The next day we breakfasted at a felt manufactory, at a village called Ta Tan. The way the Chinese make their felt is very rude and primitive, but the result beats Manchester and cogwheels. A quantity of wool is carded and weighed and scattered evenly over a rush mat. When a sufficient quantity has been laid, the wool is carefully flattened down with a sort of wickerwork fan and sprinkled with boiling water; the mat and wool are then rolled up and tied, and the roll being laid on the ground is kicked backwards and forwards by six men from foot to foot for five minutes. A second layer completes the felt, which is excellent. I wish I could give you an idea of the extreme beauty of our afternoon’s ride. After we had left our felt manufactory, the road lay through low hills, along a valley that was perfectly enamelled with wild-flowers, principally yellow ones, a real blaze of gold—wild roses, ranunculus, amaryllis, peony, daphne, potentilla, pinks, purple iris, gorgeous tiger and Turk’s cap lilies, and poppies which pay the Emperor of China the compliment of wearing his colours, besides a host of others—a mass of beauties. A violent contrast to the richness of the pasture are the herds of camels, who at this time of year, coatless, mangy, emaciated, and so weak as hardly to be able to move along, are turned out to get rid of the sores on their backs and recruit for their hard work in autumn, winter, and spring. Poor brutes! pitiable as they look, this must be the happiest season of their year; they well earn their rest. Along this wild garden we gradually ascended—so gradually that it was not until we had reached the top of the pass that opens out between two rocks on a panorama of high hills, range upon range lying at our feet, that we had any idea how high we were. I think this view as I saw it, with the sun setting in the distance and the remains of a storm rolling away over the mountains, is one of the finest I have ever seen. The mountains themselves are savage and barren, and in the valleys clusters of trees mark where Chinese homesteads stand, so poor that not even eggs are to be bought there. In one of these, at a place called Pa Ti, half farmhouse, half inn, we slept, I in a sort of barn, my bed on the ground, my dressing-table a nether millstone, and my washhand-stand the carcase of an old cart. The sun was rising when we started down the valley, which really is the grandest thing I have seen in China, and barring the attractions of snow and ice, it seems to me the Alps have nothing finer to show. Rocks more grim and uncouth there cannot be. They take every conceivable shape—men’s heads, tigers, lions, citadels with turrets and battlements of living rock, are easily conjured up. Then there are huge boulders that look as if a breath would blow them down, so delicately are they poised upon points apparently quite unfit to bear their weight. It is a valley which makes one think of old fairy tales about giants and dwarfs and ogres’ castles. The poor commonplace Chinese drudges who inhabit it are ill-suited to their home. The best part of the scenery ends some fifteen miles down the valley, at a hill called Llama Shan (“The Llama’s Hills”)—two enormous pyramidical rocks, at the foot of which is a village to which they give their name. On one rock, high upon a flat surface hard to climb to, is painted a rude picture of Buddha, with a glory round his head and his finger and thumb held up in orthodox form. The painting is of old date, but pious hands have recently restored it. In the other rock is a cave in which a rather hazy tradition says that in old times a llama or llamas used to retire from the world, and pass their time in the pious contemplation of their own navels. Their reverences showed their taste in the choice of their abode, for it is a lovely spot. We were spoilt for the lower half of the valley by the beauty of the upper half, but we had still before us a fine jagged hill, at the foot of which is Ta Kao, our halting-place, a largish town, rich in gardens. And what would Exeter Hall say if it heard that there are places in these parts which actually cultivate their own poppies? We found a famous inn at Ta Kao, with large rooms freshly papered; but strange to say, on the 6th of July, the stove-beds or kangs were all heated. We, coming from the cool mountain breezes, found the atmosphere of itself close and stuffy, though in comparison with Peking it was freshness itself; the heated kangs were perfectly insupportable. We wound up a long day with the usual exhibition to a rather tiresome crowd.
We travelled next day along a poverty-stricken but picturesque valley, through which flows a mountain torrent swelled almost to a river by the recent rains. We had to ford it twenty-two times in the course of the day. At one ford one of the mule litters broke down and was smashed to pieces. No great damage was done, and the mule litter was patched together with bits of string and an old nail or two. The way in which the muleteer abused his beasts for the mishap was very funny. Treating the mule as if it had been a human creature, he proceeded in his wrath to take away its younger sister’s character. Be it man or mule, horse or pig, or what not, that sins against a Chinese, he immediately tramples on the fair fame of the younger sister of the offender, heaping upon her every foul abuse that he can lay his tongue to. Mingled with his revilings, the muleteer addressed the most humble petitions to me not to dock his pay, passing from prayer to abuse with wondrous facility. If that mule’s younger sister was guilty of one-half the enormities ascribed to her, the punishment has not yet been devised which would be equal to the occasion. The list of her crimes is not fit for publication. When we arrived at Chai Ling the only room that I could have was perfectly untenable from stuffiness and a hot kang which took up a good half of it, so I slept in my litter in the inn-yard, sub Jove, which was very cool and pleasant.
The following morning, 8th July, we were awakened by a most glorious sunrise; it was so fresh and nice that I walked the greater part of the day’s journey, to the undisguised wonder of the muleteers, who could not in the least understand it. They hold up their thumbs in admiration, and loudly express their high respect for such prowess. “See the old lord! how he walks!” “He has obtained to walk unsurpassably.” “This body! Our lords here have not such bodies!” It was but a ten-mile walk; but no Chinese gentleman would dream of attempting such a feat. We all went beetle-mad this day, one of our party being an entomologist. Under one jujube-tree we found so many varieties of insects of different kinds that it became perfectly exciting; even the muleteers caught the fever and began to take a certain interest in the hunt, but were rather afraid of the quarry. At the end of a very pretty mountain walk we found the “Inn of Flourishing Righteousness,” with a large yard full of picturesque groups of half-naked drovers and muleteers. We were well lodged and very comfortable.
The next morning we came down the pass on to Ku Pei Ko̔u, which I found as attractive as ever. I put up at my old quarters outside the town. Of course we rested a day to let the travellers have a ramble on the Great Wall. While they were busy picking up bricks and ferns and other souvenirs of the Great Wall, I fell in with a curious character. He was an old Chinaman, by name Li, by trade a herbalist and naturalist, by adoption a poultry-fancier, and by inspiration a professor of palmistry. He began by telling me a lot of curious facts and properties about different plants and roots, but as their English names were unknown to me I cannot repeat them. Certain of them were to cure the hot, others to repel the cold influence. Lizards he pointed to as a deadly poison (internal) to horses and cattle. After he had discoursed to me some time, he asked to look at my hand; and then he really surprised me. He told me things about myself and family which are certainly known to few people but ourselves; that they should have become known to a poor cottager living on a hillside near a little out-of-the-way town at the farther extremity of Asia is impossible. We shall see if what he said about the future is equally correct. The lines in the hand from which he gathered his auguries were different from those which used to be read in Europe; he explained his science to me, but as he did so in verse, and in the jargon of the trade, I could not make much of it. He invited me afterwards to his cottage—such a pretty little spot, with a glorious vine trained so as to make a covered Pergola in front of it. He passes his life here contentedly, seldom going to the town but when he needs to sell his herbs or his chickens. As soon as he made his appearance with me a whole pack of dirty little brats, all stark naked, came trooping out to welcome him and salute their father’s guest according to manners.
I had hoped to have pushed so far as Jo Hol, the imperial palace and hunting forest, but one of my companions struck work, and I was obliged to return to Peking, having been within two days of my goal, which I hope, however, to reach another time.
LETTER XXVIII
Ta-chio-Ssŭ, 4th August 1866.
When I returned from Mongolia three weeks ago I found that all the world, that is to say, the three or four diplomatists who compose our world, had very wisely taken itself off to the country. So early as last February I had secured this “Temple of Great Repose,” and I lost no time in coming out here. It is too far from Peking to be very convenient; but it is well worth the extra ride, and the advantage of being fifteen miles from the other temples inhabited by Europeans is incalculable; one is not subject to perpetual interruptions by people who, being bored themselves, come in and inflict their boredom upon others. It is a great undertaking moving out to the hills. We are obliged to take absolutely our whole ménage, and almost all our furniture with us. I think you would have laughed at my procession; there were fourteen carts full of every kind of movable—our whole poultry-yard clucking and cackling out of coops and baskets, and a cow with her calf. This must seem strange to you, who would certainly not dream of taking your hens, ducks, and cows with you from town to the country: it is only another instance of the universal topsy-turviness of things in China, again demonstrated by the fact that the farther one gets from town the dearer everything becomes, there being no market and no competition, so that the owner of a leg of mutton can just charge what he pleases for it, knowing that you must either buy at his price or go without it altogether. It is a beautiful ride out here, past Hai Tien, a little village with a smart inn at which the Pekingese may be seen by scores, naked to the waist, and enjoying an outing, after their fashion, with chopsticks and rice, tea and infinitesimal pipes, past Yuen Ming Yuen and Wan Shao Shan, or rather its ruins, past flourishing cornfields and picturesque hamlets, past temples and shrines innumerable, along stony roads which the rains have turned into canals so deep that the carters are obliged to cast lots for which shall strip his very dirty body and go in to see whether the carts can pass or not. It was quite dark before I reached the temple, after eight hours’ ride under the hottest sun I ever remember to have felt. Indeed I had a sad proof of its strength the next day, for my brown pony, Hop-o’-my-thumb, who had carried me so well over so many hundred miles, died of sunstroke after a few hours’ illness. Poor little beast! He was a great pet, and as fond of me as a dog. When I went down to his stable shortly before he died he put his head on my shoulder and looked so piteously in my face. The Chinese veterinary surgeon (they are rather clever at that) declares that he was struck by the sun the day before while he was being led. He was the strongest, stoutest little beast you ever saw, never sick nor sorry, and used to trot into Peking after a 700-mile journey as if he had just been out for a morning’s exercise. He is the third horse that I have lost from one cause or another since last September. Bad luck, is it not?
This is certainly the prettiest temple and the most charming summer residence that I have seen near Peking. The temple stands in a nest of trees—cedars, pines, firs, and poplars—a perpetual fountain runs through all its courts, and there seems always to be a cool breeze blowing. While our friends are complaining of being roasted and baked in their temples, we here are revelling in fresh air. Here is a translation of an account of Ta Chio Ssŭ by a Chinese gentleman:—
“Seventy li (23 miles) from the walls of Peking there stood in the time of the Liao a temple called Ling Chuan Ssŭ, ‘The temple of the Spiritual Fountain.’ In the reign of the Emperor Hsuan Tê of the Ming dynasty it was restored, and the name changed to Ta Chio Ssŭ, ‘The temple of Great Repose.’ There are four shrines: the first is to the Prince of heaven; the second to Ju Lai Fo, the Buddha who reigns in the western heaven; the third to the Yo Shih Fo, the Buddha who presides over medicine; and the fourth and last shrine has an upper story, and in it is the Pu-sa (god of the second class) of Great Compassion. Behind the shrines is a pond with a fountain. In this is a dragon’s head carved in stone, out of the mouth of which the spring issues. In front of the pond is a pagoda, on the left and right hands of which are old fir-trees, one on each side, about which an old tradition says that they never can overtop the pagoda, hence the spot is called ‘Sung ta chi,’ or ‘The firs and pagoda level.’ Besides this, outside the shrine of the Prince of heaven, on either side there is a stone called the dragon stone and the tiger stone, from their resemblance to those animals. In front of these there is a stone bridge with a pond of water on each side, and in the ponds there are a fountain and lotus flowers and gold fish. By the side of the ponds is a dragon’s claw tree, in the shape of lions playing, whence it is called the Lion Tree. The temple is built on the west, facing the east; on its south side is an imperial residence called Ssŭ Yi Tang, ‘The Hall of the Four Proprieties.’ In the hall stands an imperial throne. In the garden are four trees—peonies and two Yu Lan Hwa trees, magnolias. Behind this hall is the ‘Pavilion of the Reposing Clouds,’ ‘Chi Yün Hsuan,’ in front of which are bright bamboos and dark green firs interlaced like a forest, a capital refuge from the heat in midsummer, with plenty to see.”