How to utilize coal-dust as fuel has always been a fruitful topic of discussion where coal mines are worked. I notice that the most recent invention in England is the admixture of pitch with the dust. Here and elsewhere in China, clay is the ingredient used; and the mixture, after being reduced to the necessary consistency by the addition of water, is placed in moulds, whence it issues, about two pounds in weight, in the shape of the base half of a cone, and is then exposed to the sun to dry. This fuel is fairly tenacious, and will bear considerable rough transit. From personal experience in Peking, I may add that ignition is not a difficult matter, and that a powerful heat results.
The walls of Tsun-i, which we entered on the afternoon of the 29th of April, are said to contain a population of 45,000 souls. It is a manufacturing city. Wild silk, gathered from the scrub-oak in the neighbourhood, is spun and woven into a coarse fabric, which is largely exported through Ssŭ-ch’uan to the central and eastern provinces. It is a peculiarity of Kuei-chow towns that there are no suburbs outside the walls; but, when the struggles that have taken place within the province and the consequent insecurity are considered, their absence is not a matter for surprise.
About forty miles to the south of Tsun-i, we struck the left bank of the Wu Chiang, which here flows with a swift current through a deep limestone gorge in an east-north-east direction. Looking down into the gorge, I could make out on the opposite bank a solid platform of masonry, over which dangled a row of iron chains or rods into the river. Descending through accumulations of building materials, we soon reached a similar platform, where I discovered that a great catastrophe had recently occurred. Seven months before our visit the chains or hooked rods—each about a yard long—for supporting the roadway, had been successfully stretched, built into the masonry on either side and the ends fixed into the solid rock. The side suspension chains, which were carried over stone turrets on either side of the piers, were in process of being stretched, when the whole structure collapsed, carrying with it a large number of workmen, many of whom were drowned or fatally injured. Their graves are to be seen on the left bank of the river. The turrets were all carried away, and nothing remained but the piers, the severed chains, and many of the planks which had formed the roadway. In manufacturing the chains, which was done on the spot—the workshops were still standing—local iron, which appeared to be of an inferior quality and to have been insufficiently malleated, had been used. The bridge was rebuilt in the year of our visit (1882), but iron from Yün-nan was employed.
THE KUNG-T’AN RIVER.
The Wu Chiang, or, as it is called near its mouth, the Kung-t’an River, after a course of about five hundred miles, enters the Yang-tsze at the city of Fu Chou, seventy-two miles to the east of Ch’ung-k’ing. Owing to rapids, it is unnavigable until it approaches the province of Ssŭ-ch’uan; but even in its short navigable course of over a hundred miles above its junction with the Yang-tsze it is an important trade highway. By this route, north-eastern Kuei-chow is supplied with salt from Ssŭ-ch’uan, sending in return gall-nuts and other minor products. At one time it formed part of the great commercial highway between Canton and Western China, which has practically ceased to exist since the opening of the Yang-tsze to steam navigation.
A brief glance across the Wu Chiang warned me that there was no time to tarry on the left bank, for the road could be seen zig-zagging up a gulley on the opposite shore. Collecting our forces, which had scattered on a tour of inspection, we descended to the river, a stream sixty yards in breadth, and were ferried across by detachments in a rickety old boat. A weary climb of two hours, past disused iron mines overgrown with brushwood, brought us to the Kuan-ai Customs barrier, perched on the summit of the range. Beyond the barrier we obtained a splendid view of the country to the south; barren, treeless peaks, on the same level as ourselves—three to four thousand feet—lay before us, cheerless, uninhabited, lifeless. What a picture! Where are the Miao-tzŭ that used to till these fields and tend their herds on the mountain sides? They were butchered and their bones are rotting underneath. Northern Kuei-chow is a huge graveyard, with no monuments to mark the fierce struggle against extortion and oppression, of rude weapons against foreign arms of precision. Justice is a fine thing to talk about and inculcate, but a hard thing to practise.
ARRIVAL AT KUEI-YANG.
Three miles from the river my followers clamoured for a day’s rest. Although only a three days’ journey from Kuei-yang, the capital of the province, where I proposed to make a short stay, I was compelled to accede to their request. Twenty miles may seem a poor day’s work; but my readers should bear in mind that roads, in the proper sense of the word, do not exist, and that the mountain paths which we have been travelling have been sadly neglected. During the whole of my time in Kuei-chow I never once saw a cart, the entire trade—such as it is—being conducted on the backs of bipeds and quadrupeds. A nearer acquaintance with the country between the Wu Chiang and Kuei-yang failed to leave on my mind a livelier impression than that derived from the panorama of desolation as seen from the Kuan-ai barrier. During the day here and there a hut or a poppy-patch was the only sign of human existence, and at night came the miserable village full of lethargic opium-sodden inhabitants.
Ten miles of grassy downs and fifteen miles of barren mountain sides constitute the approach to the provincial capital. At the village, which lies between, an escort of eight soldiers, two mounted officers, and a host of runners from the Magistrate’s Yamên, awaited us to protect me from the dangers of the wilderness. The occasional huts give place to guard-houses, which would seem to imply that the country is not so safe as it looks. Passing through an archway bridging the road between two steep mountain peaks, where the officer at the receipt of customs glared greedily at our caravan; and, rounding a mountain side, we soon caught a glimpse of Kuei-yang lying in a plain far below us. On the left is the graveyard of the city, its white stones like glittering specks dotting the hill side. A white wall surrounds the town; and numerous green trees rising above the house-tops were suggestive of coolness and shade. But all is not gold that glitters, and there was soon revealed to us an ordinary Chinese city containing the usual marks of decay.
On the morning of the 6th of May—the day after our arrival—I spent a very pleasant half-hour with the Governor of the province, who was courtesy itself. His Excellency was deeply interested in the subject of the navigation of the Upper Yang-tsze by steam, and showed complete familiarity with the sayings of the Shanghai vernacular press. He pressed me to stay a few days; but the heat was oppressive, and I determined to push on to Yün-nan without delay. To His Excellency I owe much; he was good enough to send orders along the route that I was to be accommodated in the official rest-houses as much as possible, so that I was enabled to get rid of the crowds which collect and gaze with glassy eyes at the unfortunate foreigner. It is difficult to satisfy a Chinese crowd; one may sit or stand before one’s room-door in an inn for hours, yet the inquisitiveness remains unabated. Enter the room, and every crack in the woodwork of the walls is occupied by peering eyes, while the paper windows are quickly converted into sieves by moistened finger-tips, and black glittering orbs are glued to them. A boot deftly aimed gives momentary, but only momentary, relief. Kuei-chow is not a chief sinner in this respect. In Western China, Ssŭ-ch’uan undoubtedly takes the palm.