SHANTUNG is not only one of the greatest, but it is in many respects one of the most interesting of all the provinces of China. Its length east and west is about 543 miles and in area it is nearly as large as the whole of New England. The name, Shantung, signifies ``east of the mountains.'' Forests once existed, but tillable land has become so valuable that trees are now comparatively few save in the villages and temples and about the graves of the rich. But for the most part, Shantung resembles the great prairie regions of the western part of the United States, broken by occasional ranges of hills and low mountains. The soil is generally fertile, though in the southwestern part I found some stony regions where the soil is thin and poor. South of Chinan-fu one finds the loess, a light friable earth which yields so easily to wheel and hoof and wind and water that the stream of travel through successive generations has worn deep cuts in which the traveller may journey for hours and sometimes for days so far below the general level of the country that he can see nothing but the sides of the cut and in turn cannot be seen by others. The character of the soil and the power of the wind and rain have combined not only to excavate these long passages, but to cast up innumerable mounds and hills, often of such fantastic shapes that one is reminded of the quaint and curious formations in the Bad Lands of the Missouri, though the loess hillocks lack the brilliant colouring of the American formations.
Throughout the province as a whole, almost every possible square rod of ground is carefully cultivated by the industrious people, so that in the summer time the whole country appears to be continuous gardens and farms dotted with innumerable villages. Wheat appears to be the chief crop and, as in the Dakotas, the entire landscape seems to be one splendid field of waving, yellowing grain. But early in June the wheat disappears as if by magic, for the whole population apparently, men, women and children, turn out and harvest it with amazing quickness in spite of the fact that everything is done by hand. Men and donkeys carry the grain to smooth, hard ground spaces, where it is threshed by a heavy roller stone drawn by a donkey or an ox or by men, and several times I saw it drawn by women. Then it is winnowed by being pitched into the air for the wind to drive out the feathery chaff. The methods vividly illustrate the first Psalm and other Bible references— gleaning, muzzling ``the ox when he treadeth out the corn,'' the threshing floor and ``the chaff which the wind driveth away.''
One might suppose that after the wheat harvest, stubble fields would be much in evidence. But they are not, for the millet promptly appears. It is hardly noticeable when the wheat is standing. But it grows rapidly, and as soon as the wheat is out of the way, it covers great areas with its refreshing green, looking in its earlier stages like young corn. It is of two varieties. One is a little higher than wheat, with hanging head and a small yellow grain. The other is the kao-liang, which grows to a height of about twelve feet. When small, it is thinned out to one stalk or sometimes two in a hill so that it can develop freely. This stalk is to the common people almost as serviceable as the bamboo to tropical dwellers. It is used for fences, ceilings, walls and many other purposes. The grain of the two varieties is the staple food, few but the richer classes eating rice which is not raised in the north and is high in price. A third species of millet, shu-shu, is used chiefly for distilling a whiskey that is largely used but almost always at home and at night so that little drunkenness is seen by the traveller.
Fuel is very scarce, trees being few and coal, though abundant, not being mined to any extent. So the people cook with stalks, straw, roots, etc., and in winter pile on additional layers of wadded cotton garments. Chinese houses are not heated as ours are, though the flues from the cooking fire, running under the brick kang, give some heat, too much at times.
Silk is produced in large quantities and mulberry trees are so common as to add greatly to the beauty of the country. As the cocoons cannot be left on the trees for fear of thieves, the leaves are picked off and taken into houses where the worms are kept.
Poppy fields, too, are numerous. The flowers are gloriously beautiful. I often saw men gathering the opium in the early morning. After the blossoms fall off, the pod is slit and the whitish juice, oozing out, is carefully scraped off. High hills rising to low mountains add beauty to the western part of Shantung, while the more numerous trees scattered over the fields as well as in the villages make extensive regions look like vast parks.
The people are among the finest types of the Chinese, tall, strong and, in many instances, of marked intellectual power. To the Chinese, Shantung is the most sacred of the provinces, for here were born the two mighty sages, Confucius and Mencius.
Politically, the Province is divided into ten prefectures, each under a prefectural magistrate, called a Chih-fu, and with a capital which has the termination ``fu.'' I-chou-fu, for example, is a prefectural city. Each fu is subdivided into ten districts under a district magistrate or Chih-hsien, the capital, or county seat as we should call it, having the termination ``hsien'' or ``hien'' as for example Wei-hsien. There are 108 of these hsien cities. Between the fu and the hsien cities are a few chou cities as Chining-chou. They are practically small fus, Chining- chou having four hsiens under it. The magistrate is called a Chou- kwan and is responsible directly to a Tao-tai who is an official between the prefectural magistrate or Chih-fu and the Governor. There are three Tao-tais in the province. At the provincial capital are the treasurer or Fan-tai, the Nieh-tai or judge, the Hueh-tai or commissioner of education and the salt commissioner, Yen-yuen. These are all high officials. Over all is the Governor, virtually a monarch subject only to the nominal supervision of the Imperial Government at Peking. He is appointed and may at any time be removed by the Emperor, but during his tenure of office he has almost unlimited power.
My tour of China included two interesting months in this great province. As I approached Chefoo on the steamer from Korea, I was impressed by the beauty of the scene. The water was smooth and sparkling in the bright spring sunshine. The harbour is exceptionally lovely. The shore lines are irregular, terminating in a high promonotory on which are situated the buildings of the various consulates. To the right, as the traveller faces the city, is the business section with its wharves and well-constructed commercial buildings, while on the left is the wide curve of a fine beach on which front the foreign hotel and the handsome buildings of the China Inland Mission. Beyond the city, rises a noble hill on the slopes of which stand the buildings of the Presbyterian Mission. From the water, Chefoo is one of the most charming cities in all China.
Big, lusty Chinese in their wide, clumsy boats called sampans, swarmed in the harbour. Sculling alongside, the boatman caught the rail of the steamer with his boat-hook and with the agility of a monkey scrambled up the long pole, dropped it into the water and began to hustle for business. The babel of voices bidding for passengers was like the tumult of Niagara hack-drivers, but we were so fortunate as to be met by Dr. W. F. Faries and the Rev. W. O. Elterich of the Presbyterian Mission and under their skillful guidance, we were soon taken ashore.
A closer view of the Chinese city proved less attractive than the captivating one from the harbour. The population long ago over-ran the limits of the old city so that to-day most of the people are outside the walls. Within those ancient battlements, the streets are narrow and crooked, while the filth is indescribable. The visitor who wishes to see something of the work and to enjoy the hospitality of the noble company of Presbyterian missionaries on Temple Hill must either pass through that reeking mess or go around it. There is, after all, not much choice in the routes, for the Chinese population outside the walls has simply squatted there without much order, and the corkscrew streets are not only thronged with people and donkeys and mules, but malodorous with ditches through which all the nastiness of the crowded habitations trickles. Why pestilence does not carry off the whole population is a mystery to the visitor from the West, especially as he sees the pools out of which the people drink, their shores lined with washerwomen and the water dark and thick with the dirt of decades. Byron's words in ``Childe Harold'' are as true of Chefoo as of Lisbon:
``But whoso entereth within this town,That, sheening far, a celestial seems to be,Disconsolate will wander up and down'Mid many things unsightly to strange e'e;For hut and palace show like filthily.The dingy denizens are reared in dirt,No personage of high or mean degreeDoth care for cleanness of surtout, or shirt,Though shent with Egypt's plague, unkempt, unwashed, unhurt!''
The first open port of Shantung was Teng-chou-fu, a quaint old city on the far northeastern point of the Shantung promontory. It has been outstripped in importance by its later rival, Chefoo, and is now ignored by the through steamers and seldom visited by travellers. As the trip from Chefoo by land requires two long hard days over a mountain range and as time was precious, I decided to go by water. The regular coasting steamer was not running on account of danger from pirates, who had been unusually bold and murderous in attacking passing vessels. But I succeeded in hiring a small launch. It was a trip of fifty-five miles along the coast on the open sea, but the weather was good and so we risked it. Several of the missionaries took advantage of the occasion to visit friends in Tengchou-fu so that a pleasant little party was formed.
We had intended to start at 7:30 A. M., but some of our luggage and chair coolies, who had been engaged to take us from Temple Hill to the launch at 6:30, did not come, and we had to press into service some untrained ``boys.'' Then, our chair coolies, who had been carefully instructed as to their destination and who had solemnly asserted that they knew just where to go, got separated from the others and calmly took us to the Union Church. We appreciated their apparent conviction that we needed to go to church, but we vainly tried to make them understand that we wanted to go somewhere else. The delay would have become exasperating if a small English boy who knew Chinese had not helped us out. Then the two coolies who were carrying our valises and the lunch-baskets went another way and sat down en route ``to rest.'' They would doubtless be sitting there yet if, after waiting till our patience was exhausted, we had not sent men to find them. But that is Asia.
However, all arrived at last and at 8:20 A. M. we cast off. The day was glorious and as the sea was not rough enough to make any one ill, we had a delightful trip along the coast with its bare, brown hills so much resembling the scenery of California. We reached Teng-chou-fu at 3:15 and that the pirates were not imaginary was evident for as we entered the harbour, they made a dash and captured a junk less than a mile away. An alarm cannon was fired and soldiers were running to the beach as we landed.
While in Teng-chou-fu, we witnessed a pathetic ceremony. There had been no rain for several weeks. The kao-liang was withering and the farmers could not plant their beans on the ground from which the winter wheat had been cut. The people had become alarmed as the drought continued, and they were parading the streets bearing banners, wearing chaplets of withered leaves on their heads to remind the gods that the vegetation was dying, beating drums to attract the attention of the god, and ever and anon falling on their knees and praying —``O Great Dragon! send us rain.'' It was pitiful. This country is fertile but the population is so enormous that, in the absence of any manufacturing or mining, the people even in the most favoured seasons live from hand to mouth, and a drought means the starvation of multitudes.
THE spring of 1901 was not the most propitious time for a tour of the province of Shantung. It was shortly after the suppression of the Boxer outbreak and the country was still in an unsettled condition. The veteran Dr. Hunter Corbett, who had resided in the province for a generation said, ``We are living on a volcano and we do not know at what moment another eruption will occur.'' Students returning from the examinations at the capitol told the people that the Boxers were to rise again and kill all the foreigners and Chinese Christians. The missionaries did not believe the report, but they said that it might be believed by the people and cause a renewal of agitation as such rumours the year before had been an important factor in inciting the populace to violence. But the interior of this great province was one of the objective points of my tour and I could not miss it. Besides, if the missionaries could go, I could. Wives, however, were resolutely debarred. No woman had yet ventured into the interior and the authorities refused to approve their going. In case of trouble, a man can fight or run, but a woman is peculiarly helpless. Nor could we forget that the Chinese during the Boxer outbreak treated foreign women who fell into their hands with horrible atrocity. So the wives, rather against their will, remained in the ports.
Arrangements are apt to move slowly in this land of deliberation. The genial and efficient United States Consul at Chefoo, the Hon. John Fowler, joked me a little about my hurry to start, laughingly remarking that this was Asia and not New York, and that I must not expect things to be done on the touch of a button as at home. But finding that a German steamer was to leave the next day for Tsing-tau, the starting point for the interior, the energetic missionaries helped me to ``hustle the East'' to get off on it. The Chinese tailor gasped when I told him that I must have a khaki suit by six the following evening, but when he learned that I was to sail and therefore could not wait, he promised rather than lose the job. The next day the steamer agent notified me that the sailing hour had been changed to four o'clock. I sent word to the tailor with faint hope of ever seeing that suit, and when a later message gave three o'clock as the real time, I abandoned hope. But the enterprising Celestial made his fingers fly, finished the suit by 2:50 P. M., and took it to the house of my hostess. Finding that I had already gone to the steamer, he hurried off to the wharf, hired a sampan, sculled a mile and panting but triumphant placed the suit in my hands just as the steamer was getting under way. His charge for the suit, including all his trouble and the cost of the sampan, was $7 Mexican ($3.50).
Saturday found me in Tsing-tau, and Monday, I turned my face inland, accompanied by the Rev. J. H. Laughlin and Dr. Charles H. Lyon, and, as far as Wei-hsien, by the Rev. Frank Chalfant, all of the Presbyterian mission, besides Mr. William Shipway of the English Baptist mission, who was to accompany us as far as Ching-chou-fu. To-day, the traveller can journey to Chinan-fu, the capital, in a comfortable railway car, but I shall always be glad that my visit occurred in the old days when the native methods of transportation were the sole dependence, for at that time the new German railway was in operation only forty-six miles to the old city of Kiao-chou.
The modes of conveyance in the interior of China are five— the donkey, the sedan chair, the wheelbarrow, the cart and the shendza (mule litter), and naturally the first problem of the traveller is to decide which one he shall adopt.
The donkey is all right to one accustomed to horseback riding. But there is no protection from the sun and rain and foreign saddles are scarce. The traveller piles his bedding on the animal's back and climbs on top, sitting either astride or sideways. In either case, the feet dangle unsupported by stirrups. It is hard to make long trips in this way, to say nothing of the consideration that a man feels like an idiot in such circumstances. ``The outside of a horse is indeed good for the inside of a man,'' but a mattress on top of a donkey is a different matter.
The chair is comfortable for short distances, but it is comparatively expensive and, as no change of position is possible, one soon becomes tired sitting in the fixed attitude. In pity to your coolies, you walk up-hill and you are exposed to inclement weather unless you hire a covered chair. This, however, is not only hot and stuffy, but it makes people think you an aristocrat, as only officials or the rich use such chairs in the country, though in cities they are a common means of conveyance. Besides, I had travelled in a chair in Korea and I wished to try something else in China.
The Chinese wheelbarrow is a clumsy affair with a narrow seat on each side of a central partition. When large and with an awning, it is not so uncomfortable, but it is not well adapted to a long journey as it is slow and toilsome. When the mud is deep, progress is almost impossible. Moreover, the labour of the barrow-men constantly excites the sympathy of the humane traveller and the dismal screech of the wheel revolving upon its unoiled axle is worse than the rasp of filing a saw. The Chinese depend upon the shrieks of the wheel to tell them how the axle is wearing, but the disconsolate foreigner finds that his nerves wear out much faster than the wooden axle. In Tsing- tau, that agonizing screech proved too much even for the stolid Germans and they posted an ordinance to the effect that all barrow axles must be greased. The Chinese demurred, but a few arrests taught them obedience, so that now the streets of the German metropolis no longer resound with the hysterical wails and moans so dear to the heart of the Celestial.
The Chinese cart is a curious affair. There are no roads in the interior of China, except the ruts that have been made by the passing of many feet and wheels for generations. In dry weather, they are thick with dust and in the wet season they are fathomless with mud. Almost everywhere they are distractingly crooked, and in many places they are plentifully bestrewn with boulders of varying sizes. Instead of spending money in making roads, the Chinese have applied their ingenuity to making an indestructible cart. They build it of heavy timbers, with massive wheels, thick spokes and ponderous hubs, and as no springs could survive the jolting of such a vehicle, the body of the cart is placed directly upon the huge axle. Then a couple of big mules are hitched up tandem and driven at breakneck speed. A runaway in an American farmer's wagon over a corduroy road but feebly suggests the miseries of travel in a Chinese cart. It may be good for a dyspeptic, but it is about the most uncomfortable conveyance that the ingenuity of man has yet devised. The unhappy passenger is hurled against the wooden top and sides and is so jolted and bumped that, as the small boy said in his composition, ``his heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach, bones and brains are all mixed up.'' I tried the cart for a while and gently but firmly intimated that if nothing better was available, I would walk. I am satisfied that nothing short of a modern battleship under full steam could make the slightest impression on the typical Chinese cart. In my humble opinion, a Chinese cart is like any other misfortune in life. When necessary, it should be taken uncomplainingly. But the person who takes it unnecessarily has not reached the years of discretion and should be assigned a guardian.
I therefore turned to the shendza. All things considered, it is the best conveyance for a long interior journey in China. It consists of a couple long poles with a rope basket work in the middle and a cover of matting. It is borne by two mules, and has the advantage of protecting the traveller from the sun and from light rains. An opening in the back gives him the benefit of any breeze while it is possible to get occasional relief by changing position, as he can either sit upright or lounge. Moreover, he can keep his bedding and a little food with him. He need not walk up hills in mercy to weary coolies and he can make the longer daily journeys which the superior endurance of mules permits. In ordinary conditions on level ground, my mules averaged about four miles an hour. The motion is a kind of sieve-and-pepper-box shaking that is not so bad, provided the mules behave themselves, which is not often. My rear mule had a meek and quiet spirit. He was a discouraged animal upon which the sorrows of life had told heavily and which had reached that age when he appeared to have no ambition in life except to stop and think or to lie down and rest. The lead mule, however, was a cantankerous beast that wanted to fight everything within reach and went into hysterics every time any other animal passed him. As this occurred a score of times a day, the uncertainties of the situation were interesting, especially when the rear mule paused or laid down without having previously notified the lead mule. At such times, the sudden stoppage of the power behind and the plunging of the power in front threatened the dislocation of the entire apparatus, and as there is no way for the traveller to get out except over the heels of a mule, life in a shendza is not always uneventful. But I soon got used to the motion and to the mules, and even learned to read and to doze in comparative comfort while the long-eared animals plodded and jerked on in their own way.
The most trying thing to the humane traveller is the soreness of the mules' backs. I insisted on having mules whose backs were sound, but was told by both missionaries and Chinese that they could not be had, especially in summer, as the swaying and jerking of the shendza and the sweat and dust under the heavy pack-saddle always make sores. It was all too true. I examined scores of mules and every one had raw and bleeding abrasions and, in some cases, suppurating ulcers. For a Chinese, our head muleteer was careful of his animals and washed them occasionally, but no practicable care apparently can prevent a shendza from making a sore back. The only solace I had was the evident indifference of the mules themselves. They had never known anything better, and seemed to take misery as a matter of course.
Our party, with the goods we had to carry, for my missionary friends were returning to their stations with the expectation of remaining, included three shendzas, two carts and a pack-mule for our provisions. But the ``mule'' turned out to be a donkey and unable to carry all we had planned for a larger animal. While wondering how we were to get our supplies carried, we learned that a construction train was about to start for the end of the track, which was said to be Kaomi, fifty- five li[14] beyond Kiao-chou. We got permission to ride on the flat car. In the hope that we might be able to secure a mule or another donkey in Kaomi, we got aboard, leaving our shendzas and carts to follow. After a lovely ride of an hour through wheat-fields interspersed with villages, our train stopped twelve li from Kaomi, an unfinished culvert making further progress impossible. As our caravan had gone by a different route and as no coolies could be hired where we were, the question was how to get our goods transported. Fortunately, a German Roman Catholic priest, who was also on the construction train and who had wheelbarrows for his own goods, cordially told us to pile our luggage on top of his. We gratefully accepted this kind offer, and giving his coolies some extra cash for their labour, they good-naturedly accepted the additional burden, while we footed the twelve li to Kaomi.
[14] A li is about a third of a mile.
But the progress of the barrows was slow and it was half- past eight when we reached Kaomi. In the darkness we could not find the inn which the magistrate had set aside for foreigners and the Chinese whom we met gave conflicting replies. But at that moment, two resident Roman Catholic priests, Austrians, appeared and one of them recognized Mr. Laughlin as the associate of Dr. Van Schoick, a Presbyterian medical missionary who had sympathetically treated a fellow priest during a long and dangerous illness several years before. He promptly invited us to go with him, declaring that Dr. Van Schoick had saved the life of his dearest friend. He was so cordially insistent that we accepted his invitation. Our shendzas, carts and pack-mule were we knew not where, and we were hungry after our long day. Warned by my experience in Korea that the traveller should never trust to the punctuality of natives and pack-animals, I had insisted on taking our bedding and a little food on the flat car. It was well that I did, for we did not see our shendzas that night as they arrived after the city gates had been shut so that they could not get in. But we had a little cocoa, tinned corn beef, condensed milk, butter and marmalade. Same German soldiers sent three loaves of coarse bread. Our priestly host added some Chinese bread, and so had a good supper and afterwards a sound sleep.
At half-past four the next morning, Mr. Laughlin remarked in a forty-horse power tone of voice that it was time to get up. By the time the reverberations had died away, we were so wide awake that further sleep was out of the question. Our cook was nowhere in sight, so we prepared our own breakfast from the remains of last night's meal.
Bidding a grateful farewell to our hospitable priests, we rode across an ancient lake bottom, low, flat, wheat-covered and hot enough to broil meat. At half-past ten o'clock, we reached Fau-chia-chiu, the boundary of the hinterland, where, near a temple just outside the wall, we found Governor Yuan Shih Kai's military escort awaiting us. It was after sundown when we reached Liu-chia-chuang, and we felt half inclined to spend the night there with some genial German military engineers, but our party had become separated during the day and as the others had taken a road that did not pass through Liu- chia-chuang, we pushed on to Hsi-an-tai, which we reached by a little after ten o'clock. By that time, it was so dark that it was impossible to go further and we found lodgment in a good- sized building which smelled to heaven. The odour was like that of a decomposing body. However, it was too late and we were too weary either to hunt up smells or to seek another lodging place. So after a hasty supper out of our tinned food, we put up our cots and went to bed, Mr. Chalfant making a few pleasant remarks about the bedbugs that always swarm in such a building, the centipedes that sometimes crawl into the ears or nostrils of sleepers and the scorpions that occasionally fall from the millet-stalk ceiling on to the bed or scuttle across the floor to bite the person who unwarily walks in his bare feet. Under the influence of such a soporific, I soon fell asleep. The next morning we rose early, and while the cook was preparing our coffee and eggs, we followed the trail of that awful odour to a corner of the building, where, under some millet stalks, we found a rude coffin which we had not noticed in the dim candlelight of the night before. A Chinese of whom we inquired said that it was empty. We could not in courtesy open a coffin before dozens of interested Chinese, but it was very plain to our olfactories that such an odour required a prompt funeral.
As usual, a great but silent crowd watched me as I wrote while the mules were being fed and at Hsien-chung, where we stopped at noon to repair a shendza, Mr. Chalfant translated a proclamation on a wall stating that an indemnity of 110,000 taels had to be paid for damage to the railway during the Boxer outbreak and that 14,773 taels had been assessed on Wei County. The people read it with scowling faces, but they said nothing to us, though they looked as if they wanted to.
At two o'clock, we entered the ruined Presbyterian compound, a mile southeast of the city of Wei-hsien. It was thrilling to hear on the scene of the riot Mr. Chalfant's account of the attack by about a thousand furious Boxers; to see the place just outside the gate where single-handed and with no weapon but a small revolver, he had heroically held the mob at bay for several hours until the swarming Boxers, awed by his splendid courage, divided, and while several hundred held his attention, the rest climbed over the wall at another place and fired the mission buildings. That the three missionaries escaped with their lives is a wonder. But Mr. Chalfant quickly ran to the house where Miss Hawes and Miss Boughton were awaiting him, hurried them down-stairs, and while the Boxers were smashing the furniture on the other side of a closed door, snatched up a ladder, assisted them over the compound wall at a point that was providentially unguarded and hid them in a field of grain until darkness enabled them to make their way exhausted but unhurt to a camp of German soldiers and engineers nine miles distant and to escape with them to Tsing-tau. It was a remarkable experience. If that door had not happened to be closed, and if a ladder had not been carelessly left by a servant beside the house, and if the attack itself had not occurred just before dark, undoubtedly all three would have been killed. On each of those three ifs, lives depended.
Mr. Fitch cordially welcomed us. Mr. Chalfant killed a centipede and various insects crawling on the walls near my cot and a little after nine I was asleep. The next day we took a walk through the city, impressed by its imposing wall and the throngs of people who followed us and watched every movement. Outside the wall, we saw a ``baby house,'' a small stone building in which the dead children of the poor are thrown to be eaten by dogs! I wanted to examine it, but was warned not to do so, as the Chinese imagine that foreigners make their medicine out of children's eyes and brains, and our crowds of watching Chinese might quickly become an infuriated mob.
Immediately on our arrival, we had sent our cards to the district magistrate and in the afternoon he sent us an elaborate feast. As we were about to retire that evening, he called in a gorgeous chair with a retinue of twenty attendants. He stayed half an hour and was very cordial, and we had a pleasant interview. Wei-hsien is famous for its embroideries, and great quantities are made, the women workers receiving about fifty small cash a day (less than two cents). It was not necessary to go to the stores as in America. The shopkeepers brought a great number of pieces to our inn, covering the kang and every available table, chair and box with exquisite bits of handiwork. Lured by the sight I became reckless and bought four handsome pieces for 19,800 small cash ($6.06).
Resuming our journey on a warm, sunny day, we entered Chiang-loa at noon. It was market day, and the greatest crowd yet fairly blocked the streets. The soldiers had difficulty in clearing a way for us. But while much curiosity was expressed, there was no sign of hostility. Then we journeyed on through the interminable fields of ripening wheat. Soon, mountains, which we had dimly seen for several hours, grew more distinct and as we approached Ching-chou-fu towards evening, the scene was one of great beauty—the yellowing grain gently undulating in the soft breeze, the mountains not really more than 3,000 feet in height, but from our stand on the plain looking lofty, massive and delightfully refreshing to the eye after our hot and dusty journeying. The city has a population of about 25,000 and its numerous trees look so invitingly green that the traveller is eager to enter.
But in this case also, distance lent enchantment, for within, while there was not the filth of a Korean village, yet the narrow streets were far from clean. Not a blade of grass relieved the bare, dusty ground trampled by many feet, while the low, mud- plastered houses were not inviting. A Chinese seldom thinks of making repairs. He builds once, usually with rough stone plastered with mud or with sun-dried brick. The roof is thatched and the floor is the beaten earth, although in the better houses it is stone or brick. In time, the mud-plaster or, if the walls are of sun-dried brick, the wall itself begins to disintegrate. But it is let alone, as long as it does not make the house uninhabitable, while paint is unknown. So the general appearance of a Chinese town is squalid and tumbledown. Even the yamen of a district magistrate presents crumbling walls, unkempt courtyards, rickety buildings and paper-covered windows full of holes. The palaces of the rich are often expensive, but the Asiatic has little of our ideas of comfort and order.
The Rev. J. P. Bruce and Mr. R. C. Forsyth, of the English
Baptist mission, the only members of the station who were
present, gave us a hearty welcome. The green shrubbery,
the bath-tub, the dinner of roast beef and the clean bedroom,
were like a bit of hospitable old England set down in China.
None of the buildings here were injured by the Boxers. But
the marauders took whatever they could use, as dishes, utensils,
glass, linen, clothes, silver and plated ware, jewelry, etc., the
total loss being
The women we met in these interior districts had only partially bound feet, though they were still far from the natural size. It was surprising to see how freely the women walked, especially as several that I saw were carrying babies. But it was rather a stumpy walk. Women of the higher class have smaller feet and never walk in the public streets.
We left Ching-chou-fu Monday morning, our genial hosts, including Mr. Shipway, who remained here, accompanying us a couple of miles. The trees were more numerous, and as the weather was cool, I greatly enjoyed the day. But the next day, we plodded under dripping skies and through sticky mud to Chang-tien, where a night of unusual discomfort in an inn literally alive with fleas and mosquitoes prepared us to enjoy a tiffin with a lonely English Baptist outpost, the genial Rev. William A. Wills, at Chou-tsun, which we reached at noon the following day, and then, thirty li further on, the gracious hospitality of the main station at Chou-ping. Only three men were present of the regular station force of seven families and two single women, but they gave us all the more abundant welcome in their isolation and loneliness. Of the 2,577 Chinese Christians of this station, 132 were murdered by the Boxers and seventy or more died from consequent exposure and injuries.
A vast, low lying plain begins forty li north of Chou-ping and extends northeastward as far as Tien-tsin. This plain is subject to destructive inundations from the Yellow River and the scenes of ruin and suffering are sometimes appalling. Our unattractive inn the next night was a two-story brick building with iron doors, stone floors, walls two and a-half feet thick and rooms dark, gloomy, ill-smelling as a dungeon and of course swarming with vermin, as savage bites promptly testified. My missionary companion said that it was probably an old pawnshop. Pawnbroking is esteemed an honourable, as well as lucrative, business in China, and the brokers are influential men and often have considerable property in their shops. The people are so poor that they sometimes pawn their winter clothes in summer and their summer ones in winter.
At noon the next day, we reached Chinan-fu, having made seventy li in six hours over muddy roads. Dr. James B. Neal of the Presbyterian mission was alone in the city and gave us hospitable welcome to his home and to the splendid missionary work of the station, though he rather suggestively stopped our coolies when they were about to carry our bedding into the house. He was wise, too, for that bedding had been used in too many native inns to be prudently admitted to a well- ordered household.
As we walked through the city, the narrow streets were literally jammed, for it was market day. Foreigners had been scarce since the Boxer outbreak a year before. Besides, many of the people were from the country where foreigners are seldom seen anyway. So we made as great a sensation as a circus in an American city. A multitude followed us, and wherever we stopped hundreds packed the narrow streets. Our soldiers cleared the way, but they had no difficulty, for though the people were inquisitive they were not hostile. Three magnificent springs burst forth in the heart of the city, one as large as the famous spring in Roanoke, Virginia, which supplies all that city with water. It was about a hundred feet across. The water might easily be piped all over Chinan-fu. But this is China, and so the people patiently walk to the springs for their daily supply.
WE were now approaching the most sacred places of China. On a hot July afternoon of the second day from Chinan-fu, the capital of the province, we saw the noble proportions of Tai-shan, the holy mountain. The Chinese have five sacred mountains, but this is the most venerated of all. Its altitude is not great, only a little over 4,000 feet, but it rises so directly from the plain and its outlines are so majestic that it is really imposing. To the Chinese its height is awe-inspiring, for in all the eighteen provinces there is no loftier peak.
Stopping for the night at the ancient city of Tai-an-fu at the base of the mountain, we set out at six the next morning in chairs swung between poles borne by stalwart coolies. My curiosity was aroused when I found that they were Mohammedans and, as they cordially responded to my questionings, I found them very interesting. Centuries ago, their ancestors came to China as mercenaries, and taking Chinese wives settled in the country. But they have never intermarried since. They have adopted the dress and language of the Chinese, but otherwise they continue almost as distinct as the Jews in America. They instruct their children in the doctrines of Islam, though the Mohammedan rule that the Koran must not be translated has prevented all but a few literati from obtaining any knowledge of the book itself. They have done little proselyting, but natural increase, occasional reenforcements and the adoption of famine children have gradually swelled their ranks until they now number many millions in various parts of China. In some provinces they are very strong, particularly in Yun-nan and Kan-su where they are said to form a majority of the population. They are notorious for turbulence and are popularly known as ``Mohammedan thieves.'' It must be admitted that they not infrequently justify their reputation for robbery, murder and counterfeiting. More than once they have fomented bloody revolutions, one of them, the great Panthay rebellion of 1885-1874, costing the lives of no less than two million Moslems before it was suppressed.
But those who bore me up the long slope of Tai-shan were as good-natured as they were muscular. There is no difficulty about ascending the mountain, for a stone-paved path about ten feet wide runs from base to summit. The maker of this road is unknown as the earliest records and monuments refer only to repairs. But he builded well and evidently with ``an unlimited command of naked human strength,'' for the blocks of stone are heavy and the masonry of the walls and bridges is still massive.
As the slope becomes steeper, the path merges into long flights of solid stone steps. Near the summit, these steps become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples, quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few nunneries with vicious women are scattered along the route. A beautiful stream tumbles noisily down the mountainside close at hand, alternating swift rapids and deep, quiet pools, while as the traveller rises, he gains magnificent vistas of the adjacent mountains and the wide cultivated plain, yellow with ripening wheat, green with growing millet, and thickly dotted with the groves beneath which cluster the low houses of the villages.
Up this long, steep pathway to the Buddhist temples on the summit, multitudes of Chinese pilgrims toil each year, firmly believing that the journey will bring them merit. We reflected with a feeling of awe that
``The path by which we ascended has been trodden by the feet of men for more than four thousand years. One hundred and fifty generations have come and gone since the great Shun here offered up his yearly sacrifice to heaven. Fifteen hundred years before the bard of Greece composed his Epic, nearly one thousand years before Moses stood on Pisgah's mount and gazed over into the promised land, far back through the centuries when the world was young and humanity yet in its cradle, did the children of men ascend the vast shaggy sides of this same mountain, probably by this same path, and always to worship.''[15]
[15] The Rev. Dr. Paul D. Bergen, pamphlet.
After a night at Hsia-chang, we resumed our journey a little after daylight. The early morning air was delightfully cool and bracing, but the sun's rays became fierce as we entered the dry, sandy bed of the Wen River. By the time we reached the broad, shallow stream itself, I envied the two mules and the donkey that managed to fall into a hole, though I would have been happier if they had been thoughtful enough to discard my spare clothes and my food box before they tumbled into the muddy water. The whole day was unusually hot so that by the time we reached Ning-yang, we were ready for a night's rest which even fighting mules, vicious vermin, and quarrelling Chinese gamblers in the inn courtyard could not entirely destroy.
As we approached Chining-chou, the country became almost perfectly flat, a vast prairie. It was carefully cultivated everywhere, the kao-liang and poppy predominating. The soil was apparently rich, and the landscape was relieved from monotony by the green of the cultivated fields and the foliage of the village trees. Dominating all is the rather imposing walled city of Chining-chou. The high, strong wall, the handsome gates and towers, the trees bordering the little stream and the crowded streets looked quite metropolitan. With its imme- diate suburbs built Chinese fashion close to the wall, Chining- chou has 150,000 inhabitants. It is a business city with a considerable trade, the produce of a wide adjacent region being brought to it for shipment, as it is on the Grand Canal which gives easy and cheap facilities for exporting and importing freight. There is, moreover, no loss in exchange as the danger of shipping bullion silver makes the Chining business men eager to accept drafts for use in paying for the goods they buy in Shanghai. Consequently there is a better price for silver here than anywhere else in Shantung. The main street is narrow, shaded by matting laid on kao-liang stalks and lined with busy shops. Along the Grand Canal, there is a veritable ``Vanity Fair'' filled with clothing booths and deafening with the cries of itinerant vendors.
But the loneliness of the missionary in Chining-chou is great, for he is far from congenial companionship. The tragedies of life are particularly heavy at such an isolated post. Mr. Laughlin showed me the house where his wife's body lay for a month after her death in May, 1899. Then, with his nine-year old daughter, he took the body in a house-boat down the Grand Canal to Chin-kiang, a journey of sixteen days. What a heart-breaking journey it must have been as the clumsy boat crept slowly along the sluggish canal and the silent stars looked down on the lonely husband beside the coffin of his beloved wife. Yet he bravely returned to Chining-chou and while I travelled on, he remained with only Dr. Lyon for a companion. I was sorry to part with them for we had shared many long-to-be-remembered experiences, while at that time there was believed to be no small risk in remaining at such an isolated post. But Dr. Johnson and I had to go, and so early on the morning of June 17, we bade the brave fellows an affectionate good-bye and left them in that far interior city, standing at the East Gate till we were out of sight.
Fortunately, the day was fine for rain would have made the flat, black soil almost impassible. But as it was, we had a comfortable, dustless ride of sixty li to Yen-chou-fu, a city of unusually massive walls, whose 60,000 people are reputed to be the most fiercely anti-foreign in Shantung. Comparatively few foreigners had been seen in this region and many of them had been mobbed. The Roman Catholic priests, who are the only missionaries here, have repeatedly been attacked, while an English traveller was also savagely assaulted by these turbulent conservatives. But the Roman Catholics with characteristic determination fought it out, the German consul coming from Peking to support them, and at the time of my visit, they were building a splendid church, the money like that for the Chining-chou cathedral, coming from the indemnity for the murder of the two priests in 1897, which was in this diocese. Though great crowds stared silently at us, no disrespect was shown. On the contrary, we found that by order of the district magistrate an inn had been specially prepared for us, with a plentiful supply of rugs and cushions and screens, while a few minutes after our arrival, the magistrate sent with his compliments a feast of twenty-five dishes. Another stage of nine miles brought us at four o'clock to the famous holy city of China, Ku-fu, the home and the grave of Confucius.
Leaving our shendzas at an inn, we mounted the cavalry horses of our escort and hurried to the celebrated temple which stands on the site of Confucius' house. But to our keen disappointment, the massive gates were closed. The keeper, in response to our knocks, peered through a crevice, and explained that it was the great feast of the fifth day of the fifth month, that the Duke was offering sacrifices, and that no one, not even officials, could enter till the sacrifices were completed. ``When will that be?'' we queried. ``They will continue all night and all day to-morrow,'' was the reply. We urged the shortness of our stay and solemnly promised to keep out of the Duke's way. The keeper's eyes watered as he imagined a present, but he replied that he did not dare let us in as his orders were strict and disobedience might cost him his position if not his life. So we sorrowfully turned away, and pushing through the dense throng which had swiftly assembled at the sight of a foreigner, we rode through the city and along the far- famed Spirit Road to the Most Holy Grove in which lies the body of Confucius. It is three li, about a mile, from the city gate. The road is shaded by ancient cedars and is called the Spirit Road because the spirit of Confucius is believed to walk back and forth upon it by night.
The famous cemetery is in three parts. The outer is said to be fifteen miles in circumference and is the burial-place of all who bear the honoured name of Confucius. Within, there is a smaller enclosure of about ten acres, which is the family burial place of the dukes who are lineal descendants of Confucius, mighty men who rank with the proudest governors of provinces. Within this second enclosure, is the Most Holy Cemetery itself, a plot of about two acres, shaded like the others by fine old cedars and cypresses. Here are only three graves, marked by huge mounds under which lie the dust of Confucius, his son and his grandson. That of the Sage, we estimated to be twenty-five feet high and 250 feet in circumference. In front of it is a stone monument about fifteen feet high, four feet wide and sixteen inches thick. Lying prone before that is another stone of nearly the same size supported by a heavy stone pedestal. There is no name, but on the upright monument are Chinese characters which Dr. Charles Johnson, my travelling companion, translated: ``The Acme of Perfection and Learning- Promoting King,'' or more freely—``The Most Illustrious Sage and Princely Teacher.''
Uncut grass and weeds grew rankly upon the mounds and all over the cemetery, giving everything an unkempt appearance. One species is said to grow nowhere else in China and to have such magical power in interpreting truth that if a leaf is laid upon an abstruse passage of Confucius, the meaning will immediately become clear. There are several small buildings in the enclosure, but dust and decay reign in all, for there is no merit in repairing a building that some one else has erected. As with his house, the Chinese will spend money freely to build a temple, but after that he does nothing. So even in the most sacred places, arches and walls and columns are usually crumbling, grounds are dirty and pavement stones out of place.
A feeling of awe came over me as I remembered that, with the possible exception of Buddha, the man whose dust lay before me had probably influenced more human beings than any other man whom the world has seen. Even Christ Himself has thus far not been known to so many people as Confucius, nor has any nation in which Christ is known so thoroughly accepted His teachings as China has accepted those of Confucius. Dr. Legge indeed declares that ``after long study of his character and opinions, I am unable to regard him as a great man,'' while Dr. Gibson ``seeks in vain in his recorded life and words for the secret of his power,'' and can only conjecture in explanation that ``he is for all time the typical Chinaman; but his greatness lies in his displaying the type on a grand scale, not in creating it.'' But it is difficult even for the non-Chinese mind to look at such a man with unbiassed eyes. Surely we need not begrudge the meed of greatness to one who has moulded so many hundreds of millions of human beings for 2,400 years and who is more influential at the end of that period than at its beginning. Grant that ``he is for all time the typical Chinaman.'' Could a small man have incarnated ``for all time'' the spirit of one-third of the human race? All over China the evidences of Confucius' power can be seen. Temples rise on every hand. Ancestral tablets adorn every house. The writings of the sage are diligently studied by the whole population. When, centuries ago, a jealous Emperor ruthlessly burned the Confucian books, patient scholars reproduced them, and to prevent a recurrence of such iconoclastic fury, the Great Confucian Temple and the Hall of Classics in Peking were erected and the books were inscribed on long rows of stone monuments so that they could never be destroyed again. As a token of the present attitude of the Imperial family, the Emperor once in a decade proceeds in solemn state to this temple and enthroned there expounds a passage of the sacred writings. For more than two millenniums, the boys of the most numerous people in the world have committed to memory the Confucian primer which declares that ``affection between father and son, concord between husband and wife, kindness on the part of the elder brother and deference on the part of the younger, order between seniors and juniors, sincerity between friends and associates, respect on the part of the ruler and loyalty on that of the minister—these are the ten righteous courses equally binding on all men;'' that ``the five regular constituents of our moral nature are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowledge, and truth;'' and that ``the five blessings are long life wealth, tranquillity, desire for virtue and a natural death.''
Surely these are noble principles. That their influence has been beneficial in many respects, it would be folly to deny. They have lifted the Chinese above the level of many other Asiatic nations by creating a more stable social order, by inculcating respect for parents and rulers, and by so honouring the mother that woman has a higher position in China than in most other non-Christian lands.
And yet Confucianism has been and is the most formidable obstacle to the regeneration of China. While it teaches some great truths, it ignores others that are vital. It has lifted the Chinese above the level of barbarism only to fix them almost immovably upon a plane considerably lower than Christianity. It has developed such a smug satisfaction with existing conditions that millions are well-nigh impervious to the influences of the modern world. It has debased respect for parents into a blind worship of ancestors so that a dead father, who may have been an ignorant and vicious man, takes the place of the living and righteous God. It has fostered not only premature marriages but concubinage in the anxiety to have sons who will care for parents in age and minister to them after death. It makes the child virtually a slave to the caprice or passion of the parent. It leads to a reverence for the past that makes change a disrespect to the dead, so that all progress is made exceedingly difficult and society becomes fossilized. ``Whatever is is right'' and ``custom'' is sacred. Man is led so to centralize his thought on his own family that he becomes selfish and provincial in spirit and conduct, with no outlook beyond his own narrow sphere. Expenditures which the poor can ill- afford are remorselessly exacted for the maintenance of ancestral worship so that the living are often impoverished for the sake of the dead. $151,752,000 annually, ancestral worship is said to cost—a heavy drain upon a people the majority of whom spend their lives in the most abject poverty, while the development of true patriotism and a strong and well-governed State has been effectively prevented by making the individual solicitous only for his own family and callously indifferent to the welfare of his country. Confucianism therefore is China's weakness as well as China's strength, the foe of all progress, the stagnation of all life.
Confucianism, too, halts on the threshold of life's profoundest problems. It has only dead maxims for the hour of deepest need. It gives no vision of a future beyond the grave. It is virtually an agnostic code of morals with some racial variations. Wu Ting Fang, formerly Chinese Minister to the United States, frankly declares that ``Confucianism is not a religion in the practical sense of the word,'' and that ``Confucius would be called an agnostic in these days.'' To ``the Venerable Teacher'' himself, philosophy opened no door of hope. Asked about this one day by a troubled inquirer, he dismissed the question with the characteristic aphorism— ``Imperfectly acquainted with life, how can we know death?'' And there the myriad millions of Confucianists have dully stood ever since, their faces towards the dead past, the future a darkness out of which no voice comes.
But just because their illustrious guide took them to the verge of the dark unknown and left them there, other teachers came in to occupy the region left so invitingly open. Less rational than Confucius, their success showed anew that the human mind cannot rest in a spiritual vacuum and that if faith does not enter, superstition will. Taoism and Buddhism proceeded to people the air and the future with strange and awful shapes. Popular Chinese belief as to the future is gruesomely illustrated in the Temple of Horrors in Canton with its formidable collection of wooden figures illustrating the various modes of punishment—sawing, decapitation, boiling in oil, covering with a hot bell, etc. At funerals, bits of perforated paper are freely scattered about in the hope that the inquisitive spirits will stop to examine them and thus give the body a chance to pass. In any Chinese cemetery, one may see little tables in front of the graves covered with tea, sweetmeats and sheets of gilt and silver paper, so that if a spirit is hungry, thirsty or in need of funds, it can get drink, food or money from the gold or silver mines (paper).
In the Temple for Sickness, in Canton, where multitudes of sufferers pray to the gods for healing, we saw an old woman kneeling before a statue of Buddha, holding aloft two blocks of wood and then throwing them to the floor. If the flat side of one and the oval side of the other were uppermost, the omen was good, but if the same sides were up, it was bad. Others shook a box of numbered sticks till one popped out and then a paper bearing the corresponding number gave the issue of the disease. The stones of the court were worn by many feet and the pathos of the place was pitiful.
Theoretically, ``Confucianism is a system of morals, Taoism a deification of nature and Buddhism a system of metaphysics. But in practice all three have undergone many modifications.
With every age the character of Taoism has changed. The philosophy of its founder is now only an antiquarian curiosity. Modern Taoism is of such a motley character as almost to defy any attempt to educe a well-ordered system from its chaos.''[16] As for Buddhism, its founder would not recognize it, if he could visit China to-day. The lines:—
``Ten Buddhist nuns, and nine are bad;The odd one left is doubtless mad——''
are suggestive of the depth to which the religion of Guatama has fallen.
[16] Smith, ``Rex Christus,'' pp. 62, 72.
Indeed, it would be a mistake to suppose that the Chinese people are divided into three religious bodies as, for example, Americans are divided into Protestants, Roman Catholics and Jews. Each individual Chinese is at the same time a Confucian, a Buddhist and a Taoist, observing the ceremonies of all three faiths as circumstances may require, a Confucian when he worships his ancestors, a Buddhist when he implores the aid of the Goddess of Mercy, and a Taoist when he seeks to propitiate the omnipresent fung-shuy (spirits of wind and water), and he has no more thought of inconsistency than an American who is at the same time a Methodist, a Republican and a Mason. Dr. S. H. Chester says that when he was in Shanghai, he saw a Taoist priest conducting Confucian worship in a Buddhist temple. Even if inconsistency were proved to the Chinese, he would not be in the least disturbed for he cares nothing for such considerations. ``Hence it is that the Chinese religion of to-day has become an inextricable blending of the three systems.''[17] ``The ancient simplicity of the state religion has been so far corrupted as to combine in one ritual gods, ghosts, flags and cannon. It has become at once essentially polytheistic and pantheistic.''[18]
[17] Gibson, ``Mission Methods and Mission Policy in South China.''
[18] Williams, ``Middle Kingdom.''
The result is that the average Chinese lives a life of terror under the sway of imaginary demons. He erects a rectangular pillar in front of his door so that the dreaded spirits cannot enter his house without making an impossible turn. He gives his tiled roof an upward slant at each of the eaves so that any spirit attempting to descend will be shunted off into space. Nor is this superstition confined to the lower classes. The haughty, foreign-travelled Li Hung Chang abjectly grovelled on the bank of the Yellow River to propitiate an alleged demon that was believed to be the cause of a disastrous flood, and as late as June 4, 1903, the North-China Daily News published the following imperial decree:
``Owing to the continued drought, in spite of our prayers for rain, we hereby command Chen Pih, Governor of Peking, to proceed to the Dragon temple at Kanshan-hsien, Chih-li Province, and bring from thence to Peking an iron tablet possessing rain-producing virtues, which we will place up for adoration and thereby bring forth the much-desired rain.''
And so the followers of the most ``rational'' of teachers are among the most superstitious people in the world. In attempting to clear the mind of error, the great agnostic simply left it ``empty, swept and garnished for seven other spirits worse than the first.''
As in the deepening twilight we thoughtfully left the last resting-place of the mighty dead, a platoon of thirty Chinese soldiers approached, drew their swords, dropped upon one knee and shouted. The movement was so unexpected and the shout so startlingly strident that my horse shied in terror and I had visions of immediate massacre. But having learned that politeness is current coin the world over, as soon as I could control my prancing horse, I raised my hat and bowed. Whereupon the soldiers rose, wheeled into line and marched ahead of us to our inn in the city. Dr. Johnson explained that the words shouted in unison were: ``May the Great Man have Peace,'' and that the platoon was an escort of honour from the yamen of the district magistrate!
On the way, we stopped to visit the temple of Yen, the favorite disciple whose early death left Confucius disconsolate. The grounds are spacious. There is a remarkably fine tree, tall, graceful and with silvery white bark. A huge stone turtle was reverently kissed by one of our escort, who fondly believed that he who kissed the turtle's mouth would never be ill. But as usual in China, the temple itself, though originally it must have been beautiful, is now crumbling in decay.
It was late when we returned, and as we were about to retire, wearied with the toils of the day, the district magistrate called with an imposing retinue and cordially inquired whether we had seen all that we wished to see. When we replied that we had been unable to enter the great temple, he graciously said that he would have pleasure in informing the Duke, who would be sure to arrange for our visit. The result was a message at two o'clock in the morning to the effect that we might visit the temple at daylight in the interval between the cessation of the sacrifices of the night and their resumption at seven o'clock in the morning. Accordingly we rose at three o'clock, and after a hurried breakfast by candle-light, we proceeded to the temple. About a hundred Chinese were awaiting us, among them two men in official dress. We did not deem it courteous to ask who or what they were, but we supposed them to be from the magistrate's yamen, and as they were evidently familiar with the temple, we gladly complied with their cordial invitation to follow them.
I wish I had power to describe adequately all we saw in that vast enclosure of about thirty acres, with its stately trees, its paved avenues, its massive monuments, and, above all, its imposing temple and scores of related buildings. One was the Lieh Kew Kwei Chang Tien, the Temple of the Wall of the Many Countries. Here are 120 tablets, each about sixteen by twenty-two inches, and in the centre three larger ones measuring two feet in width by four and a-half feet in height. In front of these is a stone three and a-half feet by four and a-half, and bearing the inscription: ``Tribute from the Ten Thousand Countries of the World.'' The Chinese solemnly believe that in these tablets all the nations of the earth have acknowledged the preeminence of Confucius.
Then we visited three gloomy buildings where the animals for sacrifice are killed—one for cattle, one for sheep and one for pigs. Beyond them, we entered temples to the wife of Confucius, to his parents and to the ``Five Generations of Ancestors,'' though the last-mentioned contains tablets to nine generations instead of five. On every side are scores of monuments, erected by or in honour of famous kings, some of them by the monarchs of dynasties which flourished before the Christian era.
Most notable of all is the great temple of the sage himself, standing well back on a spacious stone-paved terrace, around which runs a handsome marble balustrade. The eye is at once arrested by the twenty-eight noble marble pillars, ten in front, ten in the rear and four at each end. The ten in front are round and elaborately carved, as magnificent a series of columns as I ever saw. The others are smooth, octagonal pillars, but traced with various designs in black.
Within, there are twelve other columns about four feet in diameter and twenty-five feet high, each cut from a single tree and beautifully polished. Naturally, the central object of interest is a figure of Confucius of heroic size but impossible features. In front is the tablet with costly lacquered ornaments and pedestals, and an altar on which were a bullock and two pigs, each carefully scraped and dressed and lying with heads towards the statue and tablet. In several other temples, notably in the one to the Five Generations of Ancestors, other animals were lying, some evidently offered the day before and others awaiting the worship of the day now beginning. Altogether I counted nineteen sacrificial animals—one bullock, eight sheep and ten pigs. The great temple is of noble proportions, with an overhanging roof of enormous size but constructed on such graceful lines as to be exquisitely beautiful. But within dust reigns, while without as usual the grass and weeds grow unchecked.
Last of all we visited the library, though the name is a misnomer, for there are no books in it and our courteous guides said there never had been. We ascended the narrow stairs leading from the vast, empty, dusty room on the lower floor through an equally empty second story to the third and topmost story, which is the home of hundreds of doves. Going out on the narrow balustrade under the eaves in the gray dawn of the morning, I looked upon the gorgeous gilded roof of the temple near by and then down upon the many ancient buildings, the darkly solemn pines, the massive monuments resting on ponderous stone turtles, and the group of Chinese standing among the shadows and with faces turned curiously upward. Suddenly a dove flew over my head and then the sun rose slowly and majestically above the sombre tree-tops, throwing splendid floods of light upon us who stood aloft. But the Chinese below were in the sombre shades of a night that for them had not yet fully ended. I would fain believe that the physical was a parable of the spiritual. All the maxims of the Acme of Perfection and Learning-Promoting King have not brought the Chinese out of moral twilight. After all these centuries of ceaseless toil, they still remain amid the mists and shadows. But their faces are beginning to turn towards the light of a day whose sun already touches the mountain-tops. Some even now are in that ``marvellous light,'' and it cannot be long before shining hosts of God shall pour down the mountain-sides, chasing on noiseless feet and across wide plains the swiftly retreating night ``until the day dawn and the shadows flee away.''
At the outer gate, we bade good-bye to the dignified officials who had so hospitably conducted us through this venerable and historic place and who had taken such kindly pains to explain its ancient relics and customs. Who were they? we secretly wondered. Imagine our feelings when the lieutenant in command of our escort afterwards informed us that they were the guardian of the temple and the Duke himself!
Leaving the city of the mighty dead, we journeyed through a lovely region guarded by distant mountains. At the walled city of Si-sui, sixty li distant, soldiers met us and apparently the whole population lined the streets as we rode to our inn, where the yamen secretary was awaiting us with a feast. This inn, too, had been specially cleaned, and there were cushions, red cloths for the seats, and a screen for the door. In the afternoon, the country became rougher. But while the soil was thinner, the scenery was finer, an undulating region traversed by a shining river and bounded by mountains which gradually drew nearer. One hundred and ten li from Ku-fu, we stopped for the night at Pien-kiao, a small city with an unusually poor inn but a magnificent spring. It gushed up over an area twenty-five feet square and with such volume that the stream ran away like a mill-race. The Emperor Kien Lung built a retaining wall about the spring and a temple and summer- house adjoining. The wall is as solid as ever, but only a few crumbling pillars and fragments remain of the temple and pavilion. The Emperor affirmed that he was told in a vision that if he would build a stone boat, the waters of the spring would float it to Nanking whither he wished to go. So he built the boat of heavy cut stone, with a twelve-foot beam and a length of fifty-five feet. It is still there with the prow five feet above the ground, but the rest of the boat has sunk almost to the level of the earth about it. Is the old Emperor's idea any more absurd to us than our iron boats would have been to him?
The sun struggled long with heavy mists the following morning and the air was so cool that I had to wrap myself in a blanket in the shendza. By eight, the sun gained the victory and we had another breezy, perfect June day. But the road was stony and trying beyond anything we had yet seen. The villages were evidently poorer, as might be expected on such a rocky soil. The people stared silently and did not so often return my smiles. Whether they were sullen or simply boorish and unaccustomed to foreigners I could only conjecture. Few white men had been seen there.
A hard day's journey of 140 li through a rocky region brought us to Fei-hsien. Rain was falling the next morning and the Chinese muleteers do not like to travel in rain. But the prospect was for a steady pour and as we were in a wretched inn and only ninety li from Ichou-fu, we wanted to go on. A present of 600 small cash for each muleteer (twenty cents) overcame all scruples. Just as I had comfortably ensconced myself in my shendza with an oilcloth on top and a rubber blanket in front, I saw a centipede on my leg, but I managed to slay him before he bit me. By nine, the rain ceased and though the clouds still threatened, we had a cool and comfortable ride through hundreds of fields of peanuts, indigo and millet to I-tang, where we stopped for tiffin at a squalid inn kept by a tall, dilapidated looking Chinese, who rejoiced in the name of Confucius. He was really a descendant of the sage and was very proud of the fact that his bones were in due time to rest in the sacred cemetery at Ku-fu.
By 5:40 P. M. we reached Ichou-fu, where the solitary Rev. W. W. Faris was glad to see another white man. A stay of several days was marked by many pleasant incidents. There was much of interest for a visitor to see. The mission work at Ichou-fu, Presbyterian, includes two hospitals, one for men and one for women, a chapel and separate day schools for boys and girls. The church has about a hundred members and in the outstations there are ten other organized churches besides ten unorganized congregations. All these churches and congregations provide their own chapels and pay their own running expenses. Here also the officials were most courteous. The Prefect, who promptly called with a retinue of fifty soldiers and attendants, was a masterful looking man who conversed with intelligence on a wide variety of topics. The day before our departure, we gave a feast to the leading men of the city in return for their many courtesies. Every invitation was accepted and thirty-five guests were present. They remained till late and were apparently highly pleased.
Late in the evening, a youth who had painfully walked 180 li, came to Dr. Johnson's dispensary and presented the following note of introduction:
``Our office a servant who getting a yellow sick, which suffered a few year and cured for nothing. he trusted me to beg you to save his sick and I now ordered him to going before you to beg you remedy facely. With many thanks to you, ``Yours sincerely, ``V. T. GEE.''
Having done all that was possible in so short a time to ``save his sick,'' we resumed our journey, thirty Chinese Christians accompanying us to the River I, a li from the city. The atmosphere was gloriously clear and on the second day out, crossing some high ridges, we had superb views of wide cultivated valleys, and of Ku-chou, a famous city that is said to contain more literary graduates than any other city of its size in the province.
Then followed a more level country with interminable fields of kao-liang and many orchards of walnuts, pears and cherries, while low mountains rose in the background. Men and horses were tired after our long and hard journey, and the mules' backs were becoming very sore. But the end drew near and the fifth day from Ichow-fu we reached Yueh-kou, the border of the German hinterland. The German line is near Kiaochou, but the rule is that Chinese soldiers must not come beyond this point, 100 li from the line, and that German soldiers shall not cross it going the other way except on the line of the railroad. Here therefore our escort had to leave us, as Chinese and Germans have agreed that any armed men crossing the line may be fired on, and even if there should be no casualty, both the German and Chinese authorities might justly have protested if Americans violated the compact. I suggested going on without an escort to our proposed night stop thirty li further. But my more experienced companions thought it dangerous to spend the night alone at an inn within this belt, as the villagers near the line were as bitter against foreigners as any in the province, the German brusqueness and ruthlessness having greatly exasperated them.
So we spent the night at Yueh-kou. No one interfered with us the next day and by getting an early start, we covered ninety long li to Kiao-chou by noon. After five weeks in a mule litter, it seemed wonderful to make 138 li in three hours in a railway car. By 6:50 P. M., we reached Tsing-tau, having, the missionaries said, succeeded in ``hustling the East to a remarkable degree.'' My note-book reads—``A bath, clean clothes, a hot supper and a good night's sleep removed the last vestige of weariness.''