenly to a height of 8,500 feet.</p>
+
+<p>Now the road went over a mountain broad and flat, where traveling in the
+sun was extremely pleasant&mdash;or, rather, would have been had I been fit.
+Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea,
+Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Y&uuml;n-nan province, passed
+us on the mountain-side, and sometimes numbers of these willing but
+ill-treated animals were seen grazing in the hollows, by the wayside,
+their backs in almost every instance cruelly lacerated by the continuous
+rubbing of the wooden frames on which their loads were strapped. For
+cruelty to animals China stands an easy first; love of animals does not
+enter into their sympathies at all. I found this not to be the case
+among the Miao and the I-pien, however; and the tribes across the
+Yangtze below Chao-t'ong, locally called the Pa-pu, are, as a matter of
+fact, fond of horses, and some of them capable horsemen.</p>
+
+<p>The journey across these mountains has no perils. One may step aside a
+few feet with no fear of falling a few thousand, a danger so common in
+most of the country from Sui-fu downwards. The scenery is
+magnificent&mdash;range after range of mountains in whatever direction you
+look, nothing but mountains of varying altitudes. And the patches of
+wooded slopes, alternating with the red earth and more fertile green
+plots through which streams flow, with rolling waterfalls, picturesque
+nooks and winding pathways, make pictures to which only the gifted
+artist's brush could do justice. Often, gazing over the sunlit
+landscape, in this land &quot;South of the Clouds,&quot; one is held spellbound by
+the intense beauty of this little-known province, and one wonders what
+all this grand scenery, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man, would
+become were it in the center of a continent covered by the ubiquitous
+globe-trotter.</p>
+
+<p>No country in the world more than West China possesses mountains of
+combined majesty and grace. Rocks, everywhere arranged in masses of a
+rude and gigantic character, have a ruggedness tempered by a singular
+airiness of form and softness of environment, in a climate favorable in
+some parts to the densest vegetation, and in others wild and barren. One
+is always in sight of mountains rising to fourteen thousand feet or
+more, and constantly scaling difficult pathways seven or eight or nine
+thousand feet above the sea. And in the loneliness of a country where
+nothing has altered very much the handiwork of God, an awe-inspiring
+silence pervades everything. Bold, grey cliffs shoot up here through a
+mass of verdure and of foliage, and there white cottages, perched in
+seemingly inaccessible positions, glisten in the sun on the colored
+mountain-sides. You saunter through stony hollows, along straight
+passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rocks, now
+winding through broken, shaggy chasms and huge, wandering fragments, now
+suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where Peace, long
+established, seems to repose sweetly in the bosom of Strength.
+Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in
+abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn
+ascent of which is hardly passable.</p>
+
+<p>Yes, Y&uuml;n-nan is imperatively a country first of mountains, then of
+lakes. The scenery, embodying truly Alpine magnificence with the minute
+sylvan beauty of Killarney or of Devonshire, is nowhere excelled in the
+length and breadth of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_U_21'></a><a href='#FNanchor_U_21'>[U]</a><div class='note'><p> The incredulous of my readers may question, and rightly so,
+&quot;Then where did he get his saddle?&quot; So I must explain that I met just
+out of Sui-fu a Danish gentleman (also a traveler) who wished to sell a
+pony and its trappings. As I had the arrangement with my boy that I
+would provide him with a conveyance, and did not like the idea of seeing
+him continually in a chair and his wealthy master trotting along on
+foot, I bought it for my boy's use. He used the saddle until we reached
+Chao-t'ong.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_V_22'></a><a href='#FNanchor_V_22'>[V]</a><div class='note'><p> A new inn has been built since.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_W_23'></a><a href='#FNanchor_W_23'>[W]</a><div class='note'><p> Pronounced Djang-di. Famous throughout Western China for
+its terrible hill, one of the most difficult pieces of country in the
+whole of the west.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_X_24'></a><a href='#FNanchor_X_24'>[X]</a><div class='note'><p> This river, the Niu Lan, comes from near Yang-lin, one
+day's march from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu. It is being followed down by two American
+engineers as the probable route for a new railway, which it is proposed
+should come out to the Yangtze some days north of Kiang-ti.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Y&uuml;n-nan's chequered career</i>. <i>Switzerland of China</i>. <i>At
+Hong-sh[=i]h-ai</i>. <i>China's Golden Age in the past</i>. <i>The conservative
+instinct of the Chinese</i>. <i>How to quiet coolies</i>. <i>Roads</i>. <i>Dangers of
+ordinary travel in wet season</i>. <i>K'ung-shan and its mines</i>.
+<i>Tong-ch'uan-fu, an important mining centre</i>. <i>English and German
+machinery</i>. <i>Methods of smelting</i>. <i>Protestants and Romanists in
+Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Arrival at Tong-ch'uan-fu</i>. <i>Missionaries set author's broken
+arm</i>. <i>Trio of Europeans</i>. <i>Author starts for the provincial capital</i>.
+<i>Abandoning purpose of crossing China on foot</i>. <i>Arm in splints</i>. <i>Curious
+incident</i>. <i>At Lai-t'eo-po</i>. <i>Malaria returns</i>. <i>Serious illness of
+author</i>. <i>Delirium</i>. <i>Devotion of the missionaries</i>. <i>Death expected.
+Innkeeper's curious attitude</i>. <i>Recovery</i>. <i>After-effects of malaria.
+Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months</i>. <i>Then completes his
+walking tour</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Y&uuml;n-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
+empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
+annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
+been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
+gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
+the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
+Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway&mdash;or at least so tradition
+says. She is sometimes right.</p>
+
+<p>My journey continuing across more undulating country brought me at
+length to Hong-sh&iuml;h-ai (Red Stone Cliff), a tiny hamlet hidden away
+completely in a deep recess in the mountain-side, settled in a narrow
+gorge, the first house of which cannot be seen until within a few yards
+of entry. Inn accommodation, as was usual, was by no means good. It is
+characteristic of these small places that the greater the traffic the
+worse, invariably, is the accommodation offered. Travelers are
+continually staying here, but not one Chinese in the population is
+enterprising enough to open a decent inn. They have no money to start it,
+I suppose.</p>
+
+<p>But it is true of the Chinese, to a greater degree than of any other
+nation, that their Golden Age is in the past. Sages of antiquity spoke
+with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and
+revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says
+that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The
+conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to
+precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-sh&iuml;h-ai, knowing that the
+village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by
+conservatism, and make no effort whatever to improve matters.</p>
+
+<p>Fire in the inn was kindled in the hollow of the ground. There was no
+ventilation; the wood they burned was, as usual, green; smoke was
+suffocating. My men talked well on into the night, and kept me from
+sleeping, even if pain would have allowed me to. I spoke strongly, and
+they, thinking I was swearing at them, desisted for fear that I should
+heap upon their ancestors a few of the reviling thoughts I entertained
+for them.</p>
+
+<p>I should like to say a word here about the roads in this province, or
+perhaps the absence of roads. They had been execrable, the worst I had
+met, aggravated by heavy rains. With all the reforms to which the
+province of Y&uuml;n-nan is endeavoring to direct its energies, it has not
+yet learned that one of the first assets of any district or country is
+good roads. But this is true of the whole of the Middle Kingdom. The
+contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of
+their work in the street, and, even in a city provided with but the
+narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the
+presence of peripatetic vendors of every kind of article of common sale
+in China, and by itinerant craftsmen who have no other shop than the
+street. In the capital city of the province, even, it is a matter of
+some difficulty to the European to walk down the rough-paved street
+after a shower of rain, so slippery do the slabs of stone become; and he
+has to be alive always to the lumbering carts, whose wheels are more
+solid than circular, pulled by bullocks as in the days long before the
+dawn of the Christian Era. The wider the Chinese street the more abuses
+can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is
+quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are
+never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at
+all&mdash;that is, in dry weather.</p>
+
+<p>This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is
+certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however,
+another kind of road&mdash;a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.</p>
+
+<p>An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple
+of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary
+(especially in the Y&uuml;n-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another,
+the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep
+ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains.
+In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at
+times are constantly under water, and beyond Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, on my way to
+Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a
+rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time
+the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is
+liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a
+canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads
+removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it
+is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men with their loads
+being washed away by rivers where in the dry season there had been the
+roads.</p>
+
+<p>The great lines of Chinese travel, so often impassable, might be made
+permanently passable if the governor of a province chose to compel the
+several district magistrates along the line to see that these important
+arteries are kept free from standing water, with ditches in good order
+at all seasons. But for the village roads&mdash;during my travels over which
+I have come across very few that could from a Western standpoint be
+called roads&mdash;there is absolutely no hope until such time as the Chinese
+village may come dimly to the apprehension that what is for the
+advantage of the one is for the advantage of all, and that wise
+expenditure is the truest economy&mdash;an idea of which it has at the
+present moment as little conception as of the average thought of the
+Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>A hundred li to the east of Hong-shi&iuml;h-ai, over two impassable mountain
+ranges, are some considerable mines, with antiquated brass and copper
+smelting works, and this place, K'ung-shan by name, with Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+forms an important center. As is well known, all copper of Y&uuml;n-nan goes
+to Peking as the Government monopoly, excepting the enormous amount
+stolen and smuggled into every town in the province.<a name='FNanchor_Y_25'></a><a href='#Footnote_Y_25'><sup>[Y]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The smelting is of the roughest, though they are at the present moment
+laying in English machinery, and the Chinese in charge is under the
+impression that he can speak English; he, however, makes a hopeless
+jargon of it. This mining locality is sunk in the deepest degradation.
+Men and women live more as wild beasts than as human beings, and should
+any be unfortunate enough to die, their corpses are allowed to lie in
+the mines. Who is there that could give his time and energy to the
+removal of a dead man? Tong-ch'uan-fu should become an important town if
+the rich mineral country of which it is the pivot were properly opened
+up. Several times I have visited the works in this city, which, under
+the charge of a small mandarin from Szech'wan, can boast only the most
+primitive and inadequate machinery, of German make. A huge engine was
+running as a kind of pump for the accumulation of air, which was passed
+through a long thin pipe to the three furnaces in the outer courtyard.
+The furnaces were mud-built, and were fed with charcoal (the most
+expensive fuel in the district), the maximum of pure metal being only
+1,300 catties per day. The ore, which has been roughly smelted once, is
+brought from K'ung-shan, is finely smelted here, then conveyed most of
+the way to Peking by pack-mule, the expense in thus handling, from the
+time it leaves the mine to its destination at Peking, being several
+times its market value. Nothing but copper is sought from the ore, and a
+good deal of the gold and silver known to be contained is lost.</p>
+
+<p>I passed an old French priest as I was going to Tong-ch'uan-fu the next
+day. He was very pleased to see me, and at a small place we had a few
+minutes' chat whilst we sipped our tea. In Y&uuml;n-nan, I found that the
+Protestants and the Romanists, although seeing very little of each
+other, went their own way, maintaining an attitude of more or less
+friendly indifference one towards the other.</p>
+
+<p>The last day's march to Tong-ch'uan-fu is perhaps the most interesting
+of this stage of my journey. Climbing over boulders and stony steps, I
+reached an altitude of 8,500 feet, whence thirty li of pleasant going
+awaited us all the way to Lang-wang-miao (Temple of the Dragon King).
+Here I sat down and strained my eyes to catch the glimpse of the compact
+little walled city, where I hoped my broken arm would be set by the
+European missionaries. The traveler invariably hastens his pace here,
+expecting to run down the hill and across the plain in a very short
+space; but as the time passed, and I slowly wended my way along the
+difficult paths through the rice fields, I began to realize that I had
+been duped, and that it was farther than it seemed. Two blushing
+damsels, maids goodly to look upon, gave me the sweetest of smiles as I
+strode across the bodies of some fat pigs which roamed at large in the
+outskirts of the city, the only remembrance I have to mar the
+cleanliness of the place.</p>
+
+<p>At Tong-ch'uan-fu the Rev. A. Evans and his extremely hospitable wife
+set my arm and did everything they could&mdash;as much as a brother and
+sister could have done&mdash;to help me, and to make my short stay with them
+a most happy remembrance. It was, however, destined that I should be
+their guest for many months, as shall hereinafter be explained.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>A trio of Europeans might have been seen on the morning of Monday, May
+10, 1909, leaving Tong-ch'uan-fu on the road to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, whither the
+author was bound. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who, as chance would have it, were
+going to Ch'u-tsing-fu, were to accompany me for two days before turning
+off in a southerly direction when leaving the prefecture.</p>
+
+<p>It was a fine spring morning, balmy and bonny. It was decided that I
+should ride a pony, and this I did, abandoning my purpose of crossing
+China on foot with some regret. I was not yet fit, had my broken arm in
+splints, but rejoiced that at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu I should be able to consult a
+European medical man. Comparatively an unproductive task&mdash;and perhaps a
+false and impossible one&mdash;would it be for me to detail the happenings of
+the few days next ensuing. I should be able not to look at things
+themselves, but merely at the shadow of things&mdash;and it would serve no
+profitable end.</p>
+
+<p>Suffice it to say that two days out, about midday, a special messenger
+from the capital stopped Mr. Evans and handed him a letter. It was to
+tell him that his going to Ch'u-tsing-fu would be of no use, as the
+gentleman he was on his way to meet would not arrive, owing to altered
+plans. After consulting his wife, he hesitated whether they should go
+back to Tong-ch'uan-fu, or come on to the capital with me. The latter
+course was decided upon, as I was so far from well&mdash;I learned this some
+time afterwards. And now the story need not be lengthened.</p>
+
+<p>At Lai-t'eo-po (see first section of the second book of this volume),
+malaria came back, and an abnormal temperature made me delirious. The
+following day I could not move, and it was not until I had been there
+six days that I was again able to be moved. During this time, Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans nursed me day and night, relieving each other for rest, in a
+terrible Chinese inn&mdash;not a single moment did they leave me. The third
+day they feared I was dying, and a message to that effect was sent to
+the capital, informing the consul. Meanwhile malaria played fast and
+loose, and promised a pitiable early dissolution. My kind, devoted
+friends were fearful lest the innkeeper would have turned me out into
+the roadway to die&mdash;the foreigner's spirit would haunt the place for
+ever and a day were I allowed to die inside.</p>
+
+<p>But I recovered.</p>
+
+<p>It was a graver, older, less exuberant walker across China that
+presently arose from his flea-ridden bed of sickness, and began to make
+a languid personal introspection. I had developed a new sensitiveness,
+the sensitiveness of an alien in an alien land, in the hands of
+new-made, faithful friends. Without them I should have been a waif of
+all the world, helpless in the midst of unconquerable surroundings,
+leading to an inevitable destiny of death. I seemed declimatized,
+denationalized, a luckless victim of fate and morbid fancy.</p>
+
+<p>It was malaria and her workings, from which there was no escape.</p>
+
+<p>Malaria is supposed by the natives of the tropic belt to be sent to
+Europeans by Providence as a chastening for the otherwise insupportable
+energy of the white man. Malignant malaria is one of Nature's
+watch-dogs, set to guard her shrine of peace and ease and to punish
+woeful intruders. And she had brought me to China to punish me. As is
+her wont, Nature milked the manhood out of me, racked me with aches and
+pains, shattered me with chills, scorched me with fever fires, pursued
+me with despairing visions, and hag-rode me without mercy. Accursed
+newspapers, with their accursed routine, came back to me; all the
+stories and legends that I had ever heard, all the facts that I had ever
+learnt, came to me in a fashion wonderfully contorted and distorted;
+sensations welded together in ghastly, brain-stretching conglomerates,
+instinct with individuality and personality, human but torturingly
+inhuman, crowded in upon me. The barriers dividing the world of ideas,
+sensations, and realities seemed to have been thrown down, and all
+rushed into my brain like a set of hungry foxhounds. The horror of
+effort and the futility of endeavor permeated my very soul. My weary,
+helpless brain was filled with hordes of unruly imaginings; I was
+masterless, panic-driven, maddened, and had to abide for weeks&mdash;yea,
+months&mdash;with a fever-haunted soul occupying a fever-rent and weakened
+body.</p>
+
+<p>At Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, whither I arrived in due course after considerable
+struggling, dysentery laid me up again, and threatened to pull me nearer
+to the last great brink. For weeks, as the guest of my friend, Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, I stayed here recuperating, and subsequently, on the advice
+of my medical attendant, Dr. A. Feray, I went back to Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+among the mountains, and spent several happy months with Mr. and Mrs.
+Evans.</p>
+
+<p>Had it not been for their brotherly and sisterly zeal in nursing me,
+which never flagged throughout my illness, future travelers might have
+been able to point to a little grave-mound on the hill-tops, and have
+given a chance thought to an adventurer whom the fates had handled
+roughly. But there was more in this than I could see; my destiny was
+then slowly shaping.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the rains, and well on into the winter, I stayed with Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans, and then continued my walking tour, as is hereafter
+recorded.</p>
+
+<p>During this period of convalescence I studied the Chinese language and
+traveled considerably in the surrounding country. Tong-ch'uan-fu is a
+city of many scholars, and it was not at all difficult for me to find a
+satisfactory teacher. He was an old man, with a straggly beard, about 70
+years of age, and from him I learned much about life in general, in
+addition to his tutoring in Chinese. I had the advantage also of close
+contact with the missionaries with whom I was living, and on many
+occasions was traveling companion of Samuel Pollard, one of the finest
+Chinese linguists in China at that time. So that with a greatly
+increased knowledge of Chinese, I was henceforth able to hold my own
+anywhere. During this period, too, many days were profitably passed at
+the Confucian Temple, a picture of which is given in this volume.</p>
+
+<p>END OF BOOK I.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_Y_25'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Y_25'>[Y]</a><div class='note'><p> In the capital there is a street called &quot;Copper Kettle
+Lane,&quot; where one is able to buy almost anything one wants in copper and
+brass. Hundreds of men are engaged in the trade, and yet it is
+&quot;prohibited.&quot; These &quot;Copper Kettle Lanes&quot; are found in many large
+cities.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='BOOK_II'></a><h2>BOOK II.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<p>The second part of my trip was from almost the extreme east to the
+extreme west of Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Bhamo, in British Burma.
+The following was the route chosen, over the main road in some
+instances, and over untrodden roads in others, just as circumstances
+happened:</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tong-ch'uan-fu to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu (the capital city)</td><td align='left'>520 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Tali-fu</td><td align='left'>905 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tali-fu to Tengyueh (Momien)</td><td align='left'>855 li.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>Tengyueh to Bhamo (Singai)</td><td align='left'>280 English miles approx.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+
+<p>I also made a rather extended tour among the Miao tribes, in country
+untrodden by Europeans, except by missionaries working among the people.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIRST_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>FIRST JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL</h4>
+
+
+
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_XIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stages to the capital</i>. <i>Universality of reform in China</i>. <i>Political,
+moral, social and spiritual contrast of Y&uuml;n-nan with other parts of the
+Empire</i>. <i>Inconsistencies of celestial life</i>. <i>Author's start for
+Burma</i>. <i>The caravan</i>. <i>To Che-chi</i>. <i>Dogs fighting over human bones</i>.
+<i>Lai-t'eo-p'o: highest point traversed on overland journey</i>. <i>Snow and
+hail storms at ten thousand feet</i>. <i>Desolation and poverty</i>. <i>Brutal
+husband</i>. <i>Horse saves author from destruction</i>. <i>The one hundred li to
+Kongshan</i>. <i>Wild, rugged moorland and mournful mountains</i>. <i>Wretchedness
+of the people</i>. <i>Night travel in Western China</i>. <i>Author knocks a man
+down</i>. <i>Late arrival and its vexations</i>. <i>Horrible inn accommodation</i>.
+<i>End of the Y&uuml;n-nan Plateau</i>. <i>Appreciable rise in temperature</i>.
+<i>Entertaining a band of inelegant infidels</i>. <i>European contention for
+superiority, and the Chinese point of view</i>. <i>Insoluble conundrums of
+&quot;John's&quot; national character</i>. <i>The Y&uuml;n-nan railway</i>. <i>Current ideas in
+Y&uuml;n-nan regarding foreigners</i>. <i>Discourteous fu-song and his escapades</i>.
+<i>Fright of ill-clad urchin</i>. <i>Scene at Yang-lin</i>. <i>Arrival at the
+capital</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>No exaggeration is it to say that the eyes of the world are upon China.
+It is equally safe to say that, whilst all is open and may be seen, but
+little is understood.</p>
+
+<p>In the Far Eastern and European press so much is heard of the awakening
+of China that one is apt really to believe that the whole Empire, from
+its Dan to Beersheba, is boiling for reform. But it may be that the husk
+is taken from the kernel. The husk comprises the treaty ports and some
+of the capital cities of the provinces; the kernel is that vast sleepy
+interior of China. Few people, even in Shanghai, know what it means; so
+that to the stay-at-home European pardon for ignorance of existing
+conditions so much out of his focus should readily be granted.</p>
+
+<p>From Shanghai, up past Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to
+Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the
+most skeptical foreigner. But after he has lived for a couple of years
+in an interior city as I have done, with its antiquated legislation, its
+superstition and idolatry, its infanticide, its girl suicides, its
+public corruption and moral degradation, rubbing shoulders continually
+at close quarters with the inhabitants, and himself living in the main a
+Chinese life, our optimist may alter his opinions, and stand in wonder
+at the extraordinary differences in the most ordinary details of life at
+the ports on the China coast and the Interior, and of the gross
+inconsistencies in the Chinese mind and character. If in addition he has
+stayed a few days away from a city in which the foreigners were shut up
+inside the city walls because the roaring mob of rebels outside were
+asking for their heads, and he has had to abandon part of his overland
+trip because of the fear that his own head might have been chopped off
+<i>en route</i>, he may increase his wonder to doubt. The aspect here in
+Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;politically, morally, socially, spiritually&mdash;is that of another
+kingdom, another world. Conditions seem, for the most part, the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in his new environment, which may
+be a replica of twenty centuries ago, the dream he dreamed is now
+dispelled. &quot;China,&quot; he says, &quot;is <i>not</i> awaking; she barely moves, she is
+still under the torpor of the ages.&quot; And yet again, in the capital and a
+few of the larger cities, under your very eyes there goes on a reform
+which seems to be the most sweeping reform Asia has yet known.</p>
+
+<p>Such are the inconsistencies, seemingly unchangeable, irreconcilable in
+conception or in fact; a truthful portrayal of them tends to render the
+writer a most inconsistent being in the eyes of his reader.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>No one was ever sped on his way through China with more goodwill than
+was the writer when he left Tong-ch'uan-fu; but the above thoughts were
+then in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>Long before January 3rd, 1910, the whole town knew that I was going to
+Mien Dien (Burma). Confessedly with a sad heart&mdash;for I carried with me
+memories of kindnesses such as I had never known before&mdash;I led my
+nervous pony, Rusty, out through the Dung Men (the East Gate), with
+twenty enthusiastic scholars and a few grown-ups forming a turbulent
+rear. As I strode onwards the little group of excited younkers watched
+me disappear out of sight on my way to the capital by the following
+route&mdash;the second time of trying:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Che-chi</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>7,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Lai-t'eo-p'o</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>8,500 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Kongshan</td><td align='center'>100 li.</td><td align='center'>6,700 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Yang-kai</td><td align='center'>85 li.</td><td align='center'>7,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Ch'anff-o'o</td><td align='center'>95 li</td><td align='center'>6,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;The Capital</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,400 ft.</td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>My caravan consisted of two coolies: one carried my bedding and a small
+basket of luxuries in case of emergency, the other a couple of boxes
+with absolute necessities (including the journal of the trip). In
+addition, there accompanied me a man who carried my camera, and whose
+primary business it was to guard my interests and my money&mdash;my general
+factotum and confidential agent&mdash;and by an inverse operation enrich
+himself as he could, and thereby maintain relations of warm mutual
+esteem. They received thirty-two tael cents per man per diem, and for
+the stopping days on the road one hundred cash. None of them, of course,
+could speak a word of English.</p>
+
+<p>The ninety li to Che-chi was mostly along narrow paths by the sides of
+river-beds, the intermediate plains having upturned acres waiting for
+the spring. At Ta-chiao (7,500 feet), where I stayed for my first
+alfresco meal at midday, the man&mdash;a tall, gaunt, ugly fellow, pockmarked
+and vile of face&mdash;told us he was a traveler, and that he had been to
+Shanghai. This I knew to be a barefaced lie. He voluntarily explained to
+the visitors, gathered to see the barbarian feed, what condensed milk
+was for, but he went wide of the mark when he announced that my pony,<a name='FNanchor_Z_26'></a><a href='#Footnote_Z_26'><sup>[Z]</sup></a>
+hog-maned and dock-tailed (but Chinese still), was an American, as he
+said I was. A young mother near by, suffering from acute eye
+inflammation, was lying in a smellful gutter on a felt mat, two pigs on
+one side and a naked boy of eight or so on the other, whilst she heaped
+upon the head of the innocent babe she was suckling curses most horribly
+blood-curdling. Dogs&mdash;the universal scavengers of the awakening
+interior, to which merest allusion is barred by one's Western sense of
+decency&mdash;just outside Che-chi, where I stayed the night, had recently
+devoured the corpse of a little child. Its clothing was strewn in my
+path, together with the piece of fibre matting in which it had been
+wrapped, and the dogs were then fighting over the bones.</p>
+
+<p>To Lai-t'eo-p'o was a day that men might call a &quot;killer.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is a dirty little place with a dirty little street, lying at the foot
+of a mountain known throughout Western China as one of the wildest of
+Nature's corners, nearly ten thousand feet high, a terrific climb under
+best conditions. A clear half-moon, and stars of a silvery twinkle,
+looked pityingly upon me as I started at 3 a.m., ignorant of the
+dangerously narrow defile leading along cliffs high up from the Yili Ho.
+In the dark, cautiously I groped along. Not without a painful emotion of
+impending danger, as I watched the stellular reflections dancing in the
+rushing river, did I wander on in the wake of a group of pack-ponies,
+and took my turn in being assisted over the broken chasms by the
+muleteers. Two fellows got down below and practically lifted the tiny
+animals over the passes where they could not keep their footing.
+Gradually I saw the nightlike shadows flee away, and with the dawn came
+signs of heavy weather.</p>
+
+<p>Snow came cold and sudden. As we slowly and toilsomely ascended, the
+velocity of the wind fiercely increased; down the mountain-side, at a
+hundred miles an hour, came clouds of blinding, flinty dust, making the
+blood run from one's lips and cheeks as he plodded on against great
+odds. With the biting wind, howling and hissing in the winding ravines
+and snow-swept hollows, headway was difficult. Often was I raised from
+my feet: helplessly I clung to the earth for safety, and pulled at
+withered grass to keep my footing. The ponies, patient little brutes,
+with one hundred and fifty pounds strapped to their backs, came near to
+giving up the ghost, being swayed hopelessly to and fro in the fury. For
+hours we thus toiled up pathways seemingly fitter for goats than men,
+where leafless trees were bending destitute of life and helpless towards
+the valley, as the keen wind went sighing, moaning, wailing through
+their bare boughs and budless twigs.</p>
+
+<p>Such a gale, wilder than the devil's passion, I have not known even on
+the North Atlantic in February.</p>
+
+<p>At times during the day progression in the deepening snow seemed quite
+impossible, and my two men, worn and weary, bearing the burden of an
+excessively fatiguing day, well-nigh threw up the sponge, vowing that
+they wished they had not taken on the job.</p>
+
+<p>But the scenery later in the day, though monotonously so, was grand. The
+earth was literally the color of deep-red blood, the crimson paths
+intertwining the darker landscape bore to one's imagination a vision of
+some bloody battle&mdash;veritable rivers of human blood. To cheer the
+traveler in his desolation, the sun struggled vainly to pierce with its
+genial rays through the heavy, angry clouds rolling lazily upwards from
+the black valleys, and enveloping the earth in a deep infinity of
+severest gloom. The cold was damp. In the small hemmed-in hollows,
+whereto our pathway led, the icy dew clung to one's hair and beard. From
+little brown cottages, with poor thatched roofs letting in the light,
+and with walls and woodwork long since uniformly rotten, men and women
+emerged, rubbing their eyes and buttoning up their garments, looking
+wistfully for the hidden sun.</p>
+
+<p>At Shao-p'ai (8,100 feet) a brute of a fellow was administering
+cruellest chastisement to his disobedient yoke-fellow, who took her
+scourging in good part. I passed along as fast as I could to the ascent
+over which a road led in and around the mountain with alarming
+steepness, a road which at home would never be negotiated on foot or on
+horseback, but which here forms part of the main trade route. From the
+extreme summit one dropped abruptly into a protecting gorge, where
+falling cascades, sparkling like crystal showers in the feeble sunlight
+occasionally breaking through, danced playfully over the smooth-worn,
+slippery rocks; a stream foamed noisily over the loose stones, and leapt
+in rushing rapids where the earth had given way; there was no grass, no
+scenery, no life, and in the sudden turnings the hurricane roared with
+heavenly anger through the long deep chasms, over the
+twelve-inch river-beds at the foot.</p>
+
+<p>At Lai-t'eo-p'o accommodation at night was fairly good. Men laughed
+hilariously at me when I raved at some carpenters to desist their clumsy
+hammering three feet above my head. Hundreds of dogs yelped unceasingly
+at the moon, and with the usual rows of the men in mutual invitation to
+&quot;Come and wash your feet,&quot; or &quot;Ching fan, ching fan,&quot; the draughts, the
+creaks and cracks, the unintermitting din, and so much else, one was not
+sorry to rise again with the lark and push onwards in the cold.</p>
+
+<p>Down below this horrid town there is a plain; in this plain there is a
+hole fifty feet deep, and had my pony, which I was leading, not pulled
+me away from falling thereinto, my story would not now be telling.</p>
+
+<p>To Kongshan (6,700 feet), past Yei-chu-t'ang (8,100 feet) and
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang (7,275 feet), one hundred li away, was a journey
+through country considerably more interesting, especially towards the
+end of the day, a peculiar combination of wooded slope and rough,
+rock-worn pathways.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiao-lang-t'ang, twenty-five li from the end of the stage, overlooks a
+wide expanse of barren, uninviting moorland. Deep, jagged gullies break
+the uneven rolling of the mountains; dark, weird caverns of terrible
+immensity yawn hungrily from the surface of weariest desolation, ever
+widening with each turn. Mist hid the ugliest spots high up among the
+peaks, whose white summits, peeping sullenly from out this blue sea of
+damp haze, told a wondrous story of winter's withering all life to
+death, a spot than which in summer few places on earth would be more
+entrancing. But these mountains are breathing out a solitude which is
+eternal. Man here has never been. Far away beyond lies the country of
+the aborigines; but even the Lolo, wild and rugged as the country,
+fearless of man and beast, have never dared to ascend these heights.
+They are mournful, cheerless, devoid of a single smile from the common
+mother of us all, lacking every feature by which the earth draws man
+into a spirit of unity with his God. Horrid, frowning waste and aimless
+discontinuity of land, harbinger of loneliness and of evil! People, poor
+struggling beings of our kind, here seemed mocked of destiny, and a hot
+raging of misery waged within them, for all that the heart might desire
+and wish for had to them been denied. If, indeed, the earth be the home
+of hope, and man's greatest possession be hope, then would it seem that
+these poor creatures were entirely cut off, shut out from life,
+wandering wearisomely through the world in one long battle with Nature
+whereby to gain the wherewithal to live in that grim desert. There were
+no exceptions, it was the common lot. Each day and every day did these
+men and women, with a stolidity of long-continued destitution, and
+temporal and spiritual tribulation, gaze upon that bare, unyielding
+country, pregnant only with aggravation to their own dire wretchedness.</p>
+
+<p>In such spots, unhappily in Y&uuml;n-nan not few, does the mystery of life
+grow ever more mysterious to one whom distress has never harassed. A
+great pity seized my heart, but these poor people would probably have
+laughed had they known my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>As I passed they came uninterestedly to look upon me. They watched in
+expressive silence; they were silent because of poverty. And I, too,
+kept a seal upon my lips as I ate the good things here provided under
+the eyes of those to whom hunger had given none but a jealous outlook.
+Pitiful enough were it, thought I, merely to watch without allowing
+speech to escape further to taunt them. So I ate, and they looked at me.
+I came and went, but never a word was uttered by these men and women, or
+even by the children, whose most painful feeling seemed that of their
+own feebleness. They were indeed feeble units standing in a threatening
+infinitude of life, and their thoughts probably dwelt upon my luxury
+and wealth as mine could not help dwelling upon their hungry town of
+hungry men and famished children. Words cannot paint their poverty&mdash;men
+void of hope, of life, of purpose, of idea. Happy for them that they had
+known no other.</p>
+
+<p>We ascended over a road of unspeakable torture to one's feet. Gazing
+down, far away into a seemingly bottomless abyss, we could faintly hear
+in the lulling of the wind the rush of a torrent, fed by a hundred
+mountain streams, which washed our path and in horrible disfigurement
+tore open the surface of the hill-sides.</p>
+
+<p>The long day was drawing wearily to a close. As the sun was sinking
+beyond the uneven hills over which I was to climb before the descent to
+the town begins, the effect of the green and gold and red and brown
+produced a striking picture of sweet poetic beauty. I stood in
+contemplative admiration meditating, as I waited for my coolies, who sat
+moodily under a dilapidated roadside awning, nonchalantly picking out
+mouldy monkey-nuts from some coarse sweetmeat sold by a frowsy female.
+Then upwards we toiled in the dark, the weird groans of my exhausted men
+and the falling of the gravel beneath their sandalled feet alone
+breaking the hollow's gloom. Uncanny is night travel in China.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Who knows but that ghosts, those fierce-faced denizens of the hills,
+may run against thee and bewitch thee,&quot; murmured one man to the others.
+They stopped, and I stopped with them. And in the darkness, pegging on
+alone at the mercy of these coolies, my own thoughts were not
+unsynchronistic.</p>
+
+<p>At last, with no slight misgiving, we came down into the city's smoke.
+Dogs barked at me, and ran away like the curs they are. Midway down the
+stone footway my yamen runner too cautiously crept up to me in the dark,
+muttering something, and I floored him with my fist. Afterwards I
+learnt that he came to relieve me of the pony I was leading.</p>
+
+<p>Every room in every wretched inn was occupied; opium fumes already
+issued from the doorways, and it was now pitch dark, so that I could
+scarce see the sallow faces of the hungry, uncouth crowd, to whom with
+no little irritation I tried to speak as I peered carefully into the
+caravanserai. Evident it certainly was that the duty lying nearest to me
+at that particular moment, to myself and all concerned therein, was to
+accept what I was offered, and not wear out my temper in grumbling. My
+boy, Lao Chang (an I-pien), the brick, expressed to me his regrets, and
+something like real sympathy shone out from his eyes in the dimness.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Puh p'a teh, puh p'a teh&quot; (&quot;Have no fear, have no fear&quot;), said he; and
+as I stood the while piling up cruellest torture upon my uncourtly host,
+he made off to prepare a downstair room (to lapse into modern
+boarding-house phraseology).</p>
+
+<p>First through an outer apartment, dark as darkest night; on past the
+caterwauling cook and a few disreputable culinary hangers-on; asked to
+look out for a pony, which I could not see, but which I was told might
+kick me; then onward to my boy, who stood on a stool and dropped the
+grease of a huge red Chinese candle among his plaited hair, as he
+wobbled it above his head to light the way. He gripped me tenderly, took
+me to his bosom as it were, gave me one push, and I was there. He
+tarried not. What right had he to listen to what I in secret would say
+of the horrid keeper and his twice horrid shakedown inn? He passed out
+swiftly into outer darkness, uttering a groan I rudely interpreted as,
+&quot;That or nothing, that or nothing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It <i>was</i> a room, that is in so far as four sides, a floor and a ceiling
+comprise one. Of that I had no doubt. A sort of uncomely offshoot from
+the main inn building, built on piles in the earth after the fashion of
+the seashore houses of the Malay&mdash;but much dirtier and incomparably more
+shaky. For many a long year, longer than mine horrid host would care to
+recollect, this now unoccupied space had served admirably as the common
+cooking-room&mdash;the ruined fireplace was still there; later, it had been
+the stable&mdash;the ruined horse trough was still there. At one extreme
+corner only could I stand upright; long sooty cobwebs graced the black
+wood beams overhead, hanging as thick as icicles in a mountain valley;
+each step I took in fear and trembling (the slightest move threatened to
+collapse the whole dilapidation). Four planks, four inches wide at the
+widest part and of varying lengths and thicknesses, placed on a pile of
+loose firewood at the head and foot, comprised the bedstead on which I
+tremulously sat down. Upon this improvised apology for a bed, under my
+mosquito curtains (no traveler should be without them in Western China),
+I washed my blistered feet on an ancient <i>Daily Telegraph</i>, whilst my
+cook saw to my evening meal. His bringing in the rice tallied with my
+laying the tablecloth in the same place where I had washed my feet&mdash;the
+one available spot.</p>
+
+<p>As I ate, rats came brazenly and picked up the grains of rice I dropped
+in my inefficient handling of chopsticks, and in scaring off these
+hardened, hungry vermin I accidentally upset tea over my bed, whilst at
+the same moment a clod-hopping coolie came in with an elephant tread,
+with the result that my European reading-lamp lost its balance from the
+top of a tin of native sugar and started a conflagration, threatening to
+make short work of me and my belongings&mdash;not to mention that horrid
+fellow and his inn.</p>
+
+<p>During the night the moments throbbed away as I lay on my flea-ridden
+couch&mdash;moments which seemed long as hours, and no gleaming rift broke
+the settled and deepening blackness of my hateful environs. Every thing
+and every place was full of the wearisome, depressing, beauty-blasting
+commonplace of Interior China. Stenches rose up on the damp, dank air,
+and throughout the night, through the opening of a window, I seemed to
+gaze out to a disconsolate eternity&mdash;gaping, empty, unsightly. Waking
+from my dozing at the hour when judgment sits upon the hearts of men, I
+sat in ponderous judgment upon all to whom the bungling of the previous
+day was due. There were the rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks
+and cracks&mdash;no quiet about the place from night to morning. Then came
+the barking of dogs, the noises of the cocks and kine, of horses and
+foals, of pigs and geese&mdash;the general wail of the zoological
+kingdom&mdash;cows bellowing, duck diplomacy, and much else. So that it were
+not surprising to learn that this distinguished traveler in these
+contemptible regions was sitting on a broken-down bridge, looking
+wearily on to the broken-down tower on the summit of a pretty little
+knoll outside Kungshan, thinking that it were well a score of such were
+added did their design embrace a warning to evade the place.</p>
+
+<p>Having done some twenty li by moonlight, I managed with little
+difficulty to reach Yang-kai (6,350 feet) by 3.0 p.m. This road, which
+is not the main road to the capital, was purposely chosen; most
+travelers go through Yang-lin. The journey is comprised of pleasant
+ascents and descents over the latter portion of the great Y&uuml;n-nan
+Plateau, and a very appreciable difference in the temperature was here
+noticed. While the people at the north-east of the province, from which
+I had come, were shivering in their rags and complaining about the price
+of charcoal, the population here basked under Italian skies in a warm
+sun. From Lui-shu-ho (7,200 feet) the country was beautifully wooded
+with groves of firs and chestnuts.</p>
+
+<p>At the inn to which I was led the phlegmatic proprietor, after wishing
+me peace, assumed unostentatiously the becoming attitude of a Customs
+official, and scrutinized with vigor the whole of my gear, from an empty
+Calvert's tooth-powder tin to my Kodak camera, showering particularly
+condescending felicitations upon my English Barnsby saddle and
+field-glasses thereto attached.</p>
+
+<p>His excitement rose at once.</p>
+
+<p>He called loudly for his confederates&mdash;a band of inelegant infidels&mdash;and
+bidding them stand one by one at given distances, he gaped at them
+through the glasses with the hilarity of a schoolboy and the stupidity
+of an owl. He jumped, he shouted, he waved his arms about me, and
+handing them back to me with both hands, shouted deafeningly in my ear
+that they were quite beyond his ken; and then he sucked his teeth
+disgustingly and spat at my feet. His associates were speechless, asses
+that they were, and could only stare, in horror or impudence I know not.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime Lao Chang brought tea, and sallied forth immediately to
+fraternize among old friends. As I drank my tea, after having invited
+them one by one to join me, slowly and with a fitting dignity, the empty
+stare, destitute of sense or sincerity, of these six upstanding Chinese
+gentry, sucking at tobacco-pipes as long as their own overfed bodies,
+forced upon me a sense of my unfitness for the unknown conditions of the
+life of the place, a sense of loneliness and social unshelteredness in
+the sterile waste of their fashionable life. They spoke to me
+subsequently, and I bravely threw at them a Chinese phrase or two; but
+when the conversation got above my head, I told them, quietly but
+determinedly, that I could not understand, my English speech seemed
+vaguely to indicate a sudden collapse of the acquaintance, the opening
+of a gulf between us, destined to widen to the whole length and breadth
+of Yang-kai, swallowing up their erstwhile confidences. One of them
+facetiously remarked that the gentleman wished to eat his rice; and as
+they cleared out, falling over each other and the high step at the
+entrance to the room, I thought that no matter how old they are, Chinese
+are but little children. But had I treated them as little children I
+should have found that they were old men.</p>
+
+<p>There was in me withal a sense of better rank in the eyes of this
+super-excellent few who worshipped, in &quot;heathen&quot; China, the Satan of
+Fashion. As a matter of fact, their rank had emerged from such long
+centuries ago that it seemed to me to be so identified with them that
+they were hardly capable of analysis of people such as myself. As I
+looked pityingly upon them and the involved simplicity of their
+immutable natures, I realized an unconquerable feeling of inborn rank
+and natural elevation in respect to nationality. This is, however,
+against my personal general conception of Eastern peoples, but I must
+admit I felt it this afternoon. And so perhaps it is with the majority
+of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the
+language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always
+aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys
+and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or
+understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest
+lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the
+language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a
+heathen&mdash;it is easier.</p>
+
+<p>Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province
+better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives
+the most enviable spot in the province&mdash;the center of his universe.
+Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or
+sympathetically, and he is at once up against you. It may develop
+narrowness of mind and smallness of soul. We Westerners think we know
+that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be
+bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but
+a desirable citizen and a full-sized man. But no matter. The Chinese, on
+the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never
+tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial&mdash;part
+of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.
+But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in
+the world for the very same reason!</p>
+
+<p>Rationally speaking, John is the &quot;old brother&quot; of the world, oldest of
+any nation by very many centuries. In common with all other travelers
+and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
+serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
+which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
+and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
+into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
+directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
+young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
+manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
+political economy&mdash;but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
+theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
+teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of eclipses. He
+is frightened by ghosts, burns mock money to maintain his ancestors in
+the future state, worships a bit of rusty old iron as an infallible
+remedy for droughts; I have seen him shoot at clouds from the city walls
+to frighten away the rain&mdash;and I despise him for it all. As I revise
+this copy, a rumor is current in the town in which I am resting to the
+effect that foreigners are buying children and using their heads to oil
+the wheels of the new Y&uuml;n-nan railway, and I despise him for believing
+it. The Chinese will not fight, and I sneer at him; he abhors me
+because I do. I ridicule his manner of dress; he thinks mine grossly
+indecent. I consider his flat nose and the plaited hair and shaven skull
+as heathenish; but the Chinese, eating away with his to me ridiculous
+chopsticks, looks out from his quick, almond-shaped eyes and considers
+me still a foreign devil, although he is too cunning to tell me. His
+opinions of me are founded upon the narrow grounds of vanity and
+egotism; mine, although I do not admit it even to myself, from something
+very much akin thereto.<a name='FNanchor_AA_27'></a><a href='#Footnote_AA_27'><sup>[AA]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I have been looked upon in far-away outposts of the Chinese Empire where
+foreigners are still unknown, as an example of those human monstrosities
+which come from the West, a creature of a very low order of the human
+species, with a form and face uncouth, with language a hopeless jargon,
+and with manners unbearably rude and obnoxious. Not that <i>I</i> personally
+answer accurately to this description, reader, any more than you would,
+but because I happen to be among a people who, as far back as Chinese
+opinion of foreigners can be traced, have considered themselves of a
+morality and intellectuality superior to yours and mine.</p>
+
+<p>I write the foregoing because it sums up what may be termed the current
+ideas regarding Europeans, ideas the reverse of complimentary, which are
+the more unfortunate on account of the fact that they are held by the
+vast majority of a people forming a quarter of the whole human race.
+This is true, despite all the reform.</p>
+
+<p>These ideas may be, and I trust they are, erroneous, but I know that I
+must keep in mind the extremely important desideratum in dealing with
+the Chinese that they look at me&mdash;my person, my manners, my customs, my
+theories, my things&mdash;through Chinese eyes, and although mistaken,
+misled, reach their own conclusions from their own point of view. This
+is what they have been doing for centuries, but we know that it all now
+is being subjected to slow change. The original stock, however, takes on
+no change whatever, and several generations must pass before this
+transfer of mental vision can be effected, when the Chinese will view
+all things and all peoples in their true light.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning my three men were heavy. The lean fellow&mdash;I have christened
+him Shanks, a long, shambling human bag of bones&mdash;moved about painfully
+in a listless sort of way, betokening severe rheumatics; his joints
+needed oil. Four or five huge basins of steaming rice and the customary
+amount of reboiled cabbage, however, bucked him up a bit, and holding up
+a crooked, bony finger, he indicated intelligently that we had one
+hundred li to cover. Whilst engaged in conversation thus, sounds of
+early morning revelry reached me from below. My boy, his accustomed
+serenity now quite disturbed, held threateningly above the head of the
+yamen runner (who had given me a profound kotow the evening previous
+prior to taking on his duties) a length of three-inch sugar cane; he
+evidently meant to flatten him out. This I learned was because this
+shadower of the august presence wished to take Yang-lin (about 60 li
+away) instead of going to Ch'ang-p'o (100 li) as I intended. I got him
+in, looked him as squarely in the face as it is possible when a Chinese
+wants to evade your scrutiny, told him I wished to go to Ch'ang-p'o, and
+that I hoped I should have the pleasure of his company thus far. He
+replied with a grinning smile, which one could easily have taken for a
+smiling grin&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, yes, foreign mandarin, Ch'ang-p'o&mdash;100 li&mdash;foreign mandarin,
+foreign mandarin.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>And I thought the incident closed. Such is the appalling gullibility of
+the Englishman in China.</p>
+
+<p>We stopped for tea at a small hamlet ten li out. The place was deserted
+save for a small starving boy, whose chief attention was given to
+laborious endeavors to make his clothing meet in certain necessary
+areas. He evidently had never seen a foreigner. As he directed his
+optics towards me he winced visibly. He walked round me several times,
+fell over a grimy pail of soap-suds, stopped, gazed in enraptured
+enchantment with parted lips and outstretched arms as if he had begun to
+suspect what it was before him. To the eye of the beholder, however, he
+gazed as yet only on vacancy, but just as I was about to attempt
+self-explanation he was gone, tearing away down the hill as fast as his
+legs could carry him, the ragged remains of his father's trousers
+flapping gently in the breeze. As I rose to leave crackers frightened my
+pony, followed, in a few moments by a howling, hooting, unreasonable
+rabble from a temple near by. I found it was the result of a village
+squabble. I could scarce keep the order of my march as I left the
+tea-shop, so roughly was I handled by the irritated and impatient crowd,
+and had much ado to refrain from responding wrathfully to the repeated
+jeers of impudent, half-grown beggars of both sexes who helped to swell
+the riotous cortege. But through it all none of the insults were meant
+for me, so Lao Chang told me, and they did not mean to treat me with
+discourtesy.</p>
+
+<p>Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for
+irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the
+ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous
+wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the
+moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black
+and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image
+of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery,
+exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep
+discouragement. I came across some women mock-weeping for the dead: at
+their elbow two girls were washing clothes, and when little children,
+catching sight of me, ran to their mothers, the women stopped their
+hulla-baloo, had a good stare at me, exchanged a few words of mutual
+inquiry, and then resumed their bellowing.</p>
+
+<p>Soon it became quite warm, and walking was pleasant. I was startled by
+the <i>fu-song</i>,<a name='FNanchor_AB_28'></a><a href='#Footnote_AB_28'><sup>[AB]</sup></a> who invited me to go to a neighboring town for tea. My
+men were far behind. I was at his mercy, so I went. Soon I found myself
+passing through the city gates of Yang-lin, the very town I was trying
+to keep away from. The yamen fellow turned back at me and chuckled
+rudely to himself. I insisted that I did not wish to take tea; he
+insisted that I should&mdash;I must. He led me to an inn in the main street,
+arrangements were made to house me, old men and young lads gathered to
+welcome me as a lost brother, and the <i>fu-song</i> told me graciously that
+he was going to the magistrate. In cruel English, with many wildly
+threatening gestures, did I protest, and the people laughed
+acquiescingly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Puh tong, puh tong, you gaping idiots!&quot; I repeated, and it caused more
+glee.</p>
+
+<p>Swinging myself past them all, I dragged my stubborn pony through the
+mob to the gate by which I had entered. My men were not to be found. I
+did not know the road nor much of the language. I sat down on a granite
+pillar to undergo an embarrassing half-hour. Presently my men hailed me,
+and approaching, swore with imposing loftiness at the discomfited guide.
+My bull-dog coolie dropped his loads, the <i>fu-song</i> somehow lost his
+footing, I yelled &quot;Ts'eo&quot; (&quot;Go&quot;), and with a cheer the caravan
+proceeded.</p>
+
+<p>The following day we were at the capital.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_Z_26'></a><a href='#FNanchor_Z_26'>[Z]</a><div class='note'><p> I took a pony because I had made up my mind to return into
+China after I had reached Burma. In Tong-ch'uan-fu a good pony can be
+bought for, say, <i>&pound;3</i>&mdash;in Burma, the same pony would sell for &pound;10.
+</p><p>
+&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AA_27'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AA_27'>[AA]</a><div class='note'><p> For further excellent descriptions of the Chinese nature I
+refer the reader to Chester Holcombe's <i>China: Past and
+Present</i>.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AB_28'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AB_28'>[AB]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>i.e.</i> Yamen escort.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p>Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL.</p>
+
+<p><i>Access to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu</i>. <i>Concentrated reform</i>. <i>Tribute to Hsi Liang<i>.
+</i>Conservatism and progress</i>. <i>The Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway</i>. <i>The Y&uuml;n-nan
+army</i>. <i>Author's views in 1909 and 1910 contrasted</i>. <i>Phenomenal forward
+march, and what it means</i>. <i>Danger of too much drill</i>. <i>International
+aspect on the frontier</i>. <i>The police</i>. <i>Street improvements</i>. <i>Visit to
+the gaol, and a description</i>. <i>The Young Pretender to the Chinese
+throne</i>. <i>How the prison is conducted</i>. <i>The schools</i>. <i>Visit to the
+university, and a description</i>. <i>Riot among the students</i>. <i>Visit to the
+Agricultural School, and a description</i>. <i>Silk industry of Y&uuml;n-nan.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to-day is as accessible as Peking. After many weary years the
+Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan railway is now an accomplished fact, and links this
+capital city with Haiphong in three days.</p>
+
+<p>Reform concentrates at the capital. The man who visited Y&uuml;n-nan-fu
+twenty, or even ten years ago, would be astounded, were he to go there
+now, at the improvements visible, on every hand. A building on foreign
+lines was then a thing unknown, and the conservative Viceroy, Tseng Kong
+Pao, the decapitator in his time of thousands upon thousands of human
+beings, would turn in his grave if he could behold the utter
+annihilation of his pet &quot;feng shui,&quot; which has followed in the wake of
+the good works done by the late loved Viceroy, Hsi Liang.</p>
+
+<p>The name of Hsi Liang is revered in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan as the most
+able man who has ever ruled the two provinces of Y&uuml;n-nan and Kwei-chow,
+a man of keen intellectuality and courtly manner, and notorious as being
+the only Mongolian in the service of China's Government. I lived in
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu for several weeks at a stretch, and since then have made
+frequent visits, and knowing the enormous strides being made towards
+acquiring Occidental methods, I now find it difficult to write with
+absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be
+the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of
+any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the
+same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no
+subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound
+generalization, one has to forego much temptation to &quot;color&quot; if he would
+be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues
+agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and
+character as a whole, so glaring are the inconsistencies of the Chinese
+nature. And as one sees for himself in this great city, particularly in
+official life, the businesslike practicability on the one hand and the
+utter absurdity of administration on the other, in all modes and
+methods, one is almost inclined to drop his pen in disgust at being
+unable to come to any concrete conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>Of no province in China more than of Y&uuml;n-nan is this true.</p>
+
+<p>Reform and immovable conservatism go hand in hand. Men of the most
+dissimilar ambitions compose the <i>corps diplomatique</i>, and are willing
+to join hands to propagate their main beliefs; and when one writes of
+progress&mdash;in railways, in the army, in gaols, in schools, in public
+works, in no matter what&mdash;one is ever confronted by that dogged
+immutability which characterizes the older school.</p>
+
+<p>So that in writing of things Y&uuml;n-nanese in this great city it is
+imperative for me to state bare facts as they stand now, and make little
+comment.</p>
+
+<p>THE RAILWAY</p>
+
+<p>The Tonkin-Y&uuml;n-nan Railway, linking the interior with the coast, is one
+of the world's most interesting engineering romances. This artery of
+steel is probably the most expensive railway of its kind, from the
+constructional standpoint. In some districts seven thousand pounds per
+mile was the cost, and it is probable that six thousand pounds sterling
+per mile would not be a bad estimate of the total amount appropriated
+for the construction of the line from a loan of 200,000,000 francs asked
+for in 1898 by the Colonial Council in connection with the program for a
+network of railways in and about French Indo-China.</p>
+
+<p>To Lao-kay there are no less than one hundred and seventy-five bridges.</p>
+
+<p>The completion of this line realizes in part the ambition of a
+celebrated Frenchman, who&mdash;once a printer, 'tis said, in Paris&mdash;dropped
+into the political flower-bed, and blossomed forth in due course as
+Governor-General of Indo-China. When Paul Doumer, for it was he, went
+east in 1897, he felt it his mission to put France, politically and
+commercially, on as good a footing as any of her rivals, notably Great
+Britain. It did not take him long to see that the best missionaries in
+his cause would be the railways. At the time of writing (June, 1910) I
+cannot but think that profit on this railway will be a long time coming,
+and there are some in the capital who doubt whether the commercial
+possibilities of Y&uuml;n-nan justified this huge expenditure on railway
+construction. Whilst authorities differ, I personally believe that the
+ultimate financial success of the venture is assured. There are markets
+crying out to be quickly fed with foreign goods, and it is my opinion
+that the French will be the suppliers of those goods. British enterprise
+is so weak that we cannot capture the greater portion of the growing
+foreign trade, and must feel thankful if we can but retain what trade we
+have, and supply those exports with which the French have no possibility
+of competing.</p>
+
+<p>THE MILITARY</p>
+
+<p>The foreigner in Y&uuml;n-nan-fu can never rest unless he is used to the
+sounds of the bugle and the hustling spirit of the men of war.</p>
+
+<p>In standard works on Chinese armaments no mention is ever made of the
+Y&uuml;n-nan army, and statistics are hard to get. But it is evident that the
+cult of the military stands paramount, and it has to be conceded, even
+by the most pessimistic critics of this backward province, that the new
+troops are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-organized to
+crush any rebellion. This must be counted a very fair result, since it
+has been attained in about two years. A couple of years ago Y&uuml;n-nan had
+practically no army&mdash;none more than the military ragtags of the old
+school, whose chief weapon of war was the opium pipe. But now there are
+ten thousand troops&mdash;not units on paper, but men in
+uniform&mdash;well-drilled for the most part and of excellent physique, who
+could take the field at once. The question of the Y&uuml;n-nan army is one of
+international interest: the French are on the south, Great Britain on
+the west.</p>
+
+<p>On June 2nd, 1909, I rode out to the magnificent training ground, then
+being completed, and on that date wrote the following in my diary:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I watched for an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their
+daily drill&mdash;typical tin soldiery and a military sham.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Only with the merest notion of matters military were most of the men
+conversant, and alike in ordinary marching&mdash;when it was most difficult
+for them even to maintain regularity of step&mdash;or in more complicated
+drilling, there was a lack of the right spirit, no go, no gusto&mdash;scores
+and scores of them running round doing something, going through a
+routine, with the knowledge that when it was finished they would get
+their rice and be happy. Everyone who possesses but a rudimentary
+knowledge of the Chinese knows that he troubles most about the two
+meals every day should bring him, and this seems to be the pervading
+line of thought of seven-eighths of the men I saw on the padang at
+drill. Officers strutting about in peacock fashion, with a sword
+dangling at their side, showed no inclination to enforce order, and the
+rank and file knew their methods, so that the disorder and haphazardness
+of the whole thing was absolutely mutual.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whilst I was on the field gazing in anything but admiration on the
+scene, I was ordered out by one of the khaki-clad officers in a most
+unceremonious manner. Seeing me, he shouted at the top of his thick
+voice, 'Ch'u-k'&uuml;, ch'u-k'&uuml;' (an expression meaning 'Go out!'&mdash;commonly
+used to drive away dogs), and simultaneously waved his sword in the air
+as if to say, 'Another step, and I'll have your head.' And, of course,
+there being nothing else to do, I 'ch'u-k'&uuml;d,' but in a fashion
+befitting the dignity of an English traveler.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The reorganization of the army, with the acceleration of warlike
+preparedness, has the advantage that it appeals to the embryonic feeling
+of national patriotism, and affords a tangible expression of the desire
+to be on terms of equality with the foreigner. That officer never had a
+prouder moment in his life than when he ordered a distinguished
+foreigner from the drilling ground, of which he was for the time the
+lordly comptroller. And it may be added that the foreigner can remember
+no occasion when he felt 'smaller,' or more completely shrivelled.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Whilst it is safe to infer that the motives that underlie the
+significant access of activity in military matters in Y&uuml;n-nan differ in
+no way from those which have led to the feverish increase in armaments
+in other parts of the world, such ideas that have yet been formed on
+actual preparations for possible war are most crude. On paper the
+appointments in the army and the accuracy of the figures of the
+complement of rank and file admit of no question, but the practical
+utility of their labors is quite another matter, and a matter which does
+not appear to produce among the army officials any great mental
+disturbance in their delusion that they are progressing. Y&uuml;n-nan is in
+need of military reform, reform which will embrace a start from the very
+beginning, and one of the first steps that should be taken is that those
+who are to be in the position of administering training should find out
+something about western military affairs, and so be in a position of
+knowing what they are doing.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year.
+Now&mdash;in June of 1910&mdash;I have to write of enormous improvements and
+revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the
+general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Y&uuml;n-nan is
+still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many
+elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or
+less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial
+question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining
+question, are still &quot;in the air&quot;&mdash;the unknown <i>x</i> in the equation, as it
+were&mdash;but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be
+followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will,
+her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the
+destiny of Y&uuml;n-nan herself, and she is working hard&mdash;the West has no
+conception how hard&mdash;so as to be able to be in a position of
+safeguarding&mdash;vigorously, if necessary&mdash;her own borders.</p>
+
+<p>One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion,
+would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Y&uuml;n-nan. Skirmishings
+on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers
+are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common
+people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take
+place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the
+soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously
+remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
+would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
+for drilling him so hard and long.</p>
+
+<p>What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
+be true also of Tali-fu.</p>
+
+<p>A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
+nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
+enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
+dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
+drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
+necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
+of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
+rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
+dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
+have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
+taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks&mdash;a sign in
+itself of the altered conditions of the times&mdash;and I visited some
+extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
+thousand gold dollars.</p>
+
+<p>Military progress in this &quot;backward province&quot; is as great as it has been
+anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.</p>
+
+<p>THE POLICE</p>
+
+<p>Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the
+necessary evil of a standing army, so did Y&uuml;n-nan-fu slumber on in the
+Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking
+into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material,
+the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be
+found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old
+London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and
+well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of
+the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is
+substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should
+ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be &quot;run in&quot;
+in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone
+will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest
+intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn
+kind&mdash;that is, if the Y&uuml;n-nan police shall ever have made strides
+towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their
+place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
+less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover&mdash;when will
+the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?&mdash;is certainly being put
+down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
+they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
+dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
+throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
+been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
+the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>THE GAOL</p>
+
+<p>A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
+prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
+entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
+which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
+reception-room. There was nothing &quot;quadlike&quot; about the place. This
+reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
+prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
+curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
+scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
+wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
+extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
+prison&mdash;one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.</p>
+
+<p>After we had drunk each other's health&mdash;I sincerely trust that the cute,
+courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
+of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
+me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
+mundane things&mdash;I was led away to the prison proper.</p>
+
+<p>This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
+building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
+covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
+and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
+with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
+stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
+building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
+accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
+present confined within its walls.</p>
+
+<p>After an hour's inspection, I came to the conclusion that the lot of the
+prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
+the time&mdash;three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
+much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
+came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
+outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
+their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
+emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
+grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
+waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
+Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
+important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
+machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
+per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
+does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
+English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
+but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
+rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
+rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
+pewter workers, some of their products&mdash;turned out with most primitive
+tools&mdash;being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
+chair, made of iron&mdash;a sort of miniature garden seat&mdash;and from this
+pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
+selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
+mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
+were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
+shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
+same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
+however, exceedingly interesting to watch.</p>
+
+<p>As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
+sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
+and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
+claimed, abolished in Y&uuml;n-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
+day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
+exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
+could not break his men of the habit. But we remember that the
+physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.</p>
+
+<p>Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
+heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
+frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
+bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
+Y&uuml;n-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
+history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
+The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
+At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
+aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
+Y&uuml;n-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
+and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
+pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
+The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
+the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
+congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
+immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
+existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
+miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Y&uuml;n-nan
+dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.</p>
+
+<p>Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
+trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
+The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
+throne&mdash;father, mother, brothers, sisters&mdash;were all put to death, most
+of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
+victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
+everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
+soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
+breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
+meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
+arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
+training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
+can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
+his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
+tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
+shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
+is doubtful whether the authorities&mdash;or even the emperor himself&mdash;will
+mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
+nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
+teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
+Heaven&mdash;he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
+enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy&mdash;no playmates, no
+toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows&mdash;in
+surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.</p>
+
+<p>This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
+rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
+that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
+express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
+visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
+me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
+the prison&mdash;containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
+doctor.</p>
+
+<p>I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
+farewell, left him in a happy mood.</p>
+
+<p>THE SCHOOLS</p>
+
+<p>One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Y&uuml;n-nan. Yet
+such is the case.</p>
+
+<p>In former days&mdash;and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day&mdash;the
+prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
+an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
+Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
+country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
+educated man was then a potential school master&mdash;this was certainly true
+of Y&uuml;n-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
+the phrase &quot;China for the Chinese&quot; gains forceful meaning among the
+people.</p>
+
+<p>The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
+for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
+China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
+architect&mdash;a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
+mathematics&mdash;and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
+long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
+from a purely architectural standpoint.</p>
+
+<p>Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
+thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and possesses conveniences
+and improvements quite comparable to the ordinary college of the West.
+For instance, as I passed through the many admirably-equipped
+schoolrooms, well ventilated and airy, I saw an Italian who was laying
+in the electric light,<a name='FNanchor_AC_29'></a><a href='#Footnote_AC_29'><sup>[AC]</sup></a> the power for which was generated by an
+immense dynamo at the basement, upon which alone twenty thousand taels
+were spent. Thirty professors have the control of thirty-two classrooms,
+teaching among other subjects mathematics, music, languages (chiefly
+English and Japanese), geography, chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany,
+and so on. The museum, situated in the center of the building, does not
+contain as many specimens as one would imagine quite easily obtainable,
+but there are certainly some capital selections of things natural to
+this part of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>The authorities probably thought I was rather a queer foreigner, wanting
+to see everything there was to see inside the official barriers in the
+city. Day after day I was making visits to places where foreigners
+seldom have entered, and I do not doubt that the officials, whilst
+treating me with the utmost deference and extreme punctiliousness,
+thought I was a sort of British spy.</p>
+
+<p>When I went to the Agricultural School, probably the most interesting
+visit I made, I was met by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a keen
+fellow, who spoke English well, and who, having been trained at
+Shanghai, and therefore understanding the idiosyncrasies of the
+foreigner's character, was invited to entertain. And this he did, but he
+was careful that he did not give away much information regarding the
+progress that the Y&uuml;n-nanese, essentially sons of the soil, are making
+in agriculture. For this School of Agriculture is an important adjunct.</p>
+
+<p>Scholars are taken on an agreement for three years, during which time
+they are fed and housed at the expense of the school; if they leave
+during the specified period they are fined heavily. No less than 180
+boys, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three, are being trained here, with
+about 120 paid apprentices. Three Japanese professors are employed&mdash;one
+at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and two others at three
+hundred, the latter having charge of the fruit and forest trees and the
+former of vegetables.</p>
+
+<p>In years to come the silk industry of Y&uuml;n-nan will rank among the chief,
+and the productions will rank among the best of all the eighteen
+provinces. There are no less than ten thousand mulberry trees in the
+school grounds for feeding the worms; four thousand catties of leaves
+are used every day for their food; five hundred immense trays of
+silkworms are constantly at work here. The worms are in the charge of
+scholars, whose names appear on the various racks under their charge,
+and the fact that feeding takes place every two hours, day and night, is
+sufficient testimony that the boys go into their work with commendable
+energy. As I was being escorted around the building, through shed after
+shed filled with these trays of silkworms, several of the scholars made
+up a sort of procession, and waited for the eulogy that I freely
+bestowed. In another building small boys were spinning the silk, and
+farther down the weavers were busy with their primitive machinery, with
+which, however, they were turning out silk that could be sold in London
+at a very big price. The colorings were specially beautiful, and the
+figuring quite good, although the head-master of the school told me that
+he hoped for improvements in that direction. And I, looking wise,
+although knowing little about silk and its manufacture, heartily agreed
+with the little fat man.</p>
+
+<p>There is a department for women also, and contrary to custom, I had a
+look around here, too. The girls were particularly smart at spinning.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AC_29'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AC_29'>[AC]</a><div class='note'><p> Soon afterwards a disturbance occurred among the students,
+and had it not been for the promptitude of the inspector, some of them
+might have lost their heads.
+</p><p>
+The electric light had just been laid in, and was working so well that
+the authorities found it imperative to charge each of the 400 resident
+students one dollar per month for the upkeep. This simple edict was the
+cause of the riot In a body the boys rolled up their pukais, and marched
+down to the main entrance, declaring that they were determined to resign
+if the order was not rescinded. The inspector, however, had had all the
+doors locked. The frenzied students broke these open, and incidentally
+thrashed some of the caretakers for interfering in matters which were
+not considered to be strictly their business.
+</p><p>
+Subsequently the Chancellor of Education visited the college in person,
+but no heed was paid to his exhortations, and it was only when the
+dollar charge for lighting was reduced that peace was restored.
+</p><p>
+The Chancellor, as a last word, told them that if they vacated their
+schoolrooms a fine of about a hundred taels would be imposed upon each
+man.
+</p><p>
+The occasion was marked by all the foolish ardor one finds among college
+boys at home, and it seems that, despite the enormous amount of money
+the college is costing to run, the students are somewhat out of
+hand.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='SECOND_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>SECOND JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU)</h4>
+
+<br />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stages to Tali-fu</i>. <i>Worst roads yet experienced</i>. <i>Stampede among
+ponies</i>. <i>Hybrid crowd at Anning-cheo</i>. <i>Simplicity of life of common
+people</i>. <i>Does China want the foreigner? Straits Settlements and China
+Proper compared</i>. <i>China's aspect of her own position</i>. <i>Renaissance of
+Chinese military power</i>. <i>Europeans</i> NOT <i>wanted in the Empire</i>.
+<i>Emptiness of the lives of the common people</i>. <i>Author erects a printing
+machine in Inland China</i>. <i>National conceit</i>. <i>Differences in make-up of
+the Hua Miao and the Han Ren</i>. <i>The Hua Miao and what they are doing</i>.
+<i>Emancipation of their women</i>. <i>Tribute to Protestant missionaries</i>.
+<i>Betrothal and marriage in China</i>. <i>Miao women lead a life of shame and
+misery</i>. <i>Crude ideas among Chinese regarding age of foreigners</i>. <i>Musty
+man and dusty traveller at Lao-ya-kwan</i>. <i>Intense cold</i>. <i>Salt trade</i>.
+<i>Parklike scenery, pleasant travel, solitude.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>From the figures of heights appearing below, one would imagine that
+between the capital and Tali-fu hard climbing is absent. But during each
+stage, with the exception of the journey from Sei-tze to Sha-chiao-kai,
+there is considerable fatiguing uphill and downhill work, each evening
+bringing one to approximately the same level as that from which he
+started his morning tramp. I went by the following route:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of stage</td><td align='center'>Height above sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Anning-cheo</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Lao-ya-kwan</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day&mdash;Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien</td><td align='center'>75 li</td><td align='center'>5,500 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Sei-tze</td><td align='center'>80 li</td><td align='center'>6,100 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Kwang-tung-hsien</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Rest day.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Ch'u-hsiong-fu</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>6,150 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8th day&mdash;Luho-kai</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>9th day&mdash;Sha-chiao-kai</td><td align='center'>65 li</td><td align='center'>6,400 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>10th day&mdash;Pu-p&ecirc;ng</td><td align='center'>90 li</td><td align='center'>7,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>11th day&mdash;Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;</td><td align='center'>65 li</td><td align='center'>6,800 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>12th day&mdash;Hungay</td><td align='center'>80 li</td><td align='center'>6,000 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>14th day&mdash;Chao-chow</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,750 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>15th day&mdash;Tali-fu</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>6,700 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>A long, winding and physically-exhausting road took me from
+Sha-chiao-kai to Yin-wa-kwan, the most elevated pass between Y&uuml;n-nan-fu
+and Tali-fu, and continued over barren mountains, bereft of shelter, and
+void of vegetation and people, to Pup&ecirc;ng. A rough climb of an hour and a
+half then took me to the top of the next mountain, where roads and ruts
+followed a high plateau for about thirty li, and with a precipitous
+descent I entered the plain of Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;. Then over and between barren
+hills, passing a small lake and plain with the considerable town of
+Y&uuml;n-nan-hsien ten li to the right, I continued in a narrow valley and
+over mountains in the same uncultivated condition to Hungay, situated in
+a swampy valley. Having crossed this valley, another rough climb brings
+the traveler to the top of the next pass, Ting-chi-ling, whence the road
+descends, and leads by a well-cultivated valley to Chao-chow. After an
+easy thirty li we reached Hsiakwan,<a name='FNanchor_AD_30'></a><a href='#Footnote_AD_30'><sup>[AD]</sup></a> one of the largest commercial
+cities in the province, lying at the foot of the most magnificent
+mountain range in Y&uuml;n-nan, and by the side of the most famous lake. A
+paved road takes one in to his destination at Tali-fu, where I was
+welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Clark, of the China Inland Mission, and
+hospitably entertained for a couple of days.</p>
+
+<p>The roads in general from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Tali-fu were worse than any I
+have met from Chung-king onwards, partly owing to the mountainous
+condition of the country, and partly to neglect of maintenance.</p>
+
+<p>Where the road is paved, it is in most places worse than if it had not
+been paved at all, as neither skill nor common sense seems to have been
+exercised in the work. It is probably safe to say that there are no
+ancient roads in Y&uuml;n-nan, in the sense of the constructed highways which
+have lasted through the centuries, for the civilization of the early
+Y&uuml;n-nanese was not equal to such works. As a matter of fact, the
+condition of the roads is all but intolerable. Many were never made, and
+are seldom mended&mdash;one may say that with very few exceptions they are
+never repaired, except when utterly impassable, and then in the most
+make-shift manner.</p>
+
+<p>My highly-strung Rusty received a shock to his nervous system as I led
+him leisurely from the incline leading into Anning-cheo (6,300 feet),
+through the arched gateway in a pagoda-like entrance, which when new
+would have been a credit to any city. The stones of the main street were
+so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of
+their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground
+behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed
+themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter
+towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men
+caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and
+trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was
+being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped
+unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town&mdash;the
+market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of
+blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar,
+as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed
+long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front,
+pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the
+other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me
+more knocks.</p>
+
+<p>It was an awful crowd&mdash;Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of
+hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be
+called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people,
+their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own
+Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their
+homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted
+with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high
+civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired
+people living a simple, unsophisticated life. All the strength of the
+world and all its beauties, all true joy, everything that consoles, that
+feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything
+that enables us to discern across our poor lives a splendid goal and a
+boundless future, comes to us from true simplicity. I do not say that we
+get all this from the Chinese, but in many ways they can teach us how to
+live in the <i>spirit of simplicity</i>. They were living from hand to mouth,
+with seemingly no anxieties at all&mdash;and yet, too, they were living
+without God, and with very little hope.</p>
+
+<p>And here the foreigner re-appeared to disturb them. Even in Anning-cheo,
+only a day from the capital, I was regarded as a being of another
+species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.</p>
+
+<p>No international question has become more hackneyed than &quot;Does China
+want the foreigner?&quot; Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time
+been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men
+supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting
+with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his
+advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general
+assent come to be understood that China <i>does</i> want the foreigner. But
+those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their
+inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still
+ask, &quot;Does she?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having
+trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff&mdash;without whom few
+businesses in the Far East can make progress&mdash;my argument may seem to
+have no <i>raison d'etre</i>. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the
+absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First,
+they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great
+nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone
+doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for
+closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more
+than mere superficial dealings with them?</p>
+
+<p>Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large
+commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or
+out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance
+and remarkable business acumen and integrity.</p>
+
+<p>As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of
+people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the
+Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born
+Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese
+and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in
+their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an
+infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior
+entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where
+Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred
+towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one
+not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the
+brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner in civilized parts
+of China&mdash;and impossible for the great preponderance of the European
+peoples at home&mdash;to grasp the fact that in huge tracts of Interior China
+the populace have never seen a foreigner, save for the ubiquitous
+missionary, who takes on more often than not the dress of the native.</p>
+
+<p>Although the Chinese Government recognizes the dangerous situation of
+the nation <i>vis-&agrave;-vis</i> with nations of Europe, and has ratified one
+treaty after another with us, the nation itself does not, so far as the
+traveler can see, appreciate the fact that she cannot possibly resist
+the white man, and hold herself in seclusion as formerly from the
+Western world. China is discovering&mdash;has discovered officially, although
+that does not necessarily mean nationally&mdash;as Japan did so admirably
+when her progress was most marked, that steam and machinery have made
+the world too small for any part thereof to separate itself entirely
+from the broadening current of the world's life.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst not for a moment failing to admire the aggressive character of
+Occidentals, and the resultant necessity of thwarting them&mdash;we see[1]
+this especially in official circles in Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;Chinese leaders of
+thought and activity are recognizing that in international relations the
+final appeal can be only to a superior power, and that power, to be
+superior, must be thorough, and thorough throughout. So different to
+what has held good in China for countless ages. That is why China is
+making sure of her army, and why she will have ready in 1912&mdash;ten years
+before the period originally intended&mdash;no less than thirty-six
+divisions, each division formed of ten thousand units.[A] China is now
+endeavoring to walk the ground which led Japan to greatness among the
+nations&mdash;she takes Japan as her pattern, and thinks that what Japan has
+done she can do&mdash;and, officially abandoning her long course of
+self-sufficient isolation, is plunging into the flood of international
+progress, determined to acquire all the knowledge she can, and thus win
+for herself a place among the Powers.</p>
+
+<p>But I am in Y&uuml;n-nan, and things move slowly here.</p>
+
+<p>All this does not mean that my presence is desired, or that fear of me,
+the foreigner, has ceased. On the contrary, it signifies that I am more
+greatly to be feared. The European is <i>not</i> wanted in China, no matter
+how absurd it may seem to the student of international politics, who
+sits and devours all the newspaper copy&mdash;good, bad and
+indifferent&mdash;which filters through regarding China becoming the El
+Dorado of the Westerner. He is wanted for no other reason than that of
+teaching the Chinese to foreignize as much as he can, teaching the
+leaders of the people to strive to modify national life, and to raise
+public conduct and administration to the best standards of the West.</p>
+
+<p>When China is capable of looking after herself, and able to maintain the
+position she is securing by the aid of the foreigner in her provinces,
+following her present mode of thought and action, the foreigner may go
+back again. But it is to be hoped that the evolution of the country will
+be different.</p>
+
+<p>Another feature impressed upon me was the emptiness of the lives of the
+people. Education was rare, and any education they had was confined to
+the Chinese classics.</p>
+
+<p>Neither of the three men I had with me could read or write. The thoughts
+of these people are circumscribed by the narrow world in which they
+live, and only a chance traveler such as myself allows them a glimpse of
+other places. Each man, with rare exception, lives and labors and dies
+where he is born&mdash;that is his ambition; and in the midst of a people
+whose whole outlook of life is so contracted, I find difficulty in
+believing that progress such as Japan made in her memorable fifty-year
+forward movement will be made by the Chinese of Y&uuml;n-nan in two hundred
+years. Everything one can see around him here, at this town of
+Anning-cheo, seems to make against it. In my dealings with Chinese in
+their own country&mdash;I speak broadly&mdash;I have found that they &quot;know
+everything.&quot; I erected a printing-press in Tong-ch'uan-fu some months
+ago&mdash;a type of the old flat handpress not unlike that first used by
+Caxton. It was a part of the equipment of the Ai Kueh Hsieh Tang (Love
+of Country School), and I was invited by the gentry to erect it. Now the
+thing had not been up an hour before all the old fossils in the place
+knew all about it. Printing to them was easy&mdash;a child could do it. It is
+always, &quot;O ren teh, o ren teh&quot; (&quot;I know, I know&quot;). These men, dressed in
+their best, stood with arms behind them, and smiled stupidly as I
+labored with my coat off fixing their primitive machinery. Yet they did
+<i>not</i> know, and now, within a few months, not a sheet has been printed,
+and the whole plant is going to rack and ruin.</p>
+
+<p>This is the difference between the Chinese and the tribespeople of
+Y&uuml;n-nan. Here we see the god of the missionary again, quite apart from
+any religious basis. The tribesman comes and lays himself at the feet of
+the missionary, and says at once, &quot;I do not know. Tell me, and I will
+follow you. I want to learn.&quot; That is why it is that the Chinese stand
+open-eyed and open-mouthed when they see the Miao making strides
+altogether impossible to themselves, in proportion to their standard of
+civilization, and this position of things will not be altered, unless
+they cease to deceive themselves. I have seen a Miao boy of nine who
+never in his life had seen a Chinese character, who did not know that
+school existed and, whose only tutoring depended on the week's visit of
+the missionary twice a year. I have seen this youngster read off a sheet
+of Chinese characters no Chinese boy of his age in the whole city would
+succeed in. I have not been brought into contact with any other tribe as
+I have with the Hua Miao.[1]</p>
+
+<p>But if the progress this once-despised people are making is maintained,
+the Y&uuml;n-nanese will very soon be left behind in the matter of practical
+scholarship. These Miao live the simplest of simple lives, but they wish
+to become better&mdash;to live purer lives, to become civilized, to be
+uplifted; and therefore they are most humble, most approachable, and are
+slowly evolving into a happy position of proud independence. Education
+among the Hua Miao is not lost: among the Chinese much of the labor put
+forward in endeavors to educate them is lost, or seems to bear no
+immediate fruit. The Miao are living by confidence and hope that turns
+towards the future; the Y&uuml;n-nanese are content with their confidence in
+the past. The Miao, however, were not like this always&mdash;but a few years
+ago they were not heard of outside China.</p>
+
+<p>The coming emancipation of their women, demands some attention. The few
+Europeans who have lived among the multitudes in Central China would not
+associate beds of roses with the lives of the women anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The daughter is seldom happy, and unless the wife present her husband
+with sons, who will perpetuate the father's name and burn incense at his
+tablet after his death, her life is more often than not made absolutely
+unbearable&mdash;a fact more than any other one thing responsible for the
+numerous suicides. She is the drudge, the slave of the man. And the
+popular belief is that all the women of the Middle Kingdom are
+essentially Chinese; but little is heard of the tribespeople&mdash;more
+numerous probably than in any other given area in all the world&mdash;whose
+womankind are as far removed from the Chinese in language, habits and
+customs as English ladies of to-day are removed from Grecians. A decade
+or so ago no one heard of the Miao women: they were the lowest of the
+low, having no <i>status</i>. They were far worse off than their Chinese
+sisters, who, no matter what they had to endure after marriage, were
+certainly safeguarded by law and etiquette allowing them to enter the
+married state with respectability; but no social laws, no social ties
+protect the Miao women.</p>
+
+<p>Until a few years ago their &quot;club&quot; was a common brothel, too horrible to
+describe in the English language. As soon as a girl gave birth to her
+first child she came down on the father to keep her. In many cases, it
+is only fair to say, they lived together faithfully as man and wife,
+although such cases were not by any means in the majority. The poor
+creatures herded together in their unspeakable vice and infamy, with no
+shame or common modesty, fighting for the wherewithal to live, and only
+by chance living regularly with one man, and then only just so long as
+he wished. Little girls of ten and over regularly attended these awful
+hovels, and children grew out of their childhood with no other vision
+than that of entering into the disgraceful life as early as Nature would
+allow them. It meant little less than that practically the whole of the
+population was illegitimate, viewed from a Western standpoint. No such
+thing as marriage existed. Men and women cohabited in this horrible orgy
+of existence, with the result that murder, disease and pestilence were
+rife among them. It was only a battle of the survival of the fittest to
+pursue so terrible a life. Nearly all the people were diseased by the
+transgression of Nature's laws.</p>
+
+<p>After a time, however, through the instrumentality of Protestant
+missionaries, these wretched people began to see the light of
+civilization. Gradually, and of their own free will, the girls gave up
+their accursed dens of misery and shame, and the men lived more in
+accord with social law and order.</p>
+
+<p>The Miao, too, had hitherto been dependent for their literature upon the
+Chinese character, which only a few could understand. Soon they had
+literature in their own language,<a name='FNanchor_AE_31'></a><a href='#Footnote_AE_31'><sup>[AE]</sup></a> and a great social reform set in.
+They showed a desire for Western learning such as has seldom been seen
+among any people in China&mdash;these were people lowest down in the social
+scale; and now the latest phase is the establishment of bethrothal and
+marriage laws, calculated to revolutionize the community and to
+introduce what in China is the equivalent for home life.</p>
+
+<p>Betrothal among the Chinese is a matter with which the parties most
+deeply concerned have little to do. Their parents engage a go-between or
+match-maker, and another point is that there is no age limit. Not so now
+with the Christian Miao. No paid go-between is engaged, and brides are
+to be at a minimum age of eighteen years, and bridegrooms twenty. The
+establishment of these laws will, it is hoped, make for the emancipation
+from a life of the most dreadful misery of thousands of women in one of
+the darkest countries of the earth.<a name='FNanchor_AF_32'></a><a href='#Footnote_AF_32'><sup>[AF]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>But now the Miao is pressing forward under his burdens, to guide himself
+in the struggle, to retrieve his falls and his failures; and in the
+future lies his hope&mdash;the indomitable hope upon which the interest of
+humanity is based&mdash;and he has in addition the grand expectation of
+escaping despair even in death. It is all the praiseworthy work of our
+fellow-countrymen, living isolated lives among the people, building up a
+worthy Christian structure upon Miao simplicity and humble fidelity to
+the foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>But I digress from my travel.</p>
+
+<p>Little out of the ordinary marked my travels to Lao-ya-kwan (6,800
+feet), an easy stage. My meager tiffin at an insignificant mountain
+village was, as usual, an educational lesson to the natives. Each tin
+that came from my food basket&mdash;one's servant delighted to lay out the
+whole business&mdash;underwent the severest criticism tempered with unmeaning
+eulogy, picked up and put down by perhaps a score of people, who did not
+mean to be rude. When I used their chopsticks&mdash;dirty little pieces of
+bamboo&mdash;in a manner very far removed from their natural method, they
+were proud of me. Outrageously panegyric references were made when an
+old man, scratching at his disagreeable itch-sores under my nose,
+clipped a youngster's ear for hazarding my age to be less than that of
+any of the bystanders, the length of my moustache and a three-day growth
+on my chin giving them the opinion that I was certainly over sixty.<a name='FNanchor_AG_33'></a><a href='#Footnote_AG_33'><sup>[AG]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I entered Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was
+to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and
+filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the &quot;hsi-lien&quot;
+(wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking
+musty and mean and dusty, with my topee botched and battered, I
+presented a most unhappy contrast as I led my pony down the street under
+the sarcastic stare of bystanding scrutineers. The nights were cold, and
+in the private house where I stayed, mercifully overlooked by a trio of
+protesting effigies with visages grotesque and gruesome, rats ran
+fearlessly over the room's mud floor, and at night I buried my head in
+my rugs to prevent total disappearance of my ears by nibbling. Not so my
+men. They slept a few feet from me, three on one bench, two on another.
+Bedding was not to be had, and so among the dirty straw they huddled
+together as closely as possible to preserve what bodily heat they had.
+Snow fell heavily. In the early morning sunlight on January 13th the
+undulating valley, with its grand untrodden carpet of white, looked
+magnificently beautiful as I picked out the road shown me by a poor
+fellow whose ears had got frost-nipped.</p>
+
+<p>No easy work was it climbing tediously up the narrow footway in a sharp
+spur rising some 1,000 feet in a ribbed ascent, overlooking a fearful
+drop. Over to the left I saw an unhappy little urchin, hardly a rag
+covering his shivering, bleeding body, grovelling piteously in the
+snow, while his blind and goitrous mother did her best at gathering
+firewood with a hatchet. The pass leading over this range, through which
+the white crystalline flakes were driven wildly in one's face, was a
+half-moon of smooth rock actually worn away by the endless tramping of
+myriads of pack-ponies, who then were plodding through ruts of steps
+almost as high as their haunches.</p>
+
+<p>A man with a diseased hip joined me thirty li farther on, dismounting
+from his pile of earthly belongings which these men fix on the backs of
+their ponies. It is a creditable trapeze act to effect a mount after
+the pony is ready for the journey. He had, he said, met me before. He
+knew that I was a missionary, and had heard me preach. He remembered my
+wife and myself and children passing the night in the same inn in which
+he stayed on one of his pilgrimages from his native town somewhere to
+the east of the province. I had never seen him before! I had no wife; I
+have never preached a sermon in my life. I should be pained ever again
+to have to suffer his unmannerly presence anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>Ponies were being loaded near my table. The rapscallion in question
+explained that the black blocks were salt, taking a pinch from my
+salt-cellar with his grimy fingers to add point to his remarks. I kicked
+at a couple of mongrels under the rude form on which I sat&mdash;they fought
+for the skins of those potato-like pears which grow here so
+prolifically. The person announced that they were dogs, and that an
+idiosyncrasy of Chinese dogs was to fight. Several wags joined in, and
+all appeared, through the traveling nincompoop, to know all about my
+past and present, lapsing into a desultory harangue upon all men and
+things foreign. The street reminded me of Clovelly&mdash;rugged and
+ragged&mdash;and the people were wrinkled and wretched; and, indeed, being a
+Devonian myself by birth, I should be excused of wantonly intending to
+hurt the delicate feelings of the lusty sons of Devon were I to declare
+that I thought the life not of a very terrible dissimilarity from that
+port of antiquity in the West.</p>
+
+<p>Salt was everywhere, much more like coal than salt, certainly as black.
+The blocks were stacked up by the sides of inns ready for transport,
+carried on the backs of a multitude of poor wretches who work like oxen
+from dawn to dusk for the merest pittance, on the backs of droves and
+droves of ponies, scrambling and spluttering along over the slippery
+once-paved streets.</p>
+
+<p>All day long, with the exception of two or three easy ascents, we were
+travelling in pleasantly undulating country of park-like magnificence.
+My men dallied. I tramped on alone; and sitting down to rest on the
+rocks, I realized that I was in one of the strangest, loneliest, wildest
+corners of the world. Great mountain-peaks towered around me, white and
+sparkling diadems of wondrous beauty, and at my feet, black and
+stirless, lay a silent pool, reflecting the weird shadows of my coolies
+flitting like specters among the jagged rocks of these most solitary
+hills.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AD_30'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AD_30'>[AD]</a><div class='note'><p> Hsiakwan would be supplied by a branch line of the main
+railway in the Kunlong scheme advocated by Major H.R. Davies, leaving at
+Mi-tu, to the south of Hungay.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AE_31'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AE_31'>[AE]</a><div class='note'><p> The written language was framed and instituted by the Rev.
+Sam. Pollard, of the Bible Christian Mission (now merged into the United
+Methodist Mission).&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AF_32'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AF_32'>[AF]</a><div class='note'><p> The marriage laws were instituted by the China Inland
+Mission at Sa-pu-shan, where a great work is being done among the Hua
+Miao. A good many more stipulations are embodied in the excellent rules,
+but I have no room here to detail.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AG_33'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AG_33'>[AG]</a><div class='note'><p> The Chinese have the crudest ideas of the age of
+foreigners. Among themselves the general custom is for a man to shave
+his upper lip so long as his father is alive, so that in the ordinary
+course a man wearing a moustache is looked upon as an old man. In
+Tong-ch'uan-fu the rumor got abroad that three &quot;uei kueh ren&quot; (&quot;foreign
+men&quot;) went riding horses&mdash;(two young ones and one old one. The &quot;old one&quot;
+was myself, because I had hair on my top lip, despite the fact that I
+was considerably the junior. And the fact that one was a lady was not
+deemed worthy of the slightest consideration.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien and its bridge</i>. <i>Magnificence of mountains towards the
+capital</i>. <i>Opportunity for Dublin Fusiliers</i>. <i>Characteristic climbing.
+Crockery crash and its sequel</i>. <i>Mountain forest</i>. <i>Changeableness of
+climate</i>. <i>Wayside scene and some reflections</i>. <i>Is your master drunk?
+Babies of the poor</i>. <i>Loess roads</i>. <i>Travelers, and how they should
+travel</i>. <i>Wrangling about payment at the tea-shop</i>. <i>The lying art among
+the Chinese</i>. <i>Difference of the West and East</i>. <i>Strange Chinese
+characteristic</i>. <i>Eastern and Western civilization, and how it is
+working</i>. <i>Remarks on the written character and Romanisation</i>. <i>Will
+China lose her national characteristics? &quot;Ih dien mien, ih dien mien.&quot;</i>
+<i>A nasty experience of the impotently dumb</i>. <i>Rescued in the nick of
+time.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>When the day shall come for its history to be told, the historian will
+have little to say of Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien, that is&mdash;if he is a decent sort of
+fellow.</p>
+
+<p>He may refer to its wonderful bridge, to its beggars and its ruins. The
+stone bridge, one of the best of its kind in the whole empire, and I
+should think better than any other in Y&uuml;n-nan, stands to-day
+conspicuously emblematic of ill-departed prosperity. So far as I
+remember, it was the only public ornament in a condition of passable
+repair in any way creditable to the ratepayers of the hsien. The wall is
+decayed, the people are decayed, and in every nook and cranny are
+painful evidences of preventable decay, marked by a conservatism among
+the inhabitants and unpardonable indolence.</p>
+
+<p>The bridge, however, has stood the test of time, and bids fair to last
+through eternity. Other travelers have passed over it since the days of
+Marco Polo, but I should like to say a word about it. Twelve yards or so
+wide, and no less than 150 yards long, it is built entirely of grey
+stone; with its massive piers, its excellent masonry, its good
+(although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking
+animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of
+memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful
+simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a
+credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in
+addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the
+roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with
+which successive emperors have covered China, the bridges are not the
+least remarkable; and in them one is able to realize the perseverance of
+the Chinese in the enormous difficulties of construction they have had
+to overcome.</p>
+
+<p>Passing over the stream&mdash;the Hsiang-shui Ho, I believe&mdash;I stepped out
+across the plain with one foot soaked, a pony having pulled me into the
+water as he drank. Peas and beans covered with snow adjoined a
+heart-breaking road which led up to a long, winding ascent through a
+glade overhung by frost-covered hedgerows, where the sun came gently
+through and breathed the sweet coming of the spring. From midway up the
+mountain the view of the plain below and the fine range of hills
+separating me from the capital was one of exceeding loveliness, the
+undisturbed white of the snow and frost sparkling in the sunshine
+contrasting most strikingly with the darkened waves of billowy green
+opposite, with a background of sharp-edged mountains, whose summits were
+only now and again discernible in the waning morning mist. Snow lay deep
+in the crevices. My frozen path was treacherous for walking, but the
+dry, crisp air gave me a gusto and energy known only in high latitudes.
+In a pass cleared out from the rock we halted and gained breath for the
+second ascent, surmounted by a dismantled watch-tower. It has long since
+fallen into disuse, the sound tiles from the roof having been
+appropriated for covering other habitable dwellings near by, where one
+may rest for tea. The road, paved in some places, worn from the side of
+the mountain in others, was suspended above narrow gorges, an entrance
+to a part of the country which had the aspect of northern regions. The
+sun, tearing open the curtain of blue mist, inundated with brightness
+one of the most beautiful landscapes it is possible to conceive. A
+handful of Dublin Fusiliers with quick-firing rifles concealed in the
+hollows of the heights might have stopped a whole army struggling up the
+hill-sides. But no one appeared to stop me, so I went on.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing was characteristic of the day. Lu-f&ecirc;ng-hsien is about 5,500
+feet; Sei-tze (where we were to sleep) 6,100 feet. Not much of a
+difference in height; but during the whole distance one is either
+dropping much lower than Lu-feng or much higher than Sei-tze. For thirty
+li up to Ta-ts&uuml;-s&iuml; (6,900 feet) there is little to revel in, but after
+that, right on to the terrific drop to our destination for the night, we
+were going through mountain forests than which there are none better in
+the whole of the province, unless it be on the extreme edge of the
+Tibetan border, where accompanying scenery is altogether different.</p>
+
+<p>From a height of 7,850 feet we dropped abruptly, through clouds of thick
+red dust which blinded my eyes and filled my throat, down to the city of
+Sei-tze. I went down behind some ponies. Upwards came a fellow
+struggling with two loads of crockery, and in the narrow pathway he
+stood in an elevated position to let the animals pass. Irony of fate!
+One of the horses&mdash;it seemed most intentional&mdash;gave his load a tilt: man
+and crockery all went together in one heap to a crevice thirty yards
+down the incline, and as I proceeded I heard the choice rhetoric of the
+victim and the muleteer arguing as to who should pay.</p>
+
+<p>Just before that, I dipped into the very bosom of the earth, with
+rugged hills rising to bewildering heights all around, base to summit
+clad luxuriously in thick greenery of mountain firs, a few cedars, and
+the Chinese ash. Black patches of rock to the right were the death-bed
+of many a swaying giant, and in contrast, running away sunwards, a
+silver shimmer on the unmoving ocean of delicious green was caused by
+the slantwise sun reflections, while in the ravines on the other side a
+dark blue haze gave no invitation. Smoothly-curving fringes stood out
+softly against the eternal blue of the heavens. Farther on, eloquent of
+their own strength and imperturbability, were deep rocks, black and
+defiant; but even here firs grew on the projecting ledges which now and
+again hung menacingly above the red path, shading away the sunlight and
+giving to the dark crevices an atmosphere of damp and cold, where men's
+voices echoed and re-echoed like weird greetings from the grave. Onwards
+again, and from the cool ravines, adorned with overhang branches,
+forming cosy retreats from the now blazing sun, one emerged to a road
+leading up once more to undiscovered vastnesses. Yonder narrowed a
+gorge, fine and delicately covered, pleasing to one's aesthetic sense.
+The center was a dome, all full of life and waving leafage, ethereal and
+sweet; and running down, like children to their mother, were numerous
+little hills densely clothed in a green lighter and more dainty than
+that of the parent hill, throwing graceful curtsies to the murmuring
+river at the foot. As I write here, bathed in the beauty of spring
+sunlight, it is difficult to believe that a few hours since the
+thermometer was at zero. Little spots of habitation, with foodstuffs
+growing alongside, looking most lonely in their patches of green in the
+forest, added a human and sentimental picturesqueness to a scene so
+strongly impressive.</p>
+
+<p>A thatched, barn-like place gave us rest, the woman producing for me a
+huge chunk of palatable rice sponge-cake sprinkled with brown sugar.
+Little naked children, offspring of parents themselves covered with
+merest hanging rags, groped round me and treated me with courteous
+curiosity; goats smelt round the coolie-loads of men who rested on low
+forms and smoked their rank tobacco; smoke from the green wood fires
+issued from the mud grates, where receptacles were filled with boiling
+water ready for the traveler, constantly re-filled by a woman whose
+child, hung over her back, moaned piteously for the milk its mother was
+too busy to give to it. Near by a young girl gave suck to a deformed
+infant, lucky to have survived its birth; her neck was as big as her
+breasts&mdash;merely a case of goitre. Coolies passed, panting and puffing,
+all casting a curious glance at him to whose beneficence all were
+willing to pander.</p>
+
+<p>At tiffin I counted thirty-three wretched people, who turned out to see
+the barbarian. They desired, and desired importunately, to touch me and
+the clothes which covered me. And I submitted.</p>
+
+<p>This half-way place was interesting owing to the fact that the lady in
+charge of the buffet could speak two words of French&mdash;she had, I
+believe, acted as washerwoman to a man who at one time had been in the
+Customs at Mengtsz. Great excitement ensued among the perspiring
+laborers of the road and the dumb-struck yokels of the district. The
+lady was so goitrous that it would have been extremely risky to hazard a
+guess as to the exact spot where her face began or ended; and here, in a
+place where with all her neighbors she had lived through a period noted
+for famine, for rebellion, for wholesale death and murder of an entire
+village, she endured such terrible poverty that one would have thought
+her spirit would have waned and the light of her youth burned out. But
+no! The lusty dame was still sprightly. She had been three times
+divorced. The person at present connected with her in the bonds of
+wedded life&mdash;also goitrous and morally repulsive&mdash;stood by and gazed
+down upon her like a proud bridegroom. He resented the levity of Shanks
+and his companion, but, owing to the detail of a sightless eye, he could
+not see all that transpired. However, we were all happy enough. Charges
+were not excessive. My men had a good feed of rice and cabbage, with the
+usual cabbage stump, two raw rice biscuits (which they threw into the
+ashes to cook, and when cooked picked the dirt off with their long
+finger-nails), and as much tea as they could drink&mdash;all for less than a
+penny.</p>
+
+<p>There is something in traveling in Y&uuml;n-nan, where the people away from
+the cities exhibit such painful apathy as to whether dissolution of this
+life comes to them soon or late, which breeds drowsiness. After a tramp
+over mountains for five or six hours on end, one naturally needed rest.
+To-day, as I sat after lunch and wrote up my journal, I nearly fell
+asleep. As I watched the reflections of all these ill-clad figures on
+the stony roadway, and dozed meanwhile, one rude fellow asked my man
+whether I was drunk!</p>
+
+<p>I was not left long to my reverie.</p>
+
+<p>Entering into a conversation intended for the whole village to hear, my
+bulky coolie sublet his contract for two tsien for the eighty li&mdash;we had
+already done fifty. The man hired was a weak, thin, half-baked fellow,
+whose body and soul seemed hardly to hang together. He was the first to
+arrive. As soon as he got in; this same man took a needle from the
+inside of his great straw hat and commenced ridding his pants of
+somewhat outrageous perforations. Such is the Chinese coolie, although
+in Y&uuml;n-nan he would be an exception. Late at night he offered to put a
+shoe on my pony. I consented. He did the job, providing a new shoe and
+tools and nails, for 110 cash&mdash;just about twopence.</p>
+
+<p>I could not help, thinking of the children I had seen to-day, &quot;Sad for
+the dirt-begrimed babies that they were born.&quot; These children were all a
+family of eternal Topsies&mdash;they merely grew, and few knew how. They are
+rather dragged up than brought up, to live or die, as time might
+appoint. Babies in Y&uuml;n-nan, for the great majority, are not coaxed, not
+tossed up and down and petted, not soothed, not humored. There are none
+to kiss away their tears, they never have toys, and dream no young
+dreams, but are brought straight into the iron realities of life. They
+are reared in smoke and physical and moral filth, and become men and
+women when they should be children: they haggle and envy, and swear and
+murmur. When in Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;or even in the whole of China&mdash;will there be
+the innocence and beauty of childhood as we of the West are blessed
+with?</p>
+
+<p>Roads here were in many cases of a light loess, and some of red
+limestone rock, with a few li of paved roads. Many of the main roads
+over the loess are altered by the rains. Two days of heavy rain will
+produce in some places seas of mud, often knee-deep, and this will again
+dry up quite as rapidly with the next sunshine. They become undermined,
+and crumble away from the action of even a trickling stream, so as to
+become always unsafe and sometimes quite impassable.</p>
+
+<p>Delays are very dear to the heart of every Chinese. The traveler, if he
+is desirous of getting his caravan to move on speedily, has little
+chance of success unless he assumes an attitude of profoundest
+indifference to all men and things around him&mdash;never <i>appear</i> to be in a
+hurry.</p>
+
+<p>We are accompanied to-day to Kwang-tung-hsien by the coolie who carried
+the load yesterday. He sits by staring enviously at his compatriots in
+the employ of the foreign magnate, who rests on a stone behind and
+listens to the conversation. They invite him to carry again; he refuses.
+Now the argument&mdash;natural and right and proper&mdash;is ensuing with warmth.
+Lao Chang, with the air of a hsien &quot;gwan,&quot; sits in judgment upon them,
+bringing to bear his long experience of coolies and the amount of
+&quot;heart-money&quot; they receive, and has decided that the fellow should
+receive a tenth of a dollar and twenty cash in addition for carrying the
+heavier of the loads the remaining thirty li, as against ten cents
+offered by the men. He is now extending philosophic advice to them all,
+based on a knowledge of the coolie's life; the little meeting breaks up,
+good feeling prevails, and the loads carried on merrily. I still linger,
+sipping my tea. Lao Chang has grumbled because he has had to shell out
+seven cash, and I have already drunk ten cups (he generally uses the tea
+leaves afterwards for his personal use).</p>
+
+<p>But wrangling about payment prevails always where Chinese congregate. In
+China, by high and low, lies are told without the slightest apparent
+compunction. One of the men in the above-mentioned dispute had an
+irrepressible volubility of assertion. He at once flew into a temper,
+adopting the style of the stage actor, proclaiming his virtue so that it
+might have been heard at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu. He was preserving his &quot;face.&quot; For
+in this country temper is often, what it is not in the West, a test of
+truth. Among Westerners nothing is more insulting sometimes than a
+philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself,
+protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally
+requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In
+respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor
+copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the
+people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me
+that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese&mdash;I speak
+of the common people, for in my travels I have not mixed much with the
+rich&mdash;the greatest romancer on earth. I question whether the great
+preponderance of the Chinese people speak six consecutive sentences
+without misrepresentation or exaggeration, tantamount to prevarication.
+Regretting that I have to write it, I give it as my opinion that the
+Chinese is a liar by nature. And when he is confronted with the charge
+of lying, the culprit seems seldom to feel any sense of guilt.</p>
+
+<p>And yet in business&mdash;above the petty bargaining business&mdash;we have as the
+antithesis that the spoken word is his bond. I would rather trust the
+Chinese merely on his word than the Jap with a signed contract.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese knows that the Englishman is not a liar, and he respects him
+for it; and it is to be hoped that in Y&uuml;n-nan there will soon be seen
+the two streams of civilization which now flow in comparative harmony in
+other more enlightened provinces flowing here also in a single channel.
+These two streams&mdash;of the East and the West&mdash;represent ideas in social
+structure, in Government, in standards of morality, in religion and in
+almost every human conception as diverse as the peoples are racially
+apart. They cannot, it is evident, live together. The one is bound to
+drive out the other, or there must be such a modification of both as
+will allow them to live together, and be linked in sympathies which go
+farther than exploiting the country for initial greed. The Chinese will
+never lose all the traces of their inherited customs of daily life, of
+habits of thought and language, products which have been borne down the
+ages since a time contemporary with that of Solomon. No fair-minded man
+would wish it. And it is at once impossible.</p>
+
+<p>The language, for instance. Who is there, who knows anything about it,
+who would wish to see the Chinese character drop out of the national
+life? Yet it is bound to come to some extent, and in future ages the
+written language will develop into pretty well the same as Latin among
+ourselves. Romanization, although as yet far from being accomplished,
+must sooner or later come into vogue, as is patent at the first glance
+at business. If commerce in the Interior is to grow to any great extent
+in succeeding generations, warranting direct correspondence with the
+ports at the coast and with the outside world, the Chinese hieroglyph
+will not continue to suffice as a satisfactory means of communication.
+No correspondence in Chinese will ever be written on a machine such as I
+am now using to type this manuscript, and this valuable adjunct of the
+office must surely force its way into Chinese commercial life. But only
+when Romanization becomes more or less universal.</p>
+
+<p>This, however, by the way.</p>
+
+<p>My point is, that no matter how Occidentalized he may become, the
+Chinese will never lose his national characteristics&mdash;not so much
+probably as the Japanese has done. What the youth has been at home, in
+his habits of thought, in his purpose and spirit, in his manifestation
+of action, will largely determine his after life. Chinese mental and
+moral history has so stamped certain ineffaceable marks on the language,
+and the thought and character of her people, that China will never&mdash;even
+were she so inclined&mdash;obliterate her Oriental features, and must always
+and inevitably remain Chinese. The conflict, however, is not racial, it
+is a question of civilization. Were it racial only, to my way of
+thinking we should be beaten hopelessly.</p>
+
+<p>And as I write this in a Chinese inn, in the heart of Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;the
+&quot;backward province&quot;&mdash;surrounded by the common people in their common,
+dirty, daily doings, a far stretch of vivid imagining is needed to see
+these people in any way approaching the Westernization already current
+in eastern provinces of this dark Empire.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I wrote sitting on the top of a mountain during my tour
+across China. But it will be seen in other parts of this book that
+Western ideas and methods of progress in accord more with European
+standards are being adopted&mdash;and in some places with considerable
+energy&mdash;even in the &quot;backward province.&quot; In travel anywhere in the
+world, one becomes absorbed more or less with one's own immediate
+surroundings, and there is a tendency to form opinions on the
+limitations of those surroundings. In many countries this would not lead
+one far astray, but in China it is different. Most of my opinion of the
+real Chinese is formed in Y&uuml;n-nan, and it is not to be denied that in
+all the other seventeen provinces, although a good many of them may be
+more forward in the trend of national evolution and progress, the same
+squalidness among the people, and every condition antagonistic to the
+Westerner's education so often referred to, are to be found. But China
+has four hundred and thirty millions of people, so that what one writes
+of one particular province&mdash;in the main right, perhaps&mdash;may not
+necessarily hold good in another province, separated by thousands of
+miles, where climatic conditions have been responsible for differences
+in general life. With its great area and its great population, it does
+not need the mind of a Spencer to see that it will take generations
+before every acre and every man will be gathered into the stream of
+national progress.</p>
+
+<p>The European traveler in China cannot perhaps deny himself the pleasure
+of dwelling upon the absurdities and oddities of the life as they strike
+him, but there is also another side to the question. Our own
+civilization, presenting so many features so extremely removed from his
+own ancient ideas and preconceived notion of things in general, probably
+looks quite as ridiculous from the standpoint of the Chinese. The East
+and the West each have lessons to offer the other. The West is offering
+them to the East, and they are being absorbed. And perhaps were we to
+learn the lessons to which we now close our eyes and ears, but which are
+being put before us in the characteristics of Oriental civilization, we
+may in years to come, sooner than we expect, rejoice to think that we
+have something in return for what we have given; it may save us a rude
+awakening. It does not strike the average European, who has never been
+to China, and who knows no more about the country than the telegrams
+which filter through when massacres of our own compatriots occur, that
+Europe and America are not the only territories on this little round
+ball where the inhabitants have been left with a glorious heritage.</p>
+
+<p>But I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
+when they laughed at my impatience.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Ih dien mien, ih dien mien,&quot; shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
+bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. &quot;Mien,&quot; it
+should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
+is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
+city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
+Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
+efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
+comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
+still.</p>
+
+<p>After that I hurried on, got off the &quot;ta lu,&quot; and suffered a nasty
+experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
+my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
+told me that they had. I strode on again, encountering the crowds who
+blocked the roadway as market progressed, who stared in a suspicious
+manner at the generally disreputable, tired, and dirty foreigner. Each
+moment I expected the escort to arrive. I could not sit down and drink
+tea, for I had not a single cash on my person. I could speak none of the
+language, and could merely push on, with ragtags at my heels, becoming
+more and more embarrassed by the pointing and staring public. I turned,
+but could see none of my men. I managed to get to the outer gate, and
+there sat down on the grass, with five score of gaping idiots in front
+of me. Seeing this vulgar-looking intruder among them, who would not
+answer their simplest queries, or give any reason for being there,
+suspicion grew worse; they naturally wanted to know what it was, and
+what it wanted. Some thought I might be deaf, and raved questions in my
+ear at the top of their voices. Even then I remained impotently dumb.
+Two policemen came and said something. At their invitation I followed
+them, and found myself later in a small police box, the street lined
+with people, facing an officer.</p>
+
+<p>The man hailed me in speech uncivil. He was huge as the hyperborean
+bear, and cruel looking, and with a sort of apologetic petitionary growl
+I sidled off; but it was anything but comfortable, and I should not have
+been surprised had I found myself being led off to the yamen. After a
+nerve-trying half-hour, I was thankful to see the form of my men
+appearing at the moment when I was vehemently expressing indignation at
+not being understood.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XVII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>A bumptious official</i>. <i>Ignominious contrasts of two travelers.
+Diminishing respect for foreigners in the Far East</i>. <i>Where the European
+fails</i>. <i>His maltreatment of Orientals</i>. <i>Convicts on the way to death</i>.
+<i>At Ch'u-hsiony-fu</i>. <i>Buffaloes and children</i>. <i>Exasperating repetition
+met in Chinese home life</i>. <i>Un&aelig;sthetic womanhood</i>. <i>Quarrymen and
+careless tactics</i>. <i>Scope for the physiologist</i>. <i>Interesting unit of
+the city's humanity</i>. <i>Signs of decay in the countryside</i>. <i>Carrying the
+dead to eternal rest</i>. <i>At Chennan-chou</i>. <i>Public kotowing ceremony and
+its aftermath</i>. <i>Chinese ignorance of distance.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>All-round idyllic peace did not reign at Kwang-tung-hsien, where I
+rested over Sunday. Contacts in social conditions gave rise inevitably
+to causes for conflicts.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving early, my men were able to secure the best room and soon after,
+with much imposing pomp and show, a &quot;gwan&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AH_34'></a><a href='#Footnote_AH_34'><sup>[AH]</sup></a> arrived, disgusted that he
+had to take a lower room. I bowed politely to him as he came in. He did
+not return it, however, but stood with a contemptuous grin upon his face
+as he took in the situation. I do not know who the person was, neither
+have a wish to trace his ancestry, but his bumptiousness and general
+misbehavior, utterly in antagonism to national etiquette, made me hate
+the sight of the fellow. Pride has been said to make a man a hedgehog. I
+do not say that this man was a hedgehog altogether, but he certainly
+seemed to wound everyone he touched. He had with him a great retinue, an
+extravagant equipage, fine clothes, and presumably a great fortune; but
+none of this offended me&mdash;it was his contempt which hurt. He seemed to
+splash me with mud as he passed, and was altogether badly disposed. In
+his every act he heaped humiliation upon me, and insulted me silently
+and gratuitously with unbearable disdain. Luckily, be it said to the
+credit of the Chinese Government, one does not often meet officials of
+this kind; such an atmosphere would nurture the worst feeling. It is, of
+course, possible that had I been traveling with many men and in a style
+necessary for representatives of foreign Governments, this hog might
+have been more polite; but the fact that I had little with me, and made
+a poor sort of a show, allowed him to come out in his true colors and
+display his unveneered feeling towards the foreigner. That he had no
+knowledge of the man crossing China on foot was evident. He was great
+and rich&mdash;that was the sentiment he breathed out to everyone&mdash;and the
+foreigner was humble. There is no wrong in enjoying a large superfluity,
+but it was not indispensable to have displayed it, to have wounded the
+eyes of him who lacked it, to have flaunted his magnificence at the door
+of my commonplace.</p>
+
+<p>Had I been able to speak, I should have pointed out to this fellow that
+to know how to be rich is an art difficult to master, and that he had
+not mastered it; that as an official his first duty in exercising power
+was to learn that of humility; and that it is the irritating authority
+of such very lofty and imperious beings as himself, who say, &quot;I am the
+law,&quot; that provokes insurrection. However, I was dumb, and could only
+return his contemptuous glance now and again.</p>
+
+<p>To him I could have said, as I would here say also to every foreigner in
+the employ of the Chinese Government, &quot;The only true distinction is
+superior worth.&quot; If foreigners in China are to have social and official
+rank respected, they must begin to be worthy of their rank, otherwise
+they help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is a pity some native
+officials have to learn the same lesson.</p>
+
+<p>In several years of residence in the Far East I have noticed respect
+for the foreigner unhappily diminishing. The root of the evil is in the
+mistaken idea that high station exempts him who holds it from observing
+the common obligations of life. It comes about&mdash;so often have I seen it
+in the Straits Settlements and in various parts of India&mdash;that those who
+demand the most homage make the least effort to merit that homage they
+demand. That is chiefly why respect for the foreigner in the Orient is
+diminishing, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that the average
+European in the East and Far East does not treat the Oriental with
+respect. He considers that the Chinese, the Malay, the Burman, the
+Indian is there to do the donkey work only. The newcomer generally
+discovers in himself an astounding personal omnipotence, and even before
+he can talk the language is so obsessed with it that as he grows older,
+his sense of it broadens and deepens. And in China&mdash;of the Chinese this
+is true to-day as in other spheres of the Far East&mdash;the native is there
+to do the donkey work, and does it contentedly and for the most part
+cheerfully. But he will not always be so content and so cheerful. He
+will not always suffer a leathering from a man whom he knows he dare not
+now hit back.<a name='FNanchor_AI_35'></a><a href='#Footnote_AI_35'><sup>[AI]</sup></a> Some day he may hit back. We have seen it before, how
+at some moment, by some interior force making a way to the light, an
+explosion takes place: there is an upheaval, all sorts of grave
+disorders, and because some Europeans are killed the Celestial
+Government is called upon to pay, and to pay heavily. Indemnities are
+given, but the Chinese pride still feels the smart.</p>
+
+<p>[1
+Pulling away up the sides of barren, sandy hills in my lonely
+pilgrimage, I could see wide, fertile plains sheltered in the undulating
+hollows of mountains, over which in arduous toil I vanished and
+re-appeared, how or where I could hardly calculate. Suddenly, rounding
+an awkward corner, a magnificent panorama broke upon the view in a
+rolling valley watered by many streams below, all green with growing
+wheat. A high spur about midway up the rolling mountain forms a capital
+spot for wayfarers to stop and exchange travelers' notes. A couple of
+convicts were here, their feet manacled and their white cotton clothing
+branded with the seal of death; by the side were the crude wooden cages
+in which they were carried by four men, with whom they mixed freely and
+manufactured coarse jokes. In six days bang would fall the knife, and
+their heads would roll at the feet of the executioners at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu.</p>
+
+<p>Coming into Ch'u-hsiong-fu<a name='FNanchor_AJ_36'></a><a href='#Footnote_AJ_36'><sup>[AJ]</sup></a>&mdash;the stage is what the men call 90 li, but
+it is not more than 70&mdash;I was brought to an insignificant wayside place
+where the innkeeper upbraided my boy for endeavoring to allow me to pass
+without wetting a cup at his bonny hostelry. Had I done so, I should
+have avouched myself utterly indifferent to reputation as a traveler.</p>
+
+<p>But I did not stay the night here. I passed on through the town to a new
+building, an inn, into which I peered inquiringly. A well-dressed lad
+came courteously forward, in his bowing and scraping seeming to say,
+&quot;Good sir, we most willingly embrace the opportunity of being honored
+with your noble self and your retinue under our poor roof. Long since
+have we known your excellent qualities; long have we wished to have you
+with us. We can have no reserve towards a person of your open and noble
+nature. The frankness of your humor delights us. Disburden yourself, O
+great brother, here and at once of your paraphernalia.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I stayed, and was charged more for lodging than at any other place in
+all my wanderings in China. My experience was different from that of
+Major Davies when he visited this city in 1899. He writes:&mdash;</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>&quot;The people of this town are particularly conservative and exclusive.
+They have such an objection to strangers that no inn is allowed within
+the city walls, and no one from any other town is allowed to establish a
+shop.... When the telegraph line was first taken through here there was
+much commotion, and so determined was the opposition of the townspeople
+to this new-fangled means of communication that the telegraph office had
+to be put inside the colonel's yamen, the only place where it would be
+safe from destruction.&quot;</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The proprietor of the inn in which I stayed was a man of about fifty, of
+goodly person and somewhat corpulent, comely presence, good humor, and
+privileged freedom. He had a pretty daughter. He was an exception to the
+ordinary father in China, in the fact that he was proud of her, as he
+was of his house and his faring. But in all conscience he should have
+been abundantly ashamed of his charges, for my boy said I was charged
+three times too much, and I have no cause for doubting his word either,
+for he was fairly honest. I once had a boy in Singapore who acted for
+three weeks as a &quot;ganti&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AK_37'></a><a href='#Footnote_AK_37'><sup>[AK]</sup></a> whilst my own boy underwent a surgical
+operation, and between misreckonings, miscarriages, misdealings,
+mistakes and misdemeanors, had he remained with me another month I
+should have had to pack up lock, stock and barrel and clear.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed here a day in the hope of getting my mail, but had the
+pleasure of seeing only the bag containing it. It was sealed, and the
+postmaster had no authority to break that seal.</p>
+
+<p>There were no telegraph poles in the district through which I was
+passing; the connections were affixed to the trunks of trees. The
+telegraph runs right across the Ch'u-hsiong-fu plain, on entering which
+one crosses a rustic bridge just below a rather fine pagoda, from which
+an excellent view is obtained of the old city. The wall up towards the
+north gate, where there is another pagoda, is built over a high knoll.
+Inside the wall half the town is uncultivated ground. Four youngsters
+here were having a great time on the back of a lazy buffalo, who,
+turning his head swiftly to get rid of some irritating bee, dislodged
+the quartet to the ground, where they fought and cursed each other over
+the business.</p>
+
+<p>Everything that one sees around here is particularly &quot;Chinesey.&quot; It may
+be supposed that I am not the first person who has gone through town
+after town and found in all that he looks at, particularly the houses,
+certain forms identical, inevitable, exasperating by common repetition.
+It has been said that poetry is not in things, it is in us; but in China
+very little poetry comes into the homes and lives of the common
+millions: they are all dead dwelling-houses, even the best, bare homes
+without life or brightness. Among the working-classes of the West there
+is to be found a kind of ministering beauty which makes its way
+everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is
+cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift
+finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her
+house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and
+winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible.
+But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the
+last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of
+personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of witchery in
+the tying of a ribbon. Everywhere you find the same class of furniture
+and garniture, the same shape of table, of stool, of form, of bed, of
+cooking utensils, of picture, of everything; and all the details of her
+housekeeping are so apathetically uninteresting. The Chinese woman has
+no charming art, rather is it a common, horrid, daily grind. She is not,
+as the woman should be, the interpreter in her home of her own grace,
+and she differs from her Western sister in that it is impossible for her
+to express in her dress also the little personalities of character&mdash;all
+is eternally the same. But I know so very little of ladies' clothing,
+and therefore cease.</p>
+
+<p>Quarrying was going on high up among the hills as I left the city. Men
+were out of sight, but their hammering was heard distinctly. As each
+boulder was freed these wielders of the hammer yelled to passers-by to
+look out for their heads, gave the stone a push to start it rolling, and
+if it rolled upon you it was your own fault and not theirs&mdash;you should
+have seen to it that you were somewhere else at the time. If it blocked
+the pathway, another had to be made by those who made the traffic.
+Directly under the quarry I was accosted by a beggar. &quot;Old foreign man!
+Old foreign man!&quot; he yelled. Stones were falling fast; it is possible
+that he does not sit there now.</p>
+
+<p>Physiognomists do not swarm in China. There is grand scope for someone.
+There would be ample material for research for the student in the
+soldiers alone who would be sent to guard him from place to place. He
+would not need to go farther afield; for he would be given fat men and
+lean men, brave men and cowards, some blessed with brains and some not
+one whit brainy, civil and surly, stubby and lanky, but rogues and liars
+all. Travelers are always interested in their chairmen; oftentimes my
+interest in them was greater than theirs in me, until the time came for
+us to part. Then the &quot;Ch'a ts'ien,&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AL_38'></a><a href='#Footnote_AL_38'><sup>[AL]</sup></a> always in view from the outset of
+their duty, brought us in a manner nearer to each other.</p>
+
+<p>As I came out of the inn at Ch'u-hsiong-fu somewhat hurriedly, for my
+men lingered long over the rice, I stumbled over the yamen fellow who
+crouched by the doorside. He laughed heartily. Had I fallen on him his
+tune might have been changed; but no matter. This unit of the city
+humanity was not bewilderingly beautiful. He was profoundly
+ill-proportioned, very goitrous, and ravages of small-pox had bequeathed
+to him a wonderful facial ugliness. He had, however, be it written to
+his honor, learnt that life was no theory. One could see that at a
+glance as he walked along at the head of the procession, with a stride
+like an ox, manfully shouldering his absurd weapon of office, which in
+the place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg
+of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was
+embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare
+from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder
+worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had
+learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition
+embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish to achieve great things,
+unless it were that in his fidelity to small things he laid the base of
+great achievements. He waited upon me hand and foot; he burned with
+ardor for my personal comfort and well-being; he did not complicate life
+by being engrossed in anything which to him was of no concern&mdash;his only
+concern was the foreigner, and towards me he carried out his duty
+faithfully and to the letter. I would wager that that man, ugly of face
+and form, but most kindly disposed to one who could communicate little
+but dumb approval, was an excellent citizen, an excellent father, an
+excellent son.</p>
+
+<p>So very different was another traveler who unceremoniously forced
+himself upon me with the inevitable &quot;Ching fan, ching fan,&quot; although he
+had no food to offer. He commenced with a far-fetched eulogium of my
+ambling palfrey Rusty, who limped along leisurely behind me. So far as
+he could remember, poor ignorant ass, he had never seen a pony like it
+in his extensive travels&mdash;probably from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Tali-fu, if so
+far; but as a matter of fact, Rusty had wrenched his right fore fetlock
+between a gully in the rocks the day before and was now going lame.
+Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion
+was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border
+almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly
+awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp,
+was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, it was
+something incomparably worse. Not for a moment throughout the day did he
+leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we
+drank&mdash;tea, of course&mdash;he vainly begged to be allowed to pay. In that he
+was the shadow of some of my friends of younger days.</p>
+
+<p>But of men enough.</p>
+
+<p>From Ch'u-hsiong-fu on to Tali-fu the whole country bears lamentable
+signs of gradual ruin and decay, a falling off from better times. The
+former city is probably the most important point on the route, and is
+mentioned as a likely point for the proposed Y&uuml;n-nan Railway.</p>
+
+<p>The country has never recovered from the terrible effects of the great
+Mohammendan Rebellion of 1857. Foundations of once imposing buildings
+still stand out in fearful significance, and ruins everywhere over the
+barren country tell plain tales all too sad of the good days gone.
+Temples, originally fit for the largest city in the Empire, with
+elaborate wood and stone carving and costly, weird images sculptured in
+stone, with particularly fine specimens of those blood-curdling
+Buddhistic hells and their presiding monsters, with miniature ornamental
+pagodas and intricate archways, are all now unused; and when the people
+need material for any new building (seldom erected now in this
+district), the temple grounds are robbed still more. In the days of its
+prosperity Y&uuml;n-nan must have been a fair land indeed, bright, smiling,
+seductive; now it is the exact antithesis, and the people live sad,
+flat, colorless existences.</p>
+
+<p>For three days my caravan was preceded by twelve men, headed by a sort
+of gaffer with a gong, carrying a corpse in a massive black coffin,
+elaborate in red and blue silk drapings and with the inevitable white
+cock presiding, one leg tied with a couple of strands of straw to the
+cover, on which it crowed lustily. Their mission was an honorable one,
+carrying the honored dead to its last bed of rest eternal; for this dead
+man had secured the fulfillment of the highest in human destiny&mdash;to have
+his bones buried near the scene of his youth, near his home. This is a
+simple custom the Chinese cherish and reverence, of highest honor to the
+dead and of no mean value to the living. To the dead, because buried
+near the home of his fathers he would not be subject to those delusive
+temptations in the future state of that confused and complex life; to
+the living, because it gave work to a dozen men for several days, and
+enabled them to have a good time at the expense of the departed. A
+perpetual and excruciatingly unmusical chant, in keeping with the
+occasion's sadness, rent the mountain air, interrupted only when the
+bearers lowered the coffin and left the remains of the great dead on a
+pair of trestles in the roadway, whilst they drank to his happiness
+above and smoked tobacco which the relatives had given them. Once this
+heaper-up of Chinese merit<a name='FNanchor_AM_39'></a><a href='#Footnote_AM_39'><sup>[AM]</sup></a> was dumped unceremoniously on the turf
+while the headman entered into a blackguarding contest with one of the
+fellows who was alleged to be constantly out of step with his brethren,
+because he was a much smaller man. The gaffer gave him a bit of a
+drubbing for his insolence.</p>
+
+<p>Rain came on at Chennan-chou, a small town of about three hundred
+houses, where I sought shelter in the last house of the street. The
+householder, a shrivelled, goitrous humpback, received me kindly,
+removed his pot of cabbage from the fire to brew tea for his uninvited
+guest, and showed great gratitude (to such an extent that he nearly fell
+into the fire as he moved to push the children forward towards me) when
+I gave a few cash to three kiddies, who gaped open-mouthed at the
+apparition thus found unexpectedly before their parent's hearth. More
+came in, my beneficent attention being modestly directed towards them;
+others followed, and still more, and more, whilst the man, removing from
+his mouth his four-foot pipe, and wiping the mouthpiece with his soiled
+coat-sleeve before offering it to me to smoke, smiled as I distributed
+more cash.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;They are all mine,&quot; he said cutely.</p>
+
+<p>Poor fellow! There must have been a dozen nippers there, and I sighed at
+the thought of what some men come to as the last of half a string of
+cash slipped through my fingers.<a name='FNanchor_AN_40'></a><a href='#Footnote_AN_40'><sup>[AN]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch&mdash;erected, maybe,
+to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district&mdash;I untied my
+pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers
+ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied
+air. As we were thus engaged and discussing the prospects of the storm,
+yelling from under a gigantic straw hat, a fellow said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Suan liao&quot; (&quot;not worth reckoning&quot;) &quot;only five more li to
+Sha-chiao-kai.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>We had thirty li to do. Such is the idea of distance in Y&uuml;n-nan.<a name='FNanchor_AO_41'></a><a href='#Footnote_AO_41'><sup>[AO]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>The storm did not come, however, and my men ever after reminded me to
+keep out my wind-cap and my mackintosh, partly to lighten their loads,
+of course, and partly on account of the good omen it seemed to them to
+be.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AH_34'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AH_34'>[AH]</a><div class='note'><p> &quot;Gwan&quot; is the Chinese for &quot;official.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AI_35'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AI_35'>[AI]</a><div class='note'><p> I have seen a European, with an imperfect hold of an
+eastern language, knock an Asiatic down because he thought the man was a
+fool, whereas he himself was ignorant of what was going on. The message
+the coolie was bringing was misunderstood by the conceited assistant,
+and as a result of having just this smattering of the vernacular, he ran
+his firm in for a loss of fifty thousand dollars.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AJ_36'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AJ_36'>[AJ]</a><div class='note'><p> Ts'u-hsiong-fu, as it is pronounced locally, with a strong
+&quot;ts&quot; initial sound.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AK_37'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AK_37'>[AK]</a><div class='note'><p> Meaning a relief hand (Malay).</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AL_38'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AL_38'>[AL]</a><div class='note'><p> Literally, &quot;tea money.&quot;</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AM_39'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AM_39'>[AM]</a><div class='note'><p> &quot;Heaping up merit&quot; is one of the elementary practices of
+Chinese religious life.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AN_40'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AN_40'>[AN]</a><div class='note'><p> Chennan-chou, which stands at a height of 6,500 feet, has
+been visited again since by myself. My caravan consisted on this
+occasion of two ponies (one I was riding), two coolies, a servant, and
+myself. As we got to the archway in the middle of the street leading to
+the busy part of the town, my animal nearly landed me into the gutter,
+and the other horse ran into a neighboring house, both frightened by
+crackers which were being fired around a man who was bumping his head on
+the ground in front of an ancestral tablet, brought into the street for
+the purpose. A horrid din made the air turbulent. I sought refuge in the
+nearest house, tying my ponies up to the windows, and was most
+hospitably received as a returned prodigal by a well-disposed old man
+and his courtly helpmate. The genuineness of the hospitality of the
+Chinese is as strong as their unfriendliness can be when they are
+disposed to show a hostile spirit to foreigners. Just as I had laid up
+for dinner the din stopped, we breathed gunpowder smoke instead of air,
+everyone from the head-bumping ceremony came around me, and there
+lingered in silent admiration. My boy came and whispered, quite aloud
+enough for all to hear, that in that part of the town cooked rice could
+not be bought, and that I was going to be left to look after the horses
+and the loads whilst the men went away to feed. He advised the assembled
+crowd that if they valued sound physique they had better keep their
+hands off my gear and depart. My friendly host shut the doors and
+windows, with the exception of that through which I watched our
+impedimenta, and at once commenced good-natured inquiry into my past,
+and concerning vicissitudes of life in general. Luckily, I was able to
+give the old man good reason for congratulating me upon my ancestral
+line, my own great age, the number of my wives and offshoots&mdash;mostly
+&quot;little puppies&quot;&mdash;and as each curious caller dropped in to sip tea, so
+did one after another of the patriarchal dignitaries who were
+responsible for the human product then entertaining the crowd come
+vividly before the imagination of the company, and they were graced with
+every token of age and honor. (Chinese speak of sons as &quot;little
+puppies.&quot;)</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AO_41'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AO_41'>[AO]</a><div class='note'><p> In crossing a river here I slipped, and from ray pocket
+there rolled a box of photographic films, and in reaching over to
+re-capture it, I let my loaded camera fall into the water. I was
+disappointed, as most of my best pictures were thus (as I imagined)
+spoilt. But when I developed at Bhamo, I found not a single film damaged
+by water, and every picture was a success from both the roll in the tin
+and the roll in the camera. It is a tribute to the Eastman-Kodak Company
+Ltd. that their non-curling films will stand being dipped into rivers
+and remain unaffected. The films in question should have been developed
+six months prior to the date of my exposure.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XVIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stampede of frightened women</i>. <i>To the Eagle Nest</i>. <i>An acrobatic
+performance, and some retaliation at the author's expense</i>. <i>Over the
+mountains to Pu-p&ecirc;ng A magnificent storm, and a description</i>. <i>In a
+&quot;rock of ages.&quot; Hardiness of my comrades</i>. <i>Early morning routine and
+some impressions</i>. <i>Unspeakable filth of the Chinese</i>. <i>Lolo people of
+the district</i>. <i>Physique of the women</i>. <i>Aspirations towards Chinese
+customs</i>. <i>Skilless building</i>. <i>Mythological, anthropological,
+craniological and antediluvian disquisitions</i>. <i>At Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;</i>. <i>Flat
+country</i>. <i>Thriftless humanity</i>. <i>To Hungay</i>. <i>A day of days</i>. <i>Traveler
+in bitter cold unable to procure food</i>. <i>Fright in middle night</i>. <i>A
+timely rescue</i>. <i>Murder of a bullock on my doorstep</i>. <i>Callous
+disposition of fellow-travelers</i>. <i>Leaving the capital of an old-time
+kingdom</i>. <i>Bad roads and good men</i>. <i>National virtue of unfailing
+patience</i>. <i>Human consumption of diseased animals. Minchia at Hungay</i>.
+<i>Major Davies and the Minchia</i>. <i>Author's differences of opinion.
+Increasing popularity of the small foot.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>But the storm came the next day, as we were on our way to Pu-p&ecirc;ng,
+during the ninety li when we passed the highest point on this journey.
+By name The Eagle Nest Barrier (Ting-wu-kwan), this elevated pass, 8,600
+feet above the level, reached after a gradual ascent between two
+mountain ranges, was surmounted after a couple of hours' steep climbing,
+where rain and snow had made the paths irritatingly slippery and the
+task most laborious. Although the condition of the road was enough to
+take all the wind out of one's sails, the sublimity of the scenery of
+the dense woods which clothed the mountains, exquisitely pretty ravines,
+tumbling waterfalls, running rivulets and sparkling brooks, with little
+patches of snow hidden away in the maze of greens of every hue, all
+rendered it a climb less tiring than the narrow pathways over which we
+were then to travel. Half-way up we met a string of ponies, and I
+underwent a few nervous moments until they had passed in the twenty-inch
+road&mdash;a slight tilt, a slip, a splutter, probably a yell, and I should
+have dropped 500 feet without a bump.</p>
+
+<p>As we went along together, just before reaching this hill, we saw women
+carrying bags of rice. They saw us, too. One passed me safely, but with
+fear. The others carelessly dropping their burdens, scampered off,
+afraid of their lives; and when one of my soldiers (whose sense of humor
+was on a par with my own when as a boy I used to stick butterscotch
+drops on the bald head of my Sunday School teacher, and bend pins for
+small boys to sit on and rise from) shouted to them, they dived straight
+as a die over the hedge into a submerged rice-field, and made a sorry
+spectacle with their &quot;lily&quot; feet and pale blue trousers, covered with
+the thin mud. In struggling to get away, one of them, the silly
+creature, went sprawling on all fours in the slime, and with only the
+imperfect footing possible to her with her little stumps, she would have
+been submerged, had not the man who had frightened her, at my bidding,
+gone to drag her out. As it was, they looked anything but beautiful with
+their wet and muddy garments clinging tightly to their bodies, and
+betraying every curve of their not unbeautiful figures. One of the
+women, a comely damsel of some twenty summers, did not jump into the
+field, but lay flat on the ground behind some bushes, thereby hoping to
+get out of sight, and now came forward with amorous glances. We,
+however, sent them on their way, and I will lay my life that they will
+not &quot;scoot&quot; at the sight of the next foreigner.</p>
+
+<p>And now we are at the &quot;Nest.&quot; Many travelers have made remarks upon this
+place, where I was waited upon by a shrivelled, shambling specimen of
+manhood, whose wife&mdash;in contrast to her kind in China&mdash;seemed to rule
+house and home, bed and board. Whilst we were there, a Chinese, bound
+on the downward journey, endeavored to mount his mule at the very moment
+the animal was reaching out for a blade of straw. As he swung his leg
+across the mule took another step forward, and the rider fell bodily
+with an enormous bump into the lap of one of my coolies, upsetting him
+and his bowl of tea over his trousers and my own. I could not suppress
+hearty approval of this acrobatic incident.</p>
+
+<p>But the end was not yet.</p>
+
+<p>I sat on one end of one of those narrow forms, and this same coolie sat
+on the other. He rose up suddenly, reached over for the common salt-pot,
+and I came off&mdash;with the multitude of alfresco diners laughing at this
+smart retaliation until their chock-full mouths emitted the grains of
+rice they chewed.</p>
+
+<p>After that I cleared off. Descending through a fertile valley, from the
+bottom there loomed upwards higher mountains, looking black and dismal,
+with clouds black and dismal keeping them company. We had now to cross
+the undulating ground still separating us from Pu-p&ecirc;ng. The early
+portion of the ground was something like Clifton Downs, something like
+Dartmoor. The country was poor, and the people barely put themselves out
+to boil water for chance travelers.</p>
+
+<p>The storm broke suddenly. From the shelter of a hollowed rock I watched
+it all.</p>
+
+<p>Over the submerged plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of
+night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and
+the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed
+struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of
+fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly
+from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their
+waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision in the cruel clouds
+the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over
+yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the
+lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the
+Artist of the skies. Then came a rainbow of sweetest multi-color, of a
+splendor glorious and exquisite, delicate as the breath from paradise,
+stretching its majestic archbow athwart the waning gloom from range to
+range. As one drank in the glimpses of that dark corner in this peculiar
+fairyland, a mighty peal of magnificent, stentorian clashing broke
+finally upon me, and heaven's electricity again flitted fearfully over
+the earth, aslant, upwards, downwards again, upwards again, disappearing
+over the unmoved hills like a thousand tortured souls fleeing from
+Dante's Hades. And here I sit on, in that veritable &quot;rock of ages&quot; cleft
+for me, glad that no human touch save that of my own mean clay, that no
+human voice came between me and the voice of that Infinite beyond. I
+seemed to have been standing on the verge of another world, another
+great unknown. The heavens raged and the thunders thereof roared, and
+the wild wind hissed and moaned and wailed the hopeless wail of a
+lonely, tormented soul. The cold was intense, and through it all I sat
+drenched to the skin.</p>
+
+<p>On the bleak mountain thus I was the pitifulest atom of loneliest
+humanity, yet felt no loneliness. The face of the earth frowned in angry
+fury, the awfulness of the raging elements dwarfed all else to utter
+annihilation. But even at such a time, coming all too seldom in the
+lives of most of us, when standing in some remote spot which still tells
+forth the story of the world's youth, one's inmost nature thrills with a
+sense of unison with it all beyond human expression. All was so grand,
+inspiring one with an awe beyond one's comprehension, a peculiar, dread
+of one's own earthly insignificance. These pictures, graven in one's
+memory with the strong pencil of our common mother, are indelible, yet
+quite beyond expression. As in our own souls we cannot frame in words
+our deepest life emotions, so as we penetrate into the depths of that
+kindly common mother of us all we find human words the same utterly
+futile channel of expression. To have our souls tuned to this silent
+eloquence of Nature, to catch the sweetness of those wind-swept,
+heaven-directed mountains, to understand the unspoken messages of those
+rushing rivers and those gigantic gorges, to feel the heart-beat of
+Nature and her beauty in perfect harmony with all that is best within
+us, we must be silent, undisturbed, preferably alone. This is not
+flowery sentiment&mdash;it is what every true lover of old and lovely Nature
+would feel in Western China, yet still unspoiled by the taint of man's
+absorbing stream of civilization. And in the stress of modern life, and
+the progress of man's monopolization of the earth on which he lives, it
+is beautiful to some of us, of whom it may be said the highest state of
+inward happiness comes from solitary meditation in unperturbed
+loneliness under the broad expanse of heaven, to know that there are
+still some spots of isolation where human foot has never turned the
+clay, and where, out of sight and sound of fellow mortals, we may even
+for a time shake off the violating, unnatural fetters of a harassing
+Western life.</p>
+
+<p>Soon it seemed as if a silken cord had suddenly been severed, and I had
+been dragged from a world of sweet infinitude down to a sphere mundane
+and everyday, to something I had known before.... &quot;....Or what is
+Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the 'Living Garment
+of God'? O Heaven, is it in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks
+through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in
+me?&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AP_42'></a><a href='#Footnote_AP_42'><sup>[AP]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I heard the crack of the bamboo and the patter of feet in the sodden,
+slippery pathway, and I knew my men were come. Crawling out from my
+rock, I descended again to common things, having to listen to the
+disgusting talk of my Chinese followers, though a very slender
+vocabulary saved me from losing entirely the memory of that great
+picture then passing away. The sun shone through the clouds, which had
+given place again to blue, the pervading blackness of a few moments
+before had disappeared, and with the sinking sun we descended
+thoughtfully to the town. The hill is solid sandstone, and the uneven
+ruts made by the daily procession of ponies were transformed into a
+network of tiny streams.</p>
+
+<p>That my comrades were drenched to the skin gave them no thought; they
+turned to immediately, while I dived hurriedly to the bottom of my box
+and gulped down quinine. They sat around and drank hot water, holding
+forth with eloquence beyond their wont on the general advantages,
+naturally and supernaturally, of their native city of Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+And well they might, for I know no prettier spot in the whole of Western
+China.</p>
+
+<p>Fifty men&mdash;coolies who were carrying general merchandise in all
+directions, and who had taken shelter in the large inn I stayed at&mdash;rose
+with me the next morning. As I ate my morning meal, spluttering the rice
+over the floor as I tried vainly to control my chopsticks with
+frost-nipped fingers, they went through the filthy round of early
+morning routine. Squatting about with their dirty face-rags, and a
+half-pint of greasy water in their brass receptacle shaped like the
+soup-plate of civilization, and leaving upon their necks the traces of
+their swills, they wiped the dirt into their hair, and considered they
+had washed themselves. Men would emerge from their rooms, fully dressed,
+with the dishclout in one hand and the hand-basin in the other&mdash;on the
+way to their morning tub. Oh, the filth, the unspeakable filth of these
+people! Would that the Chinese would emulate the cleanliness of the
+Japs, though even that I would question. In several years in the Orient
+I have not yet come across the cleanliness in any race of people to be
+compared with that cleanliness which in England is next to godliness.</p>
+
+<p>The people of Pu-p&ecirc;ng were pleased to see me. They hurried about
+obligingly to get food for man and beast, and the womankind, poor but
+light-hearted, cracked suggestive jokes with my men with the utmost
+freedom.</p>
+
+<p>In this town there are many Lolo&mdash;it might be said that the entire
+population is of Lolo origin, although had I suggested to any particular
+inhabitant that this was a fact he would probably have taken keen
+offense, and things might have gone badly with me. With the men it is
+most difficult to tell&mdash;there is little difference between the <i>Han ren</i>
+and the tribesman. But the difference is often most marked in respect to
+the women. The Chinese woman has a considerably fairer skin than the
+female of Lolo descent, and her customs and manners, apart from the
+distinct colloquial accent, are quite evident as pretty sure proof of
+distinction of race. After the Lolo have mingled with the Chinese for a
+few years, however, it is quite difficult to differentiate between them,
+as most of the Lolo women now speak Chinese (in this town I did not hear
+any language foreign to the Chinese language), and a good many of the
+men are sufficiently educated to read the Chinese character even if they
+do not write it. The forward racial condition of the Lolo people in this
+district is far greater than that of the people of the same tribe to the
+west of Tali-fu, and in latitudes where their language and customs of
+life and dress are more or less maintained. The women are generally of
+better physique than the Chinese, principally on account of the fact
+that their work is almost exclusively outdoor; but as they begin to copy
+the Chinese, and live a more sedentary life, this fine physique will
+probably gradually disappear. A good many already bind their feet.</p>
+
+<p>When I came out in the early morning the thermometer was twenty degrees
+below zero, and my nose was red and without feeling. <i>Feng-mao</i><a name='FNanchor_AQ_43'></a><a href='#Footnote_AQ_43'><sup>[AQ]</sup></a> and
+great coat were required, but I was totally oblivious of the hour's
+stiff climbing awaiting me immediately outside the town, to reach the
+highest point in which bathed me in perspiration as if I had played
+three sets of tennis in the tropics.</p>
+
+<p>Mountains were wild and barren, with nothing in them to enable one to
+forget in natural beauty the fatigues of a toilsome ascent. Villages
+came now and again in sight, stretched out at the extremity of the plain
+before my eyes, with their white gables, red walls, and black tiled
+roofs, but during the day we passed through two only. The first was a
+little place where decay would have been absolute had it not been for
+the likin<a name='FNanchor_AR_44'></a><a href='#Footnote_AR_44'><sup>[AR]</sup></a> flag, which enables &quot;squeezes&quot; to be extorted ruthlessly
+from the muleteer and conveyed to the pockets of the prospering customs
+agent. It boasted only ten or twelve tumbling lean-to tenements, where
+my sympathy went out to the half-dozen physical wrecks of men who came
+slowly and stared long, and wondered at the commonest article of my
+meager impedimenta. They seemed poorer and lower down the human scale
+than any I had yet seen. On one of the ragged garments worn by a man of
+about twenty-five I counted no less than thirty-four patches of
+different shapes, sizes and materials, hieroglyphically and skillessly
+thrown together to hide his sore-strewn back; but still his brown
+unwashed flesh was visible in many places.</p>
+
+<p>Looking upon them, one did not like to think that these beings were men,
+men with passions like to one's own, for all the interests, real and
+imaginary, all the topics which should expand the mind of man, and
+connect him in sympathy with general existence, were crushed in the
+absorbing considerations of how rice was to be procured for their
+families of diseaseful brats. They had no brains, these men; or if
+Heaven had thus o'erblessed them, they did not exercise them in their
+industry&mdash;their coarse, rough hands alone gained food for the day's
+feeding. And these mud-roofed, mud-sided dwellings&mdash;these were their
+homes, to me worse homes than none at all. In their architecture not
+even a single idea could be traced&mdash;the Chinese here had proceeded as if
+by merest accident. All I could think as I returned their wondering
+glances was that their world must be very, very old. But I have no time
+or space to talk of them here. To throw more than a cursory glance at
+them Would lead me into interminable disquisitions of a mythological,
+anthropological, craniological, and antediluvian nature for which one
+would not find universal approval among his readers. To those who would
+study such questions I say, &quot;Fall to!&quot; There is enough scope for a
+lifetime to bring into light the primeval element so strangely woven
+into the lives of these people.</p>
+
+<p>At Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml; bunting and weird street decoration made the place hideous
+in my eyes. The crowded town was making considerable ado about some
+expected official. I saw none, more than a courteous youth&mdash;to whom, of
+course, I was quite unknown and deaf and dumb&mdash;who graciously shifted
+goods and chattels from the inn's best room to hand it over to me for my
+occupation. With due tact and some excitability, I protested vigorously
+against his coming out. He insisted. Smiling upon him with grave
+benignity, I said that I would take a smaller room, and gave orders to
+that effect to my man, adding that my whole sense of right and justice
+towards fellow-travelers revolted against such self-sacrifice on his
+part. He still insisted. Smiling again, this time the timid smile of the
+commoner looking up into the face of the great, I allowed myself
+reluctantly to be pushed bodily into the best apartment.</p>
+
+<p>This was my intention from the first. Although not too familiar with
+it, I allowed the Chinese to imagine that I was well grounded in the
+absurdities of his national etiquette; whilst he, observing, too, the
+outrageous routine of common politeness, probably went away swearing
+that he had been turned out. He had cut off his nose to spite his face.</p>
+
+<p>I cannot truthfully deny, however, that the fellow was very kind, but he
+would persist in the belief that it was an impossibility for me to tell
+the truth. Later, pointing at me and eyeing me up and down as I shaved
+in the twilight, he sneered, &quot;Engleeshman! Engleeshman!&quot; and scooting
+with an armful of clothing, small pots of eatables, official documents
+and other sundries, told me point-blank that he did not believe that
+such a noble person could not speak such a contemptible language as
+Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing no official, then, I presumed I was their man. Whilst I fed
+slowly on my rice and cabbage in a small earth-floor room, with my nose
+as near as convenient to my oil lamp to get a little warmth, the
+discomfort of Chinese life was forced upon me, and I imagined I was
+having a good time. I was the best off in the inn by far; the others
+must have been colder, certainly had worse food to eat, and yet to me it
+was all the height of utmost cheerlessness.</p>
+
+<p>From a hamlet opposite the town, where I sat down by the fire
+exhausted in an old woman's shaky dwelling, and fed on aged
+sardines and hot rice (atrocious mixture), there is a plain extending
+for twenty li to Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml;&mdash;flat as country in the Fen district. The
+road was good (in wet weather, however, it must be terrible), and I
+would drive a motor-car across, were it not for the 15-in. ruts which
+disfigure the surface. And I know a man who would do this even, despite
+the ruts: he takes a delight in running over dogs and small boys,
+damaging rickshaws, bumping into bullock-carts, and so on&mdash;he would
+have done it with liveliest freedom.</p>
+
+<p>But what poverty there was! What women! What Children! With barely an
+exception, the women had faces ground by want and bare necessity, in
+which every cheerful and sympathetic lineament had been effaced by
+life-long slavery and misery. In the bitter cold they, women and
+children, crouched round a scanty fir-wood firing, not enough even to
+keep alive their natural heat. One long pitiful sight of thriftless
+poverty.</p>
+
+<p>To Hungay was a fearful day. Little to eat could I procure, and the cold
+gave me a lusty ox's appetite. To me a bellyful came as a windfall.</p>
+
+<p>At last we sat down by the roadside at one small table, hearing the test
+of age, rickety and worm-eaten. We gathered like hogs at their troughs,
+with the household hog scratching at our feet. I grew impatient and
+querulous over constant culinary disappointment. I longed not for the
+heaped-up board of the pampered and luxurious, I wanted food. Indigent
+man was I, whose dietetical elegancies had been forgotten, a man with
+ravenous desires seeking sustenance, not relishes; the means of life,
+not the means of pampering the carcass; I wanted food.</p>
+
+<p>And here I had it. The hungry were to be fed.</p>
+
+<p>It was a foul orgy, a gruesome spectacle, a horrible picture of the
+gluttony of famished men. This meal conjured up visions of the &quot;most
+unlovely of the functions.&quot; We fed on <i>mien</i>, that long, greasy, grimy,
+slippery, slimy string of boneless white&mdash;I see it now! And the
+half-done tin of sardines set before me, too, the broken stools in the
+thatch-worn shed, the dismantled hearth, the muddy earthen floor, the
+haggard, hungry villains&mdash;I see them all again.<a name='FNanchor_AS_45'></a><a href='#Footnote_AS_45'><sup>[AS]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It should, however, be said that I went away from the main road over a
+range of hills where nobody lives. Had I kept to the &quot;ta lu&quot; food would
+have been quite easy to get.</p>
+
+<p>To Hungay was given the honor of entertaining me over the Sunday, a
+pleasant rest after a week of arduous and exhausting walking. I arrived
+late at night, and the old town's rough streets were bathed in a silver
+shower of moonbeams, the air was cold and frosty, little groups of the
+curious came to the doors of their dwellings, laughing sarcastically,
+despite their own poverty, at the distinguished traveler thus coming
+upon them.</p>
+
+<p>In marked contrast to this outside animation were the happenings at the
+inn which gave me shelter. Business was bad. Three undistinguished
+travelers&mdash;coolies with loads&mdash;and myself and men made up the meager
+total of paying guests. This was the reason why it was chosen for me,
+for peace and quiet. Quiet had been forced upon the household, so I was
+told, by the death by fits of a haughty and resolute lady; and now that
+the night had fallen and we had all had our rice, the deep hush&mdash;or its
+equivalent in Cathay, at all events&mdash;seemed likely to be unbroken until
+a new day should dawn. My room here had a verandah overlooking a back
+court, and here I sat at midnight, unseen by anyone, looking up to the
+changeless stars in an unpitying sky; and as I stood thus there blew
+from the gates of night and across the mountains a wind that made me
+shiver less with physical cold than with a sense of loneliness and
+captivity. For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if
+the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the
+cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and
+then again at the soldiers with their guns, I turned giddy, shuddering
+at the darkness and the loneliness, and with a nameless fear lying at
+the center of life like a lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen foe.</p>
+
+<p>They addressed me, but I cared not what they said. I pretended I could
+not speak Chinese, watched the quartet form a circle, and talk slowly
+and low, and it did not need the mind of a prophet to see that they were
+discussing how best they could capture me. Were they going to kill me?
+My boy and the other friends I had in the place were sleeping
+blissfully, ignorant that their master was in such trying straits. I was
+asked my name, and the inquirers, not over civil, were told. They again
+asked me for something, I knew not what, probably for my passport. I
+had none, and cursed my luck that I had forgotten to pack it when I had
+left Tong-ch'uan-fu.</p>
+
+<p>To me it was quite evident that they were deciding my destiny, or so it
+seemed in the stillness of the night. Looking upwards, I wondered
+whether I was soon to learn the secret of the stars and sky, and those
+men seemed to watch the secret workings of my soul. Outside the wind
+made moan continuously.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly my door opened noisily, a light was flashed upon us, and I saw
+the bulky form of the landlord. Then all was well. Soon one of my men
+appeared, and explained that the soldiers were on their way to meet an
+official who was coming from Tali-fu, that their instructions were that
+they would meet him at Hungay. They took me for the &quot;gwan.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>So my end was not yet. But now, months afterwards, when I stand and
+listen to the wind at midnight, there seems borne to me in every sob and
+wail a memory of that hateful night and the four soldiers with their
+guns.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed not long afterwards that I was awakened by noises on the
+doorstep. Looking out, I found a bullock, its four feet tied together
+with a straw rope, writhing in its last agonies; the butcher, in his
+hand a cruel 24-inch bladed knife still red with blood, smiling the
+smile of ironic torture as he looked down upon his struggling victim. He
+straightway skinned the animal and cut up the carcass immediately in
+front of my door, where Lao Chang waited to get the best cut for my
+dinner. My three fellow-lodgers squatted alongside, going through their
+apologetic ablutions as if naught were happening. Their dirty face-rags
+were wrung and rewrung; they got to work with that universal tooth-brush
+(the forefinger!), and that the dead body of a bullock was being
+dissected two feet from the table at which they ate their steaming rice
+was a detail of not the slightest consequence in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Hungay is an old-time capital of one of the original kingdoms,
+destroyed in the year A.D. 749. The road leading out towards Chao-chow
+was built some considerable time before that year, and has never been
+subject to any repairs whatever (for this fact I have drawn upon my
+imagination, but should be very much surprised to know that I am far out
+in my reckoning). Villagers have appropriated the public slabs and small
+boulders which comprised the wretched thoroughfare; reminiscent puddles
+tell you the tale, and the badness of the road renders it necessary for
+the traveler to be out of bed a little earlier than usual to face the
+ordeal. The road to-day has been practically as bad as walking along the
+sides of the Yangtze. But as I studied the patience and physical
+vitality of my three men, laughing and joking with the light-heartedness
+of children, with nearly seventy catties dangling from their
+shoulder-pole, without a word of murmuring, I felt a little ashamed of
+myself that I, whose duty it was merely to <i>walk</i>, should have made such
+a fuss. These men were prepared to work a very long time for very little
+reward, as no matter how small the rewards for the terribly exhausting
+labor, it were better than none at all,&mdash;so they philosophized.</p>
+
+<p>That quiet persistence and unfailing patience form a national virtue
+among the Chinese&mdash;the capacity to wait without complaint and to bear
+all with silent endurance. This virtue is seen more clearly in great
+national disasters which occasionally befall the country. The terrible
+famine of 1877-8 was the cause of the death of millions of people, and
+left scores of millions without house, food or clothing; they were
+driven forth as wanderers on the face of the earth without home, without
+hope. The Government does nothing whatever in these cases. The people
+who wish to live must find the means to live, and what impressed me all
+through my wanderings was the absolute science to which poverty is
+reduced. In such calamities the Chinese, of all men on the earth's
+surface, will battle along if there is any chance at all. If he is
+blessed, he once more becomes a farmer; but if not, he accepts the
+position as inevitable and irremediable. The Chinese race has the finest
+power in the world to withstand with fortitude the ills of life and the
+miseries which follow inability to procure the wherewithal to live.
+Their nerves are somehow different from our Western nerves.</p>
+
+<p>In China nothing is wasted, not only in food, but in everything
+affecting the common life.</p>
+
+<p>That a beast dies of disease is of no concern. It is eaten all the same
+from head to hoof, from skin to entrail, and the remarkable fact is that
+they do not seem to suffer from it, either. At Kiang-ti (mentioned in a
+previous chapter) I saw a horse being pushed down the hillside to the
+river. It was not yet dead, but was dying, so far as I could see, of
+inflammation of the bowels. Its body was cut up, and there were several
+people waiting to buy it at forty cash the catty.</p>
+
+<p>From Hungay onwards I met a class of people I had not seen before. They
+were the Minchia (Pe-tso).</p>
+
+<p>Major H.R. Davies, whose treatise on the tribes of Y&uuml;n-nan at the end of
+his excellent work on travel in the province, is probably the best yet
+written, writes that he met Minchia people only on the plains of Tali-fu
+and Chao-chow, and never east of the latter place. This was in travel
+some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many
+Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as
+a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. There is
+little doubt that the Minchia originally came from country lying between
+the border of the province and round Li-chiang-fu and the Tali-fu plain
+and lake. Most of them wear Chinese dress; many of the women bind their
+feet (and the practice is growing in popularity), although those who
+have not small feet are still in the majority. In a small city lying
+some few li from the city of Tali all the inhabitants are Minchia, and I
+found no difficulty in spotting a Chinese man or woman&mdash;there is a
+distinct facial difference. Minchia have bigger noses, generally the
+eyes are set farther apart, and the skin is darker. Pink trousers are in
+fashion among the ladies&mdash;trace of base feminine weakness!&mdash;but are not
+by any means the distinguishing features of race.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AP_42'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AP_42'>[AP]</a><div class='note'><p> Carlyle, <i>Sartor Resartus</i>.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AQ_43'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AQ_43'>[AQ]</a><div class='note'><p> Wind-cap, a long Chinese wadded hat which reaches over
+one's head and down over the shoulders, tied under the chin with
+ribbons.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AR_44'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AR_44'>[AR]</a><div class='note'><p> Likin, as everyone knows, is custom duty. All along the
+main roads of China one meets likin stations, distinguished by the flag
+at the entrance.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AS_45'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AS_45'>[AS]</a><div class='note'><p> I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am
+convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been
+something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in
+summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes
+midway between Y&uuml;n-nan-&iuml; and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation,
+interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant
+contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine,
+lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which
+is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon
+the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard
+a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they
+suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the
+departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as
+one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was
+struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what
+we in the West call civilization. Yet nothing bore traces of gross
+uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite
+content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could,
+soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and
+their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with
+babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played
+roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields;
+coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring
+villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned
+and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with
+old-time pomp&mdash;not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in
+the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair
+carried by men. There was plenty of everything&mdash;enough for all&mdash;but all
+had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants
+were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have
+noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire
+to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as
+little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and
+mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will
+contradict it? They do not see with the eyes of the West; we do not, we
+cannot, see with their eyes. But surely the living of this simple life,
+the same as it was in the beginning, has a good deal in it; it is not
+uncivilization, not barbarism, and the fair-minded traveler in China can
+come to but one opinion, even in the midst of all the conflicting
+emotions which result from his own upbringing, that we could, if we
+would, learn many a good lesson from the old-time life of the Celestial
+in his own country.
+</p><p>
+Yet these are the very people who may jostle us harshly later on in the
+racial struggle.
+</p><p>
+I am not suggesting that when the Chinese adopts the cult of the West,
+and comes into general contact with it&mdash;and I believe that I am right in
+saying that this is the desire, generally speaking, of the whole of the
+enlightened classes&mdash;he continues with his few wants. As a matter of
+fact, he does not. He is as extravagant, and perhaps more so, than the
+most of us. I have seen Straits Chinese waste at the gaming tables in
+their gorgeous clubs as much in one night as some European residents
+handle in one year, and he is quick to get his motor-car, his horses and
+carriages, and endless other ornaments of wealth. So that if progress in
+the course of the evolution of nations means that the Chinese too will
+demand all that the European now demands, and will cease to find
+satisfaction in the existing conditions of his life in the new goal
+towards which he is moving, and if he, in course of time, should
+increase the cost of living per head to equal that of the Westerner,
+then he will lose a good deal of the advantage he now undoubtedly has in
+the struggle for racial supremacy. But if, gradually taking advantage of
+all in religion, in science, in literature, in art, in modern naval and
+military equipment and skill, and all that has made nations great and
+made for real progress in the West, he were also to continue his present
+hardy frugality in living&mdash;which is not a tenth as costly in proportion
+to that of the Occident&mdash;then his advantage in entering upon the
+conflict among the nations for ultimate supremacy would be undoubted,
+immeasurable.
+</p><p>
+The question is, will he?
+</p><p>
+If he will, then the Occident has much to fear. China, going ahead
+throughout the Empire as she is at the present moment in certain parts,
+will in course of time (as is only fair and natural to expect) have an
+army greater in numbers than is possible to any European power, and her
+food-bill will be two-thirds lower per head per fighting man.
+Subsequently, granting that China fulfils our fears, and becomes as
+great a fighting power as military experts declare she will, even in our
+generation, by virtue of her numbers alone, apart from phenomenal powers
+of endurance, which as every writer on China and her people is agreed,
+is excelled by no other race on earth, she would be able to dictate
+terms to the West. But, again, will she? Will the people continue to
+live as they are living?
+</p><p>
+I personally believe that the Chinese will not. I believe that as the
+nation progresses, more in accordance with lines of progress laid down
+by the West, so will her wants increase, and consequent expenses of life
+become greater. The Y&uuml;n-nanese even are beginning to acknowledge that
+they have no ordinary comforts. In other parts of the empire the people
+are already beginning to learn what comfort, sanitation, lighting, and
+general organization means&mdash;in the home, in the city, in the country, in
+the nation.
+</p><p>
+And they are learning too that it all costs money, and means, perhaps, a
+higher state of social life. For this they do not mind the money. They
+are not going half-way&mdash;they are going to be whole-hoggers. And when in
+the future, near or far, we shall find them, as is almost inevitable,
+able to compete in everything with other nations, we shall find that
+they have not been successful in learning the source of strength without
+having absorbed also some of the weaknesses; they will not escape the
+vices, even if they learn some of the virtues of the West.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XIX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Peculiar forebodings of early morning</i>. <i>A would-be speaker of
+English</i>. <i>The young men of Y&uuml;n-nan and the Reform Movement</i>. <i>Teachers
+of English</i>. <i>Remarks on methods adopted</i>. <i>Disregard of the customs of
+centuries</i>. <i>A rushing Szech-wanese</i>. <i>Missionaries and the Educational
+Movement</i>. <i>Christianity and the position of the foreigner</i>. <i>Is the
+Chinese racially inferior to the European? Interesting opinion</i>. <i>Peace
+of Europe and integrity of China</i>. <i>Chao-chow cook gets a bad time</i>.
+<i>The author's lev&eacute;e. Natural &quot;culture&quot; of the people</i>. <i>Story of the
+birth of boys</i>. <i>Notes on Hsiakwan</i>. <i>Experiences of the
+non-Chinese-speaking author at the inn</i>. <i>How he got the better of an
+official</i>. <i>A magnificent temple</i>. <i>Kwan-&iuml;n and the priests.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>This morning, from the foot of a high spur, I saw a couple of gawky
+fellows shambling along in an imitation European dress, and I pricked up
+my ears&mdash;it seemed as if Europeans were about. One of the fellows had on
+a pair of long-legged khaki trousers ludicrously patched with Chinese
+blue, a tweed coat of London cut also patched with Chinese blue, and a
+battered Elswood topee. I saw this through my field-glasses. Soon after,
+coming out from a cup in the winding pathway, emerged a four-man chair,
+and I had no doubt then that it was a European on the road, and I began
+to get as curious as anyone naturally would in a country where in
+interior travel his own foreign kind are met with but seldom. Hurrying
+on, I managed to pass the chair in a place where overhanging foliage
+shut out the light, so that I could not see through the windows, and as
+the front curtain was down I concluded that it must be a lady, probably
+a missionary lady. I pushed on to the nearest tavern&mdash;a tea tavern, of
+course&mdash;buttoned up my coat so that she should not see my dirty shirt,
+and waited for the presence to approach. From an inner apartment,
+through a window, I could see all that went on outside, but could not be
+seen. What is it that makes a man's heart go pit-a-pat when he is about
+to meet a European lady in mid-China?</p>
+
+<p>Presently the chair approached. From it came a person covered in a huge
+fur-lined, fur-collared coat many sizes too large for his small body&mdash;it
+was a Chinese. Several men were pushed out of his way as he strode
+towards me, extending his hand in a cordial &quot;shake, old fellow&quot; style,
+and yelling in purest accent, &quot;Good morning, sir; <i>good</i> morning, sir!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Oh, good morning. You speak English well. I congratulate you. Have you
+had a good journey? How far are you going? Very warm?&quot; I waited. &quot;It is
+so interesting when one meets a gentleman who can speak English; it is a
+pleasant change.&quot; I waited again. &quot;Will you&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Good morning, morning, morn&mdash;he, he, he.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;But pardon me, will&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Morning, morning&mdash;he, h-e-e.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, you silly ass, I know it is morning, but&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, yes; morning, morning&mdash;he-e-e-e-e.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He then made for the door, not the least abashed. Later he came back,
+and invited me to speak Chinese, probably thinking that I was wondering
+why he had made such an absolute fool of himself. I learned that this
+august gentleman possessed a name in happy correspondence with a fowl
+(&quot;Chi&quot;). He pointed contemptuously to a member of that feather tribe as
+he told me. Whether he could speak Chinese when he was or was not at
+Chen-tu, or whether he had a son whose knowledge of my language was
+vast, and who was at that moment at Chen-tu, I could not quite fathom,
+and he could not explain. He had a look at my caravan generally, and
+then turned his scrutiny upon my common tweeds, informing me that the
+quality bore no comparison with his own. He could travel in a four-man
+chair; I had to <i>walk</i>. It was all very &quot;pub hao.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>After some time he cleared out with much empty swagger, and I followed
+leisurely on behind, feeling&mdash;yes, why not publish it?&mdash;pleased that this
+bolt from the blue had not been a lady.</p>
+
+<p>This young fellow&mdash;a mere slip of a boy&mdash;wore every indication of
+perfect self-confidence, borne out in a multitude of ways common to his
+class. He, I presumed, was one of the fledglings who undertake
+responsibilities far beyond them, or I should not be surprised if he had
+been one of the army of young men who, having the merest smattering of
+English, wholly unable to converse, set up as teachers of English. I
+have found this quite common among the rising classes in Y&uuml;n-nan. The
+cool assumption of unblushing superiority evinced in discussing
+intellectual and philosophic problems is remarkable. The Chinese, in the
+area I speak of, are little people with little brain: this was a
+specimen. Yet, to be fair, in China to-day the work of reform is mainly
+the work of young men, who although but only partly equipped for their
+work, approach it with perfect confidence and considerable energy, not
+knowing sufficient to realize the difficulties they are undertaking. In
+Japan the same thing was done. The young men there undertook to dispute
+and doubt everything which came in the way of national reorganization,
+setting aside&mdash;as China must do if she is to take her place alongside
+the ideal she has set up for herself, Japan&mdash;parental teaching,
+ancestral authority, the customs of centuries. A large proportion of the
+population of China has a passion for reform and progress. This young
+fellow was a typical example. In the west of China, however, to conform
+with the spirit of reform and real progress&mdash;not the make-believe, which
+is satisfying them at the present moment&mdash;they must needs change their
+ways.</p>
+
+<p>Seventeen memorial plates were passed at the entrance to Chao-chow, a
+particularly modern-looking place, as one approaches it from the hill.</p>
+
+<p>A remarkably ungainly individual, with a hole in the top of his skull
+and his body one mass of sores, came to me here, addressed me as &quot;Sien
+seng,&quot; and then commenced an oration to the effect that he was a
+Szech'wanese, that he had known the missionaries down by the Yangtze,
+and that he knew he would be welcome to accompany me to Hsiakwan.<a name='FNanchor_AT_46'></a><a href='#Footnote_AT_46'><sup>[AT]</sup></a> He
+switched himself on the main line of my caravan. Here was a man who had
+been brought in contact with the missionary away down in another
+province, and he knew he was welcome. I liked that. In all my
+journeyings in Y&uuml;n-nan I was increasingly impressed with the value of
+the missionary, that man who of all men in the Far East is the most
+subject to malicious criticism, and generally, be it said, from those
+persons who know little or nothing about his work. You cannot measure
+the missionary's work by conversions, by mere statistics. I venture to
+assert that it is through the missionary that the West applied pressure
+and supplied China with political ideas, and put within her reach the
+material and instruments which would enable her to carry such ideas into
+practice&mdash;this apart from religious teaching. More particularly is this
+the case in respect to popular education, perhaps, by means of which the
+transformation of Old China into New China will be a less long and
+difficult process. The people may not want the missionary&mdash;I do not for
+a moment say that they do&mdash;but they need to know the secret of his power
+and the power of his kind, and they must study his language, his
+science, his machinery, his steamboats, his army, his <i>Dreadnaughts</i>.
+They realize that the foreigner is useful not for what he can do, but
+for what he can teach&mdash;therefore they tolerate the missionary. This is
+virtually the national policy of China towards foreigners, a policy
+gaining the acceptance of the people with remarkable quickness.</p>
+
+<p>After having set aside all considerations of national prejudice and
+patriotism, it is interesting to ask whether it is actually a fact that
+the Chinese, as a race, are inferior to the peoples of the West? Much
+has been said on the subject. I give my opinion flatly that the Chinese
+is <i>not</i> inferior, and the longer I live with him the more numerous
+become the lessons which he teaches me.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The question, when we examine it closely, has really very little to do
+with political strength or military efficiency, or (<i>pace</i> Mr. Benjamin
+Kidd) relative standards of living, or even the usual material
+accompaniments of what we call an advanced civilization; it is a
+question for the trained anthropologist and the craniologist rather than
+for the casual observer of men and manners. The Japanese people are now
+much more highly civilized&mdash;according to western notions&mdash;than they were
+half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that
+they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than
+they were then. Evolution does not work quite so rapidly as that even in
+these days of 'hustle.' The Japanese have advanced, not because their
+brains have suddenly become larger, or their moral and intellectual
+capabilities have all at once made a leap forward, but because their
+intercourse with Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion,
+showed them that certain characteristic features of European
+civilization would be of great use in strengthening and enriching their
+own country, developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist
+aggression. If the Japanese were as members of the <i>homo sapiens</i>
+inferior to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are
+our equals to-day&mdash;and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him
+who wishes to show that they are not&mdash;our knowledge of the origin and
+history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
+to assure us that the Chinese are our equals, too. There is no valid
+reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior to
+the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer than
+the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently necessary
+for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to appreciate
+the value of Western science and certain features of Western
+civilization, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
+country than a small one, and because China was rich within her own
+borders of all the necessaries of life.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_AU_47'></a><a href='#Footnote_AU_47'><sup>[AU]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>And the West, too, must learn that the peace of Europe depends upon the
+integrity of China. For the time is coming&mdash;not in the lives of any who
+read these lines, but coming inevitably&mdash;when China will, by her might,
+by her immense numbers of trained men, by her developed naval and
+military strength, be able to say to the nations of the earth, &quot;There
+must be no more war.&quot; And she will be strong enough to be able to
+enforce it.</p>
+
+<p>As with individuals, so with nations, and a people who are marked by
+such rare physical vitality, such remarkable powers of endurance against
+great odds, are surely designed for some nobler purpose than merely to
+bear with fortitude the ills of life and the misery of starvation. It is
+the easiest thing in the world to criticise&mdash;the West criticises the
+Chinese because he is a heathen, because they do not understand him.
+Hundreds of millions of the Chinese race hate and fear the man of the
+West for exactly the same reason as would cause us to hate the Chinese
+were the situation reversed.</p>
+
+<p>I do not need to go into history from the days when the Chinese first
+began to show their suspicion, contempt, and fear of foreigners, and
+their interpretation of the motives and purposes which took them to the
+Celestial Empire; it would take too much space. But if we of the West
+did our part to-day, as we rub up against the Chinese everywhere, in
+charitably taking him at his best, things would alter much more speedily
+that they are doing. Because the Chinese bristles with contradictions
+and seemingly unanswerable conundrums, we immediately dub him a
+barbarian, do not endeavor to understand him, do not understand enough
+of his language to listen to him and learn his point of view. However,
+it is all slowly passing&mdash;so very slowly, too. But still China is
+progressing, and now this oldest man in the world is becoming again the
+youngest, but has all the accumulations and advantages of age in all
+countries to lean upon and learn from.</p>
+
+<p>Chao-chow gave me a very decent inn, the top room in front of which was
+provided with a well-paved courtyard, with every convenience for the
+traveler&mdash;that is, for China.</p>
+
+<p>The inn cook and water-carrier was out playing on the street when we put
+in an early appearance. My men lost their temper, ground their teeth,
+foamed at the mouth, and got desperate. The only man on the premises was
+a poor old fellow, who foolishly bumped his uncovered head on the ground
+on which I stood, as an act of great servility and a secret sign that I
+should throw him a few cash, and then resumed his occupation in the sun
+of wiping his already inflamed eyes with the one unwashed garment which
+covered him. I pitied him; he knew it, and traded upon my pity until I
+invoked a few choice words from Lao Chang to fall upon him. When the
+cook did put in an appearance, he and everybody dead and living placed
+anywhere near his genealogical tree underwent a rough quarter of an
+hour from the anathematical tongues of my companions. The Old Man&mdash;by
+virtue of the growth on my chin, this epithet of respect was commonly
+used towards me&mdash;wanted to wash his face and drink his tea. He was tired
+with walking. He was a foreign mandarin. Did the blank, blank, blank
+cook, the worm and no man, not know that a foreigner was among them? And
+then they fell to piling up the ignominy again and placing to the cook's
+dishonor various degrees of lowliest origin common among the Chinese
+proletariat, which, thank Heaven, I did not quite understand.</p>
+
+<p>That evening all Chao-chow came to honor me in my room, and to admire
+and ask to be given all I had in my boxes. That it was all a huge
+revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I
+might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in
+expensive silks and satins&mdash;probably borrowed&mdash;came with pomp and
+pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he
+learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him. He mentioned
+that he was one of the cultured of the city. But the Chinese are all
+more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character,
+are really &quot;cultured&quot;&mdash;they are the most polite men I have ever
+traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than
+real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in
+moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the
+wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter
+of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking
+in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along
+with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for
+my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored
+man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent
+invitations to use a chair&mdash;how is it all Orientals can do this, and not
+one European out of fifty?</p>
+
+<p>Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented
+him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth
+of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese
+household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be
+lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just
+before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and
+secure peace. This is the &quot;Exorcism of Great Peace.&quot; Simultaneously
+comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and
+difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever
+similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is
+often felt that the first visit to the house after the birth of the
+child should be made by a &quot;lucky&quot; person, for the child's whole future
+career may be blighted by meeting with an &quot;ill-starred&quot; person. No
+outsider will enter the room where the birth took place for forty days.
+On the anniversary of a boy's birth the relatives and friends bring
+presents of clothes, hats, ornaments, playthings, and red eggs. The baby
+is placed on the floor&mdash;the earth, which is the first place he touches;
+he is born into a hole in the ground&mdash;and around him are placed various
+articles, such as a book, pencil, chopsticks, money, and so on. He will
+follow the profession which has to do with the articles he first
+touches.<a name='FNanchor_AV_48'></a><a href='#Footnote_AV_48'><sup>[AV]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This was the fortieth day, and so my visitant honored me by thrusting
+his contemptible presence upon me, and he would not go until late at
+night, when a man with a diseased hip and one eye&mdash;and a ghastly thing
+at that&mdash;called to see whether I could treat him with medicine.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiakwan in days to come will probably have a big industry in brick and
+tile making. Fifteen li from the town, on the Chao-chow side, many
+people now get their living at the business, and one could easily dream
+of a &quot;Hsiakwan Brick and Tile Company Limited,&quot; with the children's
+children of the present pioneers running for the morning papers to have
+a look at the share market reports, with light railways connected up
+with the main line, which has not yet been built, and so on, and so on.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiakwan is perhaps the busiest town on the main trade route from
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to Burma. Tali-fu, although growing, is only the official
+town, of which Hsiakwan is the commercial entrep&ocirc;t. It was here that I
+stayed one Sunday some time after this, at one of the biggest inns I
+have ever been into in China. It had no less than four buildings, each
+with a paved rectangular courtyard which all the rooms overlooked. A
+military official, who was on his way to Chao-t'ong to deal with the
+rebellion, of which the reader has already learnt a good deal, was
+expected soon after I arrived. My room was already arranged, however,
+when the landlord came to me and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yang gwan, you must please go out!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Now the yang gwan, as was expected, stayed where he was, smiled in
+magnanimous acquiescence, invited the proprietor&mdash;a stout, jolly person
+with one eye&mdash;to be seated, and remained quiet. Again and again was I
+told that I should be required to clear out, and give up the best room
+to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did
+not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the
+foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a
+stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The
+Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated
+foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in
+a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions
+been reversed, stared vacantly and woodenly into a seemingly bewildering
+infinite, and timidly remarked, &quot;O t'ing puh lai.&quot; Knowing then that my
+&quot;hearing had not come,&quot; he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by
+this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao
+Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their
+meaning. The best room, therefore, continued to be mine.</p>
+
+<p>Soon after the official came, and my dog began by mauling his canine
+guardian, tearing away half his ear; and in the middle of the night one
+of my horses got loose and had a stand-up fight with a mule attached to
+the official party, laming him seriously; and as the foreigner emerged
+in his night attire to prevent further damage, he encountered the
+mandarin himself, and pinned him dead against the wall in the dark,
+after having stepped on his corn. My pony had pulled several morsels of
+flesh from the mule's carcase. The yang gwan certainly came off best,
+and the following morning, as the Chinese gwan with his retinue of six
+chairs and about one hundred and fifty men departed, the yang gwan
+smiled a happy farewell which was not effusively reciprocated.</p>
+
+<p>As I came out of the inn I met a Buddhist priest, worn with general
+dilapidation and old age, with a huge festering wound in the calf of his
+leg, so that he could hardly hobble along with a stick&mdash;he was probably
+on his way to the medical missionary at Tali-fu for treatment. This
+spiritual guide was certainly on his last legs, and has probably by this
+time handed over the priestly robes and official perquisites to more
+vigorous young blood.</p>
+
+<p>Hsiakwan's High Street reminded me of the main street of Totnes, with
+its arch over the roadway, and the scenery might have deluded one into
+the belief that he was in Switzerland in spring, as he gazed upon the
+glorious spectacle of snow-covered mountains with the world-famed lake
+at the foot. Tali-fu deserves its name of the Geneva of West China.</p>
+
+<p>In the chapter devoted to Y&uuml;n-nan-fu I have referred to the military of
+Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of
+men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here.
+Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the
+Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.</p>
+
+<p>In the famous temple ten li from Tali-fu is an effigy to the Yang Daren
+who figured conspicuously during the Mohammedan Rebellion. My men
+somehow got the false information that he was a native of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, so they all went down on their knees and bumped their
+heads on the ground before the image. This Yang, however, was such a
+brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a
+soldier he was indomitable. The temple in which he is deified is called
+the Kwan-&iuml;n-tang,<a name='FNanchor_AW_49'></a><a href='#Footnote_AW_49'><sup>[AW]</sup></a> and there is no place in all China where Kwan-&iuml;n
+is worshipped with such relentless vigor. Some years ago, so the wags
+say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-&iuml;n saved the city by
+transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her
+back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path. The
+amazement of the rebels at the sight of a woman performing such a feat
+made them wonder what the men could be like, so they turned tail and
+fled. The story is believed implicitly by the residents of the city, and
+the priests, with an open eye to the main chance, work upon the public
+imagination with capital tact. I saw the stone in the center of a lotus
+pond, over which is the structure in which the Kwan-&iuml;n sits, not as a
+weight-lifting woman, but as a tender mother, with a tiny babe in her
+arms, and none in the whole of the Empire enjoys such favor for being
+able to direct the birth of male children into those families which give
+most money to the priests. Women desiring sons come and implore her by
+throwing cash, one by one, at the effigy, the one who hits being
+successful, going away with the belief that a son will be born to her.
+When the deluded females are cleared out, the priest, divesting himself
+of his shoes, and rolling up his trousers, goes into the water, scoops
+up the money and uses it for his personal convenience&mdash;sometimes as much
+as thirty thousand cash.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AT_46'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AT_46'>[AT]</a><div class='note'><p> The commercial center of Tali-fu, the official city is 30
+li further on&mdash;E.J.D</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AU_47'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AU_47'>[AU]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>From Peking to Mandalay</i>, by R.F. Johnston, London, John
+Murray. I am indebted to this racily-written work for other ideas in
+this chapter.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AV_48'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AV_48'>[AV]</a><div class='note'><p> From inquiries I find this custom is not general in some
+parts of Western China&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AW_49'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AW_49'>[AW]</a><div class='note'><p> Temple to the Goddess of Mercy.
+</p><p>
+<div class='blkquot'><p>&quot;Kwan-&iuml;n was the third daughter of a king, beautiful and talented,
+     and when young loved to meditate as a priest. Her father, mother
+     and sisters beseech her not to pass the 'green spring,' but to
+     marry, and the king offers the man of her choice the throne. But
+     no, she must take the veil. She enters the 'White Sparrow Nunnery,'
+     and the nuns put her to the most menial offices; the dragons open a
+     well for the young maidservant, and the wild beasts bring her wood.
+     The king sends his troops to burn the nunnery, Kwan-&iuml;n prays, rain
+     falls, and extinguishes the conflagration. She is brought to the
+     palace in chains, and the alternative of marriage or death is
+     placed before her. In the room above where the court of the
+     inquisition is held there is music, dancing, and feasting, sounds
+     and sights to allure a young girl; the queen also urges her to
+     leave the convent, and accede to the royal father's wish. Kwan-&iuml;n
+     declares that she would rather die than marry, so the fairy
+     princess is strangled, and a tiger takes her body into the forest.
+     She descends into hell, and hell becomes a paradise, with gardens
+     of lilies. King Yama is terrified when he sees the prison of the
+     lost becoming an enchanted garden, and begs her to leave, in order
+     that the good and the evil may have their distinctive rewards. One
+     of the genii gives her the 'peach of immortality.' On her return to
+     the terrestrial regions she hears that her father is sick, and
+     sends him word that if he will dispatch a messenger to the
+     'Fragrant Mountain,' an eye and a hand will be given him for
+     medicine; this hand and eye are Kwan-&iuml;n's own, and produce instant
+     recovery.
+</p><p>
+     &quot;She is the patron goddess of mothers, and when we remember the
+     value of sons, we can understand the heartiness of worship.&quot;&mdash;<i>The
+     Three Religions of China,</i> by H.G. Du Bose.</p></div>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='THIRD_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>THIRD JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+
+<a name='CHAPTER_XX'></a><h2>CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Stages to the Mekong Valley</i>. <i>Hardest part of the walking tour</i>.
+<i>Author as a medical man</i>. <i>Sunday soliloquy</i>. <i>How adversity is met</i>.
+<i>Chinese life compared with early European ages</i>. <i>Womens enthusiasm
+over the European</i>. <i>A good send-off</i>. <i>My coolie Shanks, the songster</i>.
+<i>Laughter for tears</i>. <i>Pony commits suicide</i>. <i>Houses in the forest
+district</i>. <i>Little encampments among the hills, and the way the people
+pass their time</i>. <i>Treacherous travel</i>. <i>To Hwan-lien-p'u</i>. <i>Rest by the
+river, and a description of my companions</i>. <i>How my men treated the
+telegraph</i>. <i>Universal lack of privacy</i>. <i>Complaints of the carrying
+coolies.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>From whichever standpoint you regard the cities and villages of Western
+China, the views are full of interest. Each forms a new picture of rock,
+river, wood and temple, crenellated wall, and uplifted roof, crowded
+with bewildering detail.</p>
+
+<p>I am not the first traveler who has remarked this. Several of Mr.
+Archibald Little's books speak of it. He says: &quot;In Europe, except where
+the scenery is purely wild, and more especially in America, the delight
+of gazing on many of the most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the
+crude newness of man's work. This is true now of Japan, since the rage
+for copying western architecture and dress has fallen upon the Islands
+of the Rising Sun. But here in Western China little has intervened to
+mar the accord between nature and man.&quot; In the country on which we are
+now entering the natural grandeur is finer than anything I had seen
+since I left the Gorges, and incidentally I do not mind confessing to
+the indulgent reader that when I came again through Hsiakwan, again
+westward bound, I was tired, my feet were blistered and broken, each day
+and every day had brought me a hard journey, and here I was now facing
+the most difficult journey yet met with&mdash;literally not a li of level
+road.</p>
+
+<p>My journey was by the following route:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td></td><td align='center'>Length of Stage</td><td align='center'>Height Above Sea</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day</td><td align='left'>Ho-chiang-p'u</td><td align='center'>90 li</td><td align='center'>5,050 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day</td><td align='left'>Yang-pi</td><td align='center'>60 li</td><td align='center'>5,150 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>3rd day</td><td align='left'>T'ai-p'ing-p'u</td><td align='center'>70 li</td><td align='center'>7,400 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day</td><td align='left'>Hwan-lien-p'u</td><td align='center'>50 li</td><td align='center'>5,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day</td><td align='left'>Ch'u-tung</td><td align='center'>95 li</td><td align='center'>5,250 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day</td><td align='left'>Shayung</td><td align='center'>75 li</td><td align='center'>4,800 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>T'ai-p'ing-p'u (two days from Tali-fu), bleak and perched away up among
+the clouds, could never be called a town; it is merely a ramshackle
+place which gives one sleep and food in the difficult stage between
+Hwan-lien-p'u and Yang-pi.</p>
+
+<p>Like most of the small places which suffered from the ravishings of the
+Mohammedan destructions of the fifties, it has seen better days.
+Cottages hang clumsily together on ledges in the mountains, 7,400 feet
+above the sea, standing in their own vast uncultivated grounds. People
+are of the Lolo origin, but all speak Chinese; their ways of life,
+however, are aboriginal, and still far from the ideal to which they
+aspire. They are poor, poor as church mice, dirty and diseased and
+decrepit, and their existence as a consequence is dreary and dull and
+void of all enlightenment. The women&mdash;sad, lowly females&mdash;bind their
+feet after a fashion, but as they work in the fields, climb hills, and
+battle in negotiations against Nature where she is overcome only with
+extreme effort, the real &quot;lily&quot; is a thing possible with them only in
+their dreams. By binding, however, be it never so bad an imitation, they
+give themselves the greater chance of getting a Chinese husband.</p>
+
+<p>I stayed here the Sunday, and as I went through my evening ablutions,
+among my admirers in the doorway was an old woman, who in gentlest
+confidences with my boy, explained awkwardly that her little daughter
+lay sick of a fever, and could he prevail upon his foreign master, in
+whom she placed implicit faith, to come with her and minister? Lao Chang
+advised that I should go, and I went. My shins got mutilated as I fell
+down the slippery stone steps in the dark into a pail of hog's wash at
+the bottom. Having wiped the worst of the grease and slime onto the mud
+wall, by the aid of a flickering rushlight I saw the &quot;child,&quot; who lay on
+a mattress on the floor in the darkest corner of the room. I reckoned
+her age to be thirty-five, her black hair hung in tangled masses, the
+very bed on which she lay stank with vermin, two feet away was the fire
+where all the cooking was gone through, and everywhere around was filth.
+When she saw me the &quot;child&quot; raised her solitary garment, whispered that
+pains in her stomach were well-nigh unendurable, that her head ached,
+that her joints were stiff, that she was generally wrong, and&mdash;&quot;Did I
+think she would recover?&quot; I thought she might not.</p>
+
+<p>Rushing back to my medicine chest, I brought along and administered a
+maximum dose of the oil called castor, and later dosed her with quinine.
+In the morning she was out and about her work, while the old mother was
+great in her praises for the passing European who had cured her child.
+After that came the deluge! They wanted more medicine&mdash;fever elixir,
+toothache cure, and so on, and so on&mdash;but I stood firm.</p>
+
+<p>The tedium of the Sunday in that draughty inn gave me an insight into
+their common lives which I had not before, causing me to meditate upon
+their simple lives and their simple needs. They did not raise the
+forests in order to get gold; they did not squander their patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years. They held to simple
+needs; they had a simplicity of taste, which was also a peculiar source
+of independence and safety. The more simple they lived the more secure
+their future, because they were less at the mercy of surprises and
+reverses. In adversity these people would not act like nurslings
+deprived of their bottles and their rattles, but would, by virtue of
+their common simplicity, probably be better armed for any struggles. I
+do not desire the life for myself, but the ethics of their simple living
+cannot but be recommended. Multitudes possess in China what multitudes
+in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European
+life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden
+times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but
+we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers
+unless we return to the spirit which animated them. They possessed the
+spirit of real simplicity. And this same spirit the Chinese possess
+to-day; but they are minus the incomparable features of healthful
+civilization, inward and outward, of which our forebears were masters.
+Our ways to-day are not their ways, and their ways not our ways; but one
+cannot but realize as he moves among them that with a happy infusion of
+the spirit of their simplicity into the restlessness of our modern life
+our wearied minds would dream less and realize more of the true
+simplicity of simple living.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>To a man the village of T'ai-p'ing-p'u turned out early on the Monday
+morning to express regrets that my departure was at hand. When, in
+parting with this people who had done all in their power to make my
+comfort complete, I threw a handful of cash to some little children
+standing wonderingly near by, general approval was expressed, and
+elaborate felicities anent my beneficence exchanged by the ear-ringed
+Lolo women. A short apron hung down over their blue trousers, and as I
+passed out of their sight, they admired me and gossiped about me, with
+their hands under their aprons, in much the same manner as their more
+enlightened sisters of the wash-tub gossip sometimes in the West.</p>
+
+<p>It was a beautiful spring morning; the sweet song of the birds pierced
+through the noise of the rolling river below, the air was fragrant and
+bracing, and as I left and commenced the rocky ascent leading again to
+the mountains, the barks of some fierce-disposed canines, who alone
+objected to my presence among the hill-folk, died away with the rustle
+of the leafage in a keen north wind.</p>
+
+<p>One of my men was poorly, the solitary element to disturb the equanimity
+of our camp.</p>
+
+<p>It was Shanks. He had been suffering from toothache, and unfortunately I
+had no gum-balm with me; without my knowledge Lao Chang had rubbed in
+some strong embrocation to the fellow's cheek, so that now, in addition
+to toothache, he had also a badly blistered face, swollen up like a
+pudding. Upon learning that I had no means of curing him or of
+alleviating the pain, Shanks bellowed into my ear, loud enough to bring
+the dead out of the grave-mounds on the surrounding hill-sides, &quot;Puh p'a
+teh, pub p'a teh&quot;; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle
+on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing
+Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly
+disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song,
+and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who
+shared his bed, and whose choral propensities were less in proportion,
+he would laugh wildly at them all. Poor Shanks; he was a peculiar
+mortal. He would laugh at men in pain, and think it sympathy. If we
+could get no food or drink on the march, after having wearily toiled
+away for hours, he would not be disposed to grumble&mdash;he would laugh.
+Such tragic incidents as the pony jumping over the precipice provoked
+him to extreme laughter.<a name='FNanchor_AX_50'></a><a href='#Footnote_AX_50'><sup>[AX]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>And when I caught him sewing up an open wound in the sole of his foot
+with common colored Chinese thread and a rusty needle, and told him that
+he might thereby get blood poisoning, and lose his life or leg, he cared
+not a little. As a matter of fact, he laughed in my face. Not at me, not
+at all, but because he thought his laughter might probably delude the
+devil who was president over the ills of that particular portion of
+human anatomy. He came to me just outside Pu-p&ecirc;ng, where we saw a coffin
+containing a corpse resting in the roadway whilst the bearers refreshed
+near by and, pointing thereto, told me that the man was &quot;muh tsai&quot; (not
+here)&mdash;the Chinese never on any account mention the word death&mdash;and his
+sides shook with laughter, so much so that he dropped his loads
+alongside the corpse, and startled the cock on top of the coffin
+guarding the spirit of the dead into a vigorous fit of crowing for fear
+of disaster.</p>
+
+<p>We enjoyed fairly level road, although rough, for ten li after leaving
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u. It rose gradually from 7,400 feet to 8,500 feet, and
+then dipped suddenly, and continued at a fearful down gradient. I might
+describe it as a member of a British infantry regiment once described to
+me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few
+fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India,
+when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion
+had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, &quot;'Twasn't
+a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor.&quot; The
+Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something
+in common.</p>
+
+<p>Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu
+Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see.</p>
+
+<p>Midway down the steep hill we happened on some lonely log cottages,
+twenty-five li from T'ai-p'ing-p'u (it is reckoned as thirty-five li
+traveling in the opposite direction). In the forest district I found the
+houses all built of timber&mdash;wood piles placed horizontally and
+dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched. You have merely to
+step aside from the road, and you are in dense mountain forest; it is
+manifestly easier and less costly than the mud-built habitation,
+although for their part the people are worse off because of the lack of
+available ground for growing their crops. Here the people were still
+essentially Lolo, and the big-footed women who boiled water under a shed
+had difficulty in getting to understand what my men were talking about.</p>
+
+<p>The second descent is begun after a pleasant walk along level ground
+resembling a well-laid-out estate, and a treacherously rough mile
+brought us down to an iron chain bridge swung over the Shui-pi Ho, at
+the far end of which, hidden behind bamboo matting, are a few idols in
+an old hut; they act in the dual capacity of gods of the river and the
+mountain. Tea and some palatable baked persimmon&mdash;very like figs when
+baked&mdash;were brought me by an awful-looking biped who was still in
+mourning, his unshaven skull sadly betokening the fact. As I sipped my
+tea and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met
+me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in
+that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I
+admired the grand scenery farther along. Especially did I notice one
+peak, towering perpendicularly away up past woods of closely-planted
+pine and fir trees, the crystal summit glistening with sunlit snow; as
+soon as I started again on my journey, I was pulling up towards it. Soon
+I was gazing down upon the tiny patches of light green and a few
+solitary cottages, resembling a little beehive, and one could imagine
+the metaphorical wax-laying and honey-making of the inhabitants. These
+people were away from all mankind, living in life-long loneliness, and
+all unconscious of the distinguished foreigner away up yonder, who
+wondered at their patient toiling, but who, like them, had his
+Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow. There they were, perched high up on the
+bleak mountain sides, with their joys and sorrows, their pains and
+penalties, struggling along in domestic squalor, and rearing young
+rusticity and raw produce.</p>
+
+<p>On these mountains in Y&uuml;n-nan one sees hundreds of such little
+encampments of a few families, passing their existence far from the road
+of the traveler, who often wished he could descend to them and quench
+his thirst, and eat with them their rice and maize. Most of them here
+were isolated families of tribespeople, who, out of contact with their
+kind, have little left of racial resemblance, and yet are not fully
+Chinese, so that it is difficult to tell what they really are. Most were
+Lolo.</p>
+
+<p>Walking here was treacherous. A foot pathway was the main road, winding
+in and out high along the surface of the hills, in many places washed
+away, and in others overgrown with grass and shrubbery. &quot;Across China on
+Foot&quot; would have met an untimely end had I made a false step or slipped
+on the loose stones in a momentary overbalance. I should have rolled
+down seven hundred feet into the Shui-pi Ho. Once during the morning I
+saw my coolies high up on a ledge opposite to me, and on practically
+the same level, a three-li gully dividing us. They were very small men,
+under very big hats, bustling along like busy Lilliputians, and my loads
+looked like match-boxes. I probably looked to them not less grotesque.
+But we had to watch our footsteps, and not each other.</p>
+
+<p>We were rounding a corner, when I was surprised to see Hwan-lien-p'u a
+couple of li away. The <i>fu-song</i> were making considerable hue and cry
+because Rusty had rolled thirty feet down the incline, and as I looked I
+saw the animal get up and commence neighing because he had lost sight of
+us. He was in the habit of wandering on, nibbling a little here and a
+little there, and rarely gave trouble unless in chasing an occasional
+horse caravan, when he gave my men some fun in getting him again into
+line.</p>
+
+<p>It was not yet midday, and we had four hours' good going. So I
+calculated. Not so my men. They could not be prevailed upon to budge,
+and knowing the Chinese just a little, I reluctantly kept quiet. It was
+entirely unreasonable to expect them to go on to Ch'u-tung, ninety li
+away&mdash;it was impossible. And I learnt that the reason they would not go
+on was that no house this side of that place was good enough to put a
+horse into, even a Chinese horse, and they would not dream of taking me
+on under those conditions. There was not even a hut available for the
+traveler, so they said. I had come over difficult country, plodding
+upwards on tiptoe and then downwards with a lazy swing from stone to
+stone for miles. Throughout the day we had been going through fine
+mountain forest, everywhere peaceful and beautiful, but it had been hard
+going. In the morning a heavy frost lay thick and white about us, and by
+10:30 a.m. the sun was playing down upon us with a merciless heat as we
+tramped over that little red line through the green of the hill-sides.
+Often in this march was I tempted to stay and sit down on the sward,
+but I had proved this to be fatal to walking. In traveling in Y&uuml;n-nan
+one's practice should be: start early, have as few stops as possible,
+when a stop <i>is</i> made let it be long enough for a real rest. In
+Szech'wan, where the tea houses are much more frequent, men will pull up
+every ten li, and generally make ten minutes of it. In Y&uuml;n-nan these
+welcome refreshment houses are not met with so often, and little
+inducement is held out for the coolies to stop, but upon the slightest
+provocation they will stop for a smoke. On this walking trip I made it a
+rule to be off by seven o'clock, stop twice for a quarter of an hour up
+to tiffin (my men stopped oftener), when our rest was often for an hour,
+so that we were all refreshed and ready to push on for the fag-end of
+the stage. We generally were done by four or five o'clock. And I should
+be the last in the world to deny that by this time I had had enough for
+one day.</p>
+
+<p>Upon arrival I immediately washed my feet, an excellent practice of the
+Chinese, changed my footgear, drank many cups of tea, and often went
+straight to my p'ukai. The roads of China take it out of the strongest
+man. There are no Marathon runners here; progress is a tedious toil,
+often on all fours.</p>
+
+<p>My room at Hwan-lien-p'u was near a telegraph pole; there was a
+telegraph station there, where my men showed their admiration for the
+Governmental organization by at once hammering nails into the pole. It
+was close to their laundry, and served admirably for the clothes-line, a
+bamboo tied at one end with a string to a nail in the pole and the other
+end stuck through the paper in the window of the telegraph operator's
+apartment. But this is nothing. Years ago, when the telegraph was first
+laid down, the people took turns to displace the wires and sell them for
+their trouble, and to chop the poles up for firewood. It continued for a
+considerable period, until an offender&mdash;or one whom it was surmised had
+done this or would have done it if he could&mdash;had his ears cut off, and
+was led over the main road to the capital, to be admired by any
+compatriot contemplating a deal in wiring or timber used for telegraphic
+communication purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Just below the town the river ran peacefully down a gradual incline. I
+decided that a comfortable seat under a tree, spending an hour in
+preparing this copy, would be more pleasant than moping about a noisome
+and stench-ridden inn, providing precious little in the way of
+entertainment for the foreigner. Next door a wedding party was making
+the afternoon hideous with their gongs and drums and crackers, and
+everywhere the usual hue and cry went abroad because a European was
+spending the day there.</p>
+
+<p>I imparted to my man my intentions for the afternoon. Immediately
+preparations were set on foot to get me down by the river, and it was
+publicly announced to the townspeople. The news ran throughout the town,
+that is Hwan-lien-p'u's one little narrow street, a sad mixture of a
+military trench and a West of England cobbled court. And instead of
+going alone to my shady nook by that silvery stream, 1 was accompanied
+by nine adult members of the unemployed band, three boys, and sundry
+stark-naked urchins who seemed to be without home or habitation. One of
+these specimens of fleeting friendship was one-eyed, and a diseased hip
+rendered it difficult for him to keep pace with us; one was club-footed,
+one hair-lipped fellow had only half a nose, and they were nearly all
+goitrous. As I write now these people, curious but not uncouth, are
+crouched around me on their haunches, after the fashion of the ape,
+their more Darwinian-evolved companion and his shorthand notes being
+admired by an open-mouthed crowd. Down below my horse is entertaining
+the more hilarious of the party in his tantrums with the man who is
+trying to wash him&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AX_50'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AX_50'>[AX]</a><div class='note'><p> The day before, whilst we were passing along the edge of a
+cliff, we saw a deliberate suicide on the part of a pony. Getting away
+from its companions, it first jumped against a tree, then turned its
+head sharply on the side of a cliff, finally taking a leap into mid-air
+over the precipice. It touched ground at about two hundred and fifty
+feet below this point, and then rolled out of sight. My men exhibited no
+concern, and laughed me down because I did. It was, as they said, merely
+diseased, and the muleteers went on their way, leaving horse and loads
+to Providence. This sort of thing is not uncommon.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>The mountains of Y&uuml;n-nan</i>. <i>Wonderful scenery</i>. <i>Among the
+Mohammedans</i>. <i>Sorry scene at Ch'u-tung</i>. <i>A hero of a horrid past</i>.
+<i>Infinite depth of Chinese character</i>. <i>Mule falls one hundred and fifty
+yards, and escapes unhurt</i>. <i>Advice to future travelers</i>. <i>To Shayung</i>.
+<i>We meet Tibetans on the mountains</i>. <i>Chinese cruelty</i>. <i>Opium smoker as
+a companion</i>. <i>Opium refugees</i>. <i>One opinion only on the subject</i>.
+<i>Mission work among smokers and eaters.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>Mere words are a feeble means to employ to describe the mountains of
+Y&uuml;n-nan.</p>
+
+<p>As I start from Hwan-lien-p'u this morning, to the left high hills are
+picturesquely darkened in the soft and unruffled solemnity of their own
+still unbroken shade. Opposite, rising in pretty wavy undulation, with
+occasional abruptions of jagged rock and sunken hollow, the steep
+hill-sides are brought out in the brightest coloring of delicate light
+and shade by the golden orb of early morn; towering majestically
+sunwards, sheer up in front of me, high above all else, still more
+sombre heights stand out powerfully in solemn contrast against the pale
+blue of the spring sky, the effect in the distance being antithetical
+and weird, with the magnificent Ts'ang Shan<a name='FNanchor_AY_51'></a><a href='#Footnote_AY_51'><sup>[AY]</sup></a> standing up as a
+beautiful background of perpendicular white, from whence range upon
+range of dark lines loom out in the hazy atmosphere. From the extreme
+summit of one snow-laden peak, whose white steeple seems truly a
+heavenward-directed finger, I gaze abstractedly all around upon nothing
+but dark masses of gently-waving hills, steep, weary ascents and
+descents, green and gold, and yellow and brown, and one's eyes rest upon
+a maze of thin white lines intertwining them all. These are the main
+roads. I am alone. My men are far behind. I am awed with an unnatural
+sense of bewildered wonderment in the midst of all this glory of the
+earth.</p>
+
+<p>Everything is so vast, so grand, so overpowering. Murmurings of the
+birds alone break the sense of sadness and loneliness. Away yonder
+full-grown pine trees, if discernible at all, are dwarfed so as to
+appear like long coarse grass. For some thirty li the road runs through
+beautiful woods, high above the valleys and the noise of the river; and
+now we are running down swiftly to a point where two ranges meet, only
+to toil on again, slowly and wearily, up an awful gradient for two hours
+or more. But the labor and all its fatiguing arduousness are nothing
+when one gets to the top, for one beholds here one of the most
+magnificent mountain panoramas in all West China. Far away, just peeping
+prettily from the silvered edges of the bursting clouds, are the giant
+peaks which separate Tali-fu from Yang-pi&mdash;white giants with rugged,
+cruel edges pointing upwards, piercing the clouds asunder as a ship's
+bow pierces the billows of the deep; and then, gradually coming from out
+the mist, are no less than eight distinct ranges of mountains from
+14,000 feet to 16,000 feet high, besides innumerable minor heights,
+which we have traversed with much labor during the past four days, all
+rich with coloring and natural grandeur seen but seldom in all the
+world. Switzerland could offer nothing finer, nothing more sweeping,
+nothing more beautiful, nothing more awe-inspiring. With the glorious
+grandeur of these wondrous hills, rising and falling playfully around
+the main ranges, the marvellous tree growth, the delicate contrasts of
+the formidable peaks and the dainty, cultivated valleys, and the face of
+Nature everywhere absolutely unmarred, Switzerland could in no way
+compare.</p>
+
+<p>Is it then surprising that I look upon these stupendous masses with
+wonder, which seem to breathe only eternity and immensity?</p>
+
+<p>The air is pure as the breath of heaven, all is still and peaceful, and
+the fact that in the very nature of things one cannot rush through this
+pervading beauty of the earth, but has to plod onwards step by step
+along a toilsome roadway, enables the scenery to be so impressed upon
+one's mind as to be focussed for life in one's memory. One is held
+spellbound; these are the pictures never forgotten. Here I sit in a
+corner of the earth as old as the world itself. These mountains are as
+they were in the great beginning, when the Creator and Sustainer of all
+things pure and beautiful looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was
+good.</p>
+
+<p>The country here seems so vast as to render Nature unconquerable by man:
+man is insignificant, Nature is triumphant. Railways are defied; and
+these mountains, running mostly at right angles, will probably
+never&mdash;not in our time, at least&mdash;be made unsightly by the puffing and
+the reeking of the modern railway engine. They present so many natural
+obstacles to the opening-up of the country, according to the standard we
+Westerners lay down, that one would hesitate to prophesy any mode of
+traffic here other than that of the horse caravan and human beast of
+burden. Nature seems to look down upon man and his earth-scouring
+contrivances, and assert, &quot;Man, begone! I will have none of thee.&quot; And
+the mountains turn upwards to the sky in_ silent reverence to their
+Maker, whose work must in the main remain unchanged until eternity.</p>
+
+<p>It is now 12:30, and we have fifty li to cover before reaching
+Ch'u-tung. We sit here to feed at a place called Siao-shui-tsing, a
+sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, where in subsequent travel
+I was hung up in bitter weather and had to pass the night. The people,
+courteous and civil as always, show a simple trustfulness with which is
+associated some little suspicion. I gave a cake to a little child, but
+its mother would not allow it to be eaten until she was again and again
+assured and reassured that it was quite fit to eat. This home life of
+the very poor Chinese, if indeed it may be called home life, has a
+listlessness about it in marked contrast to that of the West. There is
+little housework, no furniture more than a table and chair or two, and
+the simplicity of the cooking arrangements does not tend to increase the
+work of the housewife.</p>
+
+<p>People here to-day are going about their work with a restful
+deliberation very trying to one in a hurry. The women, with infants tied
+to their backs, do not work hard but very long. A mud-house is being
+built near by, and between the cooking and attending to passing
+travelers, two women are digging the earth and filling up the baskets,
+while the men are mixing the mud, filling in the oblong wooden trough,
+and thus building the wall. At my elbow a man&mdash;old and grizzled and
+dirty&mdash;is turning back roll upon roll of his wadded garments, and
+ridding it of as many as he can find of the insects with which it is
+infested. A slobbering, boss-eyed cretin chops wood at my side, and when
+I rise to try a snap on the women and the children they hide behind the
+walls. Thus my time passes away, as I wait for the coolies who sit on a
+log in the open road feeding on common basins of dry rice.</p>
+
+<p>After that we had to cross the face of a steep hill. We could, however,
+find no road, no pathway even, but could merely see the scratchings of
+coolies and ponies already crossed. It was an achievement not unrisky,
+but we managed to reach the other side without mishap. My horse, owing
+to the stupidity of the man who hung on to his mouth to steady himself,
+put his foot in a hole and dragged the fool of a fellow some twenty
+yards downwards in the mud. My coolies, themselves in a spot most
+dangerous to their own necks, stuck the outside leg deep in the mud to
+rest themselves, and set to assiduously in blackguarding the man in
+their richest vein, then, extricating themselves, again continued their
+journey, satisfied that they had shown the proper front, and saved the
+face of the foreigner who could not save it for himself. Then we all
+went down through a narrow ravine into a lovely shady glade, all green
+and refreshing, with a brook gurgling sweetly at the foot and birds
+singing in the foliage. There was something very quaint in this cosy
+corner, with the hideous echoes and weird re-echoes of my men's
+squealing. Then we went on again from hill to hill, in a ten-inch
+footway, broken and washed away, so that in places it was necessary to
+hang on to the evergrowing grass to keep one's footing in the slopes.
+One needs to have no nerves in China.</p>
+
+<p>Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their
+rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid
+condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve
+inches square, grazed on the hill-sides. In most places the foot of this
+ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty
+green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so
+thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight. As we entered a man
+came out with his p'ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the
+animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows
+with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying. The pony ceased shying.</p>
+
+<p>To Ch'u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded
+hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the
+<i>fu-song</i> had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a
+long road instead of by the &quot;new&quot; road (so called, although I do not
+doubt that it has been in use for many generations). Some Szech'wan
+coolies and myself had rice together on a low form away from the smoke,
+and the while listened to some tales of old, told by some half-witted,
+goitrous monster who seemed sadly out at elbow. The soldier meantime
+smelt round for a smoke. As he and my men had decided a few moments ago
+that each party was of a very low order of humanity, their pipes for him
+were not available. So he took pipe and dried leaf tobacco from this
+half-witted skunk, who, having wiped the stem in his eight-inch-long
+pants, handed it over in a manner befitting a monarch. It measured some
+sixty or seventy inches from stem to bowl.</p>
+
+<p>From Hwan-lien-p'u to Ch'u-tung is reckoned as eighty li; it is quite
+one hundred and ten, and the last part of the journey, over barren,
+wind-swept hills, most fatiguing.</p>
+
+<p>In contrast to the beauty of the morning's scenery, the country was
+black and bare, and a gale blew in our faces. My spirits were raised,
+however, by a coolie who joined us and who had a remarkable knowledge of
+the whole of the West of China, from Chung-king to Singai, from Mengtsz
+to Tachien-lu. Plied with questions, he willingly gave his answers, but
+he would persist in leading the way. As soon as a man endeavored to pass
+him, he would trot off at a wonderful speed, making no ado of the 120
+pounds of China pots on his back, yelling his explanations all the time
+to the man behind. Yung-p'ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li
+from Ch'u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped
+hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun,
+which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across
+the plain of peas and beans and winter crops. Four eight-inch planks,
+placed at various dangerous angles on three wood trestles, form the
+bridge across the fifty-foot stream dividing Ch'u-tung from the world on
+the opposite side. Across this I saw men wander with their loads, and
+then I led Rusty in. Whilst the stream washed his legs, I sat dangling
+mine until called upon to make way for another party of travelers.
+Remarkable is the agility of these men. They swing along over eight
+inches of wood as if they were in the middle of a well-paved road.</p>
+
+<p>Ch'u-tung is a Mohammedan town. There are a few Chinese only&mdash;Buddhists,
+Taoists and other ragtags; although when the follower of the Prophet has
+his pigtail attached to the inside of his hat, as it not unusual when he
+goes out fully dressed, there is little difference between him and the
+Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>Pigs here are conspicuously absent. People feed on poultry and beef. I
+rested in this city some month or so after my first overland trip whilst
+my man went to convert silver into cash, a trying ordeal always. Whilst
+I sipped my tea and ate a couple of rice cakes, I was impressed, as I
+seldom have been in my wanderings, with the remarkable number of people,
+from the six hundred odd houses the town possesses, who during that
+half-hour found nothing whatever to do to benefit themselves or the
+community, as members of which they passed monotonous lives, but to
+stare aimlessly at the resting foreigner. The report spread like
+wildfire, and they ran to the scene with haste, pulling on their coats,
+wiping food from their mouths, scratching their heads <i>en route</i>, one
+trouser-leg up and the other down, all anxious to get a seat near the
+stage. A river flows down the center of the street, and into this a
+sleepy fellow got tipped bodily in the crush, sat down in the water,
+seemingly in no hurry to move until he had finished his vigorous
+bullying of the man who pushed him in. Those who could not get standing
+room near my table went out into the street and shaded the sun from
+their eyes, in order that they might catch even a glimpse of the
+traveler who sat on in uncompromising indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Several old wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion&mdash;at the
+moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed
+imminent&mdash;and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past,
+being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the
+crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose
+from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the
+people of something terrible about to happen could not have been more
+intense.</p>
+
+<p>But I had by this time got used to their crowding, so that I could
+write, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry, and go through personal and
+private routine with no embarrassment. If I turned for the purpose, I
+could easily stare out of face a member of the crowd whose inquisitive
+propensities had become annoying, but as soon as he left another filled
+the gap. Quite pitiful was it to see how trivial articles of foreign
+manufacture&mdash;such, for instance, as the cover of an ordinary tin or the
+fabric of one's clothing&mdash;brought a regular deluge of childish interest
+and inane questioning; and if I happened to make a few shorthand notes
+upon anything making a particular impression, a look half surprised,
+half amused, went from one to another like an electric current. Had I
+been scheming out celestial hieroglyphics their mouths could not have
+opened wider. As I write now I am asked by a respectable person how many
+ounces of silver a Johann Faber's B.B. costs. I have told him, and he
+has retired smiling, evidently thinking that I am romancing.</p>
+
+<p>That I impress the crowd everywhere is evident. But with all their
+questioning, they are rarely rude; their stare is simply the stare of
+little children seeing a thing for the first time in their lives. It is
+all so hard to understand. My silver and my gold they solicit not; they
+merely desire to see me and to feel me. A certain faction of the crowd,
+however, do solicit my silver.</p>
+
+<p>Lao Chang has been buying vegetables, and has brought all the vegetable
+gardeners and greengrocers around me. The poultry rearers are here too,
+and the forage dealers and the grass cutters and the basket makers, and
+other thrifty members of the commercial order of Ch'u-tung humankind.
+When I came away the people dropped into line and strained their necks
+to get a parting smile. I was sped on my way with a public curiosity as
+if I were a penal servitor released from prison, a general home from a
+war, or something of that kind. And so this wonderful wonder of wonders
+was glad when he emerged from the labyrinthic, brain-confusing
+bewilderment of Chinese interior life of this town into somewhat clearer
+regions. I could not understand. And to the wisest man, wide as may be
+his vision, the Chinese mind and character remain of a depth as infinite
+as is its possibility of expansion. The volume of Chinese nature is one
+of which as yet but the alphabet is known to us.</p>
+
+<p>My own men had got quite used to me, and their minds were directed more
+to working than to wondering. In China, as in other Asiatic countries,
+one's companions soon accustom themselves to one's little peculiarities
+of character, and what was miraculous to the crowd had by simple
+repetition ceased to be miraculous to them.</p>
+
+<p>As I put away my notebook after writing the last sentence, I saw a mule
+slip, fall, roll for one hundred and fifty yards, losing its load on the
+down journey, and then walk up to the stream for a drink.<a name='FNanchor_AZ_52'></a><a href='#Footnote_AZ_52'><sup>[AZ]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>We started for Shayung on February 2nd, 1910, going over a road
+literally uncared for, full of loose-jointed stones and sinking sand,
+down which ponies scrambled, while the Tibetans in charge covered
+themselves close in the uncured skins they wore. This was the first time
+I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
+their antiquated topboots&mdash;much better, however, than the Y&uuml;n-nan
+topboot&mdash;gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
+frost.</p>
+
+<p>Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
+eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
+back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
+tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
+which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
+brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
+much steeper than the roof of a house&mdash;as perpendicular as can be
+imagined&mdash;but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
+continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
+But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
+certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
+customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
+excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
+among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy. In Christian
+England within the last century men where hanged for petty theft; but in
+Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;I do not know whether it is still current in other
+provinces&mdash;men have been known to be burnt to death for stealing maize.
+A case was reported from Ch'u-tsing-fu quite recently, but it is a
+custom which used to be quite common. A document is signed by the man's
+relatives, a stick is brought by every villager, the man lashed to a
+stake, and his own people are compelled to light the fire. It seems
+incredible, but this horrible practice has not been entirely extirpated
+by the authorities, although since the Y&uuml;n-nan Rebellion it has not been
+by any means so frequent. I have no space nor inclination to deal with
+the ghastly tortures inflicted upon prisoners in the name of that great
+equivalent to justice, but the more one knows of them the more can he
+appreciate the common adage urging <i>dead men to keep out of hell and the
+living out of the yamens</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Hua-chow is thirty li from here at the head of an abominable hill, and
+here women, overlooking one of the worst paved roads in the Empire, were
+beating out corn. Then we climbed for another twenty-five li, rising
+from 5,900 feet to 8,200 feet, till we came to a little place called
+Tien-chieng-p'u. It took us three hours. Looking backwards,towards
+Tali-fu, I saw my 14,000 feet friends, and as we went down the other
+side over a splendid stone road we could see, far down below, a valley
+which seemed a veritable oasis, smiling and sweet. A temple here
+contained a battered image of the Goddess of Mercy, who controls the
+births of children. A poor woman was depositing a few cash in front of
+the besmeared idol, imploring that she might be delivered of a son. How
+pitiable it is to see these poor creatures doing this sort of thing all
+over the West of China!</p>
+
+<p>For two days we had been accompanied by a man who was an opium smoker
+and eater. Now I am not going to draw a horrible description of a
+shrivelled, wasted bogey in man's form, with creaking bones and
+shivering limbs and all the rest of it; but I must say that this man,
+towards the time when his craving came upon him, was a wreck in every
+worst sense&mdash;he crept away to the wayside and smoked, and arrived always
+late at night at the end of the stage. This was the effect of the drug
+which has been described &quot;as harmless as milk.&quot; I do not exaggerate. In
+the course of Eastern journalistic experience I have written much in
+defence of opium, have paralleled it to the alcohol of my own country.
+This was in the Straits Settlements, where the deadly effects of opium
+are less prominent. But no language of mine can exaggerate the evil, and
+if I would be honest, I cannot describe it as anything but China's most
+awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more
+speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by
+arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold
+agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men
+who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about
+the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through
+this once fair land of Y&uuml;n-nan and see everywhere&mdash;not in isolated
+districts, but everywhere&mdash;the ravaging effects in the poverty and
+dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance
+of the opium trade. I have seen men transformed to beasts through its
+use; I have seen more suicides from the effect of opium since I have
+been in China than from any other cause in the course of my life. As I
+write I have around me painfullest evidence of the crudest ravishings of
+opium among a people who have fallen victims to the craving. There is
+only one opinion to be formed if to himself one would be true. I give
+the following quotation from a work from the pen of one of the most
+fair-minded diplomatists who have ever held office in China:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The writer has seen an able-bodied and apparently rugged laboring
+Chinese tumble all in a heap upon the ground, utterly nerveless and
+unable to stand, because the time for his dose of opium had come, and
+until the craving was supplied he was no longer a man, but the merest
+heap of bones and flesh. In the majority of cases death is the sure
+result of any determined reform. The poison has rotted the whole system,
+and no power to resist the simplest disease remains. In many years'
+residence in China the writer knew of but four men who finally abandoned
+the habit. (Where opium refuges have been conducted by missionaries,
+reports more favorable have been given concerning those who have become
+Christians.) Three of them lived but a few months thereafter; the fourth
+survived his reformation, but was a life-long invalid.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BA_53'></a><a href='#Footnote_BA_53'><sup>[BA]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Much good work is now being done by the missionaries, and the number of
+those who have given up the habit has probably increased since Mr.
+Holcombe wrote the above. In point of fact, helping opium victims is one
+of the most important branches of mission work.
+<i>China's Past and Future</i> (p. 165) by Chester Holcombe.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AY_51'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AY_51'>[AY]</a><div class='note'><p> The range of mountains which I had skirted since leaving
+Tali-fu.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_AZ_52'></a><a href='#FNanchor_AZ_52'>[AZ]</a><div class='note'><p> On my return journey into Y&uuml;n-nan, I again called at
+Ch'u-tung, traveling not by the main road, but by a steep path
+intertwisting through almost impossible places, and requiring four times
+the amount of physical exertion. I was led over what was called a new
+road. It was quite impossible to horses carrying loads, and only by
+tremendous effort could I climb up. How my coolies managed it remains a
+mystery. And then, as is almost inevitable with these &quot;new&quot; roads and
+the &quot;short&quot; cuts, they invariably lose their way. Mine did. Hopeless was
+our obscurity, unspeakable our confusion. Men kept vanishing and
+re-appearing among the rocks, and it was very difficult to fix our
+position geographically. Up and up we went, in and out, twisting and
+turning in an endless climb. A gale blew, but at times we pulled
+ourselves up by the dried grass in semi-tropical heat. After several
+hours, standing on the very summit of this bleak and lofty mountain, I
+could just discern Ch'u-tung and Yung-p'ing-hsien far away down in the
+mists. There lay the &quot;ta lu&quot; also, like a piece of white ribbon
+stretched across black velvet&mdash;the white road on the burnt hill-sides.
+We were opposite the highest peaks in the mountains beyond the plain,
+far towards Tengyueh&mdash;they are 12,000 feet, we were at least 10,500
+feet, and as Ch'u-tung is only 5,500 feet, our hours of toil may be
+imagined. When we reached the top we found nothing to eat, nothing to
+drink (not even a mountain stream at which we could moisten our parched
+lips), simply two memorial stones on the graves of two dead men, who had
+merited such an outrageous resting-place. I donned a sweater and lay
+flat on the ground, exhausted. It must have been a stiff job to bring up
+both stones and men.
+</p><p>
+I strongly advise future travelers to keep to the main road in this
+district.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BA_53'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BA_53'>[BA]</a><div class='note'><p></p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FOURTH_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>FOURTH JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>The Valley of the Shadow of Death</i>. <i>Stages to Tengyueh</i>. <i>The River
+Mekong, Bridge described</i>. <i>An awful ascent</i>. <i>On-the-spot conclusions</i>.
+<i>Roads needed more than railways</i>. <i>At Shui-chai</i>. <i>A noisy domestic
+scene at the place where I fed</i>. <i>Disregard of the value of female
+life</i>. <i>Remarkable hospitality of the gentry of the city</i>. <i>Hard going</i>.
+<i>Lodging at a private house on the mountains</i>. <i>Waif of the world
+entertains the stranger</i>. <i>From Ban-chiao to Yung-ch'ang</i>. <i>Buffaloes
+and journalistic ignorance</i>. <i>Excited scene at Pu-piao</i>. <i>Chinese
+barbers</i>. <i>A refractory coolie</i>. <i>Military interest.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The journey which I was about to undertake was the most memorable of my
+travels in China, with the exception of those in the unexplored Miao
+Lands; for I was to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
+dreaded Salwen Valley. I had made up my mind that I would stay here for
+a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn
+intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the
+low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I
+know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my
+journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I
+had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might
+not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came
+in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new
+life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the
+present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of Stage</td><td align='center'>Height Above Sea</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Tali-shao</td><td align='center'>65 li.</td><td align='center'>7,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Yung-ch'ang-fu</td><td align='center'>75 li.</td><td align='center'>5,500 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Fang-ma-ch'ang</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>7,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Ta-hao-ti</td><td align='center'>120 li.</td><td align='center'>8,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Tengyueh (Momien)</td><td align='center'>85 li.</td><td align='center'>5,370 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the
+Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day,
+February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from
+where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension
+bridge.</p>
+
+<p>A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path,
+has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000
+feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the
+middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between
+cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again
+immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging
+on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid
+masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of
+the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops
+and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving
+is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel
+branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting
+in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the
+side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a
+sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's
+patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in
+admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate
+excuse for a long delay.</p>
+
+<p>At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves
+for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.</p>
+
+<p>The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been
+said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow
+pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai (6,700 feet), and on again
+to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies
+a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this
+road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular
+steps, not even as regularity goes in China.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit
+down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend
+again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural
+rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
+smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
+spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
+made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
+were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
+twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
+impossible.... Mules are passing me&mdash;puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
+brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
+there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
+exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
+their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
+ascended. And I find again:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
+incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
+and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
+Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
+way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The
+road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can
+get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which
+bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times,
+and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over
+the ravine.... Rocks overhang me as I pass. If one should drop!... But
+one does not mind the toil when he looks upon his men. In the midst of
+their intense labor my men's squeals of songs echo through the mountains
+as the perspiration runs down their uncovered backs; they chaff each
+other and utmost good feeling prevails. Poor Shanks is nearly done, but
+still laughs loudly.... A natural pathway more difficult of progress I
+cannot conceive anywhere in the world; and yet this is a so-called paved
+road, the road over which all the trade of the western part of this
+great province, all the imports from Burma, are regularly carried.
+Should the road ever be discarded, that is if the railway ever comes
+over this route, only a long tunnel through the mountain would serve its
+purpose.... We have just sat down and fraternized with the man carrying
+the mails to Tali-fu, and now we are working steadily for the top,
+around corners where the breeze comes with delicious freshness. Here we
+are on a road now leading through a widening gorge to Shui-chai, and as
+I cross the narrow pass I see the river down below looking like a snake
+waiting for its prey.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Roads are needed far more than railways.</p>
+
+<p>Being hungry, we sat down at Shui-chai to feed on rice at a place where
+a man minded the baby while the woman attended to the food. Over my head
+hung sausages&mdash;my men swore that they were sausages, although for my
+life I could see no resemblance to that article of food&mdash;things of 1 1/2
+inches in circumference and from 12 to 60 inches long, doubled up and
+hung up for sale over a bamboo to dry and harden in the sun. Hams there
+were, and dried bacon, and dirty brown biscuits, and uninviting pickled
+cabbage. By the side of the table where I sat was a wooden pun of
+unwashed rice bowls, against which lay the filthy domestic dog.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, the narrow street was lined to the farthest point of vantage by
+kindly people, curious to see their own feeding implements in the
+incapable hands of the barbarian from the Western lands, and the
+conversation waxed loud and excited in general hazards regarding my
+presence in their city.</p>
+
+<p>Stenches were rife; they nearly choked one.</p>
+
+<p>A little boy yelled out to his mother in complaint of the food he had
+been given by a feminine twelve-year-old, his sister. The mother
+immediately became furious beyond all control. She snatched a bamboo to
+belabor the girl, and in chasing her knocked over the pun of pots
+aforesaid. The place became a Bedlam. Men rose from their seats, and
+with their mouths full of rice expostulated in vainest mediation, waving
+their chopsticks in the air, and whilst the mother turned upon them in
+grossest abuse the daughter cleared out at the back of the premises. I
+left the irate parent brandishing the bamboo; her voice was heard beyond
+the town.</p>
+
+<p>But I was not allowed to leave the town. All the intellect of the place
+had assembled in one of the shops, into which I was gently drawn by the
+coat sleeve by a good-natured, well-dressed humpback, and all of the men
+assembled began an examination as to who the dignitary was, his
+honorable age, the number of the wives, sons and daughters he possessed,
+with inevitable questioning into the concerns of his patriarchal
+forbears. Accordingly I once again searched the archives of my elastic
+memory, and there found all information readily accessible, so that in
+a few moments, by the aid of Bailer's <i>Primer</i>, I had explained that I
+was a stranger within their gates, wafted thither by circumstances
+extraordinarily auspicious, and had satisfied them concerning my
+parentage, birthplace, prospects and pursuits, with introspective
+anecdotal references to various deceased members of my family tree. I
+did not tell them the truth&mdash;that I was a pilgrim from a far country,
+footsore and travel-soiled, that I had been well-nigh poisoned by their
+bad cooking and blistered with their bug-bites!</p>
+
+<p>I rose to go. Like automotons, everyone in the company rose with me. The
+humpback again caught me, this time by both hands, and warmly pressed me
+to stay and &quot;uan&quot; (&quot;play&quot;) a little. &quot;Great Brother,&quot; he ejaculated,
+&quot;why journeyest thou wearisomely towards Yung-ch'ang? Tarry here.&quot; And
+he had pushed me back again into my chair, he had re-filled my teacup,
+and invited me to tell more tales of antiquarian relationship. And
+finally I was allowed to go. Greater hospitality could not have been
+shown me anywhere in the world.</p>
+
+<p>The day had been hard going. We pursued our way unheedingly, as men
+knowing not whither we went; and at 4:00 p.m., fearing that we should
+not be able to make Ban-chiao, where we intended stopping, I decided to
+go no farther than Tali-shao. The evening was one of the happiest I
+spent in my journeys, although personal comfort was entirely lacking.
+The place is made up of just a few hovels; people were hostile, and
+turned a deaf ear to my men's entreaties for shelter. For very
+helplessness I laughed aloud. I screamed with laughter, and the folk
+gathered to see me almost in hysterics. They soon began to smile, then
+to laugh, and seeing the effect, I laughed still louder, and soon had
+the whole village with tears of laughter making furrows down their
+unwashed faces, laughing as a pack of hyenas. At last a kind old woman
+gave way to my boy's persuasions, beckoning us to follow her into a
+house. Here we found a young girl of about nine summers in charge. It
+was all rare fun. There was nothing to eat, and so the men went one here
+and another there buying supplies for the night. Another cleared out
+the room, and made it a little habitable. The bull-dog coolie cooked the
+rice, Shanks boiled eggs and cut up the pork into small slices, another
+fed the pony, and then we fed ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening a wood fire was kindled in the corner near my bed, and we
+all sat round on the mud floor&mdash;stools there were none&mdash;to tell yarns.
+My confederates were out for a spree. We smoked and drank tea and
+yarned. Suddenly a stick would be thrust over my shoulder to the fire:
+it was merely a man's pipe going to the fire for a light. Chinese never
+use matches; it is a waste when there are so many fires about. If on the
+road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it
+from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion.
+Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside
+food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted,
+poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as
+naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have
+a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull
+away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge.
+She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard
+man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little
+one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as
+she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act
+to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the
+money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed,
+explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that
+she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but
+the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.</p>
+
+<p>Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable
+town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those
+who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates,
+such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at
+the end of the town.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in
+my life a man carrying a <i>cangue,</i> and a horrible, sickening feeling
+seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the
+poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were
+prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious
+to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless
+fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the
+pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.</p>
+
+<p>Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt
+that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in
+merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might
+fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude
+seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.</p>
+
+<p>Yung-ch'ang (5,500 feet) is as well known as any city in Far Western
+China. I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element
+being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her
+son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time
+taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a
+miserable existence.</p>
+
+<p>On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me,
+ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and
+two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I
+have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always
+treated me well.</p>
+
+<p>Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up
+again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with
+nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and
+other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the
+foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I
+got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade
+effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude
+hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks
+along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side
+to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding. To the
+Chinese the buffalo is the safest of all quadrupeds, if we perhaps
+except the mule, which, if three legs give way, will save himself on the
+remaining one. But it is certainly the slowest. I am here reminded that
+when I was starting on this trip a journalistic friend of mine, who had
+spent some years in one of the coast ports, tried to dissuade me from
+coming, and cited the buffalo as the most treacherous animal to be met
+on the main road in China. He put it in this way:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Well, old man, you have evidently made up your mind, but I would not
+take it on at any price. The buffaloes are terrors. They smell you even
+if they do not see you; they smell you miles off. It may end up by your
+being chased, and you will probably be gored to death.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>The buffalo is the most peaceful animal I know in China. Miniature
+belfries were attached to the wooden frames on the backs of carrying
+oxen, and were it not for the huge tenor bell and its gong-like sound
+keeping the animal in motion, the slow pace would be slower still.</p>
+
+<p>Turning suddenly and abruptly to the left, we commenced a cold journey
+over the mountains, although the sun was shining brightly. A goitrous
+man came to me and waxed eloquent about some uncontrollable pig which
+was dragging him all over the roadway as he vainly tried to get it to
+market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their
+shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at
+me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for
+three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I
+found that we had covered only twenty li&mdash;so we were told by an old
+fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in
+what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his
+condemnation of foreigners.</p>
+
+<p>Leng-shui-ch'ang we passed at thirty-five li out, and just beyond the
+aneroid registered 7,000 feet; Yung-ch'ang Plain is 5,500 feet; Pu-piao
+Plain-is 4,500 feet. The range of hills dividing the two plains was
+bare, the clouds hung low, and the keen wind whistled in our faces and
+nipped our ears. Ten li from Pu-piao, on a barren upland overlooking the
+valley, a mere boy had established himself as tea provider for the
+traveler. A foreign kerosene tin placed on three stones was the general
+cistern for boiling water, which was dipped out and handed round in a
+slip of bamboo shaped like a mug with a stick to hold it by. Farther on,
+sugar-cane grew in a field to the left, and near by a man sat on his
+haunches on the ground feeding a sugar-grinding machine propelled by a
+buffalo, who patiently tramped round that small circle all day and every
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Turning from this, I beheld one of the worst sights I have ever seen in
+China. Seven dogs were dragging a corpse from a coffin, barely covered
+with earth, which formed one of the grave mounds which skirt the road.
+No one was disturbed by the scene; it was not uncommon. But the
+foreigner suffered an agonizing sickness, for which his companions would
+have been at a loss to find any possible reason, and was relieved to
+reach Pu-piao.</p>
+
+<p>Market was at its height. It was warm down here in the valley. The
+streets were packed with people, many of whom were pushed bodily into
+the piles of common foreign and native merchandise on sale on either
+side of the road. A clodhopper of a fellow, jostled by my escort, fell
+into a stall and broke the huge umbrella which formed a shelter for the
+vendor and his goods, and my boy was called upon to pay. Fifty cash
+fixed the matter. I walked into a crowded inn and made majestically for
+the extreme left-hand corner. Everybody wondered, and softly asked his
+neighbor what in the sacred name of Confucius had come upon them.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;See his boots! Look at his old hat! What a face! It <i>is</i> a monstrosity,
+and&mdash;&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But as I sat down the general of the establishment cruelly forced back
+the people, and screamingly yelled at the top of his voice that those
+who wanted to drink tea in the room must pay double rates. His unusual
+announcement was received with a low grunt of dissatisfaction, but no
+one left. Every table in the square apartment was soon filled with six
+or eight men, and the noise was terrific. Curiosity increased. The fun
+was, as the comic papers say, fast and furious; and despite the
+ill-favored pleasantries passed by my own men and the inquisitive
+tea-shop keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy
+members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two
+soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain
+the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the
+weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to
+get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally shook dust into my food.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone pushed to where there was standing room. Outside a rolling sea
+of yellow faces surmounted a mass of lively blue cotton, all eager for a
+look. The din was terrible. All very visibly annoyed were my men at the
+rudeness of their low-bred fellow countrymen, and especially surprised
+at the equanimity of Ding Daren in tolerating quietly their pointed and
+personal remarks. I became more and more the hero of the hour.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the crowd as I came out, I smiled serenely, and with a quiet
+wave of the hand pointed out in faultless English that the gulf between
+my own country and theirs was already wide enough, and that Great
+Britain might&mdash;did not say that she <i>would</i>, but might&mdash;widen it still
+more if they persisted in treating her subjects in China as monstrous
+specimens of the human race. This was rigorously corroborated by my two
+soldier-men, to whom I appealed, and a parting word on the ordinary
+politeness of Western nations to a greasy fellow (he was a worker in
+brass), who felt my clothes with his dirty fingers, ended an interesting
+break in the day's monotony. In the street the crowd again was at my
+heels, and evinced more than comfortable curiosity in my straw sandals.
+They cost me thirty cash, equal to about a halfpenny in our coinage.</p>
+
+<p>Since then I have paid other visits to Pu-piao. On one occasion in
+subsequent travel I had a public shave there. My arrival at the inn in
+the nick of time enabled me to buttonhole the barber who was picking up
+his traps to clear, and I had one of the best shaves I have ever had in
+my life, in one of the most uncomfortable positions I ever remember. My
+seat was a low, narrow form with no back or anything for my neck to rest
+upon, and afterwards I went through the primitive and painful massage
+process of being bumped all over the back. Between every four or five
+whacks the barber snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and right
+glad was I when he had finished. The yard was full, even to the stable
+and cook-house alongside each other, the anger of a grizzly old dame,
+who smoked a reeking pipe and who had charge of the rice-and-cabbage
+depot, being eclipsed only by my infuriated barber as he gave cruel vent
+to his anger upon my aching back.</p>
+
+<p>This reminds me of an uncomfortable shave I had some ten years ago in
+Trinidad, where a black man sat me on the trunk of a tree whilst he got
+behind and rested my head on one knee and got to work with an implement
+which might have made a decent putty knife, but was never meant to cut
+whiskers. However, in the case of the Chinese his knife was in fair
+condition, but he grunted a good deal over my four-days' growth.</p>
+
+<p>This little story should not convey the impression that I am an advocate
+of the public shave in China, or anywhere else; but there are times when
+one is glad of it. I have been shaved by Chinese in many places; and
+whilst resident at Y&uuml;n-nan-fu with a broken arm a man came regularly to
+me, his shave sometimes being delightful, and&mdash;sometimes not.</p>
+
+<p>I had another rather amusing experience at Pu-piao about a month after
+this. A supplementary coolie had been engaged for me at Tengyueh at a
+somewhat bigger wage than my other men were getting, and this, known, of
+course, to them, added to the fact that he was not carrying the heaviest
+load, did not tend to produce unmarred brotherhood among them. The man
+had been told that he would go on to Tali-fu with me on my return trip,
+so that when I took the part of my men (who had come many hundreds of
+miles with me, and who had engaged another man on the route to fill the
+gap), in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his
+side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that
+place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there
+to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready
+to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his
+disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother,
+in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As
+soon as I learnt this&mdash;I was standing near the fellow&mdash;he somehow fell
+over, sprawling to the floor over my walnut folding chair, which snapped
+at the arm. It was my doing. The man said no more, picked up his loads,
+and was the first to arrive at Yung-ch'ang, so that a little force was
+not ineffective.</p>
+
+<p>Indiscriminate use of force I do not advocate, however; I believe in the
+reverse, as a matter of fact. I rarely hit a man; but there have been
+occasions when, a man having refused to do what he has engaged to do, or
+in cases of downright insolence, a little push or a slight cut with my
+stick has brought about a capital feeling and gained for me immediate
+respect.</p>
+
+<p>Fang-ma-ch'ang, off the main road, was our sleeping-place. Travelers
+rarely take this road. Gill took it, I believe, but Baber, Davies and
+other took the main road. This short road was more fatiguing than the
+main road would have been.</p>
+
+<p>We again turned a dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first
+wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway,
+took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people
+calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the door, and
+to catch a glimpse of me as I lay resting, the inhabitants, in much the
+same manner as people at home visit and revisit the cage of jungle-bred
+tigers at a menagerie, assembled and reassembled with considerable
+confusion. But I was beneath my curtains. So they came again, and when I
+ate my food by candlelight many human and tangible products of the past
+glared in at the doorway. After dark we all foregathered in the middle
+of the room and round the camp fire, the conversation taking a pleasant
+turn from ordinary things, such as the varying distances from place to
+place, how many basins of rice each man could eat, and other Chinese
+commonplaces, to things military. Everybody warmed to the subject. My
+military bodyguard were the chief speakers, and cleverly brought round
+the smoky fire, for the benefit of the thick-headed rustics who made up
+the fascinated audience, a modern battlefield, and made their
+description horrible enough.</p>
+
+<p>One carefully brought out his gun, waving it overhead to add to the
+tragedy, as he weaved a powerful story of shell splinters, blood-filled
+trenches, common shot, men and horses out of which all life and virtue
+had been blown by gunpowder. The picture was drawn around the Chinese
+village, and in the dim glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his
+own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all
+blown to atoms&mdash;left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great
+and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by
+the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and
+the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had
+heard, afraid to go to their straw to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>As I lay in my draughty corner, my own mind turned to what the next day
+would bring, for I was to go down to the Valley of the Shadow of
+Death&mdash;the dreaded Salwen. I had read of it as a veritable death-trap.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXIII'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>To Lu-chiang-pa</i>. <i>Drop from 8,000 feet to 2,000 feet</i>. <i>Shans meet for
+the first time</i>. <i>Dangers of the Salwen Valley exaggerated</i>. <i>How
+reports get into print</i>. <i>Start of the climb from 2,000 feet to over
+8,000 feet</i>. <i>Scenery in the valley</i>. <i>Queer quintet of soldiers</i>.
+<i>Semi-tropical temperature</i>. <i>My men fall to the ground exhausted</i>. <i>A
+fatiguing day</i>. <i>Benighted in the forest</i>. <i>Spend the night in a hut</i>.
+<i>Strong drink as it affects the Chinese</i>. <i>Embarrassing attentions of a
+kindly couple</i>. <i>New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai</i>. <i>The Shweli
+River and watershed</i>. <i>Magnificent range of mountains</i>. <i>Arrival at
+Tengyueh.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
+soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
+consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
+why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.</p>
+
+<p>And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
+about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
+information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
+for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
+but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
+the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
+very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
+found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
+low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.</p>
+
+<p>A good deal of the country to the north of the Y&uuml;n-nan province, towards
+the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Y&uuml;n-nanese
+Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
+so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
+from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
+Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
+inhabitant&mdash;that is, Chinese&mdash;strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
+10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
+March and November if he can.</p>
+
+<p>To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
+highest point at nearly 9,000 feet&mdash;140 li distant from
+Fang-ma-ch'ang&mdash;was our ambition for the day.</p>
+
+<p>Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
+leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
+the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
+to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
+country was bare, desolate, lonely&mdash;four people only were met over the
+entire distance. But in the dreaded Valley several trees were ablaze
+with blossom, and oranges shone like small balls of gold in the rising
+sun. Children playing in between the trees ran away and hid as they saw
+me, although I was fifty yards from them&mdash;they did not know what it was,
+and they had never seen one!</p>
+
+<p>Farther down I caught up my men, Lao Chang and Shanks, and pleasant
+speculations were entered into as to what Singai (Bhamo) was like. They
+were particularly interested in Singapore because I had lived there, and
+after I had given them a general description of the place, and explained
+how the Chinese had gone ahead there, I pointed out as well as I could
+with my limited vocabulary that if the people of Y&uuml;n-nan only had a
+conscience, and would only get out of the rut of the ages, they, too,
+might go ahead, explaining incidentally to them that as lights of the
+church at Tong-ch'uan-fu, it was their sacred duty to raise the standard
+of moral living among their countrymen wherever they might wander. Their
+general acquiescence was astounding, and in the next town,
+Lu-chiang-pa, these two men put their theory into practice and almost
+caused a riot by offering 250 cash for a fowl for which the vendor
+blandly asked 1,000. But they got the chicken&mdash;and at their own price,
+too.</p>
+
+<p>As I was thus gently in soliloquy, I first heard and then caught sight
+of the river below&mdash;the unnavigable Salwen, 2,000 feet lower than either
+the Mekong or the Shweli (which we were to cross two days later). It is
+a pity the Salwen was not preserved as the boundary between Burma and
+China.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, as we approached the steep stone steps leading down thereto,
+I saw one of the cleverest pieces of native engineering in Asia&mdash;the
+double suspension bridge which here spans the Salwen, the only one I had
+seen in my trip across the Empire. The first span, some 240 feet by 36
+feet, reaches from the natural rock, down which a vertical path zigzags
+to the foot, and the second span then runs over to the busy little town
+of Lu-chiang-pa.</p>
+
+<p>Here, then, were we in the most dreaded spot in Western China! If you
+stay a night in this Valley, rumor says, you go to bed for the last
+time; Chinese are afraid of it, Europeans dare not linger in it. Malaria
+stalks abroad for her victims, and snatches everyone who dallies in his
+journey to the topside mountain village of Feng-shui-ling. The river is
+2,000 feet above the sea; Feng-shui-ling is nearly 9,000 feet.</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock as I pulled over my stool and took tea in the crowded
+shop at Lu-chiang-pa. I saw Shans here for the first time.</p>
+
+<p>The village now, however, is anything but a Shan village. Of the people
+in the immediate vicinity I counted only ten typical Shans, and of the
+company around me in this popular tea-house twenty-one out of
+twenty-eight were Chinese, including ten Mohammedans. It was, however,
+easy to see that several of these were of Shan extraction, who,
+although they had features distinctly un-Chinese, had adopted the
+Chinese language and custom. A party of Tibetans were here in the charge
+of a Lama, in an inner court, and scampered off as I rose to snap their
+photographs. This was a very low altitude for Tibetans to reach.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst I sipped my tea the local horse dealer wanted so very much to
+sell me a pony cheap. He offered it for forty taels, I offered him five.
+It was gone in the back, was blind in the left eye, and was at least
+seventeen years old. The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
+that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.</p>
+
+<p>The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
+to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
+their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
+Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
+provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
+one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
+with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
+me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
+passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
+great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
+streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
+facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
+All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
+of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.</p>
+
+<p>We were now a party of nine&mdash;my own three men, an extra coolie I had
+engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
+and the paymaster of the crowd. We still had ninety li to cover, so that
+when we left the shade of two immense trees which sheltered me and my
+perspiring men, one of the soldiers agreed that everyone had to clear
+from our path. We brooked no interception until we reached the entrance
+to the climb, where I met two Europeans, of the Customs staff at
+Tengyueh, who had come down here to camp out for the Chinese New Year
+Holiday. I knew that these men were not Englishmen. I was so thirsty,
+and the best they could do was to keep a man talking in the sun outside
+their well-equipped tent. How I <i>could</i> have done with a drink!</p>
+
+<p>A tributary of the Salwen flows down the ravine. Too terrible a climb to
+the top was it for me to take notes. I got too tired. Everything was
+magnificently green, and Nature's reproduction seemed to be going on
+whilst one gazed upon her. But the natural glories of this beautiful
+gorge, with a dainty touch of the tropical mingling with the mighty
+aspect of jungle forest, with glistening cascades and rippling streams,
+where all was bountiful and exquisitely beautiful, failed to hold one
+spellbound. For since I had left Tali-fu I had rarely been out of sight
+of some of the best scenery on earth. Yet vegetation was very different
+to that which we had been passing. There were now banyans, palms,
+plantains, and many ferns, trees and shrubs and other products of warmer
+climates, which one found in Burma. What impressed me farther up was the
+marvelous growth of bamboos, some rising 120 feet and 130 feet at the
+bend, in their various tints of green looking like delicate feathers
+against the haze of the sky-line, upon which houses built of bamboo from
+floor to roof seemed temporarily perched whilst others seemed to be
+tumbling down into the valley. This spot was the nearest approach to
+real jungle I had seen in China; but Whilst we were climbing laboriously
+through this densely-covered country, over opposite&mdash;it seemed no more
+than a stone's throw&mdash;the hills were almost bare, save for the isolated
+cultivation of the peasantry at the base. But then came a division,
+appearing suddenly to view farther along around a bend, and I saw a
+continuation of the range, rising even higher, and with a tree growth
+even more magnificent, denser and darker still.</p>
+
+<p>Here I came upon a party of soldiers with foreign military peak caps on
+their heads, which they wore outside over their Chinese caps. In fact,
+the only two other garments besides these Chinese caps were the
+distinguishing marks of the military. Coats they had, but they had been
+discarded at the foot of the climb, rolled into one bundle, and tied
+together with a piece of ribbon generally worn by the carrier to keep
+his trousers tight. We were now in summer heat, and this military
+quintet made a peculiar sight in dusty trousers, peak caps and straw
+sandals, with the perspiration streaming freely down their naked backs
+as they plodded upwards under a pitiless sun. Thus were they clad when I
+met them; but catching sight of my distinguished person, mistaking me
+for a &quot;gwan,&quot; they immediately made a rush for the man carrying the
+tunics, to clothe themselves for my presence with seemly respectability.
+But a word from my boy put their minds at rest (my own military were far
+in the rear). A couple of them then came forward to me sniggeringly,
+satisfied that they were not to be reported to Peking or wherever their
+commander-in-chief may have his residence&mdash;they probably had no more
+idea than I had.</p>
+
+<p>By the side of a roaring waterfall, in a spot which looked a very
+fairyland in surroundings of reproductive green, we all sat down to
+rest. The air was cool and the path was damp, and water tumbling
+everywhere down from the rocks formed pretty cascades and rivulets. We
+heard the clang of the hatchets, and soon came upon men felling timber
+and sawing up trees into coffin boards. We were in the Valley of the
+Shadow, and it was the finest coffin center of the district. I took my
+boots off to wade through water which overran the pathway, and just
+beyond my men, exhausted with their awful toil, lay flat on their backs
+to rest; they were dead beat. One pointed up to the perpendicular cliff,
+momentarily closed his eyes and looked at me in disgust. I gently
+remonstrated. It was not my country, I told him; it was the &quot;Emperor's.&quot;
+And after a time we reached the top.</p>
+
+<p>Shadows were lengthening. In the distance we saw the mountains upon
+which we had spent the previous night, whose tops were gilded by the
+setting sun. Down below all was already dark. A cold wind blew the trees
+bending wearily towards the Valley.</p>
+
+<p>And still we plodded on.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>We had come to Siao-p'ing-ho, 115 li instead of the 140 I had been led
+to believe my men would cover. Every room in the hut was full, we were
+told, but the next place (with some unpronounceable name), fifteen li
+farther down, would give us good housing for the night. Lao Chang and I
+resolved to go on, tired though we were. Before I resolved on this plan
+I stopped to take a careful survey of the exact situation of the
+sheltering hollow in which we meant to pass the night. The sun was fast
+sinking; the dust of the road lay grey and thick about my feet; above me
+the heavens were reddening in sunset glory; the landscape had no touch
+of human life about it save our own two solitary figures; and the place,
+fifteen li away, lay before me as a dream of a good night rather than a
+reality.</p>
+
+<p>Then on again we plodded, and yelled our intentions to the men behind.</p>
+
+<p>From the brow of the hill we descended with extreme rapidity&mdash;down, down
+into a valley which sent up a damp, oppressive atmosphere. Through the
+trees I could see one lovely ball of deep, rich red, painting the earth
+as it sank in a beauty exquisite beyond all else. Four men met us,
+stared suspiciously, thought we were deaf, and yelled that the place was
+twenty li away, and that we had better return to the brow of the hill.
+But we left them, and went still farther down. In the hush that
+prevailed I was unaccountably startled to see the form of a woman
+gliding towards me in the twilight. She came out of the valley carrying
+firewood. She spoke kindly to my man, and invited me to spend the night
+in her house near by.</p>
+
+<p>I was for the moment vaguely awed by her very quiescence, and gazed
+wondering, doubting, bewildered. What was the little trick? Could I not
+from such things get free, even in Inland China? The red light of the
+sunken sun playing round her comely figure dazzled me, it is admitted,
+and I followed her with a sigh of mingled dread and desire for rest.
+Shall I say the shadow of the smile upon her lips deepened and softened
+with an infinite compassion?</p>
+
+<p>Dogs rounded upon me as I entered the bamboo hut stuck on the side of
+the hill&mdash;they knew I had no right there. Inside a man was nursing a
+squalling baby; our escort was its mother, the man her husband. So I was
+safe. The place was swept up, unnecessary gear was taken away, fire was
+kindled, tea was brewed, rice was prepared; and whilst in shaving (for
+we were to reach Tengyueh on the morrow) I dodged here and there to
+escape the smoke and get the most light, giving my hospitable host a
+good deal of fun in so doing; every possible preparation was made for my
+comfort and convenience by the untiring woman at whose invitation I was
+there. Their attentions embarrassed me; every movement, every look,
+every gesture, every wish was anticipated, so that I had no more
+discomfort than a roaring wind and a low temperature about the region
+which no one could help. It was bitterly cold. In front of the fire I
+sat in an overcoat among the crowd drinking tea, whilst the soldiers
+drank wine&mdash;they bought five cash worth. Had my lamp oil run out, I
+should have bought liquor and tried to burn it instead. Soon the spirit
+began to talk, and these braves of the Chinese army got on terms of
+freest familiarity, telling me what an all-round excellent fellow I was,
+and how pleased they were that I had to suffer as well as they. But they
+never forgot themselves, and I allowed them to wander on uncontradicted
+and unrestrained. After a weary night of tossing in my p'ukai, with a
+roaring gale blowing through the latticed bamboo, behind which I lay so
+poorly sheltered, we started in good spirits.</p>
+
+<p>Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800 feet), February
+9th, 1910, New Year's morning. Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the
+people said, &quot;Puh mai, puh mai,&quot; and although we had traveled the
+twenty-five li over a terrible road, with a fearful gradient at the end,
+we could not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly against the
+Chinese custom to sell anything at New Year time, of course. We had to
+boil our own water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than usual
+gathered around me because of the general holiday; and as I write now I
+am seated in my folding-chair with all the reprobates near to me&mdash;men
+gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses combing their
+hair and nursing their babies, the beggars with their poles and bowls,
+numberless urchins, all open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
+crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before had come on
+ahead to book rooms in the place. I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another
+occasion. Then I found a good room, but later learned that it was a
+horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by fifty-nine pack animals
+with their loads. Pegs were as usual driven into the ground in parallel
+rows, a pair of ponies being tied to each&mdash;not by the head, but by the
+feet, a nine-inch length of rope being attached to the off foreleg of
+one and the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each other in
+rows, and eating from a common supply in the center. Everyone in the
+small town was busy doing and driving, very anxious that I should be
+made comfortable, which might have been the case but for some untiring
+musician who was traveling with the caravan, and seemed to be one of
+that species of humankind who never sleeps. His notes, however, were
+fairly in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one knows that
+he has to be again on the move by five, even first-rate Chinese music is
+apt to be somewhat disturbing.</p>
+
+<p>From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view of the mountains I
+had crossed yesterday. Some ten miles or so to the north was the highest
+peak in the range&mdash;Kao-li-kung I think it is called&mdash;conical-shaped and
+clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high, so far as I could
+judge.</p>
+
+<p>An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed here a day only, Mr.
+Embery, of the China Inland Mission, a countryman of my own, kindly
+putting me up. But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in the
+province, is well known. It is only a small town, however, and one was
+surprised to find it as conservative a town as could be found anywhere
+in the province, despite the fact that foreigners have been here for
+many years, and at the present time there are no less than seven
+Europeans here.</p>
+
+<p>I was glad of a rest here. From Tali-fu had been most fatiguing.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXIV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXIV.</h2>
+
+<h4>THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY</h4>
+
+<p><i>Travel up the Salwen Valley</i>. <i>My motive for travelling and how I
+travel</i>. <i>Valley not a death-trap</i>. <i>Meet the Li-su</i>. <i>Buddhistic
+beliefs</i>. <i>Late Mr. G. Litton as a traveler</i>. <i>Resemblance in religion
+to Kachins</i>. <i>Ghost of ancestral spirits</i>. <i>Li-su graves</i>. <i>Description
+of the people</i>. <i>Racial differences</i>. <i>John the Baptist's hardship</i>.
+<i>The cross-bow and author's previous experience</i>. <i>Plans for subsequent
+travel fall through</i>. <i>Mission work among the Li-su</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>On my return journey into Y&uuml;n-nan, I stopped at Lu-chiang-pa,<a name='FNanchor_BB_54'></a><a href='#Footnote_BB_54'><sup>[BB]</sup></a> and
+left my men at the inn there while I traveled for two days along the
+Salwen Valley. My journey was taken with no other motive than that of
+seeing the country, and also to test the accuracy of the reports
+respecting the general unhealthy nature of this valley of the Shadow of
+Death. The people here were friendly, despite the fact that my route was
+always far away from the main road; and although my entire kit was a
+single traveling-rug for the nights, I was able to get all I wanted. Lao
+Chang accompanied me, and together we had an excellent time.</p>
+
+<p>I might as well say first of all that the idea of this part of the
+Salwen Valley being what people say it is in the matter of a death-trap
+is absolutely false. With the exception of the early morning mist common
+in every low-lying region in hot countries, there was, so far as I could
+see, nothing to fear.</p>
+
+<p>During the second day, through beautiful country in beautiful weather, I
+came across some people who I presumed were Li-su, and I regretted that
+my films had all been exposed. The Li-su tribe is undoubtedly an
+offshoot from the people who inhabit south-eastern Tibet, although none
+of them anywhere in Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;and they are found in many places in
+central and eastern Y&uuml;n-nan&mdash;bear any traces of Buddhistic belief, which
+is universal, of course, in Tibet. The late Mr. G. Litton, who at the
+time he was acting as British Consul at Tengyueh traveled somewhat
+extensively among them, says that their religious practices closely
+resemble those of the Kachins, who believe in numerous &quot;nats&quot; or spirits
+which cause various calamities, such as failure of crops and physical
+ailments, unless propitiated in a suitable manner. According to him, the
+most important spirit is the ancestral ghost. Li-su graves are generally
+in the fields near the villages, and over them is put the cross-bow,
+rice-bags and other articles used by the deceased. &quot;It is probably from
+foundations such as these,&quot; writes Mr. George Forrest, who accompanied
+Mr. Litton on an excursion to the Upper Salwen, and who wrote up the
+journey after the death of his companion, &quot;that the fabric of Chinese
+ancestor worship was constructed,&quot; a view which I doubt very much
+indeed.</p>
+
+<p>I am of the opinion that the Li-su may be closely allied to the Lolo or
+the Nou Su, of whom I have spoken in the chapters in Book I dealing with
+the tribes around Chao-t'ong. And even the Miao bear a distinct racial
+resemblance. They are of bony physique, high cheek bones, and their skin
+is nearly of the same almost sepia color. The Li-su form practically the
+whole of the population of the Upper Salwen Valley from about lat. 25&deg;
+30' to 27&deg; 30', and they have spread in considerable numbers along the
+mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and are found also in the
+Shan States. Those on the Upper Salwen in the extreme north are utter
+savages, but where they have become more or less civilized have shown
+themselves to be an enterprising race in the way of emigration. Of the
+savages, the villages are almost always at war with one another, and
+many have never been farther from their huts than a day's march will
+take them, the chief object of their lives being apparently to keep
+their neighbors at a distance. They are exceedingly lazy. They spend
+their lives doing as little in the way of work as they must, eating,
+drinking, squatting about round the hearth telling stories of their
+valor with the cross-bow, and their excitement is provided by an
+occasional expedition to get wood for their cross-bows and poison for
+their arrows, or a stock of salt and wild honey.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Forrest, in his paper which was read before the Royal Geographical
+Society in June, 1908, speaks of this wild honey as an agreeable
+sweetmeat as a change, but that after a few days' constant partaking of
+it the European palate rejects it as nauseous and almost disgusting, and
+adds that it has escaped the Biblical commentators that one of the
+principal hardships which John the Baptist must have undergone was his
+diet of wild honey. In another part of his paper the writer says,
+speaking of the cross-bow to which I have referred: &quot;Every Li-su with
+any pretensions to <i>chic</i> possesses at least one of these weapons&mdash;one
+for everyday use in hunting, the other for war. The children play with
+miniature cross-bows. The men never leave their huts for any purpose
+without their cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung
+over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The
+largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of
+thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild
+mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet
+long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of
+plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
+inches, is of split bamboo, about four times the thickness of an
+ordinary knitting needle, hardened and pointed. The actual point is bare
+for a quarter to one-third of an inch, then for fully an inch the arrow
+is stripped to half its thickness, and on this portion the poison is
+placed. The poison used is invariably a decoction expressed from the
+tubers of a species of <i>aconitum</i>, which grows on those ranges at an
+altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet ... The reduction in thickness of the
+arrow where the poison is placed causes the point to break off in the
+body of anyone whom it strikes, and as each carries enough poison to
+kill a cart horse a wound is invariably fatal. Free and immediate
+incision is the usual remedy when wounded on a limb or fleshy part of
+the body.&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BC_55'></a><a href='#Footnote_BC_55'><sup>[BC]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Some time after I was traveling in these regions I made arrangements to
+visit the mission station of the China Inland Mission, some days from
+Y&uuml;n-nan-fu, where a special work has recently been formed among the
+Li-su tribe. Owing to a later arrival at the capital than I had
+expected, however, I could not keep my appointment, and as there were
+reports of trouble in that area the British Consul-General did not wish
+me to travel off the main road. It is highly encouraging to learn that a
+magnificent missionary work is being done among the Li-su, all the more
+gratifying because of the enormous difficulties which have already been
+overcome by the pioneering workers. At least one European, if not more,
+has mastered the language, and the China Inland Mission are expecting
+great things to eventuate. It is only by long and continued residence
+among these peoples, throwing in one's lot with them and living their
+life, that any absolutely reliable data regarding them will be
+forthcoming. And this so few, of course, are able to do.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BB_54'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BB_54'>[BB]</a><div class='note'><p> The town by the double suspension bridge over the Salwen.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BC_55'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BC_55'>[BC]</a><div class='note'><p> The poisoned arrows and the cross-bow are used also by the
+Miao, and the author has seen very much the same thing among the Sakai
+of the Malay Peninsula.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='FIFTH_JOURNEY2'></a><h2>FIFTH JOURNEY</h2>
+
+<h4>TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA</h4>
+
+
+<br />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXV'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Last stages of long journey</i>. <i>Characteristics of the country</i>. <i>Sham
+and Kachins</i>. <i>Author's dream of civilization</i>. <i>British pride</i>. <i>End of
+paved roads</i>. <i>Mountains cease</i>. <i>A confession of foiled plans</i>.
+<i>Nantien as a questionable fort</i>. <i>About the Shans</i>. <i>Village squabble,
+and how it ended</i>. <i>Absence of disagreement in Shan language</i>. <i>Charming
+people, but lazy</i>. <i>Experience with Shan servant</i>. <i>At Chiu-Ch'eng</i>.
+<i>New Year festivities</i>. <i>After-dinner diversions</i>. <i>Author as a medico</i>.
+<i>Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances</i>.</p>
+<br />
+
+<p>The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which
+makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens
+the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing
+characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.</p>
+
+<p>By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long
+walking journey:&mdash;</p>
+
+
+
+<table align='center' border='0' cellpadding='2' cellspacing='0' summary=''>
+<tr><td></td><td align='center'>Length of Stage</td><td align='center'>Height Above Sea</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>1st day&mdash;Nantien</td><td align='center'>90 li.</td><td align='center'>5,300 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>2nd day&mdash;Chiu-Ch'eng(Kang-gnai)</td><td align='center'>80 li.</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>4th day&mdash;Hsiao Singai</td><td align='center'>60 li.</td><td align='center'>&mdash;</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>5th day&mdash;Many&uuml;en</td><td align='center'>60 li.</td><td align='center'>2,750 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>6th day&mdash;Pa-chiao-chai</td><td align='center' rowspan=3>Approx. 55<br />English<br />miles.</td><td align='center'>1,200 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>7th day&mdash;Mao-tsao-ti</td><td align='center'>650 ft.</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='left'>8th day&mdash;Bhamo (Singai)</td><td align='center'>350 ft.</td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p>Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn
+to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is
+therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march
+from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers
+to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any
+other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman,
+daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going
+for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the
+dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving
+Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible
+patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the
+Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The
+benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and
+have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and
+accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to
+be able fully to realize what the luxurious d&acirc;k-bungalows, with their
+excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.</p>
+
+<p>Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
+Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and
+constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no
+hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps
+of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical
+jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the
+knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well
+had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I
+should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
+For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China
+Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the
+opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode
+a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with
+such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the
+language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you
+would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and
+rode to Chiu-Ch'eng&mdash;two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest
+under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry
+indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not to be for long.</p>
+
+<p>Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward
+military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is
+populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now
+live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some
+tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the
+man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them,
+especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow
+complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less
+distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton
+turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables
+one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built
+and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy,
+healthy set of people.</p>
+
+<p>Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble
+outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to
+prove the rule.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize
+that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men,
+and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who
+looked on had a few words to say to these &quot;Pai Yi&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BD_56'></a><a href='#Footnote_BD_56'><sup>[BD]</sup></a> on the futility of
+these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a
+foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the
+whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my
+infallible &quot;Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong&quot; (I don't understand, I
+don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the
+Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with
+every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could
+not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the
+dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with
+me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower
+of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a
+boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the
+infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I
+gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped,
+expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could
+I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness
+of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and
+laughed, too. I yelled &quot;Ts'eo,&quot; and we proceeded, leaving the Shans
+again at peace with all the world.</p>
+
+<p>Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the
+borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in
+all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Y&uuml;n-nan tribesman in
+that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the
+Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to
+Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the
+whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the
+same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a
+Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry
+on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of,
+hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred
+years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have
+had no real political or commercial relation with each other.<a name='FNanchor_BE_57'></a><a href='#Footnote_BE_57'><sup>[BE]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating
+strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they
+are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found
+varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an
+exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
+In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese&mdash;notably in the
+preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for
+the general benefit of future travelers. <i>Never expect a Shan to work
+hard!</i> He <i>can</i> work hard, and he will&mdash;when he likes, but I do not
+believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther
+south, is lazier.</p>
+
+<p>As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose
+Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a
+man to come. &quot;Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored.&quot; And the
+European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should
+want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be
+to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on
+the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a
+large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to
+work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters
+still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he
+objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could
+not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at
+1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He
+left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery,
+and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he
+would require as salary, he replied, &quot;Oh, give me a rupee every market
+day, and that'll do me.&quot; The person was not in service when market day
+rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of
+this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.</p>
+
+<p>Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as
+I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.</p>
+
+<p>I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to
+career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous
+indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the
+village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility
+led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several
+women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the
+village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed
+through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway,
+primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo
+baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy,
+old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers
+of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of
+wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three
+old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and
+last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up,
+an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New
+Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of
+gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his
+very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with
+mine host and his six sons.</p>
+
+<p>Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air&mdash;the
+tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the
+hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace&mdash;Shan almost
+to a man&mdash;were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the
+gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were
+several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed
+away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to
+harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.</p>
+
+<p>My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.</p>
+
+<p>There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed
+by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught
+sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that
+even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a
+long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke,
+then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way
+to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to
+close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man.
+Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the
+family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own
+tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole
+gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all.
+There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged
+couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed,
+on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies,
+seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly.
+The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off
+gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot
+motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one
+another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily
+intensified. The husband of one of the women&mdash;a miserable, emaciated
+specimen for a Shan&mdash;came forward, asking whether I could cure his
+disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body
+was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese
+paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of
+black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing
+it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings,
+whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the
+door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
+towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
+doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
+cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
+attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
+known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
+and make them better; but never a word of thanks&mdash;not even the mere
+pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BD_56'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BD_56'>[BD]</a><div class='note'><p> The Chinese name for the Shan.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BE_57'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BE_57'>[BE]</a><div class='note'><p> Vide <i>Y&uuml;n-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,</i> by
+Major H.R. Davies.&mdash;Cambridge University Press.</p></div>
+
+
+
+<hr style='width: 65%;' />
+<a name='CHAPTER_XXVI'></a><h2>CHAPTER XXVI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Two days from Burma</i>. <i>Tropical wildness induces ennui</i>. <i>The River
+Taping</i>. <i>At Hsiao Singai</i>. <i>Possibility of West China as a holiday
+resort from Burma</i>. <i>Fascination of the country</i>. <i>Many&uuml;en reached with
+difficulty</i>. <i>The Kachins</i>. <i>Good work of the American Baptist Mission</i>.
+<i>Mr. Roberts</i>. <i>Arrival at borderland of Burma</i>. <i>Last dealings with
+Chinese officials</i>. <i>British territory</i>. <i>Thoughts on the trend of
+progress in China</i>. <i>Beautiful Burma</i>. <i>End of long journey.</i></p>
+<br />
+
+<p>I was now two days' march from the British Burma border. The landscape
+in this district was solemn and imposing as I trudged on again, very
+tired indeed, after a day's rest at Chiu-ch'eng. In the morning heavy
+tropical vapors of milky whiteness stretched over the sky and the earth.
+Nature seemed sleeping, as if wrapped in a light veil. It attracted me
+and absorbed me, dreaming, in spite of myself; ennui invaded me at
+first, and under the all-powerful constraint of influences so fatal to
+human personality thought died away by degrees like a flame in a vacuum;
+for I was again in the East, the real, luxurious, indolent East, the
+true land of Pantheism, and one must go there to realize the indefinable
+sensations which almost make the Nirvana of the Buddhist comprehensible.</p>
+
+<p>The river Taping farther down, so different from its aspect a couple of
+days ago, where it rushed at a tremendous speed over its rocky bed, was
+now broad and calm and placid, and extremely picturesque. The banks were
+covered with trees beyond Many&uuml;en. Near the water the undergrowth was of
+a fine green, but on a higher level the yellow and red leaves, hardly
+holding on to the withered trees, were carried away with the slightest
+breath of wind.</p>
+
+<p>At Hsiao Singai, on February 15th, I again had difficulty in getting a
+room; so I waited, and whilst my men searched about for a place where I
+could sleep, an extremely tall fellow came up to me, and having felt
+with his finger and thumb the texture of my tweeds and expressed
+satisfaction thereof, said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Come, elder brother, I have my dwelling in this hostelry, and my upper
+chamber is at your disposal.&quot; And then he added with a twinkle in his
+eye, &quot;Ko nien, ko nien,&quot;<a name='FNanchor_BF_58'></a><a href='#Footnote_BF_58'><sup>[BF]</sup></a> whereat I became wary.</p>
+
+<p>Lao Chang, however, was more cute. Whilst I was assuring this
+well-dressed holiday-maker that he must not think the stranger churlish
+in not accepting at once the proffered services, but that I would go to
+look at the room, he sprang past us and went on ahead. In a few moments
+I was slowly going hence with the multitude. Lao Chang nodded carelessly
+to the strange company there assembled, and passing through the room
+with a soft, cat-like tread, began to ascend a dark flight of narrow
+stairs leading to the second floor of the inn. And I, down below
+startled and bewildered by mysterious words from everyone, watched his
+blue garments vanishing upwards, and like a man driven by irresistible
+necessity, muttered incoherent excuses to my amazed companions, and in a
+blind, unreasoning, unconquerable impulse rushed after him. But I wish I
+had not. There were several ladies, who, all more or less <i>en
+d&eacute;shabille</i>, scampered around with their bundles of gear&mdash;sewing,
+babies' clothes, tin pots, hair ornaments, boxes of powder and scented
+soap of that finest quality imported from Burma, selling for less than
+you can buy the genuine article for in London!&mdash;and then we took
+possession.</p>
+
+<p>If once there is a railway to Tengyueh from Burma, a visit to West
+China, even on to Tali-fu, for those who are prepared to rough it a
+little, will become quite a common trip. A few days up the Irawadi to
+Bhamo, through scenery of a peculiar kind of beauty eclipsed on none
+other of the world's great rivers, would be succeeded by a day or two
+over some of the best country which Upper Burma anywhere affords, and
+then, when once past Tengyueh, the grandeur of the mountains is amply
+compensating to those who love Nature in her beautiful isolation and
+peace. From a recuperating standpoint, perhaps, it would not quite
+answer&mdash;the rains would be a drawback to road travel, and it would at
+best mean roughing it; but for the many in Burma who wish to take a
+holiday and have not the time to go to Europe, I see no reason why
+Tengyueh should not develop into what Darjeeling is to Calcutta and what
+Japan is to the British ports farther East. Expense would not be heavy.
+To Bhamo would be easy. As things now stand, with no railway, one would
+need to take a few provisions and cooking utensils, and a camp bed and
+tent, unless one would be prepared to do as the author did, and
+patronize Chinese inns, such as they are. The rest would be easy to get
+on the road. For three days from Bhamo d&acirc;k bungalows are available, and
+to a man knowing the country it would be an easy matter to arrange his
+comforts. To one who knows the conditions, there is in the trip a good
+deal to fascinate; for in the lives and customs of the people, in the
+nature of the country, in the free-and-easy life the traveler would
+himself develop&mdash;having a peep at things as they were back in the
+ancient days of the Bible&mdash;to the brain-fagged professional or
+commercial there is nothing better in the whole of the East.</p>
+
+<p>He would get some excellent shooting, especially in the Salwen Valley,
+not exactly a health resort, however; and had he inclinations towards
+botanical, ethnological, craniological, or philological studies, he
+would be at a loss to find anywhere in the world a more interesting
+area.</p>
+
+<p>But a man should never leave the &quot;ta lu&quot; (the main road) in China if he
+would experience the minimum of discomfort and annoyance, which under
+best conditions is considerable to an irritable man. As I sit down now,
+on the very spot where Margary, of the British Consulate Service was
+murdered in 1875, I regret that I have sacrificed a great deal to secure
+most of the photographs which decorate this section of my book. No one,
+not even my military escort, knows the way, and is being sworn at by my
+men therefor. How I am to reach Man Hsien, across the river at Taping, I
+do not quite know. Many&uuml;en, so interesting in history, is a native
+Shan-Kachino-Chinese town untouched by the years&mdash;slovenly, dirty,
+undisciplined, immoral, where law and order and civilization have gained
+at best but a precarious foothold, the most characteristic feature of
+the people being the gambler's instinct. But I remember that I am coming
+into Burma, into the real East, where the tangle and the topsy-turvydom,
+the crooked vision and the distorted travesty of the truth, which result
+from judging the Oriental from the standpoint of the Europeans and
+looking at the East through the eyes of the West, impress themselves
+upon one's mind in bewildering fashion as a hopeless problem. Everything
+is all at cross purposes.</p>
+
+<p>However, although I lost my way from Many&uuml;en to Man Hsien, I got my
+photographs of Kachins, those people whose appearance is that they have
+no one to care for them body or soul. Their thick, uncombed locks, so
+long and lank as to resemble deck swabs, overlapped roofwise the ugliest
+aboriginal faces I ever saw in Asia or America, and their eyes under
+shaggy brows looked out with diabolical fire.</p>
+
+<p>So much information is to be obtained from the <i>Upper Burma Gazetteer</i>
+about the Kachins that it is needless for me to write much here,
+especially as I can add nothing. But I feel I should like to say just a
+word of praise of the remarkable work of the American Baptist Mission,
+which has its headquarters at Bhamo, among this tribe in Burma. At the
+time I arrived in the city the annual festival was being conducted at
+the Baptist Church, and hundreds of Kachins were assembled in the
+splendid premises of this mission. They had come from many miles around;
+and to one who at previous times in his residence in the Far East had
+written disparagingly about missionaries and their work, there came some
+little personal shame as he looked upon the extremely creditable work of
+the American missionaries in this district. Kachins are a somewhat
+uncivilized and quarrelsome race, unspeakably immoral, and steeped in
+every vice against which the Christian missionary has to set his face&mdash;a
+most difficult people to work among. But there I saw scores and scores
+of baptized Christians living a life clean and ennobling, endeavoring
+honestly to break away from their degrading customs of centuries, some
+of them exceedingly intelligent people.</p>
+
+<p>I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and
+malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print
+respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it
+is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should
+know what their American brethren are doing here. I cannot praise too
+highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my
+pleasure to meet. In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the
+American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only
+an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a
+gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A
+writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for
+many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of
+the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses. My experience
+is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable
+pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr.
+Roberts may be spared many years still to control the work on the
+successful mission field in which he has spent so much of his labor of
+love for the Kachins.</p>
+
+<p>Kachins form the bulk of the population in the extreme north of Burma.
+To the west they extend to Assam, and to the south into the Shan States,
+as far even as latitude 20&deg; 30'. By far the largest proportion of them
+live in Burmese territory, but they also extend into Western Y&uuml;n-nan,
+though nowhere are they found farther east than longitude 99&deg;.</p>
+
+<p>Man Hsien is the last yamen place before reaching the British border. I
+crossed the river Taping from Many&uuml;en, being shown the road by a Burmese
+member of the Buddhistic yellow cloth, who was most pressing that I
+should stay with him for a few days. Again did I get a fright that my
+manuscript would never get into print, for my pony, Rusty, probably
+cognizant of the fact that he, too, was finishing his long tramp, nearly
+stamped the bottom of the boat out, and threatened to send us down by
+river past Bhamo quicker than our arrival was scheduled.</p>
+
+<p>The large official paper given to one's military escort from point to
+point was here produced for the last time, and great ado was made about
+me. Reading this document aloud from the top of the steps, when he came
+to my name the mandarin bowed very low, called me Ding Daren<a name='FNanchor_BG_59'></a><a href='#Footnote_BG_59'><sup>[BG]</sup></a> (a sign
+of highest respect), asked if I would exchange cards, and then lapsed
+unconsciously into profuse congratulation to myself that I should have
+been born an Englishman. So far as he knew, I could be assured that the
+existing relations between the administrative bodies of his contemptible
+country and my own royal land were of a nature so felicitously mutual
+and peaceful&mdash;in fact, both Governments saw eye to eye in regard to
+international affairs in Far Western China&mdash;that he felt sure that I
+should arrive at the bridge leading into Burma without personal harm. He
+then, with a colossal bow to myself and a gentle wave of his three-inch
+finger-nail, handed me over with pungent emphasis of speech to the
+keeping of a Chinese and a Shan, who with a keen sense of favors to come
+were to form my escort to Burma's border.</p>
+
+<p>A low grunt of unrestrained approval came from the multitude. The
+underlings&mdash;Chino-Kachino-Burmo-Shan people&mdash;who ran about in a little
+of each of the clothing characteristic of the four said races, were all
+busy in their endeavors to extricate from me a few cash apiece by doing
+all and more than was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>Then the great man rose. He condescended to depart. He passed from the
+threshold, turned, paused, bowed, turned again, went down the steps,
+bowed again&mdash;a long curving bow, which nearly sent him to the
+ground&mdash;and then continued with a light heart towards that loveliest
+land of the East. My men exhibited no emotion. That they were coming
+into British territory was of no concern to them; they had come from far
+away in the interior, and were the greenest of the green, the rawest of
+the raw.</p>
+
+<p>But soon I passed over a small bridge, a spot where two great empires
+meet. I was in Burma.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>So I have crossed from one end of China to the other. I entered China on
+March 4th, 1909; I came out on February 14th, 1910.</p>
+
+<p>I had come to see how far the modern spirit had penetrated into the
+hidden recesses of the Chinese Empire. One may be little given to
+philosophizing, and possess but scanty skill in putting into words the
+conclusions which form themselves in one's mind, but it is impossible
+to cross China entirely unobservant. One must begin, no matter how
+dimly, to perceive something of the causes which are at work. By the
+incoming of the European to inland China a transformation is being
+wrought, not the natural growth of a gradual evolution, itself the
+result of propulsion from within, but produced, on the contrary, by
+artificial means, in bitter conflict with inherent instincts, inherited
+traditions, innate tendencies, characteristics, and genius, racial and
+individual. In the eyes of the Chinese of the old school these changes
+in the habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing and ruining
+much&mdash;all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man. The tawdry shell, the
+valueless husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains untouched
+in many places, as will have been seen in previous chapters; but the
+soul within is steadily and surely, if slowly, undergoing a process of
+final atrophy. But yet the proper opening-up of the country by internal
+reform and not by external pressure has as yet hardly commenced in
+immense areas of the Empire far removed from the imperial city of
+Peking. And the mere fact that the Chinese propose such an absurd
+program as that which plans the building of all their railways without
+the aid of foreign capital is sufficient to react in an unwholesome
+manner economically.<a name='FNanchor_BH_60'></a><a href='#Footnote_BH_60'><sup>[BH]</sup></a><a name='FNanchor_BI_61'></a><a href='#Footnote_BI_61'><sup>[BI]</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>I cannot but admit that, whilst in most parts of my journey there are
+distinct traces of reform&mdash;I speak, of course, of the outlying parts of
+China&mdash;and some very striking traces, too, and a real longing on the
+part of far-seeing officials to escape from a humiliating international
+position, it is distinctly apparent that in everything which concerns
+Europe and the Western world the people and the officials as a whole are
+of one mind in the methods of procrastination which are so dear to the
+heart of the Celestial, and that peculiar opposition to Europeanism
+which has marked the real East since the beginning of modern history.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>And now lovely, lovely Burma!</p>
+
+<p>I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very box containing the
+clothes into which I must change before I could enter into the social
+life of Bhamo swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
+rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered after great trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds in the dense blue sky
+hung lazily over the green hills, the heavy air was pregnant with that
+delicious ease known only in the tropics&mdash;all was still and sweet. The
+river flowed grandly from the interior through magnificent forest
+country, receiving on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
+streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle&mdash;tangles of giant
+trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine and festooning
+parasite&mdash;rising sheer from the water's brink. Now long clusters of
+villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees; now wide expanses
+of grass-grown meadow, where the grazing grounds dip to the river, and
+where the only echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans&mdash;the
+banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage of the kine trooping
+down to drink. Occasional wooded islands broke the monotony of the
+river, and were just discernible from the magnificent English roads
+which skirted the hills high up from the river, and yellow sandspits and
+big wedges of granite and rock ran far out into its uneven course. By
+day the joyous Burma sun smiled upon all, and at midday poured its
+merciless heat down upon all mankind, unheeding the weary wanderer whose
+tramp was now near done. At night the tropical moon turned all this
+riverine world to the likeness of a very fairyland. Lying in a long
+chair in the d&acirc;k bungalows one drank in the scenes which succeeded one
+another in bewildering succession, and felt himself thrilled by an
+almost fierce appreciation of eastern beauty. It was good to meet again
+an Englishman, a sturdy, firm-featured Englishman, whose love of the
+East, like mine own, was a veritable obsession. The sun glare of the
+tropics had parched the color out of our white skin, and despite the
+fact that malaria came back again here to taunt me, yet I was again in
+the East that I loved, that had scarred and marked me ere my time
+mayhap. And yet I, with many such of my own countrymen, despite her
+rough handling, worship her.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>In three days I was in Bhamo.</p>
+
+<p>FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BF_58'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BF_58'>[BF]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>i.e.</i> New Year, New Year.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BG_59'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BG_59'>[BG]</a><div class='note'><p> <i>i.e.</i>Great Man. &quot;Ding&quot; is my Chinese name.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BH_60'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BH_60'>[BH]</a><div class='note'><p> I believe personally that the main object of the Y&uuml;n-nan
+provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the
+present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Y&uuml;n-nan-fu to
+the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a
+monthly stipend if the official &quot;face&quot; can be preserved and the Chinese
+dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow
+foreigners to come in still farther.</p></div>
+
+<a name='Footnote_BI_61'></a><a href='#FNanchor_BI_61'>[BI]</a><div class='note'><p> This was of course written long before the Four Nations
+Loan was signed, and Tuan Fang appointed Director General of the
+Railways in May, 1911. We should now see a speedy reformation of Railway
+matters in China if Tuan is given an absolutely free hand.&mdash;E.J.D.</p></div>
+<br />
+
+<h2>END OF BOOK II.</h2>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china01.jpg' width='600' height='416' alt='THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA<br />
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china02.jpg' width='600' height='401' alt='RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION<br />
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china03.jpg' width='600' height='423' alt='TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES<br />
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china04.jpg' width='600' height='402' alt='TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS<br />
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china05.jpg' width='800' height='446' alt='AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL<br />
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china06.jpg' width='600' height='429' alt='AT HANKOW&#8212;THE CHICAGO OF CHINA
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AT HANKOW&#8212;THE CHICAGO OF CHINA<br />
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china07.jpg' width='600' height='398' alt='A LONELY TRAVELER
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>A LONELY TRAVELER<br />
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china08.jpg' width='600' height='423' alt='EARNING HIS LIVING
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>EARNING HIS LIVING<br />
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china09.jpg' width='600' height='404' alt='TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<h4>TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS<br />
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.</h4>
+<br />
+<center>
+<img src='images/china10.jpg' width='600' height='433' alt='WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI<br />
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china11.jpg' width='600' height='394' alt='THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA
+
+If there is an &quot;artist&quot; on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA<br />
+
+If there is an &quot;artist&quot; on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china12.jpg' width='800' height='515' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)<br />
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china13.jpg' width='600' height='420' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH&#39;UAN
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground&#8212;each of them earning about 25 cents a day.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH'UAN<br />
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground&#8212;each of them earning about 25 cents a day.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china14.jpg' width='600' height='400' alt='QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, &quot;Once a
+musician, always a musician&quot;&#8212;so it usually runs in the family.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN<br />
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, &quot;Once a
+musician, always a musician&quot;&#8212;so it usually runs in the family.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china15.jpg' width='600' height='427' alt='SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE<br />
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china16.jpg' width='600' height='391' alt='MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK<br />
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china17.jpg' width='600' height='424' alt='RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES<br />
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china18.jpg' width='600' height='381' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king&#8212;the Author&#39;s four-man chair engaged
+to &quot;save his face,&quot; and his servant&#39;s two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH<br />
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king&#8212;the Author&#39;s four-man chair engaged
+to &quot;save his face,&quot; and his servant&#39;s two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china19.jpg' width='600' height='559' alt='THE MEKONG BRIDGE
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains&#8212;very hard going&#8212;to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE MEKONG BRIDGE<br />
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains&#8212;very hard going&#8212;to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china20.jpg' width='465' height='600' alt='THE AUTHOR IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu&#39;aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of &quot;Across China On Foot.&quot;' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE AUTHOR IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu&#39;aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of &quot;Across China On Foot.&quot;</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china21.jpg' width='600' height='433' alt='THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women&#8212;though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER<br />
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women&#8212;though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit.</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china22.jpg' width='600' height='392' alt='THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech&#39;uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE<br />
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech&#39;uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china23.jpg' width='800' height='516' alt='SPECIMEN OF &quot;MAIN ROAD&quot; IN N.E. Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China&#39;s
+&quot;great paved highways&quot;; author is in saddle.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>SPECIMEN OF &quot;MAIN ROAD&quot; IN N.E. Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China&#39;s
+&quot;great paved highways&quot;; author is in saddle.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china24.jpg' width='600' height='414' alt='THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER<br />
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china25.jpg' width='600' height='387' alt='FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER<br />
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china26.jpg' width='600' height='415' alt='CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH&#39;UANFU
+
+Where the Author&#39;s life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH&#39;UANFU<br />
+
+Where the Author&#39;s life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china27.jpg' width='600' height='402' alt='ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS<br />
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china28.jpg' width='600' height='421' alt='WATCH YOUR STEP
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WATCH YOUR STEP<br />
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china29.jpg' width='600' height='403' alt='FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author&#39;s traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG<br />
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author&#39;s traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right</h4>
+<br />
+
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china30.jpg' width='600' height='418' alt='HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable&#8212;and invariably happy.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS<br />
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable&#8212;and invariably happy.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china31.jpg' width='600' height='404' alt='PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Y&uuml;n-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Y&uuml;n-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china32.jpg' width='600' height='406' alt='WOMEN WEAVING HEMP GARMENTS
+
+These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<h4>These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)<br />
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.</h4>
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china33.jpg' width='600' height='398' alt='' title=''>
+</center>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china34.jpg' width='600' height='398' alt='HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
+
+Basket on woman&#39;s back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN<br />
+
+Basket on woman&#39;s back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china35.jpg' width='800' height='514' alt='WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch&#39;uanfu, the &quot;City of
+the Eastern Streams&quot;&#8212;and a very happy little band they are.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN<br />
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch&#39;uanfu, the &quot;City of
+the Eastern Streams&quot;&#8212;and a very happy little band they are.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china36.jpg' width='600' height='420' alt='TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNGCHANGFU
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China&#8212;China&#39;s
+&quot;Switzerland&quot;&#8212;on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNGCHANGFU<br />
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China&#8212;China&#39;s
+&quot;Switzerland&quot;&#8212;on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china37.jpg' width='508' height='800' alt='THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER<br />
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china38.jpg' width='600' height='421' alt='COPPER KETTLE LANE IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>COPPER KETTLE LANE IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN-FU<br />
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china39.jpg' width='600' height='393' alt='AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY&#39;S END
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese &quot;to be possessed of a
+demon!&quot;&#8212; because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>AUTHOR&#39;S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY'S END<br />
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese &quot;to be possessed of a
+demon!&quot;&#8212; because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!</h4>
+<br />
+
+<a name='Illustration_TYPICAL_SINGLE_SPAN_BRIDGE_OF_INLAND_CHINA'></a><center>
+<img src='images/china40.jpg' width='600' height='274' alt='TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.<br />
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china41.jpg' width='600' height='533' alt='Top left&mdash;Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Y&uuml;n-nan. Top right&mdash;Ch&#39;in
+Miao, men, of Kwei-chow. Bottom left&mdash;Three Heh Miao&#8212;all women. Bottom
+right&mdash;Hua Miao&#8212;two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>Top left&mdash;Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Y&uuml;n-nan. Top right&mdash;Ch&#39;in<br />
+Miao, men, of Kwei-chow. Bottom left&mdash; Three Heh Miao&#8212;all women. Bottom
+right&mdash;Hua Miao&#8212;two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china42.jpg' width='600' height='429' alt='A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture&#8212;otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST<br />
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture&#8212;otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china43.jpg' width='600' height='391' alt='WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Suifu, Szech&#39;uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>WHERE EAST MEETS WEST<br />
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Suifu, Szech&#39;uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china44.jpg' width='600' height='426' alt='BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH&#39;UANFU IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch&#39;uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH'UANFU IN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch&#39;uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china45.jpg' width='600' height='403' alt='TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains &quot;for eighty
+centuries,&quot; they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN<br />
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains &quot;for eighty
+centuries,&quot; they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china46.jpg' width='558' height='800' alt='IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china47.jpg' width='400' height='366' alt='IGNORANCE AND POVERTY
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>IGNORANCE AND POVERTY<br />
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Y&uuml;n-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china48.jpg' width='455' height='600' alt='THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author&#39;s ponies
+&quot;committed suicide,&quot; Chinese said.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL<br />
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author&#39;s ponies
+&quot;committed suicide,&quot; Chinese said.</h4>
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china49.jpg' width='800' height='512' alt='FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND<br />
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china50.jpg' width='600' height='420' alt='REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary&#39;s
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch&#39;uanfu.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY<br />
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary&#39;s
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch&#39;uanfu.</h4>
+
+<br />
+
+<center>
+<img src='images/china51.jpg' width='600' height='394' alt='FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED Y&Uuml;N-NAN
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.' title=''>
+</center>
+<h4>FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED Y&Uuml;N-NAN<br />
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
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+
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@@ -0,0 +1,11715 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Across China on Foot
+
+Author: Edwin Dingle
+
+Release Date: September 10, 2004 [EBook #13420]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Stephen Schulze and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT
+
+_By_
+
+EDWIN JOHN DINGLE
+
+1911
+
+
+IN GRATEFUL ESTEEM
+
+DURING MY TRAVELS IN INTERIOR CHINA I ONCE
+LAY AT THE POINT OF DEATH. FOR THEIR UNREMITTING
+KINDNESS DURING A LONG ILLNESS, I
+NOW AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME TO
+MY FRIENDS, MR. AND MRS. A. EVANS, OF TONG-CH'UAN-FU,
+YUeN-NAN, SOUTH-WEST CHINA, TO
+WHOSE DEVOTED NURSING AND UNTIRING CARE
+I OWE MY LIFE.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+BOOK I.
+
+FROM THE STRAITS TO SHANGHAI--INTRODUCTORY
+
+FIRST JOURNEY.
+
+    CHAPTER I.   FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG
+
+SECOND JOURNEY--ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES.
+
+    CHAPTER II.   THE ICHANG GORGE
+    CHAPTER III.  THE YANGTZE RAPIDS
+    CHAPTER IV.   THE YEH T'AN RAPID. ARRIVAL AT KWEIEU
+
+THIRD JOURNEY--CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW).
+
+    CHAPTER  V.   BEGINNING OF THE OVERLAND JOURNEY
+    CHAPTER  VI.  THE PEOPLE OF SZECH'WAN
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY--SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).
+
+    CHAPTER  VII.  DESCRIPTION OF JOURNEY FROM SUI-FU
+    CHAPTER  VIII. SZECH'WAN AND YUeN-NAN
+
+THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910.
+
+    CHAPTER  IX.
+
+THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST YUeN-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM.
+
+    CHAPTER  X.
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY--CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.
+
+    CHAPTER  XI.   AUTHOR MEETS WITH ACCIDENT
+    CHAPTER  XII.  YUeN-NAN'S CHECKERED CAREER. ILLNESS OF AUTHOR
+
+BOOK II.
+
+FIRST JOURNEY--TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL.
+
+    CHAPTER  XIII. DEPARTURE FOR BURMA.  DISCOMFORTS OF TRAVEL
+    CHAPTER  XIV.  YUeN-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL
+
+SECOND JOURNEY--YUeN-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU).
+
+    CHAPTER  XV.  DOES CHINA WANT THE FOREIGNER?
+    CHAPTER  XVI. LU-FENG-HSIEN. MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. CHINESE
+                    UNTRUTHFULNESS
+    CHAPTER  XVII. KWANG-TUNG-HSIEN TO SHACHIAO-KA
+    CHAPTER  XVIII. STORM IN THE MOUNTAINS. AT HUNGAY
+    CHAPTER  XIX. THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN YUeN-NAN. ARRIVAL AT
+                    TALI-FU
+
+THIRD JOURNEY--TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY.
+
+    CHAPTER  XX. HARDEST PART OF THE JOURNEY.HWAN-LIEN-P'U
+    CHAPTER  XXI. THE MOUNTAINS OF YUeN-NAN. SHAYUNG. OPIUM
+                    SMOKING
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY--THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH.
+
+    CHAPTER  XXII. THE RIVER MEKONG
+    CHAPTER  XXIII. THROUGH THE SALWEN VALLEY TO TENGYUEH
+    CHAPTER  XXIV. THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY--TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA.
+
+    CHAPTER  XXV. SHANS AND KACHINS
+    CHAPTER  XXVI. END OF LONG JOURNEY. ARRIVAL IN BURMA
+
+
+
+_To travel in China is easy. To walk across China, over roads
+acknowledgedly worse than are met with in any civilized country in the
+two hemispheres, and having accommodation unequalled for crudeness and
+insanitation, is not easy. In deciding to travel in China, I determined
+to cross overland from the head of the Yangtze Gorges to British Burma
+on foot; and, although the strain nearly cost me my life, no conveyance
+was used in any part of my journey other than at two points described in
+the course of the narrative. For several days during my travels I lay at
+the point of death. The arduousness of constant mountaineering_--_for
+such is ordinary travel in most parts of Western China_--_laid the
+foundation of a long illness, rendering it impossible for me to continue
+my walking, and as a consequence I resided in the interior of China
+during a period of convalescence of several months duration, at the end
+of which I continued my cross-country tramp. Subsequently I returned
+into Yuen-nan from Burma, lived again in Tong-ch'uan-fu and
+Chao-t'ong-fu, and traveled in the wilds of the surrounding country.
+Whilst traveling I lived on Chinese food, and in the Miao country, where
+rice could not be got, subsisted for many days on maize only.
+
+My sole object in going to China was a personal desire to see China from
+the inside. My trip was undertaken for no other purpose. I carried no
+instruments (with the exception of an aneroid), and did not even make a
+single survey of the untrodden country through which I occasionally
+passed. So far as I know, I am the only traveler, apart from members of
+the missionary community, who has ever resided far away in the interior
+of the Celestial Empire for so long a time.
+
+Most of the manuscript for this book was written as I went along>--a
+good deal of it actually by the roadside in rural China. When my journey
+was completed, the following news paragraph in the North China Daily
+News (of Shanghai) was brought to my notice:--
+
+     "All the Legations (at Peking) have received anonymous letters from
+     alleged revolutionaries in Shanghai, containing the warning that an
+     extensive anti-dynastic uprising is imminent. If they do not assist
+     the Manchus, foreigners will not be harmed; otherwise, they will be
+     destroyed in a general massacre.
+
+     "The missives were delivered mysteriously, bearing obliterated
+     postmarks.
+
+     "In view of the recent similar warnings received by the Consuls,
+     uneasiness has been created."
+
+The above appeared in the journal quoted on June 3rd, 1910. The reader,
+in perusing my previously written remarks on the spirit of reform and
+how far it has penetrated into the innermost corners of the empire,
+should bear this paragraph in mind, for there is more Boxerism and
+unrest in China than we know of. My account of the Hankow riots of
+January, 1911, through which I myself went, will, with my experience of
+rebellions in Yuen-nan, justify my assertion.
+
+I should like to thank all those missionaries who entertained me as I
+proceeded through China, especially Mr. John Graham and Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, of the China Inland Mission, who transacted a good deal of
+business for me and took all trouble uncomplainingly. I am also indebted
+to Dr. Clark, of Tali-fu, and to the Revs. H. Parsons and S. Pollard,
+for several photographs illustrating that section of this book dealing
+with the tribes of Yuen-nan.
+
+I wish to express my acknowledgments to several well-known writers on
+far Eastern topics, notably to Dr. G.E. Morrison, of Peking, the Rev.
+Sidney L. Hulick, M.A., D.D., and Mr. H.B. Morse, whose works are
+quoted. Much information was also gleaned from other sources.
+
+My thanks are due also to Mr. W. Brayton Slater and to my brother, Mr.
+W.R. Dingle, for their kindness in having negotiated with my publishers
+in my absence in Inland China; and to the latter, for unfailing courtesy
+and patience, I am under considerable obligation. "Across China on Foot"
+would have appeared in the autumn of 1910 had the printers' proofs,
+which were several times sent to me to different addresses in China, but
+which dodged me repeatedly, come sooner to hand_.
+
+[Signature: Edwin Dingle]
+
+HANKOW, HUPEH, CHINA.
+
+
+
+
+Across China on Foot
+
+_From the Straits to Shanghai_
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY
+
+_The scheme_. _Why I am walking across Interior China_. _Leaving
+Singapore_. _Ignorance of life and travel in China_. _The "China for the
+Chinese" cry_. _The New China and the determination of the Government_.
+_The voice of the people_. _The province of Yuen-nan and the forward
+movement_. _A prophecy_. _Impressions of Saigon_. _Comparison of French
+and English methods_. _At Hong-Kong_. _Cold sail up the Whang-poo_.
+_Disembarkation_. _Foreign population of Shanghai_. _Congestion in the
+city_. _Wonderful Shanghai._
+
+
+Through China from end to end. From Shanghai, 1,500 miles by river and
+1,600 miles walking overland, from the greatest port of the Chinese
+Empire to the frontier of British Burma.
+
+That is my scheme.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I am a journalist, one of the army of the hard-worked who go down early
+to the Valley. I state this because I would that the truth be told; for
+whilst engaged in the project with which this book has mainly to deal I
+was subjected to peculiar designations, such as "explorer" and other
+newspaper extravagances, and it were well, perhaps, for my reader to
+know once for all that the writer is merely a newspaper man, at the time
+on holiday.
+
+The rather extreme idea of walking across this Flowery Land came to me
+early in the year 1909, although for many years I had cherished the hope
+of seeing Interior China ere modernity had robbed her and her wonderful
+people of their isolation and antediluvianism, and ever since childhood
+my interest in China has always been considerable. A little prior to the
+Chinese New Year, a friend of mine dined with me at my rooms in
+Singapore, in the Straits Settlements, and the conversation about China
+resulted in our decision then and there to travel through the Empire on
+holiday. He, because at the time he had little else to do; the author,
+because he thought that a few months' travel in mid-China would, from a
+journalistic standpoint, be passed profitably, the intention being to
+arrive home in dear old England late in the summer of the same year.
+
+We agreed to cross China on foot, and accordingly on February 22, 1909,
+just as the sun was sinking over the beautiful harbor of Singapore--that
+most valuable strategic Gate of the Far East, where Crown Colonial
+administration, however, is allowed by a lethargic British Government to
+become more and more bungled every year--we settled down on board the
+French mail steamer _Nera_, bound for Shanghai. My friends, good
+fellows, in reluctantly speeding me on my way, prophesied that this
+would prove to be my last long voyage to a last long rest, that the
+Chinese would never allow me to come out of China alive. Such is the
+ignorance of the average man concerning the conditions of life and
+travel in the interior of this Land of Night.
+
+Here, then, was I on my way to that land towards which all the world was
+straining its eyes, whose nation, above all nations of the earth, was
+altering for better things, and coming out of its historic shell.
+"Reform, reform, reform," was the echo, and I myself was on the way to
+hear it.
+
+At the time I started for China the cry of "China for the Chinese" was
+heard in all countries, among all peoples. Statesmen were startled by
+it, editors wrote the phrase to death, magazines were filled with
+copy--good, bad and indifferent--mostly written, be it said, by men
+whose knowledge of the question was by no means complete: editorial
+opinion, and contradiction of that opinion, were printed side by side in
+journals having a good name. To one who endeavored actually to
+understand what was being done, and whither these broad tendencies and
+strange cravings of the Chinese were leading a people who formerly were
+so indifferent to progress, it seemed essential that he should go to the
+country, and there on the spot make a study of the problem.
+
+Was the reform, if genuine at all, universal in China? Did it reach to
+the ends of the Empire?
+
+That a New China had come into being, and was working astounding results
+in the enlightened provinces above the Yangtze and those connected with
+the capital by railway, was common knowledge; but one found it hard to
+believe that the west and the south-west of the empire were moved by the
+same spirit of Europeanism, and it will be seen that China in the west
+moves, if at all, but at a snail's pace: the second part of this volume
+deals with that portion of the subject.
+
+And it may be that the New China, as we know it in the more forward
+spheres of activity, will only take her proper place in the family of
+nations after fresh upheavals. Rivers of blood may yet have to flow as a
+sickening libation to the gods who have guided the nation for forty
+centuries before she will be able to attain her ambition of standing
+line to line with the other powers of the eastern and western worlds.
+But it seems that no matter what the cost, no matter what she may have
+to suffer financially and nationally, no matter how great the obstinacy
+of the people towards the reform movement, the change is coming, has
+already come with alarming rapidity, and has come to stay. China is
+changing--let so much be granted; and although the movement may be
+hampered by a thousand general difficulties, presented by the ancient
+civilization of a people whose customs and manners and ideas have stood
+the test of time since the days contemporary with those of Solomon, and
+at one time bade fair to test eternity, the Government cry of "China for
+the Chinese" is going to win. Chinese civilization has for ages been
+allowed to get into a very bad state of repair, and official corruption
+and deceit have prevented the Government from making an effectual move
+towards present-day aims; but that she is now making an honest endeavor
+to rectify her faults in the face of tremendous odds must, so it appears
+to the writer, be apparent to all beholders. That is the Government
+view-point. It is important to note this.
+
+In China, however, the Government is not the people. It never has been.
+It is not to be expected that great political and social reforms can be
+introduced into such an enormous country as China, and among her four
+hundred and thirty millions of people, merely by the issue of a few
+imperial edicts. The masses have to be convinced that any given thing is
+for the public good before they accept, despite the proclamations, and
+in thus convincing her own people China has yet to go through the fire
+of a terrible ordeal. Especially will this be seen in the second part of
+this volume, where in Yuen-nan there are huge areas absolutely untouched
+by the forward movement, and where the people are living the same life
+of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral
+degradation as they lived when the Westerner remained still in the
+primeval forest stage. But despite the scepticism and the cynicism of
+certain writers, whose pessimism is due to a lack of foresight, and
+despite the fact that she is being constantly accused of having in the
+past ignominiously failed at the crucial moment in endeavors towards
+minor reforms, I am one of those who believe that in China we shall see
+arising a Government whose power will be paramount in the East, and upon
+the integrity of whose people will depend the peace of Europe. It is
+much to say. We shall not see it, but our children will. The Government
+is going to conquer the people. She has done so already in certain
+provinces, and in a few years the reform--deep and real, not the
+make-believe we see in many parts of the Empire to-day--will be
+universal.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Between Singapore and Shanghai the opportunity occurred of calling at
+Saigon and Hong-Kong, two cities offering instructive contrasts of
+French and British administration in the Far East.
+
+Saigon is not troubled much by the Britisher. The nationally-exacting
+Frenchman has brought it to represent fairly his loved Paris in the
+East. The approach to the city, through the dirty brown mud of the
+treacherous Mekong, which is swept down vigorously to the China sea
+between stretches of monotonous mangrove, with no habitation of man
+anywhere visible, is distinctly unpicturesque; but Saigon itself, apart
+from the exorbitance of the charges (especially so to the spendthrift
+Englishman), is worth the dreary journey of numberless twists and quick
+turns up-river, annoying to the most patient pilot.
+
+In the daytime, Saigon is as hot as that last bourne whither all
+evil-doers wander--Englishmen and dogs alone are seen abroad between
+nine and one. But in the soothing cool of the soft tropical evening,
+gay-lit boulevards, a magnificent State-subsidized opera-house, alfresco
+cafes where dawdle the domino-playing absinthe drinkers, the
+fierce-moustached gendarmes, and innumerable features typically and
+picturesquely French, induced me easily to believe myself back in the
+bewildering whirl of the Boulevard des Capucines or des Italiennes.
+Whether the narrow streets of the native city are clean or dirty,
+whether garbage heaps lie festering in the broiling sun, sending their
+disgusting effluvia out to annoy the sense of smell at every turn, the
+municipality cares not a little bit. Indifference to the well-being of
+the native pervades it; there is present no progressive prosperity.
+Every second person I met was, or seemed to be, a Government official.
+He was dressed in immaculate white clothes of the typical ugly French
+cut, trimmed elaborately with an _ad libitum_ decoration of gold braid
+and brass buttons. All was so different from Singapore and Hong-Kong,
+and one did not feel, in surroundings which made strongly for the
+_laissez-faire_ of the Frenchman in the East, ashamed of the fact that
+he was an Englishman.
+
+Three days north lies Hong-Kong, an all-important link in the armed
+chain of Britain's empire east of Suez, bone of the bone and flesh of
+the flesh of Great Britain beyond the seas. The history of this island,
+ceded to us in 1842 by the Treaty of Nanking, is known to everyone in
+Europe, or should be.
+
+Four and a half days more, and we anchored at Woo-sung; and a few hours
+later, after a terribly cold run up the river in the teeth of a terrific
+wind, we arrived at Shanghai.
+
+The average man in Europe and America does not know that this great
+metropolis of the Far East is far removed from salt water, and that it
+is the first point on entering the Yangtze-kiang at which a port could
+be established. It is twelve miles up the Whang-poo. Junks whirled past
+with curious tattered brown sails, resembling dilapidated verandah
+blinds, merchantmen were there flying the flags of the nations of the
+world, all churning up the yellow stream as they hurried to catch the
+flood-tide at the bar. Then came the din of disembarkation. Enthusiastic
+hotel-runners, hard-worked coolies, rickshaw men, professional Chinese
+beggars, and the inevitable hangers-on of a large eastern city crowded
+around me to turn an honest or dishonest penny. Some rude, rough-hewn
+lout, covered with grease and coal-dust, pushed bang against me and
+hurled me without ceremony from his path. My baggage, meantime, was
+thrown onto a two-wheeled van, drawn by four of those poor human beasts
+of burden--how horrible to have been born a Chinese coolie!--and I was
+whirled away to my hotel for tucker. The French mail had given us coffee
+and rolls at six, but the excitement of landing at a foreign port does
+not usually produce the net amount of satisfaction to or make for the
+sustenance of the inner man of the phlegmatic Englishman, as with the
+wilder-natured Frenchman. Therefore were our spirits ruffled.
+
+However, my companion and I fed later.
+
+Subsequently to this we agreed not to be drawn to the clubs or mix in
+the social life of Shanghai, but to consider ourselves as two beings
+entirely apart from the sixteen thousand and twenty-three Britishers,
+Americans, Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Danes, Portuguese, and other
+sundry internationals at that moment at Shanghai. They lived there: we
+were soon to leave.
+
+The city was suffering from the abnormal congestion common to the
+Orient, with a big dash of the West. Trams, motors, rickshaws, the
+peculiar Chinese wheelbarrow, horrid public shaky landaus in miniature,
+conveyances of all kinds, and the swarming masses of coolie humanity
+carrying or hauling merchandise amid incessant jabbering, yelling, and
+vociferating, made intense bewilderment before breakfast.
+
+Wonderful Shanghai!
+
+
+
+
+FIRST JOURNEY
+
+FROM SHANGHAI UP THE LOWER YANGTZE TO ICHANG
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+_To Ichang, an everyday trip_. _Start from Shanghai, and the city's
+appearance_. _At Hankow_. _Meaning of the name_. _Trio of strategic and
+military points of the empire_. _Han-yang and Wu-ch'ang_. _Commercial and
+industrial future of Hankow_. _Getting our passports_. _Britishers in the
+city_. _The commercial Chinaman_. _The native city: some impressions_.
+_Clothing of the people_. _Cotton and wool_. _Indifference to comfort_.
+_Surprise at our daring project_. _At Ichang_. _British gunboat and early
+morning routine_. _Our vain quest for aid_. _Laying in stores and
+commissioning our boat_. _Ceremonies at starting gorges trip_. _Raising
+anchor, and our departure_.
+
+
+Let no one who has been so far as Ichang, a thousand miles from the sea,
+imagine that he has been into the interior of China.
+
+It is quite an everyday trip. Modern steamers, with every modern
+convenience and luxury, probably as comfortable as any river steamers in
+the world, ply regularly in their two services between Shanghai and this
+port, at the foot of the Gorges.
+
+The Whang-poo looked like the Thames, and the Shanghai Bund like the
+Embankment, when I embarked on board a Jap boat _en route_ for Hankow,
+and thence to Ichang by a smaller steamer, on a dark, bitterly cold
+Saturday night, March 6th, 1909. I was to travel fifteen hundred miles
+up that greatest artery of China. The Yangtze surpasses in importance to
+the Celestial Empire what the Mississippi is to America, and yet even
+in China there are thousands of resident foreigners who know no more
+about this great river than the average Smithfield butcher. Ask ten men
+in Fleet Street or in Wall Street where Ichang is, and nine will be
+unable to tell you. Yet it is a port of great importance, when one
+considers that the handling of China's vast river-borne trade has been
+opened to foreign trade and residence since the Chefoo Convention was
+signed in 1876, that Ichang is a city of forty thousand souls, and has a
+gross total of imports of nearly forty millions of taels.
+
+Of Hankow, however, more is known. Here we landed after a four days'
+run, and, owing to the low water, had to wait five days before the
+shallower-bottomed steamer for the higher journey had come in. The city
+is made up of foreign concessions, as in other treaty ports, but away in
+the native quarter there is the real China, with her selfish rush, her
+squalidness and filth among the teeming thousands. There dwell together,
+literally side by side, but yet eternally apart, all the conflicting
+elements of the East and West which go to make up a city in the Far
+East, and particularly the China coast.
+
+Hankow means literally Han Mouth, being situated at the juncture of the
+Han River and the Yangtze. Across the way, as I write, I can see
+Han-yang, with its iron works belching out black curls of smoke, where
+the arsenal turns out one hundred Mauser rifles daily. (This is but a
+fraction of the total work done.) It is, I believe, the only
+steel-rolling mill in China. Long before the foreigner set foot so far
+up the Yangtze, Hankow was a city of great importance--the Chinese used
+to call it the centre of the world. Ten years ago I should have been
+thirty days' hard travel from Peking; at the present moment I might
+pack my bag and be in Peking within thirty-six hours. Hankow, with
+Tientsin and Nanking, makes up the trio of principal strategic points of
+the Empire, the trio of centers also of greatest military activity. On
+the opposite bank of the river I can see Wu-ch'ang, the provincial
+capital, the seat of the Viceroyalty of two of the most turbulent and
+important provinces of the whole eighteen.
+
+Hankow, Han-yang, and Wu-ch'ang have a population of something like two
+million people, and it is safe to prophesy that no other centre in the
+whole world has a greater commercial and industrial future than Hankow.
+
+Here we registered as British subjects, and secured our Chinese
+passports, resembling naval ensigns more than anything else, for the
+four provinces of Hu-peh, Kwei-chow, Szech'wan, and Yuen-nan. The
+Consul-General and his assistants helped us in many ways, disillusioning
+us of the many distorted reports which have got into print regarding the
+indifference shown to British travelers by their own consuls at these
+ports. We found the brethren at the Hankow Club a happy band, with every
+luxury around them for which hand and heart could wish; so that it were
+perhaps ludicrous to look upon them as exiles, men out in the outposts
+of Britain beyond the seas, building up the trade of the Empire. Yet
+such they undoubtedly were, most of them having a much better time than
+they would at home. There is not the roughing required in Hankow which
+is necessary in other parts of the empire, as in British East Africa and
+in the jungles of the Federated Malay States, for instance. Building the
+Empire where there is an abundance of the straw wherewith to make the
+bricks, is a matter of no difficulty.
+
+And then the Chinese is a good man to manage in trade, and in business
+dealings his word is his bond, generally speaking, although we do not
+forget that not long ago a branch in North China of the Hong-kong and
+Shanghai Bank was swindled seriously by a shroff who had done honest
+duty for a great number of years. It cannot, however, be said that such
+behavior is a common thing among the commercial class. My personal
+experience has been that John does what he says he will do, and for
+years he will go on doing that one thing; but it should not surprise you
+if one fine morning, with the infinite sagacity of his race, he ceases
+to do this when you are least expecting it--and he "does" you. Keep an
+eye on him, and the Chinese to be found in Hankow having dealings with
+Europeans in business is as good as the best of men.
+
+We wended our way one morning into the native city, and agreed that few
+inconveniences of the Celestial Empire make upon the western mind a more
+speedy impression than the entire absence of sanitation. In Hankow we
+were in mental suspense as to which was the filthier native city--Hankow
+or Shanghai. But we are probably like other travelers, who find each
+city visited worse than the last. Should there arise in their midst a
+man anxious to confer an everlasting blessing upon his fellow Chinese,
+no better work could he do than to institute a system approaching what
+to our Western mind is sanitation. We arrived, of course, in the winter,
+and, having seen it at a time when the sun could do but little in
+increasing the stenches, we leave to the imagination what it would be in
+the summer, in a city which for heat is not excelled by Aden.[A] During
+the summer of 1908 no less than twenty-eight foreigners succumbed to
+cholera, and the native deaths were numberless.
+
+The people were suffering very much from the cold, and it struck me as
+one of the unaccountable phenomena of their civilization that in their
+ingenuity in using the gifts of Nature they have never learned to weave
+wool, and to employ it in clothing--that is, in a general sense. There
+are a few exceptions in the empire. The nation is almost entirely
+dependent upon cotton for clothing, which in winter is padded with a
+cheap wadding to an abnormal thickness. The common people wear no
+underclothing whatever. When they sleep they strip to the skin, and wrap
+themselves in a single wadded blanket, sleeping the sleep of the tired
+people their excessive labor makes them. And, although their clothes
+might be the height of discomfort, they show their famous indifference
+to comfort by never complaining. These burdensome clothes hang around
+them like so many bags, with the wide gaps here and there where the wind
+whistles to the flesh. It is a national characteristic that they are
+immune to personal inconveniences, a philosophy which I found to be
+universal, from the highest to the lowest.
+
+Everybody we met, from the British Consul-General downward, was
+surprised to know that my companion and I had no knowledge of the
+Chinese language, and seemed to look lightly upon our chances of ever
+getting through.
+
+It was true. Neither my companion nor myself knew three words of the
+language, but went forward simply believing in the good faith of the
+Chinese people, with our passports alone to protect us. That we should
+encounter difficulties innumerable, that we should be called upon to put
+up with the greatest hardships of life, when viewed from the standard to
+which one had been accustomed, and that we should be put to great
+physical endurance, we could not doubt. But we believed in the Chinese,
+and believed that should any evil befall us it would be the outcome of
+our own lack of forbearance, or of our own direct seeking. We knew that
+to the Chinese we should at once be "foreign devils" and "barbarians,"
+that if not holding us actually in contempt, they would feel some
+condescension in dealing and mixing with us; but I was personally of the
+opinion that it was easier for us to walk through China than it would be
+for two Chinese, dressed as Chinese, to walk through Great Britain or
+America. What would the canny Highlander or the rural English rustic
+think of two pig-tailed men tramping through his countryside?
+
+We anchored at Ichang at 7:30 a.m. on March 19th. I fell up against a
+boatman who offered to take us ashore. An uglier fellow I had never seen
+in the East. The morning sunshine soon dried the decks of the gunboat
+_Kinsha_ (then stationed in the river for the defense of the port) which
+English jack-tars were swabbing in a half-hearted sort of way, and all
+looked rosy enough.[B] But for the author, who with his companion was a
+literal "babe in the wood," the day was most eventful and trying to
+one's personal serenity. We had asked questions of all and sundry
+respecting our proposed tramp and the way we should get to work in
+making preparations. Each individual person seemed vigorously to do his
+best to induce us to turn back and follow callings of respectable
+members of society. From Shanghai upwards we might have believed
+ourselves watched by a secret society, which had for its motto, "Return,
+oh, wanderer, return!" Hardly a person knew aught of the actual
+conditions of the interior of the country in which he lived and labored,
+and everyone tried to dissuade us from our project.
+
+Coming ashore in good spirits, we called at the Consulate, at the back
+of the city graveyard, and were smoking his cigars and giving his boy an
+examination in elementary English, when the Consul came down. It was not
+possible, however, for us to get much more information than we had read
+up, and the Consul suggested that the most likely person to be of use to
+us would be the missionary at the China Inland Mission. Thither we
+repaired, following a sturdy employe of Britain, but we found that the
+C.I.M. representative was not to be found--despite our repairing. So off
+we trotted to the chief business house of the town, at the entrance to
+which we were met by a Chinese, who bowed gravely, asked whether we had
+eaten our rice, and told us, quietly but pointedly, that our passing up
+the rough stone steps would be of no use, as the manager was out. A few
+minutes later I stood reading the inscription on the gravestone near the
+church, whilst my brave companion, The Other Man, endeavored fruitlessly
+to pacify a fierce dog in the doorway of the Scottish Society's
+missionary premises--but that missionary, too, was out!
+
+What, then, was the little game? Were all the foreigners resident in
+this town dodging us, afraid of us--or what?
+
+"The latter, the blithering idiots!" yelled The Other Man. He was
+infuriated. "Two Englishmen with English tongues in their heads, and
+unable to direct their own movements. Preposterous!" And then, making an
+observation which I will not print, he suggested mildly that we might
+fix up all matters ourselves.
+
+Within an hour an English-speaking "one piece cook" had secured the
+berth, which carried a salary of twenty-five dollars per month, we were
+well on the way with the engaging of our boat for the Gorges trip, and
+one by one our troubles vanished.
+
+Laying in stores, however, was not the lightest of sundry perplexities.
+Curry and rice had been suggested as the staple diet for the river
+journey; and we ordered, with no thought to the contrary, a picul of
+best rice, various brands of curries, which were raked from behind the
+shelves of a dingy little store in a back street, and presented to us
+at alarming prices--enough to last a regiment of soldiers for pretty
+well the number of days we two were to travel; and, for luxuries, we
+laid in a few tinned meats. All was practically settled, when The Other
+Man, settling his eyes dead upon me, yelled--
+
+"Dingle, you've forgotten the milk!" And then, after a moment, "Oh,
+well, we can surely do without milk; it's no use coming on a journey
+like this unless one can rough it a bit." And he ended up with a rude
+reference to the disgusting sticky condensed milk tins, and we wandered
+on.
+
+Suddenly he stopped, did The Other Man. He looked at a small stone on
+the pavement for a long time, eventually cruelly blurting out, directly
+at me, as if it were all my misdoing: "The sugar, the sugar! We _must_
+have sugar, man." I said nothing, with the exception of a slight remark
+that we might do without sugar, as we were to do without milk. There was
+a pause. Then, raising his stick in the air, The Other Man perorated:
+"Now, I have no wish to quarrel" (and he put his nose nearer to mine),
+"you know that, of course. But to _think_ we can do without sugar is
+quite unreasonable, and I had no idea you were such a cantankerous man.
+We have sugar, or--I go back."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had sugar. It was brought on board in upwards of twenty small packets
+of that detestable thin Chinese paper, and The Other Man, with
+commendable meekness, withdrew several pleasantries he had unwittingly
+dropped anent deficiencies in my upbringing. Fifty pounds of this sugar
+were ordered, and sugar--that dirty, brown sticky stuff--got into
+everything on board--my fingers are sticky even as I write--and no less
+than exactly one-half went down to the bottom of the Yangtze. Travelers
+by houseboat on the Upper Yangtze should have some knowledge of
+commissariat.
+
+Getting away was a tedious business.
+
+Later, the fellows pressed us to spend a good deal of time in the small,
+dingy, ill-lighted apartment they are pleased to call their club; and
+the skipper had to recommission his boat, get in provisions for the
+voyage, engage his crew, pay off debts, and attend to a thousand and one
+minute details--all to be done after the contract to carry the madcap
+passengers had been signed and sealed, added to the more practical
+triviality of three-fourths of the charge being paid down. And then our
+captain, to add to the dilemma, vociferously yelled to us, in some
+unknown jargon which got on our nerves terribly, that he was waiting for
+a "lucky" day to raise anchor.
+
+However, we did, as the reader will be able to imagine, eventually get
+away, amid the firing of countless deafening crackers, after having
+watched the sacrifice of a cock to the God of the River, with the
+invocation that we might be kept in safety. Poling and rowing through a
+maze of junks, our little floating caravan, with the two magnates on
+board, and their picul of rice, their curry and their sugar, and
+slenderest outfits, bowled along under plain sail, the fore-deck packed
+with a motley team of somewhat dirty and ill-fed trackers, who whistled
+and halloed the peculiar hallo of the Upper Yangtze for more wind.
+
+The little township of Ichang was soon left astern, and we entered
+speedily to all intents and purposes into a new world, a world
+untrammelled by conventionalism and the spirit of the West.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote A: This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I
+revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with
+the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my
+impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more
+native life, and--more native dirt!--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote B: The _Kinsha_ was the first British gunboat on the Upper
+Yangtze.]
+
+
+
+
+SECOND JOURNEY
+
+ICHANG TO CHUNG-KING, THROUGH THE YANGTZE GORGES
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+_Gloom in Ichang Gorge_. _Lightning's effect_. _Travellers' fear_.
+_Impressive introduction to the Gorges_. _Boat gets into Yangtze
+fashion_. _Storm and its weird effects_. _Wu-pan: what it is_. _Heavenly
+electricity and its vagaries_. _Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy
+rain_. _Bedding soaked_. _Sleep in a Burberry_. _Gorges and Niagara
+Falls compared_. _Bad descriptions of Yangtze_. _World of eternity_.
+_Man's significant insignificance_. _Life on board briefly described_.
+_Philosophy of travel_. _Houseboat life not luxurious_. _Lose our only
+wash-basin_. _Remarks on the "boy." A change in the kitchen:
+questionable soup_. _Fairly low temperature_. _Troubles in the larder_.
+_General arrangements on board_. _Crew's sleeping-place_. _Sacking makes
+a curtain_. _Journalistic labors not easy_. _Rats preponderate_. _Gorges
+described statistically_.
+
+
+Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling
+slowly and impenetrably over all things.
+
+A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and
+amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful
+distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of
+the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as
+black as ink.
+
+Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains
+assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east
+to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north
+against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour
+seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting
+but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the
+sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then, suddenly,
+with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking the earth
+under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell--impenetrable,
+sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight.
+Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the
+reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men,
+aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with
+a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the
+darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge--a magnificent sixteen-mile
+stretch, opening up the famous gorges on the fourth of the great rivers
+of the world, which had cleaved its course through a chain of hills,
+whose perpendicular cliffs form wonderful rock-bound banks, dispelling
+all thought of the monotony of the Lower Yangtze.
+
+Upstream we had glided merrily upon a fresh breeze, which bore the
+warning of a storm. All on board was settling down into Yangtze fashion,
+and the barbaric human clamor of our trackers, which now mutteringly
+died away, was suddenly taken up, as above recorded, and all
+unexpectedly answered by a grander uproar--a deep threatening boom of
+far-off thunder. In circling tones and semitones of wrath it volleyed
+gradually through the dark ravines, and, startled by the sound, the two
+travelers, roused for the first time from their natural engrossment in
+the common doings of the _wu-pan_,[C] saw the reflection of the sun on
+the waters, now turned to a livid murkiness, deepening with a
+threatening ink-like aspect as the river rushed voluminously past our
+tiny floating haven. Strangely silenced were we by this weird terror,
+and watched and listened, chained to the deck by a thousand mingled
+fears and fascinations, which breathed upon our nerves like a chill
+wind. As we became accustomed then to the yellow darkness, we beheld
+about the landscape a spectral look, and the sepulchral sound of the
+moving thunder seemed the half-muffled clang of some great iron-tongued
+funeral bell. Then came the rain, introduced swiftly by the deafening
+clatter of another thunder crash that made one stagger like a ship in a
+wild sea, and we strained our eyes to gaze into a visionary chasm
+cleaved in twain by the furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the
+unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this
+singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it
+flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination
+quite indescribable.
+
+For hours we sat upon a beam athwart the afterdeck, in silence drinking
+in the strange phenomenon. We watched, after a small feed of curry and
+rice, long into the dark hours, when the thunder had passed us by, and
+in the distant booming one could now imagine the lower notes streaming
+forth from some great solemn organ symphony. The fierce lightning
+twitched, as it danced in and out the crevices--inwards, outwards,
+upwards, then finally lost in one downward swoop towards the river,
+tearing open the liquid blackness with its crystal blade of fire. The
+rain ceased not. But soon the moon, peeping out from the tops of a
+jagged wall above us, looking like a soiled, half-melted snowball, shone
+full down the far-stretching gorge, and now its broad lustre shed
+itself, like powdered silver, over the whole scene, so that one could
+have imagined oneself in the living splendor of some eternal sphere of
+ethereal sweetness. And so it might have been had the rain abated--a
+curious accompaniment to a moonlight night. Down it came, straight and
+determined and businesslike, in the windless silence, dancing like a
+shower of diamonds of purest brilliance on the background of the placid
+waters.
+
+Very beautiful, reader, for a time. But would that the rain had been all
+moonshine!
+
+Glorious was it to revel in for a time. But, during the weary night
+watches, in a bed long since soaked through, and one's safest
+nightclothes now the stolid Burberry, with face protected by a
+twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with
+the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and
+uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the
+worn-out bamboo matting--ah, it was then, _then_ that one would have
+foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic life of the _wu-pan_.
+
+Our introduction, therefore, to the great Gorges of the Upper
+Yangtze--to China what the Niagara Falls are to America--was not
+remarkable for its placidity, albeit taken with as much complacency as
+the occasion allowed.
+
+I do not, however, intend to weary or to entertain the reader, as may
+be, by a long description of the Yangtze gorges. Time and time again
+have they fallen to the imaginative pens of travelers--mostly bad or
+indifferent descriptions, few good; none better, perhaps, than Mrs.
+Bishop's. But at best they are imaginative--they lack reality. It has
+been said that the world of imagination is the world of eternity, and as
+of eternity, so of the Gorges--they cannot be adequately described. As I
+write now in the Ichang Gorge, I seem veritably to have reached
+eternity. I seem to have arrived at the bosom of an after-life, where
+one's body has ceased to vegetate, and where, in an infinite and eternal
+world of imagination, one's soul expands with fullest freedom. There
+seems to exist in this eternal world of unending rock and invulnerable
+precipice permanent realities which stand from eternity to eternity. As
+the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies,
+so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go
+on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his
+imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as
+a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the
+gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's
+significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous
+grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world--a spot in which
+blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility
+and patience are the first requisites in traveling on the Upper Yangtze.
+
+Reader, for your sake I refrain from a description. But may I, for
+perhaps your sake too, if you would wander hither ere the charm of
+things as they were in the beginning is still unrobbed and unmolested,
+give you some few impressions of a little of the life--grave, gay, but
+never unhappy--which I spent with my excellent co-voyager, The Other
+Man.
+
+It is a part of wisdom, when starting any journey, not to look forward
+to the end with too much eagerness: hear my gentle whisper that you may
+never get there, and if you do, congratulate yourself; interest yourself
+in the progress of the journey, for the present only is yours. Each day
+has its tasks, its rapids, its perils, its glories, its fascinations,
+its surprises, and--if you will live as we did, its _curry and rice_.
+Then, if you are traveling with a companion, remember that it is better
+to yield a little than to quarrel a great deal. Most disagreeable and
+undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what
+people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than
+on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life
+is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking
+it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace,
+if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to
+incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning to
+the end of the trip, make the best of everything in every way, and I can
+assure you, if you are not ill-tempered and suffer not from your liver,
+Nature will open her bosom and lead you by these strange by-ways into
+her hidden charms and unadorned recesses of sublime beauty, uneclipsed
+for their kind anywhere in the world.
+
+Think not that the life will be luxurious--houseboat life on the Upper
+Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of
+the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact,
+the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our _wu-pan_ was to get through the Gorges in as short a time as was
+possible, and for that reason we traveled in the discomfort of the
+smallest boat used to face the rapids.
+
+People entertaining the smallest idea of doing things travel in nothing
+short of a _kwadze_, the orthodox houseboat, with several rooms and
+ordinary conveniences. Ours was a _wu-pan_--literally five boards. We
+had no conveniences whatever, and the second morning out we were left
+without even a wash-basin. As I was standing in the stern, I saw it
+swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the
+perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us
+how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the
+crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped
+by the river--and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead.
+The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated
+something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh
+and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a
+combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the
+morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the
+typewriter.
+
+Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty
+well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He
+dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no
+ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other
+Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally
+concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and
+at once christened it as "consomme a la maotsi"--and we can recommend
+it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we
+asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a
+rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His
+face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking
+curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning--the temperature
+below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!
+
+"God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name
+of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you
+come for?"
+
+"Alas!" he shouted, for we were at a rapid, "my savee makee good chow.
+No have got nothing!"
+
+"No have got nothing! No have got nothing!" Mysterious words, what could
+they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our
+sugar?
+
+"The fellow's a swindler!" cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But
+that's all very well. "No have got nothing!" Ah, there lay the secret.
+Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again
+with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were
+powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were
+victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice
+towards him personally--but ... _could he do it?_ Either a great wrath
+or a great sorrow overcame the boy; he skulked past, asked us to lie
+down on our shelves, where we had our beds, to give him room, and then
+set to work.
+
+In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal (all out of the same
+pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In
+parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with
+them about seven-eighths of the picul--and were not at all regretful.
+
+I should not like to assert--because I am telling the truth here--that
+our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was
+some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew
+eight inches of water. Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our
+dressing-rooms, our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional
+medicine-room, our cooking-room--and all else. If we stood bolt upright
+in the saloon amidships we bumped our heads on the bamboo matting which
+formed an arched roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men--you may
+question it, reader, but they did; in the stern, on either side of a
+great rudder, slept our boy and a friend of his; and between them and
+us, laid out flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship's cook for
+the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables, and the
+breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm all around one) were the
+captain and commodore--a fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature,
+strenuous at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain--a piece of
+sacking, but one would not wish this to be known--dividing them from us,
+we could see him preparing his globules to smoke before turning in for
+the night, and despite our frequent raving objections, our words ringing
+with vibrating abuse, it continued all the way to Chung-king: he
+certainly gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get him to say
+anything bearing upon the matter. Temperature during the day stood at
+about 50 degrees, and at night went down to about 30 degrees above
+freezing point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic labors, seated upon
+the upturned saucepan aforesaid, without a cushion, went hard. At night
+the Chinese candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center of an
+empty "Three Castles" tin, which the boy had used for some days as a
+pudding dish, gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats, and as
+many others as we happened to have. Rats crawled over our uncurtained
+bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears
+or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to
+us--they were made on board.
+
+The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be
+passed through before one reaches Kweifu:--
+
+    NAME OF GORGE          LENGTH             REMARKS
+
+    Ichang Gorge           16 miles      First and probably one
+                                         of the finest of the
+                                         Gorges.
+
+    Niu Kan Ma Fee         4 miles       An hour's journey after
+      (or Ox Liver                       coming out of the
+      Gorge)                             Ichang Gorge, if the
+                                         breeze be favorable;
+                                         an arduous day's
+                                         journey during high
+                                         river, with no wind.
+
+    Mi Tsang (or Rice      2 miles       Finest view is obtained
+      Granary Gorge)                     from western extremity;
+                                         exceedingly
+                                         precipitous.
+
+    Niu Kou (or Buffalo      ---         Very quiet in low-water
+      Mouth Reach)                       season; wild stretch
+                                         during high river.
+                                         At the head of this
+                                         reach H.M.S.
+                                         _Woodlark_ came to
+                                         grief on her maiden
+                                         trip.
+
+    Urishan Hsia (or         ---         Over thirty miles in
+    Gloomy Mountain                      length. Grandest
+    Gorge)                               and highest gorge
+                                         _en route to_ Chung-king.
+                                         Half-way
+                                         through is the
+                                         boundary between
+                                         Hu-peh and Szech'wan.
+
+    Fang Hsian Hsia          ---         Last of the gorges;
+    (or Windbox Gorge)                   just beyond is the
+                                         city of Kweifu.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote C: A _wu-pan_ (literally _wu_ of five and _pan_ of boards) is
+a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They
+are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the
+river on which they ply.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE YANGTZE RAPIDS
+
+
+The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated
+on the river upward from Ichang. One of the chief discomforts the
+traveler first experiences is due to a total ignorance of the vicinity
+of the main rapids, and often, therefore, when he is least expecting it
+perhaps, he is called upon by the _laoban_ to go ashore. He has then to
+pack up the things he values, is dragged ashore himself, his gear
+follows, and one who has no knowledge of the language and does not know
+the ropes is, therefore, never quite happy for fear of some rapid
+turning up. By comparing the rapids with the Gorges the traveler would,
+however, from the lists given, be able easily to trace the whereabouts
+of the more dangerous rushes; which are distributed with alarming
+frequency on the river between Ichang and Kweifu.
+
+
+TA TONG T'AN (OTTER CAVE RAPID)
+
+Low water rapid. Swirling volume of coffee and milk color; round about a
+maze of rapids and races, in the Yao-cha Ho reach.
+
+
+TONG LING RAPID
+
+At the foot of the Ox Liver Gorge. An enormous black rock lies amid
+stream some forty feet below, or perhaps as much above the surface, but
+unless experienced at low water will not appeal to the traveler as a
+rapid; passage dangerous, dreaded during low-water season. On Dec. 28th,
+1900, the German steamer, _Sui-Hsiang_ was lost here. She foundered in
+twenty-five fathoms of water, with an immense hole ripped in her bottom
+by the black rock; all on board saved by the red boats, with the
+exception of the captain.
+
+
+HSIN T'AN RAPIDS (OR CHIN T'AN RAPIDS)
+
+During winter quite formidable; the head, second and third rapids
+situated in close proximity, the head rapid being far the worst to
+negotiate. On a bright winter's day one of the finest spectacles on the
+Upper Yangtze. Wrecks frequent. Just at head of Ox Liver Gorge.
+
+
+YEH T'AN (OR WILD RAPID)
+
+River reduced suddenly to half its width by an enormous detritus of
+boulders, taking the form of a huge jagged tongue, with curling on
+edges; commonly said to be high when the Hsin T'an is low. At its worst
+during early summer and autumn. Wrecks frequent, after Mi Tsang Gorge is
+passed, eight miles from Kwei-chow.
+
+
+NIU K'EO T'AN (BUFFALO MOUTH RAPID)
+
+Situated at the head of Buffalo Mouth Reach, said to be more difficult
+to approach than even the Yeh T'an, because of the great swirls in the
+bay below. H.M.S. _Woodlark_ came to grief here on her maiden trip up
+river.
+
+
+HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)
+
+Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge,
+particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906,
+the French gunboat _Olry_ came within an ace of destruction by losing
+her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong
+for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working
+astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the
+way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back
+undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to
+and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management
+she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually
+brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden
+jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her
+destination.
+
+
+HEH SHIH T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)
+
+Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.
+
+
+HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)
+
+Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon
+Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low
+river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as
+1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its
+breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced
+this roaring rapid.
+
+This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky
+bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped,
+tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift
+back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at
+its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly
+with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely
+disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and
+March, when it certainly merits the appellation of "Glorious Dragon
+Rapid," presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome
+one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A
+hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children,
+are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din
+of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat
+is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Chinese myths, the
+landslip which produced the rapid was caused by the following
+circumstance. The ova of a dragon being deposited in the bowels of the
+earth at this particular spot, in due course became hatched out in some
+mysterious manner. The baby dragon grew and grew, but remained in a
+dormant state until quite full grown, when, as is the habit of the
+dragon, it became active, and at the first awakening shook down the
+hill-side by a mighty effort, freed himself from the bowels of the
+earth, and made his way down river to the sea; hence the landslip, the
+rapid, and its name.
+
+
+FUH T'AN RAPID (OR TIGER RAPID)
+
+Eight miles beyond Wan Hsien. Very savage during summer months, but does
+not exist during low-water season. Beyond this point river widens
+considerably. Twenty-five miles further on travelers should look out for
+Shih Pao Chai, or Precious Stone Castle, a remarkable cliff some 250 or
+300 feet high. A curious eleven-storied pavilion, built up the face of
+the cliff, contains the stairway to the summit, on which stands a
+Buddhist temple. There is a legend attached to this remarkable rock that
+savors very much of the goose with the golden eggs.
+
+Once upon a time, from a small natural aperture near the summit, a
+supply of rice sufficient for the needs of the priests flowed daily into
+a basin-shaped hole, just large enough to hold the day's supply.
+
+The priests, however, thinking to get a larger daily supply, chiselled
+out the basin-shaped hole to twice its original size, since when the
+flow of rice ceased.
+
+
+KWAN IN T'AN (OR GODDESS OF MERCY RAPID)
+
+Two miles beyond the town of Feng T'ou. Like the Fuh T'an, is an
+obstacle to navigation only during the summer months, when junks are
+often obliged to wait for several days for a favorable opportunity to
+cross the rapid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+_Scene at the Rapid_. _Dangers of the Yeh T'an_. _Gear taken ashore_.
+_Intense cold_. _Further preparation_. _Engaging the trackers_. _Fever
+of excitement_. _Her nose is put to it_. _Struggles for mastery_.
+_Author saves boatman_. _Fifteen-knot current_. _Terrific labor on
+shore_. _Man nearly falls overboard_. _Straining hawsers carry us over
+safely_. _The merriment among the men_. _The thundering cataract_.
+_Trackers' chanting_. _Their life_. _"Pioneer" at the Yeh T'an_. _The
+Buffalo Mouth Reach_. _Story of the "Woodlark."_ _How she was saved_.
+_Arrival at Kweifu_. _Difficulty in landing_. _Laying in provisions_.
+_Author laid up with malaria_. _Survey of trade in Shanghai and
+Hong-Kong_. _Where and why the Britisher fails_. _Comparison with
+Germans_. _Three western provinces and pack-horse traffic_. _Advantages
+of new railway_. _Yangtze likely to be abandoned_. _East India Company.
+French and British interests_. _Hint to Hong-Kong Chamber of Commerce._
+
+
+Wild shrieking, frantic yelling, exhausted groaning, confusion and
+clamor,--one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of
+reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and
+distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the
+scrunching, the straining, and then--a final snap! Back we go, sheering
+helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters,
+and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us
+anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the
+rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of
+gratitude to the deity of the river.
+
+We were at the Yeh T'an, or the Wild Rapid, some distance on from the
+Ichang Gorge, were almost over the growling monster, when the tow-line,
+straining to its utmost limit, snapped suddenly with little warning, and
+we drifted in a moment or two away down to last night's anchorage, far
+below, where we were obliged to bring up the last of the long tier of
+boats of which we were this morning the first.
+
+And now we are ready again to take our turn.
+
+Our gear is all taken ashore. Seated on a stone on shore, watching
+operations, is The Other Man. The sun vainly tries to get through, and
+the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time.
+The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out,
+their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to
+the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the
+'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to
+feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way,
+is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring
+towards the boat, in a fever of excitement that rises higher every
+moment, the natural elements of hunger and constant struggle against the
+great river swell their fury; they bellow like wild beasts, _they are
+like beasts_, for they have known nothing but struggle all their lives;
+they have always, since they were tiny children, been fighting this
+roaring water monster--they know none else. And now, as I say, they
+bellow like beasts, each man ravenously eager to be among the number
+chosen to earn a few cash.[D] The arrangement at last is made, and the
+discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening.
+It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then
+harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with
+which they connect themselves to the straining tow-lines.
+
+And now her nose is put into the teeth of this trough of treachery--a
+veritable boiling cauldron, stirring up all past mysteries. Waves rush
+furiously towards us, with the growl of a thousand demons, whose anger
+is only swelled by the thousands of miles of her course from far-away
+Tibet. It seems as if they must instantly devour her, and that we must
+now go under to swell the number of their victims. But they only beat
+her back, for she rides gracefully, faltering timidly with frightened
+creaks and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with
+their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very
+death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic
+bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty
+is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his
+single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky
+little laugh and asks if he has hurt me--yelling through his hands in my
+ears, for the noise is terrible. To look out over the side makes me
+giddy, for the fifteen-knot current, blustering and bubbling and foaming
+and leaping, gives one the feeling that he is in an express train
+tearing through the sea. On shore, far ahead, I can see the
+trackers--struggling forms of men and women, touching each other,
+grasping each other, wrestling furiously and mightily, straining on all
+fours, now gripping a boulder to aid them forward, now to the right, now
+to the left, always fighting for one more inch, and engaged in a task
+which to one seeing it for the first time looks as if it were quite
+beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers,
+whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the
+average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb
+frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on
+the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch
+by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead
+against the leaping current in the gapway in the reef.
+
+None come to offer assistance to our crowd, who are now turned facing
+us, and strain almost flat on their backs, giving the strength of every
+drop of blood and fibre of their being; and the scene, now lit up by a
+momentary glimmer of feeble sunlight, assumes a wonderful and terrible
+picturesqueness. I am chained to the spot by a horrible fascination, and
+I find myself unconsciously saying, "I fear she will not go. I fear--"
+But a man has fallen exhausted, he almost fell overboard, and now leans
+against the mast in utter weariness and fatigue, brought on by the
+morning's exertions. He is instantly relieved by a bull-dog fellow of
+enormous strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying
+moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for
+the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and
+self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak,
+crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There
+is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and
+you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous
+quiver of the timbers, and you turn to see the angry water, which sounds
+as if a hundred hounds are beating under us for entry at the barred
+door. There is another deafening yell, the men tear away like frightened
+horses. Another mighty pull, and another, and another, and we slide over
+into smooth water.
+
+Then I breathe freely, and yell myself.
+
+The little boat seems to gasp for breath as a drowning man, saved in the
+nick of time, shudders in every limb with pain and fear.
+
+As we tied up in smooth water, all the men, from the _laoban_ to the
+meanest tracker, laughed and yelled and told each other how it was done.
+We baled the water out of the boat, and one was glad to pull away from
+the deafening hum of the thundering cataract. A faulty tow-line, a
+slippery hitch, one false step, one false maneuver, and the shore might
+have been by that time strewn with our corpses. As it was, we were safe
+and happy.
+
+But the trackers are strange creatures. At times they are a quarter of a
+mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines
+of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky
+promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their
+bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river.
+Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his
+body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last
+journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet
+these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their
+lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and
+receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.
+
+Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by
+mentioning the exploits of the steamer _Pioneer_, which on three
+consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and,
+though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged
+to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of
+her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard
+and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the
+hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the
+dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought
+by the great variation in the level of the river, that this formidable
+mid-level rapid completely disappears at high level.
+
+After we had left this rapid--and right glad were we to get away--we
+came, after a couple of hours' run, to the Niu K'eo, or Buffalo Mouth
+Reach, quiet enough during the low-water season, but a wild stretch
+during high river, where many a junk is caught by the violently gyrating
+swirls, rendered unmanageable, and dashed to atoms on some rocky
+promontory or boulder pile in as short a space of time as it takes to
+write it. It was here that the _Woodlark_, one of the magnificent
+gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union
+Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One
+of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders
+useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the
+foaming rapid. The engines were immediately reversed to full speed
+astern; but the swift current, combined with the momentum of the ship,
+carried her willy-nilly to the rock-bound shore, on which she crumpled
+her bows as if they were made of tin. Fortunately she was built in
+water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section,
+straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted
+the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at
+Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges. This town,
+formerly a considerable coaling center, overlooks most beautiful
+hillocks, with cottage gardens cultivated in every accessible corner,
+and a wide sweep of the river.
+
+We landed with difficulty. "Chor, chor!" yelled the trackers, who marked
+time to their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step;
+but they almost gave up the ghost. However, we did land, and so did our
+boy, who bought excellent provisions and meat, which, alas! too soon
+disappeared. The mutton and beef gradually grew less and daily
+blackened, wrapped up in opposite corners of the cabin, under the
+protection from the wet of a couple of sheets of the "Pink 'Un."
+
+From Kweifu to Wan Hsien there was the same kind of scenery--the clear
+river winding among sand-flats and gravel-banks, with occasional stiff
+rapids. But after having been in a _wu-pan_ for several days, suffering
+that which has been detailed, and much besides, the journey got a bit
+dreary. These, however, are ordinary circumstances; but when one has
+been laid up on a bench of a bed for three days with a high temperature,
+a legacy of several years in the humid tropics, the physical discomfort
+baffles description. Malaria, as all sufferers know, has a tendency to
+cause trouble as soon as one gets into cold weather, and in my case, as
+will be seen in subsequent parts of this book, it held faithfully to its
+best traditions. Fever on the Yangtze in a _wu-pan_ would require a
+chapter to itself, not to mention the kindly eccentricities of a
+companion whose knowledge of malaria was most elementary and whose
+knowledge of nursing absolutely _nil_. But I refrain. As also do I of
+further talk about the Yangtze gorges and the rapids.
+
+From Kweifu to Wan Hsien is a tedious journey. The country opens out,
+and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and
+difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in
+comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward
+happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have
+happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be
+accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all
+precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance
+elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from
+Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat
+having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no
+less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry,
+while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A hopeless cry is continually ascending in Hong-Kong and Shanghai that
+trade is bad, that the palmy days are gone, and that one might as well
+leave business to take care of itself.
+
+And it is not to be denied that increased trade in the Far East does not
+of necessity mean increased profits. Competition has rendered buying and
+selling, if they are to show increased dividends, a much harder task
+than some of the older merchants had when they built up their businesses
+twenty or thirty years ago. There is no comparison. But Hong-Kong, by
+virtue of her remarkably favorable position geographically, should
+always be able to hold her own; and now that the railway has pierced the
+great province of Yuen-nan, and brought the provinces beyond the
+navigable Yangtze nearer to the outside world, she should be able to
+reap a big harvest in Western China, if merchants will move at the right
+time. More often than not the Britisher loses his trade, not on account
+of the alleged reason that business is not to be done, but because,
+content with his club life, and with playing games when he should be
+doing business, he allows the German to rush past him, and this man, an
+alien in the colony, by persistent plodding and other more or less
+commendable traits of business which I should like to detail, but for
+which I have no space, takes away the trade while the Britisher looks
+on.
+
+The whole of the trade of the three western provinces--Yuen-nan,
+Kwei-chow and Szech'wan--has for all time been handled by Shanghai,
+going into the interior by the extremely hazardous route of these
+Yangtze rapids, and then over the mountains by coolie or pack-horse.
+This has gone on for centuries. But now the time has come for the
+Hong-Kong trader to step in and carry away the lion share of the greatly
+increasing foreign trade for those three provinces by means of the
+advantage the new Tonkin-Yuen-nan Railway has given him.
+
+The railway runs from Haiphong in Indo-China to Yuen-nan-fu, the capital
+of Yuen-nan province. And it appears certain to the writer that, with
+such an important town three or four days from the coast, shippers will
+not be content to continue to ship via the Yangtze, with all its risk.
+British and American merchants, who carry the greater part of the
+imports to Western China, will send their goods direct to Hong-Kong,
+where transhipment will be made to Haiphong, and thence shipped by rail
+to Yuen-nan-fu, the distributing center for inland trade. To my mind,
+Hong-Kong merchants might control the whole of the British trade of
+Western China if they will only push, for although the tariff of Tonkin
+may be heavy, it would be compensated by the fact that transit would be
+so much quicker and safer. But it needs push.
+
+The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East
+India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle
+to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who
+have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their
+officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from
+the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself,
+as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must
+admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore,
+if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper,
+he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself
+of the opportunity. Shanghai has held the trump card formerly. This
+cannot be denied. But I think the railway is destined to turn the trade
+route to the other side of the empire. It is merely a question as to who
+is to get the trade--the French or the British. The French are on the
+alert. They cannot get territory; now they are after the trade.
+
+It is my opinion that it would be to the advantage of the colony of
+Hong-Kong were the Chamber of Commerce there to investigate the matter
+thoroughly. Now is the time.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote D: _Cash_, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle.
+Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.]
+
+
+
+
+THIRD JOURNEY
+
+CHUNG-KING TO SUI-FU (VIA LUCHOW)
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+_Beginning of the overland journey_. _The official halo around the
+caravan_. _The people's goodbyes_. _Stages to Sui-fu_. _A persistent
+coolie_. _My boy's indignation, and the sequel_. _Kindness of the people
+of Chung-king_. _The Chung-king Consulate_. _Need of keeping fit in
+travelling in China_. _Walking tabooed_. _The question of "face" and
+what it means_. _Author runs the gauntlet_. _Carrying coolie's rate of
+pay_. _The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks
+thereon_. _The garden of China_. _Magnificence of the scenery of Western
+China_. _The tea-shops_. _The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author
+drank_. _Population of Szech-wan_. _Minerals found_. _Salt and other
+things_. _The Chinese inn: how it holds the palm for unmitigated filth_.
+_Description of the rooms_. _Szech-wan and Yuen-nan caravanserais_. _Need
+of a camp bed_. _Toileting in unsecluded publicity_. _How the author was
+met at market towns_. _How the days do not get dull_.
+
+
+In a manner admirably befitting my rank as an English traveler, apart
+from the fact that I was the man who was endeavoring to cross China on
+foot, I was led out of Chung-king _en route_ for Bhamo alone, my
+companion having had to leave me here.
+
+It was Easter Sunday, a crisp spring morning.
+
+First came a public sedan-chair, bravely borne by three of the finest
+fellows in all China, at the head of which on either side were two
+uniformed persons called soldiers--incomprehensible to one who has no
+knowledge of the interior, for they bore no marks whatever of the
+military--whilst uniformed men also solemnly guarded the back. Then
+came the grinning coolies, carrying that meager portion of my worldly
+goods which I had anticipated would have been engulfed in the Yangtze.
+And at the head of all, leading them on as captains do the Salvation
+Army, was I myself, walking along triumphantly, undoubtedly looking a
+person of weight, but somehow peculiarly unable to get out of my head
+that little adage apropos the fact that when the blind shall lead the
+blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my
+falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the
+way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions
+presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through
+which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out
+to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through the town.
+
+All the people were in the middle of the streets--those slippery streets
+of interminable steps--to give me at parting their blessings or their
+curses, and only with difficulty and considerable shouting and pushing
+could I sufficiently take their attention from the array of official and
+civil servants who made up my caravan as to effect an exit.
+
+The following were to be stages:--
+
+    1st day--Ts'eo-ma-k'ang            80 li.
+    2nd day--Uein-ch'uan hsien         120  "
+    3rd day--Li-shih-ch'ang           105  "
+    4th day--Luchow                    75  "
+    5th day--Lan-ching-ch'ang          80  "
+    6th day--Lan-chi-hsien             75  "
+    7th day--Sui-fu                   120  "
+
+In my plainest English and with many cruel gestures, four miles from the
+town, I told a man that he narrowly escaped being knocked down, owing to
+his extremely rude persistence in accosting me and obstructing my way.
+He acquiesced, opened his large mouth to the widest proportions, seemed
+thoroughly to understand, but continued more noisily to prevent me from
+going onwards, yelling something at the top of his husky voice--a voice
+more like a fog-horn than a human voice--which made me fear that I had
+done something very wrong, but which later I interpreted ignorantly as
+impudent humor.
+
+I owed nothing; so far as I knew, I had done nothing wrong.
+
+"Hi, fellow! come out of the way! Reverse your carcass a bit, old chap!
+Get----! What the---- who the----?"
+
+"Oh, master, he wantchee makee much bobbery. He no b'long my pidgin,
+d---- rogue! He wantchee catch one more hundred cash! He b'long one
+piecee chairman!"
+
+This to me from my boy in apologetic explanation.
+
+Then, turning wildly upon the man, after the manner of his kind raising
+his little fat body to the tips of his toes and effectively assuming the
+attitude of the stage actor, he cursed loudly to the uttermost of
+eternity the impudent fellow's ten thousand relatives and ancestry;
+which, although it called forth more mutual confidences of a like
+nature, and made T'ong (my boy) foam at the mouth with rage at such an
+inopportune proceeding happening so early in his career, rendering it
+necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed
+him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been
+dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud
+dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again,
+did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off--for it was assuredly
+one of the trio--leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy
+ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag.
+We did not come to terms. I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my
+path and walked on.
+
+Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their
+kindness the terrible three days spent still in our _wu-pan_ on the
+crowded beach would have been more terrible still.
+
+At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed
+up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in
+Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular
+Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an
+attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as
+he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and
+both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king
+Consulate is probably the finest--certainly one of the finest--in China,
+built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the
+bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds,
+has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being
+the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped
+to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be
+arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.
+
+People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.
+
+Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible
+anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to
+maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you
+have got the money to pay your way;[E] but walking is a very different
+thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually
+walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China
+Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to
+Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably
+easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible,
+but because the custom of the country--and a cursed custom too--is that
+one has to keep what is called his "face." And to walk tends to make a
+man lose "face."
+
+A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the
+question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially
+a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreigner
+_must_ have a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath,
+because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler
+in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would
+travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the
+honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with
+this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside
+on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries, to be relegated to the
+worst inn's worst room, and to be generally treated with indignity? This
+idea of mine of crossing China on foot was preposterous!
+
+Even Mr. Hudson Broomhall, of the China Inland Mission, who with Mrs.
+Broomhall was extremely kind, and did all he could to fit me up for the
+journey (it is such remembrances that make the trip one which I would
+not mind doing again), was surprised to know that I was walking, and
+tried to persuade me to take a chair. But I flew in the face of it all.
+These good people certainly impressed me, but I decided to run the
+gauntlet and take the risk.
+
+The question of "face" is always merely one of theory, never of fact,
+and the principles that govern "face" and its attainment were wholly
+beyond my apprehension. "I shall probably be more concerned in saving my
+life than in saving my face," I thought.
+
+Therefore it was that when I reached a place called Fu-to-gwan I
+discarded all superfluities of dress, and strode forward, just at that
+time in the early morning when the sun was gilding the dewdrops on the
+hedgerows with a grandeur which breathed encouragement to the traveler,
+in a flannel shirt and flannel pants--a terrible breach of foreign
+etiquette, no doubt, but very comfortable to one who was facing the
+first eighty li he had ever walked on China's soil. My three
+coolies--the typical Chinese coolie of Szech'wan, but very good fellows
+with all their faults--were to land me at Sui-fu, 230 miles distant
+(some 650 li), in seven days' time. They were to receive four hundred
+cash per man per day, were to find themselves, and if I reached Sui-fu
+within the specified time I agreed to _kumshaw_ them to the extent of an
+extra thousand.[F] They carried, according to the arrangement, ninety
+catties apiece, and their rate of pay I did not consider excessive until
+I found that each man sublet his contract for a fourth of his pay, and
+trotted along light-heartedly and merry at my side; then I regretted
+that I had not thought twice before closing with them.
+
+It is probable that the solidity of the great paved highways of China
+have been exaggerated. I have not been on the North China highways, but
+have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and
+Yuen-nan particularly, and have very little praise to lavish upon them.
+Certain it is that the road to Sui-fu does not deserve the nice things
+said about it by various travelers. The whole route from Chung-king to
+Sui-fu, paved with flagstones varying in width from three to six or
+seven feet--the only main road, of course--is creditably regular in some
+places, whilst other portions, especially over the mountains, are
+extremely bad and uneven. In some places, I could hardly get along at
+all, and my boy would call out as he came along in his chair behind me--
+
+"Master, I thinkee you makee catch two piecee men makee carry. This
+b'long no proper road. P'raps you makee bad feet come."
+
+And truly my feet were shamefully blistered.
+
+One had to step from stone to stone with considerable agility. In places
+bridges had fallen in, nobody had attempted to put them into a decent
+state of repair--though this is never done in China--and one of the
+features of every day was the wonderful fashion in which the mountain
+ponies picked their way over the broken route; they are as sure-footed
+as goats.
+
+As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and
+golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the
+inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of
+the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden
+of China. Greater or denser cultivation I had never seen. The
+amphitheater-like hills smiled joyously in the first gentle touches of
+spring and enriching green, each terrace being irrigated from the one
+below by a small stream of water regulated in the most primitive manner
+(the windlass driven by man power), and not a square inch lost. Even the
+mud banks dividing these fertile areas are made to yield on the sides
+cabbages and lettuces and on the tops wheat and poppy. There are no
+fences. You see before you a forest of mountains, made a dark leaden
+color by thick mists, from out of which gradually come the never-ending
+pictures of green and purple and brown and yellow and gold, which roll
+hither and thither under a cloudy sky in indescribable confusion. The
+chain may commence in the south or the north in two or three soft,
+slow-rising undulations, which trend away from you and form a vapory
+background to the landscape. From these (I see such a picture even as I
+write, seated on the stone steps in the middle of a mountain path), at
+once united and peculiarly distinct, rise five masses with rugged
+crests, rough, and cut into shady hollows on the sides, a faint pale
+aureola from the sun on the mists rising over the summits and sharp
+outlines. Looking to the north, an immense curved line shows itself,
+growing ever greater, opening like the arch of a gigantic bridge, and
+binding this first group to a second, more complicated, each peak of
+which has a form of its own, and does in some sort as it pleases without
+troubling itself about its neighbor. The most remarkable point about
+these mountains is the life they seem to possess. It is an incredible
+confusion. Angles are thrown fantastically by some mad geometer, it
+would seem. Splendid banyan trees shelter one after toiling up the
+unending steps, and dotted over the landscape, indiscriminately in
+magnificent picturesqueness, are pretty farmhouses nestling almost out
+of sight in groves of sacred trees. Oftentimes perpendicular mountains
+stand sheer up for three thousand feet or more, their sides to the very
+summits ablaze with color coming from the smiling face of sunny Nature,
+in spots at times where only a twelve-inch cultivation is possible.
+
+A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round
+hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild
+orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer
+and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of
+what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more
+distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut
+perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with
+hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures--all make up a
+strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.
+
+Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie
+can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and
+as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people,
+their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is
+already in print. It were useless to give more of it here--and, reader,
+you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan--that thirst which is
+unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of
+the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara--one does not hear about.
+
+Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst--so
+very, very much.
+
+I wonder whether you, reader, were ever thirsty? Probably not. You get a
+thirst which is not insatiable. Yours is born of nothing extraordinary;
+yours can be satisfied by a gulp or two of water, or perhaps by a
+drink--or perhaps two, or perhaps three--of something stronger. The
+Chinese coolie's thirst arises from the grilling sun, from a dancing
+glare, from hard hauling, struggling with 120 pounds slung over his
+shoulders, dangling at the end of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst
+of the Chinese coolie--I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and
+sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body;
+I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have
+seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance,
+my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of
+perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop
+and wet myself again. I really _must_ wet myself and swell to life
+again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People come and stare at me, and
+wonder what it is. They, too, are thirsty, for they are all coolies and
+have the coolie thirst.
+
+I wet myself. I pour in cup after cup, and my body, my self sucks it in,
+draws it in as if it were the water of life. Instantly it gushes out
+again at every pore. I swill in more, and out it rushes again, madly
+rushes out as quickly as it can. I swill in more and more, and out it
+comes defiantly. I can keep none inside me. Useless--I _cannot_ quench
+my thirst. At last the thirst thinks its conquest assured, taking the
+hot tea for a signal of surrender; but I pour in more, and gradually
+feel the tea settling within me. I am a degree less torrid, a shade more
+substantial.
+
+And then here comes my boy.
+
+"Master, you wantchee makee one drink brandy-and-soda. No can catchee
+soda this side--have got water. Can do?"
+
+Ah! shall I? Shall I? No! I throw it away from me, fling a bottle of
+cheap brandy which he had bought for me at Chung-king away from me, and
+the boy looks forlorn.
+
+Tea is the best of all drinks in China; for the traveler unquestionably
+the best. Good in the morning, good at midday, good in the evening, good
+at night, even after the day's toil has been forgotten. To-morrow I
+shall have more walking, more thirsting, more tea. China tea, thou art a
+godsend to the wayfarer in that great land!
+
+I endeavored to get the details of the population of the province of
+Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent
+illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in
+China--estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty millions.
+
+The surface of this province is made up of masses of rugged mountains,
+through which the Yangtze has cut its deep and narrow channel. The area
+is everywhere intersected by steep-sided valleys and ravines. The
+world-famed plain of Chen-tu, the capital, is the only plain of any
+size in the province, the system of irrigation employed on it being one
+of the wonders of the world. Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an
+inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the
+stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the
+exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in
+this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its
+climate is even superior--a land delightfully _accidentee_. Among the
+minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and
+petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk.
+Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings,
+some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for
+centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass
+and water buffalo.
+
+The best conditions of Chinese inns are far and away worse than anything
+the traveler would be called upon to encounter anywhere in the British
+Isles, even in the most isolated places in rural Ireland. There can be
+no comparison. And my reader will understand that there is much which
+the European misses in the way of general physical comfort and
+cleanliness. Sanitation is absent _in toto_. Ordinary decency forbids
+one putting into print what the uninitiated traveler most desires to
+know--if he would be saved a severe shock at the outset; but everyone
+has to go through it, because one cannot write what one sees. All
+travelers who have had to put up at the caravanseries in Central and
+Western China will bear me out in my assertion that all of them reek
+with filth and are overrun by vermin of every description. The traveler
+whom misfortune has led to travel off the main roads of Russia may
+probably hesitate in expressing an opinion as to which country carries
+off the palm for unmitigated filth; but, with this exception, travelers
+in the Eastern Archipelago, in Central Asia, in Africa among the wildest
+tribes, are pretty well unanimous that compared with all these for dirt,
+disease, discomfort, an utter lack of decency and annoyance, the Chinese
+inn holds its own. And in no part of China more than in Szech'wan and
+Yuen-nan is greater discomfort experienced.
+
+The usual wooden bedstead stands in the corner of the room with the
+straw bedding (this, by the way, should on no account be removed if one
+wishes to sleep in peace), sometimes there is a table, sometimes a
+couple of chairs. If these are steady it is lucky, if unbroken it is the
+exception; there are never more. Over the bedstead (more often than not,
+by the way, it is composed of four planks of varying lengths and
+thickness, placed across two trestles) I used first to place my oilskin,
+then my _p'u-k'ai_, and that little creeper which rhymes with hug did
+not disturb me much. Rats ran round and over me in profusion, and, of
+course, the best room being invariably nearest to the pigsties, there
+were the usual stenches. The floor was Mother Earth, which in wet
+weather became mud, and quite a common thing it was for my joys to be
+enhanced during a heavy shower of rain by my having to sleep, almost
+suffocated, mackintosh over my head, owing to a slight break in the
+continuity of the roof--my umbrella being unavailable, as one of my men
+dropped it over a precipice two days out. For many reasons a camp-bed is
+to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most modest traveling
+equipment. I was many times sorry that I had none with me.
+
+The inns of Szech'wan, however, are by many degrees better than those of
+Yuen-nan, which are sometimes indescribable. Earthen floors are saturated
+with damp filth and smelling decay; there are rarely the paper windows,
+but merely a sort of opening of woodwork, through which the offensive
+smells of decaying garbage and human filth waft in almost to choke one;
+tables collapse under the weight of one's dinner; walls are always in
+decay and hang inwards threateningly; wicked insects, which crawl and
+jump and bite, creep over the side of one's rice bowl--and much else.
+Who can describe it? It makes one ill to think of it.
+
+Throughout my journeyings it was necessary for my toileting, in fact,
+everything, to be performed in absolute unalloyed publicity. Three days
+out my boy fixed up a cold bath for me, and barricaded a room which had
+a certain amount of privacy about it, owing to its secluded position;
+but even grown men and women, anxious to see what _it_ was like when it
+had no clothes on, came forward, poked their fingers through the paper
+in the windows (of course, glass is hardly known in the interior), and
+greedily peeped in. This and the profound curiosity the people evince in
+one's every action and movement I found most trying.
+
+It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or
+village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign
+visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again
+with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in
+hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking
+excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes,
+and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or
+not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business
+brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class
+could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered
+foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven
+pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see
+through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in
+their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion
+then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of
+indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room
+for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls
+and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible
+questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from
+the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest
+Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away
+and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy
+would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move
+the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my
+journey in peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote E: This refers to the main roads There are many places in
+isolated and unsurveyed districts where it is extremely difficult and
+often impossible to get along at all--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote F: This rate of four hundred cash per day per man was
+maintained right up to Tong-ch'uan-fu, although after Chao-t'ong the
+usual rate paid is a little higher, and the bad cash in that district
+made it difficult for my men to arrange four hundred "big" cash current
+in Szech'wan in the Yuen-nan equivalent. After Tong-ch'uan-fu, right on
+to Burma, the rate of coolie pay varies considerably. Three tsien two
+fen (thirty-two tael cents) was the highest I paid until I got to
+Tengyueh, where rupee money came into circulation, and where expense of
+living was considerably higher.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+_Szech-wan people a mercenary lot_. _Adaptability to trading_. _None but
+nature lovers should come to Western China_. _The life of the Nomad_.
+_The opening of China, and some impressions_. _China's position in the
+eyes of her own people_. _Industrialism, railways, and the attitude of
+the populace_. _Introduction of foreign machinery_. _Different opinions
+formed in different provinces_. _Climate, and what it is responsible
+for_. _Recent Governor of Szech-wan's tribute to Christianity_. _New
+China and the new student_. _Revolutionary element in Yuen-nan_. _Need of
+a new life, and how China is to get it_. _Luchow, and a little about
+it_. _Fusong from the military_. _Necessity of the sedan-chair_. _Cost
+of lodging_. _An impudent woman_. _Choice pidgin-English_. _Some of the
+annoyances of travel_. _Canadian and China Inland missionaries_.
+_Exchange of yarns_. _Exasperating Chinese life, and its effects on
+Europeans_. _Men refuse to walk to Sui-fu. Experiences in arranging
+up-river trip_. _Unmeaning etiquette of Chinese officials toward
+foreigners_. _Rude awakening in the morning_. _A trying early-morning
+ordeal_. _Reckonings do not tally_. _An eventful day_. _At the China
+Inland Mission_. _Impressions of Sui-fu. Fictitious partnerships_.
+
+
+The people of Szech'wan, compared with other Yangtze provinces, must be
+called a mercenary, if a go-ahead, one.
+
+Balancing myself on a three-inch form in a tea-shop at a small town
+midway between Li-shih-ch'ang and Luchow, I am endeavoring to take in
+the scene around me. The people are so numerous in this province that
+they must struggle in order to live. Vain is it for the most energetic
+among them to escape from the shadow of necessity and hunger; all are
+similarly begirt, so they settle down to devote all their energies to
+trade. And trade they do, in very earnest.
+
+Everything is labeled, from the earth to the inhabitants; these
+primitives, these blissfully "heathen" people, have become the most
+consummate of sharpers. I walk up to buy something of the value of only
+a few cash, and on all sides are nets and traps, like spider-webs, and
+the fly that these gentry would catch, as they see me stalk around
+inspecting their wares, is myself. They seem to lie in wait for one, and
+for an article for which a coolie would pay a few cash as many dollars
+are demanded of the foreigner. My boy stands by, however, magnificently
+proud of his lucrative and important post, yelling precautions to the
+curious populace to stand away. He hints, he does not declare outright,
+but by ungentle innuendo allows them to understand that, whatever their
+private characters may be, to him they are all liars and rogues and
+thieves. It is all so funny, that one's fatigue is minimized to the last
+degree by the humor one gets and the novel changes one meets everywhere.
+
+Onward again, my men singing, perhaps quarreling, always swearing. Their
+language is low and coarse and vulgar, but happily ignorant am I.
+
+The country, too, is fascinating in the extreme. A man must not come to
+China for pleasure unless he love his mistress Nature when she is most
+rudely clad. Some of her lovers are fascinated most in by-places, in the
+cool of forests, on the summit of lofty mountains, high up from the
+mundane, in the cleft of canons, everywhere that the careless lover is
+not admitted to her contemplation. It is for such that China holds out
+an inviting hand, but she offers little else to the Westerner--the
+student of Nature and of man can alone be happy in the interior.
+Forgetting time and the life of my own world, I sometimes come to
+inviolate stillnesses, where Nature opens her arms and bewitchingly
+promises embraces in soft, unending, undulating vastnesses, where even
+the watching of a bird building its nest or brooding over its young, or
+some little groundling at its gracious play, seems to hold one charmed
+beyond description. It is, some may say, a nomadic life. Yes, it is a
+nomadic life. But how beautiful to those of us, and there are many, who
+love less the man-made comforts of our own small life than the
+entrancing wonders of the God-made world in spots where nothing has
+changed. Gladly did I quit the dust and din of Western life, the
+artificialities of dress, and the unnumbered futile affectations of our
+own maybe not misnamed civilization, to go and breathe freely and
+peacefully in those far-off nooks of the silent mountain-tops where
+solitude was broken only by the lulling or the roaring of the winds of
+heaven. Thank God there are these uninvaded corners. The realm of
+silence is, after all, vaster than the realm of noise, and the fact
+brought a consolation, as one watched Nature effecting a sort of
+coquetry in masking her operations.
+
+And as I look upon it all I wonder--wonder whether with the "Opening of
+China" this must all change?
+
+The Chinese--I refer to the Chinese of interior provinces such as
+Szech-wan--are realizing that they hold an obscure position. I have
+heard educated Chinese remark that they look upon themselves as lost,
+like shipwrecked sailors, whom a night of tempest has cast on some
+lonely rock; and now they are having recourse to cries, volleys, all the
+signals imaginable, to let it be known that they are still there. They
+have been on this lonely isolated rock as far as history can trace. Now
+they are launching out towards progress, towards the making of things,
+towards the buying and selling of things--launching out in trade and in
+commerce, in politics, in literature, in science, in all that has spelt
+advance in the West. The modern spirit is spreading speedily into the
+domains of life everywhere--in places swiftly, in places slowly, but
+spreading inevitably, _si sit prudentia_.
+
+Nothing will tend, in this particular part of the country, to turn it
+upside down and inside out more than the cult of industrialism. In a
+number of centers in Eastern China, such as Han-yang and Shanghai,
+foreign mills, iron works, and so on, furnish new employments, but in
+the interior the machine of the West to the uneducated Celestial seems
+to be the foe of his own tools; and when railways and steam craft
+appear--steam has appeared, of course, on the Upper Yangtze, although it
+has not yet taken much of the junk trade, and Szech'wan has her railways
+now under construction (the sod was cut at Ichang in 1909)[G]--and a
+single train and steamer does the work of hundreds of thousands of
+carters, coolies, and boatmen, it is wholly natural that their imperfect
+and short-sighted views should lead them to rise against a seeming new
+peril.
+
+Whilst in the end the Empire will profit greatly by the inventions of
+the Occident, the period of transition in Szech'wan, especially if
+machines are introduced too rapidly and unwisely, is one that will
+disturb the peace. It will be interesting to watch the attitude of the
+people towards the railway, for Szech'wan is essentially the province of
+the farmer. Szech'wan was one of the provinces where concessions were
+demanded, and railways had been planned by European syndicates, and
+where the gentry and students held mass meetings, feverishly declaring
+that none shall build Chinese lines but the people themselves. I have no
+space in a work of this nature to go fully into the question of
+industrialism, railways, and other matters immediately vital to the
+interests of China, but if the peace of China is to be maintained, it
+is incumbent upon every foreigner to "go slowly." Machines of foreign
+make have before now been scrapped, railways have been pulled up and
+thrown into the sea, telegraph lines have been torn down and sold, and
+on every hand among this wonderful people there has always been apparent
+a distinct hatred to things and ideas foreign. But industrially
+particularly the benefits of the West are being recognized in Eastern
+China, and gradually, if foreigners who have to do the pioneering are
+tactful, trust in the foreign-manufactured machine will spread to
+Western China, and enlarged industrialism will bring all-round
+advantages to Western trade.
+
+Thus far there has been little shifting of the population from hamlets
+and villages to centers of new industries--even in the more forward
+areas quoted--but when this process begins new elements will enter into
+the Chinese industrial problem.
+
+As we hear of the New China, so is there a "new people," a people
+emboldened by the examples of officials in certain areas to show a
+friendliness towards progress and innovation. They were not friendly a
+decade ago. It may, perhaps, be said that this "new people" were born
+after the Boxer troubles, and in Szech'wan they have a large influence.
+
+Cotton mills, silk filatures, flour and rice mills employing western
+machinery, modern mining plants and other evidences of how China is
+coming out of her shell, cause one to rejoice in improved conditions.
+The animosity occasioned by these inventions that are being so gradually
+and so surely introduced into every nook and cranny of East and North
+China is very marked; but on close inspection, and after one has made a
+study of the subject, one is inclined to feel that it is more or less
+theoretical. So it is to be hoped it will be in Szech'wan and Far
+Western China.
+
+Readers may wonder at the differences of opinions expressed in the
+course of these pages--a hundred pages on one may get a totally
+different impression. But the absolute differences of conditions
+existing are quite as remarkable. From Chung-king to Sui-fu one breathed
+an air of progress--after one had made allowance for the antagonistic
+circumstances under which China lives--a manifest desire on every hand
+for things foreign, and a most lively and intelligent interest in what
+the foreigner could bring. In many parts of Yuen-nan, again, conditions
+were completely reversed; and one finding himself in Yuen-nan, after
+having lived for some time at a port in the east of the Empire, would
+assuredly find himself surrounded by everything antagonistic to that to
+which he has become accustomed, and the people would seem of a different
+race. This may be due to the differences of climate--climate, indeed, is
+ultimately the first and the last word in the East; it is the arbiter,
+the builder, the disintegrator of everything. A leading writer on
+Eastern affairs says that the "climate is the explanation of all this
+history of Asia, and the peoples of the East can only be understood and
+accounted for by the measuring of the heat of the sun's rays. In China,
+with climate and weather charts in your hands, you may travel from the
+Red River on the Yuen-nan frontier to the great Sungari in lusty
+Manchuria, and be able to understand and account for everything."
+
+However that may be, traveling in China, through a wonderful province
+like Szech'wan, whose chief entrepot is fifteen hundred miles from the
+coast, convinces one that she has come to the parting of the ways. You
+can, in any city or village in Szech'wan--or in Yuen-nan, for that
+matter, in a lesser degree--always find the new nationalism in the form
+of the "New China" student. Despite the opposition he gets from the old
+school, and although the old order of things, by being so strong as
+almost to overwhelm him, allows him to make less progress than he
+would, this new student, the hope of the Empire, is there. I do not wish
+to enter into a controversy on this subject, but I should like to quote
+the following from a speech delivered by Tseh Ch'un Hsuean, when he was
+leaving his post as Governor of Szech'wan:--
+
+"The officials of China are gradually acquiring a knowledge of the great
+principles of the religions of Europe and America. And the churches are
+also laboring night and day to readjust their methods, and to make known
+their aims in their propagation of religion. Consequently, Chinese and
+foreigners are coming more and more into cordial relations. This fills
+me with joy and hopefulness.... My hope is that the teachers of both
+countries [Great Britain and America] will spread the Gospel more wisely
+than ever, that hatred may be banished, and disputes dispelled, and that
+the influence of the Gospel may create boundless happiness for my people
+of China. And I shall not be the only one to thank you for coming to the
+front in this good work.... May the Gospel prosper!"
+
+There are various grades of people in China, among which the scholar has
+always come first, because mind is superior to wealth, and it is the
+intellect that distinguishes man above the lower order of beings, and
+enables him to provide food and raiment and shelter for himself and for
+others. At the time when Europe was thrilled and cut to the quick with
+news of the massacres of her compatriots in the Boxer revolts, the
+scholar was a dull, stupid fellow--day in day out, week in week out,
+month in month out, and year after year he ground at his classics. His
+classics were the _Alpha_ and _Omega_; he worshipped them. This era has
+now passed away.
+
+At the present moment there are upwards of twenty thousand Chinese
+students in Tokyo[H]--whither they went because Japan is the most
+convenient country wherein to acquire Western knowledge. The new
+learning, the new learning--they _must_ have the new learning! No high
+office is ever again likely to be given but to him who has more of
+Western knowledge than Chinese knowledge. And mere striplings, nursed in
+the lap of the mission schools, and there given a good grounding in
+Western education, these are the men far more likely to pass the new
+examinations. In Yuen-nan, where little chance exists for the scholars to
+advance, the new learning has brought with it a revolutionary element,
+which would soon become dangerous were it by any means common. I have
+seen an English-speaking fellow, anxious to get on and under the
+impression that the laws of his country were responsible for keeping him
+back, write in the back of his exercise book a phrase against the
+imperial ruler that would have cost him his head had it come to the
+notice of the high authorities.
+
+One will learn much if he travels across the Empire--facts and figures
+quite irreconcilable will arise, but even the man of dullest perception
+will be convinced that much of the reforming spirit in the people is
+only skin-deep, going no farther than the externals of life. It is at
+present, perhaps, merely a mad fermentation in the western provinces,
+wherefrom the fiercer it is the clearer the product will one day evolve
+itself. Such transitions are full of bewilderment to the
+European--bewildering to any writer who endeavors to tackle the Empire
+as a whole. Each province or couple of provinces should be dealt with
+separately, so diverse are the conditions.
+
+But if China, from the highest to the lowest, will only embrace truth
+and love her for her own sake, so that she will not abate one jot of
+allegiance to her; if China will let truth run down through the
+arteries of everyday commercial, social, and political life as do the
+waterways through her marvelous country; if China will kill her
+retardative conservatism, and in its place erect honesty and conscience;
+if China will let her moral life be quickened--then her transition
+period, from end to end of the Empire, will soon end. Mineral,
+agricultural, industrial wealth are hers to a degree which is not true
+of any other land. Her people have an enduring and expansive power that
+has stood the test of more than four thousand years of honorable
+history, and their activity and efficiency outside China make them more
+to be dreaded, as competitors, than any race or any dozen races of
+to-day.
+
+But New China must have this new life.
+
+Commerce, science, diplomacy, culture, civilization she will have in
+ever-increasing measure just in so much as she draws nearer to western
+peoples. But the new life can come from whence? From within or from
+without?
+
+Luchow, into which I was led just before noon on the fourth day out of
+Chung-king, is the most populous and richest city on the Upper Yangtze.
+
+Exceedingly clean for a Chinese city, possessing well-kept streets lined
+with well-stocked emporiums, bearing every evidence of commercial
+prosperity, it however lacks one thing. It has no hotel runners! I
+arrived at midday, crossing the river in a leaky ferry boat, under a
+blazing sun, my intention being to stop in the town at a tea-house to
+take a refresher, and then complete a long day's march, farther than the
+ordinary stage. But owing to some misunderstanding between the
+_fu-song_, sent to shadow the foreigner on part of his journey, and my
+boy, I was led through the busy city out into the open country before I
+had had a drink. And when I remonstrated they led me back again to the
+best inn, where I was told I should have to spend the night--there being
+nothing else, then, to be said.
+
+May I give a word of advice here to any reader contemplating a visit to
+China under similar conditions? It is the custom of the mandarins to
+send what is called a _fu-song_ (escort) for you; the escort comes from
+the military, although their peculiar appearance may lead you to doubt
+it. I have two of these soldier people with me to-day, and two bigger
+ragamuffins it has not been my lot to cast eyes on. They are the only
+two men in the crowd I am afraid of. They are of absolutely no use, more
+than to eat and to drink, and always come up smiling at the end of their
+stage for their _kumshaw_. During the whole of this day I have not seen
+one of them--they have been behind the caravan all the time; it would be
+hard to believe that they had sense enough to find the way, and as for
+escorting me, they have not accompanied me a single li of the way.[I]
+
+Another nuisance, of which I have already spoken, is the necessity of
+taking a chair to maintain respectability. These things make travel in
+China not so cheap as one would be led to imagine. Traveling of itself
+is cheap enough, as cheap as in any country in the world. For
+accommodation for myself, for a room, rice and as much hot water as I
+want, the charge is a couple of hundred cash--certainly not expensive.
+In addition, there is generally a little "cha tsien" (tea money) for the
+cook. But it is the "face" which makes away with money, much more than
+it takes to keep you in the luxury that the country can offer--which is
+not much!
+
+After I had had a bit of a discussion with my boy as to the room they
+wanted to house me in, a woman, brandishing a huge cabbage stump above
+her head, and looking menacingly at me, yelled that the room was good
+enough.
+
+"What does she say, T'ong?"
+
+"Oh, she b'long all same fool. She wantchee makee talkee talk. She have
+got velly long tongue, makee bad woman. She say one piecee Japan man
+makee stay here t'ree night. See? She say what makee good one piecee
+Japan man makee good one piecee English man. See? No have got topside,
+all same bottomside have got. Master, this no b'long my pidgin--this
+b'long woman pidgin, and woman b'long all same fool." T'ong ended up
+with an amusing allusion to the lady's mother, and looked cross because
+I rebuked him.
+
+Gathering, then, that the lady thought her room good enough for me, I
+saw no other course open, and as the crowd was gathering, I got inside.
+Before setting out to call upon the Canadian missionaries stationed at
+the place, I held a long conversation with a hump-backed old man, an
+unsightly mass of disease, who seemed to be a traditional link of
+Luchow. I might say that this scholastic old wag spoke nothing but
+Chinese, and I, as the reader knows, spoke no Chinese, so that the
+amount of general knowledge derived one from the other was therefore
+limited. But he would not go, despite the frequent deprecations of T'ong
+and my coolies, and my vehement rhetoric in explanation that his
+presence was distasteful to me, and at the end of the episode I found it
+imperative for my own safety, and perhaps his, to clear out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Canadians I found in their Chinese-built premises, comfortable
+albeit. Five of them were resident at the time, and they were quite
+pleased with the work they had done during the last year or so--most of
+them were new to China. At the China Inland Mission later I found two
+young Scotsmen getting some exercise by throwing a cricket ball at a
+stone wall, in a compound about twenty feet square. They were glad to
+see me, one of them kindly gave me a hair-cut, and at their invitation I
+stayed the night with them.
+
+What is it in the nature of the Chinese which makes them appear to be so
+totally oblivious to the best they see in their own country?
+
+It is surely not because they are not as sensitive as other races to the
+magic of beauty in either nature or art. But I found traveling and
+living with such apparently unsympathetic creatures exasperating to a
+degree, and I did not wonder that the European whose lot had been cast
+in the interior, sometimes, on emerging into Western civilization,
+appears eccentric to his own countrymen. But this in passing.
+
+I duly arrived at Lan-chi-hsien, and was told that Sui-fu, 120 li away,
+would be reached the next day, although I had my doubts. A deputation
+from the local "gwan" waited upon me to learn my wishes and to receive
+my commands. I was assured that no European ever walked to Sui-fu from
+Lan-chi-hsien, and that if I attempted to do such a thing I should have
+to go alone, and that I should never reach there. I remonstrated, but my
+boy was firm. He took me to him and fathered me. He almost cried over
+me, to think that I, that I, his master, of all people in the world,
+should doubt his allegiance to me. "I no 'fraid," he declared. "P'laps
+master no savee. Sui-fu b'long velly big place, have got plenty
+European. You wantchee makee go fast, catchee plenty good 'chow.' I
+think you catchee one piecee boat, makee go up the river. P'laps I think
+you have got velly tired--no wantchee makee more walkee--that no b'long
+ploper. That b'long all same fool pidgin."
+
+And at last I melted. There was nothing else to do.
+
+That no one ever walked to Sui-fu from this place the district potentate
+assured me in a private chit, which I could not read, when he laid his
+gunboat at my disposal.
+
+This, he said, would take me up very quickly. In his second note,
+wherein he apologized that indisposition kept him from calling
+personally upon me--this, of course, was a lie--he said he would feel it
+an honor if I would be pleased to accept the use of his contemptible
+boat. But T'ong whispered that the law uses these terms in China, and
+that nobody would be more disappointed than the Chinese magistrate if I
+_did_ take advantage of his unmeaning offer. So I took a _wu-pan_, and
+the following night, when pulling into the shadows of the Sui-fu pagoda,
+cold and hungry, I cursed my luck that I had not broken down the useless
+etiquette which these Chinese officials extend towards foreigners, and
+taken the fellow's gunboat.
+
+The _wu-pan_, they swore to me, would be ready to leave at 3:30 a.m. the
+day following. My boy did not venture to sleep at all. He stayed up
+outside my bedroom door--I say bedroom, but actually it was an apartment
+which in Europe I would not put a horse into, and the door was merely a
+wide, worm-eaten board placed on end. In the middle of the night I heard
+a noise--yea, a rattle. The said board fell down, inwards, almost upon
+me. A light was flashed swiftly into my eyes, and desultory remarks
+which suddenly escaped me were rudely interrupted by shrill screams. My
+boy was singing.
+
+"Master," he cried, pulling hard-heartedly at my left big toe to wake
+me, "come on, come on; you wantchee makee get up. Have got two o'clock.
+Get up; p'laps me no wakee you, no makee sleep--no b'long ploper. One
+man makee go bottomside--have catchee boat. This morning no have got
+tea--no can catch hot water makee boil."
+
+And soon we were ready to start. Punctually to the appointed hour we
+were at the bottom of the steep, dark incline leading down to the river
+bank.
+
+But my reckonings were bad.
+
+The _laoban_ and the other two youthful members of the half-witted crew
+had not yet taken their "chow," and this, added to many little
+discrepancies in their reckoning and in mine, kept me in a boiling rage
+until half-past six, when at last they pushed off, and nearly capsized
+the boat at the outset. The details of that early morning, and the
+happenings throughout the long, sad day, I think I can never
+forget--from the breaking of tow-lines to frequent stranding on the
+rocks and sticking on sandbanks, the orders wrongly given, the narrow
+escape of fire on board, the bland thick-headedness of the ass of a
+captain, the collisions, and all the most profound examples of savage
+ignorance displayed when one has foolish Chinese to deal with. We
+reached half-way at 4:30 p.m., with sixty li to do against a wind. Hour
+after hour they toiled, making little headway with their misdirected
+labor, wasting their energies in doing the right things at the wrong
+time, and wrong things always, and long after sundown Sui-fu's pagoda
+loomed in the distance. At 11:00 p.m., stiff and hungry, and mad with
+rage, I was groping my way on all fours up the slippery steps through
+unspeakable slime and filth at the quayhead, only to be led to a
+disgusting inn as dirty as anything I had yet encountered. It was hard
+lines, for I could get no food.
+
+An invitation, however, was given me by the Rev. R. McIntyre, who with
+his charming wife conducts the China Inland Mission in this city, to
+come and stay with them. The next morning, after a sleepless night of
+twisting and turning on a bug-infested bed, I was glad to take advantage
+of the missionary's kindness. I could not have been given a kindlier
+welcome.
+
+Sui-fu has a population of roughly 150,000, and the overcrowding
+question is not the least important. It is situated to advantage on the
+right bank of the Yangtze, and does an immense trade in medicines,
+opium, silk, furs, silverwork, and white wax, which are the chief
+exports. Gunboats regularly come to Sui-fu during the heavy rains.
+
+Just outside the city, a large area is taken up with grave
+mounds--common with nearly every Chinese city. Mr. McIntyre and Mr.
+Herbert, who was passing through Sui-fu _en route_ for Ta-chien-lu,
+where he is now working, showed me around the city one afternoon, and
+one could see everything typical of the social life of two thousand
+years ago. The same narrow lanes succeed each other, and the conviction
+is gradually impressed upon the mind that such is the general trend of
+the character of the city and its people. There were the same busy
+mechanics, barbers, traders, wayside cooks, traveling fortune-tellers,
+and lusty coolies; the wag doctor, the bane of the gullible, was there
+to drive his iniquitous living; now and then the scene's monotony was
+disturbed by the presence of the chair and the retinue of a city
+mandarin. Yet with all the hurry and din, the hurrying and the scurrying
+in doing and driving for making money, seldom was there an accident or
+interruption of good nature. There was the same romance in the streets
+that one reads of at school--so much alike and yet so different from
+what one meets in the Chinese places at the coast or in Hong-Kong or
+Singapore. In Sui-fu, more than in any other town in Western China which
+I visited, had the native artist seemed to have lavished his ingenuity
+on the street signboards. Their caligraphy gave the most humorous
+intimation of the superiority of the wares on sale; many of them
+contained some fictitious emblem, adopted as the name of the shop,
+similar to the practice adopted in London two centuries ago, and so
+common now in the Straits Settlements, where bankrupts are allowed
+considerable more freedom than would be possible if fictitious
+registration were not allowed. I refer to the Registration of
+Partnerships.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote G: I inspected the railway at Ichang in December, 1910, and
+found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress.
+Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and
+excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the
+buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme
+seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting
+was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the
+gentry then decided that as nothing was being done at that end the
+company should be requested to stop work at Ichang, and start laying the
+line from Chen-tu, at the other end. "All the money will be spent," they
+cried, "and we shall get nothing up this end!" If the money ran out and
+left the central portion of the line incomplete, it did not matter so
+long as each city had something for its money!--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote H: This is not true to-day. There has been a great falling off
+in numbers.--E.J.D., February, 1911.]
+
+[Footnote I: This should not be taken to apply to the _fu-song_
+everywhere. I have found them to be the most useful on other occasions,
+but the above was written at Luchow as my experience of that particular
+day.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY.
+
+SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+_Chinese and simplicity of speech_. _Author and his caravan stopped_.
+_Advice to travelers_. _Farewell to Sui-fu_. _The postal service and
+tribute to I.P.O._ _Rushing the stages_. _Details of journey_.
+_Description of road to Chao-t'ong-fu_. _Coolie's pay_. _My boy steals
+vegetables_. _Remarks on roads and railways_. _The real Opening of
+China_. _How the foreigner will win the confidence of the Chinese_.
+_Distances and their variability_. _Calculations uprooted_. _Author in a
+dilemma_. _The scenery_. _Hard going_. _A wayside toilet, and some
+embarrassment_. _Filth inseparable from Chinese humanity_. _About
+Chinese inns_. _Typewriter causes some fun_. _Soldiers guard my
+doorway_. _Man's own "inner room."_ _One hundred and forty li in a day_.
+_Grandeur and solitude_. _Wisdom of traveling alone_. _Coolie nearly
+cuts his toe off_. _Street scene at Puerh-tu_. _The "dying" coolie_. _A
+manacled prisoner_. _Entertained by mandarins_. _How plans do not work
+out_.
+
+
+He who would make most abundant excuses for the Chinese could not say
+that he is simple in his speech.
+
+That speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form
+that it takes, is undoubtedly true: as the thought, so the speech.
+All social relations with us have their roots in mutual trust, and this
+trust is maintained by each man's sincerity of thought and speech.
+Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy,
+so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you
+no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The
+Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue,
+who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to
+account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of
+circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself,
+even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest
+difficulty in getting at the truth about their own affairs.
+
+As I was going out of Sui-fu my caravan and myself were delayed by some
+fellow, who held the attention of my men for a full quarter of an hour.
+I listened, understanding nothing. After another five minutes, by which
+time the conversation had assumed what I considered dangerous
+proportions, having the safety of my boy at heart, I asked--
+
+"T'ong, what is it?"
+
+"Half a sec.," he replied (having learnt this phrase from the gunboat
+men down the river). He did not, however, take his eyes from the man
+with whom he was holding the conversation. He then dived into my
+food-basket, wrenched off the top of a tin, and pulled therefrom two
+beautifully-marked live pigeons, which flapped their wings helplessly to
+get away, and resumed the conversation. Talk waxed furious, the birds
+were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming
+rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was
+the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.
+
+"That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He
+b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know."
+
+As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl,
+two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy
+boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to
+my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou
+would'st travel in China, peep not into thy _hoh shih lan tsi_ if thou
+would'st feed well.
+
+T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the
+disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he
+could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out
+into an open space of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to
+Chao-t'ong-fu.
+
+From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no
+hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the
+reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Yuen-nan were
+rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the
+regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no
+less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the
+delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been
+established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which
+the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the
+hitherto unheard-of time of two days--a traveler considers himself
+fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast
+daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in
+two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three
+days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter
+posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.
+
+It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little
+procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached
+before sundown. My coolies--probably owing to having derived more
+pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from
+Chung-king--decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the
+fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundred and ninety miles
+distant, if weather permitted, in eleven days. We were to travel by the
+following stages:--
+
+                          Length of        Height above
+                            stage              sea
+
+    1st day--Anpien          90 li            ----
+    2nd day--Huan-chiang     55 li            ----
+    3rd day--Fan-ih-ts'uen   70 li            ----
+    4th day--T'an-t'eo       70 li            ----
+    5th day--Lao-wa-t'an    140 li           1,140 ft.
+    6th day--Teo-sha-kwan    60 li           4,000 ft.
+    7th day--Ch'i-li-p'u     60 li           1,900 ft.
+    8th day--Ta-wan-tsi      70 li            ----
+    9th day--Ta-kwan-ting    70 li           3,700 ft.
+    10th day--Wuchai         60 li           7,000 ft.
+    11th day--Chao-t'ong-fu 100 li           6,400 ft.
+
+I knew that I was in for a very hard journey. The nature of the country
+as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is
+reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough
+and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably
+bad. At certain places it is cut out of the rock, at others it runs in
+the bed of the river, which is dotted everywhere with roaring rapids (as
+we are ascending very quickly), and when the water is high these roads
+are submerged and often impassable. In some places it was a six-inch
+path along the mountain slope, with a gradient of from sixty to seventy
+degrees, and landslips and rains are ever changing the path.
+
+Lao-wa-t'an is the most important point on the route. One of the largest
+Customs stations in the province of Yuen-nan is here situated at the east
+end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in
+length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the
+roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a
+fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li.
+The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the
+march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the
+physical exertion required to scale the treacherous roads. Over a broad,
+zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight
+curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for
+the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern
+bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock
+rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges
+of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due
+course.
+
+To Ch'i-li-p'u, high up on the mountain banks, the first twenty-five li
+is by the river. At the half-way place a fearful ascent is experienced,
+the most notable precipice on the route between Sui-fu and Yuen-nan-fu,
+up a broad zigzag path, and as I sat at dinner I could see neither top
+nor bottom owing to the overhanging masses of rock: this is after having
+negotiated an ascent quite as steep, but smaller. To Ta-kwan-hsien a few
+natural obstacles occur, although the road is always high up on the
+hill-sides. I crossed a miserable suspension bridge of two spans. The
+southern span is about thirty feet, the northern span eighty feet; the
+center is supported by a buttress of splendid blocks of squared stone,
+resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably
+worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very
+slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the
+general shaky appearance was particularly uninviting.
+
+From Ta-kwan-hsien to Wuchai is steady pulling. Once in an opening in
+the hill we passed along and then ascended an exceedingly steep spur on
+one side of a narrow and very deep natural amphitheatre, formed by
+surrounding mountains. We then came to a lagoon, and eventually the brow
+of the hill was reached. Thus the Wuchai Valley is arrived at, where,
+owing to a collection of water, the road is often impassable to man and
+beast. Often during the rainy season there is a lagoon of mud or water
+formed by the drainage from the mountains, which finds no escape but by
+percolating through the earth and rock to a valley on the east of, and
+below, the mountains forming the eastern boundary of the Wuchai Valley.
+To Chao-t'ong is fairly level going.
+
+Considering the road, it was not unnatural that my men gibbed a little
+at the eleven-day accomplishment. I had a long parley with them,
+however, and agreed to reward them to the extent of one thousand cash
+among the three if they did it. Their pay for the journey, over
+admittedly some of the worst roads in the Empire, was to be four hundred
+cash per man as before, with three hundred and thirty-three cash extra
+if the rain did not prevent them from getting in in eleven days. They
+were in good spirits, and so was I, as we walked along the river-bank,
+where the poppy was to be seen in full flower, and the unending beds of
+rape alternated with peas and beans and tobacco. T'ong would persist in
+stealing the peas and beans to feed me on, and for the life of me I
+could not get him to see that he should not do this sort of thing. But
+how continually one was impressed with the great need of roads in
+Western China! It is natural that, walking the whole distance, I should
+notice this more than other travelers have done, and, to my mind, roads
+in this part of the country rank in importance before the railways.
+
+To the foreign mind it is more to the interests of China that railways
+should be well and serviceably built than that the money should be
+squandered to no purpose. If the railway has rails, then in China it can
+be called a railway, and China is satisfied. So with the roads. If there
+is any passage at all, then the Chinese call it a road, and China is
+satisfied.
+
+As one meanders through the country, watching a people who are equalled
+nowhere in the world for their industry, plodding away over the worst
+roads any civilized country possesses, he cannot but think, even looking
+at the question from the Chinese standpoint so far as he is able, that,
+were free scope once given for the infusion of Western energy and
+methods into an active, trade-loving people like the Chinese, China
+would rival the United States in wealth and natural resources. The
+Chinese knows that his country, the natural resources of the country and
+the people, will allow him to do things on a scale which will by and by
+completely overbalance the doings of countries less favored by Nature
+than his own. He knows that when properly developed his country will be
+one of the richest in the world, yet even when he is filled with such
+ideas he is just as cunctative as he has ever been. He has the idea that
+he should not commence to exhaust the wealth of his country before it is
+absolutely necessary.
+
+Above all, he has now made up his mind that he himself, unaided by the
+foreigner, is going to develop it just as he likes and just when he
+likes.
+
+The day of the foreign concession is gone. The Chinese now is paddling
+his own canoe, and it is only by cultivating his friendship, by proving
+to him by acts, and not by words, that the intrusion of privileged
+enterprises--such as great mining concessions and railway concessions,
+in which the foreigner demands that he be the only principal--is no
+longer contemplated, that the day will be won. But it is equally true
+that only by combining European and Chinese interests on the modern
+company system, the real Opening of China can be effected.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.
+
+The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last
+thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over
+the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man,
+who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my
+destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I
+reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the
+end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li,
+and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was "two
+and a bit." This answer we got from four different people on the way,
+and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the
+two li so much--it is the "bit" which upsets one's calculations.
+
+The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself--that is, I
+lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint,
+secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade,
+where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the
+subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss
+and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of
+ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster.
+Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of
+finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence
+anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to
+me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little,
+hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this
+was a country of erratic distances--it was now getting on for
+sunset--and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the
+difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard
+someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down
+his back and front.
+
+"Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I
+think p'laps master wantchee makee run away." And then, after a time:
+"You no wantchee catch 'chow'?"
+
+"Chow?"
+
+No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost,
+and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was
+fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?
+
+Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a
+narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top
+of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to
+Fan-ih-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse,
+and so it turned out to be.
+
+At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make
+the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which
+covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals
+of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my
+boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was passing a paddy field
+one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud.
+In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments
+from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up
+in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun--except myself. Little
+boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried
+to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view.
+But I had to change, and that was most important to me.
+
+Later on, my ugly coolie--the ugliest man in or out of China, I should
+think, ugly beyond description--dropped my bedding as he was crossing
+the river, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on a wet bed at T'an-teo.
+
+I must ask the reader's pardon for again referring to Chinese inns. I
+should not have made any remark upon this awful hovel had not the man
+laid a scheme to charge me three times as much as he should--a scheme,
+be it said, in which my boy took no part. It was truly a fearful den,
+where man and beast lived in promiscuous and insupportable filth. The
+dung-heap charms the sight of this agricultural people, without in the
+slightest wounding their olfactory nerves, and these utilitarians think
+there is no use seeking privacy to do what they regard as beneficial and
+productive work. The bed here was the worst I had had offered me. The
+mattress, upon which every previous traveler for many years had left his
+tribute of vermin, was not fit for use, there were myriads of filthy
+insects, and I found myself obliged to stop and have some clothes
+boiled, and for comfort's sake rubbed my body with Chinese wine. Filth
+there was everywhere. It seemed inseparable from the people, and a total
+apathy as regards matter in the wrong place pervaded all classes, from
+the highest to the lowest. The spring is opening, and my hard-worked
+coolies doff their heavy padded winter clothing, parade their naked
+skin, and are quite unconscious of any disgrace attending the exhibition
+of the itch sores which disfigure them.
+
+I remember, however, that I am in China, and must not be disgusted.
+
+And should any reader be disgusted at the disjointed character of this
+particular portion of my common chronicle, I would only say in apology
+that I am writing under the gaze of a mystified crowd, each of whom has
+a word to say about my typewriter--the first, undoubtedly, that he has
+ever seen. This machine has caused the greatest surprise all along the
+route, and it is on occasions when the Chinese sees for the first time
+things of this intimate mechanical nature that he gives one the
+impression that he is a little boy. The people crowd into my room; they
+cannot be kept out, although at the present moment I have stationed my
+two soldiers in the doorway where I am writing, so as to get a little
+light, to keep them from crowding actually upon me.
+
+It has been said that all of us have an innermost room, wherein we
+conceal our own secret affairs. In China everything is so open, and so
+much must be done in public, that it would surprise one to know that the
+Chinese have an inner room. The European traveler in this region must
+have no inner room, either, for the people seem to see down deep into
+one's very soul. But it is when one wanders on alone, as I have done
+to-day, doing two days in one, no less than one hundred and forty li of
+terrible road through the most isolated country, that one can enjoy the
+comfort of one's own loneliness and own inner room. The scenery was
+picturesque, much like Scotland, but the solitude was the best of all. I
+had left office and books and manuscripts, and was on a lonely walk,
+enjoying a solitude from which I could not escape, a reverie which was
+passed not nearly so much in thinking as in feeling, a feeling to
+nature-lovers which can never be completely expressed in words. It was
+indeed a refuge from the storms of life, and a veritable chamber of
+peace. And this, to my mind, is the way to spend a holiday. Robert Louis
+Stevenson tells us in one of his early books what a complete world two
+congenial friends make for themselves in the midst of a foreign
+population; all the hum and the stir goes on, and these two strangers
+exchange glances, and are filled with an infinite content Some of us
+would rather be alone, perhaps; for on a trip such as I am making now,
+in order to be happy with a companion you must have one who is
+thoroughly congenial and sympathetic, one who understands your unspoken
+thought, who is willing to let you have your way on the concession of
+the same privilege. Selfishness in the slightest degree should not enter
+in. But such a man is difficult to find, so I wander on alone, happy in
+my own solitude. Here I have liberty, perfect liberty.
+
+I was stopped on my way to Lao-wa-t'an at a small town called Puerh-tu,
+the first place of importance after having come into Yuen-nan. A few li
+before reaching this town, one of my men cut the large toe of his left
+foot on a sharp rock, lacerating the flesh to the bone. I attended to
+him as best I could on the road, paid him four days' extra pay, and then
+had a bit of a row with him because he would not go back. He avowed that
+carrying for the foreigner was such a good thing that he feared leaving
+it! Upon entering Puerh-tu, however, he fell in the roadway. A crowd
+gathered, a loud cry went up from the multitude, and in the
+consternation and confusion which ensued the people divided themselves
+into various sections.
+
+Some rushed to proffer assistance to the fallen man (this was done
+because I was about; he would have been left had a foreigner not been
+there), others gathered around me with outrageous adulation and seeming
+words of welcome. Meanwhile, I thought the coolie was dying, and,
+fearful and unnatural as it seems, it is nevertheless true that at all
+ages the Chinese find a peculiar and awful satisfaction in watching the
+agonies of the dying. By far the larger part of the mob was watching him
+dying, as they thought. But no, he was still worth many dead men! He
+slowly opened his eyes, smiled, rose up, and immediately recognized a
+poor manacled wretch, then passing under escort of several soldiers, who
+stopped a little farther down, followed by a mandarin in a chair.
+
+On this particular day, more than a customary morbid diversion was thus
+apparent among the motley-garbed mass of men and women, and the
+ignominious way in which that prisoner was treated was horrible to look
+upon. The perpetual hum of voices sounded like the noise made by a
+thousand swarming bees. The band of soldiers guarding the prisoner
+suddenly halted, whilst the mandarin conferred with the chief, after
+which he advanced slowly towards me.
+
+I was on the point of telling him in English that I had done nothing
+against the law, so far as I knew.
+
+He bowed solemnly, during which time I, attempting the same, had much
+trouble from bursting out laughing in his face. He beckoned to me, and
+then rushed me bodily into a house, where, in the best room, I found
+another official and his two sons. T'ong followed as interpreter. The
+mandarin explained that I was wanted to stay the night, that a
+theatrical entertainment had been arranged particularly for my benefit,
+that he wished I would take their photographs, that one of them would
+like a cigarette tin with some cigarettes in it, and that one of them
+would like to sell me a thoroughbred, hard-working,
+magnificently-shaped, without-a-single-vice black pony, which they would
+part with for my benefit for the consideration of one hundred taels down
+(four times its value), which awaited my inspection without. I stood up
+and fronted them, and replied, through T'ong, that I could not stay the
+night, that I would be pleased to tolerate the howling of the theatre
+for one half of an hour, that it would have given me the greatest
+pleasure to take their photographs, but, alas! my films were not many. I
+handed them a cigarette tin, but quite forgot that they asked for
+cigarettes as well (I had none), and I explained that horse-riding was
+not one of my accomplishments, so that their quadruped would be of no
+use to me.
+
+They looked glum, I smiled serenely. This is Chinesey.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_Szech-wan and Yuen-nan_. _Coolies and their loads_. _Exports and
+imports_. _Hints to English exporters_. _Food at famine rates_. _A
+wretched inn at Wuchai_. _Author prevents murder_. _Sleeping in the
+rain_. _The foreign cigarette trade_. _Poverty of Chao-t'ong_.
+_Simplicity of life_. _Possible advantages of Chinese in struggle of
+yellow and white races_. _Foreign goods in Yuen-nan and Szech'wan_.
+_Thousands of beggars die_. _Supposed lime poisoning_. _Content of the
+people_. _Opium not grown_. _Prices of prepared drug in Tong-ch'uan-fu
+compared_. _Smuggling from Kwei-chow_. _Opium and tin of Yuen-nan_.
+_Remarkable bonfire at Yuen-nan-fu_. _Infanticide at Chao-t'ong_.
+_Selling of female children into slavery_. _Author's horse steps on
+human skull_.
+
+
+Were one uninformed, small observance would be necessary to detect the
+borderline of Szech'wan and Yuen-nan. The latter is supposed to be one of
+the most ill-nurtured and desolate provinces of the Empire, mountainous,
+void of cultivation when compared with Szech'wan, one mass of high hills
+conditioned now as Nature made them; and the people, too, ashamed of
+their own wretchedness, are ill-fed and ill-clad.
+
+The greater part of the roads to be traversed now were constructed on
+projecting slopes above rivers and torrents, affluents of the Yangtze,
+and cross a region upon which the troubled appearance of the mountains
+that bristle over it stamps the impress of a severe kind of beauty. Such
+roads would not be tolerated in any country but China--I doubt if any
+but the ancient Chinese could have had the patience to build them. One
+could not walk with comfort; it was an impossible task. Far away over
+the earth, winding into all the natural trends of the mountain base, ran
+the highway, merrily tripping over huge boulders, into hollows and out
+of them, almost underground, but always, with its long white extended
+finger, beckoning me on by the narrow ribbon in the distance. True,
+although I was absolutely destitute of company, I had always the road
+with me, yet ever far from me. I could not catch it up, and sometimes,
+dreaming triumphantly that I had now come even with it where it seemed
+to end in some disordered stony mass, it would trip mischievously out
+again into view, bounding away into some tricky bend far down to the
+edge of the river, and rounding out of sight once more until the point
+of vantage was attained. Its twisting and turning, up and down, inwards,
+outwards, made humor for the full long day. With it I could not quarrel,
+for it did its best to help me with my weary men onwards over the now
+darkened landscape, and ever took the lead to urge us forward. If it
+came to a great upstanding mountain, with marked politeness it ran round
+by a circuitous route, more easily if of greater length; at other times
+it scaled clear up, nimbly and straight, turning not once to us in its
+self-appointed task, and at the top, standing like some fairy on a
+steeple-point, beckoned us on encouragingly. At times it became
+exhausted and stretched itself wearisomely out, measuring in width to
+only a few small inches, and overlooked the river at great height,
+telling us to ponder well our footsteps ere we go forward. To part
+company with the road would mean to die, for elsewhere was no foothold
+possible. So in this narrow faithful ledge, torn up by the heavy tread
+of countless horses' feet beyond Lao-wa-t'an (where horse traffic
+starts), we carefully ordered every step. Looking down, sheer down as
+from some lofty palace window, I saw the green snake waiting, waiting
+for me. Slipping, there would be no hope--death and the river alone lay
+down that treacherous mountain-side. And then, at times, pursuing that
+white-faced wriggling demon which stretched out far over the mist-swept
+landscape in incessant writhing and annoying contortions, we quite gave
+up the chase. It seemed leading me on to some unknown destiny. I knew
+not whither; only this I knew--that I must follow.
+
+And so each hour and every hour was fraught with peril which seemed
+imminent. But He who guards the fatherless and helpless, feeds the poor
+and friendless, guarded the traveler in those days. Mishaps I had none,
+and when at night I reached those tiny mountain seats, perched
+majestically high for the most part and swept by all the winds of
+heaven, I seemed to be the lonely spectator and companionless watcher
+over mighty mountain-tops, which appeared every moment to be hesitating
+to take a gigantic dive into the roaring river several hundred feet
+below our lofty resting-place.
+
+Some of the larger villages had the arrogant look of old feudal
+fortresses, and up the paths leading to them, cut out in a defile in the
+vertical cliffs, we passed with difficulty coolies carrying on their
+backs the enormous loads, which are the wonder of all who have seen
+them, their backs straining under the boomerang-shaped frames to which
+the merchandise was lashed. Hundreds passed us on their toilsome journey
+with tea, lamp-oil, skins, hides, copper, lead, coal and white wax from
+Yuen-nan, and with salt, English cotton, Chinese porcelain, fans and so
+on from Szech'wan. One false step, one slight slip, and they would have
+been hurled down the ravine, where far below, in the roaring cataract,
+dwarfed to the size of a toy boat, was a junk being cleverly taken
+down-stream. And down there also, one false move and the huge junk would
+have been dashed against the rocks, and banks strewn with the corpses of
+the crew. As it was, they were mere specks of blue in a background of
+white foam, their vociferating and yelling being drowned by the roar of
+the waters. On the road, passing and re-passing, I saw coolies on the
+way to Yuen-nan-fu with German cartridges and Japanese guns, the packing,
+so different generally to British goods which come into China, being
+particularly good. This is one of the cries of the importer in China
+against the British manufacturer; and if the latter knew more of Chinese
+transport and the manner in which the goods are handled in changing from
+place to place, one would meet fewer broken packages on the road in this
+land of long distances.
+
+A friend of mine, needing a typewriter, wrote home explicit instructions
+as to the packing. "Pack it ready to ship," he wrote, "then take it to
+the top of your office stairs, throw it down the stairs, take machine
+out and inspect, and if it is undamaged re-pack and send to me. If
+damaged, pack another machine, subject to the same treatment until you
+are convinced that it can stand being thus handled and escape injury."
+This is how goods coming to Western China should be sent away.
+
+Gradually the days brought harder toil. The mountains grew higher, some
+covered with forests of pine trees, which natural ornament completely
+changed the aspect of the country. Torrents foamed noisily down the
+gorges, veiled by the curtain of great trees; sometimes, on a ridge, a
+field of buckwheat, shining in the sun, looked like the beginning of the
+eternal snows.
+
+Food was at famine rates. Eggs there were in abundance, pork also; but
+it was not to be wondered at that the traveler, having seen the
+conditions under which the pigs are reared, refrained from the luxury of
+Yuen-nan roast pig. My men fed on maize. The faces of the people were
+pinched and wan, unpleasant to look upon, bearing unmistakable signs of
+poverty and misery, and they seemed too concerned in keeping the wolf
+from the door to attend to me. At Ta-kwan they treated themselves to a
+_sheng_ of rice apiece--here the _sheng_ is 1.8 catties, as against 11
+catties in the capital of the province.
+
+At Wuchai, the last stage before reaching Chao-t'ong-fu, the room of the
+inn had three walls only, and two of these were composed of kerosene
+tins, laced together with bamboo stripping. (Probably the oil tins had
+been stolen from the mission premises at Chao-t'ong.) Through the whole
+night it rained as it had never rained before, but, instead of feeling
+miserable, I tried to see the humor of the situation. One can get humor
+from the most embarrassing circumstances, and my chief amusement arose
+from a small business deal between one of my coolies, who had sublet his
+contract to a poor fellow returning in the rain, who had arranged to
+carry the ninety catties ninety li for a fourth of the original price
+arranged between my coolie and myself. For one full hour they argued at
+a terrible speed as to the rate of exchange in the Szech'wan large and
+the Yuen-nan small cash, and this was only interrupted when a poor man,
+deaf and dumb, and of hideous appearance, seeing the foreigner in his
+contemptible town, rushed in with a carrying pole and felled his
+grumbling townsman at my feet.
+
+My intervention probably averted murder--at any rate, it seemed as
+though murder would have taken place very soon but for my interference.
+The whole populace gathered, of course, and the fight waged fiercely
+until well on into the night. But wrapping myself in my mackintosh, and
+putting my paper umbrella at the right angle, I went to sleep with the
+rain dripping on me as they were indulging in final pleasantries
+regarding each other's ancestry.
+
+The first thing I saw at Chao-t'ong the next day was the foreign
+cigarette, sold at a wayside stall by a vendor of monkey nuts and marrow
+seeds. No trade has prospered in Yuen-nan during the past two years more
+than the foreign cigarette trade, and the growing evil among the
+children of the common people, both male and female, is viewed with
+alarm. From Tachien-lu to Mengtsz, from Chung-king to Bhamo, one is
+rarely out of sight of the well-known flaring posters in the Chinese
+characters advertising the British cigarette. Some months ago a couple
+of Europeans were sent out to advertise, and they stuck their poster
+decorations on the walls of temples, on private houses and official
+residences, with the result that the people were piqued so much as to
+tear down the bills immediately. In Yuen-nan, especially since the exit
+of opium, this common cigarette is smoked by high and low, rich and
+poor. I have been offered them at small feasts, and when calling upon
+high officials at the capital have been offered a packet of cigarettes
+instead of a whiff of opium, as would have been done formerly. One is
+not, of course, prepared to say whether such a trade is desirable or
+not, but it merely needs to be made known that towards the middle of the
+present year (1910) a proclamation was issued from the Viceroy's _yamen_
+at Yuen-nan-fu speaking in strongest terms against the increasing habit
+of smoking foreign cigarettes, to show the trend of official opinion on
+the subject. After having referred to the enormous advances made in the
+imports of cigarettes, the proclamation deplored the general tendency of
+the people to support such an undesirable trade, and exhorted the
+citizens to turn from their evil ways. We cannot stop the importation of
+cigarettes, it read, but there is no need for our people to buy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At Chao-t'ong I stayed with the Rev. Dr. Savin, and spent a very
+pleasant two days' rest here in his hospitable hands. It was in this
+district I first came across goitre, the first time I had seen it in my
+life. It is a terrible disfigurement.
+
+Poor indeed is the whole of this neighborhood. Poverty, thin and wanting
+food to eat, stalks abroad dressed in a rag or two, armed with a staff
+to keep away the snarling dogs, and a broken bowl to gather garbage.
+
+Even the better class, who manage to afford their maize and bean curds,
+are to be praised for the extreme simplicity which everywhere vividly
+marks their monotonous lives. Indeed, this is true of the whole area
+through which I have traveled. No furniture brings confusion to their
+rooms, no machinery distresses the ear with its groaning or the eye with
+its unsightliness, no factories belch out smoke and blacken the beauty
+of the sky, no trains screech to disturb sleepers and frighten babies.
+The simplest of simple beds--in most cases merely a few boards with a
+straw mattress placed thereon--the straw sandal on the foot, wooden
+chopsticks in place of knives and forks, the small variety of foods and
+of cooking utensils, the simple homespun cotton clothing--much of this
+finds favor in the eye of the English traveler. The Chinese, of all
+Orientals, teach us how to live without furniture, without impedimenta,
+with the least possible amount of clothing in the case of the poorer
+classes, and I could not fail to be impressed by the advantage thus held
+by this great nation in the struggle of life. It may serve them in good
+stead in the struggle of the Yellow Man against the White Man, to which
+I refer at a later period in this book; also does it incidentally show
+up the real character of some of the weaknesses of our own civilization,
+and when one is in China, living near the people, one is forced to
+reflect upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have
+our daily stock of bread and butter and meats, glass windows and fires,
+hats, white shirts and woolen underwear, boots and shoes, trunks, bags
+and boxes, bedsteads, mattresses, sheets and blankets--most of which a
+Chinese can do without, and indeed is actually better off without.[J]
+
+This is not true in every class, however; for whilst there is no denying
+the charm of the simpler civilization, many of the Chinese of Szech'wan
+and Yuen-nan glory in goods of foreign manufacture, no matter if to them
+is not disclosed the proper purpose of any particular article adopted.
+
+Rice will not grow here in great quantities, owing to the scarcity of
+water; therefore the people feed on maize, and are thankful to get it.
+
+Chao-t'ong is the centre of a large district devastated by recurring
+seasons of plague, rebellion and famine, when thousands die annually
+from starvation in the town and on the level uplands surrounding it. The
+beggars on one occasion, becoming so numerous, were driven from the
+streets, confined within the walls of the temple and grounds beyond the
+South Gate, and there fed by common charity. Huddled together in disease
+and rags and unspeakable misery, they died in thousands, and the Chinese
+say that of five thousand who crossed the temple threshold two thousand
+never came out alive.
+
+This happened some twenty years ago. The unfortunate victims had for
+their food a rice porridge, mixed with which was a subtance alleged to
+have been lime, the common belief being that the majority of those who
+perished died from the effect of poisoning. Outside the city boundary
+hundreds of the dead were flung into huge pits, and even now the
+inhabitants refer to the time when children were exchanged _ad libitum_
+for a handful of rice or even less.
+
+During my stay in this city, I heard on all hands some of the most
+blood-curdling stories of the dire distress which, like a dark cloud,
+still menaces the people, some of which are too dreadful for public
+print.
+
+But I suppose these poor people are content. If they are, they possess a
+virtue which produces, in some measure at all events, all those effects
+which the alchemist usually ascribes to what he calls the philosopher's
+stone; and if their content does not bring riches, it banishes the
+desire for them. Years ago the people could entertain some small hope
+of prosperity now and again. If the opium crop were good, money was
+plentiful. But now no opium is grown, and the misery-stricken people
+have lost all hope of better times, and seem to have sunk in many
+instances to the lowest pangs of distressful poverty.[K]
+
+Reader, alarm not yourself! I am not here to lead you into a long
+harangue on opium--it presents too thorny a subject for me to handle. I
+am not a partisan in the opium traffic; my mission is not essentially to
+denounce it; I am not impelled by an irresistible desire to investigate
+facts and put them before you. There is practically no opium in Yuen-nan
+to talk about.
+
+This is absolute fact--not a Chinese fact, but good old British truth
+(although British truth when it touches upon opium has been very, very
+perverted since we first commenced to transact opium trade with this
+great country). With the exception of one small patch, some ten miles
+away from the main road between Yuen-nan-fu and Tali-fu, I saw no poppy
+whatever in the province. This does not mean, however, that no opium is
+to be had.
+
+During the past three weeks[L] no less than five cases of attempted
+suicide by opium poisoning have come under my personal notice in the
+town in which I am residing, and there have doubtless been fifty more
+which have not. If there is no opium, where do the people so easily
+secure it in endeavors to take their lives upon the slightest
+provocation? Last year the price of opium here on the streets, although
+its sale was "illegal," was over three tsien (about nine-pence) the
+Chinese ounce of prepared opium. At the present time, in the same city,
+many men would be willing to do a deal for any quantity you like for
+less than two tsien. Cases of smuggling are frequent. One gets
+accustomed to hear of large quantities being smuggled through in most
+cunning ways, and it all goes to show that the _people_ of Yuen-nan are
+not, as some of China's enlightened statesmen and some of the ranting
+faddists of England and America would have us believe, falling over one
+another in their zeal to free the province from the drug.
+
+The other day some men passed through several towns, on the way to the
+capital, carrying three coffins. In the first was a corpse, the other
+two were packed with opium. Being suspected at Yuen-nan-fu, the first
+coffin was opened, and the carriers, making as much row as they could
+because their coffin had been burst open, secured a fair "squeeze" to
+hold their tongues, and the second and third coffins were passed
+unexamined. Quite common is it for men to travel in armed bands from the
+province of Kwei-chow, traveling by night over the mountains by
+lantern-light, and hiding by day from any possible official searchers.
+
+Opium, which is and always has been so heavily taxed, does not in
+general follow the ordinary trade routes on which _likin_ stations are
+numerous, but is carried by these armed bands over roads where the
+native Customs stations are few, and so poorly equipped as to yield
+readily to superior force, where the men are compelled to accept a
+composition much below the official rate.
+
+Opium smoking is still common in Western China among people who can
+afford it. At the time of the crusade against it, wealthy people laid
+in stocks enough to last them for years; and, so long as there is
+smuggling from other provinces, which do grow it, into those which do
+not, there will be no danger of the absolute extermination being carried
+successfully into effect. Kwei-chow, in common with the western
+provinces, has undeservedly secured the credit for having practically
+abolished the poppy; but at the present moment (December, 1909) she is
+at a loss to know what to do with her supply, and that is the reason why
+people of Yuen-nan are making bargains in opium smuggled over the border.
+Much has yet to be done. To prevent the growth of a plant which has been
+in China for at least twelve centuries, which has had medicinal uses for
+nine, and whose medicinal properties have been put in the capsule for
+six, is not an easy matter, far more difficult, in fact, than the
+average Englishman and even those who rant so much about the whole
+business upon little knowledge can imagine. Opium has been made in China
+for four centuries, and although used then with tobacco, has been smoked
+since the middle of the seventeenth century.[M]
+
+A few years ago Yuen-nan had only two articles of importance with which
+to pay for extra provincial products consumed, namely, opium and tin.
+The latter came from a spot twenty miles from Mengtsz, and the value of
+the output now runs to approximately three million taels. Opium came
+from all parts of the province and went in all directions, that portion
+sent to the Opium Regie at Tonkin sometimes being close to three
+thousand piculs, and the quantity going by land into China being very
+much greater. Yuen-nan opium was known at Canton and Chin-kiang in 1863.
+In 1879, the production was variously estimated at from twelve thousand
+to twenty-two thousand piculs; in 1887 it had risen to approximately
+twenty-seven thousand piculs, and since then to the time of the reform
+no less certainly than thirty thousand piculs.
+
+One afternoon, in November of 1909, the execution ground of Yuen-nan-fu
+was the scene of a remarkably daring proceeding by the officials in the
+campaign for the total suppression of opium in the province. No less
+than 20,040 ounces of prepared opium were publicly destroyed by fire in
+the presence of an enormous crowd of people. The officials of the city
+were present in person, and everywhere the event was looked upon as the
+greatest public demonstration that the people had ever seen.
+
+The missionary of whom I inquired denied that the infanticide at
+Chao-t'ong was very great--things must be improving!
+
+Previous to my arrival at the city I had instructed my English-speaking
+boy to make inquiries in the city, and to let me know afterwards,
+whether girls were still sold publicly.
+
+"Have got plenty," he exclaimed, in describing this wholesale selling of
+female children into slavery. "I know, I know; you wantchee makee buy.
+Can do! You wantchee catch one piecee small baby, can catchee two, three
+tael. Wantchee one piecee very much tall, big piecee, can catch fifty
+dollar."
+
+Continuing, he told me that prices were fairly high, a girl who could
+boast good looks and who had reached an age when her charms were
+naturally the strongest fetching the alarming amount of three hundred
+taels. This was the highest figure reached, whilst small children could
+be had for anything up to twenty. This wholesale disposal of young
+girls, although the traffic was in some quarters emphatically denied to
+exist--a denial, however, which was all moonshine--is one of the chief
+sorrows of the district. And well it might be; for thousands of children
+are disposed of in the course of a year for a few taels by heartless
+parents, who watch them being carried away, like so much merchandise, to
+be converted into silver, in many cases in this poverty-stricken
+district merely to satisfy the craving for opium of some sodden wretch
+of a man who calls himself a father. Time and time again, long after I
+myself passed through Chao-t'ong, did I see little girls from three to
+ten years of age being conveyed by pack-horse to the capital, balanced
+in baskets on either side of the animal. This and the terrible
+infanticide which exists in all poor districts of China menaces the
+lives of all well-wishers of the entire province of Yuen-nan.
+
+In the particular district of which I speak it is not an uncommon sight
+to see little children being torn to pieces by dogs, the scavengers of
+the Empire, perhaps by the very dogs that had been their playmates from
+birth. I have been riding many times and found that my horse had stepped
+on a human skull, and near by were the bones the dogs had left as the
+remains of the corpse.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NOTE.--I should mention that, since the above was written, I have lived
+and travelled a good deal around Chao-t'ong-fu, being the only European
+traveller who has ever penetrated the country to the east of the main
+road, by which I had now come down.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote J: Anyone who contemplates a tramp across China must not get
+the idea that he can still continue the uses of civilization. For the
+most part he will have to live pretty well as a Chinese the whole time,
+and he will find, as I found, that it is easy to give up a thing when
+you know the impossibility of getting it.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote K: This was written later. I have altered my views since I
+have traveled from end to end of Yuen-nan. The disappearance of opium, on
+the contrary, apart from the moral advantage to the people, has done
+much to place them in a better position financially. In Tali-fu I found
+not a single shop on the main street "to let," and the trade of the
+place had gone ahead considerably, and this was a city which people
+generally supposed would suffer most on account of the non-growth of
+opium.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote L: May, 1910. As a matter of fact the date makes no
+difference, because unfortunately the number of suicides from opium does
+not seem to have decreased materially in Western China since the opium
+crusade was started. Upon the slightest provocation a Chinese woman in
+Yuen-nan will take her life, and it is probable that for the five cases
+which came to my notice through the mission house there were treble that
+number which did not--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote M: This was written at the end of 1909 Now, in July, 1910,
+things are changed wonderfully. The rapidity with which China is driving
+out the poppy from province after province is truly remarkable. In
+Szech'wan, in April, 1909, I passed through miles and miles of poppy
+along the main road--to-day there is none to be seen It is to be hoped
+that Great Britain will do her part as faithfully as China is doing
+hers.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE CHAO-T'ONG REBELLION OF 1910
+
+_Digression from travel_. _How rebellions start in China_. _Famous Boxer
+motto_. _Way of escape shut off_. _Riots expected before West can be won
+into the confidence of China_. _Boxerism and students of the Government
+Reform Movement_. _Author's impressions formed within the danger zone_.
+_More Boxerism in China than we know of_. _Causes of the Chao-t'ong
+Rebellion_. _Halley's Comet brings things to a climax_. _Start of the
+rioting_. _Arrival of the military_. _Number of the rebels_. _They hold
+three impregnable positions, and block the main roads_. _European ladies
+travel to the city in the dead of night_. _A new ch'en-tai takes the
+matter in hand_. _Rumors and suspense_. _Stations of the rebels_. _A
+night attack_. _Sixteen rebels decapitated_. _Officials alter their
+tactics_. _Fighting on main road_. _Superstition regarding soldiers_.
+_One of the leaders captured by a headman_. _Chapel burnt down and
+caretaker rescued by military_. _Li the Invincible under arms_. _Huang
+taken prisoner_. _Two leaders killed_. _Rising among the Miao_. _Mission
+work at a standstill_. _Child-stealing, and the Yuen-nan Railway rumor_.
+_Barbaric punishment_. _Tribute to Chinese officials_. _British
+Consul-General_. _Resume of the position_. _An unfortunate incident_.
+
+
+Despite the fact that this chapter was the last written, it has been
+thought wise to place it here. It deals with the Chao-t'ong Rebellion,
+of which the outside world, even when it was at its height, knew little,
+but which, so recently as a couple of months prior to the date of
+writing, threatened to spell extermination to the foreigners in
+North-East Yuen-nan. And the reader, too, may welcome a digression from
+travel.
+
+In spite of all that has been written in previous and subsequent
+chapters, and in face of the universal cry of the progress China is
+speedily realizing, of the stoutest optimism characteristic of the
+statesman and of the student of Chinese affairs, a feeling of deep gloom
+at intervals overcomes one in the interior--a fear of some impending
+trouble. There is a rumor, but one smiles at it--there are always
+rumors! Then there are more rumors, and a feeling of uneasiness pervades
+the atmosphere; a local bubble is formed, it bursts, the whole of one's
+trust in the sincerity of the reform of China and her people is brushed
+away to absolute unbelief in a few days, and it means either a sudden
+onrush and brutal massacre of the foreigners, or the thing blows over
+after a short or long time of great strain, and ultimately things assume
+a normality in which the detection of the slightest ruffle in the
+surface of social life is hardly traceable.
+
+Such was the Chao-t'ong Rebellion, luckily unattended by loss of life
+among the foreigners. It is not yet over,[N] but it is believed that the
+worst is past.
+
+At the end of 1909 probably no part of the Empire seemed more peaceful.
+Two months afterwards the heads of the Europeans were demanded;
+missionaries were guarded by armed soldiers in their homes inside the
+city walls, and forbidden to go outside; native Christians were brutally
+maltreated and threatened with death if they refused to turn traitor to
+their beliefs; thousands of generally law-abiding men, formed into armed
+bands, were defiantly setting at naught the law of the land, and the
+whole of the main road over which I had passed from Sui-fu to
+Tong-ch'uan-fu (a distance of over four hundred miles) was blocked by
+infuriated mobs, who were out to kill,--their motto the famous
+ill-omened Boxer motto of 1900: "Exalt the dynasty; destroy the
+foreigner."
+
+"Kill, kill, kill!" ran the cry for miles around the countryside, and a
+fearful repetition of the bloody history of ten years ago was daily
+feared. Providential, however, was it that no foreigner was traveling at
+the time in these districts, and that those who, ignorant of the
+troubles, desired to do so were stopped at Yuen-nan-fu by the Consuls and
+at Sui-fu by the missionaries. It is a matter for gratitude also that
+throughout the riots, specially safeguarded by the great Providence of
+God, no lives of Europeans were lost; and owing to the praiseworthy and
+obvious attitude of the missionaries in this area in endeavoring to keep
+the thing as quiet as possible, and the notoriously conservative manner
+in which consular reports upon such matters are preserved in
+Governmental lockers, practically nothing has been heard of the
+uprising.
+
+At times during the four slow-moving months, however, the situation
+became, as I shall endeavor to show, complicated in every way. The
+escape of the foreigners was made absolutely impossible by the fact that
+the whole of the roads, even those over the rough mountains leading
+south, were blocked successfully by the rebelling forces, and, when the
+deep gloom settled finally over the city, the fate of the Westerners
+seemed sealed and their future hopeless. All round the foreigners'
+houses the people, infected with that strange, unaccountable, national
+hysteria, so terrible in the Chinese temperament, rose up to burn and
+kill. Mayhap it means little to the man who reads. Massacres have always
+been common enough in China, he will say; and there are thousands of
+people in Europe to-day who know no more about China than what the
+telegrams of massacres of European missionaries have told them. Years
+ago one almost expected this sort of thing; but at the present day, when
+China is popularly supposed to be working honestly to gain for herself
+an honorable place among the nations, it is surely not to be expected in
+the ordinary run of things in days of peace.
+
+But we know that such visions are common to every European in Inland
+China, and even at the coast men talk continually of and believe that
+riots are going to happen in the near future. Merchant, missionary,
+traveler and official all agree that there is yet more trouble ahead
+before the West will be won into the confidence of China and _vice
+versa_. The people who are studying the Reform Movement of the Young
+China, however, and who stolidly refuse to study with it the general
+attitude of the common people, laugh and dismiss with contempt the
+subject of the possibility of further outbreaks of Boxerism in the
+outlying parts of the Empire. But they should not laugh. The European
+cannot afford to laugh, and, if he be a sensible fellow, knows that he
+cannot afford to treat with contempt the opinions of the people who
+know. The more we understand the vast interior of China and the
+conservatism and peculiarities of character of the people of that
+interior, the less disposed shall we be to jest, the less disposed to
+ridicule, what I would characterize as the strongest and most deadly of
+the hidden menaces of the Celestial Empire.
+
+One does not wish to be pessimistic, but it is foolish to close one's
+eyes to bare fact.
+
+At the moment I am writing, in the middle of China, I know that I am
+safe enough here, but I do not disguise from myself that the wildest
+reports are still current within a quarter of a mile from me about me
+and my own kind in this peaceful city of Tong-ch'uan-fu. And it takes
+very little to light the fuse and to cause a terrible explosion here, in
+common with other places in this province. A man might be quite safe one
+day and lose his head the next if he did not, at times when the
+rebellious element is apparent, conform strictly to the general wishes
+and accepted customs of the people among whom he is living.
+
+No, we cannot afford to laugh. We must seek the opinion of those people
+who were confined within the walls of Chao-t'ong city--the silence of
+their own homes broken up by the distant uproar of a frantic chorus of
+yells and angry disputations, sounding, as it were, their very
+death-knell, as if they were to form a manacled procession dragging
+their chains of martyrdom to their own slow doom--before we show
+contempt for the opinion of those who would tell the truth. There is
+more of Boxerism in the far-away interior parts of China than we know
+of.
+
+Even as late as the middle of January of the year 1910 there was no
+rumor of any uprising. About this time, however, to supply a serious
+deficiency in the revenue caused by the dropping of the opium tax, since
+that drug had ceased to be grown, a general poll-tax was levied, which
+the people refused to pay, and at the same time they demanded that they
+be allowed again to grow the poppy. Among the population of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, or more particularly among the people around the city,
+especially the tribespeople, this additional tax was supposed to have
+been caused by the Europeans, and other wild rumors concerning the
+Tonkin-Yuen-nan Railway (to be opened in the following April), which
+gained currency with remarkable rapidity, added to the unrest. It
+required only that brilliant phenomenon of the heavens, with its
+wonderful tail--none other than Halley's Comet--to bring the whole to a
+climax. This was altogether too much for the superstitious Chinese, and
+he looked upon the comet as some evil omen organized and controlled by
+the foreigner especially for the working of his own selfish ends in the
+Celestial Empire; and a number believed it to be a heavenly sign for the
+Chinese to strike.
+
+That the riot was being started was plain, but the first definite news
+the foreigners received was on February 5th, when an I-pien (one of the
+tribes), whose little girl attended the mission school, was captured
+and compelled to join the rebelling forces between T'o-ch-i (on the
+River of Golden Sand[O]) and Sa'i-ho, in a westerly direction from the
+town. A march would take place on the fifteenth of that month, the
+Europeans would be assassinated, their houses would be burned and
+looted--so ran the rumor. By this date, for two days' march in all
+directions from Chao-t'ong, the rebels had camped, and a motley crowd
+they were--Mohammendans, Chinese, I-pien, Hua Miao, and other hooligans.
+Mobilization was effected by spies taking round secret cases (the
+_ch'uandan_) containing two pieces of coal and a feather--a simile
+meaning that the rebels were to burn like fire and fly like birds.
+Meanwhile, military forces had been dispatched from Yuen-nan-fu, the
+capital (twelve days away), and from Ch'u-tsing-fu (seven or eight days
+away), and these, to the strength of a thousand, now came to the city,
+and it was thought that the brigadier-general would be able to cope with
+the trouble now that he had so many armed troops. Soldiers patrolled the
+city walls (which, by the way, had to be built up so that the soldiers
+might be able to get decent patrol), more were stationed on the premises
+of the Europeans, and every defensive precaution was taken. The
+officials were in daily communication by telegraph with the Viceroy, and
+at first the riot was kept well in hand by Government authorities.
+
+But the rebels had by this time got together no less than three thousand
+men, and were holding three impregnable positions on the adjacent hills,
+and had effectually cut off communication by the main road. Despite
+their numbers, they were afraid to strike, however, and lucky it was for
+the city that the leaders were not sufficiently trusted by their
+followers, many of them pressed men--men who had joined the rebelling
+ranks merely to save their own necks and their houses. At this time the
+_pen-fu_ (a sort of mayor of the city) demanded that the missionaries
+working among the Hua Miao, and two lady workers paying a visit to that
+place, should return from Shih-men-K'an (70 li away), as he could not
+protect them in the country. A special messenger was dispatched,
+demanding instant departure, and in the dead of night--a bitter wintry
+night, icy, dark, slippery, and cold--these ladies came under cover to
+the city.
+
+They reached the mission premises without molestation.
+
+By this time a new _ch'en-tai_ (brigadier-general) had arrived from the
+capital, having been sent as a man who could handle the situation
+successfully. He was a Liu Ta Ren, who had previously held office in the
+city, and whose cunning a Scotland Yard detective might envy.[P]
+
+Rumors grew more and more serious; the mandarins went all round the
+countryside endeavoring to pacify the people, and the foreigners could
+do nothing but "sit tight" through these most trying days. The suspense
+of being shut up in one's house during a time of trouble of this nature,
+hearing every rumor which lying tongues create, and unable to get at the
+facts, is far worse than being in the thick of things, although this
+would have at once been fatal. But one needs to have lived in China
+during such a time to understand the awful tension which riots
+occasion.
+
+The rioters were stationed as follows:--
+
+     1. Weining, in Kwei-chow, to the southeast 1,000 men
+
+     2. Kiang-ti Hill, in Yuen-nan, to the south 1,000 men
+
+     3. Several places around the city, to the west as far as the River
+     of Golden Sand 1,000 men
+
+On March 13th a night attack was expected. Breathless, the foreigners
+waited in their suspense, but it passed off without serious damage being
+done. On the Sunday, the missionaries, almost at their wits' end with
+mingled fear and excitement, occasioned by the strain which weeks of
+anxiety must bring to the strongest, feared whether their services would
+be got through in peace.
+
+Meetings were being held all around the city, and gradually the
+mandarins gained small successes. Prisoners--miserable specimens of men
+fighting for they hardly knew what--were captured and brought to the
+city, and, on March 16th, sixteen human heads, thrown in one gruesome
+mass into a common basket, with upturned eyes gaping into the great
+unknown, hideous-looking and bearing still the brutish stare of
+hysterical craving and morbid rage, were carried by an armed squad of
+military to the _yamen_.
+
+They made a ghastly picture when hung over the gate of the city to put
+the fear of death into the hearts of their brutal compatriots. The
+officials, hard-worked and themselves feeling the strain of the whole
+business, and incidentally fearful for the safety of their own heads,
+were perturbed all this time by rumors coming from Weining, the
+mutineers of which were alleged to be the fiercest of the three bands.
+Up to now the officials had been playing a conciliating game. They had
+been trying vainly to pacify, but now they found that they had to prove
+their energies and their benevolence by acting the part of tyrants
+rather than of administrators of mercy, by warring rather than by
+peace-making, by fighting and forcing rather than by conciliating and
+persuading.
+
+On Easter Tuesday, fighting took place on the main road to the north,
+when the _pen-fu_ and his men achieved a creditable success. The rebels
+almost to a man were taken, and among the prisoners was a girl who had
+been distributing the beans, a lovely damsel of eighteen, said to have
+been the fiancee of the leader of that band. Both her legs were shot
+through and she was considerably mutilated; but although the _pen-fu_
+thought this sufficient punishment, instructions came from the capital
+that she must die. She was accordingly taken outside the city and
+beheaded. This caused some consternation among the rebels, as the death
+of the girl was looked upon as an omen of direct misfortune.
+
+For a very long time she had been going around the country dropping
+beans into the ground outside any houses she came across, the
+superstition being that wherever a bean was dropped there in the very
+spot, perhaps at the very moment, for aught that we know, an invincible
+warrior would spring up. She had dropped some millions of beans, but the
+ranks were not swelled as a consequence.
+
+The _ch'en-tai_ had also been out all night, and as men were captured so
+they were beheaded on the spot without mercy and their heads
+subsequently hung outside the city gates. The headman of a small
+village--some forty li from the city--succeeded in capturing one of the
+leaders, and great credit was due to him; but soon the leader was
+rescued again by his followers, who then brutally killed and mutilated
+the body of the headman, causing him to undergo the ignominy of having
+his tongue and his heart cut out. Fighting was going on everywhere, and
+by the end of March things were at their height. The fact that rain was
+badly needed tended only to aggravate the situation, and that lustrous
+comet made things worse. Day by day miserable processions brought the
+wounded into the city, and the last day of the month, taken by sudden
+fright and almost getting out of hand, the panic-stricken people raised
+the cry that the rebels were marching direct for the city gates. Through
+the capital tactics adopted by the mandarins, however, this was
+prevented; but, on the following day, the chapel belonging to the United
+Methodist Mission at an out-station was burnt to the ground and the
+houses of the people razed and looted. The caretaker, a faithful Hua
+Miao convert, was taken, stripped of his clothing, and threatened with
+an awful death if he did not betray the foreigners. He refused manfully
+to divulge any information whatsoever, and was on the point of being
+sacrificed, when the _ch'en-tai_ came unexpectedly upon the scene with
+his military. He released the Miao, captured thirty-six rebels, killed
+sixteen more where they stood, and carried away many of their horses and
+the dreaded Boxer flag around which the men rallied.
+
+And now comes the smartest thing I heard of throughout the rebellion.
+
+A man named Li was the most dreaded of the trio of rebel chiefs, a man
+of marvelous strength, and who seemed to be able to fascinate his men
+and get them to do anything he wished--and Liu, the _ch'en-tai_, set
+himself the task of capturing him. Disguising himself in the garb of a
+pedlar, Liu went out towards Li's camp, and met three spies on the
+look-out for a possible clue to the foreigners; they asked him where the
+_ch'en-tai_ was and all about him, declaring that if he did not tell
+them all he knew they would take him to Li, and that he would then lose
+his head. Just behind were a few of Liu's best soldiers. Strolling up
+quite casually as if they knew least in the world of what was going on,
+they made their arrest, and clapped the handcuffs on them before their
+captives knew it. Liu ordered that two be beheaded immediately, which
+was done, and the other man was kept to show where Li's camp was and
+where Li himself was hiding.
+
+And in this way Li the Invincible was captured also. This was the
+master-stroke of the situation. Li was brought back to the city with
+many other prisoners and a few heads, guarded by a strong body of the
+military.
+
+Almost simultaneously, Huang, one of the other rebel chiefs, was
+captured; and at dusk one evening Li was put to death by the slow
+process. Afraid that if he were taken outside the city his followers
+might possibly re-capture him, he was murdered outside the chief
+_yamen_, about ten hacks being necessary by process adopted to sever the
+head from the body. Only two men have been put to death inside the walls
+since the city of Chao-t'ong was built, over two hundred years ago.
+After death had taken place, Li was served in the same way as he had
+served the village headman, and his heart and his tongue were taken from
+his body. Huang was killed in the usual way, and his head placed in a
+frame on the city gate.
+
+And so there died two of the bravest men who have headed rebellions in
+this part of country of late years. Both were handsome fellows, of
+magnificent physique and undaunted courage, worthy of fighting for a
+better cause. It seemed so strange that two such men should have had to
+die in the very bloom of life, when every strong sinew and drop of blood
+must have rebelled at such premature dissolution, and by a death more
+hideous than imagination can depict or speech describe, just at a time
+in China's awakening when such fellows might have made for the uplifting
+of their country. And they died because they hated the foreigner.
+
+After further desultory fighting, the remaining leader, losing heart,
+fled into Kwei-chow province, and for a time was allowed to wander away;
+but later, a sum of a thousand taels was offered for him, dead or alive,
+and I have no doubt of the reward proving too great a bait for his
+followers. He has probably been given up.[Q] In the month of May the
+Miao people rose to prolong the rioting, but their efforts did not come
+to much, although guerilla warfare was prolonged for several weeks, and
+British subjects were not allowed to travel over the main road beyond
+Tong-ch'uan-fu for some time after; indeed, as I write (July 1st, 1910),
+permission for the missionaries to move about is still withheld.
+
+Then, following the rebellion, rumors spread all over the province to
+the effect that the foreigners were on the look-out for children, and
+were buying up as many as they could get at enormous prices to _ch'i_
+the railway to Yuen-nan-fu, which by this time had been opened to the
+public. Daily were little children brought to the missionaries and
+offered for sale. Child-stealing became common; the greatest unrest
+prevailed again. Members of the Christian churches suffered persecution,
+and adherents kept at a safe distance. Scholars forsook the mission
+schools. Foreigners cautiously kept within their own premises as much as
+they could. Mission work was at a standstill, and all looked once more
+grave enough. Two women, caught in the act of stealing children at
+Chao-t'ong, were taken to the _yamen_, hung in cages for a time as a
+warning to others, and then made to walk through the streets shouting,
+"Don't steal children as I have; don't steal children as I have." If
+they stopped yelling, soldiers scourged them.
+
+A man was lynched in the public streets in that city for stealing a
+child, and only by the adoption of the most stringent measures, which in
+England would be considered barbaric, were the mandarins able
+successfully to deal with the rumors and the trouble thereby caused.
+Even far away down on the Capital road, children ran from me, and
+mothers, catching sight of me, would cover up their little ones and run
+away from me behind barred doors, so that the foreigner should not get
+them.
+
+This latter trouble was felt pretty well throughout the length and
+breadth of Yuen-nan, and it must have been very disappointing to
+Christian missionaries who had been working around the districts of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu and Chao-t'ong-fu for over twenty years, and had got into
+close contact with scores of men and women, to see these very people
+taking away their children so that they should not be bought up by the
+very missionaries whose ministrations they had listened to for years.
+
+In course of time, things settled down again, but at the time my
+manuscript leaves me for the publisher the danger zone has not been
+greatly reduced.
+
+In concluding my few remarks on this serious outbreak, the like of which
+it is to be hoped will not be seen again in this province, it is only
+fair to chronicle the excellent behavior of the Chinese officials and of
+the Viceroy of Yuen-nan in dealing with the situation. Although he is
+not, I believe, generally liked by the people as their ruler, Li Chin
+Hsi did all he could to quell the riots speedily, and saw to it that all
+the officials in whose districts the rebellion was raging, and who made
+blunders during its progress, were degraded in rank. It is difficult for
+Europeans thoroughly to grasp the situation. From Chao-t'ong to
+Yuen-nan-fu, the viceregal seat, is twelve days' hard going, and all
+communication was done by telegraph--seemingly easy enough; but one must
+not discount the slow Chinese methods of doing things. Most of the
+troops were twelve days away, and in China--in backward Yuen-nan
+especially--to mobilize a thousand men and march them over mountains a
+fortnight from your base is not a thing to be done at a moment's
+notice. By the time they would arrive, it might have been possible for
+all the foreigners to have been massacred and their premises demolished,
+especially as the exits were blocked on all sides. But no time was lost
+and no pains were saved; and although the Chao-t'ong foreign residents,
+who suffered in suspense more than most missionaries are called upon to
+suffer, may differ with me in this opinion, I believe that not one of
+the officials who took part in endeavors to keep the riots from assuming
+more actually dangerous proportions could have done more than was done.
+If a man neglected his duty he lost his button, and he deserved nothing
+else.
+
+In Mr. P. O'Brien Butler, the able British Consul-General, the British
+subjects had the greatest confidence. He might have erred in having
+declined from harassing the Chinese Foreign Office to grant permission
+and protection to Britishers who wished to travel after the leaders of
+the rebellion had been captured, but he undoubtedly erred on the right
+side.
+
+An unfortunate incident for the United Methodist missionaries was the
+fact that the Rev. Charles Stedeford, who was sent out by the Connexion
+to visit the whole of the mission fields, was able to come only so far
+as Tong-ch'uan-fu, and was forced to return to Europe without having
+seen any of the magnificent work among the Hua Miao.
+
+After my manuscript went forward to my publishers, permission to travel
+and protection were granted to British subjects again on the main road
+leading up to the Yangtze Valley. The author was the first Britisher to
+go from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Chao-t'ong-fu, and as I write, as late as the
+middle of July, 1910, I am of the opinion that it is unwise to travel
+over this road for a long time to come, unless it is absolutely
+imperative to do so. At Kiang-ti I had considerable trouble in getting
+a place to sleep, and I was glad when I had passed Tao-ueen.
+
+At the invitation of missionaries working among them, I then spent some
+months in residence and travel in Miaoland, and only regret that an
+extended account of my experiences is not possible.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote N: July, 1910.]
+
+[Footnote O: The local name for the Yangtze.]
+
+[Footnote P: This Liu was a remarkable man, quite unlike the average
+mandarin. He got the name of Liu Ma Pang, a disrespectful term, meaning
+that he was fond of using the stick. On a journey towards Chao-t'ong,
+some years ago, he went on ahead of his retinue of men and horses, and
+arriving at an inn at Tong-ch'uan-fu, asked the _ta si fu_--the general
+factotum--for the best room, and proceeded to walk into it. "No you
+don't," yelled the _ta si fu_, "that's reserved for Liu Ma Pang, and
+you're not to go in there." After some time Liu's men arrived, and
+calling one or two, he said, "Take this man" (pointing to the surprised
+_ta si fu_) "and give him a sound thrashing." He stood by and saw the
+whacking administered, after which he said, "That's for speaking
+disrespectfully of a mandarin." Then, "Give him a thousand cash,"
+adding, "That's for knowing your business."
+
+Some years ago Liu was the means of saving the life of the late Mr.
+Litton (mentioned later in this book), at the time he was British Consul
+at Tengyueh, when there was fighting down in the south of Yuen-nan with
+the Wa's.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote Q: He was captured some months afterwards, I believe, at
+Mengtsz.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE TRIBES OF NORTH-EAST YUeN-NAN, AND MISSION WORK AMONG THEM
+
+
+Men who came through Yuen-nan twenty years ago wrote of its doctors and
+its medicines, its poverty and its infanticide. There seemed little else
+to speak of.
+
+Although the tribes were here then--and in a rawer state even then than
+they are at the present time--little was known about them, and men had
+not yet developed the cult of putting their opinions upon this most
+absorbing topic into print. To-day, however, scores of men in Europe are
+eagerly devouring every line of copy they can get hold of bearing upon
+this fascinating ethnological study. Missionaries are plagued by
+inquiries for information respecting the tribes of Western China, and it
+is a curious feature of the situation that, with each article or book
+coming before the public contradiction follows contradiction, and very
+few people--not even those resident in the areas and working among the
+tribes--can agree absolutely upon any given points in their data. The
+numerous non-Chinese tribes I met in China formed one of the most
+interesting, and at the same time most bewildering, features of my
+travel; and I can quite agree with Major H.R. Davies,[R] who tackles the
+tribe question with considerable ability in his book on Yuen-nan, when he
+says that it is safe to assert that in hardly any part of the world is
+there such a large variety of languages and dialects as are to be found
+in the country which lies between Assam and the eastern border of
+Yuen-nan, and in the Indo-Chinese countries to the north of that region.
+The reason for it is generally ascribed to the physical characteristics
+of the country, the high mountain ranges and deep, swift-flowing rivers,
+which have brought about the differences in customs and language and the
+innumerable tribal distinctions so perplexing to him who would put
+himself in the position of an inquirer into Indo-Chinese ethnology. I
+know more than one gentleman in Yuen-nan at the present moment having
+under preparation manuscript upon this subject intended for subsequent
+publication, and I feel sure that their efforts will add valuable
+information to the all too limited supply now obtainable. In the
+meantime, I print my own impressions.
+
+I should like it to be known here, however, that I do not in any way
+whatsoever put myself forward as an authority on the question. I had
+not, at the time this was written, laid myself out to make any study of
+the subject. But the fact that I have lived in North-East Yuen-nan for a
+year and a half, and have traveled from one end of the province to the
+other, in addition to having come across tribes of people in Szech'wan,
+may justify me in the eyes of the reader for placing on record my own
+impressions as a general contribution to this most exciting discussion.
+I also lived at Shih-men-K'an (mentioned in the last chapter), among the
+Hua Miao for several months, traveled fairly considerably in the
+unsurveyed hill country where they live, and am the only man, apart from
+two missionaries, who has ever been over that wonderful country lying to
+the extreme north-east of Yuen-nan. One trip I made, extending over three
+weeks, will ever remain with me as a memorable time, but I regret that I
+have no space in this volume for even the merest reference to my
+journey.
+
+Some of my friends in China might say sarcastically that mankind is
+destined to arrive at years of discretion, and that I should have known
+better than to include in my book anything, however well founded, of a
+nature tending to continue the wordy strife touching this vexed question
+of Mission Work, and that no matter how strikingly set forth, this is an
+old and obsolete story, fit only to be finally done with. It is for such
+to bear with me in what I shall say. There are thousands of men in the
+West who are entirely ignorant of men in China other than the ordinary
+_Han Ren_, and if I enlighten them ever so little, then this chapter
+will have served an admirable end.
+
+In North-East Yuen-nan the tribes I came most in contact with were:--
+
+(i) The Miao or Miao-tze, as the Chinese call them; or the Mhong or
+Hmao, as they call themselves.
+
+(ii) The I-pien (or E-pien), as the Chinese call them; or the Nou Su (or
+Ngo Su), as they call themselves.
+
+Probably the Nou Su tribes are what Major Davies calls the Lolo Group in
+his third division of the great Tibeto-Burman Family; but I merely
+suggest it, as it strikes me that the other branches of that group,
+including the Li-su, the La-hu, and the Wo-ni, seem to be descendants of
+a larger group, of which the Nou Su predominate in numbers, language,
+and customs. However, this by the way.
+
+It may not be common knowledge that in most parts of the Chinese Empire,
+even to-day, there are tribes of people, essentially non-Chinese, who
+still rigidly maintain their independence, governed by their own native
+rulers as they were probably forty centuries ago, long before their
+kingdoms were annexed to China Proper. There are white bones and black
+bones, noses long and flattened, eyes straight and oblique, swarthy
+faces, faces yellow and white, coal-black and brown hair, and many
+other physical peculiarities differentiating one tribe from another.
+
+In many instances, these tribes, conquered slowly by the encroaching
+Chinese during the long and tedious term of centuries marking the growth
+of the Chinese Empire to its present immensity, are allowed to maintain
+their social independence under their own chiefs, who are subject to the
+control of the Government of China--which means that excessive taxation
+is paid to the _yamen_ functionary, who extorts money from anybody and
+everybody he can get into his clutches, and then gives a free hand.
+Others, in a further state of civilization, have been gradually absorbed
+by the Chinese and are now barely distinguishable from the _Han Ren_
+(the Chinese). And others, again, adopting Chinese dress, customs and
+language, would give the traveler a rough time of it were he to suggest
+that they are any but pure Chinese. To the ethnological student, it is
+obvious that so soon as the Chinese have tyrannized sufficiently and in
+their own inimitable way preyed upon these feudal landlords enough to
+warrant their lands being confiscated, reducing a tribe to a condition
+in which, far removed from districts where co-tribesmen live, they have
+no _status_, the aboriginals throw in their lot gradually with the
+Chinese, and to all intents and purposes become Chinese in language,
+customs, trade and life. This absorption by the Chinese of many tribes,
+stretching from the Burmese border to the eastern parts of Szech'wan,
+whilst an interesting study, shows that the onward march of civilization
+in China will sweep all racial relicts from the face of this great
+awakening Empire.
+
+But at the same time there are many branches of a tribal family, some
+found as far west as British Burma and all more or less scattered and
+disorganized as the result of this silent oppression going on through
+the years, who still are ambitious of preserving their independent
+isolation, particularly in sparsely-populated spheres far removed from
+political activity. So remote are the districts in which these
+principalities are found, that the Chinese themselves are entirely
+ignorant of the characteristics of these tribes. They say of one tribe
+which is scattered all over China Far West that they all have tails; and
+of another tribe that the men and women have two faces! And into the
+official records published by the Imperial Government the grossest
+inaccuracies creep concerning the origin of these peoples.
+
+Yuen-nan and Szech'wan--and a great part of Kwei-chow in the main still
+untouched by the increased taxation necessary to provide revenue to
+uphold the reforms brought about by the forward movement in various
+parts of the Empire--are where the aboriginal population is most
+evident. This part of the Empire might be called the ethnological garden
+of tribes and various races in various stages of uncivilization. These
+secluded mountain areas, their unaltered conditions still telling forth
+the story of the world's youth, have been the cradle and the death-bed
+of nations, of vigorous and ambitious tribes bent on conquest and a
+career of glory.
+
+
+THE MIAO
+
+Of the Miao, with its various sections, we know a good deal. Their real
+home has been pretty finally decided to be in Kwei-chow province, and
+they probably in former times extended far into Hu-nan, the Chinese of
+these provinces at the present time having undoubtedly a good deal of
+Miao blood in their veins. They are comparatively recent arrivals in
+Yuen-nan, but are gradually extending farther and farther to the west,
+maintaining their language and their dress and customs. I personally
+found them as far west as thirty miles beyond Tali-fu, a little off the
+main road, but Major Davies found them far up on the Tibetan border. He
+says: "The most westerly point that I have come across them is the
+neighborhood of Tawnio (lat. 23 deg. 40', long. 98 deg. 45'). Through Central
+and Northern Yuen-nan they do not seem to exist, but they reappear again
+to the north of this in Western Szech'wan, where there are a few
+villages in the basin of the Yalung River (lat. 28 deg. 15', long. 101 deg.
+40')."
+
+The Major was evidently ignorant of this Miao district of Chao-t'ong, to
+the north-east of the province. Stretching three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu right away on to Chao-t'ong, in a north line, Miao
+villages are met with fairly well the whole way; then, three days from
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, in a north-westerly direction, we come to the Miao
+village of Loh-In-shan; and then, striking south-west, through country
+absolutely unsurveyed part of the way, Sa-pu-shan is met. This last
+place is the headquarters of the China Inland Mission, where, at the
+present rate of progress, one might modestly estimate that in twenty
+years there will be no less than a million people receiving Christian
+teaching. These are not all Miao, however; there are besides La-ka,
+Li-su, and many other tribes with which we have no concern at the
+present moment.
+
+So that it may be seen that from Yuen-nan-fu, the capital, in areas on
+either side of the main road leading up to the bifurcation of the
+Yangtze below Sui-fu, in a long, narrow neck running between the River
+of Golden Sand and the Kwei-chow border, Miao are met with constantly.
+And then, of course, over the river, in Szech'wan, they are met with
+again, and in Kwei-chow, farther west, we have their real home.
+
+It is a far cry from Miao-land to Malaysia, but as I get into closer
+contact with the Miao people, the more do I find them in many common
+ways of everyday customs and points of character akin to the Malays and
+the Sakai (the jungle hill people of the Malay Peninsula), among whom I
+have traveled. Their modes of living contain many points in common.
+Ethnologists probably may smile at this assertion, the same as I, who
+have lived among the Miao, have smiled at a good deal which has come
+from the pens of men who have not.
+
+In this area there are two great branches of the Miao race:--
+
+(i) The Hua Miao--The Flowery (or White) Miao.
+
+(ii) The Heh Miao--The Black Miao.
+
+(Many photographs of the Hua Miao are reproduced in this volume.)
+
+The latter are considered as the superior of the two sections, speak a
+different tongue, and differ more or less widely in their methods, dress
+and customs, a study of which would lead one into a lifetime of
+interminable disquisitions, at the end of which one would be little more
+enlightened. Those who wish to study the question of inter-racial
+differences of the Miao are referred to Mr. Clarke's _Kwei-chow and
+Yuen-nan Provinces_, Prince Henri d'Orleans' _Du Tonkin aux Indes_, and
+Mr. Baber's works. Major Davies also gives some new information
+concerning this hill people, and is generally correct in what he says;
+but in his, as in all the books which touch upon the subject, the
+language tests vary considerably. In Chao-t'ong and the surrounding
+districts, for instance, the traveler would be unable to make any
+progress with the vocabulary which the Major has compiled. I was unable
+to make it tally with the spoken language of the people, and append a
+table showing the differences in the phonetic--and I do it with all
+respect to Major Davies. I ought to add that this is the language of the
+north-east corner of Yuen-nan; that of Major Davies is taken from page
+339 of his book. He says that the words given by him will not be found
+to correspond in every case with those in the Miao vocabulary in the
+pocket of the cover of his book, and some have been taken from other
+Miao dialects!. However, the comparison will be interesting:--
+
+                                               N-E. Yuen-nan
+    English Word          Major Davies's Miao      Miao
+
+    Man (human being)     Tan-neng, Tam-ming   Teh-neh.
+
+    Son                   To, T'am-t'ong       Tu.
+
+    Eye                   K'a-mwa, Mai         A-ma.
+
+    Hand                  Api                  Tee.
+
+    Cow                   Nyaw, Nga            Niu.
+
+    Pig                   Teng                 Npa.
+
+    Dog                   Klie, Ko             Klee.
+
+    Chicken               Ka, Kei              Ki.
+
+    Silver                Nya                  Nieh.
+
+    River                 Tiang                Glee.
+
+    Paddy                 Mblei                Nglee.
+
+    Cooked Rice           Mao                  Va.
+
+    Tree                  Ndong                Ntao.
+
+    Fire                  To                   Teh.
+
+    Wind                  Chwa, Chiang         Chta.
+
+    Earth                 Ta                   Ti.
+
+    Sun                   Hno, Nai             Hnu.
+
+    Moon                  Hla                  Hlee.
+
+    Big                   Hlo                  Hlo.
+
+    Come                  Ta                   Ta.
+
+    Go                    Mong                 Mao.
+
+    Drink                 Ho                   Hao.
+
+    One                   A, Yi                Ih.
+
+    Two                   Ao                   Ah.
+
+    Three                 Pie, Po              Tsz.
+
+    Four                  Pei, Plou            Glao.
+
+    Five                  Pa                   Peh.
+
+    Six                   Chou                 Glao.
+
+    Seven                 Shiang, I            Shiang.
+
+    Eight                 Yi, Yik              Yih.
+
+    Nine                  Chio                 Chia.
+
+    Ten                   Ch'it                Kao.
+
+The Miao language was until a year or two ago only spoken; it was never
+written, and no one ever dreamed that it could be written. At the time
+of the great Miao revival, when thousands of Miao made a raid on the
+mission premises at Chao-t'ong, and implored the missionaries to come
+and teach them, it was found absolutely necessary that the language
+should be reduced to writing, and the whole of this extremely creditable
+work fell to the Rev. Samuel Pollard, who may be characterized as the
+pioneer of this Christianizing movement in North-East Yuen-nan.
+
+In reducing the language to writing, however, considerable difficulty
+was complicated by the presence of "tones," so well known to all
+students of Chinese, itself said to be an invention of the Devil. Tones
+introduce another element or dimension into speech. The number of
+sounds, not being sufficient for the reproduction of all the spoken
+ideas, has been multiplied by giving these various sounds in different
+tones. It is as if the element of music were introduced according to
+rule into speech, and as if one had not only to remember the words in
+everything he wished to say, but the tune also.
+
+The Miao people being so low down in the intellectual scale, and having
+never been accustomed to study, it was felt by the promoters of the
+written language that they should be as simple as possible, and hence
+they looked about for some system which could be readily grasped by
+these ignorant people. It was necessary that the system be absolutely
+phonetic and understood easily. By adapting the system used in
+shorthand, of putting the vowel marks in different positions by the side
+of the consonant signs, Mr. Pollard and his assistant found that they
+could solve their problem. The signs for the consonants are larger than
+the vowel signs, and the position of the latter by the side of the
+former gives the tone or musical note required.
+
+At the present time there are thousands of Miao now able to read and
+write, and the work of this enterprising missionary has conferred an
+inestimable boon upon this people. When I went among the Miao I was
+able, after ten minutes' instruction, to stand up and sing their hymns
+and read their gospels with them. Miao women, who heretofore had never
+hoped to read, are now put in possession of the Word of God, and the
+simplicity of the written language enables them almost at once to read
+the Story of the Cross. Surely this is one of the outstanding features
+of mission work in the whole of China. I hope at some future date to
+publish a work devoted exclusively to my travels among the Hua Miao, for
+I feel that their story, no matter how simply written, is one of the
+great untold romances of the world. As a people, they are extremely
+fascinating in life and customs, emotional, large-hearted, and
+absolutely distinct from, with hardly a manner of daily life in common
+with, the Chinese.
+
+
+MISSION WORK AMONG THE MIAO
+
+Whilst referring to mission work, it is a great privilege for the writer
+to add a word of most deserved eulogy of the United Methodist Mission at
+Chao-t'ong and Tongi-ch'uan-fu, and to the kindness shown by the
+missionaries towards me when I came, an absolute stranger, among them in
+May, 1909. It is to two members of this Mission that I owe a life-long
+debt of gratitude, for it was Mr. and Mrs. Evans, of Tong-ch'uan-fu, who
+saved my life, a week or two after I left Chao-t'ong, as is recorded in
+a subsequent chapter.
+
+It was in the old days of the Bible Christian Mission--than which the
+individual members of no mission in the whole of China worked with more
+zeal and lower stipends--that a most interesting development in the
+mission took place.
+
+The mass of the Miao are the serfs of the descendants of their ancient
+kings, who are large landowners, and the Miao are tenants. In 1905 the
+Miao heard of the Gospel, and came to listen to the preaching, and
+thousands came in batches at one time and another to the mission house.
+Their movements thus aroused suspicion among the Chinese, there was a
+good deal of persecution and personal violence, and at one time it
+looked as if there might be serious trouble. But the danger quieted
+down. The chieftain gave land, the Miao contributed one hundred pounds
+sterling, and themselves put up a chapel large enough to accommodate six
+hundred people. A year later, a thousand at a time crowded their simple
+sanctuary, and in 1907 nearly six thousand were members or probationers,
+and the work has steadily progressed ever since.
+
+I am indebted to the Rev. H. Parsons, who had charge of the work at the
+time I passed through this district, and whose guest I was for several
+months, for the following interesting details regarding the methods
+adopted in the running of this enormous mission field. Mr. Parsons is
+assisted in his work by his genial wife, who is a most ardent worker,
+and a capable Miao linguist. Mrs. Parsons regularly addresses
+congregations of several hundreds of Miao, and has traveled on journeys
+often with her husband; and such work as hers, with several others in
+this mission, is a testimony to the wisdom of a system advocating the
+increase of the number of lady workers on the mission field in China.
+
+
+THE NOU-SU (OR I-PIEN)
+
+There is a class of people around Chao-t'ong who are called Nou-su, a
+people who, although occupying the Chao-t'ong Plain at the time the
+Chinese arrived, are believed not to be the aboriginals of the district.
+What I actually know about this people is not much. I have heard a good
+deal, but it must not be understood that I publish this as absolutely
+the final word. People who have lived in the district for many years do
+not agree, so that for a mere traveler the task of getting infallible
+data would be quite formidable.
+
+No tribe is more widely known than the Nou-su, with their innumerable
+tribal distinctions and hereditary peculiarities so perplexing to the
+inquirer into Far Western China ethnology.
+
+The Nou-su are a very fine, tall race, with comparatively fair
+complexions, suggesting a mixture of Mongolian with some other
+straight-featured people. Of their origin, however, little can be
+vouched for, and with it we will have nothing to do here. But at the
+present time the Nou-su provide a good deal of interest from the fact
+that their power as tyrannic landlords and feudal chiefs is fast dying,
+and it may be that in a couple of decades, or a still shorter time, a
+people who, by obstinate self-reliance and great dislike to the Chinese,
+have remained unaffected by the absorbing spirit of the arbitrary
+Chinese, will have passed beyond the vale of personality. Even now,
+however, they own and rule enormous tracts of country (notably that part
+lying on the right bank of the River of Golden Sand) in north-east
+Yuen-nan. Some are very wealthy. One man may own vast tracts bigger than
+Yorkshire. In this tract there may be one hundred villages, all paying
+tribute to him and subject to the vagaries of his vilest despotism. From
+his tyranny his struggling tenantry have no redress. So long as the
+I-pien (the local name of the Nou-su) greases the palm of the squeezing
+Chinese mandarin in whose nominal control the district extends, he may
+run riot as he pleases. Social law and order are unknown, justice is a
+complete contradiction in terms, and whilst one is in the midst of it,
+it is difficult to realize that in China to-day--the China which all the
+world believes to be awakening--there exists a condition of things which
+will allow a man to torture, to plunder, to murder, and to indulge to
+the utmost degree the whims of a Neronic and devilish temperament.
+
+Slave trading is common. If a tenant cannot pay his tribute, he sells
+himself for a few taels and becomes the slave of his former landlord,
+and if he would save his head treads carefully.
+
+In the early days, when different clans were driven farther into the
+hills, they each clinched as much land as they could. In course of time,
+by petty quarrels, civil wars, and common feuds, the Nou-su were
+gradually thinned out. The Miao-tsi--the men of the hills and the serfs
+of the landlords, who four thousand years ago were a powerful race in
+their own kingdom--became the tenants of the Nou-su, whose rule is still
+marked by the grossest infamy possible to be practiced on the human
+race. All the methods of torture which in the old days were associated
+with the Chinese are still in vogue, in many cases in an aggravated
+form. I have personally seen the tortures, and have listened to the
+stories of the victims, but it would not bear description in print.
+
+It must not, however, be understood that to be a Nou-su is to be a
+landlord. By no means. For in the gradual process of the survival of the
+fittest, when the weaker landlords were murdered by their stronger
+compatriots and their lands seized, only a small percentage of the tribe
+in this area have been able to hold sway. However, wherever there are
+landlords in this part of the country, they are always Nou-su or
+Chinese. The Miao--or, at least, the Hua Miao, own no lands, and are
+body and soul in the tyrannic clutch of the tyrannic I-pien. Then,
+again, in the Nou-su tribe there are various hereditary distinctions
+enabling a man to claim caste advantage. There are the Black Bones, as
+they style themselves, the aristocrats of the race, and the White Bones,
+the lower breeds, who obey to the letter their wealthier brethren--or
+anybody who has authority over them.
+
+The Nou-su, who are a totally different race and a much better class
+than the Miao, are believed to have been driven from the Chao-t'ong
+Plain, preferring migration to fighting, and many trekked across the
+Yangtze (locally called the Kin-sha) river into country now marked on
+good maps as the Man-tze country. It appears that the following are the
+two important branches:--
+
+     (i) The Black (Na-su)--Farmers and landowners.
+
+     (ii) The White (Tu-su) Generally slaves.
+
+Other minor classes are:--
+
+     (i) The Lakes (or Red Nou-su)--Mostly blacksmiths.
+
+     (ii) The A-u-tsi Mostly felt-makers, who rightly or wrongly claim
+     relationship with the Chinese.
+
+     (iii) Another class, who are mostly basket-makers.
+
+The two great divisions, however, are the White and the Black. The
+latter class, themselves the owners of land, claim that all the White
+were originally slaves, and that those who are now free have escaped at
+some previous period from servitude. Men, as usual among such tribes,
+are scarcely distinguishable from the ordinary _Han Ren_. It is the
+women, with their peculiar head-dress and picturesque skirts, who
+maintain the distinguishing features of the race. For the most part, the
+Nou-su are not idolaters; no idols are in their houses. That portion of
+the tribe which migrated across the Yangtze, secure among the mountains,
+has never ceased to harass the Chinese, who now dwell on land which the
+Nou-su themselves once tilled, or at least inhabited; but they have been
+driven into remoter districts, and are only found away from the highways
+of Chinese travel. The race, too, is dying out--in this area at all
+events--and the Nou-su themselves reckon that their numbers have
+decreased by one-half during the last thirty years. This is one of the
+saddest facts. The insanitation of their dwellings, their rough diet,
+and frequent riotings in wine, opium and other evils, are quickly
+playing havoc in their ranks, giving the strong the opportunity of
+enriching themselves at the expense of the weak, with frequent fighting
+about the division of land.
+
+Europeans who can speak the language of the Nou-su are numbered on the
+fingers of one hand.
+
+To one who has traveled in this neighborhood for any length of time, it
+must be apparent that the unique method generally adopted by the Nou-su,
+that is, the landlord class, to get rich quickly is to kill off their
+next-door neighbor. The lives these men live with nothing but scandal
+and licentiousness to pass their time, are grossly and horribly wicked
+when viewed by the broadest-minded Westerner. They all live in fear of
+their lives, and are each afraid of the others, all entertaining a
+secret hatred, and all ever on the alert to devise some safe scheme to
+murder the owner of some land they are anxious of annexing to their
+own--and in the doing of the deed to save their own necks. If they
+succeed, they are accounted clever men. As I write, I hear of a man,
+quite a youngster, himself an exceedingly wealthy man, who killed his
+brother and confiscated his property with no compunction whatever. When
+tackled on the subject, he said he could do nothing else, for if he had
+not killed his brother his brother would have killed him
+
+Yet there is no sense of crime as we of the West understand it, and
+nothing is feared from the Chinese law. A man kills a slave, tortures
+him to death, and when the Chinese mandarin is appealed to, if he is at
+all, he looks wise and says, "I quite see your point, but I can do
+nothing. The murdered man was the landlord's slave," and, with a gentle
+wave of his three-inch finger-nail, he explains how a man may kill his
+slave, his wife, or his son--and the law can do nothing. That is, if he
+compensates the mandarin.
+
+A Nou-su looked upon a girl one day, when he was out collecting tribute.
+She was handsome, and he instructed his men to take her. She refused. A
+sum of one hundred ounces of silver was offered to anyone who would
+kidnap her and carry her off to his harem. Eventually he got the girl,
+and had her father tortured and then put to death because he would not
+deliver his daughter over to him. Yet there is no redress.
+
+Nou-su women, their feet unbound, with high foreheads and well-cut
+features, with fiery eyes set in not unkindly faces, tall and healthy,
+would be considered handsome women in any country in Europe. They rarely
+intermarry with other tribes. A good deal of affection certainly exists
+sometimes between husband and wife and between parents and children, but
+the looseness of the marriage relation leads to unending strife.
+
+Many Europeans, travelers and missionaries, have been murdered in the
+country inhabited by the independent Lolo people. Although I have not
+personally been through any of that country, I have been on the very
+outskirts and have lived for a long time among the people there. I found
+them a pleasant hospitable race, fairly easy to get on with. And it must
+not be averred that, because they consider their natural enemy, the
+Chinese, the man to be robbed and murdered, and because they kill off
+their fellow-landlords in order the more quickly to get rich, that they
+treat all strangers alike. Among the Europeans who have suffered death
+at their hands, it is probable that in some way the cause was traceable
+to their own bearing towards the people--either a total lack of
+knowledge of their language or an attitude which caused suspicion.
+
+Among the Nou-su, strong as this feudal life still is, the Chinese are
+fast gaining permanent influence. Their dissolute and drunken and
+inhuman daily practices are tending to work out among this people their
+own destruction, and in years to come in this neighborhood the traveler
+will be perplexed at finding here and there a fine specimen of an
+upstanding Chinese, with clean-cut face, straight of feature and
+straight of limb, with a peculiar Mongol look about him. He will be one
+of the surviving specimens of a race of people, the Nou-su, whose
+forgotten historical records would do much to clear up the doubt
+attaching to Indo-China and Tibet-Burma ethnology.
+
+The first Nou-su chieftain to come to Chao-t'ong, a man who was renowned
+as a tryannical brute, was one Ien Tsang-fu, who frequently gouged out
+the eyes of those who disobeyed his commands; and his descendants are
+said to have inherited a good many of this tyrant's vices. The landlords
+prey upon their weaker brethren, and at last, with infinite sagacity,
+the Chinese Government steps in to stop the quarrels, confiscates the
+whole of the property, and thus reduces the Nou-su land to immediate
+control of Chinese authorities.
+
+"The Nou-su are, of course, entirely dependent upon the land for their
+living. They till the soil and rear cattle, and the greatest calamity
+that can come upon any family is that their land shall be taken from
+them. To be landless involves degradation as well as poverty, and very
+severe hardship is the lot of men who have been deprived of this means
+of subsistence. For those who own no land, but who are merely tenants of
+the Tu-muh,[S] there seems to be no security of tenure; but still, if
+the wishes and demands of the landlords are complied with, one family
+may till the same farm for many successive generations. The terms on
+which land is held are peculiar. The rental agreed upon is nominal.
+Large tracts of country are rented for a pig or a sheep or a fowl, with
+a little corn per year. Beside this nominal rent, the landlord has the
+right to make levies on his tenants on all special occasions, such as
+funerals, weddings, or for any other extraordinary expenses. He can also
+require his tenants with their cattle to render services. This system
+necessarily leads to much oppression and injustice. It is also said that
+if a family is hard pressed by a Tu-muh and reduced to extreme poverty,
+they will make themselves over to him on condition that a portion of his
+land be given them to cultivate. Such people are called caught slaves,
+as distinguished from hereditary, and the eldest children become the
+absolute property of the landlord and are generally given as attendants
+upon his wife and daughters.
+
+"Every farmer owns a large number of slaves, who live in the same
+compound as himself. These people do all the work of the farm, while the
+master employs himself as his fancy leads him. Over these unfortunate
+people the owner has absolute control. All their affairs are managed by
+him. His girl slaves he marries off to other men's slave boys, and
+similarly obtains wives for his male slaves. The lot of these
+unfortunate people is hard beyond description. Being considered but
+little more valuable than the cattle they tend, the food given to them
+is often inferior to the corn upon which the master's horse is fed. The
+cruel beatings and torturings they have been subject to have completely
+broken their spirit, and now they seem unable to exist apart from their
+masters. Very seldom do any of them try to escape, for no one will give
+them shelter, and the punishment awarded a recaptured slave is so severe
+as to intimidate the most daring. These poor folk are born in slavery,
+married in slavery, and they die in slavery. It is not uncommon to meet
+with Chinese slaves, both boys and girls, in Nou-su families. These have
+either been kidnapped and sold, or their parents, unable to nourish
+them, have bartered them in exchange for food. Their purchasers marry
+them to Tu-su, and their lot is thrown in with the slave class. One's
+heart is wrung with anguish sometimes as he thinks of what cruelty and
+wretchedness exist among the hills of this benighted district. Even
+here, however, light is beginning to shine, for some adherents of the
+Christian religion have changed their slaves into tenants, thus showing
+the way to the ultimate solution of this difficult problem.
+
+"The life in a Nou-su household is not very complex. The cattle are
+driven out early in the morning, as soon as the sun has risen. They
+remain out until the breakfast hour, and then return to the stables and
+rest during the heat of the day, going out again in the cool hours. The
+food of the household is prepared by the slaves, under the direction of
+the lady of the house. There is no refined cooking, for the Nou-su
+despises well-cooked food, and complains that it never satisfies him. He
+has a couplet which runs: 'If you eat raw food, you become a warrior; if
+you eat it cooked, you suffer hunger.' No chairs or tables are found in
+a genuine Nou-su house. The food is served up in a large bowl placed on
+the floor. The family sit around, and each one helps himself with a
+large wooden spoon. At the present time the refinements of Chinese
+civilization have been adopted by a large number of Nou-su, and the
+homes of the wealthier people are as well furnished as those of the
+middle-class Chinese of the district. The women of the households also
+spend much time making their own and their children's clothes. The men
+have adopted Chinese dress, but the women, in most cases, retain their
+tribal costume with its large turban-like head-dress, its plaited skirt
+and intricately embroidered coat. All this is made by hand, and the
+choicest years of maidenhood are occupied in preparing the clothes for
+the wedding-day.
+
+"The Nou-su, it would seem, used not to beg a wife, but rather obtained
+her by main force. At the present day, while the milder method generally
+prevails, there are still survivals of the ancient custom. The betrothal
+truly takes place very early, even in infancy, and at the ceremony a
+fowl is killed, and each contracting party takes a rib; but as the young
+folk grow to marriageable age, the final negotiations have to be made.
+These are purposely prolonged until the bridegroom, growing angry,
+gathers his friends and makes an attack on the maiden's home. Arming
+themselves with cudgels, they approach secretly, and protecting their
+heads and shoulders with their felt cloaks, they rush towards the house.
+Strenuous efforts are made by the occupants to prevent their entering,
+and severe blows are exchanged. When the attacking party has succeeded
+in gaining an entrance, peace is proclaimed, and wine and huge chunks of
+flesh are provided for their entertainment.
+
+"Occasionally during these fights the maiden's home is quite dismantled.
+The negotiations being ended, preparations are made to escort the bride
+to her future home. Heavily veiled, she is supported on horseback by her
+brothers, while her near relatives, all fully armed, attend her. On
+arriving at the house, a scuffle ensues. The veil is snatched from the
+bride's face by her relatives, who do their utmost to throw it on to the
+roof, thus signifying that she will rule over the occupants when she
+enters. The bridegroom's people on the contrary try to trample it upon
+the doorstep, as an indication of the rigor with which the newcomer will
+be subjected to the ruling of the head of the house. Much blood is shed,
+and people are often seriously injured in these skirmishes. The new
+bride remains for three days in a temporary shelter before she is
+admitted to the home. A girl having once left her parent's home to
+become a wife, waits many years before she pays a return visit.
+Anciently the minimum time was three years, but some allow ten or more
+years to elapse before the first visit home is paid. Two or three years
+are then often spent with the parents. Many friends and relatives attend
+any visitor, for with the Nou-su a large following is considered a sign
+of dignity and importance. When a child is born a tree is planted, with
+the hope that as the tree grows so also will the child develop.
+
+"The fear of disease lies heavily upon the Nou-su people, and their
+disregard of the most elementary sanitary laws makes them very liable to
+attacks of sickness. They understand almost nothing about medicine, and
+consequently resort to superstitious practices in order to ward off the
+evil influences. When it is known that disease has visited a neighbor's
+house, a pole, seven feet long, is erected in a conspicuous place in a
+thicket some distance from the house to be guarded. On the pole an old
+ploughshare is fixed, and it is supposed that when the spirit who
+controls the disease sees the ploughshare he will retire to a distance
+of three homesteads.
+
+"A fever called No-ma-dzi works great havoc among the Nou-su every year,
+and the people are very much afraid of it. No person will stay by the
+sick-bed to nurse the unfortunate victim. Instead, food and water are
+placed by his bedside and, covered with his quilt, he is left at the
+mercy of the disease. Since as the fever progresses the patient will
+perspire, heavy stones are placed on the quilt, that it may not be
+thrown off, and the sick person take cold. Many an unfortunate sufferer
+has through this strange practice died from suffocation. After a time
+the relatives will return to see what course the disease has taken. This
+fever seems to yield to quinine, for Mr. John Li has seen several
+persons recover to whom he had administered this drug. When a man dies,
+his relatives, as soon as they receive the news, hold in their several
+homes a feast of mourning called by them the Za. A pig or sheep is
+sacrificed at the doorway, and it is supposed that intercourse is thus
+maintained between the living persons and the late departed spirit. The
+near kindred, on hearing of the death of a relative, take a fowl and
+strangle it; the shedding of its blood is not permissible. This fowl is
+cleaned and skewered, and the mourner then proceeds to the house where
+the deceased person is lying, and sticks this fowl at the head of the
+corpse as an offering. The more distant relatives do not perform this
+rite, but each leads a sheep to the house of mourning, and the son of
+the deceased man strikes each animal three times with a white wand,
+while the Peh-mo (priest or magician) stands by, and announcing the
+sacrifice by calling 'so and so,' giving of course the name, presents
+the soft woolly offering.
+
+"Formerly the Nou-su burned their dead. Said a Nou-su youth to me years
+ago, 'The thought of our friends' bodies either turning to corruption or
+being eaten by wild beasts is distasteful to us, and therefore we burn
+our dead.' The corpse is burnt with wood, and during the cremation the
+mourners arrange themselves around the fire and chant and dance. The
+ashes are buried, and the ground leveled. This custom is still adhered
+to among the Nou-su of the independent Lolo territory or more correctly
+Papu country of Western Szech'wan. The tribesmen who dwell in the
+neighborhood of Weining and Chao-t'ong have adopted burial as the means
+of disposing of their dead, adding some customs peculiar to themselves.
+
+"On the day of the funeral the horse which the deceased man was in the
+habit of riding is brought to the door and saddled by the Pehmo. The
+command is then given to lead the horse to the grave. All the mourners
+follow, and marching or dancing in intertwining circles, cross and
+recross the path of the led horse until the poor creature, grown frantic
+with fear, rushes and kicks in wild endeavor to escape from the
+confusion. The whole company then raise a great shout and call, 'The
+soul has come to ride the horse, the soul has come to ride the horse.' A
+contest then follows among the women of the deceased man's household for
+the possession of this horse, which is henceforth regarded as of extreme
+value. It is difficult to discover much about the religion of the
+Nou-su, because so many of their ancient customs have fallen into disuse
+during the intercourse of the people with the Chinese. At the
+ingathering of the buckwheat, when the crop is stacked on the threshing
+floor, and the work of threshing is about to begin, the simple formula,
+'Thank you, Ilsomo,' is used. Ilsomo seems to be a spirit who has
+control over the crops; whether good or evil, it is not easy to
+determine. Ilsomo is not God, for at present, when the Nou-su wish to
+speak of God, they use the word Soe, which means Master.
+
+"In the independent territory of the Nou-su, to the west of Szech'wan,
+the term used for God is Eh-nia, and a Nou-su who has much intercourse
+with the independent people contends that there are three names
+indicative of God, each representing different functions if not persons
+of the Godhead. These names are: Eh-nia, Keh-neh, Um-p'a-ma. The Nou-su
+believe in ancestor worship, and perhaps the most interesting feature of
+their religion is the peculiar form this worship takes. Instead of an
+ancestral tablet such as the Chinese use, the Nou-su worship a small
+basket (lolo) about as large as a duck's egg and made of split bamboo.
+This 'lolo' contains small bamboo tubes an inch or two long, and as
+thick as an ordinary Chinese pen handle. In these tubes are fastened a
+piece of grass and a piece of sheep's wool. A man and his wife would be
+represented by two tubes, and if he had two wives, an extra tube would
+be placed in the 'lolo.' At the ceremony of consecration the Pehmo
+attends, and a slave is set apart for the purpose of attending to all
+the rites connected with the worship of the deceased person. The 'lolo'
+is sometimes placed in the house, but more often on a tree in the
+neighborhood or it may be hidden in a rock. For persons who are
+short-lived, the ancestral 'lolo' is placed in a crevice in the wall of
+some forsaken and ruined building. Every three years the 'lolo' is
+changed, and the old one burnt. The term 'lolo,' by which the Nou-su are
+generally known, is a contemptuous nickname given them by the Chinese in
+reference to this peculiar method of venerating their ancestors.
+
+"Hill worship is another important feature of Nou-su religious life.
+Most important houses are built at the foot of a hill and sacrifice is
+regularly offered on the hill-side in the fourth month of each year. The
+Pehmo determines which is the most propitious day, and the Tumuh and his
+people proceed to the appointed spot. A limestone rock with an old tree
+trunk near is chosen as an altar, and a sheep and pig are brought
+forward by the Tumuh. The Pehmo, having adjusted his clothes, sits
+cross-legged before the altar, and begins intoning his incantations in a
+low muttering voice. The sacrifice is then slain, and the blood poured
+beneath the altar, and a handful of rice and a lump of salt are placed
+beneath the stone. Some person then gathers a bundle of green grass, and
+the Pehmo, having finished intoning, the altar is covered, and all
+return to the house. The Pehmo then twists the grass into a length of
+rope, which he hangs over the doorway of the house. Out of a piece of
+willow a small arrow is made, and a bow similar in size is cut out of a
+peach tree. These are placed on the doorposts. On a piece of soft white
+wood a figure of a man is roughly carved, and this, with two sticks of
+any soft wood placed cross-wise, is fastened to the rope hanging over
+the doorway, on each side of which two small sticks are placed. The
+Pehmo then proceeds with his incantation, muttering: 'From now,
+henceforth and for ever will the evil spirits keep away from this
+house.'
+
+"Most Nou-su at the present time observe the New Year festival on the
+same date and with the same customs as the Chinese. Formerly this was
+not so, and even now in the remoter districts New Year's day is observed
+on the first day of the tenth month of the Chinese year. A pig and sheep
+are killed and cleaned, and hung in the house for three days. They are
+then taken down, cut up and cooked. The family sit on buckwheat straw in
+the middle of the chief room of the house. The head of the house invites
+the others to drink wine, and the feasting begins. Presently one will
+start singing, and all join in this song: 'How firm is this house of
+mine. Throughout the year its hearth fire has not ceased to burn, My
+food corn is abundant, I have silver and also cash, My cattle have
+increased to herds, My horses and mules have all white foreheads K'o K'o
+Ha Ha Ha Ha K'o K'o, My sons are filial, My wife is virtuous, In the
+midst of flesh and wine we sleep, Our happiness reaches unto heaven,
+Truly glorious is this glad New Year.' A scene of wild indulgence then
+frequently follows.
+
+"The Nou-su possess a written language. Their books were originally made
+of sheepskin, but paper is now used. The art of printing was unknown,
+and many books are said to have been lost. The books are illustrated,
+but the drawings are extremely crude."[T]
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote R: _Yuen-nan, The Link between India, and the Yangtze_, by
+Major H.R. Davies, Cambridge University Press.]
+
+[Footnote S: Literally "Eyes of the Earth"--the landlords.]
+
+[Footnote T: A good deal of information in this chapter was obtained
+from an article by the Rev. C E Hicks, published in the _Chinese
+Recorder_ for March, 1910. The portion quoted is taken bodily from this
+excellent article.]
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY.
+
+CHAO-T'ONG-FU TO TONG-CH'UAN-FU.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+_Revolting sights compensated for by scenery_. _Most eventful day in the
+trip_. _Buying a pony, and the reason for its purchase_. _Author's pony
+kicks him and breaks his arm_. _Chastising the animal, and narrow escape
+from death_. _Rider and pony a sorry sight_. _An uneasy night_.
+_Reappearance of malaria_. _Author nearly forced to give in_. _Heavy
+rain on a difficult road_. _At Ta-shui-tsing_. _Chasing frightened pony
+in the dead of night_. _Bad accommodation_. _Lepers and leprosy_.
+_Mining_. _At Kiang-ti_. _Two mandarins, and an amusing episode_.
+_Laying foundation of a long illness_. _The Kiang-ti Suspension Bridge_.
+_Hard climbing_. _Tiffin in the mountains_. _Sudden ascents and
+descents_. _Description of the country_. _Tame birds and what they do_.
+_A non-enterprising community_. _Pleasant travelling without perils_.
+_Majesty of the mountains of Yuen-nan_.
+
+
+Whilst in this district, as will have been seen, one has to steel
+himself to face some of the most revolting sights it is possible to
+imagine, he is rewarded by the grandeur of the scenic pictures which
+mark the downward journey to Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+
+The stages to Tong-ch'uan-fu were as follows:--
+
+                            Length of   Height above
+                              stage      sea level
+
+    1st day   T'ao-ueen         70 li.      ---- ft.
+    2nd day   Ta-shui-tsing    30 "       9,300 ft.
+    3rd day   Kiang-ti         40 "       4,400 "
+    4th day   Yi-che-shin      70 "       6,300 "
+    5th day   Hong-shih-ai     90 "       6,800 "
+    6th day   Tong-ch'uan-fu   60 "       7,250 "
+
+The Chao-t'ong plateau, magnificently level, runs out past the
+picturesquely-situated tower of Wang-hai-leo, from which one overlooks a
+stretch of water. A memorial arch, erected by the Li family of
+Chao-t'ong-fu, graces the main road farther on, and is probably one of
+the best of its kind in Yuen-nan, comparing favorably with the best to be
+found in Szech'wan, where monumental architecture abounds. Perhaps the
+only building of interest in Chao-t'ong is the ancestral hall of the
+wealthy family mentioned above, the carving of which is magnificent.
+
+At the end of the first day we camped at the Mohammedan village of
+T'ao-ueen, literally "Peach Garden," but the peach trees might once have
+been, though now certainly they are not.
+
+It was cold when we left, 38 deg. F., hard frost. All the world seemed
+buttoned up and great-coated; the trees seemed wiry and cheerless; the
+legs of the pack-horses seemed brittle, and I felt so. Breath issued
+visibly from the mouth as I trudged along. My boy and I nearly came to
+blows in the early morning. I wanted to lie on; he did not. If he could
+not entertain himself for half an hour with his own thoughts, I, who
+could, thought it no fault of mine. I was a reasoning being, a rational
+creature, and thought it a fine way of spending a sensible, impartial
+half-hour. But I had to get up, and then came the benumbed fingers, a
+quivering body, a frozen towel, and a floor upon which the mud was
+frozen stiff. Little did he know that he was pulling me out to the most
+eventful and unfortunate day of my trip.
+
+At Chao-t'ong I had bought a pony in case of emergency--one of those
+sturdy little brutes that never grow tired, cost little to keep, and are
+unexcelled for the amount of work they can get through every day in the
+week. Its color was black, a smooth, glossy black--the proverbial dark
+horse--and when dressed in its English saddle and bridle looked even
+smart enough for the use of the distinguished traveler, who smiled the
+smile of pleasant ownership as it was led on in front all day long,
+seeming to return a satanic grin for my foolishness at not riding it.[U]
+
+The first I saw of it was when it was standing full on its hind legs
+pinning a man between the railings and a wall in a corner of the mission
+premises. It looked well. Truly, it was a blood beast!
+
+On the second day out, whilst walking merrily along in the early
+morning, the little brute lifted its heels, lodged them most precisely
+on to my right forearm with considerable force--more forceful than
+affectionate--sending the stick which I carried thirty feet from me up
+the cliffs. The limb ached, and I felt sick. My boy--he had been a
+doctor's boy on one of the gunboats at Chung-king--thought it was
+bruised. I acquiesced, and sank fainting to a stone. On the strength of
+my boy's diagnosis we rubbed it, and found that it hurt still more. Then
+diving into a cottage, I brought out a piece of wood, three inches wide
+and twenty inches long, placed my arm on it, bade my boy take off one of
+my puttees from one of my legs, used it as a bandage, and trudged on
+again.
+
+Not realizing that my arm was broken, in the evening I determined to
+chastise the animal in a manner becoming to my disgust. Mounting at the
+foot of a long hill, I laid on the stick as hard as I could, and found
+that my pony had a remarkable turn of speed. At the brow of the hill was
+a twenty-yard dip, at the base of which was a pond.
+
+Down, down, down we went, and, despite my full strength (with the left
+arm) at its mouth, the pony plunged in with a dull splash, only to find
+that his feet gave way under him in a clay bottom. He could not free
+himself to swim. Farther and farther we sank together, every second
+deeper into the mire, when just at the moment I felt the mud clinging
+about my waist, and I had visions of a horrible death away from all who
+knew me, I plunged madly to reach the side.
+
+With one arm useless, it is still to me the one great wonder of my life
+how I escaped. Nothing short of miraculous; one of the times when one
+feels a special protection of Providence surrounding him.
+
+Pulling the beast's head, after I had given myself a momentary shake, I
+succeeded in making him give a mighty lurch--then another--then another,
+and in a few seconds, after terrible struggling, he reached the bank. We
+made a sorry spectacle as we walked shamefacedly back to the inn, under
+the gaze of half a dozen grinning rustics, where my man was preparing
+the evening meal.
+
+In the evening, on the advice of my general confidential companion, I
+submitted to a poultice being applied to my arm. It was bruised, so we
+put on the old-fashioned, hard-to-be-beaten poultice of bread. Whilst it
+was hot it was comfortable; when it was cold, I unrolled the bandage,
+threw the poultice to the floor, and in two minutes saw glistening in
+the moonlight the eyes of the rats which ate it.
+
+Then I bade sweet Morpheus take me; but, although the pain prevented me
+from sleeping, I remember fainting. How long I lay I know not.
+Shuddering in every limb with pain and chilly fear, I at length awoke
+from a long swoon. Something had happened, but what? There was still the
+paper window, the same greasy saucer of thick oil and light being given
+by the same rush, the same rickety table, the same chair on which we had
+made the poultice--but what had happened? I rubbed my aching eyes and
+lifted myself in a half-sitting posture--a dream had dazzled me and
+scared my senses. And then I knew that it was malaria coming on again,
+and that I was once more her luckless victim.
+
+Malignant malaria, mistress of men who court thee under tropic skies,
+and who, like me, are turned from thee bodily shattered and whimpering
+like a child, how much, how very much hast thou laid up for thyself in
+Hades!
+
+Thank Heaven, I had superabundant energy and vitality, and despite
+contorted and distorted things dancing haphazard through my fevered
+brain, I determined not to go under, not to give in. My mind was a
+terrible tangle of combinations nevertheless--intricate, incongruous,
+inconsequent, monstrous; but still I plodded on. For the next four days,
+with my arm lying limp and lifeless at my side, and with recurring
+attacks of malaria, I walked on against the greatest odds, and it was
+not till I had reached Tong-ch'uan-fu that I learnt that the limb was
+fractured. Men may have seen more in four days and done more and risked
+more, but I think few travelers have been called upon to suffer more
+agony than befell the lot of the man who was crossing China on foot.
+
+From T'ao-ueen there is a stiff ascent, followed by a climb up steep
+stone steps and muddy mountain banks through black and barren country.
+The morning had been cold and frosty, but rain came on later, a thick,
+heavy deluge, which swished and swashed everything from its path as one
+toiled painfully up those slippery paths, made almost unnegotiable. But
+my imagination and my hope helped me to make my own sunshine. There is
+something, I think, not disagreeable in issuing forth during a good
+honest summer rain at home with a Burberry well buttoned and an umbrella
+over one's head; here in Yuen-nan a coat made it too uncomfortable to
+walk, and the terrific wind would have blown an umbrella from one's
+grasp in a twinkling. If we are in the home humor, in the summer, we do
+not mind how drenching the rain is, and we may even take delight in
+getting our own legs splashed as we glance at the "very touching
+stockings" and the "very gentle and sensitive legs" of other weaker ones
+in the same plight. But here was I in a gale on the bleakest tableland
+one can find in this part of Yuen-nan, and a sorry sight truly did I make
+as I trudged "two steps forward, one step back" in my bare feet, covered
+only with rough straw sandals, with trousers upturned above the knee,
+with teeth chattering in malarial shivers, endeavoring between-times to
+think of the pouring deluge as a benignant enemy fertilizing fields,
+purifying the streets of the horrid little villages in which we spent
+our nights, refreshing the air!
+
+Shall I ever forget the day?
+
+Just before sundown, drenched to the skin and suffering horribly from
+the blues, we reached one single hut, which I could justly look upon as
+a sort of evening companion; for here was a fire--albeit, a green wood
+fire--which looked gladly in my face, talked to me, and put life and
+comfort and warmth into me for the ten li yet remaining of the day's
+hard journey.
+
+And at night, about 8:30 p.m., we at last reached the top of the hill,
+actually the summit of a mountain pass, at the dirty little village of
+Ta-shui-tsing. Not for long, however, could I rest; for I heard yells
+and screams and laughs. That pony again! Every one of my men were afraid
+of it, for at the slightest invitation it pawed with its front feet and
+landed man after man into the gutter, and if that failed it stood
+upright and cuddled them around the neck. Now I found it had
+run--saddle, bridle and all--and none volunteered to chase. So at 9:30,
+weary and bearing the burden of a terrible day, which laid the
+foundation of a long illness to be recorded later, I found it my
+unpleasant duty to patrol the hill from top to bottom, lighting my
+slippery way with a Chinese lantern, chasing the pony silhouetted on
+the sky-line. Ta-shui-tsing is a dreary spot with no inn accommodation
+at all,[V] a place depopulated and laid waste, gloomy and melancholy. I
+managed, however, after promising a big fee, to get into a small
+mud-house, where the people were not unkindly disposed. I ate my food,
+slept as much as I could in the few hours before the appearing of the
+earliest dawn on the bench allotted to me, feeling thankful that to me
+had been allowed even this scanty lodging. But I could not
+conscientiously recommend the place to future travelers--a dirty little
+village with its dirty people and its dirty atmosphere. At the top of
+the pass the wind nearly removed my ears as I took a final glance at the
+mountain refuge. Mountains here run south-west and north-east, and are
+grand to look upon.
+
+The poorest people were lepers, the beggars were all dead long ago. In
+Yuen-nan province leprosy afflicts thousands, a disease which the
+Chinese, not without reason, dread terribly, for no known remedy exists.
+Burning the patient alive, which used often to be resorted to, is even
+now looked upon as the only true remedy. Cases have been known where the
+patient, having been stupefied with opium, has been locked in a house,
+which has then been set on fire, and its inmate cremated on the spot.
+
+Mining used to be carried on here, so they told me; but I was not long
+in concluding that, whatever was the product, it has not materially
+affected the world's output, nor had it greatly enriched the laborers in
+the field. When I got into civilization I found that coal of a
+sulphurous nature was the booty of ancient days. There may be coal yet,
+as is most probable, but the natives seemed far too apathetic and weary
+of life to care whether it is there or not.
+
+Passing Ta-shui-tsing, the descent narrows to a splendid view of dark
+mountain and green and beautiful valley. We were now traveling away from
+several ranges of lofty mountains, whose peaks appeared vividly above
+the drooping rain-filled clouds, onwards to a range immediately
+opposite, up whose slopes we toiled all day, passing _en route_ only one
+uninhabited hamlet, to which the people flee in time of trouble. After a
+weary tramp of another twenty-five li--the Yuen-nan li, mind you, the
+most unreliable quantity in all matters geographical in the country--I
+asked irritatedly, as all travelers must have asked before me, "Then, in
+the name of Heaven, where is Kiang-ti?"[W] It should come into view
+behind the terrible steep decline when one is within only about a
+hundred yards. It is roughly four thousand feet below Ta-shui-tsing.
+
+Kiang-ti is an important stopping place, with but one forlorn street,
+with two or three forlorn inns, the best of which has its best room
+immediately over the filthiest stables, emitting a stench which was
+almost unbearable, that I have seen in China. It literally suffocates
+one as it comes up in wafts through the wide gaps in the wood floor of
+the room. There are no mosquitoes here, but of a certain winged insect
+of various species, whose distinguishing characteristics are that the
+wings are transparent and have no cases or covers, there was a
+formidable army. I refer to the common little fly. There was the house
+fly, the horse fly, the dangerous blue-bottle, the impecunious blow fly,
+the indefatigable buzzer, and others. One's delicate skin got beset with
+flies: they got in one's ears, in one's eyes, up one's nose, down one's
+throat, in one's coffee, in one's bed; they bade fair to devour one
+within an hour or two, and brought forth inward curses and many swishes
+of the 'kerchief.
+
+The village seemed a death-trap.
+
+Glancing comprehensively at one another as I entered the higher end of
+the town, a party of reveling tea-drinkers hastily pulled some cash from
+their satchels to settle accounts, and made a general rush into the
+street, where they awaited noisily the approach of a strangely wondrous
+and imposing spectacle, one that had not been seen in those parts for
+many days. The tramper, tired as he could be, at length approached, but
+the crowd had increased so enormously that the road was completely
+blocked. Tradesmen with their portable workshops, pedlars with their
+cumbersome gear and pack-horses could not pass, but had to wait for
+their turn; there were not even any tortuous by-streets in this place
+whereby they might reach their destination. Children lost themselves in
+the crush, and went about crying for their mothers. A party of
+travelers, newly arrived from the south by caravan route, got wedged
+with their worn-out horses and mules in the thick of the mob, and could
+not move an inch. As far as the eye could reach the blue-clad throng
+heaved restlessly to and fro under the blaze of the brilliant sun which
+harassed everyone in the valley, and, moving slowly and majestically in
+the midst of them all, came the foreigner. As they caught sight of me,
+my sandalled feet, and the retinue following on wearily in the wake, the
+populace set up an ecstatic yell of ferocious applause and turned their
+faces towards the inn, in the doorway of which one of my soldier-men was
+holding forth on points of more or less delicacy respecting my good or
+bad nature and my British connection. At that moment, the huge human
+mass began to move in one predetermined direction, and then a couple of
+mandarins in their chairs joined the swarming rabble. I had to sit down
+on the step for five minutes whilst my boy, with commendable energy,
+cleared these two mandarins, who had come from Chen-tu and were on their
+way to the capital, out of the best room, because his master wanted it.
+
+As he finished speaking, there came a loud crashing noise and a
+shout--my pony had landed out just once again, and banged in one side of
+a chair belonging to these traveling officials. They met me with noisy
+and derisive greetings, which were returned with a straight and
+penetrating look.
+
+No less than fifty degrees was the thermometrical difference in
+Ta-shui-tsing and Kiang-ti. Here it was stifling. Cattle stood in
+stagnant water, ducks were envied, my room with the sun on it became
+intolerable, and I sought refuge by the river; my butter was too liquid
+to spread; coolies were tired as they rested outside the tea-houses,
+having not a cash to spend; my pony stood wincing, giving sharp shivers
+to his skin, and moving his tail to clear off the flies and his hind
+legs to clear off men. As for myself, I could have done with an iced
+soda or a claret cup.
+
+Very early in the morning, despite malaria shivers, I made my way over
+the beautiful suspension bridge which here graces the Niu Lan,[X] a
+tributary of the Yangtze, up to the high hills beyond.
+
+This bridge at Kiang-ti is one hundred and fifty feet by twelve,
+protected at one end by a couple of monkeys carved in stone, whilst the
+opposite end is guarded by what are supposed to be, I believe, a couple
+of lions--and not a bad representation of them either, seeing that the
+workmen had no original near at hand to go by.
+
+From here the ascent over a second range of mountains is made by
+tortuous paths that wind along the sides of the hills high above the
+stream below, and at other times along the river-bed. The river is
+followed in a steep ascent, a sort of climbing terrace, from which the
+water leaps in delightful cascades and waterfalls. A four-hour climb
+brings one, after terrific labor, to the mouth of the picturesque pass
+of Ya-ko-t'ang at 7,500 feet. In the quiet of the mountains I took my
+midday meal; there was about the place an awe-inspiring stillness. It
+was grand but lonely, weird rather than peaceful, so that one was glad
+to descend again suddenly to the river, tracing it through long
+stretches of plain and barren valley, after which narrow paths lead up
+again to the small village of Yi-che-shin, considerably below
+Ya-ko-t'ang. It is the sudden descents and ascents which astonish one in
+traveling in this region, and whether climbing or dropping, one always
+reaches a plain or upland which would delude one into believing that he
+is almost at sea-level, were it not for the towering mountains that all
+around keep one hemmed in in a silent stillness, and the rarefied air.
+Yi-che-shin, for instance, standing at this altitude of considerably
+over 6,000 feet, is in the center of a tableland, on which are numerous
+villages, around which the fragrance of the broad bean in flower and the
+splendid fertility now and again met with makes it extremely pleasant to
+walk--it is almost a series of English cottage gardens. Here the weather
+was like July in England--or what one likes to imagine July should be in
+England--dumb, dreaming, hot, lazy, luxurious weather, in which one
+should do as he pleases, and be pleased with what he does. As I toiled
+along, my useless limb causing me each day more trouble, I felt I should
+like to lie down on the grass, with stones 'twixt head and shoulders for
+my pillow, and repose, as Nature was reposing, in sovereign strength.
+But I was getting weaker! I saw, as I passed, gardens of purple and gold
+and white splendor; the sky was at its bluest, the clouds were full,
+snowy, mountainous.
+
+Then on again to varying scenes.
+
+Inns were not frequent, and were poor and wretched. The country was all
+red sandstone, and devoid of all timber, till, descending into a lovely
+valley, the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and then led out into a
+beautiful park all green and sweet. The country was full of color. It
+put a good taste in one's mouth, it impressed one as a heaven-sent means
+of keeping one cheerful in sad dilemma. The gardens, the fields, the
+skies, the mountains, the sunset, the light itself--all were full of
+color, and earth and heaven seemed of one opinion in the harmony of the
+reds, the purples, the drabs, the blacks, the browns, the bright blues,
+and the yellows. Birds were as tame as they were in the Great Beginning;
+they came under the table as I ate, and picked up the crumbs without
+fear. Peasant people sat under great cedars, planted to give shade to
+the travelers, and bade one feel at home in his lonely pilgrimage. Then
+one felt a peculiar feeling--this feeling will arise in any
+traveler--when, surmounting some hill range in the desert road, one
+descries, lying far below, embosomed in its natural bulwarks, the fair
+village, the resting-place, the little dwelling-place of men, where one
+is to sleep. But when towards nightfall, as the good red sun went down,
+I was led, weary and done-up, into one of the worst inns it had been my
+misfortune to encounter, a thousand other thoughts and feelings united
+in common anathema to the unenterprising community.
+
+Tea was bad, rice we could not get, and all night long the detestable
+smells from the wood fires choked our throats and blinded our eyes;
+glad, therefore, was I, despite the heavy rain, to take a hurried and
+early departure the next morning, descending a thousand feet to a river,
+rising quite as suddenly to a height of 8,500 feet.
+
+Now the road went over a mountain broad and flat, where traveling in the
+sun was extremely pleasant--or, rather, would have been had I been fit.
+Pack-horses, laden clumsily with their heavy loads of Puerh tea,
+Manchester goods, oil and native exports from Yuen-nan province, passed
+us on the mountain-side, and sometimes numbers of these willing but
+ill-treated animals were seen grazing in the hollows, by the wayside,
+their backs in almost every instance cruelly lacerated by the continuous
+rubbing of the wooden frames on which their loads were strapped. For
+cruelty to animals China stands an easy first; love of animals does not
+enter into their sympathies at all. I found this not to be the case
+among the Miao and the I-pien, however; and the tribes across the
+Yangtze below Chao-t'ong, locally called the Pa-pu, are, as a matter of
+fact, fond of horses, and some of them capable horsemen.
+
+The journey across these mountains has no perils. One may step aside a
+few feet with no fear of falling a few thousand, a danger so common in
+most of the country from Sui-fu downwards. The scenery is
+magnificent--range after range of mountains in whatever direction you
+look, nothing but mountains of varying altitudes. And the patches of
+wooded slopes, alternating with the red earth and more fertile green
+plots through which streams flow, with rolling waterfalls, picturesque
+nooks and winding pathways, make pictures to which only the gifted
+artist's brush could do justice. Often, gazing over the sunlit
+landscape, in this land "South of the Clouds," one is held spellbound by
+the intense beauty of this little-known province, and one wonders what
+all this grand scenery, untouched and unmarred by the hand of man, would
+become were it in the center of a continent covered by the ubiquitous
+globe-trotter.
+
+No country in the world more than West China possesses mountains of
+combined majesty and grace. Rocks, everywhere arranged in masses of a
+rude and gigantic character, have a ruggedness tempered by a singular
+airiness of form and softness of environment, in a climate favorable in
+some parts to the densest vegetation, and in others wild and barren. One
+is always in sight of mountains rising to fourteen thousand feet or
+more, and constantly scaling difficult pathways seven or eight or nine
+thousand feet above the sea. And in the loneliness of a country where
+nothing has altered very much the handiwork of God, an awe-inspiring
+silence pervades everything. Bold, grey cliffs shoot up here through a
+mass of verdure and of foliage, and there white cottages, perched in
+seemingly inaccessible positions, glisten in the sun on the colored
+mountain-sides. You saunter through stony hollows, along straight
+passes, traversed by torrents, overhung by high walls of rocks, now
+winding through broken, shaggy chasms and huge, wandering fragments, now
+suddenly emerging into some emerald valley, where Peace, long
+established, seems to repose sweetly in the bosom of Strength.
+Everywhere beauty alternates wonderfully with grandeur. Valleys close in
+abruptly, intersected by huge mountain masses, the stony water-worn
+ascent of which is hardly passable.
+
+Yes, Yuen-nan is imperatively a country first of mountains, then of
+lakes. The scenery, embodying truly Alpine magnificence with the minute
+sylvan beauty of Killarney or of Devonshire, is nowhere excelled in the
+length and breadth of the Empire.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote U: The incredulous of my readers may question, and rightly so,
+"Then where did he get his saddle?" So I must explain that I met just
+out of Sui-fu a Danish gentleman (also a traveler) who wished to sell a
+pony and its trappings. As I had the arrangement with my boy that I
+would provide him with a conveyance, and did not like the idea of seeing
+him continually in a chair and his wealthy master trotting along on
+foot, I bought it for my boy's use. He used the saddle until we reached
+Chao-t'ong.]
+
+[Footnote V: A new inn has been built since.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote W: Pronounced Djang-di. Famous throughout Western China for
+its terrible hill, one of the most difficult pieces of country in the
+whole of the west.]
+
+[Footnote X: This river, the Niu Lan, comes from near Yang-lin, one
+day's march from Yuen-nan-fu. It is being followed down by two American
+engineers as the probable route for a new railway, which it is proposed
+should come out to the Yangtze some days north of Kiang-ti.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+_Yuen-nan's chequered career_. _Switzerland of China_. _At
+Hong-sh[=i]h-ai_. _China's Golden Age in the past_. _The conservative
+instinct of the Chinese_. _How to quiet coolies_. _Roads_. _Dangers of
+ordinary travel in wet season_. _K'ung-shan and its mines_.
+_Tong-ch'uan-fu, an important mining centre_. _English and German
+machinery_. _Methods of smelting_. _Protestants and Romanists in
+Yuen-nan_. _Arrival at Tong-ch'uan-fu_. _Missionaries set author's broken
+arm_. _Trio of Europeans_. _Author starts for the provincial capital_.
+_Abandoning purpose of crossing China on foot_. _Arm in splints_. _Curious
+incident_. _At Lai-t'eo-po_. _Malaria returns_. _Serious illness of
+author_. _Delirium_. _Devotion of the missionaries_. _Death expected.
+Innkeeper's curious attitude_. _Recovery_. _After-effects of malaria.
+Patient stays in Tong-ch'uan-fu for several months_. _Then completes his
+walking tour_.
+
+
+Yuen-nan has had a checkered career ever since it became a part of the
+empire. In the thirteenth century Kublai Khan, the invincible warrior,
+annexed this Switzerland to China; and how great his exploits must have
+been at the time of this addition to the land of the Manchus might be
+gathered from the fact that all the tribes of the Siberian ice-fields,
+the deserts of Asia, together with the country between China and the
+Caspian Sea, acknowledged his potent sway--or at least so tradition
+says. She is sometimes right.
+
+My journey continuing across more undulating country brought me at
+length to Hong-shih-ai (Red Stone Cliff), a tiny hamlet hidden away
+completely in a deep recess in the mountain-side, settled in a narrow
+gorge, the first house of which cannot be seen until within a few yards
+of entry. Inn accommodation, as was usual, was by no means good. It is
+characteristic of these small places that the greater the traffic the
+worse, invariably, is the accommodation offered. Travelers are
+continually staying here, but not one Chinese in the population is
+enterprising enough to open a decent inn. They have no money to start it,
+I suppose.
+
+But it is true of the Chinese, to a greater degree than of any other
+nation, that their Golden Age is in the past. Sages of antiquity spoke
+with deep reverence of the more ancient ancients of the ages, and
+revered all that they said and did. And the rural Chinese to-day says
+that what did for the sages of olden times must do for him to-day. The
+conservative instinct leads the Chinese to attach undue importance to
+precedent, and therefore the people at Hong-shih-ai, knowing that the
+village has been in the same pitiable condition for generations, live by
+conservatism, and make no effort whatever to improve matters.
+
+Fire in the inn was kindled in the hollow of the ground. There was no
+ventilation; the wood they burned was, as usual, green; smoke was
+suffocating. My men talked well on into the night, and kept me from
+sleeping, even if pain would have allowed me to. I spoke strongly, and
+they, thinking I was swearing at them, desisted for fear that I should
+heap upon their ancestors a few of the reviling thoughts I entertained
+for them.
+
+I should like to say a word here about the roads in this province, or
+perhaps the absence of roads. They had been execrable, the worst I had
+met, aggravated by heavy rains. With all the reforms to which the
+province of Yuen-nan is endeavoring to direct its energies, it has not
+yet learned that one of the first assets of any district or country is
+good roads. But this is true of the whole of the Middle Kingdom. The
+contracted quarters in which the Chinese live compel them to do most of
+their work in the street, and, even in a city provided with but the
+narrowest passages, these slender avenues are perpetually choked by the
+presence of peripatetic vendors of every kind of article of common sale
+in China, and by itinerant craftsmen who have no other shop than the
+street. In the capital city of the province, even, it is a matter of
+some difficulty to the European to walk down the rough-paved street
+after a shower of rain, so slippery do the slabs of stone become; and he
+has to be alive always to the lumbering carts, whose wheels are more
+solid than circular, pulled by bullocks as in the days long before the
+dawn of the Christian Era. The wider the Chinese street the more abuses
+can it be put to, so that travel in the broad streets of the towns is
+quite as difficult as in the narrow alleys; and as these streets are
+never repaired, or very rarely, they become worse than no roads at
+all--that is, in dry weather.
+
+This refers to the paved road, which, no matter what its faults, is
+certainly passable, and in wet weather is a boon. There is, however,
+another kind of road--a mud road, and with a vengeance muddy.
+
+An ordinary mud or earth road is usually only wide enough for a couple
+of coolies to pass, and in this province, as it is often necessary
+(especially in the Yuen-nan-fu district) for one cart to pass another,
+the farmer, to prevent trespass on his crops, digs around them deep
+ditches, resembling those which are dug for the reception of gas mains.
+In the rainy season the fields are drained into the roads, which at
+times are constantly under water, and beyond Yuen-nan-fu, on my way to
+Tali-fu, I often found it easier and more speedy to tramp bang across a
+rice field, taking no notice of where the road ought to be. By the time
+the road has sunk a few feet below the level of the adjacent land, it is
+liable to be absolutely useless as a thoroughfare; it is actually a
+canal, but can be neither navigated nor crossed. There are some roads
+removed a little from the main roads which are quite dangerous, and it
+is not by any means an uncommon thing to hear of men with their loads
+being washed away by rivers where in the dry season there had been the
+roads.
+
+The great lines of Chinese travel, so often impassable, might be made
+permanently passable if the governor of a province chose to compel the
+several district magistrates along the line to see that these important
+arteries are kept free from standing water, with ditches in good order
+at all seasons. But for the village roads--during my travels over which
+I have come across very few that could from a Western standpoint be
+called roads--there is absolutely no hope until such time as the Chinese
+village may come dimly to the apprehension that what is for the
+advantage of the one is for the advantage of all, and that wise
+expenditure is the truest economy--an idea of which it has at the
+present moment as little conception as of the average thought of the
+Englishman.
+
+A hundred li to the east of Hong-shiih-ai, over two impassable mountain
+ranges, are some considerable mines, with antiquated brass and copper
+smelting works, and this place, K'ung-shan by name, with Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+forms an important center. As is well known, all copper of Yuen-nan goes
+to Peking as the Government monopoly, excepting the enormous amount
+stolen and smuggled into every town in the province.[Y]
+
+The smelting is of the roughest, though they are at the present moment
+laying in English machinery, and the Chinese in charge is under the
+impression that he can speak English; he, however, makes a hopeless
+jargon of it. This mining locality is sunk in the deepest degradation.
+Men and women live more as wild beasts than as human beings, and should
+any be unfortunate enough to die, their corpses are allowed to lie in
+the mines. Who is there that could give his time and energy to the
+removal of a dead man? Tong-ch'uan-fu should become an important town if
+the rich mineral country of which it is the pivot were properly opened
+up. Several times I have visited the works in this city, which, under
+the charge of a small mandarin from Szech'wan, can boast only the most
+primitive and inadequate machinery, of German make. A huge engine was
+running as a kind of pump for the accumulation of air, which was passed
+through a long thin pipe to the three furnaces in the outer courtyard.
+The furnaces were mud-built, and were fed with charcoal (the most
+expensive fuel in the district), the maximum of pure metal being only
+1,300 catties per day. The ore, which has been roughly smelted once, is
+brought from K'ung-shan, is finely smelted here, then conveyed most of
+the way to Peking by pack-mule, the expense in thus handling, from the
+time it leaves the mine to its destination at Peking, being several
+times its market value. Nothing but copper is sought from the ore, and a
+good deal of the gold and silver known to be contained is lost.
+
+I passed an old French priest as I was going to Tong-ch'uan-fu the next
+day. He was very pleased to see me, and at a small place we had a few
+minutes' chat whilst we sipped our tea. In Yuen-nan, I found that the
+Protestants and the Romanists, although seeing very little of each
+other, went their own way, maintaining an attitude of more or less
+friendly indifference one towards the other.
+
+The last day's march to Tong-ch'uan-fu is perhaps the most interesting
+of this stage of my journey. Climbing over boulders and stony steps, I
+reached an altitude of 8,500 feet, whence thirty li of pleasant going
+awaited us all the way to Lang-wang-miao (Temple of the Dragon King).
+Here I sat down and strained my eyes to catch the glimpse of the compact
+little walled city, where I hoped my broken arm would be set by the
+European missionaries. The traveler invariably hastens his pace here,
+expecting to run down the hill and across the plain in a very short
+space; but as the time passed, and I slowly wended my way along the
+difficult paths through the rice fields, I began to realize that I had
+been duped, and that it was farther than it seemed. Two blushing
+damsels, maids goodly to look upon, gave me the sweetest of smiles as I
+strode across the bodies of some fat pigs which roamed at large in the
+outskirts of the city, the only remembrance I have to mar the
+cleanliness of the place.
+
+At Tong-ch'uan-fu the Rev. A. Evans and his extremely hospitable wife
+set my arm and did everything they could--as much as a brother and
+sister could have done--to help me, and to make my short stay with them
+a most happy remembrance. It was, however, destined that I should be
+their guest for many months, as shall hereinafter be explained.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A trio of Europeans might have been seen on the morning of Monday, May
+10, 1909, leaving Tong-ch'uan-fu on the road to Yuen-nan-fu, whither the
+author was bound. Mr. and Mrs. Evans, who, as chance would have it, were
+going to Ch'u-tsing-fu, were to accompany me for two days before turning
+off in a southerly direction when leaving the prefecture.
+
+It was a fine spring morning, balmy and bonny. It was decided that I
+should ride a pony, and this I did, abandoning my purpose of crossing
+China on foot with some regret. I was not yet fit, had my broken arm in
+splints, but rejoiced that at Yuen-nan-fu I should be able to consult a
+European medical man. Comparatively an unproductive task--and perhaps a
+false and impossible one--would it be for me to detail the happenings of
+the few days next ensuing. I should be able not to look at things
+themselves, but merely at the shadow of things--and it would serve no
+profitable end.
+
+Suffice it to say that two days out, about midday, a special messenger
+from the capital stopped Mr. Evans and handed him a letter. It was to
+tell him that his going to Ch'u-tsing-fu would be of no use, as the
+gentleman he was on his way to meet would not arrive, owing to altered
+plans. After consulting his wife, he hesitated whether they should go
+back to Tong-ch'uan-fu, or come on to the capital with me. The latter
+course was decided upon, as I was so far from well--I learned this some
+time afterwards. And now the story need not be lengthened.
+
+At Lai-t'eo-po (see first section of the second book of this volume),
+malaria came back, and an abnormal temperature made me delirious. The
+following day I could not move, and it was not until I had been there
+six days that I was again able to be moved. During this time, Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans nursed me day and night, relieving each other for rest, in a
+terrible Chinese inn--not a single moment did they leave me. The third
+day they feared I was dying, and a message to that effect was sent to
+the capital, informing the consul. Meanwhile malaria played fast and
+loose, and promised a pitiable early dissolution. My kind, devoted
+friends were fearful lest the innkeeper would have turned me out into
+the roadway to die--the foreigner's spirit would haunt the place for
+ever and a day were I allowed to die inside.
+
+But I recovered.
+
+It was a graver, older, less exuberant walker across China that
+presently arose from his flea-ridden bed of sickness, and began to make
+a languid personal introspection. I had developed a new sensitiveness,
+the sensitiveness of an alien in an alien land, in the hands of
+new-made, faithful friends. Without them I should have been a waif of
+all the world, helpless in the midst of unconquerable surroundings,
+leading to an inevitable destiny of death. I seemed declimatized,
+denationalized, a luckless victim of fate and morbid fancy.
+
+It was malaria and her workings, from which there was no escape.
+
+Malaria is supposed by the natives of the tropic belt to be sent to
+Europeans by Providence as a chastening for the otherwise insupportable
+energy of the white man. Malignant malaria is one of Nature's
+watch-dogs, set to guard her shrine of peace and ease and to punish
+woeful intruders. And she had brought me to China to punish me. As is
+her wont, Nature milked the manhood out of me, racked me with aches and
+pains, shattered me with chills, scorched me with fever fires, pursued
+me with despairing visions, and hag-rode me without mercy. Accursed
+newspapers, with their accursed routine, came back to me; all the
+stories and legends that I had ever heard, all the facts that I had ever
+learnt, came to me in a fashion wonderfully contorted and distorted;
+sensations welded together in ghastly, brain-stretching conglomerates,
+instinct with individuality and personality, human but torturingly
+inhuman, crowded in upon me. The barriers dividing the world of ideas,
+sensations, and realities seemed to have been thrown down, and all
+rushed into my brain like a set of hungry foxhounds. The horror of
+effort and the futility of endeavor permeated my very soul. My weary,
+helpless brain was filled with hordes of unruly imaginings; I was
+masterless, panic-driven, maddened, and had to abide for weeks--yea,
+months--with a fever-haunted soul occupying a fever-rent and weakened
+body.
+
+At Yuen-nan-fu, whither I arrived in due course after considerable
+struggling, dysentery laid me up again, and threatened to pull me nearer
+to the last great brink. For weeks, as the guest of my friend, Mr. C.A.
+Fleischmann, I stayed here recuperating, and subsequently, on the advice
+of my medical attendant, Dr. A. Feray, I went back to Tong-ch'uan-fu,
+among the mountains, and spent several happy months with Mr. and Mrs.
+Evans.
+
+Had it not been for their brotherly and sisterly zeal in nursing me,
+which never flagged throughout my illness, future travelers might have
+been able to point to a little grave-mound on the hill-tops, and have
+given a chance thought to an adventurer whom the fates had handled
+roughly. But there was more in this than I could see; my destiny was
+then slowly shaping.
+
+Throughout the rains, and well on into the winter, I stayed with Mr. and
+Mrs. Evans, and then continued my walking tour, as is hereafter
+recorded.
+
+During this period of convalescence I studied the Chinese language and
+traveled considerably in the surrounding country. Tong-ch'uan-fu is a
+city of many scholars, and it was not at all difficult for me to find a
+satisfactory teacher. He was an old man, with a straggly beard, about 70
+years of age, and from him I learned much about life in general, in
+addition to his tutoring in Chinese. I had the advantage also of close
+contact with the missionaries with whom I was living, and on many
+occasions was traveling companion of Samuel Pollard, one of the finest
+Chinese linguists in China at that time. So that with a greatly
+increased knowledge of Chinese, I was henceforth able to hold my own
+anywhere. During this period, too, many days were profitably passed at
+the Confucian Temple, a picture of which is given in this volume.
+
+END OF BOOK I.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote Y: In the capital there is a street called "Copper Kettle
+Lane," where one is able to buy almost anything one wants in copper and
+brass. Hundreds of men are engaged in the trade, and yet it is
+"prohibited." These "Copper Kettle Lanes" are found in many large
+cities.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+BOOK II.
+
+
+The second part of my trip was from almost the extreme east to the
+extreme west of Yuen-nan--from Tong-ch'uan-fu to Bhamo, in British Burma.
+The following was the route chosen, over the main road in some
+instances, and over untrodden roads in others, just as circumstances
+happened:
+
+    Tong-ch'uan-fu to Yuen-nan-fu (the capital city)   520 li.
+    Yuen-nan-fu to Tali-fu                             905 li.
+    Tali-fu to Tengyueh (Momien)                      855 li.
+    Tengyueh to Bhamo (Singai)                        280 English
+                                                      miles approx.
+
+I also made a rather extended tour among the Miao tribes, in country
+untrodden by Europeans, except by missionaries working among the people.
+
+
+
+
+FIRST JOURNEY
+
+TONG-CH'UAN-FU TO THE CAPITAL
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+_Stages to the capital_. _Universality of reform in China_. _Political,
+moral, social and spiritual contrast of Yuen-nan with other parts of the
+Empire_. _Inconsistencies of celestial life_. _Author's start for
+Burma_. _The caravan_. _To Che-chi_. _Dogs fighting over human bones_.
+_Lai-t'eo-p'o: highest point traversed on overland journey_. _Snow and
+hail storms at ten thousand feet_. _Desolation and poverty_. _Brutal
+husband_. _Horse saves author from destruction_. _The one hundred li to
+Kongshan_. _Wild, rugged moorland and mournful mountains_. _Wretchedness
+of the people_. _Night travel in Western China_. _Author knocks a man
+down_. _Late arrival and its vexations_. _Horrible inn accommodation_.
+_End of the Yuen-nan Plateau_. _Appreciable rise in temperature_.
+_Entertaining a band of inelegant infidels_. _European contention for
+superiority, and the Chinese point of view_. _Insoluble conundrums of
+"John's" national character_. _The Yuen-nan railway_. _Current ideas in
+Yuen-nan regarding foreigners_. _Discourteous fu-song and his escapades_.
+_Fright of ill-clad urchin_. _Scene at Yang-lin_. _Arrival at the
+capital_.
+
+
+No exaggeration is it to say that the eyes of the world are upon China.
+It is equally safe to say that, whilst all is open and may be seen, but
+little is understood.
+
+In the Far Eastern and European press so much is heard of the awakening
+of China that one is apt really to believe that the whole Empire, from
+its Dan to Beersheba, is boiling for reform. But it may be that the husk
+is taken from the kernel. The husk comprises the treaty ports and some
+of the capital cities of the provinces; the kernel is that vast sleepy
+interior of China. Few people, even in Shanghai, know what it means; so
+that to the stay-at-home European pardon for ignorance of existing
+conditions so much out of his focus should readily be granted.
+
+From Shanghai, up past Hankow, on to Ichang, through the Gorges to
+Chung-king, is a trip likely to strike optimism in the breast of the
+most skeptical foreigner. But after he has lived for a couple of years
+in an interior city as I have done, with its antiquated legislation, its
+superstition and idolatry, its infanticide, its girl suicides, its
+public corruption and moral degradation, rubbing shoulders continually
+at close quarters with the inhabitants, and himself living in the main a
+Chinese life, our optimist may alter his opinions, and stand in wonder
+at the extraordinary differences in the most ordinary details of life at
+the ports on the China coast and the Interior, and of the gross
+inconsistencies in the Chinese mind and character. If in addition he has
+stayed a few days away from a city in which the foreigners were shut up
+inside the city walls because the roaring mob of rebels outside were
+asking for their heads, and he has had to abandon part of his overland
+trip because of the fear that his own head might have been chopped off
+_en route_, he may increase his wonder to doubt. The aspect here in
+Yuen-nan--politically, morally, socially, spiritually--is that of another
+kingdom, another world. Conditions seem, for the most part, the same
+yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And in his new environment, which may
+be a replica of twenty centuries ago, the dream he dreamed is now
+dispelled. "China," he says, "is _not_ awaking; she barely moves, she is
+still under the torpor of the ages." And yet again, in the capital and a
+few of the larger cities, under your very eyes there goes on a reform
+which seems to be the most sweeping reform Asia has yet known.
+
+Such are the inconsistencies, seemingly unchangeable, irreconcilable in
+conception or in fact; a truthful portrayal of them tends to render the
+writer a most inconsistent being in the eyes of his reader.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+No one was ever sped on his way through China with more goodwill than
+was the writer when he left Tong-ch'uan-fu; but the above thoughts were
+then in his mind.
+
+Long before January 3rd, 1910, the whole town knew that I was going to
+Mien Dien (Burma). Confessedly with a sad heart--for I carried with me
+memories of kindnesses such as I had never known before--I led my
+nervous pony, Rusty, out through the Dung Men (the East Gate), with
+twenty enthusiastic scholars and a few grown-ups forming a turbulent
+rear. As I strode onwards the little group of excited younkers watched
+me disappear out of sight on my way to the capital by the following
+route--the second time of trying:--
+
+                            Length of    Height
+                              stage     above sea
+    1st day--Che-chi          90 li.    7,800 ft.
+    2nd day--Lai-t'eo-p'o     90 li.    8,500 ft.
+    3rd day--Kongshan        100 li.    6,700 ft.
+    4th day--Yang-kai         85 li.    7,200 ft.
+    5th day--Ch'anff-o'o      95 li     6,000 ft.
+    6th day--The Capital      70 li     6,400 ft.
+
+My caravan consisted of two coolies: one carried my bedding and a small
+basket of luxuries in case of emergency, the other a couple of boxes
+with absolute necessities (including the journal of the trip). In
+addition, there accompanied me a man who carried my camera, and whose
+primary business it was to guard my interests and my money--my general
+factotum and confidential agent--and by an inverse operation enrich
+himself as he could, and thereby maintain relations of warm mutual
+esteem. They received thirty-two tael cents per man per diem, and for
+the stopping days on the road one hundred cash. None of them, of course,
+could speak a word of English.
+
+The ninety li to Che-chi was mostly along narrow paths by the sides of
+river-beds, the intermediate plains having upturned acres waiting for
+the spring. At Ta-chiao (7,500 feet), where I stayed for my first
+alfresco meal at midday, the man--a tall, gaunt, ugly fellow, pockmarked
+and vile of face--told us he was a traveler, and that he had been to
+Shanghai. This I knew to be a barefaced lie. He voluntarily explained to
+the visitors, gathered to see the barbarian feed, what condensed milk
+was for, but he went wide of the mark when he announced that my pony,[Z]
+hog-maned and dock-tailed (but Chinese still), was an American, as he
+said I was. A young mother near by, suffering from acute eye
+inflammation, was lying in a smellful gutter on a felt mat, two pigs on
+one side and a naked boy of eight or so on the other, whilst she heaped
+upon the head of the innocent babe she was suckling curses most horribly
+blood-curdling. Dogs--the universal scavengers of the awakening
+interior, to which merest allusion is barred by one's Western sense of
+decency--just outside Che-chi, where I stayed the night, had recently
+devoured the corpse of a little child. Its clothing was strewn in my
+path, together with the piece of fibre matting in which it had been
+wrapped, and the dogs were then fighting over the bones.
+
+To Lai-t'eo-p'o was a day that men might call a "killer."
+
+It is a dirty little place with a dirty little street, lying at the foot
+of a mountain known throughout Western China as one of the wildest of
+Nature's corners, nearly ten thousand feet high, a terrific climb under
+best conditions. A clear half-moon, and stars of a silvery twinkle,
+looked pityingly upon me as I started at 3 a.m., ignorant of the
+dangerously narrow defile leading along cliffs high up from the Yili Ho.
+In the dark, cautiously I groped along. Not without a painful emotion of
+impending danger, as I watched the stellular reflections dancing in the
+rushing river, did I wander on in the wake of a group of pack-ponies,
+and took my turn in being assisted over the broken chasms by the
+muleteers. Two fellows got down below and practically lifted the tiny
+animals over the passes where they could not keep their footing.
+Gradually I saw the nightlike shadows flee away, and with the dawn came
+signs of heavy weather.
+
+Snow came cold and sudden. As we slowly and toilsomely ascended, the
+velocity of the wind fiercely increased; down the mountain-side, at a
+hundred miles an hour, came clouds of blinding, flinty dust, making the
+blood run from one's lips and cheeks as he plodded on against great
+odds. With the biting wind, howling and hissing in the winding ravines
+and snow-swept hollows, headway was difficult. Often was I raised from
+my feet: helplessly I clung to the earth for safety, and pulled at
+withered grass to keep my footing. The ponies, patient little brutes,
+with one hundred and fifty pounds strapped to their backs, came near to
+giving up the ghost, being swayed hopelessly to and fro in the fury. For
+hours we thus toiled up pathways seemingly fitter for goats than men,
+where leafless trees were bending destitute of life and helpless towards
+the valley, as the keen wind went sighing, moaning, wailing through
+their bare boughs and budless twigs.
+
+Such a gale, wilder than the devil's passion, I have not known even on
+the North Atlantic in February.
+
+At times during the day progression in the deepening snow seemed quite
+impossible, and my two men, worn and weary, bearing the burden of an
+excessively fatiguing day, well-nigh threw up the sponge, vowing that
+they wished they had not taken on the job.
+
+But the scenery later in the day, though monotonously so, was grand. The
+earth was literally the color of deep-red blood, the crimson paths
+intertwining the darker landscape bore to one's imagination a vision of
+some bloody battle--veritable rivers of human blood. To cheer the
+traveler in his desolation, the sun struggled vainly to pierce with its
+genial rays through the heavy, angry clouds rolling lazily upwards from
+the black valleys, and enveloping the earth in a deep infinity of
+severest gloom. The cold was damp. In the small hemmed-in hollows,
+whereto our pathway led, the icy dew clung to one's hair and beard. From
+little brown cottages, with poor thatched roofs letting in the light,
+and with walls and woodwork long since uniformly rotten, men and women
+emerged, rubbing their eyes and buttoning up their garments, looking
+wistfully for the hidden sun.
+
+At Shao-p'ai (8,100 feet) a brute of a fellow was administering
+cruellest chastisement to his disobedient yoke-fellow, who took her
+scourging in good part. I passed along as fast as I could to the ascent
+over which a road led in and around the mountain with alarming
+steepness, a road which at home would never be negotiated on foot or on
+horseback, but which here forms part of the main trade route. From the
+extreme summit one dropped abruptly into a protecting gorge, where
+falling cascades, sparkling like crystal showers in the feeble sunlight
+occasionally breaking through, danced playfully over the smooth-worn,
+slippery rocks; a stream foamed noisily over the loose stones, and leapt
+in rushing rapids where the earth had given way; there was no grass, no
+scenery, no life, and in the sudden turnings the hurricane roared with
+heavenly anger through the long deep chasms, over the
+twelve-inch river-beds at the foot.
+
+At Lai-t'eo-p'o accommodation at night was fairly good. Men laughed
+hilariously at me when I raved at some carpenters to desist their clumsy
+hammering three feet above my head. Hundreds of dogs yelped unceasingly
+at the moon, and with the usual rows of the men in mutual invitation to
+"Come and wash your feet," or "Ching fan, ching fan," the draughts, the
+creaks and cracks, the unintermitting din, and so much else, one was not
+sorry to rise again with the lark and push onwards in the cold.
+
+Down below this horrid town there is a plain; in this plain there is a
+hole fifty feet deep, and had my pony, which I was leading, not pulled
+me away from falling thereinto, my story would not now be telling.
+
+To Kongshan (6,700 feet), past Yei-chu-t'ang (8,100 feet) and
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang (7,275 feet), one hundred li away, was a journey
+through country considerably more interesting, especially towards the
+end of the day, a peculiar combination of wooded slope and rough,
+rock-worn pathways.
+
+Hsiao-lang-t'ang, twenty-five li from the end of the stage, overlooks a
+wide expanse of barren, uninviting moorland. Deep, jagged gullies break
+the uneven rolling of the mountains; dark, weird caverns of terrible
+immensity yawn hungrily from the surface of weariest desolation, ever
+widening with each turn. Mist hid the ugliest spots high up among the
+peaks, whose white summits, peeping sullenly from out this blue sea of
+damp haze, told a wondrous story of winter's withering all life to
+death, a spot than which in summer few places on earth would be more
+entrancing. But these mountains are breathing out a solitude which is
+eternal. Man here has never been. Far away beyond lies the country of
+the aborigines; but even the Lolo, wild and rugged as the country,
+fearless of man and beast, have never dared to ascend these heights.
+They are mournful, cheerless, devoid of a single smile from the common
+mother of us all, lacking every feature by which the earth draws man
+into a spirit of unity with his God. Horrid, frowning waste and aimless
+discontinuity of land, harbinger of loneliness and of evil! People, poor
+struggling beings of our kind, here seemed mocked of destiny, and a hot
+raging of misery waged within them, for all that the heart might desire
+and wish for had to them been denied. If, indeed, the earth be the home
+of hope, and man's greatest possession be hope, then would it seem that
+these poor creatures were entirely cut off, shut out from life,
+wandering wearisomely through the world in one long battle with Nature
+whereby to gain the wherewithal to live in that grim desert. There were
+no exceptions, it was the common lot. Each day and every day did these
+men and women, with a stolidity of long-continued destitution, and
+temporal and spiritual tribulation, gaze upon that bare, unyielding
+country, pregnant only with aggravation to their own dire wretchedness.
+
+In such spots, unhappily in Yuen-nan not few, does the mystery of life
+grow ever more mysterious to one whom distress has never harassed. A
+great pity seized my heart, but these poor people would probably have
+laughed had they known my thoughts.
+
+As I passed they came uninterestedly to look upon me. They watched in
+expressive silence; they were silent because of poverty. And I, too,
+kept a seal upon my lips as I ate the good things here provided under
+the eyes of those to whom hunger had given none but a jealous outlook.
+Pitiful enough were it, thought I, merely to watch without allowing
+speech to escape further to taunt them. So I ate, and they looked at me.
+I came and went, but never a word was uttered by these men and women, or
+even by the children, whose most painful feeling seemed that of their
+own feebleness. They were indeed feeble units standing in a threatening
+infinitude of life, and their thoughts probably dwelt upon my luxury
+and wealth as mine could not help dwelling upon their hungry town of
+hungry men and famished children. Words cannot paint their poverty--men
+void of hope, of life, of purpose, of idea. Happy for them that they had
+known no other.
+
+We ascended over a road of unspeakable torture to one's feet. Gazing
+down, far away into a seemingly bottomless abyss, we could faintly hear
+in the lulling of the wind the rush of a torrent, fed by a hundred
+mountain streams, which washed our path and in horrible disfigurement
+tore open the surface of the hill-sides.
+
+The long day was drawing wearily to a close. As the sun was sinking
+beyond the uneven hills over which I was to climb before the descent to
+the town begins, the effect of the green and gold and red and brown
+produced a striking picture of sweet poetic beauty. I stood in
+contemplative admiration meditating, as I waited for my coolies, who sat
+moodily under a dilapidated roadside awning, nonchalantly picking out
+mouldy monkey-nuts from some coarse sweetmeat sold by a frowsy female.
+Then upwards we toiled in the dark, the weird groans of my exhausted men
+and the falling of the gravel beneath their sandalled feet alone
+breaking the hollow's gloom. Uncanny is night travel in China.
+
+"Who knows but that ghosts, those fierce-faced denizens of the hills,
+may run against thee and bewitch thee," murmured one man to the others.
+They stopped, and I stopped with them. And in the darkness, pegging on
+alone at the mercy of these coolies, my own thoughts were not
+unsynchronistic.
+
+At last, with no slight misgiving, we came down into the city's smoke.
+Dogs barked at me, and ran away like the curs they are. Midway down the
+stone footway my yamen runner too cautiously crept up to me in the dark,
+muttering something, and I floored him with my fist. Afterwards I
+learnt that he came to relieve me of the pony I was leading.
+
+Every room in every wretched inn was occupied; opium fumes already
+issued from the doorways, and it was now pitch dark, so that I could
+scarce see the sallow faces of the hungry, uncouth crowd, to whom with
+no little irritation I tried to speak as I peered carefully into the
+caravanserai. Evident it certainly was that the duty lying nearest to me
+at that particular moment, to myself and all concerned therein, was to
+accept what I was offered, and not wear out my temper in grumbling. My
+boy, Lao Chang (an I-pien), the brick, expressed to me his regrets, and
+something like real sympathy shone out from his eyes in the dimness.
+
+"Puh p'a teh, puh p'a teh" ("Have no fear, have no fear"), said he; and
+as I stood the while piling up cruellest torture upon my uncourtly host,
+he made off to prepare a downstair room (to lapse into modern
+boarding-house phraseology).
+
+First through an outer apartment, dark as darkest night; on past the
+caterwauling cook and a few disreputable culinary hangers-on; asked to
+look out for a pony, which I could not see, but which I was told might
+kick me; then onward to my boy, who stood on a stool and dropped the
+grease of a huge red Chinese candle among his plaited hair, as he
+wobbled it above his head to light the way. He gripped me tenderly, took
+me to his bosom as it were, gave me one push, and I was there. He
+tarried not. What right had he to listen to what I in secret would say
+of the horrid keeper and his twice horrid shakedown inn? He passed out
+swiftly into outer darkness, uttering a groan I rudely interpreted as,
+"That or nothing, that or nothing."
+
+It _was_ a room, that is in so far as four sides, a floor and a ceiling
+comprise one. Of that I had no doubt. A sort of uncomely offshoot from
+the main inn building, built on piles in the earth after the fashion of
+the seashore houses of the Malay--but much dirtier and incomparably more
+shaky. For many a long year, longer than mine horrid host would care to
+recollect, this now unoccupied space had served admirably as the common
+cooking-room--the ruined fireplace was still there; later, it had been
+the stable--the ruined horse trough was still there. At one extreme
+corner only could I stand upright; long sooty cobwebs graced the black
+wood beams overhead, hanging as thick as icicles in a mountain valley;
+each step I took in fear and trembling (the slightest move threatened to
+collapse the whole dilapidation). Four planks, four inches wide at the
+widest part and of varying lengths and thicknesses, placed on a pile of
+loose firewood at the head and foot, comprised the bedstead on which I
+tremulously sat down. Upon this improvised apology for a bed, under my
+mosquito curtains (no traveler should be without them in Western China),
+I washed my blistered feet on an ancient _Daily Telegraph_, whilst my
+cook saw to my evening meal. His bringing in the rice tallied with my
+laying the tablecloth in the same place where I had washed my feet--the
+one available spot.
+
+As I ate, rats came brazenly and picked up the grains of rice I dropped
+in my inefficient handling of chopsticks, and in scaring off these
+hardened, hungry vermin I accidentally upset tea over my bed, whilst at
+the same moment a clod-hopping coolie came in with an elephant tread,
+with the result that my European reading-lamp lost its balance from the
+top of a tin of native sugar and started a conflagration, threatening to
+make short work of me and my belongings--not to mention that horrid
+fellow and his inn.
+
+During the night the moments throbbed away as I lay on my flea-ridden
+couch--moments which seemed long as hours, and no gleaming rift broke
+the settled and deepening blackness of my hateful environs. Every thing
+and every place was full of the wearisome, depressing, beauty-blasting
+commonplace of Interior China. Stenches rose up on the damp, dank air,
+and throughout the night, through the opening of a window, I seemed to
+gaze out to a disconsolate eternity--gaping, empty, unsightly. Waking
+from my dozing at the hour when judgment sits upon the hearts of men, I
+sat in ponderous judgment upon all to whom the bungling of the previous
+day was due. There were the rats and mice, and cats and owls, and creaks
+and cracks--no quiet about the place from night to morning. Then came
+the barking of dogs, the noises of the cocks and kine, of horses and
+foals, of pigs and geese--the general wail of the zoological
+kingdom--cows bellowing, duck diplomacy, and much else. So that it were
+not surprising to learn that this distinguished traveler in these
+contemptible regions was sitting on a broken-down bridge, looking
+wearily on to the broken-down tower on the summit of a pretty little
+knoll outside Kungshan, thinking that it were well a score of such were
+added did their design embrace a warning to evade the place.
+
+Having done some twenty li by moonlight, I managed with little
+difficulty to reach Yang-kai (6,350 feet) by 3.0 p.m. This road, which
+is not the main road to the capital, was purposely chosen; most
+travelers go through Yang-lin. The journey is comprised of pleasant
+ascents and descents over the latter portion of the great Yuen-nan
+Plateau, and a very appreciable difference in the temperature was here
+noticed. While the people at the north-east of the province, from which
+I had come, were shivering in their rags and complaining about the price
+of charcoal, the population here basked under Italian skies in a warm
+sun. From Lui-shu-ho (7,200 feet) the country was beautifully wooded
+with groves of firs and chestnuts.
+
+At the inn to which I was led the phlegmatic proprietor, after wishing
+me peace, assumed unostentatiously the becoming attitude of a Customs
+official, and scrutinized with vigor the whole of my gear, from an empty
+Calvert's tooth-powder tin to my Kodak camera, showering particularly
+condescending felicitations upon my English Barnsby saddle and
+field-glasses thereto attached.
+
+His excitement rose at once.
+
+He called loudly for his confederates--a band of inelegant infidels--and
+bidding them stand one by one at given distances, he gaped at them
+through the glasses with the hilarity of a schoolboy and the stupidity
+of an owl. He jumped, he shouted, he waved his arms about me, and
+handing them back to me with both hands, shouted deafeningly in my ear
+that they were quite beyond his ken; and then he sucked his teeth
+disgustingly and spat at my feet. His associates were speechless, asses
+that they were, and could only stare, in horror or impudence I know not.
+
+Meantime Lao Chang brought tea, and sallied forth immediately to
+fraternize among old friends. As I drank my tea, after having invited
+them one by one to join me, slowly and with a fitting dignity, the empty
+stare, destitute of sense or sincerity, of these six upstanding Chinese
+gentry, sucking at tobacco-pipes as long as their own overfed bodies,
+forced upon me a sense of my unfitness for the unknown conditions of the
+life of the place, a sense of loneliness and social unshelteredness in
+the sterile waste of their fashionable life. They spoke to me
+subsequently, and I bravely threw at them a Chinese phrase or two; but
+when the conversation got above my head, I told them, quietly but
+determinedly, that I could not understand, my English speech seemed
+vaguely to indicate a sudden collapse of the acquaintance, the opening
+of a gulf between us, destined to widen to the whole length and breadth
+of Yang-kai, swallowing up their erstwhile confidences. One of them
+facetiously remarked that the gentleman wished to eat his rice; and as
+they cleared out, falling over each other and the high step at the
+entrance to the room, I thought that no matter how old they are, Chinese
+are but little children. But had I treated them as little children I
+should have found that they were old men.
+
+There was in me withal a sense of better rank in the eyes of this
+super-excellent few who worshipped, in "heathen" China, the Satan of
+Fashion. As a matter of fact, their rank had emerged from such long
+centuries ago that it seemed to me to be so identified with them that
+they were hardly capable of analysis of people such as myself. As I
+looked pityingly upon them and the involved simplicity of their
+immutable natures, I realized an unconquerable feeling of inborn rank
+and natural elevation in respect to nationality. This is, however,
+against my personal general conception of Eastern peoples, but I must
+admit I felt it this afternoon. And so perhaps it is with the majority
+of Europeans in the Far East, who, because they have no knowledge of the
+language or a familiarity with national customs and ideas, remain always
+aliens with the Easterner. They cannot sympathize with him in his joys
+and sorrows, his likes and dislikes, his prejudice and bias, or
+understand anything of his point of view. This is one of the hardest
+lessons for the European traveler in China who has little of the
+language. Because we do not understand him, we call the Chinese a
+heathen--it is easier.
+
+Now, to the Chinese his country is the best in the world, his province
+better than any other of the eighteen, and the village in which he lives
+the most enviable spot in the province--the center of his universe.
+Speak disparagingly about that little circle, critically or
+sympathetically, and he is at once up against you. It may develop
+narrowness of mind and smallness of soul. We Westerners think we know
+that it does; and the fact that he allows his mental horizon to be
+bounded by such narrow confines appears to us to render him anything but
+a desirable citizen and a full-sized man. But no matter. The Chinese, on
+the other hand, regards as barbarians all those men who have never
+tasted the bliss of a true home in the Empire which is celestial--part
+of this feeling is patriotism and love of country, part is rank conceit.
+But Englishmen are saying that England is the most Christian country in
+the world for the very same reason!
+
+Rationally speaking, John is the "old brother" of the world, oldest of
+any nation by very many centuries. In common with all other travelers
+and those who have lived with this man, and who have made his nature a
+serious study, apart from racial bias, I am perplexed with conundrums
+which cannot be solved. Some of the conundrums are perhaps superficial,
+and disappear with a deeper insight into his life; others are wrought
+into his being. Yet he has a fixedness of character, reaching in some
+directions to absolute crystallization; he possesses the virility of
+young manhood and many of the mutually inconsistent traits of late
+manhood and early youth. I wonder at his ignorance of merest rudimentary
+political economy--but why? This man explored centuries ago the cardinal
+theories of some of our present-day Western classics. However, I have to
+teach him the form of the earth and the natural causes of eclipses. He
+is frightened by ghosts, burns mock money to maintain his ancestors in
+the future state, worships a bit of rusty old iron as an infallible
+remedy for droughts; I have seen him shoot at clouds from the city walls
+to frighten away the rain--and I despise him for it all. As I revise
+this copy, a rumor is current in the town in which I am resting to the
+effect that foreigners are buying children and using their heads to oil
+the wheels of the new Yuen-nan railway, and I despise him for believing
+it. The Chinese will not fight, and I sneer at him; he abhors me
+because I do. I ridicule his manner of dress; he thinks mine grossly
+indecent. I consider his flat nose and the plaited hair and shaven skull
+as heathenish; but the Chinese, eating away with his to me ridiculous
+chopsticks, looks out from his quick, almond-shaped eyes and considers
+me still a foreign devil, although he is too cunning to tell me. His
+opinions of me are founded upon the narrow grounds of vanity and
+egotism; mine, although I do not admit it even to myself, from something
+very much akin thereto.[AA]
+
+I have been looked upon in far-away outposts of the Chinese Empire where
+foreigners are still unknown, as an example of those human monstrosities
+which come from the West, a creature of a very low order of the human
+species, with a form and face uncouth, with language a hopeless jargon,
+and with manners unbearably rude and obnoxious. Not that _I_ personally
+answer accurately to this description, reader, any more than you would,
+but because I happen to be among a people who, as far back as Chinese
+opinion of foreigners can be traced, have considered themselves of a
+morality and intellectuality superior to yours and mine.
+
+I write the foregoing because it sums up what may be termed the current
+ideas regarding Europeans, ideas the reverse of complimentary, which are
+the more unfortunate on account of the fact that they are held by the
+vast majority of a people forming a quarter of the whole human race.
+This is true, despite all the reform.
+
+These ideas may be, and I trust they are, erroneous, but I know that I
+must keep in mind the extremely important desideratum in dealing with
+the Chinese that they look at me--my person, my manners, my customs, my
+theories, my things--through Chinese eyes, and although mistaken,
+misled, reach their own conclusions from their own point of view. This
+is what they have been doing for centuries, but we know that it all now
+is being subjected to slow change. The original stock, however, takes on
+no change whatever, and several generations must pass before this
+transfer of mental vision can be effected, when the Chinese will view
+all things and all peoples in their true light.
+
+Next morning my three men were heavy. The lean fellow--I have christened
+him Shanks, a long, shambling human bag of bones--moved about painfully
+in a listless sort of way, betokening severe rheumatics; his joints
+needed oil. Four or five huge basins of steaming rice and the customary
+amount of reboiled cabbage, however, bucked him up a bit, and holding up
+a crooked, bony finger, he indicated intelligently that we had one
+hundred li to cover. Whilst engaged in conversation thus, sounds of
+early morning revelry reached me from below. My boy, his accustomed
+serenity now quite disturbed, held threateningly above the head of the
+yamen runner (who had given me a profound kotow the evening previous
+prior to taking on his duties) a length of three-inch sugar cane; he
+evidently meant to flatten him out. This I learned was because this
+shadower of the august presence wished to take Yang-lin (about 60 li
+away) instead of going to Ch'ang-p'o (100 li) as I intended. I got him
+in, looked him as squarely in the face as it is possible when a Chinese
+wants to evade your scrutiny, told him I wished to go to Ch'ang-p'o, and
+that I hoped I should have the pleasure of his company thus far. He
+replied with a grinning smile, which one could easily have taken for a
+smiling grin--
+
+"Oh, yes, foreign mandarin, Ch'ang-p'o--100 li--foreign mandarin,
+foreign mandarin."
+
+And I thought the incident closed. Such is the appalling gullibility of
+the Englishman in China.
+
+We stopped for tea at a small hamlet ten li out. The place was deserted
+save for a small starving boy, whose chief attention was given to
+laborious endeavors to make his clothing meet in certain necessary
+areas. He evidently had never seen a foreigner. As he directed his
+optics towards me he winced visibly. He walked round me several times,
+fell over a grimy pail of soap-suds, stopped, gazed in enraptured
+enchantment with parted lips and outstretched arms as if he had begun to
+suspect what it was before him. To the eye of the beholder, however, he
+gazed as yet only on vacancy, but just as I was about to attempt
+self-explanation he was gone, tearing away down the hill as fast as his
+legs could carry him, the ragged remains of his father's trousers
+flapping gently in the breeze. As I rose to leave crackers frightened my
+pony, followed, in a few moments by a howling, hooting, unreasonable
+rabble from a temple near by. I found it was the result of a village
+squabble. I could scarce keep the order of my march as I left the
+tea-shop, so roughly was I handled by the irritated and impatient crowd,
+and had much ado to refrain from responding wrathfully to the repeated
+jeers of impudent, half-grown beggars of both sexes who helped to swell
+the riotous cortege. But through it all none of the insults were meant
+for me, so Lao Chang told me, and they did not mean to treat me with
+discourtesy.
+
+Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for
+irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the
+ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous
+wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the
+moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black
+and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image
+of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery,
+exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep
+discouragement. I came across some women mock-weeping for the dead: at
+their elbow two girls were washing clothes, and when little children,
+catching sight of me, ran to their mothers, the women stopped their
+hulla-baloo, had a good stare at me, exchanged a few words of mutual
+inquiry, and then resumed their bellowing.
+
+Soon it became quite warm, and walking was pleasant. I was startled by
+the _fu-song_,[AB] who invited me to go to a neighboring town for tea. My
+men were far behind. I was at his mercy, so I went. Soon I found myself
+passing through the city gates of Yang-lin, the very town I was trying
+to keep away from. The yamen fellow turned back at me and chuckled
+rudely to himself. I insisted that I did not wish to take tea; he
+insisted that I should--I must. He led me to an inn in the main street,
+arrangements were made to house me, old men and young lads gathered to
+welcome me as a lost brother, and the _fu-song_ told me graciously that
+he was going to the magistrate. In cruel English, with many wildly
+threatening gestures, did I protest, and the people laughed
+acquiescingly.
+
+"Puh tong, puh tong, you gaping idiots!" I repeated, and it caused more
+glee.
+
+Swinging myself past them all, I dragged my stubborn pony through the
+mob to the gate by which I had entered. My men were not to be found. I
+did not know the road nor much of the language. I sat down on a granite
+pillar to undergo an embarrassing half-hour. Presently my men hailed me,
+and approaching, swore with imposing loftiness at the discomfited guide.
+My bull-dog coolie dropped his loads, the _fu-song_ somehow lost his
+footing, I yelled "Ts'eo" ("Go"), and with a cheer the caravan
+proceeded.
+
+The following day we were at the capital.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote Z: I took a pony because I had made up my mind to return into
+China after I had reached Burma. In Tong-ch'uan-fu a good pony can be
+bought for, say, _L3_--in Burma, the same pony would sell for L10.
+
+--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AA: For further excellent descriptions of the Chinese nature I
+refer the reader to Chester Holcombe's _China: Past and
+Present_.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AB: _i.e._ Yamen escort.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+YUeN-NAN-FU, THE CAPITAL.
+
+_Access to Yuen-nan-fu_. _Concentrated reform_. _Tribute to Hsi Liang_.
+_Conservatism and progress_. _The Tonkin-Yuen-nan Railway_. _The Yuen-nan
+army_. _Author's views in 1909 and 1910 contrasted_. _Phenomenal forward
+march, and what it means_. _Danger of too much drill_. _International
+aspect on the frontier_. _The police_. _Street improvements_. _Visit to
+the gaol, and a description_. _The Young Pretender to the Chinese
+throne_. _How the prison is conducted_. _The schools_. _Visit to the
+university, and a description_. _Riot among the students_. _Visit to the
+Agricultural School, and a description_. _Silk industry of Yuen-nan._
+
+
+Yuen-nan-fu to-day is as accessible as Peking. After many weary years the
+Tonkin-Yuen-nan railway is now an accomplished fact, and links this
+capital city with Haiphong in three days.
+
+Reform concentrates at the capital. The man who visited Yuen-nan-fu
+twenty, or even ten years ago, would be astounded, were he to go there
+now, at the improvements visible, on every hand. A building on foreign
+lines was then a thing unknown, and the conservative Viceroy, Tseng Kong
+Pao, the decapitator in his time of thousands upon thousands of human
+beings, would turn in his grave if he could behold the utter
+annihilation of his pet "feng shui," which has followed in the wake of
+the good works done by the late loved Viceroy, Hsi Liang.
+
+The name of Hsi Liang is revered in the province of Yuen-nan as the most
+able man who has ever ruled the two provinces of Yuen-nan and Kwei-chow,
+a man of keen intellectuality and courtly manner, and notorious as being
+the only Mongolian in the service of China's Government. I lived in
+Yuen-nan-fu for several weeks at a stretch, and since then have made
+frequent visits, and knowing the enormous strides being made towards
+acquiring Occidental methods, I now find it difficult to write with
+absolute accuracy upon things in general. But I have found this to be
+the case in all my travels. What is, or seems to be, accurate to-day of
+any given thing in a given place is wrong tomorrow under seemingly the
+same conditions; and although no theme could be more tempting, and no
+subject offer wider scope for ingenious hypothesis and profound
+generalization, one has to forego much temptation to "color" if he would
+be accurate of anything he writes of the Chinese. Eminent sinologues
+agree as to the impossibility of the conception of the Chinese mind and
+character as a whole, so glaring are the inconsistencies of the Chinese
+nature. And as one sees for himself in this great city, particularly in
+official life, the businesslike practicability on the one hand and the
+utter absurdity of administration on the other, in all modes and
+methods, one is almost inclined to drop his pen in disgust at being
+unable to come to any concrete conclusions.
+
+Of no province in China more than of Yuen-nan is this true.
+
+Reform and immovable conservatism go hand in hand. Men of the most
+dissimilar ambitions compose the _corps diplomatique_, and are willing
+to join hands to propagate their main beliefs; and when one writes of
+progress--in railways, in the army, in gaols, in schools, in public
+works, in no matter what--one is ever confronted by that dogged
+immutability which characterizes the older school.
+
+So that in writing of things Yuen-nanese in this great city it is
+imperative for me to state bare facts as they stand now, and make little
+comment.
+
+
+THE RAILWAY
+
+
+The Tonkin-Yuen-nan Railway, linking the interior with the coast, is one
+of the world's most interesting engineering romances. This artery of
+steel is probably the most expensive railway of its kind, from the
+constructional standpoint. In some districts seven thousand pounds per
+mile was the cost, and it is probable that six thousand pounds sterling
+per mile would not be a bad estimate of the total amount appropriated
+for the construction of the line from a loan of 200,000,000 francs asked
+for in 1898 by the Colonial Council in connection with the program for a
+network of railways in and about French Indo-China.
+
+To Lao-kay there are no less than one hundred and seventy-five bridges.
+
+The completion of this line realizes in part the ambition of a
+celebrated Frenchman, who--once a printer, 'tis said, in Paris--dropped
+into the political flower-bed, and blossomed forth in due course as
+Governor-General of Indo-China. When Paul Doumer, for it was he, went
+east in 1897, he felt it his mission to put France, politically and
+commercially, on as good a footing as any of her rivals, notably Great
+Britain. It did not take him long to see that the best missionaries in
+his cause would be the railways. At the time of writing (June, 1910) I
+cannot but think that profit on this railway will be a long time coming,
+and there are some in the capital who doubt whether the commercial
+possibilities of Yuen-nan justified this huge expenditure on railway
+construction. Whilst authorities differ, I personally believe that the
+ultimate financial success of the venture is assured. There are markets
+crying out to be quickly fed with foreign goods, and it is my opinion
+that the French will be the suppliers of those goods. British enterprise
+is so weak that we cannot capture the greater portion of the growing
+foreign trade, and must feel thankful if we can but retain what trade we
+have, and supply those exports with which the French have no possibility
+of competing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+THE MILITARY
+
+The foreigner in Yuen-nan-fu can never rest unless he is used to the
+sounds of the bugle and the hustling spirit of the men of war.
+
+In standard works on Chinese armaments no mention is ever made of the
+Yuen-nan army, and statistics are hard to get. But it is evident that the
+cult of the military stands paramount, and it has to be conceded, even
+by the most pessimistic critics of this backward province, that the new
+troops are sufficiently numerous and sufficiently well-organized to
+crush any rebellion. This must be counted a very fair result, since it
+has been attained in about two years. A couple of years ago Yuen-nan had
+practically no army--none more than the military ragtags of the old
+school, whose chief weapon of war was the opium pipe. But now there are
+ten thousand troops--not units on paper, but men in
+uniform--well-drilled for the most part and of excellent physique, who
+could take the field at once. The question of the Yuen-nan army is one of
+international interest: the French are on the south, Great Britain on
+the west.
+
+On June 2nd, 1909, I rode out to the magnificent training ground, then
+being completed, and on that date wrote the following in my diary:--
+
+"I watched for an hour or two some thousand or so men undergoing their
+daily drill--typical tin soldiery and a military sham.
+
+"Only with the merest notion of matters military were most of the men
+conversant, and alike in ordinary marching--when it was most difficult
+for them even to maintain regularity of step--or in more complicated
+drilling, there was a lack of the right spirit, no go, no gusto--scores
+and scores of them running round doing something, going through a
+routine, with the knowledge that when it was finished they would get
+their rice and be happy. Everyone who possesses but a rudimentary
+knowledge of the Chinese knows that he troubles most about the two
+meals every day should bring him, and this seems to be the pervading
+line of thought of seven-eighths of the men I saw on the padang at
+drill. Officers strutting about in peacock fashion, with a sword
+dangling at their side, showed no inclination to enforce order, and the
+rank and file knew their methods, so that the disorder and haphazardness
+of the whole thing was absolutely mutual.
+
+"Whilst I was on the field gazing in anything but admiration on the
+scene, I was ordered out by one of the khaki-clad officers in a most
+unceremonious manner. Seeing me, he shouted at the top of his thick
+voice, 'Ch'u-k'ue, ch'u-k'ue' (an expression meaning 'Go out!'--commonly
+used to drive away dogs), and simultaneously waved his sword in the air
+as if to say, 'Another step, and I'll have your head.' And, of course,
+there being nothing else to do, I 'ch'u-k'ued,' but in a fashion
+befitting the dignity of an English traveler.
+
+"The reorganization of the army, with the acceleration of warlike
+preparedness, has the advantage that it appeals to the embryonic feeling
+of national patriotism, and affords a tangible expression of the desire
+to be on terms of equality with the foreigner. That officer never had a
+prouder moment in his life than when he ordered a distinguished
+foreigner from the drilling ground, of which he was for the time the
+lordly comptroller. And it may be added that the foreigner can remember
+no occasion when he felt 'smaller,' or more completely shrivelled.
+
+"Whilst it is safe to infer that the motives that underlie the
+significant access of activity in military matters in Yuen-nan differ in
+no way from those which have led to the feverish increase in armaments
+in other parts of the world, such ideas that have yet been formed on
+actual preparations for possible war are most crude. On paper the
+appointments in the army and the accuracy of the figures of the
+complement of rank and file admit of no question, but the practical
+utility of their labors is quite another matter, and a matter which does
+not appear to produce among the army officials any great mental
+disturbance in their delusion that they are progressing. Yuen-nan is in
+need of military reform, reform which will embrace a start from the very
+beginning, and one of the first steps that should be taken is that those
+who are to be in the position of administering training should find out
+something about western military affairs, and so be in a position of
+knowing what they are doing."
+
+The above was my conscientious opinion in the middle of last year.
+Now--in June of 1910--I have to write of enormous improvements and
+revolutions in the drilling, in the armaments, in the equipment, in the
+general organization of the troops and the conduct of them. Yuen-nan is
+still peculiarly in her transition stage, which, while it has many
+elements of strength and many menacing possibilities, contains, more or
+less, many of the old weaknesses. All matters, such as her financial
+question, her tariff question, her railway question, her mining
+question, are still "in the air"--the unknown _x_ in the equation, as it
+were--but her army question is settled. There is a definite line to be
+followed here, and it is being followed most rigidly. Come what will,
+her army must be safe and sound. China is determined to work out the
+destiny of Yuen-nan herself, and she is working hard--the West has no
+conception how hard--so as to be able to be in a position of
+safeguarding--vigorously, if necessary--her own borders.
+
+One question arises in my mind, however. Should there be a rebellion,
+would the soldiers remain true? This is vital to Yuen-nan. Skirmishings
+on the French border more or less recently have shown us that soldiers
+are wobblers in that area. The rank and file are chosen from the common
+people, and one would not be surprised to find, should trouble take
+place fairly soon, while they are still raw to their business, the
+soldiers turn to those who could give them most. It has been humorously
+remarked that in case of disturbances the first thing the Chinese Tommy
+would do would be to shoot the officers for treating him so badly and
+for drilling him so hard and long.
+
+What is true of the capital in respect to military progress I found to
+be true also of Tali-fu.
+
+A couple of years ago a company of drilled soldiers arrived there as a
+nucleus for recruiting units for the new army. Soon 1,500 men were
+enlisted. They were to serve a three years' term, were to receive four
+dollars per month, and were promised good treatment. The officers
+drilled them from dawn to dusk; deserters were therefore many,
+necessitating the detail of a few heads coming off to avert the trouble
+of losing all the men. It cost the men about a dollar or so for their
+rice, so that it will be readily seen that, with a clear profit of three
+dollars as a monthly allowance, they were better off than they would
+have been working on their land. Officers received from forty to sixty
+taels a month. Temples here were converted into barracks--a sign in
+itself of the altered conditions of the times--and I visited some
+extensive buildings which were being erected at a cost of eighty
+thousand gold dollars.
+
+Military progress in this "backward province" is as great as it has been
+anywhere at any time in any part of the Chinese Empire.
+
+
+THE POLICE
+
+Until a few years ago, as China was kept in law and order without the
+necessary evil of a standing army, so did Yuen-nan-fu slumber on in the
+Chinese equivalent for peace and plenty. As they now are, and taking
+into consideration that they were all picked from the rawest material,
+the police force of this capital is as able a body of men as are to be
+found in all Western China. Probably the Metropolitan police of dear old
+London could not be re-forced from their ranks, but disciplined and
+well-ordered they certainly are withal. Swords seem to take the place of
+the English bludgeon, and a peaked cap, beribboned with gold, is
+substituted for the old-fashioned helmet of blue; and if the time should
+ever come, with international rights, when Englishmen will be "run in"
+in the Empire, the sallow physiognomy and the dangling pigtail alone
+will be unmistakable proofs to the victim, even in heaviest
+intoxication, that he is not being handled by policemen of his awn
+kind--that is, if the Yuen-nan police shall ever have made strides
+towards the attainment of home police principles. However, in their
+place these men have done good work. Thieving in the city is now much
+less common, and gambling, although still rife under cover--when will
+the Chinese eradicate that inherent spirit?--is certainly being put
+down. One of the features of their work also has been the improvement
+they have effected in the appearance of the streets. Old customs are
+dying, and at the present time if a man in his untutored little ways
+throws his domestic refuse into the place where the gutter should have
+been, as in olden days, he is immediately pounced upon, reprimanded by
+the policeman on duty, and fined somewhat stiffly.
+
+
+THE GAOL
+
+A great fuss was made about me when I went to visit the governor of the
+prison one wet morning. He met me with great ostentation at the
+entrance, escorting me through a clean courtyard, on either side of
+which were pretty flower-beds and plots of green turf, to a
+reception-room. There was nothing "quadlike" about the place. This
+reception-room, furnished on a semi-Occidental plan, overlooked the main
+prison buildings, contained foreign glass windows draped with white
+curtains, was scrupulously clean for China, and had magnificent hanging
+scrolls on the whitewashed walls. Tea was soon brewed, and the governor,
+wishing to be polite and sociable, told me that he had been in
+Yuen-nan-fu for a few months only, and that he considered himself an
+extremely fortunate fellow to be in charge of such an excellent
+prison--one of the finest in the kingdom, he assured me.
+
+After we had drunk each other's health--I sincerely trust that the cute,
+courteous old chap will live a long and happy life, although to my way
+of thinking the knowledge of the evil deeds of all the criminals around
+me would considerably minimize the measure of bliss among such intensely
+mundane things--I was led away to the prison proper.
+
+This gaol, which had been opened only a few months, is a remarkably fine
+building, and with the various workshops and outhouses and offices
+covers from seven to eight acres of ground inside the city. The outside,
+and indeed the whole place, bears every mark of Western architecture,
+with a trace here and there of the Chinese artistry, and for carved
+stone and grey-washed brick might easily be mistaken for a foreign
+building. It cost some ninety thousand taels to build, and has
+accommodation for more than the two hundred and fifty prisoners at
+present confined within its walls.
+
+After an hour's inspection, I came to the conclusion that the lot of the
+prisoners was cast in pleasant places. The food was being prepared at
+the time--three kinds of vegetables, with a liberal quantity of rice,
+much better than nine-tenths of the poor brutes lived on before they
+came to gaol. Besworded warders guarded the entrances to the various
+outbuildings. From twenty to thirty poor human beings were manacled in
+their cells, condemned to die, knowing not how soon the pleasure of the
+emperor may permit of them shuffling off this mortal coil: one
+grey-haired old man was among the number, and to see him stolidly
+waiting for his doom brought sad thoughts.
+
+The long-termed prisoners work, of course, as they do in all prisons.
+Weaving cloth, mostly for the use of the military, seemed to be the most
+important industry, there being over a score of Chinese-made weaving
+machines busily at work. The task set each man is twelve English yards
+per day; if he does not complete this quantity he is thrashed, if he
+does more he is remunerated in money. One was amused to see the
+English-made machine lying covered with dust in a corner, now discarded,
+but from its pattern all the others had been made in the prison. Tailors
+rose as one man when we entered their shop, where Singer machines were
+rattling away in the hands of competent men; and opposite were a body of
+pewter workers, some of their products--turned out with most primitive
+tools--being extremely clever. The authorities had bought a foreign
+chair, made of iron--a sort of miniature garden seat--and from this
+pattern a squad of blacksmiths were turning out facsimiles, which were
+selling at two dollars apiece. They were well made, but a skilled
+mechanic, not himself a prisoner, was teaching the men. Bamboo blinds
+were being made in the same room, whilst at the extreme end of another
+shed were paper dyers and finishers, carrying on a primitive work in the
+same primitive way that the Chinese did thousands of years ago. It was,
+however, exceedingly interesting to watch.
+
+As we passed along I smelt a strong smell of opium. Yes, it was opium. I
+sniffed significantly, and looked suspiciously around. The governor saw
+and heard and smelt, but he said nothing. Opium, then, is not, as is
+claimed, abolished in Yuen-nan. Worse than this: whilst I was the other
+day calling upon the French doctor at the hospital, the vilest fumes
+exuded from the room of one of the dressers. It appeared that the doctor
+could not break his men of the habit. But we remember that the
+physician of older days was exhorted to heal himself.
+
+Just as I was beginning to think I had seen all there was to be seen, I
+heard a scuffle, and saw a half-score of men surrounding a poor
+frightened little fellow, to whom I was introduced. He was the little
+bogus Emperor of China, the Young Pretender, to whom thousands of
+Yuen-nan people, at the time of the dual decease in recent Chinese
+history, did homage, and kotowed, recognizing him as the new emperor.
+The story, not generally known outside the province, makes good reading.
+At the time of the death of the emperor and empress-dowager, an
+aboriginal family at the village of Kuang-hsi-chou, in the southeast of
+Yuen-nan province, knowing that a successor to the throne must be found,
+and having a son of about eight years of age, put this boy up as a
+pretender to the Chinese throne, and not without considerable success.
+The news spread that the new emperor was at the above-named village, and
+the people for miles around flocked in great numbers to do him homage,
+congratulating themselves that the emperor should have risen from the
+immediate neighborhood in which they themselves had passed a monotonous
+existence. For weeks this pretense to the throne was maintained, until a
+miniature rebellion broke out, to quell which the Viceroy of Yuen-nan
+dispatched with all speed a strong body of soldiers.
+
+Everybody thought that the loss of a few heads and other Chinese
+trivialities was to end this little flutter of the people. But not so.
+The whole of the family who had promoted this fictitious claim to the
+throne--father, mother, brothers, sisters--were all put to death, most
+of them in front of the eyes of the poor little fellow who was the
+victim of their idle pretext. The military returned, reporting that
+everything was now quiet, and a few days later, guarded by twenty
+soldiers, came this young pretender, encaged in one of the prison boxes,
+breaking his heart with grief. And it was he who was now conducted to
+meet the foreigner. He has been confined within the prison since he
+arrived at the capital, and the object seems to be to keep him there,
+training and teaching him until he shall have arrived at an age when he
+can be taught a trade. The tiny fellow is small for his eight years, and
+his little wizened face, sallow and delicate, has a plausible tale to
+tell. He is always fretting and grieving for those whose heads were
+shown to him after decapitation. However, he is being cared for, and it
+is doubtful whether the authorities--or even the emperor himself--will
+mete out punishment to him when he grows older. He did nothing; he knew
+nothing. At the present time he is going through a class-book which
+teaches him the language to be used in audience with the Son of
+Heaven--he will probably be taken before the emperor when he is old
+enough. But now he is not living the life of a boy--no playmates, no
+toys, no romps and frolics. He, like Topsy, merely grows--in
+surroundings which only a dark prison life can give him.
+
+This was the first time I had even been in prison in China. This remark
+rather tickled the governor, and on taking my departure he assured me
+that it was an honor to him, which the Chinese language was too poor to
+express, that I should have allowed my honorable and dignified person to
+visit his mean and contemptible abode. He commenced this compliment to
+me as he was showing me the well-equipped hospital in connection with
+the prison--containing eight separate wards in charge of a Chinese
+doctor.
+
+I smiled in return a smile of deepest gratitude, and waving a fond
+farewell, left him in a happy mood.
+
+
+THE SCHOOLS
+
+One would scarce dream of a university for the province of Yuen-nan. Yet
+such is the case.
+
+In former days--and it is true, too, to a great extent to-day--the
+prominent place given to education in China rendered the village schools
+an object of more than common interest, where the educated men of the
+Empire received their first intellectual training. Probably in no other
+country was there such uniformity in the standards of instruction. Every
+educated man was then a potential school master--this was certainly true
+of Yuen-nan. But all is now changing, as the infusion of the spirit of
+the phrase "China for the Chinese" gains forceful meaning among the
+people.
+
+The highest hill within the city precincts has been chosen as the site
+for a university, which is truly a remarkable building for Western
+China. One of the students of the late. Dr. Mateer (Shantung) was the
+architect--a man who came originally to the school as a teacher of
+mathematics--and it cannot be said that the huge oblong building, with a
+long narrow wing on either side of a central dome, is the acme of beauty
+from a purely architectural standpoint.
+
+Of red-faced brick, this university, which cost over two hundred
+thousand taels to build, is most imposing, and possesses conveniences
+and improvements quite comparable to the ordinary college of the West.
+For instance, as I passed through the many admirably-equipped
+schoolrooms, well ventilated and airy, I saw an Italian who was laying
+in the electric light,[AC] the power for which was generated by an
+immense dynamo at the basement, upon which alone twenty thousand taels
+were spent. Thirty professors have the control of thirty-two classrooms,
+teaching among other subjects mathematics, music, languages (chiefly
+English and Japanese), geography, chemistry, astronomy, geology, botany,
+and so on. The museum, situated in the center of the building, does not
+contain as many specimens as one would imagine quite easily obtainable,
+but there are certainly some capital selections of things natural to
+this part of the Empire.
+
+The authorities probably thought I was rather a queer foreigner, wanting
+to see everything there was to see inside the official barriers in the
+city. Day after day I was making visits to places where foreigners
+seldom have entered, and I do not doubt that the officials, whilst
+treating me with the utmost deference and extreme punctiliousness,
+thought I was a sort of British spy.
+
+When I went to the Agricultural School, probably the most interesting
+visit I made, I was met by the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, a keen
+fellow, who spoke English well, and who, having been trained at
+Shanghai, and therefore understanding the idiosyncrasies of the
+foreigner's character, was invited to entertain. And this he did, but he
+was careful that he did not give away much information regarding the
+progress that the Yuen-nanese, essentially sons of the soil, are making
+in agriculture. For this School of Agriculture is an important adjunct.
+
+Scholars are taken on an agreement for three years, during which time
+they are fed and housed at the expense of the school; if they leave
+during the specified period they are fined heavily. No less than 180
+boys, ranging from sixteen to twenty-three, are being trained here, with
+about 120 paid apprentices. Three Japanese professors are employed--one
+at a salary of two hundred dollars a month, and two others at three
+hundred, the latter having charge of the fruit and forest trees and the
+former of vegetables.
+
+In years to come the silk industry of Yuen-nan will rank among the chief,
+and the productions will rank among the best of all the eighteen
+provinces. There are no less than ten thousand mulberry trees in the
+school grounds for feeding the worms; four thousand catties of leaves
+are used every day for their food; five hundred immense trays of
+silkworms are constantly at work here. The worms are in the charge of
+scholars, whose names appear on the various racks under their charge,
+and the fact that feeding takes place every two hours, day and night, is
+sufficient testimony that the boys go into their work with commendable
+energy. As I was being escorted around the building, through shed after
+shed filled with these trays of silkworms, several of the scholars made
+up a sort of procession, and waited for the eulogy that I freely
+bestowed. In another building small boys were spinning the silk, and
+farther down the weavers were busy with their primitive machinery, with
+which, however, they were turning out silk that could be sold in London
+at a very big price. The colorings were specially beautiful, and the
+figuring quite good, although the head-master of the school told me that
+he hoped for improvements in that direction. And I, looking wise,
+although knowing little about silk and its manufacture, heartily agreed
+with the little fat man.
+
+There is a department for women also, and contrary to custom, I had a
+look around here, too. The girls were particularly smart at spinning.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AC: Soon afterwards a disturbance occurred among the students,
+and had it not been for the promptitude of the inspector, some of them
+might have lost their heads.
+
+The electric light had just been laid in, and was working so well that
+the authorities found it imperative to charge each of the 400 resident
+students one dollar per month for the upkeep. This simple edict was the
+cause of the riot In a body the boys rolled up their pukais, and marched
+down to the main entrance, declaring that they were determined to resign
+if the order was not rescinded. The inspector, however, had had all the
+doors locked. The frenzied students broke these open, and incidentally
+thrashed some of the caretakers for interfering in matters which were
+not considered to be strictly their business.
+
+Subsequently the Chancellor of Education visited the college in person,
+but no heed was paid to his exhortations, and it was only when the
+dollar charge for lighting was reduced that peace was restored.
+
+The Chancellor, as a last word, told them that if they vacated their
+schoolrooms a fine of about a hundred taels would be imposed upon each
+man.
+
+The occasion was marked by all the foolish ardor one finds among college
+boys at home, and it seems that, despite the enormous amount of money
+the college is costing to run, the students are somewhat out of
+hand.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+SECOND JOURNEY
+
+YUeN-NAN-FU TO TALI-FU (VIA CH'U-HSIONG-FU)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+_Stages to Tali-fu_. _Worst roads yet experienced_. _Stampede among
+ponies_. _Hybrid crowd at Anning-cheo_. _Simplicity of life of common
+people_. _Does China want the foreigner? Straits Settlements and China
+Proper compared_. _China's aspect of her own position_. _Renaissance of
+Chinese military power_. _Europeans_ NOT _wanted in the Empire_.
+_Emptiness of the lives of the common people_. _Author erects a printing
+machine in Inland China_. _National conceit_. _Differences in make-up of
+the Hua Miao and the Han Ren_. _The Hua Miao and what they are doing_.
+_Emancipation of their women_. _Tribute to Protestant missionaries_.
+_Betrothal and marriage in China_. _Miao women lead a life of shame and
+misery_. _Crude ideas among Chinese regarding age of foreigners_. _Musty
+man and dusty traveller at Lao-ya-kwan_. _Intense cold_. _Salt trade_.
+_Parklike scenery, pleasant travel, solitude._
+
+
+From the figures of heights appearing below, one would imagine that
+between the capital and Tali-fu hard climbing is absent. But during each
+stage, with the exception of the journey from Sei-tze to Sha-chiao-kai,
+there is considerable fatiguing uphill and downhill work, each evening
+bringing one to approximately the same level as that from which he
+started his morning tramp. I went by the following route:--
+
+                                   Length of         Height
+                                     stage          above sea
+    1st day--Anning-cheo             70 li          6,300 ft.
+    2nd day--Lao-ya-kwan             70 li          6,800 ft.
+    3rd day--Lu-feng-hsien           75 li          5,500 ft.
+    4th day--Sei-tze                 80 li          6,100 ft.
+    5th day--Kwang-tung-hsien        60 li          6,300 ft.
+    6th day--Rest day.
+    7th day--Ch'u-hsiong-fu          70 li          6,150 ft.
+    8th day--Luho-kai                60 li          6,000 ft.
+    9th day--Sha-chiao-kai           65 li          6,400 ft.
+    10th day--Pu-peng                90 li          7,200 ft.
+    11th day--Yuen-nan-i              65 li          6,800 ft.
+    12th day--Hungay                 80 li          6,000 ft.
+    14th day--Chao-chow              60 li          6,750 ft.
+    15th day--Tali-fu                60 li          6,700 ft.
+
+A long, winding and physically-exhausting road took me from
+Sha-chiao-kai to Yin-wa-kwan, the most elevated pass between Yuen-nan-fu
+and Tali-fu, and continued over barren mountains, bereft of shelter, and
+void of vegetation and people, to Pupeng. A rough climb of an hour and a
+half then took me to the top of the next mountain, where roads and ruts
+followed a high plateau for about thirty li, and with a precipitous
+descent I entered the plain of Yuen-nan-i. Then over and between barren
+hills, passing a small lake and plain with the considerable town of
+Yuen-nan-hsien ten li to the right, I continued in a narrow valley and
+over mountains in the same uncultivated condition to Hungay, situated in
+a swampy valley. Having crossed this valley, another rough climb brings
+the traveler to the top of the next pass, Ting-chi-ling, whence the road
+descends, and leads by a well-cultivated valley to Chao-chow. After an
+easy thirty li we reached Hsiakwan,[AD] one of the largest commercial
+cities in the province, lying at the foot of the most magnificent
+mountain range in Yuen-nan, and by the side of the most famous lake. A
+paved road takes one in to his destination at Tali-fu, where I was
+welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Clark, of the China Inland Mission, and
+hospitably entertained for a couple of days.
+
+The roads in general from Yuen-nan-fu to Tali-fu were worse than any I
+have met from Chung-king onwards, partly owing to the mountainous
+condition of the country, and partly to neglect of maintenance.
+
+Where the road is paved, it is in most places worse than if it had not
+been paved at all, as neither skill nor common sense seems to have been
+exercised in the work. It is probably safe to say that there are no
+ancient roads in Yuen-nan, in the sense of the constructed highways which
+have lasted through the centuries, for the civilization of the early
+Yuen-nanese was not equal to such works. As a matter of fact, the
+condition of the roads is all but intolerable. Many were never made, and
+are seldom mended--one may say that with very few exceptions they are
+never repaired, except when utterly impassable, and then in the most
+make-shift manner.
+
+My highly-strung Rusty received a shock to his nervous system as I led
+him leisurely from the incline leading into Anning-cheo (6,300 feet),
+through the arched gateway in a pagoda-like entrance, which when new
+would have been a credit to any city. The stones of the main street were
+so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of
+their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground
+behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed
+themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter
+towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men
+caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and
+trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was
+being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped
+unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town--the
+market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of
+blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar,
+as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed
+long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front,
+pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the
+other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me
+more knocks.
+
+It was an awful crowd--Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of
+hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be
+called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people,
+their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own
+Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their
+homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted
+with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high
+civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired
+people living a simple, unsophisticated life. All the strength of the
+world and all its beauties, all true joy, everything that consoles, that
+feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything
+that enables us to discern across our poor lives a splendid goal and a
+boundless future, comes to us from true simplicity. I do not say that we
+get all this from the Chinese, but in many ways they can teach us how to
+live in the _spirit of simplicity_. They were living from hand to mouth,
+with seemingly no anxieties at all--and yet, too, they were living
+without God, and with very little hope.
+
+And here the foreigner re-appeared to disturb them. Even in Anning-cheo,
+only a day from the capital, I was regarded as a being of another
+species, and was treated with little respect. I was not wanted.
+
+No international question has become more hackneyed than "Does China
+want the foreigner?" Columns of utter nonsense have from time to time
+been printed in the English press, purporting to have come from men
+supposed to know, to the effect that this Empire is crying out, waiting
+with open arms to welcome the European and the American with all his
+advanced methods of Christendom and civilization. It has by general
+assent come to be understood that China _does_ want the foreigner. But
+those who know the Chinese, and who have lived with them, and know their
+inherent insincerity in all that they do, still wonder on, and still
+ask, "Does she?"
+
+To the European in Hong-Kong, or any of the China ports, having
+trustworthy Chinese on his commercial staff--without whom few
+businesses in the Far East can make progress--my argument may seem to
+have no _raison d'etre_. He will be inclined to blurt out vehemently the
+absurdity of the idea that the Chinese do not want the foreigner. First,
+they cannot do without him if China is to come into line as a great
+nation among Eastern and Western powers. And then, again, could anyone
+doubt the sincerity of the desire on the part of the Celestial for
+closer and downright friendly intercourse if he has had nothing more
+than mere superficial dealings with them?
+
+Thus thought the writer at one time in his life. He has had in a large
+commercial firm some of the best Chinese assistants living, in China or
+out of it, and has nothing but praise for their assiduous perseverance
+and remarkable business acumen and integrity.
+
+As a business man, I admire them far and away above any other race of
+people in the East and Far East. Is there any business man in the
+Straits Settlements who has not the same opinion of the Straits-born
+Chinese? But as one who has traveled in China, living among the Chinese
+and with them, seeing them under all natural conditions, at home in
+their own country, I say unhesitatingly that at the present time only an
+infinitesimal percentage of the population of the vast Interior
+entertain genuine respect for the white man, and, in centers where
+Western influence has done so much to break down the old-time hatred
+towards us, the real, unveneered attitude of the ordinary Chinese is one
+not calculated to foster between the Occident and the Orient the
+brotherhood of man. Difficult is it for the foreigner in civilized parts
+of China--and impossible for the great preponderance of the European
+peoples at home--to grasp the fact that in huge tracts of Interior China
+the populace have never seen a foreigner, save for the ubiquitous
+missionary, who takes on more often than not the dress of the native.
+
+Although the Chinese Government recognizes the dangerous situation of
+the nation _vis-a-vis_ with nations of Europe, and has ratified one
+treaty after another with us, the nation itself does not, so far as the
+traveler can see, appreciate the fact that she cannot possibly resist
+the white man, and hold herself in seclusion as formerly from the
+Western world. China is discovering--has discovered officially, although
+that does not necessarily mean nationally--as Japan did so admirably
+when her progress was most marked, that steam and machinery have made
+the world too small for any part thereof to separate itself entirely
+from the broadening current of the world's life.
+
+Whilst not for a moment failing to admire the aggressive character of
+Occidentals, and the resultant necessity of thwarting them--we see[1]
+this especially in official circles in Yuen-nan--Chinese leaders of
+thought and activity are recognizing that in international relations the
+final appeal can be only to a superior power, and that power, to be
+superior, must be thorough, and thorough throughout. So different to
+what has held good in China for countless ages. That is why China is
+making sure of her army, and why she will have ready in 1912--ten years
+before the period originally intended--no less than thirty-six
+divisions, each division formed of ten thousand units.[A] China is now
+endeavoring to walk the ground which led Japan to greatness among the
+nations--she takes Japan as her pattern, and thinks that what Japan has
+done she can do--and, officially abandoning her long course of
+self-sufficient isolation, is plunging into the flood of international
+progress, determined to acquire all the knowledge she can, and thus win
+for herself a place among the Powers.
+
+But I am in Yuen-nan, and things move slowly here.
+
+All this does not mean that my presence is desired, or that fear of me,
+the foreigner, has ceased. On the contrary, it signifies that I am more
+greatly to be feared. The European is _not_ wanted in China, no matter
+how absurd it may seem to the student of international politics, who
+sits and devours all the newspaper copy--good, bad and
+indifferent--which filters through regarding China becoming the El
+Dorado of the Westerner. He is wanted for no other reason than that of
+teaching the Chinese to foreignize as much as he can, teaching the
+leaders of the people to strive to modify national life, and to raise
+public conduct and administration to the best standards of the West.
+
+When China is capable of looking after herself, and able to maintain the
+position she is securing by the aid of the foreigner in her provinces,
+following her present mode of thought and action, the foreigner may go
+back again. But it is to be hoped that the evolution of the country will
+be different.
+
+Another feature impressed upon me was the emptiness of the lives of the
+people. Education was rare, and any education they had was confined to
+the Chinese classics.
+
+Neither of the three men I had with me could read or write. The thoughts
+of these people are circumscribed by the narrow world in which they
+live, and only a chance traveler such as myself allows them a glimpse of
+other places. Each man, with rare exception, lives and labors and dies
+where he is born--that is his ambition; and in the midst of a people
+whose whole outlook of life is so contracted, I find difficulty in
+believing that progress such as Japan made in her memorable fifty-year
+forward movement will be made by the Chinese of Yuen-nan in two hundred
+years. Everything one can see around him here, at this town of
+Anning-cheo, seems to make against it. In my dealings with Chinese in
+their own country--I speak broadly--I have found that they "know
+everything." I erected a printing-press in Tong-ch'uan-fu some months
+ago--a type of the old flat handpress not unlike that first used by
+Caxton. It was a part of the equipment of the Ai Kueh Hsieh Tang (Love
+of Country School), and I was invited by the gentry to erect it. Now the
+thing had not been up an hour before all the old fossils in the place
+knew all about it. Printing to them was easy--a child could do it. It is
+always, "O ren teh, o ren teh" ("I know, I know"). These men, dressed in
+their best, stood with arms behind them, and smiled stupidly as I
+labored with my coat off fixing their primitive machinery. Yet they did
+_not_ know, and now, within a few months, not a sheet has been printed,
+and the whole plant is going to rack and ruin.
+
+This is the difference between the Chinese and the tribespeople of
+Yuen-nan. Here we see the god of the missionary again, quite apart from
+any religious basis. The tribesman comes and lays himself at the feet of
+the missionary, and says at once, "I do not know. Tell me, and I will
+follow you. I want to learn." That is why it is that the Chinese stand
+open-eyed and open-mouthed when they see the Miao making strides
+altogether impossible to themselves, in proportion to their standard of
+civilization, and this position of things will not be altered, unless
+they cease to deceive themselves. I have seen a Miao boy of nine who
+never in his life had seen a Chinese character, who did not know that
+school existed and, whose only tutoring depended on the week's visit of
+the missionary twice a year. I have seen this youngster read off a sheet
+of Chinese characters no Chinese boy of his age in the whole city would
+succeed in. I have not been brought into contact with any other tribe as
+I have with the Hua Miao.[1]
+
+But if the progress this once-despised people are making is maintained,
+the Yuen-nanese will very soon be left behind in the matter of practical
+scholarship. These Miao live the simplest of simple lives, but they wish
+to become better--to live purer lives, to become civilized, to be
+uplifted; and therefore they are most humble, most approachable, and are
+slowly evolving into a happy position of proud independence. Education
+among the Hua Miao is not lost: among the Chinese much of the labor put
+forward in endeavors to educate them is lost, or seems to bear no
+immediate fruit. The Miao are living by confidence and hope that turns
+towards the future; the Yuen-nanese are content with their confidence in
+the past. The Miao, however, were not like this always--but a few years
+ago they were not heard of outside China.
+
+The coming emancipation of their women, demands some attention. The few
+Europeans who have lived among the multitudes in Central China would not
+associate beds of roses with the lives of the women anywhere.
+
+The daughter is seldom happy, and unless the wife present her husband
+with sons, who will perpetuate the father's name and burn incense at his
+tablet after his death, her life is more often than not made absolutely
+unbearable--a fact more than any other one thing responsible for the
+numerous suicides. She is the drudge, the slave of the man. And the
+popular belief is that all the women of the Middle Kingdom are
+essentially Chinese; but little is heard of the tribespeople--more
+numerous probably than in any other given area in all the world--whose
+womankind are as far removed from the Chinese in language, habits and
+customs as English ladies of to-day are removed from Grecians. A decade
+or so ago no one heard of the Miao women: they were the lowest of the
+low, having no _status_. They were far worse off than their Chinese
+sisters, who, no matter what they had to endure after marriage, were
+certainly safeguarded by law and etiquette allowing them to enter the
+married state with respectability; but no social laws, no social ties
+protect the Miao women.
+
+Until a few years ago their "club" was a common brothel, too horrible to
+describe in the English language. As soon as a girl gave birth to her
+first child she came down on the father to keep her. In many cases, it
+is only fair to say, they lived together faithfully as man and wife,
+although such cases were not by any means in the majority. The poor
+creatures herded together in their unspeakable vice and infamy, with no
+shame or common modesty, fighting for the wherewithal to live, and only
+by chance living regularly with one man, and then only just so long as
+he wished. Little girls of ten and over regularly attended these awful
+hovels, and children grew out of their childhood with no other vision
+than that of entering into the disgraceful life as early as Nature would
+allow them. It meant little less than that practically the whole of the
+population was illegitimate, viewed from a Western standpoint. No such
+thing as marriage existed. Men and women cohabited in this horrible orgy
+of existence, with the result that murder, disease and pestilence were
+rife among them. It was only a battle of the survival of the fittest to
+pursue so terrible a life. Nearly all the people were diseased by the
+transgression of Nature's laws.
+
+After a time, however, through the instrumentality of Protestant
+missionaries, these wretched people began to see the light of
+civilization. Gradually, and of their own free will, the girls gave up
+their accursed dens of misery and shame, and the men lived more in
+accord with social law and order.
+
+The Miao, too, had hitherto been dependent for their literature upon the
+Chinese character, which only a few could understand. Soon they had
+literature in their own language,[AE] and a great social reform set in.
+They showed a desire for Western learning such as has seldom been seen
+among any people in China--these were people lowest down in the social
+scale; and now the latest phase is the establishment of bethrothal and
+marriage laws, calculated to revolutionize the community and to
+introduce what in China is the equivalent for home life.
+
+Betrothal among the Chinese is a matter with which the parties most
+deeply concerned have little to do. Their parents engage a go-between or
+match-maker, and another point is that there is no age limit. Not so now
+with the Christian Miao. No paid go-between is engaged, and brides are
+to be at a minimum age of eighteen years, and bridegrooms twenty. The
+establishment of these laws will, it is hoped, make for the emancipation
+from a life of the most dreadful misery of thousands of women in one of
+the darkest countries of the earth.[AF]
+
+But now the Miao is pressing forward under his burdens, to guide himself
+in the struggle, to retrieve his falls and his failures; and in the
+future lies his hope--the indomitable hope upon which the interest of
+humanity is based--and he has in addition the grand expectation of
+escaping despair even in death. It is all the praiseworthy work of our
+fellow-countrymen, living isolated lives among the people, building up a
+worthy Christian structure upon Miao simplicity and humble fidelity to
+the foreigner.
+
+But I digress from my travel.
+
+Little out of the ordinary marked my travels to Lao-ya-kwan (6,800
+feet), an easy stage. My meager tiffin at an insignificant mountain
+village was, as usual, an educational lesson to the natives. Each tin
+that came from my food basket--one's servant delighted to lay out the
+whole business--underwent the severest criticism tempered with unmeaning
+eulogy, picked up and put down by perhaps a score of people, who did not
+mean to be rude. When I used their chopsticks--dirty little pieces of
+bamboo--in a manner very far removed from their natural method, they
+were proud of me. Outrageously panegyric references were made when an
+old man, scratching at his disagreeable itch-sores under my nose,
+clipped a youngster's ear for hazarding my age to be less than that of
+any of the bystanders, the length of my moustache and a three-day growth
+on my chin giving them the opinion that I was certainly over sixty.[AG]
+
+I entered Lao-ya-kwan under an inauspicious star. No accommodation was
+to be had, all the inns were literally overrun with sedan chairs and
+filled with well-dressed officials, already busy with the "hsi-lien"
+(wash basin). In my dirty khaki clothes, out at knee and elbow, looking
+musty and mean and dusty, with my topee botched and battered, I
+presented a most unhappy contrast as I led my pony down the street under
+the sarcastic stare of bystanding scrutineers. The nights were cold, and
+in the private house where I stayed, mercifully overlooked by a trio of
+protesting effigies with visages grotesque and gruesome, rats ran
+fearlessly over the room's mud floor, and at night I buried my head in
+my rugs to prevent total disappearance of my ears by nibbling. Not so my
+men. They slept a few feet from me, three on one bench, two on another.
+Bedding was not to be had, and so among the dirty straw they huddled
+together as closely as possible to preserve what bodily heat they had.
+Snow fell heavily. In the early morning sunlight on January 13th the
+undulating valley, with its grand untrodden carpet of white, looked
+magnificently beautiful as I picked out the road shown me by a poor
+fellow whose ears had got frost-nipped.
+
+No easy work was it climbing tediously up the narrow footway in a sharp
+spur rising some 1,000 feet in a ribbed ascent, overlooking a fearful
+drop. Over to the left I saw an unhappy little urchin, hardly a rag
+covering his shivering, bleeding body, grovelling piteously in the
+snow, while his blind and goitrous mother did her best at gathering
+firewood with a hatchet. The pass leading over this range, through which
+the white crystalline flakes were driven wildly in one's face, was a
+half-moon of smooth rock actually worn away by the endless tramping of
+myriads of pack-ponies, who then were plodding through ruts of steps
+almost as high as their haunches.
+
+A man with a diseased hip joined me thirty li farther on, dismounting
+from his pile of earthly belongings which these men fix on the backs of
+their ponies. It is a creditable trapeze act to effect a mount after
+the pony is ready for the journey. He had, he said, met me before. He
+knew that I was a missionary, and had heard me preach. He remembered my
+wife and myself and children passing the night in the same inn in which
+he stayed on one of his pilgrimages from his native town somewhere to
+the east of the province. I had never seen him before! I had no wife; I
+have never preached a sermon in my life. I should be pained ever again
+to have to suffer his unmannerly presence anywhere.
+
+Ponies were being loaded near my table. The rapscallion in question
+explained that the black blocks were salt, taking a pinch from my
+salt-cellar with his grimy fingers to add point to his remarks. I kicked
+at a couple of mongrels under the rude form on which I sat--they fought
+for the skins of those potato-like pears which grow here so
+prolifically. The person announced that they were dogs, and that an
+idiosyncrasy of Chinese dogs was to fight. Several wags joined in, and
+all appeared, through the traveling nincompoop, to know all about my
+past and present, lapsing into a desultory harangue upon all men and
+things foreign. The street reminded me of Clovelly--rugged and
+ragged--and the people were wrinkled and wretched; and, indeed, being a
+Devonian myself by birth, I should be excused of wantonly intending to
+hurt the delicate feelings of the lusty sons of Devon were I to declare
+that I thought the life not of a very terrible dissimilarity from that
+port of antiquity in the West.
+
+Salt was everywhere, much more like coal than salt, certainly as black.
+The blocks were stacked up by the sides of inns ready for transport,
+carried on the backs of a multitude of poor wretches who work like oxen
+from dawn to dusk for the merest pittance, on the backs of droves and
+droves of ponies, scrambling and spluttering along over the slippery
+once-paved streets.
+
+All day long, with the exception of two or three easy ascents, we were
+travelling in pleasantly undulating country of park-like magnificence.
+My men dallied. I tramped on alone; and sitting down to rest on the
+rocks, I realized that I was in one of the strangest, loneliest, wildest
+corners of the world. Great mountain-peaks towered around me, white and
+sparkling diadems of wondrous beauty, and at my feet, black and
+stirless, lay a silent pool, reflecting the weird shadows of my coolies
+flitting like specters among the jagged rocks of these most solitary
+hills.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AD: Hsiakwan would be supplied by a branch line of the main
+railway in the Kunlong scheme advocated by Major H.R. Davies, leaving at
+Mi-tu, to the south of Hungay.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AE: The written language was framed and instituted by the Rev.
+Sam. Pollard, of the Bible Christian Mission (now merged into the United
+Methodist Mission).--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AF: The marriage laws were instituted by the China Inland
+Mission at Sa-pu-shan, where a great work is being done among the Hua
+Miao. A good many more stipulations are embodied in the excellent rules,
+but I have no room here to detail.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AG: The Chinese have the crudest ideas of the age of
+foreigners. Among themselves the general custom is for a man to shave
+his upper lip so long as his father is alive, so that in the ordinary
+course a man wearing a moustache is looked upon as an old man. In
+Tong-ch'uan-fu the rumor got abroad that three "uei kueh ren" ("foreign
+men") went riding horses--(two young ones and one old one. The "old one"
+was myself, because I had hair on my top lip, despite the fact that I
+was considerably the junior. And the fact that one was a lady was not
+deemed worthy of the slightest consideration.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+_Lu-feng-hsien and its bridge_. _Magnificence of mountains towards the
+capital_. _Opportunity for Dublin Fusiliers_. _Characteristic climbing.
+Crockery crash and its sequel_. _Mountain forest_. _Changeableness of
+climate_. _Wayside scene and some reflections_. _Is your master drunk?
+Babies of the poor_. _Loess roads_. _Travelers, and how they should
+travel_. _Wrangling about payment at the tea-shop_. _The lying art among
+the Chinese_. _Difference of the West and East_. _Strange Chinese
+characteristic_. _Eastern and Western civilization, and how it is
+working_. _Remarks on the written character and Romanisation_. _Will
+China lose her national characteristics? "Ih dien mien, ih dien mien."_
+_A nasty experience of the impotently dumb_. _Rescued in the nick of
+time._
+
+
+When the day shall come for its history to be told, the historian will
+have little to say of Lu-feng-hsien, that is--if he is a decent sort of
+fellow.
+
+He may refer to its wonderful bridge, to its beggars and its ruins. The
+stone bridge, one of the best of its kind in the whole empire, and I
+should think better than any other in Yuen-nan, stands to-day
+conspicuously emblematic of ill-departed prosperity. So far as I
+remember, it was the only public ornament in a condition of passable
+repair in any way creditable to the ratepayers of the hsien. The wall is
+decayed, the people are decayed, and in every nook and cranny are
+painful evidences of preventable decay, marked by a conservatism among
+the inhabitants and unpardonable indolence.
+
+The bridge, however, has stood the test of time, and bids fair to last
+through eternity. Other travelers have passed over it since the days of
+Marco Polo, but I should like to say a word about it. Twelve yards or so
+wide, and no less than 150 yards long, it is built entirely of grey
+stone; with its massive piers, its excellent masonry, its good
+(although crude) carving, its old-time sculpturing of dreadful-looking
+animals at either end, its decorative triumphal arches, its masses of
+memorial tablets (which I could not read), its seven arches of beautiful
+simplicity and symmetry and perfect proportion, it would have been a
+credit to any civilized country in the world. I noticed that, in
+addition to cementing, the stones and pillars forming the sides of the
+roadway were also dovetailed. Among the works of public interest with
+which successive emperors have covered China, the bridges are not the
+least remarkable; and in them one is able to realize the perseverance of
+the Chinese in the enormous difficulties of construction they have had
+to overcome.
+
+Passing over the stream--the Hsiang-shui Ho, I believe--I stepped out
+across the plain with one foot soaked, a pony having pulled me into the
+water as he drank. Peas and beans covered with snow adjoined a
+heart-breaking road which led up to a long, winding ascent through a
+glade overhung by frost-covered hedgerows, where the sun came gently
+through and breathed the sweet coming of the spring. From midway up the
+mountain the view of the plain below and the fine range of hills
+separating me from the capital was one of exceeding loveliness, the
+undisturbed white of the snow and frost sparkling in the sunshine
+contrasting most strikingly with the darkened waves of billowy green
+opposite, with a background of sharp-edged mountains, whose summits were
+only now and again discernible in the waning morning mist. Snow lay deep
+in the crevices. My frozen path was treacherous for walking, but the
+dry, crisp air gave me a gusto and energy known only in high latitudes.
+In a pass cleared out from the rock we halted and gained breath for the
+second ascent, surmounted by a dismantled watch-tower. It has long since
+fallen into disuse, the sound tiles from the roof having been
+appropriated for covering other habitable dwellings near by, where one
+may rest for tea. The road, paved in some places, worn from the side of
+the mountain in others, was suspended above narrow gorges, an entrance
+to a part of the country which had the aspect of northern regions. The
+sun, tearing open the curtain of blue mist, inundated with brightness
+one of the most beautiful landscapes it is possible to conceive. A
+handful of Dublin Fusiliers with quick-firing rifles concealed in the
+hollows of the heights might have stopped a whole army struggling up the
+hill-sides. But no one appeared to stop me, so I went on.
+
+Climbing was characteristic of the day. Lu-feng-hsien is about 5,500
+feet; Sei-tze (where we were to sleep) 6,100 feet. Not much of a
+difference in height; but during the whole distance one is either
+dropping much lower than Lu-feng or much higher than Sei-tze. For thirty
+li up to Ta-tsue-si (6,900 feet) there is little to revel in, but after
+that, right on to the terrific drop to our destination for the night, we
+were going through mountain forests than which there are none better in
+the whole of the province, unless it be on the extreme edge of the
+Tibetan border, where accompanying scenery is altogether different.
+
+From a height of 7,850 feet we dropped abruptly, through clouds of thick
+red dust which blinded my eyes and filled my throat, down to the city of
+Sei-tze. I went down behind some ponies. Upwards came a fellow
+struggling with two loads of crockery, and in the narrow pathway he
+stood in an elevated position to let the animals pass. Irony of fate!
+One of the horses--it seemed most intentional--gave his load a tilt: man
+and crockery all went together in one heap to a crevice thirty yards
+down the incline, and as I proceeded I heard the choice rhetoric of the
+victim and the muleteer arguing as to who should pay.
+
+Just before that, I dipped into the very bosom of the earth, with
+rugged hills rising to bewildering heights all around, base to summit
+clad luxuriously in thick greenery of mountain firs, a few cedars, and
+the Chinese ash. Black patches of rock to the right were the death-bed
+of many a swaying giant, and in contrast, running away sunwards, a
+silver shimmer on the unmoving ocean of delicious green was caused by
+the slantwise sun reflections, while in the ravines on the other side a
+dark blue haze gave no invitation. Smoothly-curving fringes stood out
+softly against the eternal blue of the heavens. Farther on, eloquent of
+their own strength and imperturbability, were deep rocks, black and
+defiant; but even here firs grew on the projecting ledges which now and
+again hung menacingly above the red path, shading away the sunlight and
+giving to the dark crevices an atmosphere of damp and cold, where men's
+voices echoed and re-echoed like weird greetings from the grave. Onwards
+again, and from the cool ravines, adorned with overhang branches,
+forming cosy retreats from the now blazing sun, one emerged to a road
+leading up once more to undiscovered vastnesses. Yonder narrowed a
+gorge, fine and delicately covered, pleasing to one's aesthetic sense.
+The center was a dome, all full of life and waving leafage, ethereal and
+sweet; and running down, like children to their mother, were numerous
+little hills densely clothed in a green lighter and more dainty than
+that of the parent hill, throwing graceful curtsies to the murmuring
+river at the foot. As I write here, bathed in the beauty of spring
+sunlight, it is difficult to believe that a few hours since the
+thermometer was at zero. Little spots of habitation, with foodstuffs
+growing alongside, looking most lonely in their patches of green in the
+forest, added a human and sentimental picturesqueness to a scene so
+strongly impressive.
+
+A thatched, barn-like place gave us rest, the woman producing for me a
+huge chunk of palatable rice sponge-cake sprinkled with brown sugar.
+Little naked children, offspring of parents themselves covered with
+merest hanging rags, groped round me and treated me with courteous
+curiosity; goats smelt round the coolie-loads of men who rested on low
+forms and smoked their rank tobacco; smoke from the green wood fires
+issued from the mud grates, where receptacles were filled with boiling
+water ready for the traveler, constantly re-filled by a woman whose
+child, hung over her back, moaned piteously for the milk its mother was
+too busy to give to it. Near by a young girl gave suck to a deformed
+infant, lucky to have survived its birth; her neck was as big as her
+breasts--merely a case of goitre. Coolies passed, panting and puffing,
+all casting a curious glance at him to whose beneficence all were
+willing to pander.
+
+At tiffin I counted thirty-three wretched people, who turned out to see
+the barbarian. They desired, and desired importunately, to touch me and
+the clothes which covered me. And I submitted.
+
+This half-way place was interesting owing to the fact that the lady in
+charge of the buffet could speak two words of French--she had, I
+believe, acted as washerwoman to a man who at one time had been in the
+Customs at Mengtsz. Great excitement ensued among the perspiring
+laborers of the road and the dumb-struck yokels of the district. The
+lady was so goitrous that it would have been extremely risky to hazard a
+guess as to the exact spot where her face began or ended; and here, in a
+place where with all her neighbors she had lived through a period noted
+for famine, for rebellion, for wholesale death and murder of an entire
+village, she endured such terrible poverty that one would have thought
+her spirit would have waned and the light of her youth burned out. But
+no! The lusty dame was still sprightly. She had been three times
+divorced. The person at present connected with her in the bonds of
+wedded life--also goitrous and morally repulsive--stood by and gazed
+down upon her like a proud bridegroom. He resented the levity of Shanks
+and his companion, but, owing to the detail of a sightless eye, he could
+not see all that transpired. However, we were all happy enough. Charges
+were not excessive. My men had a good feed of rice and cabbage, with the
+usual cabbage stump, two raw rice biscuits (which they threw into the
+ashes to cook, and when cooked picked the dirt off with their long
+finger-nails), and as much tea as they could drink--all for less than a
+penny.
+
+There is something in traveling in Yuen-nan, where the people away from
+the cities exhibit such painful apathy as to whether dissolution of this
+life comes to them soon or late, which breeds drowsiness. After a tramp
+over mountains for five or six hours on end, one naturally needed rest.
+To-day, as I sat after lunch and wrote up my journal, I nearly fell
+asleep. As I watched the reflections of all these ill-clad figures on
+the stony roadway, and dozed meanwhile, one rude fellow asked my man
+whether I was drunk!
+
+I was not left long to my reverie.
+
+Entering into a conversation intended for the whole village to hear, my
+bulky coolie sublet his contract for two tsien for the eighty li--we had
+already done fifty. The man hired was a weak, thin, half-baked fellow,
+whose body and soul seemed hardly to hang together. He was the first to
+arrive. As soon as he got in; this same man took a needle from the
+inside of his great straw hat and commenced ridding his pants of
+somewhat outrageous perforations. Such is the Chinese coolie, although
+in Yuen-nan he would be an exception. Late at night he offered to put a
+shoe on my pony. I consented. He did the job, providing a new shoe and
+tools and nails, for 110 cash--just about twopence.
+
+I could not help, thinking of the children I had seen to-day, "Sad for
+the dirt-begrimed babies that they were born." These children were all a
+family of eternal Topsies--they merely grew, and few knew how. They are
+rather dragged up than brought up, to live or die, as time might
+appoint. Babies in Yuen-nan, for the great majority, are not coaxed, not
+tossed up and down and petted, not soothed, not humored. There are none
+to kiss away their tears, they never have toys, and dream no young
+dreams, but are brought straight into the iron realities of life. They
+are reared in smoke and physical and moral filth, and become men and
+women when they should be children: they haggle and envy, and swear and
+murmur. When in Yuen-nan--or even in the whole of China--will there be
+the innocence and beauty of childhood as we of the West are blessed
+with?
+
+Roads here were in many cases of a light loess, and some of red
+limestone rock, with a few li of paved roads. Many of the main roads
+over the loess are altered by the rains. Two days of heavy rain will
+produce in some places seas of mud, often knee-deep, and this will again
+dry up quite as rapidly with the next sunshine. They become undermined,
+and crumble away from the action of even a trickling stream, so as to
+become always unsafe and sometimes quite impassable.
+
+Delays are very dear to the heart of every Chinese. The traveler, if he
+is desirous of getting his caravan to move on speedily, has little
+chance of success unless he assumes an attitude of profoundest
+indifference to all men and things around him--never _appear_ to be in a
+hurry.
+
+We are accompanied to-day to Kwang-tung-hsien by the coolie who carried
+the load yesterday. He sits by staring enviously at his compatriots in
+the employ of the foreign magnate, who rests on a stone behind and
+listens to the conversation. They invite him to carry again; he refuses.
+Now the argument--natural and right and proper--is ensuing with warmth.
+Lao Chang, with the air of a hsien "gwan," sits in judgment upon them,
+bringing to bear his long experience of coolies and the amount of
+"heart-money" they receive, and has decided that the fellow should
+receive a tenth of a dollar and twenty cash in addition for carrying the
+heavier of the loads the remaining thirty li, as against ten cents
+offered by the men. He is now extending philosophic advice to them all,
+based on a knowledge of the coolie's life; the little meeting breaks up,
+good feeling prevails, and the loads carried on merrily. I still linger,
+sipping my tea. Lao Chang has grumbled because he has had to shell out
+seven cash, and I have already drunk ten cups (he generally uses the tea
+leaves afterwards for his personal use).
+
+But wrangling about payment prevails always where Chinese congregate. In
+China, by high and low, lies are told without the slightest apparent
+compunction. One of the men in the above-mentioned dispute had an
+irrepressible volubility of assertion. He at once flew into a temper,
+adopting the style of the stage actor, proclaiming his virtue so that it
+might have been heard at Yuen-nan-fu. He was preserving his "face." For
+in this country temper is often, what it is not in the West, a test of
+truth. Among Westerners nothing is more insulting sometimes than a
+philosophic temper; but in China you must, as a first law unto yourself,
+protect yourself at all costs and against all comers, and it generally
+requires a good deal of noise. Here the bully is not the coward. In
+respect of prevarication, it seems to be absolutely universal; the poor
+copy the vice from the rich. It seems to be in the very nature of the
+people, and although it is hard to write, my experience convinces me
+that my statement is not exaggeration. I have found the Chinese--I speak
+of the common people, for in my travels I have not mixed much with the
+rich--the greatest romancer on earth. I question whether the great
+preponderance of the Chinese people speak six consecutive sentences
+without misrepresentation or exaggeration, tantamount to prevarication.
+Regretting that I have to write it, I give it as my opinion that the
+Chinese is a liar by nature. And when he is confronted with the charge
+of lying, the culprit seems seldom to feel any sense of guilt.
+
+And yet in business--above the petty bargaining business--we have as the
+antithesis that the spoken word is his bond. I would rather trust the
+Chinese merely on his word than the Jap with a signed contract.
+
+The Chinese knows that the Englishman is not a liar, and he respects him
+for it; and it is to be hoped that in Yuen-nan there will soon be seen
+the two streams of civilization which now flow in comparative harmony in
+other more enlightened provinces flowing here also in a single channel.
+These two streams--of the East and the West--represent ideas in social
+structure, in Government, in standards of morality, in religion and in
+almost every human conception as diverse as the peoples are racially
+apart. They cannot, it is evident, live together. The one is bound to
+drive out the other, or there must be such a modification of both as
+will allow them to live together, and be linked in sympathies which go
+farther than exploiting the country for initial greed. The Chinese will
+never lose all the traces of their inherited customs of daily life, of
+habits of thought and language, products which have been borne down the
+ages since a time contemporary with that of Solomon. No fair-minded man
+would wish it. And it is at once impossible.
+
+The language, for instance. Who is there, who knows anything about it,
+who would wish to see the Chinese character drop out of the national
+life? Yet it is bound to come to some extent, and in future ages the
+written language will develop into pretty well the same as Latin among
+ourselves. Romanization, although as yet far from being accomplished,
+must sooner or later come into vogue, as is patent at the first glance
+at business. If commerce in the Interior is to grow to any great extent
+in succeeding generations, warranting direct correspondence with the
+ports at the coast and with the outside world, the Chinese hieroglyph
+will not continue to suffice as a satisfactory means of communication.
+No correspondence in Chinese will ever be written on a machine such as I
+am now using to type this manuscript, and this valuable adjunct of the
+office must surely force its way into Chinese commercial life. But only
+when Romanization becomes more or less universal.
+
+This, however, by the way.
+
+My point is, that no matter how Occidentalized he may become, the
+Chinese will never lose his national characteristics--not so much
+probably as the Japanese has done. What the youth has been at home, in
+his habits of thought, in his purpose and spirit, in his manifestation
+of action, will largely determine his after life. Chinese mental and
+moral history has so stamped certain ineffaceable marks on the language,
+and the thought and character of her people, that China will never--even
+were she so inclined--obliterate her Oriental features, and must always
+and inevitably remain Chinese. The conflict, however, is not racial, it
+is a question of civilization. Were it racial only, to my way of
+thinking we should be beaten hopelessly.
+
+And as I write this in a Chinese inn, in the heart of Yuen-nan--the
+"backward province"--surrounded by the common people in their common,
+dirty, daily doings, a far stretch of vivid imagining is needed to see
+these people in any way approaching the Westernization already current
+in eastern provinces of this dark Empire.
+
+This is what I wrote sitting on the top of a mountain during my tour
+across China. But it will be seen in other parts of this book that
+Western ideas and methods of progress in accord more with European
+standards are being adopted--and in some places with considerable
+energy--even in the "backward province." In travel anywhere in the
+world, one becomes absorbed more or less with one's own immediate
+surroundings, and there is a tendency to form opinions on the
+limitations of those surroundings. In many countries this would not lead
+one far astray, but in China it is different. Most of my opinion of the
+real Chinese is formed in Yuen-nan, and it is not to be denied that in
+all the other seventeen provinces, although a good many of them may be
+more forward in the trend of national evolution and progress, the same
+squalidness among the people, and every condition antagonistic to the
+Westerner's education so often referred to, are to be found. But China
+has four hundred and thirty millions of people, so that what one writes
+of one particular province--in the main right, perhaps--may not
+necessarily hold good in another province, separated by thousands of
+miles, where climatic conditions have been responsible for differences
+in general life. With its great area and its great population, it does
+not need the mind of a Spencer to see that it will take generations
+before every acre and every man will be gathered into the stream of
+national progress.
+
+The European traveler in China cannot perhaps deny himself the pleasure
+of dwelling upon the absurdities and oddities of the life as they strike
+him, but there is also another side to the question. Our own
+civilization, presenting so many features so extremely removed from his
+own ancient ideas and preconceived notion of things in general, probably
+looks quite as ridiculous from the standpoint of the Chinese. The East
+and the West each have lessons to offer the other. The West is offering
+them to the East, and they are being absorbed. And perhaps were we to
+learn the lessons to which we now close our eyes and ears, but which are
+being put before us in the characteristics of Oriental civilization, we
+may in years to come, sooner than we expect, rejoice to think that we
+have something in return for what we have given; it may save us a rude
+awakening. It does not strike the average European, who has never been
+to China, and who knows no more about the country than the telegrams
+which filter through when massacres of our own compatriots occur, that
+Europe and America are not the only territories on this little round
+ball where the inhabitants have been left with a glorious heritage.
+
+But I was speaking of my men delaying on the road to Kwang-tung-hsien,
+when they laughed at my impatience.
+
+"Ih dien mien, ih dien mien," shouted one, as he held out a huge blue
+bowl of white wormlike strings and a couple of chopsticks. "Mien," it
+should be said, is something like vermicelli. A tremendous amount of it
+is eaten; and in Singapore, without exception, it is dried over the
+city's drains, hung from pole to pole after the rope-maker's fashion.
+Its slipperiness renders the long boneless strings most difficult of
+efficient adjustment, and the recollection of the entertainment my
+comrades received as I struggled to get a decent mouthful sticks to me
+still.
+
+After that I hurried on, got off the "ta lu," and suffered a nasty
+experience for my foolishness. When nearing the city, inquiring whether
+my men had gone on inside the walls, a manure coolie, liar that he was,
+told me that they had. I strode on again, encountering the crowds who
+blocked the roadway as market progressed, who stared in a suspicious
+manner at the generally disreputable, tired, and dirty foreigner. Each
+moment I expected the escort to arrive. I could not sit down and drink
+tea, for I had not a single cash on my person. I could speak none of the
+language, and could merely push on, with ragtags at my heels, becoming
+more and more embarrassed by the pointing and staring public. I turned,
+but could see none of my men. I managed to get to the outer gate, and
+there sat down on the grass, with five score of gaping idiots in front
+of me. Seeing this vulgar-looking intruder among them, who would not
+answer their simplest queries, or give any reason for being there,
+suspicion grew worse; they naturally wanted to know what it was, and
+what it wanted. Some thought I might be deaf, and raved questions in my
+ear at the top of their voices. Even then I remained impotently dumb.
+Two policemen came and said something. At their invitation I followed
+them, and found myself later in a small police box, the street lined
+with people, facing an officer.
+
+The man hailed me in speech uncivil. He was huge as the hyperborean
+bear, and cruel looking, and with a sort of apologetic petitionary growl
+I sidled off; but it was anything but comfortable, and I should not have
+been surprised had I found myself being led off to the yamen. After a
+nerve-trying half-hour, I was thankful to see the form of my men
+appearing at the moment when I was vehemently expressing indignation at
+not being understood.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+_A bumptious official_. _Ignominious contrasts of two travelers.
+Diminishing respect for foreigners in the Far East_. _Where the European
+fails_. _His maltreatment of Orientals_. _Convicts on the way to death_.
+_At Ch'u-hsiony-fu_. _Buffaloes and children_. _Exasperating repetition
+met in Chinese home life_. _Unaesthetic womanhood_. _Quarrymen and
+careless tactics_. _Scope for the physiologist_. _Interesting unit of
+the city's humanity_. _Signs of decay in the countryside_. _Carrying the
+dead to eternal rest_. _At Chennan-chou_. _Public kotowing ceremony and
+its aftermath_. _Chinese ignorance of distance._
+
+
+All-round idyllic peace did not reign at Kwang-tung-hsien, where I
+rested over Sunday. Contacts in social conditions gave rise inevitably
+to causes for conflicts.
+
+Arriving early, my men were able to secure the best room and soon after,
+with much imposing pomp and show, a "gwan"[AH] arrived, disgusted that he
+had to take a lower room. I bowed politely to him as he came in. He did
+not return it, however, but stood with a contemptuous grin upon his face
+as he took in the situation. I do not know who the person was, neither
+have a wish to trace his ancestry, but his bumptiousness and general
+misbehavior, utterly in antagonism to national etiquette, made me hate
+the sight of the fellow. Pride has been said to make a man a hedgehog. I
+do not say that this man was a hedgehog altogether, but he certainly
+seemed to wound everyone he touched. He had with him a great retinue, an
+extravagant equipage, fine clothes, and presumably a great fortune; but
+none of this offended me--it was his contempt which hurt. He seemed to
+splash me with mud as he passed, and was altogether badly disposed. In
+his every act he heaped humiliation upon me, and insulted me silently
+and gratuitously with unbearable disdain. Luckily, be it said to the
+credit of the Chinese Government, one does not often meet officials of
+this kind; such an atmosphere would nurture the worst feeling. It is, of
+course, possible that had I been traveling with many men and in a style
+necessary for representatives of foreign Governments, this hog might
+have been more polite; but the fact that I had little with me, and made
+a poor sort of a show, allowed him to come out in his true colors and
+display his unveneered feeling towards the foreigner. That he had no
+knowledge of the man crossing China on foot was evident. He was great
+and rich--that was the sentiment he breathed out to everyone--and the
+foreigner was humble. There is no wrong in enjoying a large superfluity,
+but it was not indispensable to have displayed it, to have wounded the
+eyes of him who lacked it, to have flaunted his magnificence at the door
+of my commonplace.
+
+Had I been able to speak, I should have pointed out to this fellow that
+to know how to be rich is an art difficult to master, and that he had
+not mastered it; that as an official his first duty in exercising power
+was to learn that of humility; and that it is the irritating authority
+of such very lofty and imperious beings as himself, who say, "I am the
+law," that provokes insurrection. However, I was dumb, and could only
+return his contemptuous glance now and again.
+
+To him I could have said, as I would here say also to every foreigner in
+the employ of the Chinese Government, "The only true distinction is
+superior worth." If foreigners in China are to have social and official
+rank respected, they must begin to be worthy of their rank, otherwise
+they help to bring it into hatred and contempt. It is a pity some native
+officials have to learn the same lesson.
+
+In several years of residence in the Far East I have noticed respect
+for the foreigner unhappily diminishing. The root of the evil is in the
+mistaken idea that high station exempts him who holds it from observing
+the common obligations of life. It comes about--so often have I seen it
+in the Straits Settlements and in various parts of India--that those who
+demand the most homage make the least effort to merit that homage they
+demand. That is chiefly why respect for the foreigner in the Orient is
+diminishing, and I have no hesitancy in asserting that the average
+European in the East and Far East does not treat the Oriental with
+respect. He considers that the Chinese, the Malay, the Burman, the
+Indian is there to do the donkey work only. The newcomer generally
+discovers in himself an astounding personal omnipotence, and even before
+he can talk the language is so obsessed with it that as he grows older,
+his sense of it broadens and deepens. And in China--of the Chinese this
+is true to-day as in other spheres of the Far East--the native is there
+to do the donkey work, and does it contentedly and for the most part
+cheerfully. But he will not always be so content and so cheerful. He
+will not always suffer a leathering from a man whom he knows he dare not
+now hit back.[AI] Some day he may hit back. We have seen it before, how
+at some moment, by some interior force making a way to the light, an
+explosion takes place: there is an upheaval, all sorts of grave
+disorders, and because some Europeans are killed the Celestial
+Government is called upon to pay, and to pay heavily. Indemnities are
+given, but the Chinese pride still feels the smart.
+
+[1
+Pulling away up the sides of barren, sandy hills in my lonely
+pilgrimage, I could see wide, fertile plains sheltered in the undulating
+hollows of mountains, over which in arduous toil I vanished and
+re-appeared, how or where I could hardly calculate. Suddenly, rounding
+an awkward corner, a magnificent panorama broke upon the view in a
+rolling valley watered by many streams below, all green with growing
+wheat. A high spur about midway up the rolling mountain forms a capital
+spot for wayfarers to stop and exchange travelers' notes. A couple of
+convicts were here, their feet manacled and their white cotton clothing
+branded with the seal of death; by the side were the crude wooden cages
+in which they were carried by four men, with whom they mixed freely and
+manufactured coarse jokes. In six days bang would fall the knife, and
+their heads would roll at the feet of the executioners at Yuen-nan-fu.
+
+Coming into Ch'u-hsiong-fu[AJ]--the stage is what the men call 90 li, but
+it is not more than 70--I was brought to an insignificant wayside place
+where the innkeeper upbraided my boy for endeavoring to allow me to pass
+without wetting a cup at his bonny hostelry. Had I done so, I should
+have avouched myself utterly indifferent to reputation as a traveler.
+
+But I did not stay the night here. I passed on through the town to a new
+building, an inn, into which I peered inquiringly. A well-dressed lad
+came courteously forward, in his bowing and scraping seeming to say,
+"Good sir, we most willingly embrace the opportunity of being honored
+with your noble self and your retinue under our poor roof. Long since
+have we known your excellent qualities; long have we wished to have you
+with us. We can have no reserve towards a person of your open and noble
+nature. The frankness of your humor delights us. Disburden yourself, O
+great brother, here and at once of your paraphernalia."
+
+I stayed, and was charged more for lodging than at any other place in
+all my wanderings in China. My experience was different from that of
+Major Davies when he visited this city in 1899. He writes:--
+
+
+"The people of this town are particularly conservative and exclusive.
+They have such an objection to strangers that no inn is allowed within
+the city walls, and no one from any other town is allowed to establish a
+shop.... When the telegraph line was first taken through here there was
+much commotion, and so determined was the opposition of the townspeople
+to this new-fangled means of communication that the telegraph office had
+to be put inside the colonel's yamen, the only place where it would be
+safe from destruction."
+
+
+The proprietor of the inn in which I stayed was a man of about fifty, of
+goodly person and somewhat corpulent, comely presence, good humor, and
+privileged freedom. He had a pretty daughter. He was an exception to the
+ordinary father in China, in the fact that he was proud of her, as he
+was of his house and his faring. But in all conscience he should have
+been abundantly ashamed of his charges, for my boy said I was charged
+three times too much, and I have no cause for doubting his word either,
+for he was fairly honest. I once had a boy in Singapore who acted for
+three weeks as a "ganti"[AK] whilst my own boy underwent a surgical
+operation, and between misreckonings, miscarriages, misdealings,
+mistakes and misdemeanors, had he remained with me another month I
+should have had to pack up lock, stock and barrel and clear.
+
+I stayed here a day in the hope of getting my mail, but had the
+pleasure of seeing only the bag containing it. It was sealed, and the
+postmaster had no authority to break that seal.
+
+There were no telegraph poles in the district through which I was
+passing; the connections were affixed to the trunks of trees. The
+telegraph runs right across the Ch'u-hsiong-fu plain, on entering which
+one crosses a rustic bridge just below a rather fine pagoda, from which
+an excellent view is obtained of the old city. The wall up towards the
+north gate, where there is another pagoda, is built over a high knoll.
+Inside the wall half the town is uncultivated ground. Four youngsters
+here were having a great time on the back of a lazy buffalo, who,
+turning his head swiftly to get rid of some irritating bee, dislodged
+the quartet to the ground, where they fought and cursed each other over
+the business.
+
+Everything that one sees around here is particularly "Chinesey." It may
+be supposed that I am not the first person who has gone through town
+after town and found in all that he looks at, particularly the houses,
+certain forms identical, inevitable, exasperating by common repetition.
+It has been said that poetry is not in things, it is in us; but in China
+very little poetry comes into the homes and lives of the common
+millions: they are all dead dwelling-houses, even the best, bare homes
+without life or brightness. Among the working-classes of the West there
+is to be found a kind of ministering beauty which makes its way
+everywhere, springing from the hands of woman. When the dwelling is
+cramped, the purse limited, the table modest, a woman who has the gift
+finds a way to make order and puts care and art into everything in her
+house, puts a soul into the inanimate, and gives those subtle and
+winsome touches to which the most brutish of human beings is sensible.
+But in China woman does nothing of this. Her life is unaesthetic to the
+last degree. No happy improvisations or touches of the stamp of
+personality enter her home; one cannot trace the touches of witchery in
+the tying of a ribbon. Everywhere you find the same class of furniture
+and garniture, the same shape of table, of stool, of form, of bed, of
+cooking utensils, of picture, of everything; and all the details of her
+housekeeping are so apathetically uninteresting. The Chinese woman has
+no charming art, rather is it a common, horrid, daily grind. She is not,
+as the woman should be, the interpreter in her home of her own grace,
+and she differs from her Western sister in that it is impossible for her
+to express in her dress also the little personalities of character--all
+is eternally the same. But I know so very little of ladies' clothing,
+and therefore cease.
+
+Quarrying was going on high up among the hills as I left the city. Men
+were out of sight, but their hammering was heard distinctly. As each
+boulder was freed these wielders of the hammer yelled to passers-by to
+look out for their heads, gave the stone a push to start it rolling, and
+if it rolled upon you it was your own fault and not theirs--you should
+have seen to it that you were somewhere else at the time. If it blocked
+the pathway, another had to be made by those who made the traffic.
+Directly under the quarry I was accosted by a beggar. "Old foreign man!
+Old foreign man!" he yelled. Stones were falling fast; it is possible
+that he does not sit there now.
+
+Physiognomists do not swarm in China. There is grand scope for someone.
+There would be ample material for research for the student in the
+soldiers alone who would be sent to guard him from place to place. He
+would not need to go farther afield; for he would be given fat men and
+lean men, brave men and cowards, some blessed with brains and some not
+one whit brainy, civil and surly, stubby and lanky, but rogues and liars
+all. Travelers are always interested in their chairmen; oftentimes my
+interest in them was greater than theirs in me, until the time came for
+us to part. Then the "Ch'a ts'ien,"[AL] always in view from the outset of
+their duty, brought us in a manner nearer to each other.
+
+As I came out of the inn at Ch'u-hsiong-fu somewhat hurriedly, for my
+men lingered long over the rice, I stumbled over the yamen fellow who
+crouched by the doorside. He laughed heartily. Had I fallen on him his
+tune might have been changed; but no matter. This unit of the city
+humanity was not bewilderingly beautiful. He was profoundly
+ill-proportioned, very goitrous, and ravages of small-pox had bequeathed
+to him a wonderful facial ugliness. He had, however, be it written to
+his honor, learnt that life was no theory. One could see that at a
+glance as he walked along at the head of the procession, with a stride
+like an ox, manfully shouldering his absurd weapon of office, which in
+the place of a gun was an immense carved wooden mace, not unlike a leg
+of the old-time wooden bedstead of antiquity. His ugliness was
+embittered somewhat by sunken, toothless jaws and an enigmatical stare
+from a cross-eye; he was also knock-kneed, and as an erstwhile gunpowder
+worker, had lost two fingers and a large part of one ear. But he had
+learnt the secret of simple duty: he had no dreams, no ambition
+embracing vast limits, did not appear to wish to achieve great things,
+unless it were that in his fidelity to small things he laid the base of
+great achievements. He waited upon me hand and foot; he burned with
+ardor for my personal comfort and well-being; he did not complicate life
+by being engrossed in anything which to him was of no concern--his only
+concern was the foreigner, and towards me he carried out his duty
+faithfully and to the letter. I would wager that that man, ugly of face
+and form, but most kindly disposed to one who could communicate little
+but dumb approval, was an excellent citizen, an excellent father, an
+excellent son.
+
+So very different was another traveler who unceremoniously forced
+himself upon me with the inevitable "Ching fan, ching fan," although he
+had no food to offer. He commenced with a far-fetched eulogium of my
+ambling palfrey Rusty, who limped along leisurely behind me. So far as
+he could remember, poor ignorant ass, he had never seen a pony like it
+in his extensive travels--probably from Yuen-nan-fu to Tali-fu, if so
+far; but as a matter of fact, Rusty had wrenched his right fore fetlock
+between a gully in the rocks the day before and was now going lame.
+Dressed fairly respectably in the universal blue, my unsought companion
+was of middle stature, strongly built, but so clumsily as to border
+almost on deformity, and to give all his movements the ungainly
+awkwardness of a left-handed, left-legged man. He walked with a limp,
+was suffering (like myself) with sore feet; if not that, it was
+something incomparably worse. Not for a moment throughout the day did he
+leave my side, the only good point about him being that when we
+drank--tea, of course--he vainly begged to be allowed to pay. In that he
+was the shadow of some of my friends of younger days.
+
+But of men enough.
+
+From Ch'u-hsiong-fu on to Tali-fu the whole country bears lamentable
+signs of gradual ruin and decay, a falling off from better times. The
+former city is probably the most important point on the route, and is
+mentioned as a likely point for the proposed Yuen-nan Railway.
+
+The country has never recovered from the terrible effects of the great
+Mohammendan Rebellion of 1857. Foundations of once imposing buildings
+still stand out in fearful significance, and ruins everywhere over the
+barren country tell plain tales all too sad of the good days gone.
+Temples, originally fit for the largest city in the Empire, with
+elaborate wood and stone carving and costly, weird images sculptured in
+stone, with particularly fine specimens of those blood-curdling
+Buddhistic hells and their presiding monsters, with miniature ornamental
+pagodas and intricate archways, are all now unused; and when the people
+need material for any new building (seldom erected now in this
+district), the temple grounds are robbed still more. In the days of its
+prosperity Yuen-nan must have been a fair land indeed, bright, smiling,
+seductive; now it is the exact antithesis, and the people live sad,
+flat, colorless existences.
+
+For three days my caravan was preceded by twelve men, headed by a sort
+of gaffer with a gong, carrying a corpse in a massive black coffin,
+elaborate in red and blue silk drapings and with the inevitable white
+cock presiding, one leg tied with a couple of strands of straw to the
+cover, on which it crowed lustily. Their mission was an honorable one,
+carrying the honored dead to its last bed of rest eternal; for this dead
+man had secured the fulfillment of the highest in human destiny--to have
+his bones buried near the scene of his youth, near his home. This is a
+simple custom the Chinese cherish and reverence, of highest honor to the
+dead and of no mean value to the living. To the dead, because buried
+near the home of his fathers he would not be subject to those delusive
+temptations in the future state of that confused and complex life; to
+the living, because it gave work to a dozen men for several days, and
+enabled them to have a good time at the expense of the departed. A
+perpetual and excruciatingly unmusical chant, in keeping with the
+occasion's sadness, rent the mountain air, interrupted only when the
+bearers lowered the coffin and left the remains of the great dead on a
+pair of trestles in the roadway, whilst they drank to his happiness
+above and smoked tobacco which the relatives had given them. Once this
+heaper-up of Chinese merit[AM] was dumped unceremoniously on the turf
+while the headman entered into a blackguarding contest with one of the
+fellows who was alleged to be constantly out of step with his brethren,
+because he was a much smaller man. The gaffer gave him a bit of a
+drubbing for his insolence.
+
+Rain came on at Chennan-chou, a small town of about three hundred
+houses, where I sought shelter in the last house of the street. The
+householder, a shrivelled, goitrous humpback, received me kindly,
+removed his pot of cabbage from the fire to brew tea for his uninvited
+guest, and showed great gratitude (to such an extent that he nearly fell
+into the fire as he moved to push the children forward towards me) when
+I gave a few cash to three kiddies, who gaped open-mouthed at the
+apparition thus found unexpectedly before their parent's hearth. More
+came in, my beneficent attention being modestly directed towards them;
+others followed, and still more, and more, whilst the man, removing from
+his mouth his four-foot pipe, and wiping the mouthpiece with his soiled
+coat-sleeve before offering it to me to smoke, smiled as I distributed
+more cash.
+
+"They are all mine," he said cutely.
+
+Poor fellow! There must have been a dozen nippers there, and I sighed at
+the thought of what some men come to as the last of half a string of
+cash slipped through my fingers.[AN]
+
+Outside the town, on the lee side of a triumphal arch--erected, maybe,
+to the memory of one of the virtuous widows of the district--I untied my
+pukai and donned my mackintosh and wind-cap. A gale blew, my fingers
+ached with the cold, breathing was rendered difficult by the rarefied
+air. As we were thus engaged and discussing the prospects of the storm,
+yelling from under a gigantic straw hat, a fellow said--
+
+"Suan liao" ("not worth reckoning") "only five more li to
+Sha-chiao-kai."
+
+We had thirty li to do. Such is the idea of distance in Yuen-nan.[AO]
+
+The storm did not come, however, and my men ever after reminded me to
+keep out my wind-cap and my mackintosh, partly to lighten their loads,
+of course, and partly on account of the good omen it seemed to them to
+be.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AH: "Gwan" is the Chinese for "official."]
+
+[Footnote AI: I have seen a European, with an imperfect hold of an
+eastern language, knock an Asiatic down because he thought the man was a
+fool, whereas he himself was ignorant of what was going on. The message
+the coolie was bringing was misunderstood by the conceited assistant,
+and as a result of having just this smattering of the vernacular, he ran
+his firm in for a loss of fifty thousand dollars.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AJ: Ts'u-hsiong-fu, as it is pronounced locally, with a strong
+"ts" initial sound.]
+
+[Footnote AK: Meaning a relief hand (Malay).]
+
+[Footnote AL: Literally, "tea money."]
+
+[Footnote AM: "Heaping up merit" is one of the elementary practices of
+Chinese religious life.]
+
+[Footnote AN: Chennan-chou, which stands at a height of 6,500 feet, has
+been visited again since by myself. My caravan consisted on this
+occasion of two ponies (one I was riding), two coolies, a servant, and
+myself. As we got to the archway in the middle of the street leading to
+the busy part of the town, my animal nearly landed me into the gutter,
+and the other horse ran into a neighboring house, both frightened by
+crackers which were being fired around a man who was bumping his head on
+the ground in front of an ancestral tablet, brought into the street for
+the purpose. A horrid din made the air turbulent. I sought refuge in the
+nearest house, tying my ponies up to the windows, and was most
+hospitably received as a returned prodigal by a well-disposed old man
+and his courtly helpmate. The genuineness of the hospitality of the
+Chinese is as strong as their unfriendliness can be when they are
+disposed to show a hostile spirit to foreigners. Just as I had laid up
+for dinner the din stopped, we breathed gunpowder smoke instead of air,
+everyone from the head-bumping ceremony came around me, and there
+lingered in silent admiration. My boy came and whispered, quite aloud
+enough for all to hear, that in that part of the town cooked rice could
+not be bought, and that I was going to be left to look after the horses
+and the loads whilst the men went away to feed. He advised the assembled
+crowd that if they valued sound physique they had better keep their
+hands off my gear and depart. My friendly host shut the doors and
+windows, with the exception of that through which I watched our
+impedimenta, and at once commenced good-natured inquiry into my past,
+and concerning vicissitudes of life in general. Luckily, I was able to
+give the old man good reason for congratulating me upon my ancestral
+line, my own great age, the number of my wives and offshoots--mostly
+"little puppies"--and as each curious caller dropped in to sip tea, so
+did one after another of the patriarchal dignitaries who were
+responsible for the human product then entertaining the crowd come
+vividly before the imagination of the company, and they were graced with
+every token of age and honor. (Chinese speak of sons as "little
+puppies.")]
+
+[Footnote AO: In crossing a river here I slipped, and from ray pocket
+there rolled a box of photographic films, and in reaching over to
+re-capture it, I let my loaded camera fall into the water. I was
+disappointed, as most of my best pictures were thus (as I imagined)
+spoilt. But when I developed at Bhamo, I found not a single film damaged
+by water, and every picture was a success from both the roll in the tin
+and the roll in the camera. It is a tribute to the Eastman-Kodak Company
+Ltd. that their non-curling films will stand being dipped into rivers
+and remain unaffected. The films in question should have been developed
+six months prior to the date of my exposure.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+_Stampede of frightened women_. _To the Eagle Nest_. _An acrobatic
+performance, and some retaliation at the author's expense_. _Over the
+mountains to Pu-peng A magnificent storm, and a description_. _In a
+"rock of ages." Hardiness of my comrades_. _Early morning routine and
+some impressions_. _Unspeakable filth of the Chinese_. _Lolo people of
+the district_. _Physique of the women_. _Aspirations towards Chinese
+customs_. _Skilless building_. _Mythological, anthropological,
+craniological and antediluvian disquisitions_. _At Yuen-nan-i_. _Flat
+country_. _Thriftless humanity_. _To Hungay_. _A day of days_. _Traveler
+in bitter cold unable to procure food_. _Fright in middle night_. _A
+timely rescue_. _Murder of a bullock on my doorstep_. _Callous
+disposition of fellow-travelers_. _Leaving the capital of an old-time
+kingdom_. _Bad roads and good men_. _National virtue of unfailing
+patience_. _Human consumption of diseased animals. Minchia at Hungay_.
+_Major Davies and the Minchia_. _Author's differences of opinion.
+Increasing popularity of the small foot._
+
+
+But the storm came the next day, as we were on our way to Pu-peng,
+during the ninety li when we passed the highest point on this journey.
+By name The Eagle Nest Barrier (Ting-wu-kwan), this elevated pass, 8,600
+feet above the level, reached after a gradual ascent between two
+mountain ranges, was surmounted after a couple of hours' steep climbing,
+where rain and snow had made the paths irritatingly slippery and the
+task most laborious. Although the condition of the road was enough to
+take all the wind out of one's sails, the sublimity of the scenery of
+the dense woods which clothed the mountains, exquisitely pretty ravines,
+tumbling waterfalls, running rivulets and sparkling brooks, with little
+patches of snow hidden away in the maze of greens of every hue, all
+rendered it a climb less tiring than the narrow pathways over which we
+were then to travel. Half-way up we met a string of ponies, and I
+underwent a few nervous moments until they had passed in the twenty-inch
+road--a slight tilt, a slip, a splutter, probably a yell, and I should
+have dropped 500 feet without a bump.
+
+As we went along together, just before reaching this hill, we saw women
+carrying bags of rice. They saw us, too. One passed me safely, but with
+fear. The others carelessly dropping their burdens, scampered off,
+afraid of their lives; and when one of my soldiers (whose sense of humor
+was on a par with my own when as a boy I used to stick butterscotch
+drops on the bald head of my Sunday School teacher, and bend pins for
+small boys to sit on and rise from) shouted to them, they dived straight
+as a die over the hedge into a submerged rice-field, and made a sorry
+spectacle with their "lily" feet and pale blue trousers, covered with
+the thin mud. In struggling to get away, one of them, the silly
+creature, went sprawling on all fours in the slime, and with only the
+imperfect footing possible to her with her little stumps, she would have
+been submerged, had not the man who had frightened her, at my bidding,
+gone to drag her out. As it was, they looked anything but beautiful with
+their wet and muddy garments clinging tightly to their bodies, and
+betraying every curve of their not unbeautiful figures. One of the
+women, a comely damsel of some twenty summers, did not jump into the
+field, but lay flat on the ground behind some bushes, thereby hoping to
+get out of sight, and now came forward with amorous glances. We,
+however, sent them on their way, and I will lay my life that they will
+not "scoot" at the sight of the next foreigner.
+
+And now we are at the "Nest." Many travelers have made remarks upon this
+place, where I was waited upon by a shrivelled, shambling specimen of
+manhood, whose wife--in contrast to her kind in China--seemed to rule
+house and home, bed and board. Whilst we were there, a Chinese, bound
+on the downward journey, endeavored to mount his mule at the very moment
+the animal was reaching out for a blade of straw. As he swung his leg
+across the mule took another step forward, and the rider fell bodily
+with an enormous bump into the lap of one of my coolies, upsetting him
+and his bowl of tea over his trousers and my own. I could not suppress
+hearty approval of this acrobatic incident.
+
+But the end was not yet.
+
+I sat on one end of one of those narrow forms, and this same coolie sat
+on the other. He rose up suddenly, reached over for the common salt-pot,
+and I came off--with the multitude of alfresco diners laughing at this
+smart retaliation until their chock-full mouths emitted the grains of
+rice they chewed.
+
+After that I cleared off. Descending through a fertile valley, from the
+bottom there loomed upwards higher mountains, looking black and dismal,
+with clouds black and dismal keeping them company. We had now to cross
+the undulating ground still separating us from Pu-peng. The early
+portion of the ground was something like Clifton Downs, something like
+Dartmoor. The country was poor, and the people barely put themselves out
+to boil water for chance travelers.
+
+The storm broke suddenly. From the shelter of a hollowed rock I watched
+it all.
+
+Over the submerged plain and the bare hills the blackness was as of
+night. Red earth without the sun looked brown, brown looked black, and
+the trees, swaying helplessly before the raging fury of the gale, seemed
+struck by death. Lightning continued its electrical vividity of
+fork-like greenish white among the heavy clouds, drooping threateningly
+from the hill-tops to the darkened valleys below, laden still with their
+waiting, unshed deluge. Through a narrow incision in the cruel clouds
+the sun peeped out with a nervous timidity, and a tiny patch over
+yonder, in a flash illuminated with gold and purple, across which the
+lightning danced in heavenly rivalry, displayed the magic touch of the
+Artist of the skies. Then came a rainbow of sweetest multi-color, of a
+splendor glorious and exquisite, delicate as the breath from paradise,
+stretching its majestic archbow athwart the waning gloom from range to
+range. As one drank in the glimpses of that dark corner in this peculiar
+fairyland, a mighty peal of magnificent, stentorian clashing broke
+finally upon me, and heaven's electricity again flitted fearfully over
+the earth, aslant, upwards, downwards again, upwards again, disappearing
+over the unmoved hills like a thousand tortured souls fleeing from
+Dante's Hades. And here I sit on, in that veritable "rock of ages" cleft
+for me, glad that no human touch save that of my own mean clay, that no
+human voice came between me and the voice of that Infinite beyond. I
+seemed to have been standing on the verge of another world, another
+great unknown. The heavens raged and the thunders thereof roared, and
+the wild wind hissed and moaned and wailed the hopeless wail of a
+lonely, tormented soul. The cold was intense, and through it all I sat
+drenched to the skin.
+
+On the bleak mountain thus I was the pitifulest atom of loneliest
+humanity, yet felt no loneliness. The face of the earth frowned in angry
+fury, the awfulness of the raging elements dwarfed all else to utter
+annihilation. But even at such a time, coming all too seldom in the
+lives of most of us, when standing in some remote spot which still tells
+forth the story of the world's youth, one's inmost nature thrills with a
+sense of unison with it all beyond human expression. All was so grand,
+inspiring one with an awe beyond one's comprehension, a peculiar, dread
+of one's own earthly insignificance. These pictures, graven in one's
+memory with the strong pencil of our common mother, are indelible, yet
+quite beyond expression. As in our own souls we cannot frame in words
+our deepest life emotions, so as we penetrate into the depths of that
+kindly common mother of us all we find human words the same utterly
+futile channel of expression. To have our souls tuned to this silent
+eloquence of Nature, to catch the sweetness of those wind-swept,
+heaven-directed mountains, to understand the unspoken messages of those
+rushing rivers and those gigantic gorges, to feel the heart-beat of
+Nature and her beauty in perfect harmony with all that is best within
+us, we must be silent, undisturbed, preferably alone. This is not
+flowery sentiment--it is what every true lover of old and lovely Nature
+would feel in Western China, yet still unspoiled by the taint of man's
+absorbing stream of civilization. And in the stress of modern life, and
+the progress of man's monopolization of the earth on which he lives, it
+is beautiful to some of us, of whom it may be said the highest state of
+inward happiness comes from solitary meditation in unperturbed
+loneliness under the broad expanse of heaven, to know that there are
+still some spots of isolation where human foot has never turned the
+clay, and where, out of sight and sound of fellow mortals, we may even
+for a time shake off the violating, unnatural fetters of a harassing
+Western life.
+
+Soon it seemed as if a silken cord had suddenly been severed, and I had
+been dragged from a world of sweet infinitude down to a sphere mundane
+and everyday, to something I had known before.... "....Or what is
+Nature? Ha! why do I not name thee God? Art thou not the 'Living Garment
+of God'? O Heaven, is it in very deed, He, then, that ever speaks
+through thee; that lives and loves in thee, that lives and loves in
+me?"[AP]
+
+I heard the crack of the bamboo and the patter of feet in the sodden,
+slippery pathway, and I knew my men were come. Crawling out from my
+rock, I descended again to common things, having to listen to the
+disgusting talk of my Chinese followers, though a very slender
+vocabulary saved me from losing entirely the memory of that great
+picture then passing away. The sun shone through the clouds, which had
+given place again to blue, the pervading blackness of a few moments
+before had disappeared, and with the sinking sun we descended
+thoughtfully to the town. The hill is solid sandstone, and the uneven
+ruts made by the daily procession of ponies were transformed into a
+network of tiny streams.
+
+That my comrades were drenched to the skin gave them no thought; they
+turned to immediately, while I dived hurriedly to the bottom of my box
+and gulped down quinine. They sat around and drank hot water, holding
+forth with eloquence beyond their wont on the general advantages,
+naturally and supernaturally, of their native city of Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+And well they might, for I know no prettier spot in the whole of Western
+China.
+
+Fifty men--coolies who were carrying general merchandise in all
+directions, and who had taken shelter in the large inn I stayed at--rose
+with me the next morning. As I ate my morning meal, spluttering the rice
+over the floor as I tried vainly to control my chopsticks with
+frost-nipped fingers, they went through the filthy round of early
+morning routine. Squatting about with their dirty face-rags, and a
+half-pint of greasy water in their brass receptacle shaped like the
+soup-plate of civilization, and leaving upon their necks the traces of
+their swills, they wiped the dirt into their hair, and considered they
+had washed themselves. Men would emerge from their rooms, fully dressed,
+with the dishclout in one hand and the hand-basin in the other--on the
+way to their morning tub. Oh, the filth, the unspeakable filth of these
+people! Would that the Chinese would emulate the cleanliness of the
+Japs, though even that I would question. In several years in the Orient
+I have not yet come across the cleanliness in any race of people to be
+compared with that cleanliness which in England is next to godliness.
+
+The people of Pu-peng were pleased to see me. They hurried about
+obligingly to get food for man and beast, and the womankind, poor but
+light-hearted, cracked suggestive jokes with my men with the utmost
+freedom.
+
+In this town there are many Lolo--it might be said that the entire
+population is of Lolo origin, although had I suggested to any particular
+inhabitant that this was a fact he would probably have taken keen
+offense, and things might have gone badly with me. With the men it is
+most difficult to tell--there is little difference between the _Han ren_
+and the tribesman. But the difference is often most marked in respect to
+the women. The Chinese woman has a considerably fairer skin than the
+female of Lolo descent, and her customs and manners, apart from the
+distinct colloquial accent, are quite evident as pretty sure proof of
+distinction of race. After the Lolo have mingled with the Chinese for a
+few years, however, it is quite difficult to differentiate between them,
+as most of the Lolo women now speak Chinese (in this town I did not hear
+any language foreign to the Chinese language), and a good many of the
+men are sufficiently educated to read the Chinese character even if they
+do not write it. The forward racial condition of the Lolo people in this
+district is far greater than that of the people of the same tribe to the
+west of Tali-fu, and in latitudes where their language and customs of
+life and dress are more or less maintained. The women are generally of
+better physique than the Chinese, principally on account of the fact
+that their work is almost exclusively outdoor; but as they begin to copy
+the Chinese, and live a more sedentary life, this fine physique will
+probably gradually disappear. A good many already bind their feet.
+
+When I came out in the early morning the thermometer was twenty degrees
+below zero, and my nose was red and without feeling. _Feng-mao_[AQ] and
+great coat were required, but I was totally oblivious of the hour's
+stiff climbing awaiting me immediately outside the town, to reach the
+highest point in which bathed me in perspiration as if I had played
+three sets of tennis in the tropics.
+
+Mountains were wild and barren, with nothing in them to enable one to
+forget in natural beauty the fatigues of a toilsome ascent. Villages
+came now and again in sight, stretched out at the extremity of the plain
+before my eyes, with their white gables, red walls, and black tiled
+roofs, but during the day we passed through two only. The first was a
+little place where decay would have been absolute had it not been for
+the likin[AR] flag, which enables "squeezes" to be extorted ruthlessly
+from the muleteer and conveyed to the pockets of the prospering customs
+agent. It boasted only ten or twelve tumbling lean-to tenements, where
+my sympathy went out to the half-dozen physical wrecks of men who came
+slowly and stared long, and wondered at the commonest article of my
+meager impedimenta. They seemed poorer and lower down the human scale
+than any I had yet seen. On one of the ragged garments worn by a man of
+about twenty-five I counted no less than thirty-four patches of
+different shapes, sizes and materials, hieroglyphically and skillessly
+thrown together to hide his sore-strewn back; but still his brown
+unwashed flesh was visible in many places.
+
+Looking upon them, one did not like to think that these beings were men,
+men with passions like to one's own, for all the interests, real and
+imaginary, all the topics which should expand the mind of man, and
+connect him in sympathy with general existence, were crushed in the
+absorbing considerations of how rice was to be procured for their
+families of diseaseful brats. They had no brains, these men; or if
+Heaven had thus o'erblessed them, they did not exercise them in their
+industry--their coarse, rough hands alone gained food for the day's
+feeding. And these mud-roofed, mud-sided dwellings--these were their
+homes, to me worse homes than none at all. In their architecture not
+even a single idea could be traced--the Chinese here had proceeded as if
+by merest accident. All I could think as I returned their wondering
+glances was that their world must be very, very old. But I have no time
+or space to talk of them here. To throw more than a cursory glance at
+them Would lead me into interminable disquisitions of a mythological,
+anthropological, craniological, and antediluvian nature for which one
+would not find universal approval among his readers. To those who would
+study such questions I say, "Fall to!" There is enough scope for a
+lifetime to bring into light the primeval element so strangely woven
+into the lives of these people.
+
+At Yuen-nan-i bunting and weird street decoration made the place hideous
+in my eyes. The crowded town was making considerable ado about some
+expected official. I saw none, more than a courteous youth--to whom, of
+course, I was quite unknown and deaf and dumb--who graciously shifted
+goods and chattels from the inn's best room to hand it over to me for my
+occupation. With due tact and some excitability, I protested vigorously
+against his coming out. He insisted. Smiling upon him with grave
+benignity, I said that I would take a smaller room, and gave orders to
+that effect to my man, adding that my whole sense of right and justice
+towards fellow-travelers revolted against such self-sacrifice on his
+part. He still insisted. Smiling again, this time the timid smile of the
+commoner looking up into the face of the great, I allowed myself
+reluctantly to be pushed bodily into the best apartment.
+
+This was my intention from the first. Although not too familiar with
+it, I allowed the Chinese to imagine that I was well grounded in the
+absurdities of his national etiquette; whilst he, observing, too, the
+outrageous routine of common politeness, probably went away swearing
+that he had been turned out. He had cut off his nose to spite his face.
+
+I cannot truthfully deny, however, that the fellow was very kind, but he
+would persist in the belief that it was an impossibility for me to tell
+the truth. Later, pointing at me and eyeing me up and down as I shaved
+in the twilight, he sneered, "Engleeshman! Engleeshman!" and scooting
+with an armful of clothing, small pots of eatables, official documents
+and other sundries, told me point-blank that he did not believe that
+such a noble person could not speak such a contemptible language as
+Chinese.
+
+Seeing no official, then, I presumed I was their man. Whilst I fed
+slowly on my rice and cabbage in a small earth-floor room, with my nose
+as near as convenient to my oil lamp to get a little warmth, the
+discomfort of Chinese life was forced upon me, and I imagined I was
+having a good time. I was the best off in the inn by far; the others
+must have been colder, certainly had worse food to eat, and yet to me it
+was all the height of utmost cheerlessness.
+
+From a hamlet opposite the town, where I sat down by the fire
+exhausted in an old woman's shaky dwelling, and fed on aged
+sardines and hot rice (atrocious mixture), there is a plain extending
+for twenty li to Yuen-nan-i--flat as country in the Fen district. The
+road was good (in wet weather, however, it must be terrible), and I
+would drive a motor-car across, were it not for the 15-in. ruts which
+disfigure the surface. And I know a man who would do this even, despite
+the ruts: he takes a delight in running over dogs and small boys,
+damaging rickshaws, bumping into bullock-carts, and so on--he would
+have done it with liveliest freedom.
+
+But what poverty there was! What women! What Children! With barely an
+exception, the women had faces ground by want and bare necessity, in
+which every cheerful and sympathetic lineament had been effaced by
+life-long slavery and misery. In the bitter cold they, women and
+children, crouched round a scanty fir-wood firing, not enough even to
+keep alive their natural heat. One long pitiful sight of thriftless
+poverty.
+
+To Hungay was a fearful day. Little to eat could I procure, and the cold
+gave me a lusty ox's appetite. To me a bellyful came as a windfall.
+
+At last we sat down by the roadside at one small table, hearing the test
+of age, rickety and worm-eaten. We gathered like hogs at their troughs,
+with the household hog scratching at our feet. I grew impatient and
+querulous over constant culinary disappointment. I longed not for the
+heaped-up board of the pampered and luxurious, I wanted food. Indigent
+man was I, whose dietetical elegancies had been forgotten, a man with
+ravenous desires seeking sustenance, not relishes; the means of life,
+not the means of pampering the carcass; I wanted food.
+
+And here I had it. The hungry were to be fed.
+
+It was a foul orgy, a gruesome spectacle, a horrible picture of the
+gluttony of famished men. This meal conjured up visions of the "most
+unlovely of the functions." We fed on _mien_, that long, greasy, grimy,
+slippery, slimy string of boneless white--I see it now! And the
+half-done tin of sardines set before me, too, the broken stools in the
+thatch-worn shed, the dismantled hearth, the muddy earthen floor, the
+haggard, hungry villains--I see them all again.[AS]
+
+It should, however, be said that I went away from the main road over a
+range of hills where nobody lives. Had I kept to the "ta lu" food would
+have been quite easy to get.
+
+To Hungay was given the honor of entertaining me over the Sunday, a
+pleasant rest after a week of arduous and exhausting walking. I arrived
+late at night, and the old town's rough streets were bathed in a silver
+shower of moonbeams, the air was cold and frosty, little groups of the
+curious came to the doors of their dwellings, laughing sarcastically,
+despite their own poverty, at the distinguished traveler thus coming
+upon them.
+
+In marked contrast to this outside animation were the happenings at the
+inn which gave me shelter. Business was bad. Three undistinguished
+travelers--coolies with loads--and myself and men made up the meager
+total of paying guests. This was the reason why it was chosen for me,
+for peace and quiet. Quiet had been forced upon the household, so I was
+told, by the death by fits of a haughty and resolute lady; and now that
+the night had fallen and we had all had our rice, the deep hush--or its
+equivalent in Cathay, at all events--seemed likely to be unbroken until
+a new day should dawn. My room here had a verandah overlooking a back
+court, and here I sat at midnight, unseen by anyone, looking up to the
+changeless stars in an unpitying sky; and as I stood thus there blew
+from the gates of night and across the mountains a wind that made me
+shiver less with physical cold than with a sense of loneliness and
+captivity. For on to my verandah came four soldiers, and it seemed as if
+the hour of death drew nigh; and as I looked again, first upon the
+cloudswept sky and upon the cold and steely glitter of the stars, and
+then again at the soldiers with their guns, I turned giddy, shuddering
+at the darkness and the loneliness, and with a nameless fear lying at
+the center of life like a lurking shadow of an unknown, unseen foe.
+
+They addressed me, but I cared not what they said. I pretended I could
+not speak Chinese, watched the quartet form a circle, and talk slowly
+and low, and it did not need the mind of a prophet to see that they were
+discussing how best they could capture me. Were they going to kill me?
+My boy and the other friends I had in the place were sleeping
+blissfully, ignorant that their master was in such trying straits. I was
+asked my name, and the inquirers, not over civil, were told. They again
+asked me for something, I knew not what, probably for my passport. I
+had none, and cursed my luck that I had forgotten to pack it when I had
+left Tong-ch'uan-fu.
+
+To me it was quite evident that they were deciding my destiny, or so it
+seemed in the stillness of the night. Looking upwards, I wondered
+whether I was soon to learn the secret of the stars and sky, and those
+men seemed to watch the secret workings of my soul. Outside the wind
+made moan continuously.
+
+Suddenly my door opened noisily, a light was flashed upon us, and I saw
+the bulky form of the landlord. Then all was well. Soon one of my men
+appeared, and explained that the soldiers were on their way to meet an
+official who was coming from Tali-fu, that their instructions were that
+they would meet him at Hungay. They took me for the "gwan."
+
+So my end was not yet. But now, months afterwards, when I stand and
+listen to the wind at midnight, there seems borne to me in every sob and
+wail a memory of that hateful night and the four soldiers with their
+guns.
+
+It seemed not long afterwards that I was awakened by noises on the
+doorstep. Looking out, I found a bullock, its four feet tied together
+with a straw rope, writhing in its last agonies; the butcher, in his
+hand a cruel 24-inch bladed knife still red with blood, smiling the
+smile of ironic torture as he looked down upon his struggling victim. He
+straightway skinned the animal and cut up the carcass immediately in
+front of my door, where Lao Chang waited to get the best cut for my
+dinner. My three fellow-lodgers squatted alongside, going through their
+apologetic ablutions as if naught were happening. Their dirty face-rags
+were wrung and rewrung; they got to work with that universal tooth-brush
+(the forefinger!), and that the dead body of a bullock was being
+dissected two feet from the table at which they ate their steaming rice
+was a detail of not the slightest consequence in the world.
+
+Hungay is an old-time capital of one of the original kingdoms,
+destroyed in the year A.D. 749. The road leading out towards Chao-chow
+was built some considerable time before that year, and has never been
+subject to any repairs whatever (for this fact I have drawn upon my
+imagination, but should be very much surprised to know that I am far out
+in my reckoning). Villagers have appropriated the public slabs and small
+boulders which comprised the wretched thoroughfare; reminiscent puddles
+tell you the tale, and the badness of the road renders it necessary for
+the traveler to be out of bed a little earlier than usual to face the
+ordeal. The road to-day has been practically as bad as walking along the
+sides of the Yangtze. But as I studied the patience and physical
+vitality of my three men, laughing and joking with the light-heartedness
+of children, with nearly seventy catties dangling from their
+shoulder-pole, without a word of murmuring, I felt a little ashamed of
+myself that I, whose duty it was merely to _walk_, should have made such
+a fuss. These men were prepared to work a very long time for very little
+reward, as no matter how small the rewards for the terribly exhausting
+labor, it were better than none at all,--so they philosophized.
+
+That quiet persistence and unfailing patience form a national virtue
+among the Chinese--the capacity to wait without complaint and to bear
+all with silent endurance. This virtue is seen more clearly in great
+national disasters which occasionally befall the country. The terrible
+famine of 1877-8 was the cause of the death of millions of people, and
+left scores of millions without house, food or clothing; they were
+driven forth as wanderers on the face of the earth without home, without
+hope. The Government does nothing whatever in these cases. The people
+who wish to live must find the means to live, and what impressed me all
+through my wanderings was the absolute science to which poverty is
+reduced. In such calamities the Chinese, of all men on the earth's
+surface, will battle along if there is any chance at all. If he is
+blessed, he once more becomes a farmer; but if not, he accepts the
+position as inevitable and irremediable. The Chinese race has the finest
+power in the world to withstand with fortitude the ills of life and the
+miseries which follow inability to procure the wherewithal to live.
+Their nerves are somehow different from our Western nerves.
+
+In China nothing is wasted, not only in food, but in everything
+affecting the common life.
+
+That a beast dies of disease is of no concern. It is eaten all the same
+from head to hoof, from skin to entrail, and the remarkable fact is that
+they do not seem to suffer from it, either. At Kiang-ti (mentioned in a
+previous chapter) I saw a horse being pushed down the hillside to the
+river. It was not yet dead, but was dying, so far as I could see, of
+inflammation of the bowels. Its body was cut up, and there were several
+people waiting to buy it at forty cash the catty.
+
+From Hungay onwards I met a class of people I had not seen before. They
+were the Minchia (Pe-tso).
+
+Major H.R. Davies, whose treatise on the tribes of Yuen-nan at the end of
+his excellent work on travel in the province, is probably the best yet
+written, writes that he met Minchia people only on the plains of Tali-fu
+and Chao-chow, and never east of the latter place. This was in travel
+some ten or twelve years ago, and the fact that there are now many
+Minchia families living in Hungay is a testimony to their enterprise as
+a tribe in going farther afield in search of the means to live. There is
+little doubt that the Minchia originally came from country lying between
+the border of the province and round Li-chiang-fu and the Tali-fu plain
+and lake. Most of them wear Chinese dress; many of the women bind their
+feet (and the practice is growing in popularity), although those who
+have not small feet are still in the majority. In a small city lying
+some few li from the city of Tali all the inhabitants are Minchia, and I
+found no difficulty in spotting a Chinese man or woman--there is a
+distinct facial difference. Minchia have bigger noses, generally the
+eyes are set farther apart, and the skin is darker. Pink trousers are in
+fashion among the ladies--trace of base feminine weakness!--but are not
+by any means the distinguishing features of race.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AP: Carlyle, _Sartor Resartus_.]
+
+[Footnote AQ: Wind-cap, a long Chinese wadded hat which reaches over
+one's head and down over the shoulders, tied under the chin with
+ribbons.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AR: Likin, as everyone knows, is custom duty. All along the
+main roads of China one meets likin stations, distinguished by the flag
+at the entrance.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AS: I passed this spot a month or so afterwards, and am
+convinced that at the time I wrote the above there must have been
+something radically wrong with my liver. Had it been in Killarney in
+summer, nothing could have been more entrancing than the two lakes
+midway between Yuen-nan-i and Hungay. Patches of light green vegetation,
+interspersed with brown-red houses, skirting the lake-shore in pleasant
+contrast to the green of the water, which, bathed in soft sunshine,
+lapped their walls in endless restlessness. Of that delicate blue which
+is indescribably beautiful, the morning sky looked down tranquilly upon
+the undulating hills of grey and brown, which seemed to hem in and guard
+a very fairyland. Geomancers of the place did not go wrong when they
+suggested the overlooking hill-sides as suitable resting-places for the
+departed. All was ancient and primitive, yet simple and glorious, and as
+one of my followers called my attention to the telegraph wires, I was
+struck by the fact that this alone stood as the solitary element of what
+we in the West call civilization. Yet nothing bore traces of gross
+uncivilization; the people, hard workers albeit, were happy and quite
+content, with their slow-moving caravan, which we would, if we could,
+soon displace for the railway engine. Ploughmen with their buffaloes and
+their biblical ploughshare, raked over the red ground; women, with
+babies on their backs, picked produce already ripe; children played
+roundabout, and those old enough helped their fathers in the fields;
+coolies bustled along with exchanges of merchandise with neighboring
+villages, quite content if but a couple of meals each day were earned
+and eaten; the official, the ruler of these peaceful people, passed with
+old-time pomp--not in a modern carriage, not in a modern saloon, but in
+the same way as did his ancestors back in the dim ages, in a sedan-chair
+carried by men. There was plenty of everything--enough for all--but all
+had to contribute to its getting. There was no greed, their few wants
+were easily satisfied, and here, as everywhere in my journeyings, I have
+noticed it to be the case among the common people, there was no desire
+to get rich and absorb wealth. They wanted to live, to learn to labor as
+little as the growth of food supplies demanded, to become fathers and
+mothers, and, to their minds, to get the most out of life. And who will
+contradict it? They do not see with the eyes of the West; we do not, we
+cannot, see with their eyes. But surely the living of this simple life,
+the same as it was in the beginning, has a good deal in it; it is not
+uncivilization, not barbarism, and the fair-minded traveler in China can
+come to but one opinion, even in the midst of all the conflicting
+emotions which result from his own upbringing, that we could, if we
+would, learn many a good lesson from the old-time life of the Celestial
+in his own country.
+
+Yet these are the very people who may jostle us harshly later on in the
+racial struggle.
+
+I am not suggesting that when the Chinese adopts the cult of the West,
+and comes into general contact with it--and I believe that I am right in
+saying that this is the desire, generally speaking, of the whole of the
+enlightened classes--he continues with his few wants. As a matter of
+fact, he does not. He is as extravagant, and perhaps more so, than the
+most of us. I have seen Straits Chinese waste at the gaming tables in
+their gorgeous clubs as much in one night as some European residents
+handle in one year, and he is quick to get his motor-car, his horses and
+carriages, and endless other ornaments of wealth. So that if progress in
+the course of the evolution of nations means that the Chinese too will
+demand all that the European now demands, and will cease to find
+satisfaction in the existing conditions of his life in the new goal
+towards which he is moving, and if he, in course of time, should
+increase the cost of living per head to equal that of the Westerner,
+then he will lose a good deal of the advantage he now undoubtedly has in
+the struggle for racial supremacy. But if, gradually taking advantage of
+all in religion, in science, in literature, in art, in modern naval and
+military equipment and skill, and all that has made nations great and
+made for real progress in the West, he were also to continue his present
+hardy frugality in living--which is not a tenth as costly in proportion
+to that of the Occident--then his advantage in entering upon the
+conflict among the nations for ultimate supremacy would be undoubted,
+immeasurable.
+
+The question is, will he?
+
+If he will, then the Occident has much to fear. China, going ahead
+throughout the Empire as she is at the present moment in certain parts,
+will in course of time (as is only fair and natural to expect) have an
+army greater in numbers than is possible to any European power, and her
+food-bill will be two-thirds lower per head per fighting man.
+Subsequently, granting that China fulfils our fears, and becomes as
+great a fighting power as military experts declare she will, even in our
+generation, by virtue of her numbers alone, apart from phenomenal powers
+of endurance, which as every writer on China and her people is agreed,
+is excelled by no other race on earth, she would be able to dictate
+terms to the West. But, again, will she? Will the people continue to
+live as they are living?
+
+I personally believe that the Chinese will not. I believe that as the
+nation progresses, more in accordance with lines of progress laid down
+by the West, so will her wants increase, and consequent expenses of life
+become greater. The Yuen-nanese even are beginning to acknowledge that
+they have no ordinary comforts. In other parts of the empire the people
+are already beginning to learn what comfort, sanitation, lighting, and
+general organization means--in the home, in the city, in the country, in
+the nation.
+
+And they are learning too that it all costs money, and means, perhaps, a
+higher state of social life. For this they do not mind the money. They
+are not going half-way--they are going to be whole-hoggers. And when in
+the future, near or far, we shall find them, as is almost inevitable,
+able to compete in everything with other nations, we shall find that
+they have not been successful in learning the source of strength without
+having absorbed also some of the weaknesses; they will not escape the
+vices, even if they learn some of the virtues of the West.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+_Peculiar forebodings of early morning_. _A would-be speaker of
+English_. _The young men of Yuen-nan and the Reform Movement_. _Teachers
+of English_. _Remarks on methods adopted_. _Disregard of the customs of
+centuries_. _A rushing Szech-wanese_. _Missionaries and the Educational
+Movement_. _Christianity and the position of the foreigner_. _Is the
+Chinese racially inferior to the European? Interesting opinion_. _Peace
+of Europe and integrity of China_. _Chao-chow cook gets a bad time_.
+_The author's levee. Natural "culture" of the people_. _Story of the
+birth of boys_. _Notes on Hsiakwan_. _Experiences of the
+non-Chinese-speaking author at the inn_. _How he got the better of an
+official_. _A magnificent temple_. _Kwan-in and the priests._
+
+
+This morning, from the foot of a high spur, I saw a couple of gawky
+fellows shambling along in an imitation European dress, and I pricked up
+my ears--it seemed as if Europeans were about. One of the fellows had on
+a pair of long-legged khaki trousers ludicrously patched with Chinese
+blue, a tweed coat of London cut also patched with Chinese blue, and a
+battered Elswood topee. I saw this through my field-glasses. Soon after,
+coming out from a cup in the winding pathway, emerged a four-man chair,
+and I had no doubt then that it was a European on the road, and I began
+to get as curious as anyone naturally would in a country where in
+interior travel his own foreign kind are met with but seldom. Hurrying
+on, I managed to pass the chair in a place where overhanging foliage
+shut out the light, so that I could not see through the windows, and as
+the front curtain was down I concluded that it must be a lady, probably
+a missionary lady. I pushed on to the nearest tavern--a tea tavern, of
+course--buttoned up my coat so that she should not see my dirty shirt,
+and waited for the presence to approach. From an inner apartment,
+through a window, I could see all that went on outside, but could not be
+seen. What is it that makes a man's heart go pit-a-pat when he is about
+to meet a European lady in mid-China?
+
+Presently the chair approached. From it came a person covered in a huge
+fur-lined, fur-collared coat many sizes too large for his small body--it
+was a Chinese. Several men were pushed out of his way as he strode
+towards me, extending his hand in a cordial "shake, old fellow" style,
+and yelling in purest accent, "Good morning, sir; _good_ morning, sir!"
+
+"Oh, good morning. You speak English well. I congratulate you. Have you
+had a good journey? How far are you going? Very warm?" I waited. "It is
+so interesting when one meets a gentleman who can speak English; it is a
+pleasant change." I waited again. "Will you--"
+
+"Good morning, morning, morn--he, he, he."
+
+"But pardon me, will--"
+
+"Morning, morning--he, h-e-e."
+
+"Yes, you silly ass, I know it is morning, but--"
+
+"Yes, yes; morning, morning--he-e-e-e-e."
+
+He then made for the door, not the least abashed. Later he came back,
+and invited me to speak Chinese, probably thinking that I was wondering
+why he had made such an absolute fool of himself. I learned that this
+august gentleman possessed a name in happy correspondence with a fowl
+("Chi"). He pointed contemptuously to a member of that feather tribe as
+he told me. Whether he could speak Chinese when he was or was not at
+Chen-tu, or whether he had a son whose knowledge of my language was
+vast, and who was at that moment at Chen-tu, I could not quite fathom,
+and he could not explain. He had a look at my caravan generally, and
+then turned his scrutiny upon my common tweeds, informing me that the
+quality bore no comparison with his own. He could travel in a four-man
+chair; I had to _walk_. It was all very "pub hao."
+
+After some time he cleared out with much empty swagger, and I followed
+leisurely on behind, feeling--yes, why not publish it?--pleased that this
+bolt from the blue had not been a lady.
+
+This young fellow--a mere slip of a boy--wore every indication of
+perfect self-confidence, borne out in a multitude of ways common to his
+class. He, I presumed, was one of the fledglings who undertake
+responsibilities far beyond them, or I should not be surprised if he had
+been one of the army of young men who, having the merest smattering of
+English, wholly unable to converse, set up as teachers of English. I
+have found this quite common among the rising classes in Yuen-nan. The
+cool assumption of unblushing superiority evinced in discussing
+intellectual and philosophic problems is remarkable. The Chinese, in the
+area I speak of, are little people with little brain: this was a
+specimen. Yet, to be fair, in China to-day the work of reform is mainly
+the work of young men, who although but only partly equipped for their
+work, approach it with perfect confidence and considerable energy, not
+knowing sufficient to realize the difficulties they are undertaking. In
+Japan the same thing was done. The young men there undertook to dispute
+and doubt everything which came in the way of national reorganization,
+setting aside--as China must do if she is to take her place alongside
+the ideal she has set up for herself, Japan--parental teaching,
+ancestral authority, the customs of centuries. A large proportion of the
+population of China has a passion for reform and progress. This young
+fellow was a typical example. In the west of China, however, to conform
+with the spirit of reform and real progress--not the make-believe, which
+is satisfying them at the present moment--they must needs change their
+ways.
+
+Seventeen memorial plates were passed at the entrance to Chao-chow, a
+particularly modern-looking place, as one approaches it from the hill.
+
+A remarkably ungainly individual, with a hole in the top of his skull
+and his body one mass of sores, came to me here, addressed me as "Sien
+seng," and then commenced an oration to the effect that he was a
+Szech'wanese, that he had known the missionaries down by the Yangtze,
+and that he knew he would be welcome to accompany me to Hsiakwan.[AT] He
+switched himself on the main line of my caravan. Here was a man who had
+been brought in contact with the missionary away down in another
+province, and he knew he was welcome. I liked that. In all my
+journeyings in Yuen-nan I was increasingly impressed with the value of
+the missionary, that man who of all men in the Far East is the most
+subject to malicious criticism, and generally, be it said, from those
+persons who know little or nothing about his work. You cannot measure
+the missionary's work by conversions, by mere statistics. I venture to
+assert that it is through the missionary that the West applied pressure
+and supplied China with political ideas, and put within her reach the
+material and instruments which would enable her to carry such ideas into
+practice--this apart from religious teaching. More particularly is this
+the case in respect to popular education, perhaps, by means of which the
+transformation of Old China into New China will be a less long and
+difficult process. The people may not want the missionary--I do not for
+a moment say that they do--but they need to know the secret of his power
+and the power of his kind, and they must study his language, his
+science, his machinery, his steamboats, his army, his _Dreadnaughts_.
+They realize that the foreigner is useful not for what he can do, but
+for what he can teach--therefore they tolerate the missionary. This is
+virtually the national policy of China towards foreigners, a policy
+gaining the acceptance of the people with remarkable quickness.
+
+After having set aside all considerations of national prejudice and
+patriotism, it is interesting to ask whether it is actually a fact that
+the Chinese, as a race, are inferior to the peoples of the West? Much
+has been said on the subject. I give my opinion flatly that the Chinese
+is _not_ inferior, and the longer I live with him the more numerous
+become the lessons which he teaches me.
+
+"The question, when we examine it closely, has really very little to do
+with political strength or military efficiency, or (_pace_ Mr. Benjamin
+Kidd) relative standards of living, or even the usual material
+accompaniments of what we call an advanced civilization; it is a
+question for the trained anthropologist and the craniologist rather than
+for the casual observer of men and manners. The Japanese people are now
+much more highly civilized--according to western notions--than they were
+half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that
+they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than
+they were then. Evolution does not work quite so rapidly as that even in
+these days of 'hustle.' The Japanese have advanced, not because their
+brains have suddenly become larger, or their moral and intellectual
+capabilities have all at once made a leap forward, but because their
+intercourse with Western nations, after centuries of isolated seclusion,
+showed them that certain characteristic features of European
+civilization would be of great use in strengthening and enriching their
+own country, developing its resources, and giving it the power to resist
+aggression. If the Japanese were as members of the _homo sapiens_
+inferior to us fifty years ago, they are inferior to us now. If they are
+our equals to-day--and the burden of proof certainly now rests on him
+who wishes to show that they are not--our knowledge of the origin and
+history of Eastern peoples, scanty though it is, should certainly tend
+to assure us that the Chinese are our equals, too. There is no valid
+reason for supposing that the Chinese people are ethnically inferior to
+the Japanese. They have preserved their isolated seclusion longer than
+the Japanese, because until very recently it was less urgently necessary
+for them to come out of it. They have taken a longer time to appreciate
+the value of Western science and certain features of Western
+civilization, because new ideas take longer to permeate a very large
+country than a small one, and because China was rich within her own
+borders of all the necessaries of life."[AU]
+
+And the West, too, must learn that the peace of Europe depends upon the
+integrity of China. For the time is coming--not in the lives of any who
+read these lines, but coming inevitably--when China will, by her might,
+by her immense numbers of trained men, by her developed naval and
+military strength, be able to say to the nations of the earth, "There
+must be no more war." And she will be strong enough to be able to
+enforce it.
+
+As with individuals, so with nations, and a people who are marked by
+such rare physical vitality, such remarkable powers of endurance against
+great odds, are surely designed for some nobler purpose than merely to
+bear with fortitude the ills of life and the misery of starvation. It is
+the easiest thing in the world to criticise--the West criticises the
+Chinese because he is a heathen, because they do not understand him.
+Hundreds of millions of the Chinese race hate and fear the man of the
+West for exactly the same reason as would cause us to hate the Chinese
+were the situation reversed.
+
+I do not need to go into history from the days when the Chinese first
+began to show their suspicion, contempt, and fear of foreigners, and
+their interpretation of the motives and purposes which took them to the
+Celestial Empire; it would take too much space. But if we of the West
+did our part to-day, as we rub up against the Chinese everywhere, in
+charitably taking him at his best, things would alter much more speedily
+that they are doing. Because the Chinese bristles with contradictions
+and seemingly unanswerable conundrums, we immediately dub him a
+barbarian, do not endeavor to understand him, do not understand enough
+of his language to listen to him and learn his point of view. However,
+it is all slowly passing--so very slowly, too. But still China is
+progressing, and now this oldest man in the world is becoming again the
+youngest, but has all the accumulations and advantages of age in all
+countries to lean upon and learn from.
+
+Chao-chow gave me a very decent inn, the top room in front of which was
+provided with a well-paved courtyard, with every convenience for the
+traveler--that is, for China.
+
+The inn cook and water-carrier was out playing on the street when we put
+in an early appearance. My men lost their temper, ground their teeth,
+foamed at the mouth, and got desperate. The only man on the premises was
+a poor old fellow, who foolishly bumped his uncovered head on the ground
+on which I stood, as an act of great servility and a secret sign that I
+should throw him a few cash, and then resumed his occupation in the sun
+of wiping his already inflamed eyes with the one unwashed garment which
+covered him. I pitied him; he knew it, and traded upon my pity until I
+invoked a few choice words from Lao Chang to fall upon him. When the
+cook did put in an appearance, he and everybody dead and living placed
+anywhere near his genealogical tree underwent a rough quarter of an
+hour from the anathematical tongues of my companions. The Old Man--by
+virtue of the growth on my chin, this epithet of respect was commonly
+used towards me--wanted to wash his face and drink his tea. He was tired
+with walking. He was a foreign mandarin. Did the blank, blank, blank
+cook, the worm and no man, not know that a foreigner was among them? And
+then they fell to piling up the ignominy again and placing to the cook's
+dishonor various degrees of lowliest origin common among the Chinese
+proletariat, which, thank Heaven, I did not quite understand.
+
+That evening all Chao-chow came to honor me in my room, and to admire
+and ask to be given all I had in my boxes. That it was all a huge
+revelation to many who came and inquired who I might be, and whence I
+might have come, was quite evident. One fellow, dressed gaudily in
+expensive silks and satins--probably borrowed--came with pomp and
+pride; and disappointment was writ large upon his ugly face when he
+learned that I could not, or would not, speak with him. He mentioned
+that he was one of the cultured of the city. But the Chinese are all
+more or less cultured. My own coolies, although not knowing a character,
+are really "cultured"--they are the most polite men I have ever
+traveled with. The culture, at any rate, although more apparent than
+real, has a universality in China which the foreigner must observe in
+moving among the people, and which as a sort of lubrication, makes the
+wheels of society run smoother. This man was not cultured in the matter
+of taste in the choice of colors. He was altogether frightfully lacking
+in sense of harmony, and when one saw the little boy who trotted along
+with him, one might have thought that Joseph's coat had been revived for
+my especial edification. He was a peculiar being, this highly-colored
+man. He would persist in sitting down on his haunches, despite frequent
+invitations to use a chair--how is it all Orientals can do this, and not
+one European out of fifty?
+
+Lao Chang afterwards informed me that this man's wife had just presented
+him with a second son, and great jubilation was taking place. The birth
+of a child, especially of a boy, is a great event in any Chinese
+household, and considerable anxiety is felt lest demons should be
+lurking about the house and cause trouble. A sorcerer is called in just
+before the birth, to exorcise all evil influences from the house and
+secure peace. This is the "Exorcism of Great Peace." Simultaneously
+comes the midwife. Should the birth be attended with great pain and
+difficulty, recourse is had to crackers, the firing of guns, or whatever
+similar device can be thought of to scare off the demons. Solicitude is
+often felt that the first visit to the house after the birth of the
+child should be made by a "lucky" person, for the child's whole future
+career may be blighted by meeting with an "ill-starred" person. No
+outsider will enter the room where the birth took place for forty days.
+On the anniversary of a boy's birth the relatives and friends bring
+presents of clothes, hats, ornaments, playthings, and red eggs. The baby
+is placed on the floor--the earth, which is the first place he touches;
+he is born into a hole in the ground--and around him are placed various
+articles, such as a book, pencil, chopsticks, money, and so on. He will
+follow the profession which has to do with the articles he first
+touches.[AV]
+
+This was the fortieth day, and so my visitant honored me by thrusting
+his contemptible presence upon me, and he would not go until late at
+night, when a man with a diseased hip and one eye--and a ghastly thing
+at that--called to see whether I could treat him with medicine.
+
+Hsiakwan in days to come will probably have a big industry in brick and
+tile making. Fifteen li from the town, on the Chao-chow side, many
+people now get their living at the business, and one could easily dream
+of a "Hsiakwan Brick and Tile Company Limited," with the children's
+children of the present pioneers running for the morning papers to have
+a look at the share market reports, with light railways connected up
+with the main line, which has not yet been built, and so on, and so on.
+
+Hsiakwan is perhaps the busiest town on the main trade route from
+Yuen-nan-fu to Burma. Tali-fu, although growing, is only the official
+town, of which Hsiakwan is the commercial entrepot. It was here that I
+stayed one Sunday some time after this, at one of the biggest inns I
+have ever been into in China. It had no less than four buildings, each
+with a paved rectangular courtyard which all the rooms overlooked. A
+military official, who was on his way to Chao-t'ong to deal with the
+rebellion, of which the reader has already learnt a good deal, was
+expected soon after I arrived. My room was already arranged, however,
+when the landlord came to me and said--
+
+"Yang gwan, you must please go out!"
+
+Now the yang gwan, as was expected, stayed where he was, smiled in
+magnanimous acquiescence, invited the proprietor--a stout, jolly person
+with one eye--to be seated, and remained quiet. Again and again was I
+told that I should be required to clear out, and give up the best room
+to the official and his aide-de-camp, but unfortunately the inquirer did
+not improve the situation by persisting in the foolish belief that the
+foreigner was hard of hearing. He shouted his request into my ear in a
+stentorian basso, he waved his hands, he pointed, he made signs. The
+Chinese langage and manner, however, are difficult to an addle-pated
+foreigner. I, poor foolish fellow, endeavoring to treat the Chinese in
+a manner identical to that which he would have employed had conditions
+been reversed, stared vacantly and woodenly into a seemingly bewildering
+infinite, and timidly remarked, "O t'ing puh lai." Knowing then that my
+"hearing had not come," he requisitioned my boy, for the aide-de-camp by
+this time was glumly peering into my doorway; but to his disgust Lao
+Chang also was equally unsuccessful in making me tumble to their
+meaning. The best room, therefore, continued to be mine.
+
+Soon after the official came, and my dog began by mauling his canine
+guardian, tearing away half his ear; and in the middle of the night one
+of my horses got loose and had a stand-up fight with a mule attached to
+the official party, laming him seriously; and as the foreigner emerged
+in his night attire to prevent further damage, he encountered the
+mandarin himself, and pinned him dead against the wall in the dark,
+after having stepped on his corn. My pony had pulled several morsels of
+flesh from the mule's carcase. The yang gwan certainly came off best,
+and the following morning, as the Chinese gwan with his retinue of six
+chairs and about one hundred and fifty men departed, the yang gwan
+smiled a happy farewell which was not effusively reciprocated.
+
+As I came out of the inn I met a Buddhist priest, worn with general
+dilapidation and old age, with a huge festering wound in the calf of his
+leg, so that he could hardly hobble along with a stick--he was probably
+on his way to the medical missionary at Tali-fu for treatment. This
+spiritual guide was certainly on his last legs, and has probably by this
+time handed over the priestly robes and official perquisites to more
+vigorous young blood.
+
+Hsiakwan's High Street reminded me of the main street of Totnes, with
+its arch over the roadway, and the scenery might have deluded one into
+the belief that he was in Switzerland in spring, as he gazed upon the
+glorious spectacle of snow-covered mountains with the world-famed lake
+at the foot. Tali-fu deserves its name of the Geneva of West China.
+
+In the chapter devoted to Yuen-nan-fu I have referred to the military of
+Tali-fu, but here I saw the men actually at drill, and a finer set of
+men I have rarely seen in Europe. The military Tao-tai lives here.
+Progress is phenomenal. At Yung-chang, the westernmost prefecture of the
+Empire, the commanding officer could even speak English.
+
+In the famous temple ten li from Tali-fu is an effigy to the Yang Daren
+who figured conspicuously during the Mohammedan Rebellion. My men
+somehow got the false information that he was a native of
+Tong-ch'uan-fu, so they all went down on their knees and bumped their
+heads on the ground before the image. This Yang, however, was such a
+brute of a man that no young girl was safe where he was; however, as a
+soldier he was indomitable. The temple in which he is deified is called
+the Kwan-in-tang,[AW] and there is no place in all China where Kwan-in
+is worshipped with such relentless vigor. Some years ago, so the wags
+say, when Tali-fu was threatened by rebels, Kwan-in saved the city by
+transforming herself into a Herculean creature, and carrying upon her
+back a stone of several tons weight, presumably to block the path. The
+amazement of the rebels at the sight of a woman performing such a feat
+made them wonder what the men could be like, so they turned tail and
+fled. The story is believed implicitly by the residents of the city, and
+the priests, with an open eye to the main chance, work upon the public
+imagination with capital tact. I saw the stone in the center of a lotus
+pond, over which is the structure in which the Kwan-in sits, not as a
+weight-lifting woman, but as a tender mother, with a tiny babe in her
+arms, and none in the whole of the Empire enjoys such favor for being
+able to direct the birth of male children into those families which give
+most money to the priests. Women desiring sons come and implore her by
+throwing cash, one by one, at the effigy, the one who hits being
+successful, going away with the belief that a son will be born to her.
+When the deluded females are cleared out, the priest, divesting himself
+of his shoes, and rolling up his trousers, goes into the water, scoops
+up the money and uses it for his personal convenience--sometimes as much
+as thirty thousand cash.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AT: The commercial center of Tali-fu, the official city is 30
+li further on--E.J.D]
+
+[Footnote AU: _From Peking to Mandalay_, by R.F. Johnston, London, John
+Murray. I am indebted to this racily-written work for other ideas in
+this chapter.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AV: From inquiries I find this custom is not general in some
+parts of Western China--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AW: Temple to the Goddess of Mercy.
+
+     "Kwan-in was the third daughter of a king, beautiful and talented,
+     and when young loved to meditate as a priest. Her father, mother
+     and sisters beseech her not to pass the 'green spring,' but to
+     marry, and the king offers the man of her choice the throne. But
+     no, she must take the veil. She enters the 'White Sparrow Nunnery,'
+     and the nuns put her to the most menial offices; the dragons open a
+     well for the young maidservant, and the wild beasts bring her wood.
+     The king sends his troops to burn the nunnery, Kwan-in prays, rain
+     falls, and extinguishes the conflagration. She is brought to the
+     palace in chains, and the alternative of marriage or death is
+     placed before her. In the room above where the court of the
+     inquisition is held there is music, dancing, and feasting, sounds
+     and sights to allure a young girl; the queen also urges her to
+     leave the convent, and accede to the royal father's wish. Kwan-in
+     declares that she would rather die than marry, so the fairy
+     princess is strangled, and a tiger takes her body into the forest.
+     She descends into hell, and hell becomes a paradise, with gardens
+     of lilies. King Yama is terrified when he sees the prison of the
+     lost becoming an enchanted garden, and begs her to leave, in order
+     that the good and the evil may have their distinctive rewards. One
+     of the genii gives her the 'peach of immortality.' On her return to
+     the terrestrial regions she hears that her father is sick, and
+     sends him word that if he will dispatch a messenger to the
+     'Fragrant Mountain,' an eye and a hand will be given him for
+     medicine; this hand and eye are Kwan-in's own, and produce instant
+     recovery.
+
+     "She is the patron goddess of mothers, and when we remember the
+     value of sons, we can understand the heartiness of worship."--_The
+     Three Religions of China,_ by H.G. Du Bose.
+
+]
+
+
+
+
+THIRD JOURNEY
+
+TALI-FU TO THE MEKONG VALLEY
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+_Stages to the Mekong Valley_. _Hardest part of the walking tour_.
+_Author as a medical man_. _Sunday soliloquy_. _How adversity is met_.
+_Chinese life compared with early European ages_. _Womens enthusiasm
+over the European_. _A good send-off_. _My coolie Shanks, the songster_.
+_Laughter for tears_. _Pony commits suicide_. _Houses in the forest
+district_. _Little encampments among the hills, and the way the people
+pass their time_. _Treacherous travel_. _To Hwan-lien-p'u_. _Rest by the
+river, and a description of my companions_. _How my men treated the
+telegraph_. _Universal lack of privacy_. _Complaints of the carrying
+coolies._
+
+
+From whichever standpoint you regard the cities and villages of Western
+China, the views are full of interest. Each forms a new picture of rock,
+river, wood and temple, crenellated wall, and uplifted roof, crowded
+with bewildering detail.
+
+I am not the first traveler who has remarked this. Several of Mr.
+Archibald Little's books speak of it. He says: "In Europe, except where
+the scenery is purely wild, and more especially in America, the delight
+of gazing on many of the most beautiful scenes is often alloyed by the
+crude newness of man's work. This is true now of Japan, since the rage
+for copying western architecture and dress has fallen upon the Islands
+of the Rising Sun. But here in Western China little has intervened to
+mar the accord between nature and man." In the country on which we are
+now entering the natural grandeur is finer than anything I had seen
+since I left the Gorges, and incidentally I do not mind confessing to
+the indulgent reader that when I came again through Hsiakwan, again
+westward bound, I was tired, my feet were blistered and broken, each day
+and every day had brought me a hard journey, and here I was now facing
+the most difficult journey yet met with--literally not a li of level
+road.
+
+My journey was by the following route:--
+
+                                Length     Height
+                               of Stage   Above Sea
+
+    1st day   Ho-chiang-p'u      90 li    5,050 ft.
+    2nd day   Yang-pi            60 li    5,150 ft.
+    3rd day   T'ai-p'ing-p'u     70 li    7,400 ft.
+    5th day   Hwan-lien-p'u      50 li    5,200 ft.
+    6th day   Ch'u-tung          95 li    5,250 ft.
+    7th day   Shayung            75 li    4,800 ft.
+
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u (two days from Tali-fu), bleak and perched away up among
+the clouds, could never be called a town; it is merely a ramshackle
+place which gives one sleep and food in the difficult stage between
+Hwan-lien-p'u and Yang-pi.
+
+Like most of the small places which suffered from the ravishings of the
+Mohammedan destructions of the fifties, it has seen better days.
+Cottages hang clumsily together on ledges in the mountains, 7,400 feet
+above the sea, standing in their own vast uncultivated grounds. People
+are of the Lolo origin, but all speak Chinese; their ways of life,
+however, are aboriginal, and still far from the ideal to which they
+aspire. They are poor, poor as church mice, dirty and diseased and
+decrepit, and their existence as a consequence is dreary and dull and
+void of all enlightenment. The women--sad, lowly females--bind their
+feet after a fashion, but as they work in the fields, climb hills, and
+battle in negotiations against Nature where she is overcome only with
+extreme effort, the real "lily" is a thing possible with them only in
+their dreams. By binding, however, be it never so bad an imitation, they
+give themselves the greater chance of getting a Chinese husband.
+
+I stayed here the Sunday, and as I went through my evening ablutions,
+among my admirers in the doorway was an old woman, who in gentlest
+confidences with my boy, explained awkwardly that her little daughter
+lay sick of a fever, and could he prevail upon his foreign master, in
+whom she placed implicit faith, to come with her and minister? Lao Chang
+advised that I should go, and I went. My shins got mutilated as I fell
+down the slippery stone steps in the dark into a pail of hog's wash at
+the bottom. Having wiped the worst of the grease and slime onto the mud
+wall, by the aid of a flickering rushlight I saw the "child," who lay on
+a mattress on the floor in the darkest corner of the room. I reckoned
+her age to be thirty-five, her black hair hung in tangled masses, the
+very bed on which she lay stank with vermin, two feet away was the fire
+where all the cooking was gone through, and everywhere around was filth.
+When she saw me the "child" raised her solitary garment, whispered that
+pains in her stomach were well-nigh unendurable, that her head ached,
+that her joints were stiff, that she was generally wrong, and--"Did I
+think she would recover?" I thought she might not.
+
+Rushing back to my medicine chest, I brought along and administered a
+maximum dose of the oil called castor, and later dosed her with quinine.
+In the morning she was out and about her work, while the old mother was
+great in her praises for the passing European who had cured her child.
+After that came the deluge! They wanted more medicine--fever elixir,
+toothache cure, and so on, and so on--but I stood firm.
+
+The tedium of the Sunday in that draughty inn gave me an insight into
+their common lives which I had not before, causing me to meditate upon
+their simple lives and their simple needs. They did not raise the
+forests in order to get gold; they did not squander their patrimony in
+youth, destroying in a day the fruit of long years. They held to simple
+needs; they had a simplicity of taste, which was also a peculiar source
+of independence and safety. The more simple they lived the more secure
+their future, because they were less at the mercy of surprises and
+reverses. In adversity these people would not act like nurslings
+deprived of their bottles and their rattles, but would, by virtue of
+their common simplicity, probably be better armed for any struggles. I
+do not desire the life for myself, but the ethics of their simple living
+cannot but be recommended. Multitudes possess in China what multitudes
+in the West pursue amid characteristic hampering futilities of European
+life. We would aspire to simple living, and the simplicity of olden
+times in manners, art and ideas is still cherished and reverenced; but
+we cannot be simple or return to the simplicity of our forefathers
+unless we return to the spirit which animated them. They possessed the
+spirit of real simplicity. And this same spirit the Chinese possess
+to-day; but they are minus the incomparable features of healthful
+civilization, inward and outward, of which our forebears were masters.
+Our ways to-day are not their ways, and their ways not our ways; but one
+cannot but realize as he moves among them that with a happy infusion of
+the spirit of their simplicity into the restlessness of our modern life
+our wearied minds would dream less and realize more of the true
+simplicity of simple living.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+To a man the village of T'ai-p'ing-p'u turned out early on the Monday
+morning to express regrets that my departure was at hand. When, in
+parting with this people who had done all in their power to make my
+comfort complete, I threw a handful of cash to some little children
+standing wonderingly near by, general approval was expressed, and
+elaborate felicities anent my beneficence exchanged by the ear-ringed
+Lolo women. A short apron hung down over their blue trousers, and as I
+passed out of their sight, they admired me and gossiped about me, with
+their hands under their aprons, in much the same manner as their more
+enlightened sisters of the wash-tub gossip sometimes in the West.
+
+It was a beautiful spring morning; the sweet song of the birds pierced
+through the noise of the rolling river below, the air was fragrant and
+bracing, and as I left and commenced the rocky ascent leading again to
+the mountains, the barks of some fierce-disposed canines, who alone
+objected to my presence among the hill-folk, died away with the rustle
+of the leafage in a keen north wind.
+
+One of my men was poorly, the solitary element to disturb the equanimity
+of our camp.
+
+It was Shanks. He had been suffering from toothache, and unfortunately I
+had no gum-balm with me; without my knowledge Lao Chang had rubbed in
+some strong embrocation to the fellow's cheek, so that now, in addition
+to toothache, he had also a badly blistered face, swollen up like a
+pudding. Upon learning that I had no means of curing him or of
+alleviating the pain, Shanks bellowed into my ear, loud enough to bring
+the dead out of the grave-mounds on the surrounding hill-sides, "Puh p'a
+teh, pub p'a teh"; then, raising his carrying-pole to the correct angle
+on the hump on his back, went merrily forward, warbling some squealing
+Chinese ditty. But Shanks was the songster of the party. He often madly
+disturbed the silence of middle night by a sudden outburst inte song,
+and when shouted down by others who lay around, or kicked by the man who
+shared his bed, and whose choral propensities were less in proportion,
+he would laugh wildly at them all. Poor Shanks; he was a peculiar
+mortal. He would laugh at men in pain, and think it sympathy. If we
+could get no food or drink on the march, after having wearily toiled
+away for hours, he would not be disposed to grumble--he would laugh.
+Such tragic incidents as the pony jumping over the precipice provoked
+him to extreme laughter.[AX]
+
+And when I caught him sewing up an open wound in the sole of his foot
+with common colored Chinese thread and a rusty needle, and told him that
+he might thereby get blood poisoning, and lose his life or leg, he cared
+not a little. As a matter of fact, he laughed in my face. Not at me, not
+at all, but because he thought his laughter might probably delude the
+devil who was president over the ills of that particular portion of
+human anatomy. He came to me just outside Pu-peng, where we saw a coffin
+containing a corpse resting in the roadway whilst the bearers refreshed
+near by and, pointing thereto, told me that the man was "muh tsai" (not
+here)--the Chinese never on any account mention the word death--and his
+sides shook with laughter, so much so that he dropped his loads
+alongside the corpse, and startled the cock on top of the coffin
+guarding the spirit of the dead into a vigorous fit of crowing for fear
+of disaster.
+
+We enjoyed fairly level road, although rough, for ten li after leaving
+T'ai-p'ing-p'u. It rose gradually from 7,400 feet to 8,500 feet, and
+then dipped suddenly, and continued at a fearful down gradient. I might
+describe it as a member of a British infantry regiment once described to
+me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few
+fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India,
+when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion
+had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, "'Twasn't
+a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor." The
+Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something
+in common.
+
+Just before this the beautiful mountains, behind which was the Tali-fu
+Lake, made a sight worth coming a long way to see.
+
+Midway down the steep hill we happened on some lonely log cottages,
+twenty-five li from T'ai-p'ing-p'u (it is reckoned as thirty-five li
+traveling in the opposite direction). In the forest district I found the
+houses all built of timber--wood piles placed horizontally and
+dovetailed at the ends, the roofs being thatched. You have merely to
+step aside from the road, and you are in dense mountain forest; it is
+manifestly easier and less costly than the mud-built habitation,
+although for their part the people are worse off because of the lack of
+available ground for growing their crops. Here the people were still
+essentially Lolo, and the big-footed women who boiled water under a shed
+had difficulty in getting to understand what my men were talking about.
+
+The second descent is begun after a pleasant walk along level ground
+resembling a well-laid-out estate, and a treacherously rough mile
+brought us down to an iron chain bridge swung over the Shui-pi Ho, at
+the far end of which, hidden behind bamboo matting, are a few idols in
+an old hut; they act in the dual capacity of gods of the river and the
+mountain. Tea and some palatable baked persimmon--very like figs when
+baked--were brought me by an awful-looking biped who was still in
+mourning, his unshaven skull sadly betokening the fact. As I sipped my
+tea and cracked jokes with some Szech'wan men who declared they had met
+me in Chung-king (I must resemble in appearance a European resident in
+that city; it was the fourth time I had been accused of living there), I
+admired the grand scenery farther along. Especially did I notice one
+peak, towering perpendicularly away up past woods of closely-planted
+pine and fir trees, the crystal summit glistening with sunlit snow; as
+soon as I started again on my journey, I was pulling up towards it. Soon
+I was gazing down upon the tiny patches of light green and a few
+solitary cottages, resembling a little beehive, and one could imagine
+the metaphorical wax-laying and honey-making of the inhabitants. These
+people were away from all mankind, living in life-long loneliness, and
+all unconscious of the distinguished foreigner away up yonder, who
+wondered at their patient toiling, but who, like them, had his
+Yesterday, To-day and To-morrow. There they were, perched high up on the
+bleak mountain sides, with their joys and sorrows, their pains and
+penalties, struggling along in domestic squalor, and rearing young
+rusticity and raw produce.
+
+On these mountains in Yuen-nan one sees hundreds of such little
+encampments of a few families, passing their existence far from the road
+of the traveler, who often wished he could descend to them and quench
+his thirst, and eat with them their rice and maize. Most of them here
+were isolated families of tribespeople, who, out of contact with their
+kind, have little left of racial resemblance, and yet are not fully
+Chinese, so that it is difficult to tell what they really are. Most were
+Lolo.
+
+Walking here was treacherous. A foot pathway was the main road, winding
+in and out high along the surface of the hills, in many places washed
+away, and in others overgrown with grass and shrubbery. "Across China on
+Foot" would have met an untimely end had I made a false step or slipped
+on the loose stones in a momentary overbalance. I should have rolled
+down seven hundred feet into the Shui-pi Ho. Once during the morning I
+saw my coolies high up on a ledge opposite to me, and on practically
+the same level, a three-li gully dividing us. They were very small men,
+under very big hats, bustling along like busy Lilliputians, and my loads
+looked like match-boxes. I probably looked to them not less grotesque.
+But we had to watch our footsteps, and not each other.
+
+We were rounding a corner, when I was surprised to see Hwan-lien-p'u a
+couple of li away. The _fu-song_ were making considerable hue and cry
+because Rusty had rolled thirty feet down the incline, and as I looked I
+saw the animal get up and commence neighing because he had lost sight of
+us. He was in the habit of wandering on, nibbling a little here and a
+little there, and rarely gave trouble unless in chasing an occasional
+horse caravan, when he gave my men some fun in getting him again into
+line.
+
+It was not yet midday, and we had four hours' good going. So I
+calculated. Not so my men. They could not be prevailed upon to budge,
+and knowing the Chinese just a little, I reluctantly kept quiet. It was
+entirely unreasonable to expect them to go on to Ch'u-tung, ninety li
+away--it was impossible. And I learnt that the reason they would not go
+on was that no house this side of that place was good enough to put a
+horse into, even a Chinese horse, and they would not dream of taking me
+on under those conditions. There was not even a hut available for the
+traveler, so they said. I had come over difficult country, plodding
+upwards on tiptoe and then downwards with a lazy swing from stone to
+stone for miles. Throughout the day we had been going through fine
+mountain forest, everywhere peaceful and beautiful, but it had been hard
+going. In the morning a heavy frost lay thick and white about us, and by
+10:30 a.m. the sun was playing down upon us with a merciless heat as we
+tramped over that little red line through the green of the hill-sides.
+Often in this march was I tempted to stay and sit down on the sward,
+but I had proved this to be fatal to walking. In traveling in Yuen-nan
+one's practice should be: start early, have as few stops as possible,
+when a stop _is_ made let it be long enough for a real rest. In
+Szech'wan, where the tea houses are much more frequent, men will pull up
+every ten li, and generally make ten minutes of it. In Yuen-nan these
+welcome refreshment houses are not met with so often, and little
+inducement is held out for the coolies to stop, but upon the slightest
+provocation they will stop for a smoke. On this walking trip I made it a
+rule to be off by seven o'clock, stop twice for a quarter of an hour up
+to tiffin (my men stopped oftener), when our rest was often for an hour,
+so that we were all refreshed and ready to push on for the fag-end of
+the stage. We generally were done by four or five o'clock. And I should
+be the last in the world to deny that by this time I had had enough for
+one day.
+
+Upon arrival I immediately washed my feet, an excellent practice of the
+Chinese, changed my footgear, drank many cups of tea, and often went
+straight to my p'ukai. The roads of China take it out of the strongest
+man. There are no Marathon runners here; progress is a tedious toil,
+often on all fours.
+
+My room at Hwan-lien-p'u was near a telegraph pole; there was a
+telegraph station there, where my men showed their admiration for the
+Governmental organization by at once hammering nails into the pole. It
+was close to their laundry, and served admirably for the clothes-line, a
+bamboo tied at one end with a string to a nail in the pole and the other
+end stuck through the paper in the window of the telegraph operator's
+apartment. But this is nothing. Years ago, when the telegraph was first
+laid down, the people took turns to displace the wires and sell them for
+their trouble, and to chop the poles up for firewood. It continued for a
+considerable period, until an offender--or one whom it was surmised had
+done this or would have done it if he could--had his ears cut off, and
+was led over the main road to the capital, to be admired by any
+compatriot contemplating a deal in wiring or timber used for telegraphic
+communication purposes.
+
+Just below the town the river ran peacefully down a gradual incline. I
+decided that a comfortable seat under a tree, spending an hour in
+preparing this copy, would be more pleasant than moping about a noisome
+and stench-ridden inn, providing precious little in the way of
+entertainment for the foreigner. Next door a wedding party was making
+the afternoon hideous with their gongs and drums and crackers, and
+everywhere the usual hue and cry went abroad because a European was
+spending the day there.
+
+I imparted to my man my intentions for the afternoon. Immediately
+preparations were set on foot to get me down by the river, and it was
+publicly announced to the townspeople. The news ran throughout the town,
+that is Hwan-lien-p'u's one little narrow street, a sad mixture of a
+military trench and a West of England cobbled court. And instead of
+going alone to my shady nook by that silvery stream, 1 was accompanied
+by nine adult members of the unemployed band, three boys, and sundry
+stark-naked urchins who seemed to be without home or habitation. One of
+these specimens of fleeting friendship was one-eyed, and a diseased hip
+rendered it difficult for him to keep pace with us; one was club-footed,
+one hair-lipped fellow had only half a nose, and they were nearly all
+goitrous. As I write now these people, curious but not uncouth, are
+crouched around me on their haunches, after the fashion of the ape,
+their more Darwinian-evolved companion and his shorthand notes being
+admired by an open-mouthed crowd. Down below my horse is entertaining
+the more hilarious of the party in his tantrums with the man who is
+trying to wash him--
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AX: The day before, whilst we were passing along the edge of a
+cliff, we saw a deliberate suicide on the part of a pony. Getting away
+from its companions, it first jumped against a tree, then turned its
+head sharply on the side of a cliff, finally taking a leap into mid-air
+over the precipice. It touched ground at about two hundred and fifty
+feet below this point, and then rolled out of sight. My men exhibited no
+concern, and laughed me down because I did. It was, as they said, merely
+diseased, and the muleteers went on their way, leaving horse and loads
+to Providence. This sort of thing is not uncommon.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+_The mountains of Yuen-nan_. _Wonderful scenery_. _Among the
+Mohammedans_. _Sorry scene at Ch'u-tung_. _A hero of a horrid past_.
+_Infinite depth of Chinese character_. _Mule falls one hundred and fifty
+yards, and escapes unhurt_. _Advice to future travelers_. _To Shayung_.
+_We meet Tibetans on the mountains_. _Chinese cruelty_. _Opium smoker as
+a companion_. _Opium refugees_. _One opinion only on the subject_.
+_Mission work among smokers and eaters._
+
+
+Mere words are a feeble means to employ to describe the mountains of
+Yuen-nan.
+
+As I start from Hwan-lien-p'u this morning, to the left high hills are
+picturesquely darkened in the soft and unruffled solemnity of their own
+still unbroken shade. Opposite, rising in pretty wavy undulation, with
+occasional abruptions of jagged rock and sunken hollow, the steep
+hill-sides are brought out in the brightest coloring of delicate light
+and shade by the golden orb of early morn; towering majestically
+sunwards, sheer up in front of me, high above all else, still more
+sombre heights stand out powerfully in solemn contrast against the pale
+blue of the spring sky, the effect in the distance being antithetical
+and weird, with the magnificent Ts'ang Shan[AY] standing up as a
+beautiful background of perpendicular white, from whence range upon
+range of dark lines loom out in the hazy atmosphere. From the extreme
+summit of one snow-laden peak, whose white steeple seems truly a
+heavenward-directed finger, I gaze abstractedly all around upon nothing
+but dark masses of gently-waving hills, steep, weary ascents and
+descents, green and gold, and yellow and brown, and one's eyes rest upon
+a maze of thin white lines intertwining them all. These are the main
+roads. I am alone. My men are far behind. I am awed with an unnatural
+sense of bewildered wonderment in the midst of all this glory of the
+earth.
+
+Everything is so vast, so grand, so overpowering. Murmurings of the
+birds alone break the sense of sadness and loneliness. Away yonder
+full-grown pine trees, if discernible at all, are dwarfed so as to
+appear like long coarse grass. For some thirty li the road runs through
+beautiful woods, high above the valleys and the noise of the river; and
+now we are running down swiftly to a point where two ranges meet, only
+to toil on again, slowly and wearily, up an awful gradient for two hours
+or more. But the labor and all its fatiguing arduousness are nothing
+when one gets to the top, for one beholds here one of the most
+magnificent mountain panoramas in all West China. Far away, just peeping
+prettily from the silvered edges of the bursting clouds, are the giant
+peaks which separate Tali-fu from Yang-pi--white giants with rugged,
+cruel edges pointing upwards, piercing the clouds asunder as a ship's
+bow pierces the billows of the deep; and then, gradually coming from out
+the mist, are no less than eight distinct ranges of mountains from
+14,000 feet to 16,000 feet high, besides innumerable minor heights,
+which we have traversed with much labor during the past four days, all
+rich with coloring and natural grandeur seen but seldom in all the
+world. Switzerland could offer nothing finer, nothing more sweeping,
+nothing more beautiful, nothing more awe-inspiring. With the glorious
+grandeur of these wondrous hills, rising and falling playfully around
+the main ranges, the marvellous tree growth, the delicate contrasts of
+the formidable peaks and the dainty, cultivated valleys, and the face of
+Nature everywhere absolutely unmarred, Switzerland could in no way
+compare.
+
+Is it then surprising that I look upon these stupendous masses with
+wonder, which seem to breathe only eternity and immensity?
+
+The air is pure as the breath of heaven, all is still and peaceful, and
+the fact that in the very nature of things one cannot rush through this
+pervading beauty of the earth, but has to plod onwards step by step
+along a toilsome roadway, enables the scenery to be so impressed upon
+one's mind as to be focussed for life in one's memory. One is held
+spellbound; these are the pictures never forgotten. Here I sit in a
+corner of the earth as old as the world itself. These mountains are as
+they were in the great beginning, when the Creator and Sustainer of all
+things pure and beautiful looked upon His handiwork and saw that it was
+good.
+
+The country here seems so vast as to render Nature unconquerable by man:
+man is insignificant, Nature is triumphant. Railways are defied; and
+these mountains, running mostly at right angles, will probably
+never--not in our time, at least--be made unsightly by the puffing and
+the reeking of the modern railway engine. They present so many natural
+obstacles to the opening-up of the country, according to the standard we
+Westerners lay down, that one would hesitate to prophesy any mode of
+traffic here other than that of the horse caravan and human beast of
+burden. Nature seems to look down upon man and his earth-scouring
+contrivances, and assert, "Man, begone! I will have none of thee." And
+the mountains turn upwards to the sky in_ silent reverence to their
+Maker, whose work must in the main remain unchanged until eternity.
+
+It is now 12:30, and we have fifty li to cover before reaching
+Ch'u-tung. We sit here to feed at a place called Siao-shui-tsing, a
+sorry antediluvian make-shift of a building, where in subsequent travel
+I was hung up in bitter weather and had to pass the night. The people,
+courteous and civil as always, show a simple trustfulness with which is
+associated some little suspicion. I gave a cake to a little child, but
+its mother would not allow it to be eaten until she was again and again
+assured and reassured that it was quite fit to eat. This home life of
+the very poor Chinese, if indeed it may be called home life, has a
+listlessness about it in marked contrast to that of the West. There is
+little housework, no furniture more than a table and chair or two, and
+the simplicity of the cooking arrangements does not tend to increase the
+work of the housewife.
+
+People here to-day are going about their work with a restful
+deliberation very trying to one in a hurry. The women, with infants tied
+to their backs, do not work hard but very long. A mud-house is being
+built near by, and between the cooking and attending to passing
+travelers, two women are digging the earth and filling up the baskets,
+while the men are mixing the mud, filling in the oblong wooden trough,
+and thus building the wall. At my elbow a man--old and grizzled and
+dirty--is turning back roll upon roll of his wadded garments, and
+ridding it of as many as he can find of the insects with which it is
+infested. A slobbering, boss-eyed cretin chops wood at my side, and when
+I rise to try a snap on the women and the children they hide behind the
+walls. Thus my time passes away, as I wait for the coolies who sit on a
+log in the open road feeding on common basins of dry rice.
+
+After that we had to cross the face of a steep hill. We could, however,
+find no road, no pathway even, but could merely see the scratchings of
+coolies and ponies already crossed. It was an achievement not unrisky,
+but we managed to reach the other side without mishap. My horse, owing
+to the stupidity of the man who hung on to his mouth to steady himself,
+put his foot in a hole and dragged the fool of a fellow some twenty
+yards downwards in the mud. My coolies, themselves in a spot most
+dangerous to their own necks, stuck the outside leg deep in the mud to
+rest themselves, and set to assiduously in blackguarding the man in
+their richest vein, then, extricating themselves, again continued their
+journey, satisfied that they had shown the proper front, and saved the
+face of the foreigner who could not save it for himself. Then we all
+went down through a narrow ravine into a lovely shady glade, all green
+and refreshing, with a brook gurgling sweetly at the foot and birds
+singing in the foliage. There was something very quaint in this cosy
+corner, with the hideous echoes and weird re-echoes of my men's
+squealing. Then we went on again from hill to hill, in a ten-inch
+footway, broken and washed away, so that in places it was necessary to
+hang on to the evergrowing grass to keep one's footing in the slopes.
+One needs to have no nerves in China.
+
+Down in the valley were a number of muleteers from Burma, cooking their
+rice in copper pans, whilst their ponies, most of them in horrid
+condition, and backs rubbed in some places to the extent of twelve
+inches square, grazed on the hill-sides. In most places the foot of this
+ravine would have been a river; here it was like a park, with pretty
+green sward intersected by a narrow path leading down into a lane so
+thick with virgin growth as to exclude the sunlight. As we entered a man
+came out with his p'ukai and himself on the back of a ten-hand pony; the
+animal shied, and his manservant got behind and laid on mighty blows
+with the butt-end of a gun he was carrying. The pony ceased shying.
+
+To Ch'u-tung was a tedious journey, rising and falling across the wooded
+hills, and when we arrived at some cottages by the riverside, the
+_fu-song_ had a rough time of it from my men for having brought us by a
+long road instead of by the "new" road (so called, although I do not
+doubt that it has been in use for many generations). Some Szech'wan
+coolies and myself had rice together on a low form away from the smoke,
+and the while listened to some tales of old, told by some half-witted,
+goitrous monster who seemed sadly out at elbow. The soldier meantime
+smelt round for a smoke. As he and my men had decided a few moments ago
+that each party was of a very low order of humanity, their pipes for him
+were not available. So he took pipe and dried leaf tobacco from this
+half-witted skunk, who, having wiped the stem in his eight-inch-long
+pants, handed it over in a manner befitting a monarch. It measured some
+sixty or seventy inches from stem to bowl.
+
+From Hwan-lien-p'u to Ch'u-tung is reckoned as eighty li; it is quite
+one hundred and ten, and the last part of the journey, over barren,
+wind-swept hills, most fatiguing.
+
+In contrast to the beauty of the morning's scenery, the country was
+black and bare, and a gale blew in our faces. My spirits were raised,
+however, by a coolie who joined us and who had a remarkable knowledge of
+the whole of the West of China, from Chung-king to Singai, from Mengtsz
+to Tachien-lu. Plied with questions, he willingly gave his answers, but
+he would persist in leading the way. As soon as a man endeavored to pass
+him, he would trot off at a wonderful speed, making no ado of the 120
+pounds of China pots on his back, yelling his explanations all the time
+to the man behind. Yung-p'ing-hsien lay over to the right, fifteen li
+from Ch'u-tung, which is protected from the elements by a bell-shaped
+hill at the foot of a mountain lit up with gold from the sinking sun,
+which dipped as I trudged along the uneven zigzag road leading across
+the plain of peas and beans and winter crops. Four eight-inch planks,
+placed at various dangerous angles on three wood trestles, form the
+bridge across the fifty-foot stream dividing Ch'u-tung from the world on
+the opposite side. Across this I saw men wander with their loads, and
+then I led Rusty in. Whilst the stream washed his legs, I sat dangling
+mine until called upon to make way for another party of travelers.
+Remarkable is the agility of these men. They swing along over eight
+inches of wood as if they were in the middle of a well-paved road.
+
+Ch'u-tung is a Mohammedan town. There are a few Chinese only--Buddhists,
+Taoists and other ragtags; although when the follower of the Prophet has
+his pigtail attached to the inside of his hat, as it not unusual when he
+goes out fully dressed, there is little difference between him and the
+Chinese.
+
+Pigs here are conspicuously absent. People feed on poultry and beef. I
+rested in this city some month or so after my first overland trip whilst
+my man went to convert silver into cash, a trying ordeal always. Whilst
+I sipped my tea and ate a couple of rice cakes, I was impressed, as I
+seldom have been in my wanderings, with the remarkable number of people,
+from the six hundred odd houses the town possesses, who during that
+half-hour found nothing whatever to do to benefit themselves or the
+community, as members of which they passed monotonous lives, but to
+stare aimlessly at the resting foreigner. The report spread like
+wildfire, and they ran to the scene with haste, pulling on their coats,
+wiping food from their mouths, scratching their heads _en route_, one
+trouser-leg up and the other down, all anxious to get a seat near the
+stage. A river flows down the center of the street, and into this a
+sleepy fellow got tipped bodily in the crush, sat down in the water,
+seemingly in no hurry to move until he had finished his vigorous
+bullying of the man who pushed him in. Those who could not get standing
+room near my table went out into the street and shaded the sun from
+their eyes, in order that they might catch even a glimpse of the
+traveler who sat on in uncompromising indifference.
+
+Several old wags were there who had witnessed the Rebellion--at the
+moment, had I not become callous, another might have seemed
+imminent--and were looked up to by the crowd as heroes of a horrid past,
+being listened to with rapt attention as they described what it was the
+crowd looked at and whence it came. Had I been a wild animal let loose
+from its cage, mingled curiosity and a peculiar foreboding among the
+people of something terrible about to happen could not have been more
+intense.
+
+But I had by this time got used to their crowding, so that I could
+write, sleep, eat, drink, and be merry, and go through personal and
+private routine with no embarrassment. If I turned for the purpose, I
+could easily stare out of face a member of the crowd whose inquisitive
+propensities had become annoying, but as soon as he left another filled
+the gap. Quite pitiful was it to see how trivial articles of foreign
+manufacture--such, for instance, as the cover of an ordinary tin or the
+fabric of one's clothing--brought a regular deluge of childish interest
+and inane questioning; and if I happened to make a few shorthand notes
+upon anything making a particular impression, a look half surprised,
+half amused, went from one to another like an electric current. Had I
+been scheming out celestial hieroglyphics their mouths could not have
+opened wider. As I write now I am asked by a respectable person how many
+ounces of silver a Johann Faber's B.B. costs. I have told him, and he
+has retired smiling, evidently thinking that I am romancing.
+
+That I impress the crowd everywhere is evident. But with all their
+questioning, they are rarely rude; their stare is simply the stare of
+little children seeing a thing for the first time in their lives. It is
+all so hard to understand. My silver and my gold they solicit not; they
+merely desire to see me and to feel me. A certain faction of the crowd,
+however, do solicit my silver.
+
+Lao Chang has been buying vegetables, and has brought all the vegetable
+gardeners and greengrocers around me. The poultry rearers are here too,
+and the forage dealers and the grass cutters and the basket makers, and
+other thrifty members of the commercial order of Ch'u-tung humankind.
+When I came away the people dropped into line and strained their necks
+to get a parting smile. I was sped on my way with a public curiosity as
+if I were a penal servitor released from prison, a general home from a
+war, or something of that kind. And so this wonderful wonder of wonders
+was glad when he emerged from the labyrinthic, brain-confusing
+bewilderment of Chinese interior life of this town into somewhat clearer
+regions. I could not understand. And to the wisest man, wide as may be
+his vision, the Chinese mind and character remain of a depth as infinite
+as is its possibility of expansion. The volume of Chinese nature is one
+of which as yet but the alphabet is known to us.
+
+My own men had got quite used to me, and their minds were directed more
+to working than to wondering. In China, as in other Asiatic countries,
+one's companions soon accustom themselves to one's little peculiarities
+of character, and what was miraculous to the crowd had by simple
+repetition ceased to be miraculous to them.
+
+As I put away my notebook after writing the last sentence, I saw a mule
+slip, fall, roll for one hundred and fifty yards, losing its load on the
+down journey, and then walk up to the stream for a drink.[AZ]
+
+We started for Shayung on February 2nd, 1910, going over a road
+literally uncared for, full of loose-jointed stones and sinking sand,
+down which ponies scrambled, while the Tibetans in charge covered
+themselves close in the uncured skins they wore. This was the first time
+I had ever seen Tibetans. They had huge ear-rings in their ears, and
+their antiquated topboots--much better, however, than the Yuen-nan
+topboot--gave them a peculiar appearance as they tramped downward in the
+frost.
+
+Going up with us was a Chinese, on the back of a pony not more than
+eleven hands high, sitting as usual with his paraphernalia lashed to the
+back of the animal. He laughed at me because I was not riding, whilst I
+tried to solve the problem of that indefinable trait of Chinese nature
+which leads able-bodied men with sound feet to sit on these little
+brutes up those terrible mountain sides. Some parts of this spur were
+much steeper than the roof of a house--as perpendicular as can be
+imagined--but still this man held on all the way. And the Chinese do it
+continuously, whether the pony is lame or not, at least the majority.
+But the cruelty of the Chinese is probably not regarded as cruelty,
+certainly not in the sense of cruelty in the West. Being Chinese, with
+customs and laws of life such as they are, their instinct of cruelty is
+excusable to some degree. Not only is it with animals, however, but
+among themselves the Chinese have no mercy, no sympathy. In Christian
+England within the last century men where hanged for petty theft; but in
+Yuen-nan--I do not know whether it is still current in other
+provinces--men have been known to be burnt to death for stealing maize.
+A case was reported from Ch'u-tsing-fu quite recently, but it is a
+custom which used to be quite common. A document is signed by the man's
+relatives, a stick is brought by every villager, the man lashed to a
+stake, and his own people are compelled to light the fire. It seems
+incredible, but this horrible practice has not been entirely extirpated
+by the authorities, although since the Yuen-nan Rebellion it has not been
+by any means so frequent. I have no space nor inclination to deal with
+the ghastly tortures inflicted upon prisoners in the name of that great
+equivalent to justice, but the more one knows of them the more can he
+appreciate the common adage urging _dead men to keep out of hell and the
+living out of the yamens_!
+
+Hua-chow is thirty li from here at the head of an abominable hill, and
+here women, overlooking one of the worst paved roads in the Empire, were
+beating out corn. Then we climbed for another twenty-five li, rising
+from 5,900 feet to 8,200 feet, till we came to a little place called
+Tien-chieng-p'u. It took us three hours. Looking backwards,towards
+Tali-fu, I saw my 14,000 feet friends, and as we went down the other
+side over a splendid stone road we could see, far down below, a valley
+which seemed a veritable oasis, smiling and sweet. A temple here
+contained a battered image of the Goddess of Mercy, who controls the
+births of children. A poor woman was depositing a few cash in front of
+the besmeared idol, imploring that she might be delivered of a son. How
+pitiable it is to see these poor creatures doing this sort of thing all
+over the West of China!
+
+For two days we had been accompanied by a man who was an opium smoker
+and eater. Now I am not going to draw a horrible description of a
+shrivelled, wasted bogey in man's form, with creaking bones and
+shivering limbs and all the rest of it; but I must say that this man,
+towards the time when his craving came upon him, was a wreck in every
+worst sense--he crept away to the wayside and smoked, and arrived always
+late at night at the end of the stage. This was the effect of the drug
+which has been described "as harmless as milk." I do not exaggerate. In
+the course of Eastern journalistic experience I have written much in
+defence of opium, have paralleled it to the alcohol of my own country.
+This was in the Straits Settlements, where the deadly effects of opium
+are less prominent. But no language of mine can exaggerate the evil, and
+if I would be honest, I cannot describe it as anything but China's most
+awful curse. It cannot be compared to alcohol, because its grip is more
+speedy and more deadly. It is more deadly than arsenic, because by
+arsenic the suicide dies at once, while the opium victim suffers untold
+agonies and horrors and dies by inches. It is all very well for the men
+who know nothing about the effect of opium to do all the talking about
+the harmlessness of this pernicious drug; but they should come through
+this once fair land of Yuen-nan and see everywhere--not in isolated
+districts, but everywhere--the ravaging effects in the poverty and
+dwarfed constitutions of the people before they advocate the continuance
+of the opium trade. I have seen men transformed to beasts through its
+use; I have seen more suicides from the effect of opium since I have
+been in China than from any other cause in the course of my life. As I
+write I have around me painfullest evidence of the crudest ravishings of
+opium among a people who have fallen victims to the craving. There is
+only one opinion to be formed if to himself one would be true. I give
+the following quotation from a work from the pen of one of the most
+fair-minded diplomatists who have ever held office in China:--
+
+"The writer has seen an able-bodied and apparently rugged laboring
+Chinese tumble all in a heap upon the ground, utterly nerveless and
+unable to stand, because the time for his dose of opium had come, and
+until the craving was supplied he was no longer a man, but the merest
+heap of bones and flesh. In the majority of cases death is the sure
+result of any determined reform. The poison has rotted the whole system,
+and no power to resist the simplest disease remains. In many years'
+residence in China the writer knew of but four men who finally abandoned
+the habit. (Where opium refuges have been conducted by missionaries,
+reports more favorable have been given concerning those who have become
+Christians.) Three of them lived but a few months thereafter; the fourth
+survived his reformation, but was a life-long invalid."[BA]
+
+Much good work is now being done by the missionaries, and the number of
+those who have given up the habit has probably increased since Mr.
+Holcombe wrote the above. In point of fact, helping opium victims is one
+of the most important branches of mission work.
+_China's Past and Future_ (p. 165) by Chester Holcombe.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote AY: The range of mountains which I had skirted since leaving
+Tali-fu.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote AZ: On my return journey into Yuen-nan, I again called at
+Ch'u-tung, traveling not by the main road, but by a steep path
+intertwisting through almost impossible places, and requiring four times
+the amount of physical exertion. I was led over what was called a new
+road. It was quite impossible to horses carrying loads, and only by
+tremendous effort could I climb up. How my coolies managed it remains a
+mystery. And then, as is almost inevitable with these "new" roads and
+the "short" cuts, they invariably lose their way. Mine did. Hopeless was
+our obscurity, unspeakable our confusion. Men kept vanishing and
+re-appearing among the rocks, and it was very difficult to fix our
+position geographically. Up and up we went, in and out, twisting and
+turning in an endless climb. A gale blew, but at times we pulled
+ourselves up by the dried grass in semi-tropical heat. After several
+hours, standing on the very summit of this bleak and lofty mountain, I
+could just discern Ch'u-tung and Yung-p'ing-hsien far away down in the
+mists. There lay the "ta lu" also, like a piece of white ribbon
+stretched across black velvet--the white road on the burnt hill-sides.
+We were opposite the highest peaks in the mountains beyond the plain,
+far towards Tengyueh--they are 12,000 feet, we were at least 10,500
+feet, and as Ch'u-tung is only 5,500 feet, our hours of toil may be
+imagined. When we reached the top we found nothing to eat, nothing to
+drink (not even a mountain stream at which we could moisten our parched
+lips), simply two memorial stones on the graves of two dead men, who had
+merited such an outrageous resting-place. I donned a sweater and lay
+flat on the ground, exhausted. It must have been a stiff job to bring up
+both stones and men.
+
+I strongly advise future travelers to keep to the main road in this
+district.--E.J.D.]
+
+[Footnote BA:]
+
+
+
+
+FOURTH JOURNEY
+
+THE MEKONG VALLEY TO TENGYUEH
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+_The Valley of the Shadow of Death_. _Stages to Tengyueh_. _The River
+Mekong, Bridge described_. _An awful ascent_. _On-the-spot conclusions_.
+_Roads needed more than railways_. _At Shui-chai_. _A noisy domestic
+scene at the place where I fed_. _Disregard of the value of female
+life_. _Remarkable hospitality of the gentry of the city_. _Hard going_.
+_Lodging at a private house on the mountains_. _Waif of the world
+entertains the stranger_. _From Ban-chiao to Yung-ch'ang_. _Buffaloes
+and journalistic ignorance_. _Excited scene at Pu-piao_. _Chinese
+barbers_. _A refractory coolie_. _Military interest._
+
+
+The journey which I was about to undertake was the most memorable of my
+travels in China, with the exception of those in the unexplored Miao
+Lands; for I was to pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, the
+dreaded Salwen Valley. I had made up my mind that I would stay here for
+a night to see the effects of the climate, but postponed my sojourn
+intead to a later period, when I stayed two days, and went up the
+low-lying country towards the source of the river; I am, so far as I
+know, the only European who has ever traveled here. Not that my
+journeyings will convey any great benefit upon anyone but myself, as I
+had no instruments for surveying or taking accurate levels, and might
+not have been able to use them had I had them with me. However, I came
+in contact with Li-su, and saw in my two marches a good deal of new
+life, which only acts as an incentive to see more. My plan on the
+present occasion was to travel onwards by the following stages:--
+
+                                           Length    Height
+                                          of Stage  Above Sea
+
+    1st day--Tali-shao                     65 li.   7,200 ft.
+    2nd day--Yung-ch'ang-fu                75 li.   5,500 ft.
+    5th day--Fang-ma-ch'ang                90 li.   7,300 ft.
+    6th day--Ta-hao-ti                    120 li.   8,200 ft.
+    7th day--Tengyueh (Momien)             85 li.   5,370 ft.
+
+On Friday, February 26th, 1909, I steamed up the muddy mouth of the
+Mekong to Saigon in Indo-China in a French mail steamer. To-day,
+February 3rd, 1910, I cross the same river many hundreds of miles from
+where it empties into the China Sea. I cross by a magnificent suspension
+bridge.
+
+A cruel road, almost vertical and negotiated by a twining zigzag path,
+has brought me down, after infinite labor, from the mountains over 4,000
+feet below my highest point reached yesterday, and I now stand in the
+middle of the bridge gazing at the silent green stream flowing between
+cliffs of wall-like steepness. I am resting, for I have to climb again
+immediately to over 8,000 feet. This bridge has a wooden base swinging
+on iron chains, and is connected with the cliffs by bulwarks of solid
+masonry. It is hard to believe that I am 4,000 feet above the mouth of
+the river. To my left, as I look down the torrent, there are tea-shops
+and a temple alongside a most decorative buttress on which the carving
+is elaborate. At the far end, just before entering the miniature tunnel
+branching out to a paved roadway leading upwards, my coolies are sitting
+in truly Asiatic style admiring huge Chinese characters hacked into the
+side of the natural rock, descriptive of the whole business, and under a
+sheltering roof are also two age-worn memorial tablets in gilt. My men's
+patriotic thermometer has risen almost to bursting-point, and in
+admiring the work of the ancients they feel that they have a legitimate
+excuse for a long delay.
+
+At a temple called P'ing-p'o-t'ang we drank tea, and prepared ourselves
+for the worst climb experienced in our long overland tramp.
+
+The Mekong is at this point just 4,000 feet above sea level, as has been
+said; the point in front of us, running up perpendicularly to a narrow
+pass in the mountains, leads on to Shui-chai (6,700 feet), and on again
+to Tali-shao, itself 7,800 feet high, the mountains on which it occupies
+a ledge being much higher. For slipperiness and general hazards this
+road baffles description. It leads up step by step, but not regular
+steps, not even as regularity goes in China.
+
+"There are two small arched bridges in the journey. On the first I sit
+down and gaze far away down to the shining river below, and must ascend
+again in the wake of my panting men.... Where the road is not natural
+rock, it is composed of huge fragments of stone in the rough state,
+smooth as the face of a mirror, haphazardly placed at such dangerous
+spots as to show that no idea of building was employed when the road was
+made. Sometimes one steps twenty inches from one stone to another, and
+were it not that the pathway is winding, although the turning and
+twisting makes unending toil, progress in the ascent would be
+impossible.... Mules are passing me--puffing, panting, perspiring. Poor
+brutes! One has fallen, and in rolling has dragged another with him, and
+there the twain lie motionless on those horrid stones while the
+exhausted muleteers raise their loads to allow them slowly to regain
+their feet. There are some hundreds of them now on the hill."
+
+This description was made in shorthand notes in my notebook as I
+ascended. And I find again:--
+
+"I have seen one or two places in Szech'wan like this, but the danger is
+incomparably less and the road infinitely superior. We pull and pant
+and puff up, up, up, around each bend, and my men can scarce go forward.
+Huge pieces of rock have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the
+way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The
+road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can
+get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which
+bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times,
+and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over
+the ravine.... Rocks overhang me as I pass. If one should drop!... But
+one does not mind the toil when he looks upon his men. In the midst of
+their intense labor my men's squeals of songs echo through the mountains
+as the perspiration runs down their uncovered backs; they chaff each
+other and utmost good feeling prevails. Poor Shanks is nearly done, but
+still laughs loudly.... A natural pathway more difficult of progress I
+cannot conceive anywhere in the world; and yet this is a so-called paved
+road, the road over which all the trade of the western part of this
+great province, all the imports from Burma, are regularly carried.
+Should the road ever be discarded, that is if the railway ever comes
+over this route, only a long tunnel through the mountain would serve its
+purpose.... We have just sat down and fraternized with the man carrying
+the mails to Tali-fu, and now we are working steadily for the top,
+around corners where the breeze comes with delicious freshness. Here we
+are on a road now leading through a widening gorge to Shui-chai, and as
+I cross the narrow pass I see the river down below looking like a snake
+waiting for its prey."
+
+Roads are needed far more than railways.
+
+Being hungry, we sat down at Shui-chai to feed on rice at a place where
+a man minded the baby while the woman attended to the food. Over my head
+hung sausages--my men swore that they were sausages, although for my
+life I could see no resemblance to that article of food--things of 1 1/2
+inches in circumference and from 12 to 60 inches long, doubled up and
+hung up for sale over a bamboo to dry and harden in the sun. Hams there
+were, and dried bacon, and dirty brown biscuits, and uninviting pickled
+cabbage. By the side of the table where I sat was a wooden pun of
+unwashed rice bowls, against which lay the filthy domestic dog.
+
+Outside, the narrow street was lined to the farthest point of vantage by
+kindly people, curious to see their own feeding implements in the
+incapable hands of the barbarian from the Western lands, and the
+conversation waxed loud and excited in general hazards regarding my
+presence in their city.
+
+Stenches were rife; they nearly choked one.
+
+A little boy yelled out to his mother in complaint of the food he had
+been given by a feminine twelve-year-old, his sister. The mother
+immediately became furious beyond all control. She snatched a bamboo to
+belabor the girl, and in chasing her knocked over the pun of pots
+aforesaid. The place became a Bedlam. Men rose from their seats, and
+with their mouths full of rice expostulated in vainest mediation, waving
+their chopsticks in the air, and whilst the mother turned upon them in
+grossest abuse the daughter cleared out at the back of the premises. I
+left the irate parent brandishing the bamboo; her voice was heard beyond
+the town.
+
+But I was not allowed to leave the town. All the intellect of the place
+had assembled in one of the shops, into which I was gently drawn by the
+coat sleeve by a good-natured, well-dressed humpback, and all of the men
+assembled began an examination as to who the dignitary was, his
+honorable age, the number of the wives, sons and daughters he possessed,
+with inevitable questioning into the concerns of his patriarchal
+forbears. Accordingly I once again searched the archives of my elastic
+memory, and there found all information readily accessible, so that in
+a few moments, by the aid of Bailer's _Primer_, I had explained that I
+was a stranger within their gates, wafted thither by circumstances
+extraordinarily auspicious, and had satisfied them concerning my
+parentage, birthplace, prospects and pursuits, with introspective
+anecdotal references to various deceased members of my family tree. I
+did not tell them the truth--that I was a pilgrim from a far country,
+footsore and travel-soiled, that I had been well-nigh poisoned by their
+bad cooking and blistered with their bug-bites!
+
+I rose to go. Like automotons, everyone in the company rose with me. The
+humpback again caught me, this time by both hands, and warmly pressed me
+to stay and "uan" ("play") a little. "Great Brother," he ejaculated,
+"why journeyest thou wearisomely towards Yung-ch'ang? Tarry here." And
+he had pushed me back again into my chair, he had re-filled my teacup,
+and invited me to tell more tales of antiquarian relationship. And
+finally I was allowed to go. Greater hospitality could not have been
+shown me anywhere in the world.
+
+The day had been hard going. We pursued our way unheedingly, as men
+knowing not whither we went; and at 4:00 p.m., fearing that we should
+not be able to make Ban-chiao, where we intended stopping, I decided to
+go no farther than Tali-shao. The evening was one of the happiest I
+spent in my journeys, although personal comfort was entirely lacking.
+The place is made up of just a few hovels; people were hostile, and
+turned a deaf ear to my men's entreaties for shelter. For very
+helplessness I laughed aloud. I screamed with laughter, and the folk
+gathered to see me almost in hysterics. They soon began to smile, then
+to laugh, and seeing the effect, I laughed still louder, and soon had
+the whole village with tears of laughter making furrows down their
+unwashed faces, laughing as a pack of hyenas. At last a kind old woman
+gave way to my boy's persuasions, beckoning us to follow her into a
+house. Here we found a young girl of about nine summers in charge. It
+was all rare fun. There was nothing to eat, and so the men went one here
+and another there buying supplies for the night. Another cleared out
+the room, and made it a little habitable. The bull-dog coolie cooked the
+rice, Shanks boiled eggs and cut up the pork into small slices, another
+fed the pony, and then we fed ourselves.
+
+In the evening a wood fire was kindled in the corner near my bed, and we
+all sat round on the mud floor--stools there were none--to tell yarns.
+My confederates were out for a spree. We smoked and drank tea and
+yarned. Suddenly a stick would be thrust over my shoulder to the fire:
+it was merely a man's pipe going to the fire for a light. Chinese never
+use matches; it is a waste when there are so many fires about. If on the
+road a man wants to light his pipe, he walks into a home and gets it
+from the fire. No one minds. No notice is taken of the intrusion.
+Everybody is polite, and the man may not utter a word. At a wayside
+food-shop a man may go behind to where the cooking is being conducted,
+poke his pipe into the embers, and walk out pulling at it, all as
+naturally as if that man were in his own house. An Englishman would have
+a rough time of it if he had to go down on his hands and knees and pull
+away at a pipe from a fire on the floor.
+
+No father, no mother, no elder brother had the little girl in charge.
+She was left without friends entirely, and a man must have been a hard
+man indeed were he to steel his heart against such a helpless little
+one. I called her to me, gave her a little present, and comforted her as
+she cried for the very knowledge that an Englishman would do a kind act
+to a little waif such as herself. She was in the act of giving back the
+money to me, when Lao Chang, with pleasant aptitude, interposed,
+explained that foreigners occasionally develop generous moods, and that
+she had better stop crying and lock the money away. She did this, but
+the poor little mite nearly broke her heart.
+
+Ban-chiao, which we reached early the next morning, is a considerable
+town, where most of the people earn their livelihood at dyeing. Those
+who do not dye drink tea and pass rude remarks about itinerant magnates,
+such as the author. I passed over the once fine, rough-planked bridge at
+the end of the town.
+
+In the evening we are at Yung-ch'ang. Here I saw for the first time in
+my life a man carrying a _cangue,_ and a horrible, sickening feeling
+seized me as I tramped through the densely-packed street and watched the
+poor fellow. The mob were evidently clamoring for his death, and were
+prepared to make sport of his torments. There is nothing more glorious
+to a brutal populace than the physical agony of a helpless
+fellow-creature, nothing which produces more mirth than the despair, the
+pain, the writhing of a miserable, condemned wretch.
+
+Great drops of sweat bathed his brow, and as one, looked on one felt
+that he might pray that his hot and throbbing blood might rush in
+merciful full force to a vital center of his brain, so that he might
+fall into oblivion. The jeers and the mockery of a pitiless multitude
+seemed too awful, no matter what the man's crime had been.
+
+Yung-ch'ang (5,500 feet) is as well known as any city in Far Western
+China. I stayed here for two days' rest, the only disturbing element
+being a wretch of a mother-in-law who made unbearable the life of her
+son's wife, a girl of about eighteen, who has probably by this time
+taken opium, if she has been able to get hold of it, and so ended a
+miserable existence.
+
+On a return visit this mother-in-law, as soon as she caught sight of me,
+ran to fetch an empty tooth-powder tin, a small black safety pin, and
+two inches of lead pencil I had left behind me on the previous visit. I
+have made more than one visit to Yung-ch'ang, and the people have always
+treated me well.
+
+Along the ten li of level plain from the city, on the road which led up
+again to the mountains, I counted-no less than 409 bullocks laden with
+nothing but firewood, and 744 mules and ponies carrying cotton yarn and
+other general imports coming from Burma. There was a stampede at the
+foot of the town, and quite against my own will, I assure the reader, I
+got mixed up in the affair as I stood watching the light and shade
+effects of the morning sun on the hill-sides. Buffaloes, with a crude
+hoop collar of wood around their coarse necks, dragged rough-hewn planks
+along the stone-paved roadway, the timber swerving dangerously from side
+to side as the heavy animals pursued their painful plodding. To the
+Chinese the buffalo is the safest of all quadrupeds, if we perhaps
+except the mule, which, if three legs give way, will save himself on the
+remaining one. But it is certainly the slowest. I am here reminded that
+when I was starting on this trip a journalistic friend of mine, who had
+spent some years in one of the coast ports, tried to dissuade me from
+coming, and cited the buffalo as the most treacherous animal to be met
+on the main road in China. He put it in this way:
+
+"Well, old man, you have evidently made up your mind, but I would not
+take it on at any price. The buffaloes are terrors. They smell you even
+if they do not see you; they smell you miles off. It may end up by your
+being chased, and you will probably be gored to death."
+
+The buffalo is the most peaceful animal I know in China. Miniature
+belfries were attached to the wooden frames on the backs of carrying
+oxen, and were it not for the huge tenor bell and its gong-like sound
+keeping the animal in motion, the slow pace would be slower still.
+
+Turning suddenly and abruptly to the left, we commenced a cold journey
+over the mountains, although the sun was shining brightly. A goitrous
+man came to me and waxed eloquent about some uncontrollable pig which
+was dragging him all over the roadway as he vainly tried to get it to
+market. Some dozen small boys, with hatchets and scythes over their
+shoulders for the cutting of firewood they were looking for, laughed at
+me as I ploughed through the mud in my sandals. We had been going for
+three hours, and when, cold and damp, we got inside a cottage for tea, I
+found that we had covered only twenty li--so we were told by an old
+fogey who brushed up the floor with a piece of bamboo. He was dressed in
+what might have been termed undress, and was most vigorous in his
+condemnation of foreigners.
+
+Leng-shui-ch'ang we passed at thirty-five li out, and just beyond the
+aneroid registered 7,000 feet; Yung-ch'ang Plain is 5,500 feet; Pu-piao
+Plain-is 4,500 feet. The range of hills dividing the two plains was
+bare, the clouds hung low, and the keen wind whistled in our faces and
+nipped our ears. Ten li from Pu-piao, on a barren upland overlooking the
+valley, a mere boy had established himself as tea provider for the
+traveler. A foreign kerosene tin placed on three stones was the general
+cistern for boiling water, which was dipped out and handed round in a
+slip of bamboo shaped like a mug with a stick to hold it by. Farther on,
+sugar-cane grew in a field to the left, and near by a man sat on his
+haunches on the ground feeding a sugar-grinding machine propelled by a
+buffalo, who patiently tramped round that small circle all day and every
+day.
+
+Turning from this, I beheld one of the worst sights I have ever seen in
+China. Seven dogs were dragging a corpse from a coffin, barely covered
+with earth, which formed one of the grave mounds which skirt the road.
+No one was disturbed by the scene; it was not uncommon. But the
+foreigner suffered an agonizing sickness, for which his companions would
+have been at a loss to find any possible reason, and was relieved to
+reach Pu-piao.
+
+Market was at its height. It was warm down here in the valley. The
+streets were packed with people, many of whom were pushed bodily into
+the piles of common foreign and native merchandise on sale on either
+side of the road. A clodhopper of a fellow, jostled by my escort, fell
+into a stall and broke the huge umbrella which formed a shelter for the
+vendor and his goods, and my boy was called upon to pay. Fifty cash
+fixed the matter. I walked into a crowded inn and made majestically for
+the extreme left-hand corner. Everybody wondered, and softly asked his
+neighbor what in the sacred name of Confucius had come upon them.
+
+"See his boots! Look at his old hat! What a face! It _is_ a monstrosity,
+and--"
+
+But as I sat down the general of the establishment cruelly forced back
+the people, and screamingly yelled at the top of his voice that those
+who wanted to drink tea in the room must pay double rates. His unusual
+announcement was received with a low grunt of dissatisfaction, but no
+one left. Every table in the square apartment was soon filled with six
+or eight men, and the noise was terrific. Curiosity increased. The fun
+was, as the comic papers say, fast and furious; and despite the
+ill-favored pleasantries passed by my own men and the inquisitive
+tea-shop keeper-as to peculiarities of heredity in certain noisy
+members of the crowd, a riot seemed inevitable. I stationed my two
+soldiers in the narrow doorway to defend the only entrance and entertain
+the uninitiated with stories of their prowess with the rifle and of the
+weapon's deadliness. Boys climbed like monkeys to the overhead beams to
+get a glimpse of me as I fed, and incidentally shook dust into my food.
+
+Everyone pushed to where there was standing room. Outside a rolling sea
+of yellow faces surmounted a mass of lively blue cotton, all eager for a
+look. The din was terrible. All very visibly annoyed were my men at the
+rudeness of their low-bred fellow countrymen, and especially surprised
+at the equanimity of Ding Daren in tolerating quietly their pointed and
+personal remarks. I became more and more the hero of the hour.
+
+Turning to the crowd as I came out, I smiled serenely, and with a quiet
+wave of the hand pointed out in faultless English that the gulf between
+my own country and theirs was already wide enough, and that Great
+Britain might--did not say that she _would_, but might--widen it still
+more if they persisted in treating her subjects in China as monstrous
+specimens of the human race. This was rigorously corroborated by my two
+soldier-men, to whom I appealed, and a parting word on the ordinary
+politeness of Western nations to a greasy fellow (he was a worker in
+brass), who felt my clothes with his dirty fingers, ended an interesting
+break in the day's monotony. In the street the crowd again was at my
+heels, and evinced more than comfortable curiosity in my straw sandals.
+They cost me thirty cash, equal to about a halfpenny in our coinage.
+
+Since then I have paid other visits to Pu-piao. On one occasion in
+subsequent travel I had a public shave there. My arrival at the inn in
+the nick of time enabled me to buttonhole the barber who was picking up
+his traps to clear, and I had one of the best shaves I have ever had in
+my life, in one of the most uncomfortable positions I ever remember. My
+seat was a low, narrow form with no back or anything for my neck to rest
+upon, and afterwards I went through the primitive and painful massage
+process of being bumped all over the back. Between every four or five
+whacks the barber snapped his fingers and clapped his hands, and right
+glad was I when he had finished. The yard was full, even to the stable
+and cook-house alongside each other, the anger of a grizzly old dame,
+who smoked a reeking pipe and who had charge of the rice-and-cabbage
+depot, being eclipsed only by my infuriated barber as he gave cruel vent
+to his anger upon my aching back.
+
+This reminds me of an uncomfortable shave I had some ten years ago in
+Trinidad, where a black man sat me on the trunk of a tree whilst he got
+behind and rested my head on one knee and got to work with an implement
+which might have made a decent putty knife, but was never meant to cut
+whiskers. However, in the case of the Chinese his knife was in fair
+condition, but he grunted a good deal over my four-days' growth.
+
+This little story should not convey the impression that I am an advocate
+of the public shave in China, or anywhere else; but there are times when
+one is glad of it. I have been shaved by Chinese in many places; and
+whilst resident at Yuen-nan-fu with a broken arm a man came regularly to
+me, his shave sometimes being delightful, and--sometimes not.
+
+I had another rather amusing experience at Pu-piao about a month after
+this. A supplementary coolie had been engaged for me at Tengyueh at a
+somewhat bigger wage than my other men were getting, and this, known, of
+course, to them, added to the fact that he was not carrying the heaviest
+load, did not tend to produce unmarred brotherhood among them. The man
+had been told that he would go on to Tali-fu with me on my return trip,
+so that when I took the part of my men (who had come many hundreds of
+miles with me, and who had engaged another man on the route to fill the
+gap), in desiring to get rid of him, he certainly had some right on his
+side. The day before we reached Yung-ch'ang he was told that at that
+place he would not be required any longer; but he decided then and there
+to go no farther, and refused point-blank to carry when we were ready
+to start. I should have recompensed him fully, however, for his
+disappointment had he not made some detestable reference to my mother,
+in what Lao Chang assured me was not strictly parliamentary language. As
+soon as I learnt this--I was standing near the fellow--he somehow fell
+over, sprawling to the floor over my walnut folding chair, which snapped
+at the arm. It was my doing. The man said no more, picked up his loads,
+and was the first to arrive at Yung-ch'ang, so that a little force was
+not ineffective.
+
+Indiscriminate use of force I do not advocate, however; I believe in the
+reverse, as a matter of fact. I rarely hit a man; but there have been
+occasions when, a man having refused to do what he has engaged to do, or
+in cases of downright insolence, a little push or a slight cut with my
+stick has brought about a capital feeling and gained for me immediate
+respect.
+
+Fang-ma-ch'ang, off the main road, was our sleeping-place. Travelers
+rarely take this road. Gill took it, I believe, but Baber, Davies and
+other took the main road. This short road was more fatiguing than the
+main road would have been.
+
+We again turned a dwelling-house upside down. People did not at first
+wish to take me in, so I pushed past the quarrelsome man in the doorway,
+took possession, and set to work to get what I wanted. Soon the people
+calmed down and gave all they could. My bed I spread near the door, and
+to catch a glimpse of me as I lay resting, the inhabitants, in much the
+same manner as people at home visit and revisit the cage of jungle-bred
+tigers at a menagerie, assembled and reassembled with considerable
+confusion. But I was beneath my curtains. So they came again, and when I
+ate my food by candlelight many human and tangible products of the past
+glared in at the doorway. After dark we all foregathered in the middle
+of the room and round the camp fire, the conversation taking a pleasant
+turn from ordinary things, such as the varying distances from place to
+place, how many basins of rice each man could eat, and other Chinese
+commonplaces, to things military. Everybody warmed to the subject. My
+military bodyguard were the chief speakers, and cleverly brought round
+the smoky fire, for the benefit of the thick-headed rustics who made up
+the fascinated audience, a modern battlefield, and made their
+description horrible enough.
+
+One carefully brought out his gun, waving it overhead to add to the
+tragedy, as he weaved a powerful story of shell splinters, blood-filled
+trenches, common shot, men and horses out of which all life and virtue
+had been blown by gunpowder. The picture was drawn around the Chinese
+village, and in the dim glimmer each man's thought ran swiftly to his
+own homestead and the green fields and the hedgerows and dwellings all
+blown to atoms--left merely as a place of skulls. They spoke of great
+and horrible implements of modern warfare, invented, to their minds, by
+the devilry of the West. Each man chipped in with a little color, and
+the company broke up in fear of dreaming of the things of which they had
+heard, afraid to go to their straw to sleep.
+
+As I lay in my draughty corner, my own mind turned to what the next day
+would bring, for I was to go down to the Valley of the Shadow of
+Death--the dreaded Salwen. I had read of it as a veritable death-trap.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+_To Lu-chiang-pa_. _Drop from 8,000 feet to 2,000 feet_. _Shans meet for
+the first time_. _Dangers of the Salwen Valley exaggerated_. _How
+reports get into print_. _Start of the climb from 2,000 feet to over
+8,000 feet_. _Scenery in the valley_. _Queer quintet of soldiers_.
+_Semi-tropical temperature_. _My men fall to the ground exhausted_. _A
+fatiguing day_. _Benighted in the forest_. _Spend the night in a hut_.
+_Strong drink as it affects the Chinese_. _Embarrassing attentions of a
+kindly couple_. _New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai_. _The Shweli
+River and watershed_. _Magnificent range of mountains_. _Arrival at
+Tengyueh._
+
+
+No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
+soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
+consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
+why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.
+
+And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
+about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
+information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
+for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
+but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
+the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
+very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
+found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
+low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.
+
+A good deal of the country to the north of the Yuen-nan province, towards
+the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Yuen-nanese
+Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
+so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
+from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
+Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
+inhabitant--that is, Chinese--strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
+10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
+March and November if he can.
+
+To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
+highest point at nearly 9,000 feet--140 li distant from
+Fang-ma-ch'ang--was our ambition for the day.
+
+Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
+leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
+the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
+to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
+country was bare, desolate, lonely--four people only were met over the
+entire distance. But in the dreaded Valley several trees were ablaze
+with blossom, and oranges shone like small balls of gold in the rising
+sun. Children playing in between the trees ran away and hid as they saw
+me, although I was fifty yards from them--they did not know what it was,
+and they had never seen one!
+
+Farther down I caught up my men, Lao Chang and Shanks, and pleasant
+speculations were entered into as to what Singai (Bhamo) was like. They
+were particularly interested in Singapore because I had lived there, and
+after I had given them a general description of the place, and explained
+how the Chinese had gone ahead there, I pointed out as well as I could
+with my limited vocabulary that if the people of Yuen-nan only had a
+conscience, and would only get out of the rut of the ages, they, too,
+might go ahead, explaining incidentally to them that as lights of the
+church at Tong-ch'uan-fu, it was their sacred duty to raise the standard
+of moral living among their countrymen wherever they might wander. Their
+general acquiescence was astounding, and in the next town,
+Lu-chiang-pa, these two men put their theory into practice and almost
+caused a riot by offering 250 cash for a fowl for which the vendor
+blandly asked 1,000. But they got the chicken--and at their own price,
+too.
+
+As I was thus gently in soliloquy, I first heard and then caught sight
+of the river below--the unnavigable Salwen, 2,000 feet lower than either
+the Mekong or the Shweli (which we were to cross two days later). It is
+a pity the Salwen was not preserved as the boundary between Burma and
+China.
+
+Gradually, as we approached the steep stone steps leading down thereto,
+I saw one of the cleverest pieces of native engineering in Asia--the
+double suspension bridge which here spans the Salwen, the only one I had
+seen in my trip across the Empire. The first span, some 240 feet by 36
+feet, reaches from the natural rock, down which a vertical path zigzags
+to the foot, and the second span then runs over to the busy little town
+of Lu-chiang-pa.
+
+Here, then, were we in the most dreaded spot in Western China! If you
+stay a night in this Valley, rumor says, you go to bed for the last
+time; Chinese are afraid of it, Europeans dare not linger in it. Malaria
+stalks abroad for her victims, and snatches everyone who dallies in his
+journey to the topside mountain village of Feng-shui-ling. The river is
+2,000 feet above the sea; Feng-shui-ling is nearly 9,000 feet.
+
+It was ten o'clock as I pulled over my stool and took tea in the crowded
+shop at Lu-chiang-pa. I saw Shans here for the first time.
+
+The village now, however, is anything but a Shan village. Of the people
+in the immediate vicinity I counted only ten typical Shans, and of the
+company around me in this popular tea-house twenty-one out of
+twenty-eight were Chinese, including ten Mohammedans. It was, however,
+easy to see that several of these were of Shan extraction, who,
+although they had features distinctly un-Chinese, had adopted the
+Chinese language and custom. A party of Tibetans were here in the charge
+of a Lama, in an inner court, and scampered off as I rose to snap their
+photographs. This was a very low altitude for Tibetans to reach.
+
+Whilst I sipped my tea the local horse dealer wanted so very much to
+sell me a pony cheap. He offered it for forty taels, I offered him five.
+It was gone in the back, was blind in the left eye, and was at least
+seventeen years old. The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
+that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.
+
+The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
+to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
+their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
+Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
+provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
+one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
+with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
+me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
+passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
+great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
+streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
+facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
+All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
+of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.
+
+We were now a party of nine--my own three men, an extra coolie I had
+engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
+and the paymaster of the crowd. We still had ninety li to cover, so that
+when we left the shade of two immense trees which sheltered me and my
+perspiring men, one of the soldiers agreed that everyone had to clear
+from our path. We brooked no interception until we reached the entrance
+to the climb, where I met two Europeans, of the Customs staff at
+Tengyueh, who had come down here to camp out for the Chinese New Year
+Holiday. I knew that these men were not Englishmen. I was so thirsty,
+and the best they could do was to keep a man talking in the sun outside
+their well-equipped tent. How I _could_ have done with a drink!
+
+A tributary of the Salwen flows down the ravine. Too terrible a climb to
+the top was it for me to take notes. I got too tired. Everything was
+magnificently green, and Nature's reproduction seemed to be going on
+whilst one gazed upon her. But the natural glories of this beautiful
+gorge, with a dainty touch of the tropical mingling with the mighty
+aspect of jungle forest, with glistening cascades and rippling streams,
+where all was bountiful and exquisitely beautiful, failed to hold one
+spellbound. For since I had left Tali-fu I had rarely been out of sight
+of some of the best scenery on earth. Yet vegetation was very different
+to that which we had been passing. There were now banyans, palms,
+plantains, and many ferns, trees and shrubs and other products of warmer
+climates, which one found in Burma. What impressed me farther up was the
+marvelous growth of bamboos, some rising 120 feet and 130 feet at the
+bend, in their various tints of green looking like delicate feathers
+against the haze of the sky-line, upon which houses built of bamboo from
+floor to roof seemed temporarily perched whilst others seemed to be
+tumbling down into the valley. This spot was the nearest approach to
+real jungle I had seen in China; but Whilst we were climbing laboriously
+through this densely-covered country, over opposite--it seemed no more
+than a stone's throw--the hills were almost bare, save for the isolated
+cultivation of the peasantry at the base. But then came a division,
+appearing suddenly to view farther along around a bend, and I saw a
+continuation of the range, rising even higher, and with a tree growth
+even more magnificent, denser and darker still.
+
+Here I came upon a party of soldiers with foreign military peak caps on
+their heads, which they wore outside over their Chinese caps. In fact,
+the only two other garments besides these Chinese caps were the
+distinguishing marks of the military. Coats they had, but they had been
+discarded at the foot of the climb, rolled into one bundle, and tied
+together with a piece of ribbon generally worn by the carrier to keep
+his trousers tight. We were now in summer heat, and this military
+quintet made a peculiar sight in dusty trousers, peak caps and straw
+sandals, with the perspiration streaming freely down their naked backs
+as they plodded upwards under a pitiless sun. Thus were they clad when I
+met them; but catching sight of my distinguished person, mistaking me
+for a "gwan," they immediately made a rush for the man carrying the
+tunics, to clothe themselves for my presence with seemly respectability.
+But a word from my boy put their minds at rest (my own military were far
+in the rear). A couple of them then came forward to me sniggeringly,
+satisfied that they were not to be reported to Peking or wherever their
+commander-in-chief may have his residence--they probably had no more
+idea than I had.
+
+By the side of a roaring waterfall, in a spot which looked a very
+fairyland in surroundings of reproductive green, we all sat down to
+rest. The air was cool and the path was damp, and water tumbling
+everywhere down from the rocks formed pretty cascades and rivulets. We
+heard the clang of the hatchets, and soon came upon men felling timber
+and sawing up trees into coffin boards. We were in the Valley of the
+Shadow, and it was the finest coffin center of the district. I took my
+boots off to wade through water which overran the pathway, and just
+beyond my men, exhausted with their awful toil, lay flat on their backs
+to rest; they were dead beat. One pointed up to the perpendicular cliff,
+momentarily closed his eyes and looked at me in disgust. I gently
+remonstrated. It was not my country, I told him; it was the "Emperor's."
+And after a time we reached the top.
+
+Shadows were lengthening. In the distance we saw the mountains upon
+which we had spent the previous night, whose tops were gilded by the
+setting sun. Down below all was already dark. A cold wind blew the trees
+bending wearily towards the Valley.
+
+And still we plodded on.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We had come to Siao-p'ing-ho, 115 li instead of the 140 I had been led
+to believe my men would cover. Every room in the hut was full, we were
+told, but the next place (with some unpronounceable name), fifteen li
+farther down, would give us good housing for the night. Lao Chang and I
+resolved to go on, tired though we were. Before I resolved on this plan
+I stopped to take a careful survey of the exact situation of the
+sheltering hollow in which we meant to pass the night. The sun was fast
+sinking; the dust of the road lay grey and thick about my feet; above me
+the heavens were reddening in sunset glory; the landscape had no touch
+of human life about it save our own two solitary figures; and the place,
+fifteen li away, lay before me as a dream of a good night rather than a
+reality.
+
+Then on again we plodded, and yelled our intentions to the men behind.
+
+From the brow of the hill we descended with extreme rapidity--down, down
+into a valley which sent up a damp, oppressive atmosphere. Through the
+trees I could see one lovely ball of deep, rich red, painting the earth
+as it sank in a beauty exquisite beyond all else. Four men met us,
+stared suspiciously, thought we were deaf, and yelled that the place was
+twenty li away, and that we had better return to the brow of the hill.
+But we left them, and went still farther down. In the hush that
+prevailed I was unaccountably startled to see the form of a woman
+gliding towards me in the twilight. She came out of the valley carrying
+firewood. She spoke kindly to my man, and invited me to spend the night
+in her house near by.
+
+I was for the moment vaguely awed by her very quiescence, and gazed
+wondering, doubting, bewildered. What was the little trick? Could I not
+from such things get free, even in Inland China? The red light of the
+sunken sun playing round her comely figure dazzled me, it is admitted,
+and I followed her with a sigh of mingled dread and desire for rest.
+Shall I say the shadow of the smile upon her lips deepened and softened
+with an infinite compassion?
+
+Dogs rounded upon me as I entered the bamboo hut stuck on the side of
+the hill--they knew I had no right there. Inside a man was nursing a
+squalling baby; our escort was its mother, the man her husband. So I was
+safe. The place was swept up, unnecessary gear was taken away, fire was
+kindled, tea was brewed, rice was prepared; and whilst in shaving (for
+we were to reach Tengyueh on the morrow) I dodged here and there to
+escape the smoke and get the most light, giving my hospitable host a
+good deal of fun in so doing; every possible preparation was made for my
+comfort and convenience by the untiring woman at whose invitation I was
+there. Their attentions embarrassed me; every movement, every look,
+every gesture, every wish was anticipated, so that I had no more
+discomfort than a roaring wind and a low temperature about the region
+which no one could help. It was bitterly cold. In front of the fire I
+sat in an overcoat among the crowd drinking tea, whilst the soldiers
+drank wine--they bought five cash worth. Had my lamp oil run out, I
+should have bought liquor and tried to burn it instead. Soon the spirit
+began to talk, and these braves of the Chinese army got on terms of
+freest familiarity, telling me what an all-round excellent fellow I was,
+and how pleased they were that I had to suffer as well as they. But they
+never forgot themselves, and I allowed them to wander on uncontradicted
+and unrestrained. After a weary night of tossing in my p'ukai, with a
+roaring gale blowing through the latticed bamboo, behind which I lay so
+poorly sheltered, we started in good spirits.
+
+Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800 feet), February
+9th, 1910, New Year's morning. Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the
+people said, "Puh mai, puh mai," and although we had traveled the
+twenty-five li over a terrible road, with a fearful gradient at the end,
+we could not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly against the
+Chinese custom to sell anything at New Year time, of course. We had to
+boil our own water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than usual
+gathered around me because of the general holiday; and as I write now I
+am seated in my folding-chair with all the reprobates near to me--men
+gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses combing their
+hair and nursing their babies, the beggars with their poles and bowls,
+numberless urchins, all open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
+crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before had come on
+ahead to book rooms in the place. I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another
+occasion. Then I found a good room, but later learned that it was a
+horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by fifty-nine pack animals
+with their loads. Pegs were as usual driven into the ground in parallel
+rows, a pair of ponies being tied to each--not by the head, but by the
+feet, a nine-inch length of rope being attached to the off foreleg of
+one and the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each other in
+rows, and eating from a common supply in the center. Everyone in the
+small town was busy doing and driving, very anxious that I should be
+made comfortable, which might have been the case but for some untiring
+musician who was traveling with the caravan, and seemed to be one of
+that species of humankind who never sleeps. His notes, however, were
+fairly in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one knows that
+he has to be again on the move by five, even first-rate Chinese music is
+apt to be somewhat disturbing.
+
+From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view of the mountains I
+had crossed yesterday. Some ten miles or so to the north was the highest
+peak in the range--Kao-li-kung I think it is called--conical-shaped and
+clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high, so far as I could
+judge.
+
+An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed here a day only, Mr.
+Embery, of the China Inland Mission, a countryman of my own, kindly
+putting me up. But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in the
+province, is well known. It is only a small town, however, and one was
+surprised to find it as conservative a town as could be found anywhere
+in the province, despite the fact that foreigners have been here for
+many years, and at the present time there are no less than seven
+Europeans here.
+
+I was glad of a rest here. From Tali-fu had been most fatiguing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+THE LI-SU TRIBE OF THE SALWEN VALLEY
+
+_Travel up the Salwen Valley_. _My motive for travelling and how I
+travel_. _Valley not a death-trap_. _Meet the Li-su_. _Buddhistic
+beliefs_. _Late Mr. G. Litton as a traveler_. _Resemblance in religion
+to Kachins_. _Ghost of ancestral spirits_. _Li-su graves_. _Description
+of the people_. _Racial differences_. _John the Baptist's hardship_.
+_The cross-bow and author's previous experience_. _Plans for subsequent
+travel fall through_. _Mission work among the Li-su_.
+
+
+On my return journey into Yuen-nan, I stopped at Lu-chiang-pa,[BB] and
+left my men at the inn there while I traveled for two days along the
+Salwen Valley. My journey was taken with no other motive than that of
+seeing the country, and also to test the accuracy of the reports
+respecting the general unhealthy nature of this valley of the Shadow of
+Death. The people here were friendly, despite the fact that my route was
+always far away from the main road; and although my entire kit was a
+single traveling-rug for the nights, I was able to get all I wanted. Lao
+Chang accompanied me, and together we had an excellent time.
+
+I might as well say first of all that the idea of this part of the
+Salwen Valley being what people say it is in the matter of a death-trap
+is absolutely false. With the exception of the early morning mist common
+in every low-lying region in hot countries, there was, so far as I could
+see, nothing to fear.
+
+During the second day, through beautiful country in beautiful weather, I
+came across some people who I presumed were Li-su, and I regretted that
+my films had all been exposed. The Li-su tribe is undoubtedly an
+offshoot from the people who inhabit south-eastern Tibet, although none
+of them anywhere in Yuen-nan--and they are found in many places in
+central and eastern Yuen-nan--bear any traces of Buddhistic belief, which
+is universal, of course, in Tibet. The late Mr. G. Litton, who at the
+time he was acting as British Consul at Tengyueh traveled somewhat
+extensively among them, says that their religious practices closely
+resemble those of the Kachins, who believe in numerous "nats" or spirits
+which cause various calamities, such as failure of crops and physical
+ailments, unless propitiated in a suitable manner. According to him, the
+most important spirit is the ancestral ghost. Li-su graves are generally
+in the fields near the villages, and over them is put the cross-bow,
+rice-bags and other articles used by the deceased. "It is probably from
+foundations such as these," writes Mr. George Forrest, who accompanied
+Mr. Litton on an excursion to the Upper Salwen, and who wrote up the
+journey after the death of his companion, "that the fabric of Chinese
+ancestor worship was constructed," a view which I doubt very much
+indeed.
+
+I am of the opinion that the Li-su may be closely allied to the Lolo or
+the Nou Su, of whom I have spoken in the chapters in Book I dealing with
+the tribes around Chao-t'ong. And even the Miao bear a distinct racial
+resemblance. They are of bony physique, high cheek bones, and their skin
+is nearly of the same almost sepia color. The Li-su form practically the
+whole of the population of the Upper Salwen Valley from about lat. 25 deg.
+30' to 27 deg. 30', and they have spread in considerable numbers along the
+mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and are found also in the
+Shan States. Those on the Upper Salwen in the extreme north are utter
+savages, but where they have become more or less civilized have shown
+themselves to be an enterprising race in the way of emigration. Of the
+savages, the villages are almost always at war with one another, and
+many have never been farther from their huts than a day's march will
+take them, the chief object of their lives being apparently to keep
+their neighbors at a distance. They are exceedingly lazy. They spend
+their lives doing as little in the way of work as they must, eating,
+drinking, squatting about round the hearth telling stories of their
+valor with the cross-bow, and their excitement is provided by an
+occasional expedition to get wood for their cross-bows and poison for
+their arrows, or a stock of salt and wild honey.
+
+Mr. Forrest, in his paper which was read before the Royal Geographical
+Society in June, 1908, speaks of this wild honey as an agreeable
+sweetmeat as a change, but that after a few days' constant partaking of
+it the European palate rejects it as nauseous and almost disgusting, and
+adds that it has escaped the Biblical commentators that one of the
+principal hardships which John the Baptist must have undergone was his
+diet of wild honey. In another part of his paper the writer says,
+speaking of the cross-bow to which I have referred: "Every Li-su with
+any pretensions to _chic_ possesses at least one of these weapons--one
+for everyday use in hunting, the other for war. The children play with
+miniature cross-bows. The men never leave their huts for any purpose
+without their cross-bows, when they go to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung
+over their heads, and when they die it is hung over their graves. The
+largest cross-bows have a span of fully five feet, and require a pull of
+thirty-five pounds to string them. The bow is made of a species of wild
+mulberry, of great toughness and flexibility. The stock, some four feet
+long in the war-bows, is usually of wild plum wood, the string is of
+plaited hemp, and the trigger of bone. The arrow, of sixteen to eighteen
+inches, is of split bamboo, about four times the thickness of an
+ordinary knitting needle, hardened and pointed. The actual point is bare
+for a quarter to one-third of an inch, then for fully an inch the arrow
+is stripped to half its thickness, and on this portion the poison is
+placed. The poison used is invariably a decoction expressed from the
+tubers of a species of _aconitum_, which grows on those ranges at an
+altitude of 8,000 to 10,000 feet ... The reduction in thickness of the
+arrow where the poison is placed causes the point to break off in the
+body of anyone whom it strikes, and as each carries enough poison to
+kill a cart horse a wound is invariably fatal. Free and immediate
+incision is the usual remedy when wounded on a limb or fleshy part of
+the body."[BC]
+
+Some time after I was traveling in these regions I made arrangements to
+visit the mission station of the China Inland Mission, some days from
+Yuen-nan-fu, where a special work has recently been formed among the
+Li-su tribe. Owing to a later arrival at the capital than I had
+expected, however, I could not keep my appointment, and as there were
+reports of trouble in that area the British Consul-General did not wish
+me to travel off the main road. It is highly encouraging to learn that a
+magnificent missionary work is being done among the Li-su, all the more
+gratifying because of the enormous difficulties which have already been
+overcome by the pioneering workers. At least one European, if not more,
+has mastered the language, and the China Inland Mission are expecting
+great things to eventuate. It is only by long and continued residence
+among these peoples, throwing in one's lot with them and living their
+life, that any absolutely reliable data regarding them will be
+forthcoming. And this so few, of course, are able to do.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BB: The town by the double suspension bridge over the Salwen.]
+
+[Footnote BC: The poisoned arrows and the cross-bow are used also by the
+Miao, and the author has seen very much the same thing among the Sakai
+of the Malay Peninsula.]
+
+
+
+
+FIFTH JOURNEY
+
+TENGYUEH (MOMIEN) TO BHAMO IN UPPER BURMA
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+_Last stages of long journey_. _Characteristics of the country_. _Sham
+and Kachins_. _Author's dream of civilization_. _British pride_. _End of
+paved roads_. _Mountains cease_. _A confession of foiled plans_.
+_Nantien as a questionable fort_. _About the Shans_. _Village squabble,
+and how it ended_. _Absence of disagreement in Shan language_. _Charming
+people, but lazy_. _Experience with Shan servant_. _At Chiu-Ch'eng_.
+_New Year festivities_. _After-dinner diversions_. _Author as a medico_.
+_Ingratitude of the Chinese: some instances_.
+
+
+The Shan, the Kachin and the abominable betel quid! That quid which
+makes the mouth look bloody, broadens the lips, lays bare and blackens
+the teeth, and makes the women hideous. Such are the unfailing
+characteristics of the country upon which we are now entering.
+
+By the following stages I worked my way wearily to the end of my long
+walking journey:--
+
+                                Length      Height
+                               of Stage    Above Sea
+
+    1st day--Nantien             90 li.     5,300 ft.
+    2nd day--Chiu-Ch'eng
+         (Kang-gnai)             80 li.       ---
+    4th day--Hsiao Singai        60 li.       ---
+    5th day--Manyueen             60 li.     2,750 ft.
+    6th day--Pa-chiao-chai     |  Approx.   1,200 ft.
+    7th day--Mao-tsao-ti       |  55 English  650 ft.
+    8th day--Bhamo (Singai)    |  miles.      350 ft.
+
+Shans here monopolize all things. Chinese, although of late years drawn
+to this low-lying area, do not abound in these parts, and the Shan is
+therefore left pretty much to himself. And the pleasant eight-day march
+from Tengyueh to Bhamo, the metropolis of Upper Burma, probably offers
+to the traveler objects and scenes of more varying interest than any
+other stage of the tramp from far-away Chung-king. To the Englishman,
+daily getting nearer to the end of his long, wearying walk, and going
+for the first time into Upper Burma, incidentally to realize again the
+dream of civilization and comfort and contact with his own kind, leaving
+Old China in the rear, there instinctively came that inexpressible
+patriotic pride every Britisher must feel when he emerges from the
+Middle Kingdom and sets his foot again on British territory. The
+benefits are too numerous to cite; you must have come through China, and
+have had for companionship only your own unsympathetic coolies, and
+accommodation only such as the Chinese wayside hostelry has offered, to
+be able fully to realize what the luxurious dak-bungalows, with their
+excellent appointments, mean to the returning exile.
+
+Paved roads, the bane of man and beast, end a little out of Tengyueh.
+Mountains are left behind. There is no need now for struggle and
+constant physical exertion in climbing to get over the country. With no
+hills to climb, no stones to cut my feet or slip upon, with wide sweeps
+of magnificent country leading three days later into dense, tropical
+jungle, entrancing to the merest tyro of a nature student, and with the
+knowledge that my walking was almost at an end, all would have gone well
+had I been able to tear from my mind the fact that at this juncture I
+should have to make to the reader a great confession of foiled plans.
+For two days I was accompanied by the Rev. W.J. Embery, of the China
+Inland Mission, who was making an itinerary among the tribes on the
+opposite side of the Taping, which we followed most of the time. He rode
+a mule; and am I not justified in believing that you, too, reader, with
+such an excellent companion, one who had such a perfect command of the
+language, and who could make the journey so much more interesting, you
+would have ridden your pony? I rode mine! I abandoned pedestrianism and
+rode to Chiu-Ch'eng--two full days, and when, after a pleasant rest
+under a sheltering banyan, we went our different ways, I was sorry
+indeed to have to fall back upon my men for companionship.
+
+But it was not to be for long.
+
+Nantien is, or was, to be a fort, but the little place bears no outward
+military evidences whatever which would lead one to believe it. It is
+populated chiefly by Shans. The bulk of these interesting people now
+live split up into a great number of semi-independent states, some
+tributary to Burma, some to China, and some to Siam; and yet the
+man-in-the-street knows little about them. One cannot mistake them,
+especially the women, with their peculiar Mongolian features and sallow
+complexions and characteristic head-dress. The men are less
+distinguishable, probably, generally speaking, but the rough cotton
+turban instead of the round cap with the knob on the top alone enables
+one more readily to pick them out from the Chinese. Short, well-built
+and strongly made, the women strike one particularly as being a hardy,
+healthy set of people.
+
+Shans are recognized to be a peaceful people, but a village squabble
+outside Chin-ch'eng, in which I took part, is one of the exceptions to
+prove the rule.
+
+It did not take the eye of a hawk or the ear of a pointer to recognize
+that a big row was in full progress. Shan women roundly abused the men,
+and Shan men, standing afar off, abused their women. A few Chinese who
+looked on had a few words to say to these "Pai Yi"[BD] on the futility of
+these everyday squabbles, whilst a few Shans, mistaking me again for a
+foreign official, came vigorously to me pouring out their souls over the
+whole affair. We were all visibly at cross purposes. I chimed in with my
+infallible "Puh tong, you stupid ass, puh tong" (I don't understand, I
+don't understand); and what with the noise of the disputants, the
+Chinese bystanders, my own men (they were all acutely disgusted with
+every Shan in the district, and plainly showed it, because they could
+not be understood in speech) and myself all talking at once, and the
+dogs who mistook me for a beggar, and tried to get at close grips with
+me for being one of that fraternity, it was a veritable Bedlam and Tower
+of Babel in awfullest combination. At length I raised my hand, mounted a
+boulder in the middle of the road, and endeavored to pacify the
+infuriated mob. I shouted harshly, I brandished by bamboo in the air, I
+gesticulated, I whacked two men who came near me. At last they stopped,
+expecting me to speak. Only a look of stupidest unintelligibility could
+I return, however, and had to roar with laughter at the very foolishness
+of my position up on that stone. Soon the multitude calmed down and
+laughed, too. I yelled "Ts'eo," and we proceeded, leaving the Shans
+again at peace with all the world.
+
+Shans have been found in many other parts, even as far north as the
+borders of Tibet. But a Shan, owing to the similarity of his language in
+all parts of Asia, differs from the Chinese or the Yuen-nan tribesman in
+that he can get on anywhere. It is said that from the sources of the
+Irawadi down to the borders of Siamese territory, and from Assam to
+Tonkin, a region measuring six hundred miles each way, and including the
+whole of the former Nan-chao Empire, the language is practically the
+same. Dialects exist as they do in every country in the world, but a
+Shan born anywhere within these bounds will find himself able to carry
+on a conversation in parts of the country he has never heard of,
+hundreds of miles from his own home. And this is more than six hundred
+years after the fall of the Nan-chao dynasty, and among Shans who have
+had no real political or commercial relation with each other.[BE]
+
+I found them a charming people, peaceful and obliging, treating
+strangers with kindness and frank cordiality. For the most part, they
+are Buddhists. The dress of the Chinese Shans, which, however, I found
+varied in different localities, leads one to believe that they are an
+exceptionally clean race, but I can testify that this is not the case.
+In many ways they are dirtier than the Chinese--notably in the
+preparation of their food. And I feel compelled to say a word here for
+the general benefit of future travelers. _Never expect a Shan to work
+hard!_ He _can_ work hard, and he will--when he likes, but I do not
+believe that even the Malay, that Nature's gentleman of the farther
+south, is lazier.
+
+As servants they are failures. A European in this district, whose
+Chinese servant had left him, thought he would try a Shan, and invited a
+man to come. "Be your servant? Of course I will. I am honored." And the
+European thought at last he was in clover. He explained that he should
+want his breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and that the servant's duties would be
+to cut grass for the horse, go to the market to buy provisions, feed on
+the premises, and leave for home to sleep at 7:00 p.m. The Shan opened a
+large mouth; then he spoke. He would be pleased, he said, to come to
+work about nine o'clock; that he had several marriageable daughters
+still on his hands and could not therefore, and would not, cut grass; he
+objected going to the market in the extreme heat of the day; he could
+not think of eating the foreigner's food; and would go home to feed at
+1:00 p.m. and leave again finally at 5:00 p.m. for the same purpose. He
+left before five p.m. Another man was called in. He was quite cheery,
+and came in and out and did what he pleased. On being asked what he
+would require as salary, he replied, "Oh, give me a rupee every market
+day, and that'll do me." The person was not in service when market day
+rolled round, and I hear that this European, who loves experiments of
+this kind, has gone back to the Chinese.
+
+Chiu-Ch'eng (Kang-gnai) was going through a sort of New Year carousal as
+I entered the town, and everybody was garmented for the festival.
+
+I had great difficulty in getting a place to stay. People allowed me to
+career about in search of a room, treating me with courteous
+indifference, but none offered to house me. At last the headman of the
+village appeared, and with many kindly expressions of unintelligibility
+led me to his house. A crowd had gathered in the street, and several
+women were taking from the front room the general stock-in-trade of the
+village ironmonger. Scores of huge iron cooking pans were being passed
+through the window, tables were pushed noisily through the doorway,
+primitive cooking appliances were being hurled about in the air, bamboo
+baskets came out by the dozen, and there was much else. Bags of paddy,
+old chairs (the low stool of the Shan, with a thirty-inch back), drawers
+of copper cash, brooms, a few old spears, pots of pork fat, barrels of
+wine (the same as I had blistered the foot of a pony with), two or three
+old p'u-kai, worn-out clothes, disused ladies' shoes, babies' gear, and
+last of all the man himself appeared. Men and women set to to clean up,
+an old woman clasped me to her bosom, and I was bidden to enter. New
+Year festivities were for the nonce neglected for the novel delight of
+gazing upon the inner domesticity of this traveling wonder, into his
+very holy of holies. I received nine invitations to dinner. I dined with
+mine host and his six sons.
+
+Through the heavy evening murk a dull clangor stirred the air--the
+tolling of shrill bells and the beating of dull gongs, and all the
+hideous paraphernalia of Eastern celebrations. The populace--Shan almost
+to a man--were bent on seeing me, a task rendered difficult by the
+gathering darkness of night. Soldiers guarded the way, and there were
+several broken heads. They came, stared and wondered, and then passed
+away for others to come in shoals, laughingly, and seeming no longer to
+harbor the hostile feelings apparent as I entered the town.
+
+My shaving magnifier amused them wonderfully.
+
+There was an outcry as I entered the room after we had dined, followed
+by a scream of women in almost hysterical laughter. When they caught
+sight of me, however, a brief pause ensued, and the solemn hush, that
+even in a callous crowd invariably attends the actual presence of a
+long-awaited personage, reigned unbroken for a while; then one spoke,
+then another ventured to address me, and the spell of silence gave way
+to noise and general excitability, and the people began speedily to
+close upon me, anxious to get a glimpse of such a peculiar white man.
+Later on, when the shutters were up and the public thus kept off, the
+family foregathered unasked into my room, bringing with them their own
+tea and nuts, and laying themselves out to be entertained. My whole
+gear, now reduced to most meager proportions, was scrutinized by all.
+There were four men and five women, the usual offshoots, and the aged
+couple who held proprietary rights over the place. They sat on my bed,
+on my boxes; one of the children sat on my knee, and the ladies,
+seemingly of the easiest virtue, overhauled my bedclothes unblushingly.
+The murmuring noise of the vast expectant New Year multitude died off
+gradually, like the retreating surge of a distant sea, and the hot
+motionless atmosphere in my room, with eleven people stepping on one
+another's toes in the cramped area, became more and more weightily
+intensified. The husband of one of the women--a miserable, emaciated
+specimen for a Shan--came forward, asking whether I could cure his
+disease. I fear he will never be cured. His arm and one side of his body
+was one mass of sores. Before it could be seen four layers of Chinese
+paper had to be removed, one huge plantain leaf, and a thick layer of
+black stuff resembling tar. I was busy for some thirty minutes dressing
+it with new bandages. I then gave him ointment for subsequent dressings,
+whereupon he put on his coat and walked out of the room (leaving the
+door open as he went) without even a word of gratitude.
+
+The Chinese pride themselves upon their gratitude. It is vigorous
+towards the dead and perhaps towards the emperor (although this may be
+doubted), but as a grace of daily life it is almost absent. I have known
+cases where missionaries have got up in the middle of the night to
+attend to poisoning cases and accidents requiring urgent treatment, have
+known them to attend to people at great distances from their own homes
+and make them better; but never a word of thanks--not even the mere
+pittance charged for the actual cost of medicine.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BD: The Chinese name for the Shan.]
+
+[Footnote BE: Vide _Yuen-nan, the Link between India and the Yangtze,_ by
+Major H.R. Davies.--Cambridge University Press.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+_Two days from Burma_. _Tropical wildness induces ennui_. _The River
+Taping_. _At Hsiao Singai_. _Possibility of West China as a holiday
+resort from Burma_. _Fascination of the country_. _Manyueen reached with
+difficulty_. _The Kachins_. _Good work of the American Baptist Mission_.
+_Mr. Roberts_. _Arrival at borderland of Burma_. _Last dealings with
+Chinese officials_. _British territory_. _Thoughts on the trend of
+progress in China_. _Beautiful Burma_. _End of long journey._
+
+
+I was now two days' march from the British Burma border. The landscape
+in this district was solemn and imposing as I trudged on again, very
+tired indeed, after a day's rest at Chiu-ch'eng. In the morning heavy
+tropical vapors of milky whiteness stretched over the sky and the earth.
+Nature seemed sleeping, as if wrapped in a light veil. It attracted me
+and absorbed me, dreaming, in spite of myself; ennui invaded me at
+first, and under the all-powerful constraint of influences so fatal to
+human personality thought died away by degrees like a flame in a vacuum;
+for I was again in the East, the real, luxurious, indolent East, the
+true land of Pantheism, and one must go there to realize the indefinable
+sensations which almost make the Nirvana of the Buddhist comprehensible.
+
+The river Taping farther down, so different from its aspect a couple of
+days ago, where it rushed at a tremendous speed over its rocky bed, was
+now broad and calm and placid, and extremely picturesque. The banks were
+covered with trees beyond Manyueen. Near the water the undergrowth was of
+a fine green, but on a higher level the yellow and red leaves, hardly
+holding on to the withered trees, were carried away with the slightest
+breath of wind.
+
+At Hsiao Singai, on February 15th, I again had difficulty in getting a
+room; so I waited, and whilst my men searched about for a place where I
+could sleep, an extremely tall fellow came up to me, and having felt
+with his finger and thumb the texture of my tweeds and expressed
+satisfaction thereof, said--
+
+"Come, elder brother, I have my dwelling in this hostelry, and my upper
+chamber is at your disposal." And then he added with a twinkle in his
+eye, "Ko nien, ko nien,"[BF] whereat I became wary.
+
+Lao Chang, however, was more cute. Whilst I was assuring this
+well-dressed holiday-maker that he must not think the stranger churlish
+in not accepting at once the proffered services, but that I would go to
+look at the room, he sprang past us and went on ahead. In a few moments
+I was slowly going hence with the multitude. Lao Chang nodded carelessly
+to the strange company there assembled, and passing through the room
+with a soft, cat-like tread, began to ascend a dark flight of narrow
+stairs leading to the second floor of the inn. And I, down below
+startled and bewildered by mysterious words from everyone, watched his
+blue garments vanishing upwards, and like a man driven by irresistible
+necessity, muttered incoherent excuses to my amazed companions, and in a
+blind, unreasoning, unconquerable impulse rushed after him. But I wish I
+had not. There were several ladies, who, all more or less _en
+deshabille_, scampered around with their bundles of gear--sewing,
+babies' clothes, tin pots, hair ornaments, boxes of powder and scented
+soap of that finest quality imported from Burma, selling for less than
+you can buy the genuine article for in London!--and then we took
+possession.
+
+If once there is a railway to Tengyueh from Burma, a visit to West
+China, even on to Tali-fu, for those who are prepared to rough it a
+little, will become quite a common trip. A few days up the Irawadi to
+Bhamo, through scenery of a peculiar kind of beauty eclipsed on none
+other of the world's great rivers, would be succeeded by a day or two
+over some of the best country which Upper Burma anywhere affords, and
+then, when once past Tengyueh, the grandeur of the mountains is amply
+compensating to those who love Nature in her beautiful isolation and
+peace. From a recuperating standpoint, perhaps, it would not quite
+answer--the rains would be a drawback to road travel, and it would at
+best mean roughing it; but for the many in Burma who wish to take a
+holiday and have not the time to go to Europe, I see no reason why
+Tengyueh should not develop into what Darjeeling is to Calcutta and what
+Japan is to the British ports farther East. Expense would not be heavy.
+To Bhamo would be easy. As things now stand, with no railway, one would
+need to take a few provisions and cooking utensils, and a camp bed and
+tent, unless one would be prepared to do as the author did, and
+patronize Chinese inns, such as they are. The rest would be easy to get
+on the road. For three days from Bhamo dak bungalows are available, and
+to a man knowing the country it would be an easy matter to arrange his
+comforts. To one who knows the conditions, there is in the trip a good
+deal to fascinate; for in the lives and customs of the people, in the
+nature of the country, in the free-and-easy life the traveler would
+himself develop--having a peep at things as they were back in the
+ancient days of the Bible--to the brain-fagged professional or
+commercial there is nothing better in the whole of the East.
+
+He would get some excellent shooting, especially in the Salwen Valley,
+not exactly a health resort, however; and had he inclinations towards
+botanical, ethnological, craniological, or philological studies, he
+would be at a loss to find anywhere in the world a more interesting
+area.
+
+But a man should never leave the "ta lu" (the main road) in China if he
+would experience the minimum of discomfort and annoyance, which under
+best conditions is considerable to an irritable man. As I sit down now,
+on the very spot where Margary, of the British Consulate Service was
+murdered in 1875, I regret that I have sacrificed a great deal to secure
+most of the photographs which decorate this section of my book. No one,
+not even my military escort, knows the way, and is being sworn at by my
+men therefor. How I am to reach Man Hsien, across the river at Taping, I
+do not quite know. Manyueen, so interesting in history, is a native
+Shan-Kachino-Chinese town untouched by the years--slovenly, dirty,
+undisciplined, immoral, where law and order and civilization have gained
+at best but a precarious foothold, the most characteristic feature of
+the people being the gambler's instinct. But I remember that I am coming
+into Burma, into the real East, where the tangle and the topsy-turvydom,
+the crooked vision and the distorted travesty of the truth, which result
+from judging the Oriental from the standpoint of the Europeans and
+looking at the East through the eyes of the West, impress themselves
+upon one's mind in bewildering fashion as a hopeless problem. Everything
+is all at cross purposes.
+
+However, although I lost my way from Manyueen to Man Hsien, I got my
+photographs of Kachins, those people whose appearance is that they have
+no one to care for them body or soul. Their thick, uncombed locks, so
+long and lank as to resemble deck swabs, overlapped roofwise the ugliest
+aboriginal faces I ever saw in Asia or America, and their eyes under
+shaggy brows looked out with diabolical fire.
+
+So much information is to be obtained from the <i<Upper Burma Gazetteer_
+about the Kachins that it is needless for me to write much here,
+especially as I can add nothing. But I feel I should like to say just a
+word of praise of the remarkable work of the American Baptist Mission,
+which has its headquarters at Bhamo, among this tribe in Burma. At the
+time I arrived in the city the annual festival was being conducted at
+the Baptist Church, and hundreds of Kachins were assembled in the
+splendid premises of this mission. They had come from many miles around;
+and to one who at previous times in his residence in the Far East had
+written disparagingly about missionaries and their work, there came some
+little personal shame as he looked upon the extremely creditable work of
+the American missionaries in this district. Kachins are a somewhat
+uncivilized and quarrelsome race, unspeakably immoral, and steeped in
+every vice against which the Christian missionary has to set his face--a
+most difficult people to work among. But there I saw scores and scores
+of baptized Christians living a life clean and ennobling, endeavoring
+honestly to break away from their degrading customs of centuries, some
+of them exceedingly intelligent people.
+
+I speak of this because I feel that in the face of untruthful and
+malicious descriptions which in former years have got into print
+respecting this very mission and the very missionaries on this field, it
+is only fair that people in the homeland interested in the work should
+know what their American brethren are doing here. I cannot praise too
+highly this mission and the enthusiastic band of workers whom it was my
+pleasure to meet. In Mr. Roberts, the superintendent of the field, the
+American Baptist Board have a man of wonderful resource, who is not only
+an ardent Christian evangelist and capable administrator, but a
+gentleman of considerable business ability and a remarkable organizer. A
+writer who, passing through in 1894, was indebted to Mr. Roberts for
+many kindnesses, found that the only adverse criticism he could make of
+the missionary was in respect to his knowledge of horses. My experience
+is that in the whole of the Far East there can be found no more capable
+pioneer missionary, and his friends in America should pray that Mr.
+Roberts may be spared many years still to control the work on the
+successful mission field in which he has spent so much of his labor of
+love for the Kachins.
+
+Kachins form the bulk of the population in the extreme north of Burma.
+To the west they extend to Assam, and to the south into the Shan States,
+as far even as latitude 20 deg. 30'. By far the largest proportion of them
+live in Burmese territory, but they also extend into Western Yuen-nan,
+though nowhere are they found farther east than longitude 99 deg..
+
+Man Hsien is the last yamen place before reaching the British border. I
+crossed the river Taping from Manyueen, being shown the road by a Burmese
+member of the Buddhistic yellow cloth, who was most pressing that I
+should stay with him for a few days. Again did I get a fright that my
+manuscript would never get into print, for my pony, Rusty, probably
+cognizant of the fact that he, too, was finishing his long tramp, nearly
+stamped the bottom of the boat out, and threatened to send us down by
+river past Bhamo quicker than our arrival was scheduled.
+
+The large official paper given to one's military escort from point to
+point was here produced for the last time, and great ado was made about
+me. Reading this document aloud from the top of the steps, when he came
+to my name the mandarin bowed very low, called me Ding Daren[BG] (a sign
+of highest respect), asked if I would exchange cards, and then lapsed
+unconsciously into profuse congratulation to myself that I should have
+been born an Englishman. So far as he knew, I could be assured that the
+existing relations between the administrative bodies of his contemptible
+country and my own royal land were of a nature so felicitously mutual
+and peaceful--in fact, both Governments saw eye to eye in regard to
+international affairs in Far Western China--that he felt sure that I
+should arrive at the bridge leading into Burma without personal harm. He
+then, with a colossal bow to myself and a gentle wave of his three-inch
+finger-nail, handed me over with pungent emphasis of speech to the
+keeping of a Chinese and a Shan, who with a keen sense of favors to come
+were to form my escort to Burma's border.
+
+A low grunt of unrestrained approval came from the multitude. The
+underlings--Chino-Kachino-Burmo-Shan people--who ran about in a little
+of each of the clothing characteristic of the four said races, were all
+busy in their endeavors to extricate from me a few cash apiece by doing
+all and more than was necessary.
+
+Then the great man rose. He condescended to depart. He passed from the
+threshold, turned, paused, bowed, turned again, went down the steps,
+bowed again--a long curving bow, which nearly sent him to the
+ground--and then continued with a light heart towards that loveliest
+land of the East. My men exhibited no emotion. That they were coming
+into British territory was of no concern to them; they had come from far
+away in the interior, and were the greenest of the green, the rawest of
+the raw.
+
+But soon I passed over a small bridge, a spot where two great empires
+meet. I was in Burma.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So I have crossed from one end of China to the other. I entered China on
+March 4th, 1909; I came out on February 14th, 1910.
+
+I had come to see how far the modern spirit had penetrated into the
+hidden recesses of the Chinese Empire. One may be little given to
+philosophizing, and possess but scanty skill in putting into words the
+conclusions which form themselves in one's mind, but it is impossible
+to cross China entirely unobservant. One must begin, no matter how
+dimly, to perceive something of the causes which are at work. By the
+incoming of the European to inland China a transformation is being
+wrought, not the natural growth of a gradual evolution, itself the
+result of propulsion from within, but produced, on the contrary, by
+artificial means, in bitter conflict with inherent instincts, inherited
+traditions, innate tendencies, characteristics, and genius, racial and
+individual. In the eyes of the Chinese of the old school these changes
+in the habit of life infinitely old are improving nothing and ruining
+much--all is empty, vapid, useless to God and man. The tawdry shell, the
+valueless husk, of ancient Chinese life is here still, remains untouched
+in many places, as will have been seen in previous chapters; but the
+soul within is steadily and surely, if slowly, undergoing a process of
+final atrophy. But yet the proper opening-up of the country by internal
+reform and not by external pressure has as yet hardly commenced in
+immense areas of the Empire far removed from the imperial city of
+Peking. And the mere fact that the Chinese propose such an absurd
+program as that which plans the building of all their railways without
+the aid of foreign capital is sufficient to react in an unwholesome
+manner economically.[BH][BI]
+
+I cannot but admit that, whilst in most parts of my journey there are
+distinct traces of reform--I speak, of course, of the outlying parts of
+China--and some very striking traces, too, and a real longing on the
+part of far-seeing officials to escape from a humiliating international
+position, it is distinctly apparent that in everything which concerns
+Europe and the Western world the people and the officials as a whole are
+of one mind in the methods of procrastination which are so dear to the
+heart of the Celestial, and that peculiar opposition to Europeanism
+which has marked the real East since the beginning of modern history.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And now lovely, lovely Burma!
+
+I had not been in Burma two minutes before the very box containing the
+clothes into which I must change before I could enter into the social
+life of Bhamo swung from the broken pole of one of my coolies, and
+rolled rapidly towards the river. It was recovered after great trouble.
+
+Thick jungle land lay out before me, fleecy clouds in the dense blue sky
+hung lazily over the green hills, the heavy air was pregnant with that
+delicious ease known only in the tropics--all was still and sweet. The
+river flowed grandly from the interior through magnificent forest
+country, receiving on either shore the frequent tribute of other minor
+streams, and its banks were marvelous cliffs of jungle--tangles of giant
+trees on crowding underwood, clinging vine and festooning
+parasite--rising sheer from the water's brink. Now long clusters of
+villages, deep in the shade of palm and fruit trees; now wide expanses
+of grass-grown meadow, where the grazing grounds dip to the river, and
+where the only echoes of China are the resting pack-horse caravans--the
+banks cut into huge trampled clefts by the passage of the kine trooping
+down to drink. Occasional wooded islands broke the monotony of the
+river, and were just discernible from the magnificent English roads
+which skirted the hills high up from the river, and yellow sandspits and
+big wedges of granite and rock ran far out into its uneven course. By
+day the joyous Burma sun smiled upon all, and at midday poured its
+merciless heat down upon all mankind, unheeding the weary wanderer whose
+tramp was now near done. At night the tropical moon turned all this
+riverine world to the likeness of a very fairyland. Lying in a long
+chair in the dak bungalows one drank in the scenes which succeeded one
+another in bewildering succession, and felt himself thrilled by an
+almost fierce appreciation of eastern beauty. It was good to meet again
+an Englishman, a sturdy, firm-featured Englishman, whose love of the
+East, like mine own, was a veritable obsession. The sun glare of the
+tropics had parched the color out of our white skin, and despite the
+fact that malaria came back again here to taunt me, yet I was again in
+the East that I loved, that had scarred and marked me ere my time
+mayhap. And yet I, with many such of my own countrymen, despite her
+rough handling, worship her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In three days I was in Bhamo.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[Footnote BF: _i.e._ New Year, New Year.]
+
+[Footnote BG: _i.e._Great Man. "Ding" is my Chinese name.]
+
+[Footnote BH: I believe personally that the main object of the Yuen-nan
+provincial government in employing two American engineers, who at the
+present moment (August, 1910) are surveying a route from Yuen-nan-fu to
+the Yangtze, is merely official bluff. It is preferable to pay two men a
+monthly stipend if the official "face" can be preserved and the Chinese
+dogged official procrastination be maintained, rather than to allow
+foreigners to come in still farther.]
+
+[Footnote BI: This was of course written long before the Four Nations
+Loan was signed, and Tuan Fang appointed Director General of the
+Railways in May, 1911. We should now see a speedy reformation of Railway
+matters in China if Tuan is given an absolutely free hand.--E.J.D.]
+
+
+
+END OF BOOK II.
+
+
+[Illustration: THE SWITZERLAND OF WESTERN CHINA
+
+To travel in China is easy over country like this, granted that the
+traveler sticks to the main road, sample of which is seen at lower
+right.]
+
+
+[Illustration: RED CROSS WORK IN CHINESE REVOLUTION
+
+Red Cross workers at mass graves of men killed during the the Chinese
+Revolution.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FOR FOREIGN COUNTRIES
+
+Coolies carrying tea packed for export; picture was taken in British
+concession of Hankow.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FROM NATIVE DISTRICTS
+
+Picture shows native tea dealers at Ku-kiang bringing in tea for
+transport to the great tea factories in Hankow, where it is prepared for
+export.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR ON NANKING CITY WALL
+
+Taken during the Revolution, when Author was acting as war
+correspondent for world-wide news agencies.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AT HANKOW--THE CHICAGO OF CHINA
+
+River-front scene at low water, showing junks that transport general
+cargo down-river from the exporting districts. This is a typical
+riverfront scene.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A LONELY TRAVELER
+
+This picture was taken far out in untraveled China Far West. For days
+you meet no sign of human habitation, and woe betide you if the river
+rises!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: EARNING HIS LIVING
+
+This coolie, who carries 420-lb. bale of cotton, as seen in the picture,
+from the ship in the river to the Hankow Bund, probably earns a dollar
+and a half per week!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TEA FOR FOREIGN LANDS
+
+Foreign steamers being loaded with native cargoes for export; scene on
+the Hankow Bund. The tea trade of China has lost considerable ground in
+recent years.]
+
+
+[Illustration: WILLOW PATTERN TEA HOUSE IN SHANGHAI
+
+A famous landmark in the native city; said to be one of the oldest
+tea-houses in China. Much business is transacted in these tea-houses all
+over the country.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE PERIGRINATING BARBER OF ANCIENT CHINA
+
+If there is an "artist" on this earth, it is the Chinese barber. An hour
+in his chair makes you long for a week in bed to fully recover!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S HOUSEBOAT (WUPAN)
+
+In which he passed eighteen days on the Yangtze-kiang; scene at one of
+the rapids in upper reaches of river.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S MODEST CARAVAN IN SZECH'UAN
+
+And a fine body of men they were, kept in order by the general factotum
+in the foreground--each of them earning about 25 cents a day.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: QUAINT CHINESE ORCHESTRA HALWAYS MEN
+
+Typical old-time orchestra anywhere in China; the Chinese say, "Once a
+musician, always a musician"--so it usually runs in the family.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE
+
+Author and the cook on the aft of the houseboat after all the dangerous
+rapids had been passed. The ropes are made of bamboo. En route to
+Chung-king.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: MOTLEY GROUP OF HUA MIAO MENFOLK
+
+Picture gives an idea of how the Hua Miao in certain sections are being
+gradually absorbed by the Chinese; these men are typical tenant farmers
+of the Nou-su.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: RATHER A RARE PICTURE OF TRIBES
+
+Three tribes are shown: White Bones (left), attending her mistress, a
+Nou-su aristocrat (Black Bones); the children at the right are Hua Miao.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S CARAVAN ON THE MARCH
+
+On the main road west of Chung-king--the Author's four-man chair engaged
+to "save his face," and his servant's two-man chair, followed by the
+coolies.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE MEKONG BRIDGE
+
+A drop occurs from 8,000 feet to 4,000 feet, and then a climb again over
+precipitous mountains--very hard going--to 8,000 feet. Shrines are at each
+end of the handsome suspension bridge.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN YUeN-NAN
+
+This picture was taken after convalescence in Tong-chu'aniu, just before
+the journey commenced from that city to British Burma, as seen in the
+second part of "Across China On Foot."
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE UBIQUITOUS WATER CARRIER
+
+Drawing the water and hewing the wood are daily chores in China, mostly
+carried out by women--though this is a picture of a man, a half-wit.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE WELCOME FAMILIAR TEA-HOUSE
+
+In many provinces of China, tea-houses, of which this one in Eastern
+Szech'uan is typical, are to be found about every ten li (3 miles) on
+the main road.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: SPECIMEN OF "MAIN ROAD" IN N.E. YUeN-NAN
+
+Taken in the little-known part of Western China, far from any of China's
+"great paved highways"; author is in saddle.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE OLD-FASHIONED SOLDIER
+
+All foreign travelers are given an official escort in the interior. This
+fu-song was a noble warrior! But not a bewilderingly efficient
+protector! He was a very lazy rascal!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAREWELL TO THE TRAVELER
+
+These people had never seen a white man, their faces show that, at
+farewell after a very pleasant stay among them, they were not altogether
+broken-hearted to see the author go!]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: CONFUCIAN TEMPLE AT TONG-CH'UANFU
+
+Where the Author's life was miraculously saved; first temple in which
+the Author lived. Later, in Tibet, his life was again saved.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: ANCIENT TIBETAN PRAYER WHEELS
+
+The prayer wheel plays an important part in religious observances in
+Tibet, the ritual often resembling that of the ancient Christian church.]
+
+
+[Illustration: WATCH YOUR STEP
+
+Picture shows nature of main roads in certain sections of western
+China; when the rains come, traveling is quite dangerous. Author seen on
+boulder at right.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAR FROM THE MADDENING THRONG
+
+Regimenting the whole village to bid a sad farewell; Samuel Pollard,
+author's traveling companion on this trip in the wilds, stands under the
+hat on the right.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HAPPY FAMILY IN BACKWOODS
+
+The Author spent two nights in this crudely-thatched home in the hills.]
+Though poor, the people were extremely hospitable--and invariably happy.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: PRIMITIVE COAL-MINING IN YUeN-NAN
+
+Coal is abundant in many parts of Yuen-nan, though production is small and
+methods of mining very crude. Picture shows tunnel leading underground.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WOMEN WEAVING HEMP GARMENTS
+
+These two pictures show (below) the women stripping hemp and (above)
+weaving it into the picturesque garments they are wearing. They were all
+dressed up for the occasion. It is surprising what they can do with such
+primitive appliances. Picture was taken in the hill country beyond
+Chaotungfu. They are all Hua Miao.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HUA MIAO WOMEN AND CHILDREN
+
+Basket on woman's back shows general method of transportation in the
+hilly country inhabited by this fascinating tribe.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WASH DAY AMONG THE CHILDREN
+
+Scene in the school grounds of the mission at Tongch'uanfu, the "City of
+the Eastern Streams"--and a very happy little band they are.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TWO DAYS OUT FROM YUNG-CH'ANG-FU
+
+An almost everyday scene in the western part of China--China's
+"Switzerland"--on the main road from Chung-king to Upper Burma.]
+
+
+[Illustration: THE ITINERANT NECROMANCER
+
+Predicted the disappearance of the author in five days; was himself found
+dead in village in three days.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: COPPER KETTLE LANE IN YUeN-NAN-FU
+
+Copper is supposed to be a government monopoly, yet there is always
+abundance of copper here! One of the most interesting streets in all
+China.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AUTHOR'S CARAVAN FOUR DAYS FROM JOURNEY'S END
+
+And a snapshot of the bridge said by Chinese "to be possessed of a
+demon!"-- because it ate up so much money in public subscription, and yet
+was never in repair!]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL SINGLE-SPAN BRIDGE OF INLAND CHINA.
+
+Engineers say that China possesses bridges of more varied design than
+any other country.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Top left--Hua Miao, all men, of North-eastern Yuen-nan. Top right--Ch'in
+Miao, men, of Kweichow. Bottom left--Three Heh Miao--all women. Bottom
+right--Hua Miao--two women have their hair done up in shape of horn to
+denotes that they are married; others man.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A REAL ABORIGINAL FEAST
+
+The man on the left scowled in anger as the Author snapped his
+picture--otherwise, all were happy. For them an exceptional feast, not an
+everyday affair.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: WHERE EAST MEETS WEST
+
+Playfellows in Far Interior China. The little white girl is the daughter
+of a missionary in Sui-fu, Szech'uan, where picture was taken on porch of
+mission residence.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BEAUTIFUL TONG-CH'UANFU IN YUeN-NAN
+
+The city in which the Author rested for several months when his right
+arm was broken; situated between two high ranges, Tongch'uanfu Valley is
+extremely beautiful.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: TWO VERY PRACTICAL WOMEN
+
+Though their tribes have lived on same range of mountains "for eighty
+centuries," they speak different languages and lead different life
+generally. (One carries baby.)]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IN UNSURVEYED AND LITTLE-TRODDEN YUeN-NAN
+
+Picture shows into what a dilapidated condition the roads are allowed to
+get; off courier roads, this is what you get.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IGNORANCE AND POVERTY
+
+Characteristic specimens of poor tribes found in wild areas off the
+beaten path in the province of Yuen-nan; their food is rarely above famine
+conditions.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE TENGYUEH WATERFALL
+
+Mountains opposite are about 4,000 feet higher than the Tengyueh Plain,
+which is about 5,500 feet; over this waterfall one of author's ponies
+"committed suicide," Chinese said.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAMILY SCENE IN HUA MIAOLAND
+
+In many districts of this wild country nothing will grow except corn
+(maize) and hemp; latter people weave for clothing.]
+
+
+[Illustration: REFORMED HUA MIAO STUDENTS TAKING IT EASY
+
+Picture shows how much they have benefitted under the missionary's
+influence. Taken at the British mission compound in Tongch'uanfu.]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: FAR IN THE WILDS OF UNSURVEYED YUeN-NAN
+
+Picture gives only a scant idea of the difficulties of negotiating
+country of this nature. When river is high, there is no bridge. Author
+on bridge.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Across China on Foot, by Edwin Dingle
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ACROSS CHINA ON FOOT ***
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