Day after day new flowers and birds appear on our pathway—white camellias, daphne, dog-roses, a flight of brilliant green parrots, long-tailed tits, seagulls; though what they are doing out here we cannot imagine. At one village where we spent a night the magistrate sent word that the people were in a somewhat disturbed condition, so he would send a special watch to guard us. We strolled out into the fields to try and get a sketch of the large flocks of cranes feeding in the rice and bean fields, but they seemed disturbed and would not let us get anywhere near them, flying away screeching loudly. As we got back to the village everything looked as peaceful as possible, and the guard had duly arrived. They seemed to think it part of their duty to share our room, one settling down to a comfortable smoke, the other helping to shell the beans for our evening meal. When we thought they had sufficiently studied us and our surroundings we invited them to go outside, and they soon had a cheerful fire blazing in the courtyard, where they remained all night. We got infinite amusement out of the naïve ways of our coolies and the soldiers. A heavy storm of rain, for instance, came on while we were halting at a village, and immediately one of my carriers came and sat upon the ground beside my chair in order to share the benefit of my umbrella. He had not the slightest idea, of course, that I might not wish for his close neighbourhood, for fear of participating in more than the shelter of an umbrella.
One thing seems strange as one travels day by day from one end of this great empire to the other, and that is the utter absence of any landed gentry; never a country seat or any house larger than a farmer’s, and never a garden of any kind for the cultivation of flowers except within the cities; cottage gardens are unknown here. Pots in a courtyard show a certain love of flowers, and the poorest coolie will stop to gather a handful of camellias to decorate his load, or a flower to stick behind his ear. Rich people all love to live in big towns, where they are close to their associates.
One day the head coolie came in with our suit-cases in a state of great agitation, dragging with him a frightened-looking creature whose horse he said had pushed the luggage into the stream. To our dismay, the luggage was dripping with water, and the culprit had been hauled along to see the extent of the damage. Our usual good luck, however, had followed us; though a new silk dressing-gown was soaked with mud and water, my sketches (next to it) had only mud traces on their backs, and nothing else was hurt. The man said he was very sorry, and evidently expected we should charge damages. He protested that he was only a poor farmer and had no means of payment. No doubt the head coolie, who is responsible for any loss and is bound to make good any breakage caused by the carelessness of the carriers, would have extorted damages from him, but as we did not, he told him to kotow; our servants sternly repeated the command, and an interested crowd of spectators watching the show added their injunctions, so that when the man grovelled in the dust and knocked his forehead on the ground, we were sorely tempted to laugh. The tragi-comic effect was irresistibly funny. It was necessary, however, to impress our men with the heinousness of the offence, lest our curios should come into greater danger. A diversion was caused by the entrance of several coolies begging me to look at their sprains, gatherings, &c., so we dismissed the poor farmer and set to work with our out-patient department. At this stage of the journey the coolies were very apt to give out a little, as the strain began to tell upon them. The weather grew warmer daily, and the crops seemed almost to grow visibly before our eyes. Fields of mustard in the plains were dazzlingly yellow and sweet-scented, and the poppies and wild roses were coming into bloom. We were struck with the beauty of various kinds of wild vines and the enormous leaves of Senecio wilsonianus. There are a great many varieties of these vines and of the roses, and on the eastern side of Yünnan we found particularly sweet-scented white banksia roses. Mr. Wilson, who spent a considerable time in studying the flora of China, discovered no fewer than 2000 new varieties of plants, and Messrs. Veitch of Chelsea have a most interesting collection of the plants which he brought back. The fact that he was able to bring back over 5000 specimens seems almost incredible to any one who knows the difficulties of transport. But perhaps the most striking of all the flowers that we met growing profusely in this region was the Jasminum primulinum, a large, brilliant jasmine of which there were the most magnificent hedges. If only we could have stayed a little longer we should have been able to see far more of the shrubs in blossom, as everywhere we noticed they were full of promise.
VILLAGE SCREEN WALL
CARRYING CHAIR
The architecture is more ornate in this district than in the centre of China, many of the houses in the villages being elaborately decorated, and having beautiful wooden carved screens and balustrades in front of them. Some of the shops had most knowing little beasts carved at the end of the counter, and the signboards, which were formed into Chinese lanterns, were extremely picturesque. At the entrance of one of the villages there was the most grotesque design on the large screen which is frequently to be seen facing the entrance gate of villages. This particular one had a gigantic creature (a cross between a cat and a toad) hanging on to a fleeing mouse, whose hind leg had been stretched out to an abnormal length in its endeavour to escape. Every village of any size has such a screen (called in Chinese, “shelter”), standing about fifteen feet high and twenty-five feet in length. Some of the designs on them are really artistic, but as a rule their best quality is the spirited action of the various beasts which are represented, of which the one I have sketched (from memory) is a good example. The chair below it shows what we travelled in for some 1200 miles; the most comfortable way of seeing the country that can be imagined. Under the seat we carried all our small impedimenta, while the coolies made use of the back for theirs.
CHAPTER XXI
Tali Fu
The first glimpse of the Tali lake with snow-capped mountains running along its western bank is very beautiful. It is a typical Chinese landscape, namely, a “mountain and water picture”; but at this time of year (the beginning of March) the winds are so high that the distant range of snow mountains to the north is invisible, and during the five days that we spent in the neighbourhood we did not once catch a glimpse of them. At the south of the lake is a large and important village, Siakwan, much more important in some respects than the prefectural town of Tali Fu itself, as it lies on the high-road from Yünnan Fu to Teng Yueh. All the trade caravans pass directly through Siakwan without branching off to Tali. At the markets, which are frequently held, there may be seen various aboriginal tribes such as the Miaos, the Lolos, the Ming Chiaos, and the Shans. The place is noted for being one of the windiest spots to be found anywhere, and we found it unpleasant both coming and going to Tali. At Tali the wind was most riotous at nights, and came in great gusts, dismantling the walls of our rooms and covering my bed with a little shower of photographs and texts, and nearly blowing us out of bed. The lake is always dangerous on account of these winds, and when we visited the shore, about an hour’s walk from the city, there were only a few little fishing-boats to be seen close inland. The villages along it are mainly inhabited by Ming Chiaos, who speak a language of their own. It is but few comparatively of these villagers who can speak or even understand Chinese, and those who learn it do so for the sake of trading in the city. The women and girls wear their hair dressed rather differently from the Chinese, and have a different type of face. Also, they do not bind their feet, nor wear such elegant shoes. They seemed quite friendly, but were rather too inquisitive, which prevented our enjoying our picnic as much as we should have done.