The right trail--The summit of the mountain--The altitude--A wooden
shrine--Images of Buddha--“Wishes”--The panorama--Mount Show-ho-ling
and its giant neighbour--Overhanging a precipice--On a wooden
platform--An unsteady path--A hard jump--The Mongol guide and the
gods--Gilt Buddhas--Another difficulty surmounted--An attempt to
blackmail--Armed bonzes--Parting friends.
This time the old Mongol put me on the right trail, and as he was
such a slow walker I again started off alone. I made him give me my
oil-colour paint-box, which he had been carrying for me; and with it,
following a comparatively easy but steep track, I first reached a small
but solidly built shed, and then, climbing up the steeper and fairly
dangerous part of the track, finally reached the summit of the highest
peak. I said “fairly dangerous,” for the last few yards before one
reached the top of the pinnacle were not more than a foot wide, and
on either side was a precipice, the bottom of which one could hardly
see. In other words, the performance for those few yards was not unlike
tight-rope walking, only with a drop of several thousand feet on both
sides of you had you missed your footing. The altitude of the mountain
was 12,000 feet.
The pinnacle of the great Siao-ou-tai-shan was a huge rock, on the top
of which, no larger than about ten feet in diameter, devout pilgrims
had erected a small wooden shrine, about four feet square and six or
seven feet high. In the interior, on shelves along the walls, there
were bronze images of Buddha, and each of them was stuffed inside,
through a hole provided for the purpose at the base of the image, with
bits of paper on which were written prayers, or “wishes” that pilgrims
were anxious to obtain.
[Sidenote: THE GREAT SIAO]
[Illustration: THE SUMMIT OF SIAO-OU-TAI-SHAN]
More interesting than the shrine was the exquisite panorama obtained
from the summit of Siao. On the south, south-east, and north-east sides
mountain-range after mountain-range of considerable height encircled
the sacred peak, blending from warm brownish tints in the foreground
into the pure cobalt blue of the more distant peaks.
Mount Show-ho-ling, 6582 feet above sea-level, seemed a mere dwarf
by the side of its giant neighbour. On the north and north-west side
stretched, as far as human eye could see, a barren, flat plain; and
far, far away beyond it, to the north, by the aid of a telescope,
one could distinguish, rising like a barrier, the mass of the
Huan-yan-shang mountain.
Overhanging a precipice, a short way below the summit, a temple had
been erected in a place as difficult of access as human mind could
devise. It is a very common thing for Buddhist fanatics to select
dangerous sites for their places of worship, and presumably they labour
under the impression that the greater the difficulty and danger to
be overcome in building these sacred places, the more the gods are
pleased. The construction of these temples is often attended with loss
of life, which the people willingly sacrifice for their faith.
The particular temple on Siao had been put up on an artificial wooden
platform, supported on crowbars thrust into the almost perpendicular
rock where part of the mountain had at some previous time collapsed,
leaving the rock exposed. One could only reach the temple by walking on
a path of unsteady narrow planks suspended by rotten ropes or resting
on shaky crowbars along the rocky wall of the mountain, while directly
under you was the precipice. There was no banister or protection of
any kind on the outside of this primitive suspension bridge, and on
the inside you could not cling to anything, for the rock had been worn
smooth by the ice, snow and rain.
As I intended seeing all that there was to be seen, after travelling so
far, I walked on the unsteady single planks, none of which were more
than a foot wide, and with a certain feeling of insecurity balanced
myself as well as I could from plank to plank until I had traversed
the precipice from one end to the other, and was at last near the
platform. What was my surprise when, on looking in front of me, I
discovered that the last plank of this primitive scaffolding had either
fallen or been removed, and that in order to reach the platform of the
temple a jump of over a yard was necessary--a short jump under ordinary
circumstances, but a very long one when you reflected that you had to
take your leap from a very unsteady point, and that if by chance you
missed the platform or slipped, you had below you a drop of three or
four hundred feet before you touched ground again.
[Sidenote: A PERILOUS LEAP]
[Illustration: A DIFFICULT JUMP]
The Mongol guide appeared on the scene, and walked, unconcerned, along
the shaky planks, as if he had been on the best and widest of high
roads. I pointed out to him the predicament in which I was, and asked
him if he would jump first to give me a hand, but he said he would not.
“The gods,” he said, “have removed that plank because they knew there
was a foreigner coming, and they did not wish him to see this sacred
spot. If I were to help you,” he added knowingly, “the gods would be
angry with me and I should suffer.”
His excuse was not half bad.
I took off my shoes as a precaution against slipping, and I leaped.
There was very little of interest to see in the temple, except long
rows of small images of Buddha, some gilt, some bronze colour, and
similar to those in the small shrine on the apex of the mountain. These
too, dozens of them in long rows, were the offerings of pilgrims, and
each was stuffed with “wishes” and prayers. These “wishes” were mostly
from sterile women praying for children, male in preference; from
sufferers, beseeching the gods to get rid of complaints duly specified
in the petition; or from less modest devotees, who asked for nothing
less than health, wealth, and happiness.
My curiosity satisfied, there now came the jump from the platform back
on to the narrow plank, which was a much more difficult and risky
performance than the reverse achievement. The slightest misjudgment in
the distance or speed as you leaped would carry you to your doom.
It required a great effort to make up one’s mind to the jump, but
eventually, with the assistance of the Mongol, who seized me firmly in
his arms as I landed on the plank, even this difficulty was surmounted,
and we gaily strode down the mountain towards the monastery.
There were patches of ice and snow in cavities and sheltered positions
both on the northern and southern slopes of the lofty peak, but the
parts more exposed to the sun were free from either. No incident or
accident marked the descent, and late in the afternoon I was back in
the monastery near the foot of the mountain, enjoying a well-deserved
rest.
During the night I heard noises of people running to and fro in the
courtyard, and early the following morning, much before sunrise, one
of my muleteers crept into my room and woke me up with the startling
news that the bonzes of the temple had just attempted with threats to
extort money from him. He had been commissioned by them to deliver the
following message to me:
[Sidenote: UNSUCCESSFUL EXTORTION]
“I must pay the bonzes a sum in taels equivalent to about £12 sterling
for accommodation in the temple compound, or they would kill me.”
“Tell them ‘yes,’” was my answer; “but not till sunrise,” and I
instructed the muleteer to have everything ready to start with the
first rays of light.
There was a great commotion in the temple compound. I noiselessly
made a hole in the paper window, and could distinguish the bonzes
running from one room into another, and could hear them confabulating
excitedly. I loaded the five chambers of my revolver, to be ready for
any emergency.
At dawn my traps were packed, and the mules, laden under my
supervision, were ready to start, while the bonzes had all collected
in front of the main gate, probably to prevent us going out. In fact,
one of them even attempted to close the heavy gate. I stopped him,
and setting one of the Frenchmen on guard with a rifle, I made mules,
muleteers, and baggage leave the temple enclosure amidst the violent
remonstrations of the bonzes, who now showed themselves in their true
colours. They were worse than wild beasts, fierce yet cowardly. Some of
them ran to their quarters, evidently in search of weapons. There was
no time to be lost. Once the mules and baggage out, and we also outside
the gate, the money due to them for two nights’ lodging, amounting to
some thirty shillings,[14] was handed to the chief bonze.
[14] This sum was about five times the amount that a native gentleman
would have had to pay for the same accommodation.
Seeing that a number of bonzes were now coming to his assistance with
knobbed mallets and pitchforks, the head bonze gave way to his temper,
and inveighed furiously against us, inciting the priests to attack
us. Arguing is not much in my line, particularly with scoundrels. I
set my revolver under his nose and requested him to bid us a polite
good-bye. Which he did, and he and the others suddenly turned into a
most affectedly civil assemblage.
Thus we parted friends!