A BROKEN JOURNEY
Wanderings from the Hoang-Ho yo the Island of Saghalien and the Upper
Reaches of The Amur River
By Mary Gaunt
Author Of “Alone In West Africa”
“A Woman In China,” Etc.
London
T. Werner Laurie Ltd.
1919
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TO MY
SISTER AND BROTHERS
IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE DAYS BEFORE WE
WANDERED
FOREWORD
I have to thank my friend Mrs Lang for the drastic criticism which once
more has materially helped me to write this book. Other people also have
I to thank, but so great was the kindness I received everywhere I
can only hope each one will see in this book some token of my sincere
gratitude.
Mary Gaunt.
Mary Haven, New Eltham, Kent.
A BROKEN JOURNEY
CHAPTER I--THE LURE OF THE UNKNOWN
Each time I begin a book of travel I search for the reasons that sent
me awandering. Foolishness, for I ought to know by this time the
wander fever was born in my blood; it is in the blood of my sister and
brothers. We were brought up in an inland town in Victoria, Australia,
and the years have seen us roaming all over the world. I do not think
any of us has been nearer the North Pole than Petropaulovski, or to the
South Pole than Cape Horn--children of a sub-tropical clime, we do not
like the cold--but in many countries in between have we wandered.
The sailors by virtue of their profession have had the greater
opportunities, but the other five have made a very good second best of
it, and always there has been among us a very understanding sympathy
'with the desire that is planted in each and all to visit the remote
corners of the earth.
Anybody can go on the beaten track. It only requires money to take
a railway or steamer ticket, and though we by no means despise
comfort--indeed, because we know something of the difficulties that
beset the traveller beyond the bounds of civilisation, we appreciate it
the more highly--still there is something else beyond comfort in life.
Wherein lies the call of the Unknown? To have done something that no
one else has done--or only accomplished with difficulty? Where lies
the charm? I cannot put it into words--only it is there, the “something
calling--beyond the mountains,” the “Come and find me” of Kipling. That
voice every one of the Gaunts hears, and we all sympathise when another
one goes.
And that voice I heard loudly in China.
“Come and find me! Come and find me!”
The livelong day I heard it, and again and again and yet again I tried
to stifle it, for you who have read my _Woman in China_ will know that
travelling there leaves much to be desired. To say it is uncomfortable
is to put it in the mildest terms. Everything that I particularly
dislike in life have I met travelling in China; everything that repells
me; and yet, having unwisely invested $10 (about £1) in an atlas of
China, the voice began to ring in my ears day and night.
I was living in an American Presbyterian mission station in the
western suburb of the walled town of Pao Ting Fu, just beyond European
influence, the influence of the Treaty Ports and the Legation quarter of
Peking. I wanted to see something of the real China, to get material for
a novel--not a novel concerning the Chinese; for I have observed that
no successful novel in English deals with anybody but the British or
the Americans; the other peoples come in as subordinates--and the
local colour was best got on the spot. There was plenty in Pao Ting Fu,
goodness knows. It had suffered severely in the Boxer trouble. In the
northern suburb, just about a mile from where we lived, was a tomb,
or monument rather, that had been raised to the missionaries massacred
then. They have made a garden plot where those burning houses stood,
they have planted trees and flowers, and set up memorial tablets in the
Chinese style, and the mission has moved to the western suburb, just
under the frowning walls of the town, and--is doubly strong. A God-given
fervour, say the missionaries, sends them forth.'Who am I to judge? But
I see that same desire to go forth in myself, that same disregard of
danger, when it is not immediate--I know I should be horribly scared
if it materialised--and I cannot claim for myself it is God-given, save
perhaps that all our desires are God-given.
So there in the comfortable mission station I studied the local colour,
corrected my last book of China, and instead of planning the novel,
looked daily at the atlas of China, till there grew up in me a desire
to cross Asia, not by train to the north as I had already done, as
thousands of people used to do every year, but by the caravan route,
across Shensi and Kansu and Sinkiang to Andijan in Asiatic Russia, the
terminus of the Caspian Railway. Thousands and thousands of people go
slowly along that way too, but the majority do not go all the way, and
they do not belong to the class or nation whose comings and goings are
recorded. In fact, you may count on the fingers of one hand the people
who know anything of that road. The missionaries, particularly the
womenkind, did not take very cheerful view's about it.
“If I wanted to die,” said one woman, meeting me as I was going round
the compound one day in the early spring of 1914, “I would choose some
easier way.”
But the doctor there was keenly interested. He would have liked to
have gone himself, but his duty kept him alongside his patients and his
hospital in Pao Ting Fu, and though he pulled himself up every now and
then, remembering I was only a woman and probably couldn't do it, he
could not but take as great an interest in that map and ways and means
as I did myself. Then there was Mr Long, a professor at the big Chinese
college in the northern suburb--he was young and enthusiastic and as
interested as Dr Lewis.
He too knew something about travel in unknown China, for he had been one
of the band of white men who had made their way over the mountains of
Shansi and Shensi in the depths of winter to go to the rescue of the
missionaries in Sui Te Chou and all the little towns down to Hsi An
Fu at the time of the Revolution. Yes, he knew something of the
difficulties of Chinese travel, and he thought I could do it.
“The only danger would be robbers, and--well, you know, there mightn't
be robbers.”
But Peking--the Peking of the Legations--that, I knew, held different
view's. I wrote to an influential man who had been in China over ten
years, who spoke the language well, and he was against it.
“I was very much interested” (wrote he) “to read of your intention to
do that trek across country. You ask my opinion about it, but I can only
give you the same advice that _Punch_ gave many years ago, and that is,
_don't_. You must realise that the travelling will be absolutely awful
and the cost is very great indeed. You have not yet forgotten your
trip to Jehol, I hope, and the roughness of the road. The trip you
contemplate will make the little journey to Jehol look like a Sunday
morning walk in Hyde Park, particularly as regards travelling comfort,
to say nothing about the danger of the journey as regards hostile tribes
on the southern and western borders of Tibet. You will be passing near
the Lolo country, and I can assure you that the Lolos are _not_ a set of
gentlemen within the meaning of the Act. They are distinctly hostile to
foreigners, and many murders have taken place in their country that have
not been published because of the inability of the Chinese troops to
stand up against these people. What the peoples are like farther north
I do not know, but I understand the Tibetans are not particularly
trustworthy, and it will follow that the people living on their borders
will inherit a good many of their vices and few of their virtues.
“If you have really made up your mind to go, however, just let me know,
and I will endeavour to hunt up all the information that it is possible
to collect as to the best route to take, etc., though I repeat I would
not advise the journey, and the Geographical Society can go to the
deuce.”
This not because he despised the Geographical Society by any means, but
because I had advanced as one reason for going across Asia the desire to
win my spurs so and be an acceptable member.
“My dear,” wrote a woman, “think of that poor young Brooke. The Tibetans
cut his throat with a sharp stone, which is a pleasant little way they
have.”
Now the man's opinion was worth having, but the woman's is a specimen of
the loose way people are apt to reason--I do it myself--when they deal
with the unknown. The “poor young Brooke” never went near Tibet, and
was murdered about a thousand miles distant from the route I intended
to take. It was something as if a traveller bound to the Hebrides was
warned against dangers to be met upon the Rhone.
One man who had travelled extensively in Mongolia was strongly against
the journey, but declared that “Purdom knew a great deal more about
travelling in China” than he did, and if “Purdom” said I might got--well
then, I might. Mr Purdom and Mr Reginald Farrer were going west to the
borders of Tibet botanising, and one night I dined with them, and Mr
Purdom was optimistic and declared if I was prepared for discomfort and
perhaps hardship he thought I might go.
So it was decided, and thereupon those who knew took me in hand and gave
me all advice about travelling in China, how to minimise discomfort,
what to take and what to leave behind. One thing they were all agreed
upon. The Chinese, as a rule, are the most peaceable people upon earth,
the only thing I had to fear was a chance band of robbers, and if I fell
into their hands--well, it would probably be finish.
“The Chinese are fiendishly cruel,” said my friend of Mongolian travel;
“keep your last cartridge for yourself.”
I intimated that a pistol was quite beyond me, that that way of going
out did not appeal to me, and anyhow I'd be sure to bungle it.
“Then have something made up at the chemist's and keep it always on your
person. You do not know how desperately you may need it.”
I may say here that these remarks made no impression upon me whatever.
I suppose in most of us the feeling is strong that nothing bad
could possibly happen. It happens to other people, we know, but to
us--impossible! I have often wondered how near I could get to danger
without feeling that it really threatened--pretty close, I suspect. It
is probably a matter of experience. I cannot cross a London road with
equanimity--but then twice have I been knocked down and rather badly
hurt--but I gaily essayed to cross Asia by way of China, and would quite
certainly as gaily try again did I get the chance. Only next time I
propose to take a good cook.
To some, of course, the unknown is always full of danger.
The folks who walked about Peking without a qualm warned me I would die
of indigestion, I would be unable to drink the water, the filth would be
unspeakable, hydrophobia raged, and “when you are bitten, promptly cut
deep into the place and insert a chloride of mercury tabloid.”
That last warning made me laugh. It reminded me of the time when as a
little girl, living in a country where deadly snakes swarmed--my eldest
brother killed sixty in a week, I remember, in our garden--I used to
think it would be extremely dangerous to go to Europe because there were
there mad dogs, things we never had in Australia! I think it was the
reference to hydrophobia and the chloride of mercury tabloid helped me
to put things in their proper prospective and made me realise that I was
setting out on a difficult journey with a possible danger of robbers;
but a possible danger is the thing we risk every day we travel in a
railway train or on an electric tramcar. I am always ready for possible
risks, it is when they become probable I bar them, so I set about my
preparations with a quiet mind.
A servant. I decided I must have a tall servant and strong, because
so often in China I found I had to be lifted, and I had suffered from
having too small a man on my former journeys. The missionaries provided
me with a new convert of theirs, a tall strapping Northern Chinaman, who
was a mason by trade. Tsai Chih Fu, we called him--that is to say, he
came of the Tsai family; and the Chih Fu--I'm by no means sure that I
spell it right--meant a “master workman.” He belonged to a large firm of
masons, but as he had never made a dollar a day at his trade, my offer
of that sum put him at my service, ready to go out into the unknown. He
was a fine-looking man, dignified and courteous, and I had and have the
greatest respect for him. He could not read or write, of course. Now
a man who cannot read or write here in the West we look upon with
contempt, but it would be impossible to look upon Tsai Chih Fu with
contempt. He was a responsible person, a man who would count in any
company. He belonged to another era and another civilisation, but he
was a man of weight. A master of transport in Babylon probably closely
resembled my servant Tsai Chih Fu.
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My interpreter, Wang Hsien--that is, Mr Wang--was of quite a different
order. He was little and slight, with long artistic hands, of the
incapable artistic order, and he was a fool in any language; but good
interpreters are exceedingly difficult to get. He used to come and see
me every day for a fortnight before we started, and I must say my heart
sank when the simplest remark, probably a greeting, or a statement as
to the weather, was met with a “Repeat, please.” I found this was the
invariable formula and it was not conducive to brisk conversation. On my
way through the country things were apt to vanish before I had made
Mr Wang understand that I was asking, and was really in search of,
information. He had his black hair cut short in the progressive foreign
fashion (it looked as if he had had a basin put on his head--a good
large one--and the hair snipped off round), and he wore a long blue
cotton gown buttoned to his feet. Always he spoke with a silly giggle.
Could I have chosen, which I could not, he would have been about the
very last man I should have taken on a strenuous journey as guide,
philosopher and friend.
And there was another member of the party, a most important member,
without whom I should not have dreamt of stirring--my little black and
white k'ang dog, James Buehanan, who loved me as no one in the world has
ever loved me, thought everything I did was perfect, and declared he was
willing to go with me to the ends of the earth.
So I began my preparations. One thing only was clear, everyone was
agreed upon it, all my goods must be packed in canvas bags, because it
is impossible to travel by mule, or cart, or litter with one's clothes
in ordinary boxes. And I had, through the kindness of Messrs Forbes &
Company, to make arrangements with Chinese bankers, who have probably
been making the same arrangements since before the dawn of history,
to get money along the proposed route. These things I managed
satisfactorily; it was over the stores that, as usual, I made mistakes.
The fact of the matter is that the experience gained in one country is
not always useful for the next. When first I travelled in Africa I took
many “chop” boxes that were weighty and expensive of transport, and
contained much tinned meat that in a warm, moist climate I did not want.
I found I could live quite happily on biscuits and fruit and eggs, with
such relishes as anchovy paste or a few Bologna sausages for a change.
My expensive tinned foods I bestowed upon my servants and carriers,
greatly to my own regret. I went travelling in China, in Northern Chihli
and Inner Mongolia, I dwelt apart from all foreigners in a temple in the
western hills, and I found with a good cook I lived very comfortably off
the country, with just the addition of a few biscuits, tea, condensed
milk, coffee and raisins, therefore I persuaded myself I could go west
with few stores and do exactly the same. Thus I added considerably to my
own discomfort. The excellent master of transport was a bad cook, and a
simple diet of hard-boiled eggs, puffed rice and tea, with raisins for
dessert, however good in itself, is apt to pall when it is served up
three times a day for weeks with unfailing regularity.
However, I didn't know that at the time.
And at last all was ready. I had written to all the mission stations
as far west as Tihwa, in Sinkiang, announcing my coming. I had provided
myself with a folding table and chair--they both, I found, were given to
fold at inconvenient moments--some enamel plates, a couple of glasses,
a knife and fork, rudimentary kitchen utensils, bedding, cushions, rugs,
etc., and all was ready. I was to start the next week, ten days after Mr
Purdom and Mr Farrer had set out, for Honan, when there came a telegram
from Hsi An Fu:
“Delay journey” (it read).
“White wolf in Shensi. Shorrocks.”
Was there ever such country? News that a robber was holding up the road
could be sent by telegram!
China rather specialises in robbers, but White Wolf was considerably
worse than the average gentleman of the road. He defied the Government
in 1914, but the last time we of the mission station had heard of him
he was making things pleasant for the peaceful inhabitants of Anhwei,
to the east, and the troops were said to have him “well in hand.” But in
China you never know exactly where you are, and now he was in Shensi!
I read that telegram in the pleasant March sunshine. I looked up at the
boughs of the “water chestnuts,” where the buds were beginning to swell,
and I wondered what on earth I should do. The roads now were as good
as they were ever likely to be, hard after the long winter and not yet
broken up by the summer rains. We discussed the matter from all points
that day at the midday dinner. The missionaries had a splendid cook, a
Chinese who had had his kitchen education finished in a French family,
and with a few good American recipes thrown in the combination makes a
craftsman fit for the Savoy, and all for ten Mexican dollars a month!
Never again do I expect to meet such salads, sweet and savoury! And here
was I doing my best to leave the flesh-pots of Egypt. It seemed foolish.
I contented my soul with what patience I might for a week, and then I
telegraphed to Honan Fu, at which place I expected to be well away from
the railway. Honan Fu answered promptly:
“The case is hopeless. Hsi An Fu threatened. Advise you go by T'ai Yuan
Fu.”
Now the road from Honan Fu to Hsi An Fu is always dangerous. It is
through the loess, sunken many feet below the level of the surrounding
country, and at the best of times is infested with stray robbers who,
from the cliffs above, roll down missiles on the carts beneath, kill the
mules and hold the travellers at their mercy. The carters go in large
bodies and are always careful to find themselves safe in the inn-yards
before the dusk has fallen.
These were the everyday dangers of the way such as men have faced for
thousands of years; if you add to them an organised robber band and a
large body of soldiers in pursuit, clearly that road is no place for a
solitary foreign woman, with only a couple of attendants, a little dog,
and for all arms a small pistol and exactly thirteen cartridges--all
I could get, for it is difficult to buy ammunition in China. Then to
clinch matters came another telegram from Hsi An Fu, in cipher this
time:
“Do not come” (it said).
“The country is very much disturbed.”
From Anhwei to Shensi the brigands had operated. They had burned and
looted and outraged by order of Pai Lang (White Wolf), leaving behind
them ruined homes and desolated hearths, and when the soldiers came
after them, so said Rumour of the many tongues, White Wolf, who was rich
by then, left money on the roads and so bribed the avenging army to come
over to him.
But to the ordinary peaceful inhabitant--and curiously enough the
ordinary Chinese is extremely peaceful--it is not a matter of much
moment whether it be Pai Lang or the soldier who is hunting him who
falls upon the country. The inhabitants are sure to suffer. Both bandit
and soldier must have food, so both loot and outrage impartially, for
the unpaid soldiery--I hope I shall not be sued for libel, but most of
the soldiery when I was in China appeared to be unpaid--loot just as
readily as do the professional bandits. A robber band alone is a heavy
load for a community to carry, and a robber band pursued by soldiers
more than doubles the burden.
Still the soldiers held Tungkwan, the gate into Shensi, the mountains on
either side blocked the way, and Hsi An Fu breathed for a moment till
it was discovered that Pai Lang in strategy was equal to anyone who had
been sent against him. He had taken the old and difficult route through
the mountains and had come out west of the narrow pass of Tungkwan and,
when I became interested in him, was within a day's march of Hsi An
Fu, the town that is the capital of the province of Shensi and was the
capital of China many hundreds of years ago. It is a walled city, but
the people feared and so did the members of the English Baptist Mission
sheltering behind those walls. And, naturally, they feared, for the
Society of the Elder Brethren had joined Pai Lang, and the Society of
Elder Brethren always has been and is markedly anti-foreign. This was
the situation, growing daily a little worse, and we foreigners looked
on; and the Government organs in Peking told one day how a certain Tao
Tai had been punished and degraded because he had been slack in putting
down White Wolf and possibly the next day declared the power of White
Wolf was broken and he was in full retreat. I don't know how many times
I read the power of White Wolf had been broken and yet in the end I
was regretfully obliged to acknowledge that he was stronger than ever.
Certainly Pai Lang turned my face north sooner than I intended, for the
idea of being a target for rocks and stones and billets of wood at
the bottom of a deep ditch from which there could be no escape did not
commend itself to me. True, in loess country, as I afterwards found,
there are no stones, no rocks and no wood. I can't speak for the road
through Tungkwan, for I didn't dare it. But, even if there were
no stones, loose earth--and there is an unlimited quantity of that
commodity in Northern China--flung down from a height would be
exceedingly unpleasant.
Of course it all might have been rumour--it wasn't, I found out
afterwards; but unfortunately the only way to find out at the time
was by going to see for myself, and if it had been true--well, in
all probability I shouldn't have come back. That missionary evidently
realised how keen I was when he suggested that I should go by T'ai Yuan
Fu, the capital of Shansi, and I determined to take his advice. There
was a way, a little-known way, across the mountains, across Shansi, by
Sui Te Chou in Shensi, and thence into Kansu, which would eventually
land me in Lan Chou Fu if I cared to risk it.
This time I asked Mr Long's advice. He and the little band of nine
rescuers who had ridden hot haste to the aid of the Shensi missionaries
during the revolution had taken this road, and they had gone in the
depths of winter when the country was frozen hard and the thermometer
was more often below zero, very far below zero, than not. If they had
accomplished it when pressed for time in the great cold, I thought' in
all probability I might manage it now at the best time of the year
and at my leisure. Mr Long, who would have liked to have gone himself,
thought so too, and eventually I set off.
The missionaries were goodness itself to me. Dr Mackay, in charge of the
Women's Hospital, set me up with all sorts of simple drugs that I might
require and that I could manage, and one day in the springtime, when the
buds on the trees in the compound were just about to burst, and full
of the promise of the life that was coming, I, with most of the
missionaries to wish me “Godspeed,” and with James Buchanan under my
arm, my giggling interpreter and my master of transport following with
my gear, took train to T'ai Yuan Fu, a walled city that is set in the
heart of a fertile plateau surrounded by mountains.
The great adventure had begun.