I therefore turned to the shendza. All things considered, it

is the best conveyance for a long interior journey in China.

It consists of a couple long poles with a rope basket work in the

middle and a cover of matting. It is borne by two mules, and

has the advantage of protecting the traveller from the sun and

from light rains. An opening in the back gives him the benefit

of any breeze while it is possible to get occasional relief by

changing position, as he can either sit upright or lounge.

Moreover, he can keep his bedding and a little food with him.

He need not walk up hills in mercy to weary coolies and he

can make the longer daily journeys which the superior endurance

of mules permits. In ordinary conditions on level ground,

my mules averaged about four miles an hour. The motion is a

kind of sieve-and-pepper-box shaking that is not so bad,

provided the mules behave themselves, which is not often.

My rear mule had a meek and quiet spirit. He was a discouraged

animal upon which the sorrows of life had told

heavily and which had reached that age when he appeared to

have no ambition in life except to stop and think or to lie down

and rest. The lead mule, however, was a cantankerous beast

that wanted to fight everything within reach and went into

hysterics every time any other animal passed him. As this occurred

a score of times a day, the uncertainties of the situation

were interesting, especially when the rear mule paused or

laid down without having previously notified the lead mule.

At such times, the sudden stoppage of the power behind and

the plunging of the power in front threatened the dislocation

of the entire apparatus, and as there is no way for the traveller

to get out except over the heels of a mule, life in a shendza is

not always uneventful. But I soon got used to the motion and

to the mules, and even learned to read and to doze in comparative

comfort while the long-eared animals plodded and

jerked on in their own way.

The most trying thing to the humane traveller is the soreness

of the mules' backs. I insisted on having mules whose

backs were sound, but was told by both missionaries and

Chinese that they could not be had, especially in summer, as

the swaying and jerking of the shendza and the sweat and

dust under the heavy pack-saddle always make sores. It was

all too true. I examined scores of mules and every one had

raw and bleeding abrasions and, in some cases, suppurating

ulcers. For a Chinese, our head muleteer was careful of his

animals and washed them occasionally, but no practicable care

apparently can prevent a shendza from making a sore back.

The only solace I had was the evident indifference of the

mules themselves. They had never known anything better,

and seemed to take misery as a matter of course.

Our party, with the goods we had to carry, for my missionary

friends were returning to their stations with the expectation

of remaining, included three shendzas, two carts and a

pack-mule for our provisions. But the ``mule'' turned out to

be a donkey and unable to carry all we had planned for a larger

animal. While wondering how we were to get our supplies

carried, we learned that a construction train was about to start

for the end of the track, which was said to be Kaomi, fifty-

five li[14] beyond Kiao-chou. We got permission to ride on the

flat car. In the hope that we might be able to secure a mule or

another donkey in Kaomi, we got aboard, leaving our shendzas

and carts to follow. After a lovely ride of an hour through

wheat-fields interspersed with villages, our train stopped twelve

li from Kaomi, an unfinished culvert making further progress

impossible. As our caravan had gone by a different route and

as no coolies could be hired where we were, the question was

how to get our goods transported. Fortunately, a German

Roman Catholic priest, who was also on the construction

train and who had wheelbarrows for his own goods, cordially

told us to pile our luggage on top of his. We gratefully accepted

this kind offer, and giving his coolies some extra cash

for their labour, they good-naturedly accepted the additional

burden, while we footed the twelve li to Kaomi.

[14] A li is about a third of a mile.

But the progress of the barrows was slow and it was half-

past eight when we reached Kaomi. In the darkness we could

not find the inn which the magistrate had set aside for foreigners

and the Chinese whom we met gave conflicting replies.

But at that moment, two resident Roman Catholic priests,

Austrians, appeared and one of them recognized Mr. Laughlin

as the associate of Dr. Van Schoick, a Presbyterian medical

missionary who had sympathetically treated a fellow priest during

a long and dangerous illness several years before. He

promptly invited us to go with him, declaring that Dr. Van

Schoick had saved the life of his dearest friend. He was

so cordially insistent that we accepted his invitation. Our

shendzas, carts and pack-mule were we knew not where, and

we were hungry after our long day. Warned by my experience

in Korea that the traveller should never trust to the

punctuality of natives and pack-animals, I had insisted on

taking our bedding and a little food on the flat car. It was

well that I did, for we did not see our shendzas that night as

they arrived after the city gates had been shut so that they

could not get in. But we had a little cocoa, tinned corn beef,

condensed milk, butter and marmalade. Same German soldiers

sent three loaves of coarse bread. Our priestly host added

some Chinese bread, and so had a good supper and afterwards

a sound sleep.

At half-past four the next morning, Mr. Laughlin remarked

in a forty-horse power tone of voice that it was time to get up.

By the time the reverberations had died away, we were so wide

awake that further sleep was out of the question. Our cook

was nowhere in sight, so we prepared our own breakfast from

the remains of last night's meal.

Bidding a grateful farewell to our hospitable priests, we rode

across an ancient lake bottom, low, flat, wheat-covered and hot

enough to broil meat. At half-past ten o'clock, we reached

Fau-chia-chiu, the boundary of the hinterland, where, near a

temple just outside the wall, we found Governor Yuan Shih

Kai's military escort awaiting us. It was after sundown when

we reached Liu-chia-chuang, and we felt half inclined to spend

the night there with some genial German military engineers,

but our party had become separated during the day and as

the others had taken a road that did not pass through Liu-

chia-chuang, we pushed on to Hsi-an-tai, which we reached by

a little after ten o'clock. By that time, it was so dark that it

was impossible to go further and we found lodgment in a good-

sized building which smelled to heaven. The odour was like

that of a decomposing body. However, it was too late and we

were too weary either to hunt up smells or to seek another lodging

place. So after a hasty supper out of our tinned food, we

put up our cots and went to bed, Mr. Chalfant making a few

pleasant remarks about the bedbugs that always swarm in such

a building, the centipedes that sometimes crawl into the ears or

nostrils of sleepers and the scorpions that occasionally fall from

the millet-stalk ceiling on to the bed or scuttle across the floor

to bite the person who unwarily walks in his bare feet. Under

the influence of such a soporific, I soon fell asleep. The next

morning we rose early, and while the cook was preparing our

coffee and eggs, we followed the trail of that awful odour to a

corner of the building, where, under some millet stalks, we

found a rude coffin which we had not noticed in the dim candlelight

of the night before. A Chinese of whom we inquired

said that it was empty. We could not in courtesy open a

coffin before dozens of interested Chinese, but it was very

plain to our olfactories that such an odour required a prompt

funeral.

As usual, a great but silent crowd watched me as I wrote

while the mules were being fed and at Hsien-chung, where

we stopped at noon to repair a shendza, Mr. Chalfant translated

a proclamation on a wall stating that an indemnity of

110,000 taels had to be paid for damage to the railway during

the Boxer outbreak and that 14,773 taels had been assessed on

Wei County. The people read it with scowling faces, but they

said nothing to us, though they looked as if they wanted to.

At two o'clock, we entered the ruined Presbyterian compound,

a mile southeast of the city of Wei-hsien. It was

thrilling to hear on the scene of the riot Mr. Chalfant's

account of the attack by about a thousand furious Boxers;

to see the place just outside the gate where single-handed and

with no weapon but a small revolver, he had heroically held

the mob at bay for several hours until the swarming Boxers,

awed by his splendid courage, divided, and while several

hundred held his attention, the rest climbed over the wall at

another place and fired the mission buildings. That the three

missionaries escaped with their lives is a wonder. But Mr.

Chalfant quickly ran to the house where Miss Hawes and Miss

Boughton were awaiting him, hurried them down-stairs,

and while the Boxers were smashing the furniture on the other

side of a closed door, snatched up a ladder, assisted them over

the compound wall at a point that was providentially unguarded

and hid them in a field of grain until darkness

enabled them to make their way exhausted but unhurt to a camp

of German soldiers and engineers nine miles distant and to

escape with them to Tsing-tau. It was a remarkable experience.

If that door had not happened to be closed, and if

a ladder had not been carelessly left by a servant beside the

house, and if the attack itself had not occurred just before

dark, undoubtedly all three would have been killed. On each

of those three ifs, lives depended.

Mr. Fitch cordially welcomed us. Mr. Chalfant killed a

centipede and various insects crawling on the walls near my

cot and a little after nine I was asleep. The next day we

took a walk through the city, impressed by its imposing wall

and the throngs of people who followed us and watched every

movement. Outside the wall, we saw a ``baby house,'' a

small stone building in which the dead children of the poor

are thrown to be eaten by dogs! I wanted to examine it, but

was warned not to do so, as the Chinese imagine that

foreigners make their medicine out of children's eyes and

brains, and our crowds of watching Chinese might quickly become

an infuriated mob.

Immediately on our arrival, we had sent our cards to the

district magistrate and in the afternoon he sent us an elaborate

feast. As we were about to retire that evening, he called in a

gorgeous chair with a retinue of twenty attendants. He stayed

half an hour and was very cordial, and we had a pleasant interview.

Wei-hsien is famous for its embroideries, and great

quantities are made, the women workers receiving about fifty

small cash a day (less than two cents). It was not necessary

to go to the stores as in America. The shopkeepers brought a

great number of pieces to our inn, covering the kang and every

available table, chair and box with exquisite bits of handiwork.

Lured by the sight I became reckless and bought four

handsome pieces for 19,800 small cash ($6.06).

Resuming our journey on a warm, sunny day, we entered

Chiang-loa at noon. It was market day, and the greatest

crowd yet fairly blocked the streets. The soldiers had difficulty

in clearing a way for us. But while much curiosity

was expressed, there was no sign of hostility. Then we

journeyed on through the interminable fields of ripening wheat.

Soon, mountains, which we had dimly seen for several hours,

grew more distinct and as we approached Ching-chou-fu towards

evening, the scene was one of great beauty--the yellowing

grain gently undulating in the soft breeze, the mountains

not really more than 3,000 feet in height, but from our stand

on the plain looking lofty, massive and delightfully refreshing

to the eye after our hot and dusty journeying. The city has a

population of about 25,000 and its numerous trees look so invitingly

green that the traveller is eager to enter.

But in this case also, distance lent enchantment, for within,

while there was not the filth of a Korean village, yet the narrow

streets were far from clean. Not a blade of grass relieved the

bare, dusty ground trampled by many feet, while the low, mud-

plastered houses were not inviting. A Chinese seldom thinks

of making repairs. He builds once, usually with rough stone

plastered with mud or with sun-dried brick. The roof is

thatched and the floor is the beaten earth, although in the

better houses it is stone or brick. In time, the mud-plaster

or, if the walls are of sun-dried brick, the wall itself begins to

disintegrate. But it is let alone, as long as it does not make

the house uninhabitable, while paint is unknown. So the general

appearance of a Chinese town is squalid and tumbledown.

Even the yamen of a district magistrate presents

crumbling walls, unkempt courtyards, rickety buildings and

paper-covered windows full of holes. The palaces of the rich

are often expensive, but the Asiatic has little of our ideas of

comfort and order.

The Rev. J. P. Bruce and Mr. R. C. Forsyth, of the English

Baptist mission, the only members of the station who were

present, gave us a hearty welcome. The green shrubbery,

the bath-tub, the dinner of roast beef and the clean bedroom,

were like a bit of hospitable old England set down in China.

None of the buildings here were injured by the Boxers. But

the marauders took whatever they could use, as dishes, utensils,

glass, linen, clothes, silver and plated ware, jewelry, etc., the

total loss being <Pd>4,000, including <Pd>1,000 for machinery.

That machinery has an interesting history. One of the members

of the mission, Mr. A. G. Jones, conceived the idea of

relieving the poverty of the Chinese by introducing cotton

weaving. Having some private means and being a mechanical

genius, he spent two years and <Pd>1,000 in devising the

necessary machinery, much of which he made himself. He

had completed the plant and was trying to induce the Chinese

to organize a company of Christians who would operate the

factory, when the building was burned by the Boxers and the

machinery reduced to a heap of twisted scrap-iron.

The women we met in these interior districts had only

partially bound feet, though they were still far from the natural

size. It was surprising to see how freely the women walked,

especially as several that I saw were carrying babies. But it

was rather a stumpy walk. Women of the higher class have

smaller feet and never walk in the public streets.

We left Ching-chou-fu Monday morning, our genial hosts,

including Mr. Shipway, who remained here, accompanying us

a couple of miles. The trees were more numerous, and as the

weather was cool, I greatly enjoyed the day. But the next

day, we plodded under dripping skies and through sticky mud

to Chang-tien, where a night of unusual discomfort in an inn

literally alive with fleas and mosquitoes prepared us to enjoy a

tiffin with a lonely English Baptist outpost, the genial Rev.

William A. Wills, at Chou-tsun, which we reached at noon

the following day, and then, thirty li further on, the gracious

hospitality of the main station at Chou-ping. Only three men

were present of the regular station force of seven families and

two single women, but they gave us all the more abundant

welcome in their isolation and loneliness. Of the 2,577

Chinese Christians of this station, 132 were murdered by the

Boxers and seventy or more died from consequent exposure and

injuries.

A vast, low lying plain begins forty li north of Chou-ping

and extends northeastward as far as Tien-tsin. This plain is subject

to destructive inundations from the Yellow River and the

scenes of ruin and suffering are sometimes appalling. Our unattractive

inn the next night was a two-story brick building

with iron doors, stone floors, walls two and a-half feet thick and

rooms dark, gloomy, ill-smelling as a dungeon and of course

swarming with vermin, as savage bites promptly testified. My

missionary companion said that it was probably an old pawnshop.

Pawnbroking is esteemed an honourable, as well as

lucrative, business in China, and the brokers are influential

men and often have considerable property in their shops. The

people are so poor that they sometimes pawn their winter clothes

in summer and their summer ones in winter.

At noon the next day, we reached Chinan-fu, having made

seventy li in six hours over muddy roads. Dr. James B. Neal

of the Presbyterian mission was alone in the city and gave us

hospitable welcome to his home and to the splendid missionary

work of the station, though he rather suggestively stopped our

coolies when they were about to carry our bedding into the

house. He was wise, too, for that bedding had been used in

too many native inns to be prudently admitted to a well-

ordered household.

As we walked through the city, the narrow streets were

literally jammed, for it was market day. Foreigners had been

scarce since the Boxer outbreak a year before. Besides, many

of the people were from the country where foreigners are

seldom seen anyway. So we made as great a sensation as a

circus in an American city. A multitude followed us, and

wherever we stopped hundreds packed the narrow streets.

Our soldiers cleared the way, but they had no difficulty, for

though the people were inquisitive they were not hostile.

Three magnificent springs burst forth in the heart of the city,

one as large as the famous spring in Roanoke, Virginia, which

supplies all that city with water. It was about a hundred feet

across. The water might easily be piped all over Chinan-fu.

But this is China, and so the people patiently walk to the

springs for their daily supply.

VI

AT THE GRAVE OF CONFUCIUS

WE were now approaching the most sacred places of

China. On a hot July afternoon of the second day

from Chinan-fu, the capital of the province, we saw

the noble proportions of Tai-shan, the holy mountain. The

Chinese have five sacred mountains, but this is the most venerated

of all. Its altitude is not great, only a little over 4,000

feet, but it rises so directly from the plain and its outlines are

so majestic that it is really imposing. To the Chinese its

height is awe-inspiring, for in all the eighteen provinces there

is no loftier peak.

Stopping for the night at the ancient city of Tai-an-fu at the

base of the mountain, we set out at six the next morning in

chairs swung between poles borne by stalwart coolies. My

curiosity was aroused when I found that they were Mohammedans

and, as they cordially responded to my questionings, I

found them very interesting. Centuries ago, their ancestors

came to China as mercenaries, and taking Chinese wives settled

in the country. But they have never intermarried since.

They have adopted the dress and language of the Chinese, but

otherwise they continue almost as distinct as the Jews in

America. They instruct their children in the doctrines of

Islam, though the Mohammedan rule that the Koran must not

be translated has prevented all but a few literati from obtaining

any knowledge of the book itself. They have done little

proselyting, but natural increase, occasional reenforcements

and the adoption of famine children have gradually swelled

their ranks until they now number many millions in various

parts of China. In some provinces they are very strong, particularly

in Yun-nan and Kan-su where they are said to form a

majority of the population. They are notorious for turbulence

and are popularly known as ``Mohammedan thieves.'' It

must be admitted that they not infrequently justify their reputation

for robbery, murder and counterfeiting. More than

once they have fomented bloody revolutions, one of them, the

great Panthay rebellion of 1885-1874, costing the lives of no

less than two million Moslems before it was suppressed.

But those who bore me up the long slope of Tai-shan were

as good-natured as they were muscular. There is no difficulty

about ascending the mountain, for a stone-paved path about

ten feet wide runs from base to summit. The maker of this

road is unknown as the earliest records and monuments refer

only to repairs. But he builded well and evidently with ``an

unlimited command of naked human strength,'' for the blocks

of stone are heavy and the masonry of the walls and bridges is

still massive.

As the slope becomes steeper, the path merges into long

flights of solid stone steps. Near the summit, these steps

become so precipitous that the traveller is apt to feel a little

dizzy, especially in descending, for the chair coolies race down

the steep stairway in a way that suggests alarming possibilities

in the event of a misstep or a broken rope. But the men are

sure-footed and mishaps seldom occur. The path is bordered

by a low wall and lined with noble old trees. Ancient temples,

quaint hamlets, numerous tea-houses and a few nunneries with

vicious women are scattered along the route. A beautiful

stream tumbles noisily down the mountainside close at hand,

alternating swift rapids and deep, quiet pools, while as the

traveller rises, he gains magnificent vistas of the adjacent mountains

and the wide cultivated plain, yellow with ripening wheat,

green with growing millet, and thickly dotted with the groves

beneath which cluster the low houses of the villages.

Up this long, steep pathway to the Buddhist temples on the

summit, multitudes of Chinese pilgrims toil each year, firmly

believing that the journey will bring them merit. We reflected

with a feeling of awe that

``The path by which we ascended has been trodden by the feet of men for

more than four thousand years. One hundred and fifty generations have

come and gone since the great Shun here offered up his yearly sacrifice to

heaven. Fifteen hundred years before the bard of Greece composed his

Epic, nearly one thousand years before Moses stood on Pisgah's mount

and gazed over into the promised land, far back through the centuries

when the world was young and humanity yet in its cradle, did the children

of men ascend the vast shaggy sides of this same mountain, probably

by this same path, and always to worship.''[15]

[15] The Rev. Dr. Paul D. Bergen, pamphlet.

After a night at Hsia-chang, we resumed our journey a little

after daylight. The early morning air was delightfully cool

and bracing, but the sun's rays became fierce as we entered the

dry, sandy bed of the Wen River. By the time we reached the

broad, shallow stream itself, I envied the two mules and the

donkey that managed to fall into a hole, though I would have

been happier if they had been thoughtful enough to discard my

spare clothes and my food box before they tumbled into the

muddy water. The whole day was unusually hot so that by

the time we reached Ning-yang, we were ready for a night's

rest which even fighting mules, vicious vermin, and quarrelling

Chinese gamblers in the inn courtyard could not entirely

destroy.

As we approached Chining-chou, the country became almost

perfectly flat, a vast prairie. It was carefully cultivated

everywhere, the kao-liang and poppy predominating. The soil was

apparently rich, and the landscape was relieved from monotony

by the green of the cultivated fields and the foliage of the village

trees. Dominating all is the rather imposing walled city

of Chining-chou. The high, strong wall, the handsome gates

and towers, the trees bordering the little stream and the

crowded streets looked quite metropolitan. With its imme-

diate suburbs built Chinese fashion close to the wall, Chining-

chou has 150,000 inhabitants. It is a business city with a

considerable trade, the produce of a wide adjacent region

being brought to it for shipment, as it is on the Grand Canal

which gives easy and cheap facilities for exporting and importing

freight. There is, moreover, no loss in exchange as the

danger of shipping bullion silver makes the Chining business

men eager to accept drafts for use in paying for the goods they

buy in Shanghai. Consequently there is a better price for

silver here than anywhere else in Shantung. The main street

is narrow, shaded by matting laid on kao-liang stalks and

lined with busy shops. Along the Grand Canal, there is a

veritable ``Vanity Fair'' filled with clothing booths and deafening

with the cries of itinerant vendors.

But the loneliness of the missionary in Chining-chou is

great, for he is far from congenial companionship. The tragedies

of life are particularly heavy at such an isolated post.

Mr. Laughlin showed me the house where his wife's body lay

for a month after her death in May, 1899. Then, with his

nine-year old daughter, he took the body in a house-boat down

the Grand Canal to Chin-kiang, a journey of sixteen days.

What a heart-breaking journey it must have been as the clumsy

boat crept slowly along the sluggish canal and the silent stars

looked down on the lonely husband beside the coffin of his

beloved wife. Yet he bravely returned to Chining-chou and

while I travelled on, he remained with only Dr. Lyon for a

companion. I was sorry to part with them for we had shared

many long-to-be-remembered experiences, while at that time

there was believed to be no small risk in remaining at such an

isolated post. But Dr. Johnson and I had to go, and so early

on the morning of June 17, we bade the brave fellows an affectionate

good-bye and left them in that far interior city, standing

at the East Gate till we were out of sight.

Fortunately, the day was fine for rain would have made the

flat, black soil almost impassible. But as it was, we had a

comfortable, dustless ride of sixty li to Yen-chou-fu, a city of

unusually massive walls, whose 60,000 people are reputed to be

the most fiercely anti-foreign in Shantung. Comparatively few

foreigners had been seen in this region and many of them had

been mobbed. The Roman Catholic priests, who are the only

missionaries here, have repeatedly been attacked, while an English

traveller was also savagely assaulted by these turbulent conservatives.

But the Roman Catholics with characteristic determination

fought it out, the German consul coming from

Peking to support them, and at the time of my visit, they were

building a splendid church, the money like that for the Chining-chou

cathedral, coming from the indemnity for the murder

of the two priests in 1897, which was in this diocese. Though

great crowds stared silently at us, no disrespect was shown.

On the contrary, we found that by order of the district magistrate

an inn had been specially prepared for us, with a plentiful

supply of rugs and cushions and screens, while a few minutes

after our arrival, the magistrate sent with his compliments a

feast of twenty-five dishes. Another stage of nine miles

brought us at four o'clock to the famous holy city of China,

Ku-fu, the home and the grave of Confucius.

Leaving our shendzas at an inn, we mounted the cavalry

horses of our escort and hurried to the celebrated temple which

stands on the site of Confucius' house. But to our keen

disappointment, the massive gates were closed. The keeper, in

response to our knocks, peered through a crevice, and explained

that it was the great feast of the fifth day of the fifth

month, that the Duke was offering sacrifices, and that no one,

not even officials, could enter till the sacrifices were completed.

``When will that be?'' we queried. ``They will continue all

night and all day to-morrow,'' was the reply. We urged the

shortness of our stay and solemnly promised to keep out of the

Duke's way. The keeper's eyes watered as he imagined a

present, but he replied that he did not dare let us in as his

orders were strict and disobedience might cost him his position

if not his life. So we sorrowfully turned away, and pushing

through the dense throng which had swiftly assembled at the

sight of a foreigner, we rode through the city and along the far-

famed Spirit Road to the Most Holy Grove in which lies the

body of Confucius. It is three li, about a mile, from the city

gate. The road is shaded by ancient cedars and is called the

Spirit Road because the spirit of Confucius is believed to walk

back and forth upon it by night.

The famous cemetery is in three parts. The outer is said to

be fifteen miles in circumference and is the burial-place of all

who bear the honoured name of Confucius. Within, there is

a smaller enclosure of about ten acres, which is the family burial

place of the dukes who are lineal descendants of Confucius,

mighty men who rank with the proudest governors of provinces.

Within this second enclosure, is the Most Holy Cemetery itself,

a plot of about two acres, shaded like the others by fine old

cedars and cypresses. Here are only three graves, marked by

huge mounds under which lie the dust of Confucius, his son

and his grandson. That of the Sage, we estimated to be

twenty-five feet high and 250 feet in circumference. In front

of it is a stone monument about fifteen feet high, four feet wide

and sixteen inches thick. Lying prone before that is another

stone of nearly the same size supported by a heavy stone

pedestal. There is no name, but on the upright monument are

Chinese characters which Dr. Charles Johnson, my travelling

companion, translated: ``The Acme of Perfection and Learning-

Promoting King,'' or more freely--``The Most Illustrious

Sage and Princely Teacher.''

Uncut grass and weeds grew rankly upon the mounds and all

over the cemetery, giving everything an unkempt appearance.

One species is said to grow nowhere else in China and to have

such magical power in interpreting truth that if a leaf is laid

upon an abstruse passage of Confucius, the meaning will immediately

become clear. There are several small buildings in

the enclosure, but dust and decay reign in all, for there is no

merit in repairing a building that some one else has erected.

As with his house, the Chinese will spend money freely to build

a temple, but after that he does nothing. So even in the most

sacred places, arches and walls and columns are usually crumbling,

grounds are dirty and pavement stones out of place.

A feeling of awe came over me as I remembered that, with the

possible exception of Buddha, the man whose dust lay before

me had probably influenced more human beings than any other

man whom the world has seen. Even Christ Himself has thus

far not been known to so many people as Confucius, nor has

any nation in which Christ is known so thoroughly accepted

His teachings as China has accepted those of Confucius. Dr.

Legge indeed declares that ``after long study of his character

and opinions, I am unable to regard him as a great man,''

while Dr. Gibson ``seeks in vain in his recorded life and words

for the secret of his power,'' and can only conjecture in explanation

that ``he is for all time the typical Chinaman; but

his greatness lies in his displaying the type on a grand scale,

not in creating it.'' But it is difficult even for the non-Chinese

mind to look at such a man with unbiassed eyes. Surely we

need not begrudge the meed of greatness to one who has

moulded so many hundreds of millions of human beings for

2,400 years and who is more influential at the end of that period

than at its beginning. Grant that ``he is for all time the

typical Chinaman.'' Could a small man have incarnated ``for

all time'' the spirit of one-third of the human race? All over

China the evidences of Confucius' power can be seen. Temples

rise on every hand. Ancestral tablets adorn every house.

The writings of the sage are diligently studied by the whole

population. When, centuries ago, a jealous Emperor ruthlessly

burned the Confucian books, patient scholars reproduced

them, and to prevent a recurrence of such iconoclastic fury, the

Great Confucian Temple and the Hall of Classics in Peking

were erected and the books were inscribed on long rows of stone

monuments so that they could never be destroyed again. As a

token of the present attitude of the Imperial family, the Emperor

once in a decade proceeds in solemn state to this temple

and enthroned there expounds a passage of the sacred writings.

For more than two millenniums, the boys of the most numerous

people in the world have committed to memory the Confucian

primer which declares that ``affection between father and son,

concord between husband and wife, kindness on the part of the

elder brother and deference on the part of the younger, order

between seniors and juniors, sincerity between friends and associates,

respect on the part of the ruler and loyalty on that of

the minister--these are the ten righteous courses equally binding

on all men;'' that ``the five regular constituents of our

moral nature are benevolence, righteousness, propriety, knowledge,

and truth;'' and that ``the five blessings are long life

wealth, tranquillity, desire for virtue and a natural death.''

Surely these are noble principles. That their influence has

been beneficial in many respects, it would be folly to deny.

They have lifted the Chinese above the level of many other

Asiatic nations by creating a more stable social order, by inculcating

respect for parents and rulers, and by so honouring the

mother that woman has a higher position in China than in most

other non-Christian lands.

And yet Confucianism has been and is the most formidable

obstacle to the regeneration of China. While it teaches some

great truths, it ignores others that are vital. It has lifted the

Chinese above the level of barbarism only to fix them almost

immovably upon a plane considerably lower than Christianity.

It has developed such a smug satisfaction with existing conditions

that millions are well-nigh impervious to the influences

of the modern world. It has debased respect for parents into

a blind worship of ancestors so that a dead father, who may

have been an ignorant and vicious man, takes the place of the

living and righteous God. It has fostered not only premature

marriages but concubinage in the anxiety to have sons who

will care for parents in age and minister to them after death.

It makes the child virtually a slave to the caprice or passion of

the parent. It leads to a reverence for the past that makes

change a disrespect to the dead, so that all progress is made

exceedingly difficult and society becomes fossilized. ``Whatever

is is right'' and ``custom'' is sacred. Man is led so to

centralize his thought on his own family that he becomes selfish

and provincial in spirit and conduct, with no outlook beyond

his own narrow sphere. Expenditures which the poor can ill-

afford are remorselessly exacted for the maintenance of ancestral

worship so that the living are often impoverished for the sake

of the dead. $151,752,000 annually, ancestral worship is said

to cost--a heavy drain upon a people the majority of whom

spend their lives in the most abject poverty, while the development

of true patriotism and a strong and well-governed State has

been effectively prevented by making the individual solicitous

only for his own family and callously indifferent to the welfare

of his country. Confucianism therefore is China's weakness

as well as China's strength, the foe of all progress, the stagnation

of all life.

Confucianism, too, halts on the threshold of life's profoundest

problems. It has only dead maxims for the hour of deepest

need. It gives no vision of a future beyond the grave. It is

virtually an agnostic code of morals with some racial variations.

Wu Ting Fang, formerly Chinese Minister to the

United States, frankly declares that ``Confucianism is not a religion

in the practical sense of the word,'' and that ``Confucius

would be called an agnostic in these days.'' To ``the

Venerable Teacher'' himself, philosophy opened no door of

hope. Asked about this one day by a troubled inquirer, he

dismissed the question with the characteristic aphorism--

``Imperfectly acquainted with life, how can we know death?''

And there the myriad millions of Confucianists have dully

stood ever since, their faces towards the dead past, the future

a darkness out of which no voice comes.

But just because their illustrious guide took them to the

verge of the dark unknown and left them there, other teachers

came in to occupy the region left so invitingly open. Less

rational than Confucius, their success showed anew that the

human mind cannot rest in a spiritual vacuum and that if

faith does not enter, superstition will. Taoism and Buddhism

proceeded to people the air and the future with strange and

awful shapes. Popular Chinese belief as to the future is gruesomely

illustrated in the Temple of Horrors in Canton with its

formidable collection of wooden figures illustrating the various

modes of punishment--sawing, decapitation, boiling in oil,

covering with a hot bell, etc. At funerals, bits of perforated

paper are freely scattered about in the hope that the inquisitive

spirits will stop to examine them and thus give the body a

chance to pass. In any Chinese cemetery, one may see little

tables in front of the graves covered with tea, sweetmeats and

sheets of gilt and silver paper, so that if a spirit is hungry,

thirsty or in need of funds, it can get drink, food or money

from the gold or silver mines (paper).

In the Temple for Sickness, in Canton, where multitudes of

sufferers pray to the gods for healing, we saw an old woman

kneeling before a statue of Buddha, holding aloft two blocks of

wood and then throwing them to the floor. If the flat side of

one and the oval side of the other were uppermost, the omen

was good, but if the same sides were up, it was bad. Others

shook a box of numbered sticks till one popped out and then

a paper bearing the corresponding number gave the issue of the

disease. The stones of the court were worn by many feet and

the pathos of the place was pitiful.

Theoretically, ``Confucianism is a system of morals, Taoism

a deification of nature and Buddhism a system of metaphysics.

But in practice all three have undergone many modifications.

With every age the character of Taoism has changed.

The philosophy of its founder is now only an antiquarian curiosity.

Modern Taoism is of such a motley character as almost

to defy any attempt to educe a well-ordered system from its

chaos.''[16] As for Buddhism, its founder would not recognize

it, if he could visit China to-day. The lines:--

``Ten Buddhist nuns, and nine are bad;

The odd one left is doubtless mad----''

are suggestive of the depth to which the religion of Guatama

has fallen.

[16] Smith, ``Rex Christus,'' pp. 62, 72.

Indeed, it would be a mistake to suppose that the Chinese

people are divided into three religious bodies as, for example,

Americans are divided into Protestants, Roman Catholics and

Jews. Each individual Chinese is at the same time a Confucian,

a Buddhist and a Taoist, observing the ceremonies of

all three faiths as circumstances may require, a Confucian

when he worships his ancestors, a Buddhist when he implores

the aid of the Goddess of Mercy, and a Taoist when he seeks

to propitiate the omnipresent fung-shuy (spirits of wind and

water), and he has no more thought of inconsistency than an

American who is at the same time a Methodist, a Republican

and a Mason. Dr. S. H. Chester says that when he was in

Shanghai, he saw a Taoist priest conducting Confucian worship

in a Buddhist temple. Even if inconsistency were proved to

the Chinese, he would not be in the least disturbed for he cares

nothing for such considerations. ``Hence it is that the Chinese

religion of to-day has become an inextricable blending of

the three systems.''[17] ``The ancient simplicity of the state religion

has been so far corrupted as to combine in one ritual

gods, ghosts, flags and cannon. It has become at once essentially

polytheistic and pantheistic.''[18]

[17] Gibson, ``Mission Methods and Mission Policy in South China.''

[18] Williams, ``Middle Kingdom.''

The result is that the average Chinese lives a life of terror

under the sway of imaginary demons. He erects a rectangular

pillar in front of his door so that the dreaded spirits cannot

enter his house without making an impossible turn. He gives

his tiled roof an upward slant at each of the eaves so that any

spirit attempting to descend will be shunted off into space.

Nor is this superstition confined to the lower classes. The

haughty, foreign-travelled Li Hung Chang abjectly grovelled

on the bank of the Yellow River to propitiate an alleged demon

that was believed to be the cause of a disastrous flood, and as

late as June 4, 1903, the North-China Daily News published

the following imperial decree:

``Owing to the continued drought, in spite of our prayers for rain, we

hereby command Chen Pih, Governor of Peking, to proceed to the Dragon

temple at Kanshan-hsien, Chih-li Province, and bring from thence to

Peking an iron tablet possessing rain-producing virtues, which we will

place up for adoration and thereby bring forth the much-desired rain.''

And so the followers of the most ``rational'' of teachers are

among the most superstitious people in the world. In attempting

to clear the mind of error, the great agnostic simply left it

``empty, swept and garnished for seven other spirits worse than

the first.''

As in the deepening twilight we thoughtfully left the last

resting-place of the mighty dead, a platoon of thirty Chinese

soldiers approached, drew their swords, dropped upon one

knee and shouted. The movement was so unexpected and the

shout so startlingly strident that my horse shied in terror and I

had visions of immediate massacre. But having learned that

politeness is current coin the world over, as soon as I could

control my prancing horse, I raised my hat and bowed.

Whereupon the soldiers rose, wheeled into line and marched

ahead of us to our inn in the city. Dr. Johnson explained that

the words shouted in unison were: ``May the Great Man have

Peace,'' and that the platoon was an escort of honour from the

yamen of the district magistrate!

On the way, we stopped to visit the temple of Yen, the

favorite disciple whose early death left Confucius disconsolate.

The grounds are spacious. There is a remarkably fine

tree, tall, graceful and with silvery white bark. A huge stone

turtle was reverently kissed by one of our escort, who fondly

believed that he who kissed the turtle's mouth would never be

ill. But as usual in China, the temple itself, though originally

it must have been beautiful, is now crumbling in decay.

It was late when we returned, and as we were about to retire,

wearied with the toils of the day, the district magistrate called

with an imposing retinue and cordially inquired whether we

had seen all that we wished to see. When we replied that we

had been unable to enter the great temple, he graciously said

that he would have pleasure in informing the Duke, who would

be sure to arrange for our visit. The result was a message at

two o'clock in the morning to the effect that we might visit the

temple at daylight in the interval between the cessation of the

sacrifices of the night and their resumption at seven o'clock in

the morning. Accordingly we rose at three o'clock, and after

a hurried breakfast by candle-light, we proceeded to the temple.

About a hundred Chinese were awaiting us, among them two

men in official dress. We did not deem it courteous to ask

who or what they were, but we supposed them to be from the

magistrate's yamen, and as they were evidently familiar with

the temple, we gladly complied with their cordial invitation to

follow them.

I wish I had power to describe adequately all we saw in that

vast enclosure of about thirty acres, with its stately trees, its

paved avenues, its massive monuments, and, above all, its

imposing temple and scores of related buildings. One was the

Lieh Kew Kwei Chang Tien, the Temple of the Wall of the

Many Countries. Here are 120 tablets, each about sixteen by

twenty-two inches, and in the centre three larger ones measuring

two feet in width by four and a-half feet in height. In

front of these is a stone three and a-half feet by four and a-half,

and bearing the inscription: ``Tribute from the Ten Thousand

Countries of the World.'' The Chinese solemnly believe that

in these tablets all the nations of the earth have acknowledged

the preeminence of Confucius.

Then we visited three gloomy buildings where the animals for

sacrifice are killed--one for cattle, one for sheep and one for

pigs. Beyond them, we entered temples to the wife of Confucius,

to his parents and to the ``Five Generations of

Ancestors,'' though the last-mentioned contains tablets to nine

generations instead of five. On every side are scores of monuments,

erected by or in honour of famous kings, some of them

by the monarchs of dynasties which flourished before the Christian

era.

Most notable of all is the great temple of the sage himself,

standing well back on a spacious stone-paved terrace, around

which runs a handsome marble balustrade. The eye is at once

arrested by the twenty-eight noble marble pillars, ten in front,

ten in the rear and four at each end. The ten in front are

round and elaborately carved, as magnificent a series of columns

as I ever saw. The others are smooth, octagonal pillars, but

traced with various designs in black.

Within, there are twelve other columns about four feet in

diameter and twenty-five feet high, each cut from a single tree

and beautifully polished. Naturally, the central object of

interest is a figure of Confucius of heroic size but impossible

features. In front is the tablet with costly lacquered ornaments

and pedestals, and an altar on which were a bullock and

two pigs, each carefully scraped and dressed and lying with

heads towards the statue and tablet. In several other temples,

notably in the one to the Five Generations of Ancestors, other

animals were lying, some evidently offered the day before and

others awaiting the worship of the day now beginning.

Altogether I counted nineteen sacrificial animals--one bullock,

eight sheep and ten pigs. The great temple is of noble proportions,

with an overhanging roof of enormous size but constructed

on such graceful lines as to be exquisitely beautiful.

But within dust reigns, while without as usual the grass and

weeds grow unchecked.

Last of all we visited the library, though the name is a

misnomer, for there are no books in it and our courteous guides

said there never had been. We ascended the narrow stairs

leading from the vast, empty, dusty room on the lower floor

through an equally empty second story to the third and topmost

story, which is the home of hundreds of doves. Going

out on the narrow balustrade under the eaves in the gray dawn

of the morning, I looked upon the gorgeous gilded roof of the

temple near by and then down upon the many ancient buildings,

the darkly solemn pines, the massive monuments resting

on ponderous stone turtles, and the group of Chinese standing

among the shadows and with faces turned curiously upward.

Suddenly a dove flew over my head and then the sun rose

slowly and majestically above the sombre tree-tops, throwing

splendid floods of light upon us who stood aloft. But the

Chinese below were in the sombre shades of a night that for

them had not yet fully ended. I would fain believe that the

physical was a parable of the spiritual. All the maxims of the

Acme of Perfection and Learning-Promoting King have not

brought the Chinese out of moral twilight. After all these

centuries of ceaseless toil, they still remain amid the mists and

shadows. But their faces are beginning to turn towards the

light of a day whose sun already touches the mountain-tops.

Some even now are in that ``marvellous light,'' and it cannot

be long before shining hosts of God shall pour down the

mountain-sides, chasing on noiseless feet and across wide plains

the swiftly retreating night ``until the day dawn and the

shadows flee away.''

At the outer gate, we bade good-bye to the dignified officials

who had so hospitably conducted us through this venerable and

historic place and who had taken such kindly pains to explain

its ancient relics and customs. Who were they? we secretly

wondered. Imagine our feelings when the lieutenant in command

of our escort afterwards informed us that they were the

guardian of the temple and the Duke himself!

Leaving the city of the mighty dead, we journeyed through

a lovely region guarded by distant mountains. At the walled

city of Si-sui, sixty li distant, soldiers met us and apparently

the whole population lined the streets as we rode to our inn,

where the yamen secretary was awaiting us with a feast.

This inn, too, had been specially cleaned, and there were

cushions, red cloths for the seats, and a screen for the door.

In the afternoon, the country became rougher. But while the

soil was thinner, the scenery was finer, an undulating region

traversed by a shining river and bounded by mountains

which gradually drew nearer. One hundred and ten li from

Ku-fu, we stopped for the night at Pien-kiao, a small city with

an unusually poor inn but a magnificent spring. It gushed up

over an area twenty-five feet square and with such volume that

the stream ran away like a mill-race. The Emperor Kien Lung

built a retaining wall about the spring and a temple and summer-

house adjoining. The wall is as solid as ever, but only a

few crumbling pillars and fragments remain of the temple and

pavilion. The Emperor affirmed that he was told in a vision

that if he would build a stone boat, the waters of the spring

would float it to Nanking whither he wished to go. So he

built the boat of heavy cut stone, with a twelve-foot beam and

a length of fifty-five feet. It is still there with the prow five

feet above the ground, but the rest of the boat has sunk almost

to the level of the earth about it. Is the old Emperor's idea any

more absurd to us than our iron boats would have been to him?

The sun struggled long with heavy mists the following morning

and the air was so cool that I had to wrap myself in a

blanket in the shendza. By eight, the sun gained the victory

and we had another breezy, perfect June day. But the road

was stony and trying beyond anything we had yet seen. The

villages were evidently poorer, as might be expected on such a

rocky soil. The people stared silently and did not so often return

my smiles. Whether they were sullen or simply boorish

and unaccustomed to foreigners I could only conjecture. Few

white men had been seen there.

A hard day's journey of 140 li through a rocky region

brought us to Fei-hsien. Rain was falling the next morning

and the Chinese muleteers do not like to travel in rain. But

the prospect was for a steady pour and as we were in a wretched

inn and only ninety li from Ichou-fu, we wanted to go on.

A present of 600 small cash for each muleteer (twenty

cents) overcame all scruples. Just as I had comfortably

ensconced myself in my shendza with an oilcloth on top and a

rubber blanket in front, I saw a centipede on my leg, but I

managed to slay him before he bit me. By nine, the rain

ceased and though the clouds still threatened, we had a cool

and comfortable ride through hundreds of fields of peanuts,

indigo and millet to I-tang, where we stopped for tiffin at a

squalid inn kept by a tall, dilapidated looking Chinese, who rejoiced

in the name of Confucius. He was really a descendant

of the sage and was very proud of the fact that his bones were

in due time to rest in the sacred cemetery at Ku-fu.

By 5:40 P. M. we reached Ichou-fu, where the solitary Rev.

W. W. Faris was glad to see another white man. A

stay of several days was marked by many pleasant incidents.

There was much of interest for a visitor to see. The mission

work at Ichou-fu, Presbyterian, includes two hospitals, one for

men and one for women, a chapel and separate day schools for

boys and girls. The church has about a hundred members

and in the outstations there are ten other organized churches

besides ten unorganized congregations. All these churches

and congregations provide their own chapels and pay their own

running expenses. Here also the officials were most courteous.

The Prefect, who promptly called with a retinue of fifty

soldiers and attendants, was a masterful looking man who

conversed with intelligence on a wide variety of topics. The

day before our departure, we gave a feast to the leading men

of the city in return for their many courtesies. Every invitation

was accepted and thirty-five guests were present. They

remained till late and were apparently highly pleased.

Late in the evening, a youth who had painfully walked 180

li, came to Dr. Johnson's dispensary and presented the following

note of introduction:

``Our office a servant who getting a yellow sick, which

suffered a few year and cured for nothing. he trusted me to

beg you to save his sick and I now ordered him to going before

you to beg you remedy facely. With many thanks to you,

``Yours sincerely,

``V. T. GEE.''

Having done all that was possible in so short a time to

``save his sick,'' we resumed our journey, thirty Chinese

Christians accompanying us to the River I, a li from the city.

The atmosphere was gloriously clear and on the second day

out, crossing some high ridges, we had superb views of wide

cultivated valleys, and of Ku-chou, a famous city that is said

to contain more literary graduates than any other city of its

size in the province.

Then followed a more level country with interminable fields

of kao-liang and many orchards of walnuts, pears and cherries,

while low mountains rose in the background. Men and horses

were tired after our long and hard journey, and the mules'

backs were becoming very sore. But the end drew near and

the fifth day from Ichow-fu we reached Yueh-kou, the border

of the German hinterland. The German line is near Kiaochou,

but the rule is that Chinese soldiers must not come beyond

this point, 100 li from the line, and that German

soldiers shall not cross it going the other way except on the line

of the railroad. Here therefore our escort had to leave us, as

Chinese and Germans have agreed that any armed men crossing

the line may be fired on, and even if there should be no

casualty, both the German and Chinese authorities might justly

have protested if Americans violated the compact. I suggested

going on without an escort to our proposed night stop thirty

li further. But my more experienced companions thought it

dangerous to spend the night alone at an inn within this belt,

as the villagers near the line were as bitter against foreigners

as any in the province, the German brusqueness and ruthlessness

having greatly exasperated them.

So we spent the night at Yueh-kou. No one interfered with

us the next day and by getting an early start, we covered ninety

long li to Kiao-chou by noon. After five weeks in a mule

litter, it seemed wonderful to make 138 li in three hours in a

railway car. By 6:50 P. M., we reached Tsing-tau, having,

the missionaries said, succeeded in ``hustling the East to a

remarkable degree.'' My note-book reads--``A bath, clean

clothes, a hot supper and a good night's sleep removed the

last vestige of weariness.''

VII

SOME EXPERIENCES OF A TRAVELLER--FEASTS,

INNS AND SOLDIERS

THE hardships of interior travelling were less than I

had supposed. It is true that there were many

experiences which, if enumerated, would make a formidable

list. But each as it arose appeared insignificant. As a

whole, the trip was as enjoyable as any vacation tour. The

weather was as a rule fine. The sun was often hot in the

middle of the day, but cool breezes usually tempered the heat

of the afternoon, while the nights required the protection of

blankets. There was some rain at times, but not enough to

impede seriously our progress. It was altogether the most

perfect May and June weather I have ever seen. Nor was it

exceptional, according to Dr. Charles Johnson who has spent

many years in North China. But of course I saw Shantung

at its most favourable period. July and August are wet and

hot, while the winters are clear and cold.

I found a trunk an unmitigated nuisance. Though it was

made to order for a pack-mule, no pack-mules could be hired in

that harvest season, and the trunk was too heavy for one side

of a donkey, even after transferring all practicable articles to

the shendza. So it had to be put in a cart, and as a cart cannot

keep up with a shendza, I was often separated from my

trunk for days at a time. Besides, a couple valises would have

held all necessary clothing anyway. I took a light folding cot

and a bag held a thin mattress, small pillow, sheets and two

light blankets, so that I had a very comfortable bed under the

always necessary mosquito net.

We also took a supply of tinned food to which we could

usually add by purchase en route chickens and eggs, while occasionally

in the proper season, we could secure string-beans,

onions, cucumbers, apricots, peanuts, walnuts and radishes.

So we fared well. The native food cannot be wisely depended

upon by a foreigner. He cannot maintain his strength, as the

poorer Chinese do, on a diet of rice and unleavened bread,

while the food of the well-to-do classes, when it can be had, is

apt to be so greasy and peculiar as to incite his digestive apparatus

to revolt. Indeed, a Chinese feast is one of his most

serious experiences. Most heartily, indeed, did I appreciate

the kindly motives of the magistrates who invited me to these

feasts, for their purpose was as generously hospitable as the

purpose of any American who invites a visitor to dinner. But

the Chinese bill-of-fare includes dishes that are rather trying to

a Christian palate, and good form requires the guest to taste at

least each dish, for if he fails to do so, he makes his host

``lose face''--a serious breach of etiquette in China. For

example, here is the menu of a typical Chinese feast to which

I was invited, the dishes being served in the order given,

sweets coming first and soup towards the last in this land of

topsy-turveydom:

1. Small cakes (five kinds), sliced pears, candied peanuts,

raw water-chestnuts, cooked water-chestnuts, hard-boiled ducks'

eggs (cut into small pieces), candied walnuts, honied walnuts,

shredded chicken, apricot seeds, sliced pickled plums, sliced

dried smoked ham (cut into tiny pieces), shredded sea moss,

watermelon seeds, shrimps, bamboo sprouts, jellied haws. All

the above dishes were cold. Then followed hot:

2. Shrimps served in the shell with vinegar, sea-slugs with

shredded chicken, bits of sweetened pork and shredded dough

--the pork and sea-slugs being cooked and served in fragrant

oil.

3. Bamboo sprouts, stewed chicken kidneys.

4. Spring chicken cooked crisp in oil.

5. Stewed sea-slugs with ginger root and bean curd,

stewed fungus with reed roots and ginger tops (all hot).

6. Tarts with candied jelly, sugar dumplings with dates.

7. Hot pudding made of ``the eight precious vegetables,''

consisting of dates, watermelon seeds, chopped walnuts, chopped

chestnuts, preserved oranges, lotus seeds, and two kinds of rice,

all mixed and served in syrup--a delicious dish.

8. Shelled shrimps with roots of reeds and bits of hard-

boiled eggs, all in one bowl with fragrant oil, biscuits coated

with sweet seeds.

9. Glutinous rice in little layers with browned sugar between,

minced pork dumplings, steamed biscuits.

10. Omelette with sea-slugs and bamboo sprouts, all in oil,

bits of chicken stewed in oil, pork with small dumplings of

flour and starch.

11. Stewed pigs' kidneys, shrimps stewed in oil, date pie.

12. Vermicelli and egg soup.

13. Stewed pork balls, reed roots, bits of hard-boiled yolks

of eggs, all in oil.

14. Birds' nest soup.

The appetite being pretty well sated by this time, the following

delicacies were served to taper off with:

15. Chicken boiled in oil, pork swimming in a great bowl

of its own fat, stewed fish stomachs, egg soup.

16. Steamed biscuit.

Tea was served from the beginning and throughout the feast.

It was made on the table by pouring hot water into a small pot

half full of tea leaves, the pot being refilled as needed. The

tea was served without cream or sugar, and was mild and delicious.

Rice whiskey in tiny cups is usually served at feasts,

though it was often omitted from the feasts given to us. The

Chinese assert that the alcohol is necessary ``to cut the grease.''

There is certainly enough grease to cut.

The guests sit at small round tables, each accommodating

about four. There are, of course, no plates or knives or forks

though small china spoons are used for the soups. All the

food is cut into small pieces before being brought to the table,

so that no further cutting is supposed to be necessary. Each

article of food is brought on in a single dish, which is placed

in the centre of the table, and then each guest helps himself

out of the common dish with his chop-sticks, the same chop-

sticks being used during the entire meal. It is considered a

mark of distinguished courtesy for the host to fish around in

the dish with his own chop-sticks for a choice morsel and place

it in front of the guest. With profound emotion, at almost

every feast that I attended in China, I saw my considerate

hosts take the chop-sticks which had made many trips to their

own mouths, stir around in the central dish for a particularly fine

titbit and deposit it on the table before me. And of course,

not to be outdone in politeness, I ate these dainty morsels with

smiles of gratified pride. As each of the Chinese at the table

deemed himself my host, and as the Chinese are extremely

polite and attentive to their guests, the table soon became wet

and greasy from the pieces of pork, slugs and chicken placed

upon it as well as from the drippings from the chop-sticks in

their constant trips from the serving bowls.

However, two small brass bowls, fitting together, are placed

beside each guest, who is expected to sip a little water from the

upper one, rinse his mouth with it and expectorate it into the

lower one. The emotion of the foreign visitor is intensified

when he learns that it is counted polite to make all the noise

possible by smacking the lips as a sign that the food is delicious,

sucking the tea or soup noisily from the spoon to show

that it is hot, and belching to show that it is enjoyed. Often,

a dignified official would let his tea stand until it was cold, but

when he took it up, he would suck it with a loud noise as if it

were scalding hot, as he was too polite to act as if it were cold.

But the American or European, who inwardly groans at a

Chinese repast and who felicitates himself on the alleged

superior methods of his own race, may well consider how his

own customs impress a Celestial. A Chinese gentleman who

was making a tour of Europe and America wrote to a relative

in China as follows:

``You cannot civilize these foreign devils. They are beyond redemption.

They will live for weeks and months without touching a mouthful

of rice, but they eat the flesh of bullocks and sheep in enormous quantities.

That is why they smell so badly; they smell like sheep themselves.

Every day they take a bath to rid themselves of their disagreeable odours

but they do not succeed. Nor do they eat their meat cooked in small

pieces. It is carried into the room in large chunks, often half raw, and

they cut and slash and tear it apart. They eat with knives and prongs.

It makes a civilized being perfectly nervous. One fancies himself in the

presence of sword-swallowers. They even sit down at the same table with

women, and the latter are served first, reversing the order of nature.''

So I humbly adapted myself as best I could to Chinese customs

and learned to like many of the natives' dishes, though to

the last, there were some that I merely nibbled to ``save the

face'' of mine host. Some of the dishes were really excellent

and as a rule all were well-cooked, although the oil in which

much of the food was steeped made it rather greasy. My digestive

apparatus is pretty good, but it would take a copper-

lined stomach to partake without disaster of a typical Chinese

feast. But for that matter so it would to eat a traditional New

England dinner of boiled salt pork, corned beef, cabbage, turnips,

onions and potatoes, followed by a desert of mince pie

and plum pudding and all washed down by copious draughts

of hard cider.

Chinese inns do not impoverish even the economical traveller.

Our bill for our tiffin stop was usually 100 small cash, a little

more than three cents, for our entire party of about a score of

men and animals. For the night, the common charge was 700

cash, twenty-three cents. Travellers are expected to provide

their own food and bedding and to pay a small extra sum for

the rice and fodder used by their servants and mules, but even

then the cost appears ridiculously small to a foreigner. Still,

the most thoroughly seasoned traveller can hardly consider a

Chinese inn a comfortable residence. It is simply a rough,

one-story building enclosing an open courtyard. The rooms

are destitute of furniture except occasionally a rude table. The

floor is the beaten earth, foul with the use of scores and perhaps

hundreds of years. The windows are covered with oiled

paper which admits only a dim light and no air at all. The

walls are begrimed with smoke and covered with cobwebs.

Across the end of the room is the inevitable kang--a brick platform

under which the cooking fire is built and on which the

traveller squats by day and sleeps by night. The unhappy

white man who has not been prudent enough to bring a cot

with him feels as if he were sleeping on a hot stove with ``the

lid off.''

The inns between Ichou-fu and Chining-chou were the poorest

I saw, and if a man has stopped in one of them, he has been

fairly initiated into the discomforts of travelling in China. But

wherever one goes, the heat and smoke and bad air, together

with the vermin which literally swarms on the kang and floor

and walls, combine to make a night in a Chinese inn an experience

that is not easily forgotten. However, the foreign

traveller soon learns, perforce, to be less fastidious than at home

and I found myself hungry enough to eat heartily and tired

enough to sleep soundly in spite of the dirt and bugs. But the

heat and bad air as the summer advanced were not so easily

mastered, and so I began to sleep in the open courtyard, finding

chattering Chinese and squealing mules less objectionable

than the foul-smelling, vermin-infested inns, since outside I had

at least plenty of cool, fresh air.

There is no privacy in a Chinese inn. The doors, when

there are any, are innocent of locks and keys, while the Chinese

guests as well as the innkeeper's family and the people of the

neighbourhood have an inquisitiveness that is not in the least

tempered by bashfulness. But nothing was ever stolen, though

some of our supplies must have been attractive to many of the

poverty stricken men who crowded about us. On one occasion,

an inn-employee, who was sent to exchange a bank-note

for cash, did not return. There was much excited jabbering,

but Mr. Laughlin firmly though kindly held the innkeeper responsible

and that worthy admitted that he knew who had taken

the money and refunded it. So all was peace. The innkeeper

was probably in collusion with the thief. This was our

only trouble of the kind, though we slept night after night in

the public inns with all our goods lying about wholly unprotected.

Occasionally, especially in the larger towns, there was

a night watchman. But he was a noisy nuisance. To convince

his employers that he was awake, he frequently clapped

together two pieces of wood. All night long that strident

clack, clack, clack, resounded every few seconds. It is an odd

custom, for of course it advertises to thieves the location of the

watchman. But there is much in China that is odd to an

American.

On a tour in Asia, the foreigner who does not wish to be ill

will exercise reasonable care. It looks smart to take insufficient

sleep, snatch a hurried meal out of a tin can, drink unboiled

water and walk or ride in the sun without a pith hat or an

umbrella. Some foreigners who ought to know better are careless

about these things and good-naturedly chaff one who is

more particular. But while one should not be unnecessarily

fussy, yet if he is courageous enough to be sensible, he will not

only preserve his health, but be physically benefited by his

tour, while the heedless man will probably be floored by dysentery

or even if he escapes that scourge will reach his destination

so worn out that he must take days or perhaps weeks to recuperate.

I was not ill a day, made what Dr. Bergen called

``the record tour of Shantung,'' and came out in splendid

health and spirits just because I had nerve enough to insist on

taking reasonable time for eating and sleeping, boiling my

drinking water, and buying the fresh vegetables and fruit with

which the country abounded. From this view-point, Dr.

Charles F. Johnson, who escorted me from Chining-chou to

Tsing-tau, was a model. With no loss of time, with but trifling

additional expense and with comparatively little extra trouble,

he had an appetizing table, while water bottles and fruit tins

were always cooled in buckets of well water so that they were

grateful to a dusty, thirsty throat. It is not difficult to make

oneself fairly comfortable in travelling even when nearly all

modern conveniences are wanting and it pays to take the necessary

trouble.

Throughout the tour, we were watched in a way that was

suggestive. When United States Consul Fowler first told me

that Governor Yuan Shih Kai would send a military escort

with me, I said that I was not proud, that I did not care to go

through Shantung with the pomp and panoply of war, that I

was on a peaceful, conciliatory errand, and preferred to travel

with only my missionary companions. But he replied that

while the province was then quiet, no one could tell what an

hour might bring forth, that in the tension that existed even a

local and sporadic attack on a foreigner might be a signal for a

new outbreak, that the Governor was trying to keep the people

in hand, and that as he was held responsible for consequences

he must be allowed to have his own men in charge of a foreign

party that purposed to journey so far into the interior. So, of

course, I yielded.

When I lifted up my eyes and looked on the escort at Kiao-

chou, I felt that my fears of pomp and panoply had been

groundless, for the ``escort'' consisted of two disreputable-

looking coolies who had apparently been picked up on the

street and who were armed with antiquated flint-locks that

were more dangerous to their bearers than to an enemy. I am

sure that these ``guards'' would have been the first to run at

the slightest sign of danger. We did not see them again till

we reached Kaomi, where we gave them a present and sent

them back, glad to be rid of them. We afterwards learned

that they were only the retainers of the local Kiao-chou yamen

to see us to the border of the hinterland, which Governor

Yuan's troops were not permitted to cross.

But the men who met us at the border were soldiers of

another type--powerful looking cavalrymen on excellent horses.

Remembering the stories we had heard regarding the murder

of foreigners by Chinese troops who had been sent ostensibly

to guard them, we were relieved to find that there were only

three of them, and as there were three of us, we felt safe, for we

believed that in an emergency we could whip them. When

on leaving Wei-hsien the number increased to five and then to

six, we became dubious. But we concluded that as we were

active, stalwart men, we might in a pinch manage twice our

number of Chinese soldiers or, if worst came to worst, as we

were unencumbered by women, children or luggage, we could

sprint, on the old maxim,

``He that fights and runs away

Will live to fight another day.''

But when a little later, the force grew to eleven and then to

fifteen, we were hopelessly out-classed, especially as they were

well-mounted and armed not only with swords but with modern

magazine rifles.

The result, however, proved that our fears were groundless,

for the men were good soldiers, intelligent, respectful, well-

drilled, and thoroughly disciplined. They treated us with

strict military etiquette, standing at attention and saluting in

the most approved military fashion whenever they spoke to us

or we to them. I was not accustomed to travelling in such

state. Our three shendzas meant six mules and three muleteers,

one for each shendza. Our cook and ``boy'' each had

a donkey, and a pack-mule was necessary for our food supplies.

So including the men and horses of the escort, we

usually had nineteen men and twenty animals and a part of the

time we had even a larger number. We therefore made quite

a procession, and attracted considerable attention. I suspect,

however, that some of those shrewd Chinese were not deceived

as to my humble station at home for one man asked the missionary

who accompanied me whether I travelled with an escort

in America!

The lieutenant commanding our escort said that he received

forty-two taels a month,[19] the sergeants eleven taels, and the

privates nine taels. The men buy their own food, but their

clothing, horses, provender, etc., are furnished by the Government.

This is big pay for China. The lieutenant further said

that Governor Yuan Shih Kai had thirty regiments of a nominal

strength of 500 each and an actual strength of 250, making

a total of 7,500, and that the soldiers had been drilled by

German officers at Tien-tsin. There are no foreign officers

now connected with the force, but there are two foreign educated

Chinese who receive 300 taels a month each. He further

said that all the men with us had killed Boxers and that he

was confident that they could rout 1,000 of them. An illustration

of the reputation of these troops occurred during my

visit in Paoting-fu a little later. A messenger breathlessly

reported that the Allied Villagers, who had banded themselves

together to resist the collection of indemnity, had captured a

city only ninety li southward and that they intended to march

on Paoting-fu itself. Three thousand of Yuan Shih Kai's

troops had been ordered to go to Peking to prepare for the

return of the Emperor and Empress Dowager, but the French

general at Paoting-fu had forbade them coming beyond a point

a hundred li south of Paoting-fu, so that they were then encamped

there awaiting further orders. The Prefect hastily wired

Viceroy Li Hung Chang in Peking asking him to order these

troops to retake the recaptured city, as the Imperial troops were

``needed here,'' a euphemism for saying that they were useless.

Li Hung Chang gave the desired order and the seasoned troops

of Yuan Shih Kai made short work of the Allied Villagers.

[19] A tael equals sixty-five cents at the present rate of exchange.

At any rate, those who escorted me through Shantung were

certainly good soldiers. They had splendid horses and took

good care of them, while several evenings they gave us as fine

exhibitions of sword drill as I ever saw. I was interested to

find that seven of them belonged to a total abstinence society,

though none of them were Christians. I became really attached

to them. They were very patient, although my journey

compelled them to make a long and hard march for which they

received no extra pay. On the last evening of the trip, I gave

them a feast in the most approved Chinese style. I made a

little farewell address and gave the officer in charge the following

letter which seemed to please them greatly:--

``June 27th, 1901.

``To His Excellency,

``General Yuan Shih Kai,

``Governor of the Province of Shantung, China,

``SIR:

``In completing my tour of the Province of Shantung, I have pleasure

in expressing my high appreciation, and that of the missionaries of the

Presbyterian Church who accompanied me, of the excellent conduct of the

soldiers who formed our escort under the command of (Lieutenant) Wang

Pa Chung. Both he and his troopers were courteous and faithful, attentive

to every duty and meriting our admiration for the perfection of their

discipline.

``We regret the death of one of their horses, but we are satisfied that

the soldier was in no way to blame. The animal died in the inn courtyard

early in the morning.

``I have had pleasure in giving the officer and his men a feast. In

addition I offered them a present, but the Wang Pa Chung declined to

accept it.

``Thanking you for your courtesy in detailing such good soldiers for

our escort,

``I have, sir, the honour to be

``Your obedient servant,

(Signed) ``ARTHUR J. BROWN.''

I was impressed by the refusal to accept the present, which

was a considerable sum to Chinese. But the men were evidently

under strict orders. The lieutenant was polite and

grateful, but he said that he ``could not accept a gift if it were

ten thousand taels.''

During the whole tour, these soldiers watched us with a fidelity

that was almost embarrassing at times. Not for a moment

did they lose sight of us except when we were in the mission

compounds. If we took a walk about a village, they followed

us. Eating, sleeping or travelling, we were always watched.

Several times we tried to escape such espionage, or to induce

the soldiers to turn back. We did not feel our need of them,

nor did I desire my peaceful mission to be associated with military

display. Besides, if hostility had been manifested, a

dozen Chinese soldiers would have been of little avail among

those swarming millions. But our efforts and protests were

vain and we had no alternative but to submit with the best

grace possible.

Nor was this all, for many of the magistrates whose districts

we crossed en route added other attentions. Indeed, they appeared

to be almost nervously anxious that no mishap should

befall us. I had sent no announcement of my coming to any

one except my missionary friends, nor had I asked for any favour

or protection save the usual passport through the United States

Consul. But the first Tao-tai I met politely inquired about my

route, and, as I afterwards learned, sent word to the next

magistrate. He in turn forwarded the word to the one beyond,

and so on throughout the whole trip. As we approached a

city, uniformed attendants from the chief magistrate's yamen

usually met us and escorted us, sometimes with much display

of banners and trumpets and armed guards, to an inn which

had been prepared for our reception by having a little of its

dirt swept into the corners and a few of its bugs killed. Then

would come a feast of many courses of Chinese delicacies. A

call from the magistrate himself often followed, and he would

chat amicably while great crowds stood silently about.

There was something half pathetic about the attentions we

received. Our journey was like a triumphal procession. For

example, twenty li from Chang Ku a messenger on horseback

met us. He had evidently been on the watch, for after kneeling

he galloped back with the news of our approach. Soon

a dozen soldiers in scarlet uniforms appeared, saluted, wheeled

and marched before us to an inn where we found rugs on the

floor and kangs, a cloth on the table and two elevated seats

covered with scarlet robes. Attendants from the yamen with

their red tasselled helmets were numerous and attentive.

Basins of water were brought and presently the magistrate sent

an elaborate feast. As we finished the repast, the magistrate

himself called. He was very affable and made quite a long

call. In like manner the district magistrate of Fei-hsien sent

his secretary, personal flags and twenty soldiers twenty li to

meet us. They knelt as we approached and shouted in

unison--``We wish the great man peace!'' So as usual we

entered the town with pomp and circumstance, our own escort

added to the local one making a brave show.

And these were typical experiences. We could not prevent

them and to resent them would have made the official ``lose

face'' and so embittered him. At Pien-kiao, where a hundred

of Governor Yuan Shih Kai's troops were stationed, the whole

garrison turned out, meeting us a couple of miles from the city

and escorting us to our inn with blares of trumpets which

Dr. Johnson said were only sounded for high officials.

We were awakened at three o'clock the next morning by the

bellowing of calves and the braying of mules in the inn courtyard,

and as we had our longest day's journey ahead of us, we

rose, breakfasted at four by candle-light and were on the road

at a quarter of five. But in spite of the early hour, the whole

garrison again turned out and lined the road at ``present

arms'' as we passed.

Think of the mayor of an American city of fifty or a hundred

thousand habitants hastening to call in state on three

unknown travellers, who were simply stopping for luncheon at a

hotel, and sending a couple dozen policemen to escort them in

and out of town! The Shantung Chinese are a strong, proud,

independent people, and it must have cost them something to be

so effusive to foreigners. There was doubtless in it some real

regard for Americans and American missionaries. But policy

was probably also a factor. The officials felt that any further

attack on foreigners would be a pretext for further foreign

aggression, an excuse for Germany to advance from Kiao-chou,

and they were anxious not to give occasion for it. Each

official was apparently determined to make it plain that he was

doing his duty in trying to protect these foreigners so that if

they got hurt it would not be his fault. Perhaps, too, he was

not averse to showing the populace that foreigners had to be

guarded. I was half ashamed to travel in that way. But I

could not help myself. Sometimes I felt that the guard was not

so much for us as for the Chinese, assuring nervous officials that

foreigners should have no further excuse for aggression and

warning the evil-disposed that they must not commit acts

which might get the officials into trouble.

Whatever the reasons were, they were plainly impersonal.

No one of us had any official status nor were we as individuals

of any consequence whatever to Chinese officials. We were

simply white men and as such we were regarded as representatives

of a race which had made its power felt. Perhaps

the soldiers and the orders of Governor Yuan Shih Kai had

much to do with the quietness of the people, but some way

I felt perfectly safe. Whether any attack would have been

made if I had been allowed to journey quietly with my one or

two missionary companions, I am not competent to judge.

Foreigners who had lived many years in China told me before

starting that my life would not be safe beyond rifle shot.

They have told me since that the profuse attentions that we received

were mere pretence, that the very officials who welcomed

us as honoured guests probably cursed our race as soon

as our backs were turned, and that if the people had not understood

from the presence of troops and from the magistrates'

marked personal attentions that we were not to be molested,

we might have met with violence in a dozen places. The

opinions of such experienced men were not to be lightly set

aside.

All I can say is that on these suppositions the Chinese are

masters of the art of dissimulation, for in all our journeyings

through the very heart of the region where the Boxers originated,

and where the anti-foreign hatred was said to be bitterest,

we saw not a sign of unfriendliness. The typical official received

us with the courtesy of a ``gentleman of the old school.''

The vast throngs that quickly assembled at every stopping

place, while silent, were respectful. We tried to behave decently

ourselves, to speak kindly to every man, to pay fair

prices for what we bought; in short, to act just as we would

have acted in America. And every man to whom we smiled,

smiled in return. Wherever we asked a civil question we got

a civil answer. Coolies would stop their barrows, farmers

leave their fields to direct us aright. In all our travelling in

the interior, amid a population so dense that we constantly

marvelled, we never heard a rude word or saw a hostile sign.

I naturally find it difficult to believe that those pleasant,

obliging people would have killed us if they had not been restrained

by their magistrates, and that the officials who exerted

themselves to show us all possible honour would have gladly

murdered us if they had dared.

And yet less than a year before, the Chinese had angrily destroyed

the property and venomously sought the lives of foreigners

who were as peaceably disposed as we were, ruthlessly

hunting men and women who had never done them wrong, and

who had devoted their lives to teaching the young and healing

the sick and preaching the gospel of love and good will. Why

they did this we shall have occasion to observe in a later

chapter.