An easy journey of four days from Omei-hsien brought me to the prefectural city of Ya-chou-fu. During the first day the road lay through the northern portion of the same well-cultivated plain that stretches to the south-east as far as Chia-ting. Large areas were devoted to the cultivation of the small ash-tree which is used to assist in the production of the insect-wax. The yellow blossom of the rape was everywhere in bloom, and pervaded the air with the most delicate of perfumes; while the wheat-fields were just beginning to wear their spring raiment of bright green. Towards evening my road lay across the river Ya to the small magisterial town of Chia-chiang, where I spent the night. Next day, soon after starting, we again crossed the Ya in a ferry-boat and thence proceeded for a few miles along the right bank. Near the ferry-crossing I noticed on the left bank numerous shrines and small caves hollowed by nature and by art out of the face of a cliff. Sticks of incense were burning in front of several of the miniature images contained in them. From this point onward the road lay through a very picturesque district studded with groves of fine trees and two or three good pagodas, and beautified by the fresh blossom of peach and cherry and by wild primroses that seemed to grow out of the solid rock. In the afternoon we again crossed to the left bank of the river in order to reach the magisterial town of Hung Ya, the main street of which we passed through. Another six miles brought us to the poor village of Chih-kuo-chên. The accommodation was very bad, as I had passed beyond the ordinary stage. The whole river-valley from Chia-chiang upwards is the resort of great numbers of wild-duck, a few of which fell to my gun, though the season was late, and they were not at that time plentiful.
BASKET-BRIDGES
A curious feature of the shallower waterways of this district is the basket-bridge. Large wicker baskets are filled with loose stones and deposited in the bed of the river at even distances of about 10 feet. Planks of that length are placed on the top of them and constitute the bridge. This device has the merit of cheapness, but as soon as the basket is rotted by the action of the water, the stones gradually subside, and the planks are submerged. The Ya river, here as elsewhere, is too full of rocks and rapids for navigation. Long timber rafts, however, make the journey from Ya-chou to Chia-ting at all seasons of the year, except in the height of the rainy season, and serious accidents are rare.
Next day the road led tortuously through the river-valley and crossed the stream several times. After one ferry-crossing I was faced by a stiff climb of about 800 or 1,000 feet leading to a pass where there is a primitive tea-house. A corresponding descent on the other side soon led us back to the river's edge, at a point where the stream is very turbulent. We crossed by a bridge called the "Bridge of the Goddess of Mercy" (Kuan Yin Ch'iao), formed of long slabs of stone, and immediately afterwards passed through the village of the same name. Another 4 or 5 miles brought me to the small town of Ts'ao Pa, where I spent the night. This town lies in a plain surrounded by hills in every direction except the east and north-east. It lies on the left bank of the river at a point where the current is gentle and the bed very broad and shallow.[137]
On the morning of the following day, 14th March, I reached Ya-chou-fu, the seat of government of a taotai, whose jurisdiction extends to the Tibetan border. The town is important as being on the "mandarin" road from Peking to Lhasa, and also as being the centre of a great tea district.[138] It is in the plains surrounding Ya-chou that the inferior tea which is considered good enough for the Tibetan market is grown, and from here it is carried in long, narrow bundles on the backs of coolies to Tachienlu. There it is cut into cakes or bricks, packed in yak-hides, and carried by Tibetans all the way to Lhasa, and even to the borders of India.
AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSION
At Ya-chou I was most hospitably entertained by the members of the American Baptist Mission, who, judging from the friendliness with which they were greeted in the streets, were evidently on excellent terms with the people. The Mission has established a dispensary and a school, and at the time of my visit was engaged in the construction of a large hospital. To make invidious comparisons between different missionary bodies in China is unbecoming for a traveller who has been treated by all with every possible courtesy; but if I venture to refer to the American Baptist Mission with special praise, it is only because the members of that Mission whom I have had the good fortune to meet happen to have been persons of broad sympathies and more than ordinary culture and refinement.
The hospitalities of Ya-chou induced me to break my journey here for one day, which I spent in exploring the town and neighbourhood. It is situated in a rather confined plateau nearly surrounded by hills, including one mountain, the Chou Kung Shan, which, as a place of pilgrimage, is a humble rival of Omei.[139] At Ya-chou I paid off the somewhat uncouth "boy" whom I had engaged at Ch'êng-tu, and found a successor to accompany me to Tachienlu. I also engaged a new set of coolies. A sedan-chair which I had bought on leaving the Yangtse at Wan-hsien had been with me the whole way, but I very seldom used it, except when entering and leaving large towns. At Ya-chou I might as well have left it behind, and so reduced the number of my coolies by half; for I did not enter it after the day I left that city. I abandoned it finally at Tachienlu.
Almost immediately on leaving Ya-chou on the next portion of my journey I entered into the mountainous region that fringes the Tibetan plateau. Marco Polo evidently passed through the Ya-chou plain on his journey from Ch'êng-tu to Yunnan-fu viâ the Chien-ch'ang valley. In his day Ya-chou must have been a frontier town on the extreme west of Cathay, for all the mountainous region beyond belonged to Tibet. Like most border regions this district was the scene of constant warfare, and Messer Marco draws a pitiful picture of its utter desolation. It was infested, apparently, by wild beasts, as well as by wild men. But since his day the political boundary of China has been moved steadily westwards, and the province of Ssuch'uan now nominally includes a vast tract of country that was once, and still to a great extent is, inhabited by Tibetans or allied tribes.
GREAT ELEPHANT PASS