FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY
[Illustration: CROSSING THE YALUNG RIVER. (_See p. 191._)
_Frontispiece._]
FROM
PEKING TO MANDALAY
A JOURNEY FROM NORTH CHINA TO
BURMA THROUGH TIBETAN SSUCH'UAN
AND YUNNAN
BY R. F. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.G.S.
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY
DISTRICT OFFICER AND MAGISTRATE, WEIHAIWEI
WITH MAP AND ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1908
TO
DAVID PLAYFAIR HEATLEY
WHOSE PRESENCE IN THE EAST WOULD BRING HAPPINESS
TO EXILE, AND WHOSE ABSENCE IN THE WEST HAS
CAUSED HIS BANISHED FRIEND TO TURN
MANY TIMES WITH LONGING TO
THE SETTING SUN.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. INTRODUCTION 1
II. PEKING TO ICHANG 10
III. ICHANG TO WAN-HSIEN THROUGH THE YANGTSE
GORGES 24
IV. WAN-HSIEN TO CH'ÊNG-TU 31
V. CH'ÊNG-TU TO OMEI-HSIEN 43
VI. MOUNT OMEI AND CHINESE BUDDHISM 54
VII. MOUNT OMEI 82
VIII. OMEI-HSIEN TO TACHIENLU 112
IX. TACHIENLU 131
X. TACHIENLU TO PA-U-RONG, YALUNG RIVER 153
XI. PA-U-RONG TO MULI 186
XII. MULI TO YUNG-NING 213
XIII. YUNG-NING TO LI-CHIANG 234
XIV. LI-CHIANG TO TALI-FU 248
XV. ETHNOLOGY OF THE CHINESE FAR WEST 265
XVI. TALI-FU TO BHAMO 293
XVII. BHAMO TO MANDALAY 322
XVIII. CONCLUSION 354
APPENDIX A: VOCABULARIES 391
APPENDIX B: ITINERARY 399
NOTES 411
GENERAL INDEX 447
INDEX OF NAMES 453
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
CROSSING THE YALUNG RIVER _Frontispiece_
A FLEET OF JUNKS _To face page_ 10
SOUTH BANK OF YELLOW RIVER, WITH VIEW OF
RAILWAY BRIDGE " 14
A CHINESE "BRAVE" " 32
A CHINESE WALLED CITY " 44
CHILDREN OF CHINA " 53
CHINESE BUDDHIST MONKS IN "UNDRESS" " 65
CHINESE PLAN WITH AMITABHA BUDDHA AS CENTRAL
FIGURE " 74
"JIM" ON THE SUMMIT OF MOUNT OMEI " 102
CHINESE PLAN OF MOUNT OMEI, SURMOUNTED BY
THE SEAL OF THE MONASTERY OF THE GOLDEN
SUMMIT " 105
TEA-CARRIERS ON THE ROAD TO TACHIENLU " 118
APPROACH TO TACHIENLU " 118
VIEW FROM THE "SUMMER PALACE" NEAR TACHIENLU " 142
CHINESE HALF-RUPEE AND TIBETAN COINS " 152
REDUCED FACSIMILE OF SILVER PLAQUE WORN BY
WOMEN IN THE YALUNG VALLEY " 152
CLAY VOTIVE TABLETS FROM MULI, WITH MINIATURE
BUDDHAS " 152
EAR-RING WORN BY MO-SO WOMEN OF YUNG-NING " 152
"THE GATE OF TIBET" " 154
OCTAGONAL TOWER AT RI WA " 170
HOUSE OF T'U PAI HU " 172
THE AUTHOR'S CARAVAN " 172
A RUSTIC BRIDGE " 174
TIBETANS OF WESTERN SSUCH'UAN " 177
MOUNTAIN SCENERY NEAR SIN GO LA " 177
A HALT ON THE ROAD TO MULI " 188
MOUNTAIN AND VALLEY ON THE ROAD TO MULI " 202
THE AUTHOR'S CAMP, 2ND MAY " 208
RUSTIC BRIDGE CROSSING LITANG RIVER ON THE
ROAD TO MULI " 210
LAMASERY OF MULI " 220
THE AUTHOR'S MULETEERS, NEAR YUNG-NING " 226
YUNG-NING " 229
THE YANGTSE RIVER, NEAR YUNG-NING, ABOVE THE
FERRY " 236
THE YANGTSE RIVER AT THE FERRY " 238
TALI-FU " 260
VIEW AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA " 332
MONASTERY AT PAGAN, IRRAWADDY RIVER, BURMA " 349
RUINS AT ANURADHAPURA, CEYLON " 354
A VILLAGE FAIR IN CHINA, WITH OPEN-AIR
THEATRE " 356
A TEMPLE-THEATRE IN NORTH CHINA " 371
THE GRAVE OF "JIM," WEIHAIWEI " 376
MAP--AUTHOR'S ITINERARY FROM HANKOW TO
BHAMO _At the End_
FROM PEKING TO MANDALAY
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The journey of which an account is given in the following pages was not
undertaken in the special interests of geographical or other science
nor in the service of any Government. My chief object was to gratify
a long-felt desire to visit those portions of the Chinese Empire
which are least known to Europeans, and to acquire some knowledge of
the various tribes subject to China that inhabit the wild regions of
Chinese Tibet and north-western Yunnan. Though nearly every part of
the Eighteen Provinces has in recent years been visited and described
by European travellers, my route between Tachienlu and Li-chiang was
one which--so far as I am aware--no British subject had ever traversed
before me, and of which no description in book-form has hitherto
appeared in any European language.
From the ethnological point of view the Chinese Far West--to which the
greater part of this book is devoted--is one of the most interesting
regions in the world, and presents problems the solution of which
would settle many of the vexed questions relating to the origin and
inter-relations of the Asiatic peoples. As for its geographical
interest, it may be sufficient to say here that the principalities of
Chala and Muli contain what are probably the highest spots inhabited by
man on the face of the globe, and that several of the passes crossed by
my little caravan are loftier than the highest of the passes existing
along the route traversed by the British expedition to Lhasa. My
own contributions to geographical and ethnological lore are of the
slenderest; but if I can persuade some of my readers that Tibetan
Ssuch'uan and western Yunnan are worth visiting, be it only for the
glory of their mountain scenery, I shall consider that my book has
fulfilled the most useful purpose to which it aspires.
For those who are seized by a craving to revert for a time to something
like the nomadic life of our remote forefathers, or to pass like
the old Hindu ascetics into "the homeless state," there can be no
country in the world more full of charm than some of the wilder and
less-peopled regions of the Chinese Empire. There are enormous areas
in that country covered with primeval forests in which man's foot has
never trod, lofty mountains whose peaks are crowned with sparkling
diadems of eternal snow, grand and savage gorges in which Nature has
carved for herself in indelible letters the story of the world's youth,
and gloomy chasms through which rush the mighty rivers that carry to
the Indian Ocean and the Pacific snows that melted on the white roof
of the world. And amid all this magnificence and desolation there are
lovely valleys and stretches of garden-land that might have been
chosen as the Edens of a hundred mythologies, and which in historic
times have been the homes of religious recluses and poets, who, like
others of their kind in Western lands, found in silence and solitude
a refuge from the bitterness and pain of the world, or a hermitage in
which, amid scenes of perennial beauty, they could weave their flowers
of thought into immortal garlands of human words.
[Sidenote: LOVE OF NATURE IN CHINA]
It is a mistake to regard the Chinese as essentially a prosaic race,
caring only for material things and nothing at all for what we should
call things of the spirit. If they have less power of artistic creation
than the Japanese--and even that may be doubted--they are quite as
sensitive as the people of any other race to the magic of beauty in
either nature or art; and especially do they--like our own Ruskin--take
a vivid delight in the loveliness of mountain scenery. There is a
well-known story of a Chinese scholar who, like the scholars of most
lands, was blest with few of this world's goods, and, unlike a great
many of them, was noted for his zealous devotion to the service of his
country's gods. One night he heard the voice of an invisible being that
spoke to him thus: "Your piety has found favour in the sight of heaven;
ask now for what you most long to possess, for I am the messenger of
the gods, and they have sworn to grant your heart's desire." "I ask"
said the poor scholar "for the coarsest clothes and food, just enough
for my daily wants, and I beg that I may have freedom to wander at
my will over mountain and fell and woodland stream, free from all
worldly cares, till my life's end. That is all I ask." Hardly had he
spoken when the sky seemed to be filled with the laughter of myriads of
unearthly voices. "All you ask?" cried the messenger of the gods. "Know
you not that what you demand is the highest happiness of the beings
that dwell in heaven? Ask for wealth or rank, or what earthly happiness
you will, but not for you are the holiest joys of the gods."
[Sidenote: ISOLATION]
To those of our own day--and there are many such--whose highest ideal
of happiness is that of this poor Chinese scholar, to roam at will
through the beautiful places of the world, or perhaps even to dwell in
some lonely hermitage far removed from
"The weariness, the fever and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan,"
it must be a bitter reflection that man is by his own works dooming
himself to lose for evermore the privilege of freedom and the solace of
isolation. When an authoritative voice informs us, in connection with
wireless telegraphy, that "our ultimate ideal must be instantaneous
electrical communication with every man on earth, ashore or afloat,
at a cost within the reach of every one," what becomes of the unhappy
man who finds one of the greatest joys of travel in the very fact of
his utter loneliness, and in the knowledge that he is for the time
being severed from all possibility of communication with his civilised
fellow-men? The writer I have just quoted[1] assures us that owing
to the recent triumphs of science "a severance of communication
with any part of the earth--even the Antipodes--will henceforth be
impossible. Storms that overthrow telegraph posts, and malice that
cuts our cables, are impotent in the all-pervading ether. An explorer
like Stanley in the tropical forest, or Geary amid ice-fields, will
report daily progress in the _Times_.... Sir William Preece's dream of
signalling to Mars may (say by utilising Niagara for the experiment)
yet be realised." Thus even a flight to the virgin continents of
another planet will not give the future traveller the delicious sense
of freedom that comes from the knowledge of complete isolation or of
entire severance from the cares of civilised life. How can we expect
our mistress Nature to be gracious to us if we, with our unholy
inventions, woo her so much more rudely and roughly than did her
lovers of the golden time when the earth was young? For my own part
I rejoice that a wireless-telegraphy apparatus has not yet become an
indispensable item in every traveller's equipment, and that no law
has yet been enacted penalising any individual who presumes to sever
himself from communication with his fellows.
If it appears churlish and ungrateful to speak of the pleasures
of separation from all those comforts and delights that Western
civilisation has placed within our grasp, and without which the
normal European would hardly find life worth living, it is only fair
to remember that no one is in a position to appreciate such comforts
and delights so heartily as the man who has been temporarily deprived
of them; though the depth of his appreciation will, of course, vary
according to the extent of his dependence on the amenities of civilised
life during his ordinary existence as a social unit.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: TRAVELS IN THE FAR EAST]
The journey described in this book was not the first undertaken by me
in the countries of the Far East. Towards the close of 1902 I travelled
through the French province of Tongking (erstwhile tributary to the
Chinese Empire) and ascended the Red River to the high plateau of
Yunnan. After traversing that province from east to west I reached
the town of Ssumao, and thence struck southwards into the Chinese
Shan States and the French Protected States of Upper Laos. A journey
of many days in a dug-out canoe down one of the most beautiful
rivers of that country gave me a delightful opportunity of becoming
acquainted with the domestic life of the Lao-Shans--surely among the
most attractive and hospitable races in the world. Leaving my canoe at
the charming little Laos capital, Luang Prabang, I proceeded down the
Mekong on a raft and visited the ruins of the obliterated kingdom of
Vien-chan. There I left the Mekong and wandered overland through the
great dry plain of eastern Siam to Korat. From Korat I was speedily
conveyed by the prosaic means of a railway to the perplexing city
of Bangkok, with its curious medley of East and West, old and new,
its electric trams, its royal white elephants, its gilded pagodas and
State umbrellas, and its forlorn collection of European legations.
Except for the baggage-coolies hired at intervals along my route, I
was for the greater part of this four months' journey unaccompanied by
friend or servant. At one point, indeed, I was literally alone: for in
the country of the Lao-Shans my four baggage-coolies, owing to some
unreasonable dread of perfectly non-existent dangers, suddenly left me
to my own devices, and returned to their homes, obliging me to abandon
all my baggage except what I was able to carry in my own hands and
pockets. It was then that my eyes were first opened to the fact that
civilised man encumbers himself with a great many material possessions
which he could quite well do without; for at no time did I suffer the
least inconvenience from the loss of any of the articles which up to
that point I had considered absolutely essential to my comfort and
well-being. Servants and heavy baggage can indeed easily be dispensed
with in any tropical country in which the natives are not unfriendly,
and provided that the traveller is willing to subsist entirely on such
food as the country affords; and it is undoubtedly the case that a
traveller with few _impedimenta_ can penetrate with ease into remote
places that are inaccessible to one whose train includes numerous
coolies and beasts of burden. One who is travelling with some definite
scientific object in view must, of course, carry a suitable equipment
of scientific instruments, and may require a retinue of servants and
surveyors; but it is the mere wanderer--especially he who wanders in
search of things strange and beautiful--not the scientific explorer,
whose requirements I am here considering. It is perhaps unwise to
render oneself absolutely dependent for supplies on the friendliness of
natives, but in my own case it so happens that I have never met with
inhospitable treatment from any of the Asiatic peoples among whom I
have travelled, whether Chinese, Tongkingese, Tibetans, Shans, Siamese,
or Burmese. I leave it to others who have had different experiences to
tell their own tales.
At other times during my residence in China I have found opportunities
to make tours, either in connection with official business or on leave
of absence, in other parts of the Far East. In China I have made
several excursions into the interior of the provinces of Kwangtung,
Kwangsi, Kiangsi, and Shantung. In 1904 I travelled through the German
colony of Kiaochou and the provincial capital, Chinan-fu, on my way
to the little town of Ch'ü Fou, where I visited the tomb of Confucius
and was entertained by the Duke K'ung, said to be the seventy-sixth
descendant of the great sage in a direct line; and on the same occasion
I ascended the famous sacred mountain of T'ai Shan, where the Emperor
Shun is said to have sacrificed to heaven in the third millennium B.C.
At the close of the same year, while the Russo-Japanese war was still
raging, I was enabled through the kindness of a distinguished naval
officer to pay an interesting visit to the capital of the distracted
kingdom of Korea.
[Sidenote: OUTLINE OF JOURNEY]
The journey described in the following pages was of a more ambitious
character than those just mentioned, and occupied the greater part
of a year. My intention was to ascend the Yangtse to the province of
Ssuch'uan, and thence to make my way across that province to those
principalities of eastern Tibet that now own allegiance to the emperor
of China. I intended if possible to make my way southward through those
states, and so enter the province of Yunnan; whence, as I knew from
the narratives of former travellers, I should have no difficulty in
making my way into Upper Burma. The details of my route I left to be
determined by circumstances. Though I was occasionally subjected to
minor disappointments and delays, the assistance of the various local
officials and the friendly spirit shown by the people among whom I
travelled enabled me to carry out my plans with success.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mr J. Henniker Heaton, M.P., in _The Nineteenth Century and After_,
September 1906.