After taking leave of my new friends and comrades, I discharged the boat I had arrived in, taking my departure on board a gun-vessel the Chung-wang had kindly placed at my disposal. While on my passage, I observed many people apparently returning to their homes in the neighbourhood of Soo-chow; I halted at some of the villages on my route, and found in all of them huge yellow placards, which my interpreter read as Ti-ping imperial proclamations calling upon the people to return to their homes without fear, to remain quiet, and lawfully to render a certain amount of tribute (a little over a third of the Manchoo taxation) to the Ti-ping general treasury. At the gateways of Soo-chow, and at several villages I passed, I saw heads hung up with notices attached, stating they were those of soldiers decapitated for plundering the country people, one for smoking opium, and another for carrying off a villager's daughter.
It was a singular fact that about every fourth village had been completely burned and destroyed. Sometimes I passed three villages, the two outside ones perfect and the central one entirely gutted. Upon inquiry, the country people said the Imperialists had been the destroyers; others said the inhabitants having run away and gone off with the "imps" (Imperialists), they had punished them by burning their habitations; while some said the destroyed villages had been fortified and defended by the Manchoo troops, and so, when captured by the Ti-pings, had been destroyed. This last I had reason to believe the correct account, for I noticed in all the ruined villages various traces of strife, and some seemed to have been surrounded with a wall or stockade and the houses loopholed; while, here and there, half hidden among the débris and tall rank weeds, lay some human skeletons.
When I reached the steamer, no silk having arrived, I had time to see more of the country. In one direction, some few miles from San-li-jow, I found a considerable tract of land perfectly desolated, not a dwelling nor habitation of any sort standing, and the fields untended, with the rice or paddy growing wild.
It appeared this part had been severely contested by the Ti-ping and Imperialist troops, and between them it had become a solitude. I made several trips to this locality with my gun, and always returned well recompensed with golden plover and pheasants, which I generally flushed among the ruins of what had once been houses. The paddy-fields about here were impenetrable, being mostly a perfect jungle six or seven feet high, and full of ugly-looking green and yellow diamond-speckled snakes.
In the villages around San-li-jow I particularly noticed the exactitude with which the Ti-ping soldiers paid the country people for everything they required. I was told in one that a soldier dare not so much as take an egg without paying for it, and the villagers all stated it was "good trade" with the Ti-pings, because they gave a better price than the Imperialists.
In a few days after my return from Soo-chow the silk arrived, and while we were busily employed taking it on board, a large Ti-ping army came in sight. Some were marching along ashore, but by far the greater number were being transported by water; for miles, as far as the eye could reach, the sinuosities of the creek were covered with the sails of the vessels. I counted the number of boats passing within half an hour at one hundred, and the numbers in each at a fair average of twenty; therefore, the flotilla continuing to pass for seven hours, I estimated the approximate strength of the army at 30,000 men, including those ashore. Many of the leaders came alongside in their boats, and spent a few minutes on board with us; amongst them I found one or two I had met at Soo-chow, who informed me they were proceeding to attack the important provincial capital, Hang-chow. All who boarded us were very eager to purchase firearms, and I was sorry we could not muster half a dozen stand for them altogether. Many brought guns on board with the locks out of order, and by repairing these our engineers reaped a munificent reward. During the whole time the flotilla was passing we received many salutations and friendly remarks, and I did not hear a single insulting or depreciating expression made use of towards us; whereas, amongst Imperialist troops it would be impossible to venture without being subjected to the grossest insult and contumely.
It has been the invariable habit to immensely exaggerate the strength of the Ti-ping armies, and this force upon the march for Hang-chow was supposed by Europeans to number several hundred thousand. It was commanded in chief by the Ting-wang, Prince of the Eastern Provinces.
When all our silk had arrived, we gave the chief of San-li-jow a farewell dinner on board, he having treated us with much hospitality and kindness during our stay; and after an exchange of presents (we gave him a few bottles of cherry brandy, some boxes of percussion-caps, a couple of muskets, and a few other things; and in return received a present of some pigs, fowls, ducks, and pieces of silk, a much more valuable one than ours) started for Shanghae.
We returned to the Wong-poo river, and Imperialist territory, by a different route to that by which we had left it, and in this direction, likewise, found one of the most prominent changes in the country—the total destruction of the idols and Buddhist temples. The desolating traces of civil war were also more visible.
We anchored for the night preceding our re-entry into the Imperialist lines, getting all our arms in readiness. Starting early in the morning, we fortunately caught the ebb tide, and so, after running the gauntlet past our allies, reached Shanghae safely the same afternoon.