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.