Camps and Trails in China
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Title: Camps and Trails in China
Author: Roy Chapman Andrews
Yvette Borup Andrews
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #12296]
Most recently updated: October 28, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: D. Appleton and Company, 1918
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Credits: Tom Cosmas produced from materials made available by the Hathi Trust and are placed in the Public Domain.
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CAMPS AND TRAILS IN CHINA ***
CAMPS AND TRAILS
IN CHINA
[Illustration: Our Camp on the Snow Mountain at an Altitude of 12,000
Feet]
CAMPS AND TRAILS IN CHINA
A NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATION, ADVENTURE,
AND SPORT IN LITTLE-KNOWN CHINA
ROY CHAPMAN ANDREWS, M.A.
ASSOCIATE CURATOR OF MAMMALS IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
AND LEADER OF THE MUSEUM'S ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION OF 1916-1917;
FELLOW NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; CORRESPONDING MEMBER ZOÖLOGICAL
SOCIETY OF LONDON; MEMBER OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON;
AUTHOR "WHALEHUNTING WITH GUN AND CAMERA"
AND
YVETTE BORUP ANDREWS
PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE ASIATIC ZOÖLOGICAL EXPEDITION
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATED
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK LONDON 1918
Copyright, 1918, by D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
Printed in the United States of America
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO
PRESIDENT HENRY FAIRFIELD OSBORN
AS AN EXPRESSION OF GRATITUDE AND ADMIRATION
"Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling ... let us go."
--_Service_.
PREFACE
The object of this book is to present a popular narrative of the
Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition of the American Museum of Natural History
to China in 1916-17. Details of a purely scientific nature have been
condensed, or eliminated, and emphasis has been placed upon our
experiences with the strange natives and animals of a remote and little
known region in the hope that the book will be interesting to the
general reader.
The scientific reputation of the Expedition will rest upon the
technical reports of its work which will be published in due course
by the American Museum of Natural History. To these reports we would
refer those readers who desire more complete information concerning the
results of our researches. At the time the manuscript of this volume
was sent to press the collections were still undergoing preparation and
the study of the different groups had just begun.
Although the book has been largely written by the senior author, his
collaborator has contributed six chapters marked with her initials; all
the illustrations are from her photographs and continual use has been
made of her daily journals; she has, moreover, materially assisted in
reference work and in numerous other ways.
The information concerning the relationships and distribution of the
native tribes of Yün-nan is largely drawn from the excellent reference
work by Major H. R. Davies and we have followed his spelling of Chinese
names.
Parts of the book have been published as separate articles in the
_American Museum Journal_, _Harper's Magazine_, and _Asia_ and to the
editors of the above publications our acknowledgments are due.
That the Expedition obtained a very large and representative
collection of small mammals is owing in a great measure to the efforts
of Mr. Edmund Heller, our companion in the field. He worked tirelessly
in the care and preservation of the specimens, and the fact that
they reached New York in excellent condition is, in itself, the best
testimony to the skill and thoroughness with which they were prepared.
Our Chinese interpreter, Wu Hung-tao, contributed largely to the
success of the Expedition. His faithful and enthusiastic devotion
to our interests and his tact and resourcefulness under trying
circumstances won our lasting gratitude and affectionate regard.
The nineteen months during which we were in Asia are among the most
memorable of our lives and we wish to express our deepest gratitude to
the Trustees of the American Museum of Natural History, and especially
to President Henry Fairfield Osborn, whose enthusiastic endorsement and
loyal support made the Expedition possible. Director F. A. Lucas, Dr.
J. A. Allen and Mr. George H. Sherwood were unfailing in furthering our
interests, and to them we extend our hearty thanks.
To the following patrons, who by their generous contributions
materially assisted in the financing of the Expedition, we wish to
acknowledge our great personal indebtedness as well as that of the
Museum; Mr. and Mrs. Charles L. Bernheimer, Mr. and Mrs. Sidney M.
Colgate, Messrs. George Bowdoin, Lincoln Ellsworth, James B. Ford,
Henry C. Frick, Childs Frick, and Mrs. Adrian Hoffman Joline.
The Expedition received many courtesies while in the field from the
following gentlemen, without whose coöperation it would have been
impossible to have carried on the work successfully. Their services
have been referred to individually in subsequent parts of the book:
The Director of the Bureau of Foreign Affairs of the Province of
Yün-nan; M. Georges Chemin Dupontès, Director de l'Exploration de la
Compagnie Française des Chemins de Fer de l'Indochine et du Yün-nan,
Hanoi, Tonking; M. Henry Wilden, Consul de France, Shanghai; M.
Kraemer, Consul de France, Hongkong; Mr. Howard Page, Standard Oil
Co., Yün-nan Fu; the Hon. Paul Reinsch, Minister Plenipotentiary and
Envoy Extraordinary to the Chinese Republic, Mr. J. V. A. McMurray,
First Secretary of the American Legation, Peking; Mr. H. G. Evans,
British-American Tobacco Co., Hongkong; the Rev. William Hanna, Ta-li
Fu; the Rev. A. Kok, Li-chiang Fu; Ralph Grierson, Esq., Teng-yueh;
Herbert Goffe, Esq., H. B. M. Consul General, Yün-nan Fu; Messrs. C. R.
Kellogg, and H. W. Livingstone, Foochow, China; the General Passenger
Agent, Canadian Pacific Railroad Company, Hongkong; and the Rev. H.
R. Caldwell, Yen-ping, who has read parts of this book in manuscript
and who through his criticisms has afforded us the benefit of his long
experience in China.
To Miss Agnes F. Molloy and Miss Anna Katherine Berger we wish to
express our appreciation of editorial and other assistance during the
preparation of the volume.
Roy Chapman Andrews
Yvette Borup Andrews
Justamere Home,
_Lawrence Park,
Bronxville, N. Y._
_May 10, 1917._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
The Object of the Expedition
PAGE
The importance of the scientific exploration of Central
Asia--The region which the Asiatic Zoölogical
Expedition investigated--Personnel of the
Expedition--Equipment--Applicants for positions upon the
Expedition
1-6
CHAPTER II
China in Turmoil
Yuan Shi-kai--Plot to become emperor of China--The Rebellion--Our
arrival in Peking--Passports for Fukien Province--Admiral von
Hintze, the German Minister--_En route_ to Shanghai--Death of
Yuan Shi-kai
7-14
CHAPTER III
Up the Min River
Y. B. A.
Arrival at Foochow--Foochow--We leave for Yen-ping--The
Min River--Our first night in a _sampan_--Miss Mabel
Hartford--Brigands at Yuchi--Yen-ping--Trapping at Yen-ping
15-25
CHAPTER IV
A Bat Cave in the Big Ravine
The Temple in the Big Ravine--Hunting serow--A bat apartment house
26-81
CHAPTER V
The Yen-ping Rebellion
A message from Mr. Caldwell--Refugees from Yen-ping--Situation
in the city--Fighting on Monday morning--Wounded men at the
hospital--We do Red Cross work--More fighting--A Chinese
puzzle--The missionaries save the city--The narrow escape of a
young Chinese--The mission cook--Return to Foochow
82-48
CHAPTER VI
Hunting the Great Invisible
Tiger lairs--Mr. Caldwell's method of hunting--His first
tiger--Habits of tigers--Experiences with the Great
Invisible--Killing a man-eater--Chinese superstitions--Hunting
in the lair
44-58
CHAPTER VII
The Blue Tiger
Arriving at Lung-tao--The blue tiger--Mr. Caldwell's first view
of the beast--The lair in the Long Ravine--Bad luck with the
tiger--A meeting in the dark--Ling-suik monastery--Life at the
temple--Fukien Province as a collecting ground
54-66
CHAPTER VIII
The Women of China
Y. B. A.
Schools for girls--Position of women--The Confucian rules--Woman's
life in the home--Foot binding--Early marriage--A Chinese
wedding
67-73
CHAPTER IX
Voyaging to Yün-nan
Outfitting in Hongkong--Food--Guns--Cameras--_En route_
to Tonking--The Island of Hainan--We engage a cook
at Paik-hoi--Arrival in Haiphong--Loss of our
Ammunition--Hanoi--The railroad to Yün-nan Fu--Yün-nan--The
Chinese Foreign Office endorses our plans
74-83
CHAPTER X
On the Road to Ta-li Fu
Oar caravan--The Yün-nan pack saddle--Temple camps--Chinese
_mafus_--Roads--Country--Ignorance of a Chinese
scholar--New mammals--Village life--Opium growing--An opium
scandal--Goitre--The Chinese "Mountain schooner"--Horses--Miss
Morgan--Brigands--Our guard of soldiers
84-98
CHAPTER XI
Ta-li Fu
Hsia-kuan--Summer temperature--Lake--Graves--Pagodas--Mr. H. G.
Evans--Foreigners of Ta-li Fu--Chinese mandarins--Mammals at
Ta-li--Caravan horses and mules--The cook becomes ill
99-106
CHAPTER XII
Li-chiang, and the "Temple of the Flowers"
Traveling to Li-chiang--Our entrance into the city--The surprise
of the foreigners--The temple--Excellent collecting--Small
mammals--The Moso natives--Customs--The Snow Mountain--Baron
Haendel-Mazzetti
107-113
CHAPTER XIII
Camping in the Clouds
Moso hunters--Primitive guns--Crossbows and poisoned
arrows--Dogs--porcupine--New mammals--We find a new camp on
the mountain
114-119
CHAPTER XIV
The First Goral
Killed near camp--A sacrifice to the God of the Hunt--Small
mammals--The second goral
120-125
CHAPTER XV
More Gorals
Gorals almost invisible--Heller shoots a kid--Collecting material
for a Museum group--A splendid hunt--Two gorals--A crested
muntjac
126-188
CHAPTER XVI
The Snow Mountain Temple
The first illness in camp--Serow--Death of the leading
dog--Rain--Two more serows--Lolos--Non-Chinese tribes of
Yün-nan
184-189
CHAPTER XVII
Gorals and Serows
Relationship--Appearance of the serow--Habits--Gorals
140-148
CHAPTER XVIII
The "White Water"
Y. B. A.
Our new camp--serow--We go to Li-chiang--A burial
ceremony--Ancestor worship
140-156
CHAPTER XIX
Across the Yangtze Gorge
Traveling to the river--Inaccuracy of the Chinese--First view of
the gorge--The Taku ferry--Cares
157-163
CHAPTER XX
Through Unmapped Country
Along the rim of the gorge--A beautiful camp at Habala--New
mammals--Photographic work--Phete village--Stupid
inhabitants--Strange natives--The "Windy Camp"--Hotenfa
164-171
CHAPTER XXI
Traveling Toward Tibet
A hard climb--Our highest camp--A Lolo village--Thanksgiving
with the Lolos
172-177
CHAPTER XXII
Stalking Tibetans with a Camera
Y. B. A.
Caravans--Tibetans--Dress--Appearance--Photographing frightened
natives--Reason for suspicion
178-181
CHAPTER XXIII
Westward to the Mekong River
Snow--Photographing natives--The Snow Mountain again--The
Shih-ku ferry--Cranes--"Brahminy ducks"--A well-deserved
beating--Chinese soldiers
182-189
CHAPTER XXIV
Down the Mekong Valley
Arrival at Wei-hsi--The Mekong River--Lutzu natives--Difficulties
in the valley--An unexpected goral--Christmas--The salt
wells--A snow covered pass--Duck shooting--Return to Ta-li Fu
190-201
CHAPTER XXV
Missionaries We Have Known
Our observations on work of missionaries in Fukien and Yün-nan
Provinces--Mode of living--Servants--Voluntary exile--Medical
missionaries--A missionary's experience with the brigands at
Yuchi
202-211
CHAPTER XXVI
Chinese New Year at Yung-chang
Y. B. A.
Traveling to Yung-chang--New Year's customs--Inhabitants of
the city--Foot-binding--Caves--Water buffaloes--Chinese
cow-caravans--Yung-chang mentioned by Marco Polo
212-222
CHAPTER XXVII
Traveling Toward the Tropics
Shih-tien plain--Curious inhabitants of the city--A tropical valley
at Ma-po-lo--"A little more far"--A splendid camp--Many new
mammals--Preparing specimens Sambur--Trapping
223-232
CHAPTER XXVIII
Meng-ting: a Village of Many Tongues
The first Shan Village--Priscilla and John Alden--Meng-ting--The
Shan mandarin--Young priests--The market--Photographing under
difficulties--Suppression of opium growing
233-343
CHAPTER XXIX
Camping on the Nam-ting River
A beautiful camp--The "Dying Rabbit"--Sambur hunting--Jungle
fowl--Civets--Pole cats and other animals
244-251
CHAPTER XXX
Monkey Hunting
Strange calls in the jangle--Our first gibbons--Relationship and
habits--Langurs and baboons--A night in the jungle
252-259
CHAPTER XXXI
The Shans of the Burma Border
An unfriendly chief--Honest natives--Houses at
Nam-ka--Tattooing--Shan tribe--Dress
260-263
CHAPTER XXXII
Prisoners of War in Burma
Y. B. A.
The mythical Ma-li-ling--Across the frontier into Burma--The
_mafus_ rebel--Ma-li-pa--Captain Clive--Guarding the
border--Life at Ma-li-pa
264-272
CHAPTER XXXIII
Hunting Peacocks on the Salween River
The Valley at Changlung--The ferry--Peacocks--The stalker
stalked--Habits of peafowls
273-280
CHAPTER XXXIV
The Gibbons of Ho-mu-shu
Climbing out of the Salween Valley--A Shan
Village--Ho-mu-shu--Camping on a mountain pass--Gibbons--An
exciting hunt and a narrow escape--Habits of the "hoolock"
281-290
CHAPTER XXXV
Teng-yueh: a Link with Civilization
Tai-ping-pu--Flying squirrels--Lisos--A bat
cave--Mail--Teng-yueh--Mr. Ralph Grierson--Tibetan bear cubs
291-297
CHAPTER XXXVI
A Big Game Paradise
Gorals at Hui-yao--Deer--Splendid hunts
298-304
CHAPTER XXXVII
Serow and Sambur
Monkeys at Hai-yao--Muntjacs--A new serow--We move camp to
Wa-tien--A fine sambur
305-314
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Last Days in China
Return to Teng-yueh--Packing the specimens--Results of the
Expedition--On the road to Bhamo--The chair coolies--Burma
_vs._ China--In civilisation again--Farewell to the Orient
315-322
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING
PAGE
Our camp on the Snow Mountain at an altitude of 12,000 feet
_Frontispiece_
Yvette Borup Andrews with a pet Yün-nan squirrel 4
Edmund Heller 4
Roy Chapman Andrews and a goral 4
A Chinese hunter and a muntjac 28
Brigands killed in the Yen-ping Rebellion 28
The Ling-suik monastery 62
A priest of Ling-suik 62
A Chinese mother with her children 70
Chinese women of the coolie class with bound feet 70
Cormorant fishers on the lake at Yün-nan Fu 84
Our camp at Chou Chou on the way to Ta-li Fu 84
The Pagodas at Ta-li Fu 96
The dead of China 96
The residence of Rev. William J. Hanna at Ta-li Fu 102
The gate and main street of Ta-li Fu 102
One of the pagodas at Ta-li Fu 108
A Moso herder 112
A Moso woman 112
The Snow Mountain 116
A cheek gun used by one of our hunters 118
The first goral killed on the Snow Mountain 118
Hotenfa, one of oar Moso hunters, bringing in a goral 120
Another Moso hunter with a porcupine 120
A typical goral cliff on the Snow Mountain 132
A serow killed on the Snow Mountain 140
The head of a serow 140
The "white water" 152
A Liso hunter carrying a flying squirrel 162
The chief of our Lolo hunters 162
A Lolo village 174
Lolos seeing their photographs for the first time 174
Travelers in the Mekong valley 180
Two Tibetans 180
The gorge of the Yangtze River 184
A quiet curve of the Mekong River 190
The temple in which we camped at Ta-li Fu 200
A crested muntjac 200
The south gate at Yung-chang 210
A Chinese bride returning to her mother's home at New Year's 210
A Chinese patriarch 224
Young China 224
A Shan village 234
A Shan woman spinning 234
A Kachin woman in the market at Meng-ting 240
One of our Shan hunters with two yellow gibbons 240
Our camp on the Nam-ting River 246
The Shan village at Nam-ka 246
The head of a gibbon killed on the Nam-ting River 254
A civet 254
A Shan girl 260
A Shan boy 260
A suspension bridge 288
Mrs. Andrews feeding one of our bear cubs 288
A sambur killed at Wa-tien 302
The head of a muntjac 302
A mountain chair 312
The waterfall at Teng-yueh 312
Map I. The red line indicates the travels of the Expedition 318
Map II. Route of the Expedition in Yün-nan 320
CAMPS AND TRAILS IN CHINA
CHAPTER I
THE OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION
The earliest remains of primitive man probably will be found somewhere
in the vast plateau of Central Asia, north of the Himalaya Mountains.
From this region came the successive invasions that poured into Europe
from the east, to India from the north, and to China from the west;
the migration route to North America led over the Bering Strait and
spread fanwise south and southeast to the farthest extremity of South
America. The Central Asian plateau at the beginning of the Pleistocene
was probably less arid than it is today and there is reason to believe
that this general region was not only the distributing center of man
but also of many of the forms of mammalian life which are now living in
other parts of the world. For instance, our American moose, the wapiti
or elk. Rocky Mountain sheep, the so-called mountain goat, and other
animals are probably of Central Asian origin.
Doubtless there were many contributing causes to the extensive
wanderings of primitive tribes, but as they were primarily hunters,
one of the most important must have been the movements of the game
upon which they lived. Therefore the study of the early human races is,
necessarily, closely connected with, and dependent upon, a knowledge of
the Central Asian mammalian life and its distribution. No systematic
palæontological, archæological, or zoölogical study of this region on
a large scale has ever been attempted, and there is no similar area of
the inhabited surface of the earth about which so little is known.
The American Museum of Natural History hopes in the near future to
conduct extensive explorations in this part of the world along general
scientific lines. The country itself and its inhabitants, however,
present unusual obstacles to scientific research. Not only is the
region one of vast intersecting mountain ranges, the greatest of the
earth, but the climate is too cold in winter to permit of continuous
work. The people have a natural dislike for foreigners, and the
political events of the last half century have not tended to decrease
their suspicions.
It is possible to overcome such difficulties, but the plans for
extensive research must be carefully prepared. One of the most
important steps is the sending out of preliminary expeditions to gain
a general knowledge of the natives and fauna and of the conditions to
be encountered. For the first reconnaissance, which was intended to be
largely a mammalian survey, the Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition left New
York in March, 1916.
Its destination was Yün-nan, a province in southwestern China. This
is one of the least known parts of the Chinese Republic and, because
of its southern latitude and high mountain systems, the climate and
faunal range is very great. It is about equal in size to the state
of California and topographically might be likened to the ocean in a
furious gale, for the greater part of its surface has been thrown into
vast mountain waves which divide and cross one another in hopeless
confusion.
Yün-nan is bordered on the north by Tibet and S'suchuan, on the west by
Burma, on the south by Tonking, and on the east by Kwei-chau Province.
Faunistically the entire northwestern part of Yün-nan is essentially
Tibetan, and the plateaus and mountain peaks range from altitudes of
8,000 feet to 20,000 feet above sea level. In the south and west along
the borders of Burma and Tonking, in the low fever-stricken valleys,
the climate is that of the mid-tropics, and the native life, as well as
the fauna and flora, is of a totally different type from that found in
the north.
The natives of Yün-nan are exceptionally interesting. There are about
thirty non-Chinese tribes in the province, some of whom, such as the
Shans and Lolos, represent the aboriginal inhabitants of China, and it
is safe to say that in no similar area of the world is there such a
variety of language and dialects as in this region.
Although the main work of the Expedition was to be conducted in
Yün-nan, we decided to spend a short time in Fukien Province, China,
and endeavor to obtain a specimen of the so-called "blue tiger" which
has been seen twice by the Reverend Harry R. Caldwell, a missionary
and amateur naturalist, who has done much hunting in the vicinity of
Foochow.
The white members of the first Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition included
Mr. Edmund Heller, my wife (Yvette Borup Andrews) and myself. A
Chinese interpreter, Wu Hung-tao, with five native assistants and ten
muleteers, completed the personnel.
Mr. Heller is a collector of wide experience. His early work, which
was done in the western United States and the Galapagos Islands, was
followed by many years of collecting in Mexico, Alaska, South America,
and Africa. He first visited British East Africa with Mr. Carl E.
Akeley, next with ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, and again with Mr.
Paul J. Rainey. During the Asiatic Zoölogical Expedition Mr. Heller
devoted most of his time to the gathering and preparation of small
mammals. He joined our party late in July in China.
Mrs. Andrews was the photographer of the Expedition. She had studied
photography as an amateur in Germany, France, and Italy, as well as
in New York, and had devoted especial attention to the taking of
photographs in natural colors. Such work requires infinite care and
patience, but the results are well worth the efforts expended.
Wu Hung-tao is a native of Foochow, China, and studied English at
the Anglo-Chinese College in that city. He lived for some time in
Teng-yueh, Yün-nan, in the employ of Mr. F. W. Carey, Commissioner
of Customs, and not only speaks mandarin Chinese but also several
native dialects. He acted as interpreter, head "boy," and general
field manager. My own work was devoted mainly to the direction of the
Expedition and the hunting of big game.
[Illustration: Yvette Borup Andrews with a Pet Yün-nan Squirrel]
[Illustration: Edmund Heller]
[Illustration: Roy Chapman Andrews and a Goral]
In order to reduce the heavy transportation charges we purchased
only such equipment in New York as could not be obtained in Shanghai
or Hongkong. Messrs. Shoverling, Daly & Gales furnished our guns,
ammunition, tents, and general camp equipment, and gave excellent
satisfaction in attention to the minor details which often assume
alarming importance when an expedition is in the field and defects
cannot be remedied. All food and commissary supplies were purchased in
Hongkong (_see_ Chapter IX).
* * * * *
When the announcement of the Expedition was made by the American Museum
of Natural History it received wide publicity in America and other
parts of the world. Immediately we began to discover how many strange
persons make up the great cities of the United States, and we received
letters and telegrams from hundreds of people who wished to take
part in the Expedition. Men and boys were the principal applicants,
but there was no lack of women, many of whom came to the Museum for
personal interviews.
Most of the letters were laughable in the extreme. One was from a
butcher who thought he might be of great assistance in preparing our
specimens, or defending us from savage natives; another young man
offered himself to my wife as a personal bodyguard; a third was sure
his twenty years' experience as a waiter would fit him for an important
position on the Expedition, and numerous women, young and old, wished
to become "companions" for my wife in those "drear wastes."
Applicants continued to besiege us wherever we stopped on our way
across the continent and in San Francisco until we embarked on the
afternoon of Mardi 28 on the S. S. _Tenyo Maru_ for Japan.
Our way across the Pacific was uneventful and as the great vessel
drew in toward the wharf in Yokohama she was boarded by the usual
crowd of natives. We were standing at the rail when three Japanese
approached and, bowing in unison, said, "We are report for leading
Japanese newspaper. We wish to know all thing about Chinese animal."
Evidently the speech had been rehearsed, for with it their English
ended abruptly, and the interview proceeded rather lamely, on my part,
in Japanese.
Japan was reveling in the cherry blossom season when we arrived and for
a person interested in color photography it was a veritable paradise.
We stayed three weeks and regretfully left for Peking by way of Korea.
But before we continue with the story of our further travels, we would
like briefly to review the political situation in China as a background
for our early work in the province of Fukien.
CHAPTER II
CHINA IN TURMOIL
During the time the Expedition was preparing to leave New York, China
was in turmoil. Yuan Shi-kai was president of the Republic, but the
hope of his heart was to be emperor of China. For twenty years he had
plotted for the throne; he had been emperor for one hundred miserable
days; and now he was watching, impotently, his dream-castles crumble
beneath his feet. Yuan was the strong man of his day, with more power,
brains, and personality than any Chinese since Li-Hung Chang. He always
had been a factor in his political world. His monarchical dream first
took definite form as early as 1901 when he became viceroy of Chi-li,
the province in which Peking is situated.
It was then that he began to modernize and get control of the army
which is the great basis of political power in China. Properly
speaking, there was not, and is not now, a Chinese national army. It
is rather a collection of armies, each giving loyalty to a certain
general, and he who secures the support of the various commanders
controls the destiny of China's four hundred millions of people
regardless of his official title.
Yuan was able to bind to himself the majority of the leading generals,
and in 1911, when the Manchu dynasty was overthrown, his plots and
intrigues began to bear fruit. By crafty juggling of the rebels and
Manchus he managed to get himself elected president of the new
republic, although he did not for a moment believe in the republican
form of government. He was always a monarchist at heart but was
perfectly willing to declare himself an ardent republican so long as
such a declaration could be used as a stepping stone to the throne
which he kept ever as his ultimate goal.
As president he ruled with a high hand. In 1918 there was a rebellion
in protest against his official acts but he defeated the rebels, won
over more of the older generals, and solidified the army for his own
interests, making himself stronger than ever before.
At this time he might well have made a _coup d'état_ and proclaimed
himself emperor with hardly a shadow of resistance, but with the
hereditary caution of the Chinese he preferred to wait and plot and
scheme. He wanted his position to be even more secure and to have it
appear that he reluctantly accepted the throne as a patriotic duty at
the insistent call of the people.
Yuan's ways for producing the proper public sentiment were typically
Chinese but entirely effective, and he was making splendid progress,
when in May, 1915, Japan put a spoke in his wheel of fortune by taking
advantage of the European war and presenting the historical twenty-one
demands, to most of which China agreed.
This delayed his plans only temporarily, and Yuan's agents pushed the
work of making him emperor more actively than ever, with the result
that the throne was tendered to him by the "unanimous vote of the
people." To "save his face" he declined at first but at the second
offer he "reluctantly" yielded and on December 12, 1916, became emperor
of China.
But his triumph was short-lived, for eight days later tidings of
unrest in Yün-nan reached Peking. General Tsai-ao, a former military
governor of the province, appeared in Yün-nan Fu, the capital, and, on
December 28, sent an ultimatum to Yuan stating that he must repudiate
the monarchy and execute all those who had assisted him to gain the
throne, otherwise Yün-nan would secede; which it forthwith did on
December 25.
Without doubt this rebellion was financed by the Japanese who had
intimated to Yuan that the change from a republican form of government
would not meet with their approval The rebellion spread rapidly. On
January 21, Kwei-chau Province, which adjoins Yün-nan, seceded, and, on
March 18, Kwang-si also announced its independence.
About this time the Museum authorities were becoming somewhat doubtful
as to the advisability of proceeding with our Expedition. We had a
long talk with Dr. Wellington Koo, the Chinese Minister to the United
States, at the Biltmore Hotel in New York. Dr. Koo, while certain that
the rebellion would be short-lived, strongly advised us to postpone our
expedition until conditions became more settled. He offered to cable
Peking for advice, but we, knowing how unwelcome to the government of
the harassed Yuan would be a party of foreigners who wished to travel
in the disturbed area, gratefully declined and determined to proceed
regardless of conditions. We hoped that Yuan would be strong enough
to crush this rebellion as he had that of 1918, but day by day, as we
anxiously watched the papers, there came reports of other provinces
dropping away from his standard.
On the _Tenyo Maru_ we met the Honorable Charles Denby, an ex-American
Consul-General at Shanghai and former adviser to Yuan Shi-kai when he
was viceroy of Chi-li. Mr. Denby was interested in obtaining a road
concession near Peking and was then on his way to see Yuan. His anxiety
over the political situation was not less than ours and together we
often paced the decks discussing what might happen; but every wireless
report told of more desertions to the ranks of the rebels.
It seemed to be the beginning of the end, for Yuan had lost his nerve.
He had decided to quit, and one hundred days after he became emperor
elect he issued a mandate canceling the monarchy and restoring the
republic. But the rebellious provinces were not satisfied and demanded
that he get out altogether.
About this time we reached Peking, literally blown in by a tremendous
dust storm which seemed an elemental manifestation of the human turmoil
within the grim old walls. Our cousin, Commander Thomas Hutchins, Naval
Attaché of the American Legation, was awaiting us on the platform,
holding his hat with one hand and wiping the dust from his eyes with
the other.
The news we received from him was by no means comforting for in the
Legation pessimism reigned supreme. The American Minister, Dr. Reinsch,
was not enthusiastic about our going south regardless of conditions,
but nevertheless he set about helping us to obtain the necessary visé
for our passports.
We wished first to go to Foochow, in Fukien Province, where we were
to hunt tiger until Mr. Heller joined us in July for the expedition
into Yün-nan. Fukien was still loyal to Yuan, but the strong Japanese
influence in this province, which is directly opposite the island of
Formosa, was causing considerable uneasiness in Peking.
We were armed with telegrams from Mr. C. R. Kellogg, of the
Anglo-Chinese College, with whom we were to stay while in Foochow,
assuring us that all was quiet in the province, and through the
influence of Dr. Reinsch, the Chinese Foreign Office viséd our
passports. The huge red stamp which was affixed to them was an amusing
example of Chinese "face saving." First came the seal of Yuan's
impotent dynasty of Hung-Hsien, signifying "Brilliant Prosperity," and
directly upon it was placed the stamp of the Chinese Republic. One was
almost as legible as the other and thus the Foreign Office saved its
face in whichever direction the shifting cards of political destiny
should fall.
At a luncheon given by Dr. Reinsch at the Embassy in Peking, we met
Admiral von Hintze, the German Minister, who had recently completed
an adventurous trip from Germany to China. He was Minister to Mexico
at the beginning of the war but had returned to Berlin incognito
through England to ask the Kaiser for active sea service. The Emperor
was greatly elated over von Hintze's performance and offered him the
appointment of Minister to China if he could reach Peking in the same
way that he had traveled to Berlin. Von Hintze therefore shipped as
supercargo on a Scandinavian tramp steamer and arrived safely at
Shanghai, where he assumed all the pomp of a foreign diplomat and
proceeded to the capital.
The Americans were in a rather difficult position at this time because
of the international complications, and social intercourse was
extremely limited. Dinner guests had to be chosen with the greatest
care and one was very likely to meet exactly the same people wherever
one went.
Peking is a place never to be forgotten by one who has shared
its social life. In the midst of one of the most picturesque,
most historical, and most romantic cities of the world there is a
cosmopolitan community that enjoys itself to the utmost. Its talk is
all of horses, polo, racing, shooting, dinners, and dances, with the
interesting background of Chinese politics, in which things are never
dull. There is always a rebellion of some kind to furnish delightful
thrills, and one never can tell when a new political bomb will be
projected from the mysterious gates of the Forbidden City.
We spent a week in Peking and regretfully left by rail for Shanghai.
_En route_ we passed through Tsinan-fu where the previous night serious
fighting had occurred in which Japanese soldiers had joined with the
rebels against Yuan's troops. On every side there was evidence of
Japan's efforts against him. In the foreign quarter of Shanghai just
behind the residence of Mr. Sammons, the American Consul-General, one
of Yuan's leading officers had been openly murdered, and Japanese were
directly concerned in the plot. We were told that it was very difficult
at that time to lease houses in the foreign concession because wealthy
Chinese who feared the wrath of one party or the other were eager to
pay almost any rent to obtain the protection of that quarter of the
city.
A short time later it became known to a few that Yuan was seriously
ill. He was suffering from Bright's disease with its consequent
weakness, loss of mental alertness, and lack of concentration. French
doctors were called in, but Yuan's wives insisted upon treating him
with concoctions of their own, and on June 6, shortly after three
o'clock in the morning, he died.
Even on his death-bed Yuan endeavored to save his face before the
country, and his last words were a reiteration of what he knew no one
believed. The story of his death is told in the China Press of June 7,
1916:
According to news from the President's palace the condition of Yuan
became critical at three o'clock in the morning. Yuan asked for his
old confidential friend, Hsu Shih-chang, who came immediately. On
the arrival of Hsu, Yuan was extremely weak, but entirely conscious.
With tears in his eyes, Yuan assured his old friend that he had
never had any personal ambition for an emperor's crown; he had
been deceived by his _entourage_ over the true state of public
opinion and thus had sincerely believed the people wished for
the restoration of the monarchy. The desire of the South for his
resignation he had not wished to follow for fear that general
anarchy would break out all over China. Now that he felt death
approaching he asked Hsu to make his last words known to the public.
In the temporary residence of President Li Yuan-hung, situated it,
the Yung-chan-hu-tung (East City) and formerly owned by Yang Tu,
the prominent monarchist, the formal transfer of the power to Li
Yuan-hung took place this morning at ten o'clock. Yuan Chi-jui,
Secretary of State and Premier, as well as all the members of the
cabinet. Prince Pu Lun as chairman of the State Council, and other
high officials were present.
The officials, wearing ceremonial dress, were received by
Li-Yuan-hung in the main hall and made three bows to the new
president, which were returned by the latter. The same ceremony
will take place at two o'clock, when all the high military
officials will assemble at the President's residence.
The Cabinet, in a circular telegram has informed all the
provinces that Vice-President Li-Yuan-hung, in accordance with
the constitution, has become president of the Chinese Republic
(Chung-hua-min-kuo) from the seventh instance.
So ended Yuan Shi-kai's great plot to make himself an emperor over four
hundred millions of people, a plot which could only have been carried
out in China. He failed, and the once valiant warrior died in the
humiliation of defeat, leaving thirty-two wives, forty children and his
country in political chaos.
CHAPTER III
UP THE MIN RIVER
_Y. B. A._
Three days after leaving Shanghai we arrived at Pagoda Anchorage at the
mouth of the Min River, twelve miles from Foochow.
We boarded a launch which threaded its way through a fleet of
picturesque fishing vessels, each one of which had a round black and
white eye painted on its crescent-shaped bow. When asked the reason for
this decoration a Chinese on the launch looked at us rather pityingly
for a moment and then said: "No have eye. No can see." How simple and
how entirely satisfactory!
The instant the launch touched the shore dozens of coolies swarmed like
flies over it, fighting madly for our luggage. One seized a trunk,
the other end of which had been appropriated by another man and, in
the argument which ensued, each endeavored to deafen the other by his
screams. The habit of yelling to enforce command is inherent with the
Chinese and appears to be ineradicable. To expostulate in an ordinary
tone of voice, pausing to listen to his opponent's reply, seems a
psychological impossibility.
There had been a mistake about the date of our arrival at Foochow, and
we were two days earlier than we had been expected, so that Mr. C. R.
Kellogg, of the Anglo-Chinese College, with whom we were to stay,
was not on the jetty to meet us. We were at a loss to know where to
turn amidst the chaos and confusion until a customs officer took us in
charge and, judiciously selecting a competent looking woman from among
the screaming multitude, told her to get two sedan chairs and coolies
to carry our luggage. She disappeared and ten minutes later the chairs
arrived. Dashing about among the crowd in front of us, she chose the
baggage for such men as met with her approval and after the usual
amount of argument the loads were taken.
We mounted our chairs and started off with apparently all Foochow
following us. As far as we could see down the narrow street were the
heads and shoulders of our porters. We felt as if we were heading an
invading army as, with our thirty-three coolies and sixteen hundred
pounds of luggage, we descended upon the homes of people whom we did
not know and who were not expecting us. But our sudden arrival did
not disturb the Kelloggs and our welcome was typical of the warm
hospitality one always finds in the Far East.
No matter how long one has lived in China one remains in a condition
of mental suspense unable to decide which is the filthiest city of the
Republic. The residents of Foochow boast that for offensiveness to the
senses no town can compare with theirs, and although Amoy and several
other places dispute this questionable title, we were inclined to
grant it unreservedly to Foochow. It is like a medieval city with its
narrow, ill-paved streets wandering aimlessly in a hopeless maze. They
are usually roofed over so that by no accident can a ray of purifying
sun penetrate their dark comers. With no ventilation whatsoever the
oppressive air reeks with the odors that rise from the streets and the
steaming houses.
In Foochow, as in other cities of China, the narrow alleys are
literally choked with every form of industrial obstruction. Countless
workmen plant themselves in the tiny passageways with the pigs,
children, and dogs, and women bring their quilts to spread upon the
stones. There is a common saying that the Chinese do little which is
not at some time done on the street.
The foreign residents, including consuls of all nationalities,
missionaries, and merchants, live well out of the city on a hilltop.
Their houses are built with very high ceilings and bare interiors, and
as the occupants seldom go into the city except in a sedan chair and
have "punkahs" waving day and night, life is made possible during the
intense heat of summer.
A telegram was awaiting us from the Reverend Harry Caldwell, with whom
we were to hunt, asking us to come to his station two hundred miles up
the river, and we passed two sweltering days repacking our outfit while
Mr. Kellogg scoured the country for an English-speaking cook.
One middle-aged gentleman presented himself, but when he learned that
we were going "up country," he shook his head with an assumption of
great filial devotion and said that he did not think his mother would
let him go. Another was afraid the sun might be too hot. Finally on the
eve of our departure we engaged a stuttering Chinese who assured us
that he was a remarkable cook and exceptionally honest
If you have never heard a Chinaman stutter you have something to live
for, and although we discovered that our cook was a shameless rascal
he was worth all he extracted in "squeeze," for whenever he attempted
to utter a word we became almost hysterical. He sounded exactly like
a worn-out phonograph record buzzing on a single note, and when he
finally did manage to articulate, his "pidgin" English in itself was
screamingly funny.
One day he came to the _sampan_ proudly displaying a piece of beef and,
after a series of vocal gymnastics, eventually succeeded in shouting:
"Missie, this meat no belong die-cow. Die-cow not so handsome." Which
meant that this particular piece of beef was not from an animal which
had died from disease.
The first stage of our trip began before daylight. We rode in four-man
sedan chairs, followed by a long procession of heavily laden coolies
with our cameras, duffle-sacks, and pack baskets. The road lay through
green rice fields between terraced mountains, and we jogged along first
on the crest of a hill, then in the valley, passing dilapidated temples
with the paint flaking off and picturesque little huts half hidden in
the reeds of the winding river. It was a relief to get into the country
again after passing down the narrow village streets and to breathe
fresh air perfumed with honeysuckle.
A passenger launch makes the trip to Cui-kau at the beginning of the
rapids, but it leaves at two o'clock in the morning and is literally
crowded to overflowing with evil-smelling Chinese who sprawl over
every available inch of deck space, so that even the missionaries
strongly advised us against taking it. The passengers not infrequently
are pushed off into the water. One of the missionaries witnessed an
incident which illustrates in a typical way the total lack of sympathy
of the average Chinese.
A coolie on the Cui-kau launch accidentally fell overboard, and
although a friend was able to grasp his hand and hold him above the
surface, no one offered to help him; the launch continued at full
speed, and finally weakening, the poor man loosed his hold and sank.
This is by no means an isolated case. Some years ago a foreign steamer
was burned on the Yangtze River, and the crowds of watching Chinese did
little or nothing to rescue the passengers and crew. Indeed, as fast
as they made their way to shore many of them were robbed even of their
clothing and some were murdered outright.
Our first day on the Min River was the most luxurious of the entire
Expedition, for we were fortunate in obtaining the Standard Oil
Company's launch through the kindness of Mr. Livingstone, their agent.
It was large and roomy, and the trip, which would have been worse than
disagreeable on the public boat, was most delightful. The Min is one of
the most beautiful rivers of all China with its velvet green mountains
rising a thousand feet or more straight up from the water and often
terraced to the summits.
Perched on the bow of our boat was a wizened little gentleman with a
pigtail wrapped around his head, who said he was a pilot, but as he
inquired the channel of everyone who passed and ran us aground a dozen
times or more to the tremendous agitation of our captain, we felt that
his claim was not entirely justified.
The river life was a fascinating, ever-changing picture. One moment
we would pass a _sampan_ so loaded with branches that it seemed like
a small island floating down the stream. Next a huge junk with
bamboo-ribbed sails projecting at impossible angles drifted by,
followed by innumerable smaller crafts, the monotonous chant of the
boatmen coming faintly over the water to us as they passed.
When evening came we had reached Cui-kau. The _sampans_ in which we
were to spend eight days were drawn up on the beach with twenty or
thirty others. Right above us was the straggling town looking very much
like the rear view of tenement houses at home. Darkness blotted out the
filth of our surroundings but could do nothing to lessen the odors that
poured down from the village, and we ate our dinner with little relish.
Our beds were spread in the _sampans_ which we shared in common with
the four river men who formed the crew. There was only a mosquito net
to screen the end of the boat, but all our surroundings were so strange
that this was but a minor detail. As we lay in our cots we could look
up at the stars framed in the half oval of the _sampan's_ roof and
listen to the sounds of the water life grow fainter and fainter as one
by one the river men beached their boats for the night. It seemed only
a few minutes later when we were roused by a rush of water, but it
was daylight, and the boats had reached the first of the rapids which
separated us from Yen-ping, one hundred and twenty miles away.
In the late afternoon we arrived at Chang-hu-fan where Mr. Caldwell
stood on the shore waving his hat to us amidst scores of dirty little
children and the explosion of countless firecrackers. Wherever we
went crackers preceded and followed us--for when a Chinese wishes to
register extreme emotion, either of joy or sorrow, its expression
always takes the form of firecrackers.
There had been a good deal of persecution of the native Christians in
the district, and only recently a band of soldiers had strung up the
native pastor by the thumbs and beaten him senseless. He was our host
that night and seemed to be a bright, vivacious, little man but quite
deaf as a result of his cruel treatment. He never recovered and died a
few weeks later. Mr. Caldwell had come to investigate the affair, for
the missionaries are invested by the people themselves with a good deal
of authority.
We spent that night in the parish house just behind the little church,
a bare schoolroom being turned over to us for our use, and it seemed
very luxurious after we had set up our cots, tables, chairs, and bath
tub; but the house was in the center of the town and the high walls
shut out every breath of pure air. The barred windows opened on a
street hardly six feet wide, and while we were preparing for bed there
was a buzz of subdued whispers outside. We switched on a powerful
electric flashlight and there stood at least forty men, women and
children gazing at us with rapt attention, but they melted away before
the blinding glare like snow in a June sun.
That night was not a pleasant one. The heat was intense, the mosquitoes
worse, and every dog and cat in the village seemed to choose our court
yard as a dueling ground in which to settle old scores. The climax was
reached at four o'clock in the morning, when directly under our windows
there came a series of ear-splitting squeals followed by a horrible
gurgle. The neighbors had chosen that particular spot and how to kill
the family pig, and the entire process which followed of sousing it
in hot water and scraping off the hair was accompanied by unceasing
chatter. Boiling with rage we dressed and went for a walk, vowing not
to spend another night in the place but to sleep in the _sampans_.
On the whole our river men were nice fellows but they had the love of
companionship characteristic of all Chinese and the inherent desire to
huddle together as closely as possible wherever they were. On the way
up the river to Yuchi every evening they insisted on stopping at some
foul-smelling village, and it was difficult to induce them to spend the
night away from a town. Moreover, at our stops for luncheon they would
invariably ignore a shady spot and choose a sand bank where the sun
beat down like a blast furnace.
The Chinese never appear to be affected by the sun and go bareheaded at
all seasons of the year, shading their eyes with one hand or a partly
opened fan. A fan is the prime requisite, and it is not uncommon to see
coolies almost devoid of clothing, dragging a heavy load and with the
perspiration streaming from their naked bodies, energetically fanning
themselves meanwhile.
Mr. Caldwell was _en route_ to Yuchi, one of his mission stations
far up a branch of the Min River, and as there was a vague report of
tiger in that vicinity we joined him instead of proceeding directly to
Yen-ping. The tiger story was found to be merely a myth, but our trip
was made interesting by meeting Miss Mabel Hartford, the only foreign
resident of the place. She has lived in Yuchi for two years and at one
time did not see a white person for eight months with the exception of
Mr. Caldwell who was in the vicinity for three days. It requires four
weeks to obtain supplies from Foochow, there is no telegraph, and mails
are very irregular, but she enjoys the isolation and is passionately
fond of her work.
She has had an interesting life and one not devoid of danger. In 1895
she was wounded and barely escaped death in the Hwa Shan (Flower
Mountain) massacre in which ten women and one man were brutally
murdered by a mob of fanatic natives known as "Vegetarians." The
Chinese Government was required to pay a considerable indemnity to Miss
Hartford, which she accepted only under protest and characteristically
devoted to missionary work in Kucheng where the massacre occurred.
Conditions at Yuchi when we arrived were most unsettled and for some
months there had been a veritable "reign of terror." A large band of
brigands was established in the hills not far from the city, and we
were warned by the mandarin not to attempt to go farther up the river.
A few months earlier several companies of soldiers had been sent from
Foochow, and the result of turning loose these ruffians upon the town
was to make "the remedy worse than the disease."
The soldiers were continually arresting innocent peasants, accusing
them of being brigands or aiding the bandits, and shooting them without
a hearing. At one time accurate information concerning the camp of the
robbers was received and the soldiers set bravely off, but when within
a short distance of the brigands the commanders began to quarrel among
themselves, guns were fired, and the bandits escaped. A Chinaman must
always "save his face," however, and when they returned to Yuchi they
arrested dozens of people on mere suspicion and executed them without
the vestige of a trial. Finally conditions became so intolerable that
no one was safe, and after repeated complaints by the missionaries, a
new mandarin of a somewhat better type was sent to Yuchi.
As it was impossible to do any collecting farther up the river because
of the bandits, we left for Yen-ping two days after arriving at Yuchi.
Yen-ping is a wonderfully picturesque old city, situated on a hill at
a fork of the river and surrounded by high stone walls pierced and
loopholed for rifle fire. Such walls, while of little use against
artillery, nevertheless offer a formidable obstacle to anything less
than field guns as we ourselves were destined to discover.
The Methodist mission compound encloses a considerable area on the
very summit of the hill, backed by the city wall, and besides the
four dwelling houses, comprises two large schools for boys and girls.
Mr. Caldwell's residence commands a wonderful view down the river and
in the late afternoon sunlight when the hills are bathed in pink and
lavender and purple a more beautiful spot can hardly be imagined.
But the delights of Yen-ping are somewhat tempered by the abominable
weather. In summer the heat is almost unbearable and the air is so
nearly saturated from continual rain that it is impossible to dry
anything except over a fire. From all reports winter must be almost as
bad in the opposite extreme for the cold is damp and penetrating; but
the early fall is said to be delightful.
The larger part of Fukien, like many other provinces in China, has
been denuded of forests, and the groves of pine which remain have
all been planted. This deforestation consequently has driven out the
game, and except for tigers, leopards, wolves, wild pigs, serows and
gorals, none of the large species is left. However, the dense growth
of sword grass and the thorny bushes which clothe the hills and choke
the ravines give cover to muntjac, or barking deer, and many species of
small cats, civets, and other Viverines. These animals come to the rice
paddys, which fill every valley, to hunt for frogs and fish, but it is
difficult to catch them because of the Chinese who are continually at
work in the fields.
We spent a week trapping about Yen-ping and although we caught a
good many animals they were almost always stolen together with the
traps. We had this same difficulty in Yün-nan as well as in Fukien.
None of us had ever seen natives in any part of the world who were
such unmitigated thieves as the Chinese of these two provinces. The
small mammals are hardly more abundant than the larger ones for the
natives wage an unceasing war on those about the rice paddys and have
exterminated nearly all but a few widely distributed forms.
CHAPTER IV
A BAT CAVE IN THE BIG RAVINE
A few days after our arrival in Yen-ping we went with Mr. Caldwell and
his son Oliver to a Taoist temple seven miles away in a lonely ravine
known as Chi-yuen-kang. The walk to the temple in the early morning
was delightful. The "bamboo chickens" and francolins were calling all
about us and on the way we shot enough for our first day's dinner. Both
these birds are abundant in Fukien Province but it is by no means easy
to kill them for they live in such thick cover that they can only be
flushed with difficulty.
Early in the morning we frequently heard the francolins crowing in the
trees or on the top of a hill and when a cock had taken possession of
such a spot the intrusion of another was almost sure to cause trouble
which only ended when one of them had been driven off.
For two miles and a half the Big Ravine is a narrow cut between
perpendicular rock walls thickly clothed to their very summits with
bamboo and a tangle of thorny vines. In the bottom of the gorge a
mountain torrent foams among huge bowlders but becomes a gentle, slow
moving stream when it leaves the cool darkness of the cañon to spread
itself over the terraced rice fields.
About a mile from the entrance two old temples nestle into the
hillside. One stands just over the water, but the other clings to the
rock wall three hundred feet above the river, and it was there that we
made our camp.
The old priest in charge did not appear especially delighted to see us
until I slipped a Mexican dollar into his hand--then it was laughable
to see his change of face. The far end of the balcony was given up to
us while Mr. Caldwell and Oliver put up their beds at the feet of a
grinning idol in the main temple.
We had come to Chi-yuen-kang to hunt serow (_see_ Chapter XVII) and
had brought with us only a few traps for small mammals. Harry had seen
several serow exhibited for sale on market days in towns along the
river, and all were reported to have been killed near this ravine.
There was a village of considerable size at the upper end and here we
collected a motley lot of beaters with half a dozen dogs to drive the
top of a mountain which towered about two thousand five hundred feet
above the river.
Never will we forget that climb! We tried to start at daylight but it
was well toward six o'clock before we got our men together. A Chinaman
would drive an impatient man to apoplexy and an early grave for it is
well-nigh impossible to get him started within an hour of the appointed
time, and with a half dozen the difficulty is multiplied as many times.
Just when you think all is ready and that there can be no possible
reason for delaying longer, the whole crowd will disappear suddenly and
you discover that they have gone for "chow." Then you know that the end
is really in sight, for chow usually is the last thing.
We waited nearly two hours on this particular morning before we started
on the long climb to the top of the mountain. The sun was simply
blazing, and in fifteen minutes we were soaked with perspiration. When
we were half way up the dogs disappeared in a small ravine overgrown
with bamboo and sword grass and suddenly broke into a chorus of yelps.
They had found a fresh trail and were driving our way.
Harry ran to a narrow opening in the jungle, shouting to us to watch
another higher up. We were hardly in position when his rifle banged,
followed by such a bedlam of yells and barks that we thought he
must have killed nothing less than one of the hunters. Before we
reached them Harry appeared, smiling all over, and dragging a muntjac
(_Muntiacus_) by the fore legs. He had just made a beautiful shot,
for the clearing he had been watching was not more than ten feet wide
and the muntjac flashed across it at full speed. Caldwell fired while
it was in mid-air and his bullet caught the animal at the base of the
neck, rolling it over stone dead.
This beautiful little deer in Fukien is hardly larger than a fox.
Its antlers are only two or three inches in length and rise from an
elongated skin-covered pedicel instead of from the base of the skull as
in all other members of the deer family. On each side of the upper jaw
is a slender tusk, about two inches long, which projects well beyond
the lips and makes a rather formidable weapon.
We hoped that this muntjac was going to prove a "good joss," but
instead a disappointing day was in store for us. When we had worked our
way to the very summit of the mountain under a merciless sun and over
a trail which led through a smothering bamboo jungle, we saw dozens of
fresh serow tracks. The animals were there without a doubt and we were
on the _qui vive_ with excitement.
[Illustration: A Chinese Hunter and a Muntjac]
[Illustration: Brigands Killed in the Yen-ping Rebellion]
We selected positions and the men made a long circuit to drive toward
us as Caldwell had directed. After half an hour had passed we heard
them yelling as they closed in, but what was our disgust to see them
solemnly parading in single file up the bottom of the valley on an open
trail and carefully avoiding all thickets where a serow could possibly
be. As Harry expressed it, "all the animals had to do was to sit tight
and watch the noble procession pass." The beaters very evidently knew
nothing whatever about driving nor were we able to teach them, for they
seriously objected to leaving the open trails and going into the bush.
We worked hard for serow but the men were hopeless and it was
impossible to "still hunt" the animals at that time of the year. The
natives say that in September when the mushrooms are abundant in the
lower forests the serow leave the mountain tops and thick cover to
feed upon the fungus, and that they may be killed without the aid of
beaters, but at any time the hunt would involve a vast amount of labor
with only a moderate chance of success. After we had left Fukien,
Mr. Caldwell purchased a fine male and female serow for us which
are especially interesting as they represent a different subspecies
(_Capricornis sumatrensis argyrochætes_) from those we killed in
Yün-nan.
Chi-yuen-kang did yield us results, however, for we discovered a
wonderful bat cave less than a mile from our temple. Its entrance was
a low round hole half covered with vegetation, and opening into a high
circular gallery; from this three long corridors branched off like
fingers from the palm of a giant's hand. The cave was literally alive
with bats. There must have been ten thousand and on the first day we
killed a hundred, representing seven species and at least four genera.
This was especially remarkable as it is unusual to find more than two
or three species living together.
The cave was a regular bat apartment house for each corridor was
divided by rock partitions into several small rooms in every one of
which bats of different species were rearing their families. The young
in most instances were only a few days old but were thickly clustered
on the walls and ceilings, and each and every one was squeaking at the
top of its tiny lungs. The place must have been occupied for scores, if
not hundreds, of years for the floor was knee-deep with dung.
When we returned the day after our first visit we found that many of
the young bats had been removed by their parents and in some instances
entire rooms had been vacated. After the first day the odor of the cave
was so nauseating that to enable us to go inside it was necessary to
wear gauze pads of iodoform over our noses.
The bats at this place were killed with bamboo switches but later we
always used a long gill net which had been especially made in New York.
We could hang the net over the entrance to a cave and, when all was
ready, send a native into the galleries to stir up the animals. As they
flew out they became entangled in the net and could be caught or killed
before they were able to get away. It was sometimes possible to catch
every specimen in a cavern, and moreover, to secure them in perfect
condition without broken skulls or wings.
If a bat escaped from the net it would never again strike it, for
the animals are wonderfully accurate in flight and most expert
dodgers. Even while in a cave, where hundreds of bats were in the
air, they seldom flew against us, although we might often be brushed
by their wings; and it was a most difficult thing to hit them with a
bamboo switch. Their ability in dodging is without doubt a necessary
development of their feeding habits for, with the exception of a few
species, bats live exclusively upon insects and catch them in the air.
It is a rather terrifying experience for a girl to sit in a bat cave
especially if the light has gone out and she is in utter darkness. Of
course she has a cap tightly pulled over her ears, for what girl, even
if she be a naturalist's wife, would venture into a den of evil bats
with one wisp of hair exposed!
All about is the swish of ghostly wings which brush her face or neck
and the air is full of chattering noises like the grinding of hundreds
of tiny teeth. Sometimes a soft little body plumps into her lap and
if she dares to take her hands from her face long enough to disengage
the clinging animal she is liable to receive a vicious bite from
teeth as sharp as needles. But, withal, it is good fun, and think how
quickly formalin jars or collecting trays can be filled with beautiful
specimens!
CHAPTER V
THE YEN-PING REBELLION
On Sunday, June 18, we went to the bat cave to obtain a new supply
of specimens. Upon our return, just as we were about to sit down to
luncheon, four excited Chinese appeared with the following letter from
Mr. Caldwell:
Dear Roy:
There was quite a lively time in the city at an early hour this
morning. The rebels have taken Yen-ping and it looks as though
there was trouble ahead. Northern soldiers have been sent for and
the chances are that either tonight or tomorrow morning there will
be quite a battle. Bankhardt, Dr. Trimble and myself have just made
a round of the city, visiting the telegraph office, post office and
other places, and while we do not believe that the foreigners will
be molested, nevertheless it is impossible to tell just what to
expect. It is certain, however, that the Consul will order all of
us to Foochow if news of the situation reaches there. Owing to the
uncertainty, I think you had better come in to Yen-ping so as to be
ready for any eventuality.
After talking the situation over with Dr. Trimble and Mr.
Bankhardt, we all agreed that the wisest thing is for you to come
in immediately. I am sending four burden-bearers for it will be out
of the question to find any tomorrow, if trouble occurs tonight.
The city gates are closed so you will have to climb up the ladder
over the wall behind our compound. Best wishes.
Harry.
P. S.--Later: It is again reported that Northern soldiers are to
arrive tonight. If they do and trouble occurs your only chance is
to get to Yen-ping today.
H. C.
The camp immediately was thrown into confusion for Da-Ming, the cook,
and the burden-bearers were jabbering excitedly at the top of their
voices. The servants began to pack the loads at once and meanwhile we
ate a roast chicken faster than good table manners would permit--in
fact, we took it in our fingers. We were both delighted at the prospect
of some excitement and talked almost as fast as the Chinese.
In just one hour from the time Harry's letter had been received, we
were on the way to Yen-ping. It was the hottest part of the day, and
we were dripping with perspiration when we left the cool darkness of
the ravine and struck across the open valley, which lay shimmering in a
furnace-like heat. At the first rest house an the top of the long hill
we waited nearly an hour for our bearers who were struggling under the
heavy loads.
Three miles farther on a poor woman tottered past us on her peglike
feet leaning on the arm of a man. A short distance more and we came to
the second rest house. We had been there but a few moments when three
panting women, steadying themselves with long staves and barely able
to walk on feet not more than four inches long, came up the hill. With
them were several men bearing household goods in large bundles and huge
red boxes.
The exhausted women sank upon the benches and fanned themselves while
the perspiration ran down their flushed faces. They looked so utterly
miserable that we told the cook to give them a piece of cake which Mrs.
Caldwell had sent us the day before. Their gratitude was pitiful, but,
of course, they gave the larger share to the men.
It was not long before other women and children appeared on the hill
path, all struggling upward under heavy loads, or tottering along on
tightly bound feet. Probably these women had not walked so far in their
entire lives, but the fear of the Northern soldiers and what would
happen in the city if they took possession had driven them from their
homes.
Farther on we had a clear view across the valley where a long line
of people was filing up to a temple which nestled into the hillside.
Half a mile beyond were two other temples both crowded with refugees
and their goods. Hundreds of families were seeking shelter in every
little house beside the road and were overflowing into the cowsheds and
pigpens.
At six o'clock we stood on the summit of the hill overlooking the city
and half an hour later were clambering up the ladder over the high wall
of the compound, just behind Dr. Trimble's house. We were wet through
and while cooling off heard the story of the morning's fighting. It
seemed that a certain element in the city was in coöperation with the
representatives of the revolutionary organization. These men wished
to obtain possession of Yen-ping and, after the rebellion was well
started, to gather forces, march to Foochow, and force the Governor to
declare the independence of the province.
The plot had been hatching for several days, but the death of Yuan
Shi-kai had somewhat delayed its fruition. Saturday, however, it was
known throughout the city that trouble would soon begin. Sunday
morning at half past three, a band of one hundred men from Yuchi
had marched to Yen-ping where they were received by a delegation
of rebels dressed in white who opened to them the east gate of the
city. Immediately they began to fire up the streets to intimidate the
people and in a short time were in a hot engagement with the seventeen
Northern soldiers, some of whom threw away their guns and swam across
the river. The remaining city troops were from the province of Hunan
and their sympathies were really with the South in the great rebellion.
These immediately joined the rebels, where they were received with open
arms. It was reported that the _tao-tai_ (district mandarin) had asked
for troops from Foochow and that these might be expected at any moment;
thus when they arrived a real battle could be expected and it was very
likely that the city would be partly destroyed.
We had a picnic supper on the Caldwell's porch and discussed the
situation. It was the opinion of all that the foreigners were in
no immediate danger, but nevertheless it was considered wise to be
prepared, and we decided upon posts for each man if it should become
necessary to protect the compound.
Hundreds of people were besieging the missionaries with requests to be
allowed to bring their goods and families inside the walls, but these
necessarily had to be refused. Had the missionaries allowed the Chinese
to bring their valuables inside it would have cost them the right of
Consular protection and, moreover, their compound would have been the
first to be attacked if looting began.
On Monday morning while we were sitting on the porch of Mr. Caldwell's
house preparing some bird skins, there came a sharp crackle of rifle
fire and then a roar of shots. Bullets began to whistle over us and
we could see puffs of smoke as the deep bang of a black powder gun
punctuated the vicious snapping of the high-power rifles. The firing
gradually ceased after half an hour and we decided to go down to the
city to see what had happened, for, as no Northern troops had appeared,
the cause of the fighting was a mystery.
We went first to the mission hospital which lay across a deep ravine
and only a few yards from the quarters of the soldiers. At the door of
the hospital compound lay a bloody rag, and we found Dr. Trimble in the
operating room examining a wounded man who had just been brought in.
The fellow had been shot in the abdomen with a 45-caliber lead ball
that had gone entirely through him, emerging about three inches to the
right of his spine.
From the doctor we got the first real news of the puzzling situation.
It appeared that all the men who had arrived Sunday morning from Yuchi
to join the Yen-ping rebels were in reality brigands and, to save their
own lives, the Hunan soldiers quartered in the city had played a clever
trick. They had pretended to join the rebels but at a given signal
had turned upon them, killing or capturing almost every one. Although
their sympathies were really with the South, the Hunan men knew that
the rebels in Yen-ping could not hold the city against the Northern
soldiers from Foochow and, by crushing the rebellion themselves, they
hoped to avert a bigger fight.
As we could not help the doctor he suggested that we might be of
some assistance to the wounded in the city, and with rude crosses
of red cloth pinned to our white shirt sleeves we left the hospital,
accompanied by four Chinese attendants bearing a stretcher. In the
compound we met a chair in which was lying an old man groaning loudly
and dripping with blood. Beside him were his wife and several boys. The
poor woman was crying quietly and, between her sobs, was offering the
wounded man mustard pickles from a small dish in her hand! Poor things,
they have so little to eat that they believe food will cure all ills!
The bearers set the chair down as we appeared and lifted the filthy rag
which covered a gaping wound in the man's shoulder, over which had been
plastered a great mass of cow dung. Just think of the infection, but it
was the only remedy they knew!
We took the man upstairs where Dr. Trimble was preparing to operate on
the fellow who had been shot in the abdomen. The doctor was working
steadily and quietly, making every move count and inspiring his native
hospital staff with his own coolness; the way this young missionary
handled his cases made us glad that he was an American.
On the way down the hill several soldiers passed us, each carrying four
or five rifles and slung about with cartridge belts--plunder stripped
from the men who had been killed. A few hundred yards farther on we
found two brigands lying dead in a narrow street. The nearest one had
fallen on his face and, as we turned him over, we saw that half his
head had been blown away; the other was staring upward with wide open
eyes on which the flies already were settling in swarms.
There was little use in wasting time over these men who long ago had
passed beyond need of our help, and we went on rapidly down the alley
to the main thoroughfare. Guided by a small boy, we hurried over the
rough stones for fifteen minutes, and suddenly came to a man lying
at the side of the street, his head propped on a wooden block. An
umbrella once had partly covered him but had fallen away, leaving him
unprotected in the broiling sun. His face and a terrible wound in his
head were a solid mass of flies, and thousands of insects were crawling
over the blood clots on the stones beside him. At first we thought
he was dead but soon saw his abdomen move and realized that he was
breathing. It did not seem possible that a human being could live under
such conditions; and yet the bystanders told us that he had been lying
there for thirty hours--he had been shot early the previous morning and
it was now three o'clock of the next afternoon.
The man was a poor water-carrier who lived with his wife in the most
utter poverty. He had been peering over the city wall when the firing
began Sunday morning and was one of the first innocent bystanders to
pay the penalty of his curiosity. I asked why he had not been taken to
the hospital, and the answer was that his wife was too poor to hire
anyone to carry him and he had no friends. So there he lay in the
burning sun, gazed at by hundreds of passers-by, without one hand being
lifted to help him.
Our hospital attendants brushed away the flies, placed him in the
stretcher and started up the long hill, followed by the haggard,
weeping wife and a curious crowd. On every hand were questions: "Why
are these men taking him away?" "What are they going to do with him?"
But several educated natives who understood said, "=Ing-ai-gidaiie="
(A work of love). They got right there a lesson in Christianity which
they will not soon forget. It is seldom that Chinese try to help an
injured man, for ever present in their minds is the possibility that he
may die and that they will be responsible for his burial expenses.
We left the stretcher bearers at the corner of the main street with
orders to return as soon as they had deposited the man in the hospital
and, under the guidance of a boy, hurried toward the east gate where
it was said seven or eight men had been shot. Our guide took us first
to a brigand who had been wounded and left to die beside the gutter.
The corpse was a horrible sight and with a feeling of deathly nausea
we made a hurried examination and walked to the gate at the end of the
street.
A dozen soldiers were on guard. We learned from the officer that there
were no wounded in the pile of dead just beyond the entrance, so we
turned toward the river bank and rapidly patrolled the alleys leading
to the _tao-tai's yamen_ (official residence) where the firing had been
heaviest. The _yamen_ was crowded with soldiers, and we were informed
that the dead had all been removed and that there were no wounded--a
grim statement which told its own story.
The _yamen_ is but a short distance from the hospital so we climbed
the hill to the compound. The sun was simply blazing and I realized
then what the wounded men must have suffered lying in the heat without
shelter. We returned to the house and were resting on the upper porch
when suddenly, far down the river, we saw the glint of rifle barrels in
the sunlight, and with field glasses made out a long line of khaki-clad
men winding along the shore trail. At the same time two huge boats
filled with soldiers came into view heading for the water gate of the
city. These were undoubtedly the Northern troops from Foochow who were
expected Monday night.
Even as we looked there came a sudden roar of musketry and a cloud of
smoke drifted up from the barracks right below us--then a rattling
fusillade of shots. We could see soldiers running along the walls
firing at men below and often in our direction. Bullets hummed in the
air like angry bees and we rushed for cover, but in a few moments the
firing ceased as suddenly as it began.
We were at a loss to know what it all meant and why the troops were
firing upon the Northern soldiers whom they wished to placate. It was
still a mystery when we sat down to dinner at half past seven, but
a few minutes later Mr. Bankhardt rushed in saying that he had just
received a note from the _tao-tai_. The mandarin's personal servant
had brought word that the Northern soldiers, who had just entered
the city, were going to kill him and he begged the missionaries for
assistance. Bankhardt also told us of the latest developments in the
situation. It seems that the city soldiers supposed the Northern troops
to be brigands and had fired upon them and killed several before they
discovered their mistake. A very delicate situation had thus been
precipitated, for the Northern commander believed that it was treachery
and intended to attack the barracks in the morning and kill every man
whom he found with a rifle, as well as all the city officials.
The story of the way in which the missionaries acted as peacemakers,
saved the _tao-tai_, and prevented the slaughter which surely would
have taken place in the morning, is too long to be told here, for it
was accomplished only after hours of the talk and "face saving" so
dear to the heart of the Oriental. Suffice it to say that through the
exercise of great tact and a thorough understanding of the Chinese
character they were able to settle the matter without bloodshed.
The following day twenty brigands were given a so-called trial, marched
off to the west gate, beheaded amid great enthusiasm, and the incident
was closed. In the afternoon a messenger called and delivered to each
of us an official letter from the commander of the Northern troops
thanking us for the part we had played in averting trouble and bringing
the matter to a peaceful end.
An interesting sidelight on the affair was received a few days later.
A young man, a Christian, who was born in the same town from which a
number of the brigands had come, went to his house on Monday night
after the fight and found seven of the robbers concealed in his
bedroom. He was terrified because if they were discovered he and all
his family would be killed for aiding the bandits. He told them they
must leave at once, but they pleaded with him to let them stay for
they knew there were soldiers at every corner and that it would be
impossible to get away.
While he was imploring them to go, a knock sounded at the door. He
pushed the brigands into the courtyard, and opened to three soldiers.
They said: "We understand you have brigands in your house." He was
trembling with fear, but answered, "Come in and see for yourself, if
you think so."
The soldiers were satisfied by his frank open manner and, as they knew
him to be a good man, did not search the house, but went away. The poor
fellow was frightened nearly to death, but as his place was being
watched it was impossible for the brigands to leave during the day.
At night they stripped themselves, shaved their heads, and dressed like
coolies, and were able to get to the ladder down the city wall just
below the mission compound where they could escape into the hills.
The day after this occurrence, about four o'clock in the afternoon, a
breathless Chinese appeared at the house with a note to Mr. Bankhardt
saying that his Chinese teacher and the mission school cook had been
arrested by the Northern soldiers and were to be beheaded in an hour.
We hurried to the police office where they were confined and found that
not only the two men but three others were in custody.
The mission cook owned a small restaurant under the management of one
of his relatives and, while Bankhardt's teacher and the other man were
sitting at a table, some Northern soldiers appeared, one of whom owed
the restaurant keeper a small amount of money. When asked to pay, the
soldier turned upon him and shouted: "You have been assisting the
brigands. I saw some of them carrying goods into your house." Thereupon
the soldiers arrested everyone in the shop.
The police officials were quite ready to release the teacher and the
other man upon our statements, but they would not allow the cook to go.
His hands were kept tightly bound and he was chained to a post by the
neck. The soldier who arrested him was his sole accuser, but of course,
others would appear to uphold him in his charge if it were necessary.
The cook was as innocent as any one of the missionaries, but it
required several hours of work and threats of complaint to the
government at Foochow to prevent the man from being summarily executed.
We were not able to get any mail from Foochow during the rebellion
because the constant stream of Northern soldiers on their way up the
river had paralyzed the entire country to such an extent that all the
river men had fled.
The soldiers were firing for target practice upon every boat they saw
on the river and dozens of men had been killed and then robbed. The
Northern commander told us frankly that this could not be prevented,
and when we announced that we were going to start with all the
missionaries down the river on the following day, he was very much
disturbed. He insisted that we have American flags displayed on our
boats to prevent being fired upon by the soldiers.
Although it had taken eight days to work our way laboriously through
the rapids and up the river from Foochow to Yen-ping, we covered the
same distance down the river in twenty-four hours and had breakfast
with Mr. Kellogg at his house the morning after we left Yen-ping. In
two days our equipment was repacked and ready for the trip to Futsing
to hunt the blue tiger.
CHAPTER VI
HUNTING THE "GREAT INVISIBLE"
For many years before Mr. Caldwell went to Yen-ping he had been
stationed at the city of Futsing, about thirty miles from Foochow. Much
of his work consisted of itinerant trips during which he visited the
various mission stations under his charge. He almost invariably went
on foot from place to place and carried with him a butterfly net and
a rifle, so that to so keen a naturalist each day's walk was full of
interest.
The country was infested with man-eating tigers, and very often the
villagers implored him to rid their neighborhood of some one of
the yellow raiders which had been killing their children, pigs, or
cattle. During ten years he had killed seven tigers in the Futsing
region. He often said that his gun had been just as effective in
carrying Christianity to the natives as had his evangelistic work.
Although Mr. Caldwell has been especially fortunate and has killed his
tigers without ever really hunting them, nevertheless it is a most
uncertain sport as we were destined to learn. The tiger is the "Great
Invisible"--he is everywhere and nowhere, here today and gone tomorrow.
A sportsman in China may get his shot the first day out or he may hunt
for weeks without ever seeing a tiger even though they are all about
him; and it is this very uncertainty that makes the game all the more
fascinating.
The part of Fukien Province about Futsing includes mountains of
considerable height, many of which are planted with rice and support
a surprising number of Chinese who are grouped in closely connected
villages. While the cultivated valleys afford no cover for tiger and
the mountain slopes themselves are usually more or less denuded of
forest, yet the deep and narrow ravines, choked with sword grass and
thorny bramble, offer an impenetrable retreat in which an animal can
sleep during the day without fear of being disturbed. It is possible
for a man to make his way through these lairs only by means of the
paths and tunnels which have been opened by the tigers themselves.
Mr. Caldwell's usual method of hunting was to lead a goat with one or
two kids to an open place where they could be fastened just outside
the edge of the lair, and then to conceal himself a few feet away. The
bleating of the goats would usually bring the tiger into the open where
there would be an opportunity for a shot in the late afternoon.
Mr. Caldwell's first experience in hunting tigers was with a shotgun
at the village of Lung-tao. His burden-bearers had not arrived with
the basket containing his rifle, and as it was already late in the
afternoon, he suggested to Da-Da, the Chinese boy who was his constant
companion, that they make a preliminary inspection of the lair even
though they carried only shotguns loaded with lead slugs about the size
of buckshot.
They tethered a goat just outside the edge of the lair and the tiger
responded to its bleating almost immediately. Caldwell did not see the
animal until it came into the open about fifty yards away and remained
in plain view for almost half an hour. The tiger seemed to suspect
danger and crouched on the terrace, now and then putting his right
foot forward a short distance and drawing it slowly back again. He had
approached along a small trail, but before he could reach the goat it
was necessary to cross an open space a few yards in width, and to do
this the animal flattened himself like a huge striped serpent. His head
was extended so that the throat and chin were touching the ground, and
there was absolutely no motion of the body other than the hips and
shoulders as the beast slid along at an amazingly rapid rate. But at
the instant the cat gained the nearest cover it made three flying leaps
and landed at the foot of the terrace upon which the goat was tied.
"Just then he saw me," said Mr. Caldwell, "and slowly pushed his great
black-barred face over the edge of the grass not fifteen feet away.
"I fired point-blank at his head and neck. He leaped into the air with
the blood spurting over the grass, and fell into a heap, but gathered
himself and slid down over the terraces. As he went I fired a second
load of slugs into his hip. He turned about, slowly climbed the hill
parallel with us, and stood looking back at me, his face streaming with
blood.
"I was fumbling in my coat trying to find other shells, but before I
could reload the gun he walked unsteadily into the lair and lay down.
It was already too dark to follow and the next morning a bloody trail
showed where he had gone upward into the grass. Later, in the same
afternoon, he was found dead by some Chinese more than three miles
away."
During his many experiences with the Futsing tigers Mr. Caldwell has
learned much about their habits and peculiarities, and some of his
observations are given in the following pages.
"The tiger is by instinct a coward when confronted by his greatest
enemy--man. Bold and daring as he may be when circumstances are in his
favor, he will hurriedly abandon a fresh kill at the first cry of a
shepherd boy attending a flock on the mountain-side and will always
weigh conditions before making an attack. If things do not exactly suit
him nothing will tempt him to charge into the open upon what may appear
to be an isolated and defenseless goat.
"An experience I had in April, 1910, will illustrate this point. I led
a goat into a ravine where a tiger which had been working havoc among
the herds of the farmers was said to live. This animal only a few
days previous to my hunt had attacked a herd of cows and killed three
of them, but on this occasion the beast must have suspected danger
and was exceedingly cautious. He advanced under cover along a trail
until within one hundred feet of the goat and there stopped to make a
survey of the surroundings. Peering into the valley, he saw two men
at a distance of five hundred yards or more cutting grass and, after
watching intently for a time, the great cat turned and bounded away
into the bushes.
"On another occasion this tiger awaited an opportunity to attack a cow
which a farmer was using in plowing his field. The man had unhitched
his cow and squatted down in the rice paddy to eat his mid-day meal,
when the tiger suddenly rushed from cover and killed the animal only a
few yards behind the peasant. This shows how daring a tiger may be when
he is able to strike from the rear, and when circumstances seem to
favor an attack. I have known tigers to rush at a dog or hog standing
inside a Chinese house where there was the usual confusion of such a
dwelling, and in almost every instance the victim was killed, although
it was not always carried away.
"There is probably no creature in the wilds which shows such a
combination of daring strategy and slinking cowardice as the tiger.
Often courage fails him after he has secured his victim, and he
releases it to dash off into the nearest wood.
"I knew of two Chinese who were deer hunting on a mountain-side when a
large tiger was routed from his bed. The beast made a rushing attack on
the man standing nearest to the path of his retreat, and seizing him by
the leg dragged him into the ravine below. Luckily the man succeeded in
grasping a small tree whereupon the tiger released his hold, leaving
his victim lying upon the ground almost paralyzed with pain and fear.
"A group of men were gathering fuel on the hills near Futsing when a
tiger which had been sleeping in the high grass was disturbed. The
enraged beast tinned upon the peasants, killing two of them instantly
and striking another a ripping blow with his paw which sent him
lifeless to the terrace below. The beast did not attempt to drag either
of its victims into the bush or to attack the other persons near by.
"The strength and vitality of a full grown tiger are amazing. I
had occasion to spend the night a short time ago in a place where
a tiger had performed some remarkable feats. Just at dusk one of
these marauders visited the village and discovered a cow and her
six-months-old calf in a pen which had been excavated in the side of
a hill and adjoined a house. There was no possible way to enter the
enclosure except by a door opening from the main part of the dwelling
or to descend from above. The tiger jumped from the roof upon the neck
of the heifer, killing it instantly, and the inmates of the house
opened the door just in time to see the animal throw the calf out
bodily and leap after it himself. I measured the embankment and found
that the exact height was twelve and a half feet.
"The same tiger one noon on a foggy day attacked a hog, just back of
the village and carried it into the hills. The villagers pursued the
beast and overtook it within half a mile. When the hog, which dressed
weighed more than two hundred pounds, was found, it had no marks or
bruises upon it other than the deep fang wounds in the neck. This
is another instance where courage failed a tiger after he had made
off with his kill to a safe distance. The Chinese declare that when
carrying such a load a tiger never attempts to drag its prey, but
throws it across its back and races off at top speed.
"The finest trophy taken from Fukien Province in years I shot in May,
1910. Two days previous to my hunt this tiger had killed and eaten a
sixteen-year-old boy. I happened to be in the locality and decided to
make an attempt to dispose of the troublesome beast. Obtaining a mother
goat with two small kids, I led them into a ravine near where the boy
had been killed. The goat was tied to a tree a short distance from the
lair, and the kids were concealed in the tall grass well in toward the
place where the tiger would probably be. I selected a suitable spot
and kneeled down behind a bank of ferns and grass. The fact that one
may be stalked by the very beast which one is hunting adds to the
excitement and keeps one's nerves on edge. I expected that the tiger
would approach stealthily as long as he could not see the goat, as the
usual plan of attack, so far as my observation goes, is to creep up
under cover as far as possible before rushing into the open. In any
case the tiger would be within twenty yards of me before it could be
seen.
"For more than two hours I sat perfectly still, alert and waiting,
behind the little blind of ferns and grass. There was nothing to break
the silence other than the incessant bleating of the goats and the
unpleasant rasping call of the mountain jay. I had about given up hope
of a shot when suddenly the huge head of the man-eater emerged from the
bush, exactly where I had expected he would appear and within fifteen
feet of the kids. The back, neck, and head of the beast were in almost
the same plane as he moved noiselessly forward.
"I had implicit confidence in the killing power of the gun in my hand,
and at the crack of the rifle the huge brute settled forward with
hardly a quiver not ten feet from the kids upon which he was about to
spring. A second shot was not necessary but was fired as a matter of
precaution as the tiger had fallen behind rank grass, and the bullet
passed through the shoulder blade lodging in the spine. The beast
measured more than nine feet and weighed almost four hundred pounds.
"Upon hearing the shots the villagers swarmed into the ravine, each
eager not so much to see their slain tormentor as to gather up the
blood. But little attention was paid to the tiger until every available
drop was sopped up with rags torn from their clothing, whilst men
and children even pulled up the blood-soaked grass. I learned that
the blood of a tiger is used for two purposes. A bit of blood-stained
cloth is tied about the neck of a child as a preventive against either
measles or smallpox, and tiger flesh is eaten for the same purpose. It
is also said that if a handkerchief stained with tiger blood is waved
in front of an attacking dog the animal will slink away cowed and
terrified.
"From the Chinese point of view the skin is not the most valuable part
of a tiger. Almost always before a hunt is made, or a trap is built,
the villagers hum incense before the temple god, and an agreement is
made to the effect that if the enterprise be successful the skin of
the beast taken becomes the property of the gods. Thus it happens that
in many of the temples handsome tiger-skin robes may be found spread
in the chair occupied by the noted 'Duai Uong,' or the god of the
land. When a hunt is successful, the flesh and bones are considered
of greatest value, and it often happens that a number of cows are
killed and their flesh mixed with that of the tiger to be sold at the
exorbitant price cheerfully paid for tiger meat. The bones are boiled
for a number of days until a gelatine-like product results, and this is
believed to be exceptionally efficacious medicine.
"Notwithstanding the danger of still-hunting a tiger in the tangle of
its lair, one cannot but feel richly rewarded for the risk when one
begins to sum up one's observations. The most interesting result of
investigating an oft-frequented lair is concerning the animal's food.
That a tiger always devours its prey upon the spot where it is taken
or in the adjacent bush is an erroneous idea. This is often true when
the kill is too heavy to be carried for a long distance, but it is by
no means universally so. Not long ago the remains of a young boy were
found in a grave adjacent to a tiger's lair a few miles from Futsing
city. No child had been reported missing in the immediate neighborhood
and everything indicated that the boy had been brought alive to
this spot from a considerable distance. The sides of the grave were
besmeared with the blood of the unfortunate victim, indicating that the
tiger had tortured it just as a cat plays with a mouse as long as it
remains alive.
"In the lair of a tiger there are certain terraces, or places under
overhanging trees, which are covered with bones, and are evidently
spots to which the animal brings its prey to be devoured. On such
a terrace one will find the remains of deer, wild hog, dog, pig,
porcupine, pangolin, and other animals both domestic and wild. A fresh
kill shows that with its rasp-like tongue the tiger licks off all the
hair of its prey before devouring it and the hair will be found in a
circle around what remains of the kill. The Chinese often raid a lair
in order to gather up the quills of the porcupine and the bony scales
of the pangolin which are esteemed for medicinal purposes.
"In addition to the larger animals, tigers feed upon reptiles and
frogs which they find among the rice fields. On the night of April 22,
1914, a party of frog catchers were returning from a hunt when the man
carrying the load of frogs was attacked by a tiger and killed. The
animal made no attempt to drag the man away and it would appear that it
was attracted by the croaking of the frogs.
"One often finds trees 'marked' by tigers beside some trail or path
in, or adjacent to, a lair. Catlike, the tiger measures its full length
upon a tree, standing in a convenient place, and with its powerful
claws rips deeply through the bark. This sign is doubly interesting
to the sportsman as it not only indicates the presence of a tiger in
the immediate vicinity but serves to give an accurate idea as to the
size of the beast. The trails leading into a lair often are marked in
a different way. In doing this the animal rakes away the grass with a
forepaw and gathers it into a pile, but claw prints never appear."
CHAPTER VII
THE BLUE TIGER
After one has traveled in a Chinese _sampan_ for several days the
prospect of a river journey is not very alluring but we had a most
agreeable surprise when we sailed out of Foochow in a chartered house
boat to hunt the "blue tiger" at Futsing. In fact, we had all the
luxury of a private yacht, for our boat contained a large central cabin
with a table and chairs and two staterooms and was manned by a captain
and crew of six men--all for $1.50 per day!
In the evening we talked of the blue tiger for a long time before
we spread our beds on the roof of the boat and went to sleep under
the stars. We left the boat shortly after daylight at Daing-nei for
the six-mile walk to Lung-tao. To my great surprise the coolies were
considerably distressed at the lightness of our loads. In this region
they are paid by weight and some of the bearers carry almost incredible
burdens. As an example, one of our men came into camp swinging a
125-pound trunk on each end of his pole, laughing and chatting as gayly
as though he had not been carrying 250 pounds for six miles under a
broiling sun.
Mr. Caldwell's Chinese hunter, Da-Da, lived at Lung-tao and we found
his house to be one of several built on the outskirts of a beautiful
grove of gum and banyan trees. Although it was exceptionally clean
for a Chinese dwelling, we pitched our tents a short distance away.
At first we were somewhat doubtful about sleeping outside, but after
one night indoors we decided that any risk was preferable to spending
another hour in the stifling heat of the house.
It was probable that a tiger would be so suspicious of the white tents
that it would not attack us, but nevertheless during the first nights
we were rather wakeful and more than once at some strange night sound
seized our rifles and flashed the electric lamp into the darkness.
Tigers often come into this village. Only a few hundred yards from our
camp site, in 1911, a tiger had rushed into the house of one of the
peasants and attempted to steal a child that had fallen asleep at its
play under the family table. All was quiet in the house when suddenly
the animal dashed through the open door. The Chinese declare that the
gods protected the infant, for the beast missed his prey and seizing
the leg of the table against which the baby's head was resting, bolted
through the door dragging the table into the courtyard.
This was the work of the famous "blue tiger" which we had come to
hunt and which had on two occasions been seen by Mr. Caldwell. The
first time he heard of this strange beast was in the spring of 1910.
The animal was reported as having been seen at various places within
an area of a few miles almost simultaneously and so mysterious were
its movements that the Chinese declared it was a spirit of the devil.
After several unsuccessful hunts Mr. Caldwell finally saw the tiger at
close range but as he was armed with only a shotgun it would have been
useless to shoot.
His second view of the beast was a few weeks later and in the same
place. I will give the story in his own words:
"I selected a spot upon a hilltop and cleared away the grass and ferns
with a jack-knife for a place to tie the goat. I concealed myself
in the bushes ten feet away to await the attack, but the unexpected
happened and the tiger approached from the rear.
"When I first saw the beast he was moving stealthily along a little
trail just across a shallow ravine. I supposed, of course, that he was
trying to locate the goat which was bleating loudly, but to my horror
I saw that he was creeping upon two boys who had entered the ravine to
cut grass. The huge brute moved along lizard-fashion for a few yards
and then cautiously lifted his head above the grass. He was within easy
springing distance when I raised my rifle, but instantly I realized
that if I wounded the animal the boys would certainly meet a horrible
death.
"Tigers are usually afraid of the human voice so instead of firing I
stepped from the bushes, yelling and waving my arms. The huge cat,
crouched for a spring, drew back, wavered uncertainly for a moment, and
then slowly slipped away into the grass. The boys were saved but I had
lost the opportunity I had sought for over a year.
"However, I had again seen the animal about which so many strange tales
had been told. The markings of the beast are strikingly beautiful. The
ground color is of a delicate shade of maltese, changing into light
gray-blue on the underparts. The stripes are well defined and like
those of the ordinary yellow tiger."
Before I left New York Mr. Caldwell had written me repeatedly urging me
to stop at Futsing on the way to Yün-nan to try with him for the blue
tiger which was still in the neighborhood. I was decidedly skeptical
as to its being a distinct species, but nevertheless it was a most
interesting animal and would certainly be well worth getting.
I believed then, and my opinion has since been strengthened, that it
is a partially melanistic phase of the ordinary yellow tiger. Black
leopards are common in India and the Malay Peninsula and as only a
single individual of the blue tiger has been reported the evidence
hardly warrants the assumption that it represents a distinct species.
We hunted the animal for five weeks. The brute ranged in the vicinity
of two or three villages about seven miles apart, but was seen most
frequently near Lung-tao. He was as elusive as a will o' the wisp,
killing a dog or goat in one village and by the time we had hurried
across the mountains appearing in another spot a few miles away,
leaving a trail of terrified natives who flocked to our camp to recount
his depredations. He was in truth the "Great Invisible" and it seemed
impossible that we should not get him sooner or later, but we never did.
Once we missed him by a hair's breadth through sheer bad luck, and it
was only by exercising almost super-human restraint that we prevented
ourselves from doing bodily harm to the three Chinese who ruined our
hunt. Every evening for a week we had faithfully taken a goat into the
"Long Ravine," for the blue tiger had been seen several times near this
lair. On the eighth afternoon we were in the "blind" at three o'clock
as usual. We had tied a goat to a tree nearby and her two kids were but
a few feet away.
The grass-filled lair lay shimmering in the breathless heat, silent
save for the echoes of the bleating goats. Crouched behind the
screen of branches, for three long hours we sat in the patchwork
shade,--motionless, dripping with perspiration, hardly breathing,--and
watched the shadows steal slowly down the narrow ravine.
It was a wild place which seemed to have been cut out of the mountain
side with two strokes of a mighty ax and was choked with a tangle of
thorny vines and sword grass. Impenetrable as a wall of steel, the
only entrance was by the tiger tunnels which drove their twisting way
through the murderous growth far in toward its gloomy heart.
The shadows had passed over us and just reached a lone palm tree on
the opposite hillside. By that I knew it was six o'clock and in half
an hour another day of disappointment would be ended. Suddenly at the
left and just below us there came the faintest crunching sound as a
loose stone shifted under a heavy weight; then a rustling in the grass.
Instantly the captive goat gave a shrill bleat of terror and tugged
frantically at the rope which held it to the tree.
At the first sound Harry had breathed in my ear "Get ready, he's
coming." I was half kneeling with my heavy .405 Winchester pushed
forward and the hammer up. The blood drummed in my ears and my neck
muscles ached with the strain but I thanked Heaven that my hands were
steady.
Caldwell sat like a graven image, the stock of his little 22 caliber
high power Savage nestling against his cheek. Our eyes met for an
instant and I knew in that glance that the blue tiger would never make
another charge, for if I missed him, Harry wouldn't. For ten minutes
we waited and my heart lost a beat when twenty feet away the grass
began to move again--but rapidly and _up the ravine_.
I saw Harry watching the lair with a puzzled look which changed to one
of disgust as a chorus of yells sounded across the ravine and three
Chinese wood cutters appeared on the opposite slope. They were taking
a short cut home, shouting to drive away the tigers--and they had
succeeded only too well, for the blue tiger had slipped back to the
heart of the lair from whence he had come.
He had been nearly ours and again we had lost him ! I felt so badly
that I could not even swear and it wasn't the fact that Harry was a
missionary which kept me from it, either. Caldwell exclaimed just once,
for his disappointment was even more bitter than mine; he had been
hunting this same tiger off and on for six years.
It was useless for us to wait longer that evening and we pushed our
way through the sword grass to the entrance of the tunnel down which
the tiger had come. There in the soft earth were the great footprints
where he had crouched at the entrance to take a cautious survey before
charging into the open.
As we looked, Harry suddenly turned to me and said: "Roy, let's go
into the lair. There is just one chance in a thousand that we may get
a shot." Now I must admit that I was not very enthusiastic about that
little excursion, but in we went, crawling on our hands and knees up
the narrow passage. Every few feet we passed side branches from the
main tunnel in any one of which the tiger might easily have been lying
in wait and could have killed us as we passed. It was a foolhardy
thing to do and I am free to admit that I was scared. It was not long
before Harry twisted about and said: "Roy, I haven't lost any tigers in
here; let's get out." And out we came faster than we went in.
This was only one of the times when the "Great Invisible" was almost in
our hands. A few days later a Chinese found the blue tiger asleep under
a rice bank early in the afternoon. Frightened almost to death he ran a
mile and a half to our camp only to find that we had left half an hour
before for another village where the brute had killed two wild cats
early in the morning.
Again, the tiger pushed open the door of a house at daybreak just
as the members of the family were getting up, stole a dog from the
"heaven's well," dragged it to a hillside and partly devoured it. We
were in camp only a mile away and our Chinese hunters found the carcass
on a narrow ledge in the sword grass high up on the mountain side. The
spot was an impossible one to watch and we set a huge grizzly bear trap
which had been carried with us from New York.
It seemed out of the question for any animal to return to the carcass
of the dog without getting caught and yet the tiger did it. With his
hind quarters on the upper terrace he dropped down, stretched his long
neck across the trap, seized the dog which had been wired to a tree and
pulled it away. It was evident that he was quite unconscious of the
trap for his fore feet had actually been placed upon one of the jaws
only two inches from the pan which would have sprung it.
One afternoon we responded to a call from Bui-tao, a village seven
miles beyond Lung-tao, where the blue tiger had been seen that day. The
natives assured us that the animal continually crossed a hill, thickly
clothed with pines and sword grass just above the village and even
though it was late when we arrived Harry thought it wise to set the
trap that night.
It was pitch dark before we reached the ridge carrying the trap, two
lanterns, an electric flash-lamp and a wretched little dog for bait. We
had been engaged for about fifteen minutes making a pen for the dog,
and Caldwell and I were on our knees over the trap when suddenly a low
rumbling growl came from the grass not twenty feet away. We jumped to
our feet just as it sounded again, this time ending in a snarl. The
tiger had arrived a few moments too early and we were in the rather
uncomfortable position of having to return to the village by way of a
narrow trail through the jungle. With our rifles ready and the electric
lamp cutting a brilliant path in the darkness we walked slowly toward
the edge of the sword grass hoping to see the flash of the tiger's
eyes, but the beast backed off beyond the range of the light into
an impenetrable tangle where we could not follow. Apparently he was
frightened by the lantern, for we did not hear him again.
After nearly a month of disappointments such as these Mr. Heller joined
us at Bui-tao with Mr. Kellogg. Caldwell thought it advisable to shift
camp to the Ling-suik monastery, about twelve miles away, where he had
once spent a summer with his family and had killed several tigers. This
was within the blue tiger's range and, moreover, had the advantage of
offering a better general collecting ground than Bui-tao; thus with
Heller to look after the small mammals we could begin to make our time
count for something if we did not get the tiger.
Ling-suik is a beautiful temple, or rather series of temples, built
into a hillside at the end of a long narrow valley which swells out
like a great bowl between bamboo clothed mountains, two thousand feet
in height. On his former visit Mr. Caldwell had made friends with the
head priest and we were allowed to establish ourselves upon the broad
porch of the third and highest building. It was an ideal place for a
collecting camp and would have been delightful except for the terrible
heat which was rendered doubly disagreeable by the almost continual
rain.
The priests who shuffled about the temples were a hard lot. Most of
them were fugitives from justice and certainly looked the part, for a
more disreputable, diseased and generally undesirable body of men I
have never seen.
Our stay at Ling-suik was productive and the temple life interesting.
We slept on the porch and each morning, about half an hour before
daylight, the measured strokes of a great gong sounded from the temple
just below us. _Boom--boom--boom--boom_ it went, then rapidly _bang,
bang, bang_. It was a religious alarm clock to rouse the world.
A little later when the upturned gables and twisted dolphins on the
roof had begun to take definite shape in the gray light of the new day,
the gong boomed out again, doors creaked, and from their cell-like
rooms shuffled the priests to yawn and stretch themselves before the
early service. The droning chorus of hoarse voices, swelling in a
meaningless half-wild chant, harmonized strangely with the romantic
surroundings of the temple and become our daily _matin_ and evensong.
[Illustration: The Ling-suik Monastery]
[Illustration: A Priest of Ling-suik]
At the first gong we slipped from beneath our mosquito nets and dressed
to be ready for the bats which fluttered into the building to hide
themselves beneath the tiles and rafters. When daylight had fully
come we scattered to the four winds of heaven to inspect traps, hunt
barking deer, or collect birds, but gathered again at nine o'clock for
breakfast and to deposit our spoil. Caldwell and I always spent the
afternoon at the blue tiger's lair but the animal had suddenly shifted
his operations back to Lung-tao and did not appear at Ling-suik while
we were there.
Our work in Fukien taught us much that may be of help to other
naturalists who contemplate a visit to this province. We satisfied
ourselves that summer collecting is impracticable, for the heat is
so intense and the vegetation so heavy that only meager results can
be obtained for the efforts expended. Continual tramping over the
mountains in the blazing sun necessarily must have its effect upon
the strongest constitution, and even a man like Mr. Caldwell, who has
become thoroughly acclimated, is not immune.
Both Caldwell and I lost from fifteen to twenty pounds in weight during
the time we hunted the blue tiger and each of us had serious trouble
from abscesses. I have never worked in a more trying climate--even
that of Borneo and the Dutch East Indies where I collected in 1909-10,
was much less debilitating than Fukien in the summer. The average
temperature was about 95 degrees in the shade, but the humidity was so
high that one felt as though one were wrapped in a wet blanket and even
during a six weeks' rainless period the air was saturated with moisture
from the sea-winds.
In winter the weather is raw and damp, but collecting then would
be vastly easier than in summer, not only on account of climatic
conditions, but because much of the vegetation disappears and there is
an opportunity for "still hunting."
Trapping for small mammal is especially difficult because of the dense
population. The mud dykes and the rice fields usually are covered with
tracks of civets, mongooses, and cats which come to hunt frogs or
fish, but if a trap is set it either catches a Chinaman or promptly is
stolen. Moreover, the small mammals are neither abundant nor varied in
number of species, and the larger forms, such as tiger, leopard, wild
pig and serow are exceedingly difficult to kill.
While our work in the province was done during an unfavorable season
and in only two localities, yet enough was seen of the general
conditions to make it certain that a thorough zoölogical study of the
region would require considerable time and hard work and that the
results, so far as a large collection of mammals is concerned, would
not be highly satisfactory. Work in the western part of the province
among the Bohea Hills undoubtedly would be more profitable, but even
there it would be hardly worth while for an expedition with limited
time and money.
Bird life is on a much better footing, but the ornithology of Fukien
already has received considerable attention through the collections of
Swinhoe, La Touche, Styan, Ricketts, Caldwell and others, and probably
not a great number of species remain to be described.
Much work could still be done upon the herpetology of the region,
however, and I believe that this branch of zoölogy would be well worth
investigation for reptiles and batrachians are fairly abundant and the
natives would rather assist than retard one's efforts.
The language of Fukien is a greater annoyance than in any other of the
Chinese coast provinces. The Foochow dialect (which is one of the most
difficult to learn) is spoken only within fifty or one hundred miles
of the city. At Yen-ping Mr. Caldwell, who speaks "Foochow" perfectly,
could not understand a word of the "southern mandarin" which is the
language of that region, and near Futsing, where a colony of natives
from Amoy have settled, the dialect is unintelligible to one who knows
only "Foochow."
Travel in Fukien is an unceasing trial, for transport is entirely
by coolies who carry from eighty to one hundred pounds. The men are
paid by distance or weight; therefore, when coolies finally have been
obtained there is the inevitable wrangling over loads so that from one
to two hours are consumed before the party can start.
But the worst of it is that one can never be certain when one's entire
outfit will arrive at its new destination. Some men walk much faster
than others, some will delay a long time for tea, or may give out
altogether if the day be hot, with the result that the last load will
arrive perhaps five or six hours after the first one.
As horses are not to be had, if one does not walk the only alternative
is to be carried in a mountain chair, which is an uncomfortable,
trapeze-like affair and only to be found along the main highways.
On the whole, transport by man-power in China is so uncertain and
expensive that for a large expedition it forms a grave obstacle to
successful work, if time and funds be limited.
On the other hand, servants are cheap and usually good. We employed a
very fair cook who received monthly seven dollars Mexican (then about
three and one-half dollars gold), and "boys" were hired at from five
to seven dollars (Mexican). As none of the servants knew English they
could be obtained at much lower wages, but English-speaking cooks
usually receive from fifteen to twenty dollars (Mexican) a month.
It was hard to leave Fukien without the blue tiger but we had hunted
him unsuccessfully for five weeks and there was other and more
important work awaiting us in Yün-nan. It required thirty porters
to transport our baggage from the Ling-suik monastery to Daing-nei,
twenty-one miles away, where two houseboats were to meet us, and by ten
o'clock in the evening we were lying off Pagoda Anchorage awaiting the
flood tide to take us to Foochow. We made our beds on the deck house
and in the morning opened our eyes to find the boat tied to the wharf
at the Custom House on the Bund, and ourselves in full view of all
Foochow had it been awake at that hour.
The week of packing and repacking that followed was made easy for us by
Claude Kellogg, who acted as our ministering angel. I think there must
be a special Providence that watches over wandering naturalists and
directs them to such men as Kellogg, for without divine aid they could
never be found. When we last saw him, he stood on the stone steps of
the water front waving his hat as we slipped away on the tide, to board
the S. S. _Haitan_ for Hongkong.
CHAPTER VIII
THE WOMEN OF CHINA
_Y. B. A._
The schools for native girls at Foochow and Yen-ping interested us
greatly, even when we first came to China, but we could not appreciate
then as we did later the epoch-making step toward civilization of these
institutions.
How much the missionaries are able to accomplish from a religious
standpoint is a question which we do not wish to discuss, but no one
who has ever lived among them can deny that the opening of schools
and the diffusing of western knowledge are potent factors in the
development of the people. The Chinese were not slow even in the
beginning to see the advantages of a foreign education for their
boys and now, along the coast at least, some are beginning to make
sacrifices for their daughters as well. The Woman's College, which
was opened recently in Foochow, is one of the finest buildings of the
Republic, and when one sees its bright-faced girls dressed in their
quaint little pajama-like garments, it is difficult to realize that
outside such schools they are still slaves in mind and body to those
iron rules of Confucius which have molded the entire structure of
Chinese society for over 2400 years.
The position of women in China today, and the rules which govern the
household of every orthodox Chinese, are the direct heritage of
Confucianism. The following translation by Professor J. Legge from the
_Narratives of the Confucian School_, chapter 26, is illuminating:
Confucius said: "Man is the representative of heaven and is supreme
over all things. Woman yields obedience to the instructions of man
and helps to carry out his principles. On this account she can
determine nothing of herself and is subject to the rule of the
three obediences.
"(1) When young she must obey her father and her elder brother;
"(2) When married, she must obey her husband;
"(3) When her husband is dead she must obey her son.
"She may not think of marrying a second time. No instructions or
orders must issue from the harem. Women's business is simply the
preparation and supplying of drink and food. Beyond the threshold
of her apartments she shall not be known for evil or for good. She
may not cross the boundaries of a state to attend a funeral. She
may take no steps on her own motive and may come to no conclusion
on her own deliberation."
The grounds for divorce as stated by Confucius are:
"(1) Disobedience to her husband's parents;
"(2) Not giving birth to a son;
"(3) Dissolute conduct;
"(4) Jealousy of her husband's attentions (to the other inmates of
his harem);
"(5) Talkativeness, and
"(6) Thieving."
A Chinese bride owes implicit obedience to her mother-in-law, and as
she is often reared by her husband's family, or else married to him as
a mere child, and is under the complete control of his mother for a
considerable period of her existence, her life in many instances is one
of intolerable misery. There is generally little or no consideration
for a girl under the best of circumstances until she becomes the
mother of a male child; her condition then improves but she approaches
happiness only when she in turn occupies the enviable position of
mother-in-law.
It is difficult to imagine a life of greater dreariness and vacuity
than that of the average Chinese woman. Owing to her bound feet and
resultant helplessness, if she is not obliged to work she rarely stirs
from the narrow confinement of her courtyard, and perhaps in her entire
life she may not go a mile from the house to which she was brought a
bride, except for the periodical visits to her father's home.
It has been aptly said that there are no real homes in China and it is
not surprising that, ignored and despised for centuries, the Chinese
woman shows no ability to improve the squalor of her surroundings. She
passes her life in a dark, smoke-filled dwelling with broken furniture
and a mud floor, together with pigs, chickens and babies enjoying
a limited sphere of action under the tables and chairs, or in the
tumble-down courtyard without. Her work is actually never done and a
Chinese bride, bright and attractive at twenty, will be old and faded
at thirty.
But without doubt the crowning evil which attends woman's condition
in China is foot binding, and nothing can be offered in extenuation
of this abominable custom. It is said to have originated one thousand
years before the Christian era and has persisted until the present
day in spite of the efforts directed against it. The Empress Dowager
issued edicts strongly advising its discontinuation, the "Natural Foot
Society," which was formed about fifteen years ago, has endeavored to
educate public opinion, and the missionaries refuse to admit girls
so mutilated to their schools; but nevertheless the reform has made
little progress beyond the coast cities. "Precedent" and the fear of
not obtaining suitable husbands for their daughters are responsible for
the continuation of the evil, and it is estimated that there are still
about seventy-four millions of girls and women who are crippled in this
way.
The feet are bandaged between the ages of five and seven. The toes are
bent under the sole of the foot and after two or three years the heel
and instep are so forced together that a dollar can be placed in the
cleft; gradually also the lower limbs shrink away until only the bones
remain.
The suffering of the children is intense. We often passed through
streets full of laughing boys and tiny girls where others, a few years
older, were sitting on the doorsteps or curbstones holding their
tortured feet and crying bitterly. In some instances out-houses are
constructed a considerable distance from the family dwelling where the
girls must sleep during their first crippled years in order that their
moans may not disturb the other members of the family. The child's only
relief is to hang her feet over the edge of the bed in order to stop
the circulation and induce numbness, or to seek oblivion from opium.
If the custom were a fad which affected only the wealthy classes it
would be reprehensible enough, but it curses rich and poor alike, and
almost every day we saw heavily laden coolie women steadying themselves
by means of a staff, hobbling stiff-kneed along the roads or laboring
in the fields.
[Illustration: A Chinese Mother with Her Children]
[Illustration: Chinese Women of the Coolie Class with Bound Feet]
Although the agitation against foot binding is undoubtedly making
itself felt to a certain extent in the coast provinces, in Yün-nan
the horrible practice continues unabated. During the year in which we
traveled through a large part of the province, wherever there were
Chinese we saw bound feet. And the fact that virtually _every_ girl
over eight years old was mutilated in this way is satisfactory evidence
that reform ideas have not penetrated to this remote part of the
Republic.
I know of nothing which so rouses one's indignation because of its
senselessness and brutality, and China can never hope to take her place
among civilized nations until she has abandoned this barbarous custom
and liberated her women from their infamous subjection.
There has been much criticism of foreign education because the girls
who have had its advantages absorb western ideas so completely that
they dislike to return to their homes where the ordinary conditions of
a Chinese household exist. Nevertheless, if the women of China are ever
to be emancipated it must come through their own education as well as
that of the men.
One of the first results of foreign influence is to delay marriage, and
in some instances the early betrothal with its attendant miseries. The
evil which results from this custom can hardly be overestimated. It
happens not infrequently that two children are betrothed in infancy,
the respective families being in like circumstances at the time. The
opportunity perhaps is offered to the girl to attend school and she
may even go through college, but an inexorable custom brings her back
to her parents' home, forces her to submit to the engagement made in
babyhood and perhaps ruins her life through marriage with a man of no
higher social status or intelligence than a coolie.
Among the few girls imbued with western civilization a spirit of revolt
is slowly growing, and while it is impossible for them to break down
the barriers of ages, yet in many instances they waive aside what would
seem an unsurmountable precedent and insist upon having some voice in
the choosing of their husbands.
While in Yen-ping we were invited to attend the semi-foreign wedding
of a girl who had been brought up in the Woman's School and who was
qualified to be a "Bible Woman" or native Christian teacher. It was
whispered that she had actually met her betrothed on several occasions,
but on their wedding day no trace of recognition was visible, and the
marriage was performed with all the punctilious Chinese observances
compatible with a Christian ceremony.
Precedent required of this little bride, although she might have been
radiantly happy at heart, and undoubtedly was, to appear tearful and
shrinking and as she was escorted up the aisle by her bridesmaid
one might have thought she was being led to slaughter. White is not
becoming to the Chinese and besides it is a sign of mourning, so she
had chosen pink for her wedding gown and had a brilliant pink veil over
her carefully oiled hair.
After the ceremony the bride and bridegroom proceeded downstairs to the
joyous strain of the wedding march, but with nothing joyous in their
demeanor--in fact they appeared like two wooden images at the reception
and endured for over an hour the stares and loud criticism of the
guests. He assumed during the ordeal a look of bored indifference while
the little bride sat with her head bowed on her breast, apparently
terror stricken. But once she raised her face and I saw a merry twinkle
in her shining black eyes that made me realize that perhaps it wasn't
all quite so frightful as she would have us believe. I often wonder
what sort of a life she is leading in her far away Chinese courtyard.
CHAPTER IX
VOYAGING TO YÜN-NAN
We had a busy week in Hongkong outfitting for our trip to Yün-nan.
Hongkong is one of the best cities in the Orient in which to purchase
supplies of almost any kind, for not only is the selection excellent,
but the best English goods can be had for prices very little in excess
of those in London itself.
The system which we used in our commissary was that of the unit food
box which has been adopted by most large expeditions. The boxes were
packed to weigh seventy pounds each and contained all the necessary
staple supplies for three persons for one week; thus only one box
needed to be opened at a time, and, moreover, if the party separated
for a few days a single box could be taken without the necessity
of repacking and with the assurance that sufficient food would be
available.
Our supplies consisted largely of flour, butter, sugar, coffee, milk,
bacon, and marmalade, and but little tinned meat, vegetables, or fruit
because we were certain to be able to obtain a plentiful supply of such
food in the country through which we were expecting to travel.
Our tents were brought from New York and were made of light Egyptian
cotton thoroughly waterproof, but we also purchased in Hongkong a large
army tent for the servants and two canvas flies to protect loads and
specimens. We used sleeping bags and folding cots, tables and chairs,
for when an expedition expects to remain in the field for a long time
it is absolutely necessary to be as comfortable as possible and to live
well; otherwise one cannot work at one's highest efficiency.
For clothing we all wore khaki or "Dux-back" suits with flannel shirts
and high leather shoes for mountain climbing, and we had light rubber
automobile shirts and rubber caps for use in rainy weather. The auto
shirt is a long, loose robe which slips over the head and fastens about
the neck and, when one is sitting upon a horse, can be so spread about
as to cover all exposed parts of the body; it is especially useful and
necessary, and hip rubber boots are also very comfortable during the
rainy season.
Our traps for catching small mammals were brought from New York. We had
two sizes of wooden "Out of Sight" for mice and rats, and four or five
sizes of Oneida steel traps for catching medium sized animals such as
civets and polecats. We also carried a half dozen No. 5 wolf traps.
Mr. Heller had used this size in Africa and found that they were large
enough even to hold lions.
Mr. Heller carried a 250-300 Savage rifle, while I used a 6-1/2 mm.
Mannlicher and a .405 Winchester. All of these guns were eminently
satisfactory, but the choice of a rifle is a very personal matter and
every sportsman has his favorite weapon. We found, however, that a flat
trajectory high-power rifle such as those with which we were armed was
absolutely essential for many of our shots were at long range and we
frequently killed gorals at three hundred yards or over.
The camera equipment consisted of two 3A Kodaks, a Graphic 4 × 5
tripod camera, and Graflex 4 × 5 for rapid work. We have found after
considerable field experience that the 4 × 5 is the most convenient
size to handle, for the plate is large enough and can be obtained
more readily than any other in different parts of the world. The same
applies to the 3A Kodak "post-card" size film, for there are few places
where foreign goods are carried that 3A films cannot be purchased.
All of our plates and films were sealed in air-tight tin boxes before
we left America, and thus the material was in perfect condition when
the cans were opened. We used plates almost altogether in the finer
photographic work, for although they are heavier and more difficult to
handle than films, nevertheless the results obtained are very superior.
A collapsible rubber dark room about seven feet high and four feet in
diameter was an indispensable part of the camera equipment. This tent
was made for us by the Abercrombie & Fitch Company, of New York, and
could be hung from the limb of a tree or the rafters of a building and
be ready for use in five minutes.
The motion pictures were taken with a Universal camera, and like all
other negatives were developed in the field by means of a special
apparatus which had been designed by Mr. Carl Akeley of the American
Museum of Natural History. This work required a much larger space than
that of the portable dark room and we consequently had a tent made of
red cloth which could be tied inside of our ordinary sleeping tent.
Our equipment was packed in fiber army trunks and in wooden boxes
with sliding tops. The latter arrangement is especially desirable in
Yün-nan, for the loads can be opened without being untied from the
saddle, thus saving a considerable amount of time and trouble.
It was by no means an easy matter to get our supplies together, but
the Lane & Crawford Company of Hongkong pushed the making and packing
of our boxes in a remarkably efficient manner; as the manager of one
of their departments expressed it, "the one way to hurry a Chinaman
is to get more Chinamen," and they put a small army at work upon our
material, which was ready for shipment in just a week.
While in Hongkong we were joined by Wu Hung-tao, of Shanghai, who acted
as interpreter and "head boy" as well as a general field manager of the
expedition. He formerly had been in the employ of Mr. F. W. Cary, when
the latter was Commissioner of Customs in Teng-yueh, Yün-nan, and he
was educated at the Anglo-Chinese College of Foochow. Wu proved to be
the most efficient and trustworthy servant whom we have ever employed,
and the success of our work was due in no small degree to his efforts.
We left for Tonking on the S. S. _Sung-kiang_, commanded by Harry
Trowbridge, a congenial and well-read gentleman whose delightful
personality contributed much toward making our week's stay on his ship
most pleasant. On our way to Haiphong the vessel stopped at the island
of Hainan and anchored about three miles off the town of Hoi-hau. This
island is 90 by 150 miles long, is mountainous in its center, but flat
and uninteresting at the northwest.
A large part of the island is unexplored and in the interior there is
a mountain called "the Five Fingers" which has never been ascended,
for it is reported that the hill tribes are unfriendly and that
the tropical valleys are reeking with deadly malaria. The island
undoubtedly would prove to be a rich field for zoölogical work as is
shown by the collections which the American Museum of Natural History
has already received from a native dealer; these include monkeys,
squirrels, and other small mammals, and bears, leopards, and deer are
said to be among its fauna.
The next night's steaming brought us to the city of Paik-hoi on the
mainland. In the afternoon we went ashore with Captain Trowbridge to
visit Dr. Bradley of the China Inland Mission who is in charge of a
leper hospital, which is a model of its kind. The doctor was away but
we made ourselves at home and when he returned he found us in his
drawing room comfortably enjoying afternoon tea. He remarked that he
knew of a Chinese cook who was looking for a position, and half an
hour later, while we were watching some remarkably fine tennis, the
cook arrived. He was about six feet two inches high, and so thin that
he was immediately christened the "Woolworth Building" and, although
not a very prepossessing looking individual he was forthwith engaged,
principally because of his ability to speak English. This was at six
o'clock in the afternoon and we had to be aboard the ship at eight. The
doctor sent a note to the French Consul and the cook returned anon with
his baggage and passport. Obtaining this cook was the only really rapid
thing which I have ever seen done in China!
When the _Sung-kiang_ arrived in Haiphong the next afternoon we were
besieged by a screaming, fighting mob of Annamits who seized upon
our baggage like so many vultures, and it was only by means of a few
well-directed kicks that we could prevent it from being scattered to
the four winds of Heaven. After we had designated a _sampan_ to receive
our equipment the unloading began and several trunks had gone over the
side, when Mr. Heller happened to glance down just in time to see one
of the ammunition boxes drop into the water and sink like lead. The
Annamits, believing that it had not been noticed, went on as blithely
as before and volubly denied that anything had been lost. We stopped
the unloading instantly and sent for divers. The box had sunk in thirty
feet of muddy water and it seemed useless to hope that it could ever be
recovered, but the divers went to work by dropping a heavy stone on the
end of a rope and going down it hand over hand.
After two hours the box was located and brought dripping to the
surface. Fortunately but little of the ammunition was ruined, and most
of it was dried during the night in the engine room. Because of this
delay we had to leave Haiphong on the following day, and with Captain
Trowbridge, we went by train to Hanoi, the capital of the colony.
Hanoi is a city of delightful surprises. It has broad, clean streets,
overhung with trees which often form a cool green canopy overhead,
beautiful lawns and well-kept houses, and in the center of the town is
a lovely lake surrounded by a wide border of palms. At the far end,
like a jewel in a crystal setting, seems to float a white pagoda, an
outpost of the temple which stands in the midst of a watery meadow of
lotus plants. The city shops are excellent, but in most instances the
prices are exceedingly high.
Like all the French towns in the Orient the hours for work are rather
confusing to the foreigner. The shops open at 6:30 in the morning and
close at 11 o'clock to reopen again at 8 in the afternoon and continue
business until 7:30 or 8 o'clock in the evening. During the middle of
the day all houses have the shutters closely drawn, and because of the
intense heat and glare of the sun the streets are absolutely deserted,
not even a native being visible. In the morning a _petit déjeuner_,
remarkable especially for its "petitness," is served, and a real
_déjeuner_ comes later anywhere from 10 to 12:30.
About 6 o'clock in the evening the open _cafés_ and restaurants along
the sidewalk are lined with groups of men and women playing cards and
dice and drinking gin and bitters, vermouth or absinthe. There is an
air of happiness and life about Hanoi which is typically Parisian and
even during war time it is a city of gayety. An immense theater stands
in the center of the town, but has not been opened since the beginning
of the war.
We had letters to M. Chemin Dupontès, the director of the railroads,
as well as to the Lieutenant-Governor and other officials. Without
exception we were received in the most cordial manner and every
facility and convenience put at our disposal. M. Dupontès was
especially helpful.
Some time before our arrival a tunnel on the railroad from Hanoi to
Yün-nan Fu had caved in and for almost a month trains had not been
running. It was now in operation, however, but all luggage had to be
transferred by hand at the broken tunnel and consequently must not
exceed eighty-five pounds in weight. This meant repacking our entire
equipment and three days of hard work. M. Dupontès arranged to have
our 4000 pounds of baggage put in a special third class carriage
with our "boys" in attendance and in this way saved the expedition a
considerable amount of money. He personally went with us to the station
to arrange for our comfort with the _chef de gare_, telegraphed ahead
at every station upon the railroad, and gave us an open letter to all
officials; in fact there was nothing which he left undone.
The railroad is a remarkable engineering achievement for it was
constructed in great haste through a difficult mountainous range.
Yün-nan is an exceedingly rich province and the French were quick to
see the advantages of drawing its vast trade to their own seaports.
The British were already making surveys to construct a railroad from
Bhamo on the headwaters of the Irawadi River across Yün-nan to connect
with the Yangtze, and the French were anxious to have their road in
operation some time before the rival line could be completed.
Owing to its hasty construction and the heavy rainfall, or perhaps to
both, the tunnels and bridges frequently cave in or are washed away and
the railroad is chiefly remarkable for the number of days in the year
in which it does not operate; nevertheless the French deserve great
credit for their enterprise in extending their line to Yün-nan Fu over
the mountains where there is a tunnel or bridge almost every mile of
the way. While it was being built through the fever-stricken jungles of
Tonking the coolies died like flies, and it was necessary to suspend
all work during the summer months.
The scenery along the railroad is marvelous and the traveling is by no
means uncomfortable, but the hotels in which one stops at night are
wretched. One of our friends in Hongkong related an amusing experience
which he had at Lao-kay, the first hotel on the railroad. He asked for
a bath and discovered that a tub of hot water had been prepared. He
wished a cold bath, and seeing a large tank filled with cold water in
the corner of the room he climbed in and was enjoying himself when the
hotel proprietor suddenly rushed upstairs exclaiming, "Mon Dieu, Mon
Dieu, you are in the tank of drinking water."
When we arrived at Yün-nan Fu we found a surprisingly cosmopolitan
community housed within its grim old walls; some were consuls, some
missionaries, some salt, telegraph, or customs officials in the Chinese
employ, and others represented business firms in Hongkong, but all
received us with open-handed hospitality characteristic of the East.
We thought that after leaving Hongkong our evening clothes would not
again be used, but they were requisitioned every night for we were
guests at dinners given by almost everyone of the foreign community.
Mr. Howard Page, a representative of the Standard Oil Company, proved
a most valuable friend, and through him we were able to obtain a
caravan and make other arrangements for the transportation of our
baggage. M. Henry Wilden, the French Consul, an ardent sportsman and a
charming gentleman, took an active interest in our affairs and arranged
a meeting for us with the Chinese Commissioner of Foreign Affairs.
Moreover, he later transported our trunks to Hongkong with his personal
baggage and assisted us in every possible way.
We went to the Foreign Office at half past ten and were ushered into
a large room where a rather imposing lunch had already been spread.
The Commissioner, a fat, jolly little man, who knew a few words of
French but none of English, received us in the most cordial way and
immediately opened several bottles of champagne in our honor. He asked
why our passports had not been viséd in Peking, and we pleased him
greatly by replying that at the time we were in the capital Yün-nan was
an independent province and consequently the Peking Government had not
the temerity to put their stamp upon our passports.
Inasmuch as Yün-nan was infested with brigands we had expected some
opposition to our plans for traveling in the interior, but none was
forthcoming, and with the exception of an offer of a guard of soldiers
for our trip to Ta-li Fu which we knew it would be impolitic to refuse,
we left the Foreign Office with all the desired permits.
The Chinese Government appeared to be greatly interested in our
zoölogical study of Yün-nan, offered to assist us in every way we could
suggest, and telegraphed to every mandarin in the north and west of
the province, instructing them to receive us with all honor and to
facilitate our work in every way. None of the opposition which we had
been led to expect developed, and it is difficult to see how we could
have been more cordially received.
CHAPTER X
ON THE ROAD TO TA-LI FU
On August 6, we dispatched half our equipment to Ta-li Fu, and three
days later we ourselves left Yün-nan Fu at eleven o'clock in the
morning after an interminable wait for our caravan. Through the
kindness of Mr. Page, a house boat was put at our disposal and we
sailed across the upper end of the beautiful lake which lies just
outside the city, and intercepted the caravan twenty-five _li_[1] from
Yün-nan Fu.
On the way we passed a number of cormorant fishers, each with ten or a
dozen birds sitting quietly upon the boat with outspread wings drying
their feathers. Every bird has a ring about its neck, and is thus
prevented from swallowing the fish which it catches by diving into the
water.
After waiting an hour for our caravan we saw the long train of mules
and horses winding up the hill toward us. There were seventeen
altogether, and in the midst of them rode the cook clinging desperately
with both hands to a diminutive mule, his long legs dangling and a look
of utter wretchedness upon his face. Just before the caravan reached us
it began to rain, and the cook laboriously pulled on a suit of yellow
oilskins which we had purchased for him in Yün-nan Fu. These, together
with a huge yellow hat, completed a picture which made us roar with
laughter; Heller gave the caption for it when he shouted, "Here comes
the 'Yellow Peril.'"
[Footnote 1: A _li_ in this province equals one-third of an English
mile.]
[Illustration: Cormorant Fishers on the Lake at Yün-nan Fu]
[Illustration: Our Camp at Chou Chou on the Way to Ta-li Fu]
We surveyed the tiny horses with dismay. As Heller vainly tried to
get his girth tight enough to keep the saddle from sliding over the
animal's tail he exclaimed, "Is this a horse or a squirrel I'm trying
to ride?" But it was not so bad when we finally climbed aboard and
found that we did not crush the little brutes.
A seventy-pound box on each side of the saddle with a few odds and
ends on top made a pack of at least one hundred and sixty pounds. This
is heavy even for a large animal and for these tiny mules seemed an
impossibility, but it is the usual weight, and the business-like way in
which they moved off showed that they were not overloaded.
The Yün-nan pack saddle is a remarkably ingenious arrangement. The
load is strapped with a rawhide to a double A-shaped frame which fits
loosely over a second saddle on the animal's back and is held in place
by its own weight. If a mule falls the pack comes off and, moreover, it
can be easily removed if the road is bad or whenever a stop is made. It
has the great disadvantage, however, of giving the horses serious back
sores which receive but scanty attention from the _mafus_ (muleteers).
When we were fairly started upon our long ride to Ta-li Fu the time
slipped by in a succession of delightful days. Since this was the main
caravan route the _mafus_ had regular stages beyond which they would
not go. If we did not stop for luncheon the march could be ended early
in the afternoon and we could settle ourselves for the night in a
temple which always proved a veritable "haven of rest" after a long
day in the saddle. A few pages from my wife's "Journal" of September
fifteenth describes our camp at Lu-ho-we and our life on the road to
Ta-li Fu.
We are sitting on the porch of an old, old temple. It is on a
hilltop in a forest grove with the gray-walled town lying at our
feet. The sun is flooding the flower-filled courtyard and throwing
bars of golden light through the twisted branches of a bent old
pine, over the stone well, and into the dim recesses behind the
altar where a benevolent idol grins down upon us.
We have been in the saddle for eight hours and it is enchanting to
rest in this peaceful, aged temple. Outside children are shouting
and laughing but all is quiet here save for the drip of water in
the well, and the chatter of a magpie on the pine tree. Today we
made the stage in one long march and now we can rest and browse
among our books or wander with a gun along the cool, tree-shaded
paths.
The sun is hot at mid-day, although the mornings and evenings are
cold, and tonight we shall build a fragrant fire of yellow pine,
and talk for an hour before we go to sleep upon the porch where we
can see the moon come up and the stars shining so low that they
seem like tiny lanterns in the sky.
It is seven days since we left Yün-nan Fu and each night we have
come to temples such as this. There is an inexpressible charm
about them, lying asleep, as it were, among the trees of their
courtyards, with stately, pillared porches, and picturesque gables
upturned to the sky. They seem so very, very old and filled with
such great calm and peace.
Sometimes they stand in the midst of a populous town and we ride
through long streets between dirty houses, swarming with ragged
women, filthy men, and screaming children; suddenly we come to the
dilapidated entrance of our temple, pass through a courtyard, close
the huge gates and are in another world.
We leave early every morning and the boys are up long before dawn.
As we sleepily open our eyes we see their dark figures silhouetted
against the brilliant camp fire, hear the yawns of the _mafus_ and
the contented crunching of the mules as they chew their beans.
Wu appears with a lantern and calls out the hour and before we
have fully dressed the odor of coffee has found its way to the
remotest corner of the temple, and a breakfast of pancakes, eggs,
and oatmeal is awaiting on the folding table spread with a clean
white cloth. While we are eating, the beds are packed, and the
loads retied, accompanied by a running fire of exhortations to the
_mafus_ who cause us endless trouble.
They are a hard lot, these _mafus_. Force seems to be the only
thing they understand and kindness produces no results. If the
march is long and we stop for tiffin it is well-nigh impossible to
get them started within three hours without the aid of threats.
Once after a long halt when all seemed ready, we rode ahead only to
wait by the roadside for hours before the caravan arrived. As soon
as we were out of sight they had begun to shoe their mules and that
night we did not make our stage until long after dark.
In the morning when we see the first loads actually on the horses
we ride off at the head of the caravan followed by a straggling
line of mules and horses picking their way over the jagged stones
of the road. It is delightful in the early morning for the air is
fresh and brisk like that of October at home, but later in the day
when the sun is higher it is uncomfortably hot, and we are glad to
find a bit of shade where we can rest until the caravan arrives.
The roads are execrable. The Chinese have a proverb which says:
"A road is good for ten years and bad for ten thousand," and this
applies most excellently to those of Yün-nan. The main caravan
highways are paved with huge stones to make them passable during
the rainy season, but after a few years' wear the blocks become
broken and irregular, the earth is washed from between them and
they are upturned at impossible angles. The result is a chaotic
mass which by no stretch of imagination can be called a road.
Where the stones are still in place they have been worn to such
glasslike smoothness by the thousands of passing mules that it
is well-nigh impossible to walk upon them. As a result a caravan
avoids the paving whenever it can find a path and sometimes dozens
of deeply-cut trails wind over the hills beside the road.
We are seldom on level ground, for ten per cent of the entire
province is mountainous and we soon lost count of the ranges
which we crossed. It is slow, hard work, toiling up the steep
mountain-sides, but once on the ridges where the country is spread
out below us like a great, green relief map, there is a wonderful
exhilaration, and we climb higher with a joyous sense of freedom.
Yün-nan means "south of the cloud" and every morning the peaks
about us are shrouded in fog. Sometimes the veil-like mists still
float about the mountain tops when we climb into them, and we are
suddenly enveloped in a wet gray blanket which sends us shivering
into the coats tied to our saddles.
For centuries this road has been one of the main trade arteries
through the province, and with the total lack of conservation ideas so
characteristic of the Chinese, every available bit of natural forest
has been cut away. As a result the mountains are desert wastes of
sandstone alternating with grass-covered hills sometimes clothed with
groves of pines or spruces. These trees have all been planted, and ere
they have reached a height of fifteen or twenty feet will yield to the
insistent demand for wood which is ever present with the Chinese.
The ignorance of the need of forest conservation is an illuminating
commentary on Chinese education. Mr. William Hanna, a missionary of
Ta-li Fu, told us that one day he was riding over this same road with a
Chinese gentleman, a deep scholar, who was considered one of the best
educated men of the province. Pointing to the barren hills washed clean
of soil and deeply worn by countless floods, Mr. Hanna remarked that
all this could have been prevented, and that instead of a rocky waste
there might have been a fertile hillside, had the trees been left to
grow.
The Chinese scholar listened in amazement to facts which every western
schoolboy has learned ere he is twelve years old, but of which he was
ignorant because they are not a part of Confucius' teachings. To study
modern science is considered a waste of time by the orthodox Chinese
for "everything good must be old," and all his life he delves into the
past utterly neglectful of the present.
Every valley along the road was green with rice fields and this,
together with the deforestation of the mountains, is responsible for
the almost total lack of animal life. Night after night we set traps
about our temple camps only to find them untouched in the morning.
There were no mammals with the exception of a few red-bellied squirrels
(_Callosciurus erythræus_ subsp.) and now and then a tree shrew
(_Tupaia belangeri chinensis_).
The latter is an interesting species. Although it is an Insectivore,
and a relative of the tiny shrews which live in holes and under logs,
it has squirrel-like habits and in appearance is like a squirrel
to which it is totally unrelated. Instead of the thinly haired
mouselike tails of the ordinary shrews the tupaias have developed
long bushy tails and in fact look and act so much like squirrels
that it is difficult to convince the white residents of Yün-nan, who
are accustomed to see them run about the hedges and walls of their
courtyards that the two are quite unrelated.
The tree shrews are found only in Asia and are one of the most
remarkable instances of a superficial resemblance between unrelated
animals with similar habits. A study of their anatomy has revealed the
fact that they represent a distinct group which is connected with the
monkeys (lemurs).
Although birds were fairly abundant the species were not varied. We
were about a month too early for the ducks and geese, which during the
winter swarm into Yün-nan from the north, and without a dog, pheasants
are difficult to get. In fact we were greatly disappointed in the game
birds, for we had expected good pheasant shooting even along the road
and virtually none were to be found.
The main caravan roads of Yün-nan held little of interest for
us as naturalists, but as students of native customs they were
fascinating, for the life of the province passed before us in panoramic
completeness. Chinese villages wherever we have seen them are marvels
of utter and abandoned filth and although those of Yün-nan are no
exception to the rule, they are considerably better than the coast
cities.
Pigs, chickens, horses and cows live in happy communion with the human
inmates of the houses, the pigs especially being treated as we favor
dogs at home. On the door steps children play with the swine, patting
and pounding them, and one of my friends said that he had actually
seen a mother bring her baby to be nursed by a sow with her family of
piglets.
The natives were pleasant and friendly and seemed to be industrious.
Wherever the deforestation had left sufficient soil on the lower
hillsides patches of corn took the place of the former poppy fields
for opium. In 1906, the Empress Dowager issued an edict prohibiting
the growing of opium, and gave guarantees to the British that it would
be entirely stamped out during the next ten years. Strangely enough
these promises have been faithfully kept, and in Yün-nan the hillsides,
which were once white with poppy blossoms, are now yellow with corn. In
all our 2000 miles of riding over unfrequented trails and in the most
out-of-the-way spots we found only one instance where opium was being
cultivated.
The mandarin of each district accompanied by a guard of soldiers makes
periodical excursions during the seasons when the poppy is in blossom,
cuts down the plants if any are found, and punishes the owners. China
deserves the greatest credit for so successfully dealing with a
question which affects such a large part of her four hundred millions
of people and which presents such unusual difficulties because of its
economic importance.
Just across the frontier in Burma, opium is grown freely and much
is smuggled into Yün-nan. Therefore its use has by no means been
abandoned, especially in the south of the province, and in some towns
it is smoked openly in the tea houses. In August, 1916, just before
we reached Yün-nan Fu there was an _exposé_ of opium smuggling which
throws an illuminating side light on the corruption of some Chinese
officials.
Opium can be purchased in Yün-nan Fu for two dollars (Mexican) an
ounce, while in Shanghai it is worth ten dollars (Mexican). Tang (the
Military Governor), the Minister of Justice, the Governor's brother and
three members of Parliament had collected six hundred pounds of opium
which they undertook to transfer to Shanghai.
Their request that no examination of their baggage be made by the
French during their passage through Tonking was granted, and a similar
favor was procured for them at Shanghai. Thus the sixty cases were
safely landed, but a few hours later, through the opium combine,
foreign detectives learned of the smuggling and the boxes were seized.
The Minister of Justice denied all knowledge of the opium, as did the
three Parliament members, and Governor Tang was not interrogated as
that would be quite contrary to the laws of Chinese etiquette; however,
he will not receive reappointment when his official term expires.
As we neared Ta-li Fu, and indeed along the entire road, we were amazed
at the prevalence of goitre. At a conservative estimate two out of
every five persons were suffering from the disease, some having two, or
even three, globules of uneven size hanging from their throats. In one
village six out of seven adults were affected, but apparently children
under twelve or fourteen years are free from it as we saw no evidences
in either sex. Probably the disease is in a large measure due to the
drinking water, for it is most prevalent in the limestone regions and
seems to be somewhat localized.
Every day we passed "chairs," or as we named them, "mountain
schooners," in each of which a fat Chinaman sprawled while two or
four sweating coolies bore him up hill. The chair is rigged between a
pair of long bamboo poles and consists of two sticks swung by ropes
on which is piled a heap of bedding. Overhead a light bamboo frame
supports a piece of yellow oil-cloth, which completely shuts in the
occupant, except from the front and rear.
The Chinese consider it undignified to walk, or even to ride, and if
one is about to make an official visit nothing less than a four-man
chair is required. Haste is just as much tabooed in the "front
families" as physical exertion, and is utterly incomprehensible to
the Chinese. Major Davies says that while he was in Tonking before
the railroad to Yün-nan Fu had been constructed, M. Doumer, the
Governor-General of French Indo-China, who was a very energetic
man, rode to Yün-nan Fu in an extraordinarily short time. While the
Europeans greatly admired his feat, the Chinese believed he must be in
some difficulty from which only the immediate assistance of the Viceroy
of Yün-nan could extricate him.
In Yün-nan it is necessary to carry one's own bedding for the inns
supply nothing but food, and consequently when a Chinaman rides from
one city to another he piles a great heap of blankets on his horse's
back and climbs on top with his legs astride the animal's neck in
front. The horses are trained to a rapid trot instead of a gallop, and
I know of no more ridiculous sight than a Chinaman bouncing along a
road on the summit of a veritable mountain of bedding with his arms
waving and streamers flying in every direction. He is assisted in
keeping his balance by broad brass stirrups in which he usually hooks
his heels and guides his horse by means of a rawhide bridle decorated
with dozens of bangles which make a comforting jingle whenever he moves.
On the sixth day out when approaching the city of Chu-hsuing Fu we
took a short cut through the fields leaving the caravan to follow
the main road. The trail brought us to a river about forty feet wide
spanned by a bridge made from two narrow planks, with a wide median
fissure. We led our horses across without trouble and Heller started to
follow. He had reached the center of the bridge when his horse shied at
the hole, jumped to one side, hung suspended on his belly for a moment,
and toppled off into the water.
The performance had all happened behind Heller's back and when he
turned about in time to see his horse diving into the river, he stood
looking down at him with a most ludicrous expression of surprise and
disgust, while the animal climbed out and began to graze as quietly as
though nothing had happened.
Chu-hsuing was interesting as being the home of Miss Cordelia Morgan, a
niece of Senator Morgan of Virginia. We found her to be a most charming
and determined young woman who had established a mission station in the
city under considerable difficulties. The mandarin and other officials
by no means wished to have a foreign lady, alone and unattended,
settle down among them and become a responsibility which might cause
them endless trouble, and although she had rented a house before she
arrived, the owner refused to allow her to move in.
She could get no assistance from the mandarin and was forced to live
for two months in a dirty Chinese inn, swarming with vermin, until they
realized that she was determined not to be driven away. She eventually
obtained a house and while she considers herself comfortable, I doubt
if others would care to share her life unless they had an equal amount
of determination and enthusiasm.
At that time she had not placed her work under the charge of a mission
board and was carrying it on independently. Until our arrival she had
seen but one white person in a year and a half, was living entirely
upon Chinese food, and had tasted no butter or milk in months.
We had a delightful dinner with Miss Morgan and the next morning as our
caravan wound down the long hill past her house she stood at the window
to wave good-by. She kept her head behind the curtains, and doubtless
if we could have seen her face we would have found tears upon it, for
the evening with another woman of her kind had brought to her a breath
of the old life which she had resolutely forsaken and which so seldom
penetrated to her self-appointed exile.
On our ninth day from Yün-nan Fu we had a welcome bit of excitement. We
were climbing a long mountain trail to a pass over eight thousand feet
high and were near the summit when a boy dashed breathlessly up to the
caravan, jabbering wildly in Chinese. It required fifteen minutes of
questioning before we finally learned that bandits had attacked a big
caravan less than a mile ahead of us and were even then ransacking the
loads.
He said that there were two hundred and fifty of them and that they had
killed two _mafus_; almost immediately a second gesticulating Chinaman
appeared and gave the number as three hundred and fifty and the dead as
five. Allowing for the universal habit of exaggeration we felt quite
sure that there were not more than fifty, and subsequently learned that
forty was the correct number and that no one had been killed.
Our caravan was in a bad place to resist an attack but we got out our
rifles and made for a village at the top of the pass. There were not
more than a half dozen mud houses and in the narrow street between them
perfect bedlam reigned. Several small caravans had halted to wait for
us, and men, horses, loads, and chairs were packed and jammed together
so tightly that it seemed impossible ever to extricate them. Our
arrival added to the confusion, but leaving the _mafus_ to scream and
chatter among themselves, we scouted ahead to learn the true condition
of affairs.
Almost within sight we found the caravan which had been robbed. Paper
and cloth were strewn about, loads overturned, and loose mules wandered
over the hillside. The frightened _mafus_ were straggling back and
told us that about forty bandits had suddenly surrounded the caravan,
shooting and brandishing long knives. Instantly the _mafus_ had run
for their lives leaving the brigands to rifle the packs unmolested.
The goods chiefly belonged to the retiring mandarin of Li-chiang, and
included some five thousand dollars worth of jade and gold dust, all of
which was taken.
Yün-nan, like most of the outlying provinces of China, is infested
with brigands who make traveling very unsafe. There are, of course,
organized bands of robbers at all times, but these have been greatly
augmented since the rebellion by dismissed soldiers or deserters who
have taken to brigandage as the easiest means to avoid starvation.
The Chinese Government is totally unable to cope with the situation
and makes only half-hearted attempts to punish even the most flagrant
robberies, so that unguarded caravans carrying valuable material which
arrive at their destination unmolested consider themselves very lucky.
[Illustration: The Pagoda at Ta-li Fu]
[Illustration: The Dead of China]
So far as our expedition was concerned we did not feel great
apprehension for it was generally known that we carried but little
money and our equipment, except for guns, could not readily be disposed
of. Throughout the entire expedition we paid our _mafus_ and servants a
part of their wages in advance when they were engaged, and arranged to
have money sent by the mandarins or the British American Tobacco Co.,
to some large town which would be reached after several months. There
the balance on salaries was paid and we carried with us only enough
money for our daily needs.
Before we left Yün-nan Fu we were assured by the Foreign Office that we
would be furnished with a guard of soldiers--an honor few foreigners
escape! The first day out we had four, all armed with umbrellas! These
accompanied us to the first camp where they delivered their official
message to the _yamen_ and intrusted us to the care of others for our
next day's journey.
Sometimes they were equipped with guns of the vintage of 1872, but
their cartridges were seldom of the' same caliber as the rifles and in
most cases the ubiquitous umbrella was their only weapon. Just what
good they would be in a real attack it is difficult to imagine, except
to divert attention by breaking the speed limits in running away.
Several times in the morning we believed we had escaped them but they
always turned up in an hour or two. They were not so much a nuisance
as an expense, for custom requires that each be paid twenty cents
(Mexican) a day both going and returning. They are of some use in
lending an official aspect to an expedition and in requisitioning
anything which may be needed; also they act as an insurance policy, for
if a caravan is robbed a claim can be entered against the government,
whereas if the escort is refused the traveler has no redress.
It is amusing and often irritating to see the cavalier way in which
these men treat other caravans or the peasants along the road. Waving
their arms and shouting oaths they shoe horses, mules or chairs out of
the way regardless of the confusion into which the approaching caravan
may be thrown. They must also be closely watched for they are none too
honest and are prone to rely upon the moral support of foreigners to
take whatever they wish without the formality of payment.
We were especially careful to respect the property on which we camped
and to be just in all our dealings with the natives, but it was
sometimes difficult to prevent the _mafus_ or soldiers from tearing
down fences for firewood or committing similar depredations. Wherever
such acts were discovered we made suitable payment and punished the
offenders by deducting a part of their wages. Foreigners cannot respect
too carefully the rights of the peasants, for upon their conduct rests
the reception which will be accorded to all others who follow in their
footsteps.
CHAPTER XI
TA-LI FU
On Friday, September 28, we were at Chou Chou and camped in a
picturesque little temple on the outskirts of the town. As the last
stage was only six hours we spent half the morning in taking moving
pictures of the caravan and left for Ta-li at eleven-thirty after an
early =tiffin=.
About two o'clock in the afternoon we reached Hsia-kuan, a large
commercial town at the lower end of the lake. Its population largely
consists of merchants and it is by all means the most important
business place of interior Yün-nan; Ta-li, eight miles away, is the
residence and official city.
At Hsia-kuan we called upon the salt commissioner, Mr. Lui, to whom Mr.
Bode, the salt inspector at Yün-nan Fu, had very kindly telegraphed
money for my account, and after the usual tea and cigarettes we went
oil to Ta-li Fu over a perfectly level paved road, which was so
slippery that it was well-nigh impossible for either horse or man to
move over it faster than a walk.
This was the hottest day of our experience in Northern Yün-nan,
the thermometer registering 85°+ in the shade, which is the usual
mid-summer temperature, but the moment the sun dropped behind the
mountains it was cool enough for one to enjoy a fire. Even in the
winter it is never very cold and its delightful summer should make
Northern Yün-nan a wonderful health resort for the residents of
fever-stricken Burma and Tonking.
We rode toward Ta-li with the beautiful lake on our right hand and on
the other the Ts'ang Shan mountains which rise to a height of fourteen
thousand feet. As we approached the city we could see dimly outlined
against the foothills the slender shafts of three ancient pagodas. They
were erected to the _feng-shui_, the spirits of the "earth, wind, and
water," and for fifteen hundred years have stood guard over the stone
graves which, in countless thousands, are spread along the foot of the
mountains like a vast gray blanket. In the late afternoon sunlight the
walls of the city seemed to recede before us and the picturesque gate
loomed shadowy and unreal even when we passed through its gloomy arch
and clattered up the stone-paved street.
We soon discovered the residence of Mr. H. G. Evans, agent of the
British American Tobacco Company, to whose care our first caravan had
been consigned, and he very hospitably invited us to remain with him
while we were in Ta-li Fu. This was only the beginning of Mr. Evans'
assistance to the Expedition, for he acted as its banker throughout our
stay in Yün-nan, cashing checks and transferring money for us whenever
we needed funds.
The British American Tobacco Company and the Standard Oil Company of
New York are veritable "oases in the desert" for travelers because
their agencies are found in the most out-of-the-way spots in Asia and
their employees are always ready to extend the cordial hospitality of
the East to wandering foreigners.
Besides Mr. Evans the white residents of Ta-li Fu include the Reverend
William J. Hanna, his wife and two other ladies, all of the China
Inland Mission. Mr. Hanna is doing a really splendid work, especially
along educational and medical lines. He has built a beautiful little
chapel, a large school, and a dispensary in connection with his house,
where he and his wife are occupied every morning treating the minor
ills of the natives, Christian and heathen alike.
Ta-li Fu was the scene of tremendous slaughter at the time of the
Mohammedan war, when the Chinese captured the city through the
treachery of its commander and turned the streets to rivers of blood.
The Mohammedans were almost exterminated, and the ruined stone walls
testify to the completeness of the Chinese devastation.
The mandarin at Ta-li Fu was good-natured but dissipated and corrupt.
He called upon us the evening of our arrival and almost immediately
asked if we had any shotgun cartridges. He remarked that he had a gun
but no shells, and as we did not offer to give him any he continued to
hint broadly at every opportunity.
The mandarins of lower rank often buy their posts and depend upon what
they can make in "squeeze" from the natives of their district for
reimbursement and a profit on their investment. In almost every case
which is brought to them for adjustment the decision is withheld until
the magistrate has learned which of the parties is prepared to offer
the highest price for a settlement in his favor. The Chinese peasant,
accepting this as the established custom, pays the bribe without a
murmur if it is not too exorbitant and, in fact, would be exceedingly
surprised if "justice" were dispensed in any other way.
My personal relations with the various mandarins whom I was constantly
required to visit officially were always of the pleasantest and I was
treated with great courtesy. It was apparent wherever we were in China
that there was a total lack of antiforeign feeling in both the peasant
and official classes and except for the brigands, who are beyond the
law, undoubtedly white men can travel in perfect safety anywhere in
the republic. Before my first official visit Wu gave me a lesson in
etiquette. The Chinese are exceedingly punctilious and it is necessary
to conform to their standards of politeness for they do not realize, or
accept in excuse, the fact that Western customs differ from their own.
At the end of the reception room in every _yamen_ is a raised platform
on which the visitor sits at the _left hand_ of the mandarin; it would
be exceedingly rude for a magistrate to seat the caller on his right
hand. Tea is always served immediately but is not supposed to be tasted
until the official does so himself; the cup must then be lifted to
the lips with both hands. Usually when the magistrate sips his tea
it is a sign that the interview is ended. When leaving, the mandarin
follows his visitor to the doorway of the outer court, while the latter
continually bows and protests asking him not to come so far.
Ta-li Fu and Hsia-kuan are important fur markets and we spent some time
investigating the shops. One important find was the panda (_Ælurus
fulgens_). The panda is an aberrant member of the raccoon family
but looks rather like a fox; in fact the Chinese call it the "fire
fox" because of its beautiful, red fur. Pandas were supposed to be
exceedingly rare and we could hardly believe it possible when we saw
dozens of coats made from their skins hanging in the fur shops.
[Illustration: The Residence of Rev. William J. Hanna at Ta-li Fu]
[Illustration: The Gate and Main Street of Ta-li Fu]
Skins of the huge red-brown flying squirrel, _Petaurista yunnanensis_,
were also used for clothing and the abundance of this animal was
almost as great a surprise as the finding of the pandas. This is often
true in the case of supposedly rare species. A few specimens may be
obtained from the extreme limits of its range, or from a locality where
it really is rare, and for years it may be almost unique in museum
collections but eventually the proper locality may be visited and the
animals found to be abundant.
We saw several skins of the beautiful cat (_Felis temmincki_) which,
with the snow leopard (_Felis uncia_), it was said came from Tibet.
Civets, bears, foxes, and small cats were being used extensively for
furs and pangolins could be purchased in the medicine shops. The scales
of the pangolin are considered to be of great value in the treatment of
certain diseases and the skins are usually sold by the pound as are the
horns of deer, wapiti, gorals, and serows.
Almost all of the fossil animals which have been obtained in China
by foreigners have been purchased in apothecary shops. If a Chinaman
discovers a fossil bed he guards it zealously for it represents an
actual gold mine to him. The bones are ground into a fine powder, mixed
with an acid, and a phosphate obtained which in reality has a certain
value as a tonic. When a considerable amount of faith and Chinese
superstition is added its efficacy assumes double proportions.
Every year a few tiger skins find their way to Hsia-kuan from the
southern part of the province along the Tonking border, but the good
ones are quickly sold at prices varying from twenty-five to fifty
dollars (Mexican). Ten dollars is the usual price for leopard skins.
Marco Polo visited Ta-li Fu in the thirteenth century and, among other
things, he speaks of the fine horses from this part of the province.
We were surprised to find that the animals are considerably larger and
more heavily built than those of Yün-nan Fu and appear to be better
in every way. A good riding horse can be purchased for seventy-five
dollars (Mexican) but mules are worth about one hundred and fifty
dollars because they are considered better pack animals.
On the advice of men who had traveled much in the interior of Yün-nan
we hired our caravan and riding animals instead of buying them
outright, and subsequent experience showed the wisdom of this course.
Saddle ponies, which are used only for short trips about the city,
cannot endure continual traveling over the execrable roads of the
interior where often it is impossible to feed them properly. If an
entire caravan were purchased the leader of the expedition would have
unceasing trouble with the _mafus_ to insure even ordinary care of the
animals, an opportunity would be given for endless "squeeze" in the
purchase of food, and there are other reasons too numerous to mention
why in this province the plan is impracticable.
However, the caravan ponies do try one's patience to the limit. They
are trained only to follow a leader, and if one happens to be behind
another horse it is well-nigh impossible to persuade it to pass. Beat
or kick the beast as one will, it only backs up or crowds closely
to the horse in front. On the first day out Heller, who was on a
particularly bad animal, when trying to pass one of us began to cavort
about like a circus rider, prancing from side to side and backward but
never going forward. We shouted that we would wait for him to go on but
he replied helplessly, "I can't, this horse isn't under my management,"
and we found very soon that our animals were not under our management
either!
In a town near Ta-li Fu we were in front of the caravan with Wu and
Heller: Wu stopped to buy a basket of mushrooms but his horse refused
to move ahead. Beat as he would, the animal only backed in a circle,
ours followed, and in a few moments we were packed together so tightly
that it was impossible even to dismount. There we sat, helpless, to the
huge delight of the villagers until rescued by a _mafu_. As soon as he
led Wu's horse forward the others proceeded as quietly as lambs.
We paid forty cents (Mexican) a day for each animal while traveling,
and fifteen or twenty cents when in camp, but the rate varies somewhat
in different parts of the province, and in the west and south, along
the Burma border fifty cents is the usual price. When a caravan is
engaged the necessary _mafus_ are included and they buy food for
themselves and beans and hay for the animals.
Ever since leaving Yün-nan Fu the cook we engaged at Paik-hoi had
been a source of combined irritation and amusement. He was a lanky,
effeminate gentleman who never before had ridden a horse, and who was
physically and mentally unable to adapt himself to camp life. After
five months in the field he appeared to be as helpless when the caravan
camped for the night as when we first started, and he would stand
vacantly staring until someone directed him what to do. But he was a
good cook, when he wished to exert himself, and had the great asset of
knowing a considerable amount of English. While we were in Ta-li Fu Mr.
Evans overheard him relating his experiences on the road to several of
the other servants. "Of course," said the cook, "it is a fine way to
see the country, but the riding! My goodness, that's awful! After the
third day I didn't know whether to go on or turn back--I was so sore I
couldn't sit down even on a chair to say nothing of a horse!"
He had evidently fully made up his mind not to "see the country" that
way for the day after we left Ta-li Fu _en route_ to the Tibetan
frontier he became violently ill. Although we could find nothing the
matter with him he made such a good case for himself that we believed
he really was quite sick and treated him accordingly. The following
morning, however, he sullenly refused to proceed, and we realized that
his illness was of the mind rather than the body. As he had accepted
two months' salary in advance and had already sent it to his wife in
Paik-hoi, we were in a position to use a certain amount of forceful
persuasion which entirely accomplished its object and illness did not
trouble him thereafter.
The loss of a cook is a serious matter to a large expedition. Good
meals and varied food must be provided if the personnel is to work at
its highest efficiency and cooking requires a vast amount of thought
and time. In Yün-nan natives who can cook foreign food are by no means
easy to find and when our Paik-hoi gentleman finally left us upon
our return to Ta-li Fu we were fortunate in obtaining an exceedingly
competent man to take his place through the good offices of Mr. Hanna.
CHAPTER XII
LI-CHIANG AND "THE TEMPLE OF THE FLOWERS"
We left a part of our outfit with Mr. Evans at Ta-li Fu and with a
new caravan of twenty-five animals traveled northward for six days to
Li-chiang Fu. By taking a small road we hoped to find good collecting
in the pine forests three days from Ta-li, but instead there was a
total absence of animal life. The woods were beautiful, parklike
stretches which in a country like California would be full of game,
but here were silent and deserted. During the fourth and fifth days we
were still in the forests, but on the sixth we crossed a pass 10,000
feet high and descended abruptly into a long marshy plain where at the
far end were the gray outlines of Li-chiang dimly visible against the
mountains.
Wu and I galloped ahead to find a temple for our camp, leaving Heller
and my wife to follow. A few pages from her journal tell of their entry
into the city.
We rode along a winding stone causeway and halted on the outskirts
of the town to wait until the caravan arrived. Neither Roy nor Wu
was in sight but we expected that the _mafus_ would ask where they
had gone and follow, for of coarse we could not speak a word of
the language. Already there was quite a sensation as we came down
the street, for our sudden appearance seemed to have stupefied
the people with amazement. One old lady looked at me with an
indescribable expression and uttered what sounded exactly like a
long-drawn "Mon Dieu" of disagreeable surprise.
I tried smiling at them but they appeared too astonished to
appreciate our friendliness and in return merely stared with open
mouths and eyes. We halted and immediately the street was blocked
by crowds of men, women, and children who poured out of the
houses, shops, and cross-streets to gaze in rapt attention. When
the caravan arrived we moved on again expecting that the _mafus_
had learned where Roy had gone, but they seemed to be wandering
aimlessly through the narrow winding streets. Even though we did
not find a camping place we afforded the natives intense delight.
I felt as though I were the chief actor in a circus parade at home,
but the most remarkable attraction there could not have equaled
our unparalleled success in Li-chiang. On the second excursion
through the town we passed down a cross-street, and suddenly from a
courtyard at the right we heard feminine voices speaking English.
"It's a girl. No, it's a boy. No, no, can't you see her hair, it's
a girl!" Just then we caught sight of three ladies, unmistakably
foreigners although dressed in Chinese costume. They were Mrs.
A. Kok, wife of the resident Pentecostal Missionary, and two
assistants, who rushed into the street as soon as they had
determined my sex and literally "fell upon my neck." They had not
seen a white woman since their arrival there four years ago and it
seemed to them that I had suddenly dropped from the sky.
While we were talking Wu appeared to guide us to the camp. They had
chosen a beautiful temple with a flower-filled courtyard on the
summit of a hill overlooking the city. It was wonderfully clean and
when our beds, tables, and chairs were spread on the broad stone
porch it seemed like a real home.
[Illustration: One of the Pagodas at Ta-li Fu]
The next days were busy ones for us all, Roy and Heller setting
traps, and I working at my photography. We let it be known that we
would pay well for specimens, and there was an almost uninterrupted
procession of men and boys carrying long sticks, on which were
strung frogs, rats, toads, and snakes. They would simply beam with
triumph and enthusiasm. Our fame spread and more came, bringing the
most ridiculous tame things--pigeons, maltese cats, dogs, white
rabbits, caged birds, and I even believe we might have purchased a
girl baby or two, for mothers stood about with little brown kiddies
on their backs as though they really would like to offer them to us
but hardly dared.
The temple priest was a good looking, smooth-faced chap, and hidden
under his coat he brought dozens of skins. I believe that his
religious vows did not allow him to handle animals--openly--and so
he would beckon Roy into the darkness of the temple with a most
mysterious air, and would extract all sorts of things from his
sleeves just like a sleight-of-hand performer. He was a rich man
when we left!
The people are mostly tribesmen--Mosos, Lolos, Tibetans, and many
others. The girls wear their hair "bobbed off" in front and with
a long plait in back. They wash their hair once--on their wedding
day--and then it is wrapped up in turbans for the rest of their
lives. The Tibetan women dress their hair in dozens of tiny braids,
but I don't believe there is any authority that they ever wash it,
or themselves either.
Li-chiang was our first collecting camp and we never had a better one.
On the morning after our arrival Heller found mammals in half his
traps, and in the afternoon we each put out a line of forty traps which
brought us fifty mammals of eleven species. This was a wonderful relief
after the many days of travel through country devoid of animal life.
Our traps contained shrews of two species, meadow voles, Asiatic
white-footed mice, spiny mice, rats, squirrels, and tree shrews. The
small mammals were exceedingly abundant and easy to catch, but after
the first day we began to have difficulty with the natives who stole
our traps. We usually marked them with a bit of cotton, and the boys
would follow an entire line down a hedge, taking every one. Sometimes
they even brought specimens to us for sale which we knew had been
caught in our stolen traps!
The traps were set under logs and stumps and in the grass where we
found the "runways" or paths which mice, rats and voles often make.
These animals begin to move about just after dark, and we usually would
inspect our traps with a lantern about nine o'clock in the evening.
This not only gave the trap a double chance to be filled but we also
secured perfect specimens, for such species as mice and shrews are
cannibalistic, and almost every night, if the specimens were not taken
out early in the evening, several would be partly eaten.
Small mammals are often of much greater interest and importance
scientifically than large ones, for, especially among the Insectivores,
there are many primitive forms which are apparently of ancestral stock
and throw light on the evolutionary history of other living groups.
Li-chiang is a fur market of considerable importance for the Tibetans
bring down vast quantities of skins for sale and trade. Lambs, goats,
foxes, cats, civets, pandas, and flying squirrels hang in the shops and
there are dozens of fur dressers who do really excellent tanning.
This city is a most interesting place especially on market day, for its
inhabitants represent many different tribes with but comparatively few
Chinese. By far the greatest percentage of natives are the Mosos who
are semi-Tibetan in their life and customs. They were o
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