The cold was by no means so severe as we had expected from the season of the year and the great elevation of the mountain. In the afternoon, indeed, the weather was quite mild; by-and-by, the sky was overcast, and snow fell. As we were obliged to descend the mountain on foot, we soon got absolutely hot, in the perpetual struggle, of a very laborious kind, to keep from rolling down the slippery path. One of our camels fell twice, but happily in each instance he was stayed by a rock from tumbling over the mountain’s side.
Having placed behind us the formidable Ping-Keou, we took up our lodging in the village of the Old Duck (Lao-Ya-Pou). Here we found a system of heating in operation different from that of Ho-Kiao-Y. The kangs here are warmed, not with dried horse-dung, but with coal-dust, reduced to paste, and then formed into bricks; turf is also used for the purpose. We had hitherto imagined that knitting was unknown in China; the village of the Old Duck removed this misconception from our minds, and enabled us, indeed, to remove it from the minds of the Chinese themselves in other parts of the empire. We found here in every street men, not women, occupied in this species of industry. Their productions are wholly without taste or delicacy of execution; they merely knit coarse cotton into shapeless stockings, like sacks, or sometimes gloves, without any separation for the fingers, and merely a place for the thumb, the knitting needles being small canes of bamboo. It was for us a singular spectacle to see parties of moustachioed men sitting before the door of their houses in the sun, knitting, sewing, and chattering like so many female gossips; it looked quite like a burlesque upon the manners of Europe.
From Lao-Ya-Pou to Si-Ning-Fou was five days march; on the second day we passed through Ning-Pey-Hien, a town of the third order. Outside the western gate, we stopped at an inn to take our morning meal; a great many travellers were already assembled in the large kitchen, occupying the tables which were ranged along the walls; in the centre of the room were several furnaces, where the innkeeper, his wife, several children, and some servants were actively preparing the dishes required by the guests. While every body seemed occupied, either in the preparation or in the consumption of victuals, a loud cry was heard. It was the hostess, thus expressing the pain occasioned by a knock on her head, which the husband had administered with a shovel. At the cry, all the travellers looked in the direction whence it proceeded; the woman retreated, with vehement vociferations, to a corner of the kitchen; the innkeeper explained to the company that he had been compelled to correct his wife for insolence, insubordination, and an indifference to the interests of the establishment, which eminently compromised its prosperity. Before he had finished his version of the story, the wife, from her retreat in the corner, commenced her’s; she informed the company that her husband was an idle vagabond, who passed his time in drinking and smoking, expending the result of her labours for a whole month in a few days of brandy and tobacco. During this extempore performance, the audience remained imperturbably calm, giving not the smallest indication of approbation or disapprobation. At length the wife issued from her retreat, and advanced with a sort of challenging air to the husband: “Since I am a wicked woman,” cried she, “you must kill me. Come, kill me!” and so saying, she drew herself up with a gesture of vast dramatic dignity immediately in front of the husband. The latter did not adopt the suggestion to kill her, but he gave her a formidable box on the ear, which sent her back, screaming at the pitch of her voice, into her previous corner. Hereupon, the audience burst into loud laughter; but the affair, which seemed to them so diverting, soon took a very serious turn. After the most terrible abuse on the one hand, and the most awful threats on the other, the innkeeper at length drew his girdle tight about his waist, and twisted his tress of hair about his head, in token of some decided proceeding. “Since you will have me kill you,” cried he, “I will kill you!” and so saying, he took from the furnace a pair of long iron tongs, and rushed furiously upon his wife. Everybody at once rose and shouted; the neighbours ran in, and all present endeavoured to separate the combatants, but they did not effect the object until the woman’s face was covered with blood, and her hair was all down about her shoulders. Then a man of ripe years, who seemed to exercise some authority in the house, gravely pronounced these words by way of epilogue: “How! what!” said he, “husband and wife fighting thus! and in presence of their children, in presence of a crowd of travellers!” These words, repeated three or four times, in a tone which expressed at once indignation and authority, had a marvellous effect. Almost immediately afterwards the guests resumed their dinner, the hostess fried cakes in nut-oil, and the host silently smoked his pipe.
When we were about to depart, the innkeeper, in summing up our account, coolly inserted fifty sapeks for the animals which we had tied up in the court-yard during our meal. He had evidently an idea of making us pay en Tartare. Samdadchiemba was indignant. “Do you think,” asked he, “that we Dchiahours don’t know the rules of inns? Where did you ever hear of making people pay for fastening their animals to a peg in the wall? Tell me, master publican, how many sapeks are you going to charge us for the comedy we’ve just witnessed of the innkeeper and his wife?” The burst of laughter on the part of the bystanders which hailed this sarcasm carried the day triumphantly for Samdadchiemba, and we departed without paying anything beyond our personal expenses.
The road thence to Si-Ning-Fou, generally well made and well kept, meanders through a fertile and well cultivated country, picturesquely diversified by trees, hills, and numerous streams. Tobacco is the staple of the district. We saw on our way several water-mills, remarkable for their simplicity, as is the case with all Chinese works. In these mills, the upper story is stationary, while the lower is turned by means of a single wheel, kept in motion by the current. To work these mills, though they are frequently of large proportions, a very small stream suffices, as the stream plays upon the wheel in the form of a cascade, at least twenty feet high.
On the day before arriving at Si-Ning-Fou, we passed over a road extremely laborious, and so dangerously rugged that it suggested frequent recommendations of ourselves to the protection of the Divine Providence. Our course was amid enormous rocks, beside a deep, fierce current, the tumultuous waves of which roared beneath us. There was the gulf perpetually yawning to swallow us up, should we make but one false step; we trembled, above all, for our camels, awkward and lumbering as they were, whenever they had to pass over an uneven road. At length, thanks to the goodness of God, we arrived without accident at Si-Ning. The town is of very large extent, but its population is limited, and itself, in several parts, is falling into absolute decay. The history of the matter is, that its commerce has been in great measure intercepted by Tang-Keou-Eul, a small town on the banks of the Keou-Ho, the frontier which separates Kan-Sou from Koukou-Noor.
It is the custom, we may say the rule, at Si-Ning-Fou, not to receive strangers, such as the Tartars, Thibetians, and others, into the inns, but to relegate them to establishments called Houses of Repose (Sie-Kia), into which no other travellers are admitted. We proceeded accordingly to one of these Houses of Repose, where we were exceedingly well entertained. The Sie-Kia differ from other inns in this important particular, that the guests are boarded, lodged, and served there gratuitously. Commerce being the leading object of travellers hither, the chiefs of the Sie-Kia indemnify themselves for their outlay by a recognised per centage upon all the goods which their guests buy or sell. The persons who keep these Houses of Repose have first to procure a license from the authorities of the town, for which they pay a certain sum, greater or less, according to the character of the commercial men who are expected to frequent the house. In outward show, the guests are well-treated, but still they are quite at the mercy of the landlords, who, having an understanding with the traders of the town, manage to make money of both parties.
When we, indeed, departed from Si-Ning-Fou, the Sie-Kia with whom we had lodged had made nothing by us in the ordinary way, for we had neither bought nor sold anything. However, as it would have been preposterous and unjust on our part to have lived thus at the expense of our neighbours, we paid the host of the House of Repose for what we had had, at the ordinary tavern rate.
After crossing several torrents, ascending many rocky hills, and twice passing the Great Wall, we arrived at Tang-Keou-Eul. It was now January, and nearly four months had elapsed since our departure from the Valley of Dark Waters. Tang-Keou-Eul is a small town, but very populous, very animated, and very full of business. It is a regular tower of Babel, wherein you find collected Eastern Thibetians, Houng-Mao-Eul (Long-haired Folk), Eleuts, Kolos, Chinese, Tartars from the Blue Sea, and Mussulmans, descended from the ancient migrations from Turkestan. Everything in the town bears the impress of violence. Nobody walks the streets without a great sabre at his side, and without affecting, at least, a fierce determination to use it on the shortest notice. Not an hour passes without some street combat.
The Jin Seng, a medicinal root of China
[11] Notwithstanding the slight importance of the Tartar tribes, we shall give them the name of kingdoms, because the chiefs of these tribes are called Wang (King.)
[12] Sixth Emperor of the Tartar-Mantchou dynasty. He died in the year 1849.
[16] The Chinese Li is about equivalent to the quarter of an English mile.
[23] Dried dung, which constitutes the chief, and indeed in many places the sole fuel in Tartary.
[35] With the exception of a very few inaccuracies, this map of the Chinese empire is a most excellent one. We found it of the most valuable aid throughout our journey.—Huc.
An English version of the map is prefixed to this volume.—Ed.
[43] The English, then at war with the Chinese, were designated by the Tartars the Rebels of the South.
[51] “Voyage à Peking, à travers la Mongolie, par M. G. Timkouski,” chap. ii., p. 57.
[93] The anecdote, which we give as we heard it, must have reference to Tchun-Tche’s father, who died immediately after the conquest. Tchun-Tche himself was only four years old at the time.
[105] The Chinese designate them San Pao; the Mantchous, Ilan Baobai; the Mongols, Korban erdeni; and the Thibetians, Tchok-Soum.
[116] The Fathers Jesuits introduced the use of Arabic numerals into the Observatory at Peking.
[141] The bed of the Yellow River has undergone numerous and notable variations. In ancient times, its mouth was situated in the Gulf of Pe-Tchi-Li, in latitude 39. At present it is in the 34th parallel, twenty-five leagues from the primitive point. The Chinese government is compelled annually to expend enormous sums in keeping the river within its bed and preventing inundations. In 1779, the embankment for this purpose cost no less a sum than £1,600,000. Yet, despite these precautions, inundations are of frequent occurrence; for the bed of the Yellow River, in the provinces of Ho-Nan and Kiang-Sou, is higher for 200 leagues than the plain through which it passes. This bed, continuing to rise, with the quantity of mud deposited, there is inevitably impending, at no remote period, an awful catastrophe, involving in death and desolation all the adjacent district.
[170] Barains is a Principality situated north of Peking. It is one of the most celebrated in Mongol Tartary.
[218a] Gen. xxix., 1–3.
[218b] Gen. xxiv., 19, 20.
[259] This compilation was made in the fourteenth century, by order of Pope John XXII.
[273] At this period there was no French embassy in China, and no treaty in favour of Europeans. All missionaries, therefore, who penetrated into the interior, were, ipso facto, liable to be put to death.
[285] The Thibetians call the English in Hindostan, Péling, a word signifying stranger, and equivalent to the Chinese y-jin, which the Europeans translate, barbarian, probably with the notion of flattering their self-love by the implied contrast.