.:.._c> EUZASH mDOIZQEZ < morn va~m<2 m<2<4 Z-mm< m.MOIBD< mm -—~J .m- "w a» 26 The Yangtze Valley education before it could enjoy the strong flavours of some of the vegetable oils, such as castor oil, sesamum, and ground nut. Lard and pork fat are used also. Very little land in the Yangtze Valley is used for the rearing of animals for food. Pork is the principal meat used, and I suppose that every family possesses a pig. Beef is rarely obtainable, except where there are Mohammedans. I never saw mutton west of Ichang, or, indeed, sheep till I reached the mountains. Pork, fowls, geese, and ducks really represent animal food over much of SZE CHUAN. If young cats and dogs are bred for the table they are fed on rice. Locusts, grass- hoppers, silkworms and grubs are eaten, being fried till they are crisp. In some cities human milk is sold for the diet of aged persons, great faith being placed in its nutritive qualities. Undoubtedly much of the grain, especially millet, which is grown between Sin-tien-tze and Mien-chuh is used for the distillation of spirits. There are no vines in SZE CHUAN, so what we call wine is unknown. There are water-white spirits distilled from both millet and barley, and a sort of beer like the Japanese sake made from rice, from which spirits can be distilled. I never saw a drunken man in fifteen months of Chinese travelling, or Sin-Tien—Tze to Tze—Tung Hsien 27 heard mirth of which strong drink was the inspira- tion. Men take spirits in very small quantities, and almost invariably with their food. They never drink anything cold, which safeguards them from the worst results of the abominably contaminated water. They drink plain hot water, the water in which rice has been boiled, tea, and decoctions of various leaves. I have dwelt so long upon food, because for two hours of every day I had nothing to do but study it, and inferior cooking as well, for several months, and saw infinite varieties of food in the different parts of the province at different seasons during my long journey. On the whole, except in times of scarcity, the Chinese is a fairly well-fed person. The journey of March 23d was along the top of a ridge over rocky ground, and along limestone terraces incapable of cultivation. There were no ‘ villages, and few houses, but we passed through two market-places of large size. The country as seen from the ridge, is all low, undulating ranges, sprouting up now and then into conical protuber- ances, till suddenly, from an altitude of 2 300 feet, there is a view of a narrow valley and an extra- ordinary bend of the Chia-ling. Then comes an abrupt and difficult descent of 800 feet, on ledges of rock and steep flights of broken stairs, and at 28 The Yangtze Valley its foot the small town of Mao-erh-tiao, with a very fine temple lately restored. Boats of twenty tons, salt laden, were lying in the clear, blue-green water along the bank. It was a delightful day’s journey, the sky very blue, the air dry and as keen as a knife, and I reached a fairly good inn where the curiosity was not overpowering. The coolies were, if possible, cheerier and better than those from whom I had reluctantly parted, and as they were not opium-smokers they were able to feed them- selves well, and thought nothing of travelling thirty miles a day at a good pace. Other halcyon days followed, of keen air, light without heat, and country which, if not actually pretty, led one continually to believe that it was about to become so. The plumed bamboo and orange and pommeloe groves had vanished, and on the high altitudes which the road pursues, which are very barren and rocky, there was almost no cultivation, and on one day’s journey of twenty- three miles we only met four people, and passed eight houses and a small market-place. Whenever the elevation was lower, as at times where the road runs along the edges of limestone cliffs, there are deep valleys well wooded and culti- vated, but the upland soil is very poor and bears scanty crops. W'hat is called a road is only a Sin—Tien-Tze to Tze-Tung Hsien 29 narrow footpath, winding along the edges of wheat- fields, through rocky clefts or ferny defiles,so narrow that the chair continually bumped both sides, or under cedars or other big trees, over the tops of which trailing red and white roses have grown, sending down streamers, then in the pink flush of their spring leafage, over the road. This beautiful climber, which grows with prodigious rapidity, also flourishes in Korea. There were pretty little bits, sweet, restful, rural scenes, great breezy sweeps, and freedom; no call- ing of “foreign devil ” and “foreign dog.” The ’peOple were quite disposed to be friendly. On ar- riving one afternoon at a specially lofty hamlet, having learnt much caution as to the use of my camera, I asked if I might “make a picture ” of a mill worked by a blindfolded buffalo-cow, as we had not any such mills in my country, and they were quite willing, and stopped the cow at the ex- act place I indicated. They were friendly enough to take me to another mill, at which two women grind, turning the upper stone by means of poles working in holes. The Chinese use a great deal of wheat flour; it can be purchased at all markets and large villages, and I never used any other. It is not a good colour, and owing to some defect in the millstones one is apt to be surprised by grits. 30 The Yangtze Valley After seeing the mills I showed the people a num- ber of my photographs taken an 7/0252‘6, to show them that I was not doing anything evil or hurtful, but they said, though quite good-naturedly, that it was “foreign magic.” AN OX MILL At the same hamlet I got a room in a new inn which, though on the road-level on one side, was two storeys above a winding stream and some un- dulating agricultural country on the other. On that side it actually had a window and a View. The boards were new, and though the chinks were wide and the air which entered was keen, I congratulated Sin-Tien—Tze to Tze—Tung Hsien 3r myself heartily on such unusually pleasant surround- ings. This was premature. When the bustle of unpacking was over, noises all too familiar made ,, ; 7:» A HAND MILL me look through the chinks of the floor, and I saw that I was over a pig-sty the size of my room, in- habited by nine large, black sows. It was the only night of my journey on which I had no sleep, and my servant, who had the next 32 The Yangtze Valley room to mine, said that he did not sleep after eleven, for the groaning, grunting, routing, and quarrelling were incessant. I had shared a room with pigs twice on the journey, but they were quiet by comparison. Looking through my floor at day- light, I saw that eighteen young pigs had been added to the family. This sleepless night was a bad preparation for an early start, and a long and very cold day’s journey. The road leaves Tien-kia-miao, a remarkably clean and attractive village, by a level bridge on twelve stone piers, and soon rises again to barren altitudes, looking down on well-cultivated valleys wooded with cedars. Along every rocky path men were crowding with their wares to a neighbouring market, bamboo hats and baskets, sugarcane, fowls, and straw shoes being the principal wares. It was some time since I had seen any foreign cottons exposed for sale in these markets. The soil of the region I had traversed for a fort- night, except in the basin of Paoning, is poor and unfitted for rice, and the people are chiefly hard- working peasant farmers and coolies. Without having any mission from associated or dissociated Chambers of Commerce, my interest in the subject led me to make continual inquiries into the local trade and the requirements of the people, and Sin-Tien-Tze to Tze-Tung Hsien 33 something as to the latter was to be learned in conversation with the women. Apart from the general question of weight and make, the general verdict was that the widths of our cottons are wrong, and that widths above fifteen inches cut to waste in making Chinese clothing. Another complaint was that our goods, put up as they are in wrappers intended to impose on “ semi- civilised ”people, constantly make a display of colours which in China are “unlucky.” Another was that the printed cottons, besides offending in this respect, are coarse in pattern, colouring, and style, more fitted for outside barbarians than. for the refined tastes of a civilised people! If these, which may appear minor matters, were attended to, there is probably an opening for both our white and printed cottons among the middle and upper classes of Wesz‘ern Ckz'mz. But I am not a convert to the roseate views which many people take of the enor- mous potentialities for our trade in 5213 CHUAN if the means of communication are improved by steam on the Yangtze and other methods. It is not that our cottons are too dear, but that the great ma'orit of the people don’t want th’em_at*any gig; That is, that the strong, heavy, native cottons woven by hand, wear four times as long, and even when they are reduced to rags serve, VOL. II.-3. 34 The Yangtze Valley several useful purposes. A coolie will not buy a material which will only last a year, when, for the same price or less, he can get one which will last three, or even four years. Coolies dispense with all clothing but cotton drawers in summer, and these must be strong to resist hard wear; and they say that our cottons are too cold for winter. This is obvious, for a yard of Chinese homespun cotton cloth, fifteen inches wide, weighs over twice as much as a yard of British calico over thirty inches wide, and resists the wear and tear of hard manual labour and the ofttimes profuse perspiration of the labourer. More than two millions sterling worth of raw cotton and Sha-shih heavy homespun cottons are supposed to be imported into SZE CHUAN annually, just because the wear requires, and must continue to require, the heavy make. Later, in Sin-tu Hsien, a prosperous town of 15,000 inhabitants, twelve miles north of Cheng—tu, I saw some Japanese cotton goods, fifteen inches wide, made on looms, which the alert cotton-spinners of Osaka had adaptedfor the Korean market, and which were of an equally heavy make with the Sha-shih goods, and scarcely to be distinguished from homespun cloth. The shopkeeper highly approved of these goods, and said that if he could get them there would be a Ddéfifi MIR. mm .. {(12223 5...”- .2 2.4 $51! 36 The Yangtze Valley large demand for them. Possibly British “work- house sheeting ” of the same width might meet with similar approbation. At the hamlet of Lu-fang, where I was stopped by an official with a card from the district man- darin, who kept me waiting an hour while he copied my passport on a stone and provided fresh runners, the by-road by which I had journeyed for some days joined the Ta-lu, the great Imperial road from Pekin to Cheng-tu. I travelled along this westwards to Mien-chow. A thousand years ago it must have been a noble work. It is nomin- ally sixteen feet wide, the actual flagged roadway measuring eight feet. The bridges are built solidly of stone. The ascents and descents are made by stone stairs. More than a millennium ago an emperor planted cedars at measured dis- tances on both sides, the beautiful red-stemmed, weeping cedar of the province. Many of these have attained great size, several which I measured being from fourteen to sixteen feet in circumfer- ence five feet from the ground, and they actually darken the road. The first ascent from Lu-fang under their solemn shade is truly grand, nearly equalling the crypto- meria avenues which lead up to the shrines of Nik-ko, japan. Each tree bears the Imperial seal, Sin-Tien-Tze to Tze-Tung Hsien 37 and the district magistrates count them annually. Many have fallen, many have hollow trunks, and there are great breaks without any at all. Still, where they do exist, the effect is magnificent. This road, like much else in China, is badly out of repair, many of its great fiagstones having disap- peared altogether. There was a great deal of traffic on it, and not a few saddle horses and mules were tripping easily up and down its stone stair- cases. It was quite cheerful to be once more on a travelled highway abounding in large villages and towns, with good inns and much prosperity. These were days of delightful travelling without any drawbacks. The weather was beautiful, the air sharp, and the people 'pwell-be‘hav‘ed. There was no fatigue or annoyance, the accommodation was fair, and there was literally nothing to com- plain of; the travelling was fit for a Sybarite. The soil is rich, and enormous quantities of opium were grown; indeed, in some long valleys there was no other crop. Wu-lien, where I slept one night, is the cleanest and prettiest little Chinese town that I saw—prettily situated, with a widish main street, good inns, fair shops, and singular cleanliness, and the people were very mannerly. It has a level stone bridge, supported on twelve stone piers decorated with finely carved dragons’ heads. 38 . The Yangtze Valley. On the road from Wu-lien to the large town of Tze-tung Hsien there is some very pretty country, rich in agricultural wealth, and growing much opium, which unfortunately in good years pays better than any other crop, and is easy of transit. Wheat, which was only two or three inches above the ground on the high ridges, was bursting into ear in the valleys, and peas and beans were in their fragrant beauty. There was much pink and white mistiness of peach and plum, and yellow fluffiness of mimosa, and the people were astir and alert, performing spring pilgrimages to popular shrines, men and women in separate companies. There are two very fine and ancient temples of brown cedar to the gods of Literature and War in a cedar wood on the road, with most picturesque hilly surroundings, a lovely spot, and the tides of pilgrimage set strongly towards them. The God of War there as elsewhere is very attractive to wo- men, as may be seen any day in his great temple in the native city of Shanghai. Perpetual incense burns on these altars, and the priests claim the round-numbered antiquity of two thousand years for the temples. There were very many companies of from ten to thirty well-dressed women on the road, some of whOm had hobbled on their crippled-looking feet Sin—Tien-Tze to Tze-Tung Hsien 39 for fifteen miles, and were going back the same day; and many large bands of men, each led by a man with a gong, carrying a small table with in- cense sticks burning on it, the procession followed by another coolie.loaded with red candles, large and small, with thick paper wicks, incense sticks, and red perforated paper for the God of War. His temple was crowded, and dense clouds of in- cense rolled from the open front into the atmos- phere of heavenly blue. The God of Literature is chiefly worshipped by the [Zia/am, and there were only a few sedan chairs with their occupants and attendants at his splendid shrine. The Ta-lu failed to keep up its reputation. Its great flags were tilted up or down, in mud-holes, or had disappeared; its noble avenue was spasm- odic and often non-existent, for miles, leading to the prophecy that it would disappear altogether, as it did. But the vanished grandeur was made up for by the extraordinary traffic—baggage coolies, chair-bearers, sedan chairs, passengers on foot and on horseback, varied at times by marriage and fu- neral processions, or batches of criminals tied to- gether by their queues, being led to justice. Of the numbers of weight-carrying coolies, divested of the upper garment, on the road, there were very few free from hard tumours or callosities on both 4o _ The Yangtze Valley shoulders, and many of them have deep, cracked wounds in their heels. A man carries a load five miles before he earns a bowl of rice. At intervals there were small huts, each sporting a military flag, and with halberds or lances with silk pennons leaning up against them. Sometimes these were in a village, but occasionally the flag, which is very showy, having a pennon end, and seen afar off, was only supported by a heap of stones on the roadside. There were no soldiers in uniform, but possibly the two or three peasants lying by every flag were men in mufti. Sometimes boys were carrying firearms of an ancient type, bows and arrows, or heavy swords. The people said that the flags were to frighten the rebels, and that the men were watching for them, but the region seemed in a state of profound peace. The peasants’ coffins on the road were those of the poorest class, and were carried at a run, merely wrapped up in blue cotton. A mandarin’s coffin on its way to Mien-chow was draped with blue kilted silk, tasselled at the four corners, and was carried by twenty men in red tasselled hats, slung on a heavy beam, with a boldly carved dragon, an emblem of official position, at both ends. The coffin was surmounted (as were those of the peas- ants) by a tethered live cock. A cheap coffin costs Sin-Tien-Tze to Tze-Tung Hsien 41 from five to ten dollars, and from that up to two thousand. There is much trade done on the Chia- ling in coffin wood and coffins. I saw many junks loaded with both. At one place in China, where there was no inn, I slept in a room with a coffin which had been un- ‘buried for five years, because the geomancers had not decided on a lucky site or date for the inter- ment, and for the whole time incense had been burned before it morning and evening. Of course, if there is a family burial-place the services of the geomancer are seldom required except for the date of burial. The coffin of the mandarin on the Ta—lu was not on its way to interment, therefore the usual proces- sion was dispensed with, but nearer Tze-tung Hsien we met a large funeral, for which we had to leave the road.1 On this occasion the corpse of a well- to-do merchant, unburied for a year, was being borne to the grave. In order to prevent any disagreeable conse- quences from interment being delayed for months or years, the coffin-boards are three or four inches thick, the body is covered with quicklime, or is laid on a bed of lime or cotton, and afterwards the 1 Funeral ceremonies and superstitions are given in detail in T lze Middle Kingdom, vol. ii., p. 244. 42 The Yangtze Valley edges of the lid are closed with cement, and if the body is to remain in a dwelling-house, the whole is made air-tight by being covered with N ing-po var- nish. A coffin is sometimes retained in a house by a defaulting tenant, to prevent an ejectment for rent, and it is occasionally attached by creditors, in order to compel the relations to raise money to re- lease it. So strong is the feeling in China regarding suitable burial, that a son, if he has no other means, will sell himself into slavery to provide the expenses, and burial clubs and charitable societies for provid- ing the destitute with seemly funerals are numerous. On this occasion, a band of music came first, then the monstrous coffin on a bier carried by at least forty men in red coats and scarves, covered by a canopy embroidered in gold thread, on which was tethered a living fowl. Behind came the an- cestral tablet in a sedan chair, the sacrifice, and some red tablets, on which were inscribed in gold the offices held by the deceased, followed by the male mourners dressed in white. The eldest son, apparently sinking with grief, though it was a year old, was supported by two men. Women and children followed, wailing at intervals. A man preceded the whole, strewing paper money on the ground to buy the good-will of such malignant or predatory spirits as might be loafing around. Sin-Tien-Tze to Tze—Tung Hsien 43 One man was loaded with crackers, another car- ried the libations which were to be poured out, and the rear of the procession, which was ten minutes in passing, was brought up by a great concourse of friends and neighbours, and a great number of bamboo and paper models, admirably executed and many of them life-size, of horses with handsome saddles and trappings, mules carrying burdens, sedan chairs, houses, rich clothing, beds, tables, chairs, and all that the spirit can be supposed to want in the shadowy world to which it has gone. These, with a quantity of tinsel money, are burned at the grave, the tablet and sacrifice are carried back, the former to be placed in the ancestral hall, the latter to be feasted on or given to the poor. The ceremonies of the interment, as my readers are aware, only initiate the long years of ceremonial with which the dead are honoured in China. CHAPTER XXVII TZE-TUNG HSIEN TO KUAN HSIEN N hour after leaving the great temples of Ta- A miao, with their throngs of pilgrims and the remarkable friendliness of the people, we came upon the walls, gates, and towers of Tze-tung Hsien, the approach to which is denoted by a graceful eleven-storeyed pagoda on a neighbouring hill. I had not been through a large walled city since the riot at Liang-shan, and I had to brace myself up for entering this one, which has a re- puted population of 27,000 people. The inhabit- ants were very orderly, however, and though the streets were greatly crowded, the people looked pleasant. The Liang-shan riot is known to all the mandarins, and obviously they have no wish for a ' repetition of it, and I adhere to my belief that they are in most, if not in all cases, able to prevent attacks on foreigners. Tze-tung Hsien is a clean and prosperous look- ing city, with wide streets lined by good shops, in 44 ~- --. ,-,,».._...,.~......¢;..~.. 8‘4 '(‘u ’5, 3310’} ”M, CHENGTU PLAIN WATER MILL, 45 46 The Yangtze Valley which the goods are more displayed than is usual. It is surrounded with well-cultivated country, and good country-houses, and trades in vegetable oils, cottons, and raw and spun silk, some of the strong, coarse “oak silk” being brought in for manufac- ture. Oil is made from the seeds of the Aleu- rz'tes cordata, rape seed, peanuts, and Opium seed. Opium oil bears the highest price. The town has a stirring aspect, and its walls and gateways are in good repair. Outside, the Fou River is crossed by a noble stone bridge of nine arches with fine stone balustrades, carrying a flagged roadway eighteen feet broad. The centre arch is thirty feet high.- It is the finest bridge that I had then seen in China. A grand temple outside the walls, and an elabor- ately carved, triple-storeyed pazlfcmg, complete the attractions of this thriving city. On the western route from Tze-tung Hsien the country becomes increasingly fertile, and the road more dilapidated. The cedars have disappeared, and the pavement is only four feet in width. The traffic in oil, cotton, and tobacco was great, and crowds of pilgrims, very respectable looking, with gongs, incense tables, and offerings, were trudging to the Ta—miao temples. They said that they were making offerings to the God of War for having driven the “barbarian rebels ” into the sea ! There Tze-Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 47 were funerals, too, and a train of twelve led horses, each carrying a red flag, with a mandarin’s name , and official titles on it. These were heavily laden with luggage, and in front there was the mandarin’s coffin, with a live cock upon it, carried by forty men. The prevalent impression left by this great road is that of toil and poverty. Rice had risen consider- ably in the previous three weeks, which meant to many millions that they would never get a full meal. The region I had entered is one of the most crowded parts of the Red Basin and of China, and I often asked myself, “Why are there so many Chinese?”- They seem to come into the world just to bury their fathers. That night again I slept in a room with a huge coffin, which had been waiting interment for some years, and incense was regularly burned before it. On March 28th I reached Mien-chow, a city of about 60,000 souls, the largest that I had yet seen in SZE CHUAN. The journey from Paoning~ Fu had been most propitious in all respects, and the fine weather had come at last. I entered the city by a bridge of boats over the Fou, a great tributary of the Chia—ling. Mien-chow has a curious geograph- ical situation. The Fou basin, in which it stands, though north of Chengtu and nearer the water 48 The Yangtze Valley parting, is on a lower level than the basin of the Min, from which it is divided by a low ridge. V So Mien-chow is actually 250 feet below Chengtu, its altitude being 1350 feet. It is a well-built and clean town, with a fine wall, and a river front Well protected by a handsome bund of cobbles and concrete, with eight slanting faces. The Fou is navigable, and when the water is high, boats can descend to Chungking in six or seven days. There is an enormous wheelbarrOw traffic from Mien-chow to the capital, principally of sugar and tobacco. The busy and crowded streets are lined with shops, in which every conceivable arti- cle in iron is displayed, from surgical instruments, to spades, ploughshares, and articles in wrought iron. There is fully half a mile of such shops. The great trade of Mien-chow, however, is in silk, and much cotton is woven in its neighbourhood. The shops display German and Japanese knick-knacks, foreign yarns, and printed cottons, besides Kansuh furs, brocades, silks, temple furniture, and drugs. The shops, with their varied, and in many cases costly, contents show that the neighbourhood has great purchasing power. The passage through the thronged streets took nearly an hour, but all was quiet. I was not allowed to go to an inn, but was most kindly MAE OZHAMMM 733203 VOL. u.—4. .~§.~ -\-. .M...“ ~.... .._.‘ ~~“‘- .., a“ 50 The Yangtze Valley received at the Church Mission House, a dark and not agreeably situated house in a crowded Chinese quarter, inhabited by the two ladies who, after four years of patience and difficulties, have effected a permanent lodgment in what is well known as a hostile city. They'spent the first two years at an inn, and so little were they thought of, that the mandarin, when urged to take some action against them, replied, “What does it matter P they are only women I ” During this time all their attempts to rent a house failed, because the officials threatened to beat and imprison anyone letting a house to a foreigner; but a fortnight before my visit a man ruined by opium smoking let them have for ten years the place into which they had just moved, close to the great temple of Confucius. Access to it is through an area inhabited by Chinese—a forlorn, dirty yard—and through an inner yard full of Chinese, who seemed to be always gambling or smoking opium, a third yard being the newly acquired property, from which some of the Chinese had not yet cleared out. The last two courts are rented by the Church Missionary Society, and have subsequently been improved and made habit- able, and “The Emily Clayton Memorial,” a dis- pensary with a surgical ward under Dr. Squibb, a Tze—Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 51 qualified English doctor, has been opened in the outer of the two compounds. It was interesting to see what missionaries in China have to undergo in the initial stage of re- sidence in a Chinese city. The house was utterly out of repair—dirty, broken—half the paper torn off the windows, and the eaves so deep and low that daylight could scarcely enter. There was an open guest-hall in the middle used constantly for classes and services; endless parties of Chinese passed in and out all day long, poking holes in the remaining windows, opening every door that was not locked, taking everything they could lay hands on; and the noise was only stilled from four to six A.M.— men shouting, babies screaming, dogs barking, squibs and crackers going off, temple bells, gongs, and drums beating—no rest, quite, or privacy. There were two services in the guest-hall on Sunday, conducted by Mr. Heywood Horsburgh, the superintendent of the Mission, and several classes for women also, but all ina distracting babel —'men playing cards outside the throng, men and women sitting for a few minutes, some laughing scornfully, others talking in loud tones, some light- ing their pipes, and a very few really interested. This is not the work which many who go out as missionaries on a wave of enthusiasm expect, but #m%,d\.~‘-w.u.fl...-...-...‘-._,~..,,~.‘___-., _‘ _~. ._ - .. .‘ ..., .. “v. , H.-.“ v,” _ , 52 The Yangtze Valley this is what these good people undergo day after day and month after month. The place where the two ladies spent two years con- sisted of a guest-room at an inn in one of the most crowded of the city streets, a living-room, through it, a kitchen, through that, and for a sleeping-room, a loft above the living-room, reached by a ladder, just under the unlined tiles. There was no light in any room except from a paper window, into the semi- dark passage. The floors were mud ; wood, water, charcoal, and all things had to be carried in and out through the living-room ; no privacy was possi- ble; the temperature hung at about 1000 for weeks in summer; there were the ceaseless visits of crowds of ill-bred Chinese women, staying for hours at a time; and without and in the inn, sel- dom pausing, there was the unimaginable din of a big Chinese city. Under these circumstances their love and patience had won twelve women to be Christians. Mr. and Mrs. Cormack, of the China Inland Mission, and a thirteen months’ old baby, arrived before I left, he very ill of malarial fever. They were swept out of Chengtu in the riots, losing all their possessions, and with this infant had been moving for seven months, having lastly been driven out of Kansuh by the Mohammedan rebellion. .EDEUIZHHCZ Haw HOQHMM mm 54 The Yangtze Valley During the whole seven months they had never been in one place more than twelve days. It is a grave question whether married men and married women ought to be placed in regions of precarious security. Mr. Heywood Horsburgh’s house at Kuan Hsien had just been attacked and bored into by a number of burglars, and between the terror caused by this, and the hostile cries in the streets, which they understood too well, his delicate, sens- itive young daughters, one of them twelve years old, had become so thoroughly nervous that the only possible cure was to take them home. I saw several ladies in Western China who, after escap- ing from mobs with their young children, were affected in the same way. Mr. and Mrs. Horsburgh and I left Mien-chow on March 3Ist, a grey, dull day, but clear. We left the Ta-lu and travelled by infamous roads, often only a few inches wide, frequently on the . top of rice dykes. Great mountains, snow-crested, ’ spurs of the Tibetan ranges, loomed through the clouds to the north-west, while we journeyed through the eastern portion of the great Chengtu plain, the rich, well-watered soil green with barley and opium, and beautiful with miles of rape, largely grown for oil, rolling in canary yellow waves be- fore a pleasant breeze. Large farmhouses had re- THE REV. J. HEYWOOD HORSBURGH, M.A., IN TRAVELLING DRESS 55 56 The Yangtze Valley appeared, farming hamlets, and big temples, all surrounded by fine trees. There are frequent water-mills of a very peculiar construction, said by experts to be the oldest form in the world, the wheel being placed horizontally just above the lower level of the water. Before we left the Ta-lu, the great highway to the capital, the wheelbarrow traffic was enormous. These “machines,” with a big wooden wheel placed so near the centre of gravity as to throw the weight of the load as little as possible on the driver’s shoulders, carry goods on platforms on either side and behind the wheel, which is solid. One man can propel five hundredweight. Heavy loads have one man to propel and another to drag them. They move in long files, their not alto- gether unmelodious creak being heard afar off, and the stone road is deeply grooved by their incessant passage. After two pleasant days’ journey we reached Mien-chuh Hsien, a town of 50,000 people, accord- ing to the statement of the magistrates secretary. It is not a handsome town, but it has a beautiful modern bridge over a branch of the Fou, of six :stone arches, a fine roof, iron balustrades, and a .central roofed tower. It is a busy and prosper- ous city, with many fine temples and grand moun- Tze-Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 57 tain views. The production of paper, especially coloured paper, is its specialty, but it also manu- factures largely wood and horn combs, indigo, and fine Wheaten flour. Much salt is made in the neighbourhood, and in the hills thirty [2' off there are coal mines, producing coal which burns with a clear white flame, and little ash. There, as else- where, the missionaries have introduced English articles of utility, which have “caught on ” among the Chinese. A cordial welcome awaited us at the Church Missionary Society’s house. The initial stage, as I saw it at Mien-chow, was passed, and we were received into as trim a little home as one could see anywhere, or wish to see. Turning from the street, where the people did not molest even by curiosity, down a narrow alley and through a door, down a passage on one side of which is the guest- hall, we entered a' small and very bright compound, cheery with pots of primulas and Chrysanthemums, with five small cottage rooms round it, with paper windows, but light, cheerful, and homelike, with simple daintinesses, and a bright coal fire in a quaint corner fire-place. The place is just a few Chinese cottages, formerly used as a gambling den. Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, who have transmogrified it chiefly by their own handiwork, had only lately 58 The Yangtze Valley been able to rent it owing to the opposition of the mandarins, who can bring many threats and much pressure to bear on persons who would otherwise be willing to lease property to foreigners. The anti-Christian element everywhere seems a feeble one in the opposition. It is to foreigners, simply as such, that the objection is made, as “child-eaters” pre-eminently; and in Mien-chuh the people said that the missionaries wanted the houses for hellish purposes, and that they would dig under them and make a way to England, and that foreign soldiers would come by it and take their lands, and that they wanted lock-up rooms in which to hide the golden cocks which they dug out of the mountains by night ! I left Mien-chuh with Mrs. Horsburgh on a somewhat unlucky journey, still travelling over the Chengtu Plain in a westerly direction. The time of year for theatricals, which are a great passion with the Chinese, had begun. There is a large temple outside Mien-chuh, with the usual adjunct of a stage, richly decorated, with a massive canopy roof, for the “religious drama.” But on this day, being the festival of the god to whom the temple is dedicated, this was supplemented by temporary theatres and booths covering fully half an acre of the temple grounds, and the great court was Tze—Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 59 crammed with a closely wedged mass of Chinese, and the adjacent grounds and the road were such a crush of people that our chairs could hardly get through. There must have been from twelve to fifteen thousand present. These plays are got up by the priests, who send the neophytes round with a subscription paper, after- wards pasting the names of the donors, inscribed on red sheets, on the walls of the temple. The priests let the purlieus for the occasion for the sale of refreshments, and also for gambling tables and other evil purposes, and usually make a profit out of what is professedly a religious celebration. When the subscription list has been filled up, the priests engage the best talent that their funds will allow of. Theatrical companies in‘China retain their ori- ginal strolling character, and there are few perma- nent theatres, the erection of the great sheds, in which several thousand can be accommodated, being a separate branch of the carpenter’s trade. A play usually lasts for three days, and the periods for sleeping and eating are wonderfully minimised. Business is suspended in the neighbourhood, and the peOple act as if the drama were the only thing worth living for. It is not etiquette for women of the upper classes to frequent the theatre, and pri- vate theatrical performances are given in rich men’s 60 The Yangtze Valley houses, but women of the lower classes, generally carrying babies, attend in large numbers, and usu- ally sit in the galleries. Lads perform the female parts, withgrotesque success, transforming their feet into excellent representations of “golden lilies,” and hobbling and tottering to perfection. I have only been present at two Chinese plays. They interest me greatly, and it is on the stage alone that the gorgeous costumes of brocaded and embroidered silk of former dynasties are to be seen. The scenery is simple and imperfect. The orchestra fills up all pauses vigorously, and strikes a crashing noise at intervals during the play to add energy or fury to the performance. Ghosts or demons appear from a trap-door in the stage. The scenes are not divided by a curtain, and the play proceeds on its lengthened course with only intervals for sleep and eating. The imperfect scenery makes it necessary for the actor to state what part he is performing, and what the person he represents has been doing while off the stage. There are comic actors who have only to appear on the boards to convulse an . audience with laughter, and tragic actors who are equally successful in making men (or women) weep. There is no applause in a Chinese theatre. Ad- miration is expressed by a loud and prolonged sigh, as if indicating that the tension had been too great, Tze-Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 61 or by an utterance between a sigh and a groan. A crowd absorbed with theatricals is usually peace- able, and the police are always at hand, but in country places a play is apt to assemble the roughs of the neighbourhood, as I learned the next day to my cost. Chinese theatricals are very clever, for without anything which can be called scenery, and without a curtain, and with my own complete ignorance of the language, the actors, by their admirable acting, presented to my mind very distinct stories, in the one case of political intrigue, and in the other of military patriotism and self-sacrifice. The morals of the Chinese stage, so far as the sentiments of the plays are concerned, are said by severe critics to be good; the acting was quite unobjectionable when I was present, but I have understood that it is not invariably so. The earnestness of attention and the delight on a sea of yellow faces at one of these theatrical representations are most interest- ing. As we journeyed westwards, the plain became more and more luxuriant, and the aspect of wealth and comfort more pronounced. The great farm- houses are enclosed by high walls, and are shaded by cedars or cypresses, bamboo groves and fruit trees, the latter in early April in all the beauty of 62 The Yangtze Valley blossom. Groves of superb timber failed to con- ceal the gold and colour of grand temples. There were water-mills, canalised streams with many branches—from which everywhere peasants, with fans and umbrellas, were pumping water by the contrivance shown in the illustration on next page, —and rivers with broad winter beds, two of them spanned by very fine roofed bridges, rafters and supports lacquered red, and decorated with tablets in black and red lacquer, bearing the names incised in gold of the public-spirited men who had restored them. In the afternoon an incident occurred which goes to show that the Chinese need a gospel of civilisa- tion as well as of salvation. The road had left the rich and populous part of the plain, and had reached a broad and completely dry river-bed, full of round water-worn stones, crossed by a long cov- ered bridge leading into the small town of Lo-kia- chan, at which, at the top of the sloping shingle bed of the river, a theatrical performance was pro- ceeding before a crowd of some six thousand peo- ple. Mrs. Horsburgh proposed that we should not cross the bridge into the town, but should continue along the river bank opposite to it and cross the bed lower down. My idea usually is, and was then, to take “the bull by the horns,” but I deferred to Tze-Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 63 her long experience, and she went on at some dis- tance in front in a closed chair and in scrupulously accurate Chinese dress, I following in my open chair and in my 011a pow/225a costume—Chinese dress, European shoes, and a Japanese hat. TREADMILL FIELD-PUMP The crowd caught sight of my open chair, which, being a novelty, was an abomination, and fully two thousand men rushed down one shingle bank and up the other, brandishing sticks and porters’ poles, yelling, hooting, crying “ Foreign devil," and “ Child-eater,”.telling the bearers to put the chair down. In the distance I saw my runners proving their right to their name. When I afterwards 64 The Yangtze Valley remonstrated with them, they replied, “What could two men do against two thousand P ” but a resource of power lay in the magistrate’s letter. Then there were stones thrown, ammunition being handy. Some hit the chair and bearers, and one knocked off my hat. The yells of “Foreign devil,” and “Foreign dog,” were tremendous. Volleys of stones hailed on the chair, and a big one hit me a severe blow at the back of my ear, knocking me forwards and stunning me. Be-dien said that I was insensible for “ some time,” during which a “reason talker” harangued the crowd, saying it had done enough, and if it killed me, though I was only a woman, foreign soldiers would come and burn their houses and destroy their crops, and worse. This sapient rea- soning had its effect. When I recovered my senses, the chair was set down in the midst of the crowd, which was still hooting and shouting, but no further violence was offered, and as the bearers car- ried me on, the crowd gradually thinned. I had a violent pain in my head, and the symptoms of con- cussion of the brain, and felt a mortifying inclina- tion to cry. The cowards, as usual, attacked from behind. After three very painful hours, in whichI should have been glad to lie down by the roadside, we Tze—Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 65 reached the great, walled, district city of Peng HSien, with wide, clean streets, fine shops, temples, and guildhalls, a flagged roadway curved in the centre, and stone sidewalks, and what is regarded as a great curiosity, a lofty pagoda riven in twain, each half standing up perfect. The city, the popu- lation of which is officially stated at 28,000, manu- factures brass and iron goods, iron being mined in the neighbourhood, and coal not far off. Here, again, there was a display of rowdyism. “The city ran together,” and for half a mile I was the subject of insult, though not of actual violence. The street was nearly impassable from the crowds , beating on my chair with sticks, hooting, yelling “Foreign devil,” “Foreign dog,” “Child-eater,” and worse, yelling into my ear, kicking the chair, and spitting. We were carried into a fine inn, which ran very far- back, its courtyards ending in a guest-hall, with oranges and lilies in pots in the middle, and a mandarin’s room of much pretension beyond. A masculine crowd filling the courts surged in after us, keeping up a frightful clamour. The inn- keeper put me into the mandarin’s room, and begged me not to show myself; and Be-dien went to the gamma to make a complaint regarding the outrage at Lo-kia—chan. As soon as he left, the VOL: 11 —5. 66 The Yangtze Valley crowd began to hoot and yell and thump the door. I got up and barricaded it with the heaviest furni- ture I could drag. Then they got a spade, or wedge, and began to force it open. I deplored my helpless condition—faint, giddy, and with a cracking headache, and an unmannerly crowd of men ready to burst in. The bolt and barricade were on the verge of yielding, when the mandarin’s secretary and another official arrived, and at once produced order. They interviewed Mrs. Horsburgh, who was really able to tell very little, and then I was un- earthed, and gave my evidence with a bandaged head and a sense of unutterable confusion in my brain. The mandarin sent an apology for the rudeness in Peng Hsien, but partly excused the people, as they, he said, had never seen an open chair or a foreign hat before. The secretary said that they had sent to arrest the ringleaders of the disturbance at Lo-kia-chan, which I did not believe, but was glad of his courtesy. It was difficult for him to understand that I could be so severely hurt when there was no effusion of blood. Soldiers were posted in the courtyard for the night, and in the morning, besides runners, there were four :soldiers at my door, who marched two before and 'two behind my chair for the day’s journey to Kuan 28mm 245m @253 735003 , flVJuWwflfiiz , :6, .‘v .L:- 3.: 68 The Yangtze Valley Hsien. I had a very bad night, and felt very ill the next day, with everything wavering before my eyes. I suffered much for a long time from this blow and the brain disturbance which followed, but I will dismiss the unpleasant subject from these pages by saying that I did not get over the effects for a year, and that it was my last experience of violence in China. Perfect quiet prevailed in the crowded street of Peng Hsien. The Chengtu Plain grew richer and richer, the plumed bamboo and the cedars and szpi’essm fmzcéi/z's round the great farmhouses grander, and towards afternoon snow-peaks, atmos- pherically uplifted to a colossal height, appeared above the clouds in the north, with craggy and wooded spurs below them, descending abruptly to the magnificent plain. Everywhere living waters in their musical rush echoed the name of the great j man who before the Christian era turned the vast plain into a paradise. There was a covered bridge over awide rushing river; a dirty, narrow suburban street, a narrow alley, and then a cheerful compound, in which a brown-spotted Dma’méz’zmz was bloom- ing profusely, shared by three Scotch missionaries of the China Inland Mission, and six of the Church Missionary Society, women predominating. At the back of the house the clear, sparkling ~‘.~_-MHQ—“~-m.n‘ Tze-Tung Hsien to Kuan Hsien 69 Min, just released from its long imprisonment in the mountains, sweeps past with a windy rush, and the mountain Views are magnificent, specially where the early sun tinges the snow-peaks with pink. Why should I not go on, I asked myself, and see Tibetans, yaks, and aboriginal tribes, rope bridges, and colossal mountains, and break away from the narrow highways and the crowds, and curiosity, and oppressive grooviness of China proper? CHAPTER XXVIII KUAN HSIEN AND CHENG'I‘U UAN HSIEN (2347 feet, Gill) is one of the best-placed cities in China, at the north-west corner of the Chengtu Plain, immediately below the mountains which wall it in on the north, and, in- deed, scrambling over their spurs just at the fine gorge of the Couching Dragon, from whence the liberated Min bursts in strength to gladden the whole plain. The Mien-chuh road has not a fine entrance into the city—the Chengtu road, which I travelled three times, approaches Kuan under six fine pai-fimgs‘, elaborately, and indeed, beautifully, decorated with carvings in high relief in a soft grey sandstone. Apart from its situation, it is an unattractive town, with narrow, dirty streets, small, lifeless-look- ing shops, and a tendency to produce on all occa- sions a dirty crowd, which hangs on to a foreigner, and which on my arrival greeted me with—“ Here ’3 another child-eater.” It has an outpoSt air, as if 70 Kuan Hsien and Chengtu 71 there were little beyond, and this is partly true. It has a possible population of 22,000. It is not a rich city, and its suburbs do not abound in rich men’s houses. But it is distinguished, first for be- ing the starting-point of the oldest and, perhaps, the most important engineering works in China; and secondly, as being a great emporium of the trade with Northern Tibet, which is at its height during the winter, when as many as five hundred Tibetans, with their yaks, are encamped outside its walls. The Tibetans exchange wool, furs, hides, musk, hartshOrn, rhubarb, and many other drugs for tea, brass ware, and small quantities of silk and cotton. Tibetan drugs are famous all over China. The Tibetans, as I learned from personal observa- tion in Western Tibet, are enormous tea drinkers. The tea churn is always in requisition, and Tibet takes annually from China 22,ooo,ooo pounds. The wool, which helps largely to pay for the tea, and which is so abominably dirty that fifteen per cent. of it has to be washed away, comes from pas- turages from 9000 to 12,000 feet in altitude. Musk is a most lucrative import. The small deer (66772255 mow/ms), of which it is a secretion, is said to roam in large herds over the plains sur- rounding the Koko Nor. A single deer only pro- duces a third of an ounce, and it sells for eighteen 72 The Yangtze Valley times its weight in silver at Chungaking, and is largely smuggled. Chengtu reeks with its intensely pungent odour. Rhubarb, the best quality of which grows not lower than nine thousand feet, is also a very valuable import, and other drugs are estimated at £95,000 annually, and are quintupled in value before they reach the central and eastern provinces. Aconite, a root largely used for poisoning in West- ern Tibet, is imported into China as a medicine, singular to say, criminal poisoning being very little known. Deer horns in the velvet, for medicinal uses, are also largely imported. Much of the trade is done at Matang, in the mountains, a savage hamlet which I afterwards visited, in the month of August; and very much more comes down from Sung-pan-ting, about 570 [2' to the north of Kuan, where it is chiefly in the hands of Mohammedan merchants, who act as go- betweens. Wool brought from Sung-pan to Chung- king has to pass six [2km barriers; so I understood from Mr. Grainger, of the China Inland Mission at Kuan Hsien, to whom I am much indebted for care- fully gathered information on this and other local points of interest. The glory of Kuan is the temple in honour of Li Ping, a prefect in the aboriginal kingdom of Shu, the ancient SZE CHUAN, the great engineer, and Kuan Hsien and Chengtu 73 his son, whose work has redeemed the noble plain of'Chengtu from drought and Hood for two thou- sand years. ]ust above Kuan Hsien there is a ro- mantic gorge with lofty grey cliffs, down which one branch of the Min, a cold, crystal stream, rushes wildly; but still, rafts and boats, carrying lime and coal from above, make the passage, often to their own destruction. On the right bank, high on the cliff, is a picturesque temple in a romantic situation, with a beautiful roof of glazed, green tiles, erected I in honour of Li Ping or his son, whose name has been so completely lost out of history that he is known only as “The Second Gentleman.” Above this perilous gorge the Min is about two hundred yards wide, with more or less mountainous banks heavily wooded, and at the point where the Tibetan road crosses it, on a very fine bamboo sus- pension bridge about two hundred paces long, the grandest temple in China stands, on a wooded height finely terraced, and adorned with stately lines of cryptomeria and other exotic trees, one teak-tree in a courtyard being eighteen feet in cir- cumference. These noble shrines, with their fine courtyards and the exquisitely beautiful pavilions and minarets which climb the cliff behind the tem- ple, and are lost among the cryptomerias of the summit, are the most beautiful group of buildings 74 The Yangtze Valley that I saw in the Far East, combining the grace and decorative witchery of the shrines of the Japanese Shoguns at Nikko, with a grandeur and stateliness of their own. This noble temple is scrupulously clean and in perfect repair. Magnificent objects of art, as well as tanks surrounded with exotic ferns, decorate its courtyards; living waters descend from the hill through the mouths of serpents carved in stone; noble flights of stone steps lead to the grand en- trance and from terrace to terrace; thirty Taoist priests keep lamps and incense ever burning before the shrines; an Imperial envoy from Peking visits the temple every year with gifts; and tens of thou- sands of pilgrims, from every part of the plain and beyond, bring their offerings and homage to these altars. The temple left on my memory an impression of beauty and majesty, which nature and art have combined to produce. Outside, glorious trees in whose dense leafage the lesser architectural beau- ties lose themselves, gurgling waters, flowering shrubs with heavy odours floating on the damp, still air, elaborately carved pinnacles and figures on the roofs, even the screens in front of the doors decorated with elaborate tracery; while the beauty of the interionis past description: columns of . . V :2» trsw-nnn MHHIWUIIIOr-u III!)}J.L§ Q‘q; H mamas? 0255-55 68%.)“; - ‘. .x , . an... .- .u L w ho ROOM mu 76 The Yangtze Valley highly polished black lacquer, a roof, a perfect mar- vel of carving and lacquer, all available space oc- cupied with honourary tablets, the gifts of past Viceroys, while the shrines are literally ablaze with 0 and the gorgeously coloured lacquer and painting, banners presented by the emperors wave in front. The galleries facing the effigies of the great en- gineer and his son are carved most delicately with lacquered fretwork; and on pillars, galleries, and everywhere, where space admits of its decorative use, is Li Ping’s motto incised or inscribed in gold, “S/zeiz z‘ao t’cm z‘z' 2‘30 ye/z”—“Dig the bed deep, keep the banks low.” Although there is a shrine to Li Ping in this splendid “ Erh-Wang” temple, it was possibly erected in honour of “The Second Gentleman,” the temple to the father being (believed by Mr. Grainger) the more recent erection above the gorge of the Couching Dragon. Every Chinese emperor, from the Tsin dynasty, 246 B.C., down- wards, has conferred the posthumous title of Wang, or Prince, upon Li Ping and his son. A stone tab- let in one of the temples records the story, which I learn from Mr. Grainger, who has translated the inscription. The Chengtu Plain, which these deservedly hon- oured engineers may be said to have created, is the Kuan Hsien and Chengtu 77 richest plain in China, and possibly in the world. It may be about one hundred miles by seventy or eighty, with an area of about twenty-five hundred fl- OIL BASKETS AND WOODEN PURSE square miles. It produces three, and even four, crops a year. Its chief products are rice, silk, opium, tobacco, sugar, sweet potatoes, indigo, the paper mulberry, rape and other oils, maize, and 78 The Yangtze Valley cotton, along with roots and fruits of all kinds, both musk- and water-melons being produced in fabu- lous quantities. From any height the plain looks like a forest of fruit trees, while clumps of cypress, cedar, and bamboo denote the whereabouts of the great temples and fine farmhouses, with which it is studded. It has an estimated population of 4,000,000, and is sprinkled with cities, and flourishing marts, and large villages, Chengtu, the capital, having at least 400,000 pe0ple. Along the main roads the popu- lation may be said to constitute a prolonged village. The abundance of water power produces any num- ber of flour and oil mills, the plain is intersected in all directions with roads which are thronged with traffic, and boats can reach the Yangtze from Kuan Hsien, Chengtu, and Chiang Kou. Oranges reappear in splendid groves, mixed up with the vivid foliage of the persimmon ; mulberry trees are allowed to grow to their full height and amplitude ; spinning and weaving are going on everywhere ; the soil, absolutely destitute of weeds, looks as if it were cultivated with trowels and rakes, “ tilled,” as Emerson felicitously said of England, “with a pencil instead of a plough.” There are frequent small temples, or rather shrines, to the God of the Soil, of solid masonry, the image being Z~