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

by Sir Alexander Hosie

From T’ang-t’ang the road ascends northwards to the hamlet of Mu-kua-shao, whence commences a steep descent to a narrow valley which leads to the K’o-tu River flowing east. On the way down, we passed through the hamlet of Shui-t’ang-p’u, insignificant in itself, but destined at some future time to be of greater importance.

A few hundred yards to the south-east of the hamlet there is a silver mine, which may some day prove productive. The owners bewailed to me their inability to make the mine do more than pay the expenses of working. Yet what could be expected from the ordinary Chinese furnace which was employed to smelt the ore?

Although a narrow strip of land on the north bank of the river is within the jurisdiction of Yün-nan, the K’o-tu may, for all practical purposes, be considered the boundary at this point of the Yün-nan and Kuei-chow provinces.

A plaited bamboo rope was stretched across the river—about sixty feet broad—and used by the ferrymen for hauling their boat backwards and forwards. High cliffs, up which the road zigzags, form the north bank and tower above the river. This borderland is very rich in metals; silver, as I have just said, is found to the south of the river, and to the immediate north copper and lead are both worked. The copper reefs would appear to run right across Southern Ssŭ-ch’uan and north-eastern Yün-nan into the west of Kuei-chow.

Wei-ning Chou, the first city within the Kuei-chow borders, is picturesquely situated on rising ground, a few hundred yards from the northern margin of the eastern portion of a large lake, which, like the smaller basins a few miles to the north, would appear to have no outlet. The same phenomenon, if it may be called a phenomenon, is observable in the Chao-t’ung plain in north-eastern Yün-nan. We have already seen, however, that underground rivers are very common in Kuei-chow and Yün-nan, and it is not impossible that the surplus waters of the lake may find their way by underground channels into the head-waters of the K’o-tu River, which is over a thousand feet below the level of the Wei-ning plain. To reach the city we skirted the eastern shore of the lake, crossing a small three-arched stone bridge which spans a rivulet draining a valley to the south-east and entering the lake. To the north-east of Wei-ning, the paved road, which runs through small basins full of coal, was in such an excellent state of repair that our animals fought shy of it, preferring the rough grassy ground through which it passes. Here we found ourselves again among Miao-tzŭ, busy tilling their fields. The women were as usual clad in their native dress, while the men wore coarse hempen clothes in Chinese style.

“LEATHER” PAPER.

Twenty miles north of Wei-ning, the road goes east for four days through rough mountainous country to the busy city of Pi-chieh Hsien, on the left bank of a tributary of the Wu Chiang, and nearly 5000 feet above the level of the sea. Twenty-five miles to the east of the city is the second depression of any importance on the road from Yün-nan Fu to the Yang-tsze. This depression forms the bed of the Ch’i-hsing River, one of the two main branches of the Wu Chiang, and is little more than four thousand feet above the level of the sea. The river is crossed by a stone bridge of two arches, with spans of eighteen and fifteen yards respectively, with a centre pier five yards broad, so that the total breadth of the Ch’i-hsing at this point is thirty-eight yards. The bridge is roofed and adorned with three pavilions, one at either end and one on the centre pier. Although the wooden floor is thirty feet above the river, I was told that it was by no means safe during floods, and that the water frequently swept over it. Fifty yards to the north of the present structure are the two piers of a former stone bridge, which came to grief during a flood. Pi-chieh is a great depôt for Ssŭ-ch’uan salt, which finds its way to Western Kuei-chow by the Yung-ning River as far as Yung-ning Hsien, and thence overland by pack animals and carriers. In Pi-chieh I saw a quantity of that famous tough paper which is manufactured in the province of Kuei-chow, and which is wrongly called “leather” paper. The mistake is pardonable, for the character which means “leather” also means “bark;” and the paper is made from the fibrous inner bark of the Broussonetia papyrifera, Vent.

There is considerable romance in the names which the Chinese apply to their cities and villages. At the end of the first stage from Pi-chieh is the village of Chin-yin-shan, the characters for which, literally translated, mean “Gold-silver-mountain.” True, the street occupies the face of a hill; but the precious metals, to judge from the surroundings, were conspicuous by their absence.