in a fertile valley, and spent the night in a very different village
from most—Kuan Tzu Yao. A number of fine new houses were in course of
construction, built largely of stone; amongst others, a post office next
door to our inn. The postal system in China is really wonderful, even
in this backward province, and we had a most charming surprise at the
first post town we entered. Our interpreter went to the post office,
and was surprised at being asked if he were travelling with English
ladies. On admitting this, he was asked to inform us that if we were in
need of money we could draw as much as was necessary at any office we
came to, by order of the postal commissioner at Kwei Yang. The reason
for this delightful arrangement was that the English Commissioner at
Taiyuanfu, whose advice we had asked about transmitting money, said he
would write to his Chinese colleague and ask him to help us if we got
into difficulties, because of the prevalent highway robberies. This
gentleman was ill at the time the letter reached him, but he telegraphed
to Taiyuanfu as soon as he was fit, that he would do what he could—and
this was his splendid way of meeting the difficulty. No finer testimony
could be wanted of the way the Chinese trust our people.
The postal system is a fine piece of organization: it reaches to the
utmost bounds of the empire, and although the mails are mainly carried
by runners on foot, they travel very rapidly. The stages are not long,
and there is no delay when the bags are handed from one runner to the
next. For instance, we were told that on this particular road, what we
did in seventeen days the mails would do in four, and we did an average
of eighteen miles a day. We had postal maps given us of the provinces we
were going to visit. On them are marked all the postal stations, with
the distances from one to another; the line of route; the various grades
of offices; the limit of the district; daily or bi-daily day and night
service; daily, bi-daily or tri-daily service; less frequent ones; postal
connexion by boat; telegraphic connexion; rural box offices, etc. The
names of the main towns are in both Chinese and English, the others only
in Chinese. On the whole, letters travel wonderfully safely. The old
postal system was quite hopeless, and in the interior the missionaries
used to organize their own. Even Peking used to be closed to the rest
of the world yearly for several months. I remember six months when we
had no letters from my sister in Shansi, due to a misunderstanding at a
transmitting station, and there was no telegraphic communication in those
days. Now the old Chinese system has practically died out.
We had another proof of the thoughtfulness of the Chinese commissioner
later. Having heard from one of the missionaries that we were going
into the Miao country before coming to the capital, he sent up all our
letters, a tremendous boon after being weeks without any. The postal
service is under international control, having been originated in 1896
and built up by Sir Robert Hart in connexion with the customs: in each
province there is a commissioner; nearly all are Europeans.
As we got further into the province the vegetation grew more and more
luxuriant. The banks were carpeted with lycopodium and primula and the
hedges were full of roses, white and yellow jasmine, hawthorn, clematis
montana, Akebia lobata—a very curious creeper with wine-coloured blossom,
both male and female. The brilliant yellow-blossomed cassia forms a
most impenetrable hedge, with upstanding thorns, like nails, all along
its tough stems. We tied water jars into our chairs, so as to keep
the flowers fresh, and by the end of the day the chairs were perfect
bowers, our men vying with one another to get us the choicest blossoms.
Perhaps the most beautiful of any was the large white, sweet-scented
rhododendron, the Hymenocallis. This is rare; we only found it once.
The scenery was very grand; long ranges of jagged mountains and
precipitous cliffs, but the road was not in the least dangerous from
that point of view. It was extremely slippery and a heavy mist lay over
everything in the early hours of most days: our men kept tumbling down.
The only one who seemed always steady was Yao, and he constituted himself
my guardian on slippery days, holding my elbow with a relentless grip,
which certainly prevented my tumbling down and gave me confidence.
At Kuan Tzu Yao we found a nice clean new inn, courtyard behind
courtyard, and each raised a step or two above the last: ours was the
innermost, and we felt unusually secluded. The next night our immediate
neighbours were two fine water buffaloes with their calves. They are
the most valuable domestic animals throughout this country, as they
plough the ricefields quite happily when they are under water. These two
were taken out to work in the early morning, and we were amused to see
a little tatterdemalion bringing them back in a perfect fury to fetch
their calves, which had been left in the shed. The buffaloes seem to be
generally left in the care of boys, who manage them with much skill, and
love to disport themselves on their broad backs, often lying negligently
at ease along them, looking as much at home as if they were an integral
part of the creature. They are sluggish animals, coming originally from
the Philippines.
Leaving Tu Tien our men seemed possessed of a sudden energy, and went at
a great rate, doing nearly seven miles in two hours. Sometimes we thought
we were lacking in humanity to give them such heavy loads; but then again
our scruples seemed foolish in the light of certain experiences. For
instance, one man carried two heavy suit-cases and a chair, another two
large carved window-frames and a bed, but it didn’t prevent them taking
a steep bank at a run, or having a race at the end of a thirty-mile
stage to see who would be in first. The Chinese coolie is really an
amusing creature, and even if he is clad in rags he finds life a cheerful
business. I used to try and count the patches on the coat of one of my
coolies, and never made them less than forty-six between the neck and
waistband, not including those on the sleeves!
Then the incidents of travel have a humorous side, even on a wet day in
a dangerous neighbourhood. Instead of having our light midday meal as
usual by the roadside near the village, where the men get theirs, one is
obliged to have it in the chairs, placed side by side in the main street
of a busy town. Our escort draws an imaginary cordon round us, and no one
dares approach within two yards as long as they mount guard. It was a
thrilling sight for the assembled crowd to watch the barbarians wielding
knives and forks, instead of the dear, familiar chopsticks. I must say
they behaved beautifully.
When I sat down to sketch a lovely river scene outside a village gateway,
though many came to look on they did not jostle. These entrance gates
are often quite imposing and of infinite variety. Just inside was a fine
litter of pigs, with a most important-looking sow, and it was amusing to
watch their antics. On a doorstep, extended at full length lay a large
hairy black pig. Its face wore a beatific expression, with half-closed
eyes of rapt enjoyment, while a woman vigorously groomed it with her
brush.
The mountains of Kweichow give shelter to many wild animals, and even
tigers, as well as leopards, are to be found, which cause great havoc in
some of the villages. One story we heard throws an interesting light on
the way the natives look at them. A tiger had been doing so much damage
that the peasantry determined to have a battue, having tracked it to a
certain hill, from which they thought it would be impossible for it to
escape. They formed a cordon round the hill and gradually drove it to
the top. The tiger, in search of refuge, looked into a shrine, and its
pursuers saw this: they exclaimed, “It is certainly the God of the Hill”;
so they turned tail and fled. Naturally, the tiger seeing this took
the opportunity of attacking them in the rear, and several were badly
mauled.[22]
Some of the mountains are very barren, others wonderfully cultivated,
on terraces right up to the very top, and in rocky hollows only about a
foot in diameter, with a mere handful of soil in them. How the scanty
population can do such a vast amount of cultivation was a mystery we
could never solve. One day we started from an altitude of eighteen
hundred feet and climbed over a pass of forty-eight hundred, whence
there was a wonderful panoramic view; our road could be seen for many
miles, winding along the mountainside above a narrow valley; then diving
down into it and up the opposite side. Our men said the last part of
that day’s march, ten li (three miles), would be on the level, which
sounded pleasant news. In point of fact we dropped nine hundred feet. A
fine entrance gate led into Lang Tai Fung. Just outside the wall were
the ruins of an old temple with a handsome stone carved bridge in front
of it, enclosed within a wall. The inn was a good one, and the weather
having suddenly turned cold we were glad of a brazier. The town seemed
much more prosperous than most. There were large cotton looms, where
weaving was going on in the open air, as well as in a disused temple.
Handsome carved window-frames delighted me so much that I determined to
have some made for the women’s institute at Taiyuanfu. They were about a
yard square in size with a good deal of carving, so the sum named (twenty
dollars including carriage to Anshun, about fifty-five miles distant)
did not seem excessive! It took us three days to get to Anshun, and the
windows arrived within the fortnight stipulated. We picked them up later,
and they formed rather a large item of our luggage, requiring an extra
coolie.
As we neared Anshun the road was less mountainous and the villages better
built. Many of the houses are of grey stone, some built with mortar, some
without. There was a fine waterfall, a hundred and sixty feet in depth,
into the Rhinoceros Pool, near the town of Chen Lun, and above it a
five-span bridge of noble proportions. A busy market was going on in the
town; and a funeral, with the usual paper horses and servants for burning
at the grave, formed an additional interest to the gay crowd. There were
a number of picturesque tribeswomen, looking as usual very sulky, and not
mixing with the Chinese. From afar we saw the lofty turrets of a Roman
Catholic Church, so we went to see what it was like. The architecture and
fittings were entirely Western, and we had no sooner entered the church
than the fine-looking old French priest came forward and greeted us. He
invited us into his room and we had an interesting, long talk. He had
been thirty-two years in China, but only two in this district, and seemed
very discouraged. I asked about the numbers of converts, and he said
there were about sixteen hundred, but added dejectedly that they were
not at all satisfactory. How hard it must be to go on working under such
circumstances, and with no hope of return to his own country.
“Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.”
Generally missionaries seem a wonderfully hopeful set of people, even
under very adverse circumstances, and we came to a most cheerful group
at Anshunfu, where we had a few days of welcome rest in their hospitable
house.
Anshun is a very pretty town, with its shady trees, its winding waterways
and handsome stone balustrades along them. On a picturesque bridge were
shrines, which made a subject to delight an artist’s eye: indeed it was
a continual trial to me to have so little time for drawing when there
was such a wealth of material. Facing the house where we stayed was a
temple transformed into a government school, and it had an ornamental
wall such as I had not seen elsewhere. There were panels at intervals,
about three and a half feet from the ground, of various sizes, with
open stucco work, looking like designs from Æsop’s fables. They lent
a great charm to the garden, in which the wall seemed to be only of
decorative value. Throughout China the human figure and animals are
used in all sorts of architectural ways which would never occur to us.
Anshun is situated in a small plain, and a fine road leads to it with
pailous (memorial arches) at intervals. We walked across the fields one
day and climbed a neighbouring hill, surmounted by the usual temple;
from it there was a magnificent view of all the country round. A lurid
thunderstorm heightened the effect. There were oleanders in full bloom in
the courtyard, and the priests were polite and friendly, bringing tea to
us, while we waited for the storm to clear away.
[Illustration:
“Lonely I stand
On the loneliest hill top.”
_Page 98_]
There is a hospital at Anshun built by the Arthington Fund, but as there
is only one doctor attached to it, and he was away on furlough, the place
was closed. As it is the only hospital for hundreds of miles, indeed
there is only one other hospital in the province, for 11,300,000 people,
this seemed a dreadful pity. The coming of my doctor was quite an event,
especially for a lady who badly needed her advice. In the whole province
there are only these two European hospitals, as far as I heard, and no
Chinese ones.
We made Anshunfu our starting-point for a trip into the unfrequented
mountains, where aboriginal tribes are to be found in great numbers.
No census can be taken of them, and it is only by years of unremitting
toil, in the face of continual danger, that missionaries have succeeded
in making friends with them. Mr. Slichter, of the C.I.M., was our guide,
and as soon as we left the city we struck up a pathway into the hills
to the north of it. After several hours’ travelling we came to a river,
which until recent years was the boundary, beyond which no foreigner was
allowed to go because of the acute hostility felt by the tribes-people
against all strangers. It was a rapid, swirling river, lying in a deep
narrow gorge, and we were ferried across.
We climbed up a long hot ascent on the further side, and reached a
Keh-lao village,[23] where a fair was going on. The contrast was
extraordinary, quite as great as if we had gone from one European country
into another. It was only with difficulty, and because he was known,
that Mr. Slichter could persuade some one to boil water for us, and
then it was only very little, whereas in any Chinese village you could
get as much as you wanted. We spent about twelve hours reaching our
destination—a village perched up on a steep hill-side. Seeing us from
afar, a laughing group of Miao boys and girls came running down the path
to greet us, looking a most picturesque group in their red, white and
blue clothes.
In another chapter I shall try and give a detailed account of these
people, so will for the present only say a little about the country. From
the top of the crag on which the village of Ten-ten is situated there may
be counted fourteen ranges stretching away into the far distance, and in
such hollows as are practicable for agriculture, wheat, poppy, rice and
hemp are grown. There are most curious trees, which we saw for the first
time, called Rhus vernicifera, from which varnish is obtained. They are
plentiful in the district, and itinerant tappers come round from time to
time to hire their services to the owners, for the varnish is a valuable
crop, but must be carefully handled. It is most poisonous, and people
even lose their lives by handling it carelessly. We found Mrs. Slichter
at Ten-ten; she had been seriously ill as the result of using a branch
of the tree for a walking-stick. The varnish causes terrible pains in
the head, loss of sight for several days, and an eruption of the hands
rendering them useless for a time.
The first Miao church was built at Ten-ten, and would hardly be
recognized as such, I fear, by the orthodox: it looked like a cross
between a goods shed and a hall, with a ladder at each end leading to
a couple of rooms to accommodate visitors. The only clerical detail
was a pulpit, but close beside it was a cooking-stove, and in vain I
protested that our meals were not to be prepared while service was
going on. The people seemed to find it quite natural, and when Yao was
not too concerned in his cooking he lent an interested ear to what was
being said. One thing was clear, and that was that the congregation was
thoroughly in earnest, and gave undivided attention to the service. It
meant so much to them and especially to the women, who took part in the
prayer-meeting quite simply and fervently. On the Sunday morning we were
about one hundred people, who attended a baptismal service, which was
performed in a dammed-up stream in the ricefields. It was extraordinarily
picturesque to see the Miao in their short full-kilted skirts, trooping
down the zigzag path to the spot, where twenty-five received baptism.
They have names given them, as many, if not most of them, have none.
After spending a few days at Ten-ten we continued our journey northwards,
but were somewhat tried by the difficulty of getting any guide. One of
the tribes-people took us a certain distance across the mountains, but
the path was not only steep and rough, but the lanes were so narrow
and thorny that we thought our chairs would be torn to pieces, and our
clothes to ribbons: the thorns and brambles overhanging the path made it
difficult to get the chairs along. We found it decidedly preferable to
walk, and enjoyed the glorious scenery up hill and down dale, the air
laden with the scent of roses and sweetbrier, and the hill-sides carpeted
with mauve-coloured orchids and primulas.
We soon lost our way, and there was no one to be seen in all the wide
landscape to set us right. We wandered on for hours till we came to a
tiny hamlet, where we found a pottery in full swing. With much persuasion
and the promise of a good tip, we barely succeeded in coaxing a boy to
show us the way to the village of I-mei, where we proposed spending
the night. We set off again in more cheerful mood, but alas! for our
hopes: after about two hours the lad admitted that he didn’t know the
way. We wandered on down a tiny valley, watered by a charming stream,
where countless wagtails and other little birds beguiled us by their
chatter. As we emerged from the valley into some fields the lad suggested
this must be I-mei, but when we asked some women at work in the fields
they said “Oh no! it is far away.” They went on to tell us that if
we succeeded in reaching it that night, we should probably find no
accommodation. There was a comfortable-looking farm-house within sight,
and they thought we might get put up there, so we sent to inquire. They
were friendly folk, who were willing to vacate a room for us and to lodge
the rest of the party somewhere; so we were quite pleased to have this
new experience. I had never slept in a Chinese farm-house before, and in
point of fact we did not get a great deal of sleep, as the partitions
were thin and there was plenty of animal life, both large and small,
to share the building, all living on the most intimate terms with the
owners. A cat was very put out about it, and hurried to and fro in our
room in the middle of the night. We tried to shoo her away, and then
heard a reproachful voice from the other side of the partition calling
gently “Mimi, Mimi!” upon which the pussy-cat quickly sidled away to her
master.
Next day we were up betimes, and our host said his white-haired brother
would act as our guide. These two old gentlemen still wore attenuated
queues, almost the only ones we saw on the journey. We found the whole
family kind and interested in their visitors. I feel sure no other
Europeans had ever visited the little valley. We gave the lady a piece
of soap, evidently quite a novelty to her: it seems strange to have to
explain the use of such a thing. But this province has curious natural
resources in the way of soap. One tree, the Sapindus mukorossi, has round
fruit, which have only to be shaken in water to make it quite soapy, and
the pods of the Gleditschia sinensis are to be found for sale in most
of the markets: they are used in washing clothes. European firms have
started the soap industry in China, and there is certainly a good opening
for the trade.
We had a long climb up a lovely mountain pass, well named in Chinese
“Climbing to the Heavens,” and came across magnolia and other delicious
shrubs. After a stage of about fourteen miles we reached the town of
Pingüan, and stayed there till next day, as it was such a pleasant,
clean-looking place. Our room had varnished walls—quite a novelty—and
small panes of glass among the paper ones. We had a larger crowd of
interested spectators than usual, but at intervals Yao came out like a
whirlwind and scattered the chaff. Our hostess brought us a bunch of
camellias and peonies as an excuse for consulting the doctor about her
cough!
We left Pingüan early next morning, and facing the gateway by which
we went out was a typical bit of landscape—in the foreground a bridge
leading to a little poppy-covered plain, out of the centre of which rose
a steep rock crowned with a pagoda and a temple. At the foot of the rock
were several shrines. It seemed impossible for the Chinese to miss making
use of any such natural feature of the landscape for a religious purpose
in past days; though now the shrines are so neglected, except under the
stress of plague, famine or rapine, which incites the worshippers to
devotion. The crops in this district were entirely opium poppy.
At our next halting-place, Ch’a-tien, we had to put up with miserable
quarters: our tiny room looked on to the street, so that we had a large
and interested audience all the time; they lined up on the window-sill
across the road, a good point of vantage, while the small fry discovered
quite a unique point of observation. There was a hiatus at the bottom of
the woodwork of the wall about a yard long and six inches deep, so by
lying with their faces flat on the ground and close to the opening they
could get a fair view of our doings. The row of bright eyes and gleaming
teeth was quite uncanny. Our thermometer registered 66°, so we felt it
rather stuffy with every breath of air excluded.
During the day we had passed most attractive newly-built houses in lath
and plaster. They had small oval windows in the gable ends with simple
but effective designs in them. The contrast was very striking with
the other villages in this district, where the inhabitants wore the
filthiest-looking rags I have ever seen, and had a most degraded look.
At the entrance to every village is at least one little shrine, which
generally has a god and goddess sitting side by side in it; but in this
neighbourhood we noticed a good many shrines without images. They had
inscriptions instead, such as “The only true God, from ancient to present
times.” They looked very neglected as a rule, and hardly ever did we see
a newly-erected one.
Our next inn at Ch’a Tsang had a highly decorated wall about eighteen
feet high, facing the chief guest-rooms. There was a large parti-coloured
mosaic made out of broken crockery at the top, below which were two hares
rampant in stucco, supporting a shield between them; they were flanked
by ornamental plants in pots. It was interesting to find so elaborate a
decoration in so humble an inn, but that is one of the charming surprises
on the road, even in the by-ways of China.
Ta-ting was our next important stopping-place, as word had been sent to
the mission there, requesting them to summon as many tribes-people as
possible to meet us. It is the centre of work among them, and there is a
flourishing boys’ school and also a training school for evangelists. The
whole school had turned out in our honour, and made a gay show on the
hill-side, waving boughs of crimson rhododendrons, which contrasted with
their bright blue gowns. They had come by a winding road two or three
miles outside the city wall, headed by one of the ladies on horseback:
the welcome was as picturesque as it was cordial, and they had learned an
English greeting for us, which they gave in great style, as soon as we
got out of our chairs. Then they turned back, and we brought up the rear
of their procession in single file, passing through a fine gateway before
we reached the entrance to the city.
Ta-ting is a Chinese town, although it is in the centre of a district
full of tribes-people, with whom they have always been in conflict. A
mission station was opened there many years ago especially for work
amongst the aborigines, and at the present time is manned by four German
ladies, of whom two were on furlough at the time of our visit. When the
order came from the Chinese Government that all Germans were to leave
the country, as China was joining the Allies, the magistrate of Ta-ting
begged that these ladies be allowed to remain, as there had been so
much less trouble with the tribesmen since they had come under their
influence. This request was granted, and I take this opportunity of
stating my firm conviction that the direct result of mission work is to
bring these warring races into friendly relations with one another and
with the Chinese. The Chinese despise them on account of their illiteracy
and low morality, and both these objections are changed by Christian
teaching.