We reached Kiating in the morning, and set to work at once on our preparations for the next day. The people there considered us very extraordinary for wishing to make the ascent at such an unusual time of year, and told us that it would be worse than useless, for we should certainly see nothing at all from the top. They pointed out how arduous an ascent it would be, as the snow would make climbing extremely difficult. The weather had been cloudy for some time, and we were in the land of mists, but nothing would deter us from our intention. We had read discouraging accounts of other travellers who had been up there, and it certainly sounded as if we should find the ascent beyond our strength, but we determined, at all events, to try. We arranged to take as little luggage as possible, but it was necessary to take food for six days, as on the sacred mountain there are no inns. There are plenty of monasteries, which give you reasonable accommodation, but it was quite unlikely we should get food there. The first day we travelled across the plain some twenty miles to the foot of the mountain. The scenery was pretty, but nothing remarkable was to be seen at this time of the year. One of the principal objects of interest is the white wax tree, a sort of ash, called by the Chinese “Pai-la-Shu.” The white wax insects are bred in the celebrated valley of the Chien-ch’ang, some 200 miles away among the mountains. When they reach the right stage of development they are put in paper boxes, in bamboo trays, and brought to the plain of Kiating by the swiftest runners. These men only travel by night, as it is essential that the process of development should not proceed too rapidly. The boxes have to be opened every day and ventilated, and the men secure the best rooms in the inns, so that other travellers have much to suffer if they are on the road at the same time. Finally, the education of the grub is finished in the plain round Kiating.

We crossed a large river, and cliffs were pointed out to us containing caves called Man-tsi dwellings, and we were told that they were formerly inhabited by aborigines of that name. The banks of the Min River are honeycombed with them, and it is only quite recently that this Chinese tradition has been called in question. A resident in that district, who was interested in the pottery mounds left by the Man-tsi when they were driven farther west by the Chinese during the Han dynasty (200 B.C.-200 A.D.), was told of the existence of an earthenware coffin. He went to see it, and further investigation proved that such coffins were to be found habitually in the caves, together with fragments of household implements. He found also drawings of architectural columns and figures of winged gods and winged animals carved on the rock, of a totally different character from anything Chinese. The caves differ very much in size, varying from small ones, ten feet deep by seven broad and seven high, to large ones, a hundred feet in depth and eight or ten feet broad and seven or more high. Some of the larger ones have side compartments. Sometimes large simple caves are to be found some thirty or forty feet square, and they are supported by pillars of rock, with well-chiselled chapiters and ornamental masonry above them. These caves have all the same kind of doorways, but they vary considerably in fineness of design and execution. Some of the lintels and sides are well carved. The entrances have been built up, and sometimes so skilfully filled in with earth that all external traces of them are obliterated.

As may be supposed, a large number of these caves have been broken into by the Chinese and rifled of their contents. In a cave opened at Penshau in 1908, two skeletons were found lying on either side of the entrance, one with a long sword lying beside it, and the other with a short sword. There were small images in niches at the upper end of the cave, and a large jar full of cash, besides many household dishes. As this was evidently the burying-place of a poor family, there were no earthenware coffins; but in a similar one, evidently belonging to a rich family, the corpses were all in earthenware coffins, the material of which was the same as that now used in the district for making tiles for the houses. In this cave there were a number of birds and domestic animals in burnt clay, a variety of crockery, and various traces of its former wealth, but it had evidently been robbed of such things as the brass basins and cash which are found in these wealthier tombs. The writer of the article in the North China Herald (Dec. 26, 1908), from whose account I have made this brief summary, goes on to say that the coffins are made in two pieces, the main body and the lid. He investigated a large number of these caves, which are being ruthlessly destroyed by the natives, who have no idea of the value of what they find in them, and will sell such things as swords for a few pence to be used as old iron. Stone coffins are also not uncommon in them. The caves were evidently closed about the beginning of the Christian era, when the Man-tsi were still living on the banks of the Min River. It is to be hoped that some capable archæologist will soon take up the study of these caves before it is too late, as evidently there is much to be learnt with regard to the history of the Chinese as well as of the Man-tsi in that district.

Marco Polo, in referring to the Man-tsi district, mentions the widespread culture of cinnamon, and what we procured in Chengtu was certainly the most delicious we had ever tasted.

Rain began to fall as we neared the town of Omi, and we found there was no chance of our getting farther that night. Fresh coolies had to be engaged the next day, as it requires experienced men for going up the mountain. The usual method of being carried is to sit on a wooden perch attached to the shoulders of the coolies. A young American whom we met had been carried up to the top in this way. At one point the coolie stopped on the edge of a precipice to take a little rest, and suddenly stooped down, so that the American hung over the abyss. On his uttering a remonstrance, the coolie remarked quite unconcernedly, “Have no fear; I am only picking up a pebble with my toes.” He was standing on one leg!

We arranged to start at our usual hour, 6.30; but we waited for a long time in vain. A few coolies came and fussed round the luggage, but while the others were being brought they disappeared, so that we began to fear we should never do our stage. A great deal of scolding and losing of one’s temper (no simulation in the present case, though that is often necessary in China in order to make the coolies start) had to be gone through before we started. At last we got off at 8 o’clock, with the understanding that the coolies were to get us as far as Wan Yen Sz that day, for we had been told that we must be sure to go to that place and stop at a comfortable monastery. There are seventy monasteries on the mountain; some of them very large, but others small and ill-kept. As soon as we left the plain the scenery became more and more beautiful. At the foot of it magnificent banyans and groups of sacred cedars formed a fine contrast to the slender trunks of the other trees. Then we came to a charming crystal stream, shaded by arching bamboos. The path was so narrow that whenever we met any one, they had to stride across the stream to let us pass, or they would scuttle away (if they were women) to some spot where there was room to stand, for the chair-bearers never pause or give way to other passengers; they simply ignore their being there and walk straight into them. Maidenhair and every kind of lovely fern was reflected in the green water. As we went up the valley the path led perilously round lofty rocks; once my chair stuck fast, unable to be moved either way, with the horrible precipice yawning below. My bearers yelled (from anger, not fear, I think), and one of the soldiers happily came to the rescue, for I cannot think what would have happened otherwise. Another time one of the front coolies fell flat coming down a flight of steps, so that on the whole we found that part of the journey very anxious work, both going up and coming down. We soon abandoned our chairs and began walking up endless flights of steps. We crossed an interesting little bridge ornamented with a dragon facing up the stream, whose tail projected from the farther side of the bridge, as in the sketch. These dragons are a favourite ornament of bridges in this province, and are there not merely for ornament but also to ward off the evil spirits. That is why they always face up the stream. The person crossing the bridge is a typical Szechwan woman.

We reached Wan Yen Sz much earlier than we expected. The bronze elephant in the temple there is considered very interesting, but it is certainly not ornamental. It is said to have come from India, and how it was conveyed thence nobody can explain. It had been damaged by fire, and there was a large hole in the under side, so a shrine had been made there, and two little Buddhas put in it, with incense in front. The tail was also extremely defective, so bits of incense like hairs had been stuck at the end of it. The Chinese really have no sense of the ludicrous in such matters, though they have a keen sense of humour, and one is constantly tempted to laugh in the temples. Happily, they do not mind this at all, and would not think that we were showing any lack of reverence. In the adjoining temple the monks were chanting, while two or three of them kept up a continuous beating on the Buddha fish and other gongs, as seen in the sketch. In front of the Buddha, and almost concealing him, was a large stone monument put up by an Indian prince. Near here we were shown a piece of stone which was said to be the Buddha’s tooth. It weighed several pounds, and is much venerated by pilgrims.

We provided ourselves with stout pilgrim staves, which we found of the utmost value on both our up ward and downward journeys. They have quaintly carved dragons or tigers at the top, with a loose wooden pea which rattles in their mouths. These sticks cost from a penny to 2½d., and after the pilgrimage has been performed it is the correct thing to have them painted red and black and gold. The tiger is the mountain god who was worshipped long before the existence of the Buddha, and whose shrines are still to be seen all the way up the mountain, with incense burning before them.

It was interesting to find on Mount Omi the two great Chinese symbols of power, the dragon and the tiger. As Laurence Binyon puts it: “In the superstitions of literal minds the Dragon was the genius of the element of water, producing clouds and mists; the Tiger the genius of the Mountains, whose roaring is heard in the wind that shakes the forest. But in the imagination of poets and of artists these symbols became charged with spiritual meanings, meanings which we should regard as fluid rather than fixed, and of imports varying with the dominant conceptions of particular epochs. In the Dragon is made visible the power of the spirit, the power of the infinite, the power of change; in the Tiger the power of material forces.”

It is worthy of note that the Buddhists selected mountains already sacred, where they might establish themselves and form Buddhist sanctuaries. They tolerated the gods in possession, so that they still continue to be worshipped simultaneously with the Buddha. The mixing up of religions is seen everywhere in China, but nowhere did we notice it so grotesquely carried out as here. We counted no fewer than twelve tiger shrines on the way up the mountain, many of them with vivacious beasts half out of their shrines, as if they were tired of their rôle and were meditating a raid on their worshippers. In the evening the Abbot had prepared a feast for us, but we declined it, so he sent in a tray of nuts and sweets instead.

The following morning we set off betimes on foot, and very soon the coolies left the carrying-poles behind, and were obliged to carry our chairs on their backs. Soon the steps became almost continuous and increasingly slippery. The longest flight was over 1200 steps, and as the steps sloped downwards and were covered with ice the ascent was most fatiguing and toilsome. The day was grey and cloudy, but the shifting mists revealed crags and abysses, and all along our path there was a wealth of lovely shrubs—camellias, rhododendrons, bamboos, and ferns. The frost had coated everything, and the leaves were reproduced in ice, looking exactly like clear glass; sprays of dead blossom, tall grasses, delicate ferns, everything was duplicated in ice, and the slight thaw early in the day detached this ice from the vegetation. We were sorry not to see in full beauty the flowers and ferns for which Mount Omi is justly celebrated, but it would have been impossible to conceive anything lovelier than what we did see.

Our midday halt at a monastery was provokingly long, as the men’s food had to be cooked, so that we did not start for a couple of hours. The sight of fowls here was a pleasant surprise to us, as the Buddhists obviously could have no use for them and our larder needed replenishing. We secured some eggs, and asked for a fowl also. When we came to pay for it, however, the monks said that they did not sell anything. If we liked to put our names down on their subscription list (which a monk forthwith produced) for the restoration of the monastery, we should be welcome to a fowl as a gift, not otherwise. We set out again, and found our way grow more and more precipitous and slippery. We met Tibetan pilgrims, a wild and fierce-looking company, toiling painfully upwards like ourselves, or slithering down. All these are welcomed and entertained in the monasteries. Our soldier escort was evidently very much afraid of them, and had a great deal to say of their evil doings, warning us to keep close together and close to himself. As I approached a group of pilgrims in one of the monasteries, in order to watch a man blowing up his fire with a goatskin bellows, one of them scowled at me and waved me away, as if he feared our sharing his thieving propensities. This is the season for Tibetan pilgrims, and many of them had travelled far, bringing their beasts of burden with them. The Chinese pilgrims come in the spring, and there was a big pilgrimage ten years ago—so a monk told us. The air grew intensely cold and dense, and, as twilight fell, our men urged us to halt about two miles short of the summit, where there was a good monastery. To this we willingly agreed, the more so as my breathing had grown extremely difficult, and I was beginning to feel at the end of my strength. Our lofty room was clean and well built, and the ten beds around it all stood empty. Soon a large glowing brazier was brought in, and we were thankful not only to get warm, but also to dry our clothes, which were heavy with mist.

Mount Omi is 11,000 feet high, and Kiating is only 1200, so we had come into a wholly different temperature, and when we woke in the morning it was to find everything frozen hard—sponges like boards, oranges as hard as bullets, and the water in my sketching-bottle a lump of ice. But the sun was shining brilliantly, and the mountain-top was a dazzling vision of loveliness emerging from a vast ocean of clouds. It took us about an hour to arrive at the summit, and the priest told us that as the sun shone we were evidently good people. This was highly satisfactory, as so many people thought us fools for attempting the ascent at this time of year, telling us of all the people who had toiled to the top and seen nothing. We anxiously inquired at what time of day we could see “Buddha’s Glory,” a sort of Brocken spectre which is rarely seen by travellers, and which we were told could not be seen at all at this time of year. Standing on the edge of the summit, you look down a precipice of more than a mile, and we could only feast our eyes on the ever-changing scene, the clouds looking as if they were boiling up from some hidden caldron, now concealing, now revealing the peaks of distant mountains. On a clear day the far-distant snowy peaks of Tibet are visible, and the glorious fertile plain out of which the limestone peak of Mount Omi rises.

I established myself in a sunny nook under the temple eaves, and sent for hot water with which to sketch the neighbouring crag of the “10,000 Buddhas.” After lunch I sketched the interior of the Buddha shrine with all its gaudy, squalid trappings, a harmony in reds. I was amazed to see the brevity of the worshippers’ prayers; owing, I think, to their fear of my introducing them into the sketch. The three figures of the Buddha were behind a large red curtain, in which were openings through which they could be dimly discerned. We went back to our former quarters for the night, but had very little rest, as the coolies went in for a night of revelry, in which we felt sure the monks shared, although our suggestion to that effect next day was vehemently repudiated. The descent of the mountain we found extremely arduous, despite our being shod with straw sandals and having the support of our pilgrim sticks; it was dreadfully slippery, and for six and a half hours we toiled steadily down flights of steps, or glissaded down them on our backs. We calculated the distance as not much less than twelve miles. The stiffness produced was not quite so bad as I had anticipated, but it makes you feel extremely foolish to have to watch each step you take in order to be sure that your feet are obeying your bidding. Then you see the coolies pick up the chairs and carry you for another three hours after you are dead beat as if they had done nothing. We spent the night at a clean new inn about three miles from the town of Omi, and for the first time we occupied an upstairs bedroom in a Chinese house. After this occasion we always used to try and secure one, but our stiffness then made it extremely painful to get up the steep staircase. It was like mounting into a loft, and was a very pleasant variety from any inn we had yet encountered.

The following morning we made an early start, so as to have a little time in Kiating to collect our belongings and go on board a boat to take us to Sui Fu. Our temper was sorely tried by the delay of our men and the changing of some of them at Omi Hsien, which delayed us about an hour. By dint of offering extra pay, however, we made up some time, and came upon an interesting sight to beguile us on the way—namely, cormorants and an otter fishing. When we got to the Tong River—the third river that we saw at the base of the mountain—we were rowed down to Kiating, a distance of some four miles. We were curious to see what the coolies would pay for the boat journey, as they had arranged the matter. For the four chairs and the eighteen people, the whole cost was thirty cash—namely, three farthings. We got back to Kiating soon after four o’clock, and found that our friends had kindly got everything ready for our departure. The thought of two quiet days on the boat was not unacceptable after a somewhat laborious but entirely satisfactory trip up Mount Omi, and it was many days before we recovered from our stiffness. Owing to mist, we did not see the impressive view of Mount Omi as it rises from the plain.