The coast lying between Chefoo and the mouth of the Peiho river is strikingly like parts of Devonshire. But for the absence of houses and bathing machines, one might have been off Torquay or Dawlish. Precipitous red cliffs, with smooth green sward growing to their very edges, met by broad smooth yellow sands, while here and there great masses of rock run out for a considerable distance into the clear blue water. Further inland neatly trimmed hedges, clumps of fir-trees, and snug-looking farm-houses surrounded with orchards and gardens, recalled visions of clotted cream, and pretty peasant girls in that loveliest of all English counties, the true garden of England: Devonshire.
At daybreak on the 3rd of June we passed the celebrated Taku forts and entered the Peiho river. It was a bright lovely morning, and as a bend of the river hid it from our sight, and we looked at the blue sunlit ocean for the last time, it was not without some misgivings at the long land journey before us. The thought that when next we saw the sea, it would be at Calais, made us realize, perhaps more than we had as yet done, the difficulty and length of the voyage we had undertaken across the breadth of Europe and Asia.
Unlike most rivers, the Peiho seems to widen as you ascend it, being considerably narrower at the mouth than at Tientsin, thirty miles inland. The town of Taku, a wretched-looking place, built for the most part of mud houses, is by water inaccessible for five months of the year, on account of the ice in the Peiho and Gulf of Pechili. It is a curious fact that although Taku is so cold in winter, it never snows, and there is usually a bright, cloudless sky and cutting north-easter blowing. Wretched as is its appearance, Taku looks a busy place, and contains a Chinese naval dockyard. The Taku forts commanding the entrance to the river have been greatly strengthened during the last ten years, the work being carried on under the personal supervision of German officers.
We were rather puzzled, on first entering the Peiho, at what appeared in the distance like a number of large merry-go-rounds scattered over the flat swampy plain surrounding the town, and revolving without cessation. It was only by the aid of glasses that we made them out to be salt-mills worked by huge mat sails. The sea-water is pumped into the vats by the aid of this irrigation and allowed to evaporate in the sun. The salt which remains is then piled into large stacks and covered with thick matting. The effect at a distance of these dozens of huge mills revolving on the bare desolate plain with not a living object near them, was curious in the extreme. The river scenery from Taku to Tangchow very much resembles that of the Nile, the houses of dried mud, with their flat roofs and terraces, the absence of trees except occasional palms, remind one not a little of an Egyptian landscape, while the uniform dark blue garb of the peasantry, of exactly the same shade as that worn by the Fellaheen, heightens, at a distance, the illusion.
Although only thirty miles distant as the crow flies, Tientsin is quite eighty by river from Taku, for the Peiho is, towards the mouth, the most tortuous river in the world. It is not unusual to steam steadily on for an hour, and find yourself, at the expiration of that time only a few hundred yards from where you started. The effect produced by the shipping ascending and descending the river is very odd, the intricate bends of the river giving the steamers the appearance of moving about on dry land. The marshes I have mentioned do not extend for more than about ten miles inland. They are then succeeded by rich fertile plains of rice and cotton irrigated in the Egyptian manner by means of “shadoofs” from the waters of the Peiho. The country seemed pretty thickly populated. Some of the mud villages by the water side must have contained quite a thousand inhabitants, but in China, where the population is so enormous, this is looked upon as a small hamlet!
There is a large coal-wharf a short distance from Taku, where the coal from the Kai Ping mine, fifty miles distant, is brought by means of a small railway and barges. The coal, though rather dusty, is excellent for steamer purposes, and the private company working it make a very fair percentage. It has always seemed curious to me that coal is not more extensively worked in the Chinese Empire, when there are more than four hundred thousand square miles of it! There are, however, but very few mines in existence.
Tientsin, which has a population of about nine hundred and fifty thousand stands at the junction of the Grand Canal with the Peiho river. It is not a prepossessing place at first sight, nor did its dusty, bustling quays, warehouses, and noisy, perspiring coolies, make us at all anxious to prolong our stay longer than was absolutely necessary. The trade of Tientsin is not great when compared with the other treaty ports. Nearly all the tea exported thence goes to Russia and Siberia——occasionally by way of Pekin——but in most cases viâ Kalgan and district across the Gobi Desert to Kiakhta, without touching at the capital. The Russian merchants are therefore nearly as numerous as the English at Tientsin.
The settlement boasted of but two hotels, and these of a very fifth-rate description. Small-pox having broken out in one, our choice was limited, for we did not care to run the risk of being laid up for three or four weeks in the native hospital at Pekin. Bidding adieu to our genial skipper, who cheerfully expressed a hope that he might see us again one day, though he very much doubted our ever leaving Siberia, we made our way, accompanied by a yelling crowd of half-naked coolies bearing our luggage, to the American Hotel, an uninviting, dilapidated-looking hostelry enough. In the verandah, reclining on many chairs, and at intervals refreshing himself from a huge beaker of brandy and soda, was an individual pointed out to us as the proprietor (a fat, sleepy-looking Yankee), whose welcome was hardly encouraging.
“Can we have rooms here?”
“Sure I don’t know, you’d better ask.”