The face of China

by E. G. Kemp

SUSPENSION BRIDGE

As we sat in the shade near our coolies, taking a little rest, a stranger coolie came and sat down in his hat beside us, to the great indignation of one of our men, who promptly administered a kick in the rear. He returned the kick as soon as our man turned his back, but otherwise quite acquiesced in his dislodgment. A much dirtier man of our own then came and occupied the seat, perhaps in order to prevent any other intruder from doing so. The journey from Tali to Bhamo was one, if possible, of more beauty than any former day’s travel of this beautiful tour. The hedges were ablaze with blossom, and the Pyrus japonica was wonderful. The size and colour of the blossom astonished us, and also the size of the plant, which is more like a tree than a shrub. The air was sweet with jasmine and orange blossom and other shrubs of which we did not know the names. The ascents and descents grew longer and more precipitous. We saw a new variety of bridge of great interest, entirely composed of creeper. The bridge was like a hammock, but fully a hundred feet long, and very loosely woven together; the only part of it not made of creeper was a narrow plank along the centre for walking on, and the upright poles at each end. There was a creeper hand-rail, but it would have been of very little use to hold on to it, as it was only attached at the ends.

The seventh day after leaving Tali Fu, we crossed the Mekong, a most picturesque river sunk in a narrow gorge and spanned by a fine suspension-bridge. As I sat and sketched it in the early morning the air was fragrant with wild orange blossom and jessamine, and handsome plants of orange-coloured abutilon reared themselves by the roadside. My sketching of the suspension-bridges might naturally strike the eye of the engineer as incorrect, owing to the slightness of the curve; but the fact is that they are tightened up after construction with very great labour, by means of windlasses, till they are (comparatively speaking) horizontal. On the board above the entrance of the bridge was inscribed, “Built by the god.”

BRIDGE MADE OF CREEPERS

The mountains are part of the great Himalayan range, and the spurs run almost directly from north to south, so that our road from east to west was always up and down. On reaching our halting-place for the night we found all the inns occupied, except one where there was a room but no beds. After much altercation, they agreed at one of the inns to turn out some of the coolies and to give us their room; but on inspection the look of it was so unalluring that I went to see what the bedless room was like, and found a large barn over a stable, which contained nothing but a family altar and some fodder. This seemed infinitely preferable to us, especially as it had two large windows looking on to the mountains. We spread our oilcloth on the floor and our mattresses on it, and passed a far more comfortable night than many that we had had, being undisturbed by cats or rats. Only a night or two before, a cat had raided our larder, which we thought we had made quite secure, overturning the pan, getting the lid off, and departing with our tender young chicken, of which one leg only was left in the pan. We always had to be very careful in packing up all food before going to bed, but that mattered little, as we took none in the morning before starting. Indeed, we found we required much less food on this journey than elsewhere, and two light meals a day were amply sufficient for our needs. At midday we always lunched al fresco, being set down outside the village where the men were to get their meal.

The next day after the theft we were unable to get a chicken of any sort, and the following day we had to put up with a prehistoric beast. In fact, our hands became horny from wrestling with tough fowls. Sometimes unexpected dainties turned up, and certainly we had a novel surprise on arriving at the town of Yung Chang Fu. While sitting at supper, a visiting-card was brought in from the magistrate, with a tray containing two fine ducks, two tins of sardines, and a bottle of House of Commons whisky; two lively fowls also were deposited on the floor. We sent our thanks to the magistrate for his kindness, and accepted the fowls, but returned the remainder of his gift according to custom. Our servant had vainly been trying to get a chicken for us, so the gift was most opportune, and we should have liked to thank the polite magistrate in person.

After dinner we sent for the head coolie, as this was one of the places where we paid the wages, and were amused to see him secrete thirty-six ounces of silver up his sleeve as if it were nothing. The total cost of hire for eighteen coolies from Yünnan to Bhamo, a journey which occupied thirty-three travelling days, was a little under £34.

For the first and last time in the whole of our six months’ journey, we met a European on the road, and he kindly gave us permission not only to stay at his house at Teng Yueh, but gave us the keys of his store-room; having heard previously of our coming, he had given instructions to the caretaker to be on the look-out for us. In any case, we should not have been likely to miss him on the high-road, except at a spot where they have made a new road to shorten the distance, and where Liu took the opposite road from the one we did when he went ahead to get rooms.