There were not many Chinese women at Kashgar, and I was told that the conquering race does not look upon any marriage as legal unless it is contracted with a girl of their own country, whom they practically buy. The amount that a would-be husband must pay for a wife is fixed by go-betweens according to her looks and her position in the world. When this is settled, the couple, clad in their best clothes, enter a room where their friends are assembled, bow low to each other, and then carry round a tray of bowls of tea, which they offer to their guests. This ceremony completes the marriage, and when the bridegroom has lived several days in the house of his parents-in-law he takes his bride to his own home, where she is henceforth under the rule of her mother-in-law.
Although according to English ideas the Chinaman makes but an indifferent husband, he is very proud of his sons. The Celestials carry the Oriental regard for the male sex to extremes. For example, an Englishwoman who had lived in China told me that when she bade her Chinese nurse chastise her little boy if naughty, the woman looked at her in horror, saying in shocked tones, “Him piecee man—I no touch piecee man!” I was told that parents like a boy to be headstrong and uncontrolled, because they think that he is likely to make his way in the world; and they are pleased if he steals cunningly, saying to one another, “Our son is beginning to help the house early.” Lying is a fine art among both Chinese and Kashgaris, and there is little shame at being found out.
There is no need for a “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals” among the Chinese, for they are trained to be considerate to the “brute creation,”—a very pleasant trait in their characters. They certainly live up to their own saying, “Be kind to the horse that carries you, to the cow that feeds you and to the dog that guards your possessions,” and they are an example to the Kashgaris, who are callous if not actually cruel in their treatment of animals.
The frequently over-fat horses, mules and dogs belonging to Celestials presented a strong contrast to the usually overworked and underfed Kashgari donkeys, that were beaten by their owners on the slightest provocation. And yet these little creatures, sometimes almost hidden under piles of brushwood or staggering along under loads of sun-dried bricks, or perhaps a plough, the handles of which scraped the ground at every step, keep their independence strangely. They do not obey the voice of their masters, as do the horses; each donkey in a drove picks his own path and does not, like the caravan ponies, follow a leader slavishly. Surely an animal so strong and intelligent deserves a better fate than blows and semi-starvation.
Every one who has travelled in Mohamedan countries knows that the dog is looked upon as an unclean animal, and the starved and mangy pariahs of Kashgar merely filled the position of town-scavengers, though others that were kept to guard the houses were somewhat better treated. These watch-dogs used to rush out and leap at our horses in most unpleasant fashion, until my brother taught them better manners with the lash of his hunting-crop. Fortunately for the cat, the Prophet made a pet of this animal, and it is therefore held in high favour.
At the end of May we had a most interesting visitor in the person of Sir Aurel Stein, on his return from two years in the desert, where he had made fresh discoveries of great importance and extent, his finds filling a hundred and fifty packing-cases. Owing to the wonderful preservative power of sand he had found some specimens of very ancient paper, in connection with which Sir George Macartney drew my attention to the following passage in Chavannes. The French scholar wrote of two particular documents found by Sir Aurel Stein, “qu’ils paraissent bien remonter au deuxième siècle de notre ère, et sont ainsi les plus vieux spécimens de papier qu’il y ait au monde.”
Although Sir Aurel liked the Chinese so well, he said that he was glad to return to Turkestan, where the inhabitants are most hospitable and always ready to place houses and gardens at the disposal of strangers. In fact they are so open-handed that they offer food to any one who comes to the house at any hour; the well-to-do apparently eating at short intervals all day long. But in China, with its old civilization, the custom is very different, the people allowing no one to enter their doors unless he be armed with introductions. Fortunately, the gods are always ready to receive guests, and Sir Aurel has spent many a night in temples full of hideous idols. Such quarters, however, though pleasantly cool in summer, are icy cold in winter.
Another thing that makes travelling in China disagreeable to Europeans is that the inhabitants crowd round any stranger to observe him. They consider that in so doing they are showing attention, and the luckless man renders himself unpopular if he resents it. This behaviour is in strong contrast to that of the Turki, who are most polite, in the English manner, to travellers, and though my brother and I rode and walked through the whole Oasis we never once had a disagreeable look or word; in fact, the only curiosity about us was shown by the women, and that in most unobtrusive fashion.
CHAPTER VI
ON THE WAY TO THE RUSSIAN PAMIRS