THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND
[Illustration: TIBETAN LAMAS MASKED FOR A RELIGIOUS DANCE.]
THE YANGTZE VALLEY AND BEYOND
AN ACCOUNT OF JOURNEYS IN CHINA, CHIEFLY IN THE PROVINCE OF SZE CHUAN
AND AMONG THE MAN-TZE OF THE SOMO TERRITORY
BY MRS. J. F. BISHOP
(ISABELLA L. BIRD), F.R.G.S.
HONORARY FELLOW OF THE ROYAL SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
HONORARY MEMBER OF THE ORIENTAL SOCIETY OF PEKING, ETC. ETC.
WITH MAP AND 116 ILLUSTRATIONS
DEDICATED BY PERMISSION TO
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, K.G.
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET
1899
DEDICATED BY PERMISSION
TO THE
MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, K.G.
WITH THE AUTHOR’S PROFOUND RESPECT, AND ADMIRATION
OF THE NOBLE AND DISINTERESTED SERVICES
WHICH HE HAS RENDERED TO THE
BRITISH EMPIRE
PREFACE
These journeys in China [concluding in 1897], of which the following
pages are the record, were undertaken for recreation and interest
solely, after some months of severe travelling in Korea. I had no
intention of writing a book, and it was not till I came home, and China
came very markedly to the front, and friends urged upon me that my
impressions of the Yangtze Valley might be a useful contribution to
popular knowledge of that much-discussed region, that I began to arrange
my materials in their present form. They consist of journal letters,
photographs, and notes from a brief diary.
In correcting them, and in the identification of places, not an easy
matter, I have been much indebted to the late Captain Gill’s _River of
Golden Sand_, _The Gorges of the Yangtze_, by Mr. A. Little, three
papers on “Exploration in Western China,” by Mr. Colborne Baber, in the
_Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, and very
specially to the official reports of H.B.M.’s Consuls at the Yangtze
ports. I have denied myself the pleasure of reading any of the recent
literature on China, and it was only when my task was done that I
glanced over some of the later chapters in _The Break Up of China_, and
_China in Transformation_. For a great part of my inland journey I have
been unable to find any authorities to refer to, and as regards personal
observation I agree sadly with the dictum of Socrates—“The body is a
hindrance to acquiring knowledge, and sight and hearing are not to be
trusted.”
I cannot hope to escape errors, but I have made a laborious effort to be
accurate, and I trust and believe that they are not of material
importance, and that in the main this volume will be found to convey a
truthful impression of the country and its people. The conflicting
statements made on every subject by well-informed foreign residents in
China, as elsewhere, constitute a difficulty for a traveller, and
homogeneous as China is, yet with regard to very many customs, what is
true in one region is not true in another. Even in the single province
of SZE CHUAN there is a very marked unlikeness between one district and
another in house and temple architecture, methods of transit, customs in
trade, and in much else.
I have dwelt at some length on “Beaten Tracks”—_i.e._, treaty ports and
the Great River—though these have been described by many writers, for
the reason that each one looks at them from a different standpoint, and
helps to create a complete whole. The illustrations in this volume, with
the exception of the reproductions of some Chinese drawings, and nine
which friends have kindly permitted me to use, are from my own
photographs. The spelling of place names needs an explanation. I have
not the Chinese characters for them, and in many cases have only been
able to represent by English letters the sounds as they reached my ear;
but wherever possible, the transliteration given by Consul Playfair in
his published list of Chinese Place Names has been adopted, and with
regard to a few well-known cities the familiar but unscholarly spelling
has been retained. To prevent confusion the names of provinces have been
printed in capitals.
I am painfully conscious of the many demerits of this volume, but
recognising the extreme importance of increasing by every means the
knowledge of, and interest in, China and its people, I venture to ask
for it from the public the same kindly criticism with which my former
records of Asiatic travel have been received, and to hope that it may be
accepted as an honest attempt to make a contribution to the data on
which public opinion on China and Chinese questions must be formed.
ISABELLA L. BISHOP
_October, 1899._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY 1
II. “THE MODEL SETTLEMENT” 15
III. HANGCHOW 29
IV. THE HANGCHOW MEDICAL MISSION HOSPITALS 44
V. SHANGHAI TO HANKOW (HANKAU) 55
VI. THE FOREIGNERS—HANKOW AND BRITISH TRADE 61
VII. CHINESE HANKOW (HANKAU) 67
VIII. HANKOW TO ICHANG 83
IX. ICHANG 95
X. THE UPPER YANGTZE 104
XI. RAPIDS OF THE UPPER YANGTZE 114
XII. RAPIDS AND TRACKERS 128
XIII. LIFE ON THE UPPER YANGTZE 138
XIV. THE YANGTZE AND KUEI FU 150
XV. NEW YEAR’S DAY AT KUEI-CHOW FU 160
XVI. KUEI FU TO WAN HSIEN 166
XVII. CHINESE CHARITIES 181
XVIII. FROM WAN HSIEN TO SAN TSAN-PZU 194
XIX. SZE CHUAN TRAVELLING 207
XX. SAN-TSAN-PU TO LIANG-SHAN HSIEN 214
XXI. LIANG-SHAN HSIEN TO HSIA-SHAN-PO 223
XXII. HSIA-SHAN-PO TO SIAO-KIAO 240
XXIII. SIAO-KIAO TO HSIEH-TIEN-TZE 249
XXIV. HSIEH-TIEN-TZE TO PAONING FU 264
XXV. PAONING FU AND SIN-TIEN-TZE 282
XXVI. SIN-TIEN-TZE TO TZE-TUNG HSIEN 296
XXVII. TZE-TUNG HSIEN TO KUAN HSIEN 316
XXVIII. KUAN HSIEN AND CHENGTU 338
XXIX. KUAN HSIEN TO SIN-WEN-PING 361
XXX. SIN-WEN-PING TO LI-FAN TING 373
XXXI. LI-FAN TING TO TSA-KU-LAO 395
XXXII. THE “BEYOND” 404
XXXIII. THE MAN-TZE, I-REN, OR SHAN-SHANG-REN 443
XXXIV. FROM SOMO TO CHENGTU FU 455
XXXV. DOWNWARD BOUND 460
XXXVI. LUCHOW TO CHUNG-KING FU 477
XXXVII. THE JOURNEY’S END 490
XXXVIII. THE OPIUM POPPY AND ITS USE 506
XXXIX. NOTES ON PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN CHINA 518
CONCLUDING REMARKS 530
ITINERARY 545
APPENDICES 546
INDEX 549
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
Tibetan Lamas masked for a Religious Dance (Lal Singh) _Frontispiece_
Zig-zag Bridge and Tea House, Shanghai 27
A _Pah_, or Haulover 33
West Gate, Hangchow 35
Pavilion in Imperial Garden, Si-hu 39
God of Thunder, Lin-yang 42
C.M.S. Mission Hospital, Hangchow 45
A Street in Hankow (John Thomson, F.R.G.S.) 69
Hankow from Han Yang 73
Coffins awaiting Burial 76
Female Beggar in Mat Hut 78
A Travelling Restaurant 80
Chinese Soldiers 87
Military Officer 88
A Fisherman and Plunge Net 90
The Tablet of Confucius 97
Entrance to Ichang Gorge 107
The Author’s Boat 111
Bed of the Yangtze in Winter, Ta-tan Rapid 116
The Hsin-tan 120
Ping-shu Gorge, Hsin-tan 125
The Mitan Gorge 129
Temple near Kueichow 133
Trackers’ Houses 143
Author’s Trackers at Dinner 158
A Chinese Punchinello 161
Temple of Chang-fei 167
Pagoda near Wan Hsien 169
Guest Hall, C.I.M., Wan Hsien 173
Bridge at Wan Hsien 179
A Chinese Burial Charity 185
Baggage Coolies 197
A Pai-fang 199
Granite Dragon Pillar 203
Pass of Shen-kia-chao 215
Wayside Shrine 218
A Chinese Chatsworth 225
Bridge and Inn of Shan-rang-sar 229
A Porcelain Temple 233
The Water Buffalo 235
Ordinary Covered Bridge 237
A Group of Kuans (Mandarins) 255
Lady’s Sedan Chair (Chinese Propriety) (Dr. Kinnear) 259
A Sze Chuan Farmhouse 267
A Sze Chuan Market-place 271
Pedagogue and Pupils 275
Recessed Divinities, Chia-ling River 281
Temple of God of Literature, Paoning Fu 283
The Right Rev. Bishop Cassels, D.D., Paoning Fu 287
Chinese Protestant Episcopal Church, Paoning Fu 289
C.I.M. Sanitarium, Sin-tien-tze 293
Entrance to a Market-place 297
Author’s arrival at a Chinese Inn 303
An Ox Mill 306
A Hand Mill 307
The Ta-lu 309
Woman Reeling Silk 317
The Rev. J. Heywood Horsburgh, M.A., in Travelling Dress 322
Water Mill, Chengtu Plain 325
Bridge at Mien-chuh 328
Treadmill Field-pump (Captain Gill) 332
Wooden Bridge, Kuan Hsien 335
Roof of Erh-wang Temple 341
Oil Baskets and Wooden Purse 344
Barrow Traffic, Chengtu Plain 345
Poppy Field in Blossom 349
The White Opium Poppy (F. S. Mayers) 351
The Author in Manchu Dress (Moffat, Edinburgh) 353
Divinity in Wen-shu-yuan Temple, Chengtu 359
Entrance to Grounds of City Temple, Kuan Hsien 363
Double Roofed Bridge 368
Tibetan Rope Bridge (Captain Gill) 370
Human Pack Saddle for Timber 374
Bamboo Suspension Bridge, Weichou 379
Ancient Towers at Kanpo 383
Kan-chi 387
Rock Temple, Li-fan Ting 391
Village of Wei-gua 397
Street of Tsa-ku-lao 401
A Sugar-loaf Mountain, Siao Ho 405
Revolving Prayer-Cylinders 408
Bridle Track by the Siao Ho 411
View from Chuang Fang 414
Castle at Chu-ti 416
Headman’s House, Chu-ti 417
Altar of Incense on Man-tze Roof 418
Sick unto Death 420
Lama-serai and Headman’s House, Mia-ko 421
Elephantiasis (Dr. Christie) 427
Chinese Officer and Spearmen, Mia-ko 432
Village of Rong-kia 434
Canyon of the Rong-kia 435
Square Tower, Somo 438
Distant View of Somo 439
A Man-tze Village 444
Somo Castle (back view) 447
Entrance and Judgment-seat, Somo Castle 453
Heshui Hunter, and Notched Timbers 456
A Heshui Family, Ku-erh-kio 457
A Dragon Bridge 459
Village on the Min 462
West Gate, Chia-ling Fu 465
Frieze in Rock Dwelling, Min River 468
Boat on the Min (Dr. Causland) 469
Town on the Yangtze 472
Suburb of Sui Fu 473
Tsiang Ngan Hsien, with entrance to Rock Dwelling 476
Pagoda near Luchow 479
The Author’s _Wu-pan_ 483
Method of carrying _Cash_ and Babies 486
Fishing Village, Upper Yangtze 487
Wall of Chung-king, with Gate Towers 491
Chung-king Soldiers, Customs Guard 494
Gala Head-dress, “Dog-faced” Woman (Dr. Kinnear) 498
The Author’s last _Wu-pan_ 500
“Stone Precious Castle,” Shi-pao-chai 502
ERRATA.
Page 2. Third line from bottom, for “140” read “263.”
„ 177. Footnote, third line from bottom, after “illustration” read
“on page 498.”
„ 415. Eleventh line from bottom, for “_Tu-sze_” read “_Tu-tze_.”
„ 495. Eighteenth line from top, for “88°” read “87°.”
„ 518. Eleventh line from bottom, for “six thousand” read “8875.”
THE YANGTZE VALLEY
CHAPTER I.
GEOGRAPHICAL AND INTRODUCTORY
The events which have rendered the Yangtze Valley literally a “sphere of
interest” throughout the British Empire lie outside the purview of these
volumes. Few people, unless they have been compelled to the task by
circumstances or interests, are fully acquainted with the magnitude and
resources of the great basin which in the spring of 1898 was claimed as
the British “sphere of influence,” and I honestly confess that it was
only at the end of eight months (out of journeys of fifteen months in
China) spent on the Yangtze, its tributaries, and the regions watered by
them that I even began to learn their magnificent capabilities, and the
energy, resourcefulness, capacities, and “backbone” of their enormous
population.
Geographically the Yangtze Valley, or drainage area, may be taken as
extending from the 90th to the 122nd meridian of east longitude, and as
including all or most of the important provinces of SZE CHUAN, HUPEH,
HUNAN, KIANGSI, NGANHUI, KIANGSU, and HONAN, with considerable portions
of CHE KIANG, KUEICHOW, and YUNNAN, and even includes the south-eastern
drainage areas of KANSUH, SHENSI, and SHANTUNG. Geographically there can
be no possible mistake about the limits of this basin.[1] Its area is
estimated at about 650,000 square miles, and its population, one of the
most peaceable and industrious on earth, at from 170,000,000 to
180,000,000.
The actual length of the Yangtze is unknown, but is believed not to
exceed 3000 miles. Rising, according to the best geographical
information, almost due north of Calcutta, its upper waters have been
partially explored by Colonel Prjevalsky and Mr. Rockhill up to an
altitude in the Tang-la mountains of 16,400 feet, and as far as lat. 34°
43′ N. and long. 90° 48′ E.[2]
It has thus been ascertained that the Great River, though not tracked
actually to its source, rises on the south-east edge of the Central
Asian steppes, and, after draining an extensive and little-known basin,
pursues a tempestuous course under the name of the Chin Sha, hemmed in
by parallel ranges, and raging through gigantic rifts in YUNNAN and
South-western SZE CHUAN, which culminate in grandeur at the Sun Bridge,
a mountain about 20,000 feet in altitude, “which abuts on the river in a
precipice or precipices which must be 8000 feet above its waters”
(Baber).
It is not till these savage gorges are passed and the Chin Sha reaches
Ping Shan, forty miles above Sui Fu, that it becomes serviceable to man.
In long. 94° 48′ Colonel Prjevalsky describes it as a rapid torrent,
with a depth of from five to seven feet, a bed, upwards of a mile wide,
covered in summer, and a width in autumn of 750 feet at about 2800 miles
from its mouth. In travelling from its supposed source to Ping Shan, a
distance roughly estimated at 1500 miles, its fall must be fully 15,000
feet (assuming that the altitude of its source is 16,400 feet),[3] while
for the same distance (again roughly estimated) from Ping Shan to
Shanghai the fall is only 1025 feet, and from Hankow to the sea, a
distance of 600 miles, only an inch per mile.
The Min or Fu appears to have its source in the Baian Kara range, called
in Tibetan Maniak-tso,[4] and joins the Chin Sha at Sui Fu. While the
Chin Sha is only navigable for about forty miles above this junction,
the Min is navigable to Chengtu, about 266 miles from Sui Fu, and by
another branch to Kuan Hsien, forty miles higher. I descended the Min
from Chengtu to Sui Fu in a fair-sized boat at the very lowest of low
water. As being navigable for a far greater distance, the Chinese
geographers regard the Min as the true “Great River,” the superior
length of the Chin Sha not being taken into account. It should be noted
that the Chinese only give their great river the name of Yangtze for the
two hundred miles of its tidal waters.[5]
After the River of Golden Sand and the Min unite at Sui Fu, the Great
River asserts its right to be regarded as the most important of Asiatic
waterways by furnishing, by its main stream and the tributaries which
thereafter enter it, routes easy of navigation through the rich and
crowded centre of China, with Canton by the Fu-ling, with only two
portages, and with Peking (Tientsin) itself by the Grand Canal, which it
cuts in twain at Chin Kiang.
It is only of the navigable affluents of the Yangtze that mention need
be made here. The raging and tremendous torrents foaming through rifts
as colossal as its own, and at present unexplored, lie rather within the
province of the geographer.
In estimating the importance of these affluents it must be remembered
that the Yangtze, of which they are feeders, is not _an_ outlet, but
_the_ outlet, for the commerce of SZE CHUAN, which, owing to its size,
population, wealth, and resources, may be truly termed the empire
province of China.
On the north or left bank the Min, before uniting with the Chin Sha at
Sui Fu, receives near the beautiful trading city of Chia-ling Fu the
Tung or Tatu, a river with a volume of water so much larger than its own
as to warrant the view taken by Mr. Baber and Mr. von Rosthorn that it
ought to be considered the main stream, and the Ya, which is navigable
for bamboo rafts up to Ya-chow, the centre of the brick tea trade with
Tibet. After this the Yangtze at Lu-chow receives the To, which gives
access to one of the richest regions of the province, and at Chungking,
the trading capital, the Chia-ling.
This is in itself a river of great importance, being navigable for over
500 miles, actually into the province of Kansuh. It receives several
noble navigable feeders, among the most important of which are the Ku,
entering it a little above Ho-chow, the Honton or Fu, and the Pai Shui.
It passes for much of its course through a rich and fertile region, and
through a country which produces large quantities of salt, and it
bisects the vast coal-fields which underlie Central SZE CHUAN. On the
right or south bank above the gorges, at the picturesque city of
Fu-chow, the Fu-ling, which has three aliases, enters the Yangtze. This
is an affluent of much commercial importance, as being the first of a
network of rivers by which, with only two portages, goods from the Far
West can reach Canton, and as affording, with its connections the Yuan
Ho and the Tungting lake, an alternative route to Hankow, by which the
risks of the rapids are avoided.
After the Yangtze enters the gorges, which at one point, at least,
narrow it to a width of 150 yards, there are no affluents worthy of
special notice until Ichang is passed, when the Han, navigable for cargo
boats for 1200 miles of north-westerly windings from its mouth at
Hankow, takes the first place, followed by the Yuan, Hsiang, Kan, Shu,
and others, which join the Yangtze through the Tungting and Poyang
lakes. These rivers, specially the Han, are themselves swelled by a
great number of navigable feeders, which east of Sha-shih, in the Great
Plain, are connected by a vast network of navigable canals, the
differences in level being overcome by the ingenious contrivance called
the _pah_. These natural and artificial waterways are among the chief
elements of the prosperity of the Yangtze Valley, affording cheap
transit for merchandise, land carriage in China, mile for mile, costing
twenty times as much as water carriage.
The time of the annual rise and fall of the Great River can be counted
on with tolerable certainty. With regard to the rise, from what I saw
and heard I am inclined to attach more importance to the swelling of its
Yunnan affluents during the south-west monsoon than to the melting of
those snows which, as seen from the stupendous precipice of Omi-shan,
are one of the grandest sights on earth—the long and glittering barrier
which secludes the last of the hermit nations.
The rise of the Yangtze is from forty feet or thereabouts at Hankow to
ninety feet and upwards at Chungking. During three months of the year
the rush of the vast volume of water is so tremendous that traffic is
mainly suspended, and even in early June many hundreds of the large
junks are laid up until the autumn in quiet reaches between Chungking
and Wan Hsien. The annual rise of the river as well as the rapids have
to be taken into consideration in the discussion of the question as to
whether steam navigation on the Upper Yangtze can be made commercially
profitable.
The actual rise, which is more reliable than that of the Nile, begins
late in March, is at its height early in August, and then gradually
falls until December or January. Late in June, when I descended the
Great River, its enormous submerged area presented the same appearance
on a large scale as the limited Nile valley—an expanse of muddy water,
out of which low mounds, probably of great antiquity, rise, crested with
trees and villages, with boats moored to the houses.
The country in the neighbourhood of Shanghai is a fairly good example of
the characteristics of the Great Plain. In ordinary dry weather the
surface of the soil is not more than five feet above the water-level,
and as seen from any pagoda the whole country, with the exception of the
two or three low Tsing-pu hills, which are seldom visible, presents the
aspect, familiar to dwellers in the fens, of a cultivated dead level,
intersected by numerous canals and creeks and by embankments for the
preservation of the fields from inundation. Much the same sort of view
in winter may be seen from any elevated point for hundreds of miles,
modified by a few ranges of hills of somewhat higher elevation, wider
creeks, and shallow marshy lakes.
It is not solely by deposits of rich alluvium brought down by the annual
rise of the river that the soil of the Great Plain is gradually raised.
The agency of dust storms is an important one, and these occur
extensively throughout Northern and Central China, moving much material
from place to place. I saw a dust storm at Kueichow which lasted for
seven hours, burying some hovels and much agricultural country, and even
producing a metamorphosis of the rocky bed of the Yangtze. Such storms
have been observed as far east as Shanghai, but their occurrence at
Kueichow shows that their area is not limited to the Great Plain or even
to the region east of the mountain barrier between HUPEH and SZE CHUAN.
It is not till the Yangtze reaches Sha-shih that its character
completely changes. The first note of change is a great embankment,
thirty feet high, which protects the region from inundation. Below
Sha-shih the vast river becomes mixed up with a network of lakes and
rivers, connected by canals, the area of the important Tungting lake
being over 2000 square miles. The Han alone, with its many affluents and
canals, disperses goods through the interior for 1200 miles north of its
mouth at Hankow, but there are some difficult rapids to surmount. The
Hsiang and the Yuan, uniting with the Yangtze at the Tungting lake, are
navigable nearly as far to the south. The Kan, which unites with the
Yangtze through the Poyang lake, which has an area of 1800 square miles,
is navigable to the Mei-ling pass, near the Kwantung frontier.
The delta of the river is indicated below Wu-sueh by even a greater
labyrinth of tributaries, lakes, and canals, the area of the Tai Hu and
the other lakes in the southern delta being estimated at 1200 square
miles, and the length of the channels used for navigation and irrigation
at 36,000 miles. In summer, after the spring crops have been removed,
the whole region is under water. The population migrates to mounds, and
the temporary villages communicate by boats.
At Chinkiang the Grand Canal enters the Yangtze from Hangchow, and
leaves it on the left bank, some miles away, for Tientsin. On that north
bank engineering works, extending over a vast area of country, have been
constructed, evidencing the former energy and skill of the Chinese.
These have diverted the river Huai, which with its seventy-two
tributaries form important commercial routes to North An Hui and Honan,
from its natural course to the sea, and have compelled the bulk of its
waters to discharge themselves into the Yangtze through openings in a
large canal which runs nearly parallel with it for 140 miles. By means
of innumerable artificial waterways, the excavation of some lakes, and
the enlargement of others, the Huai no longer has any existence as a
river east of the Grand Canal, most of this work having been carried out
to prevent undue pressure on the bank of that great waterway at any one
point south of the old course of the Hoang Ho.
North of the canal, and parallel with the Yangtze, lies a parallelogram
the extent of which is estimated by Père Gandar at 8876 square miles,
and is one of the most productive rice-fields in China. This is below
the water-level. It has immense dykes protecting it from the sea,
pierced by eighteen drainage canals, but its chief drainage is into the
Yangtze. Waterways under constant and careful supervision intersect this
singular region. For the remaining distance the mighty flood of the
Yangtze rolls majestically on through absolutely level country, in which
in winter embankments and waterways are everywhere seen. The influence
of the tide is felt for about 200 miles.
There is an ancient Chinese proverb regarding the mouth of the Great
River: “Lo, this mighty current hastens to its imperial audience with
the ocean.” But opaque yellow water and mud flats, extending as far as
the eye can reach, leave the imperial grandeur to the imagination.
Tennyson’s description of the work of rivers as being “to sow the dust
of continents to be,” applies forcibly to the Yangtze, which, after
creating the vast alluvial plains which stretch from Sha-shih for 800
miles to the ocean and endowing them in its annual overflow with
sufficient fresh material to keep up an unsurpassed fertility, has yet
enough to spare to discharge 770,000 feet of solid substance every
second into the sea, according to scientific estimates. The Yangtze has
done much to create, within comparatively recent years, at least the
eastern portion of the province of Kiang Su and the island of Tsung-ming
near Shanghai, capable of supporting a population of considerably over
1,000,000 souls. Another marked instance of its power to create is shown
near the treaty port of Chinkiang. The British fleet ascended the
Yangtze, so recently as in 1842, by a channel south of the beautiful
Golden Island. Now, instead of the channel, there is an expanse of
wooded and cultivated land sprinkled with villages.
Nearly a mile wide 600 miles from its mouth, nearly three-quarters of a
mile at 1000, and 630 yards at 1500, with a volume of water which, at
1000 miles from the sea, is estimated at 244 times that of the Thames at
London Bridge, with a summer depth of ninety feet at Chungking and of
ten feet at its few shallow places at Hankow when at its lowest winter
level, with a capacity for a rise of forty feet before it overflows its
banks, with an annual rise and fall more reliable than those of the
Nile, with navigable tributaries penetrating the richest and most
populous regions of China, navigable in the summer as far as Hankow for
the largest ships in the world, and during the whole year to Ichang, 400
miles farther, for fine river steamers carrying large cargoes, even the
Upper Yangtze, that region of grandeur, perils, and surprises, is
traversed annually by 7000 junks, employing a quarter of a million of
men. During my own descent of the Min and Yangtze from Chengtu to
Shanghai, a distance by the windings of the river of about 2000 miles, I
was never out of sight of native traffic, and those who, like myself,
have waited for two or three days at the foot of the great rapids for
the turn to ascend, can form some idea of how vast that traffic is.
The navigable portion of the Yangtze, as regarded from the sea,
naturally divides itself into three stretches, the first, of 1000 miles,
rolling as a broad turbid flood, traversed by several lines of steamers,
through the deep grey alluvium of some of the richest and most populous
provinces of China, mainly its own creation; the second, the region
between Ichang and Kueichow Fu, through which hitherto goods have been
carried by junks alone, in which it cleaves the confused mass of the
HUPEH ranges by a series of magnificent gorges and tremendous cataracts;
and the third, the long stretch of rapids and races between Kueichow Fu
and Sui Fu at its junction with the Min.
It is not possible to exaggerate the sublimity and risks of the
navigation of the Upper Yangtze, especially at certain seasons. Of the
vast fleet of junks which navigate its perilous waters, five hundred on
an average are annually wrecked, and one-tenth of the enormous
importation of cotton into Chungking arrives damaged by water. Yet so
ample are the means of transport, and so low the freight considering the
risks, that, according to Mr. von Rosthorn, of the Chinese Imperial
Maritime Customs, foreign cottons are sold in SZE CHUAN at a barely
appreciable advance on their price at Ichang, to which point they are
brought by steam from the coast in eight days.
The _Chinese Gazetteer_ notifies one thousand rapids and rocks between
Ichang and Chungking, a distance of about 500 miles; and in winter this
does not seem an outlandish estimate, but in early summer, with the
water twenty-four and thirty feet higher, many of the vigorous rapids,
alternating with smooth stretches of river only running three knots an
hour, disappear, along with boulder-strewn shores, rocks, and islets,
giving place to a broad and tremendous volume of water, swirling
seawards at the rate of seven, eight, and ten knots an hour, forming
many and dangerous whirlpools.
Of the magnitude of the native traffic on the Lower Yangtze,
undiminished by the various steamboat lines which keep up daily
communication with Hankow, it is scarcely needful to write. In ascending
it is evident to the traveller by the time that Chinkiang, the port of
junction with the Grand Canal, is reached, that, broad as the river is,
there is none too much “sea room” for the thousands of junks of every
build, from every maritime and riverine province, fishing and cargo
boats of every size and rig, rafts, lorchas, and cormorant boats, which
throng its waters.
The open ports of Wuhu and Kiu-kiang, each with its fleets of junks, and
trade worth several millions sterling annually, and big cities such as
Nanking, Yangchow, and Nganking, each with its highly organised
mercantile and social life, and trade guilds and charities, are
important and interesting; and it is seen in a rapid glance that large
villages with numerous industries, rice, cotton, and silk culture
predominating, abound, that everything is utilised, that every foot of
ground capable of cultivation is bearing a crop, and that even the
reed-beds of the irreclaimable swamps furnish materials for houses,
roofs, fences, and fuel. It is seen that elaborate and successful
engineering works have reclaimed large tracts of country and keep them
drained, that a network of irrigating and navigable canals spreads over
the whole level region, and that the traffic on these minor waterways is
enormous.
So ceaseless are the industries by land and water, that it is hardly a
surprise to find them culminating 600 miles from the ocean in the
“million-peopled” city of Hankow (Han Mouth), the greatest distributing
centre for goods in China, with miles of craft moored in triple rows
along the Han, itself navigable for 1200 miles.
The empire province of SZE CHUAN, with the great navigable tributaries
of the Yangtze, by which goods are conveyed at small cost to countless
towns and villages, will be treated in some detail farther on. It is
enough to remark here that it has about the area of France, that it has
a population estimated by the Chinese census authorities at 70,000,000,
and by none at less than 50,000,000; that it has a superb climate,
ranging from the temperate to the sub-tropical; a rich soil, much of
which, under careful cultivation, yields three and even four crops
annually of most things which can be grown; forests of grand timber, the
area of which has not even been estimated; rich mineral resources, and
some of the most valuable and extensive coal-fields in the world. It
cannot be repeated too often that for its export trade, estimated at
£3,300,000, and its import trade, estimated at £2,400,000, the Yangtze
is the _sole_ outlet and inlet.
Such an exhibition of Chinese energy, industry, resourcefulness, and
power of battling with difficulties is not to be seen anywhere to the
same extent as on the Upper Yangtze, where the enormous bulk of the vast
import trade has to be dragged up 500 miles of hills of water by the
sheer force of man-power, at two or three of the worst rapids a junk of
over one hundred tons requiring the haulage of nearly four hundred men.
Waterways take the place of roads, which are usually infamous,
throughout the Yangtze basin, but the bridges are marvels of solidity,
and in many cases of beauty. The annual inundations on the Great Plain
partly account for the badness of the roads, and constitute an expensive
difficulty in the way of the forthcoming railroads.
To write of the Yangtze Valley, the British “sphere of influence” (a
phrase against which I protest), without any allusion to such an
important factor as its inhabitants, would be a mistake, for sooner or
later, in various ways, we shall have to reckon with them.
The population throughout, from the ocean to the unexplored rifts of the
Chin Sha, is homogeneous, that is Chinese, with the exception of certain
tribes of the far west: the Sifan, Mantze, and Lolo. The Tartars or
Manchu, who have supplied the throne with the present dynasty, whose
fathers drove the Chinese before them like sheep, and who still garrison
the great cities, have mainly degenerated into opium-smoking loafers,
the agent in their downfall being hereditary pensions.
Throughout this vast population, perhaps not over-estimated at
180,000,000, with the exception of spasmodic and local rebellions now
and then, law and order, prosperity (except in such disasters as floods
or famines) and peace prevail, and that security for the gains of labour
exists without which no country is great. The system of government, the
written language, and the education are uniform, and the “three
religions”—Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism—are so mixed up together
that there is little antagonism between them.
The organisation of this valley population, social and mercantile, is a
marvel, with its system of trade, trade guilds, trade unions, charities,
banking and postal systems, and powerful trade combinations.
In much talk about “open doors” and “spheres of influence” and
“interest,” in much greed for ourselves, not always dexterously cloaked,
and much jealousy and suspicion of our neighbours, and in much interest
in the undignified scramble for concessions in which we have been taking
our share at Peking, there is a risk of our coming to think only of
markets, territory, and railroads, and of ignoring the men who, for two
thousand years, have been making China worth scrambling for. It may be
that we go forward with “a light heart,” along with other European
empires, not hesitating, for the sake of commercial advantages, to break
up in the case of a fourth of the human race the most ancient of earth’s
existing civilisations, without giving any equivalent.
In estimating the position occupied by the inhabitants of the Yangtze
Valley, as of the rest of China, it is essential for us to see quite
clearly that our Western ideas find themselves confronted, not with
barbarism or with debased theories of morals, but with an elaborate and
antique civilisation which yet is not decayed, and which, though
imperfect, has many claims to our respect and even admiration. They meet
with a perfectly organised social order, a system of government
theoretically admirably suited to the country, combining the extremes of
centralisation and decentralisation, and under which, in spite of its
tremendous infamies of practice, the governed enjoy a large measure of
peace and prosperity, a noteworthy amount of individual liberty and
security for the gains of labour, and under which it is as possible for
a peasant’s son to rise to high position as in the American Republic.[6]
Western civilisation finds itself confronted also by a people at once
grossly material and grossly superstitious, swayed at once by the hazy
speculations and unintelligible metaphysic which in Chinese Buddhism
have allied themselves with the most extravagant and childish
superstitions, and by the dæmonism of Taoism, while over both tower the
lofty ethics and profound agnosticism of Confucius. It finds a classical
literature universally held in profound reverence, in which, according
to all testimony, there is not a thought which could sully the purest
mind, and an idolatry puerile, superstitious, and free from grand
conceptions, but in which bloody sacrifices and the deification of vice
have never had a part, or immoral rites a place.
The human product of Chinese civilisation, religion, and government is
to me the greatest of all enigmas, and so he remains to those who know
him best. At once conservative and adaptable, the most local of peasants
in his attachments, and the most cosmopolitan and successful of
emigrants—sober, industrious, thrifty, orderly, peaceable, indifferent
to personal comfort, possessing great physical vitality, cheerful,
contented, persevering—his filial piety, tenacity, resourcefulness,
power of combination, and respect for law and literature, place him in
the van of Asiatic nations.
The Chinese constitute an order by themselves, and their individuality
cannot be read in the light of that of any other nation. The aspirations
and modes of thinking by which we are ruled do not direct their aims.
They are keen and alert, but unwilling to strike out new lines, and slow
to be influenced in any matters. Their trading instincts are phenomenal.
They are born bargainers, and would hardly think half an hour wasted if
through chaffering they gained an advantage of half a _cash_, a coin
forty of which are about one penny. They are suspicious, cunning, and
corrupt; but it is needless to run through the established formula of
their vices. Among the things which they lack are CONSCIENCE, and such
an enlightened public opinion as shall sustain right and condemn wrong.
Matthew Arnold has said that Greece perished for want of attention to
conduct, and that the revelation which rules the world is the
“pre-eminence of righteousness.” It may be that the western powers are
not giving the Middle Kingdom a very desirable object-lesson.
On the whole, as I hope to show to some extent in the following pages,
throughout the Yangtze valley, from the great cities of Hangchow and
Hankow to the trading cities of SZE-CHUAN, the traveller receives very
definite impressions of the completeness of Chinese social and
commercial organisation, the skill and carefulness of cultivation, the
clever adaptation of means to ends—the existence of provincial
patriotism, or, perhaps, more truly, of local public spirit, of the
general prosperity, and of the backbone, power of combination,
resourcefulness, and independence possessed by the race. It is not an
effete or decaying people which we shall have to meet in serious
competition when it shall have learned our sciences and some of our
methods of manufacturing industry. Indeed, it is not improbable that
chemistry, for instance, might be eagerly adapted by so ingenious a race
to the perpetration of new and hitherto unthought-of frauds! But if the
extraordinary energy, adaptability, and industry of the Chinese may be
regarded from one point of view as the “Yellow Peril,” surely looked at
from another they constitute the Yellow Hope, and it may be possible
that an empire genuinely Christianised, but not denationalised, may yet
be the dominant power in Eastern Asia.
The Chinese are ignorant and superstitious beyond belief, but on the
whole, with all their faults, I doubt whether any other Oriental race
runs so straight.
The Yangtze Basin is a magnificent sphere of interest for all the
industrial nations for fair, if not friendly, rivalry, and to preserve
the “open door” there, and throughout China, is a worthy object of
ambition. To strengthen instead of to weaken the Central Government is
undoubtedly the wisest policy to pursue, for in the weakness of the
Peking Government lies the weakness and possible abrogation of all
treaty obligations. It is its strength and capacity to fulfil its
treaties which alone make them worth anything. In the weakening of the
Central Government, and the disintegration of the empire, our treaty
rights in the Yangtze Valley, for instance, would be worth as much as
our sword could secure, and it cannot reach above Ichang, while if the
integrity of the empire be preserved, and it is aided along judicious
paths of reform, this vast basin, with its singular capabilities, and
its population of 180,000,000, may become the widest arena for
commercial rivalries that the world has ever seen.