CHAPTER V
ON THE MANDARIN ROAD
For once the sun was shining gloriously as we descended the one long street of Ta-Shu-p'u, lined with food-shops, to the ferry across the Ta Tu Ho, here about six hundred feet wide. Unlike the crossing of the Yangtse at Lung-kai, where we were the only ones to be ferried over, we found ourselves here in a crowd of coolies and ponies impatiently waiting their turn, for we were now on a main travelled road. The two great flat-bottomed boats were loaded to the brim, and the crossing was safely accomplished to the tune of much shouting and kicking (by the ponies). Sitting at ease in my chair I enjoyed the grand views up and down the river, which here swings out from the cliffs in a splendid curve. Above and below the ferry the Ta Tu runs through a wild, little-known region. Few trails cross the precipitous mountains that hem in its turbulent waters, which are navigable for short distances only by timber rafts, and even on these the dangers of the journey are so great that the owners of the timber are expected to bind themselves to provide coffins in case of a fatal accident.
On the farther side we landed on a stretch of shingle, across which we picked our way for a mile to the prosperous trading centre of Fulin, lying on the right bank of the Liu Sha, or "River of Flowing Sand," a small stream flowing into the Ta Tu from the north. Our path led outside the town on the top of a narrow earth embankment, which bordered an irrigating ditch carried along the side of the hill. I should gladly have got off, but there was no chance to dismount save into the water on the one hand or into the valley thirty feet down on the other. But I think you can trust the Yunnan pony anywhere he is willing to go, and mine did not hesitate. In fact, he never balked at anything asked of him save once at a shaky "parao," or footway, constructed along the face of the cliff on timbers thrust into holes bored in the solid rock, and another time when he refused a jump from a boggy rice-field to the top of a crumbling wall hardly a foot wide with another bog on the other side.
Fulin was crowded with coming and going coolies and I could hardly force my way through, but one gets used to staring crowds, and I had long since abandoned the practice of taking refuge in my chair on entering a town, save at the largest ones. Then it was certainly pleasanter and perhaps safer to make my way through the throng enthroned high on the shoulders of my coolies, but in the villages I walked or rode my pony as chance served. Even in the smallest places our entrance was the signal for an uproar. The scores of dogs—big, gaunt pariahs—that infested every village, greeted us as we passed through the gate with a chorus of barks, sending the word down the line. To his credit be it said, Jack paid little attention to them, tittupping along, head up, tail up, only when they came too close turning on them with a flash of white teeth that sent the cowardly brutes flying and brought cries of delight from the village folk who crowded nearer to inspect the strange dog, so small, so brave, and so friendly.
Seen from within, Fulin was not attractive and I escaped outside leaving my men to get their breakfast, which they generally had at about nine o'clock, for the Szechuan order of day is not like that of Yunnan. We were on the road often before six o'clock, and my cook always succeeded in getting me some tea before starting, but the coolies fasted until eight or after, when they stopped for a hearty breakfast. At noon there was usually a second long halt, this time for me and the pony, but the coolies took nothing more save the hourly cups of tea until we reached our night's stopping-place about the middle of the afternoon. The start at dawn was delightful; less so getting into the town with half an afternoon before me, and I made it the rule to stop a mile or so outside the town for a nap in peace and quiet, but the quiet was hard to find. Generally there was a retired nook not too far from the trail, most times a graveyard, but then came the difficulty of getting there unobserved, for if seen we were sure to be tracked. Oh, the races I have run, playing hide-and-seek with the crowd, stealing under a village wall like a thief, hiding behind a little shrine, and the end was always the same,—to be wakened from my first nap by Jack barking at a large blue spot a little distance off, which slowly resolved itself into a stolid line of villagers.
For a few miles we followed up the left bank of the Liu Sha, whose waters were turbid with the red soil of Szechuan. The fertile bottom lands were carefully cultivated with rice, and on the higher ground maize and sugar-cane were growing. Dotted about the fields were clumps of mulberry and orange trees, and the flanks of the enclosing mountains were covered with a sparse growth of oak and pine.
After a time we climbed by a long, steep rock staircase to another valley some fifteen hundred feet above the level of Fulin and into cooler weather and clearer air. Just before entering Han Yüan Kai, where we spent the night, we passed under a very beautiful "pailou," or memorial arch, built of stone and elaborately carved with spirited figures representing historic scenes. The workmanship and variety of these arches are very remarkable. They abound all over Szechuan, especially in the Chengtu plain, and usually commemorate the good deeds of an official (his best act, perhaps, was setting up this memorial to himself), or the virtues of some woman whose merit lay almost invariably in many years, or many children, or above all in remaining a widow. I have heard of a pailou in Kwangtung province in honour of a woman marked out among women for her years, her goodness, and above all for her many descendants, who numbered six sons, forty grandsons, one hundred and twenty-one great-grandsons and two great-great-grandsons.
Han Yüan Kai is on the mandarin road that connects Chengtu and Ya-chou with the frontier. Here we entered a new magistracy, and it was necessary to send to Ch'ing Ch'i, the district headquarters, for a fresh relay of soldiers. One of those who had come with me from Ta-shu-p'u started at once on our arrival at Han Yüan Kai about the middle of the afternoon, and made the journey, twenty-five li each way, to Ch'ing Ch'i-hsien and back before night, bringing with him the two men who were to go on with me. Truly the West China man is no weakling.
During the next day we were following the great tea-road, the road by which most of the twelve million pounds of brick tea consumed by the guzzling Tibetans is carried to the frontier market at Tachienlu. At all hours of the day straggling lines of men or ponies or mules were in sight, toiling along under their precious burdens. Between Ya-chou, the starting-point of this traffic, and Tachienlu there are two high passes to cross, seven thousand feet above the level where the journey begins, and the whole length of the road is a wearisome succession of ups and downs. And the loads carried are extraordinary. Baron von Richthofen says, "There is probably no road in the world where such heavy loads are carried by man across high mountains." The oblong package, called "pao," in which the tea is made up, weighs perhaps eighteen pounds, and, according to the German traveller, ten or eleven form an average load. But Baber declares that he had often seen a coolie carrying eighteen pao, and on one occasion a man with a load of twenty-two, certainly equivalent to four hundred pounds. I saw nothing like that, but I passed many a poor wretch sweating under a burden of two hundred and twenty-five or two hundred and fifty pounds. Day after day they creep along, rarely covering more than six or seven miles a day. Every four hundred yards they rest, but the loads are taken off only at noon and night. At other times they relieve themselves for a moment from the intolerable strain by placing an iron-shod crutch under the load. On the march they carry this in the hand, tapping the ground as they go, and all along the road the granite pavement is worn into holes from the taps of centuries. The load, which is fastened to a framework attached to the carrier's back, towers high over his head, and is usually surmounted by his wide-brimmed hat fastened at such an angle as to give him protection against rain and sun. Even Chinese ingenuity has failed to devise a way by which he can wear it properly on his head. Some of them fanned themselves vigorously as they walked, with respectable black, old-lady fans, and the contrast with their hard, begrimed faces and sturdy frames was very comical. The men looked worn and exhausted, and their work is killing, although I believe they outlast the chair-bearers; but they were patient and cheerful like the rest, ready to laugh and share their cold lunch of corn-cake with the little foreign dog who begged so prettily.