CHAPTER XV.
Stages to Tali-fu. Worst roads yet experienced. Stampede among ponies. Hybrid crowd at Anning-cheo. Simplicity of life of common people. Does China want the foreigner? Straits Settlements and China Proper compared. China's aspect of her own position. Renaissance of Chinese military power. Europeans NOT wanted in the Empire. Emptiness of the lives of the common people. Author erects a printing machine in Inland China. National conceit. Differences in make-up of the Hua Miao and the Han Ren. The Hua Miao and what they are doing. Emancipation of their women. Tribute to Protestant missionaries. Betrothal and marriage in China. Miao women lead a life of shame and misery. Crude ideas among Chinese regarding age of foreigners. Musty man and dusty traveller at Lao-ya-kwan. Intense cold. Salt trade. Parklike scenery, pleasant travel, solitude.
From the figures of heights appearing below, one would imagine that between the capital and Tali-fu hard climbing is absent. But during each stage, with the exception of the journey from Sei-tze to Sha-chiao-kai, there is considerable fatiguing uphill and downhill work, each evening bringing one to approximately the same level as that from which he started his morning tramp. I went by the following route:—
| Length of stage | Height above sea | |
| 1st day—Anning-cheo | 70 li | 6,300 ft. |
| 2nd day—Lao-ya-kwan | 70 li | 6,800 ft. |
| 3rd day—Lu-fêng-hsien | 75 li | 5,500 ft. |
| 4th day—Sei-tze | 80 li | 6,100 ft. |
| 5th day—Kwang-tung-hsien | 60 li | 6,300 ft. |
| 6th day—Rest day. | ||
| 7th day—Ch'u-hsiong-fu | 70 li | 6,150 ft. |
| 8th day—Luho-kai | 60 li | 6,000 ft. |
| 9th day—Sha-chiao-kai | 65 li | 6,400 ft. |
| 10th day—Pu-pêng | 90 li | 7,200 ft. |
| 11th day—Yün-nan-ï | 65 li | 6,800 ft. |
| 12th day—Hungay | 80 li | 6,000 ft. |
| 14th day—Chao-chow | 60 li | 6,750 ft. |
| 15th day—Tali-fu | 60 li | 6,700 ft. |
A long, winding and physically-exhausting road took me from Sha-chiao-kai to Yin-wa-kwan, the most elevated pass between Yün-nan-fu and Tali-fu, and continued over barren mountains, bereft of shelter, and void of vegetation and people, to Pupêng. A rough climb of an hour and a half then took me to the top of the next mountain, where roads and ruts followed a high plateau for about thirty li, and with a precipitous descent I entered the plain of Yün-nan-ï. Then over and between barren hills, passing a small lake and plain with the considerable town of Yün-nan-hsien ten li to the right, I continued in a narrow valley and over mountains in the same uncultivated condition to Hungay, situated in a swampy valley. Having crossed this valley, another rough climb brings the traveler to the top of the next pass, Ting-chi-ling, whence the road descends, and leads by a well-cultivated valley to Chao-chow. After an easy thirty li we reached Hsiakwan,[[AD]] one of the largest commercial cities in the province, lying at the foot of the most magnificent mountain range in Yün-nan, and by the side of the most famous lake. A paved road takes one in to his destination at Tali-fu, where I was welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. Clark, of the China Inland Mission, and hospitably entertained for a couple of days.
The roads in general from Yün-nan-fu to Tali-fu were worse than any I have met from Chung-king onwards, partly owing to the mountainous condition of the country, and partly to neglect of maintenance.
Where the road is paved, it is in most places worse than if it had not been paved at all, as neither skill nor common sense seems to have been exercised in the work. It is probably safe to say that there are no ancient roads in Yün-nan, in the sense of the constructed highways which have lasted through the centuries, for the civilization of the early Yün-nanese was not equal to such works. As a matter of fact, the condition of the roads is all but intolerable. Many were never made, and are seldom mended—one may say that with very few exceptions they are never repaired, except when utterly impassable, and then in the most make-shift manner.
My highly-strung Rusty received a shock to his nervous system as I led him leisurely from the incline leading into Anning-cheo (6,300 feet), through the arched gateway in a pagoda-like entrance, which when new would have been a credit to any city. The stones of the main street were so slippery that I could hardly keep on my legs. Frightened by one of their number dragging its empty wooden carrying frame along the ground behind it, a drove of unruly-pack-ponies lashed and bucked and tossed themselves out of order, and an instant afterwards came helter-skelter towards my ten-inch pathway by the side of the road. All of my men caught the panic, and in their mad rush several were knocked down and trampled upon by the torrent of frightened creatures. I thought I was being charged by cavalry, but beyond a good deal of bruising I escaped unhurt. Closer and closer came the hubbub and the din of the town—the market was not yet over. As I approached the big street, throngs of blue-cottoned yokels, quite out of hand, created a nerve-racking uproar, as they thriftily drove their bargains. I shrugged my shoulders, gazed long and earnestly at the motley mob, and putting on a bold front, pushed through in a careless manner. Ponies with salt came in from the other end of the town, and in their waddling the little brutes gave me more knocks.
It was an awful crowd—Chinese, Minchia, Lolo, and other specimens of hybridism unknown to me. Yet I suppose the majority of them may be called happy. Certainly the simplicity of the life of the common people, their freedom from fastidious tastes, which are only a fetter in our own Western social life, their absolute independence of furniture in their homes, their few wants and perhaps fewer necessities, when contrasted with the demands of the Englishman, is to them a state of high civilization. Here were farmers, mechanics, shopkeepers, and retired people living a simple, unsophisticated life. All the strength of the world and all its beauties, all true joy, everything that consoles, that feeds hope, or throws a ray of light along our dark paths, everything that enables us to discern across our poor lives a splendid goal and a boundless future, comes to us from true simplicity. I do not say that we get all this from the Chinese, but in many ways they can teach us how to live in the spirit of simplicity. They were living from hand to mouth, with seemingly no anxieties at all—and yet, too, they were living without God, and with very little hope.