Tai-han-ling Pass--Two tablets--A clean village--Catholics--Lacking
repose--A great commotion--Destroyed by the Boxers--A picturesque
Buddhist priest--A strange notion--The sitter’s soul--Obnoxious
women--Restitution of the missing soul--Infallible remedies and how
to administer them.
As we were thus entertained by native wayfarers and their curious
theories, we trotted along, went through the Tai-han-ling pass (3020
feet above sea level), and late in the afternoon crossed the summit of
the range, where a valuable library of sacred books--ancient and buried
in dust--lay forgotten in a small temple. Two tablets, one to Kanshi,
the other to Tan Kuang, and a curious small gateway, had also been
erected on the highest point of the pass. The descent on the other side
was less interesting, except that here and there we had pretty bits of
scenery to gaze upon.
Following the valley, we reached the village of San-lieu, a clean
little place, 1000 feet above sea level. The reason the village was
clean was probably because the inhabitants were all Roman Catholics.
With the aid and advice of the French missionaries in Pekin they had
built themselves a handsome church, in which they had mass and evening
prayers every day. Chinese Catholic priests officiated, and even the
harmonium was played by a Chinaman, who naturally played it somewhat _à
la Chinoise_, but still very well considering that the instrument and
the character of the music were absolutely foreign to him.
[Sidenote: CONVERTS]
In coming in contact with these Christians, although one must admire
them for what they had done, I could not help again remarking that
the converts, wherever one found them, lacked the repose and the
stolid, but at the same time gentle, manner of their pigtailed heathen
brethren. They always struck one as unsteady, morose, and at times even
ill-natured.
They had at first given us the best room in the principal house in the
village, but--for what reason I was never able to discover--during
the night there seemed to be a great commotion, and we were roughly
roused up and bundled into a dingy back room, where we had to spend the
remainder of the night. I suspected that possibly the fact that I was
not a Roman Catholic might have caused them to act so uncivilly; but it
seemed hard in that case that the two Frenchmen, who belonged to their
creed, should be so treated.
On my last visit to Pekin, I was sorry to learn that the whole village
had been destroyed by the Boxers, and a number of the Christians
horribly murdered. The church, I was told, was in ruins.
Following the stream, we halted, after another long day’s journey, at
Tu-thia-chuang.
The inn at this place was somewhat better than the usual accommodation
one gets in the smaller towns in the interior of the Celestial
Empire--which, indeed, only deserves that title to Celestials. Crowds
of people assembled when we arrived, just before sunset, and among
the swarm of curious onlookers I perceived the striking head of a
picturesque old Buddhist priest. After a long confabulation and a few
strings of cash which I deposited in his hands, I induced him to
sit for his portrait, and dashed off a sketch in oils before he had
time to change his mind. Unfortunately, as is always the case on such
occasions, failing a proper studio, the painting had to be done out
in the open, which caused a large crowd of loafers to collect round
model and artist, making a nuisance of themselves to both. The women
were particularly obnoxious, for they began to scold the old priest
for his rashness in sitting. There is a strange notion prevailing in
China, and, in fact, nearly all over the continent of Asia, that if
an image is reproduced in painting or sculpture, a soul (or, to use
their words, “life”) has to be given to it. The person portrayed has
to supply the soul by transferring his own into the image--a necessity
which, to any one who believes in it, must be distinctly uncomfortable.
But apparently the Buddhist priest, who approved these superstitious
ideas in others, knew better when he himself was concerned. Therefore
he sat tight, with a sly twinkle in his eye, and the strings of “cash”
jealously nursed on his lap.
On my side, I immortalised him with due speed on a wooden panel, and he
sat right through as motionless as a statue, deaf to the warnings of
the excited females around.
When the painting was pronounced finished the trouble began.
“You will die!” cried an old harpy to him. “I saw your soul come out of
you and go into the picture. Indeed, I saw it with my own eyes!”
“So did I!” yelled a hundred other voices in chorus.
By the time the poor priest had got up they had almost convinced
him that at least half his soul had really gone out of him. He was
feeling himself all over, and actually began to be conscious--or so
he said--that something had gone wrong with him. Being a sensible
man, however, whether his soul had gone or not, he first went home to
deposit the cash for safe keeping. A complaint for the restitution of
his missing soul might come after.
[Sidenote: A MAGIC CURE]
Well suspecting what was coming, I went into my room the moment the
bonze, followed by the crowd, had departed, and packed the sketch
safely, then took a second clean panel and smeared it with the
scrapings of my palette so that I might be able to play a trick should
the bonze return to have the picture destroyed.
Twenty minutes had hardly elapsed when he was back again, of course
without the “cash.” He held his stomach with both hands and complained
of internal agony.
“I am going to die,” he cried on getting near; “you have taken away
half my soul!”
“Certainly I have,” said I, sternly; “you did not expect me to give you
all that ‘cash’ for less than half your soul, did you?”
“Oh, no,” he retorted, meekly; “but I wish it back, as I now feel so
bad without it.”
“All right,” said I, “I shall go into the room to destroy the painting;
will you then be satisfied?”
“Yes.”
Here the second panel, smeared with palette scrapings, was produced,
after I had made pretence of destroying the presumed picture on it with
a knife.
The expression of relief on the priest’s face was well worth seeing. It
would be impossible to depict it. He may not have felt so clearly that
half his soul had passed out of him, but there was no doubt that he had
plainly felt it coming back. He was now perfectly well again.
This magic cure gave us all a very busy evening. It is fatal to
the prestige of a foreigner travelling in the interior of China not
to suggest some infallible remedy or other when asked. To pronounce
a malady incurable is to bring contempt on our inferiority to the
priesthood of the country, who are supposed to cure anything. All the
villagers who had complaints of any sort came to us to be restored to
sound health. A leper who had lost all his fingers wished us to make
them grow again. He was advised to dip them in water and salt for
fifteen days, when on the morning of the sixteenth day he would notice
a change. This he took to mean that they would begin to grow a second
time, while we expected that in sixteen days no less a distance than
400 miles would separate us from that village. A pitiful case of a
child, only a few months old, was also brought up, whose mother, while
busy stirring boiling water in a big cauldron, had dropped the child
in by mistake. He was so badly scalded that, although I attempted to
relieve his pain by smearing him all over with the vaseline that had
not been used in the cooking, I fear that he cannot have lived more
than a few hours.