the rowers as they urge the junk with its high stern, the mast lashed
alongside, down the swift running stream. You hear it from the
trackers, a more breathless chaunt, as they pull desperately against
the current, half a dozen of them perhaps if they are taking up a
wupan, a couple of hundred if they are hauling a splendid junk, its
square sail set, over a rapid. On the junk a man stands amidships
beating a drum incessantly to guide their efforts, and they pull with
all their strength, like men possessed, bent double; and sometimes in
the extremity of their travail they crawl on the ground, on all fours,
like the beasts of the field. They strain, strain fiercely, against
the pitiless might of the stream. The leader goes up and down the line
and when he sees one who is not putting all his will into the task he
brings down his split bamboo on the naked back. Each one must do his
utmost or the labour of all is vain. And still they sing a vehement,
eager chaunt, the chaunt of the turbulent waters. I do not know how
words can describe what there is in it of effort. It serves to express
the straining heart, the breaking muscles, and at the same time the
indomitable spirit of man which overcomes the pitiless force of nature.
Though the rope may part and the great junk swing back, in the end the
rapid will be passed; and at the close of the weary day there is the
hearty meal and perhaps the opium pipe with its dreams of ease. But
the most agonising song is the song of the coolies who bring the great
bales from the junk up the steep steps to the town wall. Up and down
they go, endlessly, and endless as their toil rises their rhythmic cry.
He, aw--ah, oh. They are barefoot and naked to the waist. The sweat
pours down their faces and their song is a groan of pain. It is a sigh
of despair. It is heart-rending. It is hardly human. It is the cry of
souls in infinite distress, only just musical, and that last note is
the ultimate sob of humanity. Life is too hard, too cruel, and this is
the final despairing protest. That is the song of the river.
XXXIV
MIRAGE
He is a tall man with bulging, sky blue eyes and an embarrassed manner.
He looks as though he were a little too large for his skin and you
feel that he would be more comfortable if it were a trifle looser.
His hair, very smooth and crisp, fits so tightly on his head that it
gives you the impression of a wig, and you have an almost irresistible
inclination to pull it. He has no small talk. He hunts for topics of
conversation and, racking his brain to no purpose, in desperation
offers you a whisky and soda.
He is in charge of the B.A.T., and the building in which he lives is
office, godown, and residence all in one. His parlour is furnished
with a suite of dingy upholstered furniture placed neatly round the
walls, and in the middle is a round table. A hanging petroleum lamp
gives a melancholy light, and an oil stove heat. In appropriate places
are richly framed oleographs from the Christmas numbers of American
magazines. But he does not sit in this room. He spends his leisure in
his bedroom. In America he has always lived in a boarding house where
his bedroom was the only privacy he knew, and he has gotten the habit
of living in one. It seems unnatural to him to sit in a sitting-room;
he does not like to take his coat off, and he only feels at home
in shirt sleeves. He keeps his books and his private papers in his
bedroom; he has a desk and a rocking chair there.
He has lived in China for five years, but he knows no Chinese and takes
no interest in the race among whom in all likelihood the best years of
his life will be spent. His business is done through an interpreter
and his house is managed by a boy. Now and then he takes a journey
of several hundred miles into Mongolia, a wild and rugged country,
either in Chinese carts or on ponies; and he sleeps at the wayside inns
where congregate merchants, drovers, herdsmen, men at arms, ruffians,
and wild fellows. The people of the land are turbulent; when there
is unrest he is exposed to not a little risk. But these are purely
business undertakings. They bore him. He is always glad to get back to
his familiar bedroom at the B.A.T. For he is a great reader. He reads
nothing but American magazines and the number of those he has sent to
him by every mail is amazing. He never throws them away and there are
piles of them all over the house. The city in which he lives is the
gateway into China from Mongolia. There dwell the teeming Chinese, and
through its gates pass constantly the Mongols with their caravans of
camels; endless processions of carts, drawn by oxen, which have brought
hides from the illimitable distances of Asia rumble noisily through
its crowded streets. He is bored. It has never occurred to him that he
lives a life in which the possibility of adventure is at his doors. He
can only recognise it through the printed page; and it needs a story of
derring-do in Texas or Nevada, of hairbreadth escape in the South Seas,
to stir his blood.
XXXV
THE STRANGER
It was a comfort in that sweltering heat to get out of the city. The
missionary stepped out of the launch in which he had dropped leisurely
down the river and comfortably settled himself in the chair which
was waiting for him at the water's edge. He was carried through the
village by the river side and began to ascend the hill. It was an
hour's journey along a pathway of broad stone steps, under fir trees,
and now and again you caught a delightful glimpse of the broad river
shining in the sun amid the exultant green of the padi fields. The
bearers went along with a swinging stride. The sweat on their backs
shone. It was a sacred mountain with a Buddhist monastery on the top
of it, and on the way up there were rest houses where the coolies set
down the chair for a few minutes and a monk in his grey robe gave you a
cup of flowered tea. The air was fresh and sweet. The pleasure of that
lazy journey--the swing of the chair was very soothing--made a day in
the city almost worth while; and at the end of it was his trim little
bungalow where he spent the summer, and before him the sweet-scented
night. The mail had come in that day and he was bringing on letters
and papers. There were four numbers of the _Saturday Evening Post_ and
four of the _Literary Digest_. He had nothing but pleasant things to
look forward to and the usual peace (a peace, as he often said, which
passeth all understanding), which filled him whenever he was among
these green trees, away from the teeming city, should long since have
descended upon him.
But he was harassed. He had had that day an unfortunate encounter and
he was unable, trivial as it was, to put it out of his mind. It was on
this account that his face bore a somewhat peevish expression. It was
a thin and sensitive face, almost ascetic, with regular features and
intelligent eyes. He was very long and thin, with the spindly legs of
a grasshopper, and as he sat in his chair swaying a little with the
motion of his bearers he reminded you, somewhat grotesquely, of a faded
lily. A gentle creature. He could never have hurt a fly.
He had run across Dr. Saunders in one of the streets of the city. Dr.
Saunders was a little grey-haired man, with a high colour and a snub
nose which gave him a strangely impudent expression. He had a large
sensual mouth and when he laughed, which he did very often, he showed
decayed and discoloured teeth; when he laughed his little blue eyes
wrinkled in a curious fashion and then he looked the very picture of
malice. There was something faunlike in him. His movements were quick
and unexpected. He walked with a rapid trip as though he were always
in a hurry. He was a doctor who lived in the heart of the city among
the Chinese. He was not on the register, but someone had made it his
business to find out that he had been duly qualified; he had been
struck off, but for what crime, whether social or purely professional,
none know; nor how he had happened to come to the East and eventually
settle on the China coast. But it was evident that he was a very
clever doctor and the Chinese had great faith in him. He avoided the
foreigners and rather disagreeable stories were circulated about him.
Everyone knew him to say how do you do to, but no one asked him to his
house nor visited him in his own.
When they had met that afternoon Dr. Saunders had exclaimed:
"What on earth has brought you to the city at this time of year?"
"I have some business that I couldn't leave any longer," answered the
missionary, "and then I wanted to get the mail."
"There was a stranger here the other day asking for you," said the
doctor.
"For me?" cried the other with surprise.
"Well, not for you particularly," explained the doctor. "He wanted
to know the way to the American Mission. I told him; but I said he
wouldn't find anyone there. He seemed rather surprised at that, so I
told him that you all went up to the hills in May and didn't come back
till September."
"A foreigner?" asked the missionary, still wondering who the stranger
could be.
"Oh, yes, certainly." The doctor's eyes twinkled. "Then he asked
me about the other missions; I told him the London Mission had a
settlement here, but it wasn't the least use going there as all the
missionaries were away in the hills. After all it's devilish hot in the
city. 'Then I'd like to go to one of the mission schools,' said the
stranger. 'Oh, they're all closed,' I said. 'Well, then I'll go to the
hospital.' 'That's well worth a visit,' I said, 'the American hospital
is equipped with all the latest contrivances. Their operating theatre
is perfect.' 'What is the name of the doctor in charge?' 'Oh, he's up
in the hills.' 'But what about the sick?' 'There are no sick between
May and September,' I said, 'and if there are they have to put up with
the native dispensers.'"
Dr. Saunders paused for a moment. The missionary looked ever so
slightly vexed.
"Well?" he said.
"The stranger looked at me irresolutely for a moment or two. 'I wanted
to see something of the missions before I left,' he said. 'You might
try the Roman Catholics,' I said, 'they're here all the year round.'
'When do they take their holidays then?' he asked. 'They don't,' I
said. He left me at that. I think he went to the Spanish convent."
The missionary fell into the trap and it irritated him to think how
ingenuously he had done so. He ought to have seen what was coming.
"Who was this anyway?" he asked innocently.
"I asked him his name," said the doctor. "'Oh, I'm Christ,' he said."
The missionary shrugged his shoulders and abruptly told his rickshaw
boy to go on.
It had put him thoroughly out of temper. It was so unjust. Of course
they went away from May to September. The heat made any useful activity
quite out of the question and it had been found by experience that
the missionaries preserved their health and strength much better if
they spent the hot months in the hills. A sick missionary was only an
encumbrance. It was a matter of practical politics and it had been
found that the Lord's work was done more efficiently if a certain
part of the year was set aside for rest and recreation. And then
the reference to the Roman Catholics was grossly unfair. They were
unmarried. They had no families to think of. The mortality among them
was terrifying. Why, in that very city, of fourteen nuns who had come
out to China ten years ago all but three were dead. It was perfectly
easy for them, because it was more convenient for their work, to live
in the middle of the city and to stay there all the year round. They
had no ties. They had no duties to those who were near and dear to
them. Oh, it was grossly unjust to drag in the Roman Catholics.
But suddenly an idea flashed through his mind. What rankled most was
that he had left the rascally doctor (you only had to look at his face
all puckered with malicious amusement to know he was a rogue) without
a word. There certainly was an answer, but he had not had the presence
of mind to make it; and now the perfect repartee occurred to him. A
glow of satisfaction filled him and he almost fancied that he had made
it. It was a crushing rejoinder and he rubbed his very long thin hands
with satisfaction. 'My dear Sir,' he ought to have said, 'Our Lord
never in the whole course of his ministry claimed to be the Christ.' It
was an unanswerable snub, and thinking of it the missionary forgot his
ill-humour.
XXXVI
DEMOCRACY
It was a cold night. I had finished my dinner, and my boy was making
up my bed while I sat over a brazier of burning charcoal. Most of the
coolies had already settled themselves for the night in a room next to
mine and through the thin matchboarding of the wall that separated us
I heard a couple of them talk. Another party of travellers had arrived
about an hour before and the small inn was full. Suddenly there was
a commotion and going to the door of my room to look out I saw three
sedan chairs enter the courtyard. They were set down in front of me and
from the first stepped out a stout Chinese of imposing aspect. He wore
a long black robe of figured silk, lined with squirrel, and on his head
a square fur cap. He seemed taken aback when he saw me at the door of
the principal guest chamber and turning to the landlord addressed him
in authoritative tones. It appeared that he was an official and he was
much annoyed to find that the best apartment in the inn was already
taken. He was told that but one room was available. It was small, with
pallets covered with tumbled straw lining the walls, and was used
as a rule only by coolies. He flung into a violent passion and on a
sudden arose a scene of the greatest animation. The official, his two
companions, and his bearers exclaimed against the indignity which it
was sought to thrust upon him, while the landlord and the servants of
the inn argued, expostulated, and entreated. The official stormed and
threatened. For a few minutes the courtyard, so silent before, rang
with the angry shouts; then, subsiding as quickly as it began, the
hubbub ceased and the official went into the vacant room. Hot water was
brought by a bedraggled servant, and presently the landlord followed
with great bowls of steaming rice. All was once more quiet.
An hour later I went into the yard to stretch my legs for five minutes
before going to bed and somewhat to my surprise, I came upon the
stout official, a little while ago so pompous and self-important,
seated at a table in the front of the inn with the most ragged of my
coolies. They were chatting amicably and the official quietly smoked a
water-pipe. He had made all that to-do to give himself face, but having
achieved his object was satisfied, and feeling the need of conversation
had accepted the company of any coolie without a thought of social
distinction. His manner was perfectly cordial and there was in it no
trace of condescension. The coolie talked with him on an equal footing.
It seemed to me that this was true democracy. In the East man is man's
equal in a sense you find neither in Europe nor in America. Position
and wealth put a man in a relation of superiority to another that is
purely adventitious, and they are no bar to sociability.
When I lay in my bed I asked myself why in the despotic East there
should be between men an equality so much greater than in the free and
democratic West, and was forced to the conclusion that the explanation
must be sought in the cess-pool. For in the West we are divided from
our fellows by our sense of smell. The working man is our master,
inclined to rule us with an iron hand, but it cannot be denied that he
stinks: none can wonder at it, for a bath in the dawn when you have to
hurry to your work before the factory bell rings is no pleasant thing,
nor does heavy labour tend to sweetness; and you do not change your
linen more than you can help when the week's washing must be done by a
sharp-tongued wife. I do not blame the working man because he stinks,
but stink he does. It makes social intercourse difficult to persons
of a sensitive nostril. The matutinal tub divides the classes more
effectually than birth, wealth, or education. It is very significant
that those novelists who have risen from the ranks of labour are apt to
make it a symbol of class prejudice, and one of the most distinguished
writers of our day always marks the rascals of his entertaining
stories by the fact that they take a bath every morning. Now, the
Chinese live all their lives in the proximity of very nasty smells.
They do not notice them. Their nostrils are blunted to the odours that
assail the Europeans and so they can move on an equal footing with the
tiller of the soil, the coolie, and the artisan. I venture to think
that the cess-pool is more necessary to democracy than parliamentary
institutions. The invention of the "sanitary convenience" has destroyed
the sense of equality in men. It is responsible for class hatred much
more than the monopoly of capital in the hands of the few.
It is a tragic thought that the first man who pulled the plug of a
water-closet with that negligent gesture rang the knell of democracy.
XXXVII
THE SEVENTH DAY ADVENTIST
He was a big man, and his bones were well covered. He gave you the
impression that he had put on flesh since he bought his clothes, for
they seemed somewhat tight for him. He always wore the same things, a
blue suit, evidently bought ready-made in a department store (the lapel
decorated with a small American flag) a high starched collar and a
white tie on which was a pattern of forget-me-nots. His short nose and
pugnacious chin gave his clean-shaven face a determined look; his eyes,
behind large, gold-rimmed spectacles, were large and blue; and his hair
receding on the temples, lank and dull, was plastered down on his head.
But on the crown protruded a rebellious cock's feather.
He was travelling up the Yangtze for the first time, but he took no
interest in his surroundings. He had no eye for the waste of turbulent
waters that was spread before him, nor for the colours, tragic or
tender, which sunrise and sunset lent the scene. The great junks with
their square white sails proceeded stately down the stream. The moon
rose, flooding the noble river with silver and giving a strange magic
to the temples on the bank, among a grove of trees. He was frankly
bored. During a certain part of the day he studied Chinese, but for the
rest of the time he read nothing but a _New York Times_ three months
old and the Parliamentary debates of July, 1915, which, heaven knows
why, happened to be on board. He took no interest in the religions
which flourished in the land he had come to evangelise. He classed them
all contemptuously as devil worship. I do not think he had ever read
the Analects of Confucius. He was ignorant of the history, art, and
literature of China.
I could not make out what had brought him to the country. He spoke of
his work as a profession which he had entered as a man might enter the
civil service, and which, though it was poorly paid (he complained
that he earned less than an artisan) he wanted notwithstanding to make
a good job of. He wanted to increase his church membership, he wanted
to make his school self-supporting. If ever he had had a serious call
to convert the heathen there was in him no trace of it now. He looked
upon the whole matter as a business proposition. The secret of success
lay in the precious word organization. He was upright, honest, and
virtuous, but there was neither passion in him nor enthusiasm. He
seemed to be under the impression that the Chinese were very simple
people, and because they did not know the same things that he did he
thought them ignorant. He could not help showing that he looked upon
himself as superior to them. The laws they made were not applicable
to the white man and he resented the fact that they expected him to
conform to their customs. But he was not a bad fellow; indeed he was a
good-humoured one and so long as you did not attempt to question his
authority there is no doubt that he would have done everything in his
power to serve you.
XXXVIII
THE PHILOSOPHER
It was surprising to find so vast a city in a spot that seemed to me
so remote. From its battlemented gate towards sunset you could see
the snowy mountains of Tibet. It was so populous that you could walk
at ease only on the walls and it took a rapid walker three hours to
complete their circuit. There was no railway within a thousand miles
and the river on which it stood was so shallow that only junks of light
burden could safely navigate it. Five days in a sampan were needed
to reach the Upper Yangtze. For an uneasy moment you asked yourself
whether trains and steamships were as necessary to the conduct of life
as we who use them every day consider; for here, a million persons
throve, married, begat their kind, and died; here a million persons
were busily occupied with commerce, art, and thought.
And here lived a philosopher of repute the desire to see whom had
been to me one of the incentives of a somewhat arduous journey. He
was the greatest authority in China on the Confucian learning. He was
said to speak English and German with facility. He had been for many
years secretary to one of the Empress Dowager's greatest viceroys,
but he lived now in retirement. On certain days in the week, however,
all through the year he opened his doors to such as sought after
knowledge, and discoursed on the teaching of Confucius. He had a body
of disciples, but it was small, since the students for the most part
preferred to his modest dwelling and his severe exhortations the
sumptuous buildings of the foreign university and the useful science
of the barbarians: with him this was mentioned only to be scornfully
dismissed. From all I heard of him I concluded that he was a man of
character.
When I announced my wish to meet this distinguished person my host
immediately offered to arrange a meeting; but the days passed and
nothing happened. I made enquiries and my host shrugged his shoulders.
"I sent him a chit and told him to come along," he said. "I don't know
why he hasn't turned up. He's a cross-grained old fellow."
I did not think it was proper to approach a philosopher in so cavalier
a fashion and I was hardly surprised that he had ignored a summons such
as this. I caused a letter to be sent asking in the politest terms I
could devise whether he would allow me to call upon him and within
two hours received an answer making an appointment for the following
morning at ten o'clock.
I was carried in a chair. The way seemed interminable. I went through
crowded streets and through streets deserted till I came at last
to one, silent and empty, in which at a small door in a long white
wall my bearers set down my chair. One of them knocked, and after a
considerable time a judas was opened; dark eyes looked through; there
was a brief colloquy; and finally I was admitted. A youth, pallid of
face, wizened, and poorly dressed, motioned me to follow him. I did not
know if he was a servant or a pupil of the great man. I passed through
a shabby yard and was led into a long low room sparsely furnished with
an American roll-top desk, a couple of blackwood chairs and two little
Chinese tables. Against the walls were shelves on which were a great
number of books: most of them, of course, were Chinese, but there
were many, philosophical and scientific works, in English, French and
German; and there were hundreds of unbound copies of learned reviews.
Where books did not take up the wall space hung scrolls on which in
various calligraphies were written, I suppose, Confucian quotations.
There was no carpet on the floor. It was a cold, bare, and comfortless
chamber. Its sombreness was relieved only by a yellow chrysanthemum
which stood by itself on the desk in a long vase.
I waited for some time and the youth who had shown me in brought a pot
of tea, two cups, and a tin of Virginian cigarettes. As he went out the
philosopher entered. I hastened to express my sense of the honour he
did me in allowing me to visit him. He waved me to a chair and poured
out the tea.
"I am flattered that you wished to see me," he returned. "Your
countrymen deal only with coolies and with compradores; they think
every Chinese must be one or the other."
I ventured to protest. But I had not caught his point. He leaned back
in his chair and looked at me with an expression of mockery.
"They think they have but to beckon and we must come."
I saw then that my friend's unfortunate communication still rankled. I
did not quite know how to reply. I murmured something complimentary.
He was an old man, tall, with a thin grey queue, and bright large eyes
under which were heavy bags. His teeth were broken and discoloured.
He was exceedingly thin, and his hands, fine and small, were withered
and claw-like. I had been told that he was an opium-smoker. He was
very shabbily dressed in a black gown, a little black cap, both much
the worse for wear, and dark grey trousers gartered at the ankle.
He was watching. He did not quite know what attitude to take up,
and he had the manner of a man who was on his guard. Of course the
philosopher occupies a royal place among those who concern themselves
with the things of the spirit and we have the authority of Benjamin
Disraeli that royalty must be treated with abundant flattery. I seized
my trowel. Presently I was conscious of a certain relaxation in his
demeanour. He was like a man who was all set and rigid to have his
photograph taken, but hearing the shutter click lets himself go and
eases into his natural self. He showed me his books.
"I took the Ph.D. in Berlin, you know," he said. "And afterwards I
studied for some time in Oxford. But the English, if you will allow me
to say so, have no great aptitude for philosophy."
Though he put the remark apologetically it was evident that he was not
displeased to say a slightly disagreeable thing.
"We have had philosophers who have not been without influence in the
world of thought," I suggested.
"Hume and Berkeley? The philosophers who taught at Oxford when I was
there were anxious not to offend their theological colleagues. They
would not follow their thought to its logical consequences in case they
should jeopardise their position in university society."
"Have you studied the modern developments of philosophy in America?" I
asked.