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[Illustration: THE AUTHOR IN WESTERN CHINA.]
AN AUSTRALIAN IN CHINA
BEING THE NARRATIVE OF A QUIET JOURNEY ACROSS CHINA TO BURMA
BY GEORGE ERNEST MORRISON M.D. EDIN., F.R.G.S.
_THIRD EDITION_
LONDON: HORACE COX WINDSOR HOUSE, BREAM'S BUILDINGS E.C.
MDCCCCII
TO
JOHN CHIENE, M.D.,
F.R.C.S.E., F.R.S.E., ETC.,
PROFESSOR OF SURGERY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH,
WHO GAVE ME BACK THE POWER OF LOCOMOTION.
I GRATEFULLY
INSCRIBE THIS VOLUME.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. PAGES
INTRODUCTORY--MAINLY ABOUT MISSIONARIES AND THE CITY
OF HANKOW 1-11
CHAPTER II.
FROM HANKOW TO WANHSIEN, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF
CHINESE WOMEN AND THE RAPIDS OF THE YANGTSE 12-23
CHAPTER III.
THE CITY OF WANHSIEN, AND THE JOURNEY FROM WANHSIEN
TO CHUNGKING 24-34
CHAPTER IV.
THE CITY OF CHUNGKING--THE CHINESE CUSTOMS--THE
FAMOUS MONSIEUR HAAS, AND A FEW WORDS ON
THE OPIUM FALLACY 35-49
CHAPTER V.
THE JOURNEY FROM CHUNGKING TO SUIFU--CHINESE INNS 50-62
CHAPTER VI.
THE CITY OF SUIFU--THE CHINA INLAND MISSION, WITH
SOME GENERAL REMARKS ABOUT MISSIONARIES IN CHINA 63-75
CHAPTER VII.
SUIFU TO CHAOTONG, WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE
PROVINCE OF YUNNAN--CHINESE PORTERS, POSTAL
ARRANGEMENTS, AND BANKS 76-96
CHAPTER VIII.
THE CITY OF CHAOTONG, WITH SOME REMARKS ON ITS
POVERTY, INFANTICIDE, SELLING FEMALE CHILDREN
INTO SLAVERY, TORTURES, AND THE CHINESE INSENSIBILITY
TO PAIN 97-106
CHAPTER IX.
MAINLY ABOUT CHINESE DOCTORS 107-114
CHAPTER X.
THE JOURNEY FROM CHAOTONG TO TONGCHUAN 115-124
CHAPTER XI.
THE CITY OF TONGCHUAN, WITH SOME REMARKS UPON
INFANTICIDE 125-134
CHAPTER XII.
TONGCHUAN TO YUNNAN CITY 135-147
CHAPTER XIII.
AT YUNNAN CITY 148-157
CHAPTER XIV.
GOLD, BANKS, AND TELEGRAPHS IN YUNNAN 158-170
CHAPTER XV.
THE FRENCH MISSION AND THE ARSENAL IN YUNNAN CITY 171-182
CHAPTER XVI.
THE JOURNEY FROM YUNNAN CITY TO TALIFU 183-201
CHAPTER XVII.
THE CITY OF TALI--PRISONS--POISONING--PLAGUES AND
MISSIONS 202-217
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE JOURNEY FROM TALI, WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE
CHARACTER OF THE CANTONESE, CHINESE EMIGRANTS,
CRETINS, AND WIFE-BEATING IN CHINA 218-232
CHAPTER XIX.
THE MEKONG AND SALWEEN RIVERS--HOW TO TRAVEL
IN CHINA 233-243
CHAPTER XX.
THE CITY OF TENGYUEH--THE CELEBRATED WUNTHO
SAWBWA--SHAN SOLDIERS 244-259
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SHAN TOWN OF SANTA, AND MANYUEN, THE SCENE
OF CONSUL MARGARY'S MURDER 260-269
CHAPTER XXII.
CHINA AS A FIGHTING POWER--THE KACHINS--AND THE
LAST STAGE INTO BHAMO 270-281
CHAPTER XXIII.
BHAMO, MANDALAY, RANGOON, AND CALCUTTA 282-291
ILLUSTRATIONS.
_Mostly from Photographs by_ MR. C. JENSEN _of the Imperial Chinese
Telegraphs._
THE AUTHOR IN WESTERN CHINA _Frontispiece._
THE AUTHOR'S CHINESE PASSPORT _page_ 8
ON A BALCONY IN WESTERN CHINA 14
THE RIVER YANGTSE AT TUNG-LO-HSIA 34
MEMORIAL ARCHWAY AT THE FORT OF FU-TO-KUAN 34
CHUNGKING, FROM THE OPPOSITE BANK OF THE YANGTSE 38
A TEMPLE THEATRE IN CHUNGKING 44
ON THE MAIN ROAD TO SUIFU 52
CULTIVATION IN TERRACES 58
SCENE IN SZECHUEN 58
OPIUM-SMOKING 72
A TEMPLE IN SZECHUEN 84
LAOWATAN 84
THE OPIUM-SMOKER OF ROMANCE 93
PAGODA BY THE WAYSIDE, WESTERN CHINA 118
THE BIG EAST GATE OF YUNNAN CITY 146
VIEW IN YUNNAN CITY 156
SOLDIERS ON THE WALL OF YUNNAN CITY 168
THE PAGODA OF YUNNAN CITY, 250 FEET HIGH 174
THE VICEROY OF TWO PROVINCES 180
THE AUTHOR'S CHINESE NAME 182
THE GIANT OF YUNNAN 184
THE "EAGLE NEST BARRIER," ON THE ROAD TO TALIFU 192
SNOW-CLAD MOUNTAINS BEHIND TALIFU 204
MEMORIAL IN A TEMPLE NEAR TALIFU 220
THE DESCENT TO THE RIVER MEKONG 232
INSIDE VIEW OF A SUSPENSION BRIDGE 236
THE RIVER SALWEEN 240
THE RIVER SHWELI AND ITS SUSPENSION BRIDGE 242
THE SUBURB BEYOND THE SOUTH GATE OF TENGYUEH 250
CHINESE MAP OF CHUNGKING 292
ROUGH SKETCH-MAP OF CHINA AND BURMA _at end._
AN AUSTRALIAN IN CHINA.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY--MAINLY ABOUT MISSIONARIES AND THE CITY OF HANKOW.
In the first week of February, 1894, I returned to Shanghai from Japan.
It was my intention to go up the Yangtse River as far as Chungking, and
then, dressed as a Chinese, to cross quietly over Western China, the
Chinese Shan States, and Kachin Hills to the frontier of Burma. The
ensuing narrative will tell how easily and pleasantly this journey,
which a few years ago would have been regarded as a formidable
undertaking, can now be done.
The journey was, of course, in no sense one of exploration; it consisted
simply of a voyage of 1500 miles up the Yangtse River, followed by a
quiet, though extended, excursion of another 1500 miles along the great
overland highway into Burma, taken by one who spoke no Chinese, who had
no interpreter or companion, who was unarmed, but who trusted implicitly
in the good faith of the Chinese. Anyone in the world can cross over to
Burma in the way I did, provided he be willing to exercise for a certain
number of weeks or months some endurance--for he will have to travel
many miles on foot over a mountainous country--and much forbearance.
I went to China possessed with the strong racial antipathy to the
Chinese common to my countrymen, but that feeling has long since given
way to one of lively sympathy and gratitude, and I shall always look
back with pleasure to this journey, during which I experienced, while
traversing provinces as wide as European kingdoms, uniform kindness and
hospitality, and the most charming courtesy. In my case, at least, the
Chinese did not forget their precept, "deal gently with strangers from
afar."
I left Shanghai on Sunday, February 11th, by the Jardine Matheson's
steamer _Taiwo_. One kind friend, a merchant captain who had seen life
in every important seaport in the world, came down, though it was past
midnight, to bid me farewell. We shook hands on the wharf, and for the
last time. Already he had been promised the first vacancy in Jardine
Matheson's. Some time after my departure, when I was in Western China,
he was appointed one of the officers of the ill-fated _Kowshing_, and
when this unarmed transport before the declaration of war was destroyed
by a Japanese gunboat, he was among the slain--struck, I believe, by a
Japanese bullet while struggling for life in the water.
I travelled as a Chinese, dressed in warm Chinese winter clothing, with
a pigtail attached to the inside of my hat. I could not have been more
comfortable. I had a small cabin to myself. I had of course my own
bedding, and by paying a Mexican dollar a day to the Chinese steward,
"foreign chow," was brought me from the saloon. The traveller who cares
to travel in this way, to put his pride in his pocket and a pigtail down
his back, need pay only one-fourth of what it would cost him to travel
as a European in European dress.
But I was, I found, unwittingly travelling under false pretences. When
the smart chief officer came for my fare he charged me, I thought, too
little. I expressed my surprise, and said that I thought the fare was
seven dollars. "So it is," he replied "but we only charge missionaries
five dollars, and I knew you were a missionary even before they told
me." How different was his acuteness from that of the Chinese compradore
who received me on the China Merchants' steamer _Hsin Chi_, in which I
once made a voyage from Shanghai to Tientsin, also in Chinese dress! The
conversation was short, sharp, and emphatic. The compradore looked at me
searchingly. "What pidgin belong you?" he asked--meaning what is your
business? Humbly I answered, "My belong Jesus Christ pidgin"; that is, I
am a missionary, to which he instantly and with some scorn replied, "No
dam fear!"
We called at the river ports and reached Hankow on the 14th. Hankow, the
Chinese say, is the mart of eight provinces and the centre of the earth.
It is the chief distributing centre of the Yangtse valley, the capital
city of the centre of China. The trade in tea, its staple export, is
declining rapidly, particularly since 1886. Indian opium goes no higher
up the river than this point; its importation into Hankow is now
insignificant, amounting to only 738 piculs (44 tons) per annum. Hankow
is on the left bank of the Yangtse, separated only by the width of the
Han river from Hanyang, and by the width of the Yangtse from Wuchang;
these three divisions really form one large city, with more inhabitants
than the entire population of the colony of Victoria.
Wuchang is the capital city of the two provinces of Hunan and Hupeh; it
is here that the Viceroy, Chang Chi Tung, resides in his official yamen
and dispenses injustice from a building almost as handsome as the
American mission-houses which overlook it. Chang Chi Tung is the most
anti-foreign of all the Viceroys of China; yet no Viceroy in the Empire
has ever had so many foreigners in his employ as he. "Within the four
seas," he says, "all men are brothers"; yet the two provinces he rules
over are closed against foreigners, and the missionaries are compelled
to remain under the shelter of the foreign Concession in Hankow. With a
public spirit unusual among Chinese Viceroys he has devoted the immense
revenues of his office to the modern development of the resources of his
vice-kingdom. He has erected a gigantic cotton-mill at Wuchang with
thirty-five thousand spindles, covering six acres and lit with the
electric light, and with a reservoir of three acres and a half. He has
built a large mint. At Hanyang he has erected magnificent iron-works and
blast furnaces which cover many acres and are provided with all the
latest machinery. He has iron and coal mines, with a railway seventeen
miles long from the mines to the river, and specially constructed
river-steamers and special hoisting machinery at the river-banks. Money
he has poured out like water; he is probably the only important official
in China who will leave office a poor man.
Acting as private secretary to the Viceroy is a clever Chinese named Kaw
Hong Beng, the author of _Defensio Populi_, that often-quoted attack
upon missionary methods which appeared first in _The North China Daily
News_. A linguist of unusual ability, who publishes in _The Daily News_
translations from Heine in English verse, Kaw is gifted with a rare
command over the resources of English. He is a Master of Arts of the
University of Edinburgh. Yet, strange paradox, notwithstanding that he
had the privilege of being trained in the most pious and earnest
community in the United Kingdom, under the lights of the United
Presbyterian Kirk, Free Kirk, Episcopalian Church, and _The_ Kirk, not
to mention a large and varied assortment of Dissenting Churches of more
or less dubious orthodoxy, he is openly hostile to the introduction of
Christianity into China. And nowhere in China is the opposition to the
introduction of Christianity more intense than in the Yangtse valley. In
this intensity many thoughtful missionaries see the greater hope of the
ultimate conversion of this portion of China; opposition they say is a
better aid to missionary success than mere apathy.
During the time I was in China, I met large numbers of missionaries of
all classes, in many cities from Peking to Canton, and they unanimously
expressed satisfaction at the progress they are making in China.
Expressed succinctly, their harvest may be described as amounting to a
fraction more than two Chinamen per missionary per annum. If, however,
the paid ordained and unordained native helpers be added to the number
of missionaries, you find that the aggregate body converts nine-tenths
of a Chinaman per worker per annum; but the missionaries deprecate their
work being judged by statistics. There are 1511 Protestant missionaries
labouring in the Empire; and, estimating their results from the
statistics of previous years as published in the _Chinese Recorder_, we
find that they gathered last year (1893) into the fold 3127 Chinese--not
all of whom it is feared are genuine Christians--at a cost of _£350,000_,
a sum equal to the combined incomes of the ten chief London hospitals.
Hankow itself swarms with missionaries, "who are unhappily divided into
so many sects, that even a foreigner is bewildered by their number, let
alone the heathen to whom they are accredited." (Medhurst.)
Dwelling in well-deserved comfort in and around the foreign settlement,
there are members of the London Missionary Society, of the Tract
Society, of the Local Tract Society, of the British and Foreign Bible
Society, of the National Bible Society of Scotland, of the American
Bible Society; there are Quaker missionaries, Baptist, Wesleyan, and
Independent missionaries of private means; there are members of the
Church Missionary Society, of the American Board of Missions, and of the
American High Church Episcopal Mission; there is a Medical Mission in
connection with the London Missionary Society, there is a flourishing
French Mission under a bishop, the "_Missions étrangères de Paris_," a
Mission of Franciscan Fathers, most of whom are Italian, and a Spanish
Mission of the Order of St. Augustine.
The China Inland Mission has its chief central distributing station at
Hankow, and here also are the headquarters of a Scandinavian Mission, of
a Danish Mission, and of an unattached mission, most of the members of
which are also Danish. Where there are so many missions, of so many
different sects, and holding such widely divergent views, it is, I
suppose, inevitable that each mission should look with some disfavour
upon the work done by its neighbours, should have some doubts as to the
expediency of their methods, and some reasonable misgivings as to the
genuineness of their conversions.
The Chinese "Rice Christians," those spurious Christians who become
converted in return for being provided with rice, are just those who
profit by these differences of opinion, and who, with timely lapses from
grace, are said to succeed in being converted in turn by all the
missions from the Augustins to the Quakers.
Every visitor to Hankow and to all other open ports, who is a supporter
of missionary effort, is pleased to find that his preconceived notions
as to the hardships and discomforts of the open port missionary in China
are entirely false. Comfort and pleasures of life are there as great as
in any other country. Among the most comfortable residences in Hankow
are the quarters of the missionaries; and it is but right that the
missionaries should be separated as far as possible from all
discomfort--missionaries who are sacrificing all for China, and who are
prepared to undergo any reasonable hardship to bring enlightenment to
this land of darkness.
I called at the headquarters of the Spanish mission of Padres Agustinos
and smoked a cigarette with two of the Padres, and exchanged
reminiscences of Valladolid and Barcelona. And I can well conceive,
having seen the extreme dirtiness of the mission premises, how little
the Spaniard has to alter his ways in order to make them conform to the
more ancient civilisation of the Chinese.
In Hankow there is a large foreign concession with a handsome embankment
lined by large buildings. There is a rise and fall in the river between
summer and winter levels of nearly sixty feet. In the summer the river
laps the edge of the embankment and may overflow into the concession; in
the winter, broad steps lead down to the edge of the water which, even
when shrunk into its bed, is still more than half a mile in width. Our
handsome consulate is at one end of the embankment; at the other there
is a remarkable municipal building which was designed by a former City
constable, who was, I hope, more expert with the handcuffs than he was
with the pencil.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR'S CHINESE PASSPORT.]
Our interests in Hankow are protected by Mr. Pelham Warren, the Consul,
one of the ablest men in the Service. I registered at the Consulate as a
British subject and obtained a Chinese passport in terms of the Treaty
of Tientsin for the four provinces Hupeh, Szechuen, Kweichow, and
Yunnan, available for one year from the date of issue.
I had no servant. An English-speaking "boy," hearing that I was in need
of one, came to me to recommend "his number one flend," who, he assured
me, spoke English "all the same Englishman." But when the "flend" came I
found that he spoke English all the same as I spoke Chinese. He was not
abashed, but turned away wrath by saying to me, through an interpreter,
"It is true that I cannot speak the foreign language, but the foreign
gentleman is so clever that in one month he will speak Chinese
beautifully." We did not come to terms.
At Hankow I embarked on the China Merchants' steamer _Kweili_, the only
triple-screw steamer on the River, and four days later, on February
21st, I landed at Ichang, the most inland port on the Yangtse yet
reached by steam. Ichang is an open port; it is the scene of the
anti-foreign riot of September 2nd, 1891, when the foreign settlement
was pillaged and burnt by the mob, aided by soldiers of the Chentai
Loh-Ta-Jen, the head military official in charge at Ichang, "who gave
the outbreak the benefit of his connivance." Pleasant zest is given to
life here in the anticipation of another outbreak; it is the only
excitement.
From Ichang to Chungking--a distance of 412 miles--the river Yangtse, in
a great part of its course, is a series of rapids which no steamer has
yet attempted to ascend, though it is contended that the difficulties of
navigation would not be insuperable to a specially constructed steamer
of elevated horse-power. Some idea of the speed of the current at this
part of the river may be given by the fact that a junk, taking thirty to
thirty-five days to do the upward journey, hauled most of the way by
gangs of trackers, has been known to do the down-river journey in two
days and a half.
Believing that I could thus save some days on the journey, I decided to
go to Chungking on foot, and engaged a coolie to accompany me. We were
to start on the Thursday afternoon; but about midnight on Wednesday I
met Dr. Aldridge, of the Customs, who easily persuaded me that by taking
the risk of going in a small boat (a _wupan_), and not in an ordinary
passenger junk (a _kwatze_), I might, with luck, reach Chungking as soon
by water as I could reach Wanhsien at half the distance by land. The
Doctor was a man of surprising energy. He offered to arrange everything
for me, and by 6 o'clock in the morning he had engaged a boat, had
selected a captain (_laoban_), and a picked crew of four young men, who
undertook to land me in Chungking in fifteen days, and had given them
all necessary instructions for my journey. All was to be ready for a
start the same evening.
During the course of the morning the written agreement was brought me by
the laoban, drawn up in Chinese and duly signed, of which a Chinese
clerk made me the following translation into English. I transcribe it
literally:--
Yang Hsing Chung (the laoban) hereby contracts to convey Dr. M. to
Chungking on the following conditions:--
1. The passage-money agreed upon is 28,000 cash (_£2 16s._),
which includes all charges.
2. If Chungking is reached in twelve days, Dr. M. will give
the master 32,500 cash instead; if in thirteen days 31,000,
and if in fifteen days 28,000.
3. If all goes well and the master does his duty
satisfactorily, Dr. M. will give him 30,000 cash, even if he
gets to Chungking in fifteen days.
4. The sum of 14,000 cash is to be advanced to the master
before starting; the remainder to be paid on arrival at
Chungking.
(Signed) YANG HSING CHUNG.
Dated the 17th day of the 2nd moon,
K, shui 20th year.
The Chinaman who wrote this in English speaks English better than many
Englishmen.