Last year I went down the China coast twice from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and it is a most interesting trip, especially if you stop at the ports and see their multitudinous activities. Their variety is most striking: no two are alike, and even the sails are different in every port down the coast.
I have already spoken of Hangchow, capital of Chekiang, so the next on my list is Wênchowfu, in the same province. The approach to it is up a lovely creek and river, as fair a scene as can be imagined. When I looked at it in the evening light from the top of a hill, the wealth of vegetation and the network of river and canals for irrigation show how rich the land is; the waterways are also the roads by which the district is most easily visited. Besides lofty trees, there were clumps of bamboo, which seem to be used for every imaginable purpose. They grow an inch in a night, and it is usual for bamboos to grow thirty inches in a month: this is their average height, but some varieties grow to 120 feet. Then they put out numerous shoots and the main stems harden. The delicate shoots are eaten like asparagus, and the seeds are also used as food: there is a Chinese proverb that they are specially numerous when the rice crop fails. The stem is high and hard and jointed: one joint is big enough to make an excellent bucket, another will be used for a bottle or a cooking vessel, and the outer shell is so siliceous that it acts as a whetstone.
On reaching Wênchowfu I took a ricksha and went in search of the missionaries. Though an unexpected guest, I received a friendly welcome from Mr. and Mrs. Slichter, of the China Inland Mission, and they took me to see the city and surroundings. It is a treaty port, facing the Eastern Sea, and its streets are bright and clean, full of attractive shops. Inlaid soapstone is one charming industry: the silks manufactured here are fine and costly, two or three dollars per foot. The people are brusque and independent in their manners, but very responsive to missionary work, and they become staunch and loyal adherents to Christianity. We visited an interesting temple put up recently by the local trade guilds to two officers who refused to acknowledge the Republic. These guilds are thoroughly democratic and date from time immemorial: they are still all-powerful in China and regulate trade throughout the empire, despite the changing times. Every self-respecting merchant belongs to one. The guilds are now showing signs of dealing with the price of labour, which is a highly significant fact. They do not brook Government interference with their members, of whom they take a sort of paternal care.[28] These guilds are not only of great value to the Chinese, but also to foreigners, who can apply to their members either directly or by agents, called compradores, belonging to the same guild, whom foreigners can employ to transact business for them. In Canton there are no less then seventy-two guilds.
We went to visit an English United Methodist community, but as it was Saturday afternoon we found no one at home. They have a large work in a hundred and fifty stations, but only one European worker! They also have a big hospital, but their one and only English doctor had been absent two years on furlough, leaving it in charge of two Chinese doctors: they have no English nurse. It is really deplorable to see such a condition of things and a slur on England’s good name. As a contrast we found excellent work both as to numbers and quality by the Chinese, of whom the C.I.M. have three hundred voluntary workers in their hundred and sixty-eight stations. Their evangelists give one week per month of service without payment, and the local institutions pay their salaries. The Christian Endeavour is a particularly strong branch of the work, and has produced a body of capable workers, one main object of the society being to train men, women and children to take part in Christian service of some kind. Bible schools are another strong point of the work here, and the interest shown in Bible study augurs well for the future of the mission.
It may be thought that I have said a great deal—too much in fact—about mission work in this book, but that is inevitable, because the reforms initiated in Chinese life are practically all due to missionary activity. The education of the poor and of women, the care of the sick, the blind, the insane, were all started by missions, and they are the main agencies in undertaking relief work in famine and plague measures, even at the present day. While the people of England sent out thirty thousand pounds for famine last year, large additional sums were sent out by the missionary societies, of which there is of course no official recognition. Happily England still retains some modesty with regard to her generosity.
My next halting-place was Foochow; this visit was one of the most delightful events of the trip. The coasting steamers cannot go up the river, so it is necessary to tranship on to a launch at Pagoda Anchorage. We had spent more than six hours waiting to cross the bar, and it was a lovely sight at dawn to see all the myriads of fishing-boats; as we came slowly up the river they looked like flocks of birds with widespread wings. It was nine miles up to the city, and as we reached a stopping-place I inquired from a fellow-passenger if it were the place for me to get off, but was told the main landing-stage was further up. Before reaching it a pleasant young Chinaman asked in excellent English if he could be of service; having heard me mention the C.M.S., said he belonged to it. He was most helpful, took charge of my luggage, escorted me to the office where he was employed, telephoned to Trinity College to say I had arrived, got tea, and finally set me on the road with a guide. Mr. L. K. Wang certainly was a credit to his school. I met my kind hostess, Mrs. Norton, on the road to meet me with her servant, having already sent him down three times that morning to look for me. The arrival of steamers is a most uncertain business.
Foochow is a treaty port and of no great antiquity: it was founded in the fourteenth century and was opened to foreign trade in 1861. The population is reckoned from six to eight hundred thousand, and it is the headquarters of an ever-increasing number of foreign firms in consequence of its growing trade. The tea trade is the most important. The city lies on both banks of the river, and there are two long bridges called the Bridge of the Ten Thousand Ages connected by a little island, leading from one part of the city to the other. We took about an hour in swift-running rickshas to go from the college to the centre of the city on the further side of the river to visit Miss Faithfull-Davies’ school. It was just breaking up for the summer holidays, as also Miss Waring’s girls’ school, which we visited another day; but we saw in full swing schools for the blind,[29] which seem to be admirably conducted, and an orphanage, where there was an elaborate plant design in the garden made by the boys. I asked if it was the name of the school, but was told it was the date of “the day of shame,” namely of the Japanese triumph; it is striking to see how deeply this is felt everywhere and that it should show itself in such a manner.
Storm-Driven Boats.