The only instance of hostility towards a foreigner on the part of the people I have met with hitherto happened on this day. Frater and I were riding about 200 yards ahead of the party when, just as we arrived at a crossroad, and were doubting which way to take, up came a party of about a dozen Chinamen with a cart. We, according to good manners, “borrowed the light of their intelligence,” and asked our way, which they pointed out, paying us at the same time the compliment of asking whether we had eaten our dinner. I think I told you that the common salutation is, “Have you had your dinner?” The literal translation of the phrase is, “Have you eaten rice.”[8] Rice has passed into the generic term for all meals. Early rice is breakfast, late rice is dinner. The rice is prepared is the equivalent of Mr. Bailey Junior’s “the wittles is up.” In short, amenity and deportment could be pushed no further. To our surprise a few moments after Saurin and Murray rode up looking hot and angry, and asking us whether we had had any difficulty with these same men. It appeared that, as Saurin was riding past the cart, the man inside, in the most unprovoked way, struck him in the chest with his brass pipe. Murray was riding just behind him and saw the blow struck, and from their account of what took place I doubt whether the man will ever insult a foreigner again. His friends all took part against him, but interceded for him, crying, “Be calm, be calm; he has had enough.” At any rate he got a good whipping.
The sun was scorching hot, and it was a great relief to come upon a pretty village-green, at one end of which stood a small tea-shop, shaded by a covering of millet-straw and by a broad-spreading tree: our horses needed a rest as much as ourselves; they had been driven nearly mad by the flies and by one venomous little insect in particular, which must have been the original gadfly that persecuted Io. It has a long sheath in its tail, out of which it shoots a sting into the horses’ flanks, apparently out of pure mischief, for it never seems to suck them, and it follows a horse or mule for miles. If one attacked our horses, the only way to get rid of it was to dismount and kill it. So sharp is its sting that every time it touched our beasts they jumped up as if they had been shot. We were all glad of a friendly shelter.
We found a party of Chinamen playing dominoes. They were playing the game more as we do cards than dominoes, but I could not make out the principle of it. The landlord was a very jolly, burly fellow, the picture of a host with whom everything prospered, although he must have been poor enough, for instead of tea he was drinking an infusion of dried leaves of jujube that is common on the hills. In some places where there is no tea to be had the people drink a sort of barley water, and very good it is. At these tea-shops guests are expected to bring their own tea-leaves. The house supplies only the pot and the boiling water.
Almost every man and woman (I am not exaggerating) that we met in this part of the valley had goitres, not so bad as those one meets in the Swiss valleys, but far more numerous. In one village we saw eight fullgrown men and women only—out of the eight seven had goitres.
Overlooking the village-green I mentioned above is a fort commanding the plain; and on one side of the fort the road has been cut through the solid rock and arched over with strong masonry, so as to form a gate, which bears the legend, “The Gate of the Southern Heavens.” Through this gate there is a most gorgeous view of the different ranges, the Great Wall, and the approach to Ku-Pei-Ko̔u.
Ku-Pei-Ko̔u is in its way one of the most strikingly beautiful places that I have ever seen. The valley by which it is reached, with rocks, ferns, mosses, gardens, and a little rivulet sparkling in the sunlight, is a gem. The town itself stands in a little nest among the hills which surround it; on one side of it runs a river, on the farther bank of which, in a grove of trees, is the yamên or official residence of the Ti-tu (the general officer commanding the district). There is not a point in the whole place from which there is not something attractive to rest one’s eyes on. The streets are clean, the houses well built, and the shops seem to do a prosperous business. At one end of the town is the frontier gate of China; it is strongly guarded, and ingress or egress without passport is forbidden. Besides the walls of the city, as a guard against Mongol tribes, on the river side are two little ditches that a man might easily hop over, and two little pieces of cannon which look more dangerous to friend than to foe. We walked outside the gate to stand beyond the confines of China proper. The guard were extremely civil, the sentry politely inviting us into the guard-room to drink tea! The Chinese attach a great deal of importance to Ku-Pei-Ko̔u as a border fortress. They keep up a garrison of two thousand men, of whom ten per cent are Tartars and the rest Chinese.
The inn here is the largest I have been in yet. The enormous traffic which passes through the town keeps its business brisk. The landlord was a Tientsing man, and a man of letters, having taken the degree equivalent to our B.A. Degrees in China are conferred by competitive examination, only a certain number of candidates being elected each time. The examinations are held at Peking, and people come from all parts of the empire to compete. Some time back an old gentleman aged 100 presented himself from the south for examination. He received the degree of B.A. by Imperial favour, and with it a present of 2 lbs. of gin-seng, which is a powerful aphrodisiac and tonic. It is from the successful candidates that the offices of the empire are filled, and in former days it was the highest ambition of a Chinaman to pass the schools in order to qualify himself for office. Now, however, a race has sprung up of men who are indifferent to public honours, and prefer their private advantage. Of these was our host. Why, he argued, should he go through all the petty annoyances and humiliations which inferior mandarins suffer at the hands of their superiors for the possible chance of rising to distinction, when he could enjoy certain comfort in trade? Many people deny the existence of this feeling among the lettered class, but it exists nevertheless. Office, both civil and military, can also be obtained by purchase.
As I was sitting smoking and reading an old number of a magazine outside my room, the landlord came up and began asking me many questions about what I was reading, and why we read from left to right instead of in columns from right to left. About half an hour after I heard him in the inn-yard delivering a lecture to an admiring audience of grooms, muleteers, and riffraff, upon the English language, the point of which was that we wrote exactly as the Manchus do, who write in columns from left to right! Seeing me come he borrowed my book and proceeded to give practical illustrations of what he had said, holding it upside down. This exhibition of learning was received with awe by the gaping crowd. He was a great character, this same landlord, a confirmed opium smoker, and being a man of letters, which is something more thought of here than being of good birth is in Europe, he had an immense number of friends and acquaintances of good standing of whom he was very proud. He took me into his own little house, which he had papered completely with the crimson visiting-cards of his intimates.
Our first object at Ku-Pei-Ko̔u was to get the seal of the Ti-tu affixed as a visa to our passports. All over the provinces of China the central authorities count as nothing in comparison with the local; a small mandarin who would laugh to scorn the seal of the Imperial Foreign Office will bow to the earth before that of his immediate superior. Accordingly, on the evening of our arrival we sent our Shao-To, the apostle, to the Yamên with our cards to beg the Ti-tu to grant us his seal. He came back discomfited, not having been able even to see an official of any rank. The next morning, however, he proposed to return to the charge, and arraying himself in his best, with his head shaven and his tail freshly plaited, he ordered out one of the carts and called upon the skipper to attend him. Here arose a difficulty: our servants all declared that the skipper must abandon his old pea-jacket as unbefitting the dignity of the situation; he as firmly stuck to wearing it, but public opinion was too strong for him, and he was forced to give up his favourite garment and appear in a dirty nankin jacket. In spite of the imposing splendour of this embassy it was fruitless, the authorities declaring that they had received no special instructions from Peking, and that without them they could not grant the seal. This was very provoking; the seal was necessary to us, we had a right to ask for it, and we were determined to have it, the more especially as if we, holding an official position here, had foregone our rights, other travellers would necessarily have had double difficulty in obtaining it in future. Murray determined to go himself and demand to see the Ti-tu. He was shown into a dirty room full of soldiers, and the Chinese tried to foist a wretched white-buttoned mandarin upon him as the Ti-tu. He of course was not to be taken in by this childish piece of chicanery, and as soon as it became evident that he knew what he was about the big doors were thrown open, and he was ushered with due solemnity into the presence of the Ti-tu, who made many apologies for having kept him waiting, and received him with much ceremony. Murray had the satisfaction of being served with tea and sweetmeats by the very impostor who had tried to pass himself off as the great man! About the question of putting on the seal the Ti-tu fenced for a long while. He had no orders. He might get into a scrape. What right had we to ask it? Murray explained the treaty to him, and he admitted our claim. But no sooner were the passports produced than he raised another objection. The seal of the British Legation was in the centre, that of the Imperial Foreign Office on the left, and there was no more room on the left of that again for his seal—what could be done? His rank was too high for his seal to be placed below. “Well,” said Murray, “put your seal on the right of ours, and then we shall be figuratively between the protection of the civil and military authorities of China.” This little bit of nonsense was the very thing to please the Chinese mind, and the seal was set without more delay, Murray undertaking to explain the matter at Peking. “I know you’ll do it,” said the Ti-tu, “for when an Englishman promises a thing he does it.”
I mention this to show you how business is transacted in China. The most important affairs are conducted with the same amount of childishness and trickery as our little passport difficulty with the Ti-tu of Ku-Pei-Ko̔u, who, be it recollected, is an officer of the highest rank.