We halted about two o’clock in the afternoon, at a wayside inn, on the banks of a clear pebbly stream. In front of the inn, under the shade of some willow-trees, were some twenty or thirty men and women, seated at marble tables, drinking tea and a kind of white compound, in which floated huge lumps of ice, out of pretty transparent porcelain cups. Curiosity prompted me to taste the latter, which I found simply delicious, and not unlike French “orgeat” or barley water. A troop of cavalry passed while we were discussing our frugal meal, a little way apart from the noisy, chattering crowd, who, after the usual inspection of our clothes and arms, left us in peace. On the arrival of the soldiers, tall, swarthy fellows, clad in dark blue uniform, flat round hats, with streaming peacock feathers, and armed with rusty old flintlocks, we prepared to start without delay. We had been warned at Pekin and Shanghai against the Chinese military, had been told that they invariably insulted and sometimes outraged Europeans, when out of the protection of their legations. If so, these were a decided exception to the rule, for not only would they not hear of our proceeding on our journey till we had “chin-chind” with their officer, a cheery, nice-looking lad of eighteen or twenty, but as we left, all shook hands, Chinese fashion (clasping the hands and lifting them up and down in front of the breast), and gave us rendezvous at Kalgan, whither they, as well as we, were bound.
We were away again before four o’clock, by which time the heat had lessened and the fierce heat of the sun somewhat decreased in power. A ride of half an hour in the litters had convinced us that anything, even walking, was preferable to those cranky conveyances; though, thanks to our sturdy little steeds, we were never driven to take to Shank’s mare. One of the pleasantest recollections I have retained of that weary journey is that of the little beast who carried me so pluckily across a third of Asia! I verily believe, had it been a question of stamina and endurance, and not of time, I could have ridden him to Moscow in eight months, or even less. Good as “Karra”[[3]] was in other ways, he was not what is called a pleasant hack, having, like most Mongolian ponies, but two paces: a walk and a canter, or rather gallop, for the instant he broke into a canter he would take the bit in his teeth and bolt. It was sheer fun, however, for unlike most of his breed, he had not an atom of vice in his composition.
I have seldom seen lovelier scenery than we rode through that day. The dark wooded mountains in the distance standing out in striking contrast to the green plains of maize and barley, the clear sparkling streams, spanned by picturesque bridges glittering with enamel and porcelain. The park-like domain of some mandarin, fringed with belts of dark forest, and relieved by patches of light green sward, on which the deer and cattle were browsing, composed a very different picture to that with which we had always associated these so-called uncivilized regions. The country in North China is densely populated. The whole way from Pekin to Kalgan one was never out of sight of human beings. We must have ridden through at least twenty villages the first day——villages only in name——for each must have contained quite four or five thousand souls, though deserted when we passed through them, for the men and women were out at work in the fields and the narrow streets given up to dogs and naked children rolling about together promiscuously in the dusty roadway. It was only towards sunset that we passed through avenues of happy, contented-looking peasants, sitting at their doorways discussing tea and iced drinks, and dreaming the hours away till bedtime, after the heat and labour of the day. The agricultural labourer in China is better off than his European brother.
The natives evinced but little surprise at our appearance the first day. All seemed good tempered, friendly fellows, but (at the same time) not at all the kind of people to stand any nonsense. They were the finest-built men, physically speaking, I have ever seen, excepting perhaps in parts of European Russia.
Towards the latter part of our first day’s journey, a great portion of the road or pathway was paved with enormous blocks of granite in much the same way as that on the outskirts of Tungchow, and described in a former chapter. Here, however, it was in better repair——and presumably not so old——for the road in parts was as smooth and unbroken as asphalte. Bell, the traveller (1720), narrates that some eight hundred years since, a terrible earthquake occurred here and laid waste the whole of the country lying between Pekin and the Great Wall of China, occasioning great loss of life. It seems curious that no shocks of earthquake have ever been felt since in these latitudes, though they are of frequent occurrence in other parts of the Chinese Empire, as many as seven shocks having occurred at Shanghai alone in 1847.
It was past seven o’clock and nearly dark when we reached “Koo-ash,” our first resting-place, a pretty Alpine-looking village nestling under a chain of hills, about four hundred feet high, bare of trees and vegetation, and composed of huge granite boulders. The heat of the day and fatigue of a ten hours’ ride made the shelter of even a Chinese inn acceptable, though the stench of the place was awful, and the flies positively maddening. (The latter, though of the common household kind, were the largest I have ever seen.) Floor and walls were black with them, and one crushed them as one turned on the stone slab that did duty for a bed. It may be as well to give the reader a brief description of the hostelry in which we took our first night’s rest——for one native inn is precisely like another throughout the Chinese Empire. The inn at “Koo-ash” was, luckily for us, the best that exists on the road to the Great Wall. Had it been as bad as the one we reached the next night at “Kwi La Shaï,” I verily believe we should have turned tail, and returned to Pekin without setting eyes upon that euphoniously named city. Coming, so to speak, into shallow water before we tried deep, saved us from ignominious defeat.
A Chinese inn, then, is usually constructed of dried mud, whitewashed, and built round three sides of an open courtyard, as a rule knee deep in filth and garbage, in which pigs, sheep, cows, and poultry roam about at leisure. An open cesspool usually occupies the centre. The buildings on the right and left are the kitchen, innkeeper’s room, cart-shed, stables, &c., that at the farthest end, and facing you on entry, is that set apart for the guests. It is usually a bare dirty room, about eighteen feet by eighteen, a third of which is separated by a bamboo screen or partition, four or five feet high, for more favoured guests who wish to be separated from the common herd. Sometimes the screen is dispensed with, and the partition made by a chalk mark on the floor! This cheerless apartment is devoid of furniture save for a “K’ang” or stove bed, a broad ledge of brick covered with matting. In winter a fire is lit under the “K’ang,” which is built to accommodate ten to twelve sleepers. The flooring of the room is of uncarpeted brick, and there is no furniture of any kind. At Koo-ash, however, there were two inlaid chairs of the most delicate and beautiful workmanship I have ever seen. They would have fetched 50l. or 60l. in England. Most of these gruesome apartments swarm with rats, a circumstance that annoyed me more than all other discomforts put together, for I have always had a loathing for this animal. But I had not then been to Siberia.
We had our own food, of course. No European stomach could stand the cuisine in these parts. Tea was the only thing drinkable——sweet, washy stuff, as unlike our idea of that beverage as can well be, and drunk out of tiny cups holding about a couple of tablespoonsful. Our greatest difficulty was to obtain permission to use the kitchen in these caravanserai to cook ourselves a tin of soup or preserved meat. It was somewhat disheartening to have to put up with a biscuit smeared over with a spoonful of jam after a hard day’s work in the blazing sun——but this was often the case. There is no race in the world so obstinate as the northern Celestial; and in these parts, unlike in the south, even filthy lucre will not tempt them.
Still we had nothing to complain of on this score at Koo-ash. The proprietor, a big, burly Chinaman, clad in a pair of short white drawers (and nothing else), superintended our culinary arrangements himself, and turned us out a smoking dish of Irish stew in no time, served upon plates that would not have disgraced a dinner-table in the height of the London season. I tried to buy one of them, of transparent, violet porcelain of the most delicate tint imaginable. But mine host would not part with it on any consideration. It was an heirloom. “Drop it on the floor and break it,” whispered Jee Boo. “He will sell it you then, and you can get it mended in England.” I admired the astuteness of the Pekinite, but did not feel justified in risking the experiment. To say nothing of my scruples, we were no longer within reach of English protection!
A couple of glasses of whisky and water revived the inner man, and we clambered into the “K’ang,” where, in spite of the hardness of this novel kind of bed, we were soon in oblivion and back again in our dreams to less desolate regions. I was somewhat startled in the middle of the night by a dark, cold mass being thrust into my face until by the dim light of the moon struggling in through the paper window, I realized what the intruder was——a calf from the cattle-shed next door, who was making a nocturnal expedition in search of food. I lay awake the remainder of that night, for the enemy were upon me, and had evidently been for some hours, judging from the intense irritation and itching of my face and hands. Had it not been for them, however, I should have been equally wakeful; for the cheering spectacle of a couple of large rats disporting themselves on the further corner of the “K’ang” successfully murdered sleep till the morning.