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diff --git a/old/60047-0.txt b/old/60047-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 0eedc10..0000000 --- a/old/60047-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,22479 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's Wandering in Northern China, by Harry A. Franck - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll -have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using -this ebook. - - - -Title: Wandering in Northern China - -Author: Harry A. Franck - -Release Date: August 8, 2019 [EBook #60047] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WANDERING IN NORTHERN CHINA *** - - - - -Produced by Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - WANDERING IN - NORTHERN CHINA - - -[Illustration: - - A constant stream of pilgrims, largely blue-clad coolies on foot, - passed up and down the sacred stairway -] - - - - - WANDERING IN NORTHERN CHINA - - - BY - HARRY A. FRANCK - - Author of “A Vagabond Journey Around the World,” “Roaming Through the - West Indies,” “Vagabonding Down the Andes,” “Working North from - Patagonia,” etc., etc. - - ILLUSTRATED WITH 171 UNUSUAL - PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR - WITH A MAP SHOWING HIS ROUTE - -[Illustration] - - THE CENTURY CO. - NEW YORK & LONDON - - - - - Copyright, 1923, by - THE CENTURY CO. - - - Printed in U. S. A. - - - - - To - - KATHARINE LATTA FRANCK - - WHO CHOSE THIS PARTICULAR WANDER-YEAR TO JOIN OUR FAMILY CIRCLE - - - - - FOREWORD - - -There is no particular plan to this book. I found my interest turning -toward the Far East, and as I am not one of those fortunate persons who -can scamper through a country in a few weeks and know all about it, I -set out on a leisurely jaunt to wherever new clues to interest led me. -It merely happened that this will-o’-the-wisp drew me on through -everything that was once China, north of about the thirty-fourth -parallel of latitude. The man who spends a year or two in China and then -attacks the problem of telling all he saw, heard, felt, or smelled there -is like the small boy who was ordered by the teacher to write on two -neat pages all about his visit to the museum. It simply can’t be done. -Hence I have merely set down in the following pages, in the same -leisurely wandering way as I have traveled, the things that most -interested me, often things that others seem to have missed, or -considered unimportant, in the hope that some of them may also interest -others. Impressions are unlike statistics, however, in that they cannot -be corrected to a fraction, and I decline to be held responsible for the -exact truth of every presumption I have recorded. If I have fallen into -the common error of generalizing, I hereby apologize, for I know well -that details in local customs differ even between neighboring villages -in China. What I say can at most be true of the north, for as yet I know -nothing of southern China. On the other hand, there may be much -repetition of customs and the like, but that goes to show how unchanging -is life among the masses in China even as a republic. - -Lafcadio Hearn said that the longer he remained in the East the less he -knew of what was going on in the Oriental mind. An “old China hand” has -put the same thing in more popular language: “You can easily tell how -long a man has been in China by how much he doesn’t know about it. If he -knows almost everything, he has just recently arrived; if he is in -doubt, he has been here a few years; if he admits that he really knows -nothing whatever about the Chinese people or their probable future, you -may take it for granted that he has been out a very long time.” - -But as I have said before, the “old-timer” will seldom sit down to tell -even what he has seen, and in many cases he has long since lost his way -through the woods because of the trees. Or he may have other and more -important things to do. Hence it is up to those of us who have nothing -else on hand to pick up and preserve such crumbs of information as we -can; for surely to know as much of the truth about our foreign neighbors -as possible is important, above all in this new age. In our own land -there are many very false ideas about China; false ideas that in some -cases are due to deliberate Chinese propaganda abroad. While I was out -in the far interior I received a clipping outlining the remarks of a -Chinese lecturing through our Middle West, and his résumé left the -impression that bound feet and opium had all but completely disappeared -from China, and that in the matter of schools and the like the -“republic” is making enormous strides. No sooner did the Lincheng affair -attract the world’s attention than American papers began to run yarns, -visibly inspired, about the marvelous advances which the Chinese have -recently accomplished. Such men as Alfred Sze are often mistaken in the -United States as samples of China. Unfortunately they are nothing of the -kind; in fact, they are too often hopelessly out of touch with their -native land. There has been progress in China, but nothing like the -amount of it which we have been coaxed or lulled into believing, and -some of it is of a kind that raises serious doubts as to its direction. -For all the telephones, airplanes, and foreign clothes in the coast -cities, the great mass of the Chinese have been affected barely at all -by this urge toward modernity and Westernism—if that is synonymous with -progress. As some one has just put it, “the Chinese still wear the -pigtail on their minds, though they have largely cut it off their -heads.” How great must be the misinformation at home which causes our -late President to say that all China really needs is more loans, thereby -making himself, and by extension his nation, the laughing-stock of any -one with the rudiments of intelligence who has spent an hour studying -the situation on the spot. England is a little better informed on the -subject than we, because she is less idealistic, more likely to look -facts in the face instead of trying to make facts fit preconceived -notions of essential human perfection. China may need more credits, but -any fool knows that you should stop the hole in the bottom of a tub -before you pour more water into it. At times, too, it is laughable to -think of us children among nations worrying about this one, thousands of -years old, which has so often “come back,” and may still be ambling her -own way long after we have again disappeared from the face of the earth. - -Though it is impossible to leave out the omnipresent entirely, I have -said comparatively little about politics. My own interest in what we -lump together under that word reaches only so far as it affects the -every-day life of the people, of the mudsill of society, toward which, -no doubt by some queer quirk in my make-up, I find my attention -habitually focusing. I have tried, therefore, to show in some detail -their lives, slowly changing perhaps yet little changed, and to let -others conclude whether “politics” has done all that it should for them. -Besides, the Far East swarms with writers on politics, men who have been -out here for years or decades and have given their attention almost -entirely to that popular subject; and even these disagree like doctors. -Some of us, I know, are frankly tired of politics, at least for a space, -important as they are; moreover, political changes are so rapid, -especially in the “never changing” East, that it is impossible to keep -abreast of the times in anything less than a daily newspaper. - -At home there are numbers of young men, five or ten years out of -college, who can tell you just what is the matter with the world, and -exactly how to remedy it. I am more or less ready to agree with them -that the world is going to the dogs. What of it? You have only to step -outdoors on any clear night to see that there are hundreds of other -worlds, which may be arranging their lives in a more intelligent manner. -The most striking thing about these young political and sociological -geniuses sitting in their suburban gardens or their city flats is that -while they can toss off a recipe guaranteed to cure our own sick world -overnight, if only some one can get it down its throat, they seldom seem -to have influence enough in their own cozy little corner of it to drive -out one grafting ward-heeler. In other words, if you must know what is -to be the future of China, I regret that I have not been vouchsafed the -gift of prophecy and cannot tell you. - -In the minor matter of Chinese words and names, I have deliberately not -tried to follow the usual Romanization, but rather to cause the reader -to pronounce them as nearly like what they are on the spot as is -possible with our mere twenty-six letters. Of course I could not follow -this rule entirely or I must have called the capital of China -“Bay-jing,” have spoken of the evacuation of “Shahn-doong,” and so on; -so that in the case of names already more or less familiar to the West I -have used the most modern and most widely accepted forms, as they have -survived on the ground. At that I cannot imagine what ailed the men who -Romanized the Chinese language, but that is another story. - - HARRY A. FRANCK. - - Kuling, China, - August 16, 1923. - - - - - CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - - I IN THE LAND WE CALL KOREA 3 - - II SOME KOREAN SCENES AND CUSTOMS 23 - - III JAPANESE AND MISSIONARIES IN KOREA 36 - - IV OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN CHO-SEN 53 - - V UP AND DOWN MANCHURIA 71 - - VI THROUGH RUSSIANIZED CHINA 82 - - VII SPEEDING ACROSS THE GOBI 108 - - VIII IN “RED” MONGOLIA 124 - - IX HOLY URGA 135 - - X EVERY ONE HIS OWN DIPLOMAT 160 - - XI AT HOME UNDER THE TARTAR WALL 174 - - XII JOGGING ABOUT PEKING 195 - - XIII A JOURNEY TO JEHOL 230 - - XIV A JAUNT INTO PEACEFUL SHANSI 252 - - XV RAMBLES IN THE PROVINCE OF CONFUCIUS 265 - - XVI ITINERATING IN SHANTUNG 288 - - XVII EASTWARD TO TSINGTAO 308 - - XVIII IN BANDIT-RIDDEN HONAN 330 - - XIX WESTWARD THROUGH LOESS CAÑONS 349 - - XX ON TO SIAN-FU 366 - - XXI ONWARD THROUGH SHENSI 387 - - XXII CHINA’S FAR WEST 405 - - XXIII WHERE THE FISH WAGGED HIS TAIL 423 - - XXIV IN MOHAMMEDAN CHINA 447 - - XXV TRAILING THE YELLOW RIVER HOMEWARD 468 - - XXVI COMPLETING THE CIRCLE 485 - - - - - ILLUSTRATIONS - - - A constant stream of pilgrims, largely blue-clad coolies - on foot, passed up and down the sacred stairway _Frontispiece_ - - FACING PAGE - - Map of the author’s route 12 - - Our first view of Seoul, in which the former Temple of - Heaven is now a smoking-room in a Japanese hotel - garden 16 - - The interior of a Korean house 16 - - Close-up of a Korean “jicky-coon,” or street porter 17 - - At the first suggestion of rain the Korean pulls out a - little oiled-paper umbrella that fits over his - precious horsehair hat 17 - - Some of the figures, in the gaudiest of colors, - surrounding the Golden Buddha in a Korean temple 32 - - The famous “White Buddha,” carved, and painted in white, - on a great boulder in the outskirts of Seoul 32 - - One day, descending the hills toward Seoul, we heard a - great jangling hubbub, and found two sorceresses in - full swing in a native house, where people come to - have their children “cured” 33 - - The _yang-ban_, or loafing upper class of Korea, go in - for archery, which is about fitted to their - temperament, speed, and initiative 33 - - The Korean method of ironing, the rhythmic _rat-a-tat_ - of which may be heard day and night almost anywhere in - the peninsula 40 - - Winding thread before one of the many little - machine-knit stocking factories in Ping Yang 40 - - The graves of Korea cover hundreds of her hillsides with - their green mounds, usually unmarked, but carefully - tended by the superstitious descendants 41 - - A chicken peddler in Seoul 48 - - A full load 48 - - The plowman homeward wends his weary way—in Korean - fashion, always carrying the plow and driving his - unburdened ox or bull before him. One of the most - common sights of Korea 49 - - The biblical “watch-tower in a cucumber patch” is in - evidence all over Korea in the summer, when crops - begin to ripen. Whole families often sleep in them - during this season, when they spring up all over the - country, and often afford the only cool breeze 49 - - A village blacksmith of Korea. Note the bellows-pumper - in his high hat at the rear 64 - - The interior of a native Korean school of the old - type,—dark, dirty, swarming with flies, and loud with - a constant chorus 64 - - In Kongo-san, the “Diamond Mountains” of eastern Korea 65 - - The monastery kitchen of Yu-jom-sa, typical of Korean - cooking 65 - - One of the monks of Yu-jom-sa 68 - - This great cliff-carved Buddha, fifty feet high and - thirty broad, was done by Chinese artists centuries - ago. Note my carrier, a full-sized man, squatting at - the lower left-hand corner 68 - - The carved Buddhas of Sam-pul-gam, at the entrance to - the gorge of the Inner Kongo, were chiseled by a - famous Korean monk five hundred years ago 69 - - The camera can at best give only a suggestion of the - sheer white rock walls of Shin Man-mul-cho, perhaps - the most marvelous bit of scenery in the Far East 69 - - Two ladies in the station waiting-room of Antung, just - across the Yalu from Korea, proudly comparing the - relative inadequacy of their crippled feet 76 - - The Japanese have made Dairen, southern terminus of - Manchuria and once the Russian Dalny, one of the most - modern cities of the Far East 76 - - A ruined gallery in the famous North Fort of the - Russians at Port Arthur. Hundreds of such war - memorials are preserved by the Japanese on the sites - of their first victory over the white race 77 - - The empty Manchu throne of Mukden 77 - - The Russian so loves a uniform, even after the land it - represents has gone to pot, that even school-boys in - Vladivostok usually wear them,—red bands, khaki, black - trousers, purple epaulets 80 - - A Manchu woman in her national head-dress, bargaining - with a street vender of Mukden for a cup of tea 80 - - A common sight in Harbin,—a Russian refugee, in this - case a blind boy, begging in the street of passing - Chinese 81 - - A Russian in Harbin—evidently not a Bolshevik or he - would be living in affluence in Russia 81 - - The grain of the _kaoliang_, one of the most important - crops of North China. It grows from ten to fifteen - feet high and makes the finest of hiding-places for - bandits 96 - - A daily sight in Vladivostok,—a group of youths - suspected of opinions contrary to those of the - Government, rounded up and trotted off to prison 96 - - A refugee Russian priest, of whom there were many in - Harbin 97 - - Types of this kind swarm along the Chinese Eastern - Railway of Manchuria, many of them volunteers in the - Chinese army or railway police 97 - - One of the Russian churches in Harbin, a creamy gray, - with green domes and golden crosses, with much gaudy - trimming 100 - - A policeman of Vladivostok, where shaving is looked down - upon 100 - - Two former officers in the czar’s army, now bootblacks - in the “thieves” market of Harbin—when they catch any - one who can afford to be blacked 101 - - Scores of booths in Harbin, Manchuli, and Vladivostok, - selling second-hand hardware of every description, - suggest why the factories and trains of Bolshevik - Russia have difficulty in running 101 - - The human freight horses of Tientsin, who toil ten or - more hours a day for twenty coppers, about six cents - in our money 108 - - Part of the pass above Kalgan is so steep that no - automobile can climb to the great Mongolian plateau - unassisted 108 - - Some of the camel caravans we passed on the Gobi seemed - endless. This one had thirty dozen loaded camels and - more than a dozen outriders 109 - - But cattle caravans also cross the Gobi, drawing - home-made two-wheeled carts, often with a flag, - sometimes the Stars and Stripes, flying at the head 109 - - The Mongol would not be himself without his horse, - though to us this would usually seem only a pony 112 - - Mongol authorities examining our papers, which Vilner is - showing, at Ude. Robes blue, purple, dull red, etc. - Biggest Chinaman on left 113 - - A group of Mongols and stray Chinese watching our - arrival at the first _yamen_ of Urga 113 - - The frontier post of Ude, fifty miles beyond the - uninhabited frontier between Inner and Outer Mongolia, - where Mongol authorities examine passports and very - often turn travelers back 128 - - Chinese travelers on their way to Urga. It is - unbelievable how many muffled Chinamen and their - multifarious junk one “Dodge” will carry 128 - - The Mongol of the Gobi lives in a _yourt_ made of heavy - felt over a light wooden framework, which can be taken - down and packed in less than an hour when the spirit - of the nomad strikes him 129 - - Mongol women make the felt used as houses, mainly by - pouring water on sheep’s wool 129 - - The upper town of Urga, entirely inhabited by lamas, has - the temple of Ganden, containing a colossal standing - Buddha, rising high above all else. It is in Tibetan - style and much of its superstructure is covered with - pure gold 144 - - Red lamas leaving the “school” in which hundreds of them - squat tightly together all day long, droning through - their litany. They are of all ages, equally filthy and - heavily booted. Over the gateway of the typical Urga - palisade is a text in Tibetan, and the cylinders at - the upper corners are covered with gleaming gold 144 - - High class lamas, in their brilliant red or yellow - robes, great ribbons streaming from their strange - hats, are constantly riding in and out of Urga. Note - the bent-knee style of horsemanship 145 - - A high lama dignitary on his travels, free from the gaze - of the curious, and escorted by mounted lamas of the - middle class 145 - - A youthful lama turning one of the myriad - prayer-cylinders of Urga. Many written prayers are - pasted inside, and each turn is equivalent to saying - all of them 152 - - The market in front of Hansen’s house. The structure on - the extreme left is not what it looks like, for they - have no such in Urga, but it houses a prayer-cylinder 152 - - Women, whose crippled feet make going to the shops - difficult, do much of their shopping from the - two-boxes-on-a-pole type of merchant, constant - processions of whom tramp the highways of China 153 - - An itinerant blacksmith-shop, with the box-bellows - worked by a stick handle widely used by craftsmen and - cooks in China 153 - - Pious Mongol men and women worshiping before the - residence of the “Living Buddha” of Urga, some by - throwing themselves down scores of times on the - prostrating-boards placed for that purpose, one by - making many circuits of the place, now and again - measuring his length on the ground 160 - - The Mongols of Urga disposed of their dead by throwing - the bodies out on the hillsides, where they are - quickly devoured by the savage black dogs that roam - everywhere 160 - - Mongol women in full war-paint 161 - - Though it was still only September, our return from Urga - was not unlike a polar expedition 161 - - Our home in Peking was close under the great East Wall - of the Tartar City 176 - - The indispensable staff of Peking housekeeping consists - of (left to right) ama, rickshaw-man, “boy,” coolie, - and cook 176 - - A chat with neighbors on the way to the daily stroll on - the wall 177 - - Street venders were constantly crying their wares in our - quarter 177 - - At Chinese New Year the streets of Peking were gay with - all manner of things for sale, such as these - brilliantly colored paintings of native artists 192 - - A rich man died in our street, and among other things - burned at his grave, so that he would have them in - after-life, were this “automobile” and two - “chauffeurs” 192 - - A neighbor who gave his birds a daily airing 193 - - Just above us on the Tartar Wall were the ancient - astronomical instruments looted by the Germans in 1900 - and recently returned, in accordance with a clause in - the Treaty of Versailles 193 - - Preparing for a devil dance at the lama temple in Peking 208 - - The devil dancers are usually Chinese street urchins - hired for the occasion by the languid Mongol lamas of - Peking 208 - - The street sprinklers of Peking work in pairs, with a - bucket and a wooden dipper. This is the principal - street of the Chinese City “outside Ch’ien-men” 209 - - The Forbidden City is for the most part no longer that, - but open in more than half its extent to the - ticket-buying public 209 - - In the vast compound of the Altar of Heaven 224 - - Mei Lan-fang, most famous of Chinese actors, who, like - his father and grandfather before him, plays only - female parts 224 - - Over the wall from our house boats plied on the moat - separating us from the Chinese City 225 - - Just outside the Tartar Wall of Peking the night soil of - the city, brought in wheelbarrows, is dried for use as - fertilizer 225 - - For three thousands miles the Great Wall clambers over - the mountains between China and Mongolia 240 - - One of the mammoth stone figures flanking the road to - the Ming Tombs of North China, each of a single piece - of granite 240 - - Another glimpse of the Great Wall 241 - - The twin pagodas of Taiyüan, capital of Shansi Province 241 - - The three _p’ai-lous_ of Hsi Ling, the Western Tombs 248 - - In Shansi four men often work at as many windlasses over - a single well to irrigate the fields 249 - - Prisoners grinding grain in the “model prison” of - Taiyüan 249 - - A few of the 508 Buddhas in one of the lama temples of - Jehol 256 - - The youngest, but most important—since she has borne him - a son—of the wives of a Manchu chief of one of the - tomb-tending towns of Tung Ling 256 - - Interior of the notorious Empress Dowager’s tomb at Tung - Ling, with her cloth-covered chair of state and colors - to dazzle the stoutest eye 257 - - The Potalá of Jehol, said to be a copy, even in details, - of that of Lhasa. The windows are false and the great - building at the top is merely a roofless one enclosing - the chief temple 257 - - Behind Tung Ling the great forest reserve which once - “protected” the tombs from the evil spirits that - always come from the north was recently opened to - settlers, and frontier conditions long since forgotten - in the rest of China prevail 260 - - Much of the plowing in the newly opened tract is done in - this primitive fashion 260 - - The face of the mammoth Buddha of Jehol, forty-three - feet high and with forty-two hands. It fills a - four-story building, and is the largest in China - proper, being identical, according to the lamas, with - those of Urga and Lhasa 261 - - A Chinese inn, with its heated _k’ang_, may not be the - last word in comfort, but it is many degrees in - advance of the earth floors of Indian huts along the - Andes 261 - - The upper half of the ascent of Tai-shan is by a stone - stairway which ends at the “South Gate of Heaven,” - here seen in the upper right-hand corner 268 - - One of the countless beggar women who squat in the - center of the stairway to Tai-shan, expecting every - pilgrim to drop at least a “cash” into each basket 268 - - Wash-day in the moat outside the city wall of Tzinan, - capital of Shantung 269 - - A traveler by chair nearing the top of Tai-shan, most - sacred of the five holy peaks of China 269 - - A priest of the Temple of Confucius 272 - - The grave of Confucius is noted for its simplicity 272 - - The sanctum of the Temple of Confucius, with the statue - and spirit—tablet of the sage, before which millions - of Chinese burn joss-sticks annually 273 - - Making two Chinese elders of a Shantung village over - into Presbyterians 288 - - Messrs. Kung and Meng, two of the many descendants of - Confucius in Shantung flanking one of those of Mencius 288 - - Some of the worst cases still out of bed in the American - leper-home of Tenghsien, Shantung, were still full of - laughter 289 - - Off on an “itinerating” trip with an American missionary - in Shantung, by a conveyance long in vogue there. - Behind, one of the towers by which messages were sent, - by smoke or fire, to all corners of the old Celestial - Empire 289 - - On the way home I changed places with one of our three - wheelbarrow coolies, and found that the contrivance - did not run so hard as I might otherwise have believed 304 - - The men who use the roads of China make no protest at - their being dug up every spring and turned into fields 304 - - Sons are a great asset to the wheelbarrowing coolies of - Shantung 305 - - A private carriage, Shantung style 320 - - Shackled prisoners of Lao-an making hair-nets for the - American market 320 - - School-girls in the American mission school at Weihsien, - Shantung 321 - - The governor’s mansion at Tsingtao, among hills - carefully reforested by the Germans, followed by the - Japanese, has now been returned to the Chinese after a - quarter of a century of foreign rule 321 - - Chinese farming methods include a stone roller, drawn by - man, boy, or beast, to break up the clods of dry earth 336 - - Kaifeng, capital of Honan Province, has among its - population some two hundred Chinese Jews, descendants - of immigrants of centuries ago 336 - - A cave-built blacksmith and carpenter-shop in - Kwanyintang where the Lunghai railway ends at present - in favor of more laborious means of transportation 337 - - An illustrated lecture in China takes place outdoors in - a village street, two men pushing brightly colored - pictures along a two-row panel while they chant some - ancient story 337 - - In the Protestant Mission compound of Honanfu the - missionaries had tied up this thief to stew in the sun - for a few days, rather than turn him over to the - authorities, who would have lopped off his head 344 - - Over a city gate in western Honan two crated heads of - bandits were festering in the sun and feeding swarms - of flies 344 - - A village in the loess country, which breaks up into - fantastic formations as the stoneless soil is worn - away by the rains and blown away by the winds 345 - - I take my turn at leading our procession of mule litters - and let my companions swallow its dust for a while 352 - - The road down into Shensi. Once through the great - arch-gate that marks the provincial boundary, the road - sinks down into the loess again, and beggars line the - way into Tungkwan 352 - - Hwa-shan, one of the five sacred mountains of China 353 - - An example of Chinese military transportation 353 - - Coal is plentiful and cheap in Shensi, and comes to - market in Sian-fu in wheelbarrows, there to await - purchasers 360 - - The holy of holies of the principal Sian-fu mosque has a - simplicity in striking contrast to the demon-crowded - interiors of purely Chinese temples 360 - - Our carts crossing a branch of the Yellow River fifty - _li_ west of the Shensi capital 361 - - Women and girls do much of the grinding of grain with - the familiar stone roller of China, in spite of their - bound feet 361 - - An old tablet in the compound of the chief mosque at - Sian-fu, purely Chinese in form, except that the base - has lost its likeness to a turtle and the writing is - in Arabic 368 - - This famous old portrait of Confucius, cut on black - stone, in Sian-fu is said to be the most authentic one - in existence 368 - - A large town of cave-dwellers in the loess country, and - the terraced fields which support it 369 - - Samson and Delilah. This blind boy, grinding grain all - day long, marches round and round his stone mill with - the same high lifted feet and bobbing head of the late - Caruso in the opera of that name 369 - - The East Gate of Sian-fu, by which we entered the - capital of Shensi, rises like an apartment-house above - the flat horizon 384 - - All manner of aids to the man behind the wheelbarrow are - used in his long journey in bringing wheat to market, - some of them not very economical 384 - - The Western Gate of Sian-fu, through which we continued - our journey to Kansu 385 - - A “Hwei-Hwei,” or Chinese Mohammedan, keeper of an - outdoor restaurant 385 - - In the Mohammedan section of Sian-fu there are men who, - but for their Chinese garb and habits, might pass for - Turks in Damascus or Constantinople 400 - - Our chief cartman eating dinner in his favorite posture, - and holding in one hand the string of “cash,” one - thousand strong and worth about an American quarter, - which served him as money 400 - - A bit of cliff-dwelling town in the loess country, where - any other color than a yellowish brown is extremely - rare 401 - - A corner of a wayside village, topped by a temple 401 - - The Chinese coolie gets his hair dressed about once a - month by the itinerant barber. This one is just in the - act of adding a switch. Note the wooden comb at the - back of the head 408 - - An old countryman having dinner at an outdoor restaurant - in town on market day has his own way of using chairs - or benches 408 - - A Chinese soldier and his mount, not to mention his - worldly possessions 409 - - Mongol women on a joy-ride 409 - - Two blind minstrels entertaining a village by - singsonging interminable national ballads and legends, - to which they keep time by beating together resonant - sticks of hard wood 416 - - The boys and girls of western China are “toughened” by - wearing nothing below the waist and only one ragged - garment above it, even in midwinter 416 - - The “fast mail” of interior China is carried by a pair - of coolies, in relays of about twenty miles each, made - at a jog-trot with about eighty pounds of mail apiece. - They travel night and day and get five or six American - dollars a month 417 - - A bit of the main street of Taing-Ning, showing the - damage wrought by the earthquake of two years before - to the “devil screen” in front of the local - magistrate’s _yamen_ 417 - - This begging old ragamuffin is a Taoist priest 436 - - A local magistrate sent this squad of “soldiers” to - escort us through the earthquake district, though - whether for fear of bandits, out of mere respect for - our high rank, or because the “soldiers” needed a few - coppers which he could not give them himself, was not - clear 436 - - Where the “mountain walked” and overwhelmed the old - tree-lined highway. In places this was covered - hundreds of feet deep for miles, in others it had been - carried bodily, trees and all, a quarter-mile or more - away 437 - - In the earthquake district of western China whole - terraced mountain-sides came down and covered whole - villages. In the foreground is a typical Kansu farm 437 - - Kansu earlaps are very gaily embroidered in colored - designs of birds, flowers, and the like. Pipes are - smaller than their “ivory” mouthpieces 444 - - It is a common sight in some parts of Kansu to see men - knitting, and still more so to meet little girls whose - feet are already beginning to be bound 444 - - The village scholar displays his wisdom by reading where - all can see him—through spectacles of pure plate-glass 445 - - A Kirghiz in the streets of Lanchow, where many races of - Central Asia meet 445 - - An _ahong_, or Chinese Mohammedan mullah of Lanchow 448 - - Mohammedan school-girls, whose garments were a riot of - color 448 - - A glimpse of Lanchow, capital of China’s westernmost - province, from across the Yellow River 449 - - Looking down the valley of Lanchow, across several - groups of temples at the base of the hills, to the - four forts built against another Mohammedan rebellion 449 - - A Kansu vista near Lanchow, where the hills are no - longer terraced, but where towns are numerous and much - alike 464 - - This method of grinding up red peppers and the like is - wide-spread in China. Both trough and wheel are of - solid iron 464 - - Oil is floated down the Yellow River to Lanchow in whole - ox-hides that quiver at a touch as if they were alive 465 - - The Yellow River at Lanchow, with a water-wheel and the - American bridge which is the only one that crosses it - in the west 465 - - The Chinese protect their boys from evil spirits (the - girls do not matter) by having a chain and padlock put - about their necks at some religious ceremony, which - deceives the spirits into believing that they belong - to the temple. Earlaps embroidered in gay colors are - widely used in Kansu in winter 480 - - Many of the faces seen in Western China hardly seem - Chinese 480 - - A dead man on the way to his ancestral home for burial, - a trip that may last for weeks. Over the heavy - unpainted wooden coffin were brown bags of fodder for - the animals, surmounted by the inevitable rooster 481 - - Our party on the return from Lanchow,—the major and - myself flanked by our “boys” and cook respectively, - these in turn by the two cart-drivers, with our - alleged _mafu_, or groom for our riding animals, at - the right 481 - - A typical farm hamlet of the Yellow River valley in the - far west where some of the farm-yards are surrounded - by mud walls so mighty that they look like great - armories 496 - - The usual kitchen and heating-plant of a Chinese inn, - and the kind on which our cook competed with hungry - coolies in preparing our dinners 496 - - The midwinter third-class coach in which I returned to - Peking 497 - - No wonder I was mistaken for a Bolshevik and caused - family tears when I turned up in Peking from the west 497 - -The author gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to Mr. Edwin S. -Mills of Peking, China, for the use of the pictures of Urga. - - - - - WANDERING IN - NORTHERN CHINA - - - - - CHAPTER I - IN THE LAND WE CALL KOREA - - -The traveler from Japan to the peninsula still known to the Western -world as Korea has a sense of being wafted on some magic carpet -thousands of miles while he slept, a sensation which the splendid -steamers bridging the Straits of Tsushima several times a day do not -dispel. It is surprising how different two lands separated only by a few -hours on the sea can be. A fortnight on a Nippon Yusen Kaisha liner and -six weeks of wandering from end to end of the Island Empire gave us a -Japanese background against which many of the problems of the Far East -stood out more clearly, but it did very little to prepare us for the -physical aspects of the “Cho-sen” over which the banner of the rising -sun now waves. Those who have listened to the long and heated -controversy over the adding of this large slice of mainland to the -mikado’s realm must often have heard the apologists’ assertion that the -two peoples, Japanese and Koreans, are so nearly alike as to be -virtually the same. Perhaps they are; but if so, all the outward -evidences the casual visitor must depend upon to form an opinion are -deceiving. Superficially, at least, Japan and Korea are as different as -two Oriental lands and races could well be. In landscape, customs, -costumes, point of view, general characteristics, even in the details of -personal appearance, the two shores of the Sea of Japan strike the -new-comer as having very little in common. - -Perhaps the most outstanding feature of Korea, to any one newly arrived -from Japan, is her treelessness. The lack of forests is, with the -possible exception of exclamations of incredulity over her extraordinary -costumes, almost certain to be the subject of any Occidental’s first -paragraph of Korean notes. In our own case this denuded aspect of the -peninsula was emphasized by the blazing, cloudless sunshine that beat -relentlessly down during all our first day of travel northward to the -old capital, and on many another to follow. The bare and sun-scorched -landscape suggested some victim of barbarian cruelty, who, stripped of -his garments, was being tortured to death by slow roasting. Possibly we -should have been prepared for this, but we were not. We had heard much -of the doings of Japan in Korea; we knew something of the opera-bouffe -hats of the men and the startlingly short waists of the women, but no -one had ever told us of the curiously pure and molten sunshine of -“Cho-sen,” of the vividness of its shadows and the filtered transparency -of its air, nor, for that matter, of the incessant heat we must endure -because chance allotted us from June to August in what was once the -Hermit Kingdom. - -Trees as sparse as the hairs of a Korean beard stood out in lonely -isolation across the more or less flat lands of all that first day’s -journey; beyond these, usually rather near at hand, rose scarred and -repulsive hillsides as unsightly as the faces of those countless -inhabitants along the way who had been visited by the “honorable spirit” -of smallpox. It was not merely the barrenness of a naturally treeless -country, a barrenness as dreary as those upper reaches of the Andes to -which real vegetation never attains, but one which, like the denuded -plains of Spain, visibly complains of the wanton violence of man. To be -sure, many of the rocky hills that sometimes rose to be almost mountains -were here and there thinly covered with evergreen shrubs which might -some day be trees, and even forests. But these, travelers are informed -with what becomes tiresome persistency, were planted by the new -Government. The Japanese policy of reforestation, we were eventually to -know, has already done excellent things for Korea, and that not merely, -as those who resent the rape of the peninsula assert, where it will -attract the passing tourist’s eye, and it promises in time to accomplish -something worth while; but it is an unfortunate Japanese trait to fear -that good deeds will not speak loudly enough for themselves. - -The reducing of a once well wooded land to its present nude state is -characteristic of the Korean, we were to learn, suggestive of his -general point of view. In the olden days the people were often driven to -the hills by their savage or demented rulers, and as the rigorous -winters that contrast with the tropical summers came on, they not only -burned the trees, but as roots make excellent charcoal they dug up even -these, leaving nothing that might by any chance sprout again. To replant -in better times, to take any serious thought for the morrow, would have -been un-Korean. The Korean even of to-day who covets the half-dozen -cherries or plums on a limb does not usually take the trouble to pick -them; he breaks off the branch and goes his way munching the fruit, with -never a thought of next year. Translate this improvidence, this almost -complete lack of foresight, into all the details of daily life, and the -condition and the final fate of Korea become understandable, in fact -inevitable. - -Woods survive to any great extent in Korea only in two places—about -royal tombs and up along the Yalu River which forms the northern -frontier. Elsewhere in the peninsula, with minor exceptions, there are -only groups of trees planted by foreign missionaries, and rows of pine -shrubs set out directly by the Japanese Government, or by local -authorities, school children, or private individuals, under Japanese -influence. This treelessness is not the unimportant detail many may -think; it is the wanton destruction of her forests of long ago that -gives the Korea of to-day her mainly mud houses, much of her filth, -dust, and swarming flies, and those devastating floods of the rainy -season which sweep roads, bridges, fields, and even villages before -them. - -There were many other things which gave the Korean landscape its -strikingly un-Japanese aspect. Fewer people were working in the larger -and less garden-like fields; the village roofs thatched with rice-straw -had a flatter, smoother look than the homes of Japanese peasants; the -towns themselves seemed to huddle together as closely and -inconspicuously as possible, as if to escape, or join in resisting, the -rapacious tax-gatherers of the olden days that are not forgotten. -Koreans in white, their inevitable color, so rare in Japan, were -everywhere, though more often in the shade of villages or rare wayside -trees or huts than out in the baking sunshine. The suggestion forced -itself upon us that perhaps the fields were larger because the people -could not coax themselves to work alone. In Japan it had been unusual to -see more than a peasant and his wife in the same field; here work seemed -to be done almost entirely by gangs. In spite of the general aridness of -the landscape, there were many flooded rice-fields, and in nearly all of -them waded a soldier-like line of often a dozen laborers, as many women -as men among them. Much of the country showed no signs of the languid -hand of man, yet even in the drier sections scattered rows of these -peasants, their garments still almost snow-white at a distance, gleamed -forth in the otherwise mainly reddish landscape. - -Similar groups stood in semicircles on earth threshing-floors flailing -grain in a way that is familiar to the Western world, but which we had -never seen in Japan. Nor were there any reminders of the Island Empire -in the clusters of women kneeling at the edge of every bit of a stream -or mud-hole paddling clothes with a sort of cricket-bat. The ways of -life, the very architecture, were strangely reminiscent of lands -inhabited by negroes. - -The most primitive of plows, drawn by bulls, dragged their way to and -fro in a field here and there. Along what passed for roads others of -these lumbering animals plodded almost hidden under loads of new-cut -grain or brushwood, at a pace which seemed to fit the languid -temperament of the country. In places a highway, constructed by the new -rulers, tried to preserve an unbroken march; but wherever a bridge -should have been they almost invariably pitched headlong down into the -bed of a stream as waterless as those of summer-time Spain. Even the -Japanese, we were to learn before leaving the peninsula, are poor -bridge-builders, while the Korean remains true to his natural -improvidence in constructing flimsy things of branches and earth, with -totally inadequate abutments, which the first dash of the rainy season -down the treeless hillsides converts into scattered masses of rubbish. - -All the day long the scene varied little from these first few glimpses. -There was a certain rough beauty in the tawny hillsides and the broad -stretches of sun-flooded rice lands, but of a similarity that grew -monotonous, while the ways of the people, until opportunity should come -to see them in closer detail, were such as the fleeting tourist is wont -to sum up under the outworn word “picturesque” and quickly lose from -between the pages of memory. Korea has often been called a land of -villages, and in all the two hundred and eighty miles from the southern -point of the peninsula to Seoul there was little more than a frequent -succession of smooth-thatched, closely snuggled towns varying, outwardly -at least, only in size. Not until later on, and by more primitive means -of travel, were we to know of the remnants of bygone civilization, the -pine-grove tombs of royalty, the ruined palaces of fallen dynasties, and -the welter of modern problems with which the peninsula teems. - - -The Korean wardrobe has so little in common with that of the Occident, -and includes so many startling absurdities, that it merits a few words -in detail, even though some of its more striking features are fairly -familiar to those interested in foreign lands. To begin with the basis -of all wardrobes, there is that ingenious contrivance with which the -Korean gentleman protects his other garments from perspiration during -the blazing months of summer. A missionary who carried home a set of -these and offered them to any one in his native parish who could -identify them recorded forty-two guesses, all equally wide of the mark, -which was the simple phrase “summer underwear.” Out of their environment -these useful garments look more like primitive bird-cages or light -baskets than what they really are. In their entirety they consist of a -kind of waistcoat, a high collar of the Elizabethan period, and cuffs so -long as to be almost sleeves—all made of small strips of ratan very -loosely woven together. That they are effective in allowing the free -circulation of air, and at the same time preserve the cloth garments -from contact with the perspiring body, one is willing to grant without -the evidence of actual personal experience. Now and again one runs -across a Japanese petty official who, in an effort to mitigate his -midsummer sufferings, has adopted at least the cuffs; but on the whole -this ingenious contribution is likely to suffer the common fate of never -finding appreciation beyond its native habitat. - -Over his ratan skin-protectors the Korean gentleman wears a kind of -waistcoat-shirt, trousers (if so commonplace a term may be used for so -uncommonplace a garment) which are more than voluminous even in use and, -when hung out to dry, suggest the mainsails of a wind-jammer, and -finally a _turamaggie_, an overcoat reaching to the calves and tied -together with a bow over the right breast. All these articles are -snow-white, and in summer are made of a vegetable fiber so thin as to -suggest starched cheese-cloth. The mainsail trousers are fastened -tightly about the ankles with a winding of cloth, which also supports -the carefully foot-shaped and curiously thick white socks, which are -thrust into low slippers cut well away at the instep, slippers formerly -of leather richly embroidered or otherwise decorated, but now rapidly -giving way to the white or reddish rubber ones made in Japan which are -ruining the feet of Korea. The crowning glory and absurdity of this _de -rigueur_ costume, however, is the head-dress. About the brow is bound, -so tightly as to cause violent headaches when first adopted and to leave -lifelong marks, a black band about four inches wide and reaching well up -over the curve of the head. On top of this sits a brimless cap shaped -like a fez with an L-shaped indentation in its front, and finally over -all else reigns an uncollapsible opera-hat. Both the hat and the cap -beneath it are made of horsehair, or cheap imitations thereof, and are -so loosely woven and screen-like in their transparency that facetious -and unkindly foreigners are wont to refer to them as “fly-traps.” This -term is as unwarranted as it is offensive, for the one place in Korea -which is free from flies in season is the hat-protected crown of the -adult Korean male. One need not take the word of “old-timers,” but will -find ample evidence in photographs of a decade or more ago that the -opera-bouffe contraption with which the Korean gentleman tops himself -off once had brim enough to do duty almost as a real hat. Such -utilitarian days are past, however; perhaps it is that universal bugbear -of the human family, the high cost of living, which has reduced the brim -to little more than a ledge. The fact remains that a fly must walk with -caution now in making a circuit which in the good old days he might -safely have accomplished after sipping long and generously at the edge -of a bowl of _sool_. However, let there be no misapprehension, no -uncalled for sympathy under the impression that this shrinking has -worked hardship upon the wearer. The Korean hat was not designed to be a -protection for the head and a shade for the face. Its purpose in life is -far more serious and is concentrated on one single object,—to protect -from evil spirits the precious topknot which is the badge of full Korean -manhood. Hence its duty is not merely an outdoor one; wicked beings of -the invisible world have no compunction in taking unfair advantage of -their victims, so that to this day it is a common practice for the -Korean man to lay him down to sleep—on his bare papered floor, using a -hardwood brick as a pillow—with his precious top-hat still in place. - -However, we have not yet completely garbed our _yang-ban_, our gentleman -of the Land of Morning Calm. His hat, being light, almost ethereal, in -fact, must be held in place, whether in sleep or in the slightest -breeze, for which purpose a black ribbon under the chin serves the -ordinary man and a string of amber beads his haughtier fellow-citizen. -Add to this the unfailing collapsible fan, and a pipe as long and heavy -as a cane, with a bowl the size of the end of the thumb, and you may -vizualize in his entirety the proud gentleman who sallies forth from his -mud hut and picks his way leisurely between the mud-holes and -offal-heaps of any town or city street. The fan is rarely inactive, now -dispensing a breeze to the copper-tinted face of its owner, now shading -it from the direct rays of a burning sun. The pipe, bowl down, swings -with the jaunty aggressiveness of an Englishman’s “stick”; above all -else the features remain fixed and unalterable in their serenity, for in -the code of the genuine Korean gentleman of the old school there is no -greater vulgarity than to show in public either mirth, anger, curiosity, -or annoyance. Nothing could be more specklessly white than this -dignified apparition, for do not his servant-wives spend their days, and -no small portion of their nights, in preparing his garments for the -daily sortie and mingling with his fellows? Behold him, then, as he -joins the latter, in a shop-door or on a shaded street-corner, where he -squats with them in that fashion which has caused a row of Korean males -to be likened to penguins, letting his spotless starched _turamaggie_ -spread out on the unswept earth with a carelessness which seems a boast -of his ability to command unlimited female labor. - -We must come back again, however, to the incredible hat, as the eyes and -the attention constantly will as long as one remains in Korea. If the -Japanese are commonplace and unoriginal in their head-dress, certainly -their newly captured fellow-subjects make up for it. Set usually at a -jaunty angle, whether by design, breeze, or cranial malformation, a -jauntiness enhanced by its scarcity of brim, the “fly-trap” hat -furnishes Korea half its picturesqueness. Graduates of modern mission or -Japanese government schools, self-complacent young men who have been -abroad, native Christian pastors, may wear the Panama or the felt of the -West above their otherwise national white garb, but the “fly-trap” is -still the prevailing head-dress throughout the length, breadth, and -social strata of the peninsula. Far and wide, in city or village, in -crowded marts or on lonely country roads, indoors or out, awake or -asleep, the high hat is seldom missing. It persists to the very edge of -the frontier, then disappears as suddenly as it had sprung up at the -other extremity of the country. After one has weathered the first shock -it does not look so greatly out of place on your city gentleman, but I -never learned to behold it with proper equanimity on the heads of -porters, plasterers, and peasants. Even the workman without it, however, -is still conspicuous. Tattered, soiled, and sun-scorched men wandering -across the country with a kind of tramp’s pack on their backs wear the -horsehair bird-cage on their heads; perhaps the most incongruous sight -of all is to behold a battered old man of the rice-fields solemnly -squatting on a garbage-heap in his mud hamlet, with his opera hat -perched on guard above his gray and scanty topknot. - -Once or twice we caught a glimpse of the light-brown hat formerly worn -by all men about to be married, or to add a new wife to their collection -of servants; once the custom was wide-spread of painting the hat white -in sign of mourning, but to-day black is almost universal, and an -excellent foil to the otherwise white garb. Bridegrooms no longer feel -compelled publicly to announce their happy status, and there is another -and more effective means of showing grief at bereavement,—a mourner’s -hat like a large, finely woven, inverted basket with scalloped edges, -which completely hides the afflicted face of the wearer. As he ambles -along under this ample protection instead of blistering beneath a -horsehair cage, surely a feeling of gratitude toward the departed -relative must pervade the thoughts of the bereaved, particularly as the -Korean term of mourning lasts for three years. There is a still more -enormous, very coarsely woven, sunshade worn by peasants in the -midsummer months, while Buddhist priests, otherwise indistinguishable -from layman tramps and beggars, wear a smaller hat of similar shape to -that of the mourners, but raised on bamboo stilts well above the head. -The horsehair hat is costly, by Korean standards, the better ones even -by our own, and, being put together with glue, is frail and perishable. -Water is particularly fatal to it. Let the first drop of a shower fall, -therefore, and from within the garments of every Korean man appears a -hat-umbrella, a little cone-shaped cover of oiled paper or silk, like a -miniature Japanese parasol, which is quickly opened and slipped over the -precious hat. As to the rest of the male garb, no damage is possible -which cannot be repaired by the return of sunshine or a few hours’ labor -by the women at home. Thus on a rainy day the black heads above white -bodies characteristic of all Korea turn to drenched cheese-cloth -surmounted by oily yellow clowns’ caps. - - -It is fitting that the wardrobe of the insignificant sex should be -simpler, and more easily described. Except that anything in the way of -head-dress is denied them, lest they compete with the decorative male, -the garb of the Korean women is in the main a crude replica of that of -the men. All reasonably available evidence goes to show that the women -are never permitted the luxury of wickerwork undergarments. Trousers, -socks, and slippers are similar to those worn by the male; above these -is the thinnest and slightest of garments, which barely covers the -shoulders, and over the trousers is worn a white skirt fastened well up -above the floating ribs. In summer at least that is all, except in a few -old-fashioned communities, where a muffling white cloak covering -everything except the eyes and the feet is still occasionally seen. -That, I repeat, is all, and from our puritanical point of view it is not -enough. For the Korean woman insists that the waistline is at the -armpits, and makes no provision to have the upper and lower garments -contiguous, with the result that she displays to the public gaze exactly -that portion of the torso which the women of most nations take pains to -conceal. Missionaries, who are as prone as the rest of us to lose their -native point of view through long contact with other races, assure us -that Korean women are extremely modest. In general deportment the -statement holds water; but a married lady of Korea, marching down the -main thoroughfare of one of our cities in her native garb, would be -granted anything but modesty. One might fancy that the costume was -prescribed by some lascivious tyrant of olden days; those who have -looked deeply into the matter, however, assure us that it is due to the -pride of motherhood. The fact remains that, though the precept and -example of Western nations have tended to lengthen the upper garment -among better-class women of the cities, and particularly among those who -have attended modern schools, the great majority of the adult female sex -in Korea still wear their breasts outside their clothing. Sun-browned -and leather-textured as the face, the plumpness of matrons or the -withered rags of age are almost always in plain, not to say insistent, -evidence. In fact neither the men nor the women of the masses often -succeed in making both garments meet; males below the _turamaggie_ class -as habitually display their navels as their wives do their bosoms. - -White is as universally the color of Korean garments in winter as in -summer; the only difference is that they thicken from cheese-cloth to -cotton-padded ones as the cold season advances. The incongruous sight of -skaters in what looks like tropical garb, of whole towns of people -wading through the snow from which they are barely distinguishable, -provokes the wonder of winter visitors. The whiteness of a Korean crowd -can be duplicated nowhere on earth. Within the lifetime of any one -capable of reading these lines the glimpse of a figure in dark or -colored garments anywhere in the peninsula betrayed it at once as that -of a foreigner. The first record of any variation from this rule was -when, a decade ago, the upper classmen of a mission school in Seoul -agreed by resolution to adopt dark European trousers, in order to spare -their wives or mothers some of their incessant washing and ironing. - -The sounds of these two occupations are never silent in Korea. Stand on -an eminence above any town or city of the land, and to the ears will be -borne the similar yet easily distinguishable _rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat_ of a -hundred housewives busy with one or the other of their two principal -duties. How they attain the snowy whiteness required by their -unaffectionate masters by paddling their garments at the edge of any -mud-hole or trickle of sewage is one of the mysteries of the East; yet -not a roadside puddle or a hollowed rock but is turned into a wash-tub, -and never is the visible result outwardly anything but spotless purity. -In contrast to the dull _plump-a-plump_ of washing paddles is this -falsetto tone of ironing, prolonged far into every night. Nay, wake up -at any hour and it will be strange if you do not catch the sound of some -distant housewife putting the finishing touches on the garments in which -her lord will strut forth into the world in the morning. For in Korea -the hot iron is not in vogue, except a tiny one used along the sewed or -pasted seams. Instead, the clothing is folded over a hardwood cylinder -and beaten with two miniature baseball-bats, beaten with an endless -persistency that suggests an unsuspected durability in the apparently -flimsy material, and with a rhythm that has grown almost musical with -centuries of practice. - -Children are often dressed in colors, and unmarried maidens may wear -garments of a green or bluish tinge; but all soon succumb to the -omnipresent white. Huge hats not unlike those of men in mourning were -once universally required for young women not yet sentenced to the -servitude of a husband, that their faces might not be disclosed to the -male sex. Missionaries by no means gray in the service recall how -half-acres of these basket-hats used to lie stacked up before native -churches on days of service. But the old order passes, even in the once -Hermit Kingdom, and one may travel far afield now and still perhaps look -in vain for any survival of this long prevalent custom. As in Japan, the -head-dress of the women of Korea is now a matter of hair, in this case -drawn smoothly and tightly down over the scalp, like a cap of oily black -velvet, and tied in a compact little knot behind, decorated perhaps with -a red cloth rosette and thrust through with what looks almost like one -of our new-fashioned nickel-plated lead-pencils. - -The Koreans have never been reduced to any such crude expedient as a -bachelor-tax to keep up their marriage-rate. Until very recent years all -boys wore their hair in a long braid up to the day they took a wife. -Even now this custom survives in some outlying districts, though none -yielded more swiftly to the influx of foreign influence. As long as a -man wore a braid he was rated a minor; when he approached manhood he -became more and more a community butt, and shame and ridicule rarely -failed to drive him into an early marriage. Girls, too, had powerful -reasons for not long persisting in the dreadful condition of maidenhood, -not the least among which was the custom, still widely practised, of -burying the body of an unmarried woman in the public highway, to the -everlasting shame of her family to its remotest branches. Moreover, a -Korean woman is not given a name of her own until she has borne a son, -after which she is forever known as “Mother of So-and-So.” Before that -her title, even to her husband, is “_Yea!_” or the slightly more -honorable “_Yea-bo!_” which correspond fairly closely to our -affectionate “Heh!” or “Heh, you!” - -[Illustration: - - CHINA - AND - JAPAN -] - -When the happy day comes that is to put an end to the ridicule of his -fellows and the shame of his parents, the youth transforms his braid -into a topknot, a tightly braided, twisted, and doubled mass of hair an -inch in diameter and about three inches high, standing bolt upright in -the center of his head, and transfixed with a nickeled or silver -ornament similar to that worn by the women. Unlike the cue of the -Chinese, forced upon them as a sign of alien subjection, the topknot is -the Korean’s badge of manhood, his proudest and most precious -possession. Thenceforth one of his most serious problems in life is to -protect it from the powers of evil. About his brow is placed the -painfully tight band that he is seldom again to be seen without this -side of the grave, and he sallies forth under his gleaming new horsehair -hat with the masterly air that befits a man of family cares and -advantages. To its wearers the Korean top-hat must have become, as even -the worst eyesores of human costume will with long use, a thing of -beauty; for though many are the men, and myriad the youths, who now cut -their hair in Western fashion, numbers even of these still cling to the -native hat, while shopkeepers with close-cropped heads, or those whom -the evil spirits have outwitted and left bald, may be seen squatting -among their wares virtually without clothing but with the discredited -head-gear precariously perched upon their bare heads. - -Once in a dog’s age even now a country youth turns up at a government or -a mission school wearing the braid that not long ago was universal among -unmarried males, or, since early marriages are still in vogue, with a -topknot; but it is seldom that the end of the first week does not find -his fashion changed. Pseudo-pathetic stories still come in from the -outlying districts of mothers who wept their eyes red at the cutting of -a son’s braid, or of conservative old fathers wrathfully driving from -home youths who have sacrificed the topknot that stands for manhood. But -the shearing goes steadily on, and thus is passing one of Korea’s most -conspicuous idiosyncrasies. The bachelor braid down the back yielded -swiftly to foreign influence; a generation hence the topknot, perhaps -even the stovepipe screen that surmounts it, may be as unknown in the -peninsula as the pre-Meiji male head-dress is now in Japan. - - -If one takes heed not to carry the likeness too far, the Korean might be -described as a cross between the Japanese and the Chinese. Some of his -traits and customs resemble those of one or the other of his immediate -neighbors, but a still greater number seem to be peculiar to himself -alone. He builds his house, for example, somewhat like those of Japan; -he heats it somewhat after the fashion in China, yet in neither case is -the similarity more than approximate. Certainly he is content with as -few comforts as any race, with the possible exception of the Chinese, -that ever reached the degree of civilization to which he once attained. -This, of course, is partly due to the centuries of atrocious misrule -under which he lived, when it was unsafe for even the wealthiest of men -to attract the ravenous tax-gatherers, turned loose upon the kingdom in -rival bands by both king and court, by living in anything more than a -thatched mud hovel. - -Thus it is that even the larger Korean cities are little more than -numerous clusters of such hovels, huddled together along haphazard -alleyways of dust or mud, except where the hand of the new rulers of the -peninsula, or of those Westerners who have been striving for more than -three decades to Christianize it, show themselves. The typical Korean -house, whether of country or town, is made of adobe bricks or odds and -ends of stone completely plastered over, inside and out, with mud. Thus -the walls remain, until they crumble or wash away, for neither paint nor -whitewash is used to disguise their milk-and-coffee tint. Except in rare -cases, or a few special localities, a rice-straw roof covers them, a -roof so smooth and almost glossy, so low and nearly flat, that a village -suggests a cluster of dead mushrooms. The accepted shape of the dwelling -is that of the half of a square, though in its poorer form it may be -merely a hut somewhat longer than it is wide, and in the more -pretentious cases it sometimes completes the whole square. Whether it -does or not, it must be wholly shut off from the outside world, usually -by a wall or screen of woven straw as high as the eaves and enclosing a -wholly untended dust-bin of a yard between the two ells. The well built -and spick and span servants’ houses erected by a missionary community -near Seoul were unpopular with the domestics because they looked off -across a pretty valley to the mountains, instead of being shut in by the -customary mat-fence. - -The outside of the half-square has no openings whatever, but presents to -the world a perfectly blank face. The inside, on the other hand, is -little else than openings, across which may be pushed paper walls or -doors somewhat similar to those of Japan. Like the Japanese, the Koreans -are squatters rather than sitters, so that the three living-rooms of the -average dwelling are barely six feet high, and not much more than that -in their other dimensions. The floors are raised somewhat above the -level of the ground outside, and are made of stone and mud, like the -walls, covered with plaster, or sometimes wood, and this in turn by a -heavy, yellow-brown native paper of a consistency between cardboard and -oil-cloth. None of the thick soft mats of the Japanese, nor of his -cushions or padded quilts, soften life by night or day in a Korean home. -When sleep suggests itself, the inmates merely stretch out on the floor -on which they have been squatting, thrust a convenient oak brick under -their heads, and drift into slumber. Rarely do they make any change of -clothing at retiring or rising, the men, as I have said before, often -wearing their top-hats all night. Shoes, or, more exactly, slippers, are -dropped as the wearers come indoors as unfailingly as in Japan on the -ledge of polished wood which forms a cross between a porch and a step -along the front of the house. To the Western eye the lack both of space -and furniture is surprising. In the center of the house, and usually -wide open, is a kind of parlor or sitting-room, at most ten or twelve -feet long, flanked at either end by two little living-rooms no longer -than they are wide, and the house nowhere has a width much greater than -the height of the average Western man. Eating, sleeping, the whole -domestic life, in fact, is carried on in a constant proximity exceeding -that of our most crowded tenements. It looks more like “playing house,” -like a building meant for children to amuse their dolls in, than like -the actual lifelong residence of human beings. This impression is -enhanced by the miniature furniture, usually as scarce as it is small. -There are, of course, no chairs, and no tables unless the little tray -with six-inch legs on which food is served be counted as one. If there -is a student in the family, or the father is engaged in business, there -may be a little writing-desk without legs set flat on the floor; -probably there is a _chang_, or legless chest of drawers, and one of the -famous Korean chests, both more than generously bound in brass, or even -silver if the family is more prosperous than the exterior of the -building ever suggests. That is usually about all, except perhaps a -little sewing-machine run by hand, and the few trinkets and -inconspicuous odds and ends which the women and children gather about -them. - -In the ell, flanking one of the little square living-rooms, is the -kitchen, with earth floor and the crudest of stone-and-plaster stoves -and implements. Next to this, or perhaps across the dusty, sun-baked -yard in the other right-angled extension, is a rough store-room, which -commonly alternates in location with an indispensable chamber offering -much less privacy and convenience than a Westerner could wish. The walls -of the floored rooms are usually covered with plain paper, white or -cream-colored, though sometimes figured in a way that recalls both Japan -and China. In the yard sit half a dozen or more enormous earthenware -jars of the color of chocolate. In one or two of these water is kept; -others are filled with preserved or pickled food, particularly the -Korean’s favorite delicacy, _kimshee_, a kind of sauer-kraut of cabbage -and turnips generously treated with salt and time and rarely missing -from the native menu except in the hot months when it is perforce out of -season. - -When it comes to heating his house the Korean takes complete leave of -his island neighbor and turns his face westward. Under the stone floor -runs a large flue, the entire length of the house, connected with the -kitchen at one end and springing out of the ground in the form of a -crude chimney or stovepipe at the other. None of this shivering over a -_hibachi_ filled with a few glowing coals for the otherwise -comfort-scorning Korean; he will have his dwelling well heated from end -to end, not merely his _k’ang_, or stone bed, after the Chinese fashion, -but every nook and corner within doors. While the cooking is going on he -may lie on the papered floor and toast himself to his heart’s content; -or a bundle of brushwood—almost the only fuel left him in his deforested -land—thrust into the business end of the flue in the morning and another -at night makes winter a mere laughing matter. It is an ingenious scheme, -yet not without its drawbacks. In the blazing summer-time, for instance, -there is no way of shutting off the kitchen heat, and the house-warming -goes as merrily on as in January. Not that the native seems to mind; he -is as immune to a hot bed as to a hard one. But many is the foreign -itinerant missionary who, having found lodging on a frosty night with -hosts who would outdo themselves in hospitality, has gratefully -stretched out on a nicely warmed floor and fallen luxuriously asleep—to -awaken half an hour later dripping with perspiration, and toss the night -through in a vain effort to shake off the nightmare impression of having -brought up in that very section of the after-world which all his earthly -efforts had been designed to avoid. - -[Illustration: - - Our first view of Seoul, in which the former Temple of Heaven is now a - smoking-room in a Japanese hotel garden -] - -[Illustration: - - The interior of a Korean house -] - -[Illustration: - - Close-up of a Korean “jicky-coon,” or street porter -] - -[Illustration: - - At the first suggestion of rain the Korean pulls out a little - oiled-paper umbrella that fits over his precious horsehair hat -] - -Like his neighbors, the Korean eats with chop-sticks, but he uses a flat -metal spoon with his rice. This grain is the basis of the better-class -meal, but is not so highly polished as in Japan; and it is too costly -for the common people, who replace it with cheaper grains, especially -millet. What may seem a hardship is really a blessing. The poverty which -denies them some of the refinements of the table imposes upon the people -of Korea a more healthful diet than that of their island neighbors; in -the mass they are more sturdily built; if all other signs are -insufficient one can usually distinguish a Korean from a Japanese by the -excellence of his teeth. Besides his beloved _kimshee_, no Korean meal -is complete without a pungent sauce made from beans pressed together -into what looks like a grindstone and then soaked in brine, a sauce into -which at least every other mouthful is dipped. Meat is more often eaten -than in Japan; fish, as generally. But tea is not widely used; in its -place the average Korean uses plain water, or the water in which barley -or millet has been cooked, or, best of all, _sool_, cousin of the fiery -_sake_ or _samshu_ of the neighboring lands. Then come a dozen little -side-dishes,—pickled vegetables, some strange, some familiar to us, -cucumbers cut up rind and all, green onions, and some distant member of -the celery family, all immersed in vinegar-and-oil baths, slices of hot -red peppers, tiny pieces of some hardy tuber, brittle sheets of seaweed -cooked in oil until they look as if they had been varnished, a jet-black -kind of lettuce, and other odds and ends for which there are no -equivalents in our language. Sugar is hardly used at all, and the -adaptable traveler who learns to be otherwise satisfied with a native -dinner usually rises to his feet with a longing for a bit of chocolate -or some similar delicacy. - - -It is curious how geographical names often persist in our languages of -the West long after they have become antiquated and even unknown in the -places to which we apply them. The name “Korea,” for instance, means -nothing to those who live in the peninsula we call by that term; nor for -that matter did the word “Korai” from which we took it ever refer to -more than a third of the country, and that long centuries ago. Ever -since they absorbed the former kingdom the Japanese have striven to get -the world to adopt the native name “Cho-sen” (the “s” is soft), a word -already legitimized by several hundred years of use. But the world is -notoriously backward in making such changes; perhaps it is suspicious of -the motives of Japan, and a bit resentful at her attempt to render whole -pages of our geographies out of date. Yet there is nothing mysterious or -tricky in the wholesale alterations in nomenclature which she has -wrought in her new possession, though there is often irksome annoyance. -Every province, every city, almost every slightest hamlet has been given -a new name; but this has come about as naturally as the Frenchman’s -persistent obstinacy in calling a horse a _cheval_. It is a mere matter -of pronunciation. A given Chinese ideograph stands, and has stood for -centuries, for a given town or village of Korea. The Korean looks at the -character and pronounces it, let us say, “Wonju”; the Japanese knows as -well as we know the word “cat” that the proper pronunciation is -“Genshu”—and there you are. It is hardly a dispute, but it is at least a -new means of harassing the traveler. If he is American or English, or -even French or German, for that matter, he will find that nearly all his -fellow-countrymen resident in the country, mainly missionaries, have -lived there, or been trained by those who have, since before the -Japanese took possession, and that they know only the Korean names. If -he has a guide-book, which is rather essential, it is almost certainly -concocted by the new rulers or under their influence, and insists on -using the Japanese names. So do the railway time-tables, all government -documents, and the like. Thus he discovers that it is almost impossible -to talk with his own people, at least on geographical matters. - -“Have you ever been in Heijo?” he begins, with the purpose of pumping a -compatriot for information on that second city of the peninsula. - -“Never heard of it,” replies the old resident, with a puzzled air, -whereupon the new-comer gives him up as a hopeless recluse and goes his -way, perhaps to learn a few days later that this very man was for ten -years the most influential foreigner in that very city, but that to him -it has always been, and still is, “Ping Yang.” Thus it goes, throughout -the length and breadth of the peninsula, so that the man who would -mingle with both sides must know that “Kaijo” is “Song-do,” that -“Chemulpo” is “Jinsen,” that what the guide-book and time-table call -“Kanko” has always been “Ham-hung” to the missionaries, that every last -handful of huts in Korea is known by two separate and distinct names, -though the erratic slashes with a weazel-hair brush which stands for it -in the ridiculous calligraphy of the East never varies. Long before his -education has reached this fine point the traveler will have completely -forgotten his resentment at finding, as he rumbles into it at the end of -a long summer day, that the city he has known since has early -school-days as “Seoul” is now officially called “Keijo.” - -It doesn’t greatly matter, however, for the chances are that he has -always spoken of it as “Sool,” which is the native fire-water, instead -of using the proper pronunciation of “Sow-ohl”; and to learn the new -name is easier than to change the old. Our own impressions of what was -for more than five centuries the capital of Ch’ao-Hsien, the Land of -Morning Calm, and is still the seat of the Government-General of -Cho-sen, started at delight, sank very near to keen disappointment, then -gradually climbed to somewhere in the neighborhood of calm enjoyment. -Seen from afar, the jagged rows of mountain peaks that surround it -should quicken the pulse even of the jaded wanderer. The promise that -here at last he will find that spell of the ancient East which romancers -have enticed him to seek, in the face of his cold better judgment, seems -to rise in almost palpable waves from among them. Then he descends at a -railway station that might be found in any prairie burg of our central -West, and is bumped away by Ford into a city that is flat and mean in -its superficial aspect, commonplace in form, and swirling with a fine -brown dust. But next morning, or within a day or two of random -wandering, according to the pace at which his moods are geared, interest -reawakens from its lethargy, and something akin to romance and youthful -enthusiasm grows up out of the details of the strange life about him. - -There are, of course, almost no real streets, in the American sense, in -the Far East; hence only those wholly unfamiliar with that region will -be greatly surprised to find that the “many broad avenues” of Seoul, -emphasized by semi-propagandist scribblers, are rather few in number -and, with one or two exceptions, are sun-scorched stretches of dust -which the rainy season of July and August will turn to oozing mud. But -the eye will soon be caught by the queer little shops crowded tightly -together along most of them, particularly by the haphazard byways that -lead off from them into the maze of mushroom hovels that make up the -native city. From out of these dirty alleys comes jogging now and then a -gaudy red and gold palanquin in which squats concealed some lady of -quality, though these conveyances now are almost confined to weddings -and funerals; the miserable little mud hovels disgorge haughty gentlemen -in spotless white who would be incredible did not the falsetto -_rat-a-tat_ of ironing and the groups of women kneeling along the banks -of every slightest stream explain them. There is constant movement in -the streets of Keijo, a movement that might almost be called -kaleidoscopic, were it not for the whiteness of Korean dress; but it -strikes one as rather an aimless movement, a leisurely if constant going -to and fro that rarely seems to get anywhere. Dignified _yangbans_, that -still numerous class of Korea, and especially of the capital, which in -the olden days was rated just below the nobility, strut past in their -amber beads and their huge tortoise-shell goggles as if they were really -going somewhere; but if one takes the trouble to follow them he will -probably find them doubling back on their tracks without having reached -any objective. In the olden days they could at least go to the -government offices where they pretended to do something for their -salaries; since Japan has taken away their sinecures without removing -the pride that forbids them to work, there is little else than this -random strolling left for them to do. - -In contrast to this numerous gentry, outdistanced by modern changes, -there are sweating coolies lugging this or that, bulls hidden under -mounds of brown-red brushwood from some far-off hillside, sleek-haired -women slinking by with an almost apologetic air, many of them with the -uncovered, sun-browned breasts somewhat less general in the capital than -elsewhere, here and there a Korean pony, cantankerous with his full -malehood, all streaming to and fro between an unbroken gauntlet of -languid shopkeepers in their fly-trap “household” caps, of mangy dogs -and dirty children. “Old-timers” will tell you that this was not so long -ago all there was to Seoul, except inside the several big palace -compounds, now so uninhabited; that walking, still much in vogue among -the Koreans, was for the overwhelming majority the only means of getting -about the city. Then there were no rickshaws, not over-numerous even -to-day after twelve years of wholly Japanese rule; then none of the -little dust- or mud-floored tram-cars, now so crowded, bumped along the -principal avenues; certainly no battered and raucous-voiced automobiles -scattered terror among the placid foot-going population. It is not -difficult to picture the comparative silence of that bygone Seoul, with -slipper-clad footsteps pattering noiselessly through the dust, or the -mild clumping of that cross between the Dutch wooden shoe and the -Japanese _geta_ still worn in muddy weather, punctuated now and then by -the booming of a mammoth bell, the mild hubbub of passing royalty -surrounded by shrieking out-runners, and the incessant accompaniment of -the falsetto _rat-a-tat_ of ironing. - -With the definite coming of the Japanese much of that ancient Seoul has -departed. The great wall that enclosed the city has been largely -leveled, for the Koreans, according to their new rulers, can only fight -behind walls. Only a pair of the imposing city gates remain, and these -as mere monuments instead of entrances and exits. The Independence Arch -built to celebrate the end of paying tribute to Peking stands shabby, -cracked, and blistered in a bed of sand in the ragged outskirts. Rubbish -and worse litter the dark, wooden-slatted enclosure in which the mighty -bell that once transmitted royal commands sits drunkenly and dejected on -the ground. Vagabonds build their nests beneath the Oriental roof that -shelters the stone-turtle monument of which the city was once so proud; -the magnificent Altar of Heaven has become a garden ornament within the -grounds of the principal hotel, and is generously furnished with -Japanese settees and capacious cuspidors bearing the railway-hotel -insignia. Of the three principal palaces one is a mere wilderness of -weeds and vacant-eyed edifices; another houses the weak-minded remnant -of the once royal family and has bequeathed most of its grounds to -museum, botanical, and zoölogical purposes; the third, and most -historic, is being completely hidden from the city by a mammoth modern -building designed to become the headquarters of the Governor-General. - -One might almost assume that a policy of blotting out the visible -reminders of the old independent Korea had been adopted by the new -rulers. Yet it is hardly that, I fancy, but mainly the utilitarian sense -of modern improvement which is showing such small respect for the -monuments of bygone Cho-sen. The Japanese are ardent in their efforts to -make Seoul a city in the modern sense—the modern Western sense, I could -have said, for their new structures are hardly copied from Japan. -Imposing buildings that might have been transported from our own large -cities are growing up for the housing of banks and important firms and -government offices. There is already one genuinely asphalted street; new -parks have been laid out where only wilderness or rubbish heaps were -before. Besides the big central one there are adequate branch -post-offices in every section of the city; police stations at every turn -keep a watchful eye out for new candidates to the mammoth new -penitentiary, built on the latest approved model, out near the “Peking -Pass.” After their lights the new rulers are steadily improving the -material aspect of the city, as of the whole peninsula. It would be too -much to expect them to improve certain personal habits and domestic -customs beyond the point which the Japanese themselves have reached, so -that some forms of uncleanliness and undress, for instance, which a new -American colony would quickly be forced to eradicate, have been given no -attention. - -The new rulers once planned even greater changes in the old city. They -set about with the apparent intention of virtually moving it, or at -least the commercial center of it, down nearer the River Han, in a -section they called Ryuzan. There they built the railway headquarters -and blocks of brick residences for the employees. A stone palace for the -mikado’s viceroy was erected, streets laid out, and improvements -impossible in the crowded portion of the city were projected. But -commerce has a way of choosing its own localities; the Koreans are -nothing if not conservative; local gossip has it that when Prince Ito -was taken down to see his new residence he remarked to his well meaning -subordinates that they might live down there in the swamp if they -wished, but that he for one would stay in town. The prince is well known -to have been no recluse and hermit who would deny himself the soft -pleasures of cities. In the end his choice proved wise, for it is a rare -rainy season that does not wipe out scores of native huts down along the -Han and encroach upon the unused and isolated palace he rejected. The -railway headquarters, residences, and school remain, and trains halt for -an exasperatingly long time at Ryuzan station, so near that of Nandaimon -to which most travelers are bound, almost as if the officials would vent -their pique at having their will thwarted; but even the Japanese -residents have preferred the old city. Along its southern edge, under -the brow of Nansan Hill, dwell and trade that quarter of the fourth of a -million of population which wears kimonos and _getas_, and the stroller -down “Honmachidori” and its adjacent streets, narrow, crowded, busy, and -colorful as a thoroughfare of old Japan, could easily imagine himself -back in the Island Empire, far from the languid, white-clad throngs of -the Land of Morning Calm. - - - - - CHAPTER II - SOME KOREAN SCENES AND CUSTOMS - - -It was our good fortune to dwell out over the hills beyond Seoul rather -than in the hot and often breathless city itself. The half-hour walk led -up past the big granite Bible School, along a little stream with its -inevitable clothes-paddling women, flanked the grave-mound of a little -prince, then climbed steeply over another half-wooded ridge from which -stretched a wide-spreading mountainous view, everywhere deep green -except for the broad brown streak of the River Han and here and there a -mushroom patch of village. An American mission college was building in a -big hilly pine-grove that owed its preservation to the tomb of a king’s -concubine. Pines as fantastic and sturdy as any in Japan stood out -against the sky-line; here and there a group of stinking chestnut-trees -kept them company. Before they were granted this semi-sacred site the -missionaries from our almost mythological land of “Mi-guk” had to agree -not to build anywhere overlooking the grave; they had already been asked -to close a path used as a short cut by students and an occasional -faculty member, because it ran along the brow of the hill above the -tomb. To look down upon a royal burial site is the height of disrespect -in Korea, hence they are all arranged after a fixed pattern designed to -avoid this sacrilege. - -Out beyond the Todaimon, or East Gate, on the opposite side of the city, -is the tomb of a more famous queen; but we preferred what we called our -own, which is identical in form and size, and in a solitude much less -often broken. Besides, “ours” really contained the mortal remains, while -even the finger and a few bones which were all that remained after the -brutal assassination and burning of Korea’s last queen were now buried -elsewhere. Quite like ours are all the royal graves scattered up and -down the peninsula of Cho-sen, in the several regions where succeeding -dynasties built their capitals, flourished for a while, and fell, so -that leisurely to visit it was worth a hasty glimpse of many others. - -We could wander up over the pine-clad hill to the grave, for all the -injunction against it; things are not so strict as all that in Korea, -unless something Japanese is involved. But it was more convenient, and -not merely more respectful, to approach the sanctuary from the bottom. -On a level space in the forest, wholly cleared of trees but thick with -grass, there was first of all the caretaker’s residence, a high-walled -compound set off in the edge of the woods to the left. In a direct line -down the center of the grassy rectangle stood first a _torii_, a square -arch made of three light tree-trunks painted red, the upper crosspiece -decorated with crude and fanciful carvings, a gateway without contiguous -fence or wall. The Koreans are sensitive about the use of this symbolic -entrance to their royal tombs; the caretaker of the little prince’s tomb -we passed on our way in or out of Seoul told us one day, when we found -that arch newly closed with barbed wire, that we might still pass -through the grounds, but not beneath the _torii_. A hundred feet or more -through this isolated entrance to her last resting-place stood the -concubine’s prayer-house, so to speak—a large building by Korean -standards, with a roof of highly colored tiles and four flaring -gable-peaks, along which sat as many rows of porcelain monkeys to guard -against evil spirits, as is the Korean custom. Through the many holes -that had been torn by time or inquisitive fingers in the oily paper -serving as glass between the slats of the many padlocked doors, one -could dimly make out a bare wooden floor, scattered with dust and bits -of rubbish, and a bare table-like altar on which, no doubt, boiled rice -and other foods are at certain intervals offered to the spirit of the -dead. It was plain that no such thoughtfulness had been shown recently, -for dust and dinginess and faded paint were the most conspicuous -features of the edifice, inside and out. - -Two smaller but similar chapels flanked this main building, behind which -the grass-rug-ed ground rose gradually to the burial mound, another -hundred feet back and some ten feet high. In front of this plain -grass-covered hillock stood a huge stone lantern, like those in Japanese -temple grounds, in the opening of which the reverent or the -superstitious sometimes place offerings of rice. Directly behind this -graceful receptacle rose what we of the West would call a tombstone, a -high upright granite slab standing on a big stone turtle and carved with -Chinese ideographs briefly extolling the departed lady’s alleged -virtues. More fantastic still were the figures about the mound, -duplicated on either side. First came two large stone horses, such as -might be chiseled by some aspiring but untalented school-boy. Then a -pair of stone men, priests, or gods, recalling similar figures in the -ruins of Tiahuanaco beyond Lake Titicaca, gazed at each other with a -sort of smirking, semi-skeptical benignity. Two lions, two rams, and two -mythological beasts, even more crudely fashioned than the rest, -completed the menagerie, all these last with their backs turned to the -mound, out of respect for the departed. Finally an ancient stone wall -with tiled roof threw a protective semicircle close about all this at -the rear, beyond which the rather thin pine forest, gnarled and bent -with age, climbed the hill-slopes across which only disrespectful -mortals ever pass. - - -About the only Korean thing which moves rapidly is a funeral, and even -this may have been a concession to the incessantly sweltering summer. We -met one rather frequently in the streets of Seoul,—a barbarously -decorated palanquin in blazing reds and yellows, borne by eight or ten -coolies in nondescript garb, who jog-trotted as if in haste to be out of -reach of the evil spirit that had laid low the inert burden inside. If -the latter had been a man of standing and sufficient wealth, there were -two palanquins, the second bearing the actual remains, the first a false -bier meant to deceive the wicked beings of the invisible world. The rest -of the procession was made up of priests in fantastic robes and flaring -head-dresses, leaning back at contented ease in their rickshaws, and a -varying string of relatives and perhaps friends, most of them in -sackcloth and on foot. Just where these incongruously hurrying cortèges -finally brought up we never learned to a certainty until we ourselves -moved out over the hills. - -In a hollow not far from our suburban residence rose the ugly red brick -chimney of what we at first took to be a small factory, but which turned -out to be one of the several crematories in the outskirts of Keijo. -Across the valley below us, by the little dirt road that wandered -through the flooded rice-fields, came several funeral processions a day, -announcing themselves by the shrieking auditory distresses which the -Koreans regard as music. The unseemly pace may have slackened somewhat -by this time for it is nearly five miles around the hills by the route -that even man-drawn vehicles must follow; but the clashing of colors was -still in full evidence, standing out doubly distinct against the velvety -green of newly transplanted rice. Now and again a procession halted -entirely for a few moments, while the carriers and pullers stretched -themselves out in the road itself or along the scanty roadside above the -flooded fields. We drifted down one day to one of them that was making -an unusually long halt, and found the chief mourner, a lean old lady of -viperous tongue, in a noisy altercation with the carriers over the price -of their services. But those who halted, or indulged in such -recriminations along the way were, no doubt, of the class that could not -pay for unchecked speed. - -Several times, too, when whim took us to town over the high hill from -which an embracing view of Seoul was to be had, we saw processions -returning. Then they were quite different. The chief burden, naturally, -had been left behind, and the palanquins are collapsible, so that -mourners and carriers straggled homeward by the steep direct route as -the spirit moved them, the latter at least contentedly smoking their -long tiny pipes, and musing perhaps on the probability of soon finding -another victim. But the end and consummation of all this gaudy parading -to and fro remained to us only an ugly red brick chimney, standing idle -against its hilly background or emitting leisurely strands of -yellowish-black smoke, according to the demand for its gruesome -services. - -Then one evening curiosity got the better of our dislike for unpleasant -scenes, and we strolled out to the uninviting hollow. In it, a little -above the level of the plain, sat a commonplace brick building with half -a dozen furnace-chambers not unlike those of a brick-kiln. Several -Koreans of low class, stripped to the waist, were languidly working -about it, now and then producing discordant noises, which was their -manner of humming a tune. Close before the principal building stood a -smaller one, from which rose the loud chanting of a single voice that -would have won no fame on the Western operatic stage. This, we learned, -belonged to the priest whose duty it was to give each client the -spiritual send-off to which he was entitled by the price of admission to -the furnaces. The cost of cremating a body, explained one of the -workmen, was twelve yen (nearly six dollars), but it included an -hour-long prayer by the priest. The latter was too steadily engaged in -his duties to be interrupted, but the cremators were openly delighted at -the attention of foreigners, and at the opportunity of helping us make -the most of what they called our “sight-see.” Into the ears of the -articulate member of our party, born in Korea, they poured the details -of their calling without reserve. _That_, inside the rude straw-mat -screen which stood between the house of prayer and the door to the -ovens, had come early in the afternoon, they explained, but he was only -a poor man and had to give precedence to his betters. We peered over the -top of the screen and saw a corpse completely wrapped in straw and -fastened to a board with ropes of similar material. Did we care to see -what was left of the last job? one of the coolies wished to know. It was -time that was finished, anyway. He led the way to the back of the -furnaces, opened an iron door, and, catching up a crude, heavy iron -rake, hauled out half a peck of charred bones and ashes. This, he -explained, unnecessarily, as he turned up one still glowing remnant of -bone after another, was a rib, that was a piece of what the man walked -on, and so forth. It was a rich man, he chattered on—to be rich in his -eyes did not, of course, imply being a millionaire—and he had been sent -here all the way from Fusan. The dead man’s relatives, he continued, as -he carelessly raked the still smoking débris into a tin pan and set it -aside to cool, had paid him to keep some of the ashes for them, instead -of dumping them in the common ash-heap. Rich people always did that. But -it was time to get that other fellow there out of the way, and go home -to supper. - -“What did he die of?” we asked, as the straw screen was thrown aside and -the planked corpse fully disclosed to view. - -“Of a stomachache,” replied one of the two coolies, as they caught up -plank, straw wrapping, and all, and thrust the last “job” into the -furnace, then salvaged the plank with a dexterous twist and jerk. No -flames were visible in the depositing-chamber itself; the heat was -applied externally, so to speak, perhaps as a sort of survival of the -olden days when Korean dead were wrapped in a mat and left to bake and -fester in the sun. We were turning away, satisfied for a lifetime with -one “sight-see” of that kind, when a sound, so out of keeping with the -matter-of-fact tone of the workmen as to be startling, brought us back -again. Out of the semi-darkness had appeared a Korean of the peasant or -porter class, past forty, lean and sun-browned; and with a wail that had -in it something of an animal in extreme distress, he flung himself at -the furnace door as if he would have torn it open and rescued the form -it had for ever swallowed up. We had never suspected the rank-and-file -Korean capable of showing such poignant grief. Nor was it seemly in one -of his standing, evidently, for almost at his second wail the three -carriers who had brought the body rushed down upon him and demanded -forthwith the price of their services. Their strident bargaining rose -high above the dismal, discordant droning of the so-much-a-yard prayers -that had never once ceased during our stay. The surly porters made it -plain that there was no time for vain mourning while the serious matter -of their hire was unsettled. - -“He was my older brother,” wept the man, “the last of my family. Have I -any one left? Not one. And now....” - -The unsatisfied carriers were still cruelly bullyragging him when we -left, and the sound of their quarreling voices, intermingled with the -never ending droning of the priest, came to us through the night after -we were well on our way home. - -It is only the Buddhists who cremate by choice in Korea, and by no means -the majority of the people are of that faith. Many are mere -ancestor-worshipers, or placaters of evil spirits, or have a mixture of -several Oriental faiths and superstitions which they themselves could -not unravel. The non-Buddhists bury their dead, and thereby hangs, as in -China, a serious problem. For definitely circumscribed public cemeteries -will not do. The repose of the departed and the fortune and happiness of -his descendants depends upon the proper choice of a burial-place, which -is by no means a simple matter. It calls for the services of -sorceresses, necromancers, and other expensive professionals; it may -take much time; and the final indications may point to a most unlikely -and inconvenient spot. Green mounds, wholly unmarked except in the -rarest of cases, but each known to the descendants whose most solemn -duty it is to tend them, cover hundreds of great hillsides throughout -the peninsula, to the detriment of agriculture, Korea’s main occupation. -The Japanese took the Western utilitarian point of view and ordered -prescribed areas set aside for graveyards; but this was one of the most -hated of their reforms, and the right to lay away their dead at least in -private cemeteries has once more been granted to the Koreans. - - -Tucked away in the pine-clad hills about us were several little Buddhist -monasteries. The last word is deceiving, however, for there was hardly -anything monasterial about these semi-isolated retreats. In theory the -Buddhist monks and priests of Korea live in celibacy; in practice few -even of their most devout coreligionists pretend to believe that they do -so. About the tile-roofed clusters of buildings, varying mainly in -pretentiousness from the thatched homes of laymen, there was no dearth -of women and children; and the monks were the last in the world to deny -themselves the pleasure of wandering to the near-by city or up and down -the country as the mood came upon them. The brilliant saffron robe that -distinguishes the followers of the Way in central Asia, and adds so -vividly to the picturesqueness of lands farther west, is unknown in -Korea. A shaven head in place of the precious topknot is almost the -monk’s only difference in appearance from the ordinary layman; when whim -or a sincere desire to tread in the path marked out by Gautama sends him -out into the Korean world, the distinguishing hat of woven ratan may be -superimposed, but even the symbolic pretense of a begging-bowl hardly -marks him out from his more toilsome fellow-countrymen. For a long -period in the history of Korea, Buddhist monks were rated lower in the -social scale than even the peasants of the fields, and this attitude -toward them has survived, perhaps unconsciously, in a marked lack of -deference, almost an indifference to them, except in their official -capacity, or among an unusually superstitious minority. - -In these monasteries the principal living-room—to use the word very -loosely—is floored with the thick oily brownish paper universal in -private dwellings, and the scant furniture is of a similar type. Perhaps -one of the big half-oval drums that call such of the monks as happen to -be within hearing to their not very arduous duties swings from the -center of the low ceiling; about the walls may sit a few bronze -ornaments or figures of some significance which totally escapes the -uninformed visitor. Certainly Gautama himself would not recognize the -barbarous gaudiness, the crowds of fantastic figures which clutter the -adjoining temples, as having been inspired by his simple teachings. Big -golden Buddhas in the center, behind a kind of altar and offering-table -in one, are flanked on either side clear around the three walls of the -room with hybrid manikins of Chinese mythology and demonology, often of -human size, which would outdo the phantasmagoric imaginings of any child -in terror of the dark. Fourth wall is there none, but only a long series -of double doors, which first open and then lift up to the horizontal, -where they are supported by quaint Oriental substitutes for hooks. If -the discreet rattling of a few small coins succeeds in accomplishing the -complete opening of the doors, the more than dim religious light of the -musty interior gives way to the glaring radiance of cloudless Korea, and -a myriad of details that are otherwise only suspected, if even that, -make their appearance. One discovers, for instance, that in addition to -the score or more of large figures in the gaudiest of greens, reds, and -all possible clashings of colors there are several times as many -figurines, knee-high or less, interspersed among them, as if these queer -puppets had their human quota of offspring. Like their adult companions, -these little effigies wear expressions varying all the way from that of -terrorizing demons to a smirking gentleness which suggests a well spent -babyhood. Mere words, however, are useless pigments with which to -attempt to picture the color-splashed paintings that cover the walls -behind the row of stodgy standing figures. All the chaos of Oriental -mythology seems to have been thrown together here, in battle scenes, in -court processions, in helter-skelter throngs of human beings in garbs -that were antiquated long before the Christian era, all fleeing in -terror from the mammoth central figure of some wrathful monarch, his -wildly bearded face painted jet-black to suggest the horror that his -countenance sheds upon all beholders. Every feature of these silent -temple denizens, be it noted, are Chinese, not Korean; and history tells -us that as late as the Boxer Rebellion it was not so much the European -troops as their black auxiliaries who put terror into the hearts of the -fleeing Celestials. - -Gautama, the Buddha, as I have said, would puzzle in vain to find the -connection between the strange beings which clutter these Buddhist -temples and his own gentle doctrine. The medieval Christian, on the -other hand, should find himself perfectly at home in certain corners of -them, where are depicted such scenes as sinners fastened between two -planks in order to simplify the task of assistant devils nonchalantly -sawing them down the middle from crown to hips, in exactly the same way -that Oriental workmen turn logs into lumber to this day. Perhaps the -most surprising thing about these monasteries, to visitors from -Christian lands, is the complete lack of sanctity toward the objects -they worship which marks the outward behavior of the inmates. Casual -callers of other faiths, or of the absence thereof, are as freely -admitted to the most sacred corners as the monks themselves. The -elaborate genuflections and throaty chantings of a group of bonzes in -full barbaric regalia at the behest of a group of peasants come to lay -offerings of rice and copper coins before a favorite figure may be -followed a moment later by the tossing of a dirty altar-cloth or a dusty -old rag over the head of the same god to whom they have just been -appealing so grovelingly. Whatever their faults, there is always -something charming about the tolerance of Buddhists. No small number of -Christian missionaries in Korea spend their summer furloughs in the -monasteries of this gentle rival faith. - - -We struck out one Sunday afternoon over the high hill directly north of -us, to visit the famous White Buddha, carved and painted on a great -stream-washed rock cliff in the outskirts of the capital. It needs much -less of a climb beneath the blazing sun of midsummer Korea to leave one -drenched, but the view from the crest soon made that a half-forgotten -detail. Of the hills rolling away into mountains on every hand, or the -broad brown Han flecked with its rectangular junk-sails, little need be -said; such scenes are commonplace in Cho-sen. But the complete panorama -of Keijo, erstwhile Seoul, beginning at the very base of the -perpendicular rock cliffs below us and stretching from the “Peking Pass” -to far beyond Todaimon Gate, from ill sited Ryuzan to the section of old -city wall along a mountain ridge which the Japanese have permitted to -stand, called for a longer breathing-spell. Ancient Chinese-roofed -palaces, efforts at modern buildings which somehow still seem -unacclimated, the mainly Japanese city to the south of Shoro-dori—that -broad street which distinctly separates Keijo into two nearly equal -portions—the acres of yellow-brown thatched Korean huts of the northern -half so compact as almost to seem a great hayfield, all stand out with -the clearness of an illuminated engraving. Most incongruous, as well as -most conspicuous, of all the details of the picture are the homes and -other structures of the Christian missionaries, of red brick, and -standing forth, if the time-worn comparison is legitimate in such a -connection, like sore thumbs. Statistics assert that of the quarter of a -million dwelling in Seoul only two hundred are Caucasians, a statement -which there is no good reason to question, but which nevertheless seems -strange from any such point of vantage above the city, for the big -twin-spired Catholic cathedral alone, on the commanding site it has been -true to form in choosing, seems to imply far more than that number. It -was not merely the sounds of washing and ironing coming up to us in a -great muffled chorus from the city below on this brilliant Sunday -afternoon, however, which reminded us that for all these obvious -edifices we were in no Christian country. - -At the foot of the swift jungle-clad descent to the narrow suburb along -the northern highway our ears were suddenly assailed by a great jangling -hubbub. We crowded into the little courtyard of the square-forming house -from which the sounds arose, and found that we had stumbled upon a -sorceress performance. Numbers of men and children and many women were -jostling one another along the wall-less fronts of two rooms on opposite -sides of the yards, inside which the typical native hocus-pocus was at -its height. On the papered floor of each room a sorceress was hopping, -posturing, grimacing, and from time to time shrieking, with an activity -which at least could not leave her open to the charge of physical -laziness. I am no custodian of fancy-dress ball costumes, hence I can do -little more than appeal to the vivid imaginations of those better fitted -for the task to picture to themselves the incredible regalia in which -these two middle-aged females, with the worldly wise faces, were -swathed, though I can throw in the hint that they would not have -suffered from cold six months thence, and that head-dresses which seemed -to have been built, and then improved upon and built some more, about -sections of stovepipe formed the crowning feature of their make-up. - -We gave our attention mainly to the older, more agile, and more -demoniacal of the pair. In one hand she swung incessantly a curved knife -half as long as herself, and in the other a big clumsy iron -three-pronged spear not unlike the one attributed to Father Neptune, one -of her principal objects evidently being to slash and prod and swing as -near the credulous beings who crowded about her as she could without -inflicting actual physical injury upon them. In one corner sat half a -dozen dejected-looking men picking at native musical instruments as they -howled, and seeming to resent that the despised sex occupied the center -of the stage. Several ordinarily dressed women stood or squatted along -the walls. These, it was explained to us, had sick children and had come -to have the malignant devils that had entered their little bodies -exorcised and driven out. From time to time the sorceress called upon -them to rise and join in the dance, particularly to posture in the -center of the room while she made wild lunges at them with her two -weapons. At other times they were ordered to kneel and bow their heads -to the mats before what seemed to be imaginary gods or devils behind the -displays of food set around the edges of the room. Now and again they -ate bits of this, and at certain rather regular intervals the sorceress -ceased her hopping, lunging, and posturing to partake copiously of some -native drink respectfully tendered her by women of the house, or by -those who had come to get the benefit of her ministrations. Through it -all the dejected male orchestra, squatted on the floor in a corner, -screeched incessantly some incredibly discordant Korean conception of -music. - -[Illustration: - - Some of the figures, in the gaudiest of colors, surrounding the Golden - Buddha in a Korean temple -] - -[Illustration: - - The famous “White Buddha,” carved and painted in white, on a great - boulder in the outskirts of Seoul -] - -[Illustration: - - One day, descending the hills toward Seoul, we heard a great jangling - hubbub, and found two sorceresses in full swing in a native house, - where people come to have their children “cured” -] - -[Illustration: - - The _yang-ban_, or loafing upper class of Korea, goes in for archery, - which is about fitted to their temperament, speed, and initiative -] - -Half an hour or more after our arrival the sorceresses simultaneously -changed their costumes to something quite different but equally -fantastic, and after a deep drink and a long breath each they sprang -again into the fray. They had already been at it for hours and might -continue until dark. For these ceremonies seem to be rather of a -wholesale nature, to which come all those who happen that day to have a -devil to be exorcised, and the price of that service available. The -bystanders made themselves comfortably at home, as is commonly the -custom in the easy-going East, unawed by the great feats that were -taking place before their eyes. Children played in and out of the -throng; men, and some women too, placidly smoked their long tiny pipes; -the sturdy fellow who had brought the paraphernalia of the sorceress -calling slept babe-like on the box in which it had come, waiting for the -word to carry it away again. Apparently there was nothing to be feared, -except by the evil spirits which were being cast forth from within their -absent or present victims. For some of the women had brought their -ailing children in the flesh and were subjecting them to the noisy -balderdash in ways that should have increased rather than diminished the -demons of illness within them. How many mothers of sick infants came to -that day’s ceremony was only suggested by the dozen or more present at -one time. How many worldly-wise women of Korea, some of the most famous -of them blind or boasting some other infirmity reputed to increase such -powers, win their livelihood and even lay up small fortunes as -sorceresses, even the statistics-loving Japanese overlords probably -could not tell. One runs across them in wayside villages, in little -valleys hidden by brush and rocks out among the hills all over the -country—and in nearly every case there is a modern hospital run by -missionaries or the Government no great distance away, sometimes, as -here in Seoul, right on the road to the performance, where ailing -infants would be readily admitted, probably at less cost than the fee of -a sorceress. - - -The Japanese are so often accused of having no ideas of their own that -perhaps I am mistaken in believing that they did not copy from some -other nation their Railway School in Seoul. It is their own impression -that the idea originated with the general manager of the Korean part of -the South Manchuria Railway, and their opinion ought at least to be -worth those of passing strangers. The plan is to recruit young boys -after the usual six years of preliminary schooling and gather them -together into a kind of railway West Point, where future employees of -the railway shall be trained not merely in the immediate and mechanical -things of their calling, but in general citizenship, in _esprit de -corps_, in all those things which a body of men charged with so -important a job as running a great railway system should have and be. -There was already great eagerness to enter the school, though it was -only in its third year, since the future for which it prepares is not -only moderately bright but is definite and certain. At intervals -competitive examinations for admission are given. The latest one had -been attended by one thousand and eighty candidates, of whom a hundred -and fifty were admitted to the school. The Japanese officials asserted, -and seemed sincerely to believe, that, given equal preliminary training, -Korean youths have equal opportunities for admission to the school and -for preferment in what lies beyond. But the bare fact that of the five -hundred and thirty-eight students only eighty were Koreans did not make -it easy to accept this statement without question. It would scarcely be -natural in any nation, let alone one of so tight a national feeling as -Japan, to let such prizes get to any extent out of the hands of their -own people. - -The school is a big red-brick building, or compact cluster of them, down -at Ryuzan, where the railroad community lives in an orderly, well built -town of its own, and it has everything which even the most exacting -peoples of the West expect a school to have. The principal is not a -railroad man, but an M.A. and a famous pedagogue from Japan, and the -whole curriculum is laid out with the idea of giving the future trainmen -as broad a training as could possibly be of use to them in the line of -work toward which they are heading. All of them take, for instance, six -hours of English a week. They are taught the importance of courtesy in -its practical as well as its ethical aspects—a point which seems to have -been largely missed by the labor-union brotherhoods of the West. To the -strictly utilitarian Occident some of the things taught would seem -highly fanciful. We would hardly expect our engine-drivers to take -fencing, samurai style, as well as jiu-jitsu, however handy these -accomplishments might be in ridding their trains of hoboes. But the -Japanese idea is to develop health and physique and a well-rounded -personality as well as mere mechanical ability, the spirit of fair-play, -character and _esprit de corps_, as well as mere laborers’ qualities, -that there may be a railway morale, as there is in most countries an -army and a navy morale. Thereby the founder of the school hopes to avoid -what he calls “labor-union madness,” and at the same time to have men -properly fitted to come into contact with the public; not merely pullers -of throttles and takers of tickets. The school, as I have said, is -barely three years of age, so that one could scarcely expect any -distinctly visible results of the policy as yet in the railway itself, -but the scheme strikes even the layman observer as at least one thing -Japanese well worth imitating. - -When the Russians and the Japanese grappled with each other a couple of -decades ago, the railways of Korea, it will be recalled, were not linked -up with those of Manchuria, destined to be the chief battleground. The -little islanders pushed them quickly through, first in hastily -constructed emergency form for military use, and later in a more -finished manner. To this day they are straightening out curves and -moving higher up from flooding areas that were ill chosen in war-time -haste, and here and there along the way lie bits of the old road-bed and -the abandoned abutments of a bridge that is gone. Like the railways of -Japan, those of Korea are government owned; but they are not government -operated. The South Manchuria Railway system, comprising all the Treaty -of Portsmouth transferred from the Russians to their victors, has been -given, as a private corporation, the complete control of the lines in -Cho-sen for a long term of years, so that both comprise virtually one -system, and operate as two trunk lines—from Fusan to Mukden and from -Dairen and Port Arthur to Changchun, with their various branches. There -is nothing of the Japanese model about these railways; they are almost -exact copies of those in the United States, with standard gage, American -cars with only minor hints of European influence, even the deep-voiced -whistle which so instantly carries any wandering one of us back to his -home-land. There is no railroad in the world at which the carping -traveler cannot now and then find fault, but on few will he be harder -put to it to find just cause for grumbling often than on these two -systems operated as one from Dairen. - - - - - CHAPTER III - JAPANESE AND MISSIONARIES IN KOREA - - -In Korea the traveler who has seen them at home gets a somewhat -corrected picture of the Japanese. It is as if they had put their best -and their worst foot forward there simultaneously, and cause for high -praise lies plainly side by side with reasons for strong censure. -Everyone in the peninsula seems to admit that materially Korea is much -better off for having been taken over, lock, stock, and barrel, by -Japan. Intrigues, the selling of offices, brigands, few and virtually -worthless police, catch-as-catch-can tax methods to impoverish the -people, a government so corrupt that there was not a breath of hope left -in the country or the hearts of its inhabitants—there remained in all -the peninsula of Cho-sen little but the most primitive agriculture in an -almost wholly deforested land when the Japanese at length took upon -themselves the task and the pleasure of administering it. But like our -involuntary wards of the West Indies and elsewhere, the Koreans object -to being forcibly improved, and it is not, one comes to the conclusion, -merely disgruntled, because dispossessed, native politicians who are -creating the continued growl of dissatisfaction. - -For all the admitted improvements they have brought, in spite of a -distinct change of policy now under a civil instead of a military -government, even the mere passer-by will scarcely fail to hear a long -list of Korean grievances against the Japanese, and he is not unlikely -to see some of these exemplified before his own eyes. The Japanese make -so free with the country, run the complaints; they treat it as something -picked up from the discard, with all signs of its former grandeur -obliterated, no memory even of a former existence. They always speak of -“Japan proper” when they mean their native islands, as if this great -peninsula, more than half as large as their Empire “proper” including -Formosa, and with seventeen million people who are distinctly not -Japanese, were a mere tatter on the garment itself. They change without -a by-your-leave not only the form of government but the very names of -the provinces; they interfere in the minutest matters of every-day -life—require people to walk on the left side of the street, for -instance. Those who came when the country was first taken over did -anything, the complaints continue, took anything, that pleased their -fancy or appealed to their appetites, without payment, or at whatever -they chose to pay. A new governor chased this riffraff out of the -peninsula and a better class is now in evidence; but even these strike -the passing observer as “cockier,” more arrogant than the average in -Japan—and perhaps somewhat brighter. - -One is quickly reminded of Poland under the Germans, from whom it might -easily be suspected that the Japanese copied almost verbatim in their -annexation of what was once Korea. Japanese get the cream of mines, -factories, and other concessions; the advantages given the “Oriental -Development Company,” in reality a semi-official, strictly Japanese, -concern, amount to a scandal. The monopoly bank does about as it sees -fit in rates and exchanges; wherever there is a chance for it a Japanese -always seems to get the preference over a Korean. Railwaymen, policemen, -even the “red caps” at stations, are nearly all Japanese; at such places -the Japanese rickshaw-men are given the best stands, with their Korean -competitors in the background. I was returning one night from Gensan on -the east coast, whence there had just been put on a night train to -Seoul, which for some reason had not been found worthy of carrying a -sleeper. About twenty minutes before train-time I started through the -platform gate, only to be stopped by the gateman, who almost at the same -instant promptly punched the ticket of a little man in kimono and -scraping wooden _getas_ and let him pass. My training in taking a back -seat having been neglected, I pushed past the gateman and followed the -sandal-wearer across to the waiting train. From end to end it was half -full of Japanese passengers, most of them stretched out on two double -seats; and when, just before the train started, Korean passengers were -admitted to the platform, there was little left for them to do but to -squat on the floor or the arm of a seat here and there or stand up all -night. - -I have seen a petty Japanese official keep a public autobus waiting for -half an hour while he played with his children or had a last cup of tea -with his neighbors. Railway stations are, with few exceptions, miles -from the towns they serve, though the line may run almost directly -through them. Possibly, as those in authority claim, this is for -protection, though I do not know from what; the disinterested visitor -finds himself agreeing with the Koreans that it is probably done so that -a Japanese town can grow up under more advantageous conditions than the -old Korean city behind it, as has already happened in many cases, and -perhaps to help the Japanese owners of Fords, rickshaws, and hotels. The -Japanese hold up and examine mail, whether of Koreans, missionaries, or -foreigners in general, at the slightest provocation, often, one -suspects, out of mere curiosity. Korean youths who wish to go to school -in America or Europe are almost invariably refused passports. Possibly a -dozen are granted out of a thousand applications, and it often takes as -long as a year to get those. One group of students who applied for -permission to study industries abroad were told to study them in -Chinnampo instead. To appreciate the joke fully one must have seen -Chinnampo. In general the Koreans are virtually prisoners within their -own country, and even if they escape from it they are not always safe. -Koreans whose land has been taken away from them by force have moved to -Manchuria and become Chinese citizens. Even if this prattle of -“self-determination” means nothing so far as nations are concerned, -certainly the right of an individual to choose his own allegiance should -be axiomatic in this day and generation. But the Japanese will not -recognize the Chinese citizenship of a Korean. Having taken the country, -they claim possession of all its people also, irrespective of their -location or personal choice, and send soldiers to round them up on the -foreign soil of Manchuria, forcing the Chinese to hold them in their -jails, bringing them back to Korea for trial, or shooting them on the -spot. - -Everywhere the Japanese stick together—another German trait; if they did -not know the ropes and have everything in their favor, including the -official language, say those who know both races well, the Koreans would -outdo them in almost any line. Personally I could not sign so broad a -statement, for though I have seen many indications that the Koreans are -of quicker and sharper intelligence than the Japanese, they have other -weaknesses which largely neutralize this advantage. But the policy in -Korea, even in these improved days, seems never to be humanity and -justice first, but Japan and the Japanese _über alles_—and after that -whatever may conveniently be added. Koreans of standing say that Japan’s -inability to overlook her petty interests for the fulfilment of greater -things is her greatest weakness, as her policy of assimilation, of -trying to make Koreans over into Japanese, which the experience of -Germany in Poland should have taught her not to attempt, is her greatest -mistake. The same dominating instinct which insists that even a railway -porter shall be Japanese, if one applicant among a hundred is of that -race, is manifest in all her political dealings, and this -over-patriotism may prove her final undoing, where a bit less of it -might permit her to continue as an unconquered nation under a single -dynasty for another twenty-five hundred years. - -Japan is eager to make Shintoists of the Koreans, to teach them that -ancient cult of the mikado as a direct descendant of the gods which has -been revived and repaired and strengthened during the last half-century -in Japan itself, that his “divine right” may survive even in an age that -is so completely in disagreement with such fallacies. Korean -school-children especially are subjected to this form of propaganda, so -similar to the German school- and pulpit-made _Kultur_ of kaiserly days. -The requirement that their children in government schools shall not -merely salute the banner of the rising sun at frequent intervals, but -shall bow down daily in what is virtually worship, however much the -Japanese may deny it, before a picture of the mikado, is one of the -sorest points with the Koreans. A modicum of intelligence should tell -any people that such methods are out of date and much worse than -useless. The new Shinto shrines on hilltops all over Korea, with their -newly peeled _torii_ before them, look like late and exceedingly weak -rivals of the Christian churches which dot the peninsula. - -Until very recently all Japanese officials in Korea, including -_schoolteachers_, wore uniforms and carried swords! Picture to yourself -how much more handy the latter would be than a ferule. But Japanese -influence on the rising generation would be greater if there were not -such a discrepancy in the rights of schooling. With seventeen million -Koreans and less than three hundred and fifty thousand Japanese in -Korea, the 65,654 Korean children who find accommodations in government -schools represent something like one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of the -Korean population, while the 34,183 Japanese youngsters in school are -one tenth of the sons of Nippon in the peninsula. Yet the Government -still hampers to a certain extent private, and especially missionary, -schools. The Japanese have brought many improvements, say the Koreans, -but for whom? - -Silk, tobacco, salt, _gin-seng_, to some extent beans, and in a certain -sense prostitution, are government monopolies in Korea. The Japanese -seem to bring immorality and “red lights” and disease wherever they take -root, and to adopt a callous, cynical attitude toward this matter which -marks them as closely related to the French in at least that one point. -Thirty years ago, say missionary doctors, before their war with China -brought the islanders to the peninsula in any great number, the diseases -of prostitution were virtually unknown in Korea; now they are widely -prevalent. As is their custom, the Japanese have established -_yoshiwaras_ in every city of any size, with Korean as well as Japanese -inmates—Chinese also in the zone they control in Manchuria—and while -these are not exactly government owned, the protection accorded them, -the official regulation of them, and the large income in the form of -taxes derived from them makes them virtually so. - - -A Japanese policeman in spotless white summer uniform and sword, -relieved by a blood-red cap-band which is said to be symbolical, is to -be found in any Korean gathering, even in the utmost corner of the -peninsula. The traveler will probably not be in Korea long before he -sees one or two such officers driving to prison a Korean with his arms -tightly bound with ropes, the loose ends of which serve as reins. This -is an old Oriental custom, but one feels that it could, to advantage, -yield to something a little more modern and reasonable, a bit less -conspicuous. In August, 1919, the police force under an army -lieutenant-general virtually independent of civil authority was replaced -by a gendarmerie or constabulary directly responsible to the new -governor-general, Baron Saito. The latter is widely admitted to be a -superior official, with the best of intentions and a high grade of -ability. But tales of oppression by subordinates, and cruelties by the -police, persist even under his comparatively beneficent rule. The -time-honored excuse that “excesses of police and gendarmes do not have -the approval of higher authorities” is out of date; if higher officials -cannot curb those under them, they are equally to blame. Baron Saito’s -Government seems to recognize this and has changed the formula to “It -cannot be true that the police still beat prisoners, for there is a law -against it.” Definite cases of persecution and torture still turn up -from time to time, but the victims are so cowed that they dare not -report the matter to higher authorities, and a fluent lie by the police -involved settles an investigation, since the word of a Japanese is -always accepted over that of a Korean. An American missionary who had -reported many cases of persecution to the present governor was asked to -bring the next victim in person. But when he suggested to a man who had -sneaked in to see him, badly cut up and mottled in black and blue from -head to foot, that he go and show himself to the governor-general, the -fellow all but fled at the bare suggestion. Word would be sure to get -back to the police of his own province, he insisted, and he would be -manhandled worse than ever when he went home. True, gendarmes who -misbehave are sometimes court-martialed, which sounds to the average -civilian like something dreadful, but those of us with a little military -experience know how often a court martial is a synonym for a -whitewashing, unless it is the sacred army itself which has been -wronged. - -[Illustration: - - The Korean method of ironing, the rhythmic _rat-a-tat_ of which may be - heard day and night almost anywhere in the peninsula -] - -[Illustration: - - Winding thread before one of the many little machine-knit stocking - factories in Ping Yang -] - -[Illustration: - - The graves of Korea cover hundreds of her hillsides with their green - mounds, usually unmarked, but carefully tended by the superstitious - descendants -] - -It is not, of course, quite the same to a Korean to be beaten by the -police as it seems to us. Flogging has been practised in Korea as far -back as records go, and it is not unnatural that Japanese gendarmes -should consider this the only sure way of really reaching the intellect -or getting the truth out of some Koreans. But they failed to see that -while men punished in this time-honored way by their fellow-countrymen -might not feel particularly humiliated, might take it almost like a son -from his father, they would deeply resent being so treated by Japanese -aliens, little men whom they have always heartily despised. Certainly -some ugly stories are still afloat, and all indications point to the -probability that the torturing of prisoners—and of witnesses—still goes -on in the secrecy of some police stations, the perhaps real disapproval -of higher authorities notwithstanding. To say that the same thing -sometimes occurs in New York is not to make the practice any less -reprehensible. - -Once convicted of a crime, it is another matter; but when a man is -suddenly arrested without warning and imprisoned for weeks, months and -sometimes more than a year without knowing what charge has been made -against him, without being allowed to get a word in or out of prison, -even to notify some one to communicate with his family or see a lawyer, -or to do anything but sit and await the good pleasure of his jailers, -which may include being bambooed for two hours daily, the infliction of -the “water cure,” the clamping of the fingers, the hanging up by the -thumbs, the forced squat, and many other ingenious tortures which are -guaranteed to leave no telltale marks on the body, it is not a sign of -civilization but a remnant of the barbarism from which Japan tries hard -to prove to the world that she has entirely recovered. Once the police -get a confession by such methods there is no going back on it, we were -told, no matter how innocent the sufferer really may be. His case is -turned over at once to the procurator, and only after he has been twice -condemned can he have counsel. The French system of considering the -accused guilty until he proves his innocence prevails, and the chief of -police has often been known to sit behind the judge and virtually to -give him his orders as to what is to be done with the prisoner at the -bar. Nine months in prison merely as a witness has been the experience -of many a Korean Christian. Interpreters, even in important conspiracy -cases, where it may be a matter of life and death, are reputed to -mistranslate testimony in favor of Japanese or in favor of conviction. -There is a classic case of an American missionary arrested during the -independence movement on the charge of “harboring prisoners,” simply -because he did not drive out of his house convert students whom he knew -to be innocent and whom the police were eager to torture. Though he was -ill at the time, he was refused permission to have a bed brought from -his house to the bedless prison, was not allowed even to send word of -his whereabouts to his wife, was kept _incommunicado_ for fifteen days, -during which he was grilled by a haughty Japanese official who spoke to -him only in “low talk,” such as one uses to coolies, and after four -trials his punishment was reduced from one year’s imprisonment to a fine -of a hundred yen. - -Perhaps the most repulsive custom of the Japanese police in Korea, from -our Western point of view, is their indifference to domestic privacy. -They march even into school-girls’ dormitories or women’s apartments -with or without provocation; American missionary women traveling in the -interior have often been compelled to admit policemen to their quarters -at inns or in the homes of converts not only after they have prepared -for bed, but several times during the night, merely to answer over and -over again their silly “Who-are-you? How-old-you? Where-you-come-from? -Where-you-go?” questions. - -The many reforms that have recently been introduced into Korea, say its -residents, would have been of far more credit to the Japanese if they -had thought of them before rather than after the independence movement -of March, 1919. The handling of that, by the way, was a typical example -of Japanese stupidity. The independence agitation which broke out -simultaneously all over the peninsula was merely a demonstration to -prove to the outside world that the Koreans had not been so completely -and successfully “Japalacked” (as the missionaries, with no unbounded -love for the little brown Prussians of the East, put it) as the Japanese -at the peace conference led the world to suppose. Their city walls had -been torn down; they had no weapons; the native Christians, who were -foremost among the agitators, had refused to have anything to do with -the demonstration until it was agreed that there should be no violence. -If the Japanese had acted with the jovial moderation which their power -over the peninsula made quite possible, the movement would very likely -have been nothing more serious than a kind of lantern procession on a -national scale. There is an anecdote floating about the Far East to the -effect that half a dozen British “Tommies,” strolling down the street of -a city in India, were met by a mob shouting the Hindu version of “Long -live Gandhi!” They neither raced back to the barracks for their rifles -nor fell upon the crowd with such weapons as they could snatch up; they -merely began shouting with the natives, “Long live Gandhi!” Within five -minutes the demonstration had broken up in peals of laughter at the -antics of the soldiers and their ludicrous Hindustani accent. Whether it -is true or not, the story illustrates a great weakness of the Japanese. -Almost no nation is so devoid of a sense of humor, as we use the phrase; -that is, they are wholly incapable of permitting anything but the -greatest solemnity of word or deed concerning their persons, their -country, or their “sacred” institutions. - -Instead of treating the “Mansei” movement as more or less of a joke, -therefore, they acted with incredible childishness, as well as quite -unnecessary brutality. Groups of unarmed Koreans gathered on hills -overlooking the towns, shouted “Mansei!”—which is merely the Korean form -of the Japanese “Banzai!” or “Ten Thousand Years!” and means something -like “Long live Korea!”—then scattered. The silly police ran hither and -thither, distracted. The honor of their nation, the luster of their -military caste, the glory of their god-descended ruler might have been -at stake. They arrested sixty school-boys eight years of age because -some one among them had shouted the dreadful word, and they kept them at -the police station until ten o’clock at night. A high official quizzed a -roomful of little girls with such questions as how they could expect -liberty, and where they would get money to run the Government, if they -had it. When they answered, woman-like, “Oh, we’d get it,” the Japanese -on the platform foamed at the mouth and devised ingenious ways of -punishing the tots for their temerity. Brutalities like ours in Haiti, -and worse, were perpetrated on the population. Students were beaten if -they admitted they attended mission schools. They were asked at ferry -stations and other points of concentration whether they were Christians, -and if they replied in the affirmative they were cut with swords and -otherwise mishandled by soldiers and police. If they denied the -allegation, even though they were known to be converts, they were not -abused, the idea seeming to be to get them to apostatize. Prisoners were -tied together and driven on forced marches of sometimes a hundred miles, -sleeping on plank floors full of cracks, with no food whatever on -examination-day (otherwise known as “torture-day”). Great gangs were -marched into Ping Yang from the country roundabout, many of them -virtually unable to walk, and with carts of dead ones behind. Women who -had shouted “Mansei!” were taken to police stations, stripped, and -marched around while the police amused themselves by burning them with -cigarettes. Whether or not they were violated, they were subjected to -every other form of indignity. The Japanese claim that “not a few -policemen and their families in isolated stations were ruthlessly -massacred,” and that they were therefore provoked to harsh measures. But -they neglect to give the exact chronology of the affair, which indicates -that they were the first to adopt harsh measures, and that Korean -violence was in retaliation for their unnecessarily stern suppression of -what probably would have remained a bloodless demonstration. Thus all -the complaints, dissatisfactions, and grievances that had been repressed -within the breasts of the people of Cho-sen for ten long years broke out -at last like the cataract through a broken dike. - -Those not friendly to them say that the Japanese police are cowardly as -well as bullies, citing such examples as a group of Americans being -mobbed only a few yards from one of the innumerable police stations in -Seoul during our stay there, without a single white uniform appearing on -the scene. Since the establishment of civil government some Koreans have -been made gendarmes and otherwise given positions of authority, but as -so often happens in such cases, many of them are more cruel to their -fellow-nationals, and more itching with curiosity as to the doings of -foreigners, than the Japanese themselves. Up to the time of the “Mansei” -movement the Japanese scorned to study Korean and tried to force the -Koreans to learn Japanese instead, again aping the Germans in Poland. -But they have learned the disadvantages of using Korean interpreters and -depending on native stool-pigeons for information, so that now they -offer five yen a month in addition to the regular salary of those who -have a workable knowledge of the native tongue. - -The Japanese learned considerable from the uprising of 1919, but they -still have something to learn. There are officials yet who advocate -fines and flogging for Koreans who refuse to hoist the flag of Japan on -national holidays. A modicum of common sense should teach any people -that a national flag is a symbol of patriotism the display of which -should be only an expression of free will, that patriotism can never be -forced into the hearts of a people, and that any false show of it is -much worse than worthless. Even shops which close as a sign of protest -against certain Japanese doings are compelled by the police to open -their doors. When the warship _Mutsu_ anchored in the harbor of -Chemulpo, the port for Seoul, every visitor who went on board was -compelled to salute the common sailor on sentry duty at the gang-plank, -who barked like an enraged bulldog at any one who did not perform the -ceremony with the deepest solemnity. Until they cure themselves, or are -cured, of this ridiculously Prussian point of view on matters pertaining -to their national life naturally the Japanese will not be able to see -that it is silly to speak of the “wickedness” of trying to change, or -even of talking of changing, a given form of government, that as a -matter of fact any form of government is no more sacred than an old pair -of shoes that has served the wearer moderately well. - - -We of the West should not forget, however, that the “white peril” has -been a much more actual thing to the Japanese than the “yellow peril” -ever was to us. Korea was not only a convenient spring-board for Russia -and the whole white world behind her, but it was a greater source of -danger to Japanese health than Cuba in its most yellow-feverish days -ever was to us. Old residents paint a distressing picture of -pre-Japanese Seoul—narrow streets plowed up into bullock-cart ruts, no -general means of transportation except one’s own feet, however deep the -mud, corpses of those dying of cholera left before any “rich” man’s -house, forcing him to bury them. The Korean royal family was “liberally -provided for” and left in possession of their palaces and their titles -in perpetuity on condition that they would not interfere in any way with -the new Government or the people of the peninsula. The sop of titles of -nobility was thrown to influential Koreans who were likely to make -trouble, and seventy-six new peers stepped forth from their mud huts. -The Japanese claim that they spend ten million dollars a year on the -occupation of Korea, that with its need of schools, roads, trees, -sanitation, and many other things the peninsula is a great burden to -them. “Though it is treason to say so now,” a high-placed Japanese in -Seoul assured me, “Korea will eventually get her independence, as soon -as she can stand on her own feet and protect herself—and us—from the -north.” Possibly this was mere prattle meant to throw me off the scent, -but I have met some Japanese intelligent enough sincerely to believe in -this eventual solution. - -The American and European merchants in Korea think that the Japanese did -on the whole better than any one else could have done in handling the -situation, and that the Koreans cannot possibly govern themselves. So, -for that matter, do most of the missionaries. Russia would have forced -the Greek church upon the people, they say, but would have left the -lowest form of inefficient and unsanitary burlesque on government. They -would virtually have encouraged the persistence of ignorance and filth -that made the Hermit Kingdom in every sense a stench to the nostrils of -the world and a land of but two classes of people, the robbers and the -robbed. “If Japan were to say to us to-morrow, ‘Here’s your country; run -it yourselves,’” said a man who was trained to become prime minister -under the old régime, “there are not bright men enough in it to form a -cabinet.” The people have sometimes been made to suffer, the merchants -go on, in such matters, for instance, as the taking of their land to -build roads—for in old Korea as in China to-day highways were mere -trespassers on private domain; but on the whole Japan has been no -rougher than the United States or England in the countries they have -taken over. - -The agitation of Koreans for independence, the foreign laymen in the -peninsula claim, emanates from self-seekers in foreign lands, and from -the young students of mission schools, “especially American mission -schools”; and the two “provisional governments,” one in the United -States, and one, which has been in existence since the annexation, in -Shanghai, do not at all represent the wishes of the Korean people as a -whole. As it is, they are ground between the two millstones of the -Japanese on the spot and these exiled governments, which send agents to -make life miserable for those who fear one or both of them may some day -come into power. Even the old politicians and office-holders are -content, if we are to believe the men of commerce, now that even the -Japanese have discovered that few military chiefs are of a type to make -successful colonial governors, and that their subordinates, especially -of the lower ranks, are almost always tactless, to say the least. But -business men have a tendency the world over to praise anything that -tends to keep “business as usual,” and one will probably come nearest -the truth by striking a balance between their impressions and those of -the missionaries, crediting the latter with somewhat more sincere, -because less self-seeking, motives. - -Whatever his personal opinion on the usefulness of foreign missions, no -one with his eyes half open can set foot in Cho-sen without being -impressed by the Christian influence, or at least by the number of -missionaries, converts, and churches. He may be highly amused at the -many subdivisions of that faith, by reason not merely of minor matters -of creed and national lines but of such political cleavages as that -caused by our Civil War, so nearly obliterated at home, which bewilder -the natives like a countryman in a department-store with the wide -choices of salvation offered them by—to mention only some of the -American varieties—the “Northern” Presbyterians and the “Southern” -Presbyterians, the “Northern” and the “Southern” Methodists, the Kansas -Baptists and the Oklahoma High Rollers, for all I know, all guaranteed -to give equal satisfaction. But the very intensity with which native -converts regard these arbitrary lines of division, much slighter among -the missionaries themselves, and the care which “Bible women” and -country pastors take to keep their charges from wandering into any -adjoining heretical sheepfold, is an evidence of the genuineness of -their new beliefs. - -Whether or not Christianity is the one and only true faith, it seems to -be an established fact that it thrives under persecution. Protestant -mission work began in China in 1808, in Japan in 1859, but not until -about 1888 in Korea; yet there is to-day only a scattering of native -Christians in the two former countries as compared with the hordes of -them in Korea. Many towns, even Ping Yang, second city of the peninsula, -are almost more Christian than “pagan”; and the missionary boast that -Korea will be a Christian land within a generation or two does not sound -so wild as many another statement that drifts to the ear of the -naturally skeptical wanderer. There is some evidence to show that this -rapid progress is considerably due to those very Japanese who are least -eager for the Christian faith to spread. The law of Japan and Korea -grants absolute freedom of religious belief and practice, but even the -passing layman can plainly detect something very close to persecution of -Christians by some of the Japanese authorities in the peninsula, though -it be only unconscious and unintentional, which it probably is not. -While the Catholics have been there much longer, and have often carried -things with a high hand, it is the Protestants in particular, and -especially the American missionaries, who seem to have won most of the -Japanese ill will. This I believe to be almost more because of the fact -that they are Americans than because they are missionaries. As Americans -they just naturally resent the lack of human liberty, of -“self-determination,” to use the catchword of the hour, which Japanese -rule in Korea means. The opposite point of view is bred in their bones. -Though they never opened their lips on the subject, their mere -unconscious attitude, their negative lack of approval of the existing -state of things politically, cannot but seem to the Koreans an approval -of their own opposition to the Japanese. Obviously, the study of -American history, even of American literature, in the mission schools -adds to the discontent of young Koreans with the present status of what -was once their own country, even though the teachers lean over backward -in the effort not to mix academic and political matters. In fact, while -the missionaries might deny it, it may be that the Koreans are rallying -in increasing numbers about the American sponsored churches as much -under the mistaken impression that the Americans are secretly -sympathetic to the throwing off of the alien yoke, even by violence if -necessary, as from the conviction that the American brands of salvation -are the only sure passwords at the celestial gates. - -At any rate, the Japanese seem to have concluded that American -missionaries were behind the independence movement of 1919, and that -they are still not to be entirely trusted. Now, I am as certain as I am -of anything in this uncertain world that not a single American -missionary was in the conspiracy of the “Mansei” demonstration. A very -few may have known something about it, at least have felt in the air -that something was coming; but it was no business of theirs to turn -tattletales and run to warn a Government which had usurped since most of -them came to Korea and had not treated them with any notable kindness, -besides having what should have been an ample supply of its own spies to -pick up such information. But the Japanese have not our way of thinking. -They are ready enough to have the missionaries render unto Cæsar what -belongs to him by keeping out of politics, but at the same time they -seem to expect them to lend a hand to the extent of passing on to the -authorities any hints or rumors that may be of use to them. - - -However, the independence demonstration and the unwise acts it brought -in its train have trailed off into history. The more intelligent -Japanese officials seem to have seen the light and acquitted the -American missionaries of any active and conscious part in it, and the -new governor-general and his immediate aids even sometimes call them -into conference to get their point of view on subjects in which they are -involved. But there is still an undercurrent of something akin to -persecution of the American churches. As in the case of the persistent -rumors of police floggings in spite of the new law forbidding them, it -is impossible to make certain whether this is due to deliberate -disobedience of orders by recalcitrant subordinates, to secret -instructions at variance with those made public, or to pure stupidity, -of which the Japanese have their liberal quota. In every mission town -there is a detective in charge of matters pertaining to missionaries. He -attends all services, comes hotfooting it whenever a foreigner stops -even for lunch at a mission, demanding information concerning him back -to the _n_th degree of absurdity, asks the future plans of the church -almost daily, and other stupid and impertinent questions. In some -districts the police still literally hound the church—demand lists of -all contributors, send spies to stand at the church door and take note -of every Korean who enters, burst noisily in during prayer, order new -women converts not to attend services. Even the missionaries strike one -as being rather afraid of the police, though this may merely be due to -their strenuous efforts to avoid giving further offense and to come more -than half-way toward established friendship with the political -authorities; it can easily be imagined how native pastors and the simple -converts are affected by a brutal attitude. - -[Illustration: - - A chicken peddler in Seoul -] - -[Illustration: - - A full load -] - -[Illustration: - - The plowman homeward wends his weary way—in Korean fashion, always - carrying the plow and driving his unburdened ox or bull before him; - one of the most common sights of Korea -] - -[Illustration: - - The biblical “watch-tower in a cucumber patch” is in evidence all over - Korea in the summer, when crops begin to ripen. Whole families often - sleep in them during this season, when they spring up all over the - country, and often afford the only cool breeze -] - -Christian students in government schools often report that they have -secretly been ordered to quit the church. There seems to be little doubt -that the Japanese foster the student strikes which are increasingly -becoming the bane of mission schools, now with demands for a Korean -principal in place of an American who has grown gray in that position, -now that no teacher be hired who has not been educated in Japan or -Korea, or that there shall be no studying of the Bible in school—almost -prima facie evidence of Japanese influence. All this cuts both ways in -separating the Koreans and the foreigners. When the strikes reach the -point of demanding that laboratory or library equipment be improved, -notwithstanding that every tack in the school wall is due to American -charity toward the strikers, the ordinary human being finds himself -wishing that the missionaries would forget their unnatural patience and -boot the strikers down the front steps. Permits are required for -everything under the sun—to be pastor, to build a new church, even to -solicit contributions to mission hospitals. The Japanese meddle with -hospitals, schools, and churches in ways which even they could not -possibly believe are excusable. The missionaries have to submit to their -dictation as to curriculum; they even have to make their school year -conform to the Japanese custom and teach in July. Perhaps the greatest -hardship the missionaries have to endure is the constant dread that -their sick children will be carried off to Japanese isolation wards, on -the pretext that contagious diseases cannot be properly isolated in -mission hospitals, and there virtually killed by being given only -Japanese food, lack of beds, and treatment, while the parents may not -even be allowed to see them. - -All books by foreigners must be fully _printed_ before being submitted -to the police censor, who will not look at manuscript. Three days before -publication two copies of the finished book must be in his hands, and if -_any_ of the contents is considered objectionable the whole edition is -confiscated. Christian schools are often called out to meet officials on -Sunday, or teacher’s examinations are given on that day with a frequency -that could scarcely be coincidence. The requirement that all children in -government schools shall bow down before a picture of the mikado in an -attitude of worship is of course a constant thorn in the side of the -Christians. The authorities claim that American mission students have no -discipline, which is probably true from the Japanese point of view, in -that they are not told just what they should think and do on every -possible subject and occasion. In their published maps of Korean towns -the Japanese rarely give any signs of the existence of Christian -establishments, though these are often many years old and the most -prominent institutions in the place. On the other hand, when their -travels take them out of their own orbit the missionaries almost always -go to Korean hotels instead of patronizing the foreign ones under -Japanese management, but old custom and the high prices of the latter -could easily account for this without including a suggestion of pique. - -Personally I came to the conclusion that, while both are in evidence, it -is the thick-headedness of the rank-and-file Japanese more than -deliberate persecution which causes the continued friction between the -two peoples who are doing the most for the regeneration of Korea. I -might cite a typical case in point. Over near Gensan on the east coast -the missionaries have a private summer resort, half a hundred houses and -a beach, all enclosed within purchased grounds. But as the Japanese are -very insistent in matters which they conceive to involve the equality of -their race to the rest of the world, they refuse to let the missionaries -keep the townspeople off their beach. Now, the bathing demeanor of the -Japanese, innocent and proper though it may be to those who like it, is -decidedly not suited to a place where American women and children come -to spend their summers. So by dint of coaxing and explaining their own -peculiar point of view, the Americans got the authorities at Gensan to -post a notice that no one should bathe on the missionary beach unless -arrayed in proper swimming costume. The Japanese of course are -notoriously law-abiding. One afternoon when I found time to join my -family on that beach a big limousine stood at the edge of the sand, and -several dignified middle-aged men who might have been bankers or lawyers -from the city were disporting themselves in perfectly respectable -bathing-suits. But when I chanced to glance about a little later, one of -them stood within ten feet of us, stripped stark naked as he calmly and -leisurely changed from swimming to street costume, and two others were -in the act of disrobing for the same purpose. I feel sure that they had -no intention whatever of being offensive toward the dozen or more -American women about them; probably their limited minds really thought -that they were complying with both the letter and the spirit of the -posted order and the desires of those who inspired it by wearing bathing -costumes while in the water, and getting into and out of them on the -open beach. When I addressed them with an unmissionary vehemence that -might have landed me in a police station if they had chosen to make the -most of it, they apologized hastily for the unwitting offense and -hurried off to the privacy of the limousine. The Japanese in Korea are -spending large sums in the effort to make certain of the beaches of the -peninsula popular with foreigners, and quite likely some of these -bankerly-looking gentlemen were involved in the scheme; but none of them -still have any clear conception, probably, of why no beach can ever be -popular with foreigners as long as Japanese also have the right of -admission to it. - -Missionaries after all are only human beings, as they themselves are the -first to admit, and we do not expect the supernatural of them even in -such a matter as meekly accepting the abuse of what they more or less -regard as a usurping and alien political power over a people the -benefiting of whom they consider their life-work. Many of the Americans -in the mission field have been in Korea far longer than the Japanese. -Some have lived there so long, according to those foreigners of another -class who see them as dangers to their precious “business as usual,” -that “they think they own the country and can countenance no changes in -it, not even improvements. They used to do exactly as they liked, and -they hate the least suggestion of coercion.” We should remember that the -missionaries had the advantages of extraterritoriality in Korea before -the Japanese came, and they cannot but resent the loss of it, the -submitting to alien rulers whose ideas of everything, from housing to -justice, are so widely different from their own. Moreover, though they -readily admit that the Japanese are doing many things for the good of -the peninsula, they see them primarily as men with an ax to grind. - -It would be strange, if it were not long since commonplace, to see how -sharp national lines remain even among men who think they are working -above nationalities, how completely even men of strong ideals succumb to -their environment. The American missionaries in Japan say that there is -some reason for the Japanese to be suspicious of the American -missionaries in Korea. They agree with the officials there, who contend -that those destined for mission work in the Korean field should first -have a year in Japan, that they may judge more fairly the Japanese -national point of view. Even those in Korea, after ten to forty years’ -residence there, cannot agree on many of the points involved, so how can -a mere passer-by be expected to get at the exact truth of the matter? He -can merely decide that there is some reason on both sides, with perhaps -a private opinion as to which one is most inclined to tamper with the -scales, and let it go at that. Friction is gradually decreasing, as the -Japanese and Americans become more able to talk together—generally in -Korean; and as there is no doubt that Japan has the good of Cho-sen and -its people at heart—as an integral part of the Japanese Empire—constant -improvement may confidently be expected. - - - - - CHAPTER IV - OFF THE BEATEN TRACK IN CHO-SEN - - -Perhaps it is because I was properly “Japalacked” that I was able to -wander at will about Korea by train, steamer, Ford, rickshaw, and on -foot without the annoyance of that constant police supervision and the -incessant showing of my passport of which many other travelers have -complained. Once, long ago, when the Japanese were at war with Russia, I -was arrested forty-eight times during thirty-six days of wandering -through Japan, and while the experience was much more amusing than -serious, there was nothing to be gained by repeating it. So I took the -trouble this time to satisfy Japanese inquisitiveness at headquarters -beforehand, and while I may have been, and probably was, under more or -less surveillance during my six weeks in Korea, I am sure that many of -my jaunts were known so shortly in advance even to myself that no -detective could have kept constant track of me. Certainly no visible -attempt was made to keep me from going when and where I chose, and -talking with whomever I wished. - -A missionary Ford carried me off once to the gaunt hills to the east of -Seoul. Even the “great roads” in the interior of Korea are much like the -_caminos reales_ of Spanish America—“great” or “royal” only in the name -they bear. In places there are what the Japanese call “highways,” but -even these seldom have bridges worthy the name, some being mere -sod-covered logs, others dirt-and-branch foundations under concrete, or -nothing at all but the crudest of ferries. In the rainy season whole -treeless hillsides wash away and force traveling missionaries to sell -their Fords and walk home. Though the weather of Korea is on the whole -much better than that of Japan, the floods of summer are naturally -severe in a mountainous and deforested country. In Seoul it rained -incessantly day after day during much of July and August, sometimes with -barely half an hour of cloudy clearness from dawn till dark. Many -villages and some thirty miles of railroad were under water, and -countless bridges were made at least temporarily impassable. Men waded -waist-deep in the flooded rice-fields, raking out the duckweed with -which these were covered, and which would choke the rice when the water -subsided. Clothing and shoes molded overnight. In other parts of the -country, such as Ping Yang district, there was less rain than the -peasants asked for, though the almost tropical heat was everywhere and -incessantly in evidence. - -Even one of the most fair-minded of guide-book writers speaks of the -Koreans as “incredibly lazy”—proof that he saw much more of the old -capital and its vacant-minded _yangbans_ than of the country districts. -If he had ever toiled for a day in the blazing rice-fields, even driven -a bull knee-deep in mud through them, or carried a “jiggy” load along -the narrow paths between them, he might have been of a different -opinion. In a land where agriculture is the national industry, where -four-fifths of the population still remain living among and tilling the -hills of their forefathers, their horizon bounded by their own narrow -valley and the nearest market town, there can scarcely be general -indolence. The Koreans in the mass are not lazy; but life means to them -something more than incessant exertion merely for exertion’s sake, and -they amble along even at work as if there were never any hurry to do -anything or get anywhere, quite the antithesis of the busy little -Japanese. With some such foot-note as this to one accusation against -them, it is easy to agree with the man who put it so well, that the -Koreans “are garrulous yet inarticulate, stolid yet excitable, frugal -yet improvident, lazy yet lashed by necessity to strenuous efforts.” A -childlike people on the whole, one is likely to conclude from weeks of -wandering among them, happy-go-lucky, with little tendency of laying up -for a rainy day, a trait in which they are widely at variance with their -present rulers. - -In June the peasants were still spreading over the fields the decomposed -oak-leaves used as fertilizer, but by early July the transplanting of -rice began, soon to be followed by the weeding. Gangs pull up the -closely grown seedlings and tie them in bundles, which they throw out -across the fields to be planted with an expertness which reminds one -that their national pastime, at least in pre-Japanese days, was -stone-throwing. The earth-laden roots being much the heavier end, the -bundles unfailingly land upright just where the thrower chooses to place -them. A line of six to a dozen men and women move slowly across each -flooded field, replanting the grasses one by one, and everywhere the -green, low, flat country is dotted with hundreds of near-white figures -rooting in the soft, flooded earth. That no space may be wasted, beans -are often planted on the tops of the dikes between the paddy-fields. -Frogs sing their lugubrious chorus far and wide, little realizing the -unwisdom of betraying themselves to the beautiful ibis which feed upon -them. At weeding-time whole villages join together in great gangs, with -drums, fifes, brass cans, and all manner of native noise-producers, to -make a festival of the task, singing as they weed. The men, stripped to -the waist and burned a permanent brown, display leathery skins that -glisten red-brown in the sunshine, like a well polished russet shoe. Yet -many a peasant uses a yellow fan as he works. Where irrigation calls for -the lifting of water from a ditch to the fields, a man leisurely swings -all day long an enormous wooden spoon suspended in a little framework. -If the work calls for shoveling, one man holds the handle of the -implement and two or three others lift it by the ropes attached to the -shaft, precisely like the people of the Lebanon far across on the -opposite edge of Asia. The Korean is famed for his kindness to his -bulls, almost his only draft-animals now that his savage little stallion -ponies have become so scarce, and it is the commonest of sights to meet -a peasant lugging his wooden plow on his own broad back while the bull -strolls lazily homeward before him. - -Korea is a land of villages, not of cities, nor yet of isolated peasant -houses, so that the broad flooded country is usually unbroken clear to -the foot-hills of distant ranges, unless a town, its thatched roofs -slicked down to the women’s hair, intervenes. Here stands a stone -monument with a roof over it to commemorate the wife who died of grief -for her departed husband, or at least refused resolutely to remarry, a -noble example, by Oriental standards, to all her sex. Farther on several -upright granite slabs flanking the road announce themselves as erected -by grateful citizens in honor of departed magistrates, though the -deep-cut Chinese characters upon them usually express anything but the -real public sentiment toward these village looters. Babies suckling like -shotes mothers stretched out on the floors of open houses, babies eating -great green cucumbers, skin and all, babies wailing as one seldom hears -them in Japan, are among the most constant details of any Korean village -landscape. Among the fixed customs of the country is the burning off of -the hair over the soft spot of an infant’s head, and most Koreans -preserve this little round bald place throughout their lives. - -In July lettuce and green onions are everywhere, adding a still greener -tinge to the landscape. Men sleep anywhere in the middle of the day, on -the narrow paddy dikes, at the roadside, in the road itself, naked to -the waist but with their ridiculous horsehair hats still in place. You -will find them still working at dusk, however, and before the mists -begin to rise under the morning sun. Koreans of the masses never seem to -sleep, or to eat, all at once. The children have no fixed hours of going -to bed, nor beds to go to for that matter, so that they grow up able to -doze off anywhere at any time. Like the Japanese, the race shows the -effects of poor beds and piecemeal, catch-as-catch-can slumber. One by -one each member of the family lies down, still fully clothed, on the -brown-paper floor of the house as the whim strikes him, and drifts away -into more or less sound slumber, while all the domestic life steps in -and out among and over the sleepers. No matter at what hour of the night -one passes through a village some of its people will be squatting on -their porches or chattering inside. As crops approach the ripening -stage, little watch-towers, like thatched dove-cotes, rise high on their -pole legs all over the country, and by night he who comes strolling -along almost any road will hear some or all the family within beating -the little elevated shack with a stick or singing some weird old song as -a protection against the myriad evil spirits which roam the darkness. - -I have said that the national pastime of Korea was—for it seems now -almost to have died out—the throwing of stones. In Cho-sen this game -more or less took the place of jiu-jitsu in Japan, and in the olden days -whole villages lined up on opposite sides, led by their chief bullies -and most expert throwers, the women often piling up stones within easy -reach of the warriors, and the festivities did not end until several -were badly injured, if not actually killed. Koreans still have the -reputation of being the most accurate stone-throwers in the world, as -more than one unwelcome stranger has learned to his dismay during some -dispute with a group of villagers. Under the influence of both Japanese -and American residents this faculty is being turned to another account, -and Korean baseball teams have already beaten more than once the best -aggregations which our countrymen in the peninsula can muster. - - -One has moments of doubt in Korea about the accuracy of the “survival of -the fittest” theory. The Koreans are superior to their rulers in mental -quickness, certainly in physique, and probably in some moral qualities. -This straighter, stronger-looking race seem big men beside the pushing -little dwarfs who have subjected them—though I found that the largest -native socks and shoes were nearly two inches too short for my own by no -means oversize Caucasian foot. That they are brighter, or at least of -swifter mental processes, than the Japanese, I am personally convinced -by numerous little episodes within my own experience. There was the -guide I had in the Diamond Mountains, for instance, only to cite one of -many similar examples. He was just an ordinary _jiggy-coom_, a porter -with the Korean carry-all on his back; yet though neither of us knew a -word of the same language, we had not the least difficulty in exchanging -all the thoughts we needed to during a four-day journey, by signs and -gestures. I have yet to see the Japanese who would not have failed -dismally under similar circumstances, and not merely because gestures -mean nothing to the people of Japan. We arrived one evening at a -temple-housed hotel run by the government railways, and the Japanese in -charge, though he had much more education than my guide, and spoke -considerable more or less English, displayed his racial density to such -a degree that I was forced to call in the Korean carrier as an -interpreter. Entirely in the language of signs and a few monosyllabic -place-names he caught the idea perfectly, and passed it on, in one tenth -the time I had already spent trying to drive it through the skull of the -son of Nippon. - -But while many Koreans possess an alert mentality, this is often offset -by superstitions, prejudices, conceit, and the lack of initiative and -perseverance. They seem to have been slaves to clan or village opinion -for so long that they can seldom assert themselves individually. They -learn elementary things quickly, but they are prone to run out of steam -in the higher reaches. One gets the impression that they have less -self-control, that they are undisciplined, both by training and -temperament, compared to the Japanese. Unlike the Chinese, they will -fight upon slight provocation, which may be another proof of a lack of -self-control as well as of manliness. Such things as school strikes -against missionaries who have given them long and unselfish service to -the full extent of their resources indicate but little sense of -gratitude. Even their most friendly foreign teachers admit that almost -any of them will cheat at examinations if given the opportunity. Their -cruelty, or at least indifference to the suffering of others, is perhaps -as much an Oriental as merely a Korean trait. In the village just over -the hills from Seoul near which we made our Korean headquarters an old -man was found ill and half starved in a straw hut in the outskirts. If -the foreign gentry who pass that way almost every day take no notice of -him, the villagers evidently asked themselves, why should we? But the -first information the foreigners had of the invalid or his condition was -when our host happened one day to see him lying all but naked beside a -muddy stream, apparently trying to drink, his skin mere parchment -stretched tightly over his bones. The American gave the villagers a note -to the mission hospital and paid some of them to carry the old man there -on an improvised stretcher. Next morning nothing had been done. Called -to account, the villagers explained that they had decided not to take -him to the hospital, because he would only die soon anyway, and if they -buried him themselves it would cost less, they thought, than if the -hospital did so and then made the village pay for it. - -It seems to be Japanese policy to keep deformity out of sight, but -Korean instinct and custom work to the same end. The native teachers of -a mission school vociferously objected to admitting a particularly -brilliant candidate—because he had only one eye! “If this thing goes -on,” one of the teachers raged, “we’ll be nothing but a collection of -cripples,” and to illustrate the point he sprang up and humped himself -across the floor like a paralytic, with the dramatic effect at which the -Koreans are adepts. Whatever his opinion of the Japanese in that -respect, no one would accuse the Koreans of having no sense of humor, -though they are much more solemn of demeanor than the Chinese. An -American resident who carries a massive old watch that once belonged to -his grandfather drew it out one day as he was leaving a railway -station—whereupon a Korean boy wearing the _jiggy_ of the porter’s -calling promptly backed up to the watch and solemnly asked if he should -transport it. There is less curiosity, or at least less child- or -monkey-like inquisitiveness about the Koreans than their immediate -neighbors either to the east or west display, more personal dignity, one -feels, and the stranger does not collect a following half as easily as -even in Japan. It is true, however, that villagers poke holes in the -paper walls of any inn-room housing foreigners, and missionary ladies -are obliged to carry a complete curtain-room with them on their travels -in the interior. Superstitions are still rife, for all the outside -influence, and some of them take quaint forms. As in Haiti, it is a -common thing to have a pedestrian dash across the road in front of a -moving automobile just as it seems to be upon him, the idea being to get -rid of the evil spirit which dogs his heels like his shadow, either by -having it crushed beneath the wheels or attaching itself to the -motorist. In fact, there are many little suggestions of the black man’s -republic of the West Indies about Korea—Napoleon beards, little pipes, -thatched market-stalls and the tiny transactions they are willing to -make, the custom of sleeping peacefully at the roadside or in the -roadway wherever the whim overtakes them, the same swing of the women -carrying burdens on their heads, a similar carelessness about exposure -of the person. - -It is still an ordinary experience for a Korean bride to discover when -she enters her future home that she is only her husband’s “Number 3” -wife—yet all the children she may bear him are considered as belonging -to Wife Number 1. Nine-tenths of the suspensions from the church, at -least among Protestant converts, are for concubinage; most of the rest -are for marrying “heathen.” I have already mentioned that the -missionaries insist that Korean women are very modest, particularly as -compared to their Japanese sisters. They seem not to consider the public -display of breasts immodest, for missionaries, just like ordinary -people, appear to get used to things which must at first have struck -them as “dreadful.” They do not like to have them photographed, however; -people at home would “misunderstand.” Women still come to church -flaunting this open proof of motherhood, just as men do in their -horsehair hats. Yet when Japanese women came into public baths already -occupied by Korean men there was so much talk that the authorities were -forced to modify a time-honored custom of Japan and order a division of -the tubs by sexes. Less than two decades ago no Korean woman of the -better class appeared on the streets even of Seoul in the daytime, and -servant-girls compelled to do so covered their faces. After ten at night -no men were expected to be abroad, for then the women, usually in sedan -chairs, with lantern-bearers and followers, came out to pay their calls. -In those days young men never smoked in the presence of their elders—at -least of the male persuasion. No decent woman could read, but only -sorceresses and _keesang_, the geisha of Korea. To-day things are so -changed in some circles that the sewing-woman of a missionary family -sent her girls to school first, saying that the boys could take care of -themselves; with the result that her daughter became the wife of a -vice-consul in Manchuria while her son was still a _jiggy-coom_, waiting -at the station for a job of carrying. Points of view differ, of course, -and what we of the West consider quite proper may strike the Korean as -highly immodest, as well as vice versa. I remember once coming upon a -group of Korean servants in a foreign house all gazing with great -curiosity at the cover of one of our cheap high-priced magazines, -decorated with a silly, but from our point of view harmless, picture, -after the stereotyped manner of our “popular” illustrators, of a boy and -girl kissing. The servant who had worked longest for foreigners was -explaining to his scandalized fellows that they often did that, and held -hands, too—which last dreadful vice he demonstrated by taking a hand of -one of the others, by the wrist! - -One should keep in mind, in considering the recent swift changes in -Korea, that it was closed to the outside world much longer, tighter, and -later than Japan. Yet the quaint old scholar’s cap is now as rare as the -old learning. The new generation seems to have lost the poise of the -old, and so far to have gotten nothing in its place. The rather flippant -youths of the new schools cannot read the classics—for there is a -splendid old Korean literature which is forbidden by the Japanese, so -that the younger generation is growing up without it—and thus far they -are not at home in the modern world that has so suddenly burst upon the -ancient peninsula. One of the demands of the thirty-three men who signed -the Korean “declaration of independence” a few years ago—the finest -types of Koreans, according to the missionaries, and the first of whom -were just being released, yellow and thin, when we were in the -country—was the freedom to study things Korean, including their history. -The idea of an education as the road to a government job and a lifetime -of loafing still carries over from the days that are gone. Four fifths -of the population is still reported illiterate, too, and even of those -eager to go to school hardly one in three can get inside one. The rest -can go to—well, to a Korean school of the old type, for instance. Frowsy -old men keep them privately, and a dozen or a score of boys come at -dawn, seven days a week, to squat on the floor of some dark and -miserable little room in a back alley, their slippers in a row along the -porch, and rock back and forth all day long shouting incessantly in what -would be a chorus if it were not also a chaos of individual noises more -often without than with meaning. Not until night falls do they unfold -their legs and stumble homeward, and all the day through, as they -“study,” the “teacher” in his special form of horsehair hat dozes on his -knees at the head of the room, and flies beyond computation in numbers -flit hour after hour from boy to boy. The Japanese officials of Korea -pay a bounty on flies by the pint, but they do not seem to have done -much toward wiping out their breeding-places. Yet, one recalls, while -gazing in upon one of these old-fashioned schools, much of the -civilization of Japan came from Korea—its culture, writing, Buddhism, -pottery—and its smallpox. - -A Korean church service, too, is a sight worth going to church to see. -There are no seats, except perhaps a bench along one of the walls near -the pulpit, for the missionaries. All others sit or squat on the floor, -covered with straw matting, all in white except some of the smaller -children, mainly dressed in pink. Many of the men still wear topknots, -and some their “fly-trap” hats, for by Korean standards it is impolite -to take these off except in one unmentionable place, where it is -imperative. The sunburned breasts of women are also somewhat in -evidence, though the great majority of the average congregation have -adopted Western styles now in both these particulars. There may be a -rare man in foreign dress, but even the native pastors almost all wisely -cling to the flowing native garb of snow-white grass-cloth, so much more -comfortable and becoming to Koreans. The men squat on one side, the -women on the other, with the children in front between them, and seldom -do they rise at all during the service, but merely bow their heads to -the floor to pray. Now and again they sing one of our old familiar hymn -tunes, with Korean words, in loud, metallic voices. Dozens of children -of from two to six wriggle and talk and race about. From time to time a -“Bible woman” squirms out of her place, picks up a few of the eel-like -urchins, and returns them to their respective mothers, ordering them to -be nursed forthwith, then wriggles back into her place again. There may -be quiet during the infant dinner-hour, but the whole act is sure to be -repeated several times before the service is over and the snow-white -throng pours out between two unnecessarily stern-faced, sharp-eyed men -in plain clothes whose habitat is the police station. - -There can be no doubt of the many difficulties of mission work in a -country where everything is so different from the home-land that an -expression sounding almost exactly like “Come on!” means “Stop!” Among -the dreadful stories one hears of missionary hardships is that of a man -still in the field, who in his early days wished to preach a sermon on -the text “_Tam naji mara_,” which is Korean for “Thou shalt not covet.” -But as his command of the language was still somewhat faulty, he made -the slight error of giving the text as “_Dam naji mara_.” Now while -“_tam_” means “to covet,” “_dam_” means “to sweat,” and when the long -service was over a little old Korean lady came up to say timidly to the -youthful pastor, “I loved your sermon, dear teacher, but please tell me, -how can we help sweating when it is so hot?” - - -Northward from Seoul by the railways which, broken only at the Straits -of Tsushima, reach from Tokyo to Peking and beyond, lies much the same -Korea as to the southward. Kaijo, or Song-do, reminds one that the -ancient rulers of Cho-sen knew how to pick beautiful mountain sites for -their capitals, for the landscape there rivals that about Seoul, alias -Keijo. The first unification of the whole peninsula took place under the -Korai—hence the name the West still uses—dynasty, which made its -headquarters at Song-do and ruled for more than four centuries. When it -was overthrown by one of the king’s generals, just a hundred years -before the discovery of America, a new capital was established at Seoul -and an ancient name for the country was restored—“Ch’ao Hsien,” roughly -the “Land of Morning Calm.” The Chinese still call it Koli. Remnants of -the groundwork of what must have been imposing buildings lie scattered -to the west of the present Kaijo, and a great wall still climbs along -the side of the mountain range that shuts it in. But the Song-do of -to-day is little more than a large and very compact vista of smooth -thatched roofs close beside the railway but an appreciable distance from -the station. It has an American mission school famous for the ginghams -made by students earning their way—un-Oriental as that may sound—in a -factory in charge of a man from South Carolina; and some of the old -customs have survived longer than in Seoul, the muffling from head to -heels in a white sheet, for instance, of some of the women who glide -through the narrow, unpaved streets. - -Then, too, Kaijo is the center of the _gin-seng_ industry of Korea. The -root of this plant is credited with miraculous curative powers by the -credulous Orientals and reaches prices verging on the fabulous. Cases -are scarcely rare of wealthy invalids, particularly Chinese, paying as -much as two hundred dollars for a single root no larger than a little -forked carrot at most three inches long, though it is the wild -mountain-growing species of this originally Manchurian weed that reaches -such heights; the cultivated variety is much less esteemed. Throughout -the Far East there is hardly a native drug-shop without its carefully -hidden supply of this precious tonic, which is said to have some real -value for old and weak persons, at least of the Orient; even Chinese -physicians admit that it is too heating for Westerners, already too hot -by temperament, according to their view. No doubt its celebrity is -largely due, like that of many another commodity, to its absurdly high -price. One might fancy that the growing of _gin-seng_ would fit the -Korean temperament, for it takes seven years to mature, after which the -land must lie fallow, or at least free from the same crop, an equal -length of time. The fern-like plant dies in the sun; so for a -considerable distance along the way through Song-do district there are -big brown patches on the landscape which on closer inspection prove to -be fields of _gin-seng_ in rows of little beds, each protected by reed -or woven-leaf mats forming a north wall and inclining slightly to the -south. Here, under the watchful eye of the government monopoly bureau, -this delicate aristocrat of the vegetable kingdom is tended with far -greater care than the babies of Korea, and at last is hidden away in the -form of yellow-brown dried roots in the safest places known to native -drug-venders. - -Farther north are red uplands waving with corn and millet, and at some -of the stations mammoth bales of silk cocoons, the worms within which -are doomed to die a wriggling death in boiling water as their precious -houses are disentangled into skeins in the thatched huts among which -they will be scattered, the monopolistic eye of the alien government -upon them also. Heijo, which to Koreans and missionaries is Ping Yang, -has a somewhat less picturesque location than its two principal -successors as capitals, and it bristles now with smoking factory -chimneys. Indeed, it is quickly evident that this second city of the -peninsula is more industrious than Seoul. Knitting-machines clash -incessantly in hundreds of huts; _yangbans_ and high hats and spotless -white garments seem conspicuously rare to the traveler still having the -capital in mind, and everywhere are evidences that here life has not -been for centuries a holiday broken only by occasional languishing in -government offices. Then, too, the eighteen thousand Chinese with which -official statistics credit Korea are somewhat concentrated in Ping Yang -and the north, and the Celestial adds to the industrious aspect of any -land. These bigger and more rational-looking men do much of the hard -work of Korea, such as stone-cutting and the building either of -Christian schools or temples to the ancient gods. The latter seem to be -losing some of their popularity in Ping Yang, for Christians are so -numerous that the clatter of bells for Wednesday night prayer-meetings -is as wide-spread as the sermons of Korean preachers are endless. Yet it -is barely fifty years since Ping Yang went down to the river in a body -and killed the foreigners who had dared to come in a Chinese junk into -the Forbidden Kingdom. - -In this metropolis of the north even topknots are rare and clipped heads -the rule. It seems to be inevitable with the coming of Christianity to -lose the picturesque; but usually the crasser superstitions go with it, -and one should not, perhaps, regret the passing of anything which takes -these also. Besides, there remain the roofs peculiar to Ping Yang and -its region, with their high-flaring corners made of six to eight -superimposed tiles, now required by law in place of combustible thatch; -and the complicated cobweb of streets in the Korean section still teems -with the ancient weazel-hair brushes working from ink-slabs and sounds -with the busy, insistent, incessant _rat-a-tat_ of ironing. - -It is striking how completely Korean Cho-sen remains to its very -borders. Even in Yuki, where the coasting-steamer that brought me down -from Vladivostok stopped to load logs, town and people were quite the -same in appearance, manner, and customs as in Seoul or Fusan—and Japan -had just as firm a grip. One might have suspected, from the long array -of flags out through the little frontier village, that nearly all the -inhabitants were Japanese, but it turned out that all shops, in honor of -some mikado-ordained holiday, had been required to put up the rising—or -is it the setting?—sun. - -Seishin, a more important port farther southward along the coast, is -picturesquely placed among foot-hills, and even has a railway, though -this begins miles away behind it. There are no rickshaws for weak-legged -passengers either, though little hand-run flat-cars operate on a tiny -track, the spinning along on which on the edge of the bay by moonlight -is delightful. Few thatched roofs are to be seen along the isolated -little segment of the Korean Railways between Seishin and the garrisoned -border town of Kainei, but tiled, Chinese-looking houses set down almost -out of sight in patches of corn, and many mountains and tunnels, though -also some fair valleys. Big chimneys made of hollowed logs of wood -sprayed at the top by the fire that sometimes reaches them stand high -above every mud-stuccoed dwelling in this region. Even there the -landscape is almost treeless, except for a certain growth of small -evergreens in patches here and there, though it is not far beyond to the -great forests of the upper Yalu. Among them rises the rarely uncovered -head of the Ever-White Mountain, and there are genuine tigers of Bengal -and other game worthy the best sportsman’s skill in the wooded labyrinth -of mountains about it. Kainei itself is quite a large town with many -Japanese, thanks largely to the great barracks that seemed to swarm with -soldiers. Part of an unambitious wall crawling along the foot of the -hills not far north of it marks the ancient boundary between Korea and -Manchuria, and in this midsummer season the town was hot beyond -description in its pocket among the mountains. There were many little -straw-built watch-towers standing stork-legged at the edges of the -ripening crops, and up a hillside at the edge of town was a pathetic -little Shinto shrine trying to force its way into the life of the -people. - - -[Illustration: - - A village blacksmith of Korea. Note the bellows-pumper in his high hat - at the rear -] - -[Illustration: - - The interior of a native Korean school of the old type,—dark, dirty, - swarming with flies, and loud with a constant chorus -] - -[Illustration: - - In Kongo-san, the “Diamond Mountains” of eastern Korea -] - -[Illustration: - - The monastery kitchen of Yu-jom-sa, typical of Korean cooking -] - -Much of the east coast of Korea is a mountainous wilderness, culminating -in one truly Alpine cluster which the Japanese, quite justly, are -striving to make better known to the outside world. If there is anywhere -in eastern Asia a more marvelous bit of scenery, or a finer place in -which to wander away a few summer days or weeks, than Kongo-san, -beginning to be known among foreigners as the Diamond Mountains, I have -overlooked it. One might enthuse for pages over the cathedral spires, -the colossal cliffs, the magnificent evergreen forests clinging by -incredible footholds to the gray rock even of mighty precipices, and a -hundred other unnamed beauties of this compact little scenic paradise -without giving more than a faint hint of the charms it encloses. - -From Gensan, railway terminus of the branch northeastward from Seoul and -principal port on the east coast, a small steamer hobbles southward for -half a day to a blistering little town called Chozen, swaps passengers -with a diminutive wharf, and hurries away again as if the evil spirits -of the mountains were after it. One can walk, rickshaw, or Ford it to -Onseiri, five miles inland, where the Japanese have built a modern hotel -lacking nothing but freedom from Japanese prices, and where there are -several Korean inns which house virtually all visitors. Or, one may -leave the train from Seoul long before reaching Gensan, and cover the -eighty-eight miles from Heiko to Choan-ji Temple, one of the buildings -of which the same Japanese have made over into a pleasant little -hostelry, by a highway that will carry even full-grown automobiles -whenever the rainy season does not suddenly and bodily wipe out great -sections of it. For that matter there are sixty-four miles of a road -similar in capacity and subject to the same lapses along a beautiful -coast-line from Gensan to Onseiri direct. Everything so far mentioned, -however, functions only in the summer season, for from October onward -Kongo-san is snow-bound and its monks and simple mountaineers drift back -into the bucolic existence they and their forerunners enjoyed for -centuries before the noisy, hurrying outside world discovered their -enchanted retreat. - -If the Diamond Mountains were in China, chair-bearers would humor the -lazy in their indolence and carry them around the circuit for a most -inadequate compensation. Fortunately the Koreans are not so ready to -take up the burdens of others, with the result that Kongo-san is spared -the sight of the mere tourist, incapable of depending for a few days on -his own legs and head. A _jiggy-coom_, of whose intelligence I have -already spoken elsewhere, and whose sturdiness, unfailing good cheer, -and knowledge of the mountain paths were on a par with his other good -qualities, kept my indispensable belongings within constant reach in -spite of the swift pace circumstances forced me to set; otherwise my own -feet paid the toll for whatever my eyes feasted upon. In fact, we made -the circuit in three days, and saw in four everything that other -visitors have considered worth making an exertion to see, which is -reputed to be a record. But I admit this not in pride, but in -contrition, for not to linger, to stroll, to camp for weeks hither and -yon among the towering peaks, beside the torrential ravines, away in the -scented recesses of the virgin forests of Kongo-san is to commit a -sacrilege and to deny oneself one of the good things of life. - -There are trails that pant upward for hours more steeply than any -stairway built by man, revealing constantly changing vistas of -fantastically carved rock pinnacles, of combinations of mountain and -forest rarely seen even in the Alps, and, high enough up, glimpses of -the sea itself, down into which Kongo-san comes tumbling in mighty -cliffs, sheer as the walls of sky-scrapers. There are trails that wander -hour after hour down great rock gorges where streams too clear to be -described in words leap from pool to blue-green pool, and where the -world rears up on either side so swiftly that only an eagle could escape -from the ravine except by its natural exit. There are places which only -the feet of intrepid and ardent lovers of nature have ever trodden, or, -what is still better, ever will, and pinnacles of sharpened rock from -the all but unattainable points of which myriads of others like them, -yet each utterly different, stretch away in an endless forest of white -granite spires among which sunshine and rain and the often swirling -mists make new beauties each more beautiful than the last. - -But we are wasting ink. The most expert weaver of words could not spin a -pattern that would be more than a faint and caricature-like resemblance -to the reality, even in some of the milder corners and aspects of the -Diamond Mountains. Let us acknowledge plain impossibility at once -therefore and see what hints can be conveyed by the matter-of-fact -pigments at our disposal. - -It is about fifty miles around the base of Kongo-san and the whole -playground of nature covers only an area of seventy-five square miles, -but not even in the Andes has the builder of mountains so nearly outdone -himself within so limited a compass. A range over which no one has yet -found a way divides this into what is called the Inner and the Outer -Kongo, each with its endless variety of peerless scenic features. In -places the trails crawl along the face of granite precipices by -causeways or stairs of logs laid corduroy fashion and held in place by -big iron spikes driven into the solid rock. In others there are huge -chains by which to drag oneself to the top of some all but inaccessible -summit that repays a hundredfold all the exertion of reaching it. Twice -we had to wade and swim Bambakudo (the “Cañon of Myriad Cascades”) where -man-built aids of chiseled rock or chained logs failed us, and where no -human legs would have been frog-like enough to carry us from boulder to -boulder across the foaming stream. To see the best of the region needs -often hands as well as feet, and there are many times when the agility -and steel nerves of the steeple-jack and the endurance of the Marathon -runner are indispensable to the man who cannot bear the shame of turning -back from an attempted undertaking. - -If its delicious sylvan isolation and its marvelous scenery were all -Kongo-san had to offer, it would be well worthy of world-wide fame; but -to these are added about twoscore of Buddhist temples and monasteries so -old and so withdrawn from the world that they alone would be worth -climbing far to see. Ever since the introduction of Buddhism into Korea, -some four centuries after Christ, this chaotic cluster of peaks and -abysses has been a kind of holy land of that faith. Converted kings -outdid each other in aiding the priests and monks who retired to this -secluded region, sending workmen and sculptors to build them temples and -cloisters in many and strange places, to chisel images of Buddha in -isolated gorges on the faces of immense cliffs, ordering the laymen -roundabout the mountains to furnish the recluses sustenance in -perpetuity. Tradition has it that there were at one time a hundred and -eight separate religious establishments scattered among these compact -mountains; but it came to be the kingly custom toward the end of the -fifteenth century to persecute Buddhism, and many of the retreats were -burned or fell into ruin, while the rest cut themselves off from the -outside world as completely as possible. After they were rediscovered, -so to speak, some thirty years ago by, strangely enough, an English -woman, their almost utter solitude of centuries began to be more and -more broken by visitors of the nature-loving rather than the purely -pious turn of mind. - -The largest of the temples of Kongo-san is Yu-jom-sa, in which we spent -the night following the perpendicular climb into the Inner Kongo, and it -is quite typical of the others. A log bridge led across the acrobatic -stream we had been trailing from near the summit, to a cluster of a -dozen or more buildings, widely varying in size but all in the rather -gaudy yet not unpleasing flare-roofed style common to Korean temples, -and more or less so to those of Japan and China. Built of wood -throughout, they had a dark and venerable aspect, even though they are -credited since their establishment with having been destroyed more than -forty times by fire—an extremely common affliction to the monkish -residents of Kongo-san. Of the multicolored bogies and painted wooden -gods within the temples, of the colorful wall scenes which give these -background, even of the dainty pagoda rising slenderly as high as the -highest roof, with tinkling little bells at each corner of its many -stories, I need say nothing in particular, for these are things to be -found in any Korean sanctuary. What was less familiar were the great -kitchens from which the big establishment and its visitors are fed, or -the wooden trough that brings the finest of mountain water down from -miles away to a series of huge hollowed logs ranged closely side by side -on the slightly sloping space between the two clusters of buildings. -Those who wished to drink dipped with a quaint little wooden dipper from -the upper logs, those supplying the kitchen took water from a little -farther down; hands and faces were washed lower still, and finally came -the reservoirs in which kitchen utensils and the like might be rinsed. -To say that these descending orders of use were strictly obeyed either -by visitors or the monks themselves, however, would be to overdraw any -Korean picture. - -Most of the temples and monasteries of Kongo-san supply food, and many -of them sleeping-quarters, to all who apply for them, as there are -neither inns nor the suggestion of shops or laymen venders in the -mountains. A novice met us at the temple end of the bridge and assigned -me a room, quite bare until it came time for boys to bring the little -table on which I was served in a squatting position, but with the usual -brown-paper floor of Korean dwellings. Cleanliness, at least as far as -anything came to my eyes, was quite general. We had arrived before -sunset, and there was time to see something of the daily life of the -place before it retired early for the night. Big piles of cord-wood and -brush in back courts testified to quite different weather than this -delightful August evening at many hundred feet elevation. Numbers of the -younger inmates were playing a medieval kind of cross between tennis and -handball when we came; on the edge of the graveled temple terrace that -served as court were two crude gymnastic turning-bars on which some of -the priests and novices did tolerably difficult feats. A roar of -laughter went up when, having been jokingly invited to join in this -sport, I had almost to duck my head to pass under the bars that most of -the others could only reach by jumping. They trotted out the tallest man -in the establishment, and roared again when he proved to be several -inches shorter than I; and I am sure I lost the reputation for veracity -among them because I asserted that, as people of my country go, I am not -particularly tall. There were many boys about the place, but I saw no -signs of women, though the recluses of Kongo-san are reputed to obey -their vows of celibacy much more in the breach than in the observance. -The yellow robe which makes the Buddhist priest so picturesque a figure -in some other lands had no counterpart here, at least in their outdoor, -every-day wear. They wore almost the ordinary Korean male costume, in -most cases of sackcloth, like men in mourning, though there were some -white and others with a bluish tint. Heads of course were cropped, and -there were no head-dresses of any kind in evidence. - -[Illustration: - - One of the monks of Yu-jom-sa -] - -[Illustration: - - This great cliff-carved Buddha, fifty feet high and thirty broad, was - done by Chinese artists centuries ago. Note my carrier, a full-sized - man, squatting at the lower left-hand corner -] - -[Illustration: - - The carved Buddhas of Sam-pul-gam, at the entrance to the gorge of the - Inner Kongo, were chiseled by a famous Korean monk five hundred - years ago -] - -[Illustration: - - The camera can at best give only a suggestion of the sheer white rock - walls of Shin Man-mul-cho, perhaps the most marvelous bit of scenery - in the Far East -] - -The booming of a great bell struck by the end of a suspended log called -for gayer and more elaborate garments in which monks and novices sat and -rocked as they chanted through the evening service on the papered floors -of several of the main buildings. Meanwhile I had been called back to my -room and served supper. There must have been at least twenty courses, -or, rather, different dishes, to the meal, including no meat, but with -more examples of the really excellent performances of the Korean cook -than I had ever tasted elsewhere. Even tea was served, though up to -quite recent years Koreans never drank it. Best of all, the attendants -and idlers did not come to sit and watch me eat, like some wild animal -in a cage, but withdrew when I had been served and did not intrude again -until I lighted my evening cigar. Then a group of us strolled down to -the bridge across the brawling stony river and chatted in the language -of signs until night blotted out the evergreen wooded mountains that -pile up close on every hand above this delightful refuge from the silly -babble of the world. - -It is true that a quartet of Japanese noisily smoked and gambled most of -the night away on the other side of a thin partition, but these are -afflictions against which Koreans have no effective weapons. My -attendants actually left the door open all night; but, oh, the -unspeakable hardness of a Korean floor serving as a bed! Breakfast was -almost as generous as the evening meal, yet as I recall it I paid, at a -roundabout suggestion from my hosts, only two or three _yen_ for the -full accommodations of myself and guide. - -Sometime during that morning we came upon the mightiest of the carved -Buddhas in the Diamond Mountains, in a wild and utterly uninhabited -ravine through which we were descending from another slowly attained -summit covered with reeking wet half-jungle. The image was cut in deep -relief on the face of a cliff, and is so mammoth that my companion, -squatting at a corner of it, looks like a fly-speck on the picture I -took. At noon we were the guests of the score of monks of Makayun-an, -the largest of the cloisters, as Yu-jom-sa is of the temples. A useless, -perhaps, but certainly a gentle life these sturdy white-clad fellows -with the shaven heads lead at the sheer foot of one of the most -perpendicular peaks of the Inner Kongo. There are other cloisters far -more inaccessible, some which almost never see visitors. One, I recall, -on that afternoon down the magnificent Gorge of the Thousand Cascades, -was set so sheer on the vertical mountain-side that a post, which seemed -to be of iron and was surely a hundred feet long, under a corner of the -building was all that kept it from pitching headlong into the abyss -along which we scrambled our way far below. - -I have said enough, no doubt, but no visitor to the Diamond Mountains -should hurry back to drab reality until he has climbed by finger-nails -and eyelids into that maze of white granite crags, like a hundred -gigantic Woolworth Buildings designed by no earthly architect, which the -Koreans call Shin Man-mul-cho. It rained more or less all the time we -were risking our lives and all but bursting our lungs to reach even some -of the slighter elevations of this fairy-land, but it would have been a -strange offshoot of the human race who would have considered a mere -soaking and the day’s toil of a galley-slave a high price to pay for the -sights that were conferred upon us. My coolie carrier himself, though he -had been there more than once before, was as averse to turning back, -even long after it would have been wisdom to do so, as was the -bedraggled and ragged Westerner who accompanied him. - -Then, if there is time enough left after throwing away the tatters to -which any proper excursion into Kongo-san will reduce the stoutest -garments endurable there in summer, and the substitution of something -less exposing, one should have a glimpse of the Sea Kongo, where islands -that are like peaks of the fantastic mountains farther inland dot the -route over which ply in the summer season crude conveyances that in real -life are fishing-boats. - - - - - CHAPTER V - UP AND DOWN MANCHURIA - - -The change from Korea to China is not merely abrupt, it is -instantaneous. In the exact middle of the big bridge over the Yalu, -across which rickshaws trot and pedestrians of all degrees shuttle in -two constant, almost silent-footed streams on either side of rumbling -trains, stand a Japanese guard and a Chinese soldier, as strikingly -unlike as two men of the same profession and rather similar background -could well be; and they are typical of the wide differences in customs -and costumes, in all the details, if not the essentials, of life on the -two shores of the famous river. White gives way to blue denim as the -garb of crowds and individuals—for in China, as in Japan, the former is -the color of mourning. Pigtails take the place of topknots; tiny bound -feet, which the traveler perhaps has never before seen, instantly become -general among women of all ages and classes; uncovered breasts die out -as suddenly as does the silly horsehair pretense of a hat. Instead of -stallions there are geldings; wheelbarrows and oscillating -shoulder-poles replace the back-rack known as a _jiggy_; the Chinese -sense of humor, or racial cheerfulness, comes at once to the fore—there -was more laughing in an hour in Antung than in a day in Korea or a week -in Japan. One could not but be struck by the size of the Chinese as -compared even with the Koreans, to say nothing of the dwarfish Japanese, -and by their more common-sense air and dress—and at the same time by the -horrible sloughs of mud that passed for streets, the diseased beggars -wallowing up and down them, the truly putrid conditions of life in the -native city. - -There is a paved and well built Japanese fore-city about the railway -station, but even this was essentially Chinese in its human aspects, in -spite of the big mat-covered arena that had been hastily thrown up to -house the paunchy second-rate Japanese wrestlers who strutted the -streets in loin-cloths and fluttering kimonos. The low and ancient -“victorias,” that rattled to and from the station, jerked rather than -drawn by an emaciated horse or two streaked with mud and perspiration, -and loaded to the gunwales often with a full dozen Chinese besides the -heartless driver, seemed strangely in keeping with the north bank of the -Yalu. All trains halt for an hour or more at Antung for the lenient -examination of baggage, so that there is time to see all this, as well -as the great log rafts floating down the river as its upper reaches are -denuded and their forests turned into Chinese coffins. Nor will it be an -unusual experience if the traveler is approached by a Japanese gendarme -asking to see his passport, to which the proper reply of course is as -gentle a reminder as is consistent with the brazen courtesy and one’s -individual temperament that China has not yet been internationally -recognized as a Japanese colony. - -A few miles northward a serrated range rises close on the right, and -there are other groups of hills on the way to Mukden, two or three of -them strikingly crowned by ancient temples. But broad rolling fields of -corn and millet and _kaoliang_ are the chief impression of this ten-hour -journey. There is an atmosphere reminiscent of pioneer America in these -broad reaches of Manchuria, so unlike the little diked and flooded -paddy-fields of Korea and Japan. Only rarely is there a human being in -sight, now and then a lone man in a pigtail and blue denim hoeing corn, -or plowing with a thin red ox or a cow. The few houses are as miserable -as the huts of Korea, otherwise quite different, being plain and square, -thatched with corn- or _kaoliang_-stalks instead of the hair-smooth -rice-straw, and without a suggestion of the picturesque about them. In -the midsummer season the landscape is a deep, almost unbroken green, for -the few houses are so low that they are all but hidden among the tall -crops, and there is the slightly denser green of scrub timber on the -constant succession of fair-sized hills. Willows abound; in fact, it -would not be difficult to imagine oneself in the hillier parts of -Pennsylvania, did not the visibly splendid fertility of the country -contrast so strongly with the lack of real houses or any indication of -prosperity and comfort. At length high terraced hills become more -populous; then the country grows deadly flat, with the soya-bean, king -of Manchurian products, lording it over all other crops as one -approaches Mukden. - -The Russian name for the capital of China’s “Eastern Three Provinces” -bids fair to persist in Western speech, though to the Japanese it is -Hoten and the Chinese themselves now call it Feng-tien. That constant -fight for a livelihood, for bare escape from starvation, which becomes -in time an accepted feature of life in China, is in evidence even this -far north and east, for all the spaciousness of Manchuria. There is a -swarming of rickshaws like men set on the mark ready to race to any exit -where there is the shadow of a promised fare, blocking the way if one -attempts to set out on foot, trailing the stroller until walking ceases -to be a pleasure. Carriages with a suggestion of Russian ancestry -completely surround the man who gives the slightest hint that he may at -some time want one, and escape is hardly possible without the vigorous -wielding of at least as deadly a weapon as a cane, which leaves the -average American handicapped. Both rickshaw-men and drivers are deathly -afraid of even the most insignificant Japanese bell-boy, however, and as -there is no way of alighting in Mukden except from the west without -passing through a cordon of these, assistance may be had against the -first fierce onslaught of the over-numerous means of transportation. -There are rows of “Peking carts” also, ready to crowd half a dozen hardy -and unhurried travelers beneath their blue-denim hoods, and finally, if -one chances to be as fond of local odors as of local color, there are -the horse-cars, which may conceivably strike some of the more aged -visitors from the Occident as vaguely familiar. Just how many years back -it is that these same cars jogged up and down Third Avenue in medieval -New York I have not the requisite data to say, but they spent quite a -number of them earning their livelihood in Tokyo, and there are rumors -that their jaunt into the Orient has not yet reached its termination. - -There is almost nothing Chinese, except these things and those who -patronize them, about the red-brick Japanese city with its wide, often -well paved streets in diagonal patterns, its typically Japanese -monuments and its little khaki-clad gendarmes in blood-red cap-bands, -where the traveler by train usually alights in Mukden. But Feng-tien -proper is quite thoroughly Chinese, when one does at last reach it by -one of the many available but all leisurely means of transportation. -There is not merely a massive inner wall surrounding what was the -capital of the Manchus before they spread over China and took up their -headquarters in Peking, but a mud wall of careless and irregular shape -encloses the entire city, down to the last suburb hovel, less as a -protection against earthly enemies than to shut out those omnipresent -evil spirits of the fervid Chinese imagination. Inside, there is what -Spanish Americans would call _mucho movimiento_, interminable movement, -a dodging to and fro of more rickshaws than there are taxicabs in New -York, a constant passing of myriads of men and boys, even of women and -girls, these often in the fantastic Manchu head-dress, an ever moving -multitude on business, pleasure, or nothing whatever bent. Shops -offering everything from steamed bread to rolls of copper coins, from -red paper banners to pulverized deerhorns, line the way thickly, in -dense succession. Venders of anything which native Mukden is in the -habit of consuming, or of keeping unconsumed, weave their way in and out -of the throngs, the muddy side streets, the tight little alleyways, -announcing their wares by strange cries or mechanical noises that have -come to be accepted for what they purport to be. Yet for all the bustle -there is an atmosphere of Chinese calm. Shopkeepers may be eager for -trade, but they will not be hurried out of a fitting deportment merely -to please clients from the breathless West; hawkers move through the -streets and carry on their bargaining as if the commodity we know as -time had no appreciable value to them, though they keep industriously at -their allotted task of announcing and disposing of as many of their -wares as the fates decree. Above all the katydids or crickets singing in -their crude little woven-reed cages suspended before house- and -shop-door give a sense of bucolic calm that neutralizes any hint of -haste in the incessant swarming to and fro of every type of Chinese. - -Hawkers of this curious breed of Chinese singing-bird wander all the -streets of Feng-tien, a score or more of the little cages at the ends of -their shoulder-poles, one or two of the green insects, resembling -“grasshoppers,” in each cage, and beside them sprigs of grass to feed -upon until their support devolves upon a purchaser. We bought one for -the diminutive member of our family, cage and all for twenty coppers, -which seemed to be about a nickel, though it goes without saying that -both as strangers and foreigners we were no doubt grossly swindled. Nor -would the captive sing for us, at least long enough to be worth the -price, during the day or two we kept him, gay and melodious as he and -his companions were in Chinese captivity. Possibly he missed the -mellifluous odors of the native city and was drooping with homesickness. -When his little alien owner set him free in the park of the Japanese -city, there was no great hope that he would enjoy his liberty long, for -Chinese urchins were slinking about with a furtive air and an alert -demeanor which boded ill for singing insects—unless, as we half -suspected, those of China prefer to hang before a shop and chant keepers -and clients into harmonious understanding. - -The mere “sights” of Mukden in the tourist sense all date back at least -three hundred years. There is the Manchu palace within the real city -wall, its many structures still impressive in their roofs of imperial -yellow tiles for all the dust-covered wrecks they are fast becoming -under caretakers interested only in the size of their gratuities. An -hour’s churning by Mukden’s Russian type of carriage over what the -Chinese regard as a road is not too high a price to pay for a stroll -through the capacious grounds of the Pei-ling, or Northern Tombs, where -the second and last emperor to occupy the palaces in the city lies with -his consort under the usual artificial hillock behind elaborate -structures roofed also in imperial yellow. For though one is sure to see -as many tombs of the famous and infamous in China as cathedrals in -Europe, this is by no means the least imposing of them. It takes a bit -more courage to jolt out to Tung-ling, the Eastern Mausoleum, a -generation older and twice as far away; but there pine-clad hills and -rather gentle yet impressive scenery make up for the somewhat less -expansive tombs. Then, too, those whose interests are not entirely in -the past may wish to run out on the branch line to Fushun, where the -Japanese are taking out—by the use of economical Chinese muscle—vast -quantities of coal from an open cut that goes down into the earth in -steps, like a dry-dock prepared for some mammoth ship many times larger -than any sea has ever floated. - -It was at Mukden that we first came into personal contact with the -swarms of soldiers—“coolies in uniform” might be a more exact term—with -which all China is cursed under its putative republican régime. Chang -Tso-lin, the war lord of Manchuria, had just been thwarted in his plan -to get control of Peking, and his troops in their muddy-gray cotton -uniforms were still pouring back into the city by the train-load. -Wagon-trains of ammunition, useful another year, were rumbling through -the narrow streets, hauled by dust-caked mules. Troops were stowed away -everywhere, in every big yard or semi-public compound, in unsuspected -corners, in barracks outside the town. Nowhere could one open the eyes -without seeing soldiers, lounging in unmilitary attitude before guarded -gates, lolling about the streets and bazaars with the air of conquerors -to whom nothing could be denied, drawn in endless files through the -Japanese city on their way to the railway station stretched out at ease -in rickshaws among their bed-stuffed possessions and grasping in one -hand the rifle with the butt of which the great majority of them -probably paid the perspiring coolies so incessantly trotting back and -forth with them. How much more picturesque life would be with us if our -soldiers mobilized in taxicabs, and booted the driver out of the way if -he dared to call attention to the taximeter. - -Scholarly-looking little Chang Tso-lin, in his ugly French-château style -of dwelling that seems so inexcusable an intruder among the graceful -palaces of China, is an enigma, at least to those who have merely met -rather than learned to know him. How this outwardly almost insignificant -man can hold a great territory in the hollow of his hand, baffling all -the cross-currents of intrigue which sweep incessantly up and down the -“Eastern Three Provinces,” was a query worth pondering. Virtually a -bandit in his younger days, then a lieutenant in the Japanese army -during the war with Russia, Chang gathered somewhere the power to rule -which made him an autocrat over his own people and won him even among -many of the foreigners who breathe the Manchurian atmosphere the -reputation of being the “strong man” of China. His methods are drastic -and prompt; he is said to depend more on intuition, on “hunches,” than -on ordered reflection. Keys to the leg-irons of serious criminals he -kept in his own possession, so that they could not buy off in the -time-honored Chinese fashion. Just before we reached Mukden two of his -generals had been detected in the not unprecedented Chinese feat of -putting into their own pockets a few cents a day from each soldier’s -pay. Chang had them up on the carpet only after he had undeniable proof -of their guilt, and there was nothing left for them to do but to confess -and plead for mercy. A curt order to have them taken to the -execution-ground beyond the outer city wall closed the incident. On the -same day two common soldiers who had indulged in looting in outlying -districts were found in the possession of the extraordinary sum of five -hundred dollars each, and for three days their bodies were left lying -out in front of the Chinese railway station as a hint to others whose -plans might be taking similar shape. Cynics, and those foreign residents -whose pet among the “strong men” of China is some one else, lay such -personal disasters to the simple fact that Chang himself did not get his -share of the “squeeze,” but the consensus of opinion seemed to be -otherwise. - -[Illustration: - - Two ladies in the station waiting-room of Antung, just across the Yalu - from Korea, proudly comparing the relative inadequacy of their - crippled feet -] - -[Illustration: - - The Japanese have made Dairen, southern terminus of Manchuria and once - the Russian Dalny, one of the most modern cities of the Far East -] - -[Illustration: - - A ruined gallery in the famous North Fort of the Russians at Port - Arthur. Hundreds of such war memorials are preserved by the Japanese - on the sites of their first victory over the white race -] - -[Illustration: - - The empty Manchu throne of Mukden -] - -The centuries-old Chinese method of execution by the lopping off of -heads seems almost to have died out in modern militaristic China, at -least in the north, along with such punishments as the slicing or the -boxing up of those who win official displeasure. As condemned men cross -the bridge to the execution-ground at Mukden, they are politely asked -whether they wish to take morphine. Most of them “save face” by refusing -it and assuming an outward air of bravery and indifference, perhaps even -of gaiety. Sometimes as many as a score kneel on the ground together, -their arms tied behind them. A soldier, who gets two “Mex” dollars for -each man he despatches, walks down the line and kills as many as he -chooses, and when he tires of the sport another soldier quickly takes -his place. There are stories of men quarreling violently because the -first one killed more than his share. The rifle barrel is placed behind -the ear of each victim in prompt succession, the other kneeling men -gazing up the line to see when their turn is coming, sometimes even -laughing aloud at a bad shot, and as each man falls on his face from the -force of the discharge a guard yanks the body out straight and cuts off -the leg-irons. One might as well be in a barber-shop so far as any -atmosphere of life and death, as we of the West understand it, goes at -these frequent execution-parties at Feng-tien. - -It must take a certain nerve-control to serve under the “war lord of -Manchuria.” Hardly an hour after the two generals so radically cured of -grafting had joined their ancestors, another general was asked to step -into an automobile and go out to the execution-grounds with two American -visitors. There was something about his manner which suggested that the -general was under some great strain, but his companions, familiar with -despotic rulers only in popular fiction, did not suspect until they -reached their destination just why it was so obviously an effort for him -to keep his attention on a subject, or even to swallow. But when he saw -that there were no armed soldiers on hand to receive him, and that he -had really been sent for no other purpose than to act as guide for the -visitors, he thawed out so thoroughly that the foreigners carried off a -false impression of the expansiveness which a Chinese gentleman displays -to casual acquaintances. - -Chang himself is evidently not without certain misgivings of a personal -nature. When another American, armed with a motion-picture outfit and -full credentials, was introduced into the war lord’s residence by one of -his most trusted officials, General Chang the younger, his son and -commander-in-chief of his armies, came to look things over in person, -and even then the father cautiously examined the camera when he -appeared, and a dozen of his personal body-guard—to which, rumor has it, -no one is eligible who has not killed at least ten men—stood behind the -camera-man with rifles loosely slung in the crook of their elbows during -the filming. Yet the younger general reads, and to a certain extent -speaks, English; his wife wears over her ears the hair-puffs of the -Western “flapper”; a graduate of Columbia University is the official -interpreter, several Chinese graduates of West Point serve under him, -and the general’s favorite car comes from Michigan’s best automobile -factory—where it was fitted with machine-gun emplacements and straps to -keep the guards on the running-boards from changing their minds in times -of danger. - -I passed through Mukden four times before my journeys in as many -directions from that focal point of Manchuria ended, and often had news -from there after we moved on, for the doings of Chang Tso-lin were -always of interest to the rest of China. To all intents and purposes -this forceful little Chinese had become the absolute ruler of what was -the home-land of the Manchus before they usurped the throne at Peking, -completely reversing the rôles of the two peoples as they were played in -1644. The influx of Chinese after that date, when the Great Wall ceased -to be a barrier between the overcrowded regions inside it and the vast -open spaces of the nomad herdsmen beyond, gradually turned these into -tilled fields where cultivation had hitherto been as strictly prohibited -as had Chinese immigration, and finally swamped the thinly inhabited -region entirely. The Manchus conquered China, and China began again in -her time-honored way to swallow up the conquerors, until to-day there is -no such thing as a Manchu nation, hardly a spoken remnant of the -sonorous Manchu language, no one resembling the fierce warriors and -hardy horsemen who put an end to the Ming dynasty such a little while -ago. For it is barely three centuries since the chief of the “Eastern -Tartars” commanded several learned persons of his nation to design a -system of writing Manchu, upon the model of that of the Mongols, and not -until two decades later that his successor ascended the dragon throne. -To-day one meets individuals all over China who consider themselves -Manchus, but they are hardly in any way distinguishable from the Chinese -among whom they have been completely assimilated. One may travel the -length and breadth of Manchuria now without realizing that he is not in -China “proper,” and particularly since the rise of its present Chinese -dictator it is much more fittingly known by its Chinese name of “Eastern -Three Provinces.” - -Virtually, if not openly, independent under his rule, that vast fertile -region may possibly have a new future that will make it worthy of still -another name, devoid of any suggestion of dependency. Mukden has its own -foreign office; the incomes from the national salt monopoly and the -customs, from that portion of the railway to Peking which lies north of -the Great Wall, and from other similar sources flow directly into -Chang’s treasury. The latest report is that he is making a good and, -within Chinese limits, honest use of them. Mukden threatens to blossom -out soon in widened and paved streets, to increase her school -facilities, to send the old horse-cars off again on their wanderings and -become the third city of China with electric tramways. Incidentally -there is talk of a system of conscription to give Chang’s armies the -full supply of hardy young men which this great granary of them under -his command is capable of supplying, which will be a line of demarcation -indeed from the haphazard, voluntary enlistments so long and fixedly in -vogue in China “proper.” There are those who believe that provincial -autonomy in place of the tightly centralized form of government of -imperial days is not merely the visible development in modern -“republican” China but the best thing that could happen to the colossal -old empire, and these are watching with interest what they hope is the -advancement of Manchuria under its approximately independent rule. But -political changes are often swift in what was for so many centuries the -unchangeable Middle Kingdom, and which still calls itself by the old -name, so that it would be worse than boldness to prophesy whether -another year will find Chang Tso-lin the undisputed sovereign of a -progressive and well administered Northeastern China or merely another -of those innumerable eliminated politicians fattening into dotage over -their ill gotten gains in the safety-zones commonly known as foreign -concessions. - - -As the traveler races north or southward from Mukden by the excellent -expresses of the South Manchurian Railway, well ballasted and much of it -already double-tracked, through towns lighted by electricity and as -spick and span as Japanese rule can make them, it is hard to realize -that when the present century began the home-land of the Manchus was -almost unknown to the outside world in anything but name. Back behind -these modern railway cities bulk the old walled towns of China, and in -the never distant background the mere passenger glimpses the primitive -methods of transportation and of life in general that are in such sharp -contrast to his immediate surroundings, fitted with almost everything -that civilization has mechanically to offer. In the summer season -_kaoliang_, a species of what our own South knows as sorghum and which -bears a considerable resemblance to the Kaffir-corn widely cultivated in -Haiti, covers the earth with its deep green to the height of a -horseman’s head, often as far as the eye can see for hours at a time—and -makes magnificent hiding for bandits. The flatness of Manchuria at -Mukden and to the north is made up for by the splendid range of -mountains that follows the railway not far off on the left all the way -to Dairen, great tumbled hills in which the mere tramper or the seeker -after old temples and ancient monasteries finds himself equally -rewarded. But it was still my lot for a time longer to stick rather -closely to the lines of modern travel and to commonplace, if -comfortable, modern cities. - -Dairen, which the Japanese have made of the Russian Dalny in the leased -portion of the Liaotung Peninsula that fell to them as the spoils of -war, has all the un-Chinese characteristics of such cities, to enumerate -which would merely be to describe in detail any one of a hundred great -ports and railway termini in Europe or, with certain modifications, -North America. May not therefore the broad macadamed streets, the big -brick and stone buildings, the great breakwaters, the mammoth cranes on -the docks, and all the rest of the signs of what we call progress, so -admirable but so unpicturesque, be taken for granted? We liked Port -Arthur, which the Japanese have redubbed Ryojun, better. There life was -more leisurely; old buildings constructed by the Russians, streets that -broke out every little while into grass- and even weed-grown open -spaces, the spaciousness of a place which never grew to be the large -busy city its founders planned, gave it something of the atmosphere of -an old town of England, or of our South, somewhat off the track of -present-day hasty and bustling activity. Ryojun is the seat of -government of the Japanese leased territory, while Dairen is merely its -metropolis. The old Port Arthur and the new are separated by a rivulet -emptying into the splendid landlocked port, and by some hills, of which -there are more than the eye can count rolling and piling away across all -the landscape of the region. These are by far the most conspicuous -features of Port Arthur and vicinity, for there is scarcely a knoll -among them that does not bear on its summit a monument. Whether it is -merely an unconscious manifestation of their military spirit, strong and -continual as far back as history can trace them, or a deliberate -parading of their victory over a branch of the white man’s world, the -Japanese have marked every spot where a handful of their countrymen fell -and have preserved the ruins of every fort out of which the Russian -defenders were bombarded, so that the hilly landscape of all the region -is littered with mementos to the god of war. Nor is his day over in Port -Arthur, for a garrison commander sits ever on the alert against kodaking -tourists who would profane his stone-built playthings overlooking the -bay. Both at Port Arthur and at Dairen there are beaches that might -become the international resorts the Japanese are striving to make them, -could their sponsors ever learn that the rest of the world is not so -enamoured of the dwarfish Nipponese form in the nude as they seem -themselves to be. - -[Illustration: - - A Manchu woman in her national head-dress, bargaining with a street - vender of Mukden for a cup of tea -] - -[Illustration: - - The Russian so loves a uniform, even after the land it represents has - gone to pot, that even school-boys in Vladivostok usually wear - them,—red bands, khaki, black trousers, purple epaulets -] - -[Illustration: - - A common sight in Harbin,—a Russian refugee, in this case a blind boy, - begging in the street of passing Chinese -] - -[Illustration: - - A Russian in Harbin—evidently not a Bolshevik or he would be living in - affluence in Russia -] - -Northward from Mukden there are also many reminders of Japanese military -prowess, besides the railway itself. Here the line was being -double-tracked, perhaps because the diversion of shipping, by fair means -and foul, from Vladivostok to Dairen was proving too much for it. The -Chinese workmen lived in semi-caves and reed-mat huts, and left a bush -or a small tree at the top of a slim pyramid of earth here and there to -show how deep they had dug for the new grading. Dense green hills and -the unpicturesque, widely scattered huts of Manchuria broke the general -landscape of endless fields of beans closely planted, with _kaoliang_ -and millet, wheat and corn, demanding their share of the broad open -country. Cattle, horses, mules, and donkeys were plentiful, and ungainly -black pigs more so. Every little while we passed a large walled town of -which we in the West know not even the name, and somewhere not far from -each of them was a new Japanese section including the railway station -and rows of trainmen’s houses, perhaps schools and a hospital. But for -all the advantages showered upon them the migrating Japanese plainly -could not compete hand to hand with the Chinese pouring up from the -crowded provinces across the Gulf of Chihli. They kept shop, ran the -railroad, filled all the higher positions in the enterprises, such as -mining, milling, and electric lighting, in which they are engaged, but -as actual producers from the soil itself, of overwhelming importance in -spacious, fertile, still rather thinly populated Manchuria, they were -visibly incapacitated. - - - - - CHAPTER VI - THROUGH RUSSIANIZED CHINA - - -The changes which burst suddenly upon the traveler at Changchun would be -startling if he were not almost certain to be prepared for them. Unless -his memory is short or his age brief he can scarcely be unaware of the -fact that the Treaty of Portsmouth on our own New England coast made -Changchun the meeting-place of that portion of the Chinese Eastern -Railway which remained to the Russians after their trouncing, and that -long section of it which their conquerors have made over into the South -Manchurian Railway. One steps from what is essentially an American -express-train upon the station platform, and from that into an -express-train that is European down to its most insignificant details. -Cars of the “Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits” offer him the -comfort of their separate compartments, brilliantly lighted by frosted -bulbs, furnished even with thermometers, roomy with the five-foot gage -of Russian railways, on which trains use the right- rather than the -left-hand track. The heavy-stacked engine is as different from the one -across the platform still panting from its race northward as the densely -bearded Russian trainmen are from the alert little brown men of the same -calling. Suddenly there were Russians everywhere, and by no means all of -them were of a type to make one unduly proud of the white race; some -indeed were roustabouts and station hangers-on living by petty graft -upon uninformed travelers, such as the latter are never subjected to on -the Japanese railways of Manchuria. There was such a mixture of Chinese, -Japanese, and Russians at Changchun that one could only surmise who was -really in control. It was a Russian who asked me for my passport—and who -raised his hat, bowed low, and retired with an almost subservient “Thank -you” when I answered that I was American. Booted and spurred Russians in -khaki, in woolen trousers and cotton smocks, in the best they could do -in the way of an individual uniform, their waists compressed to maidenly -slenderness by tight belts, strutted the platforms in long swords with -an air that said plainly that they would far rather die than have to -work and not be able to strut about in uniform, boots, spurs, and sword. -European civilians of both sexes, tow-headed women and children, mere -Russian farmers, leaned on station barriers or made their way to and -from the third-class coaches. One type in particular was very -familiar,—the half-subservient, half-cocky, always vulgar Russian Jew, -much assured of himself now, since the new turn things have taken in -Russia, but still more or less openly despised by the non-Jewish -Russians. In our car was one of the most offensive of these fellows, -head of the opium ring of Harbin, who acted as if he had purchased the -earth from its original owners and was making it a personal plaything. - -The train made incredibly long stops at every station, but excellent -speed between them, though it burned wood and thereby saved us from soot -and cinders. I had a sense of being in an utterly foreign land, many -times more so than among the Japanese. For one thing station names were -in Chinese and Russian, equally illegible to those of us who recognize a -word only in Roman letters, while from Yokohama to Changchun even the -most insignificant stopping-place announces itself in English. Hitherto -at least the head trainman was almost certain to have a smattering of my -tongue; at worst I could produce a few short but highly valuable phrases -of Japanese; but these black-bearded fellows were separated from me by -an utterly impenetrable linguistic wall. They might quite as well have -been Hottentots or Zulus as far as any possibility of communicating with -them either by spoken or written word went. Perhaps it was mainly this -sense of strangeness that made the air seem surcharged with something -ominous, something akin to hopeless political conditions. - -But through it all the endless plains of corn and beans, millet and -wheat, beautiful in their deep green, spread as far as the eye could -reach in every direction, hour after hour, all afternoon long. The -plodding Chinese peasant, who is the mudsill of all the struggles of -rival empires to control this vast rich territory, was still toiling -here and there when the sun touched the flat western horizon. But at -frequent intervals Russian boys in soldierly caps came running out of -yellow brick farm-houses surrounded by a kind of Chinese wall. Many more -of them lived in villages, some of which might have been lifted bodily -out of European Russia. At these, Chinese and tow-headed venders -appeared on the off side of stations, until they were chased away by -policemen, offering live chickens, ducks, eggs by the basketful. A -wonderful land, Manchuria, whether for cultivating or merely for the -grazing of stock; no wonder crowded Japan covets this broad, half-wasted -region, yet she has already shown that she would exploit rather than -people it. - -Rain was pouring when we reached Harbin, and seemed to have been for -weeks. At least never in all my wanderings have I floundered through -worse sloughs of mud than in the _droshke_ which lost itself in the inky -blackness and the downpour in what looked for a time like a vain attempt -to get me from the station to a hotel. By morning light there seemed no -particular reason for this, for though every street was covered at least -with slime, there were enough of them roughly stone-paved to carry all -the _droshkes_ with which Harbin swarms. Perhaps it was merely an -example of the impracticability of the Russians, of which I was to hear -so many more before I moved on. - -At Harbin, though still well inside China, the traveler finds himself -back in Europe. Unless his geography is proof against such deceptions, -he might easily believe that he had crossed the line into Russia and -brought up in one of its most typical cities. Streets, architecture, -customs, inhabitants are all on the Russian model. Instead of rickshaws -there are two types of carriages,—the _droshke_, of barouche effect, -drawn in most cases by two horses, the shaft animal under a great arched -pole and the off one with its head tied down to a level with its knees -and twisted well to the outside, thanks to some time-honored Russian -idea of style or efficiency; then there is the _amerikanka_. The -“American woman,” as foreign residents facetiously translate the word, -is a two-wheeled cart with a plain open box on top, on a corner of which -sits the driver, apparently wholly inured to the jouncing with every -step of the horse and every unevenness of the road which the passenger -or two beside him seldom gives evidence of enjoying. But the -_amerikanka_ is ridiculously cheap by Western standards, and the Russian -who manipulates it is almost sure to be cheery and pleasant, filled with -naïve tales of what is and what he believes is going on inside Russia -proper, if one chances to have a companion who can act as interpreter, -and in any case a relief merely as a Caucasian after months among -squint-eyed Orientals. Already, however, the motor-buses which probably -have by this time driven most of the leisurely Russian wielders of -horse-whips out of business had begun to appear on the streets of -Harbin. - -The houses have double windows, with a space of two or three feet -between the panes of glass; and great cylindrical stoves built into the -walls from floor to ceiling, preferably in a corner where they can bulge -into two, and even four, rooms, are almost as universal as in Russia. In -a July heat which left one drenched after a short stroll, even by -moonlight, and which made the briefest interview in any of Harbin’s -dungeon-like, double-walled offices a kind of “third degree,” it was -hard to believe these evidences of long winters during which, barely -four months thence, it would often be forty below zero and the wearing -of furs indispensable. To its residents and to most of its visitors -Harbin, all Manchuria in fact, is a land of snow and ice and bitter -gales; to me, who happened to be there in the very climax of the brief -summer, it will always bring back memories of a climate compared to -which that of the tropics is mild and invigorating. Nor can I remember -meeting in all Japan such battalions of flies as helped to make life -miserable in summer-time Harbin, with its brief nights and its -interminable days. - - -I know at last why one’s hat is always snatched from him when he enters -a Russian-Jewish restaurant in New York. In Russia, and equally in -Harbin, it is an inexcusable discourtesy to go into an office, even for -the briefest instant, wearing, or carrying, hat or overcoat. There are -always flunkies waiting to take them away from you outside the door, and -obviously they expect to be remembered when you leave. I am overcome -with grief to think that, in my appalling ignorance, I so long fancied -one of the least beloved customs of our metropolis a mere scheme to -extort tips, instead of a transplanted refinement from urbane Russia. -Equally Russian is the Harbin practice of shaking hands with the entire -personnel, from proprietor to errand-boy, of any shop one enters, -however slight the purchase one has in view. Indeed, the more genuinely -well bred shake hands all around again before they leave. - -Several gaudy blue, green, and gold churches of the Russian Orthodox -faith rise in fantastic domes and puffed-out, cross-surmounted spires -above the general level of Harbin, and religious ceremonies imported -direct from pre-Bolshevik Moscow may be seen any day in the week. -Funerals, for instance, were of more than daily occurrence. Most often -they were those of impoverished refugees, and were brief and -inconspicuous; but there were frequent processions of the elaborate, -typically Russian character. I passed two such within half an hour one -noonday. The first was of the wife of the Russian station-master. He had -discharged a Chinese employee for negligence and “squeeze,” and the -latter had returned to kill him, his bullet accidentally striking the -wife instead. The second was of the head of the Harbin _Gymnasium_, or -upper school, once a colonel and a man of great wealth in Russia, now so -impoverished that his wife and children, on foot behind the hearse, as -is the Russian custom, were almost in rags and virtually barefoot. -Mummers in fantastic costumes, including long, light-colored robes, -walked before and on either side of the deceased, who were carried in -canopied vehicles gay beyond anything western Europe or the New World -has to offer the dead, even the horses draped from ears to fetlocks in -flowing white coverlets fancifully embroidered. But the most surprising, -not to say repulsive, Russian feature of the ceremony was the public -display of the corpse. In each case the heavy lid of the coffin was laid -diagonally off to one side, and during all the miles from church to -cemetery, with several stops for the burning of incense and priestly -blessings on the way, the yellow face of the departed rolled from side -to side as the open hearse jolted over the stony pavements. - -It is an old saying that to scratch a Russian is to find a Tartar, but I -had taken this to be a mere figure of speech until I came to Harbin and -northern Manchuria, where the European and the Asiatic Orientals live -side by side. The Chinese and the Russians, one quickly realized there, -understand each other better than we of the real West can ever hope to -understand either. They have the same complicated Oriental way of -thinking, a similar point of view in such matters as “squeeze,” not very -dissimilar business methods. In a Russian department-store of Harbin the -purchaser gets two checks, one of which he pays at the desk under the -personal eye of the owner or manager, getting the other stamped and -presenting it, not to the clerk who served him, but to another so far -away that collusion between them would be difficult, before he is -finally handed his purchase. The mere loss of time on both sides no more -worries the Russian than it would the Chinese. At every turn I found -myself startled to recognize as another Russian trait what I had fancied -was characteristic merely of eastern Asia. Every important house in -Harbin had its private policeman, usually a Russian ex-soldier, and -wherever one attempted to enter a gate watchmen and domestic hangers-on -sprang up from all sides as thickly as at the entrance to a Chinese -residence or _yamen_. Perhaps the greatest surprise was the discovery -that the Russian uses the abacus or swan-pan for doing his arithmetic, -just like the people of Japan, Korea, and China, except that with him -the contrivance is much larger, as if his heavier fingers needed wooden -balls worthy of their strength. Mental arithmetic seemed to be as -impossible to him as to a Chinese shopkeeper or to the subjects of the -mikado. On my first visit to a dining-car on the C. E. R., it being two -or three hours before dinner-time, I had merely a glass of tea and some -Russian form of pastry. The bill of fare announced these as costing 15 -and 45 _sen_ respectively—Japanese money is most widely used now in the -Russianized zone of Manchuria. The ikon-faced man at his desk in a -corner of the car, his mammoth black beard looking like a wig that had -fallen from its place on his utterly hairless head, solemnly picked up -his counting-board, rattled the balls back and forth for a full minute, -and finally wrote down with an air of intellectual triumph the total of -the two items on my check before him. No Westerner can ever hope to -sandwich himself in between two peoples who prefer the abacus to pencil -and paper for their arithmetical problems. - -Yet the Russians are white men, and thereby hang certain problems that -are sure to thrust themselves upon the visitor to northern Manchuria in -the present days of Russian upheaval. It was a distinct pleasure to find -myself again where Westerners were not incessantly stared at, even -though it was useless to attempt to speak a word with men and women who -would have looked perfectly at home on the streets of any large American -city. But it was quite otherwise suddenly to realize that some of the -weaknesses of our Western civilization are much more conspicuous, or at -least more public, than similar flaws in Oriental society. Neither China -nor Japan are model lands in many respects, but during all the time I -had spent in the Far East I had not seen a fraction of the open -indecency, the unashamed vulgarity, the deliberate flaunting of sexual -wares that raged in the several conspicuous café singing-halls of -Harbin. It was almost a shock even to see white women again in any -number; to find them dressing and behaving as no Japanese geisha, no -singsong-girl of Korea or China, would ever think of doing outside her -semi-domestic circle, was more impressive, more suggestive of the vices -of our civilization, than the average of us would have called to his -attention during a lifetime of Western residence. The contrast, added to -a little knowledge of the point of view of the Oriental as to the proper -place of the sex appeal in life, made such things stand out with the -vividness of electric sign-boards. As Westerners we might understand -that Harbin, under undefined economic conditions and somewhat chaotic -government, with overturned Russia pouring its vices and its hungers -down into it, was not a normal sample of the West; to the occasional -fat, smug Chinese visitors to these blatant places, and through them to -thousands of their race, such parading of our vices could do more to -give a false impression of Western life and the Western character than a -thousand decent Occidentals, working for years to no other purpose, -could correct. - -Two decades ago, while I was wandering across Asia during the -Japanese-Russian War, an English-speaking Hindu expressed to me his -great astonishment that the white world should permit the yellow race to -show its superiority over even what seemed just then the most widely -disliked branch of the Caucasian family. He realized what at least the -untraveled bulk of the Occident does not to this day, that every sign of -weakness in any white nation, almost in any white individual, is -immediately applied by the average Oriental mind to the whole white -race. The effect of Japan’s victory over Russia, working like a leaven -through the masses of Asia for a score of years, was quite apparent in -certain general changes of attitude toward Westerners, some of them -fortunate, many of them quite the contrary. Now, with the second -catastrophe of Russia flooding Asia with new examples of Caucasian -weaknesses, of white men reduced to a lower level than Asia had ever -before seen them, one could not but feel that it behooves the Western -world in general to look to the impression Russians in China are making -for the Caucasian family as a whole, and to know what their treatment is -at the hands of the Chinese. For while we may recognize the Russian as -essentially an Oriental, really more closely allied to the Chinese than -to ourselves, the latter thinks of him entirely as a Westerner, typical -in his faults and his weaknesses of that other side of the earth toward -which the Oriental attitude is of growing importance. I do not know -whether or not the continued supremacy of the white race is best for the -world at large; but I have rather strong personal opinions on that -subject, and those who are like-minded would do well to look into the -question of the present-day conditions of Russians in China, where at -least the respect on which much of that supremacy depends is being -gradually eaten away. - - -Along all the principal thoroughfares of Harbin squatted scores of white -beggars, women and children among them, appealing to Chinese as well as -to European passers-by. In the market-places of this and of other towns -along the C. E. R. I saw many a Russian covered with filth, sores, and a -few tattered rags, a noisome receptacle of some kind in his hands, -wandering from stall to stall pleading with the sardonic Chinese keepers -to give him a half-rotten tomato or a putrid piece of meat. Barefooted -refugee children roamed the streets, picking up whatever they could -find, including some of the nastiest of Chinese habits. Former officers -of the czar, and wives who were once the grace of any drawing-room, -speaking French with a faultless accent, lived in miserable pens with -only ragged cloth partitions between them and their teeming neighbors, -eating the poorest of Chinese coolie food, some of them unable to go out -unless they went barefoot. In the so-called thieves’ market every -conceivable kind of junk, from useful kitchen utensils to useless -bric-à-brac of Russian ancestry, was offered for sale; any morning one -might see several hundred Russian men and women shuttling to and fro -there, trying to sell an odd pair of boots, an all but worn-out garment, -a child’s toy, for the price of a handful of potatoes or a measure of -_kaoliang_, or attempting to exchange something they had at last found -they could do without for something their fellow refugees still had that -seemed to them indispensable. - -The few Americans in Harbin at least were doing what they could to -relieve the needy Russians. But it was an even more complicated task -than we of the West would suppose, for here again the essential -Orientalism of the victims came out. Young men with fine faces, on which -the signs of semi-starvation were in plain evidence, would come -imploring any kind of assistance, any position that would give them -enough to buy bread. “Why,” they would cry, as if they were going the -utmost limit in describing their horrible state, “I will even work with -my hands!” But this was merely bluff; nothing could make your typical -Russian of the class which Bolshevism chased out of the country debase -himself to any such degree as that, starve, beg, or steal though he -must. With a plethora of hungry, yet still sturdy, Russians of both -sexes all about them, it was almost impossible for the American -residents to get servants, unless they took Chinese from the native -city. They could get innumerable teachers of Russian, almost none of -whom had any conception of how to teach, nor the persistence, patience, -and punctuality which that calling requires; but when it came to washing -dishes and mopping floors chances went begging in the very houses which -were being bombarded with frantic appeals for help against incipient -starvation. It was not merely that these former well-to-do did not know -how to work; they would do anything rather than learn. - -Fifteen boys who worked their way across Siberia and were found jobs by -the Y. M. C. A. secretary of Harbin all ran away very shortly afterward, -taking with them money or clothing, or both, belonging to their -employers. One went home all the way across Siberia again to find his -mother, discovered no trace of her, was caught by the “Red” army, and -finally turned up in Harbin once more with frozen feet and looking like -an old man, though he was only seventeen. This same secretary had -countless appeals for help and at the same time a job of pumping water -at his own house, but he was never able to make the two meet. Time after -time he offered some hungry young Russian this task, which meant less -than two hours’ work a day, at any time of the day that the worker might -choose, the salary to be all the food he could eat and $7.50 “Mex” a -month—a very liberal offer in China, even for high-priced Harbin. -Invariably each applicant for aid bowed low at this offer, assured the -secretary that he had saved his life, thanked him in the deepest Russian -manner possible, which might include the kissing of the benefactor’s -hands—and invariably never turned up again. One case was so obviously -deserving that the secretary dug a good suit of clothes out of the -bottom of his trunk, had it dry-cleaned, and gave it to the poor fellow, -along with the pumping job, from which he discharged the Chinese boy who -had recently been filling it very satisfactorily—and the next day, when -his water ran out, he found that the man and the suit had gone to -Vladivostok. - -American representatives of such organizations as the Red Cross, who -were spending money and energy for the betterment of Russian refugees in -Harbin, Kirin, and other towns of northern Manchuria, could not get a -man among all the big sturdy fellows they were feeding to build a brick -stove, to patch a roof, or to dig a trench for their own benefit; -Chinese laborers had to be called in to do all such “work with the -hands.” Indeed, the refugees expected their benefactors to hire servants -to sweep out and keep in order the buildings that had been found for -them. There were some well-to-do Russians in Harbin—more C. E. R. -officials than there were positions for them to fill lived there in -style, and a few families had escaped from Russia early enough to have -been able to bring much of their wealth with them, not to mention others -who had long been in business in Manchuria. But these were the last -people in Harbin to help their unfortunate compatriots. They might -flaunt their own comfort and extravagance in the lean faces of the -unfortunate; they were even known to “squeeze” some of the poor devils -among the refugees of the working-class who found and accepted work; but -they were as Oriental as the Chinese in looking callously on while their -own people starved about them, or were succored by men from across the -sea. - -For a time the Y. M. C. A. secretary helped young Russians to immigrate -to the United States under the guise of students, there being some -special ruling for these in spite of the new immigration restrictions; -but so many of them turned out to be men who had helped to start the -revolution in Russia and hoped to do the same in America that the plan -proved to be unwise. Those who succeeded in finding tasks to the liking -of the hand-sparing fugitives had their own troubles. “Hire a Russian -and you have to hire another man to watch him,” was the consensus of -opinion among all who had had that experience. Russian ideas of honesty -were frankly Oriental; moreover they were idealists, dreamers, with no -business sense, no conception of economics or economies, no “go,” not a -practical trait in their whole make-up, unless they had some German, -Swedish, or French blood in their veins, which the few enterprising ones -in Harbin did. For all that they were a most likable people, childlike -in their manners as well as their irresponsibility, with nothing of the -surliness of the Japanese, nor of the Chinese love of ridicule. They -gave one the feeling that they were not fitted to cope with the -practical every-day world, that they should not be wandering about it -without guardians and advisers. One soon ceased to wonder that the trade -of Harbin was almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews and the -Chinese; a few days in northern Manchuria were enough to explain why the -Jews are so powerful and so hated in Russia, why it has been considered -necessary to curb them, almost enough to make clear the incredible -success of Bolshevism over common sense. - -Distinctly a chip of the degenerate old régime was Harbin, inhabited -mainly by people whom nothing would drive to manual labor but who were -quite ready to spread intrigue and false propaganda against the new -rulers in their native land. The Bolsheviks, it seems generally -admitted, are at least sincere, wildly impractical as they are in their -ideas of human society; these refugees of Harbin, one felt, would be -just as bad as ever if once they got back into power, would have learned -nothing whatever, thanks to their incapability, their temperamental -ineptitude, from their bitter experiences. “Propaganda aside,” said -foreign residents who were in a position to know, and who certainly were -not friendly to the new order in Russia, “if the bulk of the Russian -people were able to vote between the old régime and the present one they -would choose the latter as the least of two evils”; and any one who has -made even a brief stay in the Russian metropolis of China would probably -be inclined to agree with that statement. - -The night life of Harbin, even passing over the vicious part of it, was -in great contrast to that of Japan and the adjoining lands I had so far -visited. Whatever else they might have to do without, the Russian exiles -plainly did not propose to deny themselves the gay times, the mingling -together in social concourse, the rivalry of dress and public -squandering of money, the joys of good music, which had been so -important a part of their life at home. Countless anecdotes floated -about Harbin of refugees dressing like lords though they had not a crust -left at home, of selling necessary things, even of spending money that -had been given to keep them from starvation, to get raiment in which -they were not ashamed to appear in the frequent social gatherings. In -the park of the Railway Club, to which members and their families were -admitted free and passing strangers at a goodly price of admission, -there was an immense crowd on the evening I spent there, as there is -almost any night of the week, so purely European a crowd that it took a -distinct mental exertion to realize that one was still in China. Yet in -all the big audience that stood and strolled about the huge shell-shaped -sounding-board, from within the mouth of which a large orchestra gave an -all-Tchaikowsky program that would have been loudly applauded by music -lovers anywhere, there was scarcely a visible sign of straitened -circumstances, to say nothing of poverty. Ladies as well gowned as at -the Paris races strolled with men faultlessly garbed, by European -standards, who swung their “sticks” with the haughty grace of -aristocrats to whom the lack of an adequate income had never so much as -occurred. Men and women sipping iced drinks on the veranda of the club -paid their checks and tipped their waiters with as lavish an air as if -the World War had never happened. Not a few men were in a kind of -combination smock and uniform, with collars buttoning high about the -neck; but these looked as much like an exuberance of fashion as like -subterfuges to save shirts or cover the lack of them, just as their -tightly belted waists were more of a fad than an open admission of the -meagerness of their suppers. - -It was like such a concert in a Spanish-American plaza, yet in many ways -different. The hearers stood during the numbers and walked between them, -reversing the usual practice south of the Rio Grande. There was endless -hand-shaking; beards were not conspicuously numerous and even mustaches -were little in fashion, at least among the younger men, but closely -clipped, even shaved, heads seemed to be as much the style as among the -modern Chinese, who, now that they are doing away with the pigtail, are -doing so with such a vengeance that their scalps show white through the -bristles. Short hair was not uncommon among the women, too, though less -as a fashion, it was said, than because so many had had typhus during -their fugitive days. It was strange to see the women all wearing hats, -quite aside from the fact that they were almost all new ones; it was -strange to see women openly treated with respect, for that matter, and -walking arm in arm with their men; strangest of all was the queer -feeling of mingling again with thousands of white people, after months -of never having seen more than a dozen of them together. Not a few of -the girls and young women were more than good-looking, in form as well -as face, a fact which many of them seemed to take care not to conceal, -for some of the newest dresses were startlingly thin, and rolled -stockings barely covering the ankle were almost the rule among the -younger set. But Russians do not appear to be prudish about the display -of the human form; during July and August great numbers of both sexes, -quite of the decent class, bathe together perfectly naked in the muddy -water of Harbin’s uninspiring river. - -I was introduced to princesses in simple but very appropriate garb, to -people with strange and with sad stories, to men who had run away from -Russia and left their wives to follow—if they could—to women who had -performed incredible feats and suffered unbelievable hardships to escape -from the blighted land or to join such unworthy husbands, and who in -some cases still retained their striking beauty and in many their -Russian charm. Yet numerous as were the fine faces in the crowd, it -hardly needed the experience of foreign residents to call attention to -the fact that in so many instances these looked proud and impractical -and—well, inefficient in the matter-of-fact things of life. Now and then -there passed through the throng that made respectful way for them old -generals still wearing their uniforms, blazing from shoulder to shoulder -with decorations, and the same haughty expression of men expecting -instant obedience as in their bygone days of power and emoluments. I -could not quite get the point of view on some Russian prejudices. Not -one of that race with whom I spoke during my journey through northern -Manchuria lost an opportunity to curse the Jews, whom they always spoke -of as synonymous with the new régime in their native land. Yet the -leader of this orchestra was a Jew, and he not only got wild applause at -the end of almost every number, even from men who left off vilifying his -people just long enough to add to it in the heartiest fashion, but when -he raised his baton to start the first number the almost entirely -Russian orchestra had given him a “rouser” instead, a sudden burst of -music entirely different from what they were about to play, which is -considered in Russian musical circles the highest honor that can be paid -a musical director. - -Harbin consists of four towns, each with its individual name. There is -the old one where the Russians first settled when they built the Chinese -Eastern Railway, now almost deserted but for tillers of the surrounding -fields, a makeshift home for orphan refugees, and the like. In Pristan, -popularly called “Jew-town,” most of the business is carried on, as well -as the far-famed singing-halls. Up the hill from this and separated from -it by an open space in which Chinese executions take place is the more -commodious railroad town, with important offices, the better-class -residences, the garish Russian Orthodox churches which rise like -unnaturally gorgeous flowers above the rather drab general level. -Lastly, there is Fu-chia-tien, the Chinese city, a mile or more away -from the others, as completely Chinese as if there had never been a -Russian within a thousand versts of the place. There are many rickshaws -in Fu-chia-tien, but not one in all the other three towns, and rarely -indeed does a foreigner ride in one, though they are more comfortable on -the horrible streets than the _droshke_, and certainly more so than the -excruciating “American women.” The severed heads of bandits hung in -cages on several street corners in Chinese Harbin, and many other such -touching little details showed that the town clung strictly to its own -ways in spite of the many foreign examples so close at hand. - -Until the debacle of the czarist régime in Russia, the three Russian -towns of Harbin were entirely under their own rule. Even now, since they -have formally taken over the jurisdiction of them, the Chinese still let -the Russians largely alone in their municipal affairs, but they are more -and more prone to “butt in” and gratuitously assert their authority, -just as they have in the Chinese Eastern Railway. This now has a Chinese -as well as a Russian president and the whole category of Chinese -officials down to the last clerk, in addition to Russian duplicates of -the same in the greatly over-staffed offices. Some say the Russian -railway officials are deliberately selling out to the Chinese; others -claim that they are running this important link in world communication -into wreckage and bankruptcy while they and the Bolsheviks quarrel, on -paper and at a distance, as to whether it belongs to the Russian -Government or merely to the Russo-Asiatic Bank. Meanwhile it staggers -along under its top-heavy double staff, paying salaries to Chinese who -do nothing and to many Russians who do not do much. The latter, old -officials cut off for years now from higher authority, avow that they -are merely administering the line for the benefit of the czarist régime -that appointed them, until such time as this shall recover its rightful -place in the world, but in practice they act as if the C. E. R. were the -private property of the little clique of reactionary Russians who hold -the power and wealth of Harbin. How public-spirited these are is -suggested by such actions as their refusing to transport, except at full -rates, food and clothing furnished by the Red Cross for the relief of -their compatriots in the various towns of northern Manchuria. - - -At Versailles in 1919 and again at the Washington Conference two years -later the Chinese delegates demanded the abrogation of extraterritorial -jurisdiction in China, as a derogation of her sovereign status as a -nation. The request was denied, but at the second gathering it was -decided to appoint a commission to examine on the spot the assertion of -the delegates that the administration of justice in the former Celestial -Empire has so far improved that foreign jurisdiction may safely be -abolished. Since then certain occurrences in China which have not been -testimonials in her favor have caused the commission indefinitely to -postpone its coming; but in the meanwhile there is considerable evidence -at hand in the treatment of the Russians by the Chinese since the former -were deprived of their extraterritorial status. - -It is probably not necessary to explain that extraterritoriality, as it -is familiarly called, consists, briefly, in the right—or is it -privilege?—of foreigners in China to be tried only by their own consuls -or judges, under the laws of their own countries. Eighty years ago, -closely following the Treaty of Nanking, which ended one of her “opium -wars” with China, England forced this concession upon the Chinese -Government, the Americans and the French quickly followed suit, and soon -there were very few foreign residents indeed who were not protected by -treaty from Chinese courts and prisons. This state of affairs remained -unbroken until about the time of the Washington Conference, when China -took advantage of conditions in Russia to repudiate her treaty with the -czarist Government, and the many thousands of Russians in China suddenly -found themselves on a par, legally, with the Chinese themselves. A new -treaty between China and Germany, in which the latter either -inadvertently or purposely left out any mention of extraterritoriality, -and lack of treaties with some of the other countries on which China -declared war at the behest of the Allies has left Germans, Austrians, -Bulgarians, and some other nationalities in the same boat with the -Russians. - -Since then life has not been quite the same in Harbin and the other -Russian towns of northern Manchuria. On one hand the change has caused -some just retribution. In the olden days Russians kicked the Chinese -about almost at will; now when a Chinese carriage driver in Harbin gets -a good excuse and opportunity, Russian heads are likely to suffer. -Russian railway-men used to throw Chinese passengers back into third -class or out on the platform, if they felt in the mood, even though they -held first-class tickets; now the minions of Chang Tso-lin suddenly levy -a new tax and Chinese soldiers go out and “beat up” Russian farmers to -such an extent in some cases that ships lie waiting for cargo in Dairen -while crops rot in the fields. Unfortunately things do not often stop -with mere retribution. The Chinese along the C. E. R. seem sometimes to -go out of their way to be insolent toward any Westerner, to jostle and -to annoy him without cause; taxes have been levied on the property of -foreigners other than Russian, and men arrested in spite of treaties of -extraterritoriality still in existence. An Italian woman who complained -that her purse had been stolen by a Chinese pickpocket was taken to jail -along with the thief, as openly as was a Russian who tried to get back -his fur coat, and the latter at least was imprisoned for weeks. You -cannot expect the garden variety of Chinese soldier or policeman to -recognize a difference in foreigners, and in a town where 98 per cent of -these are Russians we others have to watch our steps. Perhaps this -inability of their Chinese comrades to distinguish between foreigners -without and those still with extraterritorial status is the reason that -there are Russian police in Harbin, splashing through its mud in their -heavy boots as if they still had the czar’s authority behind them—until -the passing of some supercilious Chinese official causes them to snap to -attention and salute. - -[Illustration: - - The grain of the _kaoliang_, one of the most important crops of North - China. It grows from ten to fifteen feet high and makes the finest - of hiding-places for bandits -] - -[Illustration: - - A daily sight in Vladivostok,—a group of youths suspected of opinions - contrary to those of the Government, rounded up and trotted off to - prison -] - -[Illustration: - - A refugee Russian priest, of whom there were many in Harbin -] - -[Illustration: - - Types of this kind swarm along the Chinese Eastern Railway of - Manchuria, many of them volunteers in the Chinese army or railway - police -] - -Many examples of Chinese oppression of the Russians were common -knowledge in Harbin, some of them more serious than others. A young -Russian member of the Y. M. C. A. who was putting the shot in a park of -the residence town was arrested by the Chinese on the charge of having a -bomb in his possession. He spent some hours in jail, finally to be -released on bail, the police confiscating what the judge agreed with -them was an explosive agent of destruction. The association secretary -had to threaten to refer the matter to the American consul before the -“bomb” was returned, and when I left Harbin the charge against the -“bomb-thrower” had not been dismissed. Then there was the sad case of -another member aspiring to athletic prowess, who, in throwing the -javelin, hit a dog, though that was complicated by the fact that the -injured animal was of Japanese nationality, which made the affair much -more serious. Chang and his retainers may have a justifiable scorn for -those of us whose governments so habitually turn the other cheek of late -in cases of Chinese aggression, but there are several thousand good -reasons, all splendidly armed and equipped and right on the spot, why he -should respect Japan’s wishes, even if his former lieutenancy and -certain allegations of secret allegiances still frequently heard have no -weight with him. - -These instances, I admit, are not such as nations should go to war over, -but they are just as good examples as are many far more serious ones, -which any foreign resident of Harbin can cite, of how misunderstandings -alone, if there were the very best will and desire to be just, would -make it impossible for foreigners to get justice in China once their -extraterritorial privileges were taken away from them. Nor was it a -particularly agreeable sight to see a line of Russian men and women -waiting for hours, if not for days, the good pleasure of haughty Chinese -officials and their gutter-snipe-like underlings in order to get -passports to go to another town, or out of the country. The court-room I -visited in Harbin was an ordinary brick and plaster building, but -chasers of evil spirits climbed its eaves, and dragons sat on the roof, -their antennæ waving in the wind. Many Russians were gathered, including -a huge lawyer in robes who suggested _Gulliver_ in fear of his life when -he bowed and smirked before the diminutive almond-eyed officials. In -theory court opened at ten, but there had been fireworks in the Chinese -town the night before and his honor was still being patiently awaited at -noon. Out in front of the court was a string of bill-boards on which -cases were posted in tissue-paper sheets covered with Chinese -characters, reminding one that an interpreter to explain what the police -had against one would be indispensable under lost extraterritoriality. - -The judge did come at last, a boyish-looking fellow who sat in splendid, -not to say haughty, isolation in his high chair, singsonging something -now and then in a half-audible falsetto, and still more often hawking -and spitting on the floor, though there were signs all over the -court-room forbidding it. On the desk before him was one tissue-paper -_bordereau_, as the French, who use similar loosely bound collections of -papers, would call it; but there were no signs of law-books, and the -judge seemed to get his precedents, and his opinions, too, one -suspected, from the not too immaculate clerks and hangers-on who -frequently came up to whisper in his ear. Meanwhile a gray-bearded -Russian was standing respectfully before him at the rail, droning on and -on in his own tongue some sort of complaint, testimony, or defense. The -case was not a very serious one, it seemed, there being a mere matter of -two or three hundred dollars “Mex” involved; but without going any -farther into details, let me put it briefly that, though there was in -evidence all the machinery of justice which a visiting commission would -wish to see, I should very much have regretted the necessity of -expecting justice from this soggy-eyed Celestial youth, bending his ear -to this and that whisper from his unkempt, shifty-looking attendants. - -I visited also the big prison down in Pristan, built by the Russians but -now taken over by the Chinese. There were two hundred and seventy-seven -Russian prisoners and one German in it, a dozen of them women, among -whom was a Jewish member of that sex who had lived for years in “Noo -Yoik,” and spoke her fluent English accordingly. The same rules governed -the prison as under the Russians, but orders from higher up now came -from Chinese, and inmates put their hope, in cases where they had any -left, in Chinese courts and officials. Some of the guards were still -Russian, but the majority were not, and the sight of white men, clanking -with enormous chains, chased about the yard while they cleaned out -toilets and did similar menial tasks, by Chinese jailers who openly -enjoyed their discomfiture, would not have added to the joy of white -nations. Nearly all the prisoners, however, were in groups of six to a -dozen in large cells that could be dimly seen through a small slit in -each door. Living conditions were those of the old type of Russian -prisons, with immense locks, and very thick walls that made the July -heat furnace-like; the food was mainly _kaoliang_ and other cheap, -coarse grains; there were no shops, or regular work of any kind, and -only half an hour’s exercise a day in the open air was allowed, even “in -principle.” There were, of course, desperate criminals among the rather -pasty-faced but generally big brawny men who peered out the door-slits -with expressions uncannily like caged lions and tigers, and from these -China must protect herself and those who dwell within her borders. But -my American missionary companion, who had lived for some time in Harbin -and spoke Russian, knew personally of several men for whose innocence -the whole Caucasian community could vouch, who were there merely out of -Chinese spite and whose trials had been, or would be, if they ever took -place, worse than travesties on justice. The worst hardship of all, -according to the misguided lady from “Noo Yoik,” was that no one had the -least inkling, nor any possible way of finding out, when the Chinese -might deign to bring a prisoner to court and air the charges against -him. - -Terms up to forty years were inflicted, but “long-timers” had the -privilege, at least in theory, of being transferred to the “model -prison” in Peking. Thus far no Russians had been executed, “because of -the impression this might make among foreign nations,” according to an -official Chinese statement. Of course once those nations give up their -extraterritorial rights it will not so much matter what impression is -made. Not long after our visit, however, when a thin and -effeminate-looking little Russian charged with half a dozen murders in -the pursuance of his calling as highway robber, and with whom I talked -“high-brow stuff” in his tiny private cell, walked calmly out of the -court-room and killed two or three of the policemen who pursued him, the -announcement was made that in his case at least, if he were ever -retaken, this policy would be rescinded. There is little doubt that this -particular “bad man” should be done away with; but when Chinese soldiers -get to shooting white men as one of their regular duties, what little -prestige our race retains in China will soon evaporate. For what those -many untraveled Westerners who feel that China should have complete -sovereignty within her borders do not realize is the primitive mentality -of the Chinese masses, which includes the soldiers, in such matters as -the natural fights of others and the assumption of a low estate in those -who are not outwardly honored and protected. - -Though it is trespassing on the future to mention it here, I visited, -months later, that “model prison” of Peking. It is just that, a well -built, splendidly arranged penitentiary on the most modern, wheel-shaped -lines, out in the southwest corner of the Chinese city. The new section -recently built for foreigners—which had room for four times as many -inmates as had so far been collected—was quite all it should be, with -hot and cold baths, reasonable provisions for heating in winter, a -kitchen of its own where foreign food was prepared. The workshops of the -entire institution were large, airy, and light; there was a Russian as -well as a Chinese chapel in which Taoist, Confucianist, Mohammedan, -Christian, even Y. M. C. A. speakers appeared on Sundays; the régime of -the place was considerate and enlightened; as a prison, in fact, it -should make such a place as Sing Sing faint with shame. I saw other -“model prisons” in China, notably that in the capital of Shansi, which -has never had a representative from the outside world except a Turk who -was caught peddling opium pills. But these few praiseworthy institutions -in the more enlightened centers, and toward which the eyes of an -investigating commission would, of course, be carefully directed, are as -nothing compared to the unspeakable holes all over China into which -prisoners are thrown, and where foreigners also would have the privilege -of moldering away while provincial authorities slept, if -extraterritoriality were abolished. - -There is no Chinese code of laws; the fate of most prisoners depends on -the often poor judgment, the mood of the moment, the devious political -machinations, of the judge himself, not to mention wide-spread bribery -and Oriental intricacies of which even old residents have only an -inkling. Two separate codes, for foreigners and Chinese, would certainly -have to be introduced before extraterritoriality could be surrendered. -You cannot justly shoot or lop off the head of a Westerner for stealing -a suit of clothes or a sack of grain, however necessary such drastic -measures may be among a people desperate with habitual semi-starvation -and so inured to hardships that ordinary punishments mean nothing, any -more than you can justly arrest a foreign merchant because his overcoat -has been stolen, and keep him in jail for weeks as a witness. In Chinese -jurisprudence torture is a recognized procedure, and false confessions -forced thereby are considered legal proof of guilt. Every prisoner is -presumed to be guilty, and must prove his innocence, rather than be -convicted by the prosecution, no strange point of view to Latin races, -but a topsyturvy one to Anglo-Saxons. Not the least disagreeable of -Chinese practices is the “doctrine of responsibility,” which means that -in any group, be it village, family, crew, or, if the present status -were changed, assemblage of foreigners, some one must be punished for -the misdeeds of any individual member of it, so that a perfectly -innocent head may be lopped off to save the trouble of hunting out the -real criminal. Even though the Chinese were to do their best to treat -foreign prisoners justly, the very differences in point of view, in -customs, in diet even, would make it impossible. The East and the West -are so unlike that an American could die of Chinese food and living -conditions while his jailers were priding themselves, in their ignorance -of other lands, on giving him the best the world affords. Of course -Japan is an example of the abolishing of extraterritoriality; but even -there the foreigner by no means gets Western justice, and for all the -virtues and likable qualities of the Celestial and the often -disagreeable traits of the Nipponese, government in Japan is ideal -compared to the corrupt, chaotic travesty on it which rules China. - -[Illustration: - - One of the Russian churches in Harbin, a creamy gray, with green domes - and golden crosses, with much gaudy trimming -] - -[Illustration: - - A policeman of Vladivostok, where shaving is looked down upon -] - -[Illustration: - - Two former officers in the czar’s army, now bootblacks in the - “thieves’” market of Harbin—when they catch any one who can afford - to be blacked -] - -[Illustration: - - Scores of booths in Harbin, Manchuli, and Vladivostok, selling - second-hand hardware of every description, suggest why the factories - and trains of Bolshevik Russia have difficulty in running -] - - -I traveled from end to end of the Chinese Eastern Railway, including the -extension of it from Pogranichnaya to Vladivostok, through what was -once, like Korea, Chinese territory. Endless steppes, flat as a floor, -covered as far as the eye could see with coarse grass, here and there -being hayed, was the general aspect north of the Sungari. Great herds of -cattle and sheep, carts drawn by six or eight horses over roads which in -the rainy season could not have been passable at all, millions of acres -of potential wheat-fields, a great granary of everything, including -sturdy youths for Chang Tso-lin’s armies, formed the outstanding -features of Hai-lung-chiang, northernmost and largest of China’s -provinces. South-bound freight-trains were not only crowded with Chinese -soldiers, gambling amid the chaotic messiness that surrounded them in -their roofed cars, but the uncovered flat-cars loaded with their -paraphernalia, with car-wheels and rusted machinery, were crowded with -Russian women and children sleeping on makeshift nests in sunshine or -heavy rain. There were cattle-cars with barefooted Russian men tending -them, little European box-cars fitted up as homes, sometimes with a -still aristocratic-looking young woman suckling a babe in the center of -it, impertinent Chinese soldiers looking on. There is no way of -computing how many pretty Russian girls, with nothing to live on but the -sale of their charms, there were along the C. E. R. from Manchuli to -Vladivostok, like the little end of the funnel down through which the -miseries of Russia had been oozing for years. - -For all the rumors of degeneration of that line, however, the through -express was an excellent train, though even more leisurely than that on -the branch from Harbin southward, halting interminably at every station, -apparently to let the crew talk to the girls who decorated every -platform. It had all the comforts of compartment-divided sleeping-cars, -with Russian attendants; the dining-car, with its ikon and its abacus, -had a boarding-house table the entire length of it, and comely young -Russian waitresses, who rolled their socks. - -When I awoke in the morning beyond Tsitsihar, the landscape was silvery -with white birches. Large and often pretty towns appeared every now and -then among the low green hills or on the broad prairies of this most -arctic of the “Eastern Three Provinces,” decidedly Russian towns, with -wide unpaved streets, discordantly colored half-Oriental churches of the -Greek Orthodox faith rising high above all else, against backgrounds -that gave above all a sense of vast, wide-open spaces. The Russians have -about twelve square miles at each station, and a strip of territory on -either side of the railway, where they can rent land for about eighty -years, as against only eighteen for foreigners in the rest of China, -where none but Chinese can own land, with certain exceptions in favor of -missionaries. There were far more Russians than Chinese at the stations -of these frontier towns, reminiscent of those of the Dakotas, where -every one came down to see the daily train go through. Most of the -peasant women were barefoot; in town the girls all rolled their -stockings, or went without them entirely. But huge bearskin coats and -big fur caps hung out on lines, airing. Hot water was furnished at all -the important stations, and bushels of eggs, all manner of food, -especially just at this season most magnificent raspberries, were for -sale by robust Russian women, often in a substantial booth built for the -purpose. But long lines of Chinese soldiers with drawn bayonets still -slouched along every platform, besides no end of Russians in uniforms of -every swaggering description, as if the dregs of a dozen routed armies -had been scattered along the line. Many of these strutting fellows wore -swords, and some carried firearms, members evidently of some sort of -local or railway police, as the unarmed majority were probably men who -had no other garments left. The constant swashbuckling, the incessant -parading of deadly weapons, got on the nerves; quite aside from the -decided economic loss of so many men withdrawn from production, there -was an ominous something about these thousands of young fellows, who had -not been old enough to get into the war, now strutting about in its -aftermath as if looking for a chance to make up for lost opportunities. -The Russians saluted all Chinese officials, even those in civilian -dress, raising their hats to them obsequiously if they themselves were -not in uniform. At one station a drunken Russian went around forcing -Chinese ragamuffins to shake hands with him. - -All northern Manchuria was much troubled by bandits, _hung-hu-tze_, or -“red beards,” they were called, who had devastated far and wide, even -attacking the trains and station towns. There were at least a few -renegade Russians among some of the bands. The public shooting of -_hung-hu-tze_, in an open space between Pristan and the railway town, -was one of the frequent sights of Harbin. But the real curse of -Manchuria, as we were to find it of almost all China, were the soldiers. -The bandits often paid for what they took, but the soldiers looted -openly and carried off their plunder by the train-load within plain -sight of every one. When they wished to move, away from the railroad, -they forced farmers to let their crops go to waste and furnish them -transportation for ten-day journeys, feeding the drivers and their -animals along the way, but leaving them to find their way home as best -they could. If there were no other carts to be had at the end of the ten -days, the old ones must go on, twenty, thirty days, and even more. One -man I heard of had been away a year, and still could not get back. A few -hundred hand-picked, well paid soldiers, perhaps with a few Russians -among them to give them starch, could, according to competent opinion, -put a stop to banditry in Manchuria. But such coolies in uniform as -swarm up and down the C. E. R. accomplish nothing to that end, even when -they are not in actual collusion with the bandits. The _hung-hu-tze_ -rout whole barracks of them, and prey on the Chinese and the Russian -population alike. Yet the Government clings to the fiction that they -afford sufficient protection, and will not allow the Russians to go -armed, unless they hold some kind of military position under the -Chinese. Soldiers and bandits alike abuse all the inhabitants of -northern Manchuria, except the Japanese, who have their own troops on -the spot. - -Manchuli, on the edge of Siberia and almost on the fiftieth parallel, is -a large, prairie-like town of much more Russian than Chinese aspect. -Many of its houses are built of logs, yet are not unhomelike; sod hovels -like caves half below and half above ground shelter some of the -population, among which were many down-and-outs. Cossacks in their big -caps, with curiously liquid eyes, roam the wide, if dusty, streets. -Russians and Chinese sit joking together; both ride the small sturdy -horses of the region; many of the Chinese wear the long, soft, black -boots so general among their neighbors, but there seemed to be very few -mixtures of the two races. Sturdy fellows indeed were these bearded -Caucasian farmers from the north and west, but for that matter the -far-northern Chinese, with enough to eat and room to live in, are big -and strong, too, real pioneers, used to a different environment than are -their overcrowded compatriots farther south, in touch with and more -sympathetic toward European civilization. Now and again one of the -Chinese spoke to me in Russian and, when I could not answer, announced -to his companions that I was a _yang gwei_, though without any thought -of insult in the term, Russians evidently being so numerous and familiar -that they are no longer ranked as “foreign devils.” A market-place of -scores of makeshift shanties was stocked with enough second-hand -hardware to supply half Manchuria. Like those in Harbin and, I found -later, Vladivostok, these marts were crammed with everything from -railroad equipment to hinges, from factory machinery to crooked nails, -all more or less rusted, broken, and out of order. It was as if every -Russian who had fled before the “Reds” had torn loose and brought with -him anything he could lay his hands on, and here was another explanation -of why the factories and trains of Soviet Russia have difficulty in -running. - -From Manchuli one can easily look across into Bolshevik territory; but -that was not China, and the traveler must turn back somewhere. An -ancient engine and the most rattletrap collection of cars that ever -masqueraded under the name of train was preparing to set out for Chita, -wretched-looking women and gaunt, hungry babies among the passengers who -occupied the dirty, miserably dilapidated compartments that were lighted -only by the candles travelers brought with them. Even those of us for -whom hardships have a certain zest could hardly regret that the way lay -back the comfortable way we had come. - - -From Mukden on to Peking one has a feeling of being in the real China at -last. Silver dollars take the place of convenient bank-notes; the -chaotic rough and tumble of Chinese crowds unchecked by foreign -discipline pervades stations and trains, both swarming with unsoldierly -men and boys in faded, ill fitting, gray cotton uniforms, who pack even -the dining-car to impassability; here and there a bullet-hole through -wall or window of the stuffy coupés into which the half-breed -American-European cars, with certain curious native characteristics, are -divided reminds one of recent history in the once Celestial Empire. -Endless fields, enormous seas, of _kaoliang_, enough to hide all the -bandits in China, flank the way. For that matter the towns as well as -brigands hide in it, for the slightly oval-roofed houses of stone and -baked mud are barely as high as this tall grain, and as the roofs -themselves are often covered with grass, places of considerable size -easily escape the eye entirely. In other seasons it is quite different, -for once they are denuded the fields are mere wind-swept stretches of -bare earth protesting against the habitual scarcity of moisture in North -China by sending frequent swirling clouds of dust to envelop any one and -anything within reach. Walled towns far from the stations that serve -them, iron-riveted cart-wheels hub-deep in the “roads” through which -rural transportation laboriously flounders its way, Chinese in long -cloaks, almost universally denim-blue in color, naked children and -ragged, diseased adults begging abjectly wherever the train halts, were -but a few of the details that somehow we had always associated with -China. Even the towns hidden in the grain seemed to be overrun with -soldiers, yet about all pretentious properties were big stone walls that -suggested bandits in perpetuity. All these things we saw hazily, through -a veil, as it were, for some pseudo-genius has had the unhappy thought -of lining nearly all the railways of China with willow-trees, which -flash constantly past with exasperating persistence, combining with the -inadequate little windows of the stuffy compartments still further to -reduce the visibility. - -At Shanhaikwan, where the Great Wall clambers down to the sea at last, -weary with its three thousand miles over the mountains, soldiers were -much less numerous than in towns not so important to the north and south -of it. For the warring factions had declared a neutral zone on either -side of the colossal ancient rampart, which had become again, after -nearly three centuries of no real importance, the dividing-line between -what threatens to be an independent Manchuria and China proper. On the -beach at Shanhaikwan, or neighboring Pei-tai-ho, where half the foreign -residents of North China spend the summer, with turbaned Hindus, white -and black soldiers of France, an Italian gunboat, and other reminders of -their protective home governments to discount rumors of being in danger, -the heat was still too scorching to make an immediate entry into still -hotter Peking inviting, though August was well on the wane. Even a week -later, when much of the landscape was flooded with the brief rainy -season, a cool breath of air night or day was as rare as a Chinese field -without a grave. Within the Great Wall, beyond which seems to be -considered outer darkness for such purposes, these bare, untended -mounds, without even the grass which beautifies those of Korea, dotted -the country like spatters of raindrops on a placid yellow sea. As we -neared Taku, at the mouth of the river that gives Tientsin its -importance and all but washes the walls of Peking, higher, newer conical -heaps of earth suggested that many men of importance, or wealth, had -recently been buried there. But these turned out to be salt-fields, -where the surface soil of a great sea-flooded region is thrown up in -mounds and rectangular heaps which gradually wash down from earthy brown -to the white piles that are sacred to the government salt monopoly. - -The traveler who lets his friends rush him about the foreign concession -of Tientsin by trolley or automobile will get an impression of a -comfortable Western community in an Oriental land, but he will carry off -very little idea of the real China, or even of the real Tientsin, which -is a swarming Chinese city, none the less so for having had its wall -reduced to a street of boulevard width as a punishment for the Boxer -uprising. To those for whom commerce and modern efficiency are -everything of importance, the Concession at Tientsin is of more -consequence than a whole province of interior China, but I found myself -more interested in any one of the ten Mohammedan mosques within the -native city, or in the former home of Li Hung-chang, now a tomb in which -he is worshiped by his descendants quite like any other prominent bygone -Chinese from Confucius to Yuan Shih-kai, than in the whole length of -Victoria Road. - -A foreign concession in China, while it serves its purpose of making -life more livable and business more possible to the foreign merchants -who inhabit it, is altogether too convenient a refuge for the Chinese -crooks who choose to make it one. How many of China’s ex-ministers of -finance or of communications, how many former office-holders of every -graft-collecting grade, have retired to the protection of foreign -jurisdiction at Tientsin alone, living in luxury on their loot of -office, and how much of this might have been recovered by the Chinese -people to whom it rightfully belongs were there no such safety-zones of -easy access, is suggested by the magnificent establishments many of -these rogues maintain there. Yet the gaunt human horses who toil past -them tugging at heavy carts piled high with imports and exports get -barely six cents a day in our money, which they wolf in scanty, -unwholesome food copper by copper as fast as their tally-sticks amount -to one. As mere passers-by we could not but be thankful that, after a -brief following of the example of other nations, the United States -decided that concessions on Chinese soil were not in keeping with our -national policy. The Russians and the Germans and the Austrians have -lost theirs now, as they have their extraterritoriality, and it would -not be strange if this recovery of sovereignty taken from them for the -misdeeds of the Boxers gives hope to the people of China of chasing us -all out before the century has grown much older. Where a bare score of -Italians can hold a large tract of Chinese territory under their -jurisdiction, trafficking in arms and munitions from it with the various -factions that are doing their best to make China a continual -battle-field, and selling at almost any price they wish to ask what is -virtually the protection of their flag to Chinese rascals, it is not to -be wondered at if enmity toward “foreign devils” in general does not -show rapid strides toward oblivion. Jealousies among the various -nationalities which still keep their holdings also make a queer story. -Thus as many police forces and fire departments are maintained as there -are concessions, and one miserable little bridge connects the principal -foreign quarter with the rest of China, when getting together would make -really efficient substitutions. Tientsin is perhaps a pleasant -dwelling-place for those who like it, but we left it without regret one -morning soon after our arrival and by noon were rumbling along under the -massive walls of Peking, which was to be our home for the unprecedented -length of nine months that will not soon be forgotten. - - - - - CHAPTER VII - SPEEDING ACROSS THE GOBI - - -In September, when the _kaoliang_ has ripened to its purple-red, there -is added beauty to the eight-hour climb from Peking, by leisurely -Chinese train, through Nankow Pass and the Great Wall, to Kalgan. Beyond -that treeless, mountain-girdled city the railway turns sharply westward, -timidly keeping within the outer spur of China’s mammoth rampart, and -the traveler to the vast open world to the north must abandon it for a -more courageous form of transportation. - -Down to the very doors of to-day the camel caravan, drifting along for -six weeks or two months, was the swiftest thing from Kalgan to Urga, -capital of Outer Mongolia, seven hundred miles away, unless it was -sometimes outsped by the forced relays of the Imperial Chinese Post. But -the ratio between time and distance has of late undergone violent -changes, even in such far-off stretches of the globe. Little more than a -decade back mankind was astonished to hear that a venturesome motor-car -had fought its way from Peking to Paris; five or six years ago men of -more commercial turn of mind took to following this pioneer of swiftness -across the Gobi; and to-day it is a rare week that does not see several -automobiles, always with room for one more passenger, climb out of -Kalgan on their way to Urga. - -How some of these ever reach their destination is one of the innumerable -mysteries of the Orient. Our own expedition seemed risky enough, yet it -was a mere parlor-game compared to those we met or overtook along the -way. In the first place there were but four of us—the Russian Jewish -fur-merchant from Tientsin who owned the car, his chauffeur of similar -origin, and we two wandering Americans whom chance had momentarily -thrown together in the intricate byways of the earth. What with our -necessary baggage, the food and beds and arctic garments it would have -been foolhardy to reduce, and the cases of gasolene that completed the -ramparts which made each ascent to our seats a mountaineering feat, I at -least fancied we were heavily laden. Yet we passed on the trail cars -with eight or nine Chinese passengers, and on a memorable morning one -with eleven, besides all manner of baggage, winter garments, and -paraphernalia, somehow packed away in them. They were often old and -crippled cars, too, and no wonder, while our own was fresh from the -factory, with two gasolene-tanks, a host of reinforcements and -accessories, and the right-handed drive befitting left-handed China. -Like all those engaged in the Kalgan-to-Urga traffic, it came from -Detroit, though not of the breed one first thinks of in that connection, -but from the second most popular motor tribe of that habitat. Those who -should know say that this is the only car sturdy and at the same time -economical enough to endure life on the Gobi Desert. - -[Illustration: - - The human freight horses of Tientsin, who toil ten or more hours a day - for twenty coppers, about six cents in our money -] - -[Illustration: - - Part of the pass above Kalgan is so steep that no automobile can climb - to the great Mongolian plateau unassisted -] - -[Illustration: - - Some of the camel caravans we passed on the Gobi seemed endless. This - one had thirty dozen loaded camels and more than a dozen outriders -] - -[Illustration: - - But cattle caravans also cross the Gobi, drawing home-made two-wheeled - carts, often with a flag, sometimes the stars and stripes, flying at - the head -] - -We honked and snorted and sirened our way through the narrow, dust-deep, -crowded streets of Kalgan, as automobiles must in any genuine Chinese -city, now blocked completely by the deliberate foot-going traffic, now -by languid trains of ox-carts, and always quickly surrounded by gaping -and grinning Chinese, to whom a foreigner seems always to remain a rare -bird, however many of him may be seen daily. Twice we were halted at -ancient city gates by policemen with fixed bayonets. They were somewhat -more deferential to us, and more easily satisfied with the credentials -we chose to show, than toward our two companions with their big red -_huchao_, large as a newspaper page, by means of which the local _yamen_ -had given them permission for their journey. Russians are subject now to -Chinese law, and Americans are not, which at times makes a world of -difference. Yet it was at one of these same gates that an American -resident of Kalgan was killed by one of these same guards not long -afterward for refusing to submit to an illegal decree of the local -overlord. - -For about two hours beyond the outer gate we climbed a stony river-bed, -wide enough to have carried a stream with ships on its bosom, but merely -crisscrossed by a narrow brook bringing down silt from the treeless -mountains above. The city abandoned us with reluctance, struggling along -for a way in closely crowded shops and dwellings, then straggling more -and more until it dwindled to a single row of mud houses on either side, -finally to little clusters of huts strung together like loose strings of -beads, and breaking up at last into isolated hamlets dug back cave-like -into the cliffs of dry fantastic hills that rose yellow-brown above and -beyond us. The unpromising route was dense with traffic,—long trains of -camels haughtily treading past, strings of ox-carts with the solid, -heavily riveted wheels indigenous to China, patient-faced mules and -donkeys carefully picking their way through acres of tumbled stones, -throngs of cheery, unbelligerent Chinese in blue denims, mingled here -and there with a more hardy, weather-beaten, hard-faced Mongol, a stray -soldier perhaps, with an ancient gun slung over his sheepskin-clad -shoulder, or a robust lama in filthy quilted garments that had once been -red or yellow. Whenever some of the many obstacles brought us -momentarily to a halt these religious tramps came to beg the half-smoked -cigarette from between our lips, to feel the car all over, as if it were -some new breed of horse, and to hint that a dollar or a dime or a few -coppers or even some remnants of food would be more or less gratefully -accepted. - -Where the waterless river tumbles down from the high plateau across -which lies nearly all the route to Urga, the slope is too swift even for -the sturdiest of motors, wherefore the adaptable Chinese villagers have -found a new source of income. Before this steeper section was reached, -Chinese along the way began to wave appeals at us, to point out their -lean and hungry mules and horses, in some cases even to climb up over -our baggage rampart with harnesses in their hands, begging the job of -hauling us to the top. Three horses, a mule, and a donkey were at length -engaged, after the bargaining indispensable to both races concerned in -the transaction, hitched with long rope traces to the front axle of our -now silent car, and for more than an hour they toiled upward under the -discouragement of three shrieking Chinese drivers and their cracking -whips, at a pace which that one of us who chose to walk easily -outdistanced. - -From the chaos of broken rocks where the animals were allowed to abandon -us stretched a tumbled brown world not unlike the upper reaches of the -Andes. Of road in the Western sense there had been none from the start; -there was even less now. Across pell-mell hillocks with rarely a yard of -level space between them, among rocks of every jagged and broken form, -we plowed for the rest of the morning. Cattle—curiously -effeminate-looking cattle, with long ungraceful horns—flocks of sheep -and goats intermingled, files of camels under varying cargo, here and -there a cluster of black pigs rooting more or less in vain, marked a -trail that might otherwise have been less easy to follow. Men in -cotton-padded clothing and sheepskins plodded beside their animals, or -tramped alone with a worn and faded roll of bed and belongings on their -backs; cheery, amused, seldom-washed people smiled at us over the mud -walls of their compounds; for some time big ruined towers of what was, -or was to have been, another Great Wall, stood at brief intervals along -the crest of the bare, yellow-brown ridge beside us. Then came rolling -stretches of grain, principally oats, most of it already harvested by -the sickle and carry-on-the-back method, for all the vastness of the -cultivation, and lying in carefully spaced bundles in the fields where -it fell, or set up in long rows of closely crowded shocks near the -hard-earth threshing floors. - -Bit by bit even this cultivation grew rare and scattered, and finally -died out entirely. By the time the speedometer registered eighty miles -from Kalgan we were spinning along, often at thirty miles an hour, -across high, brown, grass-covered plains, still somewhat uneven, but -with little more than a suggestion of hilliness remaining. Flocks of -sheep far off on the sloping sides of the horizon looked like patches of -daisies; veritable gusts of gray-blue birds of stately flight, -suggestive both of cranes and of wild geese, rose in deliberate haste -before us and floated away to the rear in a vain effort to outdistance -us. Almost frequently we passed long camel caravans, broken up into -sections of a dozen animals each, tied together by a sort of wooden -marlinespike thrust through their noses beneath the nostrils and -attached by a cord to the pack of the animal ahead, the first of each -dozen led by a well padded, skin-wrapped man who was more often Chinese -than Mongol. Some of these camel-trains seemed endless, with dozen after -dozen of the leisurely, soft-footed animals slowly turning their heads -to gaze, with a disdainful curiosity that suggested a world-weary -professor looking out from beneath his spectacles at incorrigible -mankind, upon this strange and impatiently hasty rival that sped -breathlessly past them. Now and again a beast shuffled sidewise away -from us, uttering that absurd little falsetto squeak which is the -camel’s inadequate means of protest at a cruel world; but most of them -refused to be startled into undignified activity by any such ridiculous -apparition. Once on the journey I counted a caravan bound for Urga which -stretched from horizon to horizon across the brown undulating world; and -there were thirty dozen camels bearing cargo, and a score of outriders -to keep the expedition in order. - - -We spent the night in a Chinese inn, mud-built and isolated, with the -usual stone _kang_, heatable and mat-covered, as bed and only -furnishing. It might have been quiet and restful but for over-zealous -watch-dogs and the arrival long after dark and the departure long before -dawn of two dilapidated cars with seventeen chattering Chinese -passengers. We, too, were off well before daylight, a half-moon lighting -the way as we spun across rolling, utterly treeless country with nothing -but short, scanty grass giving a touch of life to the brown-green -landscape over which a cloudless sun at length poured its molten gold. -Even the confirmed tramp would have found this an unendurable journey on -foot; a motor-car in its prime was scarcely swift enough to avoid -monotony, to come often enough on flashes of interest to keep the senses -from sinking into slothfulness. Pedestrians and lone travelers had long -since disappeared; safety, both from possible violence and from -starvation, demanded banding together, and some form of mount. The big -shaggy black dogs of Mongolia, filthy in diet as those of Central and -South America, but several times more savage, roamed wild across the -plains. A woman abroad at sunrise, gathering the offal left by a camping -camel-train and tossing it with a bamboo pitchfork over her shoulder -into a basket on her back, was the only sign of life for several miles. -Such fuel, like the llama droppings of the Andean highlands, is all that -is to be had in this barren region. - -There were striking reminders of the aborigines of the Andes among the -scattered inhabitants of this high plateau. Mongols, distinctive in -face, dress, manner, and physique from the Chinese, had the same broad, -stolid features to be found along the spine of South America, though -they were much more bold and independent of bearing, as if they had -never been cowed by alien races. The interiors of their rare clusters of -two or three huts recalled the Andes, too—the bare earth for floor, a -dozen woolly sheepskins as beds, an extra pair of boots, a couple of -aged pots as total belongings. Instead of heaped-up cobblestones without -mortar, however, these _yourts_ were made of thick rugs of felt fastened -about a light wooden framework into a perfectly round dwelling perhaps -ten feet in diameter, the door, invariably facing the south, so low that -a man could barely enter upright on his knees. Inside, at least under -the wheel-like apex-support of the round and sloping roof, even we -Americans could sometimes stand erect—by peering out through the opening -for the escape of smoke and the entrance of air in pleasant daytime -weather, left by turning back the uppermost strip of felt. At one such -tent, where we halted to satisfy a thirsty radiator, only a soil-matted -old woman appeared and took to feeling along the ground about it for the -vessel that lay in plain sight. She was stone-blind, it turned out, yet -to all appearances quite satisfied with life as she knew it, with only -her miserable _yourt_ and an uninviting water-hole a few rods away. The -Mongol is still a true nomad herdsman, and his round, gray-white -dwellings are easily transportable, so that when one little hollow in -the plain dries up he has only to pack his house and wander along. - -[Illustration: - - The Mongol would not be himself without his horse, though to us this - would usually seem only a pony -] - -[Illustration: - - Mongol authorities examining our papers, which Vilner is showing, at - Ude. Robes blue, purple, dull red, etc. Biggest Chinaman on left -] - -[Illustration: - - A group of Mongols and stray Chinese watching our arrival at the first - yamen of Urga -] - -Once every two or three hours we passed a cluster of three or four of -these low, movable homes, always at a considerable distance off the -trail. There was still no road, yet we made good speed almost steadily. -Besides the often dim traces of other travelers there was the guidance -of a line of telegraph-poles, carrying two wires but as yet no messages. -In the days before the World War word could be flashed by this route -from Paris to Peking, even from London to Shanghai, in three minutes; -but retreating armies must have fuel even in a treeless desert. Mixed -flocks of sheep and goats, slate-colored goats mingled with those -fat-tailed sheep of Asia which waddled so ludicrously as they scampered -away from us, still found sustenance here and there under the protection -of a mounted shepherd or two. It was still too early autumn for wolves, -but bands of antelopes, like big pretty rabbits, loping gracefully yet -swiftly across the rolling plains, became more and more frequent and -immense as we sped northwestward. Before the journey ended, great lines -of these, like brown-gray heat-waves, sometimes undulated along the -whole horizon, and more than one herd of fifty to a hundred, startled by -the sudden appearance of our snorting black monster, all but ran -themselves off their legs in a mad dash to cross the trail in front of -us, instead of speeding away out of danger. - -It was about noon of the second day that we gradually entered the real -Gobi Desert. Yet it was not a desert in the Sahara sense, of mere -shifting sand, but of hard sand and gravel mixed with clay, always -covered at least with the thinnest of grass, and often with tufts of a -grass-bushy sort, enough to keep even a desert from shifting and -blowing. Thus far the weather had been cool but glorious; but no sooner -had we come to the Gobi, where, as any teacher of geography can tell -you, it never rains, than the sky roofed itself over completely with -gray-black clouds and rain forced us to halt and contrive some means of -raising the top over our ramparts of baggage. Skeletons of cattle, -particularly of camels, became more than frequent, blanching into dust -closely beside the trail just where the end of their life’s labors had -overtaken them. Buzzards that looked more like eagles vied with the wild -black dogs in disposing quickly of the carcasses. Nor were the modern -rivals of the camel free from a like fate. Several skeletons of -automobiles caught our eye, and they were always scattered piece by -piece for some distance, as if they had disintegrated at full speed, or -their bones, too, had been picked clean and dragged hither and yon by -those savage dogs that roam the Mongolian plains. Floor-flat and wide as -it is, and almost as free from the “other fellow” as from “traffic -cops,” this natural speedway of the Gobi has had a number of fatal -automobile accidents. - -Unlike the Sahara, it is not merely the camel that can cross the Gobi. -Mules and horses make the journey, and the miles-long camel caravans -were rivaled by endless strings of ox-carts, the crudest of two-wheeled -contrivances, plodding along across the dry, brown world as if all sense -of time or destination had long since been cast aside as worthless -paraphernalia. Often, especially in the cold early mornings, we passed -caravans camped out, perhaps for a day or two, while their weary animals -browsed the stingy hillsides. A denim-blue tent backed by scores or -hundreds of bales of hides or wool, if the expedition was China-bound, -or boxes of food, cloth, liquor, and oil products, if Urga was its -destination, with perhaps more uptilted two-wheeled carts than could -have been counted during one of our average halts, usually completed -such a picture as we came upon it. At the sound of our unmuffled engine -tent-doors became alive with gaping, bullet-headed Mongols, lower orders -of whom, or their Chinese counterparts, came to life from beneath what -had seemed to be mere bundles of felt rags and sheepskins on the cold -hard ground, while the horses tethered about the camp with three feet -hobbled together after the Mongol fashion made frantic and often -successful efforts to escape from this new terror descending upon them. -The horses of the Gobi have not yet learned to behold the automobile -with equanimity, and our passing often sent great herds of Mongolian -ponies sweeping away in chaotic masses across the plains in a stampede -which the dozen outriders were powerless to stem. - -Twice during the second day we made out large compact clusters of white -buildings on the flank of distant ridges along the horizon—lamaseries in -which scores of Mongol monks pass their days in anything but monasterial -austerity. Once, when we had seen no other living thing for hours, an -old Mongol came loping across the desert on a camel in the teeth of the -cold, raging wind, a picturesque figure in the still almost bright-red -quilted cloak reaching to his ankles, and his pagoda-shaped fur cap. -When we called to him he halted and pulled sharply at the reins attached -to the perforated nose of his beast, which thereupon knelt in -instalments, front, back, then front again, and rose to follow his -dismounted master over to us. Our Russian companions, who managed to -make themselves understood in any language, though actually speaking -none but their own, passed the time of day in Mongol, the one important -word of which seems to be _buyna_, corresponding to the French _il y a_, -but greatly outdoing it in service. The leathery face of the old man was -like a boot that had lain out in the elements for years; the two teeth -he showed suggested the fangs of a wolf; but his smile was as kindly as -that of an Iowa farmer, and while his thankfulness for a cigarette was -very briefly expressed, as becomes a nomad scorning or unaware of the -formalities of a politer world, there was something distinctly manly in -his every movement from the time we first saw him until he mounted his -kneeling camel again and rode away into the vastness of the desert. For -hours afterward there was nothing to catch the attention, unless it was -the compatriot beside me. He was one of those American wanderers in the -Orient who have never recrossed the Pacific since coming out to help -pacify the Philippines a generation ago, and he still preferred a horse -and “buggy” to these new-fangled things fed by gasolene; he had not yet -heard of scores of facts and inventions which have become ancient -history to us at home; and he passed his idle hours in humming the songs -that were popular in our land twenty years back. - -At length we ran out from under the great motionless canopy of clouds -into brilliant sunshine again, though even there the racing wind was -almost bitter cold. The Gobi, as I have said, is no Sahara, yet it was -beautiful in its many moods as the sea, stretching away in tawny browns -or cold bluish grays to infinity, or to scampering lines of antelope -along the far horizon. Beyond the mud-walled compound enclosing the -telegraph station of Ehr-lien the smooth, grass-tufted desert gave way -to a savage country of protruding rock-heaps, peaked heaps of blackish -stone outcropping everywhere, as if nature, too, built prayer-piles, -like the pious Mongols, who litter their landscapes with conical piles -of stones wherever they are available, as appeals to the supernatural -powers. - - -Nightfall found us midway between two mud-walled telegraph stations, and -shelter from the raging wind and the penetrating night air of a more -than four-thousand-foot elevation was highly desirable. Two -weather-blackened _yourts_ broke the immensity about us, far off to the -right. One does not need to look for side-roads on the Gobi; we made a -bee-line for them across the plain. But the unsoaped occupants were not -willing to double up in one tent and rent us the other, for which I was -duly grateful when I had caught a glimpse inside the pen that might have -been assigned to us. Several miles farther on, a larger group of nomad -dwellings appeared, this time to the left across more broken country. By -the time we had struggled near to the settlement we were surrounded by -Mongols and black dogs, several horses had broken their tethers and were -already mere specks on the horizon, and even the camels reclining about -the _yourts_ had risen to protest in their ridiculously childish -falsetto against this unauthorized disturbance. This time there were -half a dozen tents, in much better repair and more nearly resembling -human dwellings. Moreover here there was a man of importance to receive -us. He was a lama, as his close-cropped head and a kind of bath-robe -gown, thickly quilted and still dully red for all its unwashed age, told -us; for the Mongol layman wears a cue and more masculine garments, wore -a cue in fact centuries before this girlish head-dress was imposed upon -the Chinese by their nomad conquerors. But it required the linguistic -lore of our Russian companions to learn that he was also a princeling, a -kind of tribal ruler of a neighboring region, who had come on a visit to -his friend, the family head of this cluster of huts. He was a big brawny -man, rather handsome in his own racial style, with a wide, frank, fairly -intelligent face, pitted with smallpox. We were invited to enter his own -hut, which was round and low and made of thick gray felt, like all those -on the Gobi; but the earth floor was also carpeted with felt mats, and -about the circular walls were several small chests and other simple -articles of household use, not to mention saddles and bridles. The lama -gave orders briefly and to the point, more like a commander than a -guest. A sort of iron basket on legs was set up in the middle of the -tent, filled, by hand, with dried camel-dung, and was soon blazing so -merrily that the bitter night wind outside was more endurable than the -temperature inside the tent. I know no fuel which outdoes that of the -Gobi in quickness and intensity of heat. The Mongols, however, seemed to -be impervious to it. Though inured for many generations to the bitter -cold of their plateau, they crowded into the hut without removing a -single one of their heavy garments, tightly closed the little low door, -and squatted about the roasting iron cage with every evidence of keen -enjoyment. There is but slight differentiation by sex in Mongol dress, -and the men and women alike wore heavy, ungraceful trousers, huge high -boots of soft, pliable, black leather with pointed turned-up toes, and a -thick quilted garment covering all else from neck to calves, not to -mention uncouth fur head-dresses. Even in these desert _yourts_ the -reddish faces and garments of the women are often set off by elaborate -and fanciful hair-dress and other ornaments; but if these existed here -they had been laid away, and the very girls stalked about in their -oversize sock-stuffed boots like lumber-jacks in midwinter. - -Mongol tea was prepared over the fire-cage and served us in brass bowls; -but as the resident of Mongolia puts his salt in his tea rather than on -his food, and has other un-Western notions of how it should be -concocted, I did not insist on having my bowl refilled. I found my mind -frequently harking back to such nights as this on the high Andean -plateaus of South America, though there the travel itself had been quite -different. Here was the same bare, vegetationless earth round about, the -same complete ignorance of, or interest in, cleanliness, similar -crowded, comfortless huts, and much the same attitude toward life as -among the Indians of the Andes. But these plateau-dwellers were far more -hospitable, cheery of manner, and with a live human curiosity which, -though it caused them to finger monkey-like any of our possessions they -could reach, had a more agreeable effect on the spirits than the sullen -dullness of their American prototypes. Now and again, when they became -over-troublesome, the lama ordered them outside with a commanding voice -and manner which usually was effective at the third or fourth -repetition. Yet he, too, was not lacking in fingering curiosity, of a -slightly more controllable nature. While we ate we passed out samples of -our strange foreign food to the gaping, over-clad semicircle about us. -One of my canned cherries, dropped into a gnarled Mongol palm, created a -considerable commotion. What was it; and was it safe in a Mongol -stomach, even though this other kind of man ate it without misgiving? It -passed from hand to hand around the circle, each evidently expressing -his opinion of the risk involved, and the consensus seemed to be that it -was up to the original recipient to make the venture. He licked -cautiously at the fruit for some time after it had been returned to the -furrowed hollow of his hand. At length, reassured by the two Russians -and urged on by the lama, he bit gingerly into it—and half sprang to his -feet with the shock it seemed to give his tongue. More reassurance -finally induced him to eat it, and all went well until the stone -betrayed its existence, whereupon there was an instant demand to know -whether the presence of that foreign substance was normal, or whether -his evil spirit was playing new and perhaps destructive tricks upon him. -Considering the quantity of foreign substance the average Mongol absorbs -with his meals, there seemed to be something absurdly incongruous about -this lengthy performance. But then, we of the uninstructed West know -little of the myriad methods the teeming evil spirits of the Orient -devise to trap their victims. - -A bit of chocolate caused less flurry, though the semicircle around -which it disappeared unanimously pronounced it too sweet to be -agreeable. A cube of sugar was not a total stranger, and each of the -gathering asked the privilege of letting one melt on his tongue. When it -came to meat, even from tins, there was no mystery left; mutton and beef -form the almost exclusive diet of the Mongols, except for milk and -cheese in summer, and their salted tea. Not only are they true nomads, -but their pseudo-Buddhist religion teaches that it is wicked—or shall we -say dangerous?—to till the soil. - -Though there is little formality in Mongol intercourse, I inadvertently -made one _faux pas_ during the evening. Among those who crowded into the -overheated hut was what I at first took to be a handsome youth, but who -turned out to be, under the heavy, sexless garments of Mongolia, a girl, -perhaps of seventeen. When I offered her a tidbit of some sort, she -shrank back without accepting it, while the rest of the semicircle -looked at me with an expression of mingled wonder and resentment, and a -moment later she slipped out through the tightly closed, knee-high door -into the night. I should, it seemed, have been more indirect in my -methods, handing the donation to the old woman or to one of the men of -the family, and hinting that they might pass it on. As it was, I had -evidently boldly made an advance, and that publicly, similar to handing -my door-key to a chance lady acquaintance in the West. The girl -returned, later on, and indirectly accepted a few knick-knacks, but it -was evident as long as I remained that I was a man on whom it behooved -parents and husbands to keep a watchful eye. - -The tin cans we emptied were, of course, considered great prizes, to be -quarreled over and at length allotted by the lama. The old woman begged -us to open others and somehow dispose of the food in them, in order that -she might still further increase her stock of kitchen utensils. Her -curiosity seemed to have reached almost a morbid growth, for though we -or the lama drove her several times out of the hut, she was evidently -bent on watching these curious beings from another world disrobe. A -ragged old man who proved to be the tribal shepherd was equally hard to -banish, though for a different reason. He had been accustomed to sleep -in the hut we occupied, and he resisted as long as he dared, and quite -justly, the demand of the lama that he sleep outside. The lama won in -the end, of course, and the shepherd curled up grumblingly in a nest of -quilted rags and sheepskins along the outer wall, where his deep bark -resounded in the desert stillness all through the night. Heavy colds -seem to be quite as common among these permanent denizens of the plateau -as they were universal with the four of us. The fire-cage was carried -outside, but the thick heat remained, in spite of which the lama called -to a boy to pull the topmost layer of felt down over the opening left in -the top of _yourts_ by day, hermetically sealing the place. But he was -right; before morning we would have resented a pinhole in the felt -walls. I had indulged in the luxury of bringing an army cot with me, -which excited not only the wonder but the admiration of our host. The -inventiveness which had produced such a contraption seemed less -surprising to him than the courage I displayed in using it; he, said the -lama, would be certain to fall off it in the night and seriously injure -himself. Instead he stripped to the waist and lay down on a bundle of -blankets and skins along the wall, pulling a rough cover of camel’s hair -over him. But this was not until the formalities of his calling had been -fulfilled. As we were turning in, he called once more to the boy -outside, who soon appeared with two brass disks, loosely tied together. -The lama squatted on his haunches, clashed the disks once together with -a resounding clang, then mumbled for several minutes through his -prayers. Then he sat for some time staring from one to the other of us, -as if wondering what breed of men were these, who dared lie down for the -night without having propitiated the evil spirits which ride the -darkness, until at length he blew out the floating-wick lamp and lay -down. - - -We were glad, indeed, to see the sun again next morning, when at last it -burst up like the exhaust from a puddling furnace over the low, level -horizon. Already we had bumped our way back to the “highway,” as worthy -of the name as the _caminos reales_, the “royal roads,” of South America -are of theirs, and had sped some distance along it. The eyes suffered -most in this glaring light and the incessant strong head wind from which -nothing short of entirely wrapping up the head could protect them. The -constant bumping and tossing made up for any lack of exercise. Among -myriad rock-heaps, natural and prayerful, we crossed the frontier -between Inner and Outer Mongolia, marked merely by two huger stone-heaps -on either side of the there sunken trail, the summits connected by a -wire from which hung tattered bits of cloth prayers and various mementos -of the pious, culminating in a weather-beaten straw hat of Chinese make. -That was all, except the immensity of the desert, for the -frontier-station was still about fifty miles distant. Then the -rock-heaps died out, and the earth as far as we could see it was thickly -covered with millions of little mounds, like untended Chinese graves, -with hints of scanty tuft-grass on top of them. At long intervals we -passed a caravan, the dull-toned notes of the bell-camels reaching our -ears momentarily as we dashed past. The first camel of one long train -carried the American flag at his masthead, so to speak, to warn would-be -marauders that the hides and wool behind him were under whatever -protection our consuls and diplomats in the former Chinese Empire have -to offer. Otherwise the world about us was mainly a confirmation of the -fact that, while China proper estimates the density of her population at -two hundred and twenty-five to the square mile, Mongolia’s is rated at -two. - -Were the world not so slow to accept geographical changes, even in these -days of the constant remaking of maps, we should long since have ceased -to distinguish between Mongolia and China “proper.” Though the Chinese -Republic claims, and to a certain extent maintains, the loyalty of that -strip of earth bordering her on the north and known as Inner Mongolia, -the vast region we call Outer Mongolia cast off Chinese rule a decade -ago. More exactly, it never was under Chinese rule, at least in modern -times, for barely had their kindred Manchus been driven from the throne -of China than the Mongols asserted their independence from the -new-formed republic. That was why we Americans had looked forward with -some misgiving to our arrival in Ude, which occurred early on this third -day. Ude consists of half a dozen _yourts_ and a new mud-walled -telegraph station, a desolate spot, owing its location to a near-by -water-hole. But it is the place where the merits or demerits of persons -entering Outer Mongolia from China are passed upon—passed upon by -unpolished Mongols who have little knowledge of, and less interest in, -the way such things are handled at other boundaries between the -countries of the globe. The Russians had no misgivings; while men of -their race would not willingly have traveled to Urga eighteen months -before, they were now, as it were, among their own people. But, for -reasons which will in due time be apparent, there is just now a certain -lack of welcome in Mongolia toward Americans, in which the British and -certain other important nationalities share. Less than a month before, -two Englishmen in their own car had been halted at Ude and refused -admission to the land beyond, eventually giving up lengthy and useless -negotiations to have this decision reversed, and returning to China. We -had no “papers” calling upon Mongolia to admit us. Our legation in -Peking had only been able to tell us that, if our passports were sent to -the Chinese foreign office, they would be returned—long afterward—with -the information that, while Mongolia was still Chinese territory, it was -in the hands of rebels—they might even have called them bandits—and -since the Chinese Republic could not guarantee the safety of foreigners -in that region, they could not consent to our traveling there, even to -the extent of giving us a visé. The Mongols themselves have no -accredited representative in China, naturally, and while certain other -agents in Peking might have smoothed things over for us if they had -wished, it is their policy to pretend that they and those they represent -have no real power in Mongolia, apparently in the hope of keeping the -world ignorant as long as possible of their doings in that region. It is -customary, therefore, for those citizens of Western nations who wish to -enter Outer Mongolia to pick up their traps and go, regardless of legal -permissions. - -But all our misgivings of being turned back at Ude were worry wasted. -The Mongols have a reputation for instability in the conduct of affairs -of government, of stiff-necked severity at one moment and great leniency -in quite a similar matter the next; for after all they are little more -than adult children to whom government is a new and amusing plaything. -Moreover it may be that the letter and the bottle of vodka which the -chief of our party brought for the Ude functionary had their effect; at -any rate he not only did not demand our papers but did not even ask to -see us, so that by the time we had breakfasted on our own food and local -hot water in a _yourt_ next to the official one we were free to continue -to Urga. - - -Ox-carts with a single telegraph-pole diagonally across them were -crawling northwestward in great trains; new poles and rolls of wire, -both from far off, lay here and there along the way near Ude, where we -ran into the Dane who had been all summer repairing the line which -retreating armies had left a wreck behind them. Within a week, he -promised—and his word proved good—messages would again be flashing from -Paris to Peking, as they had not in more than two years. Mongols and -Chinese now well trained for the task were replacing the last of the -thousands of missing poles which forced neglect or the demands of -military camp-fires had brought down, and their methods were worth -watching. Instead of the sharp spikes at the instep used by our -pole-climbers, the Mongols wore on each foot a semicircle of iron about -two feet long, with saw-teeth on the inside, which made their climbing -suggestive of some tropical spider, and must be taken off whenever they -walked from pole to pole. The Chinese, on the other hand, used a method -characteristic of their overcrowded, man-cheap country—each pole-climber -had two coolie assistants, who carried a ladder! Building, or even -repairing, a telegraph-line across the Gobi is no effeminate matter of -nightly beds and full hot meals. The sole national representative in -Mongolia of this Danish enterprise had been weeks at a time even without -bread, while the less said in his presence about bathing the greater the -popularity of the speaker. Stern methods are needed, too, to protect -such exotic assets as telegraph-poles in an utterly treeless and even -bushless region. By the “law of the Living Buddha,” as it is called in -Mongolia, the cutting down of a telegraph-pole is punishable with death. -The Dane and his party had come across a man so engaged not long before, -and had tied him up and sent him off to be judged by his fellows; but so -effective has the law been that the severed and useless end of a pole -will lie until it rots away close beside a trail along which pass -hundreds of caravans and groups of travelers to whom fuel is almost a -matter of life or death. - -For nearly a day’s journey beyond Ude the desert is so smooth and hard -that we could maintain a speed of fifty miles an hour for long -stretches, so smooth that riding the roadless plateau was almost like -falling through space. Sain-Usu, which is Mongol for “Good Water,” -welcomed us for half an hour in one of its three huts, and not far -beyond there rose deep-blue above the horizon the flattened peak that -marks the site of Tuerin. With such splendid going as nature furnished, -it seemed visibly to move toward us; yet the sun was low and the night -cold already biting into our bones when we dragged ourselves to the -ground before the telegraph station at its foot. This highest point on -the trans-Gobi journey, five thousand feet above the sea, is a great -fantastic heap of black rocks, many of them large as apartment-houses, -piled up one above the other, here as carefully as if by the hand of -man, there tossed together in such a pell-mell chaos as to suggest that -the Builder had suddenly taken a dislike to his task and knocked it over -with a disdainful sweep of the hand. On the further slope lies a large -lamasery, where travelers may sometimes find shelter, but not food, for -all the quantities of everything which the pious nomads roundabout bring -the loafing lamas. Otherwise there is nothing whatever except the -yellow-brown plains, sloping away to infinity in every direction. - -The last hundred and fifty miles were more like a prairie than a desert, -beautiful light-brown folds of earth, everywhere cut on a generous -pattern, rolling on and on farther than the advancing eye could ever -reach. There was a kind of prairie-dog, too, squatting on its haunches -and gazing saucily upon us, or dashing for the gravel-banked holes with -which it had dotted the plain. These were marmots, of special interest -to our Russian companions, since their skins form one of the most -important items of export for the fur-traders of Mongolia. Mile after -mile they lined the way, whole colonies of them, some of the bluish tint -much sought after by dealers, most of them a beautiful gray-brown which -flashed for a moment in the brilliant sunshine as they dashed -gopher-like for their holes with an impertinent flip of their bushy -tails. - -At length women and children, and not merely men, began to appear, -riding on camels and horses; camps of hides and wool grew almost -numerous; there were more settlements along the way, though all of them -were still the round portable huts of the nomads. Great flocks of what -looked like plovers swirled up; big brown birds that seemed a cross -between hawk and vulture rode by on the wind; wild ducks were so tame -and numerous as to have tantalized a hunter. We came out upon a rise -with a magnificent view—the yellow foreground fading to brown as the -world rolled away before us, then a purplish tint, increasing to a blue -that grew ever darker, until the broken ridge along the horizon far -ahead blended into the strip of clouds hanging motionless over it. -Gradually mountains rose on every hand, the few scrub evergreens along -the crests of some of them being the first trees or even brush we had -seen since soon after leaving Kalgan. The cold wind that had cut clear -through us for days seemed to come forth from the Siberian steppes -beyond with renewed savage intensity. Before long the crest-line of -trees became a low but dense green forest, covering all the upper -portion of what we soon learned was the sacred mountain of Urga, where -all furred and feathered creatures are under the protection of the -“Living Buddha.” We entered ever deeper into a broad valley, Mongols in -their long cloaks becoming more and more numerous, and more disagreeably -sophisticated than the simple herdsmen with their long poles and -noose-lassos out on the open plain. There the broad-cheeked nomads had -been more friendly, had more manly dignity, than the Chinese; here the -manliness remained, but there was something surly, almost savage about -them, which we were quickly to learn was no mere matter of outward -appearances. There came a small river, actually crossed by a bridge, a -queer massive wooden bridge with what looked like piles of railway-ties -as pillars; and on down the valley a town appeared, the towers of a -radio-station rose from among the hills, a long row of barrack-like -buildings of a European type grew distinct—and just then our troubles -began. - - - - - CHAPTER VIII - IN “RED” MONGOLIA - - -Across the broken valley at a gallop came two mounted men who turned out -to be Mongol soldiers, picturesque certainly, but not otherwise -particularly inviting. As they rode, they waved their rifles wildly in -the air, and were apparently bellowing to us orders which the raging -wind carried away before the sounds reached us. When they drew near, -their uniforms proved to be the usual costume of the lower-class -Mongol—heavy red knee-boots, pagoda-like fur hats, and a faded, quilted -kind of bath-robe gown covering the rest of their iniquities; but on -their chests and backs were sewed two cloth patches a foot square on -which were several upright lines of Mongol writing, announcing their -official capacity. But for these we might easily have mistaken them for -bandits, for both their manner of riding down upon us and their air -toward us when they had arrived suggested that they had captured booty -and prisoners for ransom rather than that they had merely come to escort -us to town. - -One of them, it appeared from their actions, must get into the car with -us; the other would have to ride in with the horses. Like children who -very rarely have the chance of an automobile-ride, they quarreled and -argued for a long time, while the biting wind snapped and lashed at us, -as to which was entitled to the privilege, meanwhile flourishing their -aged rifles with a carelessness that made even such time-honored weapons -dangerous. At length one of them won the point and climbed -unceremoniously aboard, mopping his muddy feet on our robes, stretching -himself out at ease partly on our knees, partly on our most breakable -baggage, and poking us, perhaps unintentionally but none the less -unpleasantly, in the ribs with the business end of his loose-triggered -rifle, while the loser sourly turned away with the horses and the -expression of a six-year-old who had been deprived of his toys and -driven from the playground. - -We forded half a dozen stony little streams, for the going had become -abominable in ratio as we approached Urga; we were waved hither and yon -across the valley by other rifle-shaking, vainly shouting soldiers, and -finally brought up at an ordinary little round felt hut with a smoking -stovepipe protruding from its top. It must have been much more -comfortable inside this than out in the bitter wind, for those within -showed no haste in braving the outer temperature. Finally, however, two -or three Mongols crawled through the low door and demanded our _huchao_, -our Chinese permit to make the journey. There was an interminable -argument over this, mainly inside the _yourt_, which we had not been -invited to enter. Then two more bullying soldiers with poorly controlled -rifles tumbled into the car and ordered us to drive on. - -Before a _yamen_ that might have been mistaken either for a run-down -temple or a well kept stable we were again halted and commanded to -dismount. This place, it turned out, was not yet Urga, but the former -Chinese merchant section of Mai-Mai-Ch’eng (“Buy-Sell-Town”) some miles -away from the sacred city, in which trading was until recently -forbidden. Here a veritable mob of soldiers and petty officials poured -out upon us, led by an exceedingly insolent youth in a rich, silky, but -much soiled light-blue gown topped off by a kind of archbishop’s miter. -He demanded our weapons. We dug them and the bit of ammunition we -carried out of our baggage, protesting in vain that as this was all to -be examined at the next _yamen_, and armed guards were to conduct us -there, this extra labor of disentangling our overloaded car was -unnecessary. But it was plain that there were at least two motives for -putting us to this gratuitous trouble: the insolent Mongol youth did not -wish to lose an opportunity to show his authority to the full, -particularly toward men of a race which seldom fell into his hands; and -the whole posse was eager to meddle with our belongings as much as -possible. They passed our revolvers and my companion’s rifle from hand -to hand, each trying his own method of manipulating them. Fortunately—at -the time we felt it was unfortunate—we had not loaded them, or several -tragedies might have ensued before their curiosity was satisfied and we -were allowed to conclude our journey. Then the overbearing youth in -charge decided that he must search our persons for weapons, though we -had given our word that we carried none. The implied insult would not -have mattered so much had not his hands looked as if he had been -handling Gobi fuel incessantly from childhood without a pause even to -wipe them, and had his manner been less that of the protected bully -venting an unaccountable spleen against the whole white race. But -cleanliness and common courtesy, we soon learned, are the two qualities -most foreign to the crowd now ruling Outer Mongolia. - -The quarrel as to who should have the privilege of the automobile-ride -into Urga was at length decided in favor of all who could pile -themselves into and about the car and baggage. How the machine escaped a -broken back under the burden was a mystery which even Detroit probably -could not have explained. Then there came a delay while the blue-gowned -youth found and adjusted a fanciful pair of goggles, in all likelihood -filched from the baggage of some previous victim, and without which of -course the two- or three-mile ride ahead would have been unendurable. We -groaned away at last, rifles and our own weapons covering us on every -side, first through a half-ruined town of mud alleys between endless -palisades of upright logs of the pine family, then across a stony, -barren, wind-swept space with several axle-cracking little streams to be -forded. Between bumps we caught glimpses of the several distinctly -isolated sections of Urga, its golden temples and black dogs, its one -lofty building, and the Tibetan texts in stone on the flank of its -sacred mountain across the valley. Then we were suddenly turned into a -noisome back yard peopled with shoddy-clad and unwashed soldiers and -prisoners, the latter engaged in worse than menial tasks under the -bayonet-points of the former; the gate to the outside world was closed -and barred, and a new set of examiners fell upon us. - - -If a gang of young East Side New York rowdies should suddenly get the -complete upper hand in the city, I can imagine them going through the -belongings of their victims along Fifth Avenue in quite the same way as -now befell our own. At a word from a superior who would himself scarcely -have inspired a lone lady with confidence on a dark night, there sprang -forward from all sides a dozen young men who seemed to have been -specially chosen for their gangster-like appearance. In their shoddy -uniforms of some nondescript dark color, they looked like a cross -between low-class Russians and the scum of the Mongolian plains—which is -about what they were, in other words Buriats. The pleasure they took -both in putting us to annoyance and in prying minutely into our affairs -quite evidently purged their task of any stigma of labor. I have passed -many frontiers in my day, but never have I beheld an examination in the -slightest degree approaching in thoroughness this one. Every single -article, large or small, in our valises, bedding-bags, even our -lunch-sacks, was picked out one by one, carefully, not to say stupidly, -scrutinized, taken apart if that was physically possible, and finally -tossed into a heap on the filthy bare ground of the yard. Clean linen -must be completely unfolded, stared at minutely on both sides, and -crumpled up into a mess from which only a laundryman could rescue it. We -were not surprised that such articles aroused the suspicion of the -examiners; anything resembling clean linen was quite evidently strange -to them. Nor was there any intentional offense meant, perhaps, in mixing -our bread and our tooth-brushes with the offal in the yard, for no -conscious line of demarcation between these seemed as yet to have been -drawn in the minds of the examiners. They did consciously resent our own -higher plane of cleanliness, however, when it was called to their -attention. I was attempting to rescue my dismembered sleeping-bag from a -worse fate by picking it up from the ground where it had been thrown -after examination, when one of the rowdies snatched it out of my hand -and deliberately tossed it into an especially choice source of -contamination. - -My shaving-stick was opened with extreme caution, as a possible infernal -machine. My safety-razor caused a considerable argument, until a -gang-chief ruled that it was not a deadly weapon. The man who picked up -an ordinary can of pork-and-beans tore off the label and attempted to -unscrew the top in his efforts to examine the contents, and was with -difficulty induced to spare me the labor of attacking it with a -can-opener. I rescued my exposed films just as they were about to be -unrolled, and came very near bodily injury for my interference before -our interpreter could get in touch with some one of authority and more -or less human intelligence. Thus it went, for more than an hour, through -every simplest article we had brought with us. Nor did a single -examination of each suffice; whenever anything unusual turned up, which, -thanks to the ignorance of the examiners, was often, all of them must -satisfy their monkey-like curiosity by thoroughly studying it. It was -not that we objected to having our baggage inspected, even with unusual -thoroughness—though legally we Americans were not subject to any -interference by the local authorities of Mongolia—but at least it would -have been a kindness to give the job to men who had some inkling of the -paraphernalia of civilization and some hazy notion of why tooth-brushes -and offal are not commonly mixed. - -In the end they kept our weapons and cartridges, our American passports, -and all our papers, down to letters of introduction and scribbled -memoranda, which had not escaped their erratic attention. They demanded -that the tool-box be removed from the car and the spare tire opened, as -possible hiding-places. That these were the only ones they thought of -was due to their ignorance of automobile mechanism. The Russian Jews had -more influence than we, however, and after long and vociferous wrangling -this order was rescinded. In contrast to the deliberation with which -they had been examining it, they insisted that we snatch together our -heaped-up property and thrust it pell-mell, filth and all, back into our -bags and valises. Long blanks must then be filled out, in Russian, with -our personal biographies. These went to an inner office, while we still -shivered like hopper-screens in the wintry air outside; and at length a -man came out to announce that they must also keep my kodak and films. -This required a complete reëxamination of all my baggage, for my word as -to the number of films I carried could not of course be trusted. Finally -we were taken into the sanctum of the _Okhrana_ or the _Ghospolitakran_, -as it is variously called in popular parlance—the “State’s Internal -Guard” would perhaps answer as a poor and inadequate translation in -English. This is a genuinely Russian form of secret service and -espionage within the country, devised under the czarist régime and -continued by its receivers, the Bolsheviki, who had recently imposed it -upon Mongolia. The plain bare room of European style contained a rough -table and a few chairs, a surly Mongol nearer twenty than thirty, in -native garb except for a faded slouch felt hat, who proved to be the -ostensible head of the secret service, and an older Russian “adviser” in -grayish semi-uniform and quite modern glasses. The “adviser” looked as -if he had been familiar with the common forms of courtesy in earlier -days, but evidently he had either forgotten them or dared not mix them -with his “Red” allegiance, for his behavior was as studiously uncivil as -that of the Mongol was naturally rude. We had stood for a long time, -with empty chairs plentiful, when the pair deigned to notice our -existence. A handsome, courteous little Buriat, greatly contrasting with -the rest of the crew, explained our cases at length, with special -emphasis on the seizure of my kodak. Uncouth soldiers, Mongol, Buriat, -and Russian indiscriminately, lounged in and out, most of them -carelessly juggling guns with fixed bayonets, glaring ominously at us -from time to time, and picking up and examining any of the official -papers on the table which happened to catch their fancy. It is said that -there are no ranks in the “Red” army; certainly there was no outward -evidence of discipline among the detachment of it in Urga, or among -their apt Mongol pupils. - -[Illustration: - - The frontier post of Ude, fifty miles beyond the uninhabited frontier - between Inner and Outer Mongolia, where Mongol authorities examine - passports and very often turn travelers back -] - -[Illustration: - - Chinese travelers on their way to Urga; it is unbelievable how many - muffled Chinamen and their multifarious junk one Dodge will carry -] - -[Illustration: - - The Mongol of the Gobi lives in a _yourt_ made of heavy felt over a - light wooden framework, which can be taken down and packed in less - than an hour when the spirit of the nomad strikes him -] - -[Illustration: - - Mongol women make the felt used as houses, mainly by pouring water on - sheep’s wool -] - -A receipt, in Russian, was finally given us for our confiscated -belongings, and about four in the afternoon, ten hours since we had -eaten and five after our arrival, we were at last allowed to drag our -shivering frames away in quest of lodging. There are no hotels in Urga, -and visitors must appeal to the hospitality of one or another of the -stray Europeans living there, of whom, excepting of course the numerous -Russians, there seemed to be a single sample of each nationality. I was -just sitting down to a belated lunch in the home of Norway’s handsome -contribution to this international group when a red-clothed native of -the better class dropped in, hat and all. He was a young man of unusual -attainments for Mongolia, it seemed, educated at the University of -Irkutsk, speaking Russian perfectly, and famous as the only Mongol known -who spoke English. In the last accomplishment, however, he had not -advanced beyond the bashful stage, and consented to display it only when -there was no one to interpret his Russian or his Mongol. He was attached -to the foreign office, though soon to leave for Moscow as a member of -the Communist Congress there; and he had come, mainly out of personal -friendship for my host, to warn me of trouble ahead. A telegram, he told -the Norwegian in Russian, had just been received from a station out on -the Gobi, announcing that two Americans in a motor-car carrying four -persons had killed a Mongol on their way to Urga. He had no intention of -making unkindly insinuations against me or my companion, he said, but we -were the only Americans who had arrived within a fortnight, the only -foreigners who had come within a week, and ours was the only car that -had reached Urga for two or three days, as well as the only one in a -long time with only four occupants. Moreover, we had carried arms. - -Absurd as the covert charge was—for our revolvers had lain unloaded in -our baggage throughout the trip—it was not wholly a laughing matter. My -compatriot had frequently fired his rifle at antelope along the way, and -there was a very slight possibility that a bullet had carried too far. -But worse almost than any question of guilt or innocence was the -possibility of becoming entangled in the intricacies of a Mongol court -of justice. Its point of view would be quite unlike that of our Western -judiciary; certainly haste would not be one of its attributes. All at -once the rights of extraterritoriality, to which I was legally entitled -in Urga even though forcibly deprived of them, seemed no mere forced -concession but the only way of being fairly judged in such a predicament -in a land and society so utterly alien to my own. Within an hour or so, -the Mongol thought, they would come to arrest us, and though he spoke -optimistically of the final outcome, he could not recommend even four or -five days in prison as a pleasant week-end. I had already heard -something of Urga’s place of detention, the earth cellar of the -_Okhrana_ where we had been examined, in which a score of Russians and -as many Mongols were even then huddled together, without a suggestion of -daylight, beds, blankets, human conveniences, or anything that could -honestly be called food, with nothing but the cold, damp ground to lie -on and a scanty bit of garbage to eat and drink. Judging by the cavalier -manner in which we had been treated as unaccused and ostensibly free -beings, it was not hard to imagine what those rowdy soldiers about the -place would do to us as prisoners. I did all possible justice to the -lunch before me, for at least if we were to join the community in the -icy cellar I wished to be partly filled up and thawed out before -beginning the experience. - -A hasty council was convened of the few Americans—all visitors—and the -more Western Europeans in town. The seriousness with which these treated -the situation was anything but reassuring. Their patent distrust and -unexpressed dread of the sinister powers then ruling Urga recalled -stories of the terror that filled men’s lives in the worst days of the -French Revolution. It was plain that it was not a mere matter of proving -our innocence, if the authorities chose to make this a “frame-up” to be -rid of unwelcome visitors. In the end it was decided that the best plan -would be to forestall the authorities, to go at once to the minister of -justice before some of his less intelligent underlings received and -carried out the warrant for our arrest. - -We reached him indirectly through his adviser, who was fortunately a -friend of my host. In the late afternoon light of his wholly European -study this polished and intelligent man in our ordinary garb looked -entirely like a Russian; it was not until next day that his more swarthy -tint and the quilted silk robe he wore to office showed him to be a -Buriat. He admitted that the telegram in question had been received, and -that the warrants would probably be ready within an hour or two—and no -doubt served, I reflected, in this leisurely moving world, just in time -to drag us out of our beds in the middle of the cold night. But as I had -taken the trouble to come and show myself, the Buriat went on, and to -explain my movements to his personal satisfaction, he would suppress the -warrants for the time being, if all four of us would appear at the -_yamen_ of justice, with an efficient interpreter, in the morning. - -For all the absurdity of the whole affair there was a sense of relief in -having gained at least a respite, and before dinner was over I had -almost forgotten the matter. But when I woke once during that otherwise -deathly still Urga night, the howling of two or three of her man-eating -dogs had a curiously ominous, almost terrorizing, sound. Only a -fortnight before, fifteen men, a former prime minister among them, had -been shot in a near-by gully and their bodies fed to these dogs, in the -cheery Urga fashion. Those had been Mongols, to be sure, but a score of -Russians were even then shivering out the night in the cellar-prison, -charged with a hand in the same conspiracy, and from thinking of -shooting Russians for treason to actually shooting a stray Caucasian of -another nationality for some other alleged crime would be no impossible -leap for these “Red”-led, self-satisfied nomads. I had to remind myself -several times what a fool I was before I turned over and fell asleep -again. - - -Few things are ever as serious the next morning as when they happened -the night before, and I could laugh at my midnight anxieties when I sat -down to breakfast. It took some time to get our scattered party -together, and a suitable interpreter was not easily picked up, so that -it was nearer eleven than ten by the time we found a Russian speaking -both English and Mongol and set out for the _yamen_. But we need not -have let a little thing like that worry us. Promptness is neither -customary nor welcome in Mongolia; moreover, there are no two timepieces -in anything like agreement in all Urga, so that an hour or two one way -or the other can always be excused, in the unlikely event of any excuse -being expected, on the ground of incompatibility of clocks. What does an -hour mean, anyway, in a land where time is merely a vacuum? An American -who was just then flirting with the Mongolian Government for an -important concession made an appointment with the minister of foreign -affairs for ten one morning, and was there on the dot. When he had -waited an hour and a half he beckoned to a sub-official and asked -whether the minister would be unable to see him that morning, in which -case he had other matters requiring his attention. - -“Oh, yes,” replied the functionary, “he will see you; but it is not yet -ten o’clock.” - -However, to come back to our own affairs; we made our way across the -stony, dusty, wind-howling open space between the business and the -official sections of the holy city in time to avoid any risk of being -charged with tardiness. The _yamen_ of justice was a two-story frame -building mainly in European style, built by the Chinese when they held -the suzerainty over Outer Mongolia, as the flaring roofs, sky-blue -façade, dragon-decorated brick screen against evil spirits, palings of -crossed sticks to the number of outriders due the prince who once -occupied it, and the like, told us without any necessity of inquiring. -Two typical Mongol soldiers, resembling Oriental rag dolls that had lain -out in the garden for weeks and then been lost for a few days in the -coal-bin, lumbered to their booted feet from a fantastic sentry-box in -order, as is the habit of their class nowadays, to impress us with their -equality and authority by gratuitously delaying us for a few moments, -and at last we reached our destination. This was one of the barn-like -rooms of the unpretentious building. Near the door rose to the ceiling a -big cylindrical Russian brick stove. Around the other three sides of the -room ran a raised platform, knee-high and a man’s height in breadth. The -reed matting and cushions covering it recalled Japan, but there was -nothing Japanese in the way in which the dozen officials stepped upon it -from the unswept floor in their heavy boots, all more or less covered -with the filth of the streets, and calmly tramped about it or squatted -on their haunches. All these functionaries were dressed in Mongol -fashion; that is, in long robes of dull red, blue, green, purple, -violet, or similar conspicuous color, half obliterated with grease and -dirt, topped off with some one of their many fantastic national -head-dresses. The latter were never removed, nor were we foreigners -expected to take off our hats. In fact there seem to be no social -politenesses among this rude nomad people. They neither shake hands, -unless they are meeting or aping foreigners, nor bow, like the Chinese, -nor use any other gestures of greeting or parting; they stalk into -foreigners’ houses in hats and boots; their whole conduct is as if none -of the little courtesies and formalities of more highly civilized -communities had ever occurred to them, which is probably the case. - -The place had electric lights, and from one of the walls hung an ancient -European type of telephone, which was frequently jangling or enduring -the shrieks of one or another bureaucrat, but which never seemed to -bring or transmit any information. Most of the functionaries, big sturdy -men who would have looked more at home herding cattle on the plains, -squatted near little tables or desks, a foot high, some smoking long -pipes with tiny bowls and much silver decoration, others rocking idly -back and forth, while their greasy pigtails, swaying to and fro, -increased the soiled line they had already drawn down the backs of their -gowns. A few were working; that is, writing in their national script, so -different from Chinese, on long strips of cheap tissue-paper folded -lengthwise and opening like an accordion. Their pens were the -camel’s-hair brushes common to the Far East, however, of which each man -carried two in a silver scabbard hanging from his girdle; their ink was -taken from a little flat stone on which they rubbed their pens sidewise, -and their writing-desks were thin squares of board held on their left -hands. A big dinner-bell in a corner of the room served to call -attendants, or to summon prisoners for the next case to be tried. For -justice was being dispensed, leisurely but steadily, all the time we -were there. In the center of the raised platform, opposite the door and -in the chief place of honor, squatted an imposing man who might easily -have been taken for an unusually burly Chinaman, in his darker gown, his -mandarin cap with a colored button, his oily cue, and his rimless -ear-piece glasses. He was fat, and he was fully aware of his own -importance in the Mongolian scheme of things. From time to time a group -of prisoners was brought in by one of the coal-bin soldiers, always -armed with a fixed bayonet. The accused, all ragged, shivering, and -visibly hungry, looking as if they had been living for weeks in an -underground dungeon and had been periodically beaten half to death, were -forced to kneel on the bare floor and bow their heads down to it several -times as an obeisance to the haughty judge. If they failed to do so -promptly, they were prodded or thumped to their knees by the soldier. -The trial consisted merely of the judge’s questioning the cringing -prisoner, during which his honor smoked, stretched himself, and spat -copiously on the floor in front of the kneeling culprits. When he was -done, he growled out something which may or may not have been a -sentence, and the prisoners were led away again. Of the score or more -tried while we were there none was released. - -Meanwhile other business, such as our own, went serenely on along the -side platforms. Some of the scribes or officials wrote on their little -boards, some asked questions of an official nature, more chatted and -smoked as freely as if they were in a café. Curious individuals dropped -in now and then. There was, for instance, a little dried-up Jew with -long straggly red whiskers, and a furtive look in his eyes, as if he had -been the last survivor of a dozen pogroms. For more than an hour he sat -inconspicuously in a corner near the door, holding his aged slouch-hat -in his hands, ignored by the contemptuous Mongols, lacking the courage -to address them on whatever matter had brought him. - -Our own case moved as we would have had it, except in speed. When -testimony must be written down in Mongol script with a camel’s-hair -brush on the poorest of paper and the least convenient of desks by an -official whose chief code of conduct is never to let any one or anything -hurry him under any circumstances, even a simple affair is not quickly -disposed of. There was a long argument as to how to turn our -extraordinary names into the native hieroglyphics; there were other -lengthy discussions during which I found ample time to study not only -the scene within the room but the big felt tent of fanciful decoration -with a mat-cloth door, in which the minister of justice lived out in the -back yard, a true Mongol nomad still, like many of his highly placed -fellows. The whole case should really have collapsed like a house of -cards, for another telegram had arrived which not merely reduced the -crime from the killing of a Mongol man to slightly wounding a Mongol boy -in the wrist, but showed that, by the records of our stopping-places, we -were at least a day’s travel away at the time; furthermore, the deed had -been done at short range with a revolver—on that point the information -was insistent—and the most cursory examination of our pistols, in the -hands of the secret service department, would have demonstrated that -they had not been fired on the way. In fact, it looked rather doubtful -whether even the slight crime alleged had been committed; perhaps it was -some boyish tale made up to gain sympathy for a scratched wrist. -Officially “the incident was closed” almost before we reached the -_yamen_; but that did not hinder us from being three hours there, nor -did it make it possible to have the thing written up in its legal form -and “deposited in the archives” forty-eight hours later, when the -clearing of our reputations was essential to the making of certain other -requests with which we were forced to trouble the authorities. - - - - - CHAPTER IX - HOLY URGA - - -The holy city of Urga squats out on what would be an ordinary Mongolian -plain were it not for the rows of hills or low mountains which roll up -on either side of it. The landscape is the same yellow-brown, smooth as -the fur of the fox, the city, its wide shallow valley, and the rolling -hills on the right hand are as utterly devoid of trees or even a -suggestion of brush, as the Gobi. Only along the edge, and covering the -upper portion, of the range to the west and south, sacred to the “Living -Buddha” whose two palace compounds sit at the foot of it, is there any -vegetation except the thin brown grass of mountain heights. The soil -does not welcome it, for one thing. Even the forests capping the long -low sacred mountain, though planted centuries ago and strictly -protected, while dense enough, have attained little more than scrub -growth. About forty-five hundred feet above the sea and no great -distance from the Siberian border, Urga is no tropical haven. They tell -me that in summer its middays are sometimes uncomfortably hot; but -though it was only the middle of September when we arrived, all the -clothing we had brought with us was none too much to shut out the -penetrating mountain cold. Five days before, Peking had been sweltering; -here the entire population wore heavy quilted garments, from which -hardly a bare foot peered among the most poverty-stricken even on the -days when a brilliant sun in a glass-clear sky made delightful autumn -weather; before the month ended, howling gales of hail and snow swept -across the city and blotted out the surrounding hills, to leave them -covered with white as far as the eye could see. - -The city is built in several towns or sections of distinctly different -characters, separated by bare, stony, wind-swept spaces. Besides the old -Chinese merchant town back up the valley, and the straggling buildings -which partly flank the nature-laid road to it, there is the official -town of _yamens_ and the like, with two great temple compounds closely -allied to it, then the now main business and residential section where -virtually all non-Mongols live, and farther on, a little higher up the -slope of the hills, a whole city completely given up to lamas, with the -great sanctuary of Ganden, only high building in Urga, bulking far above -it. Then, across the flat valley and several little streams, more than a -mile away against the background of the sacred mountain, is the -dwelling-place of Bogda-Han, the “Living Buddha,” flanked at some -distance by his summer palace on one side and on the other by clusters -of buildings housing the things and the men who serve him. Lastly there -are scores of _yourts_, the low round felt tents of Mongolia, scattered -at random outside the permanent city, particularly to the north, the -homes of true nomads who will not be without the comforts of their -portable houses even though they live in the holy national capital. - -For that matter, many of the dwellers in the city itself still cling to -the customs and architecture of the plains from which they came. Mongol -princes and saints, of whom there is a generous number in Urga, cabinet -ministers and judges, may have a rather Russian type of frame house -within their compounds, but the chances are that they do their actual -living in their felt tent beside it. The _yourts_ are said to be -uncomfortably warm in summer, whence the tendency of those who are -wealthy by Mongol standards to copy European dwellings; but when the -first early frosts come they like the low crowded tent, with its intense -dung-fire heat, its sense of coziness, even the smell of the sifting -smoke of their pungent fuel, that has come down to them from their hardy -nomadic forefathers. The story is told of some high-placed Mongol to -whom fell a fine big room in one of the government buildings of the -expelled Chinese, who complained that it was as bad as living outdoors -and demanded either that another small low room be built for him within -it or that he be allowed to conduct his official business in his tent. - -Urga is as wholly made up of walled compounds as any Chinese city; but -here the walls, instead of being of stone or baked mud, are of upright -pine logs, bark and all, some ten feet high and set so tightly together -that only here and there can one peer through a crack. Between these -frowning palisades, broken for block after block only by identical gates -which are a cross between a wooden arch and a Japanese _torii_ with -three uncurved crosspieces, and painted a dull red, run, not streets, -but haphazard passageways deep in dust, mud, or mere stony soil, -according as nature left them—grim defenseless lanes full of the offal -of man and beast, of putrid carcasses and gnawed bones, and always -overrun with groups of those surly, treacherous big black wild dogs of -Urga, ready the instant they feel they have mustered sufficient force to -pounce upon and drag down the passer-by. Inside, the compounds are bare -and unswept yards, for filth means nothing to the Mongol, and the -planting of a flower or a shrub is far beyond his stage of civilization. -A house or two, even three, perhaps as many felt tents, a tethered -horse, a heap of dried dung fuel, and the inventory is complete. A small -stream, its banks heaped high with filth and garbage, lined with -foraging dogs and squatting Mongols, crossed by half a dozen precarious -bridges culminating in the red one sacred to the “Living Buddha,” which -is barred against every-day traffic, meanders disconsolately through the -gloomy town. For there is a gloominess, an ominousness about Urga which -even the great gleaming gold superstructures of its many temples and -shrines, so brilliant as to cow the eye on days of clear sunshine, do -not dispel. - -A few streets of the central town, to which commerce is confined, are -flanked by shops of a hybrid Chinese-Russian character, the great -majority of which are inwardly establishments quite like those of China, -though often scanty of goods and with a discouraged air in these days of -oppressive rule. Then there are numerous open-air markets more worth -visiting for their picturesqueness than for their wares. In one wide -dusty space Mongolian ponies are put through their paces for prospective -purchasers; camels or oxen may be had near-by on certain days; then, -there are several blocks lined with displays of furs, mainly of sheep -and goats in this season, but now and then offering wild pelts at -reasonable figures. Shop after shop is filled from floor to low shack -roof with the gaudy boots worn indiscriminately by all Mongols; little -portable booths or stands overflowing with every manner of silly and -useful trinket, chaotic collections of second-hand hardware spread on -the ground, more or less itinerant purveyors of used garments and of the -heavy silver ornaments that go with Mongol dress, each strive in their -turn to attract and detain the stroller. Almost all these merchants, -from horse-dealers to hawkers of lama rosaries and alleged photographs -of the “Living Buddha,” are Chinese; the Mongol is frankly a nomadic -herdsman and scorns any other occupation. Even in the purulent meat and -vegetable market stretching along the carrion-lined stream just outside -our window there were but few native venders. The more lowly members of -the tribe might consent to slash up and distribute the still bleeding -carcasses of cattle and sheep which Urga consumes in surprising daily -quantities; even out on the plains that is a necessary and respectable -task. But as the Mongol considers it unholy to cultivate the ground, the -huge carrots, the turnips larger than cocoanuts, the squashes, potatoes, -cabbage, lettuce, _kaoliang_, millet, and corn-meal all came from the -truck-gardens of Chinese in inconspicuous hollows about the city and -were sold only by them. Millet and _kaoliang_ and rock-salt were about -the only non-flesh wares appealing to the natives, anyway, for boiled -meat, each mouthful slashed off before the lips with a sheath-knife, as -among the _gauchos_ of South America, is almost an exclusive diet with -them the year round. - -There is the atmosphere of a frontier town about Urga, for all its age -and holiness and costly religious structures. Perhaps it is the great -prevalence of mounted people as much as the rough-and-ready style of its -architecture and streets which gives this feeling. The poor, and most of -the despised foreigners, may or must go on foot, but the true Mongol, -male or female, young or old, layman or lama, is by nature a horseman. -Even the women, in their incredibly heavy ornaments and cumbersome -garments, sit the tight little wooden saddles covered with red cloth as -if they were part of the jogging animal beneath them. Children ride as -easily and as soon as they can walk. Horsemen are so numerous and so -fundamental in the Mongol scheme of things that the pedestrian has only -secondary rights in the soft-footed streets of Urga. It is not so much -his natural rudeness, nor even his inbred scorn for the horseless, which -makes the Mongol so apt to ride down the walker unless the latter -sidesteps. Probably it has never occurred to him, any more than to his -horse, that all other movable beings should not necessarily always make -way for him. - -Besides the omnipresent Mongol pony there are strings of haughty camels -from, or off again to, the desert; there are oxen and their crudest of -two-wheeled carts, and now and again a yak, or a cross between this and -the native cattle, identified mainly by its thick bushy tail. It is not -only this quaint long-haired animal from the roof of Asia which reminds -one of the close relationship between Mongolia and its distant neighbor, -Tibet. The lengthwise Tibetan script stands beside the upright Mongolian -on the façade of more than one building and on many a monument; not a -few of the friendly-looking, darker-tinted natives of the lofty land -behind the Himalayas, recognizable also by their different garb, the -right arm and shoulder protruding from the cloak, may be met in the -market-places; when the visitor begins to poke his nose into religious -matters he finds that Tibet is much closer to him than he suspected. - -Though there are sights of an inanimate nature in Urga that are well -worth seeing, it is especially the unique and striking costumes of her -people which cause bitter resentment for the confiscation of a camera. -The Mongols are as fond of gaudy colors as the Andean Indians, though -somewhat less given to barbaric combinations of them. Of a score of -laymen often no two wear robes of the same hue; red, purple, blue, -green, and all the combinations and gradations between them may be seen -in any gathering outside religious circles. Men who pride themselves on -their liberality toward the outside world show a fondness for ugly -slouch-hats of a cheap quality that quickly fades to a nondescript hue. -But these are so few as to be conspicuous among their orthodox fellows, -who display a variety in head-dress which I have not the energy to -attempt to describe. Suffice it to say that these are all striking, both -in color and form, and that the overwhelming favorite seems to be the -pagoda-shaped thing with a ball, generally of colored glass, on top, and -side-wings of fur. This is common to both laymen and lamas and is said -to have been originally copied from a sacred peak of central Asia. - -But it would be unchivalrous to expect the men, even of an Oriental race -in which the women form the bottom layer of society, to outdo the other -sex in effective decoration of the cranium. Until I came to Mongolia I -had been laboring under the delusion that in my various wanderings about -the globe I had already run across the final word in woman’s head-dress. -I humbly apologize, and hereby bestow the leather medal upon the ladies -of Urga, without the least fear of ever again having to modify my -decision. In intricacy, ugliness, fearsomeness, unportability, -wastefulness, absurdity, not to say pure idiocy, their contraption -surely outdistances all competitors, at least in our own little solar -system. - -It starts, so I have been assured by those of wider experience and -reputation for veracity, often at virtual baldness, which under the -circumstances, or under such a head-dress, is not surprising. Over this -goes a skull-cap of silver in elaborate designs, weighing, if the eye be -permitted to judge what the fingers may not touch, several pounds. I am -no ladies’ _coiffeur_, and I may be getting the cart before the horse, -but it is my strong impression that the hair comes next, most of it the -hair of some one else, naturally, or at least hair which has ceased to -derive its direct nourishment from its wearer. In color and texture, -too, it has a way of recalling the tail of a horse, though this may be -mere coincidence. First of all the hair forms a wig; then it flares out -and is wound, in single strands that give it a cloth-like texture, round -and round two horns that are thin and flat but wider and longer than -those of the water-buffalo, which the lady with these appendages -protruding well beyond her shoulders considerably resembles. Across the -horns, front and back, at close intervals, run inch-wide bars of -silver—replaced by wood or other substitutes in poverty-stricken -cases—while from the ends, perhaps as a concession to the timid -spectator who cannot rid himself of the fear of being gored, are -suspended braids or cords reaching to the waist. A lady of reasonable -tastes might conclude that this is enough, but there are innumerable -opportunities for adding other silver and colored decorations, and -naturally one needs a hat over one’s hair, so that milady of Urga piles -on top, at the jaunty angle of a first-year sailor, one of the -fur-sided, pagoda-shaped helmets favored by the men, thereby crowning -herself in a manner befitting the rest of her costume. Let not the hasty -reader get the impression that this ponderous and deeply cogitated -head-dress is confined to the consorts of princes and saints, nor -relegated to festive occasions and popular hours. The old woman who sold -half-decayed fruit opposite our window wore the whole contraption, and -all available evidence goes to show that it is as seldom removed as is -the fly-trap hat of the Korean male. Indeed, it would be impossible to -reconcile daily hair-dressing with the early hours at which many a fully -clad woman appears. One easily surmises that this unbelievable millinery -was copied from the cattle that have been the Mongols’ constant and -chief companions for many centuries; but why hang the horns on the -woman? Is it to keep before the mind that she, too, is a dangerous -creature, or is it a means of training her in patience and the -uncomplaining endurance of lifelong impediments, like the crippled feet -of the women of China? - -In ordinary circles the rest of the female costume of Mongolia would -attract attention, but under the national head-dress it is almost -inconspicuous. It includes big puffed sleeves, for instance, not unlike -those of the Western world a generation ago, but filled with something -that makes them hard and solid, and lifts the puffs some six inches -above the shoulders. Unseemly exposure of the person is not a Mongol -fault. Though personal habits of an indescribable nature are constantly -in evidence among both sexes and all classes, there is never anything -even remotely reminiscent of the freedom of a bathing-beach in more -civilized lands. The woman’s thick, quilted, colorful jacket-gown covers -her from tonsils to instep; her long sleeves serve her, Chinese fashion, -as gloves; though it is known that she wears heavy lumber-jack trousers -quite like those of her husband, even her trim ankles, if she has them, -are never in evidence, for she thrusts her feet into the same mammoth -boots which are universal beneath all ages, ranks, callings, and degrees -of sanctity. - -The Mongol boot, as I may have said before, is knee-high, of soft -leather, usually red and most elaborately decorated, the toe turned up -like the prow of Cleopatra’s barge, and it is made much too large for -the foot, in order that many layers of thick socks may be worn in wintry -weather. The extraordinarily slow pace of life in Urga is partly due, -beyond a doubt, to the necessity of stalking about like a hobbled -prisoner in such boots; but then, they were never made for walking, -which is not a natural Mongol means of locomotion. The favorite one is -the single-foot pony, with a kind of Indian rawhide reins, stirrups so -short that the rider seems to be kneeling, and a tight little red -saddle. It is an old joke in Urga that a Mongol would make an excellent -cook—if he could ride about the kitchen on horseback. As the women as -well as the men ride astride, with the easy abandon of born cowboys, it -is perhaps as well that most of them cling to their marvelous -head-dress, for without it there is little to distinguish between the -sexes. - - -It is said that almost half the population of Urga are lamas. Certainly -there are thousands upon thousands of them, swarming everywhere, in the -market-town as well as in their own temple-topped sections, sometimes on -horseback, more often plodding through the slovenly streets in their -ponderous boots. Their round clipped heads, in contrast to the long cues -of laymen, are often bare in any weather. It is visually evident, -without asking questions, that they wear no trousers under their long -quilted robes, which are similar to those of the marriageable men, yet -easily distinguishable from them. Their gowns, originally saffron-yellow -or brick-red in color, are well suited to the mahogany tint which the -cold of high plateaus gives the Mongol cheeks; but they are so -invariably dulled by grease, filth, and rough desert living as to -suggest that this is considered the most holy and fitting state for -seekers after a pseudo-Nirvana. Cleanliness certainly has no relation -whatever to godliness in this unedifying religion of creaking -prayer-wheels and barbaric hubbub; laity and lamas alike seem frankly to -scorn it. Now and again one saw a prince who had just donned his winter -garments, or a group of high lamas rode by in gleamingly new saffron or -red robes, the yellow streamers from their high hats trailing behind -them, clad in the most spotless of beautiful silks. But there is -evidently something unmanly about such a condition, for those even of -the highest class seem to make haste to reduce themselves to the common -dirty drab, as some of our youths “baptize” a new pair of shoes. From -high to low the Mongols are an unlaundered people, like so many dwellers -in semi-desert lands, apparently never subjecting their clothing to any -cleansing process—so filthy in fact that even the Chinese call them -dirty! - -Yet these big brawny Mongols of the Gobi, beside whom the Chinese look -delicate and harmless, bring history home to the beholder in a striking -fashion. It was easy to imagine these fearless nomad horsemen banding -together under a Jenghiz Khan and sweeping down upon the rich but weaker -people to the southward; once in Mongolia, that breeding-ground for many -centuries of new virility for the human race, as it were, it was no -longer hard to understand why the timorous but diligent Chinese should -have spent such incredible toil to fling a wall across their whole -northern frontier, in the vain hope of shutting themselves off from -these dreaded barbarians, scorning civilization but ever ready to loot -it of its fruits. Now and again I met a prince—not a pampered weakling -of a run-down stock, like so many who bear that title in the West, but -big powerful fellows who could ride their horses day after day like -centaurs, sleep out on the open plain, and master their great herds with -the pole-and-noose lasso as easily as any of their herdsmen -subjects—handsome Mongol princes with a truly regal poise and dignity, -for all the countless grease-spots on their silken gowns, whom one could -readily picture in the rôle of another Jenghiz Khan. - -Speaking of those halcyon days of the Mongols seven centuries ago, there -seems to be but little differentiation in the minds of historians -between them and the Tartars; but in Mongolia to-day there is a wide -gulf between these two peoples. What is known as a Tartar in Urga at -least, where a few score of them dwell, is no longer a warrior but has -degenerated into a tradesman, a close bargainer wearing mainly European -garb, with a little velvet cap always on his head, topped off by one of -fur when he sallies forth into the street. He is a Mohammedan, too, and -the Mongol certainly is not. Once he seems to have been at home in -central Mongolia; now he lives far to the West, scattered through the -regions about Bokhara, Kashgar, and Samarkand. In much greater numbers -and influence in Urga to-day are two other semi-Europeanized -peoples,—the surly Kalmucks from western Mongolia and Sungaria, and the -Buriats, Mongol by race but grown half Russian during generations under -the rule of the czars in an annexed province, and by long intermixture -with their more Caucasian fellow-subjects. - -But though Urga so nearly coincides with that Karakoram which was still -the capital of Jenghiz Khan when his vast conquests ended, one feels -even there that the power of the Mongol is broken, that with his -debauching idolatry and his all but universal taint with one of the most -abhorred of diseases, he will never again have the initiative and the -energy to band together into a menace to more advanced civilizations. He -will do surprisingly well, in fact, if he succeeds in his new attempt to -govern himself. The traveler cannot but be struck by the astonishing -scarcity of children in Mongolia, especially if he has just come from -Japan and China, until he learns that fully a third of the population of -the country as a whole are lamas, and notes the prevalence of missing -noses among both sexes and all classes in the streets of Urga. The most -educated Mongol, in our Western sense, with whom I came in contact -declared that within a century his race will completely have -disappeared. While there is probably undue pessimism in so flat a -statement, there are many signs that the people which once subjugated -nearly all Asia and stopped only at the Danube in Europe is to-day on -the same swift downward path as the American Indian they in so many ways -resemble. - - -As befits a holy city, Urga is overrun with temples, shrines, -monasteries, and all the myriad paraphernalia of lamaism, that -degenerate, repulsive, yet picturesque offshoot of Buddhism, centered in -Tibet but clinging with a tenacious hold to all Mongolia. Take away -everything concerned with her religion, and the Mongol capital would -shrink to a mere filthy village. Most conspicuous of its structures is -the shrine or temple of Ganden, towering not only above the lama town -about it but over the whole city. A stony and sandy hollow separates -this monasterial section from the secular one, but when one has climbed -the further slope of this he finds himself wandering through just such -another maze of narrow, dunghill streets shut in by high wooden -palisades. Here it will be doubly wise to carry a heavy stick, for not -only are the savage black dogs that everywhere dot the landscape in and -about Urga particularly numerous and ravenous in this log-built -labyrinth, but they are accustomed to seeing only lamas in their dirty -robes, and foreign garb quickly attracts their unwelcome attention. At -least in theory there are no women in lama-town, and as lamaism is not a -religion calling for congregations, even native laymen are conspicuous -in this section by their absence. - -As the stroller comes out upon an open space on the summit of the low, -broad hillock, he finds before him not only the great central edifice of -Ganden, built in Tibetan fashion of a square stone wall many feet thick, -with deep window-embrasures of fortress-like size, topped by three -overhanging stories in wood, but also many lower yet no less ornate -buildings flanking and surrounding it. From these, in all likelihood, -proceed barbarous sounds of drum-beating, the hammering of big brass -disks, a cabalistic chanting, and yet more awe-inspiring noises the -source of which he cannot identify. Huge cylinders on the high corners -of Ganden, many of its absurd outer ornaments, and much of the -superstructure of the lower buildings are covered with gold, upon which -the cloudless sun gleams richly. If it is “school” or service time, only -a score or so of ragged, besmeared beggars, most or all of them lamas, -will be in sight, scattered along the outer walls or in the gateways of -the religious structures. One of the largest of these is built like a -mammoth Mongol tent, with a saucer-shaped roof, and inside, if a lone -Caucasian wanderer has the courage to march through the gate and step -into the open doorway in the face of hundreds of scowling bullies in -once-red robes—for the “orthodox” yellow of more genuine Buddhism is -much more rare in Urga—he will behold a veritable sea of lamas, squatted -back to back on wide low wooden benches more or less covered with soiled -cushions, in rows so close together that a cat could scarcely squirm -between them, and stretching so far away in every direction that one -must stoop low to see beneath the idolatrous junk suspended from the low -rafters, even as far as the dais in the center of the building. Here -sits what I suppose we would call an abbot, leading the services or -instructing the gathering in the fine points of lamaism. For this is a -kind of seminary, a lama university to which sturdy red-robed males come -from all over Mongolia and beyond, to perfect themselves in the -intricate hocus-pocus of their faith, in which a bit of Buddhism is -swamped by the grossest forms of demonology and ridiculous -superstitions. The students are of no fixed age; burly men in the -forties and sensual-faced old fellows who are soon to feed the dogs are -almost as numerous as impudent youths already soiled and begrimed in -true lama fashion. For hours at a time this huge gathering rocks back -and forth on its haunches, intoning supplications under the lead of the -abbot, sometimes chanting its litanies to the accompaniment of a “music” -so barbaric as to send shivers up the unaccustomed spine, meanwhile -moving the hands in distorted gestures prescribed by the ritual. Their -devotions consist mainly of the endless repetition of the same brief -prayers, mumbled over and over until the monotony promises to drive the -listening stranger to sleep or to distraction. The notion is that this -never ceasing iteration of the same scant theme will withdraw the minds -of the devotees from worldly things and fix their attention on that -nothingness which is the goal of the seeker after Nirvana; it needs but -a slight acquaintance with lamas, however, to show that the real effect -is to make them mere mumbling automatons, with minds as narrow and as -shallow as their monotonous invocations. - -[Illustration: - - The upper town of Urga, entirely inhabited by lamas, has the temple of - Ganden, containing a colossal standing Buddha, rising high above all - else. It is in Tibetan style and much of its superstructure is - covered with pure gold -] - -[Illustration: - - Red lamas leaving the “school” in which hundreds of them squat tightly - together all day long, droning through their litany. They are of all - ages, equally filthy and heavily booted. Over the gateway of the - typical Urga palisade is a text in Tibetan, and the cylinders at the - upper corners are covered with gleaming gold -] - -[Illustration: - - High-class lamas, in their brilliant red or yellow robes, great - ribbons streaming from their strange hats, are constantly riding in - and out of Urga. Note the bent-knee style of horsemanship -] - -[Illustration: - - A high lama dignitary on his travels, free from the gaze of the - curious, and escorted by mounted lamas of the middle class -] - -From time to time the immense crowded gathering stops to eat and drink, -still squatted in their places, from bowls of tea and of some such grain -as millet, which are passed around among them. This is “holy food,” and -the young lower-class lamas who bring it growl protests if the stranger -comes too near them while they are carrying it. Then the intonations -begin again and go on hour after hour, as tediously as such things can -go only in the East, until at last “school” is dismissed and red lamas -pour forth through the door and gate like wine from a punctured -wine-skin, pausing a moment to take advantage of their first escape into -the open air in many hours, then stalking away in their heavy oversize -boots with that peculiar ball-and-chain gait of the walking Mongol. - -Nowhere on earth probably, unless it be in Tibet, is so great a -proportion of the population exclusively engaged in the unproductive -nonsense of saving its souls. Every first son becomes a lama; if a boy -recovers from any serious illness, the parents usually take the vow that -he, too, shall don the red or yellow robe; there are many other reasons, -among them the dread of labor, fear of hunger, hope of more promiscuous -favors from the weaker sex, which add to the crowded ranks of lamas. No -census is available, but in Urga almost every other person one meets -displays the clipped head and collarless gown, while conservative -estimators reckon that fully two fifths of the population of all -Mongolia live, in the name of religion, on the exertions of the rest. -Nor is it possible to conceive of a priesthood—to use the word -loosely—more deeply sunk in degradation. Not merely do the lamas live in -filth and sloth, engaged only in the pursuit of their own salvation, in -no way serving their fellow-men, but they are notorious libertines, -moralless panderers, in many cases beggars of the lowest type. The first -lamas I ever saw were a pair who accosted us at a halt during our climb -out of Kalgan, powerful fellows big and sturdy enough to have laughed at -the most arduous labor, yet who begged even the sweepings of our wayside -lunch and picked up the cigar-butt I tossed away. In Urga lamas -bedraggled to the _n_th degree squatted day after day on busy -street-corners telling their beads and monotoning a brief prayer -incessantly from dawn to dusk for a few stray coppers and scraps of -food. - -However, there are lamas of high as well as of low degree—Jenghiz Khan -himself, you may recall, was one. Several of the ministers in the -Mongolian cabinet were lamas; some are princes as well, holding vast -tracts of land and hundreds of slave-like subjects; among a number who -called upon my departing host during my stay I recall a magnificent -specimen of manhood who came to buy for his own use all the best -furnishings of the house, and a strong-featured older man who brought a -thousand silver dollars to make good the debt of a scamp for whom he had -gone surety out of mere friendship. Such strict honesty is not customary -among the Mongols, though they have something like the Chinaman’s way of -keeping promises; hence there was not even the pressure of public -opinion, certainly no fear of legal action, to cause him to yield up for -no value received what was perhaps a considerable portion of his -fortune. - -Some of the lower orders of lamas engage in worldly occupations, at -least intermittently, to keep the wolf from the door; and those who do -not live in monasteries may enter into a sort of left-handed marriage, -though their wives are always known as “girls.” The higher ranks are in -theory celibates, but no such rule actually cramps their personal -desires, and the “Living Buddha” himself has led anything but a life of -lonely bachelorhood. Among the rank and file of red-robed roughnecks -much the same standard of sexual morals seems to prevail as that reached -by the lecherous touts of our large cities. It is said to be almost the -general practice to reward a lama who has “cured” a young woman by means -of his incanted gibberish by granting him the temporary boon of her -affections, and foreigners have had experiences in Mongolia which -indicate about the same indifference to lack of privacy in the amorous -adventures of wearers of the red or yellow robe that prevails in some of -their other personal habits. - -There are no real schools in Mongolia except these choral gatherings of -lamas. In them they learn to read and write, not Mongolian but Tibetan, -the Latin of lamaism. The laymen boys of better-class families get their -education, if at all, from private instructors, and in rare cases reach -universities over the Russian border. Women have, of course, no need for -other teaching than what their parents and husbands can give them, -though now and then a prince or a wealthy saint hires tutors for his -daughters. - - -However, to turn away from the retreating stream of lamas and push -onward, even an enumeration of the religious structures and trappings -about the great squat “university” would be wearisome. Most amusing or -imbecile of them all to the Westerner, according to his mood, are the -prayer-cylinders. Why these are more commonly called “prayer-wheels” is -a mystery, for they are invariably cylindrical in shape, varying in size -from the largest to the smallest sections of sewer-pipe. How many -hundreds of these there are, not only in lama-town but everywhere in -Urga, could be computed only by a man of energy and patience. Endless -rows of large ones, each covered by a kind of sanctified guard-house, -stretch along whole sides of the upper town; they line several of the -principal streets; there must be at least one, that could better serve -as outhouse, for every family in Urga. The small ones are as flies in -summer. Each of these upright wooden cylinders contains thousands of -prayers, all, if I am not misinformed, the repetition of the same -monotonous phrase, written in Tibetan characters on scraps of -tissue-paper,—_Om mani padme hun_, “The Jewel is in the Lotus,” whatever -that means. A kind of capstan furnishes half a dozen protruding bars by -which to turn the contrivance, and every turn is equivalent to saying as -many thousand prayers as the cylinder contains. Every pious passer-by -pauses to revolve one here and there; pilgrims, or residents who have -sallied forth especially for that purpose, turn them all, one after the -other, along the whole row or, as far as is physically possible, -throughout the whole town. Thus the creak of prayer-cylinders is seldom -silent, though they furnish a great market for axle-grease. Around the -lower massive stone walls of Ganden shrine something like a hundred -smaller cylinders are so arranged that by a simple twist of the wrist -all of them are turned at once, releasing literally millions of -prayers—a labor-saving device compared to which the proudest invention -of our industrial world is but clumsy and wasteful. - -Unlike the disciples of the truer and more kindly Buddhism to the east -and west, the surly lamas of Urga resent visits by strangers to their -sanctuaries, and prevent them entirely to the more holy ones. But there -happened to be no higher official to forbid it when I stepped through -the deep stone door of towering Ganden into a cluttered and musty -interior, and the half-dozen young lamas of the garden variety who at -first moved toward me in a mass, with a manner almost as threatening as -might meet the intruder into a Mohammedan mosque, were softened by a -gesture which implied the eventual bestowal of a silver ruble. Closely -trailed by them I was permitted to make the circuit of the ground floor, -and study from feet to knees the colossal figure of a standing Buddha -which takes up almost all the space within Urga’s most lofty building. -Then they urged me toward the door, but as I refused to part with the -coveted coin for any such slight view they conferred together for some -time in hoarse whispers. Finally one was sent to the outer entrance to -make sure that none of the higher lamas was likely to drop in -unexpectedly, and while two clambered before and three behind me I -climbed a steep crude wooden stairway to the second story. This brought -me about to the hips of the statue. In the semi-darkness of the -building, filled to overflowing with hundreds of small Buddhas, with -silk banners and streamers in many colors, with strings of paper -prayers, with tawdry freaks of an unclean imagination and all the drab -and indecent mummeries of a religion of fear, it was impossible to make -out more than that the figure was of slight artistic merit, and that it -was completely covered with what had every appearance of being real gold -of considerable thickness. A third story on a level with its chest had -low doorways at the four corners which opened upon a gallery overhung by -one of the massive roofs and gave a far-reaching view of all Urga and -its vicinity. Here one might have touched the massive ornamental -lanterns, covered with gold, as were parts of the cornices and many of -the smaller decorations. Still another half-perpendicular, makeshift -stairway led to a higher gallery, carpeted with the droppings of birds -and admitting light enough to show that the contents of the building -were as soiled and unlaundered as the gowns of my suspicious and worried -companions. This was at the level of the Buddha’s face, which resembled -nothing so much as a very young “flapper” given to overindulgence in -rouge, almost a babyish face, with bright crimson lips a yard long and -an immature, affectionate expression that did not in the least befit a -being presiding over the sullen and repulsive religion of Mongolia. Two -sets of arms, one raised and the other extended in a familiar Buddhist -fashion, could be made out in the gloom. Of the weight of actual gold -covering the figure from sandals to coiled-snake coiffure there was no -means of judging, but I would have been prompt to accept it in lieu of -any income I could acquire in the course of a natural lifetime. One of -the lamas wished to know whether we had anything in the outside world -from which I came comparable to their four-story Buddha. Having in mind -only ecclesiastical constructions, I could think of nothing that might -be mentioned as a rival; but I might have told them of a statue on an -island in the harbor of our principal city which just about equals this -one in stature, without bringing in the fact that it is of tarnished -bronze instead of gleaming gold. - -It is easier to believe the tales of the old Spanish _conquistadores_ -after seeing Urga. If the capital of the Inca empire had half as many -“golden roofs and cornices scintillating in the sunshine,” it would have -been enough to arouse the cupidity of more saintly men than the -followers of Pizarro. Gaze across the holy city of Mongolia in almost -any direction, and a golden superstructure is almost certain to strike -the eye. The lower story is in every case made of materials less -tempting to the light-fingered, and palisades shut them in. But what -burglar would not give all the rest of his earthly chances for one short -half-hour of feverish, unmolested activity at any of those glittering -second stories? That of the holy of holies in the monasterial section to -the east of the official _yamens_, in particular, is of an elaborate -massiveness which suggests some unlimited source of the precious yellow -metal, and when the unclouded sun shines full upon it the eye can -literally not endure the sight. Gold, filth, and superstition—after we -have seen Urga even the least bigoted of us can understand more fully, -if not completely condone, the high-handedness of a Cortez in -overthrowing the heathen idols and burning the unholy temples of -conquered “Gentiles.” - -Along the sloping brown hillside just behind lama-town stands a row of -whitewashed brick dagobas, the tombs of saints so holy that their bodies -were not disposed of in the customary Mongol fashion. On the ledges of -these, as on any projecting place inside the prayer-cylinder sheds, and -indeed anywhere on holy edifices where there is room for them and it is -permitted, worshipers have laid heaps of loose stones, each representing -some appeal to supposedly supernatural forces. Of many another strange -device in and about the mammoth temple compounds, there are the -prostrating-boards, slightly inclined planks on short legs for the use -of the pious during their extraordinary genuflexions before venerated -shrines. With that indifference to soiling themselves for which the -Mongols are conspicuous, however, the bare ground suffices most -worshipers, and the boards do no great amount of service. The orthodox -prostration so closely resembles one of the movements in great favor -among our gymnasium instructors that the sight of a group of devotees, -women fully as often as men, repeating it time after time in their -ponderous boots and heavy garments threatens to convulse the American, -at least, with laughter. Though there is no unison among the worshipers, -each one performs the ceremony with a fixed rhythm which could not be -more exact if a maltreated piano were pounding out the periods, so that -the effect is of individual perfection of movement but utter inability -to synchronize the group. The worshiper first stands at attention with -his face to the shrine, as nearly like a soldier as “the conformation of -the body”—not to mention the abundance of clothing—“will permit,” -murmurs a prayer several times over, then bows his trunk to the -horizontal, places his hands on the ground, straightens his legs to the -rear, and lowers himself to the prostrate, even his nose touching the -earth. There he remains a moment, then, flexing his arms until his rigid -body rests on hands and toes, he regains the original position by -performing the same movements in reverse order, repeating the exercise -as long as piety, the weight of his sins, or his dread of evil spirits -suggests. I know from experience that it is a genuine exercise even in -gymnasium garb; what it is in full Mongol attire, sometimes including -even the feminine head-dress, any vivid imagination can picture. No -wonder the Mongols are big and strong; and what call is there for our -famous gymnastico-religious organization ever to establish one of its -Oriental branches in Urga? It may be just as well, perhaps, for us -dilettante gymnasts of the West never to challenge a red-robed lama to -bodily combat; for I have seen more than one of them make a complete -circuit of some holy section of the city performing this prostration at -every other step forward, leaving off at the point where night overtook -them, and returning to start there again at dawn. - - -Except in Lhasa, and perhaps Rome, the worshiper in Urga has an -advantage seldom to be found on this earth; he may perform his pious -antics, not merely before silent shrines and motionless statues, but -before a living god in flesh and blood. It is a pleasant tramp for any -one with unatrophied legs across the valley to the dwelling-place of the -“Living Buddha.” A few small streams block his way, unless he can hit -upon the stepping-stone fords of the horseless lower classes. But if he -is a Westerner, one of the mounted lamas who are constantly jogging back -and forth between the palace and the city may, out of mere curiosity to -see him at close range, or because all the native benevolence of the -nomad herdsman has not yet been steeped out of him by superstition and -the misbehavior of other outlanders, carry him across on his crupper. -Or, if the stroller is not in a mood for petty adventures, he may take -the causeway. This is a road wide as a Western boulevard and perhaps -half a mile long, raised on wooden trestles which carry it across the -slightly lower part of the valley; but it runs, not from the section -where foreigners lodge and carry on such business as is possible under -present conditions, but, being designed merely for the use of the -“Living Buddha” and his courtiers, it connects his palaces with those of -his late sainted brother, and with the shrine topped by that most -coveted golden superstructure to which he sometimes comes to be -worshiped. Apparently there is nothing sacred about this roadway, -however, for any one may use it, and a gang of Chinese was engaged in -replacing the logs covered with earth—which spells bridge to the -Oriental—of a section that had collapsed. For that matter, it is Chinese -workmen who repair, as they probably originally built, the fantastic -gates and the flaring tile roofs even within the sacred palace precinct, -but for which concession by his holiness and the jealous preservers of -his sanctity nothing probably would ever get mended. - -The low chaos of roofs within his principal compound, green, yellow, -blue, golden, a jumble of Chinese, Tibetan, Russian and hybrid -architecture, stands out against the little lines of trees along the -foot of the sacred mountains,—evergreen, white birch, and other species, -now red or yellow, like the omnipresent lamas, with early autumn. A few -guard-houses with a ragged armed Mongol or two lounging before them -surround the place, but these picturesque sentinels do not interfere -with the movements even of foreigners so long as they do not attempt to -enter the sacred precincts. On special occasions non-Mongols have been -permitted to pass the gates, but very, very few have ever entered the -presence or even the actual dwelling of the “Living Buddha” himself, to -whom even the highest of Mongols do not have free access. The elaborate -gates have the same demon guards, the same isolated wall as a screen -against evil spirits, and all the rest of the flummery common to such -structures in China and Korea. Some of the buildings within the -compound, however, might have been taken bodily from some cheap -European, or at least Russian, town, while the confusion of the whole -scheme of structures would not awaken delight in the heart of any real -architect. - -The “summer palace” of the human deity, a furlong away, being more -fully Tibetan, is less unpleasing to the eye. At about the same -distance from the main palace in the opposite direction is almost a -town of mainly modern buildings, housing the non-religious belongings -and the servants of the Mongol god. His stables contain many horses; -his garages have automobiles of a dozen different makes, European as -well as American, not to mention the usual proportion of Fords; a -Delco system lights his establishment; and most modern inventions are -represented in one form or another. The “Living Buddha” buys every new -contrivance the West has to offer, merely as playthings, in a vain -attempt to make a noticeable inroad in a burdensome income. A foreign -business man of Urga who has furnished much of it assured me that he -purchases on the average ten thousand dollars “Mex” worth of assorted -junk a day, things of every conceivable kind, which are petulantly -tossed aside when the owner and his swarms of satellites tire of them. -Many of the motor-cars rust away unused, though this modern god does -all his traveling to and from his various thrones by automobile, and -his chauffeur, a khaki-and-legging-clad Buriat, may frequently be seen -speeding about town on the only motor-cycle in Urga. - -In striking contrast to this modernity of his surroundings is the -attitude of the Mongols toward their living god. It is something which -we of the West can scarcely conceive, and which probably has no -precedent among even the most pietistic creeds of the Occident. Second -only to the Dalai-Lama of Lhasa in the hierarchy of lamaism, Bogda-Han, -to give him one of the many titles by which he is known among Mongols, -is worshiped by millions throughout a vast space of central Asia. The -attribution of deity with which they invest him is due to the belief -that he is a reincarnation of the original Buddha. When a “Living -Buddha” dies—of which more anon—the high council of lamaism, by the -consultation of certain sacred books and a deal of hocus-pocus which -saner mortals would not have the interest to follow, determine where the -body into which his soul has been reborn will be found. At first blush -it would seem that this must be a new-born babe; but perhaps there is no -nursery in the sacred palace, or no lamas of sufficient experience in -that line to take charge of a puling infant. Therefore, by something -corresponding to poetic license, the signs point to a boy of about nine -years of age, who will be found, say, on such a corner of such streets -in this or that city, doing so and so at a specified hour. A cavalcade -of high lamas travel to the place indicated, which is more likely to be -in Tibet than in Mongolia, capture the new and unsuspecting Buddha, and -carry him off to a life of deification. It is commonly reputed in the -outside world that each Buddha is quietly done away with by what we -might call his cardinals at the age of eighteen, his body embalmed, and -a new find installed in his place. A Russian professor long resident in -Urga has been to some pains to prove that this is not true, that it is -in fact mere nonsense; but he admits the curious coincidence that all -the “Living Buddhas” up to the present one seem to have died at about -eighteen years of age. - -[Illustration: - - The market in front of Hansen’s house. The structure on the extreme - left is not what it looks like, for they have no such in Urga but it - houses a prayer-cylinder -] - -[Illustration: - - A youthful lama turning one of the myriad prayer-cylinders of Urga. - Many written prayers are pasted inside, and each turn is equivalent - to saying all of them -] - -[Illustration: - - Women, whose crippled feet make going to the shops difficult, do much - of their shopping from the two-boxes-on-a-pole type of merchant, - constant processions of whom tramp the highways of China -] - -[Illustration: - - An itinerant blacksmith-shop, with the box-bellows worked by a stick - handle widely used by craftsmen and cooks in China -] - -The present one played in unusual luck. To an even greater extent than -his predecessors he took advantage of his position to become the Don -Juan of Mongolia, and among his many light-o’-loves there was one to -whom he wished to stick—or who decided to stick to him. Being a god is -very convenient at times. This one calmly overruled the time-honored law -that lamas, and especially “Living Buddhas,” may not marry—though of -course this verb does not exactly fit the case—and attached the minx to -him for life. She seems to have some such power over men as did the old -Empress Dowager of China, an impression borne out by her masterful face -in such photographs of her as are extant. Not only did she succeed in -saving her paramour from the usual fate in his youth, but she so -strengthened his position that he is still on his deified throne at an -age variously reckoned at from fifty to sixty. Some explain this -survival in another way: there were, they say, to have been a fixed -number of reincarnations of the Buddha, of which this is the last, after -which, we are led to infer, the stainless soul will pass into Nirvana; -and of course a few years more or less of hanging back from that -blissful state can do no one any harm, least of all in the Orient, where -the sense of time is so nearly paralyzed. Even among those who do not -accept this view there are many who claim that there will never be -another “Living Buddha” in Mongolia, for political rather than lamaistic -reasons. - -The fact is, probably, that while the masterfulness of his consort had -something to do with the survival of the present reincarnation, the -powerful clique about him has been willing to permit it because of his -weakness, which has prevented him from ever grasping any real authority. -Since his gallant youth he has been tainted with that dread disease so -wide-spread among the Mongols, which not only makes him a semi-invalid -easily manipulated by the real power behind his pseudo-divinity, but -which left him some years ago stone-blind. Because he is too sacred to -be touched by impious hands, there was no way of curing him, and now it -is too late. Besides, the high lamas preferred him sickly and supine -rather than well and strong, not to mention the almost complete -ignorance among the Mongols of the real nature of their well nigh -universal ailment. - -Perhaps his blindness increases his divinity in the minds of the -faithful, as a sightless witch often wins more followers than one with -all her senses intact. At any rate, Mongols of all classes treat their -living fetish with divine honors. Pilgrims come from all over central -Asia to prostrate themselves on the ground or the prayer-boards outside -his compound; on special days they are blessed, not by his actual -appearance in person—for visibility often breeds contempt, and the -physical labor of being a god should be reduced to a minimum—but by -being tapped on the heads with a contrivance in the hands of -middle-class lamas to which is attached a rope the other end of which is -grasped, hypothetically at least, by the “Living Buddha” seated on his -throne inside his central palace. So divine is he that notwithstanding -his infirmity the excretions of his body are collected in silver and -gold vessels, sealed, and sent out among the credulous as a cure for -their infirmities! Foreigners who have chanced to catch a glimpse of him -on his way to or from the city temples to pray for rain—he has, of -course, the latest and best thing in barometers—or some other ceremony, -describe him as being more cleanly dressed than is the Mongol custom, -but otherwise quite like any other lama of high class, plus a kind of -gold crown. Close inspection might reveal that this alleged pulchritude -is an exaggeration—I am skeptical of the possibility of combining -cleanliness and Mongol—but that has never been permitted a foreigner. - -While no manifestos are issued commanding the foreigner to remain within -doors and avert his face, as was long the case when the emperor of China -made his annual journey to sacrifice to the Altar of Heaven in Peking, -armed guards as well as pious fanatics see to it that the divine being -is not too nearly approached during his passing to and fro about Urga. -No later ago than the month of my visit a group of Americans in an -automobile were halted on one side of the unmarked route over which the -“Living Buddha” was to return from the temple where he was just then -enthroned, and compelled to get out and walk across it. As a special -concession to the spirit of modernity, when the insistent guards were -reminded that the abandoned machine could not advance of its own will, -they permitted the chauffeur to climb in again and technically break the -divine law by riding across the prospective trail of the blind god. - -Tibetan, as I have said, is the Latin of lamaism. Even in Peking, where -branch clusters of the faith exist, only two or three temples are -permitted, by special dispensation, to carry on their services in -Mongolian, and there is said to be only one in Asia where Chinese is -used. The great stone letters on the flank of the sacred mountain, -visible as far off as the eye can reach, are Tibetan characters. From -Tibet come numbers of lamas, and orders tending to keep the ritual more -orthodox; the Dalai-Lama himself once fled before foreign invaders to -Urga. Neither these seekers after Nirvana from Lhasa and vicinity nor -the traders from the more northern parts of Tibet make the journey now -by the direct overland route. Not only are there bleak mountains and -vast morasses, dreary _despoblados_ without a sign of man for days, and -the fanatical Mohammedan province of Kansu to cross, but in these -settled times there are real dangers from bandits of several -nationalities. So the beaten trail of to-day, except for those Tibetan -divinities who come by sea, like any tourist, leads down through -northern India and across into central China, thence northward through -the former Celestial Empire, which still claims, if in vain, -jurisdiction over all Outer Mongolia. - -There is nothing more pleasant than a stroll on a brilliant autumn day -across the golden-brown rolling plains about Urga, especially to the -north and east, where they roll ever higher until all the holy city, to -its most distant and isolated clusters of temples, lies spread out -before one. No suggestion of modern industry breaks the peaceful quiet, -which is enhanced by the law forbidding hunting or any other -interference with wild creatures within a circuit of about twelve miles -about the residence of Bogda-Han. Great flocks of pigeons fly up in -purple-blue clouds only when the stroller has almost walked them down; -less charming birds show a similar lack of fear of man; in the low -forest along the crest of the sacred mountain roam elk, wild pigs, deer, -bears, wolves, some say even moose and reindeer, not to mention many -smaller and more harmless animals. Yet there is something ominous rather -than tranquil and inviting about the scene as a whole; the Elysian charm -is sullied and broken by various repelling things, particularly by the -inhuman Mongol method of disposing of the dead. - -This consists simply, except in rare cases of reputed gods or demigods, -of feeding the corpses of all to the dogs. There seems to be nothing -corresponding to a funeral service. Foreign residents say that formerly -it was the custom to load the body on a two-wheeled cart and drive -pell-mell across the hillocks until it fell off, the driver not daring -to look back under penalty of having all the evil spirits which -inhabited the dead man enter his own body. Others say they have -sometimes seen a kind of procession of lamas and relatives follow the -corpse to the hills and stand some little distance off watching its -consumption. Certainly in the great majority of cases there is no more -ceremony involved than in tossing garbage on the nearest dump. There are -no fixed spots for depositing the bodies, but they are thrown hit or -miss on the outer edges of the town, often right beside the main trails -and especially in the shallow, verdureless gullies breaking up the -wrinkled brown country about it. - -One must be on the ground early after a death to find enough of the body -left to recognize it as more than a broken skeleton. The big black dogs, -covered with long shaggy hair, which dot the landscape everywhere in and -about Urga, filling its streets with murderous-looking eyes that keep -the pedestrian on the constant qui vive, have learned their task well -from many generations of practice. The rapidity with which they can -reduce what was a sentient, moving being the day before to a mere -sprinkling of broken bones is astonishing. This doubly endears these -loathsome beasts to the Mongols, for they believe that the more quickly -a body is eaten the better man does this prove the deceased to have been -in life. It is especial good luck and proof of unusual sanctity to see -the body eaten by birds, but the dogs rarely leave their feathered -rivals an opportunity thus to bear testimony to the character of the -departed. The birds have their turn after the dogs have given up hope of -deriving further benefit from their exertions, and finish off the job by -cleaning out the skull and the other morsels for which a bill is needed. - -There is nothing either hidden or sacred about these graveless -graveyards. Any one may stroll through them, and find them quite as -abandoned as any city dump-heap. Dog-nests made of the ragged quilted -cloaks in which the bodies are carried out are the only conspicuous -feature, except the skulls which lie about everywhere. I wondered at -first that there were never any remains of the skeleton except widely -scattered and broken bones, until I beheld a dog pick up a rib and carry -it off to a comfortable spot on the hillside, there to sit down on his -haunches, break it in two, and gnaw the last scrap of nourishment out of -it. In the dry desert air the skulls quickly bleach snow-white and -brittle; only here and there is one still “green” enough to be gray in -color, so solid as to pain the toe that kicks it across the plain. These -vast bone-yards are no place for the Westerner, living on his -over-refined food, to spend the hour before an appointment with his -dentist, for his envy of the full sets of perfect white teeth in almost -every skull may become overwhelming. - -It seems to be the idea of these putative Buddhists, the Mongols, and of -their brethren, the Buriats and Kalmucks, who follow the same custom, -that, since all living creatures are brothers, the least a man can do -for his dumb fellow-beings is to bequeath them his useless body as -nourishment—and thereby, of course, win merit that will improve his -reincarnation. The Tibetans do likewise, except that they feed their -mountain eagles or condors as well as their dogs, and prepare the food -for the latter by mixing it with ground grain. Gruesome as the custom -is, there is a thoroughness and promptitude about it which greatly -outdoes the Christian mode of burial, a real and visible return of “dust -to dust.” I know of no other means of disposing of the dead which gives -the corpse so nearly its true value, none which leaves such a true sense -of the worthlessness of human remains. Between this and the opposite -extreme of an elaborate funeral followed by a showy mausoleum I am not -sure but that I prefer the Mongol method. - -To the Mongols themselves there is no more sanctity about their -scattered bones than about any other form of rubbish. Shepherds or -others whose calling brings them there wander or sit about the -skull-strewn gullies quite as calmly as if they were in a field of -daisies. Relatives seldom if ever come to pick up any of the remains; -sometimes the rains wash broken bones down the gullies into the edge of -town, where they lie until they are covered up with silt and disappear. -Most of them simply disintegrate into the semi-desert soil about them. -There is never a sign that the Mongol riding by feels any distress at -the thought that some day these same surly black dogs that are tearing -to pieces the corpse at the roadside will do the same for him. The tops -of skulls, especially of higher lamas and men of standing, are sometimes -used as drinking-vessels, or as oil-receptacles in the temples, and -specially sainted thigh-bones make excellent whistles for use in -ritualistic uproars; otherwise no one seems to have thought of the -commercial possibilities of the bone-yards. Nor are these strange -people, who might punish with death the stranger who forced his way into -the presence of their living god, in the least sensitive about the -possession of their remains. A high lama dropped in upon my host one day -and chanced to spy a skull-top that had just been presented by some -native admirer. He picked it up, looked it over carefully, held it up to -a light, and announced that the original owner had been a very good man, -proof of which was the condition of the zigzag joints and the fact that -the skull was so thin in one spot that the light showed rosy red through -it. Perhaps, he added, as he laid it back on the bric-à-brac table and -accepted a cigarette, it had been the skull of his good old friend Lama -So-and-so. - -If I may hazard a guess, it is that this to us gruesome custom has grown -up among the Mongols because they are nomads. They cannot carry the -graves of their ancestors with them, whereas the dogs will follow of -their own accord. Their attitude toward these surly black beasts without -owners, which roam the plains as well as make every street of Urga a -gauntlet, bears out this impression. Though they are as quick as we to -beat them off with any weapon when they get too aggressive, they deeply -resent a serious injury to or the killing of one of them by a frightened -foreigner. Yet the tendency of any Westerner would be to do just that; I -know of few assignments that would give me more satisfaction than to -lead a regiment to Urga and exterminate her swarming dogs. Most of them -seem to have acquired the disease most prevalent among those they feed -upon, and one feels that the slightest bite would prove fatal. Luckily -they spend the day largely in sleeping and making love, so that the -streets are not always as dangerous as they might be. But they easily -gather in packs, and especially at night or during the long hungry -winters they are a distinct menace not merely to women and children but -to the hardiest men. They are really cowards, these man-eating dogs of -Mongolia, as the shrinking look in their tigerish eyes when they are -effectively threatened proves; yet they are so accustomed to human flesh -that man is to them natural prey, and they seem to have developed a -knowledge of human anatomy which tells them where to attack most -effectively, as well as what tidbits to prefer when they are not -especially hungry. Urga is full of stories of the inability of these -ugly beasts to await the natural end of their predestined victims. A man -making his way late at night across the noisome market-place outside our -window had been dragged down and eaten during the past winter. By poetic -justice, he was a lama. In the outskirts just back of one of the temple -compounds a Buriat woman was pulled off her horse and devoured one cold -winter day before those looking on could come to her rescue. A year or -so before, a Russian colonel newly arrived dined late with friends, who -asked him as he left whether they could not give him an escort, or at -least lend him a cudgel. No, indeed, replied the departing guest, a -Russian officer could not be afraid; besides, he had his sword. Next -morning the sword and a few buttons and rags were all that could be -found of the colonel. - - - - - CHAPTER X - EVERY ONE HIS OWN DIPLOMAT - - -If I found time to see all Urga during my stay there it must have been -due to the fact that it is not, after all, a large city, for most of my -waking hours were of necessity spent in the various _yamens_. First, -every new-comer must have a passport to remain in town; then we had to -get permission from the war minister to carry them before our guns could -be returned to us; there were endless negotiations involved in the -matter of my confiscated kodak and films; finally, to mention only the -high spots, any one leaving the country must have still another passport -and fulfil numerous formalities. All these things would still have left -some of my eleven days in Urga free if Mongol functionaries worked with -even the deliberate speed of our own. But nowhere in all the Orient -itself, probably, is the Oriental conception of time more fully -developed, and when it came to shifting from one official or _yamen_ to -another a question on which no one wished to assume responsibility, -these nomad herdsmen turned ink-daubers could “pass the buck” in a way -to make our most experienced army officers green with envy. - -[Illustration: - - Pious Mongol men and women worshiping before the residence of the - “Living Buddha” of Urga, some by throwing themselves down scores of - times on the prostrating-boards placed for that purpose, one by - making many circuits of the place, now and again measuring his - length on the ground -] - -[Illustration: - - The Mongols of Urga dispose of their dead by throwing the bodies out - on the hillsides, where they are quickly devoured by the savage - black dogs that roam everywhere -] - -[Illustration: - - Mongol women in full war-paint -] - -[Illustration: - - Though it was still only September, our return from Urga was not - unlike a polar expedition -] - -Every American is his own diplomat in Urga, where no nation except -Russia has official representatives, so that most of our dealings were -with cabinet members, especially with the minister of foreign affairs. -He was a typical high-class Mongol, with greasy cue and soiled silk -gown, whose qualifications for his office were that he spoke Chinese, -though those who know Urga politics say he is a man of ability and the -most powerful of the Mongols in the present Government. The prime -minister, though a lama and a saint not many degrees below Bogda-Han -himself, resembled all the others in appearance, except of course for -his missing cue and certain details of dress. All the _yamens_ were much -like that of justice, to which we had the first introduction. Scores of -booted and quilt-robed functionaries squatted on the cushioned platforms -about the rooms of frame buildings that would be described as European, -though they were built by the Chinese. An honest day’s work for any one -of them seemed to be the scratching full of upright words with a -weazel-hair brush of a two-foot strip of flimsy tissue-paper, the more -careful copying of which would constitute their next daily contribution. -The fastening of a portrait on the flimsiest of passports known to -diplomatic circles, by sewing it in with pink silk thread and securing -the knot with a wax seal many times heavier than all the rest of the -document, left the man who accomplished it a sensation similar to that -of the famous village smithy on his way to his night’s repose. The -filing of a corresponding caricature of the applicant in the national -archives was usually turned over to another functionary, in order to -equalize the arduous toil. Then, too, no member of the staff wished to -miss anything of interest. Every scrap of letter or document which we -presented must be carefully examined by the whole _yamen_ force; if it -was in Mongolian, each one, from the assistant minister who would -eventually take it in to his chief down to the youth who prepared the -sealing-wax and wore over his eyes the black, bandit-like horsehair -bandage which is the Mongol substitute for eye-glasses, must read it -from end to end, which meant that we were forced to listen to the same -meaningless song a score of times, for the Mongol cannot read without -singing the words aloud. In my efforts to convince the Government of the -harmlessness of the snap-shotting I should do about town if they would -be so kind as to return my apparatus, I ran across some copies of the -most photographic of our monthly magazines, and carried them to the -_yamens_. These created unrivaled interest. All other work, slight as it -always was, invariably was abandoned forthwith, and the combined force -took to studying and discussing the pictures, their capped heads crowded -closely together. When, hours after our arrival, it came time for the -minister to give us his attention, he, too, must spend half the -afternoon looking at the magazines, and end by telling us to come -to-morrow when he could find time to make a decision. The advertisements -won fully as much and quite as serious attention as the genuine -photographs in the letter-press, which proved another cause for delay. -For I challenge any one to explain in English turned into Russian and -finally into Mongolian that there is really no curious race of dwarfs in -America in spite of the picture of a merry tot barely exceeding in -height the can of soup beside which he has stood for years in so many of -our national publications. - -However, we came to know official Mongolia well, and to find some of -these functionaries pleasant and almost lovable fellows underneath their -curious garb and their atrophied sense of the value of time. Eventually, -too, we got results from our endless squatting about the _yamens_. -Exactly a week after our arrival, when we had seen almost every one in -ostensible authority in Mongolia except Bogda-Han himself, a soldier -came to summon us to the _Okhrana_, and before the afternoon was gone -our guns and cartridges were actually returned to us. True, the strap -had been stolen from my companion’s rifle, and we were “squeezed” again -in veritable Chinese fashion in the payment of the fees involved, as -with our passports, by being forced to pay in “Mex” dollars instead of -the legal rubles and copecks; but we had long since lost any inclination -to trouble over trifles. Besides, the lumps of silver in which Mongol -government employees are intermittently paid do not constitute large -salaries. Permission to shoot lead, however, was not the chief motive of -my _yamen_-chasing; I wished to turn my kodak on some of the curious -types of Urga. The foreign minister having at length given me verbal -permission to do so, I spent a morning in the office of the military -staff—a dismal pair of little rooms occupied by a dozen gloomy and -shoddy-clad Russian men and women dawdling over maps and -translations—and finally interviewed the chief of staff himself. He was -a tall, aristocratic-looking Russian who had been a major under the -czar, but who held, of course, no rank in the “Red” scheme of things, -though a kind of Cossack uniform flapped about his emaciated form and he -occupied a position which in other lands would have called for at least -a colonel. My hopes rose high, for here at last was a man with human -intelligence enough to know that my simple request did not mean treason -to the state. When the new supplication I was asked to write had been -turned into Russian, he took it personally to the war minister. The -interview was long, and though I was not invited to it myself, I knew -that my case was being thoroughly discussed, for the minister spent some -time in staring at me out of the window. Then the chief of staff -returned my request with an annotation by his ostensible superior that -the war department was quite willing to grant me the requested -permission—if the minister of foreign affairs would also do so! I -thought the struggle was won at last and that it was merely a question -of awaiting the final papers with Mongolian patience; for had not the -foreign minister already given such permission, if only by word of -mouth? I no longer took with a grain of salt, however, the statement of -my host that he had made twenty-one visits to the _yamens_ for the -simple purpose of getting a permit to ship some of his own horses out of -the country. - -Two days after this appeal to the chief of staff a soldier met me in the -street and handed me a Mongol document. Every one having promised me -permission to use my kodak again, I called at once at the _Okhrana_ and -asked that it be returned to me. The surly, slouch-hatted churl at the -head of that institution, after letting me stand the usual half-hour -without deigning to acknowledge my existence, looked at me in a queer -way and grumbled something about “to-morrow.” Perhaps the document in my -hand was not what I fancied it to be. I went out to have it translated. - -It is only by the exercise of the sternest self-control that I refrain -from quoting that remarkable paper in its entirety. Not that it ranks -high as a literary production, nor that it is intrinsically of any -particular interest; but there are probably few better specimens of that -frankness in diplomatic relations between nations which has been of late -so loudly demanded. Written on the usual long strip of tissue-paper -folded crosswise and opening like an accordion, it proved to contain a -yard or more of perpendicular Mongol script, authenticated at both ends -by the big square red stamp of an official seal. A lengthy preamble led -up to the statement that, “inasmuch as an individual named S——, calling -himself an American consul,” had during a visit to Urga some months -before been in conversation with those members of a conspiracy against -the People’s Government of Mongolia who had since been executed for -treason, he “had made to perish the good name of the great American -nation,” and therefore said Government could no longer believe any -American, verbally or in writing, wherefore permission was refused -me ... and so on, to the length of a treaty of peace. However, a little -résumé of recent Mongolian history and politics is essential to the full -understanding of this tidbit of amateur diplomacy; for such it was, for -all its ostensibly private nature, since it was plain that it had been -written in the hope that I would bring it to the attention of our -Government, with whom Outer Mongolia had no regular means of -communicating. - - -Soon after the revolution that made China nominally a republic, Outer -Mongolia broke the ties which had bound it rather loosely for centuries -to the Chinese Empire. The new Chinese Government had other problems on -its hands, and for several years nothing serious was done to regain the -allegiance of this vast territory, which had declared its independence -without being very strict in such matters as completely expelling all -Chinese officials. In 1917 there was organized in China under Japanese -instructors an army-corps of twenty thousand Chinese, who were to take -the enemy ships interned in Shanghai, sail for France, and win the war. -But the armistice overtook these preparations and left the question of -what to do with the troops on which so much training had been spent. -Some genius at length suggested that they be made a “Northeastern -Defense Corps,” and half the twenty thousand were sent to Urga under -command of a general popularly known in China as “Little Hsu,” one of -those choice morsels of humanity who had to his credit such actions as -having a rival assassinated in his garden after inviting him to -luncheon. All testimony seems agreed that these Chinese troops played -havoc in Urga and vicinity, particularly after China had deprived -Russians of their extraterritorial rights and after the “little worm” of -a Russian consul who had been instrumental in having the expedition sent -had departed. They began boldly looting and killing Russians as well as -Mongols, and it was but a slight shift from that to attacking foreigners -still entitled to extraterritorial privileges. Before matters grew -serious enough to prod the powers to action, however, word came that a -White Russian force was moving on Urga. “Little Hsu” ran away, leaving -General Chu in command. The latter planned to kill all the foreigners -left, according to his own assertion, then lost his nerve as the -Russians drew near, and fled before his army; and when next seen by any -of his intended victims he was basking in the hero-admiring smiles of -foreign ladies and their escorts at a dance in the principal hotel of -Peking. - -The Russians under Ungern, justly known as the “Mad Baron,” entered Urga -in October, 1920, and with the aid of Mongol troops chased the -disorganized Chinese corps over the southern border of Outer Mongolia. -It was then that the Paris-to-Peking telegraph line ceased to function -for lack of poles. Bleached Chinese skeletons still lay scattered along -the road to Kalgan when I made the journey to Urga. Ungern was one of -those products of generations of Russian brutality who seem to find -their keenest pleasure in bloodthirsty acts. In Urga he grew more and -more mad, indiscriminately killing Mongols and Russians suspected of -“Red” sympathies, and topping this off one February day in 1921 by a -general slaughter of the Jewish inhabitants. Every Russian, he -explained, hates a Jew; besides, the Bolshevik régime with which he was -at swords’ points was and is still mainly in the hands of Jews, a fact -not fully realized in our land because of the muffling Jewish hand on -our press, but which it is essential to keep in mind in any study of -present Russian problems. So deep was his hatred of these people that he -refused to waste ammunition on them; they were despatched instead by -splitting open their skulls with sabers. Foreigners still living in Urga -describe the streets as shambles, strewn everywhere with the corpses of -Jewish men, women, and children, even of babies with their brains oozing -out amid the dust and rubbish. All speak of the curious fact that many -bodies lay for days where they had fallen, without a dog’s coming near -them, as if even these brutes had been frightened by the madness of the -baron—or had eaten to satiety. As the soldiers reveling in the pogrom -depended mainly on a hasty glance to identify their victims, not a few -foreigners whose physiognomy was deceiving passed some very unpleasant -moments. Such sights as two Mongols and a white woman hanging from the -same gatepost, the woman a poor part-witted creature who maintained even -in death a ludicrous expression of inane hauteur, are still recalled by -the surviving foreign residents. - -At length the Bolsheviks, having first, according to their own -assertions, pleaded with the Chinese for several months to join them in -the expedition and catch the “Mad Baron” between them, sent an army into -Mongolia. The personal amusements of the baron do not seem to have had -much weight in bringing about this decision, for the “Reds” themselves -have a well developed taste for flowing blood; but they had begun to -worry lest the Ungern group become the nucleus of a “White” force large -enough to jeopardize their own security. Moreover, being true fanatics, -they were eager to bring Mongolia the dismal gospel of their strange -faith. The “Reds” entered Urga in July, 1921, and have been there ever -since. In those notes for publication with which governments of all -colors attempt to fool their neighbors, their own people, and even -themselves, the present rulers of Russia assure us that they have only a -corporal’s guard in Urga, merely as a protection against a new “White” -gathering, and that the Mongols rule themselves without outside -interference. Even the handsome and polished Jewish gentleman who under -the title of Russian consul represents the Soviet in Urga, will tell you -in any one of half a dozen languages, if you take the trouble to call at -his perfectly consular office adorned with a large signed portrait of -Lenin in a building flaunting a faded red flag, that he is only a lone -foreigner in town, like you, and that he has little influence with the -Mongol Government. But if he keeps from visibly smiling as he makes this -assertion, it is a sign that the urbanity which he displayed at the time -of his expulsion from the United States has improved rather than -diminished. - -It is true that there are not more than two or three hundred Russian -Soviet soldiers in Urga. Having painted the town “Red,” and seen to it -that a Mongolian “People’s Government” of that color was installed, no -great force is needed to see that the ideas of Moscow are carried out. -The cabinet ministers ostensibly ruling the country are all Mongols, but -at their elbow, just out of sight, sits a Russian “adviser” whose advice -is never scorned with impunity. I still recall the scene when a Russian -subaltern from the military staff brought the foreign minister a -document that needed his signature to make it legal. As the minister -began perusing it, the expression on the face of the subaltern said as -plainly as if he had spoken the words, “Read it, you old beggar, if you -want to waste the time, but you will sign it whether you wish to or -not.” Thus the “advice” reaching Urga through the telegrams from Moscow -that pour in upon the “powerless” Russian consul in a steady if slender -stream seeps down through all grades of the “People’s Government” of -independent Mongolia. - - -It has been a long way around, but we have at last come back again to -that example of amateur diplomacy in which my simple prayer was denied, -and a backhanded fillip given incidentally to all citizens of “the great -American nation.” It is true, even as the document alleges, that an -American named S—— did come to Urga a few months before my arrival, and -he does not deny that he had conversation with some of the fifteen -Mongols, one of them the former prime minister, another a saint high in -the lama hierarchy, most of them as splendid fellows as could be found -in Mongolia, who were shot a fortnight before I got there, on the charge -of conspiring to overthrow the “People’s Government.” That he “called -himself an American consul” is not surprising, in view of the fact that -our State Department does also, and pays him a salary accordingly. Nor -is there any cause for astonishment in the fact that he hobnobbed as -much as possible with the most polished Mongols with whom he could come -in contact, if only to avoid still greasier robes. In short, S—— is our -consul at Kalgan, in whose district all Mongolia is included. Neither -China nor the United States, nor in fact any nation except Soviet -Russia, has ever recognized the independence of Outer Mongolia. By the -law of nations, therefore, so far as any such thing exists, it is still -a province of China and a part of one of our Chinese consular districts, -where Americans are still entitled to extraterritorial rights and -subject to trial only by their own diplomatic or consular officers. Soon -after his appointment S—— hurried up to Urga to study the situation. The -Mongols in power evidently hoped that his visit was inspired by an -intention on the part of our Government to recognize their independence. -When nothing of the kind followed, they became more and more resentful. -The animosity of the “Reds,” who look upon the United States as the -chief of the “capitalistic nations” opposed to their sad scheme of -things, served to increase this feeling, at least with the “Red” Mongols -just now in the saddle; there are many evidences that among the Mongols -at large nothing has “made to perish the name of the great American -nation.” That any American consul would promise a minority group in a -foreign country that he would “put them in touch with the enemy of our -people on the east” (by which was meant the Chinese in general and Chang -Tso-lin in particular) “and give his assistance in the liquidation of -the existing People’s Government of Mongolia and the restoration of the -old régime,” as was charged in the reply to my request, is as silly as -that document itself. - -But enough of politics, which to my simple mind is usually a bore. I -might add, however, as a personal chuckle, that my case came perilously -near causing a ministerial crisis and overturning the Mongol cabinet. -Not that this is anything to boast of in these days when cabinets almost -daily stump their toes on this or that insignificant pebble and sprawl -headlong; but it was some satisfaction to know that, if I could not -snap-shot Urga, at least I could put it in an uproar. The cabinet, it -seems, deeply resented the action of the upstart _Okhrana_, both in -replying to me direct and in reversing the decision of the ministers, -and the question of resigning _en bloc_ as a protest was, I am -creditably informed, debated long and vigorously. I could not of course, -even as an unofficial representative of the slandered American nation, -take such an attack as the _Okhrana_ document lying down. I replied to -it sternly, therefore, in proper diplomatic form, addressing myself to -the foreign minister, who received my reply in due humility. But my hope -that by thus again stirring things up I might still succeed in being the -cause of a national crisis did not, according to the latest reports from -Urga, materialize. - - -There can be no other reason than pique or pure ignorance for refusing -any one permission to take photographs in Urga. It has no fortresses or -works of defense surrounded with secrecy; as far as the presence of -Soviet soldiers and “advisers” is concerned, the lens could catch -nothing that could not be told as effectively in words. Simple, rather -brute-faced young Russians in shoddy gray uniforms with a red star sewed -upon them were about the only outward evidences of Bolshevik occupation. -Here or there one or two of them stood on guard with fixed bayonets -which they were even more careless than the average soldier in -flourishing about unoffending ribs. Others, off duty, prowled about -singly or in small groups in quest of anything appealing to their -rudimental appetites which might turn up. Out toward the wireless -station erected by the Chinese, where the Russian soldiers used the -war-ruined office of an American mining company as barracks, detachments -of fifty to a hundred of them might be met marching in close ranks at a -funeral pace and singing in chorus, a rather engaging custom inherited -from czarist days. It was evident, not merely from their appearance but -by the way any suggestion of authority went quickly to their heads, that -almost all these uncouth youths were of the peasant or the lowest city -class. Though I had business in the _Okhrana_ several times a day during -all my stay in Urga, never once was I permitted to enter it, even when -officially summoned, until whatever dull-faced soldier happened to be on -guard at the door had halted me long enough to emphasize his authority -and his dislike of the class which still dared to wear white collars. -What was worse, as in every case of evil example copied by still lower -strata of society, was the studied rudeness, the childish yet -overbearing insolence of the Mongol soldiers, who were much more -numerous, in their efforts to outdo in “redness” their Russian models. - -It was common rumor that there were many “radishes” among the Russians -stationed in Urga, which would account for the exceptions to the general -rule of simple, plebeian faces among the soldiers as well as among those -in more important positions. A “radish,” obviously, is a man who is red -on the outside but white within, and the term has of late years become -one of every-day speech in Russia. Many former officers of the czar, -many a member of the old aristocracy whom one would least expect to find -backing the new proletarian doctrine, have no other means of earning -their bread than to accept some small position under the Bolsheviks and -pretend to be in sympathy with their program. How many of these there -are in Russia and adjoining lands who will turn upon their present -rulers when they show definite signs of falling is a question not -without interest to the outside world, but one which no casual visitor -can answer. It is said, also, that men are very glad to be assigned to -duty in Urga, where there is at least plenty to eat, in contrast to -Russia where nearly every one is more or less starving. Yet there are -Russian civilians even in Urga who know the pangs of hunger. Such utter -poverty and abject beggary as may be seen in Harbin or Vladivostok among -refugees from the Bolshevik régime are not found in this bucolic land of -comparative plenty, but barefoot children and the leanest faces were -never those of the Mongols. I recall in particular the widow of an -official wantonly killed by the “Mad Baron,” a young woman who might -have been charming under happier circumstances, who dwelt with her lanky -little daughter in a kind of two-room hut occupied by at least half a -dozen other persons, and who shivered past our window every morning and -evening to and from some sort of physical toil that had already given -her the hands of a peasant woman. - -Far be it from me to condemn any honest attempt to work out a new and -better form of government, for certainly I should pin no blue ribbons on -any which so far exist. But even a few days in Urga under “Red” rule -could scarcely fail to convince any one not hopelessly prejudiced in its -favor that the “Red” system does not improve human felicity, which after -all, though that fact seems almost completely to have been lost sight of -the world over, is the only justification for any government. Bad as -opposing systems may be, this one was patently worse, if only because it -brings the dregs and sediment of society to the top and submerges the -purer liquid. It places the ignorant over the more or less instructed, -the rude and the malevolent over those who are at least polished enough -to be somewhat tolerant; it brings to the surface the residue of -savagery in the human race and immerses many of the improvements that -have been accomplished by long centuries of effort. I was particularly -struck by this aspect of things on the evening when I attended the -weekly _Spektakl_ with which European Urga is permitted to attempt to -amuse itself. That, like the government which sponsored it, was as if -the stokers had come up and taken possession of the cabin and insisted -on using only the meager talents to be found in their own ranks, though -those who had given their best efforts for generations to providing -better entertainment still tarried in the obscure corners into which the -irruption had driven them. - -While they might as easily have led these childlike people of the Gobi -toward better things, the “Reds” seem only to have improved the natural -cussedness of those Mongols upon whom they have had any influence -whatever. The two races have, to be sure, many qualities more or less in -common, and a history which dovetails here and there. The Mongols under -Jenghiz Khan defeated the Russians, destroyed Kieff, and made almost all -Russia tributary to them. Out on the edge of Urga stands a long row of -European barracks built by the Russians in czarist days as a part of -their program of training a great Mongol army. In other words, it has -been give-and-take between these neighboring races for centuries, and, -shading together as they do through the intermediate Buriats and -Kalmucks, they seem much more closely allied than Europe and Asia in -general. In fact, seeing the two side by side, one was more and more -struck with how Oriental are the Russians. They are Oriental, for -instance, in their cruelty, and while they can perhaps teach little of -that quality to a people who until yesterday placed condemned criminals -in stout boxes and left them out among the skulls and dogs to die, they -have certainly done nothing to soften their innate barbarism. Surely it -is no worse to cut open the body of an executed felon in quest of some -organ of fancied medicinal value than to sentence two of the most -cultivated and charming young Russian ladies in Urga to serve the “Red” -army in Siberia for five years in punishment for the atrocious crime -committed by one of them in being the wife of a “White” officer—for -“serving” a “Red” army in this sense means something quite different -from sewing on buttons by day, something which makes a five-year term -easily a life sentence. - - -Though they were on the whole surly now toward strangers in general and -Caucasians in particular, one felt instinctively that this was not -natural Mongol behavior. For they are a simple people, close to nature, -a race with lovable traits for all their obvious faults. Three years -ago, say those who knew it then, Urga was as free as air, a delightful -place to visit, for all its filth and superstition. Hardly a Mongol but -had a smile and a cheery, jocular greeting for any one, of whatever -race, be it only at a chance meeting in the street. If now the -atmosphere of the whole place kept the nerves taut, it was rather -because of things that had recently been imposed upon them from the -outside, things which they might or might not wish, but which they have -no choice but to accept. In the olden days the visitor to Urga came and -went, carried on business or loafed, and never met the slightest -interference with his personal freedom. Now, though the European colony -may stroll at sunset a few times back and forth along the noisome stream -oozing past the market-place, no one may go out at night without -imminent danger of spending the rest of it in clammy durance. This rule, -added to the double windows of most houses, covered with wooden -shutters, Russian fashion, gives the nights a deathly silence, only -occasionally broken by the barking of foraging dogs, hoarse-voiced as if -they all had heavy colds from sleeping outdoors. A humorous touch may -soften this general atmosphere of apprehension, for the “Red” and Mongol -idea seems to be that only those who sneak noiselessly along the dark -streets can be bent on mischief, and the small non-Russian foreign -colony have found it efficacious in returning from their dinner-parties -to sing and whoop at the tops of their voices to convince prowling -soldiers that they are innocent of any evil intent. - -It is risky now even to use the word _Guspadin_, a kind of Russian -“Mr.,” before any name, in any language; one is expected to say -_Tavarish_, meaning comrade. When they first came, the “Reds” showed -every intention of introducing the same communism in Mongolia as in -Russia. They demanded all title-deeds of real property, announcing that -they would rent everything of the kind for thirty years to the highest -bidder, no matter who the owner might be. The agents of foreign firms -replied that the titles to their company buildings were on file with -their legations at Peking, or at the home offices in America or Europe, -or gave some other plausible answer, and, though copies of them were -demanded, these were returned later with the information that they were -of no use. Mongols and Russians, however, have in many cases been made -communists willy-nilly, and some have already been stripped even of -personal property. Those who have been in both places say that -interference with peaceful pursuits is worse in Urga than it ever was in -Soviet Russia. Merchants are particularly bitter, because while business -is growing steadily better in Russia since the decree legalizing it, -here it is being taxed to death. It is difficult to get a frank -statement from the mistrusting Chinese merchants, who make up a majority -of the trading class; but it is hard to believe that they are any more -satisfied with the often confiscatory as well as burdensome methods of -the “Red” authorities than are the disheartened foreigners. Every import -or export, for instance, must pay a very high duty based on the retail -_selling_ price. Fines for technicalities and the often unavoidable -breaking of some silly rule are the order of the day, while on top of -the cost comes the wasted time and effort caused by the inexperience of -the Mongols in matters of government. A caravan of sixty camels bringing -in or taking out bales of marmot skins must halt for two or three days -while every skin is counted and the bales made up again. When an -Anglo-American branch got in a shipment of cigarettes, every one of the -ninety-eight packages in each of the seventy-two cases had to be -counted. Why they did not count each cigarette remains a mystery. The -same rule applies to bricks of tea, cakes of chocolate, and the most -minute of articles. - -Not long after their arrival the “Reds” passed a law making the Russian -silver ruble legal tender on a par with the “Mex” dollar and requiring -every one to accept it as such. When an American firm protested that -this meant a loss of 40 per cent on prices, and refused to comply, it -was heavily fined. Moreover, the fine was paid, legal rights of -extraterritoriality notwithstanding. It is small wonder that foreign -stock is scarce in Urga and that important firms are closing their -branches there. So far as I was able to find, the “Reds” had introduced -only one reform worth while: they had decreed that Mongol women must -give up their extravagant head-dress, saying that the silver with which -it is heavy could be used to better purpose. Some twoscore head-dresses -were seized, but even Bolsheviks learn in time that feminine fashions -cannot be decreed by lawmakers; they returned the confiscated -contrivances later, and the custom remains. In fact, all the “Reds” in -Urga have not done as much for the handful of the human race there as -have three brave Swedish girls who are fighting alone the most -wide-spread of Mongolia’s physical diseases with missionary zeal and -without making any noise about it. - -Whatever other forms of violence the Soviet has used in its efforts to -make neighboring Mongolia a first convert and a nation after its own -heart, it has not dared openly attack the “Living Buddha.” The fanatical -Mongols would almost certainly kill all foreigners in the country, -irrespective of nationality, if their blind god were molested; though -the rumor is rife that the “Reds” have threatened to deal with him as -with the former prime minister if he uses his influence against them. -Outwardly they try as hard to keep up the fiction that he is the head of -the Mongol Government as they do to convince the world that they have no -real hand in the latter. The official bulletin, only newspaper in Urga, -in announcing the execution of the fifteen alleged conspirators, called -attention to the law which decrees that those who try to change the form -of government shall be cut up in small pieces, their immediate family -banished two thousand versts from the capital, all their property -confiscated, and all their relatives sent as slaves to distant princes. -There are many such slaves in Mongolia, by the way; Bogda-Han has -thousands of them, just as he has of cattle. But, added the official -organ, the family and the property of these fifteen were not molested, -_by order of the “Living Buddha!”_ It is true that the title Bogda-Han -means emperor, but he was long since shorn of any temporal power, not to -mention the fact that he is said to have no sympathy whatever for the -“Reds” or any of their works. - -It is common belief that the Chinese will never return to power in Urga. -A recent despatch from a Japanese source asserting that Moscow has -declared Mongolia a federated state of Russia has not been confirmed, -but it might as well be that in name as well as in fact. As I write, a -story comes through that the “Living Buddha” is asking China to take -charge of the country once more, but that again is from a Chinese -source. The hard, cold facts in political matters are difficult to find -in such a double-faced realm as the Orient. But the future of Mongolia -will be worth watching, as will the apparent tendency of the Soviet to -continue the imperialistic thrust toward the south and east which it -inherited from the czarist régime. - - -As if they wished to make up for their earlier harshness, the “Reds” -made my departure from Urga extremely easy. Perhaps I should see a less -flattering motive in their leniency. In any case my baggage was barely -opened and shut again, though most travelers find departing a more -trying ordeal than arrival, and ordinarily every line of writing leaving -the country is rigidly censored. The only unpleasantness that befell us -was the failure of the greasy Mongol holding the official seal to reach -the _Okhrana_ before noon, though we had been there ready to start since -eight. Booted soldiers again rode with us to the far outskirts of the -city, halting us at various _yamens_, so that the sun was well started -on its decline before our papers were examined at the last _yourt_, and -we were free to reach if possible the first distant stopping-place -before nightfall. Not until the next afternoon, however, when the -frontier outpost of Ude passed us without comment, did that sense of -apprehension which seems just now to hang like a cloud over Outer -Mongolia give way to one of relief and confidence of the future. - -Long caravans that we had passed a fortnight before were still -laboriously making their way toward Urga. Men all but unrecognizable as -such under their many sheepskin garments still squatted at trenches dug -in the desert, coaxing wind-shielded fires to blaze, or bowed their -fur-clad heads to the bitterly cold wind sweeping at express speed down -out of the north; and we drove for nearly a hundred miles through fields -of snow and ice, though September was not yet gone when we stumbled down -the pass into Kalgan. - - - - - CHAPTER XI - AT HOME UNDER THE TARTAR WALL - - -It is obvious that this chapter should be written by the head of the -house. But any husband, at least of the United States of America, will -understand perfectly what I mean when I say that persuasion is often -useless and coercion out of date. The housekeeping sex will have to bear -with me, therefore, while I do my masculine best with a subject that is -manifestly far beyond my humble qualifications. Whatever the other -faults I display in the process, I shall try not to be reticent in such -matters as the wages of servants and the price of eggs, which I conceive -to be those near the housekeeper’s heart the world over. - -Neither of Peking’s modern hotels, not so much as to mention the dozen -others which are now and then astonished by the arrival of a foreign -client, was the place for a boy just reaching the running, shouting, and -breaking age to spend eight or nine months, even if his parents had not -grown to abhor the very advantages of hotel life. So we turned our -attention to the renting of a house. In Peking one does not simply buy a -morning paper, check off a hundred possibilities, and make the rounds of -them. There is an English-speaking, more or less daily newspaper, two or -three of them, in fact; but very few families could live in the -available houses which they call to the reader’s attention. Nor are -there renting agents, or many invitations to the houseless, at least -recognizable to Westerners, to be seen along the streets. One must -depend rather on chance hints, above all on asking one’s friends to ask -their friends, which is not wholly satisfactory for new arrivals with at -most a few letters of introduction and a foolish, perhaps, but -ineradicable tendency to cause the rest of mankind as little annoyance -as possible. We soon learned, however, that some things are quite proper -in Peking which are deeply frowned upon elsewhere, and vice versa. - -But at least house-hunting in the Chinese capital is not at all the -physical labor that apartment-hunting is, for instance, in New York. One -steps into the nearest of the rickshaws which swoop down like hungry -sparrows upon every possible fare and is borne silently away to the very -doors of possible dwelling-places. It is almost always a disappointment -to prospective residents, this first rapid survey of Peking outside the -Legation Quarter, yet at the same time fascinating to all but the most -querulous. The narrow, unpaved _hutungs_ are so uneven, if not actually -muddy or swirling with dust; they offer so many offenses to the eye, and -to the nose; unwashed beggars, runny-nosed children, the first close -view of one’s future neighbors, are seldom pleasing even to those most -avid of local color. Almost any one with American training will be -appalled by the lowness and the apparent crowding together of the -houses. The thought of living not merely on the ground floor but -literally on the ground itself, since Peking houses have no cellars and -rarely even a single step to be mounted, may seem unthinkable. The total -absence of front yards, of grass, of even the suggestion of a sidewalk, -nothing but blank walls of bluish-gray mud bricks, here and there half -tumbled in, patched perhaps for the time being with old straw mats or -mere rubbish, close on either hand as far as the eye can see, is likely -to bring a sinking to the new-comer’s heart. - -But he is not long in realizing that China is preëminently the Land of -Walls, and that what the streets and the alley-like _hutungs_ lose by -being crowded between their mud-made barriers the dwellings along them -gain in space and privacy within. Once the heavy door-leaves, bright red -in color, with a few big black characters on them calling poetically for -blessings upon the inmates, growl shut behind him, he finds the sense of -unpleasant proximity was a mere delusion. A short tiled passageway -leads, almost certainly at right angles, into the first court, from -which another, very likely with a different direction, that evil spirits -may be completely nonplussed, opens upon a second, and beyond this, -perhaps through a big ornamental gateway with brilliant flare-eared -roof, there may be a third and even a fourth courtyard; though this -would imply that the ordinary house-hunter might better discreetly -withdraw before the matter of price comes up. Usually the brick walls -and the tiled roofs of the separate buildings about these courts are of -that same blue gray that makes Peking so much more drab than the -imagination had pictured it, for all its innumerable palaces, temples, -and monuments. But the eaves and the cornices, the doors and the -passageways, with their red and green and sky-blue decorations of -Chinese motif, the bright blues and reds of the rafter-ends and corbels -under the slant of the roofs, the white-papered lattices of the windows, -make up for this. Probably, too, there is a venerable old tree rising -out of somewhere high above the place; and almost always, winter or -summer, there is that bright blue sky overhead which makes Peking so -delightful a home. What usually troubles the foreigner longest is the -lowness of the houses. A child could throw a cat over any of them; they -have no basements, no garrets, nothing but the low room or two of each -building, generally without even a ceiling, but only the roof-beams, -papered or whitewashed, sometimes painted with dragons and other things -Chinese. - -I have been speaking, of course, of Chinese houses. There are many two- -and even three-story dwellings in Peking; there are big compounds full -of houses that might have been shipped intact from Massachusetts; but we -could see no reason for coming all the way to China just to live inside -a little walled-in duplicate of England or America. So we roamed the -_hutungs_. According to treaty all Westerners in Peking still live -within the Legation Quarter. But the foreign community has long since -outgrown such limited accommodations. Chinese with houses to rent, -merchants with goods to sell, every caste and variety of Pekingese who -covets some of the contents of foreigners’ plump purses, is glad to -overlook this fiction in practice, so that brass name-plates in Roman -letters, and flagpoles flaunting various Western colors, are widely -scattered within the Tartar City. We found them clustered most thickly -in the southeastern, or at least the eastern, part of it, thinning out -toward the northwest; but foreigners live even inside the Yellow Wall, -as the Chinese call the Imperial City. There seemed to be few if any in -the broad Chinese City south of the Tartar Wall, or outside that mighty -barrier at all, except for the little suburban community far out at the -race-course. - - -[Illustration: - - Our home in Peking was close under the great East Wall of the Tartar - City -] - -[Illustration: - - The indispensable staff of Peking housekeeping consists of (left to - right) ama, rickshaw man, “boy,” coolie, and cook -] - -[Illustration: - - A chat with neighbors on the way to the daily stroll on the wall -] - -[Illustration: - - Street venders were constantly crying their wares in our quarter -] - -I had gone to Mongolia before we found what we wanted, and therefore can -claim no credit either in the quest, the furnishing, or the selection of -that numerous personnel without which no foreigner’s household in Peking -seems to function. It had been a long search, with certain hitches that -would not have occurred across the Pacific. Legally no foreigner can own -real estate in Peking unless he is a missionary. Many do, but that is by -using Chinese as dummy owners. Some old Chinese houses as yet untouched -by foreign hands tempted us to try ours at recreating them in as -charming a way as some of our friends had done. But the eight or nine -months we could be at home in Peking were already running away, and the -process of making livable such old ancestral mansions, where courtyard -rambles after courtyard, but where former glories have faded with years -of disrepair, would have taken too large a slice out of our time. To -rent a house even from the Chinese landlord who had renovated and -improved it purposely for the occupancy of foreigners was a complicated -process. First of all there was the inevitable bargaining, the landlord -starting at perhaps twice what he would accept and the renter at half -what he was prepared to pay; for it is still a rare Chinese, even in a -city as familiar with foreigners as is Peking, who can honestly name his -price at the beginning and stick to it. Nor were these dickerings -direct, even though my wife and our prospective landlord might have a -language in common. Go-betweens must “save face” on either side in case -the deal fell through. The houses for rent by Chinese were never -furnished; they usually lacked running water, sewers, bath-tubs, -electric light, and similar Western idiosyncrasies, though in cases -where the owner had in mind renting to foreigners preparations might -have been made to introduce these improvements. But unless he was sure -of getting a foreign occupant the landlord did not purpose to go to all -this trouble perhaps for nothing; in most cases his proposition was that -the renter put in these things at his own expense, with the doubtful -probability of having his rent reduced accordingly. - -If the two parties did finally come to terms, the inexperienced renter -was likely to faint at the revelation of what still lay before him. -First he must pay three months’ rent in advance, which did not at all -mean that he would not have to pay again before the three months were -up. This payment would cover the first and the last months of the -occupancy, and the other third of the sum no month at all. It went as -_cumshaw_ or “squeeze” to every one concerned in the deal—except of -course the man who paid it—to be divided among all those who had in any -way taken part—the “boy” of an acquaintance who had pointed out the -house, the caretaker who had opened the door, the servant across the -street who knew the name of the landlord, the man who had fetched said -landlord, on up through all the go-betweens to the landlord himself. -Even the most generous of us hesitates to give tips of a hundred or a -hundred and fifty dollars, though it be only “Mex.” Then the papers in -the case must be sent to the legation of the foreigner involved, which -in due time would do to them whatever is customarily done, and pass them -on to the Chinese police. In Peking some officials work with unusual -promptitude (for China), so that the documents might be complete and -back in the hands of the landlord with a celerity that would be -vertiginous in the interior of the country—that is, with good luck, so -every one told us, within three or four months! - -Then all at once there appeared a little Chinese house just about our -size, which an American missionary had recently civilized and was ready -to rent in the offhand fashion of our native land. For a week, -coolies—bowed under assorted articles of furniture picked up at auction -sales, bargained for piece by piece out in the maelstrom of the Chinese -City, in shops scattered elsewhere, and as a last resort made to order -by Chinese craftsmen of adaptable ability and very reasonable -demands—wandered up the little _hutung_ to our new home. A carpenter -produced from a scanty suggestion a four-posted crib with brilliant -dragons climbing each post; another stray artist covered the face of the -nursery wardrobe with a marvelous blue forest through which China’s most -famous actor, in his usual rôle of a willowy lady, strolled with a green -deer; most of the furnishings were purely Chinese, adapted as far as -possible to foreign use, and our chief regret was that this could be -only a temporary, and must therefore be an inexpensive, abode, in which -we could not indulge in the real beauties of Chinese trappings. As it -was, something between seven and eight hundred dollars had melted away -before we were done, and still no one would have mistaken the place for -a prince’s palace. But they were only “Mex” dollars, as is always the -case when one uses the word in China, and there was a chance that some -one might give us back a few of them when the time came to abandon -Peking and push on. Besides, either of the hotels would have taken the -dollars and not left us even the furniture. - -By the time I returned from Urga we were ready to move in. Our Peking -home is out in the very eastern edge of the Tartar City, so close under -the East Wall that sunrise is always a little later with us than in the -capital as a whole. It is not easily found, for it opens off a narrow -_hutung_ of its own, a nameless little lane running head on into the -mighty wall, without another foreigner for several minutes’ walk in any -direction, and—since we are to cast aside reticence for the information -of other householders—the rent is seventy-five dollars “Mex” a month, -with no Oriental jokers in the lease. Before I have occasion to mention -them again, let me say that, though their value varies daily, the -dollars of China averaged a hundred and eighty-seven to a hundred of our -own during our winter in Peking. Wherever the words “dollar” or “cent” -appear hereafter in these pages they are of this cheaper variety. - -It was a great change from the carefully tended Legation Quarter, with -its macadamed streets and tree-bordered sidewalks, its wide gateways -with vistas of one great power after another—though one comes to wonder -whether in China of to-day these powers are greater than they are -impotent—to cross Great Hata-men Street and strike off into the maze of -_hutungs_ to the east of it. But there the joy of a real home was -impressed upon us; we were living as we had long planned, in a Chinese -house among Chinese neighbors in Peking, the spell of the old capital, -of the real China, weaving itself all about us. Outwardly the place -would not be inviting to American tastes. But once a quick, light -tapping of the door-ring brings a “boy” to swing back the heavy halves -of the poetic red door we enter a very world of our own, completely shut -off from all but the sounds, and occasionally the smells, of the teeming -Chinese world about us. Its voices may drift over to us, but what does -it know of us within? - -A Chinese house turned out to be a very pleasant place to live in. There -was pleasure even in having no stairs to climb, especially after being -on the top floor of a hotel where the elevator too often bore the sign -“No currency”; the delightful feeling of being at home as soon as the -red doors closed behind us was more real than we had ever felt it in any -of our Western abodes. Ours is a simple dwelling, to be sure, as befits -mere rolling stones. It has only one court, perhaps thirty feet square, -paved with gray mud bricks and surrounded by four separate little -low-browed houses of two rooms each, their roofs of curved tile slanting -down in a protective way, as if presaging hot summers or bitter winters. -Their bare backs are turned to the neighbors who crowd us on every side, -and their windows all face the court, take up all four sides of it, in -fact, for on the inside there are nothing but windows. At the top these -are lattices covered with the flimsy white paper so general in China, -easily renewed and much more adequate against heat or cold than one -would think; but foreign influence has put real glass in the lower -panes. One is not long in discovering that in Peking the main house -always faces south. If the compound is on the north side of the street -the best rooms are at the far back of it; if it is on the south side -they back up against the street wall, and so on. This most important -building almost always has a low wide porch, like ours, with a -pergola-roof over which plants rooted in the unpaved strips of earth -along the sides of the court can clamber. In summer it is the Peking -custom to have the courtyard covered by a _pêng_, a huge reed mat on -pole legs, high enough above the whole establishment to shade it without -cutting off the breeze—and always rented, by the way, from the -_pêng_-gild, which refuses to sell. But summer was waning when we moved -in, and for eight or nine months a year it would be a sacrilege to shut -out the brilliant blue sky that tents Peking, often without the tiniest -rent in it for weeks at a time. Even when the dry cold of a Peking -winter was at its sharpest we never regretted the separation of our -little houses which necessitated crossing the court and having another -glimpse of that unsullied blue sky and a breath of the outdoor air -whenever we went from one room to another. - - -The collecting of the requisite staff of servants was the mildest task -of all. In Peking, as in all China, human beings swarm so thickly that -the mere rumor of a desire for services is enough to bring many fold of -applicants. The wise thing for the new-comer is to hire his servants -through the servants of his friends, or in some such linked-up way. They -will no doubt have to pay their informants a certain “squeeze” for the -job, but one is protected from fly-by-night domestics whose antecedents -and family roots are unknown; though compared with the opportunities -which Chinese servants have for fleecing foreign employers they are -honesty personified. A staff thus recommended to us lined up for -inspection. There was an engaging-looking little cook nearing middle -life, a round-faced, too youthful “boy,” who, having once served in a -Japanese hotel and learned unpleasant habits, soon departed in favor of -a man from the interior of the province, and a tall, handsome Shantung -coolie. Then there came a wrinkled old rickshaw-man, one of the swiftest -runners in Peking for all his age, and finally, after more careful -picking, we chose the only feminine member of the staff, an _ama_ for -the most important task of all,—pursuing the younger generation. Then, -with a dose of interpreted orders, we were off. - -For on one point we were adamant: we would not have an English-speaking -servant in the house. Chinese domestics who have even a smattering of -the language of their employers, we had already noted, are likely to be -impudent, to be experts in the matter of “squeeze,” and to demand what -in Peking are fabulous wages. Life is much simpler, too, when one can -talk freely without being understood by the servants. But the really -important motive was that we wished to learn Chinese, above all to have -the son who had lost his second birthday in crossing the Pacific learn -it, and not the atrocious Pidgin-English which constitutes the -linguistic lore of so many “boys” and _amas_. Looking back upon it we -can testify that there is no more direct road to a speaking knowledge of -even the Chinese language than living in the unbroken midst of it. - -Down in the Legation Quarter people pay their servants two or three -times what is customary in the rest of Peking, to say nothing of the -“rake-off” which careless auditing and boastful living give them. Our -new staff named their own wages, but they named them on an uninflated -basis, so that both sides were satisfied. All except the _ama_ -considered ten dollars a month a suitable return for their services, -though the rickshaw-man, of course, had to have eight more for the use -of his shining carriage, housed just within the outer door. The woman -stood out for fourteen, something more than the average in that quarter, -but she proved well worth it, for not only was hers the most responsible -job but the many other tasks that fall to an _ama’s_ lot made her -specially valuable. Besides their wages, Chinese servants get nothing, -legitimately, except the _k’ang_ they sleep on in their cramped -quarters, a basket of coal-balls now and then in the colder months, and -sometimes a garment used exclusively in their employer’s service. Their -food is their own affair. Thus our staff of five cost us sixty-two -“Mex,” or, to put it into American money, about thirty-five dollars gold -a month. In addition to this they expected cash presents at our -Christmas, their New Year, and when we should break up housekeeping, -totaling approximately an extra month’s wages. - -Chinese servants have their faults, but when these are all summed up I -doubt whether they exceed those of domestics even in Europe, to say -nothing of our own land. Certainly life runs more smoothly under their -ministrations than the most willing and efficient of “hired girls” can -make it. Whether it is their natural temperament or merely a pride of -their calling, a surly face or manner, the faintest breath of impudence -or “back talk,” even when the lady of the house has been alone with them -for weeks at a time, have been as unknown in our circle as has a protest -against any task assigned them. They have their own ways of doing -things, but even these we have succeeded in changing where it was -essential to do so. The division of work is left to them, for this is a -matter in which one quickly finds it wise not to attempt to interfere. -If any of them has ever felt that he was being imposed upon by the -others, it was settled among themselves, and the matter never came to -our ears. There are no such things as afternoons off among Peking -servants; like their fellows, ours work, or at least are on call, -twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Once in a while the “boy” or -the coolie interrupts our evening reading for an instant by asking -permission to go out, but we have never known them to be missing when -next they are wanted. The rickshaw-man asked perhaps three or four times -during the winter to go and have something done to his vehicle, but only -in a few cases of misunderstanding was he not on hand when we wished him -to trot away with us, until with the coming of the Chinese New Year he -decided that he had held a steady job long enough. The _ama_ has two -small daughters, not to mention a husband and the inevitable -mother-in-law, at her home not half an hour away, yet though she has -never been discouraged in doing so I doubt whether she has gone to see -them a dozen times during the winter, and whenever she does she brings -back some gay and not always inexpensive Chinese toy to her appreciative -charge, as if to make up for the presumption of leaving him. It is -really more than that, of course, like the constant kindnesses of all -the servants toward him, for nowhere could a small boy be more royally -treated than among the child-loving Chinese. - -Though we have never gone deeply into the matter, the work of each -servant seems to be definitely fixed by custom. The rickshaw-man sweeps -the court in the morning, unless he is busy with his chief duty, and -keeps an ear on the door-knocker. The “boy” combines the lighter tasks -of butler and chambermaid, and in general acts as a buffer between us -and the outside world. The coolie does most of the rough labor, -including the floors, the stoves, the washing, both of dishes and -clothing, and the ironing, producing dress-shirts that would make the -best steam-laundries in the United States blush with shame, if they were -capable of any such display of emotion, and pressing even feminine -evening frills with the deft hand of a French maid. In the time left -over from her chief duty the _ama_ does much of the sewing and many of -those little odds and ends which in other lands make up the drudgery of -a housewife. Since a daughter joined us in the spring she has performed -her augmented task with the same ever cheerful efficiency. - - -The cook is more of a free lance, with very definite duties, including a -daily trip to market. In China as a whole the _tsoa-fan-ti_ and the -mistress have a frequent meeting over his account-book, but in Peking -there is a wide-spread custom euphonistically known as “boarding with -the cook.” It simplifies the task of keeping him in hand, especially for -a _tai-tai_ speaking a very limited amount of Chinese, to set a fixed -price for the day’s food and leave the rest to the Celestial kitchen. We -adopted this custom, and have found it not only satisfactory but as -economical as our friends report the other method to be. For Rachel and -myself we dole out a dollar a day each, and half as much for the -youngster. This includes everything that comes to the table except the -morning bottle of milk and those nefarious products of France and Italy -in similar containers with which I or our guests choose to flout our -constitutions and that of our native land. The spenders among the -foreign colony of Peking will undoubtedly, if it ever comes to their -attention, sneer at the paucity of this sum; perhaps those who have -deigned to accept our hospitality will say, “I thought so.” But I have -promised to be frank. We are simple people, with tastes which do not -daily require such viands as are commonly symbolized as quail on toast. -As a matter of fact we often do have just that, for there is probably no -capital in the world where game is more plentiful and cheaper than in -the Peking markets. Certainly we never go hungry, and what that cook can -do for a whole day with a sum that would not leave enough for a tip -after a single luncheon in a very modest New York restaurant would give -an American the false impression that the high cost of living has never -come to China. - -We live mainly on Chinese products, augmented by such foreign delicacies -as cocoa, coffee, canned milk, imported butter, spices, jam, bacon, and -the like, all furnished out of the cook’s stipend. Eggs, I believe, -reached the height of an American cent each during midwinter; a chicken -of moderate size costs from fifty to sixty coppers, which is not more -than sixteen cents in real money. The far-famed Peking duck, which dot -with white the moat just over the wall from us, would be a more serious -acquisition, being in great demand among Chinese epicures; but squab, -plump and tender, sells for the equivalent of a nickel each, and the -succession of snipe, pigeons, partridge, pheasants, and wild duck that -have graced our board would be luxuries to a war profiteer at home. -Vegetables are plentiful in Peking, but the choice of meat is limited. -Pork, beloved by all Chinese, foreigners eschew as a matter of course; -if they have not seen what Chinese pigs feed on they are sure to have -heard. Peking beef has the reputation of being the flesh of animals that -have outlived their usefulness as beasts of burden rather than of those -raised for food. Now and again, as the hungry militarists have boosted -octroi duties at the city gates, the sheep butchers have gone on strike, -which is particularly a hardship to Peking’s large Mohammedan -population. But fowl, wild and tame, is always on hand to make up for -any such catastrophe. We found Chinese corn meal and millet and a native -brown but excellent cream of wheat preferable to the breakfast cereals -from across the Pacific. Chinese pears, and especially the big golden -persimmons which last almost all winter, are no poor substitutes for the -California oranges sold in at least one foreign-goods grocery at three -for a dollar. Now and then “Ta-shih-fu” takes a flier in desserts. Like -all Peking chefs he prefers to make a thing which is fearful and -wonderful to behold but which is a trial of temper and skill to the -guest who has first to cut into it. There is that infamous “Peking -dust,” a wall of glacéd fruits enclosing a mound of grated chestnuts of -exactly the consistency, though by no means the splendid taste, of -sawdust, and doted on, unfortunately, by that member of the family with -most influence in the kitchen. Sometimes dinner is topped off with a -pastry-and-cake basket, handle and all, full of custard and nuts. But -all such weaknesses are amply made up for by the fact that pies worthy -of the proudest New England housewife often come from the kitchen, -usually labeled in the white of an egg with poetic Chinese characters. -These literary effusions are seldom missing on any formal dessert, if -there is space to get them in; when our first national holiday came -there appeared a brave pink and green iced cake with the greeting -“Thanksgiver Day” written boldly across it. - -Our cook is noteworthy among his tribe in that he can prepare a Chinese -as well as a foreign meal, and two or three times a week this wholly -different but no less enjoyable repast adorns our table, chop-sticks and -all. In general he is given a free rein in selection, so long as he has -a certain balance in menu, and using his excellent Chinese judgment he -dines us almost too well, and no doubt, in the time-honored Chinese way, -pockets the coppers left over. We do not know that our cook “squeezes” a -cent, but if he does not he should be drummed out of the Chinese cooks’ -union, if there is such a thing. For it is taken for granted by all -foreigners in China that their cooks believe a certain legitimate -“squeeze” is attached to the job, and though it takes an American -housewife some time to reconcile herself to it, old foreign residents -would be much put out to find that the rule is not general. Popular -tradition has it that all cooks put into their own pockets a certain -percentage of all money given them to spend; 5 per cent seems to be the -accepted amount among foreigners in Peking, except in the Legation -Quarter, where there are no definite limits. There are innumerable -anecdotes illustrating this custom. Missionary cooks, boasting -themselves Christians, have laid up small fortunes on their eight or ten -“Mex” dollars a month. I know of one who, from the day his service -began, made it an invariable rule to take six coppers for every person -he cooked for during the day, and he now owns two modern houses which he -rents to foreigners. - -We have often wondered just how much our cook manages to lay aside. -There is no way of finding out, for the Chinese market-man is ever -faithful to his own people in any controversy with the “outside -barbarian,” and the custom is so perfectly legitimate in the cookly mind -that no pricking of conscience ever sullies the frank and smiling face -of the king of our kitchen. In overcrowded China it has been the -practice for centuries to fee any one who brings a job or a client, and -even if the foreigner went to market himself he would not save the -“rake-off”; in fact he would probably lose money. For the market-man -does not quote a foreigner the price to which a Chinese cook will -finally bring him down, and no grocer is going to tell his client when -he pays his monthly bill that 5 per cent of it will go to his cook as -soon as he comes in when there are no telltale foreigners looking on. -Yet supernatural as the Chinese are in slicing off a “cash” or a copper -where even a French eye could not possibly detect any such protuberance, -we do not see how our cook can have made a fortune on the leavings. -Including his six dollars for kitchen fuel he has eighty-one dollars a -month to feed us on when I am at home. When we go out to dinner of -course he is not the loser; extra money for invited guests gives him a -trifle more leeway; possibly he sells a tin can or a bottle now and then -to the constantly passing peddlers, though we have never seen any -evidence of stooping to such methods. Yet his wages have never been -higher than with us, at least since his youthful days as a retainer in -the Manchu court, and, for all that, he has educated two of his four -boys into fine, upstanding, well dressed young men with enough English -to take important positions with foreign firms; the third is already -well along the same road, and no doubt the youngest, who romps about all -day in a neighboring _hutung_, will be similarly provided. We have never -quite reconciled those grown sons to our little cook, still well on the -sunny side of middle age; but in China, of course, the generations -succeed themselves swiftly. We may be wronging him in assuming that he -does not spend on us all we give him for that purpose, and if so I -apologize. If we are not, he certainly is welcome to all he has kept, -for he has served us for eight months in an unobtrusive, efficient, and -most agreeable manner. - -Chinese of standing have let us into a few of the secrets of life among -house servants. Most cooks, at least for foreigners, are not Peking men, -it seems, but come in from the country. Having no family to support in -the capital, those earning ten dollars a month, eating leftovers—though -few Chinese servants care for foreign food—and spending perhaps two -dollars a month of their own, can send home about a hundred dollars a -year. Those with families in Peking have to devise methods for -augmenting their wages; therefore they do not consider those methods -dishonest. One might ask, why not pay the man a living wage to begin -with and then expect him to be honest? Alas, centuries of the other plan -have made that contrary to the Chinese way of thinking. The moment you -pay a servant more than the market price he takes you for a gullible -victim or a millionaire and “squeezes” all the more. It is the Chinese -system, and many a foreigner has broken his head against it in vain. - -A genuine cook to foreigners owes it to his dignity to have an -apprentice assistant, just as he must ride to and from market in a -rickshaw. Not long after we settled down, “Ta-shih-fu” asked permission -to bring into the kitchen his younger brother, whose profession of -torturing a Chinese violin seemed to be in ever decreasing demand. There -he has remained month after month, learning the rudiments of foreign -cooking, until he has gathered sufficient audacity to go and cook for -foreigners himself, thereby making his future secure. But never has it -been so much as hinted that we should pay him anything; his wageless -standing is perfectly in keeping with the Chinese scheme of things, and -no one would be more surprised than he or his brother if we offered him -money. - - -Whatever we can say for our cook we can testify that the “boy” who has -been with us since the second month is honest even in the Western sense. -He is, we hasten to admit, different from the rank and file of “boys” to -foreigners in Peking; no doubt they would dub him “queer.” He comes from -somewhere ’way down the province, well off the railroad, and seems -deliberately to refuse to learn the tricks of the capital. Down there he -has a wife of seventeen, perhaps forced upon him by his parents in the -customary Chinese manner; at least he has never shown any desire to go -home, not even at New Year’s. But then, he is past forty. His service is -so constant that we have sometimes urged him to go out more often, but -he replies with a smile that he has few friends in Peking and nowhere to -go. Once or twice a month he calls in a passing barber, and perhaps he -has stepped out half a dozen times during the winter on a brief personal -errand—except that, as regularly as fortnightly pay-day comes round, he -goes to send a letter home. The extent to which Chinese families pool -their incomes, with some grandfather or mother-in-law as treasurer, -would take almost any American’s breath away. We have many a time caught -this extraordinary “boy” carefully avoiding chances to “squeeze,” -passing on to the other servants buying errands assigned him, lest we -suspect him of taking a commission. Once a tourist couple dropped in for -tea, and having traveled too fast to orientalize the point of view of -their native Chicago, surreptitiously slipped a silver dollar into the -“boy’s” palm as he opened the door at their departure. He did not faint; -hence we might never have known of that social blunder if the “boy” had -not rushed back as soon as the door was closed, his outstretched hand -offering us the coin. I warned you he was queer; I am not sure but that -the normal “boy” of Peking would not consider him downright crazy. But -honesty and diligence, alas, are not always sufficient in this miserable -world. When we move on we despair of finding this “boy” another place -more than any of the others, for his stock of self-confidence is as -scanty as his integrity is unusual. - -The normal Peking “boy,” particularly if he knows some English, is -usually the general factotum of a foreign household. Many foreigners -never speak to their other servants but transmit all orders through the -“boy,” or, if the staff is large, through “number one boy.” Some of the -older and more experienced of these take on the efficiency and the -manner of old English butlers; they can arrange anything, from a -dinner-party on Christmas to a picnic out at the Temple of Heaven by -moonlight, at a mere hint from their socially busy mistresses. But we -much prefer our type of “boy.” Though they may succeed in keeping their -own employers in ignorance of that fact, the observant guest can hardly -fail to see that these efficient head servants grow scornful toward -their subordinates and often despise foreigners in general and the -family they serve in particular. Obviously their “squeeze” increases -with their importance and their opportunities. Some of them make -fortunes out of the peddlers and shopkeepers whose patronage they -recommend, and positions under them are not had for the mere asking. The -“boy” of an American official in Peking came to his mistress one day and -insisted on giving her a present worth easily his year’s salary, saying -he had become a Christian and hence was “ashamed for the much money” he -had been given by those who sold things to the family and to their many -tourist guests—and begged her to accept this customary percentage on his -winnings. How the _t’ing-ch’ai_, or topmost “boy” in a foreign legation, -makes use of his opportunities is a story worth telling, but that would -be trespassing into the realms of high finance. - - -The long, handsome Shantung coolie, who laundered dress-shirts and -pressed georgette evening-gowns with such amazing skill, turned out to -be a contrast to the “boy,” and was destined to depart suddenly about -the middle of January. At first the _tai-tai_ used to “call the coal,” -but Wang had gradually taken over the task and was getting it for as low -a price as she—I am sure I am not doing Wang an injury by mentioning his -name, any more than I should by specifying an American called Smith. The -coal, however, seemed to burn up faster and faster, and each alleged ton -piled against the wall of the little back court at the front of our -compound looked smaller. One day we questioned its size, and Wang -promptly guaranteed to make it last the month out. That would have been -physically impossible, yet last it did. Other suspicious little things -began to gather about the tall handsome coolie. None of them were -definite, however, and Wang might be with us yet but for the other -servants, though I fancy he would have hanged himself alone in time. A -whisper from the _ama_ caused Rachel to “call” the next ton herself, and -to borrow scales from an American friend down the _hutung_. It was a -cold evening when the ton arrived, but we persisted in watching it -unloaded, weighed, and carried in. But why were there not sixteen sacks, -as the silky Chinese dealer just outside Hata-men had promised, and why -did twelve sacks total five hundred _chin_ more than a ton? It took us -until next day to find out. - -The scales, of course, being Chinese, consisted of a mere stick with -marks on it; but for the same reason it would have been impossible for -them to be as simple and straightforward as they looked. All such scales -have _two_ loops by which to suspend them, and Wang assured us that both -of these were used at once. That was all. Even the lady down the street -who had been using them all winter did not know the difference. When at -last we learned the Chinese trick of the scales the missing four bags -were easily accounted for; and a little more trouble, mainly for the -benefit of foreign residents in general, brought the blackened -cart-driver over to confess that Wang had intercepted him just around -the corner from us and sold the four bags to a little coal-yard almost -behind our bedrooms—the same one, of course, from which he had bought -back enough to fulfil his guarantee. The night before, Wang having asked -permission to go out and get his hair cut, or something of the sort, we -had been startled to have all the other servants irrupt upon us over our -evening lamp, smiling nervously, but saying through the cook as -spokesman that they could not endure our being misled about the missing -man any longer. He was keeping bad company nights, they announced with -visible unwillingness; he often brought in friends to sleep on their -already crowded _k’ang_; coppers were sticking to his fingers in a way -which apparently even a cooks’ union could not approve. - -Chinese servants are not in the habit of tattling against one another to -their masters, and things must have come to a pretty pass to bring about -this unusual scene. But we waited until we had other proof that it was -not merely a case of spite; then we spoke gently to Wang as he was -stirring the fire in my office next afternoon. There were four bags of -coal missing from the ton of the night before, we confided to him, and -as we did not wish to have the police mixed up in so small a matter we -wondered if perhaps he could trace them. Then we went out to tea. That -evening found us without a coolie; he had folded up his bed and -departed, and he has never been back to claim the three or four days’ -wages due him. - -Wang is a handsome youth, to Chinese eyes, and naturally he needed more -money than his older stick-at-home colleagues. Besides, he did more hard -work than all the others. If he had come to me privately and whispered -his troubles, I think I should have been tempted to give him a monthly -bonus, if he could have convinced me that the other servants would not -hear of it, rather than see him depart; for never again in this -imperfect world do I hope to display such gleaming shirt-bosoms as Wang -furnished me. The _ama_ promptly introduced her husband as coolie, and -he has proved satisfactory, besides being under a watchful eye that -completely belies the accepted notions of the position of wives in the -Chinese scheme of things. But stiff shirts go to a professional laundry -now, and though a new front costs there just one-tenth what it would in -New York, they have lost that final touch of perfection, of youth and -genius, which Wang put upon them. - -But on the whole our Peking servants are good, as human beings the world -over go, for all the Wangs among them. I shall have forgotten their -faults long before I forget the motherly care they have taken of my -family during my long absences, the tasteful little presents they gave -my wife on her birthday when I was not there to give her any myself, and -the grandfatherly way they have with our small son. - -I should be sorry, however, if I have given the false impression that -living is on the whole much cheaper for the foreigner in Peking than at -home, thereby causing our no doubt overworked State Department to be -bombarded with ten-dollar bills and demands for passports. Whether it is -because low prices tempt one to spend more than one could if they were -high, or that the absurd cost of certain necessary things physically or -mentally imported from the Western world mount up faster than seems -possible, we find that we are spending quite as much in Peking as we did -in New York, and we do not play bridge or the races. - -The Chinese way of housekeeping, as we have pieced it together from bits -of information picked up among our native acquaintances, is quite -different from that of foreign residents. According to them, -middle-class Chinese families usually have two servants—an _ama_ and a -cook. The _ama_ does the washing and all the general housework, at least -in the women’s apartments. Obviously the Chinese would be horrified -beyond speech at the goings-on in foreigners’ houses; the “boy” of our -white-haired compatriot down the _hutung_, for instance, lays out her -most intimate garments when he judges it is time for her to change! Such -an _ama_ receives from one to two dollars a month, and a “present” of -two or three dollars at each of the four principal Chinese holidays. -Servants in native families are also given their rice, the monthly rice -allowance for the whole household being fixed and the domestics eating -the poorest quality. But they must have more income, and that is where -gambling comes in. Much of this goes on in the average Chinese home, -even among the women and their feminine guests in the afternoons. For -every dollar staked ten cents is set aside by custom as _cumshaw_ for -the servants. Cigarettes sold at eight coppers a package around the -corner cost the family and its guests ten, and so on. But gambling is -the important thing. Servants in wealthy or political families, where -high stakes are the rule, may get as much as a hundred dollars a month. -A trustworthy Chinese informant told us that the one question always -asked him by a prospective servant is some form of, “Is there gambling?” -Where there is not, it is hard to get and keep good servants. In these -days of comparative poverty in Peking those who cannot find places with -foreigners, or have not the courage and adaptability such positions -require, often have a hard time of it. - - -It would not be just, as well as being a sad blow to his pride, to -mention Li _Hsien-sheng_ among our servants. Mr. Li is our Chinese -teacher. By our own choice he, too, speaks no English, so that our -introduction to the language is by the method by which children learn -one. He comes for an hour every afternoon, and carries away a ten-dollar -bill at the end of each month. Yet he is something of a scholar, even -if, like all his colleagues we have so far tried, not much of a teacher. -However, I must not be too severe toward those numerous men of Peking -who eke out a livelihood by guiding the barbarian within its gates into -the mysteries of their strange tongue. At least they earn all they are -paid, and if one learns to use them mainly as a dictionary, the result -may be more worth while than at first seems possible. Nor is this the -place to express my opinions, harsh or genial, on the incredible Chinese -language. Suffice it for the moment to say that we both soon found -ourselves able to express our simple desires to the servants without -calling in some more experienced friend, and by midwinter could make -ourselves understood to merchants keenly eager to understand us. The -more diligent, stay-at-home, and mentally alert member of the family -quickly left me in the linguistic background, but even she cannot keep -pace with “Ha-li,” as the Chinese call my son and namesake. Though his -third birthday is still ahead of him, he is already the family authority -on tones and similar bugbears of the adult student of the Celestial -vernacular, and I should hesitate to pit myself against him even in a -test of vocabulary. I can only plead that it is an unfair advantage in -acquiring a new language not to be able to speak any other when the -acquisition begins. - -Besides, what chance does an overworked father have compared to the -opportunities of childhood? When “Ha-li” is not up on the wall -discussing with the guardians who live there whatever he and they have -in common, or chatting in Chinese with playmates whose mother-tongue may -be that of anywhere from Brittany to Odessa, he is listening to the -voices of the world outside our compound as they drift over to us. He -has already picked up more hawkers’ cries than an adult ear can -distinguish, and totes his basket about the courtyard shouting his -wares, hand to ear in the Peking venders’ fashion, in tones so exactly -those of the original outside that we often wonder what that original -thinks of his echo. Daylight brings a never ending succession of these -hawkers, from the cereal-man so early in the morning that surely no one -could have the appetite to call him in, to the seller of sweetmeats so -late at night that none but habitually hungry people could still be -thinking of food. Our neighbors probably do some cooking of their own, -but they save much fuel by patronizing these itinerant restaurants, the -more sumptuous of them push-carts of a very Chinese type, most of them -mere baskets oscillating from shoulder-poles. The people about us seem -to have no fixed meal-hours, if indeed they keep any track of time at -all. They eat one by one as appetite moves them or as coppers are -available, and as surely as we leave home we will see a child or two, a -woman, or some other solitary member of a large family squatted in the -dirty little _hutung_ beside their door engrossed in the contents of a -bowl that has been rented, chop-sticks and all, from the vender who -waits so patiently for the transaction to be completed that he does not -seem to realize he is waiting. - -Some of the street cries are almost musical, even to our Western ears; -some hawkers use instruments to spare their voices. The barber twangs -what looks like a gigantic pair of tweezers; the knife- and -scissor-sharpener blows a long horn or clashes together half a dozen -heavy steel pieces carried only for that purpose; the toy-and-candy man -has his gong, the china-riveter his swinging bells, the blind man his -reed pipe, or his big brass disk, and his long tapping cane, and the -water-seller has, of course, his squeaking wheelbarrow. The croak of the -oil-man suggests some superannuated frog; the jolly old fellow who -peddles Chinese wine from a beautiful copper urn has a succession of -hoarse shouts that never vary; the cabbage-man, the peanut-man, the -delicatessen wagon, so to speak, even the rag-picking women, all have -their own cries, distinctive, yet unintelligible until one has learned -them by rote rather than by meaning, as Peking did generations ago. Even -we dull-eared adults know nearly all of them now, and are conscious of -something missing if they fail to come at the usual hour, which is a -rare lapse indeed. One fellow sings what might almost be a bar from some -Italian opera. He is the gramophone-man, carrying his box and his big -tin horn, and offering to play his well worn Chinese records for those -families that have the coppers to spend on mere entertainment. The -seller of fritters also comes near being a singer, with a lilting -refrain that stays with one long after he has passed. But all in all the -cries are disappointing. Though some start off as music, even though it -be of the falsetto kind beloved of the Chinese, they almost invariably -bring up somewhere in a sudden raucous shout that spoils them. Perhaps, -as even some foreign enthusiasts insist, our Western ears are tuned only -to the simplicity of Western music; our scale of eight tones may be -crude as compared with the twenty-five gradations of the Chinese. But I -doubt it. I have tried to imagine that haunting street-cry which trills -through the opera “Louise” ending in a shrill shout. Surely its lyric -quality would not thus be improved. Yet all this does not mean that our -Peking cries are displeasing. Their fascination is something subtle, and -we shall be sorry to move on again out of their orbit. - -[Illustration: - - At Chinese New Year the streets of Peking were gay with all manner of - things for sale, such as these brilliantly colored paintings of - native artists -] - -[Illustration: - - A rich man died in our street; and among other things burned at his - grave, so that he would have them in after life, were this - “automobile” and two “chauffeurs” -] - -[Illustration: - - A neighbor who gave his birds a daily airing -] - -[Illustration: - - Just above us on the Tartar Wall were the ancient astronomical - instruments looted by the Germans in 1900 and recently returned, in - accordance with a clause in the Treaty of Versailles -] - -There may be a gauntlet a block long of merry but habitually unwashed -children, chanting their incessant “Ee mao ch’ien! Ee mao ch’ien!” (“One -dime money!”) as often as they catch sight of us, and the daily beggar -of our section, with his “Lao yea tai-tai! Lao yea tai-tai!” (“Old -gentleman lady!”) that wheezes down the scale in so persuasive a manner, -is frequently out-shouted by his poaching rivals; but once the gate of -the nearest wall-ramp is locked behind us by the keeper who jogs down at -the tinkling of his little bell we are as free from such annoyances as -from the dust and the forgotten garbage along the _hutungs_. For the -Chinese are not allowed on the wall. That is, the great rank and file -are not, and those of the better class who care that much for physical -exercise are few, so that the top of the great Tartar Wall is almost a -foreigners’ private promenade. None of our servants, not even those born -in Peking, had ever been admitted to it until they appeared at the foot -of our ramp with “Ha-li” as a passport. For that matter nearly all those -wonderful monuments which even the three-day tourist has visited are -closed to them, either by rule or by the high cost of admission. -Scandalous, no doubt, from the Western democratic point of view; -pathetic when we imbue our servants with our own feelings. But it never -seems to have occurred to them that it is unjust—if it is. For to throw -open the wall to the general public of Peking for a single week would -make it an impassable stretch of filth, sleeping beggars, and jostling -coolies; and in a month even what is left of its parapets would have -been thrown down for the building of new hovels inside it or out. - -When we came at the end of summer the top of the wall was a jungle, in -places almost impassable, gay with morning-glories and other flowers, a -broad hayfield even in its least fertile portions. By December -hay-makers and fuel-gatherers had made it a wind-swept concourse almost -fit for an automobile race, half a dozen cars abreast, except for that -short piece of it between Hata-men and the gate by which the emperor -once came and went, where it is in the hands of the foreign legations -below. On the brilliant spring Sunday not long ago that I made the -circuit of the wall this autumn’s harvest was already promised in the -delicate green that was spreading along it, as it was across the great -tree-topped city it encloses. That stroll of twelve or thirteen miles is -almost a complete course in Chinese life and history, at least of recent -centuries; but what lies outside our immediate neighborhood is another -story. From that bit of the wall just above us which is our principal -playground there is enough of interest within plain view, from the -courtyards of our neighbors below to the distant range of the Western -Hills half enclosing the plain of Peking, to make it a loafer’s -paradise. The streets down below may seem mere miserable lanes to those -of us from the West, and the dwelling-places drab and uninspiring; but -inside the compounds trees are general, so that Peking from aloft is -pleasantly, almost thickly, wooded. Every city, from incessantly -grumbling New York to the hillside town with its church- and cow-bells, -has a voice of its own, and that of Peking resembles no other I have -ever heard. It is made up mainly of street-cries, from venders, -rickshaw-men asking right of way, from shouting carriage out-runners, -never completely blending together but still retaining a certain -individuality, so that from the top of her wall Peking sounds like the -tail-end of some great football game, with the victorious rooters still -sporadically shouting their pæans of glee as they disperse to the four -points of the compass. - - - - - CHAPTER XII - JOGGING ABOUT PEKING - - -There are various ways of getting about Peking, even though it lacks the -principal one of most large cities in other lands; but of them all I -like best riding “Hwei-Hwei.” He is the robust, shaggy-red little -Chinese pony I brought back from one of my trips into the interior, and -if he has not yet learned to look with equanimity upon a scrap of paper -or a wheedling beggar that suddenly springs up at him, at least he can -pass an automobile now without filling the timid hearts of all Chinese -within gunshot with speechless panic. “Hwei-Hwei” and I have jogged -together all over Peking and its surroundings, nosing our way through -the _hutungs_ and prancing down the broad streets of the Chinese as well -as the Tartar City, exploring every sunken road and meandering path -within reasonable distance outside the walls. I am under the impression -that this is improper. Though the élite among the foreign residents play -polo on the French drill-field and scamper over the broken landscape -about the capital on Sunday afternoon paper-chases, even canter solemnly -up and down the new cinder track at the edge of the Legation Quarter, -each followed at a respectful distance by the _mafu_ who will presently -walk the blanketed and almost shaven native imitations of thoroughbreds -slowly up and down before some improvised stable, I gather from the -glances that are thrown sharply upon us that mere sight-seeing on -horseback is not in accordance with the Peking social code. I am -heartbroken, naturally, at the thought of infringing that vital -document; but the opportunity of indulging in a luxury I have never -before dared even to consider has outweighed even that consideration. - -The truth of the matter is that keeping a riding-horse is a luxury even -in Peking. “Hwei-Hwei’s” complete care and nourishment cost just twice -what one human servant does; yet the reflection that this is, after all, -only “Mex” and only relative has so far been sufficient to stifle the -grumblings of a troublesome conscience. I suppose, too, there is a -certain subconscious complacency in looking down, even from -“Hwei-Hwei’s” height, upon the throngs with which we mingle in places -where perhaps no other foreigner, and surely no Chinese, has ever before -intruded on horseback. Certainly I must confess that I find pleasure in -watching the continuous succession of acrobatic feats with which -Pekingese of all ages and degrees remove themselves from the immediate -vicinity the instant it is borne in upon them that they are mingling -with an animal that I can guarantee not to hurt an infant thrown under -his very hoofs. - -Outdoor fairs, seasonal markets, temples without number, corners unknown -even to our Chinese teacher, have “Hwei-Hwei” and I explored together. -But there is a line beyond which his advantages over Peking’s more -common means of transportation cease. Even if it is possible to park him -outside those ugly buildings in which China’s Parliament flings -ink-wells at itself and refuses to draft a constitution even after it -has voted itself a daily bonus for attending the sessions, he can -scarcely expect admittance to the Forbidden City, or ask an evening -hostess to find accommodations for him. When “Hwei-Hwei” must remain at -home there are various substitutes, but only one of them is really -feasible. Sedan-chairs, in these modern days, are only for brides and -mourners, or the emperor himself; there are jolting Peking-carts which -it would be infantile yet exactly descriptive to dub “peek-out” carts; -mule-litters like gaily decorated cupboards on shafts come in at least -from the northeast; on the moats outside the walls there are boats in -summer and sleds in winter—except when the men laying up ice in mat- and -mud-covered mounds along them deprive their fellow-coolies of this -simple source of income; bicycles are not unknown; curious little -one-horse carriages with shutters, and an outrunner who clings on behind -whenever a corner or a crowd does not bring him running ahead to lead -the horse or to shout the road clear, are still the favorite equipage of -old-fashioned families of means. But none of these things ply the -streets for hire; if they did they would be beneath the dignity of -foreigners, and probably of many Chinese unconsciously under their -influence. Ordinary mortals cannot call an automobile every time they -wish to go around the corner, even if their nerves are proof against the -madness of Chinese chauffeurs. Promoted only yesterday from the abject -position of coolies, these conceive that they always have the right of -way over anything they could best in a collision—an impression in which -they are abetted by the police who, with outstretched hand, gaze only at -the machine, like men fascinated, as it dashes drunkenly past through -the maelstrom of pedestrians and other helpless forms of traffic—and, -evidently gaining “face” thereby, they delight to make life a constant -misery to the passenger by the incessant use of those atrocious horns -that seem especially to be exported to China. So it boils down to the -omnipresent rickshaw. - -We often wondered how many rickshaws there are in Peking, until at -length the metropolitan police reported that they had registered 41,553 -such vehicles, of which 4,788 are private. Even if this really includes -all those within the gates, there are thousands more in the dozen -villages clustered close outside them, whence men run to places many -miles distant. We still wonder how Peking got about in the imperial days -before an American missionary in Japan, wishing to give his invalid wife -a daily airing, invented the rickshaw. As late as the beginning of the -present century, old residents tell us, this vehicle was unknown in the -capital. To-day it is the most numerous, or at least the most -conspicuous, thing in Peking. - -Who but a man gone mad on the matter of speed would not prefer the -rickshaw to the automobile after all? Silent on its pneumatic tires and -the soft-shod feet of the runner, it is the most nearly like sitting at -home in an arm-chair of any form of transportation. There is no -formality about it; even the man who does not keep one for his exclusive -use scarcely needs to call one, for it is a strange corner of Peking -where a rickshaw is not already waiting whenever he steps out. Once in a -rickshaw one can leave it to the runner to arrive at the right place, -and turn the mind to the streets and their doings. It is not merely -“Ha-li” who is so fond of “widin’ man,” though he is the only one of us -who shouts aloud at each donkey and big stone “pup dog” we pass, -especially at the camels as they stride noiselessly by along the wall or -through a city gate, whenever we ride hither and yon about busy yet -good-natured Peking. - -The police go on to say that from sixty to seventy thousand rickshaw -coolies earn an average of a hundred coppers a day, of which about -seventy are for themselves and their families after deducting the rent -of the vehicle. That means a daily income of nearly twenty cents in real -money, which is high in Peking. An official inquiry, by the way, -reported during the winter that the minimum on which a Chinese adult -could support life in the capital is $1.87 “Mex” a month! One -particularly cold winter, foreigners, especially women, almost ceased to -patronize rickshaws, not so much for their own sake as for that of the -poor fellows who sat outside waiting for them, and sometimes froze to -death. It devolved upon the police to call their attention to the fact -that death by starvation is even more painful, and is likely to include -the dependents also. I suppose that same omniscient body could say how -many persons starve to death in Peking each winter; at any rate they -once announced how many hundreds of free coffins they had been called -upon to provide since cold weather set in. - -Perhaps the constant sight of starvation more or less close upon their -heels is the reason that Peking rickshaw-men are such excellent runners. -They never slow down to a walk, as the much better paid ones of Japan, -for instance, do on the slightest provocation. If the trot from our -corner to Hsi-Chi-men station, diagonally across the Tartar City, is too -much for one of them he turns his fare over to an unoccupied colleague -when he is exhausted rather than disgrace himself by walking. Yet I have -almost never seen a well built rickshaw-man in Peking. Their ribs show -plainly through their leathery skins, and they are conspicuously -flat-chested, in contrast to the men all about China who carry burdens -over their shoulders. The belief that rickshaw-runners die young and -often is wide-spread, especially in lands that have never seen one. The -only personal testimony I can offer on the subject is that during this -year in the Orient I have never seen, or heard of, a man dying in the -shafts, and that there are many jobs in China that I would quickly -refuse in favor of drawing a rickshaw. Certainly many runners, not to -mention the vehicles themselves, reach a ripe old age in Peking; and -there is evidence that they do not take up the profession late in life. - -Some one once wrote asking us to send a copy of the child labor laws of -China. When we had recovered from the resultant hysterics I went out to -photograph some of the smallest specimens of rickshaw-runners along -Great Hata-men Street for the benefit of the inquirer. Unfortunately a -good example and photographic conditions never have coincided. I do not -wish to be charged with exaggeration, and hence I will not assert that I -have seen two boys of six or a single one of eight trotting about town -with a big fat sample of the Chinese race lolling at his ease behind -them; but I have no hesitancy in reporting that male children of eight -and ten respectively may often be seen thus engaged. Perhaps these are -house-servants or their offspring, or even members of the family itself, -forced into service; more than once I have been sure of a facial -resemblance between the perspiring youngsters and the unsoaped old lady -who was urging them on. Often a small boy runs behind, pushing, who is -hardly as tall as the hub of the wheel, but perhaps that is a form of -apprenticeship. Recently there has been some agitation against employing -rickshaw pullers under eighteen, though apparently only among -foreigners. The Chinese of the rank and file bargain for their rides as -they stump along, pretending they will walk rather than pay more than -they are offering, and naturally they wish to be surrounded by as many -clamoring competitors as possible. If the lowest bidder chances to be a -child just heavy enough to keep the passenger from toppling over -backward, or an old man who looks as if he had been unwisely rescued -from the potter’s field, _bu yao gin_—it does not matter, for the -average Chinese hardly distinguishes between real speed and a steady -jogging up and down almost in the same spot. - -In contrast to these sorry dregs of the profession are the haughty men -in the prime of life who run on a monthly wage for foreigners, or for -Chinese of wealth and official position, some of them in livery and with -clanging bells and blazing lamps that attest their importance. The tall -youth who runs with a physically light-weight young lady of our -acquaintance always calls a rickshaw when he wishes to go out on a -personal errand. Well fed and not overworked, these private human -trotters are often marvels of speed and endurance. I would like nothing -better than to enter our wrinkled old _la-che-ti_ in an Olympic -marathon—though foreigners who have tried that sort of test find that -the men cannot run without their vehicle, which is so balanced as to -help lift them off the ground. Like the runners, the rickshaws of Peking -range all the way from filthy half-wrecks to rickshaw-limousines. The -former are due both to the Chinese blindness to uncleanliness and to the -fact that, human fares lacking, they are ready to accept any form of -freight, be it even the bleeding carcass of a hog. The vehicle looking -tolerable, however, most of us pick our rickshaw-men exactly as we would -a horse, except that age is fairly apparent without examining the teeth. - -Slavery is a dreadful institution, but if millions of the human -draft-animals of China were slaves they would at least be sure of a -place to sleep and something fit to eat. Yet they are a cheerful, -good-hearted, likable lot of fellows, these swarming rickshaw-runners of -Peking, amusing in their primitive ways. However much they may arouse -sympathy, for instance, there is no surer means of being involved in a -noisy dispute than by overpaying them. Find out the legal fare and pay -it, and the chances are that your runner will accept it without a word -and rate you a person of experience and understanding, for all your -strange race. The louder and longer you wish him to dance and shout -about you, the more you should overpay him. A soft-hearted old lady -arriving in Peking almost directly from America and wishing to be just -toward the man who drew her from Ch’ien-men Station to the principal -hotel handed him a silver dollar. It took three men from the hotel to -rescue her from the frenzied runner and kick him dollarless outside the -grounds. - -The fact is that rickshaws are too numerous in Peking and their fares -too low. Even foreign residents grow flabby from so habitually jumping -into one rather than walking a block or two, though I confess it is -easier to do so than to endure the endless gauntlet of persistent -shouting, and even subtle ridicule in the case of “foreign devils” -supposedly ignorant of the language, which every well dressed pedestrian -must run. Hard-hearted men assert that the oversupply is due to the -laziness of the runners also, that coolies would rather wander about -with a rickshaw than work all day at some steady labor. What will become -of them when the street-cars arrive, for which the French were long ago -granted a much-opposed franchise, is a question which men of higher -intelligence than the runners themselves cannot answer. Yet they are -coming; cement poles are already creeping into the Tartar City from the -northwest, and rails are being piled up before the Forbidden City; -unless Mukden outstrips her, Peking will be the first to follow -foreign-influenced Tientsin and Shanghai by desecrating her streets with -the ugliness and clamor of electric tramways. We are glad to have known -the inimitable Chinese capital before they came. - - -The slowness of her man-drawn carriages and the dead flatness of Peking -give an exaggerated impression of its size; everything seems farther -away than it really is. In my school-days we used to hear wild tales -about this being the largest city in the world. Perhaps it has a million -inhabitants, though eight hundred and fifty thousand seems nearer the -mark. There is no “squeeze” to be had out of a census, however, and -guesses will probably continue to be the only available information on -that point for years to come. A one-story city with the courtyard habit, -to say nothing of enormous palaces and monuments that scarcely shelter a -human being each, and of big vacant spaces even inside its principal -wall, can hardly vie with New York and London, however like rats many of -its people may live. In what we foreigners call the Chinese City there -is a maze of shops and dwellings outside the three south gates of the -capital proper, human warrens here and there, swarming sidewalk markets -by night as well as crowded rows of booths by day; but vast graveyards, -cultivated fields, even great unoccupied areas take up much of this -secondary enclosure, not to mention the huge domains of the Temples of -Heaven and of Agriculture, playgrounds now of those with the price of -admission, with tea and soda-water and pumpkin seeds served almost on -the very spot where the Son of Heaven so long held his annual vigil. - -Distressing are many of the noble monuments that make Peking justly -famed the world over, not merely because of the ruins they are becoming -under an anarchistic republican régime, but by reason of the rabble that -is permitted to overrun and defile so many of them. Ragged beggars -masquerading as caretakers beset the visitor in almost all of them; -foreigners, or Chinese with money but without influence, may still be -required to pay their way into Pei-Hai and the Summer Palace, but once -inside they find themselves jostled and gaped upon by loafing soldiers -and ill-mannered roustabouts whom the gate-keepers have not the power or -the moral courage to exclude. How long before imperial Peking will be -but another Baalbek or Nineveh, for all the busy streets that surround -it, is another subject for guessing. - -We found few soldiers in Peking, however, compared with such places as -Mukden, and those are still curbed in a way that would bring gasps of -astonishment from their fellows in the provinces. Before the Boxer days -Peking had no police force in the Western sense; to-day the little -stations are as numerous as in Japan, while the white-legginged -gendarmes under a Norwegian general stroll the principal streets in -pairs, with drawn bayonets and an eye especially to the protection of -foreigners. We have tried in vain to impress upon our friends at home -that Peking is safer than any city we know of in our own land. A lone -woman not even speaking the language, and bespangled with jewels if you -like, can go anywhere in Peking, whether on foot or with a rickshaw -coolie picked up at random, at any hour of the day or night, without the -ghost of a chance of being molested, to say nothing of running any real -danger. They are a curious people, the Chinese. They will often starve -with riches within easy grasp rather than screw up their courage to an -act of violence, as they will display the cheerfulness of contentment -far beyond the point where Westerners would have even a transparent mask -of it left. There is something uncanny, if we ever paused to think of -it, in being so well protected by a police force whose meager wages are -many months in arrears; and the petty graft they inflict upon foreign -residents may almost be justified. Their task is greatly lightened, of -course, by the pacifist temperament of the Chinese; but criminal, even -violent, characters cannot be lacking even in Peking. Punishments are -still drastic, after the Chinese custom. Out toward Tungchow and over -beside the outer wall of the Temple of Heaven groups of men are -frequently shot, and they are by no means all assassins. When the -invasion from beyond the Great Wall was being repelled last spring and -bullets were singing across our corner of the city, the police were -instructed to punish with summary execution anything suggestive of -looting. A Chinese of some standing, friendly with several foreigners of -our acquaintance, went up broad Hata-men Street to borrow a few dollars -from an exchange-shop that had often favored him with small loans. The -proprietor happened to be out, and the youth in charge did not know the -client. “Oh, that’s all right,” the borrower assured him; “your master -always lets me have small sums when I need them, and I am in a hurry.” -He picked up a few dollars, jotted the amount down on a slip of paper, -and started away. The youth shouted, the police came running up, and -although the proprietor appeared at that moment and identified the -prisoner as an old friend who had acted in no way improperly, a headless -corpse was left lying in the dust before the shop. - -There are incredible contrasts, too, among the scenes past which the -pony and I jog on our afternoon jaunts. Legation guards of half a dozen -nationalities play their boyish games almost across the street from -rag-pickers who are scarcely distinguishable from the garbage-heaps out -of which they somehow claw a livelihood. Along “Piccadilly,” as -foreigners call what is “Square Handkerchief Alley” to the Chinese, we -can easily imagine ourselves in the days of Kublai Khan; and around the -corner from it the Wai-chiao-pu is a more modern foreign office, -outwardly at least, than London, Washington, or Paris can muster. -Beneath the “Four P’ai-lous” motor-cars speed north and south while -barbaric funeral processions crawl under them from the west between two -long rows of squealing pigs, resenting the cords that bind their four -legs together and the discourtesy with which they are tumbled about by -sellers and purchasers. City gates like mammoth office buildings tower -above long vistas of lowly human dwellings; lotuses bloom on the lake of -the Winter Palace, and the visitor thither is pursued by all but naked -mendicants—_yao-fan-ti_ (want-rice-ers) the Chinese call them in their -kinder language. Sumptuous private cars stand before most modern -buildings, and Peking street-sprinklers, consisting of two men and a -bucket, with a long-handled wooden dipper, attempt to lay the dust about -them. We remember these sprinklers only too well, “Hwei-Hwei” and I, for -during the winter the sprinkling turned to ice almost as it fell, and -our progress was a kind of equestrian fox-trot. But for them, and the -water-carriers whose screeching wheelbarrows drip so incessantly, Peking -streets would be easy going the year round, for the whole winter’s snow -has been but a napkin or two that faded away almost as it fell. Nor have -I ever known a genuine Peking dust-storm, though I have seen the air and -the heavens, the inmost recesses of my garments and my food, even the -contents of locked trunks, filled with those flying particles of her own -filth and her surrounding semi-desert which the capital of Kublai Khan -has always charged against the distant Gobi. Old residents tell us that -this season’s dust-storms have been unusually rare, but my family was -vouchsafed one of the first magnitude during my absence. A welcome wind -blew all one hot spring night, and only in the morning was it discovered -that it had carried volumes of dust with it, so that the sleepers looked -as if they had been traveling across Nevada for a week without so much -as a wet cloth available, and everything from hair to mattress-covers -had to be washed at once, which was particularly difficult with the -blowing dust obscuring the sun for several days to come. - -Often our way through a city gate or along a narrow street is made -disagreeable by passing wheelbarrows filled to over-slopping with the -night-soil of the city—sewers being as great a luxury as running water -in most Peking households. This is dried along the outside of the city -walls and distributed among the vegetable-gardens which, protected from -the north by rows of tall reed wind-breaks, take up much of the land -immediately outside the city. It goes without saying that the use of -chloride of lime is as fixed a habit in the kitchens of foreign -residents as boiling our drinking-water. The Chinese cannot understand -why Westerners persist in wasting the richest substitute for potash, -spending money to have it destroyed instead of gaining money by selling -it. Sometimes the foreigners are converted to the Chinese point of view; -I know at least one American mission school which supports two of its -girls on what it contributes to the fertility of the neighboring fields. - - -But it is not difficult to forget all such drawbacks when one looks down -upon Peking from her mammoth wall or the lonely eminence called Coal -Hill. Obviously “Hwei-Hwei” cannot climb Mei-shan; it is bad enough to -have outside barbarians of the human kind looking down upon the -golden-yellow roofs of the Forbidden City. This is not especially -forbidden now, with more than half of it open to the ticket-buyer, and -the rest hardly free from intruding politicians and their protégés. But -there still hovers an atmosphere of mystery, of something mildly akin to -the Arabian Nights or the Middle Ages, about the northern end of the -enclosure, within the moat in which coolies gather submerged hay and set -up fish-traps, and above which tourists shriek their delights from -Peking’s lone hill, even from airplanes. For, sadly shrunken as it is, -the imperial Manchu dynasty still holds forth within. - -China is, I believe, the only republic on earth with an emperor. It was -stipulated in the agreement of 1912 between the imperial court and the -republican party that the emperor should keep his title, his imperial -abode, and certain other privileges, should receive a large annual -allowance from the Government for the upkeep of his court and household, -and should “always be treated by the Republican Government with the -courtesy and respect which would be accorded to a _foreign_ sovereign on -Chinese soil.” Thus the young man who, as a child, abdicated the dragon -throne can still go and sit on it any afternoon that it pleases his -fancy to do so. Perhaps no such caprices come into his head, for if we -are to believe his English tutor he is wise, as well as regally -polished, beyond his years, and does not really consider himself -emperor. He has lived in the imperial palace of the Forbidden City ever -since he was actually Manchu sovereign of China, however, and is still -accorded imperial honors there. Any one who rises early enough may meet -Manchu courtiers in ceremonial dress, a trifle shabby, their -red-tassel-covered hats still not entirely out of place in modern -Peking, jogging homeward on their lean ponies from an imperial audience -at the unearthly hour at which these have been held in China for -centuries. - -Most Chinese have several different names, and emperors are no exception -to this rule. There is a “milk name” during infancy, a _hao_, or -familiar name by which one is afterward known to one’s intimates, a -school name, a business name, finally, but not lastly, in the case of an -emperor, a throne name or dynastic title. But though the present -occupant of the Forbidden City has such a name, to wit: Hsuan T’ung, -even this cannot be freely used; you cannot call a man to the -billiard-table by his dynastic title. The names by which we know former -emperors of China are really their “reign titles” and not personal -patronymics. This left the present head of the Ch’ing dynasty -handicapped, for, not being a real sovereign in spite of his legally -imperial title, and unable to have a reign title at least until he is -dead, there was no name by which he could be properly and generally -called, whether to dinner or to an audience. Being a sensible young man, -of modern rather than reactionary tendencies and by no means hostile to -foreign influence, noting moreover that not only do foreigners who -remain long in China have a Chinese name but that Western sovereigns -have personal appellations, he decided to take a foreign name. The fact -that his foreign tutor is an Englishman may or may not account for the -fact that he has chosen to be called “Henry.” - -Those who have seen him describe “Emperor Henry” as a tall, slender -young man who is still growing, with the Chinese calligraphy of an -artist and some of the poetic gifts of his imperial ancestor known as -Ch’ien Lung. Not merely does he wield a wicked brush in both the classic -and the modern colloquial Chinese, now and then having a poem published -under an assumed name in a Peking paper, but he writes a very legible -English with pen or pencil. His English speech is described as slow but -correct, with a strong British accent. He reads newspapers voraciously -and is said to be unusually well abreast of the times, both at home and -abroad, for his years. His greatest single blow to date against -tyrannical conservatism, however, and the mightiest example of his -progressive tendencies occurred last spring at one fell swoop—he had his -cue cut off. The three imperial dowagers and his two distinguished old -Chinese or Manchu tutors tore what was left of their own hair in vain. -“Henry” was determined to be up-to-date even if he is confined in one -end of the once Forbidden City. The result is that for the first time in -nearly three hundred years there is hardly a pigtail left within the -Purple Wall, though the two old tutors, as a silent protest against what -they consider an act of disloyalty to the traditions of “his Majesty’s” -house, still wear their cues. - -During last winter “Henry” turned sixteen, and it was high time he took -unto himself a wife—two of them, in fact. He is reputed not to have -wanted two—possibly he is not so ultra-modern as we have been led to -suppose—but his retinue insisted. Number one wife would have too many -duties to be able to perform them all alone; besides, what would the -neighbors say? So they chose him two pretty Manchu girls several months -his junior and set the date for the wedding. But “Henry” has a mind of -his own, and if he could not go out and pick a bride on his own -initiative he could at least exercise the sovereign rights of any -citizen of a republic and choose between the two candidates allowed him. -Thus it came about that the girl named by the high Manchu officials to -be “empress” became merely the first concubine, and vice versa. Some -time during the seven weeks of ceremonies between the betrothal rites -and the actual marriage “Henry” conferred upon the lady of his choice -the name of “Elizabeth.” - -The wedding itself took place between the end of November and the dawn -of December, according to our Western calendar. By republican permission -the streets between the lady’s home, out near the Anting-men, and the -East Gate of the Forbidden City were covered from curb to curb with -“golden sands”—which in Peking means merely the earth we use in a -child’s sand-box. At three in the morning the principal bride set out -along this in a chair covered with imperial yellow brocade and carried -by sixteen bearers, with a body-guard of eunuchs from the palace. The -procession was no longer and hardly more elaborate than those that may -be seen along Peking streets on any day auspicious for weddings; some of -the impoverished Manchu and Mongol nobles, members of the imperial clan, -and former officials of the old empire looked, in fact, a trifle more -shabby under the specially erected bright lights along the route than do -the wedding guests of a wealthy Chinese merchant. But there were some -unusual features. The sedan-chair had a golden roof, on each corner of -which was a phenix, a design that predominated in all the flags, -banners, and mammoth “umbrellas” carried by the hired attendants. -Instead of the familiar Chinese wedding “music” produced by long, -harsh-voiced trumpets, there were two foreign-style bands, one of them -lent by the President of the republic. These played over and over, not -in concord one with the other, “Marching through Georgia,” “Suwanee -River,” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” It was a memorable night -for Peking. - -The chief escorts sent by the emperor to receive his favorite bride rode -horses and wore mandarin costume, including the official cap with a -peacock plume and buttons of every former rank. Promptly at four in the -morning the Phenix Chair, followed by a series of yellow-covered litters -containing the ceremonial robes of its occupant, passed through the Gate -of Propitious Destiny into the central and most sacred portion of the -imperial precincts. Foreign as well as Chinese guests had been admitted -as far as the large open space before this, which is used as a -parade-ground for the imperial guard and as a place of reception for the -camel caravans which still, even in these republican days, bring -“tribute” from beyond the Great Wall to the Manchu emperor. With the -moon just dropping out of sight in the west the scene was of a pageantry -which has almost disappeared from our modern commonplace world. - -What took place beyond the gate that swallowed up the “empress” ordinary -people know only by hearsay. This has it that the bride, having been -carried over fire—pans filled with glowing coals—as old Chinese custom -decrees, was set down at the foot of the throne and greeted by the -emperor and his first concubine, after which he and all those of the -male gender except the eunuchs immediately retired. The concubine had -merely walked in without ceremony twenty-four hours before, one of her -first duties being to welcome the real bride at her arrival. Gossip has -it that she did not make the requisite number of kowtows to her more -fortunate rival and that “Elizabeth” took this so to heart that she shut -herself up from the emperor for some time. No sane person will vouch for -the truth of Peking rumors, however, imperial or otherwise. The fact -remains that “Henry” and “Elizabeth” were duly married, the clinching -rite being the ceremonial drinking together of the nuptial cup, and the -latest report is that they are all three living moderately happily, at -least, this long afterward. - -An American girl is tutoring the “empress” in English and Western ways, -as she did before her marriage, and the emperor continues to grow, -mentally if not physically, under his cued and uncued tutelage. Even the -first concubine is said to be fond of learning, and the two no doubt -comment on their similarity of tastes with “our” husband. There is -probably less friction between the two young ladies than their Western -sisters may fancy, now that relative grades are inevitably fixed—with -reservations depending on the birth of a son; the most powerful woman in -Chinese history, the dowager who long ruled the country under the -puppets Tung Chih and Kuang Hsii, was, it is well for the two young -ladies to remember, only a concubine. Court etiquette prevents conflicts -in their demands upon the husband. By a rule said to be centuries old -the emperor is entitled to the company of his empress six times a month, -of the first concubine ten, and of the second concubine fifteen, in -reverse ratio, of course, to the social demands upon them. “Henry” -should by the rules of the game have chosen his second concubine before -this, but like all those to whom the Chinese owe money he has not been -paid his allowance for years, and there may be excellent reason for -putting off this addition to his cozy little household. It is what -school-girls call “thrilling” to think of him toasting his toes -alternately with his two brides, perhaps of dissimilar temperaments as -well as mental and physical charms, and still having every other evening -left free for the pursuit of his studies. - - -Misfortune, of course, does not spare even throneless sovereigns. Fire -has just destroyed much of that portion of the Forbidden City which the -head of the abdicated Manchu dynasty had left him, and has given a hint -of life within those mysterious precincts. Though the conflagration -broke out before midnight nothing worth while was done to curb it until -two in the morning. Most of the courtiers have always lived within the -Purple Wall and had never seen a disaster of such magnitude, so that -when they saw the palace buildings in flames the whole court, including -“Henry” and “Elizabeth,” some stories have it, were seized with nothing -more effective than frenzied excitement. Partly for fear of looting, -partly because no orders were given by their superior officers to break -an ancient rule, the guards refused to open the gates to the two Chinese -and one foreign fire brigades that offered their assistance. After a -lengthy conference these were admitted, but by this time the fire was so -far advanced that only by cutting down many old trees and leveling some -of the smaller buildings was it finally brought under control at seven -in the morning. Even the Chinese admit that almost all the effective -work was done by the foreigners; whatever their excellencies the -Celestials do not shine during emergencies. - -Many priceless treasures, and the portraits of many former emperors, -were destroyed. The official report had it first that the fire was -caused by the bursting of a boiler in the palace electric-light plant, -but the more probable truth has since leaked out. The latest assertion -is that it was deliberately set by palace eunuchs, disgruntled over the -failure to receive their allowances, or to cover up their thefts of -imperial treasures. The time was close drawing near for the annual -inspection of these when the conflagration occurred. Looking about the -next day “Henry” found many precious things gone even from places which -the fire did not reach, and incidentally, the story runs, he discovered -a plot against his own life. Cynics wonder that the new régime has not -hired some one to do away with him long before this. Various eunuchs -were handed over to the police, some with bits of loot upon them, but -“unfortunately,” to quote one Chinese paper, “the emperor no longer has -the power to order their heads off.” When he demanded the arrest of some -of the chief eunuchs, however, he found they were under the protection -of two old imperial concubines—of Hsien Feng, consort of the famous -dowager, and of Tung Chih, her son, respectively, who have been dead -sixty-three and forty-eight years! So “Henry” and his two brides ran -away to his father, who has a “palace” outside the west wall of the -city, and refused to come back until all the eunuchs were discharged. -This may have alarmed the old concubines, as the newspapers put it; -certainly it frightened the republicans, with no president in office and -the country threshing about for want of a head; pressure came from -somewhere, the eunuchs went, and “Henry” came back. - -[Illustration: - - Preparing for a devil-dance at the lama temple in Peking -] - -[Illustration: - - The devil-dancers are usually Chinese street-urchins hired for the - occasion by the languid Mongol lamas of Peking -] - -[Illustration: - - The street-sprinklers of Peking work in pairs, with a bucket and a - wooden dipper. This is the principal street of the Chinese City - “outside Ch’ien-men” -] - -[Illustration: - - The Forbidden City is for the most part no longer that, but open in - more than half its extent to the ticket-buying public -] - -The palace eunuch system has always been pernicious and one of the main -causes of the fall of the many imperial houses that have ruled China. -These have been served by eunuchs ever since the Chou dynasty, more than -three thousand years ago. The dynasty might change, but the eunuchs, who -were the palace servants and often the confidants of the other inmates, -mainly women, stayed on and carried all the vices of the old court over -into the new. Each new dynasty began with a hardy, outdoor ruler, but as -his successors, thanks to the silly “Son of Heaven” idea, were -practically imprisoned for life within the palace among women and -eunuchs, they were bound to become weeds in the enervating atmosphere. -Thus almost all dynasties petered out within two or three centuries, and -in the closing years the eunuchs often became masters; it is well known -that Tzu Hsi, the notorious old “Empress” Dowager, who governed China -for forty years, was herself ruled by a favorite eunuch, who started -life as a shoemaker’s apprentice—though some doubt has always been -expressed about his real eunuchhood. He is believed to be more -responsible than any other single person for the Boxer uprising, but the -only punishment meted out to him was that his wealth, in gold bars said -to be worth several millions, was discovered by the French troops upon -the occupation of Peking and—no one has ever heard of it since. - -Avarice is the chief weakness of the eunuch tribe; and the official who -could afford to get a powerful palace servant on his side was sure of -preferment, and in time this system made China officially rotten to the -core. Masters of intrigue and selfishness, they had to be “greased” from -the outer gate to the throne-room even by those who wished to give the -emperor himself a “present.” Each palace occupant was allowed the number -of eunuchs which suited his rank, the total number being three thousand. -They came mainly from Hokienfu, a small city about two hundred miles due -south of Peking, where it was the custom for parents to make eunuchs of -many of their boys, just as they bound the feet of their girls, for they -could place them to still better advantage than a mere girl and thereby -improve their own incomes. When “Henry” made this new break with -antiquity, however, it was found that there were but 1430 palace eunuchs -left, all, it is said, over thirty years old. Orders were also issued to -all Mongol and Manchu nobles and princes forbidding the employment of -eunuchs, and it is hoped that hereafter no native of Hokienfu will get -himself mutilated for the sake of a palace job. Unlike bound feet, the -system was, of course, by no means confined to China. The papal choir -was made up of eunuchs, long since driven by public opinion from the -Italian stage, at least as late as the beginning of the present century, -and they are still employed as the keepers of harems in Mohammedan -countries, being part and parcel of polygamy. Transportation to their -homes, temporary lodgings, and a bit of money was allowed those whom -this lad of sixteen at last cleared out of the Forbidden City, and it -was a picturesque sight to see them leaving the palace with their tawdry -belongings, quarreling to the last with the men sent to pay them off. -Perhaps that is the end of them in China; but it is the land of -compromise, and already the old and crippled eunuchs have been taken -back into the palace until they die. - -There are people who believe that “Henry” may again be a real emperor of -China, that he has proved himself so strong by some of his recent -actions as to suggest that had he been born twenty years earlier China -would not now be trying to pose as a republic. Even as modern a young -man as our Chinese teacher thinks that a constitutional monarchy is the -only feasible relief from the present anarchistic chaos of theoretical -republicanism. He puts at ten years, others at from a generation to a -century, the time required under such a restraining form of government -to prepare for a real republic. Who knows? Perhaps even if the monarchy -returns it will not be “Henry” who will head it; soothsayers have been -making strange prophecies recently about an entirely new emperor to come -out of the provinces. Besides, “Henry” is a Manchu, and China has -reverted after nearly three centuries to the misrule of her own people. -But he is already on the spot, sitting on the vacant throne as it were, -and that is seldom a disadvantage. - - -One of the first obligations of the foreigner coming to China for any -length of time is to get a Chinese name. In other countries the people -do the best they can, vocally and stelographically, to reproduce the -names we already possess; even Japan, by using one of her modern -scripts, can write all the but the more L-ish Western patronymics so -that they read noticeably like the original. But the Chinese have always -insisted that the outside barbarian adapt himself to Chinese ways, -rather than the topsyturvy reverse. Besides, Chinese is a monosyllabic -language, and naturally any stranger who comes to the country must be -translated into words of one syllable. Unfortunately, even syllables are -limited among the ideographs available to the Celestial brush-wielder, -and names which to our notion are obviously of one become polysyllabic, -to say the least, before the Chinese translator gets through with them. -The result is that they seldom bear even a family resemblance to the -original, and the foreigner who can recognize his own Chinese name, -whether written or spoken, is already in a fair way to become an -accomplished Oriental philologist. - -Let me take my own name as an example. Except that it may be racially -misleading, I have always considered it quite a tolerable name, not -particularly difficult to pronounce, or to remember, by those who choose -to do so, and unquestionably monosyllabic. Yet the Chinese scholar to -whom it was submitted divided it at once into three syllables, like an -expert taking apart an instrument one had always believed to be of one -piece and returned it as “Feh Lan-kuh.” The first character stands for -“extravagance,” but all the sting is taken out of that false and unjust -start by the other two, which mean “orchid” and “self-control” -respectively. Only three names are allowed in Chinese; therefore my -given names in my own language were crowded into the discard. To the -Chinese I am “Feh _Hsien-sheng_”—Mr. Extravagance; if they wish to go -further and find out what particular form my wastefulness takes they -respectfully inquire my honorable _ming-tze_, and are informed that my -unworthy personal names are “Lan-kuh,” the Orchid with Self-control. The -trouble is that almost any foreigner whose name begins with an F, or -even with a Ph, is also Mr. Feh. There are a dozen of them within -gunshot of us, surely a thousand in China, most of whose English names -are not in the least like our own. - -A few lucky mortals have names that can be put into Chinese just as they -stand, not only leaving them audibly recognizable to their compatriots -but saving their given names from the scrap-heap. There is Mr. Fay, of -course, Mr. Howe and Mr. May, and obviously Mr. Lee is orally at home -anywhere in China, whether the scholarly see him as a “pear” or “clear -dawn.” On the other hand there are names that cannot possibly be put -into Chinese even faintly resembling themselves,—Messrs. Smith and -Jones, for instance. It is quite as necessary to know the Chinese name -of the friend you wish to find in China as to be able to speak Chinese; -more so, in fact, for while the Celestials are the antithesis of their -island neighbors in the rapidity with which they grasp an idea from -signs and motions, it is difficult, unless some outstanding personal -characteristic is involved, to express a proper name by a gesture. You -may go up and down a Chinese city in which he has lived for twenty years -shouting for your dear old schoolmate Kelly, shepherding a flock of -Chinese in the general direction of heaven now, and never find a trace -of him unless chance puts you on the track of his new appellation. -Luckily there are but a hundred or so family names in all China, and as -many characters fit to be used as such, so that one may soon become -fairly expert at guessing. - -One must have a Chinese name, not only because one would otherwise be -unmentionable, on respectful occasions, even to one’s own servants, but -because a plentiful supply of visiting-cards is absolutely -indispensable. Fortunately these can be had in China at a fraction of -what they cost at home; because not only are cards exchanged on the -slightest provocation, but one of those hastily printed scraps of paper -is just as important and just as final anywhere within the once -Celestial Empire as in South America. Without a card a millionaire in -evening-dress is a mere coolie; with one the most disreputable foreign -tramp who ever seeped back into the interior from the treaty-ports is a -gentleman fit to dine with a Tuchun. - -In the olden days of not so long ago Chinese name-cards were red, the -color for happiness. To have a white card meant that one’s father or -mother had died within the past three years; those mourning the recent -loss of a grandparent had yellow or blue ones. The size of the card -determined the importance of the one whose name it bore, or vice versa, -so that the card of a viceroy or a generalissimo was of the size of a -sheet of foolscap, a blood-red splash that could be seen half a mile -away. Colors and size both cost money, however; moreover China has -become, in name at least, a republic. White cards are now in quite -general use, therefore, and though they still vary in size, I have never -been handed one larger than a coat-pocket. Some remain red on one side -and white on the other, especially among the formal and the wealthy; the -ultra-modern have their English name on one side and Chinese on the -other, like foreign residents. The custom of using both sides seems to -be an old one. Often the formal or “business” name appears on the front, -sometimes with the rank or calling, while on the back, in much smaller -characters, are the _hao_ and the _yuan-ch’i_, the name used only by -intimates, and the ancestral birthplace—which even the father of the man -represented may never have seen. Not a few Chinese use two different -cards. One of them bears the characters meaning, “This is only a -friendly exchange-card”; in other words, it has no import in serious or -business matters. If a Tuchun graciously gives you his “exchange-card” -that does not mean that you can use it to give orders to his soldiers or -borrow money in his name at a bank, though his official card may still -have almost the potency of the signet-ring of a king in the days of -ruffles and feathers. - - -A play modeled more or less on Chinese lines which went the round of the -English-speaking world some years ago has familiarized us with some of -the peculiarities of the Chinese theater—or, from their point of view, -with those of our own. At least those of us who had the pleasure of -attending that performance know that on the Chinese stage a banner held -aloft by two coolies at opposite ends of it stands for a city gate, and -that when a man has been histrionically killed he gets up, wipes his -nose, and saunters off the stage, quite as invisible to the audience as -are the property-men incessantly wandering about among the actors with -the ultra-bored expression of men more completely surfeited with things -theatrical than all the first-nighters and dramatic critics of -Christendom rolled into one. But the Chinese stage has other points -which were not included in that delightful effigy of it, partly because -to make it too Chinese would have been the surest way to drive away any -Western audience, partly because invention advances day by day. I enjoy -the casual, lackadaisical, “invisible” property-men of the Chinese -theater, but I find the man with the thermos bottle still more -beguiling. For “props,” dressed not in black, as the imported version of -Celestial theatrical life would have us believe, but in the hit-or-miss -costume of the Chinese laboring-class, with blue denims very much the -favorite, is after all at home in the theater and soon becomes even to -the foreign eye as natural a part of the decorations as does the -omnipresent coolie in or out of doors. I wonder if their property-men -are not really invisible to the Chinese, for do they not always have -servants and attendants flocking incessantly about them anywhere, -everywhere, on the most solemn as well as the most trivial occasions? -But I have never quite gotten used to the thermos-bottle man and able to -look upon him with complete equanimity. He is no theater employee, but -the personal servant of this or that important actor, which actor often -does not remain more than an hour or two at a time in one theater; -hence, at least in Peking in the winter season, the man who brings his -master his indispensable tea at the climax of every histrionic flight -wears overcoat, fur or knitted cap, and all the rest of the midwinter -equipment, so that, bursting suddenly but casually in upon a court -ceremony or a battle scene set in the color-splashed days to which -Chinese dramas hark back, he suggests an experienced and unexcitable -arctic explorer come to succor with the latest contrivance a group of -Martians enjoying an equatorial holiday. - -The thermos bottle was, of course, unknown to those actors of some -generations or centuries back who refused to be deprived even for the -length of a scene of the national beverage, and at the same time wished -to impress upon the audience, itself engaged in satisfying the inner man -quite as freely as if seated at home, that they, for all the low rank of -players, were just as important, thereby establishing a custom that is -all but universal on the Chinese stage. Old-fashioned actors, or those -less generously subsidized by the box-office, also have their tea at the -end of every crisis; but it is brought, not in the latest triumph of -science and by a personal retainer, but by one of the omnipresent -“props,” by a disengaged “super,” or by one of the beggarly loafers that -seem always to be hanging about behind the scenes—if they can be called -such—of a Chinese theater. They, too, sip the uninebriating cup held up -to them while half turning their backs or holding an edge of their -always voluminous costumes over a corner of the mouth, a conventional -pretense which is supposed to make the act invisible to the audience, -and which so far as outward appearances go seems actually to do so. -Besides, why should an act as general and almost as continuous among the -Chinese as breathing attract the attention of a generation that has -probably associated it with every dramatic climax since the oldest man -among them first paid an admission fee? If so slight a thing as this -brought inattention to the play, what would not the orchestra accomplish -in the way of distracting from the plaudits due the actors, scattered as -it is about the stage itself, maltreating its strange instruments or -refraining therefrom in the most casual manner, to light a cigarette, to -scratch itself, to ply a toothpick, or strolling individually on or off, -in any garb at any moment of the afternoon or evening that happens to -suit the individual fancy. - -There is a theater in the heart of the Tartar City completely -Westernized in architecture and general arrangements, yet where -perfectly Chinese plays are given; but the foreigner who wishes to get -the complete atmosphere must go “outside Ch’ien-men” into the Chinese -City. For after all it is the audience and what takes place in front of -the stage as much as what goes forward upon it that repays the Westerner -for visiting a Chinese theater. In this busiest part of Peking, among -the blocks where the singsong-girls ply their popular trade, are -scattered many genuinely native playhouses, and farther on there are -numerous makeshift ones hastily thrown together of boards, mats, and -sheet-iron, stretching beyond the _T’ien-ch’iao_, the “Heavenly Bridge” -with its swarming outdoor markets, across which emperors were carried -for centuries to the near-by Temple of Heaven. Out there one may hear -much of the play and more of the “music” than he cares to, while merely -riding past in the afternoon—for genuine Peking theaters are in full -swing from about noon until long after midnight. - -Perhaps on the whole the visitor will get the most for his money at any -of those playhouses lost in the maze of narrow streets not far outside -Ch’ien-men, without earning the ill will of his rickshaw-man by driving -him ’way out to the Heavenly Bridge. Here he will find himself, though -perhaps not without Chinese help, entering what looks much like a -warehouse or a wholesale establishment, a roofed court overcrowded with -crude, narrow, painfully upright benches black with time and the food -and drinks that have been spilled upon them for generations from the -little shelves protruding along the back of each for the use of the row -behind. The foreigner is so far out of the orbit of his kind in one of -these establishments that, though the Legation Quarter is barely a hop, -skip, and jump away, just beyond the mammoth Tartar wall, and those two -of the Peking railway stations out of which emerge almost all foreign -visitors to the capital are still nearer, he will probably not be seated -before what looks like a coolie comes to ask his name, preferably to get -his card, explaining, if there is any common denominator of words in -which to do so, that every _wai-guo-ren_ who enters the place must be -reported at once, so that a policeman may be sent to protect him. Yet it -is years since a foreigner has needed individual police protection -anywhere within the Chinese City half as much as the unpaid gendarme who -will keep an eye upon him throughout the performance needs the tip which -he will not refuse if it is properly forced upon him. - -Strictly speaking the foreign visitor does not find himself a seat, any -more than he discovers the theater without help. He is, _ipso facto_, a -“possessor of money,” and nowhere that he stirs in China, least of all -in a theater, are there lacking men eager to take as much of that -commodity away as can be bluffed or wheedled out of him. Hence the -conspicuous new-comer is beset from the very entrance by a flock of men -in the all too familiar garb of unwashed coolies, each eager to lead him -to some different section of the house. If he is easily led he will find -himself installed before he knows it in a rickety chair in one of the -little pretenses of boxes around the narrow balcony, the only part of -the house where women spectators may sit. The prices are higher up -there, and the inevitable rake-off of his guide correspondingly larger. -If he is wise he will insist upon remaining in the pit, not too near the -uproarious orchestra and not so close to the back as to interfere with -the throwing arms of the towel-men. When at last he has settled down as -the protégé of a man who seems suddenly to grow superciliously -patronizing toward him the moment he is sure of keeping him in his own -section, and has apparently made lifelong enemies of all the others who -tried to seat him elsewhere, he becomes at once the prey of the -innumerable hawkers of this and that who wallow and shout their way -through the audience quite irrespective of a possible interest in the -stage. Perhaps it occurs to him that he bought no ticket, and was asked -for none at the door. No one does as he enters the purely Chinese -theater. By the time each auditor has adjusted himself as well as his -bodily bulk will permit to the impossible seats behind the tippy -shelves, a man comes to sell him a ticket and to take it up with one and -the same motion. Prices are not high, sixty to eighty coppers at most, -including the percentage that is almost sure to be added out of respect -for his alien condition; even in the Westernized theater within the -Tartar City a seat anywhere in the pit or parquet rarely reaches the -height of a “Mex” dollar. Then a man who thinks he chose his seat for -him must also have his “squeeze,” but this by no means amounts to the -sum subtracted by the old ladies who pose as ushers in the theaters of -Paris. Long before these formalities are concluded, simultaneously with -his sitting down, in fact, the countless dispensers of food and drink -are taking his patronage for granted. A tea-cup sadly in need of an -hour’s scouring with sand is placed top down on the unwashed seat-back -before him, soon to be followed by a tea-pot the spout of which, if he -is observant, he has probably seen some unsoaped neighbor sucking a -moment before, now refilled with boiling water. Little dishes of -shriveled native peanuts, of pumpkin-seeds, of half a dozen similar -delicacies which he has often seen along the outdoor markets and in the -baskets of street-hawkers without ever having felt a desire to make a -closer acquaintance with them, probably also a joint of sugar-cane, will -likewise be set in front of him before he can say his Chinese name, -unless he waves all these things aside with a very imperative gesture. -None of the hawkers catch the meaning of this at once, at least -outwardly, and when they finally do their resentment often reaches the -point of what sounds unpleasantly like more or less subtle vituperation. -Whoever heard of going to a theater without sipping tea and cracking -pumpkin-seeds? Why does this wealthy barbarian come and occupy a seat if -he is going to cheat the men who supply that part of the house out of -their rightful and time-honored selling privileges? - -By and by one may be able to turn one’s attention to the stage, though -one has certainly not been unconscious of it, auricularly at least, -since entering the door. The stage is nothing but a raised platform with -a low railing on all four sides, such as might have been the -auction-place in the days when the building was perhaps the warehouse it -looks as if it must have been. Whatever serve as dressing-rooms at the -rear, which according to the space there cannot be much, are separated -from the stage by an alleyway across which the exiting and entering -players hop. The antics on the stage are in no noticeable way different -from those at the Westernized Peking theaters regularly patronized by -foreigners. The masks and wigs and terrifying costumes are probably -cruder, less splendid, and worse adjusted; the lean and bathless coolies -who come on at frequent intervals in orderless groups undisguised as -soldiers, courtiers, and who-knows-what are if anything a trifle more -abject and bovine; there may not appear a single thermos bottle during -the whole evening, though there will be as incessant a consumption of -what passes for tea among the great mass of the Chinese. Certainly there -will be no scenery in the Western sense, though there may be a few -curtains half shutting off the inadequate dressing-room space, and some -pretenses of city gates, thrones, and the like improvised on the spur of -the moment by the bored property-men out of strips of cloth and -half-broken chairs. The conventionalized things which take the place of -scenery, the strange whips carried by those who are supposed to be -mounted, and the something which tells the audience that the bearer is -riding in a boat are somewhat the worse for wear, while the cushions -which “Props” disdainfully throws out in front of the stars when it is -time for them to kneel are almost slippery with the grease of -generations. But the tumbling and the juggling which imply that one of -the frequent battles is going on will be quite the same, except that it -will not be so well done, as inside the main city, and the uproar will -be just as constant and if anything a trifle more deafening. - -One theater outside Ch’ien-men has only female players; but they appear -in the same rôles, in exactly the same time-honored plays, as the -all-men casts in other theaters, and act as nearly as possible in the -same way, equally dreadful even in the atrocious falsetto which is the -Chinese actor’s specialty, as noises from the pit of the stomach are of -those of Japan. There may be many a guttural “Hao!” from the men in the -audience for the juggling feats of the stars, winning their battles thus -after the time-honored manner of stage generals or emperors; perhaps -even greater signs of approval for some fine point skilfully rounded in -the old familiar themes, which escapes the foreigner entirely; but there -is never a suggestion of the thought of sex, not a hint, except in their -general appearance, that the players are women and not men. Some of the -unwashed girls who fill out the cast, looking like nothing so much as -kitchen wenches in odds and ends of old finery, are quite as clever -acrobats, in battle-scene tumbling at least, as the men at other places, -though they get less a month than a Broadway chorus-girl spends on -chewinggum in a week. - -It will be an imperturbable foreign visitor, however, who can keep his -attention fixed on the stage long enough to note all this at once. The -goings-on in the audience will probably prove more comprehensible, -certainly more amusing. Without going into endless detail it may suffice -to say that the climax of all those things which a Chinese audience does -and a Western one does not is the demand for hot towels during the -performance. One or two towel-men stand over a steaming tub in a far -corner; as many as a dozen others are scattered about the hall, though -their presence may not be suspected by the inexperienced until the -bombardment of towels begins, about the end of the first round of -pumpkin-seeds. All at once the air overhead is crisscrossed with flying -white objects, which on closer attention prove to be bundles of hot, wet -towels tightly rolled together. A man near the tub is throwing them to a -colleague somewhere out in the house, who relays them on to others -dispersed about, these doling them out along the rows of spectators, -collecting them again after they have been used—not to give the ears a -respite from the ceaseless uproar but to deceive the face and hands with -the ghost of a washing—bundling them together once more to start them -hurtling back high over head to the point of origin. The most expert -venders of double-jointed Philadelphia peanuts at our national games -cannot equal Chinese towel-men in the number of throws and the narrow -margins of safety without injury to a spectator. Evidently the -towel-service is included in the price of admission, unless the hawkers -and the section guards band together to supply their clients this -apparent necessity. Therefore the foreigner who gracefully declines this -gracious attention, after noting that the returned towels are merely -immersed and wrung out again as a bundle and once more sent the rounds, -does not win the ill will that would accrue to him if there were a -copper or two of _cumshaw_ involved, and does no other damage than to -block the wheels of progress long enough for information concerning his -strange conduct to be relayed back to the tub-men and commented upon at -least throughout the section he makes conspicuous by his presence. - -The bombardment of towels goes on periodically from early afternoon -until early morning, like all the rest of the performance. Where one -play ends another begins with barely the interval of a sip of tea, and -though some spectators are constantly coming and going, like the casual -members of the orchestra and the undisguised “supers,” the endurance of -the mass of them is phenomenal. Some time between five and seven o’clock -many spectators vary their incessant munching and sipping by ordering a -full meal from the runners of the adjoining tea-house, and the click of -chop-sticks may now and then be heard above the louder clamor. But the -spectacle, both on and off the stage, goes unconcernedly on. - -It would require much more Chinese than I can so far understand to catch -any of the dialogue—if that is the word for it—of a typical Chinese -play. The inexperienced Westerner will seldom have the faintest idea -what it is all about, or even who the characters stand for, so -unintelligible to him are the signs and symbols by which the native -spectator recognizes them and their doings. For that matter the average -Chinese would not understand much unless he had imbibed all these old -stories almost with his mother’s milk. The old, poetic, and often -obsolete words in which the Chinese actor speaks—or rather “sings,” to -use the misleading Chinese term—would be obscure enough in a sane and -ordinary tone of voice; in his successful imitation of ungreased -machinery his actual speech is probably of little more import to the -hearers than are the words of an Italian opera to a Chicago audience. -Like the Japanese the Chinese prefer to hear the same old historical -themes and see the same old pageants over and over again, however, or at -most to have new variations upon them, generation after century. Hence -even the illiterate can often follow a play word by word without -understanding a line of it. We have discovered that by having our -teacher tell us the story beforehand we can guess the meaning of a -considerable part of the action, thereby finding the Chinese theater -much less of a bore than most foreigners report it. To every people its -own ways; certainly the attempt to ape Western theatricals which was put -on during the winter by a club of native élite, with traveled young -Chinese of both sexes prancing about the stage in frock-coats and scanty -gowns, not to mention bobbed hair, was more terrible than anything -genuine Chinese actors ever perpetrate. Personally I have even become -reconciled to Chinese “music”—in the olden days plays were given -outdoors, hence the deafening quality of this—and in certain moods even -to enjoy it, briefly, as one sometimes enjoys a crush in the subway or a -rough-and-tumble mingling with the Broadway throng; and we have both -grown very fond of seeing, if not of listening to, Mei Lan-fang. - -Mr. Mei—whose family character means “peach blossom” and who is related -to us to the extent of including an orchid in his given name—is China’s -most famous and most popular actor. Like his father and grandfather -before him he plays only female rôles, and while even his falsettos may -grate on a Western ear, many is the foreigner who pursues him from -theater to theater merely to watch his graceful movements, his -inimitable dancing or simply the manipulation of his beautiful hands. -Scrawl the three characters by which he is known on the bill-board or -the newspaper space of any theater, inside Ch’ien-men or out, anywhere -in China for that matter, though he has no need to tour the provinces, -and the man in the box-office has only to order any suggestion of vacant -space filled with chairs and lean back in perfect contentment. Mei -Lan-fang carries his own troupe, like a Spanish _matador_ his -_cuadrilla_, even his own orchestra, and the arrangement of Chinese -performances is such that he can play in several theaters on the same -night, from eleven to midnight inside the Tartar City perhaps, where the -doors close ridiculously early, the rest of the night among the better -establishments outside the main wall. Seldom does he deign to appear -earlier than that, unless at some special matinée in the Forbidden City -or at the presidential palace, and he is under no necessity of appearing -every night merely to keep the wolf from his door. By Chinese standards -his income rivals that of any opera singer. - -The Chinese are fond of complications of character in their plays, and -some of Mr. Mei’s greatest successes are as a man playing a girl who in -turn disguises herself as a man; but there is never a moment in which -the basic femininity of the part does not stand clearly forth in the -hands of this consummate artist. I had the pleasure of spending an -afternoon with him once. His house out in the heart of the Chinese City -is outwardly commonplace; but the touch of the genuinely artistic -temperament is nowhere missing inside the door. The delicate, almost -white-faced man still in his twenties, sometimes looking as if he had -barely reached them, proved to be one of the most gracious and at the -same time most unobtrusive hosts I have ever met. His manner had not a -suggestion of the financially successful, the popular idol, as it would -manifest itself in the West. He was as simple, as unassuming, as wholly -untheatrical as are the objects of Chinese art on which he spends his -surplus wealth and time inconspicuous with real distinction. Among his -treasures were many thin-paper volumes of classics, of old plays, some -of them several centuries old, with annotations in the margins by bygone -but not forgotten actors indicating tones, gestures, movements down to -the crooking of a little finger. Mr. Mei makes much use of these, though -not for slavish imitation. His entourage includes a scholar of standing -whose task it is to weave new stories about the old themes, and from -them the actor evolves new dances—which is not the word, but let it -stand—and new ways of entertaining his crowded audiences without losing -touch with the distant centuries to which they prefer to be transported -within the theater. Mei Lan-fang does not drink tea on the stage. It is -an arrogance of the profession to which his famous family never -descended. Nor, one notes, do property-men trip unnecessarily about -under his feet when he is performing. I have Mr. Mei’s word for it that -the throat does not suffer from the constant unnatural tasks put upon it -by his profession; but only from a man of such self-evident truthfulness -could I believe it. Certainly there was nothing in his soft home-side -speech to belie that surprising statement, as there was nothing in his -modest manner to suggest that wherever he plays the streets are filled -as far at least as the eye can see by night with waiting rickshaws. - - -Russians have occupied the extreme northeast corner of the Tartar City -for centuries. Away back in the reign of K’ang Hsi, to whom all those of -the white race were indeed outside barbarians, an army of the czar was -defeated in what is now Siberia, and the captives brought to Peking were -made into a defense corps after the style of the Manchu-“bannermen.” -Gradually the Manchu warriors disappeared from the enclosure that once -housed them only, as they grew weak and flabby and penniless under -imperial corruption and sold out family by family to the Chinese, until -to-day the Tartar City is that merely in name and in memory. But the -Russians remain just where the victorious emperor assigned them. Two -garish Greek Orthodox structures thrust their domes and spires aloft -from within the large walled area which makes that corner of the city -somewhat less of an open space given over to garbage-heaps, rag-pickers, -and prowling dogs than are the other three. The Son of Heaven was -graciously moved to permit his Russian bannermen to have their own -religious teachers, and the Orthodox priests sent from Russia became not -only missionaries to the surrounding “heathen” but the unofficial -diplomatic agents of the czar. In time, when the powers saw fit to -disabuse the occupant of the dragon throne of the impression that all -the rest of the earth was tributary to him, the Russians also -established their official minister in the Legation Quarter, with -pompous buildings and another Orthodox church within a big compound. -To-day, by consent of the Chinese, representatives of the old czarist -régime still informally occupy this, while the unrecognized envoy of the -Soviet finds his own accommodations, like any other tourist. But the -establishment in the further corner of the city survives, boasting not -merely a bishop but an archbishop, and numbering by the hundred the -Chinese converts clustered in that section. - -A Russian church service with a mainly Chinese congregation is worth -going some distance to see. Nowadays the converts hardly outnumber their -fellow-worshipers, so many are the destitute Russian refugees who have -drifted to that distant northeast corner of Peking. They live thick as -prisoners in the stone-walled cells of the old monastery where once only -Orthodox monks recited their prayers,—frail women and underfed children -as well as men bearing a whole library of strange stories on their gaunt -faces. Groups of refugees who came too late or have not influence enough -to find room in the cells live packed together in stone cellars, some -still wearing the remnants of czarist uniforms, or of the various -“White” armies that have gone to pieces before the advancing “Reds,” -some still unrecovered from war-time wounds and sundry hardships. - -The orchestra which enlivens the nights of the more fortunate foreigners -in the frock-coat section of the city huddle together here on improvised -beds that would hardly be recognized as such; in these ill smelling -dungeons there are men who have not garments enough, even if they had -the spirit left, to go forth and look for some possible way out of their -present sad dilemma. - -But one’s sympathy for the dispossessed Russians in China always soon -comes to a frayed edge. Their scorn of manual labor even as an -alternative to starvation, the unregenerate selfishness of their exiled -fellow-countrymen in more fortunate circumstances, their lack of -practicality, of plain common sense from the Western point of view, in a -word their Orientalism, so out of keeping with their Caucasian exterior, -tend to turn compassion to mere condolences which in time fade out to -indifference. Perhaps any of us suddenly come down as a nation, like a -proud sky-scraper unexpectedly collapsing into a chaotic heap of débris, -would find ourselves bewildered out of ordinary human intelligence; but -it is hard to avoid the impression that these individual weaknesses were -there before the debacle, and that they are incurable, at least in the -existing generation. A few such enterprises as printing, binding, and -leather tanning have been started in the former monastery, but it was -noticeable that almost all the actual work was being done by Chinese. -Sturdy, even though possibly hungry, young men loafed about their cells -and cellars complaining that they could not hire some one to rebuild -their simple brick bathing-vat and cooking-stove. Chinese officials, -especially of the petty grade, have not been over-kind to the groups of -refugees that have fallen into their hands; but they rank at least on a -par with the Russian archbishop of Peking, who considers the northeast -corner of the city his personal property and demands the abject -servility of the Middle Ages toward his exalted person from those of his -fellow-countrymen whom he graciously admits to floor-space there in the -shadow of his own spacious episcopal residence. - -These ostentatious forms of Christianity seem much more in keeping with -the Chinese temperament than the austere Protestantism of innumerable -sects, which has dotted Peking, as it has all China, with its schools, -churches, hospitals, and missions pure and simple. It is not at all hard -to find resemblances between the services of the Russians and those in -the lama temple a little west of them, in any joss-burning Chinese place -of worship, or for that matter between these and high mass at Pei-t’ang -to the northwest of the Forbidden City. The Catholics, too, go back for -centuries in the life of Peking, to Verbiest and his fellow-Jesuits who -served the Sons of Heaven in secular, as well as their subjects in -religious, ways. - -In the Boxer days Pei-t’ang was scarcely second to the British legation -as a place of refuge against the bloodthirsty besiegers; on Easter -Sunday, at least, it rivals even in mere picturesqueness any temple in -the capital. Red silk interspersed with Maltese crosses in imperial -yellow wrapped the pillars; artificial flowers—where real ones are so -cheap and so plentiful—added to the Oriental garishness of the interior; -the mingled scent of incense and crowded Chinese made the scene -impressive not merely to the sight. Mats on the floor held more -worshipers than did the benches. The women sat on one side, the flaring -white head-dresses of the nuns forming a broad front border to the sea -of smooth, oily Chinese coiffures. Near the center hundreds of “orphan” -boys in khaki made a great yellow patch. In front, at the foot of the -choir-stalls backed by the gorgeous altar, the assemblage was gay with -French and Belgian officers in full bemedaled uniform, with a scattering -of European women—there are other Catholic churches in Peking that are -not so far away for most foreigners—their prie-dieus conspicuous in rich -silk covers. Even the raised place at one side, theoretically reserved -for Caucasians, was crowded with Chinese, hardly a dozen more of whom -could have been driven into the church with knouts or bayonets. Yellow -faces, high above any casual glance, peered from behind the pipes of the -big organ. Chinese acolytes in red wandered to and fro, swinging -censers; the music, while not unendurable, was screechy enough to prove -the unseen choir of the same race, boys echoing men, with the organ -filling in the interstices. Children ran wild among the rather orderless -throng; some of the congregation stood throughout the service; large -numbers of Chinese men kept their caps on. But a thousand Chinese -fervently crossing themselves at the requisite signals from the altar, -where two Chinese priests in colorful robes worthy at least a bishop -functioned on either side of the white-haired European in archiepiscopal -regalia, had about it something no less striking than anything Buddhism -has to offer. On week-days old Chinese women, just such bent, shrouded -figures as may be seen in any cathedral of Europe, come from the maze of -_hutungs_ about Pei-t’ang to bow their heads in silent prayer in its -perpetual twilight, with gaudy saints and images of here and there a -somewhat Chinese cast of countenance looking down upon them. - - -Preparations for the Chinese New Year began on the twenty-third of the -twelfth moon with the burning of the kitchen god still to be found in -nearly every home. Some of our neighbors, especially those whom lack of -a courtyard drove out into the _hutung_ for this ceremony, did it half -furtively, as if they were pretending, at least when foreigners looked -on, that this was only an ordinary wad of waste-paper. But we knew that -before he was torn down incense had been burned before the flimsy, -smoke-dulled god, with a little straw or _kaoliang_ for the horse that -is shown waiting for him, and even our neighbors admitted that they -stuck a bit of something sweet on his lips before sending him to heaven, -by the fire route, to report on the actions of the family during the -year. A little opium serves this purpose still better, or best of all is -to dip the whole half-penny lithograph in native wine just before the -burning, that the god may be too drowsy or too drunk to tell the truth -when he reaches headquarters. - -[Illustration: - - Mei Lan-fang, most famous of Chinese actors, who, like his father and - grandfather before him, plays only female parts -] - -[Illustration: - - In the vast compound of the Altar of Heaven -] - -[Illustration: - - Over the wall from our house, boats plied on the moat separating us - from the Chinese City -] - -[Illustration: - - Just outside the Tartar Wall of Peking the night-soil of the city, - brought in wheelbarrows, is dried for use as fertilizer -] - -It is a seven-day journey to the Chinese heaven and back, so that people -have a little respite from the irksome surveillance of the god of the -kitchen. During that week there was a furor of house-cleaning, as the -Chinese misunderstand the term; the well-to-do renewed their paper -windows; those who could afford it went so far as to have the wooden -parts freshly painted. Especially on the last day of the year much -shaving, washing, and bathing went on; the baths outside the southern -gates of the Tartar City were crowded as they never are at ordinary -times, when a two-to-ten copper bath once a month is considered ample. -All that last day, too, the _chop-a-chop_ of food, especially of meat -dumplings, being prepared for the many guests of the following days, -when such work would be taboo, sounded from every house that was not a -poor man’s home indeed. Faded old scraps of paper came down everywhere -and bright new ones went up, particularly those long upright red slips -opposite each door, bearing the four familiar characters for _K’ai men -chien hsi_—“Open door see happiness.” Some of these were put up by the -householders themselves, some by poor neighbors who hoped for a slight -remembrance from the inmates. One saw them all over China for months -afterward. The most miserable little hovels far outside the walls put up -new paper gods that made brilliant splashes on doors and mud façades. -Perhaps the saddest thing about the Chinese New Year is that all debts -are expected to be paid before it breaks, which was particularly hard on -what is still recognized abroad as the Chinese Government, months in -arrears with every one except its Tuchuns and high employees of special -influence. Two men at least I saw next day wandering about with a -lantern, a pretense that it is still night and dunning still -permissible. - -New Year’s day is everybody’s birthday in China; so there is a double -reason for new clothes appearing everywhere. Even beggars and -rag-pickers seemed to have them, or at least well washed and mended -ones, and the populace presented such a sight of approximate cleanliness -as it will not until another year rolls by and compels it to change -again. A new kitchen god, gaudy on its thin paper, is put up during the -first hours of the new year, with a little shrine, and firecrackers and -incense welcome him. Firecrackers, indeed, were the most conspicuous -part of the celebration. They boomed all night, close under our back -walls and all over the city; even “Ha-li” was restless with the -incessant uproar. This was partly in honor of the kitchen gods, but -largely to frighten off the evil spirits lurking about to contaminate -the new year at the start. Among the Chinese there was no attempt to -sleep that night; even our _ama_ asked permission to go home, and said -that she would sit up all night, eating meat dumplings from about two in -the morning until daybreak—yet she is a woman of unusual common sense -for China, with the utmost scorn for those who still bind their feet. - -For the first five days of the new year women are supposed not to leave -home or to enter that of another, though in Peking many disobey at least -the first half of this ancient rule. The men, on the other hand, go out -early and often, not only on the first but on the succeeding days, to -call upon all their friends, particularly on the mother-in-law who -reigns over each household, to give greetings, and incidentally to fill -themselves beyond nature’s intention with meat dumplings. Our teacher -was still weary from this ordeal when he again reported for duty. -Rachel, however, was strictly enjoined by the _ama_ not to call on a -neighbor at whose house she had attended a wedding during the winter; it -would be even worse form than not to have a mother-in-law present to -receive those who called upon us. As in France, New Year’s is the time -for giving presents; no sooner had we distributed a dozen silver dollars -in red envelopes among the servants than they despatched the _ama_ to -get us presents,—food dainties for us adults, toys for “Ha-li.” Of all -the celebration, however, perhaps the detail that looked strangest was -to see the shops closed, long row after row of them blank-faced with -board shutters where we had never seen them before. Drums and -firecrackers sounded inside—some say that gambling goes on apace—whether -to scare off devils or merely for the joy of making a noise; probably -both motives existed, depending on the individual temperament. -Foreigners sometimes accuse the Chinese of laziness because they take as -much as a week’s rest at New Year’s, as if this were anything compared -with our fifty-two and more holidays a year. Besides, even the shops are -in few cases really closed; trust any Chinese merchant not to miss a -possible stroke of business. There is almost always a peep-hole, if you -know where to look for it, and one man inside who will make a special -exception in favor of any one who finds it. Merchants can send their -goods to the fairs, anyway; these spring up everywhere, especially in -temple grounds, in and outside the city, where every one comes to burn -joss-sticks by the bundle, until many a huge urn before the gods runs -over with ashes. These are the gayest of markets, with peep-shows, -acrobats, coolies, posing for the day as sword-swallowers, -story-tellers, and musicians, with amateur and professional theatrical -performances indoors and out, with every conceivable gambling device, -men, women, and children crowded around them, with all manner of -playthings for sale,—singing “diavolo” tops reaching almost the size of -drums, pink bottles of _chianti_-shape which reward the blower with a -peculiar noise, clusters of toy windmills on one handle that spin in -chorus as the holder rides homeward in his rickshaw or his Peking cart, -kites of every description, some fully man-size, of bird, beetle, -airplane shape. There are no age-limits among the Chinese in the use of -New Year’s toys; even solemn old men fly kites all over the city at this -season, among the swirls of pigeons following their whistle-bearing -leader about the cloudless heavens. - -All this went on for a week or more, though with diminishing ardor; for -some soon tire of so long a holiday, and many would starve if they -celebrated it all, so that gradually men went back to work, though not a -few stuck it out. We hardly noticed a lack of rickshaws even on the -first day, and the calls of street-hawkers never completely died out. If -our servants went out more than usual we missed none of their usual -services, and certainly the cook must have found the markets open. The -real New Year’s duty of every Chinese, of course, is to go home, though -it be across ten provinces, to put paper “cash,” such as flutter along -the route of every funeral, on the graves of his ancestors, and to -prepare them special food, preferably duck or chicken, of which they can -eat only the “flavor,” leaving three guesses as to what becomes of the -rest. Many do go home, but in modern days it is surprising how many find -this imperative journey quite impossible. At length the celebration -petered out, though crowded carts of people in their best garments could -be seen plodding toward the temples outside our East Wall up to the -last, and Peking settled down to its industrious seven days a week -again. - -With the republic, China officially adopted the Western calendar, as -Japan did long ago; but the masses cling to the old one, with its animal -names for the twelve years that are constantly recurring. Like -Christianity, the new calendar is considered something foreign, which is -quite enough, even leaving the tenacity of old custom aside, to condemn -it among many Chinese; and even in official circles the lunar New Year -is celebrated more thoroughly than the other. The result is that no -government employee has to come to office on the foreign New Year, and -no one does on the old one, when even cabinet members go to their -ancestral homes or on a spree to Tientsin or Shanghai. Nor is the cult -of cyclical animals by any means dead among the Chinese. Almost over our -head on the East Wall stand the famous astronomical instruments, some of -them made by Verbiest himself, which the Germans carried off in 1900 and -very recently returned in accordance with a clause in the Treaty of -Versailles; and just beyond them is an old temple, the occupants of -which include among their duties the annual task of compiling the -popular almanac. One may see original or reprinted copies of this -everywhere in China, for it is indispensable to the fortuneteller, the -geomancer, and all their innumerable ilk, if not to the mass of the -people themselves. Here are set forth the lucky and unlucky days for -marriages or funerals, for washing the hair, for beginning a new -building, for every act of importance in the Chinese daily life. Without -it how could match-makers know whether or not the birth-years of -possible brides and grooms conflict? Obviously if one was born in the -year of the rabbit and the other in that of the dog, or in the years of -the tiger and the sheep respectively, the result of an alliance would be -a sorry household. - -This year the almanac concocted by our priestly neighbors has a pig as -“running title” from cover to cover, as well as the frequent recurrence -of this motif throughout its pages. For this is the Year of the Pig, -which began on our own February 16, and for twelve moons—this year there -does not happen to be an intercalary thirteenth—the millions of -Mohammedan Chinese must express themselves on that subject by using some -such subterfuge as “Black Sheep.” Moreover, it is the end of a cycle of -Cathay, the pig being the last of the twelve cyclical animals which pass -five times to make such a cycle. This, it seems, presages the worst year -of the whole sixty, and the soothsayers enlivened this New Year’s with -the most pessimistic predictions. According to the street-side -necromancers, who make their livelihood, such as it is, by telling the -fortunes of individuals or of nations, much calamity is due China before -this Year of the Pig is done. Millions, perhaps, will die of war, -pestilence, or famine, or a combination of these—one fellow went so far -as to assure his listeners that three fourths of the population of -Peking will be wiped out. Great disasters are promised all over the -country, particularly in the province of Shensi, which must suffer -especially for the privilege of being the birthplace of the next -emperor, whom the necromancers assert is already approaching man’s -estate there. It is hopeless, therefore, runs the gossip, to expect a -settlement of China’s crying difficulties during the twelvemonth of the -Pig—some of us wonder if the foreign legations have been imbued with the -same spirit. That is the evil of superstitions particularly in a land -where the majority is still influenced by them; the mere fact that large -numbers of people believe all this market-stall nonsense causes at least -a psychological depression, and probably increases the likelihood of the -beliefs being realized. - -However, these popular oracles go on, after this year conditions will -rapidly improve, and it is almost certain that with the new cycle will -come a return to order and prosperity. Every friend of China sincerely -hopes so, for she certainly needs just that very badly, whether she -deserves it or not. No doubt the next cycle of sixty years will bring -something of the sort, even though it is difficult to think of China’s -calamities abruptly ceasing with this inauspicious porcine year. - -There are good as well as unkind things to be said of the Chinese lunar -calendar. It is easy, for instance, to tell the time of their month -merely by glancing at the sky on any unclouded evening, and no one need -ask what day the moon will be full. By the old system of reckoning the -Chinese have a whole list of dates fixing changes of weather, and if one -year’s experience is a fair test these are more accurate than the -prophecies of our highest salaried weather men. Some weeks after the -lunar New Year comes the “Stirring of the Insects”; the “Corn Rain” is -set for one of the first days of the third moon—that is, late in our -April; there are the fixed days of “Sprouting Seeds,” the “Small Heat” -and the “Great Heat,” the “Hoar Frost,” the “Cold Dew,” the “Slight -Snow” and the “Great Snow”—though the last rarely reaches Peking—and so -on around the eternal cycle again. But “Pure Brightness,” otherwise -known as Arbor day now, on which the president himself came to plant -trees almost next door to us, has come and gone; _pengs_ are springing -up everywhere, shading the courtyards, forming whole new roofs and -fronts over the better shops, and implying that it is time we were -moving on, for the “Great Heat” is no misnomer in Peking. - - - - - CHAPTER XIII - A JOURNEY TO JEHOL - - -The Great Wall at its greatest, thirty-odd miles northwest of Peking, -with the Ming Tombs thrown in, is well worth the journey, both by train -and foot and by airplane—the one in two days and the other in as many -hours. There is a Trappist monastery within reach of the capital, and -the Western Hills are full of interest to the tramper; in fact merely to -name the excursions which the visitor to Peking should not on any -reasonable account miss would be to draw up a long list. But there is -one of these that had a particular attraction, because it is farther -away, over a difficult road devoid of any of the aids of modern times, -so ill of repute that certainly not one foreigner in a thousand who -comes to Peking ever dreams of really attempting that journey. To cap -the climax the Wai-chiao-pu gave official notice just as I was preparing -to start that no more permissions to visit that area would be given to -foreigners, because it was overrun with bandits. Obviously the antidote -of too much comfort and civilization in Peking was the trip to Jehol. - -Those who are wise make the outward journey by way of Tung Ling, the -Eastern Tombs, thereby doubling the reward. This means that the first -stage is to Tungchow, by train or almost any known form of -transportation, twelve miles east of the capital, of which it was for -centuries the “port.” For it lies on the river that joins the Grand -Canal at Tientsin, and the tribute grain from the south was transferred -here to narrower canals that brought it to the imperial granaries now -falling into ruin almost within a stone’s throw of our Peking home. I -might have been disappointed to find the donkeys that had been engaged -for me unavailable until next morning if it had not been my good fortune -to spend the intervening time with the venerable author of “Chinese -Characteristics” and “Village Life in China.” Tungchow itself has -nothing unusual to show the visitor of to-day, unless it is that rounded -corner of its half-ruined wall. This is a sign of infamy, for it means -that some one within was once guilty of the, particularly in China, -unpardonable crime of patricide. The city which merits four such corners -was by imperial law razed to the ground. - -Long before dawn, early as that is on the first day of May, the three -donkeys reported for duty. They were smaller and leaner than I had -hoped, of course, but their owner and driver, deeply pock-marked and -already showing the cataract that will in time blind his remaining eye, -turned out to be all that a much more exacting traveler could have -asked, and a real companion to boot. I wish I could say as much for the -“boy” I brought with me from Peking; truth must prevail, however, at all -costs. My journey to Jehol was made at a later date than those longer -ones subsequently to be chronicled; I had already been eight months in -China, entertaining a teacher an hour a day during nearly half that -period, and it seemed high time to depend on my own meager knowledge of -Mandarin, to make this a kind of test for similar, but more extensive, -experiences to come. I had deliberately refused those applicants with a -smattering of English, therefore, and hired this single servant for his -alleged familiarity with foreign ways, particularly of the kitchen. He -might have known even less of what we understand by the word -“cleanliness,” for the depths of ignorance in that respect are -bottomless in China, and his familiarity was rather of the sort which -too indulgent missionaries produce among Chinese of his class. Were the -trip to be repeated I would depend upon _k’an-lü-di_, my companionable -“watch-donkey-er” from Tungchow, to do the swearing and bring me boiled -water at the inns, and do the rest myself. But at least the “boy” spoke -only the tongue of Peking, and from Tungchow back to the capital I had -the advantage of hearing not a word of any other except from the two -British families in Jehol itself. - -We were crossing the river by chaotic poled ferry by the time the sun -was fully up, and jogging away across a floor-flat, fertile plain, -intensely cultivated yet almost desert brown, like so much of northern -China except at the height of summer, before the first of the many towns -along the way was fully astir. It was manure strewing time, and the -season when the peasants of Chihli patiently break up the too dry clods -of earth covering their little fields by beating them with the back of a -Homeric hoe or dragging a stone roller over them by boy-, man-, or -donkey-power. Others were hoeing the winter wheat, growing in rows two -feet apart, but with _kaoliang_ already sprouting like beans or radishes -between them, which it was hard to realize would be above a horseman’s -head by August. Green onions enough to have fed a modern army went -balancing by from the shoulder-poles of coolies passing in both -directions. It is as incomprehensible to the mere Westerner why -identical produce must change places all over China as it was to -understand why onions grown at least to boy’s estate would not be better -in a perpetually hungry land than these tiny bulbless ones. But the -scent of young onions was seldom absent during our first two days, on -which we ran the gauntlet every few hours of a market-town green from -end to end with them. Next in number were the coolies carrying two low -flat baskets with open-work covers through which could be seen hundreds -of fluffy, peeping chicks being peddled about the country. The rare -trees were decked out in new leaves; far as the eye could strain itself -the brown, sea-flat earth was being prodded to do its best for -countless, already sun-browned tillers. - -At the unprepossessing country town where we spent the night my “boy” -came in with a horrified look on his face to report that the innkeeper -wanted sixty coppers, which is fully fifteen cents in real money, for -the two good-sized rooms, new and well papered, extraordinarily clean -for China, which the three of us occupied. A chicken, too, cost a -hundred coppers, whereas in Peking it was only seventy! I gave outward -evidence of horror at this incredible state of affairs, lest the -opposite bring the impression that the customary “squeeze” might be -doubled with impunity, and then advised payment rather than a dispute on -this, our first day out. Perhaps it was the painful price of chickens -that made the town willing to consume some of the things it does, though -I believe the same omnivorous tendency prevails throughout this -overpeopled country. The squeamish, by the way, should skip the next few -lines; but one cannot always be nice and still tell the truth about -China. - -A camel bound to Peking with a train of his fellows had died just in -front of our inn. The townsman to whom the carcass had evidently been -sold made a deep cut in the throat and then with his several helpers -proceeded to dismember it. When I stepped out into the street again soon -after dark everything except the head, the tail, and the four great -padded feet, cut off at the knees, had been sold as food to the -villagers. The hide and these odds and ends were evidently to yield -their portion of nourishment also, for they were carried into a -neighboring kitchen, while two other men went on disentangling the -heaped-up intestines, carefully preserving their contents as fertilizer -and to all appearances planning to use the entrails themselves as food. - -There was double excitement in the town that evening, triple, counting -the foreigner, a date to be long remembered. Down the road a little way -from the disgusting front of the inn there was a theatrical performance, -not of flesh-and-blood actors, but what might be called a shadow-show. -Stage “music” in the Chinese sense was drawing the whole town, less the -camel carvers, thither; women hurried slowly through the dust on their -crippled feet; the younger generation, with the usual Chinese redundancy -of boys, swarmed; staid old men took their own chairs—that is, wooden -saw-horses six inches wide—with them. The theater, which had been thrown -up that afternoon in a corner of the highway, was little more than a -crude platform on poles, partly walled and roofed with pieces of cloth. -But it was a complete stage, almost better than a real one, in fact, for -there was about it a certain hazy atmosphere of romance that is -impossible in the matter-of-fact presence of mere human actors. There -were even actual fights on horseback, which the real stage can only -pretend by symbols to give; thrones, city gates, battles, petitioners, -men shaking their spears and themselves with rage at one another, all -the scenes with which the theater-goer in Peking is familiar, and more, -were there. Nor was speech lacking; these shadowy personages expressed -themselves in the same classical falsetto as do Mei Lan-fang and his -colleagues. - -When I had mingled for a time with the audience that crowded a whole -section of the moon-flooded roadway, interspersed with the inevitable -hawkers of everything consumable under the circumstances, I went around -behind the scenes to see how these results were achieved with such -slight apparatus. You can always look behind the scenes in China without -arousing a protest, though you may not be any the wiser for doing so. A -flock of boys were hanging about on the pole structure, wholly open at -the back, the three showmen appearing to be quite unconscious of them so -long as they did not physically cramp their elbows. These men produced -their results with a black curtain, three kerosene lamps a foot or more -back of it, and a confusion of little colored figures hanging on either -side in what might be called the wings. Wearing as bored an expression -as any property-man on a real Chinese stage, the showmen picked these -figures down as they were needed and flourished them along between the -lights and the curtain. To each figure was attached a handle long enough -to keep the hand of the holder out of sight from the audience, and as -the gaudy, flimsy little manikins dashed and pranced and waddled to and -fro, according to their individual temperaments and their momentary -emotions, the bored manipulators poured forth the story in the awful -voice of the Chinese actor. That was all; yet the whole town stood or -sat enthralled by the performance, and I could hear the falsetto far -away in the moonlight until I fell asleep. - - -Beyond Manchow next afternoon cultivation thinned out and bare mountains -grew up on the horizon, while round stones of all sizes became incessant -underfoot. Walking had really been easier than bestriding my little -white donkey, but I had soon found it sympathy wasted to try to make -life easier for him. Your Chinese donkeyteer does not believe in letting -his animals grow fat with ease, and never did I look around a moment -after slipping off the padded back of my hip-high mount that his owner -was not already swinging his toes along one or the other side of him. -The other two donkeys, bearing our belongings and my “boy” respectively, -had, of course, even less respite. Incredible little beasts! Subsisting -on a little of nothing and still able to jog incessantly and -indefinitely on under loads of almost their own weight, they are the -true helpmeets of the industrious, ill fed Chinese countryman. - -The usual time from Tungchow to Malanyü is three days, but we had gotten -an excellent start each morning and a bit of pressure induced the -_k’an-lü-di_ to push on past what most travelers to the Eastern Tombs -make their second stopping-place. A gate in the mountains that might -almost have been cut by hand rather than by the river that even in this -dry season filled all of it except a stony bank, crowded now with cattle -and flocks of goats making their way westward, let us out at sunset upon -an enormous plain completely enclosed in an amphitheater of high hills. -Across this, through the evergreen trees that thickened farther on into -an immense forest, we saw far ahead the first tomb of Tung Ling, a -golden-yellow roof standing well above the highest tree-tops. For nearly -two hours we plodded on among venerable pines that in China at least -were thick enough to merit the name of forest, amid scents that are all -too rare in that denuded land, foot-travelers to and from the various -tomb-guarding villages growing numerous and then thinning out again -before we sighted at last the dim lights and aroused the barking dogs of -Malanyü. The yard of its best inn was noisy with eating animals, -tinkling mule-bells, and the drivers, dogs, and roosters that always -make night hideous in such a place, while the best room facing it would -hardly be mistaken in any Western land for a human habitation. But that -is what the traveler in China expects in almost any town off the -railroads where there are no foreigners to offer him hospitality. At -least, if accommodations are not princely, neither are the charges. - -While the donkeys drowsed through a well earned but unexpected holiday, -I spent half the morning, with the “boy” trailing me, chasing the man -who could open the tomb doors for me. Even with two tissue-paper -documents daubed with red characters from men of standing in Peking -local permission was not easily forthcoming. First there was a hot and -dusty ten-_li_ walk to the little garrison town of Malanchen on the very -edge of intramural China, where the commander commonly reputed to be -stationed in Malanyü read and retained my letters, offered tea, and at -length sent a soldier back to the city with us with orders to run to -earth the chief keeper of the tombs. He was not easily found and he in -turn had to run to earth several subordinates, each of whom lived far up -labyrinthian alleyways in the utmost corners of town, and when at length -we shook off the throng that kicks up the dust at the heels of any -foreigner so bold as to step off the beaten path of his fellows in -China, there was still an hour’s tramp back through the thin evergreen -forest to the tombs themselves. - -Though it should be funereal, Tung Ling is one of the most delightful -spots in North China, almost atoning for the wastefulness of its two -hundred square miles given over to nine tombs. The soughing of the -breeze and the singing of the few birds in the scattered but extensive -evergreen forest were joys that one almost forgets in this bare land; -for China there were comparatively few people within the enclosure, -though trail-roads wandered away in all directions among the trees, with -donkey-bells tinkling off into the distance; it was particularly a joy -to leave even the trails and walk on grass again, strolling at random on -and on, to climb the hills, though this is technically forbidden, since -the living commonalty should not look down upon the illustrious dead. -Whatever they may not have done for their subjects the Sons of Heaven -were experts in choosing their last resting-places. - -There was no roaming at will, however, until I had shaken off the -procession of keepers and hangers-on whose duty, curiosity, or suspicion -did not begin to flag until well on in the afternoon. It is a serious -matter to protect an emperor and his consorts even centuries after their -death. Every one of the nine tombs of Tung Ling has a walled town in -which its guardians and their families, all Manchus, of course, live to -the number certainly of several hundred each, if not of more than a -thousand. Their support devolves upon the Chinese people, through the -Government which guarantees, even though it does not fulfil its -promises, the upkeep of the tombs, as well as of the survivors, of the -Ch’ing dynasty. Before each tomb, which is no mere mausoleum in the -Occidental sense but an enclosure many acres in extent, quite aside from -the great wooded tract surrounding it, where half a dozen great -buildings and a flock of small ones have ample elbow-room, stands a -keepers’ lodge. From this, blackened with the smoke of generations of -cooking and tea-brewing, emerge as many as a dozen idlers whose sole -duty in life is to see that no unauthorized disturbance troubles the -royal dead within. No one of these guards is intrusted with power enough -to open the tomb alone; there are things inside that would bring -pilferers several Chinese fortunes. When the authorized visitor—or, one -very strongly suspects, any other capable of clinking silver—appears, -shouts arise in the lodge and its vicinity until at length men enough -are awakened from their perpetual siestas to make entrance possible. -This requires from four to six, sometimes more, bunches of mammoth keys, -each of which is in the personal keeping of a single individual or, -since man must sleep, a pair of them. When at length the whole unshaven -group is assembled, a pair of ordinary coolies is also needed to bring a -step-ladder, since the tomb doors are trebly secured with enormous -padlocks at top and bottom in addition to the great bolts operated -through the ordinary keyholes. The keys of Chinese tombs, by the way, do -not turn; they merely push open the crude yet complicated locks. There -are often several such doors to be passed, so that the time required to -gain admission is much more than the average visitor cares to spend -inside. - -Fortunately there is really nothing to be gained by having oneself let -into more than two of the nine tombs of Tung Ling. The others are so -much like these that a passing glimpse is enough. After all, it is the -great wooded amphitheater itself, backed by the magnificent sky-line of -mountains, and the exterior vista of the tombs, towering in imperial -yellow high above not only the towns of their guardians but the -enclosing forest itself, that is worth coming so far to see. Besides, by -the time one has distributed fees among all the hangers-on of two tombs, -and satisfied the flock of attendants who have insisted on coming all -the way from town with him, there is another good reason for being -content with the exteriors of the others. - -The oldest and the newest are most worth admission, the beginning and -the end of the Manchu dynasty as far as Lung Ling is concerned. K’ang -Hsi, second of the Ch’ing line, has a fitting mausoleum, its approach -flanked by mammoth stone figures not unlike those of the Mings, and the -softening hand of time has added much, for it is just two centuries -since the occupant went in quest of his ancestors. But the most -magnificent of the Eastern Tombs, perhaps the finest one in all -tomb-ridden China, is more than the world at large would have awarded -the notorious old lady who lives within, for she is none other than Tsu -Hsi or Tai Ho, known to the West as _the_ Empress Dowager, moving spirit -of the Boxer uprising and the greatest single cause of the downfall of -the Manchu dynasty. Within the spirit chamber of K’ang Hsi there are -five chairs draped in imperial yellow silk, for his four concubines -stick by him even in death; but it is quite what one would expect to -find the famous Dowager alone in all her glory. For while she had a -husband once, who is also buried at Tung Ling, he was of small -importance by the time she relieved China of her earthly presence, three -years before the downfall of the Manchus, whatever he may have been as -Emperor half a century before. Even starting as a mere concubine, Tsu -Hsi needed no husband to make herself an empress in fact if not in name. -An identical tomb, which the caretakers asserted is that of her sister, -stands close beside that of Tai Ho, with a low wall between them; but in -her magnificent throne-room there is no suggestion of rivalry. Of the -richness of this interior, its walls and ceilings decorated in many -colors with innumerable figures large and tiny of the most intricate -form, great bronze dragons climbing the huge pillars; of a thousand -details, artistic withal, which mean nothing to us of the West but much -to the Chinese, words would give but little impression. - -I had a note of introduction to the head-man of the Manchu village that -watches over the Dowager’s tomb. Within its brick wall the populous -hamlet was much like any other Chinese town of like size, rather overrun -with pigs and children, crumbling away here and there with poverty or -inattention, careless in sanitary matters. Few heads of many times -greater cities of the Occident, however, could have received a chance -visitor with the perfect grace, the prodigal-son cordiality quite devoid -of any hint of dissimulation, of the Manchu with whom I was soon sitting -at a little foot-high _k’ang_ table laden with Chinese dainties, sipping -tea and struggling to express in my scanty mandarin a few thoughts above -the eating and sleeping level. As luck would have it the family, which -with its ramifications seemed to number at least a hundred, with -children for every month as far back as months go, was celebrating the -birthday of the mother-in-law. In China only those who have reached a -respectful old age commemorate their individual birthdays—and they -receive many toys among their presents. Over the outer entrance to the -rambling collection of houses hung two immense flags, not the dragon -banner of the Manchus but the five-bar one of the Chinese Republic. Back -in the innermost courtyard the old lady, of a charming yet authoritative -manner which attested to long years of efficient rule over the -household, was surrounded by all the female members of the family, -decked out in their holiday best. The finest silks covered them from -neck to ankles—trousers, like bound feet, are for Chinese women—the -elaborate Manchu head-dress was made more so by immense and tiny flowers -added to it in honor of the occasion, and the faces of the young women -were painted with white and red, as formal occasions demand, until they -looked like enameled masks. Several of these were evidently the wives of -my polished host, and when I asked permission to photograph one of them -alone for the details of the gala costume there was no hesitation as to -which one it should be: though she was probably the youngest of them -all, and for that reason almost obsequious toward the others, she had -born her master a son, who must also be included in the picture. Women -and men were constantly coming to bend the knee or kowtow to the lady of -the occasion, according to their rank. The men with few exceptions wore -the complete Manchu court costume, including the inverted-bowl straw hat -covered with loose red cords, with various individual decorations. When -I at last succeeded in taking my leave without causing a sense of -discourtesy, my host insisted that my “boy” carry away for me, in honor -of the felicitous occasion, a big box of _dien-hsin_, assorted Chinese -cakes that lasted all three of us the rest of the outward journey. - -There seems to be no ill feeling between the two peoples populating Tung -Ling and the vicinity, if indeed they themselves recognize any real -dividing-line. In large numbers congregated together one could see a -difference between the Manchus and the Chinese; the keepers of the -Eastern Tombs were slightly larger, stronger-looking men, a trifle less -abject in their manner, than the people about them, a kind of half-way -type between the Chinese and the Mongols. The older and poorer of them -still wore their cues; the rest had sacrificed to the republic a badge -of nationality the origin of which is lost in the prehistoric mists, as -the subjected Chinese adopted it three centuries ago at the behest of -their Manchu conquerors. - -Early next morning we left the inn laboring under the impression that we -were returning to Peking, skirted the garrison town by unfrequented -paths, and were soon outside the Great Wall, one of the passes of which -Malanchen straddles and guards. I had warned my companions not to -mention the final goal of our journey, lest the newly promulgated order -be cited as an excuse for turning me back, which would also mean the -abrupt ending of their jobs. Apparently they succeeded in performing the -un-Chinese feat of keeping their mouths shut, for no one came to -interfere with my plans. The wall at Malanchen was grass-grown, smaller, -and in greater disrepair than at Nankow Pass, where most foreigners see -it, even less imposing than where it descends to the sea at Shanhaikwan. -Geographically we had passed from China proper into Inner Mongolia, and -as if to mark the change the soft level going turned almost instantly to -stony uplands that became foot-hills, swelling into veritable mountains -so suddenly that all six of us were panting for breath on all but -perpendicular slopes scarcely an hour after setting out across the plain -now far below. For centuries these mountain ranges behind Tung Ling were -an imperial reserve, densely forested and inviolate, meant to preserve -the _feng-shui_ of the Eastern Tombs, to protect them from evil -influences, which in China always come from the north. The republic, -however, opened this great uninhabited region to settlers, with the -result that here there may still be seen sights utterly unknown in the -rest of China, pioneering conditions completely out of place in that -densely populated, intensively cultivated land, and at the same time a -demonstration of what must have happened many centuries ago on an -infinitely larger scale to make North China the dust-blown, denuded area -it is to-day. - -Settlers poured in from the overpopulated country to the south as air -rushes to fill a vacuum. An efficient Government would have seen that -the windfall was exploited to the best advantage; in the absence of one -it was ruthlessly looted. Precious as are trees and wood in China these -great forests hardly a hundred miles from Peking were wiped out as -wantonly as those of southern Brazil, as those of virgin Cuba lying in -the path of advancing cane-fields. Half-burned trunks littered the -hillsides; acres of fire-blackened stumps, wood that might have been -turned into lumber enough to supply several provinces felled and left to -rot or burn where it lay, men grubbing at slopes that had never before -known the hoe were things that could not be reconciled with China. -Alpine valleys filled with pink blossoms, of which cued coolies wore a -cluster behind each ear, untainted mountain streams purling down across -the trail, provided here and there with solid timber bridges instead of -mats and branches sagging under their covering of loose earth, seemed as -out of place in this part of the world as did the pungent scent of -burning woodland that carried me back to a rural childhood. It was the -most delightful day’s tramp in North China, and hardly once did I think -of evicting my one-eyed companion from the white donkey. - -But it was China after all, with many of its national characteristics. -Streams of friendly, cheerful coolies climbed the defiles with their -earthly possessions, consisting of a grub-ax and a few rags, ready for -any task offered them, or in lieu of it prepared to gather a bundle of -brush and carry it to a market many miles away; they realized that -already this new land is so thickly peopled that it has no real openings -for them. To see a line of men and boys, elbow to elbow, scratching one -of these stony, thin-soiled, more than half-perpendicular hillsides, -made the crowding of population a more living problem than a shelf of -books could. There were a few pioneer shacks of split rails, but with -unlimited logs and mighty boulders everywhere this imported generation -of mountaineers built their huts mainly of mud, at best of unshaped -stones and sticks. Burnt-log stockades surrounded many of these new -homes, for you cannot break the Chinese of their habit of building walls -merely by transplanting them to where walls are entirely unneeded. The -Chinese birthright of the most laborious forms of labor still prevailed. -Plows were home-made affairs drawn by a boy, a woman, or a donkey, and -were so crude and small that the man who held them was bent double as he -shuffled along. Thousands of roughly squared timbers nearly twice the -size of a railroad-tie lay blackening and rotting along the trail, and -every little while we met a man with two of these roped to his back -picking his way down slopes rougher and steeper than any stairway -disrupted by an earthquake. Goiter was more prevalent and reached more -loathsome proportions in all this region than I have ever seen it -elsewhere. New territory, new homes, new opportunities, all was as new -as a new world, except the people, as soil- and custom-incrusted as if -they had lived here a thousand years. The thought persisted that these -beautiful mountains should have been left clothed in their magnificent -forests instead of being enslaved to what can scarcely be called -agriculture. At most they offer steep little strips of very stony -patches, and the population these support is hardly worth the trees it -has displaced. Human beings grubbing out an existence which hardly seems -worth the effort may be seen anywhere in China; such primeval forests as -have so recklessly been reduced to charred rubbish and clumps of trees -only on the most inaccessible peaks and ridges behind Tung Ling are rare -and precious there. - -[Illustration: - - For three thousand miles the Great Wall clambers over the mountains - between China and Mongolia -] - -[Illustration: - - One of the mammoth stone figures flanking the road to the Ming Tombs - of North China, each of a single piece of granite -] - -[Illustration: - - Another glimpse of the Great Wall -] - -[Illustration: - - The twin pagodas of Taiyüan, capital of Shansi Province -] - -Toward the end of the afternoon a kind of cart-road grew up underfoot -and carried us over the steepest and last ridge of the day to Hsin Lung -Shan. “New Dragon Mountain” is a brand-new pioneer city in the heart of -the former reserve, Chinese in its main features, but so fresh and even -clean that one might easily have doubted its nationality. The inn itself -had not found time to convert its yard into a slough or a dust-bin or -its rooms into crumbling, musty mud dens. Imposing shops lined the -principal streets; the chief official, with whom I exchanged calls of -respect, was a man of culture as well as authority—and he seemed to have -had no special orders concerning foreigners. - - -Great masses of white clouds drifted through the streets when we set out -next morning along the stony river that gives Hsin Lung Shan its -setting, and were responsible for a curious illusion. The sun had -evidently just topped the mountain ridge close above the town, and the -single irregular row of trees that had survived at the crest showed one -after the other through a little rift in the moving fog that covered -everything else, so that it looked exactly as if the sun itself were -having a procession of trees across its surface. A fairly broad valley -of palpably fertile virgin soil lasted all the morning and somewhat -reconciled one to the destruction of the forests. Here it was less -stony, or better picked up, and supported rather a numerous population -in reasonable style. The mist continued to play queer pranks until it -had been burned away by what remained a blazing, despotic sun. Field -boundaries of stone, also of single logs laid end to end, warned the -road against trespassing. There were stone-heaps in great number, but no -graves to interfere with the husbandman. Four prisoners tied together -with ropes and flanked by two policemen in the usual black uniform -plodded past toward the new city, implying that this virgin region is -after all no sinless Eden. Twice that morning we met strings of camels -stepping softly westward, though how they crossed the ranges that shut -in the valley on all sides was a mystery which their surly drivers, so -unlike the simple, almost obsequious settlers, except in their avoidance -of soap and water, would not pause to answer. Many a camel-train -stalking with supercilious mien past our Peking home goes on to Jehol, -but they take the direct route worn deep with centuries of traffic. In -this May-time the beasts were ugly with the loss of great wads of hair -which made them much worse than moth-eaten, and the drivers had tied -networks of string about their necks to keep them from dropping, or -being pilfered of, this most valuable of their fur. - -The valley narrowed at last and pushed us up over another high range, -the third stiff climb of the trip, from the top of which labyrinthian -views blue with haze but brilliant with sunshine spread to infinity in -both directions. But the land had evidently been reclaimed earlier here, -so that there were fewer and fewer pioneering conditions, which on the -third day died out entirely. A miserable mountain inn offered me its -principal room that evening, though it took up more than half the -building reserved for travelers, a flock of evicted coolies picking up -their soiled packs and crowding together somewhere else without the hint -of a protest. I do not know how much they paid for lodging, but it could -not have been any fortune, since the landlord was so eager to replace a -dozen of them, with prospects of more to come, by a lone foreigner whose -bill hardly amounted to twelve American cents. Woven cornstalk fences -increased as the smell of newly cleared land diminished. Twenty-four -hours of valley brought us to another steep _ling_, from the top of -which rows of blue ranges faded away on the distant horizon behind. The -population had been longer established here and was made up of born -mountaineers, simple yet self-sufficient, like mountaineers the world -over. Goiter was almost universal, and nearly every one was deeply -pitted with smallpox, so that there was rarely a good-looking face of -either sex. Round granaries made of wickerwork, of the height of a tall -man, lined with mud plaster and thatched with straw, sat in every yard. -All memories of the royal forest had disappeared by the third afternoon, -and the familiar old China, stony, bare, blowing with dust or reeking -with mud, again surrounded us, though ranges of jagged peaks kept us -fairly close company. - -Rain began to fall, putting terror into the heart of my “boy,” convinced -like most Chinese, at least of the north, that he was merely a pillar of -salt—or is it sugar? But the donkey-man was made of sterner stuff. A -positive word was always enough to make him push on, and it was quite -immaterial whether the “boy” followed or flung himself over a precipice. -This time, however, the shower became a deluge that showed no signs of -abating. All the region had fled for shelter. One wrinkled coolie had -monopolized a little wayside shrine, in which he sat in the cramped -posture of the Buddha, literally in the lap of the gods, serenely -smoking his pipe until they chose to let him go on again. By the time we -were soaked through it was evident that we also must take refuge, and -give up the hope of cutting the record from Malanyü to Jehol down to -three days. - -The only stopping-place available was a peasant home that offered -accommodations to passing coolies. It boasted the name of Hsiao Pai Shu, -but then, every spot in China where human beings dwell has a name, and -this one after all meant nothing more than “Little White Tree.” If it -had been called “Unworthy Human Pigsty” there would have been less -reason to quarrel with the man who named it. There was a kind of _k’ang_ -in one of the three mud stables, but to have demanded that would have -been to drive even my own men out and leave nothing but the bare earth -for a score of fellow-refugees to sleep on. I won the whole race of -outside barbarians a new reputation, therefore, by setting my cot on the -ground at the foot of the _k’ang_ and leaving that free for all the -coolies who could crowd upon it. But I paid for my heroism through other -senses than those of smell and hearing, for not the slightest movement -did I make, not a possession did I withdraw from my baggage, that half a -hundred eyes did not delve into the utmost depths of my personal -privacy. No Westerner who has not himself had the experience can -conceive of the ingenuous meddling which a crowd of low-caste Chinese -can inflict upon him; but it is ingenuous after all, and those few naïve -remarks of which I caught the meaning made me deeply regret that I was -incapable of understanding the respectful chatter that constantly called -attention to my innumerable extraordinary idiosyncrasies. - -At Hsi-nan-tze, still sixty _li_ from Jehol, a police soldier was sent -running for more than a mile after me to ask for my card. It was early, -and evidently the town had been slow in waking up to the fact that a -foreigner was passing through. Plainly this was an unusual occurrence, -but there was no suggestion of detaining me, either here or at the -village where we made the usual breakfast-lunch stop from ten to eleven, -in which a similar courteous request was made. A visiting-card, as I -have said before, has a weight in China out of all keeping with the ease -with which any one can have it printed. The fourth hard climb of the -trip, up a trench-like trail slippery as new ice from the rain of the -day before and almost impassable with pack-animals sprawling and sliding -under ungainly burdens, uncovered such a panorama of wrinkled blue -mountain ranges entirely around the horizon as even the perpetual -wanderer seldom sees equaled. Then we descended among bare foot-hills -and plodded the last half-day down a wide sandy and stony river valley, -with one poled ferry and several wadings across the swollen yellow -rivulet which wandered along it. Several earth-and-branch bridges had -been partly carried away and were being repaired in the same -time-honored, inadequate style; that is, the huge baskets filled with -stones that served as almost continuous pillars were having more -branches and _kaoliang_-stalks laid across them and covered with -treacherous loose earth. No other nation has the genius of the Chinese -for doing some things in the worst way. There was a continual -procession, for instance, of carts heavily loaded with grain and drawn -by five to seven mules each, the wickedly exhausted animals staggering -through the deep sand and the deeper rivulet panting as if they were in -the final throes. The Lwan Ho on which the grain is shipped to the coast -washes the edge of Jehol, and the boats could as easily tie up at the -very foot of the warehouses; but the carters’ gild required them to -anchor twenty-five _li_ down the stream! Not even our own labor-unions -could exhibit anything to outrival this sacrificing of the general good -to the selfishness of a group. - - -Jehol is a compact, unwalled town lying prettily up the slope of a -hollow between two foot-hills, brightened by a few spring-green trees -here and there above its low gray roofs and surrounded on all sides by -beautiful broken ranges. The region is famous for curious natural -features, the most striking of which is the “Clothes’ Beater,” a mammoth -rock looking precisely like that aid to the Chinese washerwomen who -squat at the edges of streams or mud-holes, or an Irishman’s shillalah, -standing bolt upright on its smaller, handle end, and visible more than -a day’s travel away in almost any direction. But while the scenery is -magnificent and the town busy and prosperous, the fame of Jehol is due -to the imperial summer palaces and the lama temples that grew up about -them, as did the town itself. This whole territory, originally Mongol, -was given as the dowry of a Mongol wife to a Manchu emperor of China. -K’ang Hsi, who died just two hundred years ago, was the first of the -Ch’ing dynasty to visit the region, of which he grew very fond. He -hunted throughout it, riding also on an ass—the cost of keeping which is -said to have been paid regularly out of the imperial treasury until the -revolution! Yung Cheng, who succeeded him, met here the mother of his -own successor, the famous Ch’ien Lung, who was born at Jehol. Perhaps I -should say the alleged mother, for there has always been a strong -suspicion that the brilliant Ch’ien Lung was really a Chinese boy -switched at birth for a girl born to the empress or concubine in -question. At any rate the bare, half-ruined cottage in which he is -recorded to have been born is still standing in the wooded hills beyond -the imperial summer palace. - -This is enclosed within a great wall on a minor scale which clambers -over the hills as easily as it stalks across broad flatlands, several -miles in extent and still in almost perfect repair. The same can by no -means be said, however, of the former palaces inside it. Time, the -elements, and particularly the wanton hand of man have reduced them to -the saddest state among all the decaying remains of imperial China. The -simpler structures near the gates, no doubt built for minor retainers -and servants, are occupied by the “Tartar General” and his far-famed -“I-Chün” troops, semi-autonomous rulers of this “special area,” and have -been more or less kept up accordingly. But the erstwhile palaces -scattered beyond the immense half-wooded meadows behind these, to which -a soldier guide conducts the few “distinguished visitors” who have -credentials, influence, or assurance enough to pass the gates, are -synonymous with the word “dilapidation.” A single building has remained -comparatively intact, because it is made of solid bronze. Structures -that must in their heyday have equaled except in size anything in Peking -are mere tumbled ruins of rotten timbers, collapsed roofs, and broken -tiles still bearing their glorious Chinese colors. Some of the mammoth -gods with which the place seems once to have been overpopulated have -survived almost intact in more durable shelters, like the remnants of a -fallen dynasty that had their refuges carefully chosen long before the -catastrophe came. Others were less fortunate, or foresighted, and, left -out in the open by fallen roofs, they are gruesome testimonials that the -most brilliant and the most terrifying alike of Chinese gods are but -statues of mud. A striking pagoda still stands high above all else -except the higher hills within the enclosure, but only the foolhardy -climb it now, and the great cluster of temples which seem once to have -risen among the venerable evergreens about it have corrupted almost -beyond the possibility of identification. A carved stone, in the front -rank among Chinese tablets, one whole face of it covered with a Tibetan -text, is the only thing that stands erect and defiant against the forces -of destruction. - -Great numbers of the magnificent old trees that once made the parks a -forest have been recklessly destroyed, but the velvety stretches of -grass survive, and on this graze the descendants of deer brought here -long before America had thought of throwing off European allegiance. No -one was agreed on the number that dot the enclosure, for statistics are -not at home in China; but the average of the guesses was about seven -hundred, of which I certainly saw half in my stroll through the grounds. -There must surely be some powerful superstition as well as mere orders -against their destruction, in a land where even dead camels are consumed -with such apparent relish. There is a shallow lake within the palace -wall, on which some of the sturdier emperors are reputed to have tried -their amateur skill at paddling and poling, but one suspects that they -spent more time on the little island with its artificial rock hillocks -and soughing pine-trees overlooking it. There is a warm spot in this -lake which never freezes over, it is said, whence the name Jehol, which -means “Hot River,” and, thanks to the often inexplicable Romanization of -Chinese which has come down to us from an earlier generation of foreign -residents, is pronounced “Jay-hole” by tourists and uncorrected -bookworms; others do their best to approximate two guttural Chinese -noises which might somewhat better have been spelled “Ruh-Hur.” - - -The dozen or more great temples scattered along the valley across the -river from the palace grounds are still occupied by a few lamas and are -in a somewhat better state of preservation. Ch’ien Lung built most of -them, beginning just beneath his birthplace and stretching on into the -hills, whence delightful views of Jehol and all its region may be had -for the climbing. The emperors who summered out here beyond the Great -Wall were Manchus, kin to the race of Kublai Khan, and the temples are -not Chinese but Mongol, which means a world of difference in spite of -many similarities. Lamas who still claim to be Mongol, and who certainly -are not purely Chinese either in features or manner, dawdle through -their useless lives in them, making out as best they can without the -imperial aid that disappeared with the revolution, including such sums -as they can wheedle or bluff out of the baker’s half-dozen of foreign -visitors a year, including anything, in fact, this side of actual work. -In their halcyon days these temples must have been more than impressive; -they are still that in their decline. In the “Temple of the 508 Buddhas” -that number of life-size wooden images gilded to look like well aged -golden statues stretch away down dark aisle after dim musty passageway -to approximate infinity. There are fat and merry, thin and esthetic, -sour and licentious, imposing and silly Buddhas among these 508 -yellow-robed figures seated with their spirit-tablets and incense-bowls -before them; every vice and virtue, every mental, moral, and physical -characteristic of the human race is depicted here as exactly as the art -and the breadth of experience with mankind of the Oriental artificers -made possible. There is a temple filled with similar figures near -Peking, but it is small compared with that of Jehol. Mammoth gold -dragons gambol up and down the golden roof of another sanctuary; one -entire building is taken up by a gigantic female Buddha riding a -dog-like monster; figures that would terrify a nervous child out of its -wits glare out from many a half-lighted interior; a man whose tastes and -training ran that way could easily find material for a whole fat volume -on Tibetan-Mongol art and lamaism within this stretch of a mile or two -along the Lwan Ho. The tallest of the temples contains a standing Buddha -several stories high, with forty-two hands, each bearing a different -gift—whether for mankind as a whole or merely for the lamas was not -clear. The figure, said to be made of a single tree-trunk, is larger -than that which so often startles tourists at the Lama Temple in Peking, -and it is identical, according to the reasonably intelligent chief -guardian, with those of Urga and Lhasa. The face is of the same maidenly -simplicity as that in the Mongol capital, but the edifice was much less -filled to semi-suffocation with the almost gruesome paraphernalia which -makes the ascent of Ganden like a peep into the barbaric heart of the -Tibetan-Mongol religion. - -The climax, however, of the sights about Jehol, at least to the average -Westerner, is the Potalá, said to be an exact copy, on a smaller scale, -of that great heap of buildings in Lhasa which so few white men have -seen. It stands just over the river from the palace grounds, a striking -feature in a notable landscape. There must be a dozen structures in all, -so close one above another as to seem, until one is among them, joined -together into one mammoth pile covering a whole hillock. In general -color they are pinkish, except where the plaster has fallen off, with -the huge square structure at the top a dull, weather-worn red. This is -in appearance five stories high, with as many large superimposed shrines -and long rows of false windows on the face of it; and, the visitor finds -at last, when a dozen lamas with as many bunches of medieval keys have -escorted him to the summit of the long climb, it is roofless, a mere -wall surrounding the most sacred of the temples. Within, if the seekers -after _cumshaw_ who constantly surrounded and kept their eyes upon me -are truthful, two services a day have been held without a break since -Ch’ien Lung built the Potalá a century and a half ago. Two of the older, -half-dignified lamas claimed to have been in Lhasa, and they asserted -that even in its minor decorations this was an exact replica of the -chief temple of the Dalai Lama, pointing out the spots where he stood or -sat during ceremonies in the original. The holy of holies, which opened -at the gleam of small silver, may indeed be the equal, except in size, -to anything in Lhasa; with its remarkable tapestries, its enamel pagoda, -golden Buddhas of every size, and all the sacred paraphernalia of -lamaism, there is an impressiveness about it that is in keeping with -what the imagination pictures the mysterious Tibetan capital to be. - -Two emperors of China died at Jehol, and the court fled here when the -Allies entered Peking in 1860, as that of the Dowager and her favorite -eunuch did to Sian-fu in 1900. Hsien Feng, half-forgotten husband of -that notorious old virago of Boxer days, was the second _Hoang-ti_ to -die here, just as our Civil War was beginning, and no emperor has ever -come to Jehol since the son who succeeded him at four years of age fled -a place of such sad memories and evil spirits. Thus the once favorite -summer home of the Manchu emperors, tossed aside like a plaything of a -petulant child with too many toys, has fallen into the decay in which -the rare visitor of to-day finds it. - - -If there is one thing more than another that arouses my ire it is to be -mistaken for a person of importance; yet that is exactly what happened -to me in Jehol. Perhaps any foreigner so far off the foreign trail, -particularly after he and his kind had been specifically warned to keep -away, would have been considered somebody, but to make matters worse I -had been officially requested, just as I was leaving Peking, to allow -myself to be called a special investigator of the antiopium league. I -should not be expected, it was explained, to do anything more than bear -the title; no one would dare actually to investigate the mountain -recesses beyond Jehol in which every one knows the stuff is grown, let -alone a new-comer who could not tell a poppy-sprout from a radish. But -the League of Nations wanted to be told that a foreigner had been sent -to visit each suspected district, and as no one else seemed to be going -that way my name would fill the dotted line as well as any other. - -[Illustration: - - The three _p’ai-lous_ of Hsi Ling, the Western Tombs -] - -[Illustration: - - In Shansi four men often work at as many windlasses over a single well - to irrigate the fields -] - -[Illustration: - - Prisoners grinding grain in the “model prison” of Taiyüan -] - -That would have been the end of the matter if Peking had not notified -Jehol that the honorable investigator was coming. When I arrived, -therefore, long after my mind had purged itself of any thought of my -putative official capacity, I was startled to find that Jehol insisted -on taking me seriously, even in the face of the scantiness of my -wardrobe and the donkeyness of my escort. A day or two before, the -official Chinese investigator also had come, by the direct route, with a -fat English-speaking secretary and suitable retinue, in _chaotze_ gay -with red pompoms between mules important with jingling bells. He would -remain a month or so, though also taking care not to be caught by the -inhospitable poppy-growing peasants or their military beneficiaries and -protectors up in the hills. We could both make our reports just as well -without risking our lives, without ever coming to China, for that -matter, so far as any real results through the League of Nations is -concerned, so long as one of the nations bulking largest in that league -continues to supply China with opium from her principal colony by a -roundabout, oval-eyed route, though every poppy-plant in the erstwhile -Middle Kingdom were uprooted. - -But there is centuries-old precedent for feasting all “censors” or -special investigators sent out from Peking, and this serious part of the -affair Jehol did not overlook. My distinguished Chinese colleague and I -had already met across the board before blood-red invitations a foot -long confirmed the verbal rumor that we were to be honored with a feast -by the “Tartar General” himself. Delightful little Mi Ta-shuai, with his -chin-tickling mustache-ends and the inherent good nature that bubbles -out even through his formal demeanor, is no more a Tartar than I am a -Turk; he is an exact picture of a Chinese mandarin of the T’ang dynasty, -in somewhat modernized garb. But the ruler of the special extramural -district of Jehol has borne that title for centuries, just as his troops -continue to be considered the native _I-Chün_, though they come chiefly -now from Anhwei and Honan. Three of the four brand-new rickshaws that -had just introduced that innovation into Jehol delivered the three male -foreigners in town at the gate of honor of the former summer palace, -more jolted than seriously hurt after all, and the eight or ten most -distinguished Chinese officials joined us in one of the score of long -low buildings through which the entrance to almost any yamen of -importance stretches on and on, like a half-lighted tunnel. - -The feast—but why go into unnecessary details? A Chinese feast is just -what the name implies, with variations of no importance according to the -latitude and the ability of the feaster’s cooks to give it such hints of -foreign ways as their master may be able to specify. Suffice it to say -that we gathered soon after four in the afternoon and were gone again by -seven, that much more food was carried out again than was consumed by a -company that did not rise needing a bedtime snack, and that I had no -assistance whatever from the other two representatives of the Western -world in replying to the toasts that were incessantly poured into our -slender glasses, though they hailed respectively from Ireland and -Scotland. There were several men worth talking with in the general’s -suite, too, and all in all my official capacity was more endurable than -it might have been suspected as we jolted homeward between unbroken -lines of peering yellow faces eager for a closer glimpse of Jehol’s -distinguished foreign guest. - - -The “Tartar General” insisted on sending two mounted troopers of the -_I-Chün_ with me on the way back to Peking. There was something in the -bandit stories, it seemed, and though they were operating well to the -north, the scent of a possible foreign hostage might give their legs -double speed. No doubt the general knew as well as I that two lone -Chinese soldiers, even of his unusually soldierly _I-Chün_, would be -more likely to add two rifles to the arsenal of any respectable gang of -brigands than to protect me from them, and he certainly knew that such -escorts expect to live on the traveler’s bounty for at least twice as -many days as they accompany him; but it would have been unseemly, of -course, to let a special agent of the League of Nations, nebulous as -that body may be to the mind of a Chinese militarist, depart without -suitable honors. - -The best way back to Peking would have been to float down the Lwan Ho, -with its striking cliffs and gorges, to the railway, well north of -Tientsin. But low waters made this trip uncertain, and boatmen were too -busy with grain to give a lone traveler much attention. I turned -regretfully back, therefore, along the direct main route, worn with -centuries of travel, by the feet of man and his beasts, though never -aided by his hands. The scent of lilacs, white and of the more usual -color, filled the air as we left the city. Inconspicuous on the white -donkey or on foot beside the troopers astride good horses and beneath -their big straw hats, I scarcely caught the eye of travelers drowsing in -the mule-litters that passed so often, to say nothing of attracting -bandits out of the north. We crossed two passes and forded the Lwan Ho -on the first day and on the morning of the second sighted a high cragged -range stretching from infinity to infinity across the horizon ahead, -with little unnatural-looking promontories, like knobs on a casting, -dotting it at frequent intervals. They were the towers of the Great -Wall, it turned out, climbing like a chamois from one lofty peak to -another, but it was blazing noon before we passed through it at the -much-walled town of Kupehkow. Coolies carrying down to Jehol brushwood -and even roots had passed us all the first day; naked children were -everywhere; men, and once or twice, unless my eyes deceived me, women, -stripped to the waist toiled in the dry fields, sometimes waded -knee-deep in the liquid mud of little patches that in another month -would be pale green with rice. Graves grew numerous again inside the -Great Wall; half-ruined _yentai_, “smoke-platforms” from the tops of -which news was sent from the capital in olden days, towered above us at -regular intervals; the peddlers of fluffy chicks and coolies carrying -green onions to market once more appeared; and the caricature of a road -became almost a procession of travelers in both directions. - -It was an atrocious road nearly all the way, plodding along sandy, stony -river-beds except where it clambered laboriously over another mountain -ridge, the sun beating ruthlessly down upon us from its rising to its -setting. Babies with shaved heads apparently impervious to its rays -rooted in the dirt with the black pigs, or stood on sturdy legs suckling -even more soil-incrusted mothers. There ought to be very few weeds in -China; the whole family is incessantly after them, just as every usable -form of filth is promptly gathered. The most common sight in China is of -men and boys, sometimes women and girls, wandering the roads and trails -with a fork or shovel with which to toss the droppings of animals into a -basket over their shoulders, whence it will later be spread on the -fields. Each night we put into an inn-yard, where the best available -room was quickly assigned me; my cot and a foot-high table were set on -the oiled cloth with which I covered the _k’ang_, and after as nearly a -bath as can be had in a basin of hot water there was nothing left to do -but to wait patiently for whatever supper my not too adaptable “boy” -chose to serve me. The escort had reduced itself to one soldier at the -first relief, and at noon on the third day it disappeared entirely. At -length the stony sand changed to the fertile plain of Peking, though the -road was nothing to boast of up to the last, and while rain and two -splittings of my little party at forks of the route all but spoiled my -schedule, the afternoon of the fourth day saw us filing through one of -the eastern gates of the Tartar City. - - - - - CHAPTER XIV - A JAUNT INTO PEACEFUL SHANSI - - -It is a simple matter to visit Hsi Ling, the Western Tomb, where all the -Manchu emperors not at Tung Ling are buried. A short branch of the -Peking-Hankow line sets the traveler down, four leisurely hours from the -capital, within strolling distance of the newest of them, housing the -remains of the hapless Kuang Hsü. This is quite as extensive and -sumptuous as if the imprisoned puppet had been a real ruler, but it is -still glaringly new, the trees that will some day form a forest about it -barely head-high, for it is only fifteen years since this effigy of an -emperor and the powerful Dowager who manipulated him simultaneously made -way for the present occupant of the Forbidden City. No doubt he is glad -to be so far away from the oppressive old lady at last. - -Bare hills lie between the older tombs, their roofs of imperial yellow -hidden in venerable evergreen forests that seem to know nothing of -bustling modern times. Yung Cheng, third Manchu emperor of China, sent -men to choose this spot for him in 1730. When his successor, Ch’ien -Lung, came to die, however, he expressed a preference for the Eastern -Tombs, saying that if he, too, were buried in the west it might become a -habit and the first two emperors of the dynasty would remain in gloomy -solitude. He instructed his successors to alternate between the two -places, and all of them did so except Tao Kuang, who refused to be -separated from his father even in death. Five emperors, three -dowager-empresses, many _fei_, or imperial concubines—whose tombs are -blue rather than yellow, because they never had royal title—and a host -of princesses in clusters within single tombs, lie scattered through the -forests of Hsi Ling. Like all royal burial-places in China the site -backs up against the mountains, here the Hsi Shan, the Western Hills, -which stretch far to the north and south in rugged, clear-cut ranges -close behind the tombs. Delightful paths wander through the evergreen -woods, where here and there ill fed Manchus forage for firewood to keep -the kettles boiling in their dilapidated caretakers’ villages. There are -crowds of loafers guarding each tomb, as at Tung Ling, quick enough to -offer a visitor the ceremonious cup of tea under conditions, invisible -to them, which force him to decline it, but too lazy to open all the -doors even when their unsoaped palms are crossed with silver, to say -nothing of lifting a hand to repair the ravages of time or to cut the -weeds and grass that grow everywhere between the flagstones. After all, -it is better that way; any suggestion of real care would be out of -keeping with the pastoral Chinese setting, and there are sheep and goats -enough to keep the places from becoming impassable jungles. - -One may spend all day roaming from forest-buried tomb to mountain-backed -mausoleum; the most mammoth solid stone monuments on turtle bases I have -ever seen in China stand side by side in the main entrance pavilion—the -exit of most visitors; and the other sides of this square are formed by -three _p’ai-lous_, any of which is almost the equal of the famous single -one at the Ming Tombs. But I prefer Tung Ling to its more accessible -alternative, if only because its caretakers see too few tourists to -acquire the manner of street-urchins. - - -I stopped off at Paoting, long the capital of Chihli Province and -recently the unofficial capital of North China, to see Tsao Kun. But his -secretary brought word that the problems of China had given him a -headache which had sent him to bed—it was at the height of one of the -bandit outrages against foreigners. Those who know this illiterate -sword-shaker and how much he cares about China as distinguished from his -own gains, will appreciate the unconscious humor of the answer. Before -his yamen stood viceregal poles, of cement instead of wood, a hint -perhaps of the fancied permanence of his position. Besides this -manipulator of the puppets of Peking there is nothing especially worth -seeing in Paoting. A few superficial improvements, such as a new garden -for the town to stroll and gamble in, to impress the people with their -lord’s importance and his love for them, are all that distinguish this -from any large old Chinese walled city. - -The chief impression of the broad flatlands of Chihli in May is the -windlassing of water for irrigation out of wells dotting the landscape -everywhere, by a man or two with bare brown torso or by a blindfolded -mule. The railway cuts ruthlessly across graveyards, perhaps because if -it did not it could find no place to run at all; old sunken roads have -been turned into gardens, and new ones are wearing themselves down into -the pulverous soil. The narrow-gage line that strikes westward from -Shihkiachuang into Shansi climbs all morning the bed of a clear little -river harnessed for work in many little straw-built mills on the banks -or astride the channels into which the crowded people have divided it. -There is plenty of stone here. Whole towns are made entirely of it; -little fields that can produce at most a peck of wheat are held up by -stone walls at least as extensive as they. Crows and other destructive -birds are as numerous and ravenous as the human population, who paint -scarecrows crudely on the stone walls of the terraces, and hang up straw -ones that look ludicrously like Taoist priests. Perhaps these are more -effective over such evil spirits than laymen scarecrows. In the -mountains well-sweeps instead of windlasses aid the irrigators. Seen on -a level these terraced hills looked horribly dry and arid, a dreary -yellow and brown. But that is the face of the terraces; from above, the -fields are countless patches of spring green, so that the effect from -the constantly rising train was like those street-signs that change face -completely when they are seen at a new angle. - -No longer ago than the time of the Mings, history says, the mountains -between Chihli and Shansi were so covered with trees that “birds could -not fly through them.” To-day there is not a sprig of wood left, and the -patient peasants till every terraced peak to the very top. Faintly the -passenger can make out to the north, through occasional openings in the -ranges close at hand, one of the five sacred mountains of China, the -Wu-t’ai-shan. The whole cluster is shaped like a maple-leaf and -resembles the Diamond Mountains of Korea, if not in scenic splendors at -least in the temples and monasteries scattered among them. For many -centuries that region has been a Buddhist sanctuary, both of the -black-robed Chinese monks and the yellow-robed lamas, even the latter -more often natives of Chihli or Shansi than Mongols or Tibetans. -Emperors used to come to Wu-t’ai-shan, and the Dalai Lama himself was -once there. - - -Beyond the summit of the line, one of the famous passes of China, the -narrow but efficient train snaked its way downward through many tunnels, -past busy villages and towns of stone, between long irregular rows of -cave-dwellings dug in the porous hills, with many a striking view up -terraced gorges which unwooded centuries have given fantastic -formations. On the whole it was a dreary landscape, but the train was -good. These side-lines are better than the principal railroads of China -because they are still under foreign management. Frenchmen and Belgians -operate this one to the Shansi capital, not merely by giving orders from -a central office but by riding the trains to see that these orders are -obeyed. No dead-heads escaped the sharp eyes of the European inspectors -who examined tickets at frequent intervals; the Chinese employees took -care not to honor the rules in the breach instead of in the observance. -One third-class coach had a compartment marked “Dames seules.” On the -main lines this would have been filled with anything but members of the -sex for which it was reserved; here the man who dared sit down in it was -speedily invited to move on. - -A Chinese train, on the trunk-lines subject to the Ministry of -Communications, is China _in petto_,—crowded confusion in the third -class that makes up nearly all of it, the second only fairly filled, the -first almost empty, except for the pass-holders, influential loafers, -and important nonentities who congregate there. Petty anarchy reigns, -and “squeeze” rears its slimy head everywhere. The passenger is taxed -for the loading of his checked baggage, and then virtually required to -tip the porters who load it. It is common knowledge that station-masters -consider their salaries their least important source of income. -Particularly are the trains, like the country, overrun with useless -soldiers. They pack the better coaches until the legitimate traveler -often can barely find standing-room; they stretch out everywhere, like a -Chinese type of hobo, on the floors of the passageways as well as of the -compartments; they fill the so-called dining-car to impassability, lying -among their noisome bundles on the tables, the seats, the floors, even -about the kitchen stove, like sewage that has seeped in through every -opening. In theory they have their generals’ permission to travel, and -pay half-fare; in practice the soldier who has a ticket at all, let -alone one of the class in which he is traveling, is the exception. They -not only ride on their uniforms but rent these out to hucksters and -coolies who wish to make a journey. Whole flocks of railway officials in -pompous garb come through the trains, but exert themselves only against -the uninfluential. Soldiers without tickets are sometimes gently -instructed to go back into third class, but no one has the moral courage -to insist that they do so, and they ride on hour after hour, sometimes -day after day. Police with a brass wheel on their arms are in constant -evidence, yet control at the stations is almost unknown. Those getting -on, and swarms of coolies hoping for a job of carrying baggage, sweep -like a tidal wave into the trains before those getting off can escape; -the battle for places is a screaming riot. In winter a car never gets -comfortably warm before the overdressed Chinese throw open the windows. -The cheap joker who mutilated the standardized sign to read, “Passengers -are requested to report to the Traffic Manager any cases of cleanliness -that come to their notice,” replaced an impossible task by a very easy -one. The train that is on time is something to write home about, though -now and then one sticks surprisingly close to schedule. - -At Peking and the principal terminals the traveler often finds every -compartment “Reserved.” Officially this cannot in most cases be done, -but any one who knows the ropes can “fix it up,” merely for a tip to the -fixer. Door after door down the corridor bears such signs as “Chi -Wan-tao and Party,” or “Reserved, Member of Parliament,” and even -foreign women may be left to stand in the passageway. Later, if the -traveler is sharp eyed enough to see one of these doors unlocked, he -will find one or two fat Chinese stretched out in the two seats which -placards announce “shall be occupied by eight persons,” and unless he is -by nature aggressive this condition may continue during the whole -twenty-four-hour journey. At the end of the overcrowded train there is -very likely to be a private car surrounded by a respectful throng of -soldiers and railway police, which one learns upon inquiry is occupied, -to give a single example, by a “minister” to some provincial city, who -is “more higher than a station-master.” A sample of the Chinese way of -doing things is the announcement in a time-table in French that has -appeared in the foreign-language newspapers daily for years that certain -“expresses” on one of the most important lines carry first-class, -sleeping-, and dining-cars, whereas the best accommodations the -unsuspecting traveler who takes this statement seriously can discover is -two or three second-class compartments with two bare wooden benches and -not a suggestion of heat. The only salvation of the civilized traveler -is the daily and biweekly expresses respectively on the two lines -between Peking and central China, on which, thanks to foreign pressure, -neither passes, uniforms, nor influence can take the place of tickets. -Even on these, rumor has it, the militarist overlords have of late found -ways to accommodate their henchmen without producing actual money. - -It is a relief, therefore, to get off on one of these side-lines which -the Chinese do not yet pretend to have taken over, and which are still -run like railroads. Shansi has her soldiers, too, but they do not spend -their time riding in and out of the province. The simple expedient of -requiring every coolie baggage-carrier to pay six coppers for a -platform-ticket before he can pass the gates makes an astonishing -improvement in the life of the traveler on this sprightly Taiyüanfu -line; at the frontier two of the governor’s “model police” board the -train in spotless khaki and with soldierly bearing escort it on into the -capital. - -[Illustration: - - A few of the 508 Buddhas in one of the lama temples of Jehol -] - -[Illustration: - - The youngest, but most important—since she has borne him a son—of the - wives of a Manchu chief of one of the tomb-tending towns of Tung - Ling -] - -[Illustration: - - Interior of the notorious Empress Dowager’s tomb at Tung Ling, with - her cloth-covered chair of state and colors to dazzle the stoutest - eye -] - -[Illustration: - - The Potalá of Jehol, said to be a copy, even in details, of that of - Lhasa; the windows are false and the great building at the top is - merely a roofless one enclosing the chief temple -] - - -Long before the end of the journey the traveler is reminded that Shansi -is one of the world’s greatest deposits of coal, perhaps of iron. From -the train could be seen coal-mines, mere surface diggings, but producing -splendid anthracite in big chunks large as a strong man could lift. One -of these broken in two made a donkey-load, two gave a mule his quota, -and long trains of these animals picked their ways down the treeless -defiles. Here and there a string of coolies, each with a lump of coal on -his back, trailed over the steeper hills. A European who made a diligent -investigation of the question reported that the province of Shansi alone -has coal enough to supply the world for a thousand years. Thus far it -has scarcely begun to be exploited, in the real sense of the word, like -so many of the great natural resources, other than agricultural, of -China. For one thing, some of the old superstitions that made delving in -the earth so unpopular still prevail. Evil spirits guarding these hidden -treasures will wreak vengeance on the men who dare to disturb them—and, -what is worse, on the entire community. Dragons are still known to spit -death-dealing fire upon those who dig too deeply for coal; in other -words, there have been cases of fire-damp explosions. According to -popular Chinese fancy, dragons, snakes, and tortoises produce pearls, -and many of the miners themselves still think that coal will grow again -in an empty shaft within thirty years, and iron and gold in longer -periods. - -We came out in mid-afternoon upon the broad plain of Shansi, “West of -the Mountains,” two or three thousand feet above sea-level and thickly -dotted everywhere with toiling peasants. Here the windlassing of water -for irrigation again seemed to be the chief occupation, and this time -there were often four men at as many handles over a single well-drum. -Yütze swarmed with travelers, for there nearly all the traffic for the -south of the province leaves the train, or enters it to return to the -capital, toward which the railroad turns as much north as westward. Less -than an hour later the twin pagodas of Taiyüanfu rose close at hand on -the ridged landscape, and we were set down well outside the walls of the -Shansi capital. - -The police stopped every traveler at the city gate to ask his name, his -errand, and other pertinent questions. But there was a courteous -atmosphere about the interrogatory which made it seem the precaution of -a careful ruler rather than the espionage of a tyrant. Inside, the -streets were on the whole in better condition, modern improvements in -general more numerous, than in most provincial capitals. Yet somehow -this was not yet the model city much hearing about it had caused the -imagination to picture. The pace of life, too, was noticeably slow, -surprisingly so for the capital of one of China’s most important -provinces, almost the cradle of the Chinese race and for centuries the -home of its great bankers. What was perhaps most exasperating of all to -the passing traveler was to find the rickshaw-men the poorest in China, -so slow and so untrained for their tasks that it was almost faster and -certainly more comfortable to walk. Possibly the altitude of nearly -three thousand feet was the explanation, though not the excuse, of their -snail-like habits, and their awkwardness could be largely due to the -fact that many of them are peasants from the surrounding villages who -make rickshaw-pulling a slack-time avocation instead of a profession. -But the impression survived that they were merely outstanding examples -of the provincial leisureliness of life back here behind the mountains. -Residents did not seem to realize that their rickshaw-runners resemble -lame turtles, any more than they were aware of the incessant unnecessary -racket they create. Custom or some local ordinance has fitted the right -shaft of all Taiyüan rickshaws with a kind of automobile horn, and not -merely do the runners blow these beyond all reason when in action but -amuse themselves like the adult children they are by constant honking -while waiting or wandering for fares, so that night and day are an -unbroken charivari. - -Taiyüan—its name means “great plain,” and the “fu” so often tacked on to -the names of second-grade Chinese cities is as out-of-date now as the -word “yamen,” though both survive in popular speech—and the province it -governs still retain some of the traits and customs of olden times, long -ago abandoned, if not forgotten, in other provinces. Though there is a -good modern police force, night-watchmen of the old régime go their -rounds every two hours beating a gong to warn thieves of their coming. -Surely the origin of this aged custom, whatever tradition may allege, is -rooted in the inherent timidity, not to call it cowardice, of the -Chinese. Pushed beyond a certain point they can die more easily than -Westerners; but the fear of a mere slap, the sight of a stick that would -not frighten a normal American boy, is terrifying to the great mass of -them. Naturally the night-watchman would rather warn the thieves to move -on, or to lay aside their activities until he has passed, than to come -to blows with them. A thousand Chinese staring fixedly with their little -monkey-like eyes were likely to surround the foreigner who does, or has -about him, anything suggestive of the unusual, though foreign residents -are neither rare nor new. No one has ever succeeded in sounding the -depths of Chinese curiosity. When I called inopportunely on the -fellow-countryman who was destined to become my host in Taiyüan, he left -a class of Y. M. C. A. students of university age, long used to -foreigners and their ways, in charge of one of their number while he -stepped out to have a word with me; and seven of the fifteen young men -left the class and followed him down-stairs to see what he was doing. - -The foreign atmosphere of Taiyüan is almost entirely British. Such -American missionaries as work in this province are not stationed in the -capital, and England assigned the indemnity exacted for the killing of a -large group of her nationals here in Boxer days to education in the -province, as we did for the whole country. For ten years Shansi youths -were distributed among English universities and technical schools, and -now that the preparatory school in which they were groomed for the -journey has reverted to the Chinese and become the University of -Taiyüan, there are many returned students among the faculty and in -important official positions, some of them with English wives. The good -and the trivial points of British university life came back with them. -They seem to have lost, for instance, the Chinese virtue of early -rising. Taiyüan labors under the handicap of three kinds of -time,—“railway,” “gun,” and “university” time. The last is considerably -slower than either the station clock or the governor’s noon-gun, and -rumor has it that it gradually became so because the curriculum included -a number of eight-o’clock classes which certain of the most influential -faculty members could never quite reach. - - -Yen Hsi-shan, both military and civil governor of Shansi, is known in -China as the “model governor.” The mere fact that he has held his -position ever since the revolution, while the rest of the country has -been like a seething mass, a boiling kettle, of officials of all grades, -in which the scum has all too often come to the top, is enough to have -given him that title. But he has done more than that to warrant it. -Under his rule a number of motor roads have radiated from the capital, -and now carry a considerable motor-bus traffic. It is true that these -roads are largely due to American famine relief funds under missionary -management, and that the principal highway runs about two hundred _li_ -northward exactly to the governor’s native village. But they are -unusually well kept roads for China, with guards enough to keep the -sharp-wheeled carts off them, and a species of _peon caminero_ at -regular distances whose permanent task it is to keep them in repair. -Besides, a branch of that north road goes on, as a kind of afterthought, -to a gate of the inner Great Wall, which crosses northern Shansi. -Governor Yen has done much toward the establishment of village schools, -with the accent wisely on primary and general instead of higher and -class education; he has made a certain amount of schooling compulsory -for both sexes, though even he would scarcely assert that such an -innovation is already effective throughout the province, for after all -Shansi is still China. He has actually and visibly taken the beggars off -the streets of Taiyüan; and has established a school of trades for them. -He has improved outdoor recreation facilities for the people, and has -had erected in conspicuous places about town, and in the province, long -boards bearing the thousand characters which he thinks every one should -learn to read and, if possible, to write. Bandits have been unknown in -Shansi for years; the opium which it used to grow more widely than any -other province has almost if not completely disappeared. Both these -curses of China have been chased over the provincial boundaries. Taiyüan -boasts a beginning of an opium-consumers’ refuge, with free keep and -treatment for the indigent. Just beyond it, to be sure, there is what -the Japanese call a _yoshiwara_, an officially protected restricted -district two by four blocks large, with five hundred women; but every -one of the identical courtyards within is in a condition to suggest -unusually good sanitary conditions, and a high wall surrounds the entire -district, so that no one can be in doubt as to what he is entering. The -governor, by the way, was a student in Japan for four years, and both he -and his policies bear various reminders of that fact. - -[Illustration: - - Behind Tung Ling the great forest reserve which once “protected” the - tombs from the evil spirits that always come from the north was - recently opened to settlers, and frontier conditions long since - forgotten in the rest of China prevail -] - -[Illustration: - - Much of the plowing in the newly opened tract is done in this - primitive fashion -] - -[Illustration: - - The face of the mammoth Buddha of Jehol, forty-three feet high and - with forty-two hands. It fills a four-story building, and is the - largest in China proper, being identical, according to the lamas, - with those of Urga and Lhasa -] - -[Illustration: - - A Chinese inn, with its heated _k’ang_, may not be the last word in - comfort, but it is many degrees in advance of the earth floors of - Indian huts along the Andes -] - -The governor received me one Sunday morning, with his civil secretary, -the British-educated dean of the engineering department of the -university, as interpreter. It seemed almost strange to walk so -peacefully into his yamen through the same now rather tumble-down -entrance at which more than twoscore foreigners were massacred by -Boxer-influenced mobs in 1900. The governor prides himself on being a -plain man and does not believe in surrounding himself with magnificence -or formality. With the single exception of the “Christian General,” Feng -Yü-hsiang, he has retained, at least in his audiences with foreigners, -fewer of the useless, time-squandering forms of old-fashioned Chinese -etiquette than any of the high officials I have met in China. Yet the -essential Chinese courtesies were still there; there was no suggestion -of a general surrender to Western bruskness. A solid-looking man, in -physical as well as the other sense, with a somewhat genial face -sunburned with evidence of his personal attention to his outdoor -activities, met us with no appreciable delay in a semi-private part of -the yamen that was tasteful in the Chinese sense, yet which made no -efforts at magnificence in the hope of increasing the impression of the -occupant’s importance. Rather a man of plain common sense and -perseverance than of brilliancy, a brief acquaintance with the governor -suggested; and Heaven knows China needs this type just now much more -than the other. His garments were of cotton, not silk, and the -simplicity of life this symbolizes has its effect upon his subordinates, -at least in his presence. Officials having an audience with him usually -also put on cotton clothing for the occasion, lest the governor say, as -he has more than once: “Ah, I see you are making lots of money out of -your post. Now, there is a famine down in the southwest corner of the -province, and ...” He talked freely, yet certainly not boastfully, of -his various policies, plain, common-sense policies, like the man -himself, but which do not suggest themselves to the Chinese as readily -as one might expect. Later I had opportunity to compare actual results -with verbal intentions. - -His laws against opium and bound feet would be better enforced, Yen -Hsi-shan’s friendly critics agree, if the officials under him were -really in favor of such reforms. One man alone cannot cure a whole -province, larger than most of our States, of the bad habits of -generations. At first the governor was very assiduous on these points. -Traffickers in, as well as growers of, the drug were fined and -imprisoned, and life made as miserable as possible for those who -persisted in consuming it. Inspectors examined the feet of women and -assessed a fine of five dollars a year against those who had not unbound -them, or who bound those of their daughters. Not a severe penalty from -the Western point of view; but this is much money to the average Chinese -countryman, and bound feet are most persistent in the rural districts. -But the governor’s _lee high_ (severity) is dying out, the people say, -and little girls with bound feet may be seen near and even in Taiyüan. -The stoutest reformer would be likely to lose heart before the unrivaled -passive resistance of the Chinese against even their own best welfare; -it needs unbroken generations of radicals to get permanent results. At -least the pigtail has virtually disappeared from Shansi! - -The “model governor” comes fairly near being a practical man in the -Occidental sense. The forty automobiles in the government garages -include huge streetcar-like buses that make good use of his new roads, -and trucks that are run mainly by steam. Gasolene is expensive in -Shansi, and coal is cheap. Much of the city is taken up by what -resembles immense barracks, and the public is chased many blocks -roundabout by the long mud walls enclosing them. But if this gives the -appearance of a ruler who considers the capital his private property, it -makes possible a great normal school for all the province, where -handcrafts are given proper attention, up-to-date soldiers’ workshops, -in which everything needed by the army is made, a model prison, and -other spacious institutions on quite modern lines. Besides, there was -evidently ample room inside the city. The old wall of Taiyüan is in a -ruinous state, and any one can climb it, almost anywhere inside and with -no great difficulty from without, as if the governor realized that such -picturesque defenses are useless against modern attacks, and feels able -to cope in the open with the bandits against which city walls still -offer a certain amount of protection in many parts of China. There are -lakes and broad sheep pastures, and many acres of cultivated fields, -within the walls, and only one suburb of any size outside them, without -a single smoking chimney except those of the big extramural arsenal -standing forth against the distant low hills that half surround Taiyüan. -In fact, one whole corner of the city is used as a rifle-range, with the -ruined wall as a back-stop, and the soldiers still find plenty of room -to throw their dummy hand-grenades and practise their modified -goose-step. All this hardly means a prosperous city, were it not for the -practical activities of a good governor. His soldiers, by the way, get -six “Mex” dollars a month, which is the rate throughout most of China, -and his “snappy” model police nine; but unlike so many of his colleagues -Governor Yen actually pays his troops, which is one of the great secrets -of his success. Unpaid soldiers not only do not drive brigands over the -frontier, but they are prone to sell them ammunition and even to join -them. - -It was evident that the governor’s progressive administration includes -one particular pet scheme, which he is working out as rapidly as -possible, quite ready to admit that it takes time to make changes in -China. He is gradually introducing a village military system, a kind of -National Guard on a provincial scale. Instead of having military -parasites from other provinces come to exploit the people or turn -bandits among them, he is organizing militia companies for local -protection. The chief advantages he expects are that it will thus be -easier to maintain peace and repel outside invaders, as village soldiers -will naturally do their best to protect their own homes; it should -eliminate the danger of becoming an offensive force against neighboring -provinces, since these soldiers are not riffraff and loafers recruited -wherever they can be had but ordinary citizens with proper occupations, -who will not care to sacrifice their peaceful living for the sake of a -few ambitious militarists; and it does not take them away from their -fields or their usual tasks, except for brief periods of training each -year. It is not exactly an original plan, at least to the world at -large, but self-evident things are not always so to the Chinese, and -Governor Yen may be on the track of the very thing to wipe out rapacious -militarism and its twin sister, banditry. - -The mass of the people of Shansi are convinced that the governor loves -them like a father, which is a very essential thing in China even for a -virtual dictator, if he wishes to hold out. Yet Yen is a rich man, one -of the richest men in China, some say, and he was not born that way. -Only the uninformed masses think that he sacrifices everything to their -welfare. Any land with China’s pressure of population, family system, -and centuries-old, almost universal political corruption from top to -bottom would need at least a demigod of which to make a ruler who -actually thought of nothing but the public good. Yen Hsi-shan, it is -said almost openly, has kept his position so long largely by preserving -a strict neutrality even in the payment of “squeeze” toward those high -up who might have taken his job away from him. It is almost publicly -known that he gave one million two hundred thousand dollars each to -Chang Tso-lin and Tsao Kun in the “Anfu” days as “military assistance.” -But at least he has made the province he has ruled for twelve unbroken -years a better place to live in; his worst enemies do not hesitate to -admit that. Perhaps he is, as many Chinese who use their minds assert, a -great governor only as a small hill is a mountain on a flat plain; the -fact remains that he has some ideas and the will to carry them out, -ideas which, if introduced into the other provinces would put the people -of China in a much better position to solve some of those pressing -problems that seem to be driving them to national destruction. With a -score of Governors Yen the dismantled old Celestial Empire might still -be no paradise, but the anxious visitor can sweep the country almost in -vain for a glimpse of any other force that promises prompt and effectual -resistance to the misfortunes that threaten to overwhelm her entirely. - -All up and down the province the happy results of good rule are -apparent. Village girls, like the boys who come to the various -barrack-institutions in the capital, are taught what they are really -likely to need in the life that in all probability lies before them, not -the often useless stuff of an ideal but imaginary life, to which even -American mission schools are somewhat prone. There are still such -adversities as famine in Shansi Province, and numbers of its men migrate -northward to Mongolia and Manchuria in search of the livelihood their -ancestral homes deny them. But even a civil and military governor -combined cannot make rain fall. More than one Tuchun of other provinces -still thinks he can, and leads his people in processions to the temples -of the god of rain, or helps them to plant that delinquent deity, in a -brand-new coat of paint as a counter-inducement, out in the blazing -sunshine, in the hope that he will think better of the cruel neglect of -his duties. One suspects, however, that Governor Yen’s more up-to-date -methods are likelier in the end to bring real results. But, alas! safety -and modern improvements are not what most beguile the random wanderer -with a strong penchant for the picturesque, and a longer stay in the -“model province” promised little to make up for the exciting things that -might still be in store for me in other parts of the country. - - - - - CHAPTER XV - RAMBLES IN THE PROVINCE OF CONFUCIUS - - -The chief impression of the long all-day journey from Peking to Tzinan -in early spring is of graves. All sizes of them, from mere haycocks to -veritable haystacks, take up almost more of the fields than they leave -to cultivation, so that the deadly flat landscape, drearily dry brown at -this season, looks as if it were broken out with smallpox. In Chihli -Province there had been no real snow all winter; but from about the time -we entered Shantung onward the shrinking remnants of a recent modest -fall of it varied slightly the bare yellowish monotony spread out under -a cloudless sky. - -The old walled city of Teh-chow was the first place of importance over -the boundary, and there was nothing visibly different about that from a -hundred other walled cities of China. At one end of the long graveled -station platform sat an old coffin, and lying on top of it was the stone -that had marked its first grave and was needed now for the new one -somewhere else. The Chinese are coming to be more easily persuaded by -the clink of silver that their ancestors will endure removal, when a -railway or a growing mission station or an industrial plant finds it -imperative to have more room. A policeman quite as up to date as those -of Peking was driving up and down the platform two men who seemed to -have known some prosperity before this misfortune overtook them. Ropes -tied to their outside arms furnished the driver his reins, and about -their necks hung by cords big wooden placards detailing their crimes. -The officer saw to it that they forced their way into every group, so -that there could be no excuse for any one, in or outside the long -crowded train, not to recognize them as rascals, before he drove them -back to wherever they waited until the next train called them forth -again. It was an anachronism, this ancient mode of punishment amid such -modern surroundings; but what would be the effect if our own absconding -bankers and sneak-thieves were similarly paraded from suburbs to -railroad station, pausing for any one who cared to read? It would at -least make their faces more familiar to those who might benefit in -future by such knowledge. But on second thought our press serves us the -same purpose, without physical exertion to criminals or policemen. - -At Teh-chow the ancient and the modern means of transportation between -the Yang Tse and Peking part company. All the way from Tientsin, the -railroad which, about a decade back, brought Shanghai within thirty-six -hours of the capital is within rifle-shot of the Grand Canal that Kublai -Khan merely _re_constructed six hundred and fifty years ago. Before we -realized that maps and modern conditions are not counterparts in the -China of to-day, we had a pleasant dream of houseboating from Peking to -the Yang Tse, when it came time for us to move southward. Intuition -should have sufficed, but we only learned from inquiry that, since the -tribute grain which once came yearly to Peking by hundreds of junks -could now come by other means, if any one still gave Peking tribute, the -Grand Canal has silted up for long distances, to say nothing of the -bandit nests through which it runs in these days of the self-styled -republic. Once the railroad meets and crosses it again, at the southern -boundary of the province; otherwise the two routes are never in -agreement below Teh-chow. - -The capital of Shantung Province announces itself by its smokestacks -about the time the rumbling of the long German-built bridge across the -Yellow River awakens the traveler to the fact that the day’s ordeal is -over. Flour-mills account for most of these spirals of smoke where ten -or fifteen years ago little more than graves grew. Tzinan is an -exception to the general rule of Chinese treaty-ports, in that it was -opened to foreign trade in 1906 by desire from within rather than -pressure from without. The Germans, and after them the Japanese, have -built up a fore-city of broad, almost-paved streets, lined by modern -buildings that here and there approach the imposing, on the space turned -over to the growth of foreign enterprise by the Chinese themselves. -Japanese hospitals and schools, buildings that carry the thoughts back -to the bridge-heads on the Rhine, here and there a contribution by some -other nationality, give quite a manly air to this modern section of -Shang-Pu, with its railway stations. But if one’s mind has that queer -and no doubt reprehensible quirk which makes the picturesque more -interesting than standardized efficiency, the wheelbarrows are strong -competitors for the attention. In Peking and the north these are less -used, and not at all for passengers. In Tzinan they carry a much larger -proportion of the population than do the rickshaws. For while the latter -are numerous also, their capacity is limited, and there seems to be no -exact high-water mark to the number of persons a barrow-man can crowd -upon the two cushions flanking his high wooden wheel, with its guards -doing duty as seat-backs. Especially when the factory workers are going -to or from their mud huts, eight or ten, and even twelve, pairs of -little misshapen feet hang over the sides of these patient vehicles, -still barely bending the sturdy back of the human packhorse in the -shafts. Men ride in them, too, sometimes a pair or a group of coolies -whom it would be impossible to distinguish from the man whom they are, -one must assume, paying to do their walking for them. A wheelbarrow trip -costs but a half or two thirds as much as the same journey by rickshaw; -the mere matter of greater speed or comfort is not, of course, of any -importance to the rank-and-file Chinese; and the invariable ungreased -squeaking of the conveyance, which announces its coming as far off as -could a trolley-bell, may easily be soothing music to a people who enter -Chinese theaters without compulsion. - -The main stream of squeaks ambles its way into the old native city, -doubly surrounded by two rambling walls. There the recent snow had left -what passes for streets ankle-deep in mud, except perhaps for a few -short stretches paved centuries ago with huge slabs of stone so rounded -off now that a rickshaw can scarcely make wheelbarrow speed over them, -and which at best are only somewhat less thickly covered with paste-like -slime. Foreigners who have lived there half a century say they can see -improvements in the native life of old Tzinan, but the new-comer will -have to take most of this on faith, and is not likely to carry off many -impressions essentially different from those he has had or will have -inside the walls of any well populated Chinese city. Merchants in black -lounge in skullcaps in constantly repeated little booth-shops on either -hand, outwardly indifferent to custom as they sip their tea from -handleless cups, smoke their tiny pipes with the often yard-long stems, -play chess, checkers, cards, or dice, all of an Oriental kind. Immediate -attention comes, however, when a possible client pauses in what would be -the doorway if there were a front wall, quadrupled, quintupled if the -pauser is astonishingly a foreigner. Here and there several people stand -before a counter, and two or three times as many behind it. Street -venders paddle through the mud, stridently announcing themselves. -Roofless shops on the corners, and everywhere else that there is a bit -of space to crowd in, sell steaming balls of dough, bowls of watery -chopped-up meat, China’s kind of macaroni, served with worn chop-sticks -and accompanied, perhaps, by a constant refrain designed to draw, rather -than to drive off, more customers. Beggars in costumes which could not -have possibly reached such a state without deliberate aid splash along -beside the stranger’s rickshaw at a speed to prove health and strength, -crying incessantly, “_Ta Lao Yea! Ta Lao Yea!_” “Great Old Excellency!” -in the vain hope that the Chinese compliment of granting old age where -it is still not physically due will bring perhaps even silver from the -outside barbarian who is in reality still disgustingly youthful. -Glimpses at irregular intervals down side streets that are merely poorer -examples of the same thing, with more makeshift booths and fewer large -shops, more strident venders and fewer hopeful beggars. Once or twice -the big weather-beaten gateway to a yamen, with coolies made into -soldiers by the superimposing of a faded uniform padded with cotton -leaning on their rifles and eying the passing throng with the air of bad -boys who are far too seldom spanked. Less shopkeeping and more miserable -dwelling farther out, women and girls standing or hobbling about in the -mud on their little deformed feet, everywhere a plethora of boys, -nowhere a person who could be called clean, almost everything and every -one dirty as a pigsty. Then the street shifts a block before it passes -out the farther gate—for evil spirits would make short shrift of a city -with a straight passage clear through it—and the stranger finds himself -in the outskirts, between the great and the outer wall, with a -picturesque glimpse along the former of women washing clothes in the -tree-lined moat, and ragged boys are pushing his rickshaw from behind -over a bridging hump in the stone and mud-slough road in the hope of -being tossed a copper. - -[Illustration: - - The upper half of the ascent of Tai-shan is by a stone stairway which - ends at the “South Gate of Heaven,” here seen in the upper - right-hand corner -] - -[Illustration: - - One of the countless beggar women who squat in the center of the - stairway to Tai-shan, expecting every pilgrim to drop at least a - “cash” into each basket -] - -[Illustration: - - Wash-day in the moat outside the city wall of Tzinan, capital of - Shantung -] - -[Illustration: - - A traveler by chair nearing the top of Tai-shan, most sacred of the - five holy peaks of China -] - -With the example of decent dwellings and habits in plain sight about -them in as well as outside the walls, this plodding through filthy -streets between dismal mud dens seems to remain wholly satisfactory even -to those visibly able to improve their conditions if they chose. Rows of -modern two-story stone houses of the missionaries stand on two sides of -the city, and with all the efforts of these enigmatical men and women -from across the Pacific to jounce China out of her old ruts, it would -have been curious to find how slight effect such patent examples have on -the daily living of those in constant contact with them, even to the -extent of a little increased effort for cleanliness and convenience—if -one had not already seen China elsewhere. Just around the corner from -the well equipped hospital manned by Americans and English, the Chinese -medicine-shops continue to sell powdered fossils for curing diseased -eyes, dried frog’s liver for kidney troubles, deer horns ground up into -remedies for other ailments, and to send inquirers to native -medicine-men who know the hundred and some spots on the human body where -sickness can be let out by puncturing with a needle. The mission -university with its big campus backed by a splendid landscape and -reached by a hole cut specially for it in the main city wall continues -to look utterly incongruous in its setting of ignorance and filth. The -turnstile of a mission museum filled with graphic illustrations of -China’s errors and the simple cures for them records hundreds of -thousands of visitors from all the surrounding region and beyond during -the pilgrim season alone, yet the callers seem to carry nothing home -with them except the honor of having climbed the sacred mountain and -worshiped at the shrine of the famous sage a little farther southward. -Graphic proofs that deforestation has brought in its train devastating -floods, that it contributes to the aridity of the soil on which even the -snow, for lack of shade, evaporates before it sinks in, that it is -mainly responsible for the locusts which birds might make way with if -there were trees for birds to live in, has barely caused the planting of -a few shrubs here and there on the mountains that roll up at the edge of -the plain on which Tzinan is built—and these will be hacked down and -carried off for fuel at the first good opportunity. The people of -Shantung’s capital seem to regard as their chief civic asset the big -spring that boils up in three mounds of water in the heart of the city -and forms a great lake within the walls, through the reedy channels of -which they are poled on pleasure-barges, set with tables for their -favorite sport of eating, out to island temples where gaudy gods still -gaze down upon worshipers unable to recognize the sardonic smirks on -their color-daubed wooden faces. - - -South of Tzinan there are low mountains or high hills, bare except for -temples and patches of snow that glistened in the moonlight. These -culminate in fame, if not in height, in Tai-shan, most sacred of the -holy peaks of China, two hours below the provincial capital. I had -purposely timed my journey to Shantung so that I could climb Tai-shan -with the pilgrims who flock to it during the fortnight following the -Chinese New Year. Though he might have been extremely nasty at that -season, the weather god evidently approved my plans, for it would be -impossible to picture more perfect conditions for making this far-famed -excursion than that brilliant first day of March according to our -Western calendar. - -Even in Peking those who should have been better informed had led me to -expect strenuous opposition to my refusal of chair-bearers. There was -nothing of the kind, though I seemed to feel an atmosphere of mingled -surprise and prophecy that I should deeply regret it before the day was -done, when I asked merely for a coolie to carry my odds and ends. The -ability of almost any foreigner in China to afford servants for all his -menial tasks gives the great mass of the Chinese the impression that he -has no physical endurance of his own, but only untold riches. The coolie -who set off with me at sunrise was well chosen, for not only was he all -that a coolie and a guide and “boy” combined should be, but he was so -quick-witted and so free from the worst crudities of the Shantung -dialect that we conversed almost freely on almost any subject in spite -of the scantiness of my Mandarin vocabulary. - -The way lay first across a stony plain sloping gently upward, with the -compact mass of rocky mountains so close in the cloudless atmosphere -that one might easily have been deceived about the exertions that lay -ahead, had not common fame more than corrected any such error. Pilgrims -were already converging from both directions upon the partly stone-paved -route leading out of the north gate of Taianfu, surrounded by its -time-blackened walls, and within an hour we were all passing in a single -stream through the first great archway. _I-T’ien-Men_—“First Heaven -Gate”—the Chinese call it, and over it hangs an inscription announcing -in the brevity of Chinese characters that Confucius took this path when -he climbed Tai-shan—enough to make it the accepted one even if there -were other feasible ascents. Stone steps soon begin to hint at the -obstacle race ahead, though this early they are merely in isolated -half-dozens scattered up the gradually more sloping road floored with -big irregular stones worn smooth by uncounted millions of feet. Already -the beggars who decorate the entire ascent were raising their insistent -clamor, and shops and temples and tea-houses and itinerant venders -formed an almost unbroken wall on either side. Higher up there were -increasingly open stretches looking off across the steep tumbled gorge -we were climbing, to the swift rocky mountain-sides that shut us in. -Here and there a cluster of rugged, misshapen pines gave as dainty a -retreat as if we had been in Japan, but the general lack of cleanliness -alone distinctly informed us that we were not. These clumps were rare, -too, even on China’s most sacred mountain, otherwise almost entirely of -stone, with hardly a patch of earth big enough for the planting of a -flower-bed. - -This did not make it infertile for its inhabitants, however; rather the -contrary. My coolie companion, to whom the ascent was an old, old story, -put the number of beggars that lined it at one thousand; but that -certainly was over-modest. Surely there were several times that number -from bottom to top, and just as many from top to bottom. They sat in the -center of the great stairs, so that chair-bearers passed one on either -side of them, and those who were carried up passed directly over their -heads. The top of each little cluster of stairs seemed to be the -exclusive territory of one mendicant, or, in the great majority of -cases, of one whole family of them, and not one did I see poaching even -for an instant on his fellows’ preserves. Just as often as the -half-dozen steps were surmounted a beggar was certain to be found -squatting in the middle of the topmost, his woven-reed scoop lying -invitingly beside him. Where the merely sloping stretches between these -steps were more than ten or twelve feet long other beggars were -regularly spaced along them; and higher up, where the ascent was all -stairs, there was one, or a family group, about every sixth step. - -Sleeker, fatter, more contented-looking beggars I cannot recall having -seen anywhere on earth. Red-cheeked children, boys seeming to -predominate, were the chief stock in trade, though there were a few -adults who were visibly in sad states of health. During the pilgrim -season, I was told, hundreds of peasants leave their little farms in -charge of one member of the family and the rest establish themselves -somewhere along the ascent to Tai-shan, until the spring grows so warm -that their other occupation requires their presence at home again. On -one side or the other of the climb, seldom more than a few feet from -their squatting-place, each group had a makeshift dwelling,—a hut of -rocks and grass-mats, sometimes a natural grotto covered over with -whatever was available, generally only high enough for the adults on all -fours, but carpeted with mountain hay and better than the average homes -along Peking _hutungs_. Mountain water, magnificent air, a far-reaching -view across the plain below, if that means anything to them, made the -dismal mud dwellings of most Chinese, within the reeking gloom of city, -town, or compound walls, nothing to be compared with this life of -perfect leisure in such a vantage-place. - -There might have been one serious drawback to all this,—like the -“horrible example” of the temperance lecturer, the exhibits could not be -kept in proper condition to make the best appeal. The whole mendicant -army on Tai-shan, except the small minority that was really ailing, -looked so well fed and well slept that only an unusually charitable or -exceedingly unobserving Westerner would have yielded to their pleas. He -might have been inclined instead to thump the well padded ribs of the -woman who here and there, at his approach, stripped suddenly naked the -plump youngster she held in her lap, hastily trying to hide its thick -warm _i-shang_ behind her—for there was still a distinct bite in the air -even on this southern slope of the mountain with a brilliant sun beating -down upon it. But the visible prosperity of the mendicants seemed to -matter little, for the Chinese pilgrims who made up the now almost -constant stream of humanity toiling skyward had evidently some -superstition that their pilgrimage would not be effective if they did -not succor all who needed it along the way, and most of them were taking -no chances on passing by a deserving case merely because it looked -better nourished and housed than they did themselves. Those who gave -confined their gifts almost exclusively to brass “cash”; but there were -many scoops an inch or two deep in these cheap coins, occasionally with -a real copper standing conspicuously out among them, though the -recipients sneaked off to their lairs now and then to hide their -gleanings. A whole scoopful of “cash” would not resemble riches to an -American “panhandler”; to Chinese of the lower class, however, the -pickings of most of the mendicants on Tai-shan, if that day was an -average, would seem almost an income of luxury. - - -About nine o’clock the descending peasants and coolies had also grown to -a constant stream, so that rules of the road—or, more exactly by this -time, of the stairway—had to be more or less strictly obeyed if progress -was to be made either up or down. There were no pilgrim costumes, such -as the Japanese climbing Koya-san, for instance, so commonly wear, -though frequent groups of coolies carried triangular flags bearing a few -characters, touches of color that livened somewhat the almost invariable -blue of the every-day garments of the masses. Unfailingly good-natured, -the coolie pilgrims had neither a suggestion of the rowdiness of our -popular excursions nor of the rather belligerent self-complacency of -their island neighbors to the east. Except for two little Japanese -professors from Manchuria, who conversed with me in English and German -respectively and with the Chinese by characters scrawled on scraps of -paper, I was the only foreigner making the ascent that day. The sight of -me on foot did not arouse more than the usual gaping to which any -Westerner outside the restricted orbits of his kind is subject anywhere -in China—until my coolie made one of his often repeated answers to the -question as to what had become of my chair. Even the little Japanese -climbed on foot for an hour or more, their chairs trailing behind them, -and only a few of the haughtiest and fattest Chinese declined to get out -and stretch their legs at all. But that a man not only ostensibly of the -wealthy class, but a weak “outside barbarian” into the bargain, should -be so foolish as to risk getting himself stranded by undertaking a -journey which naturally he could not finish unassisted, changed the mere -gaping to excitement. It was all very well, I gathered from such of -their remarks and gestures as I could understand, for even a foreigner -to win whatever merit was given such beings by making as much of the -journey as he could on foot, but he most certainly should have brought -along a chair to rescue him when he could no longer climb. - -[Illustration: - - A priest of the Temple of Confucius -] - -[Illustration: - - The grave of Confucius is noted for its simplicity -] - -[Illustration: - - The sanctum of the Temple of Confucius, with the statue and - spirit-tablet of the sage, before which millions of Chinese burn - joss-sticks annually -] - -The chairs, by the way, were really not worthy of that name. Instead of -the sentry-box-like sedan used in many parts of China to this day, with -a carrier or two, or even three, in front and as many behind, these were -merely a kind of pole-and-rope hammock, mildly resembling a crude, low -rustic arm-chair, in which the carried sat facing forward with his feet -hanging over before him, grazing the heads of the incessant beggars in -the middle of the ascent, while his rarely more than two carriers walked -on either side of him, bearing the contrivance sidewise. Every little -distance, when the straps over their outside shoulders became painful, -they shifted simultaneously by swinging themselves and the chair around -with a swift, almost automatic motion, and continued to toil upward. -This was as near as the facts corresponded to the tales so often told of -the breath-taking dangers of chairing it up Tai-shan, where, according -to the most imaginative tellers, the carriers “just toss you off into -space” whenever they change positions. Ever since I first heard this -yarn I had pictured thousands of feet of sheer abyss directly beneath -the trembling chair-rider, whereas I doubt if he would at any time have -dropped more than six or eight feet, exclusive of what he might have -rolled, in the unheard-of event of the bearers’ spilling him. - -A little spill would have served the riders right anyway, for most of -them were larger and better nourished than the coolies who bore them, -needed in fact just such reducing exercises as walking up Tai-shan; and -any really two-legged mortal can make the ascent considerably sooner on -foot than by chair. On this day at least the carried were decidedly the -aristocratic minority, for there was by no means one of them to each -hundred of the foot-travelers who shuttled past in two often long -unbroken lines. To win full merit for the pilgrimage, evidently, it -should be made under the pilgrim’s own steam, though there seems to be -no harm in getting a little assistance by the way. Thus most of the -women who were painfully toiling upward on their bound feet had each a -coolie walking beside her to sustain her faltering steps and give her a -boost every now and then by the hand in one of her armpits. - -One by one we came to “Flying Clouds Hall,” to the “Ten Thousand Genii -Hall,” where the Emperor Kao-Tsu paused to receive homage during his -ascent in 595 A.D., to the “Horse Stopping Place,” and finally to -_Hui-Ma-Ling_, the “Horse Turning Back Peak,” where even an emperor was -forced to dismount and resort to some other means of locomotion. All -these “halls” were Chinese temples, quite commonplace except for their -location, filled with dusty, gaudy wooden gods before whom pilgrims -burned joss-sticks by the bundle, heaping the big iron urns with ashes, -and with the clamor of begging priests, beating gongs, shrieking their -demands, calling upon all passers-by to try their fortune-telling or -invest in their tissue-paper prayers. In the courtyards of many of them, -too, and on the landing outside all, were venders of tea and dough-balls -and other delicacies of the Chinese cuisine, some having permanent -establishments with home-made tables and sawhorse benches, most of them -men who carried their stock in trade on a pole over their shoulders. The -general stoniness of the mountain broke out here and there in mighty -boulders and rock-faced cliffs, on which inscriptions had been carved -centuries ago in characters sometimes the height of a man. There were -fixed resting-places at which not only chair-coolies but my own -companion insisted on stopping, though his load was next to nothing. It -had only been a lunch-basket and some extra clothing to begin with, and -at the bottom of the first cluster of stairs he had hired a boy to carry -most of that. At _Ch’ung T’ien Men_, for instance, approximately -half-way up, as its name suggests, there were two or three temples and -as many tea-houses, a terrace from which one could gloat over the ascent -that already lay below, and a view of the flat plain stretching away -interminably from the foot of the mountain; and my failure to stop there -for refreshments caused as great astonishment among the custom-shackled -throng as did my strange Western garb. - -At this point the road descends rather sharply for a furlong or more -through a ravine, across which the rest of the climb stands in plainest -sight, like a stairway to the sky, a ladder rather, for it seems almost -perpendicular, and disappearing high above through the archway of a big -red structure famed throughout China as the _Nan-T’ien-Men_—the “South -Gate of Heaven.” This furlong is a relief, not only from incessant -climbing but from beggars, none of whom are so needy as to choose a -station on this damp and shaded slope. They soon began again, however, -interminable and insistent as before, at the bottom of the remaining -ascent. Some one with more taste for statistics than for scenery has -computed that there are six thousand steps on this final stairway to -Tai-shan, and no one who has made this upper half of the journey by his -own exertions will accuse him of exaggeration. But it is not, as common -repute would have it, impossible on foot, either because of the -steepness of the stairs, the precarious steps, or the danger that -beggars or carriers will push one off into space for not contributing -the orthodox amount—all of which one may hear from the lips of educated -Chinese as well as foreigners even in Peking. The stone steps are -uneven, from six inches to a foot wide, the average perhaps eight -inches, and some of them are worn to a distinct slope. When they are wet -with melting snow, as many things were that day on the upper part of the -mountain, only the foolish would set their feet down carelessly upon -them, but that could not constitute a worthy reason for intrusting one’s -health to a pair of panting coolies who would double the time of the -ascent. The beggars, I had gravely been told by a Chinese lady who had -lived abroad in several embassies, would simply not allow me to pass if -I did not contribute, and as a last resort they would take my offerings -by force, so commanding do they become on the mountain at New Year’s -time. They were certainly numerous and sturdy enough to have named their -own contributions, and there was no visible force that might have curbed -them. But they were Chinese—in other words, timid, passive, submissive, -in spite of their blustering manner. In regular succession as often as -half a dozen steps were surmounted they raised their voices in what -might have been mistaken for demands that could not be refused; but just -as often their seeming ferocity oozed quickly away into a meek and -helpless, and withal a cheerful, resignation as soon as I passed without -contributing. One or two, who were women, snatched at my coat-tail or -legs, but the hint of a menacing gesture quickly freed me from their -noisome attentions, and most of them seemed to be too well fed and -contented to rise and run beside me, wailing the “Great Old Excellency!” -so familiar in Peking and most other cities of the North. From the plain -to the Gate of Heaven the adult mendicants at least seemed to think it -exertion enough to squat beside the little fire almost every group had -built in the center of its step, and depend on voice and manner—and of -course, most valuable of all, ancient custom—for their gleanings. -Indeed, one wise old fellow had resorted to absent treatment, remaining -in his kennel across the rocky ravine nearly a hundred yards from his -scoop on the stairway, beating a gong and shouting to attract attention, -and no doubt strolling over now and then to carry home the wealth that -rained upon him, which his colleagues made no attempt to appropriate. - -The “Clouds Stepping Bridge” was the last break in the sheer ascent, -which thereafter marched straight up to the southern Gate of Heaven, -dense blue from top to bottom with cautious coolies picking their way up -or down. Sometimes there was a very old man, half carried by his sons; -now and then a limp, white-faced fellow whose exertions had been too -much for him came down in the chair he had scorned to take, or could not -afford, when he set out. Even on this upper stretch of the journey the -stairway was broken by landings, and on these even the sturdiest paused -for breath more and more frequently as the red archway slowly descended -to meet us. Youths loitered about the steepest places and lent a hand to -those who looked likely to reward their efforts, unless one drove them -off with scornful gestures. Near the top a great iron chain was set in -the rock as a kind of hand-rail but was hardly needed by any whose legs -had not deserted them. When at last, a trifle more than four hours after -setting out from the railway station, I marched in through the archway, -it occurred to me that, beggars, pilgrims, and stairs aside, the climb -had been very similar to that up the steeper side of Mount Washington, -in New Hampshire, both in the amount of exertion required and the -rockiness of the landscape. - - -A cold wind swept across the summit, in disconcerting contrast to the -burning sunshine below the gateway, calling instantly for all the -garments my two carriers had brought for me. The climbing was not yet -done; in fact it is a good half-mile from the _Nan-T’ien-Men_ to the -Taoist temple which crowns the mountain. But this is by a winding, -leisurely road passing through several temples in which pilgrims were -performing the feats for which they had come. The courtyards of these, -neglected by the sun, were littered with heaps of dirty snow, with the -ashes of myriad sticks of incense, with the débris of firecrackers and -tissue-paper prayers, and as temples they were nothing out of the -ordinary, duplicated by hundreds all over China, but famous for their -location and the special potencies their gods derive from it. Coolies -and peasants made up at least three fourths of the throng kowtowing -here, faces touching the ground, burning incense there, lighting big -bunches of firecrackers for the edification of some sleepy-eyed god over -yonder, rubbing a glass-smooth stone monument from which some form of -blessing seems to be extracted by friction; but there were many men of -the well-to-do and the ostensibly educated classes among them. The -scarcity of women and children made each temple compound seem a congress -of adult males, and the mixture of Fourth of July boyishness and -fishwife credulity with which these men solemnly carried out their -superstitious antics would have seemed even more out of place but for -their girlish cues and their generally simple, almost childlike manners. - -Out on the rock knoll before the highest temple, marked with a stone -shaft here and there and swept now by wintry winds out of keeping with -the unbroken brilliancy of the day, a few stone-cut characters announce -that “Confucius stood here and felt the smallness of the world below.” A -wide expanse unfolds on every side, with only the heavens above. One can -make out Tzinan, and faintly the Hoang Ho, then a lake of considerable -size, and the railway stretching like a hair on the glass into infinity -in either direction—a brown world rolling away in a myriad of peaks and -knobs and salients of what looks like a boiling landscape suddenly -struck solid. I have nowhere been able to find why Tai-shan is a sacred -mountain, but it was already so twenty-five hundred years before the -Christian era began; perhaps its great sanctity had its start among the -largely plain-dwelling Chinese simply because of the comprehensive view -of the world below from its summit when there is nowhere the hint of a -rag of cloud and only the haziness of great distances limits the power -of the eye. - -There was a surprising change in the human element of the scene when I -descended early in the afternoon. Where there had been crowd after crowd -two hours before, in every temple courtyard, in every refreshment-shop, -where the great stairway had seemed carpeted from top to bottom with -shimmering dark-blue, there were now only scattered individuals, and -most of these were lolling or squatting inside the buildings. What had -become of the vast throng so suddenly was a mystery; as nearly as I -could make out from my guide’s answer they had gone home again. Taoist -priests in their black bonnet-caps were enjoying siestas along the stone -verandas on the sunny side of their courtyards; worshipers, in so far as -they remained at all, were sipping tea and wielding chop-sticks, or -doing nothing whatever, in the den-like places where their patronage had -been so vociferously solicited in the morning. The completest change of -all had come over the beggars. Their shallow baskets, barely sprinkled -now with “cash,” lay in constant succession in the center of the -stairway as before, but in the whole descent I doubt whether as many as -a dozen mendicants were there in person to make a vocal appeal. Perhaps -the rules of their union forbade labor at this hour—which reminds me -that the medical mission school in Tzinan can rarely get the bodies of -beggars for dissection, numerous as they are in life, because the -beggars’ gild insists on giving them honorable burial—and the corpses of -criminals, readily furnished by the Government, are useless in the study -of the brain, because the modern substitute for the headsman’s sword in -China is an officer who steps up and blows the back of the culprit’s -head off with a revolver. The general desertion of their stations -looked, however, more like the contented retirement of craftsmen whose -wants were amply satisfied by a part-day’s exertion. They sat off the -trail against sunny rocks or beneath an occasional evergreen, or about -the mouths of their huts and caves, gossiping, quarreling, scratching, -and otherwise heartily enjoying themselves, especially sleeping in their -grass-floored nests, scorning to exert themselves even to the extent of -a pleading word or glance at likely passers-by. Their untended baskets -were plea enough, if charity was still abroad—and evidently honor is no -less among beggars than among thieves, for no one seemed in the least -concerned lest some one else appropriate the coins meant for him. - -We passed now and then a few descending pedestrians, and two or three -going down in chairs. Those who have tried it say that there is the -exhilaration of dancing in the descent of Tai-shan in these misnamed -contrivances, especially down this upper half of it. For though the -stairway is continuous here, it is frequently and regularly broken by -landings, and the technique of the chair-bearers, handed down perhaps -from remote antiquity, is to trot down each cluster of stairs, then -saunter slowly across the landing, perhaps shifting shoulders upon it, -before jogging suddenly down the next flight. So the descent is like a -rhythmic dropping through space, something suggestive of waltzing by -airplane, soothing or terrifying, according to the nerve adjustment of -the rider. A few belated pilgrims, mainly women on their pitiful feet, -were still laboring upward; but the way was almost clear, and two hours -below the summit found us strolling away down the last gentle slope -between old cypresses. Once, before we entered the square-walled town of -Taian, my companion dragged me aside into a temple to “see something -good see,” and one of those mixtures of rowdy and beggar which so many -Chinese priests become unlocked a kind of chapel containing an ugly -gilded statue that pretended to have human arms and legs, the latter -crossed in Buddhist repose. The story has it that a monk sat on this -table until he starved himself to death as a short cut to Nirvana, but -the thing was a mere dressed-up mummified corpse arranged to mulct -credulous coolies of their precious coppers. It was an outbreak of -barbarism worthy the Catholicism of Latin America and many times more -surprising in a land which, whatever else it has to be ashamed of, is -not particularly given to this form of savagery. - -Inside the walled city, too, I came upon the first deliberate -obscenities I had so far seen in the Middle Kingdom. A great fair was in -full swing in the grounds of a temple, and among the large colored -photographs which several story-tellers inserted in the double-panel -screens they had set up to illustrate their chanted tales, were quite a -number depicting such things as women nude to the waist. A slight breach -indeed in many another land; but in China, where the subject of sex so -rarely receives public recognition, it meant almost an open parading of -immorality. But New Year’s season seems to bring a relaxation even of -morals, and especially does gambling, quite publicly and without -distinction as to age or sex, rage throughout China during that -fortnight, as it did not at scores of places within these temple -grounds. They were vast, and shaded by magnificent old trees, with a -wall as mighty as that of the city itself surrounding them, and still -with room to spare, though all the hawkers, traders, and money-changers -for many _li_ roundabout seemed to be gathered there. At one end stood a -mighty hall, famed for its four colossal wooden statues, which still did -not reach the lofty beams of the roof nor seem cramped within the walls -on which ancient frescos were still moderately well preserved. Here, as -everywhere that a wooden god is housed in this holy land of China, stood -begging priests and a receptacle heaped with “cash” and coppers flung at -it by passing pilgrims. The latter are no doubt the principal source of -income of Taianfu, yet prosperity seemed more at home there than in the -great majority of China’s smaller cities. Time was when the people knew -prosperity would depart at the building of the American Methodist -Mission just outside the walls, but both the mission and the prosperity -seem to increase rather than to languish. - - -When the Germans, something more than a decade ago, built that portion -of the Tientsin-Pukow Railway which runs through Shantung, they -naturally planned to have it touch Chufou, sacred to Confucius. But -their surveyors insisted that the line must cut across the long cypress -avenue between his temple and his grave, and rather than permit such a -desecration Chufou did without the railroad. Perhaps it is fitting, -anyway, that those who come to honor the great sage should bump by -“Peking cart” the twenty _li_ between the station, a short two hours -south of Tai-shan, and the town; for did not Confucius himself suffer in -some such contraption while vainly hawking his wisdom to and fro through -the land we now know as China? At least, sinologues assure us that the -cart antedates Confucius, and certainly there has been no notable -improvement in it since its first appearance, for that would be -un-Chinese. Tucked away inside by a solicitous seeker after gratuities -who had furnished several pillows by the simple method of stripping a -few hotel beds, one expects a “Peking cart” to ride rather well—until -the first jolt disabuses him. There may be roads smooth enough to make -such traveling comfortable, but they do not grow in China. How many -times one side or the other of the vehicle deliberately reached over and -severely thumped me here, there, or elsewhere during that six miles -across a fertile sea-flat plain which should have been as easy-riding as -the labyrinthian road should have been direct I have no means of -computing. I do recall, however, wishing a thousand times that the mule -who tossed with me would be a little less deliberate and have it over -with, only to thank fortune a second later when something, anything -brought him to a momentary halt. - -If Confucius could return to the old town he would certainly be -disappointed—or am I imbuing him with a modern point of view to which he -could not attain even by reincarnation? Judging by the effect several -hundred centuries of his philosophy have had on his countrymen, I doubt -on second thought whether he would lose any sleep over the insignificant -fact that before he could reach his own compound he would have to wade -at least calf-deep in oozy black mud for a mile or so, between mud -hovels at which our pigs would curl their tails in wrath, stared upon by -a redundancy of people to whom his native soil seems preferred as -covering to cotton or wool. At worst he would probably quickly forget -it, once inside his own private domain, especially if the thought of the -streets and of “Peking carts” were not embittered by the necessity of -returning to the station. The wall of Chufou has a circuit of four -miles, and a third of the area within is taken up by the temple of -Confucius and the residence of his lineal descendant. One steps directly -from an unspeakable street into the vast enclosure, broken up by wall -behind wall and building behind building in the style common to Chinese -construction. First comes a forest of tile roofs, each covering a single -turtle-supported stone shaft set up by this or that Chinese emperor. -There are several rows of these, with perhaps a dozen in a row, larger -and many times better built than the home of the average living Chinese. -Above them, as through all the subdivisions of the great enclosure, rise -old cypress-trees affording the sylvan pleasures of shade, the singing -of birds, and the murmur of swaying branches. In the principal courtyard -the stump of a pagoda-tree reputed to have been planted by the sage -himself is preserved under a little glass-sided temple, a miniature of -those in the outer yard. This is popularly believed to take on new life -through another sprout as often as one dies, thus bridging all the -centuries between the planter and present-day China, and certainly a -large old tree of the same variety now leans forth from what seems to be -the same root. Beyond is an open temple of kiosk shape where Confucius -sat under a plum-tree and taught—even in winter no doubt, for he was -probably as impervious to cold and discomfort as are the Chinese of -to-day in their cotton-padded garments. - -The great main temple about which all else centers has often been -described in detail, so that all who read of such things should know -that it is a hundred and thirty-five by eighty-four feet in area and -seventy-eight high, with a portico upheld by nine far-famed stone -pillars intricately carved with dragons. What seems to be less widely -known is the impressive simplicity of that great structure, especially -of the interior, dimly yet amply lighted through paper windows, and as -strikingly free from the cluttering of painted idols which crowd most -Chinese temples as is the whole enclosure from beggars and sycophant -priests. A seated statue of the sage, ten feet high, occupies an alcove -in the center of the room, facing the great doors. He wears the ancient -scholar costume, culminating in a head-dress from which our mortarboard -cap might have been derived, being a flat thing some two feet long, with -ropes strung with beads, hanging well down over his face, which greatly -resemble the warnings that our railroads hang on either side of low -bridges as a caution to their brakemen to duck their heads. Above the -alcove a slab of wood bearing four characters boldly announces Confucius -the “Master Exemplar of All Ages”; before it stands the spirit tablet, -the table on which sacrificial food is offered, and a great iron urn -filled with the ashes of countless joss-sticks. On the right and left -are the images of the “twelve disciples” of Confucius, a number which -seems to have been purposely reached, by including the “boob” among his -pupils and the commentator on his Classics who lived during the Sung -dynasty—something like adorning the tombstone of Shakspere with the name -of some professor who had edited a school edition of his works. Yet -spaciousness on either hand, and upward to the old painted beams -supporting the tile roof, is the impression likely to stay longest with -the visitor from the West. - -The original temple was built on this spot in 478 B.C., and to realize -how slightly Chinese worship of the illustrious dead has changed during -all the centuries since, one has only to drop into the former home of Li -Hung-chang in Tientsin and note how similar in all its details is the -temple in which his spirit tablet is enthroned. With each renovation -there came an increase in size, until the shrine of Confucius became the -vast cypress-shaded enclosure it is to-day. Many priests are attached to -it, but they spend their time in learning the elaborate ritual and -intricate forms of ceremony used during the spring and autumn festivals, -so that regular and frequent worship, as we who live in Christian lands -understand it, is scarcely practised. At stated periods the lineal -descendant of Confucius comes to burn incense and offer food before the -statue, as every Chinese son is expected to do before the graves of his -ancestors. Pilgrims, too, come in great numbers, especially at certain -seasons; but there is nothing similar to the daily mass or the weekly -service of our churches. - -Behind this main temple—which means on the cold north side of it, since -every properly constructed Chinese temple faces south—is a smaller, much -more severely simple hall containing the spirit tablet of Mrs. -Confucius, though just which one is not specified. A spirit tablet, by -the way, is a varnished or painted piece of wood a foot or two high, -narrow and thin, bearing in three carved and usually gilded characters -the posthumous name under which the deceased is honored, and set upright -in the place sacred to him. At one side are two other temples, of the -parents of Confucius, identically arranged. That is, the father is -represented by a statue, in scholar’s costume, and the mother by a mere -tablet, in a building following as meekly after that of her lord and -master as does the Chinese wife in the flesh to this day. Why not -statues of the wife and mother also, I asked the first man of learning -willing to strain his understanding to catch my mispronounced meaning, -though almost certain what the answer would be. It would be improper, he -explained, politely, as to one with the ignorance of a new-born child, -indecent, to speak plainly, to have a female statue, particularly in a -sacred place. Given the ramshackle, filthy condition of a very large -number of Chinese temples, the care with which all these were kept up -was striking. But even these were not fleckless, especially those of the -wife and the mother, where everything was covered with dust and the bare -resounding chambers had a lonely air, as if very few ever took the -trouble to come and burn incense to mere females. - -I might, with a little effort or foresight, have come to Chufou properly -introduced to meet the present head of the Kung family, which is the one -we know by the name Confucius. But he is a mere boy—the prince who long -held that position having recently died—and was certain to be in no -manner different from a million other Chinese youths of the well-to-do -class. Besides, though he passes as the seventy-fourth descendant in -direct male line from the sage, he is in plain fact nothing of the sort. -For the Confucius family, like many others in China, illustrious or -commonplace, has now and then been forced to adopt a son to keep the -line unbroken; even if a generation is not entirely sterile mere -daughters are wasted effort in preserving a Chinese lineage. T’ai Tsung, -nearly fifteen centuries after the death of the sage, bestowed -posthumous honors upon the descendants of Confucius for the past -forty-four generations, and exempted those to come from taxation, a -privilege they still enjoy. - -It is some two miles from the town itself to the grave of Confucius, by -a worn-out avenue of ancient and bedraggled cypresses. “Those with -letters of introduction, or persons of distinction,” explains the -nearest approach to a guide-book of this region that is to be had, “are -the only ones admitted; but others may be by tipping the guardian.” As -if any one could possibly have gotten this far afield in China without -knowing as much! The custodian was an unsoaped, one-eyed coolie who lay -in wait just inside the first ornamental gateway, before which a pair of -stone tigers, two _lin_ (sacred animals unknown to natural history), and -stone statues of two gigantic gentlemen known as Weng and Chung, stood -on guard. A tablet over this, or one of the other several entrances we -passed on the half-mile walk that remained to the grave itself, -announced it the “Tomb of the All-Accomplished and Most Saintly Prince -Wen Hsüan,” a posthumous title by which the sage would scarcely -recognize himself. There were fields to be crossed, sometimes along ways -lined by trees, a landscape covered far and wide with ordinary graves, a -small stream, finally a locked and bolted gateway through a temple-like -building, before our walk ended. But when it did it was at a last -resting-place that even the Western world would have approved, perhaps -have envied. Venerable old trees whispering with last year’s dead leaves -rose above the secluded spot, yet not so thickly as to cut off the arch -of the blue heavens or to more than filter the brilliant sunshine. Birds -flitted here and there. It was such a spot as could scarcely be found in -any Occidental cemetery, for not even the formality of granite -tombstones or graveled walks between the graves was there to mar the -sylvan charm. Stones there were, a single plain slab before each of the -three mounds, but with only three characters in the old rounded script -on each of them, and the softening hand of time, perhaps of centuries, -to bring them into harmony with the scene, they seemed as naturally in -place as did the old trees stretching their arms above them. -Cone-shaped, as is the custom in China, but many times larger than the -graves strewn by millions throughout the land, the mounds were simple -hillocks, covered now with winter-brown grass. The slightly larger one, -the characters on its stone in gold instead of red, was of the sage -himself; that on the east covered the remains of his only son, while -before the main mound rose a third that caused dispute among the several -hangers-on who had accompanied me, so that I have no certain means of -knowing whether it is that of the sage’s brother, his father, or his -grandson. - -Kung Fu-tze, as he is known in his native land, was born some twelve -miles eastward from Chufou, in the village of Ni-San, now under the rule -of bandits, and has been dead only a little more than twenty-four -hundred years. In those days the small states that eventually coagulated -into what we know as China were separate principalities, of which modern -Shantung alone contained four, Confucius being a native of the one -called Lu. He was already teaching at twenty-two, and studied much -history. It is hard to avoid the suspicion that there was not much of -anything more exciting to do for a young man wading the streets of -Chufou twenty-five centuries ago; hence undue credit should not be given -this particular youth for frequenting libraries rather than pool-rooms. -A few decades of his life seem to have passed without anything -particularly worth recording; but what are a few decades in China? -Whatever else he passed this time at, there is no question that the -studious young man was doing everything in his power, short of -overstepping the easy marital laws of Lu, to beget him a son, in which -he eventually succeeded. At length he emerges again from obscurity “at -the early age of fifty-five,” as a chief city magistrate. The elections -seem to have run his way, for we behold him soon afterward the _acting_ -minister of state—that unsatisfactory prefix probably being due to the -fact, if one may judge by the politics of present-day China, that his -appointment was not confirmed by Parliament. As such he “put an end to -all crime,” evidently a simple little matter in those days, perhaps -because “squeeze” was not included. But the old prince of Lu died and -the new one abandoned himself to sensual pleasures, and at length -Confucius quit the job and went on the road. Once it broke out, he seems -to have had as serious a case of wanderlust as any ordinary mortal, for -he rambled for thirteen years, looking in vain—so at least he told the -story to sympathetic listeners—for a prince who would follow his advice -and set up a model administration. The briefest reflection will remind -the most thoughtless how times have changed in this matter of reformers -since then. - -If it were not improper to be critical toward so venerable an old -gentleman, one might voice the suspicion that Confucius did not suffer -severely from lack of self-confidence, for he repeatedly stated that he -would produce a faultless administration and do away with all crime -within three years in the domain of any prince who would hire him. Alas, -if only he were back, be it only in the principality of Lu! No present -member of the human race, unless perhaps a “practical politician,” will -have the cynicism to suppose that the offer of this wandering Luluite -was not eagerly competed for from the eight points of the Chinese -compass. Yet the truth is far worse than that: he found no takers -whatever! What was left for him, then, but to come back home and write a -book? In fact, during those last three years of his life in Chufou he -wrote five books, bringing himself unquestionably into the class with -almost any of our modern novelists, though he succeeded in gathering -about him only three thousand disciples. Population was scarcer in China -twenty-five hundred years ago, of course, and publicity hardly a science -at all. However, whatever he lacked in numbers he made up in quality, -for no fewer than seventy-two of this handful became “proficient in the -six departments of learning.” From these he chose ten as “master -disciples,” granting them whatever passed for sheepskins in those days -“for attainment in Virtue, Literature, Eloquence, and—and Politics!” - -It is chiefly through these chosen followers, who wrote his “Discourses -and Dialogues,” that Confucius became famous—and, like Christ, greatly -misconstrued—and laid the foundation of China’s ethical and political -life. But he could scarcely have had more than an inkling of the fame -that was to accrue to him in later centuries, for his honors have been -mainly posthumous, and it was not until twelve hundred and seventeen -years after his death that he was made the “Prince of Literary -Enlightenment!” Why, then, this hectic eagerness of modern man to attain -to fame even before the sod has closed over him? I wonder, too, if the -great sage would swell with pride at his achievements if he could come -back and wander again through the grave-strewn, soiled and hungry, -wickedly overpopulated, politically chaotic China of to-day. Surely he -could not plead innocence of helping to bring about her present woes, -for one of the most famous of his dictums, which have had so much -influence on Chinese life for many centuries, runs “He who is not in -office has no concerns with plans for the administration of its duties.” -Where can be found, in so few words, the explanation of what is mainly -wrong with the ancient empire which so erroneously now calls itself a -republic? - -Personally I should have preferred to Chufou the birthplace of Mencius, -some thirty miles still farther southward, for there hills rise above -the plain, growing larger beyond. Tsowhsien is a more enterprising town, -too, with an electric light plant that had just been installed by an -American company, and less of the air of making an easy living out of -pilgrims than either Taianfu or the home of Confucius. Perhaps it has to -thank the lesser fame of Mencius for this more manly attitude, for -though he is reckoned second, or at worst third, among China’s sages, -not one person in ten, even in his native province of Shantung, seemed -to know where he lived and died. Pilgrims do come to Tsowhsien, for it -is on the direct line of places of pilgrimage through this holy land of -China; but Mencius has only dozens or scores of visitors where Confucius -has thousands. - -The green roof of his chief temple rises among the trees within easy -sight from the railway. If the rest of the land somewhat neglects him, -his native town bears him constantly in mind, and any street urchin can -point out the monument marking the spot where he traded his shoes for a -book, or where other typical escapades are immortalized in stone slabs, -in spite of the fact that centuries of a swarming population have left -them sad, slum-like spots. Chinese celebrities have, of course, an -advantage over those of the Occident in being kept before the attention -of posterity. Public monuments and dwelling-house museums are all very -well, but how much more certain of constant attention Shakspere or -Washington would be had they direct male descendants, overlooking an -adoption now and then, whose main business in life it would be, -generation after generation, to worship at the shrine of these -illustrious ancestors and see to it that the things sacred to their -memories grow and prosper. - -The present head of the Meng family—for the name of the chief successor -of Confucius was really Meng Tse—is a man in middle life, who dwells -inside a big high-walled compound across the street from that enclosing -the temples; and he evidently bears a striking resemblance to less -fame-pursued Chinese of his class, for information reached us that he -was just then busily engaged in feasting some friends. Except that it is -considerably smaller and less imposing, the temple grounds of Mencius -are quite similar to those of his more famous forerunner. Aged cypresses -and the marks of time give it dignity and a certain charm; the statue of -the sage wears the same bead-veiled scholar’s head-dress, and a costume -as exactly similar as if it had been copied by a Chinese tailor; behind -him is the meeker temple of his consort, containing only her spirit -tablet; at one side are the smaller but almost identical shrines of his -parents. If there is anything unique about the place it must be the -birds nesting in the tall trees in the unoccupied back of the compound, -beautifully graceful white birds that resemble both cranes and herons, -yet do not seem to be exactly either. The information that they are -found nowhere else in China was disputed by some of those who heard it. - - - - - CHAPTER XVI - “ITINERATING” IN SHANTUNG - - -The day was delightful, fleckless and summery as if it had been three -months later, and we should willingly have lingered longer among the -cypress-sighing shades of Mencius, had it not been beyond the power of -man to shake off the influx of childish soldiers, street urchins of all -ages, and every inquisitive male of Tsowhsien who caught sight of us in -time, that had burst through the opened gate and swirled about us like -molten scoriæ wherever we moved. My companion, I have neglected to -mention, was a robust American missionary with headquarters away down in -the southern corner of Shantung, who was kind enough to initiate me into -the devout sport of “itinerating.” From the home of Mencius we were to -strike out across country by wheelbarrow. To the man who, before the -present century began, had already grown to recognize that as his chief -means of locomotion, there was far less thrill in the thought of -wheelbarrowing than there would have been in the unusual experience of -taking a street-car; but to me it was something entirely new in the -field of travel. The passenger wheelbarrows of Shantung are of two -kinds,—small and large, city and country, short or long distance, -according to the individual choice of dividing line. In town they are -merely two cushioned, straight-backed benches on either side of the high -wooden wheel, on which six or eight crippled women may ride comfortably, -sitting sidewise. But for cross-country work a larger, sturdier breed is -used, with room for several hundredweight of baggage and a pair of the -owners thereof stretched out upon it, feet forward, like a sultan on his -divan. In town one man usually bears the whole burden; out in the -country there must be at least another tugging at a rope ahead—unless -one be wealthy enough to replace him with a donkey or an ox—besides the -fellow gasping between the back handles, with the woven strap between -them over his shoulders. For a very long trip, say twenty to thirty -miles in a day, it is considered more humane, or at least more certain, -to have a third man between the front shafts or handles which the -country variety possesses. - -[Illustration: - - Making two Chinese elders of a Shantung village over into - Presbyterians -] - -[Illustration: - - Messrs. Kung and Meng, two of the many descendants of Confucius in - Shantung flanking one of those of Mencius -] - -[Illustration: - - Some of the worst cases still out of bed in the American leper-home of - Tenghsien, Shantung, were still full of laughter -] - -[Illustration: - - Off on an “itinerating” trip with an American missionary in Shantung, - by a conveyance long in vogue there. Behind, one of the towers by - which messages were sent, by smoke or fire, to all corners of the - old Celestial Empire -] - -In the good old days, only a few years ago, in fact, the usual wages for -a barrow-man in rural Shantung were five cents a day—and he saved money -on that. Now things have reached a pretty pass, for each man may expect -as much as thirty cents, though actually to demand that would almost -rank him among the profiteers, the radicals, the undesirable element of -the working-classes, and to pitch one’s demands too high in China is -likely apt to result in losing one’s job to the three hundred and -sixty-five other men who are eagerly waiting to snatch it. To be sure, -these wages are not so dreadful as they seem, for they are in “Mex,” and -nowadays the use of the wheelbarrow is included. - -Perhaps it was because we generously paid this highest price that our -two men bowled along as rapidly as a “Peking cart,” and many times more -smoothly, so evenly in spite of the broken foot-path along the pretense -of a road we followed that one could read as easily as on any train. But -their best possible speed seems to be a characteristic of most of the -barrow-men of Shantung, as does a constant cheerfulness that is always -breaking out in broad smiles or laughter at the slightest provocation, -as if their joy at having another chance to exercise their magnificent -calling could not be contained. Unless the passenger is so inexperienced -and squeamish that the gasping of his human draft-animal just behind him -prickles his conscience, the wheelbarrow of the country variety comes -close to being China’s most comfortable form of land travel. It has -little of the cruel bumping and vicious jolting of a two-wheeled cart; -there is far less labor involved in reclining on an improvised divan -than in bestriding an animal; even a rubber-tired rickshaw is given to -sudden protests at the inequalities of the surface of China. Besides, -two rickshaws can rarely travel side by side, whereas the men stretched -out on either flank of a barrow-wheel may discuss religion, philosophy, -and the natural equality of man without once straining the ears or -losing a word. One might go further and praise the exclusiveness, the -sense of Cleopatran luxury, the freedom of route which makes the barrow -so much preferable to a train packed with undisciplined soldiers and as -many of the common, ticket-buying variety of unbathed Celestials as can -crowd into the space these putative defenders of the country graciously -leave unoccupied. The train makes more speed, perhaps; but what is so -out of keeping with the spirit of China as haste? The minor circumstance -that there must be mutual agreement between the two passengers on a -wheelbarrow as to when to ride and when to walk might conceivably be a -disadvantage, but there is no reason it should be if the one more given -to walking will bear in mind the plumpness of his companion and its -proper preservation. From the distance of the Western world the -impression may arise that the barrow-men must consider these fellows, -whom they wheel about like the latest pair of twins, rather weak and -sorry members of the human family. But this is merely another way of -saying that the Occidental can quickly lose his way in the labyrinth of -the Chinese mind. The reaction of the sweating coolies seemed to be, -not, “I wish this overfed pair of loafers would get off and walk a -while,” but a kind of pride at being associated with men of such wealth -and standing, mingled with the feeling, built up through many -generations, that naturally persons of finer clay should not bemean -themselves by tramping like a coolie, and topped off with the impression -that if the gentlemen call a halt and take to their feet it is because -the wheeling is not entirely satisfactory, which quickly brings in its -train the dread that one of those three hundred and sixty-five other men -eagerly waiting for such a job will get it next time. - -We passed two of the “telegraph” towers of old-time China that -afternoon, square-cut stone and mud structures large as a two-story -house, from the now crumbling and grass-grown tops of which news and -orders were sent from end to end of the Middle Kingdom. Fires were the -signals by night and a dense black column of smoke from burning wolf’s -dung by day. Particularly were they used when more troops were needed at -the capital, and the story runs that one emperor who flashed forth the -call for a general mobilization just because his favorite concubine -wished to see the discomfiture on the faces of the exasperated soldiers -shortly afterward found his rôle in the hands of one of the eager -understudies. Cues are still no abnormality in China as a whole, but one -is struck by their almost universal retention in Shantung. The Manchus, -it is said, ordered cues to be worn not so much because they had worn -them for centuries themselves as in order to be able to tell a man from -a woman, if some of their rather effeminate new subjects chose to -disguise themselves, for both sexes had long hair up to that time. It -seems that when orders were given, after the overthrow of the Ch’ing -dynasty, that this badge of Manchu servitude be removed, the execution -depended largely upon the provincial and local authorities. In some -places men were given the choice between losing their pigtails or their -heads, and they had less difficulty in deciding upon the relative value -of these two adornments than might have been the case had the question -been left to an impartial committee. But the military ruler of Shantung -during the first years of the republic was a monarchist who had no use -for this new republican stuff, and who did what he could to return the -emperor to the throne; therefore the people under him dared in few cases -to remove what amounted to a badge of loyalty. Now that a decade has -passed and the making of hair-nets has become one of the principal -industries of the province, when even the boy “emperor” in Peking has -adopted the Western hair-cut, one would think that the masculine braid -would disappear. But personal beauty is a matter of taste, and the -Chinese mind is famous for the number of cogs in that section of it -devoted to the preserving of established customs—as China goes, the -wearing of a cue can scarcely be called an old one—and on the subject of -barbering the country seems at present to be about at a status quo. - -It was the sixteenth day of the first moon, our March 3, the last big -holiday of the Chinese New Year’s season. Thus, though we had seen -endless streams of people, the men as nearly spotless as they would ever -be during this Year of the Pig, the women in their gayest garments, -which in most cases meant blue or red silk jackets above bright red -trousers tapering down to tiny white baby-shoes, ears and glossy oiled -hair adorned with their most precious trinkets, the children dolled up -like the principal actors in a Chinese drama—though, I say, we had seen -many thousand of these pouring into Tenghsien for one of the chief -celebrations of the year, there were no people whatever working in the -fields, which this far south were quite ready for the first spring -tilling. Besides, much of the land in this region is given over to -winter wheat, planted in October and now just beginning to tinge with -green the vast yellowish brown of the typical North China landscape. -When at length we had been wheeled, like a load of bricks, to the -gateway of Chung-Hsin-Tien, we paused and dismounted, for it is a gross -breach of Chinese etiquette to ride into or through a town where you -have friends—or to speak from a vehicle or the back of an animal to a -friend on foot. A remnant of this point of view, members of the A.E.F. -will recall, survives in American army regulations. - - -“Middle-Heart-Inn” was for centuries a place of great importance, being -the half-way stopping-place of all travel on the old Peking-to-Shanghai -route. Then the railroad came, a decade ago, passing it by without even -naming a station in its honor, and it sank to the large miserable -village within a long, rambling, broken mud wall which we found it. -Moreover, it had been struck by hail the autumn before and the crops -just outside its wall had suffered more severely than anywhere else in -the devastated area. One was in luck, I gathered, not to have been -caught out in that storm without an umbrella. The country people of all -that region solemnly assert that the hailstones were as large as -tea-pots, and American missionaries bravely run the risk of being -charged with perjury by asserting that they saw with their own eyes some -as big as grape-fruit. One of the stork-heron birds from the compound of -Mencius was struck dead, and several severe injuries to people were -reported. - -My companion still had left a few hundred dollars from what had been -given him for distribution among famine sufferers, and our first act -after installing ourselves in the mud hut that served as a mission -station and partaking of the heavy repast which a few of the faithful -had insisted on providing—and on clashing chop-sticks with us over—was -to set out on a visiting tour among those pointed out by the chief local -Christians as in urgent need of assistance. I was struck with the -thoroughness with which my companion prepared for the coming -distribution. He refused to give any aid whatever to cases which he -could not personally inspect, and he had lived in China long enough to -know most of the tricks of the unworthy. Anywhere in the United States, -not even excluding the “poor white” and negro communities of the South, -the entire population of Chung-Hsin-Tien would have seemed at a glance -to need the assistance of charity. But in China one must be ragged and -dirty and possessionless and hungry-looking indeed to stand out visibly -from the millions always more or less in the same predicament. Hut after -hut we entered to find not a Mexican dollar’s worth of anything within -it. A bit of crumpled straw or a few rags of what had once been -cotton-padded garments served in most cases as bed, sometimes on a small -_k’ang_ that could be heated—had there been anything to heat it -with—more often on the earth floor itself. Then there might be from two -to half a dozen mud-ware jars and shallow baskets in which the family -habitually kept its possessions, and possibly one or two peasant’s -tools. That was all, in sight at least; and the people had had no -warning that a benefactor was coming. It seemed to be taken for granted -that my companion would consider every one a deceptive rascal until he -had personally proved himself to the contrary, and not only were there -no protests against our entering every hovel, but invitations to do so, -in spite of the breach in Chinese domestic customs involved. - -We felt into every jar and basket, prodded into every corner and nest of -rags, to make sure that the family did not have more than the handful of -grain they admitted. In no case, I believe, was any deception -discovered, but my conscientious companion not only continued until -darkness fell that Saturday evening, but violated his religious scruples -by spending much of the Sabbath afternoon at the same task. Sometimes it -was an old man living alone, with literally nothing but a few handfuls -of chaff and the hulls of beans to feed upon. More often there was a -wife and several children to share such splendid provisions. Not a few -lived in _yin-tse_ instead of huts,—holes cut in the ground and roofed -over with sticks, straw, and mud, with a crude ladder or notched pole by -which we descended through a small opening to the dark interior. The -missionary was particularly scrupulous in entering all of these, for -they often serve as the rendezvous of gamblers, and he trusted to his -experienced eyes to make fairly sure that a cave was not this, but -actually a poor man’s dwelling. There was a similar hole in the ground, -though uncovered and with earth steps leading down to it, in the yard of -the local “mission,” for in the winter it is more comfortable to hold -school or gossip in such a place, out of reach of the wind, yet in the -sunshine, than in the dreary, unheated mud huts. - -Sometimes only the woman and the children were at home, and the only -decent way to inquire of her about her husband, according to Chinese -etiquette, was to refer to him indirectly as her _wai-tou_ or _nan-ren_, -her “outside” or her “male person.” Perhaps he had gone to Manchuria, -with the millions of coolies who set out for there soon after the -Chinese New Year, their belongings in a soiled quilt roll. Compared with -densely populated Shantung, where ten villages within five square miles -is nothing unusual, the “Eastern Three Provinces” are sparsely peopled -and wages are correspondingly high. From Chefoo to Dairen the poorest -steamers cross in a day, and the railroads offer reduced rates to -migrating coolies—furnishing them open freight-cars for their journeys. -But there is more snow than work in Manchuria during the winter; -moreover, any Chinese with a proper respect for his ancestors will -return to his home among their graves at least for the beginning of the -new year, so that much time and some wages are lost in traveling to and -fro. Sometimes the “outside” was working in another part of the -province. There is, of course, no slavery in China; so long-civilized a -land would not tolerate such an institution. But many of the “gentry” -and landowners of Shantung, and of other provinces, no doubt, profit by -the excess of population by paying a man five “Mex” dollars a year and -his food for his labor, and making no provision whatever for his family. - -But there was no real famine in Chung-Hsin-Tien, my companion concluded. -No one was actually starving—though how some of them kept from doing so -on their visible means of support was beyond me. Under-nourishment was -common; the only plentiful thing in town was children, especially boys, -perhaps because of the custom of even the poorest of keeping the girls -out of sight. For nature seems to take revenge on the Chinese for their -ardent desire for male offspring. How often the traveler who has the -audacity to pursue his questions far enough—for Chinese friends do not -greet one another with inquiries as to the health of their respective -families—will finally unearth the shamefaced answer, “All girls.” Some -had sold their land—a _mou_, or about the sixth of an acre, at fourteen -dollars “Mex” perhaps—to carry them over the winter, some their last -household goods that would bring a copper; one man who was so far above -the lower level as to have no hope of outside assistance answered my -joking query as to the price of the most likable of his small sons with -a quick, “Take him along!” But none had been reduced to the final -necessity of tearing down their miserable houses in order to sell the -few sticks of wood in them; hence there were deserving, but not urgent, -cases. - -The native helper had filled a huge sheet of red paper with the names -and particulars of each family visited, to the dictation of my -companion, who divided them into first-, second-, and third-class cases. -The first were the most needy—the utterly possessionless, they would -have seemed to Americans at home—who would be given “full assistance,” -that is, a “Mex” dollar or two a month per person until the next harvest -began to come in. Second class were those who still had something left—a -few pounds of corn meal, a chair that might be sold, a job at a few -coppers a day—and they would be helped accordingly. To be inscribed -third was proof of comparative affluence; it meant that the family had a -goat or a pig, perhaps even a donkey; that one of their jars was still -half full of corn or millet or _kaoliang_, or that they had been caught -in the act of smoking tobacco or of having a little handful of the weed -in the house, prima facie evidence that they were really not suffering -from hunger. To these, small distributions would be made if there was -anything left over from the more needy cases. The two impressions, aside -from the definition of the word “poverty” in China, which this -canvassing left with me were, first, the unfailing cheerfulness, the -hair-trigger smile and ready laughter, of even the most miserably -destitute, and their tenacious clinging to custom in spite of -misfortunes. It seemed never to have suggested itself to the poorest -family in town that it might be well to limit the number of children it -brought into the world to share its perpetual nothing; and mothers who -did not have a pot or a whole garment to their names still somehow found -cloths with which to bind their daughters’ feet. From their point of -view of course this last effort was genuine parental sacrifice; for to -leave the girl with whole feet would mean almost certain starvation -without a husband instead of only partial starvation with one. - - -Itinerating missionaries in China can scarcely avoid living up to the -biblical injunction to “suffer little children to come unto” them. For -their first appearance at the edge of town is the signal for a flocking -from all directions, not merely of all the boys and as many of the girls -as are not restrained, but of a generous collection of men of all ages, -and even some of the boldest women. Chinese and Western courtesy are -diametrically opposed in some of their characteristics, and perhaps -there is no wider gulf between them than the conception of proper -behavior toward strangers. We consider it rude to stare; the Chinese -consider it almost an insult not to stare. Like the young ladies of -Spanish America, who would take it as much more than a slight on their -beauty not to be ogled so brazenly that it becomes almost indecency by -the young men lined up on either side of their promenade, so the Chinese -high official or man of wealth would be seriously hurt by a failure of -the populace to flock about him wherever he appears in public. Simple -villagers cannot of course be expected to know that Westerners do not -consider this attention so essential, and to that is added the most -inquisitive temperament among the races of mankind, a curiosity which, -though it is no exaggeration to dub it monkey-like, is probably proof of -a higher grade of intelligence than that of more stolid and indifferent -peoples. But it is a form of intelligence with which most travelers from -the West, I believe, would very willingly dispense, for to be stared at -unbrokenly hour after hour by a motionless throng becomes at times the -most exasperating of experiences. - -It is not of course to the advantage of a missionary to drive off the -crowds that gather about him, for he has come to China mainly for the -purpose of addressing crowds, and every tendency toward exclusiveness is -so much set-back in his chosen work. Naturally, too, it is not fitting -in the guest of an itinerating missionary to throw cups of tea or mud -bricks in the faces of the compact mob through which may be scattered -some of his host’s converts, however strong the temptation may become. -During all our stay in Chung-Hsin-Tien, therefore, we were like kings at -a levée—if we are to believe that kings were ever so thickly attended -during the exchanging of their nighties for their breeches. There was a -gate to the mission yard, and a padlock that fitted it; but the picking -of that even from the outside seemed to be the easiest thing the town -did. Besides, the yard was invaded so closely on our heels that nothing -would have been gained by locking the gate. The door of the mud house -that usually served as church, as well as for the sleeping-room of the -local pastor and ourselves, was no barrier to the advance. Long before -the preliminary tea was poured for us there was a compact wall of -humanity drawn so tightly about us that we could barely move our elbows, -and the sea of fixedly staring faces stretched away to infinity out -through the yard. Now and then an undercurrent of discontent at -inequality of proximity surged through the multitude, to break against -our ribs or toss smaller urchins in between our legs and over our knees. -When at length it came time to open our cots and sleeping-bags, there -was still a large audience to such disrobing as we cared to do under -such conditions, and it was an hour or two afterward before the most -privileged characters had been convinced that they, too, should retire. -Nor were we by any means out of bed next morning when there appeared the -vanguard of the throng that was to wall us in all that day. It was hard -somehow to understand just why a town which often saw foreigners still -came to stand by the hour watching with the fixed eyes of a statue our -every slightest movement, be it only the tying of a shoe-lace or the -buttoning of a coat. - -A large number of those about us bore famous names. Many a Chinese -village is made up almost exclusively of persons having the same surname -and the same ancestors, and Chung-Hsin-Tien, being no great distance -from the birthplace of either, contains many descendants of both -Confucius and Mencius. There was Meng the shopkeeper and Kung the cook, -both Christians, right within the mission compound, and it was easy to -find in any small crowd others bearing those illustrious names. Once I -came upon a Mencius squatting in the dirt at the corner nearest the -gate, shoveling away with worn chop-sticks a cracked bowlful of some -uninviting food, and so ignorant that he fled in dismay when I suggested -a photograph, refusing to have his soul thus taken from him. A little -farther up the street a Confucius sold peanuts in little heaps at a -copper each. Missionaries in this region say that those bearing the two -famous names are so numerous that the difficulty of making converts is -increased, because they are so proud of their ancestry that they will -seldom risk the stigma attached to changing to a “foreign” faith. Yet -there was a Confucius from this very town who was now a Presbyterian -preacher, and the two names appear rather frequently on the church -registers of southern Shantung. - -Of late years at least it is not unduly easy to become an accepted -Christian there. My companion spent half that Sunday morning in putting -a dozen candidates through a long catechism, and permitted only two of -them to join the church at once, baptizing them—from a tea-cup—at the -morning service. It was fully as easy, too, to get out of the church as -to get into it; one of the hardest and most important tasks of the -missionaries is to see that backsliders are dropped from membership. -Almost before we had entered the hole in the mud wall that passed for a -city gate a rather addle-pated old man had appeared, hugging his -well-worn Bible under his arm; and as long as we remained he hovered -close about us, grinning at us upon the slightest provocation, as if to -say, “We are brethren, far above this common herd.” He was about the -first convert in the region—and one of the chief thorns in the flesh of -the itinerator. For the latter had been forced to drop him from the -church rolls years before because he had taken a concubine, and there -was still no prospect of his being granted forgiveness, even though he -had advanced the ingenious argument that he had been compelled to the -act by his mother, lest the family graveyards be left without -attendants. Yet he continued his church-going as religiously as if he -were one of the principal deacons. Perhaps it was just retribution that -he still had no son, in spite of his lapse from the tight missionary -way. I confess that I did not quite follow the reasoning which made it -quite all right to admit the concubine herself to church membership, but -I have always been dense on theological niceties. - -The day was delightful, and services were held out in the yard. Perhaps -twoscore men and half as many women, not to mention a veritable flock of -children, crowded together on the narrow little benches taken from the -mud-hut church, or stood behind them. I could not but admire the -endurance of the missionary, and silently congratulate him on the -sturdiness inherited from his “Pennsylvania Dutch” ancestors. For it can -scarcely be a mere mental relaxation to talk incessantly, earnestly, and -energetically for an hour in a tongue as foreign as the southern -Shantung dialect, while Chinese urchins by the dozen, from -seatless-trousered infancy to devilish early youth, seemed to be doing -their utmost to make life about them unbearable; and when even the -adults frequently displayed habits that are not usual in our own church -gatherings. Or, if this is not enough to try any man’s strength and -patience, there was the frequent torture of listening to the horrible -imitation of our hymns perpetrated, with missionary connivance, by the -congregation. Evidently no Chinese can “hold” a tune, but he can do -almost anything else to it which a vivid imagination can picture. Why -their own “music” cannot be adapted to religious purposes to better -advantage is one of those innumerable questions which flock about the -traveler in China like mosquitos in a swamp. - - -Evening services of almost as strenuous a nature, and many personal -conferences on religious or financial matters, plumply filled out the -day, and early next morning, when the last clinging convert had been -shaken off without the suggestion of violence that would have planted a -little nucleus of discontent in the community, we were away again by -wheelbarrow. I am in no position to testify as to how strictly the few -Christians of Chung-Hsin-Tien lived up to their faith in every-day life, -but they, and no small number of their as unwashed and ragged -fellow-townsmen, missed mighty little of the vaudeville performance -which the appearance of a foreigner or two in almost any Chinese town -seems to be considered by the inhabitants. This time we had three -barrow-men, one of them a first-class candidate for famine relief funds, -whose insistent smile at this unexpected windfall of a job was less -surprising than the mulish endurance he somehow got out of a chaff and -bean-hull diet. Less brute strength is required, however, in the -handling of a Chinese wheelbarrow than appearances suggest. During the -afternoon I changed places for a bit with the coolie between the front -handles, and while I would not care to adopt barrowing as a profession -while some less confining source of livelihood remains to me, the thing -ran, on the level at least, more like a perambulator than the most -optimistic could have imagined. The Chinese are adepts in the art of -balancing, and the wheelbarrow, like the rickshaw and the “Peking cart,” -is so adjusted as to call for less exertion than the sight of it -suggests. Ups and downs, sand or soft earth, sheer edges of “road,” and -the passing of many similar vehicles where there is no room to pass, -however, make an all-day journey no mere excursion even to a team of -three barrow-men. - -Women and children were scratching about here and there in the fields; -the men were bringing manure in two big baskets fixed on a barrow, such -as carry the night-soil of Peking out through the city gates, and were -piling it in little mounds differing from the myriad graves only in -size. The New Year season was visibly over, and the incessant -working-days had come again. Somehow the name “Shantung” had always -called up the picture of a half-wild region, in spite of the protests of -reason; I found it instead very thoroughly tamed, as befits one of the -most populous regions on the globe—tamed at least in the agricultural -sense. When it came to such afflictions as bandits, officials, and the -Yellow River there is still much taming to be done in the province of -Confucius. - -We passed almost incessantly through villages. High on the tops of the -smooth, bare hills that grew up as we advanced were rings of what seemed -to be stone, refuges built at the time of the Taiping Rebellion, which -came to a standstill in this very region. They were only walls, with -perhaps still a well inside, though the suspicion was growing that -bandits were finding a new use for them. Once we passed close on the -left an isolated stony peak that is as sacred as Tai-Shan, though much -less famous. Thousands of country people climb it, especially in the New -Year season, either as their only penance excursion, or as a part of -their pilgrimage through all the holy land of China. It is a rough and -uninviting climb, but nowhere is filial devotion more generously -rewarded, if we are to believe the faithful. Therefore one may on almost -any day see the son of an ailing father, dressed only in his Chinese -trousers, holding his hands with palms together in front of him, a stick -of burning incense between them, marching to the top of the mountain -without once taking his eyes off the rising thread of smoke before him. -A crowd follows close behind, and one of these carries the clothing of -the devotee, whose father is certain to recover under this -treatment—unless one of several hundred little incidents occur to make -the penance useless. - -That night, in the mission-owned mud hut of another unlaundered town, my -companion preached a long sermon full of energy to a congregation of -five, one of whom was part-witted, two often asleep, and another merely -one of our barrow-men. Only the village “doctor,” whose training -consisted of a year as coolie in a mission hospital, kept his attention -strictly on the business in hand, as should be expected of the chief, -even though somewhat fragile, pillar of Christendom in the region. There -had been an audience of goodly size for such a locality in the early -part of the evening. Not only was the hut crowded with the score it -would hold, but at least twice as many more blocked the open door or -flattened their noses against the single dirty window. But a few -rifle-shots had suddenly sounded somewhere off toward the hills. Bandits -had raided, looted, and kidnapped in this town several times during the -year just over; and though there was no sudden exodus—for the Chinese -must “save face” under all circumstances—the audience melted steadily -away until only the five remained. The itinerating missionary, however, -must never let outside influences affect even the tone of the message he -is ever seeking to deliver. Whatever his benefits to the field he is -cultivating—and a wide experience is needed to acquire any certain -knowledge on this subject—he at least still has some of the hardships of -early missionary days, which his thousands of well housed colleagues, -even in China, only know by hearsay. - - -Tenghsien seemed to be far enough south to be tinged with the problems -and customs of southern China. Its dialect was audibly at variance with -that of Peking, even to an ear of slight Chinese training. On the wall -of the vault-like passage through the southern city gate hung several -time-blackened wooden crates containing the shoes of former magistrates. -It is one of the politenesses of the region to stop a departing -magistrate at the gate and remove his footwear, as a way of saying, “We -hate so badly to see you leave that we will do everything within our -power to prevent your going.” How careful such an official may be to -make sure that the ceremony is not omitted in his case, even though he -has to detail the shoe-pilferers, or whether or not he slips on the -oldest footwear in his possession that morning, are of course -unauthorized peeps behind the scenery such as tend to take all the -poetry out of life. We dropped in at the local pawnshop, with which my -host was on good terms rather out of policy than necessity, but it was -nothing now but a huge compound of empty buildings, crowded together in -almost labyrinthian turmoil. The pawnshop is one of the most important -institutions in any Chinese community, with many curious little -idiosyncrasies unknown to our own displayers of the golden balls, but it -can scarcely be expected to continue to function where, between grasping -officials and bandits frequently sweeping in from the hills, neither the -ticketed articles nor the cash on hand can be kept from disappearing. - -The throwing out of sick babies seemed to be a fixed habit in Tenghsien, -though one seldom hears of such cases farther north. Millions of Chinese -parents believe that if a child dies before the age of six or seven it -is because it was really no child at all, but only an evil spirit -masquerading as one; and unless it is gotten rid of in time, woe betide -the other children of the family, already born or to come. It is -preferable apparently that it be eaten by dogs, but above all it must -not die in the house. The missionaries of Tenghsien have grown to take -this custom as a matter of course. If in their movements about town they -came upon a discarded baby still alive, they did what they could to -relieve its sufferings, but they did not “register” surprise. The -Chinese merely passed by on the farther side of the street. To touch an -abandoned child would be to invite the evil spirit to your own house, -unless it proved, by getting well, to be merely a sick child, and no -Chinese is brave enough to run any such risk as that. Not long before my -arrival, the mission “Bible woman” had found a girl of two thrown out on -a pile of filth, and even she had dared do nothing more than sit and fan -the flies off it, until it died. The missionaries, however, have come to -be looked upon as immune from these evil spirits. More than one -garbage-heap baby graces the mission kindergarten, and a man of some -standing now in the town carries on his face the teeth-marks of the dog -to which he was abandoned. It is not all mere superstition either, the -missionaries assert, but dread of responsibility, hatred of initiative, -often mere selfishness, masquerading as such. Many Chinese may actually -fear that the river spirit will get them if they save a drowning person, -but many others are merely afraid of wetting their clothes. - -The Western and the Chinese mind may be similar in construction, but -they certainly do not work alike. Let the missionaries take a girl for a -year’s training, for instance, or for the temporary relief of her -parents, and they are sure to be informed when the period is over that -it is their duty to care for her the rest of her life. As it is contrary -to the Chinese idea of politeness to mind one’s own business, so their -gratitude seems to be of a different brand from ours. Something akin to -that feeling is no doubt now and then felt, in otherwise unoccupied -moments, for the men and women from overseas who spend their lives -trying to instil into Chinese youth such wisdom and right living as they -themselves possess; yet rarely does the passing visitor get a hint of -anything more than superficial politeness toward the benefactors, and -the assumption that they are somehow making a fine thing, financially or -materially, out of their labors—otherwise why would they continue them? - -Sometimes Tenghsien buries its children, like those of its paupers who -do not belong to the beggars’ gild, in such shallow, careless graves -that the dogs habitually dig them up again. These surly brutes sat -licking their chops here and there on the outskirts of town, among -discolored rags of what had once been cotton-padded clothing scattered -about little mussed-up holes in the ground. Lepers were treated with a -similar policy of abandonment, or “let the foreigners do something about -it if they must.” The same American woman who had the highest record for -rescuing babies from the garbage-heap had built the only leper-home in -Shantung, if not in northwest China, a mile or two outside Tenghsien. As -far as the Chinese are concerned lepers run about the country as freely -as any one else. They may not be exactly popular—for the people know the -horrors of the disease and easily recognize its symptoms—but they can -scarcely be avoided. The thirty or more men and boys, who had been -gathered together in a two-story brick building many times more splendid -than the homes any of them had known before, had that same cheerful, -seldom complaining, easily smiling demeanor of the Chinese coolie under -any misfortune. Only a few were bedridden, for the greater resistance to -disease for which the Chinese are famous seems to spare them some of the -more horrible ravages of leprosy. But on one point they were losing -their cheery patience. For months they had submitted weekly to -injections of chaulmugra oil without any visible signs of improvement. -The treatment is painful; they all admitted it, and one fat-faced boy of -fourteen was pointed out as “tearing the walls apart with his screams” -when it was administered to him. But his quick retort to the charge -seemed to be the consensus of opinion: “Oh, please let us live without -the needle and go to heaven in peace when our time comes!” Such efforts -were being made to build a similar refuge for women—who of course always -come second in China—that even the men sufferers were asked to -contribute the few coppers they could live without—and when it is -finally built, through missionary effort, it will pay taxes to the local -authorities, like many other mission institutions. - - -Under more auspicious circumstances I should have struck off into that -labyrinth of mountains occupying the southeastern part of Shantung. But -it might have meant a very much longer stay than I cared to make. For -years now the mountainous parts of the province have been overrun more -or less continuously by what we call bandits. The Chinese call them -“_hung-hu-tze_” (“red beards,” a term evidently originating in -Manchuria, where bearded men from the north seem to have been the first -raiders, and to have suggested a clever disguise for native rascals) or -“_tu-fei_” (which means something like “local badness coming out of the -ground”). But under any name they are a thorn in the side of their -fellow-men. In Peking, where the so-called Central Government still -decorates foreign passports with separate visés for each province, five -at a time, even though the provincial authorities rarely look at them, -conditions were admitted with a frankness which other Governments might -copy to advantage. I had been given permission to travel freely in -Shantung—“_except_ in the areas of Tungchowfu, Linchengchow, Tsaochowfu, -Yenchowfu, and the regions controlled by the Kiao Taoyin.” In other -words, one could go anywhere, so long as one kept within sprinting -distance of the two railway lines. As a matter of fact, much of the -information of the Central Government was out of date; places it -excepted were now peaceful, and others it did not mention were infested -with brigands. Yenchowfu, for instance, showed no more ominous signs -when I passed through it than any other sleepy old walled town; and the -world at large knows how safe the railways themselves were just about -this season. Had there been any good reason to run the risk, the chances -are that I could have gone anywhere in Shantung without anything serious -happening to me; on the other hand, I might have been carried off before -I got well into the foot-hills. - -The mountainous sections in which the brigands were operating most -freely are merely poorer, less populous parts of the crowded province, -where there is little to be seen except smaller editions of what may be -found within easier reach elsewhere. Now and then they had entered -Tenghsien, the station of my “itinerating” companion; only recently they -had posted a warning on the mission gate in Yihsien, reached by a -branch-line a little farther south, that unless some large sum of cash -was forthcoming within a hundred days the place would be burned. The -women and children had been sent to safer stations, and outposts of -agricultural and evangelistic work had been temporarily abandoned. It -was near Lincheng, the very junction of the Yihsien line, and the next -large town south of Tenghsien, that a score of foreign passengers were -to be taken from the most important express in China a few weeks later -and carried off into these same hills. The brigands, in fact, hard -pressed for a way out of their difficulties, debated the wisdom of -taking the missionaries of Tenghsien and neighboring stations as the -lever they needed against the authorities. It is more in keeping with -justice that they finally decided to hold up the express instead and be -sure of hostages with wealth and influence enough to assure the world’s -taking notice of them, for the missionaries have lived for years in -constant danger of such a raid, while most of the passengers were well -fed individuals who had left home mainly in quest of experience. - -When Tenghsien came to be altogether too closely pressed by bandits, the -authorities fell back upon a scheme to drive them away without -bloodshed. The Boxers, it will be recalled, had their origin in southern -Shantung, and the method by which they fancied they made themselves -immune to injury by their foes is still widely believed there. The -authorities therefore, or private individuals with the initiative -needed, called in some countrymen with stout faith in the efficacy of -this form of protection and paid magicians two dollars each to make them -“immune.” This is accomplished by various forms of hocus-pocus, in which -the swallowing of bits of paper with certain characters written on them, -and the wearing of similar charms, are the chief features. Not only did -the countrymen believe that this made them proof against bullets, -swords, and bayonets, but, what made the investment really useful, the -brigands also believe it. When care had been taken to have word of the -ceremonies reach the bandit camps, the “immune” persons were placed in -front of the government troops, who moved slowly but steadily out into -the hills. The outlaws knew the futility of wasting precious ammunition -on men whom it would be impossible to injure; hence they gracefully -retreated as far from town as the authorities chose to drive them. There -was, of course, the slight danger that some skeptic among the bandits -would doubt the efficacy of the charm. But the Chinese are much more -given to swallowing their popular beliefs whole than to investigating -their worth, and in the case of an unforeseen accident the evidence -would be plain, not that the hocus-pocus is ineffectual, but that it was -badly performed. - - -Not far below Tenghsien the railway crosses the old bed of the Yellow -River, that greatest of Chinese vagrants. As far back as history is -recorded this has changed its mind every few centuries and decided to go -somewhere else. It is not a believer in the old adage that as you make -your bed so you should lie in it, for the Hoang Ho has the custom, not -usual even among rivers, of piling up its course until it flows some -twenty feet above the surrounding country, puny mankind meanwhile -striving feverishly to confine it by dikes which cannot in the end keep -pace with the growth of silt between them. No Chinese can be expected to -be comfortable on so elevated a bed, much less a river, and when things -become altogether too unbearable the Hoang Ho suddenly abandons its -course and makes a new one overnight. The last great change of this kind -was in the middle of the past century, when, swinging on a pivot near -Kaifeng, one of China’s many old-time capitals, it struck northeastward -across Shantung to the gulf of Chihli, though it had formerly emptied -into the Yellow Sea hundreds of miles farther south, barely touching -Shantung at all. Shantung did not want it, but it had no choice in the -matter. The provinces which had been so suddenly relieved of so violent -an enemy, and at the same time presented with a large strip of land -where land is so badly needed, certainly were not going to help, nor -even permit, if it could be avoided, restoration to the old bed. -Besides, there are both historical and visible evidences that Shantung -had harbored the unwelcome visitor more than once before, that the two -mountainous parts of the province were probably once islands, and that -the Yellow River, washing back and forth between them, has built up the -level and more fertile parts of the country. Similar things happened in -many parts of the world, but in most cases the job was finished before -man appeared, whereas in China it is still going on. The result is that -man finds himself very much in the way during the process. - -[Illustration: - - On the way home I changed places with one of our three wheelbarrow - coolies, and found that the contrivance did not run so hard as I - might otherwise have believed -] - -[Illustration: - - The men who use the roads of China make no protest at their being dug - up every spring and turned into fields -] - -[Illustration: - - Sons are a great asset to the wheelbarrowing coolies of Shantung -] - -Chinese history is full of accounts of the struggle to keep the Hoang Ho -within limits. Some emperors are famous chiefly for their struggles -against it. For centuries the “squeeze” connected with the building of -dikes, or even their maintenance, has been one of the richest -perquisites of certain official positions. Perhaps this is why the -latest task of wrestling with the Yellow River has been given to an -American firm established in China. Two years ago the river broke -through its dikes again, though this time within a hundred miles of its -mouth, and inundated what to crowded Shantung is an immense area, -destroying many villages and withdrawing the land about them from -cultivation. Several walled cities, too, were in great peril, -particularly Litsing, situated in a bend of the river, and _below_ it; -for here as in its former course to the south the stream has gradually -silted itself higher and higher, until one crossing it anywhere along -its lower reaches must climb thirty or forty feet to the top of the dike -from the land side, to descend only ten or twelve to the river. In flood -season the waters washed at the walls of Litsing, which in time they -must have undermined and broken, drowning out the city. Famine relief -funds improved the lot of those who had been driven from their homes, -some of whom built new shelters on the broad tops of the dikes, while -others scattered, particularly to Manchuria. The dead and the living -between them so crowd the land in Shantung that if one patch is taken -away there is no other room for those who live upon it. Bids were asked -for the task of retaming the river, to be paid for jointly from relief -funds and by the province; the American firm offered to do the work at -just one fourth the price asked by Chinese contractors, and having -secured itself against the common misfortune of those working for -Chinese Governments by insisting on monthly prepayments, tackled a job -that was old when Confucius was a boy. - -Clumsy native boats, bringing down rock for the work, as well as coolies -and supplies, will carry one from Tzinan to the scene of operations in a -day or two; but the more hasty American way is by automobile from -Choutsun, two hours east of the capital on the Shantung railway. What is -known in China as a motor-road, that is, a raised causeway made entirely -of soft yellowish earth, which cuts up into ever deeper ruts, growing -impassable with much rain, its steep sides gradually crumbling away -until the barely two-car width is reduced to the point when passing is -impossible for much of the distance, runs northward to the river, where -cars take to the top of the dike. The workmen, strange as it may seem, -are not so numerous as the company would like, and recruiting has to be -carried on at considerable distances. The proverbial Chinese distrust of -the “outside barbarian” has something to do with this; perhaps fear of -bringing down upon their heads the wrath of the river gods for -interfering with him may deter others; naturally in this season of the -lunar New Year many had gone back to their ancestral graves. To put into -American dollars and cents the wages paid would be to give a false -impression of penuriousness on the part of the company; suffice it to -say, therefore, that they are much higher than the average of wages in -Shantung, that millet and rice and other essentials are furnished at -cost to the employees, thereby saving them from heartless exploitation -by their fellow-countrymen of the merchant class, and that reeds and -other materials are supplied for covering their lodging-places. These -are neither more nor less than holes dug in the earth; but mud -dwellings, whether above or below the ground, have been the lot of -Chinese coolies for many centuries, at least since the forests were -turned into fuel and coffins, and these have the advantage that they can -be moved in a few hours with a shovel as the work advances. - -Here several thousand coolies already, with two or three times as many -to come, it is expected, are engaged in straightening out a great crook -in the river. The methods are of course those of the Orient, where many -men with shovels and baskets, swarming like trains of leaf-cutting ants -over the scene of activities, are more economical than snorting -steam-shovels and endless strings of rattling freight-cars. In the early -spring, when mountains of broken ice from up the river joined that which -had covered the flooded region during the short winter, the sight was -one worth coming many _li_ to see. But that was gone now, even in the -middle of March, and the task of taking a kink out of “China’s Sorrow” -is on the high road to completion. The plan is to teach the river the -way it should go, and then let it scour out its own channel. Western -initiative and ingenuity, however, probably can no more cure permanently -the vagrancy of the Hoang Ho than did the ancient emperors, and -corrective measures will have to be applied to the incorrigible vagabond -among rivers at least for centuries to come. - - - - - CHAPTER XVII - EASTWARD TO TSINGTAO - - -A splendid task for some scholar of unlimited patience and a -mathematical turn of mind would be to count the graves in China and -compute how many sadly needed acres they withdraw from cultivation. He -might offer a thesis on the subject, in exchange for the right to wear -the letters “Ph.D.” Unfortunately he could not complete the task in a -mere lifetime, or just a century or two, but the undertaking might be -handed down, Chinese fashion, from father to son, until data were -forthcoming that might in time make an impression even on the Celestial -mind. This worshiping of ancestors is all very well, if only the living -could also be given a fair deal. The constant sight of undernourished -multitudes grubbing out a scant escape from starvation in the -interstices between the sacred mounds of earth littering almost every -Chinese landscape recalls the story of Bridget tearfully refusing Pat a -taste before he died of the roasting pork that smelled so good to him, -because it was all needed for the wake. - -Reflections of this simple nature were inclined to crowd out all other -impressions during another of my cross-country jaunts in Shantung, this -time northward to an ancient city still popularly called Loa-An. For the -way led through Lin-tze, also walled, aged, and dreaming of the past, -which in the days of Confucius was in the heart of the kingdom of Chi, -as the home of the sage was in that of the neighboring one of Lu. For -miles about it, therefore, the princes of Chi lie buried, not under the -mere cones of earth of ordinary ancestors, but beneath hillocks and -hills, and what sometimes seem across the floor-flat country to be -almost mountains. Some are still so respected that the groves of mainly -evergreen trees about them, beautifying the usual bare nudity of Chinese -graves, have survived to this day, and one or two are guarded at a -respectful distance by a standing stone giant who recalls those of Egypt -or of the southern shores of Lake Titicaca. Then there are many lesser -lights, such as always cluster about a court, and innumerable areas are -sacred to other ancient families, the mounds graduated in size and state -of repair from the principal one of the collection at the back to the -small ones so far out in front that the peasants dare to cultivate close -about them. Remnants of tissue-paper “money” donated to the dead all -over China at the New Year still fluttered from the peak of many a -mound, some of which dated so far back, perhaps, that live servants and -domestic animals were buried in them, instead of the flimsy paper -substitutes for these that are burned at modern funerals, along with -papier-mâché automobiles containing a pair of painted chauffeurs and a -concubine or two; but more than anything else, even of the sense of -antiquity, one was impressed by the endlessness, the uncountability of -the grave-mounds of all sizes. - -Draft-animals, if only a cow or a donkey, or the two hitched together, -were drawing crude but effective plows and what American farmers call a -“drag,” on which the driver stands, raising clouds of dust behind him. -But the dodging of graves seemed to be the most serious task of all, far -as we rode northward, and one could fancy the undernourished peasants, -suddenly struck with Western seeing in place of blind custom, deciding -that it is high time these aged mounds are leveled off, or at least -planted over. Possibly that miracle will some day come to pass, and -China will by a turn of her hand increase her productive land by several -provinces, without extending her boundaries or robbing her neighbors of -an acre. - -This time I used still another of Shantung’s many modes of locomotion,—a -bicycle. It has its advantages in a flat country where the roads are -often narrow paths, and where a vehicle that cannot be lifted about by -hand now and then is limited in its range. But when it chances that a -raging head wind blows both going and coming, and the contrivance -between one’s aching legs emanates from a Chicago mail-order house, -there are certain things to envy the traveler by wheelbarrow. In a way -the season was poorly chosen, too, for though the day was cloudless and -warm, plowing was on, and while the Chinese peasant leaves unmolested -the graves that dot his little field, he often plows up the road. Thus a -route which at best was an alternating between the bottom of a ditch -deep in dust and a precariously narrow and by no means continuous path -often on the sheer edge of it, frequently became a trackless field, -plowed by draft-animals or chopped up with the clumsy, sledge-heavy -adz-hoe still used in China. Rye and barley, and above all peanuts, were -to be the principal crops wherever winter wheat was not already showing -its tender green. One does not at first thought closely associate the -two, but peanuts and missionaries are likely to lie side by side on the -floor of the Chinese coolie’s mental granary. The Chinese had a peanut -before the missionaries came, and still cultivate it to a certain -extent. But it is so tiny and dry that it looks more like the end of a -pea-pod, with a pea or two left in it, that has survived several winters -in a very dry place—and the taste does not dispel this illusion. -American missionaries brought the much more profitable variety from -Georgia in an effort to improve the conditions of Shantung, and to-day -the American peanuts grown in China probably run into millions of -bushels, dotting every market-place and producing oil enough to supply -the world with peanut-butter. - -Loa-An is no longer officially known by that name, and thereby hangs a -typically Chinese tale. Soon after the establishment of what passes in -the outside world for a republic, it was decreed that deeds of -land-holdings must be registered again, though this had been done quite -recently under the Manchus. The registry fee was to be a dollar and -twenty cents, of which 70 per cent was to go to the Government and the -rest to the local magistrate. Now, a dollar and twenty cents, even in -“Mex,” is a lot of money to a Shantung peasant, with the tiny parcel of -land which the custom of dividing among the sons of each generation has -left him, and a decade ago it was still more so. Moreover, the -magistrate should have known that in China government decrees are not -necessarily meant to be carried out, at least beyond the point of -individual discretion. But he was of the aggressive type of official, -sadly needed perhaps but not always successful in China, and his -insistence on having the order obeyed to the letter reached the point -where he helped to carry it out in person. The wrath of the country-side -increased. One day when the magistrate was some forty _li_ out of town -in the interest of thorough collections and an honest return of them -from his constables, a band of peasants fell upon him and chopped him to -death with their hoe-hooks. - -Soldiers were hurried to Loa-An, where they oppressed the population for -months in the time-honored Chinese way, and finally lopped off eight -heads. None of these had been the leading spirits in the assassination, -nor perhaps had any real part in it at all, but they had been the -easiest to catch; and, their duty ended, according to Chinese lights, -the soldiers withdrew. But the Government saw fit to inflict a heinous -punishment on the city of Loa-An itself, for the crime of permitting -such a crime within its district. Loa-An means “Rejoicing and Peace,” as -nearly as it can be translated; it was ordered henceforth to call itself -Gwang-Rao. Does this mean “Bunch of Rascals,” or something of the sort, -as we of the West might suppose? It does not; it means FarReaching -Forgiveness, for, as I have already had occasion to remark, the Chinese -mind may have been originally built on the same specifications as our -own, but its manner of functioning has grown quite different during the -many centuries that separate us. For one thing, it refuses to jar itself -by sudden readjustments, and Gwang-Rao is still spoken of as Lao-An in -ninety cases out of a hundred. - -As is so often the case throughout China, much of the population and the -business of Lao-An have gathered outside the city walls, where there are -certain advantages which the American suburbanite will understand. -Inside, there is that atmosphere of an old ladies’ home which one feels -in an aged New England village off the trail of modern progress—though -certainly in outward appearance there are no two things more dissimilar -than a New England village and a Chinese walled town. An immense pond or -lake takes up a whole corner of the enclosure, licking away at the inner -base of the crumbling wall. In its prime this was almost majestic, -higher than anything within it, broad enough for a “Peking cart” to -drive comfortably upon it, the crenelated parapets armed with small -cannon of curious casting which now lie rusting away wherever chance has -rolled them. There are other open spaces within the walls, some -cultivated, some merely idle, but the town itself is compact enough, -with one long trough of dust or mud as a main street, lined by -baked-earth houses of one form or another, enlivened only by an -occasional hawker marking his leisurely progress by some Chinese species -of noise, or a long unlaundered family group enjoying the brilliant -sunshine of early spring. - -Outside it is different,—movement, crowding, an uproar of wide-open -shops and transient venders, all noisily contending for patronage, -dwellings that are almost imposing in their milieu, and, in the -outskirts, a large Presbyterian school and mission under an unusually -trusted Chinese pastor. His board beds may not have been the last word -in comfort, but they were many times nearer that than a passing guest -could have found in all the rest of the district. The auditing, -counseling, and moral sustenance for which the white-haired missionary I -had accompanied made his annual visit to Lao-An, with a brief service by -the honored visitor and a few moments in the unheated school-rooms, -where full outdoor garb was in order, left us time to go to prison -before we faced the head wind again. It was typical probably of most -local limbos in Shantung, unless the weekly services which the pastor -had been allowed to give there for a year now had remodeled the moral -outlook of the prisoners as completely as he believed: cells that were -larger than the average inmate had at home, and not overcrowded, by -Chinese standards, tolerable food and plenty of sunshine, a certain -semi-freedom at times in the yards, and in contrast iron fetters about -the neck, waist, and ankles in most cases, with clanking chains -connecting them. The prisoners got five coppers a day to feed -themselves—more than a whole American cent! Yet they lived well, -according to the pastor, and could save money. Three coppers paid for a -catty (a pound and a third) of millet, and the grain hong saw to it that -they got good measure. What average Shantung countryman is sure of a -catty of millet a day? Besides, they were paid for their work. The young -and spry could earn as much as ten coppers daily making hair-nets, and -the older ones, with their more clumsy fingers, half as much weaving -_dee-tze_—girdles, I suppose we would call them, though the Chinese use -twice as many of them about their ankles as around their waists. Then -Loa-An gets great quantities of a rush the size of a lead-pencil from -nearer the mouth of the Yellow River, and from these are fashioned -baskets and scoops, and shallow basins for the feeding of animals, -buckets for use at wells, winnowing pans, and, strangest of all, a thick -winter shoe that looks like an infant Roman galley. - - -All the romance of hair-nets is not limited to the tresses they confine. -Shantung, and to a lesser degree some neighboring provinces, has known -some of it. Until Europe went mad, hair-nets were made mainly in France. -America, callous upstart, continued to demand them even though the guns -were thundering. Some of the materials had always come from China, -though the French were much given to the use of horsehair; now it -occurred to some genius that the Chinese might be taught to make them on -the spot. A small town in Shantung became the center of the new -industry; later it gravitated naturally to Chefoo. Every one took to -turning discarded cues and combings into nets; children learned to tie -them; coolies forced their clumsy fingers to it when nothing else -offered; in mission churches women pinned the things to one another’s -backs and went on tying the little knots while they listened to the -sermon. The making of hair-nets kept many from starvation in famine -days, even though the wholesalers took advantage of the situation and -paid the hungry toilers as little as possible. Even in the best of times -the workers make no fortune. They are paid by the gross of nets; women -and children working at odd times can earn from five to ten coppers a -day; those who are skilled and put in all their time at it make from -thirty-five to fifty coppers—ten to thirteen cents gold—when the nets -are selling at their highest, five to seven dollars “Mex” a gross. Just -now they were down to half that, and with a great oversupply of nets on -the market and fashion turning toward the double-strand net, the makers -were getting hardly three American cents a dozen. - -Many wholesalers, on the other hand, have quickly gotten rich out of -hair-nets. There is a barber, for instance, who is known to have laid up -ten thousand dollars in three or four years, a great fortune in China -even to men far above the lowly barber caste. But the newly rich are not -so kindly treated where class lines are still rather sharply drawn and -precedent especially tenacious. His envious neighbors overwhelmed their -former hair-cutter with lawsuits, the most common and effective form of -Chinese community persecution; though he turned his money into land he -can neither live on nor rent it, so virulent is the prejudice against -him. With the coming of hair-nets the bicycle trade boomed. This was the -only quick way of getting about the country, and the buyers could carry -thousands of nets back with them. The Germans of Tsingtao had good -_Fahrräder_ to offer at reasonable prices, and made the most of their -opportunity. Then came a slump in the trade, hints of the reasons for -which in time reached the wholesalers, if not the makers. American girls -had taken to bobbing their hair! But this fad had begun to die out -again, and already the people of overcrowded Shantung were feeling the -effect of this in fuller bowls of rice. - -In wandering about Shantung I was constantly coming across coolies who -had been to France. One could generally tell them at a glance, from some -remnant of uniform, or their way of wearing what they had chosen when -that wore out, perhaps by a certain air of something that was not -exactly what we popularly dub “freshness,” yet which was more or less -distantly related to it. Besides, they seldom waited long on the chance -of recognition, but greeted the foreigner with the self-confidence of -familiarity and proceeded to impress their fellow-countrymen who had -been denied their advantages, and who never failed to gather about in as -great a circle as the community afforded. - -The British and, to some extent, the French, took large numbers of -coolies overseas for work behind the lines, mainly from Shantung and -southern China. Some three hundred thousand went from this northern -province, at first slowly and with misgivings, then more eagerly, as -propaganda and the reports of those who had gone ahead filtered out -through the villages. The French made some arrangement whereby their -recruits seem to have been much lower paid, yet to have come home more -contented, than those with the British. The latter offered them ten -Chinese dollars a month in France and an equal amount to their families -at home, with of course transportation, food, and clothing. This was so -high that at first the coolies would not believe it; these wily -foreigners must have something else up their sleeves, they told one -another, putting them out in front of the soldiers perhaps, for it was a -rare coolie who had ever earned half the amount so glibly offered. But -the incredible turned out to be true. Several towns were designated as -district headquarters; foreign residents, usually missionaries, were -asked to take charge in them, and once a month the nearest of kin of the -absent workmen came in and got their ten dollars, in coin. At Weihsien -ninety thousand were paid monthly for several years, for the coolies of -the labor battalions were not returned until 1920, after the carrying of -troops had been completed. Up to that time the Chinese with the British -had been quite satisfied. But when they came to draw what they had saved -during their years abroad there was an uproar. In the contract made with -them “Mex” dollars were specified; there was no mention of francs. But -in France they were of course paid in the money of the country, and the -amounts they chose to lay aside were credited to them in francs. By the -time they came to draw their savings the franc had crashed. Being from -China they should have been wiser on the vagaries of exchange than the -American “doughboy”; but they insisted that the British had promised to -pay them in the dollars of their home-land, and raised such a hullabaloo -that the matter reached the honor of being discussed in Parliament, -though that was its loftiest attainment. The resentment at what was -considered a raw deal by tricky foreigners has somewhat died out in -Shantung now, and many a man would willingly go abroad for the British -again; but the few wise or lucky coolies who turned their francs back -into dollars as they saved them, and then meddled with the exchange in -those glorious days when the gold dollar went down to about eighty cents -“Mex,” are still the envy of their comrades. In an almost entirely -illiterate throng, thousands of miles from home and all its -exchange-shops and customs, and filled from childhood with suspicion of -their fellow-men, it is easy to guess about how many took advantage of -this opportunity. - -One suspects that it was from the highest point of honor attained by -this painful subject that there originated an attempt to soften the -resentment that only resulted in increasing it. Legislative bodies the -world over have a reputation for bone-headedness. One day word was sent -out over Shantung and beyond that if coolies who had been to France for -the British would report back to the centers where they had been -discharged and paid they would learn something to their advantage. Aha, -_ting hao!_ they are going to give us all the money they promised after -all, said the coolies, and began to flock in from all directions, often -from considerable distances. Some came overland all the way from -Tientsin, not being able to afford the railroad. When they arrived they -were each given a nice brass medal to hang about their necks, with a -likeness of their grateful ex-employer, King Georgie, on one side and -words of similar sentiment on the other. Any one with thirty cents’ -worth of understanding of the psychology of the Chinese coolie could -have told the thoughtful originators of this idea that an extra -_cumshaw_ of a dollar or two would have won his everlasting gratitude -far more than a medal graced with the vapid faces of all the kings of -Christendom—and probably have cost less money. But textbooks on -psychology, particularly of far-off “heathen” lands, are not required in -a politician’s education. At first some of the coolies thought the -things were gold, and raced to the exchange-shops accordingly. When -these reported that the gaudy gifts were not even coin at all, men -drifted out to mission compounds to inquire what they were good for.... -“Is it worth anything?” “Well, I’ll give it to you for fifteen coppers.” - -Coppers, by the way, are the general medium of exchange in Shantung. -Silver dollars pass, though silver fractions of them do not, and -bank-notes even of the province have only a limited acceptance. Except -in large towns or transactions, every one pays in coppers, the division -being the _diao_. In olden days this meant a thousand “cash” on a -string. Now it means forty-nine coppers in most regions. How this -decided change came about is only another of the queer stories with -which monetary matters bristle in China. One day the Manchu dynasty -decided it could get plenty of money to pay its grumbling troops merely -by decreeing that thenceforth a _diao_ would be five hundred, not a -thousand, “cash.” Every one would be compelled to accept the new rating, -on penalty of severe punishment, and the surplus five hundred “cash” -would accrue to the Government. As late as the beginning of the present -century the brass “cash” was the only money used in the interior of -Shantung; in those days my missionary friends had taken an extra -wheelbarrow with them to carry their change. Then in 1902 the copper -began to be minted. Ten “cash” make a copper; fifty coppers therefore -should make a modern _diao_; but in most places one of them goes to some -one, identity unknown but strongly suspected, as the inevitable -“squeeze” of all Chinese transactions. - -Probably a majority of the third-class tickets sold on the -Tientsin-Pukow line in Shantung are paid for from clothfuls of coppers -handed in at the window, the cloth and any excess coins being returned -with the ticket. The foreigner who produces a silver dollar when only a -few cents are needed will be deluged with a shower of huge coppers -sufficient to fill an overcoat pocket. The general run of prices and -wages in Shantung is suggested by some of those paid by my missionary -companion. Master masons were receiving fifty-four coppers a day, their -helpers thirty-six—a copper being approximately half a farthing or the -fourth of an American cent. In the good old days of a decade or more -back they were satisfied with fifteen and ten respectively, though the -copper was then worth 50 per cent more than at present. Country pastors -are paid twenty Chinese dollars a month, those in towns all the way from -that to forty, “Bible women” eight dollars, “evangelists” (unordained -preachers who also work on their farms) receive eleven, teachers from -eighteen to forty, and native doctors fifty. - - -At Weihsien “Peking carts” are the almost exclusive means of -transportation, though forty miles west a similar town has only -wheelbarrows. This important half-way station between Tzinan and -Tsingtao lies in the heart of what was thirty centuries ago the kingdom -of Wei, and the landscape on either side of it is littered with -monuments and graves. Shantung is much given to elaborately carved stone -_p’ai-lous_, or _p’ai-fangs_, as they are more often called in that -province, and these imposing memorial arches to virtuous widows or -officials more or less willingly honored naturally outlast the mainly -wooden ones in Peking and vicinity. Stone horses completely saddled and -bridled, stirrups hanging ready for instant use, stood with other less -familiar animals before some of the graves, awaiting their riders these -many centuries; and groves of evergreens, some of them overtopped by the -four reddish upright poles bearing a kind of ship’s crow’s-nest which -means that the principal deceased of the group some time in the bygone -ages passed the examinations for the highest rank of Chinese scholar, -were a little more frequent about them than is general in northern -China, though there were still far too many of the one and too few of -the other. - -Weihsien is really two distinct cities, each surrounded by a massive -stone wall, with a sandy-bedded river between them. But the farther one -was not walled until the days of the Taiping Rebellion, and it is still -regarded as a suburb of the other. Thanks to spring rain and -water-carriers, the streets of both were rivers of mud in which a -mule-cart was almost indispensable even for the shortest distance, and -an ordeal into the bargain. Weihsien had indeed recently imported her -first rickshaws, but all three of them were without rubber tires or -experienced runners, which made the first jaunts in them by a few of the -town dandies an experience to be remembered rather than to be repeated -or recommended, and the fear was expressed that these evidences of -modern progress would be withdrawn for lack of appreciation. However, -the new autobus line to Chefoo starts from Weihsien, and motor-cars have -become almost familiar sights to those who have come out to see them at -the edge of the suburb, beyond which they cannot penetrate. There should -long since have been a branch railway to Chefoo. Ocean communication -with that important silk and hair-net center is irregular and -uncertain—except from Dairen over in Japanese-controlled Manchuria. But -so long as they held the Shantung Railway the Japanese would not permit -this extension, lest Chefoo become a serious rival to their beloved -Dairen. So the usual raised dirt highway has been built, with frequent -guarded barriers to keep others off it, and along this the few still -movable contrivances of all sizes and makes which were bought -second-hand from the Japanese before they evacuated Shantung stagger in -a daily service scheduled to make the journey in a day and a half, with -the brick bed of a Chinese inn to break it. The line is under railway -management, but one glimpse of the once gasolene-driven wrecks that -litter the yard at Weihsien should convince the most foolhardy that to -ride behind a Chinese chauffeur is more risky than behind the worst -locomotive driver in the Orient. Chefoo, by the way, is unknown to the -Chinese; they call it Yentai. Just what misunderstanding on the part of -early sailors led to the name by which it is known to all foreigners, -including the Japanese, seems never to have been fully cleared up. - -When Tzinan was voluntarily opened to trade in 1906, Weihsien, as well -as Choutsun farther west, was also designated as a “port”; but though -the Chinese laid out “foreign settlements” in them no one came to -settle. A stray German or two is all that the city has to offer in this -line, except the missionaries. The Catholics have an imposing church -building just outside the walls, and there is an important mission -school established by one of the pioneers among American Presbyterians -in China, far outside the town, where the bitter hostility of those -earlier days drove him. When the school was first founded, pupils had to -be paid to attend; to-day there are waiting lists at fifty-eight dollars -a year—a great deal of money, let it be kept in mind, in Shantung—of -which twenty-five dollars pays a year’s board. Millet or _kaoliang_ in a -kind of gruel seemed to be the chief diet. Then there was the pickled -tuber resembling a turnip that is constantly munched all over Shantung, -and which does away with any desire to salt the other food. There were -flocks of timid high-school girls in their neat trousers, though -missionary influence tends to introduce the skirt, which is surely -mistaken zeal for mere change. The trousers are more convenient, more -becoming, and certainly many times more modest than the unstable garb of -our modern maidens of the West. Formerly many Shantung women of the -better class, influenced perhaps by the Manchus, who once had walled -towns of bannermen in all this region, wore a skirt over their trousers -when they appeared in public, and older missionary ladies can still -remember the polite greeting when they reached the home of a Chinese -hostess: “Well, take off your skirt and stay a while.” - -The large church of the Weihsien mission was well filled at Thursday -evening prayer-meeting and packed at the principal Sunday service. -Chinese pastors officiated on both occasions. Though the weather was -still distinctly cold, no provision for heating the building was made, -and one could only guess what it must be in midwinter. Gradually the -stone floor congealed the feet and removed them completely from the -realms of sensation, but the Chinese, in their full outdoor garb, caps -and all, seemed to be as comfortable as they ever have any need to be. -Uncovering the head had become so nearly a dead letter that even the two -or three American missionaries in their overcoats usually kept their -hats on, even when they rose to pray in fluent Chinese. The feminine -portion of the congregation occupied the back part of the church, the -boys the front and center, graduating back to youths and men behind and -on either side; when prayers were offered all rose to their feet instead -of kneeling, and the less said of the bold and stentorian “singing” of -hymns the better. - - -A few weeks before my visit the Shantung Railway had been turned over to -the Chinese, in accordance with the agreement reached at the Washington -Conference. But to go back to the beginning: you will recall that two -German missionaries were killed in Shantung in 1897 and that Germany -quickly made this a pretext for demanding the lease of Kiaochow Bay, and -the concession for a railroad from there to the capital of the province. -Though it was a generation since the Chinese Government had been able to -still popular uproar against such diabolic contrivances only by buying -out the first railway in China, running a few miles out of Shanghai, and -shipping it over to Formosa, there was bitter opposition to this one, -ostensibly from the superstitious masses, though it is known now that -officials and some of the gentry urged the people on. In fact, the -building of the Shantung Railway was very largely responsible for the -“Boxer” uprising, which had its beginning, as I have said before, in -mountainous southern Shantung. The exasperation was partly due to pure -superstition, partly to real grievances which the Germans unwittingly -perpetrated. They cut through the hill south of Weihsien which had -brought the town all its good luck for centuries, and thereby destroyed -its beneficence. This matter of _feng-shui_, of placating the spirits of -wind and water, is of the highest importance, and there seems to be no -fixed rule in dealing with them. For instance, there is another peak, -west of Weihsien, through the top of which a slot quite like a railway -cutting was gashed centuries ago at great labor, in order to neutralize -the _bad_ luck it brought the town. When they first came the Germans had -to depend upon interpreters, and these of course were true Chinese. They -would stroll out when they were off duty, or when no one was watching, -and drive a survey stake in the top of a grave, perhaps miles from the -projected route of the railroad; and a day or two later they would offer -to get the stake removed and leave the grave unmolested if the -descendants could raise money enough to “bribe the Germans.” When a -railroad is surveyed its proposed turns are marked as sharp angles first -and the curve is traced inside this later. The interpreters collected -handsomely also from farmers for getting the Germans to remove stakes on -the points of these angles—where the railroad had never thought of -trespassing. In spite of both passive and active opposition the Germans -pushed the line rapidly inland; many Chinese Christians free from the -popular superstitions or sustained by the missionaries took contracts to -prepare the way by sections, and early in the present century -locomotives snorted into Tzinanfu. - -The line still bears many marks of its original nationality. It is a -direct descendant of the railways of Germany—excellently built, with -stone ballast in exact military alignment along flanking paths of -exactly such a width, iron ties of the reversed trough shape, light -rails and fourteen-ton bridges—European rolling stock is not heavy by -our standards—well-built stations, service buildings, and grade-markers, -still here and there bearing a German name, in spite of eight years of -Japanese occupancy, the whole railway still lined for much of its length -by the quick-growing acacia-trees which the Germans expected to furnish -supports for their mines. Now that the Chinese have returned, one -frequently runs across a station-master who speaks German but no -English. - -It is said that there was more graft under the Germans than under their -successors. German inspectors were conspicuous; Japanese ones blended -more or less into the general racial landscape. In German days -unrecorded telegrams sped along from station to station, “Inspector -coming to-day,” and certain customs were temporarily suspended. On other -days passengers often got on without tickets, crossed the hand of the -Chinese guard with silver, and the latter gave the high sign to the -gateman at the disembarking station, dividing the spoils with him at the -first convenient opportunity. Whatever their other faults, the Japanese -know how to run a railroad, and under them this sort of thing is reputed -to have disappeared. Their influence was still distinctly in evidence. -The people are said to have liked the Germans better than their -successors because, among other things, they were not so strict—which -speaks loudly indeed for Japanese sternness. Part of this strictness was -the insistence on order instead of the free-for-all methods so loved by -the Chinese. The Germans allowed huckstering at the trains; the Japanese -licensed and curbed it. They introduced the innovation of standing in -line for tickets, instead of the riot in vogue on all purely Chinese -railways. It is said that it took the butt of many a rifle and the flat -of many a sword to convince the coolies that they should drop back to -the end of a cue when there was plenty of room at the front, but as they -became more familiar with the language the Japanese, like the Germans -before them, got their results with less violence. Foreigners, -especially their somewhat kindred island neighbors, can discipline the -Chinese as they never could themselves. The weakest thing in China is -discipline, and there is not moral fiber enough in the country—or there -is too much gentleness in the Chinese temperament, whichever way you -choose to put it—to cure such things from within. - -[Illustration: - - A private carriage, Shantung style -] - -[Illustration: - - Shackled prisoners of Lao-an making hair nets for the American market -] - -[Illustration: - - School-girls in the American mission school at Weihsien, Shantung -] - -[Illustration: - - The governor’s mansion at Tsingtao, among hills carefully reforested - by the Germans, followed by the Japanese, has now been returned to - the Chinese after a quarter of a century of foreign rule -] - -Foreign residents, including some missionaries, were already complaining -of a deterioration of the Shantung Railway under Chinese management. To -one who had just come from the other railways of China this seemed -rather exaggerated cynicism, for it certainly was superior to those -others in many ways, though possibly these were relics of German and -Japanese times, which were gradually dying out under the new régime. The -almost praiseworthy cleanliness of at least the higher class cars may -have been merely a memento of earlier days; also perhaps the brief, -businesslike stops at stations. There were “red-caps” instead of the -tidal wave of ragged ruffians who fight pitched battles for one’s -baggage elsewhere; and the platforms were free from loafers, stragglers, -beggars, and false passengers among whom the actual traveler is so -completely swallowed up at the average Chinese station that he often -despairs of getting on board at all. But with more than half the new -personnel in the higher grades graduates of American colleges, some of -them with real railroad experience, it hardly seems that the line can go -entirely to rack and ruin, nor that it is being made the complete pawn -of hungry politicians utterly devoid of ability which some rumors have -it. - -Until the line is paid for, five to fifteen years hence, there will be a -Japanese traffic manager and chief accountant. But there has been sent -down to Tsingtao from the Ministry of Communications in Peking an -English-speaking superintendent who is notably fitted for the post, and -one is struck by the above-the-average of the personnel all along the -line. All its telegrams, by the way, are sent in English, which is a -hardship on station-masters who spent years learning German. But for -telegraphic purposes Chinese characters have to be reduced to numbers -which often run into four, if not five, figures, and it is much simpler -to wire “Hold six at Fangtze” than to beat out on the keys “5674 8762 -9085 4356,” and run the added risk of the code-book being misplaced at -either end. It can scarcely be expected that the change from Japanese to -Chinese management will be made without a hitch; for one thing, men had -to be brought from all the five government railways of China, on all of -which, having been first built and operated under different -nationalities, rules and practices vary. We would scarcely expect the -theoretical “All-American” football team to display perfect team-work if -suddenly brought together for a game. Then there is the usual percentage -of bone-headedness to be reckoned. On the eve of the Chinese New Year an -engineer eager to spend that day at home, but having no orders which -gave him a right of way, coupled his locomotive in front of another -drawing a freight-train and double-headed westward. Now the folly of -running thirty-five-ton American locomotives across fourteen-ton bridges -is bad enough; when two of them dash madly out upon one it is not -strange if something serious happens. What was left of the two fine big -engines still lay on either side of the central pier when we crept -across a temporary bridge nearly a month later; but that particular -driver will probably prove of much more use to the line as an example to -his fellows than he ever was at a throttle. - -Foreigners in general, as is widely known, have long been called by -Chinese in ugly moods “_yang gwei_,” which we have more or less -correctly translated as “foreign devil.” This particular “_yang_” really -means ocean, and a “_gwei_” is a spirit of the dead, quite possibly, -though not necessarily, a devil in the Western sense. Thus small Chinese -are not so far amiss as they sound to the uninformed when they run after -foreigners shouting, “Yang Gwei! Yang Gwei! Give me money!” For the -spirit of the dead is sometimes benevolent, and even small urchins would -scarcely expect charity in return for knowingly uncomplimentary titles. -But there is no doubt what the people of Shantung mean by their popular -expression for the Japanese, “_hsiao gwei_,” or “little devil.” Nor need -one inquire often or listen hard to get hints of why there is much -actual hatred of the efficient islanders, quite aside from the -theoretical dislike built up by rumor and propaganda. When the Japanese -held it one could not buy tickets on the Shantung Railway with Chinese -money; there were exchange-shops on the road to all stations of -importance, where it took a “Mex” dollar, and sometimes some coppers in -addition, to buy a yen, though the honest exchange was always -considerably in favor of the dollar. Shippers may not have had to bribe -the station-master to get a car for which they had already paid the -official fees, as often happens on Chinese railroads, but they might be -perfectly sure that Japanese shippers would always get cars first. It is -against Chinese law to melt up current money; the Japanese bought and -melted all the brass “cash” in Shantung. There has been much outcry from -them in recent years about race equality, yet the Japanese look down -upon the Chinese far more than any Californian does upon the sons of -Nippon, more than any American does upon our negroes; and apparently the -more military and brutal part of the occupation in Shantung was always -on the lookout for opportunities to show this supposed superiority -forcibly. It may be that the better class, or the non-militaristic -party, or the Japanese people in general, thoroughly agreed with the -terms of the Washington agreement and were glad to prove the national -good will by evacuating Shantung; but if so they should have made -greater efforts to curb the spirit of bad boys driven out of the -playground which prevailed on the spot. Before they left, the -disgruntled among the Japanese occupants slashed up the velvet -seat-cushions of first-class coaches, just as the Germans did in the -cars they were forced to turn over to the Allies; they carried off -indispensable fittings; they left cars and locomotives as far as -possible from where they were most needed; during the last months they -avoided making even imperative repairs. They deliberately flooded the -mines at Fangtze; they turned on the faucets in buildings belonging to -the railroad, so that they were swimming-pools by the time the Chinese -occupants appeared; they carried away, ruined, or wantonly destroyed -furnishings, walls, windows; out at the agricultural experiment station -on the flanks of Lao-shan they carefully mixed into one useless mess the -several kinds of cotton-seed that were to be planted in the spring. An -American-trained expert who drifted into my compartment as we neared -Tsingtao asserted that more than a dozen bridges had already been found -with serious cracks in them filled with putty and painted over. In -Japanese days, even those unfriendly to them admit, trains were so -exactly on time that clocks could be set by them. The new superintendent -explained the growing tendency to be late as due to these wanton -hamperings and the necessity of crawling across bridges in bad -condition, or too light for the present rolling-stock, and he was -preparing a slower schedule to be used until the line had been -strengthened throughout. This English-speaking, straightforward official -would probably strike any fair-minded observer as an unusually -trustworthy Chinese, but he did not mention also the difficulties of -making his people believe in the importance of keeping to any exact -schedule. - -Gradually, as it approaches Kiaochow Bay, the train picks up more and -more Japanese, the women and children, and a few of the men, in their -chilly national dress, with scraping wooden _getas_ and blue noses. The -country continues flat and fertile, given over mainly to graves, as far -as the old walled town of Kiaochow, forty-five miles by rail from -Tsingtao just across the bay. Though this ancient city was well within -the hundred _li_ periphery beyond high tide that was leased to the -Germans, it remained under Chinese rule, much like the cities of Colon -and Panama within the Canal Zone. Then hills grow up on the horizon, and -soon rise to a labyrinth of low mountains, the most striking of them -across the bay, distant ones to the southeast capped with snow. Wild -geese and bustards within easy reach tempt the sportsman. The train more -than half encircles the big bay, close on the left, visibly a -magnificent harbor, even though larger ships must wait at the entrance -for high tide. Bit by bit the many little things which mark a Chinese -landscape die out; factories, warehouses, big modern buildings, many of -them still flying the rising sun, grow more continuous on either hand, -and by the time one’s journey is ended, whether he descend at the Harbor -Station or at the terminal, there is little left to remind him that he -is still in China. - -In the days of the Germans Tsingtao was generally admitted to be the -model city of the Far East. The Japanese have greatly extended and in -certain ways improved it. There could scarcely be a greater contrast -within one country than that between this modern European city, with -broad macadamized streets and ample sidewalks, block after block of two- -and three-story buildings of brick and stone, rolling away over a series -of small hills which subside at last along waterfronts that would not be -out of place on the Mediterranean, and the flat, low, heavily walled, -dismal collections of baked-mud hovels, broken by narrow, reeking lanes, -which are typical of China. For even the Japanese have built in their -conception of the European model, rather than in the frail style of -their home-land, so that one may wander through street after street and -get few hints of the Orient except the people who pass to and fro in -them. Least Chinese of all, perhaps, are the splendid motor-roads -darting off into the country in all directions, and the wide-spread -growth of trees upon the hills as far as the eye can see. - -It is said that Germans are gradually returning now to Tsingtao, but the -little cloven-footed people from the east are much more in evidence. The -largely Japanese shops are a trifle mean and small in comparison with -the general scheme of things, and boldly demand Japanese money still, as -though there had been no change in the status of Tsingtao merely because -their troops and officials have sailed away. On the other hand, one -might travel far to see another institution as splendid as the Japanese -Middle School out among the hills below the governor’s residence, and -many another of their establishments is equally as near what it should -be. By the terms of the treaty the Japanese are permitted to retain -their educational, mission, and similar institutions, and naturally -their nationals retain full rights of residence and commerce. Other -residents charge them with a certain underhandedness in stretching these -rights, and point to block after block of big new residences that have -never been occupied, asserting they were built merely that the Japanese -might hold that much more land. - -The coming of the Japanese in 1914 seems to have brought much the same -advantages and misfortunes which they carried to Korea and Manchuria. -Under the Germans life had been comfortable, a trifle strict perhaps, -sharply divided by caste lines that made it impossible for the wife of -an officer to meet the wife of a merchant; but the fact is that the -German penetration into Shantung was more of a commercial than of a -military nature. Though there are still mighty guns pointing seaward -above the concrete underground forts which they dug in the surrounding -hills, and which show vivid evidences of the Japanese bombardment, -Tsingtao was never a Port Arthur or a Gibraltar. The Germans strove -rather for the good will of the Chinese, that they might above all sell -them more goods. Yet their national efficiency never failed them, and -reforms which they felt essential were carried through with as nice a -balance as could be preserved between complacency and insistence. There -was the matter of squeaking wheelbarrows, for instance. No barrow-man of -Shantung would feel that his apparatus was functioning properly unless -it emitted a constant screech that can be heard at least a furlong away; -to have it cease would give him much the same sensation as the motorist -has when he hears a knocking under the hood of his engine. But the -incessant screaking got on the nerves of the Germans in general and on -those of the governor’s wife in particular. Sein Excellenz, her husband, -gave orders that, beginning on the morning of September 16, wheelbarrows -should no longer squeak within German leased territory. Old residents, -American missionaries among them, held their sides; who ever heard of -changing a time-honored custom of the Chinese, especially by a mere -proclamation? But the Germans did more than command; they sent out -inconspicuous propaganda, giving reasons, appealing to common sense and -good will. On the morning of the sixteenth a missionary group was -sitting at breakfast, vaguely conscious that something had happened, -that things were not exactly what they hitherto always had been. One of -them finally stepped to the window, then raised her hands to her ears. -The others quickly followed suit. Had they all suddenly gone deaf? The -same endless line of wheelbarrows was trundling along the street -outside, but not the smallest infant of a squeak was sounding; they -passed as silently as a company of wheelbarrowing ghosts; and to this -day Shantung’s principal means of transportation is mute within the -territory just returned to China after a quarter of a century of alien -adoption. - -The methods of the Japanese were quite as coercive, without the -softening propaganda. The military party was in full control, and not -even Western missionaries were permitted for a moment to forget it. The -Japanese closed the American Presbyterian mission school on the charge -of “spreading propaganda”; and they continued to collect taxes on it -during all the years they used it as a police station. They built -several blocks of semi-official brothels under the very eaves of the -native church established by this same mission, and by the terms of the -treaty of evacuation these are allowed to remain, for Japanese -“enterprises” in Tsingtao must not be molested. If it were an isolated -case, one might believe that the site was chosen merely for its -convenient situation; but the _yoshiwaras_ of Korea and Manchuria also -show a strong tendency to elbow mission property and American residences -with what looks much like the cynicism of the military clique. Japanese -gendarmes and soldiers pursued mission “Bible women” until in many cases -they had to give up their labors; they made it unsafe for Chinese -school-girls to remain in the mission dormitories; they showed the same -barbarian disrespect for privacy which one so often heard charged -against them in Korea. Let the wife of a missionary neglect to lock the -kitchen door, even at noon, and she would probably find a pair of -Japanese gendarmes standing in her bedroom when she looked up. They -never gave any reasons for their intrusions; they merely implied by -their attitude that they were the rulers of Tsingtao and that it was no -one’s business where they went, or when. The Japanese—or the Germans -either, for that matter—would not allow American physicians to practise -within the territory, not even to attend fellow-Americans who were of -the same mission or might be in the same house with them. The -missionaries, and even their wives, were summoned to court on every -possible pretext, and allowed to stand two or three hours among beggars -and prostitutes before they were called upon to stand at attention -before the haughty judge and testify. The American consul never -officially admitted the right of the Japanese to bring Americans before -their courts, contending that they enjoyed extraterritoriality in -Tsingtao quite as well as in the rest of China; but for some reason he -personally advised his countrymen to obey Japanese summonses. Multiply -these few and restricted cases of petty persecution by some very large -number and it will be clearer why the residents of the Kiaochow -territory, except the Japanese themselves, were so pleased to see the -rising sun replaced one morning in December by the five-color banner of -China, even though they are ready to admit that many excellent things -came from Japan. - - -From the distance of Peking we had heard that Tsingtao was virtually in -the hands of bandits; on the ground, there proved to be no truth in this -rumor. Things had been really much worse in that respect under Japanese -occupation, though they need not have been. There seems to be little -doubt that the Japanese tolerated bandits in Shantung, perhaps helped to -recruit them and sold them arms. Scores of little hints to this effect -reached the ears of even the least suspicious residents of the occupied -zone. They appear to be able to cite indefinitely cases similar to that -of the mission cook, trustworthy beyond all question, who was approached -by a Japanese with the promise of an easy life and a large income if he -would turn bandit. Guns could be rented, I was assured, from Japanese -gendarmes at two dollars a night by any one who wished to create a -little disorder; the bandits were often allowed to wear red hat-bands -(the distinguishing mark of Japanese soldiers and gendarmes everywhere) -and to take refuge in railway or other Japanese property where Chinese -soldiers could not pursue them. Whether or not they were actually in the -pay of the nation to whom disorder in China is always an advantage, -there is little room for doubt that they were unofficially aided and -abetted. - -The military part of the occupation left Shantung in an angry mood; the -Japanese hoped to the last that complications would arise that would -give them an excuse to remain, and they were not beyond doing their bit -to create them. It is the old story of the two opposing factors in the -political life of Japan, which her apologists make the most of when they -have to explain actions strangely at variance with professions. The -ministers of war and the navy are responsible directly to the mikado, -not to the premier, as in other lands; hence the Foreign Office may be -openly flouted by the military clique. Moreover, these ministers must be -a general and an admiral respectively; in other words, there is not the -soothing effect of civilian control over the war-dogs which is quite -general elsewhere. A bulldog is an excellent defense, but it is an -unwise home which allows the bulldog to take command of things. - -Conditions became fantastic during the last few weeks of Japanese -occupation. The bandits had their headquarters only twenty miles from -Tsingtao, by excellent motor-road, up in the foot-hills of the beautiful -Lao-Shan range. They raided the neighborhood at will, and went to town -to see the movies whenever the spirit moved them. All they had to do was -to stroll down to the Japanese police-box at the edge of the leased -territory and telephone a garage in Tsingtao to send them a car. They -rode or strutted through the streets like the proverbial walking -arsenal; what was worse, they wore uniforms which made them -indistinguishable from Chinese soldiers. Once they invited the Chamber -of Commerce to ask them to dinner, the Japanese knowing so well about it -in advance that they had their secret police among the first arrivals, -and instructed that body that the payment of one hundred thousand -dollars, the appointment of their chief as garrison commander and of one -thousand of their number as a police force, were essential to the -immunity of Tsingtao from their devastations. Then they picked up the -local deputy of the provincial Tuchun and the president of the Chamber -of Commerce as hostages and motored back to their headquarters with -them. - -In the end, apparently, they were given a certain sum of money and more -or less official standing, as is the custom in China, the land of -compromise. But by the time I reached Tsingtao they had been moved to -Fangtze, far outside the former leasehold, and the city was well policed -by the men in black uniforms and white leggings with which Peking is so -familiar. Hand-picked and trained by a European, these constitute one of -the best bodies in China, and they had been scattered along the entire -line of the Shantung Railway, poorly equipped at first, but armed now, -one and all, with brand-new rifles from China’s government arsenals. The -ordinary cotton-clad, ill disciplined Chinese soldier was very little in -evidence. Now and then a group of them try to board the trains without -tickets to the great detriment of this line also; but station-masters -have a way of appealing to their good nature, if not to their -patriotism, with the strong argument that unless the line pays for -itself within five years the Japanese will come back, and then.... - -Bismarck Strasse became Ryojun Machi and in its turn will no doubt be -this or that Ta Chieh, perhaps without even the concession of naming it -in Roman letters which the Japanese granted to the West. The contrast -between the blue sea and the clean red roofs may grow more and more dim -under slack Chinese rule, and Tsingtao may sink back into the slough -from which Germany rescued it. But it is not likely, for the Chinese are -on their metal. True, there is already the curse of useless politicians -and military pressure in the highest offices, but a Yale graduate in -forestry is in charge of continuing the good work of the Germans and the -Japanese in spreading the gospel of reforestation, and other branches of -the new Government are in equally competent and progressive hands. There -is great need in China for officials to take up economics as a part of -government, especially to establish some continuity of plan which will -carry on in spite of the disruptions of political changes; and -ready-made Tsingtao is an excellent place for them to begin to practise. -The people may reassert their centuries of training and pilfer all the -trees, as some were already beginning to carry off the brushwood -contrary to rules, as they cut even the trees about their graves when -hard pressed, for only their Confucianism stands guard over the few -groves that are left in the land. Or they may, as some of the -enthusiastic young officials of the former leased territory announce, -make Tsingtao more important than either Tientsin or Shanghai, by -pushing new railways back into the interior beyond Tzinan and draining -even the Yang Tze of its natural carrying-power. More likely the future -will be somewhere between these two extremes, with a certain Chinese -indifference to small comforts and strict cleanliness somewhat marring -in the eyes of the West a port which in the main will retain much that -it has learned during its quarter of a century of sterner foreign -tutelage. - - - - - CHAPTER XVIII - IN BANDIT-RIDDEN HONAN - - -One of our military attachés at Peking purposed to see China’s Far West -before the cycle of duties called him home to a regiment, and he -consented to have company. At least if it chanced to please the bandits -who were just then using that means to coerce the incoherent Government -to add us to their growing collection of foreign hostages, there would -be some advantage in companionship. - -The major had business in Honan before I could leave Peking, and took -the newly captured cook with him, leaving the “boy,” Chang, who -maltreated considerable English and was to be our most important link -with the outside world, to wait with me for the next biweekly express. -Below the junction for Shansi, where daylight overtook us, the landscape -was still as flat as about Peking; but there were more trees, bushy as -the mango, though thinner of foliage, many trees, indeed, for China. -Though it was already late October, the leaves had hardly begun to turn, -and that brilliant sunshine and utter cloudlessness which is one of the -greatest charms of dry, denuded North China so many days each year made -it seem still almost midsummer. The broad, fenceless fields swarmed with -people, mainly engaged, as far as a passing glimpse could tell, in -picking cotton and threshing peanuts. The cotton was in some places so -thin that even the frugal Chinese apparently did not find it worth -gathering, while the best of it, on plants scarcely knee-high, was -nothing to exhibit at a fair. Women gone cotton-picking had the -advantage of trousers, but this was more than offset by the bound feet -on which they hobbled from bush to bush. In contrast to those long -two-bushel bags the negroes drag behind them through the fertile -cotton-fields of our South, a kind of newsboy’s sack at the waist, or a -pocketed apron, seemed to be quite large enough here. - -It was hard to distinguish the many heaps of peanuts from the still more -numerous graves. With enough of this baseball and circus delicacy within -one sweep of the eye to satisfy a ravenous city on the Fourth of July, -there came back to mind the touching story of the fond American mother -who sent her dear son in China a box of peanuts for Christmas, so that -he might for a little while be reminded of home. Even small children -were helping to pull them, and to pile the nuts in grave-like mounds of -careless cone shape. Of the graves themselves there was literally no -end, until the landscape for long stretches seemed to grow nothing else. -Yet the land was a veritable market-garden, so great is the individual -care of Chinese fields in all their processes. Here and there, in place -of the far more common tilling by hand, was a plow, drawn by two or -three mules; but naturally you cannot plow to advantage if you must -dodge grandfather’s grave every trip across a short field, after that -great-grandfather’s, and then that of the father before him, back to -more than remote generations. If only the old gentlemen would consent to -lie in a row, or even in a companionable cluster, or to be laid away in -a real graveyard where the little cones of earth might perhaps be kept -green even in China, instead of being rare, rain-gashed heaps of dried -mud as hallowed as a pile of peanuts! - -Yet sometimes there is a hint of reverence, rather than of mere -superstition, about a collection of half a dozen of these untended -mounds drifting through the centuries with no other evidence of care -than the slender shade of a single tree bent over them, like some -faithful old servant still respectfully waiting to do their bidding. A -suggestion of this comes now and then even to the disapproving -foreigner, aghast at the wicked wastefulness of China’s burial methods; -and certainly the peasant himself, the only one after all whom it -greatly concerns, develops no spirit of criticism, no thought of revolt. -A plow being in most cases inconvenient among his ancestral mounds, he -digs away about them by hand year after year, generation after -generation, as those same ancestors did century after century. Naked to -the waist even in these late autumn days, his body burned to the hue of -old polished mahogany, he never disturbs them, and rarely if ever mends -them. - -There were still reminders of the summer’s crops,—sweet potatoes, -onions, lettuce, cabbages, carrots; but there was little if any evidence -of the house-high _kaoliang_ that stretches for unbroken miles across -more northern China, all the north, indeed, of this province of Chihli. -Country-women hobbling slowly and painfully about on their crippled feet -were everywhere, even the most ugly, weather-beaten, and work-worn of -them boasting this fancied form of beauty. Blindfolded donkeys and mules -marched patiently round and round hither and yon across the landscape, -some about ancient well-curbs, lifting by great wooden wheels water for -the irrigation ditches that are so widely needed in this deforested, -rain-stingy land, others rotating big stone rollers for the hulling or -grinding of wheat. Brick-kilns, which the Chinese seal up for long -periods with their contents, stood forth like rudely chiseled monuments -or artificial hillocks. The earth was worn away around everything, -walls, trees, roadsides, monuments, those great slabs of stone, -top-heavy with carved dragons, that may be seen anywhere; for great -portions of China are half-desert, dry as dust, of a moistureless brown -soil ready to wash or blow away at the least provocation, and slavishly -dependent upon irrigation. Chinese farming methods, too, increase this -erosion. Everywhere men were cutting off the top layer of soil and -screening the earth into many little mounds that stretched in long rows -across the sunken fields. Later they “spread this between the wheat,” if -I understood Chang’s laborious explanation; that is, they use it as a -kind of fertilizer, sometimes mixed with the droppings of animals -gleaned along the roads, as well as for the building of the many little -low field-dikes. - - -Barely over the boundary of Honan, where it thrusts itself in a point -that recalls the “gerrymandering” of the West into the two provinces -bounding it on the north, is Changte, burial-place of Yuan Shih-kai. A -tomb evidently rivaling those of the most powerful emperors, certainly -larger and more sumptuous than that of Mencius not far east of here in -Shantung, rises among great trees within easy sight from the train. But -it is not covered in imperial yellow, for the new dynasty that the -occupant hoped to found, and which, if numerous examples in Chinese -history still mean anything, would have been the more natural -development, failed to materialize, less because of wide-spread -republican sentiment, one suspects, than for lack of tact, among the -virtues of political sagacity, in the make-up of what might have been -the founder. - -Yuan Shih-kai is the father, so to speak, of the curse of swarming -soldiers that now overrun China. For it was he who first saw in Korea, -when he was a mere officer of the Manchus, the first Western-style -soldiers, and who coaxed the Government to start what has become the -present military misfortune of China. There were “soldiers” everywhere -now—in China one must use the word with a grain of salt, for to put a -simple country youth or a mere coolie into a faded gray cotton uniform -and hand him something resembling a weapon does not make a real warrior, -as the sight of rows of men standing at “present arms” and at the same -time staring back over their shoulders at a strolling foreigner -suggested. These artless, slouch-shouldered fellows lounged with fixed -bayonets along the graveled platform of every station; they packed the -trains to overflowing; they were drilling in companies and battalions, -once or twice, it seemed, in whole regiments, on bare, dusty fields -along the way. Had the half of them been genuine soldiers there should -not have been a bandit within a month’s march in any direction. - -At Chengchow next morning the head of a man, his long hair carefully -wrapped about it, as if that were much more precious than what had been -his neck, lay a yard from his trunk, hands and feet rudely tied with -ropes, out on the bare space before the station. Perhaps he had really -deserved this frequent, casual Chinese fate, and was not the simple -coolie substituted for influential or unattainable criminals which his -appearance somehow suggested. The curious strolled over to see him, but -the eating-stalls just in front lost none of their custom or their -cheerfulness; by noon the body was gone, and dogs had licked up the -great patch of blood that had spread between head and trunk. - -The major had already gone westward, and it was not until months later -that I visited Kaifeng, capital of Honan, long after the “Christian -General” had been transferred from there to Peking. Fu Hsi lived there a -little matter of 4775 years ago and not only ruled the Chinese but, if -we are to believe all we hear, taught them to fish with nets—the Yellow -River being but a supernatural stone’s throw away—to rear domestic -animals, to use the lute and lyre, in a way, one suspects, that has not -changed since, and spent the leisure time left him in instituting laws -of marriage and inventing a system of writing by using pictures as -symbols. No doubt he played some antediluvian species of golf and -lectured on the necessity of large families also, but early history is -often careless in preserving “human interest” details. What we do know -is that Kaifeng was the capital of China under the Sung dynasty, from -960 A.D. until the court was captured by the Kins nearly two centuries -later, a brother of the emperor escaping to Nanking and setting himself -up in his place, and remained a kind of capital of the Kins until they -were finally overthrown by their fellow-Tartars, the Mongols. Since then -the city has apparently been content with its provincial status. - -Its wall encloses a mammoth space, much greater than that of Taiyüan, -for instance, but with great open spaces within it. Lakes before the -“dragon throne” in the center of the enclosure, though in the West they -would more probably be called ponds, give the site mildly a suggestion -of Peking. In a far corner the _tieh-tah_, or “iron pagoda,” is worth -coming to see, though the only iron visible about it is the Buddhas in -relief peering out of each opening up its thirteen stories. Of a -beautiful glazed color of reddish brown with imperial yellow specking -it, one might also call it the world’s largest porcelain. The keeper -insisted that it was two thousand years old, but I fear tradition -uncorrected by the printed page had deceived him as to the date of the -Buddhist invasion of China, to which her pagodas are due. - -There was a busy, almost a pleasant atmosphere about Kaifeng, with its -moderately wide streets, and rickshaw-men almost as fast as those of -Peking; though squeaking wheelbarrows for all manner of freight, with -women on tiny feet sometimes straining in front of them, were numerous. -Feng Yü-hsiang, China’s far-famed Methodist, cleaned up Kaifeng in the -Christian sense during the six months he was ruler of Honan there. He -drove out prostitutes; the extraordinary sight of soldiers sprinkling -chloride of lime with their own fair hands wherever it was needed was -but one of many such during his days. The only scandal that seemed to -hover about his memory was an inordinate love for ice-cream, which -reduced him to the point of sending a soldier for his share on those -Sundays when he could not dine with the American missionaries in person. -But Feng was evidently too good a Tuchun of Honan to suit his master Wu -Pei-fu. The fellow who has taken his place has merely the outward honors -of the office; Wu gives him his orders in everything of importance, and -has his own auditors on the spot. Meanwhile the figurehead enjoys his -opium, his singsong-girls, and his prestige, while the city slips back -into the habits of which Feng attempted to cure it, and soldiers now and -then run amuck in it. A thousand mere boys drill a month or two in -compounds recently walled for them in the very outskirt where the -missionaries built in the hope of an un-Chinese bit of quiet now and -then, and pass on into the ever-swelling armies to make room for as many -of their fellows. Bugles blare seven days a week long before the June -hour of dawn, and all day long the recruits do their worst to sing -scraps of Western music as they march. - -The chief interest in Kaifeng to the traveler in quest of the unusual, -however, is its Jews. The Chinese call them “Yu-t’ai,” which undoubtedly -is derived from “Judea,” though whether by word of mouth or merely -geographically is not clear. They came many generations ago, just when -or why neither their neighbors nor they themselves seem to know. To-day -they consist of “seven names and eight families”; that is, there are -eight Jewish families who have between them seven family names, every -one, as I have mentioned before, being compelled by circumstances over -which he has no control to adopt one of the hundred and some Chinese -surnames when he settles in China. Some doubt whether there are a -hundred individuals left; the present head of the clan put the number at -“one or two hundred.” They seem to have lost every vestige of Jewish -identity, except the name they are all known by, which persistently -survives. All those I saw looked less Jewish than do some of the -Chinese; certainly their features would not definitely distinguish them -from their neighbors, though the “head Jew” boasts that several persons -have come to take his photograph “because he has such a big nose.” I ran -this man Chao to earth for a somewhat similar purpose, and found him and -his son keeping a little shop in a slovenly part of town, stripped to -the waist and otherwise conducting themselves quite like Chinese a bit -above the coolie class. Their home behind had not an un-Chinese hint -about it—unless it was a large photograph of the father and son with a -very Russian Jew from New York between them, which occupied a -conspicuous place. But they were if anything more friendly, more -bubbling over with excitement at a visit from a foreigner and the awe -this inspired among their crowding neighbors, than pure Chinese of their -class would have been. The merry little father, it seems, has twice been -in jail charged with murder, if that really means anything concerning a -man’s character in China; the fact that he had gotten out again -suggested that there could scarcely have been much evidence against him, -for the Jews of Kaifeng are not wealthy. - -They intermarry with the Chinese, and some have even taken up Chinese -idol-worship; the rite most insisted upon by orthodox Jewry has not been -practised for generations. Formerly they had what they called a -synagogue, but about fifty years ago this was completely destroyed, and -does not seem to have been kept in repair even until then. There has -been no attempt to restore it, and a stone tablet that stood within it -is all that is left. On this last relic is engraved a sketch of Hebrew -history and the names of the patriarchs. Once it bore also the names of -the principal Jewish families in Kaifeng, but these were obliterated in -order to throw off the scent those who tried some decades ago to -persecute them. This tablet, by the way, is now in the compound of the -Kaifeng mission of the Canadian Episcopal Church. No one in Kaifeng, as -far as is known, can read Hebrew, and the clan seems long ago to have -lost any interest in Judaism. Several portions of Hebrew scriptures have -been found on the streets for sale, evidently as mere curios. The chief -Jew proposed one day, in a talkative mood, that he order all the Jews to -become Christian and join the church of the American missionary with -whom he was speaking—because he had had a quarrel with the pastor of the -other church. - -The father of two likely-looking Jewish lads who attend the American -mission school is a silversmith and has some means, but as a group the -Jews of Kaifeng have not yet developed any Chinese Rothschilds or -Guggenheims; nor is the wealth of the city in their control. In other -words they seem to have become completely “un-Jewed,” if the expression -be allowed, which is their chief claim to interest. For the Chinese, I -believe, are the only people in the world who have completely broken the -racial tradition of the Jews for remaining a distinct race. The slow and -patient sons of Han have blotted out the marks that have identified the -sons of Abraham for thousands of years, as they have pacifically -assimilated race after race that has come into close contact with them, -and it should occasion no great surprise if the Jewish colony of Kaifeng -were entirely lost within another generation. - - -Soldiers were particularly numerous on the “Lunghai” line west from -Chengchow, for this led to the headquarters of China’s just then most -powerful general, Wu Pei-fu. Chang and I fell to talking with some of -them in the crowded third-class coach. They were all volunteers—except -perhaps as hunger and its allies coerce—enlisted for three years, new -soldiers drawing, in theory, six “Mex” dollars a month, old ones, for -what our own call a “second hitch,” eight. But in practice none of those -with whom we spoke had ever been paid more than three such dollars -during a single “moon,” at least, as they put it, “in time of peace.” It -would be no great wonder if some of those off now on a furlough to their -homes with only that amount to their names should be cogitating some -violent means of improving that penurious condition of affairs. - -One might become an officer within a year, they said, if one proved to -be a good soldier, particularly if one were a friend of some friend of -the general, or had money to scatter in the right quarter. Company -officers seemed to receive about as much as our enlisted men do, with -the privilege of buying their own food and clothing; but there are, as -every one who has passed a bit of time in present-day China knows, other -means by which they, and to a large extent the soldiers under them, -often appreciably increase their official stipend. - -[Illustration: - - Chinese farming methods include a stone roller, drawn by man, boy, or - beast, to break up the clods of dry earth -] - -[Illustration: - - Kaifeng, capital of Honan Province, has among its population some two - hundred Chinese Jews, descendants of immigrants of centuries ago -] - -[Illustration: - - A cave-built blacksmith and carpenter shop in Kwanyintang, where the - Lunghai railway ends at present in favor of more laborious means of - transportation -] - -[Illustration: - - An illustrated lecture in China takes place outdoors in a village - street, two men pushing brightly colored pictures along a two-row - panel while they chant some ancient story -] - -Disarmament, I reflected, is like those long and complicated cures for -virulent diseases that are so easily caught. When what we somewhat -mistakenly call the most civilized nations of the world set the example -of war, of mighty military forces, the infection cannot but spread to -what seem to us the more backward races. Like a pebble tossed into a -pool, the bright idea is taken up by race after race, country after -province, until by the time the advanced nations are on the verge of -bankruptcy and ready to quit for a while they must keep the thing up as -a protection against the peoples of color and of strange faiths who have -been stirred up by their example. In China there is an added -complication. Soldiery, and banditry, too, are there largely a phase of -the problem of unemployment. If China has the four hundred million -inhabitants popularly attributed to her, any one who has traveled even -in the less crowded northern provinces has seen that at least a hundred -million of them must be perpetually hovering about the brink of -starvation. An ambitious politician, or a general who refuses to lose -his perquisites as such, himself imbued with the centuries-old dread of -becoming one of the hungry, inarticulate masses, gathers about him all -the soldiers he can recruit and find any means of keeping in his -service. Most of these are simple, boyish fellows gleaned from the farms -and villages before they have really taken root in the complicated -society and industry of China. If they are discharged, if they are not -paid, if the overthrow of their leader makes them fugitives, there is -nothing much left for them to do but to turn bandits. Many have served -alternately as soldiers and as brigands for years; many know no other -trade, and, though they did, it is little less difficult to find an -opening in the crowded, ill paid ranks of China’s workmen than to -perform the venerable trick of passing a camel through the eye of a -needle. - -Thus the same men who, as soldiers, force helpless villagers to make up -their arrears in pay, find it no great leap, as bandits, to the -torturing of rich Chinese who fall into their hands, until their victims -have subscribed enough to drive starvation once more into the -background. Raids on towns, invitations to chambers of commerce to save -the community from the torch and looting by raising so many thousands of -dollars, are the order of the day in many parts of China; and testimony -is almost unanimous that most Chinese soldiers are as bad as the -bandits. In fact, there are towns which pay the _tu-fei_ fixed sums not -only for promising not to loot them but to keep the soldiers from doing -so. After all, is there any great difference between the flock of -generals or provincial dictators misgoverning various regions of China -as they see fit, by the use of their private armies, and another leader, -who in his day may also have been a general and quite possibly will be -one again, whose followers are referred to as bandits rather than -soldiers? Often the only real distinction is that the one is strong -enough to force recognition from the so-called Central Government, and -the other is not, though they may be equally scornful of its commands -and desires. How faint is the line of demarcation, even in the minds of -the most successful Chinese generals, is shown by the opinion of almost -all of them that when a force is defeated in one of the skirmishes of -China’s almost constant, if unacknowledged, civil war the victor should -take over most of the defeated troops and save himself the job of having -later to clear them out of his region as bandits. - -China, it is evident, will never get rid of her bandits until she has -industries to absorb them, and her excess soldiers also. The latter are -commonly “disbanded” merely by some other force coming into the -territory they have been holding and driving them out, instead of -surrounding and disarming them. Thus when they are forced to turn to -brigandage they retain guns, ammunition, and uniforms; and they are -helped by every one, including the soldiers. Understandings grow up -between the two forces; the bandits bury money exacted from their -victims and pass the word on to the soldiers, who pretend to have a -great battle against the outlaws, but really dig up the money and bury -ammunition in place of it. One can scarcely expect Chinese coolies to -risk their lives, or even their skins, merely because they have been -enlisted as soldiers. Moreover, banditry has been more or less -continuous in China for many centuries. It is a rare play on the Chinese -stage in which there is not some reference to the danger of falling into -the hands of bandits; brigand chiefs are the heroes of many an old tale, -just as they are in the popular legends of Spain; more than one dynasty -was founded by some powerful outlaw who outfought his rivals. With -industries to absorb the rank and file, who can say how many of the -generals and chieftains themselves would not find a better field for -their abilities, and a better way to free themselves from the dread of -falling below the hunger line, as “captains of industry”? - - -I overtook the major at the headquarters of Wu Pei-fu, with whom he had -been an observer during his struggle against the lord of Manchuria a few -months before. It took an hour by rickshaw to reach the place from the -station, along the most atrocious caricatures of roads I had yet seen, -even in China. The route lay through the walled town of Honanfu, better -known to history as Loyang. Kuang Wu Ti made Loyang his capital shortly -before the Christian era, when rebels drove him out of its predecessor, -Changan, in what is to-day Shansi. It is a neglected part of China that -has not been the capital at one time or another. This one was still the -real seat of power not only of Honan Province but of a large portion of -the putative republic. Inconsistently it was more miserably unkempt, -more overrun with visible human misery, than any Chinese city I had yet -come across, possibly because it was thus far the most southerly. Dust -and the beggars squatting and rolling in it were all but -indistinguishable until the latter were cringing almost under the -runner’s feet, beggars as covered with filth as any in India, exhibiting -great open sores, men so diseased that they spent their unoccupied -moments in picking themselves to pieces. - -We came at length through clouds of swirling dust to a score of great -modern barracks, housing the division with which its now powerful -commander has served since his lieutenant days. A formidable series of -sentries and functionaries admitted me gradually through a massive gate, -across a much flower-bedecked courtyard, through a voluminous anteroom, -and finally into the official waiting-room. Three foreigners, who -happened all to be Americans, and a baker’s dozen of Chinese were -waiting. The major and a politically-minded youth temporarily released -from Harvard, who was to accompany us on the outward journey, had just -returned from the manœuvers at which the general spends his days on -horseback, riding off daily at seven and returning at five, without -taking food during that time. But many of the Chinese had been in the -waiting-room since morning; indeed, it would have been easy to suspect -that callers sometimes have the privilege of waiting overnight, for in -the four corners stood as many large beds, canopied, but wooden-floored -in the hard Chinese style. A long table occupied the center of the room; -several more or less easy-chairs leaned against the wall. Nothing is -more discourteous in China than to fail to keep a caller supplied with -tea, and several orderlies, taking the leaves out of a familiar tin can -in a corner behind a bed and transferring them to the pot in hands that -showed no visible signs of recent soaping, kept the little handleless -cup before each of us constantly filled and steaming. - -Toward sunset there was a stir among the retainers about the anteroom -and court yard, half-whispers of “Ta-ren lai-la” (the great man has -come) from the Chinese visitors, and a few moments later we foreigners -were asked to lead the way across another flowery court to a somewhat -more sumptuous apartment. A young man in a gown of beautifully figured -gray silk, of handsome and strikingly alert features, and speaking -almost perfect English, had taken charge of details with the air of an -accomplished, yet exceedingly cautious, master of ceremony. At least a -score of persons drifted in, all Chinese except the four of us, but from -all points of the compass,—politicians down from Peking for a -conference, or looking for a chance to get there; correspondents of half -a dozen native papers and foreign news services, some widely traveled -and speaking English or French fluently; one or two from far southern -China who could only converse with their fellow-countrymen through an -interpreter or a mutually familiar foreign tongue; and a scattering of -men of purely Chinese manners to whom a polyglot gathering was evidently -a new experience. The assemblage suggested a king’s _levée_, with the -added touch of costumes ranging all the way from the entirely Occidental -to the very Oriental. - -While we chatted, Wu Pei Fu slipped in among us almost unnoticed—for an -instant,—until the silence of respect of the Chinese for any one who has -reached power fell with a suddenness that was startling. The general had -laid off his uncomfortable uniform and leather footwear, and was dressed -in the long silken gown and cloth shoes of his native land. Small almost -to the point of being tiny, he had undoubtedly “personality”; there was -something about his vivacious manner and quite evident mental alertness -which quickly set him above many of the larger and more stately men in -the room. Even the “peanut” shape of his close-cropped head, so frequent -in China, seemed to be but an added touch of slenderness; the hands, -ladylike yet with closely trimmed nails, were an index to his whole -appearance, which might have been summed up in the words “dapper yet -strong.” His face was unusually vivid for a Chinese of his type, perhaps -because he spends so much time out in the sun, particularly because of -the extraordinary brilliance of his eyes, which fairly radiated during -the frequent smiles that disclosed a small fortune in gold. Nothing, -unless it was the rather stringy black mustache that fell untrimmed over -the corners of a firm and slightly sensuous mouth, resembled in the -least the oily enigmatical Chinese of our popular fiction. Though we -knew him to be fifty, he could more easily have passed for thirty-five, -and he spoke with what even I could recognize as the rather slovenly -Shantung accent. - -At a slight wave of his hand the gathering sat down at two large round -tables set for a Chinese meal, the general apologizing to us foreigners -for not placing us at his table, with the explanation that he had -serious business to talk over with other visitors, evidently the -politicians down from Peking. Politics, say those who know Wu as well as -an Occidental can know a Chinese, partly bore and partly perplex him; he -feels wholly at home only in military matters, but the plane to which -his success as a general has raised him makes escape from political -affairs impossible. They may be right, or they may never have plumbed -below the surface of an unquestionably clever Oriental. The meal -progressed like any informal Chinese dinner. Flocks of servants in and -out of uniform brought bowl after bowl of the favorite foods of China, -from which we fished with our carved ivory chop-sticks in competition -with the rest of the circle. As one of the favorite sports of Japanese -and Russians, as well as of the Chinese, waxed stronger and left us from -the West completely outdistanced, even the staid gentlemen from rural -parts, quite evidently unaccustomed to “outside barbarians,” mellowed -and grew chatty, in an improvised language made up of gestures, -monosyllables, and occasional appeals to the correspondents who spoke -English or French. That sport is known in China as _gam-bay_, and -consists of nothing more than tossing off at a gulp, whenever the head -of the table gives the signal for a toast, the little porcelain cupful -of _samshu_, _sake_, or _vodka_, as the case may be, which servants -constantly replenish, then showing the empty inverted cup to one’s -fellow-guests about the table. It may be a simple little pastime for -those whose gullet has been galvanized by suitable training. But, for a -simple person who has never outgrown in some matters a rather -puritanical boyhood, it is apt quickly to result in embarrassment at the -impossibility of proving enjoyment of hospitality in a way that will be -fully understood. From time to time, of course, wet hot towels were -passed to the guests, and when appetites flagged at last there came the -bowls of lukewarm water in which the Chinese all too audibly rinse their -mouths after eating. Our declining both these forms of ablution caused -more or less wonder among the swarming servants and orderlies, according -to their previous acquaintance with Westerners. Low as most prices are -in China, this presumably daily hospitality to his flocks of visitors -must make an impression on the never too plentiful funds of any Chinese -general in these penurious days. But nothing is so dear to the Chinese -heart as food, nothing rated really genuine without a feast attached; -and to fail in the first rule of deportment would be a proof of waning -fortune and a serious loss of “face.” - -It was out in the waiting-room again that we had anything like a -personal chat with the general. His tenacious fellow-countrymen having -been deftly shaken off one by one, he joined us four Americans about the -long, green baize table on which so many hundred gallons of tea a year -are impersonally dispensed. His manner was a mingled hint of relief at -having at last reduced his callers to those who certainly could not have -come to buttonhole him for political preferment, of that respectful -cordiality which Chinese in high places usually show toward any and all -Westerners, whatever they may really feel toward the West, and of a -suggestion of expansiveness apparently due to that fondness for -_gam-bay_-ing which his friends sometimes fear may eventually be his -undoing. Through his polished and cautious young interpreter he -explained that he had come to us last that he might give us more time -and attention, and from this auspicious beginning the conversation ran -on through the fixed cycle of Chinese courtesies, we assuring him that -we had come expressly to pay him our respects, he replying something to -the effect that America has always been China’s greatest and most -sincere friend, and so on for many rounds. But there was never a moment -in which it was not evident that the general took all this buncombe and -froth no more seriously than we; he was not only “democratic” in the way -that has become so widely the fashion of late years, but he was plainly -supplied with a reasonable fund of common sense, even though it might -have Oriental trimmings. Wu Pei Fu is a man of larger background than -many of those who have forced their way to the front in modern China, -being what corresponds there to a bachelor of arts, as well as a -military graduate with a long practical experience in military service. -But the powers of evasion inborn in all Chinese do not seem to have -suffered seriously from these rude contacts. Though we chatted for some -time, nothing really worth recalling issued from the general’s lips, -parted through it all by a toothpick, except the astonishing statement -that there will be no more civil war in China and that the country will -probably be unified within three years, after which he expects to be -sent to the United States as an official representative. It may easily -be that he considered these remarks mere after-dinner chat and expected -us to take them as such. As we bumped back to our lodgings on the other -side of the walled city in an asthmatic Ford which the general insisted -on furnishing us, I regretted that some of us had not had the courage to -ask some direct questions on the subject which just then could not but -have troubled his dreams. - -Briefly, banditry had about reached its pinnacle in this very province -where the super-Tuchun held forth—under his very nose, so to speak. Two -nights before, a large force of outlaws had entered the walled city of -Honanfu, barely two miles from the great barracks housing his division, -and, after warning the four thousand soldiers in town not to attempt -resistance, had killed one of the principal merchants, evidently because -he had refused to pay them tribute, and then had thoroughly looted his -establishment and calmly returned to their rendezvous. On the very day -of our visit the Protestant missionaries living and working in a great -compound outside the walls had received unofficial, indirect word from -Wu that they must thenceforth live within the walled town, as he could -not otherwise guarantee their safety. - -But these were local matters. What was threatening the general with -complete loss of “face,” throughout China and even abroad, was the -kidnapping of foreigners from his very region of the country. The -bandits seemed to show somewhat of a preference for missionaries, -perhaps because they were most available, possibly, as one of them -assured his worried friends, because the Lord was purposely offering the -apostles this splendid opportunity to convert the wicked. There was no -robbery involved, no demand for a money ransom, no more hardships for -the captives than were naturally unavoidable in the circumstances. They -were allowed to communicate frankly with their friends at frequent -intervals; they were made as comfortable as the circumstances of being -dragged from hiding-place to hiding-place permitted, though this did not -spare them the acquisition of such ills as dysentery and pneumonia -during their forced wanderings. The bandits presented one demand and one -only,—that Wu Pei-fu, of the Central Government, should enlist them as a -part of the army and give them a section of the country to garrison, -_and to tax_! In other words, foreigners whom duty or pleasure took into -the interior of China were to be made the pawns in a local political -quarrel in which they had neither part nor interest. With all the -grievances that exist between different factions in the troubled -republic, there would be ample opportunity for every Occidental -venturing beyond the sea-coast to get an intimate acquaintance with -bandits and their lairs, particularly if this clever little scheme -succeeded and won imitators. - -There were strong suspicions that high officers of the Honan armies, if -not Wu Pei-fu himself, were winking at the bandits and their activities, -either because these paid in a share of their loot or for other reasons -too intricate for the simple Western mind to follow. But this -impression, while justly taking the super-Tuchun to task for not -adopting a vigorous policy against the bandits, for using his influence -to coerce Peking while failing lamentably to rule that portion of the -country within gunshot of his barracks’ door, it did not, generally for -lack of personal knowledge, take due account of the territory in which -the brigands were operating. In the pell-mell, tumbled mountains of -western Honan they might circle in and out while a whole modern army -rarely caught a glimpse of them. Bombing airplanes might be an effective -argument, but Chinese armies are poorly supplied with such modern -luxuries, and there was the safety of the foreign captives to be -considered. In other words, the bandits held the best hand, and about -all even a virtual dictator to the Central Government could do was to -enter into negotiations with them as if they were a legal and -responsible opposing faction. - -This, at last, is precisely what Wu did. Though it was not until weeks -after our visit to his headquarters, the loss of “face” involved when -nearly a dozen foreigners of half as many nationalities, including women -and children, had been carried off in his own province, added to slow -but moderately stern and concerted measures by the legations involved, -not merely toward the fictional Central Government but against Wu Pei-fu -himself, forced him at last into effective action. One of the main -troubles is that Wu and all his ilk, thanks largely to the supineness of -foreign governments which should impress the opposite point of view upon -the hit-or-miss rulers of present-day China, have on hand a bigger game, -too often of a personal nature, than the rescuing of a few foreigners -serving the brigands as pawns in their own little schemes. A loud and -certain voice from abroad, as was proved in this case, would probably -greatly reduce banditry even in Honan, the centuries-old home of -outlawry, and certainly would make the carrying off of innocent -foreigners as hostages a less simple and commonplace matter. Government, -however, even when it is not ludicrously misinformed on the simplest -phases of the situation in China, seems to be much more interested in -issuing ten-dollar passports and collecting income taxes from its -nationals abroad than of lending them the protection these should -involve. - -[Illustration: - - In the Protestant mission compound of Honanfu the missionaries had - tied up this thief to stew in the sun for a few days, rather than - turn him over to the authorities, who would have lopped off his head -] - -[Illustration: - - Over a city gate in western Honan two crated heads of bandits were - festering in the sun and feeding swarms of flies -] - -[Illustration: - - A village in the loess country, which breaks up into fantastic - formations as the stoneless soil is worn away by the rains and blown - away by the winds -] - -In this case all the foreign captives were released, gradually, within a -week after the legations began to show real signs of life, not greatly -the worse for wear, and with an absorbing after-dinner topic to last -them for years to come. But it was easy to guess what splendid arguments -stray foreigners are to prove in domestic Chinese controversies, of -which they may be as supremely ignorant as uninterested, during perhaps -years to come, now that this little scheme of the bandits had been -crowned with such signal success. It is easier still to see how much -bolder they will grow in gathering such arguments, how much rougher, -when it serves their purposes, in the use of them, and how much the -self-seeking militarists of China will care how far the acknowledged -outlaws go in the matter, so long as a wishy-washy policy, supremely -ignorant of the first rules of Chinese psychology, continues to -represent the Western world in this matter. - -Just what argument had been brought to bear on the brigands remained for -several days a more or less profound secret; but the “old China hand” -had his suspicions, which turned out to be fully justified. He suspected -that temporizing, compromising, and weakly yielding had been the -consecutive orders of the moves, for long experience has taught him the -more outstanding features of the Chinese character. When it could no -longer be concealed, word seeped up out of Honan that virtually all the -demands of the bandits had been granted in full. Their chieftains were -given high rank and official titles, and the men themselves were -incorporated into the “national army,” whatever that means, any world -agreements toward disarmament notwithstanding. Not only that, but their -organizations had been left intact and given a corner of the province to -rule, particularly to “tax,” instead of at least being split up among -other organizations in which some slight curb might be put upon their -activities. The Chinese populations involved protested, in so far as -they dared, but of course in vain. That is another misfortune of the -supine policy of foreign governments, that the law-abiding Chinese -masses suffer all the more accordingly. But, after all, perhaps they are -more or less responsible for the low state of authority in present-day -China, and subject to a corresponding discount of sympathy. - -Months later down in Yencheng, the center of the foreigner-capturing -brigandage of Honan, I picked up a few details of their calling. Though -the outside world hears much more of it, there is hardly, so far, one -foreigner carried off by bandits to a thousand Chinese. The usual method -is to attack a village and take a man of standing, or his son of fifteen -or so, for ransom; but rather than run the dangers of dragging the -captive about with them, the outlaws often hand him over to some -resident of a neighboring village, perhaps only a woman, with the threat -to burn the house and kill its occupants if the hostage is not there -when they return for him. Many a helpless family is thus left stranded -between the devil and the deep sea. Occasionally girls are taken, but -the girl or woman who is kept overnight loses her reputation and is not -worth ransoming. Therefore they are either returned after negotiations -lasting a few hours, or are kept as camp property. When they are after -money or material advancement, Chinese brigands do not mistreat women; -these suffer more when soldiers run amuck and loot a town. Like -banditry, this is old Chinese history; in the days of Kublai Khan, of -whom we hear such romantic stories, Mongol Buddhist priests or lamas -were given an iron ticket from the emperor which gave them the right to -enter any house in China, drive out the men, and install themselves in -their place. For a fortnight a year during the Mongol dynasty, popular -Chinese history records that the country was given over to promiscuous -debauchery; bearing these things in mind one is surprised at the -comparative lack of abuse of women by Chinese malefactors. - - -On the way from the Peking-Hankow main line to Honanfu there had been -much of that clay-sandy earth called loess, and in the rambling half-day -from there to the rail-head there was more of it. Cultivation, rain, -wind breaking this down to varying levels, leave fantastic forms of -earth as striking as the rocks of Namur, precarious cliffs in which are -cut cave-dwellings, shrines, even temples; indeed, for long stretches -there were few other kinds of buildings. Hundreds of little fields, one -could see even from the jolting train, were gradually but irretrievably -wearing away to a common level that would eventually make cultivation -out of the question. A doubly uncertain world this, where one’s home is -a hole in the cliff-side that may any day slough off, where one must -always walk cautiously along the edge of either field or veranda, lest -it at any moment drop from under. We passed through many tunnels, always -thankful to find them stone-faced. How this soil ever succeeds in -holding together even as long as it does was one of the mysteries that -beguiled all that morning’s journey. - -At the scattered town of Kwanyintang the railway abandoned us to our own -devices. Fortunately the Tuchun of Honan Province, China’s far-famed -“Christian General,” did not. All the way from Kaifeng, where the major -had gone to visit him, he had sent one of his aides to smooth the way -for us. This handsome and intelligent fellow, still in his quilted -silky-gray uniform, had once been a lieutenant-colonel but had given up -his rank in order to work for social welfare among the soldiers. He -carried several bundles of Chinese pamphlets in hectic covers, which -turned out to be translations of various books of the Bible, to be -distributed among the country people. What distinguished him still more -from the mass of China’s swarming soldiers was the fact that he insisted -on paying his fare. Had not this idiosyncrasy of the “Christian -General’s” troops already been familiar to the officials of the Lunghai -Railway, it is quite possible that we should have seen a pair of them -faint away with astonishment at the door of our unupholstered -compartment. - -In the far reaches of China there is a comradeship among all -foreigners—perhaps the word “European” or “Caucasian” would be more -exact—stronger than that between fellow-countrymen in many parts of the -world. Let a rumor drift to a traveler’s ears that there is a -_wai-guo-ren_ in town, or indeed within reasonable striking distance of -his route, and he feels it as much his duty to call, quite irrespective -of the stranger’s particular nationality, as the latter does immediately -to offer him hospitality. There was nothing unusual, therefore, in the -fact that we were met at the present end of the line by an Armenian, a -Greek, and a Rumanian, all members of this Belgian-French railway -concession, who at once turned their office over to us as a lodging. Nor -was there any reason to be surprised when a Russian Jew, who had just -ridden down from Chinese Turkestan in record time, turned up there -hoping to sell us his horses. He was true to his race, however, when the -question of price came up, and we were not seriously tempted to alter -our original plan to leave Kwanyintang in mule-litters. - -It is proof that our aide from Kaifeng was something more than Christian -that he had the expedition we required gathered, signed, and sealed -before nightfall. The usual system in such cases is to leave the whole -matter to some responsible innkeeper. He sets the price, engages mules -and whatever conveyances are necessary, and assumes responsibility for -the proper carrying out of the contract. In this case, as is also usual, -he came bringing a great sheet of flimsy paper daubed with Chinese -characters in red—the contract in question—and decorated with several -red “chops,” the personal seals of responsible residents of the town, -which serve as a cross between recommendations and sureties. He had also -come to ask for three fourths of the sum agreed upon, which was sixteen -“Mex” dollars per litter for the journey of 280 _li_ to the first town -over the Honan-Shensi border. Ten Chinese _li_, it may be as well to -specify once for all, make approximately three miles, though in practice -there are “small _li_” and “large _li_,” in mountainous country two or -three times as many _li_ going as coming, or vice versa, and -occasionally a complete unintelligence as to road measurements. The -innkeeper must have expected that we had taken the trouble to inform -ourselves and were aware that at most only half the amount involved is -advanced, but the Chinese never risk losing an opportunity to profit by -the possible ignorance of a foreigner. When we declined even to pay the -customary half until we could inspect the mules next morning, we ran -some risk of undoing all the labor of our more than Christian aide; for -the sons of Han hate even more to make the slightest rebate on custom -than they do not to be able to overreach it a few points. Had we been -Chinese, probably negotiations would have halted then and there until -the money was forthcoming; but foreigners still have some of their old -prestige and reputation in the Chinese Republic. - -Our precaution really was hardly worth the trouble, for the night was -too black when we began to load to tell a mule from a corpse or a litter -from a lumber-pile. A Chinese mule-litter consists of two pieces of -telegraph-pole some ten feet long, which are fastened together at either -end with a crosspiece that sets into a pack-saddle, and beneath which -are two straddling wooden legs to keep the contrivance high enough off -the ground when the two animals are taken from beneath it. Between the -two poles is looped a network of ropes covered with a straw mat, with -sag enough in them to hold the traveler’s baggage and leave him room to -spread his bedding and to sit or stretch out at full length upon it. -Over all this there is an arched roof of straw matting, not dissimilar -in appearance to that of a “prairie-schooner.” My own custom of living -on the country during my travels had become so fixed that I had still -not adjusted myself to the major’s notions of a proper equipment. We had -two army-trunks, one of them very full of canned foods. Folding cots, -bedding-rolls, spare garments sufficient even for the wintry weather we -expected before the journey was over, and a small mule-load of merely -personal conveniences were enough to render speechless a wanderer long -accustomed to carry all his possessions on his own back. When to all -this was added a “boy” and a cook, and all the equipment necessary for -them to function in a fitting manner, I felt more as if I had again -joined the army than as though we were merely setting off on a little -personal jaunt. It will not be unduly anticipating, perhaps, if I -mention now that, while my companion sometimes realized he was not -living at home, and solicitous persons back in Peking fancied we were -roughing it, memory of many another cross-country tramp made this one -seem to me like traveling in extreme luxury; and the worst of it is that -I thoroughly enjoyed the change. - - - - - CHAPTER XIX - WESTWARD THROUGH LOESS CAÑONS - - -We were off at six, with the night still black about us. But that did -not mean that we actually got started so early, for it would be a -strange Chinese journey that began without a hitch. This time it was one -of the mules which we had been unable to examine in the darkness. He -turned out to be small, gaunt, and ratty, and long before we had passed -through straggling Kwanyintang he became so lame and wabbly that there -seemed no possibility of his even lasting out the day. Fortunately we -were in a position to have our desires heeded. By order of his chief, -our aide from Kaifeng had instructed the local commander to furnish us -an escort of ten soldiers. We were quite familiar with the ancient jest -that having a guard of Chinese soldiers is worse than falling into the -hands of bandits; but at least, if they did not succeed in outsprinting -the brigands in case of an attack, they could assure them that we were -not worth the robbing or holding for ransom. Besides, were we not out -mainly if not exclusively for experience? Now the escort proved its -worth at the very outset; for even though it may have little influence -over large bands of outlaws, such a Chinese guard is useful in prodding -simple citizens into prompt action when those they are escorting express -a wish. Ours was barely mentioned to the lieutenant in charge of the -detail when he slipped off into the darkness as if he meant to make it -so “snappy” that even Americans would applaud. That did not prevent the -sun from peering with a red and swollen face up over the uneven pile of -tile roofs to the southeast of us before he gave any sign of continued -existence. But when he did come back there came with him a larger, -sturdier mule than any of those already in our service, with its -old-fashioned owner—who still wore a cue, which was turning -iron-gray—ambling a bit sullenly, we thought, beside him. The transfer -was made, and we were soon off in earnest, in a cavalcade that left the -throngs of passers-by invariably staring after us. - -The lieutenant, it gradually transpired, having found the innkeeper who -had contracted to furnish us transportation unable to replace the ailing -animal at once, had calmly commandeered the first likely one he came -upon. This being the chief worldly asset of the helpless owner, he had -been forced to come along, to set off on a week’s journey on extremely -short notice. Being mere Americans, we could not see why one of the -other drivers, of whom there was one to each litter, could not have been -intrusted with this extra mule, particularly as they all lived in the -same town and were under bond, so to speak, through the innkeeper. But -one soon learns that it is far the best plan to let the Chinese get -their results in their own time-honored way, and not to peep too much -behind the scenes, nor conclude that what is absurd, or unjust, or even -cruel to the Western mind is necessarily so to the people of the Middle -Kingdom. Each litter and pair of mules, we found in time, without openly -showing curiosity, belonged to one man, either the driver who plodded -all day long in the dust beside it, constantly quickening the pace of -his two animals with an explosive “Ta! Ta!” and a few choice Chinese -“cuss-words” which there is no call to add to our Western stock, or to a -man who stayed at home and hired some one to muleteer for him. Naturally -our declining the lame mule and the substitution of another divided the -sum that was paid for that litter, and there was bad blood evident -between the two men who trotted beside it as long as the journey lasted. - -A summery autumn spread over the land, and the ten soldiers who deployed -on either side of us soon asked permission to toss their cotton-padded -overcoats into the litters. Their low cloth shoes and wrapped -trouser-legs, Chinese fashion, were well suited to tramping, especially -in the flour-like loess. Besides his fairly modern Mauser rifle and at -most a dozen cartridges, each seemed to have a few small personal -possessions tucked away about his person, and one middle-aged fellow -with a face worthy a “hard-boiled” American “top sergeant” of the old -school carried a hooded falcon seated on his crooked arm for the whole -thirty sometimes hot and often laborious miles. Merely another example, -we supposed, of the Chinese fear of trusting one’s belongings out of -sight. Except for one long and somewhat stony ridge, the loess formation -was unbroken, and dust swirled to the ears at every step. Beggars, often -in a horrible state, rolled in it at the roadside, not only in the towns -but at most unlikely spots in the open country. Surely their gleanings -could not have totaled even a modest meal a day, and it was this working -of such unlikely territory which impressed one particularly with the -depths of Chinese poverty. - -Of the pitilessness of it we had had an impressive example before -leaving Kwanyintang. In a dust-deep gutter beside its most densely -thronged thoroughfare lay, the afternoon before, a boy of perhaps -sixteen, a single filthy rag covering him merely from shoulders to -navel, several immense surfaces of his exposed body eaten away by some -loathsome disease. Evidently he was writhing in real pain instead of -more or less pretending it for sympathy’s sake, as did so many of his -rivals along the way, for several men had paused to talk with him, and -that is an extraordinary mark of solicitude in China toward roadside -mendicants. But evidently no one did anything else for him; for as we -rode by the spot before daylight next morning, while the night was still -bitter cold, there he still lay in the same all but naked state, -powdered over with dust, and evidently dead—at least we sincerely hoped -so. The poverty of China is so general, and native charity and -compassion so slight—for even the minority who are above suffering -cannot but be more or less constantly obsessed with the dread of -themselves falling into beggary—that even what we would call “very -deserving cases” must put forth great efforts to attract attention to -their needs. Some of these are so ingenious as to be humorous, as well -as pathetic, which may be intentional, for no one on earth enjoys humor -more or responds to it more quickly than a Chinese. In one of the deep -loess cañons through which we passed, a man whose feet seemed to have -rotted away knelt close up against the precipitous earth wall in a spot -which gave him just room enough to keep from under the hoofs of animals -and the feet of pedestrians passing in such constant droves that he -seemed to be bathing in dust. Through this rose his raucous voice in the -monotonous sameness of some phrase of distress, accompanied by the -ringing of a hand-bell. At regular intervals of at most thirty seconds -he ended these sounds by fetching his head down with a terrific wallop -on a big stone that lay in the road before him. Pausing to wonder why he -did not crack his skull, I gradually became aware of the fact that he -always struck the bell in his right hand into the dust in exact -synchronization with the blow of his head, thereby of course cleverly -increasing the apparent thud and at the same time inconspicuously -breaking the blow. But, for all that, his forehead was almost raw with -the constant pounding, and the exercise alone must have proved a real -day’s work before the day was done. Yet the passing throng, being itself -by no means affluent, seldom gave him more than a casual glance. The -wicker farm scoop that lay beside him had barely half a dozen “cash” -scattered about it, and this was typical of all the roadside beggars we -passed for days to come. Whenever one of us tossed a copper into such a -receptacle amazement overcame even the bystanders; for a copper is worth -ten whole “cash,” though it is about the equivalent of one fourth of an -American cent! - -For the first few miles there was an endless string of coolies carrying -bags of cement and of flour, and less evident supplies for the railway -construction-camps farther on. A tunnel a mile long was nearing -completion, and grading and cutting continued for some distance. Within -a year, optimistic officials hoped, trains would be running to the -Shensi border, and in two or three would reach at last the famous old -western capital, Sian-fu. Then there were quantities of cotton coming in -from the west, and every other imaginable thing bobbing at the ends of -those springy poles across coolie shoulders which are so often miscalled -bamboos, since they are more nearly hickory, polished and varnished to a -mahogany brown. Itinerant craftsmen of every sort, peddlers of anything -there is a chance of selling, portable restaurants for the feeding of -all this multitude, hundreds of jogging coolies carrying their beds and -their few belongings on their quest for work, all use this pole for -bearing their burdens, so that the vista as far as the eye can reach was -like a river of undulating men and things. Much of the way lay high, and -gave us splendid views off across mountainous country fantastically -broken as only loess can break, terraced on a hundred different levels, -ever falling away at the edges, a world, as it were, that was wearing -out. Or again the road, which never for an instant was worthy of any -such name, would plunge into one of the chasms it had worn for itself -during centuries of plodding through this friable soil, chasms a -hundred, two hundred, in places surely three hundred feet deep, which -might continue for many miles before there came another glimpse of the -surrounding country. To walk in these is like shuffling through a -cement-factory; let the least breath of wind blow, and one heartily -longed again for a gas-mask. The walls being absolutely sheer and the -sunken roads very rarely wider than a single cart, let one of these get -ahead of us and we must inhale and swallow its dust for many weary _li_; -while the tasks of passing those constantly appearing from the opposite -direction required the patience and the profanity of a Chinese muleteer. -Of the joys of fetching up in one of these endless channels at the rear -of a camel caravan, probably at least a hundred strong, and many times -more famous for raising dust than speed, no mention shall be permitted -to sully the pages of what aims to be the veracious story of a perfectly -respectable journey. - -[Illustration: - - I take my turn at leading our procession of mule litters and let my - companions swallow its dust for a while -] - -[Illustration: - - The road down into Shensi. Once through the great arch-gate that marks - the provincial boundary, the road sinks down into the loess again, - and beggars line the way into Tungkwan -] - -[Illustration: - - Hwa-shan, one of the five sacred mountains of China -] - -[Illustration: - - An example of Chinese military transportation -] - -However, we were by no means confined to the bottoms of the cañons. A -mule-litter, we quickly discovered, resembles many another contrivance -in this imperfect world, in that it has both its advantages and its -drawbacks. Shaped like a bath-tub, it might perhaps be quite cozy could -one merely make it up as a bed and crawl into it. But when it is already -half filled with such odds and ends as steamer-trunks and bedding-rolls, -there is only a limited space left for the mere passenger. Moreover, the -straw mattings are neither sun- nor dust-proof, and while one may in -time and with patience learn either to sleep or to read in a litter, in -spite of the camel-like motion varied by a sudden disconcerting lurch -every quarter-hour or so, when the plodding driver outside concludes -that the poles need leveling on one or the other mule, the average -traveler is more apt to pass his time drowsily gazing at the plethora of -red pompons and trappings on his lead-mule and listening to the -monotonous tinkling of his bell. Litter-riding is an art that must be -learned. As the rolling motion is prone quickly to unbalance the -contrivance, proper bestowal of the body is closely akin to tight-rope -walking. If one be of a restless disposition and accustomed to change -the lower leg for the upper at certain intervals, one must not let the -attention grow drowsy; if one persists in the reprehensible habit of -smoking, then in laying down the pipe in the right hand great care must -be exercised that the can of tobacco be at the same instant deposited -with the left, lest the excess of weight prove fatal. In all our journey -my own litter turned over upon me but once, and that was in an inn-yard -where assistance was at hand to drag me out from under the trunks, cots, -suit-cases, and what not under which the mishap buried me; but if there -were ten consecutive minutes when I did not expect it to do so, they -were probably during the many times that I was not inside it. We met in -the west foreigners of long Chinese experience who did all their -traveling in litters, some indeed who lined and carpeted theirs with -felt, put a stove inside, and journeyed for weeks at a time, even in the -depths of winter, reading many volumes during the journey. But while we -are quite ready to admit without controversy the comfort of a -mule-litter as compared with a “Peking cart,” I for one found the finest -thing about it the fact that one could get out and walk. - - -This we did early and often, and thereby frequently kept out of the -dust-swirling cañons entirely for long stretches. For the constant -procession of coolies plodding up and down this route had worn at least -one, and often as many as half a dozen, hard smooth paths along the -brink of the chasm, paths undulating and meandering just enough to be -delightful. From them we could look far down the sheer cliffs, seldom -fifteen feet apart, upon the endless mule-trains, broken here and there -by cumbersome two-wheeled carts, ox or horse drawn, or by a disdainfully -leisurely string of camels, all so tiny with the depth sometimes that -they seemed a procession of children’s toys. At the same time we enjoyed -a brilliant sunshine—often too brilliant, in fact, though October was -all but gone—now and then a delicious breeze, and views of the life of -the region and landscapes frequently approaching the magnificent, all of -which were unknown to the man who was drowsing or attempting to read in -his litter far below. The average speed of our conveyances, though they -were the swiftest things in the defiles, was scarcely equal to a -reasonable walking pace, so that we could here and there wander a bit -from the straight and narrow paths for a glimpse of something that -seemed worth the deviation. - -There were places, for instance, where rows of old earthenware jars were -set up in ridges of earth and filled with water, often carried from long -distances, for the watering of passing animals—trust the people of -cruelly crowded China not to overlook any chance to pick up a few stray -“cash.” The latter, by the way, were now almost the only money seen, and -passing coolies carried a string of them looped over a shoulder or some -other convenient projection. Sometimes a row of enormous bowls formed a -wall, shutting off a compound, instead of the commonplace structure of -yellowish dried mud so generally serving that purpose. Naked children -swarming everywhere and men with bronzed torsos bared to the waist -working in the fields seemed to give the calendar the lie. Blindfolded -animals plodding an endless round, a pair of men, or a man and his -crippled wife, manipulating a big, crude windlass, brought up water from -the field-wells scattered hither and yon, and unsuspected, if the -superstructures were lacking, until one had all but stumbled into them. -The vagaries of the loess soil were often fantastic, sometimes -incredible. Extremely friable, wholly unstratified, yet surprisingly -solid, too, its contrasts were a constant astonishment. There were -villages in which it had split and gashed and fallen away into some -adjoining rivulet cañon to such an extent that the mud houses seemed to -be strewn helter-skelter among a forest of cathedral-spires and Gothic -roofs, perched at every possible height and dozing serenely on -perpendicular chips of earth which it seemed impossible that the first -slight breath of mind should not precipitate in a mere cloud of yellow -dust into the terrifying chasm below. Its persistence in standing long -after it must surely have fallen was one of the wonders of the sunken -roads. Here a great slice of it, split wholly free from the main -precipice and seeming to hang like a curling wave a hundred feet or more -directly above our passing litters, gave every appearance of being on -the very point of breaking and burying a score of travelers beneath it, -yet somehow it never did, at least in our presence. Innumerable such -catastrophes must have come to pass during the long centuries in which -this “national road” had become a cañon; but the Chinese way, no doubt, -had been for the survivors to plod calmly on over the collapsing earth -before the dust had settled, secure in the knowledge that if their own -particular godlets held them in favor they were free from similar -danger, while, if they were not, precautions were mere wasted breath. - -Many a time the paths we followed along the crests seemed to have -reached the day when they must spill down the face of the precipice, yet -they always carried us safely past. Of cave-dwellings cut far back into -these cliffs there was no end, by far a majority of the population -having only such homes. But what perhaps was most startling of all the -astounding caprices of this strange soil was to come, in a stroll across -what gave every appearance of being a flat unbroken field, suddenly upon -a great square hole in the ground, fifty or more feet in length and -breadth, and as many deep, which was nothing more nor less than a family -courtyard. Farm-implements and domestic animals littered its floor; into -its side walls, sheer and exact as those of a box, were cut a dozen -caves, high arched but with the usual small doors in each mud-bricked -front—the dwelling-places of the numerous family, probably of three -generations. There was nothing about such a farm-yard different from the -ordinary ones all over China, except that the high mud wall surrounding -it is the solid earth, with an inconspicuous tunnel often of -considerable length connecting it with the outside world. Let this fall -in, and there is not a ladder in rural China long enough to bring the -hole-dwellers to the surface, on which lie their hard earth -threshing-floor and their fields. - -The threshing-floors were everywhere busy at this season, beating out -the last of the grain with flails or rolling it out with huge stone -rollers drawn by languidly ambling animals. Whole families took part in -the operation, the more than half-naked children teasing the leisurely -beasts to keep on the move; the women, who generally knelt to spare -their crippled feet, pawing about through the straw and now and then -even helping the men to toss the grain up into the chaff-clearing wind. -About the edges of every floor were stacks of hay and straw, all -plastered over with a kind of clay roof, as seems to be the fashion in -Honan. - -But the prize sight of all was the terraced fields. I had seen some in -the Inca lands of South America that seemed remarkable examples of human -persistence, but they are mere children’s pastimes compared with these -of western China. Those in the Andes are faced with stout stone walls -and run only part-way up an occasional hillside, or bring a too steep -valley under cultivation. Here a most remarkable series of terraces, of -thirty, forty, even fifty levels, rose to the very summit of every -mountain we saw not only for days but for weeks, covering it completely -with low steps of endless giant stairways. Yet here stone is unknown; -the facing of each field is merely the loess itself, constantly -crumbling away upon the field next below. Geologists are more or less -agreed, I believe, that the loess regions of North China, covering a -quarter of a million square miles, are due to the destruction of the -forests centuries ago, a destruction so complete that even the roots -were grubbed out for fuel, so that a soil which with its natural share -of rainfall and vegetation was all that man could wish has become a -powder-like earth ready to break down and fly away at the first breath -of wind. If they are right, what a splendid justice it would be to send -those who are doing their best to deforest our own fair land to struggle -for existence with the hordes of China, where the pressure of population -has driven the farmer not only to the very crest of arid mountains but -into every tiniest depression in the soil! Absolutely treeless, with -never a suggestion even of brush or grass, these loess regions were -everywhere for day after day the same bare yellow brown, beautiful -enough in the changing phases from sunrise to sunset, but of a monotony -that wearies the eye for all the extraordinary forms in which the ages -have cast it. In spring and summer perhaps, when the terraces are waving -with crops, there may be green enough. But it was hard to believe it in -this autumn season, when even the rare remnants of a cotton or a corn -field have the same shriveled, moistureless, yellow-brown hue as all the -far-spreading and tumbled landscape. - - -But walking always became a perspiring form of locomotion long before -noon, and some convenient cañon-mouth or a stretch where the road came -to the surface for a breathing-spell found us climbing into our litters. -From then on until toward evening our view of the world about us was -likely to be confined to the triangular bit of it visible between the -red pompons on the lead-mule’s back and the straw roof of the litter, -often still further reduced by the walls of the narrow ditch which so -frequently was the road nearly all day long. Through this we saw more, -however, than might be expected. A camel-train, or one of many -mule-drawn soldiers’ wagons, loomed up out of a dust-fog so thick that -collisions were narrowly averted in spite of our slow speed. Loess soil -would not be so bad, at least so far as the traveler is concerned, if -only it would lie still, instead of insisting on exploring the innermost -recesses of any one or anything with which it comes in contact. Let a -breath of air sweep down the road—which was certainly no unusual -experience—and we could barely see the next litter before us. Then there -was nothing to do but cover the face with a handkerchief and lie -listening to the endless _dingle-dingle_ of the little mule-bells and -the slight creak of the swaying litter, broken frequently by the -“mule-train coughing in the dust”—cough the weary animals did, -indeed—and now and again by the vociferous “Ta! Ta!” of the drivers -whose footsteps made no sound in the powdered earth, or a long-drawn -“Trrrrrrrrrrr!” when they wished to bring the animals to a halt. An old -and very experienced traveler is authority for the assertion that the -road from Honan to Sian-fu is perhaps the most trying bit of cart-road -in China, and, strong as such language is, we were inclined to agree -with him. Yet it is a journey I would not have missed for several times -its many minor discomforts. - -Sometimes the road escaped from the cañon for several miles, and then -there was sure to be plenty to catch the eye. Perhaps it was a little -house, temple, or dove-cote at the top of a high slender pillar of -earth, for rain and wind may have washed the world away from about it -and left an unbelievably frail support. Soldiers we were constantly -meeting in great numbers; occasionally we passed large groups of -recruits not yet furnished with weapons, simple-faced boys who might -much better have been left in their native cave-villages to till the -terraced mountains than to add still more to China’s most serious -problem. But this draining of the country districts of able-bodied young -men goes merrily on all over the republic—and the training of eventual -bandits seems to have no end. Our own escort and long files of their -armed fellows bound in the opposite direction now and then showed -themselves on the sheer edge of the cliffs high above us, they and their -guns silhouetted against the cloudless sky. We constantly met veritable -crowds of travelers, mainly pedestrians. Endless strings of coolies came -and went, their beds and tools and all their earthly belongings in blue -denim rolls on their backs, or balancing from the swaying pole over -their shoulders. I often caught myself wondering why they could not all -stay where they were and save themselves all this laborious shuttling -back and forth, so exactly alike were the long files of them plodding -eastward and going west. There were very few women travelers; compared -with the great throngs of men there were almost none, and they were -always riding, naturally, since the most they could do otherwise would -be to hobble a few hundred yards an hour on their dwarfed feet. -Sometimes one of them loomed up out of the dust astride a donkey, always -with a man prodding the animal on from behind, his easy stride seeming -to emphasize the helplessness of the crippled legs tapering down to all -but useless little feet on either side of the biblical animal. Children, -swarming everywhere, were rarely on the move along the road, though -occasionally we passed the cart or litter of a better-to-do Chinese -carrying his family with him. But even if the heavy cloth front door of -his conveyance was not closed, we rarely caught more than a glimpse of -the peering faces of women and children tucked away behind the man and -the driver in what must have been extremely tight quarters. - -Several times widows in white or sackcloth passed, usually seated alone -Turkish fashion on an uncovered cart, as if to make their grief as -conspicuous as possible. Some of them were surprisingly young; generally -their faces were completely covered; and invariably they rocked back and -forth on their haunches and wailed at the tops of their voices, whether -in passing through a town or out in the open country, at least whenever -there was any one except their plodding driver to hear them. This public -display of grief seemed to be a custom of Honan; at least, we seldom if -ever saw it farther west. One morning while we were still walking we -heard a choral wailing from afar off, and at length came upon the -mother, wife, son of six, and baby of a man who had just died, all -squatting together on the outdoor threshing-floor at the edge of their -village, and all of them, including even the infant, pouring forth their -sorrow to the four winds. A pathetic, almost touching scene it was to -me—until I chanced to glance back just in time to see the old woman -pinch the boy in a very sensitive spot, and thereby redouble the wailing -which the sight of a passing foreigner had almost silenced. - -Once in a while a bride passed, conspicuous in all her finery, and -looking as if she, too, could easily weep the length of her tedious -journey, did custom permit it. Then there was the wheelbarrow-brigade, -in some ways the most interesting part of all the endless procession. -The thought of a man wheelbarrowing a heavy load clear across a province -or even farther had a mixture of the pitiable and the ludicrous about -it—something reminiscent of a nonsensical election-bet. Yet it is -doubtful whether any man in all our broad land, with the possible -exception of champion athletes at the climax of their exertions, perform -such grueling labors as do these Chinese wheelbarrow-men, who passed us -in veritable regiments, sometimes in close unbroken file for a mile at a -time. Given the weight of the big clumsy, creaking contrivances -themselves, an incredibly heavy and often awkward load, a “road” which -no untraveled Westerner would recognize as such, with steep hills, -cañons ankle-deep in dust, and the constant struggle for right of way on -the crowded caricature of a thoroughfare, and it was no wonder that the -man straining at the handles, with the stout strap from them passing -over his shoulders, all but invariably resembled a marathon runner at -the end of his greatest contest. In northwest China the _tui-chu_ is not -a passenger vehicle, as in some parts of the country; but this ceaseless -one-wheeled cavalcade carried almost everything except human beings. The -luckiest seemed to be those whose bulky load was merely cotton; the -heaviest burdens, with rare exceptions, were evidently the two to four -black-brown bags of wheat, a bit smaller in circumference than our -two-bushel sack, but nearly twice as long. - -All possible manner of aids had been enlisted by the sweating men at the -handles, though the great majority toiled onward without assistance. -Sometimes another man, perhaps a donkey, once in a while a mule, an aged -horse, a small ox, pulled in front of the wheelbarrow. More than one man -had pressed his son and heir into service, and boys of all ages added -their by no means insignificant bit to the drudgery. The detailed -picture still stays with me of one child who could not have been more -than six, his little bronzed body completely naked except for the red or -blue diamond-shaped stomacher which most Chinese consider indispensable -to health, steadily tugging away for all he was worth at the rope over -his bare shoulder. He and his brawny father behind were plainly many -toilsome days away both from home and their destination, yet on the -child’s face there was not a suggestion of protest, but more than a hint -of joy at this splendid opportunity to see the world. Indeed, the -generally contented, not to say joyful, attitude toward their arduous -fragment of life of these slaves of the wheelbarrow, of the coolies, of -the toiling masses of China in general, is one of the astonishments, and -delights, of Chinese travel. Possibly these men were paid the equivalent -of fifteen American cents a day for their cart-horse exertions, -furnishing their own food and lodging on the way; yet a surly face was -as rare as a lazy body, and laughter always burst forth upon the -slightest provocation. Those who pulled in front, I noticed, no matter -how young or how weak, were never reproved or admonished to greater -exertions from behind; it seemed to be as natural for them to do their -unflagging best as for water to run downhill, and the thought of their -slacking or of being capable of more never appeared even to suggest -itself to the man at the handles. - -Twice, possibly three times, I saw a woman tugging at a wheelbarrow -rope, but in each case the load was light and the distance evidently -short; it must have been, in fact, for she could not have struggled far -on the little goat-like feet and muscleless legs which time-honored -custom had left her. I suppose the several brilliant Western -“authorities” that are at the moment engaged in “interpreting” China to -us would cite as another proof of the ascendancy of esthetic over -material things in the Chinese mind the fact that, though her unhampered -labor is very necessary to him, the Chinese peasant and coolie still -insists on having his wife beautified at the sacrifice of her physical -usefulness. On the threshing-floor or in the cotton-fields the women -could be worked to somewhat better advantage than on the road, and there -one saw more of them. For they could do most of this work kneeling, and -nearly all of them, even girls of eleven or twelve, wore thick -knee-pads, not unlike the shin-guards of a football-player, to soften a -bit the hard lot that had befallen them. In the towns one often saw -wives or servants crawling about the dirty earth floors on their knees -in the performance of their household duties. - -The cotton-fields, by the way, were almost endless, though not much else -could be said in their favor. The plants, from six inches to a foot -high, were of a dead-dry brown, of the same color as all the landscape -to the summit of the terraced mountains, and the miserable little bolls -that remained did not seem worth even the trouble of such -poverty-stricken pickers as here and there still wandered about in -search of them. There had been no rain all summer in this region, they -told us, and unless some fell within the next two months and saved the -winter wheat, there would be another famine as serious as that of 1920. - - -[Illustration: - - Coal is plentiful and cheap in Shensi, and comes to market in Sian-fu - in wheelbarrows, there to await purchasers -] - -[Illustration: - - The holy of holies of the principal Sian-fu mosque has a simplicity in - striking contrast to the demon-crowded interiors of purely Chinese - temples -] - -[Illustration: - - Our carts crossing a branch of the Yellow River fifty _li_ west of the - Shensi capital -] - -[Illustration: - - Women and girls do much of the grinding of grain with the familiar - stone roller of China, in spite of their bound feet -] - -The first night out of Kwanyintang we slept in the house from which a -Greek, and ate in the house from which a Frenchman, both officials of -the advancing railway, had been taken by bandits a few weeks before. -They were still in captivity among the mountains somewhere to the -southwest, the nucleus of the considerable little party of foreigners by -whose unwilling assistance the brigands eventually won their way into -the national army. In fact we slept on unfurnished beds and were offered -unnecessary apologies by our polished French host and Japanese hostess -at dinner because of the looting that had taken place at the time his -predecessor was carried off. There was still a certain atmosphere of -suppressed dread among the few foreign residents, for none of them was -sure how soon he might become the next victim; but mankind quickly -learns to live without discomfort under many unpleasant circumstances. - -Our soldier escort changed each day, and we were entertained each -evening with the long “face-saving” process that took place before the -detail could accept the gratuity we offered them. The struggle, which we -turned over to Chang as more finely versed in Chinese etiquette than we, -was particularly arduous on that first evening, for the commander of the -detachment was a real lieutenant, and instead of the thirty-two -vociferous and violent refusals which seemed to be required of a mere -sergeant or corporal before he accepted what he really had no intention -in the world of declining, the lieutenant was still pushing back the -detested silver with fine effect when we lost count and went inside. -Three Mexican dollars distributed among ten men for a hot and arduous -thirty-mile tramp for the possible protection of a pair of unknown -foreigners might not strike one of our own “doughboys” as anything to -write home about; but for men whose daily pay was nothing like their -share of this sum, and who draw their pay much more often in theory than -in practice, the major’s insistence that they “have a good feed on us” -could not really have sounded so immoral to them as they pretended. - -The second afternoon was still fairly young when we reached the large -walled town of what its residents, at least, called Lüngbau. The escort -was to stop here, but the sergeant in command thought he could get -permission to go on with us another twenty _li_, or get the next detail -to start at once, if we would let him go into town and see the -commander, while we continued around the edge of it, as most through -travel does in passing crowded walled cities. Near one of the farther -gates a soldier sent by the local commandant overtook us. His chief, he -said, could not send a detail on such short notice, and he did not think -it wise for us to go on without one. Bandits had been very active in the -immediate region ahead and might even have heard of the “important” -foreigners and be looking for them. - -All this moved us little, for both the major and I knew from long -experience that it is always the _next_ stage of the journey that is -perilous for the traveler, never the one in which he actually is. -Besides, ten straggling, poorly equipped soldiers of the Chinese type -would scarcely prevent the bandits from adding us to their collection if -they really meant to do so. But we were reckoning without our muleteers. -They had already expressed a desire to stop in Lüngbau; the report from -the commandant made them doubly anxious to stay. We were pooh-poohing -their fears and deciding to order a new start when, following the eye of -one of them, I glanced up at the city gate close beside us. It was a -picturesque little portal, but that mere fact would not of course have -drawn the attention of a Chinese muleteer. What had aroused his interest -was two frail crates, thrown hastily together of narrow strips of wood, -fastened to the face of the gate on either side just above the arch, and -each containing a human head. I had often read of such dainty -decorations on Chinese city gates, on those indeed of our medieval -ancestors; but they had always seemed far away and long ago, something -pertaining to the “good old days,” which a prosaic modern wanderer would -never have the privilege of seeing. To come upon them, therefore, in the -present year of grace and in the full light of the ordinary, every-day -life about us, tacked up against two torn posters depicting the delights -and excellencies of a widely known brand of cigarettes, was—well, was at -least a pleasant reminder that the picturesque customs of old China had -not yet all gone into the discard, that even the modern wanderer, if he -wander long and far enough, may still once in a blue moon come upon some -of those little details linking the phonographed, sewing-machined world -of to-day with the cave-man, which he has so often envied the travelers -of bygone centuries. - -These two bandits, explained the soldier messenger, prompted now and -then by the solicitous crowd that always gathers in China about any -suggestion of a controversy, or of a foreigner, had been caught four -days before in the very town where we must spend the night, if we -persisted in pushing on. I suppose the crated heads were what any -ladylike person would have called a “gruesome sight,” but I fear they -struck me merely as interesting. In China one quickly and unconsciously -gets a sense of the cheapness of human life, so that things which would -ruin a night’s sleep at home are forgotten around the next corner. The -heads each lay on one ear in the bottom of their open-work crates, half -grinning down upon passers-by. Having a southern exposure, they had -already greatly profited by the three or four days they had been -separated from their original, evidently rather youthful, possessors to -disguise their identity. They were yellow, not the mere yellow of the -Chinese, who so far north are scarcely yellow at all, but of the yellow -of a pile of crude sulphur, of a ripe lemon; and they were in that state -in which even the most careless housewife would quickly send a cut of -meat out to be buried—deep. Moreover—and all the writers on head-adorned -gates I had ever read had never given me a hint of this little -detail—they were swarming with flies, which seemed to consider this a -particularly luscious feast. - -We yielded to the reluctance of our muleteers and turned back to a -near-by inn. The sun was still high enough for a stroll through the -extramural suburb, often the most crowded part of a Chinese town, then -across Lüngbau itself, and around a half-circuit of its broad wall, from -which we could look down into many of what in other lands would have -been domestic secrets. We saw by chance, for instance, that the big -sturdy man who had followed us into the inn-yard on his knees, because -he had carelessly frozen his feet off one night, had a big family with -whom to share the remnant of a roast leg of lamb we had given him. -Somewhere among the crowded bazaars some one succeeded in telling us -that bandits were worse in this region because it was fairly rich and -they could live on the country; but the teeming life of Chinese streets -certainly flowed on its even way in complete indifference to those heads -upon the gate and to the dangers they stood for. What was still more to -the point, there was time to take a leisurely view of the silky-brown -terraced mountains that bounded the southern horizon, and to watch the -unclouded sun sink into a fiery furnace behind them. - -But for that more or less forced stop at Lüngbau we should have ended -the mule-litter stage of our journey late on the third day. However, -that might have interfered with the major’s extraordinary success as a -hunter, which was not a commonplace, vulgar matter of quantity, but of a -finesse that even a Buddhist could have applauded. We had waded through -a considerable mountain pass—at least this wearing down of roads into -cañons sometimes appreciably shortens a climb—and had come down a steep -incline to the broad flat shores of the Yellow River. Castor oil in its -native state grew head-high for some distance along the deep sandy -trail; but what roused our genuine interest was the fact that the -lowland, half a mile wide, between us and the river, was swarming with -magnificent wild ducks, and probably geese. The major snatched the -shot-gun which some trusting sky-pilot in Peking had unwisely lent him -for the journey, and strode out into a forty-acre field literally -covered with the birds. Now and again a great flock of them rose and -circled in a great curtain across the lower sky, but this mattered -little, for there were always more where those came from; in fact, had -they all risen at once, the air could scarcely have contained them. - -Nothing of course could be more reprehensible, more dastardly, in fact, -than to breathe a breath of criticism upon the marksmanship of a host, -as it were, who has risen so high in the profession in which -marksmanship is so essential; and fortunately there is not the slightest -occasion to do so. For surely the failure to make a perfect score can -honestly be accounted for by the fact that the weapon used was already -doing service long before our forefathers began to laugh at the idiot -who fancied that some day some one would invent a “horseless carriage.” -If birds will have the decency to stay where they are until the hunter -can step on their tails before firing, such a contrivance leaves nothing -to be desired. But wild ducks and geese, even in so rarely hunted a -paradise as the Yellow River valley, are not especially cordial to -strangers; one might, indeed, almost charge them with aloofness. - -However, the major did fire at last, both barrels at once, so that at -least there would not be a second recoil to embitter his disappointment, -and in spite of the fact that he had not succeeded in getting quite near -enough to his quarry to make it really worth while to throw the weapon -itself after them. Strangely enough, one of the birds gave every -evidence of having been struck, or else of having had the scare of its -life. For instead of following its myriad fellows into the now teeming -air it ran erratically along the ground, with the major and Chang, and, -I believe, two or three of the muleteers, possibly even the cook, in hot -pursuit. The most fleet-footed of this throng—I chanced at that moment -to be hovering between turning and not turning over with my litter, and -hence can give no trustworthy testimony on the subject—at length laid -hands upon the fugitive. If it had been struck, the shot, naturally, had -not penetrated the thick feathers; perhaps it had careened off its -lightly clad skull and left it a hazy view of the situation until it was -for ever too late. At any rate, the major has the distinction of having -captured in perfect health a magnificent specimen of the wild duck -family, larger than any domestic one and beautiful as a pheasant—with a -shot-gun! - -One of the soldiers carried it the rest of the morning, as another had -carried his hooded falcon the day before. Our entourage attempted to -convince us that such birds were not fit to eat, but its superiority to -a Thanksgiving turkey when it appeared before us again next day -suggested that they may merely have been offering, Chinese fashion, to -throw it away for us. - - - - - CHAPTER XX - ON TO SIAN-FU - - -Early on the fourth day we climbed up out of a great road cañon to a -mammoth stone archway that marks the boundary between Honan and Shensi -provinces, and immediately pitched down again into another chasm of -equal depth. Nor was there any improvement in the fragile soil, in the -endless lines of coolies going and coming, or in the mangy beggars who -squatted, loudly lamenting, in the dust here and there along the sunken -road all the way into strongly walled Tungkwan. This important outpost -of Shensi Province lies just over the Honan border, on the Hoang Ho, -yellow river indeed here at this shallow season, across which one may -see the loess hills of the province of Shansi, just then suffering -acutely from drouth. The world had worn away from about the massive wall -that surrounds the town, as it does from about even a mud shrine in the -loess country, so that we had to climb again, rather stiffly, to reach -the imposing city gate that admitted us. - -In strict duty, no doubt, the soldiers straggling about it should have -demanded our passports, which the Wai-chiao-pu in Peking, whose -privilege it is to look after “outside-country people,” had smeared with -half an acre of red-ink-stamped characters purporting to be permission -to visit five specified provinces, after which they must, officially at -least, be returned to Peking for further desecration. But all the -soldiers said was “Pien-tze,” and the Chinese visiting-cards we produced -in answer to that laconic request were evidently all they wanted as -proof of our identity. Since the major’s name chances to begin with Ph, -forcing him also to pass as Mr. Fei in Chinese, we were at once taken -for brothers, even in the face of decided facial proof to the contrary, -and passed on our way unquestioned. - -The native pastor of the _Fu-ying-tong_, as the Chinese call a -Protestant mission, was not in town. But in the interior of China any -Caucasian passes at face value, at least until he has definitely been -proved a counterfeit, and we were soon installed in several dusty, -slightly furnished rooms of the rambling, temple-like compound, while -Chang and the cook explored the kitchen with the caretaker. Had we -arrived an hour earlier we might perhaps have gone on at once and -reached Sian-fu that same night. For, strange as it sounded, there was a -motor-bus line running more or less daily half-way across “Hidden -Shensi,” from Tungkwan to the capital. But the buses started early in -the morning; moreover, with all our dunnage we should probably need a -special car, and there was just then none in town. If we really wished -to go on next day, it would be best, they told us, if the major in his -official capacity should wire the Tuchun at Sian-fu, to whom this little -venture in less sluggish transportation personally belonged. Meanwhile, -there was the matter of settling with our muleteers, and deciding how -much _cumshaw_—without which no transaction in China is considered -properly closed—we cared to give them. Tungkwan, too, was large and -interesting enough, with a wall which clambered for a long way along the -crest of a ridge high above us; but there is much sameness to most -Chinese cities, and this one seemed to offer nothing unique. But at -least there was something of that quality in a leisurely half-day for -the ablutions, razor-wieldings, resorting, and repose of which we were -in arrears. - -It did indeed require a special car for all our expedition, and even at -that I was forced to banish to the running-board the chauffeur’s -assistant, who habitually fills out the front seat of any public -conveyance of this sort in China. His duties seemed to be to crank the -car, to attend the wants of a perpetually parched radiator, to tinker -with the engine whenever there was the slightest chance to do so, and in -general to help the imported chauffeur to reduce the exiled vehicle from -a movable to an immovable object as soon as possible. The driver had -been brought all the way from Tientsin to grace Shensi’s new enterprise, -having been chosen evidently because of what he did not know about -automobile engines and their proper manipulation, and therefore sure to -be free from prejudice. If we understood rightly, the conveyance had -been carried piecemeal through the loess cañons on mule-back, and no -doubt some of the parts had been assigned tasks for which they had never -been trained. But it is axiomatic that nothing short of total -dissolution will prevent a Ford truck from functioning, and less than -two hours after this one had been requested to start we were staggering -in spasmodic jerks out through the western city gate. - -It is 290 _li_ from Tungkwan to Sian-fu, almost exactly the same -distance as we had made in mule-litters in more than three days; so that -though we never attained breathless speed the journey felt rapid by -comparison. Once through the massive stone archway that separated city -from country, the going did not at first seem to be appreciably better -than the alleged road behind us; one gasped at the temerity of any one, -especially the timid Chinese, actually setting out on so ideal a route -for an obstacle race with the expectation of really reaching a -destination nearly a hundred miles away. But in time we came to realize -that it was what the Chinese consider an unusually fine road. Loess had -for the most part given way to a somewhat more cohesive soil, and there -were no real cañons. When he was Tuchun of the province, the “Christian -general” had built, mainly with soldier labor—the two words seem -incompatible in China—this raised highway beside the old haphazard route -all the way from the frontier to the capital. His intentions had been -excellent; but his funds were limited, the soil available contains not a -hint of stone or gravel, and public coöperation was of course wholly -lacking. The general had done his best to replace this last un-Chinese -asset by board signs set up at frequent intervals along the way, with a -warning that the highroad was reserved for automobiles only, and that -any other use of it would be severely punished. His successor had -evidently tried to keep in force this unprecedented interference with -Chinese freedom of individual action, and his authority was certainly -considerable, as witness the fact that only here and there had the -sign-boards even yet been turned into fuel. But the Tuchun could -scarcely be expected to patrol the famous highway personally, and even -at that he could not have kept an eye on all parts of it at once. -Therefore it was much more densely thronged than the typical Chinese -road down below it. Donkeys, mules, pack-cattle, rickshaws—these often -run the eighty-seven miles in less than two and a half days, and make -the round trip in five, at a cost to the passenger of about two American -dollars—innumerable wheelbarrows, especially coolies in never ending -procession, prefer to ignore the sign-boards, if indeed even the slight -minority who can read them consider the prohibition as really meant. -Worst of all, whole regiments of the Tuchun’s own soldiers were moving -eastward, evidently in order to be more immediately available to their -real commander-in-chief, Wu Pei-fu, and more than half the carts that -carried these and their helter-skelter paraphernalia were themselves -frankly disobeying the placarded order. These sharp-tired, two-wheeled -contrivances are magnificently designed for ruining a road, particularly -one built merely of earth, in the shortest possible time, and the result -of the trespassing of even the few thousand we passed during the one day -can readily be imagined. Then there were many spots where the Chinese -genius for never repairing anything until repair is absolutely -unavoidable manifested itself, and here and there some farmer had -frankly chopped the highway in two to make a passage for his -irrigation-ditch, a privilege as time-honored as China’s written -language. - -[Illustration: - - An old tablet in the compound of the chief mosque at Sian-fu, purely - Chinese in form, except that the base has lost its likeness to a - turtle and the writing is in Arabic -] - -[Illustration: - - This famous old portrait of Confucius, cut on black stone, in Sian-fu, - is said to be the most authentic one in existence -] - -[Illustration: - - A large town of cave-dwellers in the loess country, and the terraced - fields which support it -] - -[Illustration: - - Samson and Delilah? This blind boy, grinding grain all day long, - marches round and round his stone mill with the same high lifted - feet and bobbing head of the late Caruso in the opera of that name -] - -There was a certain satisfaction in seeing Nemesis, in the form of our -staggering, stuttering truck and the regular bus we sometimes passed, -sometimes dropped behind, overtake these lawbreakers whom neither -authority nor public opinion was able to curb. There are few automobiles -in Shensi Province, probably never more than ten, and few of the throng -along even its most nearly modern road are in a frame of mind to meet -one without what the “movie” world calls “registering astonishment.” -Most of them register a very exaggerated form of it, which not only -affects all the muscles of the body but often manifests itself even in -their domestic animals. With their creaking wheelbarrows and a heavy -head wind to hamper their hearing, many permitted us almost to step on -their heels before they showed any inclination to give us the right of -way; but this selfish attitude was more than offset by the alacrity with -which they did so when once their minds were made up. At times the road -immediately ahead was so crowded with coolies and mule-drivers fleeing -wild-eyed at cross-purposes that we were forced to pause and even to -halt until the atmosphere had cleared itself sufficiently to make out -the ruts again. The conventional line of action was to abandon -wheelbarrow, animals, or pole-slung burdens at once and to go, quite -irrespective of destination. The road being from six to ten feet above -the surrounding country, barely wide enough in most places for one car -to run comfortably, with sheer sides and often a deep trench on either -hand, the punishment which overtook many of the trespassers almost -fitted the crime. - -The coolies invariably grinned broadly or laughed aloud at their own -discomfiture, with that quick and genuine sense of humor which -transforms their rude, comfortless lives into a kind of perpetual game -and makes them, for all their many less agreeable qualities, almost -lovable. The few travelers of the haughtier classes, however, strove to -preserve the dignified deportment due their high standing, even in the -face of this ridiculous contrivance of inhuman speed from the barbarous -outside world. But they did not always succeed in upholding all the -precepts of Confucius. Among scores, probably hundreds, who performed -extraordinary feats of agility for our beguilement during that day, the -prize should be awarded to a man we passed less than two hours out of -Tungkwan. He was unusually well dressed, as if of the wealthier merchant -class, and was also bound westward, seated high above his stout mule on -the pile of bedding and baggage in cloth saddle-bags which the -well-to-do Chinese long-distance traveler carries between himself and -his saddle. The mule under him was jogging comfortably along on the edge -of his own side of the road—which in most of China is the left—though -not on his own road, leaving us room to pass without more than the -hazard to which the brink-loving chauffeur habitually put us. The animal -showed every evidence of self-control and the ability to handle the -situation without mishap, but he reckoned without his merely human -master. We were perhaps ten yards behind them when the man’s ears and -brain coördinated and he looked around. His first impulse was evidently -to snatch the reins and attempt to better the already perfect behavior -of his mount, but the un-Confucian speed with which we were lessening -the already slight distance between us confirmed him in the impression -that it would be safer to dismount with all seemly haste and leave the -animal to its own fate. Without losing an iota of his poise or dignity, -or even his position for that matter, the haughty gentleman calmly -slipped off his high seat on the ostensibly safe side, still in the -right-angled attitude of a sitting person—and admirably maintained that -pose until he disappeared, seat first, into a cross between a swamp and -a lake which unfortunately bordered the road at that particular place. -The chauffeur and I had the exclusive benefit of this portion of the -performance; the rest was reserved for those bouncing on our baggage in -the truck itself. When the major first became aware of the existence of -the haughty trespasser, it was in the form of a mere head, topped by a -dripping Chinese skull-cap, protruding from the body of water alongside, -and his last view of him as he receded into the horizon was of a -water-gushing figure clinging to the edge of the road and shaking his -open hand after the disappearing truck in the gesture which the Chinese -substitute for shaking the fist, while the mule stood just where he had -been abandoned, patiently awaiting the good will of his temperamental -master. - - -With the end of October it had turned distinctly colder, which was -fortunate; for the heat of Honan would have made the exertions often -required of us much less of a pastime than they were. Though it had been -smilingly new when it reached the province three months before, our poor -old truck resembled some maltreated, ill fed donkey which even its -heartless Chinese owner must soon turn out to die, yet which faithfully -toiled on to the very best of its ability. So long as it hobbled along -beneath him, the alleged chauffeur had not a worry in the world; but -whenever the slightest hill or sand a bit deeper than usual brought us -to a halt he was as helpless as a Hottentot with an airplane. Having -roared the engine almost out from under its hood, as the only antidote -suggesting itself to him, he sat supinely back in his seat, at the end -of his resources, and waited for some one else to do something about it. -Luckily there are always plenty of coolies within call on any important -route in China; but their natural timidity increased in the presence of -the strange snorting monster that most of them had only seen hastily -from a distance, and it required the force of example to get them to -approach and exert themselves. Thus it came about that, though we had -paid rather generously for the transporting of our expedition from the -boundary to the capital of the province, we furnished the motive-power -ourselves for a considerable fraction of the journey. - -For one short distance there were a few rocks and trees; but we were -soon in swirling loess again, dust so thick that it covered our faces as -with a white mask. Now and again we passed a high-walled town, usually -through the inevitable extramural suburb, a long line of ramshackle mud -huts, with men crowded together under the thatch awnings, eating all -manner of strange and unsavory-looking native dishes. Even in the rare -cases when we entered the city itself there was nothing much more -imposing. All morning long Hwa-shan, second only to Tai-shan among the -five sacred mountains of China, walled off the southern horizon with its -series of jagged ranges, shaped not unlike a mammoth sleeping elephant, -their sunless northern slopes like a great perpendicular wall of -beautiful blue-gray color, topped by a wonderfully fantastic sky-line. -About 2200 B.C. an early emperor of what was China in those days, with -this region as a nucleus, used to go to Hwa-shan to offer sacrifices and -to give audiences to his subjects, and the range has been sacred in -Chinese eyes ever since. - -One might have fancied that a world war was on again, so often were we -held up by endless east-bound trains of soldiers, most of them lounging -in straw-roofed carts of two wheels, red banners with white characters -flying. It was noticeable that no one but the soldiers had horses, of -which most of China has been drained by her swarming, autonomous -militarists. Companies, even battalions, were busily drilling here and -there; two or three times we passed large military camps in tents of -wigwam shape, with a modernity about them that looked incongruous -against such backgrounds as a great medieval, anachronistic city wall -blackened by the centuries. Twice we passed mule-carts laboring east or -westward with the mails; all day long a distorted line of -telegraph-poles bearing a sagging wire or two stretched haphazard into -the distance. - -The country grew a bit more rolling, with even less suggestion of loess, -as we neared Sian-fu. For miles the way was lined with countless graves, -ranging from dilapidated little cones of mud to immense mounds. Bygone -glories lay all over the landscape, monument upon turtle-borne monument, -so much more important from the Chinese point of view than passable -roads. At length the great east gate of Shensi’s capital rose above the -horizon, like some huge isolated apartment-house, and just as the last -daylight of October flickered out we roared our jerky way up its broad -main street to our destination. - - -To say that I was disappointed in Sian-fu would be somewhat overstating -the case. But as nearly as I can recall the preconceived picture, always -so swiftly melting away in the glaring sunshine of reality, I expected -something more “wild and woolly,” something a bit less like an abridged -edition of Peking. Surely the city that was for centuries the chief -Manchu stronghold of the west, almost their second capital, which had -welcomed the cantankerous old dowager fleeing before the justifiable -wrath of the Western world, which had seen such cruel and unnecessary -bloodshed during the birth of the republic, which had so often been the -outpost on the edge of a great Mohammedan rebellion, might at least have -had some faint thrill, some little hint of hidden danger, left to cheer -up the jaded wanderer. Instead, there was the same flat, placid city -partly within and partly without a mighty stone wall, swarming with the -harmless pullulations of petty traders, cheerfully enduring all the -time-honored discomforts of China, quite like those which lie scattered -like unto the sands of the sea in number over all the vast land that so -long gave Peking its undivided allegiance. - -One stepped out of the big post-office compound where most -English-speaking foreigners find hospitality, upon that surprisingly -broad main street, to find it paved with something that has long since -lost the smoothness essential to comfortable rickshaw riding, and lined -for much of its length with houses unusual in northern China, being of -two stories. Along this one may come upon wood-turners quite like those -of Damascus in their methods—a little shallow, frontless shop, a kind of -Indian bow with a loose string for lathe, a sometimes toe-supported -chisel. Perhaps a householder would find more interesting the long rows -of wheelbarrows, filled with huge chunks of that splendid anthracite so -abundant and so cheap in northwestern China, backed up against the curb -and patiently awaiting purchasers. But at the big bell-tower marking the -center of the city this broad street contracts to squeeze its way -through the resounding, dungeon-like arch, and never again regains its -lost breath. Here the paving is of big flagstones, worn so convex that -riding is not merely uncomfortable but well nigh impossible, except to -those who are inured by generations of such experiences, or to whom the -loss of “face” would be fatal. Others, at least new-comers, may rather -welcome this unspoken invitation to dismount and stroll. For though -there may be nothing in it not to be seen in a hundred other places in -China, “sights” are as compact in this busiest street of Sian-fu as if -they had purposely been gathered together here as into a museum. - -This main thoroughfare, and the one crossing it at right angles beneath -the bell-tower, cut the Shensi capital into its definite quarters. The -one on the right hand, as one comes in from the east, is, or rather was, -the Manchu city, given over now largely to great open spaces; for here -hundreds of the then ruling class jumped into wells or otherwise -violently did away with themselves, or were violently done away with, to -a number popularly estimated at more than five thousand, when China last -threw off an alien yoke and announced itself a republic. Mere mud walls, -with the brick or stone facings gone to serve in some other capacity, -mark most of the compounds of what were perhaps for centuries Manchu -palaces. Of the palaces themselves there are few traces; dust and bare -earth are much more in evidence, though trees have survived to an extent -almost suggestive of Peking. Beyond this, filling the northwest quarter, -is the Mohammedan section, much more crowded and with few open -spaces—with none, perhaps, except they be public or private courtyards. -There are towns in western China where Moslems must live outside the -walls; but Sian-fu has been more charitable toward her unabsorbable -minority, and even during the great rebellion they retained their -intramural quarter, suffering little more than constant surveillance, -and no doubt occasional reviling. Whether or not they would be driven -back into it again if the worshipers of Allah chose to live in some -other part of town matters not, for custom is as strong a bond with them -as with their fellow-Chinese, and whatever is Moslem about Sian-fu will -be found in this quarter, at least when bedtime comes. Here are all the -mosques; here are women who have scarcely stepped outside their -compounds in a generation, not even with covered faces; from here set -forth each morning the water-carriers, the muleteers, the common porters -who profess the faith of Medina. Outwardly the stroller through this -quarter may find it scarcely at all different from that Chinese half of -the city which lies to the south of its main thoroughfare. He may note -that the skullcaps of men and boys are more likely to be white than -black, that he sees only the most poverty-stricken class of women, and -not many of those, that many of the passers-by have liquid black eyes -and a very trifle more self-assertion, a slightly less lamb-like -expression than the common run of Chinese. Possibly it will occur to -him, too, that more of the little mutton-shop restaurants wide-opening -on the pulsating main street are on the north side of it, and that the -men who tend and patronize them also favor white skullcaps and have -something intangibly redolent of the Near East in features and manners. -But his eye is likely to be caught by more conspicuous things along the -stone-hard thoroughfare,—big whitish loaves of bread nearly two feet in -diameter and only two or three inches thick, the splashes of color of -myriad heaps of ripe persimmons, an occasional woman with natural feet, -relics not of Mohammedan but of Manchu custom. There live half a million -people within the city walls and as many more in the environs, say -unofficial guessers, and about one in ten of these are Moslems and a -bare two thousand Manchus, the latter now mainly servants and -recognizable to the others by their Peking dialect and the somewhat -different dress of the women. - - -I picked up a man of standing in the Moslem faith one morning and -strolled out to the chief mosque. Outwardly there was nothing to -distinguish it from any Chinese compound, enclosing perhaps a temple, to -judge by the typical tile roofs and the tree-tops rising above it. -Indeed, the courtyard itself, beautiful with its old trees and -buildings, filled with the twitter of birds, which seemed to make it a -kind of sanctuary, restful and peace-loving in atmosphere, would not -easily have been recognized as containing anything but the usual -promiscuous mixture of the Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian beliefs. -There were the same wooden tablets bearing two or three big Chinese -characters leaning out from under the eaves; the same curious little -figures adorned the upturned gables; there had been a genuinely Chinese -indifference about cleaning up after the birds. But closer inspection -brought out the underlying Mohammedanism. Not far from the entrance -stood a big stone tablet, purely Chinese in form, even to the top-heavy -dragon carvings; but the text that covered it was not Chinese but -Arabic. Here and there were other stone-cut bits of that same tongue; -“Yalabi” the not inhospitable group that had gathered about me called -it, though one or two murmured something sounding like “Toorkee.” The -beautiful little three-story tower of pillar-borne roofs turned out to -be the minaret from which a Chinese muezzin singsongs the faithful to -prayer. Certainly it was leaving Chinese custom behind to be required, -however courteously, to leave my shoes at the door of the mosque itself -before I could step through the cloth-hung opening of a building which -up to that moment might have been anywhere in China. But inside we had -at last left China entirely behind. Not a suggestion was to be seen of -those myriad fantastic and demoniacal figures which clutter up the -interior of Chinese temples; the Koran’s prohibition of graven images -had been obeyed to the letter, and the final sanctuary itself, where the -men of Sian-fu’s northwest quarter gather each Friday to turn their -faces westward toward Mecca and pray, was as severely beautiful in its -Arabic style as if it had been directly copied from the Alhambra. - -The Islamites of China, or at least of Sian-fu, seem to have lost that -fierce inhospitality toward the unbeliever which makes it impossible for -those not of the faith even to enter many a famous mosque farther west. -Centuries of dwelling among them has given even the intolerant -Mussulmans much of the tolerance, or at least of the easy-going, almost -indifferent attitude, toward their religious paraphernalia, which is so -characteristic of the Chinese. There was no objection, so long as I -removed my shoes, to my wandering at will in every part of the mosque, -to stepping within the niche in the west wall which takes on much of the -sanctity of Mecca, not even to my photographing it. The Chinese Moslems, -indeed, seem never to have heard of the Prophet’s implied injunction -against permitting one’s likeness to be transferred to paper; any -refusal to stand before my kodak among the group that trailed me about -the compound was probably due to mere Chinese superstitions, coupled -with that dread of giving their fellow-men the faintest opening for -ridicule which is one of the strongest traits in the Chinese character. -For these fellows were essentially Chinese, for all their religion, -their swarthier complexions and more Semitic noses; even the few among -them whose features would not have been conspicuous in a throng of Turks -or Arabs had all the little mannerisms, and to all appearances the -identical point of view, except in their alien faith, of their -fellow-countrymen. - -Though there is no intermarriage between the Chinese Mohammedans and -their neighbors, the blood that runs in their veins is largely the same. -When the militant faith of Islam swept in upon China from the west, at -the time when it was spreading in all directions, and was halted in our -own only by the activity of Charles Martel in France, the surest way of -escaping the sword was to embrace the new faith; and no one moves more -quickly under the inspiration of fear than the Chinese. Then, too, the -conquerors needed wives, or at least women, and took them from among the -conquered. Perhaps its greatest gains were during the inflow of trade -following the victories of Kublai Khan. For a long time it was, and -probably still is, the custom to adopt Chinese children into Mohammedan -homes. Thus the Turkish or Arabic features of the invaders have been -greatly modified, and even the few who have a trace of these left seem -to be greatly outnumbered by the purely Chinese descendants of those who -embraced the faith under compulsion, so that even within a mosque -compound it is often only by inference, or the catching of some slight -detail of custom or costume, that the stranger can recognize a -“Hwei-Hwei.” Foreigners resident where the Mohammedans are numerous -claim to be able to tell one at sight, if only by a faintly more -stiff-necked attitude toward the rest of the world, a drawing of the -line, beyond which he refuses to be imposed upon, just a trifle closer -to his own rights than do his pacific Chinese fellows. Step into a -temple at any time, and you will receive nothing but profound courtesies -from the Chinese, however unwelcome you may be at that moment, say these -experienced Westerners; enter a mosque when a service is in progress, -however, and while the customary outward politenesses may not be -lacking, the atmosphere will be charged with something that says as -distinctly as a placard, “This is not the time to call.” I had a little -hint of this myself just before taking my departure. A high dignitary, -what we might call a bishop, wearing a strange blue costume and -supported as he tottered along by two lesser officials, issued from an -inner court on his way to perform some ceremony in a private family. My -request to photograph him was declined, not discourteously, but very -definitely and very promptly, as if, being a _hadji_ who had made the -pilgrimage to Mecca, he was well aware of the ban which the Prophet put -on the making of likenesses, whatever might be the general ignorance of -it about him; and something gave me the feeling that if I had attempted -to act contrary to his wishes the smiling group of his coreligionists -about me would have found some unviolent Chinese way of preventing me. - -The non-believers among whom they live have, of course, other terms than -“Hwei-Hwei” for the Moslem minority, some of them so far from -complimentary as to be out of usage in any but the lowest society. One -of the less unkindly ones is “Pu-chih-jew-roe-ren,” the don’t-eat-meat -people. The Mohammedans have a name or two for themselves and their -religion so respectful and self-complacent that their fellows decline to -use them, so that the middle ground of “Hwei-Hwei” is the one on which -the two sections of the community commonly meet. This term means -something roughly corresponding to “the associated people,” the single -character for _hwei_ meaning, approximately, “association.” The Y. M. C. -A. which functioned—under a boyhood friend of the major, from Maine, it -turned out—in the quarter of Sian-fu opposite to that of the mosques was -known as the “Ching-Nien-Hwei,” which is quite the same as our own -abbreviation, except that our third letter, with all that it stands for, -is left out. This does not of course mean that the religious element is -lacking in the organization as it exists in Sian-fu—quite the contrary -seemed to be the case; but to stroll into the purely Chinese compound, -with its Chinese buildings, its board placards covered with only Chinese -characters, was also not to realize at once that one had entered the -precincts of another alien religion. The “Hwei-Hwei” establishments -looked outwardly pure Chinese partly because of the fear of persecution -in the past; the “Ching-Nien-Hwei,” I believe I am safe in saying, did -so mainly because it had been forced to house itself in such quarters as -it found attainable. - -It would, by the way, be unfair to the score of men and women, a few of -them our fellow-countrymen, who are giving their best efforts to -educational, medical, and, not disproportionately, I trust, to -denominational matters in the several Christian missions scattered in -and about the Shensi capital, not to make mention of them, even though -they may not vie, in the minds of those of us from the West, in -picturesqueness and local color with the mutton-sellers in the -market-place. They live unmolested, even befriended now by most of the -rank and file and by nearly all the higher officials, and in a comfort -befitting modest human beings; but the time is not so far distant as to -be by any means forgotten when they came nearly all to being martyrs to -their cause. The man who stood all night to his neck in a pond, holding -his baby girl in his arms while the rest of his family was murdered by -the mob that circled for hours around him, is still there at his post, -with a new family to certify that he still has faith in those to whom he -has chosen to give his life’s work. Lest neither side forget entirely, -however, there is a modern brick Memorial School in the western suburbs, -with its bronze tablet in memory of the victims,—one mother, one young -man, and six children ranging from eight to fifteen. It was no -antiforeign feeling, in the accepted use of that phrase, which gave the -missionaries of Sian-fu their most dreadful experience; that is, they -were not attacked either as missionaries or as Westerners. The -revolution that was to bring the republic had come; the hated Manchus -were fair prey at last; and while some of the rougher element no doubt -took full advantage of their sudden brief opportunity, there was -honestly no distinction in the minds of the uneducated masses between -Manchus and any other “outside-country people.” - - -The temple of Confucius out near the south wall was as peaceful, as -soothing a spot as could have been come upon within sound of human -voices, with that aloofness from the world so befitting the philosophy -of the great sage. But here, too, there was something beneath the -surface not inherent in the ancient architecture or the rook-encircled -tree-tops. A modern touch had been introduced; one suspected the hand, -or at least the influence, of Feng Yü Hsiang, the “Christian General,” -who had only lately ceased to be Tuchun of Shensi to become that of -Honan. Feng’s penchant for anything, ancient or ultra-modern, which will -bring the results he seeks is well known. The Confucian Hall had several -walls covered with very up-to-date placards in colors, ranging all the -way from illustrations of the awful depredations of the fly—it was hard -to imagine the Chinese worrying about a little thing like that—to the -graphically pictured assassination of Cæsar and such scenes as the -Nativity; for Confucius, of course, has nothing of the intolerance -conspicuous in Christianity or Mohammedanism. In another section there -were portraits of many famous foreigners, Washington, Lincoln, and -Franklin being the only Americans among some forty. There is surely -nothing reprehensible, though something more than incongruous, in trying -to make Confucius a modern teacher and his temple a place of propaganda -against the merely physical ills. - -So near the temple of Confucius as to be dully audible from it all day -long is the famous “Forest of Monuments.” Centuries ago, you will -remember, a Chinese emperor ordered all the classical books to be -burned. In order that such a catastrophe should never be possible again, -all the important texts in those classics, gathered together from odd -volumes that had escaped the flames, or from the memories of old -scholars, were carved on scores of stone monuments—hundreds, I believe -one might safely say, after wandering through the several long -temple-sheds or shed-temples in which they stand close together in long -rows. There all day long, from the end of the New Year’s debauch of -loafing until the New Year comes around again, stand dozens of men -taking rubbings of the famous texts. The head-high monuments are covered -over with big sheets of what is almost tissue-paper, and coolies and -boys, perhaps not one among whom can read a single character of the many -thousands about them, pound and pound with wooden mallets until copies, -covered with a kind of lamp-black except where the indented characters -have left them white, are ready to be added to the stock of shopkeepers -near the entrance to the grounds. The consumption of these flimsy -facsimiles throughout the Far East is evidently enormous, for the -dullish _rap-a-rap_ of many mallets is seldom if ever silent from sun to -sun. - -Off by itself in a conspicuous spot stands the Nestorian Tablet, most -famous of them all, at least to those from the Western world. For on it -is carved the story of the first coming of Christianity to China, long -before even the Jesuits included that land in their field of operations. -To the ignorant Occidental eye it looks quite like any other -turtle-borne stone carved with upright rows of intricate characters, -except that above them there is cut a well defined Greek cross. The -Nestorian Tablet, I believe, was not considered much of a find when it -was first dug up out of a field in the neighborhood of Sian-fu; but the -fame of that jet-black slab has since grown so great that the not -over-distinct characters are likely to become even less so with the -constant taking of rubbings. - -No less ebony black is the stone at the far rear of the same compound on -which a few thin white lines sketch what is widely reputed to be the -only authentic portrait of Confucius. The austere simplicity of the -execution and the not unkindly severity of the portrayed face are at -once a contrast and a rebuke to the silly gaudiness of demonology that -clutters almost all Chinese temples. Then, before Sian-fu can be left -behind, there are the famous stone horses, mere bas-reliefs of galloping -steeds done centuries ago, yet so full of life and action as to be the -despair of any living sculptor. These race low along the outdoor wall of -a corridor in the local museum, and imperfectly now, for a vandal all -but destroyed them. He was a Frenchman, and the love of art was so -strong within him that he resolved to steal the famous horses of Sian-fu -and carry them off to his native land. The big stone slabs were -impossible to transport entire; the art-loving Gaul broke each of them -into several pieces, of course with the connivance of bribed Chinese, -and the carts bearing them were already many miles on their way when -they were overtaken. It is such little adventures as this, justly -distributed throughout China, which make it strange that -“outside-country people” are so generally treated with respect by nearly -all the four hundred million, and only very rarely as “foreign devils.” - - -Perhaps the major would have been detected through his incognito of a -man on a purely personal jaunt anyway, but it was that wire from -Tungkwan concerning motor transportation that gave the game away -entirely. We had barely begun to deplore with our host in Sian-fu the -difficulties of filling portable zinc bath-tubs with hot water that must -be purchased and carried in from the outside, when two Chinese officials -called. One was merely a magistrate, but the other was high up in the -“foreign office” of the province, as well as no less fluent in our -tongue than in his own. He had come at once to pay his respects, to -welcome us to the province, and to bring the startling information that -we were expected to lodge in some yamen or palace which the Tuchun’s -soldiers had spent all day in preparing in a manner befitting the -American military official who was unexpectedly honoring Shensi with his -presence. I was not grieved that the delicate task of declining these -accommodations fell upon the major’s broad shoulders. We could not, of -course, put the Tuchun to any such trouble; we were already installed in -the capacious dwelling of the postal commissioner, who not only was -British but had innumerable other qualifications to recommend him, who -was keeping bachelor hall and was entitled to company, who was a very -old friend—the major did have, I believe, a note of introduction to -him—and who from time immemorial had been the accepted host of any -visitor to Sian-fu whose native tongue was English and whose evolution -had passed the eat-with-your-knife stage. There was no necessity of -divulging such further facts as the fear that even the Tuchun’s ideas of -supreme hospitality would probably include wooden-floored beds, unswept -corners, and a perpetual crowding by curious and irrepressible -retainers, and that civilized toilet-facilities, effective -heating-arrangements, and freedom to come and go without formality were -quite as sure to be lacking. The chief emissary, being versed in foreign -ways, probably knew that all these thoughts were none the less existent -for remaining unspoken, and accepted our declination in what seemed to -be good spirit after far less than half the usual number of repetitions -required by full-blooded Chinese courtesy. - -But that did not prevent us from being overwhelmed with official -formalities during our stay in Sian-fu. Formality is fully as sturdy and -omnipresent a crone in China as in Latin America. It would have been the -height of discourtesy, of course, not to make a formal call upon the -Tuchun soon after our arrival; this, in the case of so distinguished a -visitor as the major, a fellow in arms, had to be returned; there was -old precedent for giving us an official feast, which could only properly -be reciprocated by getting our host to invite the Tuchun to an elaborate -luncheon; the civil governor and the corpulent head of the “foreign -office” must at least be honored with a call, which we must be prepared -to have retaliated; it would have been discourteous not to return the -kindness of our first two callers, even though the magistrate was so low -in rank that we could not remain with him more than five minutes; each -group of missionaries in town expected us to dinner, or lunch, or tea, -or, if worse came to worst, to breakfast; the Chamber of Commerce and -other bodies of important citizens expected speeches—fortunately some -engagements hopelessly conflicted—and, not to go particularly into -details, there was a complete round of farewell calls that could not -under any circumstances be omitted. Looking back upon it, I am amazed to -realize that we spent only three full days in Sian-fu, and even at that -managed to see most of its worth-while “sights”; and that we left it -still in tolerably good health in spite of the fact that we accomplished -as many as five incredibly heavy meals, not to call them “banquets,” in -a single day. - -This feat was made possible by the fact that Chinese feasts come at -about eleven in the morning or four in the afternoon. Thus we could -stagger away from either of these just in time to sit down with a -deceptive smirk of pleasure at the repast prepared by some of the -foreign groups with a special view to assuaging our ravenous road -appetites. In anything concerned with the Tuchun at least, we were -obliged to save “face” both for him and for ourselves by bumping about -town in a “Peking cart” such as all Sian-fu residents of standing -regard as one of their most indispensable possessions. In fact, the -Tuchun sent his own for us. There were two of them, gleamingly new, -but nicely graded as to caste in details invisible to us, yet as -plainly publishing to the Chinese the distinction between a great -foreign official like the major and a mere traveler like myself as if -their blue cloth sides had been daubed with red characters. A huge, -well groomed mule drew each of them; they were upholstered, padded, -and cushioned not only within but on the sort of veranda where those -of lower caste may sit, while the two wheels were magnificent examples -of that universal to-hell-with-the-public attitude of China which -dictates great sharp iron-toothed tires that would destroy any road in -record time, yet which have absolutely no justification except -swank—and perhaps the fear of skidding on wet corners during the -three-mile-an-hour dashes about town. - -In calling upon a Chinese official one first sends one’s Chinese card -over by a retainer, in order that the great man may be prepared. Within -half an hour or so one may follow, presenting another card to some -underling who will be found waiting where, in the case of a Tuchun, one -might otherwise be casually run through with the naked bayonets which -the swarms of soldiers about such a place so generously display. The -underling disappears for some time, because the great man is sure to -hold forth in the far interior of the flock of buildings filling his -long compound, where he could be reached only with difficulty by an -unauthorized visitor, even though he knew its devious passages well. In -time he returns, and marching before the visitors and holding their -cards above his head spread out fan fashion, names to the rear, like a -hand at poker, he conducts the way. Gradually more important -functionaries take up his task, until the callers are invited to seat -themselves in a sort of ante-guest-room by a man who may even be of high -enough rank to dare to open conversation with them. This anteroom is -usually furnished with a platform built into one wall and upholstered -into a divan littered with red cushions, with a somewhat raised space, -or a foot-high table, in the center. Tuchuns, however, even of the far -interior, have in most cases adopted a foreign style in this as in -military uniforms, and one finds oneself instead in a larger and very -commonplace room furnished with a long, cloth-laid table surrounded by -chairs, with at most a Chinese scroll or two on the walls as the only -hints of local color. But a flock of servants and orderlies, setting a -little handleless cup of tea before each guest and under no -circumstances permitting him to empty it, keep him reminded of his -latitude and longitude. If he is of any importance, he is also furnished -a cigarette—by having a single one laid on the cloth in front of -him—which, if he shows any tendency to consume it, some one lights for -him before he realizes it. If he is a man of extraordinarily high rank, -such as a military attaché from “Mei-guo” on the other side of the -earth, the principal flunky offers him a cigar. This invariably is of -some sad Manila brand—the Chinese word for cigar is “Lüüsung-yen,” or -“Philippine tobacco”—this time in the box, and usually a full box, -whether in the hope that he will not be so bold as to disturb the -symmetry of the precious contents or because cigar-smokers are so rare -in China that the box seldom loses its pristine fullness. At length the -great man himself appears from behind a blue cloth door reverently -lifted by several soldiers; there is a general uprising about the table; -the host and his guests each fervently shake hands with themselves and -bow times innumerable, like automatons hinged only at the waist; and at -a graceful gesture of the Tuchun’s hand the gathering finally subsides -into the chairs and proceeds to converse on things of no importance as -fluently as the guests’ command of Chinese or the ministrations of an -interpreter permit. If the call is nothing more than that, it ends in -the anteroom where it began. After another long series of bows the -guests are accompanied to the door, and as much beyond it as befits -their rank. This is one of the most delicate points of Chinese -etiquette, the one on which the foreigner, at least if he is newly -established in the country, is most apt to stumble. For there is an -intricate gradation of ranks in society even in “republican” China, with -many factors modifying each under different circumstances; and not to -see one’s guest far enough is as serious a social blunder as to -accompany him beyond the point to which his caste entitles him. In a -Tuchun’s yamen—in theory they call such a place _gung-shu_, or “people’s -house,” since the rise of the republic—there may be nearly a dozen doors -or openings of some sort between the inner depths and the front -_p’ai-lou_, and at each of them courtesy requires much “you first” stuff -and pretended protests from the guest against his host’s going any -farther, so that when the final leave-taking is far out on the threshold -of the last gate, as in the case of an official representative of great -America, a glance at a watch is likely to be startling when one finally -does at last break away. - -Our first call on the Tuchun of Shensi was at his military headquarters -in the ex-Manchu quarter of town. Here his predecessor, Feng Yü Hsiang, -had turned the largest available open space within the city walls into a -drill-field with long rows of modern brick barracks. On the big -stone-and-mud wall enclosing all this there were painted at frequent -intervals huge Chinese characters. But these are not the shoe and -tobacco advertisements the resemblance to a baseball-field might lead -the uninformed stranger to conclude; they are some of those moral -precepts with which the “Christian General” is famous for surrounding -his soldiers. Much of the material for wall and barracks, by the way, -was said to have come from the palaces in which the Dowager Empress of -sinister memory lived with her pet eunuch during the year following her -flight from Peking in 1900. The former military governor saw no good -reason to keep up this imperial establishment under a republican régime, -and now there remains but little more than a field scattered with broken -stones where less than a year before our visit there had been something -mildly resembling the Forbidden City in Peking. Speaking of the crafty -old shrew in question, we no longer wondered so much at her cantankerous -disposition when we realized that she rode all the way from Peking to -Sian-fu in a “Peking cart,” eating the dust of the loess cañons, and -spending her nights at the odoriferous inns along the way, some of which -still boast of that fact by their names or decorations. - -The Tuchun’s dinner in the major’s honor was an exact replica, except in -location, of the call of respect we had made the day before—up to the -time when we had begun to take our departure on that occasion. This time -the whole party began about five o’clock to drift toward the -“banquet-hall” at another end of the compound, with as much contention -at every portal along the way as if each had been a dead-line upon which -a nest of machine-guns had its muzzles trained. The guests included all -the foreigners in town—that is, adults of the male gender—even to a -Japanese official who had come to collect an indemnity from the province -for the killing of a stray cotton merchant from Nippon; and the flock of -Chinese officials mingled with them lacked no one worth while in the -political circles of Sian-fu. The three provincial military chieftains -with whom we dined during our western journey all go in for -foreign-style dinners on official occasions, and attain their intentions -in this respect as far as local information and the extraneous learning -of their cooks can carry them. The result is an entertaining gustatory -hybrid resembling its alien parent perhaps a bit more than its Chinese. -Of the irrepressible swarming of persistent flies over all the -sumptuousness of that lengthy table I really should have said nothing, -for it is surely not the duty of a Tuchun to squander his military -genius against such insignificant enemies. That the soldiers flocking -almost as thickly about us should have passed slices of bread in their -hands instead of using a plate was as genuinely Chinese as were their -several other minor _faux pas_, and merely improved the local color. At -least the great Oriental institution of _gam-bay_-ing held its unaltered -own, even in the presence of half a dozen Protestant missionaries and a -chief guest of honor who lamentably failed to hold up his end of that -pastime. - -[Illustration: - - The east gate of Sian-fu, by which we entered the capital of Shensi, - rises like an apartment-house above the flat horizon -] - -[Illustration: - - All manner of aids to the man behind the wheelbarrow are used in his - long journey in bringing wheat to market, some of them not very - economical -] - -[Illustration: - - The western gate of Sian-fu, through which we continued our journey to - Kansu -] - -[Illustration: - - A “Hwei-Hwei,” or Chinese Mohammedan, keeper of an outdoor restaurant -] - -The privacy of the military governor—and therefore usually the -dictator—of a Chinese province must indeed be slight. When he has -guests, swarms of soldiers and servants crowd every doorway and fill -every window with staring faces, if, indeed, they do not flock into the -room itself. Every joke, every slightest scrap of information picked up -from the conversation is instantly, and often more or less audibly, -passed out into the yard and relayed to the last coolie within the -compound. Most Tuchuns have the reputation of double-dealing to feather -their own nests; how on earth they ever succeed in privately arranging -any of their little deals is a mystery, for there must surely always be -some underling about to listen to the conversation. This is not -eavesdropping but the frank presence of servants and the like, even of -mere strangers struck with curiosity, in situations where the worst bred -ignoramus in the Western world would never dream of intruding; and as -the Chinese desire for privacy is as slight as their sense of it, such -intrusions are not only seldom rebuked but probably in many cases not -even noticed. Even a private home is little more respected than a public -office. When the Tuchun came to lunch with us his soldiers poured into -the house of our host, crowding the doorway of dining-room or parlor -and, as we ate or chatted, fingering their Lugers, unconsciously -perhaps, but as if they were expecting us at any moment to attempt the -assassination of their chief. - -Shensi’s ruler at the time of our visit had been civil governor of the -province under the “Christian General.” Upon his own accession to chief -power he retained, and apparently honestly attempted to keep up, many of -the reforms and policies of his predecessor, though he made no -profession of Christianity. Feng, for instance, had abolished the “red -light” district and actually driven the inmates out of the province, a -very unusual and to most of the population an incomprehensible action. -Several times the Sian-fu chief of police had petitioned the new Tuchun -to allow these places to be reëstablished, because they brought large -increases to the provincial treasury—to say nothing, of course, of the -liberal “squeeze” to all officials concerned. His refusal was still -apparently genuine at the time of our visit. But pity the poor officials -of present-day China who wish to be honest and progressive, and perhaps -even moral in the Western sense; a Tuchun must at least have money to -pay his troops, must he not? When Feng took over the province of Shensi -it had been for some time under the rule of a former bandit, who had -followed an honored precedent in collecting all land and other possible -taxes for years in advance. This left the new Tuchun the rather scanty -_likin_ taxes and a few minor sources of income on which to run his -government and keep his troops up to their unusually high efficiency. It -could not be done; and after he had appealed to the Christian -missionaries to show him any possible means to avoid resorting to that -extreme, Feng fell back upon the lucrative tax on opium exported from -his province or passing through from Kansu beyond, however illegal such -traffic is and whatever his personal feelings toward it were. A mere -local detail this; but it is symbolical of hundreds of problems facing -those who really wish to work for the future betterment of China, and it -is not difficult to guess what happens in the case of the many more weak -or indifferent men who have attained to some degree of power, with still -no vision beyond the universal corruption which sank its roots deep into -Chinese society in the old imperial days. - - - - - CHAPTER XXI - ONWARD THROUGH SHENSI - - -Our good British host of Sian-fu conceived the nefarious project of -sending us on to Lanchow in “Peking carts”; but the few unavoidable -churnings in those of the Tuchun had firmly convinced us that anything -else was preferable. Anything else boiled down to a single choice,—the -transformation of pack-mules in the postal service into riding-animals -by the simple expedient of disguising them as such with the American -army saddles and bridles we had brought with us. For militarists had -drained the provinces of horses; good riding-mules could be bought, if -at all, only for a fortune, and could not be hired for so long and -hazardous a journey under any circumstances. We took two carts also, it -is true, a “large” and a “small” one in Chinese parlance, though the -difference in size was not great and the three mules of the one hardly -better than the two of the other. But these were for the baggage and our -two servants. - -An inventory of the whole expedition may be mildly of interest, not so -much for the information of other travelers as to show that the most -modest of foreigners can scarcely escape a princely retinue when they -travel in the interior of China. The “large” cart exacted forty-four -dollars; the small one twenty-seven dollars; each pack-mule sixteen -dollars, with a dollar “tea-money” at the end (specified in the -contract). This included a driver for each cart, a _mafu_, or groom, on -foot to attend to the riding-animals—for most of the way, it turned out, -we had two of them—all self-sustaining, except their mere lodging at -inns and, of course, a certain inevitable “squeeze” through -understandings with innkeepers. For a journey of fifteen hundred _li_, -or four hundred and fifty miles, the sum total did not seem excessive, -particularly as it was merely in “Mex” and but little more than half -what it would have been in American currency. The trip, we learned, was -usually divided into eighteen stages and could scarcely be made with -such an outfit in less than sixteen days. We took the precaution of -promising a dollar a day _cumshaw_ to each of the cart-drivers for every -day they bettered the ordinary schedule. - -Fifty _li_ beyond Sian-fu the alleged road went down into the broad -river-bed of the Wei, a sturdy tributary of the Hoang Ho and in certain -seasons several times wider than it was now. Far out at the edge of the -water was gathered a mighty multitude waiting for the very inadequate -ferry to set them across to the large walled town of Sienyang on the -further shore. A typical Chinese ferry is a marvelous example of the -worst way to cross a river, and this one was no exception to the rule. -Out in the sand close alongside the still broad stream there were -densely crowded together, in all the disorder of which the Chinese, who -are adepts at it, are capable, carts piled high with all sorts of -awkward cargo, mules, donkeys, and a few old hacks of horses, all under -cumbersome packs, laden wheelbarrows by the score, and coolies without -number, each carrying with him a donkey-load of something or other. All -this assortment, not to mention dozens of mere Chinese travelers of less -good-natured mien than the coolies, and all sorts of journeying odds and -ends scattered through the throng, was lying in wait for one of three -clumsy, home-made barges which at long intervals poled and singsonged -themselves from shore to shore. Wherever a Chinese crowd gathers there -quickly flock those eager to minister to its wants, so that out here on -the bare sand there had sprung up several straw-mat restaurants, a -shoemaker’s hasty establishment, a blacksmith-shop, which could have -been packed up entire in five minutes and carried off over the smithy’s -shoulder, for those who wished to take advantage of the delay by having -a horse shod or some unavoidable repair done, while the hawkers of -everything hawkable to such customers struggled through the chaotic mob -chanting their wares in all the tones from diphtheritic hoarseness to -the shrillest of falsettos. Then of course there were the inevitable -beggars, young and old, sickly and sturdy, slinking in and out through -every possible opening. - -It would have been un-Chinese to take turns or conform to any other -system that might have made easier the task in hand, so that when the -first of the three craft, more overloaded than any American “trolley” in -the rush hour, began to show signs of where it purposed to land, there -was a helter-skelter in that direction which resulted in many personal -discomfitures. Luckily foreigners are usually given a wide berth in such -stampedes; whether it is out of sheer respect or merely due to some old -tradition of one of these strange-looking “outside-country people” -suddenly “making his hand into a ball” and chastising in an -unprecedented manner those who were so unfortunate as to jostle him, -there is almost always alacrity and generally respectful cheerfulness in -giving one of them full right of way. Personally we might not have taken -advantage of this attitude and made chaos more chaotic by demanding -first place; but Chang, like any Chinese in the service of a foreigner, -could not resist impressing that fact upon his fellow-countrymen; and -before we realized it he had somehow forced our expedition to the front -at the spot where the boat at last concluded to ground. For it would not -have been conventional to prepare a place where the craft might actually -land, any more than it would have been for it to carry a real gang-plank -in place of the two warped and writhing slabs that were at length -disentangled from the welter of everything on board and slid over the -side. For one thing, a real gang-plank could probably not have survived -some band of thieves for a single night; for another, how could the -swarms of tattered men hanging about either shore earn their meager food -if carts and wheelbarrows could be gotten aboard without their -assistance? Had there been any suggestion of authority to keep the one -throng back far enough for the other to disembark, the boat’s stay might -at least have been cut in half. But China is preëminently the land of -individual rather than communal liberty, and there ensued something -superior by many times to any college rush. That a few who wished to -disembark had been swept back again upon the boat, and vice versa, was -of course no unusual experience. When at last comparative quiet began to -settle down about us, and the half-dozen polemen at the stern took up -their weird chantey, we found that while we ourselves and most of our -animals were on board none of our carts had won the mêlée. Carts could -not get on board under their own natural motive-power, but, having been -unhitched, they must be bodily lifted and shouldered up the crazy -substitutes for gang-planks. - -Though the opposite shore was a stone-paved road close under the city -wall, landing facilities were far worse than where we had embarked. For -one thing, the craft grounded fully ten feet from shore and could not be -coaxed to move in either direction until all the coolies, who made up -three fourths of the passenger-list, had been driven overboard, packs -and all, and left to scramble as best they could up the stone facing of -the bank. Many of them were carrying cotton in loose bundles or in high -cone-shaped baskets, and now and then in their shrieking, disorganized -struggles a boll or two of the precious stuff fell into the muddy water. -The dismay at such a disaster, though only on the part of the owner or -carrier, who screamed with excitement until he had rescued the -threatened bit of property, was not merely both absurd and pathetic, but -a striking commentary on the poverty of China’s great masses. Eventually -the boat was poled close enough to what should and could easily have -been a stone runway so that the frightened animals could be forced to -walk the teetering plank without more than two or three of them falling -overboard, and some two hours after we had reached the river our own -carts were manhandled ashore from a following boat and our expedition -was once more organized. - -Thousands of people, and probably at least hundreds of carts, cross the -Wei at Sienyang every day in the year, and have done so for centuries; -yet the several simple little improvements that would make the crossing -a brisk matter of routine have evidently never been thought of—except by -critical foreigners—much less ever attempted. No Chinese concerned would -feel really happy if the thing were not done in the very hardest -possible way consistent with its being accomplished at all; that would -make him feel out of touch with his worshiped ancestors. Besides, whom -do you expect to make those improvements? Not the local authorities, for -they probably get more “squeeze” under the present system; not the -boatmen, for the longer the boat is in loading the fewer times they will -have to pole it across; not, certainly, the flocks of hangers-on who -find in the difficulties of embarking and disembarking their only source -of livelihood; and surely not the passenger, for his only interest is to -get across, not to make it easier for other people, for whose weal or -woe he has a Chinaman’s supreme indifference. - - -Beyond Sienyang the whole dust-hazy landscape was covered as far as the -eye could see with graves, not the little conical spatters of earth to -be seen in myriads all over China, but immense mounds by the score, some -of them veritable mountains—and nowhere a touch of any color but the -yellow brown of rainless autumn. Once perhaps there had been small -forests about these tombs, but at most now there was left a rare broken -stone horse of clumsy workmanship and perhaps the remnants of a few -other more or less mythological beasts. What noble beings had been -worthy the heavy task of piling these great hills over their mortal -remains, or when they had graced the earth, no one along the way could -tell us. Once or twice a day we passed a huge oblong old bell of -elaborate design that had once hung in a temple, and was now rusting -away in some moistureless mud-hole, like the abandoned sugar-kettles -which litter several islands of the West Indies. Perhaps the temples -themselves had fallen entirely away again into the dust from which even -holy edifices are constructed in the loess country, and left these -abandoned bells as the only remembrance of their former existence. -Sometimes one of these had been rescued, whether out of piety, -superstition, or some lucrative inspiration, and hung in the one and -only tree of which an occasional larger village boasted. - -On the second midday we lunched in a cave, and paid even for the water -drunk by the mules, as well as their chopped straw and beans; or at -least their owners did. In fact, cave dwellings had become almost -universal, and were to remain so for many days to come; villages, whole -towns of caves, stretched in row after row up the face of great loess -cliffs, like the terraced fields that covered every foot of the -mountainous world from river-bottom to the crest of the farthest visible -range. In all this tumbled expanse often the only touch of color was the -persimmons, like big orange-tinted tomatoes—persimmons by the -ox-cart-load; wheelbarrows creaking under their double straw boxes of -persimmons; baskets of them hanging from the shoulder-poles of jogging -coolies; wandering persimmon-sellers everywhere singing their merits; -millions of them for sale, millions more being dried in the sun. Even -the dust which covered everything and everybody without distinction -could not disguise the persimmons’ splash of color, nor hamper the -natives from wolfing them entire as often as their worldly wealth -warranted the acquisition of one. Dust and skin aside, we also found -them the best thing late autumn had to offer—a drink, a lunch, and a -dessert all in one. - -We crawled out of our sleeping-bags at five each morning and were off at -six, except on the few days when we varied that program by making it an -hour earlier. With the sun so low that it only overtook us some twenty -_li_ away, those daily departures were not only dark but increasingly -cold. For though men working in the fields were still sometimes stripped -to the waist, at least when the cloudless sun was high, as late as the -tenth of November, any suggestion of shadow or of night air became more -tinged with serious meaning as the earth underfoot rose higher and -higher above sea-level. The roads for the most part were still cañons, -sometimes mightier cañons than we had even yet seen; at others they -clambered over loess ridges and hills, gashing themselves deeply into -these wherever time, traffic, and soil coincided sufficiently to do so. -In strict speech there were no roads at all, as there seldom are -anywhere in China; not that they were merely atrocious routes of -transportation, but because the Chinese scheme of things does not make -provision even for a place on which to build a road. Every foot of -territory pays a land-tax; the unfortunate landholder on whose property -the public chooses to trespass in its strenuous struggles to get itself -and its produce from one place to another must pay for that which -belongs to him only in name. The result is that a road is a homeless -orphan, welcome nowhere, driven from field to field, and ruthlessly done -away with by plow or shovel whenever an opportunity offers. The attempts -of each of China’s myriad tillers of the soil to chase the un-public -highway off his own precious little patches of earth, added to the fact -that a driver has only a limited control over the wanderings of his -lead-mule, and has no training in directness and time-saving himself, -make the average Chinese road the most incredible example of aimless -wandering on the face of the earth. There are no fences in this land of -walls; the Chinese walls in his home, his towns, his country, but never -his fields, which would seem to need it most. For traffic has not the -slightest consideration for the damage it may do. It marches serenely -over newly planted grain or ripening crops whenever there is the least -incentive to do so, and the only redress of the owner is some such -feeble protest as digging traverse trenches at frequent intervals along -the edge of his land in the usually vain hope that carts will be obliged -to keep outside them, or to take advantage of some favorable season of -slight travel to uproot the pesky road and throw it away entirely. - -There were defiles so narrow through the great loess cañons that carts -could not have passed a sedan-chair; and through these came such a -constant train of traffic that it is strange the lighter west-bound -travel moved at all. Ponderous two-wheeled carts, weighing several times -as much as our farm-wagons, drawn by six or seven mules, were not -uncommon. All had at least three animals, one in the shafts—and many of -these shaft-mules were splendid specimens of mulehood—the rest in front -in pairs or trios, with perhaps a lone lead-mule setting the pace. Rope -traces running through a large iron ring suspended from each of the -shafts attached all the animals directly to the axle. A Chinese -shaft-mule’s life is no sinecure. At every incessant bump and lurch of -the massive cart he is similarly jolted by the two cumbersome logs that -imprison him; if the cart overturns he must go with it; and all day long -his head is held painfully erect, not by a mere bit, but by a rawhide -thong between his upper lip and the gums. The other animals get off -little more cheaply, and with the wicked loads of wheat in long slender -bags which endlessly poured in past us from the west, the gasping of the -animals as they toiled in the deep sand-like loess, particularly when -the cañon led steeply upward over the high ridges which here and there -cut across the route, was like the death-rattle of beasts suddenly -stricken down. - -Under each axle of these carts hung a long bell of cylinder shape, and -the dull booming of scores of these could be heard for miles before or -behind them. Apparently these wheat-trains traveled day and night. We -met them at dawn with all the signs of having already been on the road -for hours; all through the night the booming of passing carts could be -heard by any one who cared to lie awake; very rarely did we come upon -them halted long enough even to feed the jaded animals. There were at -least two men on every load, one, whom we suspected to be the driver off -duty, stretched out at full length and apparently sleeping as soundly as -if the jolting, careening sacks of wheat were a sailor’s hammock. There -was really nothing strange in this; the Chinese are trained from birth -to sleep under all manner of catch-as-catch-can conditions. With the -loess soil constantly swirling about under the least disturbing -circumstances, and with a high wind often blowing, the Chinese on their -carts, as well as those astride or afoot for that matter, looked -ludicrously like an endless procession of clowns with flour-powdered -faces, or of mimes wearing death-masks. - -Here and there the file was broken by some more leisurely conveyance,—a -cart with an ox in the shafts and perhaps a steer and a donkey in front, -sometimes with still more incongruous combinations. The narrow cañons -were often so congested with beast-drawn traffic that the hundreds of -wheelbarrows had to join the pole-shouldering coolies and other -pedestrians on the paths along the cliffs high above. These _tui-chu_ -(push-carts), as the Chinese call them, had every manner of aid, from a -child to a donkey, which we had seen in use in the wheelbarrow brigades -east of Sian-fu, and one ingenious fellow had rigged up a large sail -over his load and was creaking along nicely before the strong west wind. -I never ceased to wonder where the never ending stream of coolies was -coming and going from and to, and why. Their toilsome tramps to change -places, bag and baggage, seemed a mere waste of effort, like carrying -sand from one river-bed to another. - -The coolies of Shensi, or at least most of those we saw in that -province, seem to long to be mistaken for scholars—an honor, of course, -which would bring joy to any Chinese heart, in contrast to the insult it -would often convey in some other lands. Some clever salesman had -profited by this strange Celestial longing by selling to more than half -the coolies we met a huge pair of rimless spectacles made of plain -plate-glass, and of course of no optical value whatever. Had they been -in the form of goggles, one might have concluded that they were merely a -protection from the dust, but there was nothing about them that could by -any stretch even of a coolie imagination be considered anything but -ornamental. - -Cues have appreciably decreased in China since the fall of the alien -dynasty which required them as a badge of submission; but once a custom -is established among the conservative Chinese it is harder to eradicate -than ragweed, however uncomplimentary may have been its origin. It may -be a slight exaggeration to say that every other man we met on our -western trip wore a cue, but certainly there is still wound about coolie -heads material enough for all the hair-nets that America can consume in -another century. Old men, though only a tiny gray braid may be left -them, would, it is said, “rather lose their heads than their tails.” In -this west country boys are as likely to be adorned with them as not; in -any busy street the itinerant hair-dresser may be seen combing out the -long black tresses of his coolie clients, calmly seated out of doors -even in the depths of winter, and often adding a switch for good -measure. Among upper-class Chinese the cue has largely disappeared, but -with the masses it is as common a feature in many provinces as the long -pipes protruding from the backs of coolie necks when not in use. - -A corpse journeying to its ancestral home between two pole-joined mules, -the white rooster demanded by ancient custom sitting on top of the -ponderous coffin in a little wicker cage, was one of the infrequent, -though not rare, sights of the journey. Sometimes we met a long file of -black pigs moving slowly eastward under the impulse of several patient -men, one marching in front unarmed, the rest with very long but rather -harmless whips, and all singing to coax on their charges. It was an -addition to my slight knowledge of natural history to learn that hogs -are moved by music; but there is no telling what Chinese music may -accomplish until it has been tried. We rode, of course, or rested our -cramped legs by walking, up out of the cañons as much as possible. Here -the variance in the point at which a man or a mule registers dizziness -sometimes led to serious differences of opinion between ourselves and -our mounts. Along most of the cliffs high above the sunken roads there -are several paths, some of them already appreciably wearing down toward -the ultimate common level, others narrow ridges of a rather harder -streak of earth with barely room on them for two feet at a time. -Invariably, whenever there was a choice in paths, the mule would choose -the one closest to the edge of the road chasm, the very edge of it, if -possible, often with a sheer drop of a hundred feet or more directly -under the off stirrup—and the loess soil everywhere seeming ready to -collapse at any moment. Sometimes a path worked its way out on the face -of the cliff before one noticed, to where it would have been as -impossible to dismount as to turn about, and the helpless rider could -only prayerfully intrust his future to the mule, wholly free apparently -from any suggestion of the trepidation which ran in hot sprays up the -human spine. Certainly a mule has no worry-bacteria in his system—and -probably has fewer troubles in a lifetime than almost any other living -creature, which should be food for reflection to worrying humanity. Once -I had the hair-lifting experience of seeing most of the rear end of the -major’s mule just in front of me go over the cliff with a crumbling bit -of path, but the animal never for a moment lost his mulish poise, nor -hesitated when the next chance offered to take the most edgy of the -paths again. - - -On the evening of the second day out of Sian-fu our muleteers -respectfully sent word that they would like us to start “ten _li_ -earlier” next morning, “because the road went up-stairs.” That was one -of the contrasts between Chinese mule-drivers and those, for instance, -of South America. Here they were always ready to start at any hour we -named, and sometimes asked us to advance it. We accordingly got up three -miles earlier, and before the day was done congratulated ourselves on -having done so. All morning the road, freeing itself from loess cañons -and taking to river-valleys and ever higher plains, ascended at so -gradual a pace that we hardly realized we were rising unless we glanced -back at the lower and lower world behind. But just beyond the village -where we made our usual hour-and-a-half noonday halt, the earth surged -up like some tidal wave suddenly commanded to stand still. The road did -indeed go up-stairs; nothing could have been a more exact description of -its zigzagging course, which at length, hours after we had left the -village, brought us in straggling formation to the summit, four thousand -feet above it, then plunged even more swiftly down into the bed of a -slight stream which trickled away through a region of huge rocks and a -formation for a time more solid than pure loess. But this was only a -brief and imperfect respite. The crumbling soil soon monopolized the -landscape again, and for many days afterward filled our eyes and -nostrils with its stifling and all-penetrating dust. Peculiar sights, -indeed, the loess often gives. Fertile enough with sufficient water, one -might easily have concluded that not a drop of rain had ever fallen -here. Mud would have meant more prosperity, but when it does rain these -already ankle-deep roads at the bottoms of the great cañons must surely -be in close proximity to the infernal regions. - -Any suggestion of this was spared us, however, as we were denied any -hint of the great transformation that spring brings to the loess -country, turning it from the delicate light brown that is as unbroken -during the autumn and winter as the blue of the cloudless sky overhead -to a vernal green which those who have seen it say is seldom surpassed -in beautiful landscapes. Such loess cliffs as no words can describe -became commonplace, almost unnoticed sights along the way, cliffs -falling gradually from sky to abyss so far below as almost to seem -bottomless. All the population for long distances burrowed in human -rabbit-warrens dug in these cliffs, row above row of caves, like cities -of ten- or twelve-story cliff-dwellings. Many of the caves proved at -close sight to be ruined and abandoned; usually these were fallen in, -with a great round hole in the roof. Of course the former inhabitants -had dug a new home elsewhere—unless they were buried in the old one—and -the population was not so dense as the myriad holes in the -mountain-sides suggested. There was a great difference, too, in the -grades of dwellings even among such unlikely homes as these. A cave -could be as noisome a hut as any hovel out on a plain; sometimes a mere -hole in the cliff looked like nothing in particular, until a closer -glance showed it to be the entrance to a long passageway leading to -several courts that were surrounded by a dozen or more arched -cave-dwellings, perhaps all well below the level of the sunken road. -Sometimes the proud family had even gone to the trouble of putting an -elaborate inscription over the doorway, and had fitted it with wooden -sills. But this was unusual, for with such slight exceptions literally -everything was made of the quickly crumbling earth,—the “devil screen” -across the way from the entrance (though this very important feature of -Chinese architecture was rare in the west), the wall filling up the -great arch of the cave, with a small door cut in it, even the _k’ang_, -or stone-hard family bed, inside. - -Thus everything, walls, houses, cliffs, terraced hillsides, even the -dreary cave-dwellers themselves, had the selfsame monotonous color, and -in all the autumn landscape there was nothing to break it, to give it -the faintest contrast. A sad place surely was this for man to live, like -an aged world that was wearing out and would soon be fit only to be -discarded. Indeed, the process of dissolution was going on under our -very eyes. There were often places where the road had very recently -dropped away into a mammoth cañon so deep that to peer over the brink -was to catch the breath in what might easily have been a spasm of -dizziness; yet heavily laden carts still shrieked and lashed their way -along the sheer edge of it, and all the miscellaneous traffic passing -the spot where the next crumbling might carry it to perdition gave it no -more attention than Chinese give to the open, unprotected, curbless -wells that abound all over China like gopher-holes in our western -prairies. - -A world wearing away, and apparently there is no cure for it. The trees -which might have held it together with their roots, to say nothing of -the rain they would bring, were completely grubbed out centuries ago by -those very ancestors whom the wretched modern inhabitants so highly -honor. Those short-sighted forebears were all for the past, or at best -for what was to them the present; and their living descendants have no -choice but to follow the same short-sighted course, for the present is -an unremitting struggle for mere existence now, and the future surely -holds out little promise. To repair the fatal tree-wastefulness of their -revered ancestors would require something like forcing every man in -China to plant a tree a week, promptly lopping off the head of any one -who cuts one down, and keeping this up as long as their ancestors took -to grub out the forests that once graced the land; that is, for -hundreds, if not thousands, of years. - - -We think we know something of poverty and physical suffering in America, -but in crowded, despoiled China we realize our ignorance. Here are -perhaps the lowest forms of human beings, creatures in the image of man -who are not merely akin to beasts but a kind of living offal. Nor are -the dregs of the population to be found in this more roomy western part -of the country; there the poorest might be called a middle class, though -they are so poor that they burrow in caves and are out long before dawn -and late into the night with basket and wicker shovel wandering the -roads ready to fight for the droppings of passing animals. Perhaps there -are some of them who take life by the forelock and force it more or less -to do their bidding. But though here and there were what we would call -“tough-looking characters,” even they seemed to be harmless, at least -where foreigners were concerned. We hear much in these days of the -anarchy of China, and in so far as a responsible, effective government -goes the word is not ill chosen. Yet there is a cohesion, a momentum in -Chinese society, in the great masses that populate the land, which makes -a failure of formal government mainly a surface manifestation, with -often scarcely a ripple disturbing the even flow of life in general, as -it has gone on for centuries and perhaps will for centuries to come. In -all west Shensi we saw hardly a soldier, and almost as little of any -other coercive force; yet though there may not have been any bandits -left in the province, as its Tuchun boldly asserted, nothing would have -been easier than for any group of these thousands upon thousands of -sturdy coolies for ever plodding to and fro, or the village crowds which -gathered in the inn-yards to watch us eat modest noonday lunches which -must have seemed to them princely, to fall upon a few stray foreigners -lost in the great sea of Chinese humanity and despoil them of what in -this land of utter poverty was their great riches. Not only was there no -suggestion of such a thought, not only did they show us all the respect -which the most haughty participant in extraterritoriality could demand; -they were frankly friendly, neither out of fear nor hope of favor. Given -the slightest provocation and they invariably smiled; the men, that is; -the cripple-footed women never, and small wonder. Behind us lay a -constant trail of childlike comment on our appearance, and especially on -the stirrups of our army saddles. The Chinese are so minutely -conservative that even to wrap a patch of leather about something which -they have always hitherto seen without it is to arouse amazement. Often -this amazement expressed itself in a burst of laughter, but never once -was there anything about its unforced heartiness which could have been -taken for ridicule. Possibly they did find covert ways to make fun at -our expense; they nearly always called us _moo-sha_, for instance, which -means missionary. But there was every reason to believe that this -startling error was due to pure honest ignorance, perhaps once in a -while to a desire to be complimentary; never, I feel sure, was there a -deliberate attempt even to be unkindly. - -The major likened the rank and file, the coolies at least, to our -Southern negroes, with whom his army experience had given him a -considerable acquaintance. There is a certain similarity of temperament; -one might, indeed, follow up the thought and find a resemblance between -the more morose, yet still Chinese, non-laboring classes and the mulatto -or lighter types of negro, who so often have an air of brooding over -their intermediate state of heredity. But one could easily carry the -thought too far. There is much the same easy-going view of life—laughter -easily provoked, often in the face of things which seem rather to call -for tears; but beyond that the two races part company. The negro still -loves his African leisure; if there is any one on earth without a trace -of laziness in his make-up, surely it is the Chinese workman—though this -be due merely to centuries of bitter competition for existence. Nor do -the poorest of our cabin-dwelling blacks suffer anything like the -poverty of the toilsome masses of China; even those of Haiti do not -approach it. There are worse places in China, but even in this -comparatively thinly populated northwest thousands of people quite -willing to toil from sun to sun at anything promising them the slightest -remuneration live under conditions in which it would literally be -illegal to keep pigs in any well governed section of the Occident. You -can always get men to do anything do-able, on short notice, in China; -there is such an enormous surplus of them. If there is a little stream -across the trail, there are sure to be men waiting to set those who are -shod across it for a brass “cash” or two; if there is a load too -cumbersome or too heavy for a donkey or a pack-mule, you can easily pick -up men to carry it. Most of us have the comforting impression that, -being inured to them for countless generations, they do not feel their -hardships and sufferings as we should. No doubt they do not, for if they -did it would be beyond human power to produce that cheerful atmosphere, -as wholly devoid of surliness as of melancholy, with which they seem to -surround their bitter lives. - -It was one of the surprises of our journey that feathered game was more -than abundant where every other thing, down to the last grass-blade and -the tiniest bit of offal, is laboriously gathered and fully utilized, -where hunger drives into the pot everything that can possibly be made -quasi-edible. Wild ducks and geese all but obscured the sun along every -important river-valley; partridge, quail, and beautiful pheasants -covering many a bushy slope, often even the planted fields themselves, -as thickly as sparrows a barn-yard, were to be had almost for the -shooting. Cliff-sides blue with pigeons, the air filled with -drapery-like swirls of them, ceased in time even to draw the attention. -Were the major less sensitive to the difference between this and big -game stalking, I might mention that single shot which brought down eight -of these silky-blue birds; though that, to be sure, was before the -attempt to coerce a recalcitrant mule with the butt of a not too young -and sturdy—not to say borrowed—shot-gun resulted so disastrously. There -seldom was a time during all our long journey out through the west that -a little exertion could not add wild fowl to our canned larder; yet, as -far as we were ever able to discover, the hungry people of that region -made no attempt to kill or capture them—nor to destroy the swarms of -magpies, crows, sparrows, and rooks which it was hard to believe left -anything of the crops for the men and beasts who toiled to raise them. -The laws had nothing to say on the subject; we saw it proved that there -is no prejudice against such food when it can be had, and granted that -guns are rare and ammunition too expensive for a Chinese peasant, -certainly the race has given proof enough of ingenuity and of -accomplishing under difficulties to warrant astonishment at the apparent -indifference to what in many regions is the most valuable product still -ungathered. - - -Every few hours we came upon a walled city. I never broke myself of the -feeling that romance and the picturesqueness of the Middle Ages were -sure to be found within them, a welcome relief from the sordid, filthy -monotony outside. Yet invariably, when we had made our way through the -long dusty suburb, crowded with outdoor eating-places and miserable -shops full of everything to a coolie’s taste, with the din of the eager -shouting of wares in our ears, and had passed through the big frowning -gate towering above the massive old crenelated wall, we found the same -filthy, uneven earth streets lined by the same miserable shops, in fact, -shops often poorer and less energetic, conservative old establishments -which had grown effete, while the comparative new-comers outside the -walls still had the activity of youth. Black swine wandering at will, -pariah dogs covered with great open sores, human beings in little better -condition, were as common to the enclosed town as to the suburbs. Often -the city itself seemed half deserted, with as many ruins and open spaces -as occupied mud-dwellings, though its extramural outskirts might be -densely crowded. Many towns were so poor and uninviting that our cartmen -drove around them—always on the south side, we noticed, close beside the -walls—and stopped at inns outside. There was at least one advantage in -this, and perhaps one disadvantage. Though the city gates are in theory -opened “when the chicken first sing,” as Chang put it, they might still -be closed as late as six, and thus hold up our departure until we could -rout out several sleepy soldiers with candle-lanterns, present -visiting-cards to prove our rights to extra attention, and perhaps not -be on our way again until the eastern horizon began to pale. On the -other hand, there was, of course, whatever danger existed that bandits -coming upon us in the night would have us at their mercy outside the -walls. Yet I confess to having ridden through those outwardly mysterious -old walled towns whenever it was reasonably possible, and to going for a -stroll within them when we lodged outside, always in quest of that -romantic something that seemed sure to be found there, yet never was. - -[Illustration: - - In the Mohammedan section of Sian-fu there are men who, but for their - Chinese garb and habits, might pass for Turks in Damascus or - Constantinople -] - -[Illustration: - - Our chief cartman eating dinner in his favorite posture, and holding - in one hand the string of “cash,” one thousand strong and worth - about an American quarter, which served him as money -] - -[Illustration: - - A bit of cliff-dwelling town in the loess country, where any other - color than a yellowish brown is extremely rare -] - -[Illustration: - - A corner of a wayside village, topped by a temple -] - -The smaller towns and hamlets that lay scattered along the way, and -often thickly over the surrounding country, were also monotonously -alike, always filthy and miserable, a few women in crippled feet -hobbling about the doors of their caves or mud huts, numerous children -with running noses and bare buttocks making the most of the dismal world -about them, usually a group of the older men squatting in a circle in a -sunny corner out of the wind and gambling for brass “cash” with small -cards bearing no resemblance to our own. Throughout China it seems to be -the convenient custom to dress small children in trousers cut out at the -seat, so that they need no attention; and in this northwest country, at -least, the people believe in hardening their offspring by exposure. In -the depths of winter both boys and girls, between about five and ten, -wear nothing but a ragged jacket of quilted cotton reaching barely to -the waist, and wander disconsolately about with the lower half of the -body naked, chapped, and begrimed, like the mittenless hands of the -otherwise fully dressed adults. Undoubtedly this Spartan treatment makes -those who survive less susceptible to cold, which is an important asset -in the life of the Chinese masses. - -If something caused one of us to halt a moment in town or village, all -the community that had no possessions requiring a watchful eye quickly -flocked closely about us,—dogs, boys, youths, men of all ages, and very -young girls, though never, of course, the women. Did we chance to -scribble in our note-books or fill a pipe, the crowding all but pinned -our elbows to our sides. In larger towns or places where market-day had -brought a throng, the dust raised by the dense crowd encircling us -became a menace to the lungs. Fortunately timidity equals curiosity in -such a gathering. Sometimes when suffocation seemed imminent I have -sprung suddenly to my feet with a shout, and a kick or a blow that -purposely fell short, and the stampede that ensued would wholly clear -the vicinity for a hundred yards around in scarcely the time it takes to -draw a long breath. It might be that two or three of the dispersed -throng were men of higher caste, the town’s most important merchants or -its scholars, and these, being more fearful of “losing face” before the -common herd than of having an injury done them by the dubious stranger -from another world, would retreat to a lesser distance with as leisurely -dignity as their legs would permit, and stand there with an expression -which seemed to say, “I dare you to maltreat a great man like me as if -he were a common coolie, though I admit that I will retreat if you -attempt to do so.” Then, the atmosphere having been cleared and one’s -elbows freed from pressure, one had only to smile, implying that it had -all been a joke, to have the crowd instantly roar with laughter at its -own discomfiture—and soon close in again as tightly as ever. - -Especially exasperating to the photographer is this tendency of the -Chinese quickly to crowd about any one or anything unusual, for it is -often impossible to get far enough away to get them in focus. My old -trick of looking sidewise into the finder and pretending to photograph -something else at right angles to the real victim was also not so -effective as among the stolid, solemn, incurious Indians of the Andes. -For if the instantly gathering crowd did not cut off the light or -obscure the subject, the latter was almost sure to dash forward for a -close view of the kodak. More than once, in trying to catch some street -scene, I have pretended to be interested elsewhere until all the -floating population in the vicinity was packed about me, then, dashing -suddenly through the throng, I have sprinted to the spot previously -chosen and snapped the shutter; yet in almost every such case there are -at least several blurred objects in the foreground of the picture which -in real life were Chinese youths or men who led the throng that pursued -me. - -Pinchow was the largest town we saw in western Shensi, evidently a place -of bygone glories, for a great wall climbing the crest of a high hill -surrounded it, and just beyond stood the largest pagoda we had seen in -the province. Terraces and caves were piled high, like mammoth walls, on -two sides of it, and the road by which traffic from the east descends -had been one of the steepest of all the journey, a dust-swirling gully -down a mountain-side reëchoing from top to bottom with the panting, as -if in death-throes, of the hundreds of mules still bearing eastward -wicked cart-loads of wheat. It was in Pinchow, too, that we were forced -to drive a sleeping coolie out of one miserable room and hang a -saddle-cloth across the door of another in order to find accommodations -in a miserable ruin of an inn, where Chang and the cook had to do their -best over a little fire of dung and twigs out in the bare, wind-swept -yard. By this time the nights had grown bitter cold, and the broken -paper windows of a room did not need an open door to aid them. - -Here, too, things came to a head with the owner of our riding-mules. -Evidently the man who contracts for the carrying of the mails out of -Sian-fu had agreed to furnish us animals and had accepted the advance on -them first, and had turned his attention to getting the animals -afterward. For the first man who accompanied them turned out to be a -mere coolie, without money even to buy them food; and when he was -overtaken by the owner himself on the evening of the second day, the -latter had the unwillingness of one who had been forced to do something -against his will. He had with him, in a long sock-like purse worn inside -his quilted garments, most of the silver dollars we had paid in advance, -the contractor having kept the rest as his commission or “squeeze.” But -he hated to transform those dollars into food for his mules, and he was -constantly hinting that he should be allowed to take the animals and go -home. Just why was not apparent, since we were paying him more than he -habitually got for the same journey with loads of mail weighing half -again what we did, and which never got off and walked; and of course he -had always plodded on foot after his mules just as he was doing now. - -It was still black night and we were about to leave Pinchow behind when -this fellow suddenly fell on his knees in the yard before us, and, -bowing to the earth, like a suppliant before a Chinese emperor, implored -us to let him go home, for he was losing money on the journey and so on. -The average American, I fancy, does not like to be prayed to; in fact -his reaction is likely to be what ours was, such a mixture of disgust -and anger at such degraded nonsense as to make it difficult to keep from -administering a kick. Yet there was a hint of the pathetic about the -fellow—until we reflected that of the dollar a day he was getting for -each mule he was paying out only a hundred “cash” or so to feed him. He -could not spend more on them, he wailed, because he had a family of -twenty to feed and clothe. Chinese families, however, are elastic -institutions, and we advised him to let a few of his useless dependents -starve and feed the mules, who were doing the work. For if he did not -give them a reasonable amount, we warned him, we would feed them, and -take the cost of it out of what was to be paid him at the end of the -journey. This was not a completely effective cure, but at least it -substantially increased the share which the animals had in the reward of -their labor. - -For many _li_ beyond Pinchow we followed the valley of the King Ho, -walled with cliff-dwellers on either side as far as the eye could see. -There were persimmon orchards in the rich flatlands close to the stream, -the last of the fruit being picked from pole-and-vine ladders, and acres -of it drying in the sun by day, with reed-mat covers over them to keep -off the night frosts, and little cave-shaped watch-houses near-by to -protect them from the omnipresent crop-thieves. Some of the cliffs above -us were of sandstone, and the caves dug in these were much smaller than -those in the loess. Once we passed a big temple carved in the sandstone -mountain-side, with huge colored Buddhas smirking at us from the foot of -it farther on; and in two or three places the river crowded our side of -the valley so closely that the road had dug itself in along the face of -the cliff. Donkeys each carrying two huge lumps of what looked like -magnificent anthracite coal began to clutter the way, for some of the -best of Shensi’s many mines are in this vicinity. Small wonder the -traffic of centuries had worn cañons in the soft loess; we passed places -that day and the next where cart-wheels had worn gullies axle-deep in -solid rock. Let a cart get caught in one of these, and not a wheel of -the long procession could move until some means had been devised to drag -it out again. Jang-wu—to spell it as it sounded—was a once high-walled -and important city which both man and nature seemed to have decided to -scrap. It appeared to be mainly Mohammedan, with a mournful, surly -atmosphere, and was mostly deserted, except perhaps on market-days, the -loess worn away in mammoth moats on both sides of its half-ruined wall, -and all about it myriads of graves. Then one morning, almost -unexpectedly, we found that we had left the province of Shensi behind -us. - - - - - CHAPTER XXII - CHINA’S FAR WEST - - -From the moment that it enters the province of Kansu, the most westerly -of China proper, the ancient route from Sian-fu to Lanchow is lined by -huge old willows, supplanted here and there by a sturdy poplar. A -heritage from some far-seeing ruler of the province under the old -dynasty, these flank with four rows, and occasionally with six, the wide -strip of land on which a road might long since have been built, had it -not been in China. But though there seems to be some strong sentiment, -probably with fear as its main ingredient, against cutting them down, -not a few of the trees are missing; and the many more that stand with -their roots indecently exposed explain what befell those that are gone. -For how can a tree live to ripe old age in a loess region where the -earth is constantly dropping away or blowing out from under it? - -Yet this unusual bit of Chinese forethought arouses a grateful feeling -in the passing traveler. In cloudless summer the shade must be a -godsend; and though the November sun was so welcome that travelers had -already worn paths along the edge of the winter wheat on the south side -of the shaded route, the long rows of waving branches were a joy merely -to look upon in a region where one may journey for days at a time -without catching sight of another tree, or even the slightest living -thing of the vegetable kingdom, as far as the eye can reach on either -hand. Magpies and crows build great stick nests in these branches, but -it was noticeable that boys who will struggle for the possession of a -twig or the most unseemly substitute for fuel on the ground below never -climb up after the abandoned nests that would make such a fine haul. The -reason is probably simple: they are afraid; for while his Western -contemporary is constantly risking his neck in hazardous feats which -have no economic value, the Chinese boy displays that timidity which -habitually remains with him as a man, even in the face of material -rewards for a bit of courage. - -We found it 430 _li_ from Sian-fu to the border, and crossed it at the -village of Yao-tien early on the fifth morning. By this time we were up -on the plateau which, gradually rolling higher and higher, culminates in -the lofty land of Tibet; and though here it may not be more than three -or four thousand feet above the sea, this was enough to give appreciable -aid to advancing winter. All that day there was a wind fit to blow us -off the map, with every promise of a snow-storm to come, and everywhere -women and children, and not a few men, were out gleaning the little dead -willow branches as they fell, almost in showers. With the sun gone it -was bitter cold now, and we were forced to walk almost as much as we -rode. It was on this fifth day that we met two Russian Jews with long -beards, and a string of carts the first of which flew a makeshift white -flag bearing some Chinese characters and the assertion, “Belong Americun -firm from New Jork.” Possibly, the misspelling aside, it did, but in -these days allegiances are often quickly made by those foreigners in -China who would otherwise lose their rights of extraterritoriality and -the greater protection for their persons and their belongings which goes -with it. - -Some sage has asserted, in the face of ample proof to the contrary, that -it never rains but it pours, and on that day at least we were inclined -to agree with him. For barely an hour afterward, while we sat eating a -cold lunch on the cold _k’ang_ of a miserable little inn, with only hot -tea to improve the situation, two more foreigners walked in upon us. -They were big sturdy Catholic priests, Hollanders and twin brothers, -also in great forests of beards, and wearing cassock-like Chinese gowns -that showed signs of long and arduous travel. One had been for thirty -years, and the other for three, in Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkestan, and -having been ordered to another post in northern China, they had set out -in August and been already three months on the road. The natural route -to their new station would have been northward from Lanchow, down or -along the Yellow River, but bandits were said to be so active along it -that they had struck eastward instead. It would be unjust to assume -another reason which may not have existed; but personally, if I had -lived for thirty years, or even for three, in Sinkiang, I should have -gone a little out of my way, bandits or no bandits, to travel on -railways and see at least Peking and get a little bit in touch again -with the Western world before burying myself once more in the far -interior of China. The animation of the padres during our brief -conversation in English and French and an occasional word of Chinese -proved that they had not grown indifferent to Caucasian intercourse for -all their long exile; indeed, they somewhat resembled in manner college -boys who have just reached home after a freshman year without vacations. -The new pope, they said, and we had confirmations of the statement on -our western trip, was filling all the posts in a large area of central -Asia with German priests, and moving the former incumbents, among whom -Belgians predominate, to less strategic positions. - -In all the sixteen days between the capitals of Shensi and Kansu we did -not, unless my memory fails me, meet another traveling foreigner; hence -our astonishment at seeing four in one morning. There was, indeed, -appreciably less native travel in the new province, though great chunks -of coal were still coming out on donkey-back, and wheelbarrows were -creaking under all sorts of loads, particularly of huge pears for which -the province is famous, and which, persimmons growing rare, constituted -our chief dessert all the rest of the journey. - -Several wandering trails that kept us out of the chasm—though on the -plain above the unhampered wind threatened at any moment to lift us from -the saddle—came to agreement at last with the road, and we went down a -mighty descent, which toward the end was rudely stone-paved, into the -populous town of Kingchow. Here the earthquake of two years before, -greater reminders of which we were to see farther on, had among other -feats neatly broken in two both a high hill and the temple that stood -upon it, so that a score of heathen idols in intense discordant colors -and devilish postures stood out only half protected from the cold windy -world. A church steeple rather incongruously broke the sky-line of the -lower town, and in the neat compound beneath it we found hospitality for -the first time with those Scandinavian-American missionaries scattered -all along our western route. The sturdy couple—sturdiness is an all but -necessary asset for inland China mission-fields—who had been cultivating -this not too promising human garden since the days of their youth, had -had their share of adversities; but the one that came most nearly -shaking their faith had happened within the last two years. After -decades of struggle with contributors at home and workmen and -contractors on the spot, they had at last reached the proud day when -their imposing black brick church was not only completed but relieved of -its mortgage. While his wife and coworker superintended important -operations in the kitchen and dining-room, the pastor sat down to write -the glorious news to his religious constituents in America. “At last, -dear brethren,” he began, “our church, center of a vast district that -has no other, is fin——” “_Brrrrum!_” came a sudden roaring and cracking -of walls and ceiling, apparently even of the ground itself, while -pictures swung to and fro from their pegs, and the furniture danced a -sort of improvised Virginia reel. It was all over before the -missionaries had wholly realized that a great earthquake had occurred, -but when they went out to look at it the new church was cracked and -split and broken, an all but useless ruin. - - -The threat of snow was gone next morning, which was calm and bright, -with hardly a breeze where the raging wind had been. The route lay up a -river valley all the way to Pingliang, and fully half the populace along -the way, it seemed, was out sweeping up with their crude -bundle-of-sticks brooms the last vestige of leaves and twigs from under -the willow-trees. In this all but fuel-less land there is an added -meaning to the old adage beginning with something about an ill wind. -There were countless half-ruined mud-wall compounds along the valley, -from the edge of which sprang the inevitable piles of terraced fields. -Strings of donkeys, each with two huge yellow-brown glazed jars filled -with smaller ones in straw, looked at a little distance like some -curious type of land-crab. We had scarcely seen a soldier since leaving -Sian-fu, but now we began meeting long lines of them again, whole -armies, at least as the word is used in China, moving eastward in carts, -on horses, and on mules, and once or twice on long strings of camels. -They were dark, rather surly-looking fellows, I fancied, though this may -have been only fancy, or the effect of an outdoor life on men with the -higher bridged noses that suggested a considerable strain of Arab blood. -In Shensi Moslems are not recruited as soldiers; but in Kansu, the -stronghold of the Chinese Mohammedans, there are many thousands of them -in uniform; and here they marched freely over the winter wheat, an inch -high, with that complete indifference to the rights of the laborious -peasants along the way which is typical of bandits and soldiers alike -throughout China. - -Yet our hosts of the night before had assured us that the soldiers of -Kansu were well disciplined; for instance, they cited, they always took -off their hats when they entered a church—perhaps, I reflected, as they -would expect us to take off our shoes in their places of worship—and let -down their cues. For it is as great a discourtesy to come indoors with -the cue tied around the head as it is in the old-fashioned parts of -China to speak to an equal or a superior without removing the -eye-glasses. - -[Illustration: - - The Chinese coolie gets his hair dressed about once a month by the - itinerant barber. This one is just in the act of adding a switch. - Note the wooden comb at the back of the head -] - -[Illustration: - - An old countryman having dinner at an outdoor restaurant in town on - market day has his own way of using chairs or benches -] - -[Illustration: - - A Chinese soldier and his mount, not to mention his worldly - possessions -] - -[Illustration: - - Mongol women on a joy-ride -] - -The town where we made our midday halt was denim blue with market-day. -There were big, upstanding six-foot men whom America would hardly have -recognized as Chinese; and some of them, from back in the hills, though -they had heard of white people before, had never seen them. These and -their hardy, red-cheeked boys timidly crowded nearer and nearer the -knock-kneed table which Chang had somehow found and placed for us in a -wind-sheltered, sun-flooded corner of the inn-yard, retreating in a -pell-mell mass if we rose to our feet or looked fixedly at them. In -China market-day is usually a fixed institution, frequently recurring in -most towns. Then the wooden-box bellows with a stick handle manipulated -by a boy or a coolie, which is indispensable to craftsman or cook -reduced to a mainly dung fuel, may be heard thumping by scores or -hundreds along the thronged street. The shallow eating-shops, which -thrust their customers out of doors to squat on raised strips of board -or on their own haunches, steaming bowl and chop-sticks in hand, are so -busy that they almost cease to shout for clients. The outdoor -hair-dressers for men may sometimes not move their portable -paraphernalia from a chosen spot all day long, and take in what to them -is a small fortune, though their charges would by no means keep an -American barber in soap. Wielding a razor suggestive of a carpenter’s -draw-shave, a wooden comb which the maker across the way saws out by -hand with a dozen or a score of others from a single round block, and -carrying a most scanty supply of other essentials, they all but -transform the hirsute countrymen who fall into their hands. For they are -not satisfied with mere shaving as we understand it, but wipe out -everything the broad blade encounters—down the upper cheek, a stray hair -on the nose, the eyebrows, the hair itself, leaving the victim a -striking resemblance to a boiled onion, unless he calls a halt with the -information that he still considers the cue essential to his beauty and -well-being. Even then, they say, the barber sometimes talks him out of -the old-fashioned notion—though it is hardly that in Kansu—and he joins -the growing ranks of Chinese men, who, having recognized the pigtail as -a badge of servitude rather than an honorable adornment, go as far to -the opposite extreme as is consistent with a whole—no, often a sadly -gashed—scalp. But if the client’s taste is not to be changed by -preaching or example, the last rite is the combing out of his often -magnificent black tresses, reduced of course in area to about the size -of a saucer, and the making of them into a braid which may perhaps not -be undone again for two or three moons. - -But our carts perhaps are creaking out again through the inn-yard gate, -and we must ride after them, leaving the hundred other scenes of -market-day for some other place, for they are constantly repeated -everywhere. Caves and terraces and cañon roads continue; the afternoon -is June-like, the leaves of the willows and rare poplars hardly -beginning to turn, though November is stepping on. Down in the river -valley the soil is somewhat harder, so that for a little time we move -without being enveloped in a cloud of dust; but the air is so dry that -cigars and lips suffer. Passing coolies carry their money in strings of -“cash,” a thousand to each string, broken up into hundreds by knots and -the ends tied together to make carrying easy. We would hardly call it -that, however, if in addition to already mighty burdens we had to plod -our way across a thirsty country with ten pounds of money worth less -than an American quarter; for in this region the exchange averaged -twenty-three hundred “cash” to the “Mex” dollar. This does not, of -course, reduce the perforated brass coin of China to anything like the -low estate of the Russian ruble or the German mark, but those are of -paper and may be printed in any denomination, while the “cash” always -remains the single coin, both in weight and bulk. I do not recall -offhand any commodity that represents the value of a “cash”; I might say -it is worth about one peanut, but that would be true only in China, and -only in certain regions during the most plentiful peanut season, -certainly never in America, for it takes fully forty “cash” to make an -American cent. Perhaps a match comes most nearly being an even exchange, -and then the wonder comes up that they do not use those instead, and -save weight and some of the difficulties of reckoning, and always have -something of real immediate value as well as a nominal and fictitious -one. But your Chinese coolie, once out of gunshot of the big cities at -least, and even the merchants up to a surprising grade, prefers his -money in “cash,” irrespective of weight and all its other drawbacks. - -In Peking and the treaty-ports small transactions are usually in -coppers, which are worth a whole fourth of an American cent each; and -silver ten-, twenty-, and fifty-cent pieces, unknown and unacceptable in -Shensi and Kansu, are as frequent there as the “Mex” dollar of which -they are fractions. It is no uncommon thing, indeed, for Peking coolies -to accept bank-notes, if they are sure of the giver and if the issuing -bank is not Chinese but foreign, with a local branch. But, after all, a -copper is not much lighter than ten “cash,” and less convenient, having -no hole for stringing, and next above that in the west comes the dollar, -which is more than many a coolie ever owns at one time, and may turn out -to be false anyway; while, as to bank-notes, they are no more current in -the interior than Confederate shinplasters are in New York. Our own -funds, by the way, we carried in the form of letters of credit issued by -the Chinese post-office in Peking and payable by the postal commissioner -at the several large cities we visited, in which he was either a -foreigner or the graduate of a foreign school. But even our cartmen, who -were well above the coolie status, lugged strings of “cash,” usually -about their persons, and every morning and every noon they unfailingly -engaged in a loud and heated controversy with the innkeeper and all his -functionaries, down to the ragged fellow who drew water, over the amount -that should be transferred from the traveling strings to those that -remained behind. Only in a few cases was there a grooved measuring-board -to obviate the laborious task of counting the miserable bits of poor -brass one by one. For of course no one could take it for granted that -there were a hundred “cash” between each knot; and usually he would have -been swindled if he did. Aside from the all but universal Chinese custom -of short-changing wherever it is possible, in many regions accepted -fictions in money matters reign, so that in one town a “hundred cash” is -really only ninety, and if you are informed that six walnuts cost a -copper you hand over nine “cash”; and perhaps in the next place a string -of “cash” is nominally a thousand but really nine hundred and forty, and -“nine coppers is ten coppers here, master, only if it is in ‘cash’ it is -nine and then a little bit, and so....” And so, while we might have been -able to get along without Chang, or the cook either, for that matter, so -far as mere eating and the like go, he became indispensable in saving us -from insanity in the handling of money. - - -Pingliang was the largest city on our route between Sian-fu and Lanchow. -In a way it was the most picturesque, too; at least there were few such -pictures as that down its swarming, shop- and hawker-crowded -thoroughfare seen through the outer gate with the inner one in the -middle distance. I reached it somewhat ahead of the others, and as I was -worming my way through the second barrier, leading my mule and showing -every evidence of having been on the road for a week, a man in the human -stream bound in the same direction addressed me. It was not until his -second remark that I realized that he was speaking English, and even -then I took him to be some inn-runner who was trying to induce me to -patronize his miserable establishment. We had looked forward to being -spared that fate in Pingliang, for several sets of Protestant -missionaries had made us promise to look up their co-workers there. I -replied, therefore, still giving my attention to the picturesque chaos -about me rather than to the speaker, that I expected to stop with -foreigners at the Fu-ying-tong. How should I have known that I, suddenly -bursting into town in the guise of anything but a reputable person, was -informing a total stranger that I expected him to take me in as a guest -as soon I could find his house? For it was the first time in my life -that I had met a foreigner parading the streets in Chinese garb; -besides, the Swedish-American head of the Protestant work in Pingliang -happens to be of a physical size not inclined to make him conspicuous in -a Chinese crowd. - -Before the days of the republic, I learned later, when in spite of my -barbarism we were comfortably installed in his home with the glorious -prospect of a hot bath in the offing, he had sported even a blond -pigtail, like many of the inland missionaries. I need hardly add that -this was removed when, on rare occasions, he visited the “home church” -in Ruggles Street, Boston. His son also wore native garb and, being born -in Pingliang, could not be distinguished from a Chinaman in the dark, as -a native policeman once discovered to his discomfiture. On second -thought, when one had recovered from the slight shock involved, of -course native dress is the thing to wear in such cases. For one thing, -it is many times more economical than foreign garb, which would have to -be individually imported. Chinese clothing is much better adapted to -Chinese living conditions; and not the least of the advantages in cities -of the interior where only two or three foreigners live is that they can -go about their business unnoticed in the throng, instead of becoming the -center of a gaping, jostling mob whenever they halt for a moment. - -I cannot, naturally, give any testimony as to the efficacy or value of -the missionary work of a host of barely twenty-four hours, though I can -speak very highly of his hospitality and of the spick and span -efficiency of whatever we saw in his two compounds. In one the church -was reached through the hospital, which seemed a fitting and sensible -arrangement. Pingliang is not well supplied with curative facilities, -and naturally the mission hospital is overworked to a point where even -charitable foreigners unconsciously grow more or less callous to mere -human suffering. Chinese strolling into the place in what to us seemed -horrible conditions were such commonplace sights to those who had spent -a generation among them that they showed little more feeling over them -than over a cut finger. “Oh, been in a fight, I suppose,” was the sum -total reply to my anxious inquiry about a man whose face and chest were -cut into ribbons and who seemed to be half groping, half stumbling his -way toward the hospital. With beggars of both sexes and all ages -wandering the town and sleeping out of doors all winter in a few -fluttering rags that expose far more skin than they cover, their -cadaverous faces blue yellow with starvation, it is hardly to be -expected that a young man born amid such scenes should lose much sleep -over them. - -Pingliang, I discovered in a stroll about its wall, is not so large as -the first impression suggests, being long and narrow, with nearly all -its movement in that busy main street by which we passed through it. The -suburbs were so crowded, we found, because no Mohammedan is allowed to -live within the walls. The soldiers of the local dictator had just been -paid, and many of them were sauntering about town with six or eight -strings of “cash” over their shoulders, pricing this and that. One had a -full ten thousand looped about his neck, a veritable millstone, yet his -weighty wealth only amounted to about $2.30 in real money. I have said -that interior China has no paper money; hence I must apologize for the -oversight. For there are paper “cash” by the millions. Boys were -stamping them out of great sheets of a kind of tissue-paper, piled -twenty or more thick, so that each blow of the die accomplished -something worth while; and great cylinders of the finished coins, still -loosely held together, hung shivering in the breeze along the busiest -street of Pingliang. But this is dead man’s money, to be burned at his -grave along with paper horses and servants and perhaps a “Peking cart” -of the same material, so that he shall not find himself penniless and -unattended in the next world. The mere living must be content with solid -brass. - -The soldiers, we noticed, actually paid for what they purchased. Not -until they got a day or two out of town, our hosts said, did they dare -give only what they chose or drop the word “pay” from their vocabulary -entirely. In theory Pingliang and its district are governed from -Lanchow, as the latter is from Peking. But the local general had his own -soldiers and obeyed the Tuchun ten days westward about as absolutely as -the Tuchun did the alleged Central Government. Lanchow had sent out -orders to stop the growing of opium. The dictator of Pingliang passed -the order on, in the form of a public proclamation, and at a same time -issued secret instructions—in so far as anything can be secret in -China—to his district rulers to encourage the planting of poppies, to -compel it if necessary, since he needed the money to be derived from the -traffic. An honest mandarin in Kingchow, refusing to obey secret -instructions, effectively put an end to the planting in his district—and -barely escaped in the night across the river and through the mountains -to Lanchow, disguised as a coolie. In a region west of Pingliang, we -learned when we reached it, the orders from opposite directions had been -so nicely balanced that no one dared either to plant or not to plant, -whereupon nature took upon itself the decision and grew nothing. Yet in -these very regions poor peasants have been put in cages and left to -starve because they dared to let the poppy beautify their fields, and -perhaps the very next year some neighbor was prodded into chronic -invalidism by soldiers’ bayonets because he had not planted poppies. -Thus things go on throughout a large part of China, and opium is -probably produced in fully as large quantities as ever, all the noisy -demonstrations of burning, in a few of the larger cities, piles of -opium-pipes and confiscated opium to the contrary notwithstanding. One -large section of Kansu through which we passed was threatened with a -famine because Shensi grew opium on the fields where she should grow -wheat, and then offered such high prices for Kansu wheat that it all -flowed eastward, as we had seen, and left the region that grew it to -starve. But China’s many autonomous military rulers must have money, for -without money they cannot keep soldiers, and without soldiers they -cannot hold sway over their chosen territories; and of all their few -scanty sources of revenue the tax on opium is the most remunerative. -Naturally few if any of them openly permit the planting of poppies or -openly tax the product. Has not China’s Government guaranteed to -suppress the opium traffic, and must not even an all but independent -Tuchun of the far interior take care what rumors reach that outside -country from which protest and pressure and sometimes even military -intervention come? The Chinese temperament is always for finesse as -compared with boldness or force. In each provincial capital, and in -other large centers, there is an Anti-Opium Office, the ostensible -business of which is to stamp out the traffic. But the head of it is -either appointed by the military ruler or subject to his influence; and -if the latter issues secret orders undermining his public proclamations, -the Anti-Opium Office collects the taxes and sets them down as fines, -and there you are. There are, in fact, many districts where opium taxes -are collected for years in advance, and as they are high the peasants -have no choice but to plant poppies to recoup themselves. - - -A day’s journey beyond Pingliang there is a range 2350 meters high, -crossed by roads so steep that one marvels how the clumsy two-wheeled -carts get over it. Were the animals not hitched in tandem they never -would, and even if we had not by this time made concessions to what at -first strikes most Westerners as the “idiotic” Chinese way of doing -their hauling, we must certainly have done so here. Pheasants almost as -tame as chickens fed in the kind of heather and brown grass covering the -lower slopes by which we approached. Terraces and caves had for a time -died out; sure-footed men came down sheer paths with bundles of dry -brush that would be an unusual and a welcome addition to the straw and -dung fuel of the region. The range itself was made up of bare hills -without a sign of bush or tree except the rows of now somewhat stunted -willows which still escorted the wildly zigzagging road. There were many -short cuts, heart breaking if your mule was so small or so tired that -the carrying of the empty saddle up such a slope seemed work enough for -him. On foot it was a stiff climb of some two hours’ duration which -brought back memories of my Andean days that were not unpleasant. But -here there was a constant sense of security, not to say of -self-indulgence, in the knowledge that I was closely followed by ample -food and a cook, and best of all, by a bed. - -Donkey-loads of joss-sticks in two big square packs to each animal -carefully picked their way down from the summit. The view from this -showed a gashed and gnarled, a haphazard and truly chaotic world, -monotonously yet beautifully light brown in color, to the faint edges of -the far horizon. Over the top, coolies carrying whole chests of drawers -on the ends of their balancing poles came swinging up the swift descent -almost as if it were level ground. Once or twice before we had met the -“fast mail” hurrying eastward, and now we came upon it again, -jog-trotting over the mountains. Two men in the early prime of physical -life, with a bundle of mail-bags at each end of the poles over their -shoulders and a square glass lantern lashed on somewhere, are all this -consists of in interior China. They carry some eighty pounds each in -relays of twenty to thirty miles made at surprisingly good speed and on -the second day return with a similar load, all for ten or twelve dollars -“Mex” a month, depending on their length of service. Few postal systems -are more reliable than that of China; and even though its high officials -are mainly Europeans (this time the word is not meant to include -Americans) no small credit should be given to the poorly paid coolies -who are the chief links in the service in many parts of the country. -Letters mailed in Peking a week after we left there were awaiting us -when we reached Lanchow—for the coolie “fast mail” travels night and -day; and the loss of anything posted is perhaps the rarest complaint -heard even from those foreign residents who have developed into chronic -grumblers against anything Chinese. Other mail-matter, up to a limited -weight, may also be sent by letter-post, at increased postage; the bulk -of it goes by long trains of pack-mules, such as we had already several -times passed, at an average of twenty-five to thirty miles a day. - -There were a few patches of snow, and a region somewhat more -prosperous-looking, in the Chinese sense, over the range, with a more -solid, reddish soil, though all was dreary brown and utterly bare with -autumn now. Cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, fat-tailed sheep, goats, -pigs, and chickens, not to mention blue clouds of pigeons, were -everywhere. Yet the people seemed to live as miserably as ever, wholly -without cleanliness, comfort, or plenty; and before long we found -ourselves surrounded again by broken, swirling loess. Such regions -confirmed the theory that man is made of dust; the children looked as if -they had just been finished, and not yet polished off. - -The dreariness, the dismal lifelong existence of the great mass of -Chinese seemed only emphasized by such scenes as a pair of blind -minstrels entertaining a village by beating together resonant sticks and -singsonging endless national ballads or ancient legends. Nothing -whatever of the myriad simple enjoyments of more fortunate peoples, not -even grass to sit on and trees to sit under, lightens their -bare-earth-dwelling lot. Yet few peoples show themselves more contented -with what they have, perhaps because discontent increases with -possessions and possibilities. Lofty philosophers there are who, though -nothing could induce them to spend a night out of reach of a hot bath, -commend to us the contentment with little, the patience under -deficiencies, of the Chinese. These are virtues, no doubt, up to a -certain point; beyond it the traveler far afield in China comes to the -conclusion they become a curse, and the Chinese surely have in many -things passed this limit. - - -[Illustration: - - Two blind minstrels entertaining a village by singsonging interminable - national ballads and legends, to which they keep time by beating - together resonant sticks of hard wood -] - -[Illustration: - - The boys and girls of western China are “toughened” by wearing nothing - below the waist and only one ragged garment above it, even in - midwinter -] - -[Illustration: - - The “fast mail” of interior China is carried by a pair of coolies, in - relays of about twenty miles each, made at a jog-trot with about - eighty pounds of mail apiece. They travel night and day and get five - or six American dollars a month -] - -[Illustration: - - A bit of the main street of Taing-Ning, showing the damage wrought by - the earthquake of two years before to the “devil screen” in front of - the local magistrate’s yamen -] - -We came at length to Long-te, surrounded by a big mud wall, but with -little except ruins inside. There were great mud buildings spilled into -heaps of broken earth, threshing-floors where men and women were tossing -grain and chaff into the wind, open fields, many straw-stacks, ponds -frozen over, all within the walls, and still plenty of room for the -shrunken population. For the earthquake had been serious here. The big -city gates were wracked and twisted, sometimes split from top to bottom, -in one case overthrown entirely. Mat and cloth tents and makeshift -canvas buildings occupied what had evidently once been the business -street, and here a market-fair was in full confusion. Some of the -toughest, dirtiest coolies I had yet seen were packed in a soiled-blue -squirming mass, which seemed to be mainly Moslem, about an improvised -gambling-table. Two dice in a porcelain box, which was overturned in a -saucer that was twirled, constituted the game. It might have been swift -if the evil-eyed promoters had not always waited a long time for more -stakes to be laid on the squared and numbered table before lifting the -box. Each of these had his coolie valet behind him, who alternately held -a cup of tea or the mouthpiece of a long pipe to the lips of his master, -who kept both eyes and fingers on the absorbing business in hand. There -were grooved “cash” measuring-boards—such as our coolie at home used in -washing clothes—to obviate the counting of the money, mainly mere brass, -yet totaling large stakes for Chinese countrymen of the poorest class. -How intent they were on the whims of fate was shown by the astonishing -fact that I stood for several moments packed in with them, without the -least notice being taken of me; which did not hinder a mighty mob of men -and boys gathering at my heels and raising a great cloud of dust close -behind me all over town. - -Having won the toss during my absence—so severely honest were my -companions—I found myself installed, when I reached it, in the star room -of Long-te’s best inn. That is, most of my possessions were heaped about -the uneven earth floor, and the thigh-high platform covered with a thin -reed mat which the Chinese call a _k’ang_, of a mud room perhaps eight -by fourteen feet in size. Chang was always busy enough with other -matters to have it understood that we make our own beds. Such inn rooms -are made entirely of mud,—walls, _k’ang_, and all, except for the -soot-blackened beams and thatch above. Sometimes they are so small that -an army cot would not go even lengthwise on the _k’ang_, which was -usually too narrow to take two, either crosswise or side by side. The -Chinese, of course, sleep on the _k’ang_ itself, which is heated, at -least in theory, by a crude flue beneath it; but the foreigner with a -prejudice against stone-hard beds and, in warmer weather, against those -myriad little bedfellows of which the sons of Han seem almost fond, will -find a folding cot easily worth its weight in gold on a trip of any -length into the interior. It may cost him more for lodging, for half a -dozen Chinese could find plenty of room on a _k’ang_ that would barely -hold his cot and leave him space to undress and get into it; but as the -rent of the whole room will probably not exceed ten cents gold, unless -his “boy” lets the innkeeper succumb to his natural inclination to -double or treble it out of respect for “rich” foreigners, he may find -the extravagance worth the privacy. Even in their homes the overwhelming -majority of Chinese sleep packed together on just such a more or less -heated mud platform, so that a cot would be to them not a luxury but a -senseless nuisance. - -The procedure night after night hardly varied in the slightest degree. -When we had driven into an inn yard and Chang had found rooms or caves -opening off it which he considered fit to house his “masters,” the carts -were unhitched and all but our heavier belongings unloaded. The mules -had their unfailing roll in the dust, raising mighty clouds of it that -penetrated even the _k’ang_ mats, rose and shook themselves surprisingly -clean—so effective for them is this substitute for a showerbath which -was denied us—and fell to munching their well earned chopped straw and -dried peas in their broad, shallow wicker baskets or in the mud mangers. -The cartmen perhaps dust themselves with a horsetail or some -rooster-feathers mounted on a stick, and take up the important question -of getting their own food. This is indeed important even if it consists -only of a bowl or two of some cheap native cookery, since with the rare -exception of a lump of hot dough or a copper-worth of something else -from peddler or shop along the way, and a scanty mid-morning lunch, they -have not eaten since the night before. Meanwhile shrieks of -“_Gwan-shih-ti!_” rend the air. The _gwan-shih-ti_—if a slightly varied -pronunciation is easier, “John-dirty” will do quite as well, and be so -exactly descriptive as to be no tax whatever on the memory—is the male -maid of all work about a Chinese inn, though his title is somewhat more -honorable than either his duties or his income. Chang needs the -_gwan-shih-ti_ at once to build fires under our _k’angs_, to bring -water, to tell the cook where he can do his cooking, to bring us a pair -of those narrow wooden saw-horses which pass for chairs in rural China -to sit on outdoors if there is still daylight enough to read by, to do a -hundred other errands “quai-quai!” that is, instantly if not sooner, -which is the way Chang learned during his Peking service that foreigners -always expected to be served. Meanwhile there are reëchoing screams of -“_Gwan-shih-ti!_” from the muleteers, who want this or that, shrieks of -“_Gwan-shih-ti!_” from the innkeeper himself, who has a few errands with -which to keep him out of mischief, again perhaps from other newly -arrived travelers, who want to know where in —— in the already crowded -inn they are going to sleep, until one might imagine that the poor -fellow would get flustered, even in spite of being Chinese. - -By this time “_Gwan-shih-ti_” has probably succeeded in coaxing the -straw and dung poked into the _k’ang_ flues to burn; and we have begun -bitterly to regret asking to have the _k’ang_ lighted. For any Chinese -inn in winter is an absolute refutation of the old theory that wherever -there is smoke there is fire. How often have we not groped our way into -our mud-built lodgings resolved to make up our beds at last or die in -the attempt, only to come gasping and clawing into the open air a moment -later—and yet have waited in vain for the slightest suggestion of warmth -to mitigate all this suffering. _K’ang_-flues seldom have any vent -except the wide-open mouths for the feeding of fuel inside the room -itself, and the volume of smoke that can pour forth from them is out of -all keeping with either time or combustibles. Yet the Chinese seem -content to go on for centuries more in this time-dishonored way, though -they need go no farther afield than Korea to copy an example of heating -the floor from the kitchen and letting the smoke out of chimneys at the -other end of the house, without loss of fuel and without turning their -homes into soot-dripping smoke-houses. - -Eventually we drove out enough smoke to come in and make our beds. To -what had seemed an impenetrable sleeping-bag from Maine I had been -obliged to add a sheepskin lining in Pingliang, and under or over this -went every coat and blanket, and even my odds and ends of clothing, for -barely did the sun set when the mountain cold came down like a blast -direct from the north pole. Long before supper was ready it was often so -bitter, in contrast to an almost hot day, that we were tempted to get -into bed at once; and on the homeward trip we did, eating off our -coverlets. But barely were we settled in such cases than Chang took all -the joy out of life by appearing with the wash-basin forced upon us by -the leader of the “Third Asiatic Expedition”—then in winter quarters in -Peking, where such primitive things are not needed—and the canvas bucket -of hot water, whereupon “face” at least required us to crawl out and -perform ablutions enough to deceive ourselves into thinking that we had -removed all that day’s dust and grime. - -Or, perhaps, thanks to our recommendable habit of starting every morning -without fail well before daylight, we arrived while the sun was still -high enough above the horizon to see something of the native life of the -town. We did not need to go out looking for this; it came to us, in all -its impurity. Chinese clad in dirty blue and in every stage of undress -came with trays of disgusting cooked chickens with their heads fast -under one wing and their straddling legs still intact, with boiled sweet -potatoes and steaming white balls of dough, with slabs of roasted pork -and scores of other native favorites, all equally innocent of even the -knowledge that hygiene and cleanliness exist. Not even the Parisians buy -as much of their food already cooked as do the Chinese, and there was -always great wonder shown that we did not fall upon these tempting -delicacies at once, at least to bridge over the vacuum until our own -curious viands should be ready. The varied conditions under which these -were prepared we surmised rather than knew, for we religiously spared -our feelings and our appetites by never unnecessarily intruding upon the -cook’s domain. The natives did, however, whenever it was possible, and -no doubt set down such attempts to approach cleanliness as Chang and the -cook actually observed out of our sight to the incredible -idiosyncrasies, not so much of foreigners—for some of them had seen -Russian refugees eat—as of men of incomputable wealth, which the mere -sight of our belongings, or even of our beds, showed us to be. As a -matter of fact, we lived largely on the country, and might have done so -entirely had we been content with a simpler diet. Chickens, eggs, the -principal vegetables, fruits, sugar, and the like could always be had, -on the out-journey at least, every two or three days, and now and then -there were local specialties in addition. But such delicacies as jam, -butter, cheese, chocolate, coffee, cocoa, and their kindred could only -be had from our steamer-trunks on the tail-end of the carts, while our -bread supply depended on foresight and the kindness of the rare -foreigners along the way. - -It is not a bad idea to bring along a few simple picture-books on such a -journey. The boys who drift into the inn-yards are invariably keenly -interested in any hints of the strange “outside-country” from which you -come, and sometimes quite sharp-witted; so that not only will they get -pleasure and instruction out of the pictures, but the traveler will -learn many Chinese words from them, which will be of use perhaps some -day if he ever finds himself stranded without a “boy” in some town that -happens to speak the same dialect. However, all tales as to its narrow -limits notwithstanding, we found Mandarin, or Pekingese, or whatever it -is that one soon picks up a bit of in the capital, as generally -understood on all this journey as could be expected of what was no doubt -our atrocious pronunciation. Peasants and local coolies sometimes shook -their heads, either because they could not understand us or thought we -were speaking some foreign tongue and refused to try; but anything like -a real knowledge of the general language, or that very similar one of -the masses of Peking, would have been quite sufficient in any of the -provinces we visited. - -At last supper would be announced, with whosoever’s _k’ang_ that showed -any signs of heat as a dining-table, and six-inch-wide saw-horses as -chairs. By this time the mountain cold would be like ice-packs applied -to the marrow of the bones—if that is anatomically possible—and unless -we watched the door, if there was one, all manner of Chinese odds and -ends, even ladies so consumed by curiosity as sometimes to forget the -stern rules of their sex, would gradually replace it by a bank of gaping -faces, the boldest of which might even find some poor excuse to come -clear inside. Perhaps the police would arrive, though this was rare, -with two or three huge and gaily decorated paper lanterns, to ask for -our visiting-cards and bow their way ceremoniously out again into the -weirdly flickering night. Then one last brief sortie with a toothbrush -and into our luxurious beds, perhaps to read and smoke a bit by the -American lantern that we succeeded in getting and keeping oil enough to -use one night out of three. For however much we paid for oil, it never -seemed to be real kerosene, and the Chinese genius for flimsy -constructions had evolved in place of a can a slightly baked mud jug -that broke at the least lurching of a cart and even seeped through upon -the back of the _mafu_ who was finally sentenced to carry it. Sleep -always came long before the end of a cigar, however, and never have I -enjoyed more sound and satisfying slumber than on most of those Kansu -nights, in spite of legs, accustomed to another form of travel, aching -from ten or twelve hours in the saddle, and though one might hear the -mules just outside munching their hard peas off and on all through the -night. The drivers always got up between two and three o’clock to feed -them, and then one might hear the steady _rump! rump!_ of the chopping -of straw as one man fed it to the big hinged knife everywhere used for -this purpose, and another manipulated the knife itself. Sometimes this -wicked implement has other uses, as in one village along our route where -the peasants captured a bandit and, not caring to make the long journey -to the _hsien_ seat, with the risk of his escape or rescue, had calmly -beheaded him with a straw-knife. - -But all supreme pleasures have an untimely end, and before the delicious -night seemed well begun Chang would come to light the lantern, or the -candle, or the string wick floating in the half of a broken mud saucer -of thick native oil which Chinese inns furnish, and to break the bitter -news that it was five o’clock—or four, as the case might be. Stifling -our curses as becomes married men who should at least have reached years -of discretion and self-control, we would crawl from the tropical -luxuriance of our sleeping-bags into the arctic iceberg of early morning -with a pretense of bravery that deceived neither ourselves nor each -other, and lose more breath than time in getting inside our icy daytime -garments. A hot breakfast larger than the full daily consumption of all -but the wealthiest Chinese, however, always brought about a great change -in our spirits. In and about the yard would rise noisy disputes in which -could be heard endless repetitions of the word “_ch’ien_,” which means -money, or, more exactly, brass “cash,” and when at length these had -subsided our expedition would trail away again into the darkness. As -nearly as I made out, we paid between one and two hundred coppers a -night as our share of the inn expenditures, which included our alleged -rooms, heat, and light, _k’ang_ space somewhere for our retinue, and -various and sundry other charges exclusive of food for the mules and -their attendants, which was not our affair. But I defy any Occidental to -make head or tail of the intricacies of paying a bill at a Chinese inn. -There seemed to be a “straw charge” on our merely human part of the -bill, and each kettle of water was so many coppers, and we were expected -to pay for the right to let the carts stand all night in the inn-yard; -or at least Chang informed us that gentlemen always did and seemed on -the verge of tears that might have resulted in loss of “face” for him -and loss of our chief link with the outside world for us when we opened -for discussion the fact that our contract with the muleteers required -them to pay everything having to do with their part of the expedition. -Nor was that all, by any means; for the Chinese seem to like nothing -better than the utmost complications in money matters. Perhaps this is -because so many of them depend for their livelihood on the odd coppers -and “cash” that are chipped off in the process of making impossible -adjustments in the chaos of exchange and incompatible coins and -intricate charges, modified by vociferous bargainings, which are never -alike in two parts of the country. Possibly it is merely because they -love complexities and gratuitous difficulties for their own sake—as -their language, for example, suggests, especially in its written -form—and which have grown up during the hundred centuries of social -intercourse that lie behind them. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIII - WHERE THE FISH WAGGED HIS TAIL - - -Whatever the dreadful hardships of our journey, they would have been -increased by at least one had the loess country been as dry and arid as -it looked, and thus compelled us to travel by camel-train. For, all -trite humor about the ship-like motion of that worthy animal aside, he -is an objectionable companion because he is an inveterate and -incorrigible night-hawk. Or perhaps that word approaches the slanderous -when applied to him, for the cause of his night-hawking is quite the -opposite of that of his human prototype. The camel prowls about in the -small hours because he can eat only by day and, given that unusual -idiosyncrasy, must work by night. Frequently the beginning of our day’s -journey was broken by a long camel-train looming up out of the first -thin white light of dawn, the dull bells gently booming, each “string” -of six or eight or ten camels led by a bearded man of red-brown, -slightly surly features that often looked more Arabic than Chinese. This -impression was increased by long white sheep- or goatskin cloaks, turned -wool in, surmounted by what seemed to be turbans, though at closer sight -and in the full light of day these last proved to be the dirty-white -skullcaps of felt to which the Chinese Mohammedans are largely addicted, -perhaps wound round with a soiled towel of cheap crash that is often the -traveling coolie’s only concession to the worship of soap and water. One -must take care, however, not to consider white caps and “Hwei-Hwei” as -synonymous. For many a Mohammedan wears black, quite like his -fellow-Chinese, while a wide white band about the cap is a sign, not of -belief in the Prophet of Medina, but of mourning for father or -grandfather. But, to come back to the camels: it would have required no -great strain on the imagination to fancy oneself in Arabia as these -endless lines of silent-footed beasts stalked disdainfully past in the -half-lighted defiles, though one would have been forced to overlook such -minor details as their two humps instead of one. Often we heard the -muffled booming of their bells as they went by in the night; but by day -they were seldom seen, unless it was kneeling in crowded contentment in -an inn-yard or sauntering packless about some hillside thinly dotted -with dead-brown tufts of coarse grass, under the care of a cat-napping -driver or two. - -A wide valley we had been following for some time narrowed until it -drove the road high up above the river, whence it came down again into -another fertile vale containing many graves and the city of Tsin-ching. -There was an unusual animation about Tsin-ching. For though it had been -more nearly destroyed by the earthquake than Long-te and other gloomy -collections of ruins that lay behind us, it had many brand-new -buildings, and great gangs of men and boys were rebuilding the city -wall, quite irrespective of the fact that it was what should have been a -quiet Sunday afternoon. Custom, fear of bandits, of another Mohammedan -rebellion, of evil spirits, perhaps of cold winds, and no doubt the -laudable desire of the authorities for an opportunity to make some -“squeeze” that will be understood by many of our own city dwellers, seem -to be the principal causes of this anachronistic repair of city walls; -and the strongest of all these, probably, is custom. This one might have -inferred from the fact that this one was being rebuilt exactly in the -style in vogue centuries ago, with the crenelated top all the several -miles around it pierced by thousands of little loopholes convenient in -medieval warfare. But in China there is still some practical value to a -city wall if it has gates that can be locked and is not so badly ruined -that any one with a little diligence can find a place to climb over it. -For it is a real protection against bandit raids if they are not too -strong, against tough characters in general, and it is not without its -use in those quarrels between towns which sometimes become serious. -Besides, Tsin-ching seemed to be a kind of anti-Mohammedan stronghold, -for there were few Moslems in town—the prevalence of pigs would have -told us that, even if the human inhabitants had not—and who can tell -when the next Islamite rebellion will sweep over Kansu? - -The only foreigners in Tsin-ching or for many miles around were two -Swedish ladies, one of them from Minnesota, who had recently established -a mission station. They had not yet made any converts, but they had -brought about a kinder and more tolerant feeling toward themselves, and -toward “outside barbarians” in general, by which they hoped in time to -profit. One of the richest and most significant men in town, who began -as a declared and ruthless enemy, had sneaked over a few weeks before to -let the detested missionaries of the despised sex cure him of an injury -which neither the herbs of the local druggist nor the hocus-pocus of the -local priests had helped, and, though he scarcely showed gratitude in -the Western sense, rumors of the miracle had begun to have their -influence. One of the difficulties these missionary ladies, like the few -others we met on our journey, had to contend with was that the Chinese -women with whom they tried to come in contact, especially in outlying -districts, fled at sight of them because they took them to be men. This -was largely due to their unbound feet and their skirts in place of -ladylike trousers, but, quite aside from these details, there was, -indeed, a wide difference both in appearance and manner between these -big, vigorous Nordics and the tame little Chinese women. - -Exchange-shops with their huge wooden “cash” signs out in front were -more than numerous in Tsin-ching, and perhaps they were all needed. -There a Mexican dollar was worth 2500 “cash,” but more or less in -theory, since both the silver dollar and the brass coins with square -holes in them had largely disappeared from circulation. In place of the -former there were _taels_—irregular lumps of silver requiring a pair—or -two—of scales for any transaction in which they were involved—and -“Lanchow coppers.” Between these two extremes, as formerly between the -silver dollar and the “cash,” there was nothing; and if the American, -with his convenient little silver coins of fixed value, his unquestioned -paper money, and his check-book, will pause a moment to visualize just -what this means, he will understand why doing business is a complicated -process, and why the streets seem to swarm with exchange-shops in such -communities. Fortunately prices—and certainly wages—were low in -Tsin-ching. The missionary ladies, who were their own architects, -contractors, and bosses in the construction of their mission, had -formerly paid their workmen 500 “cash” a day; but recently, food prices -having gone up, this had been changed to 310 “cash” and food. It -amounted to about the same thing for the ladies, since the two native -meals furnished the gangs cost approximately two hundred “cash” a day -per man, but they could buy and prepare the food in quantity at -considerably less than the men themselves must otherwise have paid in -native restaurants, where meals were less sanitary and nourishing. -Native bosses got 400 “cash” a day, with food. Skilled carpenters, who -need not have been ashamed of the samples of their work which we saw, -were on a salary rather than a mere wage basis, as befits their higher -caste; that is, they received, besides their food, 10,000 “cash” a -month, in other words, fully two American dollars! Correspondingly, the -ladies could buy chickens for the equivalent of our nickel, a leg of -lamb for little more, and many other things in proportion. On the other -hand, they had the task of counting their “cash,” for every string of a -thousand was almost sure to be short, perhaps to have only ninety-two or -so to the hundred; and even if it was not they had to be sure of that -fact before paying the string to some carpenter who might otherwise -return half an hour later with visible proof that he had been underpaid. -Then recently their troubles had been appreciably increased by the -influx of “Lanchow coppers.” - - -Though the proper place for airing that scandal might be Lanchow itself, -there were so many evidences of it before we reached there that clarity -requires an earlier mention of it. As in other countries of poor -transportation facilities and sluggish circulation, the back-waters of -China are in many cases chronically short on coins, particularly on -small change, for their interminable transactions. The Tuchun of Kansu, -hoping to remedy this difficulty—and incidentally further to obviate the -possibility of eventually leaving the province a poorer man than he -entered it—hit upon what was to him perhaps a highly original scheme. He -called in the “cash” and the rather scarce coppers in circulation, had -them melted and mixed, and reissued them as new coin. This would not -have been so bad, so atrocious, in fact, if he had actually minted the -stuff into money. But what he did do was to give men all over the -district the right—at 20,000 “cash” royalty a day, gossip whispered—to -resmelt the current coins in their little dung-fire, box-bellows forges, -mix in great quantities of sand, and pour the molten result into crude -molds, from which issued such a caricature of a coin as has scarcely -circulated in the civilized world since the last find of Roman money -disappeared into the museums. They are light as glass, give out the ring -of a hat-check, are barely legible, vary greatly in design and -lettering, with misspelled attempts at English on one side of several -styles of them, and are so hopelessly mixed with dross, according to -experts, that the bit of metal in them can never again be reclaimed. At -first they were made as single coppers, worth ten “cash” each; but when -it was discovered that the cost of making a coin was three “cash,” the -double copper, or twenty-“cash” piece, was substituted, though with but -slight changes either in size or other details. - -How a Chinese general, steeped as it were in the intricacies of exchange -and familiar since childhood with the daily fluctuations of the money he -used, could have overlooked the certainty of a swift decline in value of -such alleged coins is hard to understand. Perhaps he realized all this, -but lost no sleep over it so long as he got his own rake-off in real -money. At any rate, whereas a “good” or “red” copper was valued in Kansu -at two hundred or less to the Mexican dollar, and the new ones announce -themselves to be worth the same, the latter had already fallen to about -seven thousand to the dollar in the exchange-shops of Tsin-ching. Even -if this rate had been uniform throughout the province, the situation -might have been endurable. But not only did it wildly fluctuate every -day, almost every hour; it varied greatly between towns only a few miles -apart, with an upward tendency as one approached Lanchow, where the -Tuchun’s power was at its height. Long before the borders of the -province were reached this oozed away entirely, at least in so far as -his experiments in currency and finance went. His autonomous subordinate -in Pingliang had refused point-blank to allow the new coinage to enter -his district; Liangchow and most other large towns had followed suit, -and only within a certain limited area around the provincial capital -itself had the Tuchun succeeded in imposing this substitute for what -elsewhere was still “red” coppers and stringable “cash.” Where he -actually ruled, it meant a heavy fine or a prison sentence to refuse to -accept the miserable stuff; but he had little or no influence over the -value set upon it by the money-changers. Any one with even a bowing -acquaintance with the science of finance need not be told what disasters -this condition of affairs brought upon shopkeepers and business men, -especially upon those whose stocks were more or less imported from the -outside world. - -One of the amusing points of the affair was that Liangchow and Pingliang -and many another town and district that would not use the stuff -themselves were manufacturing vast quantities of the spurious coins and -shipping them to Lanchow, without, of course, paying the Tuchun his -“rake-off.” It is hard even for the Chinese to outwit the Chinese, and -no sooner had the daily royalty rate been set than most coineries within -the Tuchun’s influence put on two shifts and worked twenty-four hours a -day. Moreover, it is no great task to counterfeit miserable -counterfeits, and almost any little cave-village in the loess hills -could mold coins to its heart’s content, so long as it could get the bit -of copper and brass needed. Transporting the stuff was in itself a -problem worthy an expert. “Cash” can at least be strung and hung round -the neck, but to carry enough of this new stuff for his immediate wants -would have taxed the endurance of any pedestrian above the coolie class. -In fact it was a serious matter to others than pedestrians. Every little -while we met some traveler, usually a merchant, no doubt, mounted on a -mule and followed by a donkey sagging under the weight and noisy with -the falsetto rattling of “Lanchow coppers”; and it was no uncommon thing -to pass long lines of coolies with big bundles of the new coins -oscillating at the ends of their shoulder-poles, jogging eastward, as if -the false currency were spreading, like a plague. Indeed the towns -toward the end of our outward journey sounded like brass check factories -perpetually in the act of taking stock. The latest rumor, as we neared -the capital of the province, was that the Tuchun had decided to coin -dollars also; “and then,” as a merchant sadly put it, “we will have no -money at all left.” However, the harassed people might have cheered -themselves up with the hope that the day may come when Lanchow’s -despised coppers will be worth their weight in gold among numismatists, -for coins cast in a mold are a rarity in this day and generation. - -In a moment of good-hearted thoughtlessness the major sent his card and -our respects to the magistrate of Tsin-ching, who was of course of too -low rank actually to be called upon. The latter acknowledged the high -honor paid him by sending an official to ask whether he could do -anything for us, and though we assured him that there was no way in -which our contentment with the world could possibly be improved, we -found next morning that he had detailed four soldiers to accompany us. -Whether this was out of sheer respect for our rank, from actual fear -that bandits might attack us, or because the soldiers needed the few -coppers which we might, and which he could or would not, give them, was -not clear; but we rather suspected the last-named motive. They were a -cheery and picturesque detail. No two of them had two garments that were -uniform; their rifles bore a resemblance to some harmless substitute for -a weapon, hand-made by some very clumsy youth half a century ago, and -habitually misused ever since. In place of the usual strap, each had a -string by which to hang the gun over his shoulder, and the bore was such -that the cartridges, if there were any, must have been of just about the -right diameter for our shot-gun. One of these merry protectors was so -filled with song, of a strictly Chinese nature, that had he waited a bit -longer to abandon me and give his precious protection to some other part -of our straggling expedition he would certainly have had impressed upon -him the rights and privileges of extraterritoriality. At the noonday -halt we told this escort that, while they were men of whom any army -might be proud, we could not dream of putting them to the task of -tramping through the earthquake country ahead merely to defend our -unworthy selves; moreover, we mentioned, we should be glad to give them -at once the little present that they would get at nightfall if they -continued. This last was evidently a strong argument, for we had the -satisfaction of seeing them accept the suggestion with thanks and -alacrity. - -In many parts of Kansu, we learned before we left it, there was much the -same old story of the inert weight of military pressure as elsewhere in -China. The soldiers in many districts were not paid, but were allowed to -shift for themselves upon the population. In theory this escort of ours -received four thousand “cash” a month! But they depended much more upon -such windfalls as ourselves, upon catching their own people gambling or -trafficking in opium and confiscating their belongings, or upon foraging -pure and simple among the helpless country people. Those groups which -had strength and audacity enough called upon chambers of commerce and -similar organizations for “loans” without interest—and of course without -principal, so far as the lenders are concerned; others wandered the -country until they found similar openings to which their strength was -equal. - - -Even before we reached Tsin-ching there had been many signs of the great -earthquake that had befallen this district; but in a land naturally so -split and gashed and broken beyond repair many of these had passed -almost unnoticed. Beyond that battered town, however, the chaotic world -on every hand impressed upon us all day long that we were in the heart -of the earthquake district, in so far at least as the main route to -Lanchow passes through it. Even worse damage was done, people said, in -districts off the road, but what we saw was enough to make it clear that -the big fish which sits bolt upright and holds the earth between its -fore fins had wagged his tail at the wickedness of mankind to excellent -advantage. This cause of the tragedy and the Chinese cosmogony it -involves were, by the way, firmly and unquestioningly believed not only -by our cart-drivers, who were in every-day matters paragons of common -sense, but by more than one Chinese of much higher caste. Only Chang, -who claimed to be so fervent a Christian as not even to believe in -“squeeze,” laughed at this view of the catastrophe; and he could not -give any other reasonable explanation for it. - -Evidently such things had happened before in this part of the world, for -not only does the broken and fissured loess country require some such -interpretation but often pieces of old roof-tile protruded from the -cliff-sides of the sunken roads a hundred feet or more below the -surface. But this was the first quake within the memory of living -inhabitants, and apparently within their traditions, though the region, -and the inhabitants, too, for that matter, have been trembling ever -since. The catastrophe came suddenly, without the slightest warning, at -7:30 in the evening of December 16, 1920, and had taken its appalling -toll and gone almost before the survivors could catch their breath. Six -hundred thousand people at least lost their lives; the official figures -are one million, but the Chinese are prone to exaggerate, just as the -Mohammedans habitually refuse to give accurate information in anything -resembling a census. How many were injured is suggested by the fact that -earthquake victims were still wandering into the hospital at Pingliang -when we were there almost two years later. But cave-dwelling, especially -in so frail a soil as this, is admirably designed to make an earthquake -effective, and there is no computing how many were simply buried alive -without any actual physical injury being done them. - -The missionaries as well as the Chinese of Kansu assert that the -earthquake was a blessing in disguise—some of them even recognize in it -a direct interference from heaven with earthly designs; for a General Ma -and three hundred Mohammedan leaders were killed in a mosque in which, -say their antagonists, they were preparing for another great Moslem -rebellion, to begin the very next day. Some went so far as to say that -an army of many thousand men, ready to begin its work at dawn, was -buried hundreds of feet deep in a great ravine in which it was encamped. -These things may not be strictly true, but there seems to be little -doubt that, but for the earthquake, there would have been a Mohammedan -uprising very shortly afterward. Since the great Chinese Moslem -rebellion of 1862, in which eighty thousand non-Moslems are reputed to -have been slaughtered, and in which certainly large cities and great -districts were so devastated that they have not recovered to this day, -there have been three smaller revolts against Chinese rule, so that -although Kansu may not recall her earlier earthquakes she has by no -means forgotten the terrors which this one is credited with having -averted. - -The more pietistic of the missionaries make much of the belief that, -while many thousands of the wicked followers of the false prophet were -buried in their caves or dashed to pieces in their ravines, not a -Christian was killed. One by one, it was said, they straggled into the -mission stations with stories of the untold damage that had taken place -all about them, but weeping reverently at the miracle by which they and -theirs had in every case escaped injury and even property loss. Without -a discount for the unconscious exaggerations of overworked and -over-pious apostles, such a fact would not be absolute and final proof -of wrath of God against the Moslems for having picked the wrong faith, -for while there are several million of them in the province, the number -of Christians would not entirely preclude the possibility of their -having been spared by mere chance rather than by divine intercession. In -Pingliang, for instance, after thirty years’ work there are fifty -baptized Christians; in another district two hundred converts are -claimed among two hundred thousand _families_. - -In the stiff, short climb through a ruined world an hour or two out of -Tsin-ching, trees that had once shaded the road were hanging so -precariously over great abysses that even this fuel-starved people did -not dare to try to cut them. Here and there great pieces of the road, -big willows, poplars, and all, had been pitched pell-mell over the edge. -Yet villages still lived on lumps of earth half broken off from the rest -of the world and ready to collapse into mighty chasms below. The -mountains had indeed “walked,” as the complicated yet sometimes -childishly simple Chinese language has it. Whole sides of terraced peaks -had slipped off and carried the road intact, trees and all, half a mile -away, had bottled up deep-green unnatural lakes at the bottom of great -holes in the loess earth—to become what; a future menace or mere -salt?—unless released by the hand of man. Sometimes half a dozen -mountains had all danced together and left the brown loess churned up as -if it had been boiled, with a new self-made “road” and the -telegraph-wire on new poles stretching away across it, yet without the -suggestion of an inhabitant, nothing but a deathly stillness for long -distances, rarely broken perhaps by a magpie whose gay manners were -utterly out of keeping with the desolate scene. Farther to the north, -they say, one may still see shocks of harvested grain rotted in the -fields, where the population was entirely killed off and none has come -to take its place. Sometimes only half the terraced mountain-side had -come down to overwhelm the tree-lined highway, or to bury a village as -deeply as beneath the sea, the other half still supporting an uninjured -hamlet below, as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb this quiet, -bucolic existence. Ends of the mud walls of former villages protruding -from the yellow chaos were often the only suggestion that human beings -had once lived and bred and died there. Sometimes the wide road bordered -by its venerable willows ended suddenly against a mighty bank of -convulsed earth where the mountain had piled high over it, the new route -clambering away over the débris with that indifference of youth to the -experiences of old age that keeps the world moving onward instead of -crouched at the roadside weeping over its disasters. In several places -hundred-yard pieces of the old haphazard highway, twenty yards wide, had -been gently picked up and set at right angles to its former course, -without so much as a crack in its dozen mule-paths and the narrow strips -of turf between them. - -Up over this broken and wrecked world came toward noon twenty coolies -trotting under heavy loads of antlers oscillating from their -pole-burdened shoulders. Wapiti and other deer are still found in the -high mountains of Kansu, but the Chinese demand for their horns, -preferably in the velvet, as medicine, is sure to exterminate them as -completely as wanton destruction has the forests, probably pine and -hemlock, that once covered all these tamed and terraced ranges. There is -something strikingly un-Western, something akin to our own medieval -ancestors, about the Chinese temperament in such matters, when they will -continue century after century to pay fabulous prices—a good pair of -elk-horns in the velvet will bring as much as fifty dollars gold in the -large cities—for something of entirely imaginary value, without ever -thinking of attempting to find out whether it is really good for -anything or not. Their forebears thought so, and that settles the -question. If once a custom can get a place with the Chinese, it need -have little worry about holding its position, no matter how inefficient, -useless, or even harmful it may become. - - -Well on in the afternoon we came upon a beautiful blue-green lake -imprisoned in a ravine, miles long and with a side arm of unknown -length, all in a barren brown world without any other form of water. One -might have fancied that the people roundabout would have been delighted -to have it, and thank the earthquake for blocking the tiny stream that -had formed it; but what do the people of Kansu know of the beauty of -water, or of its usefulness, beyond what is required for their own and -their animals’ gullets? So, with the help of American relief funds, they -had cut a great gap through the fallen hill at the head of the lake—how -queer that Kansu had to be paid by people on the other side of the earth -for repairing their own land!—to assure themselves against being flooded -out by such unnatural lakes when they rise above their barriers or seep -away through the loose loess soil. - -We spent that night at the upper end of this lake in Tsing-kiang-yi, the -town worst treated by the earthquake of any along the way. It was split -into many fantastic forms, and threshing-floors had grown up in what -were merely mighty earthquake cracks. This did not keep the inhabitants, -however, from enjoying life in the orthodox Chinese fashion. A -theatrical troupe had come to set up a makeshift stage of poles and -matting on six-foot legs in a corner of a filthy open lot overhanging -the mighty gorge into which much of the town had disappeared two years -before, and most of Tsing-kiang-yi and the surrounding country stood -crowded together in front of it. There is a difference only in degree -between the theatrical performances given on such outdoor contrivances -at country fairs and on village market-days and those in the most -imposing theaters in Peking. The same nerve-racking “music” is torn off -in hundred-yard strips by men at one side of the stage, who conduct -themselves as freely all through the performance as if they were -peanut-sellers in the market-place. There are the same more or less -mythological beings in astonishing costumes, somewhat more soiled, -surmounted by masked or painted faces, and these in turn by strange -creations in wigs and head-dresses poorly joined to the wearers, who -saunter out at intervals from the partly concealing mat dressing-room -behind the stage proper and screech for long periods in the selfsame -distressing falsetto with which Chinese theater-goers everywhere allow -themselves to be tortured. The same property-man wanders incessantly -about the stage, setting it to rights or bringing anything needed, like -a nonchalant coolie at work in a coal-yard; the same unwashed -ragamuffins, carelessly stuffed into absurd and multicolored garments -which make them generals, gods, court attendants, or anything else the -play may call for, are herded on and off in the wooden manner of -“supers” the world over. Small boys—not to mention full-grown -ones—clamber about the hasty structure in their eagerness to make the -most of one of the rare treats of a dismal lifetime, even sitting in the -edges of the stage itself, to the annoyance apparently only of a stray -foreigner with his own queer notions of stage propriety. Down below, the -standing audience may not behave with what the Western world would call -rapt attention, but it has its own restless, free-for-all way of showing -its delight. - -In Chinese villages theatrical performances are usually a community -undertaking, a way of spending the accumulated funds of this or that -communal scheme, which it would of course be foolish to squander in -building schools or cleaning the streets. Sometimes it is a treat -offered by or forced from some prominent citizen, sometimes a sort of -fine exacted from a neighboring village with which there has been a -quarrel. That Chinese “actors” wandering through the provinces do not -live in steam-heated hotels or ride in Pullman cars need scarcely be -emphasized; indeed there is a strong suspicion from as far away as the -outer edge of the audience that time and opportunity and inclination to -remove the evidences of long cart-road travel very, very seldom -coincide. But then, back in the interior players are still rated almost -in the coolie class, however much they may suggest the romance of life -to gaping yokels. - - -We actually saw a man mending the road next day; that is, he was -chopping out pieces of sandstone from between deep ruts in a very narrow -gully, though he may merely have been gathering them for his own use. It -had been a crisp, brilliant morning, more pleasant to walk than to ride, -white smoke rising from a mud town across a great gorge ahead that would -otherwise probably never have been distinguished from the brown-yellow -hillside on which it hung. Perhaps a distant mule-bell faintly reached -the ear, a pair of coolies on the sky-line caught the eye, and that -might be all for long distances except the tumbled verdureless -immensity. That day we clambered over a two-thousand-meter pass, then -caught a great crack in the earth, along the high edge of which the road -went until mid-afternoon, prosperous hills on either hand, and tilted -farm-yards surrounded by high mud walls, into which we could look down -as from an airplane. The earth had grown harder, a bit less friable than -pure loess, though still without a suggestion of stone, and casting -itself if anything in still more fantastic formations. Boys herding -sheep or goats, and muleteers plodding behind their animals, sang on -far-away mountain-sides snatches of song that sounded more Western than -Chinese. Always a chaotic world of impossibly sculptured cliffs and -incredible hollows unrolled itself before us. Now and again the road -crawled across some great earth bridge, in constructing which the hand -of man had taken no part, over a vast chasm but an insignificant stream; -in some places it had fallen away into another of those breathless -abysses, to skirt along the sheer edge of which seemed foolhardy even on -foot. Yet all manner of Chinese travel, our own carts included, toiled -serenely over these spots, apparently quite oblivious of the fact that -the outer wheels more than once dropped to the hub down the side of the -mighty precipice. Now and again surely some one must have gone over it -with a piece of the crumbling road; perhaps the others burned a little -joss at the nearest ruined mud temple and dropped a few “cash” into the -big bronze kettle-gong the old beggar priest so constantly beats out in -front of it, but certainly they did nothing else to be spared a similar -fate on their next journey. - -However, it is not true that the Chinese are utterly incapable of -learning by experience. In this earthquake country, where living in -caves proved so disastrous, they had certainly come out of them. But -they were conservative in architecture as in other things, and the new -mud huts, set as far out from the dreaded mountain-sides as possible, -wherever inhabitants remained, were built in exactly the same shape as -the caves, with an arched mud roof and the general appearance of having -been dug out of the mountain and carried to the new setting. Such -innovations will no doubt continue to be erected in this region until a -new generation has forgotten and prefers to tempt fate again rather than -go to the extra labor of building houses where it is so much easier to -dig them. - -Speaking of building, a very false impression prevails in the Western -world as to Chinese structures. Because of their scores of centuries of -existence and their tendency to cling to old things, many of us have -assumed that the Chinese people build for posterity. Quite the contrary -is the case. The Chinese, one is constantly being impressed, have their -chief interest in their ancestors, or themselves, not in their -descendants. Their coffins are made of mighty slabs of wood that have -much to do with the crime of deforestation; they may not only spend all -they have for the funeral of a father but often bankrupt themselves for -a generation. But their houses are the cheapest possible structures, -almost wholly made of the earth of the fields—the only material left, to -be sure, in many regions. Mud bricks, mud and straw walls, mud _k’angs_ -in place of bed, chair, divan, and table—even the roof-tiles are merely -a better baked form of mud. Nor is it only the humble homes that are -reduced to this material. The dwellings of men of wealth, the palaces of -the bygone dynasties, the very Temple of Heaven in Peking, the Great -Wall itself, are impermanent structures largely put together with wet -earth which is a sad substitute indeed for cement. It is as if, having -an unlimited supply of dirt-cheap labor and a great paucity of good -materials, the Chinese find something reprehensible in building too -solidly, a waste of valuable substance as against inexpensive toil, -perhaps a feeling that to build too well to-day will be unjust to those -who will want work to-morrow. This point of view pervades everything, -from imperial palaces to the tiniest of children’s toys, from temples -and pagodas to water-jars and mud jugs; almost all of them are flimsy or -easily destructible, whether by use, time, or the elements. The result -is that the country from beginning to end is in a constant state of -half-ruin or dismal disrepair, for the average life of most structures -is so short that while one is being built up again another is sure to -have fallen down. - -In contrast to the endless processions of wheat-wagons and the like of a -few days before, we met only two carts from dawn to sunset, and not many -foot-travelers. Back in the crowded loess cañons it had been a pleasure -to watch the expertness with which our chief cartman manipulated his -loosely joined mules and awkward conveyance, taking advantage of every -little break in the line of traffic, of every hesitation on the part of -others to forge ahead, and keeping almost at our heels when such a feat -seemed impossible. Here where travel was light his expertness was still -needed to escape the many pitfalls of the road, and still the carts came -close to keeping the pace we set. This was not breathless, to be sure; -ninety _li_ a day almost as regularly as the days dawned—and walled -cities or at least large villages seemed to have been exactly spaced to -accommodate travel at that rate. Our cartmen might have done their best, -anyway, but the promise of a dollar _cumshaw_ each for every day gained -on the regular schedule assured it. This obviated arguments, worry, and -a dozen other possible difficulties, and if our drivers insisted that it -was better to spend the night at such a town rather than attempt to push -on to the next we could take their word for it, which of itself was -quite worth the extra money. In striking contrast to one of the serious -drawbacks to cross-country travel in South America one could depend upon -most road information. Ask almost any one how many _li_ it was to such a -place, and the answer usually was not only quick but fairly accurate. -The finest thing about the Chinese _li_ is that you need not worry about -crossing a mountain or any other piece of unusually bad going; the _li_ -are shortened accordingly, and so many hours of steady plodding will -bring you to your destination irrespective of conditions along the way. - -Our road at length went down into the great cañon-bed of a little -meandering stream that spent its days, and its nights, too, no doubt, in -carrying away the cliffs which towered high above it, as they fell in -clouds of dust and dissolved into silt. A few hours along this brought -us to the rather striking town of Houei-ning, in a wide spot of the -river valley with hills piling high above it close on every side. These -and two distinct city walls enclosed what were virtually two towns, one -somewhat more open and seeming to harbor an unusual number of religious -edifices, the other crowded, with very narrow streets, still further -darkened by many fantastic old wooden _p’ai-lous_. There were -suggestions that the first was the Mohammedan quarter. Houei-ning was -also repairing its walls, had indeed built a big new gate, and was now -topping off the inner and principal defense with cream-colored brick -parapets, loopholes and all. Pure mud was the only mortar, except -between the topmost bricks, and the “masons” were small boys and old -men. Boys barely eight years old were carrying great loads of bricks; -those of ten or twelve had already been graduated into bricklayers. -Almost all of them had glowing red cheeks, but their faces and hands -were worse chapped than any one has ever seen, perhaps, outside China, -where long sleeves are the poor substitutes for gloves or mittens, and -hands toughened, not to say split and blackened, by exposure not only -endure greater cold but water several degrees hotter than can our own. - -[Illustration: - - This begging old ragamuffin is a Taoist priest -] - -[Illustration: - - A local magistrate sent this squad of “soldiers” to escort us through - the earthquake district, though whether for fear of bandits, out of - mere respect for our high rank, or because the “soldiers” needed a - few coppers which he could not give them himself, was not clear -] - -[Illustration: - - Where the “mountain walked” and overwhelmed the old tree-lined - highway. In places this was covered hundreds of feet deep for miles; - in others it had been carried bodily, trees and all, a quarter-mile - or more away -] - -[Illustration: - - In the earthquake district of western China whole terraced - mountain-sides came down and covered whole villages. In the - foreground is a typical Kansu farm -] - -Badly hit by the earthquake, Houei-ning was still full of cracks and -chasms and ruins, and the “roads” leading down into or out of it seemed -in many cases to drop into pitfalls and sometimes entirely to lose -themselves, or at least their sense of direction. There were many times -as many dead as living inhabitants. The almost golden-yellow landscape -of the verdureless mountain slopes about the town were more thickly -covered with graves than I could remember ever having seen before, -either in China or Korea; the myriads of little conical mounds suggested -spatters of raindrops on a rolling, golden sea. High in the hills close -above were what seemed to be a plethora of temples and monasteries, -while all the landscape bristled with stone monuments, most of them on -the backs of turtles, the rest handsome old ornamental arches of carved -stone, all more or less cracked and ruined. Houei-ning must have had -something of a history in bygone centuries, like so many now sleepy old -towns of China. - -Now it seemed to be the big market for those crude forked sticks which -do duty as pitchforks among the Chinese. All this region made a -four-tined one, with a wooden crosspiece let into and tied to the tines -and the end of the handle with tough grass, but Houei-ning evidently had -a monopoly on those grown in the form of a two-pronged implement. In -Honan perfect three-tined ones were grown in abundance, as rose-bushes -and the like are trained into fantastic shapes in Japan. The flimsiness -of construction which everywhere impresses itself upon the traveler in -China is nowhere more noticeable than in such peasants’ tools,—rakes a -mere bamboo pole with one end split, spread, and bent over in the form -of teeth; woven-wicker buckets for use at open holes in the fields that -do service as wells; little bent-willow shovels for the countless -thousands of boys and men, and not a few women and girls, who wander the -roads with their baskets—for gathering the droppings of animals seems to -be the favorite outdoor sport of China; it is a lonely trail and a -depopulated region indeed where these are left to mingle with the soil. -It was in Houei-ning, too, that we saw offered for sale guns that must -have been old when the Manchu dynasty began, guns slender as a lance, -eight feet or more long, with tiny butts apparently meant to be used -against the thumb instead of the shoulder, and some contraption for -firing that probably antedated the flint-lock by many decades. A -fetching touch of color that increased as the weather grew more bitingly -cold were the earlaps worn by nearly every one. In Kansu these are -almost always home-made and hand-embroidered in gaily colored designs of -birds, flowers, and the like, with much less violation of artistic -standards than one would expect. - -All through this region a custom wide-spread in China was very generally -practised. That is, almost all boys from perhaps four to twelve years of -age wore round their necks an iron chain big enough to restrain an -enraged bulldog, and usually fastened together with a large -native-forged padlock, though there would have been no difficulty in -lifting off the whole contraption. The object of this adornment is to -protect the precious male offspring from ill luck—here, perhaps, to keep -the big fish from wagging his tail again. If parents have any reason to -suspect that evil spirits are on the trail of a son, they hasten to a -temple and put him in pawn to an idol, as it were; that is, they have a -priest hang a chain, with much hocus-pocus, about his neck, thereby -deceiving the powers of evil into believing that he is not their son at -all but that he belongs to the temple. In a way this is true, for before -he can be “redeemed” again by the parents the priest, who keeps the key -of the padlock, must be generously rewarded. Let a boy fall ill, and no -time is lost in evoking this sure protection; especially if one dies, -his surviving or later-born brother is chained at once. The constant -efforts of evil spirits to do injury to a family through the still -unmarried sons, of whom ancestor-worship requires posterity, is one of -the greatest banes of Chinese existence. Not the least uncommon of the -tricks resorted to for the discomfiture of these unseen enemies is to -give the boy a girl’s name, for naturally no evil spirit is going to -waste his time in trying to injure a mere female. - - -The city gates of Houei-ning do not open until six, after which we went -down again into labyrinthian loess gullies, across a broad fertile -valley, and finally into a river cañon. Nothing could have been more -dull than the long morning through this dreary chasm, in utter silence -except for our own noises, and a rare donkey-boy singing his way along -the top of the cliff far above. But, as if to make up for this dismal -stretch, the road clambered early in the afternoon to the summit of a -high ridge, with perhaps the most marvelous series of vistas of all our -journey. There were crazy-shaped fields at every possible height, ragged -little hollows that looked exactly like shell-holes, even their tiny -bottoms carefully cultivated, threshing-floors throwing up grain like -bursts of shrapnel, clusters of farm buildings of the identical color of -all the landscape, and always surrounded by high mud walls, a wildly -chaotic yet completely tamed land, utterly bare brown, turned golden by -the brightest of suns and the clearest of air, with only the faintest -purple haze on the far edges of the horizon. The trail had taken again -to one of the pell-mell slopes of a mighty stream-worn crack in the -earth and worked its way in and out along the haphazard face of this, -across natural earth bridges, over jutting spurs and perpendicular -ridges, into pockets where, cut off from the breeze but still in the -brilliant sunshine, it was almost uncomfortably warm, and gradually -carried us higher and higher on a ridge that swung more and more to the -south. The miserable half-ruined mud village in which we found lodging -was so high that to step out into the night was like diving into -ice-water. Yet we kept to the ridge for hours more next morning before -the road abandoned it at last and plunged headlong down into a big -valley supporting the ancient town of Ngan-ting. An unusually huge wall -of irregular shape, with very fancy high gates, surrounded the same -crowds of staring, dirty people, of filthy-nosed, half-naked children -and crippled women, all huddled together in the cold shadows instead of -spreading out in the sunshine of the open world all about them. -Ngan-ting seemed to be an important garrison town, through which we -passed just in time to become entangled in some manœver resembling -formal guard-mount, amid the barbaric blaring of many Chinese bugles. -Our carts meanwhile had scorned the town and were on their way down the -widest river valley yet. Along this the avenue of trees, some of their -trunks scarred with pictorial obscenities, kept up in a half-hearted -way; but scrub-poplar and sometimes almost branchless trunks were poor -substitutes for the magnificent old willows farther east. Many of these -had been cut down in this region, as huge stumps on a level with the -earth showed. Apparently there is nothing that so exasperates the -Chinese as the sight of a live tree; it would look so much better shaped -as a coffin or turned into temple doors. - -Suddenly, just beyond Ngan-ting, both sexes and all ages took to making -yarn, in the Andean style of twirling a bobbin as they wandered about, -and to knitting, not merely caps and stockings, but whole suits. We had -once or twice been shocked some days earlier at the sight of a -camel-driver calmly twiddling his knitting-needles as he strode or rode -along, a pastime bad enough in talkative old ladies and tea-party guests -who decline to waste their time, and certainly far beneath the dignity -of the great male sex! But some missionary, it seemed, had started the -craze—for a generation or so ago knitting was as unknown in China as -real peanuts or the weaving of woolen clothing—and had neglected to -explain its proper segregation. There had been no rain in all this -region for a whole year, they said, and we had been advised to buy -rain-water only of the Mohammedans, even if they forced us to pay high -for it, since that to be had from the mere Chinese might be rank poison -even after boiling. Somewhere along the way I had seen a blind youth -marching round and round one of those two-stone grist-mills to be found -all over China, and most often operated by a blindfolded donkey. His -short hair where cues were still the fashion, and a not unattractive -young woman watching him from a near-by doorway with an expression that -might easily have been taken for a satisfied leer, naturally called up -the memory of Samson and Delilah. Indeed, the fellow swung his head from -side to side and lifted his feet unnecessarily high at every step in a -way to prove that the late Caruso had learned at least one stage trick -from real life. But the Philistines in this case were only the filth and -lack of care which leave so many Chinese children sightless. There was a -little blind boy of five that morning, for instance, carrying a baby -brother of two, each wearing a single rag; and the baby was telling the -boy where to step, though he afterward ran a bit alone and made the -threshing-floor without mishap through many pitfalls. - - -In the account of his travels in China a decade ago Professor Ross has a -chapter entitled, “Unbinding the Women of China.” One of the professor’s -finest traits, however, is over-optimism. Foot-binding most certainly -showed no signs of dying out in any of the territory through which we -passed in our two months’ journey out into the northwest. A group of -little girls from six to eight years old toddling along the road on -crippled feet, yet carrying heavy baskets and driven, like calves to -market, by a sour-faced old woman whose own feet still seemed to pain -her at every step, was no unusual sight. One might easily have fancied -they were to be offered for sale—girls can be bought for a mere song in -this region. How often we passed a child in her early teens astride a -donkey urged on by a man on foot, her little tapering legs ending in -mere knots, her face so whitened and rouged that she looked like some -inanimate and over-decorated doll! Only another bride, or concubine, on -her way to the home of a husband or a master she had never seen. Girls -certainly not yet ten years old were already shuffling about house- and -threshing-floors in their football knee-pads; little girls dismally -crying in some mud pen to which they had been banished because they -could not suppress such signs of pain from their newly bound feet, or -hobbling a few yards along the road with set lips, emphasized the fact -that there are far worse fates even than being born a boy in China. - -Crippled feet would be bad enough in comfort and warmth and with plenty -of servants to save steps, as probably most Westerners fancy Chinese -women have who are thus “beautified.” But if there is any decrease in -foot-binding at all, it is among the well-to-do, the wealthy in large -cities who might sit perpetually in cushions and spare their little -feet. Your peasant and countryman is most insistent that the old custom -be kept up; he would sneer with scorn at the thought of taking a wife -with natural feet; he sternly insists that his daughters’ feet be bound. -Stumping about their filthy huts, shivering with mountain cold, probably -never washing all over once in a lifetime, it is astonishing that these -country women do not all die of gangrene or something of the sort. How -they keep such feet warm, when they cannot move rapidly, when they ride -sometimes all day in a cold so bitter that even we were forced to get -off and walk at frequent intervals, is a question I have never yet heard -answered. Perhaps the foot becomes a kind of hoof, devoid of feeling and -incapable of freezing. - -At first thought one might fancy that at least a few mothers who had -suffered all their lives would spare their daughters similar misery. -For, they have told missionary women, their bound feet hurt whenever -they walk, and generally they have pains also in the legs and the back -as long as they live. Knowing how serious a mere broken arch may be, it -is not hard for us to imagine what it must mean to have the arch doubled -back upon itself by turning the toes under and squeezing the heel up to -meet them, and then insisting that the victim walk. But even if the -mothers were devoid of that wide-spread human cussedness which makes -misery love company, even if the father did not absolutely insist, there -is the economic question. Girls must have husbands—“or they will -starve,” as even experienced Peking _amas_ put it. There is no provision -in the Chinese scheme of family for old maids. But granting that all -these insuperable difficulties have been overcome, there is the girl -herself with whom to reckon. If she has reached the age—six to -seven—when the binding should begin, and it has not begun, she is likely -to commence by insisting, and to advance to weeping and tearing her hair -unless the oversight is corrected. In other words, girls cry if their -feet are not bound; and they certainly cry if they are, so that there is -apparently no escape from tears. You would hardly expect a modest -American school-girl willingly to consent to mingle with her companions -if she were obliged to wear trousers, or to cut her hair boy fashion; -and in China “face,” the fear of ridicule and public opinion, is much -stronger than in the United States, and customs and precedents are far -more solidly intrenched. Naturally the Chinese girl would rather face a -little suffering—for at her age she probably has only a hazy idea of the -length of the ordeal and the severity of the pain involved—than to be -made fun of all her life for her “boy’s feet,” and, worse still, to lose -all chance of getting a husband, which she has been taught to think is -the most dreadful, in fact the most unsurvivable, fate that can befall -her. Once in a while some poor orphan girl is so “neglected” that no one -takes the trouble to bind her feet; and she becomes the village slattern -and a horrible example to all “decent” girls. For of course she cannot -get a husband; she will be unusually fortunate if some one gives her a -job as a barn-yard drudge. - -Our hostess at one of the mission stations knew a girl whose feet had -not been bound but who turned out to be very pretty. One day an -important official happened to see her as he was passing through the -district. “What a pity,” he said, “that her feet are not bound, for if -they were I would take her as a concubine.” - -“Oh, do not let that stand in the way of your desire, your Excellency,” -cried the enchanted mother; “give me a year and I will have her ready -for you.” - -“But you cannot bind her feet in a year,” replied the official. - -“Only leave it to me, your Excellency, and I shall not fail you,” -persisted the mother. - -A year later the girl took the proud position that had been offered her, -as concubine to what, to the simple country people, was a very great -man; but to this day, though she still keeps her precarious place, she -cannot walk a step. For instead of starting gradually, by bending the -toes under and wrapping them in wet cloths that shrink, then tying them -down more tightly and beginning to draw up the heel the following year, -and so on, this mother was working against time. So she literally cut -much of the flesh off the girl’s feet, broke nearly every bone in them, -and by the time the year was up she had made her as helpless a cripple -as any mandarin could have wanted for a plaything. - -The best style of bound feet, it seems, have the bones broken. Exacting -men ask if this has been done, and show worth-while approval at an -affirmative answer. Feet seem to vary in size and style by localities. -In some places on our western trip they were so small that no real foot -remained; the leg tapered down without a break to the end, almost as if -it had been cut off at the ankle. In fact we often wondered if it would -not have been much simpler and far less painful to amputate the feet -entirely. In other places the big toe was left, and with it something of -the shape of a foot. But under this the tiny shoe was generally fitted -with a miniature heel, often red in better-to-do cases, which made -walking next to impossible. With no give and take of the leg-muscles, -these of course soon dry up, so that the leg resembles a tapering wooden -stump and the gait bears out the likeness. Foot-binding is certainly a -wonderful scheme to keep the women from gadding about; and in a land -where they are seldom expected to leave the compound in which they are -delivered to the husband—or mother-in-law—this no doubt is considered a -great asset. Earlier writers have told of districts in which the feet -are no longer bound because of the sad experiences of fleeing women who -could not keep up with their men-folks at the time of the great -Mohammedan rebellion. But we never saw any such districts. Probably the -experiences have been forgotten, and custom has reasserted itself. The -Mohammedans, by the way, are just as bad as the mere Chinese in this -matter of foot-binding; if I remember rightly, the Koran has nothing to -say against it. - -As far as we noticed, the missionaries in the northwest did not seem to -be making any great effort to reduce this most atrocious of Chinese -customs. Some of them appeared to be more eager to save souls than -soles, though in general they were men and women of sound common sense, -with their own feet on the ground rather than with their heads lost in -the clouds. Suffering and misery, immorality and wicked superstitions -are so general in China that the mere crippling of the feet soon becomes -but one of many possible points of attack. Christian converts are not -allowed to bind their feet; if they are already bound, they are -expected, in theory at least, to unbind them, though this in the case of -older women is not always possible. Girls with bound feet are refused -admission to most, if not all, Christian schools; and a few of the best -government institutions are commencing to follow suit. The best argument -of all against the practice is the plain economic one. If you bind your -daughter’s feet she cannot marry within the church, the missionaries -tell a convert, for Christian boys will not have her. As available -husbands of that point of view increase, the girls are of course more -and more willing to run the risk of not having themselves adorned with -lily feet. But, to be frank, Christianity is not rapidly increasing, and -bound feet seem to be as prevalent, at least in northern China, as ever, -except in Peking and a few coast cities, where it is against the law, in -Manchuria, where it is contrary to custom, in the rather small and -scattered Christian communities, and among a few of the more progressive -families in the larger cities. - -Custom is not only a curiously tenacious weed but often a quick-growing -one. I was impressed with the latter thought one morning when, in riding -into a town of some size, I caught sight of a woman with natural feet, -such as I had not seen perhaps for a week; and the first flash to cross -my mind might have been expressed in some such exclamation as, “My, but -isn’t she ugly!” The abnormal type is always ugly, and if, in a mere -week, a foreigner can become so accustomed to the normal Chinese woman, -who tapers down like a sharpened stake, that an uncrippled one strikes -him, even momentarily, as a kind of monstrosity, it is easy to -understand why the Chinese have come in many centuries to consider this -alteration of the human form both an improvement and a necessity. Nor is -the custom so universally injurious to the health as the rest of the -world naturally supposes. Women with cheeks bright red without the aid -of rouge, yet with the tiniest of feet, were no more unusual in Kansu -than the filthy, old, and totally unattractive ones who scuttled away -into their holes as if they were in imminent danger when two harmless -foreigners rode by on travel-weary pack-mules. - - -Beyond “Dry Straw Hotel”—most Chinese place names are quaint and simple -if you translate them—where we made the noonday halt on the next to the -last day of the journey, the hills were no longer terraced, perhaps -because they were too steep, but lay piled up in a thousand folds and -wrinkles that made them even more beautiful. Wheat was flowing the other -way now, toward Lanchow, mainly on donkeys. There was much stone in the -soil of the great plain across which we jogged with a growing sensation -of eagerness that afternoon, and to the left, hazy under the low sun, -the beginning of the high ranges bordering Tibet. Large towns were -frequent, though there was no decrease in dirt and poverty. - -[Illustration: - - Kansu earlaps are very gaily embroidered in colored designs of birds, - flowers, and the like. Pipes are smaller than their “ivory” - mouthpieces -] - -[Illustration: - - It is a common sight in some parts of Kansu to see men knitting, and - still more so to meet little girls whose feet are already beginning - to be bound -] - -[Illustration: - - The village scholar displays his wisdom by reading where all can see - him—through spectacles of pure plate-glass -] - -[Illustration: - - A Kirghiz in the streets of Lanchow, where many races of central Asia - meet -] - -Toward sunset we were accosted at the beginning of a defile by two -Chinese on sleigh-bell-jingling horses, one of whom handed us a letter. -It was from the chief Protestant missionary of Lanchow, a friend of the -major’s, to whom he had written from Sian-fu announcing our coming. -Rapidly as we had traveled, the coolie-borne fast mail had so far -outstripped us that here was the reply, welcoming us to the city and -regretting that, since we were to arrive on a Sunday, services made it -impossible for the writer to come out and meet us in person. To be met -thirty miles out by a host, even by proxy, struck us as real -hospitality; and the fact that the messengers had no difficulty in -identifying us is all that need be said as to the scarcity of Caucasian -travelers in Kansu. Even had they missed us among the labyrinthian paths -and gullies, they would not have gone far before some one would have -told them that the two foreigners had already passed. In all the sixteen -days we saw on the road two pairs of Russian Jews and two Dutch Catholic -priests, and had spent the night with two sets of missionaries and dined -with a third. One of the messengers was to return to Lanchow post-haste -with news of our arrival, and the other was to serve us as guide. They -do some things in a regal fashion in the far interior of China. - -The last town in which we were forced to pass a night was a miserable -collection of filth and half-baked mud, though rich in grain, stacks -covering the flat roofs and surrounding the hard-earth floors on which -it was still being threshed; though two brand-new temples gleamed forth -from the general ugliness. All next morning a half-witted road, -evidently bent on outdoing itself as a fitting climax of the journey, -wandered along a wide river valley cut up everywhere not only by the -meandering stream itself but by hundreds of irrigation ditches. All -these were frozen over more or less solidly, with the result that -progress was a constant struggle with our mules, already jaded with -fatigue and fright and covered with icicles when we climbed at last to -the bank and made our way through almost continuous villages by a narrow -road. Even here irrigation ditches still made trouble, and strings of -carts and camels reduced progress materially, though this did not -greatly matter, since there was no difficulty in keeping up with our -carts that had been obliged to continue along the river bottom. Pure -loess had disappeared some days before, but the soil was merely a bit -more solid along the road that had been deliberately cut through a hill -beyond which I came out sooner than I had expected upon the Yellow -River, here racing swiftly through a deep rocky gorge and rather gray -than yellow in color. Extraordinary activity had broken out in the large -town forty _li_ from the end of our journey, for hundreds of men were -building a real embankment, hauling stone from far up the river-bed, and -preparing to throw a bridge across the tributary down which we had come. -But the enterprise, it turned out, was not the complete nullification of -the opinion we had formed of the Chinese inability to accomplish public -works, for it was being done with American relief funds under the -supervision of the host who was awaiting us. - -Tobacco grew all along the last fertile miles of the journey, and the -increasing population busied itself in stripping leaves instead of -winnowing grain. These were carried home in two-man litters made of -matting, while the stripped stalks evidently served as fuel. For some -reason, which no one could explain to us, many of the fields were still -covered with the grown plants, shriveled and brown from the early winter -frosts, and in many cases covered with a kind of straw cap. Then the -road thought better of the short respite it had given us and plunged -uphill through another genuine loess cañon, where cliffs seemed ready to -fall in clouds of dust and camel-trains crowded. Out of this we broke an -hour or more later upon a far-reaching view of the wide, open plain -walled by mountains, across which, still twenty _li_ distant, lay the -capital of China’s westernmost province. - - - - - CHAPTER XXIV - IN MOHAMMEDAN CHINA - - -High up above the plain of Lanchow, on the topmost hillock of the partly -terraced mountains that bound it on the south, stands a new pagoda. It -was built by the wife of the former Tuchun, but as neither he nor she, -nor her particular brand of Buddhism, were popular favorites, the people -say that their prosperity departed on the day it was completed. -Conspicuous as it is from many _li_ away, no one seems to visit it. At -least there was not another footstep in the snow that had fallen some -days before when I climbed to it one morning, and its three stories, -open to all the world, showed not a single recent human trace. The mere -fact that it took three hours of steady and not easy climbing, first by -a mountain trail to some distant village, then at random up and across -terraces where the feet floundered in snow and loose earth, could hardly -have accounted for this abandonment; for no holy place in the Orient is -too difficult of access for an occasional zealot. No, the pagoda of the -Tuchun’s wife was plainly not a welcome addition to the landscape. - -It was unsurpassed, however, for its bird’s-eye view of Lanchow and its -environs; though, to be sure, a steam-heated lounging-room would have -improved it at this season. While the capital of China’s most western -province is on the thirty-sixth parallel, like Memphis, Tennessee, it is -five thousand feet above sea-level, and the wind-swept pagoda was much -more so. The snow had now laid the dust that swirled so easily when we -rode into the city, but it had not fallen deep enough to hide any -important features of the great oval plain stretching from the foot of -this southern barrier to the Yellow River, beyond which the world piled -itself up again in what would have been the familiar brown, utterly -barren tumbled hills of northwestern China but for its light mantle of -winter white. The plain was not a mighty checker-board, for the myriad -divisions into which the little low mud barriers between its fields -marked it were altogether too numerous and fantastic in shape. But as a -whole it gave that impression, or, still more exactly, it resembled a -mammoth pane of glass that had been shattered into many more than a -thousand pieces, and then laid together again on a flat surface by some -artist in Chinese puzzles. - -When we had first ridden across this oasis many slender, misformed trees -caught the eye, but from this height these barely relieved the vast -expanse of an appearance of total treelessness. On that day we had -noticed many fields of gray, a color so out of keeping with an autumn -Kansu landscape that we were eager with curiosity until we found that -acres after acres had been carefully covered, apparently by hand, with -small stones. This was a method of keeping the precious moisture in the -ground, which, our host explained, was common to all this region; when -the fields are tilled or planted the stones are merely raked away from a -small space at a time and then quickly replaced. We resolved to tell the -next group of New England farmers we met that there are people who -purposely cover their fields with stones. - -The snow of course had obliterated these mere variations in color, -though it had not disguised the fact that by far the greater part of -this fertile flat-land was wasted in graves. Under the thin white layer -thousands upon thousands of the little cones of earth that serve as -tombstones to the garden variety of Chinese looked like peas, or, let us -say, mustard-seeds under a sheet, while the _p’ai-lous_ and stone -monuments scattered among these would of themselves have filled a very -large graveyard. The huge barracks which had oozed and absorbed soldiers -incessantly when we passed it lay half-way or more toward the eastern -end of the plain, where we had descended upon it out of the last loess -cañon. In the other direction, the eye, sweeping hastily across Lanchow -itself, hurdling several clusters of temples and many nondescript heaps -of mud buildings, fell at length upon the four big round forts erected -on the crests of the ridge shutting in the valley on the southwest, -against the next Mohammedan rebellion. During the several uprisings of -the Moslem Chinese Lanchow itself has never been taken, but it was at -least once so long and closely besieged that cannibalism is said to have -flourished within its walls. After the last revolt the defenders saw the -wisdom of fortifying this high ridge, from which the city had been so -easily bombarded, and which is the last barrier between it and Hochow, -the “Mohammedan capital,” only two hundred _li_ away. - -[Illustration: - - An _ahong_, or Chinese Mohammedan mullah of Lanchow -] - -[Illustration: - - Mohammedan school-girls, whose garments were a riot of color -] - -[Illustration: - - A glimpse of Lanchow, capital of China’s westernmost province, from - across the Yellow River -] - -[Illustration: - - Looking down the valley of Lanchow, across several groups of temples - at the base of the hills, to the four forts built against another - Mohammedan rebellion -] - -From the height of the despised pagoda the several walls of Lanchow, -enclosing even its extensive suburbs, look like the graphic design on -some large scale of relief-map of an over-ambitious draftsman; for not -even those of Peking have as many sections and certainly no such angular -afterthoughts. But the city lies well out on the further edge of the -valley, as close as possible to the Yellow River, and to get anything -more than a general view of it one must come down again from the pagoda. -The south gate, nearest this, is the one by which all luck comes into -the city, so that no coffin or corpse is ever allowed to pass through -it. High up over the portal itself, in the most conspicuous place, is -one of those huge wooden placards with a few large characters, bringing -to any one who can read them the astonishing information, “Ten thousand -_li_ of Golden Soup.” This has no reference, as the first dozen -incredibly naked and gaunt yellow beggars to accost the stranger will -show, to any unusual abundance of nourishment; it is merely a poetic -reference to the river close under the north wall, which one with a -poet’s license might find golden, and which easily covers the distance -mentioned in its vagrancy from the highlands of Tibet to the gulf of -Chihli. Nor is it any great stretch of the imagination to call it soup, -here in Lanchow, where every one, rich or poor, native or foreign, -drinks it every day of his life. - -Within the gate one plunges into the chaos of any large Chinese city. -Outside the brilliant sunshine floods everything; within is mud and ice -and gloom, and only rarely, in the narrow streets, the briefest glimpse -of the low winter sun. The Yellow River is incessantly being carried to -its consumers in two-bucket lots over the shoulders of tireless coolies, -and these perpetually slop street, alley, and noisome lanes with -delightful impartiality. The chief north gate of Lanchow, paved at a -slight slope with big slabs of stone rounded off by the centuries, is -impassable for animals and carts, and almost for pedestrians, during -midwinter; for the water-carriers find it their easiest entrance and -keep the pavement constantly sheeted with new ice. With Peking in mind -the almost total absence of rickshaws would be astounding, had they not -already been half forgotten in the long journey across the province in -which they are virtually unknown. Bright red “Peking carts” hooded with -the omnipresent blue denim and drawn by big sleek mules jolt the -well-to-do about town. Officials still use the gaily colored -sedan-chairs of viceregal days; some inhabitants bestride native ponies -or occasionally a donkey; but the great rank and file, of course, ride -shanks’ mare. The streets offer myriad Chinese sights, sounds, and -smells, yet little that may not be seen, heard, and smelled in other -Chinese cities, so alike have the centuries left this wide-spread race, -so different is the land of Confucius from its neighbor, India, where -districts a hundred miles apart are often quite diverse. The Chinese -themselves assert that “every ten _li_ has new customs,” but they refer -to minor inconspicuous things which easily escape the attention of the -most leisurely traveler. - -Lanchow already boasted the rudiments of electric light and telephone -systems which may in time improve beyond the exclusive, embryonic stage. -Far more prominent were walking corpses who crawled into garbage-barrels -by night and begged by day—before the winter was over Lanchow was -throwing these into open trenches in the outskirts as they starved to -death—precious padlocked boys, and the dull _thump-thump_ of -_feng-hsiang_, “wind-boxes” serving as bellows for cooks and craftsmen -along every important street. The better-class women wore their feet -only half bound, which was at least the beginning of an improvement. -Manchu girls, we were informed, could be bought for eight ounces of -silver each, which would be less than six American dollars; but there -were no outward signs whatever of the profligacy which this appalling -depreciation in human flesh must surely have abetted, for superficial -decorum in some matters is the most outstanding of Chinese traits. - -Many shops had closed, residents told us, because of the dreadful -condition of the local currency. To our Western eyes there seemed plenty -of them left, and the rattling of the “coppers” which had been forced -upon the district made the narrow soggy streets sound like endless -chain-lockers overwhelmed by an unprecedented run of business. The -former Tuchun had printed paper notes and compelled the people to accept -them at par, but the moment he left these had dropped to eight cents on -the dollar and were gone now to the limbo of such things. The silver -dollar was so rare as almost to be out of circulation, and besides the -miserable molded brass and sand impositions of the present lord of the -province—or of as much of it as he could reach with his own -soldiers—there was nothing whatever but the _tael_, so that every one -handling money must have scales in which to weigh out the irregular -chunks of silver, throwing in bits of it resembling buck-shot to make -the balance exact. Even then, of course, there were innumerable -opportunities for disputes, for it would not be Chinese to have one -system of weights, or scales which agreed, or which there was no easy -way of manipulating according to whether the owner was buying or -selling; and silver of course varies greatly in purity. Thus the people -of Lanchow were able to indulge to their hearts’ content in the beloved -Chinese pastime of squabbling over money matters, but it was a mystery -how merchants could carry on at all. - -Truly the money problem is fantastic in this western country. Our host -had to send two hundred _taels_ (about $143 in U. S. currency) to pay a -week’s wages to the workmen who were building, with the remnant of -American earthquake-relief funds, the bridge forty _li_ to the eastward, -and as the money had to be in “Lanchow coppers” it required eight -pack-mules to get it there. When the great ditch for draining the -largest lake we had seen in the earthquake district was being dug, seven -tons of “cash” were required on every pay-day for the three thousand -workmen. - - -However, what did all this matter to a mere visitor who could spend -his time idly strolling the town? As in Sian-fu, access to its great -wall was forbidden; but unlike my experience there, where a -lieutenant-colonel and a large military escort was furnished me with -the Tuchun’s permission to make the circuit of it, which “face” -therefore obliged me to do on horseback, Lanchow’s entire “foreign -office,” in the person of a gentleman of delightfully uncertain -English, made the stroll with me on a brilliant Sunday morning. Half a -dozen temples rose in artistic little open-work structures above the -general level, two or three of them the minarets of mosques from which -at certain hours sounded the voice of the muezzin, hardly to be -distinguished from those of street-hawkers. Dyers had enlivened the -scene with great strips of drying cloth, overwhelmingly coolie blue in -color; on some of the roofs sat huge jars filled with some local -delicacy made of pickled vegetables. We were high enough to look -across the crest of the ridge on which stand the round forts against -revolting Moslems, and to see these apparently unoccupied, though -surrounded by a wilderness of cone-topped graves as far as the eye -could be certain of what it saw. At regular intervals we passed the -little stone and mud houses to be found on any important Chinese city -wall, each with two or three soldiers napping or amusing themselves -within. Whistling pigeons, familiar even to the residents of Peking, -filled the transparent air with a wailing sound, ebbing or increasing -as the flocks behind the whistlers circled back and forth over the -city, now flashing white and almost invisible, now suddenly changing -again to the blue of shimmering silk as the whole swirl of birds -turned their backs upon us. The whistle is a feather-weight one of -cylindrical shape, and is fastened to the pigeon in such a way that -the wind, rushing through it as he flies, makes him and his few -whistle-bearing companions a perpetual orchestra. The Chinese purpose -in all this seems to be partly musical and partly to gather other -pigeons, which flock about the whistlers like children about the _Pied -Piper_. Perhaps the birds are eventually used as food, but this seems -rather to be an example of that Chinese love for feathered pets which -so often sends staid old gentlemen out for a stroll, cage in hand, in -order to give birdie an airing. - -A score or more of big gates tower above the general level of the -several-walled city. In the northern and more Mohammedan section we -looked down upon a great sheet of blood-pink ice, covering a pond where -the Moslems are for ever washing newly slaughtered sheep. The circuit -brought us at length to the northern wall, which falls sheer into the -Yellow River. The American bridge thrown across this a decade ago, the -only one in the west, or, I believe, with the exception of the two on -the railways south from Peking, throughout the whole rambling course of -“China’s Sorrow,” still looks incongruous against the background of the -old walled city or of the heaped-up suburb terminating in a golden-brown -pagoda on the further bank. Now and then a train of camels or a herd of -wild half-yak come streaming across it, increasing the incongruity. -Huddled together in that little perpendicular outskirt at the northern -end of the bridge are several mosques and a Moslem school, temples -dedicated to Confucius, Lao-tze, and Buddha, nearly a dozen of them -piled up the hill at regular intervals as stations on the pilgrimage to -the pagoda; and not far beyond these is a memorial hospital bearing the -family name of the best known brand of American condensed milk! Not that -this is all, of course, for there are also gambling-dens and assorted -shops, inn-yards dusty with rolling mules, craftsmen busily engaged in -the din of their trades, peddlers of everything shrieking their wares, -water-carriers slopping the steep streets with ice, and higher up among -the beautiful bare hills that vary with every mood of the unclouded sun -one can trace the ruined walls of what was once a Tartar city, long -before Lanchow itself was founded many centuries ago. To-day three -thousand soldiers were escorting a bright new sedan-chair out along this -further bank to meet an emissary of Wu Pei-fu who had journeyed to -Lanchow by the northern route, and banners of many colors waved in the -breeze that brought the snorting of many bugles to our ears. - -Rafts made of blown-up goatskins and a wooden framework come floating -down the Yellow River to Lanchow, bringing wheat from the borders of -Tibet and travelers from Sining; often a whole stack of hay or straw, -which seems to be sitting serenely on the surface of the water itself, -glides past. Vegetable oils from hundreds of miles up the stream are -landed at the low spot near Lanchow’s picturesque camel-back bridge in -big bullock- or half-yak hides, still covered with their long hair, -which on land quiver at a touch, like living animals. Down in the -perpetual shadow of the north wall one of the goatskin rafts on which -Kansu does much of its down-stream traveling in warmer seasons was being -tied together for a belated trip, and a cluster or two of logs from the -Tibetan slopes was being readjusted before continuing its long cold -journey, which would not end until the winter was over, to the -coffin-shops of eastern China. A great wooden water-wheel at the edge of -the river added another medieval touch to the scene; and at length our -stroll was brought to a temporary halt at the locked and soldier-guarded -gate beyond which the city wall belongs to the Tuchun’s private grounds. -I had already seen these, with their rows of barracks, their gardens and -artificial-stone grottos, the two pet Kansu wapiti that bugled so -fiercely when a foreigner paused to look at them, and the score of -buildings that eventually gave way to the main entrance, with its huge -devil-screen and gaudy painted demons, opening on the swarming -second-hand market. - - -In the long open space before the Tuchun’s “yamen”—as they still call it -in Lanchow, for all China’s conversion to republicanism—there stand to -this day the four high poles, daubed with red and each bearing a kind of -seaman’s “crow’s-nest,” which were the symbols of the Manchu viceroy who -ruled northwestern China in the old imperial days. From these the -military governor still flies four great banners, and it would not be -difficult to forget that any change of régime has come over this distant -province. The rectangle of public domain between the entrance to the -yamen and its farthest devil-screen outpost is the busiest market-place -of Lanchow, and swarms from dawn to sunset with as dense a throng of -ragamuffins as can be found in one collection anywhere in northern -China. For it is made up of the buyers and sellers of all manner of -second-hand junk, stuff which in America would be entirely thrown away, -of the owners and the clients of outdoor portable restaurants in which -the whole menu does not cost more than two or three real cents, of all -the odds and ends of Chinese society, among whom Lanchow’s incredibly -starved and ragged beggars and her rafts of thieves probably -predominate. - -Both these latter callings are banded together into gilds, as in most of -China. Our host had known well the former head of the thieves’ gild, not -because he made a practice of keeping such company, or had any hope of -bringing him into the Christian fold, but because all owners of -important property found it essential to their peace and prosperity to -come to some understanding with him. Though he was strictly Chinese, -this clever old rascal had been the accepted ruler even of the -Mohammedan “three-hand men,” who flourish in great numbers, and who now -obeyed the not yet widely advertised chieftain who had recently -inherited his power and unfailing emoluments. Among the Moslem Chinese -in particular there is as much pride in belonging to this adventurous -calling as to any which the country has to offer, though in the nature -of the case this pride may not be as freely shouted from the housetops. -Mohammedan children are given long and careful training for it, and the -fathers in whose footsteps they usually follow show a justifiable -delight in any extraordinary professional feat accomplished by their -offspring. It is not difficult to understand, therefore, why persons of -property find it better to make an agreement with the thieves through -their chief than to depend for protection upon officials and police not -very distantly related to them. I need scarcely go into details as to -how the members of this romantic gild are not only induced to let -certain properties alone but to protect them against any outsider, any -“scab” thief who does not belong to the union. A single example will be -quite sufficient. The innkeeper who held the contract for carrying the -government mails in and out of Lanchow paid fifteen dollars a month to -the head of the thieves’ gild—through the police at their main -station!—and these mails were never molested even in the most desolate -parts of the country. - -One little tale, too, will suffice to show how expert thieves belonging -to the union must become before they can look for praise within their -own ranks. If at any instant during the telling the suspicion of -exaggeration should raise its head, let it be borne in mind that the -host from whom I have it is both a Britisher and a missionary of the -highest standing, and the son of a highly respected gentleman to whom -the same statements may be equally applied. - -A thief who was approaching old age decided to mend his ways before the -time came to meet Allah face to face. He opened a mutton-shop on one of -the less frequented streets. Next door to him was the large compound of -a very wealthy Chinese merchant. One day, as he was separating the -carcass of a fat-tailed sheep into its component parts, the ex-thief -noticed several young Mohammedans grouped closely together across the -way and furtively eying the rich man’s gateway. He recognized these -fellows at once as belonging to the organization from which he had -recently resigned, and their movements were a plain indication to a man -of his experience that they were planning to rob his wealthy neighbor -that very night. When he closed shop, therefore, he asked permission of -the gate-keeper to speak with the prospective victim, whom he told all -he knew, even of his own experience in his former profession. - -“But what shall I do?” demanded the man of wealth, as one suddenly -stricken might ask for expert advice from a gray-haired lawyer or a -septuagenarian physician. - -“That is easy,” replied the ex-thief. “The simplest way of breaking into -your compound is for a small and supple man to crawl under your gate, -where you have not recently taken the trouble to do any repairing. Hide -yourself in the darkness beside this, and when the man’s head appears -inside put a brick under his chin and go away.” - -The merchant conducted himself exactly as his expert neighbor had -advised. When the thieves outside found it impossible to rescue their -bricked comrade, and dared wait no longer, they severed his body at the -neck and carried it away. In the morning the rich man came to the -mutton-shop early and in great agitation. - -“See what a pretty plight you have got me into!” he cried. “When I came -out to the gate before daylight to see if there was anything the gateman -should not see, what did I find but the head of a man, and the blood -that had flowed from him when he lost it! Now the police——” - -“Do not distress yourself, sir,” replied the mutton-seller. “I will take -care of the head, and when your _k’an-men-ti_ speaks to me about the -blood, as he is sure to do, I will tell him a newly killed sheep was -left there by mistake. As to the gang starting any inquiries about their -lost companion, that is the last thing they would dare or wish to do.” - -All went as the ex-thief had outlined it, but that afternoon, as he was -drumming on his chopping-block with a cleaver in the hope of attracting -customers for the last morsels of mutton, whom should he see across the -way but the same band of ruffians, minus, of course, one of those who -had gathered the day before. Their heads were together again, but this -time their furtive glances seemed to be turned not so much toward the -rich man’s gate as upon the mutton-seller. - -“Aha!” thought the latter, for he was inordinately clever in reading the -gestures and glances of his former brethren-in-arms, “they suspect me of -thwarting their plans and have decided to kill me.” - -Therefore that night, when it was time for him to stretch out on his -_k’ang_, he placed upon it, instead, a sheepskin that he had blown full -of air and covered it over with some old clothes. Then he hid himself in -the darkness outside. - -It was exactly as he had suspected. Hardly had he begun to long for a -cigarette when several forms slunk past him and entered his hovel. There -came the dull sounds of as many blows as each thrust his knife into the -sheepskin, followed by an escape of air resembling the pouring forth of -blood; then the assassins disappeared again into the night. - -Next day, after the briskness of trade had been succeeded by the apathy -of the first Chinese meal-hour—for no profession which works by night -can be expected to get up early—the former thief saw the same group -huddled together across the way, staring at him as at a ghost. At length -they straggled over to him, with a contrite and respectful, not to say -admiring, air, and a spokesman addressed him with the highest honorifics -of which such unschooled fellows are capable. - -“Oh, Great Teacher,” he said, “we recognize in you, our revered Elder -Brother, a very clever man, a man much more clever than ourselves. Will -you not, therefore, become our leader, for with your cleverness and our -agility how could we fail in any undertaking?” - -“Your agility!” sneered the mutton-seller, meanwhile insultingly -continuing his work. “Where have you picked up that false impression? I -don’t believe you know the first rudiments of your profession, that you -can even climb through the open window of a foreign devil and escape -with his watch and wallet without being heard. I, forsooth, become the -leader of a gang of clumsy, untrained louts who cannot so much as move a -brick with their Adam’s apple! Away with you!” - - -Lanchow has been called the meeting-place of central Asia. This seemed -to us something of an exaggeration, for to be worthy of such a title -surely a city must have something more to show than sporadic examples of -Oriental tribes and customs all but lost in a great sea of Chinese. But, -for one thing, they told us, this was not the season of great markets, -to which even princes of Tibet were attracted, and which brought samples -of almost everything in the human line that the elder brother among -continents has to offer. As it was, I ran across Tibetans, Mongols, -Buriats, Kirghiz, and several other individuals who plainly belonged to -none of these divisions, merely in strolling the streets. Then there -were of course Russian refugees, and Cossacks, and single chance -visitors from far-off countries not often represented, such as we -Americans, for instance. Two or three Russian officers of the old régime -were in the employ of the Tuchun, who had fished them from the stream -that had been spasmodically flowing down through Kansu for the past four -years, and who strutted the soft streets of Lanchow in all the glory of -their pre-war uniforms and their disdainful, rather childlike demeanor. -Our host and his fellow-missionaries, the active little Belgian who had -grown more than gray in superintending the salt monopoly in two -provinces, the densely bearded Catholic priest of similar origin, the -over-conscientious, English-speaking postal commissioner from Canton, -the Tuchun himself, and all the higher officials were constantly being -appealed to in behalf of poverty-stricken aristocrats or of pitiful -cases of suffering among mere ordinary human beings who had drifted down -from the northwest and hoped to better their lot by pushing on to Peking -or Shanghai. Just what impression such cases made on the Tuchun, who -probably distinguished almost as little between different kinds of -Caucasians as do the rank and file of Chinese, the handful of foreign -residents were never quite sure; but they did know that he often gave -money to Russian refugees—though their real benefactor was the Belgian -salt official—and that the provincial Government furnished -transportation to the next province for those incapable of making their -own way. In fact, almost the only important duty of the “foreign -office,” who had discoursed to me more or less in my own tongue on the -unworthiness of Lanchow from its wall, was to adjust matters between -muleteers and cartmen who did not feel that the Government should force -them to carry penniless foreign devils—though of course they did not -openly speak of them as such—for the mere pittance it offered. - -One morning while we were still at breakfast, a little hollow-eyed -foreigner in a strange uniform was brought in by the gate-keeper. He was -a Polish captain who had once before escaped capture in some brush with -the Soviet troops by making his way overland through Asia and back to -Poland, only to be forced to repeat the experience. At least, that was -what we gathered from a long conversation, in which we could not muster -among us more than scattered single words that were mutually understood, -and during which both sides were forced to resort mainly to gestures and -intuitions. The captain and his wife, he said, were living in a Chinese -inn, without money and with no other clothes than those they were -wearing. That same day word drifted to our ears of a Russian lady who -was offering for sale the carriage and horses in which she had reached -Lanchow, and which might possibly do for our return journey. I found her -a frail, visibly suffering woman probably still really in the thirties, -speaking perfect French, and by no means stripped of that air of -distinction which generations of well supplied leisure give. She was -living in the mud room of an ordinary Chinese inn, facing upon the usual -barnyard-and-worse courtyard, and evidently found it difficult even to -pay for these accommodations, for the Chinese about the place had a -surliness which could scarcely have been due to anything but -disappointments in the matter of money. Her husband, a general once high -in the czar’s armies, had, during the journey, died of typhus in the -very coach that she was offering for sale. There was still with her an -adult son in a shock of pale yellow hair, whose manner suggested more -haughtiness than ordinary horse sense; and half a dozen Cossacks—at -least she called them that—were left from the retinue with which the -general had begun his flight. It was not uninteresting to see how these -sturdy, peasant-faced fellows in worn and badly assorted civilian -clothing snapped to attention when the general’s widow addressed them, -and fell over one another in carrying out her order to show me carriage, -harness, and horses. But the horses were not visibly different from the -Chinese ponies for sale in the gully below the “thieves’ market”; the -harness was more massive and intricately Russian than in good -preservation; and the carriage would have taken first prize at any -American fair as an example of the impossible contrivances which -“furriners” inexplicably build for themselves. It was four-wheeled, -which alone would have barred it from continuing any further eastward -and aroused astonishment that it had been dragged this far; it had all -those Russian conveniences which to any other race seem quite the -opposite, such as a great yoke over the off horse and a roof which, if -it had been repainted some brighter color, would not have looked greatly -out of place on a Chinese temple; while the seats had been taken out by -the roots, so that the interior of the coach was nothing but a bare -wooden floor some six feet long and four wide. Two of us could stretch -out on this, with our bedding under us, very comfortably, the lady said, -as she and the general had done. The local Government was furnishing -“Peking carts” for her party, but she was too ill to travel in those and -was holding out for a mule-litter, hoping meanwhile to get together a -little money for the long journey still ahead by selling her personal -rolling-stock. I regretted that by no stretch of the imagination could -we see ourselves making our way back to civilization spread out on the -floor of what looked painfully like a hearse and which most certainly -could not have been operated on the hundreds of miles of no roads that -lay before us without a plentiful supply of Russian profanity. - -Fully a thousand such cases a year, said our host, pass through Lanchow; -but, like the scattered samples of central Asia to be seen in the -streets, they are as nothing in the old familiar thronging Chinese -crowd, in filthy quilted garments, hands thrust in sleeves in lieu of -mittens, and cold, bluish running noses. It was hard to realize the -fact, when some reddish-bearded Moslem, wholly free from Chinese -features yet wearing Chinese uniform, came down from those distant -regions and directed attention to it, that, far west as Lanchow is, -China stretches for many weeks’ travel still farther westward, in a -great tongue of land which at length opens out into the broad reaches of -Sinkiang, or Chinese Turkestan, even though her assertion of total -suzerainty of Mongolia and Tibet be disallowed. - -The people of Lanchow struck me as less courteous than those of Peking, -but still by no means deliberately unkind to foreigners. They seemed to -be but slightly informed on anything more than their own immediate -problems, at which of course there was no reason to wonder. For the -whole vast province has no newspaper except one flimsy sheet of -“official lies” spasmodically published in Lanchow; no students are sent -abroad from this province, “because,” to quote a Chinese, “officials are -more interested in filling their pockets”; and the “heathen” schools -even in the provincial capital are so bad, in spite of some recent -improvements, that missionaries feel they must have Christian schools -for their converts, quite aside from any question of mere religious -faith. There is no discipline left in Chinese schools since the -revolution, they assert, and every one, from Tuchun to servants, is more -avid for “squeeze” than before the republic was established. On the -other hand, the overwhelming majority of the population knows nothing -more of the word “republic” than its pronunciation, and “voting” is so -frankly a farce that ballot-boxes are calmly filled by order of the -authorities days before and brought to “polling-places” from which -soldiers exclude all citizens on “election day”; or the boxes are -stuffed then and there by the soldiers, under orders from headquarters. -Though the respect for foreigners or the fear of them is still so great -among the rank and file that the little Belgian chief of the Salt -Gabelle had more than once confiscated whole camel-caravans of smuggled -salt which he came upon in his travels, it was not so easy to make -officials honor either foreign rights or treaties. The Belgian, for -instance, had deposited in the official bank six hundred thousand -dollars income from the salt monopoly, which is designated by treaty for -use in paying off China’s foreign indebtedness—and the next thing he -knew it had been replaced with promissory notes of the provincial -Government; in other words, with worthless paper. Peking has no real -power in these back provinces, and even if provincial officials cannot -connive with bank employees to their hearts’ content, all the Tuchun, or -some Mohammedan general, or any official with audacity enough, has to do -is to ask Peking to instruct the “salt man” to give them money, and -neither he nor Peking can refuse. In a way China is more militaristic -to-day than ever Germany was, but the Chinese are not a fighting race, -depending rather upon the subtleties of graft and “squeeze” than upon -force. Were they not so docile and passive and so lacking in community -spirit, it would not be so easy for military governors, almost always -coming from other provinces than the one they rule, to get rich quickly -by all manner of tricks and then go home, or, if their peculations have -been too notorious, to some foreign concession in the coast cities, -where even a strong Central Government could not touch them. - - -There are few outward signs of disagreement between the two divisions of -Lanchow’s population, but old residents say that the feeling is far -deeper than appears to the casual observer. The Mohammedans also have -much of the Chinese temperament, or at least of the Chinese outward -attitude, and are inclined to temporize longer before they will fight -than do their brethren farther west. They are particularly gentle when -they are in a minority, as they are in many towns even of Kansu. But -they are more progressive, more interested in outside news, than the -mere Chinese, and they stick together, like most minorities. I heard of -only one Christian convert from among them, and even the missionaries -were not at all sure of him. After a long period of repression the -Chinese Mohammedans have to a large extent shaken off the Chinese yoke -in Kansu and, being better fighters, there is little doubt that they -will win still more from their former oppressors, who are hopelessly -divided. Already not only the orthodox headquarters of Hochow but other -districts are virtually self-governing, and certain Mohammedan generals -rule their sections much as they see fit. The “Hwei-Hwei” have long felt -that the province of Kansu is their special domain and that they should -be allowed to govern it, either as a part of China with a Tuchun of -their own faith, as an independent state, or by joining hands with -Sinkiang, its congenial neighbor on the west. During one of their -rebellions Yakub Beg ruled the Chinese Mohammedans for ten years, until -he was put down by troops sent from Peking. In the opinion, at least, of -most foreign residents, the Chinese have been stupid in their handling -of the Kansu problem, so that whereas, by just and generous treatment -when they were powerful, they might have had a strong Moslem province as -a more or less autonomous buffer-state on the west, yet still loyal to -the rest of the country, now that they are weak they may easily lose a -large part of the Mohammedan region. - -Yet though one listens one is not so easily convinced. There comes to -mind the unfailing suppression of “Hwei-Hwei” rebellions in the past, -lighted up by the knowledge, sure to be picked up by any inquiring -traveler, that there is much internal friction, not to say combustion, -among the Moslems of Kansu themselves. Were they as strictly united as -they pretend to be, they could probably now throw off the Chinese yoke -entirely. But there are “Turk,” Arab, and Mongol “Hwei-Hwei,” not to -mention the still greater number perhaps of purely Chinese Mohammedans, -many of whom were “converted” during the rebellions of the last sixty -years; some still adhere strictly to the Koran, while new sects hold -later traditions or have incorporated elements of Buddhism and -Christianity. In fact, all the big Mohammedan rebellions have been due -to Chinese interference in “Hwei-Hwei” sect quarrels; that of 1895–96 -began over the dispute as to whether or not a man under forty should be -allowed to grow a beard! It is the old story of the champion of a beaten -wife being fallen upon by both husband and consort. The day may not be -far distant, whatever the casual traveler may conclude, when the world -will wake up to find on its breakfast-table the news of the founding of -a new Moslem nation, in which Chinese features will be in the majority. -Meanwhile the “Hwei-Hwei” keep in form by fighting each other and by -drubbing the Tibetan tribes along the Kansu border, from whom much of -the metal was taken that has reappeared in the miserable “money” which -the people have had forced upon them. - -Turks and Arabs can talk with many of the Chinese Moslems without -difficulty; which is the chief reason that our host was asked in 1914 by -his home Government to sit where he was and keep his eyes and ears open -instead of hotfooting it for Flanders. Mysterious delegations of Germans -and Ottomans were constantly passing through Kansu while the war was on, -and there are certain indications that their aborted plans were bold and -carefully laid. But all that is over now, and such interesting -similarities of tongue have become again merely of philological -interest. - -Up to the time of the republic even Mohammedans high in the government -service could only live in the suburbs of Lanchow—whence its many walls. -But to-day there is a more tolerant spirit on both sides, at least in -every-day, peace-time intercourse. Some of the more reasonable and -educated “Hwei-Hwei” make friendships irrespective of faith. There was -“Mr. Donkey,” for instance, who was one of our host’s most frequent -visitors, though he never sat down at his table. Like so many of his -coreligionists, he bore the family name of “Ma,” which is derived from -Mohammed, but which also is the Chinese word for “horse”; and, there -being a distinct stratum of humor in our host’s make-up in spite of his -calling, he had taken a slight liberty with natural history when his -Moslem friend asked for the English version of his name. The joke had -long since been shared with the victim, but he was still likely to -startle foreigners to whom he was being introduced by displaying his -entire knowledge of the English language at one fell swoop with, “Sir, I -am Mr. Donkey.” - -“Mr. Donkey” and a certain Taoist priest were bosom friends and were -given to periodic sprees, in which they were now and then joined by a -“Living Buddha.” Occasionally this convivial trio had irrupted into the -mission compound during the small hours, in the hope that their good -friend of still another faith might for once forget his little -idiosyncrasies of doctrine and join them. Once news had come to the ears -of our host that a “Britisher” had been confined in the Chinese jail; -and, being the chief example, if not the official representative, of the -British nation in Kansu, he could not of course permit this violation of -extraterritoriality to continue. He demanded the immediate release of -the prisoner, which his good friend the provincial governor granted at -once—and turned over to him an Afghan. What was more natural than that -he should have sent this fellow-national, for whom he had made himself -responsible, to stay with “Mr. Donkey,” a fellow-Moslem? Being a good -host, Mr. Ma promptly brought out a bottle of whisky, whereupon the -Afghan, being a good Mohammedan who still took his Koran literally, -walloped him severely on the jaw. The Chinese Moslems are more -easy-going in these little matters. Many of them drink, and smoke not -only tobacco but opium. The one rule to which they cling most -fiercely—though even that, it is said, many of them will break if there -are no coreligionists to tell on them—is the prohibition against eating -pork. They never speak of a pig by its real name unless they are volubly -cursing or shriveling up an enemy with an impromptu description of his -family tree. If there is no avoiding mention of the unclean creature in -polite intercourse, it is referred to as a “black sheep.” When the -Moslem population of a Kansu town is in the majority, no one in it is -allowed to keep or bring in pigs, which naturally tends to a further -decrease of the minority. Chinese may eat in a Mohammedan’s house, but -the latter cannot accept a return invitation, for fear not so much of -being purposely insulted by being offered pork, as of being fed in -dishes which have at some time or other been contaminated with pork or -lard. The Chinese, when things come to the point where it is worth the -risk, tell the “Hwei-Hwei” that their dislike of pork is merely a dread -of eating their ancestors; and then the knives come out. - -“Mr. Donkey” took me to an important mosque in which posters, depicting -the Kaaba and similar scenes, and covered with Arabic text, had been -pasted in and about the prayer niche. Pilgrims had brought them from -Mecca, and the last little “Hwei-Hwei” in the group about me knew what -these symbols represented. Yet in all our journey through the northwest -I never saw a man bowing down in prayer toward Mecca, though others tell -me that this was mere accident. Certainly no such accident would -continue throughout a two months’ trip among the Moslems of the Near -East. Only once, too, did I see a woman veiled; her face was completely -covered with a thin black cloth, a curiously embroidered old-fashioned -skirt hid what were no doubt her bound feet; and a small boy was seated -close behind her on the donkey she rode, which a man on foot was urging -across the country at unusual speed. There are Mohammedan as well as -Christian schools in Lanchow, and they seem to rival each other in some -of their superiorities to those of the Chinese, though the Moslem ones -copy these in hours and uproar. I have seen Moslem children gathering -before the sun was above the horizon, and have come upon roomfuls of -boys loudly chanting in Chinese, though there was no evidence of a -teacher still in attendance, when darkness was creeping over the mosque -that raised its flare-roofed minaret above them. A certain amount of -“Alabi” is taught in “Hwei-Hwei” schools, and any man who can read the -Koran—which it is forbidden to have translated—is highly honored as an -_ahong_, though many know only the sounds of the words they are reading -and not their meaning. - -“Hwei-Hwei” and Chinese customs are particularly at variance in the -matter of burials. The former believe in a decent interment for all, -while the Chinese see no reason why the bodies of mere girls and -unmarried women should not simply be thrown out on a garbage-heap or -into some convenient gully. Among the non-Moslems actual difficulties -are often placed in the way of the proper burial of a still-born child -or of a mother dying in childbirth, even if the family is willing to go -to the expense and trouble. Yet the Chinese consider the “Hwei-Hwei” -custom of disposing of their dead the height of barbarism, particularly -in the case of male parents. In each mosque is kept one elaborately -decorated coffin—without a bottom. When a “Hwei-Hwei” dies the body is -bathed at the home, swathed in white cloth on which are written Arabic -characters, carried to the grave in the coffin—and buried without it. -Naturally such a custom is shocking to a people who are addicted to -ancestor-worship and whose massive coffins are the chief cause of an -advance of deforestation that is already well beyond the Tibetan -frontier. In fact, though wolf, dog, otter, lynx, squirrel, fox, bear, -leopard and snow-leopard, deer, and several other skins come down in -considerable quantities from Tibet into Kansu and flow on into the rest -of China, probably the Chinese resentment at England for abetting the -Tibetans in throwing off the rule of Peking is due as much as anything -to the fear of the rank and file that their forests will cease to -furnish the coffins without which no genuine Chinese can either live or -die. During the fighting in Shensi Province in 1911, it was a very -common thing to see strings of pack-mules each carrying a frozen -“Hwei-Hwei” corpse on either side, wending their way back to Hochow, the -Chinese Mecca; but once the corpse has been taken home for burial there -seems to be none of the Chinese desire to preserve it as long as -possible. - -At a genuine “Hwei-Hwei” wedding every one comes on horseback to the -bride’s home for the ceremony by an _ahong_, and then the whole -cavalcade gallops back to the house of the groom. There is said to be -less infant mortality among the Mohammedans than among their neighbors, -not only because girls are perhaps a little less unwelcome, but because -of the greater consumption of mutton and milk. “Hwei-Hwei” boys of -fifteen often turn muleteers and tramp twenty to thirty miles a day over -the mountains and spend much of the night feeding their animals, months -on end, while they steadily grow into sturdy men to whom almost any -hardship is not even recognized as such. - - -[Illustration: - - A Kansu vista near Lanchow, where the hills are no longer terraced, - but where towns are numerous and much alike -] - -[Illustration: - - This method of grinding up red peppers and the like is wide-spread in - China. Both through and wheel are of solid iron -] - -[Illustration: - - Oil is floated down the Yellow River to Lanchow in whole ox-hides that - quiver at a touch as if they were alive -] - -[Illustration: - - The Yellow River at Lanchow, with a water-wheel and the American - bridge which is the only one that crosses it in the west -] - -The dinner given in our honor by the “copper”-making Tuchun of Kansu was -in most points a repetition of that in Sian-fu. This time, in addition -to the invitations on red cards, there was sent around a list of the -guests, written in Chinese, of course, on a long sheet of similar color, -which we were expected to sign in Chinese after our names. If one is not -able to come—or perhaps if he finds some of the other guests not to his -liking—he makes an appropriate mark in lieu of signing. When the hour -for the dinner approached, messengers came to remind us to come; perhaps -I should say to _warn_ us not to be late or absent, for this was plainly -a custom of viceregal days which still survived out here in the far -west. In those days a visit to this same yamen was an event to cable -home about, quite different from dropping in to see a military governor -who from the Chinese point of view was extremely “democratic.” The man -who hoped to live to boast of having been received by a viceroy got into -his best dress about the middle of the night and appeared at the yamen -toward four in the morning, when he might possibly be admitted to the -semi-imperial presence within an hour or two, since viceroys more or -less followed the custom in audiences of the court at Peking; or he -might have the pleasure of waiting most of the day, and perhaps of -coming back again next morning to see another sunrise. If, when at last -he was received, he was of high enough rank to be asked to take a chair -or its viceregal equivalent, he sat gingerly on the extreme edge of it, -like one who knows how reprehensible it is to dare to draw breath in so -sacred a presence. But those same old viceroys knew how to rule the -Chinese, and their modern successors seem to come most nearly succeeding -at the same task when they adopt viceregal methods, for all their -up-to-date uniforms in place of flowing Ch’ing dynasty costumes. Then, -there was an exact unbroken line of responsibility all the way from the -viceroy clear down to the village elder, and things that were ordered -done usually occurred, and vice versa. But we all know what a long row -there is to hoe between autocracy and anything approaching real -democracy. - -Long lines of soldiers presented arms as we passed through the various -compounds of the yamen in the wake of our visiting-cards, held high -aloft as usual. At length there came the period of innumerable -waist-hinged bows, attended by the difficulty, now so familiar in China, -as to whether hats or caps should be lifted or left undisturbed. For by -Chinese custom it is bad form to uncover the head before guests or -hosts, even indoors, while the European style is not only quite the -opposite but is here and there followed by Chinese who consider -themselves progressive, though one can never be sure when or where such -alien manners, perhaps including the unsanitary hand-shake, will break -out. After the preliminary formalities in the every-day guest-room, we -streamed away through the compound of the bugling wapiti and across the -now barren garden to a huge room on the edge of the city wall and -overlooking the Yellow River. Not only was this open and cold but its -walls were mainly of glass, which did not improve the temperature. It -was not easy to find our places by the red place-cards bearing merely -our Chinese names, but when we did we found that America had been -signally honored. For on the Tuchun’s left, which is nearest the heart -in Chinese custom, sat the major, while a Mongol prince who ruled a -tribe in the Kokonor region of Tibet had been relegated to his less -important right hand. However, the prince, who was also a lama, and -according to some uncertain authorities a “Living Buddha,” cast far into -the shade not only the major, but the Tuchun himself, this time in a -black gown instead of uniform, to say nothing of the civil governor—in -practice merely an underling of the military ruler of any Chinese -province and as pale a moon as a vice-president in the shadow of the -White House. For his Highness, or whatever familiar title he answered -to, wore a brilliant saffron jacket embroidered with dragons, a cap of -similar color with a large pink tourmaline—perhaps, for I am no expert -in colored stones—a purple skirt, and dull-red Mongol boots! With him -had come a princely suite, one member of which, swarthy as a mulatto and -with a curiously eagle-like eye, stood between his master and the Tuchun -and acted as interpreter. But the prince was anything but talkative, -possibly because he was not garrulous by temperament, perhaps because he -shared the common dislike of hearing his remarks relayed in a foreign -tongue, but most likely for the reason that his attention was fully -taken up with the intricacies of what purported to be a foreign meal. -The strange eating-tools were evidently quite new to him; but he had the -wisdom of common sense as well as the unexcitability of Mongol princes, -and by watching the Tuchun at one end of the table and the civil -governor at the other he came off very well indeed. How deep was his -wisdom is shown by the fact that whenever he was in doubt he merely -“passed.” Perhaps he really did not smoke or drink, as he stated with a -word and a gesture, but there could hardly have been any religious -motives for refusing half the countless courses, beginning with sharks’ -fins—no simple luxury this far from the coast—and ending with macaroons, -which he plainly avoided as another unknown, and therefore possibly -dangerous, form of food. - -How the soldier servants, to whom a boy picked up from the dump-heap -brought things from the kitchen, handled not only slices of bread but -the eating end of forks and spoons without any apparent consciousness of -the absence of manicurists in Lanchow need not of course be mentioned. -Besides the lama-prince there were Protestant missionaries, a Catholic -or two, ordinary Buddhists, Taoists, and Confucianists, probably -fetishists pure and simple as well as mere pagans, and certainly there -were Mohammedans among the soldiers swarming within and about the room, -though not, of course, among the guests. Conversation never rose above -the gossip plane, and glancing along the table I realized that one -possible reason for this, besides custom at semi-public Tuchuns’ -dinners, was the fact that there were eight different mother-tongues -among the bare score of men about the festive board. - -Night had fallen before the servants had cut up the fruit and -distributed it piecemeal, and had snatched away from any unwary guest -the cigar laid before him a moment before, slipping it deftly up their -sleeves, and we were at length in a position to bid Lanchow an official -farewell. The final scene was not without its picturesqueness. When the -last polite controversy on precedent at the many yamen gateways and the -final bows had subsided, the blue embroidered night turned to a -whirlpool of big oval Chinese lanterns, as the chair-bearers gathered in -the outer courtyard prepared to take up their masters and trot. Each -chair was tilted forward until its owner had doubled himself into it, -his cushions were adjusted by ostensibly loving hands, and the curtain -which formed the front wall closed upon him. The chief of his carriers -shouted out orders that were repeated as well as executed by the others, -and each group shouldered its burden in turn and jogged away into the -night, its big paper lanterns swinging gently to and fro. Even the -Belgian representative of the salt administration was attended by -soldiers as well as his four chair-bearers, for high officials cannot -overlook the matter of “face” in China merely because they chance to be -foreigners. The Mongol lama-prince, like one who deeply scorned any such -effeminate form of locomotion, mounted the red-saddled horse led up by -one of his rather poorly mounted escort, which clattered away over the -flagstones behind him, bugles blowing and scattered groups of soldiers -presenting arms, while we simple Americans wandered out and away on -foot. - - - - - CHAPTER XXV - TRAILING THE YELLOW RIVER HOMEWARD - - -The saddest part of seeing Lanchow was not that we had taken -twenty-seven days to reach it, but that it would require fully that -amount of time to undo again what we had done. The usual way of -returning from the Kansu capital to Peking is simply to float down the -Hoang Ho on goatskin rafts to where one can easily reach the advancing -Suiyuan railway. We had hoped to do this, but we were prepared for the -news that it was impossible so late in the season. November was nearing -its last lap, and while the river at Lanchow was still open, big chunks -of ice already drifting down it from the Tibetan highlands helped to -confirm the general opinion that it would be frozen solid in its broader -and more sluggish reaches farther north, where we would be left -virtually stranded. - -We each bought a stout Kansu pony, therefore, and a less lively one for -the alleged _mafu_ who was willing to leave the employ of our host and -return to his family graves near Tientsin—if we would pay him to do so. -_Mafus_ usually walk by day and tend their masters’ horses by night, but -we concluded to be generous, and as a result we acquired a troublesome -companion rather than a useful servant; for the one thing which the -Chinese coolie cannot stand is prosperity. Then we hired two carts, -quite like those that had brought our belongings from Sian-fu, which -agreed for a consideration of one hundred _taels_ to set us down in -Paotouchen in time, with good luck in trains, for us to spend Christmas -with our families in Peking. We again set our plans to outspeed the -usual schedule if possible, by dangling before the drivers a gratuity of -a whole round dollar each for every day they made up. - -This did not spare us from getting a late start, however, though that -did not worry us so much as it would have before we had learned from -experience that a delay in the first get-away is no proof that the -days that follow will be similarly blighted. The unavoidable -formalities of the last moment, such as the cartmen’s vociferous -leave-taking of the inn that had housed them, made up mainly of -shrieks of “_Ch’ien!_”—which, as I have said before, is the Chinese -notion of how the word “money” should be pronounced—were further -complicated by the task of getting rid of a man of unknown antecedents -whom our experienced host caught surreptitiously slipping his baggage -into one of the carts. He merely wished the pleasure of our company, -he wailed, kneeling before us in the by no means carpeted street, and -he would walk every step of the whole journey. Perhaps he would, but -we should have been foolish to harbor in our midst a man who might be -in league with the bandits, particularly after the Tuchun had taken -the trouble to wire the Mohammedan generals along the way asking for -guarantees of our safety. Besides, our expedition was quite unwieldy -enough as it was. Thus it was almost nine o’clock when we streamed out -across the incongruous American bridge and, striking northward along -the edge of the river and that of the suburb which piles into the air -behind it, were soon lost among an endless series of bare brown hills. - -The homeward trip by the northern route was quite different from that by -which we had come. Instead of passing several walled cities almost every -day, there were often only two or three dreary little hamlets from dawn -till dark, and for days at a time nothing whatever but the single mud -compound or two where travelers stopped at noon and at night. There was -almost no loess, but instead desolate desert hills or broad plateaus -with few suggestions of even summer-time vegetation either on them or on -the more or less distant ranges that shut them in. Without loess, there -were of course few sunken roads—none worthy the name to any one who had -seen the other route—and no cave-dwellings, but in place of them -wind-swept mud hovels, sometimes enclosed within high walled compounds. - -The hovels were particularly numerous on the first afternoon in the -almost rich grain district that succeeded the first stretch of -semi-desert—endless mud-walled compounds that looked like the ramparts -of small cities, yet housing only a single family, though in China -this may include as many as two score individuals of four, and even of -five, generations. Most of the fields were covered with the -moisture-protecting layer of stones. These are changed once in a -generation, we heard, and the custom becomes more prevalent farther -west, where the land grows ever drier until it merges into the Gobi -Desert. Groups of peasants were still winnowing grain in the breeze on -their threshing-floors, and everywhere sparrows enough to eat it all -as fast as it was separated from the chaff made the air vociferous -with their twittering. We plodded all day and well on into the -moonlight across what finally became almost an uninhabited waste; and -next day we climbed to an altitude of nearly eight thousand feet -through stony, dreary mountains without people, except for one little -surface coal-mine, and a rare shepherd, without vegetation except for -little bunches of brown tuft-grass. Always there was a new wrinkled -mountain range growing up ahead and another slipping away behind, -though these usually flanked the broad river valley instead of -crossing our trail. - -We were always well on our way by sunrise, with two hours or more of -walking behind us, for it was too bitter cold then to ride; and sunset -often found us still in the saddle. On Thanksgiving day, for instance, -we were up at four and off at five, for there was a stretch of ninety -_li_ without a single human habitation to be crossed before we could -even make our noonday halt. A high wind and heavy clouds made riding for -long distances impossible, and there was little indeed to keep us in a -cheerful mood. A crumpled range of mountains lightly topped with newly -fallen snow beautified the left-hand horizon; now and again a group of -Gobi antelopes sped away like winged creatures through the kind of -sage-brush that recalled Arizona or Nevada, their white flags seeming a -saucy defiance to us; and in mid-morning we passed through the Great -Wall. It was fortunate that our map showed this, for we might easily -have mistaken it for the mud enclosure of rather an extensive field and -never have given it a second glance. Instead of the mammoth stone -barrier to be seen near Peking, it was a mere ridge of packed earth, -perhaps eight feet high and as many wide at the base, with broad gaps in -it here and there, through which wander the modern trails. The -contractors evidently had something of a sinecure out here in the west -where the emperor could not keep an eye upon them. - -For miles before we reached the wall the sage-brush plain was piled -everywhere with Chinese graves of all sizes, some of them completely -covered over with drifted sand; but beyond it there was not a single -artificial mound of earth, as if there were no use in being buried at -all unless one could find a resting-place within the Great Wall. The -vastness of the brown uninhabited world was particularly impressive in -the absolutely dead silence which lasted for long periods, unbroken even -by the chirping of a stray bird. One might have been in some “death -valley,” yet only water seemed to be wanting in what might otherwise -have been excellent farming country. - -Evidently this lack was increasing, for there were only abandoned ruins -left of what had once been a town, big temple and all, at the end of the -ninety _li_. There was one hole in the sandy earth, at which all trails -converged, and shepherds, cartmen, and miscellaneous travelers were -constantly using the cloth bucket on a stick with which crude troughs -about it were filled, and where great flocks of sheep disputed with -horses, cattle, mules, and donkeys; but this only water for many miles -in any direction was evidently growing insufficient for the demands made -upon it. We had a frozen luncheon in the lee of a ruin, from which we -could look across a vast section of the plain, dotted in the foreground -with the grazing camels of a great caravan that had pitched its tents -and piled its cargo within easy distance of the well, to where the -yellowish brown turned to purple and rolled up into the wrinkled, -snow-topped range that shut off the world on the west. All that -afternoon there was the same silent, rolling landscape, which ended at -last, just in time, as bitter cold night was settling down, at a single -mud compound in a little hollow of the great solitude. - -The next day, in contrast, was absolutely cloudless, and so were nearly -all those of December. We rambled for more than twelve hours across a -lifeless wilderness where a human being was a sight to remember and in -which two rabbits were the only visible representatives of the rest of -the animal kingdom. Deep sand, here and there alternating with a sort of -sage-brush, made the progress of our carts exasperatingly slow—until I -suddenly discovered the ease and pleasure of reading on horseback, with -the result that I devoured every book we had with us and memorized a -primer of the Chinese language before the journey ended. Yet two inns -just rightly spaced greeted our eyes at noon and at nightfall, as two -others did on several similarly unpeopled days. It hardly seemed -possible that these had grown up so accurately by mere chance, -especially as there was no natural feature to attract and sustain them, -and sometimes water had to be brought thirty _li_ or more on -donkey-back, so that it cost us twelve coppers each to wash our faces -and hands. In every case in which we asked, the proprietor was the son -or grandson, born right here in the wilderness, of malefactors or -political prisoners who had been sentenced by the Manchu dynasty to keep -these inns at certain specified points along this old imperial highway. - - -On the sixth day north of Lanchow we reached the great sand-dunes which -make what might almost be a possible automobile trail impossible even -for Chinese carts. Great ridges of pure sand, everywhere given a -corrugated surface by the winds that had piled them up during the -centuries, stretch from some unknown distance back in the country, -perhaps clear from the foot-hills of the western ranges, down to the -very edge of the Yellow River. We might easily have fancied ourselves in -the midst of the Sahara as we waded for three hours, much more on foot -than on horseback, across this effective barrier to wheeled traffic, had -it not been for the sight of the Hoang Ho sweeping around it in a -half-circle so far below as to look like a mere brook, and the tumbled -masses of mountains beyond, culminating in a cone that has smoked -uninterruptedly, we were assured, for more then seven centuries. Boats -that seemed from this height mere boys’ rafts rather than cumbersome -barges capable of carrying two loaded carts glided up and down the -stream amid myriad floating chunks of ice; but we strained our eyes in -vain to make out, even through this brilliant, moistureless air, -anything resembling our own outfit. Beyond the dunes we came down upon a -cluster of mud compounds, most of them prepared to pose as inns if the -opportunity offered, and just then unusually crowded with west-bound -travelers. These were almost all soldiers, Mohammedan in faith and in -many cases so Turkish of features that with their big reddish beards -they seemed to be actors wearing masks above their cotton-padded Chinese -uniforms. They were the escort of a new governor on his way to Eastern -Turkestan, and the expedition was so large that though we came upon the -vanguard, accompanying some veritable houses on wheels, early in the -morning, we passed the last straggling carts and horsemen toward sunset. - -This extraordinary demand upon the ferrying facilities brought upon us -the dreadful experience of being separated from our commissary and -forced to shift for ourselves. The rights of extraterritoriality are one -thing, and the joy which Chinese soldiers sometimes take in putting a -foreigner to annoyance and delay even without reason when so good an -opportunity offers is quite another. The major had known of a colleague -who, traveling in Manchuria, had been deliberately held on a river-bank -for forty-eight hours because soldiers crossing to his side insisted on -sending the boats back empty rather than delay one or two of them long -enough for the “outside barbarian” to get his carts on board. With -neither of us in evidence, and without even one of the major’s cards in -his pocket, no doubt Chang was finding it impossible to prove that ours -was an expedition of foreigners and therefore in a hurry, whatever might -otherwise have been the attitude of these more western Moslems in -Chinese uniforms. - -When our usual lunch-hour was long past, and still no word came from the -rest of our party, we mustered Chinese enough to get chopped straw and -peas put before our horses, and eventually to obtain for ourselves a -bowl of plain rice boiled and served under conditions and amid -surroundings that had best not be specifically described, lest the -major’s still unsullied reputation be seriously injured. Then we -suddenly realized that it was already three o’clock, that the only place -where we could possibly spend a night without our cots and our cook was -still forty _li_ away, and that this was a walled city where the gates -probably closed at sunset. The result was the most speed we had attained -since the spasmodic truck had dropped us in Sian-fu more than a month -before. In fact, even the several goatskin rafts plying from town to -town along an open stretch of the river could hardly keep up with us. - -It was a curiously sudden change to a rich wide valley from the barren -unpeopled wastes that lay behind us; yet the only real difference was -irrigation. This had been brought to the western Hoang Ho centuries ago -by the Jesuits, who had introduced a complete system, still functioning, -with great sluices—ornamented in Chinese fashion with fancy water-gates -and bridges showing the heads and tails of great fish in stone. What the -good fathers probably did not introduce was the custom of turning all -the roads into irrigation ditches and making travel virtually impossible -whenever the peasants along the way chose to do so; for that one may see -just outside the walls of Peking, and listen in vain for any law or even -effectual protest against it. Clusters of trees that were almost -numerous rose from in and about farm compounds, which grew so frequent -before the day was done as to form nearly a continuous town, and every -little while we passed a new, or a very well preserved, temple, high -above each of which stood two slender and magnificent poplars that -recalled the “pencil minarets” of Cairo. - -But we had no time to spare for mere sight-seeing, nor even for debating -the social effects of Jesuit foresight. For fast as we urged our horses -on, the sun seemed to outdistance us without effort, like some runner of -unlimited speed and endurance and a weakness for practical joking -sauntering easily along just in front of his breathless competitors. The -so-called roads, too, abetted this red-faced humorist; for they would of -course instantly have lost their certificates of Chinese nationality if -they had marched straight forward even when the goal was plainly in -sight, so that they wound and twisted incessantly here on the flat -valley just as they had in their random wandering across the uninhabited -rolling plains behind us, just as a Chinese road will always and -everywhere, though there is no more reason for it than for putting -mustard on apple-pie. Even the accuracy in distances that had hitherto -been almost praiseworthy had suddenly disappeared, as if still further -to worry us. For it seemed at least a dozen times that the same answer -was given to our question as to how far we still had to go, though we -spaced this at considerable intervals; and the very best we could do, -even at the risk of having to give our animals a day’s rest, was to hold -our own. - -We arrived at length, however, just as dusk was spreading, to find the -gates of Chungwei still open and the sense of direction among its -inhabitants so much better than outside the walls that we brought up -before the home of the only foreigners in town without mishap and -without delay. Fortunately this couple were Americans, in fact, the most -American of all the missionaries we met on our western trip, so that -there was no more embarrassment on our side than hesitation on the other -when we walked in upon them to say, “Here we are, with nothing but the -clothes we stand in; please take care of us.” It is a long cry, of -course, from auxiliary work among American soldiers in Europe to the -establishing of a mission in a town of far western China where -foreigners had never lived before, so that we rather flattered ourselves -that we, the first visitors this new station had ever known, were almost -as welcome as we were made. - -Chungwei is an ancient and more or less honorable town which claims -eight thousand _families_ within its walls, among whom only three -merchants, without families, were Mohammedans. The city has no north -gate because there is no more China north of it, the so-called Great -Wall being almost within rifle-shot, and beyond that lies Mongolia. The -broad plain on which it flourishes is shut in by mountains and -sand-dunes, but is divided by the Yellow River, from which all the -prosperity of the region comes. For in the autumn, after the harvest, -the top layer of soil is cut up everywhere into big mud bricks, held -together by the roots of the crops, and of these all buildings, even -walls, fences, and most furniture, are made, and still there are always -great piles of them left over. Then the river is let in upon the land -and covers it once more with a rich silt that produces splendid -rice—certainly there was no suggestion of a rice country on a cloudy -December day with a high wind blowing—wheat and linseed in abundance, -millet, _kaoliang_, buckwheat, potatoes as large as if they had come -from America, cabbage enough to keep the population from starving if -there were nothing else, magnificent grapes and peaches, and what our -host assured us were the finest walnuts in China. In other words, all -Chungwei needed to be a land of plenty and comfort, and possibly even of -cleanliness, was to be somehow broken of the apparently unbreakable -Chinese habit of bringing into the world, in the madness for male -offspring, every possible mouth which the land can feed, with an instant -increase to take up the slack offered by such improvements as the -irrigation projects of the Jesuits. - - -We were luxuriating in the extraordinary experience of lying abed after -daylight when there came a scratching on one of the paper windows of the -dining-room where we had been accommodated, and we heard with -astonishment Chang’s mellifluous voice murmuring, “Masters, what time -like start this morning?” Our missing caravan had finally overcome the -difficulties of the river passage and had reached Chungwei about two in -the morning. Perhaps it was not so entirely out of sympathy for our -weary employees as we fancied that we set ten o’clock as the hour of -departure and turned over for another nap. - -Our host very seriously doubted whether we could keep to our schedule -and make Ningsia in four days, particularly with so late a start. But we -had little difficulty in doing so, thanks mainly to the fact that the -weather had turned bitter cold. For the peasants all along the -cultivated part of the river valley had recently opened the irrigation -sluices for the customary autumn flooding, and had it not chanced that -thick ice formed a day or two ahead of us on all the streams thus -created, we should have been at least a week in covering the four -hundred and fifty _li_, as carts coming in from the northeast reported -they had been. Even where the alleged road itself had not been frankly -used as an irrigation ditch, it wandered and dodged and side-stepped in -a sincere but more or less vain effort to keep out of the diked bare -fields which in summer cover with green all this rich brown valley from -sand-dunes to river. Now there were vast skating-rinks everywhere, -doubly troublesome when they were half thawed in the early afternoons. -By picking a roundabout way we could have skated much of the way home. -But the crowded population of the valley took no advantage of the -recreation offered them. Probably there was not a pair of skates in the -province, certainly not unless they had been brought by a foreigner or -some student returned from abroad; and Kansu sends no students overseas. -Once in a while we saw a group of children timidly sliding on the ice, -with the awkwardness and limited range of _Mr. Pickwick_, the boys often -barefoot, the little girls in their bound feet usually only looking -wistfully on. Now and again such road as remained jumped by an arched -earth bridgelet over a larger irrigation ditch with an axle-cracking -jolt, only to wallow on again through ice and half-frozen mud. - -As if all this were not bad enough, the peasants here and there were -felling big trees squarely across the road, and letting travel drag its -way around them as best they could, or wait until the trunk had been -sawed up. The traveler in rural China is constantly being reminded that -he is an unwelcome trespasser on private domain. - -Before we left Lanchow we had been warned that the road would “change -gage” at Chungwei, and a day or two before we reached it our cartmen -came to ask whether they should fit their carts with other axles there. -That of course we recognized as a gentle hint for added _cumshaw_, which -we met with innocent faces and the information that they might reduce -their carts to one wheel, or increase them to six, with one under each -animal, so far as we were concerned, as long as they made the hundred -and some _li_ a day which our schedule demanded. One of them, I believe, -did change axles, for I recall that it was only the old opium-smoker -with the three ill fed animals whose cart could never reach the two ruts -at once. These were made by ox-carts peculiar to this region, their two -wheels seven feet high and out of all proportion to the little load of -chunk coal or bundles of straw which they carried in the small box -between them. In places these cumbersome vehicles monopolized the road, -but they were always quick to give us the right of way, even to the -extent of climbing high banks or backing into ditches from which it -could not always have been easy to extricate themselves. This seemed to -be as much due to the natural good nature of the rustic drivers as to a -certain fear, not so much of foreigners, since in this part of the -journey we were usually so muffled as not to be easily recognized as -such, as of an expedition whose equipment showed that it was not of -local origin. One is constantly getting little hints that the Chinese -feeling toward “outside-country” people may almost as easily exist -toward those from another province, even another village, as toward -those from foreign lands. Sometimes there were whole trains of these -ostrich-legged carts crawling together across the uneven -country—twenty-two of them in the caravan I counted one morning soon -after sunrise, and they were carrying, among them all, about what an -American farmer would consider one good load of straw. For some reason -these contrivances do not shriek their ignorance of axle-grease anything -like so loudly as they should, but instead are almost musical. For -beneath the axle of each cart hangs a long bell, of scalloped bottom -much like those in Chinese temples, with a clapper in the form of a -baseball-bat hanging so far down that only its extreme upper edge -strikes the bell, while the lower end gathers some of its impetus by -bouncing off every hummock in the middle of the “road.” - -Remnants of the Great Wall frequently appeared, and once the road passed -through a half-ruined arch of it, one side still covered with the yellow -bricks that had formerly made this gateway at least rather an imposing -structure. Walnut and Chinese date-trees, willows and pencil-like -poplars, all leafless now and showing their big stick nests of crows and -magpies like some sort of tumor, clustered by the dozen about the -farm-houses and were scattered here and there across the broad valley; -but there were by no means enough of them, and the mountains above were -totally bare. Many of the high-walled farm-yards looked at some little -distance like great feudal castles, but on closer view the walls always -proved to be merely of dried mud, with nothing but the usual dreary -misery inside. Sometimes two or three score of these family dwellings -were in sight at once, their flat roofs invariably piled high with -bundles of wheat or straw, with corn and _kaoliang_ stalks; but there -was never any suggestion of comfortable prosperity about the interior or -the inmates. Children in a single quilted rag, chapped and begrimed -beyond belief on faces and hands and from the waist down, still huddled -in sunny corners or ran halfheartedly about at some unimaginative game -or other. When the weather is quite too bitter to be borne, they squat -or lie upon the more or less heated _k’angs_ indoors, to the injury of -their growth and health. The American memorial hospital in Lanchow, by -the way, treats many cases of cancer of the hips caused by burns from -sleeping on these Chinese mud-brick beds. - -The Chinese persistence in maintaining the highest possible birthrate in -proportion to the available nourishment, and the constant subdivisions -of agricultural holdings among the multiplying sons of succeeding -generations, makes comfortable prosperity out of the question, whatever -the fertility of the soil, the industry of the cultivators, or even such -improvements as those introduced by the sixteenth-century Jesuits. There -is much prattle of education as a cure. If by education is understood, -among other things, the teaching that it is unwise, not to say criminal, -for even the most poverty-stricken, the lame, the halt, and the blind, -the mentally defective and the morally perverted, to marry as early and -as often as possible, that there shall be no lack of sons to worship at -the family mud-heaps, then it is sadly needed. But is it possible to -educate, even to the point required for a republican form of government -to function at all, a people whose entire time, strength, and energy are -constantly required to keep it from slipping over the brink of -starvation, even though that education come from some outside source and -be widely adjusted to the problem in hand? - -At this season there was no work to be done in the fields, and little -anywhere else except the gathering of twigs and dried grass for fuel, or -roadway droppings for use in the spring. Hence it was naturally the time -for the dedicating of temples and worshiping within them. The attitude -of the Chinese toward their gods has been excellently summed up as -“respectful neglect”; but the treatment accorded them varies greatly in -different regions. There is no means of computing how many religious -edifices we passed on our way to Lanchow that were falling or had fallen -into decay, that had been abandoned entirely except for a beggar or two -posing as priests, or had become noisome dens in which thieves divide -their booty and vagrants scatter their filth; that the traveler may see -in almost any part of China. But the people in this far western valley -of the Yellow River were above the average in piety, treating their gods -with much more respect than neglect, perhaps because their good offices -are so constantly needed to keep back from one side or the other the -sand or the water that would mean quick ruin. At any rate, temples, -field-shrines, monasteries, and numerous lesser signs of superstitions -were so plentiful that the valley might have been mistaken for holy -ground; and not only were those in a state of repair by no means common -in China, but new ones were growing up. Early one afternoon we began to -meet, first men and women, the latter all astride donkeys or packed into -carts, in their gayest raiment and an unusually frolicsome mood, and -then dozens of youths carrying furled banners; and at length the -auditory tortures of Chinese “music” were wafted more and more painfully -to our ears as our animals brought us nearer the focal uproar. A bright -little temple, newly built back near the foot-hills, across which a -sanddune seemed to be creeping, was being dedicated; and every village, -every cluster of farm compounds for many _li_ roundabout had come in -person to bring their respects and to share in whatever benefits might -accrue. It was a Taoist temple, according to Chang, but as he said -something later about a statue of Buddha, and as a Confucian scroll was -plainly in evidence, no doubt the new building conformed to the general -Chinese rule of seating the three spiritual leaders of the race -harmoniously side by side, with Buddha, the foreigner, courteously -granted the central place of honor. The banners, it seemed, gay with -colors and Chinese characters, were brought either to bless or to be -blessed, after which they were carried back to their respective villages -oozing a kind of deputy godliness. Inside, energetic young men were -beating drums and shooting firecrackers to scare off devils—the timid -Chinese are always exorcising evil spirits, but never tackle the real -ones of graft, banditry, filth, the over-production of children, and all -their other real ailments. Long after we had turned the ridge that shut -off this corner of the valley, the charivari of droning priests and -misused instruments drifted to our hearing. - - -The days had grown so short that we were forced to use both ends of the -nights to piece them out. But for a week or more this was no great -hardship, as a brilliant moon lighted both morning and evening and gave -the landscape touches that were unknown to it by day. Under the rising -or the setting sun the wrinkled ranges of rich-brown mountains wrapped -the horizon in velvets of constantly varying shades. I recall -particularly the heaped-up mass just across the river from an unusually -picturesque walled town which we came upon just as the day was fading -out, and the tint of old red wine, blending momentarily until it became -the purple of the grape itself, seemed a masterpiece which even nature -seldom attains. But the town, though it awakened again that hope of the -romantic within its walls, was so miserable a den of broken stone -“lions” and ruined former grandeur, of comfortless people staring like -monkeys at merely strolling strangers, that we were only too glad to -accept the hospitality of an inn outside the walls. - -Beyond this there lay forty _li_ of rolling half sand, utterly -uninhabited, then another broad fertile valley with the same oversupply -of big mud bricks and Jesuit irrigation works, or more modern but less -effective imitations of them. Here there were even more skating-rinks, -and incredible clouds of blue pigeons, from which the major easily -gathered all the fowl we needed to vary our diet to the end of the trip, -though much to the dismay of Chang, who whispered in my ear the horrible -information that “they home-side pigeon.” The _li_ suddenly grew longer, -as they have a habit of doing unexpectedly, so that it was well after -dark when we reached Yeh-shih-pu, a “Hwei-Hwei” town where we could not -even have our own bacon for breakfast, because the innkeeper would not -admit our cook to his kitchen until he had promised to bear in mind his -religious scruples. Such mishaps, added to the fact that every article -of food containing the slightest moisture was habitually frozen solid, -made our repasts less Cleopatran than they might have been. Cold chicken -or pigeon with little sheets of ice dropping from between the muscles as -the famished traveler tears them apart may not be so bad, but the big -Lanchow pears gained nothing by coming to the table as hard as stones, -and certainly there is no call to praise the taste of frozen hard-boiled -eggs, if they have any. Yet most such dainties, the pears in particular, -were far worse if they were thawed out before serving. - -It seemed almost summer again on the brilliant afternoon without wind -when an almost good road picked us up and staggered erratically toward -Ningsia. Perhaps there was some slight excuse for its vagaries, for much -of the plain was covered with ice-fields thickly grown with tall reeds, -which were being gathered and carried to town on every type of -conveyance from coolie shoulders to giant-wheeled ox-carts. Among the -constant processions of travelers in both directions Mohammedans -appeared to be in the majority, with white felt skullcaps, or dirty -“Turkish” towels worn like turbans, greatly predominating over any other -form of head-gear. From a distance the city wall seemed merely a -glorified example of those about farm compounds; and high above it, high -in fact above the city gates, towered two pagodas against the distant -horizon of the inevitable crumpled range of low mountains or high hills, -hazy with shade along the base, bright with a slight fall of snow along -the top, where the low winter sun could still strike them. - -[Illustration: - - The Chinese protect their boys from evil spirits (the girls do not - matter) by having a chain and padlock put about their necks at some - religious ceremony, which deceives the spirits into believing that - they belong to the temple. Earlaps embroidered in gay colors are - widely used in Kansu in winter -] - -[Illustration: - - Many of the faces seen in western China hardly seem Chinese -] - -[Illustration: - - A dead man on the way to his ancestral home for burial, a trip that - may last for weeks. Over the heavy unpainted wooden coffin were - brown bags of fodder for the animals, surmounted by the inevitable - rooster -] - -[Illustration: - - Our party on the return from Lanchow—the major and myself flanked by - our “boys” and cook respectively, these in turn by the two - cart-drivers, with our alleged _mafu_, or groom for our riding - animals, at the right -] - -There was nothing really unusual about Ningsia, except perhaps its -distance from any other city. The only foreigners we found there—a -Scandinavian lady and a Belgian priest who maintained one of the -mightiest beards in captivity, bitterly rival propagandists of -Christianity—both assured us that the people of Ningsia were a “bad -lot,” but we had no personal experiences to bear out the statement. Of -the forty-five thousand reputed to dwell within the walls, a generous -third were Moslems, as in Kansu as a whole, but as usual they were -credited with a more industrious, aggressive character than the others, -and a more united front in spite of internal disagreements. The -Mohammedan general, who ruled the place, nephew of the powerful Moslem -Ma Fu-hsiang, looked and acted quite like any other Chinese official, -perhaps because the percentage of Moslem blood that runs in his veins is -the same as the proportion of people of that faith in the city and the -province. His yamen and his extensive barracks were noticeably spick and -span for China, and his soldiers seemed to be well drilled and -disciplined, thanks perhaps to the Russian officer or two who were -giving the general the benefit of their training. But there was much -recent building all about the town; even two elaborate wooden -_p’ai-lous_ were in course of construction. These fantastic memorial -street arches are without number in China, but it is a rare experience -to see new ones under construction, or to find old ones undergoing -repairs, for that matter. - -Chinese, Manchus, Mongols, “and all the thieves and rascals from four -directions,” to quote the hirsute Belgian, make up the rest of the -population. Mutton-shops and sheepskins were naturally in considerable -evidence, though there was no lack of black pigs to be seen from the -wall. A slight yet conspicuous detail that we had not seen elsewhere was -slats or small poles set upright at close intervals in front of many -business houses, evidently as a protection against thieves, which would -bear out, I suppose, the assertion as to the make-up of the population. -“Lanchow coppers” had quickly died out and were virtually forgotten by -the time we reached Ningsia, though in theory its ruler was subordinate -to the provincial Tuchun; and “cash” was again everywhere in evidence. A -half-circuit of the city wall showed much vacant space, and even some -farming, within it. Of the two pagodas standing like lighthouses above -the surrounding country, one proved to be far outside the city, toward -the wrinkled mountain range beyond which lies the ancient capital of -Ala-shan. Many-sided but plain-faced, certainly of no great age, they -seemed as high as the Washington Monument, though this may have been an -exaggeration of the imagination, and beneath each of them stood a temple -covering a great reclining Buddha. - - -We spent a whole day in Ningsia, the only one without travel between -Lanchow and Peking, and could not see how we should have gained much by -staying longer—unless perhaps for years, so that to our superficial -impression would be added the detailed experience of the “old-timer.” -Nor was our attention entirely given to mere sight-seeing and calls of -respect. There were our three horses to be shod—though the timid Chinese -blacksmiths who wander the streets, shop in hand, refuse to risk their -precious lives at the rear end of the most harmless of such animals, -even though they are tied hand and foot to stout stanchions. Any -American worth his salt at the same trade would shoe any quadruped in -China single-handed, behind as well as before, and he certainly would -not leave the long, all but untrimmed hoofs which help to make the -Chinese pony famous for stumbling, though he would of course throw the -first hammer within reach at the man who proposed to pay him only twice -as much for one shoe as his Chinese colleague gets for four. Then there -was the task of getting rid of our opium-smoking driver without either -violently breaking our contract with him or showing undue harshness. -For, after all, he had kept up with the other cartman, who was as -faultless a driver as one could ask for; and there had been times when -his silly grin of doped contentment with life made up somewhat for the -sogginess of his intellect during most of the journey. But we were tired -of seeing his shaft-horse do all the work, while the two starved mules -out in front only now and then staggered taut their rope traces; we were -tired of furnishing opium pills for eating and smoking with money that -should have been spent in food for beast and man; and we were -particularly weary of wondering every time we got out of sight of our -caravan whether the “old man” and his miserable animals had at last -failed us. - -When it came to a showdown his elimination proved simple and easy. -Perhaps the pace of the past ten days had cured him of any desire to -keep it up for twelve or thirteen more, over worse going. He had told -Chang one night that he might shoot him if he wished, but that he could -not go a step farther, though this had proved to be a mere figure of -speech. Perhaps there were other arguments, of a monetary nature, such -as a commission for selling his part of the contract to some one else; -for even jobs are bought and sold in China. But of this we knew nothing, -and cared less. For he agreed without argument to resign in favor of the -new cartman whom his companion brought in, and thanked us profusely for -the _cumshaw_ which no doubt quickly went up in fumes. - -The new driver, like the one that was left, called our destination home, -and had been waiting for sixteen days for a paying chance to return -there. Except for a slightly less cheery temperament, he was no less -excellent a cartman than the other, though only a hired driver; while -his companion owned not merely his outfit but an inn at the end of our -trail. In the company of such fellows as these, one is struck with the -sturdiness of the Chinese character. All about them were moral pitfalls, -of which their opium-aged colleague was a striking example. They, too, -and millions more like them, could easily get the poppy’s deadly juice -and smoke themselves away from their at best dismal reality into the -land of beautiful dreams; in fact, most of those whose duty it should be -to remove this particular temptation do all they can, short of reducing -their own “squeeze” from it, to make the wicked stuff available; yet -they had never succumbed to it. Nor is the sturdiness of the Chinese -coolie confined to the negative virtues. There was Chang, for instance, -born a tiller of the soil in cruelly crowded Shantung, with a bare three -years’ elementary schooling, who had taught himself to read, and to -write a goodly number of characters, who in a few years as a foreign -servant had acquired powers that to his simple parents probably seemed -supernatural, who in his two months with us had so improved in poise and -the ability to command the respect of his fellow-men that a trained -scholar of many generations of similar experiences could scarcely have -outdone him, either in deportment or the actual business in hand, when -he was called upon to act as interpreter between us and the Mohammedan -general, the very thought of meeting whom face to face would probably -have set him trembling a few years before. Best of all, he had not let -his rise in the world make him ashamed to do the most menial task that -came to hand, on the ground that he was no longer a coolie, which is the -stumbling-block over which rising young China is so apt to come a -cropper. Chang and our cart-drivers were, of course, only individual -instances; but I like to think of them—believe, in fact, that I can -rightly think of them—as typical of millions of their class, as proofs -that, given anything like a decent opportunity, the Chinese coolie can -rise to a genuinely higher plane just as well as the American farmer -can. If such is the case, it is not too much to hope that China may in -time, even though it be centuries distant, advance to real democracy, -that the name “republic” by which she now styles herself may some day -become a reality and not merely a mockery and a catchword. - - -But to come back to Ningsia, which is still a long way from democracy of -even the present imperfect type. Yet more important than matters of -horseshoeing and the moral repair of our caravan was the question of a -bath, which was eventually settled more or less in our favor by the -placing of two large tin cans of warm water in our respective rooms. -These were in Ningsia’s best hotel; in fact, the best hotel we graced -during all our western journey, though that still does not bring it to -the forefront of the world’s hostelries. Probably the main reason for -its preëminence was the simple fact that it was quite new, and hence had -never had an opportunity to grow filthy and unrepaired. Perhaps the -Mohammedan proprietor—or should I call him “manager,” since it was -several times confided to us that the real owner was Ningsia’s Moslem -general?—had something to do with it, for he was so incessantly on the -job that we could not push aside the cloth door across the street portal -without finding him bowing us his respects behind it, though always -without any violation of his Islamite dignity and certainly with no -acknowledgment of inferiority. We might have taken only one of the -identical rooms at either end of the unoccupied hall backing the long -narrow courtyard, but one of the advantages of roughing it is that -whenever the least possible excuse offers one can be extravagant without -a twinge of conscience. - -The most remarkable feature, perhaps, about the establishment was that -it had no earth floors, but that courtyard, hall, and even our rooms -were paved in brick. The _k’angs_ were so new that their straw mats were -almost inviting; the flue was of some modern improved type which -actually gave out more heat than smoke and there was a little baked-mud -coal-stove in addition. This detail was important, for the almost summer -weather in which we had reached the city had modified the instant we -passed through its gate and had disappeared entirely by sunset. I trust -it will not unduly shock Western readers to be told that an ox-cart-load -of the splendid anthracite coal in huge lumps which is so plentiful in -northwestern China sold in this region for about an American dollar, for -in that case I should not even dare to mention another kind of coal, -evidently of an unusually oily composition, which may be lighted with a -match and burns anywhere—on the brick or earth floor, in shallow pans -built for that purpose, in an old wash-basin—without smoke enough to be -worth mentioning and with a sturdy heat that makes a little of it highly -effective. But mankind is never satisfied with his blessings; even -missionaries complained that in the good old days a cart-load of coal -cost less than half what the wicked profiteers owning ox-carts were now -demanding. - - - - - CHAPTER XXVI - COMPLETING THE CIRCLE - - -We might as well have indulged in an extra nap next morning instead of -being as exacting as usual on the hour of departure, for the city gate -was still closed when we reached it. The rooster that all Chinese inns -maintain for the benefit of their watchless clients had already “sung”; -but on those moonlight mornings such a timepiece could easily be -regarded as out of order, which is no doubt the reason we not only had -to waken the soldiers in the little guard-house but that there was a -further delay of nearly half an hour while one of them wandered away -into the city to get the key, evidently ensconced under the pillow of -some other guardian of Ningsia’s safety. All we lacked to make the third -act of “La Bohème” complete was a light fall of snow and a more Parisian -atmosphere, for not only was there a brazier over which the soldiers -warmed their hands, and a collection of countrymen with produce waiting -to enter as soon as the gate was opened, but we had, though we did not -then suspect it, our _Mimi_ with us. - -Our new cartman, it seemed, had come from Paotou accompanied by another -cart, and its driver had already found a fare for the return trip when -this expedition and ours were thrown together in the back yard of the -Moslem inn. In fact, the other might have started a week before had his -client not been afraid to travel alone through a region with a bad -reputation for bandits and thieves. Wholly unknown to us, therefore, we -were to constitute the escort of this timid person, of whose existence -we were still completely ignorant. We did notice that a third cart left -the inn close behind us, and that it trailed us all the way to the gate, -but there was nothing suspicious in some other traveler’s happening to -pick the same ill chosen hour of departure as we, nor in his setting out -in the same direction. Our first hint that something might be suspected -was the sight of the third cart still following on our heels through the -gate, as if it belonged to our party and was therefore free from paying -the twenty coppers required of every native conveyance. - -All that morning it stuck to us across a great plain with much ice, here -and there covered with tall reeds. There was no doubt that it had -invited itself to join us; the only questions remaining were its -destination and who it was that lay ensconced behind its heavy blue -cloth front door. These mysteries were solved at the noonday halt. A -well dressed boy had already appeared on the front platform beside the -driver, and the instant the cart drew up in the yard of the inn we had -chosen out stepped a Chinese lady still well short of the age when -scandal ceases to wag its tongues about members of the attractive sex. -She was the wife of a silk merchant of Paotou, we gathered in a -roundabout way; the youth was her nephew or something of the sort; and -she had evidently joined us for the whole fortnight that remained of our -journey. - -We both admit that we are not utterly devoid of sympathy or chivalry, -but somehow it did strike us that the lady might have gone to the -formality of letting us know, at least indirectly, that she was going to -grace our expedition. But they do things differently in China; and -perhaps this was a less scandalous way than frankly to make the -acquaintance of unrelated male traveling companions. - -The three carts never once broke ranks that afternoon as we plodded on -across the plain, with another great lighthouse pagoda and more ox-cart -caravans with seven-foot wheels. The whole Yellow River valley seemed to -have been flooded a bare week ahead of us, and while this no doubt would -be repaid many fold in the spring, it would have made traveling a sad -experience if everything had not been frozen over. As it was, our -cartmen did much wandering in the rather vain hope of avoiding icy -roads, for, old as she is, China apparently has never learned to put -calks on her horseshoes. We had a hundred _li_ to make that day, which -did not seem difficult in the light of the fact that we had once covered -a hundred and forty on this leg of the journey, but the _li_ were -stretching perceptibly, and what with the zigzagging and the delay at -the city gate we were still well short of our goal when night fell. The -moon was rising later now, so that we had to feel our way across the -plain in utter darkness, for even by day the “road” was often only -faintly marked. The stillness of this great valley at night was -impressive—and fortunate, for the only thing to guide us was the sound -of our carts ahead, silent underfoot but with a constant thumping of the -heavy wheels on the loosely fitting axles. - -At that the carts got out of our hearing, and for a long time we rode on -at random, keeping as straightforward a course as possible, until -finally we were lucky enough to see rising close before us out of the -night an imposing gateway of the walled town of Ping-lo. Our chief -impression of this is that if it had as much paving as it has ornamental -street arches there would be fewer streets to wade and stumble through, -hence less temptation to curse the stupidity of such inhabitants as were -faintly visible for not being able to put us on the track of our carts. -We found our way at last, however, to the inn-yard where they were -already unhitched—to discover that the trousered lady had followed us -even there. It had not mattered so much at the midday halt, but with -several inns to choose from we were tempted to protest when she clung to -us even by night, taking indeed the very next room to us, with a thin -mud wall between. We did protest, in fact, though for other reasons than -any real fear of being “compromised,” of hearing Peking whisper over its -bridge-tables and its cocktails at the club, “What’s this about the -major and that fellow bringing a Chinese girl along with them, eh?” -While we never got a monosyllable out of her ourselves, the lady had in -a high degree that fault more or less unjustly charged against all her -sex; and as she slept most of the day, after the fashion of Chinese -travelers, to whom the horrors of a “Peking cart” seem to be like the -rocking of a cradle, it was natural that she needed to relieve herself -by chattering all night, with the youth or innkeepers’ wives as the not -unwilling listeners. Now, the Chinese language is anything but musical, -and the voices of Chinese women are evidently trained to sound as much -as possible like the tightening brakes of a freight-train on a swift -down grade, so that even in our most charitable moods we could scarcely -have lain silently bewailing the departure of our hitherto splendid -slumber for more than the two or three hours we did without attempting -to do something about it. The vigorous application of a boot-heel to the -mud partition, and a few terse remarks that were probably none the less -clear for being only partly couched in Chinese, had a desirable effect, -which was made more or less permanent by having Chang explain next day -to the third driver, who passed the information on through the youth to -the feminine part of our aggregation, certain rules of conduct that were -essential to a continued membership in it. - -In the middle of the next afternoon irrigation suddenly ended, and a -stony, barren plain, rising into foot-hills on the left, grew up ahead. -Some time during the following day we crossed the unmarked boundary -between Kansu and Inner Mongolia and left the Mohammedan province -behind. From the town where we spent one of those nights there is a -short cut through the Ordos that takes but half the time required to -follow clear around the right-angled bend of the Yellow River, but even -if one is sure of being able to cross the river at both ends of that -trail there is nothing but an uninhabited desert wilderness between, -where a single well is worthy a name on the map, and which is -practicable only to camel-caravans. Thus there was nothing to do but let -the Hoang Ho force us farther and farther westward, though our goal lay -to the east, now by stony roads, now through half-days of the drifted -sand of genuine deserts, or by river bars spreading out in great masses -of ice which it was not always possible to pass without making a great -detour. There was a very good reason why we could not float down the -Yellow River, or skate or ice-boat either, for not only was it often -frozen over completely for long distances but the ice lay in broken -chunks a foot or two thick and so packed together that they sometimes -were piled high up on the shore. There were days during which we never -sighted the river, though we were always following it; at other times we -spent midday or night right on its banks, with it the only water -available. - -Such a place was the one we reached unusually early one afternoon. In -spite of its three-barrel name of Hou-gway-tze it consisted of a single -cluster of mud buildings, which took all prizes for their filthy -condition. Moreover, every room was packed with more coolies than could -crowd together on the _k’angs_, and several of them were suffering from -what might easily have been malignant diseases or dangerous illnesses. -It looked as if we would have to commandeer one room by driving the -coolies out of it—and then take our lady in with us. But General Ma, the -uncle, Mohammedan ruler of all this western district, had very recently -built a new inn, with high crenelated walls of bright yellow mud and a -generally inviting appearance, a furlong or two beyond the unspeakable -hovels that had evidently for centuries been the only housing for -travelers at this point. Our cartmen seemed to take it for granted that -we would not be admitted to the new compound, for it was not only -strictly Mohammedan but had really been built to house soldiers. It took -Chang less than five minutes, however, to assure the man in charge that -we would not cook or eat pork on the premises, and to talk a soldier out -of the only one of the rooms that did not have its _k’ang_ crowded. -Evidently the hope of being given a few coppers in the morning, in which -he was, of course, not disappointed, or the privilege, unless he was -Mohammedan, of disposing of some of the scraps left over from our meals -and perhaps of getting an empty tin can or two was reward enough for -him. Where our feminine companion spent the night is still a mystery, -for though she promptly followed us to the new inn we saw nothing of her -after her descent from the cart until she crawled out of it again the -next noon fifty _li_ farther on. - -There was time for a stroll before the sun withdrew its genial -companionship. Great masses of crumpled mountains, treeless and -velvet-brown, lay just across the river, which here was partly open, -with a current of perhaps five miles an hour. No wonder it had to turn -out for so mighty a barrier, and double the journey that was left us. On -our side of the stream stretches of tall, light-yellow bunchgrass and a -kind of sage, of slightly purplish tinge under the sinking sun, were -broken by long rows of sand-dunes. In the morning the north sides of -these were white with hoar-frost and helped a bit to light the way for -us before daylight. Files of coolies who might easily have been -bandits—we wondered if many of them were not brigands who had turned in -their weapons and disbanded for the winter—were constantly appearing out -of the brush and hillocks of this and the other uninhabited deserts -beyond. Many of them wore a kind of makeshift turban of pure unspun -wool, and all were dressed for cold weather, often in combinations of -skin coats and cotton-padded garments that made them picturesque -figures. How many hundreds of these we passed on our journey northward -there is no way of computing, nor of knowing whether they were followers -of some bandit chieftain who would take to the road again in the region -ahead, which had been so harassed of late, as soon as the weather made -banditry pleasant and travelers plentiful once more. Perhaps they were -all what the few we spoke with claimed to be,—men who had taken rafts -down the river, or coolies who had worked in Mongolia or Manchuria -during the summer and were now walking a thousand miles or more back to -their homes, as men do by the millions in overcrowded China. - -We were constantly meeting these hardy fellows far from any other -evidences of human existence. Long lines of them, bundled up in all they -possessed, emerged from the darkness of early morning, one or two -perhaps singing in a mixture of minors and falsettos that recalled the -songs of the country people of Venezuela. Occasionally a straggler -limped past far out on the dreary plain; but with few exceptions they -kept the pace, and the cheerful countenances of perfect contentment. We -always came upon a group of them at the single lonely huts that were -often the only possible stopping-places during the whole day, sitting in -a sunny corner sheltered from the wind at noon, perhaps stripped to the -waist and diligently searching the seams of their thick padded garments, -or already stretched out on the crowded _k’angs_ where we halted for the -night; for they seemed to prefer to travel in the darkness of morning -rather than of evening. Probably, too, they had in mind the sharp -competition for _k’ang_ space, if not also for food and fuel, and the -necessity of arriving early if they would be sure of accommodations at -these only shelters for forty or fifty _li_ in either direction. - -The fixed price of lodging for a coolie in these inns seemed to be five -coppers; then there was five “cash” or a copper for hot water for their -tea, and not more, probably, for each of their two meals than for -lodging; so that the innkeeper got about the equivalent of one to three -American cents from each guest, depending on whether he stopped at noon -or overnight, and the total expenditure of each coolie perhaps averaged -four cents a day, besides the bit of food some carried with them. Now -and again they no doubt cut down this extravagant figure by skipping a -meal or, like the several score we saw streaming away from a temple -early one morning, finding shelter at a lower price. Many of these -coolies hardly looked Chinese at all, though it might be difficult to -decide what other blood had modified their features. In fact, the -northern Chinese, especially outside the larger cities, with their -strong bodies and sturdy faces, bear little resemblance to the common -Western conception of the sly, slender, pigtailed Celestial; I doubt -very much whether the American boy whose only acquaintance with the race -has been through the “movies” or a rare laundryman from Kwangtung in the -far south would have recognized as Chinese our chief driver, with his -strong, almost Roman nose, his leather-dark complexion, and his -attributes of a real man even in the Occidental sense. - -Though one seldom finds the doubtful joys of chewing tobacco appreciated -outside the confines of the Western hemisphere north of the Rio Grande, -it was something of a surprise to discover how many Chinese do not even -smoke it. Probably the chief reason is that they cannot afford it, -though ten cigarettes in gaily decorated packages can be bought for the -equivalent of two cents. This would have accounted for the fact that so -many of these coolie groups were abstainers. Those who did smoke used -the little pipes with long stems, of about the capacity of half a -hazelnut shell, familiar to Korea and Japan as well as to China; and -their pale tobacco of the texture of fine hay was so mild as hardly to -seem to Western taste derived from the dreadful weed at all. Whenever I -distributed a few pinches of a brand widely known in the United States -the result was a series of sudden coughing spells and the laughing -admission that _Mei-guo yen_ is painfully strong. Our cartmen, however, -who alternately smoked a larger pipe with a porcelain stem of the size -of a policeman’s club, either came to prefer the taste of American -tobacco or found it more economical to ask for an occasional pinch from -my can than to untie their own strings of “cash.” Several large -corporations, all, I believe, British or American, are expending great -efforts and vast sums to teach the Chinese the highest possible -consumption of cigarettes; and their wares and their “advertising -vandalism,” as a more serious-minded traveler has justly called it, are -to be found even in the villages and along the main roads of the far -interior. But they are hampered by the problem of how to produce a -cigarette that can be sold at prices the consumer can afford to pay, -even though the wages in their Chinese factories are in keeping with -those elsewhere in the country. The fact that the revenue-stamp, which -represents so large a proportion of the American’s smoking expenditures, -is missing still does not solve the difficulty. Like opium, tobacco was -brought to—not to say imposed upon—the Chinese from outside, and not -many centuries ago. The weed has not been known in China as long as it -has in Europe, to say nothing of America. Long after Sir Walter Raleigh -frightened his admirers by causing smoke to issue from his nostrils -tobacco was brought to Japan by the Portuguese or the Dutch; from there -it crossed to Korea, drifting naturally into Manchuria, and the Manchus -introduced it into China along with the cue in 1644. - - -Scrub trees rose above the tall light-yellow clumps of tough grass -during most of the day beyond the general’s inn. Pheasants flew up here -and there in large flocks. Once we passed a Mongol rounding up a herd of -shaggy, half-wild ponies. We should have known him by his bent-knee yet -cowboy-perfect riding in spite of his Chinese sheepskin dress, by his -full-blooded, red face, “like a brewer’s drayman in—England,” as some -one has put it, even if he had not been unable to understand Chang when -we found the road suddenly missing where the river had licked away the -side of a hill to which it formerly clung. Now and then we met a Mongol -riding a camel at a trot across the bushy country, and a large scattered -group or two of these animals were browsing on the tough yellow grass as -if it were delicious. Our horses invariably showed fright at a close -view of a camel, perhaps because they could not bear the sight of such -ungainly ugliness, for certainly the two-humped beasts never gave the -least indication either of the desire or of the ability to harm their -more graceful rivals in the business of transportation. - -Tungkou on the further side of a large bay formed by the Hoang Ho was a -town of some importance, evidently a principal port during the season of -river traffic, for huge boats built of hand-hewn planks and divided into -several partitioned compartments were drawn up in considerable number on -the shore. There were half a dozen new fortresses, some of two stories, -or with a kind of cupola from which the coming of enemies, such as a -force of bandits, could be seen some distance off; and many of the large -compounds of the town were also freshly built of the same straw and -yellow mud, though there was nothing new or clean about the old -familiar, staring, easily laughing inhabitants. In certain moods, such -as come at the ends of many long days of hard travel, there is a feeling -of loneliness, of indescribable depression, in being long gazed at by -multitudes, as if one were a wild beast, or a circus clown. The -telegraph line of two wires which serves this region jumped the river at -Tungkou in one mighty leap between double and reinforced poles on the -two banks and plunged on into a Sahara of high drifted sand-ridges, over -which we found our way with difficulty during the first hours of the -next morning. - -Then for several days irrigation took the place of desert again, and we -passed towns that claimed to be entirely Catholic. After the Mohammedan -rebellion a certain order of that faith began work in the almost -unpeopled region along this northwesternmost elbow of the Yellow River, -copying the irrigation systems of their Jesuit forerunners of centuries -before a bit farther south and building up town after town in which none -but Catholic converts are really welcomed. As the broad river valley was -barely used at all before the priests came, except for grazing, and was -but lightly populated, there can scarcely be any criticism of them on -that score. San-shun-gung and Poronor were perhaps the most important of -the dozen or more of these towns through which we passed, and which -appeared with great regularity every forty _li_, sometimes every twenty. -The first named was walled, rather recently and with mud bricks, perhaps -because it was the seat of the bishop, whose residence close to the -large church, with a belfry building distinct from it, might have looked -less imposing in other surroundings than the usual low, mud-built -Chinese village. Services were in full swing, with most of the -inhabitants audibly in attendance and the streets deserted, when we -passed through this place early one morning; but Poronor of the Mongol -name was a noonday halt and we had opportunity there for a chat with the -local ruler. He was a Belgian priest, as in the other larger towns, and -_bourgmestre_, too, as he called it; for the priest is always the town -mayor and chief authority, though there may also be a Chinese or Mongol -“mandarin.” While we were being entertained with wine and cigars in his -laboratory-office—for he took account of the bodily as well as the -political and spiritual ailments of his converts—a large group of -Mohammedan soldiers left a procession of them that was straggling down -from the northeast and gathered in the yard, to peer in at us through -the glass windows. They were pestering him to death, the priest said, -new groups coming every day to ask him to furnish them carts and -animals, and naturally drivers, in which to continue their journey. He -had done so several times, but was now refusing the request; and nothing -could be better proof of the real authority of the foreign priests of -that distant Yellow River valley than the fact that the soldiers did not -take transportation facilities by force when he declined to furnish -them. - -On the other hand, any criminal whom the _bourgmestre_ wished to be rid -of was turned over to the Mohammedan commanders. The converts were -almost exclusively Chinese; for there were naturally no converted -Moslems, and only a few Mongol Catholics, who lived in two small -villages back toward the hills. In one town where we spent the night the -priest was for the moment absent, but this did not hinder us from -getting a fairly clear view of his establishment. The large windows of -glass—so unusual in western China—along the inner side of the church and -the priest’s study disclosed rather bare rooms, the former with a few -lithographed saints and benches or kneeling-boards some six inches high -and wide, the latter with a rough Chinese-made easy-chair and table and -the indispensable paraphernalia of the priestly calling, including a -score of rather dog-eared books. Barely had we entered the compound than -a flock of boys swooped noisily down upon us. They were “orphans” of the -little mud school in a corner of the enclosure, or sons of the -townspeople; and they were rather poor witnesses to the advantages of -Catholic training, at least in deportment. For not only were they -undisciplined but very decidedly “fresh,” and certainly there had been -no improvement over “heathen” Chinese children in the matter of wiping -their noses and using soap and water. While they were crowded about us -the priest’s native assistant appeared and put us through the usual -autobiographical catechism required of any lone foreigner surrounded by -Chinese, then reciprocated with shreds of information expressed in -scattered words of Chinese, French, and Latin. Finally he led the way -toward, but not into, the schoolroom, for the flock of unwiped noses -surged pell-mell ahead of us and when we entered they were all kneeling -in their places on tiny benches similar to those in the church, with -their forearms on their home-made desks, chanting at the tops of their -voices and at express speed some Latin invocation which probably had -about as little meaning to them as it had to us. The assistant proudly -announced himself the teacher and displayed his few treasures of -learning, among which a religious book printed in Latin and Chinese on -opposite pages was plainly the most revered. When at length he was moved -to silence the chanted uproar, and we pronounced a few of the Latin -words at his request, he gave extravagant signs of delight, much as a -great scientist might if a colleague unexpectedly confirmed some fine -point on which his own experiments had focused themselves. - -Bound and unbound feet were about equally in evidence in these Catholic -towns, as if in such minor matters as this and the use of handkerchiefs -converts might do as they saw fit. Nor could we see any appreciable -advance in living conditions, though the school-girls of Poronor, in -their bright red trousers and jackets, were a picturesque touch which -made up somewhat for the annoyance of eating in the presence of as -mighty a mob audience as in regions never blessed with Christianity. -Chang reported, too, that people along the way told him that the -Catholic Chinese were heartily disliked, because they were not only -unusually dishonest and rather haughty, but because they might do any -mean trick that suggested itself, and the priests invariably upheld -them, even to using their influence in resultant lawsuits. - - -The broad valley between hazy and even invisible mountain ranges on one -side and, on the other, a river which we hardly saw during the last week -of the journey was sometimes a sea of yellow grass high as a horseman’s -head and sometimes a big bare plain deliberately cut up by irrigation -ditches so wide that there was often no crossing them without many miles -of detour. There were times when a compass seemed necessary, so -uncertain was the course of the meandering “road,” which even the -experienced carters now and again lost completely. Travel was slight, -and every few miles a herdsmen’s hut all but hidden in the tall grass -was the only sign of population. Thousands of acres of these -uncultivated plains had been dug up and burned over, probably by men who -make their living by gathering marmot skins, though there were no -visible evidences of these gopher-like animals, which retire to their -holes for the winter. Snow fell during the night that we spent in -Hoang-yang-muto—“Antelope Woods,” so named, no doubt, because there is -not a tree and certainly not a “yellow sheep” to be seen for many miles -roundabout, and all the next morning our horses were hampered by great -balls of snow and earth that formed beneath their hoofs, and which we -were forced to remove ourselves, for our brave _mafu_ avoided any -unnecessary familiarity with his charges. But by the middle of the -afternoon the landscape had resumed its brown-yellow coloring and never -lost it again during the journey. - -Not long after the Catholics disappeared, big Mongol lamaseries began to -rise every few hours above the horizon. These were much more pretentious -than anything else between Ningsia and Paotou, the big main building -always two and sometimes three stories high and constructed of good -modern brick. From a distance they looked like ugly summer hotels that -had been foisted upon the simple country, but a nearer view always -showed the dozen or more big windows in each wall to be mere bricked-up -pretenses of the openings they resembled. Evidently the “Living Buddhas” -who graced these establishments had attempted to copy what they -considered to be the glories of Shanghai or Tientsin, but could not rid -themselves of the notion that a proper dwelling must be as stuffy as a -Mongol felt tent. Even the clusters of white houses about these poor -imitations of modern Italian villas bore false windows, and only the -turnip-shaped dagobas had anything suggestive of the picturesque about -them. Swarms of dirty lamas in yellow, red, and purple robes, big stout -fellows of every age from boy novices to those whose already almost -visible skulls would soon be the playthings of dogs, poured forth from -these places if we rode in among the buildings, from which sometimes -came ritual noises that were a mixture of the terrifying and the -childishly ridiculous. Nor was there any lack of women about these -monasteries, in quantities of gaudy jewelry and with real feet. - -The plain had been unbroken for days as far as the eye could see, giving -the impression that the country was tilted and that we were for ever -riding uphill, when a low mountain rose above the horizon at dawn on -Friday which we barely reached by sunset on Saturday. All Sunday we -plodded close along the foot of this, here and there passing a cluster -of huts within a compound more often than not in ruins, but with the -assertion in big characters whitewashed on their mud walls that they -were “hotels.” Once or twice we stopped at Mongol or Chinese inns, but -most of them were still “Hwei-Hwei,” which did not matter so much after -the cook hit upon the happy expedient of telling the proprietors that -the bacon he served us for breakfast was “American salt beef.” - -Though we had expected it almost any day on this journey northward, it -was not until this last Sunday night of the trip that we could not get a -room to ourselves. The isolated inn at which darkness overtook us -consisted of one huge room surely a hundred feet long, with an alleyway -from door to “kitchen” and a narrow lateral passage to the end walls, -otherwise completely taken up by the four _k’angs_ thus divided. These -were already crowded with scores of coolies, ox-cart drivers, and -similar travelers much more interesting to look upon than as bedfellows. -Luckily there was one paper window in a far corner, and there we gave -orders to have the last ten feet of the _k’ang_ swept, the walls dusted, -and a blanket and the reed mat we did not need hung up as curtains. If -there were drawbacks to this improvised chamber, such as listening to -the eating, sleeping, and drinking noises of our fellow-guests, the -place at least was warm, thanks not only to the bodily heat of the -several scores of men but to as roaring a fire as poor fuel could -produce in the mud cook-stove that passed its surplus warmth into the -flues beneath the general beds. For the last few days inn “kitchens” had -been fitted with an immense shallow iron kettle set permanently into the -adobe stove, and from this any one who wanted boiled water dipped it. -About such inconveniences our cook competed with the flocking coolies -who prepared their own humble fare, but it rarely needed even the -commanding word of Chang to impress them with the fact that such great -personages as ourselves naturally should have precedence over the mere -garden variety of mankind. - -Possibly the anxious reader is wondering how our lady companion met the -trying situation of the total lack of privacy on that Sunday night. But -there was no such problem. For when we had stepped forth into the -darkness at the usual hour on the eighth morning out of Ningsia, the -“tai-tai’s” cart was still sitting on its tail, thills in air, with a -care-free something about it that should have made our own battered and -road-weary wains envious. To our inquiry came the response, with more -than a hint at our having been so unjust, that our pace was too swift -for the lady, that rather than continue to get up every day long before -daylight and ride often until after dark, with never a chance of getting -out of her cart except at the noonday halt, she preferred to run the -risk of being robbed or ill treated, even killed, by bandits, for she -could endure it no longer. We refrained from making the obvious reply -that, as far as our moderately tenacious memories informed us, we had -never even suggested that she try to keep a foreigner’s pace; and thus -we had parted, without an embrace, or even a kind word. Indeed, she had -never spoken to us during all that intimate week, though I had caught -her once or twice exchanging smiles with the major. - -[Illustration: - - A typical farm hamlet of the Yellow River valley in the far west where - some of the - farm-yards are surrounded by mud walls so mighty that they look like - great armories -] - -[Illustration: - - The usual kitchen and heating-plant of a Chinese inn, and the kind on - which our cook competed with hungry coolies in preparing our dinners -] - -[Illustration: - - The midwinter third-class coach in which I returned to Peking -] - -[Illustration: - - No wonder I was mistaken for a Bolshevik and caused family tears when - I turned up in Peking from the west -] - -Hers was not the only complaint at our speed. The cook, who always sat -huddled, nose in collar and hands in sleeves, on the front platform of -one of the carts, a striking contrast to the cheery, well washed, and -often-shaved driver beside him, confided to Chang one morning that he -would not make this trip again, not even if we offered him a hundred -dollars a month. As that is from five to twenty times the pay of a -Chinese cook, even though he was speaking only in “Mex,” it may be -surmised how bitterly he must have suffered during the journey. It never -seemed to occur to him, however, that he would suffer less from cold, at -least, if he would now and then get off and walk, like all the rest of -us. Chang, on the other hand, prided himself on being a “coolie” able to -endure anything, as well as having no “face” to lose, and though he -visibly showed wear from his constant two months’ service under all -conditions, he very seldom failed to produce not only whatever we asked -for but a smiling countenance and a cheerful disposition in addition. It -is considered bad form in China to show any human interest in one’s -servants; in fact, it is usually unwise, as in much of the Orient, and -likely to result in deterioration both of deportment and service. With -Chang it was fairly safe, however, and I frequently indulged myself to -the extent of inquiring whether he and the cook had a comfortable place -to sleep. His unvarying reply was the smiling assertion, “Oh, I can -sleep anywhere, master”; and the only night on the journey that I -actually saw his quarters was this one in the crowded coolie inn. This -he spent on a corner of the _k’ang_ opposite our improvised chamber, -where he could keep one eye on our belongings and the other on any of -our fellow-guests overcome by curiosity to see how these wealthy and -exclusive persons from some other world slept on the folding platforms -they carried with them—as if the _k’ang_ itself were not good enough for -any one. - - -We covered a hundred and twenty _li_ on Monday, across a stony -half-desert, never far from the base of the crumpled range that stuck -persistently beside us on the left. White Mongol lamaseries clustered -here and there well off the road in less accessible places, such as -half-way up the face of the mountain wall. Now and again a Mongol high -lama and his followers, all in brilliant yellow or a slightly dulled -red, rode by with the motionless motion of good horsemen, on sturdy, -sweating ponies. Ox-cart-wheels were again small and were usually solid -disks of wood, and numbers of them were leisurely bringing in from the -rail-head boxes and bales, marked with such names as Hamburg and -Shanghai. Once we passed one of the crudest of these conveyances, drawn -by two small, gaunt red oxen and driven by a man and a boy, with no -other cargo than a dead man on his way to his ancestral home for burial. -Over the massive coffin, which left room for nothing else beside it, was -thrown a big brown bag or two of fodder, and beside this stood the -inevitable rooster, in a willow-withe cage. It was not the pure white -cock required by Chinese custom, however, but one almost as red as the -big brilliant paper label, daubed with black characters, on the front of -the coffin. Probably this was the best color available, for we could not -recall having seen white fowls for many days, and no doubt the gods in -charge of the souls thus kept united with every Chinese corpse take the -difficulties of such a situation duly into consideration. Besides, there -were evidences that the journey before the dead man was a long one; -perhaps his ancestral home was away down in Shantung, in which case, at -this rate of travel, the cock might be bleached to an approximate white -by the time the expedition reached its destination. - -We finished the last seventy-five _li_ on the run, and reached Paotou in -time for a late lunch. Towns grew more and more frequent as we neared -the city; the mountains closed in and began to push the Hoang Ho -southward; a constant stream of traffic, of camels, cattle, donkeys, -mules, horsemen, and pedestrians, grew up and increased in volume; our -_mafu_ climbed the steps of a little shrine in the wide dusty hollow -that passed for a road to offer his thanks for his safe arrival—or for -aid in avoiding work and gathering “squeeze” along the way; and at last -the first suggestion of a city since Ningsia, twelve days behind, grew -up out of the dust-haze ahead. Across the utterly treeless plain a poor -makeshift wall climbed away up a barren hill colored with great patches -of dyed cotton cloth drying in the sun. Some of this, which here and -there brightened the town itself, was lama cloth, of saffron or maroon, -contrasting with the blue so universally favored by the Chinese coolie. -Perfect weather continued, but dust was thick as a London fog when we -passed through the simple gate that separated an extensive suburb from -the city proper, a gate on which hung the dried head of a bandit and -inside which soldiers politely demanded some proof of our identity, such -as a visiting-card, perhaps in order to be sure that we were real -foreigners and not mere Russians, whom they might bully to their hearts’ -content. For the last week of our journey there had been much talk of -bandits. Earlier in the autumn many trips out from Paotou had been -abandoned for fear of them; two or three times nervous innkeepers -announced that _tu-fei_ had been in their very courtyards a night or two -ahead of us; several rumors that they were operating in the immediate -vicinity reached our ears as we made our way placidly homeward; but that -dried head on the gate was the only visible proof we ever had of their -existence. - -Paotouchen proved to be mainly a new town, built up by a constantly -increasing population as the advance of the Suiyuan railway improves its -importance as a trading-center. It is hilly enough so that we could see -only portions of it at a time, and even those had nothing particularly -new to offer. Moslems were here and there in evidence; Mongols rode -silently through the soft earth streets; furs and sheepskins were a bit -more numerous than the other wares, comprising everything sold in -northern China, with which the principal thoroughfare was lined. Big -shops, women with the tiniest of feet, extensive courtyards, some gaudy -architecture, singsong-girls and the noisy hotel parties that go with -them, and all the other attributes of a Chinese city, as distinguished -from a village, even though the village be walled and populous, were to -be seen in Paotouchen. - -But the automobile that used to carry passengers from there to the -rail-head was not, so that we had to make a new arrangement with our -cartmen to finish the journey. We were off again quite as usual, -therefore, at five in the morning for a twenty-third day of travel; -though, including stops, we had been less than twenty-one full days on -the road from Lanchow, which is seldom bettered. The eastern city gate, -unimposing as the opposite one by which we had entered, and not even -similarly decorated, opened without great delay at sight of the major’s -card, and we struck away across another great plain, fertile, no doubt, -but dismally bare except for the few clumps of leafless trees about the -mud farm-houses. It was inevitable that a fantastic range should appear -close on the left as the darkness faded, and follow us all the rest of -the day. A few miles out of Paotou, before daylight, in fact, we found -ourselves riding parallel to a railway embankment. This was some ten -feet high, but quite new and made only of the soft local soil without a -suggestion of stone in it, and struck in company with a lone -telegraph-wire due eastward across the flat country, quite unaccustomed -to such directness. It was easy to imagine what would happen to the -embankment when the rains came, to say nothing of the temporary track -down on the floor of the plain, which we came upon only seven or eight -miles out, with a work-train already using it. For there was the usual -refrain of anything or any one connected with the Chinese Government: -money was not available to build bridges across the gaps in the -embankment and finish the line properly, and it was only in this -imperfect form that the Suiyuan railway reached Paotou barely a month -behind us. - -The first station was still sixty _li_ east of it, however, when we -returned to civilization, by a bad road full of stones, now between mud -field-walls that tried in vain to confine it, now zigzagging across the -bare fields. We passed through one large dilapidated town, high above -which a striking peak stood out from the range, with a lama temple that -looked like some elaborate tourist-resort part-way up it. Then the road -became more and more crowded with travel, with sometimes ten or a dozen -“Peking carts” in a row taking passengers to the train; but it still -skated occasionally across a patch of ice before we came at last, soon -after noon, to a lone station congested with travelers, goods, and -halted caravans. Acres covered with huge chunks of coal were the most -conspicuous of the exports awaiting transportation at that season, but -it was easy to see how badly a railway out of Paotou was needed. - -There was, of course, a free-for-all mêlée about the ticket-window, with -no attempt by the several men strutting around in new police uniforms to -bring a suggestion of order; but we were duly installed in the daily -freight and third-class train when it rambled away an hour or so after -our arrival. All the expedition was still with us except the two carts -and their drivers. For the least reward we could give the -pleasant-mannered Kansu ponies that had carried us, except when we -walked beside them, 770 miles in three weeks, was a journey to Peking, -even though we found when it was too late that their transportation -would be higher than the fare charged a mere human passenger in the -highest class available, and their accommodations an open car in which -boulders of coal might at any moment come down and do them serious -injury. Taking the horses meant, of course, that we had to be -accessories before the fact in inflicting upon Chihli Province our -putative _mafu_; and naturally the cook and Chang must be returned to -the place where we had picked them up. - -We had covered, we found, when a train seat gave a chance for figuring, -4400 _li_ between the two railways, in other words 1320 miles, all in -the saddle except the scant hundred by mule-litter. The hardy Chinese -passengers on all sides of us were so warmly dressed in their -cotton-padded and sheepskin garments that they kept the windows wide -open, even though the car was innocent of so much as the makings of a -fire. Our feet in particular suffered, as those of foreigners usually do -in North China in winter, and called our attention more closely to the -contrivances which the Chinese use to keep theirs warm. Leather there -was none, except in a rare pair of Mongol boots, large enough for a -dozen woolen socks inside. Felt, often in four thicknesses, sometimes in -six, was the material of most shoes; one old man at a cold wayside -station had on a pair of Greek tragedy buskins that looked like two hams -cut open to admit the feet. - -That evening we reached Kweihwa, otherwise known as Suiyuan, just in -time to transfer to the newly scheduled express to Peking. The major -considered it suitable to the dignity of his calling to travel second -class—there being no first on this line—and therefore had the pleasure -of sitting up all night between two hard wooden bench-backs. Having -myself no “face” to lose, I found the third-class coaches big and -box-car-like, with plenty of room between the narrow benches along the -walls to spread my cot and make my bed as usual. The car was full of men -stretched out on the floor, the benches, or their saddlebag beds, but -the small iron stove in the center of it did little to change it from a -foreign to a Chinese bedroom—for night is the one part of the -twenty-four hours when artificial heat is in great demand in wintertime -China. - -In the cold morning hours I found Mongols, Chinese who had turned -Mongols and lamas, women of that race ugly with dirt and jewelry, -surly-looking Mohammedans with long red-tinged chin-whiskers and -features that seemed almost of exaggerated Jewish type, and every -variety of the ordinary Chinese of both sexes, all among my -traveling-companions or those who got on or off during the day. -Sometimes the distinction was not certain, for in their many raids upon -the ancient empire the Mongols carried off so many Chinese women that -the northern Chinese and the Mongols often look much alike. We were -struck with the fact that there was much less pleasing simplicity here -than among the timid country people far from such modern things as -railroads. The Great Wall, now quite imposing, stretched for hour after -hour along the base of the mountain range still on our left; but the -Hoang Ho was gone, having turned abruptly southward not far from where -we had taken the train, to keep that course to Tungkwan, hundreds of -miles away, where we had entered the province of Shensi. Kalgan, already -familiar, appeared in the early afternoon, then in due season Nankou -Pass, with the best known and most striking section of China’s great -artificial barrier, and soon after dark of the shortest, yet in some -ways the longest, day of the year our respective families might have -been dimly seen striving to identify us beneath the long failure to -shave which our hasty home-coming had imposed upon us, as the express -discharged its multitude at Hsi-chi-men on the far northwestern corner -of Peking. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. - 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as - printed. - 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Wandering in Northern China, by Harry A. 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