LETTER XXVI
Peking, 23rd May 1866.
I returned from my Mongolian expedition last Friday, the 18th, half-starved and burnt to a cinder, but very jolly. I copy my journal for you.
We left Peking, the doctor and I, on the 23rd April. We took with us my servant Chang Hsi, groom, and fat cook. We of course rode our own horses, while five mules carried the servants and baggage. The doctor’s dog Drujok, a half-bred Russian setter, and my Prince, a heavy shambling puppy whom I call a Newfoundland, but whose seize quartiers it would be difficult to prove, made up the party. Our cavalcade made a great sensation in the streets of Peking. “Here’s a game,” shouted the street—arabs, piggish in many respects besides their tails; “look at the devils and the devil dogs!” We went out at the Tê Shêng Mên (Victory Gate). So soon as we had passed the dusty streets and suburbs obstructed by carts and camels, whose bells and dull tramp irritate one’s ears, while the dust they shuffle up blinds and chokes one, the ride became delightful. The fresh green of the budding trees and young spring crops and the tints of the distant hills were new life to eyes tired with the monotonous grays of a Peking winter. It was a lovely day too, bright, sunny, and cooled by a fresh breeze from the mountains.
Former experience of carts had decided me to take mules; but it was out of the frying-pan into the fire. Carts are slow, mules are slower. If one takes carts the servants are sure to stow away one ragamuffin at least to help them with their work and add to the expense. If one takes mules the muleteer is sure to add a number of mules carrying wares for trade at the different towns, which creates endless delays. Besides, the pack-mules cannot keep up with the horses, and it is no joke to arrive at an inn, tired and hungry, with the choice of ordering a bad Chinese dinner, or waiting three hours for the cook to come up and prepare a better one. Being in advance, we always had to find our own way from place to place; easy enough if one could even get a direct answer, but you might as well expect that from a Reading Quaker.
Englishman—“I borrow a light from your intelligence.”
Native—“Hao shwo! You are very polite.”
E.—“How far is it from here to Sha-Ho?”
N.—“How far is it from here to Sha-Ho? Oh! you’re going to Sha-Ho, are you?”
E.—“Yes! How far is it?”
N.—“How far from here, eh? What are you going to do at Sha-Ho?”
E.—“Just going for an excursion. But how far is it?”
N.—“Just going for an excursion, eh?”
This sort of thing goes on until you thoroughly lose your temper, seeing which an old man in the crowd holds up his forefinger and thumb in an oracular manner. This to the initiated signifies that Sha-Ho is eight (not two) li distant (the li is about one-third of a mile). The Chinese have a way of counting with their fingers, which is as necessary to learn as the numerals of the spoken language. They constantly answer a question of figures by holding up one hand without speaking. Up to five it is all plain sailing, but beyond that it is not so easy. The thumb and little finger mean six; thumb and two first fingers, seven; thumb and forefinger, eight, forefinger crooked, nine; second finger doubled over forefinger, or whole hand shown, first palm and then back, ten.
We passed our first night at Chang-ping-chou, which was a slight roundabout, but my companion wanted to see the Ming tombs about which I wrote to you last autumn. We found all the inns full, but a small beggar boy, who, possibly with an eye to copper cash, took a great interest in our proceedings, led us to a neat little inn outside the walls where we were quiet and cleanly lodged.
24th April.
We had all the trouble in life this morning to get the mules to start. Threats of stoppages of pay were the only means of acting on the muleteers. Even so we only got off by eight o’clock. The doctor and I, accompanied by my man Chang Hsi, were to visit the tombs, while the mules, not being supposed capable of deriving either profit or amusement from the sight, were to precede us to Nan-Ko̔u, and there wait our arrival. The valley of the tombs was not so bright and rich as when I saw it with the autumn crops in all their luxuriance, but there were plenty of wild-flowers, dog-violets, wild iris, convolvulus, and others, and the persimmon trees were a mass of bloom. The avenue of monstrous statues appeared tame to me in the glare of day after having seen their weird and ghostly appearance by moonlight, but the site and buildings must always be striking. There are plenty of temples and palaces in and near Peking as large and as magnificent, but none in such good proportion; they all look like “imitation” by the side of the Thirteen Tombs.
We had to ride back to within a few hundred yards of Chang-ping-chou before we could reach the sandy and stony road which leads to Nan-Ko̔u. It was burning hot, but as the Russians say, “Heat breaks no bones,” and with fresh, pure air to breathe it does not much signify how hot it is. In Peking it is another matter. We reached Nan-Ko̔u at 2 P.M. The little town is prettily situated at the bottom of the famous pass to which it gives its name. Steep cliffs enclose it on either side; a stream of clear water—rare sight in these parts—passes through it; and the cottages in the valley are surrounded by trees and corn-fields. The hills are wild and bold, with here and there bits of wall, towers, and perhaps a temple or shrine on the ridges. The constant tinkling of camel and mule bells testifies to the amount of traffic. Every other house is an inn, and all seem bustling and prosperous. There was plenty of movement and plenty of noise in our inn-yard; muleteers, carters, footpads, poultry, and asses kept up a perpetual wrangling, crowing, and braying, while an improvisatore in the kitchen opposite was earning his night’s board and lodging by reciting tales of an unedifying character for the benefit of the host and his guests of lower degree. Although we had arrived so early, we thought it better to stop the night at Nan-Ko̔u and go on in the morning, so we had time for a stroll among the hills after dinner.
25th April.
We started at six, riding donkeys in order to spare the ponies the rough work of the pass. The Nan-Ko̔u pass is certainly in its way very fine. The valley, which is a gradual ascent, is bounded on either side by steep, abrupt hills, as barren and wild as a Scotch glen; a few trees stud it at intervals, and a narrow thread of water runs through it. There are plenty of shrines about, and always perched upon cliffs so steep that one is lost in wonder how they ever got there. Amongst these I noticed a form of sacred monument that was new to me, but constantly repeated along this road—five white-washed earthen cones like sugar-loaves, with bats[14] or other emblems rudely painted on them; I guess that they represent the five offerings exposed on Buddhist altars. As an instance of the difficulty of obtaining reliable information, and to show how cautiously travellers’ statements about China must be accepted, I asked three respectable Chinese by the road what was the meaning of these five cones. One said that they were to keep off foxes and wolves, another that they marked every five li along the road, and the third that they were Buddhist emblems, but he did not know what they represented. The pass itself, considering that it is the highway between Mongolia and China, is a very miracle of bad roads. It is as if nature had in some stupendous convulsion burst a passage through the mountains, leaving all the débris in the most glorious confusion, which man has been too idle to reduce to order. Huge boulders of rock at every step obstruct a way which is difficult enough already, and the overhanging cliffs seem as if they were on the point of throwing down more masses to block up the road. Asses are far the best mounts for this work. Ours carried us capitally, urged by constant revilings from their rascally drivers. “Egg of a turtle! what are you stopping for!” is the mildest of their adjurations, the turtle not being used as significative of slowness, but as an euphemism for cuckold. There are plenty of villages in the pass; the inhabitants do a small trade in tea, hard-boiled eggs, and laopings (a sort of girdle-cake), which they sell to wayfarers. There is one very pretty little town, Chu-Yung-Kwan, with a curious old gateway richly carved with quaint figures and inscriptions in Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian, and Thibetan, said to be a relic of the Yuan or Mongol dynasty. At the top of the pass, just before the slight descent which leads to the plateau on the west, is an old ruined fortified enclosure called Pa Ta Ling, “the eight great peaks.” It is a curious place, for the inside is literally a heap of ruins and rubbish, while the walls and fortifications are almost perfect.
We breakfasted at Cha Tao at the end of the pass, some 15 miles, and very tiring miles too, from Nan-Ko̔u. After Cha Tao the road lies along a sandy plain, probably once a lake, to Hwai Lai Hsien, a pretty model of a Chinese town, with crenelated walls and quaint towers. East of the town is a small river, spanned by what once has been a handsome five-arched bridge, now of course falling into ruin and decay. Hard by, on a low hill, stands a temple like an Italian monastery. We put up for the night at Hwai Lai Hsien, having ridden some 35 miles from Nan-Ko̔u. We had some difficulty in finding an inn. The people of the east side of the town sent us to the west, and the people of the west incited us to go back to the east. The mules and servants were behind us, and we were left entirely to our own resources. At last my horse decided the question by bolting down a courtyard, which turned out to be that of the best inn in the place, but which, it having no signboard, I had missed.
26th April.
We had a dullish ride to-day to Hsin Pao An, passing a few small towns, all fortified, probably against Mongol invasions; at one of these, Tu Mu, we made our mid-day halt. Hsin Pao An is a very pretty little town. One Chinese town is generally so like another that if you have seen one you have seen all. Here, however, there is a very curious building in the middle of the place; it is a sort of compromise between an English town-hall, a mediæval fortress, and a Chinese temple; it gives a distinction to the town. It is so very rare to see a drunken man in China that it is almost worth recording that one rushed into our rooms here, and was proceeding to lay hands on the doctor, who shook him off in great astonishment, when the people of the inn came in and turned him out, with many apologies for the annoyance.
27th April.
The main feature in the plain on leaving Hsin Pao An is a steep mountain, or rather precipitous and jagged rock, perhaps 800 or 1000 feet high, called Nei Nei Shan. It stands at the western end of the plain, immediately to the east of the Yang Ho, “sheep river,” which winds beneath it. On the very summit of this rock is a temple, about which there is a legend which reminds one of Rolandseck and Nonnenwerth. A prince of these parts had engaged to throw a bridge over the river in a single night, or forfeit his life. He set about his task, but when the sun rose in the morning the work was unfinished, so in despair and in fulfilment of his vow he threw himself into the river and was drowned. His widow erected this temple that she might pass her life in mourning in constant sight of the spot where her husband had disappeared. I have the very worst authority for this legend, of which, by the bye, Bell gives another version quoted by Michie. The Chinese about the place have never heard of it; however, I dare say it is as true as most other legends; at any rate there stand the hill and the temple, and there live (heaven knows how) five priests, exposed to the full glare of the sun, and to every cold wind that blows, and obliged to fetch even the water they drink up an almost inaccessible height from the plain below. This day’s journey, following the Yang Ho in a north-westerly direction, was very picturesque and varied, but often rocky to a degree. However, our little Mongol horses behaved like goats; they never stumble except on a flat road, where they get careless and lazy. There is plenty of coal in these hills, which is worked in the meanest manner and sent to Peking on camels. A geologist who has examined this part of China, and especially the mountains to the west, affirms it to be the richest coalfield in the world, but the Chinese do not take advantage of it. We met plenty of travellers of all degrees, the richer ones travelling in mule litters, a mode of conveyance which looks to me as if it might bring on sea-sickness; and numberless caravans laden with tea for Russia.
We rested at a poor little town called Hsiang Shui Pu, and put up for the night at Hsuan Hua Fu, a large district city. Here in the suburbs we found an inn which was a palace compared with those we had put up in hitherto, though an English labourer’s cottage would not suffer by contrast with the room I slept in. A certain amount of new paper in the windows gave a promise of cleanliness and decency within that was not fulfilled by the broken brick floor and musty tables and benches; however, there were plenty of shabby, tawdry lanterns, and if characters of good omen could give appetite and a good night’s rest, we ought to have eaten like ogres and slept like the Seven Sleepers. We were a good deal lionised here; indeed, the inquisitiveness of the people was very troublesome. As I was lathering my face before dinner, trying to get rid of the deposit of two or three sandstorms, the curse of travellers in North China, a carter walked coolly into my bedroom smoking his pipe, and went into fits of laughter at the sight. I, irritated by the intrusion, flung the contents of my soapy sponge into his face—which must have very much astonished it, for it was much in the same state as the fists of the Irish boatman two years after he had shaken hands with the Lord Lieutenant; and my enemy fled howling. Presently another gentleman appeared who addressed me as “Venerable Teacher”—a high compliment—and informed me that his name was Ma, and that he was a merchant of caps travelling from west to east; after which he retired, but shortly put his head in again to ask my honourable name and nation, and I heard him afterwards in the yard explaining to a knot of carters, muleteers, and loungers, that I was the English teacher Mi, that I understood good manners, that my body was all over pockets, and that my years were not few; which statements the auditors received with many grunts and eructations and repeated several times, afterwards one by one sauntering up to judge for themselves. I happened to be emptying my pockets at the time of Ma’s visit. Pockets are not used by the Chinese; they have, it is true, purses or pouches at their girdle, but they are very small. The chief receptacle for miscellaneous articles is the boot. My first teacher used to pull writing materials and sugar-plums indiscriminately from his boot, and always politely offered me the latter before tasting them himself. Old Hêng-Chi, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who is malade imaginaire and always dosing himself, constantly pulls pills or other pet remedies out of his boot. European pockets are always provocative of wonder. The noises of the inn-yard made sleep out of the question till long past midnight. The worst of all was an old carter wrapped up in his sheepskin, sitting on the shaft of his cart and beating a sort of death-watch with a stick on a piece of hollow bamboo, like a ghoulish old woodpecker. I went out and tried to chaff him out of his performance, but he took my irony for high praise, which so delighted him that he every now and then burst into snatches of song in a high squeaky falsetto, never stopping his eternal devil’s tattoo. Mules, asses, horses, and quarrelling Chinamen made up a fitting chorus.
Saturday, 28th April.
Rode through the town of Hsuên Hwa Fu, which, for China, is in tolerable repair. Though small as “Fu’s” go, it is pretty enough. There are plenty of trees, chiefly huge willows and poplars, and a great variety of quaint towers, pagodas, and other buildings. The plain below is busily tilled, and, I should think, must be fertile; but the crops are far behind those of the Peking plain, and the first sowings have not yet put out shoots. Here amongst the numerous by-roads and water-courses we lost our way, being, as usual, far ahead of our mules. Seeing a group of boys working a few fields off I rode across to ask the way; their backs were turned to me, and it was only when I jumped over a low mud wall into the midst of them that they perceived me. A shark appearing in Cuckoo weir while the Eton boys are bathing, could not have produced a greater panic. With one consent the urchins shouted out, “The Devil! The Devil!” and bolted for dear life. At last I succeeded in capturing and calming one of them, sufficiently to discover that we were about an hour and a half’s ride out of the right road (no joke to men fasting and under such a sun). The deviation from the regular route accounted for the terror caused by my appearance; the boys had probably never seen a foreigner before.
Late in the afternoon we reached Chang Chia Ko̔u, which the Mongols call Khalgan, the frontier town between China and Mongolia. It is the first great halting-place on the road from Peking to Moscow. Formerly, when the importation of tea into Russia by sea was forbidden, the whole of the tea-supply passed from Tientsing through Chang Chia Ko̔u, and there is still a great traffic, but, of course, it is much diminished. The Russians have no important export trade to China. They have a small export trade in cloth, which they manufacture, of a kind and at a cost with which other producers cannot compete, for their cloth exactly suits the Chinese, being of pure wool, very broad, and cheap; but they cannot send it in any large quantity. At Peking, Tientsing, and some of the large towns in North China, there are also to be found miscellaneous articles of Russian manufacture, such as samovars, knives, prints, looking-glasses, etc., but, as a rule, Siberia being a non-manufacturing country and too short-handed to become one, goods have to come from too far for their transport to pay. I believe that the Russians have found their connection with China to be, on the whole, a losing business. They have to pay silver—paper roubles will not pass—for their tea, and must continue to do so as long as they cannot establish an export trade; they are trying to obtain certain rights of trading in Mongolia, but the Chinese cannot be persuaded of the justice of transferring a monopoly of their own merchants to a powerful neighbour. In the far north they have obtained certain harbours which open the Chinese seas and the Pacific to them; but the harbours are frozen for several months, and the advantage has saddled them with huge tracts of country which it is hard for them to rule, and still harder for want of manual labour to turn to profit. Russia looks to the days of railways and telegraphs through Siberia, which are probably not very far distant,[15] to balance the account. The truth is that the English and Americans are the only people who have a real commercial interest in China. The Russian interest is at present simply one of boundaries. With the French the Chinese question is one of missionaries and jealousy of the interests of other nations in the Far East,—interests being with French alarmists synonymous with influence. The German nations cannot as yet be said to have any great stake here, though they have plenty of subjects in China, principally clerks in great houses or small merchants. Portugal has a very cleverly worded treaty with the Chinese, who will not ratify it because it would cede to her the sovereignty of Macao, where she has a flourishing trade, under the name of Chinese coolie emigration. Spain has a treaty in an embryo state, and conterminal interests on account of her Philippine Islands; and Belgium has a treaty, one resident subject, and a ship trading here once in three years or so. The Danes have a treaty, but little commerce. Italy two or three years ago planned a mission hither, but it broke down. Even should the Russians succeed in obtaining the privileges they are working for in Mongolia, their Chinese trade would be but a drop in the ocean compared with our immense commercial interests.
29th April.
In spite of the remonstrances and even tears of our head muleteer, who predicted certain starvation for ourselves and our mules, we decided on pushing as far as Llama Miao, the great horse-fair in Mongolia, and returning home via Ku Pei Ko̔u to vary the journey. We accordingly resolved to stop a day at Chang Chia Ko̔u to rest the horses and lay in rice, flour, and other provisions, with provender for the cattle. The delay gave us time to see the bustling little town which trade has redeemed from the dulness of its neighbours. The streets are full of animation. Fortune-tellers, improvisatori, and a company of strolling actors who, gorgeous in stage dresses and burlesque “makes up,” have taken possession of a small temple, attract crowds of gaping Mongols and Chinamen. The main street of the suburb resembles a great fair, lined with stalls like cheap-jack’s booths, at which every conceivable sort of rubbish is sold. Pipes, rings, ear-rings, sham jewelry and jade, Mongol knives, purses, cutlery professing to be made by Rodgers and Son, lucifer matches from Vienna, kaleidoscopes, stereoscopes, musical boxes and looking-glasses, with reverses quite unfit for publication, are the chief wares. There is a capital seven-arched bridge, adorned with lions and apes, across the almost dry river; and wonderful to say, it is kept in repair, so you may judge how prosperous the place is and looks. Foreigners excite little attention, for European travellers are often passing; and besides, there are two or three resident agents for Russian houses who superintend the loading of the tea-caravans for Siberia.
One thing necessary before leaving Chang Chia Ko̔u was to get the seal of the military authorities attached as a visa to my passport. As I told you last year, the petty provincial officers snap their fingers at the seal of the Peking yamêns (public offices), but they respect that of their own immediate chief, whose arm is long enough to reach them. In the event of meeting with any difficulty on the road I could not count on getting any official assistance without this seal. Accordingly, early this morning I sent my passport to the general’s office, with the request that it might be returned visé. At five o’clock no passport was forthcoming, so I sent to say that I would go in person to fetch it, and requested an interview with his Excellency. When I arrived at the Yamên I was told that the great man himself was ill—the usual excuse—but I was civilly received by his subordinate, a greasy little blue-buttoned mandarin named Pao, and two others. I repeated my request to see his Excellency Ah (that is his name), as I knew how futile it is to treat with subordinate Chinese officials; but his Excellency only renewed his regrets that he could not see my Excellency, which he hoped was pretty well. As he might be smoking opium and really unpresentable, I thought it better not to press the matter further, but attacked Pao on the subject of the seal, which he fought off granting me on the ground that there was nothing in the passport saying that I was entitled to it. I answered that the passport entitled me to expect every aid from him, and that last year the Ti-tu of Ku Pei Ko̔u had granted us his seal; threatened him with the thunders of the Prince of Kung’s wrath, and told him (Heaven forgive me!) how angry our Queen would be if she heard that a member of her Legation, carrying the passport of the Legation, had been snubbed the very first time he asked for assistance from a Chinese official. “Would I like something to eat?” “I was much obliged, but I was not hungry; I wanted the seal.” “At least a little jam?” “Many thanks, no jam, but the seal.” “But the seal was really such an unimportant matter.” “Then why not give it at once as the Ti-tu had done.” (Which, by the bye, he had not done without a fight.) “Oh, but the Ti-tu lived at Ku Pei Ko̔u and this was Chang Chia Ko̔u. How could it be done?” “Where there’s a will there’s a way”—which is an excellent Chinese proverb. My interlocutors doubled at every moment like hares, now offering tea, now dinner, now tobacco, anything but the seal. They constantly consulted together in Manchu, of which of course I did not understand a word. Every now and then one went out to report, as I imagine, to the shamming chief what I had said. How obstinate the barbarian was, and how suspicious, for I took care to let them know that I was not gulled by the very stale sick dodge. We were more than an hour marching and countermarching over the same ground. I stuck out for my seal; they persisted in eluding the question. At last I told Pao that I would either accept the seal or a separate pass from his Excellency Ah to his subordinates, but that if they refused to give me one or other I would write to Peking and complain of their want of courtesy. After some difficulty they agreed to furnish me with a pass, and even gave orders for a draft to be written and sent to the hotel for my approval. I then left them, but with such manifest disgust that they were probably afraid that I might complain of their conduct, for immediately I reached the inn a messenger made his appearance, saying that Pao hoped I was pretty well (which, considering we had just parted, was an excess of courtesy), and had not quite read my passport to his satisfaction; would I let him have it back for a few minutes. Ten minutes after this it was in my hands with the seal attached.
In the meantime our lachrymose muleteers had made off to Peking with their mules, abandoning their pack-saddles and ropes, and forfeiting all their earnings, save an advance which I had made them, rather than face the imaginary horrors of the road to Llama Miao. Here was a pretty kettle of fish! All hopes of an early start completely bowled out; and really Chang Chia Ko̔u is a very nice place, but one day is enough of it.
30th April.
The whole of this morning was wasted in fruitless endeavours to get mules or carts. The carters and muleteers, knowing our anxiety to be off, demanded fabulous prices, and absolutely declined to start until to-morrow; we were as determined to make a move to-day. At last, in despair, the doctor rode off to the Russian agents to see whether they could not do something to help us. It is no use applying to the authorities, for their practice in such cases is to be extremely civil and obliging, at once procure the worst and cheapest beasts in the place, arrange for a high price, and pocket the difference; and then when the traveller is a hundred miles or so away from all help a horse or mule dies of a ripe old age, and the others are so feeble and decrepit that he does not reach his destination until his stock of provisions has long been exhausted, and himself has had to suffer days of needless privation and discomfort. During the doctor’s absence Chang Hsi, who had gone out as plenipotentiary in another direction, came back with a treaty for ratification between himself, under the style of “Chang the great Lord,” and a hirer of carts, who was willing to convey our baggage to Llama Miao for rather more than double the proper fare. The doctor’s negotiations were more successful, for he returned with a wild-looking ruffian, with whom we finally made almost satisfactory arrangements, though neither promising, coaxing, nor threatening would induce him to start until the next day.
1st May.
A short time since a missionary presented me with a copy of the Pilgrim’s Progress translated into Chinese, and adorned with pictures, in which Christian and the other characters appear with long tails à la Chinoise. If any one will produce a similar edition of Don Quixote for the benefit of the mandarins, I shall recommend our carter as model for the portrait of the knight. His prominent nose, lantern jaws, and tall, thin, ungainly figure exactly fit the character; it is a type I never before saw in China. Any one of his horses would make a capital Rosinante. We made a late start of it, not getting off until eight o’clock, and even then our people lagged behind in the town to buy things. At the gate of the town, where the Great Wall of China is the frontier mark, we met with no difficulties, our passports were not examined, and the officials only took down our names and the number of our party. The day’s march was dull and monotonous; it lay along a continuously ascending pass, winding between barren hills, which bounded the view. We met strings of camels, mules, and bullock-carts, all laden with tea for Russia and Mongolia. The tea that is imported by the Mongols is of the coarsest quality, and pressed into large bricks, which look something like cavendish tobacco, only coarser, and with stronger fibres to bind them together. These bricks are in some parts the current coin of the country: large transactions are settled for so many bricks of tea, while smaller payments are made by cutting pieces off the block as the Chinese cut fragments of silver. The infusion made from brick tea is coarse and nasty; it often has a musty taste owing to the damp confined in the cakes, which prevents their transport by sea.
We breakfasted at Tu-ting, a miserable little village of mud hovels which at a little distance look like mere holes in the hill; the place reminded me of a colony of fever-stricken Circassians whom I saw during their exodus two years ago, burrowing like rabbits in a bank near Tchernavoda. Barring the fever there was not much choice in appearance between the two. After Tu-ting the ascent becomes so steep that horses are kept by the wayside, as on the St. Gothard, to draw up heavy carts to a ledge on which stands a temple in honour of Kwan Ti, the god of war, whither pious carters repair to deposit an offering on having successfully made the ascent. Pa Ta, where we passed the night at the sign of the “Ten Thousand Perfections,” was hardly richer than Tu-ting. Our beds were made in the kitchen amid flour-bins, jars of oil, pots of stinking cheese, and odds and ends of all sorts. It was the best room of the inn, which was a low hut built of mud and chopped straw, roofed over, but with the bare ground for a floor. This is not comfort, but à la guerre comme à la guerre.
2nd May.
A couple of hours more uphill and we were fairly on the Mongolian plateau. A branch of the Great Wall runs along the mountains; but here it is a mere heap of stones thrown together, a wonderful work of patience, it is true, but lacking the grandeur of the brick-built wall at Ku Pei Ko̔u; at intervals are rude turrets fallen or falling into utter decay.
The plateau itself is a vast sea of downs bounded only by the horizon. It is difficult to conceive anything more desolate; there is neither tree nor shrub, nothing taller than a few dwarfish buttercups and campanulas; there is not so much as a stone to sit down upon; for miles and miles there is no trace of human habitation or handiwork; for miles and miles one travels without meeting a soul, except by chance a stray Mongol lumbering heavily along on his camel, or a bullock-cart carrying tea; of beasts we saw a flock of Hwang-yang antelopes, that scampered off almost before there was time to recognise them; the dogs started a fox; a raven was feeding on a dead dog, and a solitary vulture followed in our wake for hours, as if he expected one or other of us to come to grief, but for to-day he was disappointed. We rested at Shi Pa Li Tai, having made an absurdly short day’s journey, but it was impossible to stir our Don Quixote into anything like activity.
3rd May.
We rose long before sunrise, intending to make up for lost time. The early morning on the steppes is something beautiful. Flocks of larks, mocking and other birds are singing away as if their throats must burst, the air is as keen and fresh as possible, and there is just a sparkling of dew on the ground. On such a morning and on such ground our little horses, in spite of the journey before them—of which they always seem to have a sort of instinctive knowledge, for when the holsters and headstalls are put on, the very worst of them sober down and behave well—cannot resist a gallop. They lift their heads, and turning towards the breeze sniff it in by long draughts with a zest that it is good to see, and spin away like mad things over the steppe on which they were born and reared. The dogs catch the infection, and are in the most tearing spirits, careering away far out of sight; Drujok, whose sporting education has been sadly neglected, setting a bad example in a wild lark chase, which my puppy Prince is not slow to follow. Roads across the plateau there are none; and we soon raced away from all sign of the (at best) puzzling tracks of rare carts and horses. Here was a pretty mess! Lost on the steppe like sailors at sea in a cock-boat without a compass! not a landmark of any sort; a boundless plain with a round horizon! After some while spent in fruitless consultation, to our joy a speck began to rise on the horizon; bigger and bigger it grew, until at last it defined itself into the figure of a very jolly, fat, yellow-robed priest,—a sort of Mongol Friar Tuck riding on his camel,—who could fortunately speak a little Chinese. The good-natured fellow, shaking his sides with laughter at our mischance, put his helm about and rode a mile or two out of his own way to steer us into ours, so that in the end we found ourselves at Pan Shan Tu a couple of hours before our people. As we had started at three in the morning on the strength of a cup of tea and a couple of eggs, and had been eight hours in the saddle, it was rather trying to wait until past one o’clock for a meal. Still more trying was it as the evening closed in, and the gathering clouds warned us that there would be no moonlight to guide us, to find ourselves 25 miles from our destination, in the middle of the wilderness, and the cart-horses hardly up to 3 miles an hour. Happily we came upon a group of Mongol yurts (huts or tents), and their uncouth owners were willing and able to take us in. Indeed, as I found out afterwards, the huts on this track are almost available as inns for travellers. We were, as usual, in advance of our party and unable to speak a word of Mongol; however, from the yurts there appeared a wild, gaunt figure, which from its wearing ear-rings and long hair, and from no other sign, I knew to be a woman; in the kindliest but roughest manner she seized the horses and led them to a post, to which she tied them, and then opening one of the yurts, beckoned us to go in and warm ourselves, for it was very chilly. In this hut were crowded a few men, women, and naked children, a calf and several lambs, all huddling together round the fire: what an etching Rembrandt would have made of it! The air was stifling; between smoke and strong smells it was almost impossible to breathe; however, the good lady cleared out another hut, which by the time our servants came up was ready for us.
A Mongol yurt is of the simplest construction. A round, raised floor, from twelve to fifteen feet in diameter, is made of mud and chopped straw; round this is built a wall of trellis-work of laths about four feet high, from which a number of sticks radiate to a point at the top; a thick covering of pieces of felt tied on with strong cord completes the hut; even the trellis-work is fastened by thongs of leather passed through holes made at the point where the laths cross one another. The whole can easily be taken to pieces and packed on a camel’s back. The furniture of the interior is not more luxurious than the exterior: in the centre is an iron fireplace, in which is burnt a fire of horse- or cow-dung, which is the only fuel to be procured, and is collected with great pains on the plateau; the smoke, so much at least as does escape, finds its way through a hole in the middle of the roof; four iron bars support over the fire the single pan in which all the cooking of the family is done; round the tent are a few chests and presses of the rudest Chinese manufacture, and the homeliest of brass pots and pans from Peking; a few sheep-skins and calf-skins and pieces of felt represent bed, sofa, and chair; the whole is blackened by much smoke like a cutty-pipe. A flap of felt serves as door; the hole in the roof is chimney and window in one, and if it rains that must be covered in. Perhaps the quaintest thing about the place, and the strongest sign of the poverty of the land, was the kitchen garden inside the yurt. A basket or pan and a broken teacup, into which a little mould had been placed, were beds in which half a dozen carefully-tended heads of garlic were sprouting! There were no stables; the Mongols do not use them. When they want a horse they go and catch one out of the herd. Our horses were tied up to stakes outside. The cattle keep near the camp of their own accord; the sheep are packed under a shed, so they enjoy a covering; but the young things—calves, lambs, and kids—are carried into the yurts and sleep with the other children. Such was our lodging for the night, and, tired as we were, it did well enough for us. Our dinner was a more difficult matter; our cook did his best for us, but he was sorely put to it for saucepans and other requisites. As I said above, the pan or caldron over the dung-fire is the whole Mongol batterie de cuisine. Into it is thrown a quantity of millet or other grain and a few lumps of fat mutton or beef, which is stewed in water. When the solid part of this has been taken out, the greasy water which remains serves to make the infusion of brick tea. Even the lowest Chinese cannot stomach this nasty mess, and speak of it with the greatest disgust. In some parts of Mongolia an infusion of brick tea is made with boiling milk and salt, and always kept ready in the yurt. This is said to be very good. I had been looking forward to getting a drink of fresh milk, but the Mongols all say that their cows have died. Calves a few days old, and in very good condition, tell another story.
When we had established ourselves in the yurt, the head of the encampment, introduced by the Meg Merrilies who had taken us in and done for us, and whom I imagine to have been his wife, came to visit us. He spoke a little Chinese, which is necessary to him when he goes to Chang Chia Ko̔u to sell his cattle. He told us he was a military officer, but without soldiers to command. Of the world beyond Chang Chia Ko̔u on one side and Llama Miao on the other he knew nothing. His flocks and his tents were his whole life. The women, young and old, had no objection to showing themselves; they came to look at us, and brought their children, whom we made happy with cakes and white sugar. Round-faced, flat-featured, healthy, dirty, and ugly are the women; as for the men, sun, wind, and weather have burnt and hardened them to a degree in comparison with which the most weather-beaten old sea-dog at Portsmouth or Plymouth is satin-skinned. Men and women alike are dressed in long sheep-skin robes, with the wool worn inwards, and round fur caps. Their shapeless dresses and round head-pieces remind one of the family in the Noah’s arks. The people appear very jolly and simple, which they are, and very honest, which report says they are not. Small articles to which they may take a fancy are said to disappear mysteriously. The Mongolian dogs, several of whom guard each encampment, to the great discomfiture of Drujok and Prince, who, on the prowl after water, are constantly attacked by them, are fine beasts—huge, shaggy fellows, mostly black-and-tan, with glorious tails curling over their backs; they must be awkward customers. In spite of the squalor in which our hosts live, they are rich people in their way, and well-to-do; dirt and wretchedness must be with them a matter of choice, not necessity, for their thriving flocks find a ready market at Chang Chia Ko̔u for the supply of Peking. Things which are of the most ordinary necessity to the poorest Chinaman these comparatively prosperous people do without. They have not even a teapot or teacup; and when we suggested washing our faces a rusty old iron basin was dragged out of some corner where it must have lain unused and forgotten for months.
It blew a gale of wind in the night, and rain came on, so we were able to test the comfort of the tent. We suffered neither from cold nor rain; in fact, nothing could be better adapted than these huts for the extreme weather of the steppe. If it is fine you can sleep with the sky above you. If it is cold the felt is a sufficient protection. It was bitterly chilly outside, but within, although we could not bear a fire on account of the smoke, we were as warm as toasts.
4th May.
A pelting wet morning. We took leave of our friends the Mongols, and rode to Chang-ma-tsze-chin, a Chinese colony, some twenty miles off, it being too bad weather to push farther. We made friends with the whole village through its children. A pedlar happened to be passing that way, and by investing a few pence in small looking-glasses and such toys, we made the little boys and girls very happy. To these the pedlar’s pack of rubbish contained all the wonders of Aladdin’s palace, for had he not come all the way from Peking? Our door at the inn was thronged with jolly little urchins for the rest of the day, and we amused ourselves and them by showing them our watches, pencil-cases, etc. The plains or valleys here are narrower and surrounded by hills. I climbed one height, from which I had a fine view over the steppe.
5th May.
The beauty of the morning made up for yesterday. We were up by 3 A.M. The vapours of the night before had settled down in dew on the ground, the sun was rising brilliantly among fleecy clouds, which continued all day to throw over the hills lights and shades such as one sees in Europe—never at Peking, where the sky must either be black with storm, or deep blue without a speck upon it. We stopped to breakfast at a Mongol encampment, on the near side of an immense plain. I never saw so many horses at one time in my life—the plateau was literally alive with them; they were very shaggy in their winter coats, and did not show to advantage on the poor commons they had had to put up with during the winter; but some of them were well built for strength and endurance, with deep chests, strong quarters, and big barrels. We were received in the yurt of a widow, named Apakwai, a most ill-favoured dame; however, her tent was the best in the place, and the cleanest, which is not high praise. She was rich in furniture, skins, and felt mats, and there was even some little attempt at decoration about her habitation, a few Chinese prints of the rudest kind and most defiant of perspective being pasted on the trellis walls; they were coloured in the garish style so pleasing to Mongols, who are far more Oriental in this respect than the sober Chinese. A Mongol swell, riding over the plain, gorgeous in yellow and vermilion, and with his jolly moon face beaming out of a yellow cap, red-buttoned and trimmed with sables, is a sight to see. The ladies are great customers with the Peking jewellers for coral, pearls, and jade ornaments. A woman, be she never so poor, is sure to have some piece of finery in the way of ear-rings or head-dress from Peking. If she cannot afford real jewellery she buys sham.
The widow Apakwai could speak no Chinese, but as every one about the camp came in to idle away an hour, we had no lack of interpreters. The chief personage spoke Chinese fluently. Apakwai lost her husband in the war of 1860, where the Mongols were always sent to the front to be shot at, and really, with such a wife, he was lucky to get out of the world. She had a most villainous expression of countenance, only exceeded in ugliness by her familiar spirit, a little dog of preternatural hideousness, with a hunch on his back and a revolting human face. I tried to conciliate him with “po-po,” Chinese cakes, which he accepted with avidity, and even condescended to sit up and beg for like a Christian dog, but so soon as my store was exhausted he snapped at me as spitefully as ever. The old lady had other familiar spirits even more disgusting, of whose presence she gave evidence by much unbuttoning of robes and scratching. The widow was very eager for cigars and white sugar, which we could not spare her, and as she sat smoking her pipe and grumbling over the money our servants had paid her for the use of her yurt, she was the picture of greed and avarice. I added to her gains, but even that did not satisfy her. Altogether, if I had a pound of cigars, a loaf of sugar, and a purseful of money, I should be sorry to sleep alone in her yurt. I should dream of Jael and Sisera all night.
At about two or three miles, at a guess, N.W. of the camp stands a large temple, Ma Shên Miao, the temple of the horse spirit, most appropriately placed and dedicated; with my field-glass I could see large trees, leafless as yet, in its enclosure, the only trees that we have seen since Chang Chia Ko̔u. Their size shows that the temple is old, for of course they must have been planted there by the monks. Between the camp and Shang-tu-ho, where we slept, the plain was boundless in length, and confined at the sides by picturesque heights coloured by every variety of light and shade. The distance gave us the most perfectly deceptive mirage I ever saw. It was exactly like a vast lake, the hill spurs running out into it like promontories, and forming bays and creeks. Near Shang-tu-ho we passed by the roadside four stakes driven into the ground, to each of which was attached a cage containing the head of a man in a frightful state of decomposition. The tail of one had escaped from between the bars of the cage, and was dangling to and fro mournfully in the wind. They were the heads of four Chinese highwaymen, once the terror of the road; now, poor wretches, they can only frighten the horses, who may well shy at so ugly a sight. We saw large flocks of Hwang-yang antelopes, but they disappear like white clouds into space, and there is no chance of getting a shot at them.
6th May.
By way of a change, and to spare my old pony Kwandu, whose turn it was for duty, I walked the first stage, some sixteen miles or more, to Ta Liang Ti. Two miles to the west of the road we passed the Wang-ta-jên-Miao, the temple of his Excellency Wang, the burial-place of a Mongol chieftain of that name, where, as the carter told me, reside the officers in charge of an Imperial establishment for breeding horses. A little excitement was added to the second half of the day by our being warned of a band of “chi-ma-tseih,” horse brigands, who infest the neighbourhood. The Mongols of a large encampment near Ta Liang Ti have been waging war against them; yesterday they caught four, the day before eight, all of whom will be sent to Chang Chia Ko̔u for trial. The heads we saw yesterday belonged to four of their troop. The ground is admirably adapted for their operations. The track skirts a number of low hills, among which they hide, pouncing out upon travellers who are too weak in numbers to offer resistance. The people about are really panic-stricken, and no single cart ventures on the road. An additional cause of fear is that these brigands are Shantung men, who have the reputation of being very terrible. The deuce a tail of a robber did we see, but we met a Mongol armed to the teeth and carrying his long pole and rope for horse-catching—a most powerful engine against a mounted robber—who asked me, in what the Mrs. Malaprop of Peking used to call “broken china,” whether I had seen any brigands, saying that he was one of a party out on the war-trail after them. I could only wish him “good luck with his fishing.” We slept at Ha Pa Chiao, where, as at Ta Liang Ti, the people were especially civil.
7th May.
To-day we “received bitters unsurpassable,” as the Chinese say when they come to grief—thirty-five miles’ ride at a foot-pace, for we could not leave the baggage in a storm of wind, rain, thunder and lightning, which regularly pursued us. The sandy soil was so heavy that the cart-wheels could hardly turn; the horses were quite exhausted. About two miles from Llama Miao, where the storm had lashed itself to its greatest fury, we came to a small plateau surrounded by low hills. Here we witnessed a phenomenon, new to me, and which I certainly never wish to see again. The thunder, which seemed to circle round the hills, roared savagely and cracked with deafening peals, while the lightning ran along the ground criss-crossing in every direction until the little plain was covered with a perfect network of blue liquid flames, from the meshes of which escape seemed impossible. The effect on the horses was indeed electric. Mine stood still and shivered with fear, breaking out into a white lather of sweat, while the doctor’s, with a scream, bolted madly into space, fortunately taking the direction of the town. It was a weird scene, befitting a witch’s Sabbath. A thunderstorm in Mongolia is indeed a trial to one’s nerves. To put the finishing touch to our misery, when we arrived at Llama Miao drenched, cold, and hungry, inn after inn refused to take us in, and we were for near an hour riding through the wet streets, the people howling at us, and a whole pack of curs yelping and snapping at our dogs. At last we found an asylum in a large but wretched inn; the last tenants of the rooms we occupied had been horses, and my bedroom was also used as a cart-house. We were a good deal mobbed; a foreigner here is a rara avis, and we created no small sensation, every dirty ragamuffin in the place crowding into the yard. What excites the greatest astonishment is that we are travelling for no business. To leave all one’s comforts and ride four hundred miles for pleasure beats their comprehension, and the Chinese are convinced that the barbarian has a bee in his bonnet.
8th May.
Llama Miao is a large Chinese colony in the midst of a sandy desert, four or five thousand feet above the level of the sea. The Mongols call it Talonoru, which the Russians have softened into Dolonor. The Chinese name, which means “llama’s temple,” is taken from two huge monasteries of llamas, “the old temple” and “the new temple,” which stand by the side of a small stream outside the town. They are rather villages than temples, however, and contain, as the landlord and other natives told me, several thousand llamas. We were unable to go into them, for the river, swollen by the rain, was impassable; but we did not much regret this, for all the temples have a strong family likeness, and we have both had our fill of big Buddhas and dirty shaven monks with idiotic faces (the llamas are by far the lowest type in China), out of whom there is not even any information about their fraternity to be got, for if you ask them some question touching their order, it is ten to one that they will reply by another about your clothes. We contented ourselves with a distant view of the Miao. In size, but in nothing else, they reminded me of the Troitzkaia Lavra near Moscow, which is also quite a small city.
The Mongols flock to Llama Miao to sell their horses, cattle, wool, and raw hides to the Chinese, who, in return, supply them with corn of all kinds, and such simple manufactured necessaries as the Mongols require for their camps, at between three and four times Peking prices. A measure of corn, which costs 100 cash in Peking, costs 3½ times that amount here. This trade, for the landlord says there is no other, has been sufficiently attractive to convert Llama Miao into a town, 6 li (2 miles) long by 4 li (1⅓ mile) broad, and densely peopled. We passed a dreary day, shivering in our fur coats. We saw no good horses for sale, but one fine little gray pony, private property, was brought to a farrier’s opposite, and bled in the street. I have since heard that there is a great business done in bronze idols.
9th May.
We had a better chance of seeing the town and horse-fair as we rode through to-day. Yesterday the rain had made business dull, but to-day there were hundreds of little horses for sale; their owners were leading them about, strung together in packs, or galloping them madly about, to show off their paces, to the great danger of the mob, and especially of the small boys, who were scattered from under one horse’s feet to another’s, but always escaped by a miracle. The show was bad in quality, for the best horses are not brought in until the summer or autumn. Our horses, from their superior grooming and feeding, were much admired, but our saddlery received an ovation. “Ai ya!” said an old Chinese horse-dealer, passing a dirty thumb over my saddle, “a man may grow old in these parts over the border, and never see such a saddle as that! Unsurpassable!” Besides the horsey gentlemen, there is a large population of craftsmen, such as ropemakers, basketmakers, shoemakers, and the like. With the exception of a few large well-built places of business, which have even some pretension to ornamental architecture, the houses are small and poor. Altogether, Llama Miao is not a place worth a visit on its own account; we merely took it as a good point to reach and turn back from. If it had not been for the fact that we were riding back to Peking, I should not have been sorry to leave it.
We stopped at a small roadside inn for breakfast. The people were such a contrast to the town-folk, who are always impertinent and obstructive. The villagers are simple creatures, and so civil and obliging. Sitting on a bench outside the inn was a very small boy, dirty to a degree, but excessively pretty, feeding his younger brother of three years old with a sort of macaroni, which he was stuffing down his throat with chop-sticks; the father, a good-humoured countryman, was sitting hard by, resting and smoking his pipe. I gave the little fellow a sixpence, which he so sweetly made over to the younger child. As I sat chatting with these people up rode a well-dressed Chinese, followed by his servant also on horseback. He stopped, called for a cup of tea, drank it, and went off without paying. I saw that my friends loved him as a mouse does a cat, and asked who he was. He turned out to be a customs officer. “A terrible fellow,” said one; “if travellers don’t bribe him, he stops them, and takes their luggage, swearing that they are smuggling.” The respect which the Chinese have for their rulers is truly touching. Our charioteer made me promise to-day to give him a pass from the Legation when we reach Peking, without which, and perhaps in spite of which, he, being a countryman, would be mulcted at the gate on his return home.
About twenty miles from Llama Miao, at a place called Shui-Hsien-Tszŭ, the sandy plain ends, and the character of the scenery changes completely.
The road winds down a steep ravine between hills and rocks of every variety of shape; a tiny torrent follows the same line. There are a few trees, leafless as yet, and here and there the lower hills are tilled. Cottages are plentiful, and the number of travellers shows that we are on the high-road to Peking. We passed the night at Kou Mên Tzŭ. The people were as civil as possible, but very inquisitive, examining all our belongings with childish curiosity. They were above all delighted with my field-glass, through which they begged to be allowed to look. They took the greatest care of it, and if any one was too eager the others shouted, “Don’t snatch, don’t snatch.” It was given back to me by the elder of the party, who said with the greatest gravity, “Venerable teacher, you have opened our eyes,” and then proceeded to lecture upon us for the benefit of a party of new-comers. “What are you come to sell?” said one, interrupting the lecture. “Sell things!” shouted my exhibitor indignantly; “what thing are you? He don’t sell things; he’s an officer like our chih hsien!”—which office is promotion for a brass-buttoned mandarin of a rank about equal to a parish beadle. Popular enthusiasm reached its height when I pulled out an old number of the Saturday Review and began to read. I can now realise the feelings of a giant in a caravan, travelling from place to place and being shown wherever he goes.
10th May.
Below Kou Mên Tzŭ runs a mountain stream, over which there is a rude bridge supported on fascines filled with rubbish and loose stones. The village, from the left bank of the river, looks very picturesque, and there is a temple on the hillside that is a little gem in its way. After ascending the river for some little distance we dived into another mountain gorge, more beautiful and wild than that of yesterday. The rocks are bolder and more striking, and the hillsides are covered with a dwarf wild fruit tree bearing a pink flower as brilliant as the wild rhododendron of the Alps. There are a few tender shoots, too, on the stunted trees and shrubs, which, with the mosses and lichens covering the different strata of rocks, add colour to the landscape. As the road is a perpetual zigzag one is constantly coming upon fresh surprises and new forms. To-day’s ride would have been perfect had it not been for a storm of wind and sand which destroyed our pleasure. We rested at Hung Tu̔ng Tien, and our abode for the night was at Lao Wo Pu̔, a quiet little place, where the inn, which stands at a turn of the road, is perfectly circled by hills, as if it were in a devil’s punch-bowl. As we sat in the pretty inn-yard we agreed that in spite of bad weather and cold (we had found ice in several places) we had seldom enjoyed a day more. One advantage gained over our previous days was that by loitering on the way and stopping to “sit a sit and rest a rest” in different cottages, where we were always made welcome, we managed to arrive at the inn after our servants instead of before. It is such a bore having to look after the cleaning of the rooms and the stabling of the horses in the midst of a gaping crowd of wonderers.
11th May.
Descending the pass the valley widens; the mountain streamlet becomes quite a river, which we have to cross over and over again; it is very rapid, and at the fords the water reaches to the horses’ girths. The ground here is carefully tilled, and well irrigated as it is, must be fertile. I saw a jolly old couple cultivating their little field together: the old man was painfully working out furrows with a hoe, while his wife, stumping along on her small feet, sowed the seed out of a wooden vessel, with a spout like a watering-pot, which she tapped with a stick to let the grain fall out by degrees. I hope they may have a good harvest. Our two resting-places were Kwa Ti Erh and Kwo Chia Tu̔n, a large village with particularly disagreeable inhabitants, whose practice it is to eat much garlic and then breathe in the face of travellers. The sand-storm this afternoon was one of the worst I have seen. It blinded us and threw a yellow pea-soup fog over scenery that is as beautiful as mountains and river can make it.
12th May.
We were warned last night to be on our guard and look out for brigands, but nothing came of it. This morning we turned off into another pass steering south-west. Here we had a change in the landscape, for the hills were covered with trees and brushwood, showing more green as we got farther south. The people cried wolf again about robbers, but they do not seem to fancy attacking Europeans; the bore of it is that we are bound to do escort duty and stick to the cart, which would not be safe without us and our revolvers. The Chinese are in mortal terror of them, so a bumbailiff from the Chih-hsien’s yamên at Fêng Ming Hsien begged us to let him travel with us for company and protection. He had been all the way to Kou Mên Tzŭ on foot to claim a debt of six taels (£2). He told me he was between fifty and sixty years old, and had been a confirmed opium-smoker for twenty years and more, smoking regularly twice a day, once after each meal. He was as hale and hearty as need be, walking his thirty miles a day with a heavy pack on his back, for, with an eye to the main chance, he was going to combine with his official business a little peddling trade on his own account—a fresh proof that opium if not taken in large quantities is not so enervating after all. As for its effect on the mind, some of the cleverest Chinese are habitual smokers. I must say that I have never seen anything which bears the faintest resemblance to the horrors of opium-smoking described in books. This man told me that opium still gave him delicious dreams, but said he regretfully, “It’s all folly, they never come true.” Our first fifteen miles lay along very broken ground—terrible work for the horses—but so picturesque, that if any brigands had appeared I should have expected them to come out decked in ribands and tall hats like Mr. Tupman. A common crowd of Chinese ragamuffins would have been sadly out of tune. One descent that we had to make was so abrupt that I fully expected our heavy baggage-cart to come down with a run; however, the carter showed his ingenuity, and improvised a drag with a huge log of wood which he lashed behind the cart, fastening it to the axletree with a tourniquet; this made an effective but not very lasting break; as the wheels wore through the wood he tightened the tourniquet, and so brought the cart safe to the bottom. From the top of the pass we had a magnificent panorama of mountains, range rising above range, north and south, in huge fantastic masses, with dark foreground and melting blue distances. Beneath us to the south lay a little hill-girt valley green with young wheat and trees almost in full leaf, a little Eden in the wilderness. At the farther end of this valley is a pretty hamlet called Niu Chuên Tzŭ, where we breakfasted in a clean, tidy inn. We had now travelled over a hundred miles through narrow mountain passes, but soon after we had left Niu Chuên Tzŭ our road opened out into a valley so broad as to be almost a plain. The sun was setting and lighting up the mountains that separated us from China as we rode into Fêng Ming Hsien, a pleasant town to look at, but to us very inhospitable; the best inns rejected us, and we were so mobbed and persecuted after we had found a resting-place, that I was obliged to appeal to the executive to get the inn-yard cleared. The executive made its appearance in the shape of a large and very dirty gentleman with an unkept tail, who by dint of a deal of threatening and bad language procured for us peace and quiet.
13th May.
Of course, because our inn was particularly dirty and bad, the innkeeper was proportionately extortionate. He was evidently a bad character and rather fallen in the world, and had taken us in, in spite of prejudices which he shared with the rest of his fellow-townsmen, in order to make a profit out of us. We were glad to be quit of him, the inn, and the town. Our mid-day halt was at a very different sort of place, a little village called Shou Hu Ying, which takes its name from a tradition that the famous Emperor, Káng Hsi, once came here a-hunting, and killed a tiger on the spot where the village now stands. There was only one inn, humble enough, but very clean, and a few pots of flowers in the principal room gave it an air of smartness. The guest-room also served as village school, of which all the paraphernalia were scattered about. There was the magisterial chair and scholars’ stools covered with bits of felt or sheep-skin,—more luxury than we had at Eton,—well-thumbed copies of the San-tzŭ-ching,—three character classic,—the Chinese boy’s primer, a few cheap writing-materials, and a copy-book in which some little urchin had been making laborious attempts at copying the numerals and other simple characters. By way of ornament there was a picture of four little boys representing the seasons, dancing round a basket of impossible flowers with the most grotesque contortions, with the superscription, “The four seasons when prosperous beget riches.” In the cause of letters it was satisfactory to know that we were not interrupting studies, for the dominie had given himself and the boys a holiday, and had betaken himself to a fair at the neighbouring village of Po Li Nao, in order to go to the theatre. It is very funny to hear a class of little fellows droning out the classics, of which they don’t understand a word, in chorus, the tones of the language making a sort of cadence. The system of teaching a boy a lot of characters without their sense, each character simply representing a meaningless sound to him, could only exist in China. We passed Po Li Nao, some fifteen li farther on, and to the great astonishment of the sightseers did not stop to hear a play by a troupe of poor strollers. “What! been to Po Li Nao and didn’t go to see the theatre! Ai ya! that’s strange!” said a footpad of whom I asked the way. At any rate we saw what was better, Po Li Nao itself, one of the most picturesquely situated little places I have seen in China. It stands at the foot of a bend of low hills, above which rises a towering range of dark, jagged peaks, and beside it winds a clear pebbly stream, breaking here and there against large stones; add to this a few quaint Chinese buildings, plenty of trees, and all the bustle of the fair. We had a difficult sandy track again for the heavy cart; we were 13½ hours on the road, stopped two hours at noon, and only accomplished about thirty miles. We put up at Kwa Yo Erh, where, as at all small places, the people were civility itself, our landlord even turning his family out of his own house in order to lodge us comfortably.
14th May.
We took care that our host, who combined the profession of military officer with that of innkeeper, should not lose by his civility, and we parted with mutual expressions of goodwill. We had a climb of it up a steepish hill, on the top of which is a temple to the god of war, and then descended on to the valley of Ku Pei Ko̔u by a winding road cut in stages over a precipice such as one finds on a large scale in Switzerland and the Tyrol. More than once on our journey through these mountains I have been put in mind of the Alps, not only by the scenery which, if it were not for the absence of snow and glaciers, would stand the comparison well, but also by the goitres and cretinism which seem to be the curse of mountainous districts. The other day at a cross-road I asked the way of a man who was collecting dung for fuel; he turned round and said very simply, “I know nothing, I’m only an idiot; ask him,” pointing to a man ploughing, “he knows everything.” Deafness, too, seems rather common, probably owing to the very hard weather which prevails during some seven months of the year. The old people seem hearty enough, barring their hearing. I came across none of a very advanced age, but one old fellow of seventy-nine was very hearty, and to all appearance likely to remain so, but he was by many years the doyen of all I met, and anything past seventy seems to be looked upon as extraordinary.
We had a scorching ride to-day: there was a good deal of electricity in the air, which told upon us when we had been some hours in the saddle. As we were a full hour ahead of our baggage we turned the horses to graze, and sat down by a brook to smoke a cigar. As luck would have it we had no matches; however, there was a house not far off, so the doctor volunteered to go and beg a light. On arriving at the cottage he found forty or fifty people engaged in a “white affair,” which is the euphemism for a funeral, because white is the colour of mourning. A dozen or so of the relations, friends, and neighbours were seated round a bier weeping and crooning officially, while the others, waiting till their turn came for grief, were smoking their pipes and retailing country gossip. They were very civil, and presently—for apparently the attraction of seeing the foreigners was superior to that of mourning by commission for a poor old woman—all, except those actually on duty round the coffin, were crowding about us as merry as possible; even the women with their heads bound up in white cloth as if they had the face-ache turned out to have a peep at us from behind the house, grinning and giggling as if they were assisting at a marriage.
We did not go into the town of Ku Pei Ko̔u, but stopped at an inn just outside the gates; so we had all the advantage of the fine view over the Great Wall of China, with pure air to breathe, instead of the garlic and muck-stained atmosphere of the town.
During the whole of our journey from Llama Miao to Ku Pei Ko̔u we did not see a single Mongol, much less a camp. The ground is not suited to their nomad and pastoral habits; it is colonised exclusively by Chinese, principally farmers from the province of Shantung. Europeans have very rarely followed this route; so far as I can make out they have been seen here once, or at most twice.
15th May.
This day week we were shivering in furs at Llama Miao. To-day a gauze shirt was too much; the flies were a perfect pest. It was too hot to do anything but sleep, which they put out of the question. It was not until after dinner that we could venture out. We went up a hill behind the inn, from which we had a fine view of the sun setting behind the heights which the Great Wall scales. In the valley beneath wayfarers were hurrying to reach the town before the closing of the gates; the rear was brought up by a herd of about a hundred pigs, the last travellers who entered China this night by the gates of Ku Pei Ko̔u.
About Ku Pei Ko̔u and the road back to Peking I wrote to you last year, and this letter is too long already. Three days brought us home to the Legation.
P.S.—By the bye, although the part of Mongolia we visited is set down on the maps as belonging to the province of Chi Li, which it is so far as its government is concerned, I have spoken of China as bounded by the Great Wall. No Mongol living beyond it would consider himself as an inhabitant of China, and the Chinese themselves speak of the places which are “Ko̔u-wai,” outside the mouth or frontier, as Mongolia. In Stamford’s large map of China and Japan you will see how Chang Chia Ko̔u, Dolonor or Llama Miao, and Ku Pei Ko̔u are placed—some of our other halting-places are also given, but you would hardly recognise them from their spelling.
May 20th—Sunday.—Went round some of the curiosity shops, where I was shown, among other things, a wonderful ewer and cover of rock crystal, about a foot high. I have seen nothing finer of its kind than the carving. In the days of Chien Lung the Magnificent, himself a great patron of art, when a fine piece of rock crystal, jade, or cornelian was brought in from the western mountains as tribute, a committee of taste decided the shape to be given to it, and fixed upon the artist to whom it should be entrusted by Imperial Command.
May 21.—The pious Chinese are all off these days making a pilgrimage to a holy shrine among the hills, called Miao Fêng Shan, to burn joss-stick as a sovereign prophylactic against disease and misfortune of all kinds.
May 22.—The thermometer standing at 100° in the shade. The heat frightfully oppressive. Happily on the following day there came a great thunderstorm, with hailstones as big as pigeon’s eggs. This cooled the air. The formation of the hailstones was curious: a nodule of ice surrounded by a coating of frozen snow, which in its turn was encased in ice. Bad for heads!
May 27.—An outbreak of the “Heavenly Flowers,” or smallpox, causes general consternation and vaccination. Any one who is opposed to vaccination had better see the ravages of this horrible disease in an Eastern city; so common is it that no Chinaman who has not “put forth the heavenly flowers” is considered quite complete. It is like distemper with dogs in Europe.
May 29.—Dined with Dr. and Mrs. Wells Williams at the American Legation, a handsome and delightful couple now entering middle age. Dr. Williams, the author of a Chinese dictionary, and that most encyclopædic book The Middle Kingdom, is one of the most learned of sinologues. He began his career in China as a missionary in the south, but his great talents rendered him necessary to the American Government, and he is now chargé d’affaires here. He was very interesting, talking, among other subjects, on the paper currency. Bank-notes, it seems, were first introduced in the days of the Sung dynasty, during the reign of Shao Hsing (A.D. 1170). At that time copper was scarce, so the Government issued great notes (Ta Chao) of the value of 1000 to 5000 copper cash, and small notes (Hsiao Chao) worth from 100 to 700 cash. Officers were appointed everywhere to issue and receive these notes. They were to be renewed within seven years, and fifteen cash in every thousand were deducted for the expense of making them. They were said to be “kung ssŭ pien,” “convenient both for the public and for private individuals.” Marco Polo mentions them with praise.
June 1.—My new colleague, Sir Eric Farquhar, arrived from England. An old schoolfellow. He was accompanied by Mr. Brenchley, a most accomplished traveller, who seems to have been all over the world, and being a great naturalist and profound observer, is a charming companion to boot.
June 10.—The last few days have been occupied in showing Brenchley the lions of Peking. To-day we went to breakfast at a fashionable Chinese restaurant, “The House of Eternal Prosperity,” in the Ta Shih La Erh, which we call Curio Street. In order that we might make a genteel appearance and observe the ten thousand proprieties, my servant Chang Hsi insisted on our going in carts. Walking is so vulgar! We were jolted and bruised over the indescribable ruts and paving-stones to a horrible degree, but our dignity was kept up. We found the House of Eternal Prosperity very shabby and dirty, and we should have had a much better breakfast at home.
June 15–20.—Two more parties of travellers arrived. More work as “intelligent guide.”