Chinese mettle

by E. G. Kemp

We climbed up a long hot ascent on the further side, and reached a Keh-lao village,[23] where a fair was going on. The contrast was extraordinary, quite as great as if we had gone from one European country into another. It was only with difficulty, and because he was known, that Mr. Slichter could persuade some one to boil water for us, and then it was only very little, whereas in any Chinese village you could get as much as you wanted. We spent about twelve hours reaching our destination—a village perched up on a steep hill-side. Seeing us from afar, a laughing group of Miao boys and girls came running down the path to greet us, looking a most picturesque group in their red, white and blue clothes.

In another chapter I shall try and give a detailed account of these people, so will for the present only say a little about the country. From the top of the crag on which the village of Ten-ten is situated there may be counted fourteen ranges stretching away into the far distance, and in such hollows as are practicable for agriculture, wheat, poppy, rice and hemp are grown. There are most curious trees, which we saw for the first time, called Rhus vernicifera, from which varnish is obtained. They are plentiful in the district, and itinerant tappers come round from time to time to hire their services to the owners, for the varnish is a valuable crop, but must be carefully handled. It is most poisonous, and people even lose their lives by handling it carelessly. We found Mrs. Slichter at Ten-ten; she had been seriously ill as the result of using a branch of the tree for a walking-stick. The varnish causes terrible pains in the head, loss of sight for several days, and an eruption of the hands rendering them useless for a time.

The first Miao church was built at Ten-ten, and would hardly be recognized as such, I fear, by the orthodox: it looked like a cross between a goods shed and a hall, with a ladder at each end leading to a couple of rooms to accommodate visitors. The only clerical detail was a pulpit, but close beside it was a cooking-stove, and in vain I protested that our meals were not to be prepared while service was going on. The people seemed to find it quite natural, and when Yao was not too concerned in his cooking he lent an interested ear to what was being said. One thing was clear, and that was that the congregation was thoroughly in earnest, and gave undivided attention to the service. It meant so much to them and especially to the women, who took part in the prayer-meeting quite simply and fervently. On the Sunday morning we were about one hundred people, who attended a baptismal service, which was performed in a dammed-up stream in the ricefields. It was extraordinarily picturesque to see the Miao in their short full-kilted skirts, trooping down the zigzag path to the spot, where twenty-five received baptism. They have names given them, as many, if not most of them, have none.

After spending a few days at Ten-ten we continued our journey northwards, but were somewhat tried by the difficulty of getting any guide. One of the tribes-people took us a certain distance across the mountains, but the path was not only steep and rough, but the lanes were so narrow and thorny that we thought our chairs would be torn to pieces, and our clothes to ribbons: the thorns and brambles overhanging the path made it difficult to get the chairs along. We found it decidedly preferable to walk, and enjoyed the glorious scenery up hill and down dale, the air laden with the scent of roses and sweetbrier, and the hill-sides carpeted with mauve-coloured orchids and primulas.

We soon lost our way, and there was no one to be seen in all the wide landscape to set us right. We wandered on for hours till we came to a tiny hamlet, where we found a pottery in full swing. With much persuasion and the promise of a good tip, we barely succeeded in coaxing a boy to show us the way to the village of I-mei, where we proposed spending the night. We set off again in more cheerful mood, but alas! for our hopes: after about two hours the lad admitted that he didn’t know the way. We wandered on down a tiny valley, watered by a charming stream, where countless wagtails and other little birds beguiled us by their chatter. As we emerged from the valley into some fields the lad suggested this must be I-mei, but when we asked some women at work in the fields they said “Oh no! it is far away.” They went on to tell us that if we succeeded in reaching it that night, we should probably find no accommodation. There was a comfortable-looking farm-house within sight, and they thought we might get put up there, so we sent to inquire. They were friendly folk, who were willing to vacate a room for us and to lodge the rest of the party somewhere; so we were quite pleased to have this new experience. I had never slept in a Chinese farm-house before, and in point of fact we did not get a great deal of sleep, as the partitions were thin and there was plenty of animal life, both large and small, to share the building, all living on the most intimate terms with the owners. A cat was very put out about it, and hurried to and fro in our room in the middle of the night. We tried to shoo her away, and then heard a reproachful voice from the other side of the partition calling gently “Mimi, Mimi!” upon which the pussy-cat quickly sidled away to her master.

Next day we were up betimes, and our host said his white-haired brother would act as our guide. These two old gentlemen still wore attenuated queues, almost the only ones we saw on the journey. We found the whole family kind and interested in their visitors. I feel sure no other Europeans had ever visited the little valley. We gave the lady a piece of soap, evidently quite a novelty to her: it seems strange to have to explain the use of such a thing. But this province has curious natural resources in the way of soap. One tree, the Sapindus mukorossi, has round fruit, which have only to be shaken in water to make it quite soapy, and the pods of the Gleditschia sinensis are to be found for sale in most of the markets: they are used in washing clothes. European firms have started the soap industry in China, and there is certainly a good opening for the trade.

We had a long climb up a lovely mountain pass, well named in Chinese “Climbing to the Heavens,” and came across magnolia and other delicious shrubs. After a stage of about fourteen miles we reached the town of Pingüan, and stayed there till next day, as it was such a pleasant, clean-looking place. Our room had varnished walls—quite a novelty—and small panes of glass among the paper ones. We had a larger crowd of interested spectators than usual, but at intervals Yao came out like a whirlwind and scattered the chaff. Our hostess brought us a bunch of camellias and peonies as an excuse for consulting the doctor about her cough!

We left Pingüan early next morning, and facing the gateway by which we went out was a typical bit of landscape—in the foreground a bridge leading to a little poppy-covered plain, out of the centre of which rose a steep rock crowned with a pagoda and a temple. At the foot of the rock were several shrines. It seemed impossible for the Chinese to miss making use of any such natural feature of the landscape for a religious purpose in past days; though now the shrines are so neglected, except under the stress of plague, famine or rapine, which incites the worshippers to devotion. The crops in this district were entirely opium poppy.

At our next halting-place, Ch’a-tien, we had to put up with miserable quarters: our tiny room looked on to the street, so that we had a large and interested audience all the time; they lined up on the window-sill across the road, a good point of vantage, while the small fry discovered quite a unique point of observation. There was a hiatus at the bottom of the woodwork of the wall about a yard long and six inches deep, so by lying with their faces flat on the ground and close to the opening they could get a fair view of our doings. The row of bright eyes and gleaming teeth was quite uncanny. Our thermometer registered 66°, so we felt it rather stuffy with every breath of air excluded.

During the day we had passed most attractive newly-built houses in lath and plaster. They had small oval windows in the gable ends with simple but effective designs in them. The contrast was very striking with the other villages in this district, where the inhabitants wore the filthiest-looking rags I have ever seen, and had a most degraded look.