THE ONLY WAY TO DRIVE IN NORTH CHINA.
As usual in making a start, the first day there was considerable delay, and even after everything was ready as far as we were concerned our carters flatly refused to start till another party, consisting of two officials—one military, the other customs-house—who were going to Ning-Shia-Fu, were also prepared to make a move, and this was not till just 11 a.m., some five hours after leaving the mission-house.
Our last care before starting was to pay off Shukr Ali, whom we were sending back to Ladakh viâ Yarkand. The inn which we were leaving for Chong Wei was also the inn from which the carts make their departure for Yarkand, so we arranged with the innkeeper that he was to keep Shukr Ali until a caravan should be starting, leaving him a sum of money for board and lodging, Ridley, moreover, very kindly promising to see that the innkeeper did not defraud him or delay his departure.
Some months later we heard that Shukr Ali had arrived in Kashgar, where he presented himself to the British Resident, Captain Macartney, and coolly stated that he had been defrauded of a portion of his just dues. He appears, however, to have omitted to mention the fact of his desertion with the remainder of our flour, or any of his many sins of omission and commission by which he had forfeited all claim to any consideration. We did, indeed, send him Rs. 40 in answer to the appeal of the Resident, but with a special request that he should be made to clearly understand that he was in no way entitled to it. I can only hope that this was done. Had it not been for the fact that his behaviour up to the 2nd August was infinitely better than that of the other men, we would certainly never have taken him back into our service.
The usual method of cart travelling in China is to make an early morning start, to halt a couple of hours about midday, and then to go on till sunset, or rather later; but as the animals travel at a walk the whole time, the amount of ground covered is not very great—in fact, if you manage to do forty miles in a day you may congratulate yourself on having done well. Our first day's journey was only seventy li, or about twenty-three miles, and then we halted for the night at Shui-Peh-Ho. The following day, during our midday halt, we made the acquaintance of some of our fellow-travellers, after which they generally used to come and converse with us while we were having our meals, and occasionally made themselves very entertaining. The road was dull and uninteresting in the extreme, very rough and very sandy, which made the work uncommonly hard for the animals; scarcely a sign of cultivation anywhere, except just round the small groups of houses occasionally to be seen, which seem to have no raison d'être, except to supply the wants of destitute travellers, should any come along the road. In some places things are so bad that the unfortunate people have to send several miles for their water, but somehow the advisability of shifting to a more favourable part of the country never seems to strike them.
One day the monotony of our journey was broken by a slight fracas between the carters and ourselves, they having made up their minds to stop for the day at 2 p.m., while we were equally determined that they should go on another fifty li. Halting so early made it quite impossible for them to land us in Chong Wei on the day they had agreed upon, but this did not appear to affect them in the least, and threats of taking them to the Yamen at Chong Wei were equally unavailing, so that I am bound to confess that they fairly beat us, and we remained stuck in a little village for the rest of the day.
On the 31st October, the day our cart journey should have ended, we were woken up at 2 a.m., the carters saying they were in a hurry to start. Nothing loth, we made a hasty breakfast, rolled up our blankets, and made every preparation for departure. Our fellow-travellers moved off, but there were no signs of our carts getting ready, so we went outside to inquire what had happened to them, and were informed that one pony had run away, and that the men had gone in search of it, so there was nothing to do but to return to the inn and await events. Soon tiring of this, I decided to stroll on ahead, never doubting that the others would soon follow me in the carts.