Chinese mettle

Chapter I
The Long Road

The journey through thirteen provinces of China brought us into contact with such an amazing variety of people that it is no easy task to describe clearly what we saw. I propose to give first of all a brief account of the journey as a whole, and then deal with the more important and less-known provinces somewhat in detail. The one salient fact which emerges from the welter of experiences is that the mettle of the Chinese people is changing, even to the remotest bound of the empire. What it will eventually become, the wisest man cannot foretell, but it is amazingly interesting to watch the changes taking place, and I hope that the sympathetic interest of my readers will be quickened by the record.

The journey in China itself lasted six months. We reached Shanghai February 1, via the United States, and at once went by rail to Taiyuanfu, the capital of Shansi. Visitors to China nowadays can get on fairly comfortably without any knowledge of the language, if they keep to the beaten track. The railway runs from Shanghai up to Peking, and only two changes have to be made during the journey of two days and a night; the first is at the Pukow ferry, a very easy matter and well arranged. The train goes down to the Yangtze at Chen Kiang, and the steam tug takes you across in about ten minutes. At the other side we got into a more comfortable train where we had secured sleeping places; in all the long-distance trains there are restaurant cars, where you can get fairly good meals at reasonable prices.

The next afternoon we reached Tientsin at 4.40, and had to change into a crowded train to Peking; there is always, I believe, a sort of free fight to get in at all, and the weakest go to the wall, except in the case of children, for the Chinese are very fond of children, and never fail to make room for them. Peking is reached by 8 p.m. After leaving the train we passed through two great old gateways, linking Past and Present, to another railway station close at hand, and had only sufficient time to get our luggage through the customs, and to start at 9.30 on the Peking-Hankow line for the junction at Shihchiah Chwang. It is not pleasant to do cross-country travelling in any country at night, and to reach a place at 4.20 a.m. on a cold February morning where you have to change stations would be far too difficult a matter for foreigners were it not for mission friends. They never seem to think anything of such trifles as spending nights looking after helpless travellers. We soon got all our goods and chattels out, and handed them over to a Chinese, whom our friend had engaged to look after them till the train left at 7 a.m. for Taiyuanfu. Meanwhile he escorted us to a clean inn, and comforted us with tea and cake and bedding till it was time to start. The bright cold dawn saw us off once more at 6 o’clock, rather enjoying a walk to the station; there we got into quite a comfortable train, and our friend travelled with us back to his own station, the first up the line. All day we passed through fascinating scenery, often following the course of a river, where turbine water-wheels in groups were busy grinding corn.

The line was only begun in 1903 by a French company, but the Chinese have bought it up, and it ought to be increasingly valuable, chiefly for the transport of coal, in which product Shansi is specially rich. How well I remember in the old days seeing the long files of donkeys, each laden with basketfuls of coal, slowly wending their way across the plains and over the hills; whereas now the railway taps some of the chief coal-mines in the Pingtau district. The seams are from eleven to thirty feet in thickness and quite near the surface, and the coal is of excellent quality. The length of the line is only one hundred and fifty-five miles, and we did it in nine hours, whereas on my first journey we were more than nine days travelling up by mule litter and on horseback!

The railway station at Taiyuanfu is outside the great city wall, and we saw as we approached it fine new barracks—Governor Yen has had a macadamized road built to reach one of his barracks, leading through a gate which has been closed over three hundred years. The account of this wonderful man and all his varied activities is set down in Chapter II. The penalty of greatness is seen in the fact that in this famine year refugees from all the surrounding provinces poured by thousands and thousands into Shansi. Relief work was rapidly organized, but it meant a heavy strain on the resources of every one.

After spending ten days with our friends, we went back to Peking, starting in a heavy downfall of snow, which made the Chinese rejoice; it is considered a sign of great prosperity before the approaching New Year. There is so little rain in Shansi and irrigation is so difficult that a good fall of snow is essential for the crops. We found it extremely chilly, however, waiting for three hours at the junction in the middle of the night, without any shelter. The Hankow train was delayed; when it did arrive it was full of Chinese soldiers and others who occupied all the carriages, though we had bespoken sleeping-places in advance. We had to spend the rest of the night in the corridor—a cold and weary time. In the morning a Chinaman came out of a sleeping-carriage and took pity on us, giving us his coupé; but it is a great mistake that the railways are so badly managed, and the military are allowed to monopolize them free of charge whenever they please. Later on in the year they were for some weeks entirely closed to civilian traffic.

At Peking I had the pleasure of being welcomed by the Anglo-Chinese Friendship Society, with which I have been connected ever since it was started. Its object is to cement the friendship between our peoples by putting Chinese and other students when they come to England into touch with congenial English people, and showing them the courtesy and helpfulness they need on arrival in a strange land. It is greatly to be wished that more Chinese of both sexes should come and study in England, and see what is best in our civilization. So many go to America in comparison with those who come here; yet not a few Chinese students have told me that they felt it would be better for them had it been the reverse, because our ideals are nearer to Chinese ones, and our desire for self-realization is so keen. A denationalized Chinaman is a poor product, but a Chinaman who has got his own Chinese culture and adds to it the best we can give of Western knowledge and culture, can, when he returns home, be a tremendous power in the moulding of the new China. He has a reverence for all the great past of his own country, and will strive to preserve its beauty, together with all that is good and great in its literature, art and customs. Wherever I travelled in China this fact was brought home to me. So much that is of historic and artistic value is being ruthlessly swept away, and the tragedy of it is that it is so unnecessary. For instance, in Canton, the most historic Yamen[1] was pointed out to me on a wide new thoroughfare, but its façade had completely lost its dignity and character by the guardian lions having been swept away. There was more than room enough for them, but their value had been ignored. I wanted to see the wonderful old water-clock, the triumph of ancient Chinese science, but was informed it had been taken away in the grand new improvements, and would be set up in a garden. “But do they know how to set it up again so that it will go?” I asked. “Probably not,” said my Chinese guide complacently. So it is with countless treasures in China to-day.

It will cost more money perhaps to send students to England than to the United States, but there are plenty of wealthy men, and still more of women, who are willing to make sacrifices to give their sons and daughters the best possible education, if they realize that they will really get it by coming over here. If only those who come have either friends to look after them, or apply to the Anglo-Chinese Friendship Society, there will not be the disappointment which some have experienced in past times. In Shanghai I was told that students returning with diplomas from England had no difficulty in finding satisfactory posts at once, and are in greater demand than those from America.

France has now entered the lists, and there are some two thousand students in France, most of whom are studying textile manufactures. They have been sent over by the Government, the cost being defrayed by the French remission of the remainder of the Boxer indemnity, and half the cost of the journey is paid by France.

In order to accommodate so many students, the French have had to make special provision, and I met a party of students who originally came to study in England, but were obliged to go to France because they could find no room in English colleges. This is a most deplorable state of affairs.

A French professor, whom I met on the journey out, was welcomed in Peking by old students who attended his lectures at the Sorbonne, and he told me afterwards of the extraordinary warmth of their reception and recognition of indebtedness for his teaching. When he left they told him that they were sending him a tribute of gratitude; some months later he received a very costly cloisonné vase, made expressly for him and bearing an inscription, with the names of the donors incorporated in the design. The professor, when he showed me the vase and its case, was evidently deeply impressed by this unique experience in a long teaching career.

Peking is a most fascinating city, and the new and old jostle one another strangely. Some writers tell you the old has quite vanished, but they are entirely wrong: even the old camel caravans—than which nothing can be more picturesque—may be seen wending their leisurely way beneath its ancient walls, to the clanking music of their bells. The city dates back to two hundred years B.C., and it has been the real capital of the Empire since the thirteenth century A.D. It consists of two cities, called the Outer and the Inner City; they lie side by side—one square and one rectangular. Each city is surrounded by its own wall: that of the Inner being thirty-seven feet high, fifty-two feet wide at the top, and it is thirteen miles in extent. The other city wall is not so lofty. Sixteen great gateways lead into this marvellous city, where within another wall is the old Imperial City. The legation hotels, post offices (there are six foreign post offices), shops and banks, etc., and also a native business quarter, are all in the Inner city, which is becoming very cosmopolitan, and is increasing rapidly. The numerous Government buildings are all in the Inner city—Council of State, Foreign Office, Finance, Home, Communications, Navy, War, Judiciary, Education, Agriculture and Commerce Departments.

Peking is now becoming a great centre of Western learning, and the Rockefeller Institution aims at becoming the main School of Medicine and Scientific Research in China. Its beautiful roofs, in the old Chinese style, have been built regardless of cost: two million gold dollars will not cover the initial expense of this place, and money has been poured out like water to secure not only the best equipment, but also the best brains.

Fine modern roads are being made, and automobiles are (for the wealthy) taking the place of the old slow-going cart and sedan chair; but economy will prevent these and the ricksha from going out of fashion.

The beginnings of industrial life are to be seen in the Government Industrial Factory, where there are five hundred apprentices; the Private Industrial Factory, the Match Factory, the Electric Company (which supplies the city with electric light), and the Tobacco Manufacturing Company—but Peking has never been an industrial centre, nor is it suited to become one.

Peking was so cold and snowy that we were glad to go south after a couple of days, and broke our journey at Tsinanfu. What changes have taken place since first I knew it only twelve years ago! Then it was smarting under German occupation; now it is under a still heavier yoke, and every one says “would we were under the Germans rather than the Japanese!” The latter seem to be far more grasping, and have no lack of funds for securing the things which they do not dare to seize by force. Commerce is one of their main objects, and they are pushing it with feverish zeal, so as to establish themselves securely as traders while they hold undisputed possession. It is sad to think that the militarist party in Japan has at the present time such complete control of her destinies, and that the finest part of the nation, while utterly condemning their policy, is incapable of influencing it. More than once I heard from reliable sources that this party considers that nothing less than foreign force can break the militarism of Japan. Wherever we went, even to the remotest parts of the empire, there is a growing hatred of Japan, and it almost seems as if this were the most potent factor in strengthening and unifying China. In one sense it may be looked on as a blessing in disguise! It certainly is calling out all the hitherto latent patriotism of young China.

The approach by railway to Tsinan suggests a busy manufacturing town; tall chimneys, Chamber of Commerce, big post offices, banks, public buildings, wide well-paved roads, with big houses and gardens, form large suburbs outside the city wall. It is a strange contrast to the old-world city, with its narrow picturesque streets and the lovely lake where wild birds haunt the sedgy islands—

Oh, there is a charm in China found nowhere else! You pass out of thronged streets into calm poetic retreats where the turmoil of life is hushed; for a brief spell life stands still.

But one turns back into the city, with its teeming inhabitants. A very up-to-date city it is, with its schools, hospitals, museums, arsenal, barracks, and soldiers’ institute,[2] etc., etc. Its commercial interests are increasing by leaps and bounds, now that it is linked by the railways with Peking and Tientsin on the north, with Nanking and Shanghai on the south, and with Chingtao and the sea on the east. But what interested us most of all was the Shantung Christian University, with its School of Medicine, one of the most important schools in China. It is emphatically a union college, being supported by nine different missions, British, Canadian and American. The teaching staff is approximately twenty-six, and the students about one hundred, with some forty-five in the pre-medical department of the School of Arts and Science. Already more than one hundred graduates are practising in Mission, Government and Civil employment.

The training is of a high order, each member of the faculty a specialist in his own department: the teaching is in Mandarin Chinese, but all the students learn English, largely on account of having access to English textbooks. The large well-appointed hospital may not be so imposing in appearance as some of the American institutions, but it is second to none in the work done within its walls. The approximate annual cost of the medical school is Mex. $225,000 (£25,000). It is of paramount importance that all British educational work in China to-day should be impeccable in quality, but the problem is where to find the necessary men and money.

Far more than five million dollars have been spent in building and equipping mission hospitals in China,[3] and it is high time that native men of means should take up the work, either by supporting such institutions as the above, or by undertaking similar ones. The Government of China is only beginning this herculean task, but in many respects it is better that private initiative should be active in hospital work, because the human touch is of infinite value where suffering humanity is concerned.

An interesting extension work has recently become part of the university, namely the Institute, and has proved a great draw to people of all classes. It was originally started by the British Baptist Mission at Tsingchoufu in 1887; it is a sort of glorified museum for the special purpose of making known Western ideas on all the varied sides of life, and promoting a spirit of brotherhood. You go into an airy, well-lighted hall and are confronted with glass cases containing models such as are not to be found elsewhere, and as interesting as they are novel. For instance, there is a large wooded surface with a heavy shower of rain (in the shape of fine glass rods) falling on it, while alongside are barren rocky slopes, bespeaking the land where no rain falls. Who could possibly look at this exhibit without asking the meaning, especially when there is some one at hand eager to talk about afforestation? Incidentally, it may be mentioned that the Government is beginning to take up this subject in all parts of China, and sorely needs the intelligent interest and co-operation of the people in order to ensure success.

A thrilling new exhibit is the work of the Red Cross during the war, containing two hundred separate models, starting with the firing-line and ending with the convalescent wards of the hospital. Little model figures engaged in all sorts of war-work are a source of continual delight to the spectators, who throng the hall every day of the week. “What are they doing to that dog?” says an inquisitive woman. No words can paint her astonishment when she hears that it is a wounded war-dog being carefully bandaged. Lectures on Red Cross work have been listened to with deepest interest, while demonstrations in bandaging were given by nurses attached to the University hospital. An audience of three hundred girls heard what other girls have been doing in the war. Then, too, Boy Scouts learn what part they can play in national service. The History of Hygiene is well illustrated, and the greengrocer and butcher see what happens when a luscious melon or beefsteak is visited by flies. Much has already been done by these striking models to awaken a wholesome fear in the minds of the people. During epidemics most valuable advice has been promulgated from the Institute both by lectures and literature. All the admirable models are made in the workshop of the Institute, under the clever superintendence of Mr. Whitewright, its head and founder. There are models of hospitals, churches, cemeteries, museums, streets of England, which act as texts for explanation.

On the walls are diagrams and comparative tables of statistics, illustrating a great variety of subjects, and specially calculated to awaken the attention of the Chinese to relative conditions between their country and others. That it has more than fulfilled its object is obvious by the effect it has had not only on society in general but also in the special interest it has aroused in the Chinese educational authorities. Their representatives have repeatedly come to see the Institute and to study its methods, and from it educational work of considerable importance has radiated far and wide.

There is a separate department for students of Government colleges, and they have their own reading-room, recreation-room and classroom. This department shows fifteen thousand attendances in the year. An important part of the work of the Institute is the encouragement of friendly relations between the staff and all sections of the community. Visits are arranged for parties of officers, merchants, police, Mohammedans, etc., when receptions are held specially interesting to these people, followed by lectures and cinematograph shows.

This is truly a wide-minded piece of missionary enterprise. The catholic spirit, which thus shows Christianity animating every part of human life, is a fine corrective to some of the narrow sectarian missions which still abound. Millions of people have visited the Institute, and more workers are needed to carry forward this splendid religious and educational venture.

I heard interesting details at Tsinanfu about the returned coolies from the Great War. There was a reading-room for them, and it was amusing to see the recruiting placards by which they had been attracted to the ranks. When first the idea of coolie labour was started in Shantung the British consuls were directed to arrange for recruiting, but they drew a blank. What did the Chinese coolie know of the value of a consul’s promises: he had no personal knowledge of him, and the proposition was an entirely novel one. So the missionary was set to tackle the problem, and he had to explain the scheme and show how the coolie’s family would profit by having a regular and sure source of income during his absence. The tide was turned: as many recruits were forthcoming as were needed, indeed far more. Germany spread a malicious propaganda, that the Chinese were placed in the firing-line to protect our troops. Our Government countered with cinema shows in which the people could recognize their men working in France. A time of dearth emphasized the value of their new income. Men returning from France told their experiences, and most significant of all was the universal expression of willingness to repeat the service in case of need.

I have said so much elsewhere about the city of Tsinanfu[4] that I shall pass on to our next stopping-place—Shanghai. We stayed at the Missionary Home, up the North Szechuen Road, a boarding-house with very moderate prices, which is the rendezvous for missionaries from all parts of the empire. It was most useful to us to be in touch with them, and we revised our itinerary in consequence, and were able to do many interesting things which we should otherwise not have done. Not only missionaries frequent it, but others also, for it is very helpful to any travellers going off the beaten track to be in such a centre of information. For people not knowing the language all needful help is provided in meeting steamers and trains, for which the most moderate charge is made.

Shanghai is the strangest medley of incongruities, but extraordinarily interesting, because it has become the common meeting-ground of all nationalities and the natural centre for great movements. It is the most accessible spot for conferences, being linked by its railways and waterways with all parts of the empire, so that it may almost be considered geographically as the heart of China; but it would perhaps be more accurate to describe it as the skin, or surface, whereby all the interior is related to the outer world. Less than eighty years ago it was merely an insignificant Chinese town, but in 1842 the Chinese Government made it an open port; a British concession was granted—to be followed by French and American ones. Soon the British concession was internationalized, and in course of time became so popular among the Chinese that to-day far more than half the Chinese population of Shanghai is found in it, and of course this far exceeds the foreign population. Its government is rather remarkable; the municipal council is composed of nine foreigners of several nationalities, who are responsible for the self-government of the community. In their hands is the exclusive police control (how dignified the Sikh police are and how picturesque!), the drainage, lighting, roadmaking, sanitation, taxation, control of markets, etc. Each nationality has its own judicial court, and there is the Mixed Court for the settlement of cases between Chinese and foreigners. This extra-territoriality has long been a source of soreness with the Chinese, and has acted as a spur to the reforms now going on in their judicial system. The French alone have continued to keep to a settlement of their own, which is run on similar lines.

Shanghai has naturally become the base of all sorts of experiments, and has a special value to the empire on that account. It is an object-lesson in self-government of no small value. Round it have sprung up mills of all sorts, and shipbuilding on foreign lines, and of course its shipping links it with every part of the globe. In another chapter I shall refer to its value as an educational centre.

An interesting experiment has been successfully made (by an entirely Chinese firm) of our western methods in social welfare (so new to us also) for dealing with employees. The Commercial Press was founded in 1896 to meet the rapidly growing demand for handbooks in Chinese on all sorts of subjects of western knowledge. It grew so rapidly that its branches are to be found in all the large cities of the empire, while its publications reach to the remotest towns. But to me one of its chief interests is to be found in the relations between its officials and staff, which consists of over one thousand persons. In the fine central building the fourth floor has a large dining-room, where three hundred of the employees have their meals, and there is a roof garden for their benefit. The workpeople are well paid, they receive bonuses according to their services, and are entitled to pensions on retirement: when employees die their necessitous families receive pay. There is a savings department which pays nine per cent. interest. There are school and hospital facilities for employees and their families, and they can join Y.M.C.A. and other institutions at a cheapened rate. Special arrangements are made for women at the time of childbirth, and a sum of money is given them at the beginning and end of the time they are absent from work on that account. Babies being nursed are allowed to be brought in to be fed by the mother during work hours. The hours of work are limited to nine per day, and there is a garden in which the workers can spend their leisure time.

Another institution in Shanghai which greatly interested me was a Cantonese Baptist Institutional Church, which I attended one Sunday morning. It was extremely attractive, not only in its setting, but most of all in its human qualities. I arrived while Sunday school was still going on, and saw boys and girls of all ages in classrooms, and scattered about in the big hall. The teachers were, with one or two exceptions, Chinese, and looked thoroughly competent for their tasks. “They are the best workers I have ever met,” said Miss Lyne, my guide. The sight of a stranger was quite a matter of indifference to both teachers and taught, and had no effect on their concentrated attention. An American lady took me all over the building, which seemed admirably suited to its purpose. Upstairs was a large bright room—the chapel—electric lighted, and with a baptistery which was the gift of one of the members in memory of his wife. In the kindergarten the sweetest babes had been making tulips. The hall below is used for a gymnasium, games and other purposes. Religious plays are very popular, and my guide said that although she came prepared to disapprove of them, she had been converted by seeing how they seemed to make the Bible so much more real to the people. A very interesting detail of the place was the excellent bathrooms and sanitary arrangements, hot and cold water laid on, the whole supplied by a thoroughly up-to-date Scotch firm. This section was entirely due to the wish of the young people, who had raised the funds ($300) for it themselves. The building was in a nice garden, with tennis courts and other facilities for games.

The most interesting part of the morning was the service, despite the fact that I do not understand Chinese. The men sat on one side and the women on the other, but there was no partition, and men and girls respectively took up the collection on their own side of the hall. A Chinaman conducted the service, and the singing was hearty and reverent, without any starchiness. After the sermon, candidates for baptism were brought forward, each one by his or her sponsor, for the Church’s approval before admission to the rite; they had been already examined and under training for some two years. Some of the candidates were quite young, others grown up: the pastor’s son and another boy were about eleven years old. They were asked a variety of practical questions by the pastor, but when it came to his own son, he said, “Will some one else ask little brother’s son?” and this was accordingly done. After this the Church members voted as to whether they should receive baptism. I asked if the vote was ever adverse, and was told it was not infrequently the case, although they were not recommended for baptism till they were considered ready.

There are so many Cantonese in Shanghai that missionaries find it necessary to have special work amongst them: they are like a different race, with a different language.

There are all sorts of interesting things to be seen in Shanghai, but it takes time, and the only other place of special interest we saw was the old native city, just the same picturesque, dirty, crowded spot that it was hundreds of years ago, surrounded by its three-and-a-half-mile wall, of which the gates are still shut at night. The old willow-pattern tea-house I was glad to see is still intact, also the garden from which the lovers fled who were turned into doves. It is not safe to venture into the old city unaccompanied, and the beggars are truly awful.

From Shanghai I visited the neighbouring province of Chekiang, which is considered one of the most beautiful by many people. The capital, Hangchowfu, can be reached both by water and by rail, and I much regret that I only went by rail, as an economy of time: it was a mistake, for by all accounts the waterway is most lovely. The journey takes three or four hours by rail and eighteen by boat. As one passes through mulberry groves and wide-stretching rice fields, one sees most picturesque groups of buildings, standing up on slightly raised ground, like oases in the flat land, and lofty sails move slowly across the landscape. In the soft glow of evening light it was perfectly enchanting. We passed near two walled cities, but the railway lines as a rule do not break through such walls, and it is in many ways more convenient to have the station outside the cities. I could not but regret that this rule had been broken in the case of Hangchow, where the railway station was an ugly, though imposing, modern building, erected close to the breach in the wall through which the line enters the city.

On leaving the station by a wide new thoroughfare, you see numbers of European-looking shops, full of up-to-date European wares, for Hangchow is a large and wealthy manufacturing city, in the centre of an important agricultural district. Learning and Industry have flourished here from the earliest times, and now it has a population estimated at 35,000. I was thankful to get away from the modern town to a good old-fashioned Chinese quarter, where I shared the ever-generous hospitality of Dr. and Mrs. Main. Their hospitals are a sight worth seeing—although in certain respects they would challenge criticism; that is because they grew into being nearly forty years ago and were built up under every kind of difficulty by the untiring zeal of one man, and his hall-mark is seen in every part of them. The Chinese are an industrious people and put our own to shame, but even to them this object-lesson of what can be achieved by one individual is perhaps as valuable as the actual good done to the thousands who have found healing and comfort in these hospitals. There are no less than twenty-two departments of work, of which I shall only enumerate a few of the most important.

Directly after breakfast on the day after my arrival I started on a tour of inspection, and saw over the men’s and the women’s general hospitals, where a cheerful activity reigned. There is a family likeness about mission hospitals, so I shall say nothing further about them; but what amused and fascinated me was my visit to the maternity hospital, which is a thoroughly attractive place. Already five little new-comers into this sad world were lying in a row, all tidy and washed, and one was lifting up a loud remonstrance at her fate; another was only an hour old. Sometimes you may see as many as fifteen, and I hope they do not get mixed up. There were no less than a hundred and seventy-seven in-patients during the year. These maternity hospitals are an unspeakable boon to the country, the more so because they are training schools for midwives. How badly these are needed can only be known by dwellers in the East. The Chinese make admirable nurses, especially the women, and many hospitals who in deference to custom have been in the habit of having men to nurse their own sex, are now giving it up in favour of women, because they are found more reliable and conscientious. This I was told when I deprecated the change.

Next we visited the Lock Hospital, and then the Medical School, where fifty or sixty students are admitted annually. Numbers of well-trained men have passed through this school, but it is hampered by lack of funds, and the premises and gardens are quite inadequate for the number. Girls, too, I saw hard at work in the classrooms. One most interesting part of the work was the series of workshops, in which disabled patients are employed on all sorts of trades connected with the needs of the hospitals. No doubt it is not only a boon to the workers, but a great economy for the hospital, especially in these dear times. It is astonishing to see the metal work done there, not to speak of the carpentering, matting and brushmaking. All wooden cases coming to the place are rapidly transformed into useful pieces of furniture, and everything seems to be capable of being transformed into something useful.

In the afternoon in pouring rain we set off in rickshas to visit another series of hospitals for lepers, incurables, and isolation cases. It was a long drive to the lonely hill-side overlooking the city, where these pleasant homes are situated, for they are indeed homes, as attractive and comfortable as they can be made for lifelong sufferers. It needs something stronger than humanitarianism to tackle such a work, and the spirit of a Father Damien is needed to make it a success. Well may the poor patient say:

But they seemed wonderfully content, and eagerly welcomed the doctor’s visit. The expenses of these homes were only 2,788 dollars for the year. In cases of epidemics it is a special boon to have an isolation hospital outside the city, and the Home for Incurables needs no weak words of mine to commend it. All these buildings are newer than the hospitals in the city, and built on very hygienic principles.

From the hospitals we drove to the lovely lake-side, where we had tea in a charming house recently built by Dr. Main for the doctors. The lake-side was glorious, with great beds of water-lilies just coming into blossom. What a staff is required for work like the above described! and what an opportunity for men of noble ambitions! The staff is mainly Chinese, but Englishmen are greatly needed as well, and are sadly lacking. The Church Missionary Society is responsible for this important piece of work.

Close to this house is another new and charming one built for convalescent Chinese ladies, and it stands in a pretty little garden. It was empty at the time I was there, but had been used for the Conference of the China Continuation Committee. It will be interesting to see whether the ladies make use of it; it is in the nature of an experiment, being the only one I saw in China. But Chinese ideas are so rapidly changing and the position of women is so different from what it was even ten years ago, that they will welcome the possibility of such a home for convalescence. The rooms devoted to women, even in big houses, are often miserable, and this experiment may promote a better state of affairs.

On the other side of the West Lake is the latest creation of Dr. Main, which was opened next day. It is a rest-house for Chinese workers, and ought to be valuable in connexion with so large a mission work. The funds have all been raised by Dr. Main.

Next day I got a glimpse of the old world before leaving Hangchow. I was escorted up a steep hill to visit a group of temples and to get a view over the wonderful West Lake. Magnificent old trees cast their welcome shade on the buildings, and a curious serpentine stone pathway which had a symbolical meaning leads up the hill. On the top is a group of stones of curious shapes, which are said to represent the twelve requisites of agriculture, but it required a great deal of imagination to trace the resemblance. The air was scented with wild roses, and the view from the top of the ridge was superb—on one side lay the shimmering lake, with its delicate tracery of raised pathways and bridges leading across certain parts of it, and a fine old red sandstone pagoda; on the other side the busy city and the river leading to the sea. It is an ideal spot for artists, and there is the West Lake Hotel on the margin of the lake, where it is quite pleasant to stay if you are not too exacting.

Hangchow is the starting-place for that wonder of the world, the Grand Canal, which stretches nine hundred miles, and part of which was built nearly five hundred years B.C., with solid stone walls. It is spanned in places by beautiful bridges, sometimes a single arch and sometimes several. The bridges of China are very varied and most beautiful; in no other part of the world have such remarkable blocks of stone been used in their construction, and it is impossible to understand how some of them were placed in their present position. The heavy floods in Fukien prevented my visiting the most celebrated one near Chuan Chow, called Lo-yung-kio; it is three thousand six hundred feet in length and fifteen feet wide. Some of the granite monoliths stretching from one abutment to another actually measure as much as sixty feet in length, so we were told by an English captain who had measured them. As there are only twenty abutments, it is obvious they must be very wide apart. In all such bridges that I have seen, the spaces between the abutments vary in size. Even small bridges, like one on the West Lake near Hangchow, are often quite interesting because of their architectural qualities, the artist’s touch being very marked. The Chinese never seem to grudge labour in the beautifying of things great or small, important or unimportant, which gives one great joy in using the common things of daily life. It is as if the workman worked for sheer creative joy and regardless of recompense. If a man, for instance, engraves a line drawing in the hinge of a door, where it will practically be always out of sight, what motive can he have save the creative faculty?

Hangchow is situated at the mouth of the Tsientang-kiang, a most important waterway for the trade from Kiang-si, which comes down on peculiar junks, sixty feet long and ten feet wide.

There is a remarkable tide bore at the river’s mouth; at full tide there is a column of water six feet high which rushes furiously in from the sea, and which is a source of great danger to shipping. This is a sight well worth seeing.

From Shanghai we went down the coast by the steamer Sinkiang to Hong Kong, only putting into Amoy on the way, and enjoying a few hours ashore with friends. They urged us to come and stay with them, an invitation which I gladly accepted later on. The sea was kind to us most of the way, and we accomplished the journey in four days, reaching Hong Kong at 8 a.m. Here we found the housing problem as acute as at home, and were thankful to be taken in at a delightful house for ladies, called the Helena May Institute. It was the greatest boon to me not only then, but when I returned in July to join the ship for England. The house is beautifully situated and strongly to be recommended to ladies travelling alone.

We were delayed some ten days waiting for a boat to Haiphong, as coasting steamers seem peculiarly uncertain in their sailings.

The journey to Haiphong took three nights and two days. When we finally started we found that no Hong Kong money (Hong Kong has a coinage of its own, being British, and admits no other) would be accepted in Indo-China, and that we must re-bank there before starting inland. Haiphong is a most dull and unprogressive little French town: an intelligent young Frenchman at the custom-house told us that red tape rules everything and makes progress impossible.

We were obliged to stay there two days, the bank not being open on Sunday. The train only runs by day up to Yünnanfu, and starts at a very early hour: the carriages are primitive in the extreme and badly arranged. There is only one corridor coach for first-, second- and third-class passengers, the first-class being in the middle and the passengers for the others passing to and fro through the carriage all the time. Besides this one coach there were a number of seatless luggage vans, in which were herded large numbers of fourth-class passengers, with their belongings. Their legs might frequently be seen dangling out of the unglazed windows. The line was opened in 1910, and is about 150 miles in length.

The scenery was fascinating and varied during our three days’ journey to Yünnanfu. At first it was sub-tropical, passing through forests with great tree-ferns and bamboos, or ricefields where water-buffaloes toiled. Lovely rose bushes and brilliant canna were the chief flowers visible, and tall trees full of crimson blossom. From seven in the morning till 8.30 p.m. we travelled slowly towards the Chinese frontier, and spent the night at Laokay, in a not too bad little French hotel. There was food served on the train, but we mostly relied on our own provisions. The frontier town was quite attractive, at the junction of two rivers; we were supposed to have our luggage examined, but both French and Chinese let us off, and I had time to sketch from the dividing bridge while our less lucky interpreter, Mr. Li,[5] underwent searching examination. It is most difficult for any Chinese to get passports for going through French territory, and you can never foresee what difficulties the officials will put in the way, even when everything is en règle. Li was taken off to the police station and put through an elaborate interrogatory. We had been rather anxious about our own passports, as Sir John Jordan was not able to authorize our having them from Peking, on account of the political division between North and South. He very kindly arranged that the British Consul at Canton (if he considered it safe for us to prosecute our journey) should supply us with them, and we experienced a great sense of relief on finding them awaiting us at Hong Kong. As an illustration of the strictness of French rule, no one is allowed to take more than two dollars out of Indo-China in their coinage; at Haiphong we had obtained Chinese dollars suitable for the province of Yünnan.

One of the most serious questions for China to-day is that of finance, and I was told by a reliable business man that the unification of the coinage would have been settled long ago, but for the fierce opposition of the banking community, who make unheard-of profits by the present system. It is extremely tiresome and injurious to trade, and adds greatly to the difficulty of travelling.

As soon as we had crossed the frontier the scenery changed and became grander. The railway passes through malarious districts, and its construction was impeded (at one time even entirely suspended) on account of the number of deaths which took place among the workmen. It is a narrow-gauge single line, and there are so frequently obstructions and accidents that the train only runs by daylight; it takes therefore three days to accomplish the journey; but it is so interesting that one is glad to go slowly. The stations on the line are few, and the only important town is Mongtsze, a big trading centre. The province is considered one of great natural wealth and beauty, and I was glad to be in it once more, having already traversed it from north-east to west (a distance of over a thousand miles) on foot or carried in a chair. On the second day we passed through glorious wooded gorges, gradually rising to a height of two thousand seven hundred feet. The hill-sides were terraced up to the very summits in places, and despite the sparse population the land was well cultivated wherever possible. We reached the town of Amichow soon after five o’clock, and found a decent little French hotel. Strolling out to watch the glorious sunset, we came to a barracks, where men were drilling in orthodox German style and singing a monotonous sort of chant.

Next morning when we came to pay our seven-dollar bill with the Yünnanese notes we had bought at Haiphong, we had an unusual experience with regard to the exchange, for we found that it only meant three Yünnanese dollars. While I attended to this, my niece went ahead to secure the window seats, for you see very little otherwise. There were other travellers who had secured them the previous day, and we knew the scenery would be magnificent. The line is really a remarkable one, running in and out of the rock, crossing rivers far below, and wholly unlike the tame railway lines at home. One part was singularly beautiful as we emerged from a tunnel at a high level; we saw a lovely jade-coloured lake spread below us, melting away into the far distance. As we approached the capital, Yünnanfu, we left the mountains behind and passed through well-cultivated lowlands, already clad in shining green, or reflecting the blue sky in watery ricefields. We were not sorry, however, to say good-bye to the railway for many weeks to come. Friends had arranged for us to stay at a comfortable French hotel, the Terminus, outside the city wall and with a fine view across the fields to distant hills.

We eagerly inquired as to the prospects of being allowed to go eastwards, and were informed that the robbers were most aggressive and had taken prisoners three missionaries, besides securing much loot from other quarters. I confess my spirits sank low that night, despite our having got a much-longed-for mail, and it was with some misgivings we set off to the British Consulate next morning. The postal commissioner, a portly Frenchman, had told us that he didn’t consider it at all dangerous to go eastward, but it was true that he had ceased to send money orders, owing to the number of robbers! He could transmit no money for us, but promised to see what could be done in the matter through merchants.

We found that the British Consul, Mr. Otterwell, remembered me as an old traveller. I had been his guest at Tengyueh twelve years before, though he was at the time absent in the district. He was quite encouraging, and promised at once to have our passports visé-ed and a military escort obtained for the following week. Our further doings in Yünnan Province are chronicled in Chapter III. Suffice it to say that from Yünnanfu we set off in carrying-chairs, and travelled north-eastward into the province of Kweichow—a wild and beautiful mountainous country, far from railways and steamboats and all the busy bustle of the West. There we were to make friends with strange aboriginal tribes in their native haunts and to see unadulterated China once more.

Kweichow (the Land of Demons) surpassed our most sanguine hopes. It was far more beautiful and interesting than we had been told, and not nearly so difficult to travel in as I had been led to expect. We had provided ourselves with tinned meats, as we were told that we could expect to get no meat or chickens or vegetables in so poor a province, whereas we found all these things in abundance, and every mission station to which we came most hospitable in supplying us with bread and cakes. It is true we only came to five stations in the next seven weeks, that is in crossing the whole province. There is no road in any part of it—sixty thousand square miles, roughly speaking—suitable for wheeled traffic; so no wonder it must be considered as one of the most backward parts of China, and has rarely been visited by travellers. To carry a load of rice for a hundred miles more than doubles its cost.