From Yünnanfu we took the ordinary route via Malong, Kütsingfu, and the Yünnan Pass into Kweichow Province. It has been admirably and fully described in Sir A. Hosie’s latest book On the Trail of the Opium Poppy, so it is unnecessary for me to do it, and I shall merely describe the things which struck us as of special interest.
The journey from Yünnanfu to Anshun took us seventeen days—a distance altogether of about three hundred miles.[6] From Anshunfu we struck north, through much wilder and less-frequented country, in order to visit the haunts of aboriginal tribes, and made a wide detour, returning to the main road near Kwei Yang, the capital. We greatly wished to visit other tribes in the eastern part of the province, but that was absolutely vetoed by the governor, and we were obliged to follow the high road through Ping-yüe and Huang Ping Chow to Chen Yüen. Here we took to the waterway, from which we did not once swerve till we reached Shanghai. The first part of the journey, up the Yüen Kiang, is a distance of four hundred and forty-six miles, and one may go down it in five days, if it is in flood, with a fair chance of getting drowned! We took ten days, but a good deal of time was spent at places on the way. Coming up stream the journey is long and tedious: it may extend to months instead of days. The natural superstition of the Chinese is displayed on such a journey by the lavish use of crackers[7] and incense to ward off evil spirits. These superstitions will die hard: nothing less vital than genuine Christianity can displace them.
We entered Hunan on May 14, having spent forty-two days in Kweichow Province. The frontier is indicated by two elaborate archways, as we saw on entering the province from Yünnan. Although Hunan is within fifteen days’ reach of Shanghai, it has so far no facilities for travel better than by water. It is true there is a short railway line on its western border, but we were not encouraged to try it, and in summer there is always a good steamship line from the capital Changsha to Hankow—a distance of two hundred and twenty miles. The railway is part of the projected line from Hankow to Canton, and will be of great trade value when it is completed, as there is no good route to connect this part of the country with the south. We intended going from Changsha into Kwangsi Province on account of the beautiful scenery, but unfortunately that was impossible owing to the fighting going on between the troops of the north and the south exactly in the region where our road lay. It might be supposed that we could have taken an alternative route through so vast a country, but such is not the case. If you leave the great high road (and what a misnomer that is!) there is no way except by devious paths through endless mountain ranges, where no accommodation and little food would be obtainable. In a province of 83,398 square miles there appear to be only two main roads running from north to south, and three from east to west; yet it has a population of over twenty-one millions. The two main roads running from north to south are near the eastern and western borders, and all the central part of the province has none. We crossed the province entirely by water, first in a house-boat as far as Changteh, thence in a miserable little native steamer across the Tong Ting Lake to Changsha; from Changsha up the Siang-kiang,[8] across the Tong Ting on to the Yangtze, which bounds the province on the north.
We had no choice, therefore, of leaving Hunan except by going to Hankow, and we found good accommodation on a British steamer, the Sinkiang. There are six good lines between Changsha and Hankow—two British, a Japanese, and several Chinese steamship companies, whose ships run in the summer; owing to the extraordinary subsidence of the lake in winter (see Chapter VI) it has to be discontinued then for several months. The journey from Changsha to Hankow takes about thirty-two hours: at Hankow we transhipped for Shanghai on a most comfortable steamer (with nice beds), the Nganking, belonging to Messrs. Butterfield & Swire. It is quite easy for travellers knowing no Chinese to penetrate by this route into the very centre of China. I am so often asked about the possibilities of doing this that I can only recommend this as a wholly charming and easy way of getting about and much to be preferred to railway travelling.
Hankow itself is a big bustling cosmopolitan town, with a rapidly increasing volume of commerce. It is a link between old and new, and has no less than thirty-six associations, called “hangs,” for different kinds of goods. It has its foreign concessions like the seaports, and the important trading companies have their own floating wharves, where the big ocean liners moor, six hundred miles away from the coast. There are said to be 25,000 junks engaged here in river traffic, and they connect Hankow with all the central and western provinces, often travelling as much as a hundred miles a day.
Hankow is a great centre of educational and missionary activity, and many European nationalities are engaged in it. The great viceroy, Chang Chih Tung, ardently promoted education here when he was in office. He said in his book, China’s Only Hope (p. 61), “In order to render China powerful, and at the same time preserve our own institutions, it is absolutely necessary that we should utilize Western knowledge. But unless Chinese learning is made the basis of education and a Chinese direction is given to thought, the strong will become anarchists, and the weak slaves.” It is most deplorable that this is ignored by so many Chinese of the present day.[9] He urged that old Buddhist and Taoist temples, falling into decay, be transformed into schools, and he estimated that seven out of ten, with their property, might well be devoted to this purpose. This is quite in accordance with what is now being done, especially in Northern China. He argued that the temples are national property, and should be used for the common good.
Hankow is wonderfully situated as the internal trade centre of China, being the meeting-point of its main railways as well as waterways (when the former shall have been completed), linking up north, south, east and west. There are three cities in the angles formed by the junction of the Yangtze and the Han rivers—Hanyang, Hankow and Wu-chang; the last was far the most important in the past, and is the capital of Hupeh, but now Hankow rivals Shanghai in commercial importance, and is rapidly growing. The three cities have a joint native population of 1,150,000, of which Hankow has 800,000, and as its native quarter was completely destroyed by fire during the civil war in 1911, the fine old monuments of the past were destroyed with it. Its whole interest is modern.
Between Hankow and Shanghai are several important cities which must be most interesting to visit, several of them being treaty ports with foreign concessions, such as Chin-kiang and Wu-hu; the steamers stop at least fourteen times on the way. It is delightful to spend the days sitting in comfortable chairs on deck, watching all the varied life on the river, hearing the “honk-honk” of the wild geese soaring overhead, or watching the wedges of ducks crossing the river on strong wing to the big marshes, or lakes, into which it pours its overflow.
From time to time the steamer draws to the riverside and loads or unloads its cargo. One of the most interesting stopping-places is Nanking; indeed, it is said to be one of the most interesting in China, and is only about two hundred miles from Shanghai. It has an hotel kept by an Englishman. We greatly enjoyed the river scenery of the Yangtze: there are so many picturesque monuments in this lower part on the numerous islands and along its banks; although it has not the wild charm of the gorges, it is well worth making the trip. Now there is a steam service all the way up to Chunking, so that travellers can easily do one of the most beautiful journeys in the world at reasonable cost, in reasonable comfort and in reasonable time, going about a thousand miles up the finest of the great rivers of the world.[10]