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diff --git a/77853-0.txt b/77853-0.txt new file mode 100755 index 0000000..f5da84b --- /dev/null +++ b/77853-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16233 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77853 *** + + + + + THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND + + +[Illustration: TIBETAN LAMAS MASKED FOR A RELIGIOUS DANCE.] + + + + + THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND + AN ACCOUNT OF JOURNEYS IN CHINA, CHIEFLY IN THE PROVINCE OF SZE CHUAN + AND AMONG THE MAN-TZE OF THE SOMO TERRITORY + + + BY MRS. J. F. BISHOP + (ISABELLA L. BIRD), F.R.G.S. + + HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY + HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ORIENTAL SOCIETY OF PEKING, ETC. ETC. + + WITH MAP AND 116 ILLUSTRATIONS + + DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO + THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, K.G. + + LONDON + JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET + 1899 + + + DEDICATED BY PERMISSION + TO THE + MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, K.G. + WITH THE AUTHOR’S PROFOUND RESPECT, AND ADMIRATION + OF THE NOBLE AND DISINTERESTED SERVICES + WHICH HE HAS RENDERED TO THE + BRITISH EMPIRE + + + + + PREFACE + + +These journeys in China [concluding in 1897], of which the following +pages are the record, were undertaken for recreation and interest +solely, after some months of severe travelling in Korea. I had no +intention of writing a book, and it was not till I came home, and China +came very markedly to the front, and friends urged upon me that my +impressions of the Yangtze Valley might be a useful contribution to +popular knowledge of that much-discussed region, that I began to arrange +my materials in their present form. They consist of journal letters, +photographs, and notes from a brief diary. + +In correcting them, and in the identification of places, not an easy +matter, I have been much indebted to the late Captain Gill’s _River of +Golden Sand_, _The Gorges of the Yangtze_, by Mr. A. Little, three +papers on “Exploration in Western China,” by Mr. Colborne Baber, in the +_Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, and very +specially to the official reports of H.B.M.’s Consuls at the Yangtze +ports. I have denied myself the pleasure of reading any of the recent +literature on China, and it was only when my task was done that I +glanced over some of the later chapters in _The Break Up of China_, and +_China in Transformation_. For a great part of my inland journey I have +been unable to find any authorities to refer to, and as regards personal +observation I agree sadly with the dictum of Socrates—“The body is a +hindrance to acquiring knowledge, and sight and hearing are not to be +trusted.” + +I cannot hope to escape errors, but I have made a laborious effort to be +accurate, and I trust and believe that they are not of material +importance, and that in the main this volume will be found to convey a +truthful impression of the country and its people. The conflicting +statements made on every subject by well-informed foreign residents in +China, as elsewhere, constitute a difficulty for a traveller, and +homogeneous as China is, yet with regard to very many customs, what is +true in one region is not true in another. Even in the single province +of SZE CHUAN there is a very marked unlikeness between one district and +another in house and temple architecture, methods of transit, customs in +trade, and in much else. + +I have dwelt at some length on “Beaten Tracks”—_i.e._, treaty ports and +the Great River—though these have been described by many writers, for +the reason that each one looks at them from a different standpoint, and +helps to create a complete whole. The illustrations in this volume, with +the exception of the reproductions of some Chinese drawings, and nine +which friends have kindly permitted me to use, are from my own +photographs. The spelling of place names needs an explanation. I have +not the Chinese characters for them, and in many cases have only been +able to represent by English letters the sounds as they reached my ear; +but wherever possible, the transliteration given by Consul Playfair in +his published list of Chinese Place Names has been adopted, and with +regard to a few well-known cities the familiar but unscholarly spelling +has been retained. To prevent confusion the names of provinces have been +printed in capitals. + +I am painfully conscious of the many demerits of this volume, but +recognising the extreme importance of increasing by every means the +knowledge of, and interest in, China and its people, I venture to ask +for it from the public the same kindly criticism with which my former +records of Asiatic travel have been received, and to hope that it may be +accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution to the data on +which public opinion on China and Chinese questions must be formed. + + ISABELLA L. BISHOP + + _October, 1899._ + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY 1 + II. “THE MODEL SETTLEMENT” 15 + III. HANGCHOW 29 + IV. THE HANGCHOW MEDICAL MISSION HOSPITALS 44 + V. SHANGHAI TO HANKOW (HANKAU) 55 + VI. THE FOREIGNERS—HANKOW AND BRITISH TRADE 61 + VII. CHINESE HANKOW (HANKAU) 67 + VIII. HANKOW TO ICHANG 83 + IX. ICHANG 95 + X. THE UPPER YANGTZE 104 + XI. RAPIDS OF THE UPPER YANGTZE 114 + XII. RAPIDS AND TRACKERS 128 + XIII. LIFE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE 138 + XIV. THE YANGTZE AND KUEI FU 150 + XV. NEW YEAR’S DAY AT KUEI-CHOW FU 160 + XVI. KUEI FU TO WAN HSIEN 166 + XVII. CHINESE CHARITIES 181 + XVIII. FROM WAN HSIEN TO SAN TSAN-PZU 194 + XIX. SZE CHUAN TRAVELLING 207 + XX. SAN-TSAN-PU TO LIANG-SHAN HSIEN 214 + XXI. LIANG-SHAN HSIEN TO HSIA-SHAN-PO 223 + XXII. HSIA-SHAN-PO TO SIAO-KIAO 240 + XXIII. SIAO-KIAO TO HSIEH-TIEN-TZE 249 + XXIV. HSIEH-TIEN-TZE TO PAONING FU 264 + XXV. PAONING FU AND SIN-TIEN-TZE 282 + XXVI. SIN-TIEN-TZE TO TZE-TUNG HSIEN 296 + XXVII. TZE-TUNG HSIEN TO KUAN HSIEN 316 + XXVIII. KUAN HSIEN AND CHENGTU 338 + XXIX. KUAN HSIEN TO SIN-WEN-PING 361 + XXX. SIN-WEN-PING TO LI-FAN TING 373 + XXXI. LI-FAN TING TO TSA-KU-LAO 395 + XXXII. THE “BEYOND” 404 + XXXIII. THE MAN-TZE, I-REN, OR SHAN-SHANG-REN 443 + XXXIV. FROM SOMO TO CHENGTU FU 455 + XXXV. DOWNWARD BOUND 460 + XXXVI. LUCHOW TO CHUNG-KING FU 477 + XXXVII. THE JOURNEY’S END 490 + XXXVIII. THE OPIUM POPPY AND ITS USE 506 + XXXIX. NOTES ON PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA 518 + CONCLUDING REMARKS 530 + ITINERARY 545 + APPENDICES 546 + INDEX 549 + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + Tibetan Lamas masked for a Religious Dance (Lal Singh) _Frontispiece_ + Zig-zag Bridge and Tea House, Shanghai 27 + A _Pah_, or Haulover 33 + West Gate, Hangchow 35 + Pavilion in Imperial Garden, Si-hu 39 + God of Thunder, Lin-yang 42 + C.M.S. Mission Hospital, Hangchow 45 + A Street in Hankow (John Thomson, F.R.G.S.) 69 + Hankow from Han Yang 73 + Coffins awaiting Burial 76 + Female Beggar in Mat Hut 78 + A Travelling Restaurant 80 + Chinese Soldiers 87 + Military Officer 88 + A Fisherman and Plunge Net 90 + The Tablet of Confucius 97 + Entrance to Ichang Gorge 107 + The Author’s Boat 111 + Bed of the Yangtze in Winter, Ta-tan Rapid 116 + The Hsin-tan 120 + Ping-shu Gorge, Hsin-tan 125 + The Mitan Gorge 129 + Temple near Kueichow 133 + Trackers’ Houses 143 + Author’s Trackers at Dinner 158 + A Chinese Punchinello 161 + Temple of Chang-fei 167 + Pagoda near Wan Hsien 169 + Guest Hall, C.I.M., Wan Hsien 173 + Bridge at Wan Hsien 179 + A Chinese Burial Charity 185 + Baggage Coolies 197 + A Pai-fang 199 + Granite Dragon Pillar 203 + Pass of Shen-kia-chao 215 + Wayside Shrine 218 + A Chinese Chatsworth 225 + Bridge and Inn of Shan-rang-sar 229 + A Porcelain Temple 233 + The Water Buffalo 235 + Ordinary Covered Bridge 237 + A Group of Kuans (Mandarins) 255 + Lady’s Sedan Chair (Chinese Propriety) (Dr. Kinnear) 259 + A Sze Chuan Farmhouse 267 + A Sze Chuan Market-place 271 + Pedagogue and Pupils 275 + Recessed Divinities, Chia-ling River 281 + Temple of God of Literature, Paoning Fu 283 + The Right Rev. Bishop Cassels, D.D., Paoning Fu 287 + Chinese Protestant Episcopal Church, Paoning Fu 289 + C.I.M. Sanitarium, Sin-tien-tze 293 + Entrance to a Market-place 297 + Author’s arrival at a Chinese Inn 303 + An Ox Mill 306 + A Hand Mill 307 + The Ta-lu 309 + Woman Reeling Silk 317 + The Rev. J. Heywood Horsburgh, M.A., in Travelling Dress 322 + Water Mill, Chengtu Plain 325 + Bridge at Mien-chuh 328 + Treadmill Field-pump (Captain Gill) 332 + Wooden Bridge, Kuan Hsien 335 + Roof of Erh-wang Temple 341 + Oil Baskets and Wooden Purse 344 + Barrow Traffic, Chengtu Plain 345 + Poppy Field in Blossom 349 + The White Opium Poppy (F. S. Mayers) 351 + The Author in Manchu Dress (Moffat, Edinburgh) 353 + Divinity in Wen-shu-yuan Temple, Chengtu 359 + Entrance to Grounds of City Temple, Kuan Hsien 363 + Double Roofed Bridge 368 + Tibetan Rope Bridge (Captain Gill) 370 + Human Pack Saddle for Timber 374 + Bamboo Suspension Bridge, Weichou 379 + Ancient Towers at Kanpo 383 + Kan-chi 387 + Rock Temple, Li-fan Ting 391 + Village of Wei-gua 397 + Street of Tsa-ku-lao 401 + A Sugar-loaf Mountain, Siao Ho 405 + Revolving Prayer-Cylinders 408 + Bridle Track by the Siao Ho 411 + View from Chuang Fang 414 + Castle at Chu-ti 416 + Headman’s House, Chu-ti 417 + Altar of Incense on Man-tze Roof 418 + Sick unto Death 420 + Lama-serai and Headman’s House, Mia-ko 421 + Elephantiasis (Dr. Christie) 427 + Chinese Officer and Spearmen, Mia-ko 432 + Village of Rong-kia 434 + Canyon of the Rong-kia 435 + Square Tower, Somo 438 + Distant View of Somo 439 + A Man-tze Village 444 + Somo Castle (back view) 447 + Entrance and Judgment-seat, Somo Castle 453 + Heshui Hunter, and Notched Timbers 456 + A Heshui Family, Ku-erh-kio 457 + A Dragon Bridge 459 + Village on the Min 462 + West Gate, Chia-ling Fu 465 + Frieze in Rock Dwelling, Min River 468 + Boat on the Min (Dr. Causland) 469 + Town on the Yangtze 472 + Suburb of Sui Fu 473 + Tsiang Ngan Hsien, with entrance to Rock Dwelling 476 + Pagoda near Luchow 479 + The Author’s _Wu-pan_ 483 + Method of carrying _Cash_ and Babies 486 + Fishing Village, Upper Yangtze 487 + Wall of Chung-king, with Gate Towers 491 + Chung-king Soldiers, Customs Guard 494 + Gala Head-dress, “Dog-faced” Woman (Dr. Kinnear) 498 + The Author’s last _Wu-pan_ 500 + “Stone Precious Castle,” Shi-pao-chai 502 + + + + + ERRATA. + + + Page 2. Third line from bottom, for “140” read “263.” + + „ 177. Footnote, third line from bottom, after “illustration” read + “on page 498.” + + „ 415. Eleventh line from bottom, for “_Tu-sze_” read “_Tu-tze_.” + + „ 495. Eighteenth line from top, for “88°” read “87°.” + + „ 518. Eleventh line from bottom, for “six thousand” read “8875.” + + + + + THE YANGTZE VALLEY + + + + + CHAPTER I. + GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY + + +The events which have rendered the Yangtze Valley literally a “sphere of +interest” throughout the British Empire lie outside the purview of these +volumes. Few people, unless they have been compelled to the task by +circumstances or interests, are fully acquainted with the magnitude and +resources of the great basin which in the spring of 1898 was claimed as +the British “sphere of influence,” and I honestly confess that it was +only at the end of eight months (out of journeys of fifteen months in +China) spent on the Yangtze, its tributaries, and the regions watered by +them that I even began to learn their magnificent capabilities, and the +energy, resourcefulness, capacities, and “backbone” of their enormous +population. + +Geographically the Yangtze Valley, or drainage area, may be taken as +extending from the 90th to the 122nd meridian of east longitude, and as +including all or most of the important provinces of SZE CHUAN, HUPEH, +HUNAN, KIANGSI, NGANHUI, KIANGSU, and HONAN, with considerable portions +of CHE KIANG, KUEICHOW, and YUNNAN, and even includes the south-eastern +drainage areas of KANSUH, SHENSI, and SHANTUNG. Geographically there can +be no possible mistake about the limits of this basin.[1] Its area is +estimated at about 650,000 square miles, and its population, one of the +most peaceable and industrious on earth, at from 170,000,000 to +180,000,000. + +The actual length of the Yangtze is unknown, but is believed not to +exceed 3000 miles. Rising, according to the best geographical +information, almost due north of Calcutta, its upper waters have been +partially explored by Colonel Prjevalsky and Mr. Rockhill up to an +altitude in the Tang-la mountains of 16,400 feet, and as far as lat. 34° +43′ N. and long. 90° 48′ E.[2] + +It has thus been ascertained that the Great River, though not tracked +actually to its source, rises on the south-east edge of the Central +Asian steppes, and, after draining an extensive and little-known basin, +pursues a tempestuous course under the name of the Chin Sha, hemmed in +by parallel ranges, and raging through gigantic rifts in YUNNAN and +South-western SZE CHUAN, which culminate in grandeur at the Sun Bridge, +a mountain about 20,000 feet in altitude, “which abuts on the river in a +precipice or precipices which must be 8000 feet above its waters” +(Baber). + +It is not till these savage gorges are passed and the Chin Sha reaches +Ping Shan, forty miles above Sui Fu, that it becomes serviceable to man. +In long. 94° 48′ Colonel Prjevalsky describes it as a rapid torrent, +with a depth of from five to seven feet, a bed, upwards of a mile wide, +covered in summer, and a width in autumn of 750 feet at about 2800 miles +from its mouth. In travelling from its supposed source to Ping Shan, a +distance roughly estimated at 1500 miles, its fall must be fully 15,000 +feet (assuming that the altitude of its source is 16,400 feet),[3] while +for the same distance (again roughly estimated) from Ping Shan to +Shanghai the fall is only 1025 feet, and from Hankow to the sea, a +distance of 600 miles, only an inch per mile. + +The Min or Fu appears to have its source in the Baian Kara range, called +in Tibetan Maniak-tso,[4] and joins the Chin Sha at Sui Fu. While the +Chin Sha is only navigable for about forty miles above this junction, +the Min is navigable to Chengtu, about 266 miles from Sui Fu, and by +another branch to Kuan Hsien, forty miles higher. I descended the Min +from Chengtu to Sui Fu in a fair-sized boat at the very lowest of low +water. As being navigable for a far greater distance, the Chinese +geographers regard the Min as the true “Great River,” the superior +length of the Chin Sha not being taken into account. It should be noted +that the Chinese only give their great river the name of Yangtze for the +two hundred miles of its tidal waters.[5] + +After the River of Golden Sand and the Min unite at Sui Fu, the Great +River asserts its right to be regarded as the most important of Asiatic +waterways by furnishing, by its main stream and the tributaries which +thereafter enter it, routes easy of navigation through the rich and +crowded centre of China, with Canton by the Fu-ling, with only two +portages, and with Peking (Tientsin) itself by the Grand Canal, which it +cuts in twain at Chin Kiang. + +It is only of the navigable affluents of the Yangtze that mention need +be made here. The raging and tremendous torrents foaming through rifts +as colossal as its own, and at present unexplored, lie rather within the +province of the geographer. + +In estimating the importance of these affluents it must be remembered +that the Yangtze, of which they are feeders, is not _an_ outlet, but +_the_ outlet, for the commerce of SZE CHUAN, which, owing to its size, +population, wealth, and resources, may be truly termed the empire +province of China. + +On the north or left bank the Min, before uniting with the Chin Sha at +Sui Fu, receives near the beautiful trading city of Chia-ling Fu the +Tung or Tatu, a river with a volume of water so much larger than its own +as to warrant the view taken by Mr. Baber and Mr. von Rosthorn that it +ought to be considered the main stream, and the Ya, which is navigable +for bamboo rafts up to Ya-chow, the centre of the brick tea trade with +Tibet. After this the Yangtze at Lu-chow receives the To, which gives +access to one of the richest regions of the province, and at Chungking, +the trading capital, the Chia-ling. + +This is in itself a river of great importance, being navigable for over +500 miles, actually into the province of Kansuh. It receives several +noble navigable feeders, among the most important of which are the Ku, +entering it a little above Ho-chow, the Honton or Fu, and the Pai Shui. +It passes for much of its course through a rich and fertile region, and +through a country which produces large quantities of salt, and it +bisects the vast coal-fields which underlie Central SZE CHUAN. On the +right or south bank above the gorges, at the picturesque city of +Fu-chow, the Fu-ling, which has three aliases, enters the Yangtze. This +is an affluent of much commercial importance, as being the first of a +network of rivers by which, with only two portages, goods from the Far +West can reach Canton, and as affording, with its connections the Yuan +Ho and the Tungting lake, an alternative route to Hankow, by which the +risks of the rapids are avoided. + +After the Yangtze enters the gorges, which at one point, at least, +narrow it to a width of 150 yards, there are no affluents worthy of +special notice until Ichang is passed, when the Han, navigable for cargo +boats for 1200 miles of north-westerly windings from its mouth at +Hankow, takes the first place, followed by the Yuan, Hsiang, Kan, Shu, +and others, which join the Yangtze through the Tungting and Poyang +lakes. These rivers, specially the Han, are themselves swelled by a +great number of navigable feeders, which east of Sha-shih, in the Great +Plain, are connected by a vast network of navigable canals, the +differences in level being overcome by the ingenious contrivance called +the _pah_. These natural and artificial waterways are among the chief +elements of the prosperity of the Yangtze Valley, affording cheap +transit for merchandise, land carriage in China, mile for mile, costing +twenty times as much as water carriage. + +The time of the annual rise and fall of the Great River can be counted +on with tolerable certainty. With regard to the rise, from what I saw +and heard I am inclined to attach more importance to the swelling of its +Yunnan affluents during the south-west monsoon than to the melting of +those snows which, as seen from the stupendous precipice of Omi-shan, +are one of the grandest sights on earth—the long and glittering barrier +which secludes the last of the hermit nations. + +The rise of the Yangtze is from forty feet or thereabouts at Hankow to +ninety feet and upwards at Chungking. During three months of the year +the rush of the vast volume of water is so tremendous that traffic is +mainly suspended, and even in early June many hundreds of the large +junks are laid up until the autumn in quiet reaches between Chungking +and Wan Hsien. The annual rise of the river as well as the rapids have +to be taken into consideration in the discussion of the question as to +whether steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze can be made commercially +profitable. + +The actual rise, which is more reliable than that of the Nile, begins +late in March, is at its height early in August, and then gradually +falls until December or January. Late in June, when I descended the +Great River, its enormous submerged area presented the same appearance +on a large scale as the limited Nile valley—an expanse of muddy water, +out of which low mounds, probably of great antiquity, rise, crested with +trees and villages, with boats moored to the houses. + +The country in the neighbourhood of Shanghai is a fairly good example of +the characteristics of the Great Plain. In ordinary dry weather the +surface of the soil is not more than five feet above the water-level, +and as seen from any pagoda the whole country, with the exception of the +two or three low Tsing-pu hills, which are seldom visible, presents the +aspect, familiar to dwellers in the fens, of a cultivated dead level, +intersected by numerous canals and creeks and by embankments for the +preservation of the fields from inundation. Much the same sort of view +in winter may be seen from any elevated point for hundreds of miles, +modified by a few ranges of hills of somewhat higher elevation, wider +creeks, and shallow marshy lakes. + +It is not solely by deposits of rich alluvium brought down by the annual +rise of the river that the soil of the Great Plain is gradually raised. +The agency of dust storms is an important one, and these occur +extensively throughout Northern and Central China, moving much material +from place to place. I saw a dust storm at Kueichow which lasted for +seven hours, burying some hovels and much agricultural country, and even +producing a metamorphosis of the rocky bed of the Yangtze. Such storms +have been observed as far east as Shanghai, but their occurrence at +Kueichow shows that their area is not limited to the Great Plain or even +to the region east of the mountain barrier between HUPEH and SZE CHUAN. + +It is not till the Yangtze reaches Sha-shih that its character +completely changes. The first note of change is a great embankment, +thirty feet high, which protects the region from inundation. Below +Sha-shih the vast river becomes mixed up with a network of lakes and +rivers, connected by canals, the area of the important Tungting lake +being over 2000 square miles. The Han alone, with its many affluents and +canals, disperses goods through the interior for 1200 miles north of its +mouth at Hankow, but there are some difficult rapids to surmount. The +Hsiang and the Yuan, uniting with the Yangtze at the Tungting lake, are +navigable nearly as far to the south. The Kan, which unites with the +Yangtze through the Poyang lake, which has an area of 1800 square miles, +is navigable to the Mei-ling pass, near the Kwantung frontier. + +The delta of the river is indicated below Wu-sueh by even a greater +labyrinth of tributaries, lakes, and canals, the area of the Tai Hu and +the other lakes in the southern delta being estimated at 1200 square +miles, and the length of the channels used for navigation and irrigation +at 36,000 miles. In summer, after the spring crops have been removed, +the whole region is under water. The population migrates to mounds, and +the temporary villages communicate by boats. + +At Chinkiang the Grand Canal enters the Yangtze from Hangchow, and +leaves it on the left bank, some miles away, for Tientsin. On that north +bank engineering works, extending over a vast area of country, have been +constructed, evidencing the former energy and skill of the Chinese. + +These have diverted the river Huai, which with its seventy-two +tributaries form important commercial routes to North An Hui and Honan, +from its natural course to the sea, and have compelled the bulk of its +waters to discharge themselves into the Yangtze through openings in a +large canal which runs nearly parallel with it for 140 miles. By means +of innumerable artificial waterways, the excavation of some lakes, and +the enlargement of others, the Huai no longer has any existence as a +river east of the Grand Canal, most of this work having been carried out +to prevent undue pressure on the bank of that great waterway at any one +point south of the old course of the Hoang Ho. + +North of the canal, and parallel with the Yangtze, lies a parallelogram +the extent of which is estimated by Père Gandar at 8876 square miles, +and is one of the most productive rice-fields in China. This is below +the water-level. It has immense dykes protecting it from the sea, +pierced by eighteen drainage canals, but its chief drainage is into the +Yangtze. Waterways under constant and careful supervision intersect this +singular region. For the remaining distance the mighty flood of the +Yangtze rolls majestically on through absolutely level country, in which +in winter embankments and waterways are everywhere seen. The influence +of the tide is felt for about 200 miles. + +There is an ancient Chinese proverb regarding the mouth of the Great +River: “Lo, this mighty current hastens to its imperial audience with +the ocean.” But opaque yellow water and mud flats, extending as far as +the eye can reach, leave the imperial grandeur to the imagination. + +Tennyson’s description of the work of rivers as being “to sow the dust +of continents to be,” applies forcibly to the Yangtze, which, after +creating the vast alluvial plains which stretch from Sha-shih for 800 +miles to the ocean and endowing them in its annual overflow with +sufficient fresh material to keep up an unsurpassed fertility, has yet +enough to spare to discharge 770,000 feet of solid substance every +second into the sea, according to scientific estimates. The Yangtze has +done much to create, within comparatively recent years, at least the +eastern portion of the province of Kiang Su and the island of Tsung-ming +near Shanghai, capable of supporting a population of considerably over +1,000,000 souls. Another marked instance of its power to create is shown +near the treaty port of Chinkiang. The British fleet ascended the +Yangtze, so recently as in 1842, by a channel south of the beautiful +Golden Island. Now, instead of the channel, there is an expanse of +wooded and cultivated land sprinkled with villages. + +Nearly a mile wide 600 miles from its mouth, nearly three-quarters of a +mile at 1000, and 630 yards at 1500, with a volume of water which, at +1000 miles from the sea, is estimated at 244 times that of the Thames at +London Bridge, with a summer depth of ninety feet at Chungking and of +ten feet at its few shallow places at Hankow when at its lowest winter +level, with a capacity for a rise of forty feet before it overflows its +banks, with an annual rise and fall more reliable than those of the +Nile, with navigable tributaries penetrating the richest and most +populous regions of China, navigable in the summer as far as Hankow for +the largest ships in the world, and during the whole year to Ichang, 400 +miles farther, for fine river steamers carrying large cargoes, even the +Upper Yangtze, that region of grandeur, perils, and surprises, is +traversed annually by 7000 junks, employing a quarter of a million of +men. During my own descent of the Min and Yangtze from Chengtu to +Shanghai, a distance by the windings of the river of about 2000 miles, I +was never out of sight of native traffic, and those who, like myself, +have waited for two or three days at the foot of the great rapids for +the turn to ascend, can form some idea of how vast that traffic is. + +The navigable portion of the Yangtze, as regarded from the sea, +naturally divides itself into three stretches, the first, of 1000 miles, +rolling as a broad turbid flood, traversed by several lines of steamers, +through the deep grey alluvium of some of the richest and most populous +provinces of China, mainly its own creation; the second, the region +between Ichang and Kueichow Fu, through which hitherto goods have been +carried by junks alone, in which it cleaves the confused mass of the +HUPEH ranges by a series of magnificent gorges and tremendous cataracts; +and the third, the long stretch of rapids and races between Kueichow Fu +and Sui Fu at its junction with the Min. + +It is not possible to exaggerate the sublimity and risks of the +navigation of the Upper Yangtze, especially at certain seasons. Of the +vast fleet of junks which navigate its perilous waters, five hundred on +an average are annually wrecked, and one-tenth of the enormous +importation of cotton into Chungking arrives damaged by water. Yet so +ample are the means of transport, and so low the freight considering the +risks, that, according to Mr. von Rosthorn, of the Chinese Imperial +Maritime Customs, foreign cottons are sold in SZE CHUAN at a barely +appreciable advance on their price at Ichang, to which point they are +brought by steam from the coast in eight days. + +The _Chinese Gazetteer_ notifies one thousand rapids and rocks between +Ichang and Chungking, a distance of about 500 miles; and in winter this +does not seem an outlandish estimate, but in early summer, with the +water twenty-four and thirty feet higher, many of the vigorous rapids, +alternating with smooth stretches of river only running three knots an +hour, disappear, along with boulder-strewn shores, rocks, and islets, +giving place to a broad and tremendous volume of water, swirling +seawards at the rate of seven, eight, and ten knots an hour, forming +many and dangerous whirlpools. + +Of the magnitude of the native traffic on the Lower Yangtze, +undiminished by the various steamboat lines which keep up daily +communication with Hankow, it is scarcely needful to write. In ascending +it is evident to the traveller by the time that Chinkiang, the port of +junction with the Grand Canal, is reached, that, broad as the river is, +there is none too much “sea room” for the thousands of junks of every +build, from every maritime and riverine province, fishing and cargo +boats of every size and rig, rafts, lorchas, and cormorant boats, which +throng its waters. + +The open ports of Wuhu and Kiu-kiang, each with its fleets of junks, and +trade worth several millions sterling annually, and big cities such as +Nanking, Yangchow, and Nganking, each with its highly organised +mercantile and social life, and trade guilds and charities, are +important and interesting; and it is seen in a rapid glance that large +villages with numerous industries, rice, cotton, and silk culture +predominating, abound, that everything is utilised, that every foot of +ground capable of cultivation is bearing a crop, and that even the +reed-beds of the irreclaimable swamps furnish materials for houses, +roofs, fences, and fuel. It is seen that elaborate and successful +engineering works have reclaimed large tracts of country and keep them +drained, that a network of irrigating and navigable canals spreads over +the whole level region, and that the traffic on these minor waterways is +enormous. + +So ceaseless are the industries by land and water, that it is hardly a +surprise to find them culminating 600 miles from the ocean in the +“million-peopled” city of Hankow (Han Mouth), the greatest distributing +centre for goods in China, with miles of craft moored in triple rows +along the Han, itself navigable for 1200 miles. + +The empire province of SZE CHUAN, with the great navigable tributaries +of the Yangtze, by which goods are conveyed at small cost to countless +towns and villages, will be treated in some detail farther on. It is +enough to remark here that it has about the area of France, that it has +a population estimated by the Chinese census authorities at 70,000,000, +and by none at less than 50,000,000; that it has a superb climate, +ranging from the temperate to the sub-tropical; a rich soil, much of +which, under careful cultivation, yields three and even four crops +annually of most things which can be grown; forests of grand timber, the +area of which has not even been estimated; rich mineral resources, and +some of the most valuable and extensive coal-fields in the world. It +cannot be repeated too often that for its export trade, estimated at +£3,300,000, and its import trade, estimated at £2,400,000, the Yangtze +is the _sole_ outlet and inlet. + +Such an exhibition of Chinese energy, industry, resourcefulness, and +power of battling with difficulties is not to be seen anywhere to the +same extent as on the Upper Yangtze, where the enormous bulk of the vast +import trade has to be dragged up 500 miles of hills of water by the +sheer force of man-power, at two or three of the worst rapids a junk of +over one hundred tons requiring the haulage of nearly four hundred men. + +Waterways take the place of roads, which are usually infamous, +throughout the Yangtze basin, but the bridges are marvels of solidity, +and in many cases of beauty. The annual inundations on the Great Plain +partly account for the badness of the roads, and constitute an expensive +difficulty in the way of the forthcoming railroads. + +To write of the Yangtze Valley, the British “sphere of influence” (a +phrase against which I protest), without any allusion to such an +important factor as its inhabitants, would be a mistake, for sooner or +later, in various ways, we shall have to reckon with them. + +The population throughout, from the ocean to the unexplored rifts of the +Chin Sha, is homogeneous, that is Chinese, with the exception of certain +tribes of the far west: the Sifan, Mantze, and Lolo. The Tartars or +Manchu, who have supplied the throne with the present dynasty, whose +fathers drove the Chinese before them like sheep, and who still garrison +the great cities, have mainly degenerated into opium-smoking loafers, +the agent in their downfall being hereditary pensions. + +Throughout this vast population, perhaps not over-estimated at +180,000,000, with the exception of spasmodic and local rebellions now +and then, law and order, prosperity (except in such disasters as floods +or famines) and peace prevail, and that security for the gains of labour +exists without which no country is great. The system of government, the +written language, and the education are uniform, and the “three +religions”—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism—are so mixed up together +that there is little antagonism between them. + +The organisation of this valley population, social and mercantile, is a +marvel, with its system of trade, trade guilds, trade unions, charities, +banking and postal systems, and powerful trade combinations. + +In much talk about “open doors” and “spheres of influence” and +“interest,” in much greed for ourselves, not always dexterously cloaked, +and much jealousy and suspicion of our neighbours, and in much interest +in the undignified scramble for concessions in which we have been taking +our share at Peking, there is a risk of our coming to think only of +markets, territory, and railroads, and of ignoring the men who, for two +thousand years, have been making China worth scrambling for. It may be +that we go forward with “a light heart,” along with other European +empires, not hesitating, for the sake of commercial advantages, to break +up in the case of a fourth of the human race the most ancient of earth’s +existing civilisations, without giving any equivalent. + +In estimating the position occupied by the inhabitants of the Yangtze +Valley, as of the rest of China, it is essential for us to see quite +clearly that our Western ideas find themselves confronted, not with +barbarism or with debased theories of morals, but with an elaborate and +antique civilisation which yet is not decayed, and which, though +imperfect, has many claims to our respect and even admiration. They meet +with a perfectly organised social order, a system of government +theoretically admirably suited to the country, combining the extremes of +centralisation and decentralisation, and under which, in spite of its +tremendous infamies of practice, the governed enjoy a large measure of +peace and prosperity, a noteworthy amount of individual liberty and +security for the gains of labour, and under which it is as possible for +a peasant’s son to rise to high position as in the American Republic.[6] + +Western civilisation finds itself confronted also by a people at once +grossly material and grossly superstitious, swayed at once by the hazy +speculations and unintelligible metaphysic which in Chinese Buddhism +have allied themselves with the most extravagant and childish +superstitions, and by the dæmonism of Taoism, while over both tower the +lofty ethics and profound agnosticism of Confucius. It finds a classical +literature universally held in profound reverence, in which, according +to all testimony, there is not a thought which could sully the purest +mind, and an idolatry puerile, superstitious, and free from grand +conceptions, but in which bloody sacrifices and the deification of vice +have never had a part, or immoral rites a place. + +The human product of Chinese civilisation, religion, and government is +to me the greatest of all enigmas, and so he remains to those who know +him best. At once conservative and adaptable, the most local of peasants +in his attachments, and the most cosmopolitan and successful of +emigrants—sober, industrious, thrifty, orderly, peaceable, indifferent +to personal comfort, possessing great physical vitality, cheerful, +contented, persevering—his filial piety, tenacity, resourcefulness, +power of combination, and respect for law and literature, place him in +the van of Asiatic nations. + +The Chinese constitute an order by themselves, and their individuality +cannot be read in the light of that of any other nation. The aspirations +and modes of thinking by which we are ruled do not direct their aims. +They are keen and alert, but unwilling to strike out new lines, and slow +to be influenced in any matters. Their trading instincts are phenomenal. +They are born bargainers, and would hardly think half an hour wasted if +through chaffering they gained an advantage of half a _cash_, a coin +forty of which are about one penny. They are suspicious, cunning, and +corrupt; but it is needless to run through the established formula of +their vices. Among the things which they lack are CONSCIENCE, and such +an enlightened public opinion as shall sustain right and condemn wrong. + +Matthew Arnold has said that Greece perished for want of attention to +conduct, and that the revelation which rules the world is the +“pre-eminence of righteousness.” It may be that the western powers are +not giving the Middle Kingdom a very desirable object-lesson. + +On the whole, as I hope to show to some extent in the following pages, +throughout the Yangtze valley, from the great cities of Hangchow and +Hankow to the trading cities of SZE-CHUAN, the traveller receives very +definite impressions of the completeness of Chinese social and +commercial organisation, the skill and carefulness of cultivation, the +clever adaptation of means to ends—the existence of provincial +patriotism, or, perhaps, more truly, of local public spirit, of the +general prosperity, and of the backbone, power of combination, +resourcefulness, and independence possessed by the race. It is not an +effete or decaying people which we shall have to meet in serious +competition when it shall have learned our sciences and some of our +methods of manufacturing industry. Indeed, it is not improbable that +chemistry, for instance, might be eagerly adapted by so ingenious a race +to the perpetration of new and hitherto unthought-of frauds! But if the +extraordinary energy, adaptability, and industry of the Chinese may be +regarded from one point of view as the “Yellow Peril,” surely looked at +from another they constitute the Yellow Hope, and it may be possible +that an empire genuinely Christianised, but not denationalised, may yet +be the dominant power in Eastern Asia. + +The Chinese are ignorant and superstitious beyond belief, but on the +whole, with all their faults, I doubt whether any other Oriental race +runs so straight. + +The Yangtze Basin is a magnificent sphere of interest for all the +industrial nations for fair, if not friendly, rivalry, and to preserve +the “open door” there, and throughout China, is a worthy object of +ambition. To strengthen instead of to weaken the Central Government is +undoubtedly the wisest policy to pursue, for in the weakness of the +Peking Government lies the weakness and possible abrogation of all +treaty obligations. It is its strength and capacity to fulfil its +treaties which alone make them worth anything. In the weakening of the +Central Government, and the disintegration of the empire, our treaty +rights in the Yangtze Valley, for instance, would be worth as much as +our sword could secure, and it cannot reach above Ichang, while if the +integrity of the empire be preserved, and it is aided along judicious +paths of reform, this vast basin, with its singular capabilities, and +its population of 180,000,000, may become the widest arena for +commercial rivalries that the world has ever seen. + + + + + CHAPTER II. + “THE MODEL SETTLEMENT” + + +Those of my readers who have followed me through all or any of my eleven +volumes of travels must be aware that my chief wish on arriving at a +foreign settlement or treaty port in the East is to get out of it as +soon as possible, and that I have not the remotest hankering after +Anglo-Asiatic attractions. Nor is Shanghai, “The Model Settlement of the +East,” an exception to the general rule, though I gratefully acknowledge +the kindness and hospitality which I met with there, as everywhere, and +recall with pleasure my many sojourns at the British Consulate as the +guest of Mr. and Mrs. Lowndes Bullock. + +But as the outlet of the commerce of the Yangtze Valley, and as a +foreign city which has risen on Chinese shores in little more than half +a century to the position and importance of one of the great trading +centres of the world—its exports and imports for 1898 being of the value +of £37,680,875 sterling[7]—it claims such notice as I can give it, which +is chiefly in the shape of impressions. + +I have reached Shanghai four times by Japanese steamers, three times in +coasting steamers of American build, once in one of the superb vessels +of the Canadian _Empress_ line, once from Hankow in a metamorphosed +Dutch gunboat, and the last time, after nearly three and a half years of +far eastern travel, in a small Korean Government steamer, her quaint, +mysterious, and nearly unknown national flag exciting much speculation +and interest as she steamed slowly up the river. Of these vessels, the +_Empress of China_ alone discharged her passengers and cargo at +Woo-sung, a railroad terminus twelve miles below Shanghai, and that not +necessarily. + +Many hours before reaching port, the deep heavenly blue of the Pacific +gradually changes into a turbid yellowish flood, well named the Yellow +Sea, holding in suspension the rich wash of scarcely explored Central +Asian mountain ranges, the red loam of the “Red Basin” of SZE CHUAN, and +the grey and yellow alluvium of the Central Provinces of China, all +carried to the ocean by the “Great River,” according to a careful +scientific estimate, to the extent of 6,428,858,255 cubic feet a year, +solid stuff enough to build an island ninety feet in depth and a mile +square annually. + +Countless fishing-boats roll on the muddy waste; sailing vessels, +steamers, and brown-sailed junks of every build show signs of +convergence towards something, and before long a blink of land is +visible, and a lightship indicates the mouth of the Yangtze Kiang and a +navigable channel. It is long even then before anything definite +presents itself, and I confess to being disappointed with the first +features of the Asiatic mainland—two long, thin, yellow lines, hardly +more solid-looking than the yellow water stretching along the horizon, +growing gradually into low marshy banks, somewhat later topped with +uninteresting foliage, through which there are glimpses of what looks +like an interminable swamp. Then Woo-sung appears with its new railroad, +godowns, whitewashed buildings, and big ships at anchor discharging +cargo into lighters and native boats, and then the banks of the +narrowing Huang-pu, the river of Shanghai, are indicated by habitations +and small fields and signs of small industries. + +Within four miles of Shanghai the vivacity of the Huang-pu and its banks +becomes overpowering, and the West asserts its ascendency over the +slow-moving East. There are ranges of great godowns, wharves, building +yards, graving docks, “works” of all descriptions, filatures, cotton +mills, and all the symptoms in smoky chimneys and a ceaseless clang of +the presence of capital and energy. After the war with Japan there was a +rapid increase in the number of factories. + +The life and movement on the river become wonderful. The channel for +large vessels, though narrow, shifting, and intricate, and the subject +of years of doleful prophecies as to “silting up” and leaving Shanghai +stranded, admits of the passage of our largest merchantmen, and +successful dredging enables them to lie alongside the fine wharves at +Hongkew. American three and four-masted and other sailing vessels are at +anchor in mid-stream, or are proceeding up or down in charge of tugs. +Monster liners under their own steam at times nearly fill up the +channel, their officers yelling frantically at the small craft which +recklessly cross their bows; great white, two-storeyed paddle arks from +Ningpo and Hankow, local steamers, steam launches owned by the great +firms, junks of all builds and sizes, manageable by their huge rudders, +_sampans_, hooded boats, and native boats of all descriptions, lighters, +and a shoal of nondescript craft make navigation tedious, if not +perilous, while sirens and steam whistles sound continually. “The plot +thickens.” Foreign _hongs_, warehouses, shipping offices, and hotels are +passed in Hongkew, the American settlement, and gliding round Pu-tung +Point, the steamer anchors abreast of the bund in a wholesomely rapid +flow of water 2000 feet wide. + +I arrived in Shanghai the first time on a clear, bright autumn day. The +sky was very blue, and the masses of exotic trees, the green, shaven +lawns, the belated roses, and the clumps of chrysanthemums in the fine +public gardens gave a great charm to the first view of the settlement. +Two big, lofty, white hulks for bonded Indian opium are moored +permanently in front of the gardens. Gunboats and larger war-vessels of +all nations, all painted white, and the fine steamers of the Messageries +Maritimes have their moorings a little higher up. Boats, with crews in +familiar uniforms, and covered native boats gaily painted, the latter +darting about like dragonflies, were plying ceaselessly, and as it was +the turn of the tide, hundreds of junks were passing seawards under +their big brown sails. + +On landing at the fine landing-stage, where kind friends received me and +took me to the British Consul’s residence in the spacious grounds of the +Consulate, I was at once impressed with the exquisite dress of the +ladies, who were at least a half of the throng, and with the look of +wealth and comfort which prevails. + +All along the British bund, for at least a mile from the Soochow Creek, +which separates it from Hongkew, to the French settlement, are banks, +hongs, hotels, and private houses of the most approved and massive +Anglo-Oriental architecture, standing in large, shady gardens, the Hong +Kong and Shanghai Bank, the “P. & O.” office, the Canadian-Pacific +Railroad office, the fine counting-house and dwelling-house of the old +and famous firm of Jardine, Matheson & Co., and the long façade of the +British Consular buildings, with their wide sweep of lawns, being +prominent. + +The broad carriage-road and fine flagged side-walk are truly +cosmopolitan. Well-dressed men and women of all civilised nations, and +of some which are not civilised, promenade gaily on the walk and in the +garden. Single and two-horse carriages and buggies, open and closed, +with coachmen and grooms in gay and often fantastic cotton liveries, +dash along the drive. Hackney victorias abound, and there are +_jinrickshas_ (from which foreigners drop the first syllable) in +hundreds, with Chinese runners, and Shanghai wheelbarrows innumerable, +some loaded with goods or luggage, while the coolies of others are +trundling along from two to four Chinese men or women of the lower +classes, seated on matted platforms on either side of the wheel, facing +forwards. + +I was not prepared for the Chinese element being so much _en evidence_ +in the foreign settlement. It is not only that clerks and compradores +dressed in rich silks on which the characters for happiness and +longevity and the symbols of luck are brocaded are in numbers on the +bund, and that all the servile classes, as may be expected, are Chinese, +but that Chinese shops of high standing, such as Laou Kai Fook’s, are +taking their places in fine streets which run back from the bund, that +some of the handsomest carriages on the bund and the Bubbling Well Road, +the fashionable afternoon drive of Shanghai, are owned and filled with +Chinese, that Chinese ladies and children richly-dressed drive in the +same fashion, and that of late, specially, wealthy Chinese have become +keen competitors for British houses, and have even outbid foreigners for +them. Is Shanghai menaced by the “Yellow Peril” as Malacca, Singapore, +and Penang have been? + +A great trading Chinese city, with an estimated population of 200,000, +has grown up within the foreign boundary, subject to foreign municipal +laws and sanitary regulations, but so absolutely Chinese, that were it +not for the wide streets and the absence of refuse-heaps and bad smells, +one might think oneself in one of the great cities of the interior. The +Chinese are quite capable of appreciating the comfort and equity of +foreign rule, and the various advantages which they enjoy under it. They +pay municipal taxes according to their rating, and “feu duty” for their +land, which it is usual for them to hold in the name of a foreigner. +They are under the jurisdiction of the Chinese Government, but civil +cases in which foreigners are concerned and breaches of the peace are +tried in what is known as the “Mixed Court,” an apparently satisfactory +and workable arrangement, and serious criminal cases belong to the +Chinese Shanghai magistrate. + +I soon began to learn why Shanghai is called, or calls itself, “The +Model Settlement,” and to recognise the fitness of the name. The British +and American settlements are governed by a Municipality elected by the +ratepayers, consisting of nine gentlemen, who, assisted by a secretary +and general staff, expend the sums provided by the ratepayers to the +general satisfaction, arranging admirably for the health, security, +comfort, and even enjoyment of the large foreign community, as well as +for the order and well-being of the constantly increasing Chinese +population, showing to the whole East what can be accomplished by an +honest and thoroughly efficient British local administration. This body +is, as it deserves to be, grandly housed. + +The more important streets are lighted with electricity, the others with +gas. Mounted Sikh police patrol the suburban roads, and a mixed force of +Europeans, Sikhs, and Chinese preserves order and security in the +settlement by day and night. An expensive but successful drainage system +keeps Shanghai sweet and wholesome. Water-carts are always at work in +dry weather, and scavengers’ carts cleanse the streets three times +daily. Waterworks three miles from city pollutions supply pure water +abundantly, and keep up a very high pressure unfailingly. The band of +thirty performers, which plays in the public gardens every afternoon in +winter, and three evenings a week in summer, attracting nearly the whole +foreign community to lounge under the trees or stroll on the smooth +gravel walks, is the creature of the Municipality. + +Shanghai has two telegraph lines embracing London; daily papers well +conducted, the _North China Daily News_ specially maintaining a +deservedly high reputation; several magazines, and communication with +Europe always once a week, and usually oftener, by well-appointed mail +steamers of four lines. Telegraphic news from all parts of the world +appears simultaneously in London and Shanghai; it is thoroughly in touch +with Europe and America, and European politics and events in general are +discussed with as much intelligence and almost as much zest as at home. +Excellent libraries, and the large book-store of Messrs. Kelly & Walsh, +cater for the intellectual needs of the population, but it is likely +that the depressing climate in spring and summer, and the whirl of +society and amusements in winter, indispose most of the residents for +anything like stiff reading. + +The tremendous energy with which Shanghai amuses itself during seven +months of the year is something phenomenal. It is even a fatigue to +contemplate it. Various causes contribute to it on the part of the +ladies. There is the Anglo-Saxon vitality which must find some outlet. +Then there is the absence of household cares owing to the efficiency of +Chinese cooks and “boys,” and ofttimes the absence of children also, +owing to the need for home education; and there is also the lack of +those benevolent outgoings among “the poor” which occupy usefully a +portion of the time of leisured women at home. Then, owing to the +imitative skill of Chinese tailors, who can construct the most elaborate +gowns from fashion-plates for a few shillings, it is possible for women +to have the pleasure of appearing in an infinite variety of elegant +toilettes at a very small expense, and dress is certainly elevated into +a fine art in Shanghai. + +Of the men I write tremblingly! Chinese tailors seem as successful as +Chinese dressmakers, and the laundrymen equal both, no small matter when +white linen suits are in question. May it be permitted to a traveller to +remark that if men were to give to the learning of Chinese and of +Chinese requirements and methods of business a little of the time which +is lavished on sport and other amusements, there might possibly be less +occasion for the complaint that large fortunes are no longer to be made +in Chinese business. + +For indeed, from ignorance of the language and reliance on that limited +and abominable vocabulary known as “Pidgun,” the British merchant must +be more absolutely dependent on his Chinese compradore than he would +care to be at home on his confidential clerk. Even in such lordly +institutions as the British Banks on the bund it seems impossible to +transact even such a simple affair as cashing a cheque without calling +in the aid of a sleek, supercilious-looking, richly-dressed Chinese, a +_shroff_ or _compradore_, who looks as if he knew the business of the +bank and were capable of running it. It is different at the Yokohama +Specie Bank, which has found a footing in Shanghai, in which the alert +Japanese clerks manage their own affairs and speak Chinese. May I be +forgiven? + +An extraordinary variety of amusements is crowded into every day. Then +the community is most hospitable, as every visitor to Shanghai knows, +and the arrival of every ship of war and eminent globe-trotter is the +signal for a fresh outbreak of gaiety. Home diversions are reproduced, +and others are superadded, such as paper hunts in the adjacent +cotton-fields, house-boat picnics and pleasure excursions, and +house-boat shooting excursions, lasting from three days to a week, for +which special advantages exist, as the inland cotton-fields during the +winter are alive with pheasants, partridges, quail, woodcock, and hares, +while the watercourses abound with wild fowl. Pony races are a leading +institution, with gentlemen riders of course. The morning gallops +extract people from their beds at unwonted hours, and in spring and +autumn the prospects of the stables make great inroads on conversation. +But I will not go further. The very imperfect list given below gives +some idea of the diversions which the community provides for itself.[8] +Amateur theatricals are “the rage” in the winter, the amateur company +providing several performances in a theatre built by a subscription of +£5000, and holding over eight hundred persons, and the Fine Art Society +gives an annual exhibition. + +The continual presence of strangers imparts a needed element of +freshness to society, and a zest to amusements which might pall, and +gives people an excuse, if any were needed, for enjoying themselves. +Shanghai has become the metropolis of gaiety for the Far East, and a +week at the Astor House, the great recreation looked forward to not only +by the dwellers in the treaty ports of China and Japan, but by those who +roast and dissolve on the rock at Hongkong, and its delirious whirl +attracts people even from Singapore. + +But it would be quite an error to suppose that amusement crowds out the +kindlier emotions. Europeans fall into distress constantly, some from +misfortune, and some from fault, and many widows and orphans are left +penniless. One may safely say that there is never a case of distress +arising from any cause which is not immediately and amply relieved and +planned for; and benevolence never wearies, the Ladies’ Benevolent +Society doing a ceaseless good work. There is a Sailors’ Home and Rest +in a very efficient and flourishing condition, with musical evenings +frequently, at which ladies and gentlemen play and sing; and, without +going further into detail, it may be said that the various useful +organisations which our civilisation considers essential for a large +community, from a fine general hospital downwards, have their place in +Shanghai. + +Church accommodation is ample for the church-goers. The Protestant +cathedral, a really beautiful edifice, built from the designs of Sir +Gilbert Scott, is one of the greatest adornments of the settlement, and +is the finest ecclesiastical building in the Far East. + +From the early days of Shanghai many Protestant missions, both European +and American, have had mission houses in the settlement, the most +important being the large, appropriate, and substantial headquarters of +the China Inland Mission, the gift of Mr. Orr Ewing, with a home for a +hundred missionaries, a hospital, goods and business departments, and +postal arrangements. Dr. Muirhead, of the L.M.S., whose missionary zeal +is unchilled in the winter of his age, and Dr. Edkins, of the same +Society, whose Chinese scholarship and researches among things Chinese +have won him a European fame, are well known to, and are much respected +by, the foreign community. There is also a large Roman mission. British +and American Bible Societies, and the English Religious Tract Society +and others also have agents and depôts there, and much translation is +done by missionaries, and by agencies which have for their noble object +the diffusion of pure and useful western literature among the Chinese, +and their elevation mentally and morally. + +There is a North China branch of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai, +with a fine library, regular meetings, and a journal, which gathers up a +great deal of very valuable matter. If the size and material of the +audience on the night when I had the honour of reading a paper before +the Society may be regarded as an indication of the interest in its +objects, it must be flourishing indeed. + +The topography of this metropolis is fully dealt with in various +official and other volumes. The salient points which impress a newcomer +are Hongkew, the American settlement, with its commercial activity, the +Soochow creek, with its fine bridge, the handsome buildings of the +British Consulate, the British Bund, with its fine retaining wall, the +long line of handsome private and public buildings, and the glimpses of +broad and handsome streets full of private residences which run from the +bund towards the boundary. + +The French Bund is a continuation of the British; but the French +settlement is small, markedly inferior, and gives one an impression of +arrested development, the only noteworthy buildings being the Consulate, +the Town Hall, and the large but plain Roman cathedral. As some +compensation, the fine wharves at which the big Yangtze steamers load +and discharge their cargoes are in this settlement, as well as the +handsome and commodious premises of the Messageries Maritimes, beyond +which stretch, far as the eye can reach, the crowded tiers of the +Chinese shipping. The French boundary is an undesirable creek, running +past the east gate of the native city, between which and the Huang-pu +are crowded and unsavoury suburbs. + +It is apparent that France regards her concession as a colony rather +than a settlement, and she has lately urged her claims for an extension +of it in a most selfish and indefensible manner. The settlement has been +frequently in very hot water, and a serious disagreement with the +Chinese occurred so recently as 1898. Its Municipal Board was once +forcibly dissolved by the French Consul for a difference of opinion, and +some of its members were imprisoned. + +The English settlement makes a proud display of the wealth of the +insular kingdom in the number of its stately buildings, the Consulate, +the cathedral, the municipal buildings, the four-storeyed and +elaborately-designed club house, the banks and shipping offices, and the +massive mansions of historic firms, standing in their secluded grounds; +though of the magnates of eastern commerce in the days of the rapid +making of great fortunes almost none remain. British, too, in design, +architecture, and arrangement, in all indeed but cost, is the +magnificent pile of buildings in which the Imperial Maritime Customs and +the new Post Office, under the same management, are housed. + +Shanghai in every way makes good her claim to be metropolitan as well as +cosmopolitan, and, in spite of dark shadows, is a splendid example of +what British energy, wealth, and organising power can accomplish. + +To us the name Shanghai[9] means alone the superb foreign settlement, +with all the accessories of western luxury and civilisation, lying +grandly for a mile and a half along the Huang-pu, the centre of Far +Eastern commerce and gaiety, the “Charing Cross” of the Pacific—London +on the Yellow Sea. + +But there was a Shanghai before Shanghai—a Shanghai which still exists, +increases, and flourishes—a busy and unsavoury trading city, which leads +its own life according to Chinese methods as independently as though no +foreign settlement existed; and long before Mr. Pigou, of the H.E.I.C., +in 1756, drew up his memorandum, suggesting Shanghai as a desirable +place for trade, Chinese intelligence had hit upon the same idea, and +the port was a great resort of Chinese shipping, cargoes being +discharged there and dispersed over the interior by the Yangtze and the +Grand Canal. Yet it never rose higher than the rank of a third-rate +city. + +It has a high wall three miles and a half in circuit, pierced by several +narrow gateways and surrounded by a ditch twenty feet wide, and suburbs +lying between it and the river with its tiers of native shipping as +crowded as the city proper. This shipping, consisting of junks, lorchas, +and native craft of extraordinary rig, lies, as Lu Hew said, “like the +teeth of a comb.” + +To mention native Shanghai in foreign ears polite seems scarcely seemly; +it brands the speaker as an outside barbarian, a person of “odd +tendencies.” It is bad form to show any interest in it, and worse to +visit it. Few of the lady residents in the settlement have seen it, and +both men and women may live in Shanghai for years and leave it without +making the acquaintance of their nearest neighbour. It is supposed that +there is a risk of bringing back small-pox and other maladies, that the +smells are unbearable, that the foul slush of the narrow alleys is over +the boots, that the foreigner is rudely jostled by thousands of dirty +coolies, that the explorer may be knocked down or hurt by loaded +wheelbarrows going at a run; in short, that it is generally abominable. +It is the one point on which the residents are obdurate and disobliging. + +I absolutely failed to get an escort until Mr. Fox, of H.M’s Consular +Service, kindly offered to accompany me. I did not take back small-pox +or any other malady, I was not rudely jostled by dirty coolies, nor was +I hurt or knocked down by wheelbarrows. The slush and the smells were +there, but the slush was not fouler nor the smells more abominable than +in other big Chinese cities that I have walked through; and as a foreign +woman is an every-day sight in the near neighbourhood, the people minded +their own business and not mine, and I was even able to photograph +without being overborne by the curious. + +Shanghai is a mean-looking and busy city; its crowds of toiling, +trotting, bargaining, dragging, burden-bearing, shouting, and yelling +men are its one imposing feature. Few women, and those of the poorer +class, are to be seen. The streets, with houses built of slate-coloured, +soft-looking brick, are only about eight feet wide, are paved with stone +slabs, and are narrowed by innumerable stands, on which are displayed, +cooked and raw and being cooked, the multifarious viands in which the +omnivorous Chinese delight, an odour of garlic predominating. Even a +wheelbarrow—the only conveyance possible—can hardly make its way in many +places. True, a mandarin sweeps by in his gilded chair, carried at a +run, with his imposing retinue, but his lictors clear the way by means +not available to the general public. + +All the articles usually exposed for sale in Chinese cities are met with +in Shanghai, and old porcelain, bronzes, brocades, and embroideries are +displayed to attract strangers. Restaurants and tea houses of all grades +abound, and noteworthy among the latter is the picturesque building on +the Zig-Zag Bridge, shown in the illustration. The buildings and +fantastic well-kept pleasure grounds of the Ching-hwang Miao, which may +be called the Municipal Temple, the Confucian Temple, the Guild Hall of +the resident natives of Chekiang, and the temple of the God of War, with +its vigorous images begrimed with the smoke of the incense sticks of +ages of worshippers, its throngs, its smoke, its ceaseless movement, and +its din are the most salient features of this native hive. + +_Yamens_, of course, exist, and _yamen_ runners, for Shanghai has the +distinction of being the residence of a Taotai, or Intendant of Circuit, +and a magistrate, in whose hands the administration of justice is +placed, involving responsibility for the interests of over 560,000 +Chinese, the estimated native population of the city and the +settlements, the total population being estimated at 586,000. + +On returning to the light, broad, clean, well-paved, and sanitary +streets of foreign Shanghai, I was less surprised than before that so +many of its residents are unacquainted with the dark, crowded, dirty, +narrow, foul, and reeking streets of the neighbouring city. + +[Illustration: ZIG-ZAG BRIDGE AND TEA HOUSE, SHANGHAI.] + + + + + CHAPTER III. + HANGCHOW[10] + + +A journey of 150 miles to visit friends in the ancient city of Hangchow +required no other preparations than the hire of a boat and the engaging +of a servant, who I was compelled to dismiss a few days later for gross +dishonesty. 2755 steam launches, owned and run by Chinese, towing 7889 +passenger boats, carrying 605 foreign and 125,000 native passengers, +entered and cleared in 1897 between Hangchow, Shanghai, and Soochow. + +Every evening one of these launches, towing a long string of native +boats, leaves the Soochow creek below the British Consulate for the new +treaty ports, opened as such only in 1896. My small bamboo-roofed boat, +in which I could just stand upright, much decorated in the tawdry style +of Chinese fourth-class fancy, and through which irremediable draughts +coursed friskily, was the contemptible final joint of a tail of nine +quaint and picturesque passage junks and family house-boats, a varnished +procession of high-sterned, two-storeyed, many-windowed arks, squirming +and snaking along at the stern of a noisy, asthmatic tow-boat. There +were red flags flying, gongs crashing out dissonance, crackers +exploding, poles with clothes drying on them pushed out of windows, +incense sticks smouldering, and reports of firearms; and with this +cheerful din, the usual accompaniment of Chinese movement, we started in +the red twilight. + +I paid six dollars for my boat with three men, and five dollars fifty +cents for towage, about 23_s._ + +All day long the life on the two-storeyed open-sterned boat in front of +mine was exposed to view. It was occupied by three generations, nine +souls in all, under the rule of a grandmother. They rose early, lighted +the fire and their incense sticks, kotowed to an idol in a gilded +shrine, offered him a small bowl of rice, and cooked and ate their +morning meal. The smell of their cooking drifted for much of the day +into my boat, and “broth of abominable things was in their vessels.” The +man sat in the bow smoking and making shoes. The grandmother lived below +in blissful idleness and authority. The wife, a comely, healthy, +broad-shouldered woman, with bound feet, worked and smoked all day, and +contrived to steer the boat as she stooped over the fire or the wash-tub +by holding its heavy tiller under her arm or chin or pressing her knee +against it. Four young children lived a quiet life on a broad high +shelf, from which they were lifted down for meals. A girl of thirteen +helped her mother slightly. Cooking, washing, mending, eating, and +watching my occupation with far less interest than I watched theirs, +filled up their day. Evening brought fresh kotowing and burning of +incense sticks, the opium lamp was lighted, the man passed into elysium, +and they wrapped themselves in their wadded quilts and slept till +sunrise. + +I learned their habits and knew their few “plenishings,” and perhaps, as +they stared persistently at me, they were wondering how much I earned a +day by writing and sewing, a question of much speculative interest to +the Chinese. + +The country looked inviting in the first flush of early spring, +although, like our own fens, it is a dead level. Houses, villages, +mulberry plantations, temples, groves, large farmhouses, shrines, and +_Pai fangs_ succeeded each other rapidly. Great lilac clusters of +wistaria bloom hung over the water from every tree, the beans were in +blossom, and the greenery was young and fresh. At times our curiously +twisting procession passed through ancient water-streets of large +cities, with the inevitable picturesqueness given by deep eaves, +overhanging rooms and balconies, steep flights of stone stairs, and rows +of armed junks full of soldiers or river police in brilliant, stagey +uniforms. Several times we were delayed for an hour or more by the +difficulty of getting through the crowded river streets _en route_. + +I have since learned by experience that China is a land of surprising +bridges, but at that time it amazed me that we entered nearly every city +under a fine arch, from fifteen to thirty feet in height, formed of +blocks of granite cut to the curve of the bridge, the roadway attaining +the summit by thirty-nine steps on each side. Or there are straight +bridges, the piers being monoliths thirteen feet high, and the roadway +massive blocks of stone thirty feet long. + +Part of the route is along the Grand Canal, that stupendous work, +wonderful even in its dilapidation, which connects Hangchow with +Tientsin. This part of it, which connects Imperial Hangchow with the +flourishing port of Chinkiang on the Yangtze, was cut in 625 A.D., but +never mapped till the work was undertaken by our own War Office in 1865. + +If the “nine thousand barks conveying tribute to the emperor,” as +described by an ancient writer, no longer crowd its waters, I can +testify that at the points where I touched it, such as Chinkiang, the +laden fleets were so vast as to leave only a narrow lane of water +available for traffic, and that on arriving at Tientsin from Tungchow my +boat took two days and a half to make its way through the closely-jammed +mass of cargo and passage boats at the terminus. + +The neighbourhood of the Grand Canal, which suffered terribly in the +Taiping Rebellion, has recovered itself, and is again yielding its great +harvests of rice and silk, the inexhaustible fertility of the Great +Plain having effaced every trace of destruction. If the Grand Canal +since the dilapidation caused by the outbreak of the Yellow River in +1851 is far less valuable for through traffic than it was, it is still +of immense importance as an artery for the commerce of the great +provinces through which it passes. Lu Yew, a much-travelled mandarin of +the twelfth century, the translated account of whose journey from +Shanjin near Ning Po to Kueichow on the Upper Yangtze is a fascinating +bit of literature, writes that at the sluice gates “the concourse of +vessels was packed together like the teeth of a comb,” and so it is +still in certain places. The bridges which span this canal are among the +most striking and beautiful in all China—single arches, sometimes 220 +feet in span and 30 feet in height, piles of massive masonry, with +massive decorations wherever any deviation has been permitted from the +ordinary stately simplicity. + +Seven centuries ago Lu Yew commented on the remarkable industry of the +population of this region, and noted that “both banks near the villages +are covered with waterwheels pumping up the water, women and children +alike exerting all their efforts, cattle in some cases being also at +work.” The heredity of industry is still manifest. Not an idler was to +be seen along river or canal. Every agricultural operation of the season +was being carried on vigorously, even children of seven years old were +carrying agricultural burdens on their shoulders. Women with robust +infants strapped on their backs had their hands busy with the distaff, +while working the waterwheels with their feet; and all along the +waterways fishermen were busy with their great bamboo plunge nets. Lu +Yew mentions the women as employed with both waterwheel and distaff in +the twelfth century. + +On the morning of the second day from Shanghai the steam launch cast off +her tail at the mouth of a narrow canal overarched with trees, up which +my boat moved silently as far as a “lock,” by which we mounted into a +broad waterway leading direct into Hangchow, encircling it on three +sides and connected with other navigable canals, spanned by picturesque +stone bridges, and giving easy access to most parts of the interior of +the city. + +That which I have called a “lock,” properly a _pah_ or “haulover,” is an +ingenious contrivance by which the difficulty of “negotiating” different +levels in the same boat is skilfully adjusted. The illustration shows +the principle and the mode of applying it in Chekiang, but various +methods are adopted. The essential parts of the contrivance, as shown +here, are a smooth stone slide, from the higher to the lower level, the +middle of which is thickly coated with moist mud, two stout and tall +uprights, two rude wooden windlasses, and stout bamboo ropes with strong +iron hooks. In ascending, the boat is wound up to the higher level by a +number of men at the windlasses, and in going down she is drawn to the +verge and tipped over, descending with great velocity by her own +impetus, the restraining rope at her stern scarcely moderating the +violence of the plunge with which she takes a header into the water +below, when everything not securely fastened breaks adrift, and a lather +of foaming water surges round the surprised passenger’s feet. A few +_cash_ are charged for the transfer. + +[Illustration: A _PAH_, OR HAULOVER.] + +I thought the canal entrance to Hangchow grand, although below the high +blank walls of large private residences the grassy slopes are the resort +of unpleasantly active pigs searching, and not vainly, for offal. The +gunboats, or police junks, with their striped blue and white canopies +and brilliant crews, and the lofty bridges are pleasing to the eye. At +one of the latter Dr. Main, for eighteen years a C.M.S. missionary +doctor in Hangchow, met me, and I was carried through a populous and +dirty quarter, through a door in a high wall, and under a trellis from +which hundreds of lilac wistaria clusters were hanging, into a large +enclosure, partly lawns and partly rose borders, with an old-fashioned +English house on one side, and on the other two the fine two-storeyed +buildings of two of the crack hospitals of the East, with their +outgrowths of leper hospitals for men and women, a home for leper +children, and an opium refuge. It was a bewildering change from the +crowds, dirt, and sordid bustle of the lower parts of a Chinese city to +broad, smooth, shaven lawns, English trees and flowers, English +buildings with their taste and completeness, and the refined quiet of an +English home. + +This most ancient city, situated on the left bank of the shallow Ch’ien +T’ang river, of which a magnificent description is given by Marco Polo +under the name of Kinsai, though it has not fully recovered from the +destruction wrought by the Taiping troops, is still handsome and +dignified, and to my thinking, with its lovely environs, is the most +attractive of the big Chinese cities. + +It is certainly one of the most important, as the capital of the rich +and populous province of Chekiang, the centre of a great silk-producing +district, and of the manufacture of the best silks, the sole source of +the silk fabrics supplied to the Imperial Household, the southern +terminus of the Grand Canal, and a great centre of Chinese culture and +literature. It possesses the Ting Library, the finest private library in +China, appropriately housed in buildings adjoining the “palace” of the +Ting family. The arrangements for the storage and classification of +books are admirable, and a very gentlemanly and intelligent son of the +enlightened possessor is the enthusiastic and capable librarian. The +treasures of this library are open freely to anyone who introduces +himself by a card from an official. The collection of zoological and +botanical books, superbly illustrated in the best style of Chinese wood +engraving, is in itself a noble possession. Every part of a plant is +figured, and the illustrations are almost photographically accurate, +leading one to hope that the letterpress accompanying them has equal +scientific merit! + +Hangchow is also important as a “residential” city, the chosen home of +many retired merchants and mandarins. The homes, frequently palaces, of +men of leisure and local patriotism adorn its streets, but their stately +proportions and sumptuous decorations are concealed from vulgar view by +high whitewashed walls, in which heavily-barred and massive gates give +access to the interiors. The mansion of the Ting family, in which I took +“afternoon tea,” with its lofty reception-rooms, piazzas, and courts, +must cover two acres of ground. It is stately, but not comfortable, and +the richly-carved blackwood chairs with panels of clouded grey marble +for backs and seats, and table centres of the same, seem only fitted for +the noon of a midsummer’s day. Besides the dwellings of the “leisured +class” there are those of high officials, bankers, and wealthy tea and +silk merchants, many of them extremely magnificent, the cost of one +built by a wealthy banker being estimated at £100,000. + +[Illustration: WEST GATE, HANGCHOW] + +I wrote of dirt and sordid bustle. This is chiefly by the waterside, and +is not surprising in a city of three-quarters of a million of +inhabitants. The “west-end” streets are, however, broad, light, well +flagged, and incredibly clean for China. Hangchow impresses one with a +general sense of well-being. I did not see one beggar. The people are +well clothed and fed, and I understood that except during epidemics +there is no abject poverty. It is the grand centre for the trade of a +hundred cities, and much of the tea and silk sold in Shanghai and Ningpo +passes through it. + +Everything in the city and neighbourhood suggests silk. In all the +adjacent country the mulberry tree is omnipresent, planted in every +possible place along the creeks, on the ridges separating the fields, in +plantations, acres in extent, and near villages, in nurseries each +containing several thousand shoots, in expectation of a greatly +increased demand for this staple product. There are 7000 handlooms for +the weaving of silk in Hangchow, employing about 28,000 people, and 360 +of these looms under the inspection of an Imperial Commissioner work +exclusively for the Imperial Household. + +Some of the silk shops rival that of Laou Kai Fook at Shanghai. In them +are rich self-coloured silks in deep rich colourings and the most +delicate shades, brocaded washing silks in various shades of indigo +dyeing, and delicate mauves and French greys, which become more lustrous +every time they are washed, heavy and very broad satins, plain and +brocaded, and, what I admire more than all, heavy figured silks in +colourings and shades unknown to us sold for Chinese masculine dress, +and brocaded with symbolical bats, bees, spiders, stags’ heads, dragons +for mandarins’ robes, and the highly decorative characters representing +happiness and longevity. These quaint and beautiful fabrics are not +exported to Europe, and are not shown to Europeans unless they ask for +them. Fans exported to all parts of the empire are another great +industry, and provide constant work for many thousand people. Elaborate +furniture, silk and gold embroidering, and tinselled paper money for +burning, to supply the dead with the means of comfortable existence, are +also largely manufactured in this thriving capital. + +The situation of Hangchow is beautiful, separated only by a belt of +clean sand from the bright waters of the Ch’ien T’ang river. The +south-western portion is built on a hill, from which broad gleams of the +sea are visible; and to the west, just outside the walls, is the Si Hu +[Western Lake], famous throughout China, a lovely sheet of water, +surrounded by attractive country houses, temples, and shrines, studded +with wooded islands connected by ancient and noble causeways, the +islands themselves crowned with decorative pavilions, some of which are +Imperial, and are surrounded by the perfection of Chinese gardening, as +in the case of the beautiful Imperial Library, with its ferneries, +rockeries, quaint ponds, and flowering shrubs. This lovely lake, with +its deep, wooded bays and inlets, its forest-clothed hills and ravines, +its gay gondolas and pleasure boats, and its ideally perfect shores, +which I saw over and over again in the glorious beauty of a Chinese +spring, mirrors also in its silver waters a picturesque range of hills, +bare and breezy, close to the city, on which stands, in an imposing +position, a very ancient pagoda, while the lower hill-slopes are clothed +with coniferous trees, bamboo, plum, peach, cherry, camphor, azalea, +clematis, roses, honeysuckle, and maple. Near the lake is a deep, long +dell, the cliffs of which are recessed for stone images, and which +contains several famous temples, one the temple of the “Five Hundred +Disciples,” who, larger than life-size, adorn its spacious corridors. +The temples and shrines of this beautiful glen are visited daily by +crowds from Hangchow, and have such a reputation for sanctity and +efficacy as to attract 100,000 pilgrims annually. The dell is guarded by +two colossal figures, under canopies, the gods of Wind and Thunder, very +fine specimens of vigorous wood carving, and by an antique pagoda. + +Hangchow is also famous for the phenomenon of the “Hangchow bore,” seen +at its best at the change of the monsoon, when an enormous mass of tidal +water, suddenly confronted by the current of the river, uplifts its +foaming crest to a height of from fifteen to twenty feet, and with a +thunderous roar and fearful force rages down the narrow waterway as fast +as a horse can gallop, affording a welcome distraction to the sightseers +of Shanghai. + +[Illustration: PAVILION IN IMPERIAL GARDEN, SI-HU.] + +[Illustration: GOD OF THUNDER, LIN-YANG.] + +Hangchow is enclosed by a wall faced with hewn stone, about thirteen +miles in circumference, from thirty to forty feet high, from twenty to +thirty feet broad, and pierced by ten large gateways with massive gates. +The houses are mainly two-storeyed. The business streets blaze with +colour; the principal street is five miles long. The population, +estimated at 700,000, cruelly diminished during the Taiping Rebellion, +is rapidly increasing. The officials, merchants, and common people are +unusually friendly to foreigners, who, before the recent opening of the +port, were all missionaries. The cry “Foreign devil!” is never heard. +Mr. Sundius, our consular officer, considers that these very +satisfactory relations are due to the greater prosperity of the people, +in consequence of the increased foreign demand for silk, and to the +success of the exertions of the missionaries to win their respect and +esteem. + +The new general and Japanese settlements are in an excellent position on +the Grand Canal, four miles from the city wall. They are nearly a mile +in length by half a mile in depth, and have a fine road and a bund sixty +feet wide, hereafter to be turfed. The Japanese, who opened the port +with their swords, have not been in any hurry to occupy it. It will be +interesting to see how far foreigners will take advantage of the +opening, and settle in this, one of the friendliest and most attractive +of the Chinese cities. There is a well-known Chinese proverb, “Above is +heaven, below are Hangchow and Suchow.” + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + THE HANGCHOW MEDICAL MISSION HOSPITALS + + +The hospitals, and the dispensaries attached to them, are too important +as a feature of Hangchow, and as an element in producing the remarkable +goodwill towards foreigners which characterises it, to be dismissed at +the tail of a chapter. + +These beneficent institutions treat between them over 14,000 new +patients annually, afflicted with all manner of torments. The services +of Dr. Main and his coadjutor, Dr. Kimber, are in request among +officials, from the highest to the lowest. Mandarins of high rank, +attended by their servants, are treated in the paying wards, and +occasionally leave donations of 100 dollars in addition to their +payments. Officials of every rank in the Chekiang province send to the +British doctors for advice and medicines. Among the many marks of the +approval with which the Viceroy and other highly-placed officials regard +the medical work is their recent donation of an acre and a half of land +in an excellent position for the site of a branch hospital. It is no +disparagement to the work of Bishop Moule, who was absent during my +visit, and the other British and American clerical missionaries, to +express the opinion that the tact, _bonhomie_, and devotion of Dr. Main +during the last eighteen years, are one cause of the friendliness to +foreigners, the Chinese being as accessible to the influence of +personality as other people are. + +The men’s and women’s hospitals, of which the illustration only shows +portions, are of the latest and most approved European type. They are +abreast of our best hospitals in lighting, ventilation, general +sanitation, arrangement and organisation, and the facility of obtaining +the celebrated Ningpo varnish, really a lacquer, which slowly sets with +a very hard surface, reflecting much light and bearing a weekly rub with +kerosene oil, greatly aids the sanitation. The purity of walls, floors, +and bedding is so great as to make one long for a speck of comfortable +dirt! + +[Illustration: C.M.S. MISSION HOSPITAL, HANGCHOW.] + +The men’s hospital buildings consist of four roomy and handsome general +wards, eleven private paying wards, holding from one to three each, a +range of rooms for the ward assistants, who are practically male nurses, +students’ rooms, rooms for the three qualified assistants, a +lecture-room with an anatomical [in lieu of the unattainable human] +subject which cost a thousand dollars, a reception-room for mandarins +with appropriate Chinese furniture, Dr. Main’s private room and medical +library, a fine consulting-room and operating theatre, bathrooms, a room +for patients’ clothing done up in numbered bundles after it has been +washed, wardrobes for the clothing which is lent to them while in +hospital, a cashier’s office, a large bottle-room, extensive storage, +and an office for out-patients. + +On the street side and connected with the hospitals is a fine lofty room +where any non-patient passers-by, who are either tired or curious, can +rest and smoke, amusing themselves meantime with the transactions of the +other half of the hall, a large and attractive “drug store,” fitted up +in conventional English style, where not only medicines, but medical +requisites of all kinds can be procured both by non-patients and +foreigners. It has been remarked by Consuls Carles and Clement Allen in +their official reports, that missionaries unconsciously help British +trade by introducing articles for their own use, which commend +themselves to the Chinese; and this drug store has created a demand for +such British manufactures as condensed milk, meat extracts, rubber +tubing, soap, and the like, condensed milk having “caught on” so firmly +that several of the Chinese shops are now keeping it on sale. + +This rest room is also a street-chapel for preaching and discussion, and +an office for inquiries of all kinds. There is also a large and handsome +waiting-room for out-patients, decorated with scripture pictures, in +which patriarchs and apostles appear in queues and Chinese dress, and an +opium refuge—a mournful building full of bodily torment and mental +depression. In the opinion of the doctor, “the cure” is seldom other +than temporary, and could only be effected by building up the system for +six months after leaving the refuge by tonics and nutritious diet. +Besides these buildings there are large kitchens, storehouses, and a +carpenter’s shop. + +The women’s hospital, the great central ward of which, with its +highly-varnished floor, flowers, pictures, tables, chairs, and +harmonium, looks like a pleasant double drawing-room in a large English +mansion, is specially under Mrs. Main’s charge, and has head and junior +nurses and a dispenser trained by herself. It is equally efficient and +admirable. + +Besides the hospital staff of twenty-six persons, there are three native +catechists who, along with Dr. Main, give Christian instruction in the +hospital to those who are willing to receive it, one of them looking +after patients in their homes, who, having become interested in +Christianity, have returned to their villages within a radius of one +hundred and fifty miles. Recently a patient, who had been for some weeks +in the hospital, recounted what he had there heard of Christianity with +such effect that over forty of his fellow-villagers, after some months, +gave up their heathen practices and became Christians; and this after he +had been beaten for his new beliefs on first going home. + +The hospital is also an efficient medical school, where the usual +medical and surgical courses are given, along with clinical instruction, +during a period of five years. This school has helped largely to win the +favour of the mandarins, who have learned to appreciate Western surgery +from the cures at the hospital. Some of these students, after +graduation, have taken good positions in Shanghai and elsewhere. A few +in going into practice in the province have somewhat dropped European +medicine, and have resorted to Chinese drugs and the method of using +them, but all adhere to Western surgery, the results of which in Chinese +eyes are little short of miraculous, but possibly their mode of carrying +out antiseptic treatment would hardly come up to Lord Lister’s standard! +It is frequently believed by Chinese patients that the object of this +treatment is to prevent devils from gaining entrance to the body by +means of surgical wounds! + +Dr. Lu, a refined and cultured man, Dr. Main’s senior qualified +assistant, a graduate of the hospital school, would anywhere be a +remarkable man in his profession, first as a brilliant operative +surgeon, and then for insight and accurate diagnosis. He has won the +confidence of the resident foreigners. He is a skilful medical +photographer, and his microscopic and physiological drawings are very +beautiful and show great technical skill. + +The clock tower is a decorative feature of the building, and everything +within moves with clockwork regularity. The hospital is in a high state +of efficiency and spick-and-spanness, such as I have seldom seen +equalled abroad, and never exceeded.[11] Such work, done with skill, +love, and cheeriness, has an earthly reward, and Dr. Main is on most +friendly terms with the leading mandarins, who have it in their power to +help or hinder greatly. The hospital blazes with their red and gold +votive tablets, and I doubt if they would refuse him anything which he +thought it wise to ask. Almost the latest additions to a work which is +always growing are convalescent homes in the finest position outside the +city, on the breezy hill above the Si Hu [Western Lake]. + +I have heard some grumbling at home at the expense at which this +hospital is carried on, but perfection is not to be attained without +outlay, and in my opinion the Hangchow hospital is a good investment. It +is most desirable that Western methods of healing should be exhibited in +their best aspects in the capital of this important province, and also +that the medical school should be as well-equipped as is possible. The +benefit of this and similar schools is incalculable. The linked systems +of superstition and torture, which enter largely into Chinese medical +treatment, are undermined, and rational Western surgery is demanded by +the people. European treatment also assails the degrading belief in +sorcery and demonism in its last resort—the sick-bed—showing processes +of cure which work marvels of healing, altogether apart from witchcraft +and incantations. + +Of the Medical Mission Hospital as a Christian agency I need scarcely +write, as its name is significant of its work. I believe in medical +missions, because they are the nearest approach now possible to the +method pursued by the Founder of the Christian faith, and to the +fulfilment of His command, “Heal and preach.” It is not, as some +suppose, that the medical missionary takes advantage of men in their +pain and distress to “poke at them” the claims of a foreign religion, +though if he be an honest Christian he recognises that the soul needs +enlightenment as much as the body needs healing. I have never seen a +medical mission among the forty-seven that I have visited in which +Christianity was “poked” at unwilling listeners, or in which, in the +rare cases of men declining to hear of it in the dispensary +waiting-room, it was in the very smallest degree to their disadvantage +as patients. + +A fee of twenty-four _cash_ is charged for admission to the dispensary +to foster a spirit of independence, and the charge in the paying wards +is from two to ten dollars per month. Crowds of out-patients marshalled +like an army, carefully trained assistants knowing and doing their duty, +catechists, ward assistants, cashiers, photographers, cooks, gardeners, +artisans, make up the crowd which in all the morning hours swarms over +the staircases of the hospital and round the great entrance. The +dispensary patients present a sorry spectacle, owing to the prevalence +of skin diseases, superficial sores, and cavernous abscesses, from which +the plasters with which the Chinese doctors had hermetically sealed them +have been removed. Young and old, maimed, deaf, blind, loathsomely +disfigured persons, meet together, and there are often cases of gunshot +wounds, elephantiasis, and leprosy in the throng. + +But, wretched as the patients are, they are capable of being amused by +Dr. Main’s jokes, and on one occasion when I was photographing four +soldiers of the Viceroy’s guard in the hospital grounds the hilarity +burst all bounds, and the distempered mass yelled with enjoyment. When I +photographed the backs of the soldiers they shouted, “She pictures their +backs because they ran away from the _wojen_” (dwarfs); and when Dr. +Main displayed their brawny legs, they nearly danced with the fun of it, +yelling, “Those are the legs they ran away on.” Not that the Viceroy’s +guard had encountered the Japanese, but these people were near enough to +Shanghai to have heard of the figure the Chinese troops had cut. A +Chinese loves a joke, and, as I have often experienced, if he can only +be made to laugh his hostility vanishes. + +One of these men, picturesquely uniformed in blue and crimson, was +brought back an hour later at the point of death from opium, having +attempted his life, not because he had been laughed at, but because of a +tiff with his superior officer. + +As is well known, suicide is appallingly common in China; and in the +great cities of Swatow, Mukden, and Hangchow, as a guest at medical +mission houses, I have come much into contact with its various methods. +In Mukden a frequent mode of taking life, specially among young wives, +is biting off the heads of lucifer matches, though the death from +phosphorus poisoning is known to be an agonising one. Swallowing gold +leaf or chloride of magnesium, jumping down wells or into rapid rivers, +taking lead, cutting the throat, and stabbing the abdomen have been +popular modes of self-destruction. But these are rapidly giving place to +suicide by opium owing to the facility with which it can be obtained, +the easy death which results from it, and the certainty of its operation +in the absence of the foreign doctor, his emetic, and his stomach-pump. +Medical mission hospitals in China save the lives of hundreds of +would-be suicides every year. + +So far as I have been able to ascertain, the causes of suicide in China +are, not as in Europe, profound melancholia, heavy losses, or +disappointment in love, but chiefly revenge and the desire to inflict +serious injury on another. Suicide enables a Chinese to take a truly +terrible revenge, for he believes that his spirit will malignantly haunt +and injure the living; and the desire to save a suicide’s life arises in +most cases not from humanity, but from the hope of averting such a +direful catastrophe. If a master offends his servant or makes him “lose +face,” or a shopkeeper his assistant or apprentice, the surest revenge +is to die on his premises, for it not only involves the power of +haunting and of inflicting daily injuries, but renders it necessary that +the body should lie where death occurs until an official inquiry is +made, which brings into the house the scandal and turmoil of a visit +from a mandarin with a body of officials and retainers. It is quite +common for a man or woman to walk into the courtyard of a person against +whom he or she has a grudge, and take a fatal dose of opium there to +ensure these desirable results! + +Among common incentives to suicide are the gusts of blind rage to which +the Chinese of both sexes are subject, the cruelty of mothers-in-law, +quarrels between husband and wife, failure to meet payments at the New +Year, gambling losses, the desire to annoy a husband, the gambling or +extravagant opium smoking of a husband, imputation of theft, having +pawned the clothes of another and being unable to redeem them, being +defrauded of money, childlessness, dread of divorce, being sold by a +husband, abridgment of liberty, poverty, and the like. Opium, from the +painless death it brings, is now resorted to on the most trivial +occasions, and has largely increased the number of suicides. Though the +reasons which I have given for self-destruction apply mostly to women, +yet where statistics are obtainable men are largely in the majority, and +revenge and the desire of inflicting injury are their great motives. + +Of course, there are very many risks and difficulties in the treatment +of out-patients. Chinese medicines are administered bulkily, a pint or a +quart at a time, and patients do not understand our concentrated and +powerful doses. Hence dangerous and grotesque mistakes are continually +made, such as the following:— + +_Patient_—“Doctor, when I took the medicine you gave me yesterday it +made me very sick; it has given me diarrhœa and a severe pain in the +stomach; my fingers and toes also feel very numb.” + +_Dr. Malcolm_ (looking at the bottle)—“Why, you have already almost +finished the eight days’ medicine” (arsenic) “that I gave you yesterday. +The wonder is that you are alive at all.” + +_Patient No. 2_ enters—“Where is the old boss of this shop? I want some +foreign devil medicine to cure malaria.” + +_D._—“Allow me to tell you I am not a devil. You had better go home; and +when you can come and ask respectfully for medicine we will give it +you.” + +_P. No. 3_ enters, holding out her hands and asking the doctor to find +out her disease by “comparing her pulses.” + +_D._—“Tell me what is the matter with you.” + +_P._—“My bones and muscles are sore all over.” + +_D._—“What was the cause of your trouble?” + +_P._—“It was brought on by a fit of anger.” + +_D._—“How long have you had it?” + +_P._—“From the time the heavens were opened, and the earth was split” +(_i.e._ a very long time). + +The arms and shoulders of this woman were covered with pieces of green +plaster, given her by the Chinese doctors. She proposed to throw these +away and “to publish the doctor’s name abroad” if he cured her. So she +received medicine with very full directions about taking it; these were +not enough. She asked a string of questions such as if she must heat it +before taking it, if she must keep the bottle tightly corked, if she +must take it along with anything else, and lastly— + +_P._—“Shall I abstain from eating anything?” + +_D._—“No.” + +_P._ (greatly disappointed).—“What! shall I not forbid my mouth anything +at all?” + +_D._ (jokingly).—“Yes. Do not talk too much; do not revile your +neighbours; do not smoke opium; do not scatter lies.” + +The doctor getting worried, reiterates plain directions regarding the +medicine, tells her they are very busy, and that she must not ask any +more questions, and shows her out. + +_P._ (returning after a few minutes).—“Is the medicine to be taken +inwardly, or rubbed on the outside?” + +Or a man comes in and describes “chills,” and a dose of quinine is +prepared for him, when he smiles serenely and says, “To tell you the +truth, it is not I that take the chills; it is my mother.” + +Another comes in, and describes with great minuteness and self-pity his +symptoms, which are those of malarial fever. He will not take a dose of +quinine in the dispensary, but wants to take it home, saying he will not +“shake” till the next day. He is feigning sickness, in order to get +quinine and sell it. Or an operation for cataract has been performed in +one of the hospital wards, and the son of the patient comes to the +doctor, begging him to go to his father, who says that his eye pains him +so that he cannot stand it. The doctor finds that the bandage has been +removed, and reproaches the son, who said that some friends came in to +see if he could really see after being blind for so many years, and took +off the bandage. The patient had rubbed the eye, the wound had burst +open and was suppurating, and the man was blind for life. + +Some patients come to a hospital out of impudence, some in the hope of +getting drugs to sell, others out of curiosity to see how the “foreign +devil doctor” works, others to steal the clothes which are lent to +in-patients, and others for a lark, pretending to have various diseases, +but with these the Chinese assistants occasionally indulge in a lark on +their own account, and turn on them a pretty vigorous current from the +electric battery.[12] + +With so much vexatious expenditure of time, so much imposition and +greed, and so many disappointments regarding interesting cases owing to +the gross ignorance of the patients and their friends, there are many +drawbacks in the life of a missionary doctor, and even in such +long-established work as that at Hangchow, and with such admirable +equipments and assistance, it cannot always be easy to preserve the +courtesy, gentleness, patience, and forbearance which are among the +essentials of success. + +Of the patients treated in Hangchow last year one thousand were +in-patients. “Discharged cured” might be written against the great +majority of their names, and those who were incurable were greatly +benefited, as in the case of the lepers, whose “grievous wounds” are +closed and healed, and whose pains are subdued. + +Certainly this great hospital is one of the sights of Hangchow, and no +one could become acquainted with it without recognising that those who +work it and support it are following closely in the footsteps of Him who +came “not to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”[13] + + + + + CHAPTER V. + SHANGHAI TO HANKOW (HANKAU) + + +From Hangchow I made a very interesting journey by canal and river to +the important and historical city of Shao Hsing, with its beautiful +environs, and from thence by inland waterways to Ningpo and its lovely +lakes, passing through a region of great fertility, beauty, and +prosperity. I must put on record that I made that journey without either +a companion or servant, trusting entirely to the fidelity and goodwill +of Chinese boatmen, and was not disappointed. At Ningpo the Commissioner +of Customs kindly lent me the Customs tender, a fast-sailing lorcha, for +a week, and engaging a servant, I visited the Chusan Archipelago in +glorious weather, spending three days on the remarkable island of Putu, +the Island of Priests, sacred to Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy, and two +at Tinghai, on the island of Chusan, where the graves of the four +hundred British soldiers who died there during our occupation present a +melancholy spectacle of neglect and disrepair. The region beyond Shao +Hsing technically belongs to another drainage area than that of the +Yangtze, and is therefore passed over without further remark. I returned +from Ningpo to Shanghai by sea. + +The difficulties of getting a reliable interpreter servant who had not +previously served Europeans and who was willing to face the possible +risks and certain hardships of the journey I proposed were solved by the +kindly intervention of friends, and I engaged a tall, very fine-looking, +superior man named Be-dien, who abominated “pidgun,” spoke very fairly +correct English, and increased his vocabulary daily during the journey. +He was proud and had a bad temper, but served me faithfully, was never +out of hearing of my whistle except by permission, showed great pluck, +never grumbled when circumstances were adverse, and never deserted me in +difficulties or even in perils. + +My other preparations consisted chiefly in buying an open bamboo +armchair to be carried in, plenty of tea and curry powder, and in +discarding most of my few possessions.[14] As nobody in Shanghai had +travelled in the region which I hoped eventually to visit, there was no +information about it to be gained, and I left for my journey of six or +seven months remarkably free from encumbrances of every kind. + +Several foreign and one Chinese company own the eighteen fine steamers +which keep up daily communication between Shanghai and Hankow, and +dissipate the romance of travel by their white enamel, mirrors, gilding, +and electric light. The _Poyang_, by which I was a passenger, and the +only one, as far as Chinkiang, resembles most of the others, being of an +American type, about 2000 tons burden, luxurious to a fault, and +officered by efficient and courteous gentlemen. + +Sailing at night, the lumpy sea which is apt to prevail in the estuary +of the Yangtze is got over comfortably, and by the following morning it +is possible to believe that the expanse of muddy water is actually a +river, for there are hazy outlines of brown shores. + +The first day on the river was cold and raw, as, indeed, were the days +which followed it; the damp-laden air wrapped one round in its dismal +chill. White enamel and mirrors were detestable. The only things which +harmonised with the surroundings were the stove and the thick woollen +carpet. Yet the mercury was at 45°—not bad for midwinter! + +After passing Silver Island, a wooded rock, on which is a fine temple, +we reached Chinkiang, the first of the treaty ports on the Yangtze, and +well situated at the junction of the Grand Canal with the river. On my +two visits I thought it an attractive place. It has a fine bund and +prosperous-looking foreign houses, with a British consulate on a hill +above; trees abound. The concession[15] roads are broad and well kept. A +row of fine hulks connected by bridges with the shore offers great +facilities for the landing of goods and passengers. Sikh police are much +_en evidence_, the hum of business greets one’s ears, traffic throngs +the bund, the Grand Canal is choked with junks, and the rule regarding +sub-letting to Chinese being honoured only in the breach, the concession +is covered with godowns and Chinese residences, and judging from +appearances only, one might think Chinkiang a busier port than Hankow, +the great centre of commerce in Central China. The gross value of the +trade of this port is, however, only about £4,000,000 sterling annually, +but is advancing. One great export is ground-nut oil, which is carried +and shipped in baskets lined with paper. Another, which accounts for +nearly one-fourteenth of the value of the exports, is the dried perianth +of certain lily flowers (_Hemerocallis graminea_ and _Hemerocallis +flava_), which is greatly esteemed as a relish with meats, specially +with pork. + +As tokens of the increasing prosperity of Chinkiang, it is interesting +to note that recently two filatures, owned and managed by Chinese, were +opened, the machinery in one of them being of Chinese manufacture, while +the factory was erected without foreign aid. The hands employed are +women, who work twelve hours daily, at 10½_d._ a day, Sunday being a +holiday. The success of this, under native management, was considered +dubious. A distillery, for distilling spirit from rice, is another sign +of progress (or retrogression?), and our German rivals have done a very +“neat thing” in starting an albumen factory, in which the albumen, +dexterously separated from the yolks of the eggs, is made into slabs, +which are sent to Germany for use in photography, the preparation of +leather, and the printing of cotton, etc. The eggs are ducks’ eggs +solely. The yolks undergo some preservative treatment, and after being +packed in barrels are exported for use in confectionery and bar-rooms. +My informant, Consul Carles, is silent on the use to which they are then +applied, but doubtless it is well known to frequenters of such +establishments. + +The workmen in out-of-doors trades, such as masons and carpenters, seem +to comport themselves much like our own, at all seasons of the year +drinking tea, resting, and smoking whenever it pleases them, taking a +long siesta in summer, and in winter not beginning work till nine. The +building trade is a guild,[16] and there are five large guilds in +Chinkiang, with guild funds for the relief of widows and orphans of +former members. There are various missions in Chinkiang, and some +general stir, which may be expected in a city of 140,000 souls. + +The next day, which was raw and grim, and made the stove-side a magnet, +we reached Wuhu, the ugliest, if I may be allowed to say so, of all the +Yangtze ports, but its trade is not unprosperous, having more than +doubled in the last ten years, its gross value as to the principal +articles of export and import being now nearly £2,000,000 sterling a +year.[17] + +There again the Germans have started an albumen factory, which employs +fifty women and ten men. It takes 7000 eggs to produce 100 pounds of +albumen. Feathers to the amount of £23,000 for the last year of returns +were also exported to Germany for the making of feather beds. + +The most interesting export of Wuhu to the general reader is, however, +“China ink,” which is largely produced in the province of NGANHUI. The +small, black sticks, decorated with Chinese characters in gold, are +known and appreciated by us all. From Wuhu it goes to all parts of China +and of the world. In 1895 _two tons_ of it were exported from Shanghai +to foreign countries. Nearly the whole of the writing done in the vast +Chinese empire, as well as in Japan, Korea, Tonquin, and Annam, is done +with this beautiful ink, which is rubbed down on a stone ink-slab, and +applied with a sable brush. This is altogether apart from its value to +the water-colour art of all nations. It is made from the oil expressed +from the large seeds of the _Elœococca verrucosa_, sesamum oil, or colza +oil, varnish, and pork fat, burned, the resulting lampblack being of +various degrees of fineness according to the process adopted; gold leaf +and musk are added. There are a dozen different grades, and the price +varies from 2_s._ to 140_s._ per pound, a pound containing about thirty +sticks. + +Various industries, including a steam flour mill, have been started by +the Chinese in Wuhu, and it is a city of 80,000 people, but to a mere +passer-by it is most uninteresting, and its busy streets had neither +novelty nor picturesqueness enough to repay me for a struggle through +the slush. + +That night, while we were dining, there was a tremendous bump, a crash, +and a stoppage. The junk we cut into went down like a stone with all +hands. Not a shout or cry was heard. Boats were lowered, and we hung +about for an hour; it was not very dark. A Frenchman brutally remarked, +“Good! there’ll be some yellow skins fewer.” That was all. + +The next day we reached Kiu-kiang, another treaty port, with a pretty, +shady bund, and pleasant foreign houses in shady gardens, but it has a +sleepy air for a city of 55,000 souls and a trade worth two millions and +a quarter a year. + +Totally destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion in 1858–59, it has been +rebuilt, is surrounded by a defensive wall six miles in circumference, +and has regained more than its former prosperity, its imports having +increased steadily for the last five years. + +I have mentioned only the treaty ports, but from Chinkiang westwards the +great cities on or near the bank divide attention with the engineering +works and the singular vagaries of build and rig in the countless craft +on the river. Among the cities on or near the river are Yang Chow Fu, +Nanking, the southern capital, with its ruined splendours and +picturesqueness, Taiping Fu, the great and prosperous city of Nganking +Fu, and many others, besides countless villages, which are apt to lead +an amphibious existence. After leaving Kiu-kiang, the most prominent +objects of interest are the Great and Little Orphans, picturesque rocks +about 300 feet in height, rising direct from the bed of the river, and +appropriated, as all picturesque sites are, by the Buddhists for +religious purposes. The Great Orphan is near Hu-kow, a bluff on the +river crowned by an inaccessible-looking building, half temple, half +fortress, close to the junction of the important Poyang lake with the +Yangtze, which is effected by a short, broad stream. + +A city on a dead level can scarcely be imposing, and Hankow is not +impressive from the water. Some chimneys of Russian brick tea factories +rise above the greenery of the bund, and on the right bank of the broad +Yangtze, above a squalid suburb of Wu-Chang, appear some tall chimneys +belonging to a Chinese cotton factory under native management, but +differing from those at Shanghai in that no women or girls are employed, +the Viceroy considering that such occupation for women is opposed to +good morals and Confucian principles! On an elevation there is also a +camp with crenelated walls, an abundance of fluttering silk banners, and +various antiquated engines of war. + +The day was damp and grim, but the kindly welcomes, cordial hospitality, +and big blazing fires at the British Consulate, where I was received, +made amends for the external chill, and my visit to Hankow is among my +many pleasant memories of China. Later in the day Dr. Griffith John +called on me, the veteran missionary of the L.M.S., great as an +evangelist, a Chinese writer and translator, and as an enthusiast. The +L.M.S. has its mission buildings, which include a church, dispensaries, +and hospitals, and the houses of its missionaries, in some of the +pleasant shady streets which intersect the settlement. They have various +agencies at work, and are full of hope as to the result. I understand +that Dr. Griffith John, who has devoted his life to China and means to +die there, partly from his devotion and partly from his literary gifts, +is much respected by many of the official and upper classes, and has +much influence. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + THE FOREIGNERS—HANKOW AND BRITISH TRADE + + +Hankow or Hanmouth, Wu-Chang Fu, the capital of HUPEH, and Han Yang +would be one city were they not bisected by the broad, rolling Yangtze, +nearly a mile wide, and its great tributary the Han. Hankow and Han Yang +are on the north bank, and Wu-Chang on the south. The “congeries of +cities,” as the three have been aptly termed, is about 600 miles from +Shanghai. Till 1863 Hankow was an open city, but the dread of an attack +by northern banditti that year led the Government to enclose it with a +stone wall, four miles in circuit and thirteen feet in height, raised by +a brick parapet to eighteen feet. + +Hankow considers that it has the finest bund in China, and I have no +wish to dispute its assertion. In truth its length of 800 yards, its +breadth of 80, its lofty and noble river wall and fine flights of stone +stairs, ascending 40 feet from low water, its broad promenade and +carriage-way and avenue of fine trees, with the “palatial” houses, very +similar to those of Shanghai and Singapore, on the other side in large +gardens and shaded by exotic trees, make it scarcely credible that the +first authentic visit of Europeans to the city was that made by Lord +Elgin in H.M.S. _Furious_ in 1858, and that the site for this stately +British settlement was only chosen in 1861, the year in which the port +was opened to foreign trade. + +Among the principal buildings are the British and French Consulates, the +residence of the Commissioner of Customs, and the Municipal Buildings. +There is a Municipal Council charged with the same functions as that at +Shanghai, and Sikh policemen make a goodly show. Dead levels are not +attractive unless they are bounded by the living ocean, and the bund is +dull and gives one the impression that the British settlement has “seen +better days.” + +The foreign community consists of the consuls and their staffs, the +_employés_ of the Chinese Maritime Customs, a very few professional men, +a large number of British and American missionaries, and the members of +British and other European mercantile firms, Russians taking a very +prominent position. The residents have carried their amusements with +them, and amuse themselves on a small scale after the fashion of those +at Shanghai. There is a popular club which welcomes passing visitors, +and combines social attractions with a library, reading-room, and +billiard-room, keeping in touch with the world by frequent telegrams. +There is a creditable newspaper—the _Hankow Times_, which has papers on +Chinese, social, and other subjects—an episcopal service, a hotel, a +livery stable, and other necessaries of the British exile’s life. +Kindness and cordial hospitality to strangers are not less +characteristic of Hankow than of the less frequented ports. + +The climate is not an agreeable one. The summers, lasting from May till +the middle of September, are hot and damp, and severe cases of malarial +and typhoid fever are not unusual. The atmosphere is thick and stagnant, +and there are swarms of mosquitoes. Some of the men residents pass the +hottest summer nights on the bund to get the little air stirring on the +river, and the Chinese sleep on their roofs and in the streets. The +autumn months are very pleasant, the mercury falls to the freezing point +in January, and after light frosts there is a damp, raw period till warm +weather sets in again. + +Neither Hankow nor its neighbours have any special features of interest +except their gigantic trade. The populations are not openly unfriendly; +but Consul Carles, his wife, and I, although attended, had mud thrown at +us at Han Yang. + +The glory of Hankow, as well as its terror, is the magnificent Yangtze, +nearly a mile wide even in winter, rolling majestically past the bund, +lashed into a dangerous fury by storms, or careering buoyantly before +breezes; in summer, an inland sea fifty feet deep. In July and early +August Hankow is at its worst, and the rise of the river is watched with +much anxiety. The bund is occasionally submerged, boats ply between +houses and offices, the foundations of buildings are softened, exercise +is suspended, gardens are destroyed, much business stands still, frail +native houses are swept away—as many of those perched on piles were, +with much loss of life, in the summer rise of 1898—and thousands are +deprived of shelter and livelihood, and when the water falls widespread +distress and a malarious film of mud are left behind. The appearance of +the SZE CHUAN water, the red product of the “Red Basin” of Richthofen, +indicates to the Chinese intelligence the approaching subsidence of the +water, and points to a fact of some scientific interest. During the +ordinary summer rise the whole region, viewed from Pagoda Hill, has the +dismal aspect of a turbid, swirling inland sea, above which many +villages with trees appear, built on mounds, probably of ancient +construction. + +Hankow is the most westerly port in which the Mexican dollar is actually +current, and even in its back country copper _cash_ are preferred to +either coined or uncoined silver. For western travel, over and above any +amount of cash which the traveller can burden himself with, “sycee” +silver is necessary, which can be obtained from the agency of the Hong +Kong and Shanghai Bank, as well as “good paper”—Chinese drafts on +Chinese merchants of repute in the far west. Silver “shoes,” as the +uncouth lumps of silver obtained from the banks are called, are worth +about fifty taels, but the tael itself is not of fixed value, the +Haikwan tael, in which the Customs and some other accounts are kept, +varying from the Shanghai tael, and that again from the Hankow tael, and +so on. + +Nor is this all. The silver itself is unfortunately of variable quality. +Hankow sycee is of 2½ per cent. higher “standard” than Shanghai sycee, +and SZE CHUAN silver is of higher standard than that of Hankow, so that +the traveller is subject to frequent losses on his bullion, besides +suffering a good deal from delays and annoyances consequent on weighings +and occasional testings, though the trained eye alone can usually detect +the inferior “touch” of his silver. “Confusion worse confounded” +describes the currency system, if “currency” is an applicable word, when +once the simplicity of the Mexican dollar is left behind, and I ceased +to be surprised at the employment of Chinese “shroffs” by foreign firms, +for what but an Oriental intellect could unravel the mysteries of +“touch,” the differences in the value of taels, the soundness and +genuineness of _cash_, and the daily variations and entanglements of the +exchanges? + +In a treaty port which has been open for thirty-nine years, and which in +1898 had a net import trade of £3,422,669, and a net export trade of +£4,643,048, and of which, so far as the import of foreign goods is +concerned, the British share is one half, the stranger naturally expects +to find British merchants piling up big fortunes, and the size and +stateliness of the houses on the bund gives colour to this expectation. + +But, in fact, while the British firms in Hankow are merely branches of +houses in Shanghai, their Chinese rivals, who have driven them out of +the import trade, are Hankow merchants with branches in Shanghai. There +are about eleven of these big native firms which supply the Hankow +market with British cotton goods, and which have risen on the ruins of +British competitors. These wealthy firms, dealing wholesale, supply the +up-country merchants and local shopkeepers, buying goods through their +branches in Shanghai, which employ Chinese brokers speaking “pidgun” +English to buy the particular goods they want from the foreign +importers. They keep well up to date regarding Shanghai auction sales, +of which they get catalogues in Chinese, and are quick to seize on every +small advantage. The British merchant was shortsighted enough totally to +neglect to open up direct business relations with the up-country +merchants, and was content to deal entirely with the Hankow native +importer, to whom he left all the advantages of local connection and +knowledge.[18] + +This unfortunate state of things does not seem likely to improve either +in Hankow or elsewhere. Our methods of doing business are frank and +open, and the Chinese merchants have become as well acquainted with +foreign trade methods as are Europeans themselves, while of their +customs in trade and their arrangements among themselves for conducting +business we know scarcely anything, and have no organisations equivalent +to those centred in the guilds. Whether it is too late to stem the tide +which is gradually sweeping business out of foreign into native hands I +know not, but though actual British trade may not suffer, the openings +for young men in mercantile houses in China are diminishing yearly, +unless capital, push, a preference for business over athletics, a +working knowledge of the Chinese language and business methods, and a +determination to succeed, should develop the trade and traffic of the +Tungting lake, and turn to account the great possibilities for +Lancashire trade in HUNAN, even though the ground lost in other +directions can never be recovered. + +As to the trade of Hankow, naturally an interesting subject, I shall +make very few remarks, the first being that in the year 1898, 550,000 +tons of British shipping entered the port, against 60,624 of all other +nationalities, exclusive of the Chinese, Japan taking the lead among +them with 32,099. Hankow has lost much of her once enormous tea trade, +owing to deterioration in quality and the change of fashion in +England.[19] Russian merchants now have the tea trade in their hands; +they have factories for the production of “brick tea” at both Hankow and +Kiu-kiang, while in 1898 five of the big steamers of the Russian +Volunteer Fleet loaded tea direct for Odessa, and one steamer for St. +Petersburg. + +German and Austrian firms have started several albumen factories in +Hankow, the best of the product being used in photography; the Japanese +are now running two steamers a week between it and Shanghai, and will +not improbably “cut in” ahead of others for the trade and traffic of the +lake and inland rivers. Numbers of these alert traders have come up the +Yangtze, and in their practical way are spreading themselves through the +country, finding out the requirements and tastes of the people, and +quietly pushing their trade in small articles, while Japan is also going +ahead with her larger exports, the quantity of her cotton yarn imported +into Hankow having risen from 150 cwt. in 1895 to 260,332 in 1898, +displacing Indian yarn to a considerable extent. Japanese merchants, +like the German, do not despise _littles_ in trade, and are content with +small profits, and most of what is known as the “muck and truck” trade +is in their hands, in extending which they will prove formidable +competitors of each other. Nor ought the competition of Japan in the +larger branches of trade to be ignored by us, for to extend her markets +is an absolute necessity of her existence, and the markets of China are +a fair field for her commercial ambition. + +I cannot omit all mention of kerosene oil, the import of which increases +“by leaps and bounds,” American taking the lead, and which is greatly +diminishing the production of the native illuminating oils. This +kerosene oil, imported from Russia, America, and Sumatra, to the +quantity, in 1898, of 16,055,000 gallons, goes from Hankow through six +provinces. It is one among the agents which are producing changes in the +social life of China. I have seen the metamorphosis effected by it in +the village life of the Highlands of Scotland and Korea, where the +saucer of fish oil, with its smoky wick, and the dim, dull _andon_ have +been replaced by the bright, cheerful “paraffin lamp,” a gathering point +for the family, rendering industry and occupation possible. Chinese +rooms are inconceivably dark, and smoking, sleeping, and gambling were +the only possible modes of getting rid of the long winter evenings among +the poorer classes till kerosene oil came upon the scene. + +Hankow has eight regular guilds, which are banks and cash shops, rice +and grain dealers, clothiers and mercers, grocers and oilmen, +ironmasters, wholesale dealers in copper and metals, dealers in KIANGSI +china, and wholesale druggists, Hankow having one of the largest and +best drug markets in China. It would be well if we realised the extreme +importance of these and similar trade organisations. We may talk of +spheres of interest and influence, and make commercial treaties giving +us the advantages of the “most favoured nation” clause; but till we +understand the power of the guilds, and can cope with them on terms of +equality, and are “up to Chinese methods of business,” we shall continue +to see what we are now seeing at Hankow and elsewhere, which I have +already alluded to. There is much that is admirable in these guilds, and +their trades-unionism, combinations, and systems of terrorism are as +perfect as any machinery of the same kind in England. In any matters +affecting the joint interests of a trade, the members or their delegates +meet and consult. The rules of guilds are both light and severe, and no +infringement of them is permitted without a corresponding penalty; these +penalties vary from a feast and a theatrical entertainment being +inflicted on the guilty person to expulsion from the guild in a flagrant +case, which means the commercial ruin of the offender. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + CHINESE HANKOW (HANKAU) + + +It is a short step from the stately dulness of the bund to the crowds, +colour, and noise of the native city—the “Million-peopled City,” the +commercial centre of China, the greatest “distributing point” in the +empire, the centre of the tea trade, which has fallen practically into +Russian hands, and the greatest junk port in China. + +The city wall is imposing, with a crenelated parapet, forts at the +corners, and tunnelled under double-roofed gate-towers for heavily +bossed gates, which are closed from sunset to sunrise. The unpaved +roadways are usually foul quagmires owing to the perpetual passage of +water carriers; where big dogs of the colour of dirty flannel, with pink +patches of hairlessness, wrangle over offal. The streets are from ten to +twelve feet wide. The houses are high. Matting or blue cotton is +stretched across from opposite roofs in summer to moderate the sun’s +heat and glare; so the traffic is carried on in a curiously tinted +twilight, flecked now and then by a vivid ray gleaming on the red and +gold of the long, hanging shopboards, lighting up their flare and glare, +and giving them a singular picturesqueness. + +The shape of the signboard and the different colours of the letters and +face of the sign indicate different trades. The devising of a signboard +is a very important matter; it may affect the luck of the shop. The name +of the shopkeeper comes first, but in the case of a firm a word of good +omen is substituted for the names, with a character signifying union. In +both cases the top characters are followed by words of good omen, +suggesting wealth, prosperity, and increase. + +Gold platers of ornaments use salmon-coloured boards with green +characters, druggists gilded boards frequently traced with many lines, +and large standard tablets which remain in their sockets at night, and +there are a few other combinations of colour used by different traders +for the sake of easy distinction; and on some signboards the articles +sold within are carefully pictured, but black and gold and carnation-red +and gold largely predominate, the gold being used for the highly +decorative characters, the writing of which is a lucrative trade. An old +signboard is a valuable piece of property, and if the business is sold +fetches a high price, like the goodwill of a long-established business +at home. An old-established druggist’s sign has sold for as much as 3000 +taels, about £450. In the winter, with the streets so decorated, with +the overhead screens removed, the narrow strips of bright blue sky +above, and the slant sunbeams touching gold and colour into marvellous +brilliancy, Chinese cities, especially Canton and Foochow, have a nearly +unrivalled picturesqueness. + +Of the crowded and semi-impassable state of such streets no adequate +idea can be given. Though on my first visit to the native city the +British Consul was walking beside me with an attendant, and my bearers +wore the red-plumed hats and well-known liveries of the Consulate, I was +often brought to a halt, more or less ignominious, or was roughly shaken +by the impact of the burden of some hurrying coolie, while the chairmen +threaded their way with difficulty through thousands of busy, blue-clad +Chinese, all shouting or yelling, my bearers adding to the din by the +yelling in chorus which is supposed to clear a passage for a chair. + +Among the meaner cotton-clad folk there were not wanting rich costumes +of heavy brocaded silks and costly furs, worn probably by compradores +and shopkeepers, who in the treaty ports are coming to vie with the +highest officials in the splendid expensiveness of their dress. +Occasionally yells louder than usual, and an attempt on the part of the +crowd to pack itself to right and left, denoted the approach of a +mandarin in a heavy, coloured and gilded official chair, with eight +bearers, and many attendants in heavily plumed hats and red and black +decorated dresses; the official himself sitting very erect within his +chair, nearly always very pale and fat, with a thin moustache of long +curved hairs, and that look of unutterable superciliousness and scorn +which no Oriental of another race is equally successful in attaining. + +[Illustration: A STREET IN HANKOW.] + +The principal streets are flagged; the others are miry ways cut into +deep ruts by wheelbarrows. “Ancient and fish-like smells” abound, and +strong odours of garlic, putrid mustard, frizzling pork, and of the +cooking of that most appetising dish, fish in a state of decomposition, +drift out of the crowded eating-houses. If of the lower class, the +culinary operations of restaurants are visible from the street, the +utensils consisting of a row of pans set into brickwork, one or two iron +pots, and a few earthenware dishes. Not a tipsy man or a man noisy with +drink was to be seen. The Chinese have the virtue of using alcoholic +liquor in great moderation, and almost altogether with their food. + +Oil in earthenware jars, each large enough to contain a man, or freshly +arrived in the paper-lined wicker baskets in which it is shipped from +SZE CHUAN, denotes the oil shops; parcels of tea done up in oiled paper, +built up to a great height with surprising regularity, slabs of brick +tea, and sacks of sugar denote the grocers; while rolls of carefully +packed silk, which one longs to investigate, proclaim the prince of +retail shopkeepers, the dealer in silks. + +There are bean cakes, melon seeds, dates, and drugs from the north and +west, brought in by the great junks, with huge sweeps and Vandyke-brown +sails, which crowd the Han. There are idol-makers with every sort and +size of idol for home use and export, some of which find their way to +Tibet and Turkestan, and receive perpetual worship in the homes and +_gonpas_ of Ladak and Nubra; but none of them are treated with even +scant respect until the ceremony takes place which invests them with the +soul, represented by silver models of the “five viscera,” which are +inserted at a door in the back. In the same quarter are dealers in the +manifold paraphernalia of idol worship, in the tinsel, gold, and silver +shoes burned in ancestor-worship, and in the very clever and in some +cases life-size representations of elephants, tigers, horses, asses, +cows, houses, carts, and many other things which are burned at funerals, +adding to their great costliness, the sons of a merchant of average +means often spending a thousand dollars on these mimicries. + +But while there are dealers in everything which can minister to the +luxury or necessities of the “Million-peopled City,” many of the shops +give a piteous notion of the poverty of their customers. And everywhere +in these crowded streets not a thing is sold, from a valuable diamond +down to a straw shoe, without the deafening din of bargaining, no seller +asking what he means to take, and no purchaser offering what he +eventually means to give, the poorest buyers, to whom time is money, +thinking an hour not misspent if they get a reduction of half a _cash_. +As all the bargaining, except in the case of the great shops, is done at +the shop fronts, and the bargainers are men, and Chinese men, specially +of the lower orders, shout at the top of their voices, the Babel in a +Chinese commercial street is inconceivable. + +Enormous quantities of goods are everywhere waiting for transit, for +Hankow is the greatest distributing centre in China, and the big +steamers lying at the bund, or at anchor in the stream, and the thousand +junks which crowd the waterways, seem barely sufficient for her gigantic +commerce. + +Among the ghastly curiosities of Hankow, as of all big Chinese cities, +are the coffin shops, which usually herd together in special quarters +and are apt to use portions of the streets for their timberyards. In +them are seen the great cumbrous coffins, at times ten and even twelve +feet in length, which Chinese custom demands, of all grades and prices, +from highly polished lacquer with characters raised or incised in gold +to the roughly put together shell in which the tired coolie takes his +last sleep. Many of the more costly are ordered as filial gifts from +children to parents, and from grandchildren to grandparents, and take +their lugubrious place, set up on end, among the decorations of the +lofty vestibule by which rich men’s houses are entered, and where they +may rest for years. As a body may remain for months or years unburied, +waiting for the decision of the geomancers as to an auspicious place and +date for the interment, the coffins are very carefully constructed, and +are either lacquered or treated with the celebrated Ningpo varnish, +which is practically impermeable both to air and moisture. + +The varnishers and lacquerers also herd together, and their trade, which +is based on the _Rhus vernicifera_, is a very important one. The +eating-houses—and from the number of them and the crowds which frequent +them it might be supposed that nobody eats at home—the tobacconists, and +the opium shops are scattered broadcast through the city, and each has +its special _clientèle_. + +[Illustration: COFFINS AWAITING BURIAL.] + +[Illustration: HANKOW FROM HAN YANG.] + +Possibly there may have originally been a plan on which the Hankow +streets were built, but it must have been outgrown for some centuries, +and at present there is little suggestion of design; streets and alleys +intersect each other in singular confusion, and only a practised hand +can find any given point without irksome and delaying tergiversations. +On the whole there is a tendency to arrive at the top of the river bank, +where at low water (winter) a singular spectacle presents itself. + +The Han, an opaque, yellow, rapid flood, 200 yards wide, lies from forty +to sixty feet below. Its summer rises have carried away its banks on the +Hankow side, and the dense mass of ill-looking houses which formerly +stood, as is the wont of houses, on the ground, have been undermined, +and are now propped up on what it would be flattery to call piles, for +they are only slender and casual poles lashed together till the +requisite length is gained, some leaning one way, some another, while +the dwellings they upbear owe their continued existence to their +involuntary mutual support, and to the pestilent habit which such +ramshackle buildings have everywhere of hanging together. Thousands of +the poorer class of coolies live in these precarious abodes, which, +however, are less unsavoury than some, for they have fresh air below and +innumerable holes in the floors for the easy disposal of refuse. In the +summer of 1898 a great many of these dwellings were carried away with +much loss of life. + +Almost below these, on the mud slope above the river, are hundreds of +mat huts, which have to be removed as the water rises. These are the +miserable, peripatetic kennels of the very lowest dregs of the Chinese +humanity of a large city. It is difficult to say how this large +population lives. Doubtless the “odd jobs” which support it are mostly +connected with junks, for below each house is moored some rotten leaky +thing capable of floating, to which descent is made by iron spikes +driven into the strongest of the piles. Here are the men who on these +“odd jobs” perpetuate lives which are not worth living—the beggars, +blind and seeing, with malformed and loathsome bodies; lepers with +gaping sores and fingers and toes dropping off; the unsightly and +unnatural who rely for their living on revolting the feelings of the +passers-by; suffering women old and friendless, who prefer the free +Bohemianism of beggary to the almshouse or refuge provided by Chinese +charity; and hosts of others, the pariah _débris_ of Hankow. These +wretched beings have one solace in life—the opium pipe—and they starve +themselves to procure it. + +Flights of stone stairs, one of them at least of magnificent width and +appearance, always crowded with water carriers splashing the contents of +their pails, with coolies carrying burdens, and with passengers hurrying +to and from the ferries, lead from the bank to the water. Through every +opening in the dilapidations the river traffic is seen. + +[Illustration: FEMALE BEGGAR IN MAT HUT.] + +At least three miles of junks[20] and other craft lie two, three, and +four deep (to quote Lu Hew again), “like the teeth of a comb,” of all +sizes, colours, and builds, having but two features in common: a +prominent eye on each side of the bows and sterns considerably higher +than the bows. Every maritime province of China is represented on that +crowded waterway. One could never weary of the spectacle. It represents +the extent, the enterprise, the industry, and the conservatism of China, +and with an unrivalled variety and picturesqueness. + +No junks interested me more than the great passage and salt boats, from +seventy to one hundred tons burthen, with their lofty, many-windowed +sterns like the galleys of Henry IV., their tall single masts and their +big brown-umber sails of knitted cane or coarse canvas extended by an +arrangement of bamboo, looking heavy enough to capsize a liner, and with +hulls stained and oiled into the similitude of varnished pine, as coming +from that Upper Yangtze for which I was bound. There were huge junks +from the Fukien province, bringing to me recollections of Foochow and +the Min river, piled high with bamboos and poles, and extended to a +preposterous width by masses of the same lashed on both sides, the +buoyancy of the cargo permitting as little as five inches of freeboard, +gaily painted and decorated junks from Canton, with rows of +carefully-tended plants on their high sterns, sombre craft from Tientsin +and the north, junks from the Poyang and Tungting lakes, nondescript +craft from inland streams and canals, alert tenders to the big junks, +lorchas, some of them foreign-owned, doing homage to Chinese nautical +experience by their Chinese rig, rafts, with their inhabitants, +_sampans_ of all sizes, and huge junks heavily laden, crawling slowly +down stream with their great sweeps, and the wild melancholy wail of the +oarsmen—the Argonauts of Swatow or Ningpo. + +People who think it witty to ridicule everything Chinese poke fun at +these junks and their “pig-tailed,” long-coated crews, but the handling +of them is masterly; in emergencies there is no confusion, every man +obeys orders, and the ease with which these apparently ungainly craft +tack, with their complicated arrangement of bamboos stiffening their +vast sails, is absolutely beautiful. + +The streets of Hankow, like those of most of the large trading cities, +present a perpetual series of dramas. In them hundreds of people eat, +sleep, bargain, gamble, cook, spin, and quarrel, while they are the +sculleries, sinks, and sewers of a not inconsiderable portion of the +population. They are the playgrounds of the children, if that can be +called play which consists merely in rolling and tumbling over each +other after the manner of puppies, the elder among them watching with +greedy eyes the bargains of their seniors, eager cupidity and ofttimes +precocious depravity written on faces which should be young. + +[Illustration: A TRAVELLING RESTAURANT.] + +Itinerant barbers pursue their essential calling, carrying their +apparatus on their backs, and perambulating the streets with a curious +cry. Their business is an enormous one in China, where hair is regarded +as an enemy to be battled with. Once a week at least, the Chinese, +however poor, must have the front and middle of his head smoothly +shaven, or he looks like a convict, his face, I cannot say his beard, +and his eyebrows, if he has any, trimmed, when he emerges from the +barber’s hands a respectable member of the community. All these +operations are conducted publicly under the eaves and gateways and at +the street corners, with much shampooing, and dexterous manipulation of +oddly shaped razors, which scrape rather than cut, the face of the +client nevertheless wearing a look of serene contentment. The fees of +the barber are an important item in the expenditure of a Chinese coolie. + +Many other industries are carried on in the streets, and the Government +is lenient to all encroachments, so long as a mandarin’s chair and +retinue can pass unhindered. Government is represented in this +_congeries_ of cities by _yamens_, with picturesque curved roofs, and +gateways with a certain stateliness, and courtyards usually filled with +petitioners and their agents, prisoners awaiting trial, _yamen_ runners, +who, from three to six hundred or more in number, hang about official +residences; while clerks and writers carrying papers and dressed in +expensive brocaded silks move haughtily among the common herd. The inner +court is concealed by a plastered brick screen, on which is emblazoned +in brilliant colouring a bold representation of the dragon of the Dragon +Empire. + +Government in its military aspect is made apparent by a number of +soldiers, usually in picturesque but stagey and unserviceable uniforms, +in which blue and carnation-red predominate, who are encountered in the +streets hanging round opium or tobacco shops, or gambling for _cash_, or +attached slightly to some procession, or lounging at the city gates, or +swaggering at the great entrance to the _yamen_, under the curse of +abounding leisure. Their somewhat mediæval military equipments are +supplemented with additions laughably grotesque, long fans attached to +their girdles, and big paper umbrellas, occasionally gaudily decorated +with mythical monsters, but oftener with proverbs or Confucian maxims. + +Hurry, crowds, business, the absence of the feminine element, and noise, +are common to all Chinese cities. Drums and gongs are beaten, cymbals +are clashed, bells ring, muskets are fired, crackers are exploded +everywhere, beggars wail, there are street cries innumerable, the din of +bargaining tongues rises high, and the air is full of the discordant +roar of a multitude. + +In the centre of such surroundings, within hearing of the ceaseless din, +and within smelling of the foul and ancient odour which pervades the +city, the colony of English Wesleyan missionaries has placed itself in +close contact with its medical missionary hospitals and dispensaries for +men and women, its home and school for the blind, and its other +missionary agencies, and not far off in a Chinese house, and living and +dressing as a native, was one of the noblest and most sympathetic +missionaries who ever sought the welfare of the Chinese, the Rev. David +Hill, who died of typhus fever shortly after my first visit, genuinely +mourned by those for whom he had sacrificed himself. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + HANKOW TO ICHANG + + +I left Hankow, without seeing a gleam of sunshine upon it, by the +deck-over-deck, American-built, stern-wheel steamer _Chang-wo_. She had +some hundreds of Chinese and two China Inland missionaries on board +below, and her very limited saloon accommodation was taken up by four +Canadian missionaries returning to SZE CHUAN, and the inevitable baby. +They had fled nearly a year before, after the destruction of their +houses in the riots. I was greatly indebted to two of them. I had a +cabin directly over the boiler. The floor was very hot, and even with +the window open I could not get the temperature below 74°, and they gave +me their cool room in exchange. + +The captain was kind and genial. He let me tone unlimited photographic +prints in the saloon, ignoring the dishes and buckets involved in the +process, and the engineer provided an unlimited supply of condensed +water, free both from Yangtze mud and from the alum used to precipitate +it. But he had a unique affluence of bad language, which neither the +presence of clergy nor women sufficed to check, and which was brought +out with slow, thrilling, and emphatically damnatory deliberation on the +many occasions on which we ran on shoals. + +I had abundant occupation in writing, printing and toning photographs, +learning a little from Mr. Endacott of the region for which I was +finally bound, taking walks below past the Chinese cabins, where the +inmates were reclining in the bliss of opium smoking, the faint, sickly +smell of the drug drifting out at the open doors, or on the upper deck +to watch the fleets of strange junks through which the _Chang-wo_ +steamed, howling and bellowing. Lumbering, unhandy craft they look, but +they are handled with consummate skill. + +The Great River was at its lowest winter level, and its shores, so far +as one could see them under these circumstances, were most monotonous, +and then it was midwinter. We steamed for hours between high, grey +mud-banks, ceaselessly eaten away by the rush of the current, gaining +little beyond an idea of the vastness of the level country, the depth of +the grey alluvium, and the extent of the commerce of which the Yangtze +is the highway. To get deep water we were often close under the right +bank, and had the _divertissement_ of being pelted with mud and with +such names as “foreign devils” and “foreign dogs,” an amusement which +one would have supposed would have palled upon the peasants in the years +during which these steamers have been running. + +Our progress was not rapid, owing to shoals and changes in the channel, +and the _Chang-wo_ anchored at night. Then, during the day, there was +the frequent grinding sound of running on gravel, or the thud of +touching a bank, or the buzz of a whirlpool created by ourselves in +steering clear of a junk. All day long resounded the melancholy note of +the Chinese leadsman calling out the soundings, varied by the sharp +“Hard a-port!” or “Hard a-starboard!” of a European officer as some +peril presented itself, or the low and terrible maledictions of the +captain on all and sundry, as far back as the builders of the ship. The +grounding was exasperating, losing us two hours at times. Quick as +thought at every touch on shoal or mud-bank down clattered the anchor, +and various skilled operations followed, which invariably resulted +successfully, but at one time the navigation was so intricate, and the +water shoaled for such a long distance, that, after getting off a bank +after two hours’ tedious work, the steam launch was lowered to sound +ahead, and direct us by signal flags. + +Still it was hard to get up any excitement over these mishaps, even +though the captain enlarged on the risk of losing the wheel or the +rudder. Very little diversified the monotony of the winter voyage, but +when I returned in summer, and could look over the banks, a vast +population and innumerable industries were to be seen. + +Yo-chow, a fortified monastery on a high promontory, once a place of +considerable domination, and Yo-chow Fu, a large city near the junction +of the Tungting Lake with the Yangtze, are the chief features of the +featurelessness. This lake, a vast but imperfectly known sheet of water, +surrounded by towns and villages, is of very great importance to the +trade of the rich HUNAN province. + +The farther route lies among embanked watercourses, great flats of muddy +land receiving alluvial accretions from each summer’s floods, and +shallow meres with a wealth of wild fowl I never saw equalled, and +abounding in fish, both fish and fowl being snared in great numbers by +the nearly amphibious inhabitants, by many ingenious devices born of +Chinese poverty. + +Among the many varieties of boats are pairs of large _sampans_, lashed +together, and at once kept apart and connected by platforms, on which +reeds are piled to the height of a haystack, the lowest part of the +centre of the load being recessed and shored up for a sleeping and +cooking place. These reeds, which are a speciality of the Yangtze for +900 miles from its mouth, and attain a height of fifteen feet and over, +are as invaluable to the people of this region as are the vast reed-beds +of the Liao to those of Southern Manchuria, furnishing them with +building, roofing, and fencing material, as well as with fuel. Quite a +large part of the internal freighting business of this low-lying level +is the transport of these reeds on sledges over the marshy ground, on +four-wheeled wooden trucks, which might be called “trollies” if they had +rails to run on, some dragged by men, and others by the quaint, +appropriate water buffalo, as well as loaded on coupled boats. + +In the late afternoon of the third day from Hankow we anchored in the +rushing mid-stream of the Yangtze, abreast of the treaty port of +Sha-shih (Sand Market), opened by the treaty of Shimonoseki in 1895, +and, as was fitting, first occupied by the Japanese. I was not +prepossessed with the city either on the upward or downward journey. +Communication with the shore is tedious, difficult, and not free from +risk. Several of the boats which attempted to reach us were unable to +“catch on,” and even a lighter, failing to make fast, was carried far +astern and did not work her way back till the next morning. + +At low water Wan-cheng Ti, the great dyke, averaging 150 feet in width +at the bottom, and twenty-five at the top, twenty feet high on the river +side, and forty on the land side, which follows the Yangtze for +twenty-five miles to the west of Sha-shih and thirty to the east, +effectually conceals the town from view, only a seven-storeyed pagoda +and the curved roofs of temples and _yamens_ appearing above the heads +of the crowds which throng the roadway on the dyke-top. + +China must have been a greater country when this great public work was +constructed than she is now, for this dyke where it protects Sha-shih is +a noble, three-tiered, stone-faced construction, on the top of which are +remnants of a stone balustrade; and broad, stately flights of stairs are +let into the stonework at intervals, each tier of stairs being about +twelve feet high. It must have been fully as impressive as the superb +walls on the Chia-ling at Paoning Fu, which still remain a thing of +grandeur and beauty. + +Sha-shih is pre-eminently and abominably dirty; and on this fine +embankment dirt is in the ascendant, and dirt and bad smells assail the +traveller on landing. Much of the refuse of the crowded city at the back +is thrown over the river wall, accumulating in heaps which at low water +conceal half of it. Steep steps lead up these vile mounds, and appear to +be preferred to the stone stairs covered with slippery, black ooze. +Below the heaps lie from one to two thousand junks with crews on an +average of ten men each, and frequently the junkman’s wife and family in +addition, giving an average floating population of 10,000. + +Beggars’ huts encroach on the top of the embankment; and when I write +that hosts of gaunt, sore-eyed, mangy dogs, and black pigs each with a +row of bristles standing up along his lean, curved back, and beggars, +one mass of dirt and sores, are always routing and delving in the heaps, +the reader will not be surprised that I did not find Sha-shih +prepossessing. It has always had the reputation of being hostile to +foreigners, which hostility expressed itself unpleasantly in a riot in +May, 1898, when the China merchant’s, S. N. Co.’s premises ashore and +afloat, the new buildings of the Imperial Customs, and the Japanese +Consulate were destroyed. The three steamship agencies in 1898 +practically withdrew their agencies from the port, the British Consulate +was withdrawn, Japan has taken no steps towards occupying her +concession, foreign trade and passenger traffic have fallen off +materially, and so far the port must be pronounced a failure. + +A noisy and dirty rabble follows a stranger; mud is thrown—and, as is +the fashion of mud, some of it sticks—bad names are bandied about +freely; the foreigner is conscious of a ferment which may or may not +result in more active annoyance, and, after being nearly suffocated by +the ill-mannered and malodorous crowd in a fruitless attempt to see the +lions of the city, he retreats not reluctantly to his steamer, which, in +my case, was detained by heavy fog until noon of the next day. + +[Illustration: CHINESE SOLDIERS.] + +(_From a Chinese Drawing._) + +But Sha-shih, though unprepossessing and unlikely to fulfil the +expectations formed of it as a treaty port, is one of the most important +cities on the Yangtze; nor is its importance a thing of yesterday. Two +miles above it lies the _Fu_, or prefecture, of Ching-chou, of which it +may be regarded as the trading suburb. All around are the remains of +fortresses and cities, mounds, earthworks, and look-out terraces, +ancient in the days when our fathers were painted savages, marking the +sites of the strongholds and capital of the powerful kings of Ch’u in +the early days of Chinese authentic history. + +[Illustration: MILITARY OFFICER.] + +(_From a Chinese Drawing._) + +Ching-chou Fu is grandly fortified, and is surrounded by a wide canal of +great depth. It is the seat of a _taotai_, or intendant of a circuit, +which includes Ichang, eighty miles off, and though not a provincial +capital, is of such importance that it has a Manchu garrison of 12,000 +men(?), the largest Manchu force south of Peking, the Manchu military +colony numbering 40,000 souls. The whole organisation of this colony is +military, and it is kept separate from the civil population. Otherwise +it has no interest, except that the women have unbound feet and wear +long outer dresses, and that the men look lazy and demoralised. Besides +this large garrison there are river and lake police, and a small body of +militia under the command of a provincial general, and a thousand HUNAN +“braves” trained in the rudiments of drill under a brigade-general. +“Braves” are fighting mobile troops, whose superior qualities command +superior pay. They receive four or five taels a month, while the common +provincial soldier only gets one tael fifty cents. Now, as formerly, +Ching-chou is regarded as one of the most important strategical +positions in China. + +It has an estimated Chinese and Manchu population of 100,000, and +Sha-shih an estimated population of 80,000, a temporary one averaging +8000, and a boating one (as mentioned before) of, at the very least, +10,000, nearly 200,000 in all. The distance to Ichang is 80 miles by +land and 100 by water. To Hankow, with which the great trade of Sha-shih +is done, it is 300 miles by water, and would be 135 by land, if there +were land! No land carriage is possible, except in seasons of drought, +much of that which poses as _terra firma_ on the maps being meres, +relapsed agricultural lands, morasses, shallow lakes, fens, +watercourses, and reed swamps, most productive wherever areas are +drained and embanked. + +Among the interesting features of Sha-shih are a ninth century +seven-storeyed pagoda, with eight faces, each face recessed on each +storey, and containing a stone image of Buddha, and a dark and foul +staircase, leading to a remarkable view from the top, and the imposing +halls of the trade guilds, of which I failed to see the superb +interiors, owing to the clamour and pressure of the rabble. In Sha-shih, +as everywhere else, these guildhalls serve the purposes of banqueting +halls, temples, and even theatres at times. They number thirteen, named +from the provinces or cities of which their members are natives, and +each has its patron deity. There are several charitable institutions, +including two orphanages, one of which receives 220 orphans annually, +and boards them out until the age of sixteen. + +Benevolence was considerably strained in the winter of 1896–97, when +thousands of refugees flying from famine in SZE CHUAN received +unwholesome and insanitary shelter in mat sheds outside Sha-shih, where +a terrible and uninvestigated epidemic broke out, and was carried into +the city and neighbourhood, so that during the spring and summer it was +estimated that 17,000 perished in the city only. Nearly all the +refugees, after being kept alive chiefly by the charitable, died, and +were decently buried by those societies which in every Chinese city +undertake this sacred duty for the bodies of strangers, and for those of +the very poor. I am always glad to call attention to Chinese charities, +for the continual reiteration of facts on the other side only tends to +produce an unfair and one-sided impression of the Chinese character. + +[Illustration: A FISHERMAN AND PLUNGE NET.] + +(_From a Chinese Drawing._) + +Superstition had its say regarding this baleful epidemic, which +unfortunately never came under skilled observation. It was attributed to +a malignant black bird, of vast size, which was said to hover over the +city. It had ten heads, but one had been cut off, and the severed neck +bled profusely and continuously, and wherever the blood fell disease and +death followed. A day was set apart for the propitiation of this +malignant fowl, and fire crackers were burned before the door of every +house.[21] + +The fish market is an excellent, though an uncleanly one, nets, angling, +cormorants, lines with hooks, and great frame nets lowered and raised by +pulleys, all being employed. Sturgeon, weighing from 500 to 700 pounds, +are caught off the port. There are no unusual articles of diet to be +seen, except Japanese seaweed, which is largely consumed in the belief +that it counteracts the bad effects of the sulphur fumes proceeding from +coal fires! + +The Roman Catholics and three Protestant missions hold property in the +town, but mission work has to be conducted very cautiously owing to the +strongly anti-foreign feeling. There are seventeen foreigners, including +the Japanese consul, but not one foreign merchant, though two or three +foreign firms have agencies. + +Foreign articles, few of which find any place in the customs returns, +are to be bought in the shops. Very many of them are Japanese, owing to +the energy or, as our merchants call it, the peddling and huckstering +instincts of the Japanese traders, who through their trained +Chinese-speaking agents find out what the people want and supply it to +them. The cotton gins largely used in the neighbourhood are of Japanese +make, and cheap clocks, kerosene lamps, towels, handkerchiefs, cotton +umbrellas, cheap hardware, soaps, fancy articles of all descriptions, +and cotton goods are poured into Sha-shih by that alert empire. Among +English goods are rugs, blankets, and preserves and tinned milk and +fruits. Most of the dealers in “assorted notions” are Cantonese. + +Cotton cloth, raw cotton, silk fabrics, and hides are the staple export +of Sha-shih. There are few local industries besides the weaving of +cotton. Pewter, “hubble bubbles,” household pewter ware, long bamboo +pipes, not fashionable “down the river,” coarse silk twist for plaiting +into the ends of queues, boiling salt out of old salt bags, a smoky and +smelly process carried on owing to the monstrous price of Government +salt, brick and tile making, and furniture-making, specially of carved +and gilded bedsteads and cabinets, showy but somewhat trashy, I think +exhaust the list. The annual export of raw cotton is estimated at +9,000,000 pounds. Enormous quantities of it arrive to be woven at +Sha-shih into a strong, durable, white cloth, fifteen and twelve inches +wide, which I saw all over SZE CHUAN, and of which at least 20,000,000 +pounds are annually exported. Samples of this make and of English +cottons were frequently shown to me by the women in SZE CHUAN villages, +with a scornful laugh at the expense of the latter. + +Sha-shih is called “The Manchester of China.” In it this comparatively +indestructible cloth is graded, packed, and shipped away, the adjacent +country being the greatest centre of weaving in the empire. There are +110 dealers in raw cotton in the city, and 114 shops deal in native +cotton cloth, and there is a daily market for its sale in the early +mornings. Silks, both plain and figured, are also produced in great +quantities, and satin bed-covers, which are used all over China. Rich +satins are also woven for altar cloths, bed and door hangings, and +cushions. + +Sha-shih was the first point on my journey at which I encountered the +money difficulties which press so severely on the traveller in China. My +broken silver was of little use, and my dollars of none, copper _cash_ +and _cash_ notes forming the entire currency of the port. The merchants +and shopkeepers calculate silver in Sha-shih taels, which vary from 6 to +11 per cent. from the standard Haikwan, Hankow, and Shanghai taels, and +the exchange between _cash_ and silver varies daily. There are about 130 +_cash_ shops in the town, nearly all of them issuing notes. Notes for +1000 _cash_ abound, mostly issued by small Manchu shops in Ching-chou, +for which change can hardly be obtained in Ching-chou itself. The _cash_ +shops issue notes for 1000, 5000, and 10,000 _cash_, but though those +issued by the banks and pawnshops are current for thirty miles round, +they are worthless at Ichang, as I found to my inconvenience. Each +hundred _cash_ being strung separately on a wisp of straw or paper, and +every string having to be counted over and examined for small or +spurious _cash_, the purchase of 10,000, or about 23_s._ 3_d._, is a +weighty matter in various senses, and is apt to take from two to three +hours, including the time spent in bargaining about “the touch” of sycee +silver procured at Hankow. + +I have dwelt so long, albeit so superficially, on Sha-shih because it is +the most important of the treaty ports opened since the war, and because +nothing is known of it by the general reader. Certainly the _couleur de +rose_ expectations of an outburst of foreign trade have not been +realised, nor, I think, are likely to be, unless the methods of commerce +on the Yangtze undergo a radical change. The total trade for 1898 was +only £24,444 in value, against £47,509 in 1897, but these figures only +apply to the exports and imports passing through the Imperial Maritime +Customs. For Sha-shih has not only one, but several, “back doors” +through which her enormous commerce is poured, the principal one being a +canal to Hankow, called at its western end the Pien-Ho, and which is not +only free from the risks of the river, but is from sixty to seventy +miles shorter. Altogether several routes to Hankow are practicable, +either wholly by canal and lake, or partly by road and partly by canal, +the water route being available during the whole year. + +The Chinese are rigid conservatives. Junks are always obtainable, and +wait the convenience of their hirers, and their freight and passenger +charges are much lower than those of the steamers. Certainly if I had +not been hurried I should have preferred a junk! The canals pass through +towns which offer facilities for both trading and dawdling, so that, +although there are two _likin_ stations on the canal route to Hankow, +the native trader finds that the junk has many advantages over the +steamer. _Likin_ is charged on all goods landed at Sha-shih, and the +Imperial Customs duty is, in fact, only an additional tax levied on +goods conveyed by steamer. These inland routes are of the greatest +commercial importance. + +Besides the canal and lake routes to Hankow, the great delta between the +Yangtze and the Han is spotted with lakes connected by waterways, and in +other directions there are available roads connecting Sha-shih with +important trading cities. Among these are the great southern highway +from SZE CHUAN, and the great north road leading by the Han and over the +mountains to the capital of SHENSI, from which mule carts and mule +litters, conveyances hardly known in Central China, descend into the +Yangtze plain. + +All that region lies below the summer level of its rivers, and it is a +problem on which no light is likely to be shed why a country so oddly +circumstanced should have become a populous and powerful kingdom at a +very early date, and why its chief city has continued to be one of the +most important of military positions and of commercial centres in the +Chinese Empire. + +Returning to the river voyage, after passing Yungtze, the western +mountains appeared for the first time. The scenery changed rapidly. The +river narrowed; some of its promontories were boulder-strewn; low, +wooded knolls appeared above pleasant agricultural country, green with +young wheat; and hills of conglomerate and limestone replaced the grey +alluvium through which we had been steaming for nearly 1000 miles. +Although much detained by fogs, we reached the Tiger Teeth gorge, ten +miles below Ichang, in the early afternoon of the fifth day from Hankow. +This gorge, which hardly deserves so thrilling a name, is a channel two +miles long and about 700 yards wide, in the easternmost of those ranges +through which the Yangtze has forced itself on its way to create the +Great Plain. This range, rising to a height of 2600 feet, is broken up +into peaks, one of which is crowned by an inaccessible-looking Buddhist +monastery, this building, a fine pagoda, and great masses of +conglomerate being the only noteworthy features until we reached Ichang +in the glorifying light of a late afternoon sun. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + ICHANG + + +Unlike Sha-shih, the first view of Ichang, opened to foreign trade in +1887, is very attractive. At low water it stands high on the river bank, +on a conglomerate cliff above a great level sandbank, but in summer it +loses whatever dignity it gains by height, and is nearly on the river +level. A walled city of 35,000 people, gate towers, and temple roofs +rise above the battlements and the mass of houses. Between the city and +the river is a straggling suburb fairly clean, composed of small retail +shops. On the river bank are the buildings and godowns of the Imperial +Customs, including the Commissioner’s house and large garden, dainty +dwellings for the staff of twelve Europeans, and a tennis ground, with a +fine bund and broad flight of stone stairs in front. Near these are the +large houses of the Scotch Church Mission, and beyond a new plain +building put up by the China Inland Mission. The Roman Catholic +buildings are the first to attract attention from the water. There are a +few foreign hongs and godowns, and a customs pontoon moored in the +stream. Behind the British Consulate, a substantial new building with a +tennis lawn used for weekly hospitalities, breezy hills, much covered +with grave mounds, roll up towards a mountainous region, and below, the +Yangtze, with its perpetual rush and current, swirls in a superb flood +half a mile wide. + +At the time of my first visit a British gunboat, a wholesome and not +unneeded influence, lay at anchor opposite the town. + +The imposing feature of Ichang to my thinking is its multitude of junks +of every build and size, lying closely packed along its shore for a mile +and a half, their high castellated sterns making a goodly show. There +lay in hundreds big SZE CHUAN junks, strongly built for the rapids, +their stained and oiled woodwork looking like varnished pine, the junks +bound up the river with their masts erect, the masts of those which had +come down lashed along their sides. Big passenger boats there were too, +for all passengers, as well as cargo, bound up the Yangtze must “change” +at Ichang. + +On the opposite side are cliffs along the river front, backed by hills +and fine mountains, among which are fantastic peaks and pyramids, one of +them known as Pyramid Hill, exactly resembling the Great Pyramid in +shape, and said to have the same height and area as its prototype. Its +peculiar position and form were supposed or believed by the local +geomancers to interfere with that mystery of mysteries the FUNG SHUI, +and thus to act injuriously on the prosperity of Ichang, so the powers +that were, it is said, built a monastery opposite, on the Ichang side of +the river, at great expense, the priests of which have as their special +business to pray that the disastrous influences of Pyramid Hill may be +warded off from the city. + +The dead who people the hillsides far outnumber the living, and their +abodes having the aspect of exaggerated mole-hills, lack the frequent +stateliness of Chinese places of interment in some of the other +provinces, being mostly circular mounds of earth and sod kept together +by stones rudely built into them. + +Just before I arrived many of these stones had served a sinister +purpose, and had been used as ammunition. On entering the house of Mr. +Schjöltz, the Commissioner of Customs, who was my host at Ichang and +later at Chungking, I was surprised to see cairns of stones which were +nearly as big as a human head both in the hall and outside it, which had +been collected in the dining and drawing-rooms after their windows had +been smashed in an anti-foreign riot a few days before. During some +festivities the Chinese cook of the gunboat _Esk_ accidentally shot a +very popular Chinese officer. On this there was naturally a great +ebullition of fury, specially as the cook was not given up to the +Chinese authorities when they demanded him. The Customs buildings were +guarded by Chinese soldiers, but the staff, who are all efficiently +drilled, did sentry duty at night. This was the least serious of the +many riots which have occurred in the treaty ports on the Yangtze in +recent years. + +[Illustration: THE TABLET OF CONFUCIUS.] + +There are now about forty-five foreigners in Ichang, about twenty of +them being missionaries. It is to be supposed that all of these have a +sufficiency of serious occupation. Their amusements consist chiefly in +tennis, shooting, and boating picnics to some of the picturesque ravines +and rock temples off the main river, and to the Ichang gorge. The +British Consul, Mr. Holland, and Mr. Woodruff, the Commissioner of +Customs, throw their spacious gardens open constantly, and by the +exercise of much hospitality do their best to alleviate what, it must be +confessed, is the great monotony of life in a small and isolated foreign +community. + +Unless people are students or specialists or hobbyists of some +description, as I think every man and woman should be who goes to live +in so very foreign a country as China, amusements are apt to pall. The +winter evenings are long and dull, and those of summer hot and +mosquito-infested. People soon gauge the mental and social possibilities +of new-comers, and know exactly what their neighbours think on every +subject which can arise, and have sounded their intellectual depths and +_shallows_, and the arrival of a stranger and of the mail boat and the +changes in the customs staff are the chief varieties in life. That this +and several other of these small communities “get on” with little +apparent friction is surely much to their credit. Some say that it is +because they are chiefly masculine! + +In summer large vessels can make fast under the bund, but at low water +they anchor in mid-stream, and how to get goods with due regard to +economy from the steamers to the godowns when there is an average +difference of forty feet between the summer and winter levels of the +river is somewhat of a problem. Though in itself only a comparatively +poor town in a mountainous country, the total value of the trade of +Ichang for 1898 amounted to £2,298,437. All goods going west have to be +transhipped at this port, and nearly all goods bound east, so that it is +one of the busiest places on the river. It is a curious fact that, with +enormous coal-fields only three or four days away, the river steamers +1000 miles from the sea are burning Japanese coal! + +Ichang is the headquarters of a large Roman mission. Its head, Bishop +Benjamin, with whom I had the pleasure of spending one afternoon, has +been sixteen years in his present position without even a visit to +Shanghai. His large, lofty room, though furnished with all absolute +necessaries, is bare and severe, and contains nothing on which the eye +can pleasurably rest. The Bishop is a most genial elderly man, with much +charm of manner, thick iron-grey hair, and an unclerical moustache. As +we walked down the lanes to the orphanage numbers of Chinese children, +unmistakably delighted to see him, ran up to him, kissing his hands and +struggling for positions in which they could hold on to his robe. + +With him I visited the orphanage and hospital, both under the charge of +French and Belgian sisters, comely women with much grace and geniality +of manner, in which the loving, all-embracing maternal instinct finds +its winning expression. The hospital, which is on the ground floor, was +crowded, indeed overcrowded, and, as is usual in Roman hospitals in +China, the doctor and much of the medical treatment were Chinese, the +aid of the foreign doctor (a medical missionary) being called in in +surgical cases. + +The orphanage is a large building, with very lofty, well-ventilated +rooms, constructed for four hundred, but there were only eighteen girls +in it, who are instructed in the Christian faith, and in embroidery and +other industrial occupations. The Bishop told me that the Chinese do +not, as formerly, bring orphans and foundlings in numbers to their +keeping; indeed, I gathered that in Ichang at least the day for this is +past. I can only hazard a guess at the reasons. These may be the +anti-foreign spirit which has been laboriously stirred up recently; the +increasing competition of orphanages founded by charitable Chinese; the +partial disappointment with the temporal results of conversion; and +perhaps, above all, the excessive mortality which prevails in these +institutions, very much owing to the fact that the infants are brought +to them in great numbers either dying or suffering from disease, or in +such a feeble and emaciated state that they are unable to assimilate +their food. This mortality seems a matter of thankfulness rather than +regret to the pious sisters, one of whom elsewhere, in speaking to me of +a mortality of 1600 in the late summer, said with emotion, “So many, +thank God, safe.” + +Besides the Bishop and his priest secretary there are French and Chinese +fathers, a French professor, and a seminary with eight students, who +study the Chinese classics and philosophy for ten years and theology for +seven. These Roman missionaries appear to rely for the conversion of +adults chiefly on native agency. A Belgian priest, who called on me, +claimed 3000 converts in a region above the gorges, where he had worked +for eleven years. It is well known that one cause of the successes of +the Roman missionaries is the assistance given by them to litigants, and +the pressure brought to bear upon magistrates at the instance of the +French Minister in Peking in legal cases in which his co-religionists +are concerned. This Catholic priest mentioned to me, as among the many +trials of his missionary vocation, the case of a village in which nearly +all the inhabitants placed themselves under Christian instruction with a +view to baptism. These villagers had a suit against another village in +which the possession of a certain piece of land was the point in +dispute. French influence was brought to bear, and they gained their +case, let us believe justly, after which they returned _en masse_ to +their idolatrous practices. + +My Belgian visitor, in very vivid language, depicted the sufferings of +educated men from the deprivations of their lives, and specially from +the absolute solitude in which he and others are placed, living in one +room of low-class Chinese houses. He was obviously a man of much culture +and refinement, and felt the whole life acutely—the dark and filthy +houses, the dirty food, the unceasing noisy talk in a foreign tongue, +the lack of real privacy and quiet, the ingratitude of the Chinese, and, +more than all, his own failure to love them. This, though my first, was +not my last glimpse of the anguish of loneliness which these Roman +missionaries endure. “Madness would be the certain result,” my visitor +said, “but for the sustaining power of God, and the certainty that one +is doing His work.” + +As I shall not return to the subject of Roman missions, I will refer +briefly to four of the causes, in my opinion, of their undoubtedly +growing unpopularity in SZE CHUAN and elsewhere, in spite of the +assistance given to Christian litigants previously referred to. + +1. The exorbitant indemnity, out of all proportion to the losses +sustained, demanded and obtained by M. Gerard, then French Minister at +Peking, for damage done to mission property during the riots in SZE +CHUAN in 1895. + +2. The claim of the Roman hierarchy [now conceded] to be placed on a +level in position with the higher mandarins as to the number of their +chair-bearers, etc., and the amount of personal reverence exacted by the +clergy from a people essentially democratic. + +3. The non-admission of the heathen into Roman churches during the +celebration of mass and other services, while the secrecy which attends +the administration of the last rites of the Church is undoubtedly +obnoxious to the lower orders among the Chinese, who have no conception +of privacy. + +4. The opposite methods pursued by the Protestants of all denominations +since their settlement in the far west a few years ago are doubtless +working against the practices of the Roman missionaries. + +On the other hand, it is but just to say that the Chinese appreciate the +celibacy, poverty, and asceticism of the Roman clergy. Every religious +teacher, with one notable exception, who has made his mark in the East +has been an ascetic, and when Orientals begin to seek after +righteousness, rigid self-mortification is the method by which they hope +to attain it. + +Wherever I have met with Roman missionaries I have found them living +either like Bishop Benjamin and Bishop Meitel of Seoul, and like the +sisters in Seoul, Peking, Ichang, and elsewhere, in bare, whitewashed +rooms, with just enough tables and wooden chairs for use, or in the +dirt, noise, and innumerable discomforts of native houses of the lower +class, personally attending on the sick, and in China, Chinese in life, +dress, style, and ways, rarely speaking their own language, knowing the +ins and outs of the districts in which they live, their peculiarities of +trade, and their political and social condition. Lonely men, having +broken with friends and all home ties for the furtherance of +Christianity, they live lives of isolation and self-sacrifice, forget +all but the people by whom they are surrounded, identify themselves with +their interests, and have no other expectation but that of living and +dying among them. + +It must be admitted that the Chinese contrast this life of +self-surrender with that of large numbers of Protestant missionaries +living in comfortable, and what seem to them wealthy, homes in the +treaty ports, surrounded by as many of the amenities of life as are +usual in the simpler homes in foreign settlements, and with wives, +children, friends, and society, not very often, as in the case of the +Wesleyan missionaries at Hankow, living in the native cities among the +Chinese, and going home with their families for a year or more once in +five or seven years.[22] + +While admiring the self-denial and devotion of the Roman missionary +priests, I do not express any opinion as to rival methods and merits, +but only state facts which are forced upon every traveller, and purpose +to return to the subject of Protestant missions later. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + THE UPPER YANGTZE + + +I was very impatient to be off on my western journey, but after the boat +was engaged, the tracking ropes examined by experts at the customs, and +my few stores—tea, curry powder, and rice—had been bought, I had four +days of “hanging on.” The boatmen made various excuses for delay. One +day it was that the _lao-pan_, or master, had not advanced them money +wherewith to buy stores; another was a feast day; a third must be spent +in paying debts or they would be detained; and on the fourth they said +they must visit certain temples and make offerings for the success of +the voyage! The weather was raw, grim, and sunless. I had had a fire day +and night in my room at the customs, and a fireless, draughty boat was a +shivery prospect, but things usually turn out far better than either +prophecies or expectations, and this voyage was no exception. + +I was fortunate in being able to take as far as Wan Hsien Mr. Owen +Stevenson, of the China Inland Mission, who had had ten years’ +experience in Yunnan, accompanied by Mr. Hicks, a new arrival; and they +engaged the boat for the next stage to Chung-king, which gave Mr. S. +some little hold on the _lao-pan_, who was a mean and shifty person, +coerced into evil ways by a terrible wife, a virago, whose loud tongue +was rarely silent, who had beaten her eldest boy to death a few months +before, and of whom the remaining boy—a child of eight—lived in piteous +terror, lest he should share the same fate. This family of five lived in +the high stern cabin, but were apt to run over into parts of the boat +which should have been _tabu_. The crew consisted of a pilot who is +responsible for the navigation, a steersman, a cook, and sixteen +trackers and rowers. + +The boat itself was a small house-boat of about twenty tons, +flat-bottomed, with one tall mast and big sail, a projecting rudder, and +a steering sweep on the bow. Her “passenger accommodation” consisted of +a cabin the width of the boat, with a removable front, opening on the +bow deck, where the sixteen boatmen rowed, smoked, ate, and slept round +a central well in which a preternaturally industrious cook washed bowls, +prepared food, cooked it, and apportioned it all day long, using a +briquette fire. At night uprights and a mat roof were put up, and the +toilers, after enjoying their supper, and their opium pipes at the +stern, rolled themselves in wadded quilts and slept till daybreak. +Passengers usually furnish this cabin, and put up curtains and +photographs, and eat and sit there; but I had no superfluities, and my +“furniture” consisted only of a carrying-chair, in which it was very +delightful to sit and watch the grandeurs and surprises of the river. +But gradually the trackers and the skipper’s family came to over run +this cabin, and I constantly found the virago with her unwelcome baby +girl, or a dirty, half-naked tracker in my chair, and the eight-year-old +boy spent much of his time crouching in a corner out of reach of his +mother’s tongue and fist. + +Abaft this were three small cabins, with windows “glazed” with paper, +and a passage down the port side from the stern to the bow, on which I +cannot say they “opened,” for they were open (!), and a partial privacy +was only obtained by making a partition with a curtain. Abaft these was +the steersman’s place, which was also a kitchen and opium den, where my +servant cooked, and where the pilot and most of the crew were to be seen +every night lying on the floor beside their opium lamps, passing into +felicity. Abaft again, at a greater height, the skipper and his family +lived. On the roof there were hen coops and great coils of bamboo rope +for towing. + +It was an old boat, and the owner was not a man of substance. The paper +on the windows was torn away; the window-frame of the cabin in which I +slept, ate, and carried on my various occupations, had fallen out, the +cracks in the partitions were half an inch wide; and as for many days +the sun seldom shone and the mercury hung between 38° and 43°, and +hugging a charcoal brazier was the only method of getting warm, and that +a dubious one, the earliest weeks were a chilly period. + +On the afternoon of January 30th I embarked from the customs pontoon +much exhilarated by the prospect before me, but we only crossed the +river and lay all night in a tremendous noise among a number of big +junks, the yells of the skipper’s baby being heard above the din. This +man excused this last delay in starting by sending word from the shore +that he was waiting for the mandarin’s permit, and would be ready to +leave on the following daybreak. + +I was up at daybreak not to lose anything, but hour after hour passed, +and no _lao-pan_ appeared, and at ten we started without him to meet him +on the bank a few miles higher, when there was a tremendous row between +him and the men. We were then in what looked like a mountain lake. No +outlet was visible; mountains rose clear and grim against a dull grey +sky. Snowflakes fell sparsely and gently in a perfectly still +atmosphere. We cast off from the shore; the oars were plied to a wild +chorus; what looked like a cleft in the rock appeared, and making an +abrupt turn round a high rocky point in all the thrill of novelty and +expectation, we were in the Ichang Gorge, the first and one of the +grandest of those gigantic clefts through which the Great River, at +times a mile in breadth, there compressed into a limit of from 400 to +150 yards, has carved a passage through the mountains. + +The change from a lake-like stretch, with its light and movement, to a +dark and narrow gorge black with the shadows of nearly perpendicular +limestone cliffs broken up into buttresses and fantastic towers of +curiously splintered and weathered rock, culminating in the “Pillar of +Heaven,” a limestone pinnacle rising sheer from the water to a height of +1800 feet, is so rapid as to bewilder the senses. The expression “_lost_ +in admiration” is a literally correct one. At once I saw the reason why +the best descriptions, which are those of Captain Blakiston and Mr. A. +Little, have a certain amount of “fuzziness,” and fail to convey a +definite picture. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ICHANG GORGE.] + +With a strong, fair wind our sail was set; the creak and swish of the +oars was exchanged for the low music of the river as it parted under our +prow; and the deep water (from fifty to a hundred feet), of a striking +bottle-green colour, was unbroken by a swirl or ripple, and slid past in +a grand, full volume. The stillness was profound, enlivened only as some +big junk with lowered mast glided past us at great speed, the fifty or +sixty men at the sweeps raising a wild chant in keeping with the scene. +Scuds of snow, wild, white clouds whirling round pinnacles, and desolate +snow-clothed mountains, apparently blocking further progress, added to +the enchantment. Crevices in the rocks were full of maidenhair fern, and +on many a narrow ledge clustered in profusion a delicate mauve primula, +unabashed by the grandeur and the gloom. Streams tumbled over ledges at +heights of 1000 feet. There are cliffs of extraordinary honeycombed +rock, possibly the remains of the “potholes” of ages since, rock carved +by the action of water and weather into shrines with pillared fronts, +grottoes with quaint embellishments—gigantic old women gossiping +together in big hats—colossal abutments, huge rock needles after the +manner of Quiraing, while groups of stalactites constantly occur as +straight and thick as small pines, supporting rock canopies festooned +with maidenhair. Higher yet, surmounting rock ramparts 2000 feet high, +are irregular battlemented walls of rock, perhaps twenty feet thick, and +everywhere above and around are lofty summits sprinkled with pines, on +which the snow lay in powder only, and “the snow clouds rolling dun” +added to the sublimity of the scenery. + +It was always changing, too. If it were possible to be surfeited with +turrets, battlements, and cathedral spires, and to weary of rock +phantasies, the work of water, of solitudes and silences, and of the +majestic dark green flow of the Great River, there were besides lateral +clefts, each with its wall-sided torrent, with an occasional platform +green with wheat, on which a brown-roofed village nestled among fruit +trees, or a mountain, bisected by a chasm, looking ready to fall into +the river, as some have already done, breaking up into piles of huge +angular boulders, over which even the goat-footed trackers cannot climb. +Then, wherever the cliffs are less absolutely perpendicular, there are +minute platforms partially sustaining houses with their backs burrowing +into the rock, and their fronts extended on beams fixed in the cliff, +accessible only by bolts driven into the rock, where the small children +are tied to posts to prevent them from falling over, and above, below, +and around these dwellings are patches of careful culture, some of them +_not larger than a bath towel_, to which the cultivators lower +themselves with ropes, and there are small openings occasionally, where +deep-eaved houses cluster on the flat tops of rocky spurs among the +exquisite plumage of groves of the golden and green bamboo, among +oranges and pommeloes with their shining greenery, and straight-stemmed +palms with their great fan-like leaves. Already in these sheltered +places mauve primulas were blooming amidst a profusion of maidenhair, +and withered clusters and tresses showed what the glory of the spring +had been and was yet to be when the skirts of these spurs would be +aflame with azaleas, and clematis, and great white and yellow roses, and +all the wealth of flowers and trailers of which these were only the +vestiges. + +Another feature was boats large and small, and junks, some laboriously +tracked or rowed like my own, when the wind failed, against the powerful +stream, or descending, keeping the necessary steerage headway by crowds +of standing men on the low deck, facing forwards, vigorously working +great sweeps or _yulows_, five or ten at each, the gorge echoing all +along its length to the rise and fall of the wild chants to which the +rowers keep time and which are only endurable when softened by distance. +After some hours of this region of magic and mystery, near sunset we +emerged into open water, with broken picturesque shores, and at dusk +tied up in a pebbly bay with glorious views of mountain and woodland, +not far from the beautiful village of Nan-to, and the “needle” or +“pillar” of heaven, well known to the dwellers in Ichang. The Ichang +gorge is about twelve miles long; the Niu-kan, grander yet, about three; +the Mitan about three and a half; the Wushan about twenty; and the +Feng-hsiang, or “Wind-Box,” the last of the great gorges, about four. +These are the great gorges. + +I halted for Sunday in this lovely bay, an arrangement much approved of +by the trackers, who employed the holiday in washing their clothes, +smoking a double quantity of opium, and making a distracting noise, +aggravated by the ceaseless yells of the boat baby, yells of an +objectionable heredity and undisciplined naughtiness, which at first +imposed on my ignorant sympathies. Nevertheless I luxuriated in the +quiet which one can obtain when a babel is unintelligible. + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR’S BOAT.] + +In the afternoon the air was keen and bracing, the sky very blue, and +the sunshine, after three weeks of gloom, had the charm of novelty. By +the narrowest of paths I climbed a cleft down which a crystal rivulet +fell in leaps, pausing to rest now and then in deep pools fringed with a +profuse growth of maidenhair. Minute plots for rice rose in steps along +it; its banks were masses of ferns, roses, and clematis, the beautiful +“Connecticut running fern” being as common as is the _Filix mas_ with +us. Higher rose the steep path; more glorious were the mountain views, +more marvellous the forest of spires and pinnacles, more graceful the +slender-stemmed palms, finer the contorted _Pinus sinensis_, more lush +the dense foliage, bluer the sky above—not the China we picture to +ourselves, of water, quaint bridges, curled roofs, and flat, formal +gardens, but a Chinese Switzerland, sub-tropical, an intoxication, a +dream! + +In such scenery it was appropriate to come upon a deep-eaved _châlet_ of +brown wood, with surroundings, models of cleanliness, shady with +magnificent bamboo and orange groves, through which were seen far below +deep ravines and picturesque brown villages, and the broken sparkle of +the Great River, with snowy mountains on the other side, and from the +junks on its broad breast the rowers’ chant floated up harmoniously, and +from the farmhouse, where the people seemed to be leading a rural, +domestic life with guests about them, a man came out speaking politely, +and hauled off a fierce dog, decidedly hostile to foreigners. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + RAPIDS OF THE UPPER YANGTZE + + +On inquiring of Mr. Endacott, at Ichang, his ideas of occupation on the +upward voyage, his reply was, “People have enough to do looking after +their lives.” Certainly the perils of the rapids are great, and few +people of whom I have heard have escaped without risks to life and loss +or damage to property, either, like Consul Gardner, finding their boats +disappear from under them, or like a missionary, who, coming down with +his wife’s coffin, came to grief, the coffin taking a lonely and ghastly +voyage to a point far below, or like many others whom I met who reached +their destinations minus their possessions in whole or in part. Signs of +disaster abounded. Above and below every rapid, junkmen were encamped on +shore under the mats of their junks, and the shore was spread with +cotton drying. There were masts above water, derelicts partially +submerged in quiet reaches, or on some sandy beach being repaired, and +gaunt skeletons lay here and there on the rocks which had proved fatal +to them. The danger signal is to be seen above and below all the worst +rapids in the shape of lifeboats, painted a brilliant red and inscribed +with characters in white: showy things, as buoyant as corks, sitting on +the raging water with the vexatious complacency of ducks, or darting +into the turmoil of scud and foam where the confusion is at its worst, +and there poising themselves with the calm fearlessness of a perfect +knowledge of every rock and eddy. + +[Illustration: BED OF THE YANGTZE IN WINTER, TA-TAN RAPID.] + +I have found that many of the deterrent perils which are arrayed before +the eyes of travellers about to begin a journey are greatly exaggerated, +and often vanish altogether. Not so the perils of the Yangtze. They +fully warrant the worst descriptions which have been given of them. The +risks are many and serious, and cannot be provided against by any +forethought. The slightest error in judging of distance on the part of +the pilot, any hampering of the bow-sweep, a tow-rope breaking, a +submerged boulder changing its place, and many other possibilities, and +life and property are at the mercy of a raging flood, tearing downwards +at the rate of from seven to eleven miles an hour. I have no personal +perils to narrate. A rock twice knocked a hole in the bottom which took +a day to repair, and in a collision our bow-sweep was fractured, which +led to a severe quarrel lasting half a day; this was all. I never became +used to the rapids, and always felt nervous at the foot of each, and +preferred the risk of fracturing my limbs among the great boulders and +shining rock faces of the shores to spending hours in a turmoil, +watching the fraying of the tow-ropes. + +Before starting my boat’s crew made offerings and vows at their +favourite temples, and on the first evening they slew a fowl as an +offering to the river god, and smeared its blood over the bow-sweep and +the fore part of the boat. My preparations were to pack my plates, +films, and general photographic outfit, journals, a few necessaries, and +a few things of fictitious value, in a waterproof bag, to be carried by +my servant, along with my camera, at each rapid where we landed. + +The night at Lao-min-tze was too cold for sleep, and before dawn I heard +the wild chant of the boatmen as great cargo boats, with from fifty to +ninety rowers, swept down the stream. We untied at daylight, and, after +passing the lovely village and valley of Nan-to, admired and wondered +all day. It was one long glory and sublimity. A friend lately asked me +if I whiled away the time by “walking on the river banks,” thinking, +doubtless, of the level towing paths of the meadows of the Thames and +Ouse. The accompanying illustration shows the banks of the Yangtze below +Wan Hsien at their best, and the pleasant possibilities for strolling! + +The river-bed, there forty feet below its summer level, is an area of +heaped, contorted rock-fragments, sharp-edged, through which one or more +swirling streams or violent rapids pursue their course, the volume of +water, even at that season, being tremendous. At its highest level these +upper waters are practically non-navigable. Cliffs, mountain spurs, and +noble mountains rise from this chaotic river-bed, and every sharp turn +reveals some new beauty. The dark green pine is but a foil to the +feathery foliage of the golden bamboo on the steep, terraced sides of +tumbled heights; pleasant brown farmhouses are half seen among orange +groves and orchards; grand temples, with noble specimens of the _Ficus +religiosa_ in their grounds, lighten hill and glen sides with their +walls of imperial red. Then suddenly the scene changes into one of +Tibetan grandeur and savagery, and the mountains approach the river in +stupendous precipices, walling in almost fathomless water. We tied up +the second night in the last crimson and violet of the sunset, where the +river narrowed and progress looked impossible, and crags and pinnacles, +snow-covered, rose above the dark precipices. + +On that afternoon a red lifeboat suggested the first rapid, the Ta-tan, +rather a _chipa_ or race than a rapid, though I believe sufficiently +perilous at half high water. I landed and scrambled up to the top for a +three hours’ wait, while three junks, each dragged up by fifty men, came +up before mine, boats having to take their turn without favour. Even +that ascent was an anxious sight, for sometimes the boat hung, ofttimes +slipped back, and several times it looked doubtful whether the crowd of +men attached to the tow-rope could get her up at all. This was the first +sight of the trackers’ villages, which are a marked feature of the +Yangtze. Each boat carries enough men to pull her up against the strong +stream, but at a rapid she needs many more, and during the navigation +season coolies from long distances migrate to the river and put up mat +huts as close to it as possible, to which dealers in food, tobacco, +_samshu_, and opium at once gravitate, along with sellers of bamboo +tow-ropes. Nor are rough amusements wanting. Rough, dirty, noisy, these +temporary settlements are. Their population is from forty or fifty to +over 400 men. When the river rises the huts are removed, and the coolies +return to other avocations. At the Hsin-tan rapid my little boat +required seventy men, and some of the big junks took on 300 in addition +to their crews of 120. + +The following day, after being hauled up the Kwa-tung rapid and enjoying +superb scenery for some hours, a turn in the river revealed walls of +perpendicular rock rising to a colossal height, estimated at from 1000 +to 2000 feet, the stupendous chasm of the Niu-kan gorge, to my thinking +the grandest and most imposing of all, though a short one, and the same +afternoon, in exquisitely brilliant sunshine, we arrived at the foot of +the Hsin-tan rapid, then at its worst. + +[Illustration: THE HSIN-TAN.] + +This Hsin-tan in winter is the great bugbear of the Yangtze, the crux of +forthcoming steam navigation, a waterfall with a boiling cataract below, +a thing of awe and majesty, where the risks, turmoil, bargaining, and +noise of the Upper River are centred. This great obstacle, which I +wonder that any man even thought of surmounting, was formed about two +hundred and fifty years ago by the descent of a rocky mountain-side into +the river. It consists of what are three definite falls in the +winter-time, the first caused by a great fan-shaped mass of big boulders +deposited malignantly by a small stream which enters on the left bank, +and the two others by great barriers of rock which lie athwart the +river, above the higher of which, as is seen in the illustration, is a +stretch of deep, calm water in peaceful contrast—the Ping-shu gorge. The +cataracts extend for over a mile, and the fall is estimated at twenty +feet. + +Above the Niu-kan gorge the mountains open out, and where their sides +are broken up into spurs, and where the spurs are most picturesque, the +romantic villages of Hsin-tan and Yao-tsai are scattered on carefully +terraced heights and bold, rocky projections, villages with good houses +and fine temples, and a pagoda among oranges and loquats. Many of the +houses have such handsome curved roofs that one can scarcely tell which +is house and which is temple, all looking as if some of the best bits of +the shores of Como had been dropped down in HUPEH. + +Hsin-tan is a wild and beautiful village, and has an air of prosperity. +Many junk owners have retired there to spend their days, and the +comparative cleanliness and good repair are quite striking. One +orange-embowered village on a spur has a temple with a pagoda built out +over the edge of the cliff, without any obvious support. A village which +might claim to be a town, at a height of fully 400 feet, is not only +piled up on terraces, but the houses are built out from the cliff on +timbers, and the flights of steps leading from terrace to terrace are so +steep that I made no attempt to climb them. The colonnades in the street +of shops and eating-houses which projects over the cliff reminded me of +Varenna; indeed, there was a suggestion of Italy throughout, under an +Italian sky. + +I sat on a ledge for two hours, every minute expecting to see my boat +move up to the foot of the cataract, but she was immovable. Then we went +into a low restaurant, and got some fourth-class Chinese food, and after +long bargaining three live fowls and three eggs. Crowds, more curious +than rude, pressed upon us, everywhere choking up the balconies and +entrances of the eating-house, and asking no end of questions. The men +asserted, as they did everywhere on the river, that with my binoculars +and camera I could see the treasures of the mountains, the gold, +precious stones, and golden cocks which lie deep down in the earth; that +I kept a black devil in the camera, and that I liberated him at night, +and that he dug up the golden cocks, and that the reason why my boat was +low in the water was that it was ballasted with these auriferous fowls, +and with the treasures of the hills! They further said that “foreign +devils” with blue and grey eyes could see three feet into the earth, and +that I had been looking for the root which transmutes the base metals +into gold, and this, though according to them I had the treasures of the +hills at my disposal! They were quite good-natured, however. + +The whole of a brilliant afternoon was spent on that height, which looks +down on the deep-water channel by which big cargo boats ascend the +rapids, small junks and native house-boats like mine taking a channel on +the south side. During four hours, only two junks, which had partially +discharged their cargoes, effected the ascent, though each of them was +dragged up by 400 men. One big junk, after getting half-way up in three +hours, jibbed, and though the trackers were stimulated by gongs and +drums beaten frantically, she slowly slipped back to the point from +which she started, and was there two days afterwards. + +At sunset, taking a boat across the still, strong water above the fall, +after having a desperate scramble over boulders of great size, we +reached my boat, which was then moored at the side of the cataract in an +eddy below the opposite village. The _lao-pan_ said we should go up at +daylight; and so we did, but it was the daylight of the third morning +from that night, and I had ample opportunities for studying the Hsin-tan +and its ways. + +Miserable nights they were. It was as bad as being in a rough sea, for +we were in the swell of the cataract and within the sound of its swish +and roar. The boat rolled and pitched; the great rudder creaked and +banged; we thumped our neighbours, and they thumped us; there were +unholy sounds of tom-toms, the weather relapsed, the wind howled, and +above all the angry yells of the boat baby were heard. The splash of a +“sea” came in at my open window and deluged my camp bed, and it was very +cold. + +The next two days were disagreeable, even in such majestic and exciting +surroundings. The boatmen turned us and our servants out at 10 a.m., and +we stood about and sat on the great boulders on the bleak mountain-side +in a bitterly cold, sunless wind each day till nearly five, deluded into +the belief that our boat would move. A repulsive and ceaseless crowd of +men and boys stood above, below, and behind us, though our position was +strategically chosen. Mud was thrown and stuck; foul and bad names were +used all day by successive crowds. I am hardened to most things, but the +odour of that crowd made me uncomfortable. More than 1200 trackers, men +and boys, notoriously the roughest class in China, were living in mat +huts on the hillside, with all their foul and ofttimes vicious +accessories. The crowds were coarse and brutal. Could these people ever +have come “trailing clouds of glory”? Were they made in the image of +God? Have we “all one Father”? I asked myself. + +A glorious sight the Hsin-tan is as seen from our point of vantage, +half-way up the last cataract, a hill of raging water with a white +waterfall at the top, sharp, black rocks pushing their vicious heads +through the foam, and above, absolute calm. I never saw such exciting +water scenes—the wild rush of the cataract; the great junks hauled up +the channel on the north side by 400 men each, hanging trembling in the +surges, or, as in one case, from a tow-rope breaking, spinning down the +cataract at tremendous speed into frightful perils; while others, after +a last tremendous effort, entered into the peace of the upper waters. +Then there were big junks with masts lashed on their sides, bound +downwards, and their passage was more exciting than all else. They come +broadside on down the smooth slope of water above, then make the leap +bow on, fifty, eighty, even a hundred rowers at the oars and _yulows_, +standing facing forwards, and with shrieks and yells pulling for their +lives. The plunge comes; the bow and fore part of the deck are lost in +foam and spray, emerging but to be lost again as they flash by, then +turning round and round, mere playthings of the cataract, but by skill +and effort got bow on again in time to take the lesser rapid below. It +is a sublime sight. _Wupans_ and _sampans_, making the same plunge, were +lost sight of altogether in clouds of foam and spray, but appeared +again. Red lifeboats, with their smart turbaned crews, dodged in the +eddies trim and alert, crowds of half-naked trackers, struggling over +the boulders with their 1200 feet of tow-rope, dragged, yelled, and +chanted, and from each wild shore the mountains rose black and gaunt +into a cold, grey sky. + +At this great cataract pilots are necessary. They are competent and +respectable, licensed by the authorities, and their high charges, half a +dollar for the half-hour which my small boat occupied in going up the +fall, and a dollar for the five minutes taken by a big junk on the +descent, enable them to live comfortably, and many of the pretty +whitewashed houses of Hsin-tan in the dense shade of orange groves are +theirs. They deserve high pay, for it is a most perilous business, +involving remarkable nerve and sleight of eye, for a single turn too +much or too little of the great bow-sweep, and all would be lost. Every +junk which took the plunge over the rock barrier into the furious +billows of the cataract below looked bound for destruction. A curious +functionary came on board my boat, a well-dressed man carrying a white +flag, on which was written, “Powers of the waters, give a lucky star for +the journey.” He stood well forward, waving this flag regularly during +the ascent to propitiate the river deities, and the cook threw rice on +the billows with the same object. The pilot was a quiet, well-dressed +man, giving orders by signals which were promptly obeyed. Indeed, the +strict discipline to which these wild boatmen submit in perilous places +is remarkable. The _lao-pan_ trusted neither his life nor his money to +the boat, and he even brought the less valuable possessions of wife and +children on shore. + +My boat had the twenty-fifth turn, and on the third day of detention she +went up with seventy men at the ropes. It was an anxious half-hour of +watching from the rocks, but there was no disaster, and I was glad to +escape from the brutal crowd, as foul in language as in person, to the +quiet of my cabin and the twilight stillness of the Ping-shu gorge. The +whole ascent of the Hsin-tan rapids took my boat five hours and +forty-five minutes. + +[Illustration: PING-SHU GORGE, HSIN-TAN.] + +No description can convey any idea of the noise and turmoil of the +Hsin-tan. I realised it best by my hearing being affected for some days +afterwards. The tremendous crash and roar of the cataract, above which +the yells and shouts of hundreds of straining trackers are heard, +mingled with the ceaseless beating of drums and gongs, some as signals, +others to frighten evil spirits, make up a pandemonium which can never +be forgotten. + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + RAPIDS AND TRACKERS + + +A strong, fair wind took us swiftly and silently up the gorge of the +“Military Code and the Precious Blade,” in which the water is said to be +1200 feet deep (?), and with some tracking up minor rapids, and some +working round corners with poles armed with steel hooks which are +inserted into the crevices of the rocks, we passed through the sublime +Mitan gorge into a comparatively open reach abounding in vicious-looking +reefs and rocks, among very rocky mountains, villages on heights, and +superb temples on crags, and at sunset made fast below the picturesque +and nobly situated town of Kueichow, the first walled city on the Upper +Yangtze. + +The Upper Yangtze is remarkable for the picturesque beauty of its cities +at a distance, and their situations, almost invariably on irregular +heights, backed by mountains, and with fine gardens and trees within +their crenelated stone walls, which follow the contour of the site +invariably, with one or more lofty pagodas denoting the approach, and +with _yamen_ and temple roofs dominating the mass of houses are very +imposing. + +One is only slowly convinced by experience that the interiors are not +worth investigating. Dangerous reefs run out from below the walls of +Kueichow, and as the river, if not an actual rapid, was at that time at +least a _chipa_, it was not surprising not to find a single boat or junk +there. Very few people came to our moorings, and the place looked dead. + +The next day we ascended one of the worst rapids, the Yeh-tan, of evil +fame at certain seasons, the Niu-kau-tan, nearly as bad, the +Heng-liang-tze, a minor rapid, and many _chipa_, only making ten miles +in eleven hours. At times the cliffs and rocks were quite impracticable +for people in European shoes, and I had reluctantly to stay in the boat +during ascents, but the _lao-pan_ declined to carry passengers up the +dreaded Yeh-tan. + +[Illustration: THE MITAN GORGE.] + +Above Kueichow there is a comparatively open reach with steep hills 1000 +feet high, cultivated in patches to their summits, then tinged with +green, small villages with wooded surroundings occurring frequently. +Though not called a gorge, even that part of the Yangtze has high cliffs +with lateral openings, and there are numbers of small coal “workings” in +the hills, mere holes, shored up with timber, about three feet high, out +of which the glass showed strings of women and children creeping, with +baskets of coal dust on their backs. From this reach onwards the people +make “patent fuel” by mixing the coal dust with loam and clay and +forming it into small cakes. The boatmen made great use of it from that +point, and added clouds of smoke to the malodorousness of their cooking. + +Again I admired the resourceful energy which has surmounted the +difficulties of the rapids. Narrow, steep flights of steps are in many +places cut in the rock to facilitate tracking, as well as rock paths a +foot or so wide, some only fifteen or twenty feet above the river, +others at a giddy height on which the trackers looked no bigger than +flies. The reader must bear in mind that all difficulties of getting up +and down are largely increased by the river varying in height forty, +fifty, and even sixty feet at different seasons, and there are water +lines even seventy feet above the winter level. When I came down many of +these paths and stairs were submerged several feet. On all of these, and +indeed for much of the upward journey, the life of the tracker is in +continual peril from losing his foothold owing to the slipperiness of +the rock after rain, and from being dragged over and drowned by the +backward tendencies of a heavy junk tugging at the end of 1200 feet of a +heavy bamboo hawser as thick as an arm. + +The river at low water is thoroughly vicious above Kuei, and the pilot’s +task is a severe one, even before reaching the Yeh-tan. At low water +this is not so bad as the Hsin-tan; still, the hill of furious breakers +with a smooth, narrow channel in the centre and a fierce whirlpool at +the foot looked awful enough. The whole shore above the boulders, and +indeed upon them, is covered with the mat huts of trackers and those who +supply boats with provisions and bamboo ropes. A great bank covered with +frightful boulders projects from the north shore, narrowing the river to +a width of 150 yards. Mr. A. J. Little estimates the rush of the current +round the point of that bank at from eight to ten knots an hour. Forty +big cargo junks lay below it waiting their turn to ascend; and a +thousand trackers were filling the air with their yells, while signal +drums and gongs added to the din. + +My attention was occupied by a big junk dragged by 300 men, which in two +hours made hardly perceptible progress, slipping back constantly, though +the drums were frantically beaten and the gangers rushed madly along the +lines of struggling trackers, bringing their bamboo whips down on them +with more sound than force. Suddenly the junk shivered, both tow-ropes +snapped, the lines of trackers went down on their faces, and in a moment +the big craft was spinning down the rapid; and before she could be +recovered by the bow-sweep she flew up into the air as if she had +exploded, a mass of spars and planks with heads bobbing about in the +breakers. Quick as thought the red lifeboats were on the spot; and if +the drowning wretches as they scrambled over the gunwales did not bless +this most efficient of the charities of China, I did most heartily, for +of the fourteen or fifteen souls on board all were saved but three. This +was one of two fatal disasters that I saw on the Yangtze, but, to judge +from the enormous quantity of cotton drying at the Yeh-tan and the +timbers wedged among the rocks, many a junk must have had a hole knocked +in her bottom. Our own ascent, which took three hours, was successfully +made. + +I had then had this boat for my home for a week, and various +disagreeables grew apace. The _lao-pan_, the virago’s old husband, a +small, fearfully lean man, with the leanest face I ever saw, just like +very old, yellow, mildewed parchment strained over bones, sunken eyes, +no teeth, and in the bitterly cold weather clad only in an old blue +cotton garment, always blowing aside to show his emaciated form, was +craftiness, greed, and avarice personified. Though “sair hodden doun” by +his vigorous wife, he was capable of an attempt to repudiate his +contract. He bargained and battled with the trackers at the rapids for +hours to save a few _cash_, though by the delay he lost more than he +saved; he ground the boatmen down, and gave them inferior rice; he would +not spend a few _cash_ on patching his ragged sail; and at sunset near +Kueichow he put in mysteriously to a creek where he mysteriously met a +man with two big sacks, the contents of which were transferred with much +mystery and secrecy to the shallow hold in which our luggage was kept. +It turned out to be an investment in spurious _cash_, on which, if he +got it safely to SZE CHUAN, he might make a puny profit; and for this he +ran the risk, relying on a boat carrying foreigners not being searched +at Kuei Fu. His hawk-like face was a study of pure avarice. + +[Illustration: TEMPLE NEAR KUEICHOW.] + +The _tai-kung_ was a splendid fellow till he collapsed towards evening +with the pangs of the opium craving. With his eyes fixed on the perils +ahead, he never left the great bow-sweep except for the three meals a +day, gave his orders tersely and quietly, and was master of the crew and +the lean _lao-pan_. The trackers, who were troublesome from the first, +broke out into rebellion, using violent language, forcing themselves +into the front room, refusing to let us land (a breach of contract), and +being insolent. Some of them looked too low to be human, just such men +as would wreck and loot foreigners’ houses with violence. Mr. Stevenson +was powerless with them, I think because they mistook his quietness and +perfect self-control for weakness. They were absolutely masters, and +decided about everything with and without motive. In that week I never +saw a kind or good trait of character in them, and they misused a frail +old man who was working his passage up. New faces appeared daily, till +the number on board rose from sixteen to thirty-four (another breach of +contract), but I could not grudge the _lao-pan_ the few dollars he made +by it. + +The trackers would not take the trouble to put a plank for me to land +by, which compelled me to land on a pole, and on one day this spar +turned over, and I fell into the water between the boat and the shore, +being extricated to live in wet clothes for the day in a windy +temperature of 38°. I must add, however, that by the end of three weeks +they became considerably humanised, so that I was able to show them my +photographs taken on the Yangtze. They recognised their own boat with +yells. They said pictures could only be seen with one eye, so they used +one hand for holding down one eyelid and made a tube of the other. I +told them not to touch, and they actually obeyed! To the end I landed +over the swift water on a pole, but latterly they held a bamboo for a +rail and gave me a rough haul when I got in! + +Poor fellows! I learned to pity them very much. Their ignorance and +superstitions keep them in dread and terror of they know not what. They +are so piteously poor, and work so hard even to keep body and soul +together, and when the twelve hours day of dragging and risk is done +there is nothing for them on a winter voyage on the bitterly cold nights +but sleeping out of doors literally on a “plank bed.” They are rough and +brutal, yet I admit, and that not reluctantly, that not one of them was +ever drunk, that they worked hard, and that the cambric curtain which +was my only partition from the passage was never pulled aside. + +After the great Yeh-tan, with its crowds and excitements, we ascended +various ugly rapids and had some minor disasters. The big junks are +attended by fine, smart tenders, in which they land and re-embark their +trackers, an operation which may be necessary thirty times a day, but my +small boat made up to the rocks for this purpose, the _lao-pan_ being +too penurious to spend two or three _cash_ in hiring the punts which are +available. We were landing the trackers at the foot of the “Cross Beam” +rapid when a heavy cargo boat, unmanageable in the strong wind, came +upon us and forced the bow-sweep, which projected twenty feet over the +bow, among the rocks, where it snapped short off, the side hamper of the +two boats at the same time locking them in an unwilling embrace. + +Both crews seized the iron-spiked bamboos used for poling, and with +fearful yells and execrations and every sign of mad rage began a free +fight, but Mr. Stevenson succeeded in preventing actual bloodshed, and +after a delay of some hours the other boat repaired our steering spar +for the time. A Chinese fight is apt to be nothing more than “much cry.” +But our men insisted on going to law at the first convenient +opportunity, so for two or three days we were always following that +junk, hoping to be avenged on her at Kuei Fu. + +The following day was decidedly what the Chinese call an “unlucky day.” +In China everything is ruled by a rigid etiquette. There are four things +to be attended to on getting into a cart, and rigid rules govern the +getting into a chair or boat. It is not only that one is regarded as an +unmannerly boor for breaking them, but one draws down the vengeance of +gods and demons. The day before I came off from the shore in a punt, and +just as I was getting into my own boat, and had one foot on her and the +other on the punt, the swift current carried the punt away, and in the +scramble which followed I violated one of these rules. + +The first thing which happened was that the _lao-pan’s_ three-year-old +daughter fell overboard, and was carried fast away by the current. The +tender of a junk was being towed up astern of us, and a tracker, a +strong swimmer, jumped over, and after a hard struggle saved the child +and wrapped her in the clothes he had thrown off, warm with his vital +warmth, going naked himself in the biting air. The virago went into one +of those paroxysms which are common among the Chinese, and in which they +occasionally die. She stamped, jumped, beat everyone within reach, +execrated, raved, and foamed at the mouth. + +Scarcely had this excitement subsided, when as we were sailing up with a +stiff breeze we struck on a rock, knocking two holes in the bottom of +the boat, and, as she began to fill, she was run ashore on a sandy +beach, and the rest of the day was spent in repairs. Miserable repairs +they were, owing to the stinginess of the _lao-pan_, and consisted +chiefly in ramming cotton wool and tallow into the holes and coating the +mixture with clay. After this, before she could be properly repaired, as +it was the Chinese New Year holidays, it took four men baling night and +day for forty-eight hours to keep the leakage down, and not only that, +but as the deck on which the crew slept had to be taken up, I had to +admit the trackers with their vermin and opium pipes into the “front +room” next to mine. + +In this leaky condition we went up a very severe rapid, which took us +four hours of desperate dragging. Sitting shivering for that time on a +big boulder, I saw one of the many vicissitudes to be encountered in +ascending the Great River. A great cargo junk was being hauled up with +two hawsers, over 200 trackers, and the usual enormous din, the beating +of drums and gongs, the clashing of cymbals, and the incessant letting +off of crackers to intimidate the spirit of the rapid, when both ropes +snapped, the trackers fell on their faces, and four hours’ labour was +lost, for in a flash the junk was at the foot of the rapid, and the last +sight I had of her was far below twirling round in a whirlpool with a +red lifeboat in attendance. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + LIFE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE + + +At this point, before entering on the empire province of SZE CHUAN, it +is desirable to give a few facts and impressions regarding life on the +Upper Yangtze, my experiences of which extended over five weeks +altogether. + +The Upper River, with all its peculiarities, lies above Ichang. It must +never be forgotten that it is the _sole_ highway for the vast commerce +of the richest province of the Chinese Empire, with an area about the +size of that of France, and a population estimated at from 50,000,000 to +70,000,000. The nature and risks of this highway may be gathered from +these and other descriptions of it. Except in the gorges and some few +quiet intervals, it is a series of rapids and races, which at present +are only surmounted by man force. Mr. A. J. Little’s success in 1898 in +getting a large steam launch up to Chungking proves that a steamer can +ascend, but not that steam navigation can be made commercially +profitable, or that if it were it would be the ruin of junk navigation. + +A large up-river junk is from 80 to 120 feet long, from nine to twelve +broad, and from 40 to over 100 tons burden. + +They are all alike in that they have low square bows, lofty sterns, flat +bottoms, and single masts from thirty to forty feet high, carrying huge +oblong sails, with which they can only sail with the wind aft. They are +very frequently built at Wan of a cypress which abounds in its +neighbourhood, and being stained with orpiment and oiled over that with +the oil procured from the _Aleurites cordata_, they look like varnished +pine, and have a very trim as well as picturesque appearance. The +planking is about an inch thick. The holds are only from three to seven +feet deep. A junk to carry fifty tons of goods can be built at Wan +complete for £125, and a first-class junk to carry 100 tons or more for +£200, about 2500 strings of _cash_. The holds are in compartments. The +forward part is uncovered in the daytime, and the cook does his +unceasing work in a well in the middle with a clay stove in it. At night +a framework covered with bamboo mats is erected, under which the crew +sleep. The high stern cabin is usually occupied by the _lao-pan_ and his +family. A junk of 120 tons carries a crew of 120 men. + +In passage junks the open space forward is diminished as much as +possible, most of the deck being housed over, but in cargo junks less +than half is covered. In the big junks a sponson runs along each side, +which is used both for poling and communication. Junks carry a spare +mast and sweeps lashed outside. The helmsman stands inside, with his +head and shoulders protected by a raised “wheelhouse,” in which he works +with much skill and infinite patience a very long and clumsy tiller +attached to a huge rudder, which often projects four feet from the +stern. The roof of the housed portion is used for the monstrous coils of +bamboo rope, ofttimes three inches in diameter and 1200 feet in length, +which are used in tracking, and are coiled and uncoiled continually. +These ropes only last one voyage. + +The lofty stern is frequently much decorated, and in all cases has a +fascinating picturesqueness. Its square windows are of ground +oyster-shell or paper, or even of stained glass. Occasionally it has a +carved gallery with flowering plants in pots. Altogether a SZE CHUAN +junk is an ingenious and noble construction, and the owners take great +pride in them. Their stately appearance and apparently large size are +deceptive as to their carrying capacity, which is small. I believe that +no junk on the Upper Yangtze draws over seven feet, which necessarily +gives a shallow hold, and the freeboard is of startling scantiness. The +large tenders smartly handled, which land and re-embark the trackers, +are really big _sampans_, and often have a curious rig—two masts like +sheers, forty feet high amidships, with the width of the deck between +them, the spar which carries the sail running on both. + +We call the junks “lumbering craft,” but no craft anywhere are more +skilfully handled; none run such risks; no crews are better disciplined +to act together and at a second’s notice in cases of emergency; no men +work so desperately hard on such small pay and with such poor food; and +it remains to be seen if vessels of any other build and management can +supplant them in the carrying trade of the Upper Yangtze. + +Large fortunes are not made in junks; the losses are too heavy. But, +judging from the comfortable houses of retired junk owners in many a +pleasant place, a moderate competence for old age is in sight of all +except the very unlucky. The wife and family usually live on board, and +these wives seem to have a speciality of strident and powerful voices, +which are heard above the roar of the rapids and the yells of the crews. + +As to the risks, the Chinese say that one junk in twenty is annually +lost, and one in ten is stranded. Consul Bourne[23] states that +one-tenth of the foreign goods shipped at Ichang arrives damaged by +water, and Mr. A. J. Little estimates the loss of junks and merchandise +since the formation of the Hing-lung-t’an, or “Glorious Rapid,” in 1896 +as eight per cent.[24] Consul Bourne, writing in December, 1896, says, +“A hundred junks and 1000 lives have been already lost, we are told, +_i.e._, since September 28th of the same year at that rapid.” Both the +upward and downward passages are full of tremendous risks. On the upward +passage in February I counted forty-one junks stranded at different +points between Ichang and Wan Hsien, some breaking up, others being +repaired, and all having to discharge their cargoes; and when I came +down like a flash on high water towards the end of June, though it was +impossible to count the stranded junks, they must have been nearly half +of that number, even with the much-reduced summer traffic, and I saw one +big junk strike a rock while flying down a rapid and disappear as if she +had been blown up, her large crew, at the height of violent effort the +moment before, with all its frantic and noisy accompaniments, perishing +with her. + +Besides junks of various sizes, there are native house-boats, like mine, +and others running up to four times its size, which carry passengers +only, and _wupans_ and _sampans_—undecked boats with hooped bamboo +roofs; these carry passengers or cargo. I have already described the +arrangements of a house-boat. If the Upper Yangtze junks number from +7000 to 8000, the men employed on them at the lowest estimate must be a +quarter of a million, in addition to many thousands working in +house-boats and smaller craft. + +Junks never anchor, and, indeed, carry no anchors, and choosing a +mooring ground is a most important matter—not that there are not very +many nooks and bays untouched by the current, but because of the +caprices of the river, which often rises or falls, as I experienced, six +or seven feet in a night, so that a careful watch must be kept in order +to pay out or haul in line according to circumstances. + +Big junks sound their way towards the bank, rig out great wooden fenders +fore and aft to prevent their sheering into shoaler water than they +draw, and one of the “water trackers” plunges into the water with a +line, which he makes fast to a stake on shore, the fenders, which are +really massive poles or straight young pines, also being lashed to rocks +or stakes. + +Junks bound west keep as close in shore as they can on the side freest +from rocks and easiest for the trackers. When the wind is fair and +strong they can stem the ordinary current with their huge sail only, and +they take their trackers on board; but if the fair wind is light, it +only gives the trackers an easier haul. At all rapids, races, and rocky +points, the tow-line is in requisition. Eastward-bound junks lash their +mast alongside at Chungking, and are rowed down, being steered by a +prodigious bow-sweep. It is absolutely necessary that their speed should +be in advance of that of the current, and at every rapid frantic efforts +are required from the crew. + +Junks carry trackers in proportion to their tonnage, but a _lao-pan_, or +skipper, usually part owner, the steersman, the _t’au-t’ai-kung_, or +pilot, the _tai-kung_, or bowsman, the cook, and the _t’au-lao_, or head +tracker, are indispensable. The pilot and steersman never leave the +bow-sweep and rudder, except for meals, while the junk is in motion. The +skipper’s functions are chiefly to buy food, bargain for extra trackers, +pay wages, and stimulate the crew to frantic efforts in dangerous places +by yells and gesticulations. + +The bowsman, or _tai-kung_, acting also as pilot in my small boat, is +the most important man in a junk. I never ceased to admire mine, a tall, +broad, well-made fellow, the personification of knowledge and +carefulness, silent, alert, never flurried, hand and head steady, all +that a pilot should be, until the moment when he collapsed with the +opium craving, after which he might nightly be seen in a state of +blissful vacuity lying beside his opium lamp. The work of the _tai-kung_ +is to lead with his skilled touch the eight or ten men who, in a big +junk, work the bow-sweep, a timber, from thirty to forty feet long, +projecting over the bow, without which no boat could ascend or descend +rapids and races in safety. When this great spar is not in use he stands +at the bow sounding with a long iron-shod bamboo pole, giving the junk a +sheer-off from upstanding points or rocks, and signalling to the +steersman in which direction sunken rocks lie, which his trained eye +discovers by the eddies in the river. His responsibility for life and +property is enormous, and he bears it nobly. The sweep is used to shoot +the junk out into the current, and enable her to clear rocks which +cannot be avoided by the steersman and rudder. + +Having slightly sketched the junks and the manner of navigating the +Great River, I will conclude with a brief description of the “inhuman +work” of the trackers, by far the worst of which is in the region of the +gorges and the most severe of the rapids, extending for a hundred miles +west of Ichang. Captain Blakiston, Captain Gill, and more lately Mr. A. +J. Little in his delightful book, _Through the Yangtze Gorges_, have all +expressed both sympathy with these men and their wonder at their +hardihood, industry, and good-nature, and with my whole heart I endorse +what these writers have said, and regard this class as typifying that +extraordinary energy of the Chinese which has made and kept China what +it is, and which carries the Chinese as thrifty and successful emigrants +to every part of Eastern Asia and Western America. + +The crews, which in big junks number 120 men, are engaged at Ichang. For +the upward voyage, lasting from thirty to fifty days, they get about +four shillings and their food, which is three meals a day of rice, with +cabbage fried in a liberal supply of grease, and a little fish or pork +on rare occasions, and for coming down, which rarely takes more than ten +days (I did it in a _wupan_ in a little over four), about eighteenpence +and food, and indeed many crews work their passage down for food only. +For this pittance these men do the hardest and riskiest work I have seen +done in any country, “inhumanly hard,” as Consul Bourne calls it, week +after week, from early dawn to sunset. The opening of Chungking as a +treaty port and various other causes have tended however to raise their +wages. + +[Illustration: TRACKERS HOUSES.] + +The larger number of these trackers are usually on shore hauling, being +directed from the junk either by flag signals or drum beat, under the +_tai-kung’s_ direction; a proportion remain on board to work the huge +bow-sweep, at which I have seen as many as fifteen straining. A few +attend the trackers to extricate the tow-rope from the rocks, in which +it is constantly catching, and two or more _tai-wan-ti_, or water +trackers, specially expert swimmers, and without clothing, run ahead of +the tow-rope ready to plunge into the water and free it when it catches +among rocks which cannot be reached from the shore. If tracking and +sailing are both impossible, the trackers propel the junk by great oars, +each worked by two men, twenty at a side, who face forwards, and mark +time by a combined stamp and a wild chant. + +In descending, in order to keep steerage way on the junk in a current +running from six to twelve knots an hour, every agency of progression is +brought into play. The slinging of the mast alongside gives a lumbering, +ungainly look. The deck is literally crowded with men, naked in summer, +and in winter clothed in long blue cotton coats. Some are rowing face +forwards; fifteen or more are straining for life at the bow-sweep; +others are working the huge oars called _che_ (wheel), each of which +demands the energies of ten men; others are toiling at _yu-lows_, big +broad-bladed sculls, worked over the stern or parallel to the junk’s +side—even women and children take part in the effort—the _lao-pan_ grows +frantic, he yells, leaps, dances; drums and gongs are madly beaten, and +yet, with all this frantic effort, it is all the junk can do to keep +steerage way enough to clear the dangerous places, and not always that, +as I saw on two occasions junks fly down rapids, strike rocks, and +disappear as unconnected masses of timbers, as if exploded by dynamite. + +I saw over eighty big junks descend the great rapids, and it was such an +exciting sight, with its accompaniments of deafening din, that I not +only never wearied, but would have been glad to see eighty more. + +Where it is impossible to sail—and even with a fair wind there are few +reaches except the gorges where it is possible—the trackers prefer the +“inhuman work” of tracking to the slow headway made by the severe and +monotonous toil of rowing, or of hugging the bank, and hooking the junk +along by seizing with hooks on rings with staples driven into the rock +for this purpose, or keeping her off with stout fenders while they pole +her along with iron-spiked bamboo poles, which they drive into holes +which have been made by this process in the course of ages in the hard +conglomerate or granite. + +In small house-boats like mine the trackers are landed from the boat, +but in junks from the attendant _sampan_. Except the _tai-wan-ti_, they +wear short cotton drawers, and each man has a breast strap. The huge +coil of plaited bamboo, frequently a quarter of a mile long, is landed +after being passed over the mast-head, a man on board paying out or +hauling in as is required. Small boats pass under the loftier tow-ropes +of big ones, which often saves time, and often leads to noisy quarrels +and entanglements. The trackers uncoil the rope, each man attaching it +to his breast strap by a hitch, which can be cast off and rehitched in a +moment. + +The drum beats in the junk, and the long string of men starts, marking +time with a loud yell—“_Chor-chor_,” said to mean “Put your shoulder to +it.” The trackers make a peculiar movement; their steps are very short, +and with each they swing the arms and body forward, stooping so low to +their work that their hands nearly touch the ground, and at a distance +they look like quadrupeds. + +Away they go, climbing over the huge angular boulders of the river +banks, sliding on their backs down spurs of smooth rock, climbing cliff +walls on each other’s shoulders, or holding on with fingers and toes, +sometimes on hands and knees, sometimes on shelving precipices where +only their grass sandals save them from slipping into the foaming race +below, now down close to the deep water, edging round a smooth cliff +with hardly foothold for goats, then far above, dancing and shouting +along the verge of a precipice, or on a narrow track cut in the rock 300 +feet above the river, on which narrow and broken ledge a man +unencumbered and with a strong head would need to do his best to keep +his feet. The reader must sympathetically bear in mind that these poor +fellows who drag our commerce up the Yangtze amidst all these +difficulties and perils, and many more, are attached to a heavy junk by +a long and heavy rope, and are dragging her up against the force of a +tremendous current, raging in billows, eddies, and whirlpools; that they +are subject to frequent severe jerks; that occasionally their burden +comes to a dead stop and hangs in the torrent for several minutes; that +the tow-rope often snaps, throwing them on their faces and bare bodies +on jagged and rough rocks; that they are continually in and out of the +water; that they are running many chances daily of having their lives +violently ended; and that they are doing all this mainly on rice! + +Their work is indicated from the junk either by the rapid beating of +drums and gongs when they are to haul hard, or a slow rat-a-tat when +they are to cease hauling, or by flag signalling, one man being told off +on shore to watch the signals and communicate them to the trackers. An +error would be as fatal as if within a ship’s length of a reef ahead an +engineer were to mistake the order “Full speed astern” for “full speed +ahead.” + +Occasionally rough steps help the men up and down spurs, and rock paths +made by the pickaxe occur frequently. Many of these were thirty feet +above the river when I went up, and were submerged when I came down. +There is, however, one noble rock path, four feet broad, running for +many miles at an even height, built, I believe, by a private individual +as an act of benevolence to the trackers and for the “accumulation of +merit.” + +At some points where the rapids are bad and the shores are big broken +rocks, only fitted for goats to climb, and the junks hang or slip back, +and the men give way, and several big junks, each with from 200 to 300 +trackers, are all making the slowest possible progress, gongs and drums +are beaten frantically; bells are rung; firearms are let off; the +hundreds of trackers on all-fours are yelling and bellowing; the +overseers are vociferating like madmen, and rush wildly along the +gasping and struggling lines of naked men, dancing, howling, leaping, +and thrashing them with split bamboos, not much to their hurt. A +tow-rope breaks, and the junk they are tugging at gyrates at immense +speed to the foot of the rapid, the labour of hours being wasted in two +or three minutes, if there is not a worse result. + +Among the many perils encountered by junks and trackers are the _chipa_ +or races, which are usually caused by a projecting point or spur of rock +below which there is a smooth eddy. Arrived at the point and landing the +trackers, the _tai-kung_ throws the boat’s head out into the current to +get her clear of the point, with the bow-sweep, and with the strongest +line in use, seventy or eighty trackers haul on it with all their force, +men work with long poles to fend her off the rocks, and with her head on +to the current the water foams and rages under her bow, but if all goes +well, after a period of suspense she is dragged by main force round the +point into smooth water, and then it is often the case that the cliffs +are inaccessible; the trackers come on board and “claw” the junk along +in deep water with claws on long boathooks, which they hook into the +rocks, others fending her off. + +Things do not always go smoothly. I went up these races in my boat many +times, and such small incidents happened as thumping a hole in the +bottom on a small rock, the rope catching on a rock in the water and a +bold swimmer having to go overboard to detach it, and the tow-rope +holding fast round some point of rock or getting entangled in a crevice +which looked inaccessible. It was horrible to see the poor fellows climb +with bare feet up apparently smooth precipices, “holding on with their +eyelids,” while the drum beat “Cease hauling,” and the junk hung tugging +and quivering in the torrent and fraying the rope which was her one +salvation. On two occasions where there was absolutely no foothold for a +cat, a man was let down over the precipice by a rope under his arms to +free the fast-fraying tow-line. These lines, hardened by the silica in +the bamboo, have cut channels two, three, and four inches deep over many +of the points, neat, smooth grooves in which they run easily. + +There is much more to be said about the trackers and their work, but the +reader is weary, and I forbear. No work is more exposed to risks to limb +and life. Many fall over the cliffs and are drowned; others break their +limbs and are left on shore to take their chance—and a poor one it +is—without splints or treatment; severe strains and hernia are common, +produced by tremendous efforts in dragging, and it is no uncommon thing +when a man falls that his thin naked body is dragged bumping over the +rocks before he extricates himself. On every man almost are to be seen +cuts, bruises, wounds, weals, bad sores from cutaneous disease, and a +general look of inferior rice. + +These trackers may be the roughest class in China—for the work is +“inhuman” and brutalising—but nevertheless they are good-natured in +their way; free on the whole from crimes of violence; full of fun, +antics, and frolic; clever at taking off foreigners; loving a joke; and +with a keen sense of humour. + +Those who crowd in hundreds to the great rapids in the season for the +chance of getting a few _cash_ for a haul are a rougher lot still. They +bargain for the price of haulage with the _lao-pan_ through gangsmen, +and very often where there is much competition, as at the Hsin-tan, get +only about a penny for four hours’ hard work. Their mat camps are very +boisterous at night. At the lesser rapids the _lao-pan_ goes ashore, +dangling strings of _cash_, and as there is usually a village close by, +he secures help, after some loud-tongued bargaining and wrangling, +engaging even women and boys to tug at his ropes, and occasionally a +woman with a baby on her back takes a turn at the dragging! + +That so vast a traffic is carried on under such difficulties is a +marvel. Many of these are created on the upward passage by the necessity +which hauled junks are under of taking the shallow inshore water, with +its rocks, obvious and sunken, reefs, broken water, and whirlpools. +Full-powered steamers, with suitable steering arrangements, ascending +the smooth deep-water channel used in the descent, might escape the +majority of the risks run by junks; but then a complete survey of the +Upper Yangtze is required. So far as I could judge of the Great River +between Sui Fu, at the junction of the River of Golden Sand and the Min, +and Ichang, leaving out the gorges, there are very few reaches in which +rapids, races, and rocky broken water are not to be met with. Indeed, it +may be said that there is no tranquil water, and Admiral Ho, the +superintendent of police for the Upper Yangtze, is probably not +exaggerating when in his official _Yangtze Pilot_ he enumerates about a +thousand perils to navigation. When I returned I realised that Mr. +Endacott’s remark concerning occupation had much truth in it: “You’ll +have enough to do looking after your life.”[25] + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + THE YANGTZE AND KUEI FU + + +On February 7th we entered the solemn Wushan gorge, twenty miles long, a +grand chasm from 330 to 600 yards in width, and walled in by +perpendicular cliffs ofttimes 1000 feet in height, with lofty mountain +spires and pinnacles then touched with snow above them. The “Witch’s +Mountain Great Gorge” is uncanny, and the black gloom of a winter day, +clouds swirling round the higher summits, and the long yells with which +the boatmen besought the river god for a wind, with many vows and +promises to pay, did not enliven it. Nor does the name “Iron Coffin +Gorge,” given to a reach above, where iron chains are bolted into the +cliffs fifty feet above the winter level of the river for the use of the +junks bound west, cheer the situation. + +We were two days in this “dowie den,” and tied up for a third on Sunday, +near the last inhabited village in HUPEH, Nan-mu yurh, “Cedar Garden,” +situated on both sides of a deep glen apparently closed by a high +mountain, a covered bridge connecting the two halves. It is a romantic +place, quite worth the toilsome ascent of 517 steep stone steps which +form the terraced street. The houses are surrounded by loquats, orange, +and pomegranate, their dark, shining foliage with a background of snow. +The people of this mountainous province are said to be poor, hardy, and +industrious. A respectable merchant asked if we had heard when peace was +going to be made? Such ignorance was phenomenal on this great highway of +commerce! Some boatmen asked ours what we were doing tied up there when +there was such a good wind, and the reply was that they had foreign +devils as passengers, who, though they did no work and were always +eating, must sleep one day in seven! + +Above this glen the walls of the gorge approach again; they are still of +limestone with sandstone above, caverned at great heights, worn in +places into colossal terraces, and singularly fluted by means of deep, +vertical potholes, the outer halves of which have given way. Two narrow +glens on each side of the river are the boundary between HUPEH and SZE +CHUAN, but it was not till some hours later that we passed the first +village of the empire province, Pei-shih, “Back to the Rock,” a long, +straggling street, on an imposing limestone ledge, and possessing a fine +Taoist temple. There is a small but nasty rapid below it, which took two +hours to ascend. While scrambling along the shore I picked up a piece of +pink granite, which at once raised a clamour, the people saying that a +foreigner with blue or grey eyes not only sees three feet into the +ground, but can look inside the stones, and that I had seen a jewel in +this one. I threw it down, and they broke it open; and then, not finding +anything, said that I had spirited it out of the stone by foreign magic. + +The current at the upper end of the Witch’s Gorge produced so much +tedious delay that I was glad when we reached Wushan, the first city in +SZE CHUAN, to which, for a considerable distance, we were _clawed_ along +by hooks attached to the boatmen’s poles. Opposite Wushan is a small +tributary, which brings down salt from brine wells near Ta-Ling, a +district city, in boats which Mr. Little regards as exact copies of +Venetian gondolas. Wushan is grey and picturesque, its walls following +the contour of the hills on which it is built, enclosing fields, +orchards, and beautiful trees. A fine temple to the God of Literature in +a grove of evergreens on a steep mountain cone 1500 feet in height, and +a lofty pagoda on the same peak are striking objects, but the town, +though fairly clean, has no look of prosperity, and so far was +disappointing. + +Toiling up the “Kitten” and “Get-down-from-horse” rapids, we reached the +Feng Hsiang, or “Bellows,” or “Wind-Box” gorge, the last and one of the +grandest of the great gorges, where the Great River is narrowed in +places to 150 yards, by vertical walls of rock from 1500 to 2000 feet in +height. There are both rapids and dangerous whirlpools, the presence of +red lifeboats, as usual, denoting risk. My boat was dragged up inch by +inch against a tremendous current, _clawed_ up in places where there was +no foothold for trackers, and so terrible was the straining of these +poor fellows on the rough and jagged rocks that I welcomed the opening +out of the stupendous chasm, and our entrance upon a beautiful +mountainous country, through which the Yangtze rolls through a valley +covered, even in February, with all manner of crops in their freshest +green. Just at the mouth, creating two channels—one 100 feet and the +other 200 feet in width—lies a black, polished, square mass of rock +known as the “Goose-tail” rock; it was fully forty feet above the water +when I went up, but when I came down in June it was only just visible. +When it is quite covered, the authorities at the city, five miles above, +do not allow any junks to descend till it reappears. A remarkable rock +ladder connected with early Chinese military history, a grand white +limestone peak which curves majestically over the gorge, a fine temple +on a cliff with gardens and courtyards—and then the almost painful +drafts on the capacity for admiring and wondering which the previous +eleven days had made came to an end. + +The scenery above the Wind-Box gorge, though less grand, is very varied, +the valley and the lateral valleys for ever narrowing and broadening; +the distant mountains forest-covered or snow-slashed; the spurs crowned +with grand temples, below which picturesque villages cluster, and +whitewashed, black-beamed, several-gabled, many-roofed, orange-embowered +farmhouses; and every slope and level is cultivated to perfection, the +bright yellow of the rape-seed blossom adding a charm to greenery which +was never monotonous. + +After ascending some troublesome but minor rapids, much bothered all the +time by a big cargo boat with seventy trackers of its own, which kept +close behind us, always trying to pass its rope over the top of our +mast, a quarrel being the inevitable consequence, we arrived in sight of +what looked like a smoky manufacturing town, the first time I saw such a +sight in China. Really the appearance was produced more by great jets +and ebullitions of steam than by smoke, for the “manufacturers” were +burning a local coal, much resembling anthracite. At low water there are +great sand-banks below the city of Kuei Fu, or Kuei-chow Fu, where a +number of salt boilers establish themselves for the winter months, who +dig great brine pits in the sand and evaporate the product with coal. +The process is rude, and the salt is a bad colour, but the product of +this and many other similar wells is one of the chief exports of SZE +CHUAN and a great source of revenue.[26] + +A great bank of boulders, a strong _chipa_, a highly cultivated region, +the pleasant valley slopes of which rolled up into hills, pleasant +farms, a general sunny smile, a grey-walled city of much +picturesqueness, a great fleet of junks moored below it, a mat town to +supply their needs, and we were at the city of Kueichow Fu. + +Ever since leaving Ichang we had been goading the _lao-pan_ to hurry, so +that we might reach Wan by the Chinese New Year, which was quite +possible, but he and all his trackers were determined that we should +spend it at Kuei Fu, a favourite place with junkmen, so we had the bad +luck of being detained there four days till noisy and gluttonous +celebrations of the great festival were past. Not that we were honestly +detained, or that the _lao-pan_ claimed this holiday, but he resorted to +mean Oriental dodges to keep us. We arrived on February 10th, the New +Year fell on the 13th, so one day the boat required serious repair, +another stores must be laid in, the third the _lao-pan_ moved a few +hundred yards and then said he must go to some village for a new +tow-rope, and another day must be devoted to paying debts! Fortunately +it was brilliant weather, though so cold that I had to sit wrapped in +blankets with my feet in the bed. But then at home people do not usually +sit in what is practically the open air with the temperature at 39°! + +Kuei Fu is a large city, with a very fine wall and noble gate towers, +and imposing roofs of _yamens_ and temples are seen above the +battlements. At that time it was very hostile to foreigners, and I made +no attempt to enter its stately gates, but walked in the beautiful +surroundings among large farmhouses, all _en fête_ for the season, with +many wolfish dogs, aggressive and cowardly, and crops of wheat and +barley already showing the ear stalks, and root crops with much juicy +leafage, a farming paradise. Good paths bordered with the yellow +fumitory, already in blossom, intersected the country, and owing to the +recent dry weather, there was an agreeable aspect of cleanliness +everywhere. I photographed a suburban temple with a porcelain front, +where the priests, as is their wont, were quite polite, but on the way +back we were “rushed” by a crowd of men and boys howling and shouting, +and using the term _yang-kwei-tze_, “foreign devil,” very freely. No +Protestant missionaries, and I was told no Roman either, have yet +effected a lodgment in this city. Two Chinese telegraph clerks, both +Christians, and speaking good English, paid us a visit, and told us that +feeling had become so very much more hostile since the “disturbances” +that there would certainly be a serious riot if we went into the town. + +Outside the walls little is to be seen except the salt boileries on the +sand-banks; the manufacture of briquettes; the loading of junks for the +low country with big lumps of anthracite coal, which sells for 9_s._ +6_d._ a ton at Kuei Fu, and is much used by the blacksmiths; the +ceaseless procession of water carriers, each making the long steep +trudge from the river to the city with two buckets for half a farthing; +and the aqueduct, a great work of former days, about three miles long, +which brings a supply of pure water down a stone channel from a strong +spring which spouts from a hole in the rock at a height of 1500 feet or +thereabouts. This good gift is not _pro bono publico_; the magistrate +who constructed the work was ambitious only to have a private water +supply. The paved path leading to the source passes over a steep hill +which for more than a mile is a vast city of the dead, occupied by +graves some of which are handsome stone structures closed by inscribed +slabs of stone, standing on carefully-kept grass platforms, as in Korea, +while the majority are circular grassed mounds held together by rubble. + +Kuei Fu or Kwei Hwan (_i.e._ “The Barrier of Kueichow”) is a decaying +city, bolstered up into an appearance of grandeur by its position and +its stately wall and gate towers. There all goods going up or down the +Yangtze paid _likin_, a transit tax of about 5 per cent. on their value. +As (according to Mr. Little) over 10,000 junks go up and down in the +year, and each one is delayed for examination three or four days, a +large extra-mural population made a living by supplying their needs. +Some years ago the Kuei Fu Likin Office was the most valuable in China +next to that of Canton, and the likin duties were the great source of +SZE CHUAN revenue. The grand houses, with fine pleasure grounds, of +which many can be seen from a height above the wall, testify to the +fortunes made by officials in the days when they had the right to levy 5 +per cent. on a trade worth possibly £2,000,000 sterling. + +But we have “changed all that” by securing the opening of the treaty +port of Chungking with the transit pass and chartered junk systems, to +which all foreign imports can be carried on payment of duty to the +Imperial Maritime Customs at Shanghai. Thus these rich dues go to +Peking, and the “Four Streams Province” is the sufferer, and Kuei Fu +really can only exact legal dues from junks carrying local merchandise +and from salt junks. The reader will at once perceive the reason for the +strong provincial hostility which is roused by the opening of new treaty +ports, for each one, to a greater or less extent, enriches the Imperial +Government at the expense of the provinces, and deprives a great number +of officials of their “legitimate” perquisites or “squeezes,” in favour, +as the people think, of highly salaried foreign customs employés. + +On two days, owing to the crowds on the shore, I did not leave the boat. +In the bright sunshine, “light without heat,” the view was always +delightful, as it changed from hour to hour, and disappeared at sunset +in a blaze of colour—distant snow peaks burning red after the lower +ranges had passed into ashy grey. The picturesque grey city, the +magnificent opening of the Feng Hsiang, or “Wind-Box” gorge, the hill +slopes in the vividness of their spring greens and yellows, the rapid, +with its exciting risks and the life on the water, made a picture of +which one could never weary. + +Yet five days of crouching and shivering in a six-foot square room, +really a _stall_, with three sides only and no window, taxed both +patience and resources, especially as the virago and the boat baby were +more aggravating than usual, and the trackers ignored the existence of +passengers. The _lao-pan_ gave himself up to the opium pipe, and was +consequently obliterated. Be-dien, my servant, whose temper and pride +were unslumbering, made himself unpleasant all round. It would require +some very old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon words to describe the smell of the +cooking of the New Year viands. Yet somehow I did not feel the least +inclined to grumble, and my slender resources held out till the end. + +I had Baber’s incomparable papers on Far Western China to study and +enjoy, a journal to “write up,” much mending and even making to +accomplish, and, above all, there were photographic negatives to develop +and print, and prints to tone, and the difficulties enhanced the zest of +these processes and made me think, with a feeling of complacent +superiority, of the amateurs who need “dark rooms,” sinks, water “laid +on,” tables, and other luxuries. Night supplied me with a dark room; the +majestic Yangtze was “laid on”; a box served for a table: all else can +be dispensed with. + +I lined my “stall” with muslin curtains and newspapers, and finding that +the light of the opium lamps still came in through the chinks, I tacked +up my blankets and slept in my clothes and fur coat. With “water, water +everywhere,” water was the great difficulty. The Yangtze holds any +amount of fine mud in suspension, which for drinking purposes is usually +precipitated with alum, and unless filtered, deposits a fine, even veil +on the negative. I had only a pocket filter, which produced about three +quarts of water a day, of which Be-dien invariably abstracted some for +making tea, leaving me with only enough for a final wash, not always +quite effectual, as the critic will see from some of the illustrations. + +I found that the most successful method of washing out “hypo” was to +lean over the gunwale and hold the negative in the wash of the Great +River, rapid even at the mooring place, and give it some final washes in +the filtered water. This chilly arrangement was only possible when the +trackers were ashore or smoking opium at the stern. Printing was a great +difficulty, and I only overcame it by hanging the printing-frames over +the side. When all these rough arrangements were successful, each print +was a joy and a triumph, nor was there disgrace in failure. + +[Illustration: AUTHOR’S TRACKERS AT DINNER.] + +The day before the New Year was thoroughly unquiet. The population of +the boat was excited by wine and pork money, and was fearfully noisy, +shouting, yelling, quarrelling, stamping overhead, stamping along the +passage outside my cambric curtain, stamping over the roof, sawing, +hammering, and pounding rice. A mandarin’s boat tied up close to my +window had engaged a “sing-song” boat, and I had all the noise from +both, and many glimpses of the mandarin, a good-looking young man, in +fur-lined brocaded silk. Like all others that I have seen of the higher +official class, he looked immeasurably removed from the common people. +The assumed passionlessness of his face expressed nothing but aloofness +and scorn. One of the servants died in his boat after a few hours’ +illness, during which the beating of drums and gongs, and the letting +off of crackers to frighten away the demon which was causing the +trouble, were incessant and tremendous. We sailed in company, and +shortly after leaving Kuei Fu one of the mandarin’s trackers, in a very +minor rapid, was pulled into the river and drowned. + +I had an opportunity of taking an instantaneous photograph of my +trackers at dinner. Their meals, which consist of inferior rice mixed +with cabbage or other vegetables fried in oil, with a bit of fish or +pork occasionally added, are worth watching. Each man takes a rough +glazed earthenware bowl and fills it from the great pot on the fire. All +squat round the well, and balancing their bowls on the tips of the +fingers of the left hand close under the chin, the mouths are opened as +wide as possible, and the food is shovelled in with the chopsticks as +rapidly as though they were eating for a wager. When the mouth is +apparently full they pack its contents into the cheeks with the +chopsticks and begin again, packing any solid lumps into the cheeks +neatly at once. When mastication and swallowing took place I never quite +made out, but in an incredibly short time both bowls and cheeks were +empty, and the eaters were smoking their pipes with an aspect of +content. The boats, unless sailing, tie up for meals. The Chinese never, +if they can help it, drink unboiled water, which saves them from many +diseases, and these men drank the water in which the rice was cooked. + +On three such meals the poor fellows haul with all their strength for +twelve hours daily, never shirking their work. They are rough, truly, +but as the voyage went on their honest work, pluck, endurance, +hardihood, sobriety, and good-nature won my sympathy and in some sort my +admiration. They might be better clothed and fed if they were not opium +smokers, but then where would be their nightly Elysium? + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + NEW YEAR’S DAY AT KUEI-CHOW FU + + +New Year’s Day arrived at last, as cold and brilliant as if it were not +belated by six weeks. I took a beautiful walk among prosperous farms +where the people were all in gala dress. The houses were decked with +flags and streamers, and even the buff dogs had knots of colour round +their necks. From above the wall the grey city could be seen brilliantly +decorated, and sounds of jubilation came up from it. The suburbs and the +mat town on the river bank were gay and noisy, and much money was spent +on crackers and explosives generally. The junks were decorated, and the +“sing-song” boats blossomed into a blaze of colour. Everyone except my +trackers appeared in new clothes, and threw off the old ones with +rejoicing. + +This was my second New Year in China, and I had seen its approach as far +back as Ichang, where, as everywhere, tables appeared in the streets a +month beforehand, and all sorts of tempting articles were displayed upon +them in a tempting manner. This is the time when things can be had +cheap, and many articles of _bric-à-brac_ and embroidered dresses are +for sale which are not obtainable at any other time. For in order to pay +debts, a sacred obligation worthily honoured in the observance, many +families are obliged to part with possessions long cherished. The crowds +in the streets in gala dresses are enormous; children are gaily dressed, +their quaint heads are decorated with flowers, and they receive presents +of toys and _bon-bons_. The toy-shops drive a roaring trade. + +Red paper appears everywhere in long strips pasted on the lintels and +doorposts of houses, emblazoned with the characters for happiness and +longevity, and with formal sentences suitable for the festive occasion, +many of which are written on tables in the streets which are provided +with ink-brushes and ink-stones. Every shop is brilliant with these red +papers pasted or suspended, and with _kin hwa_, or “golden flowers,” +much made in Shao Hsing, being artificial flowers and leaves often of +great size, of yellow tinsel on wires, making a goodly show. The +“sing-song” boats were profusely decorated with these, and they are much +used for the New Year offerings in temples, and for the annual +redecoration of the household tablets. Thousands of vegetable wax +candles, with paper wicks, varying in size from the thickness of a man’s +leg to that of his finger, coloured vermilion, and painted with humorous +and mythical pictures, and many other things used for offerings in the +temples, and ribbons and streamers of all descriptions made the streets, +even the mat streets outside Kuei Fu, gay. + +[Illustration: A CHINESE PUNCHINELLO.] + +For the three previous days unlimited scrubbing of clothes, persons, +doors, chairs, shutters, and all woodwork went on; and though boats were +not as universally turned out and cleaned as at Canton, where I spent a +previous New Year, a good many of the smaller craft were beached and +cleansed inside and out. Even the trackers scrubbed their faces, and +appeared a paler yellow. + +Towards the evening of that day, between the din of gongs and the +constant explosion at every door of strings of fireworks intended to +expel evil spirits and prevent others from entering, the noise became +exciting. This idea of expelling evil spirits and preventing their +entrance at the incoming of the year is the same as is carried out in +Korea by the burning in a potsherd at the house door of the hair of all +the inmates, which, when cut off or falling out, is preserved for this +purpose. The Chinese, like the Koreans, believe themselves surrounded by +legions of demons, mainly malignant, who must either be frightened or +propitiated. + +Religion plays a most conspicuous part in visits to the temples, and +offerings. At all the farms near Kuei Fu, trees, fences, barns, and +farming implements, as well as houses, had prayers pasted upon them. The +junkmen, though not nearly to the same extent as in Kwantung, pasted +paper prayers on oars, sweeps, mast, and rudder, and hung them over the +boats’ sterns; and every house was purified by a religious ceremonial. +New Year’s Day is kept as the birthday of the entire population, and a +child born on the previous day enters his second year upon it. In the +houses of well-to-do people such birthdays are great occasions; and +abbots, monks, and priests assemble to do them honour, with much noise +and many prayers, some read and others chanted from memory, after which +the written prayers are burned and libations are poured out. It is the +family and social ceremonies connected with idolatry and demonism at +this season which are a special difficulty in the way of Christians. + +Among other religious duties, some persons, both men and women, burdened +with the weight of the sins of the year, employ priests to intercede for +them with the unseen powers, and fast, and give away much to the poor. +The temples outside Kuei Fu were thronged for the days preceding the New +Year with men and women, old and young; and in the midst of clouds of +incense rich and poor prostrated themselves before the gods, burning +gold and silver tinsel paper, while gongs, bells, drums, and cymbals +kept up a ceaseless din. + +In the midst of the general winding up of all affairs, spiritual and +temporal, and starting on the New Year clear, the great matter of debt +is not forgotten. The paying of debts and settling of accounts is a +highly praiseworthy custom, and one which we might introduce among +ourselves with advantage. Although only a custom, it has all the force +of law. If it can be avoided by any sacrifice, no debt is carried over +New Year’s Day without either an actual settlement or an arrangement +regarded as satisfactory by the creditor. To do otherwise would be to +secure a blasted reputation. If men owe more than they can pay, custom +compels them at this season to put all they have into the hands of their +creditors and close their business concerns; and one among the causes of +suicide is when men have not enough to pay their debts with. Interest on +loans rises, the pawnbrokers’ warehouses are choke-full, and most kinds +of commodities fall in value, while second-hand clothing and many other +personal possessions are to be bought cheap. The future to a Chinese +often consists of little more than his funeral and the New Year! People +dread the difficulties, expense, and delays of resorting to law for the +recovery of debts; and all are agreed on maintaining this wholesome +custom, which has a great tendency to weed out from among traders the +shifty and dishonest. I have heard that one method of compelling an +unwilling debtor to pay his debts is to remove the door from his house +or shop, so as to allow of the ingress of evil and malignant demons. +This last resort is said never to fail! + +All the ceremonies which are to welcome the New Year, with the +garnishing of the house with red paper, tinsel flowers, streamers, and +the pictures, ornamenting of the ancestral shrine, and the general +“redding up,” occupy much of the previous night; and the stillness of +the first hours of the great day reminds one of an old-fashioned Scotch +Sunday. + +Towards noon the streets begin to fill, as in America, with men with +card-cases paying visits. All are well dressed, even to the coolies, for +those who have not grand clothes hire them. Inside Kuei Fu sedan chairs +were _en règle_; outside, men made their calls on foot, in many +instances cards sufficing, inscribed with a device suggesting the three +good wishes of children (_i.e._ sons), wealth or rank, and longevity. +Men meeting in the streets greeted each other with profound respect, and +with the good wish, “May the new joy be yours,” which reminded me of the +Syrian salutation on the feast of the Epiphany, or with the words, “I +respectfully wish you joy.” Universal politeness and good behaviour +prevailed, and not a tipsy man was to be seen during the day or evening. + +Mourners remain within doors, and strips of blue paper mixed with red +denote houses into which death has entered during the previous year. +Be-dien told me that in the city, where there are many _literati_ and +rich men, there were houses with all their woodwork covered with +gold-sprinkled red paper, and on the lintels five slips expressing the +desire of the owner for the “five blessings”: riches, health, love of +virtue, longevity, and a natural death. Over some shops was a decorated +slip, “May rich customers ever enter this door,” and in many stately +vestibules, in which handsome presentation coffins were reared on end, +there were costly scrolls inscribed with aphorisms and other +sentences.[27] + +On New Year’s Day gods and ancestors receive prostrations, and are +presented with gifts in the temples and in the clan or family ancestral +halls. It would be a gross breach of etiquette and an unthinkable +outrage if inferiors were not to pay their respects to superiors, pupils +to salute their teachers, and children to prostrate themselves before +their parents. + +When evening came, lanterns, transparencies, and fireworks appeared, and +very effective coloured fires reddened the broad bosom of the Yangtze. +Hilarious sounds proceeding from closed doors showed that, as in Korea +at the same hour, sacrifices were being offered to departed parents, and +that families were gathered at the final feast of the day. My trackers +hung coloured lanterns from the matted roof and feasted on pork with +wine, but there was no excess, and it was a real pleasure to see them +get one good meal with time to enjoy it. Owing to the moderate use of +intoxicants, and that chiefly with food, the three holidays of this +universal festival pass by without turmoil or disgrace, and the +population goes back to trade and work out of debt and not demoralised +by its spell of social festivity. + +So the most ancient of the world’s existing civilisations comports +itself on its great holiday, while our civilisation of yesterday, +especially in Scotland, what with “first-footing,” “treating,” and +general sociability, is apt to turn the holiday into a pandemonium. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + KUEI FU TO WAN HSIEN + + +The following morning my trackers, having no fumes of liquor to sleep +off, were astir early. There was one long and strong rapid, Lao Ma (“Old +Horse”), and a minor one, Miao Chitze “Temple Stairs”), where the water +rushes furiously over a succession of steps with a clear but very rapid +channel in the centre. Passenger boats turn out their fares there, and +it was piteous to see the women with their bound feet hobbling and +tumbling among boulders, where I, who am not a very bad climber, was +glad to get the help of two men. Of course, the fathers and husbands +gave them no assistance. The fierce cataract of Tung Yangtze, remarkable +for a vigorous attempt which was made not very many years ago to +overcome its difficulties by building a fine stone breakwater, now in +decay, and a succession of _chipas_ and eddies, intervened between Kuei +Fu and Yun-yang Hsien, or “Clouded Sun City,” on the bank of a fine +gorge, its grey walls extending far up the mountain on the slope of +which the city stands, high above the winter level of the river. + +These cities on the Yangtze are captivating to the eye, and the touches +of colour given by the glazed green and yellow tiles of the curved roofs +of their many fine temples relieve the otherwise monotonous grey. The +“City of the Clouded Sun” is not lively, and has very little trade, but +it is stately and clean, and its temples are well kept and imposing, +specially the Temple of Longevity, which has a wall richly decorated in +high relief, in which fine bronze tablets are inlaid. + +The glory of the city is, however, on the opposite bank—the Temple of +Chang-fei, a warrior who died fighting for his country. The whole scene +is beautiful, and it was most mortifying that the crowd which gathered +round my camera, looking in at the lens and over my shoulder under the +focussing cloth and shaking it violently, prevented me from getting a +picture of it. Nature and art have combined in a perfect +picturesqueness. On the flat vertical surface of a noble cliff rising +from the boulder-strewn shore of the Yangtze are four characters—and +what can be more decorative than Chinese characters “writ large”?—which +are translated “Ethereal bell, one thousand ages.” This bell is believed +by the people to ring of its own accord in case of a fire in the +district. + +[Illustration: TEMPLE OF CHANG-FEI.] + +Above it, and approached by a fine broad flight of 100 stone stairs, is +a magnificent temple in perfect repair, and with its gorgeous +decorations lately restored. It has three courts, one three-storeyed and +two two-storeyed pavilions, their much-curled roofs tiled with glazed +tiles of an exquisite green. Corridors, also roofed with green tiles and +composed of elaborate and beautiful wooden fretwork with the peony for +its motive, connect the courts. On one side of the temple is a deep +narrow glen with fine trees and a waterfall, and over this a beautiful +stone bridge has been thrown from the temple door. There are some noble +specimens of the _Ficus religiosa_. There were large numbers of +visitors, and a ferry-boat is continually crossing. A lovelier place for +a religious picnic could not be found.[28] + +At Yun-yang we took in a relation of the _lao-pan_, a Romanist, employed +by the French priest resident in the city as doctor to a dispensary. +According to him, there are 300 Roman Christians in Yun-yang, who are +quite free from molestation. There is no Protestant missionary there or +in the country we passed through during the previous eighteen days. On +the river bank, after Mr. Stevenson had been talking with a number of +men about Christianity, an old man said to him, “Teacher, you say what +is good, but it is not all true. You say we have never seen God. Then we +can’t have injured Him, and so don’t need His forgiveness.” + +Above Yun-yang the country opens out, and the verdure and fertility are +most charming. The bright red of the soil, the fresh green of the grain +crops and sugarcane, and the brilliant yellow of the rape made a +charming picture. Every now and then a noble specimen of the _Ficus +religiosa_, with an altar and incense-burner below it, lent the contrast +of its dark green foliage, and substantial farmhouses of “Brick Noggin,” +each in a clump of bamboo, and fine temples in groves of evergreens gave +an air of prosperity to the scene. I was not surprised at the encomiums +which previous travellers have bestowed on this province. + +Rape is universally grown for the oil. The people have neither butter +nor grease for cooking, and their diet would be incomplete without +abundance of some oily substance. Imported and native kerosene may take +its place as an illuminant, but for cooking purposes it will be always +grown. In such a fertile and beautiful region the absence of animal life +is curious. There is no pasturage, the roads are not made for draught, +and the cheerfulness of horses, cattle, and sheep about a farmyard is +unknown. Buff dogs, noisy and cowardly, and the hideous water buffalo, +which looks like an antediluvian survival and has a singular aversion to +foreigners, represent the domestic animals. + +[Illustration: PAGODA NEAR WAN HSIEN.] + +We were delayed considerably by head winds, involving much tracking and +rowing, and thumped a hole in the boat’s bottom for the second time, on +which she filled so fast that she had to be run ashore with all +despatch, and the miserable attempts at repair delayed us for some +hours, as no carpenter would work during the New Year holidays. For the +next twenty-eight hours it took four men baling night and day to keep +the water down. + +At a distance of nearly 1300 miles from its mouth the Yangtze is still a +noble river, nobler yet when the summer rise covers the grand confusions +of its rocky bed. The “Gorge of the Eight Cliffs,” a singular freak of +nature, with perpendicular cliffs fluted like organ pipes, through which +the river has cut a channel, said by the boatmen to be fathomless, about +six miles long, through a bed of hard grey sandstone, detained us for a +long time, and was bitterly cold and draughty. Above in a recess in the +rock are carved three divinities in full canonicals, painted and gilded, +called “The Three Water Guardians.” It is said that the reason that no +boatmen will move in the dark is that these genii only guard the river +by day. + +Tiresome rapids detained us again, and I climbed a height to look at +some queer erections, which are seen at intervals of about three miles, +on elevations along the river from Ichang to Chungking, making a goodly +show. They are white towers, with a red sun painted on the front of +each, and stand five in a row. The boatmen say that they are to mark +distances, but, according to better authorities they are _yen-tun_, or +“smoke towers,” and have served the purpose of giving alarm in unsettled +times by fires of dry combustibles within. Apparently they have not been +repaired for many years. + +On Ash Wednesday, February 19th, in the afternoon, a fine, white, +nine-storeyed pagoda on a bank, and another on a high hill, announced +the approach to a city. The river was narrowed by an insignificant +gorge, then came a broad expanse of still water resembling a mountain +lake, and then Wan appeared. That was one of the unforgettable views in +China. The “Myriad City,” for position and appearance, should rank high +among the cities of the world. The burst of its beauty as we came round +an abrupt corner into the lake-like basin on which it stands, and were +confronted with a stately city piled on cliffs and heights, a wall of +rock on one side crowded with refuges and temples, with the broad river +disappearing among mountains which were dissolving away in a blue mist, +was quite overpowering. + +Its situation on a sharp bend of the Yangtze, backed at a distance of +thirty miles by a range of mountains—built on cliffs, and in clusters +round temple and pagoda-crowned hills, and surrounded by precipitous, +truncated peaks of sandstone, from 700 to 1500 feet in height, rising +out of woods through which torrents flash in foam, and from amidst +garden cultivation, and surmounted by the picturesque, fortified refuges +which are a feature of the region—is superb and impressive. Wan is the +first of the prosperous cities of SZE CHUAN that I saw. It has doubled +its population and trade in twenty years, and its fine streets and +handsome shops, stately dwellings within large grounds, thriving +industries, noble charities, and the fringe of junks for over two miles +along its river shore, indicate a growing prosperity which is +characteristic of nearly every city in SZE CHUAN which I afterwards +visited. + +We tied up in a crowd of large junks lying in three tiers. Hundreds of +coolies were loading and unloading them, and the noise was deafening. +Leaving the furious babel of the boatmen, who were dissatisfied with +their “wine money,” I walked the mile up to the China Inland Mission +house, partly by a flight of 150 steep stone stairs, and up back +streets, and being bareheaded and in Chinese dress, escaped a very great +crowd. No European woman had walked up through Wan before, for it and +its officials had been notoriously hostile to foreigners, and Dr. +Morrison, of the _Times_, had been ill-treated there only six months +before. I was much impressed by the good paving and cleanliness, and the +substantial stone dwellings _en route_. + +Arriving at a fine Chinese gateway, with a porter’s lodge and an outer +court, along which are servants’ quarters and cow stables, we passed +into what is a truly beautiful paved inner court, one side a roofed-in +open space used as a chapel, the other a lofty and handsome Chinese +guest-room, as shown in the illustration, with an open front, and the +living-rooms of the family. A third side is the women’s guest-room, and +on the fourth are various rooms. Projecting upper storeys and balconies, +all carving and fretwork, latticed and carved window-frames with paper +panes, tall pillars, and irregular tiled roofs, make up a striking _tout +ensemble_, in the midst of which Mr. and Mrs. Thompson and three ladies, +all in Chinese dress, stood to welcome me. It was all so trim and +handsome that there was a distinct unseemliness in bringing in my shabby +travelling equipments, much the worse for two years’ hard wear, and I +hurried them into retirement as soon as possible. + +[Illustration: GUEST HALL, C.I.M. WAN HSIEN.] + +The house is beautiful inside, the walls, roofs, and pillars of planed, +unvarnished wood of a fine grain, all dovetailed or put together with +wooden bolts. Downstairs the large fretwork windows, opening on pivots, +are above a man’s head. All the furniture, with the exception of some +presents, is Chinese, and is at once simple and tasteful. Upstairs are a +number of low, irregular, quaint rooms. The one allotted to me was a +large one, with a great fretwork window into the court, and another with +a superb view of the city and down the river. It had access by a steep +step-ladder to an open wooden tower with a pagoda roof and seats for use +in the hot weather. This overlooks the houses of many neighbours, and is +overlooked. From it are to be seen all the refuges on the surrounding +hilltops, the circuit of the city wall, _yamens_, temples, and pagodas, +the broad brown fringe of junks, and the gleaming silver of the Great +River. + +From 9 a.m. till dusk there was a continuous stream of Chinese visitors, +the men entering at one door and the women at another, and passing into +their guest-rooms, where they were separately received by Mr. Thompson +and Miss Ramsay. A Chinese is a dignified and sensitive man, and likes +to be master of the situation. He is miserable in a foreign house, with +its promiscuous oddities, and has no idea where or on what to sit, what +position to take, and to what etiquette he is to conform himself, and +has all the discomfort of a fish out of water. In a Chinese guest-room, +on the contrary, there is an ordered and rigid stateliness. A few +handsome scrolls from the classics or pictures decorate the walls. A +handsome carved black wood table stands against the wall opposite the +open front, and on both sides of it are ranged heavy black wood chairs, +the highest being next the table. Elaborate lamps hang from the roof. + +No matter what the position of a Chinese is, whether he be mandarin, +merchant, shopkeeper, or writer, he is absolutely certain which chair +etiquette entitles him to take, and when tea and pipes are produced he +is as serene and comfortable as in his own house. + +At that time, though missionaries had been settled at Wan for some +years, and had been able to rent this beautiful house, there was not a +Christian in the city. The ladies had only lately arrived, as it had +been thought not a safe place for them. Even a month before my visit, +when a deep well ran dry, a mob assembled outside the mission house +threatening to burn it and to kill all the “foreign devils,” for they +had tapped the well and had stolen the golden crab which was the “luck” +of the city. The mob was eventually compelled to withdraw, but the +mandarin, who only left as I was arriving, came to the house with the +serious charge that the inmates had killed children in order to get +their eyes, and that their bodies were in the tanks at the back! + +Mr. Thompson took him to the back, and the tanks were probed with a long +pole, but the accusation was not disposed of by the resultlessness of +the search, for foreign magic is believed to be equal to anything. The +same official concerted the murder of the missionaries with the elders +of the city, and Mr. Davies, who was then in Wan, was severely beaten. +Compensation, however, was given him, which he bestowed on the local +charities. A new chief magistrate had just arrived, with orders to treat +the foreigners well, and all was changed. When Mr. Thompson called at +the _yamen_ the mandarin conducted him to the seat of honour, escorted +him to his chair on leaving, and returned the visit with a large retinue +the next day. Of course the Chinese everywhere take their cue from the +officials. + +So it came about that for several days I was able actually to walk about +and to photograph with no worse trouble than the curiosity of the people +in masculine crowds of a thousand or more. Four months before I was told +that this would have been impossible. My camera would have been smashed, +my open chair would have produced a riot, and I should have been stoned +or severely beaten. + +The streams of visitors to the beautiful guest-halls never ceased by +daylight. Miss Ramsay often received forty women at a time. All SZE +CHUAN women have bound feet, and all wear trousers very much _en +evidence_, those of the lower class women being wrapped round the ankles +and tied, those of the upper class being wide and decorated. They asked +hordes of questions about domestic and social matters from their own +grotesquely different standpoint, and wanted to hear what the “Jesus +religion” was like, and were quite unable to understand how people could +pray “unless they had a god in the room.” One day Miss Ramsay, who had +been for some years in China, explained to her guests various things +concerning our Lord’s life and teachings, and an upper class woman, who +seemed intelligent and interested, explained it in her way to the +others. As she left, Miss R. said, “You’ll not forget what I have told +you,” and she said very pleasantly, “Oh, no, I won’t; our gods are made +of mud, and yours are made of wood!” + +The ignorance which many men of the literary class show is wonderful, +and it comes out freely in conversations in the guest-hall. A very grand +military mandarin asserted not only that Lin and the Black Flags had +driven the Japanese out of Formosa, but that the Straits of Formosa had +yawned wide in answer to vows and prayers addressed to the gods by Lin, +and that the navies of Russia, England, France, and Japan had perished +in a common destruction in the vortex! A picture representing this +catastrophe was for sale in Wan.[29] + +They think that the Queen of England is tributary to China, that our +Minister is in Peking to pay the tribute, and that the presents which +the Queen sent to the Empress Dowager on her sixtieth birthday were the +special tribute for the occasion. + +They also believed that the American commission which had lately been at +Chengtu for the purpose of assessing the damage done to the property of +Americans in the previous riots was sent to congratulate the new Viceroy +on his appointment! + +Also many of the _literati_ say—and I had heard the same thing in the +north—that outside of China there are five kingdoms united under one +emperor, Jesus Christ, who rose from a peasant origin, that one is +inhabited by dog-faced people,[30] and that in another, where each woman +has two husbands, she has a hole in her chest, and that when they travel +the husbands put a pole through it and carry her! They also say that the +missionaries come and live in distant places like Wan and Paoning in +order to find out the secret of China’s greatness and the way to destroy +it by magic arts. A map of Asia hangs in the guest-hall, and Mr. +Thompson overheard some of the guests saying to each other at different +times, “Look at these ‘foreign devils’” (_yang-kwei-tze_); “they put +China small on the map to deceive their god!” + +It is impossible to have patience with their ignorance because of their +overweening self-conceit. It is passable in Africa, but not in these men +with their literary degrees, and their elaborate culture “of sorts,” and +two thousand years of civilisation behind them. + +Wan Hsien has a very large trade. Its shops are full of goods, native +and foreign, and the traffic from the interior, as well as by junk, is +enormous, but there are no returns, as it is not an open port. The +actual city—_i.e_., the walled city—which contains the _yamens_ and +other public buildings, is small, steep, and handsome. It has extended +itself into large suburbs five miles in extent, of which the true city +is the mere nucleus. They straggle along the river, high up on the +cliffs above it, and two miles back, where they are arrested by a rocky +barrier at a height in which is excavated and scaffolded a celebrated +“Temple of the Three Religions,” at the top of 1570 fine stairs, a great +place of pilgrimage. This back country, in which are few level acres, is +exquisitely cultivated, and is crossed in several directions by flagged +pathways, carried over ascents and descents by good stairs. These +usually lead to lovely villages, built irregularly on torrent sides, +among a great variety of useful trees. + +The city is divided into two parts by a river-bed, then nearly dry, but +when I saw it in summer it contained a very respectable stream, which +serves as the public laundry. I have never seen so beautiful a bridge as +the lofty, single stone arch, with a house at the highest part, which +spans the river-bed, and which seems to spring out of the rock without +any visible abutments. + +Graceful pagodas and three-storeyed pavilions guard the approaches. The +Feng Shui of Wan is considered perfect. Rich temples on heights above +the river and the handsome temple called Chung-ku-lo (Drum and Bell +Lodge), overlooking the small gorge below, with a large stage, under a +fine three-storeyed pavilion, for the performance of the religious +dramas, show that “The Three Religions” retain their hold on the people. +The wealth of vegetation is wonderful. Not a barren or arid spot is to +be seen from the water’s edge to the mountain summits which are the +limits of vision. The shiny orange foliage, the dark formal cypress, the +loquat and pomegranate, the gold of the plumed bamboo, the deep green of +sugarcane, the freshness of the advancing grain crops, and the drapery +of clematis and maidenhair on trees and rocks all delight the eyes. But +the uniqueness of the neighbourhood of Wan consists in the number of its +truncated sandstone hills, each bearing on its flat top a picturesque +walled white village and fortification, to be a city of refuge in times +of rebellion. These, rising out of a mass of greenery, with a look of +inaccessibility about them, are a silent reference to unpleasant +historic facts which distinguish Wan from other cities. + +[Illustration: BRIDGE AT WAN HSIEN.] + +It is not alone that junks fringe the shores, but they are very largely +built at Wan, for the passage of the rapids, of a convenient +material—the tough, formal cypress which grows on the adjacent hills. +They must be at once light and strong, and more disposed to bend than to +break. Many of their fittings have a local origin, and many rich junk +builders and junk owners live at Wan. + +Foreign goods go up the river to Chungking, the westernmost treaty port, +from twelve to twenty days higher up the river, and come down again to +Wan. “The Province of the Four Streams” does not produce much cotton; +and cotton yarn from Japan and India comes in large quantities into Wan +to be woven there. In 1898 there were about 1000 handlooms. The cotton +is woven into pieces about thirty feet long and sixteen inches broad, +which take a man two days’ labour, from daylight till 9 p.m., to weave. +A weaver’s wages with food come to about 600 _cash_, at present about +1_s._ 6_d._ per week of six days. Can Lancashire compete with this in +anything but the output? + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + CHINESE CHARITIES[31] + + +As Moslems regard almsgiving as one of the “gates of heaven,” and +practise it to a very remarkable extent, so the Chinese have placed +benevolence foremost on the list of the “Five Constant Virtues.” The +character which denotes it is said by the learned to be composed of the +symbols for _man_ and _two_, by which is somewhat obscurely indicated, +on the principle of the spark being the result of the contact of flint +with steel, that benevolence should result from the contact of two human +beings. + +That this is so in China is not the impression which the facts of daily +life produce, and the popular view taken of Chinese character in this +country is that it is cruel, brutal, heartless, and absolutely selfish +and unconcerned about human misery. Among supporters of foreign missions +this opinion would be found nearly universal; and, indeed, I have heard +the non-existence of benevolence in the vast non-Christian empire of +China brought forward as an argument in favour of such missions. So +saturated is our atmosphere with the belief that the only charitable +institutions in China are those founded by Protestant and Catholic +missionaries, that nothing surprised me more than to find that the +reverse is the case. Among the many intelligent and frivolous questions +which have been put to me since I returned, the one, “Have the Chinese +any charities?” has not been among them. It has been reserved for +missionaries, and specially the late Rev. D. Hill, of Hankow, and the +Rev. W. Lawton, of Chinkiang, to bring this most interesting subject +under the notice of readers. The Rev. Arthur Smith gives a chapter of +his clever and attractive book, _Chinese Characteristics_, to the same +subject, and Dr. Wells Williams glances at it very briefly in _The +Middle Kingdom_; but few out of the many lay writers on China have +touched upon it. On my first visit in 1878, Dr. Henry, of Canton, +pointed out to me asylums or almshouses for the blind, and for aged +persons without sons; and on my recent visits, following this lead, I +made such inquiries as were practicable on this subject, and now venture +to present my too scanty notes to my readers. + +I have already remarked that the facts which lie on the surface of +Chinese daily life do not give the impression of strong benevolent +instincts. Wounded men are stripped of their uniforms and are left to +perish on battlefields, because “wounded men are no use.” The ablest +Chinese general in the late war wished to buy machine guns without the +protective “mantle” at the consequently reduced price, and on being told +by the German agent that this would risk a great sacrifice of life +coolly replied, “We’ve plenty of men.” Yet this same man was most +generous to the poor, established soup-kitchens in Mukden, his city, +every winter, supplied the hospital with ice for the patients, and, even +in the hurry of the last evening before he started with his brigade for +the fatal field of Phyong-yang, arranged that the hospital should be +supplied with ice during his absence. + +I have known a number of coolies refuse to get water from a river a few +yards off to assuage the burning thirst of an apparently dying man of +their number, who had carried a burden by their side for a fortnight, +and had shared their hardships, on the ground that he was “no more any +good,” and several similar instances, and what they do not practise +themselves they fail to understand in others. I have been jeered at as a +fool for laying a wet cloth on the brow of a man who had served me for +some time and fell out on the road seriously ill, and yet more for +having him carried in my chair rather than leave him to die on a +mountain-side. On another occasion in SZE CHUAN, when I left my chair +and walked up a part of the colossal staircase by which the road is +carried over the Pass of Shen Kia-chao, my bearers showed the +construction they put on my doing so by asking, “Does the foreign woman +think us not strong enough to carry her?” Men of the lower class +interpret ordinary humanity and consideration as arising from dread of +them, and the traveller is daily coming across instances which look very +like brutality, and most foreign residents speak of the Chinese as cruel +and brutal. + +Some writers, especially the author of _Chinese Characteristics_, while +admitting the existence of charities on a large scale, detract from the +admiration which such works of benevolence would naturally command by +pointing out that they are regarded as “practising virtue,” and are +considered to be a means of “accumulating merit,” and in fact that the +object generally in view is “not the benefit of the person on whom the +‘benevolence’ terminates, but the extraction from the benefit conferred +of a return benefit for the giver.” The Chinese are perhaps the most +practical people on earth, and a curious system of moral bookkeeping +adopted by many shows this feature of the national character in a very +curious light. There are books inculcating the practice of “virtue,” and +in these a regular debtor and creditor account is opened, in which an +individual charges himself with all his bad acts and credits himself +with all his good ones, and the balance between the two exhibits his +moral position at any given time. + +Mr. A. Smith is a very acute observer, and has had lengthened +opportunities of observation, and his conclusions as to the motives for +benevolence must be received with respect. May it not, however, be +hinted that an equally acute observer setting himself to dissect motives +for largesse to charities after a residence of some years in England +would consider himself warranted in referring a very considerable +proportion of our benevolence to motives less worthy than the desire to +“accumulate merit”? + +The problem of “the poor, and how to deal with them,” has received, and +is receiving, various solutions in China, and probably there is not a +city without one or more organisations for the relief of permanent and +special needs. Foundlings, orphans, blind persons, the aged, strangers, +drowning persons, the destitute, the dead, and various other classes are +objects of organised benevolence. The methods are not our methods, but +they are none the less praiseworthy. + +The care of the dead is imperative on every Chinese, but poverty steps +in, a coffin is an unattainable luxury, and without help a proper +interment is impossible. Hence in all cities there are benevolent guilds +which supply coffins for those whose relations are too poor to buy them, +and bury such in free cemeteries, providing, according to Chinese +notions, all the accessories of a respectable funeral, with suitable +offerings and the attendance of priests. Human bones which have become +exposed from any cause are collected and reburied with suitable dignity, +and bodies which have remained for years in coffins above ground waiting +for the geomancers to decide on an auspicious day for the funeral, until +all the relations are dead and the coffins are falling into decay, are +supplied with new ones, and are suitably interred. + +A Chinese is all his life thinking of his burial and the ancestral +rites. Among a people to whom a creditable interment means so much, the +generous way in which these benevolent obsequies are conducted does more +than we can understand to remove the bitterness of mourning. The +accompanying illustration shows a neat “chapel” with a well-kept +cemetery, where bones have been gathered, those of individuals being +placed together, so far as indications allow of it, under neat coverings +of concrete. + +In the great city of Chinkiang there are an orphan asylum and benevolent +institute for girls, with five receiving offices, and a boarding-out as +well as an asylum system, a benevolent institute with eighty boys above +six, who are apprenticed when old enough, with five teachers in charge, +and twenty free day schools for about three hundred boys, whose harsh +voices, pitched high, may be heard twanging at the wisdom of the Chinese +classics. + +Among the Chinkiang benevolent plans for adults there is one, well +managed, of inestimable advantage to the struggling farmer or +merchant—“The Bureau for Advancing Funds.” From it a poor man with +security can borrow from 1000 to 5000 _cash_ ($1 to $5), which must be +repaid in one hundred days by payments made every five days. He can +borrow again up to a fourth time. + +[Illustration: A CHINESE BURIAL CHARITY.] + +There are two free dispensaries, with nine doctors in charge. They are +open without fees every day, treating about 200 patients, who are not +required to pay for their medicines. The Life-saving Institution, with a +head office and two or three minor offices, has six well-equipped, +well-manned boats always on the river near the port, and ten others +dodging about above and below. I was in the steamer _Cores de Vries_ +when she cut down the s.s. _Hoi-how_ to the water’s edge abreast of +Chinkiang, and I can answer for the trained alacrity with which several +of these boats were at once on the spot, remaining by the _Cores de +Vries_ even after she was run ashore. Their work is not only to save the +drowning, but to remove dead bodies from the water, and these are +afterwards buried with seemly rites by the Society in a well-kept +private cemetery on the hill in which it has interred 175 rescued +corpses within the last ten years. There is a free ferry, with thirteen +big boats, for crossing the ofttimes stormy and dangerous Yangtze, which +saves many lives of those who would otherwise be drowned by ferrying in +cheap and unseaworthy craft. This is the richest of the benevolent +institutions. + +It is interesting to learn how the actual beggars, who trade upon +sympathy by their filthiness, deformities, and sores, are treated. A +_Beggars’ Refuge_ and a _Home for the Aged_ exist for the same class. +The Beggars’ Refuge was begun by a former Taotai. Of its ninety inmates +about nine are women. It is not to be expected that it should be clean +or sweet. I have seen one in another city which receives five hundred. +The beggars are required to bring their clothes and wadded quilts with +them, but all else is furnished, and in winter outsiders also receive +rice there. Most of the inmates, unless disqualified by age or disease, +spend their days begging in the streets. + +The rich merchants subscribe to keep up a winter “_soup kitchen_,” which +feeds about a thousand people daily with rice, at a cost of thirty +dollars a day, during the three coldest months. Besides this the General +Benevolent Institution dispenses medicines during the summer, and rice +tickets during the winter, and has charge of the “Invalid Home,” and +also provides coffins for the dead poor. This society is richly endowed +with land, owning 3000 _mow_.[32] The original 280 _mow_ came from the +priests on Golden Island. + +Widows are not forgotten. Two associations take them in charge: the +_Widows’ Relief Society_ and the _Widows’ Home_. The former has only +funds sufficient for 300 pensioners, the lists being filled up as deaths +occur. The latter is connected with the _Boys’ Orphanage_, and provides +a home, food, and clothes for 200 widows. After once entering they are +not allowed to go out unless offered a respectable home by a friend, or +unless a son has grown to man’s estate. Any results of the sale of plain +or fancy needlework are returned to the worker. This care of widows +marks a great advance in China on the practice in India and some other +Eastern countries. + +There are several free cemeteries outside the city, and one of recent +origin for children, with a wall six feet high surrounding it, and a +keeper in charge, in which 2000 children have been buried in the last +four years. In Mukden I first became familiar with the custom, the +growth of a superstitious belief, not of lack of maternal feeling, of +rolling up the bodies of children in matting and “throwing them away,” +_i.e._, putting the bundle where the dogs can devour the corpse, as a +sort of offering to the “Heavenly Dog,” which is supposed to eat the sun +at an eclipse. When foreigners began to settle in the Yangtze treaty +ports it came to be currently believed that they asserted a claim +against the dogs for these bodies, of which they “take out the eyes and +the hearts to make medicine.” This was too much; hence this well-walled +cemetery was provided. This accusation against foreigners, which is a +frequent cause of anti-foreign riots, is current everywhere in the +Yangtze Valley. I met with it in its worst form so far west as Kuan +Hsien, on the Upper Min, and an angry cry of “Another child-eater!” was +frequently raised against myself as I passed through the towns of SZE +CHUAN. This goodly list does not exhaust the native charities of the +first treaty port on the Yangtze.[33] + +I have dwelt in detail on the charities of Chinkiang because they are +typical of those of other great cities; but the variety throughout the +country is infinite, and includes many associations merely for the +relief of suffering. In Wuhu a _Life-saving Association_ was established +in 1874, with which have been associated, under the same managing staff, +a gratuitous _Coffin Association_, to help the very poor to inter their +relatives decently, and a _Free Ferry Association_, with big, well-found +boats, to prevent the poor from risking their lives by crossing the +Yangtze in small _sampans_. Large and substantial offices indicate the +generous support given to the _Lifeboat Association_, with which are +united a _Humane Society_ for restoring life to persons rescued from the +water, and other kindred benevolent associations. This society, which +has societies affiliated to it, and apparently under the same rules, at +many of the riverine towns, has four lifeboats at Wuhu, about fifty feet +long, ten broad, and fourteen tons burden, well manned and handled, able +to face any weather, with crews under strict discipline, and ready to +sally forth at a signal. They cruise up and down the river aiding junks +in distress, rescuing the drowning, and recovering bodies for burial. + +If a rescued man is a stranger and destitute, he receives the loan of +dry clothing, and shelter for three days; if he is ill, he has shelter +and medical attendance so long as he requires them. Such destitute +rescued persons are supplied with twenty cents for each thirty-three +miles of their journey home. A recovered corpse is reported by the +society to the authorities, who take charge of any property recovered +with it until the relations are found. It is decently buried, and the +usual ceremonial for the dead is provided at stated seasons. + +This society publishes its rules and accounts annually for general +information. Its offices were built by donations from merchants. It +receives a subscription of fifty taels a month from the inland customs, +and its other funds are subscriptions, rentals of donated lands, and +contributions of rice. The society has always a good balance in hand. +Besides wages, it pays at Wuhu and the different sub-stations to the +boatmen a reward of 1000 _cash_, or about a dollar, for every life +saved, and from 300 to 500 _cash_ for every corpse. + +Another charity also provides coffins for destitute persons, and +mat-shelters, often sadly needed, for burned-out families, and medical +aid for the sick. This is supported chiefly by subscriptions from +shopkeepers and gifts of coffin wood. + +A few years ago the Taotai, with the leading “gentry” and merchants, +established an asylum for foundlings and the children of destitute +parents, which has gradually come to include a charity school, an +almshouse for aged and invalid poor, and a free hospital. + +Kukiang has several similar institutions, including a _Humane and +Life-saving Institution_, established by the tea and opium merchants +with the funds of their guilds. In Hankow there are more than twenty +charities, supported at a cost of about 100,000 dollars annually. At Wan +Hsien, above the gorges and the worst rapids, there are very noble +charities, some of them carried on by the Scholars’ Guild and the head +men of the city, and others by private individuals. Among these are soup +kitchens and large donations of rice to the poor in the winter, and in +the first month (February) allowances of rice and money to about fifty +old people, and gifts of 1600 _cash_ each to about 100 poor widows. The +Scholars’ Guild also supports a foundling hospital. I cannot overlook +the noble benevolences of Hsing-fuh-sheo, a Wan merchant, not +exceptionally wealthy, who, at a cost of over 8000 dollars a year, +supports two dispensaries and a drug store, forty free schools, five +preachers of the Sacred Edict, and besides, provides clothing and +coffins for the dead poor, and wadded garments for the destitute in +winter.[34] + +Among many other ways of showing benevolence is the provision of free +vaccination to all who will apply for it; drugs and plasters are given +by some to all applicants, and books known as “Virtue Books” are given +away by others, or are exposed for sale at less than cost price. There +are small associations for providing the neat, canopied, stone furnaces +which are seen in all cities and many country places, for the burning of +paper on which are written characters. Originally no doubt this practice +was established to prevent any defilement of the sacred names of Buddha +and Confucius, but a sanctity has come to attach to all written paper +owing to the great reverence of the Chinese for literature, and paper is +no longer collected by the priests, but by men paid by these societies +for the purpose, who go round with bamboo tongs and bottle-mouthed +baskets, rescuing the characters from desecration. The benevolence is +not apparent to me, although the societies which undertake this work +bear the name _Mutual Charitable Institutions_. + +Among other good works are the charitably aided provincial clubs for the +care of those who become destitute at a distance from home, and who +without such aid could not return, or who, having died afar from +relatives, could not otherwise be taken home for burial. Among temporary +charities partly Government-aided, but very much supported by private +liberality, are the vast soup kitchens, very completely organised, +which, on occasions of flood or famine, extend their benevolent and +often judicious work over the whole afflicted region, and save thousands +of lives. Then there are large donations of wadded winter clothing and +wadded sleeping quilts made every year to the destitute; and societies, +something in the nature of charitably aided savings banks, for the twin +objects of enabling men to marry and to bury their parents creditably. + +Much kindness of a kind is shown to the streams of refugees who in bad +years swarm all over parts of China in allowing them to camp with their +families in barns and sheds, often giving them an evening meal. Enormous +gifts are made to beggars, who, in all the large cities, are organised +into such powerful guilds that they can coerce rather than plead, and +can ensure that a steady stream of charity shall flow in their +direction. In the case of both refugees and beggars, a prudent dread of +the consequences of refusal is doubtless answerable for much of what +poses as charity, and in this the Chinese and the Englishman are +probably near of kin. + +In concluding this chapter, which brings additional evidence of the +strong tendency to organise which exists among the Chinese, I will +mention a few of the methods in which individuals carry out benevolent +instincts or seek to “accumulate merit.” A Buddhist on a river bank pays +a fisherman for the whole of the contents of his plunge-net, and returns +the silver heap to the water; another buys a number of caged birds, and +lets them fly. Some build sheds over roads, and provide them with seats +for weary travellers; others make a road over a difficult pass, or build +a bridge, or provide a free ferry for the poor and their cattle. A few +men club together to provide free soup or tea for travellers, and erect +a shed, putting in an old widow to keep the water boiling; or two or +three priests, with the avowed object of securing merit, do the same +thing at a temple; others provide seats for wayfarers on a steep hill. +Some provide lamps glazed with thin layers of oyster shells fitted into +a wooden framework, and either hang them from posts or fit them into +recesses in pillars to warn travellers by night of dangerous places on +the roads. + +I put forward my opinion on the subject of Chinese benevolence with much +diffidence, laying the motive of the accumulation of merit on one side. +The Chinese obviously fail in acts of unselfishness and of _personal_ +kindliness and goodwill. Their works of merit are very much on a large +scale, for the benefit of human beings in masses, the individual being +lost sight of. They involve little personal, wholesome contact between +the giver and receiver, out of which love and gratitude may grow, and no +personal self-denial, and in these respects place themselves on a par +with much of our easy charity by proxy at home. + +It was a great surprise to me, as it will be to the more thoughtful +among my readers, to find that organised charity on so large a scale +exists in China. Among its defects, in addition to the lack, before +mentioned, of kindly individual contact, are the neglect to foster +independence by painstaking methods, and the system of peculation from +which even benevolent funds do not escape, though it must be added that +many Chinese gentlemen give much valuable time to securing their honest +and efficient management. + +I have not been able to learn whether the benevolent instincts of +Chinese women find any outlet. I have been asked by one to give some +straw plaiting to a poor widow to do, and by another lady to employ an +indigent woman in embroidering satin shoes. I have heard of ladies +inviting old and poor women to tea once a week, and even oftener; and +Mr. A. Smith narrates one such instance. + +It must be remarked that in China certain serious consequences may +befall a man who performs an act of kindness individually, and that a +dread of such a mishap renders men exceedingly reluctant to give aid and +to save life under some circumstances. This possibility is apt to make +the Chinese wary as to doing kindnesses personally. A missionary tells +how a medical missionary living in one of the central provinces was +asked by some native gentlemen to restore the sight of a beggar who was +totally blind from cataract. The operation was successfully performed, +but when the man regained his sight the same gentlemen came to the +operator and told him that, as by the cure he had destroyed the beggar’s +sole means of livelihood, it was then his duty to compensate him by +taking him into his service! + +In conclusion, the Chinese classics teach benevolence: charity is +required as a proof of sincere goodness; the Buddhist religious writings +inculcate relief of sick persons and compassion to the poor, and the +worship of the Goddess of Mercy, an increasingly popular cult in China, +tends in the same humane direction. It must be remembered also that the +divinities worshipped in China are not monsters of cruelty and +incarnations of evil, but, on the contrary, that they may be credited +with some of the virtues, and among them that of benevolence. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + FROM WAN HSIEN TO SAN TSAN-PU + + +Finding that it was impossible for any European to accompany me, I +decided to venture on the journey of 300 miles to Paoning Fu alone, and +to buy my own experience. The land journey developed into one of about +1200 miles, and was accomplished with one serious mishap and one great +disappointment. It was interesting throughout, and taught me much of the +ways of the people, and the scenery alone would have repaid me for the +hardships, which were many. My greatest difficulty consisted in having +to disinter all information about the route and the industries and +customs of the people, through the medium of two languages, out of the +capacities of persons who neither observed nor thought accurately, nor +were accustomed to impart what they knew: who were used to telling lies, +and to whom I could furnish no reasons for telling the truth, while they +might have several for deceiving me on some points. This digging into +obtuseness and cunning is the hardest part of a traveller’s day. So far +as I could make out before or since my journey, no British traveller or +missionary has published an account of the country between Wan Hsien, on +the Yangtze, and Kuan Hsien, north of the Chengtu Plain, nor can I find +among the very valuable consular reports, to which I cannot too often +express my debt, one which has done for this region of Central SZE CHUAN +what Mr. Litton, of the consular service at Chungking, has lately done +so admirably for Northern SZE CHUAN. Consequently on the greater part of +my four months’ journey I had nothing by which to estimate the value of +the facts which I supposed myself to have obtained.[35] + +The longer one travels the fewer preparations one makes, and the smaller +is one’s kit. I got nothing at Wan except a large sheet doubly oiled +with boiled linseed oil, and some additional curry powder, kindly +furnished by my kind hosts from boxes of tinned eatables, sauces, +arrowroot, and invalid comforts, which had just arrived, and the like of +which were annually delivered, carriage free, at the door of every China +Inland missionary, however remote, sent by the late Mr. Morton, of +Aberdeen, a thoughtful gift, of great value to the recipients. The +reader may be amused to learn the singular monotony of my diet. I had a +cup of tea made from “tabloids,” and a plate of boiled flour, every +morning before starting, tea on arriving, and for 146 days, at seven, +curried fowl or eggs with rice. I got another Chinese cotton costume and +some straw shoes, and for any other needs trusted to supplying them on +the way. + +My servant had made himself persistently disagreeable from the +beginning, and though a superior, fairly educated, and handsome man, he +seemed helpless, useless, lazy, unwilling, and objectionable all round. +The impression of my hosts and myself was that he wished to annoy me +into sending him back from Wan, and Mr. Thompson thought that he would +make my journey very difficult and unpleasant; but the choice lay +between giving it up on the threshold and taking him, and I chose the +latter. + +As the guest of a European, all the difficulties of arranging, +bargaining, and paying are lifted off one and put upon a teacher or +servant who is used to them, and after much chaffering a bargain was +concluded by which three chair-bearers and four coolies were to take me +and my baggage to Paoning Fu in nineteen days, a halt on Sundays being +paid for at the rate of 25,000 _cash_. These men were not dealt with +directly, but were engaged by contract with the manager of a transport +_hong_, who is responsible for their good conduct and honesty. I may say +at once that they behaved admirably; made the journey in two days less +than the stipulated time; trudged cheerfully through rain and mud; never +shirked their work; and were always sober, cheery, and obliging. I never +met with other than the same behaviour on all the occasions when my +coolies or boatmen were engaged from a _hong_. + +My light, comfortable bamboo chair had a well under the seat which +contained my camera, and, including its sixteen pounds weight, carried +forty pounds of luggage in addition to myself. It had bamboo poles +fourteen feet long, and a footboard suspended by ropes. Rigid laws of +etiquette govern the getting out and in. An open chair in SZE CHUAN, +being a novelty, is an abomination, and accounts for much of the +rudeness which I received. For some time past the provincial authorities +have insisted on all travellers, missionaries included, being attended +by two or more “_yamen_ runners,” (_chai-jen_) or soldiers, who are +changed at every prefecture, where they deliver up the official letter +which they carry. They were never of any use, and except once, whether +soldiers or civilians, always ran away at the first symptoms of a +disturbance, but neither were they any nuisance, and they were always +apparently satisfied with the trifle I gave them. + +These _yamen_ runners are attached in great numbers to every magistracy, +in large cities to the number of 1000 or more. They are “the great +unpaid,” but manage to pick up a living, lawsuits being their great +harvest, and the serving of writs one of their great occupations. They +squeeze litigants, and are about as much detested by the people as +bailiffs were by the men of Clare and Kerry. + +Thus equipped and wearing Chinese dress, which certainly blunts the edge +of curiosity and greatly diminishes the intolerable feminine picking and +feeling of one’s garments when they are of foreign material and make, I +left the shelter and refinement of the hospitable mission house for a +solitary plunge into the interior, Be-dien on foot, as sullen and +disobliging as could be. + +Mr. Thompson kindly accompanied me for the first day’s journey to see +that things worked smoothly, and we left early on a fine February +morning, the air as soft and mild as that of an English April, passing +through the very good-looking town and into the pretty open country on a +good, flagged road, which was carried up and down hill by stone stairs. + +During most of the day we met a continuous stream of baggage coolies, +each carrying a bamboo over his shoulder with a burden depending from +either end, shifted frequently from one shoulder to the other. Those +coming in—and the inward traffic did not slacken for some days—carried +from 80 to 140 pounds each of opium, tobacco, indigo, or paper; and +those going out were loaded with cotton yarn, piece goods, and salt, all +carefully packed in oiled paper made from macerated bamboo, which is +very tough and durable. These men, carrying the maximum load mentioned, +walk about thirteen miles a day, and chair and luggage coolies about +twenty-five. Occasionally I made thirty miles in a day, as my men were +carrying only seventy pounds each. + +[Illustration: BAGGAGE COOLIES.] + +(_From a Chinese Drawing._) + +The coolies choose their own place for breakfast and the midday halt of +one hour. The first day, even with Mr. Thompson to make things smooth +for me, I wondered if I could endure it, and I never took kindly to it. +The halting-place is a shed projecting over the road in a town or +village street, black and grimy, with a clay floor, and rough tables and +benches, receding into a dim twilight; a rough cooking apparatus and +some coarse glazed pottery are the furnishings. On each table a bunch of +malodorous chopsticks occupies a bamboo receptacle. An earthen bowl with +water and a dirty rag are placed outside for the use of travellers, who +frequently also rinse their mouths with hot water. One or more +exceptionally dirty men are the waiters. Bowls of rice and rice water or +weak tea are produced with praiseworthy rapidity, and the coolies shovel +the food into their mouths with the air of famished men, and hold out +their bowls for more. My chair that day and always was set down in front +of the eating-house. I went inside and had some lunch, but the dirt, +discomfort, and general odiousness were so great that I did not inflict +the penance on myself a second time. + +People intending to be kind sometimes take pork, rice, or fish out of a +common bowl and put it into yours, and to ensure cleanliness draw the +chopsticks with which they perform the transference through their lips, +giving them an energetic suck! + +SZE CHUAN is famous for the number and splendour of what are usually +called “widows’ arches,” though they are also erected to pious sons or +patriotic mandarins, specially military mandarins. At times the approach +to a city is indicated, not only by pagodas, but by passing under +several of these, and occasionally even a rambling, squalid village is +entered by passing under an exceptionally handsome one, as was the case +on my first day’s journey. I attempted to photograph it, and the +_chai-jen_ made the crowd stand to right and left by a series of +vigorous pushes, shouting the whole time, “In the name of the +mandarin.”[36] But the people had too much curiosity to be anything but +mobile. + +These arches, or _pai-fangs_, are put up frequently in glorification of +widows who have remained faithful to the memory of their husbands, and +who have devoted themselves to the comfort and interests of their +parents-in-law and to good works. Through various channels the +neighbourhood presents the virtues of the meritorious person to the +Throne, and the Emperor’s consent to the erection is obtained. The whole +affair lends some _éclat_ to the town or village. Many of these arches +are extremely beautiful. Chinese carving in stone has much merit, even +in such an intractable material as granite. The depth and sharpness of +the cutting and the undercutting are remarkable, and the absolute +_realism_. I never saw a bit of sculpture which showed a trace of +imagination. The superb friezes which constantly decorate the +superstructure of these arches represent in a most masterly fashion +mandarins’ processions, mandarins administering justice, rich men’s +banquets, interiors of rich men’s dwellings, and many other scenes of +official and stately life, all rendered with photographic accuracy, and +with a wonderful power of catching the expressions of the various faces. +It is impossible not to admire the skill of the artists, and at the same +time to wish for a trace of ideality in their art. In some places a +superb arch enriched with marvels of sculpture straddles across a road +which is nothing better than a disgraceful quagmire or a stone causeway +in which some of the blocks are tilted up on end, while others have +disappeared in the mud. The incongruity does not seem to afflict anyone. + +[Illustration: A PAI-FANG] + +But I must return from this digression on bad roads to the road on which +I travelled on that and two or three subsequent days, which has the +reputation of being one of the finest in China. It was built fifty-four +years ago, and is in splendid repair. It was to lead from Wan Hsien to +Chengtu Fu, but I failed to learn whether it fulfils its promise. It is +never less than six feet wide, paved with transverse stone slabs, +carried through the rice-fields on stone causeways, and over the bridges +and up and down the innumerable hills by flights of stone stairs on +fairly easy gradients, with stone railings and balustrades wherever +there is any necessity for them. Streams are crossed by handsome stone +bridges, with sharp lofty arches, and the whole is a fine engineering +work. + +My journey began auspiciously with a dreamily fine day, which developed +into a red and gold sunset of crystalline clearness and beauty. The +scenery is entrancing. The valleys are deep and narrow, and each is +threaded by a mountain torrent. The hills are truncated cones, each one +crowned by a highly picturesque fortified village of refuge, and there +were glimpses of distant mountain forms painted on the pale sky in +deeper blue. Everything suggested peace and plenty. The cultivation is +surprising, and its carefulness has extirpated most of the indigenous +plants. It is carried up on terraces to the foot of the cliffs which +support the refuges; it renders prolific strips on ledges only eighteen +inches wide. Except on the road itself, there was not a vacant space on +that day’s journey on which a man could lie down. + +The first crops, on soil which in that climate produces three and four +annually, were in the ground: broad beans with a black and purple +blossom with a white lip; rape for oil then in blossom grown on a large +scale; opium encroaching on the rice lands, barley and wheat; various +root crops, and peas in bud, though it was only February 24th. Even the +tops of the narrow dykes separating the rice-fields were planted with +single rows of beans. + +My coolies stopped several times for a drink and smoke, but did +twenty-seven miles. Chair travelling is, I think, the easiest method of +locomotion by land. My one objection to it is the constant shifting of +the short bamboo carrying pole on which the long poles hang, from one +shoulder of each bearer to the other. It has to be done simultaneously, +involves a stoppage, occurs every hundred yards and under, and always +gives the impression that the shoulder which is relieved is in +unbearable pain. Chair-bearing is a trade by itself, and bearers have to +be brought up to it. It is essential to keep step absolutely, and to be +harmonious in all movements. Of my three bearers the strongest went +behind. Two were opium smokers, and the third a vegetarian, who +abstained from opium, tobacco, and _samshu_, and was on his way to be +rich! There was ceaseless traffic, and as we penetrated further into the +country, in addition to the goods before mentioned, the loads consisted +of baskets of oil, bean cake, and coal and ironstone, showing that the +sources of supply of the latter were not far off. About every half-mile +the road passes under a roof with food booths on each side. There were +many travellers in shabby closed chairs with short poles, hurried along +by two men at a shambling trot. There are so many temples that the air +is seldom free from the odour of incense. We met two dragon processions, +consisting each of 100 men, and the undulating tail of the dragon was +fifty feet long. + +Towards evening the hills became more mountainous, and were wooded with +cypress and pine, and it was very lovely in the gold and violet light. +We halted for the night at the large village of San-tsan-pu, where, +though I had travelled for seven months in China, I had my first +experience of a Chinese inn, and I did not like it, specially as I +regarded it as the type of four or five coming months of similar +quarters. I am not ashamed to say that a cowardly inclination to +abbreviate my journey tempted me the whole evening. The SZE CHUAN inns +have a good reputation; but I was not making the regular stages, and at +all events they are inferior on that route, the one which gave me such a +shock being one of the best. They are worse than the Persian ordinary +_caravanserai_, or the Kurdistan _khan_, or even the Korean hostelry. I +felt that I had degenerated into a sybarite, and must summon up all my +pluck, and many a hearty meal and ten hours’ sleep I afterwards came to +enjoy in dens which at first seemed foul and hopeless. + +[Illustration: GRANITE DRAGON PILLAR.] + +In the best inns there is a room known as the mandarin’s room, which can +be had by paying for it, with a high roof, a boarded floor, a window, +and a solemn-looking table and chairs; but these very rarely came my +way. My introduction to the amenities of Chinese travelling was on this +wise, and, as Mr. Thompson was with me, I was much better off than +usual. I was carried through the open “restaurant,” fitted with rough +benches and tables, into a roughly paved yard behind it, where, in the +midst of abominations, was the inn well. Several rough doors round this +yard gave admission into as many rooms without windows, several of which +were already full. My chair was set down, and, after extricating myself +from it according to the rules of etiquette, I was attempting to see it +unpacked, when I was overborne by a shouting crowd of men and boys, +which surged in after me, and I had to retire hastily into my room. + +It was long and narrow, and boarded off from others by partitions with +remarkably open chinks, to which many pairs of sloping eyes were +diligently applied; but I was able to baffle curiosity by tacking up +cambric curtains brought for the purpose. The roof was high at one side +and low at the other, and fortunately the wall did not come up to within +two feet of it, though the air admitted could not by any euphemism be +called “fresh.” The floor was a damp and irregular one of mud, partly +over a cesspool, and with a strong tendency to puddles. On the other +side of the outer boarding was the pigsty, which was well-occupied, +judging from the many voices, bass and treble. There were two rough +bedsteads, on which were mats covered with old straw, on which coolies +lay down wadded quilts, and sleep four or more on a bed. It is needless +to say that these beds are literally swarming with vermin of the worst +sorts. + +The walls were black and slimy with the dirt and damp of many years; the +paper with which the rafters had once been covered was hanging from them +in tatters, and when the candle was lit beetles, “slaters,” cockroaches, +and other abominable things crawled on the walls and dropped from the +rafters, one pink, fleshy thing dropping upon, and putting out, the +candle! + +I had arranged my plan of operations after my Korean experience, but +sullen, disobliging, and apparently stupid Be-dien left me very much to +carry it out myself. Between two of the bedsteads there was just space +enough for my camp bed and chair without touching them. The oiled sheet +was spread on the floor, and my “furniture” upon it, and two small oiled +sheets were used for covering the beds, and on these my luggage, food, +and etceteras were deposited. The tripod of my camera served for a +candle stand, and on it I hung my clothes and boots at night, out of the +way of rats. With these arrangements I successfully defied the legions +of vermin which infest Korean and Chinese inns, and have not a solitary +tale to tell of broken rest and general misery. With absolute security +from vermin, all else can be cheerfully endured. + +A meal of curry, rice, and tea was not despicable, though I was +conscious that my equipments and general manner of living were rougher +than they had ever been before, and that I had reached “bed-rock,” to +quote a telling bit of American slang. + +The inn, which was very full of travellers, quieted down before eight, +when the slighter noises, such as pigs grunting, rats or mice gnawing, +crickets chirping, beetles moving in straw, and other insect +disturbances, made themselves very audible, and informed me that I was +surrounded by a world of busy and predatory life, loving darkness; but +while I thought upon it and on the solitary plunge into China which was +to be made on the morrow I fell asleep, and never woke till Be-dien came +to my door at seven the next morning with the information that there was +no fire, and that he could not get me any breakfast! That was the first +of five months of nights of solid sleep from 8 p.m. onwards. I only +allowed myself half a candle per day, and after my journal letter was +written there was no object for sitting up. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + SZE CHUAN TRAVELLING + + +The following day was misty, grey, and grim, and several of its +successors were much like it. One of the local names of SZE CHUAN is +“The Cloudy Province.” Kind, capable Mr. Thompson returned to Wan after +giving the coolies various instructions intended for my benefit; and +from thenceforth I depended on myself. The great event of the day was +the complete change in Be-dien as soon as I was bereft of Europeans. His +pride and temper always remained, and were liable to flare up, or die +down into a mephitic state of sullenness, but from that morning till I +left China he was active and attentive, was never without leave out of +hearing of my whistle, was always at hand to help me over slippery and +difficult places, showed great pluck, never grumbled, arranged and +packed up my things, interpreted carefully, improved daily in English, +always contrived to get hot water and food for me, and on the whole made +a tolerable travelling servant. + +The travelling was without fatigue. I walked when it suited me, and for +the rest might have been in an easy-chair in a drawing-room. The +chair-bearers were energetic, and their “boss,” a great wag, kept them +constantly laughing. Their good-nature never failed. One day when, to +relieve them, I walked up a long flight of stairs over a pass, they +asked, “Does the foreign woman think we are not strong enough to carry +her?” The idea of a wish to be kind to them never entered their heads, +yet we gradually came to understand each other a little; and I found my +cloak put over my shoulders for me, a wooden stool brought for my feet, +sundry little comforts attended to, and a growing interest in +photography, reaching the extent of pointing out objects at times “to +make pictures of”! By the end of the second day they had all shaken into +my “ways,” and things went very smoothly. + +The day’s routine was a cup of tea and some flour stirabout at seven; +but, though I was always ready and eager to start at eight, it was +usually half-past, and often nine, before we got off. The coolies’ first +breakfast was often late, and there was the haggling about the bill, +neither side liking to give in. It was only a shilling for the board and +lodging for myself and my servant! This included his supper and +breakfast, my rice, and a room to myself, his share of the coolies’ +room, an iron lamp fixed on the wall, with an oil well and a wick in a +spout encrusted with the soot and grime of years, and if I had a +charcoal brazier, the charge was a farthing more. My other travelling +expenses came to 4_s._ 6_d._ a day; 5_s._ 6_d._ covered everything, +including a fowl for curry every third day. + +My bearers trudged along at an even pace, stopping two or three times +for a drink and smoke at tea shops where others congregated, until the +halt for dinner at a restaurant of more pretensions, outside of which I +sat in my chair in the village street, the unwilling centre of a large +and very dirty crowd, which had leisure to stand round me for an hour, +staring, making remarks, laughing at my peculiarities, pressing closer +and closer till there was hardly air to breathe, taking out my hairpins, +and passing my gloves round and putting them on their dirty hands, on +two occasions abstracting my spoon and slipping it into their sleeves, +being in no wise abashed when they were detected. For at first I ate a +little cold rice, but wearying of being a spectacle, and being convinced +that as a general rule our insular habit is to eat too much, I gave up +this moderate lunch, and contented myself with a morsel of chocolate +eaten surreptitiously. On the rare occasions when the villagers wearied +of their entertainment, even of gloves, which they thought were worn to +conceal some desperate skin disease, and dropped off, small black pigs, +with upright rows of bristles on their lean, curved spines, timidly took +their place with expectations which were not realised, picking about, +even under the poles of the chair, for fragments which they did not +find, and even nibbling my straw shoes, and ancient and long-legged +poultry were as odiously familiar. + +When they had fed and smoked, the men shouldered their burdens, and +trudged on till about sunset, stopping, as in the morning, for smokes +and drinks, I walking and photographing as it suited me. Sometimes we +put up at a wayside inn, without even the privacy of a yard; this was in +very small places, where the curiosity was not so overwhelming. + +In towns the case was different. The inn yard was often enclosed by +planking and a wide door, within which there might be one, two, or three +courts, possibly with flowers in pots and a little gaudy paint. Some of +these inns accommodate over 200 travellers, with their baggage. Every +room is full, and between money-changing, eating, “sing-song,” and +gambling, and half-naked waiters rushing about with small trays, and +numbers of men all shouting together, it is pretty lively. At the +extreme end of the establishment is the “_kuan’s_ room,” with one for +attendants on each side. The crowd which always gathered during my +passage down the street rolled in at the doorway, blocking up the yard, +shouting, ofttimes hooting, and fighting each other for a look at the +foreigner. Fortunately doors in Chinese inns have strong wooden bolts, +and when my baggage and I were once ensconced I was secure from +intrusion, unless a few men and boys had run on ahead to take possession +of the room before I entered it, or forced themselves in behind Be-dien +when he brought my dinner. If it were merely a boarded wall, a row of +patient eyes usually watched me for an hour, and with much +gratification, for these rooms are dark with the door shut, and my +candle revealed my barbarian proceedings. + +But worse than this was the slow scraping of holes in the plaster +partition, when there was one, between my room and the next, accompanied +by the peculiarly irritating sound of whispering, and eventually by the +application of a succession of eyes to the hole, more whispering, and +some giggling. It was always a temptation to apply the muzzle of a +revolver or a syringe to the opening! Occasionally a big piece of +plaster fell into my room and revealed the operators, who were more +frequently well-dressed travellers than ignorant coolies. I used to +whistle for Be-dien to hang up a curtain over the holes, after which +there was peace for a time, and then the scraping and whispering began +again, and often on both sides, till, tired and irritated, I used to put +out the candle and lie down, frequently awaking in the morning to find +myself in my travelling dress still, clutching my interrupted diary. +When one arrived tired after being stared at and pressed upon several +times in the day, beginning with the early morning, the fearful hubbub +in the courtyard, lasting an hour or more, followed by these grating and +rasping processes, was exhausting and exasperating. + +Also the landlord’s wife, and often a bevy of women with her, used to +come in and pick over my things, which fortunately were few, and ask +questions, beginning with, “What is your honourable age?” “Have you many +sons?” When I confessed that I had none they expressed pity, and a +contempt which Be-dien did not scruple to translate. “Why have you left +your honourable country?” etc. But they soon tired of the trouble of +interrogating me and talked to Be-dien, and when I asked what they were +saying, I heard such remarks as these: “What ugly eyes she has, and +straight eyebrows!” “Yes, but they see into the ground and where the +gold is hid.” “Has she come for gold?” “What big feet she has!” (Their +own were about three inches long.) “Why is her hair like wool?” and so +on. + +These people had never seen lead pencils or fountain pens, and +everywhere these and the foreign writing, and the fact that a woman +could write, (for the gazers were more or less illiterate) attracted +great attention. A pronged fork, which they thought must “prick the +mouth and make it bleed,” was in their eyes a barbarism. I wore straw +sandals over English tan shoes to avoid slipping, and this they regarded +as a confession of foreign inferiority. I was wearing a Chinese woman’s +dress with a Japanese _kurumaya’s_ hat, the one perfect travelling hat, +and English gloves and shoes, and this _olla podrida_ was an annoyance +to them. Their questions were very trivial, and their curiosity appeared +singularly unintelligent, contrasting, in this respect, with that of the +Japanese. It showed prodigious apathy for adults to spend hour after +hour in focussing a stolid stare upon a person whose occupations offered +no novelty or variety, being limited to eating and writing. The +curiosity of the common people, though boorish, was not rude, but that +of the class above them, and above all of men of the literary class, was +brutal and insulting, and generally tended to excite hostility against +the foreigner. + +I developed my negatives in my room at night, as it was almost always a +perfect “dark room,” and the greatest of my annoyances was when a flash +of white light showed that my neighbours had successfully worked a hole +in the wall, and that my precious negative was hopelessly “fogged.” + +The indispensable _yamen_ runners are changed at every prefecture, and +the passports are examined and copied. These runners are a queer lot. +For this duty they get their travelling expenses and something over, and +the _douceur_ which the traveller bestows. A formal official letter is +their warrant. But on many occasions I found myself not with the escort +I left the prefecture with, which truly was shabby enough, but with a +couple of ragged beggars, to whom the letter with its advantages had +been sold by the runners, who thus saved themselves a journey. +Occasionally these substitutes strutted in front of my chair down a +street waving the magistrate’s letter, the wind blowing their rags +aside, showing the neglected and repulsive sores by which they excite +the compassion of the charitable. The only useful purpose which the +_yamen_ runners served was occasionally when it was growing late to run +on ahead and engage “rooms,” and always to take the passport to the +_yamen_. I write “the passport” because it deserved the definite article +from its size, the grandeur of its seals, and the consideration it +claimed for me, besides which it allowed of unlimited travel in the +eighteen provinces, as well as in Mongolia and Manchuria, and was of +such a nature as to produce an immediate change of manner in every +official who read it! Besides this I had a correct and prosaic consular +passport issued at Hankow, which I only once had occasion to use. + +The compulsory _chai-jen_ are, I think, a speciality of SZE CHUAN, and +the compulsion rose out of unpleasant circumstances. I never learned +that they forced the innkeepers to take less than the usual payment; +indeed, I think that Chinese innkeepers are far too independent a class +to be forced, nor, though they have the reputation of being brutal and +truculent, did I see them maltreat anyone, but I much objected to being +sold to the beggars and to being deserted on critical occasions. When +soldiers were sent, and any trouble was threatened, they usually slipped +off their brilliant coat cloaks and disappeared, and in reply to my +subsequent remonstrances said, “What are four against two thousand?” a +specious way of excusing themselves, for the mandarin’s letter is +all-powerful even in a beggar’s hand. + +Money annoyances began early, and never ceased. Before leaving Wan Hsien +I bought 10,000 _cash_, brass coins, about the size of a halfpenny, +inscribed with Chinese characters, and with a square hole in the middle. +By this they are threaded a hundred at a time on a piece of straw twist, +and at that time (for the exchange fluctuates daily) the equivalent of +two shillings weighed eight pounds! The eighteen shillings in _cash_ +with which I started weighed seventy-two pounds, and this had to be +distributed among the coolies, the boss, or _fu-tou_, being responsible +for the whole. But no reliance is to be placed on the _cash_ shop. There +may be _cash_ wanting, small _cash_, spurious _cash_; consequently every +string must be counted, and this operation frequently took more than an +hour. A few _cash_ in each hundred are claimed for the “string.” On +nearly every string small _cash_ used to be found, and the haggling and +the counting occupied one of the best morning hours. This process, in +common with everything which has to do with money, is intensely +interesting to every Chinese, and the dullest wits are bright on the +subject. Some villages would only receive small _cash_; others rejected +it altogether. + +The silver was a greater nuisance than the brass. The silver shoes I got +in Hankow had been broken up into four pieces each, but even then they +were unmanageably big and had to be chopped again, usually by the +village blacksmith with his heavy tools, and weighed again to make sure +that all had been returned. Then the man to whom you pay over a fragment +of your broken _sycee_, for which the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank was +responsible, puts it first into the palm of one hand, then into the +other, looks at it askance, and then says the “touch” is bad, it is +inferior silver, and so on. This is after you have agreed to pay a +certain weight in silver for an article, say half an ounce. Then it +appears that not only is the “touch” inferior, but the ounce of that +town is a heavier ounce than the ounce of the last, and that your scale +is a bad one, and that the silver must be weighed in a “good scale,” +_i.e._, the seller’s own; and between the “touch” and the varying +weights, and the differing values of taels, and the charges for breaking +and weighing and possibly for assaying the _sycee_, the bewildered +traveller, who has three things always to think of—the number of _cash_ +to the tael, the quality of the silver, and the weight of the tael—would +gladly compound by paying a much larger percentage than all this +botheration really costs. One of the greatest aggravations is when the +_cash_ strings break just as one is starting, and a thousand _cash_ roll +over the inn yard and lose themselves in heaps and holes. Then the +innkeeper exerts himself and clears the yard of the crowd, and a +diligent search is instituted. It is useless to say “Never mind if a few +are left behind,” for it is a point of honour with the _fu-tou_, who is +responsible for everything, that not a _cash_ shall be missing. + +In this chapter I have endeavoured to glance at the most salient +features of SZE CHUAN travel, leaving others to emerge _en route_. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + SAN-TSAN-PU TO LIANG-SHAN HSIEN + + +The first two days passed uneventfully. I was set down to be stared at +seven times a day, but the village people were inoffensive. We passed +through rich and cultivated country, with many noble farmhouses with six +or eight irregular roofs, handsome, roofed, entrance gates, deep eaves, +and many gables of black beams and white plaster, as in Cheshire. Next +pine-clothed hills appeared, and then the grand pass of Shen-kia-chao +(2900 feet) lifted us above habitation and cultivation into a solitary +mountain region of rock, scrub, torrents, and waterfalls. The road +ascends the pass by 1140 steps on the edge of a precipice, which is +fenced the whole way by granite uprights two feet high, carrying long +granite rails eight inches square. Two chairs can pass along the whole +length. The pass is grand and savage. There were brigands on the road, +and it was patrolled by soldiers, small bodies of whom I met in their +stagey uniforms, armed with lances with long pennons and short bows and +arrows. These bows need a strong man’s strength to string them, and +bow-and-arrow drill is a great military exercise. The price of rice had +risen considerably, _cash_ was scarce, and as in some parts even of this +prosperous province men do little more than keep body and soul together +by their labour, even a slight rise means starvation and death, and it +is fierce, cruel want which turns men into robbers in China, many of the +stouter spirits preferring to prey on their neighbours in this fashion +to depending on their charity. At one point on the pass where there were +some trees, three criminals were hanging in cages with their feet not +quite touching the ground. The _chai-jen_ said that they were to be +starved to death. Not far off were two human heads which looked as if +they had been there for some time, hanging in two cages, with a ghastly +look of inquisitive intelligence on their faces. + +[Illustration: PASS OF SHEN-KIA-CHAO.] + +All had been robbers. Chinese justice is retributive, and takes little +account of human life. We met a number of chained prisoners on their way +to Wan, all with that peculiarly degraded and brutish look which a +lavish growth of unkempt hair on the usually smoothly shaven head of a +Chinese invariably produces. It was impossible not to pity these poor +fellows, specially as they were most likely driven to their crimes by +hunger, remembering as I did, and that vividly, the judgment-seat of the +Naam-hoi magistrate at Canton, with a row of shivering prisoners +kneeling on pounded glass on the stone floor in front of it, with their +foreheads an inch from the ground. At this time China, with its crowds, +its poverty, its risks of absolute famine from droughts or floods, its +untellable horrors, its filth, its brutality, its venality, its +grasping, clutching, and pitiless greed, and its political and religious +hopelessness, sat upon me like a nightmare. There are other and better +aspects which dawn on the traveller more slowly, and there is even a +certain lovableness about the people. I only put down what were my +impressions at the time. + +From the rugged summit of the Shen-kia-chao pass we dropped down into +cultivated land, and at a large village I put up at an inn where I had a +mandarin’s room, very shabby and ruinous, and with a leaky roof, which +compelled me to shift my bed several times in the night, but as it had a +window-frame from which all the paper had been torn off, it was airy, +and with a bunch of incense sticks I overpowered the evil smells. The +next morning there was a great row before I left, about _cash_ as usual, +accusations of theft being freely bandied about. I was in my chair in +the yard when it began, and soon a crowd of men were brandishing their +arms (I don’t think the Chinese possess fists) in my face, shouting and +yelling with a noise and apparent fury not to be imagined by anyone who +has not seen an excited Chinese mob. They yelled into my ears and struck +my chair with their tools to attract my attention, but I continued to +sit facing them, never moving a muscle, as I was quite innocent of the +cause of the quarrel, and at last they subsided and let me depart. I +doubt much whether this and many similar ebullitions would have occurred +if I had had a European man with me. + +It was a pleasant region through which we passed in the grey mist, of +small rice-fields step above step in every little valley, the broadest +steps at the bottom, of large, handsome farmhouses, large stone tombs in +the hillsides, fine temples, wayside shrines, and _pai-lows_ or +_pai-fangs_. These erections are finer and more numerous in SZE CHUAN +than I have seen them elsewhere in China. Some villages on that day’s +journey were approached under six stone portals, remarkable for their +dignity and artistic perfection. Von Richthofen remarks upon some of the +SZE CHUAN _pai-fangs_ as being “masterpieces of Chinese art.” I learned +that some of them commemorate, as in Korea, the administrative virtues +of local officials, but the genuine value of the tribute is dubious. + +[Illustration: WAYSIDE SHRINE.] + +I have no hard and fast theory regarding these portals. They would be an +interesting subject for investigation. It is quite possible that the +Chinese _pai-fang_ is an accretion on such primitive structures as the +triliths of Stonehenge, the _coran_ of India—still, according to +Fergusson, used in its ancient timber form at Hindu marriages—the +_torii_ of Japan, still mostly of wood, and the slighter but nearly +similar structure which marks the entrance to royal property in Korea. +It is probable that the simpler forms in China are the most ancient, and +that superb decoration of many examples belongs to the later centuries. +I cannot see any reason for connecting the _pai-fang_ with the +introduction of Buddhism into China. The _torii_ in Japan, the simplest +existing form of the structure, is connected with Shinto, which existed +centuries before Buddhism travelled to Japan from Korea. + +I always objected to halt at a city, but arriving at that of Liang-shan +Hsien late on the afternoon of the third day from Wan, it was necessary +to change the _chai-jen_ and get my passport copied. An imposing city it +is, on a height, approached by a steep flight of stairs with a sharp +turn under a deep picturesque gateway in a fine wall, about which are +many picturesque and fantastic buildings. The gateway is almost a +tunnel, and admits into a street fully a mile and a half long, and not +more than ten feet wide, with shops, inns, brokers, temples with highly +decorated fronts, and Government buildings “of sorts” along its whole +length. + +I had scarcely time to take it in when men began to pour into the +roadway from every quarter, hooting, and some ran ahead—always a bad +sign. I proposed to walk, but the chairmen said it was not safe. The +open chair, however, was equally an abomination. The crowd became dense +and noisy; there was much hooting and yelling. I recognised many cries +of _Yang kwei-tze!_ (foreign devil) and “_Child-eater!_” swelling into a +roar; the narrow street became almost impassable; my chair was struck +repeatedly with sticks; mud and unsavoury missiles were thrown with +excellent aim; a well-dressed man, bolder or more cowardly than the +rest, hit me a smart whack across my chest, which left a weal; others +from behind hit me across the shoulders; the howling was infernal: it +was an angry Chinese mob.[37] There was nothing for it but to sit up +stolidly, and not to appear hurt, frightened, or annoyed, though I was +all three. + +Unluckily the bearers were shoved to one side, and stumbling over some +wicker oil casks (empty, however), knocked them over, when there was a +scrimmage, in which they were nearly knocked down. One runner dived into +an inn doorway, which the innkeeper closed in a fury, saying he would +not admit a foreigner; but he shut the door on the chair, and I got out +on the inside, the bearers and porters squeezing in after me, one +chair-pole being broken in the crush. I was hurried to the top of a +large inn yard and shoved into a room, or rather a dark shed. The +innkeeper tried, I was told, to shut and bar the street-door, but it was +burst open, and the whole of the planking torn down. The mob surged in +1500 or 2000 strong, led by some _literati_, as I could see through the +chinks. + +There was then a riot in earnest; the men had armed themselves with +pieces of the doorway, and were hammering at the door and wooden front +of my room, surging against the door to break it down, howling and +yelling. _Yang-kwei-tze!_ had been abandoned as too mild, and the yells, +as I learned afterwards, were such as “Beat her!” “Kill her!” “Burn +her!” The last they tried to carry into effect. My den had a second +wooden wall to another street, and the mob on that side succeeded in +breaking a splinter out, through which they inserted some lighted +matches, which fell on some straw and lighted it. It was damp, and I +easily trod it out, and dragged a board over the hole. The place was all +but pitch-dark, and was full of casks, boards, and chunks of wood. The +door was secured by strong wooden bars. I sat down on something in front +of the door with my revolver, intending to fire at the men’s legs if +they got in, tried the bars every now and then, looked through the +chinks, felt the position serious—darkness, no possibility of escaping, +nothing of humanity to appeal to, no help, and a mob as pitiless as +fiends. Indeed, the phrase, “hell let loose,” applied to the howls and +their inspiration. + +They brought joists up wherewith to break in the door, and at every +rush—and the rushes were made with a fiendish yell—I expected it to give +way. At last the upper bar yielded, and the upper part of the door caved +in a little. They doubled their efforts, and the door in another minute +would have fallen in, when the joists were thrown down, and in the midst +of a sudden silence there was the rush, like a swirl of autumn leaves, +of many feet, and in a few minutes the yard was clear, and soldiers, who +remained for the night, took up positions there. One of my men, after +the riot had lasted for an hour, had run to the _yamen_ with the news +that the people were “murdering a foreigner,” and the mandarin sent +soldiers with orders for the tumult to cease, which he might have sent +two hours before, as it can hardly be supposed that he did not know of +it. + +The innkeeper, on seeing my special passport, was uneasy and apologetic, +but his inn was crowded, he had no better room to give me, and I was too +tired and shaken to seek another. I was half inclined to return to Wan, +but, in fact, though there was much clamour and hooting in several +places, I was only actually attacked once again, and am very glad that I +persevered with my journey. + +Knowing that my safety was assured, I examined what seemed as if it +might have been a death-trap, and found it was a lumber-room, black and +ruinous, with a garret above, of the floor of which little remained but +the joists. My floor was in big holes, with heaps and much rubbish of +wood and plaster, and became sloppy in the night from leakage from the +roof. There was just clear space enough for my camp bed. It was very +cold and draughty, and after my candle was lighted rows of sloping eyes +were perseveringly applied to the chinks on the street side, and two +pairs to those on the other side. I should like to have done their +owners some harmless mischief! + +The host’s wife came in to see me, and speaking apologetically of the +riot, she said, “If a foreign woman went to your country, you’d kill +her, wouldn’t you?” I have since quite understood what I have heard: +that several foreign ladies have become “queer” and even insane as the +result of frights received in riots, and that the wife of one British +consul actually died as the result. Consul-General Jamieson truly says +that no one who has heard the howling of an angry Chinese mob can ever +forget it. + +The next morning opened in blessed quiet. There was hardly the usual +crowd in the inn yard. Carpenters were busy repairing the demolished +doorway. A new pole had been attached to my chair by the innkeeper. +There were many soldiers in the street, through which I was carried in +the rain without my hat. Not a remark was made. Hardly a head was +turned. It was so perfectly quiet and orderly that after a time the +_fu-tou_ suggested that I might put on my hat! The events of the day +before would have appeared a hideous dream but that my shoulders were +very sore and aching, and that two of the coolies who had been beaten +for serving a foreigner bore some ugly traces of it. My nerves were +somewhat shaken, and for some weeks I never entered the low-browed gate +of a city without more or less apprehension. + +Liang-shan is an ancient and striking city. In the long, narrow main +street, the houses turn deep-eaved gables, with great horned +projections, to the roadway. There are many fine temples with their +fronts profusely and elaborately decorated with dragons, divinities, and +arabesques in coloured porcelain relief, or in deeply and admirably +carved grey plaster, the effect of the latter closely resembling stone. +The city manufactures paper from the _Brousonetia papyrifera_, both fine +and coarse, printed cottons, figured silks, and large quantities of the +imitation houses, horses, men, furniture, trunks, etc., which are burned +to an extravagant extent at burials. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI. + LIANG-SHAN HSIEN TO HSIA-SHAN-PO + + +It was a relief to get out into the open country, though for some time I +felt shaken by the two hours’ tension of the day before. The drizzle in +which I started soon developed into heavy rain, which lasted for nine +hours, turning every rivulet into a tawny torrent. It was a very +interesting journey even in the downpour. Liang-shan is on the western +slope of one among a cluster of ranges, the steep eastern side of which +I climbed the day before, and after passing through the town the road +dips down into a rolling plain, extending widely in every direction, at +that time a great inundated swamp of rice-fields of every size and +shape, threaded by a narrow stone road, and abounding in small islands, +frequently walled round, on which the large farmhouses stand, screened +by bamboo and cypress groves, or temples, ofttimes red, with magnificent +trees and priests’ dwellings surrounding them. + +A background of tall pines, cypresses, and bamboo threw into striking +relief a temple of unusual appearance, with a fine canopy roof of glazed +green tiles, the front rising from the water, the rest of the “island” +enclosed by a wall of imperial red. I reached it by wading a hundred +yards in very chilly water, and found a plain, square, open building of +red sandstone, surrounded by a broad, stone platform. In the centre are +two fine palms, in stone vases, and a severe _pai-fang_, on the north +platform a plain stone altar, and a tablet with an incised inscription, +and behind this a wall with incised inscriptions divided by pilasters; +all is severely handsome and absolutely plain. It is a temple of +Confucius, and the simplicity of the few which I was able to enter +contrasts boldly with the crowded and grotesque monstrosities of the +Buddhist and Taoist temples. Truly the “Great Teacher” was one of the +greatest of men, for he has cast into a mould of iron for two thousand +years the thought, social order, literature, government, and education +of 400,000,000 of our race. + +Passing Sar-pu, a village composed almost entirely of fine temples, and +through Chin-tai, where the temples are of great size, and the carved +stone front of one of them of great beauty, under many highly decorated +_pai-fangs_, and past some Chinese Chatsworths and Eatons, and large +“brick noggin” farmhouses, we re-entered hills and afterwards mountains, +crossing the beautiful pass of Fuh-ri-gan by a fine stone staircase of +over 5000 broad, easy steps, with a handsome kerbstone, all in perfect +repair! These stairs begin at the bridge and inn of Shan-rang-sar, more +Tyrolese than Chinese in aspect. Indeed, every day I dropped some +preconceived ideas of what Chinese scenery and buildings must be like, +and I hope that my readers will drop theirs, if they are of willow plate +origin, before they have finished this volume. + +I had now entered on the fringe of one of the richest coal regions in +the world, seams of coal, practically inexhaustible, apparently +underlying the whole surface of Central SZE CHUAN. Limestone mountains +and cliffs, and caverned limestone with an infinite variety of ferns, +had suggested the probable neighbourhood of coal, and in these mountains +it is to be encountered everywhere. It crops out even in the redundant +vegetation by the roadside, and near the mountain hamlets the children, +with small baskets, hack it daily with rough knives, for cooking +purposes. It appears in lumps along the beds of streams, in the sides of +the tanks in which bamboo is macerated for paper, and in the +mountain-sides, where small collieries, with most primitive “workings,” +exist. + +My attention was several times attracted by sheds among the trees, and +by men and boys crawling out of holes in the cliff side with baskets, +the black contents of which they deposited in these. Also, occasionally +scrambling up to a black orifice in the limestone, I came upon a +“gallery,” four feet high, down which Lilliputian wagons, holding about +one hundredweight each, descend from “workings” within along a tramway +only twelve inches wide. From some holes boys crept out with small +creels, holding not more than twenty-five pounds, roped on their backs, +and little room to spare above them. All these “workings” between +Liang-shan and Wen-kia-cha, sixty _li_,[38] were at a considerable +height above the torrent, which dashed down what was frequently only a +ravine, and all that could be seen were small borings just large enough +to admit a man crawling, or, in some cases, the small trollies before +mentioned. + +[Illustration: A CHINESE CHATSWORTH.] + +In that mountain region, in which I gathered from many symptoms that the +people are specially superstitious, the coal seams are only worked on a +level, not downwards, for fear of grazing the Dragon’s back and making +him shake the earth, but they cannot say whether it is a universal +dragon, the curves of whose tremendous spine are omnipresent, or a +provincial or a local dragon! On the plain from which I had ascended +fuel is scarce and dear, and strings of coolies, each carrying two +hundredweight, supply it with coal from these mountains. Lump coal, +burning with but little smoke or ash, is worth 2_s._ 6_d._ per ton at +the “pit’s mouth,” and is retailed at from 4_s._ to 5_s._ per ton, +according to distance, in the low country. Later I saw many collieries +worked with some skill and with a very large “output.” + +Though it rained heavily all day, the atmosphere was fairly clear. That +pass of Fuh-ri-gan is as beautiful as the finest parts of Japan, which +it much resembles—lonely, romantic, shut in by high-peaked, fantastic +mountains, forest-clothed to their summits, and cleft by deep ravines, +with tumbling torrents, fern and lycopodium-fringed. In the forest there +were six varieties of coniferæ, oaks, chestnuts, walnuts, the +_Cunninghames Sinensis_ (?), a tree of great beauty and much utility, +the fine evergreen _Hoangho_ (_Ficus infectoria_), the _Xylosma +japonica_, with laurel-like leafage, and many others, including a +leafless tree which was a mass of pink blossoms. Of evergreen shrubs and +trailers I counted thirty-seven near the roadside! + +But the speciality of these passes is the bamboo. There are high hills +forested to their summits with different varieties, a singular and +beautiful sight, with an infinite variety of colour. There are the +golden-plumed bamboo, with its golden stems and the golden light under +its golden plumes, the plumed dark green and the plumed light green, +full-plumed things of perfect beauty, as tall as forest trees of average +height. There is also a feathery bamboo with branches pointing upwards, +a creation of exquisite grace, light and delicate, with its stem as +straight as an arrow, and attaining a height of fully seventy feet, all +forming a dense but not an entangled mass. At one point, 1400 straight, +broad “altar stairs, slope through darkness up to God,” a majestic +sight, for from either side the great green and golden plumed bamboos +droop gracefully to meet each other, and the staircase mounts upward in +a golden twilight. Altogether that pass is a glory of trees, ferns, and +trailers, mostly sub-tropical, and is noisy with the clash of torrents, +though silent as to bird-life. During the whole day the only birds I saw +were some blue jays. + +But not sub-tropical was the raw, damp, penetrating wind, which blew +half a gale at the top of the pass, and pretty miserable was the inn in +the fertile, green, malarious hole to which we made an abrupt descent of +1500 feet. My stout “regulation” waterproof, which had withstood the +storm and stress of many Asiatic journeys, had given way; the waterproof +covers of most of the baggage, torn by rough usage, let the water +through; and my cushions were soaked. I had only six inches to spare on +either side of my stretcher in the absolutely dark and noxious hole in +which I slept. The candle-wicks were wet, spluttered, and went out, and +I had to eat in the darkness rendered visible by the inn lamp. + +But in such country places the people are quiet and harmless, and I sat +for a long time in the open public space, where the black rafters +dripped black slime. The attempt at a fire was in the centre of the clay +floor, over which a big black pot hung from the roof. My drowned coolies +huddled up in their wadded quilts, and I in a blanket, and two wretched, +ragged, hatless, shoeless, half-clad _chai-jen_, were all trying to +light the end of a green sapling with some damp straw. It was truly +deplorable, squalor without picturesqueness, and failing to get warm, I +went shivering to bed. + +The following morning was dry and fair, with a little feeble sunshine. +Crossing the Sai-pei-tu Pass, at a height of 1720 feet, on which, as on +the Fuh-ri-gan, there were several collieries, all respectful to the +dragon’s back, we passed through very interesting country all day, at +times fascinating from its novelty. + +[Illustration: BRIDGE AND INN OF SHAN-RANG-SAR.] + +Cities of refuge crowded on nearly inaccessible rocks can be seen miles +away, one a special marvel, built anywhere and everywhere on an isolated +rock, resembling Mont St. Michel, another with a striking temple of +enormous size for its centre, with monastic buildings, fortifications, +“brick noggin” houses, clinging as they can to the rock, piled one on +another round it, the whole surrounded by an embattled wall following +the contour of the rock. They are second in picturesqueness only to the +lama-serais of Tibet. + +As the country became more open, besides these fortified refuges on +rocky heights, which suggest possible peril, while the frequency with +which solitary houses occur tells of complete security, there are great +solitary temples with porcelain fronts in rich colouring, mandarins and +landowners’ houses rivalling some of our renowned English homes in size +and stateliness, distilleries, paper and flour mills; and every town and +large village has its special industry—silk weaving, straw plaiting, hat +making, dressing hides, iron or brass work, pottery and china, +chair-making and bamboo furniture generally, indigo dyeing, carving and +gilding idols, making the red paper enormously used for religious and +festive purposes, and the imitation gold and silver coins and “shoes” +burned as offerings to ancestors, etc. + +The weather became so grim that of the large mansions, splendid from a +distance, I was only able to get a very poor photograph of one. The +mandarin proprietor with many attendants came out to the high road, and +asked me to “take” his family. I said I could not, for I could not +finish the portraits in such weather in less than three or four days; +and then he asked me to be his guest for those days, and he would give +me a large room. I did not wish to pose as an itinerant photographer, +and had grave doubts as to what my reception might really be in the +women’s quarters, and I dreaded the stifling curiosity succeeded by the +stagnation of dulness, so I excused myself. + +The stone bridges on the road are very fine, with piers terminating in +bold carvings, frequently of dragons, but occasionally comically +realistic, such as a man carrying an oil basket, a man yawning, a dog +with his head between his legs, a woman combing a girl’s hair, and the +like. Three and four arches with a bold spring are frequent; the +parapets are decorated; and though the road may be only six feet wide, +on the roadways of some of the bridges three carriages can drive +abreast. There are other and older bridges in which the piers are heavy +uprights of stone supporting stone flags occasionally twenty-five and +even thirty feet long. The new, arched bridges, of which the province +may well be proud, are sometimes built by subscription, but are often +the public-spirited gift of a local magnate, whose name and good deed +are recorded in stone. The wooden bridges, which I found always in good +repair, are like those of Switzerland, and, like them, have substantial +roofs frequently double and occasionally treble-tiered, often covered +with glazed ridge and furrow tiles. Some of these roofs are lined with +highly polished carnation-red lacquer, in which the names of the donors, +with complimentary sentences, are deeply incised in gold. In some +bridges the row of pillars supporting the roof is also lacquered and +polished. There are several bridges which I crossed in SZE CHUAN of from +eight to twelve lofty stone arches each, which for stability, beauty, +span, height, and spring of the arches might compare, and scarcely +unfavourably, with some of our finest English structures. In China I +never once had, as in Persia, Korea, and Kashmir, to ford a stream +because the bridge was either ruinous or too shaky to venture upon. + +The industries of the towns and villages produce a large amount of +traffic on the roads. Strings of coolies going at a dog trot, carrying +paper, salt, tobacco, dyed cottons, hats, and rush piths for lamps, +passed us incessantly, but no beasts of burden, and only one saddle +pony, which tripped rapidly down one of the longest flights of stairs +with ease and agility. The woods are silent; the call of the handsome +pheasant to his dowdy mate was the only bird note I heard. There is a +great paucity of such animals as make our farmyards cheerful. I did not +see horses or mules anywhere between Wan Hsien and Paoning Fu, or sheep. +Fowls, geese, and ducks there were in abundance, a few cats, and many +old dogs, the young ones having been mostly eaten early in the month. + +[Illustration: A PORCELAIN TEMPLE.] + +The water buffalo ploughs, harrows the rice swamps, turns the grain and +oil mills, and does many other useful turns. I never saw him used as a +beast of burden. It is hard to become reconciled to the appearance of +the great “water ox,” with his mostly hairless, blackish-grey skin, in +places with a pinkish hue, and his flat head, carried level with his +uncouth, unwieldy body, his flat nose and curved flat horns, looking +altogether like a survival from antediluvian days. Buffaloes are +uncertain in their tempers, though usually very docile, and, like their +owners, are liable to frenzies of fury when frightened. + +[Illustration: THE WATER BUFFALO.] + +On this route it was amusing to see very small children leading them out +to feed on the grass which grows on the edges of the rice dykes, the +children clambering on their backs and sitting there while they fed +because there was no other dry land to sit on. They are extremely +sensitive to the bites of insects, and, for this and other reasons, +spend much of their leisure time lying in muddy pools which are dug for +their benefit. A group of their grotesque, flat heads appearing above +the water is truly comical. They are credited with a great aversion to +what the Chinese call the “odour” of Europeans, and I have seen a herd +of them “go for” a foreigner in such an unmistakably vindictive fashion +that he took to his heels. The buffalo cow gives a small quantity of +very rich milk with a peculiar flavour. The beef obtainable in SZE CHUAN +is mostly buffalo, and is often the flesh of an animal which has +rendered man many years of service. + +On that day’s journey the heralds of the short and glorious procession +of the flowers appeared: plum, peach, and cherry blossom; violets grew +in shady places; a clematis lighted up the margins of woods with pendent +clusters of bright yellow bloom; pink and white fumitories made the +roadside hedges gay; and there were a few others. + +The dampness was incredible, and as I had then made nearly two degrees +north from Wan Hsien, the temperature had fallen, and the mercury hung +at about 44°. I never knew so damp an atmosphere even in Japan. Ferns, +mosses, trailers, and all the beauteous vegetation which revels in damp +abounded. The leafage of the root crops was lush and succulent. There is +no winter, and though only the last of February, the opium crop, which +over much of the day’s journey was the principal crop, with maize sown +between the rows, was eight inches high, and its lower leaves, which are +used as food by the people and taste like spinach, were served to me +that night for the first time as a vegetable. Travelling all day in such +a damp, chilly atmosphere in wet clothes was a little trying. It is +impossible to dry anything in the small, poor country inns. + +We passed through the town of Yun-i, with a street half a mile long, in +which every house is given up to the making or staining of red and +yellow paper, which is enormously used, especially at the New Year, +which was just over. Everyone nearly was more or less smeared with these +brilliant colours, and the stream outside the town was as red as blood. +Hundreds of coolies were travelling both north and south with bales of +this paper. + +I had various qualms as I passed through the low, dark gateway, +specially when I saw men running ahead to collect a crowd, calling in at +the shops and houses “A foreigner!” or “A foreign devil!” but though the +crowd completely filled the street and was noisy, it was neither hostile +nor a mob. One cause of the trouble at Liang-shan was that the +_chai-jen_, instead of keeping with me, went off to the _yamen_. After +that I insisted that one of them, when we reached a town or large +village, should walk in front of my chair. At Yun-i a runner went before +me striding fiercely, a ragged, scrofulous, shoeless, hatless, wretched +little fellow, but as he carried the mandarin’s letter, when the people +crowded and progress was impeded, he waved his arms and pushed them +right and left, shouting the Chinese equivalent of “In the _kuan’s_ +name.” + +[Illustration: ORDINARY COVERED BRIDGE.] + +One great feature of that day’s journey was coal. Coal cropped up +everywhere, and any cutting revealed a seam of coal. Over a +hundredweight—100 catties—sold for forty _cash_ (about five farthings), +picked lumps burning with a clear flame. Miners earn twenty _cash_ per +100 catties, and can get 600 in a day. There is iron in the +neighbourhood. From one hill I saw a considerable smoke, and the +_chai-jen_ said it proceeded from large smelting works, but I only give +this as hearsay. I observed that many articles which I had elsewhere +seen made of wood are in this region made of iron, and that iron is +liberally used on household and agricultural implements. In the +peasants’ houses coal is burned in a hole in the middle of the floor, +and the smoke finds its way out anywhere, as it used to do in Highland +hovels. + +After a very varied day’s journey the damp cold became so paralysing, +and the mist so thick, that I halted earlier than usual at the small +mountain hamlet of Hsai-shan-po, where the wayside inn was new, indeed +not finished, and consisted only of a central shed with a fire of +bituminous coal burning with heavy smoke in a hole in the middle of the +floor, and a room on either side, one occupied by the host, a “decent +man,” and his well-behaved family. The partitions are lath and plaster, +the walls beginning a foot from the ground and ending two feet from the +roof, allowing the entrance of some light, much draught, many hens, a +few young pigs, and great clouds of smoke. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + HSAI-SHAN-PO TO SIAO-KIAO + + +It was partly to get Sunday’s rest in peace and quietness that I put up +at this mountain hamlet. I could see to read and write without opening +the door, and could move round my bed, and the smells were not so awful +as usual. The central shed was full all day, and occasionally the women +who came sent a polite request that I would exhibit myself to them, to +which I always cheerfully responded. + +The “enormous size” of my feet, though my shoes are only threes, +interested them greatly. I was much surprised to find that in SZE CHUAN, +except among the Manchu or Tartar women and those of a degraded class, +foot-binding is universal, and that the shoe of even the poorest and +most hard-worked peasant woman does not exceed four inches in length. +Though in walking these “golden lilies” look like hoofs, and the women +hobble on their heels, I have seen them walk thirty _li_ in a day, and +some have told me that they can walk sixty easily! Two women came to +Hsia-shan-po from a village twenty-seven mountain _li_ away, merely out +of curiosity to see me, and returned the same afternoon. The hobble +looks as if it must be very painful, and is a sort of waddle also. + +So great an authority as Dr. Wells Williams writes, “The practice ... is +more an inconvenient than a dangerous custom,” but I have never seen a +hospital in China without some case or cases not only of extreme danger +to the foot or great toe, but of ulcers or gangrene, involving absolute +loss by amputation. It is fashion, of course. Hitherto a Chinese woman +with “big feet” is either denationalised or vile; a girl with unbound +feet would have no chance of marriage, and a bridegroom finding that his +bride had large feet when he expected small ones, would be abundantly +justified by public opinion in returning her at once to her parents.[39] +It is essentially a native Chinese custom of extreme antiquity, and it +is remarkable that the Manchu conquerors, who successfully imposed the +“pigtail” and narrow sleeves on the conquered, have totally failed even +to modify this barbarous custom. + +There is no definite age for beginning to bind the feet, but rich +people’s girls usually have it done between four and five years, and +poor people’s either at betrothal or between seven and nine years, +according to local custom. The process is very much more painful at the +latter age, and the treatment of the big toe is different. In the case +of the younger child, four of the toes are doubled under the foot, the +big toe is laid on the top, and the deformity is then tightly bandaged. +In both cases in adult life, when the process is complete, there is a +deep cleft across the sole of the foot between the heel and toes, which +are forced close together. If skilfully bound, this cleft ought to be +deep and narrow enough to hold a Mexican dollar. The foot-binding +process is too well known to need any description. + +I saw the initial stage both at Canton and Hsia-shan-po. In the last +case the girl was nearly ten, and was just betrothed to an elderly rich +man. She suffered agonies, the toes were violently bent under the foot +and bandaged in that position, and from the sounds I think that some of +the tendons were ruptured. Yet both she and a small child at Canton +consented willingly in order to get “rich husbands.” The lot of the +women of the lower class is rough and severe, and it is not surprising +that girls long to escape from it by making rich marriages, even though +the escape be by such a path of pain. Then again the weak feminine +nature desires to secure the admiration which in poetry, prose, and +common speech is bestowed on the “golden lilies.” + +A woman has to bandage her feet every day of her life, or the “beauty” +of the shape is lost, and the whole process of deforming them is carried +out by carefully regulated bandaging. The Chinese women greatly object +to show their uncovered feet. I have only twice seen them. They are very +painful objects and the leg, the development of the muscles of the calf +having been checked, tapers from the knee to the foot, and there are +folds of superfluous skin. The bandages are not covered by stockings. +The shoes worn are very soft, and where possible are of embroidered +silk, with soles of stitched leather. The women make their own, and the +peasant women sit outside their houses in the evenings stitching or +embroidering them. + +As a set-off against the miseries of foot-binding is the extreme comfort +of a Chinese woman’s dress in all classes, no corsets or waist-bands, or +constraints of any kind, and possibly the full development of the figure +which it allows mitigates or obviates the evils which we should think +would result from altering its position on the lower limbs. So +comfortable is Chinese costume, and such freedom does it give, that +since I wore it in Manchuria and on this journey, I have not been able +to take kindly to European dress. + +But in SZE CHUAN it varies from women’s dress, either Manchu or Chinese, +as I had previously seen it worn. All Chinese women wear trousers, but +they show very little, often not at all, below the neat petticoat, with +its plain back and front and full kilted sides. But in SZE CHUAN (and it +may be elsewhere) the feminine skirt is discarded, and the trousers, +either of a sailor cut, or full and tightly swathed round what should be +ankles, are worn with only the ordinary loose, wide-sleeved garment +fastening at the side, reaching only to the knees above them. It is a +hideous dress. The petticoat is only worn by outcasts, and this has +compelled some of the missionary ladies, who wear Chinese dress, to +adopt the wide trousers. I never became reconciled to them. The loose +upper garment and half jacket, half sleeved cloak, is most convenient, +as for changes of seasons only easily carried changes of underclothing +are needed. + +After the disturbance at Liang-shan I took my revolver, which I had +previously carried in the well of my chair, “into common wear,” putting +it into a very pacific looking cotton bag, and attached it to my belt +under this capacious garment, hoping devoutly that its six ball +cartridges might always repose peacefully in their chambers. It is most +unwise to let firearms be seen in Chinese travelling. + +From Hsia-shan-po onwards the country is less romantic. We had +previously left the main road, and encountered Chinese roads at their +worst, narrow dykes passing through flooded rice-fields, or through +farms where the farmers gradually nibble the road away, or convey it +tortuously through their own farmyards, or in a few cases absorb it +altogether. The mud for days was deep. It was impossible to walk unless +equipped with an arrangement which attached three spikes to the heel of +the boot or sandal. The width of the road was usually twelve inches, +enough for single file, but when two strings of men carrying chairs or +burdens met, the difficulties were great, as there was always the risk +of slipping off the road into two feet of chilly water and slime. So +when my chair-bearers saw another chair in the distance they yelled as +loud as they could, expecting the other chair to give place, and edge +off where the strip of _terra firma_ happened to widen a little. + +On one occasion, however, we met a portly man in a closed chair, +travelling with only two bearers, and, in spite of yells, he came +straight on till our poles were nearly touching. The clamour was +tremendous, my seven men and his two all shouting and screaming at once, +as if in a perfect fury, while he sat in supercilious calm, I achieving +the calm, but not the superciliousness. In the midst of the _fracas_ his +chair and its bearers went over into the water. The noise was +indescribable, and my bearers, whom I cannot acquit of having had +something to do with the disaster, went off at a run with yells and +peals of laughter, leaving the traveller floundering in the mire, not +breathing, but roaring execrations. + +There are roads “of sorts” to every village and hamlet. The one I was +travelling on was called by courtesy a main road. There was nothing +“main” about it but the bridges, which were always in good repair, and +four or five times its width. Had it been reduced to its present +dimensions by successful nibblings, or were the bridges built in a +glowing prophetic instinct, I wonder? The magistrate of the district is +nominally responsible for keeping the roads in order, but responsibility +is an elastic term in China. As in Korea, he has the power to order men +out to work at repairs, but he rarely does so unless he gets notice of a +forthcoming visit of a high official, for the people hate work without +pay, and he avoids this method of becoming unpopular. + +Nothing could be worse than the road which I travelled for some days. To +walk was to slide, wade, slip, and fall in the deep mud; to “ride” gave +me the unpleasing spectacle of my coolies doing the same, exposing me to +sundry abrupt changes of position, and the difficulty of passing chairs +and laden porters on the road made progress slow and tiresome. Yet much +produce was on the move, giving the impression that traffic would +increase largely if there were better means of communication. One of the +many needs of China is good roads. There are many rivers in SZE CHUAN, +but its physical configuration usually prevents the linking of these by +canals, as in the level eastern provinces, and these infamous roads +hamper trade very considerably. + +Raw, cold, drizzling hours succeeded Hsia-shan-po. The country is less +peopled, and the dwellings decidedly poorer; the corries with their +large farmhouses disappeared, and there was even a stretch of gravelly, +desolate scenery. Wherever the land is unfitted for rice culture the +population becomes thin, as the price of this staff of life is so much +enhanced by land carriage as to render it unattainable. + +I crossed the pretty pass of Kyin-pan-si, and ferried the Kiu Ho, a +clear, bright stream. There is very much opium grown in that region, and +some sugarcane, as well as all the usual cereals and root crops. “Small +_cash_” appeared, and continued for three days the currency of the +region, increasing the exasperation of all transactions. The Kiu Ho is +navigable for fair-sized junks considerably above the point at which I +crossed it, and there was much traffic in coal at Kiu Hsien, a +prefectural city finely situated on the cliffs and hills above it. + +Incredible filth, indescribable odours, which ought to receive a strong +Anglo-Saxon name, grime, forlornness, bustle, business, and discordant +noises characterise Chinese cities, and the din of Kiu Hsien was +deafening. I was carried from the river up a fine, new, broad flight of +stone stairs, at the top of which a great crowd was in readiness to +receive me, but the _chai-jen_, whose rags hardly covered them, and who +turned out to be beggars to whom the right of escorting me had been +sold, cleared the way, and turning aside at the deep, dark city gate, +along a narrow street running under the wall, I was landed among the +crowds and horrors of the yard of a Chinese city inn by no means of the +first class. However, I got a room, which, though small, dirty, and +tumbling to pieces, had an opening upon the roof of a lean-to, used for +the malodorous purpose of drying vegetables, overhanging the river, and +as I had both air and light I felt in Elysium. + +While I was eating my curry, as usual from a piece of millboard on my +lap, with a Jaeger sheet pinned round my shoulders—for it was very +cold—two _yamen_ officials, in rich brocaded silks and satins, entered, +and asked to see my passport, which they copied, using my camp bed for a +table. Be-dien was much offended, for it is outrageous, according to +Chinese etiquette, for men to enter a woman’s room. They asked me why my +passport gave me “rank,” and made me “equal to the consuls,” and how a +woman could “belong to the _literati_,” to which questions, as at that +time I was ignorant of the contents of the document, I could give no +intelligent replies. + +They told me that Kiu Hsien has 100 schools (in China numbers are always +round), and is the centre of a large trade in opium, tobacco, packing +paper, and straw hats. + +Rooms in Chinese inns usually have good bolts, but this had none, and +after dismissing Be-dien it cost me much time and labour to barricade +the door. There was an instance of superstition on the day’s journey. I +got out of the chair the wrong way, and the bearers were scared. They +said it would cause them to die within a year, and they offered incense +sticks at the next shrine to avert the calamity. In the morning I was in +the family room at the inn when the morning devotions were performed to +some gilded strips of paper inscribed with characters. The householder +put before them some lighted incense sticks, and bowed three times. + +The circumstances of the next day’s journey were decidedly unfavourable. +We had ten hours of an infamous road in a torrent of rain with a very +cold wind. I could scarcely ease the bearers at all, for my leather +shoes slipped so badly on the mud, that, even with a stout stick and +Be-dien’s help, I could not keep on my feet. The road, which was a dyke +between flooded rice-fields, never reached two feet in width. It had +once been flagged, but some of the stones had disappeared altogether, +some were tilted up, and others were tilted down, and it was truly +horrible. The Chinese hate rain, and, above all, getting their feet wet, +and I admired the jolly, manly way in which my poor fellows in their two +thin cotton garments trudged through the driving rain and slippery slush +till they had done twenty-two miles. When they reached at dusk, quite +exhausted, the wretched village of Ching-sze-yao, there was no inn, and +it was only after I had sat in the rain in the village roadway for an +hour that the _chai-jen_ induced a man to take us into a deplorable +place. + +Shelter it was not. The roof dripped from fifty points, and the walls, +having shrunk from the joists, let in the cold wind all round. There was +no fire but the fire-pots used for cooking, for the use of which there +was much squabbling, and no light, except from a clay saucer of oil, +over the rim of which some rush pith projected. I was wet to the knees, +my canvas bed was soaked, and all else, from the spoiling of waterproof +bags and covers by the hot sun of the two previous summers, but when I +saw the coolies lying on damp straw in their undried garments, each with +a fire-pot between his knees, and not a quilt to cover him, I felt very +Mark Tapleyish, specially when the house-_frau_ brought me a fire-pot +with which to warm my hands. The poverty and discomfort of this house +typified the condition in which thousands of the Chinese peasantry live. +They were good-natured people, not over-curious, and the children, who +were eaten up by skin diseases, were gentle and docile. + +The next day, March 4th, was one of clear, grey twilight, without either +wind or rain. In the last fifty miles the country had changed very +considerably, and for the worse. The passes over the mountain ranges had +brought us into the “Red Basin” of Richthofen, which is estimated as +embracing about two-thirds of the province in extent, and, perhaps, +eight or nine tenths of its wealth and population. It is supposed to +have an area of about 100,000 square miles, and a population of from +40,000,000 to 54,000,000. The soil everywhere is of a deep, bright, +rich, red colour, and contrasts with the charm of the varied greenery +which, in the absence of winter, the “Red Basin” produces during the +whole year. + +Probably no part of China supports so large a population to the acre, +and it is increasing so fast that thousands of men by unremitting toil +only keep themselves and their families a little above starvation point, +coolie labour being so redundant as to depress wages to the lowest +level. The soil is most carefully cultivated, the soft, red rock being +easily crumbled down by the peasants’ simple implements, and the whole +surface is treated by the methods which we term “garden cultivation,” +which in that beneficent climate, and with the Chinese habit of +carefully preserving the refuse of towns and villages and spreading it +on the land, so that the whole, both from plant and animal life, is +returned to the soil, two, three, and sometimes even four crops are +produced within the year! + +Within a few days’ journey lie the depopulated but fertile valleys of +YUNNAN, a noble field for SZE CHUAN emigration; but it has not occurred +to the Government to bear the considerable expense of deporting a few +millions of the toilers of the “Red Basin” to the good lands calling for +population, supplying them with seed, and supporting them for six +months! The move would tax the resources of a better-organised +administration. + +SZE CHUAN is a rich and superb province of boundless resources, and I +believe, from what I saw and heard, that the trading and farming classes +are very well off, and are able to afford many luxuries, but I certainly +saw several overcrowded regions of the “Red Basin,” where the condition +of the people deeply moved my sympathy and pity, for a docile, cheerful, +industrious, harmless population, free, as rural poverty is apt to be, +from crime and gross vice, is giving the utmost of its strength for a +wage which never permits to man, wife, or child the comfortable +sensation of satiety, and which when rice rises in price changes the +habitual short commons into starvation. + +There were no more grand porcelain-fronted temples, large country +mansions, and rich farmhouses, and instead of parallel ranges cleft by +fine passes in the grey limestone, there is a singular formation, red +sandstone hills and hummocks all more or less naturally terraced, as are +also the sides of the many pear-shaped dells which lie among them; red +cliffs, one above another, from fifteen to thirty feet high, supporting +narrow strips of red soil about two feet deep; circular hills, also of +some height, diminishing into truncated cones, with natural circular +terraces, more or less aided by art, running regularly round them, and +usually a single tree, tops what one is tempted to call the “erection.” +There is a fatiguing conventionality about that part of the Red Basin. + +One may, indeed, regard the whole of this vast basin as a mass of low +terraced hills and valleys of no width, destitute of any plains but the +great Chengtu plain, free from floods owing to its configuration, and +drained by fine navigable rivers, with many navigable ramifications, +while coal, both hard and soft, is believed to underlie the whole. Salt, +petroleum, and iron abound, and copper, silver, gold, and lead are found +on the western border, as well as enormous quantities of nitrate of soda +and sulphur. + +This great depression may be regarded as a sort of winter garden, over +much of which the mercury rarely falls below 45°, and a canopy of clouds +hanging over it all the winter keeps in the moist heat.[40] It is said +that winter sunshine is so rare in Chungking that the dogs bark at the +sun when they see it. For all the rich productions of this Red Basin, +which have kept the balance of trade for years in favour of SZE CHUAN, +there is, let me repeat, but the one outlet: the Yangtze. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + SIAO-KIAO TO HSIEH-TIEN-TZE + + +The whole country is an undulating sea of green, patterned with red—in +truth, rather monotonous for five days of journeying. The mud was +abominable all the time, but with straw shoes and grippers I managed to +do a good deal of walking. On several days my well-paid chairmen +travelled “like gentlemen,” for labour is so abundant and cheap that +they found plenty of coolies to carry my chair for forty _cash_ for four +miles (about a penny), and even for less! Every house has its opium +field, its bamboo and palm groves, fruit trees and cedars, while the +_Rhus vernicifera_, or varnish tree, the _Aleurites cordata_, or oil +tree, and the _Cupressus funebris_, which it is impossible to avoid +calling “the Noah’s ark tree,” abound. The cultivation, except the +ploughing for rice, is entirely by hand, and is so careful that it is +easy to see that most of the indigenous plants have become extinct. +Violas, fumitories, and the _anemone Japonica_, all of which grow +profusely, but solely along the margins of the roads, were all that then +or later I saw in the Red Basin; in fact, husbandry has made a clean +sweep of “weeds.” + +The farmhouses in that region are of mud, with thatched roofs, and look +poor. Straw plaiting and the making of the very large straw hats which +the coolies wear in summer are the great industries. Bad, nay infamous, +roads and small _cash_ for three days showed their power of crippling +trade. Small villages were numerous, but on a journey of 185 _li_ the +picturesque little town of King-mien-sze, on the rocky, picturesque, +non-navigable King-Ho, which I ferried, was the only approach to a +centre of population. + +When I reached the small town of Siao-kiao I found it greatly crowded +with traders, and the innkeepers so unwilling to receive a foreigner +that I had to urge my treaty rights, and then was only grudgingly +accommodated. There was a very ugly rush, and then a riot, which lasted +an hour and a half, at the very beginning of which my _chai-jen_ ran +away. My door was broken down with much noise and yells of “Foreign +devil!” “Horse-racer!” “Child-eater!” but an official arriving in the +nick of time, prevented further damage. He ought to have appeared an +hour and a half before. These rows are repulsive and unbearably +fatiguing after a day’s journey, and always delayed my dinner +unconscionably, which, as it was practically my only meal in the day, +was trying. The entry in my diary for that evening was, “Wretched +evening; riotous crowd; everything anxious and odious; noises; too cold +to sleep.” My lamp sputtered and went out, and my matches were too damp +to strike. It is objectionable to be in the dark, you know not where, +with walls absolutely precarious, and in the midst of the coarse shouts +of rough men to hear a feeble accompaniment of rats eating one’s few +things. I object strongly to a mixed crowd blocking up my doorway or +breaking in my door, for every one of the crowd knows better; even the +most ignorant coolie knows well that to intrude into a woman’s room or +in any way violate the privacy which is hers by immemorial usage and +rigid etiquette is an outrage for which there is no forgiveness, judging +from a Chinese standpoint. + +The mannerless, brutal, coarse, insolent, conceited, cowardly roughs of +the Chinese towns, ignorant beyond all description, live in a state of +filth which is indescribable and incredible, in an inconceivable +beastliness of dirt, among odours which no existing words can describe, +and actually call Japanese “_barbarian_ dwarfs”! I wondered daily more +at the goodness of people who are missionaries to the Chinese in the +interior cities, not at their coming out the first time, but at their +_coming back, knowing what they come to_. The village people are quite +different, and doubtless have attractive qualities; and it must be +admitted that Christianity does produce an external refinement among +those who receive it, which is very noticeable. Having relieved my +hoarded disgusts by these remarks, I will proceed with my narrative. + +The days, though cold and very wet, were a great rest. There was not +even the guiding a horse and preventing him from fighting, to distract +the thoughts from dwelling on any topic I chose to concentrate them +upon. My possessions, except my camera and plates, had been spoilt long +ago, so there was nothing to be anxious about; and a few rolls more or +less in the red mud did not matter, for my clothes were thickly +plastered days before. I could not fare worse than I had done, so I was +not anxious about the night’s halt; so during the day I revelled in +freedom, leisure, and solitude; but when night came, and I sat shivering +in some fœtid hole, not fit for a decent beast, with only a bamboo +railing between it and the pigsty, I often thought Chinese travelling an +utter abomination![41] + +Even the most monotonous part of the route had many interests and some +novelties. It is a marvel how the intense homogeneity of China, its +apparent inflexibility, and its actual grooviness, are incessantly +disturbed by local custom. The race, it is true, is always the same, and +the general features of the costume; every Chinese not a convict has a +shaven head and a long queue, and every woman hobbles on deformed feet; +but when it comes to environments they differ from day to day, and +sometimes from hour to hour. Here in SZE CHUAN house architecture varies +almost from day to day; each river has its own form of boat; in one +district all loads are slung from the bamboo over the shoulder; in +another they are carried in wicker creels fitted on wooden pack-saddles +on human backs. In one prefecture the purse is a skin bag attached to +the waist; in another it is a stout wooden cylinder tapering at both +ends carried across the back, and so with many other things. Food varies +with the locality, and crops with the soil. One district rejects large +_cash_, and others small, while some use a mixture. Headgear varies +greatly. Blue turbans are much worn. The shape of the straw hat +indicates the district from which the wearer comes, and local fashion +tyrannises even over baggage coolies. I wanted to give to each of mine +one of the noble straw hats made near Kiao, but they “could not” wear +them in Wan Hsien and its neighbourhood, any more than a fashionable +English girl “could” wear a last season’s hat. + +In bridges the varieties are endless, and in _pai fangs_ and temple +fronts. This ceaseless diversity in unity is very attractive in Chinese +travelling, but it has its drawbacks, for on many occasions when, owing +to weather or hurry or some other tyranny, I did not photograph some +striking peculiarity I never met with it again. It also exposes the +veracity of travellers to suspicion. One may describe some peculiarity +which is universal in one region, such as the graceful circular or +pointed arches of its bridges, while another, whose sole idea of a +Chinese bridge is stone uprights carrying flat stone slabs such as the +huge lumbering structure “which, with its wearisome but needful length, +bestrides” the Min at Foo-chow, accuses him of having drawn upon his +imagination for his facts. + +For three days of cold, grim, drizzly, or incredibly damp weather, in +which natural terraces gave way to artificial, and hills to rolls, and +roads occasionally disappeared altogether, and the dull green of the +sugarcane at times overspread the country, and the scarcity of rice +lands now and then involved a corresponding scarcity of people, we +travelled so awful a road that it mattered little when it was altogether +lost. It had long since degenerated into the slimy top of a rice dyke a +few inches wide, with a flagstone tipping up now and then to show what +it once claimed to be. The bad weather put a stop to traffic. The only +chair we met in three days came to grief close to us. The bearers fell, +the chair was smashed into matchwood, and its occupant, a somewhat +pompous-looking merchant, was deposited in three feet of slush alive +with frogs, a disaster which afforded my men cause for unbounded +hilarity for the rest of the day. + +The road is so narrow because the farmers grudge every inch taken from +their fields. As one is carried along, the chair hangs over the flooded +rice land on either side, and when anyone is seen in the distance he is +warned by a series of simultaneous yells to turn off on an intersecting +dyke. On one of these days nearly eleven hours of hard travel only +produced a result of eighteen miles! My men, though always wet to the +skin and often falling as well as slipping, never flagged or grumbled, +and trudged along joking and laughing, splendid “raw material”! + +The people were not hostile in this country region, and the rain +repressed the curiosity which I found specially irksome during the hour +I spent twice daily sitting in a village street while my men breakfasted +and dined. I became daily more convinced that the mandarins have it in +their power to repress any overt expression of anti-foreign feeling. At +Kiao, when I left the inn yard where the riot occurred the evening +before, though it was crowded, the people were perfectly orderly, and +though the long, narrow street was lined with men standing three and +four deep on each side, just leaving room for the chair to pass, no one +spoke or moved. + +That same day the _chai-jen_ were changed at the neat little city of +Ying-san Hsien, in the centre of a region where the chief industries are +making bamboo baskets, and straw plait for hats, and I sat for an hour +near the _yamen_ entrance, considering the extraordinary amount of +business which custom imposes on a Chinese mandarin. + +We have a habit, partly warrantable—for the official class in China is +the worst of “the classes”—of speaking of “the mandarins” as we might +speak of “the wolves” or “the vultures,” a rough classification which, +like similar methods, is by no means trustworthy. Mandarins are good and +bad. The system under which they hold office has a strong tendency to +make them bad. Nevertheless there are some good, just, honest men among +them, who do the best they can for their districts during their terms of +office, earn the esteem and gratitude of the people, and leave office as +poor as they entered it. With regard to the bad, their opportunities for +squeezing and oppressing are not so enormous as is often supposed, being +limited by what I am inclined to call _the right of rebellion_. When an +appeal to law comes to involve wholesale bribery, and taxation becomes +grinding, then a local rebellion on a small or large scale occurs, the +offending mandarin is driven out, the Throne quietly appoints a +successor, and peace prevails once more. + +A system in which official salaries are not a “living wage” opens the +door to large peculation, but withal China is not a heavily taxed +country, and the people are anything but helpless in official hands. In +spite of all the monstrous corruption which exists, general security and +good order prevail, and China has been increasing in wealth and +population for nearly two centuries. + +What we call mandarins (_kuans_) are all the magistrates subordinate +through the intendants of circuits (_Taotai_) to the _Tsung-tuh_ of a +province or provinces, the Governor-General, whom we call a Viceroy. +They are prefects or head magistrates of departments, and magistrates +for the subdivisions of departments. Under these, but not known as +_kuans_, are mandarins’ secretaries, often very powerful persons, +clerks, registrars, and an army of subordinates, for whom their +superiors are responsible. The Chinese call the last “rats under the +altar,” and fear them greatly. Indeed, it is said that the dread of +getting into their clutches has a more deterrent effect on evil-doers +than any prospect of punishment. Every mandarin, down to the smallest +magistrate, has office secretaries for investigating cases, recording +evidence, keeping accounts, filing papers, writing and transmitting +despatches, and other formal functions. + +Theoretically the relation between magistrate and people is strictly +paternal. Some degree of what we call corruption is inseparable from +Oriental officialism, and when kept within moderate bounds does not +disturb the filial feeling. The whole of a mandarin’s time is nominally +at the service of the people of his district. Of some, perhaps of a +goodly number throughout China, this devotion to local interests may be +literally true. Access to his tribunal may ensure a fair trial, and +probably in a majority of cases little injustice is done when a case +once comes before him. + +A gong was hung up at the _yamen_ gate, where I have so long kept my +readers shivering in the damp east wind. I am told that such a one hangs +up at every similar gate, and that on hearing it the magistrate is bound +to come out and attend to the complaint. But in practice a man has to +bribe his way from the gate to the judgment-seat, and from the +gatekeeper to the private secretary, and would be likely to be beaten if +he touched the gong. Though the mandarin may be willing to decide +justly, the underlings through whom alone approach to the judicial chair +is possible do not share his scruples. A man who can afford to grease +copiously the palms of runners, clerks, and secretaries, men unpaid or +underpaid, is sure to see his petition on the top of the pile on the +magistrate’s table, while the poorer litigant finds his delayed _sine +die_. + +[Illustration: A GROUP OF _KUANS_ (MANDARINS).] + +It is chiefly on the underpaid and hard-worked magistracy of China that +the existence of government depends. No men in mercantile positions work +so hard as these officials, and if they are conscientious, all the worse +for them. Their duties are most multifarious, and are both defined and +undefined, executive, fiscal, judicial, and at times even military. They +are responsible, not only for the taxes of their districts, but for +their order and quietness, depending for much on subordinates whom they +cannot trust, and during war, rebellion, and the floods and famines +which occur with painful frequency are compelled to an almost sleepless +vigilance, lest anything should go wrong, and they should be reported to +the Throne. It is said truly that on the Hsien or Fu magistrate the work +of at least six men devolves. He is at once tax commissioner, civil and +criminal judge, coroner, treasurer, sheriff, and much besides, and he is +supposed to have an exhaustive knowledge of everything within his +bounds. And withal he must so dexterously regulate his squeezes as that +it shall be possible for him to exist, for on his salary, attenuated as +it is by forfeitures, he cannot. + +Into the midst of this amount of responsibility, multifarious duties, +and overwork, comes the foreigner with his treaty rights, a new and +difficult element to deal with, and who may be an arrogant, bullying, +and ignorant person. I am not apologising for the crimes of mandarins. I +have suffered much from the violence of Chinese mobs, permitted, as I +believe, if not instigated, by officialism. But I have on several +occasions declined to make a formal complaint and hamper a magistrate +because of my sympathy with his difficulties. On the one side there are +orders from Peking sent down through the Viceroy that foreigners +travelling are to be protected, and that their rights under the treaties +are to be secured to them; on the other there is the anti-foreign +feeling which has been inflamed for years past by agitators, certain of +the secret societies, and what are known as the “Hunan Tracts,” and +which may be provoked into an explosion by any unintentional +indiscretion of a foreigner, or, as in my case, by such an outrage on +custom as travelling in an open chair! The riot occurs; the foreigner +suffers in his person or goods; he lodges a complaint, is backed up by +his consul; and the mandarin, who may have been miles away from the +scene of the occurrence, is held responsible, and is possibly degraded. +The large number of European and American missionaries who have become +residents in SZE CHUAN during the last twelve years have also increased +the evil considerably. So far as I saw and learned, these men and women, +with a very few exceptions, are slaves to the scrupulosity of their +observance of Chinese custom and etiquette so far as they know them, and +to their anxiety to avoid giving offence in the country in which they +live. + +But, to begin with, they are foreigners, “foreign devils”; their eyes, +their complexions, their ways of sitting and carrying their hands are +repulsive, and the belief, sometimes piteous, that they are +“child-eaters,” and use the eyes and hearts of children in medicine, is +now spread universally. Then they have come, if not, as many believe, as +spies and political agents, to teach a foreign and Western religion, +which is to subvert Chinese nationality, to wreck the venerated social +order introduced by Confucius, to destroy the reverence and purity of +domestic life and the loyalty to ancestors, and to introduce abominable +customs. + +This is, I think, a faithful view of missionary aims from a Chinese +standpoint, and, bearing in mind the extreme ignorance and intense +conservatism of the Chinese, it is not wonderful that there should be +continual small disturbances, or that these should have culminated in +the great anti-missionary riots in SZE CHUAN in 1895, in which a large +number of the missionaries had to fly, and many more owed their lives to +the protection given them by the mandarins in their _yamens_. + +_I_ would not hold the mandarins responsible for the whole of these +outbreaks, though they are and must be held so, but the difficulties of +their position are much complicated by the presence within their +jurisdictions of aliens whose aims are obnoxious to the majority of the +people, and who are slowly creating, under the protection of treaties, +societies with views at variance with established custom. + +Yet so great is the potency of a word from headquarters that I believe +the SZE CHUAN mandarins are now doing their best to protect the +missionaries, and wherever I went, and very specially at Paoning Fu, I +heard of efficient protection given, even where the means at the +magistrates’ disposal were very limited, and of consideration and +friendliness shown, far in excess of any claims which could be made, and +which went to the extreme verge of a prudent regard for official +position. + +[Illustration: LADY’S SEDAN CHAIR (CHINESE PROPRIETY).] + +Some of my readers and friends will consider that in the above remarks I +have played in another than the Vatican sense the part of “devil’s +advocate.” So be it. I intended, as a matter of honesty and fair play, +to “give the devil his due.” I am fully aware of the manifold iniquities +of the mandarins, and regard the official system as the greatest curse +of China, if for no other reason than that it makes it nearly impossible +for an official to walk on a straight path. But I wished to note briefly +a few extenuating circumstances, and to protest against that +rough-and-ready and very misleading system of classification which lumps +all mandarins together as an irredeemably bad lot. The system is +infamous, but a traveller who has spent some years in travelling in +Turkey, Persia, Kashmir, and Korea, is astonished to find that the +Chinese are very far from being an oppressed people, and that even under +this system they enjoy light taxation in spite of squeezes, security for +the gains of labour, and a considerable amount of rational liberty. It +is when a Chinese, either through his own fault or that of another, +becomes a litigant that his misfortunes begin. + +In the hour I spent at the entrance of the _yamen_ of Ying-san Hsien 407 +people came and went—men of all sorts, many in chairs, but most on foot, +and nearly all well dressed. All carried papers, and some big +_dossiers_. Within, secretaries, clerks, and writers crossed and +recrossed the courtyard rapidly and ceaselessly, and _chai-jen_, or +messengers, bearing papers, were continually despatched. Much business, +and that of all kinds, was undoubtedly transacted. There was nothing of +the lazy loafing of a horde of dirty officials which distinguishes a +Korean _yamen_. I was quite unmolested. Successive coolie crowds stood +for a time regarding me with an apathetic stare, said nothing, and moved +silently away. At last a very splendid person in brocaded silks and +satins came out and handed me my passport, and we were able to proceed. + +One among my reasons for not making the regular stages was that in town +inns a woman-traveller must shut herself up rigidly in her room from +arrival until departure unless she desires to provoke a row, while in +the small villages and hamlets, where I was frequently the only guest, +when the coolies had had their supper I was able to spend an hour in the +“house place” with the family, and at a very small expense become +friendly with them, and the village headman and one or two more often +dropped in, and, under the influence of tea and tobacco and the sight of +some of the nearest local photographs, became quite conversational. +Be-dien, whose knowledge of English was very fair, improved daily, and +was, I think, painstaking; at all events, I made him so! + +On such evenings I heard a good deal about mandarins, taxes, industries, +prices, carriage of goods, foreigners, missionaries, and other things, +all purely local. Occasionally the consensus of opinion about a mandarin +was that he was a very bad man, took bribes, exacted more than the +“legitimate squeeze” in tax-collecting, decided cases always in favour +of the rich, etc. Such must have been very bad cases on which all had +reason to be agreed, or the men, owing to the strong distrust and +suspicion of each other which prevail, would not have dared to speak out +before each other. This is an element which must always be taken into +consideration in judging of the probabilities of the accuracy of any +statement which is made. On the whole, however, there were not many +complaints uttered, and these were usually of the delays of law. Some +mandarins were spoken of with something akin to enthusiasm. One had +built a bridge, another had made a good road, a third had restored a +temple, a fourth was “very charitable to the poor,” and in the last +scarcity had diminished the luxury of his own table by a half that he +might feed the poor, and so on. + +Anything like an enlightened idea on a subject not local was not to be +hoped for. Few of these headmen had heard of the war, or of the peace of +Shimonoseki, and those who had, believed that the “barbarian rebels” had +been driven into the sea or into fiery holes in the ground. The immense +indemnity paid to the Roman Catholics for their losses in “the riots” +touched them more closely, and I heard a good deal said regarding the +Roman missions which I will not repeat, and I will also “keep dark” the +various criticisms, some of them most trenchant and amusing, which were +made on our own missionaries, only wishing that + + “The giftie were gi’ed us + To see ourselves as others see us.” + +The attempt to hammer out facts on these evenings was fatiguing and +often disheartening, as, for instance, to decide which of six varying +statements on one matter had the greatest aspect of probability, and was +worth stowing away in my memory, but the interest of mixing in any +fashion with the people far outweighed the discomfort of peasant +accommodation, even when it was pretty bad. One night Be-dien, after +surveying the inside of a very poor hovel, came out looking rueful, and +said, “You won’t like your room to-night, Mrs. Bishop; _it’s the pigs’ +room!_” and truly seven pigs occupied a depression railed off in one +corner of it. + +The second day after leaving Kiao we had heavy rain all day, and the +road, which was a barely legible track, mostly on slippery mud hills, +was so infamous that, as the bearers were constantly slipping and even +falling, I had to do a good deal of being hauled and lifted along; +walking it was not, for my feet slipped from under me at nearly every +step. We passed through one vacant, forlorn city of refuge, and spent +most of the day in a desolate, treeless, sparsely inhabited, red region, +slithering along the side of a high, bleak, mountain ridge, the summit +of which (an altitude of 2140 feet) we gained at dark to find a small +and most miserable hamlet astride on the top of it. The houses were all +shut, and the pouring rain kept everyone indoors. No wonder! The slush +was over my ankles, and very cold. + +A broad gleam fell across the road, and we made our way to it, as wet as +it was possible to be, and took, rather than asked, shelter in a big +shed with a loft or platform at one side, fitfully lighted as well as +filled with smoke by some branches which were being burned in a great +clay furnace, apparently used for the making of iron pots. Several men +were shovelling coal into the same, and there was a prospect of warmth. +This shed was the front of the mouth and workings of a coal-pit. I was +guided into some workings which appeared disused, where there were some +pigs, a sunk water-trough in the sloppy clay floor, and an excavation +two feet six inches wide by six feet long, into which my stretcher, six +feet six inches long, was backed, and projected six inches outside! +After a hot supper, I rolled myself, in my wet clothes, in a dry rug, +and slept soundly till the torrent of rain slacked off at eight the +following morning, when we got on the road again. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + HSIEH-TIEN-TZE TO PAONING FU + + +The weather continued grim, cold, and damp, with a penetrating east +wind. I felt the cold more than on any previous journey, even when for +weeks at a time the mercury had registered 20° below zero, and on this +occasion it never fell below 40° above, and on some of the “coldest” +days was as high as 45°. Men who had them were wearing their handsome +furs up to March 12th. + +After leaving the coal-pit and the bleak hillside, we descended to a +region where the natural terrace formation of the hills was extensively +aided by art, and the country looked as if it were covered with Roman +camps. + +At the risk of wearying my readers, I must again remark on the +singularity of the formation of this large portion of the Red Basin, +which is continued in its most exaggerated form at least as far south as +Shien Ching, on the Kialing, fully 270 _li_ south of Paoning. Looking +down from any height, it is seen that the red sandstone has been +decomposed into hundreds of small hills, from 200 to 300 feet high, with +their sides worn into natural and very regular terraces, of which I have +counted twenty-three one above another, while the actual hilltop is +weathered into a most deceptive resemblance to a fort or ruined castle. + +Much of SZE CHUAN is remarkable for the scarcity of villages, but, on +the other hand, it is dotted over both with large farmhouses, where the +farmer and his dependants live in patriarchal style, surrounded by a +roofed wall with a heavy gateway, and with large cottages, the walls of +which, with their heavy black timbers and whitewashed walls, have a most +distinct resemblance to the old Cheshire architecture, while the roofs, +with a nearly even slope from the ridge-pole to the extremity of the +deep eaves which form broad verandahs, have more kinship with that of +the Swiss _châlet_ than with the typical Chinese roof, curving upwards +at the corners. + +If the tradition be true which declares that in the early days of this +dynasty people were sent in chains to colonise this fair province, it +may be, as Mr. Baber suggests, that they had not the family and clan +ties which lead men to herd together in the communities which are also a +necessary element of safety in many circumstances. It was not till the +Taiping outbreak that these scattered settlers, who had lived and +multiplied for nearly two centuries under conditions of security, found +it necessary to combine for mutual protection. It then occurred to them +that the numerous precipitous, rocky hills of the region, if walled +round near the top, would be impregnable refuges, and they subscribed +money and labour, and carried out their idea, sprinkling the country +with picturesque _chai-tzu_, or redoubts, to which they ascended in +times of dread. It did not occur to them to build permanent dwellings +and remain at these altitudes. + +In the purely agricultural parts of the province, where there are no +local industries requiring concentration of population, such villages as +are to be met with elsewhere, in which tenants, labourers, innkeepers, +and proprietors, with shopkeepers and artisans, live in communities, are +rarely met with. Out of the system of scattered dwellings and minute +hamlets, trading arrangements for supplying the wants of the +agricultural population have grown up, the like of which I have not seen +elsewhere. These are the markets (_ch’ang_). + +In travelling along the roads one comes quite unexpectedly upon a long, +narrow street with closed shop fronts, boarded-up restaurants, and +deserted houses, and possibly a forlorn family with its dog and pig the +only inhabitants. The first thought is that the population has been +exterminated by a pestilence, but on inquiry the brief and simple +explanation is given, “It’s not market day.” + +A few miles further, and the roads are thronged with country people in +their best, carrying agricultural productions and full and empty +baskets. The whole country is on the move to another long, narrow street +closely resembling the first, but that the shop fronts are open, and +full of Chinese and foreign goods; the tea shops are crammed; every +house is full of goods and people; from 2000 to 5000 or 6000 are +assembled; blacksmiths, joiners, barbers, tinkers, traders of all kinds, +are busy; the shouting and the din of bargaining are tremendous, and +between the goods and the buyers and sellers locomotion is slow and +critical. Drug stores, in which “remedies for foreign smoke” are sold, +occur everywhere. + +The shops in these streets are frequently owned by the neighbouring +farmers, who let them to traders for the market days, which are fixed +for the convenience of the district, and fall on the third or fifth or +even seventh day, as the need may be. The gateway at each end of the +street is often very highly decorated. Theatrical entertainments +frequent these markets, and if the actors are well known and popular, +4000 or 5000 people assemble for the play alone. The markets are the +great gatherings for all purposes. If anything of public opinion of a +local character exists, it is manufactured there. There official +notifications are made, and bargains regarding the sale or rent of land +are concluded. Family festivals even are often held there, and after +marriage negotiations on the part of heads of families have been +concluded the preliminaries are drawn up and ratified at the market. +There the cottons of Lancashire undergo a searching criticism, and are +weighed, handled, held up to the light by men who cannot be deceived as +to the value of cotton, and are often found wanting. Into the vortex of +the market is attracted all the news and gossip of the district. It is +much like a fair, but I never saw any rowdyism or drunkenness on the +road afterwards, and I never met with any really rough treatment in a +market, though the crowding and curiosity made me always glad when it +was not “market day.” + +On the afternoon of March 7th there was some hazy sunshine, and the +effect was magical. The route lay partly along the Shanrang Ho, an +affluent of the Ku-kiang, itself navigable up to, and for sixty _li_ +above Sing-king-pa Hsien, so report said.] Considerable fleets of +colliers lay at different points, vessels carrying from ten to +twenty-five tons, flat-bottomed. They were loading, in one case, from a +coal-yard of half an acre at least in extent, fenced strongly and +carefully with bamboo, in which the coal was piled in big, oblong blocks +weighing two hundredweight each, to a height of seven feet, each block +being carried from the pit by two men. The colliers are built in +compartments, and very strongly, as there are severe rapids both above +and below Sing-king-pa Hsien. + +[Illustration: A SZE CHUAN FARMHOUSE.] + +After ferrying this river, along with a number of Buddhist priests, we +gradually attained high ground, and secured the granary of a new inn for +my room. Being new, the place was clean and dry, and promised well for +the next day’s halt, and most of the unpacking was done, when the trim, +young hostess requested us to “move on.” She said her father-in-law was +away, and he would be angry with her for receiving a foreigner. I did +not care to assert “treaty rights” against the obvious anxiety of so +prepossessing a young woman, and we repacked, and slithered along six +more _li_ of bad roads till we came to a lone farming cottage on the top +of a windy ridge, with a most extensive view, where I was very glad to +remain for the next day, as I had had rather a severe week. From +Sing-king-pa Hsien my _chai-jen_ were two young soldiers in the most +brilliant of stagey uniforms, and I think that they must have been the +reason of my exclusion from the previous inn. Among the many curious +proofs of superstitious beliefs one occurred many times on the last days +of the journey: a small arch made of bamboo stuck into the slush of a +rice-field. This is done in cases of the illness of the owner, and it is +believed that the offering will restore him. + +On this windy ridge of King-kiang-sze I slept in the granary, which I +should have considered extreme luxury, as it was not dark when the door +was shut, had it not been that it was only just built, and the mud on +the walls was quite wet. The granary was detached from the house, open, +as fortunately many Chinese rooms are, for two feet below the roof, and +in several other directions, being in fact so draughty that no candle +would keep alight in it. + +I stayed in bed all the next morning owing to severe chills, the +consequence of living in wet clothes, but had to get up in the afternoon +to gratify the curiosity of fully thirty women, who had hobbled in from +the adjacent hamlets, some of them twenty _li_ away, to see “the foreign +woman.” I feared that they would be greatly disappointed to see me in +Chinese dress, but I found that they did not know that foreigners wore +any other! My hair, “big feet,” shoes, and gloves were all a great +amusement to them, and, above all, my light camp bed, which they were +sure would not bear any weight, so they sat down on it back to back to +the number of twelve! + +Of course they asked many questions, among others did we in our country +make away with baby girls? I could not anywhere learn that infanticide +prevails in any part of SZE CHUAN in which I travelled, and when I told +these women of the extent to which it is practised in some parts of +KWANTUNG, the remark was, “Couldn’t they sell them for a good price?” +Undoubtedly many SZE CHUAN girls are sold to traders from Kansuh. These +mothers mostly had large families. The children are not weaned till they +are three, and often not till they are four and even five, years old. Of +“bringing up by hand” they know nothing—condensed milk has not reached +that primitive region. If a mother dies at the birth of her babe, the +mothers of the hamlet take the joint responsibility of supplying the +orphan with maternal nourishment. They asked me if I had many sons, and +when I confessed that I had none, they expressed great sympathy, because +there would be no one at my death to perform the ancestral rites. It is +quite customary, on hearing of the absence of sons, for women to pump up +tears as a conventional requirement, and this propriety was not +neglected on this occasion. It occurred to them that I could not have a +daughter-in-law, which in their thinking was a great deprivation, not on +sentimental, but on purely practical grounds, the daughter-in-law being +equivalent to the mother-in-law’s slave. + +Few of them had been to Paoning Fu, only two days’ journey off, and none +to Wan Hsien. The markets of the neighbourhood were the boundaries of +their horizon, and, the festivals of the divinities of their hamlets +their gaieties. I like the Chinese women better than any Oriental women +that I know. They have plenty of good stuff in them, and backbone. When +they are Christianised they are thorough Christians. They have much +kindness of heart; they are very modest; they are faithful wives, and +after their fashion good mothers. I gave my visitors tea and sweetmeats +all round, and they departed, having taught me far more than they +learned from me. + +During the afternoon men with large shields slung across their backs, +and carrying red staves, appeared, and there was at once a considerable +fuss and a demand for my passport, the big seals of which made a +salutary impression upon them. These officials were “census men,” and +were engaged in numbering the houses. The taking of a census has not +been a popular matter from time immemorial, and in the East an idea of +increased taxation is always associated with it. + +[Illustration: A SZE CHUAN MARKET-PLACE.] + +Like many Chinese systems, the census system is admirable in theory, but +frauds, lapses, and neglect render it inefficient. Every city and +village is divided into “tithings,” or groups, of ten families each, and +on every doorpost hangs, or ought to hang, a tablet, _mun-pai_, +inscribed with the names of all the inmates of both sexes. If the head +of a family omits to make an entry, or fails to register correctly the +males of his household who are liable to public service, he may receive +from eighty to a hundred blows. If the system were carried out, +suspicious strangers could be easily caught, and local responsibility +for any crime fixed without any trouble, but a householder finds it +convenient to escape filling up the schedule by bribing the “shield men” +with _cash_ equivalent to twopence-halfpenny. + +The next day, for a considerable distance, every house had blossomed +into a brand-new _mun-pai_, which indicated the arrival of a new +magistrate determined to enforce the law. The talk of the inn was that +it heralded additional taxation. + +The next day’s journey to Heh-shui-tang was through varied and pretty +country, much more populous, and with abounding water communication +supplied by the Chia-ling, often in that region called the Paoning +river, and its branches. The main traffic down the river is coal and +salt. There are very many salt wells at a good height on the river bank. +The brine is drawn by being pumped once a day, and that only when the +river is low, and is evaporated by coal fires, the heavy yellow smoke +giving the aspect of manufacturing industry. Salt is a Government +monopoly. The Government buys all the salt which is produced, at a rate +fixed by itself, and sends it all over the country for sale, making an +enormous profit. It is said that the salt produced in SZE CHUAN brings +in to the Government a revenue of £2,000,000 sterling! In some places +the borings for salt extend to depths of nearly 3000 feet, as the result +of the continuous operations of ten or twelve years, two feet a day +being very satisfactory progress. “Fire wells” are often found near salt +wells, and the “fire” is used for evaporating the salt. The product of +the wells seen on that day’s journey is small, but fifty boats of about +twelve tons were loading with it. + +At the pleasant and thriving little town of Nan-pu, which produces a +very white salt, the mandarin was polite, and sent four gaily uniformed +soldiers with me, who, however, shortly turned themselves into rather +shabby civilians, showing, as on several other occasions, that the love +of mufti is not confined to English officers. The mandarin’s secretary +asked if I would like to see anything in Nan-pu. I could think of +nothing in the little, quiet, trading town, but for the sake of +politeness I said I should like to see a school. + +My men were at their midday meal, but bearers were provided, and I was +soon deposited in the courtyard of an unpretending building, followed by +a great crowd, which was kept from pressing on me by the mandarin’s +“lictors.” The schoolroom contained several tables, some heavy benches, +a teacher’s chair, a number of “ink-stones,” and thirty-three boys, from +the ages of seven up to fourteen, who were all learning to read and +write. + +Near the roof a Confucian tablet, surrounded by inscribed strips of red +paper, stood in a niche, and on one side of the schoolroom there was a +life-size figure of the God of Literature, with a wooden box half full +of ashes in front, in which some incense sticks were smouldering. The +teacher was a kindly-looking old man in conventional goggles. He had +probably repeatedly failed to pass his literary examinations, and being +unfit for manual labour, had become a pedagogue. He held something very +like “taws” in his hand, but his pupils had no unwholesome awe of him. + +The boys were writing when I went in, _i.e._ tracing printed ideographs +placed below thin paper with brushes filled with Chinese ink, which they +rubbed on the ink-stones as required. The teacher went round, pointing +out faults, and showing them how to hold their pens. + +After this they studied, as everywhere in the East, aloud, shouting +their lessons at the top of very inharmonious voices, an audible +assurance relied upon to convince the teacher that they were giving full +attention to their tasks. As soon as any boy had mastered his lesson, he +came up to the master and stood with his back towards him while he +recited, so that the master might be sure that he was not glancing at +the book which he held in his own hand. Mispronunciations were +corrected. What I saw constitutes education in such a school, together +with formal instruction in proprieties: bowing before the tablet of +Confucius on entering the room, saluting the teacher, etc. Such a school +may be called a primary school, and the larger proportion of scholars +never go any farther. In villages and small towns the parents pay from +three to six dollars a year to the teacher, to which are added small +presents of food at stated intervals. The hours are long—from sunrise +till ten and from eleven till five. Evening schools are occasionally +opened for those who are occupied in the day. A pedagogue must be a man +of good repute, “grave, learned, and patient,” and well acquainted with +the Chinese classics. + +[Illustration: PEDAGOGUE AND PUPILS.] + +(_From a Chinese Drawing._) + +The monotonous reading and writing lessons and the tedium of memorising +unmeaning sounds are continued for about two years, and when the pupils +have become familiar with a few thousand forms and sounds, then the +actual work of teaching begins; and the pedagogue, with the help of a +commentary, explains the meaning of the words one by one, taking due +care that they are all understood. + +This system, as pursued in the humble school at Nan-pu, is the basis of +that vast fabric of education which has made China for two thousand +years what she is, and has produced among the Chinese a greater +veneration for letters than exists in any country on earth, letters and +literary degrees, absolutely apart from the accidents of birth or +wealth, being the only ladder by which a man, be he the son of prince or +peasant, can attain official employment, honours, and emoluments, China +being in fact the most truly democratic country in the world. + +It is easy to laugh at an education which for boys of all ranks consists +solely in the knowledge of the ancient Chinese classics, and there is no +doubt that it stunts individuality, belittles genius, fosters conceit, +and produces incredible grooviness. But, on the other hand, there is no +education, unless it might be one strictly Biblical, which furnishes the +memory with so much wisdom for common life, and so many noble moral +maxims. Whatever of righteousness, virtuous domestic life, filial +virtue, charity, propriety—and just dealing exists among the Chinese, +and they do exist—is owed to the permeation of the whole race by the +teaching of the classics.[42] + +The six school books (classics in themselves) which are introductory to +the study of the classics are, _The Trimetrical Classic_, arranged in +178 double lines, the first of which contains the much-disputed +doctrine, “Men at their birth are by nature radically good.” It +inculcates filial and fraternal duties, and much besides, as the +following extract shows: “Mutual affection of father and son; concord of +man and wife; the older brother’s kindness, the younger one’s respect; +order between seniors and juniors; friendship among associates; on the +prince’s part regard, on the minister’s true loyalty; these ten moral +duties are for ever binding among men.” This classic concludes with a +number of fascinating incidents and motives for learning taken from the +lives of ancient sages and statesmen. If a boy never goes farther than +this, his memory is stored with excellent examples and principles. + +The second book is the _Century of Surnames_. The third is unique in the +world, the _Millenary, or Thousand Character Classic_, which consists of +exactly 1000 characters, no two of which are alike in meaning or form. +It treats of many important subjects, and, like the _Trimetrical +Classic_, abounds in praises of virtue and exhortations to rectitude. +Its text is absolutely familiar to all the people, and a Christian +preacher who shows himself acquainted with it is sure of an interested +audience. + +The fourth school classic is called _Odes for Children_, and contains +thirty-four stanzas of four lines each, chiefly in praise of literary +life, such as this:— + + “It is of the utmost importance to educate children; + Do not say that your families are poor, + For those who can handle well the pencil (pen), + Go where they will, need never ask for favours.” + +In all the school classics many examples are given of intelligent youths +entering on life without advantages, who by application, virtuous +conduct, and industry, have raised themselves to the highest offices in +the empire. + +The fifth school classic is the _Canons of Filial Duty_, a book of 1903 +characters only, purporting to be a report of a conversation between the +_Great Teacher_ (Confucius) and Tsang Tsan, a disciple. Whether it is +actually what the Chinese believe it to be or not, its influence has +been and is enormous, extending unweakened through a period of many +centuries, and laying by its principles and maxims the foundations of +the social order which prevails, not only in China, but in Japan and +Korea. This paramount teaching begins with the sentence, “Filial duty is +the root of virtue, and the stem from which instruction in the moral +principle springs.” It contains an axiom which has great weight: “With +the same love that they” (scholars) “serve their fathers, they should +serve their mothers.” Many books have been written to illustrate these +_Canons_, one a toy book, _The Twenty-four Filials_, containing +twenty-four quaint and delightful stories of filial devotion. This is a +most popular collection of tales, and the examples embroidered on satin, +or painted on silk, or coarsely daubed on paper, are to be seen +everywhere.[43] + +The sixth and last is the _Siao Hioh_, or _Juvenile Instructor_, a book +whose influence is estimated as enormous. It has had fifty commentators, +one of whom writes of it, “We confide in the _Siao Hioh_ as we do in the +gods, and revere it as we do our parents.” It is in two books, divided +into twenty chapters and 385 short sections. The first book treats of +the elementary principles of education, of the duties we owe to +ourselves in regard to demeanour, dress, food, and study, and of the +duties which we owe to our kindred, rulers, and fellow-men, and it gives +illustrative examples of the good results of obeying these maxims, taken +from ancient history as far down as B.C. 249! + +The second book seems somewhat of a commentary on the first, or an +elaboration of it. It gives a collection of virtuous and wise sayings of +great men who lived after B.C. 200, and these are followed by a number +of examples of conduct in distinguished persons, showing the effect of +good principles and the advantage of following the teachings of the +first book. The most elaborate rules of etiquette are laid down with a +view of promoting mutual reverence, and the Chinese of to-day receives +his guests at his outer door and conducts them, with the most careful +attention to elaborate rules of precedence, through courts, and up +flights of steps to his guest-hall, he and they moving their feet and +accepting or declining attention in slavish accordance with the rules of +this ancient classic. + +The Chinese of to-day, in thought, action, and etiquette, are the +product of these school books. I see no possibility of spontaneity so +long as education is _solely_ on these lines. In reading the +translations of these classics, in spite of a certain insistence upon +trifles, and perhaps of exaggeration of unimportant points, I have been +enormously impressed by their admirable moral teaching as a whole. +Virtue is inculcated by precept and example on every page, and with the +solemn sanctions of antiquity. Deficiencies there are, but there is not +a single thing in this curriculum which a man ought not to be the better +for learning, or one thing which it would be desirable for him to +forget. If he is unable to go farther, he is possessed of what may be +called the kernel of the best literature of his country, and his +national feeling is fostered by the fact that the noble truths and +examples impressed on his mind are not of foreign origin, but have +originated within the frontiers of the Middle Kingdom. The missionaries +show at once their appreciation of the _Chinese classics_, as well as a +judicious desire to conserve Chinese nationality and keep the pathway to +official employment open, by giving great prominence to this classical +teaching in their schools. + +“Villages had their schools, and districts their academies,” says the +_Book of Rites_ (B.C. 1200), and I looked with reverence on the dirty, +cobwebby walls of the little private school at Nan-pu as their +historical successor. + +I asked the teacher how many of his thirty-three pupils were likely to +go on with their education and compete at the examinations, and he +replied, “Three,” holding up three fingers, on one of which was a +carefully-tended nail an inch and a half long, that there might be no +mistake. The parents of the pupils were poor, and would not be able to +keep them at school for more than three years at the outside, while +shopkeepers, farmers, and country gentlemen would not keep them there +more than five years unless they meant to go on to the literary +examinations. In the case of these well-to-do persons, several families +living in the same street hire a well-qualified teacher at a stipulated +salary to teach their boys, and the instruction is given in light, +well-aired rooms. In such a school as I spent an hour in, the teacher +provides and furnishes the room according to the number and position of +his pupils. On a boy entering a school he receives his _shu-ming_, or +“book name,” by which he is known during his future life. + +If I have conveyed what I wish to convey, clearly, it will be evident +that Chinese education in the primary schools is limited to the teaching +of virtue, duty, and etiquette. There is no provision for developing the +intellectual powers, nor has general learning any place. There is a +complete want of symmetry in the mental training, but if it fails to +form broad and well-balanced minds, it must be admitted that the +exaggeration is in the best direction in which distortion could occur. + +That night I felt profound regret at concluding the first stage of my +journey, and the soft, dreamy sunshine of the next day increased it. The +country is soft in its features, and very pretty and prosperous-looking, +abounding in industries, and consequently in villages and small towns, +and produces everything that is good for food. The road adheres pretty +closely to the valley of the Chia-ling, which we ferried twice. Its +water is translucent, and of an exquisitely beautiful peacock green. It +is one of the great arteries of commerce of the Yangtze Valley, and +though, like the Yangtze, obstructed by rapids and given to the +production of great sand-banks, specially below Paoning Fu, it and its +affluents afford invaluable means of communication. + +This river, uniting with the Yangtze at Chungking after receiving such +fine tributaries as the Ku, the Fu, and the Pai-shui, is navigable for +boats of 5000 catties up to the flourishing little town of +Pai-shui-Chiang, actually over the border of KANSUH, and over 500 miles +by water from Chungking. These big boats trade chiefly with Nan-pu, +which produces salt, taking salt up and bringing coal down. There are +smaller boats carrying 2000 catties, of which I saw many, which go right +down to Chungking, carrying KANSUH tobacco, sheepskins, furs, and +medicines. Mr. Litton, of H.B.M.’s Consular Service, saw seventy boats +at one time moored off the city of Kuang Yuen, near the frontier of +KANSUH. + +The country is much affected by the great sand-banks formed by the +river, which become bound together by the fibrous roots of a +sword-grass, and alter the channel, forming, after a few years of +deposit, fine arable land. The road I travelled from Heh-shui-tang, +after skirting the Chia-ling at a great height for many miles, under +cliffs abounding in recessed temples, in which groups of divinities +carved in the rock receive hourly worship from wayfarers, enters Paoning +Fu by a pontoon bridge about 130 yards long. + +After the treelessness of much of the region I had traversed, and the +comparatively poor soil and inferior dwellings, the view of Paoning and +its surroundings was most charming in the soft afternoon sunshine. Built +on rich alluvium, surrounded on three sides by a bend of the river, with +temple roofs and gate towers rising out of dense greenery and a pink +mist of peach blossom, with fair and fertile country rolling up to +mountains in the north, dissolving in a blue haze, and with the +peacock-green water of the Chia-ling for a foreground, the first view of +this important city was truly attractive. + +In the distance appeared two Chinese gentlemen, one stout, the other +tall and slender, whose walk as they approached gave me a suspicion that +they were foreigners, and they proved to be Bishop Cassels, our youngest +and one of our latest consecrated bishops, and his coadjutor, Mr. +Williams, formerly vicar of St. Stephen’s, Leeds, who had come to +welcome me. We ferried the Chia-ling, and passing through attractive +suburbs, either green lanes with hedges, trees, and vegetable gardens, +or narrow flagged roads, very clean, bounded by roofed walls and +handsome gateways of private houses, we reached the China Inland Mission +buildings, consisting of a neat church, very humble Chinese houses for +the married and bachelor missionaries, guest-rooms, and servants’ +quarters, all cheerful, but greatly lacking privacy. This was a pleasant +halt after a journey of 300 miles without a really untoward incident, +except the riot at Liang-shan. + +[Illustration: RECESSED DIVINITIES, CHIA-LING RIVER.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + PAONING FU AND SIN-TIEN-TZE + + +Paoning Fu, where I spent a week, is, in spring at least, a very +attractive city. There is a pleasant sleepiness about it. Trade is +neither so active or so self-asserting as usual. There is obviously a +leisured class with time to enjoy itself. Large fortunes are not made; +45,000 taels is looked upon as wealth, and there are no millionaires to +overshadow the small traders. Junks of eighteen tons and over can ascend +to Paoning during much of the year. There is a considerable coal trade +on the Tung river, and the city being in the centre of an important silk +region, there is a degree of activity about the silk trade. There are +such small industries as dyeing cottons, making wine and vinegar, and +the export of pigs’ bristles and hides, but nothing is pursued very +energetically. Among the population of about 20,000 there are a small +number of Mohammedans, and wherever they exist beef and milk are +attainable luxuries. In Paoning they cure and spice an excellent salt +beef, which I found an agreeable variation from fowls on my further +journey. + +Officially, Paoning Fu is an important city, having a _Taotai_, a +prefect, and a hsien, and many of its beautiful “suburban villas” are +the residences of retired and expectant mandarins. Its suburbs are quite +charming, and its suburban roads are densely shaded by large mulberry +trees and the _Aleurites cordata_. Farther outside, are several fine +temples in large grounds, and the public library. Paoning proper, with +the _yamen_ and other official residences, streets of shops, and private +dwellings with large wooded gardens, is surrounded by a wall twenty feet +high, in good repair, with a flagged walk, ten feet broad, on the top of +it. From this the aspect of the city was idealised by a coloured mist of +pink and white—peach, plum, apricot, and cherry blossom, flecked with +crimson from the double flowers of hardy, decorative peach trees. There +are four fine but dilapidated gateways. + +[Illustration: TEMPLE OF GOD OF LITERATURE, PAONING FU.] + +One of the gates was securely shut, and all persons who desired to enter +or leave the city on that side were compelled to make a long _détour_. +This closing of the north gate against the God of Rain is by a +ceremonial act of the mandarin. Rain was in excess, and this was a +significant hint to the rain god. Elsewhere I had seen the south gates +of cities closed in drought against the God of Fire, who can only enter +a city from that quarter. Fires are much dreaded during drought, when +the timbers of houses are baked into a condition of perilous +inflammability. + +Outside the walls of Paoning Fu, which supply a delightful walk, are +fine clean turf banks, and a turfed trench or moat, and fine trees; and +the river front on the west side is truly grand, a terrace twenty-five +feet broad being supported by a noble stone wall in twenty-five tiers, +with broad stone staircases descending from the terrace to the river, +short green turf, clean white sand, and clear green water below. + +The finest of the suburban temples is dedicated to Went-zu, the God of +Pestilence. I visited this with Mr. Williams. It was not possible to get +any point of view on the level, for a photograph, and the chair-bearers +suggested my taking one from the stage of an open temple theatre +opposite, and brought a ladder to help me up with. In going back, a man +of the literary class attacked Mr. Williams for this, and the next day +the servants of the missionary ladies begged them not to go outside +their house, for nothing was talked of in the streets and tea houses but +this “outrage,” and the probable indignation of the gods, and the people +were saying they would “kill all the foreigners.” Mr. Williams said that +he had never heard such cries of “foreign devil,” and “foreign dog,” as +at that time, and that it is observed that these cries and the hatred +which prompts them increase the longer foreigners remain in a city. + +Paoning, so far as its population goes, is unfriendly to foreigners, and +the mission houses were wrecked a year previously, and the missionaries, +some of whom were married women with young children, escaped to the +_yamen_, where they received shelter and protection for some time, the +mandarins then and since having shown much friendliness and desire for +their safety. It is a complex situation on both sides. + +Paoning is a great centre of China Inland Mission work. The directors of +this body, which is undenominational, endeavour so far as is possible to +group the missionaries of each ecclesiastical body together, and in this +part of SZE CHUAN they all belong to the Church of England. Outside of +the “sphere of interest” of the C.I.M. the Church Missionary Society has +several mission stations, chiefly to the north and west of Paoning, and +altogether in that region there are about sixty Anglican missionaries, +several of them being university men, working on much the same lines. + +Dr. Cassels, who was one of the pioneers, and formerly well known as an +athlete at Cambridge, had recently been consecrated bishop, and came +from the splendours of his consecration in Westminster Abbey to take up +the old, simple, hardworking life, to wear a queue and Chinese dress, +and be simply the “chief pastor.” The native Christians gave him a +cordial reception on his return, and presented him with the hat of a +Master of Arts and high boots, which make a very seemly addition to the +English episcopal dress, giving it the propriety which is necessary in +Chinese eyes, and in mine the picturesque aspect of one of the marauding +prelates of the Middle Ages, the good bishop having a burly, athletic +physique! Since his return, several of the lay missionaries have been +ordained deacons. + +The church, or cathedral, of which an illustration is given, was built +almost entirely with Chinese money and gifts. It is Chinese in style, +the chancel windows are “glazed” with coloured paper to simulate stained +glass, and it is seated for two hundred. The persons represented as +standing outside are Bishop Cassels, Mr. Williams, and the Chinese +churchwarden. There are both churchwardens and sidesmen. + +[Illustration: THE RIGHT REV. BISHOP CASSELS, D.D., PAONING FU.] + +I witnessed a Chinese service at which nineteen persons of both sexes +who had been confirmed on the previous Sunday received the Holy +Communion. At matins, which followed, the church was crammed, and crowds +stood outside, where they could both see and hear, this publicity +contrasting with the Roman practice. The understanding that all should +be silent during worship was adhered to. A Christian, formerly a +Mohammedan of some means, and another, who had been a Taoist, read the +lessons. The Bible, an Oriental book both in imagery and thought, is +enjoyed and understood by Orientals, but I doubt much if it will be +possible or even desirable to perpetuate the Prayer Book as it stands. +It is so absolutely and intensely Western in its style, conceptions, +metaphysic, and language of adoration, and, I think, is partly +unintelligible as a manual of devotion. It contains any number of words +which not only (as is to be expected) have no equivalents in the Eastern +languages, but the ideas they express are unthinkable by the Eastern +mind. Already many Eastern Christians are claiming an “Oriental Christ, +not a Christ disguised in Western garb”—it may be that they will claim +too a form of worship which shall be Oriental both in thought and +expression, instead of one which represents to them in their most sacred +moments an exotic creed. + +[Illustration: CHINESE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH. PAONING FU.] + +The China Inland Mission has some very humble Chinese houses built round +two compounds, in which two married couples, three bachelors, and, in +the bishop’s house, two ladies were living, and at some distance off +there is a ladies’ house, then occupied by five ladies. There are +several guest-halls for Chinese visitors, class and school-rooms, +porters’ and servants’ rooms. The furniture is all Chinese, and the +whitewashed walls are decorated with Chinese scrolls chiefly. + +I never saw houses so destitute of privacy, or with such ceaseless +coming and going. Life there simply means work, and work spells +happiness apparently, for the workers were all cheerful, and even jolly. +Studying Chinese, preaching, teaching, advising, helping, guiding, +arranging, receiving, sending forth, doctoring, nursing, and befriending +make the mission compounds absolute hives of industry. It was a great +drawback that medical help was nearly 300 miles off, and that the one +trained nurse in the two missions was not ubiquitous. Much needless +suffering and risk to life were the results. Happily in one of the +beautiful suburbs, a noble Chinese mansion, a palace in size and +solidity, was for sale for an old song, the half of which was purchased, +and after undergoing alterations was opened a few months after my visit +with a mandarin’s procession and great ceremony as the “Henrietta Bird +Memorial Hospital”—the men’s department under Dr. Pruen, a physician of +ten years’ Chinese experience, and the women’s under Miss Gowers, who +also had considerable experience. The other half and a separate +courtyard adjoining have been bought for a dwelling for the bishop, +where he may carry on his work with fewer interruptions. + +The ladies of this mission lead what I should think very hard lives, +owing to their painful deference to Chinese etiquette, and their great +desire to avoid doing anything which can give offence. As for instance, +they never walk out without an elderly Chinese woman with them, or are +carried except in closed chairs. + +I left this hive of industry, and devoted lives, and glowing +hospitalities with Mr. and Mrs. Williams and their children for a few +days at Sin-tien-tze, where the China Inland Mission has obtained a +large farmhouse for a sanitarium and centre of country work at a height +of 2870 feet. Paoning is only 1520. This, in lat. 31° 55′, was my +farthest point north on my SZE CHUAN journey. + +Shortly after leaving Paoning the road mounts the northern hills, and +keeps along a high barren ridge, or _liang-tsu_, for 130 _li_, the air +becoming more bracing and delicious every hour. I have observed that in +Western China an altitude of 3000 feet is equivalent, in the dryness and +bracing qualities of the air, to 7000 feet in Japan. + +We stayed for a night in a large, rambling inn in a market-place when it +was not market day, and were quiet. Long flights of stairs conduct +travellers to the top of the ridge, which is often less than ten feet +broad, and falls down in natural rock-supported terraces to the valleys +below. At the close of the second day’s journey the cultivation nearly +ceased, the hills were bare and rocky, the road a mere straggle; and +where two or three ridges meet, on turning a corner round a pine-clothed +knoll, we came upon a large, lonely house with a dead, blank wall round +it, and were heartily welcomed by its inmates, three ladies, who for +some time past have conducted a mission to the scattered houses and +hamlets of the neighbourhood with remarkable success. + +A great gateway gives admission successively into two courts with their +surrounding rooms. The common “sitting-room,” or, to use an Americanism, +“living-room,” is extremely tasteful and pretty—pre-eminently a “lady’s +room,” furnished with bamboo tables, chairs, a lounge, and foot-stools, +and a folding screen covered with blue cotton, on which Christmas cards +are prettily arranged. Blue cotton table-cloths, embroidered in white +silk, covered the tables. The floor was matted. Chinese red scrolls hung +on the whitewashed walls; there were books and flowering plants; and the +room combined daintiness with solid comfort. Doors, with elaborate +fretwork filled in with tissue paper, take the place of windows. The +woodwork of all the rooms is varnished. + +[Illustration: C.I.M. SANITARIUM, SIN-TIEN-TZE.] + +I expressed admiration and some wonderment that “at such a distance” +(possibly from civilisation) such pretty furniture could be procured. It +may be that my hostess thought she read in my remark some hint at +“missionary luxury,” for she very kindly offered to enlighten me as to +the cost of furnishing in Western China. The substantial and +good-looking chairs cost fourpence each, the lounge two-and-sixpence, +and the rest in proportion; the whole coming to a trifle under nineteen +shillings, and all was produced in the neighbourhood, material and +labour costing almost nothing. During my five days’ visit the weather +became bitterly cold, and snow fell for the greater part of two days, +but did not lie. No efforts brought the temperature of my room up to +40°, which was low for the 21st March, in lat. 31° 55′. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + SIN-TIEN-TZE TO TZE-TUNG HSIEN. + + +On this second long journey, involving a distance of three hundred and +thirty miles, I was persuaded into a slightly more luxurious style of +travelling, _i.e._, I took an additional man, well acquainted with the +province and its ways, who went on first, towards evening, cleaned out a +room, and had hot water ready for tea. I got new oiled sheeting and an +apron for the chair, and with some unleavened bread, curry for three +days, a supply of Paoning smoked beef and some chocolate for lunch, I +felt myself in luxury. Yet, with eight men, my expenses were only seven +shillings per day. + +At Sin-tien-tze I had to quit my companions, who are as full of +brightness, intelligence, and culture as they are of goodness. Mr. +Williams walked with me through thawing snow the first eight miles to +the great market-place of Shang-wa-li-tze, where, not being market day, +the only living creature was a deformed cat. I had excellent cooking, +and we made long journeys, accomplishing thirty miles on some days. The +snow soon disappeared, and though the roads were slimy, straw shoes, +grippers, and the cold, keen air enabled me to walk a good deal, which +was very pleasant. + +At the first midday halt there was considerable confusion, for a young +married woman had committed suicide with opium, and was lying apparently +dead. In great fear of something—I know not what—the villagers appealed +to me for remedies, which I succeeded in forcing down her throat, and +also put plasters of hot vinegar and cayenne pepper behind her ears. I +was proceeding to put them on the soles of her feet, but there were no +soles, only a crumple of deformed toes, a cleft, and a heel. Then I +tried for the calves of the legs, but there were no calves, only a bone, +a few muscles, and a great bag of crinkled skin. I was more fortunate in +finding that she had a back to her neck! I was told that it was a +quarrel with her mother-in-law which had driven her to suicide. I had a +bad quarter of an hour before she became conscious, for, had she died, +the opium would have been acquitted, and the blame would have been laid +on the foreigner. When she came sufficiently to herself to be herself, +she was demented with rage, and tore and scratched everybody near her. I +did not think that her husband was interested in her recovery. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO A MARKET-PLACE.] + +An idea, though possibly only a local one, is, that when a person +commits suicide by opium, the spirit is refused entrance at the gate of +Hades, because it has not completed its natural term of life, and it +seeks, by inducing another to do the same, to transfer its crime to that +person. + +The relations showed me the courtesy of offering me food, which I +reluctantly ate out of coarse, unglazed basins: a strip or two of fat +pork, some bean curd floating in grey sauce, some black beans, tasting +like rotten cheese, some small onions, pickled dark brown, some rice, +mixed with chopped cabbage, and some chopped capsicum. + +I had previously eaten bean curd, and old eggs which are an expensive +delicacy, and formed part of a Chinese dinner given to me at the English +Legation at Seoul. At the next village I saw the process of preparation. +Ducks’ eggs alone are used, and they must be quite fresh. They are +steeped in a solution of lime, with the addition of salt. The lime +penetrates the shell and turns the white into a dark, bottle-green +jelly, while the yolk becomes hard and nearly black. After this the egg +is wrapped up in clay, which is dried by gentle heat. It will then keep +a year or more. Such eggs are very good, indeed they are one of the few +Chinese delicacies which I can eat with equanimity. The variety of food +eaten by all classes in China is amazing. It would require four or five +pages to put down what I have myself seen in the eating-houses and food +shops on this journey. + +After leaving Sin-tien-tze, I entered a richer and more prosperous +region, with a very productive soil, much mineral wealth, and important +industries both in towns and villages; and the food shops reflected the +prosperity. There was fresh pork everywhere. Every village seemed to +have killed a pig that morning. In most places bread made of wheaten +flour was to be got in the form of dumplings, leavened, but steamed, not +baked. These make good toast. Bean curd is everywhere also, and is +universally liked. It is pure white, as if made with milk, and resembles +in insipidity unflavoured _blanc mange_, made with Carrageen moss. There +is scarcely a hamlet in which it is not sold. The beans are ground +between two millstones, the upper one having a hole in the centre. Into +this the beans are poured along with water, and the thick white cream +which results from the grinding is caught in a trough below. Plenty of +gypsum and some salt are added, the cream is boiled, the froth is thrown +away, and the residue, after undergoing considerable squeezing in a +cloth, is poured into flat, deep trays to set; when cold it is cut up +into bricks. Every traveller in China, Japan, and Korea makes +acquaintance with this preparation. Beans are enormously used, fresh, +and made into patties, and preserved in equal parts of brine and syrup, +when they taste like hazel nuts. + +Patties, or pies, are universal, and the itinerant pieman frequents all +markets and places where men congregate. Vegetable patties of beans, +chopped cucumbers, vegetable eggs, and sweet potato are much liked, and +so are patties of pork, and salt fish, and frog, but the last are +somewhat of a luxury. Then there are cakes of wheaten flour containing +chopped and fried onion, or a spoonful of treacle, and cakes of ground +millet, with sugar-candy or scorched millet on the top, and the same +pieman often sells bags of popcorn, melon seeds, and pieces of +sugarcane. + +Water-melon seeds ought rather to be classed with amusements than with +food. As in Persia, they are enormously used; it is difficult to write +consumed. They descend to the poorest class, but chiefly on holidays. +Their use implies leisure and sociability. I never saw a man eating them +alone, except on a journey. They are a national custom. Where our men +would enjoy themselves drinking wine or spirits, the Chinese play with +melon seeds. Eating them seems a masculine amusement, and the higher a +Chinese is in rank the more melon seeds he consumes. One dare not +speculate on what the consumption of the Son of Heaven must be. +Doubtless they serve the useful purpose of helping to supply the system +with fatty matter. + +In some parts of SZE CHUAN water-melons appear to be grown entirely for +their seeds. I have seen the cooling, delicious pulp thrown on the road, +while the seeds are carefully preserved, and, as in Tibet the +proprietors of apricot orchards allowed me to eat as many apricots as I +liked, provided that I returned them the stones, so I have been allowed +to eat melons, if I returned the seeds. Huc writes that on the rivers +“huge junks may be seen loaded entirely” with these “deplorable +futilities.” I do not pretend to such a remarkable vision, but at good +inns I have seen parties of six or eight well-dressed merchants, with +carefully-tended, pointed finger-nails an inch long, spending three or +four hours in cracking melon seeds, plate after plate rapidly +disappearing. Piles of shells of melon seeds some inches high often +greeted me in inn rooms. Every wayside restaurant sells them. Groups of +children sit apathetically in village streets eating them. They are +served before, with, and after every meal, with tea and wine, and at all +social gatherings. Men crack and eat them while they are bargaining or +discussing business, or are travelling in sedan chairs. And the +dexterity and rapidity with which they extract the small kernel from the +tough shell is worthy of squirrels and apes. This consumption of melon +seeds is a feature of the whole empire, and I really believe is, as a +pleasure, second only to “foreign smoke.” + +Our ideas as to Chinese food are, on the whole, considerably astray. It +is true that the rich spend much in pampering their appetites, that the +foolish extravagance of providing meats, fruits, and vegetables, out of +season at “dinner parties” prevails among them as among us, and that +such delicacies as canine cutlets and hams, cat fricassees, bird’s-nest +soup—a luxury so costly that it makes its appearance on foreign +tables—stewed _holothuria_, and fricassee of snails, worms, or snakes +are to be seen at ceremonious feasts. I have been myself in dog and cat +restaurants in Canton, but they are only frequented by the extravagant. + +I think in addition to the enormous variety in Chinese articles of diet, +multiplied a hundredfold by culinary art, the food is wholesome and well +cooked, and that the cooking is cleanly, steaming being a very favourite +method. Cleanly cooking and wholesome and excellent meals are often +produced in dark and unsavoury surroundings, and those foreigners who +travel much in the interior learn to find Chinese food palatable. My +chief objection to it is the amount of vegetable oil used, and the +prevalent flavour of garlic. The bulb well applied is an excellent +condiment, but it is startling to meet with it in unexpected places, and +everywhere. + +Rice, wheat, Italian milled and maize are the grains chiefly eaten, but +rice is the staff of life, and is regarded as absolutely indispensable. +But it is not eaten by itself, even by the poorest, but mixed with fried +cabbage, or with such dainty relishes as rotten beans, or putrid +mustard, or soy, or Chili sauce. Among common expressions, to “take a +meal” is “to eat rice,” and the salutation equivalent to “How do you +do?” is literally “Have you eaten rice?”[44] + +The Chinese list of culinary vegetables about quadruples ours, and with +the exception of rice they are the great result of garden cultivation +and heavy manuring, some of the root crops receiving individually at +stated intervals a supply of liquid manure. Cucumbers, melons, and +radishes weighing a pound each, are produced in enormous quantities. +More than twenty sorts of peas and beans are cultivated—one monstrous +bean being eaten with its soft squashy pod. Leaves are important +articles of diet, beginning with the opium leaf. There are pig weed +(_Chenopodium_), sow thistle (_Sonchus_), ginger, radishes, mustard, +clover, shepherd’s purse, succory, sweet basil, lettuce, celery, +dandelion, spinach, purslane, artemisia, amaranthus, tacca, and +numberless others which have no English names. In addition to carrots, +turnips, parsnips, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes, enormously +used, and “Irish potatoes” increasingly grown, they have aquatic edible +roots, among others the big root of the _Nelumbium_, water-caltrops, and +water-chestnuts. + +Onions, garlic, leeks, scallions, and chives are consumed both by rich +and poor, and it is seldom possible to be out of their odour. Cabbage, +broccoli, kale, colewort and cress are eaten enormously, both fresh and +preserved, as well as musk and water-melons, pumpkins, squashes, gourds, +tomatoes, and brinjals, besides many eccentric pods, of the names of +which I have not a notion. One of the most delicious of all Chinese +vegetables is the young shoot of the bamboo, which looks like huge +asparagus, and is eaten boiled. The Chinese consume enormous quantities +of pickled cabbage and onions, as well as candied roots and fruits, and +others preserved in syrup. Even the common potato is dignified by this +treatment. + +In the absence of butter and oily foods, the use of much oil in cooking +is a physical necessity, but the European palate would require a long +education before it could enjoy the strong flavours of some of the +vegetable oils, such as castor oil, sesamum, and ground nut. Lard and +pork fat are used also. + +Very little land in the Yangtze Valley is used for the rearing of +animals for food. Pork is the principal meat used, and I suppose that +every family possesses a pig. Beef is rarely obtainable, except where +there are Mohammedans. I never saw mutton west of Ichang, or, indeed, +sheep till I reached the mountains. Pork, fowls, geese, and ducks really +represent animal food over much of SZE CHUAN. If young cats and dogs are +bred for the table they are fed on rice. Locusts, grasshoppers, +silkworms and grubs are eaten, being fried till they are crisp. In some +cities human milk is sold for the diet of aged persons, great faith +being placed in its nutritive qualities. + +Undoubtedly much of the grain, especially millet, which is grown between +Sin-tien-tze and Mien-chuh is used for the distillation of spirits. +There are no vines in SZE CHUAN, so what we call wine is unknown. There +are water-white spirits distilled from both millet and barley, and a +sort of beer like the Japanese _sake_ made from rice, from which spirits +can be distilled. I never saw a drunken man in fifteen months of Chinese +travelling, or heard mirth of which strong drink was the inspiration. +Men take spirits in very small quantities, and almost invariably with +their food. They never drink anything cold, which safeguards them from +the worst results of the abominably contaminated water. They drink plain +hot water, the water in which rice has been boiled, tea, and decoctions +of various leaves. + +I have dwelt so long upon food, because for two hours of every day I had +nothing to do but study it and inferior cooking as well, for several +months, and saw infinite varieties of food in the different parts of the +province at different seasons during my long journey. On the whole, +except in times of scarcity, the Chinese is a fairly well-fed person. + +The journey of March 23 was along the top of a ridge over rocky ground, +and along limestone terraces incapable of cultivation. There were no +villages, and few houses, but we passed through two market-places of +large size. The country, as seen from the ridge, is all low, undulating +ranges, sprouting up now and then into conical protuberances, till +suddenly, from an altitude of 2300 feet, there is a view of a narrow +valley and an extraordinary bend of the Chia-ling. Then comes an abrupt +and difficult descent of 800 feet, on ledges of rock and steep flights +of broken stairs, and at its foot the small town of Mao-erh-tiao, with a +very fine temple lately restored. Boats of twenty tons, salt laden, were +lying in the clear, blue-green water along the bank. It was a delightful +day’s journey, the sky very blue, the air dry and as keen as a knife, +and I reached a fairly good inn where the curiosity was not +overpowering. The coolies were, if possible, cheerier and better than +those from whom I had reluctantly parted, and as they were not opium +smokers they were able to feed themselves well, and thought nothing of +travelling thirty miles a day at a good pace. + +[Illustration: AUTHOR’S ARRIVAL AT A CHINESE INN.] + +Other halcyon days followed, of keen air, light without heat, and +country which, if not actually pretty, led one continually to believe +that it was about to become so. The plumed bamboo and orange and +pommeloe groves had vanished, and on the high altitudes which the road +pursues, which are very barren and rocky, there was almost no +cultivation, and on one day’s journey of twenty-three miles we only met +four people, and passed eight houses and a small market-place. + +Whenever the elevation was lower, as at times where the road runs along +the edges of limestone cliffs, there are deep valleys well wooded and +cultivated, but the upland soil is very poor and bears scanty crops. +What is called a road is only a narrow footpath, winding along the edges +of wheat fields, through rocky clefts or ferny defiles, so narrow that +the chair continually bumped both sides, or under cedars or other big +trees, over the tops of which trailing red and white roses have grown, +sending down streamers, then in the pink flush of their spring leafage, +over the road. This beautiful climber, which grows with prodigious +rapidity, also flourishes in Korea. + +There were pretty little bits, sweet, restful, rural scenes, great +breezy sweeps, and freedom; no calling of “Foreign devil” and “Foreign +dog.” The people were quite disposed to be friendly. On arriving one +afternoon at a specially lofty hamlet, having learnt much caution as to +the use of my camera, I asked if I might “make a picture” of a mill +worked by a blindfolded buffalo-cow, as we had not any such mills in my +country, and they were quite willing, and stopped the cow at the exact +place I indicated. They were friendly enough to take me to another mill, +at which two women grind, turning the upper stone by means of poles +working in holes. The Chinese use a great deal of wheat flour; it can be +purchased at all markets and large villages, and I never used any other. +It is not a good colour, and owing to some defect in the millstones one +is apt to be surprised by grits. After seeing the mills I showed the +people a number of my photographs taken _en route_, to show them that I +was not doing anything evil or hurtful, but they said, though quite +good-naturedly, that it was “foreign magic.” + +At the same hamlet I got a room in a new inn which, though on the +road-level on one side, was two storeys above a winding stream and some +undulating agricultural country on the other. On that side it actually +had a window and a view. The boards were new, and though the chinks were +wide and the air which entered was keen, I congratulated myself heartily +on such unusually pleasant surroundings. This was premature. When the +bustle of unpacking was over, noises all too familiar made me look +through the chinks of the floor, and I saw that I was over a pigsty the +size of my room, inhabited by nine large, black sows. + +[Illustration: AN OX MILL.] + +It was the only night of my journey on which I had no sleep, and my +servant, who had the next room to mine, said that he did not sleep after +eleven, for the groaning, grunting, routing, and quarrelling were +incessant. I had shared a room with pigs twice on the journey, but they +were quiet by comparison. Looking through my floor at daylight, I saw +that eighteen young pigs had been added to the family. This sleepless +night was a bad preparation for an early start, and a long and very cold +day’s journey. + +The road leaves Tien-kia-miao, a remarkably clean and attractive +village, by a level bridge on twelve stone piers, and soon rises again +to barren altitudes, looking down on well-cultivated valleys wooded with +cedars. Along every rocky path men were crowding with their wares to a +neighbouring market, bamboo hats and baskets, sugarcane, fowls, and +straw shoes being the principal wares. It was some time since I had seen +any foreign cottons exposed for sale in these markets. + +[Illustration: A HAND MILL.] + +The soil of the region I had traversed for a fortnight, except in the +basin of Paoning, is poor and unfitted for rice, and the people are +chiefly hardworking peasant farmers and coolies. Without having any +mission from associated or dissociated Chambers of Commerce, my interest +in the subject led me to make continual inquiries into the local trade +and the requirements of the people, and something as to the latter was +to be learned in conversation with the women. + +Apart from the general question of weight and make, the general verdict +was that the widths of our cottons are wrong, and that widths above +fifteen inches cut to waste in making Chinese clothing. Another +complaint was that our goods, put up as they are in wrappers intended to +impose on “semi-civilised” people, constantly make a display of colours +which in China are “unlucky.” Another was that the printed cottons, +besides offending in this respect, are coarse in pattern, colouring, and +style, more fitted for outside barbarians than for the refined tastes of +a civilised people! If these, which may appear minor matters, were +attended to, there is probably an opening for both our white and printed +cottons among the _middle and upper classes of Western China_. But I am +not a convert to the roseate views which many people take of the +enormous potentialities for our trade in SZE CHUAN if the means of +communication are improved by steam on the Yangtze and other methods. It +is not that our cottons are too dear, but that the great majority of the +people don’t want them at any price. That is, that the strong, heavy, +native cottons woven by hand, wear four times as long, and even when +they are reduced to rags serve several useful purposes. A coolie will +not buy a material which will only last a year, when, for the same price +or less, he can get one which will last three, or even four years. + +[Illustration: THE TA-LU.] + +Coolies dispense with all clothing but cotton drawers in summer, and +these must be strong to resist hard wear; and they say that our cottons +are too cold for winter. This is obvious, for a yard of Chinese +home-spun cotton cloth, fifteen inches wide, weighs over twice as much +as a yard of British calico over thirty inches wide, and resists the +wear and tear of hard manual labour and the ofttimes profuse +perspiration of the labourer. More than two millions sterling worth of +raw cotton and Sha-shih heavy home-spun cottons are supposed to be +imported into SZE CHUAN annually, just because the wear requires, and +must continue to require, the heavy make. Later, in Sin-tu Hsien, a +prosperous town of 15,000 inhabitants, twelve miles north of Cheng-tu, I +saw some Japanese cotton goods, fifteen inches wide, made on looms, +which the alert cotton-spinners of Osaka had adapted for the Korean +market, and which were of an equally heavy make with the Sha-shih goods, +and scarcely to be distinguished from home-spun cloth. The shopkeeper +highly approved of these goods, and said that if he could get them there +would be a large demand for them. Possibly British “workhouse sheeting” +of the same width might meet with similar approbation. + +At the hamlet of Lu-fang, where I was stopped by an official with a card +from the district mandarin, who kept me waiting an hour while he copied +my passport on a stone and provided fresh runners, the by-road by which +I had journeyed for some days joined the Ta-lu, the great Imperial road +from Pekin to Cheng-tu. I travelled along this westwards to Mien-chow. A +thousand years ago it must have been a noble work. It is nominally +sixteen feet wide, the actual flagged roadway measuring eight feet. The +bridges are built solidly of stone. The ascents and descents are made by +stone stairs. More than a millennium ago an emperor planted cedars at +measured distances on both sides, the beautiful red-stemmed, weeping +cedar of the province. Many of these have attained great size, several +which I measured being from fourteen to sixteen feet in circumference +five feet from the ground, and they actually darken the road. + +The first ascent from Lu-fang under this solemn shade is truly grand, +nearly equalling the cryptomeria avenues which lead up to the shrines of +Nik-ko, Japan. Each tree bears the Imperial seal, and the district +magistrates count them annually. Many have fallen, many have hollow +trunks, and there are great breaks without any at all. Still, where they +do exist, the effect is magnificent. This road, like much else in China, +is badly out of repair, many of its great flagstones having disappeared +altogether. There was a great deal of traffic on it, and not a few +saddle horses and mules were tripping easily up and down its stone +staircases. It was quite cheerful to be once more on a travelled highway +abounding in large villages and towns, with good inns and much +prosperity. + +These were days of delightful travelling without any drawbacks. The +weather was beautiful, the air sharp, and the people well-behaved. There +was no fatigue or annoyance, the accommodation was fair, and there was +literally nothing to complain of; the travelling was fit for a Sybarite. +The soil is rich, and enormous quantities of opium were grown; indeed, +in some long valleys there was no other crop. Wu-lien, where I slept one +night, is the cleanest and prettiest little Chinese town that I +saw—prettily situated, with a widish main street, good inns, fair shops, +and singular cleanliness, and the people were very mannerly. It has a +level stone bridge, supported on twelve stone piers decorated with +finely-carved dragons’ heads. + +On the road from Wu-lien to the large town of Tze-tung Hsien there is +some very pretty country, rich in agricultural wealth, and growing much +opium, which unfortunately in good years pays better than any other +crop, and is easy of transit. Wheat, which was only two or three inches +above the ground on the high ridges, was bursting into ear in the +valleys, and peas and beans were in their fragrant beauty. There was +much pink and white mistiness of peach and plum, and yellow fluffiness +of mimosa, and the people were astir and alert, performing spring +pilgrimages to popular shrines, men and women in separate companies. + +There are two very fine and ancient temples of brown cedar to the gods +of Literature and War in a cedar wood on the road, with most picturesque +hilly surroundings, a lovely spot, and the tides of pilgrimage set +strongly towards them. The God of War there as elsewhere is very +attractive to women, as may be seen any day in his great temple in the +native city of Shanghai. Perpetual incense burns on these altars, and +the priests claim the round-numbered antiquity of two thousand years for +the temples. + +There were very many companies of from ten to thirty well-dressed women +on the road, some of whom had hobbled on their crippled-looking feet for +fifteen miles, and were going back the same day; and many large bands of +men, each led by a man with a gong, carrying a small table with incense +sticks burning on it, the procession followed by another coolie loaded +with red candles, large and small, with thick paper wicks, incense +sticks, and red perforated paper for the God of War. His temple was +crowded, and dense clouds of incense rolled from the open front into the +atmosphere of heavenly blue. The God of Literature is chiefly worshipped +by the _literati_, and there were only a few sedan chairs with their +occupants and attendants at his splendid shrine. + +The Ta-lu failed to keep up its reputation. Its great flags were tilted +up or down, in mud-holes, or had disappeared; its noble avenue was +spasmodic and often non-existent for miles, leading to the prophecy that +it would disappear altogether, as it did. But the vanished grandeur was +made up for by the extraordinary traffic—baggage coolies, chair-bearers, +sedan chairs, passengers on foot and on horseback, varied at times by +marriage and funeral processions, or batches of criminals tied together +by their queues, being led to justice. Of the numbers of weight-carrying +coolies, divested of the upper garment, on the road, there were very few +free from hard tumours or callosities on both shoulders, and many of +them have deep, cracked wounds in their heels. A man carries a load five +miles before he earns a bowl of rice. + +At intervals there were small huts, each sporting a military flag, and +with halberds or lances with silk pennons leaning up against them. +Sometimes these were in a village, but occasionally the flag, which is +very showy, having a pennon end, and seen afar off, was only supported +by a heap of stones on the roadside. There were no soldiers in uniform, +but possibly the two or three peasants lying by every flag were men in +mufti. Sometimes boys were carrying firearms of an ancient type, bows +and arrows, or heavy swords. The people said that the flags were to +frighten the rebels, and that the men were watching for them, but the +region seemed in a state of profound peace. + +The peasants’ coffins on the road were those of the poorest class, and +were carried at a run, merely wrapped up in blue cotton. A mandarin’s +coffin on its way to Mien-chow was draped with blue kilted silk, +tasselled at the four corners, and was carried by twenty men in +red-tasselled hats, slung on a heavy beam, with a boldly carved dragon, +an emblem of official position, at both ends. The coffin was surmounted +(as were those of the peasants) by a tethered live cock. A cheap coffin +costs from five to ten dollars, and from that up to two thousand. There +is much trade done on the Chia-ling in coffin wood and coffins. I saw +many junks loaded with both. + +At one place in China, where there was no inn, I slept in a room with a +coffin which had been unburied for five years, because the geomancers +had not decided on a lucky site or date for the interment, and for the +whole time incense had been burned before it morning and evening. Of +course if there is a family burial-place the services of the geomancer +are seldom required except for the date of burial. + +The coffin of the mandarin on the Ta-lu was not on its way to interment, +therefore the usual procession was dispensed with, but nearer Tze-tung +Hsien we met a large funeral for which we had to leave the road.[45] On +this occasion the corpse of a well-to-do merchant, unburied for a year, +was being borne to the grave. + +In order to prevent any disagreeable consequences from interment being +delayed for months or years, the coffin-boards are three or four inches +thick, the body is covered with quicklime or is laid on a bed of lime or +cotton, and afterwards the edges of the lid are closed with cement, and +if the body is to remain in a dwelling-house, the whole is made +air-tight by being covered with Ning-po varnish. A coffin is sometimes +retained in a house by a defaulting tenant to prevent an ejectment for +rent, and it is occasionally attached by creditors, in order to compel +the relations to raise money to release it. So strong is the feeling in +China regarding suitable burial, that a son if he has no other means +will sell himself into slavery to provide the expenses, and burial clubs +and charitable societies for providing the destitute with seemly +funerals are numerous. + +On this occasion a band of music came first, then the monstrous coffin +on a bier carried by at least forty men in red coats and scarves, +covered by a canopy embroidered in gold thread, on which was tethered a +living fowl. Behind came the ancestral tablet in a sedan chair, the +sacrifice, and some red tablets, on which were inscribed in gold the +offices held by the deceased, followed by the male mourners dressed in +white. The eldest son, apparently sinking with grief, though it was a +year old, was supported by two men. Women and children followed, wailing +at intervals. A man preceded the whole, strewing paper money on the +ground to buy the goodwill of such malignant or predatory spirits as +might be loafing around. + +One man was loaded with crackers, another carried the libations which +were to be poured out, and the rear of the procession, which was ten +minutes in passing, was brought up by a great concourse of friends and +neighbours, and a great number of bamboo and paper models, admirably +executed, and many of them life-size, of horses with handsome saddles +and trappings, mules carrying burdens, sedan chairs, houses, rich +clothing, beds, tables, chairs, and all that the spirit can be supposed +to want in the shadowy world to which it has gone. These, with a +quantity of tinsel money, are burned at the grave, the tablet and +sacrifice are carried back, the former to be placed in the ancestral +hall, the latter to be feasted on or given to the poor. The ceremonies +of the interment, as my readers are aware, only initiate the long years +of ceremonial with which the dead are honoured in China. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + TZE-TUNG HSIEN TO KUAN HSIEN + + +An hour after leaving the great temples of Ta-miao, with their throngs +of pilgrims and the remarkable friendliness of the people, we came upon +the walls, gates, and towers of Tze-tung Hsien, the approach to which is +denoted by a graceful eleven-storeyed pagoda on a neighbouring hill. I +had not been through a large walled city since the riot at Liang-shan, +and I had to brace myself up for entering this one, which has a reputed +population of 27,000 people. The inhabitants were very orderly however, +and though the streets were greatly crowded, the people looked pleasant. +The Liang-shan riot is known to all the mandarins, and obviously they +have no wish for a repetition of it, and I adhere to my belief that they +are in most, if not in all cases, able to prevent attacks on foreigners. + +Tze-tung Hsien is a clean and prosperous-looking city, with wide streets +lined by good shops, in which the goods are more displayed than is +usual. It is surrounded with well-cultivated country, and good country +houses, and trades in vegetable oils, cottons, and raw and spun silk, +some of the strong, coarse “oak silk” being brought in for manufacture. +Oil is made from the seeds of the _aleurites cordata_, rape seed, pea +nuts, and opium seed. Opium oil bears the highest price. The town has a +stirring aspect, and its walls and gateways are in good repair. Outside, +the Fou River is crossed by a noble stone bridge of nine arches with +fine stone balustrades, carrying a flagged roadway eighteen feet broad. +The centre arch is thirty feet high. It is the finest bridge that I had +then seen in China. A grand temple outside the walls, and an elaborately +carved triple-storeyed _pai-fang_, complete the attractions of this +thriving city. + +[Illustration: WOMAN REELING SILK.] + +On the western route from Tze-tung Hsien the country becomes +increasingly fertile, and the road more dilapidated. The cedars have +disappeared, and the pavement is only four feet in width. The traffic in +oil, cotton, and tobacco was great, and crowds of pilgrims, very +respectable looking, with gongs, incense tables, and offerings, were +trudging to the Ta-miao temples. They said that they were making +offerings to the God of War for having driven the “barbarian rebels” +into the sea! There were funerals, too, and a train of twelve led +horses, each carrying a red flag, with on it a mandarin’s name and +official titles. These were heavily laden with luggage, and in front +there was the mandarin’s coffin, with a live cock upon it, carried by +forty men. + +The prevalent impression left by this great road is that of toil and +poverty. Rice had risen considerably in the previous three weeks, which +meant to many millions that they would never get a full meal. The region +I had entered is one of the most crowded parts of the Red Basin and of +China, and I often asked myself, “Why are there so many Chinese?” They +seem to come into the world just to bury their fathers. That night again +I slept in a room with a huge coffin, which had been waiting interment +for some years, and incense was regularly burned before it. + +On March 28th I reached Mien-chow, a city of about 60,000 souls, the +largest that I had yet seen in SZE CHUAN. The journey from Paoning Fu +had been most propitious in all respects, and the fine weather had come +at last. I entered the city by a bridge of boats over the Fou, a great +tributary of the Chia-ling. Mien-chow has a curious geographical +situation. The Fou basin, in which it stands, though north of Chengtu +and nearer the water parting, is on a lower level than the basin of the +Min, from which it is divided by a low ridge. So Mien-chow is actually +250 feet below Chengtu, its altitude being 1350 feet. + +It is a well-built and clean town, with a fine wall, and a river front +well protected by a handsome bund of cobbles and concrete, with eight +slanting faces. The Fou is navigable, and when the water is high, boats +can descend to Chungking in six or seven days. There is an enormous +wheelbarrow traffic from Mien-chow to the capital, principally of sugar +and tobacco. The busy and crowded streets are lined with shops, in which +every conceivable article in iron is displayed, from surgical +instruments, to spades, ploughshares, and articles in wrought iron. +There are fully half a mile of such shops. The great trade of Mien-chow, +however, is in silk, and much cotton is woven in its neighbourhood. The +shops display German and Japanese knick-knacks, foreign yarns, and +printed cottons, besides Kansuh furs, brocades, silks, temple furniture, +and drugs. The shops, with their varied, and in many cases costly, +contents show that the neighbourhood has great purchasing power. + +The passage through the thronged streets took nearly an hour, but all +was quiet. I was not allowed to go to an inn, but was most kindly +received at the Church Mission House, a dark and not agreeably situated +house in a crowded Chinese quarter, inhabited by the two ladies who, +after four years of patience and difficulties, have effected a permanent +lodgment in what is well known as a hostile city. They spent the first +two years at an inn, and so little were they thought of, that the +mandarin, when urged to take some action against them, replied, “What +does it matter? they are only women!” + +During this time all their attempts to rent a house failed, because the +officials threatened to beat and imprison anyone letting a house to a +foreigner; but a fortnight before my visit a man ruined by opium smoking +let them have for ten years the place into which they had just moved, +close to the great temple of Confucius. Access to it is through an area +inhabited by Chinese—a forlorn, dirty yard—and through an inner yard +full of Chinese, who seemed to be always gambling or smoking opium, a +third yard being the newly-acquired property, from which some of the +Chinese had not yet cleared out. The two last courts are rented by the +Church Missionary Society, and have subsequently been improved and made +habitable, and “The Emily Clayton Memorial,” a dispensary with a +surgical ward under Dr. Squibb, a qualified English doctor, has been +opened in the outer of the two compounds. + +It was interesting to see what missionaries in China have to undergo in +the initial stage of residence in a Chinese city. The house was utterly +out of repair—dirty, broken—half the paper torn off the windows, and the +eaves so deep and low that daylight could scarcely enter. There was an +open guest-hall in the middle used constantly for classes and services; +endless parties of Chinese passed in and out all day long, poking holes +in the remaining windows, opening every door that was not locked, taking +everything they could lay hands on; and the noise was only stilled from +four to six a.m.—men shouting, babies screaming, dogs barking, squibs +and crackers going off, temple bells, gongs, and drums beating—no rest, +quiet, or privacy. + +[Illustration: THE REV. J. HEYWOOD HORSBURGH, M.A., IN TRAVELLING +DRESS.] + +There were two services in the guest-hall on Sunday, conducted by Mr. +Heywood Horsburgh, the superintendent of the Mission, and several +classes for women also, but all in a distracting babel—men playing cards +outside the throng, men and women sitting for a few minutes, some +laughing scornfully, others talking in loud tones, some lighting their +pipes, and a very few really interested. This is not the work which many +who go out as missionaries on a wave of enthusiasm expect, but this is +what these good people undergo day after day and month after month. + +The place where the two ladies spent two years, consisted of a +guest-room at an inn in one of the most crowded of the city streets, a +living-room through it, a kitchen through that, and for a sleeping-room, +a loft above the living-room, reached by a ladder, just under the +unlined tiles. There was no light in any room, except from a paper +window, into the semi-dark passage. The floors were mud; wood, water, +charcoal, and all things had to be carried in and out through the +living-room; no privacy was possible; the temperature hung at about 100° +for weeks in summer; there were the ceaseless visits of crowds of +ill-bred Chinese women, staying for hours at a time; and without and in +the inn, seldom pausing, there was the unimaginable din of a big Chinese +city. Under these circumstances their love and patience had won twelve +women to be Christians. + +Mr. and Mrs. Cormack, of the China Inland Mission, and a thirteen +months’ baby, arrived before I left, he very ill of malarial fever. They +were swept out of Chengtu in the riots, losing all their possessions, +and with this infant had been moving for seven months, having lastly +been driven out of Kansuh by the Mohammedan rebellion. During the whole +seven months they had never been in one place more than twelve days. It +is a grave question whether married men and married women ought to be +placed in regions of precarious security. Mr. Heywood Horsburgh’s house +at Kuan Hsien had just been attacked and bored into by a number of +burglars, and between the terror caused by this, and the hostile cries +in the streets, which they understood too well, his delicate, sensitive +young daughters, one of them twelve years old, had become so thoroughly +nervous that the only possible cure was to take them home. I saw several +ladies in Western China who, after escaping from mobs with their young +children, were affected in the same way. + +Mr. and Mrs. Horsburgh and I left Mien-chow on March 31st, a grey, dull +day, but clear. We left the Ta-lu and travelled by infamous roads, often +only a few inches wide, frequently on the top of rice dykes. Great +mountains, snow-crested, spurs of the Tibetan ranges, loomed through the +clouds to the north-west, while we journeyed through the eastern portion +of the great Chengtu plain, the rich, well-watered soil green with +barley and opium, and beautiful with miles of rape, largely grown for +oil, rolling in canary yellow waves before a pleasant breeze. Large +farmhouses had reappeared, farming hamlets, and big temples, all +surrounded by fine trees. There are frequent water-mills of a very +peculiar construction, said by experts to be the oldest form in the +world, the wheel being placed horizontally just above the lower level of +the water. + +Before we left the Ta-lu, the great highway to the capital, the +wheelbarrow traffic was enormous. These “machines,” with a big wooden +wheel placed so near the centre of gravity as to throw the weight of the +load as little as possible on the driver’s shoulders, carry goods on +platforms on either side and behind the wheel, which is solid. One man +can propel five hundredweight. Heavy loads have one man to propel and +another to drag them. They move in long files, their not altogether +unmelodious creak being heard afar off, and the stone road is deeply +grooved by their incessant passage. + +[Illustration: WATER MILL, CHENGTU PLAIN.] + +After two pleasant days’ journey we reached Mien-chuh Hsien, a town of +50,000 people, according to the statement of the magistrate’s secretary. +It is not a handsome town, but it has a beautiful modern bridge over a +branch of the Fou, of six stone arches, a fine roof, iron balustrades, +and a central roofed tower. It is a busy and prosperous city, with many +fine temples and grand mountain views. The production of paper, +especially coloured paper, is its speciality, but it also manufactures +largely wood and horn combs, indigo, and fine wheaten flour. Much salt +is made in the neighbourhood, and in the hills thirty _li_ off there are +coal mines, producing coal which burns with a clear white flame, and +little ash. There, as elsewhere, the missionaries have introduced +English articles of utility, which have “caught on” among the Chinese. + +[Illustration: BRIDGE AT MIEN-CHUH.] + +A cordial welcome awaited us at the Church Missionary Society’s house. +The initial stage, as I saw it at Mien-chow, was passed, and we were +received into as trim a little home as one could see anywhere, or wish +to see. Turning from the street, where the people did not molest even by +curiosity, down a narrow alley and through a door, down a passage on one +side of which is the guest-hall, we entered a small and very bright +compound, cheery with pots of primulas and chrysanthemums, with five +small cottage rooms round it, with paper windows, but light, cheerful, +and homelike, with simple daintinesses, and a bright coal fire in a +quaint corner fire-place. The place is just a few Chinese cottages, +formerly used as a gambling den. Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, who have +transmogrified it chiefly by their own handiwork, had only lately been +able to rent it owing to the opposition of the mandarins, who can bring +many threats and much pressure to bear on persons who would otherwise be +willing to lease property to foreigners. + +The anti-Christian element everywhere seems a feeble one in the +opposition. It is to foreigners, simply as such, that the objection is +made, as “child-eaters” pre-eminently; and in Mien-chuh the people said +that the missionaries wanted the houses for hellish purposes, and that +they would dig under them and make a way to England, and that foreign +soldiers would come by it and take their lands, and that they wanted +lock-up rooms in which to hide the golden cocks which they dug out of +the mountains by night! + +I left Mien-chuh with Mrs. Horsburgh on a somewhat unlucky journey, +still travelling over the Chengtu plain in a westerly direction. The +time of year for theatricals, which are a great passion with the +Chinese, had begun. There is a large temple outside Mien-chuh, with the +usual adjunct of a stage, richly decorated, with a massive canopy roof, +for the “religious drama.” But on this day, being the festival of the +god to whom the temple is dedicated, this was supplemented by temporary +theatres and booths covering fully half an acre of the temple grounds, +and the great court was crammed with a closely-wedged mass of Chinese, +and the adjacent grounds and the road were such a crush of people that +our chairs could hardly get through. There must have been from twelve to +fifteen thousand present. + +These plays are got up by the priests, who send the neophytes round with +a subscription paper, afterwards pasting the names of the donors, +inscribed on red sheets, on the walls of the temple. The priests let the +purlieus for the occasion for the sale of refreshments, and also for +gambling tables and other evil purposes, and usually make a profit out +of what is professedly a religious celebration. When the subscription +list has been filled up, the priests engage the best talent that their +funds will allow of. + +Theatrical companies in China retain their original strolling character, +and there are few permanent theatres, the erection of the great sheds, +in which several thousand can be accommodated, being a separate branch +of the carpenter’s trade. A play usually lasts for three days, and the +periods for sleeping and eating are wonderfully minimised. Business is +suspended in the neighbourhood, and the people act as if the drama were +the only thing worth living for. It is not etiquette for women of the +upper classes to frequent the theatre, and private theatrical +performances are given in rich men’s houses, but women of the lower +classes, generally carrying babies, attend in large numbers and usually +sit in the galleries. Lads perform the female parts, with grotesque +success, transforming their feet into excellent representations of +“golden lilies,” and hobbling and tottering to perfection. + +I have only been present at two Chinese plays. They interest me greatly, +and it is on the stage alone that the gorgeous costumes of brocaded and +embroidered silk of former dynasties are to be seen. The scenery is +simple and imperfect. The orchestra fills up all pauses vigorously, and +strikes a crashing noise at intervals during the play to add energy or +fury to the performance. Ghosts or demons appear from a trap-door in the +stage. The scenes are not divided by a curtain, and the play proceeds on +its lengthened course with only intervals for sleep and eating. The +imperfect scenery makes it necessary for the actor to state what part he +is performing, and what the person he represents has been doing while +off the stage. There are comic actors who have only to appear on the +boards to convulse an audience with laughter, and tragic actors who are +equally successful in making men (or women) weep. There is no applause +in a Chinese theatre. Admiration is expressed by a loud and prolonged +sigh, as if indicating that the tension had been too great, or by an +utterance between a sigh and a groan. A crowd absorbed with theatricals +is usually peaceable, and the police are always at hand, but in country +places a play is apt to assemble the roughs of the neighbourhood, as I +learned the next day to my cost. + +Chinese theatricals are very clever, for without anything which can be +called scenery, and without a curtain, and with my own complete +ignorance of the language, the actors by their admirable acting +presented to my mind very distinct stories, in the one case of political +intrigue, and in the other of military patriotism and self-sacrifice. +The morals of the Chinese stage, so far as the sentiments of the plays +are concerned, are said by severe critics to be good; the acting was +quite unobjectionable when I was present, but I have understood that it +is not invariably so. The earnestness of attention, and the delight on a +sea of yellow faces at one of these theatrical representations are most +interesting. + +As we journeyed westwards, the plain became more and more luxuriant, and +the aspect of wealth and comfort more pronounced. The great farmhouses +are enclosed by high walls, and are shaded by cedars or cypresses, +bamboo groves and fruit trees, the latter in early April in all the +beauty of blossom. Groves of superb timber failed to conceal the gold +and colour of grand temples. There were water-mills, canalised streams +with many branches,—from which everywhere peasants, with fans and +umbrellas, were pumping water by the contrivance shown in the +illustration on next page—and rivers with broad winter beds, two of them +spanned by very fine roofed bridges, rafters and supports lacquered red, +and decorated with tablets in black and red lacquer, bearing the names +incised in gold of the public-spirited men who had restored them. + +In the afternoon an incident occurred which goes to show that the +Chinese need a gospel of civilisation as well as of salvation. The road +had left the rich and populous part of the plain, and had reached a +broad and completely dry river-bed, full of round water-worn stones, +crossed by a long covered bridge leading into the small town of +Lo-kia-chan, at which, at the top of the sloping shingle bed of the +river, a theatrical performance was proceeding before a crowd of some +six thousand people. Mrs. Horsburgh proposed that we should not cross +the bridge into the town, but should continue along the river bank +opposite to it and cross the bed lower down. My idea usually is, and was +then, to take “the bull by the horns,” but I deferred to her long +experience, and she went on at some distance in front in a closed chair +and in scrupulously accurate Chinese dress, I following in my open chair +and in my _olla podrida_ costume—Chinese dress, European shoes, and a +Japanese hat. + +[Illustration: TREADMILL FIELD-PUMP.] + +The crowd caught sight of my open chair, which, being a novelty, was an +abomination, and fully two thousand men rushed down one shingle bank and +up the other, brandishing sticks and porters’ poles, yelling, hooting, +crying “Foreign devil,” and “Child-eater,” telling the bearers to put +the chair down. In the distance I saw my runners proving their right to +their name. When I afterwards remonstrated with them, they replied, +“What could two men do against two thousand?” but a resource of power +lay in the magistrate’s letter. Then there were stones thrown, +ammunition being handy. Some hit the chair and bearers, and one knocked +off my hat. The yells of “Foreign devil,” and “Foreign dog,” were +tremendous. Volleys of stones hailed on the chair, and a big one hit me +a severe blow at the back of my ear, knocking me forwards and stunning +me. + +Be-dien said that I was insensible for “some time,” during which a +“reason talker” harangued the crowd, saying it had done enough, and if +it killed me, though I was only a woman, foreign soldiers would come and +burn their houses and destroy their crops, and worse. This sapient +reasoning had its effect. When I recovered my senses, the chair was set +down in the midst of the crowd, which was still hooting and shouting, +but no further violence was offered, and as the bearers carried me on, +the crowd gradually thinned. I had a violent pain in my head, and the +symptoms of concussion of the brain, and felt a mortifying inclination +to cry. The cowards, as usual, attacked from behind. + +After three very painful hours, in which I should have been glad to lie +down by the roadside, we reached the great, walled, district city of +Peng Hsien, with wide, clean streets, fine shops, temples, and +guildhalls, a flagged roadway curved in the centre, and stone sidewalks, +and what is regarded as a great curiosity, a lofty pagoda riven in +twain, each half standing up perfect. The city, the population of which +is officially stated at 28,000, manufactures brass and iron goods, iron +being mined in the neighbourhood, and coal not far off. + +Here, again, there was a display of rowdyism. “The city ran together,” +and for half a mile I was the subject of insult, though not of actual +violence. The street was nearly impassable from the crowds beating on my +chair with sticks, hooting, yelling “Foreign devil,” “Foreign dog,” +“Child-eater,” and worse, yelling into my ear, kicking the chair, and +spitting. We were carried into a very fine inn, which ran very far back, +its courtyards ending in a guest-hall, with oranges and lilies in pots +in the middle, and a mandarin’s room of much pretension beyond. + +A masculine crowd filling the courts surged in after us, keeping up a +frightful clamour. The innkeeper put me into the mandarin’s room, and +begged me not to show myself; and Be-dien went to the _yamen_ to make a +complaint regarding the outrage at Lo-kia-chan. As soon as he left, the +crowd began to hoot and yell and thump the door. I got up and barricaded +it with the heaviest furniture I could drag. Then they got a spade, or +wedge, and began to force it open. I deplored my helpless +condition—faint, giddy, and with a cracking headache, and an unmannerly +crowd of men ready to burst in. The bolt and barricade were on the verge +of yielding, when the mandarin’s secretary and another official arrived, +and at once produced order. + +They interviewed Mrs. Horsburgh, who was really able to tell very +little, and then I was unearthed, and gave my evidence with a bandaged +head and a sense of unutterable confusion in my brain. The mandarin sent +an apology for the rudeness in Peng Hsien, but partly excused the +people, as they, he said, had never seen an open chair or a foreign hat +before. The secretary said that they had sent to arrest the ringleaders +of the disturbance at Lo-kia-chan, which I did not believe, but was glad +of his courtesy. It was difficult for him to understand that I could be +so severely hurt when there was no effusion of blood. Soldiers were +posted in the courtyard for the night, and in the morning, besides +runners, there were four soldiers at my door, who marched, two before +and two behind my chair for the day’s journey to Kuan Hsien. I had a +very bad night, and felt very ill the next day, with everything wavering +before my eyes. I suffered much for a long time from this blow and the +brain disturbance which followed, but I will dismiss the unpleasant +subject from these pages by saying that I did not get over the effects +for a year, and that it was my last experience of violence in China. + +Perfect quiet prevailed in the crowded street of Peng Hsien. The Chengtu +plain grew richer and richer, the plumed bamboo and the cedars and +_cupressus funebris_ round the great farmhouses grander, and towards +afternoon snow-peaks, atmospherically uplifted to a colossal height, +appeared above the clouds in the north, with craggy and wooded spurs +below them, descending abruptly to the magnificent plain. Everywhere +living waters in their musical rush echoed the name of the great man who +before the Christian era turned the vast plain into a paradise. There +was a covered bridge over a wide rushing river; a dirty, narrow suburban +street, a narrow alley, and then a cheerful compound, in which a brown +spotted _dendrobium_ was blooming profusely, shared by three Scotch +missionaries of the China Inland Mission, and six of the Church +Missionary Society, women predominating. + +[Illustration: WOODEN BRIDGE. KUAN HSIEN.] + +At the back of the house the clear, sparkling Min, just released from +its long imprisonment in the mountains, sweeps past with a windy rush, +and the mountain views are magnificent, specially where the early sun +tinges the snow-peaks with pink. Why should I not go on, I asked myself, +and see Tibetans, yaks, and aboriginal tribes, rope bridges, and +colossal mountains, and break away from the narrow highways and the +crowds, and curiosity, and oppressive grooviness of China proper? + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + KUAN HSIEN AND CHENGTU + + +Kuan Hsien (2347 feet, Gill) is one of the best-placed cities in China, +at the north-west corner of the Chengtu plain, immediately below the +mountains which wall it in on the north, and, indeed, scrambling over +their spurs just at the fine gorge of the Couching Dragon, from whence +the liberated Min bursts in strength to gladden the whole plain. The +Mien-chuh road has not a fine entrance into the city—the Chengtu road, +which I travelled three times, approaches Kuan under six fine +_pai-fangs_, elaborately, and, indeed, beautifully decorated with +carvings in high relief in a soft grey sandstone. + +Apart from its situation, it is an unattractive town, with narrow, dirty +streets, small lifeless-looking shops, and a tendency to produce on all +occasions a dirty crowd, which hangs on to a foreigner, and which on my +arrival greeted me with—“Here’s another child-eater.” It has an outpost +air, as if there were little beyond, and this is partly true. It has a +possible population of 22,000. It is not a rich city, and its suburbs do +not abound in rich men’s houses. But it is distinguished, first for +being the starting point of the oldest and, perhaps, the most important +engineering works in China; and secondly, as being a great emporium of +the trade with Northern Tibet, which is at its height during the winter, +when as many as five hundred Tibetans, with their yaks, are encamped +outside its walls. The Tibetans exchange wool, furs, hides, musk, +hartshorn, rhubarb, and many other drugs for tea, brass ware, and small +quantities of silk and cotton. Tibetan drugs are famous all over China. +The Tibetans, as I learned from personal observation in Western Tibet, +are enormous tea drinkers. The tea churn is always in requisition, and +Tibet takes annually from China 22,000,000 pounds. The wool, which helps +largely to pay for the tea, and which is so abominably dirty that +fifteen per cent. of it has to be washed away, comes from pasturages +from 9000 to 12,000 feet in altitude. + +Musk is a most lucrative import. The small deer (_cervus moschus_), of +which it is a secretion, is said to roam in large herds over the plains +surrounding the Koko Nor. A single deer only produces a third of an +ounce, and it sells for eighteen times its weight in silver at +Chung-king, and is largely smuggled. Chengtu reeks with its intensely +pungent odour. Rhubarb, the best quality of which grows not lower than +9000 feet, is also a very valuable import, and other drugs are estimated +at £95,000 annually, and are quintupled in value before they reach the +central and eastern provinces. Aconite, a root largely used for +poisoning in Western Tibet, is imported into China as a medicine, +singular to say, criminal poisoning being very little known. Deer horns +in the velvet, for medicinal uses, are also largely imported. + +Much of the trade is done at Matang, in the mountains, a savage hamlet +which I afterwards visited, in the month of August; and very much more +comes down from Sung-pan ting, about 570 _li_ to the north of Kuan, +where it is chiefly in the hands of Mohammedan merchants, who act as +go-betweens. Wool brought from Sung-pan to Chung-king has to pass six +_likin_ barriers; so I understood from Mr. Grainger, of the China Inland +Mission at Kuan Hsien, to whom I am much indebted for carefully gathered +information on this and other local points of interest. + +The glory of Kuan is the temple in honour of Li Ping, a prefect in the +aboriginal kingdom of Shu, the ancient SZE CHUAN, the great engineer, +and his son, whose work has redeemed the noble plain of Chengtu from +drought and flood for two thousand years. Just above Kuan Hsien there is +a romantic gorge with lofty grey cliffs, down which one branch of the +Min, a cold, crystal stream, rushes wildly; but still, rafts and boats, +carrying lime and coal from above, make the passage, often to their own +destruction. On the right bank, high on the cliff, is a picturesque +temple in a romantic situation, with a beautiful roof of glazed, green +tiles, erected in honour of Li Ping or his son, whose name has been so +completely lost out of history that he is known only as “The Second +Gentleman.” + +Above this perilous gorge the Min is about two hundred yards wide, with +more or less mountainous banks heavily wooded, and at the point where +the Tibetan road crosses it, on a very fine bamboo suspension bridge +about 200 paces long, the grandest temple in China stands, on a wooded +height finely terraced, and adorned with stately lines of cryptomeria +and other exotic trees, one teak-tree in a courtyard being eighteen feet +in circumference. These noble shrines, with their fine courtyards and +the exquisitely beautiful pavilions and minarets which climb the cliff +behind the temple, and are lost among the cryptomerias of the summit, +are the most beautiful group of buildings that I saw in the far East, +combining the grace and decorative witchery of the shrines of the +Japanese Shoguns at Nikko, with a grandeur and stateliness of their own. + +This noble temple is scrupulously clean and in perfect repair. +Magnificent objects of art, as well as tanks surrounded with exotic +ferns, decorate its courtyards; living waters descend from the hill +through the mouths of serpents carved in stone; noble flights of stone +stairs lead to the grand entrance and from terrace to terrace; thirty +Taoist priests keep lamps and incense ever burning before the shrines; +an Imperial envoy from Peking visits the temple every year with gifts; +and tens of thousands of pilgrims, from every part of the plain and +beyond, bring their offerings and homage to these altars. + +The temple left on my memory an impression of beauty and majesty, which +nature and art have combined to produce. Outside, glorious trees in +whose dense leafage the lesser architectural beauties lose themselves, +gurgling waters, flowering shrubs with heavy odours floating on the +damp, still air, elaborately carved pinnacles and figures on the roofs, +even the screens in front of the doors decorated with elaborate tracery; +while the beauty of the interior is past description: columns of highly +polished black lacquer, a roof, a perfect marvel of carving and lacquer, +all available space occupied with honorary tablets, the gift of past +viceroys, while the shrines are literally ablaze with gorgeously +coloured lacquer and painting, and the banners presented by the emperors +wave in front. The galleries facing the effigies of the great engineer +and his son are carved most delicately with lacquered fretwork; and on +pillars, galleries, and everywhere, where space admits of its decorative +use, is Li Ping’s motto incised or inscribed in gold, “_Shen tao t’an ti +tso yen_”—“Dig the bed deep, keep the banks low.” + +[Illustration: ROOF OF ERH-WANG TEMPLE.] + +Although there is a shrine to Li Ping in this splendid “Erh-Wang” +temple, it was possibly erected in honour of “The Second Gentleman,” the +temple to the father being (believed by Mr. Grainger) the more recent +erection above the gorge of the Couching Dragon. Every Chinese Emperor, +from the Tsin dynasty, 246 B.C., downwards, has conferred the posthumous +title of _Wang_, or Prince, upon Li Ping and his son. A stone tablet in +one of the temples records the story, which I learn from Mr. Grainger, +who has translated the inscription. + +The Chengtu plain, which these deservedly honoured engineers may be said +to have created, is the richest plain in China, and possibly in the +world. It may be about 100 miles by seventy or eighty, with an area of +about 2500 square miles. It produces three and even four crops a year. +Its chief products are rice, silk, opium, tobacco, sugar, sweet +potatoes, indigo, the paper mulberry, rape and other oils, maize, and +cotton, along with roots and fruits of all kinds, both musk and +water-melons being produced in fabulous quantities. From any height the +plain looks like a forest of fruit trees, while clumps of cypress, +cedar, and bamboo denote the whereabouts of the great temples and fine +farmhouses with which it is studded. + +It has an estimated population of 4,000,000, and is sprinkled with +cities, and flourishing marts, and large villages, Chengtu, the capital, +having at least 400,000 people. Along the main roads the population may +be said to constitute a prolonged village. The abundance of water power +produces any number of flour and oil mills, the plain is intersected in +all directions with roads which are thronged with traffic, and boats can +reach the Yangtze from Kuan Hsien, Chengtu, and Chiang Kou. + +Oranges reappear in splendid groves, mixed up with the vivid foliage of +the persimmon; mulberry trees are allowed to grow to their full height +and amplitude; spinning and weaving are going on everywhere; the soil, +absolutely destitute of weeds, looks as if it were cultivated with +trowels and rakes, “tilled,” as Emerson felicitously said of England, +“with a pencil instead of a plough.” There are frequent small temples, +or rather shrines, to the God of the Soil, of solid masonry, the image +being enclosed by open fretwork, in front of which the incense sticks +smoulder ceaselessly, the long-drawn creak of the wheelbarrow is never +silent during the daylight hours, agricultural energy and activity +prevail, and the plain is a singular and, perhaps, unrivalled picture of +rustic peace and security. + +[Illustration: OIL BASKETS AND WOODEN PURSE.] + +This population of four millions depends not only for its prosperity, +but for its existence, on the irrigation works of Li Ping and “The +Second Gentleman,” carried out long before the Christian era. Without +these, as has been truly said, “the east and west of the plain would be +a marsh, and the north a waterless desert,” and this great area with its +boundless fertility and wealth, and its immunity from drought and flood +for two thousand years, is the monument to the engineering genius of +these two men, whose motto, “_Dig the bed deep, keep the banks low_,” +had it been applied universally to rivers of insubordinate habits, would +have saved the world from much desolation and loss. + +[Illustration: BARROW TRAFFIC, CHENGTU PLAIN.] + +With a faithfulness rare in China, Li Ping’s motto has been carried out +for twenty-one centuries. The stone-bunded dykes are kept low and in +repair, and in March the bed of the artificial Min, created by Li Ping, +by cutting a gorge a hundred feet deep through the hard rock of the +cliff above Kuan Hsien, and which has been closed by a barrier since the +previous November, with its subsidiary channels, is carefully dug out, +till the workmen reach two iron cylinders, sunk in the bed of the +stream, which mark its proper level. The silt of the year, which is from +five to six feet thick, is then removed. The whole plain contributes to +this expensive work, and a high official, the _Shui Li Fu_, or “Prefect +of the Waterways,” is responsible for it. + +In late March, or early April, there is a grand ceremony, sometimes +attended by the Viceroy, when the winter dam is cut, and the strong +torrent of the Min, seized upon by human skill, is divided and +subdivided, twisted, curbed by dams and stone revetments, and is sent +into innumerable canals and streams, till, aided by a fall of twelve +feet to the mile, there is not a field which has not a continual supply, +or an acre of the Chengtu plain in which the musical gurgle of the +bright waters of the Tibetan uplands is not heard—waters so abundant +that though drought may exist all round, this vast oasis remains a +paradise of fertility and beauty. + +At Kuan Hsien, where I spent some little time recovering from the +assault at Lo-kia-chan, and in projecting a further journey, the feeling +of the people towards foreigners was definitely hostile. It had been +originally opened to Christian teaching by a lady, who, after living +alone there for a considerable time (but that was before “the riots,” +the modern landmark in SZE CHUAN history), left for England during my +visit, much regretted; but since the riots “the Jesus religion” had made +very slow progress. Slanders against the missionaries were circulated +and believed, and the special one that they stole and ate infants, or +used their eyes and hearts for medicines, was disagreeably current in +Kuan Hsien. + +The foreign ladies, four of whom had been hidden for eleven weeks of the +hottest part of the previous summer, during the disturbances, in a room +without a window, were very nervous, as was natural, starting when +shouting was heard, not knowing what it might mean, and even those men +who were hampered by wives and young families, at times looked anxious. +No one who has heard the howling of a Chinese mob can forget it—it seems +to come up direct from the bottomless pit! One of these young wives, +during the disturbances, escaped through a window with her three infants +to a ledge above the river while her husband kept the mob at bay. + +So when I left for Sin-tu Hsien and Chengtu I escorted a lady, whose +nerves had received such a shock in the riots that she was afraid to +travel alone. My escort was of little value, for the people of the +villages were lavish of their infamous epithets, pulled away the blinds +of her chair, pulled out her hairpins and terrified her, while I was +ignored. + +It was a very long day, and when we reached Sing-fang Hsien, a busy +town, long after dark, we had a pilgrimage from inn to inn, finding them +all full, and the people hooted us all along the street till we found +refuge in a hostel by no means “first-class.” The heat had set in +fiercely, and the mercury was 83° in the shade. The following day, after +a short journey in intense heat over the glorious and busy plain, we +reached the house of Mr. Callum of the Church Missionary Society, at +Sin-tu Hsien, a thriving town of about 15,000 people, with a pleasant +promenade on its walls, and a very fine temple just outside them. The +industry of this town, as of Kuan Hsien, is chiefly the making of straw +sandals. + +The third day’s journey with Mr. and Mrs. Callum was still over the +glorious plain, which became yet richer and more densely populated as we +neared Chengtu, the restaurants, always crowded with coolies and +travellers, almost lining the road, and the wheelbarrows making a nearly +ceaseless procession. + +[Illustration: POPPY FIELD IN BLOSSOM. [_F. Mayers._] + +If one could disabuse oneself of the belief that opium is the curse of +China and is likely to sap the persistent vitality of the race, there +could have been nothing but unstinted admiration for the wonderful +beauty of the crop in blossom, as I saw it in its glory on that sunny +April day on the Chengtu plain, which in some places seemed to have no +_raison d’être_ but its growth. The season had been without a drawback, +and every leaf and flower had attained to its full maturity of +loveliness. The blossoms were white—white fringed with rose-pink, white +with white fringes, ruby-red, carmine, dark purple, pale mauve, and +rose-pink. Waves of colour on slope and plain rolled before the breeze. +Houses were almost submerged by the coloured billows. Far and near, +along roads and streams, round stately temples and prosperous +farmhouses, rippled and surged these millions of corollas, in all the +glory of their brief and passionate existence—the April pulse of Nature +throbbing through them most vigorously,—the poppy truly in the +ascendant. + +[Illustration: THE WHITE OPIUM POPPY.] + +There is a remarkably fine stone bridge on that route to Chengtu, with +dragons surmounting each pier, and very emphatic abutments. I had heard +very much of Chengtu as being among the finest cities, “a second +Peking,” etc. On entering it by the west gate, and the gates are very +imposing, green glades lead into the Tartar quarter, a region of large, +walled gardens, well wooded, and good-sized houses, frequently much +decayed. In a street of shops several of the signs are written in +Manchu. In this quarter it was refreshing to see the tall, +healthy-looking women with “big feet,” long outer garments, and roses in +their hair, as in Manchuria, standing at their doorways talking to their +friends, both male and female, with something of the ease and freedom of +Englishwomen. + +It was some distance along wide cleanly streets and through charming +“residential suburbs,” as I must call them, though they are within the +walls, to the “palatial residence” in which the members of the China +Inland Mission have been quartered by the Viceroy at a low rent since +the absolutely complete destruction of the mission premises in the +riots, a destruction which was also complete in the case of the houses +and hospitals of the various other missions, even the bricks of which +the buildings were constructed being carried away. This house, in which +I was most hospitably received, had been assigned by the Government to +the American Commission which came from Peking to assess the losses +incurred by their “nationals,” and there was glass in the windows and +matting on the floors, and dainty muslin blinds and curtains everywhere. + +There is a large Romish mission, and American and Canadian missions +besides the China Inland Mission, the Protestant missionaries living and +working in much harmony, though in some respects, chiefly externals, on +differing lines. Things had never settled down comfortably since the +riots, and the official class at least was much embittered by the +enormous damages claimed and obtained by the Roman mission. Stories of +child-eating were current, and I am sure that the people believe that it +is practised by the missionaries, for in going through Chengtu on later +occasions I observed that when we foreigners entered one of the poorer +streets many of the people picked up their infants and hurried with them +into the houses; also there were children with red crosses on green +patches stitched on the back of their clothing, this precaution being +taken in the belief that foreigners respect the cross too much to do any +harm to children wearing the emblem. + +I see little or no resemblance to Peking in Chengtu. Without emphasising +the other essential points of difference, Chengtu is neat and clean, and +a comparison of its odours with those of Peking is impossible, for those +of musk overpower all else! Indeed, along with the tea, silk, opium, and +cotton, which it imports from the rest of the province, its great trade +is in the numerous wild products of Tibet—rhubarb, drugs, furs, and +above all, musk. + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN MANCHU DRESS.] + +It is a very prepossessing city; and its noble wall in admirable repair, +the successor of one built in the third century B.C., is about fourteen +miles in circuit, sixty-six feet broad at the base, forty at the top, +and thirty-five feet high, while what may be regarded as a somewhat +formidable “earthwork”—an inner embankment almost the width of the +wall—supports it along almost its whole circuit. This structure, the top +of which is a superb promenade, is faced with hard and very fine brick, +and has eight bastions, which are pierced by four fine gates, rigorously +guarded, for the purpose of exacting the native customs and _likin_, +which are very hard on foreign imports. + +A stream, banked by stone revetments, runs through Chengtu from east to +west, frequently bridged, and in one place spanned by three stone +bridges, each of a single arch, close together. There are many moats and +broad pieces of water, and the main river, about a hundred yards wide, +is crossed by many bridges, one of them roofed, and lined on both sides +by the stalls of hucksters; but the great stone bridge, half a mile +long, with “a richly painted roof supported on marble pillars,” +described by Marco Polo, has ceased to exist! Canals and streams abound, +and are crowded with shipping of small size, chiefly plying to +Chung-king and the ports west of it, cargo and passage junks, and +_wupans_ with hooped bamboo roofs, in one of which I afterwards made the +downward passage, and _sampans_. The waters were very low, and the craft +much jammed together. + +The city has wide, well-paved streets, crossing each other at right +angles, and the handsome shops make far more display than is usual in +China, the jewellers’ shops specially, with their fine work in filigree +silver, and even rich silk brocades are seen gleaming in the shadow in +the handsome silk shops, as well as _pongees_, both of local +manufacture, and costly furs, and the snowy Tibetan lambskin can be seen +from the streets exposed for sale. Within, respectable, richly-dressed +shopkeepers await customers, and serve them with due dignity, but make +no attempt to ensnare them. Farther back, in the obscurity, is the +representation on a large scale, frequently taking up the whole end of +the shop, of _Dzai-zen-pusa_, the God of Wealth, the Japanese _Daikoku_, +and the British Mammon, with an altar and incense before him. To him, as +the “luck of the shop,” the merchant, his apprentices, and all his +employees must offer worship morning and evening, and no cult is so +universal. + +Chengtu has many scent shops, and most articles of Chinese manufacture +are exposed at the shop fronts, but there was a very small display of +foreign goods. + +The strange, wild figures of the trading Tibetans in the streets, the +splendour of the trains of officials and _literati_, who ride horses +almost concealed by expensive trappings, or are carried at a rapid run +in carved and gilded sedans, with poles bent up high in the middle, so +as to raise the magnate above the heads of the plebeian herd, and the +air of prosperous business which pervades the streets, are all +noteworthy. It is a city which owes absolutely nothing to European +influence. The commercial arrangements by which its business +arrangements are run, its posts, banks, and systems of transferring +money are all solely Chinese. There, without difficulty, I cashed the +draft I brought from a Chinese merchant at Hankow. Chengtu owes nothing +to Europe, except a grudge for the excessive indemnity she has had to +pay for indulging in the luxury of riots. + +The Viceroy, or Governor-General, is a very important official, and +lives in great state, with a large military force at his disposal, as +befits a man who represents Imperial power in a province as large as +France and more populous, and who coerces or administers all Tibetan +countries, and the wild borderland which I afterwards visited, which is +neither Chinese nor Tibetan—and even the decennial tribute mission from +distant Nepaul is allowed or forbidden to go on to Peking much at the +Viceroy’s pleasure. A request was made to this great man for a letter +which would further my journey, and it was promised by a fixed time, but +I never got it. + +The crowded, busy streets of Chengtu fringe off into truly charming +intra-mural suburbs, green and quiet, where deep gateways admit into +beautiful gardens bright with flowers and shady with orange and other +fruit trees. There are tanks full of water-plants brightened by the +gleam of goldfish; the cool drip of falling water is heard; +trellis-work, green with creepers or bright with the blossoms of +scarlet-runners, shades the pathway; the scent of tea-roses floats on +the sunny air; and all these groups of pleasant residences tell of +affluent ease and the security in which it is enjoyed. + +The view from the city wall of the plain, with its beauty and fertility, +with suggestions of snow peaks far away, is very striking. Some of the +temples are very fine, specially the Wen-shu-yuan (literary college), +situated near the north gate.[46] + +This grand building, dating at the latest from the thirteenth century +(A.D.), has been rebuilt by several dynasties, and has gone on +increasing in wealth and magnificence till its priests and monks are +justly proud of its splendours, of which the severe heat, even in the +green shades of its grandly timbered surroundings, on the day of my +visit prevented me from seeing more than a half. They may be proud of +its exquisite cleanliness, too. By the time I reached Chengtu I had come +to think that Chinese temples are much maligned on this score, but +certainly the Wen-shu-yuan and the “Prince’s Temple” above Kuan Hsien +excel them all in this virtue, which is said to approach so closely to +godliness. All the more remarkable is it here, because the temple is a +“theological college” as well as a monastery, a large number of students +for the priesthood bringing up the number of the inmates to one hundred +and fifty. + +All the interstices between the smooth and well-laid flagstones of the +courtyards are kept clean and free from grass; stonework, woodwork, +gilding, paint and lacquer are all in perfect repair, and the fine roof +is kept from the injuries caused by sparrows by a man who walks about +the court with a cross-bow. The refectory opening from the court, with +twenty-five tables set with tea, vegetables, and rice bowls for six +each, for the vegetarian community, is as clean as all the rest; the +wooden tables, chopsticks, and bowls all having that attractive look of +well-scrubbed wood which we associate with an old-fashioned English +farmhouse. + +It is not possible to say whether the course of study and devotion +prescribed for both priests and students produces equal purity of soul. +In the Chapel of Meditations, resembling those which I saw in the +monasteries of Western Tibet, both orders must spend some hours of every +day in front of the Buddhist images, striving by all means known to them +to reach a state of holy ecstasy, in which they are blind to all +impressions from the seen. It may be possible that the prolonged +watching of the curling and ascending clouds of incense produces a +condition approaching hypnotism. + +Severe guest-rooms, furnished according to the most rigid Chinese +etiquette, chapels, some filled with costly gifts and curiosities, or +with tablets to munificent donors, resplendent in gold on black lacquer, +libraries of the religious classics, and picture galleries containing +portraits of the deceased abbots, vestries for vestments, and +dormitories occupy this fine pile of buildings. In the entrance portico, +the idol photographed as an illustration recalled me to the fact that +China is a stronghold of idolatry. On the other side the divinity looks +like a douce, respectable English squire of the days of George III. + +[Illustration: DIVINITY IN WEN-SHU YUAN TEMPLE, CHENGTU.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + KUAN HSIEN TO SIN-WEN-PING + + +Before I left Kuan for Chengtu I had decided on extending my journey up +the Siao Ho, a western branch of the Min, on which the mountain town of +Li-fan Ting is situated, into the mountainous borderland which lies +between China proper and Tibet, the country of some of the reputed +aboriginal tribes which concurrent rumour said were under the rule of a +woman. At Kuan and Chengtu no information could be got regarding the +country west of Li-fan, except that Tibetans trading to Kuan said that +“everything could be got at Somo,” which appeared to be the residence of +the ruler. As there was little use in undertaking such a journey without +a more efficient interpreter than Be-dien, Mr. Horsburgh kindly +suggested that Mr. Kay, a lay member of the Church Missionary Society, +who has a considerable knowledge of colloquial Chinese, should accompany +me. I had a hazy intention if things went well of attempting to get down +to Ta-lien-lu by the Chin-chuan and Tatu river, returning to the Yangtze +by Ya-chow and Chia-ling Fu, but the season was late for this. + +When I went to Chengtu I left my travelling arrangements to be made in +my absence, simply indicating what they were to be, and that they were +to be in writing. A favourite axiom of mine is the late General Gordon’s +saying, “I am my own best servant,” and as a general rule I attend to +the smallest details of a journey in advance myself, down to every +strap, buckle, and horseshoe. On this occasion the suffering following +the blow on my head and my journey to the capital had induced me to +trust to others, who, however kind, were without travelling experience; +and on returning I found that the travelling arrangement was the exact +opposite of the one I had indicated, and that, instead of the coolies +having been engaged from a hong with a written agreement, a servant had +been allowed to make up a family party on indefinite lines! + +Two days of hot, heavy rain delayed the start, and gave ample +opportunity for the exercise of those innumerable acts of thoughtful +kindness which these small, isolated communities delight in showing to +strangers, and which can never be forgotten. There were two +disagreeables. Be-dien had been in a shocking sulky fit for two days, +and would not answer anyone who spoke to him; and instead of the +promised letter from the Viceroy came an indignant note from Mr. Vale, +of Chengtu, saying that at the last moment it had been refused. + +On the third day the rain became a quiet downpour, tailing off at midday +into a misty drizzle which continued; and as further waiting was +undesirable, I started, in my three-bearer chair, with five porters, two +_chai-jen_, Mr. Kay, his servant, and Be-dien. As my European clothing +had fallen to pieces, I was dressed as a Chinese and wore straw shoes. +My baggage was all waterproof, and instead of oblong Japanese baskets +and bundles protected by oiled paper, I had two deep, square bamboo +baskets as better fitted for the mountains, and no loose packages but my +camera. Unfortunately, as preventing accurate observations, a year +before I had sent home the instruments lent to me by the Royal +Geographical Society; a pony had rolled on my hypsometer, and an aneroid +barometer kindly lent to me was not reliable, and I had no means of +ascertaining the amount of its unreliability before I left China. + +The beautiful gorge outside the city, and the grand Prince’s Temple were +drowned in mist, out of which heavy odours of gardenia drifted. All the +vegetation, under the genial influences of heat and moisture, was in +full beauty, and there, as everywhere, vigorous plants of the Japanese +anemone bordered the road. The climbing roses were in blossom, and, +weighted with moisture, hung almost down to our heads. Rocks were matted +over with the _hymenophyllum Wilsonianum_, as thick as the fleece of a +sheep, and the hare’s-foot fern began to make its appearance along with +the familiar _polypodium vulgare_. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO GROUNDS OF CITY TEMPLE, KUAN HSIEN.] + +We left Kuan by the west gate, near a very fine temple, to which the +picturesque mass of lacquered pillars and roofs in the illustration is +only the outer entrance. Passing above the divided waters of the Min, +and Li Ping’s simple contrivances for preserving the banks, which +consist far more frequently of long cylindrical baskets of bamboo +network containing stones as big as a man’s head than stone revetments, +we crossed the Min by a very fine bamboo suspension bridge, which +scarcely vibrated more under our tread than did the old Menai bridge +under a carriage. + +These bamboo bridges are a feature of the Upper Min, and are remarkably +graceful, specially when thrown across at a considerable height. In the +better class there is a covered bridge-house at each side and stone +piers. Six bamboo ropes each as thick as a man’s arm are stretched very +tightly across the river by strong windlasses firmly bedded, which are +used for re-tightening the ropes as they “give.” These ropes are kept +apart by battens of wood laced vertically in and out. The plank roadway +is laid across the lower of the ropes, and follows their curve, which +owing to the use of the windlasses for tightening up is not great. These +bridges are renewed always once, and sometimes twice, a year, an +operation taking two days and under. Owing to the extreme width of the +river at the Kuan bridge, there are three or four spans with stone +piers. Usually these suspension bridges are carried right across. The +roadway is sometimes trying to the nerves, for planks tip up, or tip +down, or disappear altogether, or show remarkable vivacity when the foot +is placed upon them, and many a gaping hiatus, trying to any but the +steadiest head, reveals the foam and fury below. + +The road follows the river at a height and dives into the mountains, +which are at first of sandstone, with curious strata running up at right +angles to the valley, and then of limestone. The valley is populous, +smoky, and trafficky. Lime-kilns abound, and a considerable population +is employed in working the coal seams, which occur chiefly in the +sandstone; while hundreds of coolies, carrying both coal and lime, were +moving towards Kuan, and many more were loading vessels and rafts, +which, if they escape the risks of the gorge below, can reach Lu-chow on +the Yangtze. + +At the end of nine miles, turning by a short cut up a romantic tributary +of the Min, through a gorge of entrancing beauty, where forest trees and +flowering shrubs were linked by an entanglement of flowering trailers, +crossing a river by a covered bridge, we arrived at Fu-ki, where there +was a quiet, pleasant inn, one of several of the same character on this +route, where, instead of evil odours, the scent of syringa from the hill +behind entered my room. It was very quiet and peaceful. There was no +crowding or boring holes in the plaster, the river hummed monotonously +below, the mercury was under 60°, and altogether it was a delightful +change from the crowding, curiosity, noise, and blazing heat of the +Chengtu plain. + +Again the next day we started in a steady downpour, which ceased at the +top of the very pretty temple-crowned pass, over four thousand feet in +altitude, of Niang-tze-ling, after which it was fine and cool. The road +drops down from the pass to the deep canyon of the Min, which bifurcates +at Weichou, and the river and mountain scenery become increasingly +stupendous, reminding me greatly of the road from Kashmir to Tibet after +it reaches the Indus. Two fine bamboo suspension bridges near the foot +of the pass, others higher up, and a number of rope bridges of Tibetan +pattern give both easy and difficult access to the other side. There was +a decided Tibetan influence in the air, which I welcomed cordially. Red +lamas passed us on pilgrimage to Omi Shan, and numbers of muleteers in +sheepskins and rough woollen garb, their animals laden with Tibetan +drugs, and, better than these, some “hairy cows” (yaks), which had not +yet lost the free air of their mountain pastures, and executed many +rampageous freaks on the narrow bridle path. Lamas and muleteers were +all frank and friendly, asked where we were going, how long we had been +on the road, enlightened us on their own movements, and cheerily wished +us a good journey. Most of the mules had one or more prayer-flags +standing up on their loads, for the Tibetans are one of the most +externally religious peoples on earth. + +The Min[47] from the pass of Niang-tze-ling assumes the character which +it retains more or less to the source of the Siao Ho or lesser branch. +It is a fine, peacock-green river; then, though at low water, of +considerable volume, booming, crashing, and foaming through canyons and +gorges in a series of cataracts, hemmed in by cliffs and mountains so +precipitous as rarely to leave level ground enough for a barley patch. + +The bridle track, a very good one on the whole, though there are some +shelving rock slithers, has been cut, not blasted, in the rock, at times +on steep declivities and at times on precipices, and follows the up and +down left bank of the Min ascents and descents at a height with great +fidelity. It is not broad enough for a loaded mule to pass a chair, and +the sight of a caravan in the distance always caused much agitation and +yelling, the Tibetan muleteers invariably drawing off on the first +margin they could find, and greeting us with courtesies and good wishes +as we passed them. I envied them the altitudes and freedom to which they +would return from the cramping grooviness of China. + +Now and then the road is scaffolded, or steps are cut in the rock, or it +passes under an arch of rock, or a bridge carries it across a lateral +chasm down which a crystal torrent dashes, after turning two, three, or +four rude mills placed in dizzy positions one above another. It is so +severe that we only did thirteen miles in nine hours, and I saw plainly +what I had suspected from the first, that one of the scratch team of +bearers was not up to his work. + +The whole of the first fortnight’s journey was along the deep, wild +gorge of the greater or lesser Min. It differs widely from ordinary +Chinese travelling, and has a strong resemblance to the wild gorges of +the Yangtze. The mountains rise from the river to a height of over 3000 +feet. Ghastly snow-cones look over them, their slopes, always steep, +often break up into cliffs 400 or 500 feet high; the river has often not +a yard of margin, and hurries along, crashing and booming, a thing of +purposeless power and fury, which has never been tamed of mankind, its +sea-green colouring a thing of beauty, and its crests and stretches of +foam white as the snows which give it birth. + +These mountain-sides, as far as Weichou, are completely covered with +greenery, dwarf ashes, oaks, chestnuts and beeches, big enough for use +by the charcoal-burners. Coarse grasses, thistles, yellow roses, a very +pretty yellow cistus, bryony, brambles, yellow jasmines and flowering +creepers in abundance, all dwarf, with the barberry in blossom, covered +the stony, broken hillsides. Three species of warm-scented artemisia and +fuzzy brown balls of uncurling fronds of ferns were expanding in the +crevices of the rocks, and the rocks themselves were often tinged +rose-pink with the early leaves and delicate clasping fingers of +Veitch’s _Ampelopsis_. + +It was a clear escape from the crowds of China. The traffic on the road +was mostly Tibetan. There is little room for crops; an occasional patch +among the rocks near the river, and small fields, then growing rape, and +later starved barley, terraced great heights, where the mountain slope +is less steep than usual. Small as the population is, it does not grow +enough for its wants, so many of the men hunt the deer and wild boars on +the mountains and sell the carcases in Kuan in the winter, and others +trap the fur-bearing animals, which appear to be an inferior sable and +marten. + +[Illustration: DOUBLE ROOFED BRIDGE.] + +There are a few hamlets on the road, which subsist chiefly by supplying +the needs of travellers, but the restaurant was usually hidden away, and +made no display on the “street.” Rice is scarce and not always +attainable, and wherever we halted, instead of the appetising displays +of ready-cooked viands which tempt the coolie appetite, there was rarely +even a fire, and it was always an hour before anything was cooked. The +inns, though much better than any I had been accustomed to, and often +built of new boards, do not provide any fire in the mornings unless by +special arrangement, and till this was understood I started without tea. +Their stock of food was soon exhausted, even at the larger villages +where we halted for the night, and the descent upon them of twelve +hungry persons was manifestly unwelcome. Some of the hamlets are built +at great heights, and are accessible by rugged paths and steps cut in +the rock. The people are hardy, rough, and fairly friendly. The Chinese +are, to my thinking, men of plains and rivers and slimy paths—a +rice-eating people, associating with the water buffalo. Here they are +abruptly metamorphosed into hardy mountaineers, hunters, maize and +millet fed. Even the women, though still binding the feet, are +independent in their air and movements, and perform feats in crossing +rivers. The country is a cross between China and Tibet. However, there +are no temples, and few shrines or other signs of religion. + +Fully one-third of the population is on the west side of the Min, cut +off from the high road with its business and gaieties by a furious +torrent, and in most cases too poor to construct bamboo suspension +bridges. Their strong nerves enable them to get over the difficulty. I +know of no sight in China which fascinated me so much as their rope +bridges, which we met with on the second day, and which occur sometimes +at frequent intervals, as far as Weichou, from which point I saw no more +of them. + +The mountaineers stretch a plaited bamboo cable at a great height across +the gorge, tighten it as well as they can, and secure each end round a +round stone or a convenient rock. Sometimes a shed is built over the +terminus and a shrine close by. Every mountaineer provides himself with +two semi-cylinders of hard wood, often hinged, about a foot long. With +perfect _sang-froid_ he places these on the cable, and binds them +together with a rope. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, +he proceeds to suspend himself from the cylinder by ropes passed under +his knees, his waist, and the back of his neck; some dispensing with the +last. + +He is then hanging under the rope, and, gripping it fast by the slide, +he gives the solid earth a shove and casts off. No matter how tightly a +long rope is strained, it must still “sag” considerably in the middle, +and down the passenger rushes at tremendous speed, head foremost, down +hill across the chasm, with an impetus which sends him a little way up +the other slope. Then, letting go the cylinder, he puts his hands on the +rope above his head, and hauls himself up hand over hand, slowly and +laboriously. When he reaches land he detaches the cylinder, packs it and +the rope into his basket, shoulders his burden—and both men and women +continually carry small sacks or bundles of wood across—bows at the +shrine, and goes his way. + +[Illustration: TIBETAN ROPE BRIDGE.] + +I saw a woman cross carrying a load on each side. It took her ten +minutes to ascend from the middle of the rope, which must have been +ninety feet above the torrent, to land. Her face was purple with the +effort, and her hands must have been pretty sore, for she spit upon them +several times during the crossing. Even children are trusted to these +arrangements, which need considerably more nerve than the _Jhulas_ of +the Himalayas. In some places to minimise the difficulty there are two +rope bridges, each descending from a high to a low level. + +It is only occasionally at the mouth of one of the grand lateral gorges +which open on the valley that there are any trees, and then they are +very fine, specially walnuts and the exotic Zelkowa, and the _Salisburia +adiantifolia_, with a few sturdy conifers, and the villages are +surrounded by peaches, apricots, and the Japanese _loquat_ (_Eriobotrya +Japonica_). + +It was a delightful day’s journey to Sin-wen-ping, and the keen mountain +air and the novelty and freedom were full of zest. Solitary grandeur, +the deafening din of the Min, the green crystal affluents which descend +upon it down glorious gorges, the precipices rising a thousand feet from +the water, the abrupt turns where progress seems blocked, and each +mountain barrier is grander and loftier than the last, and then the +majesty of the day’s journey culminates at a mountain village with a +fine suspension bridge, beyond which the road looks only a thread along +the side of a precipice. + +When the bearers reached Sin-wen-ping they said they would go no +farther, for there was a “big wind” farther on, which would blow the +chair into the river, and the porters said they could not carry the +loads against it. Then it came out that Be-dien had left behind the +lanterns which I bought a few days before; so the men carried their +point of making a day of thirteen miles. Again I urged that the +agreement with them should be put in writing; but it was not done, and I +found later that it was on quite different lines from those I had laid +down. I saw grave difficulties ahead, and should have been glad to ride +and be rid of the men, but I had left my saddle in Korea. + +It was very cold in the inn, only half my room being roofed, and the +mercury, which was 83° on the Chengtu Plain, was only 40°. It was +invigorating and delicious. The people, too, were very friendly, and did +not manifest their curiosity rudely. A runner arrived from the capital +with a big official envelope addressed to me, containing letters with +the Viceroy’s seal; but as they were addressed to the mandarins of Pi +Hsien where I did not halt, and Kuan Hsien which I had left, and made no +reference to the regions beyond, they did not promise to be useful. On +the _yamen_ at Chengtu refusing the promised letters, Mr. Vale +telegraphed to H.B.M.’s Consul at Chungking, and this was the result. +The letters stated to the mandarins that at Liang-shan and Peng Hsien +the mob had attempted by violence to break in my door, and that I had +been attacked with stones, all within the Viceroyalty, and the Viceroy +directed the _kuans_ to take efficient measures for my protection. + +[Illustration: HAND SLIDES FOR TIBETAN ROPE BRIDGE.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. + SIN-WEN-PING TO LI-FAN TING + + +After leaving that quiet place, where the temperature was only 52° at +7.30 a.m., we plunged at once into a wild part of the gorge, very thinly +peopled and desolate, on which grim snow-peaks looked down from the head +of every lateral cleft. The traffic on the road was altogether Tibetan, +partly accounted for by the junction of the road to Mou-Kung Ting, a +thousand _li_ away, with the Sung-pan Ting road, which we were +following. There were large caravans of very big, powerful mules, loaded +either with wool or with medicinal roots, and with a merry inclination +to lunge at us with hoofs or teeth as we passed them; the rough, uncouth +muleteers always cheerful and friendly as they exchanged with us their +national salutation _zho_. + +One man at least in each caravan—every man having charge of four +mules—can shoe his own beasts, and I had the luck, in consequence of a +mule kicking off his shoe as we passed him, to see that the method is +the same as in Western Tibet. They tie the fore and hind legs of the +animal together, cast him, put a pole through the lashings, the ends of +which are held by two men, and cold shoe him, paring the hoof only very +slightly, using very long nails with tacket heads. + +The Mou-Kung Ting road is one of the great routes of Tibetan traffic, of +which we saw much less after passing the junction. + +The gorge is very narrow, so narrow that at times the road is scaffolded +over the water, or is carried by rough steps cut in the face of the +precipices. We ascended 800 feet during the day. The traces of spring +diminished, the hills were brown and bare, the apricots were hardly in +blossom, the few trees were leafless, the people still wore their wadded +clothes, and it was pleasant to walk a good deal. Yet here and there +were thick carpets of a sky-blue dwarf iris, a fragile thing, looking +misplaced among its rough surroundings, and patches of a blue bugloss, +and dwarf shubberies of a barberry in blossom. + +[Illustration: HUMAN PACK SADDLE FOR TIMBER.] + +Things had changed. Thatched roofs had given place to thin slabs of +stone, or rough boards held down by big stones. All ornament had +disappeared. China seemed left behind at such a great distance, that +every Chinese I saw looked as if he must be like myself, a foreigner. +The men were hardy mountaineers, and carried their loads on pack +saddles, striding like men, rather than at a dog trot, on the swinging +bamboo. Even the women can shoulder packs and dangle from rope bridges, +and the children have an air of freedom. + +A short day’s journey ended at the hamlet of Shuo-chiao, where the gorge +opens out, and for a brief period the Min is vulgarised into various +branches clattering and boiling among beds of Brobdingnagian shingle. It +is a wild place, among high mountains, a single village street, a fine +suspension bridge, a mill or two on the shingle, and goats on the ledgy +slopes. The inn at the end of the street, where I spent two nights, was +new, and hung over a branch of the river. My room, having no ceiling, +was lofty. The boards were clean, and there were no bad smells. The +noise of the river was tremendous. Besides the roar of the water, there +was a sound of paving stones being thumped on paving stones, and a +perpetual clatter of shingle. I had to shout as loud as I could to make +my servant hear. But it was very restful. I was entirely ignored. No one +intruded into my room, and when I took a walk unattended no one followed +me. + +Food was scarce, and an inroad of twelve travellers involved much +arrangement. Shuo-chiao is not a usual halting-place, and the stocks +were low. The people fell back on making macaroni, and sandwiches with +chopped garlic between layers of steamed paste. Macaroni is made of a +very close dough of barley meal, very much kneaded, and rolled out on a +clean table over and over again till it attains the desired toughness +and thinness, when the operator cuts it into long and narrow strips, +which are hung over a string to dry. When wanted these strips are +boiled, and are eaten with chopped capsicum or onion. + +The following day’s journey to Weichou was novel and interesting. The +sky was grey and threatened rain, and the snow-peaks loomed grimly +through flurries of dark clouds. We ascended to a height of over 4300 +feet into a barren region, where winter lingered. The few villages have +characteristics of their own; each consists of a long, clean, paved, +narrow street, the houses built of stone, the walls with more or less of +an inward slope, as if under Tibetan influence—all dwellings +two-storeyed, the upper storey of dark wood, with carved, overhanging +balconies with supporting beams also carved, and with very deep eaves +with long and elaborately carved wooden pendants. Such villages are +usually by torrent sides, with fruit trees, cedars, and poplars +clustering about them, and are approached by picturesque bridges. The +street terminates at either end with a decorative gateway, often with a +small tower and wind bells. + +In many places where the Min has a narrow bank, there are ruined +villages with only ruinous walls standing; and in each house there are +one, two, or three graves. On one larger open space there are great +numbers of graves, said to be those of soldiers who died fighting; and +the whole of the slaughter and destruction is attributed by the +villagers to the Taiping rebellion. This is plausible, but doubtful. + +In crevices there were minute fronds of the silver fern, which grows +profusely all along the canyon; but nature was still asleep. Limestone +and grey sandstone predominate, and the curiously marked strata are +occasionally vertical. Basalt, however, appears in some of the lateral +ravines, and pink granite; and the torrents which tumble over the latter +are exquisite in their sparkle and purity. A traveller who, except on +one day’s journey from Wan, has not tasted unboiled water for more than +two years, would wish to be thirsty to drink of these icy and living +waters. + +At Wen-chuan Hsien, a small prefectural town packed among high +mountains, with a very poor but clean street, a picturesque entrance, +and a fine Confucian Temple, I sat in the grey street while the _yamen_ +officials copied my passport at a table, and an old man, who seemed +influential, kept the dirty and too often leprous crowd of men and boys +from pressing on me too closely. Nothing is ever done privately in the +East, and several men leant over the scribes, reading the +imposing-looking document, when one exclaimed, with an air of +consternation, “She is given rank!” Others exclaimed incredulously, “A +woman can’t have rank!” But the scribes settled the point in my favour; +and then there was a discussion as to how I had got rank—if it were +literary rank, or if I were the wife of a great mandarin in my own +country—a suggestion combated on the ground that I wore poor cotton +clothing, and had no jewels. Wen-chuan is the most hopelessly dull +official town that I saw in China. + +The night before, at Shuo-chiao, I was told that after passing Wen-chuan +we should see the villages of the “Barbarians,” on the heights; and I +heard a tale with which travellers bound for the aboriginal tribes have +been plied from Marco Polo down to Captain Gill. The innkeeper said that +these people would offer hospitality, but it was dangerous to eat with +them, for they believed that if they poisoned a rich man his wealth +would come to them without violence, and that they would think that I +was rich (in spite of my poor cotton clothing), and would put poison in +my food, and that in about three months I should die of a disease akin +to dysentery! He also said that these tribes are ruled by a very great +queen, who will not let any stranger enter her territory—obviously the +same woman of whom I had heard rumours at intervals for some months +previously. + +At last, and for fifteen _li_ before reaching Weichou, the objects of +interest became novel and plentiful, startling in their novelty. +Singular dwellings made their appearance, crowning hilltops or poised on +ledges—isolated or in clusters. The earlier specimens have high, dead, +stone walls, flat roofs, and an upper storey covering a third of the +roof, but without a front wall. Before long such houses aggregated +themselves into villages on great heights, and without any apparent +means of access, though that they were inhabited was obvious from the +patches of cultivation about them. Among them appear tall towers, +sometimes to the number of seven; they are picturesque and fantastic +beyond all imagination. Of course these are the dwellings of the Man-tze +(Barbarians), supposed by most ethnologists to be the aborigines of +Western China; and it was not a little disappointing, on turning the +glass upon them, to see nothing but Chinese with their queues and blue +cotton, and hobbling women loafing round such extraordinary habitations. +I use the word _loafing_ advisedly. It is usually quite inapplicable to +a Chinese, and among these mountains, as elsewhere, he has plenty of +grit, but population is scanty, and competition has ceased to be keen, +so he has leisure for a lounging study of the welfare of his crops and +his pigs. + +So, among villages crowning rocky mountain-tops or clinging to scarcely +accessible mountain-sides, some of them very Tibetan, others with +definite characteristics of their own, the road finds itself at the +small prefectural town of Weichou, at the junction of the Ta Ho and the +Siao Ho (the Great and Little rivers), in a superb situation, much +embellished by the unconscious art of the builder, with _yamens_ on +rocky heights, and the grey city wall following the steep contours of +the hills which surround the town. The north road on the left bank of +the Ta Ho leads to Sung-pan Ting, and the west road, mostly along the +right bank of the Siao Ho, to Li-fan Ting and beyond. Weichou is the +town called by Captain Gill on his map Hsin-Pu-Kuan. + +At this point mules for the farther journey should have been engaged. + +It is a good sixty-five _li_ from Weichou to Li-fan Ting, and we left at +6 a.m. My expectations were high, but they were more than fulfilled. +From Weichou to Somo there is only one dull bit of about three miles. As +far as Li-fan Ting the scenery is colossal and savage, Tibetan in its +character, resembling somewhat the wild gorges of the Shayok; and, +beyond Tsa-ku-lao, the westernmost official post of China in that +direction, the grandeur and beauty exceed anything I have ever +seen—Switzerland, Kashmir, and Tibet in one. + +Outside Weichou there are two suspension bridges, over which I had to +walk. They were “on their last legs,” and were taken down when I came +back. They vibrated, the wind swayed them unpleasantly, and as the loose +planks were only laid at intervals, and some had disappeared, and the +swinging structures hung like inverted arches over boiling surges, the +crossing was not agreeable, and it is as little so when on this road the +chair turns a corner of the narrow path on the edge of a precipice 500 +or 600 feet in depth, and hangs for an appreciable interval over the +abyss below. + +The day was the most brilliant for three months, and the journey from +first to last was magnificent, but the wind, which I found such a +merciless foe in Central Asia, rose at the same hour, 9 a.m., and blew +half a gale till near sunset, reaching its maximum of force at 2 p.m., +making photography impossible, several times nearly overturning the +chair and its bearers, and filling eyes, nose, and mouth not only with +gritty dust, but with irritating alkalis. This is the daily routine in +these mountain valleys. On crossing the bridges we entered at once the +gorge of the Siao Ho, or Li-fan River, in which we remained for twelve +hours—a river flashing in cataracts, eddying in rapids, with never a +quiet reach—a deep, clear, olive-green stream, its grand course +accompanied by a deep undertone of a heavy booming in its caverned +depths. Its career is through a rift among mountains, seven, eight, and +nine thousand feet in height, broken up by stupendous chasms and +precipices, and into red-brown, but seldom grey, peaks—the higher like +needles, the lower crested by villages, to all appearance inaccessible; +the mass riven asunder, laterally, in many places in so remarkable a +manner as to show on one side the rock corresponding to the cleavage on +the other, so that if the sides could be brought together they would be +an exact fit. + +[Illustration: BAMBOO SUSPENSION BRIDGE, WEICHOU.] + +Occasionally the mountains and precipices recede sufficiently from the +river to give scanty space for villages at their feet, with poplars and +scanty crops of bearded wheat on sandy soil, and at the lateral openings +alluvial fans occur, bearing fair crops of wheat and maize, as well as +pear and apricot trees, just providing a scanty subsistence for a scanty +population. Limestone, grey and red sandstone, and a very hard +conglomerate are the predominant formations, but a granite with a pink +tinge makes an occasional innovation, and the potholes in the river, +where it was possible to investigate them, were found to be fashioned of +grey granite. One remarkable feature of the region is the enormous +quantity of nitrate of soda. Its efflorescence in places whitens the +mountains as if with snow, and so checks vegetation as to reduce it to +coarse plants of strong constitutions, with tough fibres and woolly +leaves. Sulphur abounds also, and fragments of an iron ore, which I +afterwards learned is brown hematite. There are nitre works at Weichou, +and sulphur is supplied in small quantities for making powder, but the +cost of land carriage is great, and it is chiefly used locally for +tipping matches. + +The road is a great work of modern origin, and must have cost a large +sum. It is in excellent repair. It is cut, not blasted, for much of the +way out of solid rock. In places it is necessary to carry it out over +the river on a wooden framework, supported on timbers driven into the +river-bed, or to “scaffold” it by carrying it out on stakes driven +horizontally into the rock. In one place a fine gallery, decorated with +stone tablets to the man who presented the road to his district, has +been cut through the rock, and wherever steps are necessary, they have +been carefully made. At this distance of 2000 miles from the coast, and +half that from the capital, it is somewhat surprising to find so marked +a sign of civilisation as an excellent road in thorough repair. + +I cannot attempt to convey to the reader any idea of the glories and +surprises of that long day’s journey. It was a perfect extravagance of +grandeur of form and beauty of colouring, and the sky approached that of +Central Asia in the brilliancy of its bright pure blue. Every outline +was sharp, but the gorges were filled with a deep blue or purple +atmosphere; the sunlight was intense. There was no dawn of spring on the +bare rock faces of the mountains, no gloom of pine in any rift—grandeur +and vastness are the characteristics of the scenery—peaks and precipices +are piled on each other, and through the rare openings there were +gleamings far away of sunlit cones of unsullied snow. + +There are villages on hilltops, on rocky peaks, reached by stairs cut in +the rock, on ledges of precipices, into which the back rooms are +excavated without obvious means of access, and villages where the houses +are three, four, five, and even seven storeys high, clinging to steep +mountain-sides, or hanging on to cliffs above tempestuous streams. These +villages are on heights five, seven, and even nine thousand feet above +the sea—barley and bearded wheat ripening in July at eleven thousand—and +from one to three thousand feet above the Siao Ho. All are built of +stone, all look more or less like fortifications, all have flat roofs, +and most have brown wood rooms or galleries, much decorated with rude +fretwork, supported on carved beams projecting from their upper storeys. + +Most of these villages possess mysterious-looking square stone towers, +sloping very gently inwards from base to summit. These are from forty to +ninety feet high. The bases of some of them are thirty feet square; the +sides are pierced by narrow openings, wider, however, than loopholes. +The doors are fifteen feet and upwards from the ground, and I did not +see any with any present means of access. Some have lost many feet of +their height, I suppose from age and weather, but many are perfect, and +have projections near the roofs, which on a small scale are like the +projecting rooms of the modern villages. Three and four in a single +village is not an uncommon number, and occasionally there are as many as +seven. At a distance they give the romantic villages in the ravines the +prosaic aspect of smelting works, but they add a singular dignity and +picturesqueness to those on the heights. They are built without mortar +of blocks of undressed stone, “well and truly laid,” in spite of the +difficulty of the inward slope, and the stones are of sufficient size to +suggest an inquiry as to how they were elevated to their present +positions. Those towers which are still perfect are roofed, which may +account for their preservation. There are great numbers of them between +Weichou and Li-fan Ting, after which they occur but rarely till the +head-waters of the Chin-shuan are reached. + +As the Man-tze say that “their fathers and their fathers’ fathers never +remember a time when they were free,” so they cannot remember any +legends regarding the use of these towers, except that in “old times” +fires were lighted on their roofs to recall absent villagers to the +defence of their homes against an approaching enemy. Some think that +they were granaries, but the so-called thinking of people in their stage +of mental development is of little value. + +[Illustration: ANCIENT TOWERS AT KANPO.] + +Perhaps mine, in the absence of a greater array of facts, is not worth +much more! It appears certain, from a consensus of testimony, that these +buildings have two and three floors, reached by steps, _i.e_. notched +timbers, like those which at this day lead up to Man-tze roofs. Very +large, rough, earthen jars, which might have contained water, were shown +to me as having been found in one of them. It is quite possible that at +a late date the roofs were used for beacon fires, but from certain +indications in a few cases I am inclined to believe that +easily-removable approaches of stone and earth led up to the doors, by +which stores could be taken up and cattle driven in, the final entrance, +after the removal of these slopes, being made by means of notched +timbers, easily drawn up into the building; and that the towers were +refuges, in which the cattle were below and the people above, food for +man and beast being stored in the same building. This theory accounts +for the number of towers often found in the same village. It is quite +possible that the chief or headman and each of the richer villagers +possessed such a refuge. The style of building is far beyond the +capacities of a “barbarous” people. + +Along the lower waters of the Siao Ho, all the Man-tze villages which +have not been more or less destroyed—with the exception of a few which +have been deserted, and are ready for occupation to-morrow, with the +lands belonging to them, have been taken possession of by the Chinese, +and evidently with much slaughter, for the number of graves is very +great. Even the villages on the heights above that part of the river +have not escaped Chinese absorption. + +At one time, and that not long ago, the aboriginal population must have +been large, both to the south and west of Weichou, but not a Man-tze was +to be seen within forty _li_ of it. Many a blackened ruin of a once +happy Man-tze hamlet stirs the travellers’ wrath, and it is hardly less +aggravating to find Chinese families comfortably living in the +picturesque dwellings of the slaughtered or expatriated aborigines. +There were many tales told of the treachery of the “Barbarians,” and of +the necessity of extirpating them—such tales as are to be heard in +America, Australia, and every land in which the stronger race has ousted +the weaker one. When at Li-fan Ting my farther progress was vehemently +opposed, I had some reason to think that the officials feared that when +I was once fairly among the Man-tze I should hear other versions of +these stories. + +About forty _li_ from Weichou, where the lateral clefts in the +precipices are dark and savage, and rocky peaks crowned with fantastic +lama-serais rise abruptly from rocky spurs, the villages on the heights +become more numerous, and the presence for the first time of Man-tze +inhabitants (who are rigid lamaistic Buddhists like the Tibetans) is +denoted by long flags inscribed with Sanskrit characters on tall poles +fluttering gaily in the strong east wind which blows down the canyon all +day long. Occasionally a wooden bridge on the cantilever principle, like +the Sanga bridges in India, of which many specimens are seen between the +Zoji-la and Leh in Ladak, crosses the furious torrent. Most of the +Man-tze villages are on the left bank of the Siao Ho, and by the +destruction of these bridges, which are much out of repair, they could +be rendered impregnable. + +These villages are indescribable. The cattle and fodder are kept below, +and the windows and loopholes only begin from fifteen to twenty feet +from the ground. Brown projecting rooms and balconies at a great height, +the gay flutter of red and white prayer-flags, notched timbers giving +access to roof above roof, fuel-stacks on roofs, towers suggesting peril +and defence, and not seldom a headman’s house above, as large as a +feudal castle, which it much resembles; while high above that, looking +like an outgrowth of the rock, and only attained by flights of steep +rock steps, crowning the peak which dominates every village, are almost +invariably the piled-up temples, towers, and buildings of a lama-serai, +with their colour and gloom, the flutter of their prayer-flags, and the +sound of the incessant wild music of horns, drums, and gongs. An air of +mystery pervades the whole, for with all this cheerful flutter of flags +and the sound of music and the signs of industry it was very rarely that +any inhabitants were to be seen, just the glint of a woman’s red +petticoat now and then, or the red frock of a lama in relief against the +grey rock. + +These tribes are not Tibetan, though they are down on most maps as +“Tibetan tribes,” but in the extraordinary picturesqueness of their +lama-serais and villages they reminded me vividly of the Shayok, and the +fantastic monasteries of Deskyid and Hundar in the Tibetan Nubra Valley. + +It is a temptation to linger on that day’s journey. I did actually +linger on it, for one of my bearers, as I expected, was quite unequal to +his work, and I had to walk a good deal and allow of many halts for +rest. The halting-places were magnificent, but food was scarce and dear, +as every cattie of rice must be brought up from the low country. +Although we ascended on that day 988 feet, the climate became +perceptibly milder, and from what I observed later, it appears quite +possible that in temperature each degree west is equal to a degree +south. Grain crops, poplar, apricot, and pear trees were in their first +vivid green, the silver fern was in its beauty, the golden fern was well +advanced, the bugloss was in bloom, and in places where the canyon +opened a little there were narrow lawns of the finest turf, on which the +Tibetan traders camp in the season, on which red roses with coarse, +woolly calices were already in blossom. There was no traffic, and even +an unloaded pedestrian, unless he were a red lama telling his beads, or +twirling his prayer-cylinder, was a rarity. + +In the late afternoon, at an abrupt and superb turn of the river, we +crossed a cantilever bridge high above the torrent, on the other side of +which is a fine village of extraordinary Man-tze houses, clinging to +ledges of a conical peak crowned by a small temple and a very large and +fantastic lama-serai. A tower, ninety feet high, very ancient, and in +good repair, gives dignity to the picturesqueness of Ta-fan. The road +attains the village by a steep, winding stairway of steps cut in the +rock, and passes through a gateway into cool shadow created by high, +massive, stone houses on either side. So massive are they, and so high +are the windows above the ground, that they suggest memories of villages +in the Engadine. + +I rested in a large house in which, as in the others, a Chinese was +living with his family. These aborigines had grand ideas of habitations. +I entered into a guest hall panelled with brown wood, with two rooms on +each side and a large room behind. A gallery of brown wood, with rooms +opening from it, runs round the hall at a height of about eight feet +from the floor. It was very cool and clean, and I sat in a Chinese +easy-chair, glad to be out of the bluster. My host, who was the headman, +was a very courteous Chinese, and offered me wheaten cakes, honey, and +tea. He said that all the houses in the canyon were built by “Tibetans,” +though Chinese live in the lower villages; that if a Chinese builds a +new house he builds it after the same fashion, for that nothing but +Tibetan building—specially the inward slope of the very thick walls—can +stand the tremendous winds. The village subsists less by agriculture, +for which there is not sufficient irrigation, than by the Tibetan +traffic in the trading season. + +The headman asked me why I was travelling to be murdered by the +“Barbarians,” and evidently attached no value to my statement that it +was to see the country. I wished then and elsewhere that I had been able +to say that it was in order to write a book, for that would have given +me “rank,” and would have been an intelligible explanation. + +[Illustration: KAN-CHI.] + +After leaving this village the mountains closed in again upon the pass, +their forms growing in wild majesty; there were glimpses of snow-peaks +with pines on their skirts, and where the shadow was bluest and deepest, +and the peaks are loftiest and sharpest, on a small patch of partially +level ground, separated from a very high and bare mountain, with +precipices which Captain Gill estimates at 3000 feet in height, by the +roaring river, stands the wild mountain town of Li-fan Ting, the +residence of a small magistrate, though only possessing a population of +five hundred. + +Before we actually reached it waves of sunset gold rolled down the pass, +distant snow-cones blushed red, every peak took on purple or +amethyst—there was a carnival of colour. The wind fell to a dead calm, +there was a touch of frost in the dry air, when suddenly the whole glory +of mountain and chasm died out, and the colour vanished, leaving only +the distant snow-peaks burning red against a sky of tender green. + +This small, grey city, on whose expansion Nature places her veto, looks +the final outpost of Chinese civilisation—the end of all things. A +well-built, narrow, crenelated wall runs between Li-fan Ting and the +river, hems it in, and then in a most fantastic way climbs the crests of +two mountain spurs, which wall in a ravine behind the town, bare and +rocky as all else is, looking like great flights of uncannily steep +stairs, following the steep and irregular contour of the ground. + +A clear blue torrent, tumbling down at the back, thunders through the +town, and is utilised for many Lilliputian water-mills, mostly with +horizontal wheels, as on the plain. These mills are round, and look like +small Martello towers, and only a man below the average height can stand +upright in them. Poplars, willows, pear, and apricot trees contrast +pleasantly with the bare mountain-sides, and soften the grey outlines of +the small mountain town. Above Li-fan, and 2200 feet higher, is a +Man-tze village, in which the people have made Chinese intermarriages, +and have assimilated themselves to their conquerors. + +Li-fan has one long, narrow, grey street of two-storeyed houses, the +upper storey with its balcony being of brown wood. It is very clean, but +cleanliness is not much of a merit—indeed, it is a necessity of that +altitude and in a dry atmosphere. It has no industry or trade of its +own, and subsists almost entirely on the through trade from Tibet at +certain seasons. It has a remarkable _yamen_, which, lacking space for +lateral expansion, has developed skywards; a temple on a rock, +brilliantly coloured; and a fine temple in the narrow street, rich in +effective wood carving, and possessing a huge bas-relief of the Dragon. +The rarefied air is singularly dry, and so it continues until the Pass +of Peh-teo-shan, 70 _li_ to the westward, marks a decided change to +humidity. On the nights of April 22nd and 23rd there were three and four +degrees of frost. + +In this quaint town on the first day of the tenth month of each year, +the mandarin, with all the pomp which Li-fan can muster, fires the +biggest gun in the town at the opposite mountain to preserve “the luck +of the place.” It is believed, at least by the people, that if this +ceremony were not performed there would be tumults, followed by plague, +pestilence, and famine, and that the town would be given up to bad luck. +To save the luck some of the lamas make pilgrimages to an image cut in +the rock at the base of the Snow Dragon, a grand mountain to the south +of Li-fan. + +The inn, where unwillingly I spent two days, is not bad, and was quite +free from smells. My room was at its extreme end, close to a crashing, +booming torrent, to the mountain, and to the red temple, which, like the +_yamen_, has developed skywards. It had two large holes in the floor, +and two windows under the roof, from which all the paper was torn, so +that the tremendous wind by day found easy entrance. + +As soon as we arrived the usual official visit was paid, and with much +politeness of manner obstacles were thrown in the way of my further +progress. Two _chai-jen_ were placed at my door, one of them sleeping +across the threshold. Much consideration for the safety and comfort of a +lady was expressed—a novelty in China. There were neither roads nor +inns, it was said; the people were savages, the tribes were fighting, it +was dangerous to proceed. The next morning the prospect for departure +was badly clouded over. The veneer of politeness had disappeared, and +the official manner had become dictatorial. Senior officials from the +_yamen_ mounted guard, and a sentry was stationed at the inn gate. I was +a prisoner in all but the name. _Chai-jen_ could not be provided, they +said. The mandarin was absent, and no arrangements could be made till +the Viceroy of SZE CHUAN had been communicated with. Going beyond Li-fan +was a thing unheard of. All other foreigners had turned back,[48] they +could not be responsible for me any farther. They bullied and threatened +my men, and forbade the townspeople to give me supplies or porters. + +[Illustration: ROCK TEMPLE, LI-FAN TING.] + +The other difficulties, which I had foreseen from the first, came to a +head. Owing to the want of a contract I was in the power of the +chair-bearers. One of them was nearly incapable of carrying me, and not +having recovered from the severe blow at Lo-kia-chan I was not capable +of much walking. The only man in Li-fan who could carry a chair was +engaged in that man’s place in the morning, but was “ill” at night. The +authorities had forbidden him to go, and had taken the precaution of +laying the same prohibition on the mules, though if I could have +dispensed with the men I was prepared to make the journey on a pack +saddle. Finally and fatally, Mr. Kay, who was very much in the power of +the servant who had got the team together, when the men said that all +must go or none would go, engaged them all for the whole journey, and +under the circumstances we were then absolutely in their power so far as +going forwards was concerned. Such a tribe of rice-eating men, carrying +their loads from the shoulder, would, under any circumstances, have been +unsuited to the journey. But what was done could not be undone, and +there was “no use in crying over spilt milk.” + +The _chai-jen_ smoked their opium pipes across my door, but retained +wits enough to pounce on me if I stirred, and even obtruded their +unwelcome presence when I climbed on the roof to photograph. On the +second evening the officials made a last effort to induce me to wait +till they sent a runner to the capital and back. + +The last morning I woke everybody at 4.30, and was ready to leave at +5.30; but it was not to be. The officials were already there frightening +the coolies with stories, intimidating them, and threatening to have +them beaten for disobedience, and there was a violent altercation +between them and Mr. Kay, in which some very strong language was used on +both sides, which did not mend matters. When I came out they tried to +shut me into my room; but I managed to get into my chair. They told the +bearers not to carry me. 1 told them to move on. The officials then +tried to shut us in by closing parts of the outer door of the inn; but +Mr. Kay opened them, and held them open till the frightened porters and +my bearers had passed through. It was but fifty yards to the city gate. +I feared they would close it, but they contented themselves with +following us there, crying out, “We wash our hands of you!” and hurling +at us the epithet “Foreign dogs!” as a parting missile, throwing down +the gauntlet by sending us off without _chai-jen_, telling the brazen +lie that the road I proposed to take was not in China! + +From this point there was the pleasurable excitement which attends a +plunge into the unknown, for I had not been able to learn that +missionary zeal, or geographical research, or commercial ambition had +penetrated the regions beyond, or that any English traveller has given +any description of it, and I only regret that my lack of scientific +equipment should make my account of it meagre, and in some respects +unsatisfactory. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + LI-FAN TING TO TSA-KU-LAO + + +The sixty _li_ from Li-fan Ting to Tsa-ku-lao (spelled by Mr. von +Rosthorn of the Imperial Customs in a letter to me Tsaku-nao) have much +the same characteristics as those of the day before. The scenery is +magnificent, and even more fantastic. Nitrate of soda, sulphur, and iron +ore abound. Sandstone has disappeared, giving place to limestone, +conglomerate, schistaceous rock, grey and pink granite, basalt, and +mica. The Siao Ho, still a full-watered and vigorous stream, +occasionally narrowed to forty feet, plunges over pink granite ledges in +a series of cataracts as the canyon opens out, and there are smooth, +green lawns, with much wealth of dwarf, crimson roses, and much gloom, +in many graves and dismal remains of Man-tze houses partially destroyed. +Some of the potholes in the river are remarkable for their size, and +still contain the smoothly-rounded stones by the action of which they +have been formed. Pine woods appeared on hill crests and on the northern +slopes of mountains. + +Many Man-tze villages, now deserted, are ready for occupation, and +others in romantic situations, now occupied by Chinese, are very +striking architecturally, each with a Man-tze feudal castle piled on a +rock above it. These villages were always built at the mouths of gorges +where lateral torrents joining the Siao Ho formed alluvial fans with +arable soil enough to support small populations. The picturesque stone +houses, more like fortifications than dwellings, straggling up these +gorges, perched on ledges of rock, harmonised most artistically with the +wildness of the landscape, but it was impossible to photograph them +owing to the tremendous wind. + +Four hours after leaving Li-fan we halted at the large village of +Wei-gua, with a very large lama-serai, said to contain two hundred +lamas, cresting the rock above it, and a fine castle in a dominant +position. The illustration gives the lower and unpicturesque fragment of +the village grouped round the remains of a large square tower. There we +were overtaken by two _chai-jen_, the Li-fan officials having thought +better of it, and an hour later by a third on horseback! This tardy +courtesy roused my suspicions, and Mr. Kay and his servant went on ahead +to obtain accommodation and make inquiries at Tsa-ku-lao, little +thinking that the astute Li-fan officials had sent on a messenger in the +morning to the local magistrate ordering that accommodation and +transport should be refused! To this hour I am unaware of “the reason +why.” + +After Mr. Kay went on, and the horseman arrived, I endeavoured to +circumvent the _chai-jen_, for I had seen them, with much mystery, slip +a letter into his hand, after which he tried to get in front of me. I +jumped out of the chair, and set up my tripod on the narrow road, which +he could not pass, and after a long attempt at photography, baffled by +the wind, told him and the others to keep behind, and not to leave me. +The horseman kept trying to get in front, but as the path is very narrow +and mostly on the edge of a precipice, I managed to dodge him the whole +way by holding a large umbrella first on one side, and then on the +other! + +A few miles from Tsa-ku-lao the _chai-jen_ managed to pass me, and began +to run towards a short cut, impassable for a chair. I sent Be-dien to +stop them, and to my surprise he outran them, collared them, and held +them till I came up, when I again ordered them behind the chair. Mr. Kay +met me, saying that neither inn nor house would give us shelter, and +that he had found that it would not do to make any inquiries about the +farther route. However, we were received by a very good inn, where the +people were very civil, and where I had an excellent room, with a large +window looking on a mountain across a clean grassed space. + +[Illustration: VILLAGE OF WEI-GUA.] + +Soon after I got in difficulties began. Two officials arrived, and +politely told many lies. They said that there were no places to sleep in +on the road, that the snow on the passes was forty feet deep, and +crevassed, that the tribes were fighting each other, that they were +robbers and would rob us of everything, and repeated the Li-fan lie that +the route is not in China, and that they could give us no protection. I +produced a Chinese official map, and showed them that it lay far within +the limits of the jurisdiction of the Viceroy of SZE CHUAN, and, being +fairly roused, and determined to proceed at least to Somo, I produced my +passport, telling them that it had been granted on an application made +by the English Tsung-li _yamen_ at the request of the Grand Secretary +(the Premier), and that they could see for themselves that it gave me +rank, and enjoined on all mandarins not only not to put any obstructions +in my way, but that, whether by land or water, every aid was to be +given. + +I further said that if this obstruction were persisted in, I should +write a formal statement of the case to the British Consul at Chungking, +to be officially forwarded by him to the highest quarter, and that they +knew what that would mean. On the top of all, I produced the Viceroy’s +letter to the _kuans_ of Pi Hsien and Kuan Hsien. They were quite +quenched, and said they would repeat this to the mandarin, and I should +have his decision in an hour, and they bowed themselves out, taking my +passport with them. + +They returned in half an hour, saying that the mandarin would send +soldiers with us to the limits of his jurisdiction, but that then we +should be among the “Barbarians.” This seemed like a victory, yet I felt +by no means sure that we should not be prevented from hiring mules, and +be delayed into returning. The next day a last effort was made to hinder +my westward progress, with a vehemence which was almost piteous, +entreaties being resorted to when threats failed, but all collapsed on a +special clause in my passport being again pointed out to these +secretaries. + +Tsa-ku-lao, the outpost of Chinese officialism, is gloriously situated +at an altitude of about 6210 feet,[49] where the mountains swing apart, +and at an abrupt bend of the river there are branching valleys and +unencumbered heights. There are poplars and willows about the little +town of 400 people, and a great Man-tze tower looks through them like an +English church tower. One long, clean, narrow, and highly picturesque +street, lined with shops vending gaily-coloured articles of Chinese +manufacture, cuts the town in twain. Above it, where the houses are +piled on ledges of rock in most artistic disorder, is a very large +lama-serai, with a very quaint pagoda temple on a height above it. The +houses in the street are two and three storeys high, with carved +projecting upper rooms, and peaked roofs with deep eaves, from which +depend carved wooden drops. + +At the western exit the road drops abruptly down through the picturesque +gateway seen in the illustration by 500 feet of steep stone steps to a +bridge, which connects the trading with the official town. In the latter +the _yamen_ is an interesting-looking building in pure Tibetan style, +with a Man-tze tower sixty feet high adjoining it. The population of +Tsa-ku-lao is a mixed one, and many of the children show an agreeable +departure from the Chinese physiognomy. The red woollen habits and +peaked hats of the red lamas, the varied costumes of the tribesmen who +were in the town for purposes of trade, and the thirteen differing +styles of hats, the most interesting being made of a species of lichen, +were a very pleasant variety. + +An agreeable variety it was, too, that the curiosity of the people for +the first time in a journey of two years was tempered by politeness, for +each batch of would-be sightseers, always women, sent in advance to know +if I would receive them, and they always left after visits of +conventional length, remarking that I must be tired! + +We spent two nights there, because the coolies heard such tales of the +road that they engaged mules to carry their loads, the bamboo over the +shoulder with its dependent burdens being unsuited to the exigencies of +mountain climbing, and the mules were away on the mountain. During that +day, in which I visited the quaint official town, and photographed the +gateway amidst a crowd of red and yellow lamas, tribesmen, and Chinese, +who fell back when they were asked to do so, I received about fifty +visitors, so that their supposition that I was tired was not far wrong. +Of this number three, obviously of the Tsa-ku-lao “upper ten,” had been +in Kuan Hsien, a few had been in Weichou, but none had been in Matang or +Somo, and they said that there were very high mountains to cross, and +that the snow was very deep. No woman could get to Somo they thought. +They had never seen a foreign woman, and Russia was the only foreign +country that they knew by name. + +[Illustration: STREET OF TSA-KU-LAO.] + +Fine, strong, comely, healthy-looking women they were, with pleasant +faces and manners, and minds narrowed to the interests of Tsa-ku-lao. +Some of their children were really pretty. The court of the inn was +always full of red and yellow lamas, muleteers in picturesque jackets +and leggings, and hats like _sombreros_, Tibetans in sheepskins, and +tribesmen whose physiognomies showed a complete departure from the +Mongolian type. It was altogether exciting, and the keen air was bracing +and stimulating. The picturesqueness of the little outpost town in the +brilliant sunshine and under the clear blue sky was fascinating, and the +friendliness and politeness of the people created a new atmosphere which +it was pleasant to breathe. The sun went down in glory and colour, there +was a perfect blaze of stars in the purple sky, and the mercury fell to +the freezing point. The “Beyond” beckoned, and though I knew that the +travelling arrangements must break down from their inherent +unsuitability, I fell asleep prepared to follow. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + THE “BEYOND” + + +The scanty hoar frost lay on the ground at five the next morning, and +the sun rose, as he had set, in glory, flooding the canyons with a +deluge of amber light. There was a considerable delay before starting, +and to the last I feared the wiles of Chinese officialism; but it turned +out to be only the usual difficulty of the first start with +animals—weighing and adjusting loads and the like. There were three +strong, whole-backed, pleasant-faced red mules, and the muleteer was +equally pleasant, a Man-tze lama, quite a young man, who proffered +hospitality for the next few days among his friends, inns having ceased. +The thought of “poisoned feasts” never crossed my mind! + +The greater part of the bizarre population of the quaint mountain town +escorted us to the gateway. Superb weather favoured our departure. The +heat of the sun melted the snows towards midday, adding volume to the +thunderous roll of the Siao Ho, above which, after descending to the +water’s edge, the bridle track is carried over spurs and abutments of +limestone. There is a decided change in the scenery. The river, no +longer closely hemmed in by the walls of a tremendous cleft, is broader +and stiller; there are shingle banks and stretches of cultivated land, +and it cuts its way through the ranges instead of following their +clefts. A marked feature of this stretch of the Siao Ho is the +extraordinarily abrupt bends which it makes, and that at most of these a +sugar-loaf peak, forest-clothed below, and naked rock above, rises sheer +from the river-bed, possibly to a height of from 2000 to 3000 feet. +Great openings allow of inspiring views of high, conical, snow-clothed +peaks, heavily timbered below the snow; one group, called by the Chinese +“The Throne of Snow,” consisting of a great central peak, with nine +others of irregular altitudes surrounding it. + +[Illustration: A SUGAR-LOAF MOUNTAIN, SIAO HO.] + +Climbing the Peh-teo-shan spur by a long series of rocky, broken +zigzags, cut on its side through a hazel wood, and reaching an altitude +of about 9270 feet in advance of my men, I felt the joy of a “born +traveller” as I watched the mules with their picturesque Man-tze +muleteer, the eleven men no longer staggering under burdens, but +jumping, laughing, and singing, some of them with leaves of an artemisia +stuffed into their nostrils to prevent the bleeding from the nose which +had troubled them since leaving Weichou, the two soldiers in their rags, +and myself the worst ragamuffin of all. There were many such Elysian +moments in this grand “Beyond.” + +The summit is thick with poles, some of them bearing flags inscribed in +Tibetan characters in honour of the Spirit of the Pass, and there is a +large cairn, to which my men added their quota of stones. Fifteen or +sixteen hundred feet below, the river looks like a green silk cord +interwoven with silver. There is a sharp bend and a widening, from which +rise two conical peaks, forest-clothed and craggy. Lateral gorges run up +from the river, walled in by high, frowning, forest-covered mountains, +breaking into grey, bare peaks, and crags gleaming in the sunshine. To +the north-west the canyon broadens. Mountains rise above mountains, +forest-covered, except where their bare ribs and buttresses stand +harshly out above the greenery, and above them great, sunlit, white +clouds were massed, emphasising the blue gloom of pines; and far higher, +raised by an atmospheric effect to an altitude which no mountains of +this earth attain to, in the full sunshine of a glorious day, were three +illuminated snow-peaks, whose height from the green and silver river, +judged by the eye alone, might have been 30,000 feet! They might have +been “the mountains of the land which is very far off,” for the lighted +clouds below separated them from all other earthly things, and their +dazzling summits are unprofaned by the foot of man. + +The descent to the river is long and steep, the sun was hot; the aridity +and sparse vegetation of most of the road up to the pass are exchanged +for comparative humidity and a wealth of small trees and flowers; the +river broadens considerably, breaks up into several channels with +shingle beds and tamarisk, till it and the canyon narrow together at a +point where a wooden cantilever bridge is thrown across at a +considerable height from two natural piers of rock. + +There, a very dirty Chinese village faces a Man-tze village of towers +and lofty stone houses. After a halt, during which I sat on a stone in +the broiling sunshine, much vexed by dust and the aggressiveness of both +children and pigs, we crossed the bridge and shortly entered Paradise. +There the hideous black pig was left behind! The river divides, each +branch having its own glorious gorge apparently closed by snow-peaks. +There are small fair lawns, on which nature has clumped maples and ilex; +great forest trees coming down to the water, wreathed with roses and +clematis; and a showy, detached temple—the only one in the region—the +household or lama-serai house of worship from thenceforth taking the +place of the public temple. At its entrance are two large prayer-wheels. + +[Illustration: REVOLVING PRAYER-CYLINDERS.] + +Close beside it the road passes under an arch, on each side of which are +six prayer-cylinders, which revolve on being brushed by the hand; and +near it is a much-decorated “prayer-wheel,” in a house of its own, +bestriding a stream, worked by water power, the lama in attendance +receiving so much for each revolution. This cylinder is twelve feet +high, with a diameter of four feet, and is said to contain 100,000 +repetitions of the well-known Buddhist mantra “_Om mani padme hun_.” +Beyond, there was a man engaged in making idols after the fashion +described by Isaiah the prophet, a bridge of uncertain equipoise over +one branch of the river, and a little farther on the main branch of the +Siao Ho, descending from the north-west, is joined by streams of nearly +equal volume from the south and north, coming down through canyons full +of superb vegetation, above which rise, mostly in groups, peaks of +unsullied snow. + +The vegetation above this meeting of the waters, and with few breaks for +many a day’s journey, is tropical in its luxuriance. The canyon is very +narrow. On the left the mountains descend to the torrent in a series of +precipices. On the right a space, averaging twenty yards in width, gives +room for the bridle path and for a perfect glory of vegetation. From +this rise forest-clothed precipices and peaks as on the other side. +Between them thunders the small river, narrower, but much fuller in +volume than below, green with a greenness I have never seen before or +since, and white with foam like unto driven snow, booming downwards with +a fall of over sixty feet to the mile, its brilliant waters hasting to +lose themselves 2000 miles away in the turbid Yellow Sea. + +Mosses and ferns soften the outlines of boulders and drape the trunks of +fallen trees. Tree-stems are nearly hidden by ferns and orchids, only +one of the latter, a purple and brown spotted _dendrobium_, being in +blossom. A free-flowering, four-leaved white clematis, arching the road +with its snowy clusters, looped the trees together, and a white daphne +filled the air with its heavy fragrance. Large white peonies gleamed in +shady places. White and yellow jasmine and yellow roses entwined the +trunks of trees, and the flowering shrubs, mostly evergreens, were +innumerable. Ivies and varieties of the _ampelopsis_ lent their familiar +grace. Spring is fantastic there, and in freaks of colouring mimics the +glories of autumn. Maples flaunt in crimson and purple, in pale green +outlined in rose-red; the early fronds of the abundant hare’s-foot fern +crimson the ground; there were scarlet, auburn, and “old gold” trees; +and as to greens, there were the dark greens and blue-greens of seven +varieties of pines, the shining dark greens of ilex, holly, and yew, the +dull, dark greens of cedar and juniper, the shining light greens of +birch and beech and many another deciduous tree, and the almost +translucent pea-green of the feathery maple—red, purple, and green, +alike admitting the vivid sunshine as through stained glass. + +The ground, concealed by mosses in every shade of green, gold, and +auburn, by a crimson-cupped lichen, and the crimson of the young +hare’s-foot fern, was starred with white and blue anemones, white and +blue violets, yellow violas, primulas and lilies, white and yellow +arabis, and patches of dwarf blue irises, while our own lily of the +valley looked out modestly from under the shrubs, and I recognised +lovingly among the beautiful exotic ferns our own oak and beech—our +_filix mas_ and _Osmunda Regalis_, at no disadvantage among their +foreign associates. + +So exquisitely beautiful were the details that it was hard to look up +and take in the broader features of the unrivalled witchery of the +scene, where the foliage of the maple lighted up the gloom of holly and +ilex with its spring pinks and reds, where a species of poplar rivalled +it in lemon-yellow, where the delicate foliage of the golden-barked +birch was copper-red, and every shade approaching green was represented, +from the glaucous blue of the balsam pine, and the dark blue-green of +its coniferous brethren, to the pale _aqua marine_ of deciduous trees in +clumps among the pine woods below the snow. + +For, piled above the forest-clothed cliffs and precipices which wall in +the river, and blocking up every lateral opening, were countless peaks +or splintered ranges, cleaving the blue sky with an absolute purity of +whiteness. High up, in extraordinary situations of dubious access, are +Man-tze villages, much like fortifications, their suggestion of human +interests and flutter of prayer-flags giving life to the scene. The +river sympathetically adapts itself to its changed surroundings. Its +colouring is a vividly transparent green, to which it would be an +injustice to liken an emerald. Over it drooped, from the contorted stems +of trees covered with ferns, orchids, and trailers, long sprays of red +and white climbing roses, and within the cool toss of its spray, film +ferns and the beautiful _trichomanes radicans_ flourished in boundless +profusion, almost transparent under the trickling sunshine. The river +descends in falls and cataracts, in sheets and glints of foam, under +bending trees, and trails of clematis and roses, pausing now and then in +deep green pools in whose mirrors roses, clematis, and snow-peaks meet; +but, its thunder-music, echoing from gorge and precipice, pauses never. + +[Illustration: BRIDLE TRACK BY THE SIAO-HO.] + +For hours we passed through this fairyland of beauty and fragrant and +aromatic odours, which it is a luxury to recall; then the odorous air +grew damp, the peaks flushed, the shadows on the road deepened, the +canyon “swung open to the light,” through the great gates of the west +the sunset glory rolled in waves of red and gold, and on a low hill +bearing the name of Chuang-fang, and a few traces of cultivation, there +was a lonely Man-tze dwelling. + +The host, as a relation of our intelligent and courteous young lama, +made us very welcome, but his wife, a very handsome woman, on coming in +from the hill with a load of wood, looked astonished to find a foreign +woman and twelve men in possession of her house. That dwelling, typical +of the poorer class of Man-tze houses, has two roofs, each reached by a +deeply-notched tree-trunk, exactly like those used by the Ainu of Yezo. +It has an entrance-chamber common to men, mules, and fowls, an inner +room or kitchen, scarcely lighted, with a fire and “cooking range” on a +raised hearth in the centre, from which the stinging wood smoke finds +various outlets in the absence of a chimney. In the better houses, a +hole in the roof into which a hollow log is cemented offers a more +conventional exit. The fire is the place of family gathering and eating, +and man, wife, and children eat together. These people possess the term +“hearth-side.” The woman, though not young, was really beautiful, after +a European type, and had very fine teeth, but her rich complexion was +somewhat dulled by dirt; for these people, like the Tibetans, wash only +“once a year”—_i.e._, very rarely. + +With much politeness I was escorted by her up the notched timbers to a +first and then to a second roof, which, being the threshing-floor, was +swept very, clean. At one end there was a high frame for drying maize +upon, and at the other a roof supported on four posts, but with an open +front, which is the granary. This space was divided by a great grain +tray and my curtains, I occupying one end, and the servants, soldiers, +and some of the coolies the other. The sharp frosty air was elixir, and +the redgold of sunset and the rose-pink of sunrise on the snows which +enclose the valley made a night in the open air very delightful. + +It was too windy for a candle, and my food, prepared in the smoke below, +was eaten by the light of a nearly full moon in the delicious +temperature of 30°. To be away from crowds, rowdyism, unmannerly +curiosity, rice-fields, stenches—from slavery to custom, enforced by +brutality, and from many a hateful thing—to be out of China proper, to +be among mountains whose myriad snow-peaks glitter above the blue gloom +of pine-filled depths, to breathe the rarer air of 8000 feet, to be +free, and in a new uplifted world of semi-independent tribes, and fairly +embarked on a journey, with Chinese officialism apparently successfully +defied, and last, but not least, the complete disappearance of +rheumatism from which I had suffered long and badly, made up an +aggregate of good things. Anything might happen afterwards, but for that +one day I had breathed the air of freedom, and had obtained memories of +beauty such as would be a lifelong possession. + +[Illustration: VIEW FROM CHUANG FANG.] + +Sleep came in the middle of these pleasant thoughts, and I did not wake +till sunrise, with its waves of rosy light rolling up the glen, began to +take the chill off the frosty air. There was additional snow on the +mountains, and the higher pine woods were hoary. + +These hospitable people do not receive payment for their hospitality, +nor do they use money—silver being only appreciated for its use in +jewellery, and copper not at all. The roof, or the guest-room, if there +be one, is at the disposal of any reputable wayfarer; but he must bring +his own food, for they have none to sell. Fortunately, I had needles, +scissors, and reels of silk with me, which there and elsewhere made the +hearts of many women glad. + +The scenery the following day was, if possible, more glorious than +before, and the intense blue and singular _glitter_ of the sky. The road +still pursues the right bank of the river, the canyon is slightly wider, +and for most of the way seven snow-peaks are an apparent barrier. In the +forests near the road there were nine species of pines and firs, and +eight of maples, besides cedars, yew, juniper, elm, holly, oak, poplar, +alder, ilex, plane, birch, pear, etc. A white honeysuckle added its +exquisite fragrance to the aggregate of sweet odours. The woods were +full of white peonies, sky-blue larkspur and aconite abounded, and +yellow roses revelled in the sunshine on the smooth lawns by the river +on which the Tibetan traders camp in the season. My coolies, having no +loads to carry, were much excited about the peonies. The roots are an +expensive drug in China, and the men said they could get a dollar each +for them, so there was a great raid upon them. + +After crossing and recrossing the Siao Ho on wooden cantilever bridges, +we reached Ku-erh-kio, a purely Man-tze village, piled on an abrupt +height where a lateral gorge with a tributary stream debouches on the +river. This was the last point to which I was attended by Chinese +officialism, and the first where there was a representative of the +_Tu-tze_ of Somo, the territory on which I then entered. There the +soldiers from Tsa-ku-lao, jolly young fellows, delivered the mandarin’s +letter to the _T’ou-jen_, or headman, and returned. + +A Man-tze official escort was at once provided, consisting not of armed +and stalwart tribesmen, but of two handsome laughing girls, full of fun, +who plied the distaff as they enlivened our way to Chu-ti. Nor was this +fascinating escort a sham. Before starting each of the girls put on an +extra petticoat. If molestation had been seriously threatened, after +protesting and calling on all present to witness the deed, they would +have taken off the additional garments, laying them solemnly (if such +laughing maidens could be solemn) on the ground, there to remain till +the outrage had been either atoned for or forgiven, the nearest man in +authority being bound to punish the offender. Mr. Baker mentions a +nearly similar custom among the Lolos of Yunnan. _En route_ we passed +several Man-tze villages, and at each the people came out and brought us +wooden cups of cold water, indulging in much fun with my men, as several +of them could speak Chinese. Nearly all the women were handsome. They +were loaded with silver and coral ornaments, plied the distaff as they +joked, and were free, not to say bold, in their manners. + +[Illustration: CASTLE AT CHU-TI.] + +Chu-ti consists of two Chinese houses, a bridge, and a large Man-tze +house, with some cultivation round it, on the left bank. There we were +hospitably received by our muleteer’s elder brother, though when he saw +the army of coolies he said he did not keep an inn, and begged that +nothing might be stolen. I was at once provided with a clean room on the +roof, “the best guest-room,” with a window-frame, in which was fixed a +prayer-cylinder revolved by the wind, which whirred monotonously by day +and night. Many of the people from a village on a height, which is only +accessible by a series of ladders, spent the evening on the roof with +much frolic and merriment. Of the foreigner they have no notion, and as +I was clothed in brown wool they thought I was a Man-tze of another +tribe. Some of the women were beautiful, and even in middle life they +retain their good looks and fine complexions. + +[Illustration: HEADMAN’S HOUSE, CHU-TI.] + +[Illustration: ALTAR OF INCENSE ON MAN-TZE ROOF.] + +This stone dwelling, arranged, as are all the better class of houses, +apparently for defence, has three floors, reached by steep, wide step +ladders inside. Cattle, mules, fodder, and agricultural implements +occupy the first, the family the second, and on two sides of its flat +roof, which is protected by a parapet two feet high, are the family +temple and guest-rooms. This flat roof, which is also the +threshing-floor, is the general gathering-place, the wrestling-ground, +and the place where the women weave their woollen stuffs on their +portable looms. On the roofs of the temple and guest-rooms, which are +partially covered for use as granaries, the men play cards, chess, and a +game resembling _Go_. On all roofs, even of the poorest class, there is +at the eastern corner a small clay furnace with a chimney, called “the +altar of incense.” In this at sunrise, the householder, man or woman, +looking eastwards, burns a bundle of the green twigs and foliage of the +yew, of which two species are accessible. This may possibly be a relic +of a nature-worship anterior to Buddhism. All well-to-do persons have a +temple on the roof, as in Tibet, with images of the Buddhist triad +against the wall, an altar with the usual emblems and offerings, a drum, +gong, horn, and cymbals, and as many of the insignia of Buddhism as +their means allow them to obtain. The householder can act as priest, and +every man or woman can present his or her invocations and offerings, and +in Man-tze homes there is scarcely an hour from sunrise to sunset in +which the dull beat of the drum and “_Om mani padme hun_,” reiterated in +a high-pitched monotone, are not heard. + +Snow-peaks above, and snow-peaks below, reddened gloriously at sunset +and sunrise, the view from the roof was absolutely entrancing, and the +first half of the next day’s march was even lovelier than before. At one +of the finest parts some tribesmen were building a bridge, and from it +some muleteers, chiefly girls, with much laughter, were driving some +unladen mules through a very rough ford. Many of the men crossed, and +asked for help in building their bridge, which I would willingly have +given them, but that my silver was far behind on the mules. They became +very obstreperous, and one put his arm across the road to prevent my +chair from passing. We got on, however, for a few _li_, and waited there +for the mules. _Chai-jen_ had ceased at Chu-ti. + +On the same morning the bearer who had always been unfit for his work, +and who denied himself food in order to get opium, for he was an +immoderate smoker, collapsed and fell by the roadside with a fluttering +pulse and a temperature of 104°. I put him in my chair and walked as +long as I could, and then he had to lie down, and I paid a man to stay +with him. An hour passed, and no mules; and I was so afraid that the men +at the bridge had robbed the muleteer, for they were a rough lot, that +Mr. Kay went back. Another hour passed, and then the mules came all +right, and the sick man, moaning and breathless, supported along by Mr. +Kay, who is both strong and kind. + +Higher up the canyon opens out into a valley of divided streams and +shingle beds, either absolutely bare, or covered with the _Hippophæ +rhamnoides_ and a species of tamarisk. The receding mountain-sides are +gashed by summer torrents, and the vegetation is scanty. There was a +broad camping-ground among trees, and the coolies made fires and cooked +their rice, a number of Somo women from a village on a height—nearly all +of them handsome, in the Meg Merrilees style—looking timidly on. + +[Illustration: SICK UNTO DEATH.] + +The sick coolie was laid under a tree, and I put a wet +pocket-handkerchief on his burning brow. Then latent Chinese brutality +came out, showing that on these men the popular cult of Kwanyin, who is +really a lovable creation, had no influence. There were five baggage +coolies carrying nothing, and when I proposed that they should divide +one mule’s load among them and let him ride, they refused. He had been +working, sleeping, and eating with them for twelve days, yet when I +asked if they were going to leave him there to die, they laughed and +said, “Let him die; he’s of no use.” Though the water he craved for was +only a few yards off they did not care to give him any. When appealed to +again they said, “No matter; Mr. Kay can look after him.” And so he did, +for when I had walked till I was exhausted that he might be carried, Mr. +Kay nearly carried him for the remaining distance, and slept without his +wadded gown in the keen frosty air, that he might have it. The others +laughed at his sufferings, at me for bathing his head, and, above all, +at my walking to let him ride. + +After we crossed to the right bank of the dwindling river a great number +of Man-tze men and women met us, and escorted us up steep stony slopes +to the large village of Mia-ko, with its many-storeyed houses, a feudal +castle, and a lama-serai like an ugly factory, with 150 monks. We were +received in the house of the _T’ou-jen_, the father of our muleteer, who +has a patriarchal household of married sons and daughters with their +children, and farms on a large scale. + +[Illustration: LAMA-SERAI AND HEADMAN’S HOUSE, MIA-KO.] + +The great treeless hillsides are well suited for agriculture, and though +the altitude of Mia-ko is nearly 10,000 feet, wheat ripens in July. At +that height, the Dover’s powder with which I dosed the coolie failed to +produce its usual effect, nor was any other sudorific more successful. +In the dry, rarefied air my umbrella split to pieces, shoes and other +things cracked, screws fell out of my camera (one of Ross’s best), my +air-cushion collapsed, a horn cup went to pieces spontaneously, and +celluloid films became electric, and emitted sparks when they were +separated! + +The soil of the mountain-sides is sandy, and potatoes, which have only +lately been introduced, do well. There are many large villages scattered +over these slopes, and the people have great flocks of brown goats and +sheep, the latter a flop-eared, hornless, long-woolled breed, with fat +tails weighing from three to six pounds. They also breed herds of _dzo_, +a very valuable hybrid between the yak and cow, and capable of carrying +80 lbs. more than either the horse or mule. The male is used for +ploughing, and the female gives more milk than any other of the bovine +race. Of it they make butter, which, as in Tibet, appears to become more +valuable with years, and which is largely used, along with salt and +soda, in the preparation of tea, which is churned in a wooden churn till +it is as thick as chocolate. From the hair of the _dzo_ and yak the +Man-tze make a heavy felt, used for cloaks in cold and wet weather, and +for boots. As far as the divide, snow only lies for a few days at a +time, and judging from description, the frost is never severe. + +Man-tze cultivation is rough and untidy as compared with Chinese. +Indigenous flowers muster strong among the crops, and irrigation is not +understood. Drought is the great enemy of agriculture, and the crops in +this great valley were in urgent need of rain. + +In the late afternoon of our arrival Mia-ko was deserted, and a long +procession of men and women, each carrying a heavy burden on the back, +wound slowly up the hill to a point where it was reinforced by a +similarly burdened company from our village, and the united force was +met by a large body of lamas, including our muleteer, in their sacred +vestments, chanting Sanskrit prayers. The burdens under which the people +bent were the Buddhist scriptures, which, when complete, weigh 90 lbs., +and to carry this sacred load is regarded as an acceptable act of merit. +Before the prolonged service ceased there was “a sound of abundance of +rain,” the wind rose, the rain fell in torrents, and the soil of +disintegrated granite imbibed it as if it never could be satisfied. + +Mia-ko is a noisy and cheerful village, and after Tibetan fashion, very +religious. There is a low building on the hillside containing a number +of revolving prayer-cylinders, ranged round it at a convenient height. +Round this in the early morning the villagers go in procession turning +the cylinders. With brief intervals all day long in my host’s family +temple one or another repeated prayers in a monotone. On the roofs are +tall poles, each surmounted by a trident, or a ball and crescent, or +bearing narrow, white prayer-flags of their own length. Groups of poles +with similar flags are erected in memory of the dead, whose ashes often +rest below in small cinerary urns. It is “merit” to make clay +medallions, with which portions of these ashes are frequently mixed, and +to stamp them with Sakyamuni’s image, or to finger the clay deftly into +models of _chod-tens_. + +We had any number of these jovial, laughing, frolicking people on the +roof at night, men and women on terms of equality. They drink _chang_, a +turbid barley beer, as the Tibetans do. We were detained for some days +at Mia-ko. The mules were lost on the hills, and stories were current of +two mighty robbers, who were making a part of the road dangerous, and +were keeping the country in alarm, and who successfully evaded capture, +though a reward of sixty taels (£9) was offered for them dead or alive. +The _T’ou-jen_ was averse to our taking that route without an escort of +ten spearmen, who had to be hunted up in the adjacent villages, and this +took time. Into the midst of this detention dropped down a Chinese +mounted officer, “a captain of a thousand,” with baggage and a mounted +servant, and orders to keep me in view, whether to help or hinder I knew +not, but strongly suspected the latter. Both carried swords and +revolvers. This was most unwelcome, and the delicious sense of freedom +in which I had been revelling vanished. + +The food question caused me uneasiness, though I was always assured that +“everything was to be got at Somo.” The people would not sell us so much +as an egg, and the detention made such a serious inroad on our supplies +that I reduced myself to tea, and damper baked in the ashes and pullable +into long strings. + +After the first curiosity, which was never vivid, was over the people +pursued their usual avocations on the roof, reciting prayers, weaving, +and making clothes in the day, and wrestling, fencing, and making a +general frolic in the evening. Mia-ko is a very well-to-do village, and +both sexes were loaded with silver jewellery. + +The Siao Ho makes a preposterous turn above it, and we took a short cut +over the pass of Shi-Tze-Ping (10,917 ft.), rejoining the river twenty +_li_ later. Heavy snow fell on the mountains during the previous night, +whitening many of the lower hills, turning their shaggy pines into grey +beards, and lying heavily on the superb coniferæ of the pass, where red +and white rhododendrons and a large pink azalea were blooming profusely. +At that elevation the mercury was 26° at 6 a.m., and as a strong +north-east wind was blowing the cold was intense. At noon one thousand +feet lower the mercury stood at 72°. + +From the summit there is a distant view of a long, snowy range, with a +blunt and wavy outline, on which five peaks, evidently of great +altitude, are superimposed. Hitherto the mountains, at least near the +river, though dazzling white, had not reached the majesty of eternal +snow, but on this range the guide said “it was always as it was then,” +that the peaks were known as “the Snowy Mountains,” that the highest was +called Tang-pa (sacred), and that the Great Gold River (Chin-shuan) rose +among them. It was a pass of that range that we afterwards crossed, and +it is probably identical with that mass of peaks and ranges marked on +the Chinese maps as “Snowy Mountains,” running on the whole in a +south-western direction between 29° and 32° N. lat. and 101° to 103° E. +long. It is only possible to make a rough guess at the altitude of those +peaks. In May Captain Gill found the snow line three degrees to the +eastward of this point at an altitude of 13,000 feet, and estimates the +limit of perpetual snow as at least 14,000 or 15,000 feet, which, +allowing for the steady rise in temperature of every degree west in that +latitude, would give a snow line of 15,000 or 16,000 feet above the sea +level. Taking the snow line in the middle of May as a rough basis for +calculation, I should estimate the height of the timber line at nearly +13,000 feet, and the height of Tang-pa as 5000 feet above that. + +A steep descent of three hours through an entrancing forest brought us +back to the Small River, there a full-watered, clear, green torrent, +about forty yards wide, compressed within a narrow canyon, tumbling +among gigantic boulders in glorious cataracts, forest trees of larger +size than had been seen before bending over it, festooned with climbing +roses and white and sulphur-yellow clematis, while all lovely things +which revel in moisture and warmth—ferns, mosses, selaginellas, and the +exquisite _Trichomanes radicans_—flourished along the margin of its +turbulent waters. It was grander and far more beautiful than ever, and +absolutely solitary. + +One feature of the vegetation west of Mia-ko is a pea-green trailer +(possibly _Lycopodium Sieboldi_) with pendants eight and ten feet long, +which takes possession of coniferous trees, dooming them to a slow +death, but replacing their dark needles by a tint which in masses is +very attractive. These trailers are used by the Man-tze for hats, much +worn by lamas. Some of the red trunks of the conifers, branchless for +fifty feet and more, measure from nineteen to twenty-one feet in +circumference six feet from the ground, hollies seven feet, yew eleven, +twelve, and even thirteen feet, and an umbrageous and very beautiful +species of poplar from seventeen to twenty feet. Occasionally the canyon +widens for a short distance, and there are smooth lawns, on which nature +has planted artistically clumps of pines and birches, the latter, +instead of white, with “old gold” bark, which they shed in spring. +Almost the only flowers at that altitude were a dandelion, with a stalk +an inch long, and a lovely, short-stalked, mauve primula, which in +places carpeted the ground. Some of the canyon walls, rising +forest-covered tier above tier, cannot be less than 3000 feet in height, +and at that season their luxurious covering embraced every tint of +yellow, red, and green. + +After fully forty _li_ the canyon broadens into a luxuriant valley, +apparently closed at its western end by one of the great Tsu-ku-shan +ranges, and the yak and _dzo_ fed in large numbers on the rich +pasturages which confer prosperity on the Man-tze hamlet of Hang-Kia. +This should have been the halting-place, and though there was apparently +no accommodation the Chinese officer intended it to be so. High words +were exchanged between him and Mr. Kay, who went back to hurry up the +mules, while I sat in the roadway watching the snow which was then +obviously falling on the pass, while it was raining below. To make a +long story short, owing to unpropitious circumstances not worth +narrating, and a loss of heads and tempers, my better judgment was +overborne, and against it, and in spite of my showing that Matang could +not be reached anyhow in less than eight hours, the order to start on +this most foolhardy venture was given, and we left Hong-Kia at 3.15, the +coolies and I not having fed since eleven, and reached the foot of the +pass at 6.30. A few _li_ higher this branch of the Min rises as a +vigorous spring under a rock. + +We ascended to a considerable height by a number of well-engineered +zigzags, meeting Man-tze travellers armed with lances and short swords, +and journeying in companies from dread of the notorious banditti. Some +of my men had armed themselves with lances. As darkness came on the +coolies were scared, and begged me to have the mule bells taken off. +They started at every rock, and asked me to have my revolver ready! +Their noses had been bleeding at intervals for some days, and at the +altitude we had attained the hemorrhage in some cases was profuse, and +was accompanied by vertigo, vomiting, and some bleeding from the mouth, +and the baggage coolie who had most unwillingly taken the sick bearer’s +place was at best a malcontent. When we got into mist, and broken shale, +and snow, after stumbling and falling one after the other, they set the +chair down, very reasonably I thought, and no arguments of Mr. Kay’s +addressed either to mind or body induced them to carry it another step. + +It was then 8.30 and very dark. A snowstorm came on, dense and blinding, +with a strong wind. I was dragged rather than helped along, by two men +who themselves frequently fell, for we were on a steep slope, and the +snow was drifting heavily. The guide constantly disappeared in the +darkness. Be-dien, who was helping me, staggered and eventually fell, +nearly fainting—he said for want of food, but it was “Pass Poison,” and +he was revived by brandy. The men were groaning and falling in all +directions, calling on their gods and making expensive vows, which were +paid afterwards by burning cheap incense sticks, fear of the bandits +having given way to fear for their lives—yet they had to be prevented +from lying down in the snow to die. + +[Illustration: ELEPHANTIASIS.] + +_See page 442._ + +Several times I sank in drifts up to my throat, my soaked clothes froze +on me, the snow deepened, whirled, drifted, stung like pin points. But +the awfulness of that lonely mountain-side cannot be conveyed in words: +the ghastly light which came on, the swirling, blinding snow-clouds, the +benumbing cold, the moans all round, for with others, as with myself, +every breath was a moan, and the certainty that if the wind continued to +rise we should all perish, for we were on the windward slope of the +mountain. After three hours of this work, the moon, nearly at her full, +rose, and revealed dimly through the driving snow-mist, the round, +ghastly crest of the pass, which we reached and crossed soon after +midnight, when the snow ceased. I have fought through severe blizzards +in the Zagros and Kurdistan mountains, but on a good horse and by +daylight, and not weakened by a blow. On the whole this was my worst +experience of the kind. + +An hour’s descent in deep snow on the edge of a precipice, from below +which came up the boom of tumbling water, brought us to a forest of the +straightest and tallest pines I ever saw, glorious in the moonlight, and +vocal with the crash of waters. Then I became aware that Mr. Kay, who is +very absent, and the guide had disappeared. The coolies declined to +carry me, and wanted to leave me there, and it was only after half an +hour’s altercation between them and my servant, during which my wet +clothing froze hard, that they took up the chair. The forest tracks were +baffling, and the true track was soon lost in the snow, not to be +recovered till at 2 a.m. we emerged on great, grassy slopes, and an hour +later, my party, exhausted, shivering, starving, drenched to the skin, +and all alike in frozen clothes, found a wretched shelter in the one +room of a Chinese hovel with a sloping floor on the bleak, +boulder-strewn hillside on which the forlorn village of Matang huddles +at an altitude of over 9000 feet. + +The Pass of Tsu-ku-shan, which we had crossed, is the great water +parting of that region, the waters on the east seeking the Min, and +those on the west the Chin-shuan or Ta-kin Ho, both meeting in the +Yangtze at Sui-fu, this glorious region being geographically in the +Yangtze Valley. When I recrossed the pass, a very easy one, one hundred +and twenty-four snow-peaks were visible from its summit. Its approximate +altitude is 11,717 feet. It is a long, bare, unimpressive mountain wall. + +The hovel allowed of my pitching my camp bed behind a cambric screen, +but there was no room for the wretched coolies to lie down, so they sat +round a big, log fire, cooked their food, talked, and thawed and dried +their frozen clothes. I thawed mine by rolling myself up in a blanket, +but unlike them was unable to eat, or even drink tea for many hours, and +lay there much stupefied until noon the next day, when we moved to what +posed as an inn, a wooden stable ninety feet long, with stalls seven +feet high for human beings on both sides, in one of which I was thankful +to find solitude, a fire-bowl, and necessary rest for some days. + +The innkeeper and his wife, Kansuh Mohammedans, were kind. They gave me +an egg, and took me to sit by their big log fire in their horrible +kitchen, on the ground that we were worshippers of the same God. The +fire was welcome, for there were heavy snowstorms, and on one day the +mercury fell to 29°. Whether in storm or sunshine Matang, “out of the +season,” is a ghastly place, a forlorn, unpicturesque village of low +stone cabins, with rough, timber roofs kept down by stones. It is +bisected by a torrent of the same name, a feeder of the Chin-shuan, +rising on the pass above. There is a very good cantilever bridge. Its +population of 170 includes a number of Chinese who have married Man-tze +women. Snow lies there for six weeks. + +In July and August the scene changes, and Matang becomes a great +international market. The inn is crammed with men and horses. Yaks and +Tibetan tents cover the grassy slopes, Chinese dig on the mountains for +medicinal roots, which are also brought from Tibet in incredible +quantities, and are bought up chiefly by Mussulman traders, broken +silver, the only currency accepted, passes freely from hand to hand, +goods are bartered, and for two months the Chinese and Tibetan traders +do a very large trade in cattle, horses, wool, hides, sheep, musk, +rhubarb, hartshorn, and much besides. + +Some of the Matang Man-tze women were extremely beautiful, after the +Madonna type. I twice secured a giggling group in front of my camera, +but I no sooner put my head under the focussing cloth than there was a +stampede, and partly in fun and partly in fear the laughing beauties +fled like hares, so the reader must take their good looks on trust. + +Outside a hole near the roof, which served for a window, a genuine +Tibetan dog was chained, as big as a small bear, with rusty brown wool, +four inches long, and a superb face. His voice was more like a roar than +a bark, and his growl was portentous. These dogs are very savage, and +his owner said that he could kill a man by tearing open his throat, +which is their method of attack. I got his owner, on whom he fawned +foolishly, to measure him, and from the root of his bushy tail to his +nose he measured four feet three inches. He kept a malignant watch on +me, and I could not move in my room without provoking his fierce, +resonant growl. These dogs shed their fur in the summer. + +[Illustration: CHINESE OFFICER AND SPEARMEN, MIA-KO.] + +After a detention, owing to snowstorms and difficulties of transport, +which made a further serious inroad on the stores, we left Matang early +in May, accompanied by the Chinese officer, who had wisely remained in +the Hang-Kia valley, and ten stalwart spearmen from Mia-ko. I started on +foot, accompanied by this escort, leaving the others to follow at their +leisure; some of the baggage being on _yaks_, which having been as usual +lost on the mountain, caused considerable delay. When our force was +mustered it numbered twenty-five men. Two of the wild-looking tribesmen +rode big yaks, monstrous in their winter coats; all were armed with +lances, and short, broad-bladed swords, and a few carried long and +much-decorated matchlock guns. Of course we saw nothing of the bandits, +and when we had passed their beat the spearmen quietly disappeared, +apparently ignorant of their right to _baksheesh_. The ghastly, grinning +head of a third bandit hung in a cage in the village. + +The road, which is a singularly good one, crosses the Matang river by a +good bridge, near its junction with a vigorous stream descending from +the north-west, and then follows their united course in a southerly +direction for forty _li_ to their union with the Rong-kia. + +The scenery on that day’s journey is the loveliest of all. This Matang +river whose birth we had seen on that awful night on the pass, raging in +cataracts, and great drifts of sunlit foam, and slowing at times into +deep green eddies, makes the most abrupt and extraordinary turns, each +one giving a new and glorious view. The canyon reminds me of some of the +finest parts of the Rocky Mountains, but the abundance of deciduous +trees and flowering shrubs, trailers, and plants, and the aquamarine +“Fairy Moss,” hanging in five-feet streamers from the trees, give it an +added beauty. Everything was draped in auburn, gold, and green. The pine +forests are vast and magnificent, and through the purple madder of the +leafless birches their terra-cotta stems gleamed. The dark, evergreen +ilex and holly contrasted with the brilliant spring green of the +elæagnus, hawthorn and willow; primulas, narcissus, and _scillae_ +starred the mossy ground, maidenhair and other ferns flourished on the +tree trunks, trailers of a pure white clematis hung over the path, +mosses and film ferns draped every harsh angle and every boulder out of +sight, and gorgeous butterflies and dragonflies glanced like “living +flashes of light.” Every vista at every turn above the dark pine forests +is blocked by peaks, then in the dazzling purity of new-fallen snow. + +[Illustration: VILLAGE OF RONG-KIA.] + +Our course consisted of constant climbing over high steep spurs, which +descend on the right bank of the river. There is one fine waterfall. In +the afternoon a long and very severe ascent terminated at the top of a +spur crowned by a village and a lama-serai above the confluence of four +valleys and three streams, the Matang from the north, the Rong-kia from +the east, and the Kin-ta from the south. These unite to form a broadish, +full-watered river, very green, to which the Man-tze give the name, +which I reproduce as Rong-kia, or “Silver Water,” but which the Chinese +along its banks call the Ta Chin or Ta Kin-Shuan (Great Gold River), +which, if they are correct, is the upper portion of the Tatu or Tung +River. + +[Illustration: CANYON OF THE RONG-KIA.] + +After an ascent, and a halt at an extraordinary village of square +towers, from each of which a single, brown wood room projected at the +top, another steep ascent took us to the top of a spur, from which we +looked down on the valley of the Rong-kia below its junction with the +other streams, there a broad, swift river, free from rapids and +cataracts, and bridged in several places. + +The first view of it sleeping in the soft sunshine of a May noon was one +never to be forgotten. The valley is fully one mile wide, and nine miles +long, and snow peaks apparently close its western extremity. All along +the “Silver Water” there were wheat fields in the vivid green of spring; +above were alpine lawns over which were sprinkled clumps of pine and +birch, gradually thickening into forests, which clothed the skirts of +mountains, snow-crested, and broken up here and there into pinnacles of +naked rock. At short distances all down the valley are villages with +towers and lama-serais on heights—villages among the fair meadows by the +bright, swift river, with houses mounted on the tops of high towers, +which they overhang, their windows from thirty to fifty feet from the +ground—and stretching half-way across, a lofty, rocky spur, then violet +against a sky of gold, developed into a massive, double-towered castle, +the residence of the _Tu-tze_ of Somo, the lord of this fair land. In +the late afternoon it looked like that enchanted region— + + “Where falls not rain or hail or any snow, + Or ever wind blows loudly.” + +The warm spring sunshine blessed it, the river flashed through it in +light, the sunset glory rolled down it in waves of gold, its beauty left +nothing to be longed for. + +The Chinese officer rode up saying, “There is now no more fright,” (who +was frightened I know not), and passed on to Somo, saying he was “going +to make things smooth for us,” but, as I think, carrying orders to the +_Tu-tze_ from headquarters to bar my further progress. The castle gained +rather than lost, as we approached it by a bridge over a lateral stream +near a fine specimen of an ancient tower, about eighty feet high. It +occupies the greater part of a rocky spur or bluff, rising 390 feet +above the river. A few mean houses cluster on ledges outside the castle +wall. + +The spur is so precipitous on the east side as to look inaccessible, and +is climbed with difficulty by anyone carrying a burden. At the foot of +the rock there is a covered, open gateway, with revolving +prayer-cylinders on both sides. The ascent is by steep zigzags, which we +were an hour in climbing. The climb brought us into the centre of a +Man-tze crowd, and of a cluster of mean and dirty Chinese hovels, +huddling against the rocks, in which we were told that the _Tu-tze_ “had +provided lodgings.” This was an insult. The lodging for the whole party +was one small, dark, dirty room, filled with stinging wood smoke from a +fire on the floor. + +[Illustration: SQUARE TOWER, SOMO.] + +I sat outside in the midst of a crowd which had no rudeness in it, while +Mr. Kay, with sanguine impetuosity, went up “to see the _Tu-tze_” and +claim fitting accommodation. He found both doors barred in his face, and +two savage dogs on guard. Nothing daunted, he climbed a wall and dropped +down into the outer court of the castle, and in the lion’s den itself +obtained a good room for me on the roof of a Man-tze house within the +great gate, high and breezy, and looking both up and down the valley. + +[Illustration: DISTANT VIEW OF SOMO.] + +“Passports and recommendations are no use here,” replied the haughty +ruler to a request for furtherance, and when a polite message was sent +asking at what hour Mr. Kay might have the honour of an audience, the +proposal was rudely negatived. The Chinese officer, who was entertained +in the castle, had obviously done his work efficiently. + +Though Somo was nominally the goal of my journey, and I was more than +satisfied to have reached it, I cherished a project of getting down to +Ta-tien-lu (Darchendo) from Cho-ko-ki by a route only traversed +previously, so far as Europeans are concerned, by Mr. von +Rosthorn—involving a journey of twenty-one days. On making careful +inquiries, however, I learned that a tribal war had broken out, and that +the bridges over the Rong-kia had been destroyed, a fact which Mr. Kay +verified by a long day’s journey of investigation. This involved two +long days’ march on foot over a difficult mountain, and I was much +prostrated, and also suffering from my heart from the severities of the +night on the Tsu-ku-shan pass. In addition, the coolies, the bane of the +journey, were breaking down from fever one after another, the stock of +rice was nearly exhausted, and an order had been given that supplies and +transport southwards were to be refused. I was too weak to make a +resolute attempt to overcome these difficulties, which probably, as in +the case of other would-be Tibetan travellers, were insurmountable, and +every reader who is also a traveller will understand the indescribable +reluctance with which I abandoned the Ta-tien-lu project. After it was +given up, the _Tu-tze_ sent a present of salted goat, flour, honey, and +ancient and hairy butter, which enabled me to give my men a good meal. + +The days passed quickly in learning as much as I was able to extract +from the Man-tze elders regarding their customs. The _Tu-tze_ sent +several times for my watch, and eventually sent a very big man with his +own, a valuable old thing, with many rubies, which had stopped for +years, and asked me to repair it! It was a very simple derangement, and +I put it right, when he sent again asking if I could mend pianos, as he +had one with broken strings! Then he sent for Be-dien, to whom he put +many questions, and fascinated him. He told him that he could only +protect us for forty _li_ farther, when we should reach the territory of +the Cho-ko-ki, a hostile tribe. At one time Be-dien came into my room +with an avalanche of “savages” behind him, one handsome young woman +clinging to his arm, to his great annoyance, for he was a “very proper +young man,” or posed as such. + +Throughout the Man-tze villages the absence of any painfully disfiguring +diseases, goitre excepted, had been remarkable. In Somo, however, there +was one Chinese with a tumour on his jaw as large as a supplementary +head, and another suffering from severe elephantiasis, of which +distressing malady an illustration is given on page 427. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. + THE MAN-TZE, I-REN, OR SHAN-SHANG-REN + + +In this chapter I put together such information as I was able to gather +about the people to whom I have introduced my readers. I only give such +statements as at least four persons were agreed upon, and confine my +remarks to the four tribes of the Somo territory, estimated at 20,000 +souls, which are unified under the rule of the _Tu-tze_ of Somo.[50] The +designation Man-tze or I-ren, which is simply Chinese for “barbarian,” +is perforce accepted by these people from their conquerors. When +questioned, however, they divided themselves into Somo, Cho-ko-ki, +He-shui, and other tribes, and on being pressed further, they declared +themselves Shan-shang-ren, or mountain people. They said that they had +heard that in ancient times their fathers came from the setting sun, but +they knew of no days when they and the Chinese did not live among each +other. The tribal spirit is completely extinct among those tribes, who +have accepted one ruler; but the Somo people hate the Sifans to the +north-east and the Cho-ko-ki men to the south. + +The head of one or more tribes is called a _Tu-tze_. He is appointed +directly by the Emperor of China, and for life; but a long-established +custom has made the office practically hereditary, and in the absence of +a son a daughter may be invested with it, as in the case of Somo, where +in recent years, and for a considerable time, a woman sustained the +dignity of the position. It is only in a case of flagrant misconduct +that the Emperor would exercise his right of removing a Man-tze ruler. +The _Tu-tze_ has absolute authority over his own tribesmen, including +the power of life and death. The land is his, and the cultivator pays a +tax of thirty per cent, of the produce, out of which the ruler +contributes the annual tribute to China. The tribesmen are free to build +anywhere without paying ground rent. Chinese under Man-tze rule have to +obtain permission to build, are not allowed to make charcoal, and pay +ground rent. In the case of the murder of a Chinese, the murderer may be +taken into Chinese territory to be tried by a mandarin, but actually he +is rarely caught, and the crime is usually compromised by the payment of +blood-money by his relations. If a Chinese wishes for a Man-tze wife he +must pay the _Tu-tze_ thirty taels (about £4 10_s._) for the privilege. + +[Illustration: A MAN-TZE VILLAGE.] + +Under the _Tu-tze_, and appointed by him, are village headmen or +_T’ou-jen_, who usually hold office for life, and are frequently +succeeded by their sons. They collect taxes, settle disputes, try small +cases by tribal law, and meet the _Tu-tze_ once a month at his castle to +report what has been going on, and to discuss what has to be done, and +once a year to choose the tribal representatives who are to carry the +tribute to Peking. China has done wisely in fringing her borders with +quasi-independent tribes whose autonomy is guaranteed by custom, and +whose love of the freedom they enjoy would convert men and women into a +respectable guerilla force in case of invasion. + +The religion of the Man-tze is Buddhism or Lamaism of the Tibetan type. +Except in Western Tibet I have never seen a country in which the +externals of religion are so prominent. Nearly all the larger villages +have lama-serais on heights above them; rock Buddhas, and Buddhas in +relief on tablets are numerous; poles twenty feet long, with narrow +prayer-flags of nearly the same length, flutter from every house-roof; +groups of prayer-flags in memory of the dead are planted beside every +village; a temple is prominent on the roof of every well-to-do house; +and prayer-cylinders turned by water power or hand are common near the +roads. Daily offerings are made in all dwellings; every second son is a +lama; the formula, “_Om mani padme hun_,” is everywhere heard; the +presence of lamas is essential for every act in the round of social and +agricultural life; and literature is wholly confined to Buddhist +classics. Prayer-wheels revolved by the wind are common in windows; and +when people grow old, and dread such an unfortunate re-birth as a +reappearance in the body of a horse, dog, or mule, a prayer-cylinder, +revolved by swinging it, is constantly in their hands. + +The lamas receive large sums for prayers, and for such ceremonies, in +cases of illness, as the reading of the Buddhist scriptures in the +house, accompanied by chanting, blowing of great horns, and beating of +drums. A death is their chief harvest, for, besides the fees paid to +them for the services customary at death and burial, any good clothing +which the deceased person has possessed is their perquisite, as well as +the silver and coral head-ornaments of the women, which go to help to +pay the expense of opening a passage for the soul into the other world. +If the family wishes for these it must redeem them from the lamas. +According to the wealth of the deceased is the time occupied in this +arrangement. It may be three months or longer. In the case of the poor +three days is the limit. A re-birth into the Western Heaven is reserved +for lamas. + +They dispose of bodies after death by rules of their own. In a few very +rare cases, where the horoscope of life, death, and the future is +favourable, the corpse is buried “earth to earth” without coffin or +clothing. Throwing the body into the river, or exposing it on a +mountain-side to the fowls of the air, are also practised at their +bidding; but cremation, accompanied by the recitation or chanting of the +scriptures, is the usual method. Afterwards the ashes are placed in an +earthen pot, which is buried, a prayer-flag or flags being erected on +the spot. On the days of death and burial, as well as during the +interval, there is weeping, but it is not prolonged or repeated, and +ancestral worship is not practised. The clothing of a corpse is always +removed immediately after death, and it remains naked until it is +disposed of by one of these three methods. + +Among the noteworthy characteristics of Man-tze life is the position of +women. They are not only on an equality with men, but receive +considerable attention from them, and they share their interests and +amusements everywhere. Men and women are always seen together. A woman +can be anything, from a muleteer to a _Tu-tze_. Social intercourse +between the sexes is absolutely unfettered. Boys and girls, youths and +maidens, mix freely. Love-matches are the rule, and I saw many a +handsome young face illuminated by a genuine love-light. The young +people choose each other, and either of them may take the initiative. +When they have settled the preliminaries, the prospective bridegroom +sends a friend to the prospective bride’s parents, informing them of his +wish to marry their daughter. Consent follows almost as a matter of +course, the bridegroom sends a present of a bottle of wine to the +bride’s father, and the courtship is fully recognised. + +[Illustration: SOMO CASTLE (BACK VIEW).] + +Next the lamas are consulted, to ascertain if the horoscopes of the +youth and maiden fit. If not, the difficulty may be overcome by +prolonged, vicarious chanting of the scriptures, and liberal fees. The +lamas also choose an auspicious day for the marriage. The marriage +ceremony consists in the bride and groom publicly joining hands, +drinking wine from a double-spouted bowl, and accepting each other as +husband and wife, after which there is a three days’ feast in the +bride’s home. She and her husband then go to their own house, and there +is another three days’ feast. There are no contracts of marriages for a +limited period, as in Western Tibet. Whether the choice has been for +good or ill, it is for life, divorce being permissible only in the case +of childlessness, and the contract can only be cancelled by the +_Tu-tze_. It would not be correct to infer from this that the Man-tze +are a moral people. Their standard of morality is low, and the lives of +the lamas have no tendency to raise it. Plurality of wives is an +appendage of the position of the _Tu-tze_, and is, I think, the practice +of rich men, but monogamy is the rule, and polyandry, though said to be +the custom of the Sifans to the north, does not exist. No presents, +except the bottle of wine previously mentioned, are made by the +bridegroom to the bride’s father; but her parents, according to their +wealth, endow her with cattle, horses, and fields, the last of which, to +use our own phraseology, are “settled upon her.” A widow does not wear +mourning, and is at liberty to make a second marriage. On the death of +her husband, unless she remarries, she assumes complete control over his +property, and at her death it is divided among the sons, who frequently, +however, agree to live together and keep it intact. If there is trouble +concerning property, the _T’ou-jen_ usually settles the matter, and if +he fails to make an amicable arrangement, it is referred to the +_Tu-tze_, whose decision is final. + +Good health is the patrimony of these people. There are a few lepers +among them, and rheumatism is rather prevalent, but few maladies are +known, and measles appears to be the only epidemic which affects +children. I did not see one case of skin disease or deformity on the +whole journey. They spoke of old age and what they call “exhaustion” as +the usual causes of death. Goitre, however, is frightfully prevalent in +many of the villages. In some, _seventy-five per cent._ of the people +are afflicted by it, and it often begins in childhood. It does not seem +to affect either the health or spirits. The people think that it comes +from drinking snow-water, but it was specially common in some villages +where the sources of the water supply are far below the snow. The lamas +virtually prohibit all medicines not supplied by themselves, and it is +only those Man-tze who have been corrupted by contact with Chinese +civilisation who use any others. They incline to fatalism regarding +illness, relying chiefly on amulets, charms, and religious ceremonies. +“If a man is very ill he dies,” they say, “and when he is not he gets +better.” + +They have a language of their own, but it is written in Tibetan +characters, and all notices and inscriptions on tablets and signposts +are in the same. In the villages nearest to China proper, many of the +people speak Chinese as well as Man-tze, and the _T’ou-jen_ in all +villages, but further west very few even of the elders understand it, +and the _Tu-tze_ himself is unable to read the Chinese characters. + +The products of the Somo territory, so far as export goes, are _nil_. +The magnificent timber is useless, as the rivers, from their abrupt +bends and enormous boulders, in addition to their turbulence, do not +admit of its being rafted down. So far as I could learn, there are no +golden sands to tempt even the Chinese adventurer. Sulphur and nitrate +of soda abound. The Man-tze grow wheat, barley, oats, maize, buckwheat, +lentils, and a little hemp. In good years they raise enough for their +requirements, but more frequently have to barter their cattle and coarse +woollen cloth for food. Their transactions consist of barter only, +silver being known solely for its use in personal adornment. There is no +prospect for Manchester in that quarter. Pieces of red and green cloth +for the decoration of boots are brought from Russia through Tibet, and +these and the brass buttons on clothing are their only imports. Both +sexes dress in woollen materials, spun, woven, and dyed by themselves, +and sewn with their own hempen fibre. + +Their views are narrow, their ideas conservative, and their knowledge +barely elementary. England is not a name to conjure with in their +valleys. They know of China and Tibet, and have heard of Russia, but +never of Britain. Of the war and the _wojen_ they were in complete +ignorance. I found them hospitable, friendly, and polite, not +extravagant in their curiosity, of easy morals, full of frolic and +merriment, singularly affectionate to each other, taking this life +easily and enjoying it, and trusting the next to the lamas. + +In the regrettable absence of photographs it is difficult to give any +idea of their appearance. There are few under-sized men. They were a +little taller than my coolies, who were the average height of Chinese. +They are deep chested, as becomes mountaineers; their build is robust, +and their muscular limbs betoken strength and agility. Their walk is +firm and springy, and in wrestling and putting the stone—favourite +amusements—the display of muscle is superb. The tribes vary as to good +looks, though not as to physique, especially the women, some of whom +have the oval face, regular features, and beauty of the brunette type +which we associate with the Madonna, while others are plain, and +resemble Neapolitans. The complexion is as dark as that of the natives +of Southern Europe, but a trifle redder; the large dark eyes and +eyebrows are level, the nose straight, the mouth usually small and +thin-lipped, the foreheads high but not broad, and the ears large, and +rendered unshapely by the weight of the earrings. The cheek-bones are +not in any way remarkable. The characteristic of the Man-tze face is +that it is European in feature and expression, and recalls the Latin +races. Owing to a sort of timidity, and to the fashion of hair-dressing +of both sexes, it was unfortunately impossible to procure any head +measurements. + +The men shave their heads and wear cloth or fur caps, but some of the +elders said that in former days all the hair was gathered above the +forehead, and twisted into a horn wrapped up in a cotton cloth, and +often “as long as a hand.” A similar style is mentioned by Mr. Baber as +characteristic of the Lolos of Yunnan. The _coiffure_ of the women is +most elaborate. The front hair is divided, and plaited into from twenty +to thirty plaits not wider than a watchguard, and waxed down each side, +considerably reducing the forehead. The back hair, with considerable +additions, is divided and brought round the head in two massive coils +over a folded blue cloth, which hangs a little over the brow. Strings of +large coral beads are twisted round these coils, but at the sides only. +The circumstances of a family are indicated by the size and beauty of +the coral and silver of the headgear. Jewellery is largely worn by both +sexes—earrings, necklets, chains of alternate coral and silver filigree +beads, and bracelets set with large turquoise or red coral. The +ornaments are often really beautiful and of fine workmanship. When I +asked by whom they were made, they invariably replied, “By the Arabs.” + +The women wear woollen under-garments, short loose jackets with wide +sleeves, and skirts reaching a few inches below the knees, as closely +pleated as the kilt of a Highlander, sometimes exchanged indoors for a +long, loose robe. Dark brown and madder-red predominate in apparel. They +wear long leather boots, upon which are stitched up the front and sides +decorative strips of scarlet and bright green cloth. + +The men wear a gabardine and girdle of native cloth, frequently dark +red, over a woollen under-garment; leggings, and decorated leather boots +or hempen shoes. The cloth or fur cap is often varied by the SZE CHUAN +turban. They have no soap, and never wash. A corpse is designated as the +“twice washed.” In the rarefied air of the high altitudes which they +inhabit, some of the most unpleasant consequences of dirt are not +apparent. I must add that every house in which I received hospitality +was tolerably clean, and that I was not aware of the presence of vermin. + +There is a singular absence of bird-life in the Somo territory. A +species of francolin and ringed pheasants were seen, the blue jay, the +crow, and the ubiquitous magpie. The men said that there are boars, +small bears, and deer in the forests, but that the trade in hartshorn +and horns in the velvet for Chinese medicines had driven the latter +back, “they knew not where.” There are also at least two species of +monkeys, both large, and one with thick, long hair. The brown bear, the +yellow wolf, the musk deer, the badger, and the otter are also found, +but the Man-tze are not scientific in their descriptions. + +The _Tu-tze’s_ rule only extends for forty _li_ to the south of Somo. He +is proud of his practically independent position, and when my servant +interpreter presented my Chinese passport, and a letter from the Viceroy +of SZE CHUAN, he said that he did not read Chinese, and that passports +and Viceroys’ letters were of no use there! + +Somo castle, on its eastern side, is a most striking building, built +into the rock of the spur on which it stands. It has a number of windows +with decorative stone mullions, the lowest over twenty feet from the +ground. Its many roofs are planted thick with prayer-flags, and +projecting rooms and balconies of brown wood, with lattice-work fronts, +hang from its eastern side over the precipice. The castle yard is +spacious and singularly clean; the entrance is handsome, and is faced by +a huge dragon, boldly and skilfully painted on a plastered stone screen. +Poles with crowns from which yaks’ tails depend, and the trident, as in +Western Tibet, surmount the entrance. The whole is most substantially +built of stone, and I looked in vain for any trace of decay or +disrepair. The altitude is about 7518 feet. + +[Illustration: ENTRANCE AND JUDGMENT-SEAT. SOMO CASTLE.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. + FROM SOMO TO CHENGTU FU + + +The refusal to sell food produced uncomfortable consequences. I bestowed +my personal stores on the coolies, and being left with only a little +chocolate, a few squares of soup, and a pound of flour, was often +compelled to still the gnawings of hunger with peppermint lozenges; and +what was worse, the men were on half-rations. Just before we left, the +_Tu-tze_ sent a welcome present of half a bag of flour, and as supplies +were not refused on the way down the worst was over. At Matang we were +detained two days by a severe snowstorm, which glorified the pine +forests on the skirts of the Tsu-ku-shan Pass, which was bare, pale, and +uninteresting, and took four hours to cross even in the sunny daylight. +From the summit about one hundred and twenty snow-peaks were visible, +some rising sharply into a very blue sky, others with snow-clouds +swirling round their ghastly crests—all clothed to a considerable +altitude with interminable forests of pine, hoary with new-fallen snow, +under the bright May sunshine. + +Passing through fine herds of yaks and _dzo_, and by villages and +detached houses, we sought shelter in vain. The people were all “on the +mountain,” and every house was locked. After a severe day of twelve +hours we were directed off the road, through groves of fine Spanish +chestnut trees, to an alp, on which is a small Man-tze house inhabited +by one Chinese, where I slept on the roof, next two rows of humming +prayer-cylinders, and in the morning had a glorious view of snow-peaks +and forests. + +It is scarcely credible, but the downward journey was more gloriously +beautiful than the upward. The peacock green, transparent Siao Ho, with +its snow-white cataracts, thundered through the trees in a yet goodlier +volume, between cliffs on which the great, red-stemmed pines are +securely moored, flashed past velvet lawns starred with blue and white +anemones, and pink and white peonies; past clumps of daphne giving forth +hot-house odours in the warm sunshine, under the living scarlet of +maples, through the blue gloom of colossal pines, every one of its +innumerable bends giving a fresh view. The ice was half an inch thick +every morning on the heights. We lodged in headmen’s houses, where at +one halt I had a guest-room twenty-four feet long. + +[Illustration: HESHUI HUNTER, AND NOTCHED TIMBERS.] + +At Ku-erh-Kio, where after a journey of eleven hours I sat nearly two +hours among dogs, pigs, and fowls, waiting for the people to return from +the mountain and give us shelter, I slept for the last time on a roof +under the stars, the earliest sight in the morning being glories of +light and shade, of forest, cataract, and mountain, and the sparkle of a +peak reddening in the sunrise, like unto the Matterhorn, which the +people called Ja-ra (king of mountains).[51] + +[Illustration: A HESHUI FAMILY, KU-ERH-KIO.] + +A thirteen hours’ journey thence took us to Tsa-ku-lao. We were +benighted and lost the road, and were “set in darkness in slippery +places,” on lofty precipice ledges, and the coolies were so exhausted +that they fell several times on the five hundred rocky steps by which +the quaint border post is reached. Chinese inns, officialism, passport +delays, and _chai-jen_ had to be endured again from that point. At +Li-fan Ting the officials sent presents when we arrived, saying that +they hoped I would forget their conduct, “and turn the light of my +countenance once more upon them to vivify them.” + +The heat became severe as we descended; the vegetation near the road was +limited to grey, dusty tufts of a species of artemisia; the winds were +tremendous, and the Man-tze villages at great heights, where the people +have neither horses, cattle, nor sheep, and depend solely on the +rainfall for their crops, were praying for rain, and below Weichou, +finding Sakyamuni deaf to their entreaties, were turning to the +forgotten gods of the rivers and the hills. + +From an ethnological point of view the Man-tze deserve some attention, +as they differ considerably from the Sifan to the north and the Lolos to +the south. In religion and many customs they approach closely to the +people of Western Tibet, while in appearance they differ most remarkably +from both Tibetans and Chinese. Their handsome, oval faces; +richly-coloured complexions; thick, straight eyebrows; large, level +eyes, sometimes dark grey; broad, upright foreheads; moderate cheek +bones; definite, though rather broad noses; thin lips, somewhat pointed +chins, and white, regular teeth are far removed from any Mongolian +characteristics, and it is impossible not to believe that these tribes +are an offshoot of the Aryan race. + +During the week’s descent from Tsa-ku-lao, the winds were fearful, +almost carrying my chair and bearers over a precipice, and the country +was scorched, and afflicted with driving dust storms. The heat had then +set in for the summer, the Yangtze was rising, and I was suffering so +severely from the effects of the night’s “death-struggle” on the +Tsu-ku-shan pass, that I was anxious to reach a cooler climate, so only +rested a few days among the hospitalities of Kuan, and then crossed the +Chengtu plain for the fourth time, doing forty miles in one day with the +mercury at 93° in the shade, and arrived at Chengtu among very +unpleasant demonstrations of hostility from the military students who +were “up” for examination. Four of the examiners had passed me on the +road, or rather I respectfully cleared off it to make way for, and +contemplate them. Besides four bearers to each chair, a number of +soldiers were roped on, and behind them came a train of twenty-six laden +mules, and twenty-five laden porters, carrying, I doubt not, much +besides personal baggage. I was told that these officials make large +investments in SZE CHUAN drugs, on which, as they pay no taxes _en +route_, and the unfortunate local officials bear the cost of carriage, +they make great profits in Peking. Numbers of attendants are essential +to dignity in the East. A mandarin going to pay a visit in his +much-decorated chair is usually preceded and accompanied by an irregular +procession of lictors with staves or whips, boys carrying red boards +bearing the official’s name and style, and _chai-jen_ in red-tasselled +official hats. The lictors push the people to one side, the boys shout, +and the bearers yell. When the great man leaves his own _yamen_ three +small mortars are fired, and if he visits an official, the same noisy +process is repeated. + +Forced labour for relays of bearers, porters, and horses for the lesser +dignitaries, is called for, and on a much-travelled main road this is a +heavy burden on the villagers. + +[Illustration: A DRAGON BRIDGE.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV. + DOWNWARD BOUND + + +The deep blue, glittering skies of the high altitudes were exchanged for +the mist and dulness which have conferred upon SZE CHUAN the name of +“The Cloudy Province,” and with the lower levels came mosquitoes and +sandflies, and a day shade temperature from 82° to 93°, very little +alleviated during the night. I left the capital in a small flat-bottomed +_wupan_, drawing four inches of water, with a mat roof, and without +doors at either end. Yet my cambric curtains were never lifted, and when +I desired it I enjoyed complete privacy at the expense of partial +asphyxiation. At that time, May 20, the water was so low that no bigger +boat could make the passage, and numbers of small, trim house-boats were +aground. + +It was the start for a river journey of over 2000 miles, the first +thousand of which were accomplished in this and similar boats. It was a +delightful and most propitious journey, and introduced me to many new +beauties and interests, and to a most attractive area of prosperity. For +the first day the boatmen made more use of their shoulders than of their +oars, lifting and shoving the boat, which “drave heavily” over sand and +shingle and often bumped like a cart over paving stones. For the ascent +of the river breast-poles are used by men wading. From Chengtu Fu to Sui +Fu the Min is called by the Chinese the Fu, from the three Fu cities on +its banks. After Be-dien had shopped for three hours, the result being +only a small bag of charcoal, we dropped down under a fine stone bridge +of several arches to a pretty village with a pagoda, “a sweet place,” +where we tied up for the night. + +[Illustration: VILLAGE ON THE MIN.] + +We joined the main river, not then more than eighty yards wide, below +the An-shun Bridge, an antiquated or ancient structure, and spent a long +day in battling with the shallows, and with the peasant farmers, who had +thrown many dams of shingle in bamboo cages across the river to keep up +the water for their own purposes. They refused to open a passage, though +this only involved kicking away the stones between the cages and +replacing them, demanded 2000 cash as toll, and seized on my boat, and +with shod poles and much vociferation barred my progress several times. +Native boats were passing through for thirty cash, and some thirty or +forty at each dam were smashing against each other for the first turn. +Eventually, when forty men got hold of my little _wupan_ and tried to +intimidate me, I asked them to show me the paper authorising them to +demand this toll, on which they collapsed. + +In a number of places there are rows of gigantic waterwheels, four or +five together, from thirty to forty-five feet in diameter, by which all +the adjacent country is bountifully irrigated. The sleepy hum of these +huge wheels, the richness of the cultivation, and the fresh greens of +the woodland, in which prosperous-looking villages basked drowsily in +the summer sunshine, were all charming. But at times the water was so +shallow that the boatmen had to precede my boat to work a channel for +her, one of them leading her by the nose, and another pushing her from +behind. This dragging, and the quarrels with the peasants about getting +through their dams, occupied the first day. + +The next day was a rapture. A river locally called the Nan joins the Min +at Chiang Ku, about sixteen miles below Chengtu, and after the junction +water was abundant. Su-ma-tou, a busy place in lat. 30° 28′ (Baber), is +the limit of navigation for large junks. At Peng-shan Hsien the river +widens out after the union of all its perplexing subdivisions. Below +Meichow, a large and busy place, the country breaks up into picturesque +hills of no great height, divided by fertile valleys, through one of +which I caught a momentary and only glimpse of the unrivalled majesty of +Mount Omi. + +Villages embowered in fruit trees, of which the illustration is an +average specimen, adorn the banks of the bright river. Young wheat, +mustard and beans in blossom, with mulberry trees between the fields, +clumps of bamboo, and pines cresting every knoll and hill, made up a +lovely picture—a vision of peace, plenty, and prosperity. Indeed, the +whole river journey from Chengtu to Chungking consists of a series of +beautiful pictures, combined with varied and prosperous industries. It +is a lovely part of China, and the white, timbered houses, the vividly +red soil, and red sandstone rock, the dark, light, blue, and yellow +greens, and the fascination of the smooth, fine lawns, which ofttimes +slope down to the sparkling water, have a very special charm. The +“Cloudy Province” failed to keep up its character, and if the sky was +not very blue, the sunshine was brilliant. The gardenia, often a large +shrub, grows profusely on the slopes, and it and the bean gave forth +delicious odours. Strings of gardenia blossoms hang up at that season in +all houses, every coolie sticks them into his hair, and even the beggars +find a place for them among their rags. For a farthing a large basket of +them can be bought. + +I reached Chia-ling Fu (1070 ft.), where I remained for some days, in +eighty hours from Chengtu Fu, including stoppages—the estimated distance +being about 130 miles. The approach to this attractive and important +city from the north is extremely pretty, indeed beautiful. The country +is very hilly, and great, red sandstone bluffs, heavily wooded, with +pagodas and temples, and much carving in rock recesses, with scarlet +azaleas and gardenia blossoming everywhere, would have riveted my +admiration to the left bank had it not been for the overhanging red +sandstone cliff and the picturesque houses of the city on the right. + +Chia-ling Fu, said to be a city of 50,000 souls, is a place of great +importance commercially, as three large rivers—the Min, Ya, and +Tatu—there form a junction, and for a brief space the river is like a +lake. It is perhaps the greatest centre of sericulture and silk weaving +in the province, and is also the eastern boundary of the white wax +trade. Its white silks are remarkable for lustre and purity of colour. +It is a rich city, and the capital of one of the most fertile and lovely +regions on earth. It is besides the starting-point for most of the +pilgrims to the temples of Omi-Shan and “The Glory of Buddha.” The city +wall is of bright red sandstone, which is finished with a few courses of +hard grey brick. The south gate was rigidly closed against the Fire God. +A handsome, uphill, residential street, green and peaceful, leads to the +west gate, and on this the China Inland Mission and Canadian Methodists +have their mission houses. In Mr. Endacott’s garden are some specimens +of the singular rock-dwellings so fully described by Mr. Baber in his +papers on Western China. Chia-ling trades in opium and timber as well as +in silk and white wax. Silk and umbrella shops are conspicuous. Every +view from every point is beautiful. + +[Illustration: WEST GATE, CHIA-LING FU.] + +On the face of the cliff on the opposite side of the river is a figure +in the rock, cut in very high relief, of Maitreya Buddha—truly colossal, +being 380 feet in height. The nose is said to be nearly five feet long, +and the head from thirty to forty feet high. Grass is allowed to grow on +the head, eyebrows, upper lip, and ears, to represent hair. This figure +is unfortunately partly concealed by the redundant vegetation which +surrounds it. It is an interesting specimen of the religious art of +about a thousand years ago. + +Leaving the hospitalities of Chia-ling Fu for a boat journey of 345 +miles, in a rather old and leaky little _wu-pan_, which, however, did +133 miles in seventeen hours, I halted several times on the way down to +visit some of the remarkable rock dwellings in the cliffs which in many +places border the river. They are difficult of access, and besides +tearing my stout Chinese dress to pieces, I was considerably bruised and +scratched. I took ropes, grippers, and three men with me.[52] + +[Illustration: FRIEZE IN ROCK DWELLING, MIN RIVER.] + +At a farmhouse where I landed near the hamlet of Sing-an, there was a +sandstone coffer, seven feet long, used as a cistern. The farmer sold me +two axe-heads of a hard, green stone, with a dull polish, which he found +along with the coffer while digging a buffalo pond. To the finest of the +excavated dwellings that I visited, I descended, holding on to trees and +rock projections with hands and grippers, having a rope round my waist. +There was a rock platform in front of the opening, not now accessible +from below. The face of the rock has been smoothed, and eaves which +project two feet have been left. The four times recessed doorway is five +feet six inches high. At one side of this, as well as in the doorways of +the interior, there are the remains of stone pivots on which doors could +be hung. Above the doorway is a frieze as represented in the +illustration, eighteen inches in depth, which is repeated over a stone +altar against the wall, and again over several recesses, one of which is +obviously for a fire, and has a stone shelf above it, and the others +were probably beds. Two doorways give access to rooms, one of which is +14 ft. by 12 ft., the other 12 ft. by 12 ft. The former is nine feet +high, and has a rounded roof, below which runs a deep and well-executed +frieze carved with arabesques and curious human figures, the faces of +which are certainly not Mongolian. In this room are both an altar and a +stone tank. The outer room measures 30 ft. by 20 ft. 7 in., and is 7 ft. +4 in. in height. In another of these singular excavations there are +settees cut into the rock with a fashionable slope of seat and back, the +front being actually rounded for comfort! In a third there is a curious +arrangement resembling pigeon-holes for letters, and the frieze +resembles one figured in Mr. Baber’s paper, and is what is known in +heraldry as the “disc-and-label” pattern—a severe but very decorative +ornament. In that dwelling there was an arrangement of holes in the +doorway, showing that the doors had worked on some description of hinge. +Over the lintel of one doorway is the trident symbol. All the dwellings +(five) visited by me, had what must have been small sleeping chambers +attached to them. The walls of the principal rooms show traces of +careful finish, and some have obviously been panelled. There is a +stately seemliness about these abodes, which implies that those who +constructed and occupied them must have made some advances in +civilisation, and have valued privacy. + +[Illustration: BOAT ON THE MIN.] + +The finest of them, so far as is known, both in size and decoration, is +a day’s journey only from Sui Fu, but the access involves severe +climbing, and risks which I did not care to run. These dwellings occur +in great numbers, from a point not far above Chia-ling Fu down nearly to +Luchow, a distance of fully 220 miles. + +The ever broadening and deepening Min, passing through lovely and +prosperous country, took me rapidly to Sui Fu (Hsu-chow Fu), a large +city with a population, according to the officials, of 150,000. It is +well situated on a high, much wooded, rocky promontory between the Min +or Fu and the Chin-sha, which there unite to form the great river known +by us as the Yangtze, where a temple-crowned point of rock dominates the +busy city. On the opposite side of the Min are fantastic mountains with +singular rock forms, on one of which is the highly picturesque temple of +“The Sleeping Buddha,” approached by steps cut in the rock below. + +The Chin-sha is only navigable to Ping-shan, a difficult forty miles +above Sui Fu. It was rising fast, and its great volume of turbid water +contrasted with the clear bright Min, which kept apart from it in +disgust for some time. Sui Fu is a very lively place, being the great +entrepôt of the large transit trade between SZE CHUAN and Northern +YUNNAN, as well as a considerable distributing point. + +Above Ping-shan, the Lolo, tribes which the Chinese have failed to +subdue in two thousand years, keep the country in a state of chronic +insecurity, fatal to trade routes. Besides the transit trade, Sui Fu +does a large business in silk, opium, and sugar. The “residential +suburbs” are full of good houses in wooded grounds, extending far up the +Min, their owners reaching their pleasure boats by handsome flights of +stone stairs. The American Baptists and the China Inland Mission do +mission work in Sui-Fu, and a great deal of valuable medical work. +Though “child-eating,” as elsewhere, is believed in, the people are not +unfriendly, and the mandarin was specially courteous. Before I left he +sent round to all the street officers to say that, whether I went +through the city in a chair or on foot, there was to be no crowding, +following, or staring. He sent four _chai-jen_ in official hats to walk +in front of me, and go down with me to Luchow, and two petty officers to +see that no one interfered with my camera, on pain of being beaten. + +I left Sui Fu on the glorious evening of a blazing day, and once more, +after a land journey in SZE CHUAN of nearly 1200 miles, was afloat on +the Yangtze—there a deep, broad river, flowing among low, pretty hills, +much wooded, and terraced for cultivation. + +[Illustration: TOWN ON THE YANGTZE.] + +[Illustration: SUBURB OF SUI FU.] + +[Illustration: TSIANG NGAN HSIEN, WITH ENTRANCE TO ROCK DWELLING.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. + LUCHOW TO CHUNG-KING FU + + +On the brilliant afternoon of the day after leaving Sui Fu, I reached +Luchow, an important trading city, with a reputed population of 130,000. +It is prettily situated on rising ground at the confluence of the +Yangtze and To rivers. The latter drains a considerable area, and by it +and its connections cargo boats of about fifteen tons can reach the +Great River from Kuan Hsien. Luchow appears to be a quiet, fairly well +governed, busy city. One great industry is the making of umbrellas, and +it has a large trade in sugar and other SZE CHUAN products. According to +its own officials, eighty per cent. of its male population are opium +smokers. In good shops, there and elsewhere, opium pipes are supplied +gratuitously to customers in back rooms, just as cups of tea are in +Japan. The China Inland Mission has both men’s and women’s work in +Luchow, and I was hospitably received in the mission house. The mercury +was 93°, and no one could sleep at night. + +The people are not what would be called hostile, yet they curse Mr. +James, the missionary, in the streets, and believe that all the five are +“child-eaters,” and that the comeliness of the ladies is preserved by +the use of children’s brains! This scandalous accusation is current +everywhere in SZE CHUAN. Even at quiet Chia-ling Fu, when two beggar +boys were brought into the compound to be photographed, the report +spread like wildfire through the city that they been taken in for the +purpose of being fatted for eating! The hostility to foreigners has +increased rapidly in many parts of the province. Mr. A. J. Little, +writing from SZE CHUAN some years ago, mentions that the phrase “Foreign +devil,” and other opprobrious epithets applied to foreigners elsewhere, +were unknown, and other travellers have mentioned the same thing. Now, a +language rich in abominable terms is ransacked for the worst, to hurl at +the foreigner. + +I left Luchow on May 30th in great heat, and contrary to custom, +travelled till nine o’clock, making fast to a snag in a broad reach or +bay of shallow water. The mercury stood at 91° at four p.m., and the men +suffered from the heat. I have observed that sunstroke is far more to be +dreaded in damp than in dry climates. It is common in SZE CHUAN among +the Chinese. The boatmen called it _lei-su_, “death from exhaustion.” +They feared it, and well they might, for their shaven heads were only +protected by small towels. The blue turban, much worn in the province, +may have originated in an instinct of defence. The Chinese suffer +greatly from mosquitoes. I have seen curtains of a heavy, green canvas +even in poor men’s houses, but men as poor as my boatmen have no +protection, and, being compelled by the heat to sleep naked, their +bodies are covered with inflamed lumps from mosquito bites. They are +very patient. They suffered so much from this cause that in the stifling +twilights, when thousands of these pests were abroad, I almost grudged +myself the immunity gained by sitting under a mosquito net made by +attaching a net roof and curtains to a Chinese umbrella frame. + +The men fanned themselves as long as they could keep awake. As the heat +increased the use of the fan became universal among men. Coolies fanned +themselves at the treadmill pump, bearers as they ran along with chairs, +porters with loads, travellers on horseback and on foot, men working and +resting, shopkeepers at their doors, mandarins in their chairs and on +the judgment-seat, and sentries on guard. Soldiers marching to meet an +enemy fan themselves on the march, as I saw in Manchuria during the +Japanese war, and the bloody field of Phyong-yang was strewn with the +fans of the dead and dying Chinese. Fan-making is one of the great +industries of China. Nearly 2,000,000 fans were imported into Chung-king +in 1897. + +[Illustration: PAGODA NEAR LUCHOW.] + +Except for the heat, the downward journey was quite delightful; the +country is so fertile and beautiful, and has such an air of prosperity. +So long as we were in motion there was a draught, as the boat was quite +open, but the still nights were stifling, specially with the curtains +down. The boatmen were harmless, good-natured, obliging fellows. They +tied up whenever I wanted to land if it were at all possible, and though +they were obliged to pass from bow to stern through my “room,” they +always asked leave to do so if the curtains were down. The lovely +country was a very great charm. The variety of scenery, trees, flowers, +and cultivated plants was endless, and new industries were constantly +becoming prominent. The only matter for regret was that the rush of the +fast-rising river carried us all too swiftly past much that was worthy +of observation. + +A visit to a coal-mine interested me greatly. The mine was in a +hillside, three miles from the river, and employed eighty men. The +manager said that the output was the equivalent of forty tons daily. The +men got sevenpence per day, with rice, broad beans, cucumbers, and tea. +Each hewer and carrier (in pairs) must deliver at the pit’s mouth daily +the equivalent of a ton. The pay with food comes to tenpence per day, +and the actual cost in labour of a ton is twentypence. The mine is +extremely well ventilated by three revolving fans, which drive the air +into it through bamboo tubing. The men work in two shifts of twelve +hours per day of twenty-four hours, eating their rice in the mine three +times daily. Every tenth day is pay-day and a holiday. Each carrier +burns nine ounces of Tung oil daily, and each hewer six, the lamps being +attached to the brow by a band round the head. There was a bath for the +miners, which in the dim light appeared to be a stone coffer, supplied +with hot water. The tunnel by which the workings are reached, and down +which the coal is carried in wheeled baskets running on a wooden +tramway, is six feet high, and about six hundred feet long. I could do +no more than glance at the workings. The coal seam was about four feet +thick, the galleries very low, and the hewers lay on their sides and +hacked the coal sidewise. It appeared to be a fairly hard bituminous +coal, and there is a great demand for it at the town of Peh-Shi, where, +after land and river transit, it sells at seven shillings per ton. The +manager, an intelligent and fairly polite man, told me that hard coal is +also found in the neighbourhood, but is much more expensive to work. +This coal-mine appeared well appointed, and the miners well fed and +cheery. They seemed to have less consideration for the Dragon’s back +than those on the Paoning route! + +The night after leaving Luchow, while tied up to a snag in a broad and +shallow reach, all in my boat were wakened out of a sound sleep by what +might have been the “crack of doom.” There was a sound as if all the +cannon of the universe had been fired close to the _wu-pan_ on either +side, accompanied by a hiss in the water, a glare of blue light, a gust +which lifted the boat, and stripped off some of the mats of the roof, +and then a torrent of rain. By the next morning the Yangtze had risen +twelve feet, and our snag had “gone under,” forcing us to seek the +familiar protection of the shore. + +Among many storms, one only, at St. Paul, Minnesota, has fixed itself in +my memory. That was in a hotel lighted by gas and full of people. This +was out in a lonely place in “darkness which could be felt,” among men +of another race and speech, in a frail craft. The thunder, not rolling, +but bursting like explosions; the ceaselessness and vividness of the +forked lightning; the otherwise pitch darkness of the night; the hot and +mephitic atmosphere; the occasional terrific gusts of wind, threatening +to blow the half-unroofed boat to pieces; the roar of the rain, the +loneliness and mystery of our position; the silence from human movement +and speech; the hours it all lasted; the surprise after every tremendous +explosion to find myself alive, and the fear that some of the men were +killed, made that night an awful memory. + +During the whole storm no one spoke or moved hand or foot. I felt +paralysed, a sensation, as I afterwards found, common to all Europeans +who passed through the same experience. The boatmen, who were lying in +the water, never stirred. When the explosion gave place to magnificent +rolls, and the rain moderated, the men spent an hour in baling the boat. +All the matches were afloat and much else, and our food was mostly +spoiled. A thousand waterfalls tumbled down the hillsides, the stony or +sandy river banks were no more, of a few riverine villages the roofs +alone were to be seen, fields in numbers with their growing crops had +slid bodily down the slopes, leaving great patches of naked rock behind, +and the Yangtze, a broad, turbid, terra-cotta flood, was rioting over +the submerged confusions of its rocky bed in swirls and violent eddies. + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR’S _WU-PAN_.] + +After hurrying through a less beautiful and much devastated region, +landing only at Shih-men, on the left bank, where there is a fine temple +with five green-tiled roofs, and much fishing is done, the scenery again +changed, and for four hundred miles is a succession of indescribably +beautiful pictures, combining hill and valley, rock and woodland, with a +greenery and fertility of which no word-painting could give any idea. +Towns and villages, piled on knolls, looked out from among fruit trees; +and temples and pagodas on heights lent their infinite picturesqueness. + +One of the most beautifully situated towns is the unwalled town of +Peh-Shih, with a (reputed) population of 11,000. Timbered white houses +run steeply up diverging limestone cliffs; every outline is broken by +the configuration of the ground; the ornamental and economic trees are +superb; the density of their foliage was phenomenal. The centre of the +town, which has no room for expansion, is picturesquely crowded with +striking temples and guildhalls, much enriched with gold and colour. The +great industry of the town is “wine” making. Wine is exported on a large +scale in forty-gallon jars, which come down on bamboo rafts from +Lu-chien, where they are made, and these afterwards take the wine up the +Ya and other turbulent rivers. A fleet of these quaint constructions and +a great number of junks lay along the shore, and there was an air of +prosperous business about the town. + +The roof of my boat had to be refitted with mats, some of which had been +blown off in the storm, and I took a long inland walk, and without +molestation! The cultivation was marvellous. I have no space to dwell +upon the infinite variety of the crops or on the trees of all climates +which were flourishing in juxtaposition,[53] or upon the striking fact +that there, 1600 miles up the river, the social and commercial +organisation, and the arrangements for what the Chinese regard as +comfort and convenience, were as complete as in Che-kiang. A little +later it might have occurred to me that this beautiful and prosperous +region is claimed as in the British “sphere of influence.” Carefulness +and thrift were shown by what was to me a novelty. All along the river +shore people were fishing from rocks with nets, for straws, twigs, and +bits of wood to use for their cooking fires. + +[Illustration: METHOD OF CARRYING _CASH_ AND BABIES.] + +I reached Chung-king, the westernmost of the treaty ports, and the +commercial metropolis of SZE CHUAN early the next morning (June 1st), +after coming slightly to grief in a rapid above it, and remained there +during three grey, steamy, misty days, in which the mercury was almost +steady at 87°. Between Chung-king and Sui Fu, if not higher, steam +navigation at that season appeared perfectly practicable. The junk and +raft traffic is very large. Coal and lime are found in abundance near +Chung-king, and at Pa-Ko-Shan, five miles below Sui Fu, and also twenty +miles above it. Specimens of this coal brought to England have been +pronounced to be suitable for steam purposes.[54] + +[Illustration: FISHING VILLAGE, UPPER YANGTZE.] + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII. + THE JOURNEY’S END + + +Whether Chung-king (altitude 1050 ft.) is approached from above or +below, it is a most striking city. It is surprising to find, 1500 miles +inland, a town of from 400,000 to 500,000 people, including 2500 +Mohammedans, as the commercial capital of Western China, one of the +busiest cities of the empire. Its founders chose a site on which there +is no room for expansion, and its warehouses, guildhalls, hongs, shops, +and the dwellings of rich and poor, are packed upon a steep sandstone +reef or peninsula lying between the Yangtze and its great northern +tributary, the Chia-ling, and rising from 100 to 400 feet above the +winter level of these rivers. As I descended upon it down a somewhat +turbulent rapid, which half filled the boat and drowned a fowl, it +reminded me of Quebec, and made me think of the packed condition of +Edinburgh when it was yet a walled city. + +[Illustration: WALL OF CHUNG-KING, WITH GATE TOWERS.] + +A noble-looking, grey city it is, with towers, pavilions, and temples +rising above its massive, irregular, crenelated grey wall, with broad, +steep, and crowded flights of stone stairs, twenty feet broad, leading +up from the river to the gates, with an amphitheatre of wooded and +richly cultivated hills rising steeply 1600 feet from the water for its +background; the fleets of big junks, and craft of all descriptions, +which lie crowded along its shores and in every adjacent bay and reach, +and the life and movement on land and water, combining to form a noble +and most striking spectacle. Nor is Chung-king as a city “alone in its +glory,” for on the Yangtze, just below its junction with the Chia-ling, +which divides it from Chung-king, stands the walled city of Limin-fu, +its white houses covering a number of hills and cliffs, and at its feet +hundreds of junks. Another city, Kiang-peh, completes the trio. These +cities, with their commercial organisation owing nothing to Europe, I +think more than all others, gave me an idea of what China _is_ and +_must_ be. + +[Illustration: CHUNG-KING SOLDIERS, CUSTOMS GUARD.] + +Chung-king Fu has often been described in detail, and I will only give a +few impressions of it. Passing to the Taiping gate up a flight of stone +stairs, always sloppy from the passage of water carriers, and crowded +with cotton-laden coolies, I reached the house of the Commissioner of +Customs by steep streets cut in the rock. The Customs House, infinitely +picturesque, is on a small rock plateau, with only four feet of space +between it and the rock behind. The view is ideally picturesque, with +the pagoda and gardens of a Guild of Benevolence below the plateau, and +the great flood of the Yangtze, then two-thirds of a mile wide, rolling +between the city and the fine hills on the further shore. But space is +lacking. The Chinese soldiers who guard the Commissioner seemed to block +up the little that there is, and trees and trailers there and everywhere +in the hot, moist climate of Chung-king, choke up every foot of ground. +The mercury stood at 87° during my three days’ visit; there was no +sunshine for the dogs to bark at, and the moist air was absolutely +still. As compared with many or most, the “grounds” of that house are +spacious! + +Chung-king was opened as a treaty port in 1891, but the China Inland +Mission rented a house there in 1877, and were followed by missionaries +of other societies, who, however, all had to fly from a severe riot nine +years later. Mr. Archibald Little settled there as a merchant eight +years before the opening—a rare instance of mercantile pluck with few +imitators, and now, besides the foreigners on the Consular and Customs’ +staffs, there are other “venturers,” chiefly “transients,” and about +thirty missionaries of different societies, with mission chapels, +schools, and hospitals. The English and German steamers, which are to be +placed on the route from Ichang next year (1900), will doubtless +stimulate foreign settlement, and will bring Chung-king within the +globe-trotter’s sphere. If specially-built gunboats can “patrol” the +upper Yangtze, outbreaks of hostility to foreigners will doubtless +cease, and the quarrels will be among the foreign nationalities, each +anxious to circumvent the others in the matter of concessions. + +Below the huge reef on which Chung-king stands, is a town of mat and +bamboo houses outside the wall. As the Yangtze rises some ninety feet in +summer above its winter level, and was rising fast when I arrived on +June 1st, this town had mostly disappeared, and the highest remnant was +being carried away hurriedly on men’s backs, each hour of removal giving +an added dignity to the grand, grey city, looking down on the grand, +yellow-ochre flood. In Chung-king, as in many another city of the upper +Yangtze, the harmony between man’s work and nature is yet unbroken, and +the evil day of foreign inartistic antagonisms, incongruities, and +uglinesses has not yet dawned. + +This commercial capital has a great present, which we are hoping to +improve upon to our advantage.[55] It is connected by water with nearly +every considerable town in the province, and wholesale trade is by boat. +Exports bound east must pass it, and also the imports brought up to pay +for them. For foreign goods it is the sole wholesale market in SZE +CHUAN, and is so for provincial trade to a great extent, and the +province, it must be repeated, is as large as France, and vastly more +populous. To it the merchants and shopkeepers of the whole population of +from 55,000,000 to 70,000,000, which includes Tibetan tribes, Lolos, and +a few so-called “dog faces,” resort to make their purchases. + +[Illustration: GALA HEAD-DRESS, “DOG-FACED” WOMAN.] + +(_See also page 177._) + +Mr. A. J. Little is the only British merchant resident in Chung-king. +The Chinese merchants deal directly with Shanghai through their own men. +More than half of the buyers sent down have an interest in the business. +They deal with the Chinese importers, and pay ready money in Shanghai, +but sell to the provincial merchants on long credit, the rate of +interest being 14⅖ per cent. per annum on foreign cotton goods. The +seller naturally wishes payment to be deferred, and the buyer desires to +hasten it, as he receives the same percentage as discount. Exchange +between Chung-king and Shanghai is always in favour of Chung-king, and +when the Yangtze is in its summer flood, 1000 taels in Shanghai can +often be bought in Chung-king for 880. + +The intricacies of Chinese business at Chung-king are appalling. +Excessive subtlety and ingenuity characterise all the trade rules and +customs, and even the “Blackburn Commission,” aided by the experience of +Mr. Bourne, found it a work of much labour to master their +complications! It is scarcely wonderful that the average British +merchant, who knows nothing better than _Pidgun_, instead of following +in the steps of our bold “Merchant Venturers,” sticks at Shanghai.[56] + +At Chung-king, more almost than elsewhere, I was impressed with the +completeness of Chinese commercial organisation. It may be too complex, +and lacking in initiative, to serve our purposes, but it serves their +own, and I heard there, as elsewhere, that the high standard of +commercial honour and probity which has been worked out, renders +dealings with Chinese merchants very satisfactory. + +Eight of the other provinces are represented by guilds in this great +trading city, with their handsome guildhalls, and rigid laws of +association. There are an abundance of exchange banks (banks selling +drafts on distant places), seventeen of which are in the hands of men +from SHAN-SI, which has a speciality for banking talent, and there are +over twenty large _cash_ shops or local banks, which exchange _cash_ +against silver and _vice versâ_. These banks do not make advances on +goods, but lend on personal security at from ten to twelve per cent. per +annum, and employ agents who hang about the business quarter, learning +the proceedings of customers, so as to gauge their credit. A bank would +lend as much as 200,000 taels to a merchant on personal security only. +They have very rigorous methods of ensuring the honesty of _employés_. + +[Illustration: THE AUTHOR’S LAST _WU-PAN_.] + +It was with great regret that I left Chung-king on my last _wu-pan_ +voyage. There were few, if any, small house-boats on the berth, and the +big ones would only go down at an enormous price, because of the +difficulty and profitlessness of the return. Foreigners of the two +services, as well as merchants, regard a _wu-pan_ as we regard a +steerage passage, and even my kind host declined to connive at my +proceedings, but Mr. Willett, of the China Inland Mission, befriended +me; the _wu-pan_ was engaged, and I left Chung-king on a sultry June +afternoon, with the mercury at 88°, and never regretted my firmness on +the subject of a boat, for I was thoroughly comfortable, could create +draughts at will, and my boatmen were quiet and most obliging, and were +ready to land me at any place where landing was practicable. + +The force and volume of the river, which had then risen about forty-five +feet above its winter level, were tremendous. Its low-water width at +Chung-king, according to Blakiston, is 800 yards, but it was then about +two-thirds of a mile wide, a swirling, leaping, yellow flood, laden with +the mud with which it enriches the Great Plain. Caught in its torrent, +the _wu-pan_, with two men rowing easily, descended at great speed. When +we reached rapids, five men pulled frantically with yells which posed as +songs, to keep steerage way on her, and we went down like a flash—down +smooth hills of water, where rapids had been obliterated; down leaping +races, where they had been created; past hideous whirlpools, where to +have been sucked in would have been destruction; past temples, pagodas, +and grey cities on heights; past villages gleaming white midst dense +greenery; past hill, valley, woodland, garden cultivation, and signs of +industry and prosperity; past junks laid up for the summer in quiet +reaches, and junks with frantic crews, straining at the sweeps, chanting +wildly, bound downwards like ourselves; and still for days the Great +River hurried us remorselessly along. There was no time to take in +anything. A pagoda or city scarcely appeared before it vanished—a rapid +scarcely tossed up its angry crests ahead, before we had left it astern; +one fair dissolving view was all too rapidly exchanged for another; and +we were tying up among the many hundred junks which fringed the shore of +the “Myriad City,” which is as beautiful from above as from below, +before I realised that we were half-way thither. + +But in this delirious whirl there were episodes of rest, when I landed +on green and flowery shores above the submerged boulders, or below +picturesque cities and temples, and had leisure either to enjoy detail +or to loathe it. The latter was my mental attitude when I landed with my +_chai-jen_ (rather an infliction in a small boat) at the important town +of Fu-chow, where a clear stream, about 200 yards broad, and navigable +for 200 miles, joins the turbid Yangtze. There are many queer crafts on +the branches of the Yangtze. The navigation of some of these rivers is +so intricate and dangerous, that the owners of these risky constructions +are obliged to consent to provide coffins for their crews in case of +disaster, and there are colliers built for _one_ down-river voyage, +after which they are broken up; but the queerest of all crafts are the +_Wai-pi-Ku_—the “twisting stern” junks used for the navigation of the +Fu-ling, locally known as the Kung-tan Ho, or “River of the Rapid of +Kung.” I saw one of these at Wan, and thought it was a junk which had +had a severe accident! The sight of forty or fifty large junks at +Fu-chow, each one with her high stern twisted a quarter round, so that +the stern deck is at right angles to the quarter deck, was absolutely +laughable. The stern deck is nearly perpendicular, and is climbed by +rungs. These extraordinary boats are without rudders. My boatmen said +that none but “twisted stern” junks could twist through the whirlpools +and reefs of the river. It was not very wise for me to enter Fu-chow, +and as I was followed by an immense and not over polite crowd I did not +dare to use my camera on the _Wai-pi-Ku_. + +Fu-chow is perhaps the most picturesque city on the Yangtze, built on +ledges of rock, tier above tier, at the head of a reach so enclosed by +steep hills as to look like a lake. There is a fine pagoda on a height +near it, and it abounds in large temples in commanding positions. The +deep gateway in the thick wall is scarcely more than eight feet high. +The narrow street into which it leads was thronged, and even women were +carrying creels, either loaded with coal dust, or small children. I +managed to dodge the fast accumulating crowd, and get on the wall, from +which the view up the Fu-ling is magnificent. My visit, however, was +rather “a fearful joy.” + +The city appears full of temples, literary monuments, and public +buildings, but it has an air of neglect and decay, and it and its +suburbs are dirty and malodorous. It is a great junk port, and at times, +though not, I think, increasingly, the Fu-ling is used for the transit +of goods both to Hankow and Canton. The latter city can be reached by +this method with only two portages(?). There are large mat and bamboo +suburbs below one part of the wall, but very little of them was left, +owing to the rapid rise of the river, which also had led to the removal +of many of the mat villages of the trackers. Fu-chow again looked +glorious from below. A tremendous whirlpool, in which, sometimes, +descending junks are caught to their destruction, is formed in summer +near the city. We went uncomfortably near its vortex. + +[Illustration: “STONE PRECIOUS CASTLE,” SHI-PAO-CHAI.] + +I landed also at Shih-pao-chai (“Stone Precious Castle”), a place of +pilgrimage. The south-east side of the rock (not given in the +illustration) has a nine-storeyed pavilion, resting on a very strikingly +decorated temple built against it, through which access to the summit is +gained. On the flat top there is a temple of three courts. The pavilion +building has curved and decorated roofs, and looks like a magnificent +eleven-storeyed pagoda. A large village lies at its feet. My films were +spotted with damp, and would have failed anyhow, owing to the +overpowering curiosity of the people. This rock and its talus are about +300 feet in height. + +A glorious sunset and a morning of crystalline purity in a bay above the +“Wind-box Gorge”; a rapid swirl through the solemnity and grandeur of +the gorges which I ascended slowly and toilsomely six months before; the +Yeh-tan, fierce and perilous; the Hsin-tan, a mere water-slide, down +which my _wu-pan_ slipped easily; a lovely walk up the Nan-po glen, and +in fifty-six hours from Chung-king, exclusive of stoppages, the boat +emerged from the Ichang gorge upon the broad reach of eddying water, on +which the pleasant treaty port of Ichang is situated. + +After receiving hospitality for a few days at the British Consulate I +left Ichang, and found the mirrors, enamel, and gilding of one of the +fine river steamers very distasteful after a thousand miles in a +_wu-pan_. Hankow, though by no means at its worst, was damp and sultry, +with a temperature over 90°, and alive with mosquitoes. Even on the +voyage down to Shanghai, which was devoid of any incident,—except that +five minutes after leaving Chin-kiang we cut the anchored steamer +_Hai-how_, tea-laden for Canton, down to the water’s edge—the damp heat +was severe, and even the breeze was hot. + +It was the end of June when I reached Shanghai, to find it sweltering in +a “hot wave,” sunless and moist. My journey on the whole had been one of +extreme variety and interest, and I was truly thankful for the freedom +from any serious accident which I had enjoyed, and for the deep and +probably abiding interest in China and the Chinese which it had given +me, along with new views of the physical characteristics of the country, +and of the resourcefulness and energy of its inhabitants. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII. + THE OPIUM POPPY AND ITS USE[57] + + +My acquaintance with the opium poppy began in the month of February on +the journey from Wan Hsien to Paoning Fu. It is a very handsome plant. +It is expensive to grow. It has to be attended to eight times, and needs +heavy manuring. It is exposed to so many risks before the juice is +secured that the growth is much of a speculation, and many Chinese +regard it as being as risky as gambling. Besides its cultivation for +sale, on a majority of farms it is grown for home use, as tobacco is, +for smoking. It is a winter crop, and is succeeded by rice, maize, +cotton, beans, etc. Certain crops can be planted between the rows of the +poppies. Much oil, bearing a high price, is made from the seed. The +lower leaves, which are abundant, are used in some quarters to feed +pigs, and also as a vegetable. They were served up to me as such twice, +and tasted like spinach. In some places the heavy stalks are dug into +the ground; in others they are used as fuel, and after serving this +purpose their ashes provide lye for the indigo dyers. It appears from +much concurrent testimony, that in spite of heavy manuring the crop +exhausts the ground. + +The area devoted to the poppy in SZE CHUAN is enormous, and owing to the +high price of the drug and its easy transport its culture is encroaching +on the rice and arable lands. The consequences of the extension of its +cultivation are serious. It is admitted by the natives of SZE CHUAN that +one great reason of the deficient food supply which led to the famine +and distress in the eastern part of the province in 1897, was the giving +of so much ground to the poppy that there was no longer a margin left on +which to feed the population in years of a poor harvest. + +I shall not touch on the history of the growth and use of opium in +China. The authorities evidently regarded the introduction of both as a +grave peril, and they were prohibited under Imperial decrees. I learn on +what I regard as very reliable authority, that sixty years ago, when +Cantonese brought opium cough pills into KWEICHOW and YUNNAN, and the +consumers found themselves unable to give up the medicine, that the +authorities were most active in suppressing its use, and even inflicted +the punishment of death on many of the refractory in YUNNAN. It was then +and later smuggled about the country in coffins! + +Now, on many of the SZE CHUAN roads opium houses are as common as gin +shops in our London slums. I learned from Chinese sources that in +several of the large cities of the province eighty per cent. of the men +and forty per cent. of the women are opium smokers; but this must not be +understood to mean that they are opium “wrecks,” for there is a vast +amount of “moderate” opium smoking in China. In my boat on the Yangtze +fourteen out of sixteen very poor trackers smoked opium, and among my +chair and baggage coolies it was rare to find one who did not smoke, and +who did not collapse about the same hour daily with the so-called +unbearable craving. + +The stern of my boat was a downright opium den at night, with fourteen +ragged men curled up on their quilts, with their opium lamps beside +them, in the height of sensuous felicity, dreaming such Elysian dreams +as never visit the toiling day of a Chinese coolie, and incapable of +rousing themselves to meet an emergency until the effect of the pipe +passed off. Farther astern still, the _lao-pan_ and his shrieking virago +of a wife lay in the same blissful case, the toothless, mummied face of +the _lao-pan_, expressive in the daytime of nothing but fiendish greed, +with its muscles relaxed, and its deep, hard lines smoothed out. Some of +these men, whose thin, worn, cotton rags were ill-fitted to meet the +cold, sold most of them at Wan, rather than undergo what appeared to be +literally the _agonies_ of abstinence. On my inland journey I heard +incidentally of many men who had sold both wives and children in order +to obtain the drug, and at Paoning Fu of a man and his wife who, having +previously parted with house, furniture, and all they had, to gratify +their craving, at the time of my visit sold their only child, a nice +girl of fourteen, educated in the Mission School, to some brutal Kansuh +fur traders, who were returning home. It is quite usual when a man +desires a house and land which are the property of an opium smoker, for +him to wait with true Chinese patience for one, two, or three years, +certain that the owner will sooner or later part with it for an old song +to satisfy his opium craving when he has sold all else. It is common for +the Chinese to say, “If you want to be revenged on your enemy you need +not strike him, or go to law with him—you have only to entice him into +smoking opium.” + +The Chinese condemn all but most moderate opium smoking and gambling as +twin vices, and not a voice is raised in defence of either of them, even +by the smokers themselves. The opium habit is regarded as a disease, for +the cure of which many smokers voluntarily place themselves in opium +refuges at some expense, and at a great cost of suffering, and in the +market towns, thronged with native traders, there is to be seen on many +stalls among innumerable native drugs and commodities, a package +labelled “Remedy for Foreign Smoke,” “foreign smoke” being the usual +name for opium in Western China. I was impressed with the existence of a +curious sort of conscience, if it can be called such, among the devotees +of opium, which leads them to consider themselves as moral criminals. +The Chinese generally believe that if a man takes to the opium habit it +will be to the impoverishment and ruin of his family, and that it will +prevent him from fulfilling one of the first of Confucian obligations, +the support of his parents in their old age. The consensus of opinion +among smokers and non-smokers, as to the crime of opium smoking and its +woeful results, leads me to believe that it brings about the +impoverishment and ruin of families to an enormous extent. Chinese said +several times to me that the reason the Japanese beat them was that they +were more vigorous men, owing to the rigid exclusion of opium from +Japan. + +In May I saw the crop harvested. Women and children are the chief +operators. In the morning longitudinal incisions are made in the seed +vessel, the juice exudes, and by the evening is hard enough to be +scraped into cups, after which it turns black, and after a few days’ +exposure is ready for packing. Heavy rain or a strong west wind during +this process is very injurious. Maize, tobacco, and cotton have been +previously planted, and make a good appearance as soon as the poppy +stalks have been cleared away. + +Eight years ago it was rather exceptional for women and children to +smoke, but the Chinese estimate that in SZE CHUAN and other +opium-producing regions from forty to sixty per cent. are now smokers. +Where opium is not grown the habit is chiefly confined to the cities, +but it is rapidly spreading. + +Its existence is obvious among the lower classes from the exceeding +poverty which it entails. Millions of the working classes earn barely +enough to provide them with what, even to their limited notions, are the +necessaries of life, and the money spent on opium is withdrawn from +these. Hence the confirmed opium smoker among the poor is apt to look +half starved and ragged. Still I am bound to say that I did not +encounter any of those awful specimens of physical wreckage that I saw +some years ago in the Malay States from the same cause. + +Among the well-to-do and well-nourished classes the evils of opium are +doubtless more moral than physical; among the masses both evils are +combined. The lower orders of officials and “_yamen_ runners,” with +their unlimited leisure, are generally smokers. Among my official +escorts in SZE CHUAN, numbering in all 143 men, all but two were +devotees of opium, and I was constantly delayed and inconvenienced by +it. My coolies frequently broke down under the craving, and that at +times as inconvenient to themselves as to me. In two towns I had to wait +two hours to get my passport copied because the writers at the _yamen_ +were in the blissful haziness produced by the pipe. + +So far as I have seen, the passionate craving for the drug, called by +the Chinese the “_Yin_,” (which appears to be the coming on of severe +depression after the stimulant of the pipe has passed off), involves +great suffering, and total abstinence, whether voluntary or enforced, +produces an anguish which the enfeebled will of the immoderate smoker is +powerless to contend with. The craving grows, till at the end of +eighteen months from the commencement of the habit, or even less, the +smoker, unless he can gratify it, becomes unable to do his work. + +He feels disinclined to move, miserable all over, especially at the +stomach and between the shoulders, his joints and bones ache badly, he +perspires freely, he trembles with a sense of weakness, and if he cannot +get the drug, he believes that he will die. I cannot learn how soon a +man comes to consider himself a victim of the habit. Those who place +themselves in opium refuges with the hope of cure, endure agonies which +they describe to be “as if wolves were gnawing at their vitals,” and +would, if permitted, tear off their skin to relieve the severe internal +suffering. + +On my SZE CHUAN journey we were benighted on a desolate hillside, and +had to spend the night in the entrance to a coal-pit, cold, wet, and +badly fed. My coolies had relied on being able to buy opium, and though +they were comparatively moderate smokers, they suffered so much that +some of them were rolling on the ground in their pain. Dr. Main, of +Hangchow, thinks that very few can be cured in opium refuges, which they +enter for twenty-one days, for the debility, stomachic disorder, and +depression which follow the disuse of the drug are so great, that six +months of tonics and good feeding would be necessary to set them on +their feet again. On the contrary, the poor wretch, low in purse, +depressed, feeble, trembling, leaves the shelter of the refuge to be +tempted at once to a smoke by old associates, while in cities like +Hangchow and Fuchow from eight hundred to a thousand registered opium +shops display their seductions, and he turns aside to the only physical +and mental comfort that he knows. + +I have little doubt that in the early months of the habit there is a +widespread desire to abandon it. Opium refuges, in spite of the fair +payment which is asked for, are always crowded. The shops and markets +abound in native and foreign remedies for “foreign smoke.” The native +cures all contain opium, chiefly in the form of ashes, and the foreign, +which are white, contain morphia. The attempts at self-cure number tens +of thousands, and are very piteous, but in many cases it is merely the +exchange of the opium habit for the morphia habit, and at this time +morphia lozenges are making great headway in China, as an easy and +unsuspected means, specially in travelling, of obtaining the sensations +which have become essential to existence. The importation of morphia +into China is now enormous—135,283 ounces in 1898. It is sold +everywhere, and in the great west, as well as nearer the seaboard, shops +are opened which sell a few articles as a blind, for the lucrative sale +of the much-prized morphia pill or lozenge. Among the native cures which +I have heard of the only one which seems at all efficacious is the +so-called “Tea Extract,” _Scutellaria vicidula_. The _Jsai li_ sect, +which makes abstinence from opium one of its tenets, uses this cure +invariably, but the ordinary smoker is unwilling to face the severe +suffering which it entails. + +Smokers, I have learned, may be divided into three classes: first, the +upper class, not driven by failure of means or sense of duty to abandon +an indulgence which they can well afford, and which they do not enjoy to +excess; second, the respectable class of small merchants, innkeepers, +shopkeepers, business men, and the like, who find their families pinched +and themselves losing caste by reason of their habit; third, the +class—which the Chinese estimate to consist of forty per cent. of the +whole in the cities, and twenty per cent. in the country—which has +drifted beyond hope, and is continually recruited from those above it. +In this are found thieves, beggars, actors, the infamous, the lost and +submerged, the men who have sold lands, houses, wives, and children, and +live for opium only, much as the most degraded of our dipsomaniacs live +for spirits. + +Besides these, there are many who are not obliged to have recourse to +selling and pawning to get along, but who curtail such things as the +education of their children, and flowers for their wives’ heads, and +who, from having eaten meat twice daily, eat it only once, or substitute +for it a purely vegetable diet, which must contain much honey and sugar +to relieve the heat and dryness of the mouth which the pipe produces. +Then there are large numbers of smokers who have barely enough to feed +themselves upon, who must eat in order to work, and who have not one +_cash_ left for opium. These borrow right and left, and part with all +they can pledge for anything, borrowing every year from fresh lenders, +and paying back a fraction of the old debts till they can borrow no +longer, and drop into the submerged class aforesaid. Among these are +seen the ragged, mummied wretches, who _kotow_ to former acquaintances, +and beg from them the ashes of their opium pipes, even drinking these +with hot water to satisfy the craving. + +Rich smokers smoke what is known as “Canton opium,” the import from +India, which they compare to a coal fire, and the native drug to a wood +one. But the manufacture of the latter is improving rapidly; and as it +is increasingly used to mix with the Indian, a generation is growing up +in the upper class which knows only the mixed drug, and apparently only +the old, rich smokers use pure Indian opium, the consumption of which +has fallen off enormously, though in 1898 the value of the Indian import +was £4,388,385. + +The mysteries of the preparation and the varieties of the product baffle +the non-smoker. Both Chinese and Indian opium are now largely prepared +with the ashes of the drug already once smoked, much of it flowing, only +imperfectly burned, into the receiver of the pipe. In the strongest +prepared opium, four ounces of ashes of the first degree are added to +every ten of crude opium. Ashes of the second and even the third burning +are also used. Many of the poorer classes have to content themselves +with a smoke of opium ashes only, and the lowest of all users of the +drug have to satisfy themselves with eating or drinking the ashes of the +third burning. + +There is a class which can afford to buy the pure drug, but which finds +that it does not satisfy the craving, but this is merged in a far larger +one of old and inveterate rich smokers of one tael’s weight per day, who +smoke not even the very best prepared Indian drug, for their craving +needs far stronger stimulation, but ashes of the first degree. Such men +give the prepared extract, weight for weight, value for value, for the +ashes, and contract with opium shops to be supplied with all their ashes +of the first burning. For the rich, inveterate smoker an ounce of +prepared extract is mixed with six ounces of ashes of the first degree. +This habit has in Chinese a specific bad name. + +Pure opium appears to be seldom sold, as it fails to satisfy the craving +of the practised smoker. It is not only that ashes are mixed with the +fresh drug, but that they are reboiled, and after being made up with +treacle to the proper consistence are resmoked, and their ashes are then +eaten by the poorest class. + +Morphia, the active principle of opium, not being consumed in the smoke +owing to its lack of volatility, the eating of the ashes, which contain +seven per cent. and upwards of it, has a very serious effect. The fact +that opium is smoked three times makes it impossible to estimate either +the quantity consumed or the amount spent on the indulgence, but these +are, of course, greatly in excess of that indicated by any possible +returns. + +Among the adjuncts of opium smoking used by rich smokers is what is +called “water tobacco,” supposed erroneously to be all washed in the +water of the Yellow river. It is retailed in thin cakes of a brick-red +colour, and is said to be mixed with arsenic, and that its excessive +use, with or without opium, is dangerous to health.[58] This tobacco is +invariably smoked in “water pipes” by the upper classes in SZE CHUAN. + +In the chapter on the Hangchow Hospital I have mentioned the impetus +given to suicide by the painlessness of death by opium, and will not +refer to it again. In this chapter I have only touched upon such +mysteries and results of opium smoking as I have seen in my limited +experience, or have heard of directly from Chinese through my +interpreters, or facts stated in a careful paper, _The Use of Opium_, by +Dr. Dudgeon, of Peking. Except for the quotation of a remark of Dr. +Main, of Hangchow, on opium refuges, I have not obtained any of my +material from missionaries.[59] + +From all that I have seen and heard among the Chinese themselves, I have +come to believe that even moderate opium smoking involves enormous +risks, and that excessive smoking brings in its train commercial, +industrial, and moral ruin and physical deterioration, and this on a +scale so large as to threaten the national well-being and the physical +future of the race. + +The most common reasons which the Chinese give for contracting the habit +are pain, love of pleasure, sociability, and the want of occupation. +They say that a moderate use of the pipe “advances the transaction of +business, stimulates the bargaining instinct, facilitates the striking +of bargains, and enables men to talk about secret and important matters +which without it they would lack courage to speak of.” + +It is strangely true that in this industrial nation there are hundreds +of thousands of people with little or nothing to do. There are the wives +of the wealthy, retired, and expectant mandarins, leisured men of +various classes, _literati_ waiting for employment, the great army of +priests and monks, and the hangers-on of _yamens_, besides which there +are Government officials whose duties occupy them only one day in a +month. These remarks apply chiefly to urban populations. + +Outside of commercial pursuits an overpowering shadow of dulness rests +on Chinese as upon much of Oriental life. The lack of an enlightened +native press, and of anything deserving the name of contemporary +literature; the grooviness of thought and action; the trammels of a +rigid etiquette; the absence of athletics, and even of ordinary +exercise; the paucity of recreations, other than the play and the +restaurants, which are ofttimes associated with opium shops and vicious +resorts; and the fact that the learned having committed the classics to +memory, by which they have rendered themselves eligible for office, have +no farther motive for study—all make the blissful dreams and the +oblivion of the opium pipe greatly to be desired. + +It is obvious that opium has come to “stay.” So lately as 1859, in SZE +CHUAN, which now exports opium annually to the value of nearly +£2,000,000, the penalty for growing it was death, in spite of which the +white poppy fields were seen in conspicuous places along the Great +River; and in 1868 an Imperial edict against its cultivation was +supplemented by a proclamation to the same effect by the Viceroy of the +province, and both have remained dead letters. + +At all times the beautiful _Papaver somniferum_ has been regarded as the +enemy of China. There are no apologists for the use of opium except +among foreigners. The smokers themselves are ashamed of their slavery. +All alike condemn it, and regard opium as a curse as well as a vice, and +from all which came under my own observation in fifteen months, I fully +agree with them. + +I will conclude this chapter with a few extracts from officials whose +knowledge of the evils which are following the constantly increasing use +of the drug, cannot be gainsaid. The first quotation is from the British +Consul at Tainan, Formosa. Consul Hirst says:— + + “As long as China remains a nation of opium smokers there is not the + least reason to fear that she will become a military power of any + importance, as the habit saps the energies and vitality of the + nation.” + +The next is from Consul Bourne, who accompanied the “Blackburn +Commission” to the west and south of China, in the winter and spring of +1896–97. Mr. Bourne believes that the provinces of YUNNAN and KUEI-CHOW +raise opium annually to the amount of about three millions sterling. + + “There is no doubt,” he writes, “that here (Kuei-chow) the officials + tried to stop the cultivation of the poppy, but this must have been + very difficult, because an export such as opium, light in weight for + its value, is just what these provinces, with their wretched means of + communication, want. To-day, without opium, Yunnan and Kuei-chow would + have no means of paying for imports. Unfortunately,” he says, writing + of YUNNAN, “opium has become almost the medium of exchange in this + province, as I explained in a former report.” + +Writing on the deplorable condition of YUNNAN (p. 58), he says:— + + “After Yang-kai, poppy fills the whole cultivated area, covering the + valley with white and purple (this is in the province of Yunnan), a + gorgeous spectacle to the eye, though not agreeable to the mind, for + one must attribute chiefly to opium, I think, the extraordinary + failure of this province to recover from the devastation of the + rebellion. + + “The drug is so cheap and handy that the men almost all smoke, and + most women, especially among the agriculturists, who tend the poppy + and collect and sell the juice—the class that is elsewhere the + backbone of China, if, indeed, China can be said to have a backbone. I + was assured by an English missionary who has long resided in the + province, and in whose judgment I have great confidence, that in + eastern and western circuits (Tao) of the province, which embrace more + than two-thirds of its area, 80 per cent. of the men and 60 per cent. + of the women smoke opium. In the southern circuit the habit is not + quite so general. He had no doubt that the vice had a very bad effect + on the race. At all events, every traveller must be struck by the + great extent to which the fertile valleys—the only land well + cultivated—are monopolised by the poppy; by the apathy and laziness of + the people; and by the very slow recovery, during twenty-five years, + from the losses of the rebellion. Another bad result of opium being so + ready at hand is the frequency of suicides, especially among women.” + +At the close of 1898, a book was published by H. E. Chang Chih-tung, who +is described by foreigners long resident in China as having been for +many years one of the most influential statesmen in the country, and as +standing second to no official in the empire for ability, honesty, +disinterestedness, and patriotism. He has filled in succession three of +the most important Viceroyalties in the empire. He deals with the opium +habit as with a huge national evil. Under the heading “The Expulsion of +the Poison,” he writes thus:— + + (1) “Deplorable indeed is the injury done by opium! It is [as] the + Deluge of the present day or [an invasion of] some fierce beasts, but + the danger [arising from it] is greater than [the danger arising from] + those things.... The injury done by opium is that of a stream of + poison flowing on for more than a hundred years, and diffusing itself + in twenty-two provinces. The sufferers from this injury amount to + untold millions. Its consequences are insidious and seductive, and the + limit has not yet been reached. It destroys men’s abilities, it + weakens the vigour of the soldier, it wastes their wealth,[60] until + it results at length in China being what she is to-day. This + destruction affects the ability of civilians and soldiers alike. The + injury is worse than any waste of wealth. Men’s wills are weakened, + their physical strength is reduced. In the management of business they + lack industry, they cannot journey any distance, their expenditure + becomes extravagant, their children are few. After a few tens of years + it will result in China becoming altogether the laughing-stock of the + world.” + + (2) “Shanghai and Yangchow both have associations for breaking off the + opium habit. Their general object may be said to be that each member + should control his dependents. As for the opium smokers, masters will + not employ them as servants, teachers will not have them as scholars, + generals will not take them as soldiers, farmers will not use them as + labourers, merchants will not employ them as assistants, foremen will + not have them for workmen.” + +The writer concludes by saying:— + + “If Confucius and Mencius were to live again, and were to teach the + empire ... they would certainly begin by [teaching men] to break off + opium.” + +How is China to emancipate herself from this rapidly increasing habit, +which is threatening to sap the hitherto remarkable energy of the race? + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX. + NOTES ON PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA + + +Two thousand four hundred and fifty-eight Protestant workers (including +wives) represent the missionary energies and the many divisions of +Christendom. The native Protestant communicants number 80,632.[61] + +The shock which China received through her defeat by Japan has produced, +among other results, a disposition to make inquiries regarding the God, +faith, and learning of those “Western Barbarians” from whom Japan +received the art of war. Although hostility to Christianity as a +destructive and socially disintegrating power has been recently +evidenced by the anti-Christian riots at Kien-ing and elsewhere, the +spirit of inquiry gathers volume, and expresses itself in large +gatherings in street-chapels and churches, the thronging to mission +schools, and the avidity with which Christian literature is purchased. +Those who profess themselves ready to abandon heathenism and connect +themselves with Christianity are more than the missionaries can +instruct. In MANCHURIA there are six thousand inquirers in connection +with the Scotch and Irish missions. In the FU-KIEN province the movement +towards Christianity is on so extensive a scale as to attract the +serious attention of the provincial authorities, as well as emphatic +recognition by our own consuls. In one mission alone of the American +Board, in another province, the number of inquirers into the Christian +religion is estimated at 12,000. + +The growing influence of Christianity, however, cannot be measured +either by the numbers of communicants or inquirers. For many years past, +large numbers of Christian men and women have been scattered through +nearly all the provinces of China, making their homes among the Chinese, +with the avowed object of promulgating what is known as the “_Jesus +Religion_.” Their methods of propagandism—preaching, conversation, +schools, dispensaries, hospitals, and the circulation of Christian +literature only differ slightly. Their knowledge of Chinese is +necessarily imperfect, and they often make grotesque and even serious +blunders. As their methods and mistakes in the language are much alike, +so too are their lives. The keenest Chinese critic finds no difference +in conduct and the motives which rule it, between the Scotch +missionaries in MANCHURIA, the China Inland Mission and Canadian, etc., +in SZE CHUAN, the Church Missionary Society in the FU-KIEN Province, and +the German and American in KWANTUNG. These 2500 men and women are seen +under the “fierce light” of criticism which beats upon them, whether at +home or abroad, to lead pure, just, truthful, kind, honest, virtuous, +patient lives, restraining temper and suffering long. These lives preach +a higher standard of living than is inculcated by the highest Chinese +teaching, and by slow degrees produce results which cannot be tabulated. +The fame of the foreign teacher’s payment of wages agreed upon, without +drawbacks, his truthfulness, justice, kind treatment of servants,[62] +control of temper, and accessibility, travels far, and each life so +lived is an influence making for righteousness in the neighbourhood, +exciting inquiry into the “Jesus Religion” and foreign learning, and +exercising a distinct influence on surrounding morality in certain +directions. + +The direct part of missionary work need scarcely be touched upon. It +consists in awakening the conscience to a sense of sin, by the preaching +of “righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come.” It dwells upon the +justice and love of God, on the atonement of Christ, on that Divine +Fatherhood before whose infinite compassions there is not a stranger, an +alien, a foreigner; on the “one sacrifice for sin once offered”; and +teaches that the purpose of the sacrifice, and of law and gospel, is, +that men may live “soberly, righteously, and godly in this present +world,” in preparation for a stainless and endless life. It teaches that +the morality of the Great Teacher is but a “shadow of good things to +come”—of the higher and perfect morality demanded by the Divine law, and +that the power outside ourselves which “makes for righteousness” and +“helps our infirmities,” is the power of God; that “God is love,” and +yearns over His wandering children; that He has “showed man what is +good,” and that “His only begotten Son,” who in some mysterious manner +“bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” is “He who is alive for +evermore,” and “ever liveth to make intercession,” and that He “hath +abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through His +Gospel.” + +This, in brief, is the teaching of all Protestant missionaries in China, +to whatever church they belong, and with one or two exceptions all +regard baptism as an obligatory confession of faith, and as the evidence +of a complete break with the beliefs and practices of heathenism. + +Under such teaching 80,000 Chinese in 1898 were making a public +profession of the Christian faith. Many annually lapse; the greater +number owing to family influence, and difficulties in the abandonment of +the time and custom-honoured social observances connected with idolatry; +some because they find the moral restraints of Christianity too hard for +them, and others because they hoped for worldly advantages which they +failed to obtain. A large number of professing converts are employed by +missionaries as servants, gatekeepers, teachers, printers, translators, +and writers, of whose sincerity it may not always be possible to judge, +as foreign employment is much coveted. + +But after putting these and other dubious converts aside, there remains +a large body of native Christians, gathered into societies, which after +long and careful inquiry I believe to be fully up to the average mark of +our churches at home in essential knowledge, and above it in practice, +specially in propagandist zeal and liberality—societies of men and +women, in which the virtues of purity, honesty, self-denial, and charity +are apparent. These converts contribute liberally out of their poverty +to Christian objects, specially for the advancement of Christianity in +their own country, in some regions contributing 6_s._ per head per +annum. These Christian societies are constantly showing an increasing +disposition to help themselves by the building of church edifices, as at +Paoning Fu and elsewhere, and by contributing the entire support of not +a few of their own pastors. + +A large number of these converts are earnest and successful +propagandists, and the very large increase in the number of Christians +during the last five years is mainly owing to the zeal, earnestness, and +devotion of Chinese converts, both men and women, who owe their +conversion and instruction, as well as guidance and inspiration, to the +foreign teachers. In Manchuria a few years ago the senior missionary +told me that out of between three thousand and four thousand converts he +estimated that not more than twenty had received Christianity directly +from the European missionaries, and the same proportion holds good with +regard to the 8875 inquirers at the present date. In Che-kiang the +present Bishop of Victoria estimated the number of converts through the +work of Chinese as 80 per cent. of the whole. + +These societies, in the beginning very small, and numbering from ten up +to over four hundred members, are gradually crystallising into +brotherhoods, with a very strong bond of union and definite aims of +their own. They show in a marked degree the strong Chinese tendency to +combination and association, and may be regarded as guilds. At present +among the communicants there is a strong desire to conserve the purity +of the churches by a careful exercise of discipline. Members who fall +back into evil ways, as many do, are “suspended,” and if incorrigible +are sloughed off, and it certainly would not be possible for such abuses +as disgraced the church of Corinth to exist in the infant churches of +China. + +In brief these Christian societies are earnest in propagandism, zealous +for purity and discipline, liberal in their contributions, desirous for +instruction, docile and teachable, and apparently increasingly anxious +to translate Christian doctrine into righteous living. These bodies in +very many places are slowly exercising an influence in favour of +righteousness, and are thus among the many influences which are tending +to undermine the old superstitions. + +If China is to be Christianised, or even largely leavened by +Christianity, it must inevitably be by native agency under foreign +instruction and guidance. The foreigner remains a foreigner in his +imperfect and often grotesque use of the language, in his inability to +comprehend Chinese modes of thinking and acting, and in a hundred other +ways, while a well-instructed Chinese teacher knows his countrymen and +what will appeal to them, how to make “points,” and how to clinch an +argument by a popular quotation from their own classics. He knows their +weakness and strength, their devious ways and crooked motives, and their +unspeakable darkness and superstition, and is not likely to be either +too suspicious or too confiding. He presents Christianity without the +Western flavour. It is in the earnest enthusiasm of the Chinese converts +for the propagation of the faith that the great hope for China lies. + +Until now Christianity has made very slow progress. Among the special +obstacles are: First, the national vanity, and the contempt for anything +introduced by the foreign barbarians. Second, the posthumous influence +of Confucius, whose moral teaching, negative and defective as it is on +some points, is regarded as final, and his maxims as perfect in their +adaptation to the needs of society and government for all time. Third, +the Chinese language itself, with its absence of an alphabet, the +peculiar inflections and tones, the guttural and aspirated modulations +which must be carefully observed, and the necessity of creating a +vocabulary which shall rationally express the Christian ideas, and yet +not be offensive to a critical and literary people. Fourth, the +carefulness and universality of home education in superstitious and +idolatrous beliefs and practices, children being taught from early +infancy that reverence for the divinities of the Chinese Pantheon, shown +according to established forms, is necessary to success in life. + +Fifth, greater than all these special obstacles combined, is that of +ancestor-worship, the actual and universal cult of the Empire. To +abandon idolatrous worship and practices is easy, but withdrawal from +the worship of the ancestral tablets, with its rites and sacrifices, +brands a man as a reprobate and a brute. These rites represent +reverence, sacredness, and filial piety; they have the sanction of +immemorial usage and of the earliest memories of home, and the first act +of worship recorded is the worship of ancestors by the Emperor Shun on +his accession, in the dawn of Chinese history. + +The practice probably took its rise in a tender and beautiful filial +feeling, but apparently it has come to be largely inspired by fear. A +Chinese truly “passes the time of his sojourning here in fear,” and is +in slavery not only to the terror of a dim and demon-haunted future, but +to the present dread of the evils wherewith he may be afflicted in this +life by the malevolence of the dissatisfied spirits of his ancestors. +Dr. Yates, a very careful student of things Chinese, in an able paper on +ancestor-worship, states that, including the cost of the festivals for +the destitute dead, the enormous sum of 151,752,000 dollars is annually +expended by the Chinese in quieting the spirits of the departed, and +securing the living from their malignant action. If this worship ever +dies, it will die hard. + +Islam is absolutely intolerant of every form of ancestor-worship. The +Roman Catholic missions, as my readers are aware, were agitated by a +controversy as to concessions on this subject from 1610 to 1758, when +Pope Benedict XIV. rejected all compromise. Protestant missions take the +same course. + +While making careful inquiries into mission work, both from the workers +and from outsiders, and comparing the present status and conduct of +Chinese converts with what they were when I was in China twenty years +ago, I formed certain opinions on Protestant missions in China, which I +now place briefly before my readers. At this time missions constitute so +important a factor in the awakening of the empire, that no sensible or +thoughtful person can ignore them without sacrificing his reputation for +both sense and thoughtfulness. If I venture to write of myself at all in +connection with the subject, it is but to say that I am not an +enthusiast regarding foreign missions, but soberly believe that to +“teach all nations” is the path of duty and of hope. + +During the earlier period of my eight years of Asiatic travel the +subject was of little or no interest to me. I may even have enjoyed the +cheap sneers at missions and missionaries which often pass for wit in +Anglo-Asiatic communities, among persons who have never given the work +and its methods one half-hour of serious attention and investigation, +and in travelling, wherever possible, I gave mission stations a wide +berth. + +On my later journeys, however, which brought me often for months at a +time into touch with the daily life of the peoples, their condition even +at the best impressed me as being so deplorable all round, that I became +a convert to the duty of using the great means by which it can be +elevated. To pass on to these nations the blessings which we owe to +Christianity—our eternal hope, our knowledge of the Divine Fatherhood, +our Christian ideals of manhood and womanhood, our best conceptions of +the sanctities of domestic life and of the duties involved in social +relationships, our political liberties, the position of women, the +incorruptible majesty of our equal laws, the reformatory nature of our +punishments, the public opinion permeated by Christianity which sustains +right and condemns wrong, and a thousand things besides, which have come +to us through centuries of the “Jesus Religion”—is undoubtedly our +bounden duty. It is surely the height of unchristian selfishness to sit +down contentedly among our own good things, and practically to regard +China merely as an area for trade. Is it not also the height of +disloyalty and disobedience to our nominal Master, whose last command, +ringing down through centuries of selfishness, we have been satisfied to +leave unfulfilled? + +I was influenced not so much by seeing the good work done by +missionaries, as the tremendous need for it and the hopelessness of the +religious systems of Asia. Several of the Asiatic faiths, and notably +Buddhism, started with noble conceptions and a morality far in advance +of their age. But the good has been mainly lost out of them in their +passage down the centuries, and Buddhism in China, aiming at +eclecticism, absorbed so much of the dæmonism, nature-worship, and +heathenism of the country, that in the number and puerility of its +superstitions, its alliance with sorcery, its temples crowded with +monstrous and grotesque idols, the immorality of its priests, and the +absence of the teaching of righteousness, it is now much on a level with +the idolatries of barbarous nations. There is nothing to arrest the +further downward descent of these systems, so effete, and yet so +powerful as interwoven with the whole social life of the nation. _There +is no resurrection power in any one of them_, and to the men who here +and there are athirst for righteousness, and are groping after Him “who +is not far from every one of us,” they offer neither guidance nor help. + +That there are such seekers is certain. Among the many “secret +societies” of China, a “good few” are mainly religious, and a great +number of the Christian converts in North China have been in their +membership. An attempt to attain righteousness is their characteristic, +and something may be learned from them of self-denial and aspiration. +Their efforts all take more or less of an ascetic direction. + +Among them are “Vegetarians,” who abstain from meat with the object of +“rectifying the heart, accumulating merit, and thus avoiding calamities +in this world and retributive pains in the next.” Several others are +pledged to abstain from gambling and the use of opium, wine, and +tobacco. The chief teaching of another is the duty of maintaining a +patient spirit under injuries. + +The books of the religious secret societies contain the best maxims and +the highest moral teaching of “The Three Religions.” They exhort to +chastity, benevolence, carefulness in speech, self-denial, good works, +the _conservation of the mental energies by rest and reflection_, the +cultivation of the heart, and to much besides which is good. In alliance +with the good are idolatrous rites, incantations, divination, and many +grossly superstitious and puerile practices. It is believed that even +the best among these societies are not altogether free from seditious +tendencies, _i.e._, the accomplishment of reform by destruction. But +after making due allowance for what is foolish and evil, it is evident +that in these unsatisfied spiritual instincts and cravings after +righteousness, and above all in the substitution of a dissatisfied and +earnest spirit for the self-satisfied complacency of the Confucianist, +and the stolid materialism of the average Chinese, Christianity has +allies not to be despised. + +Up to this time (1899) the slow success which has been won has been +almost entirely among the lower classes, and it has not been possible, +by the methods hitherto pursued, to reach the _literati_, who in China +are the leaders of a people whose reverence for letters is phenomenal. + +Of the 2458 Protestant missionaries, including wives (many of whom are +incapacitated for work by maternal duties), accredited to China, a large +number are always at home “on furlough.” Promising Christian work is +often broken up by the departure of the missionary. A substitute may or +may not be appointed, but the “personal equation” counts for much in +China as elsewhere. The force available for actual work ought not to +include the large number of new missionaries, who must inevitably spend +the first year or two in learning to speak Chinese, during which period +they are useful chiefly by lives of consistent righteousness. Throughout +my long journeys I never saw a mission station, except perhaps Paoning +Fu, which was not undermanned, _i.e._, in which mission work was not +seriously crippled and denied its natural expansion by lack of men. + +In this time of inquiry into Western religion and science it becomes +more and more important that missionaries, both men and _women_, should +study the difficult language carefully, so as to fit themselves for +conversation with the _literati_, and not be content with a limited +command of the colloquial speech of coolies. It is being recognised in +most influential quarters that if our trade is to expand, clerks and +others going into mercantile life in China must begin the study of +Chinese here under competent Chinese teachers. It might possibly be +desirable for intending missionaries to do the same, and it would have +the advantage of testing in each case the capacity for learning a +difficult language, the incapacity being under present methods only +discovered when it is too late to draw back. It appears very important +that medical missionaries should have an undisturbed year after arriving +in China for the study of the language. + +Women’s work has grown, and is growing so rapidly in China that its +regulation needs serious consideration. Admirable as much of it is, and +might be, it is beset with special difficulties. The fact of a young +unmarried woman living anywhere but under her father’s roof, exposes her +character to the grossest imputations, which are hurled at her in the +streets, and which can only be lived down by scrupulous carefulness. The +Chinese etiquette, which prescribes the conduct seemly for women, and +limits the freedom of social intercourse between the sexes, certainly +tends to propriety, and though to our thinking tiresome, no young +foreign woman attempting to teach a foreign religion can violate its +leading rules without injury to her work. + +For instance, it is improper for a woman to “ride” in an open chair, to +receive men visitors at her house, or to shake hands with men, or to +walk through the street of a town or village or to visit at native +houses unattended by a middle-aged Chinese woman. It is not only +improper but scandalous for a woman to be seen in a tight bodice, or any +other fashion which shows her figure, and a foreign girl lays herself +open to remarks which I scarcely think she would like to hear, when she +appears in a fly-away hat, bent up and bent down, on which birds, +insects, feathers, grasses, and flowers have been dumped down +indiscriminately! The Mission Board of one large and successful Mission +has found it desirable to issue rules for missionaries regarding dress +and etiquette, and the China Inland Mission everywhere, and the Church +Missionary Society missionaries in SZE CHUAN have solved the difficulty +by adopting Chinese costume, the only Oriental dress which Europeans can +wear with seemliness and dignity. I think it would add much to the +safety of female missionaries, and to the respect in which they are +held, if those missionary societies which object to Chinese costume +would agree upon neat, simple uniforms for summer and winter, fulfilling +the Chinese demand for propriety, and the European demand for +tastefulness, and which should indicate at once that the wearer belongs +to a large and important international union, and cannot be insulted +with impunity. + +Again it is necessary for young women to remember that a yellow skin +makes no difference, and that any familiarity of manner or carelessness +in deportment, which would be unsuitable here, is ten times more +unsuitable in the case of Chinese men, such as servants, teachers, and +“native helpers.” In one province in which lady missionaries are +specially numerous the violations of etiquette by some of them have been +regarded as so likely to lead to outbreaks that the attention of our +Foreign Office has been called to the subject. The openings for the work +of sensible “godly” women are very great, but as a large proportion of +those who go out are young and inexperienced, and the number is +increasing, it is desirable that the whole subject should be +reconsidered, and that women’s work and general conduct should have the +advantage of experienced and effectual supervision for the protection of +the workers, and the prevention of those hindrances to the work which +arise out of ignorance and inexperience, and in a few cases out of +self-conceit and self-will. + +Having ventured on these criticisms and suggestions, I must add that +much of the wisest, most loving, most self-denying, and most successful +work that I saw done in China was done by women. + +My earliest ideas of missionary work were taken from a picture which +represented a white man standing under a tree, preaching to an earnest, +quiet, and dark-visaged crowd. Crowds gather round the foreign preacher +in China, but this is often a temporary phase, with curiosity for its +leading motive. His appearance, mistakes in speech, and attitudes are +satirised, jeered at, and mimicked. One of the most popular theatrical +performances in Shanghai a few years ago was a clever farce, +representing a foreign missionary preaching to a crowd of Chinese. + +Preaching is not a Chinese mode of instruction. Confucianism, still the +great force in China, never had a preacher, and was propagated solely by +books. It is said that there is not a lecture-hall in the empire. The +Chinese methods of influencing are chiefly literary, catechetical, and +conversational. The results of preaching have not been what was once +hoped for, nor what they have been in some other countries. Many +missionaries have told me that even the Chinese preaching in the “street +chapels” is not fruitful in results. + +It is possible that the introduction of Western modes of evangelising, +not applicable to China, was at least premature, and has been the cause +of much failure and disappointment. The foreign element, whether in +methods, church architecture, house building, or the ignoring of Chinese +custom, though partly inevitable, must always tend to represent +Christianity as a “foreign religion,” and to perpetuate it but as a +sickly exotic. It is, I think, of great importance that Christianity +should ally itself with all that is not evil in the national life, that +it should uphold Chinese nationality, that it should incorporate Chinese +methods of instruction with our own, and conserve all customs which are +not contrary to its spirit. The teachings of experience have not been +thrown away, and many missionaries have come to see that these are the +lines of progress. + +Those competent to judge have no doubt that Christianity is about to +make great progress in China. With this, many questions already emerging +will come to the front, and among the foremost is that of native agency +in foreign pay. There is on one side the certainty that China can only +be Christianised by the Chinese, and on the other the risks connected +with the worldly or mercenary element, which have been fatal to many +such persons whose sincerity had not been suspected. Here again +experience is teaching useful lessons, one being that Christianity is +never so extensively and rapidly propagated as by the spontaneous +efforts and renovated lives of private Christians. + +Among other questions are: How far the differences between Western +churches are to be perpetuated in China; the place of the Chinese +classics and of English in missionary schools; the obligation of the +Sabbath; the attitude of Christianity to certain Chinese customs, and to +any modified form of ancestor-worship; social intercourse between +foreigners and Chinese; the social and pecuniary position of a native +pastorate; the self-government of churches; and in Anglican missions the +retention of the Prayer Book, as it at present stands, as the sole +manual for public worship. + +In conclusion I think that there is now an “open door” for the gospel in +China, and that the prospect for Christianity is fairer than at any +former period, but that if the Christian nations fail to realise their +obligations to enter that door promptly and in force, with an army of +earnest and well-equipped teachers, China may follow the example of +Japan, and accept Western civilisation, while rejecting the Christian +religion. + +“Talk,” said Mr. Gladstone on one occasion, “about the question of the +day; there is but one question, and that is the gospel. It can and will +correct everything needing correction.” + +It may be that the gospel will yet bring about the regeneration of +China. + + + + + CONCLUDING REMARKS + + +The subjects of our political and trade relations with China have been +so ably and exhaustively treated by Lord Charles Beresford, M.P., and +Mr. Colquhoun, and have been threshed out by so many other writers, that +in these brief remarks I shall chiefly confine myself to the Chinese +people and to my impressions of them, received in fifteen months of +journeyings in three of the most important years in modern Chinese +history.[63] + +I doubt very much whether China is “breaking up.” _If_ she breaks up it +will be owing to the policy of the great European nations in making her +“lose face,” and thereby weakening the authority of the Central +Government over the provinces, local risings and possible +disintegrations being the result. The “sphere of influence” policy, if +pursued in earnest, would undoubtedly break up the empire. + +In the three years in which I was travelling, off and on, in China, the +Dragon Throne reeled, but righted itself, and the Government survived +the Japanese war, the heavy indemnity, the loss of the suzerainty of +Korea, and the aggressions of Russia. It extinguished, in blood, the +serious Mohammedan rebellion in KANSUH, and has lately brought about the +collapse of the rebellion in SZE CHUAN. The bond of union which connects +the provinces with each other and with Peking has survived all these +mishaps, and if it is broken, I believe it will be by foreign +interference, and by the shifting and opportunist policy, enormous +ambitions, and ill-concealed rivalries of certain foreign powers. + +Nor do I believe that China is “in decay.” I have travelled more than +8000 miles in the empire, and have seen, in some regions, roads, canals, +temples,[64] and some ancient public works, falling into disrepair. The +Oriental throughout Asia prefers construction to renovation, and +alongside of these decaying works there are new temples, new pagodas, +new and handsome bridges, new _pai-fangs_, new bunds, and new works, +rather of private than public origin. + +The reader who has followed the foregoing chapters with any degree of +interest can scarcely think that SZE CHUAN, at least, is in decay. +Commercial and industrial energy is not decaying, the vast fleets of +junks are not rotting in harbours and reaches; industry, thrift, +resourcefulness, and the complete organisation both of labour and +commerce, meet the traveller at every turn. Mercantile credit stands +high, contracts are kept, labour is docile, teachable, and intelligent, +its earnings are secure, and, on the whole, law and order prevail. + +Nor is it like “decay” that in 1898—in spite of a political situation +full of menace, of sporadic rebellions which largely checked business in +their localities, of the serious news from Peking in September, which +disorganised the trade of the northern ports, and of the disasters in +connection with the Yellow River—the elasticity was such that the value +of the import trade exceeded all previous records, while that of the +export trade exceeded that of every previous year except 1897, the total +volume of trade being the highest on record. + +There was no export of silver, but a net import of Hk. Tls. 4,722,025, +and there was no scarcity of it in any part of the country. China met +the whole of her obligations without any depletion of her currency, and +imported nothing that she did not obtain in exchange for exports.[65] +The importance of stimulating the Chinese export trade is apt to be +overlooked. China will only purchase from foreign countries that for +which she can pay with her own products. The verdict of the +Inspector-General of Maritime Customs in China on the commercial +situation for 1898 is, “No doubt the Government is hard pressed for +funds, but _the country grows wealthier every year_.”[66] + +Among the reasons given for the alleged “decay” of China is its +“over-population.” It is true that there are seriously congested areas, +even in SZE CHUAN, but if we take 400,000,000, the extreme estimate of +the population, it is but ten times that of Great Britain, while the +area of the empire is from sixteen to eighteen times as great. + +What is “in decay” is the administration of government. The people are +straight, but officialism is corrupt.[67] + +The subject has been fully dwelt upon in other books, with which I +suppose my readers to be acquainted. The theory of the Chinese +Government is one of the best ever devised by the wit of man. Against +every possible abuse apparent safeguards were provided. The enjoyment of +property and life was secured to the people. The laws in the main were +just, concise, and of equal pressure. The right of rising against a +corrupt and oppressive official was guaranteed. Literary examinations +were made the entrance to official life. Inferior birth was no bar to +the attainment of high position. The laws of the country embodied the +highest teaching of political ethics which it had received. The +patriarchal theory of government was never so systematised, or acted +upon for so long, and with so much consistency. The ethical teaching and +the laws based upon it remain, and the strongest power in China to-day +is Confucius; but the admirable theory of government has proved weak in +presence of the neglected factor of the downward tendency of human +nature in a pagan nation. The infamies of Chinese administration to-day +have been riveted upon China by centuries of political retrogression, +and the gradual lowering of the standard of public virtue in the absence +of a wholesome public opinion. Certain forms of bribery, corruption, and +peculation have obtained the force of custom, seven-tenths of the +revenue is arrested by the “three hands” of officials, all sums allotted +for public works, repairs, and military and naval equipment, suffer +enormous depletion _en route_ to their destinations, so that in the +Japanese war “a straight people with a corrupt Government” were easily +subdued by “a corrupt people with a straight Government.”[68] + +One of the heaviest indictments against the system is, that under it it +is hardly possible for a good man to be rigidly honest, and there are +good men: and there are mandarins who, after a long and laborious period +of office, actually live and die poor. A well-meaning man, finding +himself entangled in the meshes of this system, is greatly to be pitied. +Custom is all in favour of peculation, and however much such men would +welcome a way of escape, to break with custom is as hard as to break off +the opium habit. Another difficulty besets the well-intentioned man—his +knowledge that his best efforts will certainly be frustrated by the +unscrupulous clerks and retainers of his _yamen_. + +In Chapter XXIII. I just touched on the very laborious life of a +mandarin, who has to perform the work of six men, and rarely gets a +holiday. For this amount of work he is virtually unpaid, far more than +his wretchedly insufficient salary being expended on the necessary state +of his office. These nominal salaries are the deadly upas tree, which +has cast its fatal shadow over Chinese official life. They are the +_crux_ of the situation. They make peculation and corruption all but an +absolute necessity. Short periods of office, paying for appointments, +the evil custom of making presents to official superiors, the practice +that, after paying into the Imperial Exchequer the fixed quota of +taxation for his district, the magistrate can appropriate all that he +can squeeze beyond it, subject to liberal gifts to the high officials of +his province, are only a few of the evils of the Chinese administrative +system. It is chiefly out of this margin squeezed out of the people that +the fortunes of the higher officials are made.[69] + +Every writer on China exposes the iniquities of the system, and they +come more or less to the ears and under the observation of every +traveller. They affect a fourth of the human race, and have brought the +most ancient of existing empires into the position of a “sick +man”—helpless, appealing, with voracious Western nations gnawing at his +extremities, and prepared to prey upon his vitals. + +But China bristles with contradictions. The “sick man” ought to be “in +decay,” but he is not. His innate cheeriness is scarcely clouded by our +repeated assertions that he ought to be dead, and he faces the future +which we prophesy for him without misgiving! On the whole, peace, order, +and a fair amount of prosperity prevail throughout the empire. The gains +of labour are secure, taxation, even with the squeezes attending it, is +rarely oppressive in the country, and in the towns is extremely light. +The phrase “ground down” does not apply to the Chinese peasant. There is +complete religious toleration. Guilds, trades unions, and other +combinations carry out their systems unimpeded, and the Chinese genius +for association is absolutely unfettered. The Chinese practically in +actual life are one of the freest peoples on earth! + +The reader may be staggered by what appears a monstrous paradox, in face +of the opinions regarding the infamies of administration previously +expressed, but if a single statement is applicable to the whole empire +it is this, that freedom is the birthright of the people, that they +possess “inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of +happiness,” and that China is one of the most democratic countries on +earth. The Government, feeble and evasive in its dealings with +foreigners, when it sets its mind on something among its own people, is +quite capable of carrying out its will, and is not nearly so impotent as +many suppose. Yet it habitually plays only a most minute part in the +economy of national life, and a Chinese may live and die without any +other contact with it than the payment of land-tax. He is free in all +trades and industries: to make money and to keep it: to emigrate and to +return with his gains: free to rise from the peasant’s hut to place and +dignity: to become a millionaire, and confer princely gifts upon his +province: free in his religion and his amusements: and in his social and +commercial life. + +I have not space, knowledge, or ability to enter into the inwardness of +these extraordinary contradictions, and would only remark that we have +to deal in China not with a mass of downtrodden serfs, but with a nation +of free men. + +I may be permitted, however, very diffidently to point out a few of the +reasons which, in my opinion, militate against the evils of +administration, and tend to the stability of the country. First among +these is the village system. In China the unit is not the individual but +the family, indivisible and sacred, the members of which are bound to +each other in life and death by indissoluble ties, of the strength of +which we cannot form a conception. Villages consist of groups of such +families, with their headmen and elders, who are responsible for each +individual, the step above them being the _hsien_, or district +magistrate, who may be regarded as the administrative unit. The Chinese +have a genius for self-government, and are by no means the “dumb, driven +cattle” which some suppose them to be. The villages are self-governing, +and no official dares to trench on their hereditary privileges. Every +successive dynasty has found itself bound to protect them in these, and +no “Son of Heaven” who called them in question could occupy the Dragon +Throne for six months. + +These privileges, which by established custom have become actual rights, +consist primarily in the complete control of local affairs, the +possession of lands, and absolute freedom for trade and industry. Among +the many advantages of the village system is, that it enables villagers +in countless civil cases to avoid the serious evils of litigation in the +_yamens_ by the simple method of referring them to arbitration before +their headmen and elders. + +Among other causes which tend to counterbalance the evils of the +administration, is the system of strict surveillance and mutual +responsibility, under which no man stands alone, and which as a vast +network holds China together. This has its own evils, one of which is +_mutual distrust_, which has, however, the good result of preventing men +from combining intelligently against the Government. The system makes +government easy, and certainly does not tend to disintegration. + +Besides these there are the recognised right of rebellion when +grievances become intolerable; the execution of a species of lynch law +on culpable officials, which often takes the place of memorials to the +Throne, and courts of appeal; a certain dread on the part of magistrates +of being reported for corruption or inefficiency by the many spies of +the Central Government, or by the Censors, who, though said not to be +altogether free from venality, can, on occasion, be most remarkably +outspoken; the general education of the people in the principles on +which government is based; the genius for association which gives +strength to the weak; and the universal training both at home and school +in “The Five Duties of Man,” which are: (1) Loyalty to the Sovereign, +(2) piety to parents, (3) submissiveness to elders, (4) harmony between +husband and wife, (5) fidelity to friends.[70] + +This is the empire which we speak of “partitioning” and “breaking up,” +with as little emotion as if it were an ant’s nest, with all its +singular contradictions, and emphatic antagonisms of good and evil. + +There is a wide difference between bullying, in diplomatic language +“applying strong pressure,” and making righteous and politic demands +upon China. Nothing could be better for herself than the drastic reforms +suggested by Lord C. Beresford, but some of them involve what I think +would be an unwarrantable interference with her internal organisation. +Among righteous demands may certainly be placed the fulfilment of treaty +obligations—the giving security to the lives and property of foreigners +throughout the empire, which can only be attained by the formation of an +efficient army, or _gendarmerie_, well disciplined, drilled, armed, and +paid, and _mobile_—giving foreigners the right to live for trade +purposes in the interior (a right only conceded by Japan in July, 1899), +and an equable rearrangement of _likin_ and _loti-shui_.[71] + +_Likin_ and _loti-shui_ are obnoxious taxes, and hamper trade +effectively, and the abuses of the system are very great, but abrupt and +sweeping changes would be very dangerous. It must be remembered that the +provincial governments have lost seriously through the operations of the +Imperial Maritime Customs (see p. 155), and rely mainly on _likin_ for +their revenue, that its abolition would involve a resort to direct +taxation, which would be intolerable to a people accustomed to indirect, +and would certainly lead to very serious risings in the West River and +Yangtze valleys. Official needs, established custom, and the relations +of the masses to custom, render the forcing of abrupt fiscal changes of +this nature upon the Chinese most impolitic, risking the disorganisation +and break up of China. + +By bullying the Central Government it is made to “lose face” with its +subjects, and its authority is by so much weakened. The value of our +treaties absolutely depends on the power of the Government to give +effect to them. The sole security of the Chinese bondholder, and for the +sums invested, or to be invested in the railroads of the future, is the +integrity and cohesion of the Chinese Empire. Touch this integrity, +whether by active claims for “spheres of influence,” with consequent +disintegration, the enforced abolition of _likin_, or any policy of +pressure, and our treaties will be but waste paper. With regard to most +arrangements, however desirable in the way of reform they may be, the +word “insist,” pointing to coercion, should be blotted out of the +vocabulary of discussion. + +I am still a believer in the justice and expediency of the “Open Door” +policy, as opposed to what I think is the fatal alternative policy of +“spheres of influence.” Many who would “rush” reforms in China, and are +impatient of delay, and are perhaps bitten by the “lust of domination,” +assert that it is too late for it, but I fail to see the reasons for +such a “counsel of despair.” The Marquess of Salisbury, at the end of +June, 1898, said: “If I am asked what our policy in China is, my answer +is very simple. It is to maintain the Chinese Empire, to prevent it +falling into ruins, to invite it into paths of reform, and to give it +every assistance which we are able to give it, to perfect its defence or +to increase its commercial prosperity. _By so doing we shall be aiding +its cause and our own._”[72] This announcement of policy has not been +recalled. + +In the meantime it is impossible for China, pressed on every side, and +vaguely conscious that she stands at the “parting of the ways,” that +“the old order” is changing, and that she is in the grip of new forces, +to collect herself with a view to the reforms from which she cannot hope +to escape, and she falls back on her old idea of statesmanship—the +playing off one foreign country against another. After a career of +empire of two thousand years, in which she has increased in wealth and +population up to the present time, she finds herself at the dawn of a +new century, confronted by problems of which her classics and her +experience offer no solution, and the greatest of these is the +FOREIGNER. + +In concluding this chapter, it is worth while to consider whether there +are any indications of reform from within, and whether the phrase, “The +awakening of China,” represents fact or not. + +Our mechanical inventions, steamers, railroads, gas, telegraphs, +electric light, steam machinery, dredgers, artillery, torpedoes, arms of +precision, submarine telegraphy, steam printing, photography—our +surgery, the beauty and “up-keep” of our foreign settlements, and their +admirable municipal government, and our obvious wealth, have all been +emissaries knocking the conceit out of those who come in contact with +them. Chinese now work telegraph lines, own and run steam launches in +large numbers, enter our hospitals as medical students, and take +admirable photographs, nearly perfect in _technique_, only lacking in +artistic feeling. Factories owned and run by Chinese are springing up +here and there, and may eventually be successful. One of the great +passenger lines on the Lower Yangtze belongs to the “Chinese Merchants’ +Company.” + +Inland, for many years, foreign families have been living lives +elsewhere described—of different nationalities, but all worshippers of +one invisible God. Such persons have introduced into remote regions +kerosene lamps—which are doing much to alter social life in China, soap, +lucifer matches and vesta lights, condensed milk and tinned provisions, +sewing machines—enormously adopted by tailors, and much else, the +utility of all of which has been recognised, and which have compelled +the Chinese to admit the ability of the “barbarians.” + +It is known, at least to the Chinese within fifty miles of the coast, +and up the Yangtze, on which Japanese steam lines are now running, that +the Japanese, who received from themselves the Chinese classics +centuries ago, have adopted the political and legal systems, industries, +and naval and military methods of foreigners; that they have a straight +Government, which no foreign power dares to bully; that they have been +received on equal terms into the family of nations, and that their +methods of warfare, before which China collapsed, were foreign methods. +The fact that a yellow people, venerating and teaching their own +classics, with a social order founded on Confucian principles, and with +Chinese as its official language, has adopted, to a great extent, +Western civilisation, and with manifest advantage, has produced a +remarkable effect since the war. + +Last, but very far from being least, as it affects the brain of the +country and its natural leaders, is the circulation of the scientific, +historical, and Christian literature of the West. This is the Western +ferment which may “leaven the whole lump.” This circulation received an +enormous impulse when the reform edicts of the Emperor were promulgated, +making a knowledge of Western learning imperative on students, and has +not been greatly affected by the subsequent retrograde movement. It +cannot be doubted that those edicts, premature and unwise as some of +them were, were the direct result of the foreign literature which the +Emperor had previously been reading with avidity. + +The larger portion of this literature, which I believe is destined to +reform and transform China, has been published by a society founded +twelve years ago by some of the leading men in China, and named the +“Society for the Diffusion of Christian and General Knowledge.” Sir +Robert Hart, G.C.M.G., is its president in China, and Mr. Timothy +Richards, an enthusiast about the language and people, and an optimist +about the future of the empire, is its secretary and inspiring spirit. + +The literature for which the demand is now greater than the supply, +consists of distinctly Christian books, such as _Butler’s Analogy_; _a +Life of Christ_; _Christianity, and the Progress of Nations_; scientific +books, as on _Agricultural Chemistry_ and _Astronomy_; books on economic +subjects, such as _Productive and Non-Productive Labour_, _The Relation +of Education to National Progress_, etc., and some of our best standard +books are now in circulation, together with such special literature as +_Essays for the Times_, _The Renaissance of China_, _Progress of China’s +Neighbours_, a periodical called _A Review of the Times_, and various +others. The drift of the desire for knowledge is shown by the very large +sale of Mackenzie’s _History of the Nineteenth Century_, and of a +_History of the Japanese War_; _Sixty Years of Queen Victoria’s Reign_ +being also much in demand. + +These books and many others, circulating largely among the _literati_, +at once creating and expressing aspirations, all present in some form or +other that higher ideal which produced those reformers, greatly led by +Kang Yen-Wei, who advocated political, commercial, educational, and +religious reform in 1898, rendering it memorable in Chinese history as a +year in which men showed that the welfare of their country was dearer to +them than life itself. + +A few instances taken at random show how the Western leaven is working. +Large sums have been subscribed by the Chinese for the object of +teaching Western languages and learning, specially in the ports. Two +wealthy Chinese offered to raise 10,000 dollars for the enlargement of +the Women’s Hospital in Shanghai, if Dr. Reifsnyder, the lady medical +missionary, would consent to teach Western medicine to Chinese girls. A +Cantonese, one of the managers of the China Merchants’ Co., was so +impressed by Mr. Richards’ translation of Mackenzie’s _History of the +Nineteenth Century_, that he bought a hundred copies, and sent them to +the leading mandarins in Peking. + +A HUNAN gentleman, visiting Shanghai two years ago, met with the +“C.L.S.” magazine, _Review of the Times_, and was so impressed with its +helpfulness to China, that he ordered two hundred copies, and +distributed them monthly in HUNAN to those who had specially opposed +foreigners and Christianity. These men, in their turn, ordered a +complete set of the “C.L.S.” books, and read them for two years in order +to be sure of their contents. Recently the Literary Chancellor of the +province wrote to the “C.L.S.” to the effect that China must reform, and +on the lines indicated in the Society’s publications, and in the name of +the governor and gentry of HUNAN invited the Chinese editor to become a +professor in the college of the provincial capital.[73] + +The volume on _Agricultural Chemistry_ has been very largely read. Early +in 1899 the Viceroy of Nanking and others raised £50,000 for an +agricultural college, and invited Mr. Bentley, the author of the book, +an American missionary, to be its head. The Viceroy in Central China, +Chang-Chih-Tung, whose views on the use of opium I have previously +quoted, actually sympathised with the Yangtze anti-foreign riots in +1891, but by 1894 had been so profoundly influenced by the study of +Western literature that he sent a large donation to the “C.L.S.,” and +has lately published a book in which he strongly advocates the immediate +adoption of a modern system of education. + +It is not alone among the older men that our literature is producing +marked effects here and there, but the literary students in considerable +numbers are fired with the desire for Western learning. Fifteen hundred +applied for entrance to the new Peking University, of which the learned +Rev. W. Martin, author of _A Cycle of Cathay_, is principal. +Occasionally foreign literature produces almost grotesque effects. A +_Hsien_ magistrate, having read Dr. Faber’s _Civilization, East and +West_, was much impressed by the chapter on our Western treatment of +prisoners, and at once set his own to work at spinning, weaving, and +basket-making, to the intense amusement of the retainers of the _yamen_. + +In SZE CHUAN I saw few, if any, indications of the awakening which +undoubtedly exists. A foreign traveller, whether he speak Chinese or +not, does not see below the surface, and the province is far away from +the centres in which the Western leaven is working most energetically, +but in several places where I halted the mandarin sent to inquire if I +had any “foreign books?” Kuei-chow is one of the most anti-foreign of +the provinces, and it is noteworthy that lately her governor has sent to +the “C.L.S.” for 1000 dollars’ worth of Western literature. + +I think that there is no doubt that the leaven of Western thought is +working surely though slowly among the literary class, and that the +reform movement, scotched, but not killed, by the strong measures of the +Empress Dowager, grew out of it. + +Two causes favour the spread of Western literature; first that the four +hundred millions of the empire possess one written language, and second, +that there are 200 examination centres in China, and that at each, from +5000 to 10,000 students, the mandarins, lawyers, and leaders of the +future, a million in all, are under examination every year. Our best +literature, and our Christian literature, supplied to these centres +reaches the most influential homes in the country. Mr. Archibald Little, +the pioneer of steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze, and himself a +Chinese scholar, strongly urges the supply of “C.L.S.” literature to all +these centres. He considers that the mental revolution now proceeding, +and the reform movement, are largely due to the influence of books, and +even says that in the circulation of Western literature he sees the +great hope for the “Open Door!” + +That irresistible forces are beginning to drive China out of her conceit +and seclusion is evident. Ten years ago there were only two or three +papers in the vernacular besides the official _Peking Gazette_. To-day +there are over seventy, and native journalism is actively developing. +Through the press the Young China Party—the creation of Anglo-Chinese +schools and foreign influence, chiefly in the ports—gives expression to +those feelings of unrest and discontent which its wider outlook on +affairs produces. Through it the younger _literati_, awakened to a new +conception of patriotism by contact with Western thought, denounce the +ignorance and corruption of the magistracy, and urge as a remedy the +introduction of mathematics and political economy into the provincial +examinations! The Viceroy, ChangChih-Tung, not only founded a paper +“which was to engage the sympathies of the literary class in the work of +progress and reform, and to interest its readers in questions of +international and general importance,”[74] but made its support +compulsory in all the _yamens_ and libraries in the _Hu_ provinces. Its +staff is said to be composed of men who combine broad views with +classical scholarship, and it is reputed to have great influence with +the upper classes, even though the reforming Viceroy has had to withdraw +his official support from it. + +It is too early to write of the probable influence of the coming +railroads. It is easy to take an exaggerated view, but undoubtedly rapid +communication is a great foe to darkness and ignorance. Everywhere there +are indications of a change in the “classes” which lead the “masses.” +There is a Chinese saying, that “if you wish to irrigate a piece of land +you must first carry the water to the highest level, so, if you wish to +enlighten a nation, you must begin with its leaders.” Very important and +valuable inquiries have been made into all subjects connected with +trade; but this mental change, which will probably exercise an enormous +influence on trade and our relations with China, has been singularly +overlooked. + +It is perhaps best that there should be no abrupt rupture with the past. +The reform edicts, though abrogated, have kindled a flame; and though +there may be suspended progress, China can never really go back any +more, for the forces which have been set in motion have never yet +suffered defeat. “The mills of God grind slowly,” but they grind +inexorably. Let us be patient with our ancient ally, and “invite” rather +than bully her into “paths of reform.” I fear much that the desperate +determination of the European nations to secure her potentialities of +trade by fair means or foul, may be driving her to her doom, and that in +the clash and turmoil the symptoms of an increasing desire for reform +from within—a reform which would slowly give us all we can righteously +ask—are being overlooked or ignored. + +Into her archaic and unreformed Orientalism the Western leaven has +fallen for good or evil. Rudely awakened by the Japanese victories out +of her long sleep, China, half dismayed and wholly dazed, with much loss +of “face,” and shaken confidence in the methods of diplomacy which have +served her so well in the past, finds herself confronted by an array of +powerful, grasping, ambitious, and not always over-scrupulous powers, +bent, it may be, on over-reaching her and each other, ringing with +barbarian hands the knell of the customs and polity which are the legacy +of Confucius, clamouring for ports and concessions, and bewildering her +with reforms, suggestions, and demands, of which she sees neither the +expediency nor the necessity. + +In this turmoil, and with the European nations thundering at her gates, +it is impossible for China to attempt any reforms which would not from +the nature of the case be piecemeal and superficial. The reform of an +administration like hers needs the prolonged and careful consideration +of the best minds in the empire, with such skilled and disinterested +foreign advice as was given by Sir Harry Parkes to Japan when she +embarked on her new career. + +It must be remembered that the remodelling of the administrative system +of China is beset with difficulties which have not existed in any other +country, and which are accentuated by the vast population and area of +the empire. Chinese statesmen (if there be such) have to consider what +reforms could be carried out with the approval of the masses, _i.e._, +without bringing about a revolution. The very abuses of administration +have gained something of the sanctity which attends on custom among this +singular people. It is most important that those who have to deal with +Chinese affairs should be able to obtain such information as would +enable them to make a just estimate of the strength and probable +diffusion of the desire for reform among the _literati_, at whose feet +the masses lie with a genuine reverence. + +China is certainly at the dawn of a new era. Whether the twentieth +century shall place her where she ought to be, in the van of Oriental +nations, or whether it shall witness her disintegration and decay, +depends very largely on the statesmanship and influence of Great +Britain. + + + + + ITINERARY + + + _Li._[75] + Wan Hsien to San-tsan-pu 65 + Ting-tsiao 63 + Liang-shan Hsien 50 + Wen-kia-cha 60 + Chai-shih-kiao 60 + Hsia-shan-po 73 + Kiu Hsien 60 + Ching-sze-yao 60 + Siao-kiao 65 + Sha-shih-pu 55 + Hsieh-tien-tze 75 + King-kiang-sze 65 + Heh-shui-tang 65 + PAONING FU 65 + Hsia-wu-li-tze 40 + Sin-tien-tze 90 + Mao-erh-tiao 90 + Tien-kia-miao 70 + Wu-lien 115 + Tze-tung Hsien 80 + Cheng-hsiang-po 80 + Mienchow 43 + Lun-gan (?) 90 + Mienchuh 70 + Shuang-tu-ti 45 + Peng Hsien 80 + Kuan Hsien 70 + Sin-fan Hsien 105 + Sin-tu Hsien 30 + CHENG-TU FU 40 + Kuan Hsien 120 + Fu-ki 30 + Sin-wen-ping 60 + Shuo-chiao 40 + Wei-cheo 60 + Li-fan Ting 65 + Tsa-ku-lao 60 + Chuang-fang 60 + Chu-ti 45 + Miao-ko 50 + Matang 105 + Somo 60 + Cheng-tu Fu to Shanghai, by water, 2000 miles. + + + + + APPENDICES + + + APPENDIX A. + +The Rules of the Chinese Guilds are too long and elaborate for insertion +in this appendix, and condensation would do them an injustice. + + + APPENDIX B.[76] + + + 1. NET VALUE OF TOTAL + TRADE OF PORTS IN THE + YANGTZE BASIN, 1898. + £ + Shanghai 13,296,643 + Chungking 2,614,031 + Ichang 194,359 + Sha-shih 25,666 + Hankow 8,065,717 + Kiukiang 2,625,083 + Wuhu 1,527,079 + Chinkiang 3,471,532 + Soochow 229,113 + Hangchow 1,199,022 + ————— + £33,248,245 + =========== + + + 2. TRADE OF SHANGHAI, 1898. + _Foreign Goods_— £ £ + Total import =19,073,534= + Less re-exported— + (_a_) To foreign countries and Hongkong 745,000 + (_b_) To Chinese ports (chiefly to + northern and Yangtze ports) 13,914,558 + —————————— + 14,659,558 + Making net total foreign imports =4,413,976= + _Native Produce_— + Imported (chiefly from northern and Yangtze + ports, Ningpo, Swatow, Canton, and =11,413,637= + Hangchow) + Less re-exported to foreign countries and + Chinese ports 9,724,673 + —————————— + Making net total Native imports =1,688,964= + Native produce of local origin exported =7,193,704= + to foreign countries =4,676,674= + Ditto to Chinese ports =2,517,029= „ + —————————— —————————— + Gross value of trade of Shanghai =£37,680,875= + Net „ „ „ =£13,296,643= ========== + ========== + + + 3. TOTAL NET IMPORT OF + OPIUM INTO CHINA FOR + 1898. + Quantity 6,638,333 lbs. + Value £4,388,365 + + 4. TOTAL VALUE OF FOREIGN TRADE OF CHINA IN 1898. + = Hk. Taels 368,616,483 = £55,292,472. + + + 5. SHARE OF ENGLAND IN CHINA’S TRADE FOR 1898.[77] + I. _Shipping._ + ───────────────────┬───────────┬───────────┬─────────────────────────── + Flag. │Entries and│ Tonnage. │ Percentages of Tonnage. + │Clearances.│ │ + ───────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼─────────────┬───────────── + „ │ „ │ „ │ (A.) │ (B.) + │ │ │ Including │ Excluding + │ │ │ Chinese. │ Chinese. + British │ 22,609│ 21,265,966│ 62·12│ 81·65 + Chinese │ 23,547│ 8,187,572│ 23·92│ + Other nationalities│ 6,505│ 4,780,042│ 13·96│ 18·35 + ───────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┼─────────────┼───────────── + │ 52,661│ 34,253,580│ 100│ 100 + ───────────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴─────────────┴───────────── + + + II. _Trade._ + ───────────────────┬───────────┬─────────┬───────────┬───────────────── + Flag. │ Total │ Transit │ Total. │ Percentages of + │ Values │ Trade. │ │ Value. + │ Foreign & │ │ │ + │ Coast │ │ │ + │ Trade. │ │ │ + ───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────┼───────────┼────────┬──────── + │ £ │ £ │ £ │ (A.) │ (B.) + British │ 76,236,290│2,695,437│ 78,931,727│ 51·88│ 79·40 + Chinese │ 50,163,445│2,410,663│ 52,574,108│ 34·56│ + Other nationalities│ 19,385,235│1,217,343│ 20,602,578│ 13·56│ 20·60 + ───────────────────┼───────────┼─────────┼───────────┼────────┼──────── + │145,784,970│6,323,443│152,108,413│ 100│ 100 + ───────────────────┴───────────┴─────────┴───────────┴────────┴──────── + + + 6. PRINCIPAL IMPORTS INTO CHINA FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES, + 1898.[78] + Quantity. Value. + Opium 6,638,000 lbs. £4,388,385 + Cotton goods 11,642,824 + Raw cotton 30,534,000 lbs. 425,959 + Woollen Goods 478,525 + Metals 1,468,061 + Matches (mainly Japanese) 11,352,304 gross 389,561 + Oil (Kerosene) 96,882,126 gallons 1,787,205 + Sugar 10,793 tons 2,029,267 + Other imports 8,827,113 + ——————————— + Total £31,436,900 + =========== + + + 7. PRINCIPAL EXPORTS FROM CHINA TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES, + 1898.[78] + Quantity. Value. + Silk, of all kinds 35,651,333 lbs. £8,415,584 + Tea „ „ 205,146,667 lbs. 4,331,922 + Other Exports 11,108,066 + ——————————— + Total £23,855,572 + =========== + + + + + INDEX + + + A. + + Aconite, Trade in, 339. + + _Agricultural Chemistry_, Circulation of the vol. on, 541. + + Albumen factories, 65. + + Allen, Consul Clement, his report on mission hospitals, 47. + + Altar of Incense, An, 418. + + American Baptists, The, 471. + + Ancestor-worship, 522. + + An Hui, North, 6. + + An-shun Bridge, The, 460. + + + B. + + Baber, Mr., 3, 265, 451; + his papers on Western China, 156; + on rock-dwellings, 467. + + Baggage coolies, 196. + + Baian Kara range, The, 2. + + Baker, Mr., 416. + + Bamboo suspension bridges, 378. + + “Barbarians,” Villages of the, 376, 377, 382–385. + + Barbers, Itinerant, 80. + + Be-dien, The author’s interpreter, 55, 155; + his character, 207. + + Beggars, Treatment of, 187. + + “Bellows” gorge. See Feng Hsiang. + + Benevolent guilds, 182. + + Benjamin, Bishop, 99, 100, 102. + + Beresford, M.P., Lord Charles, 530; + his suggested reforms, 536. + + Blakiston, Captain, his description of the “Pillar of Heaven,” 106; + of trackers, 142. + + Bourne, Consul, 140, 142, 149 (note), 496 (note), 499; + on opium smoking, 515. + + Brick tea factories, 65. + + Bridges, 231, 232, 252. + + British Merchant, Dependence of the, upon the Chinese compradore, 20, + 21; + decrease of his trade, 64. + + Buffalo, The water, 232, 235. + + Bullock, Mr. and Mrs., 15. + + + C. + + Callum, Mr., 348. + + Canadian Mission, The, 519. + + _Canons of Filial Duty_, The, 277. + + “Canton opium,” 512. + + Carles, Consul, 188 (note); + on missionaries helping trade, 47. + + Cassels, Bishop, 281, 286. + + Census, The taking of a, 270. + + _Century of Surnames_, The, 277. + + Chai-jen, 211, 390, 393, 396. + + Chair travelling, 202. + + Chang, 423. + + Chang Chih-tung, H. E., on opium smoking, 516; + on education, 541; + influence of Western literature on, 541. + + Chang-fei, The temple of, 166, 167, 168 (note). + + _Chang-wo_, The s.s., 83. + + Chapel of Meditations, The, 358. + + Che, 145. + + Che-kiang, Province of, 1; + use of _pahs_ or haulovers in, 32; + Christian converts in, 521. + + Chengtu, 2, 8, 351, 352, 458, 463; + musk trade of, 339; + canals and bridges of, 355; + population of, 343; + temples of, 357; + wall of, 355. + + Chengtu plain, The, 194, 324, 329, 334, 347, 458; + products of, 343, 348. + + Chia-ling Fu, 3, 464, 477. + + Chia-ling river, The, 3, 273, 280, 281, 314; + affluents of, 4; + walls on, 86. + + Chiang-Ku, 463. + + Ch’ien Tang river, The, 34. + + China, administration of Government in, 532; + books most in demand in, 540; + contradictions in, 534; + examination centres in, 542; + maritime customs of, 155, 531; + newspapers in, 542; + population of, 532; + trade of, 531, 546–548; + travelling necessaries in, 56 (note); + village system in, 535; + Western literature in, 539–542. + + “China ink,” 58. + + China Inland Mission, The, 471, 477, 495, 519, 527. + + Chinese brutality, 420; + Buddhism and Western civilisation, 12; + charities, 181–193; + civilisation, 12; + classics, 276–279; + cotton factory, 59; + curiosity, 210; + currency, 92; + delicacies, 298; + divinities, 193; + drinks and food, 300, 302; + education, 274 _et seq._; + energy and skill, 6, 10; + genius for self-government, 535; + guest-room, 175; + inns, 202, 205; + justice, 214; + medicines, 52; + mob, 219; + proverb, 7; + roads, 243; + social and commercial organisation, 13; + theatricals, 330; + towns, 250; + trading instincts, 12; + views of humanity, 182; + women, 242, 270. + + Chinese bondholder, Security of the, 537. + + _Chinese Gazetteer_, The, 8. + + “Chinese Merchants’ Company,” The, 538. + + Ching-chou Fu, 87–89. + + Ching-sze-yao, 246. + + Chinkiang, 3, 9; + benevolent institutions in, 184 _et seq._; + British concessions at, 56 (and note), 57; + grand canal at, 6; + guilds and trade of, 57, 58; + influence of the Yangtze river at, 7; + situation of, 56. + + Chin Sha river, The, 471; + source and course of, 2; + junction with the Min, 2, 3; + navigable portion of, 2. + + Chin-shuan river, The, 429. + + Chin-tai, 224. + + _Chipa_, 118, 128, 147. + + _Chod-tens_, 423. + + Cho-ko-ki tribe, The, 442, 443. + + Christian converts, 524. + + Christianity, Influence of, 48, 518, 522, 529. + + Chuang-fang, 413. + + Chungking, 3, 463, 486; + effect of opening as a treaty port, 142, 155, 180; + importation of cotton into, 8; + Mr. Little’s voyage to, 138; + position of, 490; + products of, 490; + rapids near, 8; + rise of the Yangtze at, 4, 5, 7; + trade of, 339, 496, 499; + union of Chia-ling and Yangtze at, 280. + + Chung-ku-lo temple, The, 179. + + Church Missionary Society’s Mission, 286, 519, 527. + + Chusan archipelago, The, 55. + + Chu-ti, 415, 416. + + Classics, Chinese school, 276, 277. + + “Cloudy Province,” The, 460, 464. + + Coal-mine, A visit to a, 481. + + Coffins, 313. + + Colquhoun, Mr., 530, 536 (note). + + Confucianism, 11, 12, 528, 532. + + _Cores de Vries_, The s.s., 184. + + Cormack, Mr. and Mrs., 323. + + Cottons, English, 308. + + Couching Dragon, Gorge of the, 338. + + “Cross Beam” rapid, The, 136. + + “Cycle of Cathay,” A, 541. + + + D. + + Davies, Mr., 176. + + Dudgeon, Dr., 513. + + Dust storms, Agency of, 5. + + _Dzai-zen-pusa_, or the God of Wealth, 356. + + Dzo, Herds of, 422, 425, 455. + + + E. + + Educated, Ignorance of the, 177. + + Education in China, 274 _et seq._ + + “Eight Cliffs,” Gorge of the, 171. + + Elephantiasis, A case of, 442. + + Elgin, Lord, his visit to Hankow, 61. + + “Emily Clayton Memorial,” The, 320. + + Endacott, Mr., 83, 114, 149; + rock-dwellings in his garden, 467. + + Erh-Wang temple, The, 340. + + _Esk_, the gunboat, Accident on, 96. + + + F. + + Faber’s _Civilization East and West_, Dr., 541. + + Fans, Export and manufacture of, 37, 478; + use of, 478. + + Feng Hsiang gorge, The, 110, 151, 155, 505. + + Fire wells, 273. + + “Five Duties of Man,” The, 536. + + “Five Hundred Disciples,” Temple of the, 38. + + Foot-binding, The practice of, 240. + + “Foreign smoke,” 508. + + Fou river, The, 316, 319. + + Fox, Mr., escorts the author over native Shanghai, 25. + + Fu river, The, 280. + + Fu-chow, 4, 501, 502. + + Fuh-ri-gan pass, 224, 227. + + Fu-ki, 366. + + Fu-kien, Christianity in, 518. + + Fu-ling river, The, 3, 4, 501, 502. + + Funeral ceremonies, 314. + + Fung Shui mystery, The, 96. + + + G. + + Gandar, Père, 6. + + Gardner, Consul, 114. + + Gerard, M., 101. + + “Get-down-from-horse” rapid, The, 151. + + Gill, Capt., 142, 357 (note), 377, 389, 393 (note), 424, 457 (note). + + “Glorious Rapid,” The, 140. + + “Glory of Buddha,” Pilgrimage to the, 464. + + Goitre, Prevalence of, 442, 449. + + “Goose-tail” rock, The, 152. + + Government administration, Corruption of, 532. + + Gowers, Miss, 291. + + Grainger, Mr., 339, 343. + + Grand Canal, The, 3; + at Chinkiang, 6; + between Hangchow and Chinkiang, 31. + + “Great Gold River,” The, 424, 434, 514. + + Great Plain, The, 4; + characteristics of, 5; + dust storms in, 5; + annual inundations on, 10, 501. + + Guilds, 58, 66, 499, 534. + + + H. + + Han river, The, 4; + trade on, 6, 9; + at Hankow, 77. + + Hangchow, 29–54; + the entrance to, 33; + silk looms at, 37; + situation of, 38; + the “bore,” 38; + wall of, 43; + population of, 43; + Japanese settlement in, 43; + the Medical Mission Hospitals at, 44–54. + + Hang-kia, 425. + + Hankow, 4, 505; + rise of the Yangtze at, 4, 7, 8, 62; + communication with, 9; + first impressions of, 59; + the Bund, 61; + Lord Elgin’s visit to, 61; + chief buildings in, 61; + foreign community in, 62; + climate of, 62; + currency in, 63; + trade in, 63, 64, 65, 66; + loss of English trade in, 64; + guilds of, 66; + native quarter, 67; + the wall and streets of, 67, 68; + coffin shops of, 72; + the harbour of, 78, 79; + English Wesleyan missionaries in, 81; + charities at, 189. + + _Hankow Times_, The, 62. + + Han Yang, 61. + + Hart, G.C.M.G., Sir Robert, 540. + + Heng-liang-tze rapid, The, 128. + + “Henrietta Bird” Hospital, The, 291. + + Henry of Canton, Dr., 182. + + Hicks, Mr., 104. + + Hill, Rev. David, 82, 181. + + Hing-lung-t’an rapid, The, 140. + + Hirst, Consul, on opium smoking, 515. + + Hoang Ho, The, 6. + + Ho, Admiral, 149. + + Ho-chow, 4. + + Holland, Mr., 99. + + Honan, Province of, 1, 6. + + Hongkew, the American settlement of Shanghai, 17. + + Honton, or Fu river, The, 4. + + Horsburgh, Rev. Heywood, 323, 324, 361. + + Hsai-shan-po, 239. + + Hsiang river, The, 4; + trade on, 6. + + Hsin-tan rapid, The, 118, 121, 123, 127, 505. + + Hsin-tan village, 121. + + Huai and its tributaries, Commercial routes on the, 6. + + Huang-pu river, Trade on the, 16, 24. + + Hunan, Province of, 1; + possibilities for Lancashire trade in, 65. + + “Hunan Tracts,” The, 257. + + Hunan “braves,” 88. + + Hupeh province, 1. + + —— ranges, The, 8. + + + I. + + Ichang, 4, 505; + cotton imports into, 8; + first view of, 95; + foreigners in, 96; + junks at, 95; + mission buildings at, 95; + rapids near, 8; + Roman missions at, 99–101; + the Yangtze at, 8. + + Ichang gorge, The, 106, 109, 505. + + Idols, Dealers in, 71. + + Indian opium, Use of, 512. + + Inland mission work, 285 _et seq._ + + —— sanitarium, 292. + + I-ren, The. See Mantze. + + “Iron Coffin Gorge,” The, 150. + + Itinerary, The author’s, 545. + + + J. + + James, Mr., 477. + + Jamieson, Consul-General, 221. + + Japanese commercial activity, 65, 91; + adoption of Chinese classics and Western methods, 539. + + Ja-ra Peak, The, 457. + + Jardine, Matheson, and Co., 18. + + John, Dr. Griffith, 60. + + Jsai li Sect, The, 511. + + Junks, 79, 95, 138–149; + at Fu-chow, 502. + + _Juvenile Instructor_, The, 278. + + + K. + + Kanpo, Towers at, 383. + + Kan river, The, 4; + junction with the Yangtze, 6. + + Kansuh, S.E. drainage area of, 1, 3; + the Mohammedan rebellion in, 530; + trade of, 280. + + Kay, Mr., 361, 362, 393, 394, 396, 419, 420, 425, 429, 438, 441. + + Kelly and Walsh, Book-store of, 20. + + Kerosene oil, Import of, 66. + + Kiang-peh, 490. + + Kiangsi china, 66. + + —— Province of, 1. + + Kiangsu, Province of, 1; + influence of the Yangtze on, 7. + + Kien-ing, Anti-Christian riots at, 518. + + Kimber, Dr., 44, 54 (note). + + _Kin hwa_, or “golden flowers,” 161. + + King Ho stream, The, 249. + + King-kiang-sze, 269. + + King-mien-sze, 249. + + Kin-ta river, The, 434. + + “Kitten” rapid, The, 151. + + Kiu-ho river, The, 244. + + Kiu Hsien, 244. + + Kiu-kiang, 9, 59. + + Koko Nor, The, 339. + + Ku river, The, 4, 280. + + Kuan, 458. + + Kuang Yuen, 280. + + Kuan Hsien, 2, 338; + the city temple of, 362; + hostility to foreigners, 347. + + Kueichow, 31, 128. + + —— Province of, 1; + import of opium into, 507, 515; + demand for Western literature in, 542. + + —— City, dust storm in, 5. + + Kueichow Fu, or Kuei Fu, 8, 152–165; + inhabitants’ hostility to foreigners, 153; + value of _Likin_ at, 154; + New Year’s Day at, 160–165. + + Ku-erh-kio, 415, 456. + + Kukiang, Benevolent institutions at, 189. + + Kung-tan river, 501. + + _Kwan Yin_, the goddess of Mercy, 55. + + Kwa-tung rapid, The, 118. + + Kyin-pan-si pass, 244. + + + L. + + Lamas, Earnings of, 445. + + Lao-ma, or “Old Horse” rapid, 166. + + Lao-min-tze, 117. + + Lao-pan, or skipper, The, 104, 124, 141, 145, 149. + + Lawton, Rev. W., 181, 188 (note). + + Liang-shan Hsien, 219, 222. + + Li-fan Ting, 361, 377, 382, 384, 389, 457; + a custom at, 390. + + _Likin_, 93, 537; + at Kuei Fu, 154, 155. + + Limin-fu, 490. + + Li Ping, Temple of, 339, 343; + irrigation works of, 344. + + Literary examinations, 532. + + Literati and Christianity, The, 525; + Western literature chiefly circulated amongst, 540; + its influence, 542, 544. + + Literature, The god of, 312, 313. + + —— of the West, Circulation of, 539–542. + + Little, Mr. A., at Chung-King, 495; + his description of the “Pillar of Heaven,” 106; + estimate of volume of water in Yeh-tan rapid, 132; + his voyage on the Yangtze, 138; + estimate of the loss of junks, 140; + on Sze Chuan, 477; + on trackers, 142; + on the influence of books, 542. + + —— Mrs. Archibald, 241 (note). + + Litton, Mr., 280; + his report on Sze Chuan, 11 (note), 194; + on the use of “water tobacco,” 513 (note). + + Lo-kia-chan, 331; + assault on the author at, 332. + + Lolo tribes, The, 471. + + Longevity, The temple of, 166. + + Loti-shui, 537. + + Louvets, Mons., 518 (note). + + Lu, Dr., 48. + + Lu-chien, 485. + + Lu-chow, 3, 477. + + Lu-fang, 311. + + Lu Yew, the traveller, 31, 32. + + + M. + + Mackenzie’s _History of the Nineteenth Century_, 540. + + Main, Dr., 33, 44, 48, 49, 50, 54 (note), 510, 513. + + Maitreya Buddha, Figure of, 467. + + Malcolm, Dr., 54 (note). + + Manchuria, Scottish and Irish missions in, 518. + + Mandarins or _kuans_, 253, 533. + + Mantze cultivation, 422; + custom, 415; + dwellings, 377, 382–386, 389, 395, 408, 410, 413, 415; + hospitality, 413. + + Mantze, The, absence of disease amongst, 442; + burials amongst, 445; + character of, 450; + customs of, 444; + dress of, 451; + language of, 449; + maladies and morals of, 449; + position of women amongst, 446; + religion of, 445; + trade and commerce of, 450. + + Mao-erh-tiao, 302. + + Martin, Rev. W., 541. + + Matang, 339, 430, 455; + beauty of Mantze women at, 430. + + Matang river, The, 433, 434. + + Meadows, Mr., 534 (note). + + Medical missions, 44–54. + + Meichow, 463. + + Mei-ling pass, The, 6. + + Meitel, Bishop, 102. + + Melon seeds, Games with, 299. + + Mia-ko, 421–423. + + Miao Chitze, or “Temple Stairs” rapid, 166. + + _Middle Kingdom_, Dr. W. Williams’s, 276 (note), 314 (note). + + Mien-chow, 319; + temple of Confucius at, 320. + + Mien-chuh Hsien, 324; + C.M.S. House at, 329. + + “Military Code,” Gorge of the, 128. + + _Millenary_, The, 277. + + Min, or Fu river, 337, 338, 339, 340, 460; + source of the, 2; + navigable waters of, 2; + junction with the River of Golden Sand, 3; + importance in the eyes of Chinese geographers, 3; + affluents of, 3; + traffic on, 8; + bamboo bridges over, 365; + character of, 366; + branches of, 374, 426; + villages on, 375; + junction with the Ya and Tatu, 464; + rock-dwellings on, 467, 468, 471. + + Min gorge, The, 367. + + Mission hospitals, 44–54; + Dr. Christie’s at Mukden, 49 (note); + patients in, 52. + + Missionaries, Attitude of Chinese towards, 528; + protection afforded to, 258; + troubles of, 320. + + Mitan gorge, The, 110, 128. + + Money annoyances, 212. + + Morphia, Importation of, 510. + + Morrison, Dr., of the _Times_, 172. + + Mosquitoes, 478. + + Mou-kung Ting road, The, 373. + + Moule, Bishop, 44. + + Mount Omi, 463. + + Mukden, 533 (note); + suicides in, 51. + + Musk trade, 339. + + + N. + + Nan river, The, 463. + + Nanking, 9, 59. + + Nan-mu-yurh, 150. + + Nan-po glen, The, 505. + + Nan-pu, 274, 280. + + Nan-to, 110, 117. + + Nganhui, Province of, 1; + manufacture of “China ink” in, 58. + + Nganking, 9, 59. + + Niang-tze-ling pass, 366. + + Ningpo, 55. + + —— varnish, 44, 72. + + Nitrate of soda, 381. + + Niu-kan gorge, The, 110, 118. + + Niu-kau-tan rapid, The, 128. + + + O. + + _Odes for Children_, 277. + + Official visiting, 459. + + Omi-shan precipice, The, 4; + pilgrimages to, 366, 464. + + “Open door” Policy, The, 537. + + Opium poppy and its use, 348, 506–517. + + Orphan rocks, The, 59. + + + P. + + _Pah_, The, or haulover, 4, 32. + + _Pai-fangs_, 198, 218, 252. + + Pai-shui Chiang, 280. + + ——river, The, 4, 280. + + Pa-ko-shan, 490. + + Paoning Fu, 86, 280, 282; + solitary journey to, 194; + result of using opium at, 507; + church building at, 520; + mission stations at, 526. + + Parkes, Sir Harry, 544. + + Passport difficulties, 397, 399. + + Passports, 211, 441, 452. + + Peh-shi, Trade in coal at, 481; + trees at, 485 (note). + + Peh-teo-shan pass, 390, 405. + + Pei-shih, 151. + + Peking Government, Weakness of the, 13, 14. + + Peng Hsien, 333, 334. + + Peng-shan Hsien, 463. + + Phillips, Mr. and Mrs., 329. + + Photographic difficulties, 156. + + Pigou, Mr., 24. + + “Pillar of Heaven,” The, 106. + + Ping Shan, 2, 471. + + Ping-shu gorge, The, 121, 124. + + _Poyang_, The s.s., 56; + runs down a junk, 59. + + Poyang lake, The, 4; + area of, 6. + + Prayer-flags, 445. + + —— wheels, 408, 422, 445. + + “Prince’s Temple,” The, 357. + + Prjevalsky, Colonel, his exploration of the Yangtze, 2. + + Protestant missionaries, 102, 518 _et seq._ + + Pruen, Dr., 291. + + Putu, The Island of, 55. + + Pu-tung Point, 17. + + Pyramid Hill, 96. + + + R. + + Railroads, Probable influence of, 543. + + Ramsay, Miss, 175–177. + + “Red Basin,” The, 16, 63, 246, 247, 248, 264. + + Reed-beds of the Yangtze, 85. + + Reifsnyder, Dr., 540. + + Religious dramas, 329. + + _Review of the Times_, The, 541. + + Rhubarb, Importation of, 339. + + Rice-fields, 7. + + Richards, Mr. Timothy, 540. + + _River of Golden Sand_, Captain Gill’s, 357 (note). + + Rock-dwellings, 467, 468, 471. + + Roman missions, 99–103, 523. + + Rong-Kia river, The, 433, 434. + + Rope bridges, 369. + + Rosthorn, Mr. Von, 3, 8, 395, 441. + + + S. + + Sai-pei-tu pass, 228. + + Salisbury, The Marquess of, on England’s policy in China, 538. + + Salt boilers, 152. + + —— wells, 273. + + Sampans, 85, 124, 140. + + San-tsan-pu, 202. + + Sar-pu, 224. + + Schjöltz, Mr., 96. + + Secret societies, 524. + + Shan-Shang-Ren. See Mantze. + + Shanghai, Astor House at, 21; + author’s return to, 505; + Benevolent Society at, 22; + British and American settlements in, 19, 23; + Chinese element in, 18, 24–26; + country round, 5, 15, 16; + French settlement in, 23; + hospitality in, 21; + impressions upon landing at, 17; + Ladies’ Benevolent Society at, 22; + missions at, 22; + why called “the model settlement,” 19; + municipality of, 19; + Royal Asiatic Society’s branch at, 23; + Sailors’ Home of Rest, at, 22; + Women’s Hospital in, 540. + + Shang-wa-li-tze market-place, 296. + + Shanjin, 31. + + Shan-rang Ho river, The, 266. + + Shan-rang-sar, 224. + + Shan-si, Banking talent in, 499. + + Shantung, S.E. drainage area of, 1. + + Shao Hsing, 55, 161. + + Sha-shih, 4, 85, 86, 87; + character of the Yangtze at, 6; + commercial routes from, 93; + cottons of, 308; + fish market at, 90; + missions in, 91; + pagoda at, 89; + population of, 89; + refugees at, 89; + trade of, 91, 92. + + Shen-kia-chao, Pass of, 214. + + Shensi, trade route to, 93. + + Shensi, S.E. drainage area of, 1. + + Shih-men, 482. + + Shi-Tze-Ping pass, 424. + + Shih-pao-chai, 502. + + _Shui Li Fu_, or “Prefect of the Waterways,” The, 347. + + Shun, The Emperor, 522. + + Shuo-chiao, 374; + scarcity of food at, 375. + + Shu river, The, 4. + + _Siao Hioh_, The, 278. + + Siao-Ho, The, 361, 366, 377, 384, 395, 404, 409, 424, 455; + gorge of, 378. + + Siao-Kiao, 249. + + Sifans, The, 443, 449. + + Si-hu, 38, 49. + + Silk, Manufacture of, 37. + + Silver Island, 56. + + Sing-an hamlet, 467. + + Sing-fang Hsien, 348. + + Sing-king-pa Hsien, 266. + + Sin-tien-tze, 292, 296. + + Sin-tu Hsien, 311, 348. + + Sin-wen-ping, 371. + + “Sleeping Buddha,” Temple of the, 471. + + Small River, The, 424. + + Smith’s _Chinese Characteristics_, Rev. Arthur, 181, 183, 192. + + Snowstorm, A blinding, 426. + + “Snowy Mountains,” The, 424. + + Soil, god of the, Shrines to the, 344. + + Soldiers, 81. + + Somo, 377, 441; + absence of bird-life in, 452; + the people of, 443; + product of, 450. + + —— Castle, 452. + + Spearmen, An escort of, 433. + + “Sphere of Influence” Policy, The, 530, 537. + + Squibb, Dr., 320. + + Stevenson, Mrs. Owen, 104, 135, 136, 168. + + Su-chow creek; 17, 23, 29. + + Suicide in China, 51. + + Sui-fu, 2, 3, 429, 471; + rapids between and Kueichow Fu, 8. + + Su-ma-tou, 463. + + Sun Bridge mountain, The, 2. + + Sundius, Mr., 43. + + Sung-pan-ting, 339. + + —— road, 373. + + Sunstroke in Sze Chuan, 478. + + Superstitions, 122, 162, 188. + + Sze Chuan, Area, climate, population, etc., of, 9–11, 532; + coal-fields of, 4, 224, 239; + cotton fabrics of, 8, 91; + exports from, 149 (note); + fanaticism in, 477; + famine in, 89; + demand for foreign books in, 542; + inns in, 251 (note); + junks of, 95, 138–149; + markets of, 265, 266; + objection to open chairs in, 196; + oil trade of, 71; + opium exports from, 514; + _pai-fangs_ of, 198; + prevalence of sunstroke in, 478; + poppy cultivation in, 506; + province of, 1, 194; + the rebellion in, 530; + “Red Basin” of, 16, 63, 246–248, 264; + resources of, 3, 247, 531; + revenue, sources of, 155; + sale of drugs in, 459; + sale of girls in, 270; + salt exports from, 153; + silver of, 63; + travelling in, 207; + villages in, 264; + women of, 176; + women’s dress in, 242. + + + T. + + Ta Chin, or Ta Kin-Shuan River, 434. + + Ta-fan, 386. + + Ta-ho, The, 377. + + Tai-hu lake, Area of the, 6. + + _Tai-kung_, or bowsman, The, 141, 142, 145, 147. + + Taiping Fu, 59. + + Taiping Rebellion, The, 31, 59. + + _Tai-wan-ti_, The, 145. + + Ta-Kin Ho river, The, 429. + + Ta-ling, 151. + + Ta-lu road, The, 311, 313. + + Ta-miao, Temples of, 316. + + Tang-pa mountain, The, 424. + + Taoism, 11, 12. + + Ta-tan rapid, The, 118. + + Tatu, or Tung river, The, 434, 464. + + Ta-tien-lu, 441. + + _T’au-lao_, or head tracker, 141. + + _T’au-tai-kung_, or pilot, 141. + + “Tea Extract,” 511. + + Theatrical companies, 330. + + Thompson, Mr. and Mrs., 175, 176, 190 (note), 196, 205, 207. + + “Three Religions,” The, 525; + temple of, 178. + + “Three Water Guardians,” The, 171. + + “Throne of Snow,” The, 404. + + Tibetan dogs, 430. + + —— drugs, 338. + + Tien-kia-miao, 307. + + Tiger Teeth gorge, 94. + + Ting-hai, 55. + + Ting Library, The, 34. + + Torii of Japan, The, 219. + + To river, 3. + + _T’ou-jen_, The, 444. + + Towers, Ancient, 383. + + Trackers, 132, 135, 136, 141, 142, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149; + clothing of, 146; + at dinner, 159. + + Trackers’ villages, 118, 123. + + Trade requirements, 308. + + Travelling outfit, 195. + + _Trimetrical Classic_, The, 276. + + Tsa-ku-lao, 395, 457; + population of, 400; + situation of, 399. + + Tsing-pu hills, The, 5. + + Tsu-ku-shan pass, 429, 455. + + Tsung-ming, The island of, 7. + + Tung or Tatu river, The, 3, 282. + + Tungting lake, The, 4; + junction of the Hsiang and Yuan at, 6; + traffic on, 64, 65, 84. + + Tung Yangtze cataract, 166. + + _Tu-tze_, The, 443. + + _Twenty-four Filials_, The, 277. + + Tze-tung Hsien, 312, 316. + + + U. + + _Use of Opium_, by Dr. Dudgeon, 513. + + + V. + + Vale, Mr., of Chengtu, 362, 372. + + Vegetarians, 525. + + Village system, The, 535. + + + W. + + _Wai-pi-ku_ boats, 501. + + Wan-cheng Ti Dyke, 85, 86. + + Wan Hsien, 104; + charities of, 190; + China Inland Mission house at, 172; + cotton trade of, 180; + first sight of, 171; + junk-building at, 138, 179; + population and trade of, 172, 178; + temple of, 178, 179; + the Yangtze at, 5. + + War, The God of, 312. + + “Water tobacco,” The use of, 513. + + Waterwheels on the Min, 463. + + Weichou, 366, 367, 369, 377, 378, 382; + nitre works at, 381. + + Wei-gua, 395. + + Wen-chuan Hsien, 376. + + Wen-shu-Yuan Temple, 357. + + Went-Zu, Temple of, 285. + + Wesleyan missionaries, 102. + + Wheelbarrow traffic, 324. + + Widows, care of, 187, 188. + + Widows’ arches, 198. + + Willett, Mr., 500. + + Williams, Rev. E. O., 281, 285, 296. + + —— Dr. Wells, 164 (note), 182, 240, 276 (note). + + “Wind-box” gorge. See Feng Hsiang. + + “Witch’s Mountain” gorge, The, 150, 151. + + Women’s work in China, 526. + + Woodruff, Mr., 99. + + Woo-sung, 15, 16. + + Wu-chang, 59, 61. + + Wuhu, 9; + trade of, 58; + benevolent institutions at, 188. + + Wu-lien, 312. + + _Wupans_, 124, 140, 460, 482, 500. + + Wushan, 151. + + —— gorge, The, 110, 150. + + Wu-sueh, 6. + + + Y. + + Ya, The, 3, 464, 485. + + Ya-chow, the centre of the brick tea trade, 3. + + Yak, Herds of, 425, 455. + + _Yamen_ runners, 81, 196, 211. + + _Yamens_, 26, 81, 261. + + Yangchow, 9, 59. + + Yangtze Kiang, Mouth of the, 16. + + Yangtze river, alluvial deposit of, 7, 16; + annual rise and fall of, 4, 5, 496; + ascent of British fleet up, 7; + change in character of, 6; + craft on, 501; + a flood on, 482; + at Ichang, 95; + influence of the tide on, 7; + junction with the To, 477; + length of, 2; + navigable affluents of, 3, 4, 471; + navigable portion of, 8; + reed-beds in, 85; + source of, 2; + at Sui Fu, 471, 472; + trade on, 8, 9, 10; + various names of, 3; + volume of water in, 7. + + Yangtze, The Lower, trade on, 9. + + —— The Upper, bed of, 117; + coal workings on, 131; + life on, 138; + perils on, 149; + rapids of, 114 _et seq._; + steam navigation on, 5; + trackers on, 118 _et seq._; + trade on, 8, 9, 10; + travelling on, 104. + + _Yangtze Pilot_, The, 149. + + Yangtze valley, Bridges in, 10; + British treaty rights in, 14; + commerce of, 15; + drainage area, 1; + inhabitants of, 10, 11; + as a “sphere of interest,” 13. + + Yao-tsai village, 121. + + Yates, Dr., 523. + + Yeh-tan rapid, The, 128, 131, 505. + + Yellow river, Outbreak of the, 31. + + Yellow Sea, The, 16. + + _Yen-tun_, or “smoke towers,” 171. + + “_Yin_,” The, 509. + + Ying-san Hsien, 253, 261. + + Yo-chow monastery, 84. + + Yo-chow Fu city, 84. + + Yokohama Specie Bank, Shanghai, 21. + + Yuan Ho, The river, 4; + trade on, 6. + + _Yulows_, 110, 145. + + Yungtze, 93. + + Yun-i, 236. + + Yun-Yang Hsien, 166; + Roman Christians at, 168. + + Yunnan, Province of, 1; + valleys of, 247; + importation of opium into, 507, 515. + + + PLYMOUTH + WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON + PRINTERS + +[Illustration: + + SKETCH MAP OF THE YANGTZE BASIN SHOWING M^{RS}. BISHOP’S ROUTE. + + Stanford’s Geog^l Estab^t, London. + + _The red line indicates the Author’s route_ + + London: John Murray, Albemarle Street. +] + +----- + +Footnote 1: + + Politically, as H.M.’s Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs + defined it in the House of Commons on May 9th, 1899, it is “the + provinces adjoining the Yangtze River and Honan and Che Kiang.” + +Footnote 2: + + The lowest latitude which it is believed to reach is 26° N., east of + its junction with the Yalung at its great southerly bend, and its + junction with the ocean is in lat. 31° N. + +Footnote 3: + + _The Geographical Journal_, September, 1898, p. 227: “The Yangtze + Chiang,” W. R. CARLES, H.B.M.’s Consul at Swatow. + +Footnote 4: + + _Land of the Lamas_, p. 218. + +Footnote 5: + + It is the Mur-usu (“Tortuous River”) in Tibet, the Chin or Kin Sha + where it is the boundary between Tibet and China, and from the + junction of the Yalung to Sui Fu the Chin Ho. Between Sui Fu and Wan + Hsien it is called the Ta Ho (“Great River”) and the Min Chiang. At + and below Sha-shih it is the Ching Chiang, and below Hankow for 400 + miles it is called the Chiang, Ch’ang Chiang (“Long River”), or + Ta-Kuan Chiang (“Great Official River”). + +Footnote 6: + + Lest it should be supposed that I am taking an unduly favourable view + of the position of the Chinese, and especially of the Chinese of Sze + Chuan, under their government, I fortify my opinion by quoting that of + Mr. Litton, British acting consul at Chungking. He writes in his + official report to our Foreign Office, presented to both Houses of + Parliament in May, 1899, thus:—“The government, though obstructive and + unintelligent, is not as a rule actively oppressive; one may travel + for days in West China without seeing any signs of that reserve of + force which we associate with the policeman round the corner. The + country people of Sze Chuan manage their own affairs through their + headmen, and get on very well in spite of, rather than because of, the + central government at Chengtu. So long as a native keeps out of the + law courts, and does not attempt any startling innovations on the + customs of his ancestors, he finds in the general love of law and + order very fair security that he will enjoy the fruit of his labour.” + This general disposition towards law and order, though it may have + something to do with race, is undoubtedly on the whole the result of + the teachings of Confucius. + +Footnote 7: + + For Shanghai and the other open ports, it is the gross value of trade, + exports and imports, including re-exports, which is given in this + volume. + +Footnote 8: + + Yachting Club, Golf Club, Athletic Club, Lawn Tennis Club, Polo Club, + Volunteer Club, Boating Club, Bowling Club, Swimming Club, Cricket + Club, Blackbird Club, Drag Hound Club, Steeplechase Club, Racquet + Club, Racing Club, Rifle Club, Fives Court, Gymnasium, Fire Flies + Society, Lurderfatel Society, Amateur Dramatic Company; and of a + graver cast, the Philharmonic and Photographic Societies, the Royal + Asiatic Society, the Fine Art Society, etc., etc. (List by W. S. + Percival, Esq.) + +Footnote 9: + + Situated a few miles from the junction of the Huang-pu with the + Yangtze, in lat. 31° 10′ N. and long. 121° 30′ E., nearly on the same + parallel as Charleston and Alexandria, the port is the great outlet of + the commerce of the rich and populous provinces of Central China, and + the sole outlet of that of Sze Chuan, besides communicating by + waterways with Hangchow, Soochow, and other great cities on the Grand + Canal, and with cities innumerable by canals innumerable. + +Footnote 10: + + Hangchow, though not geographically in the drainage area of the + Yangtze, as the capital of Chekiang, which has been declared + officially to be within our “sphere of interest” in the Yangtze + Valley, is treated of here as being specially interesting. Of Ningpo, + Wenchow, and Soochow, open ports in the same province, merely the + _net_ value of their total net trade for 1898 is given, along with + that of Hangchow:— + + Ningpo £2,162,780 + Wenchow 215,669 + Soochow 229,113 + Hangchow 1,199,022 + +Footnote 11: + + Another of the crack mission hospitals of the East, of which I had + lengthened opportunities of judging, is Dr. Christie’s hospital at + Mukden, Manchuria, which has been largely instrumental in bringing + about similar results in the friendliness of the officials and people. + +Footnote 12: + + In a paper called _Medical Missions at Home and Abroad_ for 1898, p. + 70, the reader will find such experiences very graphically told by Dr. + Malcolm. + +Footnote 13: + + These hospitals and dispensaries under the care of Dr. Main and Dr. + Kimber treated 47,000 patients in 1898, of which number 1000 were + in-patients, and besides these 187 would-be suicides received back the + unwelcome gift of life. These benevolent Christian institutions + comprise hospitals for men and women, an opium refuge, three leper + hospitals, two convalescent homes, and a home for the children of + lepers. + +Footnote 14: + + In China the necessaries of existence, food, clothing, shoes, + waterproofs, and travelling-trunks and baskets are always to be + procured, and there, as everywhere, if a traveller uses native + arrangements, he has much less difficulty in getting them handled or + repaired. + +Footnote 15: + + Concession is not, as is supposed by many, a synonym for settlement. A + concession is a piece of land leased by the Queen’s Government and let + to Western merchants, a stipulation being made that the land is not to + be sub-let to Chinese, while a settlement is an area within which + Europeans may lease land directly from the native proprietors. In both + cases the Queen’s Government stipulates for the right of policing and + controlling the land, and delegates it to a council of resident + merchants. + +Footnote 16: + + A specimen of guild rules is given in Appendix A. + +Footnote 17: + + For brief statistics of the trade of the Yangtze open ports see + Appendix B. + +Footnote 18: + + For minor causes of the loss of the import trade see _Trade of Central + and Southern China_, BOURNE, Foreign Office, May, 1898. + +Footnote 19: + + In 1868 the average consumption of tea per head of the population of + the United Kingdom was 3·52 lbs., of which 93 per cent. was Chinese + tea, and 7 per cent. Indian. Since that date the consumption has risen + to an average of 5·73 per head of the population, but only 11 per + cent. is Chinese tea, while the tea grown in India and Ceylon is 89 + per cent. + +Footnote 20: + + “There is no harbour in the world where one may see so many craft as + at Hankow. Anchored in several rows, they reach for miles along the + river banks.”—Consul BULLOCK, _The Geography of China_. + +Footnote 21: + + Foreign Office Report No. 2086, May, 1898. + +Footnote 22: + + It is usual for the missionaries of the China Inland Mission and for + those of the SZE CHUAN mission of the C.M.S. to live in Chinese houses + actually among the city populations, a course which is considerably + criticised on grounds of health and safety. + +Footnote 23: + + Diplomatic and Consular Reports, No. 458, China, Foreign Office, May, + 1898. + +Footnote 24: + + _Through the Yangtze Gorges_, A. J. LITTLE, p. 246. + +Footnote 25: + + Consul Bourne “risks” an estimate of the value of goods exported from + Sze Chuan by this route at £3,300,000 annually, while imports coming + up the rapids and passing through the Imperial Customs amounted to + £1,776,586 in 1897. The freight on cotton goods from Ichang to + Chungking is estimated at £3 8_s._ 6_d._ per ton, a scarcely + appreciable increase in cost on every yard after a transit of 500 + miles. + +Footnote 26: + + These pits are reported as producing 132 lbs. of salt daily each. + Captain Gill learned at Kuei Fu that SZE CHUAN salt brings in a + revenue of about £2,000,000 sterling annually, but this seems + incredible, as it would make the annual salt production of the + province about 237,946 tons. + +Footnote 27: + + Dr. WELLS WILLIAMS, on p. 812 of _The Middle Kingdom_, vol. i., says + that a literary man would have such a sentence as— + + “May I be so learned as to secrete in my mind three myriads of + volumes”; + “May I know the affairs of the world for six thousand years.” + + While a shopkeeper would adorn his door with such mottoes as these— + + “May profits be like the morning sun rising on the clouds”; + “May wealth increase like the morning tide which brings the rain”; + “Manage your occupation according to truth and loyalty.” + “Hold on to benevolence and rectitude in all your trading.” + + Dr. Williams adds that the influence of these and countless similar + mottoes which are to be seen throughout the land is inestimable, and + is usually for good. At all events it is better to have a high ideal + than a low one. + +Footnote 28: + + Although the Temple of Chang-fei stands 200 feet above the river at + low water, the one which preceded it was carried away in a great flood + in 1870, when the water actually rose to the height of the present + roof. The present gorgeous structure cost 10,000 taels. + +Footnote 29: + + The volume from which this picture was taken and enlarged was printed + in Shanghai. + +Footnote 30: + + This term “dog-faced” apparently does not bear the meaning which we + put on it, for the woman in the illustration on page 496 with a + head-dress of solid silver and heavy white silk from the mountains of + FU KIEN is a member of what the Fu-chow Chinese call “dog-faced” + tribes. + +Footnote 31: + + The charities of China have been several times alluded to, and it + seems fitting before leaving Wan Hsien, where they are both numerous + and active, to devote a special chapter to them. The sketch is an + imperfect and limited one, but it may help to point the way to a field + of very interesting inquiry. + +Footnote 32: + + A mow, roughly speaking, is about one-seventh of an acre. + +Footnote 33: + + I am indebted for most of the foregoing facts to Mr. W. R. Carles, + lately H.B.M.’s consul at Chinkiang, and to the very careful + investigations made by the Rev. W. W. Lawton for the Christian + Literary Association of Chinkiang. + +Footnote 34: + + For these very interesting facts regarding Wan, I am indebted to my + host there, Mr. Thompson, of the China Inland Mission. Statistics are + not available. + +Footnote 35: + + I must also mention, in extenuation of sundry faults of which I am + conscious, that I went to Western China solely for interest and + pleasure, and not with any intention of writing a book, and that, + instead of having careful and copious notes, I have only journal + letters to rely upon. + +Footnote 36: + + This word, which we apply universally to Chinese officials, is + Portuguese. The Chinese designation is _kuan_. + +Footnote 37: + + I was told afterwards that a foreign missionary in an open chair had + passed through not long before, and being annoyed at the curiosity and + crowding of the people, had gone with a complaint to the _yamen_, and + it was supposed by some of my friends that they were avenging this on + me. + +Footnote 38: + + I cannot give the local distances in English miles, because, though + the Chinese _li_ is 1818 English feet, the _li_ of the mountain and + the plain, and even of the good and bad road, differ in length. + +Footnote 39: + + I was present at a “drawing-room meeting” in Shanghai when Mrs. + Archibald Little, of Chungking, took the humane initiative of + establishing an “Anti-Footbinding Society,” which has now many + branches, and is undoubtedly commending its aims to many men of the + intelligent classes. The mission schools for girls are in general + absolutely against the crippling process, and the wives of many of the + younger Christians have “big feet.” + +Footnote 40: + + See Mr. Bourne’s Report on the Trade of Central and Southern China, + Foreign Office, May, 1898. + +Footnote 41: + + I must repeat that there are very good inns in SZE CHUAN in the + cities, _i.e._ good for China, and at the regular stages, but, besides + that I was avoiding cities because of the rough element which they + contain, I was travelling less than the usual distance daily, and had + to put up with the Chinese equivalent of the “hedge alehouse” + accommodation, which the ordinary travelling Chinese would have + disdained. + +Footnote 42: + + These are all attainable in scholarly translations, and, along with + chapter ix. of Dr. Wells Williams’ invaluable volumes, _The Middle + Kingdom_, should be read by everyone who takes more than a merely + superficial or commercial interest in China. + +Footnote 43: + + A translation of these is given in the _Chinese Repository_ (vol. vi., + p. 131). + +Footnote 44: + + Dr. WELLS WILLIAMS, _Middle Kingdom_. + +Footnote 45: + + Funeral ceremonies and superstitions are given in detail in _The + Middle Kingdom_, vol. ii., p. 244. + +Footnote 46: + + A detailed description of this building is given by Captain Gill in + _The River of Golden Sand_, vol. ii., p. 13. Chengtu has been often + visited, and two or three times described by English travellers, so + that I consider myself exonerated from giving more than mere notes of + my impressions of it. + +Footnote 47: + + The fall of the Min between its bifurcation at Weichou and Kuan Hsien, + taking the altitudes of these two towns as the basis of the + calculation and the Chinese _li_ at its average length, is + twenty-seven feet to the mile, but from Weichou to Li-fan Ting it is + no less than forty-five feet to the mile. + +Footnote 48: + + I could not hear of any but Captain Gill, and three Russians a few + months before, and all had reasons of their own for doing so. + +Footnote 49: + + A pony had rolled on my hypsometer, and I spent much of the day at + Li-fan in constructing another with the aid of a tinsmith. It was but + a rude construction, but as it made the height of Li-fan come to + within ten feet of that given by Captain Gill, I venture to present + the altitudes of Tsa-ku-lao and a few other places as approximations + to the truth. + +Footnote 50: + + In this case a _Tu-tze_ is a tribal chief, recognised as such by the + Chinese Government. + +Footnote 51: + + Captain Gill met with a mountain of the same name on his Tibetan + journey, so it would appear that Ja-ra is a Tibetan name. I could not + unearth any Chinese name for the mountain. + +Footnote 52: + + A careful and deeply interesting account of these excavations is given + by Mr. Baber in “A Journey of Exploration in Western _Sze Chuan_.” See + _Supplementary Papers_, vol. i., _Royal Geographical Society_. + +Footnote 53: + + Among the trees and plants behind Peh-Shih, which were interesting as + growing in one locality, were: the orange, pommeloe, pomegranate, + apricot, peach, apple, pear, plum, persimmon (_Diospyros Virginiana_), + loquat (_Eriobotrya Japonica_), date-plum (_Diospyros Kaki_), the + Chinese date tree (_Rhamnus Theezans_), walnut, Spanish chestnuts, the + _Ficus religiosa_, palms, bamboos, cypresses, pines, the “varnish + tree” (_Rhus-vernicifera_), the Tung oil tree (_Aleurites cordata_), + mulberry, oak, the _Cudrania triloba_, much used for feeding young + silkworms, a hibiscus, plane, the _Sterculia platinifolia_, the + _Paulonia Imperialis_, three varieties of soap trees (_Acacia negata_, + _Gymnocladus Sinensis_, and _Gleditschia Sinensis_), the tallow tree, + and very many others, my specimens of which were so destroyed by damp + as to render subsequent botanical identification impossible. Hemp was + considerably grown, and of two economic shrubs, both new to me, there + were several patches, the _Boehmeria nivea_, from the fibre of which + grass cloth is manufactured, and the _Fatsia papyrifera_, from the + pith of which rice paper is made. + +Footnote 54: + + The estimated distance to Cheng-tu by the windings of the rivers is:— + + Chung-king to Luchow 125 miles. + Luchow to Sui Fu 87 „ + Sui Fu to Chia-ling Fu 130 „ + Chia-ling Fu to Cheng-tu Fu 133 „ + ——— + Total 475 miles. + +Footnote 55: + + Mr. Bourne estimates the imports of cotton and cotton goods as + follows:— + + Raw cotton £500,000 + Native piece goods, home spun 1,000,000 + Indian yarn 600,000 + Lancashire cottons 300,000 + —————————— + £2,400,000 + + And the exports, which are chiefly raw or half-manufactured produce, + as follows:— + + Opium £1,800,000 + Salt 300,000 + Drugs 400,000 + Silk 200,000 + Miscellaneous articles, insect wax, tobacco, sugar, musk, 600,000 + wool-skins, hides, feathers, bristles, etc. + —————————— + £3,300,000 + + The returns for 1898, not yet out, are expected to show a very + considerable increase. + +Footnote 56: + + Readers are referred to sections 28 to 33 of Mr. Bourne’s report on + _The Trade of Central and Southern China_, May, 1898. (Eyre and + Spottiswoode.) + +Footnote 57: + + In order to avoid the fragmentariness of references to the Opium Poppy + and Protestant Missions, at intervals throughout this volume, I have + adopted the more convenient arrangement of giving a chapter on each of + these subjects. + +Footnote 58: + + _Report of a Journey to North Sze Chuan_, 1898. By Mr. G. J. L. + LITTON, of H.B.M.’s Chinese Consular Service. + +Footnote 59: + + This is not from any distrust of the accuracy of their facts, for no + foreigners know the lives and ways of the Chinese so well as they do, + but simply because many people think that they are prejudiced. + +Footnote 60: + + “This year the value of foreign goods imported amounted to more than + eighty million [taels]. The export of Chinese products might be about + fifty million [taels] or more. The foreign drug [_i.e._, opium] was + valued at more than thirty million [taels]. Thus there was a leakage. + China is not impoverished by commerce, but the impoverishment comes + from the consumption of opium.” + +Footnote 61: + + In _Les Missions Catholiques_, vol. xxiii. (1891), M. Louvets returns + the number of Roman Catholic converts in Pechili, Manchuria, Mongolia, + and Shantung as 73,620 in 1870, and in 1890, including 2000 in Kansuh, + as 155,900. + +Footnote 62: + + A servant of my own, not a Christian, gave a quaint reason for liking + to serve missionaries—“I never get boots at my head in the foreign + teachers’ houses.” + +Footnote 63: + + If I seem to pronounce opinions _ex cathedrâ_ on very insufficient + bases, it is owing to the avoidance of the constant repetition of the + modest phrase “I think,” which in nearly all cases must be understood. + +Footnote 64: + + Hundreds of temples, however, had undergone recent and thorough + repair. + +Footnote 65: + + See Appendix B. + +Footnote 66: + + _Imperial Maritime Customs. Report on the Trade of China for 1898._ + King & Son. London. + +Footnote 67: + + A couplet from a well-known anonymous lampoon, largely current as an + expression of popular opinion, is translated thus:— + + “Three hands has every magistrate, + And every officer three feet.” + + (The hands to clutch at bribes, the feet to run away from the enemy!) + +Footnote 68: + + In Mukden, early in that war, I saw Chinese regiments of remarkably + fine physique marching to their doom, armed with matchlock and “Tower” + guns, and pikes, the money which should have provided them with modern + rifles having enriched the officials who had the spending of it. The + modern rifles with which some of the rank and file were armed were of + all patterns, so cartridges of a dozen different makes and sizes were + dumped down on the ground in a vacant space in the city, without any + attempt at classification, and the soldiers fitted them to their arms, + sometimes throwing eight or ten back on the heap before finding one to + suit the weapon. The commissariat officials were grossly dishonest, + and where stores had accumulated, sold them for their own benefit. It + is a common practice for a military mandarin to draw pay for 800 men, + having only 400 with the colours, and, on an inspection day, to + impress 400 coolies of the city, put them into uniforms, and parade + them with the soldiers. + +Footnote 69: + + Mr. Meadows states that the highest mandarins get about ten times and + the lowest about fifty times the amount of their legal incomes by + means of “squeezes.” + +Footnote 70: + + Since writing the above pages I have read Mr. A. R. COLQUHOUN’S + chapters on “Government and Administration,” “The Chinese People,” and + “Chinese Democracy,” in which I find views similar to my own stated + with great force, breadth, and intimate knowledge. The last chapter + concludes with these important words: “It is only fitful glimpses + which strangers are able to obtain of the inner working of Chinese + national life—quite insufficient to form a coherent theory of the + whole ... but the data ascertained seem sufficient to warrant the + inference of a vast, self-governed, law-abiding society, costing + practically nothing to maintain, and having nothing to apprehend save + natural calamities and national upheavals.” + +Footnote 71: + + Many people think that _likin_, an inland tax, levied by the + provincial authorities on foreign goods in transit (_loti-shui_ being + a terminal tax), is an illegal blackmail, but it rests on precisely + the same foundation as every other Chinese ordinance—an Imperial + Decree—and its legality was certainly recognised by the British and + German Governments when they accepted seven _likin_ collectorates as + collateral security for the last Anglo-German loan. + +Footnote 72: + + The italics are my own.—I. L. B. + +Footnote 73: + + It was what are known as the “Hunan Tracts,” an infamous literature + circulated throughout the Empire, which accuses Christians of the + vilest crimes, and urges the populace to expel them, which have been + the cause of several of the anti-foreign riots. Now HUNAN is welcoming + Western learning and Christian teachers. + +Footnote 74: + + _Times’_ Shanghai correspondent. + +Footnote 75: + + The Chinese _li_ is 1814 English feet, but the mountain and the plain + _li_ differ in length. + +Footnote 76: + + These tables were kindly prepared for this volume by W. H. Wilkinson, + Esq., H.B.M. Consul at Ningpo, from the Trade Report for 1898 of the + Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs. The Haikwan tael, in which the + Customs accounts are kept, has been taken at 3_s._, as a fairer + current equivalent than the ²⁄₁₀–⁵⁄₈ average, by the advice of Mr. + Jamieson, C.M.G., late Consul-General at Shanghai. + +Footnote 77: + + Note that these figures include trade conducted by Chinese, or under + the Chinese flag, passing through the Maritime Customs. + +Footnote 78: + + These tables, giving an excess of imports over exports, will be seen + not to tally with my statement in the final chapter. In other years + similar tables have given rise to the belief that China is being + denuded of silver to pay for the balance, and is drifting towards + bankruptcy. But the Inspector-General, in the Customs Report for 1898, + from which these figures are taken, points out that, taking into + account the value of the gold exported from China, of the tea sent to + Siberia and Russia _viâ_ the Han River, of the twenty million pounds + of tea exported annually to Tibet, of the junk traffic to Korea and + the South, and of other exports of which the Customs take no + cognizance, there is an actual excess of exports over imports, as was + shown by careful statistics in 1897. He also points out as a positive + proof that the nation is well able to pay its way, that the Government + remittances to Europe for the service of loans, amounting in 1898 to + about Hk. Tls. 18,000,000, were made through foreign banks by the + medium of bills of exchange against exports.—I. L. B. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Corrected the Errata. + ● Used numbers for footnotes, placing them all at the end of the last + chapter. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + ● Enclosed bold font in =equals=. + ● The caret (^) serves as a superscript indicator, applicable to + individual characters (like 2^d) and even entire phrases (like + 1^{st}). + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77853 *** |