To the west of Fu-t’ou-kuan the country is somewhat broken; low hills alternate with plains dotted with farm-houses, nestling amid clumps of bamboo—a proof that here at least there is security for life and property. Nor are villages and market-towns wanting. The latter frequently vie with walled cities in commercial importance. In the plains, wheat, beans, rape, poppy, and peas were growing luxuriantly, while many plots of paddy land were submerged in preparation for the summer sowing. The hill-sides were also covered with beans, which seem to thrive well on a scanty soil. The low, umbrageous wood-oil tree was likewise scattered thickly on the rocky ground. Beneath the huge, dark-green, spreading banyans by the road-side, houses and restaurants spring, mushroom-like, and invite the traveller to tarry for a moment and enjoy their cool shade. As pack animals are usually turned loose to forage for themselves, the peasantry, whose lands adjoin the high-road, have hit upon a novel plan to prevent their depredations. Wheat and beans were thickly sprinkled with feathers, which, as might naturally be supposed, are not a pleasant sauce.
For some days at the Chinese New Year, business of every description comes to an absolute stand-still; houses and shops are shut, and in semi-darkness the inmates eat, drink, and make merry. As we started from Ch’ung-k’ing on the fourth day of the first moon (February 11th), we found that the people were still bent on pleasure, and that dice and theatrical performances were dividing the attention of those who had escaped from their New Year’s imprisonment.
Although coal is found in abundance near the district city of Yung-ch’uan—some sixty miles to the south-west of Ch’ung-k’ing—I noticed in the streets large quantities of charcoal, prepared from the stems of bracken. These are placed in a pit and covered over, so as to prevent blazing after ignition.
CHINESE CLOTH MAKERS.
The district city of Jung-ch’ang Hsien lies on the left bank of a tributary of the T’o River, which enters the Yang-tsze at the city of Lu Chou. It is distant forty miles west by north from Yung-ch’uan, and is approached through the same broken hilly country. It is famous for its breed of pigs, and is noted as a centre for the manufacture of fans and grass-cloth. The bamboos, of which the framework of the fans is made, are carefully cultivated along the banks of the river, while the cloth is manufactured from Ramie fibre, Boehmeria nivea, grown extensively in the district. The Chinese, unlike the home manufacturers, have not yet been inflamed with the desire to possess machinery capable of separating the fibre, and at the same time preserving the silky gloss which adds so much to the beauty and value of the cloth. Here it is entirely hand labour. The stems are cut down in the fields and carried home for manipulation. The skin or bark is first removed from the stems by hand and the branches and leaves from the bark, which is steeped for a few minutes in water. The strips are then taken one by one by the operator, who is provided with a thick broad iron thumb ring on which a short blunt blade is fixed and a curved knife equally blunt, and passed rapidly between the two blades, which are held in the left hand. By this means the green or outer bark is removed and the inner white fibre remains. The latter is afterwards handed over to women, who shred and twist it into thread ready for weaving.
The process of removing the bark from the stem has reached a higher state of development in the seaboard provinces, and merits the attention of cultivators in other countries. In the province of Chê-kiang, where I am now writing, decortication is effected in the field. The workman grasps the plant between the finger and thumb of his left hand, about six inches above the ground, and drawing it slightly towards him, seizes it two inches or more higher up, between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. A smart forward push with the right at once causes a compound fracture of the stem; the forefinger of the right hand is inserted at the point of fracture and drawn up to the top of the plant, separating the bark on the left from the bark and broken stem on the right; the bark on the left is then drawn down and is easily detached at the root, the bark and stem on the right being treated in the same manner. The stem is removed with ease, and the branches and leaves give way when the strips of bark are passed through the right hand. By this means a much longer fibre is obtained, and the branches and leaves remain on the field to assist in manuring the second and third crops. Care must be taken not to twist the plant in giving the forward push; I spoiled at least a dozen stems before I succeeded in causing the necessary compound fracture. In Chê-kiang, a flat piece of wood takes the place of the blade on the thumb-ring, and the curved knife is supplanted by an instrument resembling a shoe-horn made of iron. The cloth, after it leaves the loom, has to undergo a considerable amount of bleaching, before it attains the beautiful white colour which it presents in the piece. It is of various qualities, and ranges from one pound to two shillings and sixpence per piece of forty-six Chinese feet long and eighteen inches broad.
Instead of crossing the handsome stone bridge of seven arches, the “Lion’s Bridge,” which spans the river to the west of the city, we took boat and dropped westward with the stream for a distance of five miles. The river frequently expands to a breadth of one hundred yards; but even in the short space it bore us, rocks project into it at two places from the left and right bank respectively, leaving only a very narrow channel just sufficient for one of these small boats to pass. A little above our landing place on the right bank, a stone bridge of thirty-eight arches runs across the river, rocks showing everywhere. The arches are very low—only one is available for boat traffic—and we slipped through with very little to spare between the roof of the arch and the tops of our chairs. Excellent coal in large quantities was being carried up river to Jung-ch’ang.
THE CITY OF LUNG-CH’ANG.
On the afternoon of the 15th of February we entered the city of Lung-ch’ang, which presented a picture of business both outside and inside its walls. It is also famed for its grass-cloth. It lies in the centre of a carboniferous region, about a hundred mines existing in the neighbourhood. Many of them, however, have suffered that fate which attaches to most mining industries in China: they have been flooded, and the workmen are not supplied with the necessary appliances called pumps.