When we approached the province of Shansi we got into a hilly district, and crossed several ridges called “the Heavenly Gates.” In some cases the ascent was pretty steep (2860 feet), and there were temples at the bottom where the coolies prayed for a safe journey up. When I stopped to sketch it aroused much interest, and spectators always treated me with respect. It was explained to them that I desired to show my mother the beauties of their country, so I became the type of English “filial piety”!
The dangers of the road are numerous, and crossing the rivers is often a very perilous proceeding: sometimes it is possible to ford them, but the river-beds are so changeable that it was usually necessary to have the guidance of experienced men. Sometimes we had to be carried across on men’s backs, and it is not altogether a pleasant experience to cling on to a bare, greasy back in a kneeling position, with your arms round a most unwashed neck! Sometimes we were ferried over, which was much the safest and pleasantest way of crossing, and the charge is infinitesimally small.
Another danger of the road arises from the nature of the soil, which is largely a loess formation. The road runs through deep gulleys, often over 100 feet deep and quite narrow, but the loess walls are apt to give way, especially after rain. One day we were walking quietly along under a high cliff, when a deafening thunderclap close behind us made us start and look back, to see a dense cloud of dust where the cliff had fallen right across the path we had just traversed. We had a very close shave that time. About a year later my cousin was killed by the similar breaking down of a road alongside a river; she was riding in a cart, and was buried under it in the river. A friend who was with her had just got out to walk a little, and consequently escaped.
During the rains travellers are often drowned by the sudden rush of water down the gullies, and there are places of refuge in the high banks—little caves or hollows. In some of the villages where we had to stop the night the houses were dug in these cliffs, and were really caves. The smells were atrocious, as there was but little ventilation. The chimneys form danger traps to the unwary traveller walking along the top of the cliffs; he may easily step into one, if he is not looking carefully where he is going.
The day before we reached Tai Yuänfu, the capital of Shansi, we stopped at a mission station in the charge of a delightful, courtly old Chinese evangelist, whose hospitality I enjoyed several times. He treated us royally, cooking dinner for us in European style, and would have been sorely grieved had we offered him any remuneration. When the troubles came later, not only he but every member of his little flock—forty-one in all—were “faithful unto death,” refusing to accept life at the price of recantation.
The journey from the coast took altogether a fortnight, and I was glad when at last we reached the wide plain in which Tai Yuänfu is situated. In May it is a vision of loveliness with its crops of millet, sorghum, and poppy—white and puce colour—but now it was one monotonous expanse of dust. The dust storms which blow across the plain are terribly trying; they are as bewildering and as blinding as a fog, and they sometimes go on daily for weeks during the early part of the year.
Shansi is one of the worst provinces of all as regards opium-smoking, and the poppy is largely cultivated. In the accompanying sketch a group of patients is seen, who have come to a mission refuge to try and break off the habit. They are allowed to smoke tobacco, but are mostly resting or sleeping on the khang; the brick bed seen in every inn and in most private houses. On the floor in front of it is seen a small round aperture, where the fire is fed, which heats the whole khang. The present Governor of Shansi is taking active steps to put down opium cultivation, and the prospect seems hopeful. Revenons à nos moutons. When we reached the city gate there was a slight delay, as carts are apt to get jammed in it. Though the gateway is large it is considerably blocked by stones, set up by a former governor to prevent carts of above a certain gauge from entering the city: this was to encourage the trade of the wheelwrights. Now there is a railway right up to the walls of the city, but from what I have already said it will be easily understood how difficult a task it has been to construct a safe line. The railway joins the Péhan line at Cheng Ting.
OPIUM REFUGE