_To Lu-chiang-pa_. _Drop from 8,000 feet to 2,000 feet_. _Shans meet for
the first time_. _Dangers of the Salwen Valley exaggerated_. _How
reports get into print_. _Start of the climb from 2,000 feet to over
8,000 feet_. _Scenery in the valley_. _Queer quintet of soldiers_.
_Semi-tropical temperature_. _My men fall to the ground exhausted_. _A
fatiguing day_. _Benighted in the forest_. _Spend the night in a hut_.
_Strong drink as it affects the Chinese_. _Embarrassing attentions of a
kindly couple_. _New Year festivities at Kan-lan-chai_. _The Shweli
River and watershed_. _Magnificent range of mountains_. _Arrival at
Tengyueh._
No Chinese, I knew, lived in the Valley; but I had yet to learn that so
soon as the country drops to say less than 4,000 feet the Chinese
consider it too unhealthy a spot for him to pass his days in. The reason
why Shans control the Valley is, therefore, not hard to find.
And owing to the probability that what European travelers have written
about the unhealthiness of this Salwen Valley has been based on
information obtained from Chinese, its bad name may be easily accounted
for. The next morning, as I descended, I saw much malarial mist rising;
but, after having on a subsequent visit spent two days and two nights at
the lowest point, I am in a position to say that conditions have been
very much exaggerated, and that places quite as unhealthy are to be
found between Lu-chiang-pa (the town at the foot, by the bridge) and the
low-lying Shan States leading on to Burma.
A good deal of the country to the north of the Yün-nan province, towards
the Tibetan border, is so high-lying and so cold that the Yün-nanese
Chinese is afraid to live there; and the fact that in the Shan States,
so low-lying and sultry, he is so readily liable to fever, prevents him
from living there. These places, through reports coming from the
Chinese, are, as a matter of course, dubbed as unhealthy. The average
inhabitant--that is, Chinese--strikes a medium between 4,000 feet and
10,000 feet to live in, and avoids going into lower country between
March and November if he can.
To pass the valley and go to Kan-lan-chi (4,800 feet), passing the
highest point at nearly 9,000 feet--140 li distant from
Fang-ma-ch'ang--was our ambition for the day.
Starting in the early morning, I had a pleasant walk over an even road
leading to a narrowing gorge, through which a heart-breaking road led to
the valley beyond. Two and a half hours it took me, in my foreign boots,
to cover the twenty li. I fell five times over the smooth stones. The
country was bare, desolate, lonely--four people only were met over the
entire distance. But in the dreaded Valley several trees were ablaze
with blossom, and oranges shone like small balls of gold in the rising
sun. Children playing in between the trees ran away and hid as they saw
me, although I was fifty yards from them--they did not know what it was,
and they had never seen one!
Farther down I caught up my men, Lao Chang and Shanks, and pleasant
speculations were entered into as to what Singai (Bhamo) was like. They
were particularly interested in Singapore because I had lived there, and
after I had given them a general description of the place, and explained
how the Chinese had gone ahead there, I pointed out as well as I could
with my limited vocabulary that if the people of Yün-nan only had a
conscience, and would only get out of the rut of the ages, they, too,
might go ahead, explaining incidentally to them that as lights of the
church at Tong-ch'uan-fu, it was their sacred duty to raise the standard
of moral living among their countrymen wherever they might wander. Their
general acquiescence was astounding, and in the next town,
Lu-chiang-pa, these two men put their theory into practice and almost
caused a riot by offering 250 cash for a fowl for which the vendor
blandly asked 1,000. But they got the chicken--and at their own price,
too.
As I was thus gently in soliloquy, I first heard and then caught sight
of the river below--the unnavigable Salwen, 2,000 feet lower than either
the Mekong or the Shweli (which we were to cross two days later). It is
a pity the Salwen was not preserved as the boundary between Burma and
China.
Gradually, as we approached the steep stone steps leading down thereto,
I saw one of the cleverest pieces of native engineering in Asia--the
double suspension bridge which here spans the Salwen, the only one I had
seen in my trip across the Empire. The first span, some 240 feet by 36
feet, reaches from the natural rock, down which a vertical path zigzags
to the foot, and the second span then runs over to the busy little town
of Lu-chiang-pa.
Here, then, were we in the most dreaded spot in Western China! If you
stay a night in this Valley, rumor says, you go to bed for the last
time; Chinese are afraid of it, Europeans dare not linger in it. Malaria
stalks abroad for her victims, and snatches everyone who dallies in his
journey to the topside mountain village of Feng-shui-ling. The river is
2,000 feet above the sea; Feng-shui-ling is nearly 9,000 feet.
It was ten o'clock as I pulled over my stool and took tea in the crowded
shop at Lu-chiang-pa. I saw Shans here for the first time.
The village now, however, is anything but a Shan village. Of the people
in the immediate vicinity I counted only ten typical Shans, and of the
company around me in this popular tea-house twenty-one out of
twenty-eight were Chinese, including ten Mohammedans. It was, however,
easy to see that several of these were of Shan extraction, who,
although they had features distinctly un-Chinese, had adopted the
Chinese language and custom. A party of Tibetans were here in the charge
of a Lama, in an inner court, and scampered off as I rose to snap their
photographs. This was a very low altitude for Tibetans to reach.
Whilst I sipped my tea the local horse dealer wanted so very much to
sell me a pony cheap. He offered it for forty taels, I offered him five.
It was gone in the back, was blind in the left eye, and was at least
seventeen years old. The man smiled as I refused to buy, and told me
that my knowledge of horse-flesh was wonderful.
The road then led up to a plain, where paths branched in many directions
to the hills. Men either going to the market or coming from it leaned on
their loads to rest under enormous banyans and to watch me as I passed.
Horses browsed on the hill-sides. One of my soldiers had laid in
provisions for the day, and ran along with his gun (muzzle forward) over
one shoulder and four lengths of sugar-cane over the other. Ploughmen
with their buffaloes halted in the muddy fields to gaze admiringly upon
me; women ran scared from the path when my pony let out at a casual
passer-by who tickled him with a thin bamboo. Maidenhair ferns grew in
great profusion, showing that we were getting into warmer climate;
streams rushed swiftly under the stone roadway from dyked-up dams to
facilitate the irrigation, at which the Chinese are such past-masters.
All was smiling and warm and bright, dispelling in one's mind all sense
of gloom, and breeding an optimistic outlook.
We were now a party of nine--my own three men, an extra coolie I had
engaged to rush Tengyueh in three days from Yung-ch'ang, four soldiers,
and the paymaster of the crowd. We still had ninety li to cover, so that
when we left the shade of two immense trees which sheltered me and my
perspiring men, one of the soldiers agreed that everyone had to clear
from our path. We brooked no interception until we reached the entrance
to the climb, where I met two Europeans, of the Customs staff at
Tengyueh, who had come down here to camp out for the Chinese New Year
Holiday. I knew that these men were not Englishmen. I was so thirsty,
and the best they could do was to keep a man talking in the sun outside
their well-equipped tent. How I _could_ have done with a drink!
A tributary of the Salwen flows down the ravine. Too terrible a climb to
the top was it for me to take notes. I got too tired. Everything was
magnificently green, and Nature's reproduction seemed to be going on
whilst one gazed upon her. But the natural glories of this beautiful
gorge, with a dainty touch of the tropical mingling with the mighty
aspect of jungle forest, with glistening cascades and rippling streams,
where all was bountiful and exquisitely beautiful, failed to hold one
spellbound. For since I had left Tali-fu I had rarely been out of sight
of some of the best scenery on earth. Yet vegetation was very different
to that which we had been passing. There were now banyans, palms,
plantains, and many ferns, trees and shrubs and other products of warmer
climates, which one found in Burma. What impressed me farther up was the
marvelous growth of bamboos, some rising 120 feet and 130 feet at the
bend, in their various tints of green looking like delicate feathers
against the haze of the sky-line, upon which houses built of bamboo from
floor to roof seemed temporarily perched whilst others seemed to be
tumbling down into the valley. This spot was the nearest approach to
real jungle I had seen in China; but Whilst we were climbing laboriously
through this densely-covered country, over opposite--it seemed no more
than a stone's throw--the hills were almost bare, save for the isolated
cultivation of the peasantry at the base. But then came a division,
appearing suddenly to view farther along around a bend, and I saw a
continuation of the range, rising even higher, and with a tree growth
even more magnificent, denser and darker still.
Here I came upon a party of soldiers with foreign military peak caps on
their heads, which they wore outside over their Chinese caps. In fact,
the only two other garments besides these Chinese caps were the
distinguishing marks of the military. Coats they had, but they had been
discarded at the foot of the climb, rolled into one bundle, and tied
together with a piece of ribbon generally worn by the carrier to keep
his trousers tight. We were now in summer heat, and this military
quintet made a peculiar sight in dusty trousers, peak caps and straw
sandals, with the perspiration streaming freely down their naked backs
as they plodded upwards under a pitiless sun. Thus were they clad when I
met them; but catching sight of my distinguished person, mistaking me
for a "gwan," they immediately made a rush for the man carrying the
tunics, to clothe themselves for my presence with seemly respectability.
But a word from my boy put their minds at rest (my own military were far
in the rear). A couple of them then came forward to me sniggeringly,
satisfied that they were not to be reported to Peking or wherever their
commander-in-chief may have his residence--they probably had no more
idea than I had.
By the side of a roaring waterfall, in a spot which looked a very
fairyland in surroundings of reproductive green, we all sat down to
rest. The air was cool and the path was damp, and water tumbling
everywhere down from the rocks formed pretty cascades and rivulets. We
heard the clang of the hatchets, and soon came upon men felling timber
and sawing up trees into coffin boards. We were in the Valley of the
Shadow, and it was the finest coffin center of the district. I took my
boots off to wade through water which overran the pathway, and just
beyond my men, exhausted with their awful toil, lay flat on their backs
to rest; they were dead beat. One pointed up to the perpendicular cliff,
momentarily closed his eyes and looked at me in disgust. I gently
remonstrated. It was not my country, I told him; it was the "Emperor's."
And after a time we reached the top.
Shadows were lengthening. In the distance we saw the mountains upon
which we had spent the previous night, whose tops were gilded by the
setting sun. Down below all was already dark. A cold wind blew the trees
bending wearily towards the Valley.
And still we plodded on.
* * * * *
We had come to Siao-p'ing-ho, 115 li instead of the 140 I had been led
to believe my men would cover. Every room in the hut was full, we were
told, but the next place (with some unpronounceable name), fifteen li
farther down, would give us good housing for the night. Lao Chang and I
resolved to go on, tired though we were. Before I resolved on this plan
I stopped to take a careful survey of the exact situation of the
sheltering hollow in which we meant to pass the night. The sun was fast
sinking; the dust of the road lay grey and thick about my feet; above me
the heavens were reddening in sunset glory; the landscape had no touch
of human life about it save our own two solitary figures; and the place,
fifteen li away, lay before me as a dream of a good night rather than a
reality.
Then on again we plodded, and yelled our intentions to the men behind.
From the brow of the hill we descended with extreme rapidity--down, down
into a valley which sent up a damp, oppressive atmosphere. Through the
trees I could see one lovely ball of deep, rich red, painting the earth
as it sank in a beauty exquisite beyond all else. Four men met us,
stared suspiciously, thought we were deaf, and yelled that the place was
twenty li away, and that we had better return to the brow of the hill.
But we left them, and went still farther down. In the hush that
prevailed I was unaccountably startled to see the form of a woman
gliding towards me in the twilight. She came out of the valley carrying
firewood. She spoke kindly to my man, and invited me to spend the night
in her house near by.
I was for the moment vaguely awed by her very quiescence, and gazed
wondering, doubting, bewildered. What was the little trick? Could I not
from such things get free, even in Inland China? The red light of the
sunken sun playing round her comely figure dazzled me, it is admitted,
and I followed her with a sigh of mingled dread and desire for rest.
Shall I say the shadow of the smile upon her lips deepened and softened
with an infinite compassion?
Dogs rounded upon me as I entered the bamboo hut stuck on the side of
the hill--they knew I had no right there. Inside a man was nursing a
squalling baby; our escort was its mother, the man her husband. So I was
safe. The place was swept up, unnecessary gear was taken away, fire was
kindled, tea was brewed, rice was prepared; and whilst in shaving (for
we were to reach Tengyueh on the morrow) I dodged here and there to
escape the smoke and get the most light, giving my hospitable host a
good deal of fun in so doing; every possible preparation was made for my
comfort and convenience by the untiring woman at whose invitation I was
there. Their attentions embarrassed me; every movement, every look,
every gesture, every wish was anticipated, so that I had no more
discomfort than a roaring wind and a low temperature about the region
which no one could help. It was bitterly cold. In front of the fire I
sat in an overcoat among the crowd drinking tea, whilst the soldiers
drank wine--they bought five cash worth. Had my lamp oil run out, I
should have bought liquor and tried to burn it instead. Soon the spirit
began to talk, and these braves of the Chinese army got on terms of
freest familiarity, telling me what an all-round excellent fellow I was,
and how pleased they were that I had to suffer as well as they. But they
never forgot themselves, and I allowed them to wander on uncontradicted
and unrestrained. After a weary night of tossing in my p'ukai, with a
roaring gale blowing through the latticed bamboo, behind which I lay so
poorly sheltered, we started in good spirits.
Twenty-five li farther we reached Kan-lan-chai (4,800 feet), February
9th, 1910, New Year's morning. Nothing could be bought. Everywhere the
people said, "Puh mai, puh mai," and although we had traveled the
twenty-five li over a terrible road, with a fearful gradient at the end,
we could not get anyone to make tea for us. It is distinctly against the
Chinese custom to sell anything at New Year time, of course. We had to
boil our own water and make our own tea. A larger crowd than usual
gathered around me because of the general holiday; and as I write now I
am seated in my folding-chair with all the reprobates near to me--men
gazing emptily, women who have rushed from their houses combing their
hair and nursing their babies, the beggars with their poles and bowls,
numberless urchins, all open-mouthed and curious. These are kept from
crowding over me by the two soldiers, who the day before had come on
ahead to book rooms in the place. I stayed at Kan-lan-chai on another
occasion. Then I found a good room, but later learned that it was a
horse inn, the yard of which was taken up by fifty-nine pack animals
with their loads. Pegs were as usual driven into the ground in parallel
rows, a pair of ponies being tied to each--not by the head, but by the
feet, a nine-inch length of rope being attached to the off foreleg of
one and the near foreleg of the other, the animals facing each other in
rows, and eating from a common supply in the center. Everyone in the
small town was busy doing and driving, very anxious that I should be
made comfortable, which might have been the case but for some untiring
musician who was traveling with the caravan, and seemed to be one of
that species of humankind who never sleeps. His notes, however, were
fairly in harmony, but when it runs on to 3:00 a.m., and one knows that
he has to be again on the move by five, even first-rate Chinese music is
apt to be somewhat disturbing.
From the Salwen-Shweli watershed I got a fine view of the mountains I
had crossed yesterday. Some ten miles or so to the north was the highest
peak in the range--Kao-li-kung I think it is called--conical-shaped and
clear against the sky, and some 13,000 feet high, so far as I could
judge.
An easy stage brought me to Tengyueh. I stayed here a day only, Mr.
Embery, of the China Inland Mission, a countryman of my own, kindly
putting me up. But Tengyueh, as one of the quartet of open ports in the
province, is well known. It is only a small town, however, and one was
surprised to find it as conservative a town as could be found anywhere
in the province, despite the fact that foreigners have been here for
many years, and at the present time there are no less than seven
Europeans here.
I was glad of a rest here. From Tali-fu had been most fatiguing.