This line extends a distance of 700 English miles from Peking to Hankow. The railway was constructed by a Belgian syndicate, but it is really a combination of French, Belgian, and Russian interests, which were successful in outbidding American proposals. The Belgians proved themselves more successful diplomatists than the Americans, and struck a bargain with the Chinese, in 1897, of such a nature that it had to be completely altered afterwards. The arrangement certainly does not bear a creditable aspect. Indeed, the whole history of railway enterprise in China makes sorry reading. British protests were ignored, and a working agreement was made, giving the Belgian syndicate full rights over the line for forty years. In the prospectus which they issued they professed to have obtained the right to carry the railway through from Hankow to Canton, but events have conclusively proved that, although they attempted to obtain this right, it was refused. An American combination won the concession in 1898, but it was cancelled in 1905—little progress having been made—and it is to be a Chinese line from Hankow to Canton. An English engineer had already strongly advocated the value of such a line, and the Chinese are made to realise more clearly every day the advisability of keeping the railways as far as possible in their own hands.

One of the most striking drawbacks of the Péhan railway is that no goods can safely be sent by it. Our luggage was fortunately so small that we had it all in the carriage with us—two suit-cases, two bed-bags, and a hold-all being all that we allowed ourselves for the journey through the interior. We had sent our other luggage round from Shanghai to Burma, so that we might travel as lightly as possible. During the whole of our journey we never lost a single article, and it was a disheartening consideration that it was only when we came in contact with Europeans that we had any need for care.

Together with the right to build the Péhan line, the Belgian syndicate obtained a mining concession of great value at Lincheng in the province of Chili. So much with regard to the Chinese railways.

We started in the grey dawn to take the 7 A.M. train to Hankow, and as the only weekly express started the wrong day for us, we decided to go by the ordinary mail. According to continental custom, there is a considerable difference in price between the two, and we paid the same price for first-class ordinary tickets as we should have done for second-class by the express. The carriages are not so good, but we found them comfortable, and infinitely cleaner than on the German line. In fact, a man came round periodically with a feather brush to dust us out, and this was sadly needed across the dusty plains of Chili and Honan, which it took us two days to traverse. The carriages are broad, and we had one to ourselves, next door to a handy little kitchen. Perhaps it was with this fact in view that mine host’s cook brought us two live chickens, tied by a string, as provision for the journey! But we had started in such excellent time that the doctor sent him off from the station post-haste to get cooked ones instead, and he returned triumphant with two well-spiced creatures packed in a basket, covered with leaves. We were only dependent, therefore, on the kitchen for hot water, and it was a great boon to have as much as we wanted both for drinking and washing. Our servant Liu—who had been found for us and partially trained by the doctor—was allowed to come along and wash up for us and do any odd jobs we might want.

The train only runs during the day, but we got permission to stay in it at night, and having bedding with us, we were able to be quite comfortable. It was much less fatiguing than having to turn out and go to an inn, especially as we started again at 6 A.M. The vast plains that we passed through looked very deserted, as the harvest is practically over: the persimmon trees were nearly bare of fruit, but the Indian corn still made vivid patches of colour on the threshing-floors, and occasionally we saw monkey-nuts being sifted from the sandy soil, which is particularly adapted to their culture.

We found the stations on the Péhan railway more varied and amusing than those in Shantung; we could really have supplied all our needs in the way of food at them, as there were excellent bread, chickens, eggs, various kinds of fruit, and many Chinese delicacies to be had; but naturally we preferred carrying our own supplies.

On the second day we came to the most interesting point in the journey—the crossing of the Hwang Ho (Yellow River). It is a single-line bridge, nearly two miles long, and looks far too fragile to withstand the swirl of the waters when the river is full. It is a screw-pile erection, and was extremely difficult and costly to build, owing to the shifting sands and depth of mud.

The choice of a spot for a bridge has been criticised somewhat severely on account of changes in the course of the river, but its nine changes during 2000 years make an engineer study the matter with very great care, and one must hope that the right spot has been chosen. The bed of the river is simply a quicksand, and it proved extremely difficult to reach any solid foundation. The rock and stone at first used to strengthen the foundations was simply swallowed by the quicksand, and it was necessary to make a foundation of what can only be described as matting, made by twisting together the branches of trees, on which tons of stones were piled round the screw-piles, and these were again protected from the down-flowing tide by triangular arrangements of wooden piles. The screw-piles are placed in sets of four, six, eight, and ten, and joined together by powerful stanchions and girders, and they reach a depth of some forty-four feet. The train crawled across the bridge in a most gingerly way, and one would certainly hesitate to risk crossing it at flood-tide. As one looked down on the water (more like chocolate cream than anything else) eddying round the supports, there was an evil fascination about it. An Indian engineer explained to us that the Chinese method of damming the river is exactly the opposite to ours—namely, they dam it below the bridge, and we above. It was a relief to get safely across its interminable length: the time went so slowly that one might almost forget the notice-board at one end, saying, “Fleuve jaune, rive nord,” before reaching the one at the other end, “Fleuve jaune, rive sud.” At this point in the journey we left the Great North China Plain extending to the farther side of Peking, came into more varied country, and approached the hills, which before we had only seen at intervals looming in the distance. The railway goes through a tunnel, the first to be made in China, and emerges into the Yangtze valley.

On the third day the scenery we passed through was beautiful, and we came to quite a different vegetation. The Scotch firs on the steep loess hillsides reminded us pleasantly of home, and even a view of the Great Wall at one point did not altogether dispel the illusion. Why the Great Wall extends down here it would be hard to say, for it could scarcely be of much use in its shrunken dimensions to keep out invaders. The Great Wall was erected along the northern frontier of China for a distance of about 1500 miles, in the year 214 B.C. by Chin Hwang Tu. The amount of material required to build it is said to be seventy times as much as that required for building the largest of the pyramids. The part of the wall we saw was a spur running down from the Great Wall between the provinces of Shansi and Chili; there are other similar spurs from the Great Wall. At the foot of the hill are rice-fields.

As we came farther south the vegetation changed. Instead of cornfields we saw rice-fields, mostly under water; and more and more the water increased in volume, till we found ourselves skirting large lagoons, with countless little boats on their surface, and large fishing-nets, which brought up a shining harvest of little fish. Many huts are built on land which must frequently be submerged, as is the case along the Yangtze valley.

Sometimes we saw beds of bamboos, for which the climate is too cold farther north. Water buffaloes replaced the other cattle, for the obvious reason that they are much better suited to work in swampy grounds.

At sunset we reached Hankow (so called because it is on the Han river), and were kept waiting a long time at the first station, close to the banks of the Yangtzekiang, so that it was dark by the time we reached the town. We drew up alongside a crowd of people, dimly illumined by the gay Chinese lanterns they were carrying, and found it difficult to distinguish the friends who had come to meet us. Nearly every one carries a lantern, or has a servant to do it, for the place is miserably lighted. The station is in the middle of the foreign concession, and you might easily imagine yourself in a poorly lighted London suburb, as you pass big warehouses and shops and suburban villas. It is the centre of the commercial life of the place, and there is a large European population.

All along the river-bank the city stretches for miles, and across the river is the town of Wuchang, to which ferries ply continually. If the wind is against you it may take an hour or more to get across, and you could easily imagine yourself on the sea. Indeed, it is nothing uncommon to go across in calm weather to pay a call, and for the wind to rise suddenly and prevent your coming back for a couple of days. At Wuchang there are various missions with hospitals and schools. At one of these we saw a slave girl who had been almost burnt to death with incense sticks by an enraged mistress, and then bricked up in a wall to die of starvation. She will probably never entirely recover the shock to the system. Large boat-loads of girls are continually passing down the river from the province of Szechwan, we were told, for sale at the ports; and although there has recently been an edict prohibiting the traffic, that edict is a dead letter. Many slave girls are not badly treated, but in fits of passion a Chinese mistress becomes capable of diabolical cruelty. One child was brought to the hospital at Taiyüanfu, some years ago when I was there, almost dead. She had been beaten and knocked about and bitten till she was one mass of bruises and sores, and was almost blind and quite lame. She screamed at first if any one came near her, and it was plain that kindness was a thing unknown. Soon she learnt that she had come into a new world, and responded beautifully to the new treatment. Her face lighted up with joy at any small gift, a flower or a sweet, and the necessary suffering caused by dressing her wounds was borne in heroic silence. Her one dread was lest she should recover so as to have to return to her old mistress. Several months of diplomatic negotiations passed before her mistress was persuaded to make her over as a gift to the hospital, on account of her incurable lameness and blindness, which rendered her practically useless.

So much has been said about the cruelty of the Chinese as a race, that I cannot forbear pointing out one or two things that have struck me. The Chinaman never appears to be cruel from innate love of cruelty for its own sake of sport, and I have never seen or heard in China of the atrocities which make travelling in southern Italy and Spain a misery to any one who loves animals. Cruelty for the love of money—such as that witnessed on the Congo and elsewhere—is not to be found in China, except in isolated cases, such as in the gaols. If it were not for the humanising influences of Christianity, I believe that we should be a more brutal race than the Chinese, for unhappily the sporting instinct, which we so strongly possess, is closely allied to cruelty. A Chinaman looking on at many a football match in Lancashire or Yorkshire might reasonably have much to say on the subject of kicking, for instance, as a proof of our brutality. Another point that is apt to be overlooked is that the Chinese are extraordinarily insensitive to pain; witness every operating theatre in the country, where anæsthetics are much less used or required than for Europeans. There is no denying that the Chinese can be unspeakably cruel when under the influence of passion, but not more so than Europeans; and that Chinese punishments are barbarous in the extreme; but there is little doubt they will soon be altered and brought into line with Western ideas, if one may judge from other changes now taking place.

There is a Bund at Hankow running along the river-side as at Shanghai, but it is not nearly so fine a one. Large ships pass daily between the two cities; for Hankow is a most flourishing place, the centre of the tea trade, and in its warehouses is packed all the tea for the Russian market which can be despatched to Russia without transhipment.8 Immediately to the east of Hankow, and only separated from it by the Han river, is the large town of Han-Yang, and this and Wu Chang form one big city with Hankow.

We had to wait a few days before we could get a steamer going to Ichang, and though small, we found it remarkably comfortable, so that we enjoyed our three days’ trip. The country at first was flat, but there was always something to see—long, V-shaped flights of geese, or solid blocks of ducks. Herons, too, and many other kinds of birds we saw; and wild turkeys we ate, as well as pheasants.

The river was unusually high, but not too high, we ascertained, for us to get up the rapids. In consequence of the height of the river the tiny steam-launch had to be let down at one point, as well as continual soundings to be made to test the depth of the river-bed. This is always changing, especially during the fall of the river, and is one of the main difficulties of river navigation in China, making it most tiresome and dangerous.

Wet weather set in next day and lasted more or less for a week, so that the crags overhanging the banks near Ichang looked grand and forbidding as we steamed up to it.