CHILDREN’S PAGE.
A TRIP UP THE YANG-TSE-KIANG.
REV. G. W. PAINTER.
By the last mail, I wrote that I was in Shanghai for my health. Since then, I have been up the Yang-tse-Kiang to Hankow, a distance up and back of 1,200 miles, first-class passage $8. This included board for a whole week, and it may startle you to hear that we had genuine strawberries (the first I have seen during seven years’ residence in China), which cost the steward five cash each (half a cent), and shad at a cost of $2 per pair. We always had five or six kinds of meat, and several kinds of fruit. How this could be afforded was a mystery, but to me a charming one.
The fare provoked even a sick man’s appetite, and the pure sweet river air conduced to sleep; the weather was fine, and the scenery, for one half of the route, superb. Part of the way the banks of the river were flat, and the view was cut off by tall reeds with which they were lined, but during the latter half of the upward journey the mountains rose, often abruptly from the river, not unfrequently to great heights, and it was true of some of these, what I supposed before coming to this country was true of all mountains, that they were terraced and cultivated to their summits. Much of the scenery was equal to that on the Hudson, minus the residences.
The country houses along the river are much poorer than in our Province of Hanchow, and the cities seem older and more dilapidated. The river annually overflows the low grounds from April to August, and as it often rises 50 feet above its winter level, the people build only rude huts. The missionaries at Hankow inform me that for months they are compelled to use canoes for travel on their streets. It was the busiest season (May) when I reached Hankow, which until recently was the most interior treaty port of the Empire. It is separated from Han Yang and Wa-Chang by the Yang-tse-Kiang and Han rivers, and each of them is an immense city. There are some two hundred foreigners here. The Bund (River) St. has houses only on one side, and is the finest in China. It stands 50 feet above the river, which for half a mile is faced with splendid stone masonry. It offers the busiest and most Chinesy sight yet seen in this country. Fourteen steamers were lying at the wharves. There is a great rush to get the first new tea into the English market. The fleetest steamers are chartered at fabulous prices: $32 per ton is paid for transportation, and $1,600 for river pilots, on the round trip from Shanghai to Hankow and return—a trip of one week. This year the season opened on the Sabbath, some taking advantage of the fact that others were at church to begin lading. Neither heat, night, nor anything else checks the work. The Russians do the biggest business. They deal chiefly in the coarsest and poorest qualities of tea. Stem, leaf, and often extraneous matter, are ground to powder, steamed and pressed into bricks of convenient size for transportation, and these are used for money in Mongolia and Siberia.
Hankow is a filthy city. Wa-Chang is much better in this respect, has fine hills, and a lofty pagoda from which a magnificent view of the surrounding country is obtained.
I was hospitably received, not alone by the missionaries, but by many outside the mission circles, who as a rule do not show much kindness to us. I saw much of the mission work, and found that it was not given exclusively to the natives, but extended to the sailors in the various ports. Ancestral worship, which is the religion of China, is one of the chief obstacles to the reception of Christianity. A pigeon-English-speaking Chinaman to whom a zealous sister had given a book said, in answer to her question, “How did you like it?” “That book talkee fool pigeon. I no can leave father; no can leave mother.” He meant he could not cease from worshiping them.
I saw here an ancient and queer monument called the “Lamp of a thousand years.” The inscriptions on it are in Sanscrit, and have not been deciphered. Also a picture representing a miracle of like import to that of Jesus at Cana. A landlord had treated one of the genii with great kindness. He rewarded him by turning his well into a wine pool. The host’s avarice was awakened, and he complained that now he had no swill for his pigs, whereupon the well gave forth water again. Hence, in characterizing an avaricious man, the Chinese say “If his well bubbled wine he would complain of a lack of swill.”
Smuggling is carried on to a great extent all along the river, opium and salt being the principal articles thus introduced. The natives employ foreigners to protect their goods, and the hands on the steamers are engaged in the work, and are skillful in all manner of tricks by which to evade duties. The whole trip was delightful and most invigorating to a sick missionary.