We were obliged to stay there two days, the bank not being open on Sunday. The train only runs by day up to Yünnanfu, and starts at a very early hour: the carriages are primitive in the extreme and badly arranged. There is only one corridor coach for first-, second- and third-class passengers, the first-class being in the middle and the passengers for the others passing to and fro through the carriage all the time. Besides this one coach there were a number of seatless luggage vans, in which were herded large numbers of fourth-class passengers, with their belongings. Their legs might frequently be seen dangling out of the unglazed windows. The line was opened in 1910, and is about 150 miles in length.
The scenery was fascinating and varied during our three days’ journey to Yünnanfu. At first it was sub-tropical, passing through forests with great tree-ferns and bamboos, or ricefields where water-buffaloes toiled. Lovely rose bushes and brilliant canna were the chief flowers visible, and tall trees full of crimson blossom. From seven in the morning till 8.30 p.m. we travelled slowly towards the Chinese frontier, and spent the night at Laokay, in a not too bad little French hotel. There was food served on the train, but we mostly relied on our own provisions. The frontier town was quite attractive, at the junction of two rivers; we were supposed to have our luggage examined, but both French and Chinese let us off, and I had time to sketch from the dividing bridge while our less lucky interpreter, Mr. Li,[5] underwent searching examination. It is most difficult for any Chinese to get passports for going through French territory, and you can never foresee what difficulties the officials will put in the way, even when everything is en règle. Li was taken off to the police station and put through an elaborate interrogatory. We had been rather anxious about our own passports, as Sir John Jordan was not able to authorize our having them from Peking, on account of the political division between North and South. He very kindly arranged that the British Consul at Canton (if he considered it safe for us to prosecute our journey) should supply us with them, and we experienced a great sense of relief on finding them awaiting us at Hong Kong. As an illustration of the strictness of French rule, no one is allowed to take more than two dollars out of Indo-China in their coinage; at Haiphong we had obtained Chinese dollars suitable for the province of Yünnan.
One of the most serious questions for China to-day is that of finance, and I was told by a reliable business man that the unification of the coinage would have been settled long ago, but for the fierce opposition of the banking community, who make unheard-of profits by the present system. It is extremely tiresome and injurious to trade, and adds greatly to the difficulty of travelling.
As soon as we had crossed the frontier the scenery changed and became grander. The railway passes through malarious districts, and its construction was impeded (at one time even entirely suspended) on account of the number of deaths which took place among the workmen. It is a narrow-gauge single line, and there are so frequently obstructions and accidents that the train only runs by daylight; it takes therefore three days to accomplish the journey; but it is so interesting that one is glad to go slowly. The stations on the line are few, and the only important town is Mongtsze, a big trading centre. The province is considered one of great natural wealth and beauty, and I was glad to be in it once more, having already traversed it from north-east to west (a distance of over a thousand miles) on foot or carried in a chair. On the second day we passed through glorious wooded gorges, gradually rising to a height of two thousand seven hundred feet. The hill-sides were terraced up to the very summits in places, and despite the sparse population the land was well cultivated wherever possible. We reached the town of Amichow soon after five o’clock, and found a decent little French hotel. Strolling out to watch the glorious sunset, we came to a barracks, where men were drilling in orthodox German style and singing a monotonous sort of chant.
Next morning when we came to pay our seven-dollar bill with the Yünnanese notes we had bought at Haiphong, we had an unusual experience with regard to the exchange, for we found that it only meant three Yünnanese dollars. While I attended to this, my niece went ahead to secure the window seats, for you see very little otherwise. There were other travellers who had secured them the previous day, and we knew the scenery would be magnificent. The line is really a remarkable one, running in and out of the rock, crossing rivers far below, and wholly unlike the tame railway lines at home. One part was singularly beautiful as we emerged from a tunnel at a high level; we saw a lovely jade-coloured lake spread below us, melting away into the far distance. As we approached the capital, Yünnanfu, we left the mountains behind and passed through well-cultivated lowlands, already clad in shining green, or reflecting the blue sky in watery ricefields. We were not sorry, however, to say good-bye to the railway for many weeks to come. Friends had arranged for us to stay at a comfortable French hotel, the Terminus, outside the city wall and with a fine view across the fields to distant hills.
We eagerly inquired as to the prospects of being allowed to go eastwards, and were informed that the robbers were most aggressive and had taken prisoners three missionaries, besides securing much loot from other quarters. I confess my spirits sank low that night, despite our having got a much-longed-for mail, and it was with some misgivings we set off to the British Consulate next morning. The postal commissioner, a portly Frenchman, had told us that he didn’t consider it at all dangerous to go eastward, but it was true that he had ceased to send money orders, owing to the number of robbers! He could transmit no money for us, but promised to see what could be done in the matter through merchants.
We found that the British Consul, Mr. Otterwell, remembered me as an old traveller. I had been his guest at Tengyueh twelve years before, though he was at the time absent in the district. He was quite encouraging, and promised at once to have our passports visé-ed and a military escort obtained for the following week. Our further doings in Yünnan Province are chronicled in Chapter III. Suffice it to say that from Yünnanfu we set off in carrying-chairs, and travelled north-eastward into the province of Kweichow—a wild and beautiful mountainous country, far from railways and steamboats and all the busy bustle of the West. There we were to make friends with strange aboriginal tribes in their native haunts and to see unadulterated China once more.
Kweichow (the Land of Demons) surpassed our most sanguine hopes. It was far more beautiful and interesting than we had been told, and not nearly so difficult to travel in as I had been led to expect. We had provided ourselves with tinned meats, as we were told that we could expect to get no meat or chickens or vegetables in so poor a province, whereas we found all these things in abundance, and every mission station to which we came most hospitable in supplying us with bread and cakes. It is true we only came to five stations in the next seven weeks, that is in crossing the whole province. There is no road in any part of it—sixty thousand square miles, roughly speaking—suitable for wheeled traffic; so no wonder it must be considered as one of the most backward parts of China, and has rarely been visited by travellers. To carry a load of rice for a hundred miles more than doubles its cost.
A Chinese Ritz.