THE JOURNEY FROM CHAOTONG TO TONGCHUAN.
In Chaotong I engaged three new men to go with me to Tongchuan, a
distance of 110 miles, and I rewarded liberally the three excellent
fellows who had accompanied me from Suifu. My new men were all active
Chinamen. The headman Laohwan was most anxious to come with me.
Recognising that he possessed characteristics which his posterity would
rejoice to have transmitted to them, he had lately taken to himself a
wife and now, a fortnight later, he sought rest. He would come with me
to Burma, the further away the better; he wished to prove the truth of
the adage about distance and enchantment. The two coolies who were to
carry the loads were country lads from the district. My men were to
receive _4s. 6d._ each for the 110 miles, an excessive wage, but all
food was unusually dear, and people were eating maize instead of rice;
they were to find themselves on the way, in other words, they were "to
eat their own rice," and, in return for a small reward, they were to
endeavour to do the five days' stages in three days. I bought a few
stores, including some excellent oatmeal and an annular cake of that
compressed tea, the "Puerh-cha," which is grown in the Shan States and
is distributed as a luxury all over China. It is in favour in the palace
of the Emperor in Peking itself; it is one of the finest teas in China,
yet, to show how jealous the rivalry now is between China tea and
Indian, when I submitted the remainder of this very cake to a well-known
tea-taster in Mangoe Lane, Calcutta, and asked his expert opinion, he
reported that the sample was "of undoubted value and of great interest,
as showing what _muck can be called tea_."
We left on the 3rd, and passed by the main-street through the crowded
city, past the rich wholesale warehouses, and out by the west gate to
the plain of Chaotong. The country spread before us was smiling and
rich, with many farmsteads, and orchards of pears and peaches--a pretty
sight, for the trees were now in full blossom. Many carts were lumbering
along the road on their uneven wheels. Just beyond the city there was a
noisy altercation in the road for the possession apparently of a blunt
adze. Carts stopped to see the row, and all the bystanders joined in
with their voices, with much earnestness. It is rare for the disputants
to be injured in these questions. Their language on these occasions is,
I am told, extremely rich in allusions. It would often make a _gendarme_
blush. Their oaths are more ornate than the Italians'; the art of
vituperation is far advanced in China. A strong wind was blowing in our
faces. We rested at some mud hovels where poverty was stalking about
with a stick in rags and nakedness. Full dress of many of these beggars
would disgrace a Polynesian. Even the better dressed were hung with
garments in rags, tattered, and dirty as a Paisley ragpicker's. The
children were mostly stark-naked. In the middle of the day we reached a
Mohammedan village named Taouen, twenty miles from Chaotong, and my man
prepared me an _al fresco_ lunch. The entire village gathered into the
square to see me eat; they struggled for the orange peel I threw under
the table.
From here the road rises quickly to the village of Tashuitsing (7380
feet above sea level), where my men wished to remain, and apparently
came to an understanding with the innkeeper; but I would not understand
and went on alone, and they perforce had to follow me. There are only
half-a-dozen rude inns in the village, all Mohammedan; but just outside
the village the road passes under a magnificent triple archway in four
tiers made of beautifully cut stone, embossed with flowers and images,
and richly gilt--a striking monument in so forlorn a situation. It was
built two years ago, in obedience to the will of the Emperor, by the
richest merchant of Chaotong, and is dedicated to the memory of his
virtuous mother, who died at the age of eighty, having thus experienced
the joy of old age, which in China is the foremost of the five measures
of felicity. It was erected and carved on the spot by masons from
Chungking. Long after dark we reached an outlying inn of the village of
Kiangti, a thatched mud barn, with a sleeping room surrounded on three
sides by a raised ledge of mud bricks upon which were stretched the
mattresses. The room was dimly lit by an oil-lamp; the floor was earth;
the grating under the rafters was stored with maize-cobs. Outside the
door cooking was done in the usual square earthen stove, in which are
sunk two iron basins, one for rice, the other for hot water; maize
stalks were being burnt in the flues. The room, when we entered, was
occupied by a dozen Chinese, with their loads and the packsaddles of a
caravan of mules; yet what did the good-natured fellows do? They must
all have been more tired than I; but, without complaining, they all got
up when they saw me, and packed their things and went out of the room,
one after the other, to make way for myself and my companions. And,
while we were comfortable, they crowded into another room that was
already crowded.
Next day a tremendously steep descent took us down to Kiangti, a
mountain village on the right bank of a swift stream, here spanned in
its rocky pass by a beautiful suspension bridge, which swings gracefully
high above the torrent. The bridge is 150 feet long by 12 feet broad,
and there is no engineer in England who might not be proud to have been
its builder. At its far end the parapets are guarded by two sculptured
monkeys, hewn with rough tools out of granite, and the more remarkable
for their fidelity of form, seeing that the artist must have carved them
from memory. The inevitable likin-barrier is at the bridge to squeeze a
few more cash out of the poor carriers. That the Inland Customs dues of
China are vexatious there can be no doubt; yet it is open to question if
the combined duties of all the likin-barriers on any one main road
extending from frontier to frontier of any single province in China are
greater than the _ad valorem_ duties imposed by our colony of Victoria
upon the protected goods crossing her border from an adjoining colony.
[Illustration: PAGODA BY THE WAYSIDE, WESTERN CHINA.]
Leaving the bridge, the road leads again up the hills. Poppy was now in
full flower, and everywhere in the fields women were collecting opium.
They were scoring the poppy capsules with vertical scratches and
scraping off the exuded juice which had bled from the incisions they
made yesterday. Hundreds of pack horses carrying Puerh tea met us on the
road; while all day long we were passing files of coolies toiling
patiently along under heavy loads of crockery. They were going in the
same direction as ourselves to the confines of the empire, distributing
those teacups, saucers, and cuplids, china spoons, and rice-bowls that
one sees in every inn in China. Most of the crockery is brought across
China from the province of Kiangsi, whose natural resources seems to
give it almost the monopoly of this industry. The trade is an immense
one. In the neighbourhood of King-teh-chin, in Kiangsi, at the outbreak
of the Taiping rebellion, more than one million workmen were employed in
the porcelain manufactories. Cups and saucers by the time they reach so
far distant a part of China as this, carried as they are so many
hundreds of miles on the backs of coolies, are sold for three or four
times their original cost. Great care is taken of them, and no piece can
be so badly broken as not to be mended. Crockery-repairing is a
recognised trade, and the workmen are unusually skilful even for
Chinese. They rivet the pieces together with minute copper clamps. To
have a specimen of their handiwork I purposely in Yunnan broke a cup and
saucer into fragments, only to find when I had done so that there was
not a mender in the district. Rice bowls and teacups are neatly made,
tough, and well finished; even the humblest are not inelegantly
coloured, while the high-class china, especially where the imperial
yellow is used, often shows the richest beauty of ornamentation.
Inns on this road were few and at wide distances; they were scarcely
sufficient for the numbers who used them. The country was red sandstone,
open, and devoid of all timber, till, descending again into a valley,
the path crossed an obstructing ridge, and led us with pleasant surprise
into a beautiful park. It was all green and refreshing. A pretty stream
was humming past the willows, its banks covered with the poppy in full
flower, a blaze of colour, magenta, white, scarlet, pink and blue picked
out with hedges of roses. The birds were as tame as in the Garden of
Eden; magpies came almost to our feet; the sparrows took no notice of
us; the falcons knew we would not molest them; the pigeons seemed to
think we could not. All was peaceful, and the peasants who sat with us
under the cedars on the borders of the park were friendly and
unobtrusive. Long after sundown we reached, far from the regular stage,
a lonely pair of houses, at one of which we found uncomfortable
accommodation. Fire had to be kindled in the room in a hollow in the
ground; there was no ventilation, the wood was green, the smoke almost
suffocating. My men talked on far into the night until I lost patience
and yelled at them in English. They thought that I was swearing, and
desisted for fear that I should injure their ancestors. There was a
shrine in this room for private devotions, the corresponding spot in the
adjoining room being a rough opium-couch already occupied by two lusty
thickset "slaves to this thrice-accursed drug." My men ate the most
frugal of suppers. Food was so much in advance of its ordinary price
that my men, in common with thousands of other coolies, were doing their
hard work on starvation rations.
On the 5th we did a long day's stage and spent the night at a bleak
hamlet 8500 feet above sea level, in a position so exposed that the
roofs of the houses were weighted with stones to prevent their being
carried away by the wind. This was the "Temple of the Dragon King," and
it was only twenty li from Tongchuan.
Next day we were astir early and soon after daylight we came suddenly to
the brow of the tableland overlooking the valley of Tongchuan. The
compact little walled city, with its whitewashed buildings glistening in
the morning sun, lay beyond the gleaming plats of the irrigated plain,
snugly ensconced under rolling masses of hills, which rose at the far
end of the valley to lofty mountains covered with snow. All the plain is
watered with springs; large patches of it are under water all the year
round, and, rendered thus useless for cultivation, are employed by the
Chinese for the artificial rearing of fish and as breeding grounds for
the wild duck and the "faithful bird," the wild goose. A narrow dyke
serpentining across the plain leads into the pretty city, where, at the
north-east angle of the wall, I was charmed to find the cheerful home of
the Bible Christian Mission, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Sam Pollard and
two lady assistants, one of whom is a countrywoman of my own. This is, I
believe, the most charming spot for a mission station in all China. Mr.
Pollard is quite a young man, full of enthusiasm, modest, and clever.
Everywhere he is received kindly; he is on friendly terms with the
officials, and there is not a Chinese home within ten miles of the city
where he and his pretty wife are not gladly welcomed. His knowledge of
Chinese is exceptional; he is the best Chinese scholar in Western China,
and is examiner in Chinese for the distant branches of the Inland
Mission.
The mission in Tongchuan was opened in 1891, and the results are not
discouraging, seeing that the Chinaman is as difficult to lead into the
true path as any Jew. No native has been baptized up to date. The
convert employed by the mission as a native helper is one of the three
converts of Chaotong. He is a bright-faced lad of seventeen, as ardent
an evangelist as heart of missionary could desire, but a native preacher
can never be so successful as the foreign missionary. The Chinese listen
to him with complacency, "You eat Jesus's rice and of course you speak
his words," they say. The attitude of the Chinese in Tongchuan towards
the Christian missionary is one of perfect friendliness towards the
missionary, combined with perfect apathy towards his religion. Like any
other trader, the missionary has a perfect right to offer his goods,
but he must not be surprised, the Chinese thinks, if he finds difficulty
in securing a purchaser for wares as much inferior to the home
production as is the foreign barbarian to the subject of the Son of
Heaven.
There is a Catholic Mission in Tongchuan, but the priest does not
associate with the Protestant. How indeed can the two associate when
they worship different Gods!
The difficulty is one which cannot be easily overcome while there exists
in China that bone of contention among missionaries which is known as
the "Term Question."
The Chinese recognise a supreme God, or are believed by some to
recognise a supreme God--"High Heaven's ruler" (_Shangtien hou_), who is
"probably intended," says Williams, "for the true God." The Mohammedans,
when they entered China, could not recognise this god as identical with
the only one God, to whom they accordingly gave the Chinese name of
"true Lord" (_Chên Chu_). The Jesuits, when they entered China, could
not recognise either of these gods as identical with the God of the
Hebrews, whom they accordingly represented in Chinese first by the
characters for "Supreme Ruler" (_Shang ti_), and subsequently by the
characters for "Lord of Heaven" (_Tien Chu_). The Protestants naturally
could not be identified with the Catholics, and invented another Chinese
name, or other Chinese names, for the true God; while the Americans,
superior to all other considerations, discovered a different name still
for the true God to whom they assigned the Chinese characters for "the
true Spirit" (_Chên Shên_), thereby suggesting by implication, as Little
observes, that the other spirits were false. But, as if such divergent
terms were not sufficiently confusing for the Chinese, the Protestants
themselves have still more varied the Chinese characters for God. Thus,
in the first translation of the Bible, the term for God used is the
Chinese character for "Spirit" (_Shên_); in the second translation this
term is rejected and "Supreme Ruler" (_Shang ti_), substituted; the
third translation reverts to the "Spirit"; the fourth returns to the
"Supreme Ruler"; and the fifth, by Bishop Burdon of Hong Kong, and Dr.
Blodget of Peking, in 1884, rejects the title that was first accepted by
the Jesuits, and accepts the title "Lord of Heaven" (_Tien Chu_), that
was first rejected by the Jesuits.
"Many editions," says the Rev. J. Wherry, of Peking, "with other terms
have since been published." "Bible work in particular," says the Rev.
Mr. Muirhead, of Shanghai, "is carried on under no small disadvantage in
view of this state of things." "It is true, however," adds Mr. Muirhead,
"that God has blest all terms in spite of our incongruity." But
obviously the Chinese are a little puzzled to know which of the
contending gods is most worthy of their allegiance.
But apart from the "Term Question" there must be irreconcilable
antagonism between the two great missionary churches in China, for it
cannot be forgotten that "in the development of the missionary idea
three great tasks await the (Protestant) Church.... The second task is
_to check the schemes of the Jesuit_. In the great work of the world's
evangelisation the Church has no foe at all comparable with the
Jesuit.... Swayed ever by the vicious maxim that the end justifies the
means, he would fain put back the shadow of the dial of human progress
by half a dozen centuries. Other forms of superstition and error are
dangerous, but Jesuitism overtops them all, and stands forth an
organised conspiracy against the liberties of mankind. This foe is not
likely to be overcome by a divided Protestantism. If we would conquer in
this war we must move together, and in our movements must manifest a
patience, a heroism, a devotion equal to anything the Jesuit can claim."
(The Rev. A. Sutherland, D.D., Delegate from Canada to the Missionary
Conference, 1888, _Records_, i., 145.)
And, on the other hand, the distracted Chinese reads
that:--"Protestantism is not only a veritable Babel, but a horrible
theory, and an immoral practice which blasphemes God, degrades man, and
endangers society." (Cardinal Cuesta's Catechism cited in "China and
Christianity," by Michie, p. 8.)