call Khalgan, the frontier town between China and Mongolia. It is the
first great halting-place on the road from Peking to Moscow. Formerly,
when the importation of tea into Russia by sea was forbidden, the whole
of the tea-supply passed from Tientsing through Chang Chia Ko̔u, and
there is still a great traffic, but, of course, it is much diminished.
The Russians have no important export trade to China. They have a
small export trade in cloth, which they manufacture, of a kind and
at a cost with which other producers cannot compete, for their cloth
exactly suits the Chinese, being of pure wool, very broad, and cheap;
but they cannot send it in any large quantity. At Peking, Tientsing,
and some of the large towns in North China, there are also to be found
miscellaneous articles of Russian manufacture, such as samovars,
knives, prints, looking-glasses, etc., but, as a rule, Siberia being
a non-manufacturing country and too short-handed to become one, goods
have to come from too far for their transport to pay. I believe that
the Russians have found their connection with China to be, on the
whole, a losing business. They have to pay silver—paper roubles will
not pass—for their tea, and must continue to do so as long as they
cannot establish an export trade; they are trying to obtain certain
rights of trading in Mongolia, but the Chinese cannot be persuaded
of the justice of transferring a monopoly of their own merchants to
a powerful neighbour. In the far north they have obtained certain
harbours which open the Chinese seas and the Pacific to them; but the
harbours are frozen for several months, and the advantage has saddled
them with huge tracts of country which it is hard for them to rule,
and still harder for want of manual labour to turn to profit. Russia
looks to the days of railways and telegraphs through Siberia, which
are probably not very far distant,[15] to balance the account. The
truth is that the English and Americans are the only people who have a
real commercial interest in China. The Russian interest is at present
simply one of boundaries. With the French the Chinese question is
one of missionaries and jealousy of the _interests_ of other nations
in the Far East,—_interests_ being with French alarmists synonymous
with _influence_. The German nations cannot as yet be said to have
any great stake here, though they have plenty of subjects in China,
principally clerks in great houses or small merchants. Portugal has a
very cleverly worded treaty with the Chinese, who will not ratify it
because it would cede to her the sovereignty of Macao, where she has a
flourishing trade, under the name of Chinese coolie emigration. Spain
has a treaty in an embryo state, and conterminal interests on account
of her Philippine Islands; and Belgium has a treaty, one resident
subject, and a ship trading here once in three years or so. The Danes
have a treaty, but little commerce. Italy two or three years ago
planned a mission hither, but it broke down. Even should the Russians
succeed in obtaining the privileges they are working for in Mongolia,
their Chinese trade would be but a drop in the ocean compared with our
immense commercial interests.
_29th April._
In spite of the remonstrances and even tears of our head muleteer, who
predicted certain starvation for ourselves and our mules, we decided on
pushing as far as Llama Miao, the great horse-fair in Mongolia, and
returning home _via_ Ku Pei Ko̔u to vary the journey. We accordingly
resolved to stop a day at Chang Chia Ko̔u to rest the horses and lay
in rice, flour, and other provisions, with provender for the cattle.
The delay gave us time to see the bustling little town which trade has
redeemed from the dulness of its neighbours. The streets are full of
animation. Fortune-tellers, improvisatori, and a company of strolling
actors who, gorgeous in stage dresses and burlesque “makes up,” have
taken possession of a small temple, attract crowds of gaping Mongols
and Chinamen. The main street of the suburb resembles a great fair,
lined with stalls like cheap-jack’s booths, at which every conceivable
sort of rubbish is sold. Pipes, rings, ear-rings, sham jewelry and
jade, Mongol knives, purses, cutlery professing to be made by Rodgers
and Son, lucifer matches from Vienna, kaleidoscopes, stereoscopes,
musical boxes and looking-glasses, with reverses quite unfit for
publication, are the chief wares. There is a capital seven-arched
bridge, adorned with lions and apes, across the almost dry river;
and wonderful to say, it is kept in repair, so you may judge how
prosperous the place is and looks. Foreigners excite little attention,
for European travellers are often passing; and besides, there are two
or three resident agents for Russian houses who superintend the loading
of the tea-caravans for Siberia.
One thing necessary before leaving Chang Chia Ko̔u was to get the
seal of the military authorities attached as a _visa_ to my passport.
As I told you last year, the petty provincial officers snap their
fingers at the seal of the Peking yamêns (public offices), but they
respect that of their own immediate chief, whose arm is long enough to
reach them. In the event of meeting with any difficulty on the road I
could not count on getting any official assistance without this seal.
Accordingly, early this morning I sent my passport to the general’s
office, with the request that it might be returned _visé_. At five
o’clock no passport was forthcoming, so I sent to say that I would go
in person to fetch it, and requested an interview with his Excellency.
When I arrived at the Yamên I was told that the great man himself was
ill—the usual excuse—but I was civilly received by his subordinate,
a greasy little blue-buttoned mandarin named Pao, and two others. I
repeated my request to see his Excellency Ah (that is his name), as I
knew how futile it is to treat with subordinate Chinese officials; but
_his_ Excellency only renewed his regrets that he could not see _my_
Excellency, which he hoped was pretty well. As he might be smoking
opium and really unpresentable, I thought it better not to press the
matter further, but attacked Pao on the subject of the seal, which he
fought off granting me on the ground that there was nothing in the
passport saying that I was entitled to it. I answered that the passport
entitled me to expect every aid from him, and that last year the
Ti-tu of Ku Pei Ko̔u had granted us his seal; threatened him with the
thunders of the Prince of Kung’s wrath, and told him (Heaven forgive
me!) how angry our Queen would be if she heard that a member of her
Legation, carrying the passport of the Legation, had been snubbed the
very first time he asked for assistance from a Chinese official. “Would
I like something to eat?” “I was much obliged, but I was not hungry;
I wanted the seal.” “At least a little jam?” “Many thanks, no jam,
but the seal.” “But the seal was really such an unimportant matter.”
“Then why not give it at once as the Ti-tu had done.” (Which, by the
bye, he had not done without a fight.) “Oh, but the Ti-tu lived at Ku
Pei Ko̔u and this was Chang Chia Ko̔u. How could it be done?” “Where
there’s a will there’s a way”—which is an excellent Chinese proverb.
My interlocutors doubled at every moment like hares, now offering
tea, now dinner, now tobacco, anything but the seal. They constantly
consulted together in Manchu, of which of course I did not understand a
word. Every now and then one went out to report, as I imagine, to the
shamming chief what I had said. How obstinate the barbarian was, and
how suspicious, for I took care to let them know that I was not gulled
by the very stale sick dodge. We were more than an hour marching and
countermarching over the same ground. I stuck out for my seal; they
persisted in eluding the question. At last I told Pao that I would
either accept the seal or a separate pass from his Excellency Ah to his
subordinates, but that if they refused to give me one or other I would
write to Peking and complain of their want of courtesy. After some
difficulty they agreed to furnish me with a pass, and even gave orders
for a draft to be written and sent to the hotel for my approval. I
then left them, but with such manifest disgust that they were probably
afraid that I might complain of their conduct, for immediately I
reached the inn a messenger made his appearance, saying that Pao hoped
I was pretty well (which, considering we had just parted, was an excess
of courtesy), and had not quite read my passport to his satisfaction;
would I let him have it back for a few minutes. Ten minutes after this
it was in my hands with the seal attached.
In the meantime our lachrymose muleteers had made off to Peking with
their mules, abandoning their pack-saddles and ropes, and forfeiting
all their earnings, save an advance which I had made them, rather than
face the imaginary horrors of the road to Llama Miao. Here was a pretty
kettle of fish! All hopes of an early start completely bowled out; and
really Chang Chia Ko̔u is a very nice place, but one day is enough of
it.
_30th April._
The whole of this morning was wasted in fruitless endeavours to get
mules or carts. The carters and muleteers, knowing our anxiety to be
off, demanded fabulous prices, and absolutely declined to start until
to-morrow; we were as determined to make a move to-day. At last, in
despair, the doctor rode off to the Russian agents to see whether
they could not do something to help us. It is no use applying to the
authorities, for their practice in such cases is to be extremely
civil and obliging, at once procure the worst and cheapest beasts in
the place, arrange for a high price, and pocket the difference; and
then when the traveller is a hundred miles or so away from all help
a horse or mule dies of a ripe old age, and the others are so feeble
and decrepit that he does not reach his destination until his stock
of provisions has long been exhausted, and himself has had to suffer
days of needless privation and discomfort. During the doctor’s absence
Chang Hsi, who had gone out as plenipotentiary in another direction,
came back with a treaty for ratification between himself, under the
style of “Chang the great Lord,” and a hirer of carts, who was willing
to convey our baggage to Llama Miao for rather more than double the
proper fare. The doctor’s negotiations were more successful, for he
returned with a wild-looking ruffian, with whom we finally made almost
satisfactory arrangements, though neither promising, coaxing, nor
threatening would induce him to start until the next day.
_1st May._
A short time since a missionary presented me with a copy of the
_Pilgrim’s Progress_ translated into Chinese, and adorned with
pictures, in which Christian and the other characters appear with
long tails _à la Chinoise_. If any one will produce a similar edition
of _Don Quixote_ for the benefit of the mandarins, I shall recommend
our carter as model for the portrait of the knight. His prominent
nose, lantern jaws, and tall, thin, ungainly figure exactly fit the
character; it is a type I never before saw in China. Any one of his
horses would make a capital Rosinante. We made a late start of it,
not getting off until eight o’clock, and even then our people lagged
behind in the town to buy things. At the gate of the town, where the
Great Wall of China is the frontier mark, we met with no difficulties,
our passports were not examined, and the officials only took down
our names and the number of our party. The day’s march was dull and
monotonous; it lay along a continuously ascending pass, winding between
barren hills, which bounded the view. We met strings of camels, mules,
and bullock-carts, all laden with tea for Russia and Mongolia. The tea
that is imported by the Mongols is of the coarsest quality, and pressed
into large bricks, which look something like cavendish tobacco, only
coarser, and with stronger fibres to bind them together. These bricks
are in some parts the current coin of the country: large transactions
are settled for so many bricks of tea, while smaller payments are made
by cutting pieces off the block as the Chinese cut fragments of silver.
The infusion made from brick tea is coarse and nasty; it often has a
musty taste owing to the damp confined in the cakes, which prevents
their transport by sea.
We breakfasted at Tu-ting, a miserable little village of mud hovels
which at a little distance look like mere holes in the hill; the place
reminded me of a colony of fever-stricken Circassians whom I saw during
their exodus two years ago, burrowing like rabbits in a bank near
Tchernavoda. Barring the fever there was not much choice in appearance
between the two. After Tu-ting the ascent becomes so steep that horses
are kept by the wayside, as on the St. Gothard, to draw up heavy carts
to a ledge on which stands a temple in honour of Kwan Ti, the god of
war, whither pious carters repair to deposit an offering on having
successfully made the ascent. Pa Ta, where we passed the night at the
sign of the “Ten Thousand Perfections,” was hardly richer than Tu-ting.
Our beds were made in the kitchen amid flour-bins, jars of oil, pots of
stinking cheese, and odds and ends of all sorts. It was the best room
of the inn, which was a low hut built of mud and chopped straw, roofed
over, but with the bare ground for a floor. This is not comfort, but _à
la guerre comme à la guerre_.
_2nd May._
A couple of hours more uphill and we were fairly on the Mongolian
plateau. A branch of the Great Wall runs along the mountains; but
here it is a mere heap of stones thrown together, a wonderful work of
patience, it is true, but lacking the grandeur of the brick-built wall
at Ku Pei Ko̔u; at intervals are rude turrets fallen or falling into
utter decay.
The plateau itself is a vast sea of downs bounded only by the horizon.
It is difficult to conceive anything more desolate; there is neither
tree nor shrub, nothing taller than a few dwarfish buttercups and
campanulas; there is not so much as a stone to sit down upon; for miles
and miles there is no trace of human habitation or handiwork; for miles
and miles one travels without meeting a soul, except by chance a stray
Mongol lumbering heavily along on his camel, or a bullock-cart carrying
tea; of beasts we saw a flock of Hwang-yang antelopes, that scampered
off almost before there was time to recognise them; the dogs started a
fox; a raven was feeding on a dead dog, and a solitary vulture followed
in our wake for hours, as if he expected one or other of us to come to
grief, but for to-day he was disappointed. We rested at Shi Pa Li Tai,
having made an absurdly short day’s journey, but it was impossible to
stir our Don Quixote into anything like activity.
_3rd May._
We rose long before sunrise, intending to make up for lost time. The
early morning on the steppes is something beautiful. Flocks of larks,
mocking and other birds are singing away as if their throats must
burst, the air is as keen and fresh as possible, and there is just a
sparkling of dew on the ground. On such a morning and on such ground
our little horses, in spite of the journey before them—of which they
always seem to have a sort of instinctive knowledge, for when the
holsters and headstalls are put on, the very worst of them sober down
and behave well—cannot resist a gallop. They lift their heads, and
turning towards the breeze sniff it in by long draughts with a zest
that it is good to see, and spin away like mad things over the steppe
on which they were born and reared. The dogs catch the infection, and
are in the most tearing spirits, careering away far out of sight;
Drujok, whose sporting education has been sadly neglected, setting a
bad example in a wild lark chase, which my puppy Prince is not slow
to follow. Roads across the plateau there are none; and we soon
raced away from all sign of the (at best) puzzling tracks of rare
carts and horses. Here was a pretty mess! Lost on the steppe like
sailors at sea in a cock-boat without a compass! not a landmark of any
sort; a boundless plain with a round horizon! After some while spent
in fruitless consultation, to our joy a speck began to rise on the
horizon; bigger and bigger it grew, until at last it defined itself
into the figure of a very jolly, fat, yellow-robed priest,—a sort of
Mongol Friar Tuck riding on his camel,—who could fortunately speak
a little Chinese. The good-natured fellow, shaking his sides with
laughter at our mischance, put his helm about and rode a mile or two
out of his own way to steer us into ours, so that in the end we found
ourselves at Pan Shan Tu a couple of hours before our people. As we
had started at three in the morning on the strength of a cup of tea
and a couple of eggs, and had been eight hours in the saddle, it was
rather trying to wait until past one o’clock for a meal. Still more
trying was it as the evening closed in, and the gathering clouds warned
us that there would be no moonlight to guide us, to find ourselves 25
miles from our destination, in the middle of the wilderness, and the
cart-horses hardly up to 3 miles an hour. Happily we came upon a group
of Mongol yurts (huts or tents), and their uncouth owners were willing
and able to take us in. Indeed, as I found out afterwards, the huts on
this track are almost available as inns for travellers. We were, as
usual, in advance of our party and unable to speak a word of Mongol;
however, from the yurts there appeared a wild, gaunt figure, which from
its wearing ear-rings and long hair, and from no other sign, I knew to
be a woman; in the kindliest but roughest manner she seized the horses
and led them to a post, to which she tied them, and then opening one
of the yurts, beckoned us to go in and warm ourselves, for it was very
chilly. In this hut were crowded a few men, women, and naked children,
a calf and several lambs, all huddling together round the fire: what an
etching Rembrandt would have made of it! The air was stifling; between
smoke and strong smells it was almost impossible to breathe; however,
the good lady cleared out another hut, which by the time our servants
came up was ready for us.
A Mongol yurt is of the simplest construction. A round, raised floor,
from twelve to fifteen feet in diameter, is made of mud and chopped
straw; round this is built a wall of trellis-work of laths about four
feet high, from which a number of sticks radiate to a point at the top;
a thick covering of pieces of felt tied on with strong cord completes
the hut; even the trellis-work is fastened by thongs of leather passed
through holes made at the point where the laths cross one another. The
whole can easily be taken to pieces and packed on a camel’s back. The
furniture of the interior is not more luxurious than the exterior: in
the centre is an iron fireplace, in which is burnt a fire of horse-
or cow-dung, which is the only fuel to be procured, and is collected
with great pains on the plateau; the smoke, so much at least as does
escape, finds its way through a hole in the middle of the roof; four
iron bars support over the fire the single pan in which all the cooking
of the family is done; round the tent are a few chests and presses of
the rudest Chinese manufacture, and the homeliest of brass pots and
pans from Peking; a few sheep-skins and calf-skins and pieces of felt
represent bed, sofa, and chair; the whole is blackened by much smoke
like a cutty-pipe. A flap of felt serves as door; the hole in the roof
is chimney and window in one, and if it rains that must be covered in.
Perhaps the quaintest thing about the place, and the strongest sign
of the poverty of the land, was the kitchen garden inside the yurt.
A basket or pan and a broken teacup, into which a little mould had
been placed, were beds in which half a dozen carefully-tended heads of
garlic were sprouting! There were no stables; the Mongols do not use
them. When they want a horse they go and catch one out of the herd. Our
horses were tied up to stakes outside. The cattle keep near the camp of
their own accord; the sheep are packed under a shed, so they enjoy a
covering; but the young things—calves, lambs, and kids—are carried into
the yurts and sleep with the other children. Such was our lodging for
the night, and, tired as we were, it did well enough for us. Our dinner
was a more difficult matter; our cook did his best for us, but he was
sorely put to it for saucepans and other requisites. As I said above,
the pan or caldron over the dung-fire is the whole Mongol _batterie de
cuisine_. Into it is thrown a quantity of millet or other grain and
a few lumps of fat mutton or beef, which is stewed in water. When the
solid part of this has been taken out, the greasy water which remains
serves to make the infusion of brick tea. Even the lowest Chinese
cannot stomach this nasty mess, and speak of it with the greatest
disgust. In some parts of Mongolia an infusion of brick tea is made
with boiling milk and salt, and always kept ready in the yurt. This is
said to be very good. I had been looking forward to getting a drink of
fresh milk, but the Mongols all say that their cows have died. Calves a
few days old, and in very good condition, tell another story.
When we had established ourselves in the yurt, the head of the
encampment, introduced by the Meg Merrilies who had taken us in and
done for us, and whom I imagine to have been his wife, came to visit
us. He spoke a little Chinese, which is necessary to him when he goes
to Chang Chia Ko̔u to sell his cattle. He told us he was a military
officer, but without soldiers to command. Of the world beyond Chang
Chia Ko̔u on one side and Llama Miao on the other he knew nothing.
His flocks and his tents were his whole life. The women, young and
old, had no objection to showing themselves; they came to look at us,
and brought their children, whom we made happy with cakes and white
sugar. Round-faced, flat-featured, healthy, dirty, and ugly are the
women; as for the men, sun, wind, and weather have burnt and hardened
them to a degree in comparison with which the most weather-beaten old
sea-dog at Portsmouth or Plymouth is satin-skinned. Men and women alike
are dressed in long sheep-skin robes, with the wool worn inwards, and
round fur caps. Their shapeless dresses and round head-pieces remind
one of the family in the Noah’s arks. The people appear very jolly
and simple, which they are, and very honest, which report says they
are not. Small articles to which they may take a fancy are said to
disappear mysteriously. The Mongolian dogs, several of whom guard
each encampment, to the great discomfiture of Drujok and Prince, who,
on the prowl after water, are constantly attacked by them, are fine
beasts—huge, shaggy fellows, mostly black-and-tan, with glorious tails
curling over their backs; they must be awkward customers. In spite of
the squalor in which our hosts live, they are rich people in their
way, and well-to-do; dirt and wretchedness must be with them a matter
of choice, not necessity, for their thriving flocks find a ready market
at Chang Chia Ko̔u for the supply of Peking. Things which are of the
most ordinary necessity to the poorest Chinaman these comparatively
prosperous people do without. They have not even a teapot or teacup;
and when we suggested washing our faces a rusty old iron basin was
dragged out of some corner where it must have lain unused and forgotten
for months.
It blew a gale of wind in the night, and rain came on, so we were able
to test the comfort of the tent. We suffered neither from cold nor
rain; in fact, nothing could be better adapted than these huts for the
extreme weather of the steppe. If it is fine you can sleep with the sky
above you. If it is cold the felt is a sufficient protection. It was
bitterly chilly outside, but within, although we could not bear a fire
on account of the smoke, we were as warm as toasts.
_4th May._
A pelting wet morning. We took leave of our friends the Mongols, and
rode to Chang-ma-tsze-chin, a Chinese colony, some twenty miles off, it
being too bad weather to push farther. We made friends with the whole
village through its children. A pedlar happened to be passing that way,
and by investing a few pence in small looking-glasses and such toys, we
made the little boys and girls very happy. To these the pedlar’s pack
of rubbish contained all the wonders of Aladdin’s palace, for had he
not come all the way from Peking? Our door at the inn was thronged with
jolly little urchins for the rest of the day, and we amused ourselves
and them by showing them our watches, pencil-cases, etc. The plains
or valleys here are narrower and surrounded by hills. I climbed one
height, from which I had a fine view over the steppe.
_5th May._
The beauty of the morning made up for yesterday. We were up by 3 A.M.
The vapours of the night before had settled down in dew on the ground,
the sun was rising brilliantly among fleecy clouds, which continued
all day to throw over the hills lights and shades such as one sees in
Europe—never at Peking, where the sky must either be black with storm,
or deep blue without a speck upon it. We stopped to breakfast at a
Mongol encampment, on the near side of an immense plain. I never saw so
many horses at one time in my life—the plateau was literally alive with
them; they were very shaggy in their winter coats, and did not show to
advantage on the poor commons they had had to put up with during the
winter; but some of them were well built for strength and endurance,
with deep chests, strong quarters, and big barrels. We were received in
the yurt of a widow, named Apakwai, a most ill-favoured dame; however,
her tent was the best in the place, and the cleanest, which is not high
praise. She was rich in furniture, skins, and felt mats, and there was
even some little attempt at decoration about her habitation, a few
Chinese prints of the rudest kind and most defiant of perspective being
pasted on the trellis walls; they were coloured in the garish style so
pleasing to Mongols, who are far more Oriental in this respect than
the sober Chinese. A Mongol swell, riding over the plain, gorgeous in
yellow and vermilion, and with his jolly moon face beaming out of a
yellow cap, red-buttoned and trimmed with sables, is a sight to see.
The ladies are great customers with the Peking jewellers for coral,
pearls, and jade ornaments. A woman, be she never so poor, is sure to
have some piece of finery in the way of ear-rings or head-dress from
Peking. If she cannot afford real jewellery she buys sham.