DEPORTED TO MANCHURIA
Though I landed at Chefoo in heavy tweed clothing, I was obliged to
walk up the steep hill to the British Consulate, though the mercury
was 84° in the shade, because I had no money with which to pay for a
_jinriksha_! My reflections were anything but pleasant. My passport
and letters of introduction, both private and official, were in
Seoul, my travelling dress was distinctly shabby, and I feared that
an impecunious person without introductions, and unable to prove
her identity, might meet with a very cool reception. I experienced
something of the anxiety and timidity which are the everyday lot of
thousands, and I have felt a far tenderer sympathy with the penniless,
specially the educated penniless, ever since. I was so extremely
uncomfortable that I hung about the gate of the British Consulate for
some minutes before I could summon up courage to go to the door and
send in a torn address of a letter which was my only visiting card! I
thought, but it may have been fancy, that the Chinese who took it eyed
me suspiciously and contemptuously.
The sudden revulsion of feeling which followed I cannot easily forget.
Mr. Clement Allen, our justly popular Consul, met me with a warm
welcome. I needed no proof of identity or anything else, he only
desired to know what he could do for me. My anxiety was not quite over,
for I had to make the humiliating confession that I needed money,
and immediately he took me to Messrs. Ferguson and Co., who transact
banking business, and asked them to let me have as much as I wanted. An
invitation to tiffin followed, and Lady O’Conor, and the wife of the
Spanish minister at Peking, who were staying at the Consulate, made up
a bundle of summer clothing for me, and my “deportation” enriched me
with valued friendships.
Returning in a very different frame of mind to the _Higo Maru_, I went
on in her in severe heat to the mouth of the Peiho River in sight of
the Taku forts, and after rolling on its muddy surges for two days,
proceeded to Newchwang in Manchuria, reaching the mouth of the Liau
River in five days from Chemulpo. Rain was falling, and a more hideous
and disastrous-looking country than the voyage of two hours up to the
port revealed, I never saw. The Liau, which has a tremendous tide and
strong current, and is thick with yellow mud, is at high water nearly
on a level with the adjacent flats, of which one sees little, except
some mud forts on the left bank of the river, which are said to be
heavily armed with Krupp guns, and an expanse of mud and reeds.
Of the mud-built Chinese city of Ying-tzŭ (Military Camp), known as
Newchwang, though the real Newchwang is a derelict port 30 miles up
the Liau, nothing can be seen above the mud bank but the curved, tiled
roofs of _yamens_ and temples, though it is a city of 60,000 souls,
the growth of its population having kept pace with its rapid advance
in commercial importance since it was opened to foreign trade in 1860.
Several British steamers with big Chinese characters on their sides
were at anchor in the tideway, and the river sides were closely fringed
with up-river boats and sea-going junks, of various picturesque builds
and colors, from Southern China, steamers and junks alike waiting not
only for cargoes of the small beans for which Manchuria is famous, but
for the pressed bean cake which is exported in enormous quantities to
fertilize the sugar plantations and hungry fields of South China.
There is a Bund, and along and behind it is the foreign settlement,
occupied by about forty Europeans. The white buildings of the Chinese
Imperial Maritime Customs, the houses of the staff, the _hongs_ of two
or three foreign merchants, and the British Consular buildings, may be
said to constitute the settlement. It has the reputation of being one
of the kindliest and friendliest in the Far East, and the fact that the
river closes annually about the 20th of November for about four months,
and that the residents are thrown entirely on their own resources and
on each other, only serves to increase that inter-dependence which
binds this and similarly isolated communities so strongly together.
I was most kindly welcomed at the English Consulate then and on my
return, and have most pleasant remembrances of Newchwang, its cordial
kindness, and cheerful Bund, and breezy blue skies, but at first sight
it is a dreary, solitary-looking place of mud, and muddy waters for
ever swallowing large slices of the land, and threatening to engulf it
altogether.
“Peas,” really beans,[26] are its chief _raison d’être_, and their ups
and downs in price its mild sensations. “Pea-boats,” long and narrow,
with matting roofs and one huge sail, bring down the beans from the
interior, and mills working night and day express their oil, which is
as good for cooking as for burning.
The viceroyalty of Manchuria, in which I spent the next two months,
is interesting as in some ways distinct from China, besides having a
prospective interest in connection with Russia. Lying outside of the
Great Wall, it has a population of several distinct and mixed races,
Manchus (Tartars), Gilyaks, Tungusi, Solons, Daurs, and Chinese. Along
with these must be mentioned about 30,000 Korean families, the majority
of whom have left Korea since 1868, in consequence of political
disturbance and official exactions.[27]
The facts that the dynasty which has ruled China by right of conquest
since 1644 is a Manchu dynasty, and that it imposed the shaven
forehead and the pigtail on all Chinese men successfully, while it
absolutely failed to prevent the women from crippling their feet,
though up to this day no woman with “Golden Lilies” (crushed feet) is
allowed to enter the Imperial palace, naturally turn attention to this
viceroyalty, which, in point of its area of 380,000 square miles, is
larger than Austria and Great Britain and Ireland put together, while
its population is estimated at from 18,000,000 to 20,000,000 only. Thus
it offers a vast field for emigration from the congested provinces of
Northern China, and Chinese immigrants are steadily flocking in from
Shan-tung, Chi-li, and Shen-si, so that Southern Manchuria at this time
is little behind the inner provinces of China in density of population.
It is different in the northern province, where a cold climate and
vast stretches of forest render agriculture more difficult. If it had
not been for the war and its attendant complications, I had purposed
to travel through it from Northern Korea. But it is unsettled at all
times. The majority of its immigrants consists of convicts, fugitive
criminals, soldiers who have left the colors, and gold and ginseng
hunters. There is something almost comical about some of the doings of
this unpromising community.
It comprises large organized bands of mounted brigands, well led and
armed, who do not hesitate to come into collision with the Imperial
troops, frequently coming off victors, and at times, as when I was
in Mukden, wresting forts from their hands. During the Taiping
rebellion, when the Chinese troops were withdrawn from Manchuria,
these bands carried havoc and terror everywhere, and seizing upon
towns and villages, ruled them by right of conquest![28] In recent
years the Government has decided to let voluntary colonists settle
in the northern provinces, and has even furnished them with material
assistance.
Still, things are bad, and the brigands have come to be regarded as a
necessary evil, and are “arranged with.” They are not scrupulous as to
human life, and when they catch a rich merchant from the south, they
send an envoy to his guild with a claim for ransom, strengthened by the
threat that if it is not forthcoming in so many days, the captive’s
head will be cut off. Winter, when the mud is frozen hard, is the only
time for the transit of goods by land, and long trains of mule carts
may then be seen, a hundred or more together, starting from Newchwang,
Mukden, and other southern cities, each carrying a small flag, which
denotes that a suitable blackmail has been paid to an agent of the
brigand chiefs, and that they will not be robbed on the journey! Later,
when I was on the Siberian frontier of Manchuria, the brigands were in
great force, and having been joined by half-starved deserters from the
Chinese army, were harrying the country, and the peasants were flying
in terror from their farms.
Among the curious features of Manchurian brigandage, is that its
virulence rises or falls with good or bad harvests, inundations, etc.
For many of the usually respectable peasant farmers, in times of floods
and scanty crops, join the robber bands, returning to their honest
avocations the next season!
In spite, however, of this terrorism in the northeast, Manchuria is one
of the most prosperous of the Chinese viceroyalties, and its foreign
trade is assuming annually increasing importance.[29]
I was disappointed to find that the Manchus (or Tartars) differ
little in appearance from the race which they have subdued. The women,
however, are taller, comelier, and more robust in appearance, as may
be expected from their retaining the natural size and shape of their
feet, and not only their _coiffure_ but their costume is different, the
Manchu women wearing sleeveless dresses from the throat to the feet,
over under dresses with wide embroidered sleeves. With some exceptions,
they are less secluded than their Chinese sisters, and have an air of
far greater freedom.
Most of the Manchu customs have disappeared along with the language,
which is only spoken in a few remote valleys, and is apparently only
artificially preserved because the ruling dynasty is Manchu. It is only
those students who are aspirants for literary degrees and high office
in the viceroyalty who are obliged to learn it.
People of pure Manchu race are chiefly met with in the north. Manchus,
as kinsmen of the present Imperial dynasty, enjoy various privileges.
Every male adult, as soon as he can string a short and remarkably
inflexible bow (no easy task), becomes a “Bannerman,” _i.e._ he is
enrolled in one of eight bodies of irregulars, called “Banners” from
their distinctive flags, and from that time receives one _tael_
(now about three shillings) per month, increased to from five to
seven _taels_ a month when on active service. These “Bannermen,” as
a rule, are not specially reputable characters. They gamble, hang
about _yamens_ for odd bits of work, in hope of permanent official
employment, and generally sublet to the Chinese the lands which they
receive from the Government.
It is a singular anomaly that bows and arrows are relied upon as
a means of defence in an empire which buys rifles and Krupp guns.
Later, in Peking, which was supposed to be threatened by the Japanese
armies, it was intended to post Bannermen with bows and arrows at
the embrasures of the wall, and on the Peking and Tungchow road I
met twenty carts carrying up loads of these primitive weapons for
the defence of the capital! Bow and arrow drill is one of the most
amusing of the many military mediæval sights of China. The Chinese
Bannermen are descendants of those Chinese who, in the seventeenth
century, espoused the cause of the Manchu conquerors of China. The
whole military force of the three provinces of the viceroyalty is
280,000 men. Tartar garrisons and “Tartar cities” exist in many of the
great provincial cities of China, and as the interests of these troops
are closely bound up with those of the present Tartar dynasty, their
faithfulness is relied upon as the backbone of Imperial security.
From its history and its audacious and permanent conquest of its
gigantic neighbor, its mixed population and numerous aboriginal
tribes, its mineral and agricultural wealth, and a certain freedom and
breeziness which constitute a distinctive feature, Manchuria is a very
interesting viceroyalty, and the two months which I spent in it gave it
a strong hold upon me.
Mud is a great feature of Newchwang, perhaps the leading feature
for some months of the year, during which no traffic by road is
possible, and the Bund is the only practicable walk. The night I
arrived rain began, and continued with one hour’s cessation for five
days and nights, for much of the time coming down like a continuous
thundershower. The atmosphere was steamy and hazy, and the mercury by
day and night was pretty stationary at 78°. About 8.46 inches of rain
fell on those days. The barometer varied from 29° to 29.3°. Afterwards,
when the rain ceased for a day, the heat was nearly unbearable. Of
course, no boat’s crew would start under such circumstances. Rumors of
an extensive inundation came down the river, but these and all others
of purely local interest gave place to an intense anxiety as to whether
war would be declared, and what the effect of war would be on the great
trading port of Newchwang.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] _Glycene hispides_ (Dr. Morrison).
[27] According to information obtained by the Russian Diplomatic
Mission in Peking.
[28] Information received by the Russian Diplomatic Mission in Peking.
[29] Taking the port of Newchwang, through which, with certain
exceptions, all exports of native produce and imports of foreign
merchandise and Chinese productions pass, in 1871 16 steamers and
203 sailing vessels entered the port, with a total tonnage of 65,933
tons; in 1881, 114 steamers and 218 sailing vessels, with a tonnage of
159,098 tons; and in 1891, 372 steamers and 61 sailing vessels, with a
total tonnage of 334,709 tons. In the same period, British tonnage had
increased from 38.6 of the whole to 58 per cent. of the whole. In 1871
German tonnage nearly equalled British, being 37.6 of the whole, but it
had declined in 1891 to 28 per cent. of the whole.