CHAPTER XIII.DESERTED BY MUTINOUS COOLIES—DANGEROUS JOURNEY AFOOT TO CHUNG KING—THE MOST MYSTIFYING CONJURER OF THEM ALL.Once well under way, our rebellious gang traveled peaceably, making good time, possibly because we would not permit them to stop for rest or a few whiffs of opium in any of the larger villages, thus frustrating all attempts they would be certain to make in endeavoring to enlist the sympathy of their fellows. The miserable gang, however, went upon another strike when at dusk we halted in the village of Huei Sung Chang. The village inn was dirty, as usual, and no more a fit place for an invalid than any of the other wretched quarters we had previously occupied. When we awoke in the morning of Aug. 31, Leo apprised us of the fact that rebellion had once more broken loose. The coolies refused emphatically to proceed without more cash. The first excuse was that they wanted food, but we had furnished that; the second they wanted opium, but the soldiers supplied them; the third, they wanted rice wine, and they had been given that also; and now they demanded cash. Nothing would satisfy them but good, copper hard cash. The soldiers threatened and argued in vain. The coolies knew that I had none of the little copper coins with me, my funds consisting only of large silver pieces. Their demand for cash was working both ways. If I did not give it them they had an excuse for leaving. If I did give it them they were just that much more ahead. I was about to repeat the object lesson of the day before when the boy Leo offered a solution to the difficulty by volunteering to proceed to the next city on foot, a distance of twenty-five miles, and exchange one of my silver pieces for the required coin. I accepted the proposition, and at 7 o’clock the next morning the faithful little fellow arrived with 5,000 cash. Two thousand cash were given the coolie gang and I demanded a completion of the journey and met with refusal. A squabble ensued and then the storm broke. About thirty coolies assembled in the front part of the inn and more filled the streets. With the aid of the one coolie, upon whom I could depend, I brought out our bicycles and luggage, lifted Mrs. McIlrath in my arms and placed her in the vehicle. This action was the draught of wind which fanned the spark into a flame. My own men took their positions silently and the little procession started through the long lines of humanity. The natives cursed, gesticulated wildly, some striking at us, and others threateningly displaying clods and stones in their hands. One villainous-featured old man followed us, talking confidentially to our men and slipping some article into their hands. This overt act, carried on through the medium of the long flowing sleeves, aroused my suspicion,and at the first village I stopped the outfit and investigated. Illicit opium selling was the meaning of the old fellow’s sly actions, and I could but submit and allow the gang to fill their little tin boxes with the low grade “dope” and push on.I have never seen outside of hospitals and museums such looking creatures as my gang of coolies were, when stripped. They were attenuated to such a degree that they were nothing less than breathing skeletons. Opium was responsible for it all. Yet there are men who profess to have traveled in China who deny that opium is the curse that missionaries claim it to be. I am positive that such men are either Englishmen protecting the infamy of their own land, which is largely an exporter of the drug, or else the remarks are made by men who frequent only the hotels and clubs at Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canton and Pekin, writing letters concerning a people the true character of whom it is as impossible to learn at any open port as it is to learn of Mormons, Indians or Indiana White Caps in Chicago or New York City. I have seen the opium fiend in all stages, from the novice to the exhausted hulk, who, paralyzed in every nerve, sits gaunt in a temple doorway, his sightless eyes staring with fixed glare from deep, dark-circled sockets. Every rib, every bone, even to those in his feet, could be seen, and were it not for the odor of the drug which permeates every fibre of clothing, they might be considered starved to death. Starvation really is the cause, for the devotee has no appetite only for the poppy drug. We employed coolies to carry burdens for us, who, in traveling one hundred miles, consumed only two bowls of rice during the four days spent in negotiating the distance. The rice and tea accompanying it cost 48 cash. The remainder of their wages, which amounted to 800 cash, was expended in opium. We have experienced the annoyance of waiting a half hour for men who had been smoking for four. Boatmen on the river, and laborers in the cities do not show the ravages of the drug as a class, for as soon as they become actual fiends they disappear from the busy arteries of commerce, just as drunkards do from active business circles in other lands.MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page 70.)MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page70.)There is a belt existing for a distance of 600 miles along the lower end of the Yang-Tse-Kiang where, at certain seasons of the year, principally September, October and November, the sun never shines, and if rain inaugurates the initial month a daily precipitation may be counted upon. We were in the center of this belt Sept. 3, and our own experiences gave evidence to the phenomenon. It rained steadily since our departure from Wan Shen, Aug. 26, and when we resumed our journey on Sept. 3, the roads and bridges rendered testimony to the effect of constantly rushing waters. Journeying under such conditions was not alone dangerous, but monotonous. One of the happiestmoments of our tour was when we ascertained that Chung King was but little more than a hundred miles away. Several days drearily spent in climbing hills, wading small streams and skating through mud ankle deep, brought us within about five miles of Tu To. There we were met by a detachment of soldiers from Chung King. We learned from them that they had been dispatched by the Shen of Chung King to escort us to the city. We had lost so much time through bad roads and inclement weather that the officials of Chung King, who had been notified of our coming, had grown anxious and had sent out troops to guide us in safety. On Monday, Sept. 7, we obtained an early start, reaching a small village on the Yang-Tse-Kiang by noon. In small boats we embarked for the city, half a dozen miles above and across the river, arriving at 3 o’clock at the metropolis of Western China, a city situated on a point of land formed by the junction of the Yang-Tse-Kiang and Min rivers. Though Chung King has a greater population of foreigners than any other city on the river, excepting Hankow, we were astonished, upon arrival, to pass through miles of business streets without a glimpse of settlements of foreign houses.It took much diligent inquiry for us to find the residence of Dr. J. H. McCartney, surgeon in charge of the American Methodist Hospital. We were a dirty, mud-stained pair when we at last ascended to the veranda of the doctor’s comfortable home, but the kindly surgeon had heard of the Inter Ocean’s enterprise, and he bade us enter before inspecting our condition. It would have made little difference had we been two-fold more dilapidated in appearance, for I never met a missionary surgeon in China who did not entertain us royally, even at the sacrifice of his own comfort. As he sat over dessert, discussing our journey, tasting the first genuine American pie we had eaten since leaving San Francisco, I learned with strangely mixed feelings that the district we had just traveled was the most dangerous in China. Only a few weeks prior to our arrival the imperial mail, carried overland, was robbed. I could then understand the significance expressed in the remark of a certain Shen when he said, “You will have plenty to cause you fear before reaching Chung King.” I had told him that Mrs. McIlrath and I had no misgivings as to the trip, but had I known that mail carriers were assassinated monthly, and that commissioners, traveling under protection of one of the great power’s flags, were robbed and maltreated, our answer would have been different.The interior cities of the Chinese Empire are similar in every respect; see one of them and you have seen them all. A visitor to Ngau-King need not go to Shaze, the man who has seen Shaze need not travel in search of fresh sights to Chung King, and one who has seen the native city of Shanghai has literally seen the great aggregation.Chung King, situated 160 miles from the sea, differed only from the others in that the shops of the various trades were grouped, each industry occupying a section of the street. The only absolutely new features of the town appeared to be the climate, which is delightful for duck and pneumonia propagation, an old conjurer, and the industries established by Mr. Archibald Little. The climate is first and most important, since it exists in humid, opaque quantities upon all occasions, except perhaps when the sun does not happen to be busy elsewhere; then only does the sun shine in Chung King. Pig bristles are thefundamentalproperty of the establishment of Mr. Little, and Uncle Sam’s people are the chief patrons of it. After the porker has been despoiled of his hirsute trimmings, the bristles, sorted into bunches of three, four and five inch lengths, are wrapped and shipped to the United States for use in brushes. The remaining great attraction of Chung King, namely, the conjurer, we met on one of the quadrangles of a temple, and for a performance conducted in the open air, by a necromancer stripped from waist to crown of head, without apparatus or appliance, he was marvelous. In a circle formed by the crowd, the stone pavement serving as table and stage, the scrawny, wrinkled old magician produced from space a curved sword, iron rings, hardwood balls, clam shells and bowls. The performance opened with contortions of the legs and back, and a dislocation and replacement of the various joints of the body. The wizard then swallowed a hardwood ball two inches in diameter, following this with a few clam shells and poking the whole mass down his elastic gullet with a curved sword. Famous sword swallowers of the vaudeville stage of our own country may use longer instruments, and swallow equally large objects, but they always leave enough of the swallowed article outside their internal grottos to withdraw the obstruction. Our Chinese entertainer disdained these sensible precautions, and after we had felt through the abdominal walls the point of the curved sword, the ball and the clam shells, he removed them in a style which was distinctively all his own. To remove the sword, he contracted his waist by pressure of both hands, gave a convulsive upheaval and the weapon glided upward until just an inch or two remained in the throat. Then one of the spectators removed the blade at the conjurer’s request. The clam shells and ball were brought to light in a simple manner, the conjurer not touching his hands to his mouth, but spitting them on the ground as soon as they appeared between his teeth.
CHAPTER XIII.DESERTED BY MUTINOUS COOLIES—DANGEROUS JOURNEY AFOOT TO CHUNG KING—THE MOST MYSTIFYING CONJURER OF THEM ALL.Once well under way, our rebellious gang traveled peaceably, making good time, possibly because we would not permit them to stop for rest or a few whiffs of opium in any of the larger villages, thus frustrating all attempts they would be certain to make in endeavoring to enlist the sympathy of their fellows. The miserable gang, however, went upon another strike when at dusk we halted in the village of Huei Sung Chang. The village inn was dirty, as usual, and no more a fit place for an invalid than any of the other wretched quarters we had previously occupied. When we awoke in the morning of Aug. 31, Leo apprised us of the fact that rebellion had once more broken loose. The coolies refused emphatically to proceed without more cash. The first excuse was that they wanted food, but we had furnished that; the second they wanted opium, but the soldiers supplied them; the third, they wanted rice wine, and they had been given that also; and now they demanded cash. Nothing would satisfy them but good, copper hard cash. The soldiers threatened and argued in vain. The coolies knew that I had none of the little copper coins with me, my funds consisting only of large silver pieces. Their demand for cash was working both ways. If I did not give it them they had an excuse for leaving. If I did give it them they were just that much more ahead. I was about to repeat the object lesson of the day before when the boy Leo offered a solution to the difficulty by volunteering to proceed to the next city on foot, a distance of twenty-five miles, and exchange one of my silver pieces for the required coin. I accepted the proposition, and at 7 o’clock the next morning the faithful little fellow arrived with 5,000 cash. Two thousand cash were given the coolie gang and I demanded a completion of the journey and met with refusal. A squabble ensued and then the storm broke. About thirty coolies assembled in the front part of the inn and more filled the streets. With the aid of the one coolie, upon whom I could depend, I brought out our bicycles and luggage, lifted Mrs. McIlrath in my arms and placed her in the vehicle. This action was the draught of wind which fanned the spark into a flame. My own men took their positions silently and the little procession started through the long lines of humanity. The natives cursed, gesticulated wildly, some striking at us, and others threateningly displaying clods and stones in their hands. One villainous-featured old man followed us, talking confidentially to our men and slipping some article into their hands. This overt act, carried on through the medium of the long flowing sleeves, aroused my suspicion,and at the first village I stopped the outfit and investigated. Illicit opium selling was the meaning of the old fellow’s sly actions, and I could but submit and allow the gang to fill their little tin boxes with the low grade “dope” and push on.I have never seen outside of hospitals and museums such looking creatures as my gang of coolies were, when stripped. They were attenuated to such a degree that they were nothing less than breathing skeletons. Opium was responsible for it all. Yet there are men who profess to have traveled in China who deny that opium is the curse that missionaries claim it to be. I am positive that such men are either Englishmen protecting the infamy of their own land, which is largely an exporter of the drug, or else the remarks are made by men who frequent only the hotels and clubs at Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canton and Pekin, writing letters concerning a people the true character of whom it is as impossible to learn at any open port as it is to learn of Mormons, Indians or Indiana White Caps in Chicago or New York City. I have seen the opium fiend in all stages, from the novice to the exhausted hulk, who, paralyzed in every nerve, sits gaunt in a temple doorway, his sightless eyes staring with fixed glare from deep, dark-circled sockets. Every rib, every bone, even to those in his feet, could be seen, and were it not for the odor of the drug which permeates every fibre of clothing, they might be considered starved to death. Starvation really is the cause, for the devotee has no appetite only for the poppy drug. We employed coolies to carry burdens for us, who, in traveling one hundred miles, consumed only two bowls of rice during the four days spent in negotiating the distance. The rice and tea accompanying it cost 48 cash. The remainder of their wages, which amounted to 800 cash, was expended in opium. We have experienced the annoyance of waiting a half hour for men who had been smoking for four. Boatmen on the river, and laborers in the cities do not show the ravages of the drug as a class, for as soon as they become actual fiends they disappear from the busy arteries of commerce, just as drunkards do from active business circles in other lands.MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page 70.)MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page70.)There is a belt existing for a distance of 600 miles along the lower end of the Yang-Tse-Kiang where, at certain seasons of the year, principally September, October and November, the sun never shines, and if rain inaugurates the initial month a daily precipitation may be counted upon. We were in the center of this belt Sept. 3, and our own experiences gave evidence to the phenomenon. It rained steadily since our departure from Wan Shen, Aug. 26, and when we resumed our journey on Sept. 3, the roads and bridges rendered testimony to the effect of constantly rushing waters. Journeying under such conditions was not alone dangerous, but monotonous. One of the happiestmoments of our tour was when we ascertained that Chung King was but little more than a hundred miles away. Several days drearily spent in climbing hills, wading small streams and skating through mud ankle deep, brought us within about five miles of Tu To. There we were met by a detachment of soldiers from Chung King. We learned from them that they had been dispatched by the Shen of Chung King to escort us to the city. We had lost so much time through bad roads and inclement weather that the officials of Chung King, who had been notified of our coming, had grown anxious and had sent out troops to guide us in safety. On Monday, Sept. 7, we obtained an early start, reaching a small village on the Yang-Tse-Kiang by noon. In small boats we embarked for the city, half a dozen miles above and across the river, arriving at 3 o’clock at the metropolis of Western China, a city situated on a point of land formed by the junction of the Yang-Tse-Kiang and Min rivers. Though Chung King has a greater population of foreigners than any other city on the river, excepting Hankow, we were astonished, upon arrival, to pass through miles of business streets without a glimpse of settlements of foreign houses.It took much diligent inquiry for us to find the residence of Dr. J. H. McCartney, surgeon in charge of the American Methodist Hospital. We were a dirty, mud-stained pair when we at last ascended to the veranda of the doctor’s comfortable home, but the kindly surgeon had heard of the Inter Ocean’s enterprise, and he bade us enter before inspecting our condition. It would have made little difference had we been two-fold more dilapidated in appearance, for I never met a missionary surgeon in China who did not entertain us royally, even at the sacrifice of his own comfort. As he sat over dessert, discussing our journey, tasting the first genuine American pie we had eaten since leaving San Francisco, I learned with strangely mixed feelings that the district we had just traveled was the most dangerous in China. Only a few weeks prior to our arrival the imperial mail, carried overland, was robbed. I could then understand the significance expressed in the remark of a certain Shen when he said, “You will have plenty to cause you fear before reaching Chung King.” I had told him that Mrs. McIlrath and I had no misgivings as to the trip, but had I known that mail carriers were assassinated monthly, and that commissioners, traveling under protection of one of the great power’s flags, were robbed and maltreated, our answer would have been different.The interior cities of the Chinese Empire are similar in every respect; see one of them and you have seen them all. A visitor to Ngau-King need not go to Shaze, the man who has seen Shaze need not travel in search of fresh sights to Chung King, and one who has seen the native city of Shanghai has literally seen the great aggregation.Chung King, situated 160 miles from the sea, differed only from the others in that the shops of the various trades were grouped, each industry occupying a section of the street. The only absolutely new features of the town appeared to be the climate, which is delightful for duck and pneumonia propagation, an old conjurer, and the industries established by Mr. Archibald Little. The climate is first and most important, since it exists in humid, opaque quantities upon all occasions, except perhaps when the sun does not happen to be busy elsewhere; then only does the sun shine in Chung King. Pig bristles are thefundamentalproperty of the establishment of Mr. Little, and Uncle Sam’s people are the chief patrons of it. After the porker has been despoiled of his hirsute trimmings, the bristles, sorted into bunches of three, four and five inch lengths, are wrapped and shipped to the United States for use in brushes. The remaining great attraction of Chung King, namely, the conjurer, we met on one of the quadrangles of a temple, and for a performance conducted in the open air, by a necromancer stripped from waist to crown of head, without apparatus or appliance, he was marvelous. In a circle formed by the crowd, the stone pavement serving as table and stage, the scrawny, wrinkled old magician produced from space a curved sword, iron rings, hardwood balls, clam shells and bowls. The performance opened with contortions of the legs and back, and a dislocation and replacement of the various joints of the body. The wizard then swallowed a hardwood ball two inches in diameter, following this with a few clam shells and poking the whole mass down his elastic gullet with a curved sword. Famous sword swallowers of the vaudeville stage of our own country may use longer instruments, and swallow equally large objects, but they always leave enough of the swallowed article outside their internal grottos to withdraw the obstruction. Our Chinese entertainer disdained these sensible precautions, and after we had felt through the abdominal walls the point of the curved sword, the ball and the clam shells, he removed them in a style which was distinctively all his own. To remove the sword, he contracted his waist by pressure of both hands, gave a convulsive upheaval and the weapon glided upward until just an inch or two remained in the throat. Then one of the spectators removed the blade at the conjurer’s request. The clam shells and ball were brought to light in a simple manner, the conjurer not touching his hands to his mouth, but spitting them on the ground as soon as they appeared between his teeth.
CHAPTER XIII.DESERTED BY MUTINOUS COOLIES—DANGEROUS JOURNEY AFOOT TO CHUNG KING—THE MOST MYSTIFYING CONJURER OF THEM ALL.
DESERTED BY MUTINOUS COOLIES—DANGEROUS JOURNEY AFOOT TO CHUNG KING—THE MOST MYSTIFYING CONJURER OF THEM ALL.
DESERTED BY MUTINOUS COOLIES—DANGEROUS JOURNEY AFOOT TO CHUNG KING—THE MOST MYSTIFYING CONJURER OF THEM ALL.
Once well under way, our rebellious gang traveled peaceably, making good time, possibly because we would not permit them to stop for rest or a few whiffs of opium in any of the larger villages, thus frustrating all attempts they would be certain to make in endeavoring to enlist the sympathy of their fellows. The miserable gang, however, went upon another strike when at dusk we halted in the village of Huei Sung Chang. The village inn was dirty, as usual, and no more a fit place for an invalid than any of the other wretched quarters we had previously occupied. When we awoke in the morning of Aug. 31, Leo apprised us of the fact that rebellion had once more broken loose. The coolies refused emphatically to proceed without more cash. The first excuse was that they wanted food, but we had furnished that; the second they wanted opium, but the soldiers supplied them; the third, they wanted rice wine, and they had been given that also; and now they demanded cash. Nothing would satisfy them but good, copper hard cash. The soldiers threatened and argued in vain. The coolies knew that I had none of the little copper coins with me, my funds consisting only of large silver pieces. Their demand for cash was working both ways. If I did not give it them they had an excuse for leaving. If I did give it them they were just that much more ahead. I was about to repeat the object lesson of the day before when the boy Leo offered a solution to the difficulty by volunteering to proceed to the next city on foot, a distance of twenty-five miles, and exchange one of my silver pieces for the required coin. I accepted the proposition, and at 7 o’clock the next morning the faithful little fellow arrived with 5,000 cash. Two thousand cash were given the coolie gang and I demanded a completion of the journey and met with refusal. A squabble ensued and then the storm broke. About thirty coolies assembled in the front part of the inn and more filled the streets. With the aid of the one coolie, upon whom I could depend, I brought out our bicycles and luggage, lifted Mrs. McIlrath in my arms and placed her in the vehicle. This action was the draught of wind which fanned the spark into a flame. My own men took their positions silently and the little procession started through the long lines of humanity. The natives cursed, gesticulated wildly, some striking at us, and others threateningly displaying clods and stones in their hands. One villainous-featured old man followed us, talking confidentially to our men and slipping some article into their hands. This overt act, carried on through the medium of the long flowing sleeves, aroused my suspicion,and at the first village I stopped the outfit and investigated. Illicit opium selling was the meaning of the old fellow’s sly actions, and I could but submit and allow the gang to fill their little tin boxes with the low grade “dope” and push on.I have never seen outside of hospitals and museums such looking creatures as my gang of coolies were, when stripped. They were attenuated to such a degree that they were nothing less than breathing skeletons. Opium was responsible for it all. Yet there are men who profess to have traveled in China who deny that opium is the curse that missionaries claim it to be. I am positive that such men are either Englishmen protecting the infamy of their own land, which is largely an exporter of the drug, or else the remarks are made by men who frequent only the hotels and clubs at Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canton and Pekin, writing letters concerning a people the true character of whom it is as impossible to learn at any open port as it is to learn of Mormons, Indians or Indiana White Caps in Chicago or New York City. I have seen the opium fiend in all stages, from the novice to the exhausted hulk, who, paralyzed in every nerve, sits gaunt in a temple doorway, his sightless eyes staring with fixed glare from deep, dark-circled sockets. Every rib, every bone, even to those in his feet, could be seen, and were it not for the odor of the drug which permeates every fibre of clothing, they might be considered starved to death. Starvation really is the cause, for the devotee has no appetite only for the poppy drug. We employed coolies to carry burdens for us, who, in traveling one hundred miles, consumed only two bowls of rice during the four days spent in negotiating the distance. The rice and tea accompanying it cost 48 cash. The remainder of their wages, which amounted to 800 cash, was expended in opium. We have experienced the annoyance of waiting a half hour for men who had been smoking for four. Boatmen on the river, and laborers in the cities do not show the ravages of the drug as a class, for as soon as they become actual fiends they disappear from the busy arteries of commerce, just as drunkards do from active business circles in other lands.MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page 70.)MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page70.)There is a belt existing for a distance of 600 miles along the lower end of the Yang-Tse-Kiang where, at certain seasons of the year, principally September, October and November, the sun never shines, and if rain inaugurates the initial month a daily precipitation may be counted upon. We were in the center of this belt Sept. 3, and our own experiences gave evidence to the phenomenon. It rained steadily since our departure from Wan Shen, Aug. 26, and when we resumed our journey on Sept. 3, the roads and bridges rendered testimony to the effect of constantly rushing waters. Journeying under such conditions was not alone dangerous, but monotonous. One of the happiestmoments of our tour was when we ascertained that Chung King was but little more than a hundred miles away. Several days drearily spent in climbing hills, wading small streams and skating through mud ankle deep, brought us within about five miles of Tu To. There we were met by a detachment of soldiers from Chung King. We learned from them that they had been dispatched by the Shen of Chung King to escort us to the city. We had lost so much time through bad roads and inclement weather that the officials of Chung King, who had been notified of our coming, had grown anxious and had sent out troops to guide us in safety. On Monday, Sept. 7, we obtained an early start, reaching a small village on the Yang-Tse-Kiang by noon. In small boats we embarked for the city, half a dozen miles above and across the river, arriving at 3 o’clock at the metropolis of Western China, a city situated on a point of land formed by the junction of the Yang-Tse-Kiang and Min rivers. Though Chung King has a greater population of foreigners than any other city on the river, excepting Hankow, we were astonished, upon arrival, to pass through miles of business streets without a glimpse of settlements of foreign houses.It took much diligent inquiry for us to find the residence of Dr. J. H. McCartney, surgeon in charge of the American Methodist Hospital. We were a dirty, mud-stained pair when we at last ascended to the veranda of the doctor’s comfortable home, but the kindly surgeon had heard of the Inter Ocean’s enterprise, and he bade us enter before inspecting our condition. It would have made little difference had we been two-fold more dilapidated in appearance, for I never met a missionary surgeon in China who did not entertain us royally, even at the sacrifice of his own comfort. As he sat over dessert, discussing our journey, tasting the first genuine American pie we had eaten since leaving San Francisco, I learned with strangely mixed feelings that the district we had just traveled was the most dangerous in China. Only a few weeks prior to our arrival the imperial mail, carried overland, was robbed. I could then understand the significance expressed in the remark of a certain Shen when he said, “You will have plenty to cause you fear before reaching Chung King.” I had told him that Mrs. McIlrath and I had no misgivings as to the trip, but had I known that mail carriers were assassinated monthly, and that commissioners, traveling under protection of one of the great power’s flags, were robbed and maltreated, our answer would have been different.The interior cities of the Chinese Empire are similar in every respect; see one of them and you have seen them all. A visitor to Ngau-King need not go to Shaze, the man who has seen Shaze need not travel in search of fresh sights to Chung King, and one who has seen the native city of Shanghai has literally seen the great aggregation.Chung King, situated 160 miles from the sea, differed only from the others in that the shops of the various trades were grouped, each industry occupying a section of the street. The only absolutely new features of the town appeared to be the climate, which is delightful for duck and pneumonia propagation, an old conjurer, and the industries established by Mr. Archibald Little. The climate is first and most important, since it exists in humid, opaque quantities upon all occasions, except perhaps when the sun does not happen to be busy elsewhere; then only does the sun shine in Chung King. Pig bristles are thefundamentalproperty of the establishment of Mr. Little, and Uncle Sam’s people are the chief patrons of it. After the porker has been despoiled of his hirsute trimmings, the bristles, sorted into bunches of three, four and five inch lengths, are wrapped and shipped to the United States for use in brushes. The remaining great attraction of Chung King, namely, the conjurer, we met on one of the quadrangles of a temple, and for a performance conducted in the open air, by a necromancer stripped from waist to crown of head, without apparatus or appliance, he was marvelous. In a circle formed by the crowd, the stone pavement serving as table and stage, the scrawny, wrinkled old magician produced from space a curved sword, iron rings, hardwood balls, clam shells and bowls. The performance opened with contortions of the legs and back, and a dislocation and replacement of the various joints of the body. The wizard then swallowed a hardwood ball two inches in diameter, following this with a few clam shells and poking the whole mass down his elastic gullet with a curved sword. Famous sword swallowers of the vaudeville stage of our own country may use longer instruments, and swallow equally large objects, but they always leave enough of the swallowed article outside their internal grottos to withdraw the obstruction. Our Chinese entertainer disdained these sensible precautions, and after we had felt through the abdominal walls the point of the curved sword, the ball and the clam shells, he removed them in a style which was distinctively all his own. To remove the sword, he contracted his waist by pressure of both hands, gave a convulsive upheaval and the weapon glided upward until just an inch or two remained in the throat. Then one of the spectators removed the blade at the conjurer’s request. The clam shells and ball were brought to light in a simple manner, the conjurer not touching his hands to his mouth, but spitting them on the ground as soon as they appeared between his teeth.
Once well under way, our rebellious gang traveled peaceably, making good time, possibly because we would not permit them to stop for rest or a few whiffs of opium in any of the larger villages, thus frustrating all attempts they would be certain to make in endeavoring to enlist the sympathy of their fellows. The miserable gang, however, went upon another strike when at dusk we halted in the village of Huei Sung Chang. The village inn was dirty, as usual, and no more a fit place for an invalid than any of the other wretched quarters we had previously occupied. When we awoke in the morning of Aug. 31, Leo apprised us of the fact that rebellion had once more broken loose. The coolies refused emphatically to proceed without more cash. The first excuse was that they wanted food, but we had furnished that; the second they wanted opium, but the soldiers supplied them; the third, they wanted rice wine, and they had been given that also; and now they demanded cash. Nothing would satisfy them but good, copper hard cash. The soldiers threatened and argued in vain. The coolies knew that I had none of the little copper coins with me, my funds consisting only of large silver pieces. Their demand for cash was working both ways. If I did not give it them they had an excuse for leaving. If I did give it them they were just that much more ahead. I was about to repeat the object lesson of the day before when the boy Leo offered a solution to the difficulty by volunteering to proceed to the next city on foot, a distance of twenty-five miles, and exchange one of my silver pieces for the required coin. I accepted the proposition, and at 7 o’clock the next morning the faithful little fellow arrived with 5,000 cash. Two thousand cash were given the coolie gang and I demanded a completion of the journey and met with refusal. A squabble ensued and then the storm broke. About thirty coolies assembled in the front part of the inn and more filled the streets. With the aid of the one coolie, upon whom I could depend, I brought out our bicycles and luggage, lifted Mrs. McIlrath in my arms and placed her in the vehicle. This action was the draught of wind which fanned the spark into a flame. My own men took their positions silently and the little procession started through the long lines of humanity. The natives cursed, gesticulated wildly, some striking at us, and others threateningly displaying clods and stones in their hands. One villainous-featured old man followed us, talking confidentially to our men and slipping some article into their hands. This overt act, carried on through the medium of the long flowing sleeves, aroused my suspicion,and at the first village I stopped the outfit and investigated. Illicit opium selling was the meaning of the old fellow’s sly actions, and I could but submit and allow the gang to fill their little tin boxes with the low grade “dope” and push on.
I have never seen outside of hospitals and museums such looking creatures as my gang of coolies were, when stripped. They were attenuated to such a degree that they were nothing less than breathing skeletons. Opium was responsible for it all. Yet there are men who profess to have traveled in China who deny that opium is the curse that missionaries claim it to be. I am positive that such men are either Englishmen protecting the infamy of their own land, which is largely an exporter of the drug, or else the remarks are made by men who frequent only the hotels and clubs at Shanghai, Hong Kong, Canton and Pekin, writing letters concerning a people the true character of whom it is as impossible to learn at any open port as it is to learn of Mormons, Indians or Indiana White Caps in Chicago or New York City. I have seen the opium fiend in all stages, from the novice to the exhausted hulk, who, paralyzed in every nerve, sits gaunt in a temple doorway, his sightless eyes staring with fixed glare from deep, dark-circled sockets. Every rib, every bone, even to those in his feet, could be seen, and were it not for the odor of the drug which permeates every fibre of clothing, they might be considered starved to death. Starvation really is the cause, for the devotee has no appetite only for the poppy drug. We employed coolies to carry burdens for us, who, in traveling one hundred miles, consumed only two bowls of rice during the four days spent in negotiating the distance. The rice and tea accompanying it cost 48 cash. The remainder of their wages, which amounted to 800 cash, was expended in opium. We have experienced the annoyance of waiting a half hour for men who had been smoking for four. Boatmen on the river, and laborers in the cities do not show the ravages of the drug as a class, for as soon as they become actual fiends they disappear from the busy arteries of commerce, just as drunkards do from active business circles in other lands.
MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page 70.)MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page70.)
MR. AND MRS. McILRATH AT CHUNG KING.—(See Page70.)
There is a belt existing for a distance of 600 miles along the lower end of the Yang-Tse-Kiang where, at certain seasons of the year, principally September, October and November, the sun never shines, and if rain inaugurates the initial month a daily precipitation may be counted upon. We were in the center of this belt Sept. 3, and our own experiences gave evidence to the phenomenon. It rained steadily since our departure from Wan Shen, Aug. 26, and when we resumed our journey on Sept. 3, the roads and bridges rendered testimony to the effect of constantly rushing waters. Journeying under such conditions was not alone dangerous, but monotonous. One of the happiestmoments of our tour was when we ascertained that Chung King was but little more than a hundred miles away. Several days drearily spent in climbing hills, wading small streams and skating through mud ankle deep, brought us within about five miles of Tu To. There we were met by a detachment of soldiers from Chung King. We learned from them that they had been dispatched by the Shen of Chung King to escort us to the city. We had lost so much time through bad roads and inclement weather that the officials of Chung King, who had been notified of our coming, had grown anxious and had sent out troops to guide us in safety. On Monday, Sept. 7, we obtained an early start, reaching a small village on the Yang-Tse-Kiang by noon. In small boats we embarked for the city, half a dozen miles above and across the river, arriving at 3 o’clock at the metropolis of Western China, a city situated on a point of land formed by the junction of the Yang-Tse-Kiang and Min rivers. Though Chung King has a greater population of foreigners than any other city on the river, excepting Hankow, we were astonished, upon arrival, to pass through miles of business streets without a glimpse of settlements of foreign houses.
It took much diligent inquiry for us to find the residence of Dr. J. H. McCartney, surgeon in charge of the American Methodist Hospital. We were a dirty, mud-stained pair when we at last ascended to the veranda of the doctor’s comfortable home, but the kindly surgeon had heard of the Inter Ocean’s enterprise, and he bade us enter before inspecting our condition. It would have made little difference had we been two-fold more dilapidated in appearance, for I never met a missionary surgeon in China who did not entertain us royally, even at the sacrifice of his own comfort. As he sat over dessert, discussing our journey, tasting the first genuine American pie we had eaten since leaving San Francisco, I learned with strangely mixed feelings that the district we had just traveled was the most dangerous in China. Only a few weeks prior to our arrival the imperial mail, carried overland, was robbed. I could then understand the significance expressed in the remark of a certain Shen when he said, “You will have plenty to cause you fear before reaching Chung King.” I had told him that Mrs. McIlrath and I had no misgivings as to the trip, but had I known that mail carriers were assassinated monthly, and that commissioners, traveling under protection of one of the great power’s flags, were robbed and maltreated, our answer would have been different.
The interior cities of the Chinese Empire are similar in every respect; see one of them and you have seen them all. A visitor to Ngau-King need not go to Shaze, the man who has seen Shaze need not travel in search of fresh sights to Chung King, and one who has seen the native city of Shanghai has literally seen the great aggregation.Chung King, situated 160 miles from the sea, differed only from the others in that the shops of the various trades were grouped, each industry occupying a section of the street. The only absolutely new features of the town appeared to be the climate, which is delightful for duck and pneumonia propagation, an old conjurer, and the industries established by Mr. Archibald Little. The climate is first and most important, since it exists in humid, opaque quantities upon all occasions, except perhaps when the sun does not happen to be busy elsewhere; then only does the sun shine in Chung King. Pig bristles are thefundamentalproperty of the establishment of Mr. Little, and Uncle Sam’s people are the chief patrons of it. After the porker has been despoiled of his hirsute trimmings, the bristles, sorted into bunches of three, four and five inch lengths, are wrapped and shipped to the United States for use in brushes. The remaining great attraction of Chung King, namely, the conjurer, we met on one of the quadrangles of a temple, and for a performance conducted in the open air, by a necromancer stripped from waist to crown of head, without apparatus or appliance, he was marvelous. In a circle formed by the crowd, the stone pavement serving as table and stage, the scrawny, wrinkled old magician produced from space a curved sword, iron rings, hardwood balls, clam shells and bowls. The performance opened with contortions of the legs and back, and a dislocation and replacement of the various joints of the body. The wizard then swallowed a hardwood ball two inches in diameter, following this with a few clam shells and poking the whole mass down his elastic gullet with a curved sword. Famous sword swallowers of the vaudeville stage of our own country may use longer instruments, and swallow equally large objects, but they always leave enough of the swallowed article outside their internal grottos to withdraw the obstruction. Our Chinese entertainer disdained these sensible precautions, and after we had felt through the abdominal walls the point of the curved sword, the ball and the clam shells, he removed them in a style which was distinctively all his own. To remove the sword, he contracted his waist by pressure of both hands, gave a convulsive upheaval and the weapon glided upward until just an inch or two remained in the throat. Then one of the spectators removed the blade at the conjurer’s request. The clam shells and ball were brought to light in a simple manner, the conjurer not touching his hands to his mouth, but spitting them on the ground as soon as they appeared between his teeth.