In the Protestant mission compound of Honanfu the missionaries had tied up this thief to stew in the sun for a few days, rather than turn him over to the authorities, who would have lopped off his head
In the Protestant mission compound of Honanfu the missionaries had tied up this thief to stew in the sun for a few days, rather than turn him over to the authorities, who would have lopped off his head
In the Protestant mission compound of Honanfu the missionaries had tied up this thief to stew in the sun for a few days, rather than turn him over to the authorities, who would have lopped off his head
Over a city gate in western Honan two crated heads of bandits were festering in the sun and feeding swarms of flies
Over a city gate in western Honan two crated heads of bandits were festering in the sun and feeding swarms of flies
Over a city gate in western Honan two crated heads of bandits were festering in the sun and feeding swarms of flies
A village in the loess country, which breaks up into fantastic formations as the stoneless soil is worn away by the rains and blown away by the winds
A village in the loess country, which breaks up into fantastic formations as the stoneless soil is worn away by the rains and blown away by the winds
A village in the loess country, which breaks up into fantastic formations as the stoneless soil is worn away by the rains and blown away by the winds
In this case all the foreign captives were released, gradually, within a week after the legations began to show real signs of life, not greatly the worse for wear, and with an absorbing after-dinner topic to last them for years to come. But it was easy to guess what splendid arguments stray foreigners are to prove in domestic Chinese controversies, of which they may be as supremely ignorant as uninterested, during perhaps years to come, now that this little scheme of the bandits had been crowned with such signal success. It is easier still to see how much bolder they will grow in gathering such arguments, how much rougher, when it serves their purposes, in the use of them, and how much the self-seeking militarists of China will care how far the acknowledged outlaws go in the matter, so long as a wishy-washy policy, supremely ignorant of the first rules of Chinese psychology, continues to represent the Western world in this matter.
Just what argument had been brought to bear on the brigands remained for several days a more or less profound secret; but the “old China hand” had his suspicions, which turned out to be fully justified. He suspected that temporizing, compromising, and weakly yielding had been the consecutive orders of the moves, for long experience has taught him the more outstanding features of the Chinese character. When it could no longer be concealed, word seeped up out of Honan that virtually all the demands of the bandits had been granted in full. Their chieftains were given high rank and official titles, and the men themselves were incorporated into the “national army,” whatever that means, any world agreements toward disarmament notwithstanding. Not only that, but their organizations had been left intact and given a corner of the province to rule, particularly to “tax,” instead of at least being split up among other organizations in which some slight curb might be put upon their activities. The Chinese populations involved protested, in so far as they dared, but of course in vain. That is another misfortune of the supine policy of foreign governments, that the law-abiding Chinese masses suffer all the more accordingly. But, after all, perhaps they are more or less responsible for the low state of authority in present-day China, and subject to a corresponding discount of sympathy.
Months later down in Yencheng, the center of the foreigner-capturing brigandage of Honan, I picked up a few details of their calling. Though the outside world hears much more of it, there is hardly, so far, one foreigner carried off by bandits to a thousand Chinese. The usual method is to attack a village and take a man of standing, or his son of fifteen or so, for ransom; but rather than run the dangers of dragging the captive about with them, the outlaws often hand him over to some resident of a neighboring village, perhaps only a woman, with the threat to burn the house and kill its occupants if the hostage is not there when they return for him. Many a helpless familyis thus left stranded between the devil and the deep sea. Occasionally girls are taken, but the girl or woman who is kept overnight loses her reputation and is not worth ransoming. Therefore they are either returned after negotiations lasting a few hours, or are kept as camp property. When they are after money or material advancement, Chinese brigands do not mistreat women; these suffer more when soldiers run amuck and loot a town. Like banditry, this is old Chinese history; in the days of Kublai Khan, of whom we hear such romantic stories, Mongol Buddhist priests or lamas were given an iron ticket from the emperor which gave them the right to enter any house in China, drive out the men, and install themselves in their place. For a fortnight a year during the Mongol dynasty, popular Chinese history records that the country was given over to promiscuous debauchery; bearing these things in mind one is surprised at the comparative lack of abuse of women by Chinese malefactors.
On the way from the Peking-Hankow main line to Honanfu there had been much of that clay-sandy earth called loess, and in the rambling half-day from there to the rail-head there was more of it. Cultivation, rain, wind breaking this down to varying levels, leave fantastic forms of earth as striking as the rocks of Namur, precarious cliffs in which are cut cave-dwellings, shrines, even temples; indeed, for long stretches there were few other kinds of buildings. Hundreds of little fields, one could see even from the jolting train, were gradually but irretrievably wearing away to a common level that would eventually make cultivation out of the question. A doubly uncertain world this, where one’s home is a hole in the cliff-side that may any day slough off, where one must always walk cautiously along the edge of either field or veranda, lest it at any moment drop from under. We passed through many tunnels, always thankful to find them stone-faced. How this soil ever succeeds in holding together even as long as it does was one of the mysteries that beguiled all that morning’s journey.
At the scattered town of Kwanyintang the railway abandoned us to our own devices. Fortunately the Tuchun of Honan Province, China’s far-famed “Christian General,” did not. All the way from Kaifeng, where the major had gone to visit him, he had sent one of his aides to smooth the way for us. This handsome and intelligent fellow, still in his quilted silky-gray uniform, had once been a lieutenant-colonel but had given up his rank in order to work for social welfare among the soldiers. He carried several bundles of Chinese pamphlets in hecticcovers, which turned out to be translations of various books of the Bible, to be distributed among the country people. What distinguished him still more from the mass of China’s swarming soldiers was the fact that he insisted on paying his fare. Had not this idiosyncrasy of the “Christian General’s” troops already been familiar to the officials of the Lunghai Railway, it is quite possible that we should have seen a pair of them faint away with astonishment at the door of our unupholstered compartment.
In the far reaches of China there is a comradeship among all foreigners—perhaps the word “European” or “Caucasian” would be more exact—stronger than that between fellow-countrymen in many parts of the world. Let a rumor drift to a traveler’s ears that there is awai-guo-renin town, or indeed within reasonable striking distance of his route, and he feels it as much his duty to call, quite irrespective of the stranger’s particular nationality, as the latter does immediately to offer him hospitality. There was nothing unusual, therefore, in the fact that we were met at the present end of the line by an Armenian, a Greek, and a Rumanian, all members of this Belgian-French railway concession, who at once turned their office over to us as a lodging. Nor was there any reason to be surprised when a Russian Jew, who had just ridden down from Chinese Turkestan in record time, turned up there hoping to sell us his horses. He was true to his race, however, when the question of price came up, and we were not seriously tempted to alter our original plan to leave Kwanyintang in mule-litters.
It is proof that our aide from Kaifeng was something more than Christian that he had the expedition we required gathered, signed, and sealed before nightfall. The usual system in such cases is to leave the whole matter to some responsible innkeeper. He sets the price, engages mules and whatever conveyances are necessary, and assumes responsibility for the proper carrying out of the contract. In this case, as is also usual, he came bringing a great sheet of flimsy paper daubed with Chinese characters in red—the contract in question—and decorated with several red “chops,” the personal seals of responsible residents of the town, which serve as a cross between recommendations and sureties. He had also come to ask for three fourths of the sum agreed upon, which was sixteen “Mex” dollars per litter for the journey of 280lito the first town over the Honan-Shensi border. Ten Chineseli, it may be as well to specify once for all, make approximately three miles, though in practice there are “smallli” and “largeli,” in mountainous country two or three times as manyligoing as coming, or vice versa,and occasionally a complete unintelligence as to road measurements. The innkeeper must have expected that we had taken the trouble to inform ourselves and were aware that at most only half the amount involved is advanced, but the Chinese never risk losing an opportunity to profit by the possible ignorance of a foreigner. When we declined even to pay the customary half until we could inspect the mules next morning, we ran some risk of undoing all the labor of our more than Christian aide; for the sons of Han hate even more to make the slightest rebate on custom than they do not to be able to overreach it a few points. Had we been Chinese, probably negotiations would have halted then and there until the money was forthcoming; but foreigners still have some of their old prestige and reputation in the Chinese Republic.
Our precaution really was hardly worth the trouble, for the night was too black when we began to load to tell a mule from a corpse or a litter from a lumber-pile. A Chinese mule-litter consists of two pieces of telegraph-pole some ten feet long, which are fastened together at either end with a crosspiece that sets into a pack-saddle, and beneath which are two straddling wooden legs to keep the contrivance high enough off the ground when the two animals are taken from beneath it. Between the two poles is looped a network of ropes covered with a straw mat, with sag enough in them to hold the traveler’s baggage and leave him room to spread his bedding and to sit or stretch out at full length upon it. Over all this there is an arched roof of straw matting, not dissimilar in appearance to that of a “prairie-schooner.” My own custom of living on the country during my travels had become so fixed that I had still not adjusted myself to the major’s notions of a proper equipment. We had two army-trunks, one of them very full of canned foods. Folding cots, bedding-rolls, spare garments sufficient even for the wintry weather we expected before the journey was over, and a small mule-load of merely personal conveniences were enough to render speechless a wanderer long accustomed to carry all his possessions on his own back. When to all this was added a “boy” and a cook, and all the equipment necessary for them to function in a fitting manner, I felt more as if I had again joined the army than as though we were merely setting off on a little personal jaunt. It will not be unduly anticipating, perhaps, if I mention now that, while my companion sometimes realized he was not living at home, and solicitous persons back in Peking fancied we were roughing it, memory of many another cross-country tramp made this one seem to me like traveling in extreme luxury; and the worst of it is that I thoroughly enjoyed the change.