While engaged upon our banquet, we observed that the costume of Samdadchiemba was reduced to its simplest expression; that whereas he had gone decently attired, he had come back half-covered with a few rags. We asked for an explanation of this change, whereupon he gave us an account of the miserable condition in which he had found his family. The father had been dead for some time; his aged mother had become blind, so that she had not enjoyed the happiness of seeing him. He had two brothers, the one a mere child, the other the young man whom he had brought with him, and who, the sole support of the family, devoted his time to the cultivation of a small field which still belonged to them, and to the tending the flocks of other people for hire. This narrative at once explained what Samdadchiemba had done with his clothes; he had given them all to his poor old mother, without even excepting his travelling cloak. We thought it our duty to propose that he should remain, and devote himself to the assistance of his wretched family; but he did not at all adopt the suggestion. “What,” said he, “could I have the cruelty to do such a thing as that! Could I ever think of going to devour the little substance that remains to them? They can scarcely subsist themselves: how could they possibly support me; for I myself have no means of making a livelihood there—I cannot labour at the soil, and there is no other way in which I could help them.”
We considered this resolution neither good nor great; but knowing, as we did, the character of Samdadchiemba, it in no degree surprised us. We did not insist upon his remaining, for we were even better convinced than he himself was, that he could be of no sort of service to his family. We did all we could ourselves to aid these poor people, by giving Samdadchiemba’s brother as large an alms as we could spare; and we then proceeded to the preparations for our departure.
During these eight days of repose, the condition of our animals had so improved as to enable us to venture upon the difficult road we had to traverse. The next day after quitting Ho-Kiao-Y, we began the ascent of the high mountain called Ping-Keou, the terribly rugged paths of which interposed almost insurmountable difficulties in the way of our camels. On the ascent, we were obliged to be constantly calling out, at the pitch of our voices, in order to warn any muleteers who might be coming down the road, which was so narrow and dangerous that two animals could not pass each other abreast. Our cries were to enable any persons coming the other way to lead their mules aside, so that they might not take alarm at the sight of our camels, and dash over the precipice. We began the ascent of this mountain before daybreak, and yet it was noon before we reached its summit. There we found a little inn, where, under the denomination of tea, they sold a decoction of burned beans. We stopped at this place for a brief period to take a repast, which hunger rendered very succulent and savoury, of some nuts and a slice of the famous bread which the Dchiahour had brought us, and which we expended with the utmost parsimony. A draught of cold water should have been, according to our previous plan, the complement of our feast; but the only water attainable on this mountain was affected with an insupportable stench. We were fain, therefore, to have recourse to the decoction of baked beans, a dreadfully insipid fluid, but for which, notwithstanding, we were charged extortionately.
The cold was by no means so severe as we had expected from the season of the year and the great elevation of the mountain. In the afternoon, indeed, the weather was quite mild; by-and-by, the sky was overcast, and snow fell. As we were obliged to descend the mountain on foot, we soon got absolutely hot, in the perpetual struggle, of a very laborious kind, to keep from rolling down the slippery path. One of our camels fell twice, but happily in each instance he was stayed by a rock from tumbling over the mountain’s side.
Having placed behind us the formidable Ping-Keou, we took up our lodging in the village of the Old Duck (Lao-Ya-Pou). Here
we found a system of heating in operation different from that of Ho-Kiao-Y. The kangs here are warmed, not with dried horse-dung, but with coal-dust, reduced to paste, and then formed into bricks; turf is also used for the purpose. We had hitherto imagined that knitting was unknown in China; the village of the Old Duck removed this misconception from our minds, and enabled us, indeed, to remove it from the minds of the Chinese themselves in other parts of the empire. We found here in every street men, not women, occupied in this species of industry. Their productions are wholly without taste or delicacy of execution; they merely knit coarse cotton into shapeless stockings, like sacks, or sometimes gloves, without any separation for the fingers, and merely a place for the thumb, the knitting needles being small canes of bamboo. It was for us a singular spectacle to see parties of moustachioed men sitting before the door of their houses in the sun, knitting, sewing, and chattering like so many female gossips; it looked quite like a burlesque upon the manners of Europe.
From Lao-Ya-Pou to Si-Ning-Fou was five days march; on the second day we passed through Ning-Pey-Hien, a town of the third order. Outside the western gate, we stopped at an inn to take our morning meal; a great many travellers were already assembled in the large kitchen, occupying the tables which were ranged along the walls; in the centre of the room were several furnaces, where the innkeeper, his wife, several children, and some servants were actively preparing the dishes required by the guests. While every body seemed occupied, either in the preparation or in the consumption of victuals, a loud cry was heard. It was the hostess, thus expressing the pain occasioned by a knock on her head, which the husband had administered with a shovel. At the cry, all the travellers looked in the direction whence it proceeded; the woman retreated, with vehement vociferations, to a corner of the kitchen; the innkeeper explained to the company that he had been compelled to correct his wife for insolence, insubordination, and an indifference to the interests of the establishment, which eminently compromised its prosperity. Before he had finished his version of the story, the wife, from her retreat in the corner, commenced her’s; she informed the company that her husband was an idle vagabond, who passed his time in drinking and smoking, expending the result of her labours for a whole month in a few days of brandy and tobacco. During this extempore performance, the audience remained imperturbably calm, giving not the smallest indication of approbation or disapprobation. At length the wife issued from her retreat, and advanced with a sort of challenging air to the husband: “Since I am a wicked woman,” cried she, “you must kill me. Come, kill
me!” and so saying, she drew herself up with a gesture of vast dramatic dignity immediately in front of the husband. The latter did not adopt the suggestion to kill her, but he gave her a formidable box on the ear, which sent her back, screaming at the pitch of her voice, into her previous corner. Hereupon, the audience burst into loud laughter; but the affair, which seemed to them so diverting, soon took a very serious turn. After the most terrible abuse on the one hand, and the most awful threats on the other, the innkeeper at length drew his girdle tight about his waist, and twisted his tress of hair about his head, in token of some decided proceeding. “Since you will have me kill you,” cried he, “I will kill you!” and so saying, he took from the furnace a pair of long iron tongs, and rushed furiously upon his wife. Everybody at once rose and shouted; the neighbours ran in, and all present endeavoured to separate the combatants, but they did not effect the object until the woman’s face was covered with blood, and her hair was all down about her shoulders. Then a man of ripe years, who seemed to exercise some authority in the house, gravely pronounced these words by way of epilogue: “How! what!” said he, “husband and wife fighting thus! and in presence of their children, in presence of a crowd of travellers!” These words, repeated three or four times, in a tone which expressed at once indignation and authority, had a marvellous effect. Almost immediately afterwards the guests resumed their dinner, the hostess fried cakes in nut-oil, and the host silently smoked his pipe.
When we were about to depart, the innkeeper, in summing up our account, coolly inserted fifty sapeks for the animals which we had tied up in the court-yard during our meal. He had evidently an idea of making us pay en Tartare. Samdadchiemba was indignant. “Do you think,” asked he, “that we Dchiahours don’t know the rules of inns? Where did you ever hear of making people pay for fastening their animals to a peg in the wall? Tell me, master publican, how many sapeks are you going to charge us for the comedy we’ve just witnessed of the innkeeper and his wife?” The burst of laughter on the part of the bystanders which hailed this sarcasm carried the day triumphantly for Samdadchiemba, and we departed without paying anything beyond our personal expenses.
The road thence to Si-Ning-Fou, generally well made and well kept, meanders through a fertile and well cultivated country, picturesquely diversified by trees, hills, and numerous streams. Tobacco is the staple of the district. We saw on our way several water-mills, remarkable for their simplicity, as is the case with all Chinese works. In these mills, the upper story is stationary,