FROM SOMO TO CHENGTU FU
The refusal to sell food produced uncomfortable consequences. I bestowed
my personal stores on the coolies, and being left with only a little
chocolate, a few squares of soup, and a pound of flour, was often
compelled to still the gnawings of hunger with peppermint lozenges; and
what was worse, the men were on half-rations. Just before we left, the
_Tu-tze_ sent a welcome present of half a bag of flour, and as supplies
were not refused on the way down the worst was over. At Matang we were
detained two days by a severe snowstorm, which glorified the pine
forests on the skirts of the Tsu-ku-shan Pass, which was bare, pale, and
uninteresting, and took four hours to cross even in the sunny daylight.
From the summit about one hundred and twenty snow-peaks were visible,
some rising sharply into a very blue sky, others with snow-clouds
swirling round their ghastly crests—all clothed to a considerable
altitude with interminable forests of pine, hoary with new-fallen snow,
under the bright May sunshine.
Passing through fine herds of yaks and _dzo_, and by villages and
detached houses, we sought shelter in vain. The people were all “on the
mountain,” and every house was locked. After a severe day of twelve
hours we were directed off the road, through groves of fine Spanish
chestnut trees, to an alp, on which is a small Man-tze house inhabited
by one Chinese, where I slept on the roof, next two rows of humming
prayer-cylinders, and in the morning had a glorious view of snow-peaks
and forests.
It is scarcely credible, but the downward journey was more gloriously
beautiful than the upward. The peacock green, transparent Siao Ho, with
its snow-white cataracts, thundered through the trees in a yet goodlier
volume, between cliffs on which the great, red-stemmed pines are
securely moored, flashed past velvet lawns starred with blue and white
anemones, and pink and white peonies; past clumps of daphne giving forth
hot-house odours in the warm sunshine, under the living scarlet of
maples, through the blue gloom of colossal pines, every one of its
innumerable bends giving a fresh view. The ice was half an inch thick
every morning on the heights. We lodged in headmen’s houses, where at
one halt I had a guest-room twenty-four feet long.
[Illustration: HESHUI HUNTER, AND NOTCHED TIMBERS.]
At Ku-erh-Kio, where after a journey of eleven hours I sat nearly two
hours among dogs, pigs, and fowls, waiting for the people to return from
the mountain and give us shelter, I slept for the last time on a roof
under the stars, the earliest sight in the morning being glories of
light and shade, of forest, cataract, and mountain, and the sparkle of a
peak reddening in the sunrise, like unto the Matterhorn, which the
people called Ja-ra (king of mountains).[51]
[Illustration: A HESHUI FAMILY, KU-ERH-KIO.]
A thirteen hours’ journey thence took us to Tsa-ku-lao. We were
benighted and lost the road, and were “set in darkness in slippery
places,” on lofty precipice ledges, and the coolies were so exhausted
that they fell several times on the five hundred rocky steps by which
the quaint border post is reached. Chinese inns, officialism, passport
delays, and _chai-jen_ had to be endured again from that point. At
Li-fan Ting the officials sent presents when we arrived, saying that
they hoped I would forget their conduct, “and turn the light of my
countenance once more upon them to vivify them.”
The heat became severe as we descended; the vegetation near the road was
limited to grey, dusty tufts of a species of artemisia; the winds were
tremendous, and the Man-tze villages at great heights, where the people
have neither horses, cattle, nor sheep, and depend solely on the
rainfall for their crops, were praying for rain, and below Weichou,
finding Sakyamuni deaf to their entreaties, were turning to the
forgotten gods of the rivers and the hills.
From an ethnological point of view the Man-tze deserve some attention,
as they differ considerably from the Sifan to the north and the Lolos to
the south. In religion and many customs they approach closely to the
people of Western Tibet, while in appearance they differ most remarkably
from both Tibetans and Chinese. Their handsome, oval faces;
richly-coloured complexions; thick, straight eyebrows; large, level
eyes, sometimes dark grey; broad, upright foreheads; moderate cheek
bones; definite, though rather broad noses; thin lips, somewhat pointed
chins, and white, regular teeth are far removed from any Mongolian
characteristics, and it is impossible not to believe that these tribes
are an offshoot of the Aryan race.
During the week’s descent from Tsa-ku-lao, the winds were fearful,
almost carrying my chair and bearers over a precipice, and the country
was scorched, and afflicted with driving dust storms. The heat had then
set in for the summer, the Yangtze was rising, and I was suffering so
severely from the effects of the night’s “death-struggle” on the
Tsu-ku-shan pass, that I was anxious to reach a cooler climate, so only
rested a few days among the hospitalities of Kuan, and then crossed the
Chengtu plain for the fourth time, doing forty miles in one day with the
mercury at 93° in the shade, and arrived at Chengtu among very
unpleasant demonstrations of hostility from the military students who
were “up” for examination. Four of the examiners had passed me on the
road, or rather I respectfully cleared off it to make way for, and
contemplate them. Besides four bearers to each chair, a number of
soldiers were roped on, and behind them came a train of twenty-six laden
mules, and twenty-five laden porters, carrying, I doubt not, much
besides personal baggage. I was told that these officials make large
investments in SZE CHUAN drugs, on which, as they pay no taxes _en
route_, and the unfortunate local officials bear the cost of carriage,
they make great profits in Peking. Numbers of attendants are essential
to dignity in the East. A mandarin going to pay a visit in his
much-decorated chair is usually preceded and accompanied by an irregular
procession of lictors with staves or whips, boys carrying red boards
bearing the official’s name and style, and _chai-jen_ in red-tasselled
official hats. The lictors push the people to one side, the boys shout,
and the bearers yell. When the great man leaves his own _yamen_ three
small mortars are fired, and if he visits an official, the same noisy
process is repeated.
Forced labour for relays of bearers, porters, and horses for the lesser
dignitaries, is called for, and on a much-travelled main road this is a
heavy burden on the villagers.
[Illustration: A DRAGON BRIDGE.]