A journey in the interior--Trappists and
Buddhists--Preparations--Money--Men and baggage--The start--A quaint
village--A wayside inn--A Christian cook--Interesting Mahommedan
inscriptions--An open-air theatre--Steep incline--Miao-fung-shan
mountains--A Christian village--A slippery road--Personal
interest--When to marry.
As reference will be made later to the Trappist monastery in China,
and the sad news was circulating that the “silent monks,” with their
proselytes, had all been cruelly massacred by the Boxers, and their
premises destroyed, it will not be out of place to reproduce from my
diary an account of a journey[13] which I took in 1891 from Pekin to
the interior, visiting the quaint monastery of La Trappe _en route_,
where I was the guest of the monks for several days.
[13] A portion of this account appeared in the _Fortnightly Review_,
1893.
A comparison between these Trappists and the Buddhist priests, with
whom I also had dealings further inland during the same journey, is
left to the reader, and may serve further to corroborate certain
statements which I have elsewhere made regarding the depravity of the
clean-shaven preachers of Buddha. Even in those days the hatred of the
bonzes towards foreigners was apparent, and their unscrupulous conduct
hardly less offensive than it is to-day.
I had been in Pekin some time making preparations for a journey to the
sacred mountain of Siao-ou-tai-shan, and on this particular occasion
these preparations were more elaborate than usual, for the double
reason that I was to be accompanied the greater part of the way by two
French gentlemen, and that I had not yet quite recovered from the rough
journey and accidents which had befallen me in the country of the hairy
aborigines of the Hokkaido Islands. In those days, more than now, one
of the principal difficulties when travelling in the interior of China
was the conveyance of one’s money. One had to carry it in lumps of
silver to be broken up and properly weighed for the larger payments--a
matter of endless argument and quarrel between buyer and seller--or
else one had to be burdened with an appalling weight of “cash,” the
small coin known to everybody. It is made of an alloy of copper and
tin, and, roughly, there are no less than from one thousand to two
thousand pieces to the English half-crown. The coins are perforated
in the centre and carried about strung together with cords of plaited
straw.
Men and baggage were to be carried on mules’ backs, as most of the
journey was to be through the mountainous districts of the Petchili
and Shansi provinces, but two donkeys were also taken to carry lighter
packages and cooking utensils. Two native muleteers were in charge of
the convoy.
On May 19 a start was made at six o’clock in the morning, moving almost
due west. Having left dusty Pekin, with its high wall and towers,
behind us, we rode gaily through the crowd of carts, beggars, pedlars,
horsemen, and bashful women escaping, and children frightened at the
sight of “foreign devils.” After winding our way through the squalid
habitations of the suburbs, our mules sinking knee-deep alternately
in mud or dust, stared at and remarked upon by everybody, our baggage
criticised, and all sorts of inquisitive questions upon its contents
put to my attendants, we eventually came into the open country. The
signs of careful cultivation nearer the town gradually faded away, and
after some miles we travelled mostly over barren stretches of flat land.
[Sidenote: A CHRISTIAN COOK]
We rode through quaint Pali-chuan, a little village encircled by a high
wall, and possessing a handsome temple to Tapei-tzu, on the right as
one enters the gate. The arrival of foreigners created an excitement
in the normally tomb-like quiet of the main street, and the natives
rushed to the doors and windows to have a peep at the strangers. A
remarkable ancient tower of great interest, staring us in the face,
was a marvellous bit of mason’s workmanship, and so was the west gate,
which we passed on going out of the village.
For the first six hours we had marched on level ground, but now on
reaching Yantia-chuan the ground became undulating, particularly
towards the south. At noon we halted at a small, dirty wayside inn
(there are no clean inns in China), and as my French companions did not
seem anxious to try a Chinese meal, we entrusted the preparation of a
frugal repast in foreign fashion to one of the muleteers, who, by the
way, professed to be not only a good Christian, but an excellent cook
as well. Fresh meat of dubious origin was purchased at the Frenchmen’s
request, and the Christian’s cooking abilities were put to a test. He
turned out quite a good meal, with the exception that he fried things
in vaseline instead of butter, and used Eno’s Fruit Salt when he should
have used common salt, which two fatal mistakes nearly led him to a
premature death at the hands of my two companions from across the
Channel.
“_Comment!_” shrieked one of the Frenchmen as he shook him by the
pigtail. “_Tu es un cuisinier Chrétien, et tu ne sais pas distinguer la
vaseline du beurre. Mais tu t’en blagues bien, toi, de la Chrétienté!_”
After lunch, and none the worse for what might have turned out a
disastrous meal, we set out again. We soon came to the first hills and
terraces. On a mound stood the pretty little temple of Che-ching-shan.
Further on, along the Hunho river, more generally called Yung-ting-ho,
we found some interesting Mahommedan inscriptions engraved on stone.
We rose higher and higher as we proceeded towards the village of
Men-ton-ko, where, on the bank of the river, a fascinating little
open-air theatre had been erected, an ideal spot for playgoers, for,
if bored by the performance on the stage, there still remained a fine
panorama of picturesque scenery all round, which was always pleasant to
gaze upon.
The incline was getting steeper and steeper; we passed a number of
small villages on the banks of the stream, and here and there, at long
intervals, ancient bridges of solid masonry spanned the river. Then
the road became tortuous, and wound its way up the hillside like an
uncoiling serpent. Our animals being very tired, we dismounted and
walked up, dragging them after us, until we reached the pass, where we
obtained a magnificent view of the underlying country. To the south
the chain of the Miao-fung-shan mountains stood resplendent in all its
beauty, with its peaks caressed by the last warm rays of the dying sun;
and, in the far distance, towards the south-west, the blue Pohowashan
made a lovely background to that beautiful picture of mountain scenery.
Nearly at eight in the evening we arrived at Lieun Shuan, where
the French Roman Catholic missionaries had established a small
apothecary’s shop for the use of the Catholic and other natives in the
village. As a privilege, we were allowed to sleep in the shop. Near
this village, I was told, there were valuable coal-beds, but I did not
visit them.
[Sidenote: FRIENDLY ADVICE]
Early the next morning we proceeded down a very slippery road paved
with round pebbles, and had great difficulty in keeping our mules and
ourselves from falling. The people we came across were very polite
and genial, always willing to give friendly advice as to which were
the best roads to travel by and the best inns to put up at. They
inquired most tenderly after all our relations, and seemed to be keenly
interested in our respective ages, nationality, condition in life,
state of health, and I do not know what else!
“Your wife,” said an old man to me, “must be very sorry that you are so
far away from her, and going through the dangers of travelling in these
distant provinces.”
“I have not got a wife,” I answered.
“So young,” he exclaimed in great astonishment, “and you have not a
wife!”
“No; in my country we do not marry very young; we marry when we are
older.”
“Oh, that is a mistake,” said the old man gravely. “It is a great
mistake; a man should always marry when he is young and strong.”