WAN-HSIEN TO CH'ÊNG-TU
Wan-hsien, though one of the most beautifully situated cities on the
Yangtse, is, like most Chinese towns, more pleasing at a distance than
close at hand. It lies on a slope at a bend of the river 200 miles
above Ichang, and 1,200 miles from the ocean. It is not yet an open
port, though I was shown a spot said to have been selected by the
British consular authorities as the site of the future Consulate. The
only resident Europeans are a few missionaries and a postal agent. The
trade of the city is brisk and developing, for the numerous roads that
lead from here into the interior of the province are much used by the
native merchants of Ssuch'uan for the conveyance of their goods to the
river. In time to come Wan-hsien will no doubt reap a large profit
from its advantageous position at the point of contact of several main
arteries of traffic.
At Wan-hsien I was very hospitably entertained for a day and a night by
the Rev. J. C. Platt, of the China Inland Mission, who was also most
courteous in assisting me in the engagement of coolies for the next
stage of my journey.
My caravan consisted of three coolies to carry my sedan chair
(purchased at Wan-hsien), which I very seldom used, three to carry my
baggage, and a temporary "boy," or personal servant, who was engaged
to accompany me as far as Ch'êng-tu, the capital of the province. I
was also furnished by the _chih hsien_, or district magistrate, with
the usual escort of two or three Chinese soldiers who, whether they
are wanted or not, always accompany Europeans on overland journeys
in China. From this point onwards my method was to engage temporary
coolies and "boys" at various stages of my journey, discharging them as
soon as I had passed out of the district in which their local knowledge
rendered them specially useful. I lived entirely on native food, except
on the rare occasions on which I enjoyed the hospitality of European
missionaries. My knowledge of Chinese rendered me independent of
interpreters or guides, though the changes of dialect were sometimes
disconcerting.
[Illustration: A CHINESE "BRAVE." [_To face p. 32._]
[Sidenote: SCENERY OF EASTERN SSUCH'UAN]
The journey from Wan-hsien to Ch'êng-tu consisted of fourteen long
stages, the total distance being nearly 400 miles.[7] The road lies
through one of the fairest and most fertile portions of the great
province of Ssuch'uan, and is one of the best I have met with in the
interior of China: a circumstance which is partly due to the fact that
Chinese officials generally use this road in travelling from the east
of China to the provincial capital. The inns are numerous and--from
the Oriental point of view--fairly comfortable. The innkeepers, so far
from showing any aversion to entertaining foreigners, tout eagerly
for their custom, and generally greet one with the amiable remark
"_t'zŭ hou ta jên_" ("At your Excellency's service") as one enters
their courtyards. The people are peaceful and industrious, and annoy
foreigners only by their insatiable curiosity. Europeans have not very
often travelled by this road, as they generally prefer--having a good
deal of heavy baggage--to keep to the Yangtse as far as Chung-king,
and thence ascend the Min river; but there are now several missionary
stations between Wan-hsien and Ch'êng-tu, and the country is quite
well known to foreigners. The road lies partly over undulating hills,
generally cultivated almost to their summits with rice, rape, wheat,
maize, and many other crops, and partly over rich and densely-populated
plains. The scenery is always picturesque, and sometimes,--among the
hills--exceedingly beautiful. The villages, farm-houses, and temples
are generally situated amid little forests of feathery bamboo. The
hill-sides are studded with charming little _châlets_, and very
often the submerged rice-fields in their immediate vicinity give the
appearance of artificial lakes in an English park, especially when
the banks or balks are lined with graceful vegetation. My dog, I was
glad to find, attracted much greater attention than I did myself: for
bull-terriers are unknown in China. Delighted cries of "_K'an yang
kou_" ("Look at the foreign dog!") greeted us whenever we entered a
village street, and in some places delight was tempered by amazement.
"Call that a dog?" I heard a village patriarch remark rebukingly. "It's
a bear!" My readers may rest assured that my four-footed travelling
companion was no more like a bear than a unicorn.
Though the climate of Ssuch'uan is always comparatively mild, the
mornings were generally chilly enough to make walking a pleasanter
mode of progression than chair-riding. The method adopted by the
peasantry to keep themselves warm struck me as distinctly novel. They
carry in their hands little wicker-baskets, in which is a diminutive
metal receptacle containing glowing charcoal. This is the Ssuch'uanese
equivalent to a European lady's muff; but sometimes they hide it away
under their clothes, in which case their appearance is apt to be rather
comic.
My second night after leaving Wan-hsien was spent in the small district
city of Liang-shan, where the late Mrs Bishop, as she relates in
her _Yangtse Valley and Beyond_, was mobbed and assaulted. No such
unpleasant experience awaited me, and I found the people orderly and
good-humoured. The evening of the fourth day brought me to Ta Chu,
where I found an unusually good inn. Those who have travelled much in
China need not be reminded of the joy with which one finds comfortable
quarters awaiting one at the end of a tiring day's journey; the
experience is none too common. During the fifth day's march I passed
several out-crops of coal. It seems to exist in great abundance,
though mining operations do not appear to have been carried far below
the surface. The coal is used in the inns of this district, and burns
well. On the sixth day we crossed the Ch'ü river in a ferry-boat. This
stream, which is navigable for local craft, rises in the high range
of hills in the north-east of Ssuch'uan, and for part of its course
is known as the Pai Shui, or White Water. Ch'ü-hsien and Kuang-an are
the only fair-sized towns on its banks, the point at which I crossed
being between these two towns. The river joins the Chia-ling, with
other tributaries, at Ho-chou, and so goes to swell the Yangtse at
Chung-king. The water is remarkably clear. The summer rise, judging
from the appearance of the banks, is probably not more than 10 feet, if
so much.
[Sidenote: SHUN-CH'ING-FU]
On the eighth day from Wan-hsien I reached the prefectural city
of Shun-ch'ing-fu,[8] once a prosperous industrial centre but now
somewhat decayed. A great industry here used to be the preparation of
vegetable dyes from the safflower, but the trade has been killed by the
introduction of aniline dyes from Austria. Sericulture, however, is
still a flourishing industry. Three or four years ago a disaster befell
the city in the shape of floods, which destroyed whole streets and
undermined portions of the city wall.
Soon after leaving Shun-ch'ing our road lay over an excellent
four-arched bridge called the Jung An Ch'iao ("Everlasting Peace
Bridge"), and we then began the ascent of a hill commonly known locally
as the Hsi Shan, or West Hill. Here there are cavern-shrines, and a
number of honorific portals and tablets, which indeed are exceedingly
common along all the main roads of Ssuch'uan. Many of the inscriptions
consist of "legends of good women," but the great majority commemorate
the virtues of local officials. The carved figures on the buildings
of the Hsi Shan are curious and interesting, and would probably repay
study. Some distance beyond this point I observed a large flat rock
close to the road, bearing the significant inscription: _Ch'i ssŭ wu
kao chuang_ ("Die of anger but don't go to law"). This is part of a
well-known proverb which goes on to say: _O ssŭ wu tso tsei_ ("Die of
hunger but don't be a thief"). It would be well for the peasantry of
China--who as often as not ruin themselves over their law-suits--if
they would pay as much respect to the first of these injunctions as
they generally do to the second.
On the 25th February my road descended from an undulating range of
hills to the edge of the great plain, in the middle of which is
situated the provincial capital, Ch'êng-tu; but it was not till the
close of the following day, the fourteenth since leaving Wan-hsien,
that we entered the city.
[Sidenote: HIGHWAYMEN]
As in all wealthy centres, the contrast between the rich and poor in
the Ch'êng-tu plain is very striking. I never met so much evidence of
great wealth elsewhere in China, and certainly never encountered so
many beggars. One of them, seeing that I was alone and on foot--for
I had left my chair some distance behind--offered to carry me to
Ch'êng-tu on his back. Another tried to impress upon me the advantages
of his wheelbarrow as a mode of conveyance, though its wooden wheel
was nearly broken in half. The number of bad characters in the city and
neighbourhood seemed to me unusually large, and I was constantly warned
against highway robbers. I hardly expected to have the good fortune to
meet so picturesque a villain as a real highwayman, but such was my
fate during my last day's journey before entering Ch'êng-tu. There were
two of them, armed with pistols that were not only loaded, but could
be discharged--a feature that is not characteristic of all Chinese
firearms. They were lurking behind some bamboos on the side of the
road, apparently waiting for an opportunity to attack and plunder any
one whose docility of appearance marked him out as a suitable victim.
One of them took fright at the sudden apparition of the three soldiers
of my escort, who were walking in front of my chair, and bolted. He was
immediately followed by his companion, and close on their heels came my
scarlet-coated warriors, emboldened, no doubt, by the knowledge of the
fact that they were three to two. I caused my chair to be put down in
order that I might the better observe the race, and the fight which I
supposed would ensue. But there was no struggle. Both the highwaymen,
encumbered by the weight of their unwieldy pistols and a couple of
heavy knives, were speedily overtaken and captured, and, when brought
back to me, threw themselves to the ground and made a piteous appeal
to my generosity. They explained that they had found the knives and
pistols in a field, and were trying to find the original owner in order
to return them to him, and that they had no idea (until we demonstrated
the fact by firing off the weapons) that the pistols were loaded.
Whether they took up the same line of defence in the presence of the
magistrate to whose care I consigned them, I do not know, nor have I
learned their subsequent fate.
The Ch'êng-tu plain, with its marvellous system of irrigation and its
three or four crops a year, is the richest and most populous district
in the whole of the Chinese Empire. This extraordinarily productive
plain is about 90 miles long by 70 wide, and supports a population
estimated at no less than 4,000,000, of whom about 350,000 reside
within the capital itself. It is studded with many prosperous towns and
villages, and is cultivated to its utmost extent. Among the crops are
rice, wheat, tea, tobacco, maize, the opium-poppy, which was not yet in
bloom, and the yellow rape that turned hundreds of acres of land into
seas of bright gold. The plain is connected by a navigable waterway
(the Min) with the Yangtse, and it is in the heart of the richest
province in China. The city of Ch'êng-tu has been identified with Marco
Polo's Sindafu. "This city," wrote Marco in the thirteenth century,
"was in former times a rich and noble one, and the kings who reigned
there were very great and wealthy." Of the Min river--which had not
then been subdivided to the same extent as at present into artificial
channels for irrigation--he says: "The multitude of vessels that
navigate this river is so vast that no one who should read or hear
the tale would believe it. The quantities of merchandise also which
merchants carry up and down this river are past all belief."[9]
[Sidenote: CH'ÊNG-TU]
Ch'êng-tu is a city of less importance now, but it is still one of the
greatest and most prosperous in China. Its population is much smaller
than that of Canton, but its general appearance is more attractive as
well as far more imposing. Its streets are broad and clean, and its
wall exceedingly well preserved. In mediæval times it was a frontier
city of great political and strategic importance, for the Tibetan
principalities extended then as far east as the lofty mountains that
flank the Ch'êng-tu plain on the west. Even now large numbers of
Tibetan traders are often to be seen in the streets of Ch'êng-tu,
though most of their commercial transactions are carried on at the city
of Kuan-hsien, about 30 miles away, a place which is also remarkable
for the sluices which regulate the waters of the Min and divert them,
as occasion demands, into the irrigation canals. The governor-general
of Ssuch'uan, whose yamen is in Ch'êng-tu, is more like a real viceroy
than any other provincial ruler in China, for he it is who, on behalf
of the emperor, holds sway over, and receives the embassies of, the
various Tibetan princes and tribal chiefs of the extreme west. There
is at present a project to connect Ch'êng-tu by rail with a point on
the Yangtse, probably in the neighbourhood of K'uei-chou-fu, a town
which I passed on my way from Ichang to Wan-hsien. The provincial
government--for the railway project is entirely a Chinese one--is at
present actively engaged in trying to raise the funds necessary for
so large an undertaking, one method being--so I was told--to compel
every local official to take a definite number of shares, the number
to vary according to the official's rank and reputed wealth, each
shareholder being permitted to get rid of his shares in the best way
possible by distributing them among the well-to-do people subject to
his jurisdiction. In passing through the towns and villages of eastern
Ssuch'uan, I noticed many Chinese proclamations giving the people an
outline of the railway scheme, pointing out the great benefits to
the trade and prosperity of the province that would result from its
fulfilment, and inviting or commanding popular co-operation. It may be
that this railway will offer one solution of the problem of the Yangtse
rapids: in any case, the enthusiasm with which the scheme was being
discussed in both official and commercial circles was another proof of
the gradual breaking-down of the old Chinese prejudice against railways.
Though so remote from the sea-board, the people of Ch'êng-tu--or
perhaps I should say the officials--are among the most progressive and
enlightened in China. This is especially so in the matter of education.
The city possesses a Provincial College, where about three hundred
young men are now being educated in Western as well as in Chinese
branches of learning. There is an Englishman who lectures on chemistry
and physics, there are several Japanese lecturers, and a staff of
Chinese teachers who have a knowledge of European languages. I have
heard of an enterprising Chinese schoolmaster who once advertised that
in his establishment English was taught "up to letter G." They are
more ambitious than that in the college of Ch'êng-tu. Among the local
industries the most important is that of silk-weaving. For this, as
well as for other industrial purposes, foreign machinery and Western
methods are being gradually imported and adopted.
[Sidenote: BABER'S MONOLITH]
Those who are acquainted with Baber's charming descriptions of
Ssuch'uan and Yunnan[10]--descriptions which can never be superseded,
though they are often neglected nowadays--will remember that he was
much interested in a curious circular monolith which he discovered on
the side of an artificial hill or mound in Ch'êng-tu. He was unable to
get any satisfactory account of its history, though tradition said that
it marked the grave of an emperor's son. It is, indeed, not improbable
that the mound, which is oblong in shape, with a depression in the
middle, and resembles, as Baber remarked, a half-buried dumbbell, was
raised in memory of some distinguished prince or leader of old times,
perhaps when the Ch'êng-tu plain was still occupied by the so-called
Man-tzŭ. I visited the spot, and found that the stone was still lying
in the position in which he saw it. The portion that appears above
the soil presents something of the appearance of the tilted end of a
huge stone barrel, badly damaged at one corner. The diameter of the
circular face--of which barely half can be seen--I found to be about
17 feet. The greatest length of the visible body of the barrel is only
about 2 feet 3 inches, but it is impossible to say how much of it is
underground. An excavation of the mound at the spot where the stone
lies might lead to some interesting results: but Baber was assured that
any attempt to dig would cause the sky to darken and goblins to appear,
so he left it alone, and I decided to follow his example.
Something of the grandeur of Ch'êng-tu in its most palmy days may be
realised by a reference to extant Chinese books, as well as from the
eulogies of Marco Polo. From the _Shu Hua Shih_[11] we learn that
under the T'ang dynasty (618-905 of the Christian era) it was a great
art centre, and a long list of paintings and frescoes relating to the
Buddhist religion are mentioned in that work as hanging on the walls
of the palaces of Ch'êng-tu. Some of the temples are worthy of a long
visit, though the finest in the district is not in the city itself but
in the neighbouring town of Kuan-hsien, where Li Ping and his son,
the deified founders of the great irrigation system of the Ch'êng-tu
plain, have had raised in their honour a temple that is said to be the
most beautiful in China. But as has been well remarked of Li Ping by
a recent English traveller,[12] the perennially fertile fields around
Ch'êng-tu are his finest monument.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] For Itinerary, see Appendix B.
[8] The word _fu_ attached to so many Chinese place-names is usually
translated "prefecture," which is an administrative division including
several _hsien_ or district-magistracies. _Chou_ also signifies an
administrative division or "department," smaller than a _fu_.
[9] Yule's _Marco Polo_, edited by Cordier, vol. ii. pp. 36-37.
[10] First published in the Royal Geographical Society's _Supplementary
Papers_, vol. i.
[11] 書畫史.
[12] Clive Bigham, in _A Year in China_, p. 125.