Some friends who preceded us up the Yangtze had arranged for sedan-chairs to be made in readiness for our arrival, so we were able to start on Monday morning at 7.45 on our journey to Chengtu, the capital of the province of Szechwan. We made quite an imposing array. The party was arranged as follows: first, two soldiers (our military escort); then my chair carried by four men; my friend’s ditto; Mr. Ku’s chair carried by two men, as it was a much lighter one than ours; then Liu’s, which was a similar one (servants are always supposed to walk, but as Liu was from Peking, and totally unaccustomed to walking, we thought it best to let him ride); then came four coolies carrying luggage (each man reckons to carry 107 lbs.); and a head coolie, who is responsible for all the others, brought up the rear. The total cost of the seventeen coolies for fourteen days was 90,100 cash (£9), and the soldiers each received 2½d. per day wine money. The soldiers were most attentive, and would hardly leave our side except to go ahead and engage a room in the inn and have it made ready for us—namely, swept out and clean mats put on the bedsteads. They kept an eye on the luggage, though that is really unnecessary when there is a head man, as it is his duty, and he is responsible for everything. It is only when you have as many as fifteen coolies that a head man is considered requisite, but it is a great advantage in any case to have one.
The military escort is practically compulsory in this part of the country, for things are not very settled, though foreigners are much better treated than they were a few years ago. Our soldiers were most assiduous in their attentions, rushing to fetch hot water the moment we arrived at an inn, and eager to wash up our plates after meals, although we had a servant whose main duty it was to do this.
We had been told that Szechwan was flat, so we had a pleasant surprise in finding that our route lay almost the whole way through hilly, not to say mountainous country, and that the mountains were beautifully wooded. On the second day we reached Liang Shan, a pretty little town in a valley surrounded by steep hills; and after we left it the scenery was particularly beautiful. We passed through a thick forest of bamboos, whose pale, graceful, feathery foliage contrasted finely with the tall, dark pine-trees. The way led straight up a precipitous mountain by thousands of well-made stone steps. It seemed as if we should never reach the top, and the coolies must have thoroughly appreciated the fact that we were British travellers, and not Chinese; for the Chinese sometimes walk down-hill when it is very steep, but rarely indeed uphill. When we asked Mr. Ku if he were accustomed to walking, he said, “Oh yes, I can walk two and a half miles,” so evidently that is considered a long distance. In reality he proved to be a first-rate walker, and was soon able to do several hours a day without fatigue. The banks were full of all sorts of lovely ferns and mosses, reminding us of the most beautiful ferneries (under glass) at home; but here was of course the charm of nature instead of art. There was evidently a great variety of flowers in the spring-time; masses of orchids, and anemones, violets, and other plants we recognised, but there were far more whose species were unknown to us.
When we reached the summit at last there was a wonderful panoramic view of hill and plain as far as the eye could reach; miles upon miles of shimmering rice-fields, with trees and farmsteads reflected in them. A ceaseless stream of coolies passed us, carrying various kinds of loads suspended from each end of long sticks, which they carried across their shoulders. The loads were mainly baskets, paper, coal, hand-warmers, and pottery in this district. The hand-warmers are very neat; they are made of bamboo baskets containing a little earthenware bowl for charcoal. The people sometimes sit on them, or carry them in their hands, or even hang them under their coats, either before or behind—which at first aroused our pity, for we took them to be suffering from some terrible growth!
The Szechwan inns are not at all to our taste, nor do they compare favourably with those of Shantung, being mostly in bad repair and with paper hanging in shreds from the window-frames. There are large holes in the floors—mainly used for emptying slops through, on to the pigs living below—and decidedly perilous to the unwary traveller. The month of December, however, is the best time for visiting these inns, as the rats are then the only active foes; but they are painfully bold. I turned a sudden gleam of electric light from my private lantern on one of the rats in the middle of the night and startled him a good deal, but the scare wore off all too soon. Hosie has translated a Chinese verse which he met with in a Szechwan inn, and added a second one of his own. He says that the Chinaman’s own description errs on the side of leniency, and I think he is quite correct.
After passing through most beautiful scenery for five days, we came to a comparatively dull part of the country. Still, there were plenty of interesting things to look at, and continually something fresh which we had never seen before. The women wear very prettily embroidered clothes (worked in a sort of cross-stitch), though often appallingly dirty; and the clothes of the little children are lavishly decorated with delightful designs of butterflies and animals, and monsters, besides having worked pockets. I actually saw a toddler with a pocket-handkerchief, but I am convinced he did not know the proper use of it. If only there were not such a terrible dearth of these everywhere! I presented some to Liu as a New Year’s gift, but the result was not altogether satisfactory, as the gift did not include lessons in the use of them.
It was only at the close of five days’ journey from Wanhsien that we met the first beasts of burden (other than human ones). They were all cattle, and there were quite large numbers of them, neatly shod with straw sandals like those which the men wear. The crops were much more advanced here, and we even saw a field of beans in full flower. There is a good deal of corn, some peas and sugar-cane, but most of the land is devoted to the growing of rice, and is under water at the present season of the year. These fields are not large, and on each narrow little bank enclosing them there is a fringe of beans planted. The mandarin oranges grow extremely well, and are of a most lovely colour. The trees are often so heavily laden that they look as if they would break under the strain. Every wayside stall has quantities of oranges for sale at a merely nominal price. One cannot but suppose they are indigenous, and they certainly require little or no cultivation. The houses in this part look very pretty with their lath and plaster walls and overhanging eaves, but they are bare and dreary inside, as they rarely have any windows; what little light penetrates comes from the door and from holes in the roof. The high-road has a most curious way of running straight through the houses (mostly restaurants), as seen in the accompanying sketch, in which also it may be noticed that the smoke issues from cracks in the walls. Chimneys are conspicuous by their absence throughout the empire. I think this may be the reason why photographs of Chinese towns look so unreal to us. Sometimes you think as you pass through a doorway that you are entering an inn, whereas it proves to be a village street, completely covered in by mats, stretched on rods from roof to roof, and making the streets quite dark in broad daylight.
The people seem friendly and good-tempered, and we passed one day through a district where nearly all the women had unbound feet; but this is the only one I have ever come across in north, south, east, or west. Even the women working in the fields have bound feet, and it is astonishing how fast they are able to get about and what an amount of work they do. To be sure, they often carry little stools to sit on while they are weeding or planting in the fields. Sometimes they have a baby tied on their backs, but not infrequently this duty is relegated to the children, and you may see a toddler of not more than four or five years old carrying another nearly as large as himself, and trying to soothe its cries by swaying to and fro.
We found it most important to keep to the regular daily stages while travelling in the interior, but sometimes this is impossible, and then the most villainous inns have to be faced. We were delayed by rain, which made the roads extremely slippery and difficult. My men fell no fewer than three times one day, and on one occasion they flung the chair heavily on its side, smashing the windows; happily, I escaped with only scratches. The glass windows should have been replaced at their expense, but, fortunately for their purses, I felt that it was safer to be without windows after such an experience.
On the slippery days we usually began by walking, and as we skirted the hillsides, gradually climbing upwards, for the greater part of the way the sounds of labour rising from the valley reached us clearly. Often a heavy hoar-frost lay on everything, and the sun had been up for some hours before it had power to dispel it. Nevertheless, fellow-travellers found it strong enough to warrant the putting up of European umbrellas. Certain foreign articles are increasingly used by the Chinese, and the umbrella is a special favourite. We, on the other hand—delighted with novelty and picturesqueness—had taken to Chinese umbrellas, which were certainly much prettier, though rather heavy. The enamelled basin is especially attractive to the Chinese, and is perhaps the most used of all foreign articles. A pair of English boots may frequently be seen fastened on to the luggage—I think they are too precious to be used on the high-road and are reserved for the cities—and we have met soldiers wearing European gloves as a curious addition to their very unofficial-looking dress.
Yesterday our men found it so warm that they entirely uncovered their right arms and shoulders, like the images of the Buddha. When the people want to take their coats off, they take off three, four, or five together, like a plaster, and put them on in the same way.
In this district the irrigation is done by means of large wheels worked like a treadmill by two or three men at a time, and there are great numbers of these wheels to be seen; but, as is so commonly the case, the custom is purely local, and we only saw them for a day or two. It seems to me as if it were specially characteristic of China to have customs and appliances confined to the most limited areas, outside which they are not to be seen. This adds very much to the interest of slow travelling, as it keeps you constantly on the watch, and you are rewarded by always seeing something fresh. The trying thing about it is that if you do not buy the thing you want directly you see it, most likely you will never have another chance.
It is amusing to watch the harvesting of the peanuts which is now going on. Owing to the clayey nature of the soil, it is impossible to sieve them as in Shantung, so whole families establish themselves in a field, attended by their poultry and pigs, which are picketed out over the surface of the ground. This has been already dug up and cleared by the gatherers, but the family gleans what has been overlooked, and the poultry and pigs again glean what they may have left. Little Chinese children sit in baskets, but at a very tender age they begin to share the toils of their elders. It is astonishing to see the loads of salt, coal, or firewood which some of these tiny creatures manage to carry with a manly energy. There must be a good deal of country life in this district, for there are numbers of nice-looking farms situated on the hilltops (as in the sketch of “Sunlight and Mist”), surrounded by haystacks and vegetable gardens and clumps of the useful bamboo. The bamboo seems to be used for every possible purpose, and many of the implements made from it are as ingenious as they are simple. Take, for instance, the rake; one end of the bamboo rod is split, the ends bent, and a tiny bit of plaiting spreads the prongs out fan shape. A greater variety of baskets, too, is made from bamboos than I have ever seen elsewhere, and they are used for a much larger number of purposes than at home.
As we plodded along the rice-fields one morning, after about an hour’s walk we came to a wayside booth, where our men stopped for their first snack of food, and some particularly fresh-looking eggs tempted us to join their meal. The salesman proceeded to poach them, and would have added sugar if we had not stopped him. Declining chopsticks, I was provided with a nice little pottery spoon, and my friend took possession of a saucer about the size of a penny (commonly used for sauce) for the same purpose. Long strings of mules passed us, carrying taxes in the shape of small basket-loads of bullion, accompanied by a military escort. The leading mules were gaily decorated with flags, showing that they were on government duty. The road was bad and slippery, and our men soon decided to shorten the day’s journey by one-third, which we declined to allow, having already spared their strength by walking for several hours; we agreed, however, to shorten the stage to a certain extent. The natural result was that we found a horrible inn with only two tiny rooms at our disposal, an inner one being already occupied by several people. We agreed to remain there only on one condition—that these people should be put elsewhere; and we found the three cells were more than filled by ourselves and our staff. There were no windows, but there was plenty of ventilation. The house was like a large barn, the end of which was divided off by a thin partition, in the centre of which was a round door. This part was again subdivided into three cubicles. The outer part of the barn was like a big restaurant, and after a while the many inhabitants rolled themselves up like sausages in the wadded quilts provided by the inn, and bestowed themselves as comfortably as might be on tables or benches, and comparative silence reigned for a few hours. Happily, the rain stopped, for there was quite enough open space in the roof above my head and in the walls for us to study astronomy had it been a clear night. We found it unnecessary to have our pan of charcoal taken out at nights, for there was always a lovely breeze to carry away any fumes there might be.
In this district the beds are made of straw, covered with a bamboo matting, and are not uncomfortable; but we always felt happier when we got a plain wooden bedstead like a large, low table.
We passed a night at an interesting large town called Shun King Fu, and were greatly charmed with the lovely silks we saw being made there, and the silver work. Everywhere the people were busy with the various processes of silk-making. Hand-looms, of course, are used, and we saw the most exquisite golden shades of silk in all stages of manufacture. It is, however, never sold in its natural golden colour, or white (as that is the Chinese mourning), unless some European succeeds in getting hold of a piece in its unfinished state. Some of the natural dyes are wonderfully brilliant, but unfortunately none of them seemed to be fast colours. The red and yellow vegetable dyes and indigo are grown in the province of Szechwan, but, sad to say, aniline dyes have been introduced, and are becoming more and more common.
The missionaries who were entertaining us kindly sent out to a silk merchant to bring pieces for us to select from, as it is not very usual for ladies to go out shopping in this city. When we had chosen what we wanted, the silk had to be weighed, instead of measured, to ascertain what the price was. The merchant, who brought lovely embroidery silks for sale, had neat little scales in a case with which to weigh the skeins. A long discussion as to the price ensued, as it had gone up since our hosts bought similar silks a month before, and no valid reason could be produced for the change. Of course the system of bargaining is universal, and we were thankful to have some one to tell us what the price ought to have been and to do the bargaining for us. Next the silversmith was summoned, and he brought a trayful of various silver ornaments, ready to be inlaid with kingfishers’ feathers. This is an art peculiar to China; in fact, no one but a Chinaman would have the patience requisite for doing it. The effect is that of the most brilliant, iridescent, blue-green enamel, and usually beads or red-coloured glass or coral are introduced instead of jewels. It is particularly effective when combined with jade. This jewelry was also sold by weight, and we had to leave our purchases to be “feathered” and sent after us, as everything of that sort is only made to order. Brides frequently wear a sort of crown made of silver and kingfishers’ feathers, which looks extremely effective. There are some fine examples of this work in the Chinese Section of the South Kensington Museum.
We were told that we must make an early start next day, as it was a very long stage—between thirty and thirty-five miles—so we were up betimes, and ready at six o’clock. Luck was decidedly against us. First one of the coolies said he was ill and could not go, so another had to be got, which delayed us nearly an hour. The morning was very grey, and a cold drizzle soon set in. My chair-bearers fell down even before we got outside the city, and the road became more and more sticky every moment. The men hate cold water, and had to walk round every puddle, which took up a great deal of time. The ground is composed of a particularly sticky clay, which is perhaps the reason why not only the cattle but also the funny little black pigs wear straw sandals when they travel.
After our chairs had been upset more than once we decided that it was less unpleasant to walk, and the soldiers came valiantly to the rescue when the road was specially difficult, as in the case of long flights of slippery steps. Sometimes they gave us a hand, and sometimes they clutched an elbow to save us. The descriptions of slippery places and the perils of the road, as given in the Book of Psalms, were perpetually before our mental vision. Nothing could more accurately describe Chinese roads in wet weather. The coolies tied little metal things on to their sandals, which was somewhat of a help, but we felt almost thankful when at midday the rain settled into a steady downpour; for, though it was rather dreary, it was less slippery. There were a large number of chairs on the road, and some as important-looking as our own. This was the only bit of the journey when we travelled like mandarins, but we lacked the smart military uniforms of the mandarins’ coolies; ours were the most disreputable, ragged-looking crew, and much less satisfactory as carriers than those we had in Shantung or Yünnan. In the nine days that we had been travelling from Wanhsien we had only once met a four-bearer chair, but now we were nearing the capital—Chengtu—the road was much more crowded with traffic of all sorts. The last stage of the journey is through comparatively level country. After a breakneck descent from the mountains we entered the plain in which Chengtu is situated. It is about ninety miles in length by forty broad, and has been well described as a garden. Colonel Manifold estimates that it contains a population of 1700 to the square mile, and there are seventeen cities in it. The old familiar groan of wheelbarrows greeted our ears once more, though the type is slightly different here from that of Shantung; they are much smaller and only accommodate one person, or (as we frequently saw) one fat pig, lying on his back, with his legs in the air. The seat is immediately behind the wheel, and it looks decidedly comic to see a woman, wearing tight pink trousers, with a leg cocked jauntily on either side of the wheel.
In this part of the country we passed through villages much more frequently, and the people had a busier air. There are markets held every few days in one or other of the villages, so that we continually met people coming from them laden with their spoils. They kept passing us on the road wearing paper caps over their hats, and on inquiry we learnt that this was done to preserve their pristine freshness. The fields were full of people weeding, and they looked very comfortable, seated on their little stools, and with warming-pans between their feet; for it was the week before Christmas, and the weather was growing cold. The minute kind of care the peasants here give to their crops is most interesting, each individual plant in a field being carefully attended to and manured. Each member of a family seems to share in the toil and to have implements suited to his or her size, some of them the “cutest” little weapons imaginable. The people look well fed and attended to, but their clothing is often a network of rags, and their houses are singularly dark and forbidding. If there is any scarcity through unfavourable crops, they suffer immediately and acutely, as agriculture is the most important industry of the province. The men have such long pipes that they frequently use them as walking-sticks. Often the women came round and smilingly interrogated us. Then we went through an amusing dumb conversation of the most friendly sort. The subject is usually the same—feet—and they never fail to admire our English boots, if not our feet. We, on our side, express much admiration of the exquisite embroidery of their shoes, though we do not admire their feet. Everywhere they seem to think we must be doctors, and they come and explain what a pain they have in the region of the digestion. We administer a harmless and comforting dose of ginger, and they swallow it with the utmost faith, which we hope may cause it to be doubly efficacious. In any case it is a sign of our goodwill, and establishes a friendly feeling among the people, and I do not see that it can do any harm.
We reached Chengtu on the morning of the fourteenth day, and spent a full hour wandering in search of the English missionary’s house, on whose kind hospitality we were reckoning; for there are many missions in this large city, and our men at once made for the most imposing, which, needless to say, is American.
It may seem strange to people at home to hear that travellers habitually swoop down on missions, often without even giving notice beforehand, and are invariably welcomed with courtesy and kindness. Travelling in China would be a much more difficult matter than it is if it were not for the ungrudging helpfulness and hospitality of the missionaries. Those to whom we had been directed were unable to take us in, on account of illness, but had made arrangements for us to be entertained at the Friends’ mission, and helped us in many other ways.