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diff --git a/78953-0.txt b/78953-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9edaa54 --- /dev/null +++ b/78953-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5883 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78953 *** + +[Illustration: NORTHERN CHINA and SURROUNDINGS Scale Approximately 212 +Miles to an inch] + +[Illustration] + + + + + CHINA + + + + + TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS + + CHINA + A Geographical Reader + + + BY + HARRY A. FRANCK + + WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS, LARGELY FROM PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR + + F.A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY + DANSVILLE, NEW YORK + + + COPYRIGHT, 1927 + F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY + + _Travels in Many Lands—China_ + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + + + + PUBLISHERS’ FOREWORD + + +The very best way to give boys and girls a clear idea of just what life +is to their brothers and sisters of other lands is to take them through +those lands. If they cannot go in person (and of course few can), a +well-written story of travel will be a valuable substitute for personal +experience. + +To be of educational value to the reader, a book of travel must first of +all be authentic. It must have been written by one who knows at first +hand the things about which he writes. A superficial knowledge gained by +flitting through a country along its main traveled routes is not +sufficient to enable a writer to tell a complete story about it. + +Among the notable travelers of our time, probably none has more +thoroughly covered many countries than Harry A. Franck, the author of +this book. His travels have not been mere sight-seeing tours. He has +gone into the out-of-the-way places and lived in the homes of the common +people, to study their habits and manner of living. He has visited their +temples and schools. He has learned something of their language and +talked with them on all manner of subjects so as to become familiar with +their views of life. + +From boyhood, Harry Franck had a desire to know about the great outside +world. In 1900, during his first summer vacation while attending the +University of Michigan, he set out, with only $3.18 in his pocket, to +see something of Europe. He worked his way across the ocean on a +cattle-boat, visited the principal cities of England, then Paris and the +Exposition that was being held there. He signed as an able seaman for +the return trip and reached Ann Arbor for the fall term, only two weeks +late. + +Mr. Franck worked his way through college and intended to make teaching +his profession, but that first European trip gave him an appetite for +more travel. When he was graduated, he started out, with only enough +money to buy supplies for his camera, to work his way around the +world—which he did in sixteen months. After this trip he wrote “A +Vagabond Journey Around the World,” which is regarded as one of the most +remarkable books of the kind ever published. Since then he has written +many other volumes telling of his experiences. + +During more than twenty years of travel, Mr. Franck has covered half a +hundred countries. He has journeyed 50,000 miles on foot and at least an +equal distance by primitive native methods. In gathering material for +this volume and for “The Japanese Empire” (in the same series), he +traveled for two and a half years through the Far East. He often endured +hardship and faced danger to give the world the truth about the Oriental +lands. + +This book may be given to children as supplementary geographical reading +with the assurance that it is based on actual facts verified by recent +travel. The world to-day is not what it was even a decade ago. +Conditions, customs, the very people themselves have changed; some +greatly, some slightly. A book of this kind, to be really helpful, must +reflect these changes. It is no less true, however, that a book of this +kind should be concerned chiefly with those characteristics and aspects +of a country and its people which have an element of permanence. For +this reason, the history and perplexing political problems of China are +merely touched upon by Mr. Franck. To do more would be outside the scope +of a geographical reader. + +Mr. Franck carries equipment for obtaining the best possible pictures. +Most of the illustrations in this volume are from photographs taken by +him personally, often under conditions that involved difficulty and +sometimes peril. + +As children read about the land of China, we feel confident that they +will be impressed with the fact that the people of the whole world are +one great family; that what affects one nation affects all nations to a +greater or less extent. They will realize that while certain lands may +seem “backward” to us who enjoy the conveniences of Western +civilization, we are indebted to them for many things that have made our +civilization possible. For example, the compass, which was essential to +the development of navigation and which, as improved by the Italians, +enabled Columbus to make his great voyage of discovery, was invented by +the Chinese nearly 4000 years ago. Children, like adults, must be led to +see that people everywhere have their virtues and ambitions, their +trials and hardships, and that the misfortune or the prosperity of one +country is reflected in other countries far away. + +Knowledge of these facts should prompt us to work for the peace and +well-being of all peoples, particularly through the channel of our +schools. In this connection, Payson Smith, Commissioner of Education for +Massachusetts, has aptly said: “Education in all lands should lead the +youth to recognize those interests which are common to humankind, to +magnify the virtues which all men hold in common, to minimize those +differences and distinctions which divide, and to interpret the history +of race and nation in those terms that are helpful to world progress as +well as to national self-respect.” + + + + + ACKNOWLEDGMENTS + + + To the Century Company, New York, publishers of Mr. Franck’s + “Wandering in Northern China” and “Roving Through Southern China,” + grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to use certain of the + author’s photographs which first appeared in one or the other of those + volumes. The illustrations referred to are on the following pages of + this book: 30, 36 (lower), 40, 46, 49, 53, 63, 66, 68, 72, 74, 78, 84, + 85, 86, 90, 98, 108, 125, 127, 128, 137, 144, 156, 163, 164, 166, 181, + 198, 201, 206, 209, 211, 216, 228, 232, 236, 238. + + To the Chinese Consul-General, New York, who gave the proofs of + “China” a critical reading, both the author and the publishers are + indebted for suggestions and comments. + + To Miss Lena M. Franck, the author’s sister, who, as an experienced + teacher, was able to give valuable advice, an expression of + appreciation is due. + +[Illustration: + + Area of “China proper” (east and south of heavy line) contrasted with + that of the ancient Chinese Empire which included also Manchuria, + Mongolia, Sinkiang, and Tibet. +] + + + + + CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + I CHINA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD 11 + II MANCHURIA, THE EASTERN THREE PROVINCES 21 + III THROUGH THE GREAT WALL TO PEKING 34 + IV OUR HOME IN PEKING 45 + V SOME QUEER CHINESE CUSTOMS 58 + VI ACROSS MONGOLIA TO URGA 70 + VII SHANTUNG, LAND OF CONFUCIUS 81 + VIII THROUGH THE HEART OF OLD CHINA 93 + IX THE GREAT MOHAMMEDAN PROVINCE 104 + X WHERE THE FISH WAGGED ITS TAIL 116 + XI CHINA HAS HER OWN WAYS 129 + XII THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLS 141 + XIII FOREIGNERS IN CHINA 151 + XIV ALONG THE GREAT YANG-TZE KIANG 159 + XV DIFFICULT JOURNEYS 175 + XVI DOWN THE SOUTHERN COAST 191 + XVII IN THE PROVINCE OF KWANGTUNG 203 + XVIII A SUMMER IN SOUTHWESTERN CHINA 215 + XIX AMONG THE PRIMITIVE TRIBES 227 + XX SZECHUAN, LARGEST OF PROVINCES 241 + PRONUNCIATION LIST 253 + + MAPS + THE OLD CHINESE EMPIRE AND PRESENT-DAY CHINA 8 + NORTHERN CHINA AND SURROUNDINGS Inside Front Cover + SOUTHERN CHINA AND SURROUNDINGS Inside Back Cover + +[Illustration: + + Keystone View Co., Inc., of N. Y. + + The Chinese came very near inventing the skyscraper when they built + the first pagoda of this sort. One sees a great many of them in + China. They have either six or eight sides, and are always an odd + number of stories in height, up to thirteen. Often, as here, they + have graceful veranda roofs. Pagodas are religious structures, and + in form resemble somewhat the Christian spire and the Mohammedan + minaret. +] + + + + + CHINA + + + + + CHAPTER I + CHINA’S PLACE IN THE WORLD + + +China is the oldest living member of the family of nations. It is the +country in which conditions to-day are most nearly like what they were +thousands of years ago. The long journey we are about to make through +all parts of it will be like going to a great museum. But this museum, +instead of containing the relics of people long dead, will look, for the +most part, as if it were being lived in by an ancient race. Here and +there, however, we shall see things that make us think of our Western +civilization. + +It seems hardly necessary to tell anyone where China is, or to say that +the Chinese make up nearly one-fifth of the whole human race. You +probably know that China occupies most of eastern Asia between Russian +Siberia and the Pacific Ocean, or the China Sea, and that its climate +ranges all the way from that of Canada to that of Florida. + +Doubtless you know, also, that politically China is no longer an empire, +as it was for thousands of years. Since 1911 it has been a republic, in +name at least. This republic has not quite the same area as the empire +had, for after the revolution which changed the form of government, +several parts of the vast territory declared their independence. Even in +what we may call China proper, different war lords rule in different +regions and there is a great deal of confusion. Of course all the most +intelligent and patriotic Chinese hope that this condition is only +temporary. + +Less than half the great territory that was once ruled over by the +Chinese Emperor (called the Son of Heaven by his people) is in China +proper. The rest of it consists of the great dependencies or colonies of +old China, almost all of which have now declared, or at least act as if +they had declared, their independence. Of them all Manchuria is the most +like China itself. The enormous lands of Mongolia, Sinkiang or Chinese +Turkestan, and Tibet are not Chinese any more than are the people who +inhabit them, but have very different soil and climate as well as +manners and customs. We shall find these former parts of the Chinese +Empire very thinly settled, some with hardly two persons to the square +mile, while in China proper there are as many as 675 people to the +square mile. + +During our travels through the eighteen provinces of China proper and +most of its former dependencies, we shall see that the Chinese have +their own ways, which in many respects are quite different from our +ways. Yet if we pause to think as we read, we shall discover that they +(and all the rest of mankind for that matter) are at bottom much like +us. We shall find that every people’s outward peculiarities are mainly +the result of a particular environment, of climate, soil, opportunities, +and the like. We shall see how absurd it is to look down upon the +Chinese, who have adjusted themselves to their environment more +successfully than almost any of us. Is it not proof enough of this that +China is still a nation thousands of years after the disappearance of +its sister nations, Babylonia and Assyria? + + + Recent History in China + +[Illustration: + + Chinese ladies of wealth and position, showing examples of the + beautiful embroidery for which this people is famous. +] + +Yet there are now many people who fear that China also is going to +disappear as a nation. In order to understand that point of view, we +shall have to look a little into recent Chinese history. For nearly +three hundred and fifty years China was under the rule of the Manchus, +who were really not Chinese at all, though gradually they came to seem +almost the same. It was against the Manchu emperor and the many less +powerful Manchu rulers under him that the Chinese revolted in 1911. + +But though a republican form of government may seem natural to us, who +have been used to one for many generations, it was not a simple thing +for the Chinese suddenly to change so completely. Under their Manchu +emperors only a small proportion of the Chinese had ever learned to read +and write. They had never had the right to vote and had known little of +what their central government was doing. They had not had newspapers and +magazines to keep them informed. Millions of them, living far from +Peking, the capital, and without education, had gained no real idea of +what government means. They had had to pay taxes every year or oftener +to someone who said he was collecting them for the government, and each +one saw the elders of his own village attending to its affairs. Perhaps +they were sometimes taken before a mandarin sent out from Peking, to be +tried for some crime or misdemeanor. But that was all that the great +mass of Chinese knew about government. + +We in America are great believers in education. In China there are +increasing numbers of men, many of whom have attended American colleges, +who realize that until the masses of the people learn to read and write, +at least, they cannot be expected to have intelligent ideas about +government. One Chinese, who is a graduate of Yale University, is a +leader in the movement for education of his countrymen, and he is +attempting to do away with illiteracy in one generation by means of a +simplified written language. Later on I shall tell more about language +difficulties in China, and more about the educational system in that +country. We can always be proud that the United States has done much to +bring educational advantages to the Chinese through the Boxer Indemnity +Fund. This fund consists of money which was due to the United States +from China because of lives lost and property damaged in the Boxer +Rebellion of 1900. Instead of using the money, our government turned it +back to China as a fund to establish Tsing-hwa University near Peking +and to bring promising Chinese students to America to be educated in our +colleges and universities. + +[Illustration: + + A screen in the palace of the late Empress Dowager in Peking is an + example of the wonderful artistic creations of the Chinese. +] + +Naturally enough, the Chinese did not know how to elect a president and +a parliament and all the other officials that are needed to run a +republican form of government. It was natural also that men who wanted +to have important government offices found ways to get them without +being elected. One of the favorite ways was to collect a private army +and start ruling over a certain city or county or province, whether the +people liked it or not. A Chinese who had been one of the chief generals +of the Manchu emperor began to send out men of his own choosing to +govern the different parts of the country. Although he had been elected +president by a parliament or congress (which he had largely chosen +himself) even he had only a vague idea of what a republic is, and +finally he tried to make himself emperor and establish a new dynasty. + +But there were too many other men who wished to obtain good positions +for themselves under this new Western form of government. Some of them +were subordinates of the president, and they knew that if he made +himself emperor their own chances of some day becoming president or +anything else of importance would be slight. So they opposed the +founding of a new dynasty, and the president who wished to be emperor +died in 1917 without having placed his family on the throne. + +After he was gone, and there was no strong man left in the central +government at Peking, many of the military governors of provinces and +even local officials which this president had appointed, became +independent. They had their own soldiers, and the people could do +nothing against them. For thousands of years the Chinese have been used +to being ruled by force, without having anything to say in the matter, +so most of them cannot see why they should be expected to take any part +in governing their country. + + + How China Is Governed + +This is what makes many people think that perhaps China as a nation, the +oldest nation on earth, is going to disappear. Since the revolution of +1911 nearly all its great dependencies have become practically +independent. Many men, under the name of _tuchun_, or marshal, or +general, and so on, have made themselves dictators over different parts +of China proper. Some of them are entirely independent of the central +government at Peking. Some only obey the orders of Peking when they wish +to do so. China no longer has a genuine central government. There is no +Chinese army, though there are millions of Chinese soldiers. Each +different ruler of different parts of the country has his own army, +which obeys him only. As we travel about this ancient country we shall +find that it seems like a collection of independent provinces or still +smaller divisions. Sometimes we shall find a single city divided between +two different generals. + +Many of these rulers with their own armies are very selfish men, who +keep for themselves as much as possible of the money they gather in +taxes. Some of them are constantly fighting among themselves, trying to +drive one another out and take more territory for themselves. Things in +China to-day are much as they would be in the United States if each of +our generals and colonels took the division or the regiment he has under +him and ruled the part of the country he is stationed in, without paying +any attention to orders from Washington. + +[Illustration: + + Manchu women decorated for a holiday. Their headdresses are especially + elaborate, but they also use white and bright red paint (rouge) on + their faces when they dress up. +] + +It will probably be some time before we know whether China is going to +break up into a number of small countries or remain the great nation it +has been for thousands of years. Some people think one of the marshals +or generals will finally conquer all the others and make himself +president or emperor of the whole country. Others fear that outside +nations may have to step in to establish order in China. Still other +people hope that the Chinese people themselves will be able sooner or +later to straighten out their own affairs, as they have done several +times before during their long existence. + +While all this misgoverning goes on in China, the Chinese remain +hard-working and cheerful, as they have so long been. The civil wars +among the various generals in different parts of the country make life +very unpleasant for the people. Before our travels are finished, I am +sure you will decide that the Chinese deserve a much better government +than they now have. Almost all foreigners who live among them find them +very likable, though of course they have their faults, just as Americans +and all other peoples have. + +[Illustration: + + One reason why there is not a larger sale for American farm implements + in China is that in many parts of the country the farmers _raise_ + their own pitchforks and other tools by binding small growing trees + into the desired shapes. +] + +You may be surprised, as I was, that we can travel almost anywhere we +wish, in all the eighteen provinces, even while many civil wars are +going on. A few foreigners have been killed and a number have been +robbed in China during the past few years. But when I show you how I +traveled in all parts of the country, often entirely alone, and through +many out-of-the-way regions, without ever being hurt or robbed, you will +probably decide that the Chinese are pretty good people after all. When +I tell you also that my mother and my wife, with our two small children, +went anywhere they wished, even late at night, in many of the great +cities of China, while rival generals were fighting within or outside +the walls, you will certainly admit that the Chinese are our brothers +under their yellow skins. + +[Illustration: + + A soap factory in Mukden, Manchuria, where the cakes laid out to dry + are all bright yellow in color. It is hardly the sort of soap that + we would care to use on our skin. +] + + + + + CHAPTER II + MANCHURIA, THE EASTERN THREE PROVINCES + + +We approached China, not by a steamer landing at Shanghai or Tientsin or +Canton, as most travelers do, but in the more modern, interesting way, +through Japan and its great new continental dependency, Korea (Chosen). +The Eastern Three Provinces, as the Chinese call what we know as +Manchuria, are situated much like our northeastern states, with Siberia +and Mongolia taking the place of Canada. Yet the moment we crossed the +big railway bridge over the Yalu River, we realized that we were in +China, even though we were not yet in China proper. At the very edge of +the river we began to see women with bound feet, coolies in blouses and +blue cotton trousers drawing rickshaws and pushing wheelbarrows, and in +front of the stores and hotels long upright wooden signs with strange +characters on them. + +[Illustration: + + Fourth and first pages of our passport, signed by Charles E. Hughes, + Secretary of State. +] + +In a way, however, Manchuria is partly Japanese and partly Russian. +After the war of 1904–5 between Japan and Russia the southern part of +the great railroad which the Russians had built there was turned over to +Japan. So the American-style trains that run through Korea not only go +on to Mukden, the capital of Manchuria, but there is a Japanese railway, +also with the kind of trains we have at home, 500 miles long from Dairen +and Port Arthur to Changchun, and many miles of Russian railway north of +that. The Japanese govern the land along their railway and certain parts +of all the large cities on its route. The rest of Manchuria is ruled by +a Chinese who is really independent of Peking and the rest of China. + +[Illustration: + + Second and third pages of our passport. The visas were stamped in many + different colors. +] + +[Illustration: + + A coolies’ tea shop in Mukden. The water is heated in these huge + teakettles. The woman in charge has bound feet. +] + +Two or three miles beyond the Japanese part of Mukden (near the railway +station) is the old city of Mukden. More exactly this is Fengtien, for +Mukden is the name given it by the Russians. Like almost all the cities +of China, it has a great wall about it made of huge bricks like blocks +of stone and with gateways so built that the roads through them have to +make two sharp turns. All Chinese city gates have this double-elbow +form, because the people used to think (as many of them do still) that +the air is full of invisible evil spirits, which can move only in a +straight line. Such gates also help to protect the city against enemies. + +[Illustration: + + An interesting study in Manchu costumes and customs. The woman in + front wears the peculiar headdress of her race, but grandmother, + behind, is enjoying an unburdened head and a long pipe. Being Manchu + women, neither has bound feet. The man looks as if he might welcome + a style that demanded shorter skirts. +] + + + Queer Sights in Fengtien + +Inside its walls Fengtien is a real Chinese city. Most of the streets +are rough and many of them are very narrow; that is the way the Chinese +have built their cities for thousands of years. Along the streets we saw +huge brass teakettles as large as nail-kegs. There was a charcoal fire +under each of them, and steam poured forth from the great spouts. The +Chinese are always drinking tea, and the little stands or stores behind +the great kettles are tea shops for the coolies and other poorer people. +Many of the women who tended these kettles wore the queer Manchu +headdress. This is something like a thin board nearly as wide as it is +long, set across the top of the head, with the jet-black hair wound +about it, and adorned with flowers and jewelry. Unlike their Chinese +sisters Manchu women do not have bound feet. + +Before other shops hung big wooden signs shaped like the strings of +“cash”—little brass coins with a square hole in the center—which some +Chinese still use as money. Such a sign shows that the shop is that of a +money-changer. There are so many kinds of money in China that places +where one can exchange one sort for another are common in all its +cities. + +[Illustration: + + You might think that the queer contraption carried by this peddler was + a jumble of big jackstraws. Instead, it consists of bamboo cages, + and in each cage is—not a bird, or a squirrel—but a cricket, a + singing cricket! The Chinese like to have them around and are + willing to pay for the pleasure. +] + +Among the peddlers of all manner of things who went up and down the +streets shouting their wares, were men with dozens of little cages made +of strips of bamboo as thin as straws. Inside each cage was a cricket or +two, or a katydid, or a grasshopper of the singing kind. The Chinese buy +these caged insects for their shops or their houses, just as we do +singing-birds. All along the streets we could hear the little creatures +contentedly chirping. I bought one for my little boy, who was then two +years old, thinking that it would be about the right size of bird for +him. But the cricket did not seem to like to belong to foreigners. It +would not sing for us at all. We had not intended to keep it a prisoner +long, for after all, birds and crickets and polar bears probably like +their freedom as well as the rest of us. So after a few hours we took +the cricket to the park and turned it loose. But I am afraid our +kindness did not do it much good; for two Chinese boys at once began +chasing it and probably they soon caught it and sold it back to the +cricket-seller again. + +For nearly three hundred and fifty years, the Manchus, big men of the +Mongolian race who originally came from Manchuria, ruled all the Chinese +Empire. They had a throne at Mukden, which travelers still go to see. It +is as empty now as the great palace in which it stands. To-day we might +almost say that there are no Manchus. There are many thousands of people +in China who still call themselves by that name; but while ruling China +the Manchus became so much like the Chinese that it is hard to tell them +from the rest of the population. We shall find that the Chinese almost +always absorb the people who come to live with them, even their +conquerors. + +One of the most amusing things in Mukden is its street-car system. The +cars are drawn by mules, and run from the Japanese railway station to +the old city of Fengtien. They are such miserable old cars that only the +poorer Chinese usually ride in them. Other people go by rickshaw or by +automobile or in what foreigners call a Peking cart, a sort of box set +on two wheels, covered by a rounded roof, and with no springs whatever. +Yet those same street cars once ran on Third Avenue in New York! When +electric cars took their place there they were sold to Tokyo, and when +the Japanese capital also adopted electric trolleys those old cars were +sent on to Mukden. The Chinese ruler of the Eastern Three Provinces +hopes soon to have electric street cars also, and then the old cars that +have traveled so far may go still farther, or perhaps be turned into +playhouses for rich Chinese children. + + + Up and Down Manchuria + +As we traveled up and down Manchuria by the Japanese railway, we did not +wonder that China would like to get back these three eastern provinces. +Manchuria is not only a very fertile country, it has few inhabitants +compared to crowded China. Thousands of Chinese coolies come to +Manchuria every summer, to work in the harvest fields and elsewhere. +Some of them go back home each autumn; but quite a few remain, so that +the old home of the Manchus is not only ruled over by a Chinese but a +large proportion of its inhabitants are now Chinese. + +[Illustration: + + Horse cars such as this one make leisurely trips between the Japanese + railway station in Mukden, Manchuria, and the old walled town. These + cars once saw service on Third Avenue, New York. +] + +The most important crop we saw along the way is what the Chinese call +_kaoliang_, very much like the Kaffir-corn or sorghum grown in our own +southern states. Great fields of this, so high that a man on horseback +can hide in it, stretched away over the horizon. Bandits sometimes +conceal themselves in the _kaoliang_-fields, so that the people of +Manchuria and of a part of northern China proper are always glad when +the grain is cut. Most Americans think that all Chinese eat rice. Up in +the north, however, where the winters are as cold as in Canada, there +are millions who almost never taste rice, but live on _kaoliang_, and +millet, and even corn and wheat, which also grow there. + +[Illustration: + + The grain of the _kaoliang_, one of the most important crops of + northern China and Manchuria, which often grows to a height of + fifteen feet. Incidentally, a field of _kaoliang_ makes a fine + hiding place for bandits. +] + +Another very important crop in Manchuria is the soya-bean. The food part +of this is pressed out and made into a kind of curd, which the Chinese +everywhere eat. Some of it is made into a salty sauce into which the +people dip each chopstickful of their food. A Chinese would dislike +going without his soya-sauce as much as we would dislike being deprived +of salt. What is left of the soya-bean after the food value has been +pressed out of it is shipped, in great round blocks that look like +grindstones, to all parts of China, to be used as fertilizer. + +[Illustration: + + Up in Harbin and the rest of northern Manchuria one often sees things + which remind him of Russia, for many of the people in that region + are Russians. Here is a droshky, such as might be hired for a ride + in Moscow. +] + +Northern Manchuria is a kind of Russianized China. Beginning at +Changchun, where travelers change from the American style trains of the +Japanese railway to Russian trains that remind one of Europe, there are +more Russians at the stations and farmhouses along the way than there +are Chinese. Even some of the men in Chinese soldier uniforms are +Russians, big blond men who look so much like us that we are surprised +that they cannot understand us. But it is harder to get along here than +on the Japanese railway line. All Japanese stations have their names on +the signboards in English as well as in Japanese. On the signboards +north of Changchun, however, the names are in Chinese and Russian, but +not in English. + +[Illustration: + + In Harbin in July it is terribly hot, and flies are very numerous. The + people don’t understand that they ought to “swat” flies and kill + them off, but they use a sort of horse-tail fly scarer such as this + peddler has for sale. +] + +Gaudy Russian churches, with queerly shaped steeples, and painted in +bright blue, green, and other strange colors, rise above all the larger +towns. Especially in Harbin, the traveler can almost imagine himself in +Russia. There, for instance, it is bad manners to go into an office +without leaving your hat and overcoat in the anteroom. You are expected, +on entering a store, to shake hands with the proprietor and the clerks, +and to do so again when you leave. We saw many Russian beggars, too, men +who had lost everything and been driven out of their native land when +Russia changed its government. At Manchuli, beyond which lies Bolshevik +Russia, we turned back toward Mukden and Peking. + + + + + CHAPTER III + THROUGH THE GREAT WALL TO PEKING + + +It was still another style of train that carried us from Mukden to +Shanhaikwan, the first town of China proper. The cars had rounded roofs +and were divided into compartments, like the cabins on a ship. The train +was packed full of Chinese soldiers, in very faded gray cotton uniforms. +They crowded some of the cars so that other passengers could not get on +at all, and they even slept on and under the tables in the dining-car. +Very few of them had tickets. We were to find this a common thing on all +Chinese railways. Many of the soldiers of the different marshals and +generals ruling China are not well trained or disciplined; some of them +are hardly real soldiers at all. But the trainmen, not being able to do +anything against their rifles and bayonets, have to let them ride +whether they have any real right to or not. + +At Shanhaikwan the Great Wall of China reaches the sea at last, weary +from its more than 1500 miles of climbing over the mountains. I passed +through the Great Wall in half a dozen different places before I left +China, so that it came to be like an old acquaintance. As you perhaps +know, it was built nearly two thousand years ago, to keep the wild +Mongolian tribes living north and northwest of it from getting into +ancient China. Yet they did get in, in spite of this great barrier along +the frontier, conquering, and for quite a long time governing, all +China. + +[Illustration: + + In July and August, on the way from Mukden to Peking, one finds plenty + of fruit on sale at the railway stations. A springy hickory or + bamboo pole such as this peddler carries may be shifted from one + shoulder to the other and is not burdensome. +] + +[Illustration: + + Two views of the Great Wall of China, which clambers over the + mountains for more than 1,500 miles from the desert to the sea. +] + +The Great Wall of China has often been called one of the seven wonders +of the world. Perhaps you would not think it so wonderful if you merely +hurried through one of its gates, or saw a short section of it. Much of +it is built of huge bricks or great blocks of cut stone, and it is from +twenty to thirty feet high and wide enough for two automobiles to pass +on its top. When you stop to think that the people who built the wall +had no modern machinery at all, that they had to cut all those stones +and make those great bricks by hand, then carry them and lift them to +where they were needed without even a wagon or a pulley, you will begin +to see that it is a remarkable job. Then if you ride or walk out along +the wall and see how it climbs and winds for mile after mile, up hill +and down dale, you will marvel still more. Finally, when you have passed +through it in half a dozen places, some of them hundreds of miles apart, +and found it still climbing on over high mountains, with a big tower for +its defenders rising above it every few hundred yards, you will +certainly admit that it is one of the greatest works of man. + +If the Great Wall of China were laid down on the United States, it would +stretch from New York nearly to Omaha, even with all its twists and +curves; and if it were straightened out it would reach almost to Denver. +It is true that it is not a solid stone wall. When we rode out along it +on donkeys behind the round-roofed town of Shanhaikwan, we found that +there it is really two brick walls, each about three feet thick, the +space between filled with earth and broken stone and the top paved with +bricks. These slate colored bricks are huge compared to ours; one of +them weighs more than twenty pounds. It is true also that far out on the +borders of Tibet, where the Great Wall ends at Kaiyukwan, it becomes +merely a high ridge of baked mud. But I am sure no nation to-day would +care to build one like it, even with modern machinery. The Chinese, by +the way, call the wall the “Wan Li Chang Cheng,” or the +Ten-Thousand-Li-Long Wall. As a Chinese _li_ is about one third of our +mile, the Chinese exaggerate in calling it more than three thousand +miles long. It really is only half that length, but I am sure it seemed +even longer to the many thousands of drafted men who built it! + + + China a Vast Graveyard + +There were many Chinese towns, with mobs of rickshaw-men struggling for +passengers at the stations, on the all-day ride from Shanhaikwan to +Tientsin. Some were large walled cities, where we could catch a glimpse +of very narrow streets as packed with people as our train was; and +everywhere we were made to realize how overcrowded a country China is. +If the living are many, the dead seem still more numerous. The country +is dotted with little cone-shaped mounds of earth, most of them about +four feet high. They are Chinese graves, very few of them marked by a +stone or in any other way. + +The Chinese revere their ancestors so deeply that each family preserves +its graves for dozens, sometimes even hundreds, of generations. When a +man dies, his children go to a geomancer, a kind of wizard, and have him +decide where the body should be buried. The geomancer pretends to +consult the invisible spirits which most Chinese still believe in, and +finally chooses a spot where he claims the dead man can rest well. As +the places chosen by geomancers may be anywhere, there are no graveyards +in China. Rather one might say that the whole country is a graveyard. We +thought the unmarked mounds on the way to Peking were thick, but later I +saw millions of them, always thickest near the big cities. + +[Illustration: + + In dry northern China, after a field has been plowed, the clods of + earth are sometimes broken up by dragging a stone roller over them. +] + +The graves are a great hardship to the people of China. With nearly half +a billion population, old China can hardly furnish any one man land +enough to grow food for his family. Yet almost every farmer’s little +patch of earth is made still smaller by the grave-mounds of his +ancestors. He has to plow around these graves every year, and must not +plant on them, so that they add to his work and decrease his crops. In +olden times the Chinese leveled their graves whenever a new dynasty +ascended the throne. But now that there are no more emperors, the graves +are left, and it begins to look as if some day there will be nothing +else left. + +[Illustration: + + The way to the Ming tombs is lined with figures of camels, elephants, + and other creatures. How large they are may be seen by comparing + with the small boy, who seems to be trying to find out “how the + camel got his hump.” Each figure is carved from a single block of + granite. +] + +The rich Chinese have much more elaborate graves than the simple mounds +of earth. If a man leaves his descendants money enough, a temple is +built to his memory. Here members of his family come, often for hundreds +of years afterward, to burn incense and say prayers before his +spirit-tablet. The tombs of dead Chinese emperors are still more costly. +There are groups of them on the north, east, and west of Peking. Two of +the groups may be reached by train, but Tung-ling, or the Eastern Tombs, +just north of where we were now traveling, can be reached only on foot +or on donkey-back, and this group I found most interesting. There are +not a dozen emperors buried at Tung-ling, yet the tombs cover hundreds +of acres. Each tomb includes several large buildings, elaborately +decorated inside and out, and there is a walled village of caretakers +for each tomb. + + + Imperial Tombs + +The people whose business it is to look after the tombs are all Manchus, +because only Manchu emperors are buried at Tung-ling. This is true also +of Hsi-ling, the Western Tombs, a hundred miles away on the other side +of Peking. So closely do the watchers guard the things belonging to the +dead rulers that three men with their keys are required to open one +tomb-temple. I got permission from the high-caste Manchu head man of one +of the villages to visit the tomb of the famous Empress Dowager, the +crafty old woman who ruled China for a long time up to the beginning of +the present century. One man knelt to unlock a padlock at the bottom of +the great door, another man climbed a stepladder to unlock one at the +top, while a third man attended to the ordinary lock in the middle. +Inside there were chairs covered with silk of bright yellow, the +imperial color. Yellow dragons, a symbol of the rulers, climbed the big +black pillars supporting the ceiling. The ceiling itself and the walls +were painted in colored squares. Food in silver and gold and lacquer +dishes had been set before the altar; for the Chinese believe that the +spirits of the dead become hungry just as living people do. + +The approach to a Chinese imperial tomb is lined with stone images of +animals and men. They are nearly always in pairs: two elephants, two +camels, two mandarins, two warriors, two horses, two strange beasts that +never existed anywhere except in a Chinese imagination. Especially at +the tombs of the Mings (who preceded the Manchus) north of Peking, the +stone guardians or servants are remarkable. Even the camels and +elephants are fully life-size, though they are chiseled out of hard +granite. Some of the stone men are so huge that I came barely to their +knees. At the Manchu tombs the stone figures are not so large, but the +carving is finer. + +Great pine forests surround all the imperial tombs, and people are +sternly forbidden to cut down a single tree. In fact until recently the +mountain range back of Tung-ling could not be touched by the ax or the +plow, because it was considered a “shield” against the evil influences +from the north that might disturb the dead emperors. But soon after the +revolution the government allowed the forests on the “shield” to be cut, +so that now the range supplies many fine logs for lumber, and colonists +have begun to cultivate the hillsides. It was a queer sight to see men +chopping and burning down the forests, and living and planting, here in +ancient China, very much as our pioneers and frontiersmen did when +America was first being settled. + + + A Manchu Summer Capital + +Over the range behind Tung-ling and outside the Great Wall is a very +remarkable place called Jehol which few foreign travelers ever see. It +was a summer home of the Manchu emperors, and some of them built +magnificent palaces and surprising temples there. One called the Potala +is copied after the great temple of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa in Tibet, +which very few white men have seen. It clambers in building after +building up the hillside. Another temple has inside it a golden figure +of Buddha so large that I had to climb to the fourth story to see the +face, and many of its dozens of arms were much higher than that. Still +another temple has five hundred life-size golden Buddhas, varying in +features and attitudes, sitting on either side of long gloomy +passageways. These figures we shall find in most large Chinese cities. +They are supposed to represent Buddha in all of his moods and tempers. + +The scenery of Jehol I found far from ordinary. Among other strange +forms in the great circle of mountains about it is a mammoth upright +rock shaped like a policeman’s night-stick. The Chinese call it the +“clothes-beater,” because to them it resembles the club which Chinese +women use in washing their clothes at the edge of a stream or mud-hole. +Nearly half a day distant from Jehol by donkey travel I could still see +this strange rock standing above the horizon. + +Along the railway from Manchuria the territory grows very uninteresting. +When large mounds, almost as white as dirty snow, rose on the landscape, +we at first took these to be graves, but found that they were salt, +shoveled up in the great pans of earth in which sea water is evaporated. +Salt is a very important product in China, although there are almost no +mines of solid salt, such as we have in America. There are salt +“gardens,” owned by the government but managed by foreigners, from which +formerly Peking received large revenues. Now most of the money goes to +local dictators. + +Tientsin, the port for Peking, and the leading port in northern China, +is seventy miles above the mouth of the Pei-ho and about the same +distance southeast of Peking. It was opened to foreign trade and +residence by treaty in 1860. In the foreign settlement, called +Tsuchulin, half a dozen European countries own land, and have their own +laws and police and government. Yet about the docks even of this foreign +part of town we saw many gaunt, hungry-looking coolies who haul wagons +of freight along the cobblestone wharves for wages of about six cents a +day. We soon left Tientsin behind and sped away toward Peking. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + OUR HOME IN PEKING + + +For nine months we lived in the Chinese capital, and found it a +delightful home. Our house was out on the eastern edge of the Tartar +City, so close under the great Tartar Wall that the sun was late in +reaching us every morning. It was a Chinese house. That is, it had no +cellar and no upstairs, not even a garret. Really it was four houses, +one on each side of a brick-paved court about thirty feet square, each +house having two rooms. Whenever we went from the bedrooms to the dining +room, or from the living room to the nursery, we had to go outdoors. But +as the sun is almost always bright in Peking, even on the coldest winter +day, we did not mind doing that. The courtyard of a Chinese house +insures plenty of light and air and makes up for the lack of certain +conveniences that Westerners are used to. + +[Illustration: + + Outside the Tartar Wall at Peking, showing the watch towers at its + corners. We lived on the eastern edge of the Tartar City, just + inside this wall, and we found that its height made a difference in + the time the sun rose for us. The top of the wall is a promenade + where foreigners and wealthy Chinese often go for an airing. +] + +We had five servants, all of whom cost less than one servant does in +most parts of the United States. Four of them were men and one was a +woman, and none of them knew a word of English. So of course we had to +learn Chinese. By his third birthday my son spoke Chinese better than he +did English. One servant, called “boy,” though he was forty years old, +was a kind of butler and chambermaid. He made the beds, waited on table, +answered the doorbell, and bossed the other servants. The cook was also +a man, and he was an excellent cook, for he had once worked in the +kitchens of the Manchu court. The coolie was a tall, strong young man +who swept the floors and the court, kept the coal stoves burning, washed +the dishes, and did all the laundry. The rickshaw-man had nothing to do +but draw us about town in his shining rickshaw on its pneumatic-tired +wire wheels. This was kept just inside the street door which opened into +the court. Sometimes he ran five miles with me, as fast as a +cross-country runner, although I weigh about 170 pounds and might have +with me my son or some baggage. The woman servant was called the _ama_. +She took care of the children, besides doing all the sewing and other +work of that kind. + +Peking servants do not get Thursday and Sunday afternoons off. They work +all day long, seven days a week, unless you tell them to go out and +enjoy themselves. Yet they are very cheerful and respectful and +kind-hearted. Some Americans and other foreigners living in Peking have +a dozen servants, and a whole collection of houses, one back of the +other, inside a great wall. China, you know, is the land of walls, +though it has no fences. There is a wall around the country, at least on +the north and northwest; almost every city is surrounded by a wall, and +most Chinese live inside a walled “compound.” Ours shut us off +completely from the sight of our neighbors, though not from the sound of +their voices or the noises of the streets. All day long and even late at +night peddlers selling food and all sorts of things wandered through our +street, each one making some peculiar sound to show what he was selling. +The man who sharpened knives and scissors blew a horn or clashed a dozen +pieces of iron fastened together with a cord. The barber twanged what +looked like a huge pair of tweezers. The china-riveter, who mends broken +dishes, carried bells. Blind beggars, tapping along the street with a +long cane, struck a little hammer on a big brass disk like a musician’s +cymbal. + +Our Chinese neighbors seemed to eat frequently between meals. When a man +or a woman, a boy or a girl, felt hungry he stood in the doorway of his +house or compound with a few big copper pennies in his hand until the +cabbage man or the rice man or some other food seller came along. A few +of these peddlers had little carts on wheels, but nearly all of them +carried their wares at the ends of a springy pole balanced on one +shoulder. Even the barber carried his shop with him on a pole, and when +our “boy” or our coolie wanted his hair cut, or rather, his head +shaved—for that is the Chinese style now—he squatted out in the street +while the barber did the job. + + + Peking Streets and Alleys + +The _hutung_, as the narrow side streets of Peking are called, are not +paved but are covered with black earth pounded hard by many feet. During +the rainy season, which usually comes in the summer, they are likely to +be deep in mud. But the most unpleasant feature about Peking is its dust +storms. Sometimes immense clouds of dust sweep through the city until +everything—even one’s eyes—is filled with it. One hot night, when we had +left all our windows open, such a storm blew up, and in the morning our +faces and our bedclothes were covered with yellowish brown dust. Some +people think this dust comes from the Gobi Desert, outside the Great +Wall, but actually it consists of particles of dry dirt from the streets +and from the cultivated fields all about Peking. + +[Illustration: + + This was one of the comparatively few peddlers in our Peking + neighborhood who owned a cart. Plenty of men with things to sell + went through the narrow street outside our house, but most of them + carried their wares on a shoulder pole. +] + +Besides its many _hutung_ Peking now has some wide streets on which run +electric street cars. Until recently, however, there was not a street +car in China, except in the foreign concessions in some of the big +ports. The great majority of the Pekingese ride in rickshaws. The police +said that they had registered more than forty thousand of these grown-up +baby-carriages. Not only men but (in spite of a law forbidding it) young +boys draw them. It was a sad sight to see two small boys, who should +have been in school, running along the streets with a big fat man in +their carriage, one boy pulling and the other pushing. Sometimes +rickshaw boys are sent home, but the law is not always enforced. It is +interesting to remember that the rickshaw was brought over to China from +Japan. It is said to have been invented by an American missionary for +the comfort of his invalid wife. + +It is said that rickshaw-pullers do not live long, because the running +gives them heart disease. Once during our nine months in Peking I saw a +rickshaw-man who had dropped dead between the shafts, letting the +carriage fall over backward with his passenger. But our own rickshaw-man +was more than forty years old, and he had been running ever since he was +a boy. Life is very hard for most of the poor rickshaw-runners of China, +especially those who do not have regular jobs with a foreigner or a +wealthy Chinese. They have to wander the streets or sit in their +carriages in all kinds of weather, and in the winter some of them freeze +and even starve to death. + +Besides its more than forty thousand rickshaws Peking has queer horse +carriages, that look like piano boxes on four wheels; there are quite a +number of bicycles, and of course many automobiles. Some people come in +from the country on horseback, others ride in mule litters, which look +like little prairie schooners without wheels, slung on two poles that +are fastened at each end to a mule. Formerly many people rode in sedan +chairs, carried by men. But now such vehicles are seldom used except to +carry a bride to her wedding or mourners in a funeral procession. Then +they are covered with red cloth and are very gay looking affairs. +Foreigners usually ride in rickshaws, for it is easier to talk to your +“horse” and tell him where to go than to try to guide an automobile +through the narrow and often crowded _hutung_. + +[Illustration: + + One of the styles of mule-litter in northern China. In such a + conveyance rich men and officials come to Peking from the northeast + or from any region where there are no railroads. +] + + + Strange Sights in Peking + +Peking is so filled with interesting things and places that we did not +see all even in nine months. First there are the shops, selling +everything you can imagine. Some are filled with canned and other goods +from our own land and from Europe. But most of them have only Chinese +wares. Here, for instance, is a toyshop, with all manner of playthings +to amuse the children. The Chinese, who are very fond of children, make +the most amusing toys you have ever seen, though often so flimsy that +they break easily. In some streets there are long lines of silk shops. +The Chinese produce great quantities of silk, and shops selling the same +article are more likely to be grouped than to be scattered about town. +This is so not only in China but almost everywhere in Asia. The clerks +in these shops often wear long silk gowns, like most of the wealthy men. +Perhaps the queerest shops in Peking are the drug stores. Some now have +the same wares as American drug stores, but the old-fashioned ones +display ground tiger bones, which the Chinese think will give a man a +brave heart, rat meat that is supposed to make the hair grow, and +snake-skins that are used for some malady or other. + +Then there are the coffin shops. The Chinese who can afford it always +have themselves buried in great wooden coffins that look like big hollow +trees, with tops so heavy that a man cannot lift one of them. Rows of +these are kept in plain sight in the open shops along the streets, for +the Chinese think a coffin is a very pleasant piece of furniture. +Sometimes a Chinese son gives his father a beautiful coffin as a New +Year’s present, and the father keeps it in his parlor and brings in his +neighbors to see it. The Chinese have used so much wood in their coffins +that most of the country has no trees left, except about temples and +imperial tombs. + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese gentleman taking his pet birds out for a walk. +] + +The Chinese are very fond of birds, and there are many bird stores in +Peking and all the other large cities. We often saw an old man walking +down our _hutung_ with two or three birds sitting on a stick, each with +a string tied about one leg. Now and then they flew out as far as the +string would let them, and then came back and perched on the stick +again. Even bankers and rich merchants take their birds out for an +airing in China. Sometimes we would see a man carrying a cage in either +hand, and if he could find a park he would go and hang the cages in a +tree and let the birds sing, while he sat underneath smoking his long +pipe. Another curious Chinese custom is to fasten a whistle to a pigeon +in such a way that when the bird flies the air rushes through the +whistle and blows it. Some of these whistling pigeons are always flying +about over Peking and other large Chinese cities, making a weird music +and surrounded by flocks of other pigeons just as the sheep or cow with +a bell is followed by the others of the flock or herd. + +[Illustration: + + The buildings inside the formerly “Forbidden City” of Peking contain + great art treasures, and people are now allowed to see these—but + they are not supposed to take pictures. Down near the big bronze + turtle is a policeman who is on his way to tell me that my camera + must not be used. +] + +In Peking there are wonderful old palaces and temples such as the +temples of Confucius and the lamas from Mongolia. In the center of the +Tartar City are dozens of palaces with golden-yellow roofs, all +surrounded by an imperial-yellow wall. Once the emperors lived there, +and it was called the Forbidden City. But now travelers can visit it by +paying a small fee, and find inside museums of old Chinese things, +wonderful vases and paintings and lacquered screens. Around this old +home of the emperors is the Imperial City, once filled with Manchu +courtiers and surrounded by a great wall roofed with blue tiles. Then +outside that is the Tartar City, in which we lived, though formerly only +the soldiers of the Manchu rulers with their families could live there. +South of this is what foreigners call the Chinese City, bigger than all +the Tartar City and also surrounded by a great wall. + + + Walking on the City Wall + +As the streets are not always pleasant, most foreigners and the richer +Chinese take their promenades on top of the Tartar Wall. Just outside +our house was a gate that opened on a ramp or inclined walk leading to +the top of this wall, and every afternoon our little boy would go up +there to play. It is even larger than the Great Wall of China, being as +high as a three-story house and so wide that four automobiles might run +abreast on it. It is made of great dull-blue bricks, filled in between +with earth and stones, and paved over with other bricks. A parapet on +either side, so high that only a grown person can see over it, keeps one +from falling off the wall. At each corner of the city, and over the two +gates in each side of the wall, are great roofed structures that look +like apartment houses, though only birds and bats live in them. + +It is thirteen miles around the top of the Tartar Wall. One day I +started out after breakfast and walked the entire distance, returning +just in time for one o’clock dinner. As most of the wall is made of +earth, grass and shrubs grow on its top and sometimes on its sides. In +some places I had to make my way through what looked like a jungle. But +the Chinese find use for everything, and in the autumn men come and cut +the high grass for hay and the brush for firewood, and sometimes +soldiers who guard the gates make little gardens on top of the wall. In +one place, behind the home of the American Minister to China, our +Marines patrol the wall day and night and do not let anyone who might +make trouble pass. That is because in 1900 the Chinese rose against the +foreigners in their Legation Quarter at the foot of the southern wall +and tried to kill them all. + +A queer thing about the Tartar Wall of Peking is that only foreigners +and the better class of Chinese are allowed on it. Even those of our +servants who had been born in Peking and had always lived there had +never been on top of the wall, until they worked for us. The Chinese say +that if the poor people were allowed on the wall they would crowd it and +make it very filthy; the foreigners say it is too easy a place to attack +them from, if the people get angry again as they were in 1900. So our +little boy was a kind of passport for our servants. If the _ama_ had him +with her, the Chinese soldiers at the ramp-gate let her go up and stay +without question. But if she tried to go up alone they would not open +for her. So our “boy” and our coolie and even our cook used to ask +permission to take our small son up on the wall, in order that they +might enjoy the wonderful view of Peking, green with tree-tops, and of +the Western Hills far off on the horizon where the sun sets. + +[Illustration: + + The Temple of Heaven at Peking is out in the Chinese City. Here the + Emperor formerly came once a year to worship. Now the place is a + tourist picnic ground. In the foreground are the chairs of an + open-air restaurant. +] + + + + + CHAPTER V + SOME QUEER CHINESE CUSTOMS + + +Looking down from the great Tartar Wall of Peking we saw Chinese ways +quite different from our own. The great flat, tree-topped capital with +only artificial Mei-shan, or Coal Hill, rising above it, does not look +at all like an American city. The highest structures are the empty +defense towers over the city gates. The only buildings reminding one of +our own large cities are those built by foreigners—hotels, mission +schools, and American hospitals. The city stretches so far that +schoolbooks used to call Peking the largest city in the world. Now we +know that it has hardly a million inhabitants, and we realize that a +very extensive city with mostly one-story houses inside compounds +(walled enclosures) may have fewer people than a city smaller in area +but with buildings of many stories. + +There are few sewers in Peking, and in most parts of it there is no +running water. Just outside our compound wall was a big well with a +windlass and some ancient buckets. All day long, men with loudly +squeaking wheelbarrows wheeled water in tall wooden tubs from this and +the many other public wells all about town, and sold it at the poorer +houses. The street sprinklers of Peking consist of two buckets of water +on the end of a pole, and a long-handled wooden dipper. A soldier or a +coolie moves slowly along the principal streets throwing water with this +dipper. As it is often bitterly cold in Peking (though a clear, dry cold +that is rather enjoyable) ice forms quickly, and sometimes even the man +with the dipper has hard work standing up. In midwinter I used to ride +about the city on a little red horse that I had brought from far western +China, and in some of the streets made icy by the dripping of +water-wheelbarrows or by the street-sprinkler, my mount acted as if he +were on skates. + +[Illustration: + + The part of Peking known as the “Forbidden City.” It is not forbidden + any more, because there are no more emperors to live there and keep + ordinary people out. One can look down upon its wonderful palaces, + as here, from Mei-shan (“Coal Hill”). +] + +[Illustration: + + In China prisoners are given useful work to do, as they are in + America. This man, in a prison yard, is spinning yarn. The + characters on his jacket give his number, which is 820. +] + +Inside the corners of the city wall are dumping grounds. But dozens of +rag-pickers, mostly women and children, come to claw among the rubbish, +and they leave very little. Here the camels bringing freight from the +north and west sleep by night. Because the foreigners they see are never +ragged, as so many Orientals are, most Chinese think that all foreigners +are rich. We could hardly pass through the smaller streets, or peer over +the parapet of the Tartar Wall on which the common people are not +allowed, without hearing dozens of boys and girls shouting “E mao +ch’ien!” As nearly as we can translate so different a language as the +Chinese, this means “One dime money!” But any of these ragged urchins +would be glad even of a big copper, and they would remain friendly and +smiling even if we gave them nothing. One of the most remarkable things +about the Chinese is that they can be cheerful even when it seems as if +they must be miserable. The real beggars of Peking are professionals, +who do nothing else. They have a union, and many of them have much +better clothes than those they wear when wandering up and down the +streets. Begging is not looked upon as disgraceful by some Chinese. In +fact, they have a very gentle word for a beggar; they call him a +_yao-fan-ti_—that is, a “want-rice-man.” + + + Skating, Eating and Sleeping + +[Illustration: + + Women making silk thread by the crude process still used in most of + China. The thread is being unwound from a large reel onto smaller + ones. +] + +For a few days we were able to skate on the broad moat outside the +Tartar Wall. But soon dust ruined the surface of the ice, and the only +fun that remained was to be pushed along in sleds by coolies. Then men +began to cut the ice and pack it away in hollows in the ground along the +moats, covering it with earth and reed mats. There are no ice-houses in +Peking, and the average Chinese prefers tea to any kind of cold drink, +even in summer. It is a real summer too, even in Peking, so hot that +about the first of June great reed-mat awnings and false roofs are put +up over most of the stores and the courtyards of all but the poorest +people. A big company rents these _peng_ and sets them up, but will not +sell them. In the fall the company sends men to take them away again. + +Peking has thousands of public eating places. They range all the way +from the little stalls for coolies which we often passed in “Square +Handkerchief Alley” and other narrow streets on our way to the central +part of town, to great restaurants where rich Chinese come for their +feasts and banquets. Although Chinese food is different from our own, +most foreigners become fond of it, or at least of some of it. Such +things as old pickled eggs, sharks’ fins, bird’s-nest soup, and +silkworms may taste better to the Chinese than they do to us; but there +are also pork, and duck, and pheasants and partridges, vegetables and +fruits, and many other things quite like the food we eat. But the +cooking is different, and everything must be cut up into small pieces +before it is put on the table, for there are no knives and forks. The +Chinese eat with two chopsticks, made of bamboo or bone, or perhaps +ivory, and both held in one hand. After some practice we had no great +difficulty in picking up our food with chopsticks, but we never became +accustomed to eating out of the same bowls as other diners, and we did +not quite like having a kind Chinese host pick out a tidbit for us with +his own chopsticks. + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese kindly showing us the proper way to hold chopsticks. As a + matter of fact, if he had known that I was taking his picture he + would probably have run away. Some Chinese think that anyone by + harming the picture of a person can harm the person himself. +] + +The Chinese do not kiss and they seldom put their arms around one +another. Nor do they shake hands as we do. When two men meet, each one +clasps his own hands together and shakes them, at the same time bowing +and smiling. Women do the same. Perhaps the Chinese and Japanese are +right when they say that kissing, or even hand-shaking, is not very +sanitary. + +Chinese babies have no cribs or cradles; instead they learn to sleep +tied in a cloth on the mother’s back, or on the back of a servant or a +young brother or sister. No doubt it is because they are brought up in +this way that the Chinese can sleep anywhere at any time, undisturbed by +anything. When a Chinese baby is old enough to walk it is given gay +cloth shoes with a cat’s face on the toe of each. Small children’s caps +usually have the face of a demon on the front, because some Chinese +still think this will scare off evil spirits that might harm the child. +But many of the old customs no longer have a particular meaning. + + + Wedding and Funeral Processions + +Often we met strange processions in the streets of Peking. We knew that +it was a wedding procession if somewhere in the middle there was a +closed sedan chair, covered with bright red silk. Most Chinese marriages +are still arranged between the families by matchmakers, and the new +husband and wife probably have never seen each other. The girl, at +least, may not want to be married at all. Sometimes people on the street +can hear her crying, inside her chair, though no one is able to see her. +When she is delivered at her husband’s house she becomes not only a wife +but also a kind of servant of her new mother-in-law. Some Chinese men +have several wives, but the first one always has the best position. Of +course the Christianized Chinese follow Western practice in having but +one wife, and before marrying, many of them court a young lady of their +own choice. + +If the principal part of a procession is a longer, heavier burden than a +sedan chair, the onlooker knows that a funeral is passing. The heavy +wooden coffin, carried by a dozen or more men, is usually covered with +brightly colored silks, and generally there is a live rooster on top of +it. The rooster seems to represent the soul of the dead person, and is +sacrificed at the grave. These processions are often very long, and +whether a wedding or a funeral is being held there is a great variety of +the noises which the Chinese consider music. + +[Illustration: + + The principal part of a Chinese funeral passing through the streets of + Peking. Bright colors are used in the covering for the coffin, in + the hearse, and in the garments of the pallbearers, so that the + procession is not very sad looking to an American eye. +] + +Dozens and sometimes hundreds of ragged men and boys, dressed in rather +dirty garments of strange designs and gay colors, march in a funeral +procession. They carry queer looking pieces of furniture and other +strange things. Some bear paper horses and automobiles, paper wives and +servants, bundles of silver or gold-colored paper to represent money. +All these are burned at the grave, because the Chinese think the dead +need such things in the next world. Centuries ago live horses and live +servants were killed at the grave, so that they could serve their +masters in the Chinese heaven. + + + In a Chinese Theater + +[Illustration: + + This automobile, which I saw in the _hutung_ (narrow street) leading + to our home in Peking, was made entirely of paper and cardboard, + including chauffeur and footman. It was to be carried in the funeral + procession of a rich man and burned at his grave so that, as his + relatives believed, he might use it in the next world. +] + +Now and then we went to a Chinese theater, not only in Peking but in the +smaller cities and villages. Some of the theaters in the capital are +built much like ours, though the plays on the stage are quite different. +Many foreigners go to see Mei Lan-fang, China’s greatest actor. He is a +slender, ladylike youth, and always plays girls’ parts, as did his +father and his grandfather. In China acting is considered a very low +profession, but Mei Lan-fang now earns as much as our greatest actors. I +spent an afternoon at his home in the Chinese City of Peking, finding it +filled with very artistic things, and my actor host proved himself a +cultured gentleman. + +[Illustration: + + Mei Lan-fang, China’s greatest actor. He plays only women’s parts. + Here he is representing a girl who led troops to war after her + father was killed. +] + +In the old-fashioned theaters of Peking things are much as they are in +the crude actors’ booths set up at the edges of villages or as they are +in American circus tents. The audience sits on rough wooden benches, and +the back of each bench has a shelf for those sitting behind. Men and +boys place cups of tea and little dishes of peanuts and squash-seeds and +other food before each spectator. There is always a great hubbub in the +audience, for everyone one talks, and even shouts whenever he likes. To +add to the confusion, hot towels are constantly being thrown back and +forth over the heads of the people. One man or several men stand at a +tub of hot water and wring out the towels, then throw them in bundles to +other men, who distribute them to the audience and gather them up again. +In Chinese restaurants also the guests use hot towels before and after +eating. + +[Illustration: + + A view inside a Chinese theater, showing a play in progress on the + high stage. For the moment, the “outside-country-man” who was taking + the picture interested the audience more than the drama did. That + would not bother Chinese actors, but imagine what some of our + American “stars” would do if they were to be interrupted in such a + way! +] + +On a Chinese stage there is no curtain and almost no scenery. Or rather, +the curtain, such as it is, is at the back of the stage. The actors go +behind it to change their costumes, but they can always be seen by part +of the audience. Much of the acting is pantomime; that is, motions +without words. There is also a kind of dancing, and often the actors +shriek in terrible, unnatural voices. A man with a lot of flags sticking +out from his shoulders is supposed to be a general. A man who carries a +kind of whip is supposed to be on horseback, and there are other symbols +that mean something to the Chinese but nothing to foreign spectators. +Foreigners find the Chinese theater property man very amusing. He wears +black or coolie blue, and is supposed to be invisible to the audience. +So he wanders about freely among the actors, throwing down a cushion for +one of them to kneel on, piling a chair on a table to represent a +mountain, and so on. If an actor is “killed,” the property man helps him +to his feet and he walks off the stage. If the moon is supposed to be +shining, this “invisible” coolie holds up a crescent or a circle of +paper on the end of a stick. + +Some of the audience wander about among the actors and stand or sit on +the stage. Bands of ragged boys may crowd so close as to be under the +actors’ feet. Musicians with strange instruments sit on one side of the +stage, and come and go whenever they like. The deafening noises they +call music are positively painful to foreign ears. At intervals a +servant of one of the actors, dressed in his everyday clothes (even if +the drama represents a time centuries ago), brings his master a cup of +tea. The actor holds a corner of his costume across his face and drinks, +and the audience pretends not to see him do anything that is not part of +the play. + + + + + CHAPTER VI + ACROSS MONGOLIA TO URGA + + +Often we saw long files of camels come marching into Peking with +dignified tread. Unlike the camels of Egypt and Arabia, which have one +hump, these had two. In the winter they were very shaggy with long hair. +This hair is so valuable, for making blankets and similar things, that +in spring the drivers tie networks of strings about the animals to keep +them from shedding it along the way. In olden days these camel caravans +carried all the freight between Mongolia and Peking, and even to-day +they are strong competitors of the railroads in many parts of northern +China. + +The camels I saw so strongly lured me to the desert that I decided to +follow them over one of the long caravan routes. Besides, I wanted to +see Urga, the strange capital of Mongolia, far away across the Gobi +Desert. If I had traveled with the camels, however, I should have been +six weeks or two months reaching my destination. So I took the train +from the northeastern corner of Peking and traveled all day to Kalgan, +passing through the Great Wall near the ancient tombs of the Ming +emperors. From Kalgan, an American automobile, belonging to a Russian +who buys furs and sends them to New York, carried me 700 miles across +the desert in three and a half days. Yet there was no road at all most +of the way. First we had to climb a sandy and rocky river valley, some +of it so steep that teams of mules helped to draw the automobile. +Mongolia is a high plateau, several thousand feet above sea level. Then +we sped away across the Gobi, sometimes along the tracks made by the +camel and ox-cart caravans and sometimes by no track at all. + +[Illustration: + + The red-clad Mongol lamas or priests gathered excitedly around our + automobile whenever they found us halted on the 700-mile trip across + the Gobi Desert to Urga. The car was loaded to the limit. +] + +[Illustration: + + All Mongols ride, though their horses usually look too small for them. + This man wears his queer-shaped hat (representing a sacred mountain + in Mongolia) to show that he, like most Mongol men, is a priest or + lama. He wears also red boots and he stands by the side of a yurt or + felt tent. +] + +Much of the Gobi is hard gravel, with thin brown grass on it, not +shifting sand like the Sahara. There was even quite a lot of fertile +land on the first day’s ride, and thousands of Chinese colonists have +begun to cultivate this and build villages there. The Mongols themselves +are nomads, who do not plant but keep great herds of cattle, flocks of +sheep, and many horses, which they drive about wherever they can find +pasture. Their houses are movable, also, hardly more substantial than +tents. The Mongols call them _yurts_. They are round, with an almost +flat top, about six feet high in the center. Until they become dirty +they are white, for they are made of thick felt, fastened to a light +wooden framework. The Mongol women make this felt by laying sheep’s wool +on the ground, pouring water on it, and rolling it out into large +sheets. One of these houses can be taken down and packed on the backs of +animals in an hour, and set up somewhere else almost as quickly. + + + A Night in a Mongol Tent + +We spent one night in a _yurt_. We had expected to sit out on the desert +all that night, until we caught sight of three or four weather-darkened +felt huts. Half a dozen camels were lying on the bare ground near them, +and some twenty Mongol men, women, and children came out of the huts +when they heard us coming. One of the men was a lama, or Mongolian +priest, and though he also was only a visitor he bossed everyone within +reach. More than half the men of Mongolia are lamas, who usually live in +great monasteries in various parts of the thinly populated country. They +have shaven heads and wear long dark-red cloaks and big red boots. + +Such boots, as a matter of fact, are worn by all the Mongols, even women +and children. They are large enough to allow for half a dozen thick +woolen stockings, for the weather is very cold most of the time in high +Mongolia. It is so difficult to walk in these boots that Mongols on foot +move much as if they were wearing a ball-and-chain, like prisoners. But +this does not matter, for they travel almost entirely on horseback. Men, +women, and children are as much at home on a horse’s back as our cowboys +are. They all dress a good deal alike, in long coats usually made of +sheepskin with the wool on the inside. But the women, especially in the +region of Urga, the capital, and of the two or three other towns, wear +one of the strangest headdresses in the world. The photograph on page 78 +will give you some idea of how peculiar it is. + +[Illustration: + + The nomad Mongols of the Gobi live in round tents or _yurts_. On a + light wooden framework they stretch thick felt made from the skins + of their own sheep. Sometimes they have a stovepipe but usually they + simply leave a flap of the tent open so that smoke may escape. The + Mongols can take a house down or set one up in about an hour. +] + +[Illustration: + + I was glad of the warmth of a great sheepskin coat when I traveled + across the Gobi Desert. With me are a Mongol and his wife. +] + +When the lama invited us inside one of the _yurts_ we had to stoop to +get through the tiny doorway. The door was merely a flap of felt, and +when this was closed the _yurt_ became very hot. Yet the Mongols kept on +all their fur coats and other heavy garments, as if they were entirely +comfortable. A little iron cage in the center of the tent was filled +with fuel which made so quick and hot a fire that I think I should have +been roasted if I had not gone outside occasionally. No wonder nearly +all Mongols seem to have bad colds! Tea was prepared over this fire-cage +and served to us in brass bowls. The Mongols eat almost nothing but +meat. When I opened a can of cherries they hesitated to taste them, and +they were almost as much afraid of a bar of chocolate as if it had been +dynamite. I tried to give a bit of it to a young Mongol woman in the +_yurt_, but I found that this is very bad manners in Mongolia. Instead, +I should have handed it to one of the older women and let her pass it on +to the girl. Yet the women quarreled over the tin cans we threw away, +for such things are very valuable to people in a desert land. + +[Illustration: + + Two Mongols of the Gobi Desert riding their camels down a river valley + into Kalgan, a Chinese city. The camels have on their shaggy winter + coats. +] + +By and by all the women went to other tents and we lay down to sleep +with the lama and two other Mongol men. The lama sent another man +outside to sleep on the ground, because there was not room enough for +him inside, and all night long we heard him coughing. The lama took off +all but his trousers, said his prayers in a loud voice, and lay down on +a bundle of sheepskin robes. One of these robes he pulled over himself. +When I set up my cot, the lama said he would not dare to sleep on such a +thing, for fear of falling off it in his sleep. + +We might have lost our way during those three days if it had not been +for a row of telegraph poles carrying a single wire clear across the +Gobi. This is a part of the line from Peking to Paris. (When our first +little girl was born in Peking, the cablegram we sent to America was +flashed across Mongolia.) On the third night we slept in a lonely +telegraph station where two Russians live the year round. The last +half-day was among low hills. Along the way we saw thousands of marmots, +looking like gophers or prairie dogs as they sat on their hind legs +outside their holes. Many American women wear coats made of the skins of +the Gobi marmots. We also saw hundreds of antelope, sometimes long lines +of them racing across the horizon. + + + The Holy Capital of Mongolia + +Urga is a holy city. In it lives Bogda-Khan, whom the Mongols call a +“living Buddha” and treat like a god. When he dies, his soul is supposed +to enter the body of a boy born about the same time, and this boy is +brought to the great cluster of palaces inside a wall on the outskirts +of Urga and becomes a new Bogda-Khan. Pilgrims come hundreds of miles to +worship him, throwing themselves down on their faces on boards placed +outside his palace walls. I found this “god” had a dozen kinds of +automobiles and spent many thousands of dollars every year for other +Western inventions that he hardly knew how to use. Whenever he went to +the golden-roofed palaces of Urga itself he rode in an automobile, +usually his Ford, though he had several much larger cars. + +[Illustration: + + Just where the driver will sit on this queer vehicle is a mystery, but + perhaps he prefers to stand. The cart is of a Russian-Mongol + variety, seen at Urga, and the passengers are Mongol ladies in their + amazing headdress. +] + +Most of Urga is made up of temples and lamaseries, the monasteries of +the lamas. The most important ones have roofs covered with real gold +which gleams in the cold sunshine until it almost hurts the eyes. +Thousands of lamas in their dark-red robes live in Urga, and spend much +of their time squatting on cushions in long, closely packed rows inside +their religious buildings, studying their sacred texts by shouting them +at the top of their voices. In Urga there are hundreds of prayer wheels, +or rather, wooden cylinders, each under its own little roof. Inside each +“wheel” are thousands of prayers written on tissue paper, and the +Mongols think that every time they turn the cylinder around it is the +same as saying all those prayers aloud. So long lines of pilgrims march +about among the temples and stop to turn each prayer cylinder. Some of +the most pious throw themselves face down at every step, when making +this circuit, so that it takes them several days to make the rounds and +be ready to go home again. + +The Mongols do not keep shops, though they sometimes sell things in the +open-air market on the bank of their dirty little river. Some Russians +have stores in Urga, but nearly all the traders are Chinese. All kinds +of furs can be bought there, but nearly everything else for sale comes +from China or the outside world. The streets are just muddy lanes, and +most of the houses are surrounded by walls of tree trunks set upright in +the ground close together and sharpened on top. They reminded me of the +stockades our ancestors built against the Indians. + +China still claims that Mongolia belongs to her, but most of it is now +really independent—or rather, it is controlled by Bolshevik Russia. +Although the officials are Mongols, Russian “advisers” sent out from +Moscow tell them what to do. These advisers, like the lamas, seemed very +surly. Indeed, I have never been in a place where I felt less welcome. +For one thing, hardly had we reached Urga before my American companion +and I were arrested because someone said we had shot a Mongol on our way +across the desert. If we had been convicted we should probably have been +shot ourselves at sunrise next morning. But it took us only a few hours +to prove that we had been many miles away from where the Mongol was +shot, and that he was not hurt much anyway. It is not far from Urga to +Irkutsk, where the Trans-Siberian Railway would have carried us to +Europe. But of course I turned back toward Kalgan and Peking where I had +left my family, crossing the Gobi this time in two and a half days, +though even in September we found much snow and ice. + +[Illustration: + + A camel caravan making a slow journey across northern China. Usually + ten or twelve camels are held together by stout cords. One end of a + cord is fastened to the back of a camel and the other end to a stick + which runs through the nostrils of the camel behind. +] + + + + + CHAPTER VII + SHANTUNG, LAND OF CONFUCIUS + + +One day I took the train back to Tientsin and down to Tzinanfu, capital +of the province of Shantung, the land of Confucius. Grave-mounds of all +sizes were thick everywhere along the way, for this is one of the oldest +and most densely populated parts of crowded old China. Tzinanfu, with +its huge city wall surrounded by a moat in which many of the women wash +their clothes, is a mixture of very old Chinese ways and some quite +modern ones. Two railways come into it and automobiles may be seen in +the wide streets of a suburb outside its wall, yet most of the people +still travel as they did hundreds of years ago. Many ride on donkeys and +many more in “Peking carts.” As these have no springs, they are very +painful vehicles on the terrible roads of most of China. Every time a +Peking cart strikes a rut or a stone, the side of the box whacks the +passenger, so that unless he puts pillows or quilts all about him he +will be covered with bruises at the end of the trip. Only the front of +the box being open, the traveler by Peking cart can see little unless he +kneels and peers out above the mule’s tail. One boy I knew said these +strange carriages ought to be called “peek-out carts” instead of “Peking +carts.” + +[Illustration: + + A “Peking cart” of the kind used very generally in northern China. In + southern China the roads are seldom wide enough for a two-wheeled + vehicle. Being without springs or axle-grease, the Peking cart gives + one a rough ride, and most of the roads are not so smooth as this + one. +] + +But the chief Shantung vehicles are wheelbarrows. Hundreds of them go +screeching back and forth between the stations and the walled city, some +with freight and some with passengers. They are much larger than our +wheelbarrows, with a big wooden wheel sometimes as high as a boy ten +years old. Different kinds are used in the city and country. The city +wheelbarrows have a long benchlike seat with a back on each side of the +wheel, and a rest for the feet. They reminded me of an Irish jaunting +car. Often I saw one coolie wheeling eight and sometimes ten Chinese +women, who, because of their bound feet, could not walk to the factories +where they worked. These city wheelbarrows, which are cheaper than +rickshaws because more than one person can ride on one, even carry many +men passengers. + + + A Wheelbarrow Journey + +[Illustration: + + Passenger wheelbarrow in Tzinanfu, capital of Shantung Province. +] + +[Illustration: + + Once I changed places with the middle coolie of the three who + furnished motive power for my country wheelbarrow in traveling + through Shantung Province. I found the job not so hard as it had + looked from my seat on the barrow. +] + +I made a long trip on one of the country wheelbarrows. The American +missionary with whom I went weighed nearly two hundred pounds and I +weigh about one hundred and seventy. Moreover, we had at least one +hundred and fifty pounds of baggage. Yet both of us and all our things +rode on one wheelbarrow. The platforms along its sides were so long that +we could stretch out on top of our bedding and other baggage and chat as +comfortably as if we had been lying in the same bed. One man pushed and +steered at the handles behind and another pulled at a pair of handles in +front. Each of them had the stout strap fastened to the handles passing +over his shoulders. On the way back we had a third coolie, who walked +ahead pulling at a rope attached to our primitive vehicle. Sometimes a +donkey is hitched to the wheelbarrow in this way, and often the coolie’s +sons tug all day at these ropes, from the time they are old enough to be +of any use. Occasionally a coolie puts a sail on his wheelbarrow, so +that the wind will help him along. Once I changed places with the coolie +between the front handles, and found that his work was not quite so hard +as it looked. Yet I should hate to have to earn my living as a Shantung +wheelbarrow coolie, at about ten or fifteen cents a day. + +[Illustration: + + A country wheelbarrow in Shantung Province, larger than those used in + the cities, on which an American missionary and I made a long + journey. In the background is one of the old towers which were used + for sending messages before the telegraph reached China. A fire was + built on top of such a tower and controlled in such a way that the + signal could be read by watchmen on the next tower. You have perhaps + read that the American Indians used puffs of smoke as signals in a + similar way. +] + +One reason the wheelbarrow is used in Shantung and many other parts of +China is that the roads are often miserable trails too narrow for a +two-wheeled vehicle. China has had terrible roads for thousands of +years, because the rich men who rode or were carried or pushed did not +care how bad they were, and the poor coolies who were the sufferers had +nothing to say about it. Even to-day the roads run on private land and +the owner often plows them up every spring in order to plant the ground +they are on. + +[Illustration: + + Many a Chinese coolie gets his hair dressed once a month by a + wandering outdoor barber. In this case, a switch is just being + added. It is only in the more backward parts of China that men keep + their queues. Most sell the queue for a few cents and have their + heads shaved all over. Shears were not used even in the days when + the queue flourished. +] + +We passed several big towers, built of bricks on the outside and filled +with stones and earth within, like China’s walls. These were used, for +hundreds if not thousands of years, to send messages across the empire, +by building fires on top of one after another. Now that China has a +modern telegraph system these towers are not used and are falling, or +being torn down for the materials in them. + +In most parts of China the queue, or what we sometimes disrespectfully +call the “pigtail,” is no longer worn. Although many of the countrymen +of Shantung Province still have themselves barbered in that fashion, a +great many queues must have been cut off even there since the revolution +of 1911, to make millions of hair nets for American and European women. +I saw a whole jailful of prisoners making hair nets, but the demand has +decreased since bobbed hair became popular in the Western world. If +there are any Chinese women who bob their hair I did not see them. But +in some cities in China the police cut off and sell the queue of any man +caught wearing one. Probably the poor coolies and countrymen who cling +to the old custom do not know that the Chinese were ordered to wear +their hair in this way as a sign that they had been conquered by the +Manchus. + + + Ancient Shantung + +Thousands of years ago what we now call China was divided into dozens of +little kingdoms. There were several of them in what is now Shantung. One +day, for instance, I traveled for hours among huge grave mounds of the +kings of Lao-an, buried long before the time of Christ. One of those +ancient kingdoms was called Lu, and in it was born the great Chinese +sage Confucius. This famous philosopher is to the Chinese what Mohammed +is to the Mohammedans or Moses to the Jews. There is a temple of +Confucius in every important city in China and he is worshipped by +millions every day in the year, especially during the spring and autumn +festivals in his honor. + +In a Peking cart I jolted from the railroad to Chufu, where Confucius +lived five and a half centuries before the birth of Christ. The village +itself was rather a miserable place, with deep mud in the streets and +houses that few Americans would live in even for a day. But inside a +huge compound shaded by many venerable trees stood the finest temple of +Confucius in China, several temples in fact, one behind the other. It +would take pages to describe those mammoth and artistic old buildings. +In the main one there is a statue of Confucius, larger than life-size, +in the costume of those ancient days. All such Chinese statues have the +same pose. Huge brass and iron bowls standing before this image and the +altar it rests on were filled with the ashes of many thousands of +joss-sticks burned by pious pilgrims. In the room behind these is +another altar, on which stands an upright stick bearing the name of the +wife of Confucius. There is no statue of her, because the Chinese do not +think it proper to represent a woman in that way. The carved marble +pillars in front of the principal temple are famous all over the world. + +An ancient road between two double rows of very aged trees leads from +the temple compound to the grave of Confucius. Knowing how fond the +Chinese are of colors and elaborate things, it seemed strange to find +this grave of their greatest man so simple, just a mound of earth among +some trees, with an upright slab of stone bearing his name in three +Chinese characters in gold. Long ago as Confucius lived, a direct +descendant of his occupies a kind of palace near the temple grounds. He +is little more than a boy, the seventy-seventh generation since the +sage. It is said that he wishes to go to college in the United States! +All over this part of Shantung I found people who bore the family name +of Confucius, Kung. Some of them were rich and some were peanut-sellers. + + + Climbing a Sacred Mountain + +Of all the things I did in Shantung I think my climb up Tai-shan was the +most interesting. That sacred mountain is the greatest place of +pilgrimage in China. I am sure I passed at least ten thousand pilgrims +on my way. Rich Chinese and most foreigners who go up Tai-shan ride in +chairs, on the backs of coolies. They are queer-looking chairs, little +more than a seat on poles, and the coolies carry them up sidewise. The +carriers give inexperienced riders a great scare every time they change +shoulders, for the path follows the edge of a great precipice. + +[Illustration: + + The stairway to the top of Tai-shan, sacred mountain in the province + of Confucius. I climbed up it on the first of March when snow was + still on the ground. Hundreds of Chinese pilgrims were going up or + coming down. The stairs are really much steeper than they appear in + the picture. In the upper right-hand corner you can just see the + gate at the top of the long climb. It is several miles away. +] + +I like to make such journeys on my own feet, however, even though, as in +this case, one must climb ten miles of stone stairway. Here and there, +especially during the first part of the climb, there were level spaces a +few yards or a few feet long. A temple and a tea-house under old +spreading trees stood beside most of these. But the last half of the +climb was like going up steep stairs in a house five miles high. +Thousands of beggars lived in holes in the rocks and in grass huts along +the sides of the stairway. Pilgrims carried newsboy sacks of brass +“cash” for these beggars. The pilgrims believe that anyone who climbs +Tai-shan without giving something to each of them will not have his +prayers answered when he reaches the top. There were baskets more or +less full of “cash” in the middle of almost every step on that ten-mile +climb. As the chair-carriers walk on the outside ends of the steps, the +passengers can easily drop a coin into each basket as they pass over +them. Some of the beggars of Tai-shan are poor cripples or the victims +of terrible diseases. But a great many of them looked healthier than the +Chinese who live in crowded cities, and some of the beggar children +fairly glowed with health. + +From the temples (much like any other temples in China) on the cold +snowbound top of Tai-shan, I could make out “China’s Sorrow,” as the +Hoang Ho or Yellow River is called. It is a kind of vagabond river, +changing its course every few years, so that the poor people living +along it are constantly worried. Once it ran into the sea in southern +Shantung, then suddenly changed its mind and started northward to its +present mouth. This was much as if our Potomac were to move to Maine. +All the people in its new bed had their homes and farms washed away, and +now the old bed is a stretch of rice and wheat fields. The silt that +comes down with the Yellow River in its snakelike course across northern +China gives the stream its color and its name and clogs the channel +until the river is higher than the country about it. Then the Hoang Ho +breaks through its dikes again and goes on a new rampage. + +Bandits overrun many of the hills and mountains in Shantung Province. +Once while I was traveling in what people considered a much more +dangerous region, just outside the Great Wall to the north, bandits +stopped an express train not far from the birthplace of Confucius and +carried off twenty or more foreigners, many of them Americans. Some of +the prisoners had to live for more than six weeks in a bandit camp on a +hilltop, part of the time under terrible conditions. Partly because +there are so many bandits, the Grand Canal from southern China to Peking +is now hardly used at all. In olden days this canal brought to the +emperors the tribute rice, a kind of tax in produce, from all the +country to the southeast. In places it Was dug through high rocky hills, +and the Shantung part of it has several locks to lift or lower the boats +from one level to another. However, the bandits alone are not +responsible for its being abandoned. Silt has been allowed to fill many +parts of the canal since the coming of railways. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII + THROUGH THE HEART OF OLD CHINA + + +In October I left my family in Peking and set off on a two months’ +journey into the northwest. Yet the first part of this trip took me +hundreds of miles south, on the railway from the capital to the Yang-tze +River. Again I found the trains crowded with rowdy soldiers whose only +tickets were their rifles and bayonets. From the windows I saw, besides +millions of grave-mounds, thousands of smaller piles of earth of the +same shape. These consisted of rich top-soil that was to be spread over +the fields before they were planted again. Men and donkeys were plowing; +sometimes a man and a donkey, or a cow and a donkey, were hitched +together. Women who sat on tiny stools to spare their bound feet pulled +up peanuts and put them in funnel-mouthed baskets. Great quantities of +peanuts are grown in China. Some of them are miserably small, but +American missionaries introduced the Georgia goober some years ago, and +now those excellent peanuts are sold everywhere. I once heard of an +American lady who sent her son in China a big bag of peanuts for +Christmas. She did not know that peanuts are much more plentiful and far +cheaper there than at home, or she might have sent popcorn instead, for +there is none of that in China. + +Not very far south of Peking I turned westward on a narrow-gauge railway +built by the French. On this, soldiers without tickets did not ride, +because the ticket-takers were Frenchmen or Belgians who were not afraid +of them. This railway runs through a very rocky, mountainous region into +the province of Shansi, which means “west of the mountains,” just as +Shantung means “east of the mountains.” Most Chinese names for places, +which look and sound so queer to us, are just as simple as that when +they are translated. + +[Illustration: + + This merchant is engaged in the very serious business of weighing out + a copper’s worth of peanuts. Probably you could buy up his whole + stock for ten cents. +] + +The railway into Shansi ends at Taiyuanfu, meaning “great plain.” It is +properly named, for all about that provincial capital lies a flat, rich +country, growing rye and barley and other crops which we have at home. +The land is not well watered, however, for the Chinese have been so +foolish as to cut down almost all the trees that once covered northern +China; and ground without trees does not hold moisture long. I saw +hundreds of men drawing water from wells in the fields. Many of these +wells have four windlasses, so that four men, one standing on each side +of the well, can all draw up water at the same time. + + + A “Model Governor” + +Shansi is often called the “model province” and the general who rules it +the “model governor.” Instead of putting into his own pocket (or into +his own account in the foreign banks in Hankow and Shanghai) all the +money he gathers in taxes, this governor spends much of it for the good +of the people. He has built some fairly good automobile roads, though +they are merely made of piled-up earth which sometimes washes away in +the rainy season. China still has no good stone or cement or macadam +roads; but perhaps those will come also some day, when there are more +model governors. + +The governor of Shansi had driven almost all the bandits out of his +province, and had stopped the growing of poppies, from which opium is +made. He had forbidden the smoking of opium, and had provided a place in +Taiyuanfu where people could come and be cured of the opium habit. He +had forbidden foot binding also, but old customs die hard, and as a fine +of a few dollars is the only punishment for parents who bind their +daughters’ feet, there are still some, even in Shansi Province, who +cling to the practice. + +Because it is forbidden in Peking and not much practiced in the coast +cities which most foreign travelers see, many people think that foot +binding is dying out. But I am sure that during my two years’ wandering +in all parts of China three fourths of the women and the girls over +eight or ten whom I saw had crippled feet. Many of them could hardly +walk at all. Both in the mud-floored houses and in the fields they often +knelt at their work, using for protection knee-pads that reminded me of +the shin-guards of our football players. + +When a Chinese girl is six or seven years old, her mother or her +grandmother binds long strips of wet cloth about her feet. The cloth +shrinks in drying and squeezes the feet tightly. Every few days new +cloths are bound on, until the bones of the feet are broken and the toes +are bent back against the heels. By the end of two or three years, the +feet have often become so small that they look as if they had been cut +off at the ankle. Of course it hurts a great deal to walk on such feet, +and perhaps that is why Chinese women are seldom as cheerful and smiling +as most Chinese men. + +Often girls have to sleep in an outbuilding while their feet are being +bound, so that they will not disturb the family with their crying. Yet +if their feet are not bound they cry too, for they think that they will +never get husbands unless they have “lily feet.” It is said that this +custom grew up hundreds of years ago because one of the wives of an +emperor had very small feet and the other women copied her style. It +should be said, however, that nowadays among the more modern Chinese, +girls with bound feet are not desired as wives. + + + A Dangerous Journey + +Much farther south along the main railway line I took another +narrow-gauge railroad westward again, this time in the province of +Honan. This district was so full of bandits that when we set out from +the end of the rails the general who governs that part of China sent a +dozen soldiers with us. At one town the heads of two bandits lay in +little wooden cages fastened at the upper corners of each city gate. But +China is gradually becoming more modern in her forms of punishment, and +now criminals are generally executed by being shot. The _cangue_, a +great wooden platform fastened about the necks of prisoners, with the +story of their crimes written on it, used to be common, but during my +two years in China I saw only two prisoners wearing it. + +We rode for four days in mule litters, along the strangest roads in the +world. In my litter—a kind of cot with a rounded mat roof—I had all my +baggage, including even a trunk. It is not hard to read or even to sleep +in such a litter, swung between two mules, but it often tips until one +expects to fall out. Once, just as we arrived at an inn for the night, +my litter did turn over, and spilled everything, even the trunk, upon +me. + +[Illustration: + + It is dusty work riding through the loess country in a mule litter + unless you are the first one in a procession, as I was here. Two of + my soldier guard stand at the side of the litter. +] + +The roads in this part of China are great ditches, a hundred, sometimes +two hundred, feet deep. As the sandy gravel soil, which geologists call +loess, washes out easily beneath the rains and blows away in great +clouds of dust when it is dry, the travel of many millions along these +roads for thousands of years has worn them down into canyons, with walls +on either side as perpendicular as those of a skyscraper. If the Chinese +had not cut down their forests, the roots of the trees would have held +the soil together. Sometimes when mule or camel caravans meet in these +deep roads they cannot pass, and one or the other has to turn back until +they can find a wider place in the canyon. + +[Illustration: + + Roads grow old in China. This one in the western part of the country + has been worn down, to the depth shown, in solid rock. +] + +Beyond the great walled city of Sianfu, capital of Shensi Province and +once called the “second capital” of China, we rode on mule back and had +two-wheeled carts to carry our baggage, beds, and food, and also our +cook and “boy.” There also the road was worn deep into the earth in many +places, and to escape the heat and dust we often walked or rode along +the edge of the chasm. It was more pleasant to walk, for if you have +ever ridden a mule in a mountainous country you know how fond that +animal is of the very brink of precipices. Perhaps he thinks he has nine +lives, like a cat, or it may be that he likes thrills and danger, as +some people do. Once the hind legs of the mule just in front of me, +ridden by an American major, went clear over the side of the cliff, with +a hundred-foot drop to the road below. Yet nothing serious happened. The +animal scrambled like mad for a moment to regain its footing, and then +went calmly on again, still just as close as possible to the edge, as if +it could learn nothing by experience. + + + Cave Dwellers + +[Illustration: + + In some places the loess soil of western China is worn to a depth of + one hundred feet or more, where a road has been used for centuries. +] + +Often we came upon great square holes in the ground, twenty or thirty +feet across and as deep. Ladders went down into them, and showed us that +they were the courtyards of houses. Each side of the hole was dug out to +form a house, where not only the people but their dogs and chickens and +pigs live. On top of the earth above these sunken dwellings, the people +thresh their wheat by driving mules or other animals round and round +over it as it lies on the hard threshing-floor. They winnow the grain by +throwing it up in the wind with a wooden scoop much like a snow-shovel, +and what wheat they do not need for themselves they send to market, +sometimes many days away, in long brown bags carried on wheelbarrows. We +passed trains of as many as fifty of these wheelbarrows loaded with +wheat. The faces of the men pushing them were often as twisted and +strained as are those of champion runners at the end of a hard race. + +Still farther westward there were large towns without a single house in +them! The people all live in caves dug in the loess hillsides, a +mud-brick wall with a small door in it across the front. This is another +punishment for cutting down the forests generations ago, so that there +is no wood left either to build with or to burn. Children go out and +pick up every straw or twig that can be used as fuel, and even then +there is so little to burn that they dare not make a fire to warm +themselves, but must keep the precious fuel only for cooking. As it +grows colder and colder during winter in the high altitude of western +China, the people put on more and more garments padded with cotton. Is +it not strange that the Chinese worship ancestors who made them so +miserable by cutting down all their forests? + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese girl and her younger brother, in their bright-colored, + cotton-padded winter clothing. You will see that the girl’s feet are + bound. +] + +We stopped every night in a Chinese inn, which is very different from +our hotels. It consists simply of mud-brick buildings around a yard +filled with braying mules and crowing roosters. The only furniture is +the _k’ang_, a mud-brick platform covered with a thin reed mat and +having a fireplace beneath it. An inn servant would build us a fire +under this strange bed if we told him to; but as the only fuel available +was straw or small brush, we found that it made more smoke than fire. + +[Illustration: + + The governor of Shensi Province sent his car of state to bring me to a + banquet in honor of my traveling companion and myself. Although + quite handsome, it was after all a “Peking cart” and no more + comfortable than that queer vehicle is when not decorated. On this + cart the tires were made of sharp iron points to prevent skidding. + They hardly improved the surface of a road! An ordinary Peking cart + is shown on page 82. +] + +Most Chinese still prefer stone-hard beds and would not sleep in a soft +one if they had it. But we carried cots, as all wise foreigners do who +go beyond the railways and steamship lines in China. During the last six +weeks of that trip into the far northwest it was bitterly cold at night, +though the sun blazed all day long. After sunset, as soon as we could +set up our cots on top of the _k’ang_, we crawled into our thick +sleeping-bags, lined with sheepskin with the wool inside, and did not +get out until morning. When the cook had coaxed a dinner for us out of a +miserable little mud stove in the inn, the “boy” would set it out on top +of our bedclothes, where we could eat by merely putting our arms +outside. Then he would roll up inside his own _puk’ai_, the great cotton +quilt all Chinese travelers carry with them in winter. At four in the +morning he would come to wake us, bringing a hot breakfast. We started +every day two hours before daylight and jogged steadily on until dark, +seven days a week. This we did in order to finish the long journey in +time to spend Christmas with our families in Peking. + +In spite of all the hard work our “boy” had to do, he never complained. +Nor did we find the people along the way grumbling because of their +miserable lot in life. Even small children in this region often wore +nothing but a cotton-padded shirt or blouse, as if their parents wished +to harden them for the rough life they would always have to lead. The +bitter winter weather had chapped many of them with deep cracks from +head to foot. + + + + + CHAPTER IX + THE GREAT MOHAMMEDAN PROVINCE + + +One morning nearly two weeks after we had left the end of the railroad +we entered the province of Kansu. This forms the far northwest of China +proper, much like Washington and Oregon combined into one state, except +that instead of being bordered on the west by the ocean it runs up into +the lofty mountain ranges of Tibet. The great road, which is really not +much more than a very wide trail, to Lanchow, capital of the province, +was lined with double rows of huge old willow trees from the very +boundary of the province. A viceroy who once ruled Kansu for the Manchu +emperors planted those trees, and if a man was caught cutting one of +them down his head was cut off. Yet quite a few of them were missing! In +certain places the loess soil had blown or washed away until a tree had +fallen. But it was plain that some of the willows had been cut down. The +Chinese are so eager for wood that they will risk a great deal to get +it. + +That day, after a great wind-storm, we saw women and children and a few +men sweeping up fallen twigs and leaves. Except for that avenue of huge +willows along the ancient route to its capital, Kansu is just as bare +and treeless as the rest of northern China, and any kind of fuel is very +precious. + +We still had a soldier guard in some places, because the Chinese +officials were afraid bandits or robbers might attack us. Often the +keepers of the inns where we spent the nights told us of people being +held up and robbed along this road. But for some reason we were never +troubled in this way during the journey. + +[Illustration: + + This is not a “Texas hots” stand, though it looks a little like that + American institution. It is a traveling restaurant, by the side of + the great willow-lined highway leading to the capital of Kansu. When + he lacks customers, the proprietor picks up his restaurant and trots + on in search of business. In the background is a camel caravan. +] + +Now and then we passed long soldier trains, whole regiments of soldiers +traveling eastward, perhaps to take part in a civil war in some other +part of China. They traveled in mule-carts or horse-carts, on foot, on +long strings of camels, and in even stranger ways, and did not at all +look like our well organized armies of the West when moving from one +place to another. At the head of each soldier train was a huge homemade +flag with the name of the general on it in enormous Chinese characters; +and at the top a very tiny Chinese flag. This was so symbolical of +present conditions in China that it always made us smile. + + + “Ships of the Desert” + +We passed long camel trains, though none of them quite so long as the +one of thirty-six dozen camels I had seen in crossing Mongolia. Every +ten or a dozen of these stately two-humped animals were fastened +together by ropes running from the tail of one camel to a stick through +the nose of the one behind. The camels usually traveled at night and +grazed or lay down in the daytime. The drivers were swarthy, rough +looking men, with Mongolian features, and dressed in long dirty +sheepskin coats, much like those of the Gobi. Therefore it looked +strange to see many of them spinning yarn and some knitting socks and +other garments as they plodded along behind their beasts. Later some one +told us that American and British missionaries had taught the people of +Kansu to spin and knit. They must have forgotten to mention that to +Western eyes only women and girls look well doing such work. + +Though they were perhaps the first to make silk, and have used cotton +for a great many centuries, the Chinese formerly had few if any woven +wool garments. They have long used wool clothing, especially up on this +cold plateau of Kansu, but made it of sheepskins with the wool still on +them. Some authorities claim that the Chinese never wove wool until +taught by Westerners; but I have been informed that “sheep’s hair +blankets” were known in very early times. The art of weaving such +blankets may have been brought into China from Turkestan by the Huns. + + + Queer Winter Clothing + +Even here, where there are so many sheep, the great majority of the +people dress in the thickly cotton-padded garments, much like our +quilts, that are used in China wherever it becomes cold. Many of the men +and boys along the way in this cold province wore earlaps embroidered +with flowers or birds or other things in very gay colors. These are made +by the women, who, because they all have long hair, do not need earlaps +themselves. Most of the men, however, had the same kind of Chinese +knitted wool caps as we wore. If it is warm enough, these can be rolled +up about the top of the head; when it is very cold they can be pulled +clear down to the shoulders, a hole being left for the eyes. + +Chinese winter garments are so much warmer than ours that most of the +few foreigners we met in Kansu wore Chinese clothing. They were nearly +all British missionaries. Formerly they, and many Americans doing +mission work, let their hair grow long and braided it in queues, like +the Chinese. Now there are no foreign men in China with long hair. Yet +most of the countrymen in this province still wore “pigtails.” We saw +many peasants and coolies squatting on the ground, or on the little +narrow sawhorses the country people of China use as chairs, while the +village barbers attended to them. + +[Illustration: + + An outdoor blacksmith shop in a village of northwest China. The owner + can pick up his entire equipment when he is ready, and trot away + with it on a shoulder pole. +] + +Many of these barbers carried their shops on the ends of a +shoulder-pole, and went about looking for customers. They used no shears +but only big awkward razors. With one of these they shaved the face +(sometimes even the eyebrows) and clear around the head, leaving the +hair long on top. Then they braided the queue, which often reached to +the man’s thighs. Once I saw a barber adding a hair-switch to a coolie’s +queue, so perhaps many of them wore more hair than grew on their heads, +just as some American women do. Chinese barbers always carry long sticks +like slender pencils, because customers expect to have their ears +cleaned out. Their work is crude, but they do not charge one tenth as +much as our barbers do for a hair-cut. + + + Walled Towns + +We passed through one big city, named Pingliang, and many smaller towns. +All of them were surrounded by great walls. There was always a road +around the city close to the wall, so that travelers who preferred not +to go inside need not do so. We usually went inside, for we wished to +see all the cities, and it was likely to be time to eat dinner or find +an inn for the night. The elbow-shaped gates and the narrow streets were +often so crowded that we had as hard a time getting through as an +automobile does on Fifth Avenue, so we did not wonder that many caravans +went around the outside of the walls. + +Another reason for caravans staying outside is that those which carry +foods or produce have to pay taxes whenever they enter a city gate. For +a great many years China has had these local taxes, called _likin_. When +the Constitution of the United States was written, not only duties on +exports were forbidden, but it was forbidden to levy duties on goods +shipped from state to state. If we had the Chinese system, there would +be customs duties not only on things coming into the country but on +those going out also; and goods shipped from New York to New Orleans, +for instance, would have to pay taxes perhaps a hundred times along the +way, at every town or river-post or military barrier. Treaties with +foreign countries do not allow the Chinese to collect _likin_ on foreign +goods, but now some of the military dictators ignore the treaties made +in Peking under the Manchus and require that all goods pay duties. + + + A Land of Peddlers + +Even in this far interior of the country there were many peddlers along +the roads. As it is very difficult for the women, because of their bound +feet, to go to town to shop, there is plenty of trade for peddlers. On +that two months’ trip I saw only one girl whose feet were natural, and +she was an orphan and slave-girl whom no one had taken the trouble to +“make beautiful” for a future husband. She had little hope of ever +getting a husband, and the Chinese consider it disgraceful for a woman +not to be married. + +There were not only peddlers but even traveling restaurants! Each +“restaurant” consisted of a coolie who trotted along carrying two big +baskets of food warmed by little clay stoves. Most of the country people +of Kansu live on wheat or Indian corn or _kaoliang_. They grind the +grains between big millstones, the bottom one stationary and the top one +turned by hand. Often we saw two women or girls marching round and round +these mills on their crippled feet, and sometimes a blind man or boy who +did nothing else all day long, without even a Sunday off. But the +Chinese, from babyhood, are hardened to comfortless and laborious lives, +and no one ever seems to complain of hardships. + +We could buy chickens and eggs, mutton and sometimes beef, and +vegetables and fruit along the way. Of course there was also plenty of +pork, the favorite Chinese meat. But most foreigners do not eat Chinese +pork, because the pigs live on all sorts of garbage. The Chinese seldom +drink milk, and they do not make butter or cheese. We could get tea +anywhere, but no coffee or cocoa. So we found that of the trunkful of +tinned things we had brought along, the canned milk, cocoa, oatmeal, +sugar, butter, jam, cheese, and fish were very useful. As most of the +native food is good and nourishing, we could have lived without any of +our own things. We might even have gotten along without our cook and +“boy.” But we preferred to see to the preparing of our own meals, for +the cooks in most Chinese inns have very little idea of cleanliness. + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese mother and her baby in winter clothing. The baby wears a + string of “cash” (money) as an ornament, and perhaps in the hope + that it will keep evil spirits away. The child’s clothes have much + red in them. To the Chinese, red stands for happiness. +] + +There was much game along the way. The American major who traveled with +me shot pheasants as pretty as any you ever saw in a zoological garden, +and plenty of pigeons, wild ducks, and wild geese. Under the Manchus the +people of China were not allowed to own guns, so that even where nearly +all the inhabitants looked hungry, as in Kansu, they could not shoot the +plentiful game. In every town there were great quantities of persimmons, +much better than those of our southern states. They looked like huge +tomatoes and tasted best of all after they had been frozen. We ate them +with spoons and found them as good as ice cream. But the Chinese pears, +also very plentiful, were much poorer than ours. They were hard as +rocks, not a bit sweet, and had no more taste than a raw potato. + +Almost every hill or mountain along the way was terraced in great +shelves of earth, to the very top. When we saw them they were quite +bare, making the whole landscape a dreary yellowish brown. But with +spring a great change would come. Then all the terrace-fields would be +green, and if the traveler looked down upon them from above, all the +earth about him would seem green. Yet if he were down in one of the +sunken roads, looking up, he would get quite a different impression, for +then he would see only the wall-like sides of the terraces, and they +would still be bare and brown. + + + Sons of Han + +Millions of the Chinese are Mohammedans or Moslems. There are nine +mosques even in Tientsin, on the eastern edge of the country, and every +large town has at least one mosque. But in the great northwestern +province of Kansu fully half the people are followers of Mohammed. The +other Chinese call themselves Han-ren or “sons of Han.” The Mohammedans +who conquered much of Asia and a part of Europe more than a thousand +years ago made their way through Sinkiang, which we call Chinese +Turkestan, into Kansu, but did not travel clear across China. + +Some of the soldiers remained, and took Chinese wives. This explains why +many of the Mohammedans of this great northwestern province look more +Arabic or Turkish than Chinese. Most Chinese Mohammedans, however, look +just like the other Celestials, except that the men and boys usually +wear a white cap. That is because their ancestors were not soldiers from +the west but Han-ren who were converted, or compelled to turn Moslem or +be killed. + +Mohammedans do not eat pork, and where there are more of them than of +Han-ren in a Kansu town no one is allowed to keep pigs. We often stopped +at Mohammedan inns, and the proprietor always told our cook that he must +not use any lard or cook any pork on his premises. Yet we noticed before +long that we were getting bacon for breakfast every morning, and asked +the “boy” about it. + +“Oh, Hwei-hwei no catchee know bacon allee same pork,” he answered in +the pidgin-English that he had learned in Peking. + +By that he meant that the Mohammedan inn-keepers did not know that the +bacon we had brought along in tin cans or glass jars was a form of pork; +and he went on to say that the cook told the inn-keepers it was +“foreign-style” beef. We asked the cook not to play that trick any more, +for travelers should not do anything to offend the people they are +among. + +[Illustration: + + A donkey-load of water buckets made of bamboo splints woven as if for + a basket. Such buckets are not entirely water-tight, but they do + very well. +] + +In many cities and towns where there are more Han-ren than Moslems the +latter have to live outside the walls. Several times there have been +great Mohammedan rebellions in China, and some people think there will +be another one. But the Mohammedans are better treated now than they +were under the Manchus. There are Mohammedan soldiers in Kansu and in +some other parts of China, and some Hwei-hwei have even become generals. +When China took the name of Chinese Republic, it changed its flag from +the big yellow Manchu banner bearing a dragon, to a flag of five +stripes, one color to represent each kind of people in the old empire. +The yellow stripe stands for the Han-ren, or ordinary Chinese, the blue +for the Manchus, the black for the Tibetans, the red for the Mongolians, +and the white for the Mohammedans. + + + Good Mohammedans Do Not Drink Wine + +Most Mohammedans, obeying the rules of their religion, do not drink wine +or other intoxicating liquors, and will not allow themselves to be +photographed. But the Chinese Moslems do not seem to know their Koran +(the Mohammedan Bible) very well. Some of them get intoxicated on +Chinese rice-wine, and even the mullahs, or Moslem priests, allowed me +to take their pictures and, still more strange, to photograph the +interiors of their mosques. + +They were very simple interiors compared to those of ordinary Chinese +temples. There were no gaudy pictures or painted gods or demons. The +floor was covered with straw mats and always the western wall contained +an Arabian niche. When a Chinese Mohammedan prays, as he is expected to +do five times a day, he must bow down with his face toward the west, for +Mecca, the holy city of his faith, lies in that direction. + +All the Mohammedan men come to the mosques on Fridays, but no women are +allowed inside. There are washing-vats outside every mosque, because the +men must wash themselves before entering. They are even supposed to +change their clothes, though many of those in Kansu are too poor to have +a change. In each mosque is kept a coffin having a false bottom. In this +Chinese Mohammedans carry their dead to the grave. There they leave the +body and bring the coffin back again. The Chinese of other faiths, who +bury their dead in huge wooden coffins, think this very stingy and +disgraceful. + + + + + CHAPTER X + WHERE THE FISH WAGGED ITS TAIL + + +A few years ago there was a great earthquake in Kansu. As the soil is +almost sandy, with no tree-roots to hold it together, this did much +damage. Millions of the people live in caves, and thousands were killed +by being buried in these underground houses. We passed many places where +the great road to Lanchow had been covered deep under the mountain-sides +that had slid down when the earth shook. In others the whole road, with +its four rows of willows and even the mule-paths in it, had been carried +nearly half a mile or turned at right angles to its former course. The +new road was a trail that climbed over the new hills wherever the first +travelers after the earthquake had been able to get through. + +One Chinese name for the earthquake is “Where the Earth Walked.” The +landscape looked as if the earth had been boiled, leaving a ruined +world, a world wearing away. There were places where all the population, +all the terraced fields, all the villages had been wiped out. Elsewhere +other people had come in, or those who had escaped the earthquake had +rebuilt their towns. Most of mankind seem to be optimistic. People come +back to live where such a calamity has happened, as if it could never be +repeated. + +Some of the sides of hills that fell off during the earthquake dammed up +little streams and made big lakes where there had never been a lake +before. There was so much danger that some of these would overflow and +drown towns or villages below them that a great deal of work had to be +done to cut channels for draining these lakes. Many thousands of dollars +subscribed by Americans were spent in this work. + +Most Chinese still think the earth is flat and held up by a turtle or a +huge fish. Even our mule-driver, who was just as sensible in most things +as an American workman, believed the earthquake was caused by this great +fish’s wagging its tail! + + + The Chinese “Fast Mail” + +Almost every day we met the Chinese “fast mail.” This consisted of a +coolie who carried across his shoulder a pole with some mail-bags at +either end of it. On his blouse big Chinese characters warning people +not to disturb him were painted or sewed. Such men carry about eighty +pounds, and they trot nearly fifteen miles before they turn the bags +over to another coolie. Their monthly pay is only about nine American +dollars, yet they are very loyal in their work. Sometimes they are +robbed and even killed, and many of them have an iron point on the +shoulder-pole to use as a weapon. + +Of course where there are railroads or steamers or other modern forms of +travel the mails are carried as they are in our country. But all China +has fewer miles of railway than many of our single states. About half of +the eighteen provinces have never heard a train-whistle, and some of the +others have only one short rail line. Until the fighting between rival +generals stops there will probably be no more railroads and very few +highways built. For this reason most of the mail must continue to be +carried on men’s shoulders, or on the backs of pack-animals. + +[Illustration: + + One of the sturdy and loyal coolies who are the “fast mail” in + interior China. They can trot fifteen miles with eighty pounds of + first-class mail on their shoulders. Each wears characters on his + blouse telling that he is a postman and must not be delayed or + molested. +] + +We now and then met a long pack-train wending its way across the broken +country with many loads of parcel-post packages. In other parts of +western China I met caravans of more than a hundred coolies toiling +painfully along under cruel loads of this heavier mail. Many people say +that the Chinese postal system is so good because the men at the head of +it are foreigners. They point to the very poor telegraph system as proof +that the Chinese cannot do such things properly for themselves. But +anyone who has traveled in the far interior will give much of the credit +to the hard-working and poorly clad coolie mail-carriers who trot night +and day over the difficult trails. + + + Curiosity about Foreigners + +The Chinese seem to have more curiosity than any other people on earth. +Or it may be that this appears to be so, because among them staring is +not considered bad manners. Even in cities where there are many +foreigners, gaping crowds often gather about one. + +Way out in Kansu, and in most other parts of the country, enormous mobs +crowd about a foreigner the moment he appears in the street. Often on +this trip almost all the men and boys and many of the girls in town left +whatever they had been doing and packed themselves so closely about me +that it was hard to breathe, especially as great clouds of dust were +raised by their feet shuffling on the unpaved street. + +I never found one of these mobs unfriendly, though some foreigners have +even been killed by them. I always saw far more smiles than scowls. If I +could think of enough Chinese words to make a joke, the whole crowd +roared with laughter. If I started to go away, they made an opening for +me much more quickly than most American crowds would. They had merely +come to see the “strange looking person” and watch his “queer” doings. +If I wrote in my notebook, they stared and laughed at what they +considered my funny way of writing. As they write from top to bottom and +from the right-hand side of the page toward the left, and use a camel’s +hair brush to make marks like chicken-tracks, my fountain-pen and the +marks I made with it seemed very amusing to them. If I read a book, they +thought it queer that I did not begin at what we call the last page, as +they do. Almost everything the foreigner does seems strange to Chinese +who have not met many foreigners. + +In some of those Kansu villages people told us they had never seen a +foreigner before. Most of the people of interior China cannot tell one +kind of foreigner from another. I was often asked if I were a Japanese, +though I hardly think I look like one. Any person not Chinese is a +_wai-kuo-ren_, an “outside-country-man,” to most Chinese, and many of +them think there are only two kinds of people in the world—themselves +and those who live in the other country which they think makes up the +rest of the earth. + + + A Difficult Language + +I had learned to speak some Chinese by this time, and I learned more +before my travels in China were over. But if you have ever been in a +country where you do not speak the language well you have probably found +that many people think they can make you understand by shouting their +strange words louder and louder. I have even known Americans who tried +in this way to make foreigners understand. + +Sometimes it became rather painful to have a great mob crowded about me +and one or several men shrieking in my ears. However, I found a way to +cure those shriekers. I would put my lips very close to the ear of the +man who had just shouted a question at me as if I were stone-deaf, and +shout back at him in English some such words as “You don’t say so?” He +would go away rubbing his ear but laughing with the rest of the crowd, +for the Chinese are very quick to appreciate a joke even on themselves. +The story would travel so far ahead of me that it might be several days +before another crowd would think it was my ears that were weak rather +than my understanding. + + + Money Strung about the Neck + +In many of these far-away parts of old China the money still consists of +the little brass coins, with a square hole in the center, which +foreigners call “cash.” They are strung on strings, usually a thousand +to a string. A knot is tied to mark off each hundred coins, and the ends +of the strings are tied together. One “string” of “cash” weighs about +eight pounds, yet it is hardly worth twenty-five cents in our money. + +Can you imagine carrying a dollar that weighs thirty-two pounds? Yet we +saw many men in Kansu with as many as six “strings” on their shoulders. +They were usually soldiers or workmen or carrying-coolies who had just +been paid off; and you can see how lucky they are that their wages are +only about a dollar a week! Our mule-driver paid fifty or a hundred +“cash” for a bowl of rice, and coolies who carried my things on their +shoulders in other parts of China would often lug also an additional +eight or sixteen pounds in change with which to buy their food and +lodging and tobacco. + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese coolie with his week’s wages, worth about a dollar, and + weighing forty pounds or more in strings of “cash.” +] + +Not very long ago the only money in China, besides the strings of +“cash,” consisted in silver lumps often called “shoes” by foreigners, +because they were shaped somewhat like a shoe. Each shopkeeper had a +scale like one of our steelyards but made of wood, and when a customer +bought something the silver to pay for it was weighed out. If one “shoe” +was too much, out came a little saw or ax to cut it in two. We saw +people using this kind of money in Kansu, sometimes adding a little +silver BB shot to complete the weight. But now most of China uses big +copper coins, worth ten or twenty, and in some places even fifty “cash,” +and for bigger transactions the silver dollar. + + + Silver Dollars Introduced + +When foreigners began to trade with China about a hundred years ago, +they did not want “cash” in payment for their goods, and they did not +like the lumps of silver. So they introduced into China the dollars that +the Spanish used in Mexico and other Latin-American countries. Now the +Chinese mint their own “Mex” dollars, which are just as big as ours but +worth only about half as much. They call them _E quai ch’ien_, or “one +piece money.” + +There is paper money like ours in Peking and the large coast cities, +usually issued by foreign banks, but this is seldom accepted in any +other city, and it is of no use in the country districts. On this trip +into Kansu, and many other journeys that I made in other parts of China, +I had to carry long rolls of silver dollars wrapped in paper. The +governor of that province had melted up all the “cash” and coppers that +came into his treasury and made new coins by pouring the metal mixed +with sand into moulds. These coins we could break in two with our +fingers, and they were worth so little that merchants had to send +donkey-loads of them from town to town in payment of new goods. We often +met these donkeys, their bags of coin rattling like a junk-shop in a +cyclone. Even in the capital of the province the money poured out on +shop counters sounded like coal rolling down an iron chute. + + + A Great Walled City + +Lanchow, the capital of Kansu, is a great walled city in a little valley +on the Yellow River, way up where the stream is neither yellow nor very +large. It has several walls, dividing it into sections. Many of the +inhabitants are Mohammedans. Those men who wore thick skull-caps of +natural white wool and kept mutton-shops we knew at once to be Moslems, +as we did the _ahong_, or mullahs, who went up to the top of the mosques +five times a day and called the Moslems to prayer with words meaning +“Allah is great.” The Chinese Mohammedans are not allowed to translate +the Koran into their own language. They must read it in the original +Arabic even if they do not understand the words they are pronouncing. + +Inside its walls China’s most northwestern city was much like other +Chinese cities. Swarms of people poured back and forth through the +narrow streets, along with donkeys, mules, horses, and camels. Coolies +carried every kind of thing, clean and dirty, and shouted and bumped +their way along as they do all over China. Hundreds of them were engaged +in carrying two big buckets of water apiece from the river to all parts +of town. People who wanted water paid these men about a cent a bucket. + +Now, in December, it was bitterly cold and though there is much coal in +northwestern China few of the people could afford to burn it. There were +many almost-naked beggars wandering the streets of Lanchow. They slept +in any hole they could find, like the hungry homeless mongrel dogs that +roamed about looking for scraps of food. + +[Illustration: + + In Lanchow I saw these Mohammedan schoolgirls, whose garments were a + riot of color. +] + +There are no rickshaws in Lanchow, nor in all Kansu Province. High +officials rode in the picturesque old sedan-chairs once used all over +China. One of those officials was a European, head of the Salt Monopoly +office in Kansu, and to see him come rushing home after dark carried by +six shouting men swinging great Chinese lanterns in front of them was a +very interesting sight. Like a great many other Chinese cities, Lanchow +has no street-lights, except those which people set up or carry +themselves. + + + A Midwinter Journey Back to Peking + +[Illustration: + + These very handsome boots are the kind worn by a tribe living on the + borders of Tibet. +] + +Over the mountains not far from Lanchow is Hochow, a sort of capital of +the Mohammedans. From there we might have gone on to Sinkiang and the +Kokonor, or Blue Lake, region of Tibet. Tibetans, and in fact people of +all the races of central Asia, were to be seen in the streets of +Lanchow. We should have liked to go on to all the places they had come +from, but the traveler soon finds that it is as hard to go everywhere +during one lifetime as it would be to take all the courses in a great +university in four years. + +Most people returning from Lanchow float down the Yellow River on rafts +made of goat-skins filled with air. But the river was full of ice now, +and in some places frozen solid. So we bought horses and hired two more +mule-carts to carry our things and our servants, and set off one morning +across an American-built bridge. That three weeks’ journey northeastward +was interesting, but not so much so as the route we had come by. Often +the only building we saw all day was the government inn for travelers +where we spent the night. So much of the land was covered with ice that +we wished we had skates. + +[Illustration: + + Our party coming back from Lanchow. I am in the middle; the American + major on my right (as we stood facing the camera); our cook on my + left; our “boy” on the major’s right; and our three mule drivers at + the ends of the row. You can see that we seem to have been well + supplied with clothing, yet we were often cold. It was December and + we were several thousand feet above sea level. +] + +One cold morning we passed through the Great Wall, but away out there it +was merely a big mud ridge. For two days we waded through sand dunes +like those at the southern end of Lake Michigan, and if it had not been +so cold we might have imagined ourselves in the Sahara. Some of the +towns were ruled by Mohammedans and others by European Catholic priests. + +Nearly every day we heard rumors of bandits who might fall upon us along +the lonely road. But we reached the end of the railroad through Kalgan +safely, and twenty-four hours later stepped off the train in Peking. As +we had always started long before daylight every morning, when it seemed +as cold as the North Pole, we had not shaved for weeks. My beard must +have made me look like a Bolshevik, for my small son wept when he met me +at the station. + +[Illustration: + + I didn’t look like “Daddy.” +] + + + + + CHAPTER XI + CHINA HAS HER OWN WAYS + + +The Fourth of July, Christmas, and our other holidays mean nothing to +the Chinese, but they do celebrate certain days of their own. The most +important of these is New Year’s, though even that is not the same day +as ours. For the Chinese still use the moon calendar, and their lunar +New Year’s comes from three to six weeks later than our January first. +Every time there is a new moon they start a new month. As it is only +twenty-eight days from one new moon to another, this makes their year +short. So they put in an extra month every two or three years. + +They have no real names for their months, but call them “First Moon,” +“Second Moon,” and so on. The extra month is not named thirteen, +however, but is “tucked in,” as it were. So if you happen to be in China +during one of their years of thirteen months you may wake up some +morning and find the month that was finished the night before starting +over again. Its name might be translated “June number two,” or something +of the sort. + +The years, however, have names. They are named for twelve animals—the +rat, the dog, the goat, and so on. When the twelve are finished, a new +start is made. Five times around forms an era, or what we sometimes call +a Cycle of Cathay. Probably that is because sixty years is about the +natural length of a man’s life. Also, it is easier to record dates if +the years are grouped into cycles, in the same way that we group them +into centuries. + +If you ask a Chinese when he was born, his answer will be something +like, “I appeared on the tenth day of the third moon in the Year of the +Rooster.” If he is speaking of his grandfather or giving some date long +ago, he will also mention the cycle or the reign of some emperor. When +parents plan a Chinese marriage, a horoscoper is asked to make sure that +the positions of the stars and the moon at the dates of birth of the boy +and girl to be married, would be favorable. We would regard such +dependence on signs as superstitious, yet other peoples, Western as well +as Eastern, have similar superstitions. + +In some ways the calendar of the Chinese is better, or at least truer, +than ours. Their seasons are more exact, because their New Year’s is +nearer the real middle of winter. The dates they call “Stirring of the +Insects,” “Corn Rain,” “Sprouting Seeds,” “Small Heat,” “Great Heat,” +are close to the times described by those phrases. On the other hand, in +America the hottest days may come long before the middle of summer, or +they may come in September; so “Great Heat” would not mean much to us. + +It is convenient to be able to tell, merely by looking at the moon, what +day of the month it is. Centuries ago our ancestors also used the moon +calendar. But the Chinese are gradually changing many of their old +customs. Since the revolution of 1911 the official government calendar +is the same as ours, just as it is in Japan. Those who work for the +government get two New Year’s holidays. + +[Illustration: + + Among the many sorts of things sold at the Chinese New Year’s are + kites of all imaginable shapes, including those representing birds + and butterflies. +] + +We saw two Chinese New Year’s days, one in Peking and the other down in +southern China. They were especially good ones, for the first began the +Year of the Pig, last of the twelve, and the second opened a new Cycle +of Cathay. The Chinese expect all kinds of bad luck during the Year of +the Pig—which the Mohammedans call the Year of the Black Sheep, because +they cannot mention the “unclean” animal they are forbidden to eat. But +they think all their troubles will be over when the new cycle begins. In +this they are sure to be disappointed, but they have a great celebration +anyway. + + + Feeding the Spirits of the Dead + +Every Chinese who can do so, returns to his family home for New Year’s. +All the ancestral graves should be cleared and redecorated then. The +ancestors have to have religious services in their honor and must be +given food. The Chinese think the spirits of the dead eat the aroma of +the food set before their altars, and leave for the living the food +itself. So New Year’s is a time of feasting, like our Thanksgiving and +Christmas. Everyone wears his best clothes, brand-new ones from head to +foot if possible. The children dress just like their parents, except +that they may wear gayer colors. + +For days before New Year’s the markets are crowded, since everyone who +possibly can is buying. Besides the new clothes, one must have gifts for +all his friends and relatives. New Year’s day rather than Christmas is +the time to give presents in China, just as it is in France. Toys of all +kinds appear in little booths built in the streets and in the temple +grounds. People flock to the temples, to burn bundles of paper that they +pretend is money, and handfuls of joss-sticks. More firecrackers are +heard than on our Fourth of July. The Chinese think the noise drives +away evil spirits. There was so much of it all about us that lunar New +Year’s eve in Peking that even our little boy could hardly sleep. + +The people eat all night long, one feast after another. The next day +they make calls all day and eat and drink still more. The stores close, +not simply for the day but for a week or more. But before you accuse the +Chinese of being lazy in taking so long a holiday, as some travelers +have, remember they do not have fifty-two Sundays of rest every year. +Old men go out and fly kites, or take their birds for an airing. Younger +men go to the theaters, or gamble at fantan or mah jong behind the +closed shutters of their own or their friends’ shops. However, if you +know the shopkeeper’s back door or secret entrance, you can usually buy +anything you want, for the Chinese are enterprising and do not like to +miss a chance to do business. + + + Many Days of Feasting + +We wandered for days about the streets of Peking during the first week +of that Year of the Pig, and still we did not see all the celebrations. +There were brick walls covered with painted pictures, temple-grounds as +packed as a county fair-ground, streets swarming with buyers and sellers +and strollers, and lined for miles with hawkers’ stands and amusement +booths. These sold only holiday things, but there were such quantities +of them that the whole city looked like crisscrossed streaks of color. +Not only the colors but the people were gay, and all sorts of noises +that the Chinese call music rose above the happy uproar. + +On the wall of every Chinese house, above the place where the cooking is +done, is a paper with a picture of what the Chinese call the Kitchen +God. At the end of the year this god is supposed to go to heaven and +tell how the family behaved itself for the twelve or thirteen months +just ended. So the picture is taken down just before New Year’s day, and +burned. But before the Kitchen God is sent to heaven by fire his lips +are rubbed with candy or sugar, sometimes with opium, so that he will +tell only “sweet” things of the household he spent the year in! This +trip to heaven and back is supposed to take seven days. At the end of +that time new Kitchen Gods, in very bright colors quite different from +the old smoked ones, appear everywhere. + +[Illustration: + + The Chinese New Year’s is a great time for outdoor shows. These + acrobats could not ask for a more interested crowd to watch them + perform. +] + +In the small, poor towns of southern China where I spent the second New +Year’s, there was not room in most of the little houses to feed and +worship the ancestors. So out in the narrow street before almost every +door stood a table, with a cooked chicken or duck, its head tucked under +its wing, and other food, as well as bowls of rice-wine. Just behind +this, inside, was the ancestral altar, with a crude picture representing +the dead fathers of the family. + +Every hour or two the oldest living man or boy would come out into the +street and kneel before the table, touching his head to the ground. Then +he would stand up and burn incense-sticks and make motions with the cups +of wine toward the altar inside as if he were inviting the ancestors to +eat and drink. Sometimes there was only an old woman left to perform +this ceremony, either because the family was dying out or because no man +or boy of it could get home for New Year’s. Between these family +services nearly all the people of the town spent their time gambling and +refused to do any work whatever. + + + Guarding against Evil Spirits + +It seems terrible to the Chinese to have a family die out, because then +no one will look after the spirits of the members who are dead. +Therefore all manner of queer tricks are used to “protect” boys from the +evil spirits which the Chinese think are always trying to harm them. +Many Chinese boys wear an iron or silver chain about their necks, with a +great padlock on it. This is put on by a priest and is meant to warn +evil spirits that the boy belongs to the temple and must not be harmed. + +Often a boy is dressed as a girl, or called by a girl’s name, because +the evil spirits do not bother with girls. Once I had as a servant a boy +of about twelve with a ring in his nose. More exactly it was a piece of +telegraph-wire twisted into a ring shape and thrust through the +cartilage between the nostrils. This was supposed to prove that he was a +pig—which in some ways he was!—so that invisible spirits of evil would +let him alone. + +If the Chinese did not have as a religion what we usually call ancestor +worship, they would be able to live better. Because everyone, even +beggars, must leave sons to burn incense to them after they are dead, +China is terribly crowded. Because huge coffins are used to bury those +who have left sons, much of China is suffering for lack of trees. +Because graves must be kept for many generations, if not forever, +millions of acres of land are wasted. If all the grave lands were +cultivated the Chinese would have much more to eat. + +Most of the Chinese are so poor that they never really have all they +want to eat, except perhaps at New Year’s. There are so many Chinese +that if one man leaves a job twenty will come running to get it. +Therefore most jobs are sold by the man who has more than he can do +himself, just as we sell goods. There are many labor unions in China, +some of them hundreds of years old. But they cannot raise wages as our +labor unions can, because there are too many people looking for work. + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese girl making paper umbrellas. The ribs of the umbrellas are + of bamboo splints, tied together with colored strings. Tough, oily + paper, brightly colored in gay designs, is fastened to the ribs. A + number of finished umbrellas, closed, are in the rack. +] + + + The Hard-working Chinese + +The Chinese are probably the hardest workers in the world, and certainly +they are the most cheerful under hardships. No doubt that is because +there have been so many more people than jobs for many centuries. They +do not go around with chips on their shoulders as much as with smiles on +their faces. Perhaps if we were as crowded for room as the Chinese are, +we should have discovered that it is best to get along with other people +as smoothly as possible, instead of picking a quarrel easily. + +The Chinese are workers rather than fighters. They consider it bad +manners to get angry, or at least to show anger. They call it “losing +face” to be seen doing that, or anything else that makes them ashamed. +They do fight sometimes, especially those of the coolie or poorer class. +For even the Chinese have nerves, though they have learned to keep them +under better control than we have. But like most people of Asia they do +not even know how to “make a fist.” They fight by scratching, or still +more by shouting. The man who can call the other the most names or get +the crowd about them to laughing at the other wins the fight, by making +the other “lose face.” + + + “Losing Face” + +I must tell you a story to illustrate that peculiar Chinese custom of +“losing face.” An American missionary doctor who has lived almost all +his life in China was once giving out tracts in a country village. It +was years ago, before the Boxer uprising in which many foreigners were +killed, and when there was more danger of being mobbed. As he sat down +in the village tea shop a woman came up and began insulting him. + +“Ah,” she cried, “there is one of those wicked foreign devils who cut +out the eyes of our children to make medicine, and eat our hearts to +give themselves our courage!” In those days most of the Chinese believed +such silly tales about foreigners, and some do yet. They could not +understand modern medicine and surgery, brought to China by missionary +doctors. + +The doctor went on calmly sipping his hot tea. The crowd began to look +angry. There seemed to be danger that the mob would fall upon the +doctor. Then up walked a man without any nose! But he was smiling +broadly and greeted the doctor in a very friendly way. + +“Don’t you remember me?” he asked. “Don’t you remember when you cut off +my nose?” + +“There,” cried the woman, “what did I tell you? See what that wicked +foreigner did to this man!” + +Then the doctor remembered that the man had come to his hospital with +cancer of the nose, and the only way to save his life was to cut the +nose off. The crowd grew more and more angry, but the noseless man +calmed it down, and finally the doctor, who speaks excellent Chinese, +said: “Yes, we do sometimes cut off a man’s nose, and sometimes even +take out an eye. But it is only when there is no other way of curing +him. Now, if you people will give this woman money enough to come to my +hospital, I will cut out her tongue, and your village will not be +bothered any more with her scolding.” + +The crowd roared with laughter, for no one likes a joke better than the +Chinese. The woman, laughed at, had “lost face.” She slunk quickly out +of sight, and the doctor was as safe in that village ever after as he +would have been at home. + +It is often said that the Chinese do things backward. But there are +reasons for all Chinese customs, and if we stop to think we shall +perhaps find that it is our own ways of doing things that are backward. +For instance, the Chinese call the compass, which they invented, a +“point-south pin.” Does it not point south as well as north? In China +the women wear trousers. We are beginning to find that in some ways they +are better for women than skirts. The Chinese always put the family name +first and the given names after it. When we make telephone-books or +directories we do the same thing. Instead of saying “good-by,” or “I +must be running along,” the Chinese say “_Mant-zow_,” that is, “Walk +slowly.” They consider it undignified to hurry. It is all in the point +of view. The Chinese do not see a man’s face in the moon but an old man +chopping down a tree. Who will say that they are wrong and we are right? + + + + + CHAPTER XII + THE CHINESE LANGUAGE AND SCHOOLS + + +We should always be interested in the language of any country we travel +in. If we take the trouble to learn a little of it we shall get much +more pleasure as well as more learning out of our travels. Interpreters +often fool us even when they have no intention of doing so, for it is +not easy to translate so strange a language as Chinese. It is not simply +that the words are different from ours, but the Chinese mind often works +differently. For instance, if you ask a Chinese waiter, “Is there no +bread?” he will answer “Yes” if there is _none_ and “No” if there is +_some_. What he means is “Yes, you are right; there is no bread,” or +“No, you are wrong, there is bread.” This is really just as sensible as +our way, isn’t it? + +It is not very hard to learn enough of a language, even as strange a +language as Chinese, to get around alone. If you study it a little and +listen to the people all the time, you will be surprised to find how +soon you can talk to them on simple matters. It is a good idea to take +along a few picture books when you travel in China, or in any other +foreign country. The pictures interest the boys who gather around you, +and you will learn the names of the things in the pictures by hearing +the boys pronounce them. + +Magazine advertising pages will do almost as well. The trouble there is +that many Chinese do not know the difference between photographs and +fanciful drawings. Several times in out-of-the-way parts of China boys +asked me if we really had such funny-looking people in our country as +the dwarfs and trolls and fat little men carrying cans of soup shown in +some of our advertisements. + + + A Picture Language + +The Chinese do not write with letters. Each word is a kind of picture, +and there are tens of thousands of them. There is no way of telling from +the characters or pictures how the word should be pronounced. So instead +of only twenty-six letters, all the thousands of characters have to be +learned separately. The Chinese typesetter in a printing-shop does not +sit down at his work. He has to walk from one end of a long room to the +other to get the characters he needs. These characters are the same not +only all over China but in Japan, Korea, Formosa, and French Annam. But +they are pronounced differently in each country, and in different parts +of China also. + +A Korean can talk to an Annamese, or a Japanese to a Formosan, or a man +of northern China to one from the south. But he has to do it the way +deaf and dumb people talk to us—by writing, sometimes by merely +pretending to write, the character with a forefinger in the palm of the +hand. I have had Chinese or Japanese servants, who could not make me +understand by talking, draw invisible pictures for me in their hands. +Because a Korean or an Annamese would have understood them they thought +any foreigner should. + +Although the language spoken by the Chinese is really primitive in its +make-up, like the language of our Indians and many uncivilized tribes, +they have made it a very civilized language, and can talk as easily +about literature or philosophy as we can. Each word or character has one +syllable. Sometimes several characters are combined, as in “point-south +pin,” but those are really separate words. + +Now if you will try to invent a language with only one-syllable words in +it you will find there are not enough sounds to make many words. The +Chinese got around this difficulty in a very clever way. If they drawl a +word it means one thing; if they say it sharply it means something else; +if they say it in a high voice it means quite a different thing from +what it means when said in a bass voice. A boy whose voice is changing +has a hard time talking Chinese. + +Foreigners call these different ways of saying the same words “tones,” +though they are rather intonations. The language of Peking has four +“tones”; down in Canton there are nine, that is, the same syllable means +nine different things, depending on the “tone” in which it is +pronounced. + + + An Easy Yet a Difficult Language + +My little boy, who was just beginning to talk when we reached Peking, +learned Chinese more quickly than he did English. That was natural, for +words of one syllable are easier to learn than long ones. In fact, in a +way Chinese is a child’s language. It has almost no grammar, no genders, +no tenses, no singular and plural, no articles, and very few of the +other troubles that we have in our own language lessons. + +[Illustration: + + A Chinese school of the old sort. It has no front wall, though a main + road goes past it and there is no “front yard” at all! How would you + like to try to get lessons sitting out on the curbstone or on the + edge of the highway? The old style of study consists in shouting + Chinese classics, so as to memorize them, while the teacher sleeps + or smokes. +] + +If a Chinese wishes to ask whether a thing is good or bad he simply +says, “Good not good?” For “A man riding a horse came down the lane,” he +says, “Man horse come lane.” But that does not mean that Chinese is an +easy language to learn well. The “tones” alone are harder than all our +grammar, and most boys take from six to eight years to learn to read and +write. So we should find it hard work to learn Chinese properly. + + + Modern Schools + +China now has many schools much like our own. The pupils study about the +same subjects that you do, though of course they take Chinese history +instead of American or European. They sit at desks like yours, have +teachers paid by the government or the city, and use books similar to +your schoolbooks, except that they begin at the back and read down +columns from right to left. + +Some American schoolbooks have been translated into Chinese. There are +gymnasiums and physical training in some schools, though many Chinese +boys seem to like to play checkers or ping-pong or croquet rather than +baseball and football. There are manual-training schools and all kinds +of technical high schools and several large Chinese universities. Boys +and girls usually go to different schools, or at least to different +classes, for the Chinese think that this is the best arrangement. + +Out in the villages and in the far-away parts of the country there are +still many of the old-fashioned schools which China had before the +revolution. There the pupils usually sit on narrow sawhorses and shout +all day long at the top of their lungs. The old style of teaching was to +have the pupils memorize as many of the old Chinese classics as +possible, and to write essays just like those that were written hundreds +of years ago. If we had that system in our schools, you would have a +book of Shakespeare or of some old philosopher before you, and each +pupil would be reading in a different place and shouting different words +at the same time. The teacher pays very little attention, unless the +shouting dies down. Then he jumps up, perhaps with a switch or ruler, +and sets everyone to shouting again. + +Very few girls go to these old-fashioned schools. In fact most Chinese +still think girls do not need an education. Millions of boys and even +more girls, especially the sons and daughters of peasants and coolies +and other poor people, never get to school at all. There are not yet +places enough for them, and only in a few cities are children required +to go to school if they or their parents do not wish it. In olden times, +not so long ago, students were shut up in cells in great +examination-halls when the time came to take their examinations. They +were left there sometimes for two or three days, during which they had +to write essays as much as possible like those in the old Chinese +classics. No one was expected, or even allowed, to have any ideas of his +own. + + + The Chinese Are Very Intelligent + +You would be very much mistaken if you thought that because millions of +them cannot read or write, the Chinese are not intelligent. Even those +who still have many of the ridiculous old superstitions are very bright +and have a great deal of hard common sense. In fact I have seen many an +“ignorant” Chinese coolie whose mind was much sharper than the minds of +some Americans who go through high school and then read nothing much for +the rest of their lives but a daily newspaper and now and then a cheap +novel. + +Compared to the number in our country, there are very few newspapers in +China. Most of those are miserable little sheets that look like the +handbills scattered about by our stores and theaters. But the Chinese +get the news, for all that. They hear much of it at the tea shops where +all the men gather. The women do not often go to such places, but many +of them exchange gossip on the river-bank or pond-edge where they do +their washing. Whenever I traveled through the country away from +railroads and steamers I heard my mule-drivers or boatmen or +carrier-coolies exchanging the news with those they met from the other +direction everywhere along the way. + +Tea shop gossip is, of course, hardly equal to a good daily newspaper, +or to the better class of weekly and monthly magazines. There are no +movies in most parts of China, either, and very few of our many other +ways of telling people what they ought to know. That is one of the +reasons why China cannot yet be a real republic, just as it is the +reason why there is so much uncleanliness and unhygienic living and +disease. If you have no way of showing people the truth you cannot teach +them why they should brush their teeth every day and take frequent +baths. + +Some Chinese men and women, as well as foreign missionaries, are doing +all they can to teach the poor people who have never had time to go to +school or could not find room in one. In Taiyuanfu, the capital of +Shansi Province, the “model governor” put up big billboards with one +thousand of the most important Chinese characters painted on them. +Rickshaw-coolies waiting for customers and women going to market can +study these and perhaps in time learn them. Of course knowing only one +thousand of the many Chinese characters is much like knowing only the +words in one of our readers for first grade. But with that start many a +coolie who has never been inside a school has learned to read at least +the newspapers. Now the thousand-character idea is being used in many +parts of the country. + +[Illustration: + + My Chinese name, Fei Lan-kuh. +] + +Every foreigner who goes to China, by the way, should take a Chinese +name. The Chinese cannot pronounce or even write our names in their +characters. Besides, there are only about a hundred Chinese family +names, and they are the only ones the Chinese recognize. My own Chinese +name is Fei Lan-kuh. Fei is as nearly as the Chinese who have not +studied English can pronounce my last name. They could no more read my +real name on a visiting-card than you can read the one on my Chinese +card. To the Chinese I was Mr. Fei. The character with that sound means +extravagance, and Lan-kuh means orchid and self-control. But I do not +believe the Chinese thought me either extravagant or flower-like! + + + Work on a New Alphabet + +Some Chinese and many foreigners have tried to make an alphabet that +could be used instead of the thousands of picture-words it takes so many +years to learn. But that is not easy, because even if you can invent +letters to represent all the queer Chinese sounds you still have to find +ways to show whether the word should be pronounced high or low, fast or +slow, or in any other of the various “tones.” Besides, the Chinese say +that if they stop using the old characters they will no longer be able +to read their famous classics. They remind us that the boys and girls of +Korea and Annam, where the Japanese and the French have introduced +simplified books, can no longer read Confucius or any of the old +philosophers. We should not like it if the English language were so +changed that our children would be unable to read the great classics of +our literature. + +In olden times education was held in great honor in China. Those who +stood highest in the old-fashioned examinations had the best chance of +becoming high government officials. Coolies still consider a boy who +goes to high school very far above them. Some students have taken +advantage of this to start trouble against foreigners or against the +government, but most of them are learning to take a really intelligent +interest in the problems of their country. + +We must not forget that the Chinese invented gunpowder, the compass, +printing, porcelain, and many other important things. They have thought +out some of the greatest proverbs, some of the wisest philosophy that +the world possesses. They are the most ingenious people on earth. If +they have never become really inventive as well as ingenious, it is +because there were always so many men ready to work for almost nothing +that it was cheaper to get along, for example, with a windlass than to +invent a windmill. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII + FOREIGNERS IN CHINA + + +Would it not seem strange if certain foreign countries owned and +governed parts of New York, Washington, St. Louis, and others of our +large cities? Yet that is exactly the condition in China. Not only does +England own the island of Hong Kong and a portion of the neighboring +mainland, but the best parts of nearly all important Chinese ports +belong to Japan, Great Britain, France, Italy, and other European +countries. These foreign colonies in China are called “concessions,” +because they were conceded by the old Chinese government, sometimes +after wars between the foreign countries and China. Most of them were +merely leased for a long term of years, rather than given. But they are +really foreign colonies within China. + +China did not want to open her doors to the West any more than Japan or +Korea did. The Chinese thought all other peoples were barbarians; and +they still do, to a large extent—just as we still sometimes call them +heathen. So the emperors decided that it would be better if their people +did not come into contact any more than necessary with the rude traders +and seamen from the outside world. To begin with, therefore, the Chinese +quite willingly allowed the foreigners to build up ports and cities on +certain bits of Chinese territory turned over to the outsiders. + + + Foreigners Make Many Improvements + +Many of the pieces of land leased to the foreign governments were so +poor that the Chinese officials must have snickered to themselves when +they gave them to the despised “barbarians.” Where the great modern +foreign part of Shanghai now is there was little more than a swamp. The +pretty little foreign business and residential island of Shameen in +Canton was a patch of sand in the river, covered with water at high tide +and with garbage or refuse at low tide. So it was with most of what have +now become the most modern parts of many Chinese cities. In the +beginning the Chinese thought they were holding the “barbarians” back by +letting them live only on such pieces of ground. But now, seeing how +much better off the foreigners are under their own laws in cities they +have built for themselves, many Chinese wish that the concessions +belonged to China. + +There is at least one very good argument in their favor. If a Chinese +politician or general or thief or murderer gets into one of the foreign +concessions, the Chinese government cannot do anything to him. If he +puts his stolen money into one of the foreign banks in a concession, the +Chinese from whom he stole it cannot get it back. We naturally would not +like it if France or England or China or any other country protected our +criminals in certain parts of our own cities. So we are rather glad the +United States has no concessions in China, except that Americans help to +govern the part of Shanghai known as the International Settlement. + + + Foreigners Have Their Own Laws + +After the World War Germany and Austria and Russia lost their +concessions in China, and also the privilege of trying their own people +in China under their own laws. But if an American were to rob or kill a +Chinese, or anyone else, in any part of China, he could not be tried by +a Chinese judge according to Chinese laws and be shut up in a Chinese +prison if he were found guilty. All the Chinese could do to him would be +to arrest him and take him to the nearest American consul. If he were +charged with only a small crime, the consul himself could try him. If it +were something important he would have to be taken before the regular +American court in Shanghai presided over by a judge appointed by the +President in Washington. He would be tried by American laws, and if he +were found guilty he would be sent to an American prison, perhaps in the +Philippines. + +Strangely enough, the Chinese themselves wanted the foreigners to have +this privilege of extraterritoriality (as it is called), just as they +wanted them to take the concessions. They did not care for the bother of +trying to make the rough seamen and other “barbarians” who came to their +ports behave themselves. They preferred that the “barbarians’” own +governments should attend to such matters. It was much as if the boys of +one school had gone to another school to play football. Naturally the +teachers of the “home” school would rather have the visiting teachers +look after the conduct of their own pupils. + +But in time the Chinese discovered that this privilege of not being +subject to the laws and officials of China was an advantage to the +foreigners in the country, just as the concessions were. From every +country go out bad as well as good men, and some foreigners took +advantage of the situation to do things in China which they should not +have done. Then consuls and judges have sometimes seemed too lenient in +dealing with their countrymen. Besides, the Chinese say that it is not +fair to a great nation like theirs to allow other peoples to have such +privileges. It makes China “lose face.” + +Yet even now the people of fourteen different nationalities, all +European except ourselves and the Japanese, have extraterritoriality in +China. Russians and Germans and Austrians, however, can be tried in +Chinese courts and sent to Chinese prisons. Up in Manchuria I saw more +than two hundred Russian prisoners in a Chinese penitentiary, and at +least one of them was afterward executed. There were two or three +Germans in prison in Peking, and a few in other parts of the country. +Now many of the Chinese are demanding that all foreign nations give up +legal privileges, as well as concessions. But foreign governments say +that it would not be fair to their people living in China to do this +until Chinese courts become less corrupt and more independent of local +dictators, and until Chinese prisons are improved. + + + Thousands of Foreigners in China + +You would probably be surprised, as we were, to find how many foreigners +live in China. There are thousands of Americans, to say nothing of all +the other nationalities. Perhaps half of these are business men, many of +them living in Shanghai. Some of them are interested in the Chinese +people, but too many are interested only in the money they can make out +of them. When they leave their offices they go to their own clubs or +parks or golf-links, where no Chinese are admitted except as servants. +Many of them never learn to speak Chinese, even though they live in +China half their lives. In fact some who were born there cannot do so. +They talk to their servants and clerks and rickshaw-men in +pidgin-English, which is a dreadful “language” made up of Chinese +sentences translated into words that are really not English at all. +“Master no wantchee catchee sampan chop chop” is the way they would say, +“I do not wish to take the boat yet.” + +If any of you ever go out to China to represent an American company I +hope you will not look down upon the Chinese as some business men do. +Parts of China are made as ugly by advertising billboards as many of our +own roads and railroads are at home. Some foreign companies even paint +their advertisements on temples and city walls. When they receive such +treatment, it is no wonder that the Chinese occasionally call us +_Yang-gwei-tze_ or _Fang-gwy-lo_, that is, “foreign devils.” + + + Many Mission Schools + +There are at least ten thousand foreign missionaries in China, more of +them Americans than of any other one nationality. They learn Chinese, +study Chinese history, and take much interest in the people. Chinese +temples are everywhere, but there are now many churches also. I do not +remember a single large city anywhere in China that has not at least one +church and a foreign missionary or two. Some have many more than that. +Great establishments, such as schools, hospitals, and universities, have +been built by foreigners in Peking and in nearly all the provincial +capitals. Hard-working American and British and other men and women go +about the country holding services in the villages and curing sick +people. + +[Illustration: + + High school girls who are attending an American mission school in + Shantung Province. They are not allowed to have bound feet. +] + +In the olden days missionaries suffered hardships in China. They lived +in miserable Chinese mud-brick houses and ate poor native food. Often +they caught dreadful diseases and sometimes they were mobbed and even +killed. But now nearly all of them live as comfortably as they could at +home. They build good foreign houses, eat their own kind of food, and +have more servants than they could possibly have in the United States. +Of course some things are not so pleasant as they are at home, but +others are more so. Missionaries living far back in the interior still +sometimes have to rough it. I spent two days with a French priest who +had lived all alone in a miserable little Chinese city for twenty-five +years. He had never been back to France and expected to die at his post. +Most Protestant missionaries go home for a year every seven years, and +they usually have their families with them. + +Although foreign missionaries have been working among the Chinese for +nearly a hundred years there are by no means as many Chinese Christians +as there are Chinese Mohammedans. Yet it must be very interesting work +to be a missionary in China. A doctor or a teacher, especially, should +get great satisfaction out of helping the Chinese, for in some things +they are not yet able to help themselves. + +Many Chinese are now objecting to mission schools. They say that every +country should control its own schools. They believe the children will +lose their patriotism for China and become attached to the countries +their missionary teachers come from. They ask us if we would like it if +Chinese started schools for American boys and girls in the United States +and tried to make them Buddhists or Confucianists. However, China +herself has not yet built enough schools for all her children. + +There are Chinese Christians who wish to establish a Chinese Church +also, and quite a number of missionaries agree with them. They say that +they should pay their own way in religious matters as well as in any +other. They cannot see any good reason why they should be divided as +Methodists, Presbyterians, and so forth just because Christians in +America and Europe are so divided. The time may perhaps come when nearly +all Chinese Christians will join together to form a true Chinese Church. + + + + + CHAPTER XIV + ALONG THE GREAT YANG-TZE KIANG + + +China is so large a country that what is true in the north is often not +true at all in the south, nor perhaps even in what is called Central +China, the basin of the Yang-tze Kiang. This “Son of the Sea,” as its +name means in English, cuts China in two much as the Mississippi does +the United States. But instead of flowing from north to south, it flows +from west to east. Rising among the lofty mountain ranges of Tibet, it +runs clear across China proper to the Pacific Ocean. It is more than +three thousand miles long, considerably longer than the Mississippi, and +with its many branches it drains fully as much territory as our own +greatest river. + +Yet though most foreigners think so, the Yang-tze does not exactly +divide northern from southern China. The real dividing-line is farther +north, about at the thirty-fourth parallel of latitude. In crossing that +invisible line on our way south by railway, either from Peking to +Shanghai or from Peking to Hankow, six hundred miles up the Yang-tze, we +shall see an almost sudden change in the life and realize how much +difference is made by climate. There will be no more camels; no more +“Peking carts” bumping along on wheels having sharpened spikes for +tires; no more wide roads. We shall see narrow trails winding through +the rice fields, wide enough only for men on foot or for wheelbarrows. + +[Illustration: + + Plowing a rice field is not exactly fun for the man, but the water + buffalo seems to enjoy the muddy, flooded field. +] + + + Coolies and Rice Fields + +Even the most important “roads” of southern China are seldom more than +two and a half or three feet wide, though often they are paved for +hundreds of miles with broad slabs of stone. The carrier-coolie, usually +with his load at the two ends of a springy pole, carried over the +shoulder, is the chief beast of burden throughout southern China. I have +had coolies tell me that this is an easy way to carry heavy loads +because, since the load bounces up and down as they trot, they really +feel the weight only half the time! At any rate, they become so used to +carrying things that way that if they have load enough for only one end +of the pole they put a stone, or perhaps a little boy or girl in a +basket, at the other end. Often it is easier for a Chinese to carry two +of his small children than one, especially if he has twins! + +[Illustration: + + Men in China are so used to carrying everything hung by long cords + from the ends of a pole that they often take the baby to balance + some other load. Or, if they have twins to take for a ride, it is + very easy to carry them in this way. +] + +Instead of the _kaoliang_ and millet and wheat of northern China we now +find rice growing everywhere. Along with the flooded rice fields comes +the water-buffalo, the _carabao_ of the Philippines. He loves to wallow +in places where rice grows, only his eyes and nostrils above the surface +of the water. Though the line between northern and southern China is not +marked on a map, it is so distinct that I know places where wheat grows +in one field and rice in the next one. + +[Illustration: + + The boys, and some of the girls, in southern China ride the water + buffaloes to keep them out of the rice fields while grazing along + the dikes. A Chinese boy learns to sleep soundly stretched out on + the animal’s back, but it is hard to see how he can do that and be + really “on the job” too. +] + + + Shanghai + +Most people who visit China land at Shanghai and perhaps think of that +as the most important Chinese city. This is not true, although it is the +most important “foreign” city in China. In the International Settlement +or the French Concession you can almost imagine yourself in some big +American city; and it is the foreigners rather than the Chinese who rule +it. Yet there is a big Chinese part of Shanghai also, an old city that +was once walled, where things are much the same as they are a thousand +miles from any foreign concession. At the end of the electric car lines +built for the foreign sections, passengers often transfer to +wheelbarrows which bounce them away over roads almost as bad as those in +the far interior. As a port, Shanghai leads all other cities of the Far +East. + +[Illustration: + + In many ways, Shanghai is a very up-to-date, modern Western city, but, + as appears here, men still do much of the work that horses or trucks + would do in our country. +] + +Shanghai is not on the Yang-tze, but on a branch of it called the +Whangpoa. Yet all the big steamers going up the “Son of the Sea” start +from there. Many of these steamers are British or American or Japanese; +indeed, one of the complaints of the Chinese against foreigners is that +they were forced to make a treaty allowing anyone to use their great +river. The United States does not allow foreign boats to carry freight +or passengers on the Mississippi, you know, or even between the ports on +our coasts. + +[Illustration: + + This is a scheme that beats the “daily dozen.” Boatmen around + Shaohsing, which is across Hanchow Bay from Shanghai, row with their + feet and paddle with their hands, at the same time. They can keep + this up for twenty-four hours at a stretch. +] + + + Important Cities + +Two cities we must not fail to see before we go farther inland are +Soochow and Hangchow. Both of them are on the Grand Canal, though not +exactly on the Yang-tze itself. They are famous old cities with many +canals and queer high-arched stone bridges, and the Chinese have a +saying that they are the most beautiful places outside of heaven. I +doubt, however, whether you would think them so very beautiful, and I am +sure you would not find them clean enough to be called heavenly. + +The Grand Canal, by which the people of southern China sent their taxes +in rice to Peking for hundreds of years, crosses the Yang-tze at a +pretty place called Chinkiang. The canal goes on northward and the river +takes us to the west. Almost at the junction is the famous old city of +Nanking. Its name means “southern capital,” as Peking means “northern +capital.” But though it has been the capital of China at various times +during the past two thousand years, like several other cities, it is now +only the capital of a province. If it filled all the space inside its +great wall, it would be one of the largest cities on earth. But it was +almost destroyed several times during various wars, especially in the +war against the Taiping rebels, about the time of our Civil War. We rode +for miles through hilly country even after entering the city gate, and +found Nanking itself down in the southern end of the inclosure—much as +if it were a peck of potatoes left in a two-bushel sack. + +We can travel to Nanking from Shanghai either by railroad, in about five +hours, or by steamer. On the river we shall pass modern cotton-mills and +other proofs that China may in time become a great industrial nation of +factories, like Japan or the United States. But as we travel farther we +shall discover that the great mass of the Chinese still work in little +groups, often in their own houses, and that they are still in the family +stage of industrial development, just as Western peoples were once—and +not so long ago, either, as world history is measured. + +[Illustration: + + A “street” of Shaohsing which, like many cities of southern China, + somewhat resembles Venice in having many canals. These + water-streets, if not so beautiful as those of the Italian city, are + certainly picturesque. +] + + + On Up the “Son of the Sea” + +As we plow on up the Yang-tze, so wide that sometimes we can see only +one of its low flat banks at a time, we do not wonder that the Chinese +named it “Son of the Sea.” Besides the big foreign steamers, as +comfortable as those crossing the Pacific, there are thousands of native +craft. Sometimes a hundred sails are in sight at once; near at hand we +see that they have ribs of bamboo which remind us of the lines on a +sheet of writing-paper. Many of the boats or junks have an eye painted +on each side of the bow, usually protruding like the eyes of a fish. The +Chinese think that a boat needs to see its way just as a man or an +animal does. + +There are many smaller boats also on the Yang-tze. Some are what we call +_sampans_, which in Chinese means “three boards,” and that is about all +some of them are. The fishing boats crawl along the shores and sometimes +go far out into the stream. Some are rowed by an old man or woman, or +even by a boy or two, while at the bow stands a stronger man with what +looks like a huge pair of scissors made of bamboo. He thrusts the +crosspieces and attached net down to the bottom, closes the “scissors,” +and draws them in again. If he catches a fish, or anything else good to +eat, he dumps it into the boat. Generally he catches nothing, but he +goes right on working as fast as he can without really hurrying. As I +have said before, the Chinese think it undignified to hurry. Along some +of the canals of China we shall find men lifting weeds and slime off the +bottom with these scissor-like implements; nothing is wasted in China, +and the stuff collected makes good fertilizer. + +[Illustration: + + Thousands of Chinese cloth weavers work in little dens like this. + Often they eat at their loom, and sleep on a board or mat underneath + the crude wooden machine. Yet these workmen do not seem to think + their lot a hard one. +] + +The more common form of fishing-boat along the Yang-tze and in many +other parts of China is a raft, usually anchored at the shore. A little +hut made of grass and reeds shelters the fisherman, and a long square +dip-net, much like the one we sometimes use, held open with a bent +bamboo fastened to each of its corners, is balanced at the end of a long +pole. Now and then the fisherman pulls up the net by hauling the inboard +end of the pole down to him in his hut. Even such nets do not seem to +catch many fish, but no people have more fisherman patience than the +Chinese. They even fish in little ponds about the towns, and fix rows of +poles so as to spoil the net of anyone who tries to catch their fish at +night. + +[Illustration: + + Silk thread hung out in a yard to dry before being woven into cloth. + The making of silk is one of the most important industries of China, + but it is nearly always a home-and-family, rather than a factory, + industry. +] + +Several times we saw big flocks of ducks being driven across the river. +Two men in small boats each had a long pole with a lash on its end. They +hit the water with the lashes to make the ducks go the way they wished. +I have seen hundreds of these duck-herders driving their flocks over +hills and through swamps and rice fields looking for feeding grounds, or +bringing them home again at night. + + + Living on the Water + +Even beggars have boats on the Yang-tze. Some, in miserable “three +boards,” paddle up close when travelers stop, and beg for the rice that +has been left over from the last meal. If they see a stick of wood in +the river, or anything else they can possibly use as fuel or food or for +any other purpose, they hurry after it and fish it out. Some of these +beggar-boats make one think of big washtubs, and nearly all contain +whole families, the children lying about on bundles of rags that serve +as bedding. More than once I saw a man in a tub hardly as large as those +we use on wash-day, paddling himself about with two pieces of board +smaller than tennis-rackets. In ponds about Nanking and along the +Yang-tze a man or woman, or a child, sometimes goes out in one of these +tubs to pull up water-chestnuts from the bottom. The Chinese eat these, +as they do almost anything, although from them, the missionary doctors +say, comes one of the worst native diseases. + +The Chinese never really row a boat. Sometimes a dozen or more men stand +at the front, facing forward, and push at long oars. But the more common +way is to scull, just as the gondolier of Venice does, with a single oar +sticking out behind, its inboard end fastened to the deck with a piece +of rope. All over southern China there are families that have no other +home but their boat. They are born, grow up, marry, and die on boats. +Most of them have an altar to their ancestors taking up the best part of +their floating home. The women handle a boat just as well as the men do, +and baby sleeps serenely on mother’s back while she sculls. + +[Illustration: + + The duck herder, driving his flock to a place where they can pick up + food, is a very common sight in China. +] + +There are a number of large cities along the Yang-tze, but the big +foreign steamers dock at only a few of them. At other places, such as +Anking, capital of the province of Anhwei, passengers landing have to +jump into small boats sculled out from the shore. Those who wish to +board the steamer scramble, somehow, with many shrieks, onto the lower +deck. Often baggage is lost in the confusion, and sometimes passengers +are drowned. + + + The Ever-present Pagoda + +Outside its walls Anking has a pagoda that looks quite new, but like +nearly all pagodas in China it is about a thousand years old. A pagoda +is supposed to protect a town from evil spirits, and sometimes it has +another use, as is the case with that at Anking. The Chinese imagine +that this city is a boat, and think that its _two_ pagodas keep it +anchored. The second pagoda is only the shadow thrown across the river +by the real one at sunrise. Now, unless they wish to float away and live +somewhere else, you would think that the people of a town that is a boat +would be careful to keep repaired the pagoda that serves it as anchor. +But the people of Anking either thought they would be better off +somewhere else or they grew very careless. They allowed their pagoda to +fall almost into ruin. Finally a rich Chinese rebuilt it, in gratitude +for having been kept from sailing on a steamer that sank during the +voyage he had planned to make on it. + +Not far from Anking is a sacred mountain called the Chio Hwa Shan, or +Nine Flowery Mountains, because of the strange form of its peaks. I +climbed to the cluster of temples and monasteries at the top, along with +hundreds of pilgrims. But as we shall climb even more famous sacred +mountains before we leave China I shall not take time to tell you much +about this one. Kiukiang, the next important city above Anking, is +partly a concession belonging to foreigners, like Nanking and Wuhu. From +the river the walled city of Kiukiang along the bank looks very +picturesque, but when we land we find only the foreign part of it clean +enough for an enjoyable walk. + + + Triplet Cities + +Higher still, six hundred miles up the river, are the triplet cities of +Hankow, Hanyang, and Wuchang. Together they have nearly as large a +population as Chicago. Hankow is a foreign concession, with some six- or +eight-story buildings, modern streets, and a wonderful foreign club with +everything from golf to cricket, from horse-racing to swimming-pools, +where the many foreign residents come in the afternoon and evening to +hear band concerts and enjoy themselves even more than most of them +could at home. Just across a creek with hundreds of native boats on it +are the great steel mills of Hanyang. The Japanese have a strong +influence in the control of these mills as they loaned money to build +them. Across the Yang-tze is Wuchang, a big Chinese city and capital of +an important province. Here began the revolution of 1911 that drove the +Manchu emperor off the throne at Peking and gave China the name of a +Republic. + +Foreign and Chinese steamers go on up the “Son of the Sea” a thousand +miles more, but they are smaller steamers than those between Hankow and +Shanghai. That part of the great river is often beautiful and much more +interesting than the wide lower Yang-tze with its flat shores. We shall +see it when we come down from far western China at the end of our +Chinese travels. Now we will return to Kiukiang and climb to Kuling, a +foreign city. Here my family and I spent the summer with more than three +thousand other foreigners. There were at least twenty different +nationalities in that foreign community, and China has no more to say +about governing it than it has about governing Kansas City. + +[Illustration: + + When a rice field is plowed, the children follow and gather a certain + kind of snails which the Chinese consider good eating. It doesn’t + seem to be very hard work for these youngsters, who probably get the + same kind of pleasure from the task as American children would in + making mud pies or sand forts. +] + + + + + CHAPTER XV + DIFFICULT JOURNEYS + + +We could easily imagine ourselves in an airplane when looking down upon +the great Yang-tze plain from Kuling, four thousand feet above it. Most +of the summer the river was so full that it overflowed its banks and +flooded much of the surrounding country. But we could still tell which +was the real river, by the darker yellow of it, as it wound away across +the green country like a gigantic snake. On the other side of our +mountain we could look down upon the great lake of Poyang, the largest +in China. The Tung Ting Hu, farther up the Yang-tze, is sometimes called +the largest; but it is so only when the flooding Yang-tze fills it +during the summer. + +Far away across Poyang Lake lies a city that ought to be more famous +than it is, for it is the china-town of China, where nearly all the best +Chinese porcelain has been made for hundreds of years. Yet many +foreigners who know that the most wonderful porcelains on earth have +always been made in China have never heard of Kingtehchen, and millions +of Chinese themselves do not know its name. That is what comes of a +city’s being so far away from a railroad or any other modern form of +transportation that only those who are willing to endure hardships can +reach it. As the crow flies it is only about a hundred miles from Kuling +to Kingtehchen, but it took me longer to get there than it does to go +from New York to Salt Lake City. + +First of all I had to descend the mountain, this time on the lake side. +I had found a coolie, who carried my cot and bedding and some cans of +food and other baggage, and who boiled my eggs and did other simple +cooking for me along the way. He thought that seventy coppers a day +(fifteen cents in our money) would be about the right wages. On the way +down the narrow trail, steep as a stairway, we met many other coolies, +such as we had seen climbing to Kuling all summer. + +Everything that goes up there has to be carried on men’s backs, whether +it is a trunk or a barrel of cement or the timbers as big as +telegraph-poles that are used as beams in the foreign houses. We passed +long trains of these coolies, each with two great poles tied together in +V-shape over his shoulders. Almost all foreigners and wealthy Chinese +who come to Kuling are carried up in chairs. The coolies were naked to +the waist, with streams of sweat running down their sun-browned bodies. +Yet when they stopped to rest, leaning the ends of their poles against +the mountain side, they seemed to shiver, though we had often found +Kuling too hot. + +I have made many difficult trips in various parts of the world, but I do +not remember a short journey that was as hard as that tramp to +Kingtehchen. We might have gone by boat along the lake and up a river, +but no one knew how long that might take. So after crossing the lake by +_sampan_, we found one of those flagstone roads that wind through rice +fields in southern China. Though hardly three feet wide, it dropped so +suddenly into the muddy fields on either side that we had to walk on the +stones all the time. You can imagine how hot it was, in the middle of +August, with never a cloud in the sky or a tree along the way; for we +were as far south as Georgia. + +[Illustration: + + Did you ever hear of buffaloes wearing straw sandals? The driver is + carrying a supply of such footgear for these water buffaloes. The + animals’ hoofs are so soft that when a long trip is taken the + sandals are put on them for protection. +] + + + Wading along Flooded Roads + +To make matters worse, much of the country was flooded. I waded all one +day and part of another, in water often above my knees. If you have ever +tried that, you know how it makes the thighs ache. My bare feet slipped +on the slimy stones of a road which squirmed about almost invisible +beneath the water. If I stepped off the edge I went up to my waist in +mud. Once I split a toe-nail, but luckily it did not become infected. +Before the trip was over I had a dozen blisters on my feet, and my legs +ached from pounding the hard stones and ploughing through the water all +day. + +[Illustration: + + A crowded passenger boat on Lake Poyang, the largest lake in China. + You will notice that the one big sail has many parallel ribs, made + of strips of bamboo, to keep it stiff. +] + +The first night I stayed with an English customs officer in a town at +the edge of the lake. I was so hot from the walk that I might have been +wakeful anyway, but the hubbub kept up by the night watchman made sleep +quite impossible. For hundreds of years Chinese watchmen have made their +rounds pounding sections of dried bamboo that sound like drums, or +clashing pieces of iron together, or shouting at the top of their lungs. +Some of them, like this watchman, do all these things at once. They say +it is to prove that they are awake and on the job, but I suspect it is +partly to give warning in time, so that they will not have to fight +thieves and robbers. Can you imagine one of our policemen going about +town pounding a drum or blowing a whistle all night? + +The other nights I slept outdoors, putting up my cot with its +mosquito-net on some corner of the narrow road, and once down on the +bank of a river. The Chinese never sleep outdoors at night, if they can +help it, no matter how hot it may be inside, and when traveling they +always stop at the largest, noisiest, and dirtiest town they can find +instead of out in the pleasant country. My coolie was horrified at my +foolishness, and all the people for miles around came and stood near my +cot half the night, talking about the “crazy outside-country-man.” In +fact I was often pointed out along the way as the queer fellow who +risked being moon-struck or killed by the evil spirits that fly at +night. + +It was harvest-time, and all day long the dull thump! thump! thump! of +the threshers sounded in our ears. Instead of using reapers or binders +and threshing-machines the Chinese cut their rice by the handful with a +sickle and then beat out the heads of it into a big wooden box so heavy +that it usually takes two men to carry it from field to field. Often +there were four men at one box, each pounding on a different side of it +and making a sound as regular as do several men with sledges working at +the same blacksmith’s anvil. + +[Illustration: + + This father and son of Kingtehchen are noted for the porcelain figures + they make. After the figures are baked, they are covered with bright + colors and baked again. +] + + + Where Chinese Porcelain Is Made + +We reached Kingtehchen on the fourth morning and found it a very large, +crowded, and busy town, with streets as narrow as they were a thousand +years ago. It stretches five miles along the inner curve of a shallow +river, and the bank is twenty or more feet high because broken china has +been thrown out upon it for centuries. Walls and every other possible +thing are made of porcelain dishes that melted together in the kilns or +were broken or otherwise ruined in the making. Yet much rubbish remains +unused. + +[Illustration: + + An old potter of Kingtehchen, the china-town of China, who has worked + in a porcelain factory since he was a boy. He throws a lump of clay + upon a horizontal disk, or “wheel,” makes the wheel revolve, and + “shapes up” a vase or bowl from the whirling mass of clay, using his + fingers and a stick. +] + +Almost everyone in town above the age of six or eight works in one way +or another in the manufacture of porcelain. Hundreds of families make +china dishes in their own homes, but there are also some larger +factories. The most important establishment used to make porcelains for +the emperors, and the manager of it showed me some of the most +magnificent vases and delicate porcelain things I have ever seen. +Hundreds of men do nothing all their lives but carry loads of pine +firewood on their shoulder-poles from the boats that bring it down the +river to the kilns where the dishes are baked. Sometimes as many as six +thousand dishes are stacked up in a single kiln, where they are baked +for about thirty-six hours. + +[Illustration: + + These vases and other porcelain articles represent the finest work + done by the skilled potters of Kingtehchen, that fascinating city + far off the beaten track of travel. +] + +During that time the kiln-boss never sleeps. He tells whether the fire +inside is hot enough by spitting into the hole where the tons of pine +wood have been thrown. Nearly everything else is done in the same +primitive, old-fashioned way. For instance, the “biscuit,” as the +unbaked dishes are called when they are still soft clay, are carried +through town to the kilns on boards which are balanced on men’s +shoulders. These men become so expert that they can make their way with +a board on each shoulder through the narrow crowded streets of +Kingtehchen without once having an accident. There are a few rickshaws +in the china-town, but they are not allowed to operate until after four +o’clock in the afternoon, because they would interfere with the +“biscuit” carriers and the other thousands of carriers racing back and +forth to do their part in giving to the world the famous porcelains of +China. + +Nearly all the best things made in Kingtehchen go down the river by +which I returned to the lake. There were whole junk-loads addressed to +an old Chinese firm located in New York City. The river is so shallow on +account of the broken china that has washed down it during hundreds of +years that the boatman of our _sampan_ had to wade and push most of the +twenty-four hours. The dirty old steam-launch that carried me across the +lake towed six fantastic old junks which reminded me of the ships of +Columbus. They were all piled so high with porcelains packed in +rice-straw and boxes that they looked doubly strange in the full +moonlight. + +[Illustration: + + Not “three men in a tub” this time, but only one; and perhaps the + result will not be so tragic as when the three wise men of Gotham + went to sea in a bowl. Certainly, in China, one sees a great deal of + boating of this sort. The man shown here was paddling himself about + the harbor of Jaochow on Lake Poyang, picking up anything that he + could use for food or otherwise. +] + + + Birds That Catch Fish + +There are many cormorant fishers on Lake Poyang, and in other parts of +southern China. The small boats they use have a pole perch along either +side, and on these sit the silly birds who do the fishing. The instant a +cormorant sees a fish in the water it dives, coming up with the fish in +its beak. The bird would like to swallow the fish, or at least drop it +into the great neck pouch which every cormorant possesses, until there +was time for a meal. But the bird’s owner has put a ring around its +neck, so that it can do nothing but drop the fish into the boat. Yet the +cormorant goes on fishing all day long, and all it gets from the man is +now and then a few of the smallest fish. + +[Illustration: + + Publishers’ Photo Service + + Cormorants fishing for their Chinese owners. Each bird, prevented by a + ring around its neck from swallowing the larger fish, drops these + into the boat. +] + + + Another Trip by Boat and on Foot + +From Lake Poyang I made another very interesting trip, to Foochow on the +southern coast. People said it would be dangerous, because of the many +bandits along the way. On my river journey down to the lake I had been +so crowded in a _sampan_ with a dozen Chinese that I could hardly turn +over on my cot. This time I was the only passenger on a much larger +boat, and I had my meals on another boat in which traveled two American +women missionaries. + +The river was so very shallow and the wind so often from the wrong +direction that it took us eight days to go a hundred miles up the +stream. Often we put on our bathing-suits and waded ahead of the boats, +and sometimes we had to wait an hour or two before they caught up with +us. I went ashore and walked the last fifteen miles, and had coolies +ready to go on over the mountains to Fukien Province with us when the +boats finally arrived. + +This overland trip was also just about a hundred miles, but it was +faster than the one by boat. However, instead of sitting in my +canvas-chair and reading or sleeping, I had to walk more than +twenty-five miles a day over very rough trails under a blazing sun. The +ladies rode in bamboo chairs, each carried by three coolies. + +The three most interesting things along the river had been the +irrigation, the indigo, and the trackers. The land was dotted with +circular thatch roofs over water-wheels, around which water-buffaloes or +oxen or cows marched all day long slowly hauling up water for the +thirsty rice fields. Often we saw from a dozen to twenty huge casks or +tall tubs standing at the edge of the river. When I got ashore I found +these filled with what looked like willow switches, covered with a very +blue liquid. Fields of these switches grew along the banks, and I +discovered that they were indigo, from which the Chinese make, not +blueing for wash-day, because they do not use that, but the dye for the +denim garments worn by nearly all the poorer people of China. + +What we usually call trackers are a very common sight on the rivers of +southern China. They are the coolies who haul boats upstream, sometimes +with freight or passengers. We passed long lines of them on the shore or +out in the water itself, each with the boat rope over one shoulder. In +places the pulling was so hard that they bent double, touching the +ground with their fingers, and pulling like plow-horses. + +Because there are always so many looking for jobs in China, a man must +toil his best if he is to satisfy his employer and avoid being +discharged. Nearly all the way up the river we kept pace with a fleet of +rafts loaded with American kerosene. Every morning the trackers started +pulling them before daylight and every evening they worked until it was +pitch-dark before they gathered around a small fire to eat their rice. + + + Traveling on the Min River + +But going down a river is very different from coming up, especially on +the native boats of China. From the ancient town where I left the ladies +at their mission station, I took a “slipper-boat,” as it is called +because of its shape, down the Min River. This stream was so swift that +three days were enough for the last half of a journey which had already +taken me more than two weeks. Every day there were dozens of rapids that +I should never have gotten through alive if my Foochow boatman had not +been so expert with his sculling oars. + +There were many bandits along the Min just then. An American woman had +been robbed even of her shoes. At one town I met a group of +missionaries, returning from their summer homes on the seashore, who had +lost most of their baggage when they were attacked by a large band. But +it is hard to stop anyone going down-river on the Min. Once some bandits +leveled their rifles at me and ordered me to come ashore, but before +they had gotten up courage to shoot we were around a bend and out of +sight. + +Southern China is much more wooded than the north. Trees grow faster, +and besides there have not been so many people through the centuries +cutting them down and grubbing out their roots. Fukien Province had big +forests, which made it look so different from treeless Shantung or Kansu +that it did not seem to belong to the same country. But now an American +lumber company is also doing its share toward making Fukien treeless and +rainless. Some of the huge logs, started floating down the river at +high-water season, were caught now on sharp points of rock. There were +wrecks of boats here and there, too. + +All the towns along these Chinese rivers are built so close to them that +they seem to be fairly hanging over the stream. Rubbish and garbage are +thrown from the backs of houses into the river. American cities often +make the river-bank a boulevard or promenade, but the Chinese make it a +dumping ground. The main street is just inside the first row of houses. +Of course there is reason in this, because it is so hot most of the year +in southern China that a narrow, shaded street is more pleasant than a +sunny river-bank. + +The big boats along the Min have a high platform, much like the bridge +of a steamer. The steersman stands on this, so that he can see all the +rocks and other dangers, and at the same time handle the enormous oar +used as a rudder. Some of the oars were forty or fifty feet long, and +even then they were not always strong enough to swing the boat around +quickly in a dangerous place. In order to balance this oar-rudder so +that one can handle it, the inboard end has a big stone tied to it. Or, +as the Chinese are always very saving, it may be weighted with a piece +of the cargo, such as a heavy bundle of brown rice-paper. + +[Illustration: + + This is the coolie who carried my cot and other baggage on the + overland part of the trip from the Yang-tze to Foochow. The strip of + cloth keeps the pole from slipping off his sweating shoulders. +] + +Below the pretty walled city of Yenping the Min is so broad and has so +few rapids that we went on all night instead of tying up to the bank at +the foot of a town. But along about two in the morning, when we were in +a very wide place in the river, so strong a wind came up that the top of +my boat was blown over upon me and we only just managed to get to a +sandy shore without being upset. Later we found that a typhoon had swept +the southern coast of China that night, and in the morning it was still +blowing so hard that the boatmen did not dare go on. I decided to go +across country. Four hours of tramping along winding flagstone roads +brought me to Foochow, but my boat and baggage did not get there until +the following evening. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI + DOWN THE SOUTHERN COAST + + +Foochow is one of the most important ports along the southern coast of +China. It is not exactly on the coast, however, being thirty-four miles +up the Min River. The old city was placed three miles back from the +river, because in the olden days the inhabitants feared attacks by +pirates. Now there is also a long, slender city all the way from the +walled town to the river. Besides, two islands in the river are so +covered with houses and shops and people that it is hard to draw one’s +breath, and on the farther bank is still more city. Part of this last is +the foreign concession, called Nantai, with one long modern street or +road shaded by big evergreens and lined by comfortable foreign houses, +offices, schools, and churches, each in its own yard. + +The view from these foreign houses over the several parts of Foochow and +up and down the Min is very picturesque. Besides the people crowded upon +the two islands and on the mainland there are thousands who live in +boats. These are packed tightly together, row after row, so that the +water too seems to have its streets. If a boat gets a job carrying a +passenger or some freight it is very fortunate, for there are many more +boats than there are boating jobs. Most of the boats simply serve as +homes, and the man goes ashore in the daytime to earn the family rice by +pulling a rickshaw or doing any other work he can find. + +A very ancient bridge, made of huge stone blocks that have been worn +glass-smooth by millions of feet, crosses the river, taking in the two +crowded islands on the way. It has so many piers that when the river is +high the water is held back, and most of the boats cannot pass it at +all. So Foochow is talking of putting up a modern iron bridge, which +will be more convenient but less picturesque than this old stone +structure, crowded with people all day long. + + + Some Chinese Are Fine Craftsmen + +Large steamers do not come up to Foochow, but stop at Pagoda Anchorage +several miles down the river. Yet, handicapped as it is, the city is a +great port. Quantities of tea, grown in Fukien, are shipped from +Foochow. The city is noted for its waterproof oiled silk, its +silversmiths and goldsmiths, and its lacquer-work. I saw a lacquered +screen that a man had spent eight years in making. He worked every other +hour and rested in between, because this work is so wearisome. Two or +three such screens are all he can make in a lifetime. It took him until +he was about twenty to learn how, and after he is thirty-five his eyes +will no longer stand such fine work. Yet he was paid only about +twenty-five cents a day, with rice and a plank to sleep on. Foochow and +the cities higher up the Min are noted for their pillows, but you would +not recognize them as such. They are made of a block of wood covered +with woven-bamboo that gives slightly, and are painted bright red. Like +the Japanese, most Chinese prefer a hard pillow, and coolies think a +brick makes a very good one. + +In Foochow and the region about it much of the work is done by women who +wear three great silver or pewter daggers in their hair. It is said that +they are descendants of tribes conquered by the Chinese, and that +because their ancestors were given daggers as a protection against the +Chinese soldiers these present-day women wear the weapons also. + +[Illustration: + + In Foochow District “field women” such as these do any work that men + can do, for they do not have bound feet and they have become used to + hard labor. Each of them wears three silver or pewter daggers in her + hair. The “field women” are said to be descendants of tribes that + were conquered centuries ago by the Chinese. +] + + + Different Chinese Dialects + +Most of China speaks more or less the same language, which we call +mandarin. But all along the coast from Shanghai onward, in a strip about +a hundred miles wide, there are many dialects. Only about three million +people use the Foochow speech, and few of them can talk to other +Chinese. It is much as if Chicago had its own language which other +Americans could not understand. + +Amoy, as foreigners call it, farther on along the coast in the same +province, also has its own dialect. There the foreign concession is a +rocky island a mile or more from the native city. Between it and the +shore is a splendid harbor. A little piece of railroad that runs a few +miles inland is the only railway in all Fukien Province. Out in the +ocean opposite Foochow and Amoy is the big island of Formosa. Formerly +it belonged to China, but it was taken by Japan after her war with China +in 1894–95. The Chinese in Formosa, except recent immigrants, have +Japanese citizenship and rights of extraterritoriality when on the +mainland, and some of them cause the Chinese authorities there much +trouble. + +Swatow, still farther on, is of more importance to foreigners and their +steamers than it is to the Chinese. Some time before I reached the city +a great tidal wave had swept over it, destroying many buildings and +killing thousands of people. Certain of the narrow streets were +crisscrossed with timbers holding up the house-walls on either side. In +other places the streets were wide and well paved, with quite new and +modern shops along them—as if the tidal wave had done the place some +good after all, by making rebuilding necessary. + + + Queer Old Customs + +A railroad about thirty miles long runs from Swatow to a larger and much +older city, called Chaochowfu. There I saw some things which I had read +of in old books on China but which I thought had now disappeared. For +instance, thirty men were carrying an enormous slab of stone through +town, and in some places they had to go far out of their way because the +stone was too long to turn a corner. Each coolie had the end of a bamboo +over his shoulder, and they were all chanting a kind of song as they +crept along. Chaochowfu is famous for a great bridge. Part of it is made +of great stone slabs such as those I saw being carried. The rest of it +is a pontoon bridge, that is, a bridge of boats which can be moved aside +when other boats wish to go up or down the river. + +The queerest of the old-fashioned customs I saw in Chaochowfu was hard +to believe. Two young men went about inflicting wounds on themselves in +order to arouse sympathy and induce people to give them money or food. +There are so many more people than good jobs almost anywhere in China +that such queer ways of getting a living are often tried. Once I saw a +dwarf who earned his rice by the use he made of a pipe with a very long +stem. Wherever he saw a crowd of coolies, he went up to them and passed +around the end of the stem. Each man who took a few puffs gave the dwarf +some “cash” or a copper coin. + + + An English Possession in China + +Hong Kong is not really in China, but it is quite Chinese. It is a high +rocky island belonging to England, but Chinese make up most of the +population. Its wonderful blue harbor can accommodate hundreds of ships, +and nearly all the flags of the world are seen there. Most of the +English residents live on the mountain side, back above the native town +and business section. + +[Illustration: + + Thousands of boats like these are used as homes along the coast of + southern China. The people are born, married, and die on boats. Do + you notice the _eyes_ at the bow of some of these queer craft? The + Chinese think a boat needs to see just as well as a man or an + animal. +] + +Two-story street cars run along the main street, but curious chairs, +like shallow boxes on poles, carry the people who wish to ride up the +hillside. An electric cog-wheel railway, with stout steel cables between +the cars, takes passengers up to the Peak, from which there is a +wonderful panorama of sea and islands. Four hours by steamer across the +bay from Hong Kong is the oldest foreign colony in China, Macao. The +Portuguese have had it for nearly three hundred years, but now it is +little more than a big gambling and opium den. + + + The Great City of Canton + +The most interesting city in southern China is Canton, a short day or +night ride up the Chu-kiang, or Pearl River, north of Hong Kong. Since +shortly after the revolution of 1911 it has been separated from the rest +of China, with a government of its own. Therefore it often calls itself +the “southern capital.” Its spoken language is also different from +mandarin, so that we could not talk to the people at all. I once acted +as interpreter between two Chinese. One was a man from Canton who spoke +English, and the other a man from the north, whose language I could +speak a little, but of which the Cantonese could not speak a word. The +Chinese name of Canton is Kwangchowfu, and it is the capital of +Kwangtung Province, from which we get our name for the city. + +We lived for several months in Canton. Our house was in Saikwan, the +western suburb. Never have you seen such a labyrinth of winding narrow +streets as the one through which we had to pick our way to get home. +Many of the houses and shops had outer doors of wooden bars, so that the +air could enter but beggars and robbers could not. Most foreigners who +have just come to China are afraid to go into those narrow streets of +old Canton. + +[Illustration: + + A board with round hollows in it is used in Canton as a sort of cash + register. The principal money in that city is the silver twenty-cent + piece. A man tosses a handful of money onto the board, shakes the + board until there is a coin in each hollow, empties the coins into a + basket, and picks up another handful. +] + +The noise made by rushing coolies and yellow-faced merchants shrieking +for customers is enough to terrify anyone at first. Yet when one gets +used to it one finds this fear of Chinese street life as foolish as +being afraid of the dark. We had no trouble at all during our many long +wanderings through the famous old city, though often we were lost and +had to wander a long time before finding our way. In time we became very +friendly with these rushing, shouting people who at first seemed rather +dreadful. + +There was formerly a great wall about Canton, and a second one not far +from the river. But Dr. Sun Yat-sen, a famous Chinese who headed the +revolution against the Manchus, had the walls removed while he was +governor of Canton. Once when he was a young man he had to climb over +the city wall in the middle of the night in order to save himself from +the Manchu soldiers. So perhaps he was glad of the chance to tear down +the walls and make wide streets in place of them. + +Some similar avenues have been cut through the old walled city. Here one +sees private automobiles and autobuses rather than the old sedan-chairs. +But during most of the year it is pleasant to turn off the sun-scorched +dusty new streets and wander through the old ones, so narrow that +sometimes you can touch both walls at once. Many of these streets are +roofed over with awnings made of oyster-shells, so that they are +completely protected from the glaring sunshine. + +The best view of Canton is from Five Story Pagoda hill, once a part of +the city wall. The famous old temple that gives the hill its name is in +a ruinous state, and may soon fall down entirely unless the Cantonese +repair it. In the center of the city below rises the Flowery Pagoda, one +of the prettiest in China. Close to it is a great green spot called the +British Yamen, because the English took it during a war and still hold +it. Beyond stands what the Cantonese call the Smooth Pagoda. Unlike +other Chinese pagodas, this is not built in stories. It is really an old +minaret, with a little mosque at its foot, and dates from the time when +there were many Mohammedans in Canton. Outside the old walled city among +other Moslem graves is the tomb of a man who claimed to be the uncle of +Mohammed. + +The two church spires that rise above the city to the left belong to the +big cathedral built by the French. Down by the river, on the farther +edge of the city, stands a high building that seems to belong to New +York. It is a great Chinese department store, much like ours at home, +where you can buy almost anything. There are other quite modern +buildings along the Bund, the wide water-front street that is always +filled with traffic. Wireless towers stand out against the skyline. +Across the river is more of Canton, on an island called Honam. There we +found no wide streets at all, and it was like solving a Chinese puzzle +to find our way through its maze of narrow crooked passageways. + + + Beautiful Things Made in Canton + +Canton produces much silk, beautiful native furniture, fans made of +everything from peacock feathers to stout paper on which are written +Chinese sentences. It would take pages just to mention the beautiful and +interesting things found in the city’s open-front shops. Near the French +cathedral is a dirty little street where all sorts of pretty and +sometimes useful things are made of ivory. Boys who do not seem old +enough to have learned any trade carve artistic figures and curious +playthings out of elephant tusks. Some of the shops use bone instead of +ivory, and strangers must be careful when buying. Across the river in +Honam the famous Canton china is decorated with bright red +fighting-cocks and other designs; but it is not made there, coming +undecorated all the way from Kingtehchen. + +[Illustration: + + Watering a garden in the outskirts of Canton. The Chinese are tireless + agricultural workers and know their business well. +] + +The foreign concession in Canton is an island called Shameen. One third +of it belongs to the French and the rest to the British. But Americans +and Japanese and people of many other nationalities live there and have +banks, consulates, and so forth. No vehicles except baby-carriages are +allowed on Shameen. With its wide shaded streets, its park, tennis +courts, and football field, it looks much like an old New England city. + +A narrow canal separates Shameen from the native city, and watchmen keep +most Chinese from crossing either of the two bridges. Boat-homes, of +which there are thousands in the river and in the canals of Canton, are +not allowed to stay on the foreign side of the canal, but they are as +closely packed against the opposite bank as automobiles in a city +street. Several other foreign communities have grown up in the outskirts +of Canton, for Shameen is by no means large enough to accommodate all +foreigners. + +Gaudy weddings and funerals make their way through the city streets. The +delicious Chinese fruit called _laichee_, which America knows only after +it is dried, grows in some of the parks. Not every feature of Canton is +pleasing, however. The rickshaws do not have wire wheels and pneumatic +tires, like those of Peking and most of northern China, but wooden +buggy-wheels that make a great racket and give one a rough ride. When +the tide is out, the canals on which people glide home at high tide are +often very smelly and far from pretty. One day I saw an official +pounding a prisoner with a big hickory club to make him confess; sights +even more distressing are sometimes seen. + + + + + CHAPTER XVII + IN THE PROVINCE OF KWANGTUNG + + +Kwangtung, the province in which Canton is located, is as big as some of +our largest states, and rich and important. From Sze Yap, the Four +Districts, on the western side of the Canton delta, come nearly all the +Chinese laundrymen and restaurant-keepers and other Chinese who live in +the United States. In fact a large proportion of the Chinese in all +other parts of the world are from Sze Yap. If you ask them they may say +they are from Canton. But that is either because they know by experience +that you have never heard of Sze Yap and that you may know of Canton, or +because they mean by that name the province of Kwangtung. + +On the junk that carried me from the Bund in Canton to Kongmoon, +principal port of the Four Districts, my cabin was much like a piano-box +turned on its side, and the queerly shaped boat was piled with Chinese +cargo until it looked like a haystack floating down the river. First we +went upstream a little way, towed by a launch that showered sparks and +cinders on us, and steered by half a dozen men who walked back and forth +along a cleated board at the stern, pushing an enormous oar that stuck +out behind. When we wished to warn another boat, a man beat with a +hammer on a hanging piece of iron. Roosters among the cargo did their +part in helping to keep us awake nearly all night. + +[Illustration: + + The queer cargo boat in which I went from Canton (seen in the + background) to Kongmoon in the Four Districts. +] + + + A Visit to Sze Yap + +There is a railroad more than a hundred miles long from Kongmoon on into +Sze Yap. It is an interesting railroad because it was built by a Chinese +who came to the United States when he was seventeen and later was a +foreman during the construction of one of our great transcontinental +railways. He had worked in California as a laundryman and a +fruit-picker, but finally grew rich. He still owns a big store in +Seattle. He decided to spend his money for the good of his home +district, so he came back and built this railroad. He was more than +eighty years old when I spent a night with him at his railroad +headquarters at Sunning, but he was still president and general manager +and superintendent as well as owner of the line. + +[Illustration: + + Making brown paper of rice straw. The chopped straw is soaked in water + and pressed out into sheets. The wet sheets are pulled off one at a + time and put on the mud walls to dry. +] + +Almost every day I met Chinese men in Sze Yap who had been in the United +States and spoke more or less English. That was lucky, for the people of +the Four Districts do not speak real Chinese. This is the reason that +the Chinese we have in America cannot talk to those from other parts of +China. One evening I spent with a Mr. Lee who, with his brothers, owns a +Chinese restaurant in Cleveland. He took me to a restaurant in Kung-yik +where I had a real American meal. Another man I met was dressed like an +American high school student, and spoke English so perfectly that I did +not know he was Chinese until I had looked closely at his face. As a +matter of fact, he could not speak Chinese, for he had been born and +educated in Oregon. His name was Fred Hang. He had come home to be +married, so that his family line would not die out, and soon after the +wedding was over he was going back to the university of his native +state. He acted as if he were very homesick for America, and he must +have found it stupid not to be able to talk to his Chinese relatives. + +[Illustration: + + Palm-leaf fans are made of the young leaves of a low palm, which are + fastened to sticks so as to be kept open and are laid out to dry. + The ground here is covered with drying fans. +] + +One of the curious facts about Sze Yap is that the millions of Chinese +palm-leaf fans come from one little section of it, around the old town +of Sunwei. The very short palm-trees or bushes from which these fans are +made do not seem to grow well in any other place. When they are large +enough, the leaves are cut and piled up in stacks. Then they are spread +open with a stick and laid out to dry. After that, old women cut the +ends off and sew a cloth border around them. These women earn about ten +cents a day, and the fans are so cheap in China that almost every coolie +in the south carries one. The tops of the leaves are made into +raincoats. + + + Dangerous Pirates + +There are a great many pirates in the lower Canton delta, as there have +been for hundreds of years. They capture people and hold them for +ransom, tying them to stakes and leaving them to die if someone does not +pay to have them freed. They have better boats and better weapons than +the government itself, and now and then they capture and loot foreign +steamers. The English captains of two boats I traveled on were killed +soon afterward by pirates, and one night a band of them stole one of the +big steam launches that ferry people across Hong Kong Harbor, carrying +it off, passengers and all. Yet two American missionaries who are +working among the lepers on an island in the delta can go anywhere among +the pirates and are treated like old friends. The pirates watch for +Chinese returning from America and other foreign countries and often rob +them of all they have earned. I met one old man who had only an old +silver watch left when he got back to the town he had emigrated from +when he was a boy. + + + From the Yang-tze to Canton + +Once I went overland from the Yang-tze to Canton. The northern part of +the province was very mountainous, and the mountains were dotted with +the whitewashed stone-heaps that are the graves of that region. Cement +graves of horseshoe shape and of all sizes, some of them as big as a +house, are common in other parts of Kwangtung and in Fukien. The ranges +of high hills about Sunwei are dotted with graves as far as one can see, +and Paak Wan Shan, or White Cloud Mountain, near Canton is covered with +thousands of them. + +Part of that trip from the Yang-tze was down the North River of Canton, +and the last 140 miles of it was on a railroad built by Americans. This +was intended to run all the way from Canton to Hankow, where one can +take a train for Peking. Some day, if the Chinese ever stop fighting +among themselves, that important line will be finished, and then Peking +and Canton will perhaps become better friends. The trains on that +railroad and on the one in Sze Yap were crowded with soldiers, most of +whom had no tickets. Two other railroads enter Canton, but I found that +the one from Hong Kong had been broken by the armies of rival Chinese +generals who used this region as a battle-field. + + + China’s Largest Island + +From Canton I went to Hainan (“South of the Sea”), China’s largest +island. It also belongs to Kwangtung Province, and some day it will +probably be joined to the peninsula stretching toward it from the +mainland, for the channel becomes more shallow every year, and ship +captains always dread the passage through the Straits of Hainan. We saw +the wrecks of several steamers on our way to Hoihow, the principal port +of Hainan. There is no real harbor, and passengers have to climb down +rope ladders into sailboats that are often dancing wildly in the waves. +Sometimes, when the tide is out, they have to wade the last half mile to +shore. + +[Illustration: + + “Field women” and girls lifting water into the rice fields by means of + sluiceways with a chain of paddles such as are used in many parts of + southern China. +] + +Kiungchow, the chief city, and much of the northern part of Hainan, are +not very different from the rest of China. But in the interior there are +great valleys of palm-trees, from which copra, or coconut-meat, is +exported. The climate and landscape remind the traveler that he is not +very far from the Philippines. + +A tribe called the Loi lives in the mountainous center of the island, +especially about the beautiful peaks called the Five Finger Mountains. +The woods are thick, and travelers there are always much troubled by +leeches. The Loi have their own headmen and are not governed by Chinese +law. In harvesting rice, they cut off the upper six inches and bundle +it, hanging the bundles head-down over poles and threshing it as they +need rice to eat. Rattan, to gather which is painful work since it grows +among masses of thorns, is sold to Chinese who export it. + +Hainan is particularly noted for its pigs. On the way inland I met +thousands of coolies _carrying_ pigs—the pigs seem to prefer this to +being driven, and the Chinese humor them. If the pigs are small, a man +carries one at either end of his shoulder-pole. If they are large, two +men carry one on a pole between them. Every steamer that passes Hoihow +east-bound takes a load of pigs. They are piled up on the deck like +cordwood, sometimes six or eight layers deep, each in the kind of +basket-net in which they are brought from the interior. You may imagine +what such a ship smells like! + + + The Valuable Bamboo + +Bamboo is another important Hainan product. It would take at least a +whole page even to mention all the things the Chinese make out of that +very valuable plant. It is not properly called a tree, though sometimes +it reaches fifty feet in height, and shoots up so fast that one can +almost see it growing. The rivers of Hainan have enormous water-wheels +made of bamboo, so large that you wonder how a people without pulleys or +other modern contrivances can raise them. Dozens of sections of the +hollow bamboo are set at an angle on the outside of the wheel, and as +the wheel turns, these dip up the water, pouring it into troughs that +carry it away into the fields. When the river is too low to run a +water-wheel, the farmer has to walk along the top of his wheel all day +long. + +[Illustration: + + This little pig really went to market, and he was carried there too. + In China pigs won’t walk to market, and as they are the most + important product of Hainan Island they have to be transported + somehow. +] + +Another way of raising water in rice-growing southern China is by a +wooden sluice that has an endless chain of upright boards running +through it. Men, women (since Hainan women do not have bound feet) and +children trot up and down all day on the kind of treadmills that keep +such sluices working. Sometimes the sluices are run by hand, with two +handles like the pedals of a bicycle. The Chinese have invented all +sorts of primitive devices to raise water for their irrigation, but they +never seem to have thought of windmills. The treadmill is useful in +various ways in a country where there is plenty of cheap labor. Some of +the boats on Canton’s river are propelled by a big stern-wheel turned by +many coolies climbing forever up a treadmill inside. + + + Down the West River + +The last time I came back to Canton I traveled the whole length of the +Si-kiang, or West River, through the province of Kwangsi. The little +Chinese steamers were so crowded with passengers that men slept even on +the floor under my cot. Most of them smoked opium, and the sweetish odor +of that destructive drug was in my nostrils during the entire two weeks’ +journey. Although it is against the law in China to grow poppies and +transport the opium made from them, nearly every steamer down the +Si-kiang carries tons of it. The rival generals make much money out of +it, and no one dares interfere with them. Some of the boats fly the flag +of the United States, because a rascal who pretends to own them gets +them registered as American ships and no Chinese can interfere with a +boat flying our flag. There are very few of our countrymen, however, who +take such mean advantage, and our consuls are gradually driving out of +the country those who do. + +An attempt on the part of China to stop the importation of opium from +India resulted in a war with Great Britain in 1840, and in China’s being +forced to open certain ports to opium or anything else that Western +nations chose to send. However, in 1907 an agreement was made between +Great Britain and China by which the Indian Government was to reduce +gradually the opium exportation to China. + +Kwangsi is much poorer than Kwangtung, because so much of its land is +rocky. Along the upper part of the West River stand queerly shaped rock +hills like rows of fantastic skyscrapers. Many have caves in them, +sometimes a hundred feet up, and bandits often use these as their +headquarters. In the Bay of Along, at the western end of Kwangtung +Province, there are thousands of these rocky peaks that seem to float on +the blue sea. I do not know a more beautiful place than this bay +anywhere in the world. + +A Chinese who had been cook for the British customs commissioner at +Nanning, capital of Kwangsi Province, opened a foreign restaurant. But +there are few foreigners in Nanning, and those have their own homes, +cooks and all. So the enterprising Chinese did not get much trade until +he began serving the favorite Chinese dish in those parts. It is a +mixture of cat and snake meat, and Chinese who have eaten it say it is +very “sweet” and good. I did not try it. + +At Kachek in the island of Hainan I saw a man roasting dogs in a pit he +had dug in the ground. People who were attending a fair and theatrical +entertainment near by sometimes came to him for a feast of dog-meat. +Dried rats may occasionally be seen hanging before shops in southern +China. Yet it would not be fair to say that the Chinese in general eat +cats, rats, dogs, and snakes. In a few parts of the country they do, +especially in times of famine. It is claimed by some Chinese that +wherever any of these animals are used as food, it is because of certain +medicinal qualities that they are supposed to possess. For instance, the +snake meat is said to be a remedy for a kind of leprous ailment; and the +Chinese say that the “rats” are not really rats as Americans know them, +but a sort of field mice which feed on the rice plant. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII + A SUMMER IN SOUTHWESTERN CHINA + + +Not one foreigner among a thousand who come to China ever travels into +the part of it we are now going to visit. Yet the least known parts of +many a country are often the most interesting. It would have been better +to have turned my travels about, and gone to Kansu in the summer and to +the other two great western provinces of Yunnan and Szechuan south of it +in the winter. But we cannot always arrange things exactly right in +traveling any more than in the other affairs of life. + +The usual way to Yunnanfu now is by the railway from Haiphong, chief +northern port of the French colony of Indo-China. The trip takes three +days, but to go in any other way would take at least that many weeks. +The narrow-gauge railway, built by the French, is one of the most +remarkable pieces of engineering in the world, and the scenery along the +last two thirds of the way is magnificent. The trains do not run at +night, so the passengers have to go to hotels. The first night is spent +in the Indo-Chinese border town of Laokay and the second in the Chinese +town of Amichow. + +Almost as soon as we had crossed the frontier again into China the +second morning, we began to climb up into rather bare mountains. The +train dashed from one tunnel into another, passing over many a +steel-arch bridge high above roaring mountain torrents. Sometimes the +engine and the last car came so close together that the train reminded +us of a kitten chasing its own tail. Once we were three hours making our +way in a horseshoe curve between two towns that were only a few miles +apart across a gorge. All the time beautiful mountain scenery surrounded +us. At two or three points the railway is more than a mile and a half +above sea-level. There is a saying that as many coolies lost their lives +in building that railroad as there are ties along it. + +[Illustration: + + The Chinese may not know what a picnic is, but they often eat outdoors + in such a makeshift restaurant as this. These people under the big + umbrella are having a meal just inside the city wall of Yunnanfu, + lofty capital of Yunnan Province. +] + + + A City in the Clouds + +At last we came out high above a great blue lake and descended into the +capital of Yunnan Province. Though it is as far south as our Palm Beach, +this place is a favorite summer resort for the French of Indo-China, +because it stands six thousand feet above the ocean. Of course the older +part of it is walled, but the governor who has ruled it since the +revolution has cut conveniently wide openings in place of some of the +old gates, and has made a few good straight streets, well paved with +stone. Most of the streets are still narrow, and covered with +cobblestones worn so smooth that the least rain makes them as slippery +as ice. + +Yunnanfu shows many queer contrasts. The new university owns some big +modern buildings, including laboratories and dormitories, and an +athletic field. Several of the professors were educated in Kansas. On +the other hand, the street cleaning is done by ragged and almost naked +prisoners, with great irons clanking on their legs. Many of the shops +are so shallow that customers have to stand in the street lined up along +the shop’s counter. Street-stands have rows of tin basins and towels for +those who wish to bathe, and combs and brushes are for rent. + + + Good and Evil Dragons + +One day the governor came to the dedication of a new wing of the British +Mission hospital. He wore the long silk robes of the Chinese gentleman, +but had on his head an ordinary stiff straw hat. This, we fancied, was +the result of his Japanese training, which had given him many of his +modern ideas of governing. The people of Yunnanfu are so superstitious +that when a fire broke out near one of the governor’s new openings in +the city wall, they said he must have angered the spirits by cutting +into the wall. Claiming that this same action was to be blamed for a +great drouth, they paraded through the streets carrying the rain dragon +from one of the temples, and everyone threw water on it. They painted +out the sun god on the city gates and painted the rain dragon in its +place. They also dressed up a dog in the queerest costume they could +find and led him about town, while everyone laughed loudly at him; for +an old Chinese proverb says that if you laugh at a dog rain will come. + +Sure enough, finally it did rain, but now so much water fell that crops +were drowned out, the railroad was broken in a dozen places, and the +whole city was in danger of being flooded. So the people decided that +they had prayed too hard for rain, and began to pray for it to stop. +They painted out the rain dragon and painted in the sun again. They +closed the northern gate, because they thought wicked spirits were +sending in the rain that way. Anyone living outside the north wall had +to walk a long way around every time he entered the city. At last the +rain stopped and the people were sure their gods had answered them. + + + Away on a Thousand-Mile Trip + +It was during the first rains that I started on a thousand-mile trip to +the capital of the next province and beyond. Both the American consul +and the Chinese governor refused to let my family go with me. They said +it was too dangerous. But I was allowed to go myself, if I would let the +authorities send a military guard to protect me along the way. + +[Illustration: + + This blind girl, whose feet were bound, was carried for a week along + the trail that we took north from Yunnanfu. Her home was two hundred + miles inland. +] + +The American agents of some of our big corporations doing business in +China sometimes have as many as five hundred soldiers with them on a +journey through Yunnan. I had visions of having to pay much more than I +could afford for the trip, for while the government pays the soldiers +their regular two or three dollars a month, the man they escort is +expected to give each of them at least ten cents every day. Suppose you +spent five hundred dimes a day for a month, how much less money would +you have at the end of that time? + +Fortunately for me, the governor did not think that I was a very +important person. When I was ready to start only four soldiers were sent +to accompany me! Every day or two along the way other soldiers would +take their places. Sometimes there would be only one man, without even a +gun. Those who had guns did not always have cartridges. Once a soldier’s +rifle began dropping apart and he borrowed string from me to tie it +together! Perhaps my guard expected to scare the bandits, if we met any, +without firing a shot. + +I took a horse with me on that trip, though I intended to walk a great +deal. In fact I often had to walk, for in many places the trail was so +bad that I could not ride. Yet I was following an ancient and important +highway between two of the three great provincial capitals of western +China. I had a servant, named Yang Chi-ting, who cooked very good +American meals, and did any other work I needed done along the way. He +walked all the time, until I was able to buy a horse for him nearly five +hundred miles north. Although his wages were only five dollars a month +(and he bought his own food), that was so much in Yunnan that along the +way I often heard him boasting of his high wages, and the people gasped +with astonishment when they found how much he got. A more faithful and +harder-working servant it would be very difficult to find anywhere. By +this time I had learned enough Chinese so that I could often have long +talks with Yang and for weeks at a time I did not speak a word of +English, unless it was to myself. + + + Opium Smokers + +At the start I had four coolies to carry my baggage and supplies. Two +were enough on the last part of the trip. The coolies all smoked opium, +as do many people of Yunnan. The poppies from which opium is made grow +there profusely. Every morning I had hard work getting my carriers +started early, because they must smoke opium first and then eat +breakfast. If they did not eat after smoking, they would fall sick along +the way. When we stopped at noon they would lie down on the earth floor +of some hut and smoke again, and at night they would smoke for hours. +This dreadful habit finally makes wrecks of those who indulge in it. Yet +those coolies could carry a hundred pounds each, over terrible mountain +roads, for twenty-five or thirty miles a day. + +Sometimes the trail was like a deep ditch full of stones, in which we +waded and slipped and sprawled. At other times it was as steep as the +roof of a church. Once we passed a caravan of more than two thousand +pack-mules, carrying opium and silver money. We were three days getting +past it. With it were many soldiers and rich men or officials riding in +sedan-chairs, carried by poor coolies who looked like worn-out horses. + +Some day perhaps there will be a railroad through that part of the +world, and then all such freight and passengers will go by train. But +now the Chinese toil along just as their ancestors did a thousand years +ago, stopping each night in mud hovels where there is nothing but the +earth floor to sleep on, unless they have brought bedding with them. + + + Mountain Scenes + +All the Chinese women along the way had bound feet. When they had to +walk in the mud they used little wooden sandals that looked like a +horse’s hoofs. In this mountainous province many of the people are so +poor that their clothing is nothing but rags. We saw children eating +cornstalks. Yunnan grows much corn and many potatoes, though it is so +far south that the potatoes at least would not grow at all if most of +the province were not higher than Denver. The majority of Chinese have +never heard of potatoes. Even in Yunnan they are called “foreign +vegetables.” In other parts of China people will not eat potatoes if +they can get anything else, and even the Yunnanese much prefer rice. But +most of them cannot afford it. + +Among the places we stopped at for the night were Ta Pan Chiao, which +means Big Plank Bridge, and Hong Shih Ai, or Red Stone Cliff. As I have +said before, though Chinese names look and sound queer to us, their +mystery vanishes when we find what they mean. The same is true of the +gaudy wooden signboards that stand before Chinese shops. In one large +city I saw a sign that had been turned into English, and it said “Happy +Heart Furniture Shop.” Most Chinese signs would be as simple as that if +we could read them. + + + One of Many Adventures + +I must mention one of the many adventures that happened to me on that +Yunnan journey. It had been raining all day, and we had been slipping +and sliding along the side of a high mountain, almost as steep as the +wall of a house. Many streams without bridges crossed the trail; the +biggest roared down a great gorge. Still, there was nothing to do but +try to cross it, unless I wished to lie out on the mountain side all +night. After driving my horse in, I went higher up and crossed on some +rocks. + +[Illustration: + + From this you can get an idea of the terrible road that we traveled + over for weeks on the overland route between Yunnanfu and Chengtu, + capitals of the great southwestern provinces of China. +] + +When I reached the other side no horse was to be seen. Coolies whom I +could not hear above the roar of the stream waved their arms and pointed +down the gorge. I looked, and was horrified to see only the head of my +poor horse, whirling around far down in the rapids. Not far beyond, the +gorge fell into a deep and swift river that later joins the Yang-tze. I +fancied that the carcass of my poor horse, with the saddle and the +several valuable things in the saddlebags and the coat I had tied on it, +would finally be washed out into the ocean at Shanghai, about a month +later. + +But Chinese horses are hardy, just as the coolies are. Some men ran down +to the edge of the stream and managed to catch the horse by the head. +Finally they got its front feet up on a rock. Without even waiting to +reach solid earth again, the animal began calmly eating the grass it +could reach. Perhaps if it had fallen a few hundred feet farther it +would have been still more hungry. But I found later that its nerves had +been badly shaken. For two days after that it trembled at every tiny +stream and I had to walk all the way, though sometimes the road seemed +to be almost vertical for half a day at a time. + + + The Chinese Make Felt Rugs + +I spent the Fourth of July in a city named Tungchuan, but I did not hear +a single firecracker. Not only was there not another American within +several hundred miles of me, there was not even a white man of any +nationality; and as it did not happen to be a Chinese holiday, no +Chinese were shooting off firecrackers. (By the way, do you know that +firecrackers are red because that is the Chinese color for happiness?) +Tungchuan makes vessels of copper and brass. They are pounded out by +hand on little anvils stuck in the ground, and turned on crude lathes +run by a foot lever. You have perhaps seen a grindstone run in that way. + +But the greatest industry of Tungchuan is the making of felt rugs. +Chopped up sheep’s wool is rolled out into a kind of thick blanket, just +as the Mongols make the felt for their movable houses. Then flour paste +is daubed on it, in patterns of flowers, birds, and so forth, after +which it is soaked in vats of dye. The dye colors the parts that are not +covered with paste, and when that is scraped off the flowers or other +designs remain white. Most of the Tungchuan rugs are bright red. Often +we saw trains of pack-mules loaded with them struggling along the trail. + +[Illustration: + + In Tungchuan one of the chief industries is the making of felt rugs. + The decorative designs are painted on in flour paste so as to remain + white when the rest of the rug is dyed bright red or some other + color. +] + + + Money for Use of Ancestors + +Thousands of towns in China are noted for making one or two particular +kinds of articles, which may not be made anywhere else. Other things are +made in many places, nearly always by the same crude methods. False +money to be burned at graves is one of these things. In almost every +town, boys stand at a great wooden block driving a hollow chisel into +big piles of rice-paper. Each sheet comes out looking as if it were a +sheet of brass “cash,” and the pious people buy the sheets in quantities +so that their ancestors will have money in the next world. We met many +coolies carrying enormous loads of this coarse paper. In other towns men +take bars of tin and pound them for days at a time to make sheets of +tinfoil. These are folded together to look like the “shoes” of silver +that are still used as money in some parts of China. Some of the +“shoes,” painted yellow to represent gold, are burned by the richer +people at the graves of their ancestors. + +[Illustration: + + The two sides of a Chinese “cash,” issued in the reign of the Manchu + Emperor Kwang-su. Kwang-su was on the throne from 1889 to 1908, + although the Empress Dowager was the real ruler. +] + + + + + CHAPTER XIX + AMONG THE PRIMITIVE TRIBES + + +The halfway station on the ancient trail between Yunnanfu and the +Yang-tze is the walled city of Chaotung. I left most of my baggage there +and went on a side-trip to the eastward. That was the only way to see +Kweichow, the most isolated province of China, and I had determined to +visit all eighteen provinces. Besides, the western part of that province +is noted for its wonderful scenery, and—most important of all from my +point of view—many of the tribesmen of China live there. + +Long before the Chinese conquered what we now call China, many other +tribes or races of people occupied that territory. In a way they were +much like the Indians in America, and the conquering was very much the +same. That is, the Chinese gradually defeated the tribes in the north +and the east, and the conquered people either were absorbed, by marrying +with the Chinese, or they fled south and west. That is probably why +there are many dialects along the coastal strip of land between Shanghai +and Indo-China. The descendants of the people who fled south, and were +finally conquered when the ocean stopped them from fleeing farther, kept +their own languages, more or less mixed with Chinese. + +[Illustration: + + The coal mines near Chaotung are so shallow that only boys can carry + the coal out of them, and they have to stoop in this four-legged + fashion. What an outcry would be made if growing boys in America + worked under such conditions! +] + +The first signs I saw of aboriginal tribes not entirely absorbed by the +Chinese, were the “field-women” of Foochow district, each with three +daggers through her hair. The farther west I went, the more I saw of +peoples who have lived in China for thousands of years and still are not +Chinese. In Kwangsi Province many of the inhabitants are Chung-chiah, +one of the most important of what we might almost call China’s Indian +tribes. The tribes are especially numerous in the southwest, but have +farms of their own or rent them from the Chinese. The Chinese have had +less trouble with these early peoples than we once had with our Indians. +Millions of them are left, although it is many centuries since the +Chinese began to conquer them. One of the aboriginal tribes has never +been conquered, and lives under its own laws in a mountainous region +where the Chinese rarely dare go. + + + Over the Trail into Kweichow + +I rode and walked all day in the rain over a very difficult mountain +trail from Chaotung to a place called Shih-men-k’an, or Stone Gateway, +in Kweichow. British missionaries have headquarters there, in several +whitewashed buildings that stand out against the green mountain sides. +They work among the Hwa Miao, or Flowery Miao, who get their name from +the gaudy garments they wear. There are also Black Miao, who wear black +garments, and River Miao, who live in river valleys. The many thousands +of Flowery Miao live among high mountains, at least a mile above +sea-level, and they are all farmers. + +Two of the missionaries went on with me next day. There was to be a Hwa +Miao festival at one of their stations in the mountains. My servant, +Yang Chi-ting, walked all that day, just as he always had; but it was so +distressing to see him toiling up and down those terrible mountain +trails that I bought him a horse next morning. The horse, by the way, +was a splendid little stallion, plump and lively, and a wonderful hill +climber; and I paid just ten dollars for him. Later I sold him in +another part of China for more than he had cost; but if only I could +have brought him back to America and had wished to sell him, I could +easily have asked and obtained ten times as much for him. + +The only way I can describe the wonderful scenery of western Kweichow is +to ask you to imagine several great green worlds, covered with little +farms of strange shapes, piled up into the sky on the far side of gorges +so deep that the rivers at the bottom seem threads. There were many +tracts of splendid forest on this high rolling landscape; for parts of +southern and especially southwestern China have not been settled long +enough by the Chinese to have all their trees turned into coffins. + + + The Flowery Miao + +The Hwa Miao live off the main trails. They do not like visitors as well +as the Chinese do, and they do not have stores, with things to sell. +Their villages are usually hidden in clumps of trees back among the +hills. They raise hemp, in what geologists call sink-holes, and weave +their own garments from the fiber in the stalk. They eat oatmeal and +buckwheat and corn, which are their principal crops. I saw many a +buckwheat field in blossom, adding to the beauty of the landscape. Some +of the cornfields were so steep that we wondered how the women and girls +hoeing them could stand up. + +Miao oatmeal is rather different from our own. When these people go out +to work in their steep fields, or start on a journey, they take along +dry oatmeal in a sack. When they are hungry they put some of this in a +bowl and pour cold water on it, mixing it with their fingers. Then, if +they have no chopsticks, they make a pair out of the first switch they +can find, and eat. If they are more thirsty than hungry they use much +water, and if they are more hungry than thirsty they use little water. +Of course they have no sugar or milk, and not even salt. The rest of +their life has just as little luxury. If you looked into one of their +huts you would probably think it a very badly built and poorly kept +pig-sty. + +Yet the Hwa Miao are very likable as well as simple people. Nearly three +thousand of them were gathered for the festival. Missionaries did not +find it so hard to convert the Hwa Miao as they did the Chinese, perhaps +because no one else had ever been kind to them as far back as they could +remember. Formerly they had festivals in which everyone drank too much +corn-whiskey and did even worse things. So the missionaries introduced a +kind of field day with our style of sports. I saw running and jumping +and pageants and outdoor games that are much more familiar to us than +they are yet to the Miao. + +Most interesting to me were the people who had come to see the games. +Some had walked for two days over the mountains to get there. Many had +changed their clothes in a gully or in one of the mission buildings. +Even the girls each carried a sack containing her best clothes, and +oatmeal or cornmeal enough to live on while away from home. The people +filled a steep cornfield above the playground, as they might a stadium. + + + Flowery Miao Girls Dress Gayly + +[Illustration: + + A Miao mother watching the of the Christian festival while her baby + sleeps on her back. Below her gay skirt she wears wrap leggings and + straw sandals. +] + +No wonder they are called the Flowery Miao. It would be so difficult to +describe the gaudy homespun garments, especially those of the girls and +young women, that I shall have to let the photographs I took give you +some idea of them. Red and black were the most common colors, but there +was every other hue one could think of. The women’s hair was not +jet-black, and oiled, as it always is among the Chinese women, but had a +reddish-brown tinge. Possibly the color is caused by the sun, as Miao +girls never wear hats. They never cut their hair, but do it up in puffs +and masses and coils, and adorn it with all manner of ornaments, such as +porcupine quills, silver bangles, wooden combs and more things than I +can name. Many of them wear huge silver earrings of strange designs, and +bracelets that clank as they walk. Their gay pleated skirts come barely +to their knees. Below the knees they wear what we might call wrap +leggings, in gay colors. Their feet are always bare, except that +sometimes they wear _tsao-hai_, or straw sandals, like the Chinese. Once +a girl is married, however, she puts away all her ornaments. Earrings, +bracelets, her gayest garments, all disappear. Her hair, wound tightly +about a stick set upright on her head, is built into a cone shape. A +Miao mother’s hair is quite safe from tangling by baby’s fingers. + +[Illustration: + + A Hwa Miao mother with her baby on her back, and a Hwa Miao girl. The + girls wear elaborate garments and do their hair in complicated style + with many ornaments. Married women never put on ornaments, and they + build their hair up into a cone shape, wrapped around a stick. +] + + + The I-bien, Nosu, or “Lolos” + +The Hwa Miao are almost slaves, for they all have to rent their land +from a more powerful tribe or from the Chinese, and do just about what +the landlords tell them to do. We call that other tribe the “Lolos.” You +will find this word in geographies and encyclopedias, which is +unfortunate, for it is the insulting name given these people by the +Chinese. They prefer to be called the I-bien or Nosu. They are tall and +stately, quite different from the short, sturdy Hwa Miao. The women wear +cloth turbans and long gowns, often of purple, but never of the gaudy +colors liked so well by the Flowery Miao. The men now usually dress like +the Chinese, though some of them still wear a turban, and many use a +white felt cape nearly half an inch thick. + +The “Lolos” are divided into three classes. At the top are the “Earth +Eyes,” landlords owning often thousands of square miles of land and +ruling much as did the feudal barons of Europe during the Middle Ages. +Their homes are castles, generally on some high spot from which they can +see for many miles around. Under them are the Black Nosu, who are +freemen, usually owning some land, but obliged to become soldiers and +fight for the “Earth Eyes” when the latter are in danger. Under these +are the White Nosu, who have been slaves for hundreds of years. + +Over in Kweichow the “Lolos” have been conquered by the Chinese, or at +least live in peace with them. But in a great mountainous region almost +encircled by the Golden Sands, as the upper Yang-tze is called, are the +independent “Lolos.” We passed within sight of this region on the way +northward again from Chaotung by the main trail. But I did not cross the +river for a visit. So far as is known, only three white men have ever +been among the independent “Lolos.” One was an English lieutenant, whom +they killed. The other two were English missionaries, one of whom told +me about his trip. He found some of the “Lolos” so well educated that +they could read the Chinese classics. + +The women were much more independent than most women of Asia—more nearly +regarded as the men’s equals. There were many tribes, each ruled by its +headman, and most of them were at war with other tribes. Their country +is so mountainous that many of the trails seem as steep as ladders. + +To me, the most interesting fact of all about the independent “Lolos” is +that they have many Chinese slaves. If you can imagine our Indians of +Colorado, for instance, living in their mountains so independently that +whenever a white American ventures among them he is put to work and kept +as a slave, you will understand that the Chinese have really never +conquered all of China. In fact the independent “Lolos” make raids on +the territory across the Golden Sands whenever they need new workmen. An +American farmer who needed more hired men during harvest-time would have +to go to a labor-agency, but not so the “Lolo”! + +[Illustration: + + On the left are three Black Nosu or “Lolos,” who have to bear arms + (and such queer arms!) to protect their feudal lords, the “Earth + Eyes.” On the right is a “Lolo” woman. These people belong to a + tribe which the Chinese have never entirely conquered. +] + +Yet I might have visited the independent “Lolos,” as well as the “tame” +ones of Kweichow, if I had had time, for they do not hate white men as +they do the Chinese. But they are a very suspicious people; and I should +either have had to find a missionary whom they had known for years, and +coaxed him to go with me, or have lived on the “tame” side of the river +myself for years until they had come to know me. Perhaps some boy who +reads this will be the one to make the world acquainted with that +strange tribe who have defied the conquering Chinese for hundreds of +years. Spots are still left on this old globe of ours for boys now +growing up to explore, thereby making themselves as famous as some of +our old geographers. + + + On to the Northward + +Most travelers take two weeks to go from Chaotung to the Yang-tze. But +it is all downhill, and by promising my coolies special wages I made the +trip in ten days. The trail follows a river which, when I first saw it, +was a small white stream that seemed to drop from the sky. It fell, +really, from a mountain, the summit of which was lost in clouds. For +hours we went down steep stone steps alongside it, and for a week we +scrambled along a terrible trail, with the roar of the stream always in +our ears. The hills were so steep that the people had to build their +houses right over the trail. In one day we often rode or walked through +several dozen houses, in some of which rice and tea were sold and +sometimes poor lodgings were offered. As the houses close their doors at +night no one can travel after dark. + +[Illustration: + + On the way from Chaotung to the Yang-tze we often had to ride straight + through dozens of houses in a day because they are built over the + narrow trail and it is impossible to go around them. This introduces + to you my very valuable servant, Yang Chi-ting, riding on the fine + little stallion I bought for ten dollars in Kweichow. +] + +Pigs were tied by one leg to prevent them from falling down the mountain +side. Land was so scarce that many a farmer piled a few shovelfuls of +good earth on top of a huge rock and grew three or four stalks of corn +in it. As we dropped lower and lower, it became hotter and hotter. The +delightful climate of the highlands disappeared, along with the potatoes +and finally the corn, and before long we were surrounded again by rice +fields. + + + Human Pack Horses + +The most interesting people we saw on that part of our trip were the +_bay-fu_. Most Chinese carry their loads at the ends of a pole across +the shoulders. But out in the mountainous parts of Yunnan and Szechuan, +the great west-central province which I entered about a week’s journey +below Chaotung, they _bay_—that is, they “carry on the back.” We met +thousands of these men every day, some in caravans miles long. It was +often very difficult to get past them with our horses, on the narrow +trail. Each had on his back a kind of heavy wooden knapsack, something +like a dog-sledge with the runners stretching forward over the head. On +this contrivance the _bay-fu_ carried loads that we would not believe +possible, if missionaries and other foreigners had not often weighed +them. + +Most of these coolies, so thin that their ribs could be counted ten feet +away, were hardly as big as the average American woman; yet many of them +carried leads of more than two hundred pounds! They start in as +children, and of course the training their ancestors have had for +hundreds of years helps also. + +I met a boy of eight who had fifty pounds of rock-salt on his back, +besides the heavy wooden framework itself. The coolie cannot lift his +load. He has to be lifted to his feet after he gets under it, unless he +has put it together on a ledge or a table. Once up he will walk twenty +or twenty-five miles a day over the mountain trails. But if he falls +down under his load he cannot get up until someone without a load comes +along to help. + +[Illustration: + + A load weighing about 150 pounds, consisting of bamboo splints from + which will be made ropes such as are used in the deep salt wells of + Tzeliuching in Szechuan Province. The coolie has to pick his way on + the narrow flagstone road which, winding endlessly between the rice + fields, is typical of southern China. +] + + + + + CHAPTER XX + SZECHUAN, LARGEST OF PROVINCES + + +It was hot in Suifu at the end of July when Yang Chi-ting and I, with +our horses and our baggage, reached there on a very shaky native boat. +The water in the branch which we had been following for a week was so +high that it snatched us in about four hours over a distance that +usually takes two hard days by land. It gave us a queer feeling not to +hear a sound from the river while we were traveling on it, though it had +roared in our ears day and night when we were clambering along its stony +shores. Two hours after we took the boat the branch joined the Yang-tze, +1700 miles above where it reaches the ocean near Shanghai. Up there the +Yang-tze rushes on as if it were still dizzy from its fall down out of +the mountains of Tibet—a very different stream from the broad placid +river below Hankow. + +We were still more than two hundred miles from the capital of the great +province of Szechuan, which means “Four Rivers.” We might have taken a +small steamer up another branch of the Yang-tze and perhaps have found +water enough in a small branch of this big tributary to have gone on to +Chengtu by another native boat. But only those with plenty of time and +no end of patience should travel up small rivers in China. So we hired +two new coolies for what was left of our baggage, and started off still +farther to the north. + +The road for the first two days was brand new. Yet it was just the same +kind of road as those that have been built in southern China for many +centuries, described in an earlier chapter—a very winding ridge of earth +high above the flooded rice fields, covered with huge slabs of stone, +and barely three feet wide. As a road of this kind gets older, the rains +wash away the earth ridge under the stone slabs and sometimes leave them +balanced so that a breeze will almost move them. Up in the mountains I +often had my heart in my mouth for fear my horse would step on the +unsupported outer edge of one of these stones where the road hung over +some great cliff or steep river bank. As a matter of fact, the foolish +animal three times went over a cliff, stone and all, and once with me on +its back. But that horse seemed to have as many lives as a cat, and +nothing ever seemed to hurt it, though it was thin as a _bay-fu_ coolie +before our thousand-mile journey was over. + +Szechuan is the largest and one of the most fertile of the eighteen +provinces of China proper. It is nearly as large as Texas. But while our +largest state has hardly five million inhabitants, Szechuan is said to +have fifty-five million! Many parts of it are mountainous and its +scenery is beautiful almost everywhere. Even if the hills we were +traveling among now were mere knolls compared to the great mountains of +Yunnan and Kweichow, they were often of such curious shapes, and the +humid atmosphere made the landscape so attractive, that every mile +forward was a new pleasure. Here and there over the road was a +_p’ai-lou_, or memorial arch of stone, elaborately carved, and in some +cases hundreds of years old. Such arches are found all over China, but +there seem to be more of them in Szechuan than anywhere else. + +[Illustration: + + There are thousands of old _p’ai-lou_ or memorial arches in China, + many of them of carved stone. The arch shown at the left in this + picture is the only one I ever saw being built. It and its companion + are of wood, gaily painted. +] + + + Queer Lodgings + +Caravans of freight-coolies often crowded the Chinese inns so that I had +to sleep in a temple. But the people do not object to that at all, if +you give the caretaker a few cents when you leave. In fact they see +nothing wrong even in letting a foreigner sit in the priest’s chair +before the altar and put his feet on the table on which, during +ceremonies, food is laid out for the god or spirit inside. I did not do +that, but Yang Chi-ting used to serve my supper on that table, while I +sat in the priest’s comfortable armchair. Sometimes he brought in a +wooden tub and filled it for my bath. As the temples had no floors +except the earth, a little water spilled meant only a patch of mud. + +One night I slept on the high stage of a great town temple, while +hundreds of people came to gaze up at me from the courtyard below as if +I were a theatrical performer. Another night I slept in a church—I do +not mean during services! As they have never had our feeling of +reverence for religious buildings, it is not strange that Chinese +Christians think it all right for a foreign traveler to use a church as +a lodging. But the church was much less comfortable than a temple. A +poor little mud-brick hovel with Mother Earth for floor, filled with +narrow wooden benches, it was stuffy and hot, and a very noisy street +was just outside. But Yang slept as soundly on two benches set together +as I did in my cot covered with a mosquito-net. + +Accidentally I packed the net in a different load from the cot one +morning, and that night I had to sleep without it. The coolie who +carried the box I had put it in fell behind and did not overtake us +until next day. Such an occurrence is very rare in China. Not more than +two or three times during my two years of traveling in that country did +a carrier stop at night before he caught up with me, no matter how bad +the road or weather, or how tired he may have been. Nor did the carriers +ever steal a thing out of my baggage, though they were often alone with +it for hours and knew that there were rolls of silver dollars in boxes +that were sometimes not even locked. + +[Illustration: + + An arched bridge that carries a temple on its shoulders. It crosses a + mountain tributary of the upper Yang-tze. +] + +As I look back, the worst trick ever played upon me by a carrier in +China was this one of leaving me without my mosquito-net. Not only did +swarms of mosquitoes feast on me all night, so that I never once fell +entirely asleep, but in the morning I found that they were the kind of +mosquitoes that carry malaria. I lost no time in taking a large dose of +quinine and luckily I did not fall sick. I once had malaria in South +America, and I would rather be captured by bandits than have it again. + +Speaking of bandits, no soldier guard was sent with me after I crossed +the border of Yunnan Province. Yet Szechuan also has its brigands. Two +Americans had been killed by them the summer before, and one day I met +an Englishwoman who had been robbed of everything except the clothes she +wore and her wedding-ring. No other white man went over the trail from +Yunnanfu to Chengtu during all that year, because it was so dangerous. +Possibly the reason robbers and bandits never trouble me, no matter +where I travel, is that I always look too poor to be worth the bother! + + + Where the Chinese Obtain Salt + +The day after that mosquito-y night was Sunday, and I spent most of it +at a famous old city named Tzeliuching. That may sound like a terrible +name, but it means nothing worse than “Salt Wells.” No one seems to know +for how many centuries salt water has been taken out of the ground in +that region. The wells are hundreds of feet deep and hardly a foot in +diameter, though sometimes in solid rock. Yet the Chinese still use +their crude, ancient tools to dig them, instead of modern drills. They +use ropes made of bamboo strips, in place of steel cables, and +water-buffaloes that plod round and round a great wooden drum take the +place of steam or electric engines. The water is brought up in very long +bamboos, with a valve in the end. Hundreds of coolies do nothing all +their lives but carry water to pour into those wells so as to soak up +the salt rocks. The brine is boiled down, and the salt, in big blocks +like flat stones and almost black in color, is carried away in every +direction. Coolies often toil along for a month with two hundred pounds +of it on their backs. + + + On the Plain of Chengtu + +One morning, a week north of the Yang-tze, we climbed up over some rock +hills and came down upon the great plain of Chengtu. That rich, +floor-flat region is so large that it took me six hours to reach the +city it supports, and a long day of trotting later on to get to the +northern edge of it. My horse could not trot on this first day, because +the ditch that the Chinese call a road was deep with mud. + +There were still slabs of stone laid sidewise, but here they were laid a +foot or more apart, to save the cost and labor of putting them close +together. Stone has to be carried a long way to the plain of Chengtu, +where there is not even a pebble. Besides, horses or mules very rarely +pass over that road, and the coolies who do their work can step from one +stone to another. + +The people of this region so seldom see a horse that they called our +_s’en-kou_, which means just “animal,” as if they did not know what +particular kind of animal we rode. Though our horses were very tame, +almost everyone shrieked and ran away when we were seen coming. Often we +had to ride through the narrow main street of a town crowded with people +on a market day, and the only way to do so was to let our horses plow +through the dense throngs as a boat does through water. You have never +seen anything in the movies as funny as the way people would tumble over +one another to get out of the way the moment they felt or heard or +smelled or saw one of our “animals” close behind them. + +[Illustration: + + Just to see how it felt, I rode one day in a _hwa-gan_. I found my + riding as smooth as if I had been in a Pullman car. If I wanted to + sleep, all I had to do was to stretch out, with my legs over the + poles. +] + +The Chinese of this region who can afford to ride use sedan-chairs or +wheelbarrows, and especially _hwa-gan_. The _hwa-gan_ consists of two +bamboo poles with a seat and a foot-rest hanging from them by ropes. I +once rode in one myself, just for the experience, and found it easier +riding than an American railroad car, though I prefer to do my own +walking. The chair-coolies of Szechuan are famous for the smoothness of +their trot. If you get tired of sitting up in a _hwa-gan_ and reading or +looking at the landscape, all you have to do is stretch out and hook +your legs over the poles in front of you and go to sleep. The Chinese +learn to do this very well. + + + In Old Chengtu + +There was a very strict young governor at Chengtu when I reached there, +and he no longer allowed wheelbarrows to come inside the city walls. As +there are no rickshaws so far west, nearly everyone had to walk. That +was especially hard on the ladies, for almost all except foreign ladies, +and the Manchu women remaining from imperial days, had bound feet. + +Every foreigner who comes to one of these far interior provincial +capitals is expected to call on the governor. I had to borrow a +sedan-chair from an American resident, for it would have been very bad +Chinese manners to have gone to the _yamen_, or governor’s palace, on +one of my horses. + +The chairs for rich or important people have poles curving upward in the +middle, so that the person carried is high above the common crowd; and +the carriers knock out of the way anyone who does not hear their shout +of warning in time to jump. The Chengtu chair-coolies jog through the +crowded narrow streets at about five miles an hour, and a third man +changes places with one of the other two every block or so, without the +passenger’s even feeling it. + +I often called on governors and other high officials in China and always +found them very courteous, though occasionally one of them thought the +way to shake hands was to grasp my thumb with his right hand. Some +governors invited me to Chinese feasts, where I ate too much for my +health. Not only is the best Chinese food very good indeed, but it is +bad manners at such a feast not to eat just as much as possible. These +feasts usually came at about eleven in the morning and four in the +afternoon, and when I was invited to luncheon and dinner by foreigners +on the same day that I went to Chinese meals I was very well fed indeed. + +The governor of Chengtu invited me to the movies rather than to a feast. +He took six of his wives with him, leaving the seventh at home to look +after the children. The American “Wild West” film shown that evening +seemed to be greatly enjoyed by the large crowd that packed the outdoor +auditorium. This governor had very modern ideas. He let his wives bob +their hair and ride bicycles. At the time I talked with him he was +cutting seventeen wide streets through the ancient capital. Since then +he has been driven out in one of China’s many civil wars, but before he +went Chengtu saw its first automobile, and other modern things are to +come. + +The streets of Chengtu are gay in many places with bright silk threads +that are being woven into cloth. The place has a mint and an arsenal and +some other modern establishments; but most work is still done in family +groups rather than in big factories. A pleasant feature of that huge and +very interesting old city is that even the coolies have bamboo armchairs +in their tea houses, instead of the narrow uncomfortable sawhorses that +in most parts of the country serve the poorer people as seats. + + + I Climb a Sacred Mountain + +My last side-trip in China was the climax of them all. I climbed a stone +stairway more than two miles high, to the Golden Summit, as the Chinese +call it, of the sacred mountain of Omei-shan. It is 11,000 feet above +sea-level, and though August had been blazing hot down on the plain, we +felt as if we were at the North Pole up among the great wooden temples +above the clouds. + +[Illustration: + + For those who cannot climb the 11,000 feet to the summit of the sacred + mountain of Omei-shan in western China, this kind of steed is + waiting. +] + +Many thousands of pilgrims climb Omei-shan in a year, and now and then +one throws himself from the top, because he expects in that way to get +to heaven. From the summit I had a splendid view of the vast snow-capped +mountain ranges of Tibet, that lofty land which so few white men have +even entered. + +If I tell you that I came down that two-mile stairway much faster than I +went up, you will not be surprised; and if you have ever come down so +steep a mountain you will also not be astonished that my legs ached for +days afterward. + + + Homeward Bound! + +I found I could get into a boat at the foot of Omei-shan, or under the +walls of Chengtu, and go by water all the way to San Francisco or to New +York. Of course, I had to change to larger and larger boats, first at +Kiating, with its enormous Buddha carved in the high river bank. The +next change was to a comfortable foreign steamer at Chungking, the great +river port of Szechuan, on its rock shaped like an alligator’s back. +This boat took me through the wonderful gorges of the Yang-tze, with +their cliffs higher than our highest skyscrapers. From Ichang another +steamer carried me to Hankow, where I boarded a still larger one for +Shanghai. There an ocean liner was ready to carry me and my family +homeward across the Pacific. + + + + + PRONUNCIATION LIST + + AUTHOR’S NOTE: The pronunciation of Chinese words here indicated is as + nearly as possible that of the Chinese people themselves, rather than + the usual foreign pronunciation. Since the Chinese language has sounds + which ours does not have, and since there is less accent than “tone”—a + kind of musical inflection which it is impossible to indicate with any + symbols we have—it is in some cases impossible to give the exact + English equivalent. + + In the unenviable task of Latinizing all these sounds, the Americans + and British (missionaries, for the most part) who reduced them to the + accepted spellings with our alphabet, were not always entirely + successful in expressing exact shades of sound. From the start, + certain Chinese words might well have been spelled differently in + English, to give us more nearly the real pronunciation. For example, + some of the _k’s_ might better have been _j’s_, the _j’s_ more exactly + _r’s_, the _p’s_ preferably _b’s_, etc. Thus, if the name of the + capital of China had been Latinized as “Bayjing,” foreigners would + pronounce it much more nearly in the Chinese way than they do in + saying “Peking.” As people have become accustomed to the spellings + employed in maps, encyclopedias, and geographies for generations—and, + more or less, to the pronunciations indicated in dictionaries and + other reference works, the attempt here to give more exactly the + Chinese pronunciations will doubtless provide some surprises. + + The symbols of Webster’s New International Dictionary have been used. + + + ahong (ä’hông’) + Along (ä-lông’) + ama (ä’mä) + Amichow (ä’mē’jō) + Amoy (ä-mō’ee) + Anhwei (än’hwā) + Anking (än’jĭng’) + Annam (ăn-näm’) + + bay-fu (bā’-foo’) + Bogda-Khan (bôg’dä-hän’) + Buddha (bood’ä) + + cangue (kăng) + carabao (kä-rä-bä’ō) + Canton (kăn-tŏn’) + Cathay (kă-thā’) + Changchun (chäng-choon’) + Chaochowfu (jou’jō-foo’) + Chaotung (jou’toong) + Chekiang (chē’jē’äng’) + Chengtu (chĕng’tū’) + Chihli (jĕ’lē’) + Chinkiang (chĭn-jē-äng’) + Chio Hwa Shan (jī’ō’ hwä shän) + Chosen (chō-sĕn’) + Chufu (chü-fū’) + Chu-kiang (joo’jĭ-äng) + ch’ung-chiah (choong’jĭ-ä) + Chungking (chŭng’kĭng’) + Confucius (kŏn-fū’shĭ-ŭs) + + Dairen (dī-rĕn’) + Dalai Lama (dä-lī’ lä’mä) + + E mao ch’ien (ē mou’ chĭ-ĕn’) + E quai ch’ien (ē kwī’ chĭ-ĕn’) + + Fang-gwy-lo (fäng-gwī-ō’) (Cantonese or Southern Chinese. See + Also “Yanggwei-tze.”) + Fei Lan-kuh (fā län’-kẽ’) + Fengtien (fēng’tĭ’ĕn’) + Foochow (foo-chou’) + Formosa (fôr-mō’sä) + Fukien (foo’jï-ĕn’) + + Gobi (gō’bē’) + + Hainan (hī’nän’) + Haiphong (hä-ē-fông’) + Hangchow (häng-chou’) + Hankow (hăn-kou’) + Han-ren (hän’rĕn) + Hanyang (hän’yäng’) + Harbin (här’bĭn’) + Hoang-ho (hō’äng’hü’) + Hochow (hō’jō’) + Hoihow (hō-ĭ-hou’) + Honam (hŭ’näm’) + Honan (hŭ’nän’) + Hong Kong (hŏng kŏng; customary English pronunciation, + although a poor equivalent of the Chinese.) + Hong Shih Ai (hông shĭr ī) + Hsi-ling (shē’lĭng’) + Hunan (hū’nän’) + Hupeh (hū-bā’) + hutung (hoo’tŭng) + hwa-gan (hwä’-gän’) + Hwa Miao (hwä mĭ’-ou’) + Hwei-hwei (hwā’-hwā’) + + I-bien (ē’-byĕn) + Ichang (ẽ’chäng) + Irkutsk (ẽr’kootsk’) + + Jaochow (rou’jō) + Jehol (rẽ’hẽr) + + Kachek (kä-chĕk’) + Kaiyukwan (kī-yū-gwän’) + Kalgan (kăl-gän’) + k’ang (käng) + Kansu (gän’sū) + kaoliang (gou-lẽ-äng’) + Kiangsi (jē’äng’shē’) + Kiangsu (jē’äng’sū’) + Kiating (jē’ä’dĭng’) + Kingtehchen (jĭng’tẽ-jēn) + Kiukiang (jē-ū’jē-äng’) + Kiungchow (jẽ’oong’jö’) + Kokonor (kō’kō’nōr’) + Kongmoon (kông’moon’) + Koran (kō-rän’) + Korea (kō-rē’ä) + Kuling (gũ’lĭng’) + Kung (goong) + Kung-yik (koong’yĭk) + Kwangchowfu (gwäng’jō-foo’) + Kwangsi (gwäng’shē’) + Kwang-su (gwäng’-soo’) + Kwangtung (gwäng’toong’) + Kweichow (gwā’jō’) + + laichee (lî’chē) or litchi (lē-chlē’) + lama (lä’mä) + Lanchow (län’jō’) + Laokay (lou-kī’) + Lao-an (lou’-än’) + Lhasa (lä’sä) + likin (lē’kĭn—foreign pron.; lē-jĭn’—Chin. pron.) + Loi (lō’ĭ) + Lolo (lō’lō) + Lu (lū) + + Macao (mä-kä’ō) + Manchuli (män-choo-lē’) + Manchuria (măn-choo’rĭ-ä) + mandarin (măn’dä-rĭn) + Man-tzow (män-tzō’) + Mecca (mĕk’ä) + Mei Lan-fang (mā’ län-fäng’) + Mei-shan (mā-shän’) + Min (mĭn) + Mohammed (mō-hăm’ĕd) + Mongolia (mŏn-gō’-lĭ-ä) + Mukden (mook’-dĕn) + + Nanking (nän’jĭng’) + Nanning (nän’nĭng’) + Nantai (nän-tī’) + Nosu (nô’soo) + + Omei-shan (ō-mā-shän’) + + Paak Wan Shan (päk wän shän) + Pagoda (pä-gō’dä) + p’ai-lou (pī-loo’) + Pei-ho (bā-hŭ’) + Peking (pē-kĭng’; Chin. pron. bā’jĭng’) + peng (pēng) + Pingliang (pĭng-lĭ-äng’) + Potala (pō-tä-lä’) + Poyang (pō-yäng’) + puk’ai (pūk’ī’) + + Saikwan (sī-gwän’) + Sampan (säm’pän’) + sen-kou (sēn’kō) + Shameen (shä-mēn’) + Shanghai (shăng’hī’) + Shanhaikwan (shän’hī-gwän’) + Shansi (shän’shē) + Shantung (shän’doong) + Shaohsing (shou-shĭng’) + Shensi (shă’ăn-shē’) + Shih-men-k’an (shēr-mēn-kän’) + Sianfu (shē’än-foo’) + Siberia (sī-bē’rĭ-ä) + Si-kiang (shē’jĭ-äng) + Sinkiang (sĭn-jĭ-äng’) + Soochow (soo’chou’) + Suifu (swē-foo’) + Sunwei (sün’wā) + Sun Yat-sen (sün yät-sẽn’) + Swatow (swä’tou’) + Szechuan (ssē’chwän) + Sze Yap (sē’ yäp) + + Tai-shan (tī-shän’) + Taiyuanfu (tī’yū-än-foo’) + Ta Pan Chiao (dä bän jĭ-ou’) + Tartar (tär’tär) + Tibet (tĭ-bĕt’) + Tientsin (tĭ-ĕn’tsēn’) + tsao-hai (tsou’-hī) + Tsing-hwa (tsĭng’-hwä) + Tsuchulin (tsoo-choo-lĭn’) + Tungchuan (dŭng’chwän) + Tung-ling (doong’-ling’) + Turkestan (toor-kĕ-stän’) + Tzeliuching (tsē-lĭ-ū-jĭng’) + Tzinanfu (tsē’nän-foo’) + + Urga (ŭr’gä) + + Wai-kuo-ren (wī’gwô-rĕn’) + Wan Li Chang Chen (wän lĭ chäng chēn) + Whangpoa (whäng’pō-ä) + Wuchang (woo’chäng’) + Wuhu (woo’hoo’) + + Yalu (yä’loo) + yamen (yä’mĕn) + Yang Chi-ting (yäng jē-dĭng’) + Yang-gwei-tze (yäng-gwā’dzē) (Mandarin or Northern Chinese. + See also “Fang-gwylo.”) + Yang-tze Kiang (yäng’-tzē jē-äng’) + yao-fan-ti (you-fän’tē) + Yenping (yĕn’bĭng’) + Yunnan (yün-nän’) + Yunnanfu (yün’nän-foo’) + yurt (yoort) + +[Illustration] + +[Illustration: SOUTHERN CHINA and SURROUNDINGS Scale Approximately 192 +Miles to an Inch] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRAVELS IN MANY LANDS + + + A series of Geographical Readers for + Intermediate Grades, written by Harry A. Franck + and published by F.A. Owen Publishing Company: + + THE JAPANESE EMPIRE + CHINA + MEXICO AND CENTRAL AMERICA + _Others in preparation_ + + ✧ + + Books by Mr. Franck published by The Century Company, New + York: + + A Vagabond Journey Around the World + Four Months Afoot in Spain + Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras + Zone Policeman 88 + Vagabonding Down the Andes + Working North from Patagonia + Vagabonding Through Changing Germany + Roaming Through the West Indies + Glimpses of Japan and Formosa + Wandering in Northern China + Roving Through Southern China + East of Siam (French Indo-China) + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78953 *** |