SHANGHAI TO HANKOW (HANKAU)
From Hangchow I made a very interesting journey by canal and river to
the important and historical city of Shao Hsing, with its beautiful
environs, and from thence by inland waterways to Ningpo and its lovely
lakes, passing through a region of great fertility, beauty, and
prosperity. I must put on record that I made that journey without either
a companion or servant, trusting entirely to the fidelity and goodwill
of Chinese boatmen, and was not disappointed. At Ningpo the Commissioner
of Customs kindly lent me the Customs tender, a fast-sailing lorcha, for
a week, and engaging a servant, I visited the Chusan Archipelago in
glorious weather, spending three days on the remarkable island of Putu,
the Island of Priests, sacred to Kwan Yin, the goddess of mercy, and two
at Tinghai, on the island of Chusan, where the graves of the four
hundred British soldiers who died there during our occupation present a
melancholy spectacle of neglect and disrepair. The region beyond Shao
Hsing technically belongs to another drainage area than that of the
Yangtze, and is therefore passed over without further remark. I returned
from Ningpo to Shanghai by sea.
The difficulties of getting a reliable interpreter servant who had not
previously served Europeans and who was willing to face the possible
risks and certain hardships of the journey I proposed were solved by the
kindly intervention of friends, and I engaged a tall, very fine-looking,
superior man named Be-dien, who abominated “pidgun,” spoke very fairly
correct English, and increased his vocabulary daily during the journey.
He was proud and had a bad temper, but served me faithfully, was never
out of hearing of my whistle except by permission, showed great pluck,
never grumbled when circumstances were adverse, and never deserted me in
difficulties or even in perils.
My other preparations consisted chiefly in buying an open bamboo
armchair to be carried in, plenty of tea and curry powder, and in
discarding most of my few possessions.[14] As nobody in Shanghai had
travelled in the region which I hoped eventually to visit, there was no
information about it to be gained, and I left for my journey of six or
seven months remarkably free from encumbrances of every kind.
Several foreign and one Chinese company own the eighteen fine steamers
which keep up daily communication between Shanghai and Hankow, and
dissipate the romance of travel by their white enamel, mirrors, gilding,
and electric light. The _Poyang_, by which I was a passenger, and the
only one, as far as Chinkiang, resembles most of the others, being of an
American type, about 2000 tons burden, luxurious to a fault, and
officered by efficient and courteous gentlemen.
Sailing at night, the lumpy sea which is apt to prevail in the estuary
of the Yangtze is got over comfortably, and by the following morning it
is possible to believe that the expanse of muddy water is actually a
river, for there are hazy outlines of brown shores.
The first day on the river was cold and raw, as, indeed, were the days
which followed it; the damp-laden air wrapped one round in its dismal
chill. White enamel and mirrors were detestable. The only things which
harmonised with the surroundings were the stove and the thick woollen
carpet. Yet the mercury was at 45°—not bad for midwinter!
After passing Silver Island, a wooded rock, on which is a fine temple,
we reached Chinkiang, the first of the treaty ports on the Yangtze, and
well situated at the junction of the Grand Canal with the river. On my
two visits I thought it an attractive place. It has a fine bund and
prosperous-looking foreign houses, with a British consulate on a hill
above; trees abound. The concession[15] roads are broad and well kept. A
row of fine hulks connected by bridges with the shore offers great
facilities for the landing of goods and passengers. Sikh police are much
_en evidence_, the hum of business greets one’s ears, traffic throngs
the bund, the Grand Canal is choked with junks, and the rule regarding
sub-letting to Chinese being honoured only in the breach, the concession
is covered with godowns and Chinese residences, and judging from
appearances only, one might think Chinkiang a busier port than Hankow,
the great centre of commerce in Central China. The gross value of the
trade of this port is, however, only about £4,000,000 sterling annually,
but is advancing. One great export is ground-nut oil, which is carried
and shipped in baskets lined with paper. Another, which accounts for
nearly one-fourteenth of the value of the exports, is the dried perianth
of certain lily flowers (_Hemerocallis graminea_ and _Hemerocallis
flava_), which is greatly esteemed as a relish with meats, specially
with pork.
As tokens of the increasing prosperity of Chinkiang, it is interesting
to note that recently two filatures, owned and managed by Chinese, were
opened, the machinery in one of them being of Chinese manufacture, while
the factory was erected without foreign aid. The hands employed are
women, who work twelve hours daily, at 10½_d._ a day, Sunday being a
holiday. The success of this, under native management, was considered
dubious. A distillery, for distilling spirit from rice, is another sign
of progress (or retrogression?), and our German rivals have done a very
“neat thing” in starting an albumen factory, in which the albumen,
dexterously separated from the yolks of the eggs, is made into slabs,
which are sent to Germany for use in photography, the preparation of
leather, and the printing of cotton, etc. The eggs are ducks’ eggs
solely. The yolks undergo some preservative treatment, and after being
packed in barrels are exported for use in confectionery and bar-rooms.
My informant, Consul Carles, is silent on the use to which they are then
applied, but doubtless it is well known to frequenters of such
establishments.
The workmen in out-of-doors trades, such as masons and carpenters, seem
to comport themselves much like our own, at all seasons of the year
drinking tea, resting, and smoking whenever it pleases them, taking a
long siesta in summer, and in winter not beginning work till nine. The
building trade is a guild,[16] and there are five large guilds in
Chinkiang, with guild funds for the relief of widows and orphans of
former members. There are various missions in Chinkiang, and some
general stir, which may be expected in a city of 140,000 souls.
The next day, which was raw and grim, and made the stove-side a magnet,
we reached Wuhu, the ugliest, if I may be allowed to say so, of all the
Yangtze ports, but its trade is not unprosperous, having more than
doubled in the last ten years, its gross value as to the principal
articles of export and import being now nearly £2,000,000 sterling a
year.[17]
There again the Germans have started an albumen factory, which employs
fifty women and ten men. It takes 7000 eggs to produce 100 pounds of
albumen. Feathers to the amount of £23,000 for the last year of returns
were also exported to Germany for the making of feather beds.
The most interesting export of Wuhu to the general reader is, however,
“China ink,” which is largely produced in the province of NGANHUI. The
small, black sticks, decorated with Chinese characters in gold, are
known and appreciated by us all. From Wuhu it goes to all parts of China
and of the world. In 1895 _two tons_ of it were exported from Shanghai
to foreign countries. Nearly the whole of the writing done in the vast
Chinese empire, as well as in Japan, Korea, Tonquin, and Annam, is done
with this beautiful ink, which is rubbed down on a stone ink-slab, and
applied with a sable brush. This is altogether apart from its value to
the water-colour art of all nations. It is made from the oil expressed
from the large seeds of the _Elœococca verrucosa_, sesamum oil, or colza
oil, varnish, and pork fat, burned, the resulting lampblack being of
various degrees of fineness according to the process adopted; gold leaf
and musk are added. There are a dozen different grades, and the price
varies from 2_s._ to 140_s._ per pound, a pound containing about thirty
sticks.
Various industries, including a steam flour mill, have been started by
the Chinese in Wuhu, and it is a city of 80,000 people, but to a mere
passer-by it is most uninteresting, and its busy streets had neither
novelty nor picturesqueness enough to repay me for a struggle through
the slush.
That night, while we were dining, there was a tremendous bump, a crash,
and a stoppage. The junk we cut into went down like a stone with all
hands. Not a shout or cry was heard. Boats were lowered, and we hung
about for an hour; it was not very dark. A Frenchman brutally remarked,
“Good! there’ll be some yellow skins fewer.” That was all.
The next day we reached Kiu-kiang, another treaty port, with a pretty,
shady bund, and pleasant foreign houses in shady gardens, but it has a
sleepy air for a city of 55,000 souls and a trade worth two millions and
a quarter a year.
Totally destroyed during the Taiping Rebellion in 1858–59, it has been
rebuilt, is surrounded by a defensive wall six miles in circumference,
and has regained more than its former prosperity, its imports having
increased steadily for the last five years.
I have mentioned only the treaty ports, but from Chinkiang westwards the
great cities on or near the bank divide attention with the engineering
works and the singular vagaries of build and rig in the countless craft
on the river. Among the cities on or near the river are Yang Chow Fu,
Nanking, the southern capital, with its ruined splendours and
picturesqueness, Taiping Fu, the great and prosperous city of Nganking
Fu, and many others, besides countless villages, which are apt to lead
an amphibious existence. After leaving Kiu-kiang, the most prominent
objects of interest are the Great and Little Orphans, picturesque rocks
about 300 feet in height, rising direct from the bed of the river, and
appropriated, as all picturesque sites are, by the Buddhists for
religious purposes. The Great Orphan is near Hu-kow, a bluff on the
river crowned by an inaccessible-looking building, half temple, half
fortress, close to the junction of the important Poyang lake with the
Yangtze, which is effected by a short, broad stream.
A city on a dead level can scarcely be imposing, and Hankow is not
impressive from the water. Some chimneys of Russian brick tea factories
rise above the greenery of the bund, and on the right bank of the broad
Yangtze, above a squalid suburb of Wu-Chang, appear some tall chimneys
belonging to a Chinese cotton factory under native management, but
differing from those at Shanghai in that no women or girls are employed,
the Viceroy considering that such occupation for women is opposed to
good morals and Confucian principles! On an elevation there is also a
camp with crenelated walls, an abundance of fluttering silk banners, and
various antiquated engines of war.
The day was damp and grim, but the kindly welcomes, cordial hospitality,
and big blazing fires at the British Consulate, where I was received,
made amends for the external chill, and my visit to Hankow is among my
many pleasant memories of China. Later in the day Dr. Griffith John
called on me, the veteran missionary of the L.M.S., great as an
evangelist, a Chinese writer and translator, and as an enthusiast. The
L.M.S. has its mission buildings, which include a church, dispensaries,
and hospitals, and the houses of its missionaries, in some of the
pleasant shady streets which intersect the settlement. They have various
agencies at work, and are full of hope as to the result. I understand
that Dr. Griffith John, who has devoted his life to China and means to
die there, partly from his devotion and partly from his literary gifts,
is much respected by many of the official and upper classes, and has
much influence.