Hong Kong has been a British Crown Colony since 1842, and it is now an

extraordinarily important port. Vessels with an aggregate tonnage of

nearly 20 millions pass through Hong Kong annually, and the little

island surpasses in this respect even London, Hamburg, and New York.

Regular lines of steamers connect Hong Kong with countless ports in

Asia, America, Europe, and Australia, and the trade of the port is

immense. It is also a station for the east Asiatic squadron of the Royal

Navy--with fine docks and berths, a coal depôt, arsenal, and barracks.

Ninety miles north-west of Hong Kong lies the second city of China,

Canton (Plate XVI.). It stands near the mouths of two rivers which give

access to the interior of the country, and Canton is therefore an

important commercial town, surpassed only by Shanghai. The famous

Chinese silk is exported from Canton in larger quantities than from any

other town, and the industries of silk-weaving, porcelain, and other

manufactures are flourishing. Canton is one of the thirty-seven Chinese

"treaty ports"--that is, those which are open to foreign commerce. It

has 900,000 inhabitants, and is the capital of the southernmost of the

eighteen provinces of China proper and the residence of a viceroy. Its

streets are so narrow that no wheeled vehicle can pass through them. A

large part of the inhabitants live on boats moored to posts on the

river. A railway 1200 miles long connects Canton with the capital of the

empire, Peking.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] This is the vessel which was wrecked on the coast of Morocco, near

Cape Spartel, on December 13, 1911, having the Duke and Duchess of Fife

(Princess Royal) on board.

XII

CHINA[14]

TO SHANGHAI

From Hong Kong the _Delhi_ ploughs her way along the Chinese coast, and

next day (October 31) we are right out in the track of the north-east

monsoon. The sea is high and dead against us, and the wind is so strong

that we can hardly go up on deck. It becomes steadily cooler as we

advance northwards.

To the east we have now the large island of Formosa, which was annexed

by Japan sixteen years ago. It is about twice the size of Wales, and

marks the boundary between the China Sea and the Eastern Sea, which

farther north passes into the Yellow Sea. The coast and its hills are

sometimes seen close at hand, sometimes far off, and sometimes they

disappear in the distance. With a glass we can distinguish the

lighthouses, always erected on small islands off the mainland. The

Chinese coast is dangerous, being full of reefs, holms, and shallows.

Hong Kong and the adjoining seas are visited from the middle of July to

the middle of September by the destructive whirlwinds called typhoons.

The vortices, spinning round with tremendous rapidity, are usually

formed far out in the Pacific Ocean, and gradually advance towards the

mainland. They move at a rate of nine miles an hour, and therefore the

weather stations on the Philippines, and other islands lying in the

track of the typhoons, can send warnings by telegraph to the Chinese

coast. Then the black triangle is hoisted on a tall mast in the harbour

of Hong Kong, for instance, and is visible for a long distance. Every

one knows what it means: a typhoon is on the way. The Chinese junks make

in towards land, where they find shelter under the high coast, and all

other vessels strengthen their moorings.

On November 2 we know by the yellowish-brown colour of the water that we

are off the mouth of the Blue River, as the Yang-tse-kiang is called by

Europeans. A pilot comes on board to take us through the dangerous,

uncertain fairway, and a little later we have flat land on both sides of

us, and are in the estuary of the river.

Shanghai is situated on a small affluent which runs into the

Yang-tse-kiang close to its mouth, and large ocean steamers cannot go up

to the town. After the _Delhi_ has dropped its anchor we proceed up the

river in a steam tender. The low banks soon become more animated, the

houses stand closer together, factories appear amongst them, and Chinese

vessels lie moored on both sides, including two sorry warships of wood,

relics of a time gone by. They are high in the bow and stern, and from

the mast floats the blue dragon on its yellow field.[15] At length the

stately "bund" of Shanghai comes into sight with a row of fine, tall

houses. This is not China, but a bit of Europe, the white town in the

yellow land, the great and wealthy Shanghai with its 12,000 Europeans,

beside the Chinese town inhabited by 650,000 natives.

Next day, November 3, occurred two noted birthdays, those of the Dowager

Empress of China and of the Emperor of Japan. They were both remarkable

for their powerful minds and wisdom, and have made their names immortal

in the extreme East. The Consul-General of Japan held a reception, and

the Governor of Shanghai a brilliant dinner.

We saw much that was curious and interesting, and our time was fully

occupied during our short stay in the largest shipping and commercial

port of China. From the European streets with electric light and

tramways, churches, clubs, merchants' offices, and public buildings,

tidal docks and wharves, we reach in a few minutes the Chinese town,

pure, unadulterated Asia. It swarms with yellow men in blue coats and

black vests with small brass buttons, white stockings, black shoes with

thick, flat soles, a small black skull-cap with a red button on the

head, and a long pigtail behind. There dealers sit in their open shops,

smoking long, small pipes while waiting for customers. The tea-houses

are full. A noise and tumult beyond description, a constant going and

coming, a continual exchange of coin and goods.

The religion of the Chinese is a mixture of different doctrines and

rules of wisdom. China has had more wise men than any other old country

in the world. Foremost among them is Confucius, a contemporary of Buddha

and Socrates. He wrote a book of three hundred odes, and called it

_Purity of Thought_. Twelve disciples gathered round him, and a larger

circle of three thousand. "Do not to others what you would not that they

should do to you" was one of his precepts. When Confucius was asked how

he had contrived to acquire deep knowledge of so many things, he

replied, "Because I was born poor and had to learn." He considered

wealth a misfortune and knowledge power. The Chinese reverence his

memory, and regard him not as a god but as the wisest man of all ages.

Along with Confucianism, Taoism exists in China. The sublime teaching of

the founder has, however, been corrupted and degraded to jugglery and

superstition. At the commencement of our era Buddhism was introduced

into China, and now is spread over almost all the country. There is,

however, no clearness in the religious conceptions of the Chinese. A

Taoist may perform his devotions in the morning in a Buddhist temple and

in the evening be deeply interested in the writings of Confucius. Many

therefore have an equal respect for all three systems.

The basis, however, of Chinese religious thought is ancestor worship.

Whether they are Confucians, like most of the mandarins, or Taoists or

Buddhists, like the common people, Chinamen always cherish the same

reverence for the souls of their forefathers. An altar in their honour

is raised in even the simplest house. The graves may not be disturbed,

and nothing but respect is cherished for the memory of the departed. In

the seventeenth century the Manchu emperor, Kang Hi, ruled China for

sixty-one years with a power and wisdom which made him one of the

greatest monarchs of any age. His grandson, Kien Lung, inherited all his

excellent qualities, and when he had ruled China for nearly sixty-one

years he abdicated simply in order that, out of respect to his ancestor,

the years of his reign might not exceed his grandfather's.

One consequence of this ancestor worship is that enormous areas of China

are covered with graves. The Mongol emperor, Kublai Khan, who reigned at

the end of the thirteenth century, roused furious opposition by ordering

that all the burial-grounds should be broken up and turned into fields.

At the present time, when new railways are spreading mile after mile

through China, the sanctity of the graveyards is one of the greatest

obstacles to engineers. The Chinese will not disturb the slumbers of

their forefathers, and therefore the railway has often to pass round a

hallowed place or avoid it by means of a bridge. The Emperor himself

travels to Mukden simply to make offerings at the graves of his

ancestors. Kang Hi and Kien Lung are buried in Mukden, and their

dynasty, the Manchu, still rules over the country.

The Chinese feel this association with a past life more strongly than

with the future, and the worship of their ancestors almost takes the

place of affection for their fatherland. They certainly love their own

homes, but what goes on in other parts of the country is a matter of

indifference to them. To the Cantonese it matters not whether the

Russians take Manchuria or the Japanese Korea, provided only that Canton

is left in peace. Ancestor worship may be said, indeed, to be the true

religion of the Chinese. For the rest they are filled with an

unreasoning fear of spirits, and have recourse to many different gods

who, they believe, can control these influences for good and evil. They

are very superstitious. If any one falls sick of fever and becomes

delirious, his relations believe that his soul has gone astray. They

carry his clothes round the spot where he lost consciousness in order to

bring his soul into the right track again; and at night they go up to

the roof and wave a lantern to guide the soul home.

"THE MIDDLE KINGDOM"

The first things a Chinese schoolboy is taught are that the sky is

round, the earth quadrangular, and that China is situated in the middle

of the earth, and on that account is called the "Middle Kingdom." All

other countries lie around China and are its vassals.

The Emperor is called the "Son of Heaven," and holds the supreme

spiritual and temporal power in his hands. On his accession he gives an

arbitrary name to his reign, which also becomes his own. He chooses

his successor himself from among his sons. If he is childless he chooses

one of his nearest relations, but then he adopts his future successor

that the latter may make offerings to the souls of himself and his

ancestors. The yellow robe and the five-clawed dragon are the emblems of

the imperial house. The Emperor is immeasurably superior to his people,

and the mortals who may speak to him are easily counted. A few years ago

the European ambassadors in Peking exacted the right to see the Emperor

every New Year's Day. This they did, but had no talk with him.

[Illustration: PLATE XVII. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA.]

China is the oldest, the most populous, and the most conservative

kingdom in the world. In the time of Nineveh and Babylon it had attained

to a high civilization, and has remained the same through 4000 years. Of

Nineveh and Babylon only rubbish heaps are left, but China still shows

no sign of decay. Western Asia is like a vast graveyard with innumerable

monuments of bygone times. There devastating migrations of peoples took

place, and races and dynasties contended and succeeded one another. But

China is still the same as ever. The isolated position of the country

and the objection of the people to contact with foreigners have

contributed to this. The reverence for the old state of things and for

the memory of their forefathers makes a new generation similar to the

preceding.

During the twenty-two centuries before the birth of Christ three

imperial families ruled in China in succession. Two and a half centuries

before our era a powerful and far-sighted emperor built the Great Wall,

the mightiest erection ever completed by human hands (Plate XVII.). This

wall is 1500 miles long, 50 feet high, and 26 thick at the bottom and 16

at the top. Towers stand at certain intervals, and there are gates here

and there. It is constructed of stone, brick, and earth. It is in parts

much ruined, especially in the west, and in some places only heaps of

earth are left.

Why was this immense wall erected? The Chinese are a peaceful people,

and they surrounded themselves with walls to prevent intrusion from

outside. In China there are 1553 towns enclosed in massive stone walls,

and the great emperor in the third century B.C. naturally

thought of building a wall in the same way all round his extensive

kingdom. It was principally from the north that danger threatened. There

lived the nomads of Eastern Turkestan and Mongolia, savage, brave, and

warlike horsemen. To them the Chinese wall was an insurmountable

obstacle. But precisely on that account this wall has also affected the

destiny of Europe, for the wild mounted hordes, finding the way

southwards to China barred, advanced westwards instead, and in the

fourth century, in conjunction with the Alans, overran extensive areas

of Europe.

The Great Wall, however, could not protect China for ever. In the year

1280 the country was conquered by Jenghis Khan's grandson, Kublai Khan,

Marco Polo's friend and patron. He, too, was a great builder. He

constructed the Grand Canal (see map, p. 174) between Peking and

Hang-chau, immediately to the south-west of Shanghai. His idea was that

the rice harvest of the southern provinces should also benefit the

northern parts of the country. Previously the rice had been freighted on

junks and carried along the coast, where it was exposed to the attacks

of Japanese pirates. Now the junks could pass safely through the country

by the new canal. The imperial canal is 840 miles long, crosses the

Yellow and Blue rivers, and is still in use. It is a memorial of the

hundred years' rule of the Mongols.

In 1644 China was conquered by the Manchu dynasty, which still reigns.

Exactly a hundred years earlier the Portuguese had seized Macao, not far

from Hong Kong. Since then, and particularly during recent decades,

Europeans have encroached on Chinese soil. The French possessions on the

peninsula of Further India were formerly under Chinese protection. The

Great Powers have made themselves masters of some of the best harbours

in China. On two occasions, the latter during the Boxer insurrection in

1900, Peking has been entered by the combined troops of European

nations.

The "Middle Kingdom" is China proper, but the "Son of Heaven" also rules

over four dependencies, Eastern Turkestan, Mongolia, Manchuria, and

Tibet. The area of the Chinese Empire altogether is thirty-five times

that of the British Isles, and its population is ten times as numerous,

being about 433 millions; indeed, every third or fourth man in the world

is a Chinaman.

Owing to the situation of the country the climate is good and healthy.

The differences of temperature between winter and summer are large; in

the south reigns almost tropical heat; in the north, in the districts

round Peking, the winter is bitterly cold. The soil is exceedingly

fruitful. Tea, rice, millet, maize, oats, barley, beans, peas,

vegetables, and many other crops are grown. In the southern provinces

the fields are full of sugar-cane and cotton bushes. The whole country

is intersected by large rivers, which serve for irrigation and the

transport of goods. In the west rise lofty mountains, forming

continuations of the Tibetan ranges. Eastwards they become lower. The

greater part of China is a mountainous country, but lowlands extend

along the coast. Six of the eighteen provinces border on the coast,

which abounds in excellent harbours.

The "Middle Kingdom" is, then, a fortunate country, one richly endowed

by nature in every respect. In the mountains lies inexhaustible wealth

of minerals, and China possesses larger coal-fields than any other land

in the world. Its future is, therefore, secured, and China's development

may some time surpass that of America.

It is well known that a country which has deeply indented coasts gains

an early and extensive development. Thus Greece was in old times the

home of learning and art; and thus Europe now dominates the rest of the

world. For a people which dwells within such coasts comes sooner and

more easily than others into contact with its neighbours, and by

commercial intercourse can avail itself of their resources and

inventions. But in this, as in so many other respects, China is an

exception. The Chinese have never made use of their coast. They have, on

the contrary, avoided all contact with foreigners, and their development

within their own boundaries has therefore been exceedingly peculiar.

Their culture is different from anything else, and yet it is most

estimable and refined.

Two thousand years before Christ the Chinese had written characters.

Later they invented the hair pencil, which is in use to this day. They

grind down a jet-black ink, in which they dip the brush, and hold it

vertically when they write. The manufacture of the ink is their secret,

and the "Indian ink" which we use in Europe is obtained from them. A

hundred years after Christ paper was made in China. In an ancient town

at Lop-nor, where wild camels now roam, I found a collection of Chinese

letters and documents on paper which had remained buried in the desert

since A.D. 265. In A.D. 600 the Chinese had invented the art of

printing, which in Europe was not invented until 850 years later.

The Chinese were acquainted with the magnetic needle 1100 years

before Christ, and made compasses, and they knew of gunpowder long

before Europeans. Three thousand years ago the Chinese were proficient

in the art of casting bronze. In the interior of the country are still

to be found most beautiful objects in bronze--round bowls on feet

decorated with lions and dragons, vases, dishes, cups, and jugs, all of

dark, heavy bronze executed with the finest and most artistic detail.

The porcelain manufacture attained its greatest excellence in the time

of Kang Hi and Kien Lung. Then were made vases, bowls, and dishes of

such exceeding perfection that neither the Chinese themselves nor any

other people at the present time can produce their match. The

arrangement of colours and the glaze excite the admiration of all

connoisseurs. Porcelain articles of this period are now extremely rare,

and fetch enormous prices. In Japan I saw a small green Chinese bowl on

three feet, with a cover, which had cost eleven hundred pounds. Compared

to the Kang Hi vases, the finest porcelain that can be produced nowadays

is mere rubbish.

The Chinese language is as singular as everything else in the great

kingdom. Every word is unchangeable. While we say "go, went, gone, will

go, should go, going," the Chinese always say simply "go." The precise

meaning is shown by the position of the word in a sentence or by the

help of certain auxiliary words, as, for example, "I morning go," "We

yesterday go," where the future or past tense is indicated by the words

"morning" and "yesterday." A single word, _li_, for instance, may have a

number of different significations, and what it denotes in any

particular case depends on the tone and pronunciation, on its position

in the sentence, and on the word which comes before or after. The

language is divided into many different dialects, of which the principal

is the mandarin or the dialect of the educated. Every word has its

particular written sign, and the Chinese language accordingly possesses

24,000 different written characters; only one man in twenty and one

woman in a hundred can read and write it.

Chinese literature is exceedingly rich, almost inexhaustible. At a time

when the bronze age still reigned in northern Europe, the Chinese had a

highly cultivated literature. From the fifth century B.C. down

to our own day it has run an uninterrupted course through centuries and

ages. When the northern vikings were executing their plundering raids by

sea and setting up their runic stones, a geographical hand-book was

published in China called a "Description of all the Provinces" and

abundantly illustrated by maps. Thanks to their chronicles we can follow

the history of the Chinese for 4000 years back. And the most remarkable

feature of these annals is that they are distinguished by the strictest

accuracy and reliability. All kinds of subjects are alluded to, even the

most insignificant events. Chinese books are very cheap, and every one

who can read can provide himself with quite a large library. Of the

numbers of books we can have some conception when we hear that the

Emperor Kieng Lung had a library so large that the catalogue of his

books filled 122 volumes.

THE BLUE RIVER

The Blue River, or Yang-tse-kiang, the Mekong, and the Salwin all rise

in eastern Tibet and flow quite close to one another southwards through

deeply excavated parallel valleys. But while the first two continue

their southerly course all the way to the sea, the Blue River turns off

sharply eastwards in western China and divides the Middle Kingdom in

two.

It is only Europeans who sometimes call the largest river of China the

"Blue" River. The Chinese themselves call it the "Great" River, or the

"Long" River, or, far up the country to the west, the "River of Golden

Sand." Only three rivers in the world are longer, namely, the Nile, the

Mississippi, and the Amazon. The Obi and Yenisei are about the same

length, 3200 miles. The Blue River discharges 244 times the volume of

water of the Thames.

In one respect the Blue River is far superior to all the waterways of

the world, for on this river and its tributaries, or, in short, in the

area of its drainage basin, live not less than 180 millions of human

beings, or an eighth of the total population of the world. The parts of

China proper situated on the Blue River are called the River Provinces.

The viceroy of two of these, namely Hupeh and Hunan, has more subjects

than any country in Europe, except Russia. The most westerly province of

China, Sze-chuan, traversed by the Blue River, is in area and population

equal to France. Europe shrinks up to nothing before such comparisons.

On the Blue River stands a series of famous old towns. Chungking is the

capital of Sze-chuan, and thus far European steamers ascend the river.

Hankow is the largest commercial town in the interior of China. Nanking,

near the mouth, was formerly the capital of China. South-west of Hankow

a large lake lies on the southern bank of the Blue River. _Hu_ means

lake in Chinese, _king_ is a capital city, _pe_ signifies north, and

_nan_ south. Peking, therefore, means the "northern capital," and

Nanking the "southern capital"; Hupeh signifies "north of the lake," and

Hunan "south of the lake."

The province of Hunan, south of the lake, is one of the most noteworthy

in all China. Its people are a vigorous and independent race, and make

the best soldiers in China. They are more hostile to foreigners than

other Chinese, and the capital of Hunan, Chang-sha, has been of old a

centre of opposition to foreigners and of revolutionary agitations.

Even large ocean liners ascend to Hankow, and smaller steamboats to the

capital of Sze-chuan. The latter are formidable competitors to the

junks, many thousands of which have from time immemorial provided for

the transport and traffic on the great river. There are many different

kinds of junk. Some are large, others small; some are built for the

lower, quieter waters of the river, others for the rapids in Hupeh and

Sze-chuan. But they are all well suited to their purpose, and are an

ornament to the grand beauty of the constantly changing landscape

through which the river has cut its valley.

In some districts the junks are built of cypress wood, in others of

oaken planks. This is to make the boats more elastic and supple, and to

diminish the risk of springing a leak among the rapids. Where the danger

is unusually great a pilot is taken on board, but still it is reckoned

that one junk in ten runs aground, and one in twenty is totally wrecked.

To go from Hankow to Chungking takes thirty-five days, and to come down

in the opposite direction with the stream only nine days. The voyage

down the river is much more dangerous, and on this voyage most of the

shipwrecks occur.

Every large junk has a small dinghy to convey passengers and goods to

and from the shore. A large junk is 40 feet long. It is high at the

stern, and here stands a kind of cabin roofed with plaited straw or

grass matting. A junk going upstream carries a cargo of two and a half

tons, one going down six tons. The vessel is propelled by oars, some of

which are so large that they require eight men each. These are needed

most in drifting with the current, when the boat must be controlled by

the steering oars. The junk has also a mast and sail which is used in

going upstream with a favourable wind, and is lowered when coming down

with the current. Only the bow is decked.

It may well be asked how it is possible to get such a large heavily

laden boat up against the strong river current, for it is evident that

however favourable the wind might be, the vessel would be carried down

the rapids. A long rope of twisted bamboo a hundred yards long is

fastened to the bow of the junk, and with this the vessel is dragged up

by some sixty men who run along the bank. The bank, however, is usually

steep, with dangerous rocks projecting out into the river, and over

these the men have to scramble like monkeys, still pulling at their

rope. Often neither the boat nor the river is visible from the rocky

path, but the skipper of the boat is in constant communication with the

towing men by means of drums on board. Six men are always ready to clear

the rope if it catches against any projection, and others, who are stark

naked, do the same work in the water. On the cliffs along the river,

grooves and marks have been worn out by the ropes, for towing has here

been practised for thousands of years. There is always a score of men on

board to steer and fend off the boat with poles. They have also bamboo

poles with hooks at the end to help in dragging the boat up against the

current.

These men work like galley-slaves, and their work is both dangerous and

exhausting. Week after week they walk with bent backs struggling under

the towing rope. They are covered with bruises, which scarcely heal up

before they are torn open again, and especially on the shoulders the

marks of the rope are visible. They have a hard life, and yet they are

cheerful. They are treated like dogs, and yet they sing. And what wages

do they receive for a journey of thirty-five days up the river? Three

shillings, besides three meals of rice a day, and meat three times

during the journey! For the down journey, when the work is much easier

and the time only one-fourth, they receive only a shilling. These

labourers earn about 1-1/4d. for ten hours' work.

In February the river is lowest and the water clearest. Then the towns

and villages stand 160 feet above the surface of the river. Their walls,

staircases, gates, and pagodas stand up in the flat triangles of the

valley openings. Every inch of hill and valley is covered with fields or

woods. Later in the spring the river begins to rise, and in summer is a

huge rolling volume of chocolate-brown or greyish water. At certain

places where the valley is narrow the water may rise a hundred feet

higher than in February. A voyage on it is then more dangerous, for

banks, boulders, and reefs are covered with water and form whirlpools

and seething eddies.

Below the towns and villages shoals of junks lie moored waiting for

work. Every cliff, every bend has its name--Yellow Hat, Sleeping Swine,

Double Dragon, etc. Nor are pirates wanting. They have their haunts

among the mountains, and fall upon the junks at convenient points.

Sometimes large white notices are seen on projecting rocks. They may be

"The waterway is not clear," or "Small junks should anchor here." Thus

the boatowners are warned of danger.

The earnings of a boatowner are not large, and he is glad enough if he

can bring his boat back to Hankow in safety after a voyage up and down

the river. With anything but pleasure he sees the large Russian vessels

lying at Hankow and taking in tea. Hankow is the greatest tea port of

China, and China is the home of the tea plant. It is not more than 250

years since tea was first known in Europe, where it is now in general

use, as also in many other parts of the world. In England and Russia it

is a national drink, and the Russians used formerly to transport their

tea to Europe by caravans through Mongolia and Siberia. Now the export

of tea from China has declined, and the Middle Kingdom has been

outstripped by India and Ceylon.

IN NORTHERN CHINA

In the north-westernmost province of the kingdom, Kansu, is a famous old

town, named Si-ning, surrounded with a fine stone wall. I had completed

my first journey through Tibet and came to Si-ning on November 23, 1896,

accompanied by my servant, Islam Bay.

When we left Si-ning we had a riding horse each, and six mules with

their three drivers. They accompanied us for some days as far as a small

town, where we exchanged them for two large, heavy carts on two wheels

and covered with a tilt of straw matting. In one we packed all our

things, in the other I took my seat, while Islam rode. Each cart was

drawn by a mule and two horses, driven by a pleasant Chinaman. I had no

interpreter, and had to get along with the few words I had managed to

pick up.

For six days we travelled northwards through the Kansu mountains, going

up and down all the way over stony passes and over frozen rivers with or

without neck-breaking bridges. The carts creaked and rocked through

narrow hollow roads where it would have been impossible to pass a cart

coming from the opposite direction. In such places, therefore, one of

our drivers went on in front shouting to keep the road clear.

Fortunately we were in the company of other carts. When two carts meet

where the road is narrow, it is customary for the smaller one to back

and leave the road open for the larger.

We set out just after midnight, and drove on till noon. In spite of furs

and rugs I was almost frozen through. Islam preferred to go on foot, and

the drivers who ran beside the wagons also managed to keep themselves

warm.

At break of day on December 10 we came to the bank of a stream which

falls into the Yellow River (Hwang-ho). It was frozen quite across, and

a path of sand showed where the route crossed the river. Our companions

were to go over first in one of their carts with a team of three horses.

They dashed at full gallop out on to the ice, but had not gone far

before a wheel cut through the ice and the cart was held fast as in a

vice. The whole load had to be taken out and carried over to the farther

bank, and after much trouble the empty cart was hoisted up.

At a broader place the men cut up the thin ice in the middle of the bed

where the water was three feet deep, and when another cart tried its

luck it pitched suddenly down into the opening and remained fast. Two

additional horses were attached, and all the men shouted and cracked

their whips. The horses reared, fell, were nearly drowned under the ice,

threw themselves about and jumped up on to the ice, only to drop back

again into the hole. A young Chinaman then threw off every stitch of

clothing and went into the water, 18° below freezing-point, to pull away

the pieces of ice and stones which held back the wheels. I cannot tell

how it was that he was not frozen to death. He afterwards warmed himself

at a fire made by Islam Bay. We struggled for four hours before at last

the irritating river was behind us.

In Liang-chau, a town of 100,000 inhabitants, with a quadrangular wall,

handsome gates, and broad, busy streets, we stayed with some

missionaries. Here we had to wait twelve whole days before we could

procure nine camels and two men who were willing to take us to the town

Ning-hsia on the Yellow River, nearly 300 miles off. The missionaries

had no other guest-room than their chapel, which was rather cold; on

Christmas Eve the temperature inside was 3°.

For twenty days we travelled through a country called Ala-shan, which

for the most part is inhabited by Mongols. We followed a desert track

and encamped at wells. Certain belts were buried in drift sand which

formed wave-like dunes. Here we were outside China proper and the Great

Wall, but we frequently met Chinese caravans. Two horsemen had been

assigned to me as an escort by the last Chinese governor, for the

country is unsafe owing to robbers. All, however, went well, and we came

safely to Ning-hsia on the Yellow River.

[Illustration: MAP OF NORTHERN CHINA AND MONGOLIA, SHOWING JOURNEY FROM

TIBET THROUGH SI-NING TO PEKING, AND FROM PEKING TO KANSK (pp. 172-179).

At the time of Dr. Hedin's journey through Mongolia, the Trans-Siberian

Railway did not extend east of Kansk.]

From Ning-hsia we had 267 miles to the town Pao-te, and now we had to

cross the Mongolian district of Ordos, between the Great Wall and the

northern bend of the Yellow River. In summer it is better to travel by

boat down the river, which rises in north-eastern Tibet and falls into

the northern bay of the Yellow Sea after a course of 2500 miles. The

river owes its name to its turbid yellow water, which makes the sea also

yellow for some distance from the coast. Elsewhere the Yellow Sea is no

yellower than any other.

At that time, in January, the Yellow River was covered with thick ice,

and where we crossed it with our nine camels its breadth was 380 yards.

Then we made long days' marches through the desert, and had a very hard

and troublesome journey. We had indeed with us enough mutton, bread, and

rice, and there were wells along the road. One of them was 130 feet deep

and was walled round. But we suffered from cold. Sometimes the

temperature was only 1.5° at noon, -27° at night, and 16.5° in the tent.

Besides, it blew steadily and with the velocity of a hurricane.

Fortunately I had bought a small Chinese portable stove, which kept me

from freezing. It is not larger than an ordinary teapot and has a

perforated cover. A few pieces of glowing charcoal are embedded in ashes

in the tin, which is thus kept warm all day. Up on the camel I had this

little comforting contrivance on my knees, and at night I laid it among

my rugs when I crept into bed. One day there was such a furious storm

over the level and exposed country that we could not move from the spot.

We sat wrapped up in our furs and rugs and simply froze.

On arrival at Pao-te I had still 430 miles to travel to the capital of

the kingdom, Peking. I was eager to be there, and resolved to hurry

forward by forced marches. I hired a small two-wheeled cart, and had no

servant with me but the Chinese driver. Islam with an interpreter was to

follow slowly after with our baggage.

On this route no fewer than sixty-one Swedish missionaries were at work,

and I often stayed in their hospitable houses. At other times I put up

in the country inns. They are incredibly dirty, full of noisy

travellers, smoke, and vermin. The guest room where you sleep at night

must be shared with others. Along the inner wall stands a raised ledge

of bricks. It is built like an oven and is heated with cattle-dung

beneath; and on the platform the sleeper, if not half suffocated, is at

any rate half roasted.

In Kalgan (Chang-kia-kau), where the Great Wall is passed, I exchanged

my cart for a carrying chair on two long poles. It was borne by two

mules which trotted along over the narrow mountain road leading to

Peking. Sometimes we were high above the valley bottom, and met whole

rows of caravans, carts, riders, and foot passengers, chairs with mules,

and every one was in constant danger of being pushed over the edge.

At last, on March 2, I arrived at Peking, after 1237 days of travelling

through Asia, and passed through one of the fine gates in the city walls

(Plate XVIII.).

MONGOLIA

Between China in the south and Eastern Siberia on the north, stretches

the immense region of inner Asia which is called Mongolia. The Chinese

call it the "grass country," but very large parts of it are waterless

desert, where drift-sand is piled up into dunes, and caravan routes and

wells are far apart. The belt of desert, one of the largest in the

world, is called by the Mongols Gobi, a word which in their language

denotes desert. The Chinese call it Shamo, which signifies sandy desert.

Mongolia is subject to China, and the Mongols' spiritual superior or

pope is the Dalai Lama. They have also a number of Lama monasteries, and

make yearly pilgrimages in large parties to Lhasa. An extraordinary

proportion of the male population of the country devote themselves to a

religious life and become monks. The Chinese are glad of it, for the

peaceful cloister life causes the formerly savage and warlike Mongol

hordes to forget their own strength. Services before the image of Buddha

in the temple halls lead their thoughts in other directions, and they

forget that their people once held the sceptre over almost all Asia and

half Europe. They do not remember that their forefathers, the Golden

Horde, forced their way seven hundred years ago through the Caucasus,

levied tribute throughout Russia, and alarmed all the rest of the West.

They have forgotten that their fathers conquered all the Middle Kingdom

and digged in yellow earth the Grand Canal on which the junks of the

Chinese still ply. The sword has rusted fast in its sheath, and the

Mongolian chiefs, whom the Chinese call vassals or dependent princes,

encamp peacefully on the steppes under their eight _bans_.

The Mongols are nomads. They own large flocks of sheep and goats, and

live on mutton, milk, butter, and cheese. Among their domestic animals

are also the two-humped camel and a small, hardy, strongly built horse.

Their life is a perpetual wandering. They move with their flocks from

one steppe to another. If the herbage is dried up in a district, or

all the pasture is eaten up, they put their tents on camels and set out

to find better grazing. Their tents are exactly the same as those of the

Kirghizes of the Pamir and the Kirghiz Steppe. They are shaped like

haycocks, and consist of a framework of tough ribs covered with black

felt.

[Illustration: PLATE XVIII. GATE IN THE WALLS OF PEKING.]

The Mongols are a good-tempered and amiable people. I made acquaintance

with them on the outskirts of their wide domain, and once I travelled

right through Mongolia. My starting-point was Peking, and my direction

due north-west. It was in the end of March and the beginning of April,

1897. At that time the Trans-Siberian Railway was not completed farther

than to Kansk, a small town east of the Yenisei. That was the longest

drive I ever took in my life, for from Peking to Kansk the distance is

1800 miles, and I only rested a day on the whole journey, namely at

Irkutsk, the capital of Eastern Siberia.

In Peking I provided myself with all that was necessary for a journey to

the Russian frontier. First and foremost a Chinese passport, which

authorised me to call out Mongols and their horses, and, if I wished, to

put up in their tents. Then provisions had to be bought--tinned meats,

bread, tea, sugar, etc. From the Russian Legation I obtained an escort

of two Cossacks, who were very delighted to have this chance of

returning to their homes in Siberia after completing their time of

service in Peking.

In Mongolia the traveller does not drive in the usual way. There is no

driver on the box, and you do not lean back comfortably in a

four-wheeled carriage on springs. To begin with, there is no road at all

and no rest-houses; but horses must be changed frequently, and this is

done in the Mongolian villages. The Mongols, however, are nomads, and

their villages are always on the move. Therefore you must know first of

all where the villages happen to be, and in the second place must give

the people notice to have a certain number of horses ready. A mounted

messenger is sent on in advance for this purpose and then the horses are

never wanting. Only the Mongols themselves know where the next villages

are situated, and so at every village a fresh retinue of Mongols is

provided. And because the villages are being constantly moved you can

only travel in a straight line between them, and cannot follow any

determined route. You drive along over desert and steppe, and usually

see no vestige of an old wheel rut.

The vehicle in which you travel is a very simple contrivance. It is a

cart on two medium-sized wheels, closed all over with a rounded tilt

covered with blue cloth. A small window in front and two side windows

allow you to see over the steppe; the window glass is fixed into the

stretched cloth so that it cannot be cracked by the jolting. The cart

has no springs, and its bottom rests directly on the axles. There is no

seat, and the traveller sits on cushions, furs, and rugs, and there is

only room for one person. The cart is of the usual Chinese pattern with

shafts for a mule or horse. In China the driver sits on one of the

shafts or runs alongside. I had my bags strapped on to the base of the

shafts. My large baggage was forwarded on camels, and it reached

Stockholm six months after I did.

The style of harnessing is the most curious of all. A loop of rope is

fastened to the extreme end of each shaft, and a long, rounded cross-bar

is passed through the two loops. Two mounted Mongols lay the bar across

their knees in the saddle, but no draught animal is put between the

shafts. A rope is fastened to each end of the cross-bar and two other

riders wind these ropes twice round their bodies. They have all riding

whips, and when all is ready the four riders dash at full speed over the

steppe, dragging the cart after them.

Twenty other Mongols ride on each side, half hidden in clouds of dust.

Suddenly two of them ride up beside the men who hold the cross-bar on

their knees. Of their own accord the two fresh horses slip their heads

under the bar, letting it fall on to the riders' knees, while the men

who are relieved hold in their horses and let the cart roll on. These

then join the rest of the troop. The cart does not stop during this

change of horses, which is accomplished in a couple of seconds, and a

furious pace is always kept up. In the same way the two front riders and

their horses are relieved without stopping. When one of them is tired, a

fresh rider comes forward and winds the rope round his waist.

After two or three hours a village of several tents is seen on the

steppe ahead of us. About thirty horses are held in readiness by the

headman of the village, who has been warned the day before by the

messenger. At every stage a few roubles[16] are paid to the Mongol

attendants. This payment has always to be made in silver roubles, for

the Mongols will not take paper money or small coins.

Thus we go on and on, it would seem interminably, over the boundless

steppe--each day the same bumping and jolting, each day the same

monotonous landscape. In northern Mongolia, however, snow lay deep on

the ground, and here the cart was drawn by men on camels. By this time I

was so bruised and worn out with the continual jolting that it was a

pleasure to drive on the soft snow.

MARCO POLO

In 1162 was born in Mongolia a chief of the savage mounted hordes who

bore the name of Jenghiz Khan. He subdued all the surrounding tribes,

and the whole Mongol race was collected under his banner. The more his

power increased, the more extensive regions he desired to conquer, and

he did not rest till practically all Asia was reduced under his rule.

His motto was "One God in heaven and one Great Khan on earth." He was

not content with a kingdom as large as that of Alexander or Cæsar, but

wished to reign over all the known world, and with this aim before his

eyes he rode with his horsemen from country to country over the great

continent. Everywhere he left sorrow and mourning, burnt and pillaged

towns in his track. He was the greatest and most savage conqueror known

in history. When he was at the height of his power he collected treasure

from innumerable different peoples, from the peninsula of Further India

to Novgorod, from Japan to Silesia. To his court came ambassadors from

the French kings and the Turkish sultans, from the Russian Grand Dukes

and the Khalifs and Popes of the time. No man before or since has caused

such a stir among the sons of men, and brought such different peoples

into involuntary communication with one another. Jenghiz Khan ruled over

more than half the human race, and even in many of the countries which

he pillaged and destroyed his memory is feared even to this day.

At his death Jenghiz Khan was sixty-five years old, and he bequeathed

his immense kingdom to his four sons. One of these was the father of

Kublai Khan, who conquered China in 1280 and established the Mongolian

dynasty in the Middle Kingdom. His court was even more brilliant than

that of his grandfather, and an exact description both of the great Khan

and his empire was given by the great traveller Marco Polo.

In the year 1260 two merchants from Venice were dwelling in

Constantinople. They were named Nicolo and Maffeo Polo. Their desire to

open trade relations with Asia induced them to travel to the Crimea, and

thence across the Volga and through Bukhara to the court of the Great

Khan, Kublai. Up to that time only vague rumours of the great civilized

empire far in the East had been spread by Catholic missionaries.

The Great Khan, who had never seen Europeans, was pleased at the arrival

of the Venetians, received them kindly, and made them tell of all the

wonderful things in their own country. Finally he decided to send them

back with a letter to the Pope, in which he begged him to send a hundred

wise and learned missionaries out to the East. He wished to employ them

in training and enlightening the rude tribes of the steppe.

After nine years' absence the travellers returned to Venice. The Pope

was dead, and they waited two years fruitlessly for a successor to be

elected. As, then, they did not wish the Great Khan to believe them

untrustworthy, they decided to return to the Far East, and on this

journey they took with them Nicolo's son, Marco Polo, aged fifteen

years.

Our three travellers betook themselves from Syria to Mosul, quite close

to the ruins of Nineveh on the Tigris, and thence to Baghdad and Hormuz,

a town situated on the small strait between the Persian Gulf and the

Arabian Sea. Then they proceeded northwards through the whole of Persia

and northern Afghanistan, and along the Amu-darya to the Pamir,

following routes which had to wait 600 years for new travellers from

Europe. Past Yarkand, Khotan, and Lop-nor, and through the whole of the

Gobi desert, they finally made their way to China.

It was in the year 1275 that, after several years' wanderings, they came

to the court of the Great Khan in eastern Mongolia. The potentate was so

delighted with Marco Polo, who learned to read and write several Eastern

languages, that he took him into his service. The first commission he

entrusted to the young Venetian was an official journey to northern and

western China. Polo had noticed that Kublai Khan liked to hear curious

and extraordinary accounts from foreign countries, and he therefore

treasured up in his memory all he saw and experienced in order to relate

it to the Emperor on his return. Accordingly he steadily rose higher in

the estimation of Kublai Khan, and was sent out on other official

journeys, even as far as India and the borders of Tibet, was for three

years governor of a large town, and was also employed at the capital,

Peking.

Marco Polo relates how the Emperor goes hunting. He sits in a palanquin

like a small room, with a roof, and carried by four elephants. The

outside of the palanquin is overlaid with plates of beaten gold and the

inside is draped with tiger skins. A dozen of his best gerfalcons are

beside him, and near at hand ride several of his attendant lords.

Presently one of them will exclaim, "Look, Sire, there are some cranes."

Then the Emperor has the roof opened and throws out one of the falcons

to strike down the game; this sport gives him great satisfaction. Then

he comes to his camp, which is composed of 10,000 tents. His own

audience tent is so large that it can easily hold 1000 persons, and he

has another for private interviews, and a third for sleeping. They are

supported by three tent-poles, are covered outside with tiger skins, and

inside with ermine and sable. Marco Polo says that the tents are so fine

and costly that it is not every king who could pay for them.

Only the most illustrious noblemen can wait on the Emperor at table.

They have cloths of silk and gold wound over their mouths and noses that

their breath may not pollute the dishes and cups presented to His

Majesty. And every time the Emperor drinks, a powerful band of music

strikes up, and all who are present fall on their knees.

All merchants who come to the capital, and especially those who bring

gold and silver, precious stones and pearls, must sell their valuables

to the Emperor alone. Marco Polo thinks it quite natural that Kublai

Khan should have greater treasures than all the kings of the world, for

he pays only with paper money, which he makes as he likes, for notes

were current at that time in China.

So Marco Polo and his father and uncle lived for many long years in the

Middle Kingdom, and by their cleverness and patient industry accumulated

much property. But the Emperor, their protector, was old, and they

feared that their position would be very different after his death. They

longed, too, to go home to Venice, but whenever they spoke of setting

out, Kublai Khan bade them stay a little longer.

However, an event occurred which facilitated their departure. Persia

also stood under the supremacy of the Mongols, and its prince or Khan

was a close connection of Kublai Khan. The Persian Khan had lost his

favourite wife, and now desired to carry out the wish she had expressed

on her deathbed that he should marry a princess of her own race.

Therefore he despatched an embassy to Kublai Khan. It was well received,

and a young, beautiful princess was selected for the Khan of Persia. But

the land journey of over 4000 miles from Peking to Tabriz was considered

too trying for a young woman, so the ambassadors decided to return by

sea.

They had conceived a great friendship and respect for the three

Venetians, and they requested Kublai Khan to send them with them, for

they were skilful mariners, and Marco Polo had lately been in India, and

could give them much valuable information about the sea route thither.

At last Kublai Khan yielded, and equipped the whole party with great

liberality. In the year 1292 they sailed southwards from the coast of

China.

Many misfortunes, storms, shipwreck, and fever befell them on the

voyage. They tarried long on the coasts of Sumatra and India, a large

part of the crew perished and two of the three ambassadors died, but the

young lady and her Venetian cavaliers at last reached Persia safe and

sound. As the Khan had died, the princess had to put up with his nephew,

and she was much distressed when the Polos took leave of her to return

home to Venice by way of Tabriz, Trebizond, the Bosporus, and

Constantinople. There they arrived in the year 1295, having been absent

for twenty-four years.

Their relatives and friends had supposed them to be dead long before.

They had almost forgotten their mother tongue, and appeared in their

native city in shabby Asiatic clothes. The first thing they did was to

go to the old house of their fathers and knock at the door; but their

relations did not recognize them, would not believe their romantic

story, and sent them about their business.

The three Polos accordingly took another house and here made a great

feast for all their family. When the guests were all seated round the

table and the banquet was about to commence, the three hosts entered,

dressed down to the feet in garments of costly crimson silk. And as

water was taken round for the guests to wash their hands, they exchanged

their dresses for Asiatic mantles of the finest texture, the silken

dresses being cut into pieces and distributed among their retainers.

Then they appeared in robes of the most valuable velvet, while the

mantles were divided among the servants, and lastly the velvet went the

same way.

All the guests were astonished at what they saw. When the board was

cleared and the servants were gone, Marco Polo brought in the shabby,

tattered clothes the three travellers had worn when their relatives

would not acknowledge them. The seams of these garments were ripped up

with sharp knives, and out poured heaps of jewels on to the

table--rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds. When

Kublai Khan gave them leave to depart they exchanged all their wealth

for precious stones, because they knew that they could not carry a heavy

weight of gold such a long way. They had sewed the stones in their

clothes that no one might suspect that they had them.

When the guests saw these treasures scattered over the table their

astonishment knew no bounds. And now all had to acknowledge that these

three gentlemen were really the missing members of the Polo house. So

they became the object of the greatest reverence and respect. When news

about them spread through Venice the good citizens crowded to their

house, all eager to embrace and welcome the far-travelled men and to pay

them homage. "The young men came daily to visit and converse with the

ever polite and gracious Messer Marco, and to ask him questions about

Cathay and the Great Can, all which he answered with such kindly

courtesy that every man felt himself in a manner his debtor." But when

he talked of the Great Khan's immense wealth, and of other treasures

accumulated in Eastern lands, he continually spoke of millions and

millions, and therefore he was nicknamed by his countrymen Messer Marco

Millioni.

At that time, and for long afterwards, great envy and jealousy raged

between the three great commercial republics, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa.

In the year 1298 the Genoese equipped a mighty fleet which ravaged the

Venetian territory on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea. Here it

was met by the Venetian fleet, in which Marco Polo commanded a galley.

After a hot fight the Genoese gained the victory, and with 7000

prisoners sailed home to Genoa, where they made a grand procession

through the city amidst the jubilation of the people. The prisoners were

put in chains and cast into prison, and among them was Marco Polo.

In the prison Marco had a companion in misfortune, the author Rusticiano

from Pisa. It was he who recorded Marco Polo's remarkable adventures in

Asia from his dictation, and therefore there is cause of satisfaction at

the result of the battle, for otherwise the name of Marco Polo might

perhaps have been unknown to posterity.

After a year prisoners were exchanged and Marco Polo returned to Venice,

where he married and had three daughters. In the year 1324 he died, and

was buried in the Church of San Lorenzo in Venice.

On his deathbed he was admonished to retract his extraordinary

narrative. No reliance was placed on his words, and even at the

beginning of the eighteenth century there were learned men who

maintained that his whole story was an excellently planned romance. The

narrative taken down in prison was, however, distributed in an

innumerable number of manuscript copies. The great Christopher Columbus,

discoverer of America, found in it a support to his conviction that by

sailing west a man would at length come to India.

There are many curious statements in Marco Polo's book. He speaks of the

"Land of Darkness" in the north, and of islands in the northern sea

which lie so far north that if a man travels thither he leaves the

pole-star behind him. We miss also much that we should expect to find.

Thus, for example, Marco Polo does not once mention the Great Wall,

though he must have passed through it several times. Still his book is a

treasure of geographical information, and most of his discoveries and

reports were confirmed five hundred years later. His life was a long

romance, and he occupies one of the most foremost places among

discoverers of all ages.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Since this was written, China has become a republic, the Emperor

P'u-yi (born February 11, 1906) having abdicated on February 12, 1912,

in consequence of the success of a revolution which broke out in the

autumn of 1911. He still retains the title of Manchu Emperor, but with

his death the title will cease. A provisional President of the Republic

was elected, and the first Cabinet was constituted on March 29, 1912.

[15] The Republic has adopted a new flag consisting of five

stripes--crimson, yellow, white, blue, and black--to denote the five

principal races comprised in the Chinese people, Mongol, Chinese,

Manchu, Mohammedan, and Tibetan.

[16] A Russian coin, worth about 2s, 1 1/8d.

XIII

JAPAN (1908)

NAGASAKI AND KOBE

Marco Polo was also the first European to make Japan known in Western

countries. He called it Chipangu, and stated that it was a large, rich

island in the sea east of China. Accordingly the Chinese call it the

"Land of the Rising Sun," and Nippon, as the Japanese themselves call

their islands, has the same poetical signification, derived from the

rising of the sun out of the waves of the Pacific Ocean. The flag of

Japan displays a red sun on a white field, and when it flies from the

masts of warships the sun is surrounded by sixteen red rays.

We leave Shanghai by the fine steamer _Tenyo Maru_, which is driven by

turbines and makes 18 knots an hour. The _Tenyo Maru_ belongs to a line

which plies between Hong-kong and San Francisco, calling at Shanghai,

Japan, and the Sandwich Islands on the way. From Shanghai it is 470

miles over the Eastern Sea to Nagasaki, a considerable town situated on

Kiu-shiu, the southernmost of the four islands of Japan proper.

As we near Japan the vessel crosses the great current called the "Kuro

Shiwo," or the "Black Salt." It comes from the region immediately north

of the equator, and flows northwards, washing the Japanese coast with

its water, over 200 fathoms deep, and with a temperature of 72°, just as

the Gulf Stream washes the east coast of Europe. Off Japan the sea is

very deep, the lead sinking down to 4900 fathoms and more.

In Nagasaki the visitor is astonished at the great shipbuilding yards

and docks; they are the largest in Asia, and the _Tenyo Maru_, as well

as other ships as big, have been, for the most part at any rate, built

here. It is hard to believe that it is only forty years since the

Japanese took to European civilization and the inventions of Western

lands. In many respects they have surpassed their teachers.

[Illustration: MAP SHOWING JOURNEY FROM SHANGHAI THROUGH JAPAN AND KOREA

TO DALNY (pp. 185-202).]

After a whole day in Nagasaki we steam out to sea again and make

northwards round Kiu-shiu to the beautiful narrow strait at Shimonoseki

which leads to the Inland Sea. Unfortunately it is pitch dark when we

pass Admiral Togo's fleet. He has just been engaged in manoeuvres with

eighty-five of Japan's two hundred modern warships. In sea-power Japan

is the fifth nation of the world, and is only surpassed by England,

Germany, America, and France. A large number of their warships were

captured from Russia during the war, and afterwards refitted and

re-christened with Japanese names. On a peace footing the land army of

Japan contains 250,000 men and 11,000 officers. In time of war, when all

the reservists and landwehr troops are called out, the strength amounts

to a million and a half; 120,000 men yearly are called out for active

service. The Japanese make any sacrifice when it is a question of the

defence of their fatherland. To them affection for Nippon is a

religion.

The area of Japan is about half as large again as that of the British

Islands, and the population is, roughly, a quarter more. But if the

recently acquired parts of the mainland, Korea and Kwan-tung, be

included, 77,000 square miles must be added and the population increased

to 65 millions.

Early on the morning of November 9 we pass through the strait of

Shimonoseki into the Inland Sea, the Mediterranean of Japan, which lies

between the islands Hondo, Kiu-shiu, and Shikoku. The scenery which

unfolds itself on all sides is magnificent, and is constantly changing.

Close around us, away over the open passages and in among the dark

islands, is the clear, green, salt water, edged with foaming surf and

dotted with picturesque fishing-boats under full sail; and as a frame to

the gently heaving sea we have the innumerable islands--some large, some

small, some wooded, others bare, but all sloping steeply to the shore,

where the breakers thunder eternally. A pleasant breeze is felt on the

promenade deck of the _Tenyo Maru_, the air is fresh and pure, the day

bright and cheerful, and from sea and coast comes a curious mixed odour

of salt brine and pine needles.

At dusk we cast anchor in the roadstead of Kobe, where the _Tenyo Maru_

has to remain for twenty-four hours in order to take cargo on board. A

launch takes us to the busy town, and we determine to spend the night on

shore in a genuine Japanese hotel. At the entrance we are met by the

landlord, in a garment like a petticoat and a thin mantle with short

hanging sleeves. Two small waiting-maids take off our shoes and put a

pair of slippers on our feet. We go up a narrow wooden staircase and

along a passage with a brightly polished wooden floor. Outside a sliding

door we take off our slippers and enter in stocking feet. Cleanliness is

the first rule in a Japanese house, and it would be thought inexcusable

to enter a room in shoes which had lately been in the dust and dirt of

the lanes and streets.

Our rooms are divided from one another by partitions of paper or the

thinnest veneer, which can be partially drawn aside so that the rooms

may be thrown into one. Here and there mottoes are inscribed on hanging

shields, and we see that they are written in the same singular

characters as are used in China. On one wall hangs a _kakemono_, or a

long strip of paper with flowers painted in water-colours. On a small

carved wooden stool below the painting stands a dwarf tree scarcely two

feet in height. It is a cherry-tree which has been prevented from

growing to its full size, but it is a real, living tree, perhaps twenty

years old, and exactly like an ordinary cherry-tree, only so small that

it might have come from Lilliput.

The floor is laid with mats of rice straw with black borders. Each mat

is 6 feet long and 3 wide, and when a house is built the areas of the

rooms are always calculated in a certain number of mats; thus a room of

six mats is spoken of, or one of eight mats. Not infrequently the rooms

are so small that three or even two mats will cover the floor.

We take our seats crossed-legged or on our heels on small, square, down

cushions, the only furniture to be seen. A young Japanese maiden, also

in stocking feet, enters and places a stove in the middle of our circle.

There is no fireplace. This stove is shaped like a flower-pot, made of

thick metal, and is filled with fine white ashes. The young woman builds

the ashes up into a cone like the summit of Fujiyama and lays fresh

glowing charcoal against it. Instead of tongs she uses a pair of small

iron rods.

Bedsteads are not used in Japan, and the bedding, which consists of

thick padded quilts of rustling silk, is simply spread out on the mats

on the floor. All the service and attendance is performed by women. They

are dressed in their becoming and tasteful national costume, the

"kimono," a close-fitting coloured garment, cut out round the neck, a

broad sash of cloth round the waist, and a large rosette like a cushion

at the back. Their hair is jet black, smooth, and shiny, and is arranged

in tresses that look as if they were carved in ebony. Japanese women are

always clean, neat, and dainty, and it is vain to look for a speck of

dust on a silken cuff. If they did not giggle sometimes, you might think

that they were dolls of wax or china. They are treated like princesses

with the greatest politeness and consideration, for such is the custom

of the country. They do their work conscientiously, and are always

cheerful, contented, and friendly.

[Illustration: PLATE XIX. A JAPANESE RICKSHA.]

We sit down on our cushions for breakfast. The serving-girls bring in a

small red-lacquered table, not larger or higher than a footstool. Every

guest has his own table, and on each are five cups, bowls, and small

dishes of porcelain and lacquer, all of them with lids like teapots.

These contain raw fish and boiled fish in various forms, omelettes and

macaroni, crab soup with asparagus in it, and many other strange

viands. When we have partaken of the first five dishes, another table is

brought in with fresh dishes; and if it is a great banquet, as many as

four or five such tables may be placed before one before the dinner is

over. We eat with two chopsticks of wood or ivory not larger than a

penholder, drink pale, weak tea without sugar and cream, and a kind of

weak rice spirit called _saké_. When a bowl of steaming rice cooked dry

is brought in, it is a sign that the meal is ended.

* * * * *

The streets of Kobe are not paved. They are narrow roads, too narrow for

the large, clumsy vehicles, which are, however, few in number, and are

mostly used for the transport of goods. The people ride in

"rickshas"--neat, smart, two-wheeled gigs drawn by a running bare-legged

man with a mushroom-shaped hat on his head (Plate XIX.). The road

westwards along the coast runs through a succession of animated and busy

villages, past open tea-houses and small country shops, homely,

decorated wooden dwellings, temples, fields, and gardens. Everything is

small, neat, and well kept. Each peasant cultivates his own property

with care and affection, and the harvest from innumerable small plots

constitutes the wealth of Japan. It is impossible to drive fast along

the narrow road, for we are always meeting waggons and two-wheeled

carts, porters, and travellers.

At the "Beach of Dancing Girls" we stay a while under some old

pine-trees. Here people bathe in summer, while the children play among

the trees. But now in November it is cold rather than warm, and after a

pleasant excursion we return to Kobe. On the way we look into a Shinto

temple erected to the memory of a hero who six hundred years ago fell in

a battle in the neighbourhood. In the temple court stands a large

Russian cannon taken at Port Arthur, and also a part of the mast shot

off the man-of-war _Mikasa_.

Buddhism was introduced into Japan in the sixth century A.D., and more

than half the population of the country profess this religion. The old

faith of Japan, however, is Shintoism, to which about one-third of the

people still belong. The sun is worshipped as a principal god and the

powers of nature are adored as divinities. From the solar deity the

imperial house derives its origin, and the Emperor is regarded with

almost religious reverence. Respect is also paid to the memory of

departed heroes, as in China. Of late Christianity has spread far and

wide in Japan, and Christian churches are now numerous.

FUJIYAMA AND TOKIO

It is now November 11. During the night the _Tenyo Maru_ has passed out

from Kobe into the Pacific Ocean, and is now steering north-east at a

good distance from the coast of Hondo. The sky is gloomy, and the desert

of water around us is a monotonous steely-grey expanse in every

direction.

The Mediterranean countries of Europe lie on the same parallel of

latitude as Japan. But Japan lies in the domain of the monsoons or

periodical winds, and when these blow in summer from the ocean, they

bring rain with them, while the winter, when the wind comes from the

opposite direction, is fairly dry. On the whole Japan is colder than the

Mediterranean countries, but the difference in climate between the

northern and southern parts is very great. On the northern island, Yezo,

the winter lasts quite seven months.

At noon Fujiyama[17] is first seen towards the north-east. Nothing of

the coast is visible, only the snowy summit of the mountain floating

white above the sea. Our course takes us straight towards it, and the

imposing mountain becomes more distinct every quarter of an hour. Now

also the coast comes in sight as a dark line, but only the summit of the

mountain is visible, a singularly regular flat cone. The top looks as if

it were cut off; that is the crater ring, for Fujiyama is a volcano,

though it has been quiescent for the past two centuries.

The snowfields in the gullies stand out more and more clearly, but still

only the summit is visible, floating as it were free above the earth, a

vision among the clouds. An hour later the whole contour comes into view

and becomes sharper and sharper; and when we anchor off the shore the

peak of Fujiyama rises right above us.

Fujiyama is the highest mountain in Japan, and the crater ring of the

slumbering volcano is 12,395 feet above the surface of the Pacific

Ocean. Fujiyama is a holy mountain; the path up it is lined with small

temples and shrines, and many pilgrims ascend to the top in summer when

the snow has melted away. It is the pride of Japan and the grandest

object of natural beauty the country possesses (Plate XX.). It would be

vain to try to enumerate all the objects on which the cone of Fujiyama

has been represented from immemorial times. It is always the same

mountain with the truncated top--in silver and gold on the famous

lacquered boxes, and on the rare choice silver and bronze caskets, on

the valuable vases in cloisonne, on bowls, plaques, and dishes, on

screens, parasols, everything.

[Illustration: PLATE XX. FUJIYAMA.]

Painters also take a delight in devising various foregrounds to the

white cone. I once saw a book of a hundred pictures of Fujiyama, each

with a new foreground. Now the holy mountain was seen between the boughs

of Japanese cedars, now between the tall trunks of trees, and again

beneath their crowns. Once more it appeared above a foaming waterfall,

or over a quiet lake, where the peak was reflected in the water; or

above a swinging bridge, a group of playing children, or between the

masts of fishing-boats. It peeped out through a temple gate or at the

end of one of the streets of Tokio, between the ripening ears of a

rice-field or the raised parasols of dancing girls.

Thus Fujiyama has become the symbol of everything that the name Nippon

implies, and its peak is the first point which catches the rays of the

rising sun at the dawn of day.

Singularly cold and pale the holy mountain stands out against the dark

blue sky as we steer out again to sea in the moonlight night. It is our

last night on the long sea voyage from Bombay. Close to starboard we

have Oshima, the "great island," an active volcano with thin vapour

floating above its flat summit; Japan has more than a hundred extinct

and a score of still active volcanoes, and the country is also visited

by frequent earthquakes. On an average 1200 are counted in the year,

most of them, however, quite insignificant. Now and then, however, they

are very destructive, carrying off thousands of victims, and it is on

account of the earthquakes that the Japanese build their houses of wood

and make them low.

In the early morning the _Tenyo Maru_ glides into the large inlet on

which Yokohama and Tokio are situated. Yokohama is an important

commercial town, and is a port of call for a large number of steamboat

lines from the four continents. Its population is about 400,000, of whom

1000 are Europeans--merchants, consuls, and missionaries.

A few miles south-west of Yokohama is the fishing-village of Kamakura,

which was for many centuries the capital of the Shoguns. It has now

little to show for its former greatness--at one time it was said to

have over a million inhabitants--except the beautiful, colossal statue

of Buddha, the Daibutsu (Plate XXI.). The figure, which is about 40 feet

high, is cast in bronze, and dates from 1252.

At the head of the bay lies Tokio, the capital, with over two million

inhabitants. Here are many palaces surrounded by fine parks, but the

people live in small, neat, wooden houses, most of them with garden

enclosures. The grounds of the Japanese of rank are small masterpieces

of taste and excellence. It is a great relief to come out of the bustle

and dust of the roads into these peaceful retreats, where small canals

and brooks murmur among blocks of grey stone and where trees bend their

crowns over arched bridges.

In Tokio the traveller can study both the old and the new Japan, There

are museums of all kinds, picture galleries, schools, and a university

organized on the European model. There is also a geological institution

where very accurate geological maps are compiled of the whole country,

and where in particular all the phenomena connected with volcanoes and

earthquakes are investigated. In scientific inquiries the Japanese are

on a par with Europeans. In the art of war they perhaps excel white

peoples. In industrial undertakings they have appropriated all the

inventions of our age, and in commerce they threaten to push their

Western rivals out of Asia. Not many years ago, for example, some

Japanese went to Sweden to study the manufacture of those safety matches

which strike only on the box. Now they make safety matches themselves,

and supply not only Japan but practically all the East. At Kobe one can

often see a whole mountain of wooden boxes containing matches, waiting

for shipment to China and Korea. So it is in all other branches of

industry. The Japanese travel to Europe and study the construction of

turbines, railway carriages, telephones, and soon they can dispense with

Europe and produce all they want themselves.

The present Emperor of Japan, Mutsuhito,[18] came to the throne in 1867.

His reign is called _Mei-ji_, or the "Era of Enlightened Rule." During

this period Japan has developed into a Great Power of the first rank,

and it is in no small measure due to the wisdom and clear-sightedness of

the Emperor that this great transformation has been accomplished.

Formerly the country was divided into many small principalities under

the rule of _daimios_ or feudal lords, who were often at war with one

another, though they were all subject to the suzerainty of the Shogun,

the nominal ruler of the whole country. Together with the _samurais_

the _daimios_ constituted the feudal nobility. It is curious to think

that little more than forty years ago the Japanese fought with bows and

arrows, sword and spear, and that the _samurais_ went to battle in heavy

harness with brassards and cuisses, helms and visors over the face. They

were skilful archers, and wielded their great swords with both hands

when they rushed on the foe.

[Illustration: PLATE XXI. THE GREAT BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA.]

Then the new period suddenly began. In 1872 universal service was

introduced, and French and German officers were invited to organise the

defensive force. Now Japan is so strong that no Great Power in the world

cares to measure its strength with it.

NIKKO, NARA, AND KIOTO

From Tokio we travel northwards by train in two hours to Nikko. There

are several villages, and we put up in one of them. In front of the inn

ripples a clear stream, spanned by two bridges, one of which is arched

and furnished with a red parapet. Only the Emperor and his family may

step on to this bridge; other mortals must pass over another bridge near

at hand. On the farther side we ascend a tremendously long avenue of

grand cryptomerias rising straight up to the sky. It leads to a

mausoleum erected to the memory of the first Shogun of the famous

dynasty of Tokugawa. The first of them died in the year 1616.

This mausoleum is considered to be the most remarkable sight in Japan.

It is not huge and massive, like the Buddhist temple in Kioto, the old

capital of Japan. It is somewhat small, but both outside and inside it

displays unusually exquisite artistic skill. Granite steps lead up to

it. A _torii_, or portal, is artistically carved in stone, and another

is so perfect that the architect feared the envy of the gods, and

therefore placed one of the pillars upside down. We see carved in wood

three apes, one holding his hands before his eyes, another over his

ears, and the third over his mouth. That means that they will neither

see, hear, nor speak anything evil. A pagoda rises in five blood-red

storeys. At all the projections of the roof hang round bells, which

sound melodiously to the movement of the wind. In the interior of the

temple the sightseer is lost in dark passages dimly illuminated by oil

lamps carried by the priests. The walls are all covered with the finest

paintings in gold and lacquer. A moss-grown stone staircase leads down

to the tomb where the Shogun sleeps.

Nara is situated immediately to the south of Kioto. Here are many famous

temples, pagodas, and _torii_, and here also is the largest image of

Buddha in Japan, twelve hundred years old. The finest thing of all,

however, is the temple park of Nara, where silence and peace reign in a

grove of tall cryptomerias. Along the walks are several rows of stone

lamps placed on high pedestals of stone. They stand close together and

may number a thousand. Each of these lamps is a gift of some wealthy man

to the temple. On great festivals oil lamps are placed in them. Hundreds

of roedeer live in the park of Nara. They are as tame as lambs, and

wherever you go they come skipping up with easy, lively jumps. Barley

cakes for them to eat are sold along the paths of the park, and you buy

a whole basket of these. In a minute you are surrounded by roedeer,

stretching out their delicate, pretty heads and gazing at the basket

with their lovely brown eyes. Here a wonderful air of peace and

happiness prevails. The steps of roedeer and pilgrims are heard on the

sand of the paths, but otherwise there is complete silence and quiet.

The feeling reminds one of that which is experienced at the Taj Mahal.

All Japan is like a museum. You can travel about for years and daily

find new gems of natural beauty and of the most perfect art. Everything

seems so small and delicate. Even the people are small. The roads are

narrow, and are chiefly used by rickshas and foot passengers. The houses

are dolls' closets. The railways are of narrow gauge, and the carriages

like our tramcars. But if you wish to see something large you can visit

the Buddhist temple in Kioto. There we are received with boundless

hospitality by the high priest, Count Otani, who leads us round and

shows us the huge halls where Buddha sits dreaming, and his own palace,

which is one of the most richly and expensively adorned in all Japan.

If you wish to see something else which does not exactly belong to the

small things of Japan you should visit a temple in Osaka, the chief

manufacturing town of Japan. There hangs a bell which is 25 feet high

and weighs 220 tons. In a frame beside the bell is suspended a beam, a

regular battering-ram, which is set in motion up and down when the bell

is sounded. And when the bell emits its heavy, deafening ring it sounds

like thunder.

Kioto is much handsomer than Tokio, for it has been less affected by the

influence of Western lands, and lies amidst hills and gardens. Kioto is

the genuine old Japan with attractive bazaars and bright streets. Shall

we look into a couple of shops?

Here is an art-dealer's. We enter from the street straight into a large

room full of interesting things, but the dealer takes us into quite a

small room, where he invites us to sit at a table. And now he brings out

one costly article after another. First he shows us some gold lacquered

boxes, on which are depicted trees and houses and the sun in gold, and

golden boats sailing over water. One tiny box, containing several

compartments and drawers, and covered all over with the finest gold

inlaying, costs only three thousand _yen_, or about three hundred

pounds. Then he shows us an old man in ivory lying on a carpet of ivory

and reading a book, while a small boy in ivory has climbed on to his

back. From a whole elephant tusk a number of small elephants have been

carved, becoming smaller towards the point of the tusk, but all cut out

in the same piece. You are tired of looking at them, they are so many,

and they are all executed with such exact faithfulness to nature that

you would hardly be surprised if they began to move.

Then he sets on the table a dozen metal boxes exquisitely adorned with

coloured lacquer. On the lid of a silver box an adventure of a monkey is

represented in raised work. Pursued by a snake, the monkey has taken

refuge in a cranny beneath a projecting rock. The snake sits on the top.

He cannot see the monkey, but he catches sight of his reflection in the

water below the stone. The monkey, too, sees the image of the snake, and

each is now waiting for the other.

Now the shopman comes with two tortoises in bronze. The Japanese are

experts in metal-work, and there is almost life and movement in these

creatures. Now he throws on to the table a snake three feet long. It is

composed of numberless small movable rings of iron fastened together,

and looks marvellously life-like. Just at the door stands a heavy copper

bowl on a lacquered tripod, a gong that sounds like a temple bell when

its edge is struck with a skin-covered stick. It is beaten out of a

single piece, not cast, and therefore it has such a wonderful vibrating

and long-continued ring.

Let us also go into one of the famous large silk shops. Shining white

silk with white embroidered chrysanthemum flowers on it--women's kimonos

with clusters of blue flowers on the sleeves and skirt--landscapes,

fishing-boats, ducks and pigeons, monkeys and tigers, all painted or

embroidered on silk--herons and cranes in thick raised needlework on

screens in black frames--everything is good and tasteful.

Among the most exquisite, however, are the cloths of cut velvet. This is

a wonderful art not found in any other country than Japan. The finest

white silken threads are tightly woven over straight copper wires laid

close together, making a white cloth of perhaps ten feet square,

interwoven with copper wires. An artist paints in bright colours on the

cloth a landscape, a rushing brook among red maples, a bridge, a

mill-wheel, and a hut on the bank. When he has done, he cuts with a

sharp knife along each of the numberless copper wires. Every time he

cuts, the point of the knife follows one of the copper wires, and he

cuts only over the coloured parts. The fine silk threads are thus

severed and their ends stand up like a brush. Then the copper wires are

drawn out, and there stand the red trees, hut, and bridge in close

velvet on a foundation of silk.

In all kinds of handicrafts and mechanical work the Japanese are

experts. A workman will sit with inexhaustible patience and diligence

for days, and even months and years, executing in ivory a boy carrying a

fruit basket on his back. He strikes and cuts with his small hammers and

knives, his chisels and files, and gives himself no rest until the boy

is finished. Perhaps it may cost him a year's work, but the price is so

high that all his expenses for the year are covered when the boy is sold

to an art-dealer.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] "Fuji," without equal; "yama," mountain.

[18] The Emperor Mutsuhito died on July 30, 1912, and was succeeded by

his eldest son, Yoshihito, who was born in 1879.

XIV

BACK TO EUROPE

KOREA

Our journey eastwards ends with Japan, and we turn westwards on our way

back to Europe. The portion of the mainland of Asia which lies nearest

to Japan is Korea, and the passage across the straits from Shimonoseki

to Fu-san takes only about ten hours. The steamer sails in the morning,

and late in the afternoon we see to larboard the Tsushima Islands rising

out of the water like huge dolphins. Our course takes us almost over the

exact place where, on May 27, 1905, Admiral Togo annihilated the

squadron of the Russian Admiral Rozhdestvenski.

The Russian fleet had sailed round Asia, and steamed up east of Formosa

to the Strait of Korea. The Admiral hoped to be able to reach

Vladivostock, on the Russian side of the Sea of Japan, without being

attacked, and on May 27 his fleet was approaching the Tsushima Islands.

But Admiral Togo, with the Japanese fleet, lay waiting off the southern

coast of Korea. He had divided the straits into squares on a map, and

his scouting boats were constantly on the look-out. They could always

communicate with Togo's flagship by wireless telegraphy. And now

currents passing through the air announced that the Russian fleet was in

sight, and was in the square numbered 203. This number was considered a

good omen by the Japanese, for the fate of the fortress of Port Arthur

was sealed when the Japanese took a fort called "203-metre Hill" (Port

Arthur, which lies on the coast of the Chinese mainland, had fallen into

the hands of the Japanese on January 1, 1905).

When the news came, Togo knew what to do. With his large ships and sixty

torpedo boats he fell upon the Russian fleet, and the battle was

decided within an hour. The Russian Admiral's flagship sank just on the

spot where we are now on the way to Fu-san. The Admiral himself was

rescued, sorely wounded, by the Japanese. His fleet was dispersed, and

its various divisions were pursued, sunk, or captured. The Russians lost

thirty-four ships and ten thousand men. It was a bloody encounter which

took place on these usually so peaceful waters. The Japanese became

masters of the sea, and could, unhindered, transport troops, provisions,

and war material over to the mainland, where the war with Russia still

raged in Manchuria.

From Fu-san, which for two hundred years has been a Japanese town, the

railway takes us northwards through the Korean peninsula. We ascend the

beautiful valley of the Nak-tong-gang River. Side valleys opening here

and there afford interesting views, and between them dark hills descend

steeply to the river, which often spreads out and flows so gently that

the surface of the water forms a smooth mirror. The sky is clear and

turquoise-blue in colour, and spans its vault over greyish-brown bare

mountains. Where the ground on the valley bottom is level it is occupied

by rice and wheat fields. Every now and then we pass a busy village of

grey thatched houses, where groups of women and children in coloured

garments are seen outside the cabins. The men wear long white coats, and

on the head a thin black hat in the form of a stunted cone with flat

brim. Seldom are the eyes caught by a clump of trees; as a rule the

country is bare. Innumerable small mounds are often seen on the slopes;

these are Korean graves.

The signs of Japan's peaceful conquest of Korea are everywhere apparent.

Japanese guards, policemen, soldiers, and officials are seen at the

stations; the country now contains more than 200,000 Japanese. Settlers

from Japan, however, take up their residence only for a time in the

foreign country. For example, a landowner in Japan will sell half his

property there, and with the proceeds buy land in Korea three or four

times as large as all his estate in the home country, and in fertility

at least as good. There he farms for some years, and then returns home

with the profits he has earned. Numbers of Japanese fishermen also come

yearly to the coasts of Korea with their boats, and return home to Japan

with their catch. Thus Korea is deluged with Japanese of all kinds. The

army is Japanese, Japanese fortresses are erected along the northern

frontier, the government and officials are Japanese, and soon Korea

will become simply a part of the Land of the Rising Sun.

[Illustration: PLATE XXII. A SEDAN-CHAIR IN SEOUL.]

We cross the range of mountains which runs like a backbone all through

Korea from north to south, and late in the evening we come to the

capital, Seoul, which has 280,000 inhabitants, a fifth of whom are

Japanese. The town is confined in a valley between bare cliffs, and from

the heights all that can be seen is confusion of grey and white houses

with gabled roofs covered with grey tiles. In the Japanese quarter life

goes on exactly as in Japan; rows of coloured paper lanterns hang now,

at night, before the open shops, and trade is brisk and lively. In the

Korean quarters the lanes are narrow and dismal, but the principal

streets are wider, with tramcars rattling amidst the varied Asiatic

scenes. Here are sedan chairs (Plate XXII.), caravans of big oxen laden

with firewood, heavy carts with goods, men carrying unusually heavy

loads on a framework of wooden ribs on their backs, women sailing past

in white garments and a veil over their smooth-plaited hair. A row of

grown men and boys pass through the streets carrying boards with Korean

inscriptions in red and white: those are advertisements. Before them

marches a drum and flute band, filling the streets with a hideous noise.

Korea has 13 million inhabitants, and in area is just about as large as

Great Britain. It is now subject to Japan, and is administered by a

Japanese Resident-General, whose headquarters are at Seoul.

MANCHURIA

From Seoul we travelled northwards by rail to Wi-ju, a small place on

the left bank of the Yalu River, which forms the boundary between Korea

and Manchuria. Opposite, on the right or north bank of the Yalu, stands

An-tung, a town with 5000 Japanese and 40,000 Chinese inhabitants. The

river had just begun to freeze over, and the ice was still so thin that

it could be seen bending in great waves under the weight of our sledge,

which a Chinaman pushed along at a great speed with a long iron-shod

pole. However, we reached the other side in safety.

From An-tung to Mukden is only 200 miles, but the journey takes two

whole days. The little narrow-gauge railway was laid down during the

Russo-Japanese War to enable the Japanese to transport provisions and

material to the front. The small track goes up and down over the

mountains in the most capricious curves and loops, and the train seldom

accomplishes the whole journey without a mishap. The Japanese Consul at

An-tung, who had made the journey eight times, had been in four railway

accidents, and two days previously the train had rolled down a declivity

with a general and his staff.

The view through the carriage windows is magnificent. This part of

Manchuria is mountainous, but in the depths of the valleys lie farms and

fields. Manchus in long blue coats and black vests wind along the road

tracks, some on foot, others mounted, while others again drive

two-wheeled carts drawn by a horse and a pair of mules. All the

watercourses are frozen, but there is no snow. It is sunny, clear, and

calm in these valleys, where the thunder of battle has long died away

among the mountains.

Half-way to Mukden we halt for the night, and start next morning before

daybreak in biting cold. Some Chinese merchants join the train, attended

by servants bearing paper lanterns. A small party of Japanese soldiers

also is here. They are in thick yellow coats with high collars,

_bashliks_, red shoulder knots, caps with a red border, leather-covered

felt boots, and are armed with cutlasses and rifles. They are sinewy and

sturdy fellows, neat and clean, and always seem cheerful.

At length the Christmas sun rises glowing red, and the ice flowers

vanish from the windows. Here, where the winter cold is so piercing, it

is oppressively hot in summer. Our little toy train crosses a river

several times on fragile bridges of beams, which seem as though they

might at any moment collapse like a house of cards. Small strips of

tilled land, creaking ox-carts on the deeply rutted roads, tiny Buddhist

oratories, primitive stations with long rows of trucks of fuel, a

country house or two--that is all that is to be seen the whole day,

until late in the evening we arrive at Mukden.

Manchuria is one of the dependencies of China. The Russians constructed

a railway through the country to the fortress of Port Arthur, but, as is

well known, the Japanese succeeded in capturing the fortress during the

war. By the peace of Portsmouth,[19] concluded in September 1905, the

Japanese acquired Port Arthur, the adjacent commercial port of Dalny,

with the surrounding district, the southern half of the large island

Sakhalin, the supremacy over Korea, together with the South Manchurian

Railway--so that the Russians had unknowingly built this railway for the

benefit of their enemies.

Round Mukden was fought the greatest battle of the whole Russo-Japanese

War. The contest lasted twenty days; more than 850,000 men and 2500 guns

were engaged, and 120,000 were left dead on the field. On March 1, 1905,

the whole Japanese army began to move, and formed at last a ring round

the Russians and Mukden. Thus the Japanese became for the time being the

masters of Manchuria, but on the conclusion of peace the country was

handed back to China.

The life in the singular streets of Mukden is varied and attractive. The

Manchus seem a vigorous and self-confident people; they are taller than

the Chinese, but wear Chinese dress with fur caps on their heads. The

women seldom appear out of doors; they wear their hair gathered up in a

high knot on the crown, and, in contrast to the Chinese women, do not

deform their feet. Among the swarming crowds one sees Chinamen,

merchants, officers, and soldiers in semi-European fur-lined uniforms,

policemen in smart costumes with bright buttons, Japanese, Mongols, and

sometimes a European. Tramcars drawn by horses jingle through the

broader streets. The houses are fine and solidly built, with carved

dragons and painted sculpture, paper lanterns and advertisements, and a

confusion of black Chinese characters on vertically hanging signs. At

the four points of the compass there are great town gates in the noble

Chinese architecture, but outside stretches a bare and dreary plain full

of grave mounds.

In Pe-ling, or "Northern Tomb," rests the first Chinese Emperor of the

Manchu dynasty, and his son, the great Kang Hi, who reigned over the

Middle Kingdom for sixty-one years. Pe-ling consists of several

temple-like buildings. The visitor first enters a hall containing an

enormous tortoise of stone, which supports a stone tablet inscribed with

an epitaph extolling the deceased Emperor. At the farthest extremity of

the walled park is the tomb itself, a huge mass of stone with a curved

roof. In a pavilion just in front of this building the Emperor of China

is wont to perform his devotions when he visits the graves of his

fathers. Solemn peace reigns in the park, and under the pine-trees stone

elephants, horses, and camels gaze solemnly at one another.

From Mukden Port Arthur is an easy eight hours' railway journey

south-westwards; and it is only an hour and a half more to Dalny, which

in Japanese hands has grown to a large and important commercial town.

THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY

On December 28, 1908, we stepped into the train in Dalny, and commenced

a railway journey which lasted without a break for eleven days.

First we have to go back to Mukden, and then a somewhat shorter journey

to the last Japanese station. At the next the stationmaster is a

Russian, and Russian guards replace the Japanese. In the afternoon the

train draws up at Kharbin on the Sungari River, a tributary of the great

Amur. It was towards Kharbin that the Russians slowly retired after

their defeat, and on this very platform Prince Ito, the first Japanese

Resident-General of Korea, was murdered barely a year later.

At Kharbin we have to wait two hours for the international express,

which runs twice a week from Vladivostock to Moscow.

Next morning we stay for two hours at a station in Manchuria, on the

boundary between Manchuria and Siberia, between China and Russia, and

here our luggage is examined by the Russian customs officers. We put our

watches back one and a half hours--that is the difference of time

between Kharbin and Irkutsk. We are now travelling from east to west, in

the same direction as the sun. If the train went as fast as the sun we

should enjoy perpetual day; but the train lags behind, and we only gain

an hour in the twenty-four.

The Trans-Siberian railway is the longest in the world, the distance

from Dalny to Moscow being 5400 miles. The railway was completed just in

time for the war, but as it had only one track, it taxed all the energy

of the Russians to transport troops and war material to the battlefields

in Manchuria. A second track is now being laid.

By using this railway a traveller can go from London to Shanghai in

fourteen days, the route being to Dover, across the Channel to Calais,

by rail to Moscow, from Moscow to Vladivostock by the Trans-Siberian

railway, and from Vladivostock to Shanghai by sea. The sea voyage from

London by the P. and O.--calling at Gibraltar, Marseilles, Port Said,

Aden, Colombo, Penang, Singapore, and Hong Kong--takes about six weeks,

which can be reduced to a month by travelling by train across Europe to

Brindisi (at the south-eastern corner of Italy), and thence by steamer

to Port Said, where the liner is joined. There is still a third route,

across the Atlantic to the United States or Canada, by rail to San

Francisco or Vancouver, and then by steamer to Shanghai _via_ Japan.

This journey can also be accomplished in a month.

[Illustration: THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY.]

On the last day of the year we pass through the Yablonoi Mountains and

enter the region called Transbaikalia, because it lies on the farther,

that is, the eastern, side of Lake Baikal. Here dwell Buriats, a

Mongolian people--in winter in wooden huts surrounded by enclosures for

domestic animals, in summer in tents. When we awoke on the morning of

New Year's Day the train was passing along the southern shore of Lake

Baikal, and one of the most enchanting scenes in the world was displayed

to the eyes of the passengers. On the eastern shore the mountains stood

clearly defined in the pure morning air, while the ranges to the west

were lit up by the clear sunshine. Here and there the slopes were

covered with northern pine and fir-trees. The line runs all the way

along the lake shore, sometimes only a couple of yards from the water.

This part of the Trans-Siberian railway was the most difficult and

costly to make, and the last to be completed. During its construction

traffic between the extremities of the line was provided for by great

ferry-boats across the lake. The line winds in and out, following all

the promontories and bays of the lake, and the train rolls on through

narrow galleries where columns of rock are left to support a whole roof

of mountain. Sometimes we run along a ledge blasted out of the side of

the mountain, above a precipitous slope which falls headlong to the

lake. We rush through an endless succession of tunnels, and on emerging

from each are surprised by a new view of the mountainous shore.

Baikal, or the "Rich Lake," is the third inland sea of Asia, only the

Caspian and the Sea of Aral being larger. Its height above sea-level is

1560 feet; the water is light-green in colour, sweet, and crystal clear,

and abounds in fish, among them five species of salmon. There is also a

kind of seal, and in general many of the animal forms of Baikal are

allied to those of the salt sea. Baikal is the deepest lake in the

world, soundings having been taken down to 5618 feet. Steamers cross the

lake in various directions, and in winter sleighs are driven over the

ice from shore to shore. At the beginning of January the whole of the

deep lake is so cooled down that ice begins to form, and the lake is

usually frozen over to the middle of April.

We stop an hour at Irkutsk to change trains. Irkutsk is the largest town

in Siberia, and has 100,000 inhabitants; it stands on the bank of the

river Angara, which flows out of Lake Baikal, and thus forms the outlet

of all the rivers and streams which empty themselves into the lake, the

largest of which is the Selenga. Although the Angara is five times as

large as the Yenisei, it is called a tributary of the latter. The

Yenisei rises in Chinese territory, and, running northwards right

through Siberia, falls into the Arctic Ocean. It receives a large number

of affluents, most of them from the east. Its banks are clothed with

forest, and from Minusinsk downwards the river is navigable.

The Lena, the great river which passes through eastern Siberia

north-east of Baikal, is not much smaller than the Yenisei. There stands

the town of Yakutsk, where the temperature falls in winter down to-80°,

and rises in summer to 95°. North of Yakutsk, on the river Yana, lies

Verkhoiansk, the coldest place in the world, the centre of low

temperature or pole of cold.

In area Siberia is larger than the whole of Europe, but the population

in this immense country is no greater than that of Greater London,

_i.e._ about seven millions. Of these 60 per cent are Russians, 20 per

cent Kirghizes, and the remainder is made up of Buriats, Yakuts,

Tunguses, Manchus, Samoyeds, Ostiaks, Tatars, Chukchis, etc. No small

part of the Russian population consists of convicts transported to

Siberia, whose hard lot is to work under strict supervision in the gold

mines. Their number is estimated at 150,000. Before the railway was made

they had to travel tremendous distances on foot. They marched ten miles

a day in rain and sunshine, storm and snow, through the terribly cold

and gloomy Siberia. Before and behind them rode Cossacks, who would not

let them rest as they dragged their chains through the mud and mire of

the road. Frequently women and children followed of their own free will

to share their husbands' and fathers' fate during their forced labour in

the mines. Now there is a great improvement. The labour, indeed, is just

as hard, but the journey out is less trying. The unfortunate people are

now forwarded in special prison vans with gratings for windows. They are

like travelling cells, and can often be seen on side tracks at a

station.

In the neighbourhood of the Lena River dwell Yakuts of the Turkish-Tatar

race. They number only 230,000 men, are nominally Christians, and pursue

agriculture and trade. East of the Yenisei are the Tunguses, a small

people divided into "settled," "horse," "reindeer," and "dog" Tunguses,

according to the domestic animal of most importance to their mode of

life. In western Siberia, the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, live

Ostiaks, a small Finnish tribe of 26,000 persons, who are poor fisher

folk, hunters and nomads with reindeer. This tribe is rapidly dying out.

North of them, in the northern parts of western Siberia and in

north-eastern Europe, live the Samoyeds, of Ural-Altai origin, who are

still fewer in number than the preceding tribe, and live by

reindeer-breeding and fishing.

All these Siberian tribes and many others are Shamanists, and are so

called after their priests, Shamans. They believe in an intimate

connection between living men and their long-deceased forefathers. They

entertain a great dread of the dead, and do everything they can to

exorcise and appease their souls, bringing them offerings. All this

business is attended to with much black magic and witchcraft by the

Shamans, who are also doctors. When any one dies the spirit of the dead

must be driven out of the tent, so the Shaman is summoned. He comes

decked out in a costly and curious dress, and with religious enthusiasm

performs a dance which soon degenerates into a kind of ecstasy. He

throws himself about, reels and groans, and is beside himself. And when

he has carried on long enough he catches hold of a magic drum, whose

soothing sounds calm him and bring him back to his senses. When he has

finished his performance the soul is gone!

Over white plains, over hills, and through valleys, the train bears us

on farther north-westwards through the government of Irkutsk. At

Krasnoiarsk we cross the Yenisei by a fine bridge nearly two-thirds of a

mile long. In summer vessels can ascend as far as Minusinsk, in a

district of southern Siberia, rich in gold and iron and productive soil.

In general Siberia is a rich country. Gold, silver, and copper, lead,

graphite, and coal occur, besides many other valuable minerals and

stones in the mountains. The country has also good prospects of future

development owing to its remarkably excellent agricultural land. Most of

this is situated near the railway, and all Siberia is intersected by a

net of waterways. From one of the tributaries of the Obi steamers can

pass by canal to the Yenisei, and thence on to the Lena. Omsk, the third

town of Siberia, with 89,000 inhabitants, is the centre of this water

system. More than 6000 miles of river can be navigated by large

steamers, and nearly 30,000 by smaller boats. In western Siberia, around

Tomsk and Omsk, the agricultural produce increases year by year, and the

time will certainly come when these regions will support a population

many times as large as at present, and export large quantities of corn

in addition. This is the only thing which will make this enormously long

railway pay, for it cost somewhere about £11,000,000 to build.

We have passed Tomsk and crossed the Obi by a fine massive bridge of

stone and iron. The Obi is the largest river of Asia. In length it is

equal to the Yenisei and Blue River, but its drainage basin is larger

than that of either of the others. Where the great affluent, the Irtish,

runs in from the west, the Obi has a breadth of nearly two miles, and at

its mouth, in the Gulf of Obi on the Arctic Ocean, the breadth has

increased to twelve miles. The Irtish also receives from the west a

large tributary, the Tobol, and at the confluence stands the town of

Tobolsk.

One day passes after another, and one night after another rises up blue

and cold from the east. We have left every mountain and hill behind us,

and the boundless plains, like a frozen sea, lie buried under deep snow.

Sometimes we travel for a whole hour without seeing a farm or village.

Only occasionally do we see to the north a small patch of _taiga_, or

the Siberian coniferous forest, silent and dark. A clump of birch-trees

is a rare sight. The country is open, flat, monotonous, and dead-white

as far as the horizon.

Thus we travel on by degrees through Siberia, this immense country

bounded on the south by the Altai, Sayan, the Yablonoi and Stanovoi

Mountains, and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. Huge areas of northern

Siberia are occupied by _tundras_--moss-grown, marshy steppes, with

little animal life, frozen hard as stone in winter and thawed during the

short summer into dangerous swamps.

In the frozen ground of northern Siberia, and particularly in old flood

plains, have been found complete specimens of the mammoth. This animal

is an extinct species of elephant, which, during the diluvial period,

was distributed over all northern Asia, Europe, and North America. The

mammoth was larger than the elephant of the present day, had tusks as

much as 13 feet long, a thick fur suitable for a cold climate, and quite

a luxuriant mane on the back of the head and neck. That prehistoric man

was a contemporary of the mammoth is proved by ancient rude drawings of

this animal.

Larches, pine and spruce, birch and willow, compose the forests of

Siberia. The larch manages to exist even round the pole of cold. The

Polar bear, the Arctic fox, the glutton, the lemming, the snow-hare, and

the reindeer are the animals in the cold north. In the central parts of

the country are to be found red deer, roedeer, wild swine, beaver, wolf,

and lynx. Far away to the east, on the great Amur River, which is the

boundary between the Amur province and Manchuria, as well as in the

coast province of Ussuri, on the coast of the Sea of Japan, occur tigers

and panthers. The most valuable animals, the furs of which constitute

one of the resources of Siberia, are the sable, the ermine, and the grey

squirrel. The south-eastern parts of this great country are a

transitional region to the steppes of central Asia, and there are to be

found antelopes, gazelles, and wild asses.

At length, on January 5, we are up in the Ural Mountains, and the line

winds among hills and valleys. Near the station of Zlatoust stands a

granite column to mark the boundary between Asia and Europe.

THE VOLGA AND MOSCOW

From the boundary between Europe and Asia the train takes us onwards

past Ufa to Samara. The hills of the Urals become lower and the country

flattens out again. Snow lies everywhere in a continuous sheet, and

peasants are seen on the roads with sledges laden with hay, fuel, or

provisions. At Batraki we pass over the Volga by a bridge nearly a mile

long. The Volga is the largest river in Europe; it is 2300 miles long,

and has its source in the Valdai hills (between St. Petersburg and

Moscow) at a height of only 750 feet above sea-level. It flows,

therefore, through most of Russia in Europe, traversing twenty

governments. The right bank is high and steep, the left flat; and at its

mouth in the Caspian Sea it forms a very extensive delta. The Volga is

navigable almost throughout its length, and has also forty navigable

tributaries. The river is frozen over for about five months in the year,

and when the ice breaks up in spring with thundering cracks it often

causes great damage along the banks. Crowds of vessels, boats, and rafts

pass up and down the sluggish stream, as well as passenger steamers

built after the pattern of the American river boats. By the Volga and

its canals one can travel by steamer from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea,

and from the Caspian Sea by the Volga into the Dwina and out to the

White Sea. The Volga is not only an important highway for goods and

passengers, but also an inexhaustible fish preserve; indeed the sturgeon

and sterlet fisheries constitute its greatest wealth.

When the train has rattled heavily and slowly over the Volga, it

proceeds west-north-west into the very heart of holy Russia, and late on

January 7, 1909, we roll into the station of Moscow, the old capital of

Russia.

Moscow is a type of the old unadulterated Russia, a home of the simple,

honest manners and customs of olden days, of faith and honour, of a

child-like, pure-hearted belief in the religion of the country, the

Catholic Greek Church. In its crooked, winding, badly-paved streets

swarm Tatars, Persians, and Caucasians, among Slav citizens and

countrymen, those inexterminable Russian peasants who suffer and toil

like slaves, look too deep into the _vodka_[20] cup on Saturday, yet are

always contented, good-tempered, and jovial.

The town stands on both sides of the small Moskva River, which falls

into the Oka, a tributary of the Volga, and is inhabited by more than a

million souls. The Kremlin is the oldest part, and the heart of Moscow

(Plate XXIII.). Its walls were erected at the end of the fifteenth

century; they are 60 feet high, crenellated, and provided with

eighteen towers and five gates. Within this irregular pentagon, a mile

and a quarter in circumference, are churches, palaces, museums, and

other public buildings. There stands the bell tower of Ivan Veliki, 270

feet high, with five storeys. From the uppermost you can command the

whole horizon, with Moscow beneath your feet, the streets diverging in

every direction from the Kremlin like the spokes of a wheel, and crossed

again by circular roads. Between the streets lie conglomerations of

heavy stone houses, and from this sea of buildings emerge bulb-shaped

cupolas with green roofs surmounted by golden Greek crosses. Large

barracks, hospitals, palaces, and public buildings crop up here and

there. Right through the town winds the Moskva in the figure of an S,

and the walls of the Kremlin with their towers are reflected in the

water.

[Illustration: PLATE XXIII. THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW.]

In the tower of Ivan Veliki hang thirty-three bells of various sizes. At

its foot stands the fallen "Tsar" bell, which weighs 197 tons and is 65

feet in circumference. In its fall a piece was broken out of the side,

and it is therefore useless as a bell, but it is set up on a platform as

an ornament.

Within the walls of the Kremlin is also the Church of the Ascension of

the Virgin, which is crowned by a dome 138 feet high, with smaller

cupolas at the four corners. Standing in the centre of the Kremlin, this

church is the heart not only of Moscow but of all Russia, for here the

Tsars are crowned, while the bells of Ivan Veliki peal over the city.

The interior of the cathedral presents an indescribable effect. The

light from the narrow windows high up is very dim, and is further dulled

by gilded banners with pictures of saints and crosses. The temple nave

is crammed with religious objects, iconostases and icons, sacred

portraits of solid gold with only the hands and faces coloured. Wax

candles burn before them, from which the smoke rises up to the vaulted

roof, floating about the banners in a greyish-blue mist.

To the orthodox Russians the Kremlin is almost a holy place. They make

pilgrimages to its temples and cloisters with the same reverence as

Tibetans to the sanctuaries of Buddha. "Moscow is surpassed only by the

Kremlin, and the Kremlin only by heaven," they say.

Perhaps no year in the history of Moscow is so famous as the year 1812.

Then the city was taken by Napoleon and the Grande Armée. The Russian

army abandoned the city, and the citizens left their homes. Napoleon

entered on September 14, and next day the city began to burn. The

Russians had set fire to it themselves in several places. Three-fourths

of the city lay in ashes when the French evacuated Moscow after an

occupation of five weeks and the loss of 30,000 men. The remembrance of

this dreadful time still survives among the populace.

ST. PETERSBURG AND HOME

From Moscow an express train takes us in eleven hours to the capital of

Peter the Great, St. Petersburg, at the mouth of the Neva, in the Gulf

of Finland. Here we are in the midst of very different scenes from those

in Moscow. Here is no longer genuine uncontaminated Russia, but Western

civilisation, which has come and washed away the Slavonic. The churches

and monasteries indeed are built in the same style as in Moscow, and the

eyes meet with the same types and costumes, and the same heavily laden

waggons and carts rumble over the Neva bridges; but one feels and sees

only too plainly that one is in Europe.

The Neva is forty miles long and a third of a mile broad, and comes from

Lake Ladoga. It is spanned by four fine bridges, always crowded with

carriages and foot passengers, and in summer numerous small steamboats

ply up and down. In winter thick ice lies on the river during four

months.

St. Petersburg has nearly two million inhabitants, which is rather more

than a hundredth part of the population of the whole Russian empire. The

appearance of the town shows that it is new, for the streets are

straight and broad. The climate is very raw, damp, and disagreeable, and

it rains or snows on 200 days in the year.

A walk through the streets of St. Petersburg shows the traveller much

that is strange. Tiny chapels are found everywhere--in the middle of a

bridge or at a street corner. They contain only a picture of a saint

with candles burning before it. Many persons stop as they pass by,

uncover their heads, fall on their knees, cross themselves and murmur a

prayer, and then vanish among the crowd in the streets. It is also

noticeable that this city is full of uniforms. Not only do the soldiers

of the large garrison wear uniforms, but civil officials, schoolboys,

students, and many others are dressed in special costumes with bright

buttons of brass or silver. But what especially attracts the stranger's

attention are the vehicles. Persons of the upper classes drive in open

sleighs and cover themselves with bearskins lined with blue, and are

drawn by tall, dark, handsome trotters. Sometimes also a _troika_, or

team of three horses abreast, is seen, one of the horses in the middle

under the arch which keeps the shafts apart, while the other two, on

either side, go at a gallop. The hackney sleighs are also common, so

small that two persons can hardly find room to sit, and as there is no

support or guard of any kind, they must cling to each other's waists in

order not to be thrown off at sharp corners. These small sledges have no

fixed stands, but they are drawn up in long rows outside hotels, banks,

theatres, railway stations, and other much-frequented places, and may be

found singly almost anywhere in the streets. The drivers are always

merry and cheerful, and keep up a running conversation with their

passenger or their horse, which they call "my little dove." All drive at

the same reckless pace, as if they were running races through the

streets.

St. Petersburg is rich in art collections and museums,

picture-galleries, churches, and fine palaces. The finest building in

the city, however, is the Isaac Cathedral, with its high gilded dome,

surrounded by four similar but smaller gilded cupolas. The cross at the

top is 330 feet above the ground, and the great dome is the first thing

in St. Petersburg to be seen on coming by steamer from the Gulf of

Finland. When the Cathedral was built, it cost more than two and

three-quarter million pounds. It was finished fifty years ago, but has

never been in really sound condition, and is always undergoing extensive

repairs.

* * * * *

The last stage of our journey is now at hand. One evening we drive in a

_troika_, with much ringing of sleigh bells, to the station of the

Finland Railway, whence the train takes us through Viborg to Abo, the

old capital of Finland. Here a steamer is waiting to take us over to

Stockholm, which was the starting-point of our long journey.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] A seaport of New Hampshire, U.S.A.

[20] A Russian alcoholic liquor usually made from rye.