Three Years in Western China / A Narrative of Three Journeys in Ssu-ch'uan, Kuei-chow, and Yün-nan

by Sir Alexander Hosie

The immense salt traffic, which we met going east, tempted us to leave the main road to the capital and pay a visit to the celebrated salt wells of Tzŭ-liu-ching, farther west. Two stages lay between us and the wells, and we spent the first night on the left bank of the T’o River, probably the busiest stream of its size in Western China. Rising to the north-east of the provincial capital, it flows through the great sugar region of the province, and to the south of the district city of Fu-shun it is joined by a tributary which connects it with the salt wells. In return for its salt and sugar, it absorbs enormous quantities of raw cotton and cotton cloth, so that there is one continuous stream of traffic on its waters. The sugar factories to the west of the river were indeed merry; the din that came from them resembled very much the music from an iron foundry, only louder.

On the following day we struck the left bank of the tributary, took boat for a short distance, and again landed on the left bank before ascending the low hill, on the slope of which the town of Tzŭ-liu-ching is built.

This great salt belt stretches west to the left bank of the Min River and south towards the Yang-tsze. In the Shê-hung district, a hundred miles to the north-west, salt beds are also found and worked; but it is from the former that the greater parts of the provinces of Ssŭ-ch’uan, Kuei-chow, and the north-east of Yün-nan are supplied. I spent a whole day in visiting the larger wells, which are situated inside the town, and a short description of one of the greatest industries of Western China cannot fail to be of some interest.

SALT WELLS.

When I had prevailed on the immense crowd that accompanied me on my round of sight-seeing, to leave an open space, so that I might be observed to greater advantage, and that I might catch a glimpse of what I had come so far to see, I found myself seated—a settle had been procured for me—beside a square stone embedded in the ground, with a central hole a few inches in diameter. From the hole there was issuing a hempen rope, about an inch thick, which, ascending, passed over a movable wheel fixed at the top of a staging some sixty feet high and bearing a striking resemblance to the shears at a dockyard. On leaving the shears, the rope descended and passed under another wheel fixed a few feet above ground, whence for the moment it escaped from our range of vision. After the lapse of a quarter of an hour, the top of a tube, from nine to ten inches in circumference, attached to the rope, made its appearance and was drawn up to within a foot of the wheel. Meantime a workman, stationed at the mouth of the wheel, had thrown a rope round the tube, which was composed of the stems of a number of bamboos fixed together, and, immediately the lower end appeared, he drew it to one side and over a wooden reservoir built into the ground. Embracing the tube with his left arm, he plunged an iron rod which he held in his right hand into the bottom, and raising a leather valve, which was there adjusted, allowed the contents, consisting of black, dirty-looking water, to escape into the reservoir. This was the brine. The tube was again placed over the well, and descended with great rapidity. Whence the motive power that raised the brine? Following the rope after it left the second wheel, I found that it entered a large shed, the floor of which was several feet underground. In the centre of the building was an enormous bamboo wheel or drum, twelve feet in height and sixty in circumference, placed on a vertical axis, to which the rope was attached six feet from the ground. As I entered, four huge water-buffaloes were being harnessed, at equal distances, to the circumference of the drum; each buffalo had a driver, whose duty it seemed to be to belabour the animal with a short, stout hempen rope to induce it to break into a trot. As the drum revolved, the rope coiled round it at a sufficient height not to impede the buffaloes. For a quarter of an hour, that is, until the tube had been again raised, this unmerciful beating went on, when the poor beasts, exhausted and white with froth, were unharnessed and led back to their stable, whence a fresh relay was brought. When the animals were unharnessed and the signal given, the drum reversed with great velocity, creating a violent wind all round. Forty animals were employed at this well, and each relay raised the brine about ten times every twenty-four hours. They are specially selected for the work, and cost from forty to fifty taels apiece. The specimens I saw were fat and in excellent condition; but, although they are carefully fed and attended to—each costing three hundred cash a day—their staying power does not exceed five years. Many even fail within the first year; nor is this to be wondered at, for the make of the animal fits it for a slow plodding life only.

PROCESS OF EVAPORATION.

Retracing my steps to the large reservoir by the well, I found that the brine was being carried off in bamboo pipes laid down between it and smaller wooden reservoirs in the evaporating sheds, which I next visited. On the floors of the latter, rows of brick furnaces with round openings at the tops were built. On each furnace rested a round, shallow, iron pan, about four feet in diameter, filled with brine conducted in open bamboo pipes from the reservoirs, which occupy one side of each shed. Where was the fuel? Under each pan was a flame blazing from a bamboo tube coated with lime and fitted with an iron burner, while all round flames burst from smaller upright tubes and lighted the sheds, for there is no cessation, night or day, in the work of evaporation. I was next conducted to the “fire-well” whence the fuel is procured. It was quite close to the brine well, and was carefully built over, bamboo tubes covered with lime to prevent escape ramifying from the cap covering the mouth to the evaporating sheds. There can be little doubt that the “fire wells,” which are nearly all situated within the town, contain petroleum from which the vapour or gas arising supplies the natural fuel. They have, however, never been worked for the oil. The stench which permeates the whole town reminds one forcibly of a gasworks, but the gas has not, as in some parts of Ohio, been utilized to light the streets. All the wells, which are worked by private companies, are now under Government control, and there is an office established at Tzŭ-liu-ching through which all salt transactions are carried on. The actual cost price of the salt is thirteen to fourteen cash a catty, but the Government manages to extract from buyers twenty-two to twenty-three cash.

THE WORKING OF THE SALT WELLS.

The salt is of two kinds—pan or lump, and granular salt. The former is from two to three inches in thickness, and is of the same shape and size as the evaporating pans. In preparing the latter, bean flour is used to give it a whiter appearance. The work of evaporation occupies from two to five days, according to the strength of the gas-flame. As the salt wells number over a thousand, and the “fire wells” only about a score, much of the brine is carried into the town for evaporation. Pans are leased by the year, the privilege costing about forty taels each. A contractor supplies the pans, which weigh 1600 lbs. apiece, for from thirty to forty taels a year each—the old pans, which are changed about once a fortnight, being the property of the contractor. Brine is found at depths varying from 700 to over 2000 feet, and from a dirty yellow in the shallower, becomes a deep black in the deepest wells. Twice as much salt is evaporated from the black as from the yellow brine—the deeper the well the stronger the solution. As the region in which the wells are situated is of sandstone formation, the difficulties of boring to these great depths, even with primitive machinery, are not very great. A bamboo lever is erected over the spot where the operations are to be carried on; an iron jumper over one hundred pounds in weight is attached by a bamboo rope to the thin end of the lever; on both sides of the thicker end, scaffoldings with plankways are built; several men jump simultaneously from the planking on one side to the planking on the other, using the lever as a stepping stone; and the jumper is raised, released, and falls crushing the stone, a rotary motion being imparted to the weight by a man who stands by the mouth of the well, and twists the bamboo rope as the lever is about to drop. The rope is lengthened as required by adding strips of split bamboo. I have heard doubts expressed as to the depths of these wells; but the figures given are unimpeachable. The well which I visited was over 2000 feet in depth, and I arrived at this result by a very simple calculation. The drum was sixty feet in circumference, and thirty-four coils of rope were wound up before the tube reached the mouth of the well. In boring in the vicinity of the town, at least, it is impossible to predict whether petroleum or brine will be struck; but as both are valuable, the result is always satisfactory.

The workmen presented a very worn and unhealthy appearance, and, to judge from the alarming number of beggars in the town, life at the wells must be very trying and short. Their wages range from 1200 to 1300 cash per month, with board—not a large sum for labour amid noxious gases which permeate the whole place.