From Pekin to Calais by Land
by Harry De Windt · English · Gutenberg #48992 · 808,000 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: From Pekin to Calais by Land
Author: Harry De Windt
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM PEKIN TO CALAIS BY LAND ***
FROM PEKIN TO CALAIS BY LAND.
LONDON
PRINTED BY GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, LIMITED,
ST. JOHN’S HOUSE, CLERKENWELL ROAD.
[Illustration: OUR CARAVAN (GOBI DESERT).——DAWN.]
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
FROM PEKIN TO CALAIS BY LAND
BY
H. DE WINDT.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP.
“Plus Je vis l’étranger, plus J’aimai ma patrie.”——_De Belloy._
LONDON—CHAPMAN AND HALL,
LIMITED.
1889.
[All rights reserved.]
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
TO
THE RAJA OF SARAWAK, G.C.M.G.,
IN REMEMBRANCE OF MANY
PLEASANT HOURS OF TRAVEL SPENT IN HIS
DOMINIONS IN THE ISLAND OF BORNEO.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
PREFACE.
———————
THERE are two Englishmen at present living in Shanghai who have
travelled overland from Europe to China. I was told, when there, that
these gentlemen are continually receiving letters from England asking
for information relative to the journey from Petersburg to Pekin and
_vice versâ_, and in the Gobi Desert and Siberia.
It is mainly owing to this circumstance that I publish these pages, for
I fear the general reader will find little to interest him in this
record of our monotonous pilgrimage through Europe and Asia. I feel that
an apology is needed for its publication, and need hardly say that it
does not aspire to the title of a book of travel, being merely a record
of my impressions in the less civilized parts of China, and in that
weird and melancholy country, more perhaps from associations than
aspect, Siberia.
The voyage is, though somewhat original, sadly devoid of interest. Urga
and Irkoutsk are, no doubt, well worth seeing, but a passing glimpse of
these unique cities far from repays the discomfort, not to say hardship,
which must be undergone on the caravan route.
I can only trust this book may deter others from following my example,
and shall then have some satisfaction in knowing that its pages have not
been written in vain.
M. Victor Meignan concludes his amusing work “De Paris à Pekin par
terre,” thus:——
“N’allez pas là! C’est la morale de ce livre!”
Let the reader benefit by our experience.
H. DE W.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
CONTENTS.
———————
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
GRAVESEND TO PEKIN 1
CHAPTER II.
PEKIN 60
CHAPTER III.
PEKIN TO KALGAN 115
CHAPTER IV.
KALGAN, OR CHANG-CHIA-KOW 147
CHAPTER V.
THE DESERT OF GOBI 187
CHAPTER VI.
OURGA TO KIAKHTA 268
CHAPTER VII.
KIAKHTA TO IRKOUTSK 322
CHAPTER VIII.
IRKOUTSK 385
CHAPTER IX.
IRKOUTSK (continued) 422
CHAPTER X.
IRKOUTSK TO TOMSK 471
CHAPTER XI.
TOMSK 573
CHAPTER XII.
PERM TO CALAIS 626
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
A Caravan Frontispiece
A Street in Tartar City——Pekin 110
A Mule Litter 140
Da-Hun-Go 184
Ourouni 214
My Camel Cart 222
An awkward Moment 252
A Street Prayer-wheel at Ourga 288
Our Tarantass with “Troika” 352
A Village Ostrog——Convicts on the March 409
A Siberian Criminal Convict 448
A Night in a Post-house 478
The Post-house at Rasgonnaia 493
A Siberian Village Street 496
A Prison Barge on the Obi River 614
MAP.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
FROM PEKIN TO CALAIS BY LAND.
CHAPTER I.
GRAVESEND TO PEKIN.
“FROM China to France overland! Why, surely it’s impossible. I thought
one could only get to China by sea!”
Such was the remark made by a young lady whom I had the honour of taking
down to dinner a few days previous to embarking upon the voyage of which
I am about to narrate my experiences. Although I trust there are not
many educated persons who, like my fair friend, are unaware that Pekin
and Paris are actually undivided by sea, I imagine there are but few
who, if put down at Calais, and told to find their way overland to
Pekin, would know how to set about it, fewer still who have any
practical knowledge of that vast but comparatively unknown country
separating the Chinese Empire from Russia proper, Siberia.
It had been a long-projected voyage. Lancaster, (a fellow-traveller in
many lands,) and I had talked it over for at least two years before: in
the early spring of 1887, we finally decided to put our project into
execution, and start for the great unknown.
Unlike most voyages which in these days of travel are an accomplished
fact as soon as decided upon, this one was fraught with innumerable
delays and annoyances. Our difficulties commenced at the very outset,
for nowhere in London, or indeed anywhere else, could I glean the
smallest information respecting the journey; the only book I succeeded
in finding on the subject being one written by John Bell, the English
traveller, in 1788, but, as may be imagined, the information contained
therein was somewhat obsolete.
Nothing more modern, however, could I procure. Jules Verne’s amusing and
clever book, “Michel Strogoff,” deals largely with Irkoutsk, Lake
Baikal, and other regions we were about to traverse, but I hardly felt
justified in taking that versatile author as a travelling-guide. That we
landed at Tientsin——China——and saw the sea again at Calais——France——was
all we definitely knew; of the time it took to do, or how the journey
was to be accomplished, we were quite in the dark.
About a week before our departure, however, I had the good fortune to
meet a gentleman connected with the Russian Embassy in London, and to
him I confided our difficulties. M. de ———— was indeed a friend in need,
for in less than twenty-four hours our difficulties had vanished like
snow in the sunshine. Not only was the route from Pekin to Moscow
clearly laid down for us, but we were provided, in addition, with a
letter of introduction from M. de Staal, the Russian Ambassador in
London, to the Russian Minister at Pekin. Had it not been for this, I
doubt whether we should ever have got further than the celestial city.
The route (we now found) was as follows: From Shanghai to Pekin by
steamer and house-boat, from Pekin to Kalgan (or the Great Wall of
China) by mule litter, and thence across the Great Gobi Desert to
Kiakhta, the Russo-Chinese frontier, by camel caravan. From Kiakhta to
Tomsk, _viâ_ Lake Baikal, Irkoutsk, and Krasnoiarsk by tarantass or
Russian post carriage, and thence by steam communication on the Obi and
Irtish rivers to Tobolsk and Tiumen. From the latter place our journey
was easy enough. Four days’ sail and seven of steam would bring us to
Moscow, practically the end of our voyage. As to the time the journey
would take, no one, even at the Russian Embassy, seemed to know. So much
in this journey depends (as we afterwards found) upon the weather, the
facility of obtaining camels at the Great Wall, and last, but not least,
the state of the roads in Siberia. We were starting at a good time,
however, and with luck might expect to reach Moscow in the early autumn.
If detained in Siberia by floods or other casualties, we might not
arrive in Europe till the new year. This was all we could ascertain, and
with this somewhat scanty information were forced to be content.
The outfit question did not trouble us much. A Terai hat, two or three
tweed suits, and an unlimited supply of cigars and tobacco met our
requirements. Everything we took went comfortably into two small-sized
leather portmanteaus. A rifle, fowling-piece and brace of
double-barrelled pistols (not revolvers) were also taken, and this
completed our wardrobe and armoury. I often wonder what the West End
outfitters would do were it not for the yearly increasing number of
Globe-Trotters. Be it understood I mean Globe-Trotters, not travellers,
for there is a vast difference between the two. I have often been amused
at the utterly useless articles forced upon the unhappy G. T. by the
Bond Street or Piccadilly haberdasher, who probably knows rather less of
the country his customer is about to visit than the Khan of Khiva does
of Pall Mall. The Globe-Trotter _pur et simple_ is seldom (so far as I
have seen) of high intellectual attainments, but one I met a few years
ago, while on a voyage to Sydney, eclipsed everything. He had provided
himself with enough thick clothes and furs to fit out an expedition to
the North Pole. On asking him the reason, he replied, “Oh! we shall get
to Sydney at Christmas, you know, and it will be so awfully cold after
the tropics!”
Our final preparations completed, we took passage for Shanghai, and the
rainy, gusty morning of the 7th of April, 1887, saw us steaming down
channel with half a gale of wind in our teeth, looking our last on the
white cliffs of England, while to our left was just visible the
low-lying coast of France, the goal we hoped to reach in safety, before
the following winter, and from which we were separated by the length of
Europe and Asia.
I will not inflict a description of the voyage out upon the reader. It
would be superfluous in these days of travel, when a man secures his
berth for Sydney or Yokohama with much the same indifference as twenty
years ago he took a ticket for Rome or Vienna. The life on board a P.
and O. ship is familiar to most of us. Suffice it to say that our
fellow-passengers were of the usual kind: the Colonial bishop, who
buried himself in a deep theological work before we had cleared Land’s
End, only to emerge from it at Colombo; the Hong Kong merchant and his
family living on the usual terms of armed neutrality with the Indian
Civil Service official and his wife, an Indian Major-General, a
sprinkling of bank clerks and coffee-planters, two or three soldiers
rejoining their regiments, and a pretty grass widow, returning to her
husband, an Indian Judge. These, with half a dozen more or less
uninteresting young ladies “going out to be married,” completed our
party. The ages of the latter seemed to increase in proportion to the
distance they were going. The one whose fortunate fiancé resided at Hong
Kong must have been fifty at the very least. I had almost forgotten a
nearly perfect specimen of the Globe-Trotter, who joined us, resplendent
in purple and fine linen, at Suez; a young gentleman somewhat inclined
to take more wine than was good for him, and who was going abroad for
the good of his health——presumably also for that of his friends and
relations at home.
There is a very false impression existing among those who have never
travelled in one, as to the delights of a voyage in a P. and O., and the
endless gaiety and amusement on board these floating hotels. I have made
at least a dozen voyages by this particular line, and must confess that
the gaiety and amusement, if it ever existed, has escaped my
observation. Perhaps I have been unfortunate, but I must own that I have
invariably found the life on board these ships deplorably dull. The mere
fact of being cabined, cribbed, confined, with three score of one’s
fellow-creatures, the majority of whom have not a thought or feeling in
common, is surely sufficient to account for a lack of enjoyment. At the
same time, to the casual onlooker, who is wise enough to keep out of
them, the petty rows and scandals on board ship are amusing enough. How
Major-General Jones has had the audacity to take the seat next the
captain at dinner, instead of Commissioner Brown, who, as everybody
ought to know, if they don’t, always takes precedence of him at
Brandypore; and how Mrs. Commissioner Brown has felt compelled to cut
Mrs. Major-General Jones in consequence. How the wife of Surgeon
Squills, of the Bengal Staff Corps, has forbidden her daughter to speak
to the third mate, and that matron’s subsequent mortification on
discovering that the tabooed officer is the second son of an Earl. How,
in our case, one of the future blushing brides (the Hong Kong one) only
wished that poor dear Judge could see how his wife went on, although to
unbiassed eyes, that cheery little lady’s sole crime consisted in being
more than pretty, and absurdly good-natured. How the Globe-trotter
overcome by (let us say) the heat in the Red Sea offered to fight the
captain for a dozen of champagne on his own quarter-deck,——all this
could I descant upon at length, but fear lest I weary the reader,
forgetting that a good joke at sea is but a sorry jest ashore.
Light and favourable winds favoured us to Malta, that shadeless,
bustling rock so happily christened by Byron “The little Military
Hot-House.” A few hours here allowed of a stroll ashore and a visit to
the mess of that cheeriest and best of regiments, the “Black Watch.”
Then, after dinner at the club, and a chat over old Cairo-days, off
again in the moonlight to the _Bombay_, and, three days later, Port
Said. Here an unexpected delay awaited us. The P. and O. S.S. _Rome_ had
gone ashore (the commencement of a series of disasters for the Company:)
which meant a detention of five days, at least, at the glary, unsavoury
canal port.
Small-pox was raging in this den of publicans and sinners, and several
cases having occurred on the homeward-bound P. and O. ships, we were
requested by the captain not to land, if we could possibly help it,
during our stay. A prospect of five days cooped up in an atmosphere of
coal-dust and sand, to say nothing of the noisome odours off the shore,
was anything but inviting, and eight o’clock the next evening saw us
sitting down to dinner in the cool, comfortable dining-room of
Shepherd’s Hotel, Cairo.
There is a charm about Cairo peculiar to itself. Nowhere else do we find
that strange mixture of western civilization and eastern barbarism that
exists in the Egyptian capital, which seems, by the way, to be yearly
increasing in popularity as a winter resort. Everything in the place is
original and therefore charming, and, although surrounded with every
European luxury and comfort, so utterly unlike Europe.
A telegram was received during our stay here, announcing the total loss
of the P. and O. _Tasmania_, and the drowning, among others, of her
captain, poor Perrins, than whom no more popular commander or smarter
sailor ever lived. We were continually seeing or hearing of wrecks on
our voyage out. Besides passing three lately sunken vessels in the Red
Sea, we got news at Colombo of the largest ship in the Nord-Deutscher
Lloyd line having gone down off Cape Guardafui; at Shanghai of the
sinking of the M.M. Steamer _Menzaleh_ between that port and Japan.
We had a favourable passage through that exaggerated bugbear the Red
Sea, which, by the way, I have found cooler three times out of four than
the Indian Ocean. Aden was not touched at, and a quick run of nine days
brought us to Colombo, where we bade adieu to the _Bombay_, which was
proceeding to Calcutta, and embarked on board the _Piacenza_, a vessel
considerably smaller but as comfortable in every respect as the
leviathan we had left.
Twenty-four hours here gave us time for a run out to Mount Lavinia,
where we received a hearty welcome from the jovial German Herr
(surrounded, as usual, by a menagerie of domestic pets) who manages that
picturesque seaside hostelry. A comfortable dinner in the breezy _salle
à manger_ in full view of the cool blue sea and yellow sands, coffee and
a quiet cigar in the verandah, were a pleasant change from the stuffy
saloon of the _Bombay_. Then back again to Colombo in the moonlight,
along the palm-fringed road, heavy with the scent of jungle flowers,
refreshed inwardly and outwardly, and ready for the long weary days of
sea to Shanghai.
We had the _Piacenza_ pretty well to ourselves. There were but twenty
first-class passengers in all, among them two pretty girls fresh from
Devonshire, with the good looks, and clear, fresh complexions that
county alone seems able to produce. It seemed a sin so to take them to a
clime notorious for stealing the roses from the youngest and fairest
faces. In the second class were some ten or twelve Protestant female
missionaries bound for North China, whose religious zeal was
unparalleled. They were for ever hunting up lost sheep among the
passengers, hot as it was. I do not fancy, however, that their efforts
were very successful. Only one of them made converts. She was eighteen,
and very good-looking.
The remainder of our voyage was uneventful and tedious enough. Hot,
sleepy little Penang; Singapore a vision of green hills and red dust, a
sickly odour of pepper, cocoa, nut-oil, and drains. Hong Kong, for all
the world like some Spanish or Italian town with its white terraces, and
coloured venetians, nestling in masses of dark green foliage at the foot
of the bare rugged peak; all these were passed without incident worthy
of mention excepting the meeting of the fifty-year-old bride with her
fiancé at the latter port, which was affecting in the extreme. It was a
relief to find that, at any rate, the bridegroom was something near her
own age. Five days later, on the 21st of May, six weeks to a day since
leaving Gravesend, we dropped our anchor in the broad, muddy waters of
the Yangzekiang, whence a small tug conveyed us in six hours up the
narrower and still muddier Woosung river to Shanghai.
Shanghai cannot be called a picturesque place. Vast alluvial plains of
rice and cotton surround it on every side, while the view from the bund
or esplanade fronting the river, is not unlike the Thames at Blackwall,
with its flat banks, forests of masts, and grey stone wharves and
warehouses. The town itself consists of three distinct settlements,
English, French, and American, divided one from another by small
tributaries of the Woosung river. These settlements, quite distinct from
the native Chinese city, were formed by their respective governments in
1846, and occupy a space of ground rather more than a mile square.
Shanghai, in 1883, contained a population of four hundred thousand, of
whom two thousand were foreign residents, and an idea of its commercial
importance may be gained by the fact that its trade in silk, tea, and
opium now equals thirty to forty million sterling value of imports and
exports.
Were I ever condemned to live in the far East (which Heaven forbid), I
should certainly choose Shanghai for a residence, for besides its other
advantages, there is a marked absence among its European inhabitants of
the ill-nature and scandal that makes anything but a very short stay in
other colonial settlements almost intolerable to those whose occupation
does not compel them to reside there. Whether it is the effect of the
climate on the liver, I know not, but for envy, hatred, and malice
commend me to the European communities of China and the Straits
Settlements.
There is a capital club (one of the best if not _the_ very best in the
East) at Shanghai, of which (thanks to the kindness of Mr. C————, to
whom we had an introduction) we were made honorary members, no mean
advantage, for the Shanghai hotels are by no means models of comfort or
cleanliness. We intended making a stay of at least ten days before going
on to Tientsin, the port of Pekin, for many things had to be thought of
and procured for the long journey across the Desert of Gobi, which we
now ascertained, for the first time, is nearly a thousand miles across.
There seems to be no lack of amusement at Shanghai, and the merchants
and other Europeans located there appear to have what Americans would
call a “real good time of it” all the year round——so far as regards
gaiety and sport. For those who care for it there is any amount of
shooting. In winter there is no lack of duck, teal, snipe, and other
wild fowl. Indeed from here all the way up to Pekin the country teems
with game, big and small, the former including wild boar and deer, while
further north in Manchuria are found lion, tiger, and bear. Nor is
shooting the only sport, for there is a capital race-course, polo and
cricket ground. I attended a match on the latter, in which was playing,
in Chinese dress and a pigtail (!) a lately celebrated English
cricketer, well known at Lord’s and the Oval, who had adopted the native
costume in accordance with the rules of the Mission of which he is now a
member. The loose clumsy dress did not seem to interfere with his play
much, for he was quite in his old form, and made over a hundred runs
first innings.
But the Race week is the real Shanghai carnival. At this festive season
offices and warehouses are closed, and everything given up for the
business of the meeting. Nearly all the horses engaged are Mongolian
ponies, and half the fun of the thing is getting a “hot one” down from
its native plains and keeping it dark till the day of its engagement.
The figures paid for these little animals are something fabulous. People
at home have no idea of how our countrymen live in China. “Light come,
light go,” seems to be the motto of the cheery, hospitable Shanghai
merchants, who, although they make such enormous fortunes, never seem,
to the casual visitor, to have anything to do but entertain the stranger
who has the good luck to find himself within their gates. It will be
long before I forget the kindness they showed us, although (before we
met Mr. C.) we did not know a soul in the place.
It was curious sometimes to cross the iron bridge separating them and
take a ramble from the English into the French town. It was like
crossing the English Channel——indeed, I doubt if Dover and Calais
present a more striking contrast than do the settlements of their
respective nations at Shanghai. One left the broad regular roads,
asphalte pavements and severe, business-like architecture that the
mercantile Briton takes with him wherever he goes, to emerge the other
side of the narrow stream on a boulevard, that first thought of every
colonizing Frenchman——lined with cafés, gaily striped awnings, and
little zinc tables, at which Auguste and Alphonse sat sipping their
absinthe or “Mazagran,” waited upon by bustling, white-aproned garçons.
The sleepy looking Douanier, with baggy trousers and képi, the
grass-grown cobbled streets, the dark blue enamelled plates at the
street-corners, with Rue de la Republique, Rue de Paris, &c., thereon in
large white letters, the general air of stagnation and idleness among
the population, seemed to carry one in a moment over leagues and leagues
of land and sea to some quiet provincial town in far-away France. It
needed not the tricolor floating from the mainmast of the ironclad
anchored mid-stream, off the Consulate, to tell us that we were no
longer on English ground.
The Shanghai bund and esplanade on a fine afternoon was amusing enough,
and we whiled away many a pleasant half-hour watching the motley crowd
that assemble there for a ride or drive in the cool of the evening. Here
might be seen every grade of colonial society, from the solemn and
portly merchant and his family rolling solemnly along in an
English-built landau, to the San Francisco _demi-mondaine_, all powder
and patches, dashing about in a Victoria drawn by a pair of pulling,
tearing Mongolian ponies. Europeans in buggies and on horseback,
Japanese in rikshaws, Chinese in wheelbarrows (the reader may smile, but
this is a public conveyance in Shanghai), crowds of every conceivable
nation and colour strolling under the trees by the water’s edge, the
esplanade at Shanghai on a fine evening is a sight to see and remember.
At night electric lights every twenty yards or so convert the bund into
a perfect fairyland. The inauguration of the Jablokoff system, however,
was attended with a slight _contretemps_. Crowds of natives and
Europeans turned out the first night to see the effect, but for a good
hour none was apparent. The place was wrapped in total darkness, and the
expectant crowd beginning to show signs of impatience, it was found that
the engineer had fixed the lights _above_ the trees, whence the dense
foliage very naturally obscured it, instead of under. This trifling
mistake was, however, soon rectified, and the brilliant illumination so
took the fancy of the natives that all the principal Chinese
thoroughfares are now lit by it.
The native city of Shanghai, is walled and separated from the French and
English settlements by a deep, muddy moat. Some clumsy iron cannon, said
to be the oldest in existence, are mounted upon its dilapidated
grass-grown battlements. This was our first experience of a celestial
city, and we did not, after visiting it, look forward with unalloyed
pleasure to the two hundred odd miles of country we were about to
traverse between Pekin and the Great Wall of China. But I did not then
know that Shanghai is renowned as being the dirtiest city in the Chinese
Empire, and certainly we never afterwards came across one to equal it in
this respect. Pekin itself was a paradise in comparison.
The streets of Shanghai proper are none of them more than ten feet in
breadth. Some are even considerably narrower, and the tottering,
tumble-down dwellings, the majority built of wood, bend forward on
either side until they nearly touch overhead. The thoroughfares are thus
always, even on the brightest day, in a state of semi-darkness. The
pavements, rough and uneven, are formed of huge stone slabs, some of
them, judging by the characters inscribed thereon, many hundreds of
years old. Worn away by time and use, many are broken away in parts,
revealing underneath the sewage and filth of years, which, slowly
rotting away, infects the whole city with a hot, sickly odour of
putrefaction. It was a hot, muggy day when we visited it, and the stench
from these places was something beyond description. I was not surprised
to hear that cholera and typhus number their victims by thousands at
times, and that an epidemic (of some sort or another) always exists.
Yet it seemed a busy, bustling place, and we could scarcely make our way
along the sloppy streets for the continuous stream of traffic. It was
exactly like a human bee-hive, and we should very soon have lost
ourselves without a guide in the crooked, tortuous streets that ran in
all directions like a maze, without any regard to regularity or order.
We came suddenly in the very heart of the city, upon an oasis in this
desert of filth and squalor, a space about a quarter of a mile square. A
large circular lake overhung with weeping willows occupied the centre.
Great white and yellow lilies lay here and there on the surface of the
smooth clear water, in which one could see the gold fish swimming lazily
to and fro about the thick green weeds and stems, ten or fifteen feet
deep. About fifty yards from the shore, and connected with it by a light
bamboo bridge, stood a large pagoda gorgeous in vermilion and gold, with
countless little gilt bells hung around the roof, which, with every
breath of air gave out a sweet, musical jangle. Seated in this were a
crowd of men and women, talking, laughing, and drinking tea. All were
dressed in the richest silks, the men in dark blue or plum colour, the
women in lighter shades of green, heliotrope, or orange, their necks and
arms loaded with heavy gold ornaments, their quaint, impassive,
doll-like faces thickly smeared with paint. On the banks around the lake
were booths for the sale of sweetmeats, fans, silks, cigarettes, and
jewellery, while jugglers and acrobats plied their trade among the busy
crowd, or at the little tables set out by the waterside and occupied by
noisy chattering tea-drinkers. I stood for some time watching the
curious scene, which was for all the world like a bit broken out of a
willow-pattern plate. It seemed so odd to walk suddenly out of the
filthy, sewage-laden streets into this hidden corner of cleanliness and
picturesque revelry. But China is full of such contradictions. I
afterwards discovered that we had strayed into a tea-garden (there are a
dozen such in the city) and that the pretty pagoda was used as a kind of
private box for the better classes, just as our own smart people at home
occasionally patronize the Alhambra and other music-halls to gaze at a
respectful distance on the manners and customs of the “Oi Polloi.”
The Chinese, I found, are great believers in the art of fortune-telling.
We passed on our way homewards many of the shops, or rather boxes, in
which the professors of the art received their subjects. They seemed to
have many methods, but the favourite one consists in dipping the thumb
into a piece of hot, soft, black wax, and then impressing it firmly upon
a piece of parchment or white wood. The lines thus obtained are supposed
to predict the future. The professors seemed to be doing a roaring
trade. Their fees were not extortionate; a couple of cash (about ½_d._)
each consultation.
The most important thing we now had to consider was the purchase of
stores for our journey over the “Great Hungry Desert,” as Gobi is called
by the Chinese. It was by no means easy to decide how much or how little
to take, for no one in Shanghai seemed to know whether in the eight
hundred odd miles lying between the Great Wall of China and Ourga food
of any sort or kind was procurable. However, hearing that everything in
the way of provisions was outrageously dear at Tientsin, and
unprocurable at Pekin, we decided to lay in our stock at Shanghai, and
curiously enough furnished ourselves with exactly the right amount, for
our stores failed the very day before we reached Kiakhta. The claret,
whisky, and soda-water gave out some time before, but we had plenty of
lime-juice, which made the brackish desert water drinkable.
Were I to do this journey again, I should certainly send everything of
this kind straight out from England, for the camp furniture, saddlery,
and stores we bought at Shanghai were, besides being outrageously dear,
of very inferior quality. On opening the cases in the desert, we found
at least a quarter of the provisions uneatable. The American firm who
furnished us must make a good thing of it if they do business with all
their customers on the same terms.
The operation of packing was by no means easy. As the reader is perhaps
aware, the weight on a camel’s back must be quite equally distributed on
either side, otherwise (in Mongolia at least) the animal lies down and
utterly declines to move a step. Eight strong wooden chests, with
padlocks, met all our requirements, and having made our adieus to our
hospitable friends, we embarked, the 31st of May, on the
coasting-steamer _Tungchow_ for the port of Pekin, Tientsin.
We were presented before leaving Shanghai with a so-called itinerary on
the journey we were taking, written by an Englishman resident in China,
who had travelled the caravan route from Pekin to Europe in 1872. Things
must have changed considerably, both in Mongolia and Siberia, since
those days, for almost all the book contained, including distances, was
so inaccurate and misleading that we discarded its use long before we
reached Kiakhta.
The “_Tungchow_” was more like a yacht than a cargo boat, and the run up
coast was delightful; with bright sunshine and light cool breezes,
exactly like Mediterranean weather in early spring, though the nights
were very cold, and one was glad of an overcoat. We passed daily numbers
of fishing junks, their dark brown mat-sails and bright red and yellow
banners standing out in picturesque contrast to the clear blue sea,
which often for miles round us was dotted with net corks and men in
small canoes. A gale springs up in a few minutes in these latitudes, and
during the typhoon season many of these poor fishermen, unable to get
back to the junks, are blown out to sea and drowned, their companions on
the huge, swirling craft, being, of course, unable to render them any
assistance. The captain of the _Tungchow_ told us that many lives are
lost annually in this manner.
We reached Chefoo late at night, and were therefore unable to land, as
we were off again at daybreak. This is the Brighton of Shanghai and
Pekin. There is capital bathing here, and many good hotels, which are
crowded to overflowing in the summer months by Europeans escaping from
the damp, steamy heat of Shanghai, and the no less disagreeable odours,
and “dust fogs” (I can call them nothing else) of the capital.
The coast lying between Chefoo and the mouth of the Peiho river is
strikingly like parts of Devonshire. But for the absence of houses and
bathing machines, one might have been off Torquay or Dawlish.
Precipitous red cliffs, with smooth green sward growing to their very
edges, met by broad smooth yellow sands, while here and there great
masses of rock run out for a considerable distance into the clear blue
water. Further inland neatly trimmed hedges, clumps of fir-trees, and
snug-looking farm-houses surrounded with orchards and gardens, recalled
visions of clotted cream, and pretty peasant girls in that loveliest of
all English counties, the true garden of England: Devonshire.
At daybreak on the 3rd of June we passed the celebrated Taku forts and
entered the Peiho river. It was a bright lovely morning, and as a bend
of the river hid it from our sight, and we looked at the blue sunlit
ocean for the last time, it was not without some misgivings at the long
land journey before us. The thought that when next we saw the sea, it
would be at Calais, made us realize, perhaps more than we had as yet
done, the difficulty and length of the voyage we had undertaken across
the breadth of Europe and Asia.
Unlike most rivers, the Peiho seems to widen as you ascend it, being
considerably narrower at the mouth than at Tientsin, thirty miles
inland. The town of Taku, a wretched-looking place, built for the most
part of mud houses, is by water inaccessible for five months of the
year, on account of the ice in the Peiho and Gulf of Pechili. It is a
curious fact that although Taku is so cold in winter, it never snows,
and there is usually a bright, cloudless sky and cutting north-easter
blowing. Wretched as is its appearance, Taku looks a busy place, and
contains a Chinese naval dockyard. The Taku forts commanding the
entrance to the river have been greatly strengthened during the last ten
years, the work being carried on under the personal supervision of
German officers.
We were rather puzzled, on first entering the Peiho, at what appeared in
the distance like a number of large merry-go-rounds scattered over the
flat swampy plain surrounding the town, and revolving without cessation.
It was only by the aid of glasses that we made them out to be salt-mills
worked by huge mat sails. The sea-water is pumped into the vats by the
aid of this irrigation and allowed to evaporate in the sun. The salt
which remains is then piled into large stacks and covered with thick
matting. The effect at a distance of these dozens of huge mills
revolving on the bare desolate plain with not a living object near them,
was curious in the extreme. The river scenery from Taku to Tangchow very
much resembles that of the Nile, the houses of dried mud, with their
flat roofs and terraces, the absence of trees except occasional palms,
remind one not a little of an Egyptian landscape, while the uniform dark
blue garb of the peasantry, of exactly the same shade as that worn by
the Fellaheen, heightens, at a distance, the illusion.
Although only thirty miles distant as the crow flies, Tientsin is quite
eighty by river from Taku, for the Peiho is, towards the mouth, the most
tortuous river in the world. It is not unusual to steam steadily on for
an hour, and find yourself, at the expiration of that time only a few
hundred yards from where you started. The effect produced by the
shipping ascending and descending the river is very odd, the intricate
bends of the river giving the steamers the appearance of moving about on
dry land. The marshes I have mentioned do not extend for more than about
ten miles inland. They are then succeeded by rich fertile plains of rice
and cotton irrigated in the Egyptian manner by means of “shadoofs” from
the waters of the Peiho. The country seemed pretty thickly populated.
Some of the mud villages by the water side must have contained quite a
thousand inhabitants, but in China, where the population is so enormous,
this is looked upon as a small hamlet!
There is a large coal-wharf a short distance from Taku, where the coal
from the Kai Ping mine, fifty miles distant, is brought by means of a
small railway and barges. The coal, though rather dusty, is excellent
for steamer purposes, and the private company working it make a very
fair percentage. It has always seemed curious to me that coal is not
more extensively worked in the Chinese Empire, when there are more than
four hundred thousand square miles of it! There are, however, but very
few mines in existence.
Tientsin, which has a population of about nine hundred and fifty
thousand stands at the junction of the Grand Canal with the Peiho river.
It is not a prepossessing place at first sight, nor did its dusty,
bustling quays, warehouses, and noisy, perspiring coolies, make us at
all anxious to prolong our stay longer than was absolutely necessary.
The trade of Tientsin is not great when compared with the other treaty
ports. Nearly all the tea exported thence goes to Russia and
Siberia——occasionally by way of Pekin——but in most cases _viâ_ Kalgan
and district across the Gobi Desert to Kiakhta, without touching at the
capital. The Russian merchants are therefore nearly as numerous as the
English at Tientsin.
The settlement boasted of but two hotels, and these of a very fifth-rate
description. Small-pox having broken out in one, our choice was limited,
for we did not care to run the risk of being laid up for three or four
weeks in the native hospital at Pekin. Bidding adieu to our genial
skipper, who cheerfully expressed a hope that he might see us again one
day, though he very much doubted our ever leaving Siberia, we made our
way, accompanied by a yelling crowd of half-naked coolies bearing our
luggage, to the American Hotel, an uninviting, dilapidated-looking
hostelry enough. In the verandah, reclining on many chairs, and at
intervals refreshing himself from a huge beaker of brandy and soda, was
an individual pointed out to us as the proprietor (a fat, sleepy-looking
Yankee), whose welcome was hardly encouraging.
“Can we have rooms here?”
“Sure I don’t know, you’d better ask.”
“But you’re the manager, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, I’m the manager.”
A pause, during which our friend takes a long pull at the brandy, and,
emerging considerably refreshed, composes himself calmly to slumber.
“Who are we to ask?”
“Who are you to ask?” half opening his eyes; “Oh! I don’t know, you will
see some of the China boys about. How should I know who you’re to ask?”
is his parting shot as we leave him and cross the dirty sanded
billiard-room, hung with tawdry prints, and redolent of stale tobacco
and spirits, that precedes the entrance to the “bar.”
Here we glean from a dishevelled, greasy German in shirt-sleeves, who
looks as if he slept among the sawdust and empty whisky bottles that
litter the floor, that no rooms are to be had that night, or for the
next week to come, for love or money. A huge travelling circus belonging
to an Italian, one Chiarini, has taken every available room in the
place. “Then could we have the billiard-table?” “No, we could not
possibly have the billiard-table, for the ‘gentlemen’ connected with the
circus always played till three or four in the morning. Still, we could
have it then, if we liked, on payment of a small remuneration to him
(the occupant of the bar), but we must keep it dark from the boss.”
Our experience of the “boss” did not quite justify our taking this
course, and we left the hotel, sadly and slowly followed by our string
of sympathizing coolies, utterly at a loss to know what to do till the
bright thought struck Lancaster of at once hiring the house-boat which
was to take us to Tungchow (the landing-place for Pekin), and living on
board her till we left for the capital. We managed this, not without
some difficulty, for we had to get the boat through our friend the
sleepy Yankee. He woke up a little, however, at the prospect of
swindling two helpless and friendless fellow-creatures, and by sundown
we had everything on board, and the boat snugly moored off the hotel
wharf. We were alongside a large open drain, with a most abominable
stench, and there was always the possibility of being run down in the
night by a passing ship, but one could not afford to be particular. The
sight, however, of a large passenger steamer bound for Japan which
passed close to us towards sundown was depressing in the extreme, the
cleanliness and luxury on board contrasting so painfully with our own
surroundings. For a few moments we almost regretted (by no means for the
last time) that we had ever undertaken this voyage, the discomforts and
difficulties of which now seemed to increase with every day.
Early next day we presented our letters to Mr. S., the Russian tea
merchant, who was to provide us with letters of credit for his agents at
Irkoutsk and Tomsk in Eastern and Western Siberia. Mr. S. did not give
us a very favourable account of the journey before us. Like almost every
other Russian we met, first question was “Mais que Diable allez-vous
faire en Sibérie?” We got into the way at last of never arguing this
question. In the first place it was useless, and only caused waste of
time; in the second we had literally no reason to give, except perhaps
the one so dear to most Englishmen: “The country had been crossed by so
few travellers before!”
Among other pleasant and encouraging items of news, we now heard that we
should probably meet with serious delay, not only at Kalgan, the
Mongolian frontier, but also at Pekin. “You had better not think,” said
Mr. S., “of making any definite plans till you arrive at Kalgan. This is
the worst time of year you could have chosen. It is not the caravan
season; the camels are all out on the plains. It may be two or three
months before you are able to cross the Gobi, and then you will get into
Siberia at the very worst time of year, when the roads are next to
impassable from rains and floods. Any day you may be detained by a
broken bridge or a landslip, and have to wait in some dreary, wretched
village in the wilds of Siberia, till the snow sets, and enables you to
finish your journey in sleighs. You cannot, I feel sure, have rightly
estimated the difficulties before you. Why go to Siberia at all, when
that earthly paradise Japan is so near?” &c., &c.
We at last succeeded in making Mr. S. understand that we were determined
to get as far as Pekin at any rate; and, our interview over, had nothing
but the purchase of some provisions for our river journey (our Shanghai
store was not opened till we reached the desert) to detain us in
Tientsin. Nor were we sorry to get away, for the dust and filth of this
city were almost unbearable. We had not then experienced the odours of
Pekin, which would accustom one to cheerfully live in a main drain.
Our second night here was not so pleasantly passed as the first. A
shower of rain at sunset brought out legions of mosquitoes, from which,
not having brought curtains, we suffered a good deal of annoyance, and
the intolerable stench of the drain near which we lay was so increased
by the rain that we had to smoke incessantly till past 3 a.m., almost
regretting we had not accepted the barkeeper’s offer of the
billiard-table for a bed. Even the “circus gentlemen” would have been
preferable to the sewer. We got to sleep about 4 a.m., only to be awoke
at daybreak by a crashing sound and to find the water rushing into the
boat, with an unpleasant conviction that our craft was heeling over at a
very uncomfortable angle. We had become entangled in the hawser of a
large ocean-steamer, which, had it not been let go in the nick of time,
would have upset us altogether. We escaped with a ducking, however, and
soon got the boat righted and baled out again.
The distance from Tientsin to Pekin is rather under eighty miles
overland, that by river one hundred and forty, viz. one hundred and
twenty miles to Tungchow, and twenty miles thence by road to the
capital. Although it takes two days longer (sometimes three), we chose
the water route in preference to the other. We should, we thought, have
quite enough land-travelling during the next five months; besides which,
the Chinese inns between Tientsin and the capital are even filthier than
those between Pekin and the Great Wall——which is saying a good deal.
It was about ten o’clock, on a bright, clear morning, that we hoisted
the huge mat-sail, and, with a favourable breeze, soon left the bustling
city and its high cathedral towers (where the Catholic nuns were so
brutally murdered in 1870) low on the horizon.
The traffic on the Peiho river for some miles above Tientsin is
enormous. We must have counted at least four hundred boats and barges in
the space of an hour the afternoon of the day we left, while the whole
way to Tungchow the river was alive with boats of every description
whenever we passed a village, from huge junks to tiny sampans. At times,
near Tientsin, one could have crossed the river, or walked three hundred
or four hundred yards up it, dry shod on the boats.
A Chinese house-boat, though comfortable enough for all practical
purposes, must not be confounded with the luxurious, flower-bedecked
craft that line the banks of the Thames in summer time. The Chinese
house-boat resembles the English only in name, for there was no attempt
at decoration, and very little at cleanliness. About forty-five feet
long, it was decked completely over, except in the centre, where a sort
of well covered with planks, with space enough for two to lie or sit in,
formed the cabin.
Our crew, five in number, slept in a kind of hutch under the deck
forward. How they all managed to stow themselves there at once was a
mystery to me, for they were great, tall, hulking fellows. We sailed, as
a rule, our broad mat-sail sending the old tub along at an incredible
speed with the lightest breeze. When the wind dropped, the men rowed
incessantly, day and night, till it rose again. The amount of work they
got through was simply marvellous. Nothing seemed to tire them; morning,
noon, and night they plied the heavy, awkward sweeps without cessation,
except to eat a dish of rice and fish and take a drink of cold tea once
every twelve hours. Cheery, good-tempered fellows they were too,
considering the small wages they got. The fare, including everything,
was only $13, and our Yankee friend must have got at least two-thirds of
this sum as his own share of the transaction.
The first two days of our river journey were enjoyable enough, save for
such small annoyances as rats and cockroaches, which latter took
forcible possession of our cabin at night-time. But the delightful
weather and novel scenery amply atoned for such small discomforts as
these. The Peiho is a thick, muddy stream. Its banks are continually
slipping down and being dammed up by the natives, which accounts in a
great measure for the dirty pea-soup colour of the water. These
landslips are not of weekly or even daily occurrence. They occur
incessantly, and it was curious to watch, as we ascended the river, the
continual dropping away of the land on either side, while, here and
there, gangs of men repaired the damage by means of cemented bamboos.
The riverside villages were like human beehives, so crowded and dense
did the population of them appear, even at midday, when so many of the
inhabitants must have been out at work in the fields. One could not help
wondering how even such an enormous country as China can support such a
dense population, numbering, by the last census, some 400,000,000. And
yet, from the time we left the coast till we reached the Mongolian
border, there was always vegetation of some kind or other to be seen,
and vast fertile plains of corn, barley, and millet stretched away on
every side to the horizon. Everything in North China is on such a large
scale that for a few days one scarcely realized how enormous the
population and fertilization of this huge empire really are, how great
its resources and demands.
Our days on the Peiho were amusing enough. There was always something to
look at on the bank, and a capital towing-path to walk on when one’s
legs got tired and cramped in the boat, so that we had nothing to
complain of in the way of variety, and the first two days, bright and
sunny, wore away as idly and pleasantly as summer days up the Thames or
Wye in England. It was pleasant to sit out in the evening in the cool,
clear moonlight, on the little deck, the silence unbroken save by the
regular plash of the oars, or twang of Chinese fiddle or guitar, as we
passed some lonely, riverside cottage, the arms of the solitary,
half-naked musician gleaming white in the moonlight, as he rose and
waved a good-night to our crew. When we passed a village after dark it
was like some weird transformation scene, for up to midnight these
waterside settlements appeared, from the river at least, to be given up
to revelry. We never, however, ventured into one, preferring to gaze
from a respectful distance upon the flaring torches throwing counter
effects of light and shade over the quaint, picturesque houses and
pagodas, the hurrying crowds on the banks; while the clashing of gongs
and cymbals from the joss-house or theatre heightened the effect of the
strange scene. Then on again along the silent moonlit stream, with its
low sedgy banks; nothing to mar the flat, monotonous outline of the
moonlit landscape, but, here and there, a huge square mound of earth,
the tomb of some departed mandarin or village magnate.
But the morning of the third day looked dull and overcast, and by ten
o’clock the rain was pouring down in torrents. There was no keeping dry,
for the ramshackle roof leaked like a sieve, and the floor of our cabin
was in a very few minutes almost ankle-deep in water. About midday a
terrific thunderstorm broke over us. The lightning was so vivid that
although every nook and cranny of our dilapidated hutch was tightly
closed, and the place in semi-darkness, it almost blinded one. I have
never, even in the tropics, heard the thunder so loud and continuous.
One peal lasted quite a minute without cessation.
I have seldom passed a more miserable day than that one moored by the
muddy banks of the Peiho, for progress was impossible. Cooking or
lighting a fire, too, was out of the question. Everything, including
matches and fuel, was sopping through and through. Looking out of our
wooden prison, nothing met the eye but grey, driving mist, and steady,
unceasing rain, falling with a persistence and violence that lashed the
brown muddy waters around us into a sheet of grey foam. The men forward
were battened down, and seemed unconcerned enough, as snatches of song
rising from below and occasional whiffs of smoke emerging through the
chinks in the deck testified. We almost envied them their warmth,
shivering as we were like half-drowned rats. About five o’clock a break
in the grey, misty sky appeared, and half an hour later the sun was
shining in a sky of cloudless blue, while we rapidly cut our way through
the water before a light but piercingly cold breeze, so sudden and
complete are the changes of weather in these latitudes.
Early the next day a chain of precipitous mountains broke the horizon.
Beyond them lay our destination, Pekin. We were, however, still two days
off, for the river here shallows considerably, and we frequently stuck
hard and fast during the day. At these times the whole crew would divest
themselves of their clothes, and, fastening a couple of stout ropes to
the bows of the boat, tow us off again into deep water. Landing here was
impossible, for one could not get within ten yards or so of the bank.
Some of the larger junks were being towed by as many as thirty or forty
men. On the deck of one a huge deal case bearing the name of Maple and
Co., London, in large black letters, looked strangely out of keeping
with the uncivilized surroundings.
It was only the fifth morning after leaving Tientsin that we hove in
sight of Tungchow, a “village” of something over one hundred thousand
inhabitants. This was our first experience of a real Chinese town, far
from European influence; and we were rather agreeably disappointed, for
at a distance, it looked clean and inviting. A closer acquaintance,
alas! somewhat modified first impressions.
Moored alongside the flat muddy banks were a perfect colony of junks,
two thousand or three thousand in number; an interval of flat boggy
ground cut up by innumerable cesspools, open drains and dust-heaps
divided these from the town wall, which, standing back about a couple of
hundred yards from the water’s edge, hid the town from view, except
where, at intervals, a tower or pagoda overtopped the loopholed brick
battlements. Although the sun had but just risen, the banks were crowded
with people, and the keepers of hundreds of stalls and booths were
already doing a brisk trade in the sale of cloths, pigtails, tea,
sweetmeats, and fans to the junk population, while here and there a
barber plied his trade, which in North China is anything but an
appetizing one to look upon. Dirty as the place and people were, the
bright, cloudless sky and sunshine lent a gaiety to the scene, which for
colour and animation I have seldom seen equalled in the most picturesque
Turkish cities or bazaars of the far East.
We were ready to start at midday, and had all the baggage safely stowed
away in Pekin carts, a more dirty or uncomfortable vehicle than which
does not exist. As it is of the same construction, although smaller than
the carts in which we crossed the desert, I will leave the description
of these “torture-boxes” to a future chapter. Seeing with the naked eye
whole regiments of vermin crawling over the one destined for our
reception, we preferred to ride ahead, on donkeys, under the guidance of
a small boy, whose powers of conversation were limitless, and who talked
incessantly the whole way, frequently interlarding his conversation with
the words “Yang Qweitze” (Foreign Devil), the uncomplimentary title
bestowed on every European, of whatever nationality, in the less
civilized parts of China. Nor was the filthy state of the carts our only
reason for riding. We had serious misgivings as to whether the clumsy,
heavily-laden conveyances would reach Pekin before nightfall, in which
case we should have had to pass the night in the open outside the walls.
The gates of the city are shut at sundown, and no human power (short of
the emperor’s special command) will open them till sunrise the following
day.
It took us nearly an hour to get clear of Tungchow and into the open
country. The town is (for China) fairly clean, though the streets are
narrow, tortuous and ill paved, and in some places there were holes two
or three feet deep in the centre of the roadway.
The natives in this part of China present a striking contrast to their
countrymen at Shanghai and further south; whereas the latter are for the
most part puny, pasty-faced creatures, these were fine, strapping,
broad-shouldered men, with healthy, ruddy faces. The women too were
better-looking, though doll-like and thickly painted, with the baggy,
shapeless figures, deformed feet, and stoop peculiar to their race. Many
of the shops were devoted to the sale of Manchester goods and cheap
cutlery, which find great favour among the people in this part of China.
Here and there a large tea-house, gorgeously decorated, was filled with
customers taking their morning draught of the cup that cheers. The tea
drunk by the Chinese is as different to our idea of that beverage as it
can well be, and is, to a European palate, utterly flavourless. “Chacun
à son goût.” Many Russians say that real, unadulterated tea never finds
its way to England, nor would the English drink it if it did.
It took us quite an hour to get clear of Tungchow, for the streets were
crowded to overflowing. Although so few Europeans are seen here, the
people took very little notice of us, excepting the juvenile population,
ragged little wretches, a crowd of whom pestered us for cash, which,
when refused, drew down upon us yells of derision and curses on the
“Yang Qweitze” in general.
The road from Tungchow to Pekin lies through a fertile, well-wooded
country, and is for the first three or four miles raised some ten feet
from the ground on either side, and paved with huge stone slabs,
apparently of great antiquity. Although now in a very dilapidated
condition, this must in former times have been a splendid thoroughfare.
It reminded one of one of the old Roman roads, some of the slabs being
quite ten feet long by five feet broad and two thick. The going was very
bad in places where these stones had fallen away. Turning away to admire
the scenery, I was somewhat suddenly recalled to the situation by
finding that my donkey had slipped into one of these chasms about four
feet deep. We got out, however, with nothing worse than a few bruises.
This road is said at one time to have extended as far as Pekin, but,
with characteristic carelessness, the Chinese have allowed it to become
so dilapidated, that after two miles or so it ceases altogether, and our
way lay along narrow, raised paths, running through millet and barley
fields. Eight li from Tungchow, we passed the picturesque bridge of
“Palikao,” from which the French general takes his name. Hard by a
little tea-house clustering in the shade of willow-trees afforded us
grateful shelter for half an hour, and we dismounted and took a few cups
of the cool refreshing drink, for the road was dusty, and the sun very
powerful.
As we sat on mats, enjoying the cool breeze from the river, half a dozen
soldiers rode by with a prisoner, whom they were taking to Tungchow, to
undergo sentence of death by the “Ling Chi.” The poor wretch looked
ghastly pale, and well he might, for this is perhaps the most barbarous
and revolting of all Chinese punishments. The word “Ling Chi” means
literally to be cut in ten thousand pieces. As the reader may care to
know how the operation is performed, I will give a brief account of an
execution of this kind which took place at Canton only last year.
“As soon as the signal was given the victim was stripped of his
clothing——the process of binding and gagging being made unnecessarily
long. By the time it was over the poor wretch was almost fainting with
terror. Previous to the commencement of the operation a draught of arrak
was given him, and then commenced the work of butchery.
“Two deep cuts over each eye commenced the operation. Gashes which
turned great pieces of flesh over, and left the bone exposed. Then a cut
down each cheek, and a deeper one across each shoulder, nearly but not
quite severing the arm from its socket. A circular cut to the bone in
each upper arm and fore-arm followed, and then, stepping back to get
more scope, the executioner hacked off the right hand with one blow. A
large piece of flesh was then cut or rather dug out of each thigh, and
from over each knee, and the flesh torn off both kneecaps. The calves of
the legs were then cut off.
“Up till now a straight heavy sword had been the weapon used. The human
devil who acted as executioner wielding it with as much ease and
dexterity as if he had been carving a fowl. The sword was now put aside,
and a thin-bladed knife, about a foot long, driven in to the hilt, under
the right breast-bone, the executioner working it slowly round and round
while his assistant fanned the victim with a large palm-leaf fan for the
double purpose of keeping the flies off, and hiding the contortions of
the poor wretch’s face, who was not yet dead, as evinced by the
twitching of the fingers of his remaining hand. Ten or twelve seconds
more of this diabolical torture, and the victim was cut down from the
cross, to fall, inert and helpless, on his knees and face. He was then
decapitated and the sentence completed.”
These barbarous and disgusting proceedings seem the more awful when we
consider that the poor wretch whose execution I have described was not
the actual author of the crime for which he suffered. He was what is
known in China as a “substitute.” There are many in this strange land,
who for a small sum of money will cheerfully die for the pleasure of two
or three days spent in dissipation and riot. The murderer himself was
probably looking on with the crowd, unmoved at what should by rights
have been his own execution.
There are other Chinese punishments quite as revolting as the Ling Chi,
which do not, however, necessarily end in death. A very common one (to
be seen almost daily in the streets of Pekin) is the “Cangue,” two large
pieces of wood, each with a semicircular hole in the middle, which are
worn round the neck. The hands are placed at right angles through other
holes in the board, which weighs from sixty to two hundred pounds
according to circumstances. This is worn from three days to two, or even
three, months according to the nature of the crime. The “Cage” is
another very common punishment, and is used for minor offences. The
wretched occupant of this can neither sit, stand, nor lie down.
Prisoners are kept in this position for a period varying from a week to
a month. In the latter case they are usually rendered cripples for life.
Another favourite punishment (often used to punish adultery) is pulling
out the hand and toe nails, teeth, eye-lashes, and nostrils; but perhaps
the most painful of any is the “Wire Shirt,” a thin wire garment made to
fit the body so tightly that small pieces of skin are pressed through
every aperture. A sharp razor is then passed over these outside, so that
when the shirt is removed the victim from head to waist is one piece of
raw quivering flesh.
Many others could I cite, but enough of this unsavoury subject. China is
full of contradictions, and none are more striking than the cruelty and
kindness of its population, for there exists no kinder-hearted or more
liberal being than the Chinaman. There are, of course, exceptions; the
rebel Yeh, for instance, who was degraded by the Emperor for treachery
in 1857, when brought to Calcutta, where he died, confessed to having
executed more than 70,000 souls while he was in office.
We rode slowly on the whole afternoon through fields of grain, pretty
villages asleep in the sun, with no sign of life in them but beggars and
dogs lying huddled in the dusty road, under the shade of wall or shed,
sleeping away the hot, silent hours in indolent content. It seemed at
times as if we should never reach Pekin, though the mountains beyond it
looked provokingly close in the bright clear atmosphere. The heat was
intense, but a cool breeze now and then sprung up, and made it not
unpleasant travelling as we rode through some of the prettiest scenery
it has ever been my lot to look upon. The golden fields of oats and
barley, the pretty villages dotted here and there over the plain, the
ruddy, healthy-looking peasantry at work gathering in the harvest, and,
here and there, the country-seat of some wealthy Mandarin, with its
broad avenues, willow-fringed lake, and deer park, wore a happy,
civilized look strangely at variance with one’s preconceived notions of
the remoter parts of the Celestial Empire. Had it not been for the
quaint pagodas and temples resplendent in crimson and gold carvings that
we passed every mile or so, one might have fancied oneself in some
picturesque corner of far away England.
One circumstance alone considerably marred our enjoyment of the lovely
scenery——to wit, the streams of beggars who towards evening came out by
hundreds from the holes and corners in which they had been lying during
the heat of the day. A more importunate or determined set of wretches I
never saw. Ranging from the ages of five to fifty, half naked and
covered with sores, the wretches refused to be driven off, and insisted
on accompanying us in unpleasant proximity——some of them for miles. Now
and anon one would run forward, and kneeling, beat his head upon the
ground——an operation called in China the “Koo-Too.” Passing through one
of the villages, I fairly lost my temper, and turning round, shook my
stick at the yelling, dancing ruffians, who, much to the amusement of
the villagers, almost barred our progress. The effect was magical. In a
second their demeanour changed, and what had been a crowd of cringing,
supplicating wretches turned to a hooting, menacing crowd. Things looked
awkward at first, and I thought, for a few moments, we were in for an
ugly row. Mud and stones were showered on us freely, and one gaunt
leprous-looking individual, half naked, ran up on his crutches and
seized my donkey’s bridle. Seeing from the indifferent and half-amused
expression on the bystanders’ faces that we should get no help from
_them_, I thought discretion the better part of valour, and scattered a
handful of cash among our persecutors, which had the effect of slowly
dispersing them. This _contretemps_, trivial as it was, showed the
danger of ever for a moment annoying the people in the country we were
about to travel through. Though good-tempered and hospitable, the
Northern Chinaman has but a very poor idea of a European, English or
otherwise. Indeed, I doubt if the majority of the peasantry had ever
heard of England.
The approach to Pekin from Tungchow is anything but imposing, and we
were rather disappointed at our first sight of the celestial city. The
country for a mile or so before reaching the gates is so densely wooded
that we did not know we had reached the capital till we found ourselves
actually under its massive crenellated walls. The latter are surmounted
by lofty square towers which, with their bright apple-green porcelain
roofs and gaudy façades relieve to a certain extent the barren
appearance of the sandy waste that surrounds Pekin. Not a roof or tower
of the city is visible from here, nothing but the high rugged walls
which, notwithstanding their great age, are in good repair. There was
nothing to tell one that on the other side of these there lay a place
almost as large as Paris in area and population. Nothing but the hoarse,
subdued murmur, confused and indistinct, that hangs over every great
city.
A few hundred yards brought us to the gate of the Tartar city, and, ye
gods! what a city! Upon first entering, it seemed as if a dense fog had
suddenly descended upon one, but a look back at the bright sunshine
outside the gates soon dispelled the illusion, and explained the
mystery: it was nothing but dust, the black, fine, and searching dust,
for which Pekin is famous. Everything was coated with it. One breathed
it in with every inhalation, till eyes, mouth, and nose were choked up,
and breathing became almost an impossibility. No one seemed to mind it
much, though our donkeys laboured through it nearly knee-deep.
We rode for some distance along the filthy, dusty streets. There is no
rule of the road in Pekin, and it took one all one’s time to steer
safely through the carts, sedans, mule litters, and camel caravans which
thronged the streets. At length we turned into the principal
thoroughfare, a broad unpaved street, raised in the centre, on either
side of which one saw a long vista of low roofed houses, scrubby trees,
and gaudy shop-signs, lost in the distance in a cloud of dust. We were
in Pekin at last.
In Pekin, but apparently a long way yet from our destination, the Hôtel
de Pékin; and judging from our small guide’s very erratic movements, we
were not likely for some time to reach that friendly hostelry, which is
kept by an enterprising Frenchman, M. ————. The disagreeable suspicion
that our guide had lost his way became a certainty, when turning down a
narrow by-lane, he brought us up all standing at the door of a filthy
tea-house. It was not a pleasant predicament. Imagine a Central African
suddenly turned loose in the streets of London, and you have our
position——with this difference, that the African would have had the pull
over us in the shape of a friendly policeman to take him to the station.
Here, in this city of nearly two million inhabitants, it seemed unlikely
enough that we should come across any of the English-speaking
inhabitants, who number fifty to sixty at the most.
Threats of punishment and vengeance on the small boy were useless. He
simply seated himself, and calling for a cup of tea, informed us we must
find our way ourselves, he did not know it——at least that is what we
inferred from his gestures, which were disrespectful in the extreme.
With a lively recollection of our escape of the afternoon, we did not
care to risk another disturbance, so, resigning ourselves to
circumstances, dismounted and called for tea.
It was not a pleasant half-hour, for we were surrounded in less than
five minutes by a crowd of the most insolent, dirtiest ruffians
imaginable. We had evidently been brought to one of the very lowest
quarters of the town, and were not sorry to have left our watches in the
carts. With the exception of our revolvers and a few cash they would not
have been much the richer for robbing us. I should be sorry to have much
to do with the inhabitants of the Chinese capital. There is no more
obliging and hospitable being than the Chinese peasant, no more
insolent, arrogant thief than the lower order of Pekinese. The victory
of the imperial troops over the French in Tonquin is, in a great
measure, responsible for the insolence displayed by the inhabitants of
Pekin towards Europeans. Insults are perpetrated almost daily, and in
the open streets, for which there is no redress, and it is only
necessary to go for a very short walk in the streets of the capital to
see that the lesson taught the Celestials by the allied troops in 1860
has long since been forgotten.
We should probably have had to pass the night in this unsavoury den, had
not a European passed and by the greatest luck caught sight of us
through the narrow gateway. Our deliverer, Mr. P., an American
missionary, himself escorted us through a labyrinth of crowded streets
and squares to Legation Street. We should certainly never have found our
way otherwise, for there were no outward and visible signs even here of
European inhabitants, till just before reaching the hotel, we passed the
French Embassy, and saw, through an open gateway, a spacious shady
garden with smooth-shaven lawns, cedars, and fountains, while over the
doorway, in large gold letters on a vermilion ground, were the words
“Légation de France.” A couple of hundred yards further on we pulled up
at the door of our caravanserai. Thanking and taking leave of our
friend, we entered the building, and were not sorry to find ourselves in
the cool, grey-tiled, flower-bordered courtyard of the hotel; where a
whisky and soda with plenty of ice washed the dust out of our throats
and refreshed us not a little after our long and somewhat eventful ride.
The baggage arrived an hour after, and after a bath and change we felt
well disposed to do justice to the excellent dinner provided for us by
M. ————, the repast being graced by the presence of his wife, pretty
Madame ————, and her sister. Sitting out after dinner in the little
moonlit courtyard redolent of heliotrope and mignonette, one might have
fancied oneself hundreds of miles from the dusty, ill-smelling city, and
its barbaric population. The smells did not, thank goodness, penetrate
here; and for the first time since leaving Tientsin, we thoroughly
enjoyed an after-dinner cigar, not a little relieved that the
starting-point, at any rate, of our long land journey had been safely
reached.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
CHAPTER II.
PEKIN.
IT was only in the year 1421 that Pekin became the capital of the
Chinese Empire. It was up to that period merely the chief town of
Northern China, as its name “Pe,” north, “Ching,” city, denotes; but
when Nankin, the ancient capital, was abandoned, the seat of government
was transferred to its present situation. A worse site for a capital,
both commercially and socially, can scarcely be imagined, for although
connected by canal with the Peiho river, and thus in summer with the
rest of the civilized world, the ice in winter entirely suspends water
communication. It is, therefore, for five months of the year,
practically a prison for the fifty or sixty Europeans located within its
grass-grown walls, for few are rash enough to attempt a journey overland
to Chefoo or Shanghai.
There is little or no foreign trade with Pekin, and with one exception
no European merchants live there. The embassies of various nations,
English and American missions, and professors connected with the college
form the majority of the European population. A good deal of difference
of opinion exists as to the native population of the capital. Some say
it is a million and a half, others not more than nine hundred thousand.
In the opinion of Professor P————, who has resided for over twenty years
in the place, and is well up in Chinese matters, it is considerably over
a million, of whom two-thirds inhabit the Tartar city. The remainder are
Chinese, who yearly increase, while their Tartar neighbours are
diminishing in number.
In shape Pekin may be roughly described as a square within an oblong,
the former standing for the Tartar city, the latter for the Chinese. The
outer walls, which are about sixty feet high and of immense thickness,
stand about a hundred and fifty yards from the city itself, the space
between being occupied by barren sandy waste, along which in the season
hundreds of caravans may be seen daily wending their way to or from the
Mongolian Desert and Manchuria. Inside this, again, are two smaller
walls, also, however, of considerable height, enclosing the imperial and
forbidden cities, that enclosing the latter being surmounted with bright
yellow tiles, the imperial colour, which none but the Emperor or Queen
Regent are permitted to make use of. A Roman Catholic church was built
not far from the walls of the Imperial Palace two or three years since,
and, in ignorance presumably, the European architect was commencing to
roof it over with tiles of the sacred colour, when luckily warned of the
risk he was running by one of the European residents; not, however,
before it had come to the Emperor’s ears, and since then the poor
priests connected with the building are given no peace. The two high
western towers which flank the building are visited night and day by a
mandarin, to see that no steps have been built up them by the foreign
devils, whence they may survey the palaces and gardens of the imperial
city. Latterly, to make assurance doubly sure, the walls of the latter
have been raised to the height of the church towers at the point where
the latter face them.
There are nine gates in all in the outer wall, situated in various parts
of the city, and called after the points of the compass at which they
stand; viz., the North Gate, South Gate, North-west Gate, and so on.
These are closed at seven in summer, and six in winter, and woe to the
luckless wretch who is locked out, for the guard dare not open under
pain of death till sunrise the following morning, be it in the height of
summer or the thermometer below zero. The inhabitants cannot complain of
due notice not being given. For full half an hour before closing time
there is at every guard-house or gate a beating of gongs and clashing of
cymbals that would awaken the dead. Then at the hour to a second the
guard give one long unearthly yell, and the ponderous iron-bound gates
are thrown together with a crash till six or seven the next morning.
All the walls are built facing the four points of the compass, and the
principal thoroughfares and streets run parallel to them.
Notwithstanding this apparent regularity and simplicity of construction,
the Chinese capital is the easiest place in the world to lose yourself
in, as we frequently found; so much so, that after the first time we
always employed a guide when we took our walks abroad.
Our first impressions of Pekin were not favourable, for a dustier,
noisier, dirtier place it has never been my lot to visit. Upon entering
the Hat Ta Men Gate the city presents more the appearance of a huge fair
than anything else, for the crowded streets are lined with canvas booths
and tents as well as houses. The roads are very broad, some so much so
as to dwarf the low rickety dwellings, gaudy with gold and crimson signs
and waving banners, into insignificance. The streets are unpaved and
raised in the centre to a height of three or four feet for carriage
traffic, the space on either side being reserved for foot-passengers,
though there did not seem to be any marked distinction, the carts using
both ways as they liked.
In dry weather the streets of Pekin are over ankle-deep in dust, in wet
weather are simply a morass. Being worn away in places into holes of two
or three feet deep, the effects of the clouds of dust or showers of
water that every cart-wheel throws up and around may be imagined. At
intervals of about fifty yards along the footway are holes eight or nine
feet deep. These are receptacles for every species of filth; in fact,
serve the purpose of stationary sewers (for Pekin is not drained), and
are only cleaned out when quite full (about once a week). In very dry
weather, when water is scarce, the dust is laid with the liquid filth
they contain, an operation hardly tending to cool or purify the
atmosphere!
If we, in England, must eat, according to the proverb, a peck of dirt
before we die, I feel convinced that the inhabitants of Pekin swallow at
least a hundredweight before their last hour. The dust of Pekin is, next
to its smells, undoubtedly its greatest curse. There is no escaping from
the fine, brown powder that chokes up eyes, nose and mouth, and finds
its way into everything——your food, your clothes, your very boots. There
is a saying among the Chinese, that it will worm its way into a
watch-glass. Not only is it productive of considerable physical
discomfort and annoyance, but it gives a depressing, gloomy look to
everything, which on a really dusty day makes it impossible to discern
objects one hundred yards off. The sun may be shining brightly outside
the city walls, when within all is dark and murky as a thick November
fog in London could make it. Indeed it is far worse than the latter,
which you can, at any rate, shut out to a certain extent with closely
drawn curtains and brightly-lit rooms.
Pekin is by no means an unhealthy city, notwithstanding the disgusting
and uncleanly habits of its population, and its low situation (only one
hundred and twenty feet above sea level). Strange to say, the good
health of its inhabitants is attributed in a great measure to the dust,
which acts as a deodorizer and disinfectant to the heaps of filth and
garbage one encounters at every turn bleaching and rotting in the
sunshine. The climate is, on the whole, good, the only really unhealthy
months being those of July, August and September, when the rainfall is
excessive. The extremes of temperature, however, are somewhat trying to
Europeans of weak constitution. For instance, in July the thermometer is
often up to over 100° in the shade, while in winter it frequently falls
to below zero. When an epidemic does occur, it is severe, for the
Chinese are much prone to fright and panic during these visitations.
Cholera broke out only four or five years since, and carried off an
average of twelve hundred daily. The two greatest scourges are small-pox
and diphtheria, and an enormous number of deaths occur annually from the
latter disease in early spring. Typhoid fever and ophthalmia (from the
dust) are also prevalent at times, but small-pox is the commonest
disease among the Chinese themselves, who look upon it very much as we
do upon measles, although it is none the less fatal for all that. As a
prevention, the native doctors inoculate by blowing a quantity of the
virus of the actual disease up the nostrils. I was made unpleasantly
aware of this fact by one of the hotel servants, who spoke a few words
of English. Noticing that one of his nostrils was stopped up with a
dirty piece of cotton wool, I inquired if he had hurt his nose. “Oh,
no,” was the reply, “smol-pok!” This habit has, no doubt, a great deal
to do with the spread of the disease, which is always more or less
prevalent in Pekin; and I was not sorry we had taken the precaution of
being vaccinated in Shanghai.
All susceptibility and refinement must be cast aside when walking in the
streets of Pekin. I could not attempt to describe one quarter of the
disgusting sights and outrages on decency that continually met the eye
in this unfragrant city, even in broad daylight. I was not surprised to
hear that no European resident ever dreams of walking about the streets
of the capital if he can possibly avoid it. No lady could possibly do
so. As any one who has ever visited it must know, there exists no
dirtier city in the world than Pekin, no filthier individual, both
morally and physically, than the Pekinite. Cleanliness and decency are
words unknown in his vocabulary. As for washing, he never dreams of it.
In winter he puts on five or six layers of clothes, taking them off by
degrees as the weather gets warmer, until he is reduced to the white
linen shirt and trousers that he wore the preceding summer. With the
approach of the cold weather he gradually resumes his winter garb.
Being provided with letters of introduction to the British and Russian
ministers, we made our way to the former legation the morning after our
arrival. With the exception of Belgium, whose minister had been recalled
about two months before we arrived, nearly every nation in the world has
its representative at Pekin. The English Embassy is a perfect palace and
stands apart from the other legations on the banks of the Grand Imperial
Canal, a stream once fringed by handsome stone banks or quays, which,
like everything else in Pekin, have long fallen into ruin and decay. The
half-dry canal now presents more the appearance of a dirty ditch of
stagnant water than what it once was, an important waterway.
It was quite a relief to get out of the dusty, ill-smelling street, as
passing a smart, white-clad English sentry, we entered the cool, shady
grounds of the Embassy. The building was formerly the palace of the Duke
Liang (a relation of the former Emperor), but was ceded to the British
after the campaign of 1860. Probably in no other part of the world does
the English Government possess a representative building so thoroughly
typical of the country it is in. The pavilions of Chinese architecture,
intricate carvings of roof and cornice, vermilion and gold pillars that
form the entrance contrasted strangely with the interior where the cool,
dimly-lit rooms, fresh with the scent of flowers and replete with every
European luxury and comfort, bore witness to the good taste and
refinement of the charming “Ambassadrice,” who, fresh from Paris, and
clad in one of Worth’s _chefs-d’œuvre_, looked strangely out of place in
dirty, dusty, semi-savage Pekin!
“You will never,” said Sir John W————, “get through to Kiakhta without
an interpreter. I could not allow you to attempt it, so I fear you must
make up your minds to remain in Pekin for at least a week. By that time
I shall have got you your Chinese passports, and I hope an interpreter
to accompany you as far as the Russian frontier. I must tell you that it
is not easy, for the Chinese have an unaccountable aversion to crossing
the desert of Gobi.”
Our next visit was to the Russian minister, M. Coumany, to whom we had
letters of introduction from M. de Staal, the Russian minister in
London. He was (as are most Russians) kindness itself, but met us with
the invariable question, “Why Siberia?” The picture M. Coumany drew of
the overland journey was certainly not pleasant or encouraging. “Here
are letters,” said he, “for the commissioner of Kiakhta and governors of
Tomsk and Nijni Novgorod. General Ignatieff of Irkoutsk is now away on
leave. But let me ask you to think twice before attempting this voyage.
You will experience nothing but annoyance and privation, the whole way
to Nijni Novgorod. You will find the monotony and fatigue almost
unbearable,——and with Japan so close!” he added, using the well-known
formula.
But we managed to convince our host, before leaving, that nothing would
deter us from at least making the attempt to reach Moscow by land. “Like
all Englishmen,” he said, smiling, “you are obstinate; and as you are
determined to go, let me give you a word of advice: Get off as soon as
you can, and out of Asia by October at latest. Siberia in autumn is a
hell upon earth.”
We returned to our hotel somewhat discouraged, for we had hoped that
three or four days at the most would suffice for our preparations.
However, there was no help for it, so to lose no time we set about
getting mules and litters for the four days’ journey to the Great Wall,
the first stage of our voyage, and trusted to Providence that “the Boy”
(as every Chinese servant from eighteen to eighty is called in China)
would arrive in a week or ten days at the latest.
There is much to do and see in Pekin, but the heat, dust and smells
detract considerably from the pleasures of a walk through the city.
Moreover, the Chinese, since their Tonquinese victories have become so
arrogant and insolent that many of the most interesting temples are now
closed to Europeans. Our favourite walk was on the summit of the outer
wall, where one could enjoy the cool evening breeze out of the dust and
stenches for a while. The Tartar or outer wall is a wonderful piece of
masonry about sixty feet high by as many broad, and, considering the
hundreds of years it has braved wind and weather, in a wonderful state
of repair. It is moss-grown on the summit, and the wild tangled herbage
grows knee deep. Were it not for the conservatism, to use no stronger
term, of the Chinese Government it would make a splendid drive or ride,
for it extends unbroken and in an excellent state of repair for upwards
of twenty-two miles. To show the jealousy of this strange race, a
European minister at Pekin once remarked to a mandarin what a pleasant
drive it would make, adding that it was really the only place in Pekin
where he could ever walk with any pleasure. “Oh! you walk there, do
you?” was the reply, and the very next afternoon, on arriving for his
daily constitutional, he found the gate closed, and an order posted
forbidding all Europeans to ascend the wall. This order was, however,
cancelled a year after, fortunately for us, and we enjoyed our evening
strolls undisturbed, for we seldom saw a soul besides ourselves. It was
pleasant enough here in the cool of the evening, out of the dust which
on still days hung over the great city like a huge funeral pall. When
clear the view was lovely, the rugged, precipitous chain of hills in the
background, the densely packed, dwarfish-looking dwellings, and rays of
the setting sun flashing brightly on the green porcelain roofs and lofty
pagodas of the temples, and bright yellow tiles of the Imperial Palace,
composed a picture as unique as, on bright, clear evenings, it was
beautiful. As a rule, however, the dust obscured everything.
There is an observatory on this wall which was erected as far back as
A.D. 1279. In 1674 a Jesuit priest (one Father Verbest) superintended
its restoration, and from that day to this it has remained intact. On a
kind of platform above the level of the wall, and reached by an iron
staircase, are a quantity of bronze instruments——sextants, globes,
quadrants, &c, mounted on massively wrought stands representing strange
birds and beasts. Of enormous size, and some from twelve to fourteen
feet high and of immense weight, they looked a little distance off as if
a single man could lift them, so beautiful and delicate is their
moulding and workmanship, and though of great value, were left untouched
when the allies entered Pekin in 1860, probably by direction of the
commanders-in-chief. It seemed strange that although they have stood in
the open for so many hundred years, uncared for and uncleaned, they bore
not the slightest traces of decay from time or weather——one especially,
a huge globe of the heavens in bronze with the constellations thereon in
gold and silver, looked as if it had been placed there but yesterday.
From the summit of the observatory one may look down into the Board of
Examinations, a walled space of some eighty acres, with rows of
queer-looking little boxes or cells for students. Competitive
examinations for Government appointments are held here every three
years, and so severe are the subjects that many of the candidates go
mad. During the examinations, which last three days, no one is allowed
to enter or leave the building. On one occasion two students died, but
the doors were not opened. Their bodies were hoisted over the wall, and
carried to the burial-ground by the friends awaiting them outside.
We occasionally returned from these expeditions along the pieces of
waste land, sandy and sterile, which bound the city walls, and
frequently came upon groups or squads of Manchu soldiery at target
practice with the bow and arrow. The men are fine strapping fellows and
well set up, but their weapons wretched, clumsy things, carrying barely
thirty yards. The greater portion of the Chinese army consists of these
Manchu Tartars. A force of eighty thousand quartered in Manchuria under
the command of Germans, forms the backbone of the Chinese army, and
consists of cavalry, artillery, and infantry, the latter armed with the
new Berdan rifle. Nearly the whole of the remainder of the Imperial army
use the old bow and arrow of their ancestors, and I do not think I
exaggerate when I say that there is not a rifle among the soldiery in
Pekin.
The Chinese are, indeed, a strange and unaccountable race. It is hard to
credit that a nation possessing ironclads and the latest improvements in
light and heavy guns at the mouth of the Peiho river still clothes its
soldiers at the capital in tiger-skins, and instructs them in the art of
making faces to frighten the enemy.[1] Clever and civilized as he is in
many things, the Chinaman’s forte clearly does not lie in firearms. A
German officer of one of the Imperial gunboats told me that a
consignment of three hundred Martini-Henry rifles was one day received
on board his ship, with one hundred rounds of ammunition to each. A
short time after, returning from a week’s leave, he found that by order
of the Chinese commander they had all been thrown overboard. The
ammunition was exhausted, argued the latter, what was the use of keeping
the rifles!
We made but two excursions into the city itself the whole time we
remained in Pekin, and after the first time on foot. I only rode in a
Pekin cab once. They are not pretty conveyances to look at, being a sort
of box, four feet long by three feet broad, fastened to two long poles
or beams, and supported by a pair of clumsy ponderous wooden wheels in
iron tires. The roof is of thick dark blue cloth, with two little
gauze-covered windows on either side. Most of them are drawn by mules,
an animal which is looked upon in Pekin as of far greater value than a
horse or pony, and fetches far higher prices. T do not think I have ever
seen finer mules, even in Spain, than in North China.
To describe the celestial capital is not difficult. One street is so
exactly like another, that when you have seen a bit of the place you
have seen the whole of it. The principal street of the Tartar city may
be described in very few words. A broad straggling thoroughfare, knee
deep in dust, with low, tumble-down houses on either side, hidden at
intervals by dirty canvas booths, wherein fortune-tellers, sellers of
sweetmeats, keepers of gambling-hells, and jugglers ply their trade.
Deep open cesspools at every fifty yards; crowds of dirty, half-naked
men and painted women; mandarins and palanquins preceded by gaudily-clad
soldiers on horseback and followed by a yelling rabble of men and boys,
armed with flags, spears, and sticks, on foot; Tartar ladies in mule
litters, hung with bells and bright cloths; dark, savage-looking
Mongolians from the desert, leading caravans of camels; Chinamen in
grey, green, or heliotrope silk, Chinamen in rags, and Chinamen in
nothing at all; water-carriers, soldiers, porters, sellers of fruit and
ice, the latter coated with dust, like everything else, and looking
singularly uninviting; Chow-chow and sweetmeat sellers; camels, mules,
ponies, oxen carts thronging the ruined roadway; a deafening noise of
bells, cymbals, shouting and cursing; indecency and filth everywhere,
with a dusty, gloomy glare over everything, even on the brightest day,
while the air everywhere around is poisoned with the hot, sickly smell
peculiar to Pekin. Such was the impression one usually retained of a
walk through the capital on a summer’s day. We saw many curious sights,
but most were of such a nature that I cannot describe them. A Chinese
funeral we passed one day is perhaps worth mention. An enormous
procession, nearly a mile long, bore witness to the fact that the
deceased was a man of some rank. A number of relations clad in white
(Chinese mourning), preceded the catafalque, strewing flowers and
burning incense before it. Every hundred yards or so a halt was made,
and a huge white sheet spread upon the ground on which the mourners lay
flat on their breasts and stomachs, repeatedly beating their heads
against the ground. Immediately in front of the coffin was the
deceased’s property, his horse, hat, pipe, &c, and sedan. The latter
startled one somewhat, for seated in it was a figure which, on closer
inspection, we discovered to be a waxen effigy of the dead man himself,
clad in the clothes he had worn just before death. The huge oaken coffin
was so heavy that it took sixty or seventy men to carry it. At the end
of the procession of relatives and friends came the rabble and
“followers” of the deceased. The Chinese custom is to set the coffin
down on reaching the burial-ground with a light layer of earth over it
till the wood begins to rot. It is then covered thickly with earth, but
not buried. The dead in China are never put underground.
The quieter and less frequented streets of the city were not so bad;
narrow, unpaved byways fringed on either side with high white walls of
brick and plaster, enclosing the houses of well-to-do merchants, or the
better class of tradesmen; quaint little dwellings, curiously carved and
gorgeous with blue, vermilion, and gold façades, having neat
flower-gardens in front, and willow-fringed ponds. One occasionally
caught a glimpse, through an open porch, of the proprietor, his day’s
work over, clad in a light and airy costume consisting of a pair of
drawers, lazily watching the gold fish in the clear lily-covered water,
or studying his _Pekin Gazette_, the oldest daily paper, by the way, in
existence. Occasionally Madame was visible sharing the joys of her lord
and master’s leisure-hours, but not often; for when you visit a Chinaman
he seldom presents you to his wife, although the latter is not kept at
all secluded or under lock and key. A Chinese woman has as much liberty
as an English one, maritally speaking, though, as I have said, one does
not often meet them. Most are said to make very good wives; unlike most
eastern and other nations, they have not the love of intrigue so
inherent as a rule in the female sex. A Chinaman may have, if he will,
one hundred concubines, but only one wife, who is the ruler and head of
his household.
One is much struck with the good looks of the Pekin women when compared
with those of Southern China. Those most frequently met with are
Tartars, who do not, as a rule, contract and deform their feet. It is
only in the Chinese city that one meets poor creatures rolling about the
streets with their arms extended, like ships in distress. In some parts
of China a bride’s value is reckoned by the smallness of her foot. The
operation of contracting it, which is performed in early youth, is not
painful. Four of the toes are bent under the sole of the foot, to which
they are firmly pressed, and to which they grow together, the great toe
being left in its natural state. The fore part of the foot is then
compressed with strong bandages so that it shoots upwards and appears
like a large lump at the instep, where it forms as it were part of the
leg. The lower part of the foot is sometimes not more than four inches
long by one inch broad! This practice is, however, said to be dying out,
even among the Chinese.
The ornament of which the Celestial is so proud, his pigtail, was in
reality introduced into China by the Tartars, who as Mahometans tried to
force the Koran on to the whole of China at the commencement of their
Dynasty. To this the Chinese would not submit, but an edict was
promulgated by the first Tartar ruler that every subject should shave
his head in Mahometan fashion, leaving only the small tuft of hair by
which the Faithful are supposed to be drawn up to Heaven when they die.
The Chinese, artistic in all they do, converted the ridiculous and
shaggy tuft of hair into a thick tail, the careful plaiting of which is
now the Chinaman’s greatest delight and pride. It is, moreover, a very
suitable head-dress for Pekin. We found brushing the head even twice a
day quite useless, for the hair was thick with dust ten minutes after
the operation.
The coinage current in Pekin is to a stranger more than confusing,
consisting as it does of “cash” and bar silver. With the former, small
coins of which about fifty go to a halfpenny, one has little to do. A
hole is stamped through the middle for greater convenience, and one
frequently sees in Pekin two or three necklaces of these worthless, but
weighty, pieces slung round a man’s neck, who is struggling along under
the value of perhaps eightpence or ninepence, English money. The silver
is in bars, and cut off as wanted. The _tael_ is not a coin, but a
weight of silver made up in paper packets of one, three, or four taels.
A mint has, I believe, been opened in Pekin since our visit, and a
proper coinage will be issued in a few months——no small advantage to
future visitors, for the difficulty of obtaining “change” at present is
somewhat great.
It is curious how little attention a European attracts when walking in
the streets of Pekin. Although there are many probably in that great
city who have never seen a white face, they evinced but little curiosity
when we visited the gambling-hells, opium-shops, and other dens of a
like description, and we passed through them unmolested, if not
unobserved. Here and there in the lower quarters of the capital,
however, the natives evidently preferred our room to our company. The
words “Yang Qweitze” fell with uncomfortable frequency upon the ear, and
on one occasion a shower of stones and mud hastened our retreat from a
house in the slums which our guide had imprudently allowed us to enter
and take stock of. As a general rule, however, the natives were civil
and obliging enough, and in the more aristocratic eating and tea-houses
we were frequently invited to partake of a cup of tea free gratis by the
proprietor.
The “Jeunesse Dorée” of Pekin are gay dogs. Theatres, restaurants, and
tea-houses abound, and the more populous quarters of the city are alive
with revelry, not to say riot, till four or five o’clock a.m. A good
deal more champagne and other alcoholic liquors are consumed than the
cup that is popularly supposed to cheer without inebriating.
Intoxication is a vice to which the Chinese masher (if I may so call
him) is particularly prone, although a very wrong impression exists in
Europe as to the disgusting animal food Chinamen are said to be in the
habit of eating. Cats, dogs, and even rats are, by many in England,
supposed to be devoured promiscuously, but this is not the case. Dogs
and rats are eaten, no doubt; in fact I have myself seen the dishes in
question, and very good they looked! But it must be remembered that the
rats are fed solely on farinaceous food, and carefully brought up by
hand. They are in reality far cleaner than our domesticated English pig.
The “chow” dog is a race of itself, and the only one ever eaten by the
better classes. The lower orders of course have to put up with what they
can get. A good dog or rat is as expensive a luxury in Pekin as venison
or turtle at home!
Strong drink leads to high play, and gambling in various forms is much
in vogue among the gilded youth of Pekin. Cards are the general mode,
but a sport at which enormous sums are won and lost is cricket-fighting.
The greatest care is lavished on these little animals, and large sums of
money paid for them. The trainers are brought up to the profession, and,
strange as it may seem, a good cricket in Pekin is almost as valuable to
his owner as a useful racehorse in England. The insects are fought in
little boxes like miniature rat pits. There is sometimes intense
excitement for weeks before an event in which two well-known crickets
are to compete. Game-cocks, pigeons, and even quail are also fought, but
the most popular sport is undoubtedly cricket-fighting. It is probably
also the most ancient of them all.
We strolled into a doctor’s shop one evening in the slums——a dirty,
gloomy little den——its grimy walls covered with phials of strange shapes
and cruel-looking instruments, while suspended from the ceiling hung a
number of dried reptiles and animals which looked weird and uncanny in
the dim, uncertain light. In a dark recess, and almost invisible in the
gloom, sat the doctor, a large book before him, his wizened old face
just visible in the rays of a flickering oil wick at his side. It
reminded one of the first act in “Faust,” and one instinctively looked
around for Mephistopheles. Though our guide informed us that this was
one of the most successful physicians in Pekin, his practice did not
seem extensive. I procured with difficulty the following Chinese
prescription, though for what ailment it is intended I am ignorant:——
Decoction of centipedes, one frog and three cockroaches, ten grains
calomel, three grains morphia, fifteen grains quinine!
Alas! for the poor patient who had to swallow it. Surely the deadliest
disease would be preferable to a mixture of cockroach and calomel!
Most of our waste time in Pekin (and we had plenty) was spent in the
numerous porcelain shops with which the city abounds. It was curious to
walk out of the squalid, filthy streets, knee-deep in dust and reeking
with sewage, into the cool, luxurious rooms with their tesselated
pavements, fountains, and flowers, and hundreds of pounds’ worth of
beautiful wares laid out invitingly before one in _cloisonné_, jade, and
porcelain. We found it hopeless as a rule, to think of getting anything
at a reasonable price. Japan itself can produce nothing so beautiful and
graceful as true Pekin work, though, like everything else, it is
imitated, and there has been, of late years, a quantity of worthless
trash in the market. Like most eastern nations, the dealers “see a
European coming” and raise their prices accordingly. Unfortunately also,
unlike other eastern nations, they steadily refuse to lower them,
bargain he never so wisely. It made one’s mouth water to look round the
shelves of one of these shops, groaning with thousands of pounds’ worth
of treasure in porcelain and jade, and to think of the looting of the
Summer Palace in 1860.
I had always imagined the latter to be a building of Chinese
architecture, a great rambling place all domes, towers, and pagodas, but
found it more like a very perfect imitation, in miniature, of the
Tuileries. The morning of our visit one might have been standing on the
banks of the Seine and looking on the charred and blackened ruins of
Napoleon’s beautiful palace after the fatal September, 1870, had not the
red and yellow temples dotted at intervals round the sunlit plains, and
Chinese character of the landscape recalled us to a sense of the
situation, and reminded us of the distance we were from Fair France!
Anything less Chinese than the architecture of the Summer Palace I never
saw. It is in pure French style and was designed by Jesuits at a time
when they were more popular in China than at present. Standing in the
midst of such picturesque scenery, surrounded by such beautiful gardens,
park, woodland, and lakes, it seems a sin to have ever destroyed a
building which, with its characteristic indolence, the Imperial
Government has never attempted to restore. There it stands just as the
allies left it in 1860, even to the very names scrawled by Tommy Atkins
and the French “Piou-Pious” on its smoke-blackened walls and terraces,
and embellished here and there with verses, the work of some French or
English canteen poet, containing language more forcible than polite as
to the ways and customs of John Chinaman. To say nothing of the enormous
value of the _objets-d’art_ and furniture, over 32,000_l._ in solid
ingots of gold were found at the looting of the Palace, and a quantity
of valuable china and porcelain _cloisonné_ wantonly destroyed and left
on the spot by the troops. The Emperor in those days was a liberal and
merry monarch. The Summer Palace was before the war more like a
miniature Compiègne than anything else, with its theatricals,
hunting-parties, concerts, and revelry of other and less sober kinds, in
which the Emperor himself used freely to join; a very different
existence to that led by his harassed and melancholy descendant of the
present day.
The now reigning sovereign, “Kwang-Su,” is eighteen years of age, and by
the time these pages are in print will have taken unto himself a wife,
or rather one will have been taken for him by his aunt the Queen Regent
who, though her nephew has come to years of discretion, has even now a
good deal more to do with the management of affairs than the Emperor.
She is an arbitrary, ambitious woman, and, rumour has it, knows
considerably more about the death of the late Emperor than she cares to
own. “Kwang-Su,” cannot, like the Pope, be said to lead a happy life. As
a matter of fact, it is literally not his own. Everything must be done
by rule and under supervision of the court officials, even to eating and
sleeping. The poor boy gets little of the latter luxury, as frequent
cabinet councils are held at four in the morning, the Chinese ministers
averring that the head is clearer at that hour of the day than at any
other. I hardly think this plan would always succeed in Europe.
One can scarcely wonder that “Kwang-Su” is ill-tempered, morose, and
subject to fits of passion, during which he defies his aunt, destroys
everything within his reach, and declares he will not be Emperor, but
will escape and go and work in the fields, anything rather than be shut
up like a dog in the Forbidden City. And truly it must be a wretched
existence. Every day is planned out beforehand. Not a detail is omitted,
even to the very clothes he wears. It must be more than annoying to be
given, say a mutton chop, when one particularly wants a beefsteak,
champagne when you know it disagrees with you, and you much prefer
claret, or a thin suit of clothes when you feel cold and require a thick
one. The Emperor’s studies take up about nine hours of the day. His
great joke when we were at Pekin, was to beg his tutors, the constant
relays of whom annoyed him to desperation, to let him look at their
watches. No sooner were they handed to him, than they were violently
dashed on the ground and stamped upon. By this means, Kwang-Su argued,
they would not know what time to come another day. Since his Majesty’s
new “game,” however, most of the professors sent to Shanghai for
Waterbury watches. Gold and silver ones became expensive.
Riding or walking, hunting in the green fields and shady forests, or
fishing in the blue willow-fringed lakes of the Forbidden City, although
as far removed from the turmoil and foul smells of Pekin as the desert
of Gobi itself, the Emperor is never alone. There is always a retinue
following him to tell him what to do and when to do it: to remind him,
for instance, when at four o’clock he is enjoying his favourite pastime
of fishing, and has forgotten for a brief period the caring cares of
monarchy, that at 4.15 he must abandon the pursuit for a deer-hunt, or a
walk (always accompanied by a suite), in a specified part of the grounds
of the city. The latter must be a curious place, for the eye of the
white barbarian is never allowed to look within its walls, save when, at
very rare intervals, the European ministers are admitted to audience in
a particular part of the palace.
It was in 1873 that the Great Audience question was finally settled to
the satisfaction of all the European powers, and their representatives
presented to the Emperor “Tung Che” in the European manner. It had been
argued ever since the mission of Lord Amherst in 1814, and
unsuccessfully. On that occasion the envoy returned without seeing the
Emperor, the latter insisting that he could only do so on condition that
he prostrated himself, but this, as the king of England’s
representative, Lord Amherst declined to do, and returned to England.
Even at the present time audiences are extremely rare, and only occur,
if at all, on the most important occasions. Even the Duke of Edinburgh,
when he visited Pekin in 1869, was refused one. The Chinese ministers
themselves are not allowed to approach the imperial presence nearer than
a distance of about sixty or seventy yards. The Emperor sits at the end
of a long, narrow, funnel-like passage, while his ministers prostrate
themselves in a small apartment at the end of it. The Empress Regent is
still more unapproachable, for when she holds a reception, it is from
behind a large screen. On one occasion she became so excited during an
argument, that her head appeared over the top, and the ministers were
able to gaze (if for an instant only) on the sacred features. The
Emperor is the sole male inmate of the Forbidden City, a gigantic harem,
beside which even the seraglios of Stamboul pale into insignificance,
for the moon’s cousin is surrounded within his golden tiled walls by a
population of no less than three thousand women and eunuchs.
Kwang-Su has very little notion of what his capital is like. When he is
taken for a drive, it means weeks of careful preparation, the sums of
money devoted to patching up the streets through which he passes are
fabulous. Were one half of the millions which are supposed to be
expended on the keeping in order of the city honestly laid out, Pekin
would be a very different place to what it is. But so long as the
filching and robbery carried on by the mandarins and others in office
continue, the Chinese capital must always remain the dirty dust-heap it
now is. A case in point came under my notice while in Pekin, and is one
illustration of the enormous sums that yearly find their way into the
pockets of the mandarins. A drain had to be built from the French
Embassy to the Imperial canal, a distance of about three hundred yards.
For this the Government was charged twenty-three thousand taels, the
European contractor being paid three thousand five hundred taels. The
mandarins pocketed the balance!
When Kwang Su takes an airing all European residents are warned by their
ministers to remain within doors, or at any rate away from that part of
the city through which the Emperor is to pass, and the most stringent
precautions are taken that no man, European or native, may look upon the
features of the sovereign. The doors and windows of the houses are
closed, and rich silks and tapestries hung from their walls, the streets
are carefully swept and watered, every hole carefully filled up, every
scrap of litter or offal carried away far from where, at a stated hour,
and punctual to the moment, the royal train rolls slowly along through
the empty, deserted streets. The Emperor must, therefore, have very
different ideas of Pekin from the ordinary run of mankind. Save for the
dust, which is of course unavoidable, it must seem a fair place enough
to Kwang-Su. Could he but see it as we did, I doubt if he would ever
again wish to leave the palaces and gardens, the deer-parks and lakes of
his beautiful prison.
The preliminaries for Kwang-Su’s nuptials were being carried out when we
were at Pekin. They are curious enough. The bridegroom is, or ought to
be, the chief party concerned in the choosing of a wife; not so the
wretched Kwang-Su. The sharer of his joys and sorrows is chosen by the
Empress Regent out of some three hundred or four hundred girls
(daughters of mandarins and others of high position), sent up to Pekin
from all parts of China for the purpose. Nor is the Emperor allowed to
see his _fiancée’s_ face even for a moment till the evening of the
wedding day. Though the Emperor is allowed but one actual wife, he can
make his choice and select as few or many concubines as he pleases, four
hundred or five hundred of the latter being sent to the capital on the
occasion of an Imperial marriage. The majority of them are women of low
birth, though some of the higher officials who wish to curry favour at
court also occasionally send their daughters.
It seems scarcely probable that China will become civilized for many,
many years to come, as long as the Emperor and his ministers continue to
set their faces against improvement of any kind, especially if it be
what they regard as an innovation of the “foreign devils.” For instance:
a company was formed a few years since to construct a railway from
Tientsin to the capital——a line which would have enormously improved and
benefited the trade of the latter, but the Government would not hear of
its construction. Permission was, however, granted to carry a line from
Shanghai to Woosung on the Yantzekiang river in 1877, an enterprise
which under European management, succeeded admirably till when one fine
day, not a year after its completion, an order came down from Pekin for
its immediate removal——and this command the unfortunate share-holders
were of course compelled to comply with.
The Emperor’s father was lately induced to make a trip to Tientsin at
the invitation of the European merchants living there. It was hoped that
seeing something of the outside world might open his eyes to the foolish
and lamentable practices of the Imperial Court. Every honour was shown
him——a salute fired from the French and English gunboats. Balls,
parties, receptions, dinners were given——everything in short, that money
could buy was procured to _fête_ him, and it was confidently hoped, so
agreeable and pleasant did he make himself, that his week’s visit would
send him back to Pekin a wiser man——also that some of this wisdom would
be imparted to his son the Emperor. But it was all in vain. All he did
on his return to the capital was to set to work and write a number of
satirical poems in Chinese, descriptive of his trip, and anything but
complimentary to his hosts, the White Barbarians. These poems were
published, and had an enormous sale in Pekin.
The long sunny days dragged wearily by. A week, a fortnight elapsed, and
still no boy. Our passports for China and Mongolia were in order, mules
and litters procured for the journey to the Great Wall——everything in
readiness for a start, which, however, Sir John W. would not hear of our
making without an interpreter. It was tedious work waiting. We seldom
left the hotel after the first week, except to dine at the Embassy, or
spend the afternoon in its cool, shady grounds, where one could while
away the weary hours with books and papers from the well-stocked
library. We did not often dine out, but when we did, preferred ploughing
through the dust or mire, on foot, to going in a Pekin cab, a
circumstance our neighbours at dinner ought to have been grateful for,
for these vehicles are crawling with vermin. It was necessary to take
lamps on these occasions, for the less frequented streets of the city
are unlit, and to be well armed with thick sticks for protection against
the dogs, whose name is legion, and who prowl about the city at night in
large numbers in search of food. Although of great size, they are mangy,
wretched-looking creatures. In gangs they are dangerous, and frequently
attack solitary and unarmed wayfarers; but, like the Turks at
Constantinople, the Pekinese do not harm them, for they are capital
scavengers, though the din they make at night is very trying to a
nervous constitution, and sleep in Pekin for the first two or three
nights is an impossibility.
I have said much against Pekin in this chapter, enough, perhaps, to
deter the reader from ever wishing to pay it a visit. I must at the same
time give it its due, for it is undoubtedly exempt from many of the
pests and annoyances of other Eastern cities. There are no mosquitoes to
speak of, nor sandflies, nor does that most irritating plague of all,
the common fly, torment you day and night as it does in other hot
climates. Indeed, it is not, on the whole, such a bad residence for
Europeans as many places I could name in India and other parts of the
East. The life is, of course, frightfully monotonous during the summer
months, when those connected with the Legations who can spare the time
betake themselves to the hills, some fifteen miles distant, where some
old temples have been fitted up to form rough though comfortable summer
retreats for those who are compelled to inhabit the dusty, stench-ridden
capital in the hot season.
The European population of Pekin is, as I have said, a very small one,
probably not more than sixty or seventy in all. It consists exclusively
of the various Legations, Missionary Houses and College. There is but
one mercantile establishment: the agency of the Hong Kong and Shanghai
Bank.
In winter there are many worse places in the world than this. It is only
then, indeed, that the European community ever make any effort to rouse
themselves. Sleighing and skating-parties, lawn tennis, by day——and
theatricals, dances, and dinner-parties by night, are the order of the
day.
Pekin is fairly healthy, even in summer, for Europeans, except for those
inclined to be nervous. In such cases the extremely rarified atmosphere
often precludes sleep and induces insomnia and other nervous diseases.
The sun, too, is more dangerous here than in any place (including
Borneo) that I have ever visited in the East. It knocks you over in a
second, and deaths from sunstroke, even among the natives, are frequent.
Living in Pekin though dear is excellent, and our host gave us little
dinners that would not have disgraced a Paris restaurant. Although not
manufactured, that greatest luxury of the East, ice, is cheap and
abundant. It is cut (out of the canals) in winter in huge blocks and
stored in early spring in large caves just outside the city walls. Fresh
fruit is also stored and preserved in the same manner, and I have eaten
a bunch of grapes in the month of July that had been stored the previous
October as fresh as if they had just been cut from the vine.
We resolved, after a weary fortnight of waiting, to take matters more
philosophically. It was useless chafing and worrying, either the boy
would come or he wouldn’t. “Tout vient à point à celui qui ‘sait’
attendre,” was a proverb we were always quoting with an assumed calmness
we were far from feeling. It was no great hardship waiting with such
comfortable quarters, we argued, but the _time_, that seemed to crawl
unless our thoughts turned to Siberia, when it flew with the speed of
lightning, was what daily and nightly harassed and worried us. Our host
and his pretty wife, however, did all they could to make us comfortable,
and thoroughly succeeded. Sitting out after dinner with a cigar in the
cool moonlit courtyard, redolent of verbena and mignonette, staring up
at the patch of starry heaven overhead, and listening to the distant and
soothing tinkle of madame’s piano, things would have seemed pleasant
enough had we not known that every day, every hour was of the utmost
importance. The Russian minister’s words, too, would keep cropping up,
spoiling one’s digestion and upsetting patience and equanimity: “Get off
as soon as you can; Siberia in early autumn is a hell upon earth.” Alas!
we now began to realize that another month of delay would land us there
at this very season.
We spent Jubilee Day at Pekin. A full-dress reception was held at the
British Embassy in the afternoon, while at night the gardens were
illuminated with hundreds of coloured lamps, the two entrance pavilions
turned into reception-rooms, and a ball given to the European community.
It was hard to realize that one was really in this hidden corner of the
earth. With so many smart gowns and pretty faces around, one might have
been in a London or Paris ball-room, and though the number was very
limited, the evening was none the less agreeable for that, for Pekin
has, or had at the time of our visit, more than its fair share of female
beauty when compared with Shanghai or Hong Kong.
The dancing wound up with a display of fireworks (Pekin made) in the
grounds, and though of native manufacture the most loyal English subject
could not have found fault with the excellent portrait of her Majesty
(in fireworks) that drew forth enthusiastic applause from the crowd of
natives at the gates and wound up the proceedings. Though day was
dawning, dancing was still in full swing when we left the Embassy and
took leave of our kind host and charming hostess, without whose kindly
aid and hospitality we should indeed have felt lost those long weary
days of delay and _ennui_ in the dusty capital.
Though advised not to attempt it, we resolved to ride as much as
possible across the Gobi Desert. We had not yet seen a camel cart, but
had heard quite enough of its miseries to determine us never to occupy
it longer at a time than was absolutely necessary. So having taken the
trouble to bring saddles out with us, we resolved to chance the loss of
the ponies, and managed to get two strong wiry-looking Mongolian ones,
about fourteen hands high, for 8_l_. English apiece. We tried many
before pitching on the right sort. Lancaster’s first attempt at a
purchase was not a lucky one. The brute lay on its side the moment he
mounted, and resolutely refused to move, much to the delight of the
crowd who had assembled to see what the “Yang Qweitze” were about.
However, after many and varied experiences he managed to pick up a
smart-looking bay pony only four years old. Mine was considerably older,
but they were both sturdy, plucky little beasts; looked up to any amount
of fatigue——and as we afterwards found by no means belied their
appearance.
Our host rushed in one bright sunny morning with a beaming countenance,
before we were out of bed. “Courage, messieurs, your boy has arrived,”
at the same time handing me a blue envelope containing a note from the
Embassy. “Boy will arrive to-day from Tientsin.” This was welcome news
indeed, and I turned round for another snooze with a blessed feeling of
relief and gratitude. All would now be well. To-morrow morning would see
us _en route_ for the Great Wall. We had saved, by the skin of our
teeth, detention in Siberia. With any luck November would see us in
Moscow.
At 5.30 “the boy” arrived; a tall, forbidding-looking Chinaman, with a
sullen, hang-dog expression that inspired but little confidence. I saw
in five minutes the kind of gentleman we had to deal with. Sulky,
obstinate, and as sly as a fox, with a shifty, restless eye that could
not look you in the face for two seconds together.
“Well, so you’ve come at last! What has kept you so long at Tientsin?”
“Jubilee!”
The bare idea of this human scarecrow assisting at a festival of any
sort was too funny. But I knew the man lied.
“Will you come with us to Kiakhta?”
“All depend what get. No can go for less than $300. If no take me,
master get no one. All afraid go desert. Afraid Mongol man.”
The insolent, swaggering tone of the man annoyed, nearly as much as the
exorbitant price he asked surprised, me. I knew it was out of all
reason. But the wretch was well aware of our helpless position, and all
my hopes of a speedy start for the desert sank below zero. To give the
price he named would have been not only absurd but fatal. We should have
been mercilessly swindled at every village we came to, if not attacked
by robbers, when the news of our liberality and wealth became known, as
things do in China in an incredibly short space of time. We had besides
this reason, a far better one; we could not afford it.
“It is for you to accept an offer, not for you to make one,” I replied,
placing $6 on the table. “Now listen. Here are $6 for your fare back to
Tientsin if you do not come to my terms; and you must decide _at once_.
I will give you exactly $120, and not one cash more, to accompany us to
Kiakhta and find your own way back. Accept or refuse; and if the latter,
make yourself scarce, for I shall not change my mind.”
My sulky friend’s only reply was to carelessly take up the money, pocket
it, and without another word calmly leave the room. I watched him slink
slowly down the little courtyard and out of the gate, half hoping he
would think better of it; but no! He never even once looked behind him,
and as I watched his tall, gaunt form vanish slowly in the dusk, I felt
that now, indeed, our last hope was gone, and retiring to my room, threw
myself on the bed in despair, and wondered what on earth we were going
to do next.
To reach Siberia by way of the Gobi Desert was obviously impossible,
for, judging by past experience, we could not reasonably expect to find
another English-speaking boy, under another month or so. It would then
be too late to attempt the journey _viâ_ Mongolia, that is, without
risking imprisonment of a couple of months in some lonely Siberian
village——hardly a pleasant prospect, judging from all we had heard of
that melancholy country.
There was now but one course to pursue——to return to Tientsin, and
embark thence on the first vessel for Nicolaiefsk at the mouth of the
Amour River, thus altogether avoiding the Mongolian desert, and gaining
Irkoutsk by way of Khabarofka, Stratensk, and Chita, instead of Urga and
Kiakhta.
It was a great disappointment. We had looked forward to the desert
journey far more than to any other part of the voyage. There would have
been some novelty and excitement in crossing the wild desolate plains
lying between the Great Wall of China and Siberia, but none whatever in
the cut-and-dried route from Nicolaiefsk, from which port a comfortable
and well-found steamer takes the traveller a distance of about fifteen
hundred miles up the Amour river to Stratensk. From here he proceeds by
tarantass or sleigh (according to season) to Verchui Udinsk and across
Lake Baikal (by steamer if in summer) to Irkoutsk, which city is distant
about one thousand odd versts from Stratensk. There is but one main
post-road across Siberia from Irkoutsk to Tomsk. But the come down from
a journey in a camel caravan across the great Gobi Desert to an ordinary
steamer and posting carriage along a dull, uninteresting river and
monotonous road with a post-house every twenty versts,[2] was a severe
blow to one’s feelings and anticipations.
Dinner that night was a sad meal; even the champagne, which our host
insisted upon producing, failed to enliven it. Our party was increased
by three Russians from Shanghai, who were on their way to Manchuria for
a month’s shooting. One of them had done the Amour journey, and devoutly
hoped he might never have to do it again. For monotony and lack of
interest that great river was (according to his account) unrivalled. But
we had made up our minds, and it must be done. Fortunately enough, a
vessel would be leaving Tientsin for Nicolaiefsk in four or five days’
time, which would give us plenty of time to retrace our steps to
Tientsin and embark. To bemoan one’s fate under such circumstances is
worse than useless, and we retired to rest resigned, if not cheerful.
The Gobi was impossible, “_Vogue pour ‘l’amour’!_”
But the proverb that it is ever “darkest before dawn,” was exemplified
next morning when, about ten o’clock, and on the eve of departure for
Tientsin, the welcome news was brought us that a boy had been found! and
by whom but our good angel, M. Tallien, who, moved to compassion by our
woe-begone faces the previous evening, had himself searched Pekin high
and low, and run the article to earth within the very walls of the
Russian Embassy. No ordinary “boy” was this either, but an excellent
cook, speaking English, Russian, and Mongolian fluently, and who, best
of all, was willing to go to Kiakhta and find his own way back again for
$100 all found. I could have fallen into Tallien’s arms and embraced
him. Perhaps, being a Frenchman, he would have taken such a proceeding
as a matter of course.
Our new acquisition, Jee Boo by name, a nice, quiet-looking fellow of
about 30, had been cook and servant to Prince ————, one of the Russian
_attachés_, for some time. Under ordinary circumstances we should
perhaps have asked for his character, but dreading another delay we
determined to chance it, take him as he was, and ask no questions. We
were armed and he was not, which is always satisfactory in case of a
disagreement. He was, at any rate, a very different stamp of man to our
Tientsin friend, who, it now appeared, had taken the trouble to find him
out and advise him to have nothing to do with us, for if he did he would
never get paid. We should be sure to repudiate our debt on arrival at
Kiakhta and leave him stranded in a foreign land without friends or
money. That was why he had himself refused to entertain our offer, &c.,
&c.
We soon convinced Jee Boo, however, of the honesty of our intentions by
making M. Tallien his banker for the amount of $80, the remaining $20 to
be paid him on arrival at Kiakhta, with an additional $20 if he behaved
himself. Having thus arranged things to everybody’s satisfaction, we
gave Jee Boo leave to absent himself for the day, and (not without
misgivings of another disappointment) made preparations for a start at
six the following morning.
The same afternoon, while we were busily engaged fixing our heavy
baggage to the mule packs, two of the most extraordinary beings I ever
beheld rode up to the hotel gate. Both might have been any age from
nineteen to ninety, and were dressed in suits of loud tartan check (not
unlike that worn by Jack Spraggon in that best of sporting novels “Soapy
Sponge”), enormous pith sun-hats with long, flowing puggarees and green
spectacles. We put them down at a glance for what they unmistakably
were, “globe-trotters,” sent out by their mammas (or mamma, for they
were like as two peas), to see the world and improve their mind (if they
had any). How they had drifted to Pekin, goodness only knows. It is not
a city much affected by the genus. The comforts are not up to their
standard.
They had ridden from Tungchow under a burning sun and at full gallop,
and their weedy, miserable-looking ponies looked ready to drop. The
latter evidently only yearned (like the Irishman’s horse), for a wall to
lean up against and think, and looked almost as disconsolate as their
riders, which is saying a good deal.
They stood for some time without making a remark. Then, dismounting
slowly and cautiously, one of them approached Tallien, who was assisting
us with the packs, and in a mild and quavering voice inquired if he was
manager of the hotel; and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, if he
and his friend could have a bedroom, and whether there were any objects
of interest to be seen in the neighbourhood?
“The Great Wall of China, messieurs,” replied Tallien; “but you’ll find
it rather a long ride in one day.”
[Illustration: A STREET IN TARTAR CITY——PEKIN.]
“Oh, never mind! we must go and see it. Can you get us a guide at once?
We have to be in Tientsin again the day after to-morrow, to sail for
Japan.”
It was only with the greatest difficulty that they were persuaded to
defer their visit to “the Great Wall” till next day.
At dinner that evening, they were great on the subject of their travels;
had been, they informed us, to Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, Cairo, Suez,
Aden, Colombo, Singapore, and Shanghai, giving us their impressions and
ideas of each port, and the customs of its inhabitants, in a manner
which, in more ways than one, was highly entertaining. They were now
going to see the “Great Wall of China,” because their mamma had written
to say that the _Times_ said there was none, and she was sure there was,
because her grandfather (who was a sailor) had told her so, and he had
seen it. Then they were going to Japan, San Francisco, Salt Lake City,
and New York, then to Liverpool and then London; “and I don’t think,”
said the elder of the two sadly and wearily, “we shall ever care to go
abroad again!”
Judging from the ideas this youth formed of the countries he visited,
one could not help thinking he would not lose very much by this
determination.
They were up and away next morning long before we were stirring, on the
same wretched animals that had brought them from Tungchow, and with a
guide of their own finding, a rascally Pekinese, who probably made a
good thing out of them. Where the scamp took them remains a mystery. I
have since heard, they returned the next day quite proud of their
achievement, remarking at dinner that evening, that the “Wall was a fine
sight.” The fact that it is a long five-days’ journey from the capital
never occurred to them, and they left Pekin quite satisfied, having
probably been shown the ramparts of some suburban town or village. I
have often wondered since if they wrote to that long-suffering paper the
_Times_.
It was past seven o’clock, and the sun was high in the heavens before we
had completed our preparations, saddled the ponies, and packed the
luggage and provisions into the litters. Our party consisted of but
three mule-litters, and our two ponies. The heavy baggage had preceded
us the day before, and we did not expect to come up with it till we
reached Kalgan, the last Chinese city on the borders of Mongolia. Two
Chinese muleteers accompanied us, also Jee Boo, who bustled about and
made himself generally useful in a way that augured well for the future.
A final _café au lait_ and “chasse” with our host, who was almost as
keen about the expedition as we were (indeed, where should we have been,
had it not been for his timely aid?), and we were ready to start. Early
as it was, madame and her sister were at the gate to bid us farewell and
wish us a prosperous journey. One could not help thinking, as one looked
at their pretty French faces and neatly clad figures, how long it might
be ere one would look upon their like again!
A few moments more and we had taken leave of our friends, and were
riding down the narrow dusty street for the last time, half sorry (so
perverse is man) to leave the place we had been for three long weeks
moving heaven and earth to get away from. The feeling of regret did not
last long, however, and before we had crossed the stone bridge over the
Imperial canal no one would have recognized in us the despairing
wretches of two days ago. We left Pekin a quarter of an hour later by
the Anting Gate, and for the following three hours skirted closely along
the sandy plains that bound the city walls. Here we passed some three or
four hundred camels, a caravan inward bound from the desert, going at a
pace of about a mile and a half an hour. The Tartars in charge were all
asleep, but the camels seemed to know their way; indeed the track here
is pretty clearly laid down, being in the direct route to and from
Kalgan. An hour later we had entered a fertile plain of millet, corn,
and rye, interspersed with huge fields of pasture, and bounded on the
horizon by a rugged, precipitous chain of hills, partly covered with
forest, from which brightly coloured temples and pagodas stood out here
and there in bright relief, glittering in the sunshine. All was life and
animation; our very ponies seemed to rise in spirits, and plunged and
danced about under the influence of the keen air and bright sunshine, to
say nothing of the unusually large feeds of corn they had been given of
late.
An hour later we stopped to look back across the emerald green plain to
where, on the horizon, a thin brown line, faint and indistinct, broke
the bright blue sky-line. We were looking our last on the walls of
Pekin: the long land journey across Europe and Asia had commenced in
real earnest.
—————
Footnote 1:
A fact.
Footnote 2:
A verst is about three-quarters of a mile.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
CHAPTER III.
PEKIN TO KALGAN.
WE had decided, upon leaving Pekin, to spend the greater part of the day
in the sedans. The very name of this vehicle has a luxurious sound, and
we looked forward to pleasant hours of travel at any rate as far as the
Great Wall of China. But man is doomed to disappointment. For fatigue
and discomfort, amounting at times to sheer physical pain, commend me to
a Chinese mule litter, which is simply a kind of box or covered chair,
hung on two long and slender poles. To it are harnessed, before and
behind, two mules gaily caparisoned with feathers, highly-coloured
trappings and bells. The latter, which keep up a loud and incessant
jingle, are supposed to relieve the monotony of the journey. To the
Chinese mind, perhaps, they do. The motion, to those not subject to
sea-sickness, is not disagreeable, nor would it be tiring, had not the
occupant to keep constantly in the same position, as in a canoe or
outrigger, for the slightest movement to the right or left overturns the
whole concern. Also, should the leading mule fall, a not unfrequent
occurrence, the passenger is almost certain to get a nasty fall; should
the hind one make a false step, he finds himself helpless, with his feet
in the air and at the mercy of the leader’s heels, for the front and
sides of the litter are open. With these trifling exceptions, the mule
litters have no discomforts, always excepting the vermin that infest
them.
We halted about two o’clock in the afternoon, at a wayside inn, on the
banks of a clear pebbly stream. In front of the inn, under the shade of
some willow-trees, were some twenty or thirty men and women, seated at
marble tables, drinking tea and a kind of white compound, in which
floated huge lumps of ice, out of pretty transparent porcelain cups.
Curiosity prompted me to taste the latter, which I found simply
delicious, and not unlike French “orgeat” or barley water. A troop of
cavalry passed while we were discussing our frugal meal, a little way
apart from the noisy, chattering crowd, who, after the usual inspection
of our clothes and arms, left us in peace. On the arrival of the
soldiers, tall, swarthy fellows, clad in dark blue uniform, flat round
hats, with streaming peacock feathers, and armed with rusty old
flintlocks, we prepared to start without delay. We had been warned at
Pekin and Shanghai against the Chinese military, had been told that they
invariably insulted and sometimes outraged Europeans, when out of the
protection of their legations. If so, these were a decided exception to
the rule, for not only would they not hear of our proceeding on our
journey till we had “chin-chind” with their officer, a cheery,
nice-looking lad of eighteen or twenty, but as we left, all shook hands,
Chinese fashion (clasping the hands and lifting them up and down in
front of the breast), and gave us rendezvous at Kalgan, whither they, as
well as we, were bound.
We were away again before four o’clock, by which time the heat had
lessened and the fierce heat of the sun somewhat decreased in power. A
ride of half an hour in the litters had convinced us that anything, even
walking, was preferable to those cranky conveyances; though, thanks to
our sturdy little steeds, we were never driven to take to Shank’s mare.
One of the pleasantest recollections I have retained of that weary
journey is that of the little beast who carried me so pluckily across a
third of Asia! I verily believe, had it been a question of stamina and
endurance, and not of time, I could have ridden him to Moscow in eight
months, or even less. Good as “Karra”[3] was in other ways, he was not
what is called a pleasant hack, having, like most Mongolian ponies, but
two paces: a walk and a canter, or rather gallop, for the instant he
broke into a canter he would take the bit in his teeth and bolt. It was
sheer fun, however, for unlike most of his breed, he had not an atom of
vice in his composition.
I have seldom seen lovelier scenery than we rode through that day. The
dark wooded mountains in the distance standing out in striking contrast
to the green plains of maize and barley, the clear sparkling streams,
spanned by picturesque bridges glittering with enamel and porcelain. The
park-like domain of some mandarin, fringed with belts of dark forest,
and relieved by patches of light green sward, on which the deer and
cattle were browsing, composed a very different picture to that with
which we had always associated these so-called uncivilized regions. The
country in North China is densely populated. The whole way from Pekin to
Kalgan one was never out of sight of human beings. We must have ridden
through at least twenty villages the first day——villages only in
name——for each must have contained quite four or five thousand souls,
though deserted when we passed through them, for the men and women were
out at work in the fields and the narrow streets given up to dogs and
naked children rolling about together promiscuously in the dusty
roadway. It was only towards sunset that we passed through avenues of
happy, contented-looking peasants, sitting at their doorways discussing
tea and iced drinks, and dreaming the hours away till bedtime, after the
heat and labour of the day. The agricultural labourer in China is better
off than his European brother.
The natives evinced but little surprise at our appearance the first day.
All seemed good tempered, friendly fellows, but (at the same time) not
at all the kind of people to stand any nonsense. They were the
finest-built men, physically speaking, I have ever seen, excepting
perhaps in parts of European Russia.
Towards the latter part of our first day’s journey, a great portion of
the road or pathway was paved with enormous blocks of granite in much
the same way as that on the outskirts of Tungchow, and described in a
former chapter. Here, however, it was in better repair——and presumably
not so old——for the road in parts was as smooth and unbroken as
asphalte. Bell, the traveller (1720), narrates that some eight hundred
years since, a terrible earthquake occurred here and laid waste the
whole of the country lying between Pekin and the Great Wall of China,
occasioning great loss of life. It seems curious that no shocks of
earthquake have ever been felt since in these latitudes, though they are
of frequent occurrence in other parts of the Chinese Empire, as many as
seven shocks having occurred at Shanghai alone in 1847.
It was past seven o’clock and nearly dark when we reached “Koo-ash,” our
first resting-place, a pretty Alpine-looking village nestling under a
chain of hills, about four hundred feet high, bare of trees and
vegetation, and composed of huge granite boulders. The heat of the day
and fatigue of a ten hours’ ride made the shelter of even a Chinese inn
acceptable, though the stench of the place was awful, and the flies
positively maddening. (The latter, though of the common household kind,
were the largest I have ever seen.) Floor and walls were black with
them, and one crushed them as one turned on the stone slab that did duty
for a bed. It may be as well to give the reader a brief description of
the hostelry in which we took our first night’s rest——for one native inn
is precisely like another throughout the Chinese Empire. The inn at
“Koo-ash” was, luckily for us, the best that exists on the road to the
Great Wall. Had it been as bad as the one we reached the next night at
“Kwi La Shaï,” I verily believe we should have turned tail, and returned
to Pekin without setting eyes upon that euphoniously named city. Coming,
so to speak, into shallow water before we tried deep, saved us from
ignominious defeat.
A Chinese inn, then, is usually constructed of dried mud, whitewashed,
and built round three sides of an open courtyard, as a rule knee deep in
filth and garbage, in which pigs, sheep, cows, and poultry roam about at
leisure. An open cesspool usually occupies the centre. The buildings on
the right and left are the kitchen, innkeeper’s room, cart-shed,
stables, &c., that at the farthest end, and facing you on entry, is that
set apart for the guests. It is usually a bare dirty room, about
eighteen feet by eighteen, a third of which is separated by a bamboo
screen or partition, four or five feet high, for more favoured guests
who wish to be separated from the common herd. Sometimes the screen is
dispensed with, and the partition made by a chalk mark on the floor!
This cheerless apartment is devoid of furniture save for a “K’ang” or
stove bed, a broad ledge of brick covered with matting. In winter a fire
is lit under the “K’ang,” which is built to accommodate ten to twelve
sleepers. The flooring of the room is of uncarpeted brick, and there is
no furniture of any kind. At Koo-ash, however, there were two inlaid
chairs of the most delicate and beautiful workmanship I have ever seen.
They would have fetched 50_l._ or 60_l._ in England. Most of these
gruesome apartments swarm with rats, a circumstance that annoyed me more
than all other discomforts put together, for I have always had a
loathing for this animal. But I had not then been to Siberia.
We had our own food, of course. No European stomach could stand the
_cuisine_ in these parts. Tea was the only thing drinkable——sweet, washy
stuff, as unlike our idea of that beverage as can well be, and drunk out
of tiny cups holding about a couple of tablespoonsful. Our greatest
difficulty was to obtain permission to use the kitchen in these
caravanserai to cook ourselves a tin of soup or preserved meat. It was
somewhat disheartening to have to put up with a biscuit smeared over
with a spoonful of jam after a hard day’s work in the blazing sun——but
this was often the case. There is no race in the world so obstinate as
the northern Celestial; and in these parts, unlike in the south, even
filthy lucre will not tempt them.
Still we had nothing to complain of on this score at Koo-ash. The
proprietor, a big, burly Chinaman, clad in a pair of short white drawers
(and nothing else), superintended our culinary arrangements himself, and
turned us out a smoking dish of Irish stew in no time, served upon
plates that would not have disgraced a dinner-table in the height of the
London season. I tried to buy one of them, of transparent, violet
porcelain of the most delicate tint imaginable. But mine host would not
part with it on any consideration. It was an heirloom. “Drop it on the
floor and break it,” whispered Jee Boo. “He will sell it you then, and
you can get it mended in England.” I admired the astuteness of the
Pekinite, but did not feel justified in risking the experiment. To say
nothing of my scruples, we were no longer within reach of English
protection!
A couple of glasses of whisky and water revived the inner man, and we
clambered into the “K’ang,” where, in spite of the hardness of this
novel kind of bed, we were soon in oblivion and back again in our dreams
to less desolate regions. I was somewhat startled in the middle of the
night by a dark, cold mass being thrust into my face until by the dim
light of the moon struggling in through the paper window, I realized
what the intruder was——a calf from the cattle-shed next door, who was
making a nocturnal expedition in search of food. I lay awake the
remainder of that night, for the enemy were upon me, and had evidently
been for some hours, judging from the intense irritation and itching of
my face and hands. Had it not been for them, however, I should have been
equally wakeful; for the cheering spectacle of a couple of large rats
disporting themselves on the further corner of the “K’ang” successfully
murdered sleep till the morning.
Splendid weather favoured our journey. Though the heat at mid-day was
intense, and the fierce sun compelled us to seek shelter in the litters,
the mornings and evenings were cool and delicious. We left Koo-ash the
following day at five a.m. Our bill for the night was certainly not
ruinous eighty cash, or something under 7_d._, for the whole party.
The road ceases after leaving Koo-ash, and our way the second day lay
through a succession of small paths or raised footways running in all
directions through rice and cotton-fields. How the muleteers kept on the
right track is a mystery to me, for there was apparently nothing to
guide them. The paths or boundaries of the fields seemed to have been
constructed with a view to leading wayfarers astray, like the maze at
Hampton Court. There seemed to be no lack of water, the plains being cut
up into squares of various sizes, and the water brought by means of
small canals or ditches from the nearest stream or river. The method of
pumping is the same as in Egypt: a couple of buckets worked by a swing
beam handled by one or two men. A sheet of water some inches deep, is by
this means kept over the surface of the rice-fields, which are so
numerous in parts as to give the country the appearance of being in a
state of inundation.
We reached the city of Nankow at mid-day, but did not halt there,
preferring to go straight through and take our mid-day meal (if a piece
of chocolate and a biscuit can so be called), in the open country. A
large wall runs through Nankow, often regarded by tourists as the Great
Wall of China. Many Europeans are brought here from Pekin, and return
thoroughly satisfied in their own minds, that they have seen the Great
Wall, when, in fact, they have done nothing of the kind. The wall at
Nankow is simply an offshoot of the real thing, and runs at right angles
to it; moreover, the former is not so high, and its stones are cemented,
which those of the Great Wall are not. I trust I am not a kill-joy to
those who, reading these pages, have seen the Nankow wall, but as a
matter of fact, the two are as different, both in construction and
appearance, as black to white.
We were forced to take refuge in our litters traversing the city (which
is one of some fifty thousand inhabitants), for the unwonted sight of
Europeans in their midst, appeared to give the Nankowites great umbrage
for some reason or other. Indeed, this was the sole instance of our
being treated with anything but courtesy and good temper. The streets
were so crowded as to make our progress extremely difficult, for it was
market-day, and half the roadway was taken up with canvas booths and
stalls for the sale of silks, tea, crockery, and hardware, or fish,
vegetables, and fruit, while every fifty yards or so, the fumes from
“Kabob” stalls poisoned the air with a sickly, greasy odour. We were not
sorry to get within sight of the outer gate. Near here was an open-air
theatre in full swing, adding its quota of drums, clashing cymbals, and
squeaky reed-pipes, to the general din. Some two or three hundred
struggling men and women occupied the partition in front of the stage,
meant to hold about half the number. No attempt had been made to shelter
the audience from the blazing sun, and the smell that arose from this
human cattle-pen, beggars description. Some six or seven performers in
grotesque garments and hideous masks, were twisting their bodies about,
singing through their noses, and endeavouring by their united efforts to
drown the instruments at the back of the stage, in which they were only
partly successful. The play, Jee Boo informed us, had been going on for
a week, and was only half over. We stopped for a few minutes to watch
the performance, the audience being too much engrossed with it to pay
any attention to us. Most of the action seemed to consist exclusively of
fighting and love-making. The scenes dealing with the latter, were
certainly more realistic than refined. There was no scenery, and
apparently no dressing-rooms. One of the performers, after being slain
by his adversary, got up again in a few seconds, and retiring to the
back of the stage, changed all his clothes in full view of the audience,
an operation that necessitated his appearing in a state of complete
nudity, after which he calmly returned to the front to represent another
part. There is apparently no Chinese Lord Chamberlain.
It took us nearly two hours to get clear of the city. Shortly
afterwards, we entered the Nankow Pass, one of the most beautiful bits
of scenery we passed through. The going was terribly rough, so much so
that we had to dismount and lead the ponies, while the mule-litters
plunged and rolled about among the boulders like ships in a storm. The
road is simply formed by a kind of water-bed, about 150 yards across,
which is in summer rendered almost impassable by the huge rocks and
boulders that bar the way at every step. In winter it becomes a raging
torrent, sweeping all before it, and after heavy rains does considerable
damage to life and property. The pass (which is a gradual ascent the
whole way, and about thirteen miles long) compares very favourably with
some of the grandest scenery in Switzerland or the Tyrol. Rugged,
precipitous rocks overhang the defile on either side, great crags of
granite that look as if a touch would send them crashing into the valley
a hundred feet below. Although not a leaf or tree is visible, the
different shades of colour taken by the rocks are even more beautiful
than any vegetation could make them. As we neared the end of the pass,
little bits of verdure became visible: oases of rich grass and
cultivated flower-gardens banked round with bamboos, looking almost as
if they were hanging perpendicularly on the steep grey walls; while tiny
streamlets seemed to spring up from under our very feet to lose
themselves a few yards lower down among the crevices formed by the huge
rocks and boulders. After two hours’ hard work, we emerged on a vast
plain again, a plain of waving corn and barley, relieved here and there
by brown villages and gaily coloured temples, while a glance behind
showed us the city of Nankow spread out like a map at our feet, the rice
and cotton plains we had passed through, and the distant village of
“Koo-ash,” its temples and pagodas sparkling like diamonds on the far
horizon.
A strange apparition appeared as we ate our solitary meal by the
roadway. A tall gaunt European, bestriding an attenuated-looking mule,
an individual who by his dress might have been anybody. A rough grey
coat with yellow facings, a red handkerchief tied round the head, a pair
of short thin cotton drawers reaching to the knee, and bare legs and
feet, is hardly the costume with which we are wont to associate a
courier of the Czar! but such the stranger proved to be. He eyed our
whisky bottle wistfully as he passed us, and reined up the melancholy
mule with a jerk. “Kouda?” (“whither?”) he asked. “Moscow,” we replied,
at the same time filling him a bumper of Glenlivat, a proceeding that
seemed to interest him much more than our probable destination.
“Franzouski?” (French). “Niete: Anglis-ki.” “Ah,” he replied, with a
shrug of the shoulders, and, tossing off the tumbler of raw whisky
without a wink, rode off again, with the remark, “Ya Pekin” (I am for
Pekin), but not a word of thanks. This was our first experience of the
Russian Cossack, and I was afterwards glad to find this rude boor an
exception even to the lowest orders of that cheery, hospitable
race,——better fellows than whom it would, as a rule, be hard to meet.
The country towards evening became flatter; the rice and cotton having
given way to a bare sandy plain, stretching away on either side as far
as the eye could reach without a break. The glare of the sun became very
painful after the first hour or two, and we suffered a good deal that
day from our eyes, a complaint that seems very prevalent among the
inhabitants of the villages in this sterile region. The people, too,
seemed very different in appearance and manner to those we had left in
the plains below Nankow. Instead of the cheery “good-day” and smile with
which many of the latter had greeted us, we were now looked upon only
with a sullen stare: a kind of ocular “What do you want here?” This was
all, however, for after Nankow we experienced no incivility whatsoever
up to the Great Wall.
This was perhaps the hardest day’s work we experienced throughout the
whole voyage. Leaving Koo-ash at 5 a.m., we travelled incessantly, save
for a halt of twenty minutes at mid-day, till eight at night. Over
fourteen hours’ hard work on a stick of chocolate and a glass of whisky
and water is not calculated to raise one’s spirits under ordinary
circumstances; but had we known what was before us we should have been
even more depressed than we were, when, towards seven o’clock the towers
and battlements of Kwi-La-Shaï appeared on the horizon, and we knew that
our day’s journey was nearly over.
The sun was setting as, crossing the river that flows past the walls of
Kwi-La-Shaï, we drew up at the eastern gate of the city and awaited the
permission of the guard to enter. But for fatigue and stiffness, I would
willingly have remained outside the walls till the sun had disappeared.
I have seldom seen a lovelier picture. It was like a scene from
fairyland. The broad, swift stream at our feet had caught the reflection
of the western sky, which, one glow of rose colour, brought out the
frowning walls and battlements of the city black and distinct as a
pen-and-ink drawing. The whole vault of heaven was one flush of
ever-changing hue, varying almost imperceptibly from the faintest shades
of pink and gold in the west to where in the east stars were already
glimmering in the steel-blue horizon. The black, frowning walls, the
desolate landscape around us, the confused and indistinct murmur of the
huge population of which one could see nothing, made one almost wonder
whether one was not dreaming and would not presently awake in a
comfortable bed resolving never again to commit the imprudence of a late
supper. It was not without a weird feeling that we rode into the city
and heard the heavy iron gates close with a crash behind us. One felt so
utterly at the mercy of the inhabitants of these remote cities, who, as
they have so often shown, are angels one minute and devils the next.
The streets were, as usual, crowded, for the night was hot, and the
population had apparently turned out _en masse_ to take the air, and
what air! Like many other beautiful things in this world, Kwi-La-Shaï is
best seen at a distance, for we found it on closer acquaintance worse
even than Pekin in point of stenches and filth. It is called in China a
“village,” which means that it is rather larger both as regards size and
population than Birmingham. Though the streets were unlit, we managed to
get to the inn by the aid of a guide, and once there, found no lack of
light——indeed the courtyard was one blaze of Chinese lanterns——nor of
society either, for there must have been at least fifty men crowded into
the small guest-room, to say nothing of camels, oxen, ponies, and carts,
that crowded the muddy courtyard.
We rode into the yard and waited while Jee Boo went to interview the
proprietor of this den, which for squalor and filth I have never seen
equalled in the worst slums of London or Paris. We soon saw by the light
of the lanterns that our fellow-lodgers were not Chinamen. Their quaint
barbaric dress, to say nothing of swarthy flat faces and beady black
eyes, at once proclaimed them Mongols. Twenty or thirty of them were
round us, in less than five minutes after our arrival, squatting on
their hams in the mud and passing their opinions on our appearance. Many
of them, Jee Boo said, had never seen a European before. They annoyed us
not a little, too, by continually feeling our clothes, boots, and even
faces, with their hot grimy hands, a proceeding that, tired and hungry
as we were, with no prospect of rest or food, did not tend to improve
the temper. A pair of velvet cord breeches that Lancaster wore came in
for the greater share of their attention, which I was (selfishly, I own)
not sorry for.
Two half-naked men, who had been attending to a couple of large
cauldrons in a kind of outhouse, now summoned our inquisitive friends,
much to our relief. We saw them enter the shed, where each man having
produced a wooden platter they set to and left us in peace, at any rate,
for a time.
Jee Boo returned soon after.
“Big caravan from Mongolia. No can have room,” was his first remark.
“Money no good,” he added, on my suggesting a few dollars as bribery;
anything for a fairly clean place to lay our weary bones. What was to be
done? We could not sleep in the courtyard, that was very certain, when a
bright thought suddenly struck me——the litters.
Alas! they, too, were gone, and the muleteers with them, in quest of
lodgings elsewhere. They had fortunately omitted to take our box of
provisions with them. Jee Boo had meanwhile disappeared, but soon after
returned with the information that on payment of $8 we could have the
room of the chief of the caravan. “A very good place,” urged our
interpreter, who, was evidently standing in with the Mongol. However, we
should have been only too glad to pay double the price for a dog-kennel
that night. Anything to lie down upon, and get away from the attentions
of the Mongols, who had by this time finished their meal, and were again
issuing from the kitchen, lighting their pipes, and preparing for
another examination of the “White Devils.”
It was only after a good deal of demur that the good gentleman I have
mentioned turned out of his lair——a place about nine feet square, with a
raised wooden platform upon which he had been reclining, and upon which
he was thoughtful enough to leave us several souvenirs which I need not
mention. To say the place was dirty conveys but a very poor impression
of the filth that lay thickly on the walls, and the nameless
abominations that strewed the sleeping-place——half a dozen rough boards
about a foot from the floor. There were luckily two large holes in the
rafters which would give us, at any rate, some ventilation, for the
glazed paper window was not made to open. Cooking was, of course, out of
the question, but we managed to boil some water in the spirit-lamp, and
get a basin of Liebig. Our Valentine meat-juice had, unluckily, gone on
with the other stores. It would have been priceless that night, and
never again will I embark on a journey of this kind without it.
We had reckoned without our host when we thought that bolting and
barring the door would ensure us privacy. First a finger, then a thumb,
then a whole hand was pushed through the paper window, notwithstanding
all our protestations. We did not like to use threats, or show firearms,
for an Englishman more or less would have been of little moment to the
good people of Kwi-La-Shaï. So we had to sit and suffer in silence,
until one of our tormentors, more pushing than the rest, who had climbed
upon the roof to obtain a bird’s-eye view, came crashing through the
rickety rafters on to our heads. We certainly _did_ bundle him out with
scant ceremony, and banging the door after him, blew out the light and
composed, or tried to compose ourselves, to slumber.
But no sooner was the light out than we were attacked by vermin in
myriads. A quarter of an hour of it nearly drove us mad, and we resolved
to strike a light, rising only to find that we had no matches, and that
all in the yard was now dark and silent as the grave. So, resigned to
our fates, we lay still, and, like the shipwrecked mariner, prayed for
dawn! Tired and worn out as we were, five minutes’ sleep was out of the
question. We had good cause to remember Kwi-La-Shaï; indeed, it was a
good three weeks before we were entirely free from the animal nocturnal
visitors of that unsavoury city.
The caravan had already started on its way to Pekin when we set off at
six the next morning. Our mule-driver and Jee Boo had evidently made a
night of it on the proceeds of their bargain, for the former only
arrived on the scene five minutes before the hour fixed for departure,
and our interpreter turned up hopelessly fuddled just as we were getting
the mules in and ponies saddled. We were amply avenged, though, for the
day was the hottest we had yet experienced, and Jee Boo suffered the
tortures of _mal de mer_ in a litter the greater part of it!
The road now lay through deep sand, in which, however, the caravan track
was distinctly discernible. A boisterous and hot wind made it very
unpleasant travelling, and we were not sorry to reach the village of
Tchuan-Ha-Ho at midday, where we insisted on a halt of five hours at
least, for the purpose of indulging in a “square meal,” as Americans
say, and a rest, of which we were much in need. Just before reaching the
town, we passed a string of over two hundred camels laden with Siberian
furs for Pekin. Also a drove of some three hundred or four hundred
Mongolian ponies. Some of the latter, though small, were remarkably
well-shaped and good-looking.
Tchuan-Ha-Ho is the only place I retain a pleasing recollection of,
lying between Pekin and the Great Wall of China. The inn was fairly
clean, and the proprietor not only suggested, but cooked us a dish of
excellent poached eggs. Rarely have I enjoyed a meal as I did that. One
must have fasted for nearly thirty-six hours as we had, to really
appreciate food. It is worth all the tonics in the world. We felt much
tempted to stay here the night, but our mule-drivers were inexorable.
They had contracted to get us to Kalgan by a certain date, and at
Kalgan, on that date, dead or alive, we must be!
The sandy desert ceased after leaving Tchuan-Ha-Ho, and we again entered
a fertile country, set apart apparently for the exclusive cultivation of
the poppy. White, red, and blue——poppies were everywhere——the plain
presenting a succession of waves of colour as far as the eye could
reach. Beyond this lay Ching-Ming-Ying, lying under a perpendicular rock
about 800 feet high. This village, which contains seven thousand
inhabitants, is strongly walled and fortified. The rock or mountain is
on three sides sheer precipice. Notwithstanding this, there are some
twenty or thirty houses on the extreme summit, built so near the edge
that their sides actually form part of the precipice. Seventy or eighty
human beings live on this eminence, though the path up is dangerous to
any but experienced mountaineers, and the area of the summit but three
hundred yards square. This was undoubtedly one of the most interesting
and curious sights of the whole voyage, for there are men and women over
forty years of age living upon this mountain that have never descended
to the plains below. Supplies and stores are taken up by men kept
specially for the purpose.
[Illustration: A MULE LITTER.]
Coal is worked out of the base of the Ching-Ming Ying mountain by the
Chinese Government, to whom the mines belong. It seemed to be put out in
a very desultory sort of way. Some thirty men only were engaged in the
mines, though with their usual contradictory spirit the Government had
provided the manager or overseer with a palatial residence at the foot
of the mountain, embowered in bright flower-gardens and willow-trees.
The weather, which had up till now been bright and clear, now grew
overcast, and, shortly after leaving Ching-Ming-Ying the rain came down
in torrents, rendering travelling very unpleasant, not to say dangerous.
Our way now lay along a road hewn out of the solid rock, by the banks of
a foaming torrent some hundred yards broad, which we followed the course
of till we reached our destination for the night——Tsiang-Shui-Poo. Here
we rode along now a foot or so above the water’s edge, anon at least
fifty feet above the water, in places where a false step or slip would
have sent one flying into the torrent below, for there was no
guard-rail, and the path, broken and rugged, was at times scarcely three
feet wide. I thought discretion the better part of valour after a time,
and led Karra till we got on to _terra firma_ again in the shape of a
broad stretch of sand, which brought us to the village of
Tsiang-Shui-Poo, wet through, and without any means of changing, but at
the same time relieved that the next day with any luck would see us at
Kalgan.
The village of Tsiang-Shui-Poo was _really_ a village, for it boasted of
some hundred inhabitants and thirty or forty houses. The inn (an open
shed in which cattle and men slept promiscuously) was at any rate clean,
and we managed to get a good sleep on a wisp of straw free from the
stench of sewage that had annoyed us so much everywhere else. Some of
the inhabitants came to look at us as we discussed the evening meal. The
men were cheery, good-looking fellows, and the women far prettier than
any I had yet seen, for their faces were devoid of paint——and they had
almost European complexions. Tsiang-Shui-Poo was to us an Elysium——a
haven of rest——which reminded one for all the world of the lovely
Kentish village of Farningham, which is no doubt known to many of my
readers. There was the trout stream at the bottom of the garden, the
clover meadows with their fresh, sweet scent, the corn ripening for the
sickle on the hill behind the inn——although, to be sure, two stunted
willows had to do duty for the famous chestnut-tree in front of that
cosy old inn, the “Red Lion;” and, I fancy, even the genial host of that
celebrated hostelry would have lost his temper at the fare set before
him by Boniface of the “Cattle-Shed Hotel” at Tsiang-Shui-Poo!
By next morning the rain had entirely disappeared, and with a blue sky
and cool breeze we left Tsiang-Shui-Poo, invigorated in mind and body by
a good long sleep. I cannot pronounce, much less write, the name of the
village we halted at at mid-day. It was evident we were nearing Kalgan,
for we passed at least a dozen large caravans during the morning, to say
nothing of carts, litters, and stray horsemen. The poppy-fields were now
superseded by rice-plains, irrigated as before by “shaloofs,” and
interspersed with enclosures of corn and maize.
We lunched in a fairly clean room of the inn at the town with the
unpronounceable name. Many Russians appeared to have visited it, for
their names (in Russian characters) were scrawled all over the place. In
one corner, in small capitals, we read:——“Bordeaux à Pekin par terre.
Sep. 4th, 1870.” Shortly before five o’clock a low chain of hills
appeared on the horizon. Had it not been specially pointed out to me, I
should never have noticed the thin serpentine thread winding its course
along their summit——an irregular white line lost to sight at times, in
places where it was broken into by forest or undergrowth: a very
different edifice from one’s preconceived ideas of the Great Wall of
China.
We entered Kalgan at half past six o’clock. It will give the reader some
idea of the size of the place when I say that it took us nearly two
hours to ride from the southern gate to the suburb of Yambooshan, where
the Russian tea-merchants lived, to whom we were provided with a letter
of introduction. The population of Kalgan is estimated at over one
hundred and fifty thousand.
Our mule-drivers suggested an immediate adjournment to the inn, for the
Russians, they said, lived outside the gates of Kalgan, at Yambooshan.
The gate was shut at seven, after which hour, no one, European or
otherwise, was permitted to enter or leave the city; but we stuck to our
determination of seeing M. Batouyeff before nightfall. Riding out of the
southern gate, we emerged on to a dry river-bed, on either banks of
which stood several substantial and well-built houses of Chinese
architecture. At the head of the valley stood apart from the others a
single dwelling _à l’Européenne_——a pretty two-storied house with
verandah and gaily coloured Venetians, standing in a spacious garden,
down the centre path of which, as soon as we came in sight, two
white-clad Europeans hurried to meet us.
One of these proved to be M. Ivanoff——partner of M. Batouyeff, who was,
he explained, at that time away at Chefoo for a couple of months,
enjoying the sea breezes after a residence of five years here without a
break. Luckily for us M. Ivanoff spoke English fluently, having spent
several years at Tientsin. He laughed outright when we asked him to
direct us to the inn. “Ah, gentlemen, I hope you have not such a poor
opinion of Russian hospitality as that,” said our friend, as he led the
way up the neat gravel walk, lined with rose and geranium beds, to the
house——where we found two large airy bedrooms, a sitting-room, and, best
of all, a large bath-room placed at our disposal. “I do not live here
myself, but my clerk will do anything for you. You have but to call
‘Michailof.’ He lives next door. Dinner will be served at eight o’clock.
Gentlemen, I wish you good evening, and will do myself the pleasure of
calling upon you again to-morrow.”
Here was luxury indeed. The sight of the bed was almost too much for me.
I felt inclined to forego dinner altogether, jump in, and revel in its
clean, soft sheets and white dainty curtains! A delicious warm bath, a
change of clothes, and we found ourselves seated at an open window,
looking down upon the moon-bathed valley of Yambooshan, enjoying an
excellent dinner _à la russe_, washed down by a still more excellent
bottle of Chateau Lafitte. “Here’s to the Russians,” said Lancaster, as
we tossed off for the first time a glass of that insidious though
delicious liqueur “Vodka.” “How the English do misunderstand them,” I
echoed: a sentiment I had occasion to repeat more than once during our
weary pilgrimage through the Asiatic realms of the White Czar.
—————
Footnote 3:
Mongol for black.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
CHAPTER IV.
KALGAN, OR CHANG-CHIA-KOW.
WE had intended making a stay of four or five days, at the most, at
Kalgan. This, we thought, would give us ample time to get carts, camels,
and men for the crossing of the Great Gobi Desert; for, we had been led
to believe, when at Tientsin, that there would not be the slightest
necessity for remaining more than a day or so at the frontier city,
unless we particularly wished to do so. But, alas! as at Pekin, fresh
difficulties cropped up hourly; and when we broached to M. Ivanoff our
intention of leaving for Ourga in three or four days’ time, he simply
laughed in our faces.
“You must recollect you are not in Europe,” said the hospitable Russian,
“and also that Mongols are worse even than Chinamen in the matter of
delay. Moreover, I shall have to get your carts built, a question of ten
days at the very least. The camels, too, are all out on the plains. No,
gentlemen; I fear you must make up your minds to at least a fortnight’s
imprisonment in Kalgan!”
There was nothing for it under the circumstances but to smile and look
pleasant, thanking Providence, meanwhile, for giving us such comfortable
quarters, and not cooping us up in a Chinese inn. Considering
everything, we had by no means a bad time of it with the Russian
tea-merchants at Kalgan.
They certainly had a very fair idea of making themselves comfortable.
The house of our host was especially so, and by no means the kind of
dwelling one would expect to find in this out-of-the-way corner of the
earth. We had pictured to ourselves a rough wooden shanty——we found a
well-built stone house with cool, lofty bedrooms, a pretty drawing-room,
with grand piano and bright chintzes, singing-birds, and flowers; and
French windows opening on to the creeper-covered verandah, whence one
looked on to the beautiful valley of Kalgan. At one’s feet a shady
garden wherein roses, Eucharis lilies, jasmine, mignonette, and other
flowers grew in wild profusion, though untended and uncared for; while
in the far distance the Great Wall of China, now towering on a summit,
now lost in a valley, wound like a huge serpent, its course of two
thousand miles. Nor were the more substantial things of life uncared
for, for our host had an excellent cook, and in this land of milk and
honey there was no lack of material for his culinary efforts. The Kalgan
mutton is excellent, and potatoes, cauliflowers, cabbages, peas,
lettuce, even asparagus, thrive there, all imported from Russia, to say
nothing of Chinese vegetables with unpronounceable names, and still more
curious taste. Our host’s cook was an artist; his claret undeniable; his
cigars good. We had certainly tumbled upon our legs at Kalgan.
The city of Chang-Chia-Kow, or Kalgan, is built on the banks of a broad,
swift-flowing river. Running at right angles to this, between two
precipitous mountains, is the narrower gorge of Yambooshan, the houses
thereof standing outside the gates of the city, and built close into the
side of the hills, portions of which in some cases had been blasted away
to admit them. There is a reason for this. The dry, shingly road, which
in summer serves as highway to thousands of caravans, becomes in winter
a roaring torrent, which sweeps down the valley with terrific force to
join the larger stream, at times occasioning great loss of life. At the
time of our visit, the river-bed was absolutely dry, though the
preceding winter had been a severe one, and much damage had been done in
the spring.
We spent a good deal of our time watching the caravans as they jingled
and rattled along the stony river-bed to or from Pekin. Many were laden
with wood cut into logs and brought from the mountains near Ourga,
across the desert, for wood is scarce in Northern China, and I do not
think we passed more than a dozen trees in all the whole way from the
capital to the Great Wall. Between Yambooshan and the city of Kalgan is
the “Gap,” where the road narrows to a width of about nine feet. It is
from this the city takes its name, the word “Kalga” signifying in the
Mongolian tongue a gap or gate. It has been estimated that three hundred
and fifty thousand chests of tea pass through here annually, for every
caravan is bound to pass Kalgan on its way east or west. There is no
other road. Thus about forty million chests of tea pass through annually
to Mongolia and Siberia, and Ivanoff (who has much experience in these
matters) was of opinion that when the projected line from Irkoutsk to
Tomsk is completed, there will be a further increase of a hundred and
fifty thousand chests, making in all the enormous total of five hundred
thousand chests annually. No railway can ever be made across Gobi. The
means of transit must always remain what it has ever been, i.e. by the
“Ship of the Desert.”
The best tea never leaves China, and nearly all the next best in quality
goes to Russia. Few people in England know what good tea really is. An
immense trade in Asiatic Russia is done in what is known as brick tea,
an article I shall describe later on, and which is drunk chiefly by the
Mongols and lower classes in Siberia. This is pressed into oblong cakes,
about two pounds in weight, and is made of tea dust, stalks, and refuse,
mixed with bullocks’ blood, to give it a flavour. I never tasted a viler
concoction in my life.
“You English boil your tea,” Ivanoff would say, when on his favourite
topic. “How can you expect to get it good;” and there is no doubt much
in this. I got into a habit in Siberia and Russia of drinking tea at all
hours of the day and night, and learnt to make it _à la Russe_——two
teaspoonfuls to each cup; then pour boiling water into the pot, so as
just to cover the leaves, and at once pour it out again, afterwards
adding the requisite amount of liquid. Let it stand for two or three
minutes at most, and drink. The Russians never drink their tea twice
over, as we do, but change the leaves and the pot every fresh brew. This
makes a good deal more difference than some may think. I have heard
English people deny that overland tea is any better than that sent by
sea, but I do not think there can be any real doubt about it. As a
matter of fact, genuine overland tea very rarely finds its way to
England.
The city of Kalgan proper, reminds one more of an Egyptian or Arab town
than a Chinese one. The dwellings are of baked mud, unwhitewashed, and
flat roofed. Some are ornamented with arabesques, and gaily-striped
awnings, many of their façades being half hidden with clustering vines.
The “Yamen,” or court-house, is the only building of pure Chinese
architecture in the whole place, and one felt, when taking a stroll
through its busy streets and covered bazaars, as if one had been
suddenly transplanted from the heart of the Chinese Empire to some town
in Central Asia. There is more colour, too, than in most Chinese towns,
the eternal dark blue or white dress of the natives being relieved by
the gaudy dresses and barbaric trappings of the Mongolian Tartar. The
very smell of the place, too, was different to those we had passed
through, the half fishy, half spicy odour with which every traveller in
Northern China is familiar, being superseded by the sickly smell of
argol-smoke, old rags, and general filth that clings to the Mongol
wherever he goes. They were not reassuring to look at, these Mongols. It
was not altogether pleasant to think that a fortnight more would see us
consigned to the tender mercies of this wild, nomad race, two solitary
Europeans, alone and unprotected in the great desert of Gobi. At first
sight the Mongol Tartar decidedly inspired us with respect, not to say
mistrust.
There are few noisier and busier places than Kalgan. The row in the
middle of the day was deafening, and the clouds of black dust, raised by
the perpetual traffic, unbearable. It was amusing sometimes to walk in
the busiest part of the day, to the market-place, in the middle of the
city, where the great horse, or rather pony mart is situated. There must
have been some three or four hundred ponies the morning we were there,
being trotted and galloped up and down for sale——for export to Pekin and
other parts of China. It was exciting, not to say dangerous, work,
apparently, for the wild desert horsemen tore hither and thither,
utterly regardless of where they went, or whom they knocked down or
collided with. I saw half a dozen falls in less than half an hour; but
the riders did not seem to mind, nor did it occasion any chaff or
merriment among the crowd of bystanders, as would have been the case in
England. The riders merely got up, and with a shake of the shoulders
waited till the yelling, chattering crowd had caught and restored the
runaway! Though the ground was rough and flint-strewn, no one seemed to
mind a fall. Round the square were a number of tea-houses and sheds for
the sale of “Airak” (native brandy), where the wily Pekin Chinaman might
be seen hobnobbing with the swarthy Tartar over a “deal.” I fancy the
latter usually got the worst of the bargain. The ponies were beautifully
shaped, wiry little animals, about thirteen to fourteen hands. I saw
one, a chestnut, sold for eight dollars, which would have fetched thirty
or forty guineas in England. At mid-day it became almost impossible to
make one’s way through the crowds of people that thronged the narrow
streets, and crowded the canvas booths for the sale of iced drinks, tea,
tobacco, and other refreshments erected along the foot-paths. At such
moments, on a fine day, the bright sunshine, gaudy dresses of the
Mongols, white and blue of the Chinese, thronging the streets of the
huge walled city, with its amphitheatre of rugged, precipitous hills,
made a picture as unique as it was interesting. The whole place looked
like a gigantic fair. Street tumblers, jugglers, and fortune-tellers
plied a brisk trade in the middle of the roadway, heedless of yelling,
wild-looking Mongols galloping madly about on ponies, while the
shopkeepers at the top of their voices cried out from their doors the
excellence of their wares, each trying to outyell his neighbour. Add to
this the clashing of cymbals and beating of gongs from a theatre hard
by, and you have a faint idea of a street in Kalgan at midday.
Here, as in Pekin, the dust acts as a disinfectant, and Kalgan is by no
means an unhealthy place, though the heat in summer is as severe as in
winter the cold is intense. I know no place so inspiriting on a fine
day, so depressing on a dull one, as Kalgan. In the former case all was
animation, life, and colour. The sky of Mediterranean blue, and the
verdant, smiling hills and gaily-coloured verandahs and dresses of the
natives, coupled with the keen, inspiriting air, enlivened the spirits
like a glass of champagne; but on a dull or rainy day everything around
looked dark and depressing. A kind of fog hung over everything, over the
mountain tops wreathed in dank, white mist, the grey, lowering sky, and
brown, mud-coloured dwellings, while the white wooden crosses in the
Russian cemetery, just to the right of our house, stood out with
uncomfortable prominence. It was on days like this that one realized how
far one was from England, how many thousand leagues of unknown country
lay between us and home.
Dull days were in the minority, however, and our time passed pleasantly
enough, if somewhat uneventfully, at Kalgan. There were but eleven
European residents in all, five of them belonging to the two Russian tea
firms, the remainder to an American Mission established here ten years
ago. “We are like the rival editors in Peek-Veek,” said Ivanoff one day,
alluding to himself and his _confrère_ in the tea-trade. “We do not
speak; and have not for some years.” I was not a little surprised to
find our host so well up in English literature, till I heard that
Dickens, as well as many other standard authors, has been largely
translated into Russian, and has an enormous sale at Irkoutsk (our
friend’s native place), and other parts of Siberia.
We called on the mission one day, whose headquarters are in a
substantially stone-built house standing in beautiful gardens on the
outskirts of the city. One might almost have imagined oneself in some
country parsonage in England, drinking tea in a cool, pretty
drawing-room, while a fresh, sweet smell stole in through the French
windows from the hay and clover fields. Four were lady missionaries, two
of whom were certificated doctors, who had, Ivanoff told us, done
wonders in the epidemic of typhus, that had visited Kalgan two years
previously, and by their untiring efforts and wonderful cures had made
many converts. We were welcomed, on entering the house, by a pretty
little Chinese lady, unaccountably so, as we thought, for one of her
race. The mystery was explained when she invited us to be seated, in our
own language, and further told us that although she had adopted Chinese
costume, she was an American. Mrs. S———— had only been married three
months, and had come straight from New York to Kalgan, to share her
husband’s fortunes in the wilds, for she was about to leave for a
mission four hundred miles from Kalgan, situated in one of the most
dangerous districts of the Chinese empire. Her husband came in shortly
after, also in Chinese costume, with the addition of a pigtail! It is a
rule that every one connected with this society shall wear native dress;
and when at their posts in Central China the missionaries are expected
to eat like the natives. I could not help pitying the pretty,
delicate-looking little woman when I thought of the trials and dangers
she was embarking on. She seemed quite undismayed, however, and laughed
and prattled away about the career she had chosen like a child——indeed
she was little more than one in years.
Another missionary, Mr. C————, had arrived that morning from his post
five hundred miles off, a hazardous and fatiguing journey, which he had
made in under six weeks, bringing his little son, under two years old,
with him, notwithstanding that some of the journey over the passes had
to be done on foot. The natives of the regions through which he had
passed, had, he told us, insisted upon it, that the little fellow was an
old man, for he had very light, almost white hair. Most of them were
“Tow-ists.” The founder of this sect is believed by its followers to
have been born at the age of eighty-three, with grey hair. Hence their
refusal to be persuaded, notwithstanding Mr. C————’s most earnest
assurance that his son was not an old man! “Kalgan,” said Mr. C————,
“is, in the eyes of Mahometans, the Bokhara of China, and there are
large colleges here, where the teachers of the Mahometan faith are
educated. Although the three great Chinese religions are Confucianism,
Buddhism, and Tow-ism, there are many more Mahometans existing in China
than is generally supposed; their faith in the Celestial Empire is
governed by a consistory of as many as seventy persons.”
We stayed to dinner, and bade adieu to our hosts at sundown, having to
be outside the city gates before seven o’clock. Mr. T————, the head of
the mission, expressed a hope, before we left, that we should not follow
the example of the last travellers (a German and a Frenchman), who had
attempted the transit of Gobi, armed with a perfect arsenal of firearms
and escorted by a large caravan. Ten days from the start they were back
again in Kalgan, having fallen out on the way. That was their excuse;
but I doubt, from subsequent experience, if the dreary monotony of the
desert had not more to do with it, for they were good friends enough,
when, after two days’ rest at the mission, they set off for Japan.
Arrived at the Great Gate of the city, on our homeward way, we found
ourselves, together with some dozen other unfortunate beings, locked
out, or rather in, for the night. All our efforts to induce the
gatekeeper to let us out were fruitless, for he simply responded to our
frantic signs and gestures with a grin and shrug of the shoulders, and
crawled back into his foul-smelling den, to discuss the mess of pigs’
entrails, slugs, or some Chinese delicacy of a like description, which
constituted his evening meal. The position was awkward. To climb the
walls was out of the question. Their height precluded that, for the city
walls of Kalgan are at this point actually part of the Great Wall of
China itself. The only way out of the dilemma was to drop a distance of
thirty feet or so on to some rocks at a point about three hundred to
four hundred yards from the gate, but we preferred even a night in a
tea-house, to a sojourn of a month or two at Kalgan, tied down with a
broken leg. There was nothing for it but to sit down patiently and trust
to Ivanoff’s coming to release us, though that seemed unlikely enough,
seeing that he lived some distance from Batouyeff’s house, and never
visited it after nightfall. Matters were not improved by a thin
drizzling rain which began to fall after we had waited nearly an hour,
and drove us to seek refuge in a crowded tea-house close by the gates,
the resort of the gay dogs of Kalgan who are locked out of their homes
for the night. The stench and smoke, though, soon drove us out again, to
say nothing of the aggressive curiosity of the inmates, the greater part
of whom were Mongols. Nine o’clock, ten, eleven o’clock passed, and yet
no Ivanoff, or signs of a rescue from our awkward situation. We should
long before have tried an expedient that seldom fails in any country,
never in China, but alas! we had no cash. At one o’clock, a.m., we gave
it up as a bad job, and had resolved to get what sleep we could on the
ground, wet and miry as it was, when, in searching for a light, I came
upon a hard round substance in my waistcoat pocket, and found a dollar
that had reposed there ever since the day I last wore the garment, six
weeks ago, in Shanghai. Armed with this, I entered the old janitor’s
den. He was still awake, smoking and crooning over the dying embers of
an argol fire. The effect was instantaneous. In less than five minutes
the mercenary old wretch had summoned help from the tea-shop, which was
still blazing with light, and crowded with people. After much difficulty
and labour, unbolting and unbarring, the heavy gates, guided by the
efforts of six men, swung slowly back upon their hinges and let us out,
stiff, cramped, and in a fiendish temper, but free, and followed by the
ragged rabble who had been our fellow-captives, and who luckily for us
led us direct for Batouyeff’s house, for we should never have found our
way alone. An excellent supper soon made amends for our discomfort. All
had retired to rest, thinking we had slept at the Mission-house.
An extraordinary being called upon us next morning, and one looked upon
as a character by the European population of Kalgan. The visiting-card
which announced him told us but little; a piece of flimsy red paper
about eight inches long by five broad covered with Chinese characters;
and we wondered what the caller could possibly want, not without grave
doubts that an order might have come from Pekin to stop us. Our visitor
was then shown in, a short, intelligent-looking man of about fifty, who,
to our astonishment, spoke English perfectly. We had a long chat (and
many successive ones) with Captain Lew Buah (for such was the stranger’s
name), of the Chinese Navy, who entertained the usual liking of his
profession for cold brandy and water, and delighted in nothing more than
in coming to spend the afternoon to fight his battles over again, rather
to the detriment of our small stock of spirits. He had been exiled to
Kalgan, he told us, for five years, in consequence of being the only man
who had saved his ship from the French at Foochow. Ten other Chinese
men-of-war were sunk on this occasion, but Lew Buah, seeing defence was
useless, had run his steamer, a gunboat of three hundred tons, up a
small creek of the river, and so saved her from the enemy. For this he
was, unjustly enough, condemned to death, a sentence afterwards commuted
to five years’ exile on the Mongolian border. If the captain’s yarn was
true, he was certainly to be pitied, for his other exploits (which I
have since ascertained were not exaggerated) make him out anything but a
coward.
One of them was amusing enough. Having run the blockade of Formosa three
times, he was on the fourth occasion, when carrying a cargo of soldiers,
captured by a French man-of-war, the commander of which had for some
time been trying in vain to catch him. Luckily for our friend, however,
the soldiers were sent from Manchuria unarmed and disguised as peasants,
and neither the captain nor officers of the Frenchman knew him by sight.
He was, however, taken on board at once, and examined by a Chinese
interpreter in presence of the French commander. Oddly enough the former
was an old friend of Lew Buah’s, and intimated by a wink as soon as his
countryman came on board that all would be right. Nothing suspicious was
found on board Lew Buah’s ship, and he was allowed to depart in peace,
the French captain observing as he left, “If you see that d————d
scoundrel Lew Buah, tell him from me I’ll hang him to my main yard-arm
whenever he crosses my path.” The telling of this yarn was the old
gentleman’s greatest delight, and he would return with fresh vigour to
the brandy bottle after telling us how he had done the foreign devil in
the eye. The old fellow’s life had been a somewhat chequered one. It
commenced at Canton where his father had been a street fruit-hawker,
carrying his wares in two baskets slung across his shoulders by a
bamboo; in one basket was the fruit, balanced by little Lew Buah in the
other! An English lady who happened to meet the strange couple, took a
violent fancy to the fat, chubby-cheeked baby, and having no children of
her own, prevailed upon his father, nothing loth, to sell her his son
for the modest price of ten dollars. He thus, at the early age of two
years, fairly lit on his legs, and, after a residence of fifteen years
with his benefactress, returned to China and obtained a commission in
the Imperial Navy, in which, up to the time of the unfortunate
_contretemps_ at Foochow he had greatly distinguished himself. Though
the captain spoke English fluently, some of his expressions were at
times very original. We asked him one day if there was any sport to be
got round Kalgan, upon which he informed us that the hills around
abounded with “Scotch woodcock.” Still, for a Chinaman, the old fellow
had charming manners, and was a thorough gentleman in thought and
feeling.
As I have said, a bitter feud existed between Ivanoff and his confrère;
but the postmaster, M. Kolestnikoff, and our host were firm friends.
Both, too, were ardent sportsmen, and invited us one morning to join
them in a day’s shooting in the hills and ravines round Kalgan.
Ivanoff’s costume was somewhat singular, consisting of a suit of
spotless white canvas, silk socks and dancing-pumps, while round his
neck was slung an enormous field-glass. Politeness forbade my making
inquiries till we got to the shooting-ground. I imagined, at least, that
we were going deerstalking, judging from the caution our Russian friends
displayed in climbing about the crags and peaks. It was terribly hard
climbing, and our hands were torn and bleeding when we reached the
summit of the mountain, about a mile from the house, where the day’s
sport was to commence. Here I was somewhat surprised to see Ivanoff lay
down
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