Across China on Foot Part 6

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote G: I inspected the railway at Ichang in December, 1910, and found that a remarkable scheme was making very creditable progress.

Around the main station centre there was an air of bustle and excitement, some 20,000 coolies were in employment there, all the buildings and equipment bore evidences of thoroughness, and the scheme seemed to be going on well. But in January of this year (1911) a meeting was held at Chen-tu, the proposed destination of the line, and the gentry then decided that as nothing was being done at that end the company should be requested to stop work at Ichang, and start laying the line from Chen-tu, at the other end. "All the money will be spent," they cried, "and we shall get nothing up this end!" If the money ran out and left the central portion of the line incomplete, it did not matter so long as each city had something for its money!--E.J.D.]

[Footnote H: This is not true to-day. There has been a great falling off in numbers.--E.J.D., February, 1911.]

[Footnote I: This should not be taken to apply to the _fu-song_ everywhere. I have found them to be the most useful on other occasions, but the above was written at Luchow as my experience of that particular day.--E.J.D.]

FOURTH JOURNEY.

SUI-FU TO CHAO-T'ONG-FU (VIA LAO-WA-T'AN).

CHAPTER VII.

_Chinese and simplicity of speech_. _Author and his caravan stopped_.

_Advice to travelers_. _Farewell to Sui-fu_. _The postal service and tribute to I.P.O._ _Rus.h.i.+ng the stages_. _Details of journey_.

_Description of road to Chao-t'ong-fu_. _Coolie's pay_. _My boy steals vegetables_. _Remarks on roads and railways_. _The real Opening of China_. _How the foreigner will win the confidence of the Chinese_.

_Distances and their variability_. _Calculations uprooted_. _Author in a dilemma_. _The scenery_. _Hard going_. _A wayside toilet, and some embarra.s.sment_. _Filth inseparable from Chinese humanity_. _About Chinese inns_. _Typewriter causes some fun_. _Soldiers guard my doorway_. _Man's own "inner room."_ _One hundred and forty li in a day_.

_Grandeur and solitude_. _Wisdom of traveling alone_. _Coolie nearly cuts his toe off_. _Street scene at Puerh-tu_. _The "dying" coolie_. _A manacled prisoner_. _Entertained by mandarins_. _How plans do not work out_.

He who would make most abundant excuses for the Chinese could not say that he is simple in his speech.

That speech is the chief revelation of the mind, the first visible form that it takes, is undoubtedly true: as the thought, so the speech.

All social relations with us have their roots in mutual trust, and this trust is maintained by each man's sincerity of thought and speech.

Apparently not so in China. There is so much craft, so much diplomacy, so much subtle legerdemain that, if he chooses, the Chinese may give you no end of trouble to inform yourself on the simplest subject. The Chinese, like so many cavillers and calumniators, all glib of tongue, who know better than any nation on earth how to turn voice and pen to account, have taken the utmost advantage of extended means of circulating thought, with the result that an Englishman such as myself, even were I a deep scholar of their language, would have the greatest difficulty in getting at the truth about their own affairs.

As I was going out of Sui-fu my caravan and myself were delayed by some fellow, who held the attention of my men for a full quarter of an hour.

I listened, understanding nothing. After another five minutes, by which time the conversation had a.s.sumed what I considered dangerous proportions, having the safety of my boy at heart, I asked--

"T'ong, what is it?"

"Half a sec.," he replied (having learnt this phrase from the gunboat men down the river). He did not, however, take his eyes from the man with whom he was holding the conversation. He then dived into my food-basket, wrenched off the top of a tin, and pulled therefrom two beautifully-marked live pigeons, which flapped their wings helplessly to get away, and resumed the conversation. Talk waxed furious, the birds were placed by the side of the road, and T'ong, now white with seeming rage, threatened to hit the man. It turned out that the plaintiff was the seller of the birds, and that T'ong had got them too cheap.

"That man no savee. He thinkee you, master, have got plenty money. He b'long all same rogue. I no b'long fool. I know, I know."

As the cover of the food-basket was closed down I noticed a cooked fowl, two live pheasants with their legs tied together, a pair of my own muddy boots, a pair of dancing pumps, and a dirty collar, all in addition to my little luxuries and the two pigeons aforesaid. Reader, if thou would'st travel in China, peep not into thy _hoh shh lan ts_ if thou would'st feed well.

T'ong, laughing derisively, waved fond and fantastic salutations to the disappointed vendor of pigeons, and moved backwards on tiptoe till he could see him no more; then we went noiselessly down a steep incline out into an open s.p.a.ce of distracted and dishevelled beauty on our way to Chao-t'ong-fu.

From Chung-king I had stuck to the regular stages. I had done no hustling, but I decided to rush it to Chao-t'ong if I could, as the reports I heard about being overtaken by the rains in Yun-nan were rather disquieting. I had taken to Sui-fu three times as long as the regular mail time, the service of which is excellent. Chung-king has no less than six local deliveries daily, thus eliminating delays after the delivery of the mails, and a daily service to the coast has also been established. A fast overland service to Wan Hsien now exists, by which the coast mails are transmitted between that port and Chung-king in the hitherto unheard-of time of two days--a traveler considers himself fortunate if he covers the same distance in eight days. There are fast daily services to Luchow (380 li distant) in one day, Sui-fu (655 li) in two days, Hochow (180 li) in one night, and Chen-tu (1,020 li) in three days. It is creditable to the Chinese Imperial Post Office that a letter posted at Sui-fu will be delivered in Great Britain in a month's time.

It was a dull, chilly morning that I left Sui-fu, leading my little procession through the city on my way to Anpien, which was to be reached before sundown. My coolies--probably owing to having derived more pecuniary advantage than they expected during the journey from Chung-king--decided to re-engage, and promised to complete the fourteen-day tramp to Chao-t'ong-fu, two hundred and ninety miles distant, if weather permitted, in eleven days. We were to travel by the following stages:--

Length of Height above stage sea

1st day--Anpien 90 li ---- 2nd day--Huan-chiang 55 li ---- 3rd day--Fan-h-ts'uen 70 li ---- 4th day--T'an-t'eo 70 li ---- 5th day--Lao-wa-t'an 140 li 1,140 ft.

6th day--Teo-sha-kwan 60 li 4,000 ft.

7th day--Ch'i-li-p'u 60 li 1,900 ft.

8th day--Ta-wan-ts 70 li ---- 9th day--Ta-kwan-ting 70 li 3,700 ft.

10th day--Wuchai 60 li 7,000 ft.

11th day--Chao-t'ong-fu 100 li 6,400 ft.

I knew that I was in for a very hard journey. The nature of the country as far as T'an-t'eo, ten li this side of which the Szech'wan border is reached, is not exhausting, although the traveler is offered some rough and wild climbing. The next day's stage, to Lao-wa-t'an, is miserably bad. At certain places it is cut out of the rock, at others it runs in the bed of the river, which is dotted everywhere with roaring rapids (as we are ascending very quickly), and when the water is high these roads are submerged and often impa.s.sable. In some places it was a six-inch path along the mountain slope, with a gradient of from sixty to seventy degrees, and landslips and rains are ever changing the path.

Lao-wa-t'an is the most important point on the route. One of the largest Customs stations in the province of Yun-nan is here situated at the east end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li.

The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the physical exertion required to scale the treacherous roads. Over a broad, zigzagging, roughly-paved road, said to have no less than ninety-eight curves from bottom to top, we ascend for thirty li, and then descend for the remainder of the journey through a narrow defile along the northern bank of the river, the opposite side being a vertical sheet of rock rising to at least a thousand feet sheer up, very similar to the gorges of the Mekong at the western end of the province, which I crossed in due course.

To Ch'i-li-p'u, high up on the mountain banks, the first twenty-five li is by the river. At the half-way place a fearful ascent is experienced, the most notable precipice on the route between Sui-fu and Yun-nan-fu, up a broad zigzag path, and as I sat at dinner I could see neither top nor bottom owing to the overhanging ma.s.ses of rock: this is after having negotiated an ascent quite as steep, but smaller. To Ta-kwan-hsien a few natural obstacles occur, although the road is always high up on the hill-sides. I crossed a miserable suspension bridge of two spans. The southern span is about thirty feet, the northern span eighty feet; the center is supported by a b.u.t.tress of splendid blocks of squared stone, resting on the rock in the bed of the river, one side being considerably worn away by the action of the water. The longer span was hung very slack, the woodwork forming the pathway was not too safe, and the general shaky appearance was particularly uninviting.

From Ta-kwan-hsien to Wuchai is steady pulling. Once in an opening in the hill we pa.s.sed along and then ascended an exceedingly steep spur on one side of a narrow and very deep natural amphitheatre, formed by surrounding mountains. We then came to a lagoon, and eventually the brow of the hill was reached. Thus the Wuchai Valley is arrived at, where, owing to a collection of water, the road is often impa.s.sable to man and beast. Often during the rainy season there is a lagoon of mud or water formed by the drainage from the mountains, which finds no escape but by percolating through the earth and rock to a valley on the east of, and below, the mountains forming the eastern boundary of the Wuchai Valley.

To Chao-t'ong is fairly level going.

Considering the road, it was not unnatural that my men gibbed a little at the eleven-day accomplishment. I had a long parley with them, however, and agreed to reward them to the extent of one thousand cash among the three if they did it. Their pay for the journey, over admittedly some of the worst roads in the Empire, was to be four hundred cash per man as before, with three hundred and thirty-three cash extra if the rain did not prevent them from getting in in eleven days. They were in good spirits, and so was I, as we walked along the river-bank, where the poppy was to be seen in full flower, and the unending beds of rape alternated with peas and beans and tobacco. T'ong would persist in stealing the peas and beans to feed me on, and for the life of me I could not get him to see that he should not do this sort of thing. But how continually one was impressed with the great need of roads in Western China! It is natural that, walking the whole distance, I should notice this more than other travelers have done, and, to my mind, roads in this part of the country rank in importance before the railways.

To the foreign mind it is more to the interests of China that railways should be well and serviceably built than that the money should be squandered to no purpose. If the railway has rails, then in China it can be called a railway, and China is satisfied. So with the roads. If there is any pa.s.sage at all, then the Chinese call it a road, and China is satisfied.

As one meanders through the country, watching a people who are equalled nowhere in the world for their industry, plodding away over the worst roads any civilized country possesses, he cannot but think, even looking at the question from the Chinese standpoint so far as he is able, that, were free scope once given for the infusion of Western energy and methods into an active, trade-loving people like the Chinese, China would rival the United States in wealth and natural resources. The Chinese knows that his country, the natural resources of the country and the people, will allow him to do things on a scale which will by and by completely overbalance the doings of countries less favored by Nature than his own. He knows that when properly developed his country will be one of the richest in the world, yet even when he is filled with such ideas he is just as cunctative as he has ever been. He has the idea that he should not commence to exhaust the wealth of his country before it is absolutely necessary.

Above all, he has now made up his mind that he himself, unaided by the foreigner, is going to develop it just as he likes and just when he likes.

The day of the foreign concession is gone. The Chinese now is paddling his own canoe, and it is only by cultivating his friends.h.i.+p, by proving to him by acts, and not by words, that the intrusion of privileged enterprises--such as great mining concessions and railway concessions, in which the foreigner demands that he be the only princ.i.p.al--is no longer contemplated, that the day will be won. But it is equally true that only by combining European and Chinese interests on the modern company system, the real Opening of China can be effected.

Distances are as variable as the wind in the Middle Kingdom.

The first forty li on this journey were much shorter than the last thirty, which took about twice as long to cover. I dragged along over the narrow path through the wheat fields, and, making for an old man, who looked as if he should know, I asked him the distance to my destination. His reply of twenty li I accepted as accurate, and I reckoned that I could cover this easily in a couple of hours. But at the end of this time we had, according to a casual wayfarer, five more li, and when we had covered at least four another rustic said it was "two and a bit." This answer we got from four different people on the way, and I was glad when I had completed the journey. One does not mind the two li so much--it is the "bit" which upsets one's calculations.

The following day, on the road to Huan-chiang, I lost myself--that is, I lost my men, and did not know the road. I got away into some quaint, secluded garden and sat down, tired and hot, under a tree in the shade, where a faint wind swung the heavy foliage with a solemn sound, and the subdued and soothing music of a brook running between two banks of moss and turf must have sent me to sleep. It was with a dreary sense of ominous foreboding that I woke, as if in expectation of some disaster.

Not a living creature was visible, and I doubted the possibility of finding anyone in such a spot. Never, surely, was there a silence anywhere as here! Seized with a solemn fear, my presence there seemed to me a strange intrusion. I looked around, moved forward a little, hastened my steps to get away, but whence or how I knew not. I knew this was a country of erratic distances--it was now getting on for sunset--and the continuous toiling up and down the sides of the difficult mountains had tired me. All of a sudden I heard a noise, heard someone fall, looked round and beheld T'ong, perspiration pouring down his back and front.

"Oh, master, this b'long velly much bobbery. I makee velly frightened. I think p'laps master wantchee makee run away." And then, after a time: "You no wantchee catch 'chow'?"

"Chow?"

No, I could easily have gone without food for that night. I was lost, and now was found. I had no money, could not speak the language, was fatigued beyond words. What would have become of me?

Miniature turret-like hills hemmed us in as in a huge park, with a narrow winding pathway, steep as the side of a house, leading to the top of the mountain beyond, and then descending quite as rapidly to Fan-h-ts'uen. The coolies told me the next day the road would be worse, and so it turned out to be.

At 5:00 a.m. a thick drizzly rain was falling, just sufficient to make the flagstones slippery as ice, and the European contrivances which covered my feet stood no chance at all compared with the straw sandals of the native. I could not get any big enough around here to put over my boots. My carriers had gone ahead, and as I was pa.s.sing a paddy field one leg went from under me, and I was up to my middle in thin wet mud.

In this I had to trudge seven miles before I could get other garments from the coolie, changing my trousers behind a piece of matting held up in front of me by my boy! All enjoyed the fun--except myself. Little boys tried to peer around the side of the matting, and, as T'ong tried to kick them away, the matting would drop and expose me to public view.

But I had to change, and that was most important to me.