[A]
This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more native life, and—more native dirt!—E.J.D.
This was written at the time I was in Hankow. When I revised my copy, after I had spent a year and a half rubbing along with the natives in the interior, I could not suppress a smile at my impressions of a great city like Hankow. Since then I have seen more native life, and—more native dirt!—E.J.D.
[B]
TheKinshawas the first British gunboat on the Upper Yangtze.
TheKinshawas the first British gunboat on the Upper Yangtze.
Gloom in Ichang Gorge.Lightning's effect.Travellers' fear.Impressive introduction to the Gorges.Boat gets into Yangtze fashion.Storm and its weird effects.Wu-pan: what it is.Heavenly electricity and its vagaries.Beautiful evening scene, despite heavy rain.Bedding soaked.Sleep in a Burberry.Gorges and Niagara Falls compared.Bad descriptions of Yangtze.World of eternity.Man's significant insignificance.Life on board briefly described.Philosophy of travel.Houseboat life not luxurious.Lose our only wash-basin.Remarks on the "boy." A change in the kitchen: questionable soup.Fairly low temperature.Troubles in the larder.General arrangements on board.Crew's sleeping-place.Sacking makes a curtain.Journalistic labors not easy.Rats preponderate.Gorges described statistically.
Deeper and deeper drooped the dull grey gloom, like a curtain falling slowly and impenetrably over all things.
A vivid but broken flash of lightning, blazing in a flare of blue and amber, poured livid reflections, and illuminated with dreadful distinctness, if only for one ghastly moment, the stupendous cliffs of the Ichang Gorge, whose wall-like steepness suddenly became darkened as black as ink.
Thus, with a grand impressiveness, this great gully in the mountains assumed hugely gigantic proportions, stretching interminably from east to west, up to heaven and down to earth, silhouetted to the north against a small remaining patch of golden purple, whose weird glamour seemed awesomely to herald the coming of a new world into being, lasting but for a moment longer, until again the blue blaze quickly cut up the sky into a thousand shreds and tiny silver bars. And then, suddenly, with a vast down swoop, as if some colossal bird were taking the earth under her far-outstretching wings, dense darkness fell—impenetrable, sooty darkness, that in a moment shut out all light, all power of sight. Then from out the sombre heavens deep thunder boomed ominously as the reverberating roar of a pack of hunger-ridden lions, and the two men, aliens in an alien land, stood beneath the tattered matting awning with a peculiar fear and some foreboding. We were tied in fast to the darkened sides of the great Ichang Gorge—a magnificent sixteen-mile stretch, opening up the famous gorges on the fourth of the great rivers of the world, which had cleaved its course through a chain of hills, whose perpendicular cliffs form wonderful rock-bound banks, dispelling all thought of the monotony of the Lower Yangtze.
Upstream we had glided merrily upon a fresh breeze, which bore the warning of a storm. All on board was settling down into Yangtze fashion, and the barbaric human clamor of our trackers, which now mutteringly died away, was suddenly taken up, as above recorded, and all unexpectedly answered by a grander uproar—a deep threatening boom of far-off thunder. In circling tones and semitones of wrath it volleyed gradually through the dark ravines, and, startled by the sound, the two travelers, roused for the first time from their natural engrossment in the common doings of thewu-pan,[C]saw the reflection of the sun on the waters, now turned to a livid murkiness, deepening with a threatening ink-like aspect as the river rushed voluminously past our tiny floating haven. Strangely silenced were we by this weird terror, and watched and listened, chained to the deck by a thousand mingled fears and fascinations, which breathed upon our nerves like a chill wind. As we became accustomed then to the yellow darkness, we beheld about the landscape a spectral look, and the sepulchral sound of the moving thunder seemed the half-muffled clang of some great iron-tongued funeral bell. Then came the rain, introduced swiftly by the deafening clatter of another thunder crash that made one stagger like a ship in a wild sea, and we strained our eyes to gaze into a visionary chasm cleaved in twain by the furious lightning. Playing upon the face of the unruffled river, with a brilliancy at once awful and enchanting, this singular flitting and wavering of the heavenly electricity, as it flashed haphazardly around all things, threw about one an illumination quite indescribable.
For hours we sat upon a beam athwart the afterdeck, in silence drinking in the strange phenomenon. We watched, after a small feed of curry and rice, long into the dark hours, when the thunder had passed us by, and in the distant booming one could now imagine the lower notes streaming forth from some great solemn organ symphony. The fierce lightning twitched, as it danced in and out the crevices—inwards, outwards, upwards, then finally lost in one downward swoop towards the river, tearing open the liquid blackness with its crystal blade of fire. The rain ceased not. But soon the moon, peeping out from the tops of a jagged wall above us, looking like a soiled, half-melted snowball, shone full down the far-stretching gorge, and now its broad lustre shed itself, like powdered silver, over the whole scene, so that one could have imagined oneself in the living splendor of some eternal sphere of ethereal sweetness. And so it might have been had the rain abated—a curious accompaniment to a moonlight night. Down it came, straight and determined and businesslike, in the windless silence, dancing like a shower of diamonds of purest brilliance on the background of the placid waters.
Very beautiful, reader, for a time. But would that the rain had been all moonshine!
Glorious was it to revel in for a time. But, during the weary night watches, in a bed long since soaked through, and one's safest nightclothes now the stolid Burberry, with face protected by a twelve-cent umbrella, even one's curry and rice saturated to sap with the constant drip, and everything around one rendered cold and uncomfortable enough through a perforation in its slenderest part of the worn-out bamboo matting—ah, it was then,thenthat one would have foregone with alacrity the dreams of the nomadic life of thewu-pan.
Our introduction, therefore, to the great Gorges of the Upper Yangtze—to China what the Niagara Falls are to America—was not remarkable for its placidity, albeit taken with as much complacency as the occasion allowed.
I do not, however, intend to weary or to entertain the reader, as may be, by a long description of the Yangtze gorges. Time and time again have they fallen to the imaginative pens of travelers—mostly bad or indifferent descriptions, few good; none better, perhaps, than Mrs. Bishop's. But at best they are imaginative—they lack reality. It has been said that the world of imagination is the world of eternity, and as of eternity, so of the Gorges—they cannot be adequately described. As I write now in the Ichang Gorge, I seem veritably to have reached eternity. I seem to have arrived at the bosom of an after-life, where one's body has ceased to vegetate, and where, in an infinite and eternal world of imagination, one's soul expands with fullest freedom. There seems to exist in this eternal world of unending rock and invulnerable precipice permanent realities which stand from eternity to eternity. As the oak dies and leaves its eternal image in the seed which never dies, so these grand river-forced ravines, abused and disabused as may be, go on for ever, despite the scribblers, and one finds the best in his imagination returning by some back-lane to contemplative thought. But as a casual traveler, may I say that the first experience I had of the gorges made me modest, patient, single-minded, conscious of man's significant insignificance, conscious of the unspeakable, wondrous grandeur of this unvisited corner of the world—a spot in which blustering, selfish, self-conceited persons will not fare well? Humility and patience are the first requisites in traveling on the Upper Yangtze.
Reader, for your sake I refrain from a description. But may I, for perhaps your sake too, if you would wander hither ere the charm of things as they were in the beginning is still unrobbed and unmolested, give you some few impressions of a little of the life—grave, gay, but never unhappy—which I spent with my excellent co-voyager, The Other Man.
It is a part of wisdom, when starting any journey, not to look forward to the end with too much eagerness: hear my gentle whisper that you may never get there, and if you do, congratulate yourself; interest yourself in the progress of the journey, for the present only is yours. Each day has its tasks, its rapids, its perils, its glories, its fascinations, its surprises, and—if you will live as we did, itscurry and rice. Then, if you are traveling with a companion, remember that it is better to yield a little than to quarrel a great deal. Most disagreeable and undignified is it anywhere to get into the habit of standing up for what people are pleased to call their little rights, but nowhere more so than on the Upper Yangtze houseboat, under the gaze of a Yangtze crew. Life is really too short for continual bickering, and to my way of thinking it is far quieter, happier, more prudent and productive of more peace, if one could yield a little of those precious little rights than to incessantly squabble to maintain them. Therefore, from the beginning to the end of the trip, make the best of everything in every way, and I can assure you, if you are not ill-tempered and suffer not from your liver, Nature will open her bosom and lead you by these strange by-ways into her hidden charms and unadorned recesses of sublime beauty, uneclipsed for their kind anywhere in the world.
Think not that the life will be luxurious—houseboat life on the Upper Yangtze is decidedly not luxurious. Were it not for the magnificence of the scenery and ever-changing outdoor surroundings, as a matter of fact, the long river journey would probably become unbearably dull.
Ourwu-panwas to get through the Gorges in as short a time as was possible, and for that reason we traveled in the discomfort of the smallest boat used to face the rapids.
People entertaining the smallest idea of doing things travel in nothing short of akwadze, the orthodox houseboat, with several rooms and ordinary conveniences. Ours was awu-pan—literally five boards. We had no conveniences whatever, and the second morning out we were left without even a wash-basin. As I was standing in the stern, I saw it swirling away from us, and inquiring through a peep-hole, heard the perplexing explanation of my boy. Gesticulating violently, he told us how, with the wash-basin in his hand, he had been pushed by one of the crew, and how, loosened from his grasp, my toilet ware had been gripped by the river—and now appeared far down the stream like a large bead. The Other Man was alarmed at the boy's discomfiture, ejaculated something about the loss being quite irreparable, and with a loud laugh and quite natural hilarity proceeded quietly to use a saucepan as a combined shaving-pot and wash-basin. It did quite well for this in the morning, and during the day resumed its duty as seat for me at the typewriter.
Our boy, apart from this small misfortune, comported himself pretty well. His English was understandable, and he could cook anything. He dished us up excellent soup in enamelled cups and, as we had no ingredients on board so far as we knew to make soup, and as The Other Man had that day lost an old Spanish tam-o'-shanter, we naturally concluded that he had used the old hat for the making of the soup, and at once christened it as "consommé à la maotsi"—and we can recommend it. After we had grown somewhat tired of the eternal curry and rice, we asked him quietly if he could not make us something else, fearing a rebuff. He stood hesitatingly before us, gazing into nothingness. His face was pallid, his lips hard set, and his stooping figure looking curiously stiff and lifeless on that frozen morning—the temperature below freezing point, and our noses were red, too!
"God bless the man, you no savee! I wantchee good chow. Why in the name of goodness can't you give us something decent! What on earth did you come for?"
"Alas!" he shouted, for we were at a rapid, "my savee makee good chow. No have got nothing!"
"No have got nothing! No have got nothing!" Mysterious words, what could they mean? Where, then, was our picul of rice, and our curry, and our sugar?
"The fellow's a swindler!" cried The Other Man in an angry semitone. But that's all very well. "No have got nothing!" Ah, there lay the secret. Presently The Other Man, head of the general commissariat, spoke again with touching eloquence. He gave the boy to understand that we were powerless to alter or soften the conditions of the larder, that we were victims of a horrible destiny, that we entertained no stinging malice towards him personally—but ...could he do it?Either a great wrath or a great sorrow overcame the boy; he skulked past, asked us to lie down on our shelves, where we had our beds, to give him room, and then set to work.
In twenty-five minutes we had a three-course meal (all out of the same pot, but no matter), and onwards to our destination we fed royally. In parting with the men after our safe arrival at Chung-king, we left with them about seven-eighths of the picul—and were not at all regretful.
I should not like to assert—because I am telling the truth here—that our boat was bewilderingly roomy. As a matter of fact, its length was some forty feet, its width seven feet, its depth much less, and it drew eight inches of water. Yet in it we had our bed-rooms, our dressing-rooms, our dining-rooms, our library, our occasional medicine-room, our cooking-room—and all else. If we stood bolt upright in the saloon amidships we bumped our heads on the bamboo matting which formed an arched roof. On the nose of the boat slept seven men—you may question it, reader, but they did; in the stern, on either side of a great rudder, slept our boy and a friend of his; and between them and us, laid out flat on the top of a cellar (used by the ship's cook for the storing of rice, cabbage, and other uneatables, and the breeding-cage of hundreds of rats, which swarm all around one) were the captain and commodore—a fat, fresh-complexioned, jocose creature, strenuous at opium smoking. Through the holes in the curtain—a piece of sacking, but one would not wish this to be known—dividing them from us, we could see him preparing his globules to smoke before turning in for the night, and despite our frequent raving objections, our words ringing with vibrating abuse, it continued all the way to Chung-king: he certainly gazed in disguised wonderment, but we could not get him to say anything bearing upon the matter. Temperature during the day stood at about 50 degrees, and at night went down to about 30 degrees above freezing point. Rains were frequent. Journalistic labors, seated upon the upturned saucepan aforesaid, without a cushion, went hard. At night the Chinese candle, much wick and little wax, stuck in the center of an empty "Three Castles" tin, which the boy had used for some days as a pudding dish, gave us light. We generally slept in our overcoats, and as many others as we happened to have. Rats crawled over our uncurtained bodies, and woke us a dozen times each night by either nibbling our ears or falling bodily from the roof on to our faces. Our joys came not to us—they were made on board.
The following are the Gorges, with a remark or two about each, to be passed through before one reaches Kweifu:—
FOOTNOTES:
[C]
Awu-pan(literallywuof five andpanof boards) is a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the river on which they ply.—E.J.D.
Awu-pan(literallywuof five andpanof boards) is a small boat, the smallest used by travelers on the Upper Yangtze. They are of various shapes, made according to the nature of the part of the river on which they ply.—E.J.D.
The following is a rough list of the principal rapids to be negotiated on the river upward from Ichang. One of the chief discomforts the traveler first experiences is due to a total ignorance of the vicinity of the main rapids, and often, therefore, when he is least expecting it perhaps, he is called upon by thelaobanto go ashore. He has then to pack up the things he values, is dragged ashore himself, his gear follows, and one who has no knowledge of the language and does not know the ropes is, therefore, never quite happy for fear of some rapid turning up. By comparing the rapids with the Gorges the traveler would, however, from the lists given, be able easily to trace the whereabouts of the more dangerous rushes; which are distributed with alarming frequency on the river between Ichang and Kweifu.
TA TONG T'AN (OTTER CAVE RAPID)
Low water rapid. Swirling volume of coffee and milk color; round about a maze of rapids and races, in the Yao-cha Ho reach.
TONG LING RAPID
At the foot of the Ox Liver Gorge. An enormous black rock lies amid stream some forty feet below, or perhaps as much above the surface, but unless experienced at low water will not appeal to the traveler as a rapid; passage dangerous, dreaded during low-water season. On Dec. 28th, 1900, the German steamer,Sui-Hsiangwas lost here. She foundered in twenty-five fathoms of water, with an immense hole ripped in her bottom by the black rock; all on board saved by the red boats, with the exception of the captain.
HSIN T'AN RAPIDS (OR CHIN T'AN RAPIDS)
During winter quite formidable; the head, second and third rapids situated in close proximity, the head rapid being far the worst to negotiate. On a bright winter's day one of the finest spectacles on the Upper Yangtze. Wrecks frequent. Just at head of Ox Liver Gorge.
YEH T'AN (OR WILD RAPID)
River reduced suddenly to half its width by an enormous detritus of boulders, taking the form of a huge jagged tongue, with curling on edges; commonly said to be high when the Hsin T'an is low. At its worst during early summer and autumn. Wrecks frequent, after Mi Tsang Gorge is passed, eight miles from Kwei-chow.
NIU K'EO T'AN (BUFFALO MOUTH RAPID)
Situated at the head of Buffalo Mouth Reach, said to be more difficult to approach than even the Yeh T'an, because of the great swirls in the bay below. H.M.S.Woodlarkcame to grief here on her maiden trip up river.
HSIN MA T'AN (OR DISMOUNT HORSE RAPID)
Encountered through the Urishan Hsia or Gloomy Mountain Gorge, particularly nasty during mid-river season. Just about here, in 1906, the French gunboatOlrycame within an ace of destruction by losing her rudder. Immediately, like a riderless horse, she dashed off headlong for the rocky shore; but at the same instant her engines were working astern for all they were worth, and fortunately succeeded in taking the way off her just as her nose grazed the rocks, and she slid back undamaged into the swirly bay, only to be waltzed round and tossed to and fro by the violent whirlpools. However, by good luck and management she was kept from dashing her brains out on the reefs, and eventually brought in to a friendly sand patch and safely moored, whilst a wooden jury rudder was rigged, with which she eventually reached her destination.
HEH SHÏH T'AN (OR BLACK ROCK RAPID)
Almost at the end of the Wind Box Gorge.
HSIN LONG T'AN (OR NEW DRAGON RAPID)
Twenty-five miles below Wan Hsien. Sometimes styled Glorious Dragon Rapid, it constitutes the last formidable stepping-stone during low river onward to Chung-king; was formed by a landslip as recently as 1896, when the whole side of a hill falling into the stream reduced its breadth to less than a fourth of what it was previously, and produced this roaring rapid.
This pent-up volume of water, always endeavoring to break away the rocky bonds which have harnessed it, rushes roaring as a huge, tongue-shaped, tumbling mass between its confines of rock and reef. Breaking into swift back-wash and swirls in the bay below, it lashes back in a white fury at its obstacles. Fortunately for the junk traffic, it improves rapidly with the advent of the early spring freshets, and at mid-level entirely disappears. The rapid is at its worst during the months of February and March, when it certainly merits the appellation of "Glorious Dragon Rapid," presenting a fine spectacle, though perhaps a somewhat fearsome one to the traveler, who is about to tackle it with his frail barque. A hundred or more wretched-looking trackers, mostly women and children, are tailed on to the three stout bamboo hawsers, and amid a mighty din of rushing water, beating drums, cries of pilots and boatmen, the boat is hauled slowly and painfully over. According to Chinese myths, the landslip which produced the rapid was caused by the following circumstance. The ova of a dragon being deposited in the bowels of the earth at this particular spot, in due course became hatched out in some mysterious manner. The baby dragon grew and grew, but remained in a dormant state until quite full grown, when, as is the habit of the dragon, it became active, and at the first awakening shook down the hill-side by a mighty effort, freed himself from the bowels of the earth, and made his way down river to the sea; hence the landslip, the rapid, and its name.
FUH T'AN RAPID (OR TIGER RAPID)
Eight miles beyond Wan Hsien. Very savage during summer months, but does not exist during low-water season. Beyond this point river widens considerably. Twenty-five miles further on travelers should look out for Shïh Pao Chai, or Precious Stone Castle, a remarkable cliff some 250 or 300 feet high. A curious eleven-storied pavilion, built up the face of the cliff, contains the stairway to the summit, on which stands a Buddhist temple. There is a legend attached to this remarkable rock that savors very much of the goose with the golden eggs.
Once upon a time, from a small natural aperture near the summit, a supply of rice sufficient for the needs of the priests flowed daily into a basin-shaped hole, just large enough to hold the day's supply.
The priests, however, thinking to get a larger daily supply, chiselled out the basin-shaped hole to twice its original size, since when the flow of rice ceased.
KWAN ÏN T'AN (OR GODDESS OF MERCY RAPID)
Two miles beyond the town of Feng T'ou. Like the Fuh T'an, is an obstacle to navigation only during the summer months, when junks are often obliged to wait for several days for a favorable opportunity to cross the rapid.
Scene at the Rapid.Dangers of the Yeh T'an.Gear taken ashore.Intense cold.Further preparation.Engaging the trackers.Fever of excitement.Her nose is put to it.Struggles for mastery.Author saves boatman.Fifteen-knot current.Terrific labor on shore.Man nearly falls overboard.Straining hawsers carry us over safely.The merriment among the men.The thundering cataract.Trackers' chanting.Their life."Pioneer" at the Yeh T'an.The Buffalo Mouth Reach.Story of the "Woodlark."How she was saved.Arrival at Kweifu.Difficulty in landing.Laying in provisions.Author laid up with malaria.Survey of trade in Shanghai and Hong-Kong.Where and why the Britisher fails.Comparison with Germans.Three western provinces and pack-horse traffic.Advantages of new railway.Yangtze likely to be abandoned.East India Company. French and British interests.Hint to Hong-Kong Chamber of Commerce.
Wild shrieking, frantic yelling, exhausted groaning, confusion and clamor,—one long, deafening din. A bewildering, maddening mob of reckless, terrified human beings rush hither and thither, unseeingly and distractedly. Will she go? Yes! No! Yes! Then comes the screeching, the scrunching, the straining, and then—a final snap! Back we go, sheering helplessly, swayed to and fro most dangerously by the foaming waters, and almost, but not quite, turn turtle. The red boat follows us anxiously, and watches our timid little craft bump against the rock-strewn coast. But we are safe, and raise unconsciously a cry of gratitude to the deity of the river.
We were at the Yeh T'an, or the Wild Rapid, some distance on from the Ichang Gorge, were almost over the growling monster, when the tow-line, straining to its utmost limit, snapped suddenly with little warning, and we drifted in a moment or two away down to last night's anchorage, far below, where we were obliged to bring up the last of the long tier of boats of which we were this morning the first.
And now we are ready again to take our turn.
Our gear is all taken ashore. Seated on a stone on shore, watching operations, is The Other Man. The sun vainly tries to get through, and the intense cold is almost unendurable. No hitch is to occur this time. The toughest and stoutest bamboo hawsers are dexterously brought out, their inboard ends bound in a flash firmly round the mast close down to the deck, washed by the great waves of the rapid, just in front of the 'midships pole through which I breathlessly watch proceedings. I want to feel again the sensation. The captain, in essentially the Chinese way, is engaging a crew of demon-faced trackers to haul her over. Pouring towards the boat, in a fever of excitement that rises higher every moment, the natural elements of hunger and constant struggle against the great river swell their fury; they bellow like wild beasts,they are like beasts, for they have known nothing but struggle all their lives; they have always, since they were tiny children, been fighting this roaring water monster—they know none else. And now, as I say, they bellow like beasts, each man ravenously eager to be among the number chosen to earn a few cash.[D]The arrangement at last is made, and the discordant hubbub, instead of lessening, grows more and more deafening. It is a miserable, desperate, wholly panic-stricken crowd that then harnesses up with their great hooks joined to a rough waist-belt, with which they connect themselves to the straining tow-lines.
And now her nose is put into the teeth of this trough of treachery—a veritable boiling cauldron, stirring up all past mysteries. Waves rush furiously towards us, with the growl of a thousand demons, whose anger is only swelled by the thousands of miles of her course from far-away Tibet. It seems as if they must instantly devour her, and that we must now go under to swell the number of their victims. But they only beat her back, for she rides gracefully, faltering timidly with frightened creaks and groans, whilst the waters shiver her frail bulwarks with their cruel message of destruction, which might mean her very death-rattle. I get landed in the stomach with the end of a gigantic bamboo boat-hook, used by one of the men standing in the bows whose duty is to fend her off the rocks. He falls towards the river. I grab his single garment, give one swift pull, and he comes up again with a jerky little laugh and asks if he has hurt me—yelling through his hands in my ears, for the noise is terrible. To look out over the side makes me giddy, for the fifteen-knot current, blustering and bubbling and foaming and leaping, gives one the feeling that he is in an express train tearing through the sea. On shore, far ahead, I can see the trackers—struggling forms of men and women, touching each other, grasping each other, wrestling furiously and mightily, straining on all fours, now gripping a boulder to aid them forward, now to the right, now to the left, always fighting for one more inch, and engaged in a task which to one seeing it for the first time looks as if it were quite beyond human effort. Fagged and famished beings are these trackers, whose life day after day, week in week out, is harder than that of the average costermonger's donkey. They throw up their hands in a dumb frenzy of protest and futile appeal to the presiding deity; and here on the river, depending entirely upon those men on the shore, slowly, inch by inch, the little craft, feeling her own weakness, forges ahead against the leaping current in the gapway in the reef.
None come to offer assistance to our crowd, who are now turned facing us, and strain almost flat on their backs, giving the strength of every drop of blood and fibre of their being; and the scene, now lit up by a momentary glimmer of feeble sunlight, assumes a wonderful and terrible picturesqueness. I am chained to the spot by a horrible fascination, and I find myself unconsciously saying, "I fear she will not go. I fear—" But a man has fallen exhausted, he almost fell overboard, and now leans against the mast in utter weariness and fatigue, brought on by the morning's exertions. He is instantly relieved by a bull-dog fellow of enormous strength. Now comes the culminating point, a truly terrifying moment, the very anguish of which frightened me, as I looked around for the lifeboat, and I saw that even the commodore's cold and self-satisfied dignity was disturbed. The hawsers strain again. Creak, crack! creak, crack! The lifeboat watches and comes nearer to us. There is a mighty yell. We cannot go! Yes, we can! There is a mighty pull, and you feel the boat almost torn asunder. Another mighty pull, a tremendous quiver of the timbers, and you turn to see the angry water, which sounds as if a hundred hounds are beating under us for entry at the barred door. There is another deafening yell, the men tear away like frightened horses. Another mighty pull, and another, and another, and we slide over into smooth water.
Then I breathe freely, and yell myself.
The little boat seems to gasp for breath as a drowning man, saved in the nick of time, shudders in every limb with pain and fear.
As we tied up in smooth water, all the men, from thelaobanto the meanest tracker, laughed and yelled and told each other how it was done. We baled the water out of the boat, and one was glad to pull away from the deafening hum of the thundering cataract. A faulty tow-line, a slippery hitch, one false step, one false maneuver, and the shore might have been by that time strewn with our corpses. As it was, we were safe and happy.
But the trackers are strange creatures. At times they are a quarter of a mile ahead. Soft echoes of their coarse chanting came down the confines of the gully, after the rapid had been passed, and in rounding a rocky promontory mid-stream, one would catch sight of them bending their bodies in pulling steadily against the current of the river. Occasionally one of these poor fellows slips; there is a shriek, his body is dashed unmercifully against the jagged cliffs in its last journey to the river, which carries the multilated corpse away. And yet these men, engaged in this terrific toil, with utmost danger to their lives, live almost exclusively on boiled rice and dirty cabbage, and receive the merest pittance in money at the journey's end.
Some idea of the force of this enormous volume of water may be given by mentioning the exploits of the steamerPioneer, which on three consecutive occasions attacked the Yeh T'an when at its worst, and, though steaming a good fourteen knots, failed to ascend. She was obliged to lay out a long steel-wire hawser, and heave herself over by means of her windlass, the engines working at full speed at the same time. Hard and heavy was the heave, gaining foot by foot, with a tension on the hawser almost to breaking strain in a veritable battle against the dragon of the river. Yet so complete are the changes which are wrought by the great variation in the level of the river, that this formidable mid-level rapid completely disappears at high level.
After we had left this rapid—and right glad were we to get away—we came, after a couple of hours' run, to the Niu K'eo, or Buffalo Mouth Reach, quiet enough during the low-water season, but a wild stretch during high river, where many a junk is caught by the violently gyrating swirls, rendered unmanageable, and dashed to atoms on some rocky promontory or boulder pile in as short a space of time as it takes to write it. It was here that theWoodlark, one of the magnificent gunboats which patrol the river to safeguard the interests of the Union Jack in this region, came to grief on her maiden trip to Chung-king. One of these strong swirls caught the ship's stern, rendering her rudders useless for the moment, and causing her to sheer broadside into the foaming rapid. The engines were immediately reversed to full speed astern; but the swift current, combined with the momentum of the ship, carried her willy-nilly to the rock-bound shore, on which she crumpled her bows as if they were made of tin. Fortunately she was built in water-tight sections; her engineers removed the forward section, straightened out the crumpled plates, riveted them together, and bolted the section back into its place again so well, that on arrival at Chung-king not a trace of the accident was visible.
Upon arrival at Kweifu one bids farewell to the Gorges. This town, formerly a considerable coaling center, overlooks most beautiful hillocks, with cottage gardens cultivated in every accessible corner, and a wide sweep of the river.
We landed with difficulty. "Chor, chor!" yelled the trackers, who marked time to their cry, swinging their arms to and fro at each short step; but they almost gave up the ghost. However, we did land, and so did our boy, who bought excellent provisions and meat, which, alas! too soon disappeared. The mutton and beef gradually grew less and daily blackened, wrapped up in opposite corners of the cabin, under the protection from the wet of a couple of sheets of the "Pink 'Un."
From Kweifu to Wan Hsien there was the same kind of scenery—the clear river winding among sand-flats and gravel-banks, with occasional stiff rapids. But after having been in awu-panfor several days, suffering that which has been detailed, and much besides, the journey got a bit dreary. These, however, are ordinary circumstances; but when one has been laid up on a bench of a bed for three days with a high temperature, a legacy of several years in the humid tropics, the physical discomfort baffles description. Malaria, as all sufferers know, has a tendency to cause trouble as soon as one gets into cold weather, and in my case, as will be seen in subsequent parts of this book, it held faithfully to its best traditions. Fever on the Yangtze in awu-panwould require a chapter to itself, not to mention the kindly eccentricities of a companion whose knowledge of malaria was most elementary and whose knowledge of nursing absolutelynil. But I refrain. As also do I of further talk about the Yangtze gorges and the rapids.
From Kweifu to Wan Hsien is a tedious journey. The country opens out, and is more or less monotonously flat. The majority of the dangers and difficulties, however, are over, and one is able to settle down in comparative peace. Fortunately for the author, nothing untoward happened, but travelers are warned not to be too sanguine. Wrecks have happened within a few miles of the destination, generally to be accounted for by the unhappy knack the Chinese boatman has of taking all precautions where the dangerous rapids exist, and leaving all to chance elsewhere. Some two years later, as I was coming down the river from Chung-king in December, I counted no less than nine wrecks, one boat having on board a cargo for the China Inland Mission authorities of no less than 480 boxes. The contents were spread out on the banks to dry, while the boat was turned upside down and repaired on the spot.
A hopeless cry is continually ascending in Hong-Kong and Shanghai that trade is bad, that the palmy days are gone, and that one might as well leave business to take care of itself.
And it is not to be denied that increased trade in the Far East does not of necessity mean increased profits. Competition has rendered buying and selling, if they are to show increased dividends, a much harder task than some of the older merchants had when they built up their businesses twenty or thirty years ago. There is no comparison. But Hong-Kong, by virtue of her remarkably favorable position geographically, should always be able to hold her own; and now that the railway has pierced the great province of Yün-nan, and brought the provinces beyond the navigable Yangtze nearer to the outside world, she should be able to reap a big harvest in Western China, if merchants will move at the right time. More often than not the Britisher loses his trade, not on account of the alleged reason that business is not to be done, but because, content with his club life, and with playing games when he should be doing business, he allows the German to rush past him, and this man, an alien in the colony, by persistent plodding and other more or less commendable traits of business which I should like to detail, but for which I have no space, takes away the trade while the Britisher looks on.
The whole of the trade of the three western provinces—Yün-nan, Kwei-chow and Szech'wan—has for all time been handled by Shanghai, going into the interior by the extremely hazardous route of these Yangtze rapids, and then over the mountains by coolie or pack-horse. This has gone on for centuries. But now the time has come for the Hong-Kong trader to step in and carry away the lion share of the greatly increasing foreign trade for those three provinces by means of the advantage the new Tonkin-Yün-nan Railway has given him.
The railway runs from Haiphong in Indo-China to Yün-nan-fu, the capital of Yün-nan province. And it appears certain to the writer that, with such an important town three or four days from the coast, shippers will not be content to continue to ship via the Yangtze, with all its risk. British and American merchants, who carry the greater part of the imports to Western China, will send their goods direct to Hong-Kong, where transhipment will be made to Haiphong, and thence shipped by rail to Yün-nan-fu, the distributing center for inland trade. To my mind, Hong-Kong merchants might control the whole of the British trade of Western China if they will only push, for although the tariff of Tonkin may be heavy, it would be compensated by the fact that transit would be so much quicker and safer. But it needs push.
The history of our intercourse with China, from the days of the East India Company till now, is nothing but a record of a continuous struggle to open up and develop trade. Opening up trade, too, with a people who have something pathetic in the honest persistency with which their officials have vainly struggled to keep themselves uncontaminated from the outside world. Trade in China cannot be left to take care of itself, as is done in Western countries. However invidious it may seem, we must admit the fact that past progress has been due to pressure. Therefore, if the opportunities were placed near at hand to the Hong-Kong shipper, he would be an unenterprising person indeed were he not to avail himself of the opportunity. Shanghai has held the trump card formerly. This cannot be denied. But I think the railway is destined to turn the trade route to the other side of the empire. It is merely a question as to who is to get the trade—the French or the British. The French are on the alert. They cannot get territory; now they are after the trade.
It is my opinion that it would be to the advantage of the colony of Hong-Kong were the Chamber of Commerce there to investigate the matter thoroughly. Now is the time.
FOOTNOTES:
[D]
Cash, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle. Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.
Cash, a small brass coin with a hole through the middle. Nominally 1,000 cash to the dollar.
Beginning of the overland journey.The official halo around the caravan.The people's goodbyes.Stages to Sui-fu.A persistent coolie.My boy's indignation, and the sequel.Kindness of the people of Chung-king.The Chung-king Consulate.Need of keeping fit in travelling in China.Walking tabooed.The question of "face" and what it means.Author runs the gauntlet.Carrying coolie's rate of pay.The so-called great paved highways of China, and a few remarks thereon.The garden of China.Magnificence of the scenery of Western China.The tea-shops.The Chinese coolie's thirst and how the author drank.Population of Szech-wan.Minerals found.Salt and other things.The Chinese inn: how it holds the palm for unmitigated filth.Description of the rooms.Szech-wan and Yün-nan caravanserais.Need of a camp bed.Toileting in unsecluded publicity.How the author was met at market towns.How the days do not get dull.
In a manner admirably befitting my rank as an English traveler, apart from the fact that I was the man who was endeavoring to cross China on foot, I was led out of Chung-kingen routefor Bhamo alone, my companion having had to leave me here.
It was Easter Sunday, a crisp spring morning.
First came a public sedan-chair, bravely borne by three of the finest fellows in all China, at the head of which on either side were two uniformed persons called soldiers—incomprehensible to one who has no knowledge of the interior, for they bore no marks whatever of the military—whilst uniformed men also solemnly guarded the back. Then came the grinning coolies, carrying that meager portion of my worldly goods which I had anticipated would have been engulfed in the Yangtze. And at the head of all, leading them on as captains do the Salvation Army, was I myself, walking along triumphantly, undoubtedly looking a person of weight, but somehow peculiarly unable to get out of my head that little adage apropos the fact that when the blind shall lead the blind both shall fall into a ditch! But Chinese decorum forbade my falling behind. I had determined to walk across China, every inch of the way or not at all; and the chair coolies, unaware of my intentions presumably, thought it a great joke when at the western gate, through which I departed, I gave instructions that one hundred cash be doled out to each man for his graciousness in escorting me through the town.
All the people were in the middle of the streets—those slippery streets of interminable steps—to give me at parting their blessings or their curses, and only with difficulty and considerable shouting and pushing could I sufficiently take their attention from the array of official and civil servants who made up my caravan as to effect an exit.
The following were to be stages:—
In my plainest English and with many cruel gestures, four miles from the town, I told a man that he narrowly escaped being knocked down, owing to his extremely rude persistence in accosting me and obstructing my way. He acquiesced, opened his large mouth to the widest proportions, seemed thoroughly to understand, but continued more noisily to prevent me from going onwards, yelling something at the top of his husky voice—a voice more like a fog-horn than a human voice—which made me fear that I had done something very wrong, but which later I interpreted ignorantly as impudent humor.
I owed nothing; so far as I knew, I had done nothing wrong.
"Hi, fellow! come out of the way! Reverse your carcass a bit, old chap! Get——! What the—— who the——?"
"Oh, master, he wantchee makee much bobbery. He no b'long my pidgin, d—— rogue! He wantchee catch one more hundred cash! He b'long one piecee chairman!"
This to me from my boy in apologetic explanation.
Then, turning wildly upon the man, after the manner of his kind raising his little fat body to the tips of his toes and effectively assuming the attitude of the stage actor, he cursed loudly to the uttermost of eternity the impudent fellow's ten thousand relatives and ancestry; which, although it called forth more mutual confidences of a like nature, and made T'ong (my boy) foam at the mouth with rage at such an inopportune proceeding happening so early in his career, rendering it necessary for him to push the man in the right jaw, incidentally allowed him to show his master just a little that he could do. The man had been dumped against the wall, but he was still undaunted. With thin mud dropping from one leg of his flimsy pantaloons, he came forward again, did this chair coolie, whom I had just paid off—for it was assuredly one of the trio—leading out again one of those little wiry, shaggy ponies, and wished to do another deal. He had, however, struck a snag. We did not come to terms. I merely lifted the quadruped bodily from my path and walked on.
Chung-king people treated us well, and had it not been for their kindness the terrible three days spent still in ourwu-panon the crowded beach would have been more terrible still.
At the Consulate we found Mr. Phillips, the Acting-Consul, ready packed up to go down to Shanghai, and Mr. H.E. Sly, whom we had met in Shanghai, was due to relieve him. Mr. J.L. Smith, of the Consular Service, was here also, just reaching a state of convalescence after an attack of measles, and was to go to Chen-tu to take up duty as soon as he was fit. But despite the topsy-turvydom, we were made welcome, and both Phillips and Smith did their best to entertain. Chung-king Consulate is probably the finest—certainly one of the finest—in China, built on a commanding site overlooking the river and the city, with the bungalow part over in the hills. It possesses remarkably fine grounds, has every modern convenience, not the least attractive features being the cement tennis-court and a small polo ground adjoining. I had hoped to see polo on those little rats of ponies, but it could not be arranged. I should have liked to take a stick as a farewell.
People were shocked indeed that I was going to walk across China.
Let me say here that travel in the Middle Kingdom is quite possible anywhere provided that you are fit. You have merely to learn and to maintain untold patience, and you are able to get where you like, if you have got the money to pay your way;[E]but walking is a very different thing. It is probable that never previously has a traveler actually walked across China, if we except the Rev. J. McCarthy, of the China Inland Mission, who some thirty years or so ago did walk across to Burma, although he went through Kwei-chow province over a considerably easier country. Not because it is by any means physically impossible, but because the custom of the country—and a cursed custom too—is that one has to keep what is called his "face." And to walk tends to make a man lose "face."
A quiet jaunt through China on foot was, I was told, quite out of the question; the uneclipsed audacity of a man mentioning it, and especially a man such as I was, was marvelled at. Did I not know that the foreignermusthave a chair? (This was corroborated by my boy, on his oath, because he would have to pay the men.) Did I not know that no traveler in Western China, who at any rate had any sense of self-respect, would travel without a chair, not necessarily as a conveyance, but for the honor and glory of the thing? And did I not know that, unfurnished with this undeniable token of respect, I should be liable to be thrust aside on the highway, to be kept waiting at ferries, to be relegated to the worst inn's worst room, and to be generally treated with indignity? This idea of mine of crossing China on foot was preposterous!
Even Mr. Hudson Broomhall, of the China Inland Mission, who with Mrs. Broomhall was extremely kind, and did all he could to fit me up for the journey (it is such remembrances that make the trip one which I would not mind doing again), was surprised to know that I was walking, and tried to persuade me to take a chair. But I flew in the face of it all. These good people certainly impressed me, but I decided to run the gauntlet and take the risk.
The question of "face" is always merely one of theory, never of fact, and the principles that govern "face" and its attainment were wholly beyond my apprehension. "I shall probably be more concerned in saving my life than in saving my face," I thought.
Therefore it was that when I reached a place called Fu-to-gwan I discarded all superfluities of dress, and strode forward, just at that time in the early morning when the sun was gilding the dewdrops on the hedgerows with a grandeur which breathed encouragement to the traveler, in a flannel shirt and flannel pants—a terrible breach of foreign etiquette, no doubt, but very comfortable to one who was facing the first eighty li he had ever walked on China's soil. My three coolies—the typical Chinese coolie of Szech'wan, but very good fellows with all their faults—were to land me at Sui-fu, 230 miles distant (some 650 li), in seven days' time. They were to receive four hundred cash per man per day, were to find themselves, and if I reached Sui-fu within the specified time I agreed tokumshawthem to the extent of an extra thousand.[F]They carried, according to the arrangement, ninety catties apiece, and their rate of pay I did not consider excessive until I found that each man sublet his contract for a fourth of his pay, and trotted along light-heartedly and merry at my side; then I regretted that I had not thought twice before closing with them.
It is probable that the solidity of the great paved highways of China have been exaggerated. I have not been on the North China highways, but have had considerable experience of them in Western China, Szech'wan and Yün-nan particularly, and have very little praise to lavish upon them. Certain it is that the road to Sui-fu does not deserve the nice things said about it by various travelers. The whole route from Chung-king to Sui-fu, paved with flagstones varying in width from three to six or seven feet—the only main road, of course—is creditably regular in some places, whilst other portions, especially over the mountains, are extremely bad and uneven. In some places, I could hardly get along at all, and my boy would call out as he came along in his chair behind me—
"Master, I thinkee you makee catch two piecee men makee carry. This b'long no proper road. P'raps you makee bad feet come."
And truly my feet were shamefully blistered.
One had to step from stone to stone with considerable agility. In places bridges had fallen in, nobody had attempted to put them into a decent state of repair—though this is never done in China—and one of the features of every day was the wonderful fashion in which the mountain ponies picked their way over the broken route; they are as sure-footed as goats.
As I gazed admiringly along the miles and miles of ripening wheat and golden rape, pink-flowering beans, interspersed everywhere with the inevitable poppy, swaying gently as in a sea of all the dainty colors of the rainbow, I did not wonder that Szech'wan had been called the Garden of China. Greater or denser cultivation I had never seen. The amphitheater-like hills smiled joyously in the first gentle touches of spring and enriching green, each terrace being irrigated from the one below by a small stream of water regulated in the most primitive manner (the windlass driven by man power), and not a square inch lost. Even the mud banks dividing these fertile areas are made to yield on the sides cabbages and lettuces and on the tops wheat and poppy. There are no fences. You see before you a forest of mountains, made a dark leaden color by thick mists, from out of which gradually come the never-ending pictures of green and purple and brown and yellow and gold, which roll hither and thither under a cloudy sky in indescribable confusion. The chain may commence in the south or the north in two or three soft, slow-rising undulations, which trend away from you and form a vapory background to the landscape. From these (I see such a picture even as I write, seated on the stone steps in the middle of a mountain path), at once united and peculiarly distinct, rise five masses with rugged crests, rough, and cut into shady hollows on the sides, a faint pale aureola from the sun on the mists rising over the summits and sharp outlines. Looking to the north, an immense curved line shows itself, growing ever greater, opening like the arch of a gigantic bridge, and binding this first group to a second, more complicated, each peak of which has a form of its own, and does in some sort as it pleases without troubling itself about its neighbor. The most remarkable point about these mountains is the life they seem to possess. It is an incredible confusion. Angles are thrown fantastically by some mad geometer, it would seem. Splendid banyan trees shelter one after toiling up the unending steps, and dotted over the landscape, indiscriminately in magnificent picturesqueness, are pretty farmhouses nestling almost out of sight in groves of sacred trees. Oftentimes perpendicular mountains stand sheer up for three thousand feet or more, their sides to the very summits ablaze with color coming from the smiling face of sunny Nature, in spots at times where only a twelve-inch cultivation is possible.
A dome raises its head curiously over the leaning shoulder of a round hill, and a pyramid reverses itself, as if to the music of some wild orchestra, whose symphonies are heard in the mountain winds. Seen nearer and in detail, these mountains are all in delicious keeping with all of what the imagination in love with the fantastic, attracted by their more distant forms, could dream. Valleys, gorges, somber gaps, walls cut perpendicularly, rough or polished by water, cavities festooned with hanging stalactites and notched like Gothic sculptures—all make up a strange sight which cannot but excite admiration.
Every mile or so there are tea-houses, and for a couple of cash a coolie can get a cup of tea, with leaves sufficient to make a dozen cups, and as much boiling water as he wants. Szech'wan, the country, its people, their ways and methods, and much information thereto appertaining, is already in print. It were useless to give more of it here—and, reader, you will thank me! But the thirst of Szech'wan—that thirst which is unique in the whole of the Empire, and eclipsed nowhere on the face of the earth, except perhaps on the Sahara—one does not hear about.
Many an Englishman would give much for the Chinese coolie's thirst—so very, very much.
I wonder whether you, reader, were ever thirsty? Probably not. You get a thirst which is not insatiable. Yours is born of nothing extraordinary; yours can be satisfied by a gulp or two of water, or perhaps by a drink—or perhaps two, or perhaps three—of something stronger. The Chinese coolie's thirst arises from the grilling sun, from a dancing glare, from hard hauling, struggling with 120 pounds slung over his shoulders, dangling at the end of a bamboo pole. I have had this thirst of the Chinese coolie—I know it well. It is born of sheer heat and sheer perspiration. Every drop of liquid has been wrung out of my body; I have seemed to have swum in my clothes, and inside my muscles have seemed to shrink to dry sponge and my bones to dry pith. My substance, my strength, my self has drained out of me. I have been conscious of perpetual evaporation and liquefaction. And I have felt that I must stop and wet myself again. I reallymustwet myself and swell to life again. And here we sit at the tea-shop. People come and stare at me, and wonder what it is. They, too, are thirsty, for they are all coolies and have the coolie thirst.
I wet myself. I pour in cup after cup, and my body, my self sucks it in, draws it in as if it were the water of life. Instantly it gushes out again at every pore. I swill in more, and out it rushes again, madly rushes out as quickly as it can. I swill in more and more, and out it comes defiantly. I can keep none inside me. Useless—Icannotquench my thirst. At last the thirst thinks its conquest assured, taking the hot tea for a signal of surrender; but I pour in more, and gradually feel the tea settling within me. I am a degree less torrid, a shade more substantial.
And then here comes my boy.
"Master, you wantchee makee one drink brandy-and-soda. No can catchee soda this side—have got water. Can do?"
Ah! shall I? Shall I? No! I throw it away from me, fling a bottle of cheap brandy which he had bought for me at Chung-king away from me, and the boy looks forlorn.
Tea is the best of all drinks in China; for the traveler unquestionably the best. Good in the morning, good at midday, good in the evening, good at night, even after the day's toil has been forgotten. To-morrow I shall have more walking, more thirsting, more tea. China tea, thou art a godsend to the wayfarer in that great land!
I endeavored to get the details of the population of the province of Szech'wan, the variability of the reports providing an excellent illustration of the uncertainty impending over everything statistical in China—estimates ranged from thirty-five to eighty millions.
The surface of this province is made up of masses of rugged mountains, through which the Yangtze has cut its deep and narrow channel. The area is everywhere intersected by steep-sided valleys and ravines. The world-famed plain of Chen-tu, the capital, is the only plain of any size in the province, the system of irrigation employed on it being one of the wonders of the world. Every food crop flourishes in Szech'wan, an inexhaustible supply of products of the Chinese pharmacopoeia enrich the stores and destroy the stomachs of the well-to-do; and with the exception of cotton, all that grows in Eastern China grows better in this great Garden of the Empire. Its area is about that of France, its climate is even superior—a land delightfullyaccidentée. Among the minerals found are gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, iron, coal and petroleum; the chief products being opium, white wax, hemp, yellow silk. Szech'wan is a province rich in salt, obtained from artesian borings, some of which extend 2,500 feet below the surface, and from which for centuries the brine has been laboriously raised by antiquated windlass and water buffalo.
The best conditions of Chinese inns are far and away worse than anything the traveler would be called upon to encounter anywhere in the British Isles, even in the most isolated places in rural Ireland. There can be no comparison. And my reader will understand that there is much which the European misses in the way of general physical comfort and cleanliness. Sanitation is absentin toto. Ordinary decency forbids one putting into print what the uninitiated traveler most desires to know—if he would be saved a severe shock at the outset; but everyone has to go through it, because one cannot write what one sees. All travelers who have had to put up at the caravanseries in Central and Western China will bear me out in my assertion that all of them reek with filth and are overrun by vermin of every description. The traveler whom misfortune has led to travel off the main roads of Russia may probably hesitate in expressing an opinion as to which country carries off the palm for unmitigated filth; but, with this exception, travelers in the Eastern Archipelago, in Central Asia, in Africa among the wildest tribes, are pretty well unanimous that compared with all these for dirt, disease, discomfort, an utter lack of decency and annoyance, the Chinese inn holds its own. And in no part of China more than in Szech'wan and Yün-nan is greater discomfort experienced.
The usual wooden bedstead stands in the corner of the room with the straw bedding (this, by the way, should on no account be removed if one wishes to sleep in peace), sometimes there is a table, sometimes a couple of chairs. If these are steady it is lucky, if unbroken it is the exception; there are never more. Over the bedstead (more often than not, by the way, it is composed of four planks of varying lengths and thickness, placed across two trestles) I used first to place my oilskin, then myp'u-k'ai, and that little creeper which rhymes with hug did not disturb me much. Rats ran round and over me in profusion, and, of course, the best room being invariably nearest to the pigsties, there were the usual stenches. The floor was Mother Earth, which in wet weather became mud, and quite a common thing it was for my joys to be enhanced during a heavy shower of rain by my having to sleep, almost suffocated, mackintosh over my head, owing to a slight break in the continuity of the roof—my umbrella being unavailable, as one of my men dropped it over a precipice two days out. For many reasons a camp-bed is to Europeans an indispensable part of even the most modest traveling equipment. I was many times sorry that I had none with me.
The inns of Szech'wan, however, are by many degrees better than those of Yün-nan, which are sometimes indescribable. Earthen floors are saturated with damp filth and smelling decay; there are rarely the paper windows, but merely a sort of opening of woodwork, through which the offensive smells of decaying garbage and human filth waft in almost to choke one; tables collapse under the weight of one's dinner; walls are always in decay and hang inwards threateningly; wicked insects, which crawl and jump and bite, creep over the side of one's rice bowl—and much else. Who can describe it? It makes one ill to think of it.
Throughout my journeyings it was necessary for my toileting, in fact, everything, to be performed in absolute unalloyed publicity. Three days out my boy fixed up a cold bath for me, and barricaded a room which had a certain amount of privacy about it, owing to its secluded position; but even grown men and women, anxious to see whatitwas like when it had no clothes on, came forward, poked their fingers through the paper in the windows (of course, glass is hardly known in the interior), and greedily peeped in. This and the profound curiosity the people evince in one's every action and movement I found most trying.
It was my misfortune each day at this stage to come into a town or village where market was in progress. Catching a sight of the foreign visage, people opened their eyes widely, turned from me, faced me again with a little less of fear, and then came to me, not in dozens, but in hundreds, with open arms. They shouted and made signs, and walking excitedly by my side, they examined at will the texture of my clothes, and touched my boots with sticks to see whether the feet were encased or not. For the time I was their hero. When I walked into an inn business brightened immediately. Tea was at a premium, and only the richer class could afford nine cash instead of three to drink tea with the bewildered foreigner. The most inquisitive came behind me, rubbing their unshaven pates against the side of my head in enterprising endeavor to see through the sides of my spectacles. They would speak to me, yelling in their coarsest tones thinking my hearing was defective. I would motion then to go away, always politely, cleverly suppressing my sense of indignation at their conduct; and they would do so, only to make room for a worse crowd. The town's business stopped; people left their stalls and shops to glare aimlessly at or to ask inane and unintelligible questions about the barbarian who seemed to have dropped suddenly from the heavens. When I addressed a few words to them in strongest Anglo-Saxon, telling them in the name of all they held sacred to go away and leave me in peace, something like a cheer would go up, and my boy would swear them all down in his choicest. When I slowly rose to move the crowd looked disappointed, but allowed me to go forward on my journey in peace.
Thus the days passed, and things were never dull.
FOOTNOTES: