ACROSS CHENGTU PLAIN
Thoroughly set up by the day's rest in Ya-chou, my men were on hand at
five o'clock on the morning of May 24, in good spirits for the rest of
the trip. Even the ma-fu, whom we had left behind at Hua-lin-ping,
turned up with the coolie and pony sent round from Lu Ting.
Two missionaries going down the river to Chia-ting, at the junction of
the Min and the Ta Tu invited me to take a turn at rafting, and I was
glad to go with them for a few li. The Ya Ho joins the Ta Tu just west
of Chia-ting, the fall from Ya-chou being about six hundred and fifty
feet in a distance of ninety miles. So swift is the current and so
tortuous and rocky the bed of the stream that the only navigation
possible is by means of bamboo rafts fifty or sixty feet long, with a
curled prow. Amidships is a small platform partly roofed over with
matting. In spite of the rapids, which at times make the trip vastly
exciting, there is no danger save the certainty of getting wet. The
scenery on either hand is very beautiful; the great mountains recede in
the distance, fading out in the soft light, but the fine red sandstone
cliffs, alternating with the brilliant green of bamboo groves and
rice-fields on the lowland, afforded a charming picture at every turn.
My men were waiting for me at the appointed place, and ten minutes'
precarious scrambling along the narrow dykes between the fields brought
me to the great highway leading to the capital, four days' march away.
All this day and the three succeeding ones we were travelling through a
district park- or garden-like in its exquisite artificial beauty. The
trail, which was at first fairly good, ran now along the top of an
embankment some six feet broad constructed across the swimming paddy
fields, then dropped into a little valley shaded with fine "namti"
trees, and again it wound along a low ridge. Far off against the western
horizon stretched the splendid snow-line of the Tibetan range from which
I had just come, but now more than a hundred miles away. Every inch of
land that could be irrigated was under cultivation, save where a
substantial looking farmhouse set in groves of fine trees, bamboos,
cypress, and namti, occupied a little knoll laboriously built up above
the encircling marsh. Last year their crumbling walls testified to the
security of the country, but I wonder what has been the fate of these
solitary houses in the recent months of lawlessness. Toward the end of
the day a soft mist settled down upon the earth, outlining the nearer
hills and throwing up against the sky the distant peaks.
[Illustration: A FARMHOUSE IN CHENGTU PLAIN]
We had tiffin at the little town of Ming Shan-hsien. About five miles
west of here rises from the plain the Ming Shan, a small mountain famous
throughout China for its tea, which is grown by the priests of a
Buddhist temple on the summit. According to tradition the seeds from
which this tea is produced were brought centuries ago from India by a
Chinese pilgrim. Only a few pounds are gathered annually and these are
always sent as tribute to Peking for the use of the imperial household.
To whom will they now fall? There is a saying current in China that to
make a first-rate cup of tea you must take "leaves from the Ming Shan
and water from the Yangtse." No one believes for a moment that the
turbid water of the Great River is meant here, and yet no one could
explain what it did mean. But De Rosthorn, in his interesting pamphlet
on "Tea Cultivation in Szechuan," gives what seems to him the true
explanation. Crossing the bay at Chen-kiang he saw men in boats filling
buckets with water. Asking what they were doing, he was told that there
was a famous spring at the bottom of the river well known from the time
when the riverbed was dry land. Here, then, was the Yangtse water which,
combined with leaves brought from Ming Shan two thousand miles away,
made the best tea in the world.
We stopped for the night at the village of Pai-chang, where I spent a
tiresome evening trying to arrange for a pony to take the place of
mine, left behind at Ya-chou, as he seemed in need of a longer rest. The
weather was now too hot for walking, but all day in the chair was
unendurable, so I hoped here to hire a pony for half a stage. I refused
to engage one without seeing its back, but nothing appeared to be
inspected, why, I could not tell. The shifts and turns of the oriental
mind are not our shifts and turns, so I finally gave up trying to find
out, and went to bed, telling the fu t'ou he must have something ready
in the morning, only if its back was sore I would not take it. But
morning came and no pony. I was told it was waiting for me outside the
town, and there it was, sure enough. Ordering off saddle and blanket I
inspected its back to make certain that all was right, as it was. But
the strange ma-fu seemed quite overcome with consternation at the sight
of me, while the fu t'ou collapsed on a stone wall near by, doubled up
with laughter. At last an explanation was made. When the fu t'ou tried
to get a pony for me from the pony hong he was met by a refusal. No
foreigner should ride one of their horses; they had let one to a foreign
gentleman not long before, and he had abused it and gone so fast that
the ma-fu could not keep up, and nearly lost the pony; nor were they to
be moved. Anyway, the fu t'ou told them, he must have one himself. When
it was brought to the inn at dawn he mounted and rode outside the town.
There, finding he had forgotten something,--me,--he went back for it,
while pony and ma-fu waited. In true Chinese fashion the ma-fu accepted
the inevitable and walked quietly at my side, but he had an anxious
expression at first, as though he expected me at any moment to whip up
my steed and vanish. I am not wise in horseflesh, but at least I try to
be merciful to my beasts. When I got off, as I did now and then, to save
the horse over a particularly bad place, the man began to cheer up, and
finally when, according to my custom, I took the pony outside the
village to graze a bit while the men had their breakfast,--a very
unsuitable proceeding, I was later told,--his surprise broke forth.
"What sort of a foreign woman was this?" At noon I sent the pony back,
paying for the half day one hundred and forty cash, about seven cents
gold.
Just before reaching Cheung-chou, where we were to spend the night, we
crossed the Nan Ho by a fine stone bridge of fifteen arches. The Nan is
one of the lesser waterways of West China connecting this corner of
Szechuan with the Great River, and many cumbersome boats laden with
produce were slipping down with the rapid current on their way
eastwards.
I entered the gate of the town with some doubt as to my reception. Baron
von Richthofen, who passed through here a generation ago, wrote of the
place: "All the men are armed with long knives and use them frequently
in their rows. I have passed few cities in China in which I have
suffered so much molestation from the people as I did there; and
travellers should avoid making night quarters there as it was my lot to
do." Time enough has elapsed since the good baron went this way to have
changed all that, but the missionaries at Ya-chou had also cautioned me
against the temper of the people, relating some unpleasant experiences
of recent date. They had kindly given me a note of introduction to two
missionaries who had their headquarters at Cheung-chou who would make me
safe and comfortable in their house. I had sent this ahead only to learn
that the mission was closed, as the people were touring in the district;
and so there was nothing to do but go to the inn as usual.
In the narrow streets of the town there was of course the everlasting
pushing, staring crowd, but I saw no signs of unfriendliness, and Jack's
gay yaps in response to pointing fingers and cries of "K'an yang kou!
k'an yang kou!" ("Look at the foreign dog! look at the foreign dog!")
brought the invariable grins of delight. Later in the day, wearying of
the confinement of the inn, and not unwilling to test the temper of the
people a bit, I went marketing with the cook. Of course a crowd of men
and boys dogged my steps, but it was a good-natured crowd, making way
for me courteously, and when they found that I was looking for apricots
they fairly tumbled over each other in their eagerness to show us the
best shop.
Cheung-chou lies on the southwestern edge of the great plain of Chengtu,
which, although only some ninety miles long by seventy miles wide,
supports a population of four millions, so kindly is the climate, so
fertile the soil, and so abundant the water supply. Two of these
blessings are the gift of nature, but the last is owed to the ingenuity
of Li Ping and his nameless son, known only as the "Second Gentleman,"
two Chinese officials who worked and achieved and died more than two
thousand years ago. At Kwan-hsien there is a temple, perhaps the most
beautiful in China, erected in their memory, but their truest monument
is this beautiful plain, blossoming like a Garden of Eden under the
irrigation system which they devised, and which will endure so long as
men obey their parting command engraved on a stone in the temple, "Dig
the channels deep; keep the banks low."
The people of the plain were as friendly as the mountain folk I had been
travelling amongst, but they displayed less of the naive curiosity of
the out-of-the-way places. Evidently the foreigner was no novelty, nor
the camera either. At one village I stopped to photograph a fine pailou,
not to the "virtuous official" this time, but to the "virtuous widow."
A little group of villagers gathered to watch, and would not be
satisfied until I had taken a picture of another local monument, a
beautiful three-storied stone pagoda rising tall and slender above the
flat rice land. These picturesque structures add much to the charm of
the level plain which tends to become monotonous after a while. As far
as one can see stretches the paddy land in every stage of development.
Some fields are hardly more than pools of water mirroring the clouds
overhead. Others are dotted over with thin clumps of rice through which
the ducks swim gaily, while still others are solid masses of green, and
transplanting has already begun.
Although we were now approaching the largest city of West China, and the
capital of the empire's richest province, the roads went steadily from
bad to worse. Made with infinite labour centuries ago, they had been
left untouched ever since, and weather and wear had done their work. For
long stretches the paving was quite gone; elsewhere you wished it were.
The people have their explanation of these conditions in the saying,
"The hills are high and the emperor far." It remains to be seen if that
will hold good of the new government. Certainly nothing will mean so
much in the development of the country as good roads. We were now once
more on the line of wheeled traffic, and the wheelbarrow was never out
of sight or hearing. Enormous loads were borne along on the large
flat-bottomed freight barrow, while on every hand we saw substantial
looking farmer folk, men, women, and children, going to town in the same
primitive fashion.
[Illustration: MEMORIAL ARCH TO A "VIRTUOUS WIDOW," CHENGTU PLAIN]
To save the journey a little for my chair-men, and also for the fun of a
new experience, I bargained with a barrow-man to carry me for a few
miles. My coolies took it as a fine joke, and after starting me off
trotted on behind, but my military escort looked troubled. No longer
striding proudly in front, he showed a desire to loiter behind, although
so long as my grand chair kept close at my heels he could save his face
by explaining my strange proceeding as the mad freak of a foreigner. But
finally, when I bade the chair-men stop for a smoke at a rest-house,
knowing they could easily overtake my slow-moving vehicle, he too
disappeared, and only took up his station again at the head of the
procession when I went back to my chair after dismissing the barrow with
a payment of eighty cash for a ride of twenty-five li. Barrow travelling
is not as bad as it seems, for there is a chair-back, and rests for the
feet are fixed on either side of the wheel. But in spite of the
dexterity with which the coolie trundled me over the rough places and
through the deep ruts, an upset into an unsavoury rice-patch seemed
unpleasantly possible, and more than all, you can never lose
consciousness of the straining man behind.
I thought the last stage into Chengtu would never end; the passing of
people became more and more incessant and tiring, while the hot-house
temperature of this rich lowland was most exhausting, and the occasional
downpours only made the roads more impassable without cooling the air.
My coolies, coming from higher altitudes, were almost used up. They
stopped often to rest, and hardly one was doing his own work, making an
exchange with another man, unless he had given up entirely, sweating out
his job to some one hired on the way. So we straggled along, a
disorderly, spiritless crowd, showing a little life only when Jack, whom
nothing daunted, created a diversion by chasing the village dogs along
the narrow earth balks between the fields, their favourite
resting-places. Then the whole party waked up, cheering the little dog
on with gay cries, and laughing impartially when hunter or hunted
slipped into the muck of a rice-patch, while the toilers by the roadside
thought we had all gone mad until they saw what it was, and then they
too joined in with chuckles of delight. There is something quite
childlike in the way in which this old Chinese people welcomes any
little break in the grey days of grinding drudgery.
As the day wore on, one could guess that a great centre of government
and trade was near at hand; the traffic was continuous,--coolies bent
almost double under their heavy burdens, laden barrows creaking
dolefully as they moved, foot travellers plodding wearily along, groups
of wild Tibetans from the distant frontier, gorgeous mandarins returning
from an inspection tour, all were hurrying towards the capital. Yes, we
were nearing Marco Polo's "large and noble" city of Sindin-fu and it is
to-day again a "large and noble" city, only now it is known as Chengtu,
and the days are not so very far in the past when it was hardly a city
at all.
Szechuan's later history begins with the troubled times that marked the
fall of the Ming dynasty. While the Manchus were busy establishing
themselves at Peking, the outlying provinces of the empire were given
over to brigandage and civil strife. Here in Chengtu an adventurer
calling himself the Emperor of the West succeeded in getting the upper
hand for a short time, and when his end came there was little left to
rule over save ruins and dead men, which was hardly to be wondered at,
seeing his idea of ruling was to exterminate all his subjects. Baber has
made from De Mailla's "History of China" the following summary of his
measures: "_Massacred_: 32,310 undergraduates; 3000 eunuchs; 2000 of his
own troops; 27,000 Buddhist priests; 600,000 inhabitants of Chengtu; 280
of his own concubines; 400,000 wives of his troops; everybody else in
the province. _Destroyed_: Every building in the province. _Burnt_:
Everything inflammable."
Since that time Szechuan has been repeopled and to-day the capital has a
population of quite three hundred and fifty thousand, although the
walls, that in the thirteenth century extended twenty miles, are now no
more than twelve in length and enclose a good deal of waste land. The
wonderful bridges described by Marco Polo, half a mile long and lined
with marble pillars supporting the tiled roof, no longer exist, but the
city still abounds in bridges of a humbler sort, for it is crossed by
the main stream of the Min as well as by many smaller branches and
canals, all alive with big and little craft. Chengtu is proud of its
streets, which are well paved and broader and cleaner than common, and
on the whole it is an attractive, well-built city.
The viceroy of the province has his seat here, and Szechuan shares with
the metropolitan province of Chihli the honour of having one all to
itself, and he is more truly a viceroy than the others, for the Mantzu
and Tibetan territories lying to the west are administered through the
provincial government and are in a way tributary to it. Even from far
Nepal on the borders of India come the bearers of gifts to the
representative of the emperor.
Ser Marco speaks of the "fine cloth and crepes and gauzes" of Chengtu,
and still to-day the merchants unroll at your feet as you sit on your
verandah exquisitely soft, shimmering silks and wonderful embroideries.
It was these last that caught my fancy, and the British Consul-General,
himself a great collector, kindly sent to the house his "second-best"
man and then his "first-best," and between the two I made a few modest
purchases at even more modest prices. Imagine getting two strips of
wonderful silk embroidery for twenty cents gold, or two silk squares
ingeniously ornamented and pieced with gold for the same contemptible
sum. That was what the men wanted at the missionary house where I was
staying; at the Consul-General's they asked me twenty-five cents: that
is the price of being an official.
I liked even better to go to the shops, and Chengtu is so progressive
that that is quite possible. One section is given over to brass and
copper dishes, another to furs, another to porcelains, and so on.
Indeed, the town seems to be a very good place for "picking up" things,
for hither come men from the far distant Tibetan lamasseries, and
patient effort is often rewarded with interesting spoil, while Chinese
productions of real value sometimes drift into the bazaar from the
collections of the ever-changing officials.
But I did not spend all my days bargaining for curios, although they
were tempting enough, for there were other things to do more worth
while. The European community of Chengtu is surprisingly large for so
far inland. In numbers, of course, the missionaries lead, and besides
the Roman Catholic mission there are representatives of English,
American, and Canadian churches, all working together to give to this
out-of-the-way corner of the empire the best of Christian and Western
civilization. Their latest and most interesting undertaking is a
university on Western lines, the outcome of the combined effort of the
Friends', Baptist, and Methodist societies of Chengtu. The economy and
efficiency secured by cooperation must be of even less value than the
force of such a lesson in Christian harmony to the keen-witted Chinese.
Indeed, all over China one is impressed by the wisdom as well as the
devotion of most of the mission work. And however it may be in the
eastern seaports, where I did not spend much time, inland there seems to
be the best of feeling between the different elements of the European
community, official, missionary, and merchant. Perhaps because they are
a mere handful in an alien people they are forced to see each other's
good points, and realize that neither side is hopelessly bad nor
impossibly good.
There is quite a large Tartar population in Chengtu, and the Manchu
quarter is one of the most picturesque parts of the city, with the charm
of a dilapidated village set in untidy gardens and groves of fine trees.
Loafing in the streets and doorways are tall, well-built men and women,
but they had a rather down-at-heel air, for their fortunes were at a
low ebb when I was in Chengtu. The military service they once rendered
had been displaced by the new modern trained troops, and three years ago
their monthly rice pension of four taels, about $2.50, was cut down by a
viceroy bidding for popular support. Although Chengtu is two thousand
miles from the sea, it is one of the most advanced cities of China, and
has no mind to put up with outgrown things, such as Manchu soldiers and
Manchu pensions. It boasts to-day a mint turning out a very respectable
coinage, a large arsenal, and a university of more promise, perhaps,
than achievement; and the pride of the moment was a new arcade of shops
where the goods were set out with all the artifice of the West in large
glazed windows. Although Japanese and Europeans are employed, yet these
are all truly native undertakings, and that, to my mind, is the best
part of Chengtu's progress; it shows what the Chinese can do for
themselves, not simply following Western leadership. And on the whole
they seemed last year to be doing a number of things very well. It
argued real efficiency, I think, that the officials at Chengtu knew at
every moment the whereabouts of the travelling foreigners in a province
larger than France. To be sure, we were only two, Captain Bailey and
myself, but all the same they could not have done it save by a very
up-to-date use of the telegraph. And again, the Chengtu police are
really guardians of the peace. I had a chance to see the order that was
kept one night when my chair-men lost their way taking me to a dinner at
the house of the French Consul-General, quite across the city from where
I was staying. For more than an hour we wandered about, poking into all
sorts of dark corners, finally reaching the consulate at half-past nine
instead of an hour earlier, and nowhere, either in thoroughfare or
alley, was there any rowdyism, and this though it was the night of the
Dragon Festival when all the people were making holiday. But then under
ordinary conditions the Chinese is a peaceable man; he has his own
interpretation of the rule of life: in order to live, let others live. I
met an example of that in Peking. Opposite the hotel door stood a long
line of rickshaws. You soon had a favourite man, and after that the
others never thrust themselves forward, but, instead, at once set up a
shout for him if he failed to note your appearance. However, the Chinese
individual is one thing, the Chinese mob another. It was not many years
since an infuriated crowd stormed through the streets of Chengtu seeking
the lives of the foreigners, and in even fewer weeks after my visit
other crowds would besiege the viceroy's yamen demanding justice for
their wrongs. For even when I was there the undercurrent of discontent
in the province was visible. The students of the university, like those
in Yunnan-fu, had more than once got out of hand; people complained
that the new educational system lacked the discipline of the old, and
indeed Young China seems to outdo even Young America in self-assurance,
and in the spring of 1911 the university was just beginning to recover
from the turmoil of a strike of the students for some real or fancied
slight by the Government.
And there was more serious trouble afoot. The Szechuan merchants and
gentry, wealthy and enterprising, had contributed generously (for China)
to the building of a railway connecting the western capital with
Wan-hsien and Ichang, but now they were hearing that the money had been
squandered and the railway was to be built with foreign capital. It was
bad enough to lose their money, but the evil that might come in the
trail of the foreigner's money was worse. So people were talking hotly
against the new "railway agreement," and it proved in the end the
proverbial straw, for three months later the Railway League of Szechuan
set in motion the revolution which overthrew the Manchus and the empire.
But these things were still on the knees of the gods, and my stay in
Chengtu was altogether delightful, save for the thought that here my
out-of-the-way journeying ended. Henceforth I should go by ways often
travelled by Europeans. And then I was leaving so much behind. Of my
caravan only three would go on with me, the interpreter, the cook, and
the Yunnan coolie, who was ready to stay by me a little longer. The rest
I had paid off, giving to all a well-earned tip, and receiving from each
of my chair-men in turn a pretty, embarrassed "Thank you," learned from
hearing me say it. The pony, too, would go no farther, for most of the
next month my travelling would be by water, so I handed him over to a
horse-loving missionary, and I only hope he proved worthy of his master.
My chair, which had been such a comfort for so many weeks, was left in
Chengtu waiting a chance to be sent to Ning-yuean-fu, where I trust it
arrived in time to serve Mrs. Wellwood on her hurried journey to
Yunnan-fu at the outbreak of the Revolution. Even the little dog came
nigh to ending his travels at Chengtu, for the Post Commissioner put
forward a claim of common Irish blood, which I could hardly deny because
of the many kindnesses received from him. But I could not make up my
mind to part with my little comrade, and I said a determined nay.
It was early June when I started on the next stage of my journey, a
three days' trip down the Min River to Chia-ting. The sun was sinking as
I went on board the "wu-pan" or native boat lying in the stream outside
the South Gate, and after carefully counting heads to make sure that the
crew were all there, and that we were carrying no unauthorized
passengers, we pushed off and the current took us rapidly out of sight
of Chengtu.
The trip to Chia-ting was very delightful. I was tired enough to enjoy
keeping still, and lying at ease under my mat shelter I lazily watched
the shores slip past; wooded slopes, graceful pagodas crowning the
headlands, long stretches of fields yellow with rape, white, timbered
farmhouses peeping out from groves of bamboo and orange and cedar, it
was all a beautiful picture of peaceful, orderly life and industry. Each
night we tied up near some village where the cook and boat people could
go a-marketing, generally coming back after an hour with one vegetable
or two. As the river was high, we made good speed, and on the morning of
the third day after starting, the picturesque red bluffs opposite
Chia-ting came in sight.