THE PA-U-RONG T'U PAI HU
These people owe their tall and well-built frames to their non-Tibetan blood. It is probably the "Man-tzŭ" blood that tells. "The stature of the Tibetans of Lhasa," says Colonel Waddell, "is even less than that of the Chinese, and considerablybelow the European average; whilst the men from the eastern province of Kham are quite up to that standard." (Lhasa and its Mysteries, p. 347.) Kham or Khams includes or included the greater part of Chinese Tibet.
ATTITUDE OF MULI PEOPLE TOWARDS STRANGERS
M. Bonin states that he had to spend ten days in negotiation before he was allowed, in 1895, to cross into the Muli country. He approached it from the Yunnan side. (Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog., 1898, p. 396.) Major Davies informs me that he also had difficulty in persuading the people of Muli to allow him to cross the Yalung in the course of his journey from Mien-ning-hsien. It was doubtless owing to the friendliness and tact shown by these travellers and by Mr Amundsen that I met with no opposition on entering the country.
EXPLORATION OF THE TA LIANG SHAN
It is reported that the country of the Independent Lolos (the Ta Liang Shan) has at last been traversed by a European. The successful traveller was a French officer named D'Ollone. (SeeGeographical Journal, October, 1907, p. 437.) The account of his journey should be awaited with interest.
THE PA-U-RONG T'U PAI HU
Thet'u pai huof Pa-U-Rong (Pa-U-Lung according to the Pekingese sound of the Chinese characters) is to be accounted one of the most important of all the 49 sub-chiefs of the king of Chala, if the amount of tribute paid is the test of importance. His annual tribute is 7 taels, whereas the singlet'u ch'ien huonly pays a little more than 9 taels. The highest of all the tributes is that of thet'u pai huof Rumi Cho-rong, in the northern part of the state. His payment is 12 taels 5 mace. The Pa-U-Rongt'u pai hunets a modest revenue by causing travellers and merchants who cross the Yalung at this point to pay him a small toll.
NAME OF THE YALUNG
M. Bonin calls the Yalung theRivière Noire, apparently supposing its Tibetan name to be Nag Ch'u (ནག་ཆུ་) "Black Water." But I know of no authority for this. The true Tibetan name appears to he Nya(g)-ch'u (ཉག་ཆུ་). Thenya(g)reappears in the tribal or district name Mi-nya(g) or Miniak (Menia),མི་ཉག་; and the Chinese "Yalung" is an attempt to pronounce the TibetanNya-Rong(ཉག་རོང་) or "Valley of the Nya."
THE CHIN SHA CHIANG
MULI—KHON—OFFICIAL TITLES
It may not be generally known that according to the Chinese authorities there aretworivers bearing the name of Chin Sha Chiang. One is theTa(Great), the other theHsiao(Small) Chin Sha Chiang, andthe "small" one is the Yangtse. In a first attempt to identify the Ta Chin Sha Chiang—which must obviously be a very great river—we are apt to be much puzzled; for we read of it as flowing from western Tibet and also as flowing through Burma into the "Southern Ocean." But the mystery is explained when we remember that the great river of southern Tibet—the Tsangpo or Yaru Tsangpo (literally "Upper River")—used to be believed not only by Chinese but also by European geographers to be the main feeder of the Irrawaddy. We now know that the Tsangpo is no other than the main upper branch of the Brahmaputra: or rather we assume it from much circumstantial evidence. No European has yet followed the course of the Brahmaputra up to the point where it receives the icy waters of the Tibetan Tsangpo—which hurls itself over the edge of the Tibetan plateau and creates there a series of waterfalls that must be among the grandest sights in the world—but we now know, from the reports of our native surveyors, the approximate position of the falls.414The country between Assam and Tibet is unfortunately inhabited by tribes that are apparently violently hostile to all strangers. Their own domestic habits are of a somewhat repellent nature: it is said,415for instance, that on occasions of thecelebration of marriages it is the genial custom of one of the tribes to serve up the bridegroom's mother-in-law at the nuptial banquet.
The Chinese geographers know the Tsangpo by its Tibetan name (calling it the Ya-lu-tsang-pu-chiang, wherechiangis tautological) but they also call it the Great (Ta) Chin Sha Chiang; and readers of their topographical works must beware of confusing this river with the Small (Hsiao) Chin Sha Chiang of China: though when the adjective is omitted the river referred to is always the Chinese river, and therefore identical with the Yangtse.
MULI
I have adopted the spelling "Muli" instead of "Mili" on the authority of theSsuch'uan T'ung Chih. The Chinese characters there given are木裏, (Mu-li), and though I have seen others used I think there can be no doubt that theT'ung Chihis the best authority to follow.
KHON
The name of the third lamasery was given to me as Khon, but I observe that Mr Amundsen calls it Kang-u, and locates it half-way between Muli and the Yalung, almost due east. Major Davies's map, again, places a lamasery named K'u-lu at almost the same spot. K'u-lu, Khon and Kang-u are probably one and the same place, and as Major Davies's route seems to have led him past it the name given by him is probably the correct one. It seems strange that the residences of thek'an-poshould all be within a comparatively short distance of each other. If the real object of the periodical movements of the "Court" were to enable thek'an-poto keep in close touch with all parts of his territory, it would naturally extend its peregrinations somewhat further afield.
OFFICIAL TITLES IN MULI
Most of these official titles are well known in connection with the administrative arrangements of all the great lamaseries of Tibet; but the authority of the Muli officials is not confined to the management of lamaseries.
THE KING AND PEOPLE OF MULI
The ruler of Muli holds the rank,vis-à-visthe Chinese suzerain, of anAn Fu Ssŭ(seenote 22). In his own territory he is agyal-poor king, but he is also a lama, and the succession must therefore go to a collateral branch of the "royal" family. In practice, the heir is generally a nephew who has been inducted into Lamaism at an early age, and has risen high in the hierarchy. The king of Muli first became tributary to China in the seventh year of Yung Chêng (1729). He received from the Chinese Government sealed "letters of authority" and a stamped warrant similar to those bestowed on the king of Chala. The greatest length of the territory, from the frontier of the Litang principality on the north to the territory of the Ku Po Chut'u ssŭon the south, is 900li(say 300 miles); its greatest breadth is from the frontier of Chala on the east to that of Chung-tien on the west, 1,300li(say 430 miles). These distances, as in the case of Chala, are measured by length of actual paths, and not by bee-lines. Though the Yalung forms the eastern boundary at Pa-U-Rong, the Muli territory extends for a distance of some scores of miles across the Yalung further south. According to theSsuch'uan T'ung Chih(published in the first half of the nineteenth century) the total number ofi jên("barbarians") under the king's rule comprises 3,283 households. This figure hardly enables us to assess the present population, which—if we include the large body of lamas—can hardly be judged to be less than 25,000. It should be remembered that there are no towns in Muli, very little trade, and great areas of mountainous country practically uninhabitable. The king's annual tribute consists of 120 piculs of buckwheat (16,000 lbs.) estimated in cash value at 74 taels 4 mace and 3 horses, each valued at 8 taels, or a total of 24 taels for the three. The total tribute thus amounts (in money-value) to 98 taels 4 mace. These assessments of value were, of course, made many years ago. Probably re-assessments are made from time to time, as otherwise the monetary values would bear no proper ratio to the value of the articles forming the basis of the tribute. Payment is made at Yen-yüan-hsien, and is supposed to be applied to the expenses of the local military establishment. It is the custom of the country that one out of every three, or two out of every five, male members of a family enter the priesthood. All the lay population can be called upon for military service; but it is hardly necessary to say that the king keeps no standing army, and his peopleare only called to arms when serious disputes arise with the neighbouring Tibetan chiefs. TheT'ung Chihgoes on to say that the people of the land of Muli consist of six different kinds of Barbarians: (1)lamas; (2)Chia-miorChieh-mi(呷迷); (3)Yüeh-kuorYo-ku(約古); (4)Hsü-mi(虛迷); (5)Mo-so; (6)Hsi Fan. The lamas, of course, are not a distinct race; the Mo-so and Hsi Fan are discussed in Chapter XV. of this book; as for the three others, the remarks made upon them in theT'ung Chihleave us very much in the dark. The characteristics of thei jênare dismissed in four lines. We are told that the Chia-mi and Yüeh-ku are very like one another, and that the women allow their hair to hang over their shoulders. The Hsü-mi males cultivate a queue, and the women do up their hair into a pointed coiffure. They are docile, and of an amiable disposition. The Mo-so and Hsi Fan are like each other, and honest and tractable by nature. Their clothes are made of woven cloth, and their coats button under the left arm (tso jên;cf.the ConfucianLun Yü, p. 282, Legge's edn.) The men wear queues and the women do up their hair. They live by agriculture. They are fond of hunting wild animals. This is all theT'ung Chihhas to tell us about the people of Muli. The section ends with the laconic remark that lawsuits are decided by thek'an-po.
THE LANGUAGE-TEST OF RACE
Chinese customs certainly seem to be losing rather than gaining ground in Muli: the queues worn by some of the men do not hang down the back but are coiled round the head; and it is not a mark of respect, as in China, to uncoil the queue. Moreover the front of the head is not shaved, as in China. The remarks about the women are true enough: a large proportion wear their hair loose, so that they look like rather overgrown and unwieldy school-girls; the rest have more or less elaborate coiffures, but the female fashions of China in this respect are totally ignored. I will leave the task of identifying the Chia-mi, Yüeh-ku and Hsü-mi to some future investigator with more time and leisure than fell to my lot. Tibetans, Li-so, Man-tzŭ or Lolos, Kachins and Mo-so are all doubtless to be found among the people of Muli, and it seems not improbable that the predominant type is Mo-so.
THE LANGUAGE-TEST OF RACE
The collection of hastily-compiled and doubtless very inaccurate vocabularies to be found in Appendix A need not be taken as indicating any belief in the value of such lists of wordsfrom either the philological or the ethnological point of view. They are given merely for what they are worth, as an infinitesimal addition to the small stock of general knowledge that we already possess with regard to the tribes of western China. The old faith in language as a sure test of race has long been given up. A page or two of skull measurements would help us more towards settling the racial problems of western China than the completest equipment of grammars and dictionaries. Unfortunately the methods employed by many of the tribes for the disposal of their dead will seriously hamper the investigations of the craniologist who, in the hopes of a rich harvest of inexorable bones, may take his measuring-tape to the graveyards of western China.
HIGHEST HABITATION ON THE GLOBE
The land of Muli is as wild and mountainous as that of Chala. It was between Muli and the Yalung that M. Bonin discovered what he believes to be the highest inhabited station on the globe, at a height of 16,568 feet, "a hamlet occupied in the dead of winter by a few yak-herdsmen." The mines of Tok-ya-long in western Tibet, he says, which have hitherto been considered the highest habitation in the world are 525 feet lower, and moreover are not inhabited all the year round. There are other spots both in Muli and Chala, probably of a greater height than 16,000 feet, that are inhabited, though the huts are probably not occupied in winter.
FEMALE CHIEFS
In the Shan States female rulers are apparently not uncommon. (SeeGazetteer of Upper Burma, pt. i. vol. i. p. 262.) For an interesting note on several Tibetan "queens" (derived from native and Chinese sources) see Rockhill'sLand of the Lamas, pp. 339-341. Sa-mong is better known as So-mo. A recent European visitor to this country says that the "queen" ornü-wangof So-mo is only a myth, "the real monarch being actually a man, who for some obscure reason calls himself a Queen." (W. C. Haines Watson,A Journey to Sung-p'an, in J.R.A.S.(China), vol. xxxvi., 1905.) TheSsuch'uan T'ung Chihcontains references to several femalet'u ssŭ. A femalet'u pai hu, with a territorial name of six syllables, is mentionedas becoming tributary to China in K'ang Hsi 60. She paid 20 taels annually as "horse-money." TheCh'ang Kuan Ssŭof Sung Kang is—or may be—a woman. One is mentioned as receiving honours from China in K'ang Hsi 23. Another femalech'ang kuan ssŭin the Chien-ch'ang Valley (Hu-li-ho-tung) is described as being a tribute-payer to the extent of ten horses a year.
LI-CHIANG-FU
An old name of Li-chiang was Sui (嶲), and its inhabitants, in the days of the Early Han dynasty, appear to have been known as the K'un Ming (昆明). Their fierceness and lawlessness were instrumental in preventing the Emperor Wu Ti, in the second century B.C., from establishing a trade route from China to India through their territory. (See T. W. Kingsmill'sIntercourse of China with Eastern Turkestan,J.R.A.S., January 1882.)
THE REBELLION IN YUNNAN
The best account of the Mohammedan rebellion is to be found in M. Émile Rocher'sLa Province Chinoise du Yunnan, vol. ii. pp. 30-192. The origin of the rebellion is to be traced to a comparatively trifling dispute among miners, which took place in 1855 in a mining centre situated between Yunnan-fu and Tali-fu. The Mohammedan section of miners, who all worked together, aroused envy and hatred because they had struck richer veins of metal than the "orthodox" Chinese miners in a neighbouring locality, and the result was a violent dispute which ended in blows. The official who was responsible for good order in the district was seized with panic and fled to Yunnan-fu, where he submitted reports that were unjustifiably hostile to the Mohammedans. The latter meanwhile had rendered themselves masters of the situation, and drove their opponents off the field. The people of the neighbouring town of Linan avenged this insult by attacking the Mohammedans in overwhelming force and expelling them to the forests. This was the beginning of a series of bloodthirsty combats, which in a short time set the whole province in a blaze, and caused the loss of millions of human lives.
So far as race went, the Mohammedans of Yunnan were no other than ordinary Yunnanese. They were marked off fromtheir fellow-provincials solely by their religion. This, however, was sufficient to cause them to be treated almost as foreigners, for they had little intercourse with orthodox Chinese, and seem to have intermarried among themselves. Whether the Mohammedans of Yunnan and other parts of China were—and are—strict observers of the rules of their religion is a doubtful point. Rocher says of the Yunnanese Mohammedans that "they have preserved intact the beliefs of their ancestors, and they rigorously observe the rules imposed upon them by the Koran." Other observers, however,—including Mohammedan natives of India—have scoffed at their co-religionists of Yunnan, declaring that they know nothing of the tenets of Islam, and obey none of the rules of their faith except that of abstinence from pork. I have myself seen Chinese Mohammedan children undergoing the pains of having page after page of Arabic drilled into their little heads, though both they and their teachers admitted that they did not understand the meaning of a single word. The fact remains, however, that some Chinese Mohammedans do still occasionally make the pilgrimage to Mecca; and well-attended Mohammedan mosques may yet be found in at least half the provinces of China.
Chinese Mohammedans have often proved a thorn in the flesh of the official classes, not only in Yunnan, but also in Kansu and elsewhere. Yet it cannot be said that they have shown much of that fiery religious fanaticism which has sometimes characterised Islam elsewhere. The great rebellion in Yunnan did not originate in any religious dispute, and it would never have developed into a war that lasted nearly twenty years and laid waste a province, if only a few able and impartial officials had given their attention to the matter in its early stages.
Two circumstances helped to prolong the struggle. The first was the great T'ai P'ing rebellion in eastern China, which rendered the central Government powerless to deal effectually with the situation in Yunnan; the second was the military skill of the Mohammedan leaders, which led to the concentration of the whole Mohammedan strength in the hands of a few able men.
OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF WESTERN TRIBES
The history of the war cannot be sketched here. It may be sufficient to say that at one time nearly the whole province was in the hands of the Mohammedan rebels; even Yunnan-fu itself capitulated to their victorious arms. Before this took place, the great Mohammedan leader, Tu Wên-hsiu, had already greatly distinguished himself in the west of the province. Against the will of the viceroy, who committed suicide, the officials had in 1856 planned and carried out a massacre of all Mohammedans found within a radius of 800lifrom the capital. The news of the massacre naturally roused in Tu Wên-hsiu intense feelingsof indignation and hatred against the provincial Government which had sanctioned an act of such hideous barbarity, and his natural abilities and high reputation for courage and integrity soon singled him out for leadership. His first great victory secured him the city of Tali, which became the Mohammedan headquarters. In 1867 he was proclaimed Imam or Sultan, and Tali became the capital of a short-lived Mohammedan state. It was held till 1873, when Tu Wên-hsiu, faced by hopeless odds, surrendered it and poisoned himself. Before this time the genius of General Gordon had put an end to the T'ai P'ing rebellion, and the imperial Government was in a position to oppose the Sultan with an overwhelming force. Only one result was possible. With the capitulation of Tali and the death of Tu Wên-hsiu the Mohammedans were able to make no further headway against the imperial troops.
One of the most terrible results of this hideous civil war was the recrudescence of the deadly disease now too well known to us all as the plague. After the war the pestilence gradually spread far beyond the limits of the province, and is still the annual scourge of south China and India. It is probable, however, that plague has for many centuries been endemic in the valleys of western Yunnan. The accounts given of it by such writers as Rocher and Baber, who witnessed its ravages in Yunnan long before the fatal year when it was first observed in Hong Kong (1894), are of great interest. The curious fact that rats always seemed to be attacked before human beings was noted by Rocher many years before the disease began to be studied by medical experts. (See Rocher,op. cit., vol. i. p. 75; vol. ii. pp. 279-281.)
CHINESE OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS OF WESTERN TRIBES
Several volumes of the official Provincial Annals of Yunnan are devoted to a most elaborate quasi-ethnological enquiry into the various tribal communities of that province. Unfortunately, the conscientious industry of the compilers coupled with their bland credulity and lack of critical training led them to fill their pages with a great deal of matter that is useless and misleading. The numbers and names of the tribes are quite unnecessarily multiplied, and there is hardly any attempt at classification or at the tracing of origins. Subdivisions of the same race are treated as entirely separate, and any similarities between them are either ignored or merely mentioned as unexplained facts. Yet it must be admitted that as descriptions of tribal customs and as store-houses of tradition and folk-lore theethnological sections of the Annals are by no means to be despised. TheT'ung Chihof Ssuch'uan is less satisfactory in this respect than that of Yunnan.
NOTE 41 (p. 284)
THEORY OF INDIAN ORIGIN OF TRIBES
It seems quite clear that the Licchavis—or the great Vaggian or Vrijian clan-system to which they belonged and from which the Mauryans sprang—were neither Aryans nor Dravidians. In all probability they were of Kolarian or Munda race. The Kolarians seem to have entered India from the north-east—just as the Aryans afterwards entered it from the north-west—and extended themselves over vast areas from which they were subsequently driven by Dravidians and Aryans. They must have originally come from the countries that lay to the east, which we now know as Burma, China and Indo-China. They probably left many of their Kolarian kinsfolk behind them, and it may have been through keeping up communications with the latter that they were able to introduce into their old homes something of the new culture and civilisation that they acquired in their new homes in India. The Kolarian dialects are known to be akin to those of certain tribes in Burma, and so far as personal characteristics are concerned a description of the Kolarian tribes as they are known to-day in parts of Bengal would be applicable, word for word, to some of the peoples of Indo-China and Yunnan. "The Kolarian people," says Mr J. F. Hewitt, who lived among them, "may generally be described as gregarious, excitable, turbulent when roused, but generally peaceable and good-humoured. They are brave and adventurous, witty, and very fond of amusement, not given to work more than is necessary, and as a rule very careless of the future." (J.R.A.S., vol. xx. p. 330.) It must be remembered, however, that the Burmese people, to whom these words are also applicable, are now believed by the best authorities to have come from "the Mongolian countries north of Magadha." (Sir George Scott'sBurma, p. 66.)
Many of the tribes of western China—some of the Lolos and Min-chia, for instance—are often described as possessing a type of features that is almost European; and Mr Kingsmill seems to derive from this fact some support of his theory of their Indian (Aryan) origin. "The distinctive colouring," he says, "closely approximates to the Aryan type of the Indian peninsula," etc. (J.R.A.S.(China Branch), vol. xxxv. p. 95.) But the Mauryans themselves, as we have seen, were not of Aryan origin. The Licchavis are referred to in Manu as one of the "base-born"castes for that very reason—in spite of the fact that they possessed great power and prestige and very wide influence. It seems very doubtful whether an Aryan emigration from India to China took place at any time. India always offered full scope for all Aryan energies; indeed we know that the Aryans by no means became so universally predominant, even in India, as one might gather from the early and wide extension of their language and religion. If there really is an Aryan element among the tribes of western China it would be curious to speculate on the possibility of its having come by a non-Indian route.
CHANDRAGUPTA AND ASOKA
Chandragupta's reign probably began in 320 B.C., and his grandson Asoka ruled from ? 264 to ? 228. The chronology is not yet absolutely fixed, but I rely with some confidence on the dates recently selected by J. F. Fleet (J.R.A.S., October 1906, pp. 984seq.) who, it may be remarked incidentally, assigns the death of the Buddha toB.C.482.
VESÂLI AND THE LICCHAVIS
For further information regarding Vesâli and the Licchavis see W. W. Rockhill'sLife of the Buddha, pp. 62seq., and 203 (footnote), Dr Rhys Davids'Buddhist India, pp. 40-41, and two articles by Mr Vincent Smith in the Royal Asiatic Society'sJournalfor April 1902 and January 1905. One of Mr Rockhill's Tibetan authorities connects the Licchavis with the Sakyas or Çakyas to whom the Buddha himself belonged. "The Çakyas," says this authority, were "divided into three parts, whose most celebrated representatives were Çakya the Great (the Buddha), Çakya the Licchavi, and Çakya the Mountaineer. Grya Khri btsan po, the first Tibetan King, belonged to the family of Çakya the Licchavi. Many other Buddhist sovereigns of India and elsewhere claimed the same descent." This note is of interest as showing the wide extent and long duration of Licchavi influence, and the desire of powerful races and kings to trace a connection with the family of the Buddha. "Çakya, the Licchavi" may, of course, have become a member of the clan by adoption. Caste-rules (even supposing they precluded adoption) did not hold good among the Licchavis, who were notAryans. With respect to the possible connection of the Buddha's family with the Licchavis, all that can be said for certain is that the Licchavis were among the earliest and most devoted supporters of the Buddhist faith, and that Vesâli soon became a city of great religious importance. Buddhism, indeed, was less of an Aryan religion than people have been in the habit of supposing. The Sakyas themselves were almost certainly an Aryan people; we know that their exclusiveness and intense pride of birth brought about the destruction of their capital at the hands of Vidūdabha. But it seems quite clear that Buddhism progressed most rapidly and won its greatest victories among people of non-Aryan race, and this not only in foreign lands but in India itself. Buddhism did not achieve its wonderful successes in India in the third centuryB.C.and afterwards by means of the conversion of Brahmans. It is far truer to say that Buddhism spread on account of its adoption by northern non-Aryan tribes which, in spite of Aryan conquests, remained very powerful both in numbers and in political influence. (See on this point B. H. Baden-Powell'sNotes on the Origin of the "Lunar" and "Solar" Aryan Tribes,J.R.A.S., April 1899, pp. 298-299.)
THE SERES
The Seres are mentioned by Virgil, Strabo, Lucan, Pliny and Pomponius Mela. Lucan seems to have supposed that they were an African race—neighbours of the Ethiopians. Such ignorance in Nero's age may be excused when we remember the wild theories prevalent in mediæval Europe as to the local habitation of Prester John!
ARCHÆOLOGICAL WORK
Some valuable work—of special interest to the student of Buddhism—has quite recently been carried out at Pagan by Mr I. H. Marshall and Dr Sten Konow. (SeeJ.R.A.S., October 1907, pp. 1003seq.) It is earnestly to be hoped that that Government will some day see fit to provide for the proper support of the Archæological Department, which cannot be expected to carry out good work at Pagan or elsewhere without funds. Every year's delay will render the work of excavation more difficult and more costly. It is not pleasing to observe that the Archæological Departments of India, Burma and Ceylonare all starved. Only a few weeks after the conclusion of the recent Franco-Siamese treaty it was announced in the French press that steps were being taken forthwith to carry out some expensive archæological and preservative work at the magnificent ruins of Angkor Wat, which are within the Cambodian territory acquired by France under the treaty. Is England always to lag behind France in matters of this kind?
THE BURMESE LABOUR QUESTION
One aspect of the labour question in Burma does not seem to have attracted the attention it deserves. In spite of Mr Fielding Hall's optimism, the belief that the apathetic Burman is being shouldered out of his own country by more hard-working immigrants, especially natives of India, is a very prevalent one, not only among European observers, but even among some classes of the Burmese themselves. At present no Burman dares to raise a protest against the influx of labourers, who, if they do not utterly crush him in the course of the struggle for existence, may at least degrade him from the high level of comfort and social well-being in which he now lives. The day may come when the Burman will demand that this alien immigration be interdicted. If he does so, what will be the attitude of the Government? Probably anything but sympathetic. The White races of Australia, British Columbia and California object to the influx of Chinese and Japanese labourers for reasons practically identical with those that would actuate the Burman, and if their attitude is a justifiable one can it be argued that the Burmese attitude would not be equally so? The Burman would doubtless be told by the European, whose material interests in Burma depend on the unrestricted immigration of hard-working aliens, that his country cannot be allowed to go to waste; that if he, through his laziness, will not develop it to the utmost, some one else must be found who will develop it in his stead. But the Chinese and Japanese might if they were strong enough—and perhaps some day they will be strong enough—knock at the gates of Australia, Canada and the United States, and demand admission on precisely similar grounds. No one will deny that the scarcity and high price of labour in those countries have seriously retarded, and are still retarding, nearly every form of industrial and agricultural development; yet the Yellow races are excluded on the grounds that they would lower the White man's standard of living, and that they are in the habit of sending their earnings out of the country. I do not say the White man's attitude is unreasonable: but I do not see how, on ourown principles, we could refuse to restrict the immigration of black aliens into Burma if the Burmese people—on grounds identical with those that actuate our own conduct in Canada and elsewhere—demanded that we should do so. Such action would no doubt be an artificial restriction of natural economic tendencies, and so might bring its own punishment in the long-run; but the same remark applies to the policy adopted in our own colonies.
We have recently become so much accustomed to hear of the antagonism and rivalry of interests between East and West—as if all Eastern countries represented one set of immutable ideals and all Western countries another—that we are apt to lose ourselves in a mist of generalities. The East has problems of its own to solve, some of which reproduce in a more restricted area the racial problems that are beginning at a late hour to agitate the minds of statesmen in Europe and America. The European speaks with half-hearted contempt (behind which lurks a secret dread) of a Yellow Peril: the Burman is disquieted by a no less threatening Black Peril that is already within his gates, and his gates still stand open with a dangerous hospitality.
MILITARY QUALITIES OF ORIENTALS
The British officers who trained and led the recently-disbanded Chinese Regiment are known to have formed a high opinion of the personal courage of the Chinese as represented by the men of that regiment. When it is remembered that the very existence of the regiment as a unit in the British Army was an anomaly, and that at Tientsin and Peking the men fought as mercenaries against their own countrymen, the fact that they behaved well under fire is all the more noteworthy. It may be taken for granted that even the Japanese soldier, if ordered to charge an unruly mob of his own countrymen, would hardly show the brilliant daring that he displayed before Port Arthur.
When Europe was startled by the news of some of the great Japanese victories in Manchuria, an English newspaper made the somewhat hasty suggestion that the Japanese were "scientific fanatics," and the phrase was caught up and repeated with approbation by many. Why fanatics? Simply because the Japanese troops had behaved with such unheard-of heroism that Europe was unable to reconcile such conduct with its own ideas of what constituted bravery. What many Englishmen said, in effect, was this: "The conduct ordinarily shown by British troops in action is bravery; to go beyond this is fanaticism.The criterion of true courage is the average conduct of the average British soldier on the field of battle." The Japanese who with reckless gallantry gave their lives for emperor and country on the battle-fields of Liao-tung, and who considered it a disgrace to return home without a wound, were fanatics. Well, if so, it is a kind of fanaticism that every European Government would like to see spread among its own fighting-men when the day of battle comes.
"THE YELLOW PERIL"
With some people the antipathy to the Oriental amounts to a positive horror, inexplicable even by themselves in ordinary language, and very often based on no personal experience. "I know not," said De Quincey, "what others share in my feelings on this point; but I have often thought that if I were compelled to forego England, and to live in China, among Chinese manners and modes of life and scenery, I should go mad. The causes of my horror lie deep, and some of them must be common to others.... In China, over and above what it has in common with the rest of southern Asia, I am terrified by the modes of life, by the manners, by the barrier of utter abhorrence placed between myself and them, by counter-sympathies deeper than I can analyse. I could sooner live with lunatics, with vermin, with crocodiles or snakes." When we have made all allowances for the excited utterances of an opium-dreamer, these words indicate the existence of intensely strong feelings of racial antipathy, and there is no reason to regard De Quincey as the only European who has entertained such feelings. Does our subliminal consciousness retain dim ancestral memories of mighty struggles waged æons ago for the survival and supremacy of our own racial type? And does it harbour a vague prophetic dread of a more terrific warfare yet to come?
What is perhaps at the root of this horror of Asiatics felt by some Europeans is an instinctive feeling that the world is not large enough to contain or afford free play for the energies of both races; coupled perhaps with an ugly doubt whether, in spite of all the great material achievements of the West in recent years, the European type is after all the fittest to survive in the struggle for existence. Huxley long ago reminded us that the "survival of the fittest" does not necessarily imply the survival of the "best" or most highly developed. He points out, for instance, that if certain conceivable changes were to come about in atmospheric conditions, the law of the survival of the fittest might bring about the extinction of all livingthings except "lichens, diatoms, and such microscopic organisms as those which give red snow its colour."416They would be the sole survivors of the struggle for existence because they alone were adapted to the new environment. It may be that at some future period in the course of the struggle—though long before we have reached the lichen and diatom stage—certain conditions may prove hostile to the continued existence of the White races and favourable to that of the Yellow. Lafcadio Hearn, who in spite of his "de-occidentalisation" admitted the superiority of the Western races—without explaining what he meant by "superiority"—expressed the belief that in the "simple power of living" they are immensely inferior to those of the East. "The Occidental," he says, "cannot live except at a cost sufficient for the maintenance of twenty Oriental lives. In our very superiority lies the secret of our fatal weakness. Our physical machinery requires a fuel too costly to pay for the running of it in a perfectly conceivable future period of race-competition and pressure of population." He conjectures that some day the Western peoples may be crushed out of existence, their successors scarcely regretting their disappearance "anymore than we ourselves regret the extinction of the dinotherium or the ichthyosaurus." Why indeed should they? When we consider how seldom the memory even of our own dead ancestors touches our sympathies or prompts an affectionate thought it will not seem strange that in the days to come the victorious Yellow man may regard the extinct White man with no more emotion than the visitor to a museum now regards the wire-linked bones of a prehistoric monster. No creature that is doomed to failure in the struggle for existence need look to the conquerors for the least sign of pity or sympathy. The poor dodo has vanished from the scene of its joys and sorrows for ever, but that is not the reason why the nightingale's song is sometimes a sad one. No less cheerfully warbles the thrush because the great auk will flap his ineffectual wings no more. Even the crocodile refrains from shedding tears over the fossil remains of the Triassicstagonolepis.
It behoves us to remember that victory in the struggle for existence is not a victory once and for all. The doom of the conqueror in this fight is that he must never sheathe his sword. The prize goes always to him who deserves it, but no rest is allowed him when the battle is over. New challengers are ever pressing into the lists, and the challenged must go ever armed and with lance in rest.
The grim tragedy once enacted periodically at Aricia might be interpreted, not too fancifully, as a miniature representation of the more terrible struggle that is for ever in progress throughout the whole world of animate nature. The guardian of the Golden Bough—
"The priest who slew the slayer,And shall himself be slain"—
"The priest who slew the slayer,And shall himself be slain"—
"The priest who slew the slayer,And shall himself be slain"—
retained his position and his life only so long as they were not challenged by one more vigorous or more dexterous than himself.
The great nations of the West have won their material pre-eminence by overcoming weaker competitors, who in their turn had once been conquerors. They will keep their prizes so long as they deserve to keep them, and no longer. Exclusion laws and trades-unions and cunning appliances wrought by scientific and intellectual skill may stave off the day of disaster, but if the White races have no better support than such things as these, for them the day of doom will assuredly dawn.
Yet a struggle for predominance among great sections of the human race need not imply actual physical warfare. If the Yellow races are to be supreme, it will be partly because the White races have suicidally contributed to their own ruin. If White men become too intensely careful of the individual life, and too careless of the welfare of the race; if they allow luxury to sap their energies and weaken their moral fibre; if they insist too strongly on "rights" and show too slack a devotion to "duty"; if they regard the accumulation of wealth as the be-all and end-all of existence; if selfishness impels their young men to avoid matrimony, and their young women to shun the duties of maternity; if they give way to these and other social vices to which our age bears witness, they cannot reasonably expect to compete advantageously with people who have no craving for luxury, and scarcely know what it means; who look not to wealth as a means for individual aggrandisement; who are at all times willing to sink personal interests in the larger interests of family and clan; who are tireless and uncomplaining workers; among whom parenthood is a religious necessity, and artificial restrictions of the birth-rate are practically unknown; and whose women are free from political aspirations and willing to do their duty at the domestic fireside and in the nursery.
The Yellow Peril, then, is no mere myth: let so much be granted. Yet the recognition of its existence need not drive us to utter pessimism, so long as our faults are not irremediable, and our virtues not reduced to inactivity. The shaping of our fate lies, to some extent at least, in our own hands, and, after all, the outlook for the West is not entirely gloomy. The mere proximity of a peril does not make the brave man falter and tremble; on the contrary, it braces his nerves, and increases his alertness. If the East has qualities and virtues that make for great strength, it is no less clearly lacking in other qualities and virtues that still find a home in the West. The YellowPeril, so far from driving us to a cowardly despair, may and should have the effect of raising our courage, ennobling our ideals, up rooting our selfishness and purifying Western society. It may enable us to see that in some respects our aims have been false ones, and that our views of the essentials of progress and of civilisation must be partially modified. The recognition of the existence of our own diseases may lead to the discovery of the means of cure. The East has begun in recent years to learn some valuable lessons from the West; is it not time that we returned the compliment? If we could but bring ourselves to do so, perhaps at no very distant period the Yellow Peril might turn out to be the White Salvation.